You need to explore a little further. Of course the OP is talking about tax evasion and avoidance. He's not suggesting that the money gets straightforwardly deposited in a Swiss bank account. Tax lawyers and accountants are there to help rich folks minimise their tax due, and Swiss bank accounts etc are a big part of how they do it.
I know quite a bit about US healthcare; more than you, I'd venture, unless it's your profession. It's expensive for many many reasons, but there's no doubt that the pandemic of obesity is a huge driver of the costs of care. By the way, your analysis that *restricted* supply is a cost-driver is not borne out by the facts. The over-supply of tremendously expensive specialist care, and the over-investigation and over-treatment of disease, is one of the most striking features of the US health system when compared to literally every other health system in the world. It costs a bloody fortune. Only sensible thing to do is join a plan that's part of an ACO or is similarly committed to total health. Group Health are good if you live in Seattle.
Nah. Cars are just tools, as are bikes, except they have worse externalities (pollution, injuries, etc). Car clubs help when you need to transport several people plus bulky / heavy goods at once. Car club + bike + public transport + shank's pony + Hailo-ordered taxi = excellent transport for London, and I'm sure many other cities too.
Nutritious is not a scientific term. It's not like tibia, or metastatic, or quasar. It doesn't have a precise meaning in the way those terms do (to the extent that they do).
You know less about linguistics than you think. Words don't have hard and fast definitions, unless they're scientific terms. Even the Academie Francaise has given up flogging that particular dead horse. You can assert that nutritious means "full of nutrients" till you're blue in the face, but others can reasonably disagree. Amusingly, you will find that common dictionary definitions do not mention nutrients, despite your insistence that this is self-evidently the meaning of the word.
But your question *assumes* that there is a marginal or theoretical reduction in the chance of serious brain injury. That assumption may be dead wrong. As others have pointed out, there are a number of ways in which helmets may lead to an *increase* in the chance of serious brain injury, including: - you modify your own behaviour to be more risky, eg you cycle more quickly, cut traffic more -- because you feel safer - other road-users modify their behaviour to be more risky, because they see you as lower-risk
Additionally, you are also only looking at brain injury, and only thinking about yourself. Which is fine for your own calculus, but inadequate for the people setting the regulations. They need to take into account that one way leads to brain injuries, the other way leads to heart disease.
How many people die each year from ingesting Claviceps? And how many suffer significant morbidity from OP or other pesticide poisoning? Risk = frequency * severity. Focusing on severity alone is idiotic.
You don't need to use any animals at all to grow organic food. And most people who eat organic food eat *less* meat than most people who eat conventional food, so that part of your argument is no more rooted in facts than the rest.
Who made *you* the owner of the definition of "nutritious"? Where is the Official Definition of nutritious along the lines that you suggest? What makes that definition right? It's not a scientific term. It means what we collectively agree it means, same as other day-to-day words.
If I gave you a tomato loaded with every vitamin you can think of, plus enough cyanide to kill you, would you really argue that it was nutritious? If I told you it was nutritious in front of witnesses, and you said "I like nutritious foods" and ate it, and dropped down dead, do you really think a jury would find me innocent on the grounds that it had lots of valuable nutrients in it?
Your supposition regarding antibiotic-resistant bacteria is not backed by any study I've ever heard of. Eating antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a really shitty way of building up your immune system.
What you've described is just a specific instance of the general problem of effective guards. As the other poster says, what happens is that the detector flags you for extra screening when you're a positive (true or false still to be determined). You go stand to one side. If you're the evil terrorist and you're actually carrying the explosives at this point, you can blow 'em up and affect a few dozen to a few hundred people. The overall impact is likely way less than it would be if you were on the plane and the plane was in the air. etc etc
I really doubt that "most reviews on TripAdvisor are generic". I've read reviews of maybe 30 places across three countries in the past year, and I've read a lot of shitty reviews but none has appeared to be even remotely generic / "professional". How about posting links to say 5 different reviews that you think are generic, so you can show what you say is true? Ought to be quick and easy to do if most reviews are generic.
