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User: cryptolemur

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  1. You could start from John Maynard Keynes and proceed from there to Galbraiths and Stiglitz and others. Or look for Mark Blyth in youtube, if you can handle thick scottish accent.
    To keep long story short, that was the "mainstream" economics thinking from 16th century until 1970's, when the hoodoo men from Chicago took over and reality-based economics was shunned to make way for unhindered greed.

  2. Re:Slashdot Ads on According To Star Trek: Discovery, Starfleet Still Runs Microsoft Windows (theverge.com) · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'd like to point out that it was petite captain Georgiou who was fighting the klingon, and in the end lost mainly due to the mass/power difference. Burnham shot the klingon from behind to her captain, so differences in mass, power, gender or race did not really have any effect in that regard.

    One way to look at the same story is that this allegedly superb Star Fleet officer accidentally killed the klingon she was trying to make contact with, and then in haste shot the klingon she really needed to capture alive. So, instead of being all-powerful, unbeatable hero she actually messed everything up and turned a solvable confrontation into a war.

  3. Re:Depends on Type of Error on When AI Botches Your Medical Diagnosis, Who's To Blame? (qz.com) · · Score: 4, Informative

    If true then going to the doctor results in a 67% chance of proper treatment and possible survival vs. no going which will be 100% fatal.

    Otherwise you're correct, but third biggest killer in this case doesn't mean 33%, but something between 0.3-0.6% of yearly hospital visits. In other words, one patient out of 200-300 dies because of misdiagnosis, the rest actually survive the ordeal, and some may even regain their health...

  4. Re:Wait, why are they testing on humans? on Unproven Stem Cell Treatments Blind 3 Women (npr.org) · · Score: 2

    There's not that many animals around willing to pay good money to these for-profit folks.

  5. Ithink the US corporate law doesn't even mention things like "shareholder value" or "maximizing profits". Management should work for "the good of the company", not shareholders.

    The idea that unrestricted greed would be good way to run corporations came, unsurprisingly, from Chicago School of Economicsin the 1970's. By 1990's the rules governing business were changed to allow for more predatory and short-term behaviour, and rest of the society be damned.
    Still, to this day, corporations are not required to put profit before everything else, like breathable air or working economy...

  6. Re:Cannot compute... on EU's Highest Court Delivers Blow To UK Snooper's Charter (theguardian.com) · · Score: 2

    why should some unelected non-UK people have a say in whatever laws the UK wants to pass for the UK?

    Because you agreed to that in the 50's? Anyway, in this particular case, it is because the UK court of appeal (nominated by lawyers) asked for an opinion from European Court of Justice (nominated by governments). ECJ is of the opinion that the law as it is violates the human rights and privacy of EU citizens.
    If the UK court agrees, and rules accordingly, then it's possible to challenge the snooper's charter in UK courts. Case by case.

    That's all it is. Self-nominating bunch of layers asked the opinion of representative-nominated lawyers about the agreement of two sets of rules. Hardly the unelected overruling the hapless britons...

  7. Re:Good grief on Climate Change Contrarians Lose Big Betting Against Global Warming (theguardian.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, according to him we're already slaves to corporations... at least ever since 1987 when the "global government" banned CFC's because of that "ozone hole" thing. While the said ozone hole is actually closing now, this horrible, communistic global action has destroyed our very lifestyle.

    No, wait. It hasn't.

  8. Here's the man's dissertation: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/hand.... Check that first, then jump to conclusions...

  9. Re:Whatabout Landlords on British Startup Strip Mines Renters' Private Social Media For Landlords (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because a service like that would be sued out of existence or forbidden in the next "free" trade "agreement", since it might hinder profits of somebody.

  10. Re:Everyone does it on Russian Online Trolls Resist The Light · · Score: 1

    Of course Russia would ry and influence public opinion. Finland is a direct neighbour.

    The odd thing in this case is that great majority of the Finns do not want to join the NATO. Only one in five actually would like to join, so the less they influence the public opinion, the better. Provided that the aim is for Finland to remain outside of NATO.

    Frankly, the cynic in me wonders if this (article) is an attempt to reframe the discussion in a way that it's more difficult to oppose joining NATO, " 'cause only Russian trolls do that"...

  11. Re:Hmmm on Genetically Modified Crops Are Safe, Report Says (nbcnews.com) · · Score: 2

    The report actually said that there was no proof that modified food is harmful to people, because that's difficult to assess for any new food at all. And there's no studies post-commercialization about the possible allergenic effects. Oh, and that the GE-stuff should be labelled as such. And that glyphosate is probably not as safe to use as claimed by big agri.

    And they also state that GE crops don't have bigger yields than non GE (so there's really no point to use them...).

    The main advantages GE crop provides seem to be monocultures and vendor lock-ins. And we all love those, don't we?

    But the point is, that the report was much less beneficial towards GE crop that it appears in the news story.

  12. Re:That's a funny new definition of "entitlement" on After Netflix Crackdown On Border-Hopping, Canadians Ready To Return To Piracy (www.cbc.ca) · · Score: 2

    As the GP said, we (the people) grant them copyright, and they use it to not allow us to have a copy. So why should we grant them that right again?

  13. Re:"Massive Corruption"? on Panama Papers: Data Leak Exposes Massive Official Corruption (theguardian.com) · · Score: 5, Informative

    While it's not illegal to use offshore companies, the moment one "forgets" to mention to his friendly, local tax official about the 500 million pounds/dollars one "earned" last year, and are now hidden behind the facade of these offshore companies (that actually exists only for that sole purpose), it becomes illegal. At least in Europe.

    Well, at leat for now. Our marvelous right-wing cabinet did try to make tax evasion legal, but they received enough of a shit-storm to delay the plan.

