tallest skil

negociarlaw said:

Apple, I Disagree with this decision. Firing is extreme. It is not correct.

Do something wrong, get punished. Enough fucking mollycoddling in this society.

I’ll go ahead and repost this article from after the “net neutrality” shit was originally passed.

The Federal Communications Commission today voted, 3-2, that the Internet will be subject to many of the Title II regulatory provisions of the 1934 Communications Act. Applying Title II laws to broadband means regulating the Internet as a common carrier, akin to the telephone network, and gives significant control of the Internet to the FCC, lobbyists, and industry players. The Title II order and new net neutrality rules have not been released yet, but the thrust of the regulations is clear from commissioners’ statements and media reports. In short, the FCC’s rules represent a giant step backwards to the days of command-and-control of markets.

The FCC’s actions derive in part from the myth that the Internet is neutral. In the evolving online world, the Internet gets less neutral—and better for consumers—every day. Through a hands-off approach from policymakers, the U.S. communications and technology sector has thrived as a supplier of innovation, but Title II rules effectively throw sand in the gears. If the FCC’s rules are not overturned by the courts, the days of permissionless innovation online come to a close. The application of Title II means new broadband services must receive approval from this federal agency. Companies in Silicon Valley will therefore rely increasingly on their regulatory compliance officers, not their engineers and designers. If courts do strike down the FCC’s net neutrality rules for a third time, the FCC should abandon its campaign to regulate the Internet. Instead the Commission should focus on increasing broadband competition across the nation, thereby reducing prices and increasing the availability of new broadband services. There is plenty of work to be done on this front, but pursuing Title II net neutrality rules distract the Commission and Congress from spearheading a pro-consumer innovation agenda.

In view of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) vote on February 26 to regulate the Internet under Title II of the New Deal–era Communications Act, it is critical to understand what these “net neutrality” rules will and will not do. Columbia Business School professor Eli Noam says net neutrality has “at least seven different related but distinctive meanings….” The consensus is, however, that net neutrality is a principle for how an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or wireless carrier treats Internet traffic on “last mile” access — the connection between an ISP and its customer. Purists believe net neutrality requires ISPs to treat all last-mile Internet traffic the same. The FCC will not enforce that radical notion because networks are becoming more “intelligent” every year and, as a Cisco network engineer recently put it, equal treatment for all data packets “would be setting the industry back 20 years.”

Nevertheless, because similar rules were twice struck down in federal court, the FCC is crafting new net neutrality rules for ISPs and technology companies. Many of these Title II provisions reined in the old Bell telephone monopoly and are the most intrusive rules available to the FCC. The net neutrality rules are garnering increased public scrutiny because they will apply to one of the few bright spots in the US economy — the technology and communications sector.

As with many complex concepts, there are many myths about net neutrality. Five of the most widespread ones are dispelled below.

Myth #1: The Internet Has Always Been Neutral

Reality: Prioritization has been built into Internet protocols for years. MIT computer scientist and early Internet developer David Clark colorfully dismissed this first myth as “happy little bunny rabbit dreams,” and pointed out that “[t]he network is not neutral and never has been.” Experts such as tech entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban and President Obama’s former chief technology officer Aneesh Chopra have observed that the need for prioritization of some traffic increases as Internet services grow more diverse. People speaking face-to-face online with doctors through new telemedicine video applications, for instance, should not be disrupted by once-a-day data backups. ISPs and tech companies should be free to experiment with new broadband services without time-consuming regulatory approval from the FCC. John Oliver, The Oatmeal, and net neutrality activists, therefore, are simply wrong about the nature of the Internet.

Myth #2: Net Neutrality Regulations Are the Only Way to Promote an Open Internet 
Reality: Even while lightly regulated, the Internet will remain open because consumers demand an open Internet. Recent Rasmussen polling indicates the vast majority of Americans enjoy the open Internet they currently receive and rate their Internet service as good or excellent. (Only a small fraction, 5 percent, says their Internet quality is “poor.”) It is in ISPs’ interest to provide high-quality Internet just as it is in smartphone companies’ interest to provide great phones and automakers’ interest to build reliable cars. Additionally, it is false when high-profile scholars and activists say there is no “cop on the beat” overseeing Internet companies. As Federal Trade Commissioner Joshua Wright testified to Congress, existing federal competition laws and consumer protection laws — and strict penalties — protect Americans from harmful ISP behavior.

