Re:Hammerheads in Vermont
on
Carly Is Out
·
· Score: 1
You're making a towering, unstated, and very material assumption: SprocketCo can continue to sell the same number of sprockets at $1.25 as it did when the price was $1. In that case, which is your absolute best case scenario, you can completely pay for the increased input cost of the minimum wage with the increased revenue of the now more expensive sprockets. The rise in sprocket prices exactly offsets the increased labor costs making them _exactly equal_; the relative percentage of increase is irrelevant, and that's just your best case scenario.
That won't happen in reality of course. In the real world a 25% increase in sprocket cost is going to reduce the total number of sprockets sold as some portion of worldwide sprocket sales will no longer make financial sense for the sprocket buyers. Now you've got a gap between the cost of providing the minimum wage (increased labor costs) and paying for it (revenue); so who's going to pay for it?
There are lots of different ways to answer that question but the underlying fact remains: someone is going to pay for it. Maybe SprocketCo lays off workers to make up the difference (or simply freezes hiring), maybe SprocketCo reduces their dividend and pays out less to shareholders (or reduces bonuses for your non-minimum wage workers), maybe they start looking to outsource labor to some other country (or invest in more automation), or maybe all of the above.
In any case, you've provided a temporary benefit to a small number of people and permanently harmed some other group or groups. In the end though you've only really made everyone worse off. It feels good but that's just an illusion.
Interesting, I didn't even know there was auto-refresh on/. Perhaps I have the.js blocked somehow. In any case I'm glad not to have it. If you feel like it's necessary, I'd suggest something like Disqus' feature where it shows a visual indication there are new comments but doesn't actually insert them in the thread.
IIRC correctly the old metamod system had a link right there to see the post in context. I recall needing to use it about 1/3 of the time which is probably a good enough reason to show some of the thread context without asking, as you suggested.
It's not a defect of/. per se but a reflection of the type of stories that have been promoted recently. The previous owners made an intentional decision to post inflammatory political stories that brought the political kooks out of the woodwork. Over time we got more political kooks and less geeks. It definitely started a death spiral; I know I stopped coming here as much. Now you can't even post a geeky article without it devolving into a red v. blue flame fest.
That's not something you can fix over night. It's going to take a long established history of restoring the 'news for nerds' mantle to/. before the user base recovers. When that happens then you'll see a return to the quality of comments we used to have.
"The real bitch I've had about Slashdot is the article choices."
+1 Agree. In the past (few?) years it's become obvious that the editors were selecting political articles with not much news for nerds but lots of red team/blue team thread wars. I would not be sad to see that category of articles go and never return.
"Universities, research companies, EMR vendors, and biotech firms using big data analysis to perform studies will consider this granularity a godsend..."
-1 Disagree
It will be a godsend only if you happen to worship a particularly cruel and vengeful god. The data that's collected is going to be absolute s**t outside of a few 1000 commonly used (and reimbursed) codes. (Which is going to vary wildly among providers and insurers.) Everything else is going to be filled with errors and statistical outliers and the real white whales you're searching for are going to be buried invisibly in those commonly used codes.
No the real benefit is going to be in scamming the system. A coding system this ridiculous is ripe for abuse. Surely there are many companies right now figuring out exactly how to plausibly code almost any mundane injury so that it generates the maximum reimbursement for the provider. Of course, as insurers get wise to the scam they'll change the rates for the scammed codes forcing the scam to move to another code and screwing the 1:1,000,000 people who actually did fall off their water skis while burning.
It will be a never-ending chase through the 10's of 1000's of useless codes.
The parent post said: "There is no way to prevent 3D printers and CNC mills from being manufactured."
A true but unhelpful statement. My point was to look at how printers, copiers, scanners, and even image editing software have been modified to deter counterfeiting:
"By accessing or using the Instagram website, the Instagram service, or any applications (including mobile applications) made available by Instagram (together, the "Service"), however accessed, you agree to be bound by these terms of use ("Terms of Use"). The Service is owned or controlled by Instagram, LLC ("Instagram"). These Terms of Use affect your legal rights and obligations. If you do not agree to be bound by all of these Terms of Use, do not access or use the Service.... Rights
1. Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, subject to the Service's Privacy Policy, available here http://instagram.com/legal/pri..., including but not limited to sections 3 ("Sharing of Your Information"), 4 ("How We Store Your Information"), and 5 ("Your Choices About Your Information"). You can choose who can view your Content and activities, including your photos, as described in the Privacy Policy.... 5. The Service contains content owned or licensed by Instagram ("Instagram Content"). Instagram Content is protected by copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret and other laws, and, as between you and Instagram, Instagram owns and retains all rights in the Instagram Content and the Service. You will not remove, alter or conceal any copyright, trademark, service mark or other proprietary rights notices incorporated in or accompanying the Instagram Content and you will not reproduce, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works based on, perform, display, publish, distribute, transmit, broadcast, sell, license or otherwise exploit the Instagram Content."
