I can see you are unfamiliar with YouTube. The videos you describe sound absolutely pleasant and worthwhile, compared to the actual YouTube content.
Go watch YouTube's biggest star with the largest channel -- PewDiePie. More than 15,000,000 subscribers. Obnoxious, screeching, loud, inane Swede who calls his fans "bros" and the collective the "bro army" and pulls in something like $6,000,000 USD
Basically, his "thing" is talking like he's mentally retarded, screaming at the top of his lungs for 80% of the video, and using "rape" as a nearly constant element of "comedy" (he even wrote a song called "It's Raping Time" on one of his videos).
Then there is the girl who is a millionaire from doing "makeup tutorials" and the girls who do "my haul" videos that are ridiculously popular and earn a ton of money (these are videos where they go to the mall, do some shopping, come home, and show you what they bought).
Here's another guy who is in the top 10 or 20 of all Youtube "stars" and also earns millions of dollars for it "Smosh": http://youtu.be/yFGBjXqwzbw
Here's another dude who makes something like $5,000,000 -- and all he does is show other people's videos while commenting over them: http://youtu.be/MS8Dbvv5qss
AnnoyingOrange makes millions, too. It's an orange with a talking mouth superimposed over it. It's the most idiotic "humor" ever. It makes Larry The Cable Guy look legitimate: http://youtu.be/EDKjywzRidI
Exactly. I can get access to more music than I'll ever care about for $5 with RDIO, and a ridiculous amount of content for $8 with Netflix. It isn't all-encompassing, but for $13 in total, it's hard to beat. And $5 for access to all the music is a hell of a lot better than the time you'd spend acquiring music from alternative sources. Same for the television shows and movie content, for that matter. When you make enough stuff available in an easy enough and accessible enough way for cheap enough, it no longer becomes beneficial for someone to skirt methods requiring payment. Go back to charging people $30 for one movie and it all goes out the window again.
Actual piracy, perhaps, but I've never understood the justification to applying all of this to a kid at home downloading a shitty rap album. Who is getting funded by the money he or she isn't giving anyone for the download?
We shouldn't so readily dismiss a nation-wide postal service. There should remain some basic, affordable, simple way to communicate across the nation and get things delivered. Either because you aren't able to receive net access, net access goes down across large regions of the country, you're old and crazy, or... whatever. I just think it needs to be reigned in. There do not need to be deliveries six days per week to every single address. Waiting up to 5 days for something when it is so ridiculously cheap is not unreasonable and if you need something overnight or guaranteed (other than junkmail), there are plenty of other premium services out there (and run at a profit).
The USPS isn't subsidizing junk-mail. Junk-mail is subsidizing the USPS. In other words, there is not enough demand for the service the USPS provides, so they have to rely on providing a service that citizens DO NOT WANT to remain in existence. Cut back expenses by delivering once per week, increase postage prices for letters to 400% ($2 for a letter to get across the country in a couple days would still be a fantastic deal), and stop jamming people's mailboxes up with junkmail that they don't want. Otherwise, maybe it is time to revisit the service, in its entirety.
I don't even look at my mail, anymore. I reach my h and in, pull it out, dump it into the trash basket right inside the door. I don't even go through to see if there is anything important. It's big packs of coupons, big papers full of advertisements, catalogs, flyers, campaign bullshit, charity spam, lots of stuff for people who lived here the twenty or thirty years before me, and so on. . . . after a certain point, I just got tired of the bullshit. It goes straight into the trash. If it was something vital or time-sensitive, you probably would have sent it to me in another form or by courier.
I think the postal service is something valuable to retain across the country, but I certainly don't think it needs to be delivered to every address six times per week. There are countless other methods for contact and delivery in the modern world that are superior to and preferable to the USPS. I think delivering mail to every address ONCE per week is entirely reasonable. You can have a cheaper, slimmer, smaller organization and still get people what they need (if, for some reason, they require USPS service) every week.
Also, the only thing the USPS does for me is deliver physical spam to my door that I have to clean out by taking out of the box and dumping it in the trash every week.
UPS and FEDEX have been the most reliable services I have ever used. My stuff gets delivered, there's someone I can talk to when there is a problem, I can track it along the way, it is affordable, and they only come when there is something worth receiving or shipping (as opposed to every day). I am really bummed any time I find out that I just ordered something from somewhere, thinking it would use courier service, but uses USPS instead.
