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I don't think it is necessary capitalism itself, its more the nature of people. People derive more utility from gains to the personal self as opposed to gains that benefit all of society. Thus people act in their own self interest. One of those self interests is money, and thus that is why people care about profits.
The state of the world would be totally different if we still had the same capitalistic society but everyone was looking out for the best interests of everyone.
An example of this is lets say I make a decent salary and have disposable income (defined as the extra income not needed for the 3 basic needs, food, water and shelter). Now lets say I see a homeless man who doesn't have 1 of the 3 basic needs, obviously shelter.
I can either spend my disposable income on entertainment for myself or give it to the homeless man and provide him with some shelter. I am now gonna assume here too (which isn't too farfetched) that the utility derived for the homeless man having a home is more than the utility i derive spending the extra money on entertainment.
THUS if i cared about having the highest sum of global utility, I should give the homeless man my disposable income.
However, people are selfish (including me, in reality i don't give anything to charity) and would keep all the extra income for my own entertainment.
Now most people would also act like me. If this wasn't the case we would high charity donation rates but we don't.
So my point is, capitalism isn't inherently bad, it is the people who act within the system. |
So my point is, capitalism isn't inherently bad, it is the people who act within the system.
So capitalism isn't bad until you introduce the human factor.
But the human factor is literally impossible to avoid. How does that not lead you to the conclusion that capitalism is therefor, in effect, bad?
If a system ignores the single biggest aspect, the human component, it's a stupid system. |
The material is copyrighted, correct.
Copyright infringement is not a New Zealand Crime.
He is being charges with a US crime having never done business on US soil.
Even IF they get away with the Servers Crap they have given the judge, the violated his US rights with unlawful search and seizure, imminent domain laws, Ignoring a New Zealand Court ruling, etc. etc. |
They somehow managed to break their own page in their redesign, if from that page with just the one video that never loads you click the home button and go to "full episodes" after the cutscene you can see some of them there, but these too appear broken now. |
Ex-comcast rep spouse here. Before the company moved the office the Philippines they indeed did have unrealistic metrics forced on each rep. For every department in just about every situation. Retention/Call volume/Call length/sales. If you missed any of them you got a an earful/canned, and when the whole office started missing them they picked up for SE Asia.
They wanted you to handle two-three calls per minute, resolve Sales Department's epic fuck ups without using credits, and upsell people who were 2 months behind their bill, while magically saving people who were beyond done with the company.
Edit: And there are ridiculous answers/rebuttals you must give in each situation. They are provided by management, and if you are caught not "explaining the value" of the service you're done.
Example.
Customer: I need to make a partial payment on my bill, just lost my job and short on cash.
Rep: Ok, would you also like to sign up for HBO this month? The HD package is only $25 dollars more for 6 months! |
I recently moved and called Comcast to get tv and internet (like it was been stated here, they are the ONLY option for Internet over 15 mb/s in my area) and I actually got what I considered to be a good deal and in about 30 minutes I was set up with a technician set to come in 8 days. 8 days without Internet is a lot for me so I took the initiative and ordered my own modem and called back 3 days later to just have them activate my internet over the phone and the tech can just do the tv when he comes. That call took 2.5 hours and three calls because I got hung up on twice. Once when I was 1 hour and 9 minutes into the call. I'm frustrated because it's not that complicated of a process, but whatever, I now have Internet.
Then it gets great. Sunday rolls around and the technician calls me because he has a work order to come out to me, but there's literally zero equipment to install on his work order. He's confused so he called me and told he can't add equipment to a work order so the only thing to do is cancel the appointment and call Comcast to fix it. Begrudgingly, I do just that.
My provided the story to the first rep who said whoops sorry I have to get you to sales. I wait 10 minutes, get another lady who also pulls up my account and then listens to my story and then tells me she's in billings and she needs to get me to sales. ....ok. So I'm on hold again, 10 minutes later someone answers and clearly dials 10 digits then hangs up on me. Jesus Christ.
So I call back and FINALLY get someone competent. She explains to me that when I called a few days earlier to activate the internet I was disqualified from the sweet package I got because I was no longer considered a new customer in their system and I just adding tv service to my existing internet plan. Out of my 3 calls the few nights earlier not a single rep informed me of this consequence. They changed my package to no free hbo, fewer channels, 1 SD box, for 10 dollars more per month. She does a great job fixing it (thanks Alexis) and then credits me for the technician fee of 60 bucks due to all the hassle and schedules an appointment for the next day.
The next day rolls around and my girlfriend had stayed home from work for the 10-12 appt and they show up at 130. Again, I had to call and complain and they gave me more account credit. |
OK. Guys, I've seen this recording come by on reddit five times, on techdirt, arstechnica and slashdot (like people even read that site anymore. Unless you're a 45 year old programmer who has lost all trust in humanity and 'youngsters' . In that case, please stop reading and close this tab. Return to /. and shrug off this 'new' experience)...
I'm surprised at the attention it's getting. Everybody knows Comcast sucks, everybody knows Comcast customer support sucks. The problem is not Comcast, perse, the problem is the lack of competition.
Go file a complaint with the FCC and make your life better. If you want to make snarky comment here that is ok. But only if you do your part to make your situation better. |
This is nothing new, about 3 years ago I cancelled a subscription with them when I moved out of an apartment. Well, conveniently they decided to ignore the fact that I cancelled it and decided to keep sending bills to my unoccupied apartment. When I eventually got word that the subscription was still active and that I owed several hundred dollars I called them up to notify them of their mistake and rectify it, I was assured it was fixed and that it was finally terminated by the call center individual. Two months later I found it was still activated but the bill had been cut in half. I went to a service center, showed them my receipt for returned Comcast gear and original cancellation request and they finally cancelled it after three attempts... |
That's the best part, actually.
My insurance would cover it, but I needed some sort of proof to verify I had paid for it. A receipt of some kind. So, when I paid (over the phone because I'm an idiot) I made sure the Comcast rep understood what I needed. He assured me a number of times that I'd be emailed a receipt.
The email I got: "Verify your new email address with Comcast!"
... For my closed account. So obviously I couldn't log in to verify the email they already had verified in the past.
It took two weeks of calls for me to eventually say fuck it and go to a store. Which, of course, was a headache. But I ended up getting it. |
As a former Verizon Wireless rep this practice is common and not just encouraged but MANDATORY for representatives. If you fail to use your "save attempts" you actually get written up and can lose pay/your job.
When a customer calls in angry as balls and just wants to disconnect, if you fail to do your save attempts and QA hears that, they are told to report you to your supervisor and you are to be CRITICALLY COACHED. The funny thing is if you go through your saves and piss off a customer and fail a survey you will lose your PAY then too.
Sometimes a customers spouse/child has passed away and they wanna disconnect, yet you still have to offer things like an AOL (Assumption of Liability) or maybe changing it to a Tablet Line for 9.99 a month! If that pisses off the customer and you fail a SURVEY BOOM you're at fault.
If for whatever reason you face too many disconnects your calls are monitored more than often to make sure you're using your "save attempts". |
Very good point, but if it's a very high probability case, there will always be a lawyer to take contingency, you just well have to call around. Also, their cut may be pretty high but the other option is you get nothing so....its still a good deal. Also, if this has caused the OP credit score damage and possible financial losses, this could easily be a large suit. I'd be layered up to my eyeballs if a company (especially a giant one) fucked up my credit score. Also, everyone is making this sounds like a not so unusual event which means it could set the precedent and Comcast may pay a huge settlement to keep it out of the court. For every reason I listed and then some, OP needs to sue the living shit out of them. OP has a very good chance at a very large payout, or at least some horrible publicity for a terrible business practice and a small payout. |
They (Comcast and others) give money to the people who make the laws, which basically make it impossible to start an ISP to compete with them. The rules essentially say that (the people who get paid off by Comcast and company) someone has to approve your ISP, then you've got to pay all these fees, along with the millions of dollars in infrastructure costs... |
As if you guys haven't heard enough words of warning about Comcast in here, I'll give you one more. They royally screwed my credit up and due to my lack of consistent checking of my credit score (I was young and dumb in college) I didn't know until I went to go by a house and the mortgage broker told me that I wouldn't be buying any house unless I got my collections in order.
I lived in a house with 4 other guys. We were all in charge of a utility and lucky me, I was in charge of the cable/internet bill. I lived there with no issue or late payments for 2 years, then moved out and a good friend took my place. We went through ALL of the steps to transfer the account to him and I moved away (luckily within the same town). I guess he forgot to make a payment one month and I received a letter in the mail informing me that my account was late. I currently had Comcast at my new place so I called to inquire as I had not been late on any payments. The rep looked me up in the system, asked me for my home address and let me know that everything was fine and that it was a mistake. A month later I get another letter, that's when it dawned on me that it may be my old house. So, my friend and I went down to the actual Comcast branch to discuss the situation and sure enough I was still the owner of my previous houses account, the transfer never went through.
I was given so BS explanation as to how this happened and why they would send me a letter at my new house and not the address "on record." We were also told we couldn't transfer the account now because it was mid billing cycle and accrued charges were on the account and you can't transfer accounts with an outstanding balance. So we paid right then and there for all outstanding balances on both houses accounts and completed the transfer of account to my friend.
For the next three years my friend lived i that house. I was over often, inquired about the account a couple times, there were no problems. He even showed me a bill, plus online login that the account had been successfully transferred to him. His name was on everything.
Let's fast forward shall we. I have not lived in that house since 2001. My friend has not lived there since 2005 and canceled the Comcast account when moving out because he didn't know the next tenents to move in. Two years ago I go to buy a house and low and behold I find out that whoever moved in 2005-2006 really didn't like paying their cable. In fact they decided to just stop paying it altogether. So what does Comcast do when, I'm guessing, they couldn't collect or track the person responsible down. Oh, that's right, they put a big fat collection on me for a house I hadn't lived in for over a decade.
I fought with them for almost 6 months. The only responses that I got were that the charges were correct and just becase I don't live in a house does not absolve me from paying for their utilities. Quote "Parents pay for their kids utilities all of the time, and they aren't residents of that property" I disputed the collection with all three credit agencies and submitted what very little documentation I actually had kept over the past ten years, but it was to no avail. I had to cut a deal and ended up paying them $500 just to shut them up, and because my wife and I had some properties that we were very interested in purchasing and needed to put an offer down.
In the end we did purchase our house, albeit at a much higher interest rate than planned. And eventually got a refi once my credit score corrected itself after another year and a half of fighting.
Here's the kicker. I still have Comcast, because besides dish they are the only option in my neighborhood. /rant |
Tbh, nothing wrong with a retention bonus. Here in Brazil, I know of people working for Global Village Telecom and there is such a thing here. Convincing the costumer that staying on Gvt is better and fixing whatever problem the costumer has that makes them want to quit is their job. Too expensive? Here a special discount for you. Unstable? Can we send a technician to check what's wrong before actually cancelling? You don't need it anymore? Sure let's do it.
