Was there serious demand for this? I suspect one of the features that many -- if not most -- users of LibreOffice enjoyed was that it didn't have the damned ribbon.
Yes, I rarely pay much attention to this, but on the few occasions I've checked in with LibreOffice's forums, I've definitely seen people complain about the lack of a ribbon OPTION. Like it or not, MS Office has had that interface for about a decade now, and many younger users have never used anything else.
[Personally, I dislike the ribbon and have never gotten used to it. The only reason I am able to use MS Office at work in a reasonable fashion is because I have a Mac that still has actual menus. But I also know a lot of people who LIKE the ribbon, or at least grew to like it over the years.]
Thanks guys for bringing the Office ribbon hassles to Writer. I'm sure everyone's tickled pink to now be able to experience Word's ribbon headaches on Linux.
But if LibreOffice actually still wants to sell itself as a competitor to MS Office, it needs to present a UI that isn't a shock to new users... many of whom have been using a "ribbon" in MS Office for years.
You're correct that there was a big upsurge in use of LibreOffice (back then, OpenOffice) with the introduction of the ribbon interface. The issue is that users didn't want to learn a new interface, so OpenOffice was a good alternative. Now LibreOffice has to adapt to a new public, whose default experience is WITH the ribbon.
That is a very Microsoft like statement, "goodness" defined by feature count, and probably not a good path to go down.
Agreed. Take word processors, for example. The features available in standard word processor software 30 years ago are still probably adequate for 97% of tasks today. If companies like Microsoft had just focused on improving those core features, that would have been great. But instead, you get these bloated hybrids that don't work well for text-editing and basic word processing (because they're overfull of unnecessary crap, some of which screws up basic editing). And they're not good for proper "desktop publishing" either, because the features aren't organized in a way that enables and encourages the kind of flexibility that professional typesetters and layout designers want (since it enables efficient management of layout and formatting).
Legitimate question: Maybe this thread would be a good place for people to recommend "lighter" but stable open-source alternatives to LibreOffice, preferably stuff available cross-platform. For example, I've tried out AbiWord in the past, though last time I used it (probably 6-7 years ago), it still seemed somewhat buggy. I also remember using Gnumeric as a spreadsheet several years ago, but is it still a stable and lighter option?
Nothing against the LibreOffice folks, who are doing a reasonable job to try to "keep up with the Joneses" in terms of having features for people who want to move from MS Office. But what are the lighter and GOOD alternatives out there?
Your post is definitely insightful in terms of how smoking policy is determined, but it also doesn't address how many anti-smoking arguments can be disingenuous about attributing societal or health-care costs to smokers.
If the argument is "We need to tax smokers because it's in society's best interest for everyone to live longer," that's a reasonable way of presenting the argument. BUT many public policy statements say something instead like, "Look at how much smokers cost us! Here are some numbers about how much we spent on healthcare for smokers per year! [No comparison figures for healthy folks are generally offered.] Smokers cost more for each year they are on health insurance/a national health plan! They're costing us money, so we need to ask them to pay their fair share!"
That's simply an incomplete set of facts that is incredibly misleading. Smokers die earlier and save society (and health care) money overall. That's the reality. Admit that, and then come up with a policy argument that still reflects your goals. To do otherwise is to be disingenuous.
And no, I'm not a smoker. Never have been. Don't desire to be around them. But I hate bad argumentation.
If people stopped smoking, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs.
THIS. There are literally dozens of economic analyses that have concluded the same thing. In fact, over 20 years ago, it was debated whether to bring this argument up in the Big Tobacco litigation (see, for example, this NY Times article from 1996). More recent analyses (such as here and here) agree. Philip Morris even commissioned its own study a while back to argue in the Czech Republic that it was actually saving society money because of decreased lifespans. But the study ended up just making cigarette companies look even more hated, so they backed off of it.
Bottom line is: "healthy" elderly people still cost society a LOT of money to keep alive -- in pensions and Social Security, in assisted living, and yes -- even in generic health care. If you include all of those things, there's NO QUESTION that smokers cost society less by dying earlier.
But even if you take health care costs on their own, it's pretty likely smokers cost less. "Healthy" older people end up living longer and needing hip replacements or treatment for minor cancers or hospitalization over a cold that turns into pneumonia (which doesn't happen as often with younger folks) or whatever -- that stuff adds up greatly over the years. Add an extra 5 or 10 years of "elder care" for non-smokers, and on average those "healthy" people will cost more than the additional costs from a smoker who dies early from a heart attack or whatever.
None of this is an argument in favor of smoking. And perhaps there's still some ethical argument to tax smoking more in order to promote "healthy" living or whatever, which perhaps some governments will make. But let's not be disingenuous about blaming smokers for overall societal cost, when they're mostly "taking one for the team" and giving up their Social Security or whatever for you.
Whether it's "quite profitable" is a fun topic to explore, but let's treat it as a real topic and not assume "it costs less to make the 50,000th watch than it sold for" is in any way a valid metric of "profitable".
THIS. You have a great breakdown of possible costs and revenue, which is generally necessary to determine profitability, which in turn is generally a metric for "success."
I pointed this out above, but there are many Hollywood films these days that make $100 million at the box office, but they are "flops" because the studio spent $150 million or whatever on production and marketing, etc. Comparing a $100 million blockbuster revenue with an indy film that makes $10 million makes little sense, but if the indy film had a budget of $2 million, it might be a great success compared to the blockbuster flop.
Since Apple won't give us detailed numbers on how much it spent on R&D, marketing, etc. on the Apple Watch (let alone SALES FIGURES -- note TFA doesn't even give numbers of units sold... if it were really a major increase, they'd be trumpeting that from the hilltops), we have no way of knowing how "profitable" it may or may not be.
Compared to any other wearable, it's a runaway success, but people don't think about it in those terms, because it is an Apple product.
Actually, it's NOT a "runaway success" "compared to any other wearable," which should be part of the metric. In particular, compared to a fitness tracker like FitBit, Apple's sales are a LOT smaller. (And, notably, Cook didn't reveal sales numbers here, but the Apple Watch has been trailing FAR behind FitBit sales last year.) Now, you might say, "That's a flawed comparison -- the FitBit is a lot cheaper and it's not a full-blown 'smart device.'"
And that's true. But when the Apple Watch premiered, Tim Cook argued emphatically about how the Apple Watch would replace other health and fitness trackers. That was a major part of the initial discussion and marketing.
Basically, Apple INTENDED for this device to because a replacement for generic fitness trackers. It was also marketed as a device that would enable new features -- new types of communication, payment systems, etc. Like the iPhone, which greatly expanded the desirability of a "smartphone" in the market (rather than just a standalone phone or media player or whatever), the Apple Watch was intended to create a mass market for smart watches.
It has failed to do so. So, by Apple's own initial marketing expectations, it's a bit of a flop. Without knowing internal expenses on development, marketing, etc., it's difficult to know how profitable (or not) it may be -- but Apple has moved its own goalposts for success here.
So be it... it is not a device for everyone, but it is an excellent device for people who want to wear a watch that does more than tell the time.
And that's precisely why in Apple's own terms the device is somewhat of a failure. They wanted to create a large market for smart watches, in the same way that they significantly enlarged the market for smart phones and tablets. But that hasn't happened.
None of this is to say it may not be a great product for many people in its niche. But the standard of "success" is generally dictated by the expectations of the company that produced it. A Hollywood film can earn $100 million at the box office these days and be a "flop" if it spent $150 million on production and marketing. The film can be a "runaway success" compared to a lot of independent films that come out in terms of the box office earnings... but it may not meet a studio's expectations. I think it's demonstrably true that the Apple Watch has not achieved Apple's own explicit original marketing expectations. Forget about what OTHER people may say about Apple products and expectations -- look at what Apple said.
Negative. Alternate facts *are* facts, just from a different lens.
That is true. It's well-known in political debate for "alternative facts" to play a significant role. Pro-Choice folks might give stats on how many women aren't forced to give birth to unwanted babies, or how many single mothers (and children) aren't forced into a life a poverty to try to struggle to support a kid. Pro-Life folks might give similar stats, except noting the number of "babies who were killed."