If I can reduce the chance of damage to literally the most valuable thing in my life by wearing a $25 helmet OF COURSE I'M GOING TO WEAR A HELMET
It's all about the "If" at the start of your sentence, though. The question is, "does wearing a helmet increase or decrease the chance of you having a serious head injury?" Of course the intuitive answer is "decrease" but science-aware folks on Slashdot are comfortable with the idea that we don't just accept intuition, we test and find out.
So I'd settle yourself down a bit, instead of calling people names.
As ever, the Heinlein version has a bit more pep: "The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak". The version you quote is sometimes attributed to Mark Twain (of whom Heinlein was a big fan, of course). Heinlein also had some interesting views on suicide, per Time Enough for Love. But he also recognised that what got shown on TV was frequently bonkers and vile, so I'm not sure where he'd have stood on this topic, in the end.
I'm pretty sure that he would have vehemently disagreed with your next paragraph, though. He had a very unRomney-esque sense of empathy with people in difficult circumstances. I much prefer this quote from him, which captures his spirit a lot better: "People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt"
Doesn't feel to me like narrowing, so much as backing away from an overblown first statement, in which you clearly implied that you thought cars looked alike, not merely car controls.
You're looking at the similarities, I'm seeing the differences.
I'm afraid your replies don't really make sense. You made two separate points: 1) cars look alike 2) controls are near-identical You're now conflating these to say you've "won" because *controls* look alike. That's not the same thing at all! 1) Cars patently don't all look alike. I gave you the example of Mini vs Ferrari, which you didn't address directly 2) Controls do vary from car to car. Not dramatically, but nevertheless substantively. Some old ideas are suddenly becoming more common, eg the dial for headlights. Additionally, what's the norm in one country is absolutely not the norm in other countries -- eg the parking brake. Parking brakes are operated by hand, not foot, for most UK cars. They're often called handbrakes for that very reason. This is exactly what I meant by saying that things vary!
That very nice young boy wrote those games using Scratch. Which is available for MacOS and Windows as well. He could have done the *exact same thing* on another computer. The difference is just price of the hardware. But most families have a computer anyway.
So mr moaner moans about it being too closed. He also compares it to the BBC micro -- anyone know if that was open in the way he describes? I presume not...
So a Mini looks like a Ferrari, which looks like a Merc, which looks like a Prius, to you? Weird
Of course, there are some core similarities about controls, but there's quite a lot of variation and innovation too -- witness new models that don't have handbrakes, the shift of headlight controls to a dial in many (but by no means most) cars, the appearance of thumb-based volume controls etc etc
Do you really believe that all cars look alike? They look a like in the way that all humans look alike, ie the differences are just as meaningful as the similarities. Same goes for phones.
Some of these are not really effective as a comparison of the phones. - The S3 has more pixels because it has a larger screen, but it has a lower resolution (PPI). Its colour management is also significantly weaker than the iPhone 5's. If you want a nice techy comparison of the screens, have a look here: http://www.displaymate.com/Smartphone_ShootOut_2.htm#Table - What is the benefit of having twice as much RAM or a faster CPU, given that these phones have different architectures and different OSs? What matters is speed for the end user and effect on hours of use between battery charges, no?
It also clearly doesn't make sense to cite the lack of an SD card slot and NFC as examples of how Apple *can't* keep up with Samsung's hardware. Apple clearly has the capability to include these things but chooses not to, just as it chose not to make a wider screen. Engineering is all about selecting the balance of compromises, after all. Many consumers will prefer Sammy's choices, but many others will prefer Apple's. There's no inherently right or wrong answer, and fetishing choice makes no sense. By analogy: if you go for a meal at the Fat Duck, you can choose between picking your own wine, or getting a matched glass for each of the courses of your meal. The former allows you more precise calibration to your budget and a wide selection; the latter gives you greater variety over the whole of the meal, and careful matching by an expert. Neither is the "wrong" thing to do.
Slashdot Mirror
You need to explore a little further. Of course the OP is talking about tax evasion and avoidance. He's not suggesting that the money gets straightforwardly deposited in a Swiss bank account. Tax lawyers and accountants are there to help rich folks minimise their tax due, and Swiss bank accounts etc are a big part of how they do it.
Your loss.