The sunday service for Amazon is a good idea, though. I would rather trade 90% of the USPS mail delivery days for delivering Amazon packages on Sundays (Delivery my regular mail one day every other week, for all I care -- anything important or time sensitive is getting FEDEXed anyway).
Right, but if you don't know me or have much to do with me, why should *me* putting *you* in one of *my* circles impact the perception of you in any way whatsoever?
I don't really use social networks at all and I definitely don't have my family or any (current or former) colleagues in my circles or "friends" lists. I don't understand people who do that. I don't need or want to know every second of every day of their entire lives, whether they're the guy I used to work with at the office or my own mom (I don't even know who in my family has social network accounts and I don't care). They don't want or need to know any of that about me, either.
The only place this would be remotely relevant would be at LinkedIN . . . where all of this pretty much already occurs, anyway.
Not really. Google Plus isn't like Facebook. Anyone can put you in your circle, even if you don't have a clue who they are and don't have them in one of your circles. Also, just because I have someone in a circle or I'm in theirs doesn't mean I am an associate or that I know them or have worked with them or in any way identify with them whatsoever.
Anyway, this only seems relevant to web designers, photographers, and "internet personalities" which is already a pretty incestuous mutual-masturbation club as it is. Everyone else seems to approach G+ with a strong "eh... I don't get it" attitude.
Getting worked up about the occasional mass shooting is kind of silly, anyway. Yeah, it makes for great sensational news headlines, but if you really want to save more people, put that effort into stricter punishment for drunk driving and driving while distracted or any of a number of other millions of things that each kill more people every month or so than all the mass shootings since the country [US] existed, *combined*.
Though it is starting to change in some places at some times, that is not how US airports work. We are not (yet) a third world country with armed military stationed at every door and lots of checkpoints where you are interrogated by a guy in camouflage. The day this becomes common place (and it will) and people just roll over and accept it (and they will) is going to be a pretty fucking sad day to be an American. The next step will be just full-on armed military presence roaming the streets with loud-speakers blaring pre-recorded propaganda. "See something; Say something!" and so on.
Of course, it is already *pretty* bad. Just without the full-on "welcome to the warzone" vibe. TSA employees act like they're the supreme authority and practically deputized US Marshalls. The moment you step into the airport, they're screaming at you and yelling at you like a drill-sergeant. It's unprofessional. It's gross. It's a great demonstration of pretty much everything that is wrong with how our government treats citizens and how our citizens allow our government to treat us. At least if we just had armed SWAT or military (yes, I know that isn't legal) all over the place, it would be more frank and honest about the society we're living in and we'd be forced to confront it and do something about it.
Uh . . . precisely because of what you just stated? Criminals who are going to go on a shooting rampage aren't concerned with the legality of their weapon possession or where they are possessing it and law-abiding citizens do. Therefore, any criminal carrying a gun into a place where law-abiding citizens are prevented from doing so is going to have a massive upper-hand.
Indeed. While I support the principle behind people being armed to defend themselves against injustice perpetrated on them by those wearing badges and carrying writs by the government, the instant you take a threatening action (or are even perceived as a threat simply for owning weapons), you will have the entire power of your local police department, SWAT, FBI, maybe even national guard and (potentially, if it all goes out the window), the full weight of the most powerful and over-funded military on the planet bearing down on you. Not to mention, the full force of the government and media propaganda system to demonize you (even if you are somehow legitimately defending yourself against immediate threat of some sort of "tyranny".
Unless people get to stockpile tanks, rocket launchers, ICBMs, warships, apache helicopters, armed drones, landmines, grenades, F-22 jets, and nukes . . . you really don't stand a chance.
It's a situation where the principle is thoroughly sound, but in a modern world, it is impractical. The People can arm themselves such that they could defend themselves against a mugger, rapist, home invasion, looting after a catastrophe, and so on . . . but you absolutely have no shot at defending yourself (even justly) against any of the powers I listed above.
In America, if you are targeted, mistreated, abused, or threatened by authorities, your only real recourse is to shut the fuck up, do the fuck as you're told, and hope to fuck that you still have enough rights that you can somehow get a decent lawyer, and that you can seek redress through the legal system that is harming you. If you're lucky, you'll see justice. If not, maybe you'll get disappeared or painted as some sort of a horrible human being in a press release that is parroted throughout the media as truth.
I mean, I guess you could take arms against a police or military force in this country . . . but you pretty much better be expecting to die rather than effect any sort of "change" or "justice" as a result of your action.