Both of these are arguably "facts" -- they are just told from different perspectives. (Yes, they depend somewhat on the definition of "baby" vs. "fetus" or whatever, but given the common fact that pregnant mothers of whatever political persuasion often refer to their "baby" even when it is only weeks or months after conception, I'm not going to say the Pro-Life statement is using a false definition.)
Anyhow, yes, it is DEFINITELY possible for two political sides to "talk past each other" in giving factually true statements that simply come from their perspective. Statistics are frequently manipulated for such purposes too -- by telling one part of the stats, you can make it sound like it supports X; by emphasizing a different stat from the same data, it can support Y.
Both stats may be "facts" in some sort of absolute sense, just working from different assumptions. (In some cases, it's easier to argue that the assumptions from one side are more flawed than the other. In other cases, it's difficult to choose one side that's a more reasonable INTERPRETATION of the facts.)
Just because somebody says something is a fact doesn't make it so, however. It might just be alternate bullshit, but to think that only one set of facts apply to any given argument shows a remarkable lack of maturity of thought.
Yeah, the problem is that where this ALTERNATIVE FACTS thing came up recently is one of those cases. One could imagine a debate of "alternative facts" emerging:
Person A: "The crowd size that attended Trump's inauguration was smaller than Obama's."
Person B: "The number of people who watched Trump's inauguration worldwide was the largest ever."
Based on photographic evidence and other metrics (e.g., public transport usage), person A's statement appears to be true. From what I've seen of sources trying to sort out person B's statement, it COULD be true, because of the amount of people watching via TV, internet streaming on various devices, etc. -- it's difficult to tell, but B might in fact be true.
If we just grant, for a moment, that B is true, then we have two "alternative facts" that are different metrics for the popularity of this event. Of course, there may be reasons why the facts are biased too by things other than the assumed "popularity" -- for example, streaming devices have become much more available and people use them much more than a few years ago. Perhaps it was just more convenient for people worldwide to watch it. Or maybe the fact that it was predicted to be a rainy day caused crowdsize to be smaller. There are all sorts of other factors that could be at play.
HOWEVER, this is NOT the debate that Sean Spicer got into and which was later labeled an "alternative fact."
What he said was:
We do know a few things, so let's go through the facts. [...] This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration -- period -- both in person and around the globe.
Thus, Spicer's statement implies that A is false and B is true. But A is demonstrably true. And this is the statement that Conway was attempting to defend as "alternative facts." That's NOT an alternative fact -- that's at minimum a factual error, and perhaps (depending on what you believe about the administration's motivation here) a deliberate lie.
like how you keep repeating this as "Trump's list of seven"...
It's Obama's list of seven.
Who signed the order? Who has repeatedly declared that he's smarter than everyone else? Who has repeatedly declared that everybody else (generals, intelligence community, etc.) doesn't know as much as he does, and he'll change things?
If Mr. Trump made a decision to list these countries, it's his decision and his alone. If they were influenced by Obama in some way, that's great, but Trump signed the order. If he omitted major terrorist countries for whatever reason, his name is on the order.
I don't get why the Trump supporters here are trying to bring up Obama. Either you agree with Trump's action or your don't. Either he's smarter than everyone else and needs to take responsibility for what countries he chooses to ban, or he's a LOSER (as he'd put it) who is borrowing crap from someone else and just pretending he has the smarts to do what he claims.
Regardless: the point of looking at Obama's signing off on a half-year ban in 2011 is simply to show how hilariously hypocritical the shrieking left is as they react to things like this.
Obama stopped processing applications for refugee status. Trump has banned people who had already been granted visas and even green-card holders (i.e., residents of the U.S.), though apparently they've backed off a bit on the latter today after the huge backlash.
but a national shortage of fainting couches the moment the same thing is ordered for a much shorter period of time now. Love the hypocrisy, and love how transparently it's on display. That's the best.
Let's put this in different terms, shall we? If Obama were running a business, the equivalent of his actions would be to cease accepting new applications for jobs. If Trump were running a business, the equivalent would be to lay off people you had already said were hired, and to lock out of their homes longer-term employees who had relocated to join your company when they tried to return from vacation.
If you can't tell the difference between the severity of those actions, I don't know what to say.
When a merchant in medieval Genoa or a partician in ancient Rome sponsored a work of art, the plebs got to see it for free.
The problem with old patronage systems is that rich people decided what art existed. One might argue that's still the case with publishers and labels running the show, but it was even more extreme in the past. One of the problems with many copyright systems is that they allowed artists to effectively give up their rights to publishers in exchange for printing, promotion, etc. Copyright law does exist to allow invested parties to recoup their initial costs in creating a work (both artist and publisher), but you are right to note it also should encourage future art production... and thus the primary rights should always favor the artist.
Unfortunately, our current system tends to lead many piracy advocates to a cynical line of reasoning, "Most of the money goes to the label/publisher/whatever, anyway -- so I'm not even helping the artist!" Setting aside the fact that labels and publishers have added "value" to art in many cases in the people they employ -- from recording engineers to copy editors, some of whom play a major role in improving a work -- this is a valid point. And it's an argument for significant copyright reform, not necessarily the dissolution of the entire concept.
Anyhow, the old patronage system certainly had advantages, but the "populist" aspect of most piracy advocates was NOT one of them.
Denying people access to an infinitely copyable good -- that's a special kind of evil.
I'd like you to go back to Florence at the dawn of the modern copyright restrictions (late 1400s) and make that argument. Do you know WHY copyrights first were created in Europe? To disseminate knowledge.
You see, in Florence they had these learned patrons and rulers for a few generations who were ready to move things out of the "Dark Ages" and valued learning. So they were encouraging stuff like translating editions of ancient Greek and Roman works and republishing them so people could read them and rediscover old knowledge.
But a problem arose -- a publisher would work with a learned translator (not many read ancient Greek at that time) to create a quality edition, but the moment they published it, some guy down the street would buy a copy, take it to his printing press, and retypeset the thing. A bootleg edition could appear within months or even weeks, though likely with a lot of errors and quality problems due to the speed it was produced. But the bootleg edition was also cheaper, thus drawing business away from the people who made the initial investment in getting the translator etc. (And it wasn't just translations of ancient texts -- it was also new learned treatises with practical knowledge.)
If this were to continue as a practice, the publishers wouldn't have an incentive to keep outputting new books.
So the learned rulers realized the need for a protection of this investment -- and they granted a form of copyright, generally for terms of 5-10 years.
Whether or not you think copyright is still relevant TODAY, calling the whole concept "evil" is simply a misunderstanding of how it came into being in the first place -- i.e., a way to promote knowledge and encourage its production/dissemination in quality editions.
I'll happily join you in criticizing most of the aspects of copyright that you complain about. Copyright terms that extend to nearly a century after the artist's death are absurd, as are many of the other elements you mention. But if we go back to historical statutes of 7-10 years for an artistic monopoly, I don't think the arguments are so bad. (Or even the terms of the original U.S. copyright act in the 1790s, for 14 years.) And your arguments about music sound good when you're talking about a touring band selling tee-shirts or whatever, but what about forms of art or artists who don't want
They probably weren't physically trapped, but without being able to re-enter they couldn't leave if they wanted to keep their belongings.
First off, if that were true, then all the reporting is erroneous, since that's "locked out" of rooms, NOT "locked in."
Second... well, we can just RTFA:
Hotel management said that they have now been hit three times by cybercriminals who this time managed to take down the entire key system. The guests could no longer get in or out of the hotel rooms and new key cards could not be programmed.
Or read the other article:
Mr Brandstaetter said they had been hit three times by the cybercriminals, who managed to lock all the doors, trapping many guests inside and some outside their rooms.
One doesn't usually use the word "trapping" when someone can just walk out a door voluntarily. Obviously if your scenario were true, guests could simply pick up all their belongings and check out. Or they could prop the door open or something. Both of the linked stories imply this was NOT the case. (One even says explicitly that their only choice if they didn't pay the ransom was to go around the hotel and start breaking down doors.)
In which case, I have to agree with GP that there's a bigger story here -- which is that they had a system installed that could trap people in their rooms, PERIOD. Whether fire or whatever other emergency, there should ALWAYS be a manual override.
