Except you just happened to be come up for renewal on the authentication right now. Then you are screwed. How many thousands of clients will that probably be?
I'm taking my wife on vacation to a resort. She has always wanted to swim with dolphins, and given the recent hate mongering about captive cetaceans I anticipate it the opportunity will be lost forever in the US within 15 years. So, we definitely made this a must-do activity on this trip. It's unfortunate our kids won't have the same opportunities.
Be careful what you wish for. I'm guessing that you haven't seen one of the many videos of dolphins aggressively trying to have sex with humans? Some people even call it dolphin rape. Here's one of those videos (for real, not a rickroll): https://www.youtube.com/watch?... (also look at the other related videos on that page of similar dolphin activities. I, for one, would not want to take my wife or any kids to swim with them.
That's really interesting. I've thought about doing the same if I were to find myself looking for a job, as I have premature grey hair. It's nice to know that it has the effect I guessed it might have. My question though is what happens after you get the job and you decide not to keep your hair dyed, or if your roots become noticeable? Has that happened to you, and did you get any weird looks or changes in attitude or treatment from co-workers or bosses?
I think it's well established now through various supreme court decisions that the only way left to enact real campaign contribution reform in the USA is through a constitutional amendment. Support one of the various organizations that are pushing for that:
Sorry, but I have to add one more vote for this "cause" of the crisis being right-wing propaganda.
The requirement to make loans to low-income people had little to do with how the sub-prime crisis went down. Instead it was mostly caused by greed in just about every sector. Here are a couple of links with a lot more details:
I agree with a lot of what you say, but in the interest of correcting a misconception for those with short memories, Google created AdSense LOOONG before they bought DoubleClick (apparently 2003 vs. 2007). In fact, the US and EU governments had to analyze and approve the deal for fear of a monopoly, since Google was already an advertising behemoth (IIRC, the number one internet advertising company) by the time they became interested in DoubleClick. In other words, DoubleClick would just serve as icing on their AdSense advertising cake.
CHAPTER 15. MONOPOLIES, TRUSTS AND CONSPIRACIES IN RESTRAINT OF TRADE [emphasis mine] [...] SUBCHAPTER A. GENERAL PROVISIONS AND PROHIBITED RESTRAINTS [...] Sec. 15.04. PURPOSE AND CONSTRUCTION. The purpose of this Act is to maintain and promote economic competition in trade and commerce occurring wholly or partly within the State of Texas and to provide the benefits of that competition to consumers in the state. The provisions of this Act shall be construed to accomplish this purpose and shall be construed in harmony with federal judicial interpretations of comparable federal antitrust statutes to the extent consistent with this purpose.
Learning about business is probably a good idea for anyone who works for a living, and possibly others.
I decided to this recently and went back and forth with the idea of going for an MBA, but realized that the return on my investment of money and time to get it would not be worth it, so I decided to learn on my own.
The first book that I'm reading for that purpose, and I'm glad that it is, is "The Personal MBA: Master The Art of Business" by Josh Kaufman. This has been excellent so far, giving a concise introduction from scratch to what seems to me like a complete A to Z of business topics, and providing pointers to where to learn more. The writing is clear, and I have actually been enjoying reading it.
After reading that, you can branch out into more specialized books on topics about which you would like to learn more. The author of the book above has read thousands of books on business and other related topics and points you to the ones that he believes are worth your time.
Hmmm... this once in a lifetime journalistic opportunity wouldn't happen to require him to take a quick little trip to the US or to some other US-associated (most of the developed world) country, would it? I'm thinking of the "you've won a prize!" traps that the police sets up once in a while to trap people that have arrest warrants.
Exactly, I came on here to say basically the same thing. The new Kindle Fire HDX 7" is the same price as a Nexus 7 of the same configuration (16GB, WiFi): $229. Why on earth would anyone buy a hobbled, locked down thing that does nothing beyond what the more open option does (in fact, it does a lot less)? In fact, that price on the HDX is for the "special offers" version, which forces you to have ads. If Amazon was subsidizing it to be under $100 to compensate for all the shortcomings it would be a different story, but at the same price? I just don't get it.
