That's actually not that bad of an example, there does appear to be some text containing actual reporting or analysis in-between the twits. I saw an "article" on the Fox News website recently that was nearly entirely copy+pastes from Twitter, prefaced with "So-and-so said," "Such-and-such replied," - and they weren't even relevant so-and-sos, but seemingly random users. If I wanted to read analysis from random internet twits - which I don't - I'd make an account there. Less ads and no begging for subscription.
Addendum: The "eat, sleep, and fuck" comment really shows the depths of your ignorance of human motivations and psychology. I mean - that's all the French aristocracy of the 1800s and the American aristocracy of today, who don't need to work, did right? (Since you need to have it spelled out: No) Have you never heard of football? Videogames? TV? Music lessons? Theater? Gardening? Reading? Psychedelic drugs? Auto racing and modding? Cooking? Well, I guess that last one is sorta food-related.
Are you autistic? If so, please keep in mind that you can't comprehend what the other humans around you do and think.
We could mandate sterilization as a condition for receiving mincome. Sure, a good chunk of the people wouldn't go along with it (at first). That's fine - if they want to continue overpopulating the planet, the rest of society be damned, society doesn't need to provide for them. If they want to keep fucking like it's 1800 AD, they can also keep receiving the benefits of a ca. 1800 society - roads, police service, markets - and no guarantee of income. Eventually the employment situation will become so dire that they will be forced to either sterilize, or become homeless.
Anyone who's seen Bumfights knows the lengths homeless people will go to get a tiny bit of money. Sterilization is NOT far-fetched. Even I, as someone who's not currently homeless, would get sterilized in a heartbeat for mincome. The only people who would resist sterilization to the bitter end would be a small minority. The same percentage who today are Amish, or have 12 children.
I mean, your post was total drool - I'm going to have to ask for source on that 24-hour/9-month thing, but I know you can't provide it, being that it never happened - but I'll be damned if it didn't kick off a good idea. Linking sterilization to mincome (not mandating sterilization outright) may be the only politically palatable way to solve the overpopulation problem.
Living in a world with billions of people necessitates some kind of compromise, and we need a rational assessment of whose needs are more important. When it comes down to the "right to live" vs. the "right to evict", I'll go with the right to live every time.
The residences are being taken by proxy, under the threat of violence. New residents use their money (their power) to convince the landlord to evict whoever is living there currently. The landlord typically doesn't personally evict them, either. But should they refuse to go, then the next guys in the chain-of-command get called in, the ones who come with guns.
What's "American" is not on my list of concerns, just what's right. Many like to claim that the way this system works is predicated on some kind of natural law - bullshit. The natural state of man is that he and his family settle wherever is available and they so choose, and anyone who later comes and encroaches on that territory, is the intruder. If the land is to be transferred or shared, a deal is worked out directly between those two parties. As soon as a third (fourth, fifth) party becomes involved in those negotiations, we have progressed beyond the natural state and are now operating under man-made rules. That's not necessarily a bad thing - depending on what we agree on as the rules. What we create the rules to be determines how our society functions. It is not some immutable natural law that we are powerless over.
So, what should the rules be in this situation? To me, it's pretty clear. The people who have been there have already found a way to make a living there. They have already established a community and gotten to know their neighbors probably. They may be raising a family, their kids are attending school and have their groups of friends there. Our current rules mean we rip all that away from them, uproot these people and tell them "Good luck finding somewhere else to go, and no you don't get any help."
To what end? Vanity, essentially. Yes, I realize it's very hip to live where the sun shines and the Summer of Love took place. But these companies could operate just fine somewhere else. They have the power to attract talent to wherever they choose to set up shop. It'd probably even work out better for them - their employees wouldn't have to spend the majority of their pay on rent. (That's a proxy for spending their money/power on removing the existing residents.)
Saying that it's OK because it's legal, or it's American, is nothing more than circular reasoning. It's a fallacy that conflates "the way things are" with "the way things should be". America is what we make of it.
I've heard plenty of people disparaging Black Lives Matter. It certainly didn't begin with post #55975607 on Slashdot, and I'm certain I've seen it in the mainstream press on TV.
