I've never understood the European approach to numbers. A period is the end of a sentence, a comma is merely a separator. So the European approach makes no sense whatsoever. They write sentences the way we do, so why reverse the punctuation marks when it comes to numbers?
Some guy no longer being allowed to buy a Mercedes is not going to change anything for anyone else.
Keep in mind that access to money doesn't mean all your problems are automatically solved. Jobs was one of the wealthiest people in the world and that still didn't prevent him from dying a premature death.
And I was never aware access to doctors was a problem.
Asian airlines are always the first to buy new airplanes. Their fleets are always newer than what you'll find with American airline companies. And having traveled a good bit over the years, I've always found service on Asian airlines light years beyond what's offered by carriers here, at the same price point. American flight attendants tend to be pissy, rude and impatient even on shorter flights. If you happen to sit near the back you're privy to them complaining about work. On the Asian airlines, even on 18 hour flights, the flight attendants have always been courteous and helpful. They're as friendly near the end of the flight as they were at the start.
It's pretty sad that an economy so heavily based on service is so bad at it. Now wonder American airline companies are always struggling to be profitable. But I suppose it's good that a plane built in the US, well at least parts of it, still sells.
What does a new version of Android do that an older version couldn't? It's not like you're missing a whole lot with an older version of Android, especially considering that most apps out there aren't version specific. How often does Apple screw consumers with upgrades? Old apps cease working in newer versions of their OS's and very quickly new apps come along that wont run in older versions of the same OS. And from what I've seen people have generally encountered decreased performance by upgrading iOS.
That said, I do agree that there are problems. Because Google is unwilling or unable to standardize the OS we're left to the whim of the hardware maker and, even worse, the carrier. Of course, the option to root the phone exists, but I think that's an unreasonable expectation for the average person. The iPhone is desirable enough that the carriers accepts sticking with a generation for a year or longer. With Android, however, the carriers and presumably hardware makers as well, seem fixated on offering new devices in quick succession. That pretty much ensures no legacy support because all they want to consumer to upgrade to a new phone.
Still, unless you've got a fixation on having the latest and greatest, Android, even an older version of the system, easily offers a better experience than iOS.
The soundbite is not the fault of politics per se. It's the fault of a worthless news media that fragments every story into bite sized chunks so that they can get back to commercials as quickly as possible. Unless it's worthless celebrity news or even sports, then the entire segment is a commercial and can run as long as needed.
The funny thing is how Spotify spams Facebook's life stream with what you're listening to. I'm sure the music industry loves that, constant free advertising. And most people will just go along with that because it's a fun new feature. Privacy doesn't even enter into the equation.
Unfortunately, there's no viable competitor to Facebook out there. Facebook has stolen a lot of Google+'s thunder. They've introduced a bunch of new features, including matching a lot of what Google+ offered. Google could prove me wrong but I think Google+ is another one of these things that will linger for a few years before they finally kill it like so many other things they've done. And it's not like Google is a paragon of privacy.
Without question, Flash has it's issues. However, as good as HTML5 may be I still think Flash is superior. It's relatively easy to build something robust and cross platform consistency is a non-issue. Build something in Flash and you know it's going to look identical in Windows, OSX and Linux. Wasn't there that interactive site for a band recently mentioned on Slashdot that ran only in Chrome? That's HTML5.
And performance, especially with graphics, is unquestionably superior in Flash than it is in HTML5. I've seen countless HTML5 demos, some of which impress, but most pale in comparison to what I've seen done in Flash. I have a friend who's been working on an HTML5-based 3D render and performance is an on-going issue. Of course, Flash has the advantage of inherently supporting hardware acceleration. But either way, this is one of the things that needs to be addressed whether it be with HTML5 itself or how browsers themselves operate.
Also important is how easy it is to build something in Flash. HTML5 doesn't yet have a comparable authoring environment. That said, this is a big part of what's leading to Flash's downfall. Rank amateurs can pick up Flash and create something. This has brought about a saturation of bad Flash. This is best reflected in the design industry where the perception is that Flash is a designer's tool. For years I've encountered programmers who scoff that the suggestion that they should learn Actionscript. Of course, this results in crap code, which gives rise to all the problems experienced on the web.
On the other hand, I have no love for Adobe. So from that perspective I'd like to see Flash die and I'm certainly happy there's a viable competitor out there. But I will lament the loss of Flash.
That would be great, if every nation implemented the same thing. But as long as only a handful of nations do it the investors will simply move their trading elsewhere. And I'm pretty sure someone like China would be unlikely to tax transactions in this manner if they can attract even more business.
What the hell is the point of reviving the Syndicate name if all they're going to do with it is produce yet another uninspired first-person shooter? Young gamers won't recognize the name, and anyone who does wants something more akin to the original. I guess EA is banking on the gaming press to remind us all of the connection, that it will somehow legitimize the remake. And inevitably few older gamers will be suckered into getting this.
