Day: August 14, 2020

TECHNOLOGY: Battle Royale — Epic vs Apple / Google

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Fortnite/Epic Games versus app store taxes

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Epic Games kicked off a brief, enthralling campaign against Apple and Google yesterday. First, it emerged that it had found a way to offer discounted in-app purchases in Fortnite, the lifeblood of the game. All without Apple or Google taking a cut, the lifeblood of those app stores.

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Epic filed legal action against both companies. One interesting wrinkle in the lawsuit against Google is a new claim by Epic that accuses Google of crushing Fortnite deals with OnePlus, LG (Android Authority).
Spotify chimed in to support Epic, too (MacRumors).

So, it’s a Battle Royale.

Choosing sides:

We’re well into the era of companies having committed enough fans to entice them to fight against fans of other companies.

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Hope they “kill” each other for the benefit of lower costs to consumers. Just light an old “free capitalistic marketplace” should operate.

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NEWJERSEY: Your License, Or Your Conscience?

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https://www.cato.org/blog/license-or-conscience-tale-pandemic

August 5, 2020 11:47AM
Your License, Or Your Conscience? A Tale of the Pandemic
By Walter Olson

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The story of one man’s stand on principle and the patients who were saved, from Jewish family weekly Mishpacha via Ira Stoll:

Early on, a talmid called with a complicated question. As an operator of several nursing homes, he was being forced to accept residents who’d tested positive for the virus as they were released from hospitals that no longer wanted them. Despite the clear danger to their current residents and staff, the nursing homes were being given no choice.

Rav Shmuel told him unequivocally that to accept these patients was a form of retzichah, murder, since it put the other residents at serious risk. But then, on a conference call, the governor informed all nursing home operators that failure to accept the patients would mean losing their licenses.

The talmid called Rav Shmuel again. Lose your license, the Rosh Yeshivah ruled, but you can’t put your elderly residents in danger.

The nursing home operator listened to his rebbi.

Weeks later, he stood tall as the only major nursing home operator in the state of New Jersey who didn’t lose a single resident to Covid‐​19.

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Throughout history, there have been stories of courageous women and men, who have stood up for their conscience and, often, paid a terrible price up to and including their lives.

Here’s a example of one such hero.  

And I don’t use that word as lightly as others in today’s society.

Guess like in the Olympics there are different tiers based on what you risk — your life like in opposing the Nazis, your health in many of the Dead Old White Guys in the American revolution, your freedom, your fortune, or anything like that.  

I include the grocery store clerk who shows up for work and risks his life for a few bucks to survive.

Here’s a man who put his business at risk and stood afoul of a politician!

We’ll have to stand with him when he reprisals come from the tyrant.

“Three hundred years from now where will you be and where shall I be?” — Thich Nhat Hanh

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