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In the early days an employee lived in an RV in the parking lot. His RV was nicknamed the "Weaverplex". It wasn't really secret either.

You could not be more wrong about the Koch brothers!!! They, are the most malevolent influence in the US today... you must limit yourself to nothing but the incredibly biased dirt from Fox News, and Rupert Murdoch! It is nearly impossible to pay attention to any less biased news sources for a better view of the poison they spew. Just between the two of them, they are spending close to a billion dollars THIS ELECTION ALONE to drown out any other views, and put as many senators and congressmen in their pockets as possible! http://www.rollingstone.com/po... http://www.kochfaqs.com/ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... http://m.dailykos.com/story/20... http://www.juancole.com/2013/0... There are tons of such reports from nearly every major news source (notably NOT from FOX or Murdoch!). The only way you can, say they are "pro freedom" is that they don't want any restrictions on what they spend on campaigns, or how they spend it. The Bush administrations loaded the Supreme Court with justices that have been very regressive, such as allowing "Citizens United" to not only out-spend anyone more moderate, but ruling that such news outlets as Fox can report total lies on their broadcasts and it's okay because it's "free press". The Kochs complain angrily about union spending on political campaigns, but they spend TEN TIMES MORE ON ELECTIONS THAN ALL UNIONS COMBINED! Read up on the tons of dirty deals they were involved with, and then tell me how innocent and wonderful they are. The Koch brothers are the most INSIDIOUS siblings on the planet.

The board is really absurdly packed with political heavyweights though, to the point where it tips over from looking like "impressive board" to weird and kind of suspicious. I mean one of their directors is Henry Kissinger. Not just someone with the same name, either, the Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon's Secretary of State who is now 91 years old.

No kidding! When I was reading a recent article, Theranos sound almost too good to be true, but when I read who was on the board, warning bells went off. What the hell do a bunch of political and military people know about medicine???
Here is a link to the Board of Directors. Click on the name of each to get a page about their background: http://www.bloomberg.com/resea...

You may wish to pick up the microphone you dropped.

LabCorp, for example, is happy to take your money and have you order (and pay for) your own lab tests. Along with third parties using LabCorp and Quest.) Then you can bring in the results to your family physician, and spend 40 minutes browbeating them if you like about your insignificantly elevated white cell count and the normal thyroid level that the naturopath says is actually abnormal and your asymptomatic but positive rheumatoid factor because your feet are achy.

Your blood tests results aren't like the indicators from your car's OBD 2 port; people are complex meat machines with varying genetics (really amazing the more you think about it), and normal value ranges get interpreted as part of a broader clinical picture.

Not only doctors can give tests, but in my experience the more thoughtful ones order fewer tests and barely any "routine" bloodwork (whatever that is), and instead rely on a fairly complex set of heuristics from clinical experience, lengthy education, and a good understanding of underlying normal and abnormal physiology. The $40 I get for listening to your theories about chronic yeast is supposed to pay for a learned professional opinion, and hopefully you'll let me get in a word edgewise about how Panda Express doesn't really constitute 5 servings of vegetables and walking from your parking spaces isn't going to save you from diabetes and hypertension. Instead of having to order more tests to "prove" your potentially, well, crackpot theory. Not you personally of course. Just that guy who thinks reading the Internet and ordering his own blood tests == 7+ years of training.

On the other hand, there is potentially a fair amount of good you could do, if you had to, reading UpToDate and a few basic med school textbooks, and taking a little more care with the idea that a home pregnancy test is in the same ballpark as diagnosing lupus. Oh, and a statistics course — if I had my way, they'd be teaching that in high school instead of trigonometry.

I wonder if their IT staff get locked into the datacenters at night.

Police work is not particularly dangerous. It's not even in the top ten, coming in well below professions such as fisherman (>8x as dangerous), logger (6x), garbage collector (2x), roofer (>2x), and airline pilot (>4x); none of whom are so prone to going on 'roid-raging power trips and murdering people as the police are.

Sources:
http://www.bloomberg.com/graph...
http://www.bankrate.com/financ...
http://www.businessinsider.com...