Ok, so I just did a search for a comparison between the two, and apparently the HDX has an upgraded CPU and GPU vs. the Nexus. Big flipping deal. They should still make it $100 or less if they want us to put up with major lockdown and ads. Talk about one being born every day.
In case some of you didn't read them, I have to quote two great comments on that Guardian page:
Mankar 06 August 2013 5:27pm
WASHINGTON -- The former director of the National Security Agency and the CIA speculated on Tuesday that "nerds" and "homos" were likely to respond with cyber-terror attacks if the United States government apprehends whistleblower Edward Snowden.
"If and when our government grabs Edward 'Four-Eyes' Snowden, and brings him back here to the United States for trial, what do these losers do?" said retired air force general Michael Hayden, referring to "oily, obese, pock-marked nerds, geeks, aspies, anime fans, bronies, freaks, homos, LARPers, asthmatics, Guy Fawkes mask-owners, twentysomethings who haven't left their mother's basement, let alone talked to the opposite sex in five or six years.
"Snowden is a little spaz-boy, and I'd like to dunk his head in the toilet, take his lunch money and give him a wedgie," he continued. "And if these little freaks of nature want to try to hack us, they've got another thing coming!"
When asked what sort of security measures were in place to prevent such cyber attacks against military networks, General Hayden responded, "We just installed the latest version of Norton Antivirus."
Aside from being hilarious, it's a very insightful commentary on the original. It illustrates that many in the defense/intelligence industry, especially more so the higher up in the leadership chain, are basically the bullies from their school days. This guy is basically Biff from Back to the Future, 50 years later.
Then, there's this:
stopthewars 07 August 2013 2:52pm
Just me, or do all these NSA hotshots look like alien extras on the set of a vintage Star Trek episode?
Macrocephalics on parade.
Bald, pink, pumpkin headedness must be the career track in-look on Kolob.
That and the over done military uniforms with the SS style cues.
The total picture makes me think they're not even trying any more to hide their real mission....global domination through omniscience.
That heritage foundation index that you linked is a poor source to quote as evidence in this discussion, as they clearly are only measuring economic freedom (it's clearly mentioned in every page of that index), or, in other words, how free you are to rake in the money, and how much the country's economic system facilitates that.
The index does not measure, and has nothing to say, about the main topics at hand - civil liberties and human rights - so it doesn't refute the binary guy's claims even one bit. In fact, it's almost completely unrelated to his claims.
Yeah, from what I've heard, Ultrabook spec does mandate integrated batteries. I don't know about the rest. Anyway, the answer is that they should never have labelled an Ultrabook as a Thinkpad, because it goes against the idea and spirit of Thinkpads.
I have an old X30 that I bought for about $150 on ebay a few years ago and is still going strong. It's great for travel because it's very small but has full-sized keyboard keys, and I don't have to stress out if it gets stolen or broken.
They're usually great laptops to buy used because they're so tough and they have traditionally only been used by businesses, usually on relatively short leases, and not subject to the same kinds of punishment that personal laptops suffer from mostly home use. I also supported thinkpads in business use a few years ago.
Although I thought it was BS when I first saw it on TV, I eventually came to realize that the old ad where they promoted Thinkpads as being the best and most desirable business laptops was really true.
Anyway, I recently saw a new thinkpad in person and the first thing that struck me was the chiclet keyboard. They had probably the best keyboards in the business and instead chose to kind of imitate Apple, who probably have the worst keyboards. Even though they at least gave the keys some natural curvature (unlike Apple), it still didn't feel right. That right there would probably prevent me from buying a new one.
Another thing that they are apparently imitating Apple on is the integrated battery business. Unforgivable and unacceptable, and again, no sale.
What's next? No ethernet port? Mini display port? Glossy screen? No user replaceable or upgradable parts? Whatever other usability-disabling "feature" Apple decides to push on their willing users?
Resumes come in a wide variety of formats, fonts, etc, and candidates rarely put the information I'm looking for on the first page...
Hi, do you mind telling us what you're looking for on the first page? It could be useful for everyone (managers and applicants) to spread this information as widely as possible. Thanks.
The way I read their FAQ is that you must have SOME free element to the game that the buyer can try first, not that you have to provide the whole game that can then be unlocked after purchase. But I will defer to you since you seem to have read the actual developer docs.
