They are synonymous in the minds of many libertarian types. Any form of collective wealth redistribution, even when done effectively, equitably, and for good reasons, is inherently evil in their view. My grandfather honestly believes stuff like this so I have a lot of experience talking with people like that. He told me, and this is nearly verbatim from memory because it stuck out as so absurd to me, "These scum living off the government, getting checks for social security, welfare, medicare are living better than me and I worked all my life." Disregarding the fact that he's living off a government and military pension, and anyone receiving those services also had to work all their lives, there are people who truly believe welfare affords people high levels of comfort. The truth is, it's almost always just barely enough to get by, if even that. Are there cases of fraud and abuse? Absolutely, but I'd sooner tolerate a small amount of funds going to people who don't need it than the vast majority of those who do need it going without the necessities of life. It's been well and truly proven that charity isn't ever going to be enough, and letting those people die is unacceptable. I like to think society has moved passed that mindset, unfortunately I see there are still people who don't see that we're all in this together, that we succeed or fail as a nation together, and society can be measured by how it treats its lowest members.
Starting the word processor in OpenOffice is slower than either Pages or Word on my Mac. It's incredibly slow. GoogleDocs in Chrome is the fastest (when internet connection cooperates) and when I need to edit something offline I use Pages even though I don't like it as much as Word Windows. At least Openoffice is free so I can't really complain, but I'd like if they could focus on speeding it up instead of chasing the latest features in MS Office.
I'm going to assume you know nothing and explain for the sake of clarity:
He's referring to Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, a Democrat (the largest leftist party in the US, although it would be quite conservative by your standards I bet). He died last year and his senate seat was filled by a Republican (the largest party on the right, would probably be called a nationalist party in Europe). During his time in the senate he stopped this windfarm from being built because he didn't want it to negatively impact his constituency, and as the GP implied their unobstructed view of the ocean.
The different mods for that post are probably due to the biases by the moderators, whether they are Republican or Democrat.
I actually think they are rather beautiful. Certainly not a "natural" beauty, but there is something majestic about them as a feat of engineering. Now the noise is what would bother me, but I think they are planned to be sufficiently far away were that wouldn't be a problem.
It is everyone's responsibility to pay for everyone's health care. We are all adults, we are going to shed the childish selfishness you cling to and take care of each other. I bet you were born in a publicly funded hospital, and maybe the physician who delivered you was educated in public school, he rushed to the hospital on public roads, and the public utility companies kept the water and electricity flowing for the delivery. You are the benefit of socialism whether you choose to see it or not.
I want sustainable "shit" and a lifestyle that is ecologically, socially, and ethically responsible. That might actually require paying a little more, and reassessing our values as a nation but I'm OK with that.
I am closest to being described as a democratic socialist, not a communist.
I agree that we spend too much...on the military. Our other spending is mostly things I would agree with except it doesn't go far enough. The top marginal income tax in the US used to be 90%. It's now less than half of that. Sorry that I have little sympathy for the billionaire who wants to keep 500M dollars. He's still not poor if he only has 10 million in spending cash at the end of the year. Meanwhile there are people starving and dying from lack of health care.
Combine our ever more regressive tax structure with rampant deregulation and corporate consolidation of power buying votes in our government and it's no wonder we're in such a mess.
Sales tax is one of the worst types of regressive taxes there is. I'd be in favor of removing it entirely. You're right in that it does tax consumption equally, but poor people spend a lot more of their income on things that have sales tax. Sales tax punishes poor people. Rich people can easily afford it. So unless you have some sort of sliding scale sales tax based on income, and I don't know how you would accomplish that, then it's not the right way to go.
These types of tricks should be unacceptable. Close the loops that allow this to happen, and let it be known that if you are going to do business in the US and benefit from our educated labor pool, infrastructure, markets, and resources you are going to pay taxes like everyone else. These shenanigans should demonstrate exactly why a corporation should not be treated as a legal person. They are immortal, and can skirt current law and tax codes by existing simultaneously in multiple places and jurisdictions at the same time.
The income gap is frightening, and it's getting worse. The most disturbing trend is that most of those people made their fortunes by simply manipulating money in creative and novel ways, finding new schemes and techniques to move funds around in different ways for a profit. They produce nothing of value, contribute nothing to society, and are actually actively working to make the world a worse place for the majority of the population. The perpetuate debt-slavery, kick people out of their homes, and ship jobs overseas all in the name of short term profits. The free market breaks down when there is no regulation because people cannot and will not consider long term stability and sustainability over short term pleasure and gains. It's a flaw of humanity, but it IS one that we can overcome--and we must to survive.
