Or they should break that "but we have a patent...for all auctions...ONLINE". Let other auction sites spring up and then this one will fix itself or go under. I would much rather have them break a stupid patent that is restricting business and allowing this one company to act in monopolistic ways.
I wish this was my kid. I would take ownership of the page and add things like "power complex" "dominatrix" "napolean complex" and make sure it is clearly parody. And then, find links for every applicable court case regarding parody of public officials and link them. So...the page stays up, the student goes back to school, and the crazy bitch is left ass out unless she wants to take the kid gloves off and battle it out for real. Because then the case law removes the whole "student" aspect and she would be fighting a serious uphill battle against Free Speach rather than relying on this modern school dictatorship crap.
The ones that were subject to those government interventions did LESS damage than the ones that weren't. The ones that were under those regulations were constantly warned about that behavior. The ones that were not are the ones that did it more often.
Now to be fair...I think it needs different government involvement, not less, not more. Where the government needed to be involved early in that crisis it wasn't (thank you Republicans), and the areas where it was it shouldn't have been (thank you Democrats). I do believe there are a great number of areas where there needs to be regulation, the problem is that we will NEVER get the regulation we need so long as we have lobbyists for every special interest group under the sun greasing the palms of those congress critters. What we wind up with is broken ass loophole ridden nonsense that favors whoever paid the biggest sum when the law was written.
What debate? Here on this side we have science, and over on this side, unfounded conjecture based on a 2000yr old book that is little more than a documented game of telephone because i heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy who was there I swear. There is no debate, one is science, one is not. Pure and simple.
There is a british scientist that has a video floating around that shows the progression from light sensing to eyeball very well with example critters all along the way. So that irreducible complexity bullshit is a complete joke. In fact, Ken Miller has an amazing 2hr presentation on the whole Intellitent Design where he absolutely eviscerates their silly arguments, and is a Roman Catholic, so it science and intelligence goes beyond religion.
The God discussion belongs in religion and philosophy classes, not science classes. The evidence for "poof magic" is 0, so even though evolution can't trace the exact path for every critter that walks the earth, it at least has evidence.
What she and every other creationist wants is creationist bullshit treated like it is even remotely equal to scientific theory. They tout the "its just a theory" crap because they don't understand the definition of a scientific theory. Even if most kids laugh it off, the fact that they put that shit in the class causes the assumption that there is anything more to it than silly superstition and intellectual laziness.
I'm sorry, but my version of "God" is a hell of a lot more complex than rolling up some playdough snakes and saying "Bamf" its done.
This crap has been a long time coming. It is a direct result from basically two sources. 1. Easy credit for everyone! Our imaginary money economy was bound to implode at some point due to the unbelievable irresponsibility in both consumers and the companies that were trying to get rich quick by extending risky credit to everyone that would sign on the line. The housing market is imploding because a $500,000 mortgage (multiplied out) has a much larger impact than the same people multiplying out 10-30k in credit card debts. 2. I want it and I want it now! This is both the consumer buying everything with imaginary money they can't afford as well as the God awful business practices surrounding the immediate infinite growth model. Every company is trying to build monsterous immedaite returns every quarter. So they do stupid shit stacked on stupid shit stacked on stupid shit and then collapse. The company that did the bookkeeping for Enron was started by a cutthroat accountant. "Our responsibility is to the auditors, not to our clients, because when our responsibility is to the auditors, our clients will always be taken care of correctly." He built a tremendously large and successful company by this mentality. As soon as the company started cooking books for fun and profit for more immediate gains they imploded.
My real bitch is that over the last 20 years of predominately Republican control they have encouraged this insane business model of "don't worry, fuck up all you want, commit whatever crimes you need to maximize your profit, we promise not to step in as long as you make it worth our while". Not that Democrats are off the hook for this crap mind you, but it was predominately Republican approach to not getting involved at any cost. Now, the house of cards is collapsing and the Executive branch is acting on its own buying out all these companies. (Quick history check...go look up that form of government that involves the government owning all the businesses...they are definitely earning their colors as the Red Party with the secret laws, secret prisons, warrantless spying, voting problems, and now government owned business). Also, as previously mentioned, Bush was acting on his own as of 2003 to try and remove the regulations that were in place that were supposed to help prevent this meltdown, when he started positioning the Fed for this bailout it became clear that they could go balls the the wall and if they failed they would get a bailout package from the Fed and all would be ok. He poured on the gas and started smoking until it became that burning tower you mention.
