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That site has a click through 'ad' even with the minimal unblocked using NoScript. It's like they don't want you to visit the article...

Anyway, there's the link to the image. It's a combination of 15 non-human images. The article didn't say, but they must have done a lot of normalization to get all the fake face images to line up. If you average their example fake face images there's no way you'd get something like this image: http://goatse.edu

Good thing [a gender pay gap] doesn't [exist]. That myth was busted years ago. Why are you still believing in it? Do you also believe in Santa Claus?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/re...
Stop parroting stupid shit just because you think it makes you look sensitive and enlightened. It doesn't. It just makes you look like an asshole with no critical thinking skills.

I only read your Forbes link, not the others. But the Forbes article says that (1) a wage gap does exist, (2) it doesn't seem to be caused by on-the-job discrimination, and is instead caused by women being disproportionately employed in lower-paying roles.

That's not an explanation. It's bullshit handwaving. Women can do whatever they want, and make up the majority of college graduates, and have for 30 years: http://www.forbes.com/sites/cc... If most of them choose a career path that isn't "Code Monkey", who's to say that they've made the wrong choice? The next question, then, is, "For whom is this actually bad?"

And who really wants to be a code monkey, anyway? Big coding shops are more like an assembly line. The pay is good because of competition -- or at least it will be until the market is even more flooded with "programmers."

That's not an explanation. It's bullshit handwaving. Women can do whatever they want, and make up the majority of college graduates, and have for 30 years: http://www.forbes.com/sites/cc... If most of them choose a career path that isn't "Code Monkey", who's to say that they've made the wrong choice? The next question, then, is, "For whom is this actually bad?"

Forbes: "The two sectors currently most affected by the regulatory environment in the U.S. are healthcare and financial services."

Regdata: "Regulation on Credit Intermediation and Related Activities has grown 517.73% since 1997."

Can you point to any data which shows the financial industry isn't heavily regulated? Simply googling the question is the financial industry heavily regulated seems to have a pretty broad consensus of answers in the affirmative. Why do you think otherwise?

Healthcare costs increase are mainly due to a lack of universal coverage

If this were the reason, we would've seen sharp increases before WW2 as well. We did not. Fail.

Working with the government is much simpler, which saves time, which saves money

That may be, because the government has unlimited pockets — if they run short, they can always take more money from taxpayers.

I've not only learned this in class

Ah, so you are still under the influence of the Illiberalism — college professors are overwhelmingly Left and getting worse. Themselves overwhelmingly paid by the government, their solutions to most problems are inevitably Statist as well. It will take you years to shake off their influence — until then discussions of such topics with you aren't going to be productive...

Our complicated private insurance healthcare system is extremely wasteful.

Because it is not really "private" — the heavy regulations, mandates, and the government-enforced absence of competition is keeping it inefficient. The health-care market in general — and the insurance market in particular — aren't really free: the barrier to entry is enormous — an Alabama insurer, for example, can not sell policies to Tennessee residents. Instead of using the Commerce-clause to force States to open-up their markets for health-insurance, the Federal government is looking the other way — since 1945... Any corporation will get slow and inefficient in the absence of competition — it may, indeed, become worse than government in that case.

Employees should be paid with money and only money.

And they were — until the US government imposed limits on salaries during the Second World War. Employers wanting to attract employees invented the "benefits packages" of various kind, that circumvented the government-imposed maximum wage limits.

As the consumers of and payers for services became different entities, the prices started to rise. Attempts at finding a government-based solutions to the government-created problem further exacerbated it, as always happens. And continue to.

And that doesn't apply to everydamn-body-else too? You'll note the only country on the list that pays Doctors more then us is the Dutch, and the Canadians could actually get a $59k raise simply by moving south of the border. With lawyers it's only a $23k raise.

But, of course, it's not actually that easy to switch countries if you're a lawyer or a Doctor. Why? Because Legal and Medical associations are quasi-governmental bodies who would not like it if Physicians from Ontario all started commuting to Detroit for $30k less then the local heart specialists. It is that easy if you're a programer, because nobody in DC thinks of programmers as a voting block to be courted, because there's no guy in DC telling them that programmers are such a thing.

BTW, the difficulties in out-sourcing medical care are pretty much identical to the difficulty out-sourcing database administration. In both cases you're sending info to India, and getting info back, and as long as the Nurse/tech guy is smarter then paste in theory you can out-source all the really expensive/hard shit to India. In practice it's very difficult to get that to work because if the smart guy isn;t sitting in the office looking at the problem with his own eyes it increases his error rate, and it also pisses off the people he has to work with.

If you really want to understand things, you have to understand what you're reading.

