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I don't think there's going to be an IPO (or ICO for that matter, given the number of companies jumping on that bandwagon), at least not in the near future. According to CNBC they might also be up for sale. I'm sure there would be some white knight willing to try and ride to the rescue, but at this point I fear it's going to take more than lower prices and a couple of new mounting options to turn things around. More likely they'll either end up part of some tech multi-national like Softbank or grabbed for their camera tech and patent portfolio by one of the larger drone manufacturers - Parrot or Yunneec, perhaps.

A Chinese company called DJI is clobbering every other competitor.

Some say it grew suspiciously fast and suspect gov't-backed cheating & subsidizing. But at this point there's no solid evidence.

Recent? The CFTC has considered it a commodity since 2015, and people were calling it that before then. If it looks like a duck...

Just because I call my commodity a currency doesn't make it so. Anyone want to buy some OJcoin? It's totally a currency, not a bunch of frozen orange juice.

Links about Trump

Trump's lies:

In 298 days, President Trump has made 1,628 false and misleading claims (Nov. 13, 2017, Washington Post)

In a 30-minute interview, President Trump made 24 false or misleading claims. (Dec. 29, 2017, Washington Post)

President Trump's Lies, the Definitive List (Dec. 14, 2017, The New York Times)

10 Falsehoods From Trump's Interview With The Times (Dec. 29, 2017, New York Times)

Trump takes credit for zero aviation deaths worldwide. (Jan. 2, 2018, Trump's Twitter account)
Replies:
"I'm gonna take credit for puppies being cute..."
"Guess who's responsible for designing the cute kangaroo pouches that keep little Joeys safe? That right, it was Me. ME. ME!"
"That's a job well done, thank you, but don't forget I gave dolphins their blowholes! Without me, they would've drowned!"

Sexual abuse:

The 19 Women Who Accused President Trump of Sexual Misconduct (Dec. 7, 2017, The Atlantic.com)

Mental instability:

Incoherent, authoritarian, uninformed: Trump's New York Times interview is a scary read. (Dec. 30, CNBC) Quotes:
"President Donald Trump tells a string of falsehoods in his recent New York Times interview that make it difficult to tell whether he is lying or delusional."
"Trump appears to suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect, which holds that the least competent people often believe they are the most competent."
"Trump's comments are, by turns, incoherent, incorrect, conspiratorial, delusional, self-aggrandizing, and underinformed."

Lawyers 'Telling Trump What He Wants To Hear' So He Won't Fire Mueller (Dec. 31, 2017, Huffingtonpost.com) Quote:
"The president of the United States, in their view, is out of control a good deal of the time..." People who work for Trump have to adjust to his instability.

8 of the Sleaziest Things Donald Trump Has Said (June 16, 2015, 2 1/2 years ago, RollingStone.com)

Choosing weak people to be leaders:

Trump's FCC Chairman pick Ajit Pai heralds a weaker, meeker Commission (Jan. 23, 2017, TechCrunch.com, almost one year ago)
Ajit Pai's FCC is still editing the net neutrality repeal order (Jan 2, 2018, ArsTechnica.com)

Trump picks ghost hunter to be federal judge (Nov. 15 2017, BBC News) Quote:
"The appointment of Brett Talley, 36, for a lifetime post as an Alabama federal judge is raising eyebrows because he has never tried a case."

Profiting personally:

Trump has now spen

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/0...

"The filing showed that the sales were part of a 10b5-1 plan, which was created on Oct. 30,"

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Securi...

"2017 Nov 09: the Ubuntu Security team is notified by Intel under NDA "

So, not entirely outside the realms of possibility that the issue was known when the filing was made, and not what I would describe as "well in advance"

Links about Trump

Trump's lies:

In 298 days, President Trump has made 1,628 false and misleading claims (Nov. 13, 2017, Washington Post)

In a 30-minute interview, President Trump made 24 false or misleading claims. (Dec. 29, 2017, Washington Post)

President Trump's Lies, the Definitive List (Dec. 14, 2017, The New York Times)

10 Falsehoods From Trump's Interview With The Times (Dec. 29, 2017, New York Times)

Trump takes credit for zero aviation deaths worldwide. (Jan. 2, 2018, Trump's Twitter account)
Replies:
"I'm gonna take credit for puppies being cute..."
"Guess who's responsible for designing the cute kangaroo pouches that keep little Joeys safe? That right, it was Me. ME. ME!"
"That's a job well done, thank you, but don't forget I gave dolphins their blowholes! Without me, they would've drowned!"

