...is what this economic system is called. Private ownership of industry with total government control and regulation. You fuck over a school district? You will pay fines to the Feds because they say so. When things go south, the Feds just blame all our problems on industry, and continue to fuck things up.
Wrong. If there were total government control over anything then we wouldn't see these types of shenanigans everywhere we look, because even fascists are less obviously biased in favor of big business than our government. Our system is capitalism run amok, with complete and utter regulatory incompetence and impotence overseeing it. That's not fascism, just failure.
Yeah, right. If they charged 400% of what was allowed, the fine should be at least 400% of that 400% (and then some, for chronic offenders, or 4000% - multiply their BS by a factor of ten), with a hefty portion of that going to the injured party. If we can penalize individual citizens with punitive prison terms that are the harshest in the Western world, in the name of deterrence, why can't we levy equally crippling fines against giant corporations who continue to prey on us with impunity? If you don't hit the big dogs on their bottom line they'll continue to do as they please and simply consider the prevailing, easily absorbed fines a part of the cost of doing business, rather than truly trying to play by the rules we set.
I'd declare a national Guinness day, when all bars and restaurants that serve Guinness would be required to give away free pints to anyone who asked. But I'm not getting elected either (yet), so this whole damn topic is irrelevant. Love him or hate him, Gary Johnson has the same chance of being elected as my dead grandmother, so why not talk about something more realistic, like the pyramids on Mars or the possibility of there already being buildings on the moon, or plasma TVs making a comeback.
what little they were not getting anyway... so more of my financial transactions (I am a Brit) will be copied over the pond to the NSA.
Make no mistake about it, the NSA has access to damn near everything going on in friendly nations already. Whether through negotiated channels or unsanctioned spying, the NSA knows what goes on in the UK, Germany, France, Canada, and many other countries. When it comes to their stated mission of security, and their failures, the problem is information overload, not a lack of information.
"See, international investors keep investing in the UK, even after we've decided to leave the EU."
Not sure of your angle, and I don't know the ins and outs of British payment systems, but the price of just over a billion dollars makes it appear to be an intriguing investment for MasterCard. Of course if the UK's economy completely tanks it wouldn't look like such a good investment, but if VocalLink is as big as I think it is this sure looks like a bargain from where I sit.
Maybe the prevailing domestic concern (on your side of the pond) is not continued "investment" as much as national assets being sold off, if I'm reading it right?
I'm not familiar with the phrase "curry-laden shithole," whether in reference to the UK, or to England or otherwise. Is that a racist thing? Sorry, I'm much better at spotting racism here in the good ol' U S of A due to being more accustomed to it and it generally not being very clever (not that "curry-laden" leaves me completely bewildered, obviously).
I've considered going back to cable or satellite, but only because of NBA basketball and MLB baseball. I miss those live games, but I can't bring myself to go back just for that. I did subscribe to Sling TV during the latter part of the last NBA season and the playoffs (and watched little else via Sling), but that's it for me - no cable since 2010, and I even cancelled Netflix last month due to never watching it. My antenna and the odd torrent are enough TV it seems.
Full and true a la carte TV would probably sway me, for a few channels anyway, but I have no real intention of ever going back to traditional cable or satellite.
What they mean is:
"We want to get as much business from poor people as we can, even the ones whose service we shut off all the time for not being able to pay their bills in full and on time. And they'll bitch to us and about us less when their service runs out, just like with the "pay until you're too broke to pay for a while" cell phones they've become accustomed to. This low-end service is better (for us) than low-income customers giving up on our expensive services completely because we've priced them out."
Maybe he means the EGR system was overactive??? Clearly not the case, as it would be great if internal combustion engines would burn ALL the fumes. (And clearly not what the previous anonymous coward meant, of course)
You hit the nail on the head. Whether it was about the cats or not I don't know. But this whole scandal was definitely deliberate and probably needless, meaning it could only have been about cutting costs.
Don't cry for VW. They're the world's largest automaker...
Clearly you are confusing VW with Toyota, who are still the world's biggest automaker.
I can't comment on the rest of your manifesto, other than to say I have no idea why you are so interested in how the Phaeton was destined to be a phailure from the beginning. Every automaker makes mistakes, some dumber and more costly than others, so it is the successes that drive them. VW will survive this with a black eye (or two), and I will continue to test drive Audis every time I'm in the market for a new car. (More VW-branded AWD options might finally convince me to go German, as I like Audis but find them a tad over priced and overly expensive to maintain, and winter brings too much snow to my area for me to spend big bucks on a 2WD car.)
