Tag: commented

Low Pay is a Symptom

RE:

Labor unions are adopting unusual tactics, hoping to raise the floor for wages and working conditions in the ultracompetitive economy of the 21st century.

Source: Unionizing the Bottom of the Pay Scale – The New York Times

The pursuit of shareholder value is attracting criticism—not all of it foolish

Source: Taking the long view | The Economist

The economic crisis has revived the old debate about whether firms should focus most on their shareholders, their customers or their workers

Source: A new idolatry | The Economist

Shareholder capitalism suffers from a vacuum of ownership

Source: Beyond shareholder value | The Economist

 

Low pay is a symptom. When is it caused by inadequate allocation vs. inadequate productivity?

 

From comments:

I wish the cost of things got as much attention as salaries. … Pay is NOT the critical issue, cost of living is.

— anonymous

Here’s Why Digital Rights Management Is Stupid And Anti-Consumer – Consumerist

Comparisons of downloadable books and music to their ancient, tangible predecessors are an old, old meme, but sometimes the comparison applies.

Source: Here’s Why Digital Rights Management Is Stupid And Anti-Consumer – Consumerist

 

The pirated version (and there is ALWAYS a pirated version) already has *FREE!* going for it. Do you really want to add “Less of a hassle to obtain, easier to use, and safer/less spyware” too?

Hotel Lock Firm’s Security Fix Requires Hardware Changes For Millions Of Keycard Locks – Forbes

Onity, whose keycard locks can be found on at least four million rooms around the world, has a plan to fix a security flaw … the fix requires hardware changes to every affected lock.

Onity wants the hotels who already bought the company’s insecure product to pay for the fix

Source: Hotel Lock Firm’s Security Fix Requires Hardware Changes For Millions Of Keycard Locks – Forbes

 

To what extent are companies obliged to patch the security of their products, and at what point are they morally permitted to charge for further maintenance/modification?

World’s biggest geoengineering experiment ‘violates’ UN rules | Environment | The Guardian

Controversial US businessman’s iron fertilisation off west coast of Canada contravenes two UN conventions

Source: World’s biggest geoengineering experiment ‘violates’ UN rules | Environment | The Guardian

 

From comments:

the big question now is “Did it work?” or “Is it working?”

— anonymous

 

To the best of my current understanding, I’m sure that you can make blooms occur with this or something very similar, depending on location. The issue is what the side-effects and unintended consequences are. This is almost certainly a *terrible* idea anywhere you want to keep sea life alive. Even *if* humanity decided that this were an affordable geoengineering amelioration/sink for CO2, you’d want to use the Black Sea to do it so that the naturally anoxic waters can keep the dead critter corpses longer and so that the sea die-off can be more reliably contained. And we’re not going to see serious side effects for years, potentially (see – the food web bit).

It appears to have produced the immediate intended result (plankton bloom), the success of the intended-intended result (remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for a meaningful amount of time — decades or longer) won’t be known for a long time, and unanticipated side effects might not be visible for a long time or only at larger scales depending on how strongly the local water column is affected by the dump.

Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama – The Atlantic

The case against casting a ballot for the president — even if you think he’s better than Mitt Romney

If two candidates favored a return to slavery, or wanted to stone adulterers, you wouldn’t cast your ballot for the one with the better position on health care.

Source: Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama – The Atlantic

 

I think the concept that everyone has a line past which they would in fact vote for neither of two choices is quite interesting. Also, is voting for Obama better than voting, for example, for Gary Johnson (or any other candidate that has a statistically insignificant chance of winning the election)? Does voting for a “loser” (e.g. voting non-Republican in Texas or non-Democrat in Rhode Island) send a message about being dissatisfied with the going-to-win party’s platform without risking them actually losing, assuming you feel the other guy is even worse?