The majority of what happens on Wall Street should be illegal. It's not only unproductive, it's harmful, it's toxic, it kills and drives millions into poverty and wage-slavery to perpetuate a system that benefits 1% of the population at the expense of everyone else. When the 99% wake up and realize they are getting a raw deal, then we'll see real change but right now too many people are convinced of the lie that if they work hard enough and sacrifice more and more that some day they will be part of that 1%.
When they realize the American Dream they've been sold is a lie, that the top 1% have created a system that ensures they'll never get ahead, then we'll see real change.
No, we're in the shitter because our constitution grants a minority party veto power over the majority of people who want government to work and actually accomplish things. Raise taxes on the very wealthy, lower taxes for average people, reduce sales tax, give more funding to K-12 and higher education, improve the health care system's quality and availability, fix our crumbling infrastructure; these are all things that the majority of Californians want, but our nearsighted attempts at expanding democracy (ballot initiatives and requiring super majorities to accomplish basic tasks) have paralyzed our government.
The money is there, we could balance the budget tomorrow, but a handful of Republicans who hate the government, hate taxes, and hate the middle class are perpetuating the crisis while at the same time running on a platform that claims government doesn't work. So guess what they make sure happens when they get into office; they make sure government doesn't work, just like they say it doesn't.
Re:9 or so hour battery life...
on
Apple iPad Reviewed
·
· Score: 2, Informative
What are you using your MBP?
I've found I am able to get eight hours only when being very careful with usage: half screen brightness or less, no keyboard backlight, no flash in websites, and few background programs. I get a usable web browsing and note taking computer for 7+ hours. I charge my iPhone every night but have gone two days with minimal use, mostly texting and very short phone calls. As a music player my iPhone can easily do the advertised 20 hours.
Solution looking for a problem
on
Apple iPad Reviewed
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I own an iPhone and a MacBook Pro (15 inch) and I'm not sure what to make of the iPad. It is certainly an interesting, even a promising device, but I don't see a place for it, not for me at least. I've never been in a situation where I was using my iPhone and thought, "I wish this screen was bigger" AND I didn't have my laptop with me. I can't read for long periods of time on a screen and nothing is as pleasurable (to me) as a real dead tree book so that's out. E-mail is fine on my desktop, laptop, and phone. Watching videos is again a case of either the phone works good enough or my laptop is handy. I don't mind carrying around a laptop so portability isn't a selling point to me.
On top of all those reasons is the fact that it's just not that compelling in the things that it does do. The home screen is very underwhelming. It's the same as the iPhone which is my biggest complaint. It's just a grid of icons, some of them with various badge indicators for e-mail, SMS, etc. But other than that the screen is just a list of icons that do other things. I look at the Android phones and I'm envious of what they can do--although I dislike them for various reasons too. With the extra horsepower and screen space I was hoping the iPad would do more with the "desktop" screen than just having it be a list of icons, time, battery indicator, signal strength.
It's a very cool device, certainly. They've put something interesting in a nice looking package. It also has some novel uses like playing games on a large touch screen in that handheld format. Battery life is also very nice. It's just not useful enough and I suspect that there are plenty of other people who feel that way. Regardless, I know it's going to be successful because it's the hot new thing from Apple. And maybe in a few revisions I'll find it worthwhile. I wasn't that impressed with the first gen iPod, but now I'm on my 3rd, fourth if the iPhone counts as one. I see a lot of promise, but this gen-1 device is, to me, a testing ground where Apple will use early adopters to really improve the later revisions and that's when I will be most likely to pick one up if I ever do.
I already don't have that option. There's no way I could ever afford to move, and if I could I wouldn't be able to find a job in a new land full of strangers who might not even speak the same language as me. That option is, effectively, already not available to the vast majority of people.
You are born into a kind of "societal debt" to the particular social structure you were born into. Canadians to the Canadian society and government, (which is really just the formalized version of the first), Americans to the US society, and so on. There is also a larger group that all people belong to, humanity, but that group has yet to be united under a single system so your obligations to that group are mostly moral concerns such as treating people with respect, not murdering others, etc.
Leaving the country is actually NOT an option for me, or most people. If you are wealthy enough for that to be an option, good for you, but you're out of touch to suggest that as a reasonable course of action for anyone who disagrees with how this country currently operates.
Slashdot Mirror
I just realized I responded to the wrong post. Damn this /. 2.0, and my apologies to you sir
Especially when his company already sells a product suitable for such a task, the Mac Pro.