These assholes have murdered almost every conceivable form of science and demonize intellectuals. This includes their apparent piss poor understanding of economics. I want to slap these assholes every time they say lower taxes to increase revenue. While it can most certainly increase revenue if you are on the correct side of the maximization curve, it most certainly does not work if you are already below the revenue maximizing number. Oh...that and it doesn't fucking matter if you maximize revenue if you spend more than the difference between the previous spending and previous revenue point.
AAAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ok first. CRA is being trotted out in a last ditch attempt by Republicans to salvage this fucking disaster of 8 years and blame this on Democrats. Even a few minutes of research would debunk that silly shit. Most of the subprime/ARM deals were made by banks NOT REGULATED by CRA. Then, in 2003 when Bush started positioning the Fed to back Fannie/Freddie IT GOT WORSE. These assholes made a run for the money thinking the feds had their back. Of course, they eventually did, and even Republicans in Congress are pissed.
Palin as a libertarian is the most hilarious piece of shit I have read in months. That would be why she fired the entire commission for trying to shut down a state run business that was losing money in Alaska right? Or maybe her dealings with Internet Tubes Stevens with all of that bridge to nowhere money. Seriously...trying to pass her off as a libertarian has got to be the funniest God damned thing I have heard about that goofy bitch since she made the scene.
Palin as president is the nightmare of anyone with an IQ over a gerbil. Unless of course you too ignore the facts as well as she does. Put creationism in the science class and take sex education out! Ugh... Rampant corruption from another religious fundamentalist is not what anyone needs.
Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?
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Palin Email Hacker Found
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I can't believe this shit is modded insightful. The judge even admonished the Palins for trying to destroy this guys life. Most of the claims are pretty much hearsay, and at least two of them you cite have been explained. Wooten may not be a great guy, but the shit her family has spewed is a gross over exaggeration. All of her claims of "being tough on corruption" are bullshit. She took tons of money from the bridge to nowhere project. McCain HIMSELF even called her projects out specifically when he was attacking pork spending (wonder why the sudden change of heart...God damned sellout used to have at least some ethics and purpose). She has a tremendous history of abuse of power with this, her dear ol "shadow governor" hubby who seems terribly involved in state business, and then there is the numerous other cases of her firing everyone in her path that didn't do her bidding. She is right in line with the Bush/Cheney method of 0 accountability, above the law, I do what I want style government.
Then there is the issue of her being against teaching evolution. Or the issue of her refusing to fund sex ed classes and demanding abstinance only education (I bet her daughter would have prefered to know how to use a condom about now). We also have her silly "ebay" jet crap...which didn't sell on ebay and was prompty sold to another of her Republican cohorts in a no bid sale for less than market value.
That crazy double talking bitch has no place in our government. And for all you who think Obama's minister was a wackjob, you should check out Palin's. I think the crap Obama's pastor said was pretty bad, but chasing witches out of town just takes the fucking cake.
It is on the news because she is a stark raving mad, clueless, and evil bitch of a woman who will do anything to get her way and dodge any kind of accountability. To include the SAME GOD DAMNED STUNT that this administration pulled by illegally outsourcing emails on government business to avoid the archival requirements. All of this from the party that expects me to believe "if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide" applies to everyone but them.
Here...wait...let me try this...Don't buy an iPhone.
So because one vendor of one device in a sea of similar devices does something to protect their own interests its suddenly high treason right? Now, if someone was holding a gun to your head and forcing you to buy an iPhone I might be a bit more understanding (well, except I would think you are a moron for bitching about application distribution when someone has a gun to your head).
To me it sounds like petty bitching by the antimac club (who are just as loud and irritating as the fanbois). Apple has done some sketchy things, but this isn't one of them.
The idea that this is somehow anticompetitive is insane. When Apple owns the entire market on cellphones then we can talk about anticompetitive behavior. But, for the moment, they dont. They built the iPhone, they wrote most of the base applications for it. Why the hell should they be forced to allow a 3rd party to use their cellphone platform AND their app delivery platform to compete with their own software? Did you know that there are stores that don't sell Apple software or hardware?! Can you believe it! Did you know that you can't buy an MacBook from the Dell website? How unfair and anticompetitive is that!