Sexual abuse:

The 19 Women Who Accused President Trump of Sexual Misconduct (Dec. 7, 2017, The Atlantic.com)

Mental instability:

Incoherent, authoritarian, uninformed: Trump's New York Times interview is a scary read. (Dec. 30, CNBC) Quotes:
"President Donald Trump tells a string of falsehoods in his recent New York Times interview that make it difficult to tell whether he is lying or delusional."
"Trump appears to suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect, which holds that the least competent people often believe they are the most competent."
"Trump's comments are, by turns, incoherent, incorrect, conspiratorial, delusional, self-aggrandizing, and underinformed."

Lawyers 'Telling Trump What He Wants To Hear' So He Won't Fire Mueller (Dec. 31, 2017, Huffingtonpost.com) Quote:
"The president of the United States, in their view, is out of control a good deal of the time..." People who work for Trump have to adjust to his instability.

8 of the Sleaziest Things Donald Trump Has Said (June 16, 2015, 2 1/2 years ago, RollingStone.com)

Choosing weak people to be leaders:

Trump's FCC Chairman pick Ajit Pai heralds a weaker, meeker Commission (Jan. 23, 2017, TechCrunch.com, almost one year ago)
Ajit Pai's FCC is still editing the net neutrality repeal order (Jan 2, 2018, ArsTechnica.com)

Trump picks ghost hunter to be federal judge (Nov. 15 2017, BBC News) Quote:
"The appointment of Brett Talley, 36, for a lifetime post as an Alabama federal judge is raising eyebrows because he has never tried a case."

Profiting personally:

Trump has now spe

Chinese investors have also taken to unregulated peer-to-peer exchanges, where sellers and buyers of bitcoin negotiate prices on a one-on-one basis.
There were just four such platforms in October after the crackdown, but the number had risen to 21 by the end of November, according to the state-run National Committee of Experts on Internet Financial Security Technology. The platforms include two formed by Huobi and OKCoin, China's two biggest bitcoin exchanges before the crackdown.

What! the government knows about them but they more than quintupled in number and are all A OK.

Stop peddling your lies.

While the net habitable land area may increase (I do not know for sure but it seems a reasonable theory) . The issue is the specific currently habituated lands.

It is unquestioned by reasonable minds (environmental scientists) that sea levels will be rising and thus displacing people in low laying lands. So no, people will not be able to stay where they are.

Additionally areas such a large swaths of the middle east will become unlivable because of increased temperature extremes. You may consider this a good thing for geopolitical reasons but it does not change the reality that in this region alone 10's or 100's of millions will be displaced. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/0...

In 298 days, President Trump has made 1,628 false and misleading claims (Nov. 13, 2017, Washington Post)

In a 30-minute interview, President Trump made 24 false or misleading claims. (Dec. 29, 2017, Washington Post)

President Trump's Lies, the Definitive List (Dec. 14, 2017, The New York Times)

Trump has now spent more than a 3rd of his presidency at his properties... (Dec. 26, 2017, Business Insider) "I'm gonna be working for you; I'm not going to have time to go play golf. Believe me." -- Donald Trump, Aug. 8, 2016. YouTube video of Trump saying that.

Trump Promised to Protect Steel. Layoffs Are Coming Instead. (Dec. 22, 2017, New York Times)

10 Falsehoods From Trump's Interview With The Times (Dec. 29, 2017, New York Times)

How Trump and the Nazis Stole Christmas To Promote White Nationalism (Dec. 24, 2017, Newsweek)

How Trump Is Ending the American Era (Oct. 2017 Issue, The Atlantic magazine) Quotes:
"For all the visible damage the president has done to the nation's global standing, things are much worse below the surface."
"Foreign leaders have begun to reshape alliances, bypassing and diminishing the United States."

