Exactly what I thought. The busted dealer only had 2 oz of marijuana; but, he had 10,000 zip lock baggies. Hey! That's over 156 lbs of marijuana he's attempting to deliver! Score!
You jest; but in marijuana cultivation arrests, they count every single 2 inch tall seedling/clone as a kilo of processed marijuana, even though many won't make it to adulthood, and even in indoor growing operations, where the per-plant yield is likely to be closer to an ounce than a kilogram, due to the radically smaller size of indoor plants.
The local police got caught weighing the entire pot (leaves, stem, roots, the pot itself, and all the dirt inside), and reporting *that* as "weight of drugs found". Anything to make it look like a Big Deal instead of just finding some dude with a few plants.
People aren't willing to pay extra for code that's actually secure so we can't pass along our costs, and you can kiss our ass if you think we're taking a pay cut just because our software killed a few hundred people.
Nope. Because colleges/universities are more interested in making money than educating.
Don't forget the brand management. If you can get all your course details online, when you want, where's the benefit in sitting in the big ugly classroom listening to the droning prof?
"Higher Education" makes a lot of money from having a corner on the concept of "being educated". The smartest carpenter is still considered dumber than the frat-boy who partied through a BA degree. You can take courses online, but a lot of stigma is attached there (to encourage you to take a proper, university degree).
Once people (and particularly companies) figure out that you can get the same benefit from online courses, universities are going to be in trouble.
If he had any sense, he'd offer an amnesty to the wealthy. Allow them to repatriate their funds from overseas at a reduced tax rate so that money comes back to the US. The money the treasury makes on that smaller percentage would still be more than the zero they get from it today.
They tried that, remember? They grabbed some cheap tax rate, and then promptly started hoarding even more money overseas, knowing that they can now just wait for the next "tax free day" to come around.
Can someone explain to me why Buffett's secretary pays a higher rate than him?
Easy - she has far less disposable income than he does. That means that he has the ability to put his extra money in places that don't trigger taxes. Thus, his effective tax rate is far lower, since he's paying taxes on only the portion of the money he's using.
My sense was that this is noteworthy because of Buffet's involvement (namely, him sticking his neck out and saying "us rich people can TOTALLY afford to pay more in taxes".) It's a lot harder for the "class warfare" arguments to stick when there's a big name saying "no, seriously - we can afford this, we should afford this, and you guys need to stop being such total wusses about it".
I'm waiting for the Democrats to nail down the big point here - adding taxes to the rich means they go on one less vacation, or having a smaller summer home. Adding taxes to the middle class means that they don't vacation at all, or work a second job to get their kids through school. Adding taxes to the lower class means they start choosing between food and shelter. There's really no moral ground to bitch about a tax hike when the extra money is literally your "screwing around stash".
If memory serves, the argument is that people are allowed to arrange their finances in the manner best for them - and if that means "paying less taxes" is best for them, so be it. (Contrarywise, it's that people shouldn't be required to do things in the manner that doesn't serve their interests).
The whole thing is a bit of a dodge anyway - since the government has control over tax law, they can simply close any loopholes they don't want people using. (And the dirty secret is that if you're rich enough to be in government, you're likely using all those dodges yourself.)
(usually when they're selling below cost and don't want their competitor to use them as a supplier)
Why would they care if their customers are doing that? There's no fiscal reason for do that.
For a storable good, if I can buy all your stock at below cost, then I can sell it (either immediately while you're out of stock or later when the price rises) at a higher price.
And that's related to this bill about criminal law how?
I'm not sure.
Can you get away with putting a sign outside your store saying "no competitors allowed", and then sue for trespassing? The closest I've ever seen is places saying "no commercial customers" (usually when they're selling below cost and don't want their competitor to use them as a supplier). Never heard of anyone actually trying to enforce that rule, though.
I mostly agree with you. Psychology can be full of shit. Their "scientific method" consists of trying to rationalize patterns of behavior with "disease". But real science goes further and says you have to actually test your hypotheses with an experiment. Very little testing is done in psychology because a) it's not ethical and b) the testing process itself can change the behavior, making it hard to draw valid conclusions. So a lot of it is rationalization, creativity and conjecture as well as a lot of navel contemplation.
And most psychologists share your frustrations - the key point to remember is not that they're somehow too lazy to do "real science". It's that they have to go to elaborate (and expensive) lengths to avoid observer effect (and even then, you can never be sure), and you're largely handcuffed by ethical rules on what you can do anyway. Chemists and biologists can substitute little white mice, but mice don't make good psychological analogues.