The promotional poster, with it's contrived machismo is evidence that this game will be crap. The fact that EA is working on this is an automatic no sale for me. With these big budget games they seem to spend more money on advertising than they do on the actual game. They only invest enough effort to ensure the game runs, but otherwise the whole affair feels decidedly low rent.
And for the love of god, won't first person shooters just fucking die? I don't have any inherent problem with FPSs, but does every single goddamn game need to be turned into one? I guess the halfwits EA needs their own Deus Ex.
I think you're really over-thinking this. I don't think politicians are that sophisticated and I don't think climate change factors into thinking as much as you seem to think it does. If Republicans were so hung up on climate change why wouldn't they just cut funding to those specific agencies responsible for climate research. But it's irrelevant anyway given that climate research is done by far more people than simply NASA.
This is how NASA gets screwed: Republicans demand spending is cut. They don't care how or what as long as it looks like they've cut something. Democrats refuse to cut government staff or social programs, anything that might secure votes, so they go after unpopular programs. The thing is that Democrats, like Republicans only care about the jobs of people who will keep them in power.
NASA happens to be one of those unpopular programs. You have the conservatives who think the money should go to defense to protect us from terrorists.. And liberals think all that money should be spend here on Earth. But sides balk at the big price takes, ignorant of all the work required to conduct a successful space program. They are also oblivious to the huge long-term benefits of a space program, that you can't just will new technology into existence.
The pathetic irony is that after all this we then have everyone lamenting about the loss of American technological superiority. Unfortunately, the problem starts at the bottom, with the American public's fixation on sports and celebrity culture. We've brought this on ourselves and we perpetuate it by resorting to checklist politics. God-forbid a liberal have some conservatives ideas, or a conservative some liberal ideas.
The problem is that people complain but continue buying these games anyway. People are more concerned about pleasure than they are principles. Because if they were truly unhappy with the state of gaming they'd stop buying until developers produced what these people want. But evidently tired old first person shooters with hackneyed, b-movie storylines and yearly regurgitations of sport franchises is what most gamers want.
I'm convinced that the vast majority of triple A games that get lavished with praise no nowhere near as good as claimed; these games sell well because of massive marketing budgets and herd mentality. Almost every single time I've played one of these games, I've found some glaring problems to be overlooked in the gaming press. The storylines are almost uniformly awful, not even on par with your average Hollywood summer blockbuster. Glitches are far too frequent for a big budget title. And gameplay in general is cumbersome or awkward. But I do admit that often times the production values do impress. It's eye candy and not much more. But then that's why I almost never spend money on games like these.
That said, gaming is better than it's ever been at any point so far. The selection of gaming is endless. From flash games, to iPad gaming, to PCs and consoles there are far more options than we've ever enjoyed before. The problem is that the vast majority of the money continues to go to big budget crap.
I suspect that what they're hoping to accomplish with this acquisition if what they were going for when they offered to buy Groupon. And that is local targeted advertising.
But I can't help but wonder, what's the point? You mean to tell me Google couldn't build a system internally and promote it under whatever brand they create?
Google has spent untold millions for three things: a website they'll almost certain rebuild, print publications they will now have to manage, and and established brand. It's a given that the site will eventually be tied back into the Google ecosystem. They didn't need Zagat to accomplish this. The print publication is probably the least profitable part of the business, but probably also the main thing that has sustained them thus far. On the other hand, it's what's established the brand and a lot of people are likely to be upset if they were to kill it.
So you're left with the brand. From everything I've seen Zagat enjoys a better reputation than a lot of competitors. It helps that they've kept themselves in the news with their ratings and other articles. But again, it ties back to the publication. I don't know if Google has the sophistication or experience or desire to evolve and innovate the print side of the business. If their fixation is targeted advertising I don't envision them investing much effort in getting anything else right. And the thing is that without that part of the business what's left to distinguish Zagat? You've basically killed the one thing that gave Zagat its value.
They might have gotten a deal on Zagat given that they were eager to sell. But considering the money Google must have spent why not invest internally building and marketing a similar platform? Is it more or do American corporations in particular have a fetish with buying and selling companies?
You could, if you were a hipster living in the right neighborhood and associated with the right people. The problem is that this crowd is unlikely to be sympathetic towards your criticism of Hollywood. Your dump would have to represent some other form of establishment the artsy hipster crowd despises.
The map featured in the Nature is quite misleading. Both maps use the same colors to indicate severity but the actual Cesium levels are quite different. The corresponding colors on the map of Chernobyl represent a far greater range. If the color coding had been applied consistently it would show that Fukushima is much less severe than Chernobyl. But then that would contrast with tone of the article.
Not to downplay the seriousness of the situation, but the Fukushima event has been blown out of proportion. It's not even close to being a Chernobyl.
