Speaking from experience, the digitized (with text available, not just scanned images) USPTO patent data comes in 4 formats. The oldest format looks like it was based on 'cards', the second format was SGML, the third was a bizarre XML format based on the SGML format, and the current format is based on alterations to international standards. When my former employer wanted to analyze this data, I needed to write parsers for each one.
Is there any chance that all patent data will be made available in a single format (other than HTML)? The structured information in the formats is very useful, but very difficult to get to with the current system (it also costs tens of thousands of dollars to get all of the data).
Square has no such fees. I have verified this. The flat rate is 2.75%, whereas a normal merchant bank would charge something like 1.9% + $.20 per purchase.
"Planning ahead" to have cash on hand still requires visiting an ATM at some point. Now, my primary bank account is at Ally, so I don't pay such fees anyway. However, when I was an HSBC customer getting cash would have required visiting a branch (which I did far less than once per month) and so I would have to spend gas and time. Alternatively, I could use a non-HSBC ATM and pay fees (at least $2.50 per withdrawl).
On the merchant's side, you also have to take into account the cost of dealing with cash. A small business, with relatively little security, that does not accept cards (and thus has a large amount of cash on hand) makes an easy target for theft. This would probably require a timed safe with additional security measures. Depositing large amounts of cash also carries it's own risks (such as transportation).
I've seen plenty of cash-only businesses in my area (Rochester, NY). I typically carry less than $40 for such situations, though usually once I find out a business is cash-only I never go there again, and so I very rarely need an ATM. I've also seen plenty of businesses that are cash-only but "conveniently" have an ATM on-site, one that typically charges $3-5 per transaction, plus any fees that might be charged by the user's bank. In contrast, Wegmans ATMs charge $1, so clearly converting to cash-only has become a profit center for some of these merchants. In another situation (like the recent Verizon debacle) we would call this a junk fee.
A relatively small fee is no reasons to throw out cards, which are otherwise convenient. A gas station near me has managed to set up their own swipe card system. It's linked to a checking account, and gives the same discount as using cash at those stations. I believe other companies are doing the same. Wegmans, in fact, does the same thing with their shoppers club card, though the feature isn't heavily advertised. It's always possible that a few of these companies could work together to create their own payment network and compete against MC/Visa.
In fact, a better system could be created. One idea would be similar to the Oyster card in Hong Kong. A reloadable, smart card based system. In HK it can be used for public transit as well as small purchases. It doesn't require a data connection to operate (though I think it needs to sync every few hours, perhaps daily). If a registered card is stolen, lost or destroyed the value can be recovered. Unregistered cards are effectively anonymous. I'm sure there would be costs involved for the merchants, but these could be better controlled if the system was managed by a merchant's association, rather than banks as our current payment networks are.
Another implementation option would of course use smartphones, a hybrid system allowing either would be best.
So I should spend my time and money (to find an ATM or branch, possibly pay an ATM fee, and lose out on a small amount of interest) and take the risks that come with cash (theft) to protect a merchant?
Merchants are permitted by law to set a $10 minimum charge. There's no reason for a small business to pay more than the Square swipe fee of 2.75%, or 28 cents on $10. If they're really losing money on that deal they can raise their prices a bit to compensate, I'm getting at least 20 cents in cashback anyway.
I can't help but notice that the scummy law firm gets dismembered, but the scummy newspaper that contracted with them and started this mess gets off scott free. When is someone going to find a way to hold LVRJ responsible for their copyright-trolling-by-proxy?
I was actually going to buy a Galaxy Tab 7 "plus" along with a car dock for it next week, looks like I'll have to find a different tablet, or wait for CyanogenMod to come up with a hack before I buy it.
I would be amazed if Google truly signed an agreement with UMG that allowed UMG to basically shut down YouTube whenever they wanted. If there are no limits on UMG's ability to take down videos, why don't they just take down all the videos and eliminate youtube permanently?
Most apps don't have built-in print support. I've never needed to print from my phone, but it looks like an app like this could do it: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.pauloslf.cloudprint&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5wYXVsb3NsZi5jbG91ZHByaW50Il0.
I'm self-taught. I got a lucky break when I found a small company that was prepared to test me (I interviewed with every engineer they had, and each tested my skill). I applied there directly (actually found them on CareerBuilder, but Craigslist would probably be better) rather than going through a recruiter. Only large companies can afford recruiters, and they're less likely to take a risk. Once you get an interview, be happy and confident, it goes a long way.
