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yes more legislation will come, but the Senate's not going to even vote on CISPA
you're both right. I'd imagine that the key here is that we need to see which legislation is going to come out of the senate because of this.
CISPA is dead. But there will be babies; The bills that separate and define the legislation . Senate will either do it well, or keep the same or relatively the same obscure parts. |
The post I was replying to made no point, that's why I posted "and?" and yet still there is nothing in this conversation. Is the original post accurate? Maybe. Does it matter? Not really, as long as people understand that while advertising can be annoying it is necessary to keep the vast majority of internet content free.
I don't care for advertising but I'm smart enough to understand it's necessity. |
I think I know the guy... he is double majoring in math and comp sci and is interning for Google now. He is the person I was referring to when I mentioned about someone becoming proficient in the catch rate formulas and writing them in code in a fairly short amount of time.
Could be a coincidence, but he is 21, he wears a fedora, and he has a Magikarp cover photo. |
This discussion makes me glad to be old. In my "LOL SO RANDUM" days, we didn't have phones and cameras. My best deeds are only recorded in the memories of the people who were there. Fan fiction? I don't even know what that is. |
Hide My Ass also uses the phrase “to prevent abuse.” “Abuse” is one of those woolly terms that could be construed to mean a number of different things. This is combined with Hide My Ass’ worrying practice of storing its data logs for two years |
I am a sysadmin working in netsec (formerly for large financial institutions). I am intimately familiar with attacks in all forms.
There have been weaknesses found in the past with a few algorithms but in general the weaknesses aren't inherent flaws in the algorithm but rather the amount of bits used became trivialized by increased processing power.
The current trend in crypto is developing so called "slow" algorithms that are resistant to parallelization. Things such as bcrypt are specifically designed with this in mind.
Eventually AES will be considered a bad algorithm just like DES because it was designed to be fast. When processing reaches a sufficiently parrellized state, even AES 256 will seem weak.
What you are talking about are mathematical flaws either inherent or in implementation. These are not too difficult to find and prohibitive these days when processors are fast and we can run many thousands of rounds will very little penalty in speed.
Guys like me understand that there are far easier ways to skin the cat. The mathematical expertise to develop such things on purpose is so rare there may be on a couple of people alive who are capable of designing such a thing on purpose in such a way that their weaknesses wouldn't be discovered for years. I doubt in a lot of ways that it's even possible. Perhaps once you start getting into exotic territory like homomorphic encryption we'll start seeing it due to extremely abstract nature of the mathematical constructs, but not in what we'd call conventional crypto. |
This is a panel of judges ruling on whether or not the police violated the rights guaranteed to all citizens in the US by the US Constitution. With the way our government is setup, this decision rest solely in the hands of the judicial branch of our government. Technically, our legislative branch (Congress) could pass a law which states that the police must obtain a warrant to use a GPS tracking device which would apply throughout the US; or, the various State governments themselves could pass such a law (and several have) which would apply to State and local police within that State.
In the case at hand, no such law existed and the police (or some of them) thought that they would not need a warrant to use such a device and began using one to collect evidence of a crime. Under US law, if evidence is collected in a way which violates the rights of the accused, that evidence is barred from proceedings in court. It sucks in that it prevents some criminals from being caught; but, it keeps the police honest about their methods. I think there are a few exceptions here; but, I am not going to try and delve into all the nuanced bits.
This being the case, and our criminal court system being Adversarial . The original Judge (probably a district judge) disagreed and allowed the evidence to be presented and the accused was convicted.
Stepping to the general view again, the US court system is a hierarchical system. Most cases will start in a local or district court. If a defendant does not feel like he got a fair trial at that level, he has the option to appeal the ruling of that local court to a higher court. In this specific case, the defendant's lawyer felt that his client did not get a fair trial because he believed that the collection of GPS data without a warrant violated his client's 4th Amendment Rights. So, the ruling was appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals (the US is broken up into several "Circuits", this goes back to the 19th century and Judges actually traveling around an area in a Circuit). At the Circuit level, cases are reviewed by several judges (3 usually, 5 if a review by the full Circuit panel is required) and determinations made on whether or not the accused got a fair trail.
In this case, the 3 Judges assigned to the case by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed the decision which allow the GPS data to be used in the case against the accused and 2 of the 3 Judges agreed with the accused's lawyer that this was a violation of the accused's rights and therefore the data should not have been allowed in court. This means that the original ruling is now invalid and the case must be reconsidered without that evidence. Often when this happens, cases are dropped due to lack of evidence.
Now, contrary to the trumpeting this is getting as some binding ruling, it's not. As I said above, the US Court system is a hierarchical system. The Prosecutor in this case has a couple options. He can request that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reviews the ruling en banc . This would mean a larger panel of judges from the Third Circuit would review the ruling. My personal bet is, the Third circuit will say, "no". He can also appeal the Third Circuit's ruling to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). In this case, the SCOTUS will either agree to review the case or not. If they decide to review the case, any ruling they make is final and also binding as a precedent in the entire US (other courts are expected to follow their decision in similar cases). If they decide to let the ruling stand as the Third Circuit decided it, this decision will be viewed as a binding precedent in the Third Circuit (must be followed by all judges within the Third Circuit) and as non-binding precedent in the other Circuits (they don't have to follow it; but, it can be used to make a decision). |
This...this right here.
They are already doing what they're trying to do...they're just doing it quietly right now.
The reason they're doing it, is because they can get away with it. Most people don't actually know what they should expect when they pay for services. Most people don't understand the X speed rate equals Y quality of service.
I recently ditched Charter internet because they were constantly throttling my speeds. Watching Netflix...yeah, in a very low resolution pixelated format. When I called to complain they tried to tell me there is something wrong with my devices and not their stuff. The issue was fixed for about a day when I told them nothing is wrong with my devices because I'm a computer tech/sysadmin for a high school.
They also pushed me to their version of speedtest...something like charter.speedtest.org. It was a very specific server on their network just using the speedtest.net application. Using that speedtest, my up and down speeds were perfect. Were I to go to speedtest.net and test...I was lucky to get 7Mbps down even though I was paying for their 30Mbps service.
Their next excuse was that I was just trying to browse during peak times or their was a lot of people in my neighborhood drawing off the same line. I proceeded to tell them about my issues regardless of time of day and that the tech who installed said there was only one other person hooked onto the line feeding my neighborhood. I even risked a fine by them and went and checked the line myself(I used to install DirecTV so I know a little about installing cable as well)...sure enough, there were only two lines connected to that hub. |
The only issue with setting it to forced encryption is that your client "might" not interact with legacy clients. Sometimes the torrent will take a bit longer to get up to speed but it's a really minor issue these days. Hell, I think the default setting now is "enabled" but not forced. |
I know this has been said many, many times, by many people. I'm saying it again anyway.
I PIRATE MY MOVIES AND MUSIC. No streaming. I download the file once, and its there. It never loses quality, is always in the folder I keep it in. I can watch/listen absolutely whenever I want. It is mine, in every sense of the word.
This next part cannot be stressed enough. If I like the art enough, I support the artist. Whether it's through a donate button or buying a vinyl or one of their prints or canvasses, a t-shirt or some other means, I support them if they deserve it. Most pirates share this sentiment, and that is why we keep seeing articles saying something along the lines of, "it seems piracy is helping the movie/music industry, not hurting it!"
I personally believe the massive corporations that churn out dvds and cds and digital COPIES for us to PURCHASE don't deserve another cent of our money. THE ARTISTS DESERVE ALL OF THAT MONEY. They are the ones doing the work. |
Yes, it is a thing. But there is a catch.
Netfix operates by periodically checking it's ability to serve data to you (dependent on you, netflix, and the dozen or so peers in between), and will automatically pick the highest stable bitrate (the quality settings in your user profile will change what the max is regardless of bandwidth). "Stable bitrate" means what it can serve you without having to buffer.
Now, when you force a certain quality it will only give you that rate. For people who find the stream switching from high to low quality often during playback it's nice to keep it locked at a lower rate. HOWEVER, let's say you use the tool to lock it at a higher rate. Well you are still limited by all the things you usually are, and so if you have a lower link to netflix for various reasons you will have to buffer.
Now i know what you're thinking: "Ok, i'll set it high then go make dinner and have it all buffered by the time i get back!" Unfortunately that will not work. This is because of the agreements netflix has with the rights holders of the content it serves. Due to concerns of piracy netfix is only allowed to hold a limited amount of the show/movie in the players cache at any given time. While i am not aware of what exactly that amount is, it is far short of what you would need for this method to work. |
duty to this republic is casting the occasional ballot
It isn't hard for people to do this.
Concentrated benefits and dispersed costs do not help the situation because the lobby for money is much stronger than the lobby against it. People aren't raging against tax because life is pretty good here in America despite intrusive state action. Any little cut in tax is met with loud opposition to all the people who get the free goodies.
Also, it is hard to gauge how much better off an individual would be had he were able to keep what he earned. It is easy to see the 'benefit' to the people the money goes to, however.
>not if the citizenry did it's duty.
Serfs are citizens who do not have the illusion of choice under a state. |
In some cases democratically elected bodies aren't ideal to make decisions because they're too influenced by politics (or money). The Supreme Court, for example, makes plenty of decisions that shouldn't be influenced by "the will of the people" (yes, I know it does anyway) because they're upholding the constitution.
The FCC, similarly, is designed to manage the communications spectrum in the best interest of the public, which ostensibly owns the bandwidth companies are profiting from and holding in trust/paying for use of. Give that responsibility to congress and suddenly instead of being managed in the best interest of the public and you've got it managed in the best interest of elections. Free speech ends up at risk because decisions start being made to limit discussion of controversial subjects on the airwaves. Corporations offering massive donations secure legislation like the Internet Freedom Act that have no grounding in reality. |
I can't speak to that specific claim, but it's been discovered that the PATRIOT Act has been used primarily for things not related to terrorism.
[ Government Authority Intended for Terrorism is Used for Other Purposes](
> Throughout the Patriot Act debate the Department of Justice urged Congress to pass Section 213 because it needed the sneak and peak power to help investigate and prosecute terrorism crimes “without tipping off terrorists.” In 2005, FBI Director Robert Mueller continued the same exact talking point, emphasizing sneak and peek warrants were “an invaluable tool in the war on terror and our efforts to combat serious criminal conduct.”
> A closer look at the number of sneak and peek warrants issued (a reporting requirement imposed by Congress) shows this is simply not the case.
> What do the reports reveal? Two things: 1) there has been an enormous increase in the use of sneak and peek warrants and 2) they are rarely used for terrorism cases.
