Slashdot Mirror

In January, there was pressure from some activist investors for Yahoo! and AOL to merge. http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

I guess not so much anymore.

You think it will stay that way? You've never heard of the foot-in-the-door technique?

He's talking about security. DRM is not a slippery slope to removing 3rd party exploit mitigations. That's beyond ridiculous, even if you take the "DRM is anti-freedom" to its most extreme.

People pushing DRM are not doing it because they've pledged allegiance to the League of Evil and automatically work towards every goal you oppose.

You need to explain how a DRM pluging that takes in encrypted data and emits decrypted data is a slippery slope to that module gaining network access.

compared to the fight right now where this DRM is still new and largely unused.

The DRM is not new and not unused. It's already everywhere. It happens to be managed through the Flash plugin which is also everywhere, or Silverlight which has almost as much penetration (specifically because of video streaming).

As of September 23, 38% of Americans used Netflix: http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

Weak labor market?

Unemployment benefit claims drop to 15 year low

"The unemployment rate held at 5.5 percent in March, its lowest since May 2008, the Labor Department reported earlier this month. That puts it close to the 5 percent to 5.2 percent range that Fed policy makers have defined as full employment."

OK Uber is today "valued" at what, 3Bn.

$40B and heading to $50B.

I don't get it, what is the big tech challenge to overcome here? Seems like the biggest issues are legal (exemptions from the FAA already made though) or logistical.

Lack of modern istrumentation, radar transponders, and other equipment which is normally used by modern air traffic control systems. You will recall that the newly overhauled system went online 7 days ago (30 Apr 2015):

http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

The primary issue won't be in the corridor itself, it'll be getting into and out of it from shared public airspace, and avoiding collisions between the aircraft themselves, many of which do not have anti-collision systems or even radars.

Come on dude, even the police recognize they have a racism problem.
http://www.policechiefmagazine...

The law is enforced unequally on whites and non whites.

For example, When a mixed race group of girls were picked up by police...

"officers took the white teen to the lobby to call her parents but brought three of the black teens to the back of the station, where they were locked up and searched. When one of the girls asked why they were being brought in the back doors, one of the officers replied, "trash in and trash out," according to court records."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

Don't let the "ferguson" fool you- this happened in yet another town, not ferguson.

used in massive quantities by NYC residents, TFS forgot to mention Performance-Enhancing Drugs

Maybe you live in a mythical world where your imagination allows you to create arguments using rare occurrences. I mean if we are going to use exceptions to asses the situation then I don't know what to tell you. BTW, not only school zones require 40km/h zones. There are plenty of residential areas where kids are present in numbers that justify 40km/h as a deterrent for speeding since the fines are high.

It's not creating an argument, it is a single example that you theory of "speed enforcement is science" is bunk. I have plenty more, but you seem to already be aware of this with your comment "kids are present, the speed limit should be 40" comment. So much for the science eh? Speed laws are mostly emotive and political.

Yes it was but some did believe and push that agenda. Regardless there are other examples like earth being the center of the universe...

So this automatically makes you right somehow? I'm failing to see how this adds any weight to your argument

Re: self driving cars: http://www.bloomberg.com/slide... http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/28/... http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

Yes we're all familiar with the current robot car tech, the gap which you don't seem to be aware of is that there is a LONG, LONG, road between concept and mainstream reality. Even if the Tech was perfect, which it isn't, it will still take another 20 years to get past the legal and political hurdles. http://www.technologyreview.co...

Neither did I but you can't deny the need for speed limits.

Never did. Speed laws are mostly emotive and political, not science.

And that 40km/h zone suddenly gets applied outside of school hours too without warning, at 3am at night and on weekends. Yet strangely in wealthy suburbs with lots of lawyers their schools are somehow exempt. I'd love to hear your scientific theory for why that is?

Maybe you live in a mythical world where your imagination allows you to create arguments using rare occurrences. I mean if we are going to use exceptions to asses the situation then I don't know what to tell you. BTW, not only school zones require 40km/h zones. There are plenty of residential areas where kids are present in numbers that justify 40km/h as a deterrent for speeding since the fines are high.

Earth was supposed to be flat,

That's a well worn myth.