A lot of it is luck. In this economy a job may be harder to come by, I suppose you could try finding a non-profit that needs some help with a website or something, at least demonstrate that you can build something with application in the real world.
"At least LAX and SFO are pretty close to the urban centers of the respective cities."
SFO is the second-to-last stop on that side of the BART. If by "end of the BART line" the poster means Millbrae, that's a very short ride from SFO. Millbrae is also a Caltrain station.
It's illegal to commit fraud over the internet, so why can't it be illegal to 'bully' over the internet? Why, why would we want Facebook and Twitter to define bullying in their TOS?
The federal government has a clear power to pass a law barring cyberbullying, but in no way should a web master be able to specify "here's a list of rules I made up, if you don't follow them I'll press felony charges against you".
This isn't tone deaf, this is an incredible overreach on the part of the administration. It may very well be that there's no law on the books for cyberbullying, and if that's the case then those who have been charged will get to go free. If you want a law against it, write your congressman.
If you'll read the message I replied to, the poster seemed to indicate that there would be no repercussions if the U.S. stopped paying its debts. I was trying to point that there would be repercussions.
I doubt any of what I described will ever happen, for the very reason that no politician is truly willing to risk it happening. I also didn't intend to refer to the IMF. There are no entities capable of bailing out the U.S., though that isn't to say it's impossible that there will be.
Finally, I'm not really concerned with debt held by the government itself, nor debt held by the Fed. Publicly held debt is the issue. I know how treasury auctions work, just because we can find lenders (bidders) now doesn't mean we'll always be able to.
Interesting term, "rent". Try seeing what happens when you don't pay rent on an apartment.
If the U.S. fails to make payments on its debt, then those debts will be in default. The value of treasury bond holdings would collapse in a mass selloff. This would affect every financial institution in the United States, including those fuzzy little Credit Unions. Many, many institutions would require FDIC/NCUA intervention, and the funds aren't really large enough to deal with a problem on that scale. The U.S. would have to either print money (thus devaluing the dollar on the world market, leading to shortages), or let the banks and credit unions fail, leading to many people losing their savings.
So, instead the government *must* make its debt payments. We've got long-term unemployment right now. That means there are a lot of people who aren't paying taxes, and probably won't be in the near future. In fact, even when they do find a job they're likely to be less productive than they were for many years. Unemployment and underemployment also strains the social safety net, the government must pay more to maintain a basic standard of living and keep crime in check. Taxes can't be raised quickly without impacting production, and in fact cutting taxes is basically the government's only tool to increase production. At the same time, if the government can't balance the budget interest rates on U.S. debt will slowly increase. We typically will borrow for 1-5 years, and when the bond comes due we'll pay some portion of the bond with cash and take out another bond on the rest, sort of like having multiple 5-year mortgages. This means that an increase in interest rates actually affects the existing debt, not just new debt, so interest payments would increase quickly. Eventually, we won't be able to afford market rates and we'll have to find a lender willing to let us borrow at a more reasonable rate. In exchange for the loan they'll demand we make certain changes (similar to a bankruptcy court ordering your possessions be sold). These changes will be painful, but not as painful as those required to immediately balance the budget and pay off bonds as they come due. That's what's happening in Greece right now.
TL;DR - Tell Greece that borrowing doesn't come with additional obligations.
I hate referer information when I come from google, mostly because of sites that either:
1) Highlight my search terms in the page. You don't need to highlight every instance of 'of' in the page, and even highlighting the keywords is distracting.
2) Put a big fat "Welcome Google User!" (often with horribly colored letters for Google) that beg you to subscribe to the RSS feed.
I wish there was a chrome extension to hide referrer data just so that I could avoid that.
BTW: If you want an example of useless highlighting, google for VirtualBox and click on the VirtualBox website. I can't believe someone thought that people who can comprehend what VirtualBox is don't know how Ctrl+F works.
Here in NY we have EZ-Pass, which is also used by several other states (though I hear some of the other states charge fees for them). NY doesn't charge for the transponder itself, and they provide a faraday cage bag to keep it in when not in use (showing they realize people don't want a permanent transponder). It doesn't beep when a toll is paid, instead you wait for the light to turn green as you go through the toll booth. The only privacy issue is that the state could theoretically measure how long it takes you to get from one booth to another and try to automatically issue speeding tickets.