> First, the numbers: Law enforcement made 47 sneak-and-peek searches nationwide from September 2001 to April 2003. The 2010 report reveals 3,970 total requests were processed. Within three years that number jumped to 11,129. That's an increase of over 7,000 requests. Exactly what privacy advocatesargued in 2001 is happening: sneak and peak warrants are not just being used in exceptional circumstances—which was their original intent—but as an everyday investigative tool.
> Second, the uses: Out of the 3,970 total requests from October 1, 2009 to September 30, 2010, 3,034 were for narcotics cases and only 37 for terrorism cases (about .9%). Since then, the numbers get worse. The 2011 report reveals a total of 6,775 requests. 5,093 were used for drugs, while only 31 (or .5%) were used for terrorism cases. The 2012 report follows a similar pattern: Only .6%, or 58 requests, dealt with terrorism cases. The 2013 report confirms the incredibly low numbers. Out of 11,129 reports only 51, or .5%, of requests were used for terrorism. The majority of requests were overwhelmingly for narcotics cases, which tapped out at 9,401 requests. |
Up until the early 20^^Th century each congressman represented around 50,000 people, now each representative is responsible for balancing the conflicting interests of some 700,000 people on average, it's only natural that all but the best equipped to gain their attention don't get their voices heard. |
God fucking damn it I hate this corporations are people bullshit. Corporations are considered "people" so that they can be held accountable for their actions and be sued. It's integral to our legal system and every time someone says that it's a bad thing they are just proving how uninformed they are.
Edit: better explanation by /u/thetasigma1355
I hate all of this misinformation. Corporate "personhood" is 100% necessary and reasonable. It's a standard legal concept that will never be overturned. It does not mean corporations have the same rights as individual people. However, recent supreme court rulings have modified the intent and purpose of "corporate personhood" to be extended to corporations as they are "groups of people". This is what needs to be changed. But calling for amendments with the tag line "Declare corporations are not people" is simply pandering to the idiot masses who have zero clue as to what they are talking about. |
Worry when it becomes " |
how much do you think a graphic artist, or a designer, should work for?
What do you do to make your money?
These people are offering several rounds of revision, and the time involved in dealing with the client over several rounds of review can stretch out. There's an administrative cost to be considered as well, be it an individuals time tracking their own projects or an administrator of some sort for a larger group.
Getting your own custom graphics done is just like anything else, it comes at a price. It may seem silly when you're trying to get some ad clicks at your online journal, but it's well worth it to grow a business or even advertise a product.
For comparative pricing, look at custom logo prices around the web. This is a very cheap price, for essentially the same work. |
My 2 cents:
We are witnessing a transition of the force of evolution that drives the progress of the universe through simple rules and chaos (or random generators), from the physical medium (us humans, the brain, dna etc) to silicon and electricity.
The singularity will not be just some event that we can witness as observers, we are all working towards it by optimizing processes, making stuff happen faster than we could before and most importantly by sharing information. It will lead to yet another feedback loop (the nature is full of them), although a significant one. |
Oh how I love back-of-the-envelope calculations:
>Let’s do a few “back of the spreadsheet” energy calculations, shall we? (I’m not trying to be a smart alec – this kind of question fascinates me!). I’ll use MKS (metres, kilograms, seconds) units throughout.
>
>How much energy do you need to generate? My cellphone battery has a capacity of 960 mA.h (milliamp hours) at 3.6V. Let’s say you can make a call with a 10% charge (about 100mAh or 0.1 W.h) at 3.7V -> you need to generate 0.37 W.h or 1332 Joules (W.s) of energy. (J = W.h x 3600 sec/h)
>
>How much energy can you generate by spinning that battery around? It depends on a number of factors not specified in the piece, so I’ll make some assumptions:
>
>Mass m = 100g or 0.1 kg
>Rotating Length L = 50mm or 0.1 m
>Inertial constant c, which is a function of the battery’s shape: I’ll say 0.8, which is generous. (This might be the case if the heavy parts are furthest from the centre of rotation.)
>Moment of Inertia I = c x M x L^2 = 0.8 x 0.1 x 0.1^2 = 0.0002 kg.m^2
>
>By spinning it up, you’re applying energy from your hand and the result is rotational kinetic energy: E = ½Iω^2, where ω is the angular velocity. We don’t know what the electrical load will be, but we can calculate how much work is done in keeping the phone spinning at a constant angular velocity (assumning 100% efficiency). Let’s assume you spin the battery at 2 revs per second, so ω = 2 x 2π = 12.57 radians/sec. (The electrical load must be designed to allow spinning by the average person: too much load, you won’t be able to spin it up by hand!)
>
>Energy required to keep the battery spinning, per revolution: E = ½Iω^2 = ½ x 0.0002 x 12.57^2 = 0.0158 Joules per revolution. At this rate, it will take 1332/0.0158 = 84303 revolutions to charge that battery to 10%.
>
There may be some errors in my assumptions, but 84303 is several orders of magnitude above the claimed 130 revolutions. This calculation is linear w.r.t. the mass of the battery – double that and the potential energy per spin doubles (if the user can provide it). It follows a square law w.r.t. to the rotating length: double that and the energy quadruples. You can improve the inertial constant by concentrating the mass on the outside. Perhaps you can make a call with less power. Still, if I was evaluating this design as a possible product, I would want to see this sort of calculation in the design documents!
[source]( |
Smaller venues generally give you 100% of merch sales. Mid sized to larger ones charge a cut of anywhere between 20%-40%, often just the soft merch (t-shirts) but sometimes the hard merch (CD's, stickers) is included as well.
The amount that the house/promoter pays you is highly variable and sometimes negotiable. Smaller bands are often lucky to get paid money for gas. Happens to larger bands too. You're lucky when your told in advance that you'll have a guarantee of $XX. You'll usually get your guarantee, but not always. There are a lot of promoters and owners out there who will burn you and you just need to learn to not work with them again. Sometimes you'll get offered a % of the door or bar tab, sometimes you won't. Often you'll be told, "come and play and if there's any money I'll send it your way." Sometimes this works out, sometimes it doesn't. |
I happen to be studying this for a music client right now!
Numbers are misleading. There were near-record "units" sold in 2010. But a "unit" counts anything - a few years ago they were 12-song $15 albums, and now they're more likely to be $1 singles.
There are record units, but revenue is down 2%-5% at major labels YoY ('09-'10), and profit is down about 10% YoY.
This is the natural evolution in digital distribution, which has fragmented the concept of "buying an album." Expect headlines for the next few years of "All-time-high unit music sales," "Record labels going bankrupt," and "Major labels merge to fend off bankruptcy, cut costs." |
because people always tout the "how can we spend money on shiny satellites when people are dying of starvation here on earth!", to which I reply "people are dying? why didn't you say so? we should all work as hard as possible to help feed and clothe them!". The basic premise of my argument being that in a world where we spend 1000 times more on gambling, pornography, drugs, useless trinkets and designer clothes, rationalising that we should cut space exploration (which arguably is more important than any of the above) would require us to also cut those things out. |
That reminds me of a story. I went out for drinks with a friend of mine who escaped from Ukraine when it was under Soviet control. We were sitting outside in a group and the conversation came around to his living conditions before he got out and some details of his escape.
Some proto-hipster douche at a nearby table decided to chime into the conversation relating the human rights in the US with human rights in Ukraine under the Soviets, eventually getting to his point that the US was just as bad and in some cases, worse than Ukrainian SSR.
Dimir listened for a moment and politely told him that he didn't think he knew what he was talking about as he and I stood up to go inside for another round. We all thought that that was adequate to shut up proto-hipster douche, but it did not. And Dimir started getting a bit pissed.
Proto-hipster douche countered that maybe Dimir didn't know what he was talking about and was exaggerating living conditions under the Soviets reasoning that it couldn't be worse than the US. Dimir (a PHD candidate in math at the time, with a matching physique) didn't take kindly to this characterization of his life and escape and proceeded to punch the guy in the face. He then suggested that he read a book and learn what real totalitarianism is since douche was likely too pampered and soft to actually experience it in such a country. |
I had similar problems that frustrated me. The store techs seem to be completely ignorant. My phone had random reboots, went to a store to fix it. They said we can't fix it, but we can't give you a replacement as they are out of stock. They asked me to go back in 10 days, so no phone for 10 days. I asked them to upgrade my phone, so I can get a brand new one, but they insisted I would have to pay full price ($600 or so). 10 days pass, I go in and they told me they never order a phone for me as they "resolved" my issue. I ask if they have replacement phones, they said come back in 10 days again. I ask for a manager, they go to the back to get him and by some miracle, they found a replacement. Frustrating.
They turn on the replacement1 phone, and there is no haptic feedback. The sales guy says that's very weird and he never saw that before, so he brings a tech over. The tech claims that phones my type (EVO) do not have haptic feedback. I got furious. My fiance was right there and she has an EVO too, so we show him her phone. He says then my fiance's EVO has a problem and she needs to have it replaced. Argg! We storm out, as apparently the manager is on vacation for the next 10 days.
I call Sprint on the phone. Here is how it happened. Their guy asked me what happened. I told him the story, and he interrupted me a few times taking notes. As I end the story he apologizes for the behavior of the store people, sends in an order for a new phone for me at that store and tells me to go pick it up there. If they give me trouble, ask for the district manager only.
I go in, they treat me like a king somehow. They give me another replacement (2nd one) and this time I verify it is working fine. I leave the store and I call Sprint back and tell them thank you for what they did and if there is a chance for them to refund me for the time I had no access to a phone. They went right ahead and did that for every day of no access, and refunded me based on the price before discounts!
Sprint Store people seem to be quite clueless to be frank, but the company seems to have a few great people that actually help. |
at&t's iphone 4s runs off of HSPA+ which is a brand of "4G" in their spectrum. at&t tried to get the iphone 4S to display 4G in the phone, but apple said no dice. Buzz words and imagery move units.
maybe not deserved but |
The excerpt from the settlement makes it seem that Facebook will essentially sidestep this by doing one thing:
Facebook mentions that the settings will be easily "accessible," but not necessarily easy to use. This makes me think that we will have to go through every "interaction" and click the "gear menu" and select "do not allow to be used in a sponsored story" (or whatever) and then confirm that "I really want to do this."
Who on Earth would take the time to do that, especially when Facebook most likely (as in: just a guess) counts almost anything more than a page view as an interaction? (Exs: Likes, comments, viewing photos, answering polls.)
