1 out of 31 US adults in prison - 3% seems large on its own face, but it's got to be less of an effect than the 2-vote floor (102 out of 538, or 18.96%)
The Electoral College gives each state 2 votes *plus* the population apportionment. That's what skews it so much. It's a small-state/large-state compromise that's been around since this country's Day 1.
Yes, raising gov't spending in a downturn and cutting gov't spending during booms (and analogous policies) seems to be a fairly standard economic concept.
Never thought about it as a battery, though.
Thing is, no energy-type conversion is 100% efficient.
Weird, was still seeing item descriptions (even after this had hit Slashdot), now I'm not.
I don't much mind the new UI much in and of itself. However, I like the old one, though only a bit better.
The big problem is the squeezing policies...
I sell lots of Magic the Gathering trading cards online, including eBay. I stopped using eBay for this after Morningtide (the February 2008 expansion) because of the fee increase that would have applied to the next batch of sales.
I'm back now; I'm getting prices high enough that it looks like I still have a decent margin after the fees. Mandatory PayPal? Even before that change, most of my eBay customers used it anyway. I and/or my customers often find it worth using for my non-eBay dealings too. The eBay fees themselves are high, yes, but for large-value items, the percentage take isn't proportionally as much. First 5 auction-style listings per month have a slightly different fee structure; I manage to work that math out of course.)
What I'm worried about is the ancillary policy changing - the stuff with the straightforward financial numbers is annoying, but is straightforward to address.
I mean the feedback BS and all the other buyer-centric stuff in particular. (News flash: Online fraud isn't limited to the seller side; I haven't been hit hard as a seller, but I've had some scrapes)
I buy stuff on eBay too, and have gotten $ back from PayPal when I needed it, even though it took a couple weeks. Don't depend on eBay, just use it as one of several sources I check when shopping around.
Heck, that's the nature of monopoly - they can get away with these imperfections, some serious, precisely because of their market power - despite the problems, it still makes sense to deal with them, at least in the short term. In that sense, "ZOMG! They're evil! Boycott!" has some trouble appealing to my rationalist inner economist.:P
This seems to be a subset of pragmatism versus idealism-type issues.
I use OSS, not because I believe in OSS idealism, but because specific OSS programs are better than the other programs in that field, be they free or for-cost, open or closed.
I'm typing this from FireFox; I use that because I feel it's the best Web broswer out there, not because it's an OSS web browser. OSS advocates may respond that characteristics of OSS are what *makes* it better. To that I say: Fine. Let OSS win that way, rather than letting OSS win "just because it's OSS".
I'm no programmer, so having the source available doesn't mean much to me directly. As such, I gladly use free closed-source software if it fits. For example, I've got music on in the background through MediaMonkey, some of that music having been acquired via uTorrent.:P
VLC? Best media player (except for media-library features, but it's great if you want to throw one specific file at it) Notepad++? Great text editor, period.
Also, while there's some software I use every day, there's some software that I use only occasionally. (for example, video editing - it's not my main focus; I get occasional projects.) Not going to bother figuring out OSS stuff for such occasional projects, even if the OSS thingy may be a "better' piece of software in the end.
I just happen to *like* XP as my OS and Office 2007 as my "productivity software". (Yeah, I like the Ribbon, okay?:P) Sometimes, it's hard to quantify these types of things, in those cases it makes sense to go with your overall impression rather than specifics.
I like saving money, no doubt about it. However, one thing I know is that, in general, sometimes it makes sense to pay up for a better product, that in some cases, using the cheap thing is penny-wise and pound-foolish.
Heh, my Lego city got assaulted by Green Army Men many a time.
Also, I find myself mixing "themed Legos" in with the other ones - even if I don't disassemble the model itself, the Star Wars spaceship interacts with a self-built ship rather than jsut with other Star Wars stuff, et cetera
I'm a YAFOL (Young Adult Fan of LEGO) and I concure here. I've been a fan of the Star Wars movies (well, OK, except for Episode II), but I never ended up with much of the merchandise. The Star Wars LEGO sets are pretty much the only SW merch I've got - great idea, a product at a confluence of two things (LEGO and SW) that are each strong & popular for their own reasons.
I have a feeling that the BIG Lego Star Wars sets (which I didn't have) would have been even cooler to monkey around with, but then again, I could say that about a lot of other BIG lego sets.
By this point, the SW sets have long since been mixed in with all my other parts, but the character figures still stand out, even if I built "nonauthentic Star Wars" tools/vehicles to go with them.