One dealer said the group was told that early testing of a small sample of repaired cars showed that the fix made 'no discernible difference' in the cars' mileage, horsepower or torque.
Surely some folks will throw their stock VWs on a dyno before and after, right? I'm skeptical that tweaking the computers and adding bigger cats can significantly lower emissions while not impacting HP, torque, and mpg. Or does "discernible" only refer to butt dyno results? $14 billion (or whatever it is up to) sounds like an impressively large sum, but the unknown impact on resale values is something that can only be revealed in time.
I must say, VW prices have begun to look attractive to me, and the cheating cars are still good, solid cars, but I can't buy a vehicle I intend to drive for 2-5 years without having some idea of what I'll be able to get back at the end of that term.
I happen to still be employed by Cyanogen, Inc and work on the OS side so take the rumors with a grain of salt.
Employees will know more after Tuesday.
I hope you're being truthful, but given that you posted anonymously your comment carries absolutely zero credibility. Care to be more convincing? I WANT to believe.
136 employees before layoffs? Amazon could absorb that in a DAY and not even blink. I'm not exaggerating.
Maybe so, but I don't care much about Amazon firing or hiring 30 people, because they don't produce/polish my mobile operating system. Granted, I'm sure someone will successfully fork CyanogenMod if Cyanogen kills it, but I kind of like it as it is, since it actually works fairly well.
Overreact much, chickenshit anonymous poster? This is indeed a big deal and makes me very nervous about the fate of CyanogenMod (whose releases I use on some of my own Android devices), but it is far from a sign that open source software is a "disaster." This is bad, and I don't like it, but it is not a harbinger of doom for the greater open source community, which has a lot more to offer than one family of Android distros.
I'm slightly confused. The summary refers to "tractors" seemingly in a general sense, but does this malarkey about abuse of DMCA only apply to John Deere tractors?
As someone who lives in an outlying suburb on the fringes of rural farming areas, I am aware of America's love for John Deere, as made clear in country music and the ubiquity of the green and yellow tractors. But this ridiculous behavior by Deere is limited to them as a company, and not other tractor manufacturers? If so, they may be shooting themselves in the foot. Clearly Deere is THE top American tractor brand, and American farmers are always hesitant to buy foreign equipment, but if something as basic and normal as fixing your own tractor is not allowed I can see a lot of folks eventually turning elsewhere. I'm no farmer but I can think of Cat, Kubota, Case IH, and New Holland right off the top of my head. No idea who owns who and where anything is made, but I wouldn't go with Deere if they don't actually sell tractors in favor of shady licensing deals while other companies do.
"Do You Install Preview Version Of An OS On Your Primary Device?"
Yes and no. From Microsoft and Apple? Hell no. Betas of my chosen Linux distro and nightly releases of my favorite Andoird ROM? Hell yeah, all the time.
People are bailing on Netflix due to content restriction and the killing of VPN. Still more economical than YouTube RED!
Netflix is probably also a lot better than a dog turd sandwich, but between those two things and YT Red, that's three things I have no inclination to pay money for.
(The comparison between dog turd sandwiches and Youtube Red is very debatable, of course, but that's not the point.)
I seem to remember being told at the time that as a current subscriber I would be able to keep my current rate for a rather long period of time...ah yes here it is 5/9/14 "Hi user,
In order to continue adding more movies and TV shows, we are increasing our price from $7.99 to $8.99 for new members. As a thank you for being a member of Netflix already, we guarantee that your plan and price will not change for two years.
You can review your membership details at any time by visiting Your Account. As always, if you have questions, we are happy to answer them. Please call us at any time at 1-888-357-1516.
â"The Netflix Team"
So a bunch of people just forgot they had a very generous 2 year warning of a price hike and were caught unawares? I wouldn't call it ungrandfathering as It was a time limited price guarantee.
Ungrandfathering is when the city decides your house built in the 1850's is too close to the road and must be demolished in 2016 dispite being grandfathered in on the new rules in 1975.
