Connecting the dots, if Airpods are successful in adoption, this could answer the awkward "You'd look silly holding a watch up to your ear" argument, same with "It's inconvenient to plug a 3.5mm plug into a watch". Maybe this is one motivating factor in Apple's decision to remove it the 3.5mm port from the iPhone?
IANAL, and I'm reading between the (redacted) lines. Did anyone get the sense that Uber's lawyers line of questioning was leading towards the possibility that Alphabet let this theft of their IP happen to catch Uber with their pants down?
There are questions about how Larry felt about Mr. Levandowski real contribution to Waymo/Chauffeur(p21 Line 15).
They are asking about David Drummond's position on Uber's Board(p40 line 13).
This leads to questions about when Larry knew Mr Levandowski was leaving the company(p45 Line 14).
These lead to questions about Mr. Levandowski's attempt to spin off a team from Google/Alphabet (p64 Line 2).
...
Setting up the dates on a redacted email, they to be talking about Larry's knowledge of IP and people taken by Uber for autonomous cars (p181 line 10).
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but what are the implications of Google getting sloppy with protecting itself at the risk of catching a competitor steal your work?
Not trying to throw salt in the argument for democracy, but isn't your argument the digital equivalent of "Why doesn't everyone do everything for themselves to overthrow the dependency on unstable corporations"?
It'd be great if everything was decentralized, everyone encrypted all their messages, used tor to mask their activities. At some point though, these would require the average person to learn a lot about the network and systems they use, otherwise they risk not using it correctly and invalidating the point. If these services are provided to them, they don't have to think about all these factors when using the network, they can specialize, allowing it to be more accessible. It seems that the people vote has been on more accessible, but it is starting to look like the foxes are running the hen house for the internet these days.
That being said, what Turkey is doing is scary.
> The government has not officially commented on the outage. But the Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Ministry told the state-run agency, "Instead of coordinating against terrorism, (Wikipedia) has become part of an information source which is running a smear campaign against Turkey in the international arena."
This shows a profound lack of understanding of how a basic site like Wikipedia works, which is either ignorant or malicious, and the latter sounds likely in this day and age.
i said decentralized, not distributed. decentralization has plenty of room for centers, the point is not to have just one. having specialized service providers is fine, the problems start to crop up when we don't have real choices. for natural monopolies, i'd argue that a cooperative model would work well.
Is the argument here that if "net neutrality" goes away, carriers will provide service to "poor, rural area" because they are able to serve their content better than the generally available content on the internet? Not arguing for it, just trying to understand the argument for a less "equal" internet.
Also, I thought this was how it already worked, but it was just called home cable? Don't most homes in the US got a decent hookup to their home for "cable", that usually includes an internet package?
I think the argument is this: "The best possible service for customers always necessarily comes from unregulated free-market competition. Therefore, we should remove all regulations, even if they are removed one-by-one with potential imbalances occurring in the regulatory ecosystem. Removal of any regulation is at least closer to true free market. So, we'll start with removing the regulations that my lobbyist friends identify as the ones they most want removed. It's a step in the right direction. Since fewer regulations equals more market freedom, whatever happens will necessarily be an improvement overall compared with whatever would have happened with the regulation in place."
In short: "free markets are the best because whatever result we get from whatever we choose to call free markets is, by definition, the best result."
I'm very new to the single-payer idea, but Vermont rates 49th for population in the US, California ranks 1st. I thought one of the strengths of a single-payer system was to leverage the power of large numbers to help drive costs down. Would this not make it more viable?
We even know California's population is large enough to support its own single-payer system since Canada has a slightly smaller population and a single payer system.
The trick is whether the transition to a single payer system is feasible. Both in terms of taxes, and existing organizations and incentives.
"We even know California's population is large enough to support its own single-payer system since Canada has a slightly smaller population and a single payer system."
Except Canada can (for the most part) control who can enter, stay, and participate in the system, while California is at the mercy of its open borders (newcomers from other states or countries).
It's a bad idea to compare California to Canada or Australia, because even with our great economy we don't control our currency. Countries can deficit-spend but we have to actually pay for things.
This is the same flaw (see Strong Towns) that leads cities to tear down useful buildings and replace it with parking lots and highways, because the federal government gave them money to build them, but not to maintain them… so they go broke.
Huh, I just realized I'm wrong because California voters always approve state bond measures. We're safe after all.
Also: lots of doctors probably enjoy living in California, and couldn't easily move elsewhere, whereas Vermont is pretty small and one could pretty easily move to NH or upstate NY or somewhere else close by.
Vermont is 32nd in per capita GDP. Poorest would be Mississippi, dead last. California is indeed a massive economy and we're ranked 10th in per capita GDP.
One point about our size. When CA does something at the state level a lot of other states follow along. Minnesota can't dictate to manufacturers but CA can.
Per capita GDP matters more in determining whether Vermont or California can better afford this. In fact, CA can better afford this than Vermont.
