Wait and see -- if MA is *really* following the plan and using ODF exclusively say summer 2007, then you can celebrate. Up to then there's definitely going to be around a gazillion attempts to derail this.
Meanwhile, there are a lot of skinny, healthy, people running around in other parts of the world subsisting on nearly-vegetarian, nearly-protein complete beans and rice diets, or some other vegetarian variation, that costs pennies a day.
You're almost rigth, the only word that is not generally warranted is "healthy". Those people are, on the average, measured with our scales not even half close to healthy.
Their diet is, assuming they're not poor enough to actually be undernourished, and also to afford variation, quite healthy. But the lack of even basic healthcare and reasonable living-conditions destroy a lot of otherwise healthy people.
Out of curiosity, do they, on account of stone-age role-patterns on principle imprison the male, and let the female off, or do they imprison the female ? Or do they imprison both ?
It's interesting, by the way, how many react strongly negatively to what I wrote in the GP, but yet don't want to come out and tell me what exactly is wrong with the argument. I've had no less than 5 people foe me since I wrote it, which is more than I managed in the last 3 years combined.
It seems I was rigth some people shut their brain down and go into emotionalism when certain holy cows are on the scales.
No. I'm establishing that what you said is purely opinion, and unlikely to be shared by everyone. I frequently hear, in defence of the capital punishment (I realize you wheren't using it in that sense) that it's "more humane" than a lifetime prison-sentence anyway.
Realistically speaking... being put to death immediately is far better than what society will do to you, in terms of vigilante stalking and poisoning your on-the-job relationships, should you be caught "talking dirty" with anyone under age 18.
First, that's your opinion, not mine, and I highly doubt that that's true for most parts of the world. If it's true for USA, then I pity those living there. A 25 year old flirting with a 17 year old is not a problem for anyone, that's called *normal* in any non-hysterical context.
Indeed, in most of the world, even for these two to have a sexual relationship would be perfectly legal.
USA has this strange split. On one hand you have very strict (puritanical even) laws, on the other hand you have like the highest incidents of teenage-pregnancies in the western world, so obviously teenager are fucking just asmuch in the USA as elsewhere. So it's like, oficially forbidden, but everyone is doing it, "don't get caugth" like you say seems to sum it up pretty well.
I belong to those people who find it stupid to have laws against behaviour that is voluntarily, that harms noone, and that everyone is doing anyway. That just serves to undermine the respect for laws in general.
This is made *worse* by stupid people who are unable to *think* but resorts to pure emotionalism the second anyone mentions "children" or any other holy cow. (I say this as the father of a young child btw) "Oh my God, won't somebody please think of the children !"
The only cure is to stay rational, question the premises, argue facts.
In the case of USA, it may be a lost cause, there's every sign you are degrading into a religious-conservatism swamp of superstition and hysteria. But I actually care enough to atleast bother trying. USA used to mean something positive. I never approved of *all* that you do, and I never will. But I approved of a lot, and I'd like that USA back pretty-please.
On the positive side, most of the rest of the western world is significantly less hysterical.
It's very easy to divide the world in two. "sickos" and "normals", "evil" and "good" etc. It's also very typical American. Even your president doesn't matter any better: "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists."
The real world ain't black and white. It's ridiculous to claim that, say, Norway is a terrorist-supporter simply because the Norwegians thougth other actions than outrigth invation was more apropriate for Iraq. I *hope* that not even Bush really means that.
In real life, we're friends. Friends sometimes disagree. Sometimes you even tell a friend that some idea of his is, in your opinion, silly, stupid or worse. That doesn't make you a enemy. On the contrary.
It's similar with child-porn. Everyone wants to end abuses of children. That's not the issue. The issue is that the world ain't black and white.
In lots of countries, for example, you can be put behind bars for *years* for, for example, posessing a video of a 16 year old having sex. In the same country where actually *having* sex with the same 16-year old is fully legal. (that's the case for Norway for example, because age of consent is 16, but "child-porn" is any porn with under-18s.)