It isn't, but it's fantastic for increasing traffic while geeks put down their hardware and software and tech industry discussions and turn into mouth-breathing Disqus commentors at the bottom of CBS articles that Matt Drudge has linked to.
More like, prepare for this to look like a warzone as airports start to resemble third-world combat zones. Soldiers with assault rifles on their arms staking out every airport entrance and jeeps on patrol around the airport every hour of the day. This is exactly the sort of justification they needed to ratchet things up.
That said, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I don't think even a TSA agent deserved to be murdered in cold-blood.
"Don't be a fucking nazi. Just because you're responsible for me and you're my boss and possibly responsible for my job and maybe even the owner of the company doesn't mean that you get to tell me how to do my job, man.".
Some of you people really remind me of the "Noodle's Dictatorship" kid:
Frankly, I don't care, either way. It seems inconsiderate and short-sighted, but if your employer doesn't have the balls to fire you for your meeting behavior (and all the time you probably spend on Facebook and Instagram and Pintrest and Meetup when at your desk) not to mention all the other "millennial" behavior we're lead to believe is real by the media in the work place, then so be it. If employers are so cowed to "attracting young workers" that they give zero shits about their behavior and attitude, then that is their problem; not mine. Enjoy your competition with other companies in your fast paced race to stupid.
Again, that is, if the way the media has been trying to portray millennials to us in work place environments is even remotely accurate. Which it probably isn't.
I'm sorry, but I don't believe this whatsoever. I distinctly remember our president campaigning on an end to the revolving door of industry lobbyists and executives to head political positions and vice versa.
But I want to get my news from my Facebook friend who is 56 years old and thinks we are inching each day toward an inevitable race war and quotes bible scripture three times a day!
Slashdot Mirror
I can see you are unfamiliar with YouTube. The videos you describe sound absolutely pleasant and worthwhile, compared to the actual YouTube content.
Go watch YouTube's biggest star with the largest channel -- PewDiePie. More than 15,000,000 subscribers. Obnoxious, screeching, loud, inane Swede who calls his fans "bros" and the collective the "bro army" and pulls in something like $6,000,000 USD
This looks to be one of his most recent videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqpECat4whU
This is his *own* compilation of some of his "funniest" moments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRyPjRrjS34
Basically, his "thing" is talking like he's mentally retarded, screaming at the top of his lungs for 80% of the video, and using "rape" as a nearly constant element of "comedy" (he even wrote a song called "It's Raping Time" on one of his videos).
Then there is the girl who is a millionaire from doing "makeup tutorials" and the girls who do "my haul" videos that are ridiculously popular and earn a ton of money (these are videos where they go to the mall, do some shopping, come home, and show you what they bought).
Here's another guy who is in the top 10 or 20 of all Youtube "stars" and also earns millions of dollars for it "Smosh": http://youtu.be/yFGBjXqwzbw
Here's another dude who makes something like $5,000,000 -- and all he does is show other people's videos while commenting over them: http://youtu.be/MS8Dbvv5qss
AnnoyingOrange makes millions, too. It's an orange with a talking mouth superimposed over it. It's the most idiotic "humor" ever. It makes Larry The Cable Guy look legitimate: http://youtu.be/EDKjywzRidI
This "Tobuscus" guy makes a couple million dollars and is in the top 10-20: http://youtu.be/omGX5bleG8g
Jenna Marbles is somewhere around #3 and makes around $5,000,000: http://youtu.be/FCichOcSqz0
This Joey Graceffa guy just wanders around blabbering non-stop while recording it and does something like $200k: http://youtu.be/HH74qrfbuP0
Access to an endless library of Netflix content for $8/mo, but bandwidth will cost you $10/gig. Enjoy!
Exactly. I can get access to more music than I'll ever care about for $5 with RDIO, and a ridiculous amount of content for $8 with Netflix. It isn't all-encompassing, but for $13 in total, it's hard to beat. And $5 for access to all the music is a hell of a lot better than the time you'd spend acquiring music from alternative sources. Same for the television shows and movie content, for that matter. When you make enough stuff available in an easy enough and accessible enough way for cheap enough, it no longer becomes beneficial for someone to skirt methods requiring payment. Go back to charging people $30 for one movie and it all goes out the window again.
Actual piracy, perhaps, but I've never understood the justification to applying all of this to a kid at home downloading a shitty rap album. Who is getting funded by the money he or she isn't giving anyone for the download?