Anyway, as a consumer I love the fact that I will be able to try any of the games before I buy one. I understand that that hasn't worked well for you in the past, but what if the fact that everyone is required to do the same actually ends up counteracting the kinds losses that you've experienced providing demos? If everyone has to put their cards on the table, it could actually even things out, as opposed to an environment where only some developers make demos available while others don't.
I have to say that I'm kind of amazed by the lack of vision on the part of so many posters here so far. Most of the complaints that I've read so far are either petty or short-sighted. I think this thing will take off pretty well.
What is there not to like about it?
Price: one third the price of other consoles. About the price of a top Roku model or Apple TV. If this thing takes off I can actually see it eclipsing Google TV in the media apps arena too. If the games are in the $1-$10 like some people predict, that will also be a bonus.
Openness: more open than any other consoles.
Ease of developing and releasing for it: great - Android, no expensive licenses or development platforms, etc.
Ease of use and buying games: great - looks like it will be well-designed. All games have some free element to them so you can try them first. All games are downloaded. Not having to go to a store or wait for shipping, combined with the anticipated price of the games should make for lots of game sales.
Power: fine. It will do 1080p. Sure, you won't be playing the latest Crysis or whatever on it, but look at where the money is going in gaming nowadays - casual games and mobile games. Imagine some of the better casual and mobile games running in 1080p and this thing will kill, especially if the price of the games is in the $1-$10 range.
Internet buzz: pretty strong. I keep reading about this thing constantly. If you're into games, you've heard about this.
The only ways I can think of this thing failing is if there's some major flaw with the hardware or software, or if patent trolls gang up on it and kill it, or if the game prices get inflated to significantly over $20.
Really, I have not yet read one single legitimate concern out of the other (early) posts so far. Sure, you can complain about the low hardware power, but for the price and the category of games they're going for, that shouldn't be an issue. It would only be an issue if they tried to run AAA FPS games, etc.
Ouya so far seems to be doing fairly well with the opportunity to coalesce the whole indie, casual, and mobile gaming markets on to one affordable device, and could build a significant library of games pretty quickly.
Looks like they're snagging some pretty heavyweight retailers. I will probably buy this pretty early on, as I really like the concept, or perhaps even pre-order. I just need to learn some more details about it. Good luck to the platform and to the game developers!
Talk about overrated moderation. This unfounded claim has been used as right-wing propaganda since the first days after the meltdown began. Go back and do some proper research on this. The CRA had nothing to do with the lending meltdown. At most, it was a very minor factor in the whole situation.
What motivated lending companies to make bad loans to completely unqualified people was pure greed, not a government mandate!
Lending companies were being encouraged by extreme demand for more and more loans that would then be packaged and sold into complex investment instruments. Everyone thought that the geniuses in wall street had figured a way to eliminate the risks of this stupid practice, and they kept making good money on the loans they made, regardless of borrower qualifications. In turn, they wanted more, more, and more people to borrow money, because it seemed like an infinite money machine that magically eliminated all risks.
It all came crashing down one day, and we were left holding the bag. All because of greed and lack of proper regulations of the financial sector.
Let me repeat that: the causes of the meltdown were greed and lack of regulations! Not a government mandate!
I agree with your sentiment that the banks should have suffered at least a little bit for their incredible screw ups. For instance, in Germany the government got some major concessions from the banks in exchange for bailouts, like having to take write-downs on the loans that they held.
However, one thing with the bailout plan as it happened in the US would have served as a snag to these ideas: to the best of my recollection, ALL the large banks were forced to take bailout money, whether they needed it or not. This was used as a way to hide which banks were actually in bad shape, in order to prevent a run on those banks. This precluded any kind of actual punitive action, because at the time this would have revealed the actual weak banks, unless they punished even the healthy ones, which also would not have been fair.
I think the best course of action would really be to restore the Glass-Steagall(sp?) act, like another poster above mentioned. The undoing of that act was one of the major causes of the whole mess in the first place, so it should be reinstated. I actually wonder why this isn't a major focal point of action for people, including especially activists and organizers, as well as politicians.
I just had this idea when I saw this story on Slashdot. These corporations that use their power and money to continuously expand copyright are in fact using our own money against us. The very same dollars that we pay Hollywood, Nashville, et al for the latest CD or DVD are being used for lobbying to increase their power and riches in the form of longer and more draconic copyrights.
