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I can get behind some version of a progressive consumption tax that eliminates all federal taxes and includes a “prebate”.

It’s too bad, however, that movements like the FairTax have been co-opted by people who overtly or covertly believe that poverty is the fault of the impoverished, that big-G Government can only screw up health care, that the only kind of “socialism” they can get behind is social darwinism, that guns are an inalienable right, yet protecting the unborn from a life of pain and suffering is the height of evil.

(To be clear, I’m referencing “Tea Party” rhetoric and that far right who believe they are, indeed, always RIGHT, and the motives of the left are always as sinister as its Latin roots.)

about 17 hours ago on Tim Cook defends Apple's overseas cash: 'I'm not an unfair person, that's not who we are as a company'

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You forgot the troll face.

2 days ago on Windows Phone overtakes BlackBerry to claim third place in 2013 smartphone shipments

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The graph presented in the comments above was not a platform to platform or a device model to device model comparison — it is a comparison of smartphones on a platform. The iOS platform is about twice that and includes the iPad and iPod Touch. iOS vs. Android ≠ iPhone(s) vs. Android phones.

2 days ago on Windows Phone overtakes BlackBerry to claim third place in 2013 smartphone shipments

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Tumblr’s use of promoted blogs — should that be the advertising model — might actually insulate them from this issue. Maybe I’m way off base, but I see a difference between an ad on a sidebar of a porn site and a link to a blogpost in a feed that may or may not include porn.

3 days ago on WSJ: Yahoo's board approves $1.1 billion all-cash Tumblr acquisition

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See, this is exactly why the deal makes a lot of sense for both companies — Tumblr needs sales people. Yahoo has sales people. If you ask me, this is great news for users, because a profitable company is one that sticks around.

3 days ago on WSJ: Yahoo's board approves $1.1 billion all-cash Tumblr acquisition 1 reply 2 recommends

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If we are going to be selective about what Yahoo is buying (should this deal go through) — it’s not the users, it’s the user generated content. Yahoo is a media company — they aggregate and generate content.

As for the stewardship of Flickr, there is new life there. It’s more alive than it has been in ages. There have been hopes that Flickr will finally be able to do what Instagram is doing, but better. Tumblr might help with that.

In fact, if you look at what Tumblr is — a meta-Twitter, Instragram, Pinterest, Vine, long-form blogging platform, and even SoundCloud all rolled into one — you start to see reasons that Yahoo would buy it as a platform with users and their content, not one thing over the other. I see Tumblr being like Instagram and Vine are to Facebook and Twitter, respectively, separate from the parent company, with no designs as of yet to be integrated into the whole. After all, as I already stated, Flickr doing better than it has in years.

Something else of interest, Tumblr could possibly add a paid tier like SquareSpace for professionals (there are already paid themes that seem to do pretty well), so that video and audio hosting could happen there, much like Flickr has a pro tier for images (and video, too, who knew?) or Yahoo Mail Plus. So no, it’s not just a grab for users that will sunset the product — despite Yahoo’s recent past.

3 days ago on Yahoo reportedly nearing $1.1 billion deal to acquire Tumblr

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February 2007.

I’d like to see the stats of Tumblr “not really growing”. Maybe its growth rate isn’t growing, but “not really growing” means shrinking. This is exactly like the “Apple is in decline” meme because the growth is slowing — something analysts have been forecasting erroneously since 2004.

3 days ago on Yahoo reportedly nearing $1.1 billion deal to acquire Tumblr

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They get to focus on making Tumblr better while Yahoo can focus on the sales of ads.

4 days ago on Yahoo to hold press event Monday as Tumblr buyout rumors swirl (update)

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Not a big deal? Would Yahoo acquiring Google in the early 2000s have been a big deal? Would Microsoft acquiring Facebook? Was google acquiring YouTube?

4 days ago on Yahoo reportedly nearing $1.1 billion deal to acquire Tumblr 1 reply 1 recommend

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I concur.

4 days ago on Yahoo reportedly nearing $1.1 billion deal to acquire Tumblr 2 recommends

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Updates to apps like flickr and mail that make them relevant again, new home page that is less atrocious, deals with Apple to give them a more prominence in iOS, content deals galore. With the exception of the telecommuting debacle, Yahoo has been very busy in just the first five months of this year. Can we just go ahead and add that 13th year to the Chinese calendar: The Year of the Yahoo?

4 days ago on Yahoo reportedly nearing $1.1 billion deal to acquire Tumblr 1 reply 11 recommends

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I think that you are underestimating just how big Tumblr is. It’s the next Facebook or Twitter of social media sites. A cool billion might be a steal.