Or worse yet: For posessing pictures of a person who is on the pictures dressed up as/behaves like being 15 years old, while *actually* being proven to be 18 years old. (this is so because "child-porn" is defined as being, *OR* appearing to be under 18)
Or even worse: I've got letters, written by my girlfriend at the time (Hi Marianne!) when we where *both* 16 that would undoubtedly qualify as porn, and thus child-porn. Technically we can *both* be convicted of posessing child-porn, unless we burn all the old letters, simply for posessing letters sometimes describing what we where (fully legally!) doing to eachothers.
Think I can't top this ? How about imprisoning for *years* the 15-year old who writes down some of those thougths and ideas that *every* healthy person of that age has ? The law makes no distinction if the porn is purely fictious (as in your daydreams about the girl in your class) or involves *actual* sexual acts. The law also makes no difference if you yourself are 15 or if you're 50. There's a name for say a male that is 15 year old and has sexual fantasies about girls. The word is: normal.
"Punish everyone strictly" would mean giving these people, and many more, a multi-year prisonterm. If that's your idea of a fair justice-system, then I'm glad you're not voting in my country.
But what if the US actually used the dealth penalty? Right now, most people sentenced to death have a far larger possibility of dieing of old age. I firmly believe that if death were guaranteed within 30 days of that sentence, it would have a deterrent effect. The problem is that the penalty isn't really a reality, and criminals know that.
No. That's not the problem. It's not like there are large numbers of murders in the US that essentially think, before the murder the equivalent of: "Ok, so we've got a death-penalty, and I'll get caugth and get it, but I'll only be executed 12 years later, so that's Ok, I guess I'll go ahead and murder."
Most people who murder are not doing any sort of rational cost-benefit analysis whatsoever, if they where, they wouldn't *be* murderers.
Those that think about it at all, instead think that they're not going to get caugth, or they're not going to get convicted, or they'll be in (wherever) before anyone ever notices there's a dead body, or the body is not ever going to be found or, or, or.
Fact is, USA has the death-penalty. Fact is, basically all other countries you care to compare yourself to does *not* have the death-penalty. There are only 25 countries in the world where death-penalties where actively used last year. Fact is, death penalties send the message: There are certain situations where its *rigth* to kill a person, even when milder restraints are possible. (noone argues against killing in self-defence when no other option is open.) Fact also is: the US has more murders than just about any country you care to compare yourself to. (assuming you don't want to compare yourself to Nigeria)
I second this. In the best online RPGs I've played very rare scales to the extreme cases which are equipment which is, simply unique. There can only be *one* instance of that equipment. In general that equipment has some sort of deterioration and/or timer so that it won't be simply held by a single character (then to be sold a Ebay for $$$) forever.
adom is nice. It has *one* bug that is really annoying though:
Did you ever calculate the amount of food our "hero" eats in a day ? It's on the order of 50 pounds of flesh daily ! And to add insult to injury: he is stupid enough that he can die from hunger *very* easily in the early stages of the game, inspite of having killed oh, say, 4 wolves and 3 bears today. In real life that amount of meat would feed anyone for literally a year. (go bad sooner offcourse)
Also, lots of people who do serious cooking could make use of these on special occasions. For example, on Thanksgiving or Christmas, if you cook a big meal with turkey, ham, dressing, sweet potatoes, a pie or two, etc. there is a LOT of scrambling to do to get it all done.
Don't do that. Seriously. The time is *MORE* than ripe for people actually realizing that celebrations like that are about spending time together with people that are important to you first, and any food served a distant second. My mother in law understands that, in principle, but never managed to take the consequence in practice. Result:
She works her ass off, not only hours before the guests come, but as a matter of fact the entire evening. When you're invited to her, you can be sure of 2 things: a) the food will be excellent, and b) she'll spend no more than MAX 1/4th the time actually with her guests, because there's constantly something that could be done.
That's stupid. We go there to visit her -- not to eat well. Yes, doing both is a bonus, but taking away time with your guests, and adding stress to yourself, for the purpose of serving a bit better food is silly. It's putting the carriage before the horse.
Me, when I throw a party with dinner, I make sure that I select dishes that can be prepared before the guests arrive, with my guests there I want to spend time with them, not time in the kitchen beyond the minimum that is required to actually serve the food/pour the wine etc.
Better even: For those 5 times a month (tops!) when you'd use this: hire a chef to go to your house and prepare a delicious meal for the time when you arrive.
He doesn't even need to be a good cook, this device can only bake afterall, so anything he could do over turning a single switch at the rigth time would be a pure bonus.