Outside of some vocal fringe groups I don't see any overarching push to label everything even mildly questionable as porn. By your rationale people would be clamoring to have much of the content of prime time television forced under an.xxx-like label.
I think it's rather obvious what would fall under the.xxx, whatever is currently considered xxx content; basically anything you might find perusing sites like Youporn. Everything else, novels, movies or whatever that wouldn't be considered hardcore porn would have no reason to be dumped under that domain. This includes softcore and even the occasional film that features actors who actually had sex during filming. Some of that content might fall into a grey area, but I think most people wouldn't consider it hardcore porn.
I think it's quite evident that pure capitalism doesn't work. As with anything humans do eventually some will find a way to exploit the system. Hence all the laws, regulations and social programs implemented in every capitalist nation. Sure, on paper a totally libertarian form of capitalism could work. But then, on paper communism would work too.
The problem with communism, which is why it will always fail, is that it doesn't account for human nature. Humans, like all of nature, are competitive. Humans need to be rewarded for their endeavors. It would be nice if people engaged in something productive for purely philanthropic reasons, but that's just not how the world works. Capitalism at least accounts for that and ideally channels it into something productive. But regulation is essential to minimize abuses and account for exceptions to the rule.
The basic fact is that more people have prospered under capitalism than other any other system in the history of humanity. Who can look at the developed world and not agree that people are enjoying an extremely comfortable existence? Of course, the better off people are, the lower their threshold for pain becomes. I can't count the times I've encountered people, decked out with designer clothing and equipped with the latest gadgets, whining about how unfortunate they are, how the man is constantly oppressing them.
A friend once made an interesting observation: communism works at the familial level. This is something I've observed time and time again. Families who pool resources and help each other tend to be more successful. This is one of the reasons, although certainly not the only one, why so Chinese thrive in the US. In a lot of other cultures, especially amongst Americans, there's more of an attitude of every man for himself. Either that or children, those in their 20s and up, merely leech of their parents and don't really contribute to the family. On a larger level, capitalism takes over. And the fact is that Chinese are extremely capitalist. Communism in China is there mostly to ensure social order. The Chinese economy only began to thrive once capitalist ideals were permitted and they even went as far to allow privatization of some formerly government-run businesses.
Another very important thing is that in Asia people value education highly. People tend to have a strong work ethic. Welfare programs are based around employing people, not handing out money. So they aren't perpetuating a culture of dependency. Socialism is great, as long as citizens are consistently paying into it and only taking advantage of it as a last resort.
The problem in the West is that there's this expectation that the government is going to be there for every little problem. And even worse, there exists this expectation that the government can guarantee jobs and countless generous benefits. Look at Greece where the majority of the citizens are employed by the government. How did anyone believe that was sustainable? It's like an attempt perpetual motion machine. But the people have become so dependent on the government that they refuse to accept needed change.
Not that things are anything close to perfect in the developed nations of Asia, but I think they've struck a far better balance than the United States and most of Europe. But as I've mentioned, I think much of Asia's success is due to the attitude of the people.
My understanding when this merger was first announced wasn't that T-Mobile was doing poorly, but rather that the company wasn't doing as well as Deutsche Telecom had hoped. The lack of the iPhone was likely one of the things that hurt them. But ultimately the impression I got was that Deutsche Telecom couldn't be bothered with T-Mobile.
I'm with AT&T. Not because I have any love for them, but because there's no better alternative. Verizon offers no better coverage in this area and their business practices are every bit as despicable as AT&T's. Actually, I've never had billing issues with AT&T, but friends with Verizon have had numerous problems. I've seriously considered T-Mobile, but their coverage, unfortunately is inferior to AT&T's. I've had first hand experiences of being side-by-side with T-Mobile users where I could use my phone and they got no reception with theirs. The fact that there are a lot of NIMBYs in this area ensures that newcomers are going to have a very hard time getting established. Otherwise, they're very attractive as they offer better prices and packages than almost anyone else.
But then, if the government shows little concern for a company like Bank of America, why are they going to really be concerned about what AT&T does? Has BoA lined the right pockets or is this all simply for show? Once the people have forgotten about this the merger will go ahead anyway.
I never had the impression that T-Mobile was in any danger of going out of business. I mean, if they're profitable they're profitable, even if that margin isn't huge. If this merger fails to go through and T-Mobile finally got the iPhone perhaps they'd have a chance of becoming a stronger competitor. If the people at Virgin Mobile see a market here in the States what's the problem with T-Mobile?
Japan and Europe haven't figured out some great secret of population control. It's simply that the more wealthy a nation becomes the less it's citizens reproduce. China is one of the few nations in the world that actually enforced population control. It helped keep population in check, but then so did starvation, war and inept government policies over the last century. The interesting thing in China is that increased affluence is also leading to a decline in childbirth. And coupled with the irrational value they place in boys over girls has lead to a situation where China has far more men than women. But beyond that, the Chinese government has already become concerned with the prospect of population decline, that future generations would be able to sustain the nation, it's social programs and public works projects.