  14. Re:May spur automation on California's $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage May Spur Automation (computerworld.com) · · Score: 2

    On the other hand, some (a lot?) of people now have 50% more purchasing power, and money is moving around way more than before. Which, if I'm not mistaken, will generate demand, which will generate jobs...

    Way too many people nowadays believe that jobs come from letting (financial) business have a lots of money, while in the real world the jobs come from tasks that need to be done -- a.k.a. demand.

  15. I'd rather say everyone is entitled to say things that offend me, but I don't have stay and be offended.

    I mean, I do reserve the right to be offended, and deal with it the adult way. Like switch the channel, leave premises or not go to a show. Or not, if I'm enjoying at being offended...

  16. Re:This would n'er happen to a government-run coll on University of Helsinki To Lay Off a Thousand People (yle.fi) · · Score: 1

    For most parts, Finnish labour market is a about as dynamic as it is in Sweden, in some parts it's even more dynamic. This (manufactured) crisis is merely an excuse to try to lessen the power of the unions -- don't confuse dictated labour market with dynamic.

    And, by the way, we here in the labour force call those "acquired benefits" actually "compensation for working".

  17. Re: how is this relevant to /. on University of Helsinki To Lay Off a Thousand People (yle.fi) · · Score: 3, Informative

    From what I'm reading here, Finland's economy is tanking, necessitating these cuts...

    Not really, Finland's economy is tanking because we're in the Eurozone, because our exporters decided to compete by cutting costs instead of raising quality, but mainly because of five years of continuous shrinking of national economy due to these cuts.
    Just yesterday our minister of finance said that it was not a choice by necessity but by political ideology. The Finnish government is basically doing to Finland what EU did to Greece. I don't know what we did to earn such hatred from them, though.

  18. Re:Wonder when "open source" will hit vehicles on Before I Can Fix This Tractor, We Have To Fix Copyright Law (slate.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    Of course, theoretically, 'competition' in 'markets' should stamp this out.

    That theory also talks about "informed actors". That is, consumers being able to get all the information -- a world without trade secrets...

  19. Re:R vs. Python vs. other on Microsoft Announces R Tools For Visual Studio (technet.com) · · Score: 1

    My experience is very different, but probably because I had to support R users in academia. Quite often they didn't really understand either statistics or programming -- they just read an article that used some freely available R script for something similar to their studies. And they happily demanded me to solve the unsolvable dependency hells, find resources that were able to survive scripts designed for completely different size of datasets and sometimes (although rarely) to explain what the results of their run were...
    In a few clear cases of attempting an statistical overkill we solved their problem with twenty lines of python and thousand times faster execution. In those cases everybody came out happier and smarter.
    I dislike R because it is a resource hog, and it hides a helluva lot of things that "my users" should actually be very aware of.

  20. Re:Russia won't retaliate on Turkey Downs Allegedly Intruding Russian Fighter Near Syria Border (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    Or they provide Kurds with ample amounts of air defence weapons, and Turkish air campaign "against ISIS" could start suffering casualties...

    Now, how does Greece react to the new rules Turkey has regarding her air space violations? Pretty soon the re will be neither Turkish nor Greece Air Force.

  21. Re:Grants? That is your worry? on Rupert Murdoch Buys National Geographic Magazine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    GP is not asking more government, but that we, the people, use the power we have to protect ourselves against the sosiopathic corporations and individuals. Informed public is the very prerequisite of both working democracy and working markets. Centralized distribution and control of information is perpendicular to that -- see North Korea.

  22. Re:Uber = Public subsidized on Uber Lowers Drunk Driving Arrests In San Francisco Dramatically · · Score: 1

    Me thinks GP's point was that there is none. In a sense that if there's working and affordable public transport, people prefer not to drive while intoxicated

  23. Re:Not a surprise on UK Government Illegally Spied On Amnesty International · · Score: 1

    So Francis Walsingham, SOE, MI5/6 managed to keep UK safe without massive, intrusive intelligence gathering, even though they faced actual, serious enemies of the crown, but GCHQ can do it's job without spying on everyone when the biggest threats to UK are political (and seemingly unlikely to happen, like Scottish independence or humane EU) or economic (neo-liberals running IMF, ECB and Eurogroup).

    Besides, to defend yourself, you don't need that much secret information, you can get most intelligence about attitudes and aspirations trough normal channels. It's when you're about to do aggressive, undemocratic or clandestine stuff yourself, like build an empire, when you need secret and actionable information to impose your will on other people.

  24. Re:Deniers on Top Advisor To Australian Gov't Says Climate Change is a UN Conspiracy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Since all the institutes puslishing their version of the temperature records have published the very specifics of why, how and where they have "manipulated" the records, you could start with those. If you choose instead to follow a newspaper columnist who has been caught making stuff up time oafter time, you're free to do so. Just don't pretend that you try to be objective. After all, the "alleged adjustments" are well understood and written out clearly, from the very beginning of the publishing of the temperature data. There's nothing nefarious going on, quite the contrary. In the offert of making the temperature data consinstent and comparable, that is. Mr. Booker's continous efforts to smear science and scientists, on the other hand, seem at least to me be something else than honest.

  25. Re: Umm... Lulz.... on Will Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis Support Cryptocurrency In Greece? · · Score: 1

    There are two problems with making Greece and example: they did not spend irresponsibly, they became insolvent only after Germany forced them to shrink their economy, and secondly, because once out of Euro Greece can pay back their loans with newly printed bitdrakhmas, and Germany will take the biggest hit of that being the biggest creditor.
    Ok, three problems, since even the term "punishment" makes it also obvious that EU is not a cooperative looking for the common good of it's citizens, but tool for the German financial elite to have their way regardless of things like democracy.