Like any huge social movement, there's always going to be elements who take a more militant/hardline stance. The most relevant historical parallel would be the Black Panthers' activities during the civil rights movement in the 60s. Or more recently, the people ran down by Nazis in Charleston. Which is not to say "All sides. All sides." are equal - absolutely not. My approach to analyzing these things is much too rigorous and self-critical for such a cop-out. Frankly, and I'm not one to brag, but most people can't touch it. Most never reach that level of maturity, even if they live to be 105.
It's that approach that leads me to the following points:
(1) There are a good deal of hateful people involved in BLM. I haven't looked too much into individuals, but some of them might even be (more than) self-proclaimed leaders. They see it as an opportunity to spread their hateful message, and care little about principles.
(2) If you take a look at the actual issues that sparked the BLM movement in the first place, it's about police accountability. And when our police are not free to violate the law and our inalienable rights, that benefits people of every color. It's only because the police treat blacks disproportionately worse that it's framed as a racial issue. It's easier to galvanize anger (and thus change) that way. More black families have been affected, so they will on average be quicker to see the need.
It's interesting that you specifically mention someone in Toronto. The conception is that the police state in Canada is much less strong. I haven't done a comparison of the relevant statistics, but I'd be willing to bet that deaths, at least, are less there. Plenty of things, even worse things I'd argue, that you can do to someone besides killing them, though. But... if the situation in Canada is better, that locale would be more likely to give rise to grandstanders vs. people actually interested in making positive change. I'm reminded of a rapper from Toronto, Drake. You know, the one who was a child star and went to private school but likes to claim he "started from the bottom".
I don't believe there's any "right to evict" people who were already living in an area. Being a programmer doesn't give you the right to seize people's homes because you feel more deserving of the weather or the landscape - regardless of how big your ego is, regardless of whether you do it personally or through a multitude of proxies, regardless of the current legality of those processes.
Besides that, rents are increasing vs. wages all across the United States. Considering that you can't make your employer move with you... this is a problem from which you can run, but you can't hide.
Actual security only gets a fraction of the DoD's budget. They've got the pockets, but they are more focused on the special interests (corruption) and security theater (domestic propaganda value) which keep so much of their budget tied up. Iraq, Afghanistan, F-35, etc...
Evangelicals are people with no morals who pretend to have morals. The people who use that term are typically a different breed: People who have no morals and don't pretend to.
You know what makes me absolutely recoil in horror? The families I know who lost their homes (and the rest of their worldly possessions) in the flooding following Hurricane Harvey. The ones whose kids' schools haven't been rebuilt yet. The ones that are still living in hotels. What horrifies me is that 90% of it didn't have to happen.
Many saw it coming. The Army Corps of Engineers who drew up plans in the 40s for more reservoirs that were never built. Or the plan in the 90s to run a massive region-wide drainage channel under I-10 - also never built. Or the people who called for zoning laws that require proper drainage for new developments. Or the people who called for restrictions on building homes inside the existing reservoirs that were designed to flood.
"Too expensive", they said. "Unfriendly to business." The developers that lobbied for this short-sighted non-governance made a killing, and now the rest of society is left to clean up after them, to the tune of $200 billion. The city is having to buy back many of those houses that have been flooded 3 times in 3 years. (It's not just Harvey.) Families who have never needed welfare are lining up to get emergency food stamps. FEMA is paying for their hotels while all this gets sorted out.
You know what, maybe the lack of a nanny to keep the children focused on important things is one of the reasons Houston was removed from the running for Amazon's HQ2. Bring on the nanny state if that's what's needed to protect me from these guys' folly.
You're on the right track I think. I doubt it has to do with the number of neurons, but high IQs correlate with autism, for example. People with excessive but narrowly focused intelligence do well on a test that measures a narrow aspect of intelligence...
Beyond autism, which is a neurological condition, I've noticed intelligent people often develop particularly bad attitudes and ways of interacting with people. (Some of these attitudes have been codified as "personality disorders".) It's easy for them to feel like they are above other people, and for that conception to shine through as taking a condescending tone when talking to people. I was the same way early on in my youth. Some people develop the maturity to grow out of it, others don't. Well, I still maybe talk that way sometimes on Slashdot. But in contexts where I'm interested in maintaining a positive relationship with whoever I'm talking to, no.
