the movie catalog is shrinking, and the quality of the movies aren't that great anymore.
I've had a Netflix subscription twice and I've cancelled it twice. Why? Glad you asked. Reason #1 was that I wasn't getting adequate value for the money. No it wasn't hugely expensive but the catalog of shows was mostly older movies, B movies, or stuff that I had little to no interest in. Their original programming simply didn't hold my interest. Reason #2 was that it was a pain in the ass to find anything interesting to watch. Their navigation system was annoying and clumsy at best. It took WAY too long to find something interesting to watch and their suggestions were usually not very good even after a lot of training about what I liked and didn't. When you add Reason #1 into the mix with Reason #2 you have a pretty irritating needle-in-a-haystack problem. Just not worth the bother.
I like the idea of Netflix but it just wasn't worth the price to me given its current state. Maybe in time that will change.
If said companies overstep their bounds customers are free to form rival websites that are not run by over zealous individuals.
Ok go ahead and start a company that will supplant Google. Good luck with that. Back here in the real world we understand that market forces do not solve every problem and in fact it market forces are the source of many of them. You are being very glib with a non-solution to a very real problem.
They are way overpriced, just because you are a member of their cult doesn't change that simple truth.
Actually I couldn't care less about Apple and my argument would be the same for any other company. Just because YOU think their products are overpriced is irrelevant except for your own decision to buy them or not. There is a clear mathematical way to determine whether a product is overpriced. It happens when profits fall when you raise the price further. (Specifically when marginal revenue becomes less than marginal cost) This is economics 101 stuff. A product being overpriced is a market decision not personal one.
You get a vote on whether it is overpriced but so does everyone else. It's the outcome of all those votes that determines whether it is overpriced. To use a different example I don't like Budweiser beer and even though it is quite inexpensive, to me the price is still too high. But millions of cans are sold every year to enthusiastic buyers so my (un)willingness to pay for the product does not make it overpriced even though I wouldn't buy it at the price offered.
Not overpriced. Man, that'll keep me chuckling all day.
Laugh all you want but what I said is correct. You are conflating YOUR willingness to pay for what Apple offers with what OTHERS are willing to pay for it. To you it might seem overpriced but to others just the opposite is true. And BOTH of you are right. But until Apple starts losing profits when they raise the price further it is by definition not overpriced. It is meaningless to say something is overpriced unless you are considering the entire market for that product.
Basically you are arguing that Apple products are overpriced because you think they are overpriced. That is circular reasoning and not applicable to anyone but yourself. Essentially the market votes on whether something is overpriced and you get a vote but you don't determine the outcome with your opinion alone.
I'm not arguing one way or the other whether Apple's products are good value for money. Merely observing whether others have found them to be good value and clearly many have. Whether they could have gotten better value elsewhere is a separate question. You could substitute Samsung for Apple in the above argument and the argument would be identical and equally correct.
I'm sure many of you have had the same thought but there is no way in hell this would be used merely for "extremist" content.
First off good luck consistently defining extremist. Sometimes it's obvious but sometimes it's a matter of perspective. There is no bright line test.
Second, sometime "extreme" viewpoints are merely sane ones being suppressed by another group. Fifty years ago people arguing peacefully for civil rights for minorities were considered "extremist" by our own government.
Third, you know for a fact that what this will actually be used for is cross site protection of copyrighted material that has nothing to do with any extreme viewpoints because the technology has more than one use. But it's easy to develop it to ostensibly combat "extremism" and then quietly use it for other purposes.
The reason they have large piles of cash isn't that they can't figure out what to do with it, it's that it's cash they generated overseas they can't move it to the US without giving 35% of it to the federal government.
They don't have to repatriate it to do useful things with it. Believe it or not you can actually do interesting things outside the USA. I know right? Who knew? Furthermore they don't actually have to repatriate it to return money to shareholders. Have you wondered why Apple has taken out loans in recent years despite having gobs of cash and no actual need for the money? They are doing it to shuffle money around without triggering a tax liability. They have $79B in long term debt on their balance sheet despite not needing a dime of it.
They can't pay it out as dividends without repatriating it, nor can they invest it in anything in the US.
Over 50% of Apple's business is outside the US. They can invest in plenty of things without returning a penny to the US. Furthermore just because the US has a high statutory tax rate doesn't mean that companies actually pay that rate. The effective tax rate in the US for corporations is actually below the world average.
the reason they have big piles of cash is because the US has the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world.
The tax issue is certainly a complication but it's not the elephant in the room. Not even close. The actual reason these companies have huge piles of cash is that it is REALLY hard to find investment opportunities worth tens of billions of dollars with a 20%+ net profit margin. There just aren't a lot of opportunities like that out there and creating new ones isn't trivial. Apple has revenues of $215B for the last 12 months. For them to grow just 4% they have to create a business the size of eBay (revenue $8B) from scratch. THAT is what is keeping their money in cash. It has almost nothing to do with tax policy.
"Football is a simple game that is made complicated by the players" Sir Alex Ferguson.
That's not a quote about the game being simple. It's a comment about the players making mistakes and thereby needlessly complicating things.