Incoherent, authoritarian, uninformed: Trump's New York Times interview is a scary read. (Dec. 30, CNBC) Quotes:
"President Donald Trump tells a string of falsehoods in his recent New York Times interview that make it difficult to tell whether he is lying or delusional."
"Trump appears to suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect, which holds that the least competent people often believe they are the most competent."
"Trump's comments are, by turns, incoherent, incorrect, conspiratorial, delusional, self-aggrandizing, and underinformed."

Bizarro Cartoon: Santa Claus has limits. (Dec. 22, 2017)

I'm genuinely curious about this analysis. Iran had an election in 2013 where the moderate candidate won with just over 50% of the votes with the US and UK reacting relatively positively and neither denouncing the election as unfair.

This makes Iran one of the most democratic countries in the Middle East (admittedly, it's not up against stiff competition for that title). Certainly, when you compare it to our "ally" Saudi Arabia who promote terrorism in Europe, fight alongside al Qaeda in their brutal war in Yemen and has an appalling record of human rights abuses, Iran does not appear to be the greatest threat.

Could it be because "the Obama administration has offered to sell $115bn worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia over its eight years in office, more than any previous US administration"? (Note that Trump is no better).

If Iran pumped billions into the US and UK economy, they might not be quite so high on our shit list.

Suggestion: Copy and send the links below to other people. Don't include anything about me, of course.

In 298 days, President Trump has made 1,628 false and misleading claims (Nov. 13, 2017, Washington Post)

In a 30-minute interview, President Trump made 24 false or misleading claims. (Dec. 29, 2017, Washington Post)

President Trump's Lies, the Definitive List (Dec. 14, 2017, The New York Times)

Trump has now spent more than a 3rd of his presidency at his properties... (Dec. 26, 2017, Business Insider) "I'm gonna be working for you; I'm not going to have time to go play golf. Believe me." -- Donald Trump, Aug. 8, 2016. YouTube video of Trump saying that.

Trump Promised to Protect Steel. Layoffs Are Coming Instead. (Dec. 22, 2017, New York Times)

10 Falsehoods From Trump's Interview With The Times (Dec. 29, 2017, New York Times)

How Trump and the Nazis Stole Christmas To Promote White Nationalism (Dec. 24, 2017, Newsweek)

How Trump Is Ending the American Era (Oct. 2017 Issue, The Atlantic magazine) Quote:
"For all the visible damage the president has done to the nation's global standing, things are much worse below the surface." Another quote: "Foreign leaders have begun to reshape alliances, bypassing and diminishing the United States."

Incoherent, authoritarian, uninformed: Trump's New York Times interview is a scary read. (Dec. 30, CNBC) Quotes:
"President Donald Trump tells a string of falsehoods in his recent New York Times interview that make it difficult to tell whether he is lying or delusional."
"Trump appears to suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect, which holds that the least competent people often believe they are the most competent."
"Trump's comments are, by turns, incoherent, incorrect, conspiratorial, delusional, self-aggrandizing, and underinformed."

Bizarro Cartoon: Santa Claus has limits. (Dec. 22, 2017, Bizarro)

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/2... What will you do? It's China, so it's bad, but it's the good part of China, so it's OK?

> that they pre-fund their retirement account fully within five years.

False. The five-year requirement is that every five years they have to calculate how far in the hole they are. (How much they owe to workers who have already worked, or are working on today, and whom they've promised decades of retirement pay to, without funding that promise.)

> If every employee retired now (even if they were just hired and thus are not eligible for retirement benefits...) the full amount of their retirement pension is covered.

Laughably false. They owe over $120 billion to workers who have already done the work and been promised retirement payments, but that the USPS has no way to pay for. In other words, they are $120 billion in the hole, to pay workers who have already done the work.

> that they pre-fund their retirement account fully within five years

The five-year requirement in the act is that every five years they have to figure out how much debt they have (retirement payments earned by workers) and compare it to how much they have set aside to make those payments. That's it - they just have to figure out how bad it is and issue report every five years.

What the postal service was doing, and is supposed to stop doing, is the kind of accounting that sent Enron executives to prison. If anyone but the postal service was hiding a $120 billion liability, it would be called "fraud".

What they were doing is saying to employees "work for us today, and we'll not only pay you today, we'll keep paying you after you retire, until you die." Someone can retire from USPS at the age of 56, so their retirement payments may be almost as much as their salary, or even more. Over the course of 30 years of retirement, the worker might be owed $840,000. So they had workers doing the work in say 1995, promised to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars "later", but never set aside any money to be able to make good on those promises.