Now, I don't think it is a terribly bright idea to keep such a tight grip on things, but that is how Apple behaves. All of their products have been that way. Windows gets a shit reputation when most of its problems are 3rd party drivers. Apple doesn't get that shit reputation because they control the platform and stop that kind of garbage from happening. Even if it is draconian at times, it is about protecting the consumer experience and their image.
So you agree with me then right? Because Apple sold the iPhone, a device that can run all kinds of other stuff. But do you see MS selling XBOX Linux discs?
You let me know when Microsoft starts selling Macs or Linux boxes on their website and we can discuss Apple not wanting to sell competing products. Hell, even better, let me know when I can download OpenOffice from Microsoft.com. Or maybe when they put the whole myriad of Exchange replacements on their website.
That isn't true at all. It all depends on the previous relation of the balls and the moth. If the moth previously had balls, and now does not, that is eunich (or transexual).
Operating efficiently and operating at minimal manning are not even REMOTELY the same thing. Just because something can be done with minimal resources doesn't mean that is the most efficient way. Businesses do not optimize for cost, though cost is a major factor in what they do optimize for. They optimize for profit. Reliability is a part of profit because if your service sucks ass it doesn't matter how cheap you can run it, consumers will go elsewhere.
Now, as far as your regulation, you are mostly right. Consumers can't just go elsewhere to get power, water, or other critical services, especially so during time of crisis. Now, in terms of telecommunications (since that is what the issue here is) if it wasn't such a God damned nightmare of monopoly in any given market this would all be non issue. A monopoly CAN optimize for profit by optimizing for (nearly) only cost. Your consumers can't go elsewhere so you don't have to compete in terms of reliability or other factors. I do agree that critical services need some oversight and regulation because of this. All other services should only be dealt with such that it ensures that there is competition so that optimizing for profit includes more than just optimizing for cost. This benefits everyone on both sides because as consumers you get the best service when companies have to compete for your business, and when a business has to optimize for competitive forces rather than just cost you have more people employed and you have more people/companies doing more productive things and moving forward.
1. Because as callous as it sounds a DWI only directly affects a small number of people. Here we are watching the fed bail out a bunch of companies that did stupid shit because it has put us on the verge of economic collapse that will put the hurt on everyone. Look at the people affected by Enron, Worldcom, or the whole Colorado Stocks n Bonds thing. It is the same reason that walking out of the store with a game is such a small issue. They don't seem to be going after the casual downloader, but rather the people who are bootlegging and selling copies of stolen works. The real bitch here is that in the modern age a copyrighted work can still cost a fortune to produce (artists, programmers, film crew, studio crew, whatever), but the cost of duplication is virtually nil. It makes it terribly easy to steal copyrighted works and sell them and that can put a big hurt on all the people who get paid to produce the original copy.
2. I think DWIs aren't nearly as severe as they should be. It is nice to see them getting a little tougher on DWI, but as long as people can walk away without really suffering it will continue to happen. If they said any DWI counted as attempted manslaughter you can bet your ass that paying for a cab becomes a much more acceptable alternative than trying to drive home drunk.
You clearly have not been in any kind of call center during any kind of panic generating event. You do realize that the phone systems had huge problems keeping up with the 9/11 volume of traffic. Everyone calling everyone trying to check to see if everyone is ok. Everyone clicking refresh every 30 seconds on a dozen news sites trying to get the latest news. Nothing gets us monkeys chattering like something that spooked us.
I can easily see a need for this kind of stuff. Further, you have to assume that in a global pandemic situation that your own staff may be getting infected too. You need tools that you can use to manage large networks with only a small staff.
Yet insane fees are exactly what is required to stop the bigtime crimes. When the companies are fucking up fair use, then no support for their actions. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. And if you want MS, or Apple, or whatever megacorp doing illegal shit to stop then you have to support the monumental fee to remove all profit and raise the risk of that action to extremely high levels. These are business decisions. It also serves to set an example to others.
I don't download music because other people have gotten torn up for it. Of course, it can cut both ways if they are a little too zealous like the RIAA has been. I haven't purchased any music since the lawsuits kicked off.
Civilization?! My friend...I lived in Virgina... That Commonwealth crap is a load of garbage.
Damned near everything...and I mean everything is taxed...I'm surprised that they don't tax you for the air you breathe.
Go to McDonalds...you will pay a sales tax...but look at your reciept...you will also be paying a "prepared meal" tax. Now...I would even grudgingly accept this at a real fine dining kind of place...but McDonalds?! It is barely prepared and it is barely a meal!