Myth #3: Net Neutrality Regulations Improve Broadband Competition
Reality: The FCC’s net neutrality rules are not an effective way to improve broadband competition. Net neutrality is a principle for ISP treatment of Internet traffic on the “last mile” — the connection between an ISP and a consumer. The principle says nothing about broadband competition and will not increase the number of broadband choices for consumers. On the contrary, net neutrality as a policy goal was created because many scholars did not believe more broadband choices could ensure a “neutral” Internet. Further, Supreme Court decisions lead scholars to conclude that “as prescriptive regulation of a field waxes, antitrust enforcement must wane.” Therefore, the FCC’s net neutrality rules would actually impede antitrust agencies from protecting consumers.

Myth #4: All Prioritized Internet Services Are Harmful to Users
Reality: Intelligent management of Internet traffic and prioritization provide useful services to consumers. Net neutrality proponents call zero-rating — which is when carriers allow Internet services that don’t subtract from a monthly data allotment — and similar practices “dangerous,” “malignant,” and rights violations. This hyperbole arises from dogma, not facts. The real-world use of prioritization and zero-rating is encouraging and pro-consumer. Studies show that zero-rated applications are used by millions of people around the globe, including in the United States, and they are popular. In one instance, poor South African high school students petitioned their carriers for free — zero-rated — Wikipedia access because accessing Wikipedia frequently for homework was expensive. Upon hearing the students’ plight, Wikipedia and South African carriers happily obliged. Net neutrality rules like Title II would prohibit popular services like zero-rating and intelligent network management that makes more services available.

Myth #5: Net Neutrality Rules Will Make Broadband Cheaper and Internet Services like Netflix Faster
Reality: First, the FCC’s rules will make broadband more expensive, not cheaper. The rules regulate Internet companies much like telephone companies and therefore federal and state telephone fees will eventually apply to Internet bills. According to preliminary estimates, millions of Americans will drop or never subscribe to an Internet connection because of these price hikes. Second, the FCC’s rules will not make Netflix and webpages faster. The FCC rules do not require ISPs to increase the capacity or speed of customers’ connections. Capacity upgrades require competition and ISP investment, which may be harmed by the FCC’s onerous new rules.

After the President’s announcement Monday morning on net neutrality, Mercatus research fellow Brent Skorup, who specializes in telecom issues, provided initial reaction.

“It does not require a law degree to question the wisdom of imposing eighty-year-old rules intended for the government-blessed monopoly telephone network on the competitive, dynamic Internet. If the FCC—an independent regulatory agency—does what the President envisions, the change will represent a stark reversal of decades of deregulatory Internet policy pursued by Congress and FCC commissioners of both political parties. The application of Title II—sometimes called utility or common carrier regulation—would result in value-destroying government oversight of the Internet. Among other damaging effects, broadband Internet would be subject to rate regulation, taxes, and fragmented regulation by state commissions. Further, many advocates who cheer this announcement have made no secret that their aims stretch beyond economic regulation of the Internet. They also seek government oversight of media, websites, and political speech online. To that end, Title II instantly politicizes the Internet and puts significant power over this dynamic technology in the hands of unelected FCC officials, lobbyists, opportunistic industry players, and well-funded activists.

“Market participants in Silicon Valley and at technology companies would increasingly rely on their risk-averse regulatory compliance officers instead of their creative engineers and designers. The complex Title II proceedings that ensue will be largely invisible and unintelligible to the public and their representatives in Congress. It would be a mistake to apply Title II’s stultifying provisions to one of the few bright spots in U.S. economy—technology and Internet services. The President’s announcement is puzzling because the political consensus is that the 1934 Communications Act should be retired in favor of modern, flexible laws that place consumers—not industries—at the forefront. Title II would impair the creative destruction that makes the U.S. technology sector a boon to consumers and the envy of the world.”

Though the economy has improved only in fits and starts over the past few years, one bright spot remains constant: The technology and communications industry. Part of this success is because Silicon Valley and the tech sector aggressively develop popular consumer products before bureaucrats and lawmakers have time to delay them. Wisely, or perhaps coincidentally, Congress has treated the Internet with benign neglect. However, there is a well-funded contingent in the net neutrality movement seeking to increase Federal Communications Commission oversight of the Internet. These net neutrality proponents are – to paraphrase William F. Buckley Jr. – standing athwart the history of technology yelling, “Stop!” Their backward-looking approach would revive large parts of telephone regulations from the 1934 Communications Act. Their goal is to persuade the FCC to reinterpret the law and apply monopoly-era telephone regulations to today’s broadband providers. Net neutrality advocates conjure up a bogeyman that ostensibly threatens startups and consumers. Their cramped worldview does not see tremendous possibilities in lightly regulated broadband and they oppose the FCC’s current hands-off approach to the Internet.