What if we turned this around? What if instead of buying the latest CD, MP3, DVD, etc we put that same money into a crowdfunding campaign to start a professional lobbying effort to restore a sane level of copyrights? There have been several kickstarter campaigns now that have gone into the multiple millions of dollars. I would imagine that that would be a nice amount to at least start an organization to begin this lobbying.
It struck me that I don't know of anyone who is actually representing the general public on this fight against endless copyright. It basically seems like RIAA/MPAA/etc lobbyists against no one. Guess who wins in such a lopsided argument? If you do know of organizations that are putting up a fight for us, I would love to hear about them, and perhaps such a money bomb could be directed at them.
Your post started out well and I was agreeing with it, but you quickly veered into shaky logic ground. Remember the axiom often repeated on Slashdot: correlation is not causation.
Perhaps those fans that watch Olympic hockey just do it because they enjoy Olympic sports and competition among countries. After all, viewership figures for gymnastics and track and field also go through the roof during the Olympics, as compared to anytime other than the Olympics. It's not like outside those sports are full of violence outside of the Olympic environment.
But anyway, in general I agree that it's stupid that they allow so much fighting to happen in professional Hockey, and I also believe that they lose more viewers than gain because of that.
Eh, that's why you shell out the $16 to get both unlimited streaming AND unlimited one-at-a-time DVDs. That's one of the strengths of Netflix, and why they messed up when they tried to separate the services. Then you can watch the complete collection, as long as the movie is available on either DVD or streaming. By the way, La Jetee was on Instant Netflix previously as well. That's where I watched it.
Slashdot Mirror
Except you just happened to be come up for renewal on the authentication right now. Then you are screwed. How many thousands of clients will that probably be?
I'm taking my wife on vacation to a resort. She has always wanted to swim with dolphins, and given the recent hate mongering about captive cetaceans I anticipate it the opportunity will be lost forever in the US within 15 years. So, we definitely made this a must-do activity on this trip. It's unfortunate our kids won't have the same opportunities.
Be careful what you wish for. I'm guessing that you haven't seen one of the many videos of dolphins aggressively trying to have sex with humans? Some people even call it dolphin rape.
Here's one of those videos (for real, not a rickroll): https://www.youtube.com/watch?... (also look at the other related videos on that page of similar dolphin activities. I, for one, would not want to take my wife or any kids to swim with them.
That's really interesting. I've thought about doing the same if I were to find myself looking for a job, as I have premature grey hair. It's nice to know that it has the effect I guessed it might have. My question though is what happens after you get the job and you decide not to keep your hair dyed, or if your roots become noticeable? Has that happened to you, and did you get any weird looks or changes in attitude or treatment from co-workers or bosses?
I think it's well established now through various supreme court decisions that the only way left to enact real campaign contribution reform in the USA is through a constitutional amendment. Support one of the various organizations that are pushing for that:
http://www.democracyisforpeopl...
http://www.movetoamend.org/
http://www.wolf-pac.com/
Lots more links on how to address all facets of the problem here:
http://www.corporations.org/so...
Sorry, but I have to add one more vote for this "cause" of the crisis being right-wing propaganda.
The requirement to make loans to low-income people had little to do with how the sub-prime crisis went down. Instead it was mostly caused by greed in just about every sector. Here are a couple of links with a lot more details:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/355/the-giant-pool-of-money - a great radio documentary, including first hand accounts of what was happening on the ground (i.e. people making money tons of money) when the whole bubble exploded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis - all the details you could want.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but in the interest of correcting a misconception for those with short memories, Google created AdSense LOOONG before they bought DoubleClick (apparently 2003 vs. 2007). In fact, the US and EU governments had to analyze and approve the deal for fear of a monopoly, since Google was already an advertising behemoth (IIRC, the number one internet advertising company) by the time they became interested in DoubleClick. In other words, DoubleClick would just serve as icing on their AdSense advertising cake.
They have a "free enterprise and antitrust act" in their state's laws that appears to me to cover exactly this kind of situation:
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/BC/htm/BC.15.htm
CHAPTER 15. MONOPOLIES, TRUSTS AND CONSPIRACIES IN RESTRAINT OF TRADE [emphasis mine]
[...]