Also: I'm 90% sure that the settlement is using "subset of their interactions and other content that have been displayed in Sponsored Stories" to be the same as the interactions mentioned later: "...to control which of these interactions and other content are edible to appear in additional Sponsored Stories" -emphasis added. And so, it seems to me that this isn't an opt-out of having additional interactions off limits to use in additional stories, but is only a method to retroactively prevent information that has ALREADY been used in a story from being used in an "additional" story. Sure, you only have to opt out your profile picture once, but what happens if you change to a new one; do you need to opt out that specific photo? And what if they really are going to count every time, that on a page, you vote in a poll, or comment on a photo as an interaction with said page?
We have seen this before: Now that Timeline is almost ubiquitous, I think it's impossible to delete friends other than one-by-one. It could easily be the same set-up for these interactions. |
A friend was thinking about going into the military, but they had a sealed juvenile record. Despite the recruiter telling them that sealed records cannot be found, they got worried about the scare tactics. "You lie, you go to jail for 10 years, and get fined $25k blah blah blah." When they did a search for info on sealed records, one of the Yahoo! answers came up talking about how the FBI keeps all criminal information in your FBI. That if you lie about getting pulled over, the FBI record will show this. I told them that is not true, but apparently Yahoo! Answers is the best source of information on the web. Trying to explain that not every state requires juvi records to be sent to the FBI, was equally frustrating. So I said have the FBI run a BC on them. Comes back clean. They were still paranoid about the "secret" FBI file. The one only the military can access. Which totally isn't a routine background check you and I get. But it is. |
FCC, ISPs, working together to provide "better service" with tax money. Yeah, the corruption risk of this transaction has broken my PC. They're pissed because we know it will be an "awesome upgrade to 20/20 Mb connections" which is hardly an upgrade. There is a conspiracy to keep the technology trickling to the US and other countries. We should all be on Gb connections to the internet, here in the US. However, you can make more money by keeping customers ignorant, and just "pleased" enough to not go to their competitor. |
I like the 'inurl:' function the best.
It opens up ALL KINDS of insecure systems that have been put online by unknowing people. Imagine things like webcams, for example. All you have to do is put the page name into the search, i.e. indexFrame.html will get you all the results from a certain brand of camera systems. Some of them quite insecure, giving you full PTZ(pan-tilt-zoom) control over the device. There are also things like scanners, projectors, and the like floating around with routable internet addresses that google indexes.
Also searching for '.xls' at one time would return gobs of results that consisted of peoples personal expense reports, with full personal details(name,age,bank# etc). |
The brand name has been kicking around for some time. It is synonymous with video games and so has managed to retain its value as a brand despite most of its owners over the years going bust.
<history>
The original Atari Inc that made the 2600 and all those arcade games way back in the day is long gone. The last remains of it - Atari Games, the division of that company that made arcade games, was bought by Midway in the 90s and went down with that ship. IIRC the IP from here went to Warner Bros, who incidentally owned Atari Inc from the late 1970s to the mid 1980s when they sold most of it (everything except Atari Games) to Jack Tramiel in 1984, who reincorporated it as Atari Corporation.
This incarnation went on to make hits shit such as the Atari 7800 and the Atari Jaguar before forming Atari Interactive in the mid 90s to focus on the PC market. [edit] They also continued to make the [very nice line of 8-bit computers]( originally developed by Atari Inc as well as the 68k-based [Atari ST]( that unfortunately got overshadowed by x86 PCs and Macs in the late 80s and early 90s and were eventually discontinued in 1992 and 1993, respectively. [/edit]
The console side of the company went bust with the failure of the Jaguar and the PC games side was sold to Hasbro in the late 90s.
Hasbro, in turn, was bought by Infogrames, who, in 2009 decided to rechristen itself as Atari SA.
</history>
Interestingly, Nolan Bushnell was later hired onto the board of directors of this company, and they have recently been actually working their classic IP a bit on iOS, so it would appear they are actually trying to get back in touch with the original company's roots and not just wearing its skin like a fur coat. |
I feel like I need to add that this is not the same Atari we knew and loved in the 80's. The company itself was founded in 1971 by two visionary bosses, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. ATARI now is a shell of what that company once was as it's exchanged hands MANY times from the mid 90's until now.
The Atari Jaguar was a last ditch effort by the original company to stay in business. By 1996, after realizing the console was failing miserably, management circled the wagons and prepared Atari to be merged with a company called JTS Solutions, which then sold the holdings to Hasbro in 1998. In 2000,Hasbro was taken over by Infogrames, a French company, who in 2009 changed their entire companies name to Atari. That brings us to now and you know the rest. |
From the link:
>In accordance and compliance with the TB Risk Assessment Law (Kansas Statute K.S.A. 65-129e), all Dodge City Community College students who have traveled, resided in for more than three months, or were born in any country where Tuberculosis (TB) is endemic as identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must provide TB test results prior to attending classes/completing enrollment. Any student who is not in compliance with the applicable State of Kansas Statute is not eligible to attend classes or enroll for classes, or obtain an official academic transcript or records until the student is compliant with the requirements. All students must complete the TUBERCULOSIS SCREENING QUESTIONNAIRE and if required, obtain a completed/approved Certificate of Health Form from the Ford County Health Department or other approved Health Care Provider. |
No matter what your speed is, you will always be at the mercy of the server you're downloading from. These servers have to stream data to not only you, but the hundreds, or thousands of other people in the world downloading the same thing. So they have to divide their bandwidth going out so that everyone can download the same content at once. This is why you mostly see your 1.3-1.7mbps downloads. So while steam is taking up ~2Mbps of your connection, you still have 10mbps left for your other tasks. The video you're streaming may only be getting <1Mbps of data and be playing it faster than it's able to download, that's when you get buffering. Online gaming doesn't take up much bandwidth at all, we're talking less than 1Mpbs of data. I've watched real-time usage of someone gaming on XBL or PSN using up around 200-300Kbps. The highest usage usually comes from Netflix which can run up to around 5Mbps. So basically with Google Fiber, it would take 200 people streaming Netflix to cap out that connection. This is just factoring the "average" user, people who torrent and what not can take up much higher bandwidth, but it's rare. So the demand for other ISP's to spend the ridiculous amounts of money to go full fiber a waste of money. Fiber lines are not cheap, not cheap to fix, and technicians need to be trained on how to repair and work with fiber lines, adding to the cost of going full fiber for just a small demographic of internet users. All users in an area do share a connection, but they are set up to handle the stress, if it becomes a problem the ISP should be able to fix it. For the ISP I work for (and I cannot say because of PR reasons and what not) once an area hits 90% of its maximum capacity, we can submit a ticket to our engineers to lower it by either moving certain customers to work off of another "network" so to speak or upgrade the equipment handling the bandwidth. The stress from the network comes from the, we'll call them "giant ass routers", being over worked. So it's possible to redirect heavy traffic to another to lessen utilization problems.
As far as what people depends completely on who does what when and how often in a household. I've had elderly customers who just check e-mail tell me they want a 50Mbps speed and I have to explain they'd be throwing their money away. Most single users can get away with a 10Mbps connection (again depending on what they do). Once you add more people using it, then you would need more bandwidth...and you have to factor in when everyone uses it. If there's a household full of heavy users, but none are using it at the same time, you can still get away with a lower bandwidth. For your situation I would say a connection around 15-20Mbps would be fine.
Sorry for the lengthy reply. |
That's not even true if you take the energy density of today's battery, compare it with the total energy of fuel and imply that the exact same amount of fuel gets burned. available energy gets used
Li-i batteries can reach .95MJ/kg, kerosene is around 40MJ/kg. We can assume that better battery tech will be available in the not so distant future, whereas jet fuel likely won't increase in density specific energy.
Li-i batteries fare a little better when using the energy densitiy, that is quite important considering that kerosene not only takes a major part of a planes weight, but also a significant volume to store, even if it is stored in convenient places. (edit: By that I mean that it takes less volume to put a ton of battery in a plane then it takes to put in a ton of kerosene)
jet engines are much less efficient then today's electric motors, and far less efficient then the theoretical superconductor motors if you only consider the total power output
turbofans have a much lower efficiency when not at cruising altitude and speed. This is very relevant at short distances - an ascending turbofan plane has very bad fuel economy, even when factoring in the increase in potential energy. This does not apply for adjustable blade turboprop engines, which is (one of) the reason(s) they are sometimes used in domestic flights
props are generally more efficient then fans/jets, they can't go as fast however. Cruising speed will likely be below 700kph, maybe around 600 or so
The plane likely has aerodynamic advances. I can't tell how much, but it is probably worth mentioning
All in all one thing is still sure though: These planes will never be used for transatlantic flights. The are likely much slower and even with the advances in technology it is highly unlikely they will rival conventional planes in range unless their size increases drastically.
This tech would be great for short range flights however. The speed doesn't really matter when you factor in the time you usually spend at airports and consider that the difference between 60 and 90 mins is close to nothing. The range issue is not as big, the planes that usually do these flights have a much greater theoretical range. waiting at airports is also much more efficient as the props can be quickly adjusted for the given airspeed at any time. |
How does it feel to work in one of the most hated lines of work in today's world?
You'll have to forgive the internet's hesitance to trust anything that comes out of your mouth. For all we know, you're part of a social media team trying to help convince people to use this product.
Personally, this is a neat little concept for me, but this still screams out "we are not going to stop invading your privacy, but now you can correct any potential inconsistencies in your record."
The fact that they already have our social security numbers and credit card numbers and credit score is not a valid reason to use this service. Most view what personalized ad agencies do as a complete invasion of privacy. As far as I am concerned (and a majority of Internet users), personalized ad agencies are a parasitic entity that really has no business doing what they are doing.
"It's going to be done to you regardless, so might as well do it your way" is definitely not the correct way to get people to use a service. It's still a blatant invasion of privacy.
What companies are doing with their users' personal data is a fucking sham, and it's the reason all the govt spying measures are able to get away with what they are doing.
If it were anonymized general advertisements for everyone with an OPT-IN for personalizing your ads, then it would be okay, but that's not how you guys make your money. |
Kevin Spacey talks about what he thinks the issue regarding piracy is. That it's not that we need to stop it, that the model of how television is delivered to the public is not how the public wants it. He gives an example on the method in which House of Cards was delivered to the public. Via Netflix, and all episodes released at the same time and let the public decide when they want to watch and how quickly.
The |
So your argument for G+ being of poor quality is primarily that nobody you know uses it?
In my experience, the G+ community leans more towards technical / creative content. FB tends to be more the everyday slumn of life (birthdays, look at this cute thing my kid did, happy birthday etc).