Welp folks, since we're not willing to use common sense in deploying our electronic systems to ensure their security and integrity, we're going to abandon digital and go back to mechanical.
"Common sense" is not very "common" at all when it comes to electronic systems, and it's even less common when it comes to computer security. The vast majority of people -- even those running big businesses -- simply have no clue how computers or networks or whatever work in any detail. So how can they have "common sense" about them?
And I think it's only getting worse. Interfaces on computers and electronics keep getting "simpler" with more information hidden from the end user. These changes are often pushed by companies that have a strong interest in keeping their users ignorant of things like security, because it allows them to continuously steal their users' data and information. So, a normal "user" who encounters technology on an everyday basis is going to get dumber about security if trends of the past couple decades continue. "Common sense" about such things will get even more rare.
Seriously -- obviously an air-gapped system is a easy solution here, but do you realize that most people don't even understand what that means? I've had lots of conversations with people who still can't even tell the difference between local applications/data and the internet... and cloud interactions are further blurring such distinctions all the time, so there's little benefit for most people in trying to understand such distinctions. All the people working at the hotel are going to say is, "Huh? Why can't I check my email on this computer?? It's broken!"
And let's not forget that this isn't just "liberals" who are concerned. Last March, 100 senior Republican national security officials signed an open letter expressing serious concern about Trump. In August, 50 similar folks signed an even stronger letter opposing their own party's candidate and implying he was unfit to handle the nuclear arsenal. John McCain, former Presidential candidate for the Republicans, when asked about it directly, stammered out a generic answer about how the person the people elect is qualified. Other Republicans and security officials made similar statements over the past couple years.
Whatever you may think of these people or Trump, it is simply UNPRECEDENTED to an open letter from large groups of major advisers from previous administrations opposing their own party's nominated candidate over fears over his warmongering and stated foreign policy opinions.
I have no idea whether Trump will act on any of these things. But I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to be concerned that he might, as members of his own party stated repeatedly throughout the campaign.
Being able to blindly thumb one button on my phone in the car and say "call Deb, put it on speaker" is absolutely useless.
I wish that were possible. It was possible for me with a cell phone I bought around 2002 or 2003. The phone had 10 or 20 numbers you could "train" to call by recording your voice, creating a verbal speed-dial of sorts. I remember the looks I used to get from people when I put the phone to my ear and say "call Deb" or whatever... At that time, it was like something out of sci-fi.
Alas, that feature became useless when I got my next phone a few years later. They did away with training and just tried to match my contact list... Except it would never get it right. There's only 10 people or less I'd want on verbal "speed-dial" anyway, but instead it was trying to pattern match to something out of hundreds of contacts.
Smart phones are basically still the same. Voice recognition isn't good enough to figure out how to distinguish my contacts (mostly because many names have nonstandard pronunciation rules).. So I'm still stuck with tech that's still less useful than the phone I had 15 years ago.
Fake news is a deliberate fiction, written with the intent to deceive, frighten, or anger the reader. It is not the same as news written with a bias, or even news reported in good faith, but with errors.
THIS. The word "fake" has undergone a redefinition (mostly by conservatives, but now also used by liberals) in the past couple months. In normal everyday English in other circcircumstances, the word "fake" has a clear meaning: something deliberately (and knowingly) fabricated to pretend to be true/accurate/genuine when it's not. Hence "fake ID" or "fake Rolex" or whatever. When you show a bouncer a "fake ID" to try to get into a bar, it doesn't mean you accidentally showed them someone else's ID or unintentionally tried to pass off an invalid one or something. It means you deliberately tried to pass off an ID you knew was manufactured as false.
The fake news folks have themselves fought back by trying to redefine the English word "fake" to mean "biased" or "unintentionally erroneous". But that's NOT what the word means. They're trying to distract you from the actual fabricated "news" out there... Which is a real problem.
The real irony here is that we would not be talking about this if Trump hadn't made such a big deal about it and if the entire right wing spin machine hadn't jumped on board to help him. Somebody should acquaint the White House press secretary and his team with the Streisand effect:
I'm not entirely convinced that there isn't at least SOME strategy here.
Trump is known for his ability to distract from real issues by uttering exaggerated, outlandish, and even insane things. So, we all end up talking about how crazy Trump's comment was, instead of real political issues of the day.
Realistically, what does this sort of statement do? Yes, it draws attention to the size of the crowd, and he we are still talking about it several days later. BUT does that actually hurt Trump's support? Those who support Trump already aren't going to be persuaded he's a liar or whatever after all this time -- there's already been ample evidence of that before.
So, from the lens of Trump supporters, what this statement did was make everyone look petty for trying to diminish the size of the crowd at the inauguration. If anything, Trump supporters are likely to even dig in their heels more and act persecuted as the media keeps harping on it.
Meanwhile, what is Trump REALLY doing over the past several days, as we sit here and keep debating about the size of his crowd?? What other horrible things are going on that the media is devoting fewer resources to, because they're distracted by this nonsense debate about one number?
I'm not saying this is an effective strategy in the long run, and I'm not sure it even is a strategy. But I *DO* think we should be on the look-out for "Streisand effect" stuff from Trump, because he THRIVES on generating publicity over things that normal people probably wouldn't want to be associated with, all the while drawing attention away from real debate on real issues.
That's a great list! Can you make up "Bingo" cards with those on them? Then we can all play at home whenever Trump or one of his aides is on TV. Heck, give them to interviewers, and they can just shout out "BINGO!" once they've accumulated enough rhetorical and logical fallacies. If we're going to participate in a large-scale political farce, we might as well make the most out of it.
The Huge schools with huge expenses make huge money.
Only a small minority of them. How about we listen to the NCAA, who probably knows more about college sports (and is an advocate for them) than just about any organization. Here's what they say.
Only 24 FBS schools generated more revenue than they spent in 2014, according to the NCAA Revenues and Expenses of Division I Intercollegiate Athletics Programs Report. That figure jumped from 20 schools in 2013, but it has remained relatively consistent through the past decade.
[...] Those 24 schools, at the median, generated about $6 million in net revenue. [...] But those 24 schools are a minority. Many more schools saw their expenses exceed their revenue, requiring their colleges and universities to cover the shortfall. The median FBS school spent $14.7 million to help subsidize its athletics department in 2014, up from a little more than $11 million in 2013. That level of spending isnâ(TM)t unique to FBS schools â" median Football Championship Subdivision and non-football schools spent roughly $11 million to help fund athletics in 2014.
In other words, out of the 128 FBS schools, around 15-20% actually have profitable athletic departments. Overall among Division I schools, athletic departments tend to run a median deficit of $11 million each year.
LSU football for example pays the short fall for ALL other sports.
Yes, in a small minority of programs this is true. Football and sometimes a couple other sports (notably basketball) are frequently somewhat profitable alone in big schools, but athletic departments in general lose money for universities. That's a simple fact.
And it's worse if you look at schools over time. Each year some percentage of schools are profitable, but a report that looked at these schools over a 5-year span found only SEVEN schools that were profitable in the longer term.
And it's getting worse over time. If you read the detailed NCAA report in the link above, you'll find interesting facts like how median generated revenues have increased by 94% since 2004, but total expenses have increased by 121% since 2004.
Basically, college sports have a sort of "arms race" going on. They are increasing expenditures like mad because all schools are, which results in some additional intake in revenue, but the revenue at the vast majority of schools does not keep up. in many states, the highest-paid state employees are college football coaches and assistant coaches, much higher than any politician or any other university official.
I think it's a general theme for cities with lots of high income job offerings, really. They cater to the individual employee or contractor working there, and to the idea that they may have a partner (whether business partner or relationship) with them. Once you get married and have kids? You're no longer their core focus, because after all -- you're committed to a lot of other responsibilities besides your work-life at that point.
This is true, but it's not just workers finding family time commitments.
-- It's the fact that most parents would prefer to have a playroom for the kids and a yard or something, rather than a one-bedroom or two-bedroom apartment at a rent rate you can barely afford.