And the real problem there has always been that everyone has been crammed into cities while the rest of the country is considerable more sparse. Even with the population they have there numerous apartment developments that sit vacant and cities built around factories that have become ghost towns when those factories closed.
Japan has already been suffering from the consequences of population decline for a long time and it's going to get worse. It's such a big concern that they're offering money to couples who have children. Every developed nation in Asia ranks near the bottom for birthrates. Most of Europe isn't far behind. If non-immigrant birthrates were counted in the US I'm quite certain they'd be pretty low too. Of course Europe, but especially the US still has a strong immigrant population that reproduces more readily. In the long run, that may prove to be a very good thing.
It's also been shown that the developed world produces more than enough food to feed the world's entire population. The problem isn't a lack of food, it's corruption in third world nations. It's no secret that much of what we donate to Africa never makes it into the hands of the people who need it.
As for other resources, well, fossil fuels are a concern. But there are numerous methods for generating electricity that are not dependent on fossil fuels and use largely renewable resources. And electricity is probably the most important resource we have.
I recently read Ringworld and found it quaint that the big concern was unchecked population growth. I think it's been sufficiently proven that population will never grow incessantly. There are far too many forces in play here influencing growth. I'm convinced that we're at a point where a blanket implementation birth control is unnecessary. What is important are things like the economy and the careful management of resources.
I don't have an inherent problem with games that feature microtransactions. Provided, however, that the core game is free and that the game isn't specifically designed to be so tedious as to require those purchases to make the game playable.
I personally can't stand games with microtransactions. That's why I don't play them. I don't really understand what's so difficult to figure out here... A game is not a necessity. It's not like food, insurance or fossil fuels. Don't like it, don't play the damn game. If everyone followed this mantra microtransactions would go away. But a lot of people obviously don't care or are not principled enough to do something about it. So it gets forced on the rest of us, who evidently are in the minority.
Most people buy "hey, I can browse the internet!" and "hey, I can read my email", and "hey, it has a map that shows me where I am", and "hey, it plays music and videos and the TV show I missed yesterday", and "hey, I can download and read loads of books" and "hey, I can show you all my photos" and "hey, I can play Angry Birds" and so on and so on and they don't give a damn about status and "cool" when they are buying an iPad.
Marketing absolutely is driving the success of the iPad. People have been trained to believe that the iPad is the device they want. Every single bit of functionality you list can easily be accomplished by virtually any Android tablet. But the average consumer defaults to the iPad without even thinking. I bet most consumers don't even cross shop. It could be argued that coolness isn't the factor in these purchases but certainly people are being driven by herd mentality.
Other factors come into play after purchase, like build quality and performance. But in that case I'd say for most people the decision to buy an iPad is proven to be a good one.
Whether or not American companies do their manufacturing in China, Chinese companies will continue their environmentally harmful practices. It's convenient to blame Americans and the West for everything but the Chinese were doing this sort of thing long before we set up factories there. They simply don't care, economic growth is more important than anything else.
That said, it frustrates me to no end that American companies are not held accountable for what their manufacturers in China do. Every time some defective product pops up inevitably the American corporation foists all the blame on the Chinese manufacturer. Yes, the Chinese manufacturer screwed up, but why isn't the American company doing a better job of oversight?
The thing is that if Americans were forced to face the consequences of outsourcing more directly some of them might be more inclined to keep that manufacturing here. I'm even inclined to believe that all products manufactured in China that could have made in the US should have tariffs applied to them. Equalize the cost so that outsourcing doesn't look quite so attractive to the dolts in management looking to cut costs because it will secure them a promotion.
I can't help but wonder what lead to this; if this was a matter of AT&T not making contributions to the right politicians, not being as connected as a company like GE, or not being in an industry like finance or healthcare. I'd say Bank of America gets away with far worse and not only are they not investigated but they're rewarded with bailouts. Of course, this all could be for show and the merger will end up going through anyway.
I think it reflects a sad state of affairs in this country that we would even be surprised by this turn of events and that I'm inclined to assume the worst.
It's true that they've made some very insightful connections long ago. But so have the Europeans. It's just that it's the current fad to be into Chinese medicine. And from experience I've found a lot of it to be flat out wrong or at least misguided.
I mean, if they had it all figured out China should have the longest life expectancy on earth, and they don't. Although, I'm not discounting Chinese doctors either, because much of what they do is indeed effective. But I wouldn't be surprised if more Americans got acupuncture than Chinese did. The fact is that when someone in Asia gets sick, they go to a regular doctor like us and get prescribed the same kinds of medicine we get.
If anything, they medicate even more heavily than American doctors do. Get a cold here and the doctor tells you to take tylenol. In Asia you get a cold and they'll give you several different pills; aggressive fever reducers, sleeping pills, a couple of others for various symptoms and antibiotics for good measure
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Blame the west all your want, but the fact is that the Chinese would be doing all this with our without outsourcing.
