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Comment maybe this plays into their hands ... (Score 1) 398

perhaps, this is what the terrorists want.

Scene 1 : Execute a scenario which forces the president to kill the internet.
Scene 2: Senate is gloating, we killed the internet, long live America.
Scene 3: Little do they know, this was part of the plan.
Scene 4: Alot of services which depend on internet are no longer available. Communications, Applications, Health ... a whole bunch i don't know.

By creating a vaccum of information, rumours fly around, people panic, and we have the case of nervous people who don't know what to do (cause internet always worked - they have never imagined internet did not work).

Chaos .. perhaps ensues. maybe i am just bieng paranoid. Jack Bauer should be able to handle things and 24 hours later, it will be a distant nightmare.

Comment Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score 1) 1193

Poor people currently pay either no taxes at all or very low taxes as proportion of their income. Bottom half pays no income tax at all: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0 How does calling for less taxes overall in your opinion translate to "wanting to keep poor people as the only ones who pay taxes"? It doesn't make any sense at all.

I think you are confusing different forms of taxation.

If you are talking about income taxes, then yes, on average, the poor may pay little, however that can also be debated. There are also consumption taxes. Sales tax, or value added are examples. Poor have no choice but to pay them, and for rich they are peanuts (example of regressive taxation).

Suppose there are 2 people with incomes 100 (poor), rich (10000). poor man buys essentials and assuming sales tax is 15%, he can buy 85$ worth (for argument's sake as actual amount is slightly higher). rich man, buys the same essentials, and pays 15$ in taxes and has disposable income of 9900.

for the rich man, he pay 0.15% based on his income, while poor man pays 15%.

Poor man probably works for someone, hence pays income taxes too. Suppose on average 20%. Hence his real disposable income is 65$ not 85.

Rich man, probably has smart dudes working for him to minimize taxes. His corporations probably give him dividends (15%) or tax havens or double irish dutch sandwich (2-3%).

The way i see it, poor man does get screwed.

Poor may pay little in absolute terms, but compared to what they earn and need to stay alive, it is a significantly higher percentage.

Also, poor probably have to go about things more inefficiently than the rich. Poor have to deal with pay day loans (hefty %), transport (spend 2-3 hours on the bus to commute/shop) whereby a car would be faster. ... and so on.

Comment Re:Good news (Score 5, Insightful) 273

Keep dreaming. Nobody will care about a FSF endorsement, most people have never even heard of them and I'm sure they don't have any kind of budget to really push this.

worst case scenario - there is no change and status quo remains

ideal scenario - it works

If no one tries, there is definitely no change. so I am all for it.

Comment Re:Real Time On-Screen Display (Score 1) 477

Except not all phones are iPhone, Android, Symbian, or BlackBerry. Hobbyists and small businesses can't easily make and publish an app for BREW phones.

true. However, I meant from a user perspective not an implementation perspective. Question is if users had access to this information, how would they modify their behaviour? Would they be willing to pay?

can't easily make and publish an app for BREW phones.

if it is feasible, someone would have done it. I guess it is not, or no one had the idea/vision for it.

Social Networks

Submission + - Roughly 3 out of 4 Tweets ignored (networkworld.com) 2

alphadogg writes: Social media analytics company Sysomos studied 1.2 billion Twitter posts made over the past 2 months and found that 71% elicited neither a retweet nor reply.

"When a tweet generates a reply (aka @) or a retweet (aka RT), it suggests the tweet has resonated enough with someone that it sparks a conversation or encourages someone to share it with their followers," the company writes. http://sysomos.com/insidetwitter/engagement/

Of course this doesn't consider that lots of people read or view content — on Twitter and in other forms of media — and don't necessarily feel compelled to respond.

According to the Sysomos study, just 6% of Tweets measured got retweeted and 23% were apparently intriguing enough to warrant a reply.

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