How do you escape from the "bundle model" even if you buy your phone at full retail price? The only way I've been able to get month-to-month service is at the end of contract expiration.
I think Sprint has a monthly service model, but choices are very limited in my area. Basically AT&T and Verizon. When I wanted to switch, Verizon insisted on the two year contract regardless of the hardware. If I have to sign the same contract and pay the same price for the service, it would be silly not to take the subsidized phones.
You probably got modded down because this ban was a somewhat arbitrary decision by a federal agency, not an actual change to legislation. Congress did not pass a new law stating "Thou shalt not unlock your cell phone" with associated criminal and civil penalties. Instead, they empowered some unelected bureaucrats in the Library of Congress to make regulations under the DMCA. The bureaucrats decided that the 'unlocking' of a cell phone was the equivalent to un-DRM-ing copyrighted material, which is illegal under the DMCA. Also, the administration isn't reversing the ban, just changing their stance. Apparently, the actual policy decision is in the hands of the Library of Congress.
The method by which they contracted AIDS is irrelevant. If a person knows they are HIV+ and still makes the decision to procreate, I question their morality.
HIV+ people have been charged with a crime for spitting on others. i.e. attempting to infect a healthy person with the HIV virus. Why does the same crime suddenly become acceptable when the virus is transferred in the womb? The so-called "parent" could start experiencing full blown AIDS symptoms at any moment and leave the child an orphan. Hardly an optimal outcome. If the child gets the virus (not certain, but a huge risk) they'll have the same dark cloud hanging over them and probably live an abbreviated life followed by a painful death.
Even if we don't treat this as a crime, it should be considered socially unacceptable in the extreme.
Or 3. Their insurance premiums are adjusted based on their risk factors.
I'm not on the cutting edge of genetic science, but I don't think it's nearly advanced enough to make accurate predictions on an individual basis. Certainly no more accurate than predicting that obese people and smokers are at increased risk for certain conditions.
IMO, it's only logical to charge people different premiums and to make insurance policies highly specialized for the individual.
If my risk of getting a brain tumor is 50% and yours is 5%, it makes no sense to charge us the same premium on a policy which covers brain tumors. It should be my option to pay a higher premium, or buy a policy that doesn't cover brain tumors.
The government has wrecked the U.S. healthcare system with their ridiculous mandates, price controls and and cost-shifting which prevent something as sensible as making premiums a function of risk.
It's a fair comparison in many cases. If you go to buy "insurance" and your pre-existing condition is lung cancer, the house has burned down and the car is totaled.
Insurance is based on pooling risk for unexpected and unlikely events. Calling something an "insurance" policy when dealing with costs related to events which have already occurred is ludicrous. It's also stupid to use "insurance" to cover the costs of routine physicals, contraceptives or pregnancies. That's not "insurance", it's pre-payment and subsidy for costs which are totally expected.
Why not adjust health insurance premiums and coverage to match the individual's risk profile? Why not use genetic information as well? If genetic science ever gets so precise that we can predict future health problems with 100% certainty, then "insuring" against them is foolishness.
" I care, but only a little. And at this point it's abotu securing myself and my family from any of the negative effects that will come."
Good thinking. After the last elections, I reached the conclusion that achieving any positive change by electing people to the federal government is impossible. People are just too brainwashed by the media and completely locked into the "two sides" paradigm. You could show the median voter a video of Romney and Obama taking turns molesting children and the would still try to claim that one of the candidates is somehow better or worse. The smart play is to secure yourself and your family to the best of your ability and try to make the government as insignificant in your life as possible. I think a lot of people are starting to move in that direction. Best of luck to you.
Bureaucrats have one goal in life. To accumulate more power and increase the size of their budgets. The thoughts of cutting waste and removing inefficiency never occur to their twisted minds.
If these microscopic little slowdowns in their budget increases (these are not cuts) have any effect on government services whatsoever, it is only because the bureaucrats implemented them in a way that would be most painful and most noticeable to the people.
