Our shareholders do our code reviews.

Steve B.

No, just fairly certain.

Mailbox =/= only attack vector for viruses. It's not even a commonly used vector. If Clam can't monitor running processes or memory it will easily fail in today's generation of malware.

ClamAV has terrible detection rates, last I checked. I use this to shop for AV products.

I've attended an online university for some time, and they recently decided to move to eBooks because the university covers the cost of the texts.

Ebooks are TERRIBLE for study. You have to be in front of a computer to study, it is hard to highlight and annotate, it is a strain on the eyes, and it is not as easily portable as people think. I had to resort to loading them on my iPhone but that became a problem when I realized there's really very little out there that allows you to bookmark PDF's and I ended up scrolling through dozens of pages to get back at where I was.

I suggested to my university that they invest on subsidizing a good PDF reader, even if it's the Kindle DX. I have yet to hear from them.

The funniest part to me was that they cited "inflation" as the reason why they moved to eBooks. I think that's silly, since inflation affects ALL prices, not just conventional or physical ones.

The cell companies are not monopolies, they are an oligopoly. They DO compete, but their prices are sticky and their demand is relatively inelastic. What Congress needs to do is outlaw anything that's more than 6 months or a year of a contract. It's not about subsidy since most cell phones are worth pennies, but this would really force them to compete amongst themselves.

The truth is that cell networks are incredibly expensive to expand and maintain, and even though cell companies are gobbling up profits, something that has become pretty much a necessity is not that expensive. We enjoy a great deal of consumer surplus since people would pay more than what we pay now for cell service. In fact, if it cost the average citizen $300 a month to have a cell phone, many people (including myself) would still have it. Then again, land lines wouldn't be extinct.

All that hard work, dedication, and innovation is wasted if performed within the wrong kind of framework. Period.

I didn't say that at all. When I said that there were no substitutions for Microsoft products, I implied that the demand is inelastic. One pretty much goes with the other, considering most businesses and individuals are forced into using Microsoft products due to their lack of interest in learning anything else.

Mod parent up. Voline is absolutely right. People think that firms decide how much their price will "sell" at. That's only half of the equation. Now, Voline, since there really are no substitutions for Microsoft's product, the fact that Microsoft has all but eliminated consumer surplus by offering 200 different SKU's for their OS and charging this demand determined price, the price increase that would make up for the corporate tax has already happened in the past. At this point, any increase in tax is really a hit on their profit margins.

This gets me to thinking, if MS's software is as essential to business as oil is, does it share its inelasticity? Part of the problem is that Microsoft isn't always selling to consumers, but to a manufacturer's input in the form of OEM installs. That manufacturer's output is definitely substitutable and shows a high degree of elasticity, which is probably why Dell is trying out Ubuntu installs in some of its laptops.

Corporate taxes don't necessarily get passed onto the consumer - remember, companies don't set the price of goods, supply and demand does. I'm not naive enough to think that the economy works like every firm is perfectly competitive and that they all produce the same products, but for things that aren't Gucci and Ferrari oftentimes the firm has to swallow the cost and cut from its profit margin.

Remember, there's very few things out there that don't have a substitution (like oil, for example), so the elasticity of the demand prevents firms from raising their prices at their own will.

Wages don't drop because of changes in standard of living, wages drop due to decreased demand for labor or because of deflation. Standard of living follows wages, not the other way around.

Thank you for pointing out what he's saying. I must have missed it in the last 6 years.

Not sure why this got modded down to Troll. I believe the actions of the CoS in retaliation to social and media events is critical in ascertaining the level of threat they pose to society, and especially to the minds of these poor souls that got sucked into their vortex. I, however, am not worried. These men and women are trying to hurt nobody, except themselves. Unfortunately, splash damage does occur, but it's the exception rather than the norm. Even useless arms of the church such as Criminon and Narconon have very little effect on their subjects, but seldom a negative one. As long as we keep an eye on them and make sure things stay under a moderate level of control, with a "healthy" push and pull with the church (in which this Wikipedia ban falls squarely in), everything should be alright.

Every person under the sun is weak to the effects of an effective brainwash. In these cases, they're especially susceptible, because they're open to it.

Auditing is the process through which they clear "engrams" from the subconscious. It is basically untrained hypnosis, and dangerous. They say it's not hypnosis, but a state of high suggestibility. Same thing to me.

It is through auditing that they become better Scientologists. In this process, however, the brainwash sets in. Eventually, subjects believe that the way of the CoS is the *right* way of doing things. It is a misguided but honorable goal. I've met many Scientologists, many of them are very smart and very capable. My brother in law is hilarious and a great friend. He's not weird by any means. He wants to do it to become a better person. Any attempt to steer him away from it gets shut down rather quickly.

The CoS is full of mostly well-intentioned people that got caught up in a dangerous web of lies (and economic loss). They have been psychologically programmed to do things that we find offensive.

It is very interesting to see the defense mechanisms that church policies have. Almost every rule I've heard of can be easily tied to preventing the Scientologist from realizing the harm he's caused himself: psychiatric treatment (especially medication), the "internal law", keeping "suppressive personalities" away, etc.

My brother in law is quite reasonable in his unreasonableness. He understands we disagree so we hardly touch the subject anymore, and he is open to discussion, but is NOT open to finding a middle ground. Any attempts to do so are seen with skepticism.

He's told me numerous time that the "space opera" that you can read about in Wikipedia is just made up by the press, I wonder what's going to happen when he hits OT3 and they serve it to him on a hot dish of shit.

You have a point - not every issue deserves (or should be) heard by a judge. I'm talking about ANY situation, regardless of severity, that happens within a church. Grand theft, arson, murder, for example. If it was within their power, they would almost certainly have tried to keep John Travolta's son case under wraps. It's really not about internal justice, but about PR damage control. As others would say, 'keeping the dirty laundry in the house'.