-- It's the fact that most parents find that children completely change their social lives in ways that make cities less essential -- if you're meeting up with friends for a drink or catching some entertainment at a city venue multiple nights per week, city life is great. If most of your nights change to "at home with the kids again" or "playdate at friends' house with their kids again," then being in the center of a city for the nightlife and proximity to such venues becomes less important than having a yard or an extra room (see point above). Hence prioritizing of housing expenses away from "desirable location for adult activities" and more toward "what helps my life most now."
-- EVERYthing is generally more expensive in the city, because other people who work there also generally need the income. That means if you have kids and you need babysitting or daycare or whatever, look at paying 2-3 times (or more) what you'd pay for equivalent care outside a city. Same thing for lots of other kids stuff. (And your budget is already taking a major hit with kids to begin with.)
Etc., etc.
It's thus no mystery that middle-class (and upper middle class) folks mostly flee to the suburbs when they have kids.
San Francisco may be worse in terms of expectations for "work-life balance" than many other cities, but the basic dynamics of "family living is cheaper and easier outside big city centers" is pretty much the case everywhere. Sure, some people decide to "make it work" because they love city life and still see it as a priority. Others just have a big enough income that the skyrocketing costs of having kids doesn't impact them in terms of finding a larger living space, etc.
Piece of advice for people really looking for settling down, but will miss "city life" -- look for a job in a mid-size or smaller city. Lots of smaller cities have their own character, so it can be hard to find what you want. Yes, it won't be like "the big city" and yes the job opportunities won't be as numerous (or as lucrative), but the decreased cost of living will likely already solve the latter issue. And you might at least be able to have some place for the kids to play AND be close to work AND not have to plan over an hour of commute each way to enjoy a decent "night out."
Since these "uninformed" people don't actually own a Tesla, it doesn't matter one iota what they think about the system. If you actually own a Tesla, the capabilities and limitations of the system are very very clear.
And yet from almost the day that the "autopilot" feature became available, videos started circulating online of actual Tesla drivers doing stupid stuff like jumping into the passenger seat or back seat while letting the car "drive."
Whether those idiots are representative of Tesla owners is beside the point. Clearly SOME idiots who actually have access to Teslas have done stupid stuff, and I don't think it's coincidence that this started when the feature named "autopilot" was released.
Also, an autopilot on an aircraft doesn't completely fly the plane all by itself either. Pilots understand that. Do you think they should rename it so the passenger in seat 22C also understands?
Nope. But TERRIBLE analogy. When Tesla drivers have to pass a special exam with the rigor of a pilot's test before operating "autopilot" on their Tesla, then you might have a point. For now, any idiot can drive one of these things... including licensed drivers who aren't the primary driver of the Tesla and may "experiment" without understanding what's really going on.
Wow -- you actually weren't even aware of that comment? And yet you came to this detailed defense of him here?
See -- here's the problem: it's not any one thing. It's a "preponderance of the evidence" thing. And I am far from a "leftist" -- I hate both major parties with a passion and found both major candidates this election to be some of the worst choices EVER.
But Trump is simply in a "different league" of problems. That's why people assume he made fun of a disabled guy. I've seen the Catholics for Trump propaganda before. Maybe it's true. But there are other details about the specific references Trump made that also make me doubt his claim. Personally, I'd give Trump's story that he wasn't actually intentionally making fun of a disability about 5% chance of being true.
And that's mostly because of Trump's other record. He doesn't get to have "the benefit of the doubt" in a case like this when he's been a bullying boorish jerk the rest of the time. And yes, he DOES behave like a jerk. He DOES behave like a bully to many people IN PUBLIC. (I hear he's nice to people in person. That's great. But it's not the persona on the campaign trail.) I personally don't care much about the disability issue -- the very fact that Trump tends to make fun of people rather than debate their issues is a MUCH bigger problem to me than whether or not he insulted a disabled person. (The latter obviously is still a significant issue if true, but again, it's the larger pattern that's concerning, rather than that one detail.)
It seems like you, like many people who ultimately voted for Trump, just decided that you're going to believe the talking points of his supporters that the rest of the media was lying. I fully believe a lot of the mainstream media also exaggerated a bunch of things too (though, to be fair, Trump frequently egged them into doing so by behaving increasingly outlandish to get attention).
I really am trying to give our new President a chance today. Really. I'll wait and see what he does over the next weeks and months. But it distresses me when someone who comes out so strongly as a Trump defender is then not even familiar with the fact that Trump has advocated war crimes!! To me, it shows how warped the message has gotten to many voters. (And yes, it occurs on both sides, but the disconnect from reality has started to increase significantly much more on one of them.)
This election has historically the most votes on both sides AGAINST the other candidate, rather than in support of their own. Disapproval of both candidates was at record levels throughout the campaigns. Thus, everybody just HATES the other side so much that they'll vote for anyone else. Moreover, look at Congress stats if you want to see the divide. There are more partisan votes (i.e., votes where a majority of one party votes against a majority of the other) now than ever since statistics have been kept since WWII. And in those partisan votes, there is now a greater unanimity shown in both parties against each other than ever before. There are all sorts of metrics to show how far "divided" the U.S. is. And on Trump, especially so. Post-election, most new presidents tend to have approval ratings in excess of their percentage of the vote count, frequently 60% or more (Obama had around 70%, and some polls had him even higher). Trump, on the other hand, has consistently had a MAJORITY of Americans DISAPPROVING him, even after the election. This is unprecedented in presidential polling. His approval rating, even after the election, was lower than his share of the votes (confirming what I said above about people voting because they hate the other party, not because they like their candidate), and that's even with his post-election bump up to around 40%, after having an approval that was mostly in the 20-40% range for much of his campaign. (Most recent polls have shown a return to that lower range in the 30s.)
Only a few smart people can see past the buffoonery act because it is that powerful. And I believe it is an Act.
I sure hope you're correct. Sincerely, I do. I'm trying my best to keep an open mind and give Trump a chance to do some good now.
But there are numerous facts that seem to work against your contention. For one thing, why do these sudden awful tweets come out at 3am? That's the hour of drunk dialing ex-girlfriends and sending badly thought-out emails to a boss, not the hour of "calculated political intrigue." And just like the phone call to the ex or the regretted email to the boss, the next day Trump frequently walked back many of his comments during the campaign, saying that "wasn't really" what he meant, or people don't understand sarcasm or whatever.
If this is an act, he certainly seems to be playing it down to the last detail... which is weird, because he could easily attain the same levels of distraction by sending the tweets in normal business hours when sober, thoughtful people might. (In fact, he'd likely get even BETTER coverage.) Yet for some reason these crazed tweets seem to come out just at an hour when he's least likely to be "handled" by someone in a campaign who might be able to advise better. After the election, these late-night tweets disappeared for several days, only to erupt again in the middle of night.
And many of the tweets -- if this is all an act -- could end up being distracting without damaging to himself, if they were better planned. I have no doubt that Trump does some of this deliberately to get attention -- but the idea that it is ALL well-planned seems unlikely.
Anyhow, for the good of the country, I certainly hope you are correct. We'll see in the coming months.
Even black women in Atlanta (Lewis's district) agreed with Trump.
Uh -- correction: that link is to a story involving ONE black woman, who apparently was already a Trump supporter before this week.
And you call that uncalculated... that tweet was carefully chosen in target to increase black support for Trump.
And you have a poll or something to support that? No -- you have an anecdote from one black person who was already a Trump supporter. (So, even for this ONE person, there's no evidence cited of "increased black support.")
Now: what you say MIGHT be true of a few black voters, particularly local folks in the Congressman's district who are fed up with him. But there are people in every Congressional district in the country who are fed up with their Congressman. Outside of Atlanta, I'm pretty certain that all most liberal or moderate people (white or black) saw was a rich white dude attacking a Civil Rights Era hero on MLK day.
Thus, even IF your narrative is true and indicative of some minor loss of support for Lewis in his district, it's pretty certain that the tweet likely incited even more hatred among blacks against Trump for those outside of the district and unfamiliar with Lewis's record.
Slashdot Mirror
Was there serious demand for this? I suspect one of the features that many -- if not most -- users of LibreOffice enjoyed was that it didn't have the damned ribbon.