They owe about $120 billion - for work already done, and hadn't set anything aside to pay it. Most "every other business in the country" funds your 401K or other retirement by sending their contribution to a third-party investment bank every time you get a paycheck. You work this month, they pay for it this month, including the retirement part. State retirement plans work the same way, at least where I'm from in Texas - whichever agency you work for, when they pay for this year's work, they also pay whatever retirement they'll owe for this year's work. They don't have you work today and say "we'll worry about how to pay for it 20 years from now".

In 2006 they were given fifteen years to get caught up on the retirement they owed. They haven't come come close, because they are losing money. Any "profit" has to go toward funding the retirement promises they've made, but the "profit" hasn't been nearly enough and the number of letters they carry has fallen 30% over the last ten years, so it's unlikely they'll ever be able to pay for the retirement they are promising today's employees. They'll need the taxpayers to bail them out.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/450184...

https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

What the postal service was doing, and is supposed to stop doing, is the kind of accounting that sent Enron executives to prison. If anyone but the postal service was hiding a $120 billion liability, it would be called "fraud".

What they were doing is saying to employees "work for us today, and we'll not only pay you today, we'll keep paying you after you retire, until you die." Someone can retire from USPS at the age of 56, so their retirement payments may be almost as much as their salary, or even more. Over the course of 30 years of retirement, the worker might be owed $840,000. So they had workers doing the work in say 1995, promised to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars "later", but never set aside any money to be able to make good on those promises.

They owe about $120 billion - for work already done, and hadn't set anything aside to pay it. Most "every other business in the country" funds your 401K or other retirement by sending their contribution to a third-party investment bank every time you get a paycheck. You work this month, they pay for it this month, including the retirement part. State retirement plans work the same way, at least where I'm from in Texas - whichever agency you work for, when they pay for this year's work, they also pay whatever retirement they'll owe for this year's work. They don't have you work today and say "we'll worry about how to pay for it 20 years from now".

In 2006 they were given fifteen years to get caught up on the retirement they owed. They haven't come come close, because they are losing money. Any "profit" has to go toward funding the retirement promises they've made, but the "profit" hasn't been nearly enough and the number of letters they carry has fallen 30% over the last ten years, so it's unlikely they'll ever be able to pay for the retirement they are promising today's employees. They'll need the taxpayers to bail them out.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/450184...

https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

The post office operates in the black. It is the pension rules, or maybe somebody's misinterpretation of them, that fuck things up.

They may technically operate in the black if they decide to screw over the entire workforce by abandoning previous pension contracts (how you can ethically separate that I really do not know),

It's not that the USPS is abandoning anyone, but the law passed by Congress requires the USPS to "pre-fund" the benefit obligations rather than the previous pay-as-you-go model so they're chunking away a huge amount of money up-front every year - which reduces their available funds on hand. From the article link above:

US Postal Service workers have a retiree health care benefit in addition to their pension. Before Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, the USPS operated under a pay-as-you-go model for retiree health care funding. The new law requires the Postal Service to pre-fund its benefit obligations.

Members of the postal workers union say the pre-funding requirement has created a fiscal mess. Some people have even claimed that law has the effect of requiring the postal service to fund retirement obligations for people who are not yet employed by the USPS--potential future employees.

The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 was passed in 2006 under Nancy Pelosi's leadership in the house. The bill passed on a voice vote in the House and unanimous consent in the Senate. Bipartisan, it wasn't a GW Bush thing - but a sane move to keep the unfunded pension liabilities to only a few tens of billions of dollars, rather than hundreds of billions of dollars.

The post office operates in the black. It is the pension rules, or maybe somebody's misinterpretation of them, that fuck things up.

Not the person you're replying to, but Google still works at finding citations. One of many:

Headline: Walmart halts program that told shoplifters: Pay up or face police ... Shoplifting suspects at stores that use Corrective Education are shown a video describing the program and are given 72 hours to decide whether they will pay or not, according to the Journal. The program costs either $400 up front or $500 later. If they decline, the retailer may pursue "other legal rights to seek restitution and resolve this crime," the video reportedly says. ... The move comes after a California court ruled in August that Corrective Education's program violates the state's extortion laws.