Boeing didn't really lose out. They've got the Phantom Ray.
Ironically, they'll probably be the ones who end up winning in the end.
I've never understood the European approach to numbers. A period is the end of a sentence, a comma is merely a separator. So the European approach makes no sense whatsoever. They write sentences the way we do, so why reverse the punctuation marks when it comes to numbers?
Some guy no longer being allowed to buy a Mercedes is not going to change anything for anyone else.
Keep in mind that access to money doesn't mean all your problems are automatically solved. Jobs was one of the wealthiest people in the world and that still didn't prevent him from dying a premature death.
And I was never aware access to doctors was a problem.
Asian airlines are always the first to buy new airplanes. Their fleets are always newer than what you'll find with American airline companies. And having traveled a good bit over the years, I've always found service on Asian airlines light years beyond what's offered by carriers here, at the same price point. American flight attendants tend to be pissy, rude and impatient even on shorter flights. If you happen to sit near the back you're privy to them complaining about work. On the Asian airlines, even on 18 hour flights, the flight attendants have always been courteous and helpful. They're as friendly near the end of the flight as they were at the start.
It's pretty sad that an economy so heavily based on service is so bad at it. Now wonder American airline companies are always struggling to be profitable. But I suppose it's good that a plane built in the US, well at least parts of it, still sells.
What does a new version of Android do that an older version couldn't? It's not like you're missing a whole lot with an older version of Android, especially considering that most apps out there aren't version specific. How often does Apple screw consumers with upgrades? Old apps cease working in newer versions of their OS's and very quickly new apps come along that wont run in older versions of the same OS. And from what I've seen people have generally encountered decreased performance by upgrading iOS.
That said, I do agree that there are problems. Because Google is unwilling or unable to standardize the OS we're left to the whim of the hardware maker and, even worse, the carrier. Of course, the option to root the phone exists, but I think that's an unreasonable expectation for the average person. The iPhone is desirable enough that the carriers accepts sticking with a generation for a year or longer. With Android, however, the carriers and presumably hardware makers as well, seem fixated on offering new devices in quick succession. That pretty much ensures no legacy support because all they want to consumer to upgrade to a new phone.
Still, unless you've got a fixation on having the latest and greatest, Android, even an older version of the system, easily offers a better experience than iOS.
The soundbite is not the fault of politics per se. It's the fault of a worthless news media that fragments every story into bite sized chunks so that they can get back to commercials as quickly as possible. Unless it's worthless celebrity news or even sports, then the entire segment is a commercial and can run as long as needed.
The funny thing is how Spotify spams Facebook's life stream with what you're listening to. I'm sure the music industry loves that, constant free advertising. And most people will just go along with that because it's a fun new feature. Privacy doesn't even enter into the equation.
Unfortunately, there's no viable competitor to Facebook out there. Facebook has stolen a lot of Google+'s thunder. They've introduced a bunch of new features, including matching a lot of what Google+ offered. Google could prove me wrong but I think Google+ is another one of these things that will linger for a few years before they finally kill it like so many other things they've done. And it's not like Google is a paragon of privacy.
And whatever happened to Diaspora?
Without question, Flash has it's issues. However, as good as HTML5 may be I still think Flash is superior. It's relatively easy to build something robust and cross platform consistency is a non-issue. Build something in Flash and you know it's going to look identical in Windows, OSX and Linux. Wasn't there that interactive site for a band recently mentioned on Slashdot that ran only in Chrome? That's HTML5.
And performance, especially with graphics, is unquestionably superior in Flash than it is in HTML5. I've seen countless HTML5 demos, some of which impress, but most pale in comparison to what I've seen done in Flash. I have a friend who's been working on an HTML5-based 3D render and performance is an on-going issue. Of course, Flash has the advantage of inherently supporting hardware acceleration. But either way, this is one of the things that needs to be addressed whether it be with HTML5 itself or how browsers themselves operate.
Also important is how easy it is to build something in Flash. HTML5 doesn't yet have a comparable authoring environment. That said, this is a big part of what's leading to Flash's downfall. Rank amateurs can pick up Flash and create something. This has brought about a saturation of bad Flash. This is best reflected in the design industry where the perception is that Flash is a designer's tool. For years I've encountered programmers who scoff that the suggestion that they should learn Actionscript. Of course, this results in crap code, which gives rise to all the problems experienced on the web.
On the other hand, I have no love for Adobe. So from that perspective I'd like to see Flash die and I'm certainly happy there's a viable competitor out there. But I will lament the loss of Flash.
That would be great, if every nation implemented the same thing. But as long as only a handful of nations do it the investors will simply move their trading elsewhere. And I'm pretty sure someone like China would be unlikely to tax transactions in this manner if they can attract even more business.