Vehicles...oh...yes...the vehicles... First you have the state inspection stickers that you must get every year under penelty of large and repetitive fines. Now...it has been so arranged that dealerships and mechanic shops are the inspection stations because the state can't be bothered with it. So...you pay a mechanic to have him tell you that you need XYZ fixed on your car before he will give you a sticker that will keep you from getting pulled over. Talk the fox watching the hen house. What a load of crap. Then on top of that...every God damned little city, township, or whatever wants you to pay a damned fortune for your city sticker as well...gotta have a city sticker. Oh and then there is the state taxes on your vehicle...man they just gotta ram you on the car thing in every concievable way.
Also somewhat related to vehicles...and more to taxes... I have no God damned idea what they waste all those collected tax dollars on, but it sure as shit isn't the roads! Fuckers are falling apart everywhere you go.
No my friend...Commonwealths are not even remotely civilization.
But if you lived in Chicago would you want Chicago2016.com to pimp the Olympics for your favorite city....or make a quick buck because you managed to register first...as well as register a number of other ?
There are some legal technicalities here, but it seems pretty clear what this guy was trying to do.
Why is it that every time someone makes a 3D browser they insist it is the worlds first 3D browser? Maybe there are some trivial changes, but they have been out for ages. I remember ViOS or something like that from almost 10 years ago. It was supposed to be this revolutionary 3D internet/browser thing.
So in the 1940s the militia concept still worked. This is 2008. The "weekend warriors" of the National Guard are rarely trained to the same level as the full timers, and frequentley they do not operate with the same level of discipline. So sure, every man has a rifle at home. Given that I can fire missiles from hundreds of miles away and accurately hit those rifles mean precious little. The tanks and planes of the 1940s don't even begin to compare to the tanks and jets of the modern era. This also neglects to mention the massive trauma to the civilian sector that is caused when you have to remove a large section of your work force to go fight a war. Quite litterally you get more bang for your buck with full timers, and you don't traumatize the economy (as much) by removing the civilian work force at the same time.
I agree that it started before. I think the notion of sending the guard to fight a foreign war is pretty wrong. However, ironically enough, Bush and his ilk created that problem as well. All those rich kids and what not were able to join the guard to dodge the war. So it was filled with cowards and political shits and drastically diluted the real purpose.
I don't disagree that having a standing army is dangerous. That is why those safeguards were put into our constitution to try and mitigate that risk while defending against the much greater risk of another tyrant with a well trained and organized standing military coming to destroy us. In terms of modern warfare it doesn't make sense to not have a standing military. You can't teach someone to operate a tank, fly a jet, or deal with any of the communications technology in a fast enough timeframe to be able to respond to a threat. Eisenhower was an incredible President in that regard, completely and intimately aware of the horror of war and the danger of the military industrial complex, while also understanding quite clearly the necessary evil that it represents.
To say our founding fathers were against a standing army and then say that it shouldn't be considered patriotic is disingenuine at best and involves a gross misrepresentation of fact.
To say our founding fathers were concerned about the risks of a standing army while understanding the necessity of having one is the reality of it. This is why so many safeguards were built into our Constitution for dealing with the military. If they were against it it would have been written clearly "no you can't do this". The fact that there are so many rules describing how it must be handled shows they didn't like the idea, but understood its necessity, and did their best to put in as many safeguards against the problems of having a standing army while being able to leverage the benefits of having a standing army.
In fact, this is why I loathe the Bush Administrations takeover power of the National Guard units. This is a gross violation of the Constitution. The National Guard units are owned and operated by the state for a reason. The trouble is the National Guard has to be tied closely to the normal Federal troops due to the complexity of training for modern war. A single state simply cannot afford to maintain an entire compliment of military equipment, so certain states specialize in certain pieces.
Nuclear power suffers the same problem. The not in my back yard issue. I think the new pebble reactors are supposed to be incredibly safe and efficient, but the words nuclear reactor shut it down in most places. Maybe if they called them pebble boilers or something people would get over it.
The curse of humanity is the unbelievably shortsightedness. Instant gratification. The recent shift towards immediate and massive profits instead of long term growth has done a tremendous damage. This is my biggest problem with the "lets drill more". Ultimately it is a very shortsighted solution and rather than coming up with more stupid bandaids we need to fix the core of the problem.
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Or they should break that "but we have a patent...for all auctions...ONLINE". Let other auction sites spring up and then this one will fix itself or go under. I would much rather have them break a stupid patent that is restricting business and allowing this one company to act in monopolistic ways.