The IPCC never said that global warming had paused -- it was merely increasing at a slower rate than expected over about a decade. The general trend was still upwards, and the decade where it trended slightly less steeply was interesting and unexpected, but it still fits with the general overall trendline of the previous decades quite well given the variation in sampling. If you're reading that trend as flat, there is something wrong with your eyes.... or at the very least something wrong with the software you're using to plot a trendline -- even if you only plot the data during the period mentioned by the IPCC.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...

"The Pause was an idea from a 2013 UN report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that concluded the upward global surface temperature trend from 1998 to 2012 was markedly lower than the trend from 1951 to 2012."

It is beyond ridiculous to imply the temperature change was flat for decades given any real data. It may even be premature to describe the temperature change as slowing without more data points to corroborate it wasn't merely an anomaly -- likely brought about through unusual El Nino, La Nina, and other weather patterns which have multiple year cycles.

NOAA investigated this pause/slowdown and used blind studies and multiple statistical methods to prove the cherry-picked period is well within statistical noise and the slowdown or pause is bunk:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

That is kind of funny, because Bitcoins are incredibly easy to trace. Many things are being broken up by the ability to trace bitcoin. The blockchain keeps track of every transaction, so if I record the bitcoin ID, and transfer you the bitcoin, it can be tracked through every transaction to where you finally pull out the money, where it becomes obvious who owns the wallet by the account that receives the money.

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/p...

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/21...

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.co...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/an...

... out to leech off all economies.

Fixed that for you.

Oh, and they already have a pretty nice parasitic climatology industry, it's was about $8.8 billion in 2010, currently probably substantially more than that.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/la...

That's a lot of motivation to exaggerate or lie outright about global warming (or "climate change").

That's $616 billion, not trillion. And of course, CAD, not USD.

Per capita, it's still small compared to the USA's debt of $18 trillion USD.

But I do agree with your other points.

200 stations at conservatively $10bn each,

"Conservatively" should be closer to fact, because if we're building them that steadily, using a known design, economy of scale and experience *should* kick in and reduce costs some. Part of the problem with existing plants is that they're all effectively prototypes. Not much knowledge sharing between plants.

So $2 trillion, or $4 trillion if you want to go green.

This isn't a good way to look at it. That's 'merely' the fifty year cost. You hit year 50, you start retiring the plants built 50 years ago*. Remember, we're only building 4 of them a year(at the 200 station level). That's $40bn/year. Or perhaps the 'valuation' of the existing infrastructure at that point. A better way to look at it is that maintaining our nuclear infrastructure at appropriate ages would be a steady $40-80bn/year. And if you're complaining about the cost to replace plants after 50 years, how do you justify spending on stuff that doesn't even last one?

As for renewable, in case you're thinking that's cheaper - Right now solar and wind are coming in about even for face-plate capacity. Problem with that is capacity factor - which is around 30% for solar and wind, and around 90% for nuclear. 1GW of nuclear will produce as many MWh of electricity over a year as 3GW of wind and solar. Even if the price drops, eventually you'd need storage, which adds to the price.

In any case, even 400 nuclear plants wouldn't provide 100% carbon dioxide free electricity generation. My 'ideal' carbon neutral mix is about 40% nuclear (replacing coal), 20% solar, 20% wind, and 20% other(hydro and everything else). The nuclear becomes baseload. Solar covers the average daytime demand increase. Wind, when widescale enough, tends to blow a touch more at night, so it helps compensate for solar. 'Other' includes much of your peaking capability outside of known daytime increases that can be handled by solar.

And that's pocket change, really. War on Drugs is costing us $15B/year. War on terror runs about $100B/year.

*Though as I mentioned in my first post, odds are that you'll have a few plants that you have to retire early, and a few that are so 'problem free' that there's no particular reason to retire them on schedule. Or more accurately, you decide to retire the troublesome 30 year old plant over the 'spry' 50 year old one.

Putin can get away with what he's doing becaus the Russian people support it... Putin got away with what he did in Ukraine because he was able to keep the deaths of hundreds of Russian soldiers largely out of the press, and dismiss those who did tell their stories as full of shit.

Yes, the Russian people support Putin, but I'm guessing that a lot of that is because he controls the media and can manufacture crises at will. In short, I think the second sentence in your quote explains the first rather than the other way around.

Look at this plot of Putin's populairity rateing. His popularity had been slowly but steadily declining from 2008 to late 2013 -- dropping to a low of ~60% around the end of that period. What happens after that? A fortuitously timed olympics that stirred patriotism, and a manufactured Ukraine crisis to amp things up further. Putin's popularity jumped to something like 85%.

Yes, a 60% approval rating is high by international standards but is low by the standards of a media-controlling leader with authoritarian tendencies. I don't think it's a coincidence that a manufactured crisis followed a steady decline to a 60% approval rating. Perhaps he saw what was happening, decided 60% was a lower limit on what he would tolerate, and brilliantly boosed it after that. (He got lucky with the timing of the olympics, which would have boosted his popularity above 60% on its own since Russia did so well at the olympics, but maybe he decided that boost wasn't enough or would be temporary.)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/da...