Yes it was but some did believe and push that agenda. Regardless there are other examples like earth being the center of the universe...

we weren't supposed to go on the moon

Says who?

There are some today that still push the idea that we never landed on the moon.

and flight was never going to become an important method of transportation.

Says who?

History of the Wright brothers. And it wasn't the first time they were told this.
Wilbur told Orville on the train ride back to Dayton, "Not within a thousand years would man ever fly."

A flying car would be extremely convenient

Explain because as far as I recall it cost a lot more energy to keep the vehicle above ground than it does to power a 1000 HP truck engine and that doesn't include the thrust you need to go forward, turn and stop.

No they aren't.

Re: self driving cars:
http://www.bloomberg.com/slide...
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/28/...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

As I said in my first post, road safety is not as simple as speed bad, slow good.

Neither did I but you can't deny the need for speed limits.

There's always limits on freedom due to conflicts, eg the classic conflict between my waving my fist and your right not to get punched.

Sure. Now please explain, how this truism is relevant to the issue at hand. Whose "nose" and whose "fist" are we talking about?

Staying on topic, there is limits to how many Individuals can erect telephone poles and how many wires/fibers can go on the poles

There may be a limit, but we are far from reaching it. FiOS cable runs to my house from the same pole, from which Comcast's cable runs to my neighbors. I think, the same pole can handle 10 or 20 more such cables easily.

the collective can put up the poles, run the fiber and allow anyone to use them for a reasonable fee

You must be a real fan of our collectively-run roads ($2mln per mile!! where I live) and public transit, but I am not. Just what is it, that makes the normally monopoly-abhorring slashdotters all weak in the knees, when it comes to governmental monopoly is beyond me. It is the worst monopoly imaginable...

there's also a limit on the number of roads that are possible so they're run by the collective

First of all, I do not accept the "cables are like roads" analogy — they aren't. But even roads can be private and competing. If Tokyo has privately-owned competing subway lines, why can't New York?

You do realize that the EPA would already regulate fracking if there were danger to ground water. Funny thing, but if the oil they are fracking for was anywhere near the water

You do realize that a simple google search would have confirmed that fracking fluids are already appearing in groundwater and posing a threat to health.

http://www.scientificamerican....

https://www.propublica.org/art...

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08...

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

As to what is wrong with that, you have a right to choose. In having a right to choose you have responsibility.

The man cannot compel you to have an abortion or compel you to accept his penis. The woman has more control over the situation than the man does and therefore must be responsible unless she has gotten some sort of agreement from the man to provide support.

That is, if you want him to raise your baby... you'd better make sure he is willing to do it and not just cut his condom up and then blind side him 9 months later with a baby picture and a court writ for child support.

As to clarity with my position, it is that if women have a choice they have responsibility. The responsibility COMES with the choice. The choice is not free. You don't get rights without responsibilities.

So riddle me this, in your mind what responsibilities did women get that they didn't have before they obtained the ability to abort their pregnancy at will? Men got no new rights and if anything have lost rights. As such, men must have reduced responsibility.

Think of a child... a child has very few rights and very few responsibilities. Think of a person in a high responsibility job... a doctor or a police officer. Notice how their rights to do things expand with their responsibilities.

This is how everything works. Currently there is a disconnect with these laws in that they are still synced to an earlier time that predates the current status quo. It makes no sense. It would be like applying slavery laws to black people even though they're not slaves anymore.

The legal and logistical status of women has changed. They're not what they were and their options are not what they were. As such the laws should reflect that. That is my position.

As to citations... There are so many fucking links.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

I mean come on. Learn to google.

1. Why have vaccines and autism rates both grown exponentially in the last 25 years? (no, detection does not come close to answering)

Oh for goodness sake, are you claiming these are the only things that have grown rapidly over the past 25 years. Sugar consumption has grown rapidly. Maybe, just maybe, the mother's freakin' diet has something to do with autism. Why, yes it does. That one study does not explain the majority of cases of autism but it is a big red flashing neon sign pointing in a direction to look. In addition to eating too much sugar, which we now know can trigger autism, there are many many other things mothers are exposed to on a daily basis in modern societies that may also be detrimental to the health of their babies such as: an overabundance of drugs (in food and water), other highly processed foods, chemicals from plastics that get into food and water, and many forms of pollution. Perhaps it is related to increased stress or lack of sleep.