Yes, I rarely pay much attention to this, but on the few occasions I've checked in with LibreOffice's forums, I've definitely seen people complain about the lack of a ribbon OPTION. Like it or not, MS Office has had that interface for about a decade now, and many younger users have never used anything else.
[Personally, I dislike the ribbon and have never gotten used to it. The only reason I am able to use MS Office at work in a reasonable fashion is because I have a Mac that still has actual menus. But I also know a lot of people who LIKE the ribbon, or at least grew to like it over the years.]
Thanks guys for bringing the Office ribbon hassles to Writer. I'm sure everyone's tickled pink to now be able to experience Word's ribbon headaches on Linux.
It's an OPTION. Apparently one of FOUR possible ways to organize your UI. If you don't want it, don't use it.
But if LibreOffice actually still wants to sell itself as a competitor to MS Office, it needs to present a UI that isn't a shock to new users... many of whom have been using a "ribbon" in MS Office for years.
You're correct that there was a big upsurge in use of LibreOffice (back then, OpenOffice) with the introduction of the ribbon interface. The issue is that users didn't want to learn a new interface, so OpenOffice was a good alternative. Now LibreOffice has to adapt to a new public, whose default experience is WITH the ribbon.
That is a very Microsoft like statement, "goodness" defined by feature count, and probably not a good path to go down.
Agreed. Take word processors, for example. The features available in standard word processor software 30 years ago are still probably adequate for 97% of tasks today. If companies like Microsoft had just focused on improving those core features, that would have been great. But instead, you get these bloated hybrids that don't work well for text-editing and basic word processing (because they're overfull of unnecessary crap, some of which screws up basic editing). And they're not good for proper "desktop publishing" either, because the features aren't organized in a way that enables and encourages the kind of flexibility that professional typesetters and layout designers want (since it enables efficient management of layout and formatting).
Legitimate question: Maybe this thread would be a good place for people to recommend "lighter" but stable open-source alternatives to LibreOffice, preferably stuff available cross-platform. For example, I've tried out AbiWord in the past, though last time I used it (probably 6-7 years ago), it still seemed somewhat buggy. I also remember using Gnumeric as a spreadsheet several years ago, but is it still a stable and lighter option?
Nothing against the LibreOffice folks, who are doing a reasonable job to try to "keep up with the Joneses" in terms of having features for people who want to move from MS Office. But what are the lighter and GOOD alternatives out there?
Your post is definitely insightful in terms of how smoking policy is determined, but it also doesn't address how many anti-smoking arguments can be disingenuous about attributing societal or health-care costs to smokers.
If the argument is "We need to tax smokers because it's in society's best interest for everyone to live longer," that's a reasonable way of presenting the argument. BUT many public policy statements say something instead like, "Look at how much smokers cost us! Here are some numbers about how much we spent on healthcare for smokers per year! [No comparison figures for healthy folks are generally offered.] Smokers cost more for each year they are on health insurance/a national health plan! They're costing us money, so we need to ask them to pay their fair share!"
That's simply an incomplete set of facts that is incredibly misleading. Smokers die earlier and save society (and health care) money overall. That's the reality. Admit that, and then come up with a policy argument that still reflects your goals. To do otherwise is to be disingenuous.
And no, I'm not a smoker. Never have been. Don't desire to be around them. But I hate bad argumentation.
If people stopped smoking, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs.
THIS. There are literally dozens of economic analyses that have concluded the same thing. In fact, over 20 years ago, it was debated whether to bring this argument up in the Big Tobacco litigation (see, for example, this NY Times article from 1996). More recent analyses (such as here and here) agree. Philip Morris even commissioned its own study a while back to argue in the Czech Republic that it was actually saving society money because of decreased lifespans. But the study ended up just making cigarette companies look even more hated, so they backed off of it.
Bottom line is: "healthy" elderly people still cost society a LOT of money to keep alive -- in pensions and Social Security, in assisted living, and yes -- even in generic health care. If you include all of those things, there's NO QUESTION that smokers cost society less by dying earlier.
But even if you take health care costs on their own, it's pretty likely smokers cost less. "Healthy" older people end up living longer and needing hip replacements or treatment for minor cancers or hospitalization over a cold that turns into pneumonia (which doesn't happen as often with younger folks) or whatever -- that stuff adds up greatly over the years. Add an extra 5 or 10 years of "elder care" for non-smokers, and on average those "healthy" people will cost more than the additional costs from a smoker who dies early from a heart attack or whatever.
None of this is an argument in favor of smoking. And perhaps there's still some ethical argument to tax smoking more in order to promote "healthy" living or whatever, which perhaps some governments will make. But let's not be disingenuous about blaming smokers for overall societal cost, when they're mostly "taking one for the team" and giving up their Social Security or whatever for you.
Whether it's "quite profitable" is a fun topic to explore, but let's treat it as a real topic and not assume "it costs less to make the 50,000th watch than it sold for" is in any way a valid metric of "profitable".
THIS. You have a great breakdown of possible costs and revenue, which is generally necessary to determine profitability, which in turn is generally a metric for "success."
I pointed this out above, but there are many Hollywood films these days that make $100 million at the box office, but they are "flops" because the studio spent $150 million or whatever on production and marketing, etc. Comparing a $100 million blockbuster revenue with an indy film that makes $10 million makes little sense, but if the indy film had a budget of $2 million, it might be a great success compared to the blockbuster flop.
Since Apple won't give us detailed numbers on how much it spent on R&D, marketing, etc. on the Apple Watch (let alone SALES FIGURES -- note TFA doesn't even give numbers of units sold... if it were really a major increase, they'd be trumpeting that from the hilltops), we have no way of knowing how "profitable" it may or may not be.
Compared to any other wearable, it's a runaway success, but people don't think about it in those terms, because it is an Apple product.
Actually, it's NOT a "runaway success" "compared to any other wearable," which should be part of the metric. In particular, compared to a fitness tracker like FitBit, Apple's sales are a LOT smaller. (And, notably, Cook didn't reveal sales numbers here, but the Apple Watch has been trailing FAR behind FitBit sales last year.) Now, you might say, "That's a flawed comparison -- the FitBit is a lot cheaper and it's not a full-blown 'smart device.'"
And that's true. But when the Apple Watch premiered, Tim Cook argued emphatically about how the Apple Watch would replace other health and fitness trackers. That was a major part of the initial discussion and marketing.
Basically, Apple INTENDED for this device to because a replacement for generic fitness trackers. It was also marketed as a device that would enable new features -- new types of communication, payment systems, etc. Like the iPhone, which greatly expanded the desirability of a "smartphone" in the market (rather than just a standalone phone or media player or whatever), the Apple Watch was intended to create a mass market for smart watches.
It has failed to do so. So, by Apple's own initial marketing expectations, it's a bit of a flop. Without knowing internal expenses on development, marketing, etc., it's difficult to know how profitable (or not) it may be -- but Apple has moved its own goalposts for success here.
So be it ... it is not a device for everyone, but it is an excellent device for people who want to wear a watch that does more than tell the time.
And that's precisely why in Apple's own terms the device is somewhat of a failure. They wanted to create a large market for smart watches, in the same way that they significantly enlarged the market for smart phones and tablets. But that hasn't happened.
None of this is to say it may not be a great product for many people in its niche. But the standard of "success" is generally dictated by the expectations of the company that produced it. A Hollywood film can earn $100 million at the box office these days and be a "flop" if it spent $150 million on production and marketing. The film can be a "runaway success" compared to a lot of independent films that come out in terms of the box office earnings... but it may not meet a studio's expectations. I think it's demonstrably true that the Apple Watch has not achieved Apple's own explicit original marketing expectations. Forget about what OTHER people may say about Apple products and expectations -- look at what Apple said.
Negative. Alternate facts *are* facts, just from a different lens.
That is true. It's well-known in political debate for "alternative facts" to play a significant role. Pro-Choice folks might give stats on how many women aren't forced to give birth to unwanted babies, or how many single mothers (and children) aren't forced into a life a poverty to try to struggle to support a kid. Pro-Life folks might give similar stats, except noting the number of "babies who were killed."
