I've audited a few online advertising and media companies, I'm no expert, but I have some working knowledge of the industry as a result of interviewing management and studying their books.

They recognize results with different metrics for different approachs, and it can even change on a contract by contract basis. For the most part:

-E-mail advertising is tracked on click-through (Cost per Action metric). Online advertiser only gets paid for the number of people clicking on the links to go to the website.
-Display advertising typically operates on an "impression" basis. The immediate goal is not to make a sale, but to create a mental brand by establishing the name in the viewer's mindset. It's also an economic signaling activity(you can wiki it), where a company tells consumers that it is successful by blowing money on ads. For example, Product A is something you've never ever heard of in any way shape or form, vs. Product B which is a name you already know, but you've never bought one, and you don't even know anyone who's ever used it. With all other factors held the same (after all, you don't know anything else about these products you came across on the shelf), ad impressions make the difference. Thus online display advertising charges on a CPM (Cost per Mille) basis where the advertising companies bills based on how many Mille (thousand) displays they've produced.
-Cost per Lead differs a lot on a contract by contract basis, but for the most part, the price charged is based on the number of leads an advertiser can mine up and provide to the campaign/buyer (who may scrub down the list on certain critera to eliminate leads they feel are no good).

From an economic perspective, sometimes advertising is just to keep up with the competition. While you might not add sales, you need to appear relevant so that competitors don't scoop up your market share. So you advertise, and then they advertise to keep up with you, and then you get into a cold war pissing match of advertising that isn't actually growing the market or even increasing the sales of either. No money gained by either, but game theory requires them to participate anyway. Advertisers love it though, they win either way.

There's still the "Real Money" auction house.

If you find rare loot in singleplayer, you can sell it for in-game gold, or real currency. So there's still a buy/sell interaction built into the singleplayer game that needs to be controlled since it is still tied to the overall trading economy.

They didn't pay 8.3b in taxes.

8.3b is the "provision for income taxes". It's an accounting term for the estimated impact from taxes for a given year, (even if that impact doesn't happen for years, or doesn't happen at all).

3.3b is the "Cash paid for income taxes, Net" which is on the cash flow statement. That's the actual money that leaves the company and goes to taxing authorities.

Also, US doesn't tax the income twice. That is wrong. The US wants to /know the amount/ of income overseas. A heavily simplified example: if you owe say $100k to the US based on that income, but you already paid $50k to the foreign country, the US acknowledges that by giving you a credit and will only expect you to pay $50k to the US when the money comes back to the US. A total of $100k.

External ref:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/encyclopedia/Foreign-Tax-Credit.cfm

"Although foreign tax credit is available to individuals with foreign source income (including wages earned abroad), the great bulk of foreign tax credits goes to U.S. corporations with operations abroad. U.S. corporations earn foreign source income by operating branches abroad and by operating or investing in affiliates incorporated abroad. Foreign source income earned through a foreign branch is subject to U.S. tax in the tax year in which it was earned. The tentative U.S. tax is simply the U.S. tax rate times the income of the branch. A credit is given for foreign income taxes and for any foreign withholding taxes that are levied when the branch remits the income to its U.S. parent. Losses a foreign branch incurs can be deducted from the corporationâ(TM)s domestic income to reduce the corporationâ(TM)s U.S. income tax. However, if the branch becomes profitable in succeeding years, its income is treated as U.S. source income, and no foreign tax credit can be claimed on it until the U.S. Treasury recovers the reduction in tax revenue caused by the branchâ(TM)s initial losses."

The reason for making an account is so that you're notified when you receive a reply. Further, when someone is considering whether or not to respond to you, they'll have some level of confidence that you'll actually see their response. Why go through the trouble of writing something useful to an AC who won't read what you're saying?