Seems like extortion to me. Telling people "pay us $400 or we'll turn you over to police" can be a strong threat, especially if the person is on legal probation, already has an outstanding warrant, or has other legal issues.

you forgot the solar companies.

As for the so-called "affordable" model 3 being "a wonder", that's quite a stretch.

http://bgr.com/2017/11/13/tesl...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/0...
https://seekingalpha.com/artic...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/1...

you forgot the solar companies.

As for the so-called "affordable" model 3 being "a wonder", that's quite a stretch.

http://bgr.com/2017/11/13/tesl...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/0...
https://seekingalpha.com/artic...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/1...

You act like race riots and political riots don't happen. Or that domestic terrorism doesn't exist.

As far as immigration goes, Miami has a larger percentage of immigrants than San Jose and note that Los Angeles is not very far behind San Jose. And the violent crime rates of Miami and Los Angeles dwarf that of San Jose. San Jose kind of bucks the trends - I think having billions and billions of dollars in "sillycon valley" makes that happen?

Or perhaps it's not the fact they're immigrant, but whether or not those immigrants are here legally? After all, illegal immigrants are about 3.4% of the population but they overwhelmingly commit most of the violent and drug crime in the US.

Or perhaps it has to do with the race of those immigrants? You do realize that 61.4% of all immigrants in San Jose are from Asia, and Asians have some of the lowest crime rates. So maybe the fact your immigrant neighbors are here legally, making big money, and from ethnic backgrounds that for whatever reason have a much lower crime rate, you're in a unique spot and cannot being to extrapolate your experience to nationwide - because it is so different than most of the rest of the US?

Scroll down to where they talk about cash settled futures https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/0...

I agree, it's profit taking.

It's like how investors pulled $14.5 billion out of the market this week.

Nope. Still not tired of winning.

That's some awesomely fucked math you got there. Let's correct that

The top six health insurers reported $6 billion in adjusted profits for the second quarter of 2017. That was a record quarter, but considering that isn't even all the insurance companies it could be argued that each household would save at least $200 per month on health care costs if not for that profit.

There are about 125 million US households.
There are about 3 months in a quarter.

$6 Billion per quarter / 3 months per quarter = $2 Billion per month
$2 Billion per month / 125 million households = $16 per month per household

So your $200 per month per household is inflated by 1250%.

There is no honest debate on whether a single payer system would save an enormous amount of money...

Is that because single payer advocates can't do simple arithmetic?

If we took all the profits away from the investors, how much extra health care could we buy?

The top six health insurers reported $6 billion in adjusted profits for the second quarter of 2017. That was a record quarter, but considering that isn't even all the insurance companies it could be argued that each household would save at least $200 per month on health care costs if not for that profit. That is a far more serious chunk of our health care dollars.

Wasteful spending caused by how our insurance system works is harder to pin down, but it is clear that this drive for profits caused far more economic damage than just the profits it siphons off to shareholders. The total waste has been estimated by some to be $1 trillion per year That would save each household over $650 per month.

There is no honest debate on whether a single payer system would save an enormous amount of money for tax payers. It's too bad even most progressive politicians think enacting such a system is too politically unfeasible to get behind.

Just spoke with some somebody who registered under the FAA system before the judge threw it out, this isnt (or at least wasnt then) a property registry at all. The rule simply required the Operator to register have a registration number and to place that number on any drones they fly. It's so that if the drone ends up somewhere it should not be, like (an airport runway, a prison, or maybe the white-house lawn, authorities have a way to trace it back to it's owner.

But it is the same Operator number on every drone you fly; the government knows that you are a drone operator, and you you do something illegal they can figure out it was your drone. But they dont know anything about the type or number of drones you have or anything, only that you are flying them, or at least are interested enough to get your name added to the list. And the fee was only something like $5, so we arent talking about a prohibitive monetary barrier.

An awful lot of people are buying BTC with credit cards

It is not clear if many of these people are actually buying. But even if they are, it is not the same as buying on margin, since they are not using the purchased asset as collateral, so there is no margin-call that can force them to sell and accelerate a crash.

Put $10,000 on your Visa

CC companies don't give people more credit than they can be expected to service. If their credit limit is $10k, then they have income, and other assets. Financially irresponsible people more often have a credit limit of between $0 and $500.