Agreed. To me this is the most over-looked/under-discussed angle on this story: the extreme lack of judgement displayed in making this decision isn't a good sign for someone coyly begging us to give her more power.
This wasn't an accident; she very clearly and intentionally made a reckless choice in placing her own personal benefit over the welfare of the nation.
In the end, I think her calculation was that she could make this choice with no consequences for herself and, sadly, I think she will be correct.
AT&T also played a role with their brain dead CEO stomping around huffing and puffing in outrage that people would dare to use the bandwidth he sold them.
Had anyone been interested in solving the problem you describe it could have been done very easily: it's flat out fraud to sell me access to the entire Internet and then go behind my back to the sites I want to visit and demand a ransom for my traffic. If the ISPs were legally liable for that kind of bait-and-switch then the problem would quickly sort itself out.
Instead you've nearly guaranteed that you're going to get traffic prioritized in ways you don't like. The only difference is that now you have absolutely no recourse as the traffic shaping you fear will have been blessed by your well greased and totally captured government regulators. You know, for the children or the terrorists or something.
Slashdot Mirror
Muhahaha! There is no protection from me!
You're making a towering, unstated, and very material assumption: SprocketCo can continue to sell the same number of sprockets at $1.25 as it did when the price was $1. In that case, which is your absolute best case scenario, you can completely pay for the increased input cost of the minimum wage with the increased revenue of the now more expensive sprockets. The rise in sprocket prices exactly offsets the increased labor costs making them _exactly equal_; the relative percentage of increase is irrelevant, and that's just your best case scenario.
That won't happen in reality of course. In the real world a 25% increase in sprocket cost is going to reduce the total number of sprockets sold as some portion of worldwide sprocket sales will no longer make financial sense for the sprocket buyers. Now you've got a gap between the cost of providing the minimum wage (increased labor costs) and paying for it (revenue); so who's going to pay for it?
There are lots of different ways to answer that question but the underlying fact remains: someone is going to pay for it. Maybe SprocketCo lays off workers to make up the difference (or simply freezes hiring), maybe SprocketCo reduces their dividend and pays out less to shareholders (or reduces bonuses for your non-minimum wage workers), maybe they start looking to outsource labor to some other country (or invest in more automation), or maybe all of the above.
In any case, you've provided a temporary benefit to a small number of people and permanently harmed some other group or groups. In the end though you've only really made everyone worse off. It feels good but that's just an illusion.
Interesting, I didn't even know there was auto-refresh on /. Perhaps I have the .js blocked somehow. In any case I'm glad not to have it. If you feel like it's necessary, I'd suggest something like Disqus' feature where it shows a visual indication there are new comments but doesn't actually insert them in the thread.
+1 on this idea.
Also perhaps occasionally require a metamod (old style; on a different story) before you can submit a post?
IIRC correctly the old metamod system had a link right there to see the post in context. I recall needing to use it about 1/3 of the time which is probably a good enough reason to show some of the thread context without asking, as you suggested.
Agreed, this is a site for nerds. Exactly how hard would it be to give us versioning on edited comments?
It's not a defect of /. per se but a reflection of the type of stories that have been promoted recently. The previous owners made an intentional decision to post inflammatory political stories that brought the political kooks out of the woodwork. Over time we got more political kooks and less geeks. It definitely started a death spiral; I know I stopped coming here as much. Now you can't even post a geeky article without it devolving into a red v. blue flame fest.
That's not something you can fix over night. It's going to take a long established history of restoring the 'news for nerds' mantle to /. before the user base recovers. When that happens then you'll see a return to the quality of comments we used to have.
-1 Disagree
-1 Challenges my intellectual prejudices
+1 Agree.
"The real bitch I've had about Slashdot is the article choices."
+1 Agree. In the past (few?) years it's become obvious that the editors were selecting political articles with not much news for nerds but lots of red team/blue team thread wars. I would not be sad to see that category of articles go and never return.