As for your issue: just get a new computer, all you need to know is how much money you have, and then follow one of these:
$650: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-gaming-pc-overclock,3159.html

$1200: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-a-pc-budget-overclock,3160.html

$2650: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-3930k-overclock-radeon-hd-7970,3158.html

Most of your problems are likely just Vista. Win7 has ironed out most of Vista's problems. Buying a PC is not as complicated as it once was, and is also far FAR cheaper than it has been in the past. Don't waste your time researching parts for trivial performance gains, just buy items off these guides according your budget and call it a day.

This is news for nerds, who are fascinated by the prospect of life on Mars in the past. Any additional, or supportive information is another opportunity to ruminate over the possibilities. Finding evidence of life on Mars also breathes life into our most cherished nerd dreams of what might be out there. Everything I know so far just tells me space is essentially empty and forever beyond mankind's reach. But if we can find evidence of past life on Mars, it would be an anecdotal data point saying that the universe might be brimming with life such that 2 planets within a single solar system could have life on them. It'd be nice to know that we're not the only ones out there, even if we can never know any of them.

Right now in the grand scheme of things, it seems that we live short brutish lives, and even the lifespan of our civilization will be incredibly brief, before the universe as we know it returns to being just...empty. When we die it's comforting to know that we are survived by our friends and family(at least for a while). When humanity goes extinct, it would be nice to know that there's probably life somewhere in the universe will continue (for a while).

I hope that new studio has better QA than the old one.

With a release date of 2013, the game will probably be playable in 2014 given their track record. Their games are beloved for an amazing scope, but they have a history of releasing games filled with game-breaking bugs that players tend to forgive for having attempted to achieve so much. Hey, you can always just enter cheats or download mods to fix the problems right?

This time it's an MMO, and when the game-breaking bug stops your main questline in it's tracks, or empties your inventory, or resets one or more of your stats to 0, etc. etc. etc. You can't hit the command line to fix it.

I'm excited about the game for sure, but I have absolutely no confidence in them to release a stable MMO. I'll wait a few months or a year after release and let other people deal with the bugs first.

Does using the electronics in a car cause the alternator to use more fuel?

I don't know much about cars, but I was under the impression that the alternator is always engaged?

If it's always using up the same amount of gas economy whether or not you use the electronics, then using the electronics on your car wouldn't be wasting gas, they're just taking advantage of gas that would otherwise have been wasted on an alternator that was already there.

Maybe that overhead is from running all that gravity plating.

But the best explanation is: who cares about Voyager anyway? That series brought you episodes like "the Fight" and "Threshold".

The difference between artificial and natural is purely semantic in this situation. The process of selection is simply what it is. But I'm more or less on the same page with your post.

If individual weakness are being protected against by social constructs, you might be able to subjectively identify the evolution of a social organism that has developed defenses against minor problems like weaknesses in particular individuals like Steven Hawking, while leveraging their strengths throughout it's body. The more successful this social organism it is, the more capable it is of beating off competition and developing further.

Perhaps those "Walmart" people aren't particularly useful overall, but they do serve some kind of purpose, even if it is just to hand a burger and fries over the counter. Even a hive needs lowly worker bees. Hmm. I wonder how bees evolved into hives? Perhaps evolving into hive societies was selected for at some point, and may be selected for again today.

Africa sure isn't doing that well despite having so many offspring. China is doing pretty well so far, let's see if they can hold up. It's not just about the quantity of births, it's a multifaceted competition that will evolve over time. Perhaps China will find that democracy is a more successful long-term strategy and "evolve" in that direction after enduring the stresses of time. Perhaps America will give up on capitalism and move towards socialism instead if they find themselves lost in China's shadow. The process of constant change continues on both a microscopic and macroscopic scale.

Interesting exercise:

"1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays."

I think this has been the case for my entire life. I don't think we're any "closer to fascism" in this regard, we've been like this for a long time.

"2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc."

Yep, post 9/11, bi-partisan agreement on this one. Point for fascism.

"3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc."

We've always had popular enemies and scapegoats, so I don't see us as being "closer" to fascism in this regard. Before democraps, and republican'ts, tare-rists, commies, nips, and nazis, we had red-coats.