Also, if you want to see an angry psych researcher, ask them their opinion on commercial use of their research.
It wasn't opinion. It wasn't censoring expression.
Of course it was. Just because you disagree with the opinion being expressed doesn't make it any less censorship.
OK, I'll bite - what opinion can he possibly be expressing about a person he doesn't know, has never met, and *can* never meet?
To be clear - I have no idea who you are, and this post constitutes more interaction than he had with *any* of the people he felt compelled to comment on.
I always filed that as part of the US obsession with free markets - it only really works if everyone has the time to do it equally.
Westboro (and several other church groups) sorely need protesters to follow them around with suitable signs, interrupting their family picnics, church dinners, and workplaces. Unfortunately, us non-crazy people don't have the kind of free time necessary to do so.
Hence, the free market argument - someone needs to start a business that we can hire to walk around and do that for me.
I'm always surprised that in these discussion someone always turns up to find excuses for twits like Sean Duffy.
Sadly, I'm no longer surprised that people will defend the indefensible.
I'm glad they turn up - the guy is entitled to the best defense possible. (I almost said "that money can buy", which is less idealistic yet more truthful).
A yes, "hate-speech", the politically correct term for "thought crime". Is the guy a dick? Sure. However, only in a truly fucked up police state can what he did be considered criminal.
I'd disagree. If you show up on my property and start spouting BS, I am fully within my rights to force you to leave (up to and including pressing charges). The same applies in nearly any real-life space. There's a reason why you don't hear much about real life trolling - because someone *will* deal with you.
being offensive and posting 'hate-speech' needs to be punished
Really? Offensive to whom? Who decides what is 'hate-speech'?
You should have a right to hate someone, and have the right to proclaim your hatred.
And here's the rub. If this guy had *known* the women, then you can say it's free speech, it's speaking an opinion, it's telling the truth... there are lots of valid defenses I can think of to saying something at a memorial that could be considered "offensive".
This guy didn't know any of the girls he was commenting on. He's just making shit up, specifically to *get* the reaction. This, in my mind, removes most of the "freedom of speech" defenses. To use your example, you can't legitimately hate someone you have no awareness of (or have any other opinion of them, for that matter).
If I walk up to my mom's funeral and say horrible things about her, that's one thing. If I walk up to *your* mom's funeral ("your" being the great anonymous/. masses) and say horrible things, that's quite another.
(Aside: Canada does the "hate speech" thing too, and I dislike it - if it's BS to say to one group, it's BS to say to any group. Shouldn't be bonus prison points for picking on one particular group.)
18 weeks would lose many people their job, their home, possibly their spouse.. It maybe wouldn't be the end of someone's life but I know it would completely disengage me from society.
And would that not make a fantastic deterrent to other DBs out there considering similar activity. It could be this guy's purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others. Yep, he'll probably lose his job. House depends on family circumstances (I don't know what UK law is in relation to that sort of thing). Spouse... it's only four months. People serve in the military for longer than that.
Cannibalism has health implications
Actually, it's the social implications that are more worrying. You may not have noticed, but being classified as "food" does not tend to increase one's standing in the world.
I don't think there's a parallel here - Atkinson's court case related to a newspaper publishing articles containing falsehoods that would actively harm his career. (Reading the article, it was that he was suffering mental illness, having to take time off from acting, his family was afraid for his life). And not a word of it was true. (Also worth mentioning that he donated his "payout" to mental health agencies).
I don't know if jail time was the appropriate response for 1st degree Trolling - getting kicked off the internet strikes me as a far more appropriate punishment.
I liked the lady who thought she needed to live in a faraday cage made of wood and chicken wire. I bet you could get cell recption in there, and it only blocked a couple of frequencies at most.
While I would be interested to see what measurable effect the cage has, I doubt it would change her opinion (even if you could prove that The Goggles Do Nothing.)
I get (and agree) with your line of reasoning, with one exception: shouldn't the onus be on the government to prove that the search is reasonable, rather than the citizenry that it's not?
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly what I thought. The busted dealer only had 2 oz of marijuana; but, he had 10,000 zip lock baggies. Hey! That's over 156 lbs of marijuana he's attempting to deliver! Score!