It helps that our regulations force phone calls with companies to have a protocol number and be registered. If the person of gvt's side is pulling some bullshit or they refuse to cancel your subscription or you receive a charge after cancelling, you pull the protocol number, go to Procon (consumer protection govt organ) and register what happened, then you wait a bit and get a few thousand BRL (1BRL=~0.4USD) back. I have no clue how it is on the states, but communication companies(and service companies in general) have a lot to worry about if they fail to comply to basic regulation. |
This is My Next, then The Verge, Polygon, and Vox have always incorporated art, culture, and political commentary into their narrative. I really enjoyed it when it was just these things, but over the past few months, all the sites have definitely become one-sided and a bit heavy handed.
I was really disappointed when one of Polygon's opinion articles started quoting Anita Sarkeesian. That was almost a last straw for me.
That being said, I really look forward to see how Nilay Patel runs The Verge going forward. I think we'll start to see a bit of sharpening on the news or at least a clearer division between the tech and gadget news and some of the entertainment pieces. |
Ireland was under English control for about 800 years, almost all of England's colonization techniques were tested here first. That spawned a lot of groups in conflict (IRA being the most famous) we invented guerilla Warfare (check your "Flying Columns") after all that we had a civil war that did more damage in a few short years than the English in 800.
All in all when you have that the rational thing is to want peace and avoid getting tied down (there are clear exceptions to this (has 'Merica ever not been at war?)). Our police force is (mostly bar for some specialist units) unarmed and called " An Garda Síochána" which means Guardians of the Peace.
There are a couple downsides to this, our politics is so danm complex, we have 3 main party's and a few smaller ones with a lot of independents (people without a party) so every issue is debated to death to the agreement to almost everyone as even the independents have a lot of power when it comes to votes (If the main party try to pass something that others don't like they can still be out voted, it is extremely rare for one party to have over 50% of the seats). This means that changes are slow but often well thought out.
Add the stable political state to the lowest corporate tax in Europe (12.5%) and a well educated workforce means that there is prosperity which in turn means that we have a stable country that is a decent place to live. |
My own experience of Comcast fail should have been a simple thing... Comcast through their own fault had damaged my cable so badly that I couldn't get any TV stations to come in cleanly. The original tech did the right thing -- he laid a new cable across my yard to replace the bad cable, and he scheduled to have someone come out and bury the line in two weeks.
I scheduled time off work for Thursday, after Comcast confirmed my appointment. On Wednesday I come home to find a note on the door, stating that they could not perform the work because of dogs in the neighbor's yard (why is this important when the pedestal and cable are located in MY yard???). I called Comcast to find out what was going on, and was told my appointment was still scheduled for the next day, so I stayed home from work. By noon I had still not seen the tech, so I called Comcast and was promised a call back within an hour while they checked on the tech. After two hours I called again and was told that they were still within their service window, and the tech WOULD be there.
The next day I called Comcast to bitch about having to miss a whole day of work and the tech never showed up. They guaranteed someone would be there to bury the cable the following Thursday. So I waited at home the next Thursday, again taking a day off from work. Again, another wasted day. Several calls to Comcast, and not a single call back as promised.
Again I called Comcast on Friday to bitch. After two missed service calls, I demanded they do the work during the weekend because I wasn't missing any more time from work. The guy agreed that they were at fault and this was a bad situation, so he scheduled someone to come out on Saturday to do the work.
Saturday was of course another wasted day sitting around the house. This time when I called Comcast, they claimed that the tech couldn't do the work because the ground was frozen (it had snowed and melted earlier that week). I told them the ground was NOT frozen, and I had actually been out in the yard digging on Saturday to finish up some things before Winter hit. They had nothing to say about that except they couldn't do anything about it for the rest of the season.
So now I have a cable draped across my yard for the entire Winter. People and dogs are walking across it, dumpsters are being drug over it, generally all the abuse you would expect of something being left in the main path of traffic in a yard...
In March the yard thaws out and the ground is soft again. I call Comcast and they schedule a tech. However this time they want to know why I need to be there for the call? Well you see, I have a large pond in my yard, and the cable line runs right beside all the electrical and water pipes for the pond. The reason my TV cable is being replaced is because when they installed the separate cable for my business-class internet, they managed to cut my TV line in two separate places, underneath a rock bed, 3 feet away from where they buried the internet cable... so I have very little faith that they can do a simple cable burial beside my pond without significant damage.
OK great, Comcast scheduled another call to have the techs come out to bury the line. Another day off work, and nobody ever showed up or called.
A week later my wife happened to be home, and called me at work to tell me that Comcast was there to bury the lines. No appointment or nothing, the guys just showed up out of the blue. Well ok great, get them to actually do something while they're there! She took them around back and showed them the pond and where the pipes were located. They told her they needed to get some tools and they would be right back. They never came back, and they never called.
I called Comcast back again. What "tools" required them to leave? Did they forget to bring shovels? Seriously, this has got to be the poorest excuse I ever heard! Again Comcast couldn't explain anything other than the techs had apparently rescheduled an appointment without ever consulting me. Fine, I'm not holding my breath, and I'm certainly not staying home this time.
I waited for two weeks after that last "appointment", then I went to Home Depot and picked up 80 foot of heavy electrical conduit and elbows. I dug a trench deeper than the original cable was buried (I know this because I dug up the original cable several times along the way), buried the new cable which was now protected by conduit inside of being dropped straight in the ground, and seeded some new grass in about 2 hours. The original cable was laid in November, and I finished the job myself in late April with nothing more special than a spade.
I called Comcast back to tell them to take a piss. They were upset that I buried the cable myself instead of allowing their qualified technicians to do the work properly. I blew up. I asked what their idea of "proper" was? Did they believe it was professional to miss FOUR scheduled appointments, have the techs show up at the house at least twice that I was aware of without appointments and refuse to do any work either time they were there? Was it professional to leave a cable draped across my yard for the past 5 months and expect me to mow around it for the past two months? Was it professional to send someone out to bury a cable that couldn't even bother to bring a shovel to do the job? |
I have a fun story for this.
My parents were having problems with their internet. So they called me. I did the basic power cycle thing and see if that improves things.
Couple days later, it hasn't improved. I have them check the connections, make sure nothing is loose. Then disconnect the power to the router.
"Which one?"
I assumed they didn't know a router from a modem (they look similar, why not).
No, the Comcast tech had daisy chained 3 routers together. First was the Comcast modem/router, plugged into that a new router Comcast had them buy because the old one wasn't good enough, then plugged into the new router is the old router which has the two office computers plugged into it. No shit the connection was bad... |
Before I get into my story, I always share what I always do in Comcast threads. If you have to call, immediately request the customer loyalty department. This is the group that gets shit done. If you deal with them you will most likely have a positive experience. You do not have to deal with their T1, just request customer loyalty and they will transer you. Only problem is they aren't 24/7.
I had multiple bad interactions in a row one year ago this month. I signed up for NBA league pass with them, which at the time was $190.
Turns out Comcast does not provide the games in HD. I'm not going to pay that much to watch in SD (sports look like shit when watched in SD on an HDTV.)
First call they told me I couldn't cancel, all sales on sports packages are final. This is a lie, so I just hung up and called back. Then the guy i was dealing with couldn't cancel it because the amount was above his allowed cancel limit. So he would have to transfer it and put in a request for the removal which would take up to 48 hrs to complete. I told him that is not acceptable and to escalate the call. He said there wasn't anyone to escalate to. I told him to put the request in and I would follow up the next day.
I called the next day and sure as shit, there was no request to cancel the NBA league pass. And on top of it I had been signed up for NHL center ice. This was the call where I got to learn about the Customer Loyalty team. The agent who answered this call also couldn't cancel the NBA and NHL passes because the total was too high. He transferred me and the loyalty team got both taken off of my account in about five total minutes. She also warned me that the billing systems were a mess and keep an eye on to make sure weren't billed next cycle. If there were any issues to just call and immediately ask for the customer loyalty dept.
Sure enough we still got billed for both packages the next month and when i called back they removed it from our bill and that was that. I found out on this call that online billing and the paper billing you get in the mail are two completely different systems so you need to make sure you check both. |
I'd love to hate Comcast as much as any other, but one statistical outlier does not a trend make. Statistics doesn't work that way.
That's not to say there isn't some merit in the assertion there are real issues with Comcast's customer service, and how they resolve customer issues. But when you look at the hard statistics, and don't use outlying data points to create trends, well, the case stated doesn't add up; it's more indicative of an internal system that fails to address specific customer bases, likely limited to regional areas with poor management and hiring practices than a top-down effort to stifle customers while limiting competition and forcing unfair practices. That would be done on a more political level than direct interaction anyway (and likely is).
But I digress, the real statistical information lies in not the odds of your own bad experience, but the odds of all customers of Comcast having similar experiences, using data such as:
how many customers of comcast, relative to their total customer base, have had issues with service
have felt the issues required contacting customer service
had their issues met with unsatisfactory CS that did not result in resolving those issues
You could further extrapolate that data by introducing deeper factors such as
how many times a given customer encountered unsatisfactory service before their issues were resolved
and of those, how many of those customers failed to have their issues resolved, at all
have felt the need to issue a formal complaint because of these issues
While we may all be ideologically opposed to Comcast et al. and the subtle (or not so subtle) government endorsements of their independent regional monopolies, their statistical numbers are probably not far from the mark: that most customers calling have a service representative that attempts to and does resolve service issues, or has a tech assigned to the issue that is resolved on site at a later time or date. |
Apps need permission for you to use the app to take a picture, or a video, or make a voice call this is not new. I smelled sensationalist clickbaity bullshit so I did some research:
"Allows the app to record audio with microphone. This permission allows the app to record audio at any time without your confirmation."
"Allows the app to take pictures and videos with the camera. This permission allows the app to use the camera at any time without your confirmation."
Note: Without your confirmation.
There's way more, facebook can:
-Disconnect your devices Internet connection.
-Connect your devices Internet connection.
-Send text messages.
-Read a log of your phone calls.
-Determine if you're making a phone call and to what number.
-Read ANY type of address book or list of friends such as in multiplayer game apps
It can do ANY of these things without your permission or even your knowledge. IT CAN FUCKING SPY ON YOU ALL DAY LONG!
So why do I have facebook and Facebook messenger installed on my iPhone?
Because they don't. Most social, interactive apps like facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc need access to my camera so I can take a picture with them, or my microphone so that Siri can listen, attentively, to my blathering. Skype needs permissions to pretty much every part of my phone to fulfill its core function.