4 days ago on Yahoo reportedly nearing $1.1 billion deal to acquire Tumblr 2 replies 5 recommends

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Of course soccer is happy, you mute bundle of sticks.

11 days ago on Forget sex: how the idea behind Bang with Friends could revolutionize social interaction 1 reply 2 recommends

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I think I’ve been listening to too much RotL. I don’t know how to fix it, but one thing is sure, we should act before things get to Holocaust levels.

11 days ago on ESPN wants you to watch more sports, even if it has to subsidize your data plan

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To which everyone not in Brazil (it is Brazil, right?) says WTF is Orkut?

11 days ago on Forget sex: how the idea behind Bang with Friends could revolutionize social interaction 2 replies 1 recommend

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It takes two to tango, statistically speaking.

11 days ago on Forget sex: how the idea behind Bang with Friends could revolutionize social interaction 2 replies 18 recommends

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Unrelated — you want Puerto Rico to start paying federal taxes, don’t you?

11 days ago on Forget sex: how the idea behind Bang with Friends could revolutionize social interaction 1 reply

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Textwall much? (Yes, that is a response to myself)

I am going to take this moment to learn not to try for deep and provocative responses to snap judgments on the internet, because, really, it’s burning cycles on things that I probably shouldn’t be burning cycles on. Though I do enjoy the challenge. Cheers.

11 days ago on ESPN wants you to watch more sports, even if it has to subsidize your data plan

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OK, I’ll give you that the Eugenics statement was a teensy weensy bit inflammatory. I’d like to say that all’s fair in love and war and comments on the internet, but it was disrespectful — I am sorry. I hope that everyone in this modern age would look at Eugenics and understand why it is so deeply flawed.

However, I stand by my interpretation of what you were saying — even though that isn’t what you thought you were saying. You conflated two very separate ideas — one is violence, the other pain. As someone who has children, I am well aware of the stove issue and the evolutionary advantages of pain. I have smacked a hand reaching for a hot stove and smacked a mouth that was chewing on window sashes that I know for certain had lead paint. I hated it. And contrary to popular belief, it often wasn’t effective, especially as they get older and can actually think. (Fortunately, only one of our children was a goat that would eat, literally everything — this was not pica, she was not malnourished.) Pain can provoke the autonomic response that I was talking about — fight or flight or play dead. These are learning moments only in the most simplistic sense; they do not encourage higher order thinking, the ability to be intelligent about complex and misunderstood issues in the stack of the brain where consciousness resides. They may be reflected on later, but they may also inhibit the ability to reflect on it later.

Re your definitions, I think they are more nuanced than that. Ignorance is the default state — it takes effort to learn, especially as we get older — yes, it is a choice, but it is the harder choice, so hard for some that it may not even be considered a choice. Foolishness is only foolish in hindsight, like the time I nearly dozed off at a stop sign, only to jolt awake, think I’d better not do that, I’m almost home — blink — and wake up in the ditch on the wrong side of the road going god knows how fast toward a collection of maple saplings that acted as a ramp and flipped the car. I drove almost a mile, asleep, into oncoming traffic. Something that I actually thought and voiced aloud was impossible — how can anyone fall asleep driving!? Foolish, but there was a learning experience, and I have pulled over may a time when I am too tired to drive. The outcomes of ignorance and foolishness are moot where there is no intelligence. If a tree falls in the forest and nothing has ears to detect the subtle changes in pressure, does it make a sound? The answer is yes, it does make a sound, but it doesn’t matter. So it is with ignorance and foolishness where there is no intelligence.

As for anger issues, I don’t them, I have pain issues. Being in my skin has become increasingly unpleasant over the past five years. I have talked to people about it. When this first started happening, I became increasingly irritable and angry, so I went to the doctor and was told I was depressed. So they gave me medication. None took. So I got a second opinion by one Dr. Ellison (portrayed by Robert Stack) and was diagnosed with a braincloud, told I only had a few months to live, and decided I would sacrifice myself to the volcano god on Waponi Woo. “Live like a king, die like a man.” It is a shame that the island sank into the ocean. I miss that place.

11 days ago on ESPN wants you to watch more sports, even if it has to subsidize your data plan 1 reply

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I grew up near Gary, Indiana, in the eighties. Don’t tell me violence is the only way. It’s bullshit. You are appealing to your crocodile brain. The only way we progress as intelligent beings is by recognizing the flaws in our physiology and doing all that we can to minimize them.

And joke or not, it does not change the fact that the statement was “intellectually moribund” — see my response above.

12 days ago on ESPN wants you to watch more sports, even if it has to subsidize your data plan 1 reply