1% of the population running up a $10k debt is not going to crash the economy.

An awful lot of people are buying BTC with credit cards, and I would wager a large number of them are doing it with funds they don't have. Put $10,000 on your Visa, way 3 months, sell for 10X the amount and party! Right?

What makes it so much better? And are you including dedicated fitness trackers?

Yes I've also tried FitBits. The Apple Watch is much better simply because it's vastly more flexible. You get a large variety of task dedicated UI's for just about any activity - they can take the form of either custom watch apps or simply customized faces with various bits of data about what you are doing (the latest watchOS made it really simple to switch between faces making dedicated watch faces more useful). All of the data from pretty much any app can flow back into a centralized repository of health data that any other app (that you give permission) can analyze.

Kind of related to that, I really like what Apple has done with ResearchKit and letting people take part in studies that use the AppleWatch sensors to collect data. One of the more interesting ones is this arhythmic heartbeat study - things like this are making me consider getting an AppleWatch for my mother, who is getting on in years and lives alone. I'd feel a lot better knowing she could have early warning of heart issues. Even for myself, I find it really valuable that a watch could help detect health irregularities and give me a heads up...

It also has more precessing power than other devices so it can do more on-wtach than anything else can. There's not a lot of apps that have taken advantage of that yet, but over time there will be.

Something else to consider is that the Watch needs and iPhone now, but over time I'm sure that will be less and less true. At some point there will be a standalone Apple Watch I'm pretty sure, just like the iPhone you really needed to pair with iTunes at first on a computer to do some things and you have no need of iTunes at this point.

Excuse me? I guess you didn't know that Beijing banned BTC. It's probably permanent. But hey, pump your modern day tulip bulbs and pets.com equivalent!

PS: you attribute two statements to me; I claim the second (banned in China), but please show me where I stated the first. Failure to do so simply proves your trolling!

Tesla is likely working with AMD on this. It was reported a couple of months ago.

Also, these AI ASICs are not that complicated. They are just a big array of FP16 or FP8 multipliers with a really wide data path. Sort of like a low precision GPU with all the graphics features removed.

Google already makes their own but they don't sell it, it is for internal use only. They used it for AlphaGo, and they also use it for image processing.

Tesla is likely working with AMD on this. It was reported a couple of months ago.

Like Kevi O'Leary and Ingvar Kamprad.

Don't buy shit that'll end up in a drawer gathering dust. [CORP NAME HERE] wants you to do that!

Stop spreading lies.
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/30/how-apples-irish-subsidiaries-paid-a-0005-percent-tax-rate-in-2014.html

The only reason i can see for you to be spreading such blatant lies is you are paid by apple to do so. Its not working.

Neither is Trump.

Well, it's not looking good for him at the moment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/0...

If Musk were trying to keep the Tesla stock price high, he could've achieved that more easily by simply not recently going on record telling the media that he thinks Tesla stock is currently overpriced: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/1...

The fact that you think a guy who shouts to the media that his stock is overvalued is putting on a PT Barnum act to raise the stock price shows that you've drifted off hopelessly into conspiracy land.

Name another car maker who is conscious enough to care about creating healthy environment for humans to live in.

Healthy environment" You say? I'm not saying that they don't, but I don't think that is their ultimate goal

Why would I want to have more money? To watch a number on my bank account get bigger? Somehow I fail to see the appeal of that.

Well, there is always altruism, charitable giving to help people in need, villages that lack fresh water, people that suffer from disease, starvation, etc... What about donating to maintain academic freedom? Freedom of conscience? Or do you fail to see the appeal or purpose of any of that?

Food For the Poor
BUY A GOAT FOR A FAMILY IN AFRICA

But working sure isn't the way to do it, which is easy to deduce by simple observation.

Simply working isn't the only part of it, you generally have to show some discipline and wisdom in how you handle your money.

Humble Teacher Shocks Community By Leaving $8.4 Million To Charity
A janitor secretly amassed an $8 million fortune and left most of it to his library and hospital

Also, and I don't expect you to understand that, I don't give a shit about money.

That isn't so hard to understand*, I'm not particularly materialistic myself. But how about "the rich"? Aren't you one of the people around here that complains about them?