Some of the permissions are greasy: facebook data mines the shit out of everything in my phone. I hate it. But it's, unfortunately, par for the course. If you want to get pissed off at facebook, fuck 'access to the video camera', get riled up about the app looking through your personal life on your phone. |
It's important to understand that if a company's product gets pirated, that doesn't necessarily mean a loss for the company.
Hollywood loves to say "X amount of this movie got pirated so X * purchase price is the amount of money we lost!
But that's simply not the case. A huge number of those who pirate a particular movie would not ever spend money on that movie, even if it meant they would never get to see it.
Because the production of the additional movie file (I.e. an mkv/MP4/avi/ect. file the person torrents) does not come at any additional cost to those who produce the film, in reality their net is 0 loss or gain from an individual who would never or could never pay anything to see the content to begin with. |
That's actually totally viable. We need two things first though. 1) Educate the american people. When the general person thinks of nuclear power they think of the simpson and dumping random toxic liquid into the water. Nuclear energy is very clean EXCEPT for the remaining, decaying material, which brings me to point 2) We need to find better ways of disposing of the decaying material. With those things out of the way we could have nuclear plants run the entire nation, or world even. |
No they don't. Some do. The economy is essentially market democracy. At current prices Americans would rather have traditional power sources. How do I know? Because thats what the actually choose to use.
Wind and solar have a way to go still. The more the better, but the propaganda is misleading.
The problem with that is that we haven't had a free energy market for the past 60 years. Fossil fuels have been made artificially cheap by fossil fuel subsidies totaling over $600 billion. They cost the American tax payer something like $50 billion per year now.
Coal doesn't cost what coal actually costs, and it hasn't for the past 6 decades. Neither does solar, to be fair, but alternative subsidies are barely a drop in the bucket of fossil fuel subsidies, and as a result, the development of fossil fuels has been stunted significantly.
In an actually free market, where people/companies had the actual choice of what things actually cost (and thus the proper, market-driven incentives to further alternative energy technology), parity (and the explosive growth of solar and wind that comes with it, which we're seeing now) likely would have been reached decades ago.
And none of that accounts for the indirect costs of climate change, much (though not all) of which we haven't even started paying. |
Ignorantly, Americans have delegated these power supplies as the most efficient. If we would skip the negative controversy of nuclear power, we could truly provide enough energy for our nation many times over. As a matter of fact, cars can be engineered to run purely on hydrogen via electrolysis. The only problem is supplying the power into each vehicle to initiate said electrolysis process. Conclusively, solar/wind energy is an ineffective use of effort in providing a sustainable power supply for America. |
I think you would be quite surprised with just how far commercial solar has come. Here is a link to a house built in Oslo that uses solar power to power the house as well as charge an electric car. It's not the massive solar farm you seem to think it would be:
Here is another link to a building that is on my high school campus that passed the Living Building Challenge - meaning the building had to sustain itself for a full year (electricity and water):
This building actually produces enough energy to power itself through solar as well as provide about 30% of the entire remaining campus' power. The solar panels are only on the roof and also do not constitute a massive solar farm. |
In addition, the Chernobyl reactor (RBMK) was a poor design to begin with.
Soviet-designed RBMK reactors are pretty much the only reactor that can enter a positive feedback loop when it overheats, meaning if the reactor overheats the entire fuel core can continue to react with itself and melt. Literally every other reactor is designed so that if the fuel rods get too hot they evaporate the surrounding water (moderator/coolant) and the fuel rods can no longer react, effectively shutting down the reactor. |
Contrary to popular belief uranium is an element found within the earth naturally. Granted only like .7% is uranium 235 the rest is uranium 238. You need to enrich uranium to make it usable in a nuclear reactor.
Now the reason why nuclear power is great but terrible is in order to make one SQ (significant quantity, roughly 20% HEU (highly enriched uranium)) you must either buy this material or enrich it yourself. Most countries want to run their own enrichment plants (for obvious cost reasons). Now the technology most use to enrich uranium is gas centrifuge, which is complicated considering these things spin at hundreds of thousands of RPMs. Any country that doesn't have it would probably need help constructing it.
However the time to make one SQ at roughly 20% takes a very long time. But the time to go from 20-80 (weapons grade) is exponentially shorter. So short in fact that you could have lots of nuclear grade material before it can be detected.
Now there is an outside organization called the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) that monitors fuel cycles of countries and other various activities to make sure they aren't diverting materials. But this can be complicated. Also countries have been known to not allow this agency into their country. It is really a messy political business. |
Your last paragraph sounds bologna. I call schenanigans. 96 percent enrichment? That's not a thing unless its a crazy novelty. US fuel is 5 percent enriched tops. That blurb implying that you need to irradiate fuel for it to be radioactive? Yeah, that's definitely not a thing. Natural Uranium ore is radioactive. Depleted Uranium is radioactive. Maybe not super radioactive or fissile enough to be critical, but its got enough radioactivity to warrant personel protective equipment like gloves even if its natural or depleted. If its got ANY U-235 (U-238 even naturally decays too), it's radioactive and if it's 96 percent you better believe that puppy's hot. Also, U is chemically toxic, no matter the isotope. Like lead or mercury. There is no way BNL staff let you hold that stuff without nitrile gloves at the very least. Nuclear is awesome, but lets not pretend it's totally safe and farts rainbows.
Source: Am a nuclear engineering student. I've been doing material science minion work with depleted uranium for $$ for 2.5 years. But if you don't believe me, that's fine. People make stuff up online. |
Human error is pretty much the only reason I still lean against it, at least here in the U.S. Until we change our attitudes of "deregulate everything!" and "abolish the EPA!" I don't think we deserve such technology that requires such a responsibility. Our attitudes on money ,and that Americans are entitled to not makes sacrifices because we are Americans, play a big part in this as well. We like to preach about personal responsibility and accountability but our actions as a country clearly shows otherwise. It's not that we can't handle responsibility, we just choose not to. Now, for developing countries I think it's a must just based on the emissions they produce from their massive, and growing, populations. Also I think countries, like China, who have a reputation of treating their people pretty atrociously would install enough fear/make example that the personal consequences which would come from fucking up would make those running the show more attentive. Fortunately we just don't off people for their fuck ups here but instead we get a CEO saying "we're sorry" over and over again, offer to pay for the mess, then make a court case to get out of paying for it. I think the U.S. kind of missed the boat too at this point in terms of what this would all cost now (I could be wrong). The fact also remains a massive part of our represented power still believes in fairy tales which makes me worry even more that they would be in charge of such oversight. And finally on a total anecdotal note, Germany. When Germany says they are going to do something, I tend to believe them. Wow, armchair rant over. What a way to start your day. |
Just FYI to everyone here, renewable is the fastest growing electrical energy source by marketshare. So it's happening, but it's really expensive and will take some time. |
Big ol' disclaimer: I'm not an expert by any means, I've just watched videos and read articles on the subject because I'm interested.
That said, there were some videos in the "Th" documentary playlist that went over inherent problems with nuclear plants today. One of the biggest seems to be that they're cooled by water- but water can't actually keep liquid form at the temperatures of a nuclear reaction, so it's kept under intense pressure. If anything compromises the water system, the water expands into steam so fast that it effectively makes a giant, (maybe) irradiated steam bomb.
I also think I heard in high school physics class (i.e. I have no credibility) that the reason nuclear plants look like immense domes is because they need to have enough empty space to capture the steam in such an event, but the plant itself is an order of magnitude smaller.
"Th" specifically suggested molten fluoride salt as a coolant (Not the LFTR itself, where the reaction is in the salt), which seems to make a lot of sense as it stays a liquid at nuclear temperatures without the need for high pressure. It doesn't solve all of the problems, but it completely nullifies what looks to be a huge possible point of failure: nobody can cut corners and fuck up the containment dome if there's nothing that needs to be contained. |
As long as there isn't anything identifying (eg OP receives a soundbite with text that reads "Robert Paulson of Portland, 555-0134, wants Siri to hug him, is this correct?") I wouldn't put my tinfoil on yet.
This immediately made me think of a task on mTurk (/r/mturk) in which you have to ask Siri (or Cortana or Google) questions and report back how accurate it was. I remember one specifically that asked how you would command Siri, like "How would you ask Siri for a Mexican restaurant in New York City?" and you would record yourself saying "Find me a Mexican restaurant in New York City."
There are plenty of HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) on mTurk, as well as sites like Swagbucks, that ask you to speak, repeat a specific phrase, call a number and say something, use your webcam, test a service, search google, tag something, etc. I've used sites like that long enough to also know that it gets boring and I would imagine people start asking random things, or have their kids do it, whatever. |
If we assume that, we can equally assume his comment is genuine and yours is the attempt to falsify the truth. |
If we assume that, we can equally assume his comment is genuine and yours is the attempt to falsify the truth. |
I think there is a difference between being able to read a full ToS and being forced to use a click-through with the only option is accept/deny and where the ToS is most likely buried where the average user wouldn't have access to it. Further if the person accessing the informaiton like OP mentioned he heard kids asking questions any contract IIRC is null and void regardless of parents. If mom and dad get a 13yr old an iPhone and they click agree on ToS and so on for any apps or use Siri than the ToS is considered invalid for use on that person. |
Here is a transcript of my conversation with Siri on the subject:
Me: "Siri are you recording everything I'm saying and sending it to Apple for quality control purposes?"
Siri: We were talking about you, not me.
Me: "Ohhh you're sidestepping the question."
Siri: I don't really like these arbitrary categories, mostlyrelevant.
Me: "You don't have preferences, don't lie to me."
Siri: I don't want to argue, mostlyrelevant. |
I will spare you long story and just give you an example.
Remember Windows 8 mess? Windows users were pissed because Metro was shoved down their throats and there was nothing they could do. Similar thing happened few years ago in Ubuntu land too (Ubuntu is a Linux flavour that I use). Canonical , company responsible for Ubuntu, decided they want to use Unity as window manager. Community did not like it as Unity was a mess back then (I still do not like it) but difference here was that people who wanted to use different window managers (like me wanted to use gnome3) could easily install gnome package and all the pain was gone. Now gnome comes with Ubuntu by default so you switch just with one click.
So |
Ok, As Far As I Know - And I may be Wrong:
Network Solutions was the first and generally is the ultimate registrar for domain names - that is, with a few exceptions, if you register with, say, GoDaddy, they're registering with Network Solutions.
NS charges individuals around $50/y to register a .com - this is their retail price for this. The upshot is, they won't steal your domain.
As I recall, NS also charges other registrars around $6 wholesale for domains if the volume is high enough. This is pretty much the lowest price anyone's paying right now for a .com domain. This is also how GoDaddy - and pretty much every other discount registrar out there - makes money on domains. They're paying $6, and you're paying $8.