"Universities, research companies, EMR vendors, and biotech firms using big data analysis to perform studies will consider this granularity a godsend..."
-1 Disagree
It will be a godsend only if you happen to worship a particularly cruel and vengeful god. The data that's collected is going to be absolute s**t outside of a few 1000 commonly used (and reimbursed) codes. (Which is going to vary wildly among providers and insurers.) Everything else is going to be filled with errors and statistical outliers and the real white whales you're searching for are going to be buried invisibly in those commonly used codes.
No the real benefit is going to be in scamming the system. A coding system this ridiculous is ripe for abuse. Surely there are many companies right now figuring out exactly how to plausibly code almost any mundane injury so that it generates the maximum reimbursement for the provider. Of course, as insurers get wise to the scam they'll change the rates for the scammed codes forcing the scam to move to another code and screwing the 1:1,000,000 people who actually did fall off their water skis while burning.
It will be a never-ending chase through the 10's of 1000's of useless codes.
And people wonder why health care costs so much.
The parent post said: "There is no way to prevent 3D printers and CNC mills from being manufactured."
A true but unhelpful statement. My point was to look at how printers, copiers, scanners, and even image editing software have been modified to deter counterfeiting:
http://www.rulesforuse.org/pub...
It's not a stretch to imagine the same sort of restrictions being mandated for 3D printers and CNC machines.
Try copying a US $20 bill on any modern copier.
Then you may find the information at this link helpful: https://instagram.com/about/le...
Interesting excerpts:
"By accessing or using the Instagram website, the Instagram service, or any applications (including mobile applications) made available by Instagram (together, the "Service"), however accessed, you agree to be bound by these terms of use ("Terms of Use"). The Service is owned or controlled by Instagram, LLC ("Instagram"). These Terms of Use affect your legal rights and obligations. If you do not agree to be bound by all of these Terms of Use, do not access or use the Service. ...
Rights
1. Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, subject to the Service's Privacy Policy, available here http://instagram.com/legal/pri..., including but not limited to sections 3 ("Sharing of Your Information"), 4 ("How We Store Your Information"), and 5 ("Your Choices About Your Information"). You can choose who can view your Content and activities, including your photos, as described in the Privacy Policy. ...
5. The Service contains content owned or licensed by Instagram ("Instagram Content"). Instagram Content is protected by copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret and other laws, and, as between you and Instagram, Instagram owns and retains all rights in the Instagram Content and the Service. You will not remove, alter or conceal any copyright, trademark, service mark or other proprietary rights notices incorporated in or accompanying the Instagram Content and you will not reproduce, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works based on, perform, display, publish, distribute, transmit, broadcast, sell, license or otherwise exploit the Instagram Content."
Oh how I wish I had mod points! +1
You can read it here: SB 101
Maybe reading the actual bill would help you untwist your panties: SB 101
It doesn't say what you think it says.
There's a significant difference: CP is alleged to have used a personal account "sometimes." HRC used personal email intentionally and exclusively.
It's a demonstration of arrogance, ignorance, and bad judgement that seriously calls into question her credentials to be the next POTUS.
Agreed. To me this is the most over-looked/under-discussed angle on this story: the extreme lack of judgement displayed in making this decision isn't a good sign for someone coyly begging us to give her more power.
This wasn't an accident; she very clearly and intentionally made a reckless choice in placing her own personal benefit over the welfare of the nation.
In the end, I think her calculation was that she could make this choice with no consequences for herself and, sadly, I think she will be correct.
And smoothing the skirts ... don't forget the F***KING skirt smoothing...
AT&T also played a role with their brain dead CEO stomping around huffing and puffing in outrage that people would dare to use the bandwidth he sold them.
Had anyone been interested in solving the problem you describe it could have been done very easily: it's flat out fraud to sell me access to the entire Internet and then go behind my back to the sites I want to visit and demand a ransom for my traffic. If the ISPs were legally liable for that kind of bait-and-switch then the problem would quickly sort itself out.
Instead you've nearly guaranteed that you're going to get traffic prioritized in ways you don't like. The only difference is that now you have absolutely no recourse as the traffic shaping you fear will have been blessed by your well greased and totally captured government regulators. You know, for the children or the terrorists or something.
http://www.ubnt.com/products/#...
For $99 it's hard to beat:
http://www.ubnt.com/edgemax/ed...
http://www.amazon.com/EdgeRout...