Many years ago, some shyster dickhead of a scientist made a bunch of money (from a firm that was already planning a law suit over the MMR vaccine) by concocting lies about a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism. The science system worked, the lies were caught, the paper was retracted and the shyster lost his "scientist" badge.

What baffles me is that so many people cling to the results from the exposed shyster who truly was only in it to make a bunch of bucks while they ignore all the reputable scientific studies that don't agree with the conclusion they have already jumped to. I'm reminded of Feynman's description of cargo cult science. One problem with your completely irrational position (on the fence or not) is that it causes us to waste valuable and limited resources following up on things we already know are dead ends so we can't use those resources to look for the real cause of the increase in autism.

This means that people who use Google to search on their smartphone may not find many of their favorite sites at the top of the rankings. Sites that haven't updated could find themselves ranked way lower, which in turn could mean a huge loss of business.

The handspring VisorPhone does. It was an add-on card that cheaply added a phone to HandSpring-produced PalmOS PDAs. It was my first pdaphone.

The VisorPhone originally cost more than a cellphone. Thanks for proving my point.

It does not work — despite decades of efforts, Blacks and womyn still earn less than others — for whatever reasons.

It causes ugly discrimination of other kinds — with government contracts officially favoring womyn-run businesses and colleges openly penalizing certain races.

It costs businesses billions to avoid such lawsuits, and millions more in damages and fees when the avoidance-efforts fail. And not just businesses — government agencies too pay (with our monies) to avoid being sued. Even worse, the prosecutions by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are of the "guilty until proven innocent" variety, with most targets agreeing to settle because the Executive can run them out of business before Judiciary gets to even hear the accusations.

And finally, even if it weren't for the failures and abuses, the whole idea is immoral, because it seeks to punish thoughtcrimes — one is guilty, because one had (or is suspected of having had) certain illegal thoughts.

Can we just stop this nonsense? If Tata — or anyone — want to discriminate, let them...

I hope you're just being sarcastic, but in case you aren't

http://www.mercurynews.com/sci...
http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
http://news.nationalgeographic...

a five minute internet search for "California drought history" can point to the fact that California has had water issues for centuries (it can be said of any area as well), it had destroyed Native American Cities and entire empires long before European settlers arrived. A statement in the National Geographic article pretty well sums it up "Unfortunately, she notes, most of the state's infrastructure was designed and built during the 20th century, when the climate was unusually wet compared to previous centuries."

If your favorite social theory is being tested on the masses, when things good, it is because of your social theory and when things go bad they are going as good as they could have gone in all possible worlds.

That's why those who object to your social theory don't need to be consulted for their consent prior to your experiment being run on them. Indeed, if they strenuously object (say, because an aspect of your social theory is that "sexual pressure ushers, guides or shepherds the process of sexual awakening" in your prison system), their extremism is a clear and present danger to the stability of society and it is only reasonable to preemptively treat their psychological disorder, with or without their consent.

It's true that it no longer just goes up the stacks and into the air, but it still goes somewhere - the amazingly toxic ash ponds. Which, by the way, are not exactly the safest and most sequestered thing ever. One dam breaks, and you've destroyed a river ecosystem, as happened in Tennessee.

Solar and wind use far more natural resources. Steel, concrete, and even rare metals like neodymium and silver are used in huge quantities. Furthermore, coal is required for the production of concrete and steel.

Way to cherry pick the most energy inefficient and obsolete uranium separation process. "The gaseous diffusion process consumes about 2500 kWh (9000 MJ) per SWU, while modern gas centrifuge plants require only about 50 kWh (180 MJ) per SWU." So, a factor of 50 more energy intensive, to say nothing of upcoming laser enrichment.

Next generation reactors like the LFTR won't even require enrichment, nor any extra mining at all. Thorium is a free by-product of rare-earth mining.

Fiorina frequently has been ranked as one of the worst CEOs of all time.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/am...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/3050209...

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

http://ca.complex.com/pop-cult...