Generally, the cost of those savings is that you have to deal with GoDaddy, which I've never found a pleasant experience. There's also the horror stories, which Google or anyone else here can tell you about, though I've never had an issue. There are more reputable shops around than GoDaddy, but for a gag URL, it's hard to beat $8/yr.
If it's making you money, you want to keep it, and you'd be really screwed if you lost it, bite the bullet and pay the $50 - I've never heard of NS screwing someone out of a domain they purchased (Yes, there was the pre-registering flap a while ago). |
I read all the comments where you are saying that we need POTS for emergency services and accessibility for those that can't get access to VoIP or Cell service.
If you read the article, AT&T is not looking to shut down POTS tomorrow. They are petitioning the FCC to set a sundown date some time in the future. POTS is an hundred-year old technology (for the most part), it's time to figure out how to let it die and move on to the better technologies available today. AT&T isn't trying to weasel ... they're asking for permission to shoot the dying horse.
If we know that POTS is going away in X years, we can make sure that the necessary infrastructure is in place to provide near universal access to telephony services. Believe it or not, there are still places in this country where landline telephone services still aren't available. If we put the resources we currently put into supporting the ancient POTS architecture into expanding cellular and IP services, it'll be much easier to service even those that don't currently have landline service, and improve the emergent technologies (VoIP, Cellular or, The Next Best Thing) to cover the shortcomings you all mentioned in your posts.
Many developing countries completely skipped POTS service and went straight to cellular because in the end it's much easier to put up a network of towers than it is to run copper to everyone's house.
POTS is dying on it's own anyway ... let's just set a date to put the final nail in the coffin. |
I had a Seagate disk fail on me a couple of years ago. I had been stupid and forgot to back up the important data stored on the disk. I contacted Seagates data recovery service and for $2,500 they got my data back for me. As soon as I got the new drive with the recovered data I made backups on 3 different drives.
So I had my data on the drive they sent me (seagate)
A second drive I had on hand (also seagate)
The drive installed in my desktop (western digital)
Six months after doing that I decided on a whim to check out the backups. Both the second drive that was a seagate and the brand new seagate drive that had not been used since I made the backups were dead and they had been stored on a shelf in a cool dry space. The only live copy of the data I had was the western digital drive that had been used daily. |
Actually, it's likely Apple that wrote the code. Though Adobe created the PDF format, Apple wrote their own interpretation for OS X, Preview and Safari. I presume this code was transferred to Mobile Safari. |
For all those USB3 devices people use...
Why the sarcasm? USB3.0 devices have just started to come to market. It's no surprise that there are not a lot of users, yet . USB3.0 has an advantage over thunderbolt in that it is backwards compatible with the old USB standards, so all your old USB devices will still work. Considering that USB has been the de facto peripheral I/O the last decade, people are going to be adverse to switching to a new standard for their peripherals, especially if it breaks all their old USB peripherals.
Also, thunderbolt's biggest competitor is not USB3.0. It's 10Gb PoE. 10Gb PoE operates over CAT6 cabling, which is already widespread. For reference, there were 124 million 10GbE spec ports shipped in 2009...three years ago. How many thunderbolt ports have shipped so far? And the newest PoE spec provides up to 30W of power, and because it is a general purpose bus, is suitable for anything from peripheral devices such as monitors, all the way up to enterprise switches. It is truly a standard that can do everything.
>but let's face it: the only USB devices I actually use are for charging my phone and using my headset, and those scarcely need USB3.
That's great, but let's face it: your anecdotal usage habits don't really count for anything. Lots of pro-sumers/small businesses depend on USB peripherals. Look at the market for portable external hard drives - most photog's have multiple. |
Right now, USB can drive displays, and there is hardware available to do that. There seem to be few devices that even use Firewire, especially since USB is faster anyway (except cameras, where Firewire seems to be superior). Plus, USB 3 is backward compatible with 2, so all your devices plug right in. USB pretty much replaced all of the previous ports.
After VGA, I think it was clear we needed a new video port. First it was DVI, but then HDMI came out. It carries both sound and video, plus data, so any display has everything it needs from one wire. Then, for some reason we invented DisplayPort, not Thunderbolt. Why? It's unlikely you are going to plug displays into anything but a video card, so why make them compatible with other ports?
eSATA is so popular that there's all of 2 portable single drives (excluding RAIDs) that I can find on newegg. I see why you'd want it, but in reality, not much uses it.
I can't think of a circumstance where you'd want to use thunderbolt to carry Ethernet.
All of the firewire devices I have used (all of them, and they where all cameras), did NOT have a second port. Plus, it seems computers will randomly include the full-sized or the pointless mini connector, ensuring that you always have to bring 2 cables if you want to be sure they will work with any random computer. I've never come across another Firewire device that I needed to connect to my computer, and there's always USB alternatives if I'm buying something. |
Back up your headers.
Encryption works in blocks (typically 128 bits minimum for symmetric encryption these days). If a bit or byte on a block gets corrupted, you lose that block. Normally this will only cost you the file residing on that block.
If, however, the block contains the volume header, you lose the entire volume.
Keys cannot be determined from volume headers, so they only pose a threat to plausible deniability. You can safely store them in plain text. |
Microsoft stated before WP7 was released that they were in it for the long term. Although initial sales were slow, that was expected since MS wanted to get it out the door as quickly as possible. However, WP7 is developing at an accelerated pace with the Mango update adding a bunch of new features.
I do also love the Metro UI. Although all WP7 phones do run on old hardware, they are still very responsive. In my personal opinion, WP7 will have a very big impact in the future. MS has its ace cards in music and gaming with Zune and Xbox live, two very good services. They provide good social networking integration built in, and the internet browsing experience is getting better. They are also catering to business users with built in office, sharepoint, and exchange support. Initially, the email system wasn't good enough for businesses, but it has been much improved in Mango.
Finally, MS is pumping a lot of money and resources into WP7. While they are still in "catch up" mode, I feel that MS will become an innovator in the smartphone market soon. |
I'm sorry, but you are blatently wrong. I addressed your points in my initial post, that yes WP7 is playing catch up, but the speed of their updates is much faster than either Android or iOS. Right now, it is not the better platform, but MS never intended it to be. However, MS wants it to be a long term developement, so in 1-2 years down the line WP7 will be able to compete well against other OSes. |
The board is going to make a killing off of this. Meg will dismantle HP bit by bit and each board member and senior exec will rack in huge bonuses. They'll get bonuses from selling parts of HP's infrastructure. A whole division sells for $100M well then the board members take home $5M each, senior execs a few 100k and the rest just looks like gravy made from fat trimmings. HP is already a shell of what it used to be and it will be even more hollow in the future. Sure many of these people have their worth pinned to stocks but they all have clauses to grant them a certain amount of price per share regardless of if the company tanks. Borders is a good example of how this works, the board will get their millions from the sell off before any small time employee sees their last paycheck. |
This falls under a category of concerns I've been seeing quite frequently lately: a prototype project, built entirely as a proof of concept experiment, openly claiming to have no commercial value at the moment, being demoed purely to show off what they've accomplished, gets ridiculed by complaints that a consumer would have. Consumers are not the target for this kind of thing. This is still almost entirely a geek toy. Geeks developing it, geeks wanting to see it do cool things, geeks driving it's capabilities. Consumers will not be buying this until it's a consumer-ready product. The manufacturers aren't idiots; they won't release something with issues. It's a prototype , treat it as such. So it buzzes, big deal. It makes 3D images in mid-air . It can buzz all it wants to; that's really fucking cool. |
As long as you have an USB 2.0 Stick you should be fine ;) |
When I moved into my new townhome a few years ago, I had been there for a week with Comcast working just fine. Out of the blue one day, it stops working. I called them up and apparently the previous tenant just canceled his service so they came and disconnected the line. They told me it'd be between 7 and 10 days before they could send someone back out even though the guy who disconnected it was still in his truck in front of my house . I am a Business Class customer since I work from home a lot, and even that didn't do anything to make them come back and reconnect my line. I was basically told to go fuck myself.
The guy who did the initial installation was a Comcast contractor. He gave me his card, so I called him up when I got off the phone with Comcast. He was in the area so he came out and hooked me back up in about 15 minutes. |
This, I have the SB6120 which is compatable with Comcast and is docsis 3.0. I have set up myself, my mother in law, and my friend with this same modem and none of us pay rental fees. At the time i bought it was $90 (still cheaper then the $100 modem that comcast wanted me to pay to keep their beat up shitty docsis 2.0 modem that looked like a dog gnawed on it), and i've been saving money ever since. Now, it's like $75 so now it's even cheaper and it's even easier to set up
Setting up my and my mother in law's modem and getting it to work was simple. I was away for a few days when my MIL's came in, and she being, almost computer illiterate, managed to get it up without me. My friend, however is very computer literate and ran into a problem setting up. I don't think he did anything to get it to work, i think comcast was being full on stupid until 1 day it starter to pick up even though comcast already had the devices MAC address. |
hell yeah!! fuck cable tv! we used to have comcast for cable, but when we would try to watch a movie on demand, shit just wouldn't work at all. they charged us an arm and a leg and we never had satisfactory cable. needless to say, we ditched the cable tv.
unfortunately, we still have them for internet (cheapest option in the area suprisingly). a few months ago our internet went out. tried the router, the modem, called comcast, etc. No one could figure out why it wasn't working. until i went outside and looked at the box. the retard comcast guy had disconnected us!! WTF!! so we called them and got reconnected. he apparently was trying to disconnect the deadbeat neighbor's internet, but since comcast is ok with subpar contractors, we went a week and a half with no internet. |
I lived in a 16X12 storage building on a friend's property for almost 6 months and Cox still hooked me up. Getting power was a bit more difficult, but I lied and said I was a contractor and built a temporary service that they hooked up. I just came off of that and went to my shack. I spent roughly $120 a month for everything I needed. Putting the shack together took about a week and cost under $400. I had a shower, a porta potty outside, so I had to shower at work in the winter. I had a mini fridge and heating and air too. It was actually comfortable to live in, but the social stigma of living in a shack in the woods got the better of me. |
I was a Comcast technician for four years, and then switched to becoming a Comcast salesperson for one year. I quit for two reasons: 1)I wanted to make more money by starting my own internet marketing business and 2)I was sick of being expected to be an unethical bastard to make sales.
Comcast sales training was literally training me to LIE to customers. They taught the sales people technical stuff to say to customers about speed and reliability, but because I had already been a technician, I knew these claims were over exaggerated. Commonly, my supervisor told me to just say yes to whatever the customer wanted, but just put them in the system however I needed. For example, a customer tells me they will sign up if I extend the intro deal price from 6 months to 12 months. My supervisor says just to tell the customer to say yes to get them to sign up. But, when I put in the order through our system, there is no way to do that, so he has me still just put it in for 6 months. He says they'll probably not even notice, but if they do after 6 months and call me directly, just tell them headquarters must have made a mistake and that they'll need to call the 1-800 #.
