In union terms it's called a "rulebook slowdown". Every large organization has a ton of red tape, and the only time things really get done in the event of an emergency is if the red tape is ignored. Simply follow every rule, process, procedure perfectly to the letter. Unless you work for the military (which has procedures which actually work) business will pretty much grind to a halt.
Not necessarily; it could simply mean areas with a lower cost of living. Even within the same state - an office in NYC has to pay its employees a lot more than an office in Schenectady. It simply makes no business sense to set up shop in Seattle nowadays.
It depends. Smart, capable people will continue to work for the government in exchange for stable employment and fringe benefits (shorter work hours, more vacation time, cheap health / life insurance, good pension). The best of the bunch obviously will go private sector because getting more than double the salary means you can spend half the year unemployed and have the same quality of life as the government folk.
New York DMV has improved significantly now that most things can be handled on line or via mail. Even getting plates for a new car is done right at the dealership.
I suspect a lot of this was due to necessity - NYC DMV offices don't have much space and have to serve a lot more people than the the ones elsewhere in the state, but all branches benefited from the reduction in walk-ins.
I remembered there was a good Wikipedia fork out there, however Googling "wikipedia fork" finds you some nice wikipedia articles about cutlery, a town in Washington, and the concept of a software fork.
Drunk driving laws similarly punish those who are trying to do the right thing. If you leave the bar thinking you're good to drive, then at some point on the highway realize you are not, the responsible thing to do is pull over and sleep it off. However, that makes you a sitting duck for cops looking for drunk drivers. There have been people who, after the bar closed, went to sleep in the backseat of their car (while still in their parking space) and were hit with drunk driving charges.
Thus the "safer" (in terms of criminal record) thing to do is to drive home as quickly as possible and hope for the best.
It's all context. The phrase "That boy's got a good head on his shoulders" could be offered by anyone older than aforementioned male and be seen as an unoffensive compliment.
Sorry but after seeing articles and videos by Germans (criticising Germany's handling of migrants) censored as "hate speech", you most decidedly do not have free speech over there.
This is what put me off to Wikipedia. There are four areas where I ran into the "notability" wall:
1. Open Source Software projects (ironically). I was researching replacements to a proprietary system we use at work, but half of the linked product articles were removed on the basis of "not notable" or "reads like an advertisement". We gave up and bought something.
2. Small town details.
3. TV Show details. They seem to have gotten better about it, but at one point the level of detail allowed for a TV show was proportional to how popular it was, which is pretty stupid considering the obscure ones benefit more from the extra detail as they don't have enough following to have their own sites.
4. Information of primary interest in other languages. It seems at some point someone took a shotgun to the sections regarding Japanese trains (many links which point to deleted pages). I can fill in the gaps by reading the Japanese language wikipedia, but I thought the whole point of an Encyclopedia was that you didn't need to learn whole other languages to get information out of them. It's on the level of Britannica putting the section on the USSR in Russian.
Wikipedia's ads are the worst; they are the only ones that come in as "acceptable" to Adblock, so I have had to manually block their shitty banners.
To be clear: I like Wikipedia, but 90% of what they do with their funds is bullshit, and I figure the 10% have already paid the dues for the rest of us.
Thus the "more" qualifier... at the current tax rates, everything is running reasonably well. Unless there's some sort of good faith effort by the government to cut unnecessary spending (especially unnecessary federal spending), why should we keep cutting them blank checks? A good example of this tactic actually working is Amtrak - by giving them less subsidy than they asked for, they were able to find better funding sources and cut some fat. Eliminating the subsidy would have killed it outright.
All things in moderation... and a (state+federal+federal programs total) combined tax rate of 40% is pretty damn high. If anything let me choose to give the lion's share to my state.
Especially since the first 2 minutes would be spent trying to enter your credit card information for the wifi while trying to keep the laptop (and credit card) from falling to the back of the plane...