Where I live, you cam rent a good cook, at your home for about $40/hour, so if he spends 2 hours making you dinner, you could have 100 dinners before you'd break even. And here's a hint: a meal that a good cook spent 2 hours preparing for you, is going to compare *VERY* favourably to whatever this thing has baked.
If you're willing to settle for a young trainee attending the local cook-school (they generally work their balls off, because they a) want to proove themselves and b) are overjoyed to be allowed to *really* cook and not just work in some pizza-shop or whatever) you can even have help for $15/hour, and the resulting meal will still kick any stupid internet-ovens butt.
A steak (say) that is taken out of the freezer in the morning, and which are to be baked the same afternoon requires no refrigiration whatsoever. Indeed unless it's very small and/or it's very bloody freaking hot, it's unlikely to even thaw before the baking begins.
Are you expecting them to get back to you by IM in the next 15 minutes?
Depends a lot on the job-market. I sent lots of applications here in Germany last autumn, nothing came of it. Then I decided to also apply in Norway this year. I literally sent an application thursday evening, and had the employer call next morning, asking when I'd be able to come in for an interview, transport from Germany paid. A week later, I was employed. (well, I *am* employed, I start in my new job 1st of march.)
Lesson: Sometimes it pays to widen ones horizon, particularily if you're single there's no reason to limit yourself to your local area, or even your local country.
That is funny, and tragical at the same time. I guess it "works" for some, but I personally wouldn't want to work for a boss that is only prepared to pay me what *he* really thinks I'm worth when he has the axe hanging over his neck so to speak.
As a matter of fact, Barbie Horse Adventures scored an all-time-low on gametab.com (a meta-ranking engine), I rented it just out of pure machochism. It was actually so bad it was funny, but it *did* require like 5 tequilas before it started being funny. I guess that's rigth out for the target audience.
But the thing is, it's hardly even possible to form a single sentence with no political/subjective bias. Even if it where, such sentences would tend to be terminally dull.
The best professors *do* include subjective judgement, *but* they also make it clear that/this/ is a fact, and/this/ on the other hand is just an opinion. How can you answer the question: "What are the advantages of OO-programming?" without showing personal bias, subjectivism or agenda in your answer ? (mathemathically speaking, there are none -- all turing-machines are equally potent. But this answer ain't really useful)
If you pay $200 less per year for five years, you will have $1K more on that account after five years, assuming no net appreciation (which was the case here). Besides, for it to be "closer to half", you'd have to have a huge return on your investments. Can I buy in on your secrets?:)
Actually, I read it as if he'd been saving up the $1000 over 5 years, thus he had $200 after the first year, $400 after the second and so on. Now that I look at it I don't really think that interpretation was justified.
Anyone who has significant amounts of money in just one asset (be that one stock, one bond, one mutual fund or whatever) is just taking on too much risk. The one exception is if it's your company or your real estate, where there are mitigating circumstances. But even then, have you really considered the worst case scenario?
Actually, you can argue that in your own company is even *worse* than in a different company, because it means if it goes bust you're out, not only of your savings, but also out of a job, both at the same time can be a real double-whamy. If you work in IT (I do) then it actually makes sense to invest in companies that are as different from IT as possible. (say pharmacies, they tend to perform pretty much oposite from IT)
Any game where the sum of profits is by mathemathical necessity zero. For example, if you and three friends enter a room to play Poker, each starting with $100, then the sum of your profits will be zero, and you'll leave the room with $400 in sum. Sure, the money can change hands, it's quite possible that one guys profit is $100 while another loses $100. However no new wealth is created, you as a GROUP don't get any richer by playing the game. It doesn't matter if you're good or bad players, the sum of profits remain zero.
Putting $10,000 away would take me a VERY long time to do while still paying for all the essentials.
You sound like you're still young. Time is of great importance in investments, because of the wonders of compound interest. $100 invested when you're born is literally worth (about) the same as $500 when you're 20 or $2500 when you're 40 or $20.000 when you're 65.
Let's say you're 25, and you are saving the $10.000 to have some extra when you quit working at 65. In the bank, at the moment, you basically get interest equal to inflation, so it'd keep its worth, but only that. You'd still have the value of $10.000 when you retire.