We shouldn't so readily dismiss a nation-wide postal service. There should remain some basic, affordable, simple way to communicate across the nation and get things delivered. Either because you aren't able to receive net access, net access goes down across large regions of the country, you're old and crazy, or... whatever. I just think it needs to be reigned in. There do not need to be deliveries six days per week to every single address. Waiting up to 5 days for something when it is so ridiculously cheap is not unreasonable and if you need something overnight or guaranteed (other than junkmail), there are plenty of other premium services out there (and run at a profit).
I think closing libraries, DMV, and other services overnight and on weekends is strange.
The USPS isn't subsidizing junk-mail. Junk-mail is subsidizing the USPS. In other words, there is not enough demand for the service the USPS provides, so they have to rely on providing a service that citizens DO NOT WANT to remain in existence. Cut back expenses by delivering once per week, increase postage prices for letters to 400% ($2 for a letter to get across the country in a couple days would still be a fantastic deal), and stop jamming people's mailboxes up with junkmail that they don't want. Otherwise, maybe it is time to revisit the service, in its entirety.
I don't even look at my mail, anymore. I reach my h and in, pull it out, dump it into the trash basket right inside the door. I don't even go through to see if there is anything important. It's big packs of coupons, big papers full of advertisements, catalogs, flyers, campaign bullshit, charity spam, lots of stuff for people who lived here the twenty or thirty years before me, and so on. . . . after a certain point, I just got tired of the bullshit. It goes straight into the trash. If it was something vital or time-sensitive, you probably would have sent it to me in another form or by courier.
I think the postal service is something valuable to retain across the country, but I certainly don't think it needs to be delivered to every address six times per week. There are countless other methods for contact and delivery in the modern world that are superior to and preferable to the USPS. I think delivering mail to every address ONCE per week is entirely reasonable. You can have a cheaper, slimmer, smaller organization and still get people what they need (if, for some reason, they require USPS service) every week.
Also, the only thing the USPS does for me is deliver physical spam to my door that I have to clean out by taking out of the box and dumping it in the trash every week.
UPS and FEDEX have been the most reliable services I have ever used. My stuff gets delivered, there's someone I can talk to when there is a problem, I can track it along the way, it is affordable, and they only come when there is something worth receiving or shipping (as opposed to every day). I am really bummed any time I find out that I just ordered something from somewhere, thinking it would use courier service, but uses USPS instead.
The sunday service for Amazon is a good idea, though. I would rather trade 90% of the USPS mail delivery days for delivering Amazon packages on Sundays (Delivery my regular mail one day every other week, for all I care -- anything important or time sensitive is getting FEDEXed anyway).
Actually, it's more likely that the teachers don't want sloppy seconds when they molest their students.
Right, but if you don't know me or have much to do with me, why should *me* putting *you* in one of *my* circles impact the perception of you in any way whatsoever?
I don't really use social networks at all and I definitely don't have my family or any (current or former) colleagues in my circles or "friends" lists. I don't understand people who do that. I don't need or want to know every second of every day of their entire lives, whether they're the guy I used to work with at the office or my own mom (I don't even know who in my family has social network accounts and I don't care). They don't want or need to know any of that about me, either.
The only place this would be remotely relevant would be at LinkedIN . . . where all of this pretty much already occurs, anyway.
Not really. Google Plus isn't like Facebook. Anyone can put you in your circle, even if you don't have a clue who they are and don't have them in one of your circles. Also, just because I have someone in a circle or I'm in theirs doesn't mean I am an associate or that I know them or have worked with them or in any way identify with them whatsoever.
Anyway, this only seems relevant to web designers, photographers, and "internet personalities" which is already a pretty incestuous mutual-masturbation club as it is. Everyone else seems to approach G+ with a strong "eh... I don't get it" attitude.
Getting worked up about the occasional mass shooting is kind of silly, anyway. Yeah, it makes for great sensational news headlines, but if you really want to save more people, put that effort into stricter punishment for drunk driving and driving while distracted or any of a number of other millions of things that each kill more people every month or so than all the mass shootings since the country [US] existed, *combined*.
Though it is starting to change in some places at some times, that is not how US airports work. We are not (yet) a third world country with armed military stationed at every door and lots of checkpoints where you are interrogated by a guy in camouflage. The day this becomes common place (and it will) and people just roll over and accept it (and they will) is going to be a pretty fucking sad day to be an American. The next step will be just full-on armed military presence roaming the streets with loud-speakers blaring pre-recorded propaganda. "See something; Say something!" and so on.