Honestly, I've seen that sig of yours, but I'm finally getting around to asking: Why exactly do you mean? Is it some Booth besides John Wilkes, I think that mental association is what's confusing me here...
Always find it kind of ironic when these kinds of comments are coming form people of the hippie era. Don't think it's restricted to that generation though, it seems to be a recurring pattern.
Musical tastes probably are a clear example of this, and it's probably easier to compare the "bashing the young kids' music" phenomenon across different eras; that's happened before, although the "bashing texting" thing is relatively new since texting itself is relatively new.
Something is rotten in (a certain region of) the state of California.:P Sure, TVTropes can go head to head with Wikipedia in an addictive-reading competition, but Hamlet was the first thing to come to mind as I read the opening of your post.
A lot of conspiracy theories out there seem pretty obviously like bullshit, yet I wouldn't doubt that there are actual conspiracy theories out there. However, because of all the junk, it seems impossible to pick out the "real" ones.
The fake conspiracy theories could still be generated independently of the government though.
(The stuff in general, but sounds like this specific one too) Seems like a classic case of an old law not-really-fitting new situations. Properly adjusting old law to new environment = generally a good idea.
"surrounded by digital media from the day they are born." Ain't that right, BTW...one of my cousins recently had a baby, and there was Facebookage within the hour.:P
Slashdot Mirror
I hadn't thought about the skew from prison population, but I figure the 2-votes-per-state floor would have a much bigger effect.
I figure prison population skew would have more of an effect on the local political level.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#incareration_rate
Certain states do have more people in prison, and I'd presume that *would* skew the population-based count to some extent, but that seems harder to assess.
1 out of 31 US adults in prison - 3% seems large on its own face, but it's got to be less of an effect than the 2-vote floor (102 out of 538, or 18.96%)
The Electoral College gives each state 2 votes *plus* the population apportionment. That's what skews it so much.
It's a small-state/large-state compromise that's been around since this country's Day 1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege2000.svg
It looks like most of the states Gore won were big ones and vice versa. Hence, Bush got more of a boost from the votes-per-state floor.
Similar patterns can be seen in other recent maps, but it seems especially pronounced here.
Wait, sounds like it would teach them that eating untrusted food is fun. :)
C'mon, it's football season.
Yes, raising gov't spending in a downturn and cutting gov't spending during booms (and analogous policies) seems to be a fairly standard economic concept.
Never thought about it as a battery, though.
Thing is, no energy-type conversion is 100% efficient.
Weird, was still seeing item descriptions (even after this had hit Slashdot), now I'm not.
I don't much mind the new UI much in and of itself. However, I like the old one, though only a bit better.
The big problem is the squeezing policies...
I sell lots of Magic the Gathering trading cards online, including eBay. I stopped using eBay for this after Morningtide (the February 2008 expansion) because of the fee increase that would have applied to the next batch of sales.
I'm back now; I'm getting prices high enough that it looks like I still have a decent margin after the fees.
Mandatory PayPal? Even before that change, most of my eBay customers used it anyway. I and/or my customers often find it worth using for my non-eBay dealings too.
The eBay fees themselves are high, yes, but for large-value items, the percentage take isn't proportionally as much. First 5 auction-style listings per month have a slightly different fee structure; I manage to work that math out of course.)
What I'm worried about is the ancillary policy changing - the stuff with the straightforward financial numbers is annoying, but is straightforward to address.
I mean the feedback BS and all the other buyer-centric stuff in particular. (News flash: Online fraud isn't limited to the seller side; I haven't been hit hard as a seller, but I've had some scrapes)
I buy stuff on eBay too, and have gotten $ back from PayPal when I needed it, even though it took a couple weeks. Don't depend on eBay, just use it as one of several sources I check when shopping around.
Heck, that's the nature of monopoly - they can get away with these imperfections, some serious, precisely because of their market power - despite the problems, it still makes sense to deal with them, at least in the short term. In that sense, "ZOMG! They're evil! Boycott!" has some trouble appealing to my rationalist inner economist. :P
It's a few percent loss to eBay, an 80-90% loss to the seller.
I get it, that was a modification to make the joke programmer-specific, I should have said I've heard that referring to lawyers and w/o the void part.
Also heard that joke use "politicians".
This seems to be a subset of pragmatism versus idealism-type issues.
I use OSS, not because I believe in OSS idealism, but because specific OSS programs are better than the other programs in that field, be they free or for-cost, open or closed.