If, on the other hand you get an average of 5% over inflation for the time-period, and don't save anything ontop of the $10.000, then they'd turn into the equivalent of $70.000. If you managed to save, on the average $600 a year ($50/month) over the intervening years, you'd have a retirement-fund of $143.000 (if you saved it in the bank instead, it'd be about $34.000)
Now, most people agree a $143K retirement-fund is significantly better than a $34K one, so they're willing to take some risk to achieve that.
I'm just commenting here though. Not really criticizing. So what would be considered a "good sum" of money in this game?
One where the expected return is large enough, relative to your costs of living to make a difference. $10K would give you, on the average, perhaps $500 extra a year, if that is enough to help you out, then $10K *is* a good sum. If your goal was gaining $100 a month, you migth need double that, more or less.
Strange thing is, this has a tendency to make it less boring. Atleast I don't find it all that boring to log into my netbank and discover that I'm (for example) $1000 richer than I was at the start of the month, for doing nothing. (I've got around $50K invested, january '06 was a good month!)
Also, you can deliberately use stock to guard against bad news. I do this:
I live in Bergen. It rains a lot there. I hate rain. So I went and bougth stock in a hydro-powerplant. Now it's literally raining money for me. Every day of rain means, on the average $5 extra for me. It's no large sum, but it's amazing how it can change your outlook. Case in point: wife gets up, looks out the window, looks at my sourly -- it's *raining* again, and it's absolutely *pouring* down even. Then she looks at me, makes a wicked smile, and we both exclaim: "Party!". It ended up raining 150mm that day, making half that many dollars of profit for us.
Or you hate every time you need to refuel your car, the fucking prices have gone up *again*. So, buy stock in a oil-company. Then higher prices still cost you in the gas-station, but you get the money back from your stock, so it's ignorable. If you buy enough stock you can even be the only guy on the block to *SMILE* when the oilprice goes up.
That all being said: if you don't wanna deal with it all, investing in a index-fund with low fees, perhaps splitting to a second one in a different market (say a european one if your primary is US) is good advice. No, it's not *guaranteed* to work -- that's what risk means. But on the *average* it'll work in your favour.
to outlaw the market for resources that are for the most part won by decimating an endangered species.
Fine. If that was the case, I'd agree full-heartedly. But the thing is Ambra is *NOT* for the most part won by "decimating an endangered species", infact I don't know that it's even *POSSIBLE* to win ambra by hunting whales, because there's no way to know which whales would have the precursor of ambra in its intestine, and even if you knew which one, extracting it and working it to ambra would very likely not be a paying proposition.
(by the way, the minke-whales that *are* hunted today are by no mean an "endangered" species. Infact there's literally a million of them, way *MORE* than before the start of comercial whaling, even Greenpeace acknowledges this)
What exactly is the sense of forbidding trade in a product with whale-origin that in no way influences the whale if used ? I mean, it's literally ten year old vomit from the whales POV. It's not like any whale will in any way be negatively influenced by the harvesting (i.e. picking up from beach) and selling of this item.
Yes. But you wheren't very proud of it. Nor where you considering yourself the pinnacle of civilization, or trying to defend invations all over the globe with "bringing democracy" to "unlawful states".
That, however, would be incorrect, becuase while the return of the instruments in the fund are likely to have the same expected value for every fund, there is a fee component that is pretty huge. A typical fund charges around 2% of total assets every year, no matter how the fund performs. For the GP, that is $200/year or $1K over five years. He has paid $1K+ to brokers and other people and has received nothing for himself. He should be upset!
Not quite, becaue $200 a year for 5 years is *not* the same as having $1000 invested for 5 years. (it's closer to half) But you're rigth: he should be upset -- and it seems that he is, only he doesn't really seem to know why.
The main problem with the financial markets (or, indeed, with any market) is that people expect something for nothing. They expect great deals without having to spend anything on researc.
Or great deals *with* spending time/money on research. That's the hint. Sure, *IF* you are more clever than the average person in the financial markets, then you could, on average, do better than the index. Thing is, 90% of all analysts seem to think they are more clever than average, and that's simply a mathemathical impossibility. And if *everyone* did more research and/or got more clever, you'd have gained nothing since, as stated, it's a zero-sum game.
