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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 05 2013 @ 10:58 AM EST |
We were supposedly independent contractors, but we worked directly
under bank and lenders authority and supervision. Any findings we made were
quality controlled by the bank. Any findings we made came directly under the
scrutiny of the bank. Any arguments over our findings, and whether they should
be changed or not could and often did result in termination from the program
without cause or warning and we had no recourse because we were
contractors.
[...]
When the questions was asked “how is a borrower going
to know if a specific law or statute was violated since they are not trained in
the law” the answer was that we only address what the borrower specifically
complained about. The problem was that usually a borrower only had a feeling
they got shafted somehow, but did not specifically know how. The complaint form
also didn’t mention to the borrower that they had to be specific about issues of
law. The form only asked generic questions about what happened. Now it was very
evident that we were there as window dressing and not the compassionate heroes
we thought we were.
Those were only the general issues that were causing
friction. The sham was becoming more and more evident in the
details.
Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 05 2013 @ 02:03 PM EST |
The federal rescue of Wall Street didn’t fix the economy – it
created a permanent bailout state based on a Ponzi-like confidence scheme. And
the worst may be yet to come
[...]
The public has been lied to so
shamelessly and so often in the course of the past four years that the failure
to tell the truth to the general populace has become a kind of baked-in,
official feature of the financial rescue. Money wasn't the only thing the
government gave Wall Street – it also conferred the right to hide the truth from
the rest of us. And it was all done in the name of helping regular people and
creating jobs. "It is," says former bailout Inspector General Neil Barofsky,
"the ultimate bait-and-switch."
The bailout deceptions came early, late and
in between. There were lies told in the first moments of their inception, and
others still being told four years later. The lies, in fact, were the most
important mechanisms of the bailout.
Rolling Stone[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 05 2013 @ 03:56 PM EST |
The article is actually about why Nvidious is using 28nm for their Kepler
GPU. What is more interesting is why, and it's implications for the rest of
the industry.
SemiA
ccurate
Do I believe their take on things? Yes, I do. I've seen
the same thing done
many times. If you can't compete on value, poke a stick
between your
competitors spokes, and wreck their ability to
compete.
It may not be nice, but look how much money Microsoft made
doing it.
Waynehttp://madhatter.ca [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 06 2013 @ 09:48 AM EST |
Why not Android Jelly Bean on all devices (as that would be
faster)...? Maybe due to Jelly Bean lacking the USB feature
that is needed by many? Don't know?
All the Android devices (with HDMI) should have:
-One, is the wireless keyboard purchase option (USB, I
suggest Logitec k400 with wireless Touch Keyboard with
"touch pad" for use on couch with device hooked up via HDMI
to TV).
-The other I suggest is a "tested, wireless camera for
"living Room or other Video using Skype or Jitsi (when Jitsi
becomes Android, that should be soon). Camera should have
mount for on top of TV or Monitor.
Extra - The only other thing that no one has done yet, is to
PUSH the TV thru the Android device, so that when in-bound
Skype or Jitsi call come in, that it auto-pops up in the
corner allowing MUTE of TV and take the video call as voice
first, then allow turn on of video (for privacy reasons).
An ability to take a non-smart TV and convert it to a VOIP
intergrated Smart TV (with automatic VOIP call
filtering/override of "inscreen TV video), now, that would
be really really interesting).
Note, any user of any Android device, should look at testing
out "AirDroid" app from the Market (free) to move files "to
and from" PCs and their favorite Android Devices.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Gringo_ on Sunday, January 06 2013 @ 12:03 PM EST |
At this point, though the numbers aren't in for 4th
Quarter results covering
holiday sales, we can be pretty
sure that Nokia did not have a merry Christmas
with their
Windows 8 phone. There was that survey of device activations on
Christmas Day where the
WinPhone didn't even get an
honourable mention. Before that substantial
evidence
Windows Phone, hyped up to provide "a third option" will be
lucky to
have taken 6th place by sales in 2012 (about 2%)
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting
Estimates December 21,
2012
Now we also have
indications that sales of the other important component
of Window
Next Gen Reboot, Windows 8 tablets and laptops are
also depressed...
Windows 8 is selling slowly. More slowly than
Windows 7 at
launch, and more slowly than Windows 7 a year
ago. "The launch of Windows
8...did little to boost holiday
sales or improve the yearlong Windows notebook
sales
decline," NPD said. More specifically, Windows laptop
"holiday unit
sales" were down 11 percent year-to-year, the
market researcher
said.
A insightful comment on that blog by poster "brians"
concludes "Windows 8 is what Microsoft (and Intel)
wants, not what the
consumer wants."...
Windows 8 is not simply off to a slow
start, consumers
have flat out rejected it. You can see this on Amazon's Top
100 list and I've seen it myself monitoring various
retailers throughout the
holiday season. I wrote this up in
my personal
blog
Right after Windows 8
release, you could see lots of
people in Best Buy looking at Windows 8, as the
holiday
season progressed, no one looked any more. They want to get
their
tasks done, not learn a new paradigm.
Second, you assume people actually
WANT touch on a
laptop. Who wants to do their word processing/spreadsheets
through a smeared screen? And unlike with tablets, the use
of a capacitive
stylus really isn't practical with a laptop.
Many of the nicer, lighter, touch
ultrabooks move every time
you touch their screen. For standard PC tasks, just
what
does touch give you?
Third, netbooks were underpowered [] because
Intel and
Microsoft forced the OEMs to use substandard chips and
substandard
software. OEMs realized that consumers wanted
cheaper, light-weight laptops,
but Intel and Microsoft tried
to protect their profit margins. Netbooks did not
ruin the
Windows laptop market, the Windows laptop market failed to
meet
customer's needs. The best selling laptop on Amazon
throughout the holiday
season was a $249 Samsung ARM-based
Chromebook. I am writing this message
from one of these.
This Chromebook unequivocally proves that a decent
sub-$400
laptop, with NO FAN, nice trackpad, decent screen, etc is
perfectly possible.
Fourth, when you talked about Apple tablet pricing
and
Microsoft needing to find a place between Apple and Android,
there are
some things you should know. Having watched
Amazon's top 100 throughout the
holidays, the average price
of Android tablets was sub-$300, possibly
sub-$200. New 4th
gen iPads were not selling very well, it was iPad 2s and
iPad minis that were the ones selling in the top 40. The
point here is that
people want _inexpensive_ devices that do
what they need. No new Windows 8
machine of any sort comes
close to meeting those needs in a reasonable price
range.
You acknowledged to some extent the pricing problem, but I'm
arguing
that Microsoft and Intel needs to do a fundamental
realignment with what the
consumer wants.
Microsoft envied Apple's profit margins
and absolute
control over the ecosystem, control they themselves had lost
due
to a series of antitrust actions. They wanted that back.
They wanted to profit
from the entire ecosystem, and most of
all they wanted lucrative margins. They
came up with a
stunning vision, an entirely new UI and the totally locked-
down
WART (Windows on ARM) system. We are now seeing the
unraveling of Microsoft's
entire next generation strategy.
What was stunning about their vision was how
well it was
geared to Microsoft's needs - not to the needs of the
consumer.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 06 2013 @ 12:59 PM EST |
California man says he can drive in carpool lane with corporation papers - NBC
Dotcom
files against US government, accuses FBI of dodgy dealing - NBR
Banana Republic Justice: Behind the
Scenes of the Pirate Bay Trial - Falkvinge
bonus
how to be funny
without being shocking - Reddit [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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