AppleInsider said:

it is claimed there is not as much "value and variety" as other vendors, offering "only a handful of laptops, and most start at $1,299." 

And that somehow damages the brand?

"If you're looking for an affordable laptop, don't look at Apple,”

Just ignore that every study done in the last 20 years shows that they’re more affordable than PCs for what they offer (as a platform as a whole).

The report goes on to note that the MacBook Air hasn't received a refresh in "over two years," and that it "wouldn't be surprised if the company phased it out soon.”

Which… hurts the brand?

Apple is also criticized for not offering a 2-in-1 notebook or one with a touchscreen

No, no. You don’t get to downrank a company for what it doesn’t offer. If you do that, you have to downrank all PCs for lacking security, ease of use, and platform integration.

Editor in chief Mark Spoonauer suggests the decision to discontinue the 11-inch MacBook Air as the smallest notebook was poor

So buy a netbook from 2009, dipshit. Do you want a pocketable laptop or something?

"There's no touchpad on this machine's optional keyboard,"

No shit; it’s a tablet, dumbass. You whine about not having a touchscreen laptop and then whine when you CAN touch the screen that there’s no touchpad? Fuck yourself.

On the subject of USB Type-C, it is suggested on the scorecard that users need a “bagful of dongles” to use the newer MacBooks in the summary.

Oh, so just like the idiots whining in 1996, then.

For the 13 out of 15 score for design, Apple has been declared the “rose-gold standard,” due to the 12-inch MacBook's rose gold variant's existence, though the lack of other color options is noted.

Was Apple voted down when they only offered one color? If not, they need to be fucking sued.

Apple's support is also praised as the standard bearer for the industry, with easy-to-navigate support pages and helpful support agents, though with a lack of support via FaceBook.

This is a joke post, right? It’s just 9 days late, right? FUCKING RIGHT?!

tzeshan said:

Do you know that PCs sold far more units than iPad? 

And if you take apples and stew them like cranberries, they taste more like prunes than rhubarb does.

andrewj5790 said:

My brother in law said “why do we care that we’re being tracked, again?” I’d enjoy reading some of your reasons.

Not sure who you’re asking, but I have something, if you like.

“You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.”

This is a very dangerous mindset. The argument is frequently raised in debates by pro-big brother hawks, and doing so is dangerous, cowardly, and dishonest. There are at least four good reasons to reject this argument, solidly and uncompromisingly.

The rules may change.

Once the invasive surveillance is in place to enforce rules with which you agree, the ruleset that is being enforced could change in ways with which you don’t agree at all. But then it is too late to protest the surveillance. For example, you may agree to cameras in every home to prevent domestic violence (“and domestic violence only”), but the next day a new political force in power could decide that Christianity will be illegal and they will use the existing home cameras to enforce their new rules. Any surveillance must be regarded in terms of how it can be abused by a power worse than today’s. 

It’s not you who determine if you have something to fear.

You may consider yourself law-abidingly white as snow, but that won’t matter. What does matter is whether you set off the red flags in the mostly automated surveillance. Where bureaucrats look at your life in microscopic detail through a long paper tube to search for patterns. When you stop your car at the main prostitution street for two hours every Friday night, the Social Services Authority will draw certain conclusions from that data point and won’t care about the fact that you help your elderly grandmother–who lives there–with her weekly groceries. When you frequently stop at a certain bar on your way driving home from work, the Department of Driving Licenses will draw certain conclusions as to your eligibility for future driving licenses–regardless of the fact that you think the bar serves the world’s best reindeer meatballs and have never had a single beer there. People will stop thinking in terms of what is legal and start acting in self-censorship to avoid being red-flagged out of pure self-preservation. It doesn’t matter that somebody in the right might possibly and eventually be cleared–after having been investigated for six months, you will have lost custody of your children, your job, and possibly your home.

Laws must be broken for society to progress.

A society which can enforce all of its laws will stop dead in its tracks. The mindset of ‘rounding up criminals is good for society’ is a very dangerous one, for in hindsight it may turn out that the criminals were the ones in the moral right. Barely over 200 years ago, if you promoted republican ideals, you were criminal. It is an absolute necessity to be able to break unjust laws for society to progress and question its own values, in order to learn from mistakes and move on as a society.

Privacy is a basic human need.