And by that I mean "Bankrupted by corrupt one-party machine politics, deindustrialization, and overly generous union pensions, and where the police can no longer afford to light up streetlights or to investigate any but the most serious crimes.

But Seattle wanted to be a "world class city" and were blinded by rail (to the tune of nearly $200,000,000 per mile).

Ah, yes, fsck rail, because the SR99 tunnel project has worked out so well so far...

Yes, and you were given what was needed.For anything else, contact Ethan Zindler at Bloomberg Energy and they will sell you the raw data since that is what they do. And considering that energy companies are putting in more wind and solar, I would say that it is indicative that Bloomberg is accurate.

Actually, I would-be shocked if 1 worker pays all of that subsidy. And the fact is, that they don't. But that is OK. In 10 years, Tesla's taxes will have covered the subsidy. In addition, Tesla has forced all car companies to go pure EVs. By 2025, America will likely not import any more oil. That will be huge.

1. I was referring to the retail buyer tax credit rebate, I did not make that clear, but indeed when you take in the economic activity of one Tesla hire, the taxes to the Federal Government cover it.

2. US has already been a net oil exporter, as recently as 2011. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
But I am with you generally on the oil dependency regardless.

How is it that Google is being scrutinized for anti-trust (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-25/google-said-to-be-under-u-s-antitrust-scrutiny-over-android-iezf41sg) when Apple has been behaving like this for years?

I don't want to start a flame war (I've used mac laptops forever), but I don't see how they continue to fly under the radar.

Politicians in their back pocket willing to turn the other way I would guess...

How is it that Google is being scrutinized for anti-trust (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-25/google-said-to-be-under-u-s-antitrust-scrutiny-over-android-iezf41sg) when Apple has been behaving like this for years? I don't want to start a flame war (I've used mac laptops forever), but I don't see how they continue to fly under the radar.

Evertime there is a Hurricane Evacuation you get a couple dozen that die from car accidents or falling off ladders boarding up their houses to prevent looting, etc. That is one of the reasons politicians are wary of calling evacuations unless really needed.

And yet politicians also seem lined up to cheer for security "theatre" at airports, when it can result in similar indirect deaths and injuries.

What am I talking about? Despite the common fear of flying and airplane accidents, car accidents are MUCH, MUCH more common to result in death or serious injury. Some studies have indicated that people choosing to travel by car rather than plane in the months after 9/11 may have resulted in the deaths of over a thousand more people.

I know a number of people who fly less frequently now partly because of how annoying it is to deal with unnecessary airport security. I have made that choice myself a few times, particularly for shorter road trips (say, less than 5-6 hours) where I'd be tempted to take a shuttle and fly before. Now it's just not worth the extra hassle and time -- I usually allow a lot more time than I used to pre-9/11 when showing up to the airport, in case the security lines are long or some idiot shuts them down with a water bottle or doesn't take his shoes off. And I have to be much more careful about what I pack or carry on with me -- in my car, I can bring whatever I want.

Anyhow, there are many estimates that road traffic increased by a few percent (particularly around holidays) due to people avoiding airports and TSA hassles. Driving is significantly less safe than flying. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the TSA has indirectly caused the deaths of hundreds or even thousands of people due to these kinds of decisions.

Anyhow -- going back to hurricanes, there are plenty of other reasons why politicians may be hesitant to call for evacuation. It does lead to panic. But it also generally increases spending on emergency services (something that requires more tax dollars, something politicians don't want to have to raise), while simultaneously moving people out of their jurisdictions, where they don't patronize local businesses for days (and, as you point out, looting can make things even worse), even with a "false alarm." People lose income as well if they evacuate for something that turns out to be a "false alarm," which also can be a hit for the local economy. Thus, the local economy takes a hit, the government budget takes a hit in providing extra services... all economic problems that politicians want to avoid unless absolutely necessary. I'm not saying they don't take unintended deaths into account, but that's probably not their primary concern.

Hiding car emissions was not done by a couple of people. A large number in the people inside these companies were involved in pulling it off.