Both of these are arguably "facts" -- they are just told from different perspectives. (Yes, they depend somewhat on the definition of "baby" vs. "fetus" or whatever, but given the common fact that pregnant mothers of whatever political persuasion often refer to their "baby" even when it is only weeks or months after conception, I'm not going to say the Pro-Life statement is using a false definition.)
Anyhow, yes, it is DEFINITELY possible for two political sides to "talk past each other" in giving factually true statements that simply come from their perspective. Statistics are frequently manipulated for such purposes too -- by telling one part of the stats, you can make it sound like it supports X; by emphasizing a different stat from the same data, it can support Y.
Both stats may be "facts" in some sort of absolute sense, just working from different assumptions. (In some cases, it's easier to argue that the assumptions from one side are more flawed than the other. In other cases, it's difficult to choose one side that's a more reasonable INTERPRETATION of the facts.)
Just because somebody says something is a fact doesn't make it so, however. It might just be alternate bullshit, but to think that only one set of facts apply to any given argument shows a remarkable lack of maturity of thought.
Yeah, the problem is that where this ALTERNATIVE FACTS thing came up recently is one of those cases. One could imagine a debate of "alternative facts" emerging:
Person A: "The crowd size that attended Trump's inauguration was smaller than Obama's."
Person B: "The number of people who watched Trump's inauguration worldwide was the largest ever."
Based on photographic evidence and other metrics (e.g., public transport usage), person A's statement appears to be true. From what I've seen of sources trying to sort out person B's statement, it COULD be true, because of the amount of people watching via TV, internet streaming on various devices, etc. -- it's difficult to tell, but B might in fact be true.
If we just grant, for a moment, that B is true, then we have two "alternative facts" that are different metrics for the popularity of this event. Of course, there may be reasons why the facts are biased too by things other than the assumed "popularity" -- for example, streaming devices have become much more available and people use them much more than a few years ago. Perhaps it was just more convenient for people worldwide to watch it. Or maybe the fact that it was predicted to be a rainy day caused crowdsize to be smaller. There are all sorts of other factors that could be at play.
HOWEVER, this is NOT the debate that Sean Spicer got into and which was later labeled an "alternative fact." What he said was:
We do know a few things, so let's go through the facts. [...] This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration -- period -- both in person and around the globe.
Thus, Spicer's statement implies that A is false and B is true. But A is demonstrably true. And this is the statement that Conway was attempting to defend as "alternative facts." That's NOT an alternative fact -- that's at minimum a factual error, and perhaps (depending on what you believe about the administration's motivation here) a deliberate lie.
like how you keep repeating this as "Trump's list of seven"...
It's Obama's list of seven.
Who signed the order? Who has repeatedly declared that he's smarter than everyone else? Who has repeatedly declared that everybody else (generals, intelligence community, etc.) doesn't know as much as he does, and he'll change things?
If Mr. Trump made a decision to list these countries, it's his decision and his alone. If they were influenced by Obama in some way, that's great, but Trump signed the order. If he omitted major terrorist countries for whatever reason, his name is on the order.
I don't get why the Trump supporters here are trying to bring up Obama. Either you agree with Trump's action or your don't. Either he's smarter than everyone else and needs to take responsibility for what countries he chooses to ban, or he's a LOSER (as he'd put it) who is borrowing crap from someone else and just pretending he has the smarts to do what he claims.
Sad.
Regardless: the point of looking at Obama's signing off on a half-year ban in 2011 is simply to show how hilariously hypocritical the shrieking left is as they react to things like this.
Obama stopped processing applications for refugee status. Trump has banned people who had already been granted visas and even green-card holders (i.e., residents of the U.S.), though apparently they've backed off a bit on the latter today after the huge backlash.
but a national shortage of fainting couches the moment the same thing is ordered for a much shorter period of time now. Love the hypocrisy, and love how transparently it's on display. That's the best.
Let's put this in different terms, shall we? If Obama were running a business, the equivalent of his actions would be to cease accepting new applications for jobs. If Trump were running a business, the equivalent would be to lay off people you had already said were hired, and to lock out of their homes longer-term employees who had relocated to join your company when they tried to return from vacation.
If you can't tell the difference between the severity of those actions, I don't know what to say.
You make a lot of good points. However...
When a merchant in medieval Genoa or a partician in ancient Rome sponsored a work of art, the plebs got to see it for free.
The problem with old patronage systems is that rich people decided what art existed. One might argue that's still the case with publishers and labels running the show, but it was even more extreme in the past. One of the problems with many copyright systems is that they allowed artists to effectively give up their rights to publishers in exchange for printing, promotion, etc. Copyright law does exist to allow invested parties to recoup their initial costs in creating a work (both artist and publisher), but you are right to note it also should encourage future art production... and thus the primary rights should always favor the artist.
Unfortunately, our current system tends to lead many piracy advocates to a cynical line of reasoning, "Most of the money goes to the label/publisher/whatever, anyway -- so I'm not even helping the artist!" Setting aside the fact that labels and publishers have added "value" to art in many cases in the people they employ -- from recording engineers to copy editors, some of whom play a major role in improving a work -- this is a valid point. And it's an argument for significant copyright reform, not necessarily the dissolution of the entire concept.
Anyhow, the old patronage system certainly had advantages, but the "populist" aspect of most piracy advocates was NOT one of them.
Denying people access to an infinitely copyable good -- that's a special kind of evil.
I'd like you to go back to Florence at the dawn of the modern copyright restrictions (late 1400s) and make that argument. Do you know WHY copyrights first were created in Europe? To disseminate knowledge.
You see, in Florence they had these learned patrons and rulers for a few generations who were ready to move things out of the "Dark Ages" and valued learning. So they were encouraging stuff like translating editions of ancient Greek and Roman works and republishing them so people could read them and rediscover old knowledge.
But a problem arose -- a publisher would work with a learned translator (not many read ancient Greek at that time) to create a quality edition, but the moment they published it, some guy down the street would buy a copy, take it to his printing press, and retypeset the thing. A bootleg edition could appear within months or even weeks, though likely with a lot of errors and quality problems due to the speed it was produced. But the bootleg edition was also cheaper, thus drawing business away from the people who made the initial investment in getting the translator etc. (And it wasn't just translations of ancient texts -- it was also new learned treatises with practical knowledge.)
If this were to continue as a practice, the publishers wouldn't have an incentive to keep outputting new books.
So the learned rulers realized the need for a protection of this investment -- and they granted a form of copyright, generally for terms of 5-10 years.
Whether or not you think copyright is still relevant TODAY, calling the whole concept "evil" is simply a misunderstanding of how it came into being in the first place -- i.e., a way to promote knowledge and encourage its production/dissemination in quality editions.
I'll happily join you in criticizing most of the aspects of copyright that you complain about. Copyright terms that extend to nearly a century after the artist's death are absurd, as are many of the other elements you mention. But if we go back to historical statutes of 7-10 years for an artistic monopoly, I don't think the arguments are so bad. (Or even the terms of the original U.S. copyright act in the 1790s, for 14 years.) And your arguments about music sound good when you're talking about a touring band selling tee-shirts or whatever, but what about forms of art or artists who don't want
They probably weren't physically trapped, but without being able to re-enter they couldn't leave if they wanted to keep their belongings.
First off, if that were true, then all the reporting is erroneous, since that's "locked out" of rooms, NOT "locked in."
Second... well, we can just RTFA:
Hotel management said that they have now been hit three times by cybercriminals who this time managed to take down the entire key system. The guests could no longer get in or out of the hotel rooms and new key cards could not be programmed.
Or read the other article:
Mr Brandstaetter said they had been hit three times by the cybercriminals, who managed to lock all the doors, trapping many guests inside and some outside their rooms.
One doesn't usually use the word "trapping" when someone can just walk out a door voluntarily. Obviously if your scenario were true, guests could simply pick up all their belongings and check out. Or they could prop the door open or something. Both of the linked stories imply this was NOT the case. (One even says explicitly that their only choice if they didn't pay the ransom was to go around the hotel and start breaking down doors.)
In which case, I have to agree with GP that there's a bigger story here -- which is that they had a system installed that could trap people in their rooms, PERIOD. Whether fire or whatever other emergency, there should ALWAYS be a manual override.