There's more content on my FB stream but the quality of content on my G+ stream is way higher. |
And here I live in shithole Alabama and we don't have access or plans for anything like this because our state government has been bought by corporations for years. What a crock of shit. You all say Mississippi is the poorest state in the Union, but their public Infrastructure is miles ahead of ours. I make better time going to MS and going down hwy 45 to Mobile than leaving Tuscaloosa and going straight to it. |
We have the power to change the world to our benefit and create more transparency in our lives.
The government wouldn't be spending billions to spy on us and send in FBI agents to subvert movements if it didn't fear our collective action.
We don't even need to come up with a plan of action. The most passionate people have already organized and laid out the groundwork for us: the ACLU, EFF, EPIC, AdBusters, Privacy International, Greenpeace, et al.
We just need to support them.
IMO, the main problem is that it's hard for many people to participate in old school tactics such as mass demonstrations and the like. Many of us are broke, live too far from the action or are constrained by our own problems to be able to contribute effectively.
But I think we could come up with something, something that shows these actions are opposed by millions, like boycotting Black Friday (pipe dream I know), something that can't be ignored.
Any thoughts on what it could be? |
They also take a two hour lunch break. I've worked in Spain and it's a lot more relaxed than the UK, Germany and France in its work ethic.
Spain may have not have been "officially" part of WW2 but it still got involved. 45,000 Spanish served on the Eastern front alone. Several hundred thousand were sent to French camps and a large portion of the French Foreign Legion was Spanish also about 80,000 joined the French Resistance groups. Thee was a ruling fascist dictatorship and there were trade embargoes that lasted past the war.
My point is that Spain has had it very hard for a long time. More so than other European countries. Youth unemployment is 56% there. |
No one needs to pony up $600. The latest and greatest Nexus, which has been since launch, and still is a market leader, is $400. And the Moto G, a very usable alternative is $179.
The actual cost over buying your own phone is much more than $2 per month. |
Even if the hardware is free, the power isn't. The storage space isn't. There is a pretty small limit to how many of these servers will fit in an ISPs location.
Riddle me this: how many customers is that ISP going to have if they don't have Netflix and the other ISP (haha I know, there's no actual competition in the ISP space generally, but humor me here) down the street does?
Netflix is a major reason that goddamn ISP has customers to begin with. For them to try to strangle the golden goose is just breathtakingly greedy. |
I contacted my ISP, Sonic.net, which, unfortunately, is only in certain parts of the SF Bay Area. They did take Netflix up on this offer, I never have throttling or speed issues of any kind.
They also keep no logs of your connections, nor do they cave into requests by agencies for information unless there is a warrant. And there support pretty much answers the phone, and they know what the fuck they are talking about. I also have always had my maximum bandwidth, it has never been up to, it just is.
I gave over $5,000 in more than 5 years to Comcast, and was treated like dirt the entire time, nickle and dimed to death, techs who try to install shitty software on my computers and have no idea what they are doing (generalization, there are capable ones, but they are few and far between), policing of the content and the 6 strikes participation, many many times when I got so much less than what I was being sold in speed, and then service goes out and they can't address it for 5 days unless I pay to be a business customer and get the priority treatment? $5000 is not chump change, Comcast, I am a priority customer. I will never do business with them again. |
And when they act like complete scumbags that seem eager to make everybody's lives worse in order to squeeze out a few extra pennies, nobody gives a shit how they feel or whether they feel their rights have been violated. |
Not to bang the drum for Microsoft, but let's bang the drum for Microsoft:
Office 365, Online and 2013 are very good, interoperate flawlessly with one another, and offer you three different pay models (freeware with reduced functionality, subscription, or purchase), and also work flawlessly with free Office software (Libre Office etc.). Contrast that to Google Docs, which is limited, has no "full" version, and looks TERRIBLE when opening it in Libre Office/ MS Office
Microsoft wants to sell software (and gadgets), and yes they used to be annoying about their lead role. I STILL prefer some harsh advertising to having all of my data (documents, photos, internet searches) stored by Google, opened up to paying third parties, and Google having the right to withdraw service at ANY time (since it's "freeware", even though you pay with your privacy).
Some examples of Google douchebaggery: Stopped supporting open calendar APIs, meaning that you cannot sync your Google calendar with third party software anymore. Fucked up Youtube by ramming G+ down our throats, giving zero fucks (G+ is more important than pissed-off Youtube users, or the thousands of people who make their living from Youtube, and had their livelihood threatened by random changes of terms of usage) Are ruthlessly enforcing convergence of ALL online identities to the single G+ profile, keeping you secretly signed on, and sharing that information with ad companies/ third parties, thereby OBLITERATING internet freedom of speech have shown, time and time again, that they give ZERO fucks about the user experience, since (obviously) they get paid by third parties who want your data, not you.
...in conclusion, MS may have had a bad rep, but I'll go Redmond any day over Mountain View, because at least if I pay MS I know that they actually care about my experience, instead of for how much they can sell my chatlogs for.
Also the Surface Pro 2 is fucking amazing and works flawlessly as both tablet AND serious PC, so fuck the Apple fanboys too- an 800 dollar device that doesn't allow me to install the software I want (IPad)? I'm just too old school with my computing to relish being spied on (Google), or being told how to use my devices (Mac), so for me, Windows all the way (and also Linux for serious computing work, but these days I can flawlessly remote from Windows into Linux via SSH -X, FROM MY SURFACE, IN THE PUB, so yay.). |
He found a link where AT&T left a list of private user information, such as e-mails and names. A big table of them. This link was public-facing, required no log-in information, and wasn't encrypted or hashed or anything to protect it.
It's a bit like if I set a Google Doc with my social security information to "Anyone with a link can view". And then someone guessed the link.
AT&T got upset and blamed the guy. They say he "accessed private information without authorization". The problem is, AT&T did nothing to secure the data. This means that you can effectively sue anyone who accesses your website if you decide to say they "didn't have permission" to access it. Even if it's an open link. |
They did, and there were more fires per mile driven in gas powered cars than in electric cars. The media just jumped all over every tesla fire they could find to make it seem less safe.
Edit: [Now with source!]( |
How is Comcast still getting business?
Because despite their bad support they generally have best-in-class actual service for most areas they serve (not a difficult task due to cable monopolies).
Comcast is the only ISP my major metro area that passes the Netflix and YoutubeHD benchmark tests. AT&T, satellite providers and competitor cable all fails it.
Not only do they deliver more reliable service than all of their competitors (my AT&T u-verse neighbors get far worse speed, struggle to watch Netflix while downloading from Steam, and go down at least weekly for hours), but they do it at a surprisingly lower price. (I pay $50/mo for 50mbps down, while the U-verse neighbors pay $75/mo for 30mbps down).
The worst part of Comcast (outside of any actual interaction with them) is their DNS servers, which can get laggy at peak hours, but that's beyond a trivial fix. And hell, I've got a friend a town over with Charter and their DNS servers were so atrocious last Friday that connections couldn't resolve at all, not even a ping. Never seen Comcast DNS get that bad (he was shocked that the internet "could go this fast" when I switched him to Google DNS with his Charter as a backup).
There's a lot of horror stories (and the trend is anti-comcast right now so my experience and opinion will likely be received negatively) but if you want to know how they keep their business: |
I honestly don't get why you americans have and put up with such shitty internet services, considering the population of your country. I mean, holy shit. I live in Romania, an almost third world country and we have internet connections with which we can download at 100 mb/s for 20 bucks. My download speed is 10 mb/s and I pay like 12 dollars a month. There is also literally no bandwidth limit. |
Former Comcast tech agent here. Turnover is so high at call centres that getting a job is as easy as walking in and signing up for one. I was laid off during the recession and, after my EI dried up, I was forced to do just this.
You only need extremely basic skills to be accepted and training is fairly minimal.
As such, a lot of people who work the job aren't the least bit tech savvy. The computer tells you what questions to ask.
I worked the job for just three months and became one of the top 5 agents there in terms of performance. I'll also note that I have social anxiety, hated the job, and became mentally and physically ill working the job because of it.
The job itself is shit and underpays. |
While that would be nice, Comcast owns Congress, the courts, most municipalities, governors, mayors, and has untold billions available for lobbying anyone who happens to disagree with their business goals. No matter how good an argument is, it will never win the minds of corrupt people.
I was talking earlier today with someone about Burning Man, a large annual "rules free" festival in Northern Nevada. It started out with just hanging out as humans and refusing to use money for anything; it was give and take as you can and like. Think of it like a huge social experiment into the ultimate altruistic society. Ten years later? They sell tickets in a lottery at more than $500 a pop, they have security forces, there are "closed groups" within the larger society for celebrity hangouts, and so on. It's a sad reflection on human nature and society at large that such a festival has lost the very thing that made it different. |
I'll admit, I work there as a customer service rep. I check out these stories whenever I see them on the front page and I cringe. I dont think I'm that great at my job but some of the shit I see on here that people experience is baffling. As with any job there's some people that are good at their job and some that are bad. Believe me we talk amongst ourselves when we run into issues created by other reps. It is infuriating sometimes and makes all of us look bad. I know a lot of people have had bad experiences with dealing with Comcast. I can't vouch for other call centers throughout the country but I know a lot of the people I work with are qualified and genuinely care about fixing situations. I wish more did. |
I didn't mean to pass judgement on the mods, which is why I said "and/or mods of /r/blackladies", which left the possibility that the mods might be doing everything they can. So my apologies for coming off as judgemental in my brevity. I'm glad that the mods use the bots to the fullest extent - I just hope that the media reports the whole story and that you can tell the whole story to them.
My opinion was based on the article. My |
In 2010, I cancelled my Comcast service because I was moving across the country. Unable to return my equipment, they told me that a return box would be waiting at my new residence to send two HD DVR boxes and a modem back to them. When I arrived at my new home, the smallest box was sitting on the doorstep; only large enough to ship the modem (which I sent back). I called and explained the situation, and they told me they'd send a larger box to accommodate the two DVRs.
A week later another small box was delivered. Rather than call back to explain how I could not fit two of their DVRs in a box that measures 10"x7", I used one of my moving boxes along with their prepaid return label. Knowing something could go wrong, I took pictures of the entire process. From the box's contents, the shipping label, and even of me dropping it off. I thought everything was good for a few months, until a collection agency started contacting me about a past due balance for equipment not returned.
I looked at the old photos, typed in the tracking #, and had a name, signature, and an adjusted weight of the package received by Comcast. After calling Customer Service, they originally told me they received nothing back. Then after providing photos and an image of the recipient's signature, they changed their story to: We only received ONE box back (not two).
Aside from photos, adjusted shipping weight (for two boxes), and a copy of a Comcast employee's signature, I had no other way to prove that I sent both DVR boxes back. I refused to pay the $300 that the collection company was charging me for the equipment that was returned.