I've had the same thoughts all along, and it's now really looking that way:

The criteria, outcomes and engineering of cars that missed emissions targets were overseen by managers at Volkswagen’s base in Wolfsburg, according to the people who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
Their accounts show the chain of command and those involved in the deception stretched to Volkswagen headquarters.

And the smoking gun - or, errr, engine:

If any vehicle failed to meet emissions targets, a team of engineers from Volkswagen headquarters or luxury brand Audi’s base in Ingolstadt was flown in, the person said. After the group had tinkered with the vehicle for about a week, the car would then pass the test. VW had no engineers in the U.S. able to create the mechanism that cheated on the test or who could fix emissions problems, according to two other people.

This allowed the engineers to view the diagnostic information from the vehicle that was just tested to find ways of identifying when a test is taking place (oh, they didn't move the steering wheel at all while it was operated at 55 MPH), and also exactly how the vehicle was tested (what speeds it was operated at, etc) and thus they could optimally tweak the cheat to pass the test. It sounds like a pretty stupid method of testing to me.

One of the interesting things in doing it that way is even though those engineers might be breaking US law, since they aren't US citizens and got their butts back to Germany afterwards, it would make it extremely difficult to prosecute or even investigate and interview them.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... says " Emissions testers at a site in Westlake Village, California, evaluated all the cars involved... If any vehicle failed to meet emissions targets, a team of engineers from Volkswagen headquarters or luxury brand Audiâ(TM)s base in Ingolstadt was flown in, the person said. After the group had tinkered with the vehicle for about a week, the car would then pass the test. "

It only makes sense for heavy vehicles to have more powerful engines. You need that power to tow trailers and other large cargo... things a little car is NEVER going to do, however polluting the engine might be.

You make it sound like normal cars cannot tow anything. Well you're wrong. Practical caravan has pretty positive reviews regarding the towing capability of Golfs, Passats, but also Ford Mondeos.

Why don't you go complain that those 16-wheel semi-trucks are allowed to pollute more than small cars, too? It doesn't make sense.

The parent only mentioned 'light trucks'. So yes, bringing 16-wheelers into the discussion really would be a show of bad faith.

Paris even banned pre-2011 diesel vehicles to deal with the problem.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

Re-read the article. They have not banned pre-2011 diesel cars, they will do it by the end of the decade. It's not quite the same now, is it?

It puts the lie to the claims of their advantages, that most people were doubting without evidence, even while their other unremarked problems have been made undeniably obvious.

Oh. So it's enough for one manufacturer to cheat for you to conclude that any diesel cars of any brand is bad has none of the claimed advantages like lower fuel consumption, higher torque, etc? Biased much?

No question in hindsight that Europe made the wrong decision promoting diesel over gasoline, and now it looks like they're bound to continue declining in popularity there, too.

May I remind you that there is no such thing as a unified Europe government? Any policy promoting the use of diesel has been at the initiative of individual countries, not of Europe. In France it was not even a real decision to promote diesel cars like the Bloomberg claims. Rather whenever the government tried to raise the taxes on diesel the truckers (yes, 16-wheeler kind) and taxis just blocked all traffic and the government caved in every time. Since diesel is cheaper, and that diesel cars get higher miles per gallon and have seen their price drop to little above gasoline cars, it only made economic sense to buy these cars which many have done.

One thing is for certain. No whistles were blown. Which is pretty impressive considering how long this has been going on and the extent of who all must have been in the know.

I don't think many people in VW actually knew about it. VW's behavior in disclosing this is consistent with a company which didn't actually know it was going on. The EPA was investigating this back in May 2014, and VW issued a recall for a software update related to this in Dec 2014. Now, if you knew your cars were cheating on the emissions tests, and you knew the EPA was actively investigating fishy behavior in your emissions, what would you do in the recall? Obviously wipe the complicit software and replace it with new software which made the cars compliant. But that didn't happen.

Look at how this was disclosed. At first VW admitted about half a million cars in the U.S. were affected. Then a couple days later they stated about 11 million cars worldwide were affected. If this cheating was widely known within VW, the cat was out of the bag when they made the announcement about their U.S. cars. They would've acknowledged how many cars worldwide were affected at the same time.