Welp folks, since we're not willing to use common sense in deploying our electronic systems to ensure their security and integrity, we're going to abandon digital and go back to mechanical.
"Common sense" is not very "common" at all when it comes to electronic systems, and it's even less common when it comes to computer security. The vast majority of people -- even those running big businesses -- simply have no clue how computers or networks or whatever work in any detail. So how can they have "common sense" about them?
And I think it's only getting worse. Interfaces on computers and electronics keep getting "simpler" with more information hidden from the end user. These changes are often pushed by companies that have a strong interest in keeping their users ignorant of things like security, because it allows them to continuously steal their users' data and information. So, a normal "user" who encounters technology on an everyday basis is going to get dumber about security if trends of the past couple decades continue. "Common sense" about such things will get even more rare.
Seriously -- obviously an air-gapped system is a easy solution here, but do you realize that most people don't even understand what that means? I've had lots of conversations with people who still can't even tell the difference between local applications/data and the internet... and cloud interactions are further blurring such distinctions all the time, so there's little benefit for most people in trying to understand such distinctions. All the people working at the hotel are going to say is, "Huh? Why can't I check my email on this computer?? It's broken!"
And let's not forget that this isn't just "liberals" who are concerned. Last March, 100 senior Republican national security officials signed an open letter expressing serious concern about Trump. In August, 50 similar folks signed an even stronger letter opposing their own party's candidate and implying he was unfit to handle the nuclear arsenal. John McCain, former Presidential candidate for the Republicans, when asked about it directly, stammered out a generic answer about how the person the people elect is qualified. Other Republicans and security officials made similar statements over the past couple years.
Whatever you may think of these people or Trump, it is simply UNPRECEDENTED to an open letter from large groups of major advisers from previous administrations opposing their own party's nominated candidate over fears over his warmongering and stated foreign policy opinions.
I have no idea whether Trump will act on any of these things. But I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to be concerned that he might, as members of his own party stated repeatedly throughout the campaign.
Being able to blindly thumb one button on my phone in the car and say "call Deb, put it on speaker" is absolutely useless.
I wish that were possible. It was possible for me with a cell phone I bought around 2002 or 2003. The phone had 10 or 20 numbers you could "train" to call by recording your voice, creating a verbal speed-dial of sorts. I remember the looks I used to get from people when I put the phone to my ear and say "call Deb" or whatever... At that time, it was like something out of sci-fi.
Alas, that feature became useless when I got my next phone a few years later. They did away with training and just tried to match my contact list... Except it would never get it right. There's only 10 people or less I'd want on verbal "speed-dial" anyway, but instead it was trying to pattern match to something out of hundreds of contacts.
Smart phones are basically still the same. Voice recognition isn't good enough to figure out how to distinguish my contacts (mostly because many names have nonstandard pronunciation rules).. So I'm still stuck with tech that's still less useful than the phone I had 15 years ago.
Fake news is a deliberate fiction, written with the intent to deceive, frighten, or anger the reader. It is not the same as news written with a bias, or even news reported in good faith, but with errors.
THIS. The word "fake" has undergone a redefinition (mostly by conservatives, but now also used by liberals) in the past couple months. In normal everyday English in other circcircumstances, the word "fake" has a clear meaning: something deliberately (and knowingly) fabricated to pretend to be true/accurate/genuine when it's not. Hence "fake ID" or "fake Rolex" or whatever. When you show a bouncer a "fake ID" to try to get into a bar, it doesn't mean you accidentally showed them someone else's ID or unintentionally tried to pass off an invalid one or something. It means you deliberately tried to pass off an ID you knew was manufactured as false.
The fake news folks have themselves fought back by trying to redefine the English word "fake" to mean "biased" or "unintentionally erroneous". But that's NOT what the word means. They're trying to distract you from the actual fabricated "news" out there... Which is a real problem.
The real irony here is that we would not be talking about this if Trump hadn't made such a big deal about it and if the entire right wing spin machine hadn't jumped on board to help him. Somebody should acquaint the White House press secretary and his team with the Streisand effect:
I'm not entirely convinced that there isn't at least SOME strategy here.
Trump is known for his ability to distract from real issues by uttering exaggerated, outlandish, and even insane things. So, we all end up talking about how crazy Trump's comment was, instead of real political issues of the day.
Realistically, what does this sort of statement do? Yes, it draws attention to the size of the crowd, and he we are still talking about it several days later. BUT does that actually hurt Trump's support? Those who support Trump already aren't going to be persuaded he's a liar or whatever after all this time -- there's already been ample evidence of that before.
So, from the lens of Trump supporters, what this statement did was make everyone look petty for trying to diminish the size of the crowd at the inauguration. If anything, Trump supporters are likely to even dig in their heels more and act persecuted as the media keeps harping on it.
Meanwhile, what is Trump REALLY doing over the past several days, as we sit here and keep debating about the size of his crowd?? What other horrible things are going on that the media is devoting fewer resources to, because they're distracted by this nonsense debate about one number?
I'm not saying this is an effective strategy in the long run, and I'm not sure it even is a strategy. But I *DO* think we should be on the look-out for "Streisand effect" stuff from Trump, because he THRIVES on generating publicity over things that normal people probably wouldn't want to be associated with, all the while drawing attention away from real debate on real issues.
That's a great list! Can you make up "Bingo" cards with those on them? Then we can all play at home whenever Trump or one of his aides is on TV. Heck, give them to interviewers, and they can just shout out "BINGO!" once they've accumulated enough rhetorical and logical fallacies. If we're going to participate in a large-scale political farce, we might as well make the most out of it.
Please at least do SOME research.
OK, let's do SOME research, shall we?
The Huge schools with huge expenses make huge money.
Only a small minority of them. How about we listen to the NCAA, who probably knows more about college sports (and is an advocate for them) than just about any organization. Here's what they say.
Only 24 FBS schools generated more revenue than they spent in 2014, according to the NCAA Revenues and Expenses of Division I Intercollegiate Athletics Programs Report. That figure jumped from 20 schools in 2013, but it has remained relatively consistent through the past decade.
[...] Those 24 schools, at the median, generated about $6 million in net revenue. [...] But those 24 schools are a minority. Many more schools saw their expenses exceed their revenue, requiring their colleges and universities to cover the shortfall. The median FBS school spent $14.7 million to help subsidize its athletics department in 2014, up from a little more than $11 million in 2013. That level of spending isnâ(TM)t unique to FBS schools â" median Football Championship Subdivision and non-football schools spent roughly $11 million to help fund athletics in 2014.
In other words, out of the 128 FBS schools, around 15-20% actually have profitable athletic departments. Overall among Division I schools, athletic departments tend to run a median deficit of $11 million each year.
LSU football for example pays the short fall for ALL other sports.
Yes, in a small minority of programs this is true. Football and sometimes a couple other sports (notably basketball) are frequently somewhat profitable alone in big schools, but athletic departments in general lose money for universities. That's a simple fact.
And it's worse if you look at schools over time. Each year some percentage of schools are profitable, but a report that looked at these schools over a 5-year span found only SEVEN schools that were profitable in the longer term.
And it's getting worse over time. If you read the detailed NCAA report in the link above, you'll find interesting facts like how median generated revenues have increased by 94% since 2004, but total expenses have increased by 121% since 2004.
Basically, college sports have a sort of "arms race" going on. They are increasing expenditures like mad because all schools are, which results in some additional intake in revenue, but the revenue at the vast majority of schools does not keep up. in many states, the highest-paid state employees are college football coaches and assistant coaches, much higher than any politician or any other university official.
I think it's a general theme for cities with lots of high income job offerings, really. They cater to the individual employee or contractor working there, and to the idea that they may have a partner (whether business partner or relationship) with them. Once you get married and have kids? You're no longer their core focus, because after all -- you're committed to a lot of other responsibilities besides your work-life at that point.
This is true, but it's not just workers finding family time commitments.
-- It's the fact that most parents would prefer to have a playroom for the kids and a yard or something, rather than a one-bedroom or two-bedroom apartment at a rent rate you can barely afford.