I called Comcast back several times per week with no resolution, until finally they told me that the $300 charge was not for a missing DVR box, but for a past due [final] bill. I explained that I had auto bill pay, and sent them copies of my bank statements, most notably, the final payment of $120. They admitted their error, and corrected the problem.
Seeing how badly this was going, I asked for a letter in writing saying that I have a zero balance with Comcast, and it arrived about 10 days later. I called their outsourced collection company and explained that I have a letter saying that I don't owe anything to Comcast, and that what they submitted originally was an error. The Collection company would not accept my letter via Fax, Email, or snail mail. They explained that Comcast automatically updates their system, and until that happens no changes would be made to my account. I called Comcast back, and they told me this statement was true, and that it should be updated in the Collection company's system shortly. Four years later it still hasn't been updated. Another year of correspondence before I finally gave up, as no progress was ever made.
I moved again recently, and the only option for internet was Comcast. I had to put it in my wife's name, because I can no longer get an account with Comcast (despite possessing a letter saying I have a zero balance). Obviously, this is the last company I wanted to use. We have the Extreme 105, which promises speeds up to 105 Mbps, but instead get closer to 40 Mbps. Just to explain how shitty our $90/mo plan is, while typing this comment, the internet went out for 30 minutes straight, so I kept getting: "an error occurred (status: 0)" on Reddit while trying to submit. |
The problem here is that USB devices like flash memory or usb hard disks have something called a write buffer/cache. This is a memory area either in the pc memory or the device itself meant to temporarily store the data until it effectively gets written to the flash memory.
When you're storing data, you're just writing to this buffer. Meanwhile the device tries to copy data from this buffer as fast as it can. This is why a transfer to an usb flashdrive seems to go very fast in the beginning and then seems to slow down. This slowdown happens when this write buffer has become full because the flashdrive can't keep up with the speed the data comes in.
Because of this buffer, copying or saving a file seems to go faster: the operating system can report a successful save/file transfer earlier in the process, although the actual write might not have been completed yet. This is to avoid temporary (UI/Application) freezes caused by write delays of these devices.
When you don't eject your flash drive, and you have just saved or copied a file to it, chances are the transfer hasn't actually completed yet and the data will be incomplete/corrupt when you pull the device out. |
I've used Mac's since the beginning, only OSX 10.7 and later a AppleID was needed.
Invalid comparison.
Now we're talking about Macs, and not iPhones.
IIRC Apple never made any promises that the wouldn't require AppleID for OS updates
If you look at the way they're distributing updates, through their app store, it makes sense to need an ID (since it's through their store)
Forcing people to have an ID doesn't compromise anything
> Windows doesn't require a MicrosoftID to get updates, only for items if gotten from their WindowsStore
Irrelevant. MS in serving a different crowd (corps and businesses). Forcing a large company to have a unique ID on each machine would be suicide.
> It is if your dealing with sensitive data.
There is really no way having an ID allows people to suddenly gain access to your sensitive data. If you're not storing things on the cloud it's moot.
> Last time I was in the AppleStore, twice I was queried by their staff what we were using the computer for.
Oh no! Store staff trying to be helpful! Gasp! Try walking around in the computer section of a Best Buy, you'll probably have an aneurism.
> Also OS X has been giving up a lot of personal data lately.
Which is unfortunate, but not related to forcing people to use AppleIDs. |
Apple never made any promises that the wouldn't require AppleID for OS updates. If you look at the way they're distributing updates, through their app store, it makes sense to need an ID (since it's through their store)
Don't need system updates to go through the store or require a ID. Totally unnecessary and a personal security liability as Apple are total idiots when it comes to securing personal data online. For awhile they were even sending people's names in plain text over hostile WiFi.
When one sets up a new Mac there is almost no way to get around all the information they ask and prevent it from being broadcasted or included in places all over the machine, in emails etc.
[ They can't even secure iCloud. ](
> There is really no way having an ID allows people to suddenly gain access to your sensitive data. If you're not storing things on the cloud it's moot.
Apple is tying all their hardware together, OS X is turning into iOS and even storing data on iCloud without people's knowledge.
Apparently you didn't read the links in my last post.
>Oh no! Store staff trying to be helpful!
It was a machine in for repairs at the Genius Bar, I wasn't shopping for a new one.
>Which is unfortunate, but not related to forcing people to use AppleIDs. |
this is all anecdotal but as far as I can tell mostly true)
Most artists not on a major label do all their merch (t-shirts etc.) through themselves and not their label. They get all the profits from the merch. On the other hand, they make nil from their recordings since they have to sell enough albums to pay back the recording costs before they see any of that money (which most of the time they don't). They also get a good amount of the tour proceeds. |
As much as I love the concept and ideal of using opensource, and as developed as OO is, oocalc does not match excel for performance or robustness by a long shot. For any kind of heavy duty spreadsheeting task, oocalc simply does not cut it - It's slow, it crashes, it's painful. Try doing a pivot table on 20,000 rows and 10 columns. As much as I hate to have to, I have to switch back to excel.
Edit |
Virgin Media generally have terrible internet. I live in a town that had its internet crippled for 3 months early this year (late December -> March) with Virgin repeatedly telling us the problem didn't exist or would be fixed very soon. We were guaranteed that the problem would be fixed by February, that soon became the beginning of March and finally was solved in the last days of March.
This is a town with a high population of students so obviously it's a problem if the only time the internet would actually work is 11pm until about 10am. It was so bad that there was an actual protest held outside the Virgin Media store on the high street. Virgin however seemed to not give a shit. |
What are you talking about how are Google's audience/customers more educated than the population when they are the population? Google got to the top by a technology advantage and a strategy not to dissimilar from dumping . I look back at the Google of yesteryear vs the Yahoo! of then, and almost feel like I'm a victim of a [bait and switch]( sure you say the switching costs are low, but are they really?.
First I was starting to doubt if I was wrong, but now I realize in this case the hive mind really is wrong. |
I actually respect them, but I hate the typical reddit hive mind oh Google must be the greatest company ever. As far web-related products go, Google really does have some of the best products. I really wish Google had a competitor though. Since they don't have a competitor they really have no reason to provide any kind of customer support. I was once spending $600/day with them via Adwords and still couldn't get anyone on the phone. Sure that isn't that much to their bottom line, but most businesses that you spend $200k/year at can at least spare 15 minutes.
Also I recently had to recover a vanity google account of mine containing basically all my personal information (you know the downside of having basically infinite storage). It had been stolen by some kid who was selling it as a "leet" screenname for android phones. This guy had about 500 one word screennames for sale on a forum "screen.name". He likely had obtained them via an unrated password cracking method, even so my password was 11 characters alphanumeric only though; so maybe he had an exploit of some type. After contacting Google about it (they have ALL my info they can easily verify me), they emailed me back after one week saying that they saw I had logged in and that they were closing the matter. Well it wasn't me who logged in so I replied; Meanwhile I decided I should just buy the account from the guy at least that way I'd only be out $50 which would easily be worth having a hosting account hacked or a server canceled or whatever someone might do with the info that was likely contained on that Google account. Anyway Google did eventually return my account 2 weeks later (~3+ weeks after it was taken). |
I'm looking to maybe turn this into something. I have a powerhouse Windows7 gaming/media editing desktop (self built) and I have a Windows 7 Laptop for school (Asus u30jc, if I can remember correctly). The problem is I have always wanted to learn a Linux that I could maybe use when fixing peoples computers. I got this for free and I don't what to do with it. P.S. I do not like the Mac OS, but how can you turn down a free computer :3 (Plus I think this thing is worth like 300 bucks o.O) |
Another idiotic circlejerk post by someone who doesn't understand shit about what's going on. Flash is far from dead, and saying so doesn't negate how awesome HTML5 is. People who mistake Flash for a technology instead of an approach write bullshit like this article/post.
The only thing Adobe is killing is FLASH IN A MOBILE BROWSER. And they should. You will still see Flash cross-compiling, Flash mobile apps, and other technologies publishing to Flash player, not to mention the LIMITLESS SUPPLY OF CONSOLE GAMES USING FLASH FOR UI.
Expect "Flash" to exist in the form of HTML5 in the future. While still doing things that HTML5 out of the box does not, simply by combining open technologies. |
You have to start that early, starting your last year of high school really doesn't allow you to have nearly enough time to get any appreciable work done. Regarding what a 14 or 15 year old knows, yes, they know nothing but that is not prohibitive nor should you make the mistake that a teen would be incapable of learning material of that complexity. I am a junior biochemistry major and that recently joined a research lab working on HIV, it doesn't matter what classes you take, speaking as someone who has taken biochemistry and biology courses and I'm still very far from understanding the research at all. So you read papers (even if you can only read every other word) and read textbooks and listen to your mentor and you learn, and after 3 years of work, even in high school you will be an expert on that field.
Talking about the 1000 hours spent on the project, that is very light, I can almost guarantee that she spent much much more than that. It's likely that those 1000 hours were time spent in the lab which is plausible, but part of science research is the countless hours spent out of the lab reading papers, writing your own paper, working on the competition applications which in some cases require pages and pages of additional writing. Not to mention the incredible amount of time she spent practicing her presentation, power point or poster it takes a lot of practice and a lot of critiques to perfect it. Making sure you use every second of the 12 minutes allotted to presenting with razor precision, and preparing answers to common questions. |
except that paypal sucks so hard that my account is limited. Which means that I can't do shit with it until I verify my address which I can only do through phone verification, drivers license, or proof of address (last 2 use snail mail). No problem, right? They don't take cell phones for verification, which makes sense i guess, but I don't fucking have a land line! Now I can't buy with my paypal account so I try your way, just putting in my card info, but wait!! My card is linked to my limited (fancy for locked, blocked, cockblocked?) account so I can't use it and I only have one card! Now I say, fuck all this shit, I'm just going to delete my paypal account, but wait!!! I CAN'T DELETE A GOD FUCKING DAMNED LIMITED ACCOUNT. I have to verify my address before I can delete the stupid thing and even then, I have no guarantee that they still wont just say "fuck you, ass hole, we don't want your money" and deny my card again because it USED to be linked to a limited account. |
Very well put. I never once considered torrenting (is this a verb now?) Louis CK's work after watching his stand-up routine and TV series on Netflix--simply because it's great art, I love it, and would like to see him continue to succeed monetarily for his work.
However, there have been numerous things I've torrented that I wouldn't have paid one penny for simply because it's crap that never should have been made in the first place.