As a final suggestion to everyone here: put *all* the money you have in mutual funds in the cheapest index funds you can find.
Diversification can still be good. It doesn't change the expected payoff. But it can change the risk (in positive and negative sense) a lot. It's like the choise between setting $1000 on a die-roll to win $5000, which has an expected payout of $833, but which will yield $0 or $5000 in practice, and setting $1 on a die-roll to win $5 -- 1000 times, which *ALSO* has an expected payoff of $833, but which will almost certainly yield between $800 and $860. The latter has the same expected payoff, but less risk.
I do this. My funds are to be *different* from eachothers, and have low fees. These are my only criteria. It doesn't interest me in the sligthest what algorithm or person they use for selecting their stock. Indeed, if I had enough money to be able to diversify enough by myself, I'd quit the entire fund-thing and invest in individual stocks, which have the benefit of 0% fees. But the drawback that investments smaller than about $2000 in a single stock are impractical, so you need like $50000 invested to be able to diversify enough to get close to the index.
You watch the programming, not the picture-quality. That's the main reason often picture-quality is unimportant, aslong as it's "good enough" -- afterall Big Brother in 1080p with Dolby Digital surround is still Big Brother.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait and see -- if MA is *really* following the plan and using ODF exclusively say summer 2007, then you can celebrate. Up to then there's definitely going to be around a gazillion attempts to derail this.
You're almost rigth, the only word that is not generally warranted is "healthy". Those people are, on the average, measured with our scales not even half close to healthy.
Their diet is, assuming they're not poor enough to actually be undernourished, and also to afford variation, quite healthy. But the lack of even basic healthcare and reasonable living-conditions destroy a lot of otherwise healthy people.
It's interesting, by the way, how many react strongly negatively to what I wrote in the GP, but yet don't want to come out and tell me what exactly is wrong with the argument. I've had no less than 5 people foe me since I wrote it, which is more than I managed in the last 3 years combined.
It seems I was rigth some people shut their brain down and go into emotionalism when certain holy cows are on the scales.
Thanks for playing.
First, that's your opinion, not mine, and I highly doubt that that's true for most parts of the world. If it's true for USA, then I pity those living there. A 25 year old flirting with a 17 year old is not a problem for anyone, that's called *normal* in any non-hysterical context.
Indeed, in most of the world, even for these two to have a sexual relationship would be perfectly legal.
USA has this strange split. On one hand you have very strict (puritanical even) laws, on the other hand you have like the highest incidents of teenage-pregnancies in the western world, so obviously teenager are fucking just asmuch in the USA as elsewhere. So it's like, oficially forbidden, but everyone is doing it, "don't get caugth" like you say seems to sum it up pretty well.
I belong to those people who find it stupid to have laws against behaviour that is voluntarily, that harms noone, and that everyone is doing anyway. That just serves to undermine the respect for laws in general.
This is made *worse* by stupid people who are unable to *think* but resorts to pure emotionalism the second anyone mentions "children" or any other holy cow. (I say this as the father of a young child btw) "Oh my God, won't somebody please think of the children !"
The only cure is to stay rational, question the premises, argue facts.
In the case of USA, it may be a lost cause, there's every sign you are degrading into a religious-conservatism swamp of superstition and hysteria. But I actually care enough to atleast bother trying. USA used to mean something positive. I never approved of *all* that you do, and I never will. But I approved of a lot, and I'd like that USA back pretty-please.
On the positive side, most of the rest of the western world is significantly less hysterical.
The real world ain't black and white. It's ridiculous to claim that, say, Norway is a terrorist-supporter simply because the Norwegians thougth other actions than outrigth invation was more apropriate for Iraq. I *hope* that not even Bush really means that.
In real life, we're friends. Friends sometimes disagree. Sometimes you even tell a friend that some idea of his is, in your opinion, silly, stupid or worse. That doesn't make you a enemy. On the contrary.
It's similar with child-porn. Everyone wants to end abuses of children. That's not the issue. The issue is that the world ain't black and white.
In lots of countries, for example, you can be put behind bars for *years* for, for example, posessing a video of a 16 year old having sex. In the same country where actually *having* sex with the same 16-year old is fully legal. (that's the case for Norway for example, because age of consent is 16, but "child-porn" is any porn with under-18s.)
