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Cook: Sir, I have tremendous respect for you (In response to Senator McCain)

Translation: Sir, you are an idiot.

3 days ago on Senators blast Apple in hearing for keeping most profits overseas 1 recommend

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What’s sad is while they vehemently claim that Senator Paul is an asshole and that they are holding this hearing in good faith, Senators Levin and McCain had a singular focus in painting Apple in a bad light. The entire second panel was devoted to berating Apple’s executives, regardless of the counter-arguments. It’s like they weren’t even in the same room. Nothing new was presented. No solutions were taken seriously. I first thought Rand Paul was a bit over-political in his opening speech until I heard the rest of the hearing. They deserved every word of criticism.

3 days ago on Tim Cook defends Apple's overseas cash: 'I'm not an unfair person, that's not who we are as a company' 2 recommends

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When did having a single holding company manage your post-tax foreign cash and pay interest income tax in the US become greedy?

3 days 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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In other news, over twenty people including nine children died in Oklahoma.
What was your point?

3 days ago on Tim Cook defends Apple's overseas cash: 'I'm not an unfair person, that's not who we are as a company' 1 reply 2 recommends

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Using anything other than the Street View and navigation presented to you is cheating ;-)

12 days ago on Helplessness, despair, and Street View come together in 'GeoGuessr' Google Maps game 3 recommends

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“Illegal” meaning one was on a student visa but is still here while not enrolled in classes, while the other is enrolled, but has been skipping classes. While not typical, it’s common for any college student really, and not at all what you think it is.

It seems more like a simple case of stupidity and cover-up when your friend does something bad, although the extremity in this case will definitely lead to a prison sentence. I think it was just a couple days ago when they published a news story about these friends and quoted them saying they’d never dream their friend would do such a thing.

23 days ago on Three men charged with helping Boston Marathon bombing suspect destroy evidence

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So $79.95 bundled or $149.95 a la carte according to the link provided by a commentor down below. That price range is a bit hard to justify for my family’s use case, but heavier users, potential entrepreneurs, and the like will definitely be intrigued. Heck, you could probably share the connection and split it across several apartments/houses close by and still only be constrained by the opposite end. $50 for 300 Mbps? Sign me up!

23 days ago on Omaha the latest city to get gigabit internet, courtesy of CenturyLink 1 recommend

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Meh, I guess it depends heavily on where you are located. I had them briefly when my promo with Mediacom ended and they refused to keep it going. Basically single-user speeds were ok, 5~7 Mbps, but add on multiple users over a wireless router and speeds went down the tube. Even simple ping requests while someone was watching YouTube would go from 20ms to 500~1300ms. Dropped them as soon as I could. This time, Mediacom only increased my promo price by $10/mo from $20 to $30, which is pretty decent for 15 Mbps internet with none of the above issues so I’m keeping with them for the time being.

23 days ago on Omaha the latest city to get gigabit internet, courtesy of CenturyLink 2 replies

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Reflecting on what happened to Fiskar, it seems that outsourcing your technology is not such a good idea in the long run, even though it may seem “leaner” in the short. Funding the Russian space program does nothing to enhance our own technological know-how, limiting future technological advancements. With the money we fund the Russians, they will continue to invest and research, advancing their space program, while ours stagnates due to lack of funding. Then, we will rely on them even more since our programs will not be up to par.

While defense is the same, NASA’s budget is only a fraction of the overall defense budget, and amount required to fund the US programs versus the Russian program is more like a rounding error in comparison. One gross inefficiency is one pointed out by the Daily Show many times, in where we can’t even put together a system to process VA claims in a timely fashion because the separate systems involved can’t “talk” to each other. So instead, they invested in space-saving filing cabinets since everything is done on paper.

24 days ago on NASA delays astronaut flights with SpaceX and other companies, extends Russia contract 1 reply 2 recommends

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While the design looks more polished, it seems Path is nothing more than any of the dozens of other “social” apps that are actually spam bots in disguise. I had the unfortunate experience of interviewing for a job with one back in 2008 called SMS.ac/Fanbox.

24 days ago on Path is spamming address books with unwanted texts and robocalls — again 2 recommends

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Meanwhile, Apple and Samsung post record profits, and Blackberry continues to estimate losses into the foreseeable future but still manages to stay afloat by “beating the street by losing less than expected”.

24 days ago on BlackBerry's Thorsten Heins thinks tablets will be dead in five years 1 reply

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And I’m guessing we’ll read a Verge article then as well.

Blackberry Glass, released 5 years too late, is a complete disaster, after which Blackberry CEO Thorsten Heins states, “In five years, I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have wearable-computing any more”.

24 days ago on BlackBerry's Thorsten Heins thinks tablets will be dead in five years 1 recommend

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It seems to be a common trap to think technology will grow exponentially, leading even prominent thinkers to believe technology will be more advanced, earlier, that it actually proves to be (Exhibit A: every sci-fi material ever thought of). If we had unlimited funding of pure technological advance, that may be the case. Too bad most businesses need to recoup their R&D costs. I like to think of it more as bursts of advancement, followed by nominal growth/iteration to recoup and start a new research cycle.

24 days ago on BlackBerry's Thorsten Heins thinks tablets will be dead in five years 1 reply 6 recommends

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Hundreds of strange polycorbonate figures with over-sized heads of unknown origin and purpose have been discovered by archaeologists exploring the ruins of an ancient Mid-Missourian temple in the Americas, Discovery News reports. The figures were uncovered by a tricorder-equipped mini-drone on the floor of two previously sealed underground chambers in the Temple of the Walled Mart in the ancient city St. Louis. They are thought to be at least 1,800 years old and are about 1.5 inches to 5 inches in size. Their cores are made up of unknown poly-carbonate materials, while their surfaces are covered in synthetic pigments, also known as “paint”, giving them a flashy colorful coating.

Sorry, off-topic but that gif..

24 days ago on Hundreds of strange metallic spheres found in ancient Mexican temple

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@grp Did you get something like this? cl.ly/OYEJ

— Patrick B. Gibson (@patr1ck) April 25, 2013

29 days ago on Tickets for Apple's WWDC sold out in under two minutes

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My WWDC alert bot may have requested the /wwdc page 97,405 times over the last few months…I’ll probably exceed that in the next few minutes.

— David Smith (@_DavidSmith) April 25, 2013

29 days ago on Tickets for Apple's WWDC sold out in under two minutes