Free access to torrents is helping to destroy the culture industry and help art return to a time when true artists were rewarded for their art--not the capitalists who feed us shit in exchange for exorbitant amounts of money. Notice how acts that are only in it for money and fame (Justin Bieber, et al.) are only popular now within a very select age group, and not universally popular as certain pop stars of the past. Torrents mean the end of such capital-driven artistic abominations, and I personally will show up to the funeral to dance on their grave--to the sound of the Black Keys' newest album, which I very willingly bought with my own money. |
I'm a poor college kid but this is great. The price is reasonable and the profits go right to Louis. If you ever met Louis would you want to buy him a cup of coffee for all the laughs he gave you? I know i would. |
So I opened this thread and the [Germany.jpg]( thread in new tabs at the same time. I read some stuff on Louis' website about buying, figured I'd do it later tonight and then came back to this thread... and saw a bunch of Germans yelling German-speak at each other. I was confused as fuck until I realized I was accidentally in the other thread. |
There was a time when the very idea of copying a CD was laughable. Consider this: The Compact Disc came out in [1982]( They were pretty expensive, and the only real threat of copying them was that a person could dub a CD to cassette tape (Lest we forget [this little affair]( Mostly, though, the idea of "pirating" a CD was laughable.
Eventually, the idea of recordable CDs gained some traction. However, equipment to even "burn" a CD-R was [ridiculously expensive prior to 1995]( It wasn't until maybe 1997 that CD-R drives were a thing that anyone had widespread access to - basically, everyone in that time period "knew a guy" that could burn CDs. That guy tended to be pretty popular. Of course that's assuming you were willing to pony up the $7 to $10 for a single burnable CD . Consider that around this time, you were lucky to have a hard drive any bigger than, say, [4 or 5 gigabytes](
And yet - what good is a 6.4 gigabyte hard drive going to do you? Wow, you could rip a whole ten CDs to that hard drive. Whoopee. MP3s? Sure, they existed in 1997 but software to rip and encode them was practically nonexistent.
It wasn't until maybe 1999 or 2000 that pirating MP3s, copying CDs, and whatnot were any real threat to the recording industry. Let's not forget that the CD had, at that point, been around for almost two full decades.
So yes, you're right - CDs were without DRM (notwithstanding the occasional attempts to foil computers like your Foo Fighters reference, which could usually be bypassed by holding down the "shift" key when you inserted it). But you're kind of missing the forest for the trees here. The idea of pirating music on a widespread scale, due to lack of DRM on a CD, wasn't even really technically possible until around the turn of the millennium. Of course, by then it was too late and piracy had already taken off unabated.
If anything, we should blame the recording industry for failing to innovate. They had two full decades to come up with the "next big thing" and they sat on their hands doing jack shit (LOL Minidiscs). |
I have 530+ Games on Steam. I still pirate. Why? Because games like Homefront make you feel cheated and robbed. But when you pay for a game like Skyrim and Bastion, you always feel like you still haven't paid enough. Like the adventure and the immersion, the freedom and the beauty is worth way more than the $20 or $60. But games like Gears of War, and just really poor Console Ports to PC... show a distinct lack of respect for their consumers. Like we're just bags of cash, that they're just hoping to have kind of tag along behind them.
I'm an avid supporter of the Humble Bundle, because I aspire to be an Indie Dev someday soon, and I care about kids, and the internet and its freedom's are an integral part of who I am.
And would I pay for Louis C.K.'s comedy show? I'd pay for it twice. |
To take your last point first: Well, yes- I was referencing the embezzlement schemes and fraudulent enterprises that have marred the image of the business-world, not the business-world as a WHOLE. I'm talking about our frame of reference for understanding the world - not an objective truth as such.
As for the pirate argument - which is what I didn't really want to get into, but what the hell - most pirates are also customers. A pirate may not be a customer for the same wares s/he pirates though.
Most pirates (using the term as "someone who downloads or uploads otherwise copyrighted content for free") are pirating on account of avoiding shitty DRM, because they can't afford to buy every show/movie, because a given show/movie/cd hasn't been released yet in their region, or simply on account of not wanting to pay for a given product.
Now I also remember the a time without this kind of DRM, and what sticks out to me is that (in terms of the games-community) they used to give out demos BEFORE big releases. Obviously they can't do that anymore on account of usually releasing half-finished, overpriced content - one can only imagine what the demos would be like. But people still buy their games. Even the ones where service and quality are both terrible. (That can't last forever)
In terms of the movie-industry - people still go to the cinema, depending on the quality of the cinema, and the movie - more or less than before. (Prompting "rebirth of the cinema!" and "the cinema is doomed!" headlines)
As for CD's and music, even DVDs - with the wealth of entertainment available, with the far easier - DRM-free method that pirating is.. The old model needs to be replaced.
Hell, in my experience you can't even get most music to play on your non-brand not-overpriced mp3-player without getting a pirated copy.
See my point yet? Conning someone is also theft - and a functioning market also requires trust from the consumers. The quality of wares peddled has gone down sufficiently that people don't feel bad about taking things for free.
Personally, I sympathize, but typically buy my games/movies/music myself. I also don't feel bad if I download them afterwards because they're poorly made and don't work - but the odds of someone buying a poor product from the same company twice..
Well - I do think it's interesting you should consider screwing someone over anything other than making an active choice to take the fruits of another man's labour.
Certainly, the richest people in the world have always made exorbitant amounts of money from other peoples labour.
But that's a discussion for a different time. |
I think a "pay per listen" model would be wrong because it would create an artificial force on the artists to make shorter songs and more songs
Have you considered a career of being a regulator and telling the people how to live their lives ?
>Maybe a "per amount of time listened" model might be a good middle ground? Say 10 cents per hour? I'd pay 365 bucks a year if I could listen to 10 hours of music every day and had access to every song released.
This would be disastrous because everytime you listen to a popular tune it would cost the company more in terms of bandwidth and instead of being rewarded for the succes of the song. The company would be penalized. The company would start hoping that every artist would start making crappy songs that no one wants to listen to. |
Madison is a cool idea, and #OPEN is a lot hipper what with their hashtag and all, but none of the articles I've read have really talked about how it's all that different from PIPA. In fact, look at their own chart [comparing SOPA, PIPA, and OPEN!](
It's been a week or so since I read up on it, but from what little I've read it seems as though OPEN is a lot like PIPA so far, although carried out by a different agency. I've heard complaints that the legislation makes it much easier for a corporate copyright holder to make a complaint that it would be for the average artist.
Also, it isn't entirely clear what types of sites they are targeting. They narrow the scope by only targeting those who are willingly committing copyright infringement as a primary purpose. Does this include sites that hosts links? Who determines what someones primary purpose is? Every file sharing service can have a legitimate and legal purpose... there's most likely going to be a lot of mincing of words. Maybe this will be cleared up through Madison. What do you guys think? Has anyone read the actual bill yet? |
So here's my story that directly pertains to this article:
I have my own Amazon account, like a lot of other people out there. In the past, I've purchased a total of 6 books from Amazon ranging from science fiction (Ender's Game) to grammarian-style with a splash of humor (Eats, Shoots and Leaves) to sales strategy (SNAP Selling). I feel like this is a very common thing these days, as it's nice to have books in a format that I can read on most electronic devices, provided that Amazon has an app for it.
Now take Shannon - she is similar to me; in that she also has her own Amazon account with her own collection of books. Again, this is very common these days if you're the type that seldomly reads. I believe that Shannon has 6 or 7 books that she's purchased in her time.
Clearly you all know by now that I am absolutely the perfect boyfriend and I make sure that Shannon has everything that she needs and a couple things that she wants. Her Kindle was a hand-me-down that was passed from her family to her years ago. It was still in perfect working condition but it was just old. I like the new; the fancy; the flashy -- this should come at no surprise. So me the type that I am, I thought I would do the nice thing and buy her a new Kindle Fire so that we both could use it to satiate our appetite for reading and give Shannon the ability to use the KF to play on Facebook when she doesn't feel like doing it on the computer. It's a really neat device, as it's a blend of a tablet and a phone - not too big to be cumbersome (looking at you iPads), but not too small to have to have pinpoint accuracy when using it.
I assumed that since I bought the books from Amazon and was purchasing a device from Amazon that we would have the ability to read both of our book collections on the same device. We registered the Kindle on Shannon's account, since she will be using it more. This seems logical and rational; however, I was apparently very wrong.
I decided to go to Amazon support on chat and get this fixed. I'll make this short, as not to bore you with the mundane details that come from online customer support from India:
You cannot transfer books from one account to another (security reasons)
You cannot share books from one account to another (can only lend, if the publisher allows; again for security reasons)
You cannot merge accounts (security reasons)
To read from both accounts on the same Kindle, one must de-register account "A" and register account "B" in order to read account "B"'s books -- the same to read account "A"'s
The only solutions Amazon provides are:
Register/de-register every time I want to switch accounts
Re-purchase the books on the account that has the most books
Buy a new Kindle for my account.
I don't know about you, but none of those "security" excuses sound credible. Also, none of their "solutions" seem to be solving anything other than paying more or being more of a hassle for the user (read: me).
So, in essence Amazon is directly pushing me to take matters into my own hands. Here are my solutions (which were presented to Amazon CS both in chat and on the phone):
Pirate the books and not have to be confined to Amazon's .prc DRM
Now put books on any device or give them to friends
Learn Python and strip the DRM from the books and be able to use them on any device or give to friends
I don't think it would be considered copyright infringement, since I actually bought the books and own the rights to them.
I can't imagine why this is the only way to do what I want to do. I don't believe that my request is an unfair request or that I'm being an unreasonable customer.
Thank you Amazon for making me learn that you aren't this amazing company. Thank you for making me learn Python and how to de-crypt files so going forward, I will just make anything that has DRM attached be without. |
This right here needs to happen. I had a friend at the last place I worked who was in college and later started getting his horror novels published. I have been asking him for years to convert his books to eBooks. He finally just started doing it. We worked at a tech company. We were surrounded by technology all day long everyday and he didn't think that a digital copy of his book was important. |
Here is the relevant bit:
> Judge : We heard the testimony of Mr. Bloch. I couldn't have told you the first thing about Java before this problem. I have done, and still do, a significant amount of programming in other languages. I've written blocks of code like rangeCheck a hundred times before. I could do it, you could do it. The idea that someone would copy that when they could do it themselves just as fast, it was an accident. There's no way you could say that was speeding them along to the marketplace. You're one of the best lawyers in America, how could you even make that kind of argument?
> Oracle : I want to come back to rangeCheck.