If your spouse was a bureaucrat and you had to decrease household spending by 2.2%, the cut would be made by turning off the heat and electricity. The restaurant and entertainment budget that a sane person would cut first would not be touched. That way, the cuts would be as painful as possible so that you didn't DARE suggest a cut ever again.
It would be possible to cut the federal government by 33% without anyone but the bureaucratic parasites noticing.
If Norway was smart, they'd ditch the bloated and inefficient American defense companies and buy SU-27s or PAK-FAs from the Russians.
If there's one thing the Russians are good at, it is delivering high quality weapons on-the-cheap. The PAK-FAs are a worthy competitor to the F-35, were designed and developed with a fraction of the F-35 budget and are expected to be about 50% of the per-unit cost.
Lockheed and the U.S. government should be embarrassed.
"we had a balanced budget for 8 years until the right wingers got into power"
What years would those be? 1923-1930? That's the last 8 year period where the federal government had a balanced budget.
Furthermore, if you add in the liabilities to the SS trust fund (every President since Reagan has borrowed/stolen the SS surplus and NOT recorded it as debt) the federal government hasn't had a balanced budget since the 1960s.
Both parties in Washington D.C. are supporters of big government. They just like to bicker about who gets to play Santa with $3.8T of your and your children's wealth.
The only good actor revenge case I know about is Frank Vincent killing Joe Pesci in 'Casino' to take revenge for the fact that Joe Pesci had killed him in "GoodFellas".
It's becoming obvious that online advertising is far less effective on the small screens. The mass transition from accessing online content from relatively larger laptop screens and desktop monitors to the smaller phone screens reduces ad space and click-through rates. The ongoing growth in the number of internet users in emerging markets can partially offset this, but the transition of the existing user base from large screens to small screens is bad for Google. Google certainly isn't going away, but that portion of their revenue will be hitting a plateau and then shrinking. Companies like FB who are almost entirely dependent on eyeballs have dim prospects going forward.
Oh, I'm sure that they would have no qualms about committing mass murder if they thought it was in their best interest. Think about it though. Did the Nazis use panzer divisions and the Luftwaffe to round up people and ship them to concentration camps? Obviously not. You don't bomb a building full of the sheep you're trying to subjugate just to kill a few political dissidents who decide to resist.
When tyranny comes, the government goons will be kicking down doors in the middle of the night and snatching specific people off the streets. Precisely why firearms will be very useful.
The specific crime is not the point. The point is that Swartz was singled out for specifically harsh treatment because the federal government didn't like him for reasons other than the crime.
A fair and just government would apply the rule of law in a uniform manner and not engage in politically-motivated prosecution. Too bad we don't have such a government in the USA.
Obama has firmly established the legal framework for tyranny. Universal surveillance (SCOTUS just approved this), arbitrary and indefinite detention and arbitrary assassination without charge or trial. If he has his way, the people will be disarmed as well.
The fact that he has not YET exercised this power on a large scale is completely irrelevant. Maybe it will be Obama, maybe it will be some other president you don't like. The government believes they have the power and they intend to use those powers.
"You guys are teh sux0rs. You stil believe you're free and not living in tyranny."
More and more people are seeing through that BS. I would not say that we are living in tyranny however. In practice we still have basic freedom of expression, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of movement, etc. We are however living with an established set of laws and precedents under which tyranny could be immediately implemented.
You've got to admire the Russians. They apparently produced their latest generation of fighter with an $8-10B development budget and produced a plane that's competitive with the JSF and costs 1/2 as much to build.
1) There's a reason the bitcoin folks were invited to the LIBERTY forum. The concept of legal/illegal is a government fiction which has lost all correlation with the concepts of right or wrong / moral or immoral. Consider this a form of political protest against the criminal (but legal) actions of the banking cartel and the insanity of the "war on drugs".
2) What's wrong with speculation? As long as there are competing currencies, there will be speculation. This is also a relatively new phenomenon so there's opportunity for early adopters. At least these "speculators" won't be looking for a bailout if their bets go wrong.