Decades? Clearly you are an optimist.
I wish this was my kid. I would take ownership of the page and add things like "power complex" "dominatrix" "napolean complex" and make sure it is clearly parody. And then, find links for every applicable court case regarding parody of public officials and link them. So...the page stays up, the student goes back to school, and the crazy bitch is left ass out unless she wants to take the kid gloves off and battle it out for real. Because then the case law removes the whole "student" aspect and she would be fighting a serious uphill battle against Free Speach rather than relying on this modern school dictatorship crap.
The ones that were subject to those government interventions did LESS damage than the ones that weren't. The ones that were under those regulations were constantly warned about that behavior. The ones that were not are the ones that did it more often.
Now to be fair...I think it needs different government involvement, not less, not more. Where the government needed to be involved early in that crisis it wasn't (thank you Republicans), and the areas where it was it shouldn't have been (thank you Democrats). I do believe there are a great number of areas where there needs to be regulation, the problem is that we will NEVER get the regulation we need so long as we have lobbyists for every special interest group under the sun greasing the palms of those congress critters. What we wind up with is broken ass loophole ridden nonsense that favors whoever paid the biggest sum when the law was written.
What debate? Here on this side we have science, and over on this side, unfounded conjecture based on a 2000yr old book that is little more than a documented game of telephone because i heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy who was there I swear. There is no debate, one is science, one is not. Pure and simple.
There is a british scientist that has a video floating around that shows the progression from light sensing to eyeball very well with example critters all along the way. So that irreducible complexity bullshit is a complete joke. In fact, Ken Miller has an amazing 2hr presentation on the whole Intellitent Design where he absolutely eviscerates their silly arguments, and is a Roman Catholic, so it science and intelligence goes beyond religion.
The God discussion belongs in religion and philosophy classes, not science classes. The evidence for "poof magic" is 0, so even though evolution can't trace the exact path for every critter that walks the earth, it at least has evidence.
What she and every other creationist wants is creationist bullshit treated like it is even remotely equal to scientific theory. They tout the "its just a theory" crap because they don't understand the definition of a scientific theory. Even if most kids laugh it off, the fact that they put that shit in the class causes the assumption that there is anything more to it than silly superstition and intellectual laziness.
I'm sorry, but my version of "God" is a hell of a lot more complex than rolling up some playdough snakes and saying "Bamf" its done.
This crap has been a long time coming. It is a direct result from basically two sources. 1. Easy credit for everyone! Our imaginary money economy was bound to implode at some point due to the unbelievable irresponsibility in both consumers and the companies that were trying to get rich quick by extending risky credit to everyone that would sign on the line. The housing market is imploding because a $500,000 mortgage (multiplied out) has a much larger impact than the same people multiplying out 10-30k in credit card debts. 2. I want it and I want it now! This is both the consumer buying everything with imaginary money they can't afford as well as the God awful business practices surrounding the immediate infinite growth model. Every company is trying to build monsterous immedaite returns every quarter. So they do stupid shit stacked on stupid shit stacked on stupid shit and then collapse. The company that did the bookkeeping for Enron was started by a cutthroat accountant. "Our responsibility is to the auditors, not to our clients, because when our responsibility is to the auditors, our clients will always be taken care of correctly." He built a tremendously large and successful company by this mentality. As soon as the company started cooking books for fun and profit for more immediate gains they imploded.
My real bitch is that over the last 20 years of predominately Republican control they have encouraged this insane business model of "don't worry, fuck up all you want, commit whatever crimes you need to maximize your profit, we promise not to step in as long as you make it worth our while". Not that Democrats are off the hook for this crap mind you, but it was predominately Republican approach to not getting involved at any cost. Now, the house of cards is collapsing and the Executive branch is acting on its own buying out all these companies. (Quick history check...go look up that form of government that involves the government owning all the businesses...they are definitely earning their colors as the Red Party with the secret laws, secret prisons, warrantless spying, voting problems, and now government owned business). Also, as previously mentioned, Bush was acting on his own as of 2003 to try and remove the regulations that were in place that were supposed to help prevent this meltdown, when he started positioning the Fed for this bailout it became clear that they could go balls the the wall and if they failed they would get a bailout package from the Fed and all would be ok. He poured on the gas and started smoking until it became that burning tower you mention.