I wish King the most horrible bad luck imaginable.

I recently refused to back a book because it mentioned King (in a NOT bad way), and every time I hear about that game I get angry about it. I hate companies like that, who just steal from the little guy and destroy the life he deserved.

They are absolute bastards.

Oh ffs I'm not even a GG supporter and I've heard of the bomb threats that shut down the SPJ Airplay event.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/er... before you ask for fucking evidence.

Stop living in denial and stop supporting professional victims that have harassed themselves to try and drum up publicity and income. It's unethical behaviour, whatever the sex of the self serving arsehole doing it.

When will people realize that no corporation ever pays taxes. Not one dime of a corporations real profits are ever taxed. Taxes are included as a business expense and figured into the price of the product. Who pays the "taxes?" the consumer of said product.

Oh, this nonsense again.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes....

To summarize what the (Conservative) economist writing for Economix relates is that the people who really study actual corporate taxes like the Treasury Department and the Tax Policy Center agree that about 80% of the burden of corporate taxes fall on capital and only 20% fall on consumers/workers.

People who argue that "consumers/workers bear the entire cost of corporate taxes, capital doesn't pay a thing" so you are doing consumers/workers a favor by slashing/eliminating corporate taxes are just shilling for capital, or are simply capitalists lying to you for their own profit.

It is notable that many of the people who talk most loudly and frequently about the virtues of eliminating corporate taxes (Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, David Koch are themselves rich men who ordinarily care nothing about helping out consumers or workers.

I am very suprised no one's every run a study on this

It's been a century... but really? No one... like a certain automotive manufacturer in 1914... http://www.forbes.com/sites/ti...

Yeah man, it's just about ethics in game journalism.

Except if you read about what actually happened... (A hard concept for someone trapped in tribal politics, but hear me out.)

The GamerGaters got permission to have a panel in response to all this talk about them supposedly being some sort of cross between Hitler and the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. So right there, that wrecks this "GamerGate harassed the panel into oblivion" -- why would GamerGate harass a convention right after fighting for the right to speak at it?

Also, You'll note that's what's always missing in these discussions -- anything from the POV of the "other side." We're just supposed to accept as fact that GamerGate are evil right wing MRAs that are dedicated to harassing innocent women online and keeping gaming "pure."

We're definitely not supposed to ask for evidence of this supposed harassment or actually ask the GamerGaters what their take on all this is or ask any of the dozens of POC or Women in GamerGate for their view on things (or even acknowledge they exist).

Nope, some con artists pretending to be victimized feminists like Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian said GamerGate is bad and by god, our entire critical thinking processes shut down the second that happens -- to the point that they're requesting that the UN force the US to censor the entire internet to prevent people from making fun of them when they say or do something stupid.

Listen and Believe.

In reality we've seen this happen at multiple GamerGate meetups, including the one the Society of Professional Journalists was putting on -- if GamerGate is being allowed to speak, these psychotic faux social justice sociopaths call in bomb threats, harass the venue, try to blackmail people into silencing them, et cetera. The one thing that can get one of these lazy entitled pink haired twits to actually get off of Twitter and Tumblr and DO something is seeing GamerGate possibly be allowed to speak someplace.

So here's the question that you should be asking if you still have your critical reasoning skills: Why?

If GamerGate is some sort of reactionary far right hate mob then why not let them speak and prove that they're some kind of group of monsters? Why call in up to 10 bomb threats at a single venue just to silence them? Is the mere fact that some supposed trollish conservative neckbeard dudebros speaking THAT dangerous to society at large? These Social Justice troll types don't go around threatening the Westboro guys with bomb threats, or try to get the GOP convention shut down for "regressive anti-trans opinions," so it's obviously not about Social Justice.

Could it possibly be that the reason they don't want GamerGate to speak is that the bullshit story they keep feeding people -- that GamerGate is supposedly a group of white male nerds who hate women -- has absolutely nothing to do with reality? That there's an incredible amount of money to be made in being a professional victim (read: con artist) but that relies on you making absolutely certain the boogieman you have helped create remains some sort of amorphous source of dread and is never, ever allowed to defend themselves?

So if your grandma gets hacked we should sue her and throw her in jail?

If your grandma swerved across three lanes and caused a traffic accident because she never went in for the manufacturer recall to fix the malfunctioning rear view mirror she'd certainly at least get a talking to. If you knew about the problem with the mirror you'd probably talk with her about how important it is to get it fixed before she causes a problem too.

How about we hold Microsoft accountable for the shitty fucking security in their operating system?

