The R.oB. Opinion

It Wasn’t Me

Ron Paul was quite the racist and still is since he hasn’t the integrity to apologize for it written in his name. Only repentance brings redemption.

Ron Paul’s Shaggy Defense:

Racism, like all forms of bigotry, is what it claims to oppose–victimology. The bigot is never to blame. Always is he besieged–by gays and their radical agenda, by women and their miniskirts, by fleet-footed blacks. It is an ideology of “not my fault.” It is not Ron Paul’s fault that people with an NAACP view of the world would twist his words. It is not Ron Paul’s fault that his newsletter trafficked in racism. It is not Ron Paul’s fault that he allowed people to author that racism in his name. It is anonymous political aids and writers, who now cowardly refuse to own their words. There’s always someone else to blame–as long as it isn’t Ron Paul, if only because it never was Ron Paul.

(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates :: The Atlantic)

Ron Paul was quite the racist and still is since he hasn’t the integrity to apologize for it written in his name. Only repentance brings redemption.

You’re Supposed to Get What You Pay For

When you pay for something like foregoing taxes, government’s should get something in return. They’re our tax dollars right?

Job Creation and Job Quality Standards in State Economic Development Subsidy Programs | PHENND Updates:

“Report: States Spend Billions on Economic Development Subsidies that Don’t Require Job Creation or Decent Wages

Pennsylvania scored a D, tied for 40th place among the states

Pennsylvania is spending millions of dollars per year on corporate tax credits, cash grants and other economic development subsidies that lack wage and benefit standards for workers at subsidized companies and sometimes don’t require job creation, according to a new national report card issued by Good Jobs First.”

(Via PHENND .)

When you pay for something like foregoing taxes, government’s should get something in return. They’re our tax dollars right?

Kinect Voice Not Commanding

The Kinect’s voice command is no Siri. Continue reading →

Beleagured Doesn’t Begin to Describe It

RIM can’t get even begin digging out of the hole it’s until late 2012. Continue reading →

Louis CK: Live at the Beacon Theater…Cheap!

Louis CK shows how a disintermediated artist can make money, control his/her brand, and provide added value to the customer. Continue reading →

Louis CK: Live at the Beacon Theater:

The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. [emphasis mine] They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.

(Via The Loop.)

Information on the internet is costly to produce, near costless to distribute, but marketing can be an issue, a costly one at that. Louis CK has an established brand so he can take the risks in production and let the viral nature of the Internet do its thing.

The experiment was successful but it’s not a game changer for Louis CK per se. (If you doubt that, you put out $250,000 for production and see how viral your show goes.) He just cut out a middle man, made more money and we saved some. That’s the game changer for the big distribution, really marketing, companies. Social networking is not good for their business model. Not at all.

Read his whole post. A lot to learn there.

The Problem is Ignorance

Even when the odds are stacked against them and they are ill equipped to meet the challenge, it’s still their fault.

If I Were A Poor Black Kid – Forbes:

“President Obama was right in his speech last week. The division between rich and poor is a national problem. But the biggest challenge we face isn’t inequality. It’s ignorance. So many kids from West Philadelphia don’t even know these opportunities exist for them. Many come from single-parent families whose mom or dad (or in many cases their grand mom) is working two jobs to survive and are just (understandably) too plain tired to do anything else in the few short hours they’re home. Many have teachers who are overburdened and too stressed to find the time to help every kid that needs it. Many of these kids don’t have the brains to figure this out themselves – like my kids. Except that my kids are just lucky enough to have parents and a well-funded school system around to push them in the right direction.

Technology can help these kids. But only if the kids want to be helped. Yes, there is much inequality. But the opportunity is still there in this country for those that are smart enough to go for it.”

(Via Forbes .)

Mr. Marks is exactly right the problem is ignorance. His. Its willfulness especially. I don’t doubt his heart is somewhere near the right place, but seriously. His entire argument boils down to this: Poor black kids “don’t have the brains to figure this out for themselves” just like his presumably white middle class kids. Further, they don’t have adults with the resources to help them. So even when the odds are stacked against them, and like all children, are ill equipped to face these challenges alone, it’s still their fault they struggle. You gotta love conservative ideology for it’s ability to engender doublethink. Orwell would be impressed.

In Ways that Seem Inconsistent

Disturbing allegations of Apple connected with Digitude given Apple’s consistency. Continue reading →

Apple may be using patent troll to do its legal dirty work:

It’s not clear just how complicit Apple is in Digitude’s business, but EFF staff attorney Julie Samuels told TechCrunch that if Apple was deliberately aiding Digitude’s patent trolling, “it would be horrifying.” And even if Apple were somehow coerced into settling with Digitude, Samuels doubts that “Apple didn’t have any other options.”

As we noted recently, Apple has a tendency to use its intellectual property in ways that seem inconsistent. For instance, an Opera developer claims that Apple has a pattern of using patents to slow down the W3C’s open standards process, while promoting open standards when it gives Apple leverage against its competitors. This situation with Digitude seems similar; Apple opposes the tactics of patent trolls when they come after iOS developers, but seems to support them if it aids its ongoing legal battle for dominance of the smartphone market.

(Via arstechnica.com)

Disturbing to say the least!

The R.oB. Opinion

It Wasn’t Me

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You’re Supposed to Get What You Pay For

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The Problem is Ignorance

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