By comparison, Mississippi cannot afford this. They're basically supported by states like California; their economy is trivial and they're propped up by defense spending.
Why? Disagree with your reasoning, it's not about per-capita, it's about absolute numbers in the risk pool and ability for a large actor like CA to better negotiate prices down.
Why do you think Apple gets better prices than, e.g. Logitech for component parts? Because they order massively more, up-front, and with strict timetables for delivery.
There are a lot of very poor communities in Vermont, though I doubt Vermont is poor by median household income. I don't have the numbers in front of me but in terms of corporate tax base, Vermont is probably quite poor compared to NY or CA.
Ben and Jerry's can only foot so much of the tax bill.
I have an common sense observation and questions. Apple, Microsoft etc you name it, all get their hardware products manufactured in china & Asian countries mainly to drive down costs (People blame CEOs but really ? do they have a choice ? Will wall street show mercy on them ? It is easy to forget that US consumers are the primary beneficiaries, and Wall street is happy - means - 401ks, IRAs of regular US citizens grow ! ). How come pharma companies dont follow that model and drive down the prices of drugs/medicines ? How come healthcare providers dont use "globalization" for cutting health care costs where apparently it matters the most ? One can live without iphones or electronics, but cant live without necessary medicines or proper healthcare. Without driving down drug prices or hospital costs, how can healthcare problem be solved, no matter what system is used ?
Mostly because the cost of drugs isn't dominated by manufacturing costs the way it is with electronics. The vast majority of the cost of a drug is in the development of it. Further, of the costs for developing it, the cost is split fairly evenly between paying for the skilled researchers who actually do the development, and the administrative costs of testing and certification. As for the actual production of the finished drug, that is off-shored for savings, but since most of the cost of the drug is actually going towards offsetting the massive piles of money poured into researching and developing not just that drug but to offset the costs of all the failed drugs, reducing the actual production cost barely moves the needle.
The above is of course talking about newly developed drugs. There is however a rather disturbing recent predatory practice some drug manufacturers have started to engage in of either purchasing an existing drug and jacking up the price if they're the sole manufacturer, or else making a trivial change to an existing drug and then re-releasing it at massively inflated price. In either case the effect is the same, they're selling a drug that has no appreciable research costs associated with it, just the manufacturing price, but they're continuing to charge as if they were having to offset the research costs and they get away with it because that's what people are used to.
It's not a commodity good (in part bc of drug patents). An iPhone may cost more in Asia, but drug treatments are way cheaper. The comparison doesn't really work.
Your conflating cost based pricing and market based pricing.
None of the players above (including apple) engage in cost based pricing. They all charge the price that maximizes their profits, not the price that sells the most units while breaking even.
Not trying to start a capitalism war, but would an Earned Income Tax Credit be a more viable alternative to higher minimum wages? I've not done the leg work, but the IRS has a lot more info to help determine who's making how much that could help make the EITC even out unequal pay.
I'm not really on top of the various policy debates, actually. What's important is not to be distracted by this idea that "life sucks, and you can't really do anything about it -- so just keep your head down and look after yourself." Being as this is not only exactly how the powers-that-be want you to see things; it's entirely integral to their strategy of keeping things the way they are.
Very good point - it's a bit disheartening to see many people eschew political action in favour of self improvement.
Self improvement is fine and necessary and honorable and all, but ultimately living together in society is necessarily political.
Note also that a lot of what is taught in undergrad/MBA economics 101 distracts from that, and (even while aspiring to be value neutral) implicitly promotes a trust in markets and corporations that is naive and misguided.
James Kwak's book "Economism" is a nice antidote to that:
Late 20's(mid 1990's as a kid) here in Northeast US. I had the same experience growing up, days when it was nice outside, we were expected to not stay in and watch TV, so we would go outside and find things to do. I feel like it's that last part though that may have changed over the years as well. There's so many compelling forces today that A) make kids want to stay inside and B) make parents want to want their kids inside.
In these discussions, I hear people say "I'd be charged if I let my kids outside today", but it doesn't also address the cultural shifts that have happened to both the kids and adults that make "outside" a worse off place to be.
Signal has a built in 'export' function that produces a plaintext file with chat logs. However that might defeat the point of end-to-end encrypted messages.
Another approach is to use Signal's "Linked Devices" capability. Designate a central "device" (server) for FOIA purposes, and mandate all relevant public servants/elected officials using Signal add that as a linked device.
Then there's no need to retrieve a device and dump its message store, which obviously depends on the device being in a functional state. Instead there's a one-time setup when Signal is first installed.
I haven't seen an answer that actually addresses this beyond the political divide.
The state legislature fear regulation that would limit coal and force a quota of renewable that may be more expensive, while a "cheaper"(coal, gas, etc) resource exists. I try not to see this as a "Look at us we love coal" and more of a "We want cheap energy(and jobs) through any means necessary".
Side note: This isn't my personal view, just an argument I continuously see in this fight.