The way they're acting is consistent with a company which genuinely didn't know their engines were cheating. Their attempted software fix in Dec 2014 didn't fix it (probably because they were testing the emissions in a garage and not on the road), nor did it try to cover up any evidence of their cheating. And their announcement is consistent with a company which detected the problem in their U.S. cars, then needed some time to test and confirm the problem also existed in their cars sold elsewhere.

All this points to either an act of deceit committed by and known to only a few if not a single employee. Or even a genuine error which wasn't detected until recently (maybe operating parameters which were supposed to be in effect all the time were erroneously only made active in test mode).

Many Americans drive, as their family vehicle as well as work vehicle, "light" trucks (e.g. Dodge RAM 3500) and SUVs which have much larger Diesel engines in them

Bull. There are only a handful of diesel SUV models sold in the US, and their sales are extremely low. Diesel engines are more popular in extremely heavy-duty trucks, but still not very popular, and those aren't viable "family vehicle(s)", and very rarely used as commuter vehicles, at all.

EPA regulations is that driving a much more polluting large Diesel pickup truck as your personal vehicle is allowed, but driving a relatively much more efficient and less polluting small European Diesel vehicle is not allowed.

It only makes sense for heavy vehicles to have more powerful engines. You need that power to tow trailers and other large cargo... things a little car is NEVER going to do, however polluting the engine might be. Why don't you go complain that those 16-wheel semi-trucks are allowed to pollute more than small cars, too? It doesn't make sense.

And NOBODY is going to buy a huge pickup, because they couldn't get a tiny diesel car... It's not a competition at all. Gasoline cars pollute far less. So much so that Europe is developing huge smog problems, with those famous landmarks covered in soot. Paris even banned pre-2011 diesel vehicles to deal with the problem.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

Frankly, this is the death-knell for diesel power small-cars in the US. It puts the lie to the claims of their advantages, that most people were doubting without evidence, even while their other unremarked problems have been made undeniably obvious. No question in hindsight that Europe made the wrong decision promoting diesel over gasoline, and now it looks like they're bound to continue declining in popularity there, too.

Correct me if I'm wrong but myriad commercial GPS navigation systems will alert a pilot when going into a no-fly area. Since all the increased regulation since 9/11 I'd expect that to be a major selling point.

I suspect so, though even if they don't Google has demonstrated a solution which detects no-fly zones: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

Makes you wonder about where hatchet pieces like this came from. And who lit a fire under the FDA's ass to crack down on the definition of "mayo?"

This very much alters the outcome. Por ejemplo:

"This is America, we speak American."

-Sarah Palin

Bush and Cheney weren't "Radical-Right." If you actually believe that you're essentially stating you're either bordering on or on the fringe Left.

Speaking of "damage," what do you think of the Democrats blocking reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the result of that? We'll be living with that for a long time.

How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis

The Bush administration tried to get reforms through, but the Democrats blocked it.

Are you a big fan of Obama's policies and foreign policy?

I was referring to the web project that was handled so spectacularly.I don't think it was categorized as a failure, but I don't think anyone considered it a success. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

In either case. If they don't have their shit together for some modicum of success in one formal and/or quantitative discipline, they don't make good programmers. You do indeed need to be right every single time in rapid succession when your computer program handles millions of dollars of other people's money, doles out their medications, and keeps their credit card info secure, all to the nth degree if the program touches high voltage, high current, the throttle/brake of a car or the control surfaces of an airplane.

Or not

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/ar...

It sounds to me like your position is that the government shouldn't make loans with your tax dollars if there's any chance of it being lost. Period. Is that right?

Not even close. You fail basic comprehension. Or you're a liar. Or even both.

People have a right to do what they want with their own money. If they want it to be 100% lost, good for them. Basic rules of ownership and accountability.

Another example of how you fail basic comprehension:

The $5 billion to $6 billion figure was calculated based on the average rates and expected returns of funds dispersed so far, paid back over 20 to 25 years.

"Expected returns". Do you know what that means? It's not actual, or they'd use that instead of extrapolating out 20-25 years from now.

By the way, 10% return over 20-25 years is utterly horrible. Not that it's clear where you got that percentage.