Have you seen most of what's on Youtube? It's not a threat to Apple or to anyone offering premium content.
They are synonymous in the minds of many libertarian types. Any form of collective wealth redistribution, even when done effectively, equitably, and for good reasons, is inherently evil in their view. My grandfather honestly believes stuff like this so I have a lot of experience talking with people like that. He told me, and this is nearly verbatim from memory because it stuck out as so absurd to me, "These scum living off the government, getting checks for social security, welfare, medicare are living better than me and I worked all my life." Disregarding the fact that he's living off a government and military pension, and anyone receiving those services also had to work all their lives, there are people who truly believe welfare affords people high levels of comfort. The truth is, it's almost always just barely enough to get by, if even that. Are there cases of fraud and abuse? Absolutely, but I'd sooner tolerate a small amount of funds going to people who don't need it than the vast majority of those who do need it going without the necessities of life. It's been well and truly proven that charity isn't ever going to be enough, and letting those people die is unacceptable. I like to think society has moved passed that mindset, unfortunately I see there are still people who don't see that we're all in this together, that we succeed or fail as a nation together, and society can be measured by how it treats its lowest members.
People get the government they deserve.
No. The solution is to expand capacity so that the service they are offering now matches reality.
Starting the word processor in OpenOffice is slower than either Pages or Word on my Mac. It's incredibly slow. GoogleDocs in Chrome is the fastest (when internet connection cooperates) and when I need to edit something offline I use Pages even though I don't like it as much as Word Windows. At least Openoffice is free so I can't really complain, but I'd like if they could focus on speeding it up instead of chasing the latest features in MS Office.
I'm going to assume you know nothing and explain for the sake of clarity:
He's referring to Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, a Democrat (the largest leftist party in the US, although it would be quite conservative by your standards I bet). He died last year and his senate seat was filled by a Republican (the largest party on the right, would probably be called a nationalist party in Europe). During his time in the senate he stopped this windfarm from being built because he didn't want it to negatively impact his constituency, and as the GP implied their unobstructed view of the ocean.
The different mods for that post are probably due to the biases by the moderators, whether they are Republican or Democrat.
I actually think they are rather beautiful. Certainly not a "natural" beauty, but there is something majestic about them as a feat of engineering. Now the noise is what would bother me, but I think they are planned to be sufficiently far away were that wouldn't be a problem.
Sign me up for the Imperial Guard.
AT&T has an unlimited data plan for $30/month.
It is everyone's responsibility to pay for everyone's health care. We are all adults, we are going to shed the childish selfishness you cling to and take care of each other. I bet you were born in a publicly funded hospital, and maybe the physician who delivered you was educated in public school, he rushed to the hospital on public roads, and the public utility companies kept the water and electricity flowing for the delivery. You are the benefit of socialism whether you choose to see it or not.
I want sustainable "shit" and a lifestyle that is ecologically, socially, and ethically responsible. That might actually require paying a little more, and reassessing our values as a nation but I'm OK with that.
They will always, if given the choice, choose to make SOME money, rather than NO money.
I am closest to being described as a democratic socialist, not a communist.
I agree that we spend too much...on the military. Our other spending is mostly things I would agree with except it doesn't go far enough. The top marginal income tax in the US used to be 90%. It's now less than half of that. Sorry that I have little sympathy for the billionaire who wants to keep 500M dollars. He's still not poor if he only has 10 million in spending cash at the end of the year. Meanwhile there are people starving and dying from lack of health care.
Combine our ever more regressive tax structure with rampant deregulation and corporate consolidation of power buying votes in our government and it's no wonder we're in such a mess.
Sales tax is one of the worst types of regressive taxes there is. I'd be in favor of removing it entirely. You're right in that it does tax consumption equally, but poor people spend a lot more of their income on things that have sales tax. Sales tax punishes poor people. Rich people can easily afford it. So unless you have some sort of sliding scale sales tax based on income, and I don't know how you would accomplish that, then it's not the right way to go.
I realize you're being sarcastic, but a lot of people actually do think that way.
These types of tricks should be unacceptable. Close the loops that allow this to happen, and let it be known that if you are going to do business in the US and benefit from our educated labor pool, infrastructure, markets, and resources you are going to pay taxes like everyone else. These shenanigans should demonstrate exactly why a corporation should not be treated as a legal person. They are immortal, and can skirt current law and tax codes by existing simultaneously in multiple places and jurisdictions at the same time.