Are those AMD CPUs, or just AMD graphics? Also, what data do you have on your X-Bone that someone would be interested in compromising? Is it typical to have credit card information saved to it? I haven't bought a game console since the PS2.
The problem with this exercise is that it's limited to what gets played on the radio... at least I hope you're limiting it, because the alternative is that you haven't been exposed to any other music.
Even within those limitations, I find your picks to be fairly bland. Imagine Dragons? But at least it's not Radio Disney-bland. Off the top of my head, Spoon, Tame Impala, and MGMT are the only bands I recall hearing on the FM radio in recent years that I'd actually go out of my way to listen to. And with those, it was a bit of a surprise... "I didn't know they played them on the radio!" sorta thing. Not like those are my absolute favorite bands either, just when I apply the highly limiting filter of radio play.
When John Peel gets reincarnated, we need him here on the US airwaves, not the BBC...
You're talking about the underground rave scene, but what is being discussed here is what's popular.
You are correct in that dance music (the term "EDM" wasn't in use yet) gained mainstream popularity by the late-90s/early-2000s. But that type of music didn't have the same commercial success in the US, outside of a few novelty singles. Think Barbie Girl. It was called Eurodance, or Europop, when people wanted to get more specific than "dance music" or "electronic music". My uncle in Finland would send me some damn good mixes every Christmas.
The term "EDM" seems to have been coined much more recently, by the record labels, to categorize new musical trends in the US popular culture, distinct from the European dance music of a decade earlier.
Things like this, from 2011:
Selena Gomez - Love You Like A Love Song
There's actually a really interesting, circular pattern of influence here. A lot of the Eurodance acts in the 90s were influenced by American hip-hop. Having an MC on retainer was not uncommon. (example ca. 1995, I can provide many more) Then, in recent years, US rappers have began appropriating some of the old Eurodance tracks! The melody from "Show Me Love" by Robin S. was re-used by Chris Brown. Some R&B chick (Rihanna?) appropriated "Dragostea Din Tei", which Slashdotters probably know as Numa Numa.
Similar thing happened mid-century with the British Invasion. Brits listened to a bunch of blues, Elvis, and Buddy Holly from the US. Then they started their own groups, playing R&B covers... groups like the Beatles and the Kinks that went on to have big success in the US. And then of course, every band in the US wanted to be the next Beatles...
You might negotiate yourself right out of the job. There's plenty of other people out there - credentialed, experienced people - who would gladly take an end-user support job for $32k.
Don't believe the cooked books that we are at "full employment" - there's plenty of competent people who are on the sidelines now, getting left out of that statistic. Workforce participation is at an all-time low, and even if the BLS has decreed that people unemployed for 3 months are not looking for work.... they are. If you even got to the point of negotiating pay, consider yourself lucky. There's a whole stack of resumes on the desk next to yours, and the HR guy has no problem tossing you out as soon as you give any indication you might not be the most grateful.
$11/hr may work out to less than $15k/yr depending on how many hours you work. (In retail, it's almost never full-time.) Not everyone can work at Wal Mart, anyway - did you forget about the thousands of employees they laid off on the same day they announced the wage increase? The increase is nice for the people who are able to luck out with a Wal-Mart job - yes, luck out. The majority of people employed in retail do not work at Wal Mart, and the going rate for those jobs is still $8/hr where I live. And Wal-Mart is far from the only retailer cutting jobs like mad recently.
Did I check? No, but I'm not a global company with billions of dollars and hundreds of capable employees. Apple certainly did check, they have (or had) boots on the ground in China doing so. They are fully aware, they've just decided it doesn't matter.
Despite not having the resources to check personally, when it's brought to my attention that there are such problems, I avoid contributing to them wherever possible. For example, by not buying Apple products.