What the hell is the point of reviving the Syndicate name if all they're going to do with it is produce yet another uninspired first-person shooter? Young gamers won't recognize the name, and anyone who does wants something more akin to the original. I guess EA is banking on the gaming press to remind us all of the connection, that it will somehow legitimize the remake. And inevitably few older gamers will be suckered into getting this.
The promotional poster, with it's contrived machismo is evidence that this game will be crap. The fact that EA is working on this is an automatic no sale for me. With these big budget games they seem to spend more money on advertising than they do on the actual game. They only invest enough effort to ensure the game runs, but otherwise the whole affair feels decidedly low rent.
And for the love of god, won't first person shooters just fucking die? I don't have any inherent problem with FPSs, but does every single goddamn game need to be turned into one? I guess the halfwits EA needs their own Deus Ex.
I think you're really over-thinking this. I don't think politicians are that sophisticated and I don't think climate change factors into thinking as much as you seem to think it does. If Republicans were so hung up on climate change why wouldn't they just cut funding to those specific agencies responsible for climate research. But it's irrelevant anyway given that climate research is done by far more people than simply NASA.
This is how NASA gets screwed:
Republicans demand spending is cut. They don't care how or what as long as it looks like they've cut something. Democrats refuse to cut government staff or social programs, anything that might secure votes, so they go after unpopular programs. The thing is that Democrats, like Republicans only care about the jobs of people who will keep them in power.
NASA happens to be one of those unpopular programs. You have the conservatives who think the money should go to defense to protect us from terrorists.. And liberals think all that money should be spend here on Earth. But sides balk at the big price takes, ignorant of all the work required to conduct a successful space program. They are also oblivious to the huge long-term benefits of a space program, that you can't just will new technology into existence.
The pathetic irony is that after all this we then have everyone lamenting about the loss of American technological superiority. Unfortunately, the problem starts at the bottom, with the American public's fixation on sports and celebrity culture. We've brought this on ourselves and we perpetuate it by resorting to checklist politics. God-forbid a liberal have some conservatives ideas, or a conservative some liberal ideas.
The problem is that people complain but continue buying these games anyway. People are more concerned about pleasure than they are principles. Because if they were truly unhappy with the state of gaming they'd stop buying until developers produced what these people want. But evidently tired old first person shooters with hackneyed, b-movie storylines and yearly regurgitations of sport franchises is what most gamers want.
I'm convinced that the vast majority of triple A games that get lavished with praise no nowhere near as good as claimed; these games sell well because of massive marketing budgets and herd mentality. Almost every single time I've played one of these games, I've found some glaring problems to be overlooked in the gaming press. The storylines are almost uniformly awful, not even on par with your average Hollywood summer blockbuster. Glitches are far too frequent for a big budget title. And gameplay in general is cumbersome or awkward. But I do admit that often times the production values do impress. It's eye candy and not much more. But then that's why I almost never spend money on games like these.
That said, gaming is better than it's ever been at any point so far. The selection of gaming is endless. From flash games, to iPad gaming, to PCs and consoles there are far more options than we've ever enjoyed before. The problem is that the vast majority of the money continues to go to big budget crap.
I suspect that what they're hoping to accomplish with this acquisition if what they were going for when they offered to buy Groupon. And that is local targeted advertising.
But I can't help but wonder, what's the point? You mean to tell me Google couldn't build a system internally and promote it under whatever brand they create?
Google has spent untold millions for three things: a website they'll almost certain rebuild, print publications they will now have to manage, and and established brand. It's a given that the site will eventually be tied back into the Google ecosystem. They didn't need Zagat to accomplish this. The print publication is probably the least profitable part of the business, but probably also the main thing that has sustained them thus far. On the other hand, it's what's established the brand and a lot of people are likely to be upset if they were to kill it.
So you're left with the brand. From everything I've seen Zagat enjoys a better reputation than a lot of competitors. It helps that they've kept themselves in the news with their ratings and other articles. But again, it ties back to the publication. I don't know if Google has the sophistication or experience or desire to evolve and innovate the print side of the business. If their fixation is targeted advertising I don't envision them investing much effort in getting anything else right. And the thing is that without that part of the business what's left to distinguish Zagat? You've basically killed the one thing that gave Zagat its value.
They might have gotten a deal on Zagat given that they were eager to sell. But considering the money Google must have spent why not invest internally building and marketing a similar platform? Is it more or do American corporations in particular have a fetish with buying and selling companies?
You could, if you were a hipster living in the right neighborhood and associated with the right people. The problem is that this crowd is unlikely to be sympathetic towards your criticism of Hollywood. Your dump would have to represent some other form of establishment the artsy hipster crowd despises.
The map featured in the Nature is quite misleading. Both maps use the same colors to indicate severity but the actual Cesium levels are quite different. The corresponding colors on the map of Chernobyl represent a far greater range. If the color coding had been applied consistently it would show that Fukushima is much less severe than Chernobyl. But then that would contrast with tone of the article.
