He means "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" (TANSTAAFL). This acronym was introduced by Robert Heinlein, who is sometimes also cited as the originator of the phrase as well. It features in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and several of his other books as well. Robert Heinlein was one of the most popular science fiction authors of the 20th century, especially in the US. It's not such an obscure phrase, given Slashdot's audience.
He meant "an illiterate player", but he didn't elide what came between "an" and "illiterate". He shouldn't have constructed his sentence in that fashion anyway; it was bound to be inelegant.
You're missing a fundamental point about the relative power of organisations and companies. It may be frustrating and immoral for Walmart to choose not to purchase the work of some artists for resale. But it's their right -- and the artists have not been denied *their right* to try to find another willing buyer. Now if a government passed a law that *forbade* anyone from purchasing their work, *that* would be censorship. And the fact that the media outlets you name have a message you find disagreeable does not prevent you from choosing another outlet, nor indeed from choosing to start your own. Really, I wish people would get things in perspective -- if you want to see true censorship, go visit Saudi Arabia, or Syria, or China. Places where lots and lots of thoughts that would be perfectly legal to express in your country or mine would result in jail sentences. Then try to think of a single thing that you could say in those countries in their media that you couldn't -- legally -- say in ours.
I've been led to believe that in the UK, non-compete clauses are worth bugger all for the simple reason that once you've resigned, you no longer have a contract of employment with your company and it therefore has no power over you. That's why companies use gardening leave if they don't want their trade secrets disappearing -- and why the military and security services get so twitchy about ex-employees threatening to write books.
He didn't say that he thought that the US excels in human rights. He compared the US's human rights record with that of Sudan -- which has a truly appalling human rights record, far worse than that of the US. In any event, the original poster is confusing Sudan with Libya (which also has an appalling human rights record).
There's actually far more of a problem with felons not voting than with felons voting. Many hundreds of thousands of Americans have been disenfranchised for life because they have been convicted of a crime. In some cases, that crime may have been very serious; in many more cases it is not. For instance, a conviction for possession of any amount of cannabis can be enough to ensure that you will never be allowed to vote again. It is also worth stating that, because there are disproportionately large numbers of Afro-Americans and other non-whites convicted of felonies, these minorities are significantly under-represented at the ballot box.
I think that your assertions are unlikely to be borne out by the facts. Coverage of the Stephen Lawrence and Damilola Taylor murders was very extensive. The Soham murders may have been covered more thoroughly, but that is due to the story itself -- Amanda Dowler's case was and continues to be lower profile than the killings of the two black boys I mentioned above. If you're talking about deaths around the world, I think that your charge is equally insubstantial -- there's plenty of news stories from right around the world, but the front page reflects the likely predominant interests of either UK or non-UK readers (and can be changed, should you wish to do so). The fact that the BBC provides airtime for people whose viewpoints you disagree with may irritate you but is in fact a testament to impartiality. Every person with a special interest in a story will complain about an opposing viewpoint being put forward, will be able to adduce some evidence of inadequate treatment of their pet topic and will explain exactly how it is ridiculous to even begin to consider the views of the other as respectable. This is how Israelis, doctors, businessmen, Lib Dems, environmentalists, hunt sabs and any other group you care to mention feels. I can't see that scientists are treated any worse or more sceptically than any of the groups (or their oppositions) that I listed above. And opposition to the implementation of a particular technology does not, a priori, make one an ignoramus. In case you've forgotten, while the implementation of technology is frequently beneficial to us, occasionally it's not (viz Zyklon B, thalidomide, Bhopal). Finally, of course, if you really don't like the BBC, you could always sell your telly. There's bugger all on that's worth anyone's time anyway.
Thanks for the tips and info; nice to know that there's other folks out there with the good taste to recognise that a yellow diamond is something really special...
You bought a 6.5 carat yellow diamond?! Do you mean yellow as in off-white (i.e., not a desired colour) or yellow as in fancy light, vivid, intense etc (i.e., a desired colour). If it's the latter, then you are one very rich man -- that must have cost 50k+. I bought my wife a 1.26FLY diamond from Graff and that stone alone was worth £5k.