SUBCHAPTER A. GENERAL PROVISIONS AND PROHIBITED RESTRAINTS
[...]
Sec. 15.04. PURPOSE AND CONSTRUCTION. The purpose of this Act is to maintain and promote economic competition in trade and commerce occurring wholly or partly within the State of Texas and to provide the benefits of that competition to consumers in the state. The provisions of this Act shall be construed to accomplish this purpose and shall be construed in harmony with federal judicial interpretations of comparable federal antitrust statutes to the extent consistent with this purpose.
Learning about business is probably a good idea for anyone who works for a living, and possibly others.
I decided to this recently and went back and forth with the idea of going for an MBA, but realized that the return on my investment of money and time to get it would not be worth it, so I decided to learn on my own.
The first book that I'm reading for that purpose, and I'm glad that it is, is "The Personal MBA: Master The Art of Business" by Josh Kaufman. This has been excellent so far, giving a concise introduction from scratch to what seems to me like a complete A to Z of business topics, and providing pointers to where to learn more. The writing is clear, and I have actually been enjoying reading it.
After reading that, you can branch out into more specialized books on topics about which you would like to learn more. The author of the book above has read thousands of books on business and other related topics and points you to the ones that he believes are worth your time.
Good luck!
Hmmm... this once in a lifetime journalistic opportunity wouldn't happen to require him to take a quick little trip to the US or to some other US-associated (most of the developed world) country, would it? I'm thinking of the "you've won a prize!" traps that the police sets up once in a while to trap people that have arrest warrants.
Exactly, I came on here to say basically the same thing. The new Kindle Fire HDX 7" is the same price as a Nexus 7 of the same configuration (16GB, WiFi): $229. Why on earth would anyone buy a hobbled, locked down thing that does nothing beyond what the more open option does (in fact, it does a lot less)? In fact, that price on the HDX is for the "special offers" version, which forces you to have ads. If Amazon was subsidizing it to be under $100 to compensate for all the shortcomings it would be a different story, but at the same price? I just don't get it.
Ok, so I just did a search for a comparison between the two, and apparently the HDX has an upgraded CPU and GPU vs. the Nexus. Big flipping deal. They should still make it $100 or less if they want us to put up with major lockdown and ads. Talk about one being born every day.
In case some of you didn't read them, I have to quote two great comments on that Guardian page:
Mankar
06 August 2013 5:27pm
WASHINGTON -- The former director of the National Security Agency and the CIA speculated on Tuesday that "nerds" and "homos" were likely to respond with cyber-terror attacks if the United States government apprehends whistleblower Edward Snowden.
"If and when our government grabs Edward 'Four-Eyes' Snowden, and brings him back here to the United States for trial, what do these losers do?" said retired air force general Michael Hayden, referring to "oily, obese, pock-marked nerds, geeks, aspies, anime fans, bronies, freaks, homos, LARPers, asthmatics, Guy Fawkes mask-owners, twentysomethings who haven't left their mother's basement, let alone talked to the opposite sex in five or six years.
"Snowden is a little spaz-boy, and I'd like to dunk his head in the toilet, take his lunch money and give him a wedgie," he continued. "And if these little freaks of nature want to try to hack us, they've got another thing coming!"
When asked what sort of security measures were in place to prevent such cyber attacks against military networks, General Hayden responded, "We just installed the latest version of Norton Antivirus."
Aside from being hilarious, it's a very insightful commentary on the original. It illustrates that many in the defense/intelligence industry, especially more so the higher up in the leadership chain, are basically the bullies from their school days. This guy is basically Biff from Back to the Future, 50 years later.
Then, there's this:
stopthewars
07 August 2013 2:52pm
Just me, or do all these NSA hotshots look like alien extras on the set of a vintage Star Trek episode?
Macrocephalics on parade.
Bald, pink, pumpkin headedness must be the career track in-look on Kolob.
That and the over done military uniforms with the SS style cues.
The total picture makes me think they're not even trying any more to hide their real mission....global domination through omniscience.
Hehe...
