And the US is one trillion dollar coin away from austerity.
Too true. Yes this probably could be done once with the existing debt but after that any time we try to sell debt we would end up paying stupid high rates as the entity buying the debt can assume that it is entirely possible that $1 trillion in debt will be repaid with ~$1300 in platinum (present day dollars for an ounce) and will price that risk in. I have no idea how much that risk would cost but it wouldn't be good for the US Dollar. I suggest that if they go ahead and create any of these coins we give them the nickname the "American Notgeld".
Why do you think consumer goods are built so craptastically, when the technology exists to make very durable and reliable products that would last? Because crappy products fit with a shorter product lifecycle paradigm, that maximizes profits.
That and it seems that most consumers will buy the item with the cheapest up front cost even if total cost over a given amount of time is higher. It is cheaper to make a product that won't last that it is to make one that will. I notice this a lot with tools, the most recent example was with the welder I bought. I could have gotten the $99 Northern Tool or Harbor Freight wire feed welder but after doing a bit of research found out that the quality was really dodgy and it may or may not work out of the box and even if it works it probably won't work for long. So instead I bought the smallest Hobart Welder (the parent company is Miller) as there the complaints were that the fan runs all the time (save money by not putting in a thermal switch so instead just run the fan when powered on), and that it isn't a Lincoln. Granted it was 2.5x as much as the cheap crap on sale but I haven't had any problems with it in the 2 years I have had it and am currently on my 4th 2lb spool of flux core wire.
The printing of paper currency is handled by the Federal Reserve Bank look at one of the paper bills in your wallet it states that it is a "Federal Reserve Note". There are rules and regulations on how much and what denominations can be printed that were set by congress. Also this wouldn't work with silver, gold, copper, or nickel (standard coins and some bullion coins) as those are also regulated by congress. The reason that hypothetically minting a trillion dollar platinum (possibly also palladium but I would need to check the law authorizing the creation of those coins) coin would be legal is that minting of those coins is not controlled by congressional legislation as congress gave that power to the Treasury Secretary.
They might actually be. There is a whole list of countries that you cannot import a vehicle from, unless the catalytic converter has been replaced or put back on, as they use leaded gasoline that would have poisoned that converter.
That is the problem it is a career for them. I have seen other analyses of it and saw similar numbers. One of my coworkers at the time (from India) thought that the panhandlers in Portland were like the ones in India until I told him to look at their shoes one. He did one day when we were out having a smoke and commented that their shoes were nicer than his. After that he stopped giving them money.
They might have been the ones sitting outside of the Starbucks on their 350lbs ass playing on their iDevice asking if you can spare some change while in the same breath asking if they can buy a smoke from you. Or possibly the ones asking if you can spare some change so they can get to down town on the train even though they are in the free zone for the train. I got real sick of the bums in Portland when I was there and thought about building a potato cannon and shelling them from my apartment windows. And these weren't the ones who should be in a state hospital but weren't they were the lazy ones who viewed pan handling as a career, I even heard the one fat ass woman who sat infront of Starbucks bitching to a cop one day when another bum set up shop up the street as he was "cutting off all my business and you need to do something about it" according to the regular bum.
The one I have is this one but that is only the first volume (there are 4) and my biggest beef is that it is paper back and not very durable. It seems that there are a number various translations of varying quality and embellishment and as I don't have a copy of the original and would not be able to read it anyway I can't really compare the various translations to the original. At the time when I got my set it was the only one I could find as Amazon didn't exist and you had to buy stuff from the store. It has been a long while since I last read it (probably close to 15 years) but I don't remember it being overly racist.
Yes I am proud of the effort and creativity used to fix the problem but it is some really ugly shitty code that I wouldn't want anyone to see, and hopefully they won't.
Group work sucks in general especially when it is forced on you in places where it shouldn't be. A great example of crap group work is in a pre-algebra math class, or in a college intro to writing class where you are trying to write a 10 page joke of a research paper. Now on the other hand group work in classes makes sense when working on a large project with like minded individuals who are equally motivated like in my robotics course where most projects were group projects but then it was filled with senior level college students in either the CS or EE majors and who all wanted to do well and who all brought something unique and useful to each project.
It is only racist if what you are saying is politically incorrect. Your statement about people of African decent (to be even more specific east African) in general being better runners is not considered racist but a similar statement about people of eastern Europeans decent in general being better power lifters would probably be considered racist. If one looks at actual results in both categories from something like recent Olympics it would seem to back up both statements. The reason for these differences would seem to be selective pressures from each group living in diverse areas for extended periods of time. Thus the group from Africa who will run a critter until it is exhausted and can't run any more and then kill it will have better running abilities while those that don't need to run long distances but need more bulk and strength will have selected for that. Physical anthropology is a fascinating area that deals with this and was a rather enlightening class when I took it in college. I do however wonder about the Asian eyes and what benefit that provided, if it was random genetic drift, or something that was culturally selected for early on.