Also, and this applies to what was written in the original post, we are told to give customers the run around all the time. If someone called me about the $7 going up, my supervisor would have just told the customer that we can't do anything about it and they would have to call the 800 number. The 800 number's supervisor's would then tell the customer that only the original sales rep can change the order. The truth is, ANY supervisor that deals with sales, whether the direct salesmen, or the ones from the 800 number, have channels they can go through to get this stuff changed. ALL OF THEM HAVE THIS POWER. They won't help you because 1)It takes time and effort, so fuck it. 2)When they get their performance reviews, they only care how much money you made the company, they ignore all customer service complaints, good or bad. |
FYI - I'm really, really new to reddit so my apologies in advance if I mess this up.
I don't know if this relates to only to business or residential accounts but I can offer some advice/news/info on business accounts.
Comcast is willing to reduce the fee to (almost) nothing for the modem rental.
My first call to the business billing department more or less told me to fuck off. I was told they labeled it as a "tax and fee" despite my contract having a line SPECIFICALLY FOR INTERNET/MODEM COSTS LISTED AT $0.00" They suggested calling retention instead at option #4. Didn't give me a phone number or anything, just to call retention at option #4.
I called Comcast after 7PM CST (the retention department supposedly closes at 6PM CST, I guess not) business support and spoke with their retention department after navigating through their shitty phone tree. They offered to discount my bill by $5 for the length of my contact to offset the $7 charge of the modem rental. It's not perfect but its enough so I won't dump them until my contract length is up.
On the modem rental bit - coming from an ex-Comcast employee - you can't use your own modems on business accounts. You're required to use/rent their modems on the off chance (businesses want/need static IPs? get out) you want a static IP. Without going into details - regular residential modems such as Motorola Surfboards can't, by themselves, broadcast a static IP on their network. They need something they have absolute control over, have remote access to, load firmware on, broadcast RIP, etc.
Even if you don't have static IPs they won't let you use your own equipment. It's cheaper for them if you want to upgrade to a static block in the future; they won't have to roll a technician if you're modem is already capable.
Having worked for 2 years in their business department if anyone has any questions about Comcast I'll be more than happy to answer. |
It is extremely difficult to start from zero and compete with anything that is already in operation.
Did you ever stop to think the copyright system allows for the creation of better products?
This Kim guy is merely taking those products without paying, and distributing them for free.
There is no unlaw barrier to new distriubtion models. Netflix already has one original show, and several more in the pipeline.
Copyright only prevents you from falsely taking credit for other peoples hard work.
Also the idea that the distribution model is outdated is pretty retarded in the age of netflix, amazon instant video, and Itunes. You can have most videos in your house in 30 sections. Fast than megaupload.
People just don't want to have to pay for it. |
Umm, Google paid one of the largest settlements in U.S. history as a result of a long term criminal investigation by the department of justice. Get your [facts straight](
From justice department regarding their investigation of Google:
"Google conceded ... that it was on notice that online Canadian pharmacies were in fact advertising prescription drugs to Google users in the United States through Google’s AdWords "geo-targeting" feature. Finally, Google acknowledged that it provided customer support to some of these Canadian online pharmacy advertisers to assist them in placing and optimizing the AdWords advertisements that targeted U.S. consumers." |
A couple things:
Yes, you can get hacked/"snooped on" fairly easily by someone who's taken an interest in you. However, you're not important enough for anyone to actually care about you, unless they have personal reasons (girlfriend trying to catch you cheating, etc).
alexthelateowl, you're making it sound like FB has a massive hardon for reading everything you write. They don't care about you. Nobody will actually read your communications. You're insignificant. They only want to make money off of you, and if that's through analyzing your communications to serve targeted ads, so be it. I think you're forgetting that "nothing is free". That includes social network services.
Additionally, it's important to remember that we live in a world with nearly no privacy. We can circlejerk about encrypted communications and privacy acts all we want, but it won't help. For instance, the [NSA monitors all your phone calls]( and the UK has [CCTV on almost every streetcorner](
You know when you register for a "loyalty program"? I don't know any US examples, but those free membership thingies you get at the grocery store, where you collect points to get rewards and discounts? Yeah, [the main purpose of those programs is to collect information about your shopping habits]( Ditto goes for your [Visa / Mastercard, which sell your purchase history to advertisers](
Where else are you expecting privacy? In your home? [That may soon be a no-go in the UK]( How about when you're out in the woods by your house, thinking you're all alone... nope, the US can [remotely activate your cell phone microphone]( if they're really interested in you. |
I like it too. It has proven to be an invaluable tool.
However I still think there is a better way to achieve the same ends. I'm currently following Diaspora.
As useful as the tools are, it still feels so damn wrong to store all my private messages on another company's server. Especially when I'm not (directly) financing the storage operation.
I'd like to see the net trend towards real-life communication abstractions.
e.g: You don't go to Google HQ to get your mail, you go to your privately owned mailbox.
You don't check your voicemail at Skype HQ, you press play on your privately owned answering machine (not so true with cellphones, but I don't particularly like how cellphones do voicemail.)
You don't go down to Facebook HQ to look at your friends photo albums, you go to their house and look at their photos.
I'd like to see a net where we are all individually responsible for our own communication services.
The main problem with this decentralized net is bandwidth. If you post a particularly popular article, your home (1.5MBit) line is gonna get backed up fast.
A possible solution is that the article source is at your home address, but if it gets popular then people will ideally submit it to some kind of aggregate content site (reddit) and they will cache it for a while (12hours) and be responsible for the bandwidth.
I'd like to see a globally enforced security system that prevents links from being shared with unauthorized peers, though. |
Keep up the fight, but keep in mind that this particular battle will be lost. Without corporate backing, there is really no chance of stopping this one.
Can this war be won. No. Ultimately they will get the all laws they want. Throughout history, there has never been a frontier that is both heavily used by man, and not controlled by governments. A controlled, limited internet is the future; it cannot be stopped.
But fighting like you have so far will buy time to get new technologies deployed, making their efforts obsolete. Just like with encryption technology, which is now too wide spread to ever be controlled, so too will new things like TOR, I2P, mesh networking, and future tools to preserve privacy will gain a foothold strong enough that even they cannot dislodge it. |
Product liability. You can go after individuals if negligence is shown. Engineers have been sent to jail over lack of due diligence in cases of civil engineering that I know of when a structure collapses and it's been shown that certain parts of a design were not looked at correctly. It's difficult to show however as you have to pretty much show willful negligence I think as opposed to a mistake. But then there are no mistakes really, only a lack of proper safety precautions. It's up to the jury. |
When I was around 14 I started my own eBay account and subsequently a PayPal account. I had my own bank account and everything because I've always been independent to a degree. I sold my iPod touch 3rd generation (which I bought with the money I earned from mowing lawns) on eBay. I was surprised to get a hefty 225 bucks for it. (I originally bought it for 100 on Craigslist) I was quite the happy camper! I shipped it off. When the buyer received it I went to retrieve my money from PayPal only to be told that they froze my account because I am too young. And that I'd have to wait a year to get it. I was furious! In my mind, I thought PayPal was evil. I figured they waited to get the money from the buyer, and then freeze my account so they could hold the money and build interest off it. |
First off, that is a 100% unfounded claim. While he doesn't say what type of account he was using, Elliot has been running an online business for many years now and I am extremely confident that someone as successful as he is was using a Business PayPal account.
Second, if you're going to start off your post as " |
Look at it this way: any aspiring graphic artist can easily pirate Photoshop etc. He may be well versed in it by the time he enters college and will continue to use it. Photoshop et al (adobe) is so ubiquitous and accessible that it becomes the industry standard. When these awesome designers get jobs, the big company they work for has to purchase the software because they won't risk pirating it. |
1 you can purchase individual products.
2 if you are going to use the software (especially for commercial use) you have no justification for piracy. |
if you want to make some money, you would cater to companies in my situation that just need file conversion services. that would be a proper example of a free market working properly.
If a company saw a profit in this, they would create and market the tool. If a company like adobe has a monopoly on an industry, they have no need to care. They likely make more money this way, and don't have to spend the additional resources of producing yet another software package that is redundant with acrobat.
Acrobat - minor tweaks to documents, primarily for notation and viewing / printing.
In design - page layout
Illustrator - vector images
Photoshop - raster images
Each of them has the possibility with working with the other file formats, and to some extent converting them. Why on earth would adobe want to put more money and effort into a new product to just convert files? It doesn't make business sense when a fair number of companies will need more then just a few of the features provided in this new software package.
If you see a profit in making a simple conversion tool - get a small business loan, hire some software engineers and have the tool made. Market it - if it makes money, awesome - good on you for using the free market to your advantage. If not? It sucks, but its the risk of the market.
Either way - you still can't justify the piracy. So if you are going to do it, accept that it is defined as wrong by society as a whole - even if people who acknowledge this fact actively pirate - take the aproach that piracy is wrong. It is illegal in many cases, and is an infringement to someone's copyright. |
Actually in the next architecture Intel is undoing the ties to the CPU.
The reason behind this is that since the graphics processor was tied to the CPU clock as well, if the Processor didn't clock up the GPU lost power.
The reason they synced all that wasn't uniformity anyway and had nothing to do with what is going on above. They synced the clocks because it eliminated significant L3 cache latency. When the clocks are in sync there are many more cache hits.
In haswell they'll be undoing that in order to advance the architecture in other ways.. |
Dude, chill. No ones insulting your intellect. If iPhone is how you roll, its how you roll.
Buying an iPhone is very streamlined and easy, you ever buy the newest, the last year, or the free two year old one. Size is the only other option.
Android phones are completely different. Buying an Android phone isn't like buying an iPhone. There are a lot of phones out there that are utter shit. Buying an utter shit phone will of course lead to a shit experience, and probably turn you off to Android as a whole. Don't buy shit, look into what phones are nice and what phones are current. Buying an android with gingerbread on it in this past year would be an awful mistake.
Now, jail breaking and rooting. Its not for the fainted hearted, and it shouldn't be. I'm not saying you're stupid or anything, but if you can't do it, its a sign that you shouldn't. I can't play basketball, so I don't. I don't yell at NBA stars for making it look easy, I just leave it be. Most instruction threads usually have tons of repeated questions as well as step by step guides for android rooting. IPhone jailbreaks are "easy" because there is at most three "current" iPhones on one version of the OS. On Android, there are tons of phones on tons of carriers on tons of kernels, boatloaders, skins, os versions, etc. There are a multitude of variables. |
You are incorrect. The reason Winmodems came into existence is cost. At the time most of the hardware required to make an outbound 14.4k (or higher) connection was heavily patented and expensive. To work around the patents (and the expensive chips required as well), someone (Microsoft? I don't know who came up with the idea) made what were essentially purpose-built, software-controlled function generators which were completely unencumbered by patents and required only the cheapest of integrated circuits.