Price stability is the ideal situation but "defaltion" isn't the bogeyman that the mainstream economists, politicians and bankers pretend it is. In fact, it should be the natural condition of things. There is no good or just reason that $1 earned by generating economic surplus (wages, profits, etc.) should have lost 95% of its real purchasing power over the course of a century. That wealth was STOLEN by those who control the currency and get to spend it into the economy first. Technological innovation should make goods LESS expensive over time. Therefore, purchasing power should grow, not shrink. These are the same idiots who think deficit spending is "good" for the economy.
How about the government just STOP subsidizing everything?
I assume that you believe in the idea of human activity being a major driver in the climate?
If the government hadn't spent the last 100 years subsidizing the automobile and petroleum industries (and killing the railroads), this "global warming" effect caused by humans would be much less significant. If government wasn't and had not been using military power to secure foreign oil production and delivery(another subsidy), petroleum prices would naturally be much higher, thus driving private capital into alternatives.
When you don't have Big Brother trying to micro-manage personal behavior and picking winners and losers in the economy, capitalism DOES work.
The last thing we need is more government to fix problems caused by government.
Many people with seizure disorders are able to control the problem with medication. In the USA, it varies by state, but if you can go 3-6 months seizure-free, you can legally drive.
You do not have a right to use force (aka government) to stop people from making the "wrong" decisions which affect only themselves! Using "science" as a justification is no better than using Christianity or Islam as a justification despite your claim of its ideological neutrality.
Scientific evidence showing a link between smoking and serious health problems is quite convincing, so it's a plainly "wrong" decision from a health standpoint. However, if I want to accept the health risks of smoking because I want to be cool, you have absolutely no right to limit the harm I'm causing to myself.
Slashdot Mirror
How do you escape from the "bundle model" even if you buy your phone at full retail price? The only way I've been able to get month-to-month service is at the end of contract expiration.
I think Sprint has a monthly service model, but choices are very limited in my area. Basically AT&T and Verizon. When I wanted to switch, Verizon insisted on the two year contract regardless of the hardware. If I have to sign the same contract and pay the same price for the service, it would be silly not to take the subsidized phones.
You probably got modded down because this ban was a somewhat arbitrary decision by a federal agency, not an actual change to legislation. Congress did not pass a new law stating "Thou shalt not unlock your cell phone" with associated criminal and civil penalties. Instead, they empowered some unelected bureaucrats in the Library of Congress to make regulations under the DMCA. The bureaucrats decided that the 'unlocking' of a cell phone was the equivalent to un-DRM-ing copyrighted material, which is illegal under the DMCA.
Also, the administration isn't reversing the ban, just changing their stance. Apparently, the actual policy decision is in the hands of the Library of Congress.
That's absolutely absurd!
They will be tattooed on the inner arm of course. At the same time they get their first dose of required immunizations.
The method by which they contracted AIDS is irrelevant. If a person knows they are HIV+ and still makes the decision to procreate, I question their morality.
HIV+ people have been charged with a crime for spitting on others. i.e. attempting to infect a healthy person with the HIV virus. Why does the same crime suddenly become acceptable when the virus is transferred in the womb? The so-called "parent" could start experiencing full blown AIDS symptoms at any moment and leave the child an orphan. Hardly an optimal outcome. If the child gets the virus (not certain, but a huge risk) they'll have the same dark cloud hanging over them and probably live an abbreviated life followed by a painful death.
Even if we don't treat this as a crime, it should be considered socially unacceptable in the extreme.
Or
3. Their insurance premiums are adjusted based on their risk factors.
I'm not on the cutting edge of genetic science, but I don't think it's nearly advanced enough to make accurate predictions on an individual basis. Certainly no more accurate than predicting that obese people and smokers are at increased risk for certain conditions.
IMO, it's only logical to charge people different premiums and to make insurance policies highly specialized for the individual.
If my risk of getting a brain tumor is 50% and yours is 5%, it makes no sense to charge us the same premium on a policy which covers brain tumors. It should be my option to pay a higher premium, or buy a policy that doesn't cover brain tumors.
