Chanting a long etcetera. Sounds more like Catholicism than Buddhism...

Agreed.

When some people accumulate enough wealth, they become empowered enough to make a difference in the history of man. Some ( like Gates ) are using their resources in a way which will benefit humanity, others will go out and buy all the rental property they can.

I am hoping so badly ( hoping, mind you, not really anticipating ) that our lawmakers in Congress will see and craft tax law to encourage the kind of stuff Gates is doing and closing all of these tax advantages of simply rent-seeking and financial churning.

If Gates gets favorable tax treatments for doing this kind of stuff, it only empowers him to do more similar things as well as lead others to use the power of their wealth in a similar manner.

If there is one thing Gates has demonstrated over and over, he does have the leadership, organizational, and business skills to do it.

I know I have left lots of anti-Microsoft rants here: I feel hypocritical in posting this. Those rants were my venting my frustration as an older guy about software becoming so un-necessarily complex with all these special interest groups trying to get their proprietary add-ons adopted into Windows that pranksters have started having a heyday leaving a mess in everyone's machine. I was rooting for a very simple but thoroughly understood OS that was pretty damned bulletproof. My feeling was if pranksters thought setting people's fancy little outhouses on fire, then what I wanted was a simple one made out of cinder block.

hey, you, paid Russian web-propaganda dude! You're on the wrong thread. This is the thread for the paid pro-Nuclear web propaganda team. The Ukraine thread is about a page and a half down.

Every time I come on to one of these threads about radiation, usually dozens of very knowledgable people come on and say that this kind of radiation is less than a bannana, and therefore, safe. I can't imagine what could possibly be causing such observations of slowing decay. Maybe those scientists are part of the world coal-burning conspiracy who are trying to raise the earth's climate to make it more habitable for the aliens, and are spreading false stories to discredit that clean, clean, safe and reliable nuclear power.

as in meatspace, language is still a powerful barrier. Though at least there are tools to try to address that.

Which is what I was thinking. I must be old if the memes have changed that much. In any case transformers are weapons, not tool of productivity. What I want is a job where I go for 10 minutes a day, push some buttons, and get pain enough for an apartment, a car, and a robot. At this point I would be happy just to have enough expendable income for a rommba and a robomow.

Not the lower res/graphical fanciness, but the controller. It isn't that much fun to use as a controller because, well, it is fucking huge. It is a tablet. Thing is, if people wanted to play games on a tablet they'd probably do so and on one that could travel around with them.

Also it is pretty expensive. The screen, wireless interface, processor, all that jazz costs quite a bit and pushed up the cost of the Wii U. Part of what made the Wii successful was that it was really cheap compared to the "big 2" consoles. So people got it for kids or got it as an "and a" console along with their favoured of the bigger ones. This time though, the price advantage is not as much. It is still cheaper but not by as much.

So since the gimmick isn't something people are that interested in, and it drives up the price, it really hasn't been a good move. Despite being out a good bit longer than the Xboner and the PS4 it hasn't sold more.

Actually similar issue on the Xboner's side with the Kinect. That is the primary reason is costs more than the PS4, and that cost has been putting a damper on its sales. People just have no fucks to give about the controller gimmick, they wanna play games.

Whut up, yo? Mostly moved to Twitter... You have an account... why don't I see you there much?

Well, "set a thief to catch a thief."

One of the reasons for the dysfunction we have in Washington is that all the rules that are supposed to protect the public interest have become so complicated that they actually promote crony capitalism. You need someone who knows how to hack the system to catch people hacking the system.

San Francisco has a lot of things going for it, but humility is not one of them. Neither is affordability, nor freedom from crime, nor civil rights. In fact, the only real thing going for it is easy access to drugs and lots of high-paying jobs.

But you are not making $1.2million per release, so you cant afford yet another gold plated Ferarri...

Like how movie studios Deserve financial help from the government and they never make money on a movie so they dont have to pay taxes.

I would feel bad for them if they were not raging scumbags themselves. Just ask Stan-Lee how he was robbed of any money from the Spiderman movies.

Whistleblowers are not heroes or villains, They are meddlesome do gooders who are willing to destroy society and the status quo just to make a name for themselves. Sometimes, as with Snowden, they reveal practices that many would consider at least unethical and force change. They are seldom thanked for their contribution. What is always the case is that the people who have to change because of the revelations are annoyed. Changing means they lose money, power, or both.

Every part on that plane has a serial number that is registered. At some point, a repair will have to be made, the serial number will be logged, or someone will notice that the number has been filed off, and the plane will be identified.

One thing with old books is their value is small. Apple wants to sell everything for $10. I can go to a used books store and buy an old book for a couple dollars. I can go to Amazon and but out of copyright books for a couple dollars. I can go to Amazon and buy new books for a few dollars. Even at Amazon, though, many older books are more expensive that what one can find elsewhere. The difference between books and songs is that iTunes provided a new way to monetize old music. Sell single tracks to those who won't but the used music at the resale shop. It is simple, fast, and converting a track to digital is not hugely expensive. Here is another difference. Music no longer has DRM. I have many tracks for itunes because it was always possible to remove the DRM. I have few books from iBooks because the only place I can read them is on an Apple device. Amazon at least has the advantage of having readers on many devices. So, one buys an older book on iBooks, one pays more, one can only read it on limited devices, and publishers have to pay huge fees to Apple.