Discussions

1 hour ago, davewill wrote

@evildictaitor: "AOI was incorporated in Ireland in 1980."

My original Apple ][+ hard drives had stickers on them that said "made in Ireland".  Now I know why!

3 hours ago, dahat wrote

Ahh liberal double-think.

When a conservative talking head on TV points out that in the US, ~50% of the population doesn't pay any taxes, they are attacked by liberals who point out that while they don't pay any income taxes... they still pay payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes (either directly or indirectly), fuel taxes, cigarette taxes, etc... and yet here when liberals are up in arms about big evil corporations don't pay 'any taxes'... the even meaner conservative is attacked for pointing out the anger is over specifically income taxes... and that still a huge amount of taxes are still being paid in many jurisdictions... just not as much as the liberals would like.

Which is it? Does the term 'no taxes' only refer to 'income' taxes... or 'all' or 'any' taxes'?

I'm sorry for liking specificity and taking things seriously... anytime you care to start it would be a welcome change.

You can attempt to justify your pedantry by pulling strawmen out of thin air, but you know what you did.

Starting off with personal attacks and ignoring what was said above... thanks for coming out of the box admitting that you are incapable of having this discussion like an adult. I don't know why I ever think you capable of anything else.

It's a tough life you lead.  I wish I could give you a hug. 

Actually, he stated his opinion as fact.. while accusing many of crimes as well. Big difference.

Actually, he stated his opinion, like everyone else on this board.  Your failure to interpret this is just another example of faux-bergers.

So Marx is real... but Hayek, de Tocqueville, Locke, Montesquieu, Friedman and others... all fiction.

I'm sorry that anything above "Dr. Seuss's ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book!" is beyond your reading or comprehension ability.

What the ever-loving f*ck are you talking about.  If you keep this up I'll have to throw a strawman tea party...

So people spending their own money... caused the collapse? Amazing how this country never collapsed until the passage of the 16th Amendment.

I could say the same thing about the 13th.  I'd wager we could go investigate how many of those bootstrappy individualistic mega-corps began their lives making profits on the backs of others. 

But sure, paying taxes ruins everything.

Aka "You didn't build that, someone else made that happen"... the pronouncement of a lessor upon their betters... claiming an unbreakable right to keeptheir betters in a state of permanent bondage. No work, no level of taxes paid, no deed can ever repay the debt that is owed... as for every bit it is paid... the claimed need for even more money manifests.

If they want to repay the debt in full, they can sacrifice all ownership and property and walk away.  If they want to exist without the inconvenience of paying taxes back to the society that sustains them, then they can start again somewhere else a little less taxxy.  Somalia is beautiful this time of year.

Just go back to singing "The wheels on the bus go round and round" as again, this is an adult conversation and you clearly have no ability to participate.

I'm doing just fine, thank you.

23 minutes ago, Vaccano wrote

Banning online portions of second hand games seems to have some merit. I paid for Call of Duty, so I support the servers that allow online play. There is an expected decay rate of online players. (I got bored with the game.) But resale resets the decay with no money given to support the online maintenance.

They _chose_ to make the game require servers that they maintain.  I seem to recall playing quite a few FPS games on private servers.

7 hours ago, dahat wrote

*snip*

I know many that are genuinely giving... and clearly the Giving Campaign which has raised over 1 billion dollars from employees is just a farce.

Speaking personally... Where have I shown any semblance of altruism here? In fact I'm offended by the implication. Altruism is not a trait I exhibit and that is by design. Where one sees it, it is generally a sign of mutual self-interest.

Purposeful misunderstanding...charming.  Nobody would every confuse your motives with altruism.  It would require some semblance of a soul.

Actually he stated his opinion as fact... and failed to support it.

Actually, he stated his opinion.  You just took it as a challenge to the warped ideologies you internalized after reading vast amounts of randian fiction.

*cough* Fair Tax *cough*

You should get that looked at, it sounds malignant.

One reason of many... and a rather simplistic comparison to today.

Unlike time of old where the area a wealthy person could invest or spend their money was limited... today there is an entire world for investment and spending.

And this is why history repeats itself.

While Apple and others have billions in cash sitting largely unused overseas and wish to bring it into the US... it surprises me that we have not seen more investments abroad from such companies.

Why bother bringing the funds into the US and paying high taxes on it... when you can buy or build a factory or three overseas (or other large acquisitions) or even your own country and do so without paying many a tax in your country of origin?

Yes.  Why should the investment in infrastructure and society that fostered the growth of these companies ever benefit from their success.  If they want money, they should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps like Apple did.

Am I sayin' it right? 

9 hours ago, bizbazboo wrote

*snip*

What is it with Microsoft employees pretending they're autistic out of sheer boredom?

When the argument is weak, the weak get pedantic. 

He knows damn well that the discussion is about income tax, but he's backed himself into a tea party shaped corner so....

Of course.  It's worked every time.

I think Brian.Shapiro's point might have been that there is a tendency in the tech industry to sell attention free devices as a way to squeeze more productivity out of people.

Do what you want with your free time, but if you spend it on work, you suck and you know it.

This is much of the horribleness that is web app development in a nutshell:  Why the hell should I have to know the intricacies of the transfer protocol in order to make sure that my application functions correctly.  The same holds true even with ASP.Net MVC in that there is some inconsistencies about how a method in the controller functions when you start using ViewModels more extensively.

It's all learnable, but it's similar to having to manually manage memory in C/C++.  It's required, but it will eventually be superseded by a better technology.

There's certain parts of the intro you'd have difficulty getting past the censors:

http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/Modern-Parenthood/2013/0507/LEGO-apologizes-for-catcalling-Hey-babe-females-aren-t-playthings!

Also, It's always bothered me that there is an organization called "Christian Science Monitor"...

12 hours ago, wtfhIs​Microsoft​Doing wrote

Come Friday in a couple weeks this guy is going to get his direct deposit, and you will not have caught him and he will do a little cheer, and that will be the end of it.

That is the ultimate destination of this issue.

Your wishes and dreams of a witch-hunt ended successfully will be dashed, and you'll all snap back to reality.

*snip*

Why would you even dwell on how screwed up life really is as an example? Not everybody's life is screwed up. I think that says a lot. I dunno if you should be running social for MS, honestly. My 2 cents.

Hey, beer, how ya doin?