"4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized."

Republicans may push this the furthest, but aside from the period surrounding the vietnam war, I think american soldiers have generally been held in very high esteem for what they do. Perhaps this had scaled up at some point in the early 1900s, but it's probably safe to say that it's been this way since before anyone reading this was born.

"5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution."

Mostly just republicans trying to do this, and they only control one house, there isn't support for this at the federal level, it's just a few republican-controlled states. Divorce rates are sky-high and many non-republican states are signing gay marriage bills. I don't think we're closer to fascism on this point.

"6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common."

Only the republican party really has dedicated mass media networks (fox), but there are plenty of alternative news sources, and all of those have been critical of both republican and democrats.

"7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses."

Yep, Bi-partisan support on this one. Another point for fascism.

"8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions."

Looks to me like the intertwining of religion and government are at an all-time low. Point against fascism.

"9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite."

Bi-partisan support here. Citizens United vs. Federal Election commission ruling, bi-partisan TARP, bail-outs, PACs, etc. I think this has gotten worse, point for fascism.

"10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed."

Yes, bi-partisan attacks on labor power in NY (D), WI(R), NJ(R), etc. Mostly state-level items, but enough that I'll concede a point for fascism.

"11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked."

Though it's mostly republicans condemning science, the lack of publicly funded research, and defunding of NASA means I'm going to call this one bi-partisan, and a point for fascism.

"12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations."

Ok, this one's obvious on both federal and state levels, point for fascism.

"13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders."

That's just politics in general, pretty sure it's been this bad for decades, it's not necessarily worse recently.

"14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections."

While Bush did win an election by the skin of this teeth, I don't believe it was rigged. Americans still get the politicians they vote for.

Fun game. A little odd that the party that is crying fascism the most is the one that most resembles it though. Still, with such a heavily divided nation, I don't see the U.S as being unified under fascism. John Stewart still gets to crack wise without getting "disappeared" in the night.

Cablevision here in NJ is $99 for cable, telephone, internet.

Want just internet? It's $70.

They already have the monopoly (No FIOS). Just because you don't want to get all the services doesn't mean they can't charge you as if you got all the services anyway. They just cut it down slightly to pretend like the other services were worth something.

I was pissed off enough to tell them I'm canceling and switching to Verizon's achingly slow DSL to save another $10-15, so they knocked the price down and upgraded my internet speed. I'll have to go through the same song and dance next year when that expires.

Touchè. Point taken.

This is why I don't get all the bellyaching over slashdot's moderation system. I'm sure there must be examples of the system's failures out there, but I haven't seen them.

However, both this post and your original post are modded at +4 insightful and +5 interesting respectively. Given even a little time the moderation system has successfully identified and corrected poor moderation after subsequent review. Looks like it's working as intended.

There are obviously many insightful and interesting posts that get never get positive moderation because they've been scrolled far far down the list of comments. These are left at 0 or 1. But as for negatively moderated posts that didn't deserve it? I haven't seen any of those last more than a few hours. If someone has some examples they can link me to, I'm honestly curious here.

There is no way I can believe that post is anything other than subtle trolling.

It creates a competitive dynamic where each person is driven to outshine their peers with greater and greater levels of braggadocio. Once someone starts, other observers will assign greater importance (subconsciously) to the braggart based simply upon his claims, rather than actual deeds or the merit of what they are saying. In order to keep up, others must trot out equal or superior claims.

The workplace is already a competitive environment, so of course you need to learn to sell yourself to keep up and call attention to your merits. There are times when simply being good at your job may not be enough. However, this is a public forum for discussion, and bragging about personal exploits only serves to derail the topic to be about how authoritative each person claims to be, rather than logical arguments backed up with sources. That's why it's not particularly welcome to see someone start bragging. With that said, I don't think keeping a username is equivalent to bragging or even selling yourself. If someone cares enough to track back through a user's past to note their achievements that's fine. I always respect someone more when I find out good things about them without them pointing it out.