Actually a few dozen $10 bottles of wine with a label of Chateau LeFancyPants would be perfect for gifting... weddings, family dinners you didn't want to go to anyway, or a peace offering to an annoying neighbour who keeps blowing leaves onto your lawn....
Youtube still pays for that small and innovative content... I think this is why how-tos have gone from blog posts to video format in recent years. While a bit annoying (much easier to scan a text & screenshots document than sit through a video), not the end of the world.
I'm really wary on the PlayStation because of the 5 PS2s with broken optical drives sitting in my garage; none lasted more than two years.
There was actually a defect found, and due to a class action suit you could have gotten some or all of those 5 PS2s repaired free of charge (regardless of warranty status or even if you bought it third hand).
I bought for $20 a used PS2 in exactly this condition, knowing about the waived fee repair. There even were answers to the scripted questions the Sony rep would ask online so that you could streamline getting the repair approved (boiled down to saying "it says disc read error" "still says disc read error" and "nope, still the same error"). IIRC I didn't even have to pay for shipping...
While I feel that these two are basically states, their inclusion makes the card look more accepted than it actually is... the way the title is worded it implies 24/50, when in reality it's either 22/50 or 24/56.
You do know that a small aircraft can actually lift off the ground while parked when the wind is high enough, right? Weight on the gear at that point is 0:).
And even a sufficiently stripped 747 will lift off the ground with no engines.
The ultimate solution would be to remove money from the necessities of life... a pie-in-the-sky idea would be if everyone (whether they are completely broke or a multi-billionaire) is granted public housing, food, schooling, medical care, and basic clothing. If the public services are open to everyone, you mitigate the "only poor people are there" effect of soup kitchens, homeless shelters, projects. This could be paid for by eliminating unemployment insurance and all current forms of welfare, and taxing all income from the first $1. A side effect could also be eliminating minimum wage. The end result is if anyone wants to exit the government system, they are free to get a job until acquiring the money they need for the things they want, and then they can go back to not working. No pressure to put in 40-60 hour weeks. Employers will have to actually *compete* for employees because "better than nothing" is suddenly a much higher bar.
In any case that is usually the solution I offer once 90% of jobs are automated away... no one is ready for that now.
HDTV tuners would be great over here... the TV signal is more reliable than the cellular data one, and wouldn't use data while providing a crisp picture. Probably require less processing power too.
I was disappointed to find out that Japan's and the US's HD formats ware different enough that those tuners wouldn't work here...
Actually, yes. I've visited twice. Stumbling on places that took a credit card was rare. Finding a place that took an American (non-chipped) card was almost impossible. Yes, large overpriced places of course take cards, but the places where the common man actually shops and eats, cash only. Compare to NYC where even the independent $1 pizza joints and $5 t-shirt shops take cards.
Now, the best reason I can think of for this is the credit card transaction fees - there *are* electronic payment forms but they are all in the form of preloaded debit cards [where the balance is stored on the card], including at least some forms of the cell phone method. I loaded cash onto my SUICA and EDY cards and between the two of them, I was able to be reasonably cashless there, but that's really a major-city-only thing.
The doctor's office I go to is too small to have any blood taking facilities. Also there are no nurses, just doctors, which at first I thought was weird but I have come to appreciate not having to explain my problem to multiple people...
I don't understand your problem. My doctor just writes me a bloodwork prescription, I walk it over to the local LabCorp, less than a week later the doctor has the results in hand. If you don't like where your doctor is sending your test results to, just ask for a prescription to go and do it yourself. If the doctor refuses, find another doctor.
You and the GP are talking about two different things. You are talking about the plan as a whole, he is talking about his specific data point. Him, specifically, as a customer generates more profit on the unlimited plan than a capped one (which are lower cost) since he barely uses any of it. If I ran an all you can eat restaurant, the guy who gets a salad every day and leaves is not the one I want going to a competitor, but rather the guy who sits there for 4 hours continuously eating to get two oversized meals worth out of it.