But what does evidence matter? It's clear you want to believe self-serving nonsense from government bureaucrats and crony capitalists who siphon public money. And you're willing to lie to help them cover it up. Do you even get paid, or do you sell your integrity for nothing?

Life imitates "art":

http://www.bloomberg.com/polit...

It sounds to me like your position is that the government shouldn't make loans with your tax dollars if there's any chance of it being lost. Period. Is that right?

But even though Solyndra's money was lost the entire program that included them is now expected to make $5 to $6 billion for the federal government over the life of the program. That's $5 or $6 billion more than they would have had otherwise and over 10% profit. So they haven't lost money.

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. expects to earn $5 billion to $6 billion from the federal program that funded flops including Solyndra LLC, bolstering President Barack Obama’s decision to back low-carbon technologies.

As the article explains the program was there to fund worthy projects that VC's wouldn't especially in the aftermath of the 2008 crash. I'd say the bureaucrats judgement of risk was pretty good if the program's making a profit.

Yeah. Beyond that, he's not even going to make it to the main stage in the next debate. He's in 12th place right now. That's why he's turning on the crazy.

"After all, Boeing has not been able to put something together against the mighty A380."

Boeing's not trying to put something up against the A380. It consciously decided to go another route with the 787 - offering airlines more smaller, cheaper jets that could fly into more airport than one huge megaplane limited to a few major hubs.

I'm not sure the industry has fully decided which model it prefers, but sales for the A380 have been sluggish:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

While the 787's have been more in line with expectations before design.

The A380 isn't being dropped, there will be a new engine version of it launched later this year at the Dubai Air Show, with its production life extended well into the 2020s.

That is true only if someone will buy them. The order book has been flat for some time. Any new orders have been offset by cancellations. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

The same economic factors that work against the 747 work against the 380.

WP's are largely a means by which 'health consultants' make money off corporations.
And now FitBit is simply trying to get in on that action.

Now there's a difference between actually caring about your employee's health, and just trying to save money.
But let's be realistic: most companies are trying to save money by doing this.

Multiple independent research studies (have shown that Wellness Programs don't work, and don't save companies any money, nor make them any additional revenue, and actually harm health instead of improving it. Which rather contradicts the (rather self-serving) studies coming out of the wellness industry itself. (And some companies are simply using them to penalize their poorer and/or unhealthier (two conditions that tend to go hand in hand in a vicious cycle) workers.)

Overall what their finding is that there is very little return on investment, basically about breaking even.
The broader wellness programs, with the most preventive measures/incentives (ie the most overbearing) do the least, and actually decrease worker health.

At the same time more narrow, targeted programs, such as specific disease treatment programs (such as asthma, diabetes, etc) do the most, mostly likely because these are conditions people already have, and having a program at work that supports them and helps them manage their conditions does alleviate some burden, compared to the more traditional approach where the company doesn't care and leaves you to worry about it on your own, and/or raises your insurance costs or even dismisses you over it.

http://theincidentaleconomist....
http://www.nationaljournal.com...
https://hbr.org/2010/12/whats-...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09...

In a few years China will be building companies in the USA due to it's cheap labor

Didn't they do that last year? I guess this year they realised the savings they could make by cutting out the H1B paperwork.

Sorry, but you are plain wrong. Al Azhar University in Cairo (the highest authority on Sunni jurisprudence) has repeatedly stated that ISIS is an authentic Islamic entity. This is because ISIS is following the commandments of Sharia to the letter.

ISIS also follow the example of Mohammed exactly. Mohammed raped, slaughtered, lied, assassinated, looted, tortured, beheaded, molested children, etc etc and this is all well-attested in the hadith and commanded in the Koran. ISIS are doing *exactly* what Mohammed did, can commanded all Muslims to do. Fortunately, most Muslims are good human beings (which makes them bad Muslims, 'Takfiris' or apostates - note the Submission ideology [called "Islam" in Arabic] requires apostates to be killed).