Oh... and this....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"A news report says Japan's tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant was so unprepared for the disaster that workers had to bring protective gear and instruction manuals from elsewhere and borrow equipment from a contractor. The report, released by operator Tokyo Electric Co, is based on interviews of workers and plant data. It portrays chaos in a desperate and ultimately unsuccessful battle to protect the Fukushima plant from meltdown, and shows that workers struggled with unfamiliar equipment." ap.org/ - "Scientists have found traces of radioactivity in fish off the California coast that migrated from the waters off of Japan, site of the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster of 2011, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The researchers say the evidence is unequivocal. The young tuna were found to be contaminated with two radioactive forms of the element cesium from Fukushima." http://content.usatoday.com/co... - "Japanese whalers caught 2 animals along the northern coast that had traces of radiation from leaks at a damaged nuclear power plant, officials said. 2 of 17 minke whales caught off the Pacific coast of Hokkaido showed traces of radioactive cesium, both about 1/20th of the legal limit, fisheries officials said. They are the first whales thought to have been affected by radiation leaked from the Fukushima nuclear plant since it was hit by a 3/11/11 earthquake and tsunami." nhjournal. com http://www.newser.com/story/14... http://www.newser.com/story/11... http://www.newser.com/story/17...

Astounding that you didn't know about this. If they had been Muslims, it would have been world news.
And, I win.
I correct myself: I am ABSOLUTELY astounded how little coverage this gets. ASTOUNDED. And this is me we're talking about.

http://www.christianpost.com/n...
http://www.azcentral.com/story...
http://boingboing.net/2015/03/...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
http://www.charismanews.com/us...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

These exo shelters are not meant to satisfy the requirements of the FEMA trailers used after the hurricanes, first of all. Those trailers were issued to people months after people had applied for them. It was a long distribution process with people living in group shelters waiting for the trailers to arrive.

Per this article, they also cost $19,000 in 2005 dollars. Much more than the $4000 you're estimating.

These exo shelters are a more immediate shelter solution. Deployable within hours of an emergency event. Consider the people recovering in Haiti after their big earthquake or the people sleeping on the floor of the Superdome after Katrina. FEMA trailers were not available or provided to those people in the hours and days after the disaster. These exo shelters are a possibility, though.

It's found its way into our sealife: "A news report says Japan's tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant was so unprepared for the disaster that workers had to bring protective gear and instruction manuals from elsewhere and borrow equipment from a contractor. The report, released by operator Tokyo Electric Co, is based on interviews of workers and plant data. It portrays chaos in a desperate and ultimately unsuccessful battle to protect the Fukushima plant from meltdown, and shows that workers struggled with unfamiliar equipment." ap.org/ - "Scientists have found traces of radioactivity in fish off the California coast that migrated from the waters off of Japan, site of the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster of 2011, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The researchers say the evidence is unequivocal. The young tuna were found to be contaminated with two radioactive forms of the element cesium from Fukushima." http://content.usatoday.com/co... - "Japanese whalers caught 2 animals along the northern coast that had traces of radiation from leaks at a damaged nuclear power plant, officials said. 2 of 17 minke whales caught off the Pacific coast of Hokkaido showed traces of radioactive cesium, both about 1/20th of the legal limit, fisheries officials said. They are the first whales thought to have been affected by radiation leaked from the Fukushima nuclear plant since it was hit by a 3/11/11 earthquake and tsunami." nhjournal. com

Nobody reads anymore:

"In 2009, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled that the Office of Administration was not subject to the FOIA, "because it performs only operational and administrative tasks in support of the president and his staff and therefore, under our precedent, lacks substantial independent authority."

The appeals court ruled that the White House was required to archive the e-mails, but not release them under the FOIA. Instead, White House e-mails must be released under the Presidential Records Act — but not until at least five years after the end of the administration."

Nothing to see her folks.

There is something to see here, you Obama-pandering fool.

What was that about not reading?

Oh, yeah:

Unlike other offices within the White House, which were always exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, the Office of Administration responded to FOIA requests for 30 years. Until the Obama administration, watchdog groups on the left and the right used records from the office to shed light on how the White House works.

Geez, you're Obama's Monica. How is it under the Oval Office desk?

