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Comment Re: I blame (Score 1) 116

blame ol' Al Gore for giving them the money to develop the Internet with no strings.

Uh, no.

You really need to do some more research - start with DARPA, and their quest to stop the government from continually buying new computers in the 60s into the 70s, and the need to create a nuclear-war resilient command and control infrastructure.

Al Gore didn't 'give' anyone money to 'develop' the Internet - his fair claim to fame is much smaller, he promoted something researchers had built and used before he came along...

Comment Re: Raping users is back on the menu, boys! (Score 1) 93

Thus the Agreements: "If you agree to pay higher prices we will increase supply, otherwise we will keep supply constrained to protect our profits."

So you think with prices at record highs, Memory Mfg. are keeping their chip fabs idle (less productive) on purpose? That's right up there with claims evil landlords keep large numbers of their rental units empty to drive up rents...

Comment Re: Cool Cool (Score 1) 90

What needs to be done is make these dischargeable debt.

We tried that, graduates would declare bankruptcy, get the student debt discharged, and just have to wait 7 years or whatever to take out a loan to buy a house.

This will make lending focused on degree payback and the college graduation rate.

How do you figure? Right now student loans are all but guaranteed for all that apply, and we have tremendous delinquency rates despite the debt not being discharge able. If you make student debt discharge able, what's the incentive to pay it back? Maybe you meant to add "and put student debt back in the hands of private lenders, who will bear the cost of that discharged debt, so they will be very selective about giving bad credit risk students tens of thousands of dollars for their degree"? Is that what you meant?

Comment Re: Cool Cool (Score 1) 90

Many other countries besides the USA have lower tuitions and lower per-student debts. Why? Government support for education.

So let's start with your last item first - do you imagine the U.S. Government, and state governments, DON'T support education? How much money does each state pour into state and community colleges? Acvording to you, nothing.

You know what the difference is between all those "free colleges" in Europe and elsewhere and US Colleges? The vast majority of foreign "free" colleges are run by the gov't, enrollment is limited, and students get in based on merit. In America, the vast majority of colleges are privet, "non-profit" institutions, and they admit almost anyone willing to pay the tuition they charge, usually with money they hope to earn after they graduate.

If you want to compare apples to apples, let's compare "free" European colleges and state colleges, let's not compare them to private colleges.

In America, any student can buy their way into college with borrowed money, and somehow that's unfair. Fine, let's stop government secured student loans and make all state colleges 'free, but merit-based', let's stop offering remedial math and reading classes... let's be just like Europe, and anyone that can't earn a spot at a free state college is free to find the money privately to attend the local 'non-profit' schools. Is that really what you want?

Comment Re: Cool Cool (Score 1) 90

Have you forgotten that countless borrowers (former students) either simply don't make payments or, as we've discussed here frequently, will chose to simply move out of the country, in order to avoid paying for the education they wanted?

PS - there are NO HARD ASSETS securing student loans, which can be described as giving loans of tens of thousands of dollar/year for years, to someone who's never held a job/drawn a paycheck or even made a loan payment before getting approved.

Comment Re: Sojust like every other tech growth story (Score 1) 231

Tesla took 17 years to reach profitablity. They all got significant state support to the tune of many billions

Are we calling $7,500 tax incentives for the buyer 'subsidies'?

I'm not saying that's wrong, but that's a different kind of subsidy than the ones a company like BYD gets from the Chinese gov't... (Tesla sold the cars at a higher price, the buyer got the subsidy, in BYD the cars are sold at a lower price and the gov't just gives them money.)

As a reminder, it was "climate conscious" politicians, largely in one party, that used the gov't checkbook to prop up certain companies in industries they liked, all with great big press conferences and running for re-election on those generous handouts to 'green industries'.

Comment Re: Instead, it plans to develop a voluntary indu (Score 1) 106

It's not always clear at the time of purchase that the publisher has the ability to shut down the game at some unspecified future date.

Are you a child? EVERY online game will be shutdown at some point, the ONLY discussion/question is how long before it happens?

Off-line game will theoretically play for ever, but advances in computer hardware/operating systems may cause all but the most committed player to to eventually decide it's no longer worth the effort to keep their Apple ][ running to play Oregon Trail (for example).

Comment Re: online petitions mean shit (Score 1) 106

Holy cow, you mean that just because 1.3 million (verified!) people signed an online petition to force companies to let them keep playing discontinued video games for free in perpetuity that the EU can just say 'Nyet!'?

But, but, they REALLY, REALLY want it!

This is so stupid, give game manufacturers a reason to do what you want, don't just try to force them into complying with your selfish desires... offer them money, tax-breaks, SOMETHING!

Comment Re:Misleading (Score 1) 77

And yet the unnamed source tries to make it sound like it is about making private companies "pay their fair share" and can't believe that the administration hasn't spent three years trying to figure out how to make the temporary power it was granted permanent. Power, apparently, for him

The administration that took charge 18 months ago didn't start working on this regulation 36 months ago? I wonder why that is?

Comment Re:Misleading (Score 1) 77

1) The Law is only 3 years old. This isn't some massive change, as it has barely been on the books at all.
2) It only applies to Federal facilities, not general data centers, so has absolutely NOTHING to do with all the other bullshit hype around AI datacenters.

I'm struggling to make sense of your statements and this quote from the summary:

A replacement for the requirements laid out in FDCEA would, in other administrations, have been in the works for months ahead of its expiration. An employee with the GSA, the agency that oversees the government's IT services and helps to implement the FDCEA, says that the lack of any sort of plan is highly uncommon. The employee spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. "Never in the history of data center policies has a policy expired without another one having been painstakingly worked on for three years behind the scenes," says the GSA employee.

It implies this is along-standing regulation and it takes tears to update...

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