I guess IPASS must be one of those "no-booth" systems where you don't have to slow down or stop (thus the need to beep), but I can't imagine why they would think they could get away with a camera. Though, just because the company filed a patent for the idea doesn't mean the transponder has one.
Non-competes still exist here in NY, which is at-will employment. Just because you're not signing an employment contract doesn't mean they can't force you to sign some other document.
No, there's a constitutional right to interstate travel (obviously doesn't apply if you're under a court order to remain in the jurisdiction, or in prison). No state can prevent you from entering or leaving, nor can they tax you on it. Likewise, they can't set up customs offices on the state borders.
You also have to make sure you're not on a host or DNS server that handles anything the DHS claims is infringing copyright, they've taken down entire hosting services (84,000 sites) for 10 bad sites before (and later claimed it was perfectly legitimate).
So, no, following U.S. law won't prevent U.S. authorities from taking down your site. Your best bet is to do what this guy is doing, find a host safe from U.S. law enforcement.
I recently signed up for a trial of an app (YNAB - You Need a Budget). They asked for your e-mail address, I gave it to them. They say they need it to send you the trial key. There was also a checkbox labeled " Yes! Also send me occasional budgeting tips and best practices.". I unchecked it.
YNAB decided to send me messages (other than the trial key) anyway, I marked it as spam. I didn't agree to receive other messages, in fact I explicitly opted out.
For cases where there is no opt-out, fine. A regulation should be in place requiring them to state in readable text, near the e-mail box "we will send you updates at a frequency of our choosing, we may sell your e-mail address to spammers, etc.". Not in a privacy policy, in bold print on the sign-up form. If the company legitimately believes that people are willing to agree to the deal (my e-mail address for your product), then they should have no problem making it clear to the consumer what they are agreeing to.
I don't want to force a company to business with me, but I don't want a company to trick me into doing business with them so they can resell my information to the highest bidder.
You're absolutely correct. I apologize to those who read that in confusion.
Germany's GDP per capita is lower than the U.S., though I would still argue their standard of living is higher while leaving the poor in far better condition than they are here.
The combined population of Africa, India and China is >50% of the world population. Saying that the poorest U.S. households and better off than that lot isn't saying much at all.
Now, if we compare to the "west" (Canada, U.S., Japan, the E.U., Switzerland, and the Nordic States).
Our Human Development Index is lower than the E.U., our Gini coefficient is higher than the E.U.
Our GDP PPP per capita is quite a bit higher than Europe. This is mostly because the U.S. focuses on squeezing as much productivity as possible out of the population, and because Europe has been reduced to rubble twice in the past century and subjected to a tug-of-war by Russia and the United States a little more than 40 years.
Germany manages a trade surplus, and even in the midst of the financial crisis their deficit is barely 7% of revenues, in 2005 ("the good times") the U.S. deficit was 21% of revenues. Germany's GDP PPP per capita is lower than the U.S. Most European countries target general welfare of the populace over 'productivity'. I'd certainly rather be certain of having a home, medical care, and enough to eat rather than knowing that the rich are getting richer.
By the way - Germany's overall GDP is almost the same as the U.S., despite having a much smaller population, and half the country still recovering from 40 years of communist rule. They also have fewer natural resources and lack direct control over monetary and trade policy.
In other words, we should be doing significantly better, both in terms of welfare and economically, so much for being the greatest country in the world. We got complacent, and decided that we should deregulate as much as possible. Let companies outsource their entire businesses, reduce funding for education, and make no attempt to economically revive unproductive areas like Appalachia. We'd prefer to massively subsidize farms and big businesses to distort the market.
So now when something in my queue is available on instant I won't be able to see that unless I specifically search a different site. (For an 100+ item queue, that's unreasonable).
Now when I'm looking for something to watch, I'll have to check Netflix first, then Qwikster.
I can't even see this as sensible business plan. The world is moving to streaming, so Netflix is going to create a new company that ships old discs? Do they really expect this business will still be growing in 5 years?
Before Netflix split the plans, I had assumed that Netflix would slowly raised prices on the DVD-by-mail service before finally killing it. In the meantime they would work on expanding their content, and lobbying Congress to make it as easy to broadcast video as it is for radio stations to broadcast music (no individual negotiations, just a single company to make payments to).