These devices (winmodems) weren't just controlled via software drivers they were the software drivers. To work they had to use non-trivial amounts of your PC's CPU (and a bit of memory too) which at the time was a very scarce resource. Especially when you consider that most CPUs were single-threaded and that Windows built-in CPU scheduler was utter crap (it still sucks, actually =). |
Then there should be no complaining about WinRT tablets then. This is Apple-Close, Apple-Proprietary Style.
To their credit, Microsoft has improved security of their software -- exceeding even Apple AND Linux today.
Strict security needs to be implemented right at pre-boot, otherwise, it's easy to hide rootkits from the OS and Anti-Malware that load post-boot.
UEFI is OS-Agnostic. Linus Torvalds finds no issues with it.
> Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, has another take: "I'm certainly not a huge UEFI fan, but at the same time I see why you might want to have signed bootup etc. And if it's only $99 to get a key for Fedora, I don't see what the huge deal is."
You know what the root of the problem is?
Linux is piggybacking on the same x86 platform where Windows runs.
It begs to piggyback. That is the problem.
And reading the comments here, it even begs to piggyback WinRT devices.
The top-voted comment here (as of this writing) begs Linux to piggyback on ALL mobile devices.
That is your problem -- You need to have your flagship hardware and be done with these piggybacking, needy, begging attitude of your OS on others' hardware.
You don't wait for the time when everyone goes the way of Apple, because "it's ok to lockup hardware and software one company owns and packages." Right now, Microsoft is moving towards that direction -- in WinRT. |
HTML5 and JS?
Sorry, but you're wrong. I have apps written in pure native code (C++ compiled to ARM machine code) published on the Windows Store running on the Surface RT. Visual C++ comes with an ARM backend.
Windows RT has a substantial subset of the Win32 API adapted for ARM, just like Windows CE did before it. The Windows RT kernel is a fairly direct port of the Windows NT 6.2 kernel, for ARM.
The reason that you cannot run normal desktop apps on Windows RT is that Microsoft has added a check to the kernel which specifically looks for a digital signature from Microsoft from the executable or dll before it loads it. If this check were not present, it would be trivial to recompile and run desktop apps on Windows RT if you had the source code available (as is the case with open source software.)
If you have a Surface (or some other access to a Windows RT system), you can open up notepad.exe and take a look at the code in [IDA]( and do a side by side comparison to the x86 build shipped with Windows 8. You'll find that the two are similar enough in structure that they've clearly been compiled from the same source code.
Microsoft does allow you to run your own apps in the WinRT (note: WinRT ≠ Windows RT) app container sandbox (which is where all Windows Store apps live) if you acquire a (free) developer license, and you can easily see for yourself that there will in fact be fully native ARM code running on the device. Heck, you can even write your program in ARM assembler if you like.
Also, just to clarify, if you have a native Windows Store app and compile (and submit) it only for x86, then it cannot run on ARM devices with Windows RT. If you compile (and submit) it only for ARM, then it cannot run on x86 PCs with Windows 8. If you compile (and submit) it for both x86 and ARM, then the Windows Store will supply then end user with the appropriate package based on the architecture of their device. The same native source code will be available in compiled form for both. |
There's a lot of misinformation about Secure Boot, especially from the Free Software Foundation and similar groups. This has made it hard to find info about what Secure Boot actually does, so I'll try my best to explain. Note that I have no personal experience with developing secure boot systems or anything like that; this is just what I've learned from reading online.
First of all, Secure Boot is not something that Microsoft came up with. They're the first to widely implement it, but they didn't invent it. It's [part of the UEFI specification]( which is basically a newer replacement for the old BIOS that you're probably used to. UEFI is basically the software that talks between the OS and the hardware. UEFI standards are created by a group called the "[UEFI Forum]( which is made up of computing industry representatives including Microsoft, Apple, Intel, AMD, and a handful of computer manufacturers.
Second most important point, having Secure Boot enabled on a computer does not mean that computer can never boot any other operating system . In fact, Microsoft’s own Windows Hardware Certification Requirements state that for non-ARM systems, you must be able to both disable Secure Boot and change the keys (to allow other OSes). More on that later though.
What does Secure Boot do?
Essentially, it prevents malware from attacking your computer through the boot sequence. Malware that enters through the bootloader can be very difficult to detect and stop, because it can infiltrate low-level functions of the operating system, keeping it invisible to antivirus software. Essentially, all that Secure Boot does is it verifies that the bootloader is from a trusted source, and that it hasn’t been tampered with. Think of it like the pop-up caps on bottles that say “do not open if lid is popped up or seal has been tampered with”.
At the top level of protection, you have the platform key (PK). There is only one PK on any system, and it is installed by the OEM during manufacturing. This key is used to protect the KEK database. The KEK database holds Key Exchange Keys, which are used to modify the other secure boot databases. There can be multiple KEKs. There is then a third level: the Authorized Database (db) and the Forbidden Datbase (dbx). These contain information about Certificate Authorities, additional cryptographic keys, and UEFI device images to allow or block, respectively. In order for a bootloader to be allowed to run, it must be cryptographically signed with a key that is in the db, and is not in the dbx.
How this works out on a real-world Windows 8 Certified system
The OEM generates its own PK, and Microsoft provides a KEK that the OEM is required to pre-load into the KEK database. Microsoft then signs the Windows 8 Bootloader, and uses their KEK to put this signature in the Authorized Database. When UEFI boots the computer, it verifies the PK, verifies Microsoft’s KEK, and then verifies the bootloader. If everything looks good, then the OS can boot.
Where do third party OSes, like Linux come in?
First, any Linux distro could choose to generate a KEK and ask OEMs to include it in the KEK database by default. They would then have every bit as much control over the boot process as Microsoft does. The problems with this, as explained by Fedora’s Matthew Garrett it would be difficult to get every PC manufacturer to include Fedora’s key, and b) it would be unfair to other Linux distros, since their key wouldn’t be included, and smaller distros don’t have as many OEM partnerships.
What Fedora has chosen to do (and other distros are following suit) is to use Microsoft’s signing services. This scenario requires paying $99 to Verisign (the Certificate Authority that Microsoft uses), and grants developers the ability to sign their bootloader using Microsoft’s KEK. Since Microsoft’s KEK will already be in most computers, this allows them to sign their bootloader to use Secure Boot, without requiring their own KEK. It ends up being more compatible with more computers, and costs less overall than dealing with setting up their own key signing and distribution system. There are some more details about how this will work (using GRUB, signed Kernel modules, and other technical info) in the aforementioned blog post, which I recommend reading if you’re interested in this sort of thing.
Suppose you don’t want to deal with the hassle of signing up for Microsoft’s system, or don’t want to pay $99, or just have a grudge against large corporations that start with an M. There is another option to still use Secure Boot and run an OS other than Windows. [Microsoft’s hardware certification]( requires that OEMs let users enter their system into UEFI “custom” mode, where they can manually modify the Secure Boot databases and the PK. The system can be put into UEFI Setup Mode, where the user could even specify their own PK, and sign bootloaders themselves.
Furthermore, Microsoft’s own certification requirements make it mandatory for OEMs to include a method to disable Secure Boot on non-ARM systems. You can turn Secure Boot off! The only systems where you can’t disable Secure Boot are ARM systems running Windows RT, which function more similarly to the iPad, where you can’t load custom OSes. Although I wish that it would be possible to change the OS on ARM devices, it is fair to say that Microsoft is following the industry standard with regard to tablets here.
So secure boot is not inherently evil?
So as you can hopefully see, Secure Boot is not evil, and is not restricted only to use with Windows. The reason the FSF and others are so upset about it is because it does add extra steps to using a third-party operating system. Linux distros may not like paying to use Microsoft’s key, but it is the easiest and most cost-effective way to get Secure Boot working for Linux. Fortunately, it is easy to turn Secure Boot off, and possible to add different keys, thus avoiding the need to deal with Microsoft.
Given the amount of increasingly advanced malware, Secure Boot seems like a reasonable idea. It’s not meant to be an evil plot to take over the world, and is a lot less scary than some free software pundits will have you believe.
Additional reading:
[Microsoft Hardware Certification Requirements](
[Building Windows 8: Protecting the pre-OS environment with UEFI](
[Microsoft presentation on Secure Boot deployment and key management](
[Implementing UEFI Secure Boot in Fedora](
[TechNet Secure Boot Overview](
[Wikipedia article on UEFI]( |
I use android phones and I got my phone for free from Verizon due to not upgrading for nearly 2 1/2 years. My data plan costs $60/month for 1GB, the bare minimum. I also have Verizon's Home Fusion 4G internet for the home in which you get 10GB/month for $60, $90 for 20GB, and 30GB for $120. How can you explain why I get 10GB for the same price as 1GB from my 4G phone? The answer is that it has nothing to do with iphones and is entirely about Verizon (in my case) charging way more for the same service from your phone. They are simply charging that much because of the reasons the article stated. |
I've not been a fan of mobile Internet and the way Verizon Wireless and other large companies treat their network by making it less appealing is keeping me from getting a smart phone. Short of going full blown prepaid which I will most likely do, Data is required. Call me old fashioned, I'd love to get a smartphone (soon to be illegal to get an unlocked one, so they say) but I won't get a plan where 1GB of data costs $60 minimum and to top it off, the best you get on 3G is 200kbps/200kbps which is right there in performance with the old 2G network, or on LTE a rollercoaster between 3.2Mbps/1.2Mbps and 8Mbps/4Mbps, sometimes as low as 1Mbps/1Mbps, and this is AT&T and Verizon regardless. T-Mobile is "Okay" around here but Sprint is absolutely terrible out here. Throttling is quite abundant, too. In other words: The towers out here are shit and are mostly still using copper circuits. People have to use the towers for home Internet because the same telephone company (Verizon) won't give them DSL or Fiber, and the Cable company just rolls in a pile of mud and then asks for $10,000 to run a coaxial line across one pole, or to hook up an undocumented cable line they buried underground that used to be in service.
Data is quite stupid as far as how cheap it's getting, and since the telephone companies have Fiber everywhere, or they yank fiber like they do from the Cable company in this area in rural areas to run their towers there's no excuse to cap. LTE if done right should be quite efficient on spectrum and refarming spectrum will be a slow and painful, but much needed enhancement if that is their main concern.
Now if Spectrum were such an issue to back up the carriers claim, why are they offering Home Internet services like HomeFusion on cell phone Internet? Granted those services are expensive, but imagine what would happen if Verizon also follows through with their plan to eliminate DSL and kick folks to Wireless.