Sometimes not. I have some code that I wrote that I will never admit to as it really was a dirty java reflection hack to get around an issue in a 3rd party framework that would eat all exceptions and not let you know if something failed. At least I documented why the hell I was doing that in the code and explained what was happening so that the next poor bastard who gets to look at that code won't wonder WTF I was doing.
Seriously that is how I started writing good code. If it was code he hasn't looked at in years it works best as then he has to suffer through his own problems and wondering what the hell is going oin. I learned this very early on when I was still in school and was trying to create my own game on the side that I would work on periodically. After dealing with some of my own early garbage code (piss poor names, no documentation, shit structure) I learned real quick to make my own life easier and write better code. I know I write better code now than I did then and am always trying to be better.
I think it will be the crappy cartoons that are on now. The other day a bunch of friends and I were over at one guy's house and he had gotten his kids down to bed. We didn't notice that the TV was on and he proclaimed "What the crap is this?" after seeing the cartoon that was on that his kids were watching. We all had a good laugh as our parents bitched about the music we listened to and we realized that we all were turning into them just with different things.
They seem to only teach the mild Shakespeare in high school. Really how many of you were turned off on Shakespere because of Romeo and Juliet or a Midsummer Night's Dream. Once I got past those and had an intro to Shakespeare class in college it was much better as I wasn't looking for hidden meaning and over analyzing it I found it to be enjoyable. As my college professor pointed out 'Here is a metaphor for you "He ploughed her and she cropped"' on the first day of class since he didn't want the class to be like the high school English class everyone hated. No hidden meaning or deep thought there. Most classical literature is filled with sex and violence and you are correct in that it is usually much more explicate than a video game. For example I suggest reading:
One thousand and one nights
Beowulf
The Divine Comedy
Roman/Greek Mythology
Oedipus
Gilgamesh
The Canterbury Tales
The Iliad
The Odyssey
Shakespeare you weren't forced to read in high school
Why is it my mind immediately jumped to the Worms series of games instead of cartoons, but that would have been the donkey drop instead of an anvil. Although re-watching those old cartoons there was not only quite a bit of violence but a lot of sexual innuendo (old Disney shorts), and racism (Tom and Jerry) as well.
When I was in the Boy Scouts of America (20+ years ago) my troop was fairly accepting. I am not sure about the gay thing as it was fairly socially acceptable for everyone to bash gays then (man I really regret how much of an ass I was at times) but as far as religious views it seemed my troop didn't care. From my understanding these things vary greatly from troop to troop as the first one I was in was very religious as most of the member were Catholic but the one I was in most of my time (after my family moved) was much better and focused more on the outdoors and "traditional" scout skills like camping, hiking fishing, canoeing (boating in general), shooting, orienteering, rope work, etc. We did do a fair amount community service but it was real community service like repairing trails in city and county parks, setting up an interpretive trail in one of the parks, clearing invasive plants out of parks, helping out with the community clean up days, picking up trash from the roadside, volunteer at the food shelf, as well as a host of other things that benefited the whole community in general. It became unfun when we got a bunch of new leaders who only cared that everyone was advancing in rank and were pushing everyone to make it to Eagle Scout. I was quite happy at Star but since I hadn't advanced in rank in 3 years the new scout masters weren't pleased as they felt I wasn't doing anything even though I was still earning a bunch of other merit badges and awards.
Personally I like the graphics tablets best for precision work. I got one for my wife a couple of years ago (for doing quilt design) and they are great little devices but a bit on the spendy side ($50 to $100 for a decent one). For what they are meant to be used for they are awesome devices and I have taken to using it when I am touching up photos or doing GIS work as it makes things easier.
Yet mine has consistently gone up with the exception of 08 when it went down about 3%. You should really consider being more diversified and re-balancing every so often (I do it 2 to 4 times a year when things start getting unbalanced). Yes in the boom years it wasn't quite as good but then in the bad years it wasn't the blood letting that others saw. Now that the end of year financial statements are arriving it looks like it was a fairly good year with between 12% and 19% rate of return for things (Roth IRA, 401K, brokerage account with a diverse set of mutual funds, company stock, 529 savings plans, etc) which isn't too bad but still not like the crazy years just before 08 where 25% to 30% happened all the time.
Slashdot Mirror
And the US is one trillion dollar coin away from austerity.
Too true. Yes this probably could be done once with the existing debt but after that any time we try to sell debt we would end up paying stupid high rates as the entity buying the debt can assume that it is entirely possible that $1 trillion in debt will be repaid with ~$1300 in platinum (present day dollars for an ounce) and will price that risk in. I have no idea how much that risk would cost but it wouldn't be good for the US Dollar. I suggest that if they go ahead and create any of these coins we give them the nickname the "American Notgeld".