I'm typing this from FireFox; I use that because I feel it's the best Web broswer out there, not because it's an OSS web browser.
OSS advocates may respond that characteristics of OSS are what *makes* it better. To that I say: Fine. Let OSS win that way, rather than letting OSS win "just because it's OSS".
I'm no programmer, so having the source available doesn't mean much to me directly. As such, I gladly use free closed-source software if it fits. For example, I've got music on in the background through MediaMonkey, some of that music having been acquired via uTorrent. :P
VLC? Best media player (except for media-library features, but it's great if you want to throw one specific file at it)
Notepad++? Great text editor, period.
Also, while there's some software I use every day, there's some software that I use only occasionally. (for example, video editing - it's not my main focus; I get occasional projects.) Not going to bother figuring out OSS stuff for such occasional projects, even if the OSS thingy may be a "better' piece of software in the end.
I just happen to *like* XP as my OS and Office 2007 as my "productivity software". (Yeah, I like the Ribbon, okay? :P) Sometimes, it's hard to quantify these types of things, in those cases it makes sense to go with your overall impression rather than specifics.
I like saving money, no doubt about it.
However, one thing I know is that, in general, sometimes it makes sense to pay up for a better product, that in some cases, using the cheap thing is penny-wise and pound-foolish.
They seem to make even more sense as progenitors of chaos. :P
Heh, my Lego city got assaulted by Green Army Men many a time.
Also, I find myself mixing "themed Legos" in with the other ones - even if I don't disassemble the model itself, the Star Wars spaceship interacts with a self-built ship rather than jsut with other Star Wars stuff, et cetera
I'm a YAFOL (Young Adult Fan of LEGO) and I concure here.
I've been a fan of the Star Wars movies (well, OK, except for Episode II), but I never ended up with much of the merchandise.
The Star Wars LEGO sets are pretty much the only SW merch I've got - great idea, a product at a confluence of two things (LEGO and SW) that are each strong & popular for their own reasons.
I have a feeling that the BIG Lego Star Wars sets (which I didn't have) would have been even cooler to monkey around with, but then again, I could say that about a lot of other BIG lego sets.
By this point, the SW sets have long since been mixed in with all my other parts, but the character figures still stand out, even if I built "nonauthentic Star Wars" tools/vehicles to go with them.
If you hit back, the ref will penalize the second guy, not the one who started it.
Honestly, I've seen that sig of yours, but I'm finally getting around to asking: Why exactly do you mean?
Is it some Booth besides John Wilkes, I think that mental association is what's confusing me here...
"Panic over social decline has caused more damage than social decline ever did"
Could have sworn I saw this quote on XKCD once, but now I can't seem to find it.
Makes sense either way, though.
Always find it kind of ironic when these kinds of comments are coming form people of the hippie era.
Don't think it's restricted to that generation though, it seems to be a recurring pattern.
Musical tastes probably are a clear example of this, and it's probably easier to compare the "bashing the young kids' music" phenomenon across different eras; that's happened before, although the "bashing texting" thing is relatively new since texting itself is relatively new.
Apollo 13 astronaut: Uh, I forgot to file my tax return
Houston: I think they'll grant you an extension; you're most definitely out of the country.
I recall this being in the movie, not sure if this part was fictionalized.
(sigh) My first thought after reading the summary was that there'd be sarcastic comments about who'd you want to send.
Was expecting political commentary though. :P
I noticed the Shah reference, but didn't think much of it because of this:
"I don't do protests anymore"..I simply read it as him not having been out protesting since '79. :)
Something is rotten in (a certain region of) the state of California. :P
Sure, TVTropes can go head to head with Wikipedia in an addictive-reading competition, but Hamlet was the first thing to come to mind as I read the opening of your post.
I admit I'm not fancy, I just copy/forward the relatively important messages to other mailservers.
A lot of conspiracy theories out there seem pretty obviously like bullshit, yet I wouldn't doubt that there are actual conspiracy theories out there. However, because of all the junk, it seems impossible to pick out the "real" ones.
The fake conspiracy theories could still be generated independently of the government though.
Proverbs 21:19
Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.
Doesn't seem like it causes signature-length problems
(The stuff in general, but sounds like this specific one too)
Seems like a classic case of an old law not-really-fitting new situations. Properly adjusting old law to new environment = generally a good idea.
"surrounded by digital media from the day they are born." Ain't that right, BTW...one of my cousins recently had a baby, and there was Facebookage within the hour. :P
I admit I saw a few Star Wars parallels, but a complete copy/ripoff/etc.? Heck no.