I know quite a bit about US healthcare; more than you, I'd venture, unless it's your profession. It's expensive for many many reasons, but there's no doubt that the pandemic of obesity is a huge driver of the costs of care. By the way, your analysis that *restricted* supply is a cost-driver is not borne out by the facts. The over-supply of tremendously expensive specialist care, and the over-investigation and over-treatment of disease, is one of the most striking features of the US health system when compared to literally every other health system in the world. It costs a bloody fortune. Only sensible thing to do is join a plan that's part of an ACO or is similarly committed to total health. Group Health are good if you live in Seattle.
Oh, you like spending 17% of GDP on healthcare, do you? Seems like a pretty stupid amount of attention to pay, if you ask me.
Nah. Cars are just tools, as are bikes, except they have worse externalities (pollution, injuries, etc). Car clubs help when you need to transport several people plus bulky / heavy goods at once. Car club + bike + public transport + shank's pony + Hailo-ordered taxi = excellent transport for London, and I'm sure many other cities too.
Nutritious is not a scientific term. It's not like tibia, or metastatic, or quasar. It doesn't have a precise meaning in the way those terms do (to the extent that they do).
I say again: who in their right mind would ever describe a poisonous tomato as nutritious, no matter how many vitamins it has?
These are not orthogonal terms!
You know less about linguistics than you think. Words don't have hard and fast definitions, unless they're scientific terms. Even the Academie Francaise has given up flogging that particular dead horse. You can assert that nutritious means "full of nutrients" till you're blue in the face, but others can reasonably disagree. Amusingly, you will find that common dictionary definitions do not mention nutrients, despite your insistence that this is self-evidently the meaning of the word.
But your question *assumes* that there is a marginal or theoretical reduction in the chance of serious brain injury. That assumption may be dead wrong. As others have pointed out, there are a number of ways in which helmets may lead to an *increase* in the chance of serious brain injury, including:
- you modify your own behaviour to be more risky, eg you cycle more quickly, cut traffic more -- because you feel safer
- other road-users modify their behaviour to be more risky, because they see you as lower-risk
Additionally, you are also only looking at brain injury, and only thinking about yourself. Which is fine for your own calculus, but inadequate for the people setting the regulations. They need to take into account that one way leads to brain injuries, the other way leads to heart disease.
How many people die each year from ingesting Claviceps? And how many suffer significant morbidity from OP or other pesticide poisoning? Risk = frequency * severity. Focusing on severity alone is idiotic.
You don't need to use any animals at all to grow organic food. And most people who eat organic food eat *less* meat than most people who eat conventional food, so that part of your argument is no more rooted in facts than the rest.
Who made *you* the owner of the definition of "nutritious"? Where is the Official Definition of nutritious along the lines that you suggest? What makes that definition right? It's not a scientific term. It means what we collectively agree it means, same as other day-to-day words.
If I gave you a tomato loaded with every vitamin you can think of, plus enough cyanide to kill you, would you really argue that it was nutritious? If I told you it was nutritious in front of witnesses, and you said "I like nutritious foods" and ate it, and dropped down dead, do you really think a jury would find me innocent on the grounds that it had lots of valuable nutrients in it?
Your supposition regarding antibiotic-resistant bacteria is not backed by any study I've ever heard of. Eating antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a really shitty way of building up your immune system.
What you've described is just a specific instance of the general problem of effective guards. As the other poster says, what happens is that the detector flags you for extra screening when you're a positive (true or false still to be determined). You go stand to one side. If you're the evil terrorist and you're actually carrying the explosives at this point, you can blow 'em up and affect a few dozen to a few hundred people. The overall impact is likely way less than it would be if you were on the plane and the plane was in the air. etc etc
I really doubt that "most reviews on TripAdvisor are generic". I've read reviews of maybe 30 places across three countries in the past year, and I've read a lot of shitty reviews but none has appeared to be even remotely generic / "professional". How about posting links to say 5 different reviews that you think are generic, so you can show what you say is true? Ought to be quick and easy to do if most reviews are generic.