Why do you think consumer goods are built so craptastically, when the technology exists to make very durable and reliable products that would last? Because crappy products fit with a shorter product lifecycle paradigm, that maximizes profits.
That and it seems that most consumers will buy the item with the cheapest up front cost even if total cost over a given amount of time is higher. It is cheaper to make a product that won't last that it is to make one that will. I notice this a lot with tools, the most recent example was with the welder I bought. I could have gotten the $99 Northern Tool or Harbor Freight wire feed welder but after doing a bit of research found out that the quality was really dodgy and it may or may not work out of the box and even if it works it probably won't work for long. So instead I bought the smallest Hobart Welder (the parent company is Miller) as there the complaints were that the fan runs all the time (save money by not putting in a thermal switch so instead just run the fan when powered on), and that it isn't a Lincoln. Granted it was 2.5x as much as the cheap crap on sale but I haven't had any problems with it in the 2 years I have had it and am currently on my 4th 2lb spool of flux core wire.
The printing of paper currency is handled by the Federal Reserve Bank look at one of the paper bills in your wallet it states that it is a "Federal Reserve Note". There are rules and regulations on how much and what denominations can be printed that were set by congress. Also this wouldn't work with silver, gold, copper, or nickel (standard coins and some bullion coins) as those are also regulated by congress. The reason that hypothetically minting a trillion dollar platinum (possibly also palladium but I would need to check the law authorizing the creation of those coins) coin would be legal is that minting of those coins is not controlled by congressional legislation as congress gave that power to the Treasury Secretary.
They might actually be. There is a whole list of countries that you cannot import a vehicle from, unless the catalytic converter has been replaced or put back on, as they use leaded gasoline that would have poisoned that converter.
and especially the ban of tetraethyl lead as an anti-knock agent in gasoline starting in 1996
I didn't know that I could legally be running leaded fuel in 1996. /snarky
Hey sometimes brute force and ignorance are the best way to open something.
Not having to have two sets of wrenches
You only have 2. I have Metric, ASE, and Whitworth wrenches.
It could be worse you could have to deal with whitworth bolts and nuts.
That is the problem it is a career for them. I have seen other analyses of it and saw similar numbers. One of my coworkers at the time (from India) thought that the panhandlers in Portland were like the ones in India until I told him to look at their shoes one. He did one day when we were out having a smoke and commented that their shoes were nicer than his. After that he stopped giving them money.
They might have been the ones sitting outside of the Starbucks on their 350lbs ass playing on their iDevice asking if you can spare some change while in the same breath asking if they can buy a smoke from you. Or possibly the ones asking if you can spare some change so they can get to down town on the train even though they are in the free zone for the train. I got real sick of the bums in Portland when I was there and thought about building a potato cannon and shelling them from my apartment windows. And these weren't the ones who should be in a state hospital but weren't they were the lazy ones who viewed pan handling as a career, I even heard the one fat ass woman who sat infront of Starbucks bitching to a cop one day when another bum set up shop up the street as he was "cutting off all my business and you need to do something about it" according to the regular bum.
The one I have is this one but that is only the first volume (there are 4) and my biggest beef is that it is paper back and not very durable. It seems that there are a number various translations of varying quality and embellishment and as I don't have a copy of the original and would not be able to read it anyway I can't really compare the various translations to the original. At the time when I got my set it was the only one I could find as Amazon didn't exist and you had to buy stuff from the store. It has been a long while since I last read it (probably close to 15 years) but I don't remember it being overly racist.
Yes I am proud of the effort and creativity used to fix the problem but it is some really ugly shitty code that I wouldn't want anyone to see, and hopefully they won't.
Group work sucks in general especially when it is forced on you in places where it shouldn't be. A great example of crap group work is in a pre-algebra math class, or in a college intro to writing class where you are trying to write a 10 page joke of a research paper. Now on the other hand group work in classes makes sense when working on a large project with like minded individuals who are equally motivated like in my robotics course where most projects were group projects but then it was filled with senior level college students in either the CS or EE majors and who all wanted to do well and who all brought something unique and useful to each project.
It is only racist if what you are saying is politically incorrect. Your statement about people of African decent (to be even more specific east African) in general being better runners is not considered racist but a similar statement about people of eastern Europeans decent in general being better power lifters would probably be considered racist. If one looks at actual results in both categories from something like recent Olympics it would seem to back up both statements. The reason for these differences would seem to be selective pressures from each group living in diverse areas for extended periods of time. Thus the group from Africa who will run a critter until it is exhausted and can't run any more and then kill it will have better running abilities while those that don't need to run long distances but need more bulk and strength will have selected for that. Physical anthropology is a fascinating area that deals with this and was a rather enlightening class when I took it in college. I do however wonder about the Asian eyes and what benefit that provided, if it was random genetic drift, or something that was culturally selected for early on.