To claim that ISIS are carrying out "cultural" practices and not the Submission ideology (aka "Islam") is a classic deception (known as "taqiyya" to Shia, and "idtirar" to Sunni) designed to pacify you so you don't resist Submission until it is too late. The Submission ideology (Islam) is completely alien to Westerners (who incorrectly assume that lying is prohibited, and that there is a Golden Rule producing equality between believers and unbelievers - when there is none, "kaffir"/infidels are considered subhuman that must be exterminated if Islam is to victorious):
http://www.islam-watch.org/aut...

So why you defend the evil Submission ideology rather than stand up for Global Enlightenment Civilization is beyond me. Perhaps you think that it is somehow noble to show tolerance to a deceptive, barbaric and totalitarian ideology that works to destroy Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Conscience, Sexual Equality, Equal Rights for Homosexuals, Science (which Islam considers blasphemy ever since the time of Al Ghazali), etc etc

I would suggest that you learn about the true nature of Islam, David - rather than defending an evil you know nothing about (hence, you are easily mislead into repeating the propaganda produced by its adherents). Here's a place you can start looking:
http://www.wikiislam.net/wiki/...

Stop repeating the propaganda of the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC - who work as a 57-country voting block in the United Nations). Stand up for Individual Liberty and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights rather than the Sharia deception of the "Cairo Declaration of Human Rights". Because making excuses for evil will make you complicit in the evil.

Speaking of which, here are the ISIS prices for slaves including boys and girls from 1 to 9 years old (which is permitted in Islam because Mohammed 'married' a child of 6 years, Aisha bint Abu Bakr):
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
Do you really want to be providing apologia for these perfectly 'halal' (legal) Islamic practices of sex slavery and especially child sex-slavery (which Mohammed indulged in, so it is permitted always in Islamic ideology).

We China are not gonna cut our CO2 emission what so ever. Haha, you sucker.

Actually, they already have.

IBM makes plenty of money off their patent business. Something like $1billion a year.
You can be sure IBM will be looking to monetize these patents.

The cost of solar has fallen dramatically, so lots of people will build solar even if the government doesn't do anything.

The government could best encourage solar by streamlining regulations, and possibly with some sort of low-interest loan program to help people get past the initial cost. If solar makes sense, people could save enough money on their electricity to pay back the loans.

My big fear though is that if the government tries to force this, it will turn out like the similar program in Germany. Because of the lack of practical grid-scale energy storage, Germany has simultaneously managed to produce huge amounts of free renewable power while making the German citizens pay far more than ever for power and while burning more coal than ever. (Germany is shutting down nuclear power plants; solar and wind aren't dependable enough; result, more coal burned.)

President Obama's administration has implemented new rules to reduce coal burning, but the example of Germany shows that this shall really cause a dramatic increase in prices so it will not be politically possible for that plan to be fully implemented. It's easy to talk about it now, but it will be hard for politicians to say "your electricity cost will necessarily skyrocket and you just need to deal with it, and vote for me." (The plan contains "escape hatches" that will allow the utilities to keep producing power with coal if the plan doesn't work out.)

I think that all we really need is practical grid-level energy storage, and the "green energy" solution will take off like a rocket with no government intervention needed. I have hopes for liquid metal batteries but any high-density storage solution would solve the problem.

If we get grid-level storage in the near future, solar and wind power will become much more economically attractive and we will get more of it. Then politicians will claim the credit and the coal-burning reductions will actually happen. If solar and wind power remain economically problematic and government forces us to use more, we will all pay more for power, and politicians will say there is nothing they can do.

... Wrong product, buy wine!

As TFA says:

Fiat Chrysler also agreed to buy back more than a half-million vehicles -- mostly Ram pickups -- whose defective suspension parts could cause a loss of control, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a statement Sunday. Owners will be able to trade in certain Jeeps for above-market value, and the company must hire an independent monitor approved by NHTSA.

(emphasis mine).

I was unaware that Ram pickups and Jeeps were "made in Italy"; I was under the impression that those were products made in North America.

As much as people want to believe, in the age of unattended Windows updates and package managers, that updating is painless and causes no problems, there are many famous examples of times people installed updates that proceeded to destroy or seriously disrupt operation of production environments.

Yeah I'm a bit more concerned with this: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/...
than the gov paying the same rates as other commercial entities for satcom equipment.