Let's be frank: Apple is a luxury brand. They are not hurting for cash, and their profit margins are fatter than Rosie O'Donnell. They say "Pay", and America asks "How much this time, Daddy Cook? Is a thousand enough?" They have just as much pull with their suppliers, who are in competition for that huge Apple contract. They could easily go to their contractors and say: "Buy these guys some gloves and ear plugs, and we'll cut you an extra 15%." At the stroke of a pen, Apple could prevent these workers from going deaf. That option is not open to individual consumers. Apple wants to have all the power, but none of the responsibility. That is not what "capitalism" means. "Tyranny" is closer.
Are you sure about those judges? I have seen Trump promote exactly two:
#1 Had no experience in law and could not answer what should be basic questions about legal proceedings
#2 Got America confused for a theocracy and had to be removed from office
So, blatant disrespect and/or ignorance of the law. The kind of people who need to be kept far, far away from positions of power.
I'm thinking it may not have been so accidental. This is possibly the only way to get good data on how effective the warnings are. My guess: not very effective at this point. But someone higher up needed that data to complete his that assessment regarding war with the Koreans.
I think you got the FBI mixed up with the CIA. The FBI is basically the national police department. So, plenty of self-righteous assholes willing to bend the rules, and often get sidetracked trying to make themselves look good. But they don't really mess with things that have nothing to do with law enforcement or their own vanity.
The CIA on the other hand, is a spy agency. Lots more deep-state spookery going on there. International men of mystery.
When you say it requires malware to be running on the system, that implies to me that the system needs to be owned by a rootkit or something near to that in severity. But what I heard about the vulnerability is that the malware needn't be anything more than, for example, a piece of JavaScript that gets loaded by your web browser. JS that, normally, would be sandboxed so that it can't read all of the browser's memory. Much less the memory of other user processes, much less kernel memory. Is this true or is it not?
And yes, technically when you view a web page with JS you are executing that code on your machine. But it's quite a different attack vector than having to download and run a discrete executable file with user privileges, which is what your wording makes it sound like.
Slashdot Mirror
That's actually not that bad of an example, there does appear to be some text containing actual reporting or analysis in-between the twits. I saw an "article" on the Fox News website recently that was nearly entirely copy+pastes from Twitter, prefaced with "So-and-so said," "Such-and-such replied," - and they weren't even relevant so-and-sos, but seemingly random users. If I wanted to read analysis from random internet twits - which I don't - I'd make an account there. Less ads and no begging for subscription.
"Proprietary" may be the word he was looking for, or he could just be a dumbass.
Addendum: The "eat, sleep, and fuck" comment really shows the depths of your ignorance of human motivations and psychology. I mean - that's all the French aristocracy of the 1800s and the American aristocracy of today, who don't need to work, did right? (Since you need to have it spelled out: No) Have you never heard of football? Videogames? TV? Music lessons? Theater? Gardening? Reading? Psychedelic drugs? Auto racing and modding? Cooking? Well, I guess that last one is sorta food-related.
Are you autistic? If so, please keep in mind that you can't comprehend what the other humans around you do and think.
We could mandate sterilization as a condition for receiving mincome. Sure, a good chunk of the people wouldn't go along with it (at first). That's fine - if they want to continue overpopulating the planet, the rest of society be damned, society doesn't need to provide for them. If they want to keep fucking like it's 1800 AD, they can also keep receiving the benefits of a ca. 1800 society - roads, police service, markets - and no guarantee of income. Eventually the employment situation will become so dire that they will be forced to either sterilize, or become homeless.
Anyone who's seen Bumfights knows the lengths homeless people will go to get a tiny bit of money. Sterilization is NOT far-fetched. Even I, as someone who's not currently homeless, would get sterilized in a heartbeat for mincome. The only people who would resist sterilization to the bitter end would be a small minority. The same percentage who today are Amish, or have 12 children.
I mean, your post was total drool - I'm going to have to ask for source on that 24-hour/9-month thing, but I know you can't provide it, being that it never happened - but I'll be damned if it didn't kick off a good idea. Linking sterilization to mincome (not mandating sterilization outright) may be the only politically palatable way to solve the overpopulation problem.