That's the real problem here.

No, the problem is that Microsoft issues fixes for their security problems, but people don't want to stop using their computer long enough to install them. That's how we ended up with Windows 8 forcing people to reboot to install updates, and Windows 10 making it more difficult to turn that system off. People bitch and moan about it, and in some cases go out of their way to disable it. A Google search for "Windows 10 Automatic Update" has the first two results as instructions on how to disable it, even Forbes has a write-up on how to disable it.

Mr. Shkreli bought the only FDA-approved treatment for toxoplasmosis. There are many cheaper versions of the drug around the world, but they are not FDA-approved. As this article explains, the FDA currently has a backlog of about 4,000 applications, and the median approval time for new generic drugs is 27 months. Thankfully, in this case, Imprimis was able to do an end run around the FDA's incompetence by making a compounded drug with the same ingredients as daraprim.

What is needed here is some more competition; not in the drug manufacturing business, but in the drug review business. In other words, why aren't entrepreneurs allowed to compete with the FDA? Perhaps the free market could even find a way to review generic drugs in less than 27 months. What if some private reviewer does a poor job? Well, consumers can decide if they are willing to trust drug reviewer A or drug reviewer B, just as consumers currently decide if they trust the reviews in Consumer Reports.

Or we could go with price controls. It seems to be working for Venezuela. Sure, there are constant shortages, but, hey, prices are always low!

Each time the anti-frackers try to justify their opposition, the are smacked down with facts.

They are like small children desperately trying any argument they can think of to stay up late or get that cookies they've been denied.

The pro-ACA people don't care about screening out fake applicants. They think any person getting another government handout is a good thing, regardless of circumstance.

It's interesting that you describe health care as a "handout", and bolster the metaphor with "regardless of circumstances".

There are perhaps three dozen examples of government-funded health care in the world that we can look to as examples. The US health care ranks worse than all of the top 10 countries.

Framing it as "it's a government handout" implies the subtext "(that you do not deserve)", and is a bit of a misnomer. Our system is horribly broken, we pay 6x as much as other countries and for that price get substandard care.

In short, many *many* people suffer needlessly because our health care system isn't a government handout.

So... I don't see a problem here. We do in fact deserve better health care. We're the US, we *were* the best.

Would you care to explain why a government handout is bad, in this specific instance?

(And before someone asks "well, how do you propose we fix it?", let me just say that we could find a system we like and copy it wholesale. For example, the Canadian system is better than the US system overall, and we could simply copy their procedures and implement them. If we did that, 80% of the money we now spend on health care would be available to stimulate the economy.)

(Not a native english-speaker so sorry for any and all mistakes)

Well, if you count 1600 people directly or indirectly as a result of the accident.. But lets go with your line there.. 1600 lives where lost due to the accident..

If you read a few of the latest reports about Chernobyl they estimate it to be somewhere between 4000 to 9000 people that will die due to the accident. (But Chernobyl is a *really* bad example.... The whole mess there is due to bad design (or none) and idiotic people that actually turned off the safety system etc)

But just for the sake of it i'll round the number up to 10000 people on average per failed plant just to make it easy to count...

Lets list the alternatives..

References used:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...
http://www.who.int/mediacentre...
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.g...

Hydroelectric:
Banqiao Dam - "26,000 dead from flooding, 145,000 dead from subsequent famine and epidemics, 11 million homeless. Caused loss of generation, dam failed by overtopping in a 1-in-2,000 year flood[4]"
That's more than 17 times the number in Chernobyl in a single accident...
On average it's 1400 people that dies per year for hydro-electric in the world..

Coal:
170000 people per year on average die due to coal-plants.
- That's 17 times the number in Chernobyl.. Per YEAR!

Biofuel/Biomass:
24000
- That's 2.4 times the number in Chernobyl.... Per YEAR!

If we are talking about saving lives.. start by fighting to shut down the coal-plants and replace them with nuclear/wind/whatever.. Wind will be problematic since the wind does not always blow, but it's great compliment..... Solar will not be possible since we still need power during the night but it's a great compliment..

And the other part.. We do have the knowledge on how to build much safer plants (China is currently building quite a few)..
The main type of reactors available to us.. (simplified, see the references for more information.)
- Boiling Water Reactor
- Pressurized Water Reactor
- Liquid-Metal Fast-Breeder Reactor

The boiler is what it is.. It boils water, not under pressure, to generate steam to power a turbine.. Due to the low temperature it is not very efficient, that's why they moved on to the pressurized water reactor.