There were indeed telcos who dropped out of the auction in the UK. There was no government requirement that companies must bid for the licences. The fact that Chairman Jones is wasting money on a licence doesn't mean that Chairman Smith should do the same. Rightwingers generally love to should that it ain't the government's job to save people from their own stupidity--strange how they only do this when talking about single mothers and not corporations. Ken Binmoore, who designed the UK auction, has gone on record about this very subject: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story /0,3604,77 2840,00.html As he so aptly put it: "If I were a telecom chairman, I would want to be insulated from risk. But taking risks is what being an entrepreneur is all about. It would make nonsense of the privatisation if we started insuring shareholders against risk by returning to social planning whenever they looked like losing money."
Have you never heard of the economic principle of "asymmetric information"? Investors can be as intelligent as they like -- if there are no enforceable rules about information disclosure, then they will not be able to understand everything they need to in order to invest carefully.
On a budget of £60bn+ per year (what's that, $90bn?). Sure, it's an outrage, but Enron's fraud was one hell of a lot bigger than 3% of annual revenues...
Oh for fuck's sake. The government ran an *auction* for 3G licences. The dimwitted telco CEOs who paid over the odds for those licences have no-one to blame but themselves and their advisers, in the same way as they can blame no-one but themselves and their advisers for over-priced acquisitions.
So are you suggesting that we shouldn't impose any regulations on companies for fear of burdening them? Why would we want to sit back and wait for someone to shaft us? Why wouldn't we want to attempt to design our financial systems to reduce the chance of being shafted in the first place? If the government had no powers at all, save prosecution of crimes, do you think that fewer crimes would be committed? Why? If no-one was required to report their earnings, how would we even know if a crime had been committed?
Take another look at that list of items I mentioned above -- they are all funded at least partly through general taxation and are therefore paid for by anyone who pays tax, rather than just car-users. The net costs are not borne solely by car-users. In fact, it's not even close to being the case -- there is a large transfer of wealth from non-car-users to car-users.
That's not an economic concept, it's a theory. It's also not demonstrated in this case. You would need to show that the net costs to the UK economy as a whole would go up -- this seems unlikely as what is happening is a shift in the cost-burden from the population as a whole to those making use of particular forms of transport. If you want to argue micro-economics with me, go ahead, but you don't sound like an economist.
1) Yes, it's a tax. So what? 2) He will too force people off the roads. Not a huge number in relative terms, but in absolute terms, quite a few. People will either a) decide their journey is unnecessary (and many journeys are) or b) choose an alternative method of transport. It will pay for quite a few more buses, which are a cheap and effective way of getting people moving.
You can't drive a car *down* most of Oxford Street legally, but you can certainly drive one *across* it -- and it's these guys that are the ones holding pedestrians up!
On the other point, empty roads != empty pavements.
Let's get this straight. You think that there'll be no crashes with the advent of private mass ownership of carplanes? Presumably a crash between two airplanes over Switzerland the other week never made it onto your radar screen (sorry...)? Crashes will be a problem with air-based private transport just as surely as they are with ground-based private transport.
The London mayor has already made bus transport cheaper and simplified the fare structure, and has also got more buses on the road. But lots more are still needed.
1) Buses are not full past capacity. Some buses on some routes at some points of the day are. But most are not. 2) There are lots more buses than before, and there will be even more. Ken's not an idiot and he did realise that this was the quickest fix available to him to improve transport supply. 3) Most of the traffic might seem to be buses, taxis and delivery vans, but it's actually not the case. It's still private cars.
Who needs a car? If you're already intending not to work in London any more, why not get a job in Teddington or Hampton Wick and take the train the other way? It's a lot less crowded and a lot more reliable. And in the meantime, do you not have sufficient flexibility in your job to go in an hour earlier and come home an hour earlier? I get the northern line from Belsize Park to Waterloo daily and at 7.30ish in the morning, I rarely have a problem getting a seat. Sure, the situation isn't great, but it's not impossible. Not by a long way.
Well, we'd better vote for a government that will, then! (Those of us who're entitled, anyway.) The answer is obviously not to try to improve things for cars, because that's a no-win situation -- far fewer people regularly drive in London than in any other British city, so a small increase in drivers would overwhelm any conceivable improvement to road infrastructure. Instead, it's to improve public transport. Start using your buses -- and start complaining to your local councillor and your MP when they're no good! Re-learn to walk! Ask your local supermarket to lay on a free bus service!
