Fraud is committing an act of deception; how did they deceive the computer? Did they use false credentials or something? No - he just re-pressed the cash-out button. That's not fraud, that's a firmware programmer found dead in a ditch. And to address anonymous's concerns - that doesn't make it ethical, it simply makes it not fraud.
I disagree - it depends on how the case is made. For years the boards of these companies claimed they did what they did "for the shareholders." Layoff people to make the bottom line look better, despite being in the black and growing? It was for the shareholders, who might sue us if we don't make them enough money. Move production to China? It was for the shareholders, who might sue us if we don't make them enough money. Cut pension plans? It was for the shareholders!
So it could fly, it just need to be presented the right way. Of course, I feel that about a lot of legislation.
Yeah - there's a lot wrong with this, unless some things change. 1) Suddenly the ISP loses most of their customers who all start sharing a connection; they start charging by bandwidth because it becomes the only tenable solution. 2) Your bandwidth is only so high... with everybody using it, you get slammed with a fraction of what you're paying for while others are getting the rest. 3) Your neighbors or drive-bys do something bad and you get blamed.
Yup... it still a hard choice, though. Means to an end? It's OK if your candidate wins because of advertising, money spent, catch phrases and slogans, or computer software instead of winning because they had the best ideas and most tenable solutions to problems? I'm not starting an argument about whether or not Obama won that way - we're talking about the future. If the people involved actually wanted the best candidate to win, then they wouldn't try to advantage one over the other. Obviously, people want their side to "win," whether or not their candidate was better. Who are we to tell them what to do with their software?
Right... it seems like everyone who is good at something would appreciate if everyone else could at least learn the basics of it... accountants think you should spend hours a day tracking your investments; mechanics think you should learn basic maintenance; people who work out think everybody has four hours a day to work out; nutritionists think everybody has four hours a day to spend preparing healthy meals; successful people think "if I can do it, anyone can do it" (they're wrong). There's a reason we pay mechanics and programmers and nutritionists and personal trainers and accountants... because we can't all do everything well.
The way I look at it is that if I'm going to 'invest' $800 I can get a spanking good PC and run steam on it - and a lot more, and I can upgrade it when new hardware becomes available; I can also spread out the cost by buying a cheaper PC and upgrading it as time goes on.
It's been my experience that when kids can work out tension playing these games they tend to be better off in real life than the kids whose parents won't even let them play cops and robbers, let alone have a toy gun.
Why is it safe to assume they were using webmail? All of my mail accessed on the web through a web interface, but that doesn't mean that's how I access it. The summary clearly states he hacked their phones, and accessed their email and devices.
You guys are making out like Company A and B can continuously pay each other and never have to pay taxes; at some point their money has to come from legitimate customers, whether it's final sales or from other companies - who pass those expenses on to their customers. Ultimately it all comes down to what we pay in embedded taxes - the more hoops it jumps through, the higher the percentage of embedded taxes.
At the same time I love the movies (and just got the extended BR edition), I'm sad that they weren't as 'faithful' as they could have been to the books, and worse is that it was such a huge endeavor that it's not likely to be tried again for at least a very long time, if ever. I more than understand cutting out a part like Tom Bombadil (and changing and cutting various other things) for the sake of brevity, but that's not what they did - they cut it for the sake of stuff that wasn't in the books at all.
Back on subject - I haven't given a lot of thought to 48fps except that I was under the impression it was to make 3D versions better - clearer and brighter, due to counter the effects of the glasses (cutting 50% of the light). What I've read so far is that it makes the characters look 'plastic-y' like straight to video does. i wonder how this affects BR releases... can consumer devices handle that much throughput in HD?
Get involved in regulations like these, you know, the ones where no rights are being violated? This has nothing to do with preventing rights from being violated, nothing to do with preserving the public safety... it all boils down to people doing something as useless as watching TV, and then complaining they're annoyed at something.
That makes no sense, though - I cannot control my neighbors, I can control my TV. By keeping people up at night (the reason there are noise ordinances), they are affecting the lives and health of those people. Watching TV is entirely optional.
There's a difference though - note I didn't complain about the agency itself, but about these kinds of regulations. Annoying TV commercials are not comparable to perpetrating fraud (although many commercials are fraudulent, if you ask me). I'm not saying we should do away with the FCC.
I think it's not that comparable to the CAN SPAM act, because spam uses our resources and is invasive - you pay for (in one way or another) an email account and it gets abused by a third party. On commercial television you already implicitly accept third party ads pay for the content you're watching. Yes, you may pay for cable or satellite, but then you're paying for the delivery of the content, not the content itself (unless you're paying for premium channels... which don't have commercials, per se).