Today the White House shut down FOIA requests to the Office of Administration. Who might the Office of Administration be, you ask? Among other things they happen to archive emails.

Linky

Oh look, a useful idiot, still clutching to The Most Transparent Administration Evar

"The irony of this being Sunshine Week is not lost on me," said Anne Weismann of the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. "It is completely out of step with the president's supposed commitment to transparency," she said. "That is a critical office, especially if you want to know, for example, how the White House is dealing with e-mail."

Here is to electing Hillary — let's just go full retard and do ten more years of the Clintons. It'll be fun!

...

And it won't kill off the whole normal breeding aspect - as cloning won't be getting you improvements, just copies of what you already have. Even the purists that are currently venomous about cloning would have much to gain. Once they naturally-breed a better horse, they'll be able to clone it for their own use - they won't be back to square one when the horse dies or needs to be put down...

Interestingly, no one appears able to breed a better race horse.

The trend line of winning race finish times shows no improvement in 70 years!

It appears that conventional breeding long ago reached the maximum potential of this closed gene pool. So cloning is not going to hold the hobby back. Remember, every entry into the Stud Book requires genotyped proof these days that it is the descendant of other horses already in the Stud Book. As one might expect for a hobby created by the idle landed aristocrats in England in the early 17th Century (the founding stallion, Byerly Turk, was bred in the 1680s), you only get to play if you have the right breeding. A faster horse with outside breeding is beneath their notice.

Hmmm... you have to be careful with Russian media:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

http://www.gallup.com/poll/167...

His poll numbers were in decline and most analysts believe his actions are a crass political ploy to boost his poll numbers in Russia:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

I can cite articles and conclusions from think tanks all over the world if you like. I read something from a Japanese source the other day that said the same thing.

This is how the governments of the world see this action.

And that US counter response is going to focus on Putin's support base.

When later on you find out that the accused was actually innocent, if they're in prison, you can let them go and write them a check to at least partly compensate for the injustice done to them.

Not any more, in the UK.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/barry...

To be fair though, not just the UK:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

Mobile payments are here. It will take some time to become ubiquitous to the point where you no longer need a wallet, but it's coming. Digital IDs (i.e. digital drivers license) are the next step. Once we have these, wallets will no longer be as common. Why carry a wallet and a phone with you if you only need the phone?

Sates working on Digital IDs:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

Has anyone studied the effect on the environment of taking all of that energy out of the wind?

Yes. It's basically a nonissue.

What if seeds and dust aren't carried as far?

Then they settle someplace else. No actual evidence exists however to indicate wind turbines are actually causing such an effect however on any sort of substantial scale.

How does that affect terraforming?

We're on Terra so terraforming on terra is meaningless.

What about migratory birds? Has anyone bothered to solve the problem of mass kills during migration season?

The number of birds killed by wind turbines is a rounding error compared to the number killed by domestic cats.

The Earth is going to be destroyed by people (on both sides of the political aisle) who refuse to take a reasoned approach to our energy crisis.

What energy crisis? We have no lack of energy. We have a pollution crisis due to a lack of clean energy sources. Wind is demonstrably cleaner than some of the alternatives. There is no ideal energy source with no problems so it's a minimization problem. What is the least worst way to supply energy without resulting in catastrophic climate effects.

The root causes of our energy shortage, climate change, starvation, hunger, crime, and disease, are all one in the same: OVERPOPULATION.

There is no energy shortage. Climate change is due to pollution, not overpopulation. Starvation and hunger are distribution problems, not production problems. Crime has existed since the dawn of mankind and has nothing inherently to do with overpopulation. Same for disease. At most some of these problems can be exacerbated by population but population is not the root cause of any of them.

In our state it was in the homes of felons and gang members where over 90% of child gun accidents occurred. The main state newspaper looked at the past 200 shootings of children in "gun owning homes" and over and over they found the gun owner was an illegal un owners, over 90% of whom were prior felons or persons in gangs. Indeed the homes of gun owners who are not prior felons, prior criminals or gang embers are about 20% SAFER from violence than unarmed homes When you control for the fact that within any given demographic suicide rates (2/3 of gun deaths) don't change, just method changes, with or without guns, and 90% of accidents being in the homes of prior criminals, and 90% of gun homicide victims being prior criminals themselves, gun owning homes of persons not in those groups are safer than non gun owning homes! http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

In other news, strictly black-only frats and sororities have all also been disbanded for being racially exclusive.