Call it what you will, but they are increasing people's rates and trying to tell them they didn't because it technically happened two years ago. When the charge on someone's bank statement goes up, they rightfully see it as an increase, and that is the bottom line here. I cancelled recently, mainly because I found myself going weeks at a time without using the service, but the increase sure didn't help them retain my business. This may not be a case of pissing on my head and telling me it's raining, but it is a case of pissing into a bucket two years ago, dumping it on my head now, telling me I was lucky to stay dry for two years, and not giving me any content I want to watch, so I either way I don't need them.
Whether you raise my rate because of an "impending new price increase" that you disclaim or "the completion of two years of grandfathering," the result is that you are requiring me to pay more now, so it is the same either way for the consumer, duh. Of course the price increase is minimal and not my main reason for cancelling service last month, but it surely doesn't improve my experience. I cancelled my account mainly because Netflix is soooo ungodly slow to add new content, and I have long since burned through most of what I was initially interested in (I'm picky and don't just watch everything that is available). It also doesn't help that the interface on my Android media box is so incredibly awful with a remote, but it is more about the lack of stuff I want to watch.
If I really want to dig to find something unspecific, I have an Amazon Prime account, albeit mainly for other reasons. I'm mostly content with free OTA TV, Prime, and an occasional torrent or Redbox rental, and I subscribe to Sling TV during the NBA season. So Netflix, if you don't give me any compelling reason to subscribe to your service anymore, I won't. AT&T (evil) now suddenly enforcing limits on my downstream traffic sure doesn't help your case.
"Unit three thousand twenty one is warming
Makes a humming sound, when its circuits
Duplicate emotions, and a sense of coldness detaches
As it tries to comfort your sadness...
One more robot learns to be
Something more than a machine
When it tries the way it does
Makes it seem like it can love
Cause it's hard to say what's real
When you know the way you feel
Is it wrong to think it's love
When it tries the way it does..."
--One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21 by The Flaming Lips
How advanced is the AI? Is it "thinking?"
Slashdot Mirror
...is what this economic system is called. Private ownership of industry with total government control and regulation. You fuck over a school district? You will pay fines to the Feds because they say so. When things go south, the Feds just blame all our problems on industry, and continue to fuck things up.
Wrong. If there were total government control over anything then we wouldn't see these types of shenanigans everywhere we look, because even fascists are less obviously biased in favor of big business than our government. Our system is capitalism run amok, with complete and utter regulatory incompetence and impotence overseeing it. That's not fascism, just failure.
Yeah, right. If they charged 400% of what was allowed, the fine should be at least 400% of that 400% (and then some, for chronic offenders, or 4000% - multiply their BS by a factor of ten), with a hefty portion of that going to the injured party. If we can penalize individual citizens with punitive prison terms that are the harshest in the Western world, in the name of deterrence, why can't we levy equally crippling fines against giant corporations who continue to prey on us with impunity? If you don't hit the big dogs on their bottom line they'll continue to do as they please and simply consider the prevailing, easily absorbed fines a part of the cost of doing business, rather than truly trying to play by the rules we set.
I'd declare a national Guinness day, when all bars and restaurants that serve Guinness would be required to give away free pints to anyone who asked. But I'm not getting elected either (yet), so this whole damn topic is irrelevant. Love him or hate him, Gary Johnson has the same chance of being elected as my dead grandmother, so why not talk about something more realistic, like the pyramids on Mars or the possibility of there already being buildings on the moon, or plasma TVs making a comeback.
oops, if it is read before delivery I mean
wouldn't the person who is expecting to receive it kind of, you know, notice?
Not if your VOIP is hacked and you aren't immediately aware of it.
There is no Zuul... only phone.
All your phones are belong to Zuul? Uh oh...
what little they were not getting anyway ... so more of my financial transactions (I am a Brit) will be copied over the pond to the NSA.
Make no mistake about it, the NSA has access to damn near everything going on in friendly nations already. Whether through negotiated channels or unsanctioned spying, the NSA knows what goes on in the UK, Germany, France, Canada, and many other countries. When it comes to their stated mission of security, and their failures, the problem is information overload, not a lack of information.
"See, international investors keep investing in the UK, even after we've decided to leave the EU."
Not sure of your angle, and I don't know the ins and outs of British payment systems, but the price of just over a billion dollars makes it appear to be an intriguing investment for MasterCard. Of course if the UK's economy completely tanks it wouldn't look like such a good investment, but if VocalLink is as big as I think it is this sure looks like a bargain from where I sit.