Slashdot Mirror
In union terms it's called a "rulebook slowdown". Every large organization has a ton of red tape, and the only time things really get done in the event of an emergency is if the red tape is ignored. Simply follow every rule, process, procedure perfectly to the letter. Unless you work for the military (which has procedures which actually work) business will pretty much grind to a halt.
Not necessarily; it could simply mean areas with a lower cost of living. Even within the same state - an office in NYC has to pay its employees a lot more than an office in Schenectady. It simply makes no business sense to set up shop in Seattle nowadays.
It depends. Smart, capable people will continue to work for the government in exchange for stable employment and fringe benefits (shorter work hours, more vacation time, cheap health / life insurance, good pension). The best of the bunch obviously will go private sector because getting more than double the salary means you can spend half the year unemployed and have the same quality of life as the government folk.
New York DMV has improved significantly now that most things can be handled on line or via mail. Even getting plates for a new car is done right at the dealership.
I suspect a lot of this was due to necessity - NYC DMV offices don't have much space and have to serve a lot more people than the the ones elsewhere in the state, but all branches benefited from the reduction in walk-ins.
I remembered there was a good Wikipedia fork out there, however Googling "wikipedia fork" finds you some nice wikipedia articles about cutlery, a town in Washington, and the concept of a software fork.
Drunk driving laws similarly punish those who are trying to do the right thing. If you leave the bar thinking you're good to drive, then at some point on the highway realize you are not, the responsible thing to do is pull over and sleep it off. However, that makes you a sitting duck for cops looking for drunk drivers. There have been people who, after the bar closed, went to sleep in the backseat of their car (while still in their parking space) and were hit with drunk driving charges.
Thus the "safer" (in terms of criminal record) thing to do is to drive home as quickly as possible and hope for the best.
It's all context. The phrase "That boy's got a good head on his shoulders" could be offered by anyone older than aforementioned male and be seen as an unoffensive compliment.
Sorry but after seeing articles and videos by Germans (criticising Germany's handling of migrants) censored as "hate speech", you most decidedly do not have free speech over there.
This is what put me off to Wikipedia. There are four areas where I ran into the "notability" wall:
1. Open Source Software projects (ironically). I was researching replacements to a proprietary system we use at work, but half of the linked product articles were removed on the basis of "not notable" or "reads like an advertisement". We gave up and bought something.
2. Small town details.
3. TV Show details. They seem to have gotten better about it, but at one point the level of detail allowed for a TV show was proportional to how popular it was, which is pretty stupid considering the obscure ones benefit more from the extra detail as they don't have enough following to have their own sites.
4. Information of primary interest in other languages. It seems at some point someone took a shotgun to the sections regarding Japanese trains (many links which point to deleted pages). I can fill in the gaps by reading the Japanese language wikipedia, but I thought the whole point of an Encyclopedia was that you didn't need to learn whole other languages to get information out of them. It's on the level of Britannica putting the section on the USSR in Russian.
Wikipedia's ads are the worst; they are the only ones that come in as "acceptable" to Adblock, so I have had to manually block their shitty banners.
To be clear: I like Wikipedia, but 90% of what they do with their funds is bullshit, and I figure the 10% have already paid the dues for the rest of us.
Thus the "more" qualifier... at the current tax rates, everything is running reasonably well. Unless there's some sort of good faith effort by the government to cut unnecessary spending (especially unnecessary federal spending), why should we keep cutting them blank checks? A good example of this tactic actually working is Amtrak - by giving them less subsidy than they asked for, they were able to find better funding sources and cut some fat. Eliminating the subsidy would have killed it outright.
All things in moderation... and a (state+federal+federal programs total) combined tax rate of 40% is pretty damn high. If anything let me choose to give the lion's share to my state.
"I want to pay more taxes because the government can spend the money better than I can"... said no one ever.
Especially since the first 2 minutes would be spent trying to enter your credit card information for the wifi while trying to keep the laptop (and credit card) from falling to the back of the plane...