Slashdot Mirror
He means "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" (TANSTAAFL). This acronym was introduced by Robert Heinlein, who is sometimes also cited as the originator of the phrase as well. It features in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and several of his other books as well. Robert Heinlein was one of the most popular science fiction authors of the 20th century, especially in the US. It's not such an obscure phrase, given Slashdot's audience.
He meant "an illiterate player", but he didn't elide what came between "an" and "illiterate". He shouldn't have constructed his sentence in that fashion anyway; it was bound to be inelegant.
You're missing a fundamental point about the relative power of organisations and companies. It may be frustrating and immoral for Walmart to choose not to purchase the work of some artists for resale. But it's their right -- and the artists have not been denied *their right* to try to find another willing buyer. Now if a government passed a law that *forbade* anyone from purchasing their work, *that* would be censorship.
And the fact that the media outlets you name have a message you find disagreeable does not prevent you from choosing another outlet, nor indeed from choosing to start your own.
Really, I wish people would get things in perspective -- if you want to see true censorship, go visit Saudi Arabia, or Syria, or China. Places where lots and lots of thoughts that would be perfectly legal to express in your country or mine would result in jail sentences. Then try to think of a single thing that you could say in those countries in their media that you couldn't -- legally -- say in ours.
I've been led to believe that in the UK, non-compete clauses are worth bugger all for the simple reason that once you've resigned, you no longer have a contract of employment with your company and it therefore has no power over you. That's why companies use gardening leave if they don't want their trade secrets disappearing -- and why the military and security services get so twitchy about ex-employees threatening to write books.
He didn't say that he thought that the US excels in human rights. He compared the US's human rights record with that of Sudan -- which has a truly appalling human rights record, far worse than that of the US. In any event, the original poster is confusing Sudan with Libya (which also has an appalling human rights record).
There's actually far more of a problem with felons not voting than with felons voting. Many hundreds of thousands of Americans have been disenfranchised for life because they have been convicted of a crime. In some cases, that crime may have been very serious; in many more cases it is not. For instance, a conviction for possession of any amount of cannabis can be enough to ensure that you will never be allowed to vote again. It is also worth stating that, because there are disproportionately large numbers of Afro-Americans and other non-whites convicted of felonies, these minorities are significantly under-represented at the ballot box.
We lasted 2 years...I *hate* my TV...but my wife insisted
I think that your assertions are unlikely to be borne out by the facts. Coverage of the Stephen Lawrence and Damilola Taylor murders was very extensive. The Soham murders may have been covered more thoroughly, but that is due to the story itself -- Amanda Dowler's case was and continues to be lower profile than the killings of the two black boys I mentioned above. If you're talking about deaths around the world, I think that your charge is equally insubstantial -- there's plenty of news stories from right around the world, but the front page reflects the likely predominant interests of either UK or non-UK readers (and can be changed, should you wish to do so).
The fact that the BBC provides airtime for people whose viewpoints you disagree with may irritate you but is in fact a testament to impartiality. Every person with a special interest in a story will complain about an opposing viewpoint being put forward, will be able to adduce some evidence of inadequate treatment of their pet topic and will explain exactly how it is ridiculous to even begin to consider the views of the other as respectable. This is how Israelis, doctors, businessmen, Lib Dems, environmentalists, hunt sabs and any other group you care to mention feels. I can't see that scientists are treated any worse or more sceptically than any of the groups (or their oppositions) that I listed above. And opposition to the implementation of a particular technology does not, a priori, make one an ignoramus. In case you've forgotten, while the implementation of technology is frequently beneficial to us, occasionally it's not (viz Zyklon B, thalidomide, Bhopal). Finally, of course, if you really don't like the BBC, you could always sell your telly. There's bugger all on that's worth anyone's time anyway.
Thanks for the tips and info; nice to know that there's other folks out there with the good taste to recognise that a yellow diamond is something really special...
Steve
You bought a 6.5 carat yellow diamond?! Do you mean yellow as in off-white (i.e., not a desired colour) or yellow as in fancy light, vivid, intense etc (i.e., a desired colour). If it's the latter, then you are one very rich man -- that must have cost 50k+. I bought my wife a 1.26FLY diamond from Graff and that stone alone was worth £5k.