These assholes have murdered almost every conceivable form of science and demonize intellectuals. This includes their apparent piss poor understanding of economics. I want to slap these assholes every time they say lower taxes to increase revenue. While it can most certainly increase revenue if you are on the correct side of the maximization curve, it most certainly does not work if you are already below the revenue maximizing number. Oh...that and it doesn't fucking matter if you maximize revenue if you spend more than the difference between the previous spending and previous revenue point.
AAAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ok first. CRA is being trotted out in a last ditch attempt by Republicans to salvage this fucking disaster of 8 years and blame this on Democrats. Even a few minutes of research would debunk that silly shit. Most of the subprime/ARM deals were made by banks NOT REGULATED by CRA. Then, in 2003 when Bush started positioning the Fed to back Fannie/Freddie IT GOT WORSE. These assholes made a run for the money thinking the feds had their back. Of course, they eventually did, and even Republicans in Congress are pissed.
Palin as a libertarian is the most hilarious piece of shit I have read in months. That would be why she fired the entire commission for trying to shut down a state run business that was losing money in Alaska right? Or maybe her dealings with Internet Tubes Stevens with all of that bridge to nowhere money. Seriously...trying to pass her off as a libertarian has got to be the funniest God damned thing I have heard about that goofy bitch since she made the scene.
Palin as president is the nightmare of anyone with an IQ over a gerbil. Unless of course you too ignore the facts as well as she does. Put creationism in the science class and take sex education out! Ugh... Rampant corruption from another religious fundamentalist is not what anyone needs.
I can't believe this shit is modded insightful. The judge even admonished the Palins for trying to destroy this guys life. Most of the claims are pretty much hearsay, and at least two of them you cite have been explained. Wooten may not be a great guy, but the shit her family has spewed is a gross over exaggeration. All of her claims of "being tough on corruption" are bullshit. She took tons of money from the bridge to nowhere project. McCain HIMSELF even called her projects out specifically when he was attacking pork spending (wonder why the sudden change of heart...God damned sellout used to have at least some ethics and purpose). She has a tremendous history of abuse of power with this, her dear ol "shadow governor" hubby who seems terribly involved in state business, and then there is the numerous other cases of her firing everyone in her path that didn't do her bidding. She is right in line with the Bush/Cheney method of 0 accountability, above the law, I do what I want style government.
Then there is the issue of her being against teaching evolution. Or the issue of her refusing to fund sex ed classes and demanding abstinance only education (I bet her daughter would have prefered to know how to use a condom about now). We also have her silly "ebay" jet crap...which didn't sell on ebay and was prompty sold to another of her Republican cohorts in a no bid sale for less than market value.
That crazy double talking bitch has no place in our government. And for all you who think Obama's minister was a wackjob, you should check out Palin's. I think the crap Obama's pastor said was pretty bad, but chasing witches out of town just takes the fucking cake.
It is on the news because she is a stark raving mad, clueless, and evil bitch of a woman who will do anything to get her way and dodge any kind of accountability. To include the SAME GOD DAMNED STUNT that this administration pulled by illegally outsourcing emails on government business to avoid the archival requirements. All of this from the party that expects me to believe "if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide" applies to everyone but them.
Here...wait...let me try this...Don't buy an iPhone.
So because one vendor of one device in a sea of similar devices does something to protect their own interests its suddenly high treason right? Now, if someone was holding a gun to your head and forcing you to buy an iPhone I might be a bit more understanding (well, except I would think you are a moron for bitching about application distribution when someone has a gun to your head).
To me it sounds like petty bitching by the antimac club (who are just as loud and irritating as the fanbois). Apple has done some sketchy things, but this isn't one of them.
The idea that this is somehow anticompetitive is insane. When Apple owns the entire market on cellphones then we can talk about anticompetitive behavior. But, for the moment, they dont. They built the iPhone, they wrote most of the base applications for it. Why the hell should they be forced to allow a 3rd party to use their cellphone platform AND their app delivery platform to compete with their own software? Did you know that there are stores that don't sell Apple software or hardware?! Can you believe it! Did you know that you can't buy an MacBook from the Dell website? How unfair and anticompetitive is that!
Now, I don't think it is a terribly bright idea to keep such a tight grip on things, but that is how Apple behaves. All of their products have been that way. Windows gets a shit reputation when most of its problems are 3rd party drivers. Apple doesn't get that shit reputation because they control the platform and stop that kind of garbage from happening. Even if it is draconian at times, it is about protecting the consumer experience and their image.