> Judge : rangeCheck! All it does is make sure the numbers you're inputting are within a range, and gives them some sort of exceptional treatment. That witness, when he said a high school student could do it--
> Oracle : I'm not an expert on Java -- this is my second case on Java, but I'm not an expert, and I probably couldn't program that in six months. Let me come back to rangeCheck after I've reminded the Court about the test files.
>These test files were created by decompiling the Oracle code -- Sun code. That was not an accident, and not something they did by mistake. They did it intentionally, and they did it for the purpose of saving money, or time, or both. You can't look at those decompiled files and say there's no meaning in that; it accelerated Android, that's why they did it.
>Let me come back to rangeCheck. Every time I talk about this, I feel like I'm either saying it's important or it's not important. That's a false dichotomy. No one can say it's a big thing. But it was something that was copied, and it was important to TimSort, which had a significant performance advantage. Now they could have done it a different way. If you take a nine-line copyrighted poem, and you pick it because it's available, and you publish it, and no one buys your anthology because of the poem, and you could have gotten another poem in five minutes, it's copyright infringement and you're entitled to infringer's profits.
>Now, I accept that this is a much harder argument for rangeCheck than for the other files. My point is mostly a matter of principle, that I think we're entitled to make a case for infringer's profits. If I were just trying to do something tactical, like I'd take statutory damages for rangeCheck and infringer's profits for the other files, frankly I think the Court would think I was playing games. I think the case for infringer's profits on the decompiled files--
> Judge : But where's the nexus?
> Oracle : They were using this to test and produce Android!
> Judge : [missed the question]
> Oracle : That's what I'm going to be asking these people [the Google executives they want to bring in].
> Judge : So this is a fishing expedition?
>Your side did no discovery on this prior to trial, this was a non-issue, just for coloration, and now you're in the fix that you haven't won anything over that, and you want to make it into a federal case -- well, it is a federal case [laughter]
>-- but you want to make it into a bigger federal case. |
This trick is about as old as most of the money running America; however, unlike the 1920's, you don't need margin loans to destroy an economy when there is nearly infinite fiat currency floating around.
>Although the stock market has the reputation of being a risky investment, it did not appear that way in the 1920s. With the mood of the country exuberant, the stock market seemed an infallible investment in the future.
>As more people invested in the stock market, stock prices began to rise. This was first noticeable in 1925. Stock prices then bobbed up and down throughout 1925 and 1926, followed by a strong upward trend in 1927. The strong bull market (when prices are rising in the stock market) enticed even more people to invest. And by 1928, a stock market boom had begun.
>The stock market boom changed the way investors viewed the stock market. No longer was the stock market for long-term investment. Rather, in 1928, the stock market had become a place where everyday people truly believed that they could become rich. Interest in the stock market reached a fevered pitch. Stocks had become the talk of every town. Discussions about stocks could be heard everywhere, from parties to barber shops. As newspapers reported stories of ordinary people - like chauffeurs, maids, and teachers - making millions off the stock market, the fervor to buy stocks grew exponentially.
>Although an increasing number of people wanted to buy stocks, not everyone had the money to do so.
>When someone did not have the money to pay the full price of stocks, they could buy stocks "on margin." Buying stocks on margin means that the buyer would put down some of his own money, but the rest he would borrow from a broker. In the 1920s, the buyer only had to put down 10 to 20 percent of his own money and thus borrowed 80 to 90 percent of the cost of the stock.
>Buying on margin could be very risky. If the price of stock fell lower than the loan amount, the broker would likely issue a "margin call," which means that the buyer must come up with the cash to pay back his loan immediately.
>In the 1920s, many speculators (people who hoped to make a lot of money on the stock market) bought stocks on margin. Confident in what seemed a never-ending rise in prices, many of these speculators neglected to seriously consider the risk they were taking. |
This is a misleading post. What everyone else is forgetting that both the SEJournal and Limited Run's test were only shown based on Facebook like pages.
There is no mention (as far as I know) or case study for ads pointing at real landing pages outside of Facebook. I do run ads on Facebook and my activity can vary day to do on people who click, some days I have 33% conversions and if you want to compare that to 20% that are "real" users, not all of those people would buy what I'm selling. Hell, sometimes conversion rates are 5-10%. So pretty much if bots did click on my ads, I would be getting 1-2% conversions on my products. |
This is just a theory I have:
Facebook ads, really advertisement in general is fast becoming obsolete in its current form. The reason is that most users, or consumers of content see advertisements as a cost to incur before they can enjoy the actual content. The same can be stated about tv, radio, and now the extremely relevant online streaming, such as youtube.
Every ad you see is a barrier to your enjoyment of your product, be it a news show, a drama, a piece of radio music, or a web series online. This negative association teaches consumers to quickly ignore ads. All consumers quickly learn when to switch channels and when to switch back so they only have to watch programming and not commercials, same with closing pop ups, and of course just ignoring ads on the side. Remember that last youtube video you saw, what was the ad? Remember the last 100 youtube videos you saw, what were the ads?
The desire to subvert advertising is so strong companies even specialized in creating services to remove advertisements all together. Adblock anyone? And all this relies on the simple notion that consumers view advertisements as a cost. No one would willingly succumb to this cost if they could help it.
This might not be such a problem until you work yourself through the loop where money is supposed to flow. It should be consumers of content (or a percentage of them) purchase products displayed in adverts, advertising companies pay content producers to host their ads, and content producers continue producing, um, content for the content consumers. But when the first link the in chain is broken, you have to wonder how this loop can continue.
And what if this loops fails? Then consumers have to pay directly to content producers, and all the great and seemingly free inventions such as youtube will need to readapt or suffer major lose of traffic. Unfortunately when I try to think of solutions, or at least who's to blame (we all love a good pitchfork riot), I can't think of anyone that's the most responsible. I suppose the closest explanation/solution is that false, irrelevant, or purposefully misinformed advertising is diluting the advertisement market and teaching consumers not to trust them. I think it's a good lesson, for I adhere to it. Therefore advertisers need to quickly innovated, through legal means and not third-party bots, and find better ways to reach target consumers. |
I'd like to derail here for a second and tell a GoodGuyAnusDestroyer story if I may. 3 months ago there was a prostitute giving a candid AMA and GGAD was all over the place with nonsense, jokes and what have you. But the best part was when he actually got a question through. He responded to the answer with one of my favorite questions ever in an AMA. I'll let you see it [here.]( |
Unfortunately we're the real losers in all of this. At the end of the day we pay the legal bills and settlements, not Apple or Samsung. |
S3](
[Nexus](
To put it bluntly. Nearly everything on the S3 is better then the Nexus.
Hell, The Nexus can't even take mini-SD cards (Was little annoyed by this oversight, but whatever, I've not even used 1/4 of the memory on my phone at the moment). Still, honestly, I don't mind the trade off for a sleeker looking phone and to be able to get updates faster for the phone (2-3 months ago, We went from 4.0 to 4.1 and the 3 google phones got them about a month before everyone else :) )
So yeah, you're going to have to find out the spec details yourself because I'm not really too tech savy with hardware but |
This, this right here, this is why I won't buy a Samsung product. It's whinging little bitch fan boys who hate on Apple like vapid batshit insane teens in the 90's hating on Windows is another primary reason.
Samsung fanboy logic:
"WHY WOOD U BUY A MACBOOK PRO JUST FOR FACEBOOK AMB SOCIAL NETORKS LOL U DIQ!!!1!"
"Y WOOD U NOT WUNT A 42 GHZ PROCESORZ AND A DODECAHYDRON OF RAM IN UR FOWN WHEN U USE IT TO SOCIAL NETWORK AMB SMS PPL LOL U DIQ!!!" |
I am sure you have... its like saying (cisco) linksys made a wifi card. sure they strung together a bunch of hard ware, made it interface with a PCI slot, let it understand 802.11X standards. somehow the OS can take that info and translate it into something...
All of what mentioned is something some other computer scientist/engineer/physicist. It is like giving a painter a paint bush who in turn paints Notre Dame. He did not create painting, he did not create the tools, he did not allow light to work the way it does. He owes his ability to paint on someone else. The same goes with standard computer hardware. Processors existed before Intel and they use IBM standards to let their processor work with other hardware components. And it uses a VERY similar set of assembly instructions as AMD chips. |
And then turn around and make fun of the customers is justifiable?
Hardly. Apple has never done anything like this. People are very quick to try and compare this level of douchebaggery to the "I'm a Mac" ads that Apple ran. Besides the fact that Apple at the time was the clear underdog in the desktop market, those Ads poked fun at the shortcomings of the competing system. Not at the customers of these systems!
That is an important difference. Samsung comes of as the typical butthurt guy, trying to shame the customers with the most idiotically stereotypical behavior. It's one thing to see such parodies on SNL. Their business is comedy and are allowed to mock.
Samsung is supposed to be a business trying to get the customer to spend their money on their devices. Guess what is a surefire way to ensure that this will not be happening. By making fun of them. That's how.
I for one stopped buying Samsung devices because of their labor practices. And excuse me, employing Chinese workers by going through Foxconn is nowhere near as bad as owning factories where children work. And seeing on top of this how Samsung thinks they can act toward customers of a competing product makes sure I will not change my mind anytime soon. |
Which is why they don't put wind turbines on the ground, but rather they put them hundreds of feet in the air. It's always windy up there...even 10-15 feet above the ground, where you start getting away from the friction caused by the ground, the air is moving. The air is ALWAYS moving. It has to be. The only way it would stop moving is if the temperature and height of the land was exactly the same everywhere on the planet and the Earth stopped spinning. |
From here:](
>Goatse Security obtained its data through a script on AT&T's website, accessible to anyone on the internet. When provided with an ICC-ID as part of an HTTP request, the script would return the associated email address, in what was apparently intended to be an AJAX-style response within a Web application. The security researchers were able to guess a large swath of ICC IDs by looking at known iPad 3G ICC IDs, some of which are shown in pictures posted by gadget enthusiasts to Flickr and other internet sites, and which can also be obtained through friendly associates who own iPads and are willing to share their information, available within the iPad "Settings" application.
>To make AT&T's servers respond, the security group merely had to send an iPad-style "User agent" header in their Web request. Such headers identify users' browser types to websites.