Of course, it is already *pretty* bad. Just without the full-on "welcome to the warzone" vibe. TSA employees act like they're the supreme authority and practically deputized US Marshalls. The moment you step into the airport, they're screaming at you and yelling at you like a drill-sergeant. It's unprofessional. It's gross. It's a great demonstration of pretty much everything that is wrong with how our government treats citizens and how our citizens allow our government to treat us. At least if we just had armed SWAT or military (yes, I know that isn't legal) all over the place, it would be more frank and honest about the society we're living in and we'd be forced to confront it and do something about it.
Uh . . . precisely because of what you just stated? Criminals who are going to go on a shooting rampage aren't concerned with the legality of their weapon possession or where they are possessing it and law-abiding citizens do. Therefore, any criminal carrying a gun into a place where law-abiding citizens are prevented from doing so is going to have a massive upper-hand.
Indeed. While I support the principle behind people being armed to defend themselves against injustice perpetrated on them by those wearing badges and carrying writs by the government, the instant you take a threatening action (or are even perceived as a threat simply for owning weapons), you will have the entire power of your local police department, SWAT, FBI, maybe even national guard and (potentially, if it all goes out the window), the full weight of the most powerful and over-funded military on the planet bearing down on you. Not to mention, the full force of the government and media propaganda system to demonize you (even if you are somehow legitimately defending yourself against immediate threat of some sort of "tyranny".
Unless people get to stockpile tanks, rocket launchers, ICBMs, warships, apache helicopters, armed drones, landmines, grenades, F-22 jets, and nukes . . . you really don't stand a chance.
It's a situation where the principle is thoroughly sound, but in a modern world, it is impractical. The People can arm themselves such that they could defend themselves against a mugger, rapist, home invasion, looting after a catastrophe, and so on . . . but you absolutely have no shot at defending yourself (even justly) against any of the powers I listed above.
In America, if you are targeted, mistreated, abused, or threatened by authorities, your only real recourse is to shut the fuck up, do the fuck as you're told, and hope to fuck that you still have enough rights that you can somehow get a decent lawyer, and that you can seek redress through the legal system that is harming you. If you're lucky, you'll see justice. If not, maybe you'll get disappeared or painted as some sort of a horrible human being in a press release that is parroted throughout the media as truth.
I mean, I guess you could take arms against a police or military force in this country . . . but you pretty much better be expecting to die rather than effect any sort of "change" or "justice" as a result of your action.
It isn't, but it's fantastic for increasing traffic while geeks put down their hardware and software and tech industry discussions and turn into mouth-breathing Disqus commentors at the bottom of CBS articles that Matt Drudge has linked to.
More like, prepare for this to look like a warzone as airports start to resemble third-world combat zones. Soldiers with assault rifles on their arms staking out every airport entrance and jeeps on patrol around the airport every hour of the day. This is exactly the sort of justification they needed to ratchet things up.
That said, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I don't think even a TSA agent deserved to be murdered in cold-blood.
"Don't be a fucking nazi. Just because you're responsible for me and you're my boss and possibly responsible for my job and maybe even the owner of the company doesn't mean that you get to tell me how to do my job, man.".
Some of you people really remind me of the "Noodle's Dictatorship" kid:
Wisconsin Labor Protests - Noodles
Frankly, I don't care, either way. It seems inconsiderate and short-sighted, but if your employer doesn't have the balls to fire you for your meeting behavior (and all the time you probably spend on Facebook and Instagram and Pintrest and Meetup when at your desk) not to mention all the other "millennial" behavior we're lead to believe is real by the media in the work place, then so be it. If employers are so cowed to "attracting young workers" that they give zero shits about their behavior and attitude, then that is their problem; not mine. Enjoy your competition with other companies in your fast paced race to stupid.
Again, that is, if the way the media has been trying to portray millennials to us in work place environments is even remotely accurate. Which it probably isn't.
I'm sorry, but I don't believe this whatsoever. I distinctly remember our president campaigning on an end to the revolving door of industry lobbyists and executives to head political positions and vice versa.
A little googling later . . . : https://www.opensecrets.org/obama/rev.php
Oh. Well, then. . .
But I want to get my news from my Facebook friend who is 56 years old and thinks we are inching each day toward an inevitable race war and quotes bible scripture three times a day!
Ding!