charwalker

The college library in my hometown had public access via a paid card. It was inexpensive and about equal to the cost students paid in fees each year or their access. I know a few local authors that heavily relied on that library for researching their works. I bet many college libraries have similar programs or could be motivated by locals to add the option.

If a company receives federal aid, or their employees receive federal aid due to low pay ex Walmart in the US, they should have to cap payouts. Maybe based on a ratio to the lowest paid employee or federal minimum wage. Make execs lobby to raise the minimum wage so they can increase their bonus or something.

Could apply to research, application development, web development, credential management...

If it isn't legal, and normal democratic processes won't make it legal in the short term, then it isn't viable competition.

DMCA/etc vastly favors content owners who also lobby hard to maintain their ownership by extending copyright and similar protections.

Anti-competitive behavior must be countered but unless it's well funded and focused will end up like the IRS and DMCA today, going after small fish due to lack of resources to challenge those that can afford to fight like players as big as Amazon and MGM.

You should read up on the tolerance paradox. The people behind this FL bill are the type to abuse such tolerance, all while telling bakeries it's chill if they refuse services for gay wedding or similar.

The first amendment also respects the right to freedom of association. This law is akin to the government forcing you to do business with someone you would rather avoid, for example to make a cake for a gay wedding that goes against your personal religion.

Do you see the breakdown here? The government cannot force private parties to associate with anyone like this, especially a controversial political figure.

You seem to misunderstand the basic sense of the first amendment.

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1594/freedom-of...

So, like, the same type of hate speech Trump spouted all over Twitter before his ban?

Freedom of association is an expensive thing to get sued over. Hopefully the state is ready to blow taxpayer dollars on the inevitable loss trying to defend this.

Yeah, the current model is basically sharecropping with all the possible methods of abusing the farmers leveraged in favor of Apple as if they were Monsanto. I love being able to side load classic Android apps and I've only had one recently stop working entirely, Google Tracks.

CL here (major coastal city) offers most non apartment complexes symmetric gigabit fiber. They are still running a free install/modem deal too. Pain in the butt to run power for their ONT box but I'm sitting at $65/month flat rate for gigabit with zero downtime since install 3 months ago.

My other option is Comcast but for anything over a 20mb upload speed I'd be paying over $240. Even their fiber doesn't get above 20mb up, last I checked, without reaching a pricier package.

> given economies of scale and/or network effects.

Other than competition, easily bought out when you're working with a $600 billion valuation of Amazon, or loss of consumer interest, what incentive does a for profit company have to shift any gains from economies of scale/etc to consumers? Why not make your product for 10% less, charge the same, and pass on the difference to shareholders?

Apple is a great example. If they buy out the group making the M1 to reduce cost and improve supply chain efficiency, what incentive is there to lower prices especially for a company whose marketed image is all about premium? That money is going right into ongoing costs or to recoup the initial merger costs.

Any improvement to consumers are either hypothetical, relate directly to fending off competition, listed as bullets on a PowerPoint slide between VPs, or carefully constructed to pass regulatory questions, not to help their customers save money.

Some 80 million Americans voted for and many actually think Trump won in 2020, regardless of evidence. Much of them also think the events of 1/6/21 were fake or a non issue.

Think of someone you know of average intelligence then remember that 50% of the nation is under that bar. That's a lot of voters.

FYI, from my understanding this is an extremely common behavior for most op-ed boards ex adding a headline when none was sent in, or editing the submission itself for length/formatting/etc. Most groups will require you sign something allowing them to review and publish the letter and may request sources or your own connections to the topic to identify and disclose a conflict of interest. This generally makes op-eds more reliable gauge of public opinion and viewpoints vs a blog style opinion article bashing an industry rival.

Some groups like NYT have retired the term 'Op-Ed' name in favor of something like Guest Essays as it better conveys the intention of the submission: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/opinion/nyt-opinion-oped-...

It's also important to note that local papers may print what is provided vs editing for spelling/grammar or even fact checking a submission. Larger publishers who by simply printing it add weight to the original may exercise a higher degree of involvement. For a look at the NYT process when you submit a piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/op-ed-and-you.htm...

Anecdotal, but every letter I remember I or my family wrote to the local paper was edited in some fashion, most often for length. Short articles were the least touched, if at all, as they had the least content to make fit on a page of newsprint. I think it's also near impossible to get a non-partisan source either simply because that term is applied to basic human decency these days like how it's apparently partisan to wear a mask.

Just onboarding a skilled/experience new team member has been painful all around. There is so much you can get in a traditional in person whiteboarding session, or that one has developed the skills to teach in person. I think much of the issue comes from communication limitations or lack of skills in remote communication. That could be as simple as a senior member with 30 years of xpeirence teaching someone in person and can read body language to understand when to slow down or go over a topic again. Without that feedback source they lose a major component of their effective teaching style. Even checking work or notes can take 2-5x the time, swapping presenters or losing side by side comparison from two different views. Anecdotally, I've found it easy to get lost in what I'm presenting and forget to slow my sentences for clarity over an often poor call or connection and some of the people I work with are not even able to view meetings at home due to poor internet access.

To your point, I hope students today are learning how to learn/communicate/perform at home and building the skills required to do so in the field or these issues will be compounded after graduation. It's super easy to slip under the radar or just get by, in many cases it was like that before the pandemic. I think there will soon be lists of interview questions related to how one coped with the challenges of learning/working from home, what difficulties thy overcame, and how they did so as an individual/team/company. It's not like I'll be at a vendor conference to compare those notes with other people any time soon.

In app purchases from the Apple store are subject to the cut to Apple. Apple pay is separate and though the consumer does not pay the transaction cost (Like VISA/etc), Apple is still taking a cut.