I don't know if I like government to get involved in regulations like these. I can't say I don't like this particular one, of course - it pisses me off when the kids are sleeping and we need to turn up the volume to hear the show, then the commercial comes on and wakes up the whole f-ing neighborhood. But I have to wonder if this is the best use of government, and if we eliminated these positions that come up with and enforce rules against things that don't violate your rights, how much money we could save?
Don't be angry with Google for following laws that allow them to pay less in taxes than you think they should, be angry at the lawmakers that craft the laws that allow them to do so.
And also don't be angry at someone who uses food stamps, medicaid, unemployment insurance, social security, medicare . ..
"Why is it that if you take advantage of a corporate tax break you're a smart businessman, but if you take advantage of something so you don't go hungry, you're a moocher?" -- Jon Stewart
I never belittled people for taking what the government offered - in fact, I face this ridiculous criticisms all the time in my discussions with people; the fact is, I belittle people for demanding more, and I belittle companies for their lobbying efforts, and I belittle the lawmakers that allow it all to happen. I don't even consider people who complain about all the government programs and then take advantage of them to be hypocrites - they were forced to pay for the system, it wasn't their choice. But ultimately both of those 'welfare' arguments point back to the legislators who buy votes and get bought by lobbyists - it always comes back to the lawmakers. There are systems of taxation that eliminate the purpose of lobbyists, but nobody ever wants to even discuss them - everyone wants everyone else to give up their deductions.
"change the fucking laws."
Congress tries doing that but corporations lobby against changing the very tax laws corporations helped create!
Moron.
But you still blame the companies and the lobbyists instead of the people taking their legal bribes? That's asinine. Abolish lobbyists. The best way is to implement a tax system that can't be gamed by continuously changing and rewriting the laws to favor special interests. How about not giving tax favors to any company by eliminating corporate taxes altogether? I mean, where do corporations get the money they use to pay taxes anyway? Studies show an average 21% of the price of all goods and services are due to embedded taxes. Eliminate corporate taxes and see that people start off-shoring to the U.S. instead of from it. The best indicator of government revenue is GDP - if your ultimate goal is more government revenue, the best way is to increase GDP; what happens companies move operations here in order to take advantage of low or zero corporate taxes?
That's a really good explanation of what's going on, so thanks, but I disagree with your conclusion.
Most people don't do this as an individual because most people don't make enough money for it to be worthwhile. But let me explain why I don't have any ill-will at all towards these companies: it's a global economy, and countries have to compete for businesses. If they U.S. can't offer a competitive tax structure (I personally favor a corporate tax rate of zero*), then the companies move. It's the free market at it's best, and it happens even between states in the U.S., and I completely support it.
* - Where do companies get their money to pay taxes? Hint: it's not growing on the trees that are growing outside their offices. Studies indicate that an average of 21% of the cost of all the goods and services you buy in the U.S. are simply embedded taxes that get passed up the line to the government. Most businesses get their money from one source: their customers.
Yeah but filtering at the end means networks clogged up with spam being transmitted. If they want to play with loopholes then ISPs can respond by assuming the conceit that consumers are leasing time on their servers and running their own spam filtering code (nicely picked from the one available option they provide).
THIS!
My first naive assessment of net-neutrality was that ISPs had every right to charge companies for using bandwidth on their networks, and I wouldn't want to support some overbearing legislation despite the fact it might negatively affect how I use the internet. But after just a little thought, I realized I am the customer - not google, not netflix - I'm the customer and I'm already paying and I'm choosing how to use my paid-for bandwidth, so became a supporter or net neutrality, but it's not netflix using the bandwidth, it's me.
In this case, though, it's pretty obvious it's the spammers are using the bandwidth, not the the customers of the service providers. The difference is between pushing and pulling content - if I pull it, I'm the one using it - if they push it, they are the ones using it unless I told them I want them to push content to me.
If anyone in the legal system has a brain, this guy trying to get net neutrality to work for spam will crash and burn relatively easily.
That's funny, because I gave them both (Ubuntu with Unity and MacOS) a really 'fair' try last year - spent two months with each (Ubuntu at home, Mac at work), and came to the conclusion that I was frustrated at largely the same things in both, and switched. Currently mainly just using plain Debian at home AND work.
However, I just got a new Windows 8 laptop... and Debian doesn't currently (apparently) work dual booting on a UEFI system, and Ubuntu does. So I ended up installing Ubuntu again. Not really that happy about it - saw the Amazon app and it was one of the first things I deleted - I didn't even know it was "collecting" my information until the RMS post. Now I'm less happy.
I understand Fedora can install happily on a UEFI system, too, but I'm accustomed to Debian at this point.