Maybe the prevailing domestic concern (on your side of the pond) is not continued "investment" as much as national assets being sold off, if I'm reading it right?
I'm not familiar with the phrase "curry-laden shithole," whether in reference to the UK, or to England or otherwise. Is that a racist thing? Sorry, I'm much better at spotting racism here in the good ol' U S of A due to being more accustomed to it and it generally not being very clever (not that "curry-laden" leaves me completely bewildered, obviously).
LOL. Merkel better get right on that. But she has more pressing things to do, like let 100,000 more "refugees" in to further destroy the country.
Mr Trump, you can't hide behind the AC tag here, we can spot your populism-shrouded, bigoted, and blatantly off-topic views a mile away.
I've considered going back to cable or satellite, but only because of NBA basketball and MLB baseball. I miss those live games, but I can't bring myself to go back just for that. I did subscribe to Sling TV during the latter part of the last NBA season and the playoffs (and watched little else via Sling), but that's it for me - no cable since 2010, and I even cancelled Netflix last month due to never watching it. My antenna and the odd torrent are enough TV it seems.
Full and true a la carte TV would probably sway me, for a few channels anyway, but I have no real intention of ever going back to traditional cable or satellite.
What they mean is:
"We want to get as much business from poor people as we can, even the ones whose service we shut off all the time for not being able to pay their bills in full and on time. And they'll bitch to us and about us less when their service runs out, just like with the "pay until you're too broke to pay for a while" cell phones they've become accustomed to. This low-end service is better (for us) than low-income customers giving up on our expensive services completely because we've priced them out."
Maybe he means the EGR system was overactive??? Clearly not the case, as it would be great if internal combustion engines would burn ALL the fumes. (And clearly not what the previous anonymous coward meant, of course)
You hit the nail on the head. Whether it was about the cats or not I don't know. But this whole scandal was definitely deliberate and probably needless, meaning it could only have been about cutting costs.
Don't cry for VW. They're the world's largest automaker ...
Clearly you are confusing VW with Toyota, who are still the world's biggest automaker.
I can't comment on the rest of your manifesto, other than to say I have no idea why you are so interested in how the Phaeton was destined to be a phailure from the beginning. Every automaker makes mistakes, some dumber and more costly than others, so it is the successes that drive them. VW will survive this with a black eye (or two), and I will continue to test drive Audis every time I'm in the market for a new car. (More VW-branded AWD options might finally convince me to go German, as I like Audis but find them a tad over priced and overly expensive to maintain, and winter brings too much snow to my area for me to spend big bucks on a 2WD car.)
One dealer said the group was told that early testing of a small sample of repaired cars showed that the fix made 'no discernible difference' in the cars' mileage, horsepower or torque.
Surely some folks will throw their stock VWs on a dyno before and after, right? I'm skeptical that tweaking the computers and adding bigger cats can significantly lower emissions while not impacting HP, torque, and mpg. Or does "discernible" only refer to butt dyno results? $14 billion (or whatever it is up to) sounds like an impressively large sum, but the unknown impact on resale values is something that can only be revealed in time. I must say, VW prices have begun to look attractive to me, and the cheating cars are still good, solid cars, but I can't buy a vehicle I intend to drive for 2-5 years without having some idea of what I'll be able to get back at the end of that term.
I happen to still be employed by Cyanogen, Inc and work on the OS side so take the rumors with a grain of salt.
Employees will know more after Tuesday.
I hope you're being truthful, but given that you posted anonymously your comment carries absolutely zero credibility. Care to be more convincing? I WANT to believe.
136 employees before layoffs? Amazon could absorb that in a DAY and not even blink. I'm not exaggerating.
Maybe so, but I don't care much about Amazon firing or hiring 30 people, because they don't produce/polish my mobile operating system. Granted, I'm sure someone will successfully fork CyanogenMod if Cyanogen kills it, but I kind of like it as it is, since it actually works fairly well.
Overreact much, chickenshit anonymous poster? This is indeed a big deal and makes me very nervous about the fate of CyanogenMod (whose releases I use on some of my own Android devices), but it is far from a sign that open source software is a "disaster." This is bad, and I don't like it, but it is not a harbinger of doom for the greater open source community, which has a lot more to offer than one family of Android distros.