Not to downplay the seriousness of the situation, but the Fukushima event has been blown out of proportion. It's not even close to being a Chernobyl.
Outside of some vocal fringe groups I don't see any overarching push to label everything even mildly questionable as porn. By your rationale people would be clamoring to have much of the content of prime time television forced under an .xxx-like label.
I think it's rather obvious what would fall under the .xxx, whatever is currently considered xxx content; basically anything you might find perusing sites like Youporn. Everything else, novels, movies or whatever that wouldn't be considered hardcore porn would have no reason to be dumped under that domain. This includes softcore and even the occasional film that features actors who actually had sex during filming. Some of that content might fall into a grey area, but I think most people wouldn't consider it hardcore porn.
It's as simple as that.
I think it's quite evident that pure capitalism doesn't work. As with anything humans do eventually some will find a way to exploit the system. Hence all the laws, regulations and social programs implemented in every capitalist nation. Sure, on paper a totally libertarian form of capitalism could work. But then, on paper communism would work too.
The problem with communism, which is why it will always fail, is that it doesn't account for human nature. Humans, like all of nature, are competitive. Humans need to be rewarded for their endeavors. It would be nice if people engaged in something productive for purely philanthropic reasons, but that's just not how the world works. Capitalism at least accounts for that and ideally channels it into something productive. But regulation is essential to minimize abuses and account for exceptions to the rule.
The basic fact is that more people have prospered under capitalism than other any other system in the history of humanity. Who can look at the developed world and not agree that people are enjoying an extremely comfortable existence? Of course, the better off people are, the lower their threshold for pain becomes. I can't count the times I've encountered people, decked out with designer clothing and equipped with the latest gadgets, whining about how unfortunate they are, how the man is constantly oppressing them.
A friend once made an interesting observation: communism works at the familial level. This is something I've observed time and time again. Families who pool resources and help each other tend to be more successful. This is one of the reasons, although certainly not the only one, why so Chinese thrive in the US. In a lot of other cultures, especially amongst Americans, there's more of an attitude of every man for himself. Either that or children, those in their 20s and up, merely leech of their parents and don't really contribute to the family. On a larger level, capitalism takes over. And the fact is that Chinese are extremely capitalist. Communism in China is there mostly to ensure social order. The Chinese economy only began to thrive once capitalist ideals were permitted and they even went as far to allow privatization of some formerly government-run businesses.
Another very important thing is that in Asia people value education highly. People tend to have a strong work ethic. Welfare programs are based around employing people, not handing out money. So they aren't perpetuating a culture of dependency. Socialism is great, as long as citizens are consistently paying into it and only taking advantage of it as a last resort.
The problem in the West is that there's this expectation that the government is going to be there for every little problem. And even worse, there exists this expectation that the government can guarantee jobs and countless generous benefits. Look at Greece where the majority of the citizens are employed by the government. How did anyone believe that was sustainable? It's like an attempt perpetual motion machine. But the people have become so dependent on the government that they refuse to accept needed change.
Not that things are anything close to perfect in the developed nations of Asia, but I think they've struck a far better balance than the United States and most of Europe. But as I've mentioned, I think much of Asia's success is due to the attitude of the people.
My understanding when this merger was first announced wasn't that T-Mobile was doing poorly, but rather that the company wasn't doing as well as Deutsche Telecom had hoped. The lack of the iPhone was likely one of the things that hurt them. But ultimately the impression I got was that Deutsche Telecom couldn't be bothered with T-Mobile.
I'm with AT&T. Not because I have any love for them, but because there's no better alternative. Verizon offers no better coverage in this area and their business practices are every bit as despicable as AT&T's. Actually, I've never had billing issues with AT&T, but friends with Verizon have had numerous problems. I've seriously considered T-Mobile, but their coverage, unfortunately is inferior to AT&T's. I've had first hand experiences of being side-by-side with T-Mobile users where I could use my phone and they got no reception with theirs. The fact that there are a lot of NIMBYs in this area ensures that newcomers are going to have a very hard time getting established. Otherwise, they're very attractive as they offer better prices and packages than almost anyone else.
But then, if the government shows little concern for a company like Bank of America, why are they going to really be concerned about what AT&T does? Has BoA lined the right pockets or is this all simply for show? Once the people have forgotten about this the merger will go ahead anyway.
I never had the impression that T-Mobile was in any danger of going out of business. I mean, if they're profitable they're profitable, even if that margin isn't huge. If this merger fails to go through and T-Mobile finally got the iPhone perhaps they'd have a chance of becoming a stronger competitor. If the people at Virgin Mobile see a market here in the States what's the problem with T-Mobile?