That heritage foundation index that you linked is a poor source to quote as evidence in this discussion, as they clearly are only measuring economic freedom (it's clearly mentioned in every page of that index), or, in other words, how free you are to rake in the money, and how much the country's economic system facilitates that.
The index does not measure, and has nothing to say, about the main topics at hand - civil liberties and human rights - so it doesn't refute the binary guy's claims even one bit. In fact, it's almost completely unrelated to his claims.
There will be. Tomorrow (4th of July): http://www.restorethefourth.net/
Join a demonstration near you if you care about this stuff.
Yeah, from what I've heard, Ultrabook spec does mandate integrated batteries. I don't know about the rest. Anyway, the answer is that they should never have labelled an Ultrabook as a Thinkpad, because it goes against the idea and spirit of Thinkpads.
I have an old X30 that I bought for about $150 on ebay a few years ago and is still going strong. It's great for travel because it's very small but has full-sized keyboard keys, and I don't have to stress out if it gets stolen or broken.
They're usually great laptops to buy used because they're so tough and they have traditionally only been used by businesses, usually on relatively short leases, and not subject to the same kinds of punishment that personal laptops suffer from mostly home use. I also supported thinkpads in business use a few years ago.
Although I thought it was BS when I first saw it on TV, I eventually came to realize that the old ad where they promoted Thinkpads as being the best and most desirable business laptops was really true.
Anyway, I recently saw a new thinkpad in person and the first thing that struck me was the chiclet keyboard. They had probably the best keyboards in the business and instead chose to kind of imitate Apple, who probably have the worst keyboards. Even though they at least gave the keys some natural curvature (unlike Apple), it still didn't feel right. That right there would probably prevent me from buying a new one.
Another thing that they are apparently imitating Apple on is the integrated battery business. Unforgivable and unacceptable, and again, no sale.
What's next? No ethernet port? Mini display port? Glossy screen? No user replaceable or upgradable parts? Whatever other usability-disabling "feature" Apple decides to push on their willing users?
Resumes come in a wide variety of formats, fonts, etc, and candidates rarely put the information I'm looking for on the first page...
Hi, do you mind telling us what you're looking for on the first page? It could be useful for everyone (managers and applicants) to spread this information as widely as possible. Thanks.
The way I read their FAQ is that you must have SOME free element to the game that the buyer can try first, not that you have to provide the whole game that can then be unlocked after purchase. But I will defer to you since you seem to have read the actual developer docs.
Anyway, as a consumer I love the fact that I will be able to try any of the games before I buy one. I understand that that hasn't worked well for you in the past, but what if the fact that everyone is required to do the same actually ends up counteracting the kinds losses that you've experienced providing demos? If everyone has to put their cards on the table, it could actually even things out, as opposed to an environment where only some developers make demos available while others don't.
I have to say that I'm kind of amazed by the lack of vision on the part of so many posters here so far. Most of the complaints that I've read so far are either petty or short-sighted. I think this thing will take off pretty well.
What is there not to like about it?
Price: one third the price of other consoles. About the price of a top Roku model or Apple TV. If this thing takes off I can actually see it eclipsing Google TV in the media apps arena too. If the games are in the $1-$10 like some people predict, that will also be a bonus.
Openness: more open than any other consoles.
Ease of developing and releasing for it: great - Android, no expensive licenses or development platforms, etc.
Ease of use and buying games: great - looks like it will be well-designed. All games have some free element to them so you can try them first. All games are downloaded. Not having to go to a store or wait for shipping, combined with the anticipated price of the games should make for lots of game sales.
Power: fine. It will do 1080p. Sure, you won't be playing the latest Crysis or whatever on it, but look at where the money is going in gaming nowadays - casual games and mobile games. Imagine some of the better casual and mobile games running in 1080p and this thing will kill, especially if the price of the games is in the $1-$10 range.
Internet buzz: pretty strong. I keep reading about this thing constantly. If you're into games, you've heard about this.
The only ways I can think of this thing failing is if there's some major flaw with the hardware or software, or if patent trolls gang up on it and kill it, or if the game prices get inflated to significantly over $20.
Really, I have not yet read one single legitimate concern out of the other (early) posts so far. Sure, you can complain about the low hardware power, but for the price and the category of games they're going for, that shouldn't be an issue. It would only be an issue if they tried to run AAA FPS games, etc.
