Author: luimbe

Obamacare is a legal, constitutional government program that should be funded

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House Leaders John Boehner And Eric Cantor Arrive On Capitol Hill For Republican Caucus Meeting

doesn’t understand not funding and lowering funding not the same thing (photo: Getty Images)

This is classic logical fallacy:

“Chris, bless your heart, but not funding the government is part of funding it,” Issa interjected. “If you have the right to fund the government, you have the right to fund the government to a lesser amount.”

via Darrell Issa: Not Funding The Government Is Part Of Funding It.

Not funding is not the same as lowering funding.

The former ends a program the latter will force cost cuts or savings or reduced services to citizens. With Obamacare a law that made publicly subsidized healthcare among other things part of the US government, the Republicans want to not fund it. Not just fund it to a lesser amount.

Of course Republicans have the right to fund the government at a lesser amount…but they still have to fund the government.

 

Microsoft Surface Commercial is a training video

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I’m watching Parks and Rec (really listening from the next room while coding) and the Microsoft Surface commercial came on. The video is instructions on how to use the damn thing for beginners. If your commercial is a training video for the simplest, base uses of your consumer device, you’re doing it wrong.

Phone contracts are a b*tch

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With a contract, you get this phone & Stephen Elop for $25m. What a deal!

With a contract, you get this phone & Stephen Elop for $25m. What a deal!

What does $25 million buy?

To put the blame for Nokia’s problems all on the shoulders of Stephen Elop would be absurd, but he came to the company from Microsoft, bet the company’s future on the Windows Phone operating system, and it was a huge disaster. Now with the one-time market leader no longer viable as an independent company it’s being bought by Microsoft and Elop will find himself earning about $25 million in bonuses as part of Nokia contractual arrangements for a change in corporate control.

That’s a hell of a contract. Oh yes, and he’s failing up. Here are the reasons why according to Nokia (which Elop still runs?):

The first was to stop Mr Elop resigning. He could have resigned because of the change of control and still received the pay-off. “The amendment was made to keep him on board,” Nokia said.

Microsoft is keen to retain Mr Elop because the US group wants him to run the mobile phone unit, and he has been talked about as a favourite to replace Steve Ballmer as Microsoft chief executive. As part of the deal, Microsoft has agreed to cover 70 per cent of Mr Elop’s pay-off, with Nokia paying the remainder.

“They didn’t have to pay it legally. But they also want to ensure he comes and properly integrates the devices and services business,” Nokia said.

The second reason was that his original contract contained a non-compete agreement that included Microsoft among the list of companies that he could not join. That clause had to be altered to allow him to go to Microsoft with the unit when the deal closes, in the first quarter of next year.

The third reason, Nokia says, is to regulate what would happen were the deal to collapse. Nokia says the contract now says he could be reinstated as chief executive but he would give up all his equity awards.

I’d rather just have the phone.

’Grand Theft Auto V’: 1 billion in first week

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$1 billion dollars worth of Grand Theft

$1 billion dollars worth of Grand Theft

“Grand Theft Auto V”: 1 billion in first week:

That’s more than any movie released this year, with the exception of “Iron Man 3” (which happens to be the fifth highest-grossing movie of all time). At this rate, “GTA V” could be a nontrivial contributor to the U.S. gross domestic product. It’s a cultural event. Even Apple Inc. should be impressed.

This is huge as the music industry often piggy backs on movies to boost song profitability whenever possible AND .

Charles Yu’s article gets to is that it’s a bargain price:

That makes the $60 retail price a bargain: 100 hours of gameplay at $0.60 an hour. Compare that with the price of admission to a movie, even a two-and-a-half hour mega-production. The other advantage for video games — driving the usage cost down even further — is that buyers get to keep the game.

The titans of the movie business need to drop prices, reduce time to secondary markets and diversify their offerings, instead they are doing the opposite.

A feature, not a defect

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post.checkcashing
Sullivan flags an article about Lisa J. Servon who worked as a check cashing teller:

She goes on to argue that the “banking industry needs to develop different fee and service structures designed to accommodate lower income depositors in much the same way banks currently provide VIP treatment to high-net-worth individuals.”

Saying they “need” to fix fees assumes banks want those customers. The point of the fees is to push those customers away so they don’t have to deal with them. So the “need” was “keep these people out of our bank lobbies”. That’s already been fulfilled.

Voters to the polls not lobbyists & ads on the TV

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"Pro Gun Control? You can have all the lobbyists money can buy" (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

“Pro Gun Control? You can have all the lobbyists money can buy” (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

Bloomberg is looking to sustain the battle for gun control:

Bloomberg’s gun control groups says they’re not backing off after this week’s drubbing in Colorado. They say they’re eyeing battles in five more states around the country.

I would suggest the way to taking his pro gun control program to a level where it will be successful is to mobilize voters. Liberal candidates are losing in midterms and recalls due to drop in turnout of their base. They are not losing because they don’t have lobbyists or money being thrown at them.

Bloomberg didn’t have that issue in “blue city” New York in “blue state” of New York. It is a big issue in the “purple” districts where the conservative faction of the electorate who vote every election may really believe “Obama’ll and [insert liberal candidate here] take your guns if they have their way”. In addition Fox & Friends is on in every waiting room and lobby and will say (in not so many words): Bloomberg is buying elections to help Obama take away your guns.

MSNBC’s O’Donnell embarrasses himself & has-been Anthony Weiner

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They used to be such good friends!

They used to be such good friends!

Let me tell you this joke about “The Last Word” on MSNBC: A Boston guy asks a New York Guy “what’s wrong with you?” no comedy ensues.
That’s how I would describe this if I could: a bad joke… I can’t call it an interview.
Lawrence O’Donnell had Anthony Weiner on his show, and both of them seemed awful. Weiner should have walked off and O’Donnell should have had one of the other still viable (polling in top 3) NYC Mayoral candidates on his show. See if you can sit through this garbage:

I don’t turn on a news show or political analysis show to see a grown man be berated over some personal ish. I sincerely hope that he’s not doing this to spur ratings. He has some solid insights on the workings of the Senate and what it takes to get bills passed and how the sausage gets made. Not sure if that’s too popular, but hope it’s more popular than this.

all too real

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Herman Cain doesn't believe he is the cause of gender workplace issues either.

ignoring gender diversity issues makes us a lot like this guy

Many of us male techies feel we can honestly deny gender is an issue in our professional world in but then stuff like this f*ckery reported by Valleywag happens:

TechCrunch Disrupt 2013 startup conference: an app called Titstare, presented by two grinning Australian dudes, exactly as tasteless as it sounds.

The stunt—which the Sydney duo claims was just a “joke”—was done before to an audience who paid for the opportunity to watch what was essentially a shitty routine pulled from the boys’ cabin at sleepaway camp. Some in attendance actually laughed and cheered, so I suppose part of the crowd thought they got their money’s worth.

There’s more.

If you’d like to feel worse today, here’s another “demo” from the same “hackathon” “presentation,” which is basically a guy pretending to jerk off before a crowd that included a 9-year-old girl.

TechCrunch is owned by AOL. AOL owns a lot of brands including HuffPo, Moviefone and MapQuest. This conference series is not a small deal. It’s international. Somehow, in San Francisco, California in 2013 organizers for this huge conference series hosted by a premier brand of an international tech company believes that these bits were amusing and appropriate. They even publicized the bits before someone complained:

TechCrunch proceeded to tweet a link to Titstare from its official Disrupt account, but decided that was perhaps unwise, and deleted it, settling for this instead.

This is a symptom of the problem of not having gender diversity in tech.