If I can reduce the chance of damage to literally the most valuable thing in my life by wearing a $25 helmet OF COURSE I'M GOING TO WEAR A HELMET
It's all about the "If" at the start of your sentence, though. The question is, "does wearing a helmet increase or decrease the chance of you having a serious head injury?" Of course the intuitive answer is "decrease" but science-aware folks on Slashdot are comfortable with the idea that we don't just accept intuition, we test and find out.
So I'd settle yourself down a bit, instead of calling people names.
As ever, the Heinlein version has a bit more pep: "The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak". The version you quote is sometimes attributed to Mark Twain (of whom Heinlein was a big fan, of course). Heinlein also had some interesting views on suicide, per Time Enough for Love. But he also recognised that what got shown on TV was frequently bonkers and vile, so I'm not sure where he'd have stood on this topic, in the end.
I'm pretty sure that he would have vehemently disagreed with your next paragraph, though. He had a very unRomney-esque sense of empathy with people in difficult circumstances. I much prefer this quote from him, which captures his spirit a lot better: "People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt"
Doesn't feel to me like narrowing, so much as backing away from an overblown first statement, in which you clearly implied that you thought cars looked alike, not merely car controls.
You're looking at the similarities, I'm seeing the differences.
Can you break a computer with a Scratch game? Really?
I'm afraid your replies don't really make sense. You made two separate points:
1) cars look alike
2) controls are near-identical
You're now conflating these to say you've "won" because *controls* look alike. That's not the same thing at all!
1) Cars patently don't all look alike. I gave you the example of Mini vs Ferrari, which you didn't address directly
2) Controls do vary from car to car. Not dramatically, but nevertheless substantively. Some old ideas are suddenly becoming more common, eg the dial for headlights. Additionally, what's the norm in one country is absolutely not the norm in other countries -- eg the parking brake. Parking brakes are operated by hand, not foot, for most UK cars. They're often called handbrakes for that very reason. This is exactly what I meant by saying that things vary!
That very nice young boy wrote those games using Scratch. Which is available for MacOS and Windows as well. He could have done the *exact same thing* on another computer. The difference is just price of the hardware. But most families have a computer anyway.
So mr moaner moans about it being too closed. He also compares it to the BBC micro -- anyone know if that was open in the way he describes? I presume not...
So a Mini looks like a Ferrari, which looks like a Merc, which looks like a Prius, to you? Weird
Of course, there are some core similarities about controls, but there's quite a lot of variation and innovation too -- witness new models that don't have handbrakes, the shift of headlight controls to a dial in many (but by no means most) cars, the appearance of thumb-based volume controls etc etc
Do you really believe that all cars look alike? They look a like in the way that all humans look alike, ie the differences are just as meaningful as the similarities. Same goes for phones.
Some of these are not really effective as a comparison of the phones.
- The S3 has more pixels because it has a larger screen, but it has a lower resolution (PPI). Its colour management is also significantly weaker than the iPhone 5's. If you want a nice techy comparison of the screens, have a look here: http://www.displaymate.com/Smartphone_ShootOut_2.htm#Table
- What is the benefit of having twice as much RAM or a faster CPU, given that these phones have different architectures and different OSs? What matters is speed for the end user and effect on hours of use between battery charges, no?
It also clearly doesn't make sense to cite the lack of an SD card slot and NFC as examples of how Apple *can't* keep up with Samsung's hardware. Apple clearly has the capability to include these things but chooses not to, just as it chose not to make a wider screen. Engineering is all about selecting the balance of compromises, after all. Many consumers will prefer Sammy's choices, but many others will prefer Apple's. There's no inherently right or wrong answer, and fetishing choice makes no sense. By analogy: if you go for a meal at the Fat Duck, you can choose between picking your own wine, or getting a matched glass for each of the courses of your meal. The former allows you more precise calibration to your budget and a wide selection; the latter gives you greater variety over the whole of the meal, and careful matching by an expert. Neither is the "wrong" thing to do.
Run that by me again? To deal with the problem of a lack of cheap food, you're .... suggesting we add more tax onto the cost of food?
The BBC is a crap example: it wasnt a commercial competitor allowed to evolve into a monopoly or oligopoly, it's a public corporation.
It's also perfectly possible to have effective regulation. I'd argue that London has fairly adequate regulation of cabbies, Worboys notwithstanding...