Ouya so far seems to be doing fairly well with the opportunity to coalesce the whole indie, casual, and mobile gaming markets on to one affordable device, and could build a significant library of games pretty quickly.
So again, what is there not to like about it?
You forgot the main, traditional advantage of consoles over PCs: that they're generally much less of a hassle to configure, use, and maintain.
Looks like they're snagging some pretty heavyweight retailers. I will probably buy this pretty early on, as I really like the concept, or perhaps even pre-order. I just need to learn some more details about it. Good luck to the platform and to the game developers!
Talk about overrated moderation. This unfounded claim has been used as right-wing propaganda since the first days after the meltdown began. Go back and do some proper research on this. The CRA had nothing to do with the lending meltdown. At most, it was a very minor factor in the whole situation.
What motivated lending companies to make bad loans to completely unqualified people was pure greed, not a government mandate!
Lending companies were being encouraged by extreme demand for more and more loans that would then be packaged and sold into complex investment instruments. Everyone thought that the geniuses in wall street had figured a way to eliminate the risks of this stupid practice, and they kept making good money on the loans they made, regardless of borrower qualifications. In turn, they wanted more, more, and more people to borrow money, because it seemed like an infinite money machine that magically eliminated all risks.
It all came crashing down one day, and we were left holding the bag. All because of greed and lack of proper regulations of the financial sector.
Let me repeat that: the causes of the meltdown were greed and lack of regulations! Not a government mandate!
I agree with your sentiment that the banks should have suffered at least a little bit for their incredible screw ups. For instance, in Germany the government got some major concessions from the banks in exchange for bailouts, like having to take write-downs on the loans that they held.
However, one thing with the bailout plan as it happened in the US would have served as a snag to these ideas: to the best of my recollection, ALL the large banks were forced to take bailout money, whether they needed it or not. This was used as a way to hide which banks were actually in bad shape, in order to prevent a run on those banks. This precluded any kind of actual punitive action, because at the time this would have revealed the actual weak banks, unless they punished even the healthy ones, which also would not have been fair.
I think the best course of action would really be to restore the Glass-Steagall(sp?) act, like another poster above mentioned. The undoing of that act was one of the major causes of the whole mess in the first place, so it should be reinstated. I actually wonder why this isn't a major focal point of action for people, including especially activists and organizers, as well as politicians.
I just had this idea when I saw this story on Slashdot. These corporations that use their power and money to continuously expand copyright are in fact using our own money against us. The very same dollars that we pay Hollywood, Nashville, et al for the latest CD or DVD are being used for lobbying to increase their power and riches in the form of longer and more draconic copyrights.
What if we turned this around? What if instead of buying the latest CD, MP3, DVD, etc we put that same money into a crowdfunding campaign to start a professional lobbying effort to restore a sane level of copyrights? There have been several kickstarter campaigns now that have gone into the multiple millions of dollars. I would imagine that that would be a nice amount to at least start an organization to begin this lobbying.
It struck me that I don't know of anyone who is actually representing the general public on this fight against endless copyright. It basically seems like RIAA/MPAA/etc lobbyists against no one. Guess who wins in such a lopsided argument? If you do know of organizations that are putting up a fight for us, I would love to hear about them, and perhaps such a money bomb could be directed at them.
Your post started out well and I was agreeing with it, but you quickly veered into shaky logic ground. Remember the axiom often repeated on Slashdot: correlation is not causation.
Perhaps those fans that watch Olympic hockey just do it because they enjoy Olympic sports and competition among countries. After all, viewership figures for gymnastics and track and field also go through the roof during the Olympics, as compared to anytime other than the Olympics. It's not like outside those sports are full of violence outside of the Olympic environment.
But anyway, in general I agree that it's stupid that they allow so much fighting to happen in professional Hockey, and I also believe that they lose more viewers than gain because of that.
Eh, that's why you shell out the $16 to get both unlimited streaming AND unlimited one-at-a-time DVDs. That's one of the strengths of Netflix, and why they messed up when they tried to separate the services. Then you can watch the complete collection, as long as the movie is available on either DVD or streaming. By the way, La Jetee was on Instant Netflix previously as well. That's where I watched it.