Implying that only the dishonest people have need of any privacy ignores a basic property of the human psyche and sends a creepy message of strong discomfort. We have a fundamental need for privacy. I lock the door when I go to the mens’ room, despite the fact that nothing secret happens in there. I just want to keep that activity to myself, I have a fundamental need to do so, and any society must respect that fundamental need for privacy. In every society that doesn’t, citizens have responded with subterfuge and created their own private areas out of reach of the governmental surveillance–not because they are criminal, but because doing so is a fundamental human need.

wood1208 said:

Time to speed up homegrown Apple CPU/GPU for performance and better thermal.

Time to admit that the laws of physics can’t be defeated.

spice-boy said:

Despite what the libertarians claim here The Federal Reserve came about after a century of boom and bust and financial disasters involving banks.

Fun fact: You have no idea what you’re talking about. Not only am I not a libertarian, your own vaunted Fed admits to causing the Great Depression. What boom/busts were not created by private banks before the Fed? Oh, remember when the Second Bank got terrified of Andrew Jackson and purposely crashed the US housing market? I do.

...why the FR was needed in 1913…

It wasn’t.

...and more than ever is needed in 2018.

Hopefully you don’t starve when the Second Great Depression hits. Not insulting at all; I seriously just hope you learn from this nonsense.

...overlooking the banks…

I’m directly addressing the banks as the cause of this problem, though. You realize that inflation before the Reserve was -0.2%? Negative. From the founding of the country to 1913. And when the Reserve finally got what they wanted in 1971? Fucking asymptotic.

I wouldn’t worry about it if I was them. By the time this gets through any sort of proceedings, the EU won’t exist anymore.

Intel is crashing on the news, so someone likely just wanted to short them.

foregoneconclusion said:

Negative inflation = weak economy.

Nonsense. Maintaining–and even growing–purchasing power is in no way weak.


Never mind the underlying concept “driving” the market–fiat currency. Every single fiat currency in surviving recorded human history has collapsed to its objective market value–absolutely nothing whatsoever–in historically short order. The number of fiat currencies to do so is 500. Sorry, 500 currencies whose name starts with A. Just the As. Not even the most common letter.

Fiat currency has no value.
Currency is a claim check to money.
Money, as a physical object, is a store of value, and as such must be nigh immutable.
Value is the application of wealth.
Wealth is a person’s time and effort.

Fiat currency is created out of thin air. This is the foundation of all Western banks (et. al.). Need more economy? Print more currency! Rather, type some extra zeroes into a computer and more currency is created. This devalues every single dollar already in existence. Banks are allowed to do this through the system of fractional reserve, whereby they are only required to keep a portion of all deposits on hand at any given time. Depending on the account type, this fraction is between 0% and 10%. The bank is allowed to loan out the rest, at interest. And count that currency TWICE in their books–once as “your”****** “deposit”, and once for the loan. The person with the loan uses the fake, newly-created currency to go buy something, and the third person deposits it in the bank. THE BANK MAY THEN LOAN THAT CURRENCY OUT AGAIN, WITH ONLY A FRACTION OF IT KEPT IN RESERVE. CREATING YET ANOTHER SUM OF CURRENCY OUT OF THIN AIR.

And that’s just the SMALL banks. Since the Federal Reserve is a private corporation, it LENDS the US government its currency, AT INTEREST, in exchange for treasury bonds. Every single dollar in existence has more than a dollar of debt behind it. There is no such thing as a “debt ceiling” or an ability to repay any government debts. These concepts definitionally do not exist. It is physically impossible to repay the debt, ever, by the definition of the word. 

This is the problem with our economy. This is what will cause the Second Great Depression. This is the system that will make post-WWII Hungary’s hyperinflation look like the daily fluctuation in the price of a gallon of milk. Tens of millions will die. YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT’S WRONG SO THAT YOU CAN KILL ANYONE WHO TRIES TO PROPOSE IT AGAIN. 

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
– Henry Ford

The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the Revolution.
– Benjamin Franklin

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is now controlled by its system of credit. We are no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.
– Woodrow Wilson

Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce, and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.
– President James A. Garfield

Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you; and when you lost you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves.
– Andrew Jackson

Here are the simple facts of the great betrayal. Wilson and House knew that they were doing something momentous. One cannot fathom men’s motives, and this pair probably what they were up to. What they did not believe in was representative government. They believed in government by an uncontrolled oligarchy whose acts would only become apparent after an interval so long that the electorate would be forever incapable of doing anything efficient to remedy depredations.
– Ezra Pound

******”Your” is in quotes because you don’t even own your physical currency. All currency is the property of the Federal Reserve. Not only does it have no intrinsic value and is not backed by anything, it’s not even yours.