Instead, their streaming library is shrinking and they're cutting away the DVD business that makes up for it. I think Reed has drank a little too much of the Kool-Aid. He starts out his post talking about how well Netflix works on TVs. Yes, Reed, the software is great, but the selection is terrible. As an addition to the DVD service, it was great and promising, but it's not ready to be its own general market product yet.
Person A deposits $1000 in a bank. Person B takes a personal loan for $500 from the bank and deposits it in their account.
Person A: $1000 Person B: $500 Total bank deposits: $1500.
Person B fixes Person A's car for $500. Person A withdraws the money from their account and Person B deposits it in their account.
Person A: $500 Person B: $1000 Total deposits: $1500
Person B repays their loan for $500.
Person A: $500 Person B: $500 Total deposits: $1000
Yes, money can be created and destroyed. However, neither Fort Knox or the S.O.R. have anything to do with it. The value of gold is set by speculators. The value of oil is set by supply/demand just like money. The amount of money available at any moment is limited, just like oil. The amount of money that *could* be available is theoretically unlimited, but we don't know how much oil is available, and we don't know how much money the government will allow to be created.
I'm a Software Engineer. A peripheral part of my job involves dealing with Oracle. If I run in to a problem, I google the error message (or google what I am trying to do). I typically find the answer on some random blog or forum (no, the answer isn't always on ask tom). Are you going to claim those sites aren't "required" and therefore I don't need access to them? Otherwise, your whitelist is going to be pretty long...
Population of 62 million. Imports of 750 billion USD. They do better on the Ease of Doing Business Index than the U.S., plus they'll probably be the last European country to sever ties with the U.S. as the E.U. moves to become a larger economic power than the U.S. and China. That's assuming the E.U. survives another 10 years of course (and assuming the U.K. stays in the E.U.).
By the way, that import statistic (probably the most important in this case) means they import nearly twice as much per capita as the U.S. In addition, their trade deficit is 10% of their imports. The U.S. trade deficit is 33% of their imports.
So yeah, their decisions on standards like this are pretty important, economically speaking.
Slashdot Mirror
Speaking from experience, the digitized (with text available, not just scanned images) USPTO patent data comes in 4 formats. The oldest format looks like it was based on 'cards', the second format was SGML, the third was a bizarre XML format based on the SGML format, and the current format is based on alterations to international standards. When my former employer wanted to analyze this data, I needed to write parsers for each one.
Is there any chance that all patent data will be made available in a single format (other than HTML)? The structured information in the formats is very useful, but very difficult to get to with the current system (it also costs tens of thousands of dollars to get all of the data).
Square has no such fees. I have verified this. The flat rate is 2.75%, whereas a normal merchant bank would charge something like 1.9% + $.20 per purchase.
"Planning ahead" to have cash on hand still requires visiting an ATM at some point. Now, my primary bank account is at Ally, so I don't pay such fees anyway. However, when I was an HSBC customer getting cash would have required visiting a branch (which I did far less than once per month) and so I would have to spend gas and time. Alternatively, I could use a non-HSBC ATM and pay fees (at least $2.50 per withdrawl).
On the merchant's side, you also have to take into account the cost of dealing with cash. A small business, with relatively little security, that does not accept cards (and thus has a large amount of cash on hand) makes an easy target for theft. This would probably require a timed safe with additional security measures. Depositing large amounts of cash also carries it's own risks (such as transportation).
I've seen plenty of cash-only businesses in my area (Rochester, NY). I typically carry less than $40 for such situations, though usually once I find out a business is cash-only I never go there again, and so I very rarely need an ATM. I've also seen plenty of businesses that are cash-only but "conveniently" have an ATM on-site, one that typically charges $3-5 per transaction, plus any fees that might be charged by the user's bank. In contrast, Wegmans ATMs charge $1, so clearly converting to cash-only has become a profit center for some of these merchants. In another situation (like the recent Verizon debacle) we would call this a junk fee.
A relatively small fee is no reasons to throw out cards, which are otherwise convenient. A gas station near me has managed to set up their own swipe card system. It's linked to a checking account, and gives the same discount as using cash at those stations. I believe other companies are doing the same. Wegmans, in fact, does the same thing with their shoppers club card, though the feature isn't heavily advertised. It's always possible that a few of these companies could work together to create their own payment network and compete against MC/Visa.