Living in a world with billions of people necessitates some kind of compromise, and we need a rational assessment of whose needs are more important. When it comes down to the "right to live" vs. the "right to evict", I'll go with the right to live every time.
The residences are being taken by proxy, under the threat of violence. New residents use their money (their power) to convince the landlord to evict whoever is living there currently. The landlord typically doesn't personally evict them, either. But should they refuse to go, then the next guys in the chain-of-command get called in, the ones who come with guns.
What's "American" is not on my list of concerns, just what's right. Many like to claim that the way this system works is predicated on some kind of natural law - bullshit. The natural state of man is that he and his family settle wherever is available and they so choose, and anyone who later comes and encroaches on that territory, is the intruder. If the land is to be transferred or shared, a deal is worked out directly between those two parties. As soon as a third (fourth, fifth) party becomes involved in those negotiations, we have progressed beyond the natural state and are now operating under man-made rules. That's not necessarily a bad thing - depending on what we agree on as the rules. What we create the rules to be determines how our society functions. It is not some immutable natural law that we are powerless over.
So, what should the rules be in this situation? To me, it's pretty clear. The people who have been there have already found a way to make a living there. They have already established a community and gotten to know their neighbors probably. They may be raising a family, their kids are attending school and have their groups of friends there. Our current rules mean we rip all that away from them, uproot these people and tell them "Good luck finding somewhere else to go, and no you don't get any help."
To what end? Vanity, essentially. Yes, I realize it's very hip to live where the sun shines and the Summer of Love took place. But these companies could operate just fine somewhere else. They have the power to attract talent to wherever they choose to set up shop. It'd probably even work out better for them - their employees wouldn't have to spend the majority of their pay on rent. (That's a proxy for spending their money/power on removing the existing residents.)
Saying that it's OK because it's legal, or it's American, is nothing more than circular reasoning. It's a fallacy that conflates "the way things are" with "the way things should be". America is what we make of it.
I've heard plenty of people disparaging Black Lives Matter. It certainly didn't begin with post #55975607 on Slashdot, and I'm certain I've seen it in the mainstream press on TV.
Like any huge social movement, there's always going to be elements who take a more militant/hardline stance. The most relevant historical parallel would be the Black Panthers' activities during the civil rights movement in the 60s. Or more recently, the people ran down by Nazis in Charleston. Which is not to say "All sides. All sides." are equal - absolutely not. My approach to analyzing these things is much too rigorous and self-critical for such a cop-out. Frankly, and I'm not one to brag, but most people can't touch it. Most never reach that level of maturity, even if they live to be 105.
It's that approach that leads me to the following points:
(1) There are a good deal of hateful people involved in BLM. I haven't looked too much into individuals, but some of them might even be (more than) self-proclaimed leaders. They see it as an opportunity to spread their hateful message, and care little about principles.
(2) If you take a look at the actual issues that sparked the BLM movement in the first place, it's about police accountability. And when our police are not free to violate the law and our inalienable rights, that benefits people of every color. It's only because the police treat blacks disproportionately worse that it's framed as a racial issue. It's easier to galvanize anger (and thus change) that way. More black families have been affected, so they will on average be quicker to see the need.
It's interesting that you specifically mention someone in Toronto. The conception is that the police state in Canada is much less strong. I haven't done a comparison of the relevant statistics, but I'd be willing to bet that deaths, at least, are less there. Plenty of things, even worse things I'd argue, that you can do to someone besides killing them, though. But... if the situation in Canada is better, that locale would be more likely to give rise to grandstanders vs. people actually interested in making positive change. I'm reminded of a rapper from Toronto, Drake. You know, the one who was a child star and went to private school but likes to claim he "started from the bottom".
I don't believe there's any "right to evict" people who were already living in an area. Being a programmer doesn't give you the right to seize people's homes because you feel more deserving of the weather or the landscape - regardless of how big your ego is, regardless of whether you do it personally or through a multitude of proxies, regardless of the current legality of those processes.
Besides that, rents are increasing vs. wages all across the United States. Considering that you can't make your employer move with you... this is a problem from which you can run, but you can't hide.