Probably; one opinion piece and a news article indicate that such organizations don't exist.

simple economics drives the explosion of tuition, and almost nothing else.

once the government started handing out cheap, plentiful money to students in the form of loans and grants, the universities have every incentive to capture it all, plus more from mom and dad, if possible.

Except that has absolutely nothing to do with why tuition is rising.

You mean the "campus rape crisis" that doesn't actually exist on the campuses where women are actually less likely to be raped than women in the general population? The entire thing is based on poor statistics, something for which the users of those statistics are at least as responsible for as the originators.

Any rape is too much rape, but by creating fairy stories about the prevalence, causes and definition of rape you won't do anything useful to reduce that figure. In fact you'll probably make it worse.

Posting ac because, unfortunately, it's just too dangerous to say things like this in connection with one's IRL identity these days.

Whenever statistics is used to talk about discrimination (sexual, racial, religious), two conflicting sets of axioms are employed by the people arguing. Allow me to enumerate:

• All groups of people (genders, races, religions) are, on average, the same and any statistically-observed differences in their behavior or treatment can only be due to bigotry.
• All groups of people (genders, races, religions) are, on average, treated the same and any statistically-observed differences in their behavior or treatment can only be due their own differences from others.

Obviously, the first axiom — and conclusions — is the politically-correct official stance championed by the government. And I'd like to share it too. But it contradicts some of the well-known facts:

1. Vastly more Black kids (67%!) are growing up in single-parent households than any other race.
2. Asian kids — who should be, if the "Whites-are-racists" narrative is to be believed, be suffering just as well — are, in fact, doing so well, college admission boards (adherents of the first axiom) penalize them by about 140 points compared to Whites. It is so ugly, some Asians choose to not answer the "race" question on their application at all.

So, the first axiom is shot by reality...

Maybe, it is all about single-parenthood — all human cultures were highly suspicious of bastard children (the very term is a derogatory one). And not because the mother "sinned" — if that were the case, her subsequent marriage would not have absolved the child — but because it is much harder for a single parent to raise a child into a decent human being. So, the "preconditioned" response this study exposed may not be so much about race per se, as about the likelihood of the person to be not right in the head — they are about 2.5-3 times more likely to have grown up without a father.

It'd be interesting, if the study used Whites, who've grown up in those parts of the world, where Blacks' incidence of single-parenthood is not so awfully lopsided. And compared them with the American Whites.

"gets more awesome the more news I hear about him"

You mean like screaming about evolution being not true?
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/1...

Or giving Rhode Island taxpayers the shaft when his completely failed as a businessman, and left them holding the bag?
http://updates.deadspin.com/po...

I'm just really curious about your definition of awesome?

That reminds me of singer Leonard Cohen, who last September turned 80 and celebrated by resuming smoking after quitting for thirty years. I guess Nimoy couldn't smoke in his old age because of his COPD, but now at least he won't crave cigarettes any more.

Right now, at this time, people and small business (and thus the economy) are losing a lot of money because unions are closing down the docks in major ports. Why? Because they want their uneducated box-pushers who are already earning 147k a year, to make even more. Did you read that? People who did not invest in any degree, dropped out of high school and got a job at the docks earning 147k a year, and are now demanding more. Demanding more by crippling the rest of the economy. Are you kidding me?
 

Yes, I read it. It's $83,000 a year, not $147,000. Stop bragging about how smart you are if you can't read a simple newspaper story, realize there are two sides to the story, and do some simple arithmetic.

You say it would be fair for them to make $35/h. Well, $35/h x 40h/wk x 50 wk/yr = $70,000/yr, which is pretty close to $83,000. So they merely drove a good bargain. You have a problem with people making good money?

There are reasons why they make so much money that you resent them.

First, they know how to negotiate. That's something you might learn from them.

When they negotiate, they don't want to match the race to the bottom. They know how much their employer is making and they want a piece of the action. They want job security and they want, in effect, something like an ownership interest in the company. That's not so strange. In Germany, unions have a seat on the board of directors of a company.