Slashdot is full of people that like to code, build things, hack hardware. It is what gets them going. One thing that a lot of people on Slashdot miss, or get wrong, is not realizing that there are people that feel like that about building companies, doing business deals, creating jobs and so on. In some ways it is a similar mindset in a very different setting. There are brilliant jerks like Linus here and there, but there are also good people too that are doing something useful.

*Not like "atheism" is "hard" to understand. I still can't believe you tried that line on me.

I also Google all numbers not in my list. Never answer robocalls. That encourages them.

It's good to see the U.S. government acting as it should. About 15 years late, but better than never.

The article linked in the Slashdot summary has little information.

The FCC meets today to discuss the new rules: FCC Commission Meets Tomorrow; Will Address Robocall Blocking (Nov. 15, yesterday)

I found a PDF of the FCC's ideas about helping prevent robocalls at the November 2017 Open Commission Meeting -- Blocking Unlawful Robocalls (PDF).

The summary? Nothing has been done yet.

was this man simply layed off because of poor performance

The article says he was let go in October, which is when the layoffs occurred for "performance reasons", so that could be the case.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/1...

Smash the state! Yeah, man, pass the bong! Anitfa 4 Lyfe!

The real smash the state is being done these days by people like Trump and Steve Bannon. Be careful what you ask for.

"There's an elephant in the room with us today. We have studiously attempted to work our way around it and even left it unremarked. But the fact is... executive bureaucracies (are permitted) to swallow huge amounts of core judicial and legislative power and concentrate federal power in a way that seems more than a little difficult to square with the Constitution of the framers' design. Maybe the time has come to face the behemoth."

-- Neil Gorusch

Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state.

-- Bill Kristol

And people still say that the deep state doesn't exist.

What am I reading?

You're not reading. Your'e demanding to be lead by the nose. You're intentionally being dense in an attempt to make some point, without regard to the fact that you look like an imbecile.

They're your old people. Not mine. And neither I, nor "the internet", nor even a school, is responsible for [caring for] them.

Clear enough? Now? How about now? You seem to believe that "raising" is strictly limited to children. Wrong.

If you cannot be assed to take care of your old people, use rubbers.

Makes as much sense as the original comment. If you can't be assed to take care of your parents, which you certainly have, you may as well not have children, which are, apparently, "optional." Except in a societal sense that without children there's nobody to become the next generation of workers, and to support the previous generation of workers who have become elderly.

huh? apply that to old people?

-Social security
-Medicare
-Homestead exemptions
-other government "senior" assistance programs

Happy to hear that you won't be using any of these since they violate a principle of "personal responsibility" that the the GP and, apparently, you hold so dear.

"They're your old people. Not mine." "Chuck 'em out in the snow." You'll change your tune, as soon as it threatens to get cold for you.

The DNC colluded with the Hillary campaign to fix the primary election process so Hillary would win. But no Slashdot story on that, because ...? Guess it's not news.

The most obvious difference between the stories is that one is a specific allegation by a direct witness, to deals that undermine democracy. The other is some innuendo that requires you to make up the other 80% of the story yourself.

Ukraine isn't a part of NATO and thus not a US vassal state.

... and therefore open to be invaded and annexed by Russia. Sucks to be them, right?

Crimea had a free and fair vote to join Russia - the same kind of vote a lot of people would like to have in California to see if they want to join Mexico.

Do you hear yourself? Free and fair? and Californians want to secede to Mexico? You got a cite for that? Your credibility has dropped to zero with that one.

The biggest threat to world peace is American imperialism and NATO is merely their tool.

What imperialism? What country is the U.S. attempting to annex, militarily or otherwise? Imperialism suggests that "vassals" pay to the emperor state. If NATO is paying so much, where's the fucking money?!?!?!? why the FUCK is the U.S. in DEFICIT if its world-wide "empire" is paying "tribute" to the emperorship?

Hey, Germany! Make me a new Mercedes and send it to me damn quick, you little "vassal" you, your Emperor commands it!

Oh, fucking shee-itt! Imperialism! Fuck!

(collect myself, now) As NATO is concerned, if any member wanted out, they're free to go. On the contrary, former Russian "vassal states" joined NATO at they're earliest opportunity. Flaming shit-sticks I can't believe I go on with this

Russia a long time ago lost its place as a superpower. Now it's a regional power with nukes.