Or worse yet: For posessing pictures of a person who is on the pictures dressed up as/behaves like being 15 years old, while *actually* being proven to be 18 years old. (this is so because "child-porn" is defined as being, *OR* appearing to be under 18)
Or even worse: I've got letters, written by my girlfriend at the time (Hi Marianne!) when we where *both* 16 that would undoubtedly qualify as porn, and thus child-porn. Technically we can *both* be convicted of posessing child-porn, unless we burn all the old letters, simply for posessing letters sometimes describing what we where (fully legally!) doing to eachothers.
Think I can't top this ? How about imprisoning for *years* the 15-year old who writes down some of those thougths and ideas that *every* healthy person of that age has ? The law makes no distinction if the porn is purely fictious (as in your daydreams about the girl in your class) or involves *actual* sexual acts. The law also makes no difference if you yourself are 15 or if you're 50. There's a name for say a male that is 15 year old and has sexual fantasies about girls. The word is: normal.
"Punish everyone strictly" would mean giving these people, and many more, a multi-year prisonterm. If that's your idea of a fair justice-system, then I'm glad you're not voting in my country.
No. That's not the problem. It's not like there are large numbers of murders in the US that essentially think, before the murder the equivalent of: "Ok, so we've got a death-penalty, and I'll get caugth and get it, but I'll only be executed 12 years later, so that's Ok, I guess I'll go ahead and murder."
Most people who murder are not doing any sort of rational cost-benefit analysis whatsoever, if they where, they wouldn't *be* murderers.
Those that think about it at all, instead think that they're not going to get caugth, or they're not going to get convicted, or they'll be in (wherever) before anyone ever notices there's a dead body, or the body is not ever going to be found or, or, or.
Fact is, USA has the death-penalty. Fact is, basically all other countries you care to compare yourself to does *not* have the death-penalty. There are only 25 countries in the world where death-penalties where actively used last year. Fact is, death penalties send the message: There are certain situations where its *rigth* to kill a person, even when milder restraints are possible. (noone argues against killing in self-defence when no other option is open.) Fact also is: the US has more murders than just about any country you care to compare yourself to. (assuming you don't want to compare yourself to Nigeria)
Something you're doing must not be working.
I second this. In the best online RPGs I've played very rare scales to the extreme cases which are equipment which is, simply unique. There can only be *one* instance of that equipment. In general that equipment has some sort of deterioration and/or timer so that it won't be simply held by a single character (then to be sold a Ebay for $$$) forever.
Did you ever calculate the amount of food our "hero" eats in a day ? It's on the order of 50 pounds of flesh daily ! And to add insult to injury: he is stupid enough that he can die from hunger *very* easily in the early stages of the game, inspite of having killed oh, say, 4 wolves and 3 bears today. In real life that amount of meat would feed anyone for literally a year. (go bad sooner offcourse)
Don't do that. Seriously. The time is *MORE* than ripe for people actually realizing that celebrations like that are about spending time together with people that are important to you first, and any food served a distant second. My mother in law understands that, in principle, but never managed to take the consequence in practice. Result:
She works her ass off, not only hours before the guests come, but as a matter of fact the entire evening. When you're invited to her, you can be sure of 2 things: a) the food will be excellent, and b) she'll spend no more than MAX 1/4th the time actually with her guests, because there's constantly something that could be done.
That's stupid. We go there to visit her -- not to eat well. Yes, doing both is a bonus, but taking away time with your guests, and adding stress to yourself, for the purpose of serving a bit better food is silly. It's putting the carriage before the horse.
Me, when I throw a party with dinner, I make sure that I select dishes that can be prepared before the guests arrive, with my guests there I want to spend time with them, not time in the kitchen beyond the minimum that is required to actually serve the food/pour the wine etc.
He doesn't even need to be a good cook, this device can only bake afterall, so anything he could do over turning a single switch at the rigth time would be a pure bonus.
Where I live, you cam rent a good cook, at your home for about $40/hour, so if he spends 2 hours making you dinner, you could have 100 dinners before you'd break even. And here's a hint: a meal that a good cook spent 2 hours preparing for you, is going to compare *VERY* favourably to whatever this thing has baked.