>The group wrote a PHP script to automate the harvesting of data. Since a member of the group tells us the script was shared with third-parties prior to AT&T closing the security hole, it's not known exactly whose hands the exploit fell into and what those people did with the names they obtained. A member tells us it's likely many accounts beyond the 114,000 have been compromised. |
I have heard this argument before, and although I don't think our brains work that way, I upvoted your comment because I think a lot of people convince themselves that it is possible. If you take the average person who does not use adblock, they are subjected to dozens, quite possibly hundreds of ads while online. I think our brains allow us to keep a relatively short list of stores or brands where we will absolutely never shop without a big shitstorm of protest (I'm looking at you, walmart), but if you get up into the double digits of companies, restaurants, stores, products, etc etc...then I think even with a list it becomes more of a challenge to remember why you are avoiding it in the first place. I'm not saying that the idea is wrong, in fact I think you represent the majority opinion when it comes to the scourge of advertising. And if you can manage to do it better than I can, props to you. It just seems to me like it's a stacked deck. |
financial instruments are obligated to be completely neutral. If they decide to start having a voice in what I can or cannot buy, then they are no longer money to me.
I'm afraid you haven't been paying attention. Money has always been political and related to what you can and cannot buy - just the concept of it. That fact is infinitely magnified when dealing with fiat currency. Why do you think people launder money? What do you think money is if not political? It's backed up by nation states with armies, for fuck's sake. |
Bullet trains are established, and you could go and have any one of several companies come and bid. On the ground, you level and grade, lay down rail and concrete ties. You add in the control hardware, cables, and voila.
Believe it or not, bulldozers and graders are cheaper to run than building 300 foot span bridges for four hundred miles. Imagine a football field. Now imagine a bridge running the entire length. You can fit maybe 5 side by side comfortably. That's a lot of bridge. Now zoom out. You've got a 38 by 38 grid of football fields. You have nearly 40 million linear feet of steel tied up in the trusses, Each one is made by union ironworkers welding and bolting away madly. Nobody has that much spare capacity, so you're paying even more. The tube, nobody has more than a few thousand feet of ok hand, and they can't extrude it very fast, and they will need to retool. You get twin 15 foot segments per semi. So you wait and wait for new factories with new tooling to open up and spend a ton just for your pet project. It takes years, hundreds of millions, and some risk takers even to build up the infrastructure to support your venture.
You survey the route, but find that the hills are funny, so you need around 8000 bridge supports, minimum, high enough to clear buildings. |
I am all for debunking wild myths of conspiracy but I'm afraid this is not that. This is simply a proper reading of corporate double speak. To your points such that they are:
The departure was not related to the reorganization.
As companies approach an IPO they are loath to make big changes and especially unexpected changes. They are very busy flying all over the country to share a narrative to investment sales networks and variability in their story or their underlying business makes investors nervous and thus less likely to buy stock. A move like this where your lead counsel "steps down in surprise move" would be exactly opposite to your economic interests as an owner. Therefore you would be highly unlikely to make changes but you would never make "unexpected" changes in this time period unless you absolutely had to.
What in the article makes a "clash in senior leadership" so apparent?
The fact that the existing counsel responsible for corporate stepped up to his position means only that he did in fact have a clash that he lost. You are talking about two sides of the house, operations and corporate. While it is true that corporate will play a larger role in a newly public company, if corporate is allowed to drive operations you have indeed now lost your soul as the organization is now acquiescing to the notion that the only purpose of said organization is to deliver shareholder value. Reference the Onion video above. The fact that he is not making a stink has more to do with his own economic interest and knowledge that there would be a significant personal cost to his being vocal at a time where he is unemployed and likely not financially secure. He surely has a significant ownership stake that would be damaged in the IPO if he were to say anything.
As for the bit about the soul, I would suggest that championing "soul" is very different from having soul. Further I would say your assumption is too reductionist. The fact is that becoming a public company introduces a number of very complex and powerful influences to the corporate boardroom. These influences will always drive management back to one question. "Are you making money for shareholders right now?" This influence almost inevitably changes thought and action relative to operations. Off the top of my head only Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos were able to hold this pressure at bay for extended periods of time. I'm willing to acknowledge that they are surely not the only ones but I will contend that such a situation is very rare indeed.
The narrative I present is in fact quite common and I don't see as being particularly dramatic. I'm afraid it is your narrative that is far too charitable.
Source:I was a management consultant in the venture capital industry for 10 years. |
This is all a charade.
David Cameron either knows full well (and has been hopefully advised by experts i.e. anyone who knows anything) that paedophiles don't Google search for child porn. If he doesn't know this, then he is a moron who knows nothing about how the world works and shouldn't be allowed to propose legislation.
If he does know it and proposed this stupidity just as a charade to look tough without actually doing anything, then he is a dishonest and somewhat sophisticated liar and should be assumed to be lying in future.
The second option is far more likely, its a big fake display of "toughness" for good press coverage. Whilst the actual problem isn't tackled in any way whatsoever. |
Well, this is not at all a point I was making, I was simply quoting. I would think we want to keep a horrible act that really shouldn't have happened away from the eyes of people whether it affected those people that saw it or not. But it DOES affect people, and denying that seems silly.
I know we like to think people are born addicts or born pedophiles and sex addicts, because then we can say to ourselves - "They are weak, and I am strong. I would never make choices THAT bad, I just like to relax." But as someone that actually works in counseling addiction - it is a road like any other with choices and turn offs. Some people choose to stop and never go further than 'I just smoke up a few times a week' and that's great, good for them. But it does make it EASIER to say, 'weed is reviled as a horrible drug, it doesn't really do anything bad, and this friend just offered me some cocaine, I might as well try it." And then you try cocaine, and it makes you feel great and you realize it isn't really bad either, it's really nice. And maybe you stop there, you use cocaine if someone offers you a bit.
It's a story that has been told to me literally a thousand times. I'm not just being dystopian about drug use, I don't think the whole world is a slippery slope and people trying pot are bound to go further. But the people that I've helped aren't bad people that were bound to become addicts, they were people that made what seemed like reasonable and fine choices that led them down a road they eventually found out they did not want to be on. In the same way, people are not born destined to rape little kids.
I want to make it clear, people have the choice at any time to turn back, but that choice gets harder the further down the road you go until you are faced with someone that is truly terrifying. |
Just imagine your life if adult woman (assuming you're a hetero male, else apply the correct substitute) were unable to give consent to sex and all sex with them and real porn involving them was illegal.
And now add on top of that that people like you are shunned by the society. If this ever comes out your life is destroyed (doesn't matter if you raped a woman or not), you loose your job and your friends. You have no one to talk to about this and you constantly wonder why you have those feelings. You didn't want to be that way. Why does this happen to you? And then maybe you go down quite a dark path rationalizing that you're feelings maybe are not wrong, that maybe you can have such a relationship.
That sure seems like a really shitty life for me. |
Hell, I look at a lot of hentai pictures and even get nervous if the girls are too "flat.
I guess that kind of sucks for adult women who are small-chested, or men who like women with smaller chests.
Weirdly enough some countries have actually banned hentai/drawn/animated porn if it "appears" to depict underage characters.
In Australia, our government actually banned live-action porn featuring adults who were flat chested or "appeared" underage. Ie: it doesn't matter if they're adults, it only matters what the judge thinks they look like.
Then again, our government also banned squirting porn (it's considered pissing, which is also banned in porn). ...Not that that stops anyone from looking it up on the internet.
>Obviously anything including pre-teen or adolescent kids, but if some 18 and 16 year old upload an amateur porn home movie together, how would I even know unless the age is explicitly mentioned in the title (which it's usually not)? I get so paranoid nowadays over ensuring the porn I watch has no underage people in it.
Pedophilia is defined medically as an attraction to pre-pubescent kids. The term is commonly used to refer to anyone attracted to or having sex with anyone under the age of consent, though. The problem with this is that age of consent differs throughout the world - most countries have it at 14, 15 or 16 while a few stupid, backwards countries have it at 13 or 18. Overall the medical definition is a much better one and people who fit the medical definition of pedophilia should seek professional help / therapy / treatment.
Being attracted to teens - certainly physically mature teens - is actually pretty normal and applies to lots of people, though I wouldn't exactly consider it a desirable thing unless you are a teen yourself. Some places (the non-retarded ones) actually have laws protecting underage teen couples who have sex with each other (when normally they would be committing crimes), referred to as Romeo and Juliet laws.
Regarding porn with people under the age of majority (that is, 18 or 21 in most areas) - it's thankfully illegal almost everywhere. In some areas "I didn't reasonably know they were underage" can be a defense against this in court, while in others there is strict liability (meaning it doesn't matter whether or not you knew).
In some cases teens sending nude pics of themselves to each other have actually been prosecuted and put on sex-offender lists for distributing child porn (fucked up, I know).
In some cases minors are allowed to act nude in (legit non-porn) movies (without actually performing sex acts), especially in the case of babies. In some cases children have acted in movies and have then bee unable to view the film until they were older due to a high rating for the film.
I remember Olivia Hussey appeared topless (in a sexual context, even) in the film Romeo and Juliet - she won a Golden Globe for the role. And Thora Birch appeared topless in American Beauty . |
I think things have changed a lot in the past few years. I'm sure they came under a lot of fire for the things being hosted on that site, so now anything that seems suspicious is removed and I don't think you can put up stuff without moderator approval anymore.
However, in the past that place used to be LOADED with it. You would stumble upon it just by clicking around suggested/related videos and galleries. Back then I don't think they cared much and I think due to their policies it was very easy for users to dump large collections of bad/questionable stuff (like I said I don't even think that's possible anymore).
Now keep in mind, I am not talking about videos of some middle aged man fucking a 5 year old or something truly twisted like that. But a few years ago all that stickam/chatroulette/etc stuff exploded and the site was absolutely flooded with videos and images of obviously young girls who were getting naked on those sites for attention. |
yeah, if I went around telling everyone I know that I'm attracted to monkeys or grapefruit or people in their 80's they'd think I'm weird as fuck and need help. which is what they'd probably suggest if I said I was a pedophile.
listen dude everyone on this earth is born with certain animal instincts they can't control. laws, education, therapy, social norms etc are things that exist to try to curb these animal instincts. there are TONS of dudes out there who would bang a hot 16 year old but they don't because it's ILLEGAL. I don't think these guys go around feeling sorry for them self saying "aw man its not fair I'm attracted to 16 year olds but I'm 50 and I can't have sex with them woe is me". how do these people manage to survive adulthood? they have a certain attraction, that they can never act on, but a strong minded person wouldn't really give a shit.
if you're attracted to kids, I think it would be pretty obvious to say to yourself: "ok, I am attracted to these kids, I need to try my best NOT to be and if I can't help it then I have to just never act on my impulses and feelings because its illegal and would hurt people". you don't need to go around telling everyone you're a pedophile, other than maybe your therapist. |
I am completely fine with this as long as they BRING BACK REGULAR FUCKING PORN!!!!
i am so sick of having to use bing for my porn because google fucked up safesearch |
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