The main type of reactor used today, and that is the most dangerous, is the pressurized water reactor.. This is due to that the water is pressurized to allow for higher temperatures, and if the cooling-system fails or there is a breach in the pressure-vessel all that water will flash to steam increasing it's volume many times over. It's also a bit risky due to production of hydrogen, that can cause an explosion.
So to coup with this the whole reactor-design needs to be designed with engineered fail-safes, like a big strong building around it to be able to contail the steam if the pressure-vessel would break. Backup generators to power the cooling-pumps if the external power is lost, and cooling is needed for quite some time after the reactor has been stopped.

Liquid-Metal Fast-Breeder Reactor works a bit different than the others.. No pressure, and if the temperature goes up it self-corrects due to thermal expansion of the material reducing the probability of a neutron hitting the next atom. If all hell where to break loose and power is lost to the plant and the cooling would stop it has a passive feature where it would dump the fuel into a passively cooled tank where it can cool down without causing damage to the plant, or releasing anything toxic.. These plants cannot melt down, and if there would be some extreme case o

Therefore, spending $1 billion to buy a company worth less than $1B HURTS the company's value. See HP for some dramatic examples.

Not always true. For one example: Company A buys company B for $2.2B, but company B is only "worth" $2B. You say company A is taking a $200M loss. Looks bad at the outset, but looks can be deceiving... read on:

But what if Company B had the potential to be a $4B value, but lacked, say for the sake of argument, $800M to ramp up production. Then Company A, that has the capital, would GAIN $1B for their investment ( 2.2B + 0.8B = $3B spent for a $4B company ). I would consider this a "good deal" on the purchase, even if it LOOKS bad at the outset.

There is also the situation where Company A is at a disadvantage in the marketplace (i.e. behind in technology, etc.) and company B has the technology that they need to compete. The 200 Million extra spend could easily be eaten up by R&D costs and lost market share. This could be a strategic purchase, not a financial one. The Forbes article below says that WD had SSD sales of around $500 million while Samsung has sales over $3 Billion in 2014. It also outlines the SSD technology companies that WD has been buying.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gr...

But any sceptic today is immediately suspected of being on Big Oil's payroll anyway.

Not doing so would be failing to take into account the existence of all the groups funded by ExxonMobil, the Koch foundations and others: American Enterprise Institute, American Legislative Exchange Council, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, Americans for Prosperity, Beacon Hill Institute, Cato Institute, DonorsTrust, Heartland Institute, Heritage Foundation, Institute for Energy Research, , National Center for Policy Analysis, and hundreds more.

The $1.5 bln would buy a lot of scientists — especially those, who already think AGW is a real concern and whose conscience would thus be a lot cheaper.

So you would have us believe that the thousands of scientists who contributed to the IPCC report are all corrupt and not one of them spilled the beans. Not only that but since the report is reviewed by the governments of over 120 countries with competing interests you would also have us believe that they are all in on the conspiracy and that none saw fit to expose it to discredit their adversaries! And all these scientists would be producing bogus results without anyone in the organizations and countries financing them noticing something fishy?

Well, as they say, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof and all you have are unsubstantiated accusations.

I do not doubt, that you share the concerns over the fabled "Military-Industrial Complex" influencing the government towards "perpetual war" so it can forever sell the armaments.

Wow! Aren't you a bit quick putting people you disagree with into neat little boxes! What will you accuse me of next?

Check here. Didn't take long to find it either. That said, Uber doesn't explicitly 'fire' folks any more. But then again neither did the fast food place I worked at as a kid. Just cut your hours/pay until you're basically fired. There's other nastiness they do, but you'll have to google to get the specifics.

Paul's Flat-Tax is not mischaracterized at all. A similarly recent article, Senator Rand Paul's Very Good Tax Plan Needs One Important Tweak, further expounds this point about the Flat-Tax taking the form of a VAT.

1) "...neglecting the compensating benefits of reducing the corporate income tax..." So for this plan to be beneficial to the middle-class, we must rely on the corporations to decide to pass the benefit further on to those working for them, a bit more trickle-down action? According to Paul, so many of those corporations are already paying zero because they're using loopholes; But where was the spread of wealth from those monies? Are we to believe that those companies really want to share benefits with their workers when their taxes are officially made less? I don't follow that logic, and thus far history hasn't supported it either.

2) Alleged reduction in benefits? I don't know if people are keeping tally, but much of what is currently left in federal budgets to slash would be political suicide to the ones who did, including Social Security, Medicaid, VA, preK-12 education, pell grants, transportation infrastructure, etc. Suggesting that further spending cuts from such a flat-tax wouldn't negatively affect this group of people is ludicrous.

And as far as cuts in government spending, they tend to stimulate the economy when interest rates are non-zero--which at the moment they are not, which is probably why that point was explicitly ignored.

IMO the Bloomberg article wasn't a "hit-piece", but rather a heads-up to an important issue with the Paul tax plan.

Sooners - Oklahoma.

Bed wetting morons - Pennsylvania

Billions of dollars paid out to breast Implant patients...with zero scientific evidence of harm.