In fact, a better system could be created. One idea would be similar to the Oyster card in Hong Kong. A reloadable, smart card based system. In HK it can be used for public transit as well as small purchases. It doesn't require a data connection to operate (though I think it needs to sync every few hours, perhaps daily). If a registered card is stolen, lost or destroyed the value can be recovered. Unregistered cards are effectively anonymous. I'm sure there would be costs involved for the merchants, but these could be better controlled if the system was managed by a merchant's association, rather than banks as our current payment networks are.
Another implementation option would of course use smartphones, a hybrid system allowing either would be best.
So I should spend my time and money (to find an ATM or branch, possibly pay an ATM fee, and lose out on a small amount of interest) and take the risks that come with cash (theft) to protect a merchant?
Merchants are permitted by law to set a $10 minimum charge. There's no reason for a small business to pay more than the Square swipe fee of 2.75%, or 28 cents on $10. If they're really losing money on that deal they can raise their prices a bit to compensate, I'm getting at least 20 cents in cashback anyway.
I can't help but notice that the scummy law firm gets dismembered, but the scummy newspaper that contracted with them and started this mess gets off scott free. When is someone going to find a way to hold LVRJ responsible for their copyright-trolling-by-proxy?
I was actually going to buy a Galaxy Tab 7 "plus" along with a car dock for it next week, looks like I'll have to find a different tablet, or wait for CyanogenMod to come up with a hack before I buy it.
Samsung, drop TouchWiz, it sucks anyway.
I would be amazed if Google truly signed an agreement with UMG that allowed UMG to basically shut down YouTube whenever they wanted. If there are no limits on UMG's ability to take down videos, why don't they just take down all the videos and eliminate youtube permanently?
Most apps don't have built-in print support. I've never needed to print from my phone, but it looks like an app like this could do it: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.pauloslf.cloudprint&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5wYXVsb3NsZi5jbG91ZHByaW50Il0.
I'm self-taught. I got a lucky break when I found a small company that was prepared to test me (I interviewed with every engineer they had, and each tested my skill). I applied there directly (actually found them on CareerBuilder, but Craigslist would probably be better) rather than going through a recruiter. Only large companies can afford recruiters, and they're less likely to take a risk. Once you get an interview, be happy and confident, it goes a long way.
A lot of it is luck. In this economy a job may be harder to come by, I suppose you could try finding a non-profit that needs some help with a website or something, at least demonstrate that you can build something with application in the real world.
"At least LAX and SFO are pretty close to the urban centers of the respective cities."
SFO is the second-to-last stop on that side of the BART. If by "end of the BART line" the poster means Millbrae, that's a very short ride from SFO. Millbrae is also a Caltrain station.
It's illegal to commit fraud over the internet, so why can't it be illegal to 'bully' over the internet? Why, why would we want Facebook and Twitter to define bullying in their TOS?
The federal government has a clear power to pass a law barring cyberbullying, but in no way should a web master be able to specify "here's a list of rules I made up, if you don't follow them I'll press felony charges against you".
This isn't tone deaf, this is an incredible overreach on the part of the administration. It may very well be that there's no law on the books for cyberbullying, and if that's the case then those who have been charged will get to go free. If you want a law against it, write your congressman.
If you'll read the message I replied to, the poster seemed to indicate that there would be no repercussions if the U.S. stopped paying its debts. I was trying to point that there would be repercussions.
I doubt any of what I described will ever happen, for the very reason that no politician is truly willing to risk it happening. I also didn't intend to refer to the IMF. There are no entities capable of bailing out the U.S., though that isn't to say it's impossible that there will be.
Finally, I'm not really concerned with debt held by the government itself, nor debt held by the Fed. Publicly held debt is the issue. I know how treasury auctions work, just because we can find lenders (bidders) now doesn't mean we'll always be able to.
Interesting term, "rent". Try seeing what happens when you don't pay rent on an apartment.
If the U.S. fails to make payments on its debt, then those debts will be in default. The value of treasury bond holdings would collapse in a mass selloff. This would affect every financial institution in the United States, including those fuzzy little Credit Unions. Many, many institutions would require FDIC/NCUA intervention, and the funds aren't really large enough to deal with a problem on that scale. The U.S. would have to either print money (thus devaluing the dollar on the world market, leading to shortages), or let the banks and credit unions fail, leading to many people losing their savings.