So you agree with me then right? Because Apple sold the iPhone, a device that can run all kinds of other stuff. But do you see MS selling XBOX Linux discs?
You let me know when Microsoft starts selling Macs or Linux boxes on their website and we can discuss Apple not wanting to sell competing products. Hell, even better, let me know when I can download OpenOffice from Microsoft.com. Or maybe when they put the whole myriad of Exchange replacements on their website.
That isn't true at all. It all depends on the previous relation of the balls and the moth. If the moth previously had balls, and now does not, that is eunich (or transexual).
Operating efficiently and operating at minimal manning are not even REMOTELY the same thing. Just because something can be done with minimal resources doesn't mean that is the most efficient way. Businesses do not optimize for cost, though cost is a major factor in what they do optimize for. They optimize for profit. Reliability is a part of profit because if your service sucks ass it doesn't matter how cheap you can run it, consumers will go elsewhere.
Now, as far as your regulation, you are mostly right. Consumers can't just go elsewhere to get power, water, or other critical services, especially so during time of crisis. Now, in terms of telecommunications (since that is what the issue here is) if it wasn't such a God damned nightmare of monopoly in any given market this would all be non issue. A monopoly CAN optimize for profit by optimizing for (nearly) only cost. Your consumers can't go elsewhere so you don't have to compete in terms of reliability or other factors. I do agree that critical services need some oversight and regulation because of this. All other services should only be dealt with such that it ensures that there is competition so that optimizing for profit includes more than just optimizing for cost. This benefits everyone on both sides because as consumers you get the best service when companies have to compete for your business, and when a business has to optimize for competitive forces rather than just cost you have more people employed and you have more people/companies doing more productive things and moving forward.
1. Because as callous as it sounds a DWI only directly affects a small number of people. Here we are watching the fed bail out a bunch of companies that did stupid shit because it has put us on the verge of economic collapse that will put the hurt on everyone. Look at the people affected by Enron, Worldcom, or the whole Colorado Stocks n Bonds thing. It is the same reason that walking out of the store with a game is such a small issue. They don't seem to be going after the casual downloader, but rather the people who are bootlegging and selling copies of stolen works. The real bitch here is that in the modern age a copyrighted work can still cost a fortune to produce (artists, programmers, film crew, studio crew, whatever), but the cost of duplication is virtually nil. It makes it terribly easy to steal copyrighted works and sell them and that can put a big hurt on all the people who get paid to produce the original copy. 2. I think DWIs aren't nearly as severe as they should be. It is nice to see them getting a little tougher on DWI, but as long as people can walk away without really suffering it will continue to happen. If they said any DWI counted as attempted manslaughter you can bet your ass that paying for a cab becomes a much more acceptable alternative than trying to drive home drunk.
You clearly have not been in any kind of call center during any kind of panic generating event. You do realize that the phone systems had huge problems keeping up with the 9/11 volume of traffic. Everyone calling everyone trying to check to see if everyone is ok. Everyone clicking refresh every 30 seconds on a dozen news sites trying to get the latest news. Nothing gets us monkeys chattering like something that spooked us.
I can easily see a need for this kind of stuff. Further, you have to assume that in a global pandemic situation that your own staff may be getting infected too. You need tools that you can use to manage large networks with only a small staff.
Yet insane fees are exactly what is required to stop the bigtime crimes. When the companies are fucking up fair use, then no support for their actions. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. And if you want MS, or Apple, or whatever megacorp doing illegal shit to stop then you have to support the monumental fee to remove all profit and raise the risk of that action to extremely high levels. These are business decisions. It also serves to set an example to others.
I don't download music because other people have gotten torn up for it. Of course, it can cut both ways if they are a little too zealous like the RIAA has been. I haven't purchased any music since the lawsuits kicked off.
With any luck we will lose California and Texas and maybe we can get back on track with more moderate views of life :)
That was you!
I did the exact same thing. Too many ShadowRun books back then got my hopes up for something like this I think. It was pretty disappointing.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Civilization?! My friend...I lived in Virgina... That Commonwealth crap is a load of garbage.
Damned near everything...and I mean everything is taxed...I'm surprised that they don't tax you for the air you breathe.
Go to McDonalds...you will pay a sales tax...but look at your reciept...you will also be paying a "prepared meal" tax. Now...I would even grudgingly accept this at a real fine dining kind of place...but McDonalds?! It is barely prepared and it is barely a meal!