You jest; but in marijuana cultivation arrests, they count every single 2 inch tall seedling/clone as a kilo of processed marijuana, even though many won't make it to adulthood, and even in indoor growing operations, where the per-plant yield is likely to be closer to an ounce than a kilogram, due to the radically smaller size of indoor plants.
The local police got caught weighing the entire pot (leaves, stem, roots, the pot itself, and all the dirt inside), and reporting *that* as "weight of drugs found". Anything to make it look like a Big Deal instead of just finding some dude with a few plants.
People aren't willing to pay extra for code that's actually secure so we can't pass along our costs, and you can kiss our ass if you think we're taking a pay cut just because our software killed a few hundred people.
So, can the guys on the new Chinese space station order take-out from the ISS?
Nope. Because colleges/universities are more interested in making money than educating.
Don't forget the brand management. If you can get all your course details online, when you want, where's the benefit in sitting in the big ugly classroom listening to the droning prof?
"Higher Education" makes a lot of money from having a corner on the concept of "being educated". The smartest carpenter is still considered dumber than the frat-boy who partied through a BA degree. You can take courses online, but a lot of stigma is attached there (to encourage you to take a proper, university degree).
Once people (and particularly companies) figure out that you can get the same benefit from online courses, universities are going to be in trouble.
If he had any sense, he'd offer an amnesty to the wealthy. Allow them to repatriate their funds from overseas at a reduced tax rate so that money comes back to the US. The money the treasury makes on that smaller percentage would still be more than the zero they get from it today.
They tried that, remember? They grabbed some cheap tax rate, and then promptly started hoarding even more money overseas, knowing that they can now just wait for the next "tax free day" to come around.
>
Can someone explain to me why Buffett's secretary pays a higher rate than him?
Easy - she has far less disposable income than he does. That means that he has the ability to put his extra money in places that don't trigger taxes. Thus, his effective tax rate is far lower, since he's paying taxes on only the portion of the money he's using.
tax you today for and promise to cut spending tomorrow.
That's only fair as a balance to the debt ceiling deal of "we'll cut spending now and think about adding taxes someday".
My sense was that this is noteworthy because of Buffet's involvement (namely, him sticking his neck out and saying "us rich people can TOTALLY afford to pay more in taxes".) It's a lot harder for the "class warfare" arguments to stick when there's a big name saying "no, seriously - we can afford this, we should afford this, and you guys need to stop being such total wusses about it".
I'm waiting for the Democrats to nail down the big point here - adding taxes to the rich means they go on one less vacation, or having a smaller summer home. Adding taxes to the middle class means that they don't vacation at all, or work a second job to get their kids through school. Adding taxes to the lower class means they start choosing between food and shelter. There's really no moral ground to bitch about a tax hike when the extra money is literally your "screwing around stash".
If memory serves, the argument is that people are allowed to arrange their finances in the manner best for them - and if that means "paying less taxes" is best for them, so be it. (Contrarywise, it's that people shouldn't be required to do things in the manner that doesn't serve their interests).
The whole thing is a bit of a dodge anyway - since the government has control over tax law, they can simply close any loopholes they don't want people using. (And the dirty secret is that if you're rich enough to be in government, you're likely using all those dodges yourself.)
(usually when they're selling below cost and don't want their competitor to use them as a supplier)
Why would they care if their customers are doing that? There's no fiscal reason for do that.
For a storable good, if I can buy all your stock at below cost, then I can sell it (either immediately while you're out of stock or later when the price rises) at a higher price.
I can't stand Organic Laws. They always cost more and have little seeds sticking out of them.
And that's related to this bill about criminal law how?
I'm not sure.
Can you get away with putting a sign outside your store saying "no competitors allowed", and then sue for trespassing? The closest I've ever seen is places saying "no commercial customers" (usually when they're selling below cost and don't want their competitor to use them as a supplier). Never heard of anyone actually trying to enforce that rule, though.
If the guy had made 2 billion, would they still be "unauthorized trades"?
the autistic spectrum
I mostly agree with you. Psychology can be full of shit. Their "scientific method" consists of trying to rationalize patterns of behavior with "disease". But real science goes further and says you have to actually test your hypotheses with an experiment. Very little testing is done in psychology because a) it's not ethical and b) the testing process itself can change the behavior, making it hard to draw valid conclusions. So a lot of it is rationalization, creativity and conjecture as well as a lot of navel contemplation.