So, instead the government *must* make its debt payments. We've got long-term unemployment right now. That means there are a lot of people who aren't paying taxes, and probably won't be in the near future. In fact, even when they do find a job they're likely to be less productive than they were for many years. Unemployment and underemployment also strains the social safety net, the government must pay more to maintain a basic standard of living and keep crime in check. Taxes can't be raised quickly without impacting production, and in fact cutting taxes is basically the government's only tool to increase production. At the same time, if the government can't balance the budget interest rates on U.S. debt will slowly increase. We typically will borrow for 1-5 years, and when the bond comes due we'll pay some portion of the bond with cash and take out another bond on the rest, sort of like having multiple 5-year mortgages. This means that an increase in interest rates actually affects the existing debt, not just new debt, so interest payments would increase quickly. Eventually, we won't be able to afford market rates and we'll have to find a lender willing to let us borrow at a more reasonable rate. In exchange for the loan they'll demand we make certain changes (similar to a bankruptcy court ordering your possessions be sold). These changes will be painful, but not as painful as those required to immediately balance the budget and pay off bonds as they come due. That's what's happening in Greece right now.
TL;DR - Tell Greece that borrowing doesn't come with additional obligations.
I hate referer information when I come from google, mostly because of sites that either:
1) Highlight my search terms in the page. You don't need to highlight every instance of 'of' in the page, and even highlighting the keywords is distracting.
2) Put a big fat "Welcome Google User!" (often with horribly colored letters for Google) that beg you to subscribe to the RSS feed.
I wish there was a chrome extension to hide referrer data just so that I could avoid that.
BTW: If you want an example of useless highlighting, google for VirtualBox and click on the VirtualBox website. I can't believe someone thought that people who can comprehend what VirtualBox is don't know how Ctrl+F works.
Here in NY we have EZ-Pass, which is also used by several other states (though I hear some of the other states charge fees for them). NY doesn't charge for the transponder itself, and they provide a faraday cage bag to keep it in when not in use (showing they realize people don't want a permanent transponder). It doesn't beep when a toll is paid, instead you wait for the light to turn green as you go through the toll booth. The only privacy issue is that the state could theoretically measure how long it takes you to get from one booth to another and try to automatically issue speeding tickets.
I guess IPASS must be one of those "no-booth" systems where you don't have to slow down or stop (thus the need to beep), but I can't imagine why they would think they could get away with a camera. Though, just because the company filed a patent for the idea doesn't mean the transponder has one.
Non-competes still exist here in NY, which is at-will employment. Just because you're not signing an employment contract doesn't mean they can't force you to sign some other document.
No, there's a constitutional right to interstate travel (obviously doesn't apply if you're under a court order to remain in the jurisdiction, or in prison). No state can prevent you from entering or leaving, nor can they tax you on it. Likewise, they can't set up customs offices on the state borders.
You also have to make sure you're not on a host or DNS server that handles anything the DHS claims is infringing copyright, they've taken down entire hosting services (84,000 sites) for 10 bad sites before (and later claimed it was perfectly legitimate).
It was covered by slashdot:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/02/16/2239245/US-Govt-Mistakenly-Shuts-Down-84000-Sites
So, no, following U.S. law won't prevent U.S. authorities from taking down your site. Your best bet is to do what this guy is doing, find a host safe from U.S. law enforcement.
I recently signed up for a trial of an app (YNAB - You Need a Budget). They asked for your e-mail address, I gave it to them. They say they need it to send you the trial key. There was also a checkbox labeled " Yes! Also send me occasional budgeting tips and best practices.". I unchecked it.
YNAB decided to send me messages (other than the trial key) anyway, I marked it as spam. I didn't agree to receive other messages, in fact I explicitly opted out.
For cases where there is no opt-out, fine. A regulation should be in place requiring them to state in readable text, near the e-mail box "we will send you updates at a frequency of our choosing, we may sell your e-mail address to spammers, etc.". Not in a privacy policy, in bold print on the sign-up form. If the company legitimately believes that people are willing to agree to the deal (my e-mail address for your product), then they should have no problem making it clear to the consumer what they are agreeing to.
I don't want to force a company to business with me, but I don't want a company to trick me into doing business with them so they can resell my information to the highest bidder.
Wow, I need to stop posting from /. at work....
You're absolutely correct. I apologize to those who read that in confusion.
Germany's GDP per capita is lower than the U.S., though I would still argue their standard of living is higher while leaving the poor in far better condition than they are here.