The income gap is frightening, and it's getting worse. The most disturbing trend is that most of those people made their fortunes by simply manipulating money in creative and novel ways, finding new schemes and techniques to move funds around in different ways for a profit. They produce nothing of value, contribute nothing to society, and are actually actively working to make the world a worse place for the majority of the population. The perpetuate debt-slavery, kick people out of their homes, and ship jobs overseas all in the name of short term profits. The free market breaks down when there is no regulation because people cannot and will not consider long term stability and sustainability over short term pleasure and gains. It's a flaw of humanity, but it IS one that we can overcome--and we must to survive.
The majority of what happens on Wall Street should be illegal. It's not only unproductive, it's harmful, it's toxic, it kills and drives millions into poverty and wage-slavery to perpetuate a system that benefits 1% of the population at the expense of everyone else. When the 99% wake up and realize they are getting a raw deal, then we'll see real change but right now too many people are convinced of the lie that if they work hard enough and sacrifice more and more that some day they will be part of that 1%.
When they realize the American Dream they've been sold is a lie, that the top 1% have created a system that ensures they'll never get ahead, then we'll see real change.
And not soon enough will it come.
No, we're in the shitter because our constitution grants a minority party veto power over the majority of people who want government to work and actually accomplish things. Raise taxes on the very wealthy, lower taxes for average people, reduce sales tax, give more funding to K-12 and higher education, improve the health care system's quality and availability, fix our crumbling infrastructure; these are all things that the majority of Californians want, but our nearsighted attempts at expanding democracy (ballot initiatives and requiring super majorities to accomplish basic tasks) have paralyzed our government.
The money is there, we could balance the budget tomorrow, but a handful of Republicans who hate the government, hate taxes, and hate the middle class are perpetuating the crisis while at the same time running on a platform that claims government doesn't work. So guess what they make sure happens when they get into office; they make sure government doesn't work, just like they say it doesn't.
What are you using your MBP?
I've found I am able to get eight hours only when being very careful with usage: half screen brightness or less, no keyboard backlight, no flash in websites, and few background programs. I get a usable web browsing and note taking computer for 7+ hours. I charge my iPhone every night but have gone two days with minimal use, mostly texting and very short phone calls. As a music player my iPhone can easily do the advertised 20 hours.
I own an iPhone and a MacBook Pro (15 inch) and I'm not sure what to make of the iPad. It is certainly an interesting, even a promising device, but I don't see a place for it, not for me at least. I've never been in a situation where I was using my iPhone and thought, "I wish this screen was bigger" AND I didn't have my laptop with me. I can't read for long periods of time on a screen and nothing is as pleasurable (to me) as a real dead tree book so that's out. E-mail is fine on my desktop, laptop, and phone. Watching videos is again a case of either the phone works good enough or my laptop is handy. I don't mind carrying around a laptop so portability isn't a selling point to me.
On top of all those reasons is the fact that it's just not that compelling in the things that it does do. The home screen is very underwhelming. It's the same as the iPhone which is my biggest complaint. It's just a grid of icons, some of them with various badge indicators for e-mail, SMS, etc. But other than that the screen is just a list of icons that do other things. I look at the Android phones and I'm envious of what they can do--although I dislike them for various reasons too. With the extra horsepower and screen space I was hoping the iPad would do more with the "desktop" screen than just having it be a list of icons, time, battery indicator, signal strength.
It's a very cool device, certainly. They've put something interesting in a nice looking package. It also has some novel uses like playing games on a large touch screen in that handheld format. Battery life is also very nice. It's just not useful enough and I suspect that there are plenty of other people who feel that way. Regardless, I know it's going to be successful because it's the hot new thing from Apple. And maybe in a few revisions I'll find it worthwhile. I wasn't that impressed with the first gen iPod, but now I'm on my 3rd, fourth if the iPhone counts as one. I see a lot of promise, but this gen-1 device is, to me, a testing ground where Apple will use early adopters to really improve the later revisions and that's when I will be most likely to pick one up if I ever do.
I already don't have that option. There's no way I could ever afford to move, and if I could I wouldn't be able to find a job in a new land full of strangers who might not even speak the same language as me. That option is, effectively, already not available to the vast majority of people.
You are born into a kind of "societal debt" to the particular social structure you were born into. Canadians to the Canadian society and government, (which is really just the formalized version of the first), Americans to the US society, and so on. There is also a larger group that all people belong to, humanity, but that group has yet to be united under a single system so your obligations to that group are mostly moral concerns such as treating people with respect, not murdering others, etc.
Leaving the country is actually NOT an option for me, or most people. If you are wealthy enough for that to be an option, good for you, but you're out of touch to suggest that as a reasonable course of action for anyone who disagrees with how this country currently operates.