I'm slightly confused. The summary refers to "tractors" seemingly in a general sense, but does this malarkey about abuse of DMCA only apply to John Deere tractors?
As someone who lives in an outlying suburb on the fringes of rural farming areas, I am aware of America's love for John Deere, as made clear in country music and the ubiquity of the green and yellow tractors. But this ridiculous behavior by Deere is limited to them as a company, and not other tractor manufacturers? If so, they may be shooting themselves in the foot. Clearly Deere is THE top American tractor brand, and American farmers are always hesitant to buy foreign equipment, but if something as basic and normal as fixing your own tractor is not allowed I can see a lot of folks eventually turning elsewhere. I'm no farmer but I can think of Cat, Kubota, Case IH, and New Holland right off the top of my head. No idea who owns who and where anything is made, but I wouldn't go with Deere if they don't actually sell tractors in favor of shady licensing deals while other companies do.
"Do You Install Preview Version Of An OS On Your Primary Device?"
Yes and no. From Microsoft and Apple? Hell no. Betas of my chosen Linux distro and nightly releases of my favorite Andoird ROM? Hell yeah, all the time.
People are bailing on Netflix due to content restriction and the killing of VPN. Still more economical than YouTube RED!
Netflix is probably also a lot better than a dog turd sandwich, but between those two things and YT Red, that's three things I have no inclination to pay money for.
(The comparison between dog turd sandwiches and Youtube Red is very debatable, of course, but that's not the point.)
I seem to remember being told at the time that as a current subscriber I would be able to keep my current rate for a rather long period of time...ah yes here it is 5/9/14 "Hi user,
In order to continue adding more movies and TV shows, we are increasing our price from $7.99 to $8.99 for new members. As a thank you for being a member of Netflix already, we guarantee that your plan and price will not change for two years.
You can review your membership details at any time by visiting Your Account. As always, if you have questions, we are happy to answer them. Please call us at any time at 1-888-357-1516.
â"The Netflix Team"
So a bunch of people just forgot they had a very generous 2 year warning of a price hike and were caught unawares? I wouldn't call it ungrandfathering as It was a time limited price guarantee.
Ungrandfathering is when the city decides your house built in the 1850's is too close to the road and must be demolished in 2016 dispite being grandfathered in on the new rules in 1975.
Call it what you will, but they are increasing people's rates and trying to tell them they didn't because it technically happened two years ago. When the charge on someone's bank statement goes up, they rightfully see it as an increase, and that is the bottom line here. I cancelled recently, mainly because I found myself going weeks at a time without using the service, but the increase sure didn't help them retain my business. This may not be a case of pissing on my head and telling me it's raining, but it is a case of pissing into a bucket two years ago, dumping it on my head now, telling me I was lucky to stay dry for two years, and not giving me any content I want to watch, so I either way I don't need them.
Whether you raise my rate because of an "impending new price increase" that you disclaim or "the completion of two years of grandfathering," the result is that you are requiring me to pay more now, so it is the same either way for the consumer, duh. Of course the price increase is minimal and not my main reason for cancelling service last month, but it surely doesn't improve my experience. I cancelled my account mainly because Netflix is soooo ungodly slow to add new content, and I have long since burned through most of what I was initially interested in (I'm picky and don't just watch everything that is available). It also doesn't help that the interface on my Android media box is so incredibly awful with a remote, but it is more about the lack of stuff I want to watch.
If I really want to dig to find something unspecific, I have an Amazon Prime account, albeit mainly for other reasons. I'm mostly content with free OTA TV, Prime, and an occasional torrent or Redbox rental, and I subscribe to Sling TV during the NBA season. So Netflix, if you don't give me any compelling reason to subscribe to your service anymore, I won't. AT&T (evil) now suddenly enforcing limits on my downstream traffic sure doesn't help your case.
"Unit three thousand twenty one is warming Makes a humming sound, when its circuits Duplicate emotions, and a sense of coldness detaches As it tries to comfort your sadness ...
One more robot learns to be
Something more than a machine
When it tries the way it does
Makes it seem like it can love
Cause it's hard to say what's real
When you know the way you feel
Is it wrong to think it's love
When it tries the way it does..."
--One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21 by The Flaming Lips
How advanced is the AI? Is it "thinking?"