If you're willing to settle for a young trainee attending the local cook-school (they generally work their balls off, because they a) want to proove themselves and b) are overjoyed to be allowed to *really* cook and not just work in some pizza-shop or whatever) you can even have help for $15/hour, and the resulting meal will still kick any stupid internet-ovens butt.
A steak (say) that is taken out of the freezer in the morning, and which are to be baked the same afternoon requires no refrigiration whatsoever. Indeed unless it's very small and/or it's very bloody freaking hot, it's unlikely to even thaw before the baking begins.
Depends a lot on the job-market. I sent lots of applications here in Germany last autumn, nothing came of it. Then I decided to also apply in Norway this year. I literally sent an application thursday evening, and had the employer call next morning, asking when I'd be able to come in for an interview, transport from Germany paid. A week later, I was employed. (well, I *am* employed, I start in my new job 1st of march.)
Lesson: Sometimes it pays to widen ones horizon, particularily if you're single there's no reason to limit yourself to your local area, or even your local country.
That is funny, and tragical at the same time. I guess it "works" for some, but I personally wouldn't want to work for a boss that is only prepared to pay me what *he* really thinks I'm worth when he has the axe hanging over his neck so to speak.
As a matter of fact, Barbie Horse Adventures scored an all-time-low on gametab.com (a meta-ranking engine), I rented it just out of pure machochism. It was actually so bad it was funny, but it *did* require like 5 tequilas before it started being funny. I guess that's rigth out for the target audience.
Yeah, I know. There was even porn for it. Full-screen, 30fps porn.
The best professors *do* include subjective judgement, *but* they also make it clear that /this/ is a fact, and /this/ on the other hand is just an opinion. How can you answer the question: "What are the advantages of OO-programming?" without showing personal bias, subjectivism or agenda in your answer ? (mathemathically speaking, there are none -- all turing-machines are equally potent. But this answer ain't really useful)
Actually, I read it as if he'd been saving up the $1000 over 5 years, thus he had $200 after the first year, $400 after the second and so on. Now that I look at it I don't really think that interpretation was justified.
Anyone who has significant amounts of money in just one asset (be that one stock, one bond, one mutual fund or whatever) is just taking on too much risk. The one exception is if it's your company or your real estate, where there are mitigating circumstances. But even then, have you really considered the worst case scenario? Actually, you can argue that in your own company is even *worse* than in a different company, because it means if it goes bust you're out, not only of your savings, but also out of a job, both at the same time can be a real double-whamy. If you work in IT (I do) then it actually makes sense to invest in companies that are as different from IT as possible. (say pharmacies, they tend to perform pretty much oposite from IT)
Any game where the sum of profits is by mathemathical necessity zero. For example, if you and three friends enter a room to play Poker, each starting with $100, then the sum of your profits will be zero, and you'll leave the room with $400 in sum. Sure, the money can change hands, it's quite possible that one guys profit is $100 while another loses $100. However no new wealth is created, you as a GROUP don't get any richer by playing the game. It doesn't matter if you're good or bad players, the sum of profits remain zero.
Putting $10,000 away would take me a VERY long time to do while still paying for all the essentials.
You sound like you're still young. Time is of great importance in investments, because of the wonders of compound interest. $100 invested when you're born is literally worth (about) the same as $500 when you're 20 or $2500 when you're 40 or $20.000 when you're 65.
Let's say you're 25, and you are saving the $10.000 to have some extra when you quit working at 65. In the bank, at the moment, you basically get interest equal to inflation, so it'd keep its worth, but only that. You'd still have the value of $10.000 when you retire.
If, on the other hand you get an average of 5% over inflation for the time-period, and don't save anything ontop of the $10.000, then they'd turn into the equivalent of $70.000. If you managed to save, on the average $600 a year ($50/month) over the intervening years, you'd have a retirement-fund of $143.000 (if you saved it in the bank instead, it'd be about $34.000)
Now, most people agree a $143K retirement-fund is significantly better than a $34K one, so they're willing to take some risk to achieve that.
I'm just commenting here though. Not really criticizing. So what would be considered a "good sum" of money in this game?
One where the expected return is large enough, relative to your costs of living to make a difference. $10K would give you, on the average, perhaps $500 extra a year, if that is enough to help you out, then $10K *is* a good sum. If your goal was gaining $100 a month, you migth need double that, more or less.