This survey is Junk Science just like most of the science envirowackos use to support their Luddite fanaticism.

An inflation rate of nearly Venezuelan proportions.

"Venezuelan proportions".... Come on, is that the best you can do?

Try Zimbabwe -- they basically had to abandon their currency altogether after rampant hyperinflation. In the year 2000 they had a reasonably stable currency, with Z$ 1 being able to buy you (for example) a loaf of bread. Double-digit inflation, but nothing unusual. And then it just went crazy... at the worst point in 2008, they had to issue banknotes for "one hundred trillion dollars", and even those were virtually worthless before they even went into circulation. (that's a 1 with fourteen zeros, but that was after they'd already had several "redemoniation" events that knocked off a large number of zeros, so no matter how bad that sounds, the actual inflation problem was far far worse). To buy the same loaf of bread, you would have needed a large wedge of high demonination notes.

The only reason it didn't make it into your Forbes article is that the currency was officially abandoned in 2009; Zimbabweans now use US$ or other regional currencies.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 25+ years, corporations and the bosses that control them haven't exactly been falling over themselves to give raises to the rank-and-file.

And yet, I've been working for the past 21 years and haven't failed to get a pay rise in any of them. Sometimes it's been as low as 2%, but the average is around 9-10% per year (compound).

Sure, I change company every few years. Five changes in 21 years doesn't feel excessive to me though.

Original AC here. Well, that's fine, but I'd suggest you're one of the luckier few if you've managed to get mostly 9-10% pay-rises in most years. Also, 5 job changes in 21 years is probably not excessive, but at an average of 4.2 years per job, you're not exactly staying somewhere real long term either.

I have known many people working for many years at large, profitable corporations who have "suffered" from either no pay-rises at all in given years, or very low pay-rises (i.e. a raise of 2% when the level of inflation is at 3%). This has happened during years when those same companies have been incredibly profitable, so it's not like there wasn't some extra money in the companies coffers to go around. I've also seen many of those same people eventually get hacked off with this after 10+ years and jump ship to a new job gaining themselves a significant (think 10-20% and more in some cases) pay rise.

There is a wealth of mounting evidence that, in today's world of work, the only real way for most people to get a decent pay rise is to change jobs. And from my own observed evidence, the real sweet spot seems to be a job change every 1.5 - 2 years (major economical downturns, credit crunches etc. notwithstanding).

An inflation rate of nearly Venezuelan proportions.

There are companies that won't hire people who don't have facebook profiles

WOW, seriously???

Can you name some of these companies? That would be a real eye opener....!!

http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ka...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ka...

There are companies that won't hire people who don't have facebook profiles

WOW, seriously???

Can you name some of these companies? That would be a real eye opener....!!

http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ka...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ka...

The issue is not whether or not he is successful

Success is of course not an "issue", success can issue out of good management.

the issue is whether or not people want to work with him based on his management style (or lack thereof).

This may or may not be an issue depending on his goals. We can only guess at his goals. If creating great software that touches many users' lives is the goal, people wanting to work with him is an issue only if it interferes with the goal. Since no one attracts much better talent at a lower cost and yet develops a large software product that arguably touches most lives most positively - goal doesn't seem to be interfered with at all.

If his goal were to climb the mount Everest, his coding, ranting , philosophizing etc. is all very bad management of himself, others, and any resources.

100% of that statement is your opinion.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/da...
http://www.business-management...

Business leaders? Why don't you bring up a list of greatest astronauts and show Linus doesn't show up in the list. Or the greatest farmers? Or the fastest runners? People with ears of sharpest hearing? That would have as much relevance as this - which is unknown. Unknown because the goal is not known. If the goal were to become fastest sprinters, he has failed miserably for all I know. If the goal is to be (one of) the greatest business leaders, he has failed according to forbes etc.

So as before you want to tell him his goals, followed by contradicting yourself later to say he can have any goals he wants?

Here's a question for you: if Linus is such a fantastic manager, then why are there so many stories about people getting fed up with the behavior of him and others on the LKML and deciding to leave? Why is the LKML known as an abusive place? Does that sound like the result of a great manager?

Is his goal to minimize the people getting fed up of him?

but I'll challenge you to find him on a list of the best software project managers.

And you hereby order Linus to have this goal of being on a list of the best software project managers?

Probably. Or else his goal could be to get great software created and made useful and available to lot of people, in which he is one of the most successful people ever.

The issue is not whether or not he is successful, the issue is whether or not people want to work with him based on his management style (or lack thereof).

Linus will be known as one of the most successful people/self/time/resource "managers" alive in 2015.

100% of that statement is your opinion.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/da...
http://www.business-management...

Here's an interesting graphic:

https://www.themuse.com/advice...