Even if it was only 20 million.

In the gig enonomy, you no longer work for a boss who controls you. Instead, you choose from what automated service to purchase the management work which he/she formerly performed.

The so-called "gig economy" replaces inflexible and inefficient management and regulatory structures with flexible, competitive, efficient and inherently fair and safe automated services. It is the continuation of two trends: automation and the transition to a more efficient horizontally-integrated economy away from a vertically-integrated economy. Now the workers can choose ad hoc services which were traditionally performed by management, choose as an automated electronic service rather than committing to employment under a fixed management and regulatory structure. Computing as service (cloud computing) and the earlier transition to shipping as a service away from in-house shipping departments are two other examples of horizontal restructuring. Eventually everything except core expertise associated with your business identity will move out-of-house and be purchased as a service.

Both customers and workers benefit from replacing the costly and clunky managers and regulators with a competitive, cheap, safe and fair automated services. It is old-style management and government which is useless and burdensome and it is those interests who Hillary appeals for political support. The gig economy is a power-to-the-people trend which Democrats inherently despise. Their own ideologies are power to the politicians, power to the union bosses, power to the trial lawyers, power to the MPAA, Export-Import bank, medicial insurance companies and any other big-business interest will buy their votes. Power to the bureaucrats and regulators, certainly yes. But not power to the people, never to those poor, stupid common people who must be kept under the thumb of their bosses who are, in turn, controlled by the government.

There is an even more insidious problem for Democrats with the gig economy which is that it exposes the many actual workers directly to the massive taxation and regulatory burdens imposed the federal government. And those workers are aghast and horrified by what they now see. A substantial role of business management is as intermediaries between the government and employees, exposing the insane and massive regulatory and tax burdens to relatively few managers at large corporations while shielding the relatively many workers under them from full knowledge. Now when Democrats attempt to apply the burdensome fines, fees, taxes and regulations directly to many small business and individual workers in the gig economy, there is massive public outrage. Democrat politicians are freaking out. For example:

- Chicago just enacted a lunatic Cloud Tax. The liberal entrepreneurs who previously supported Democrats who enacted that tax are furious.

- from Bloomburg, about Bill DeBlasio :

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio presents himself as a champion of the technology industry. The industry says he’s trying to smother progress one app at a time.

  The mayor’s plan to require Uber Technologies Inc., Lyft Inc. and other ride-hailing services to get city approval for upgrades to the user interface on smartphone apps — and to pony up $1,000 each time they do — has rankled a broad swath of companies, with 27 signing a letter protesting his plan. It’s also raised questions about whether the mayor is siding with taxi and limousine owners who helped finance his 2013 campaign.

Expect the same sorts of things from Hillary if she is elected.

The only important reason it failed is because it was incredibly impractical and expensive to operate. Yes it was a marvel and all that, but you couldn't make money off it.

My understanding is that Concorde's unprofitability was mostly myth. There were problems in the beginning because fear-mongering in the States left only JFK as a destination, but once things settled and the ticket prices were reset to ultra-high class, things settled out just fine.

Had the Concorde really not been profitable, it would have been terminated long before the crash over Paris. That's just how business works. The problem was simply that the planes were aging, no replacement models were being made, and the operators were left to scavenging parts from other Concordes. With the Paris disaster, they had more expenses reinforcing the fuel tanks to try and prevent the disaster from occurring again. These things ultimately tipped the scales to grounding the program.

But is there a demand for crossing the Atlantic in 3 hours? Is there demand to cross the Pacific in 5 or less? Hell yes. If they build it, people will pay the ticket price (and enjoy the view of the curvature of the Earth through the window).

That's so ignorant it hurts. Workers work at Foxconn because it's a good job and they make more money there than at some crappy family-owned factory. Let me guess, you were influenced by Mike Daisey's story on "This American Life" about horrid conditions at Foxconn? Turns out that was a total lie. Evidently he had the story written before he ever visited, and simply wrote what he wished was true. For example, he said armed guards patrolled the Foxconn perimeter looking for escaping workers, while in China only police and military can have firearms. His fraud dissolved easily with a simple Google search.