The government has wrecked the U.S. healthcare system with their ridiculous mandates, price controls and and cost-shifting which prevent something as sensible as making premiums a function of risk.
It's a fair comparison in many cases. If you go to buy "insurance" and your pre-existing condition is lung cancer, the house has burned down and the car is totaled.
Insurance is based on pooling risk for unexpected and unlikely events. Calling something an "insurance" policy when dealing with costs related to events which have already occurred is ludicrous. It's also stupid to use "insurance" to cover the costs of routine physicals, contraceptives or pregnancies. That's not "insurance", it's pre-payment and subsidy for costs which are totally expected.
Why not adjust health insurance premiums and coverage to match the individual's risk profile? Why not use genetic information as well? If genetic science ever gets so precise that we can predict future health problems with 100% certainty, then "insuring" against them is foolishness.
" I care, but only a little. And at this point it's abotu securing myself and my family from any of the negative effects that will come."
Good thinking. After the last elections, I reached the conclusion that achieving any positive change by electing people to the federal government is impossible. People are just too brainwashed by the media and completely locked into the "two sides" paradigm. You could show the median voter a video of Romney and Obama taking turns molesting children and the would still try to claim that one of the candidates is somehow better or worse.
The smart play is to secure yourself and your family to the best of your ability and try to make the government as insignificant in your life as possible. I think a lot of people are starting to move in that direction.
Best of luck to you.
Bureaucrats have one goal in life. To accumulate more power and increase the size of their budgets. The thoughts of cutting waste and removing inefficiency never occur to their twisted minds.
If these microscopic little slowdowns in their budget increases (these are not cuts) have any effect on government services whatsoever, it is only because the bureaucrats implemented them in a way that would be most painful and most noticeable to the people.
If your spouse was a bureaucrat and you had to decrease household spending by 2.2%, the cut would be made by turning off the heat and electricity. The restaurant and entertainment budget that a sane person would cut first would not be touched. That way, the cuts would be as painful as possible so that you didn't DARE suggest a cut ever again.
It would be possible to cut the federal government by 33% without anyone but the bureaucratic parasites noticing.
Your defense strategy should be focused on defending against land invasion from the South. Don't make the same mistake the USA did.
If Norway was smart, they'd ditch the bloated and inefficient American defense companies and buy SU-27s or PAK-FAs from the Russians.
If there's one thing the Russians are good at, it is delivering high quality weapons on-the-cheap. The PAK-FAs are a worthy competitor to the F-35, were designed and developed with a fraction of the F-35 budget and are expected to be about 50% of the per-unit cost.
Lockheed and the U.S. government should be embarrassed.
(Indoctrination + Graduation) != Education
http://schoolsucksproject.com/
"we had a balanced budget for 8 years until the right wingers got into power"
What years would those be? 1923-1930? That's the last 8 year period where the federal government had a balanced budget.
Furthermore, if you add in the liabilities to the SS trust fund (every President since Reagan has borrowed/stolen the SS surplus and NOT recorded it as debt) the federal government hasn't had a balanced budget since the 1960s.
Both parties in Washington D.C. are supporters of big government. They just like to bicker about who gets to play Santa with $3.8T of your and your children's wealth.
Canada will be invaded by hordes of starving refugees WTSHTF in the USA.
LOL That would be awesome!
The only good actor revenge case I know about is Frank Vincent killing Joe Pesci in 'Casino' to take revenge for the fact that Joe Pesci had killed him in "GoodFellas".
"GDMQh" = God Damned Machine ... ?
It's becoming obvious that online advertising is far less effective on the small screens. The mass transition from accessing online content from relatively larger laptop screens and desktop monitors to the smaller phone screens reduces ad space and click-through rates. The ongoing growth in the number of internet users in emerging markets can partially offset this, but the transition of the existing user base from large screens to small screens is bad for Google. Google certainly isn't going away, but that portion of their revenue will be hitting a plateau and then shrinking. Companies like FB who are almost entirely dependent on eyeballs have dim prospects going forward.