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Fraud is committing an act of deception; how did they deceive the computer? Did they use false credentials or something? No - he just re-pressed the cash-out button. That's not fraud, that's a firmware programmer found dead in a ditch. And to address anonymous's concerns - that doesn't make it ethical, it simply makes it not fraud.
So it could fly, it just need to be presented the right way. Of course, I feel that about a lot of legislation.
Yeah - there's a lot wrong with this, unless some things change. 1) Suddenly the ISP loses most of their customers who all start sharing a connection; they start charging by bandwidth because it becomes the only tenable solution. 2) Your bandwidth is only so high... with everybody using it, you get slammed with a fraction of what you're paying for while others are getting the rest. 3) Your neighbors or drive-bys do something bad and you get blamed.
Yup... it still a hard choice, though. Means to an end? It's OK if your candidate wins because of advertising, money spent, catch phrases and slogans, or computer software instead of winning because they had the best ideas and most tenable solutions to problems? I'm not starting an argument about whether or not Obama won that way - we're talking about the future. If the people involved actually wanted the best candidate to win, then they wouldn't try to advantage one over the other. Obviously, people want their side to "win," whether or not their candidate was better. Who are we to tell them what to do with their software?
Right... it seems like everyone who is good at something would appreciate if everyone else could at least learn the basics of it... accountants think you should spend hours a day tracking your investments; mechanics think you should learn basic maintenance; people who work out think everybody has four hours a day to work out; nutritionists think everybody has four hours a day to spend preparing healthy meals; successful people think "if I can do it, anyone can do it" (they're wrong). There's a reason we pay mechanics and programmers and nutritionists and personal trainers and accountants... because we can't all do everything well.
Sure... like I paid hundreds of dollars for a PS3 and Wii (and the consoles that came before it). But not $800. No way, no how.
The way I look at it is that if I'm going to 'invest' $800 I can get a spanking good PC and run steam on it - and a lot more, and I can upgrade it when new hardware becomes available; I can also spread out the cost by buying a cheaper PC and upgrading it as time goes on.
It's been my experience that when kids can work out tension playing these games they tend to be better off in real life than the kids whose parents won't even let them play cops and robbers, let alone have a toy gun.
Why is it safe to assume they were using webmail? All of my mail accessed on the web through a web interface, but that doesn't mean that's how I access it. The summary clearly states he hacked their phones, and accessed their email and devices.
You guys are making out like Company A and B can continuously pay each other and never have to pay taxes; at some point their money has to come from legitimate customers, whether it's final sales or from other companies - who pass those expenses on to their customers. Ultimately it all comes down to what we pay in embedded taxes - the more hoops it jumps through, the higher the percentage of embedded taxes.
At the same time I love the movies (and just got the extended BR edition), I'm sad that they weren't as 'faithful' as they could have been to the books, and worse is that it was such a huge endeavor that it's not likely to be tried again for at least a very long time, if ever. I more than understand cutting out a part like Tom Bombadil (and changing and cutting various other things) for the sake of brevity, but that's not what they did - they cut it for the sake of stuff that wasn't in the books at all.
Back on subject - I haven't given a lot of thought to 48fps except that I was under the impression it was to make 3D versions better - clearer and brighter, due to counter the effects of the glasses (cutting 50% of the light). What I've read so far is that it makes the characters look 'plastic-y' like straight to video does. i wonder how this affects BR releases... can consumer devices handle that much throughput in HD?
Get involved in regulations like these, you know, the ones where no rights are being violated? This has nothing to do with preventing rights from being violated, nothing to do with preserving the public safety... it all boils down to people doing something as useless as watching TV, and then complaining they're annoyed at something.
Actually it's very simple - all companies have customers, whether that customer is another company or people or the government.
That makes no sense, though - I cannot control my neighbors, I can control my TV. By keeping people up at night (the reason there are noise ordinances), they are affecting the lives and health of those people. Watching TV is entirely optional.
There's a difference though - note I didn't complain about the agency itself, but about these kinds of regulations. Annoying TV commercials are not comparable to perpetrating fraud (although many commercials are fraudulent, if you ask me). I'm not saying we should do away with the FCC.
I think it's not that comparable to the CAN SPAM act, because spam uses our resources and is invasive - you pay for (in one way or another) an email account and it gets abused by a third party. On commercial television you already implicitly accept third party ads pay for the content you're watching. Yes, you may pay for cable or satellite, but then you're paying for the delivery of the content, not the content itself (unless you're paying for premium channels... which don't have commercials, per se).
Where do the corporations get their money from?
+1 - I don't like loud commercials, but I question the use of resources to implement and enforce laws against things that violate no one's rights.