Vehicles...oh...yes...the vehicles... First you have the state inspection stickers that you must get every year under penelty of large and repetitive fines. Now...it has been so arranged that dealerships and mechanic shops are the inspection stations because the state can't be bothered with it. So...you pay a mechanic to have him tell you that you need XYZ fixed on your car before he will give you a sticker that will keep you from getting pulled over. Talk the fox watching the hen house. What a load of crap. Then on top of that...every God damned little city, township, or whatever wants you to pay a damned fortune for your city sticker as well...gotta have a city sticker. Oh and then there is the state taxes on your vehicle...man they just gotta ram you on the car thing in every concievable way.
Also somewhat related to vehicles...and more to taxes... I have no God damned idea what they waste all those collected tax dollars on, but it sure as shit isn't the roads! Fuckers are falling apart everywhere you go.
No my friend...Commonwealths are not even remotely civilization.
What happens when Apple wants to take iCANN.org?
But if you lived in Chicago would you want Chicago2016.com to pimp the Olympics for your favorite city....or make a quick buck because you managed to register first...as well as register a number of other ?
There are some legal technicalities here, but it seems pretty clear what this guy was trying to do.
Pft. Those are the K-mart Transformers.
Why is it that every time someone makes a 3D browser they insist it is the worlds first 3D browser? Maybe there are some trivial changes, but they have been out for ages. I remember ViOS or something like that from almost 10 years ago. It was supposed to be this revolutionary 3D internet/browser thing.
So in the 1940s the militia concept still worked. This is 2008. The "weekend warriors" of the National Guard are rarely trained to the same level as the full timers, and frequentley they do not operate with the same level of discipline. So sure, every man has a rifle at home. Given that I can fire missiles from hundreds of miles away and accurately hit those rifles mean precious little. The tanks and planes of the 1940s don't even begin to compare to the tanks and jets of the modern era. This also neglects to mention the massive trauma to the civilian sector that is caused when you have to remove a large section of your work force to go fight a war. Quite litterally you get more bang for your buck with full timers, and you don't traumatize the economy (as much) by removing the civilian work force at the same time.
I agree that it started before. I think the notion of sending the guard to fight a foreign war is pretty wrong. However, ironically enough, Bush and his ilk created that problem as well. All those rich kids and what not were able to join the guard to dodge the war. So it was filled with cowards and political shits and drastically diluted the real purpose.
I don't disagree that having a standing army is dangerous. That is why those safeguards were put into our constitution to try and mitigate that risk while defending against the much greater risk of another tyrant with a well trained and organized standing military coming to destroy us. In terms of modern warfare it doesn't make sense to not have a standing military. You can't teach someone to operate a tank, fly a jet, or deal with any of the communications technology in a fast enough timeframe to be able to respond to a threat. Eisenhower was an incredible President in that regard, completely and intimately aware of the horror of war and the danger of the military industrial complex, while also understanding quite clearly the necessary evil that it represents.
To say our founding fathers were against a standing army and then say that it shouldn't be considered patriotic is disingenuine at best and involves a gross misrepresentation of fact.
To say our founding fathers were concerned about the risks of a standing army while understanding the necessity of having one is the reality of it. This is why so many safeguards were built into our Constitution for dealing with the military. If they were against it it would have been written clearly "no you can't do this". The fact that there are so many rules describing how it must be handled shows they didn't like the idea, but understood its necessity, and did their best to put in as many safeguards against the problems of having a standing army while being able to leverage the benefits of having a standing army.
In fact, this is why I loathe the Bush Administrations takeover power of the National Guard units. This is a gross violation of the Constitution. The National Guard units are owned and operated by the state for a reason. The trouble is the National Guard has to be tied closely to the normal Federal troops due to the complexity of training for modern war. A single state simply cannot afford to maintain an entire compliment of military equipment, so certain states specialize in certain pieces.
Nuclear power suffers the same problem. The not in my back yard issue. I think the new pebble reactors are supposed to be incredibly safe and efficient, but the words nuclear reactor shut it down in most places. Maybe if they called them pebble boilers or something people would get over it.
The curse of humanity is the unbelievably shortsightedness. Instant gratification. The recent shift towards immediate and massive profits instead of long term growth has done a tremendous damage. This is my biggest problem with the "lets drill more". Ultimately it is a very shortsighted solution and rather than coming up with more stupid bandaids we need to fix the core of the problem.