[Updated below.] Samsung will release its tablet-smartphone hybrid, the Galaxy Note, on February 19th. For subscribers the massive smartphone will only set you back $299 with a two-year contract. But will consumers buy up the massive smartphones? A 5.3″ touch screen has many advantages, but it has one pretty big disadvantage, too: it might be […]
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David Thier takes issue with my piracy post, writing that my argument over the nature of most piracy is “nothing but economic apologism. It says that we’re allowed to steal because it doesn’t really matter. Because we didn’t like that song anyway, we just wanted to hear what it was all about. Because it’s all […]
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Super PAC is the new buzz phrase this election season. All the GOP primary candidates appear to have one or two of them working alongside them, airing one attack ad after another. At the heart of all this election drama is the Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, which allows corporations to spend unlimited funds from […]
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I have written as a friendly critic – or a skeptical supporter? – of the Occupy movement many times now. Over the weekend I wrote several posts condemning the police violence at UC Davis and UC Berkeley that occurred this past week. Before that, I wrote several posts about the limits of the protest movement […]
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I admire Ralph Fiennes as an actor a great deal. He’s starred in some of my favorite films, and pulled off Lord Voldemort exquisitely in the Harry Potter saga. The Constant Gardener and The English Patient were both brilliant films, and Fiennes was brilliant in both roles. I could probably tick off another dozen performances […]
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Tim Carmody throws some cold water on Groupon’s IPO which has, by all measures, exceeded expectations. Although the company has only made a small portion of its total value available for trading, $700 million raised on the first day of trading is nothing to sniff at, making it the biggest IPO for an internet company […]
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Bank of America, cowed by customer outrage and bad press and by the quick retreat of its biggest competitors from charging similar fees, has ditched their $5 monthly debit card fees. “We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee,” said […]
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When Bank of America decided to start charging its customers a $5/month fee for using debit cards, people all across the internet were up in arms. This struck me as wrong-headed off the bat. Five dollars is hardly price-gouging, and paying for a service like debit or checking strikes me as a reasonable idea. Kevin […]
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