Second, they made a grand bargain decades ago. There was new technology that would make their job more labor-saving and efficient. Instead of obstructing it, they agreed to be forward-thinking and go along with it. However, if the company got the benefits of improved efficiency, they wanted the benefits of improved efficiency too. That's why they're making $83,000 a year. Here's a profitable business, where the owners are making millions a year. Why should they settle for $70,000 when their boss is rich and could easily pay $83,000 a year?

My landlord was making at least $300,000 a year, probably more. He inherited the building from his father, like most landlords. He worked hard, just like a longshoreman. Do I envy him? No. That's the free market.

If you live in a rental building, do you envy your landlord if he makes $300,000 a year? Do you envy your maintenance man, who fixes your boiler? Do you envy your auto mechanic? This is a rich country. Why do you want to drag everybody down to the bottom?

"smash the unions!" is like shouting "GMO is evil!"

Right now, at this time, people and small business (and thus the economy) are losing a lot of money because unions are closing down the docks in major ports. Why? Because they want their uneducated box-pushers who are already earning 147k a year, to make even more. Did you read that? People who did not invest in any degree, dropped out of high school and got a job at the docks earning 147k a year, and are now demanding more. Demanding more by crippling the rest of the economy. Are you kidding me?

TFA even says:

"Now is the opportunity for shuttle bus drivers, for food service workers, for janitors, for security officers to re-ask the question: Should I be equally as valued as the high tech workers in the high tech industry?" said David Huerta, president of United Service Workers West.

Really? I mean, really? Are you seriously expecting an employee without a high school diploma doing the most simple job in the world to earn the same income as someone with a Master's degree or PHD? Really? That's just plain nonsense. Remember that all they do is drive a vehicle from A to B. Something that all of us do on a very regular basis.

Let's for a moment look at a Bay Area without bus drivers. There would be a bit more cars on the road so it would take me an hour to get to work instead of 40 minutes. And perhaps I'd work from home a bit more.

Now let's see what would happen to Apple, Google or Facebook if there would be no software engineers. Oh wait, I forgot. There would be no Apple, Google, or Facebook.

Is it really that weird that tech companies pay their high value tech employees more than the average bus driver?

The one thing that I agree with, and I agree with that very strongly, is that everyone who has a full time job should be able to earn a living wage and get healthcare benefits. Every single bus driver, every single janitor, every single security guard should be able to put a roof over their head, buy some nice toys for their kids and go to Disneyland once in a while. So in that sense, I do agree with the outcome of the process, and even think that the $27,50 is a bit low. $35 would be better and fair, considering the housing market in the Bay area.

But they should also realize that if they had done better in school (no, that English major does not count), they could have had a tech job as well. It takes 16+ years of education to get a Master's degree. It takes less than 16 months to get a commercial driver's license. That fact is embedded in tech workers wages.

Yes, but I have kids and we've always been told not to feed them peanuts till they are a certain age. Now it looks like that was bad advice. http://www.usatoday.com/story/... But, how do I know that a new study won't come out next year that will say "Hold everything! Giving babies peanuts is actually a deadly thing to do!" It's just so frustrating that it causes paralysis to set in since I don't know when to trust the science and when not to trust the science. In this case, the science is saying to give kids peanuts, but I think I'll stick with the old recommendations for my kids.

Heh, I just saw a link to this article on USA Today ;-) http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

but it is very clear that a majority of people are not middle class in terms of wealth

I think this is the key point of your entire post, and being honest, it doesn't say a whole lot.

What metric are you using to define middle class, and furthermore, where exactly does the goalpost reside, and how often does that goalpost change?

Remember that in terms of income, the goalpost is always rising, even in the absence of inflation. For example in one year you could have $20,000 being defined within the scope of middle class, and then the next year it could be defined as poverty, even though the person making $20,000 a year has not become less wealthy. Sure the dollar value may have gone down, however the purchasing power may very well have stayed the same.

As an example for that last sentence: Even though, due to inflation, food prices have gone up over the last few years, however the real cost of food (that is, adjusted for inflation) is presently the lowest it's ever been.

http://www.aei.org/publication...