Sometimes not. I have some code that I wrote that I will never admit to as it really was a dirty java reflection hack to get around an issue in a 3rd party framework that would eat all exceptions and not let you know if something failed. At least I documented why the hell I was doing that in the code and explained what was happening so that the next poor bastard who gets to look at that code won't wonder WTF I was doing.
Seriously that is how I started writing good code. If it was code he hasn't looked at in years it works best as then he has to suffer through his own problems and wondering what the hell is going oin. I learned this very early on when I was still in school and was trying to create my own game on the side that I would work on periodically. After dealing with some of my own early garbage code (piss poor names, no documentation, shit structure) I learned real quick to make my own life easier and write better code. I know I write better code now than I did then and am always trying to be better.
If you sit in front of a computer all day it is sometimes nice to go home and do things not on a computer.
Yes. My hobbies are hunting, playing cards, and repairing/restoring vehicles.
I think it will be the crappy cartoons that are on now. The other day a bunch of friends and I were over at one guy's house and he had gotten his kids down to bed. We didn't notice that the TV was on and he proclaimed "What the crap is this?" after seeing the cartoon that was on that his kids were watching. We all had a good laugh as our parents bitched about the music we listened to and we realized that we all were turning into them just with different things.
They seem to only teach the mild Shakespeare in high school. Really how many of you were turned off on Shakespere because of Romeo and Juliet or a Midsummer Night's Dream. Once I got past those and had an intro to Shakespeare class in college it was much better as I wasn't looking for hidden meaning and over analyzing it I found it to be enjoyable. As my college professor pointed out 'Here is a metaphor for you "He ploughed her and she cropped"' on the first day of class since he didn't want the class to be like the high school English class everyone hated. No hidden meaning or deep thought there. Most classical literature is filled with sex and violence and you are correct in that it is usually much more explicate than a video game. For example I suggest reading:
One thousand and one nights
Beowulf
The Divine Comedy
Roman/Greek Mythology
Oedipus
Gilgamesh
The Canterbury Tales
The Iliad
The Odyssey
Shakespeare you weren't forced to read in high school
Hell, I even designed Doom and Half-Life levels based on my old high school
Seriously who didn't? The bigger question though is did you put the shotgun or the RPG in the principals office?
Why is it my mind immediately jumped to the Worms series of games instead of cartoons, but that would have been the donkey drop instead of an anvil. Although re-watching those old cartoons there was not only quite a bit of violence but a lot of sexual innuendo (old Disney shorts), and racism (Tom and Jerry) as well.
When I was in the Boy Scouts of America (20+ years ago) my troop was fairly accepting. I am not sure about the gay thing as it was fairly socially acceptable for everyone to bash gays then (man I really regret how much of an ass I was at times) but as far as religious views it seemed my troop didn't care. From my understanding these things vary greatly from troop to troop as the first one I was in was very religious as most of the member were Catholic but the one I was in most of my time (after my family moved) was much better and focused more on the outdoors and "traditional" scout skills like camping, hiking fishing, canoeing (boating in general), shooting, orienteering, rope work, etc. We did do a fair amount community service but it was real community service like repairing trails in city and county parks, setting up an interpretive trail in one of the parks, clearing invasive plants out of parks, helping out with the community clean up days, picking up trash from the roadside, volunteer at the food shelf, as well as a host of other things that benefited the whole community in general. It became unfun when we got a bunch of new leaders who only cared that everyone was advancing in rank and were pushing everyone to make it to Eagle Scout. I was quite happy at Star but since I hadn't advanced in rank in 3 years the new scout masters weren't pleased as they felt I wasn't doing anything even though I was still earning a bunch of other merit badges and awards.
Now that I have wiped up the tea. Of all the days to not have mod points.
Personally I like the graphics tablets best for precision work. I got one for my wife a couple of years ago (for doing quilt design) and they are great little devices but a bit on the spendy side ($50 to $100 for a decent one). For what they are meant to be used for they are awesome devices and I have taken to using it when I am touching up photos or doing GIS work as it makes things easier.
Yet mine has consistently gone up with the exception of 08 when it went down about 3%. You should really consider being more diversified and re-balancing every so often (I do it 2 to 4 times a year when things start getting unbalanced). Yes in the boom years it wasn't quite as good but then in the bad years it wasn't the blood letting that others saw. Now that the end of year financial statements are arriving it looks like it was a fairly good year with between 12% and 19% rate of return for things (Roth IRA, 401K, brokerage account with a diverse set of mutual funds, company stock, 529 savings plans, etc) which isn't too bad but still not like the crazy years just before 08 where 25% to 30% happened all the time.