Actual security only gets a fraction of the DoD's budget. They've got the pockets, but they are more focused on the special interests (corruption) and security theater (domestic propaganda value) which keep so much of their budget tied up. Iraq, Afghanistan, F-35, etc...
It's an attention attempt, the suicide part is just incidental and may not even happen. It was scheduled to happen months ago and never did.
Evangelicals are people with no morals who pretend to have morals. The people who use that term are typically a different breed: People who have no morals and don't pretend to.
You know what makes me absolutely recoil in horror? The families I know who lost their homes (and the rest of their worldly possessions) in the flooding following Hurricane Harvey. The ones whose kids' schools haven't been rebuilt yet. The ones that are still living in hotels. What horrifies me is that 90% of it didn't have to happen.
Many saw it coming. The Army Corps of Engineers who drew up plans in the 40s for more reservoirs that were never built. Or the plan in the 90s to run a massive region-wide drainage channel under I-10 - also never built. Or the people who called for zoning laws that require proper drainage for new developments. Or the people who called for restrictions on building homes inside the existing reservoirs that were designed to flood.
"Too expensive", they said. "Unfriendly to business." The developers that lobbied for this short-sighted non-governance made a killing, and now the rest of society is left to clean up after them, to the tune of $200 billion. The city is having to buy back many of those houses that have been flooded 3 times in 3 years. (It's not just Harvey.) Families who have never needed welfare are lining up to get emergency food stamps. FEMA is paying for their hotels while all this gets sorted out.
You know what, maybe the lack of a nanny to keep the children focused on important things is one of the reasons Houston was removed from the running for Amazon's HQ2. Bring on the nanny state if that's what's needed to protect me from these guys' folly.
You're on the right track I think. I doubt it has to do with the number of neurons, but high IQs correlate with autism, for example. People with excessive but narrowly focused intelligence do well on a test that measures a narrow aspect of intelligence...
Beyond autism, which is a neurological condition, I've noticed intelligent people often develop particularly bad attitudes and ways of interacting with people. (Some of these attitudes have been codified as "personality disorders".) It's easy for them to feel like they are above other people, and for that conception to shine through as taking a condescending tone when talking to people. I was the same way early on in my youth. Some people develop the maturity to grow out of it, others don't. Well, I still maybe talk that way sometimes on Slashdot. But in contexts where I'm interested in maintaining a positive relationship with whoever I'm talking to, no.
Because that's often Waymo important than some of those other factors in determining the adoption of a particular product.
Are those AMD CPUs, or just AMD graphics? Also, what data do you have on your X-Bone that someone would be interested in compromising? Is it typical to have credit card information saved to it? I haven't bought a game console since the PS2.
The problem with this exercise is that it's limited to what gets played on the radio... at least I hope you're limiting it, because the alternative is that you haven't been exposed to any other music.
Even within those limitations, I find your picks to be fairly bland. Imagine Dragons? But at least it's not Radio Disney-bland. Off the top of my head, Spoon, Tame Impala, and MGMT are the only bands I recall hearing on the FM radio in recent years that I'd actually go out of my way to listen to. And with those, it was a bit of a surprise... "I didn't know they played them on the radio!" sorta thing. Not like those are my absolute favorite bands either, just when I apply the highly limiting filter of radio play.
When John Peel gets reincarnated, we need him here on the US airwaves, not the BBC...
You're talking about the underground rave scene, but what is being discussed here is what's popular.
You are correct in that dance music (the term "EDM" wasn't in use yet) gained mainstream popularity by the late-90s/early-2000s. But that type of music didn't have the same commercial success in the US, outside of a few novelty singles. Think Barbie Girl. It was called Eurodance, or Europop, when people wanted to get more specific than "dance music" or "electronic music". My uncle in Finland would send me some damn good mixes every Christmas.
The term "EDM" seems to have been coined much more recently, by the record labels, to categorize new musical trends in the US popular culture, distinct from the European dance music of a decade earlier.