Oh, I'm sure that they would have no qualms about committing mass murder if they thought it was in their best interest. Think about it though. Did the Nazis use panzer divisions and the Luftwaffe to round up people and ship them to concentration camps? Obviously not. You don't bomb a building full of the sheep you're trying to subjugate just to kill a few political dissidents who decide to resist.
When tyranny comes, the government goons will be kicking down doors in the middle of the night and snatching specific people off the streets. Precisely why firearms will be very useful.
The specific crime is not the point. The point is that Swartz was singled out for specifically harsh treatment because the federal government didn't like him for reasons other than the crime.
A fair and just government would apply the rule of law in a uniform manner and not engage in politically-motivated prosecution. Too bad we don't have such a government in the USA.
Obama has firmly established the legal framework for tyranny. Universal surveillance (SCOTUS just approved this), arbitrary and indefinite detention and arbitrary assassination without charge or trial. If he has his way, the people will be disarmed as well.
The fact that he has not YET exercised this power on a large scale is completely irrelevant. Maybe it will be Obama, maybe it will be some other president you don't like. The government believes they have the power and they intend to use those powers.
"You guys are teh sux0rs. You stil believe you're free and not living in tyranny."
More and more people are seeing through that BS. I would not say that we are living in tyranny however. In practice we still have basic freedom of expression, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of movement, etc.
We are however living with an established set of laws and precedents under which tyranny could be immediately implemented.
The only plausible scenario where this would be relevant is a conventional war between the USA and either Russia or China.
http://www.phlydaily.com/2012/08/f-35-vs-pak-fa.html
You've got to admire the Russians. They apparently produced their latest generation of fighter with an $8-10B development budget and produced a plane that's competitive with the JSF and costs 1/2 as much to build.
1) There's a reason the bitcoin folks were invited to the LIBERTY forum. The concept of legal/illegal is a government fiction which has lost all correlation with the concepts of right or wrong / moral or immoral. Consider this a form of political protest against the criminal (but legal) actions of the banking cartel and the insanity of the "war on drugs".
2) What's wrong with speculation? As long as there are competing currencies, there will be speculation. This is also a relatively new phenomenon so there's opportunity for early adopters. At least these "speculators" won't be looking for a bailout if their bets go wrong.
Price stability is the ideal situation but "defaltion" isn't the bogeyman that the mainstream economists, politicians and bankers pretend it is. In fact, it should be the natural condition of things. There is no good or just reason that $1 earned by generating economic surplus (wages, profits, etc.) should have lost 95% of its real purchasing power over the course of a century. That wealth was STOLEN by those who control the currency and get to spend it into the economy first. Technological innovation should make goods LESS expensive over time. Therefore, purchasing power should grow, not shrink.
These are the same idiots who think deficit spending is "good" for the economy.
How about the government just STOP subsidizing everything?
I assume that you believe in the idea of human activity being a major driver in the climate?
If the government hadn't spent the last 100 years subsidizing the automobile and petroleum industries (and killing the railroads), this "global warming" effect caused by humans would be much less significant. If government wasn't and had not been using military power to secure foreign oil production and delivery(another subsidy), petroleum prices would naturally be much higher, thus driving private capital into alternatives.
When you don't have Big Brother trying to micro-manage personal behavior and picking winners and losers in the economy, capitalism DOES work.
The last thing we need is more government to fix problems caused by government.
Many people with seizure disorders are able to control the problem with medication. In the USA, it varies by state, but if you can go 3-6 months seizure-free, you can legally drive.
You do not have a right to use force (aka government) to stop people from making the "wrong" decisions which affect only themselves! Using "science" as a justification is no better than using Christianity or Islam as a justification despite your claim of its ideological neutrality.
Scientific evidence showing a link between smoking and serious health problems is quite convincing, so it's a plainly "wrong" decision from a health standpoint. However, if I want to accept the health risks of smoking because I want to be cool, you have absolutely no right to limit the harm I'm causing to myself.
You're a danger to the society I want to live in.