Strange thing is, this has a tendency to make it less boring. Atleast I don't find it all that boring to log into my netbank and discover that I'm (for example) $1000 richer than I was at the start of the month, for doing nothing. (I've got around $50K invested, january '06 was a good month!)
Also, you can deliberately use stock to guard against bad news. I do this:
I live in Bergen. It rains a lot there. I hate rain. So I went and bougth stock in a hydro-powerplant. Now it's literally raining money for me. Every day of rain means, on the average $5 extra for me. It's no large sum, but it's amazing how it can change your outlook. Case in point: wife gets up, looks out the window, looks at my sourly -- it's *raining* again, and it's absolutely *pouring* down even. Then she looks at me, makes a wicked smile, and we both exclaim: "Party!". It ended up raining 150mm that day, making half that many dollars of profit for us.
Or you hate every time you need to refuel your car, the fucking prices have gone up *again*. So, buy stock in a oil-company. Then higher prices still cost you in the gas-station, but you get the money back from your stock, so it's ignorable. If you buy enough stock you can even be the only guy on the block to *SMILE* when the oilprice goes up.
That all being said: if you don't wanna deal with it all, investing in a index-fund with low fees, perhaps splitting to a second one in a different market (say a european one if your primary is US) is good advice. No, it's not *guaranteed* to work -- that's what risk means. But on the *average* it'll work in your favour.
Fine. If that was the case, I'd agree full-heartedly. But the thing is Ambra is *NOT* for the most part won by "decimating an endangered species", infact I don't know that it's even *POSSIBLE* to win ambra by hunting whales, because there's no way to know which whales would have the precursor of ambra in its intestine, and even if you knew which one, extracting it and working it to ambra would very likely not be a paying proposition.
(by the way, the minke-whales that *are* hunted today are by no mean an "endangered" species. Infact there's literally a million of them, way *MORE* than before the start of comercial whaling, even Greenpeace acknowledges this)
What exactly is the sense of forbidding trade in a product with whale-origin that in no way influences the whale if used ? I mean, it's literally ten year old vomit from the whales POV. It's not like any whale will in any way be negatively influenced by the harvesting (i.e. picking up from beach) and selling of this item.
Yes. But you wheren't very proud of it. Nor where you considering yourself the pinnacle of civilization, or trying to defend invations all over the globe with "bringing democracy" to "unlawful states".
Not quite, becaue $200 a year for 5 years is *not* the same as having $1000 invested for 5 years. (it's closer to half) But you're rigth: he should be upset -- and it seems that he is, only he doesn't really seem to know why.
The main problem with the financial markets (or, indeed, with any market) is that people expect something for nothing. They expect great deals without having to spend anything on researc.
Or great deals *with* spending time/money on research. That's the hint. Sure, *IF* you are more clever than the average person in the financial markets, then you could, on average, do better than the index. Thing is, 90% of all analysts seem to think they are more clever than average, and that's simply a mathemathical impossibility. And if *everyone* did more research and/or got more clever, you'd have gained nothing since, as stated, it's a zero-sum game.
As a final suggestion to everyone here: put *all* the money you have in mutual funds in the cheapest index funds you can find.
Diversification can still be good. It doesn't change the expected payoff. But it can change the risk (in positive and negative sense) a lot. It's like the choise between setting $1000 on a die-roll to win $5000, which has an expected payout of $833, but which will yield $0 or $5000 in practice, and setting $1 on a die-roll to win $5 -- 1000 times, which *ALSO* has an expected payoff of $833, but which will almost certainly yield between $800 and $860. The latter has the same expected payoff, but less risk.
I do this. My funds are to be *different* from eachothers, and have low fees. These are my only criteria. It doesn't interest me in the sligthest what algorithm or person they use for selecting their stock. Indeed, if I had enough money to be able to diversify enough by myself, I'd quit the entire fund-thing and invest in individual stocks, which have the benefit of 0% fees. But the drawback that investments smaller than about $2000 in a single stock are impractical, so you need like $50000 invested to be able to diversify enough to get close to the index.
You watch the programming, not the picture-quality. That's the main reason often picture-quality is unimportant, aslong as it's "good enough" -- afterall Big Brother in 1080p with Dolby Digital surround is still Big Brother.
The banana doesn't work. It crushes like glass when you deal the first blow.