The combined population of Africa, India and China is >50% of the world population. Saying that the poorest U.S. households and better off than that lot isn't saying much at all.
Now, if we compare to the "west" (Canada, U.S., Japan, the E.U., Switzerland, and the Nordic States).
Our Human Development Index is lower than the E.U., our Gini coefficient is higher than the E.U.
Our GDP PPP per capita is quite a bit higher than Europe. This is mostly because the U.S. focuses on squeezing as much productivity as possible out of the population, and because Europe has been reduced to rubble twice in the past century and subjected to a tug-of-war by Russia and the United States a little more than 40 years.
Germany manages a trade surplus, and even in the midst of the financial crisis their deficit is barely 7% of revenues, in 2005 ("the good times") the U.S. deficit was 21% of revenues. Germany's GDP PPP per capita is lower than the U.S. Most European countries target general welfare of the populace over 'productivity'. I'd certainly rather be certain of having a home, medical care, and enough to eat rather than knowing that the rich are getting richer.
By the way - Germany's overall GDP is almost the same as the U.S., despite having a much smaller population, and half the country still recovering from 40 years of communist rule. They also have fewer natural resources and lack direct control over monetary and trade policy.
In other words, we should be doing significantly better, both in terms of welfare and economically, so much for being the greatest country in the world. We got complacent, and decided that we should deregulate as much as possible. Let companies outsource their entire businesses, reduce funding for education, and make no attempt to economically revive unproductive areas like Appalachia. We'd prefer to massively subsidize farms and big businesses to distort the market.
So now when something in my queue is available on instant I won't be able to see that unless I specifically search a different site. (For an 100+ item queue, that's unreasonable).
Now when I'm looking for something to watch, I'll have to check Netflix first, then Qwikster.
I can't even see this as sensible business plan. The world is moving to streaming, so Netflix is going to create a new company that ships old discs? Do they really expect this business will still be growing in 5 years?
Before Netflix split the plans, I had assumed that Netflix would slowly raised prices on the DVD-by-mail service before finally killing it. In the meantime they would work on expanding their content, and lobbying Congress to make it as easy to broadcast video as it is for radio stations to broadcast music (no individual negotiations, just a single company to make payments to).
Instead, their streaming library is shrinking and they're cutting away the DVD business that makes up for it. I think Reed has drank a little too much of the Kool-Aid. He starts out his post talking about how well Netflix works on TVs. Yes, Reed, the software is great, but the selection is terrible. As an addition to the DVD service, it was great and promising, but it's not ready to be its own general market product yet.
Person A deposits $1000 in a bank.
Person B takes a personal loan for $500 from the bank and deposits it in their account.
Person A: $1000
Person B: $500
Total bank deposits: $1500.
Person B fixes Person A's car for $500. Person A withdraws the money from their account and Person B deposits it in their account.
Person A: $500
Person B: $1000
Total deposits: $1500
Person B repays their loan for $500.
Person A: $500
Person B: $500
Total deposits: $1000
Yes, money can be created and destroyed. However, neither Fort Knox or the S.O.R. have anything to do with it. The value of gold is set by speculators. The value of oil is set by supply/demand just like money. The amount of money available at any moment is limited, just like oil. The amount of money that *could* be available is theoretically unlimited, but we don't know how much oil is available, and we don't know how much money the government will allow to be created.
IE 9 doesn't run on Windows XP, and Safari is a P.O.S.
I'm a Software Engineer. A peripheral part of my job involves dealing with Oracle. If I run in to a problem, I google the error message (or google what I am trying to do). I typically find the answer on some random blog or forum (no, the answer isn't always on ask tom). Are you going to claim those sites aren't "required" and therefore I don't need access to them? Otherwise, your whitelist is going to be pretty long...
Population of 62 million. Imports of 750 billion USD. They do better on the Ease of Doing Business Index than the U.S., plus they'll probably be the last European country to sever ties with the U.S. as the E.U. moves to become a larger economic power than the U.S. and China. That's assuming the E.U. survives another 10 years of course (and assuming the U.K. stays in the E.U.).
By the way, that import statistic (probably the most important in this case) means they import nearly twice as much per capita as the U.S. In addition, their trade deficit is 10% of their imports. The U.S. trade deficit is 33% of their imports.
So yeah, their decisions on standards like this are pretty important, economically speaking.