You're not fooling anyone, you know. Read that last statement. Read it again, particularly the last two words. Note that they have not one, not three, but seven-fucking-thousand nukes that-we-know-of, and have exploded the largest nuclear explosion in human history, as well as time-tested ICBM technology to deliver them nukes any fucking where in the fucking world.

That means, when they fuck around with a neighboring country, annexing the best part for itself, their adversaries have to think twice about what kind of response to make, lest some armed conflict escalates out of hand, and a trigger-happy missile guy feels threatened and presses a button that dusts the entire northern hemisphere. With that much nuclear death and inter-continental reach, your power is not "local," nor would Putin permit it to be.

Russia may be no China in terms of productivity and growth (and imperialism), but they're damn proud and a small fraction of them are unimaginably wealthy. The country with the largest land-mass in the world will never settle as a "regional power". For one, that's why they fuck around in Syria: to maintain a strategic foothold in the Mediterranean. A "regional power" would have no interest in propping up a shit-kicker dictator like Bashar al-Assad with weapons and planes and troops on the ground... but a super-power intent on expanding its sea-power presence sure fucking would.

Drop a lid and open your eyes. This is planet Earth, and shit is what it is. If anything, under Trump, American influence in the world is receding, at least if you pay too much attention to his don't-wanna-pay-for-anything Tweets, while China and India expand their reach and Russia stumbles forward in its cold-war daze. All the playaz iz playin, making their moves every fucking day. Free yo

First, see what kind of social and economic mischief you can carry out in the West by way of "anonymous" activity on the Internet - do it cheap, like get kids to help out, and take note how hard it is to trace back to the culprit.
(in parallel, see how much actual damage can be carried out, using Ukraine as a guinea-pig).
Next, notice well it all worked, beyond all reasonable expectations, even to the extent of swaying elections of public officials in the U.S. (they're holding Congressional hearings about us!), and encouraging open revolt against the state and inflaming street unrest.
Third, in view of the fact that Russian officials do not tolerate street unrest and open revolt against the state, conclude that this "research experiment" has proven without question that the Internet is a danger to the Motherland and its beloved leader, Valdimir Putin.
Fourth and finally, take pre-emptive action based on this valuable research to crush this threat and make sure it don't never happen here (Russian military take note... could be useful someday; continue research).
P.S.: President Xi says to Putin in his heavy Chinese accent, "way ahead of you."
P.P.S.: Kim Jong-un says it was all my idea.

Or it may have something to do with people not wanting to have to be terrified of being permanently bankrupted by medical expenses, even when insured:
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/1...

Or not being homeless after losing their job. Or being able to find jobs.

The average amount of money saved by US citizens is rather dismal:
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/0...

This implies that the issues are fairly systemic.

Or it may have something to do with people not wanting to have to be terrified of being permanently bankrupted by medical expenses, even when insured:
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/1...

Or not being homeless after losing their job. Or being able to find jobs.

The average amount of money saved by US citizens is rather dismal:
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/0...

This implies that the issues are fairly systemic.

No shit. Back when they were trying to hype it in the web media, someone reported said he had to wait in line to get one from a vending machine in New York or something. Was it that hard to make an online store for something like this? Or even sell them in Amazon from the get go?
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/2...

Like any novelty item you would expect something that was released almost a year ago to have little willing customers left by now. They need to do a product refresh it they want to sell more.

According to CNBC it's going to keep growing past $10,000 per BTC.

They lost all credibility with the .com rise and crash.

I am not following the experts. What I am following is lots of money is out there. People do not want it to loose value. When Stocks go down in value they put it in other places. Housing was the boom during the .com crash. Bitcoins are soooo easy to invest with less hassle during a crash. Gold too.

But overall bitcoin and gold are TERRIBLE investments as there is no ROI. But now my opinion is they are serving a purpose as the stock valuations are well out of place and nervous investors are buying bitcoin. THe bullish ones now will be buying them later on after their stocks start crashing and they need a safe haven. That in return raises the value.

So we will see. Right now I want to get money to pay off debt first over investing but I am considering a small tiny investment to see if it will grow. It is risky at 6,000 a coin for sure IN THE SHORT TERM.