From the very top:

"An effective manager isn't tyrannical. They don't command unnecessarily, micromanage, or instill fear. A successful manager can be approachable, amicable, or even downright compassionate. These managers lead teams of satisfied employees, which reduces turnover and boosts morale and productivity."

Here's a question for you: if Linus is such a fantastic manager, then why are there so many stories about people getting fed up with the behavior of him and others on the LKML and deciding to leave? Why is the LKML known as an abusive place? Does that sound like the result of a great manager?

That graphic lists several qualities cited by employees as the most important component of the manager-employee relationship. Those qualities are trust, fairness, patience, respect, and open communication. I'll grant that the LKML is probably pretty good at open communication, although even that is arguable. Those other qualities are absent from the management in the LKML.

Linus can be found on various lists of most influential, but I'll challenge you to find him on a list of the best software project managers.

If you want a practical application of neutrino detectors and their relevance today ...

Neutrino detectors may also be useful in high frequency trading. That is certainly an application that benefits the common people.

Unless you're a corporate "person" in which case it most certainly IS a magic purse.

Cute. "KKKorporations sit there in their... in their KKKorporation buildings, and... and, and see, they're all KKKorporation-y... and they make money."

Nice try switching the conversation to "corporations", but the truth is, most Americans now receive government benefits of some kind. You and your kind may think, this is marvellous, but the situation does not benefit the country — the primary beneficiaries are the vast body of government employees paid for confiscating the monies (the IRS) and handing some of it out...

It's my government, why shouldn't I benefit? But regardless, benefits are not paid to people out of tax revenue. The US government can print its own money, so it can spend without taxing or borrowing. Finance doesn't work the same for a country that has sovereign currency. We could literally pay off the debt tomorrow if we wanted to. It would have other effects and implications, but it could be done. The national debt and spending are not usually talked about like this. But one's home budget, or even a corporate balance sheet, has nothing to do with how the Federal Government's finances work.

Cute.

And true. Or are you challenging the assertion that corporations are in complete control and gorging themselves at the public trough?

Nice try switching the conversation to "corporations", but the truth is, most Americans now receive government benefits of some kind.

Sorry, the article you cite is 90% ideology coupled with 10% speculation. In the future you may want to avoid citing opinion pieces written by ideologues when attempting to support your positions. But nice try switching the conversation to government employees "confiscating the monies".

Thank the Lord of Hosts that we have conservatives to save us from ourselves.

We tried but to our shame we failed.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...

https://www.rt.com/news/316705...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/re...

There is only so much you can do for willfully stupid children

Unless you're a corporate "person" in which case it most certainly IS a magic purse.

Cute. "KKKorporations sit there in their... in their KKKorporation buildings, and... and, and see, they're all KKKorporation-y... and they make money."

Nice try switching the conversation to "corporations", but the truth is, most Americans now receive government benefits of some kind. You and your kind may think, this is marvellous, but the situation does not benefit the country — the primary beneficiaries are the vast body of government employees paid for confiscating the monies (the IRS) and handing some of it out...

I know it is fashionable to hate on them, so what do you think about their stance on licensing? Read the interview: http://www.forbes.com/sites/da...

I recommend you read this interview with Charles Koch, particularly the part about job licensing.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/da...

The prices of a taxi medallion I've seen from the US don't seem to apply to the Netherlands.

"In Boston, taxi medallions average $700,000, and similarly-inflated prices exist in other cities"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sc...

But Amsterdam is the most expensive and I believe far above every other city in the Netherlands:
In 2013: € 7.960,00 for 3 years (8,928.64 USD)
In 2014: € 11.880,00 for 3 years (13,327.58 USD)

The city claims that this is the real cost of what they need to do (whatever that is).

In Dutch:
http://m.taxipro.nl/straattaxi...

I vote that you move to somewhere where your money won't be taken from you by the government.

As is, of course, perfectly clear from my post, I do not object to all taxation. I do object to taxation required to fight the colossal failure lovingly referred to as "War on Poverty". The cost of which happens to eclipse the combined costs of all of our nation's real wars since the very establishment of the Republic combined.

"Remember Milton, the red stapler guy from the movie Office Space? Useless to his company, he had been laid off years before, but due to an unexplained glitch, he was never informed and kept getting paid. So there’s Milton, showing up for work day after day, clueless about why he has nothing useful to do.

Makes you wonder: are there any Miltons in your organization?

Sadly, for some large enterprises, you need look no further than the Enterprise Architects."

If there are 1.0 to 1.5 billion Muslims, but the hajj logistics maxes out at about 2.5M a year, I was wondering what fraction of Muslims are able to practice this essential tenant of their religion. Forbes tried to compile statistics in this figure http://blogs-images.forbes.com... One out of six at best. Distance, finances, and quotas limit those who are able to attend.