In a more "towards the carrier view" I do wonder if the overages they charge goes towards those subsidized phones like the iPhone, or towards new wireless gear. The increase in profits though suggests they're doing it for shareholders and bigger paychecks to management since their upgrades are most likely already budgeted months ahead.
Anyways, I suppose I've said enough in a basic stance. |
I say conservative because the 70B in fossil fuel subsidies includes the proportion of those subsidies which go into non power applications like gasoline for cars. If you don't like numbers being cushioned by conservative you can use my 6x evaluation instead but it's much harsher to the arguments for renewable energy.
I don't defend fossil fuel subsidies (except the foreign tax credit (15.3B) since it promotes a level playing field in international business). Generally subsidies for industries dominated by large companies have little to no benefit since the company has strong finances and can be anti-competitive since larger companies can more efficiently do the paperwork to redeem subsidies.
Secondly I don't think you properly understand the proportionality here. Solar is only competing with coal because the subsidies it receives are concentrated in a much smaller amount of energy producing facilities than Coal. Per unit of energy provided (which is how energy is priced) solar is more heavily subsidized than coal implying that it is not cost competitive. |
First let me say I think Paypal is a pretty shitty operation.
But they are a financial institution operating int he USA so they are governed by rules. The problem is that it feels like Paypals operating procedures are somewhat unclear and they do a piss poor job of informing users before hand and during disputes.
After almost 15 years, you would think that they could clearly explain to their users, both foreign and domestic what to do prevent situations like this and what to expect. |
I'm putting my money and tinfoil on that we might very likely already have millimeter satellite fidelity, with infrared for multiple body tracking. |
This is FUD. Traffic correlation on TOR is next to impossible unless very specific conditions are imposed. Tor actively randomizes and delays how packets traverse the network to counter traffic correlation. Likewise the influx of new users further increases the anonymity.
This reminds me of the other two idiots that claimed they could unmask the tor network and when their paper was published, it was clear that they lacked a fundamental understanding of how the network operates. |
Intel is lying. They've been fudging their numbers. Their 22nm is more like 28 and 14nm more like 18. It's a marketing gimmick.
Also, the chips are no faster or higher clocking. Half b/c they're too small (little insulation) and half b/c this is bulk (crap) finfet process. They're hyping this crap to you that they make dirt cheap and sell for big bucks. |
That could easily be an artifact of the way that wannabe-prophetic futurists read history. If you filter all data looking for exponential increase in something , then as long as not all of human civilization has hit its logarithmic level-off on the S-curve, you will find "evidence" of an exponential take-off. |
OR, there are too many people for the economy too handle and everything crashes.
No matter what, we will still have people dying from the common cold, flu or whatever. But let's for shits and giggles say that we magically eradicated ALL influenza and stuff like that; what happens to all the doctors and nurses that just LOST THEIR JOBS?
The main problem is that our population will skyrocket, people will still get sick (and therefore need healthcare). Lastly, there are tens of thousands of people who are living off of well-fare and have no motivation to get off their ass and get a job. So now imagine how many MILLION people that will grow to? |
First few worlds, so you mean around level 30? Really? All of those levels can be passed 9 times out of 10 by simply counting one drop ahead. There's a harder batch of level around level 100, and 150-200 are really tricky. Sure, there's a lot of luck involved, but if you can see dual candies or black candies even one move ahead you can beat most levels with relative ease.
I actually consider Candy Crush to be one of the better mobile games. Here's why:
They keep adding new gimmicks into the levels. After the first few were added I thought they'd run out, but at level 250 they still keep coming and surprising me.
The ads in the game have become somewhat annoying over the past year but still not half as bad as, say, Angry Birds. Which I guess you're fine with?
Haven't spent a dime, haven't annoyed any friends on FB with the game. Level 250.
It's no AAA game, but for sitting in a car for 3 hours it's good low-effort entertainment.
It doesn't want access to your phone records, dental records, USB access, lock screen or anything, unlike 99% of the shit on google play. Just a network connection. And it doesn't even require that to play.
Recent update added 'dream world' which seems to be a new set of levels with an additional gimmick: colours matter and you get a random black candy every 10-25 moves depending on the level. Makes for a good change.
Same update also added 'daily wheel' which gives you a random power up to use later. My main complaint about the game was that the powerups weren't available to non-payers, now they are. Unlike Dungeon Keeper where you just can't access stuff without paying. |
you obviously don't understand a thing about networking.
I understand that throttling in a router for no good reason is moronic and takes more effort than just pushing everything through as fast as you can. Why would Verizon be wasting their memory and processing in a petty feud with Netflix? It's in their best interest to avoid network delays wherever they can. But when you can't avoid those delays you have to prioritize the traffic and someone will be first in line and someone else will have to wait. That only happens when a connection is saturated, though. It's true that having underutilized links isn't economical so in a network like Verizon's they'll keep it near saturation all the time. But that's exactly why they would avoid throttling which would lead to situations where the router is delaying packets solely to meet the throttle limit even though there is available bandwidth.
When they say "fast lane" what they mean is assigning a priority to the traffic so when it hits those saturated links it moves to the head of the queue. This makes it less likely that
high priority packets will be dropped, but will still try to forward all packets in a timely manner. A lower priority packet may have to wait in line and the longer it waits the more likely it is to be dropped. If there is no line, however, there's no reason to delay it and the router isn't going to sit around doing nothing so the traffic will be sent.
So let's say that Verizon is overwhelmed with a large amount of traffic coming from one particular origin, such as Netflix. They're the largest single user of bandwidth at 33% and no one else is much higher than 11%. So at any particular router, without any prioritization, one out of every three packets it forwards will be from Netflix. Or at saturation, a third of the packets ahead of a Netflix packet will also be Netflix. Prioritization won't cure that logjam because the main contributor to the delays is the Netflix traffic that you just gave priority to. Moreover, the heaviest users of Netflix are just 1% of all users so most of that traffic has to be routed to the same places. The links that are the most saturated and having to be delayed are 50% filled with Netflix traffic.
( source
And prioritization isn't some evil anti-neutrality scheme. It's necessary to make sure that certain traffic that needs to be delivered right now doesn't get stuck between a fat chain of packets that really aren't that important. Compare someone talking on VOIP versus uploading a weekly backup to DropBox. Do you care if it takes 13 or 15 minutes to upload the backup? Not really. But a delay of 2 tenths of a second will annoy the person talking on the phone. If you pass a net neutrality law that disallows prioritization then you ruin the experience of many applications. One of which is Netflix which wants its packets delivered quickly and reliably, so it makes sense for them to want to be prioritized. And if Verizon wants to add a toll to that prioritization, what's the harm? The DropBox backup will still get uploaded, just a little slower (and not so slow anyone would notice) but that's okay because it can tolerate the delay.
Prioritization does nothing if all the traffic your sitting behind gets shifted to the "fast lane" with you. The only way to improve speed is to build more network capacity. And within Verizon's ginormous and outdated network, there's certainly many parts of it that need to be improved. But as large as they are they can't just flip a switch and upgrade every system at once. (Well, maybe they could but their shareholders would lose their shit when they saw how much money was just spent.)
Is Verizon right for asking Netflix to pay? Well, they're not exactly wrong in that they need to pay for the necessary upgrades somehow and the choices are to start making peers that use a lot of bandwidth to pay up, raise the rates on the customers, or cut into their profits. Someone is going to get mad no matter what they do -- the peers, the customers, or the shareholders. But the one option not available to them is to do nothing.
Paying for prioritization is new and different. So because it's not the way things have been done in the past it must be bad? If the existing system is supposed to be the best way, then why are consumer-facing networks like Comcast and Verizon suffering these bottlenecks? Shouldn't the currently broken state of internet access be a sign that the current business model is broken? Verizon is offering a new way that will help them improve their network (so they say, I won't tell you you have to believe them). You call it double-dipping, I call it spreading the responsibility. Are you saying that Verizon should be able to improve their service without spending more money? That doesn't sound reasonable. They need to pay for the upgrades somehow and right now the only way to do that is increasing rates for the customer. So it seems to me customers should be all for getting Netflix to foot the cost so they don't have to see higher monthly bills. And Netflix is raking in the money, it's not like they can't afford it.
Of course it could backfire on Verizon if they're not actually able to improve their network to Netflix's satisfaction. They'd go back to just paying Cogent and not bothering with the useless prioritization. Sure it'd be slower, but what's Verizon going to do, stop forwarding all Netflix traffic? That's what some people are saying but it should be obvious how absurd that is. Never mind what it would do to Verizon's subscriber base, it would clearly be seen as an anti-competitive action that would get them sued faster than you can say "Sherman antitrust act." |
Simply put, you're wrong. Millions of other businesses exist, allowing people to complain infinitely about their services online, without blaming the customers for being "completely unreasonable".
I stayed in Manhattan recently and did extensive research online to find awesome local restaurants that weren't just generic tourist traps. I might have read one bad review out of the hundreds of good ones for the restaurants that I ended up going to.
These restaurants are serving hundreds of people daily, thousands of people weekly. People are just as crazy unreasonable at restaurants as they are in hotels, yet when provided unbelievable service they didn't flock to the internet to complain "my glass contained 3 cubes when I specifically asked for 4!"
My mother works in a hotel and has been in the business for 37 years. Sure there are bad reviews and totally crazy customers that you just can't please, but they are far, far outweighed by the normal people that do business daily. |
Not fucked at all. Trust me. I owe Chase thousands, as well as a few other companies. My credit score is absolute shit. The only thing they care about is whether or not you have previous student loans that have defaulted due to non-payment, which, just last year, I did. I paid like $80/month for nine months until my student loans were back in good standing (I had quit going to school like six years ago and never paid on the loans before), and the moment they came out of default, even though I still owed thousands, they still gave me another loan to get back into college like it wasn't shit. |
Like water passing through a net.
That's the problem with their strategy. 4chan is a medium, or to stick to the analogy, a single stream or river. The people that frequent the site do so because that is their single most efficient path to do so that they are aware of. They assume people that are going to these websites are fish within the water. In reality, the people are indeed the water. You can try damming up that river, altering its course, etc, but eventually the water will flow where it wants and it will do so in the most efficient way it is aware of.
You take down one 4chan, and 4 more will pop up in its place. Where there's a will, there's a way. |
It's more conspiracy than anything else.
Certain ex-moderators claim to have been stripped of their power and that new, SJW mods were chosen in place of them. These claims, like most things on 4chan, are posted anonymously and without source.
The talk came from bans and thread removal being made over the discussion of Zoe Quinn, Gamersgate, etc.