Actually a few dozen $10 bottles of wine with a label of Chateau LeFancyPants would be perfect for gifting... weddings, family dinners you didn't want to go to anyway, or a peace offering to an annoying neighbour who keeps blowing leaves onto your lawn....
In that case more like trophies the town taxpayers won...
Youtube still pays for that small and innovative content... I think this is why how-tos have gone from blog posts to video format in recent years. While a bit annoying (much easier to scan a text & screenshots document than sit through a video), not the end of the world.
I'm really wary on the PlayStation because of the 5 PS2s with broken optical drives sitting in my garage; none lasted more than two years.
There was actually a defect found, and due to a class action suit you could have gotten some or all of those 5 PS2s repaired free of charge (regardless of warranty status or even if you bought it third hand).
I bought for $20 a used PS2 in exactly this condition, knowing about the waived fee repair. There even were answers to the scripted questions the Sony rep would ask online so that you could streamline getting the repair approved (boiled down to saying "it says disc read error" "still says disc read error" and "nope, still the same error"). IIRC I didn't even have to pay for shipping...
District of Columbia ...
Puerto Rico
While I feel that these two are basically states, their inclusion makes the card look more accepted than it actually is... the way the title is worded it implies 24/50, when in reality it's either 22/50 or 24/56.
You do know that a small aircraft can actually lift off the ground while parked when the wind is high enough, right? Weight on the gear at that point is 0 :).
And even a sufficiently stripped 747 will lift off the ground with no engines.
The ultimate solution would be to remove money from the necessities of life... a pie-in-the-sky idea would be if everyone (whether they are completely broke or a multi-billionaire) is granted public housing, food, schooling, medical care, and basic clothing. If the public services are open to everyone, you mitigate the "only poor people are there" effect of soup kitchens, homeless shelters, projects. This could be paid for by eliminating unemployment insurance and all current forms of welfare, and taxing all income from the first $1. A side effect could also be eliminating minimum wage. The end result is if anyone wants to exit the government system, they are free to get a job until acquiring the money they need for the things they want, and then they can go back to not working. No pressure to put in 40-60 hour weeks. Employers will have to actually *compete* for employees because "better than nothing" is suddenly a much higher bar.
In any case that is usually the solution I offer once 90% of jobs are automated away... no one is ready for that now.
HDTV tuners would be great over here... the TV signal is more reliable than the cellular data one, and wouldn't use data while providing a crisp picture. Probably require less processing power too.
I was disappointed to find out that Japan's and the US's HD formats ware different enough that those tuners wouldn't work here...
Actually, yes.
I've visited twice. Stumbling on places that took a credit card was rare. Finding a place that took an American (non-chipped) card was almost impossible. Yes, large overpriced places of course take cards, but the places where the common man actually shops and eats, cash only. Compare to NYC where even the independent $1 pizza joints and $5 t-shirt shops take cards.
Now, the best reason I can think of for this is the credit card transaction fees - there *are* electronic payment forms but they are all in the form of preloaded debit cards [where the balance is stored on the card], including at least some forms of the cell phone method. I loaded cash onto my SUICA and EDY cards and between the two of them, I was able to be reasonably cashless there, but that's really a major-city-only thing.
Yes I am, yes you can :).
The doctor's office I go to is too small to have any blood taking facilities. Also there are no nurses, just doctors, which at first I thought was weird but I have come to appreciate not having to explain my problem to multiple people...
I don't understand your problem. My doctor just writes me a bloodwork prescription, I walk it over to the local LabCorp, less than a week later the doctor has the results in hand. If you don't like where your doctor is sending your test results to, just ask for a prescription to go and do it yourself. If the doctor refuses, find another doctor.
You and the GP are talking about two different things. You are talking about the plan as a whole, he is talking about his specific data point. Him, specifically, as a customer generates more profit on the unlimited plan than a capped one (which are lower cost) since he barely uses any of it. If I ran an all you can eat restaurant, the guy who gets a salad every day and leaves is not the one I want going to a competitor, but rather the guy who sits there for 4 hours continuously eating to get two oversized meals worth out of it.