Let me guess: 1) you never heard about this, or 2) you considered it fake but accurate. The narrative was right but the facts were wrong. Those pesky facts, always getting in the way of a good story that agrees with our pre-existing political biases.

Amazon, a large tech company, is hiring a bunch of highly-paid confederate-flag waving gay-bashing white men in Seattle, they're turning the whole county white, and they're going around beating up gay people and burning down gay bars?

Does this even pass the smell test? Of course not. Has anyone involved in this story ever worked for a large modern tech company, or talked to anyone who does? Of course not.

Check the actual references and you get a different story. First of all, King County is not the whitest in the nation. It's the whitest of the top 20 counties in the nation by population. But at 62.4% white non-Hispanic, it's just below at the national average for whiteness (63.7%). Second, "the county's fastest population growth is happening among Asian and mixed-race people."

Third, let's take a look at those attacks. The arson? Committed by one Musab Masmari. White tech company employee? Nope. Unemployed drunk raised by Libyan parents mostly in Libya. Race unclear; Arabs are usually counted as white but Libyans are mostly Berbers who are mixed. The other complaints don't mention the employment or race of the perpetrators, though none of them apparently were traced back to tech company employees.

As the Bloomberg article says, "an industry that's otherwise showering Seattle with jobs and money has become a scapegoat".

Show me someone from the open source community who has helped and donated more towards charities than Bill Gates. Uh huh, that's what I thought.

Bill - is that you? Don't forget to lodge your claims for charitable donations - we filed it under "the spit shield fund".

the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (foundation) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. Both entities are tax-exempt private foundations that are structured as a charitable.

One good thing Bill Gates has done. Though not everyone agrees.

Shutting the exchange down for a few hours — they've resumed trading already — is not going to move the needle for Chinese interests. China herself has just banned "major stockholders" from selling for six months .

If I were in your shoes, I would've gotten tired of being wrong all the time by now — your stamina is, indeed, quite astounding.

Not really. The Shanghai index finally took off just last year.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

To be fair, the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index still shows that the value is on par with March earlier this year, after losing 1/3 of value. How did they gain 1/3 just in 3 months is a bit beyond belief, but looks like the bubble merely corrected itself quickly. Hopefully this crash will also correct the bubble in the US housing market where foreign capital comes in as investors to compete with the local working people who just wanted a home for themselves.

I've been analyzing the housing market in my neighborhood because my old landlord just sold my unit to an investor who asks for the rent increase from $1900 to $2500. I realized that at the price the investors are offering, they can make only 2.5% APY, rarely 3% APY, at market rent, if they put down by cash which is rare. Most investors still need to borrow from the bank at 3.75% APR, so they lose money. In my new landlord's case, the rent increase is the amount he needed in order to make up for the loss. The foreign investors give the impression they bring in cash because they can't get a US mortgage, so they have to get mortgage from their home country. It's not as rosy (or gleam) as people think, depending on your perspective. I've now seen units on the market ripe for under asking.

The even more disgusting thing is that the motor doesn't even need to be running to make a cross-channel flight.

The aircraft in question has a 15:1 glide ratio and a 16,000 foot service ceiling (per spec). That means it can do a 45 mile glide. At the Straights of Dover the channel is only 20 miles wide; that's a over a factor of 2 safety factor. Wind could be an issue, but if there are headwinds, they could run the engine to make the crossing against the wind, but abort backwards *with the wind helping them* if there were an engine failure.

I think this just confirms my dislike of Airbus; they've had a good number of shady dealings in the past, and given the extensive time period such things have gone on, I don't think that leopard is going to change its spots.

No prizes for guessing that the 'computers' in question ran on Microsoft Windows ..

"A few days earlier, small USB drives had been inserted into the company’s computers. They were programmed to intercept the nine-digit PINs that controlled access to DP World’s shipping containers"

The numbers above are from the IPCC (albeit from memory, correct some of they are wrong).

Correct in the last part: some of them are wrong.

The actual IPCC documents are here: http://www.ipcc.ch/publication...

An interesting graphic comparing various sources of climate change is here: http://www.bloomberg.com/graph...