I don't know if I like government to get involved in regulations like these. I can't say I don't like this particular one, of course - it pisses me off when the kids are sleeping and we need to turn up the volume to hear the show, then the commercial comes on and wakes up the whole f-ing neighborhood. But I have to wonder if this is the best use of government, and if we eliminated these positions that come up with and enforce rules against things that don't violate your rights, how much money we could save?
If they had their way, they'd place a value on homeschooling and then charge you taxes for it.
Don't be angry with Google for following laws that allow them to pay less in taxes than you think they should, be angry at the lawmakers that craft the laws that allow them to do so.
And also don't be angry at someone who uses food stamps, medicaid, unemployment insurance, social security, medicare . . .
"Why is it that if you take advantage of a corporate tax break you're a smart businessman, but if you take advantage of something so you don't go hungry, you're a moocher?" -- Jon Stewart
I never belittled people for taking what the government offered - in fact, I face this ridiculous criticisms all the time in my discussions with people; the fact is, I belittle people for demanding more, and I belittle companies for their lobbying efforts, and I belittle the lawmakers that allow it all to happen. I don't even consider people who complain about all the government programs and then take advantage of them to be hypocrites - they were forced to pay for the system, it wasn't their choice. But ultimately both of those 'welfare' arguments point back to the legislators who buy votes and get bought by lobbyists - it always comes back to the lawmakers. There are systems of taxation that eliminate the purpose of lobbyists, but nobody ever wants to even discuss them - everyone wants everyone else to give up their deductions.
"change the fucking laws." Congress tries doing that but corporations lobby against changing the very tax laws corporations helped create! Moron.
But you still blame the companies and the lobbyists instead of the people taking their legal bribes? That's asinine. Abolish lobbyists. The best way is to implement a tax system that can't be gamed by continuously changing and rewriting the laws to favor special interests. How about not giving tax favors to any company by eliminating corporate taxes altogether? I mean, where do corporations get the money they use to pay taxes anyway? Studies show an average 21% of the price of all goods and services are due to embedded taxes. Eliminate corporate taxes and see that people start off-shoring to the U.S. instead of from it. The best indicator of government revenue is GDP - if your ultimate goal is more government revenue, the best way is to increase GDP; what happens companies move operations here in order to take advantage of low or zero corporate taxes?
That's a really good explanation of what's going on, so thanks, but I disagree with your conclusion.
Most people don't do this as an individual because most people don't make enough money for it to be worthwhile. But let me explain why I don't have any ill-will at all towards these companies: it's a global economy, and countries have to compete for businesses. If they U.S. can't offer a competitive tax structure (I personally favor a corporate tax rate of zero*), then the companies move. It's the free market at it's best, and it happens even between states in the U.S., and I completely support it.
* - Where do companies get their money to pay taxes? Hint: it's not growing on the trees that are growing outside their offices. Studies indicate that an average of 21% of the cost of all the goods and services you buy in the U.S. are simply embedded taxes that get passed up the line to the government. Most businesses get their money from one source: their customers.
Yeah but filtering at the end means networks clogged up with spam being transmitted. If they want to play with loopholes then ISPs can respond by assuming the conceit that consumers are leasing time on their servers and running their own spam filtering code (nicely picked from the one available option they provide).
THIS!
My first naive assessment of net-neutrality was that ISPs had every right to charge companies for using bandwidth on their networks, and I wouldn't want to support some overbearing legislation despite the fact it might negatively affect how I use the internet. But after just a little thought, I realized I am the customer - not google, not netflix - I'm the customer and I'm already paying and I'm choosing how to use my paid-for bandwidth, so became a supporter or net neutrality, but it's not netflix using the bandwidth, it's me.
In this case, though, it's pretty obvious it's the spammers are using the bandwidth, not the the customers of the service providers. The difference is between pushing and pulling content - if I pull it, I'm the one using it - if they push it, they are the ones using it unless I told them I want them to push content to me.
If anyone in the legal system has a brain, this guy trying to get net neutrality to work for spam will crash and burn relatively easily.
That's funny, because I gave them both (Ubuntu with Unity and MacOS) a really 'fair' try last year - spent two months with each (Ubuntu at home, Mac at work), and came to the conclusion that I was frustrated at largely the same things in both, and switched. Currently mainly just using plain Debian at home AND work.
However, I just got a new Windows 8 laptop... and Debian doesn't currently (apparently) work dual booting on a UEFI system, and Ubuntu does. So I ended up installing Ubuntu again. Not really that happy about it - saw the Amazon app and it was one of the first things I deleted - I didn't even know it was "collecting" my information until the RMS post. Now I'm less happy.
I understand Fedora can install happily on a UEFI system, too, but I'm accustomed to Debian at this point.