Japan and Europe haven't figured out some great secret of population control. It's simply that the more wealthy a nation becomes the less it's citizens reproduce. China is one of the few nations in the world that actually enforced population control. It helped keep population in check, but then so did starvation, war and inept government policies over the last century. The interesting thing in China is that increased affluence is also leading to a decline in childbirth. And coupled with the irrational value they place in boys over girls has lead to a situation where China has far more men than women. But beyond that, the Chinese government has already become concerned with the prospect of population decline, that future generations would be able to sustain the nation, it's social programs and public works projects.
And the real problem there has always been that everyone has been crammed into cities while the rest of the country is considerable more sparse. Even with the population they have there numerous apartment developments that sit vacant and cities built around factories that have become ghost towns when those factories closed.
Japan has already been suffering from the consequences of population decline for a long time and it's going to get worse. It's such a big concern that they're offering money to couples who have children. Every developed nation in Asia ranks near the bottom for birthrates. Most of Europe isn't far behind. If non-immigrant birthrates were counted in the US I'm quite certain they'd be pretty low too. Of course Europe, but especially the US still has a strong immigrant population that reproduces more readily. In the long run, that may prove to be a very good thing.
It's also been shown that the developed world produces more than enough food to feed the world's entire population. The problem isn't a lack of food, it's corruption in third world nations. It's no secret that much of what we donate to Africa never makes it into the hands of the people who need it.
As for other resources, well, fossil fuels are a concern. But there are numerous methods for generating electricity that are not dependent on fossil fuels and use largely renewable resources. And electricity is probably the most important resource we have.
I recently read Ringworld and found it quaint that the big concern was unchecked population growth. I think it's been sufficiently proven that population will never grow incessantly. There are far too many forces in play here influencing growth. I'm convinced that we're at a point where a blanket implementation birth control is unnecessary. What is important are things like the economy and the careful management of resources.
I don't have an inherent problem with games that feature microtransactions. Provided, however, that the core game is free and that the game isn't specifically designed to be so tedious as to require those purchases to make the game playable.
I personally can't stand games with microtransactions. That's why I don't play them. I don't really understand what's so difficult to figure out here... A game is not a necessity. It's not like food, insurance or fossil fuels. Don't like it, don't play the damn game. If everyone followed this mantra microtransactions would go away. But a lot of people obviously don't care or are not principled enough to do something about it. So it gets forced on the rest of us, who evidently are in the minority.
Marketing absolutely is driving the success of the iPad. People have been trained to believe that the iPad is the device they want. Every single bit of functionality you list can easily be accomplished by virtually any Android tablet. But the average consumer defaults to the iPad without even thinking. I bet most consumers don't even cross shop. It could be argued that coolness isn't the factor in these purchases but certainly people are being driven by herd mentality.
Other factors come into play after purchase, like build quality and performance. But in that case I'd say for most people the decision to buy an iPad is proven to be a good one.
Whether or not American companies do their manufacturing in China, Chinese companies will continue their environmentally harmful practices. It's convenient to blame Americans and the West for everything but the Chinese were doing this sort of thing long before we set up factories there. They simply don't care, economic growth is more important than anything else.
That said, it frustrates me to no end that American companies are not held accountable for what their manufacturers in China do. Every time some defective product pops up inevitably the American corporation foists all the blame on the Chinese manufacturer. Yes, the Chinese manufacturer screwed up, but why isn't the American company doing a better job of oversight?
The thing is that if Americans were forced to face the consequences of outsourcing more directly some of them might be more inclined to keep that manufacturing here. I'm even inclined to believe that all products manufactured in China that could have made in the US should have tariffs applied to them. Equalize the cost so that outsourcing doesn't look quite so attractive to the dolts in management looking to cut costs because it will secure them a promotion.
I am pleasantly surprised to hear this news.
I can't help but wonder what lead to this; if this was a matter of AT&T not making contributions to the right politicians, not being as connected as a company like GE, or not being in an industry like finance or healthcare. I'd say Bank of America gets away with far worse and not only are they not investigated but they're rewarded with bailouts. Of course, this all could be for show and the merger will end up going through anyway.
I think it reflects a sad state of affairs in this country that we would even be surprised by this turn of events and that I'm inclined to assume the worst.
It's true that they've made some very insightful connections long ago. But so have the Europeans. It's just that it's the current fad to be into Chinese medicine. And from experience I've found a lot of it to be flat out wrong or at least misguided.
I mean, if they had it all figured out China should have the longest life expectancy on earth, and they don't. Although, I'm not discounting Chinese doctors either, because much of what they do is indeed effective. But I wouldn't be surprised if more Americans got acupuncture than Chinese did. The fact is that when someone in Asia gets sick, they go to a regular doctor like us and get prescribed the same kinds of medicine we get.
If anything, they medicate even more heavily than American doctors do. Get a cold here and the doctor tells you to take tylenol. In Asia you get a cold and they'll give you several different pills; aggressive fever reducers, sleeping pills, a couple of others for various symptoms and antibiotics for good measure