> Apple currently takes a 30% commission from the total price of paid apps and in-app purchases from the App Store. For some small app makers, the new policy could cut the amount that they pay Apple in half.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/18/apple-will-cut-app-store-fee...

My manager has been very active to push sick says when needed, maybe partially as it's hard to gauge how functional someone is when you can't see them at their desk. They've always been awesome but it has shown through this past year.

How is that functionally different from identifying a product that is selling well, making your own version of it, and selling that at the identified best or lower price from the data generated by the third party? Sure they may still list the third party (in direct competition in the same marketplace) but that doesn't mean they aren't acting extremely anticompetitive for a marketplace.

This isn't one off or new either but a pattern of abuse by Amazon: https://fortune.com/2016/04/20/amazon-copies-merchants/

Or from today: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/4700-amazon-empl...

If one is equally likely to miss both good and bad days, but overall the market is up 10%+ in a year (repeated over decades), then money left in the market will double every 7 years or so (Rule of 72 [1]). In that way it is almost always preferable to invest and hold in index funds.

The S&P 500 has returned about 13.6% return per year from 2010-2020 [2], or doubling your money about every 5.5 years. If that rate continues or increases then of course it makes no sense to try and time the good or bad days.

Of course, some will argue that a pure index fund market won't be priced correctly as it is active/day traders who continually buy and sell to set a proper market rate. If everyone buys and holds like Bitcoin then there is no true reflection of the companies value in the stock. Those that would go under otherwise may be buoyed or bought out just for their stock value. There are many opinion articles out there on the topic, but so far it hasn't been observed at scale (I think).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_72

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/average-sto...

Pat of most modern economic theory around the stock market is slow and steady, sustainable growth. It's a fairly 'liberal' policy choice as you can't, say, tweet something to spike or drop a stock price and benefit (or have those in the know benefit). For example, several economists say that stagnation in the market is not necessarily a bad thing and shooting for the moon in stock pricing by chasing continual growth can lead to companies overreaching or expanding then crashing hard, hurting consumers and their employees worse than the gains created short term.

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/02/12/economists-slow-econ...

This is in addition to noting the stock market is not a representation of the economy or its health. slow, continual, predictable growth is critical for planning economic and fiscal policy along with preparing for rough times, like when a pandemic shuts down global production.

I often refer back to the stock market or simply inflation rate before the US went off the gold standard and instituted massive reform and regulation of markets. Some years the US would bounce back and forth between extreme negative then positive inflation rates, ex:

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi

Set the chart range to MAX for effect, or see a table of data here:

https://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Historica...

In 1920 inflation was close to 22% in the spring but a year later was about -15%. No way that was helpful for preparing for an economic downturn like we see in the general accepted 10 year business cycle today. Image starting a company and all your initial costs are 20% higher than you planned, then once you get production up and running your goods are worth 15% less! Market stability breeds stability but not high return brokerage accounts.

Apple Pay IS Apple. In app purchases are also subject to their % cut.

Does FB have in app purchases on iOS? If so, is 30% going to Apple as the processor?

No. If I'm in YouTube I want Tidal to play music, not their janky YTM setup that can't give me quality audio even if I pick the video myself. At least make it a toggle for users to manage themselves vs hard coding it into the app.

I'm not sure if this is the same as what you mention with 12V vs 5V, but Intel is pushing a 12V standard PSU design that is also used by the new Nvidia Founders Edition GPUs:

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents...

The internet doesn't forget. Any press is good press but memes are whole new world.

Louisiana has little to offer politically compared to CA or WA/Seattle area, at least to me. I'm so happy I skipped a job in 2019 that would have out me in San Antonio this winter. I'll happily pay higher taxes so my power stays on, my partner/etc own their own bodies, and the people I live around actually want to help make this a better place for all. IMO that stability is worth the cost of a blue state+ tech minded city combo.

If they operate on a chemical/biological structure that humans have then yes. Just nobody go designing viruses for hypothetical aliens, ok?

Yeah, they tried adding a Ribbon once in 2007 and it blew up so much they left it in but barely changed it since.

I said Facebook and anyone partnered with them could use my data and that does not include Startup1 and their third party tool. OP probably should have investigated the third party tool and entered a contract where their scraping was legit and if they got burned the third party was at fault. Instead they just iced 100k a year without thinking through the risks. Hopefully that doesn't apply to the rest of the business ex subsisting on a single revenue stream.

As late as 2010 one could copy the install folder to any other Windows PC and start a licensed copy, or one that worked the same. That drove maaany people with easy access to a decent (phone) camera to pirate. People my age went hard into the "Facebook Photographer" and a surprising number are still doing well in that area (anecdotal and maybe not so much last year).

I know some of those old friends stuck to Adobe while others looked for open source/free alternatives depending on budget/revenue. I think one even works at/with Adobe these days after trying to hack on more features more than 10 years ago. But it's the same reason Apple/Google want kids using their devices in schools. Train the next gen to want your product and let the marketing flow.

If it isn't in an offline wallet it's likely with a legal entity registered somewhere or at least doing business in the US giving US courts jurisdiction. Even if not in the US, whatever jurisdiction they are under can enforce US rulings or court orders if allied or under treaty. If the FBI/etc follow the process to get a judge's signature saying the entity is holding illegally obtained or fraudulent assets of any kind, the entity can be liable if they do not cooperate.

Same thing as any order to seize or freeze financial assets but perhaps with more scrutiny given the pseudo-anonymity of digital currency. Same for acts by Congress that route through the Treasury to freeze assets like the Magnitsky Act.