There were indeed telcos who dropped out of the auction in the UK. There was no government requirement that companies must bid for the licences. The fact that Chairman Jones is wasting money on a licence doesn't mean that Chairman Smith should do the same. Rightwingers generally love to should that it ain't the government's job to save people from their own stupidity--strange how they only do this when talking about single mothers and not corporations. Ken Binmoore, who designed the UK auction, has gone on record about this very subject:y /0,3604,77 2840,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/stor
As he so aptly put it:
"If I were a telecom chairman, I would want to be insulated from risk. But taking risks is what being an entrepreneur is all about. It would make nonsense of the privatisation if we started insuring shareholders against risk by returning to social planning whenever they looked like losing money."
Have you never heard of the economic principle of "asymmetric information"? Investors can be as intelligent as they like -- if there are no enforceable rules about information disclosure, then they will not be able to understand everything they need to in order to invest carefully.
On a budget of £60bn+ per year (what's that, $90bn?). Sure, it's an outrage, but Enron's fraud was one hell of a lot bigger than 3% of annual revenues...
Oh for fuck's sake. The government ran an *auction* for 3G licences. The dimwitted telco CEOs who paid over the odds for those licences have no-one to blame but themselves and their advisers, in the same way as they can blame no-one but themselves and their advisers for over-priced acquisitions.
So are you suggesting that we shouldn't impose any regulations on companies for fear of burdening them? Why would we want to sit back and wait for someone to shaft us? Why wouldn't we want to attempt to design our financial systems to reduce the chance of being shafted in the first place? If the government had no powers at all, save prosecution of crimes, do you think that fewer crimes would be committed? Why? If no-one was required to report their earnings, how would we even know if a crime had been committed?
Accountants are supposed to be primarily accountable to the owners of a business, who may not be the same people as the managers.
Take another look at that list of items I mentioned above -- they are all funded at least partly through general taxation and are therefore paid for by anyone who pays tax, rather than just car-users. The net costs are not borne solely by car-users. In fact, it's not even close to being the case -- there is a large transfer of wealth from non-car-users to car-users.
That's not an economic concept, it's a theory. It's also not demonstrated in this case. You would need to show that the net costs to the UK economy as a whole would go up -- this seems unlikely as what is happening is a shift in the cost-burden from the population as a whole to those making use of particular forms of transport. If you want to argue micro-economics with me, go ahead, but you don't sound like an economist.
1) Yes, it's a tax. So what?
2) He will too force people off the roads. Not a huge number in relative terms, but in absolute terms, quite a few. People will either a) decide their journey is unnecessary (and many journeys are) or b) choose an alternative method of transport. It will pay for quite a few more buses, which are a cheap and effective way of getting people moving.
You can't drive a car *down* most of Oxford Street legally, but you can certainly drive one *across* it -- and it's these guys that are the ones holding pedestrians up!
On the other point, empty roads != empty pavements.
Let's get this straight. You think that there'll be no crashes with the advent of private mass ownership of carplanes? Presumably a crash between two airplanes over Switzerland the other week never made it onto your radar screen (sorry...)? Crashes will be a problem with air-based private transport just as surely as they are with ground-based private transport.
The London mayor has already made bus transport cheaper and simplified the fare structure, and has also got more buses on the road. But lots more are still needed.
1) Buses are not full past capacity. Some buses on some routes at some points of the day are. But most are not.
2) There are lots more buses than before, and there will be even more. Ken's not an idiot and he did realise that this was the quickest fix available to him to improve transport supply.
3) Most of the traffic might seem to be buses, taxis and delivery vans, but it's actually not the case. It's still private cars.
Who needs a car? If you're already intending not to work in London any more, why not get a job in Teddington or Hampton Wick and take the train the other way? It's a lot less crowded and a lot more reliable. And in the meantime, do you not have sufficient flexibility in your job to go in an hour earlier and come home an hour earlier? I get the northern line from Belsize Park to Waterloo daily and at 7.30ish in the morning, I rarely have a problem getting a seat. Sure, the situation isn't great, but it's not impossible. Not by a long way.
Well, we'd better vote for a government that will, then! (Those of us who're entitled, anyway.) The answer is obviously not to try to improve things for cars, because that's a no-win situation -- far fewer people regularly drive in London than in any other British city, so a small increase in drivers would overwhelm any conceivable improvement to road infrastructure. Instead, it's to improve public transport. Start using your buses -- and start complaining to your local councillor and your MP when they're no good! Re-learn to walk! Ask your local supermarket to lay on a free bus service!