-- It's the fact that most parents find that children completely change their social lives in ways that make cities less essential -- if you're meeting up with friends for a drink or catching some entertainment at a city venue multiple nights per week, city life is great. If most of your nights change to "at home with the kids again" or "playdate at friends' house with their kids again," then being in the center of a city for the nightlife and proximity to such venues becomes less important than having a yard or an extra room (see point above). Hence prioritizing of housing expenses away from "desirable location for adult activities" and more toward "what helps my life most now."
-- EVERYthing is generally more expensive in the city, because other people who work there also generally need the income. That means if you have kids and you need babysitting or daycare or whatever, look at paying 2-3 times (or more) what you'd pay for equivalent care outside a city. Same thing for lots of other kids stuff. (And your budget is already taking a major hit with kids to begin with.)
Etc., etc.
It's thus no mystery that middle-class (and upper middle class) folks mostly flee to the suburbs when they have kids.
San Francisco may be worse in terms of expectations for "work-life balance" than many other cities, but the basic dynamics of "family living is cheaper and easier outside big city centers" is pretty much the case everywhere. Sure, some people decide to "make it work" because they love city life and still see it as a priority. Others just have a big enough income that the skyrocketing costs of having kids doesn't impact them in terms of finding a larger living space, etc.
Piece of advice for people really looking for settling down, but will miss "city life" -- look for a job in a mid-size or smaller city. Lots of smaller cities have their own character, so it can be hard to find what you want. Yes, it won't be like "the big city" and yes the job opportunities won't be as numerous (or as lucrative), but the decreased cost of living will likely already solve the latter issue. And you might at least be able to have some place for the kids to play AND be close to work AND not have to plan over an hour of commute each way to enjoy a decent "night out."
Since these "uninformed" people don't actually own a Tesla, it doesn't matter one iota what they think about the system. If you actually own a Tesla, the capabilities and limitations of the system are very very clear.
And yet from almost the day that the "autopilot" feature became available, videos started circulating online of actual Tesla drivers doing stupid stuff like jumping into the passenger seat or back seat while letting the car "drive."
Whether those idiots are representative of Tesla owners is beside the point. Clearly SOME idiots who actually have access to Teslas have done stupid stuff, and I don't think it's coincidence that this started when the feature named "autopilot" was released.
Also, an autopilot on an aircraft doesn't completely fly the plane all by itself either. Pilots understand that. Do you think they should rename it so the passenger in seat 22C also understands?
Nope. But TERRIBLE analogy. When Tesla drivers have to pass a special exam with the rigor of a pilot's test before operating "autopilot" on their Tesla, then you might have a point. For now, any idiot can drive one of these things... including licensed drivers who aren't the primary driver of the Tesla and may "experiment" without understanding what's really going on.
Wow -- you actually weren't even aware of that comment? And yet you came to this detailed defense of him here?
See -- here's the problem: it's not any one thing. It's a "preponderance of the evidence" thing. And I am far from a "leftist" -- I hate both major parties with a passion and found both major candidates this election to be some of the worst choices EVER.
But Trump is simply in a "different league" of problems. That's why people assume he made fun of a disabled guy. I've seen the Catholics for Trump propaganda before. Maybe it's true. But there are other details about the specific references Trump made that also make me doubt his claim. Personally, I'd give Trump's story that he wasn't actually intentionally making fun of a disability about 5% chance of being true.
And that's mostly because of Trump's other record. He doesn't get to have "the benefit of the doubt" in a case like this when he's been a bullying boorish jerk the rest of the time. And yes, he DOES behave like a jerk. He DOES behave like a bully to many people IN PUBLIC. (I hear he's nice to people in person. That's great. But it's not the persona on the campaign trail.) I personally don't care much about the disability issue -- the very fact that Trump tends to make fun of people rather than debate their issues is a MUCH bigger problem to me than whether or not he insulted a disabled person. (The latter obviously is still a significant issue if true, but again, it's the larger pattern that's concerning, rather than that one detail.)
It seems like you, like many people who ultimately voted for Trump, just decided that you're going to believe the talking points of his supporters that the rest of the media was lying. I fully believe a lot of the mainstream media also exaggerated a bunch of things too (though, to be fair, Trump frequently egged them into doing so by behaving increasingly outlandish to get attention).
I really am trying to give our new President a chance today. Really. I'll wait and see what he does over the next weeks and months. But it distresses me when someone who comes out so strongly as a Trump defender is then not even familiar with the fact that Trump has advocated war crimes!! To me, it shows how warped the message has gotten to many voters. (And yes, it occurs on both sides, but the disconnect from reality has started to increase significantly much more on one of them.)
This election has historically the most votes on both sides AGAINST the other candidate, rather than in support of their own. Disapproval of both candidates was at record levels throughout the campaigns. Thus, everybody just HATES the other side so much that they'll vote for anyone else. Moreover, look at Congress stats if you want to see the divide. There are more partisan votes (i.e., votes where a majority of one party votes against a majority of the other) now than ever since statistics have been kept since WWII. And in those partisan votes, there is now a greater unanimity shown in both parties against each other than ever before. There are all sorts of metrics to show how far "divided" the U.S. is. And on Trump, especially so. Post-election, most new presidents tend to have approval ratings in excess of their percentage of the vote count, frequently 60% or more (Obama had around 70%, and some polls had him even higher). Trump, on the other hand, has consistently had a MAJORITY of Americans DISAPPROVING him, even after the election. This is unprecedented in presidential polling. His approval rating, even after the election, was lower than his share of the votes (confirming what I said above about people voting because they hate the other party, not because they like their candidate), and that's even with his post-election bump up to around 40%, after having an approval that was mostly in the 20-40% range for much of his campaign. (Most recent polls have shown a return to that lower range in the 30s.)
Only a few smart people can see past the buffoonery act because it is that powerful. And I believe it is an Act.
I sure hope you're correct. Sincerely, I do. I'm trying my best to keep an open mind and give Trump a chance to do some good now.
But there are numerous facts that seem to work against your contention. For one thing, why do these sudden awful tweets come out at 3am? That's the hour of drunk dialing ex-girlfriends and sending badly thought-out emails to a boss, not the hour of "calculated political intrigue." And just like the phone call to the ex or the regretted email to the boss, the next day Trump frequently walked back many of his comments during the campaign, saying that "wasn't really" what he meant, or people don't understand sarcasm or whatever.
If this is an act, he certainly seems to be playing it down to the last detail... which is weird, because he could easily attain the same levels of distraction by sending the tweets in normal business hours when sober, thoughtful people might. (In fact, he'd likely get even BETTER coverage.) Yet for some reason these crazed tweets seem to come out just at an hour when he's least likely to be "handled" by someone in a campaign who might be able to advise better. After the election, these late-night tweets disappeared for several days, only to erupt again in the middle of night.
And many of the tweets -- if this is all an act -- could end up being distracting without damaging to himself, if they were better planned. I have no doubt that Trump does some of this deliberately to get attention -- but the idea that it is ALL well-planned seems unlikely.
Anyhow, for the good of the country, I certainly hope you are correct. We'll see in the coming months.
Even black women in Atlanta (Lewis's district) agreed with Trump.
Uh -- correction: that link is to a story involving ONE black woman, who apparently was already a Trump supporter before this week.
And you call that uncalculated... that tweet was carefully chosen in target to increase black support for Trump.
And you have a poll or something to support that? No -- you have an anecdote from one black person who was already a Trump supporter. (So, even for this ONE person, there's no evidence cited of "increased black support.")
Now: what you say MIGHT be true of a few black voters, particularly local folks in the Congressman's district who are fed up with him. But there are people in every Congressional district in the country who are fed up with their Congressman. Outside of Atlanta, I'm pretty certain that all most liberal or moderate people (white or black) saw was a rich white dude attacking a Civil Rights Era hero on MLK day.
Thus, even IF your narrative is true and indicative of some minor loss of support for Lewis in his district, it's pretty certain that the tweet likely incited even more hatred among blacks against Trump for those outside of the district and unfamiliar with Lewis's record.
And if you can't figure out which one is flush, just leave it. It sucks for the next guy, but you're not being an asshole on purpose.
Truer words were never spoken.