And before you say that it's because food is less healthy or because everybody buys junk food, that is also wrong:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

People who claim otherwise are usually members of the Church of Organic Food, who seem to believe that organic food is the only healthy way to live, when in reality it's just a big fat waste of time and money (and also the organic food lobby, which is very wealthy, loves you to believe in that bullshit.)

Well, Finland already has a border with Russia and the way things are going, it's entirely possible Estonia and the rest of the Baltics will be returned to Russia's "sphere of influence" by 2030. Promises made by NATO to put a brigade in Poland and create local headquarters in each of the Baltic states have made depressingly little progress and the EU has made it clear that avoiding conflict with Russia is worth the sacrifice of nations on the periphery of Europe.

no such thing as an accidental shooting.

Ah .. so this was a pre-meditated, self inflicted wound? Off-duty police officer accidentally shoots himself

No his IT guy just got shitcanned for being a mysoginist and a gay basher.

http://onpolitics.usatoday.com...

I'd say good ol' Jeb is not off to a good start.

They've already done that...

More people qualified to create valuable, exportable products is never a bad thing (assuming it isn't an immediate influx). An industry can shrink or grow based on available talent.

Yeah, of course. As long as those morons go into debt and get compsci and engineering degrees, we can sift through 40 or 50 resumes and remind them that they're basically worth the dog shit on the bottom of our shoes, and pick the few who are willing to lick our boots. The other 74% can work at McDonalds for the same pay.

Let's get more available talent deep in debt so we can push their salaries even further down, reduce their benefits more, and generally abuse our employees. If they get snippy, we fire them; there's like 4 times as many employable degree holders out there as there are jobs anyway, we won't have a problem filling our positions.

You mean a career at mcdonalds? This may be true if you're really "dicking around", but if you're studying hard for a quality education then yes it does benefit the poor. Education is the best way to lift anyone out of poverty.

4 more years without a job to get what amounts to a high school diploma--because damn near everyone has a bachelor's degree, so you're not really getting elevated--is not lifting anyone out of poverty. It's putting risks and demands on them that will impact their lives forever; it's putting risks on them that they can't afford, that they don't have the money to control. It's putting strain on them that more affluent people can better manage and survive.

Businesses ultimately pay for the education of their graduates through salary.

Businesses ultimately benefit from mass college education through a labor market surplus, resulting in reduced salaries. Instead of paying $150k for a programmer in 1995, they pay $63,700 for a programer in 2010.

It's true that it would be nice to get businesses to invest more in education directly, but eliminating government subsidies is not the way.

I'm not talking about where money comes from, but how.

You, the individual, have to get a college degree. What degree do you get? If you look at the job market, you will see Project Managers are coming into high demand. In the coming years, entry-level salaries of $85-$100k are on the table. So you become a Project Manager, you get your degree in 2019, you get your PMP; and, in 2019, you find that the fastest-growing career field has become a glutenous mess like computer programming, and a good Project Manager makes about $65k, possibly $75k when your career is developed out, if he can get a job at all. Enjoy your unemployment.

When a business examines its operations, it projects growth in the coming years. It sees expansion, sees that it needs more Project Managers, more Computer Programmers. It hires some new people with minimal qualifications, possibly uneducated and untrained, for cheap. It then begins training and educating them, paying for their tuition, moving grunt work from the high-dollar labor onto the lower-skilled labor. It builds a workforce, because it knows what workforce it needs; the business takes almost no risk in this, and the laborer IS BEING PAID TO BE EDUCATED and so takes no risk.

As long as the business can just wait for the individual to make themselves into the labor force needed, the business will do nothing. It's not a matter of chipping money in; if you wanted to do that, pay for college entirely in business payroll taxes, and you would still have a sub-optimal system with fewer jobs, higher unemployment, and lower salaries, with individuals taking risks and spending four years or more incapable of entering their career field and basically wasting their time sitting in a classroom.

You want a horrible idea? Government subsidizing the labor market to prop up

There are strip clubs that accept amex?

Of course. Like this guy who charged $241,000 to his amex at Scores (a strip club in New York):

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

Or this guy who charged $135k to his amex:

http://nypost.com/2014/04/22/i...

Or this guy who spent $129,626:

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/...