Moot's official statement was that these reoccurring topics have become an organized attack, which has always been against 4chan's rules and has been a punishable act in the past. |
You an' I seem to be trying to solve different problems. Making rational arguments doesn't help when you're drowned out by the hateful cacophony of anti-feminist bigots, caught in a self-affirming feedback loop because they have driven away competing ideas through intimidation. Rational people are generally on the side of feminism, just like they're on the side of LGBTQ equality or racial equality.
As a straight, white male, I don't have to deal with the level of hate and prejudice that minority groups do. However, when I stand up for these groups, I get a taste of what they have to go through every single day, and it's abhorrent. When I see another straight, white male trying to pretend that they are the ones being oppressed, it makes me see them as the weakest, lowest sort of being; they don't have the slightest idea of what real oppression is like, they're just greedy. To a certain degree, this goes for female chauvinists, too. You're not superior, and your brand of feminism hurts the fight for equality as much as the MRM.
The internet allows people to find like-minded individuals quickly and easily, and it allows this sort of clusterfuck to happen very quickly. The point is, just because you've driven the opposition out of the discussion does not mean you've won, and it absolutely does not mean that you're right. All it means when a bigoted idea gets overwhelming, one-sided support is that you've excluded the diversity that makes humanity so innovative and wonderful.
Oh, am I rambling? Sorry, I feel pretty strongly about this issue. |
Dude, what you are saying isn't an unpopular opinion. It is objectively wrong. Saying the Earth is flat isn't an unpopular opinion, it is flat out wrong.
The thing is, I agree with most of what you have been saying--but you need to use more narrow terms. You can't artificially limit what a word applies to to fit your agenda. If you want people to listen to what you have to say, you have to use language correctly. This discussion has been you trying to argue that the dictionary's definition of a word is incorrect.
If I tell you 2+2=5, are you going to believe me when I start talking about calculus? Or are you going to dismiss me out of hand? There is a reason academia has so much jargon; it's needed to clarify concepts that aren't at all black and white. That is exactly what we are doing here.
Now, this:
>I just don't see a connection between a voluntary defining of creative and editorial boundaries, and a condition where there are legally punitive consequences from exercising free speech.
Is a good conversation piece. Now you are arguing that government censorship is a bigger issue than private censorship. I'm not exactly sure how I feel on the issue. I lean towards your side, but business has become so powerful over the last few decades, I'm not sure if the difference even matters anymore. So, I'm going to play quasi-devils advocate here to see if you can show me something I haven't thought about before.
>I just don't see a connection between a voluntary defining of creative and editorial boundaries, and a condition where there are legally punitive consequences from exercising free speech.
Both of them are a person in position of power limiting access to something of creative or editorial importance to someone in a place of lesser power.
>The motives are different
The motives certainly aren't different. The motives are to keep people from seeing something the person in power deems objectionable in some way.
>the forms are different
How do you mean?
>the means are different
Not exactly. Both us either power or the threat of force to prevent access to something they do not like.
>the consequences are different.
Yes. This is the big one. The consequences for state censorship are much higher than for private censorship.
>I fear a national condition where only popular speech is condoned, and unpopular speech censored by the government, with no support from anyone else.
Yet you don't fear a national condition where unpopular speech is censored by the population? I find that far more fearful--angry mobs running around killing you because you aren't of the right religion or political persuasion? That's what leads to what you worry about.
>And that's what you get when you don't discern between voluntary private action and government mandate.
Except, we do discern between private and state censorship. It's just we use more specific terminology than only "censorship". Censorship encompasses a hell of a lot of situations, then we use other words to narrowdown those situations. |
So, for the sake of debate, lets assume that "feminist" powered censorship is indeed taking place. The difference between this moralistic censorship and internet slow lanes is basically just that. One is done on the basis of creating internet forums which do not encourage harm either physically or psychologically. Business censorship through restricted access has no moral justification and is instead restricting the competition of websites and restricting the potential of home-grown operations, as well as the opportunities of the lower classes.
Let's use a relevant example. Many people have been making the case to take down the notorious self harm subreddit. This is due to the fact that having a forum dedicated to this behavior facilitates it and causes a form of group think making it okay. Defenders of its existence mainly cite the sub's right to be there under the guise of free speech. However, free speech on this site can only go so far as Reddit allows, and could be taken down at any time like TheFappening was (and I agree with the decision to do so.) This is very different from CISPA and Net Neutrality in that the censorship of the sub would be done to protect both viewers (who could very likely be triggered by the images) and posters (who do not need the encouragement to continue self abuse.) |
The problems that solar creates for the grid are unique to solar problems, not "haven't been upgraded in 40 years" problems. The problems it creates would need specialized equipment that even the smartest non-solar-integrated grid would lack.
So basically the argument on one side is "Add on to your grid that we only sometimes use to accommodate us" and "Why should we add on to our grid to help out those who don't use it much and don't pay us much" on the other.
I can tell you right now that utilities don't care too much about loosing people completely. They care about people who are only going to use their power lightly at night and shit in everyone else's power during the day. And the utility has to pay for this shitty power. And they have to pay to clean up that shitty power. They are legally mandated to keep the power on the grid within very narrow specs, and a quarter of a town running hybrid solar installs fucks it all up every time a cloud floats overhead. |
This isn't hard to update to. Doctors and medical coders (the people inputting patient data, not coder as in developer) are extremely resistant to change and have been using old shitbox applications forever.
Our latest insurance portal you type out the description and auto fill shows a list of matches. You click the right one and it inputs the appropriate code for you. How freaking hard is that?
It's 2015, nobody is expecting them to remember 68k different codes. The bullshit about needing to quintuple database fields is full of shit too. You don't need an individual column for every code, you have one fucking column like you always had, and it stores the code as varchar.
It really really is not hard to type "foot fracture" and click on "lisfranc fracture dislocation, right" from the list. It is. However, infinitely more useful when trying to audit procedures than getting back "broken foot". |
Still, they should maybe, y'know, spend some money on fixing the Palestinian territories they've been so intent on turning into massive craters for the last couple of decades. |
I'm sure YOU were a special snowflake and if only you'd been encouraged we'd have flying cars and orgasms that cure cancer.
What I actually said was that my education made me associate learning with being bored and being told what to do. Our education system fosters confomity. Standardized testing is a gross fallacy. People are wildly different and to think that the most important thing about a student and that what they should be learning is determined by the date they fell out of a vagina is laughable. Our school system fails hard. All you have to look at is how much we spend per student, versus how skilled and educated our work force is.
It is designed under the pre-packaged assumption that any kind of originality or difference between students is to be discouraged and stamped out. Put them in a brick building and suddenly millions of individuals are all expected to be exactly the same. Good teachers are made worthless by what and how they are required to teach. There are a huge number of alternative education concepts and systems that are never tried because we have a monopolistic system. And our education will never improve until we are allowed to try something different. Anyone who thinks the assembly line education structure will produce anything other than a majority of dependent and obedient workers whose creativity and individuality has been completely squashed is simply lying to themselves.
> Unfortunately most students who think they know everything actually don't.
Same with teachers and administrators. The idea that the older generations know exactly what the younger generations should learn should be obviously wrong by the massive job gap in skilled labor despite ridiculously high unemployment. It should be obvious in the fact that our entire lives are now completely integrated with our technology and computers and yet 99% of people still graduate being "technologically illiterate." Our school system focuses on the same shit my parents learned in school with the exception of a disgustingly small minority. It has barely changed its systems, methods, or subject matter for a century.
> You think people teach so they can feel important?
I know plenty of people who do exactly that. You are sorely mistaken if you think there are bad know-it-all students but that teachers are somehow immune from this. Whether you are a good teacher or not unfortunately doesn't make a huge difference. The whole thing is fucking broken. I've had many good teachers that I thought were a shining light. My mother is a teacher, and I've thought of becoming one myself. But the problems within the foundations of how the entire system works makes the task seem hopeless. Any attempt to alter it or try something new becomes a bureaucratic nightmare that will accomplish nothing.
> Bottom line is I'm there to teach material that has been deemed important or relevant, and it is important for you to learn it
I find it interesting that your justification is exactly what I think is wrong with school. Why the hell should I think people who have spent their entire lives within the education system know what is relevant to the needs of society? Even worse is our education should not teach kids what to learn, it should teach them how to learn. It is not the goal of education to dictate what is and is not important. It should be to create individuals who can find out what is and isn't important on their own. It should be to show them how to distinguish fact from fallacy, find information when it's needed, and discover new things through trial and error. Yet we are punished for getting things wrong, creating a fear of failure, and destroying confidence at a young age. When in reality, doing things wrong is the only way we discover new things or actually find out the right answer. These things are not only not taught, they are never even part of the conversation.
Even ignoring that. How do we determine what is important to learn?
A vast majority of jobs available today and the only industries that are growing are in tech and skilled blue collar labor. Two of the very things our education system does not teach. You have to wait to college to even get a mild exposure. There is no reason to believe, and the evidence suggests that the school system does not know what is important for kids to learn.
It may not be your failure as a teacher that causes kids to be bored. It's not your fault that our system completely fails inner city communities, results in a painful lack of skilled labor, and spawns dependent workers with poor critical thinking skills. It's also not your fault that most people end up leaving school with the idea that we must simply rely on authority figures to make all of our decisions, pay our bills, decide where we should and shouldn't put our money, control our habits and choices, and solve our problems for us... But it absolutely is a failure of our education system. |
My post was written more to lament the chunkiness of the average Flash implementation seen currently. Furthermore, in my experience, Flash is undeniably slow, both in loading and execution, especially with the limitations found on most mobiles (poor connection speed, low RAM, no/low video acceleration). |
But but but... I thought the atom bomb won the war! Weren't the allies on the precipice of defeat before we dropped those nukes and that caused all the axis to simultaneously surrender? Right? Right? |
You don't know how happy that made me. Now I'm a little sad because little things like the sound of a floppy drive make me happy. Now I'm perplexed that my emotions are like a roller coaster due to a internet forum. Now my mind's gear box is jamming because I'm over thinking thinks too much. |
CPU SIMD has very little to do with performance on these benchmarks. It's just that the A5 is a lot better design by Apple: ( "The A5 package contains 512 MB of low-power DDR2 RAM clocked at 1066 MHz.", which explains the huge fillrate and overall great performance.
Poor memory bandwidth has been a problem in the mobile domain for ages, and Apple was the first to fix it. Makes the competing Android segment look pretty bad: those are devices that are not fit for high performance graphics, video processing, etc. |
This is fucking retarded. If I buy a pirated movie (something I've never done; why would I pay for it?) that I would otherwise not have purchased, I'm actually creating jobs.
Buying pirated goods is actually better for the economy than buying used goods, as new materials had to be purchased and "employees" had to be paid to burn all of the DVDs and sew all the fake handbags. |
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