What I did was to uninstall the update that pushes the Windows 10 notification, can't recall which KB it was, but you'll find it.
Then I found out that Microsoft pushed the spying software of Windows 10 through updates to Windows 7 and Windows 8 too.

Forbes had a simple guide to how you get rid of them.

Doesn't prevent Microsoft form putting out new updates that pushed Windows 10 or spies on you.

One cost of Windows 10 is that it will become whatever Microsoft wants it to be in the future; most users will have no ownership. Windows 10 is designed to allow Microsoft complete control over a user's computer whenever it is turned on and connected to the internet.

Maybe Microsoft wants to imitate Google. Microsoft can use the information collected by Windows 10, apparently, to sell to advertisers. Perhaps Microsoft is also paid by secret U.S. government agencies.

Google's tracking is extremely widespread because people use numerous Google services rather than software that they own. Google tracks Slashdot users. The Slashdot home page allows Google to track users 3 ways:
1) google-analytics.com
2) googleadservices.com
3) googletagservices.com

Maybe Microsoft wants to be even more complete about tracking users, to try to take business from Google.

Windows 10 is not "free" to owners of Windows 7 and 8. Installing Windows 10 means that, after 1 month, owners lose what they bought. If someone offers you a "free" car, but then takes away the car you have now, that is not free. Those who switch to Windows 10 pay a high price for something they cannot evaluate fully in 1 month.

Microsoft management thinks it is okay to remove features from Windows. For example, those who switch to Windows 10 from Windows 7 and 8 will lose Windows Media Center. Removing features allows Microsoft to ask users to pay for them again in the future.

Maybe, in the future, Microsoft intends to imitate Adobe Systems. Maybe Windows will eventually become "cloud" software, and users will be expected to pay monthly. Others on Slashdot have suggested that.

Also, it seems to me that Microsoft is extremely badly managed. I'm not the only one who thinks that. Others called former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Monkey Boy and said "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."

It seems to me that Satya Nadella, Microsoft's new CEO, is incapable of managing a large corporation. He apparently was picked because of his ability to avoid being involved in conflicts, rather than because he has an ability to resolve conflicts. It seems to me that Nadella does not have the social sophistication necessary to coordinating the company.

It's not a false dichotomy. There continue to exist coal plants right now, and have for decades in the past, and will be for some time to come. Because renewables haven't replaced them. Therefore we have gone and chosen coal over nuclear for decades. It's a *real* dichotomy. Making the discussion nuclear vs. renewables is the false dichotomy.

Think of Ahmdahl's law. You should focus your efforts on fixing the big problem, then reassess the situation afterward. Even if I agreed that it's important to transition off of nuclear, it's just not even in the same league as fossils, so we should replace fossils first. Perhaps that will happen naturally as battery and grid transmission losses decrease.

My favorite is when nuke fans include dam collapses from decades before the first nuclear power plant was ever built. Nevermind that if we had nuclear power in 1900, we would have had some more Chernobyl's and Fukishimas.

You don't have to. You can take it per capita, and start it with dams built starting at the same time as nuclear power plants, and get the same results. Hydroelectric dams are much better than coal, but hardly optimal in terms of lethality or ecology. Even aside from human lives, they can be environmental disasters all on their own. However, once built, the damage is pretty much done, so we might as well take advantage of them.

If you replace thousands of coal plants around the word with nuclear power plants, you're going to see a lot more Fukishima's because more plants will be hit by once-in-a-thousand-years disasters just based on statistics.

Yes, you will, and the statistics bear out that this is a better result than continuing to see all the casualties from coal.

Which can be done for a fraction of the cost of nuclear power

Then do it. I'm certainly not stopping you. If you can wipe out nuclear in the free market, then you can just do so and we don't even really have to discuss it. It's not like nuclear power has entrenched backing that's going to sabotage your batteries or whatever.

I have a prediction. If you run the numbers, attempting to be perfectly honest in terms of cost and using only reasonable assumptions about future advancements, but excluding fossil fuels as having unacceptable externalities, then I predict your results will include some renewables and some nuclear. Go ahead and prove it wrong. Not going to stop you.

Some stats I found here: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/a... show that land-based wind is fairly favourable *when the wind is blowing*, the others don't do so great (certainly not "a fraction of the cost" even when the wind is blowing), except geothermal which is a clear winner in those few cases where it is available. Hydro is in the same ballpark. Other sources: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja..., http://www.renewable-energysou..., http://nucleargreen.blogspot.c.... Note some of those sources point out, correctly, that fossils are basically the cheapest. That's why we still have them (if they weren't fairly cheap, the problem would basically solve itself). Of course, fossils don't capture all downstream externalities in the way that nuclear and non-hydro renewables tend to.