And most psychologists share your frustrations - the key point to remember is not that they're somehow too lazy to do "real science". It's that they have to go to elaborate (and expensive) lengths to avoid observer effect (and even then, you can never be sure), and you're largely handcuffed by ethical rules on what you can do anyway. Chemists and biologists can substitute little white mice, but mice don't make good psychological analogues.
Also, if you want to see an angry psych researcher, ask them their opinion on commercial use of their research.
It wasn't opinion. It wasn't censoring expression.
Of course it was. Just because you disagree with the opinion being expressed doesn't make it any less censorship.
OK, I'll bite - what opinion can he possibly be expressing about a person he doesn't know, has never met, and *can* never meet?
To be clear - I have no idea who you are, and this post constitutes more interaction than he had with *any* of the people he felt compelled to comment on.
I always filed that as part of the US obsession with free markets - it only really works if everyone has the time to do it equally.
Westboro (and several other church groups) sorely need protesters to follow them around with suitable signs, interrupting their family picnics, church dinners, and workplaces. Unfortunately, us non-crazy people don't have the kind of free time necessary to do so.
Hence, the free market argument - someone needs to start a business that we can hire to walk around and do that for me.
I'm always surprised that in these discussion someone always turns up to find excuses for twits like Sean Duffy.
Sadly, I'm no longer surprised that people will defend the indefensible.
I'm glad they turn up - the guy is entitled to the best defense possible. (I almost said "that money can buy", which is less idealistic yet more truthful).
A yes, "hate-speech", the politically correct term for "thought crime". Is the guy a dick? Sure. However, only in a truly fucked up police state can what he did be considered criminal.
I'd disagree. If you show up on my property and start spouting BS, I am fully within my rights to force you to leave (up to and including pressing charges). The same applies in nearly any real-life space. There's a reason why you don't hear much about real life trolling - because someone *will* deal with you.
being offensive and posting 'hate-speech' needs to be punished
Really? Offensive to whom? Who decides what is 'hate-speech'? You should have a right to hate someone, and have the right to proclaim your hatred.
And here's the rub. If this guy had *known* the women, then you can say it's free speech, it's speaking an opinion, it's telling the truth... there are lots of valid defenses I can think of to saying something at a memorial that could be considered "offensive".
This guy didn't know any of the girls he was commenting on. He's just making shit up, specifically to *get* the reaction. This, in my mind, removes most of the "freedom of speech" defenses. To use your example, you can't legitimately hate someone you have no awareness of (or have any other opinion of them, for that matter).
If I walk up to my mom's funeral and say horrible things about her, that's one thing. If I walk up to *your* mom's funeral ("your" being the great anonymous /. masses) and say horrible things, that's quite another.
(Aside: Canada does the "hate speech" thing too, and I dislike it - if it's BS to say to one group, it's BS to say to any group. Shouldn't be bonus prison points for picking on one particular group.)
18 weeks would lose many people their job, their home, possibly their spouse.. It maybe wouldn't be the end of someone's life but I know it would completely disengage me from society.
And would that not make a fantastic deterrent to other DBs out there considering similar activity. It could be this guy's purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others. Yep, he'll probably lose his job. House depends on family circumstances (I don't know what UK law is in relation to that sort of thing). Spouse... it's only four months. People serve in the military for longer than that.
Cannibalism has health implications
Actually, it's the social implications that are more worrying. You may not have noticed, but being classified as "food" does not tend to increase one's standing in the world.
I'd rather have that (assuming that it's even true) than people getting into fist fights because of a mere disagreement.
See: hockey.
I don't think there's a parallel here - Atkinson's court case related to a newspaper publishing articles containing falsehoods that would actively harm his career. (Reading the article, it was that he was suffering mental illness, having to take time off from acting, his family was afraid for his life). And not a word of it was true. (Also worth mentioning that he donated his "payout" to mental health agencies).
I don't know if jail time was the appropriate response for 1st degree Trolling - getting kicked off the internet strikes me as a far more appropriate punishment.
I liked the lady who thought she needed to live in a faraday cage made of wood and chicken wire. I bet you could get cell recption in there, and it only blocked a couple of frequencies at most.
While I would be interested to see what measurable effect the cage has, I doubt it would change her opinion (even if you could prove that The Goggles Do Nothing.)
In other news, recently discovered cave man drawings have been translated as:
Og No Like Wheel. Too Crushy Toes. New Shapes Hard.
I get (and agree) with your line of reasoning, with one exception: shouldn't the onus be on the government to prove that the search is reasonable, rather than the citizenry that it's not?