Things like this, from 2011: Selena Gomez - Love You Like A Love Song
There's actually a really interesting, circular pattern of influence here. A lot of the Eurodance acts in the 90s were influenced by American hip-hop. Having an MC on retainer was not uncommon. (example ca. 1995, I can provide many more) Then, in recent years, US rappers have began appropriating some of the old Eurodance tracks! The melody from "Show Me Love" by Robin S. was re-used by Chris Brown. Some R&B chick (Rihanna?) appropriated "Dragostea Din Tei", which Slashdotters probably know as Numa Numa.
Similar thing happened mid-century with the British Invasion. Brits listened to a bunch of blues, Elvis, and Buddy Holly from the US. Then they started their own groups, playing R&B covers... groups like the Beatles and the Kinks that went on to have big success in the US. And then of course, every band in the US wanted to be the next Beatles...
You might negotiate yourself right out of the job. There's plenty of other people out there - credentialed, experienced people - who would gladly take an end-user support job for $32k.
Don't believe the cooked books that we are at "full employment" - there's plenty of competent people who are on the sidelines now, getting left out of that statistic. Workforce participation is at an all-time low, and even if the BLS has decreed that people unemployed for 3 months are not looking for work.... they are. If you even got to the point of negotiating pay, consider yourself lucky. There's a whole stack of resumes on the desk next to yours, and the HR guy has no problem tossing you out as soon as you give any indication you might not be the most grateful.
$11/hr may work out to less than $15k/yr depending on how many hours you work. (In retail, it's almost never full-time.) Not everyone can work at Wal Mart, anyway - did you forget about the thousands of employees they laid off on the same day they announced the wage increase? The increase is nice for the people who are able to luck out with a Wal-Mart job - yes, luck out. The majority of people employed in retail do not work at Wal Mart, and the going rate for those jobs is still $8/hr where I live. And Wal-Mart is far from the only retailer cutting jobs like mad recently.
Did I check? No, but I'm not a global company with billions of dollars and hundreds of capable employees. Apple certainly did check, they have (or had) boots on the ground in China doing so. They are fully aware, they've just decided it doesn't matter.
Despite not having the resources to check personally, when it's brought to my attention that there are such problems, I avoid contributing to them wherever possible. For example, by not buying Apple products.
Let's be frank: Apple is a luxury brand. They are not hurting for cash, and their profit margins are fatter than Rosie O'Donnell. They say "Pay", and America asks "How much this time, Daddy Cook? Is a thousand enough?" They have just as much pull with their suppliers, who are in competition for that huge Apple contract. They could easily go to their contractors and say: "Buy these guys some gloves and ear plugs, and we'll cut you an extra 15%." At the stroke of a pen, Apple could prevent these workers from going deaf. That option is not open to individual consumers. Apple wants to have all the power, but none of the responsibility. That is not what "capitalism" means. "Tyranny" is closer.
Are you sure about those judges? I have seen Trump promote exactly two:
#1 Had no experience in law and could not answer what should be basic questions about legal proceedings
#2 Got America confused for a theocracy and had to be removed from office
So, blatant disrespect and/or ignorance of the law. The kind of people who need to be kept far, far away from positions of power.
But are there easier ways that let you keep plausible deniability?
I'm thinking it may not have been so accidental. This is possibly the only way to get good data on how effective the warnings are. My guess: not very effective at this point. But someone higher up needed that data to complete his that assessment regarding war with the Koreans.
I think you got the FBI mixed up with the CIA.
The FBI is basically the national police department. So, plenty of self-righteous assholes willing to bend the rules, and often get sidetracked trying to make themselves look good. But they don't really mess with things that have nothing to do with law enforcement or their own vanity.
The CIA on the other hand, is a spy agency. Lots more deep-state spookery going on there. International men of mystery.
When you say it requires malware to be running on the system, that implies to me that the system needs to be owned by a rootkit or something near to that in severity. But what I heard about the vulnerability is that the malware needn't be anything more than, for example, a piece of JavaScript that gets loaded by your web browser. JS that, normally, would be sandboxed so that it can't read all of the browser's memory. Much less the memory of other user processes, much less kernel memory. Is this true or is it not?
And yes, technically when you view a web page with JS you are executing that code on your machine. But it's quite a different attack vector than having to download and run a discrete executable file with user privileges, which is what your wording makes it sound like.