Professional sports teams have vast libraries of tape, full time employees to analyze strategy and tactics, statistical analysts breaking down performance, nutritionists, psychologists, strength coaches, not to mention the coaching staff. And you think these games are simple? A glib statement about a game being simple doesn't actually make it simple. If it actually was simple Sir Alex Ferguson wouldn't be paid huge sums of money to coach.
Think of it a bit like chess. You can learn the basic rules and strategies of the game in a few minutes but it takes a lifetime to master it and it is anything but simple once you understand the full depth of the game being played.
45 minutes is about the amount of time they're actually playing, the rest is between downs, mostly with the clock stopped.
The actual amount of time spent actually playing a game of football is around 10 minutes per game. Somebody did a study about that a while back. The rest of it is just standing around and people shuffling back and forth. It's actually a really slow paced game where not much happens most of the time.
Once the final score is known is there much point to watching?
If all you care about is the score then why are you bothering to watch at all? You have that argument backwards. I watch sports because I like seeing how things unfold. I like seeing the grace of movement, the tactics and strategy, the choices and mistakes, the effort and hustle, etc. That is FAR more interesting than the final score which is merely the summary of what happened. None of that is diminished in any way by knowing (or not) the ultimate outcome of the contest.
Isn't it like watching a murder mystery after someone tells you whodunnit?
Not at all. You can appreciate a dance for the pure aesthetics of it even if you've seen it before. Do you ever watch a movie you've seen previously? How about eating a meal you've previously enjoyed? If you want to make it all about keeping the final outcome a mystery you're going to miss a lot of interesting stuff along the way.
Only about 1/3 of the US even watches the Super Bowl and I'm guessing that's the most viewed sporting event in the US.
Why should that be surprising? Football is a popular sport in the US but not universally so. For example most of my family a good number of my friends couldn't give a mouse fart about football. We like sports but we like OTHER sports. As a spectator I find Rugby Sevens to be considerably more entertaining if we are comparing similar sports. I have sports I like watching and playing. Football just isn't among them. Some like basketball. Some like soccer. American football is just one option among many.
Hardly anyone would enjoy gambling if you just put your $250 dollars in a hole and it said "you lost/won XYZ... if you would like to see how you got there, please proceed to play".
There is a HUGE difference between watching someone else play and playing yourself. You are conflating the two. I get how knowing the outcome for an event you are participating in would ruin things. But why should I care whether or not I know the outcome of an event that I am a spectator for? It's fine if I don't know the outcome in advance but I get just as much enjoyment watching the game when I do know who won. And if I don't care how the game unfolded (whether or not I know the ultimate outcome) then it raises the question why I'm bothering to watch in the first place? Might as well just fast forward to the end and see the exciting conclusion if you don't care how it happens.
To say you are watching games for strategy and tactics seems odd unless you are a coach.
I am a coach. I've been one for over 25 years. I'm a very competitive peson but unless it is a team I am coaching or someone I have a personal relationship with involved in the event I don't really get emotionally invested in the outcomes of most sporting events. Not knowing the outcome of a match doesn't increase my enjoyment of it. Sure I'd like to see the home team win and all that but if they don't I rarely am bothered by it unless I'm a participant in the event. Maybe this is because I'm originally from Cleveland and if you are from that city and get too invested in the local teams you are on a one way train to disappointment (Cavaliers this year notwithstanding). The real beauty in sports is in the execution of them and understanding how it happens. People that really understand them appreciate this beauty very much like a mathematician appreciates an elegant proof. Outsiders really can't fully understand though they often appreciate the sport for less subtle reasons.
My point is that even the best coaches will admit that sports games are extremely simple.
Not true at all. Actually they are often ludicrously complex. Saying that sports are simple clearly marks you as an outsider who doesn't fully comprehend what is going on. Most coaches will tell you that few people really appreciate the full depth and complexity of most sports. I know that is very much true in my chosen sport (wrestling) where it takes years for most people to be able to execute even relatively basic techniques with any real proficiency. I've been doing my sport for over 35 years and I'm still learning new things all the time. Simple? No. Not at all.
Most TV shows and movies these days are available on-demand from various sources, but live events, particularly sports, are considered among the most "DVR-proof" since there's more value in seeing the result live.
I never quite understood this. I don't deny that it is true for many people but it doesn't make sense to me personally. Knowing the outcome in advance doesn't make an event more or less enjoyable for me. In fact in some cases it make it less pleasant if I actually care about the outcome. (I don't enjoy being nervous) I'd actually rather know in advance which are the good games worth watching most of the time. When I watch sports I watch to admire the beauty of the game. I'm interested in the techniques and tactics and strategies. Knowing the outcome just makes it like watching a movie like Titanic where I know the outcome but the interesting bit is how they got there.
Apple : "We have so much money we literally don't know what to do with it anymore."
That's alright. Neither do Google or Microsoft and a few others. They simply can't find investment opportunities large enough and profitable enough to do anything with their piles of cash. So the pile keeps growing. Eventually I expect it to attract a dragon or something.
Really they should be paying it back as dividends if they can't figure out what to do with the money.
Apple products are almost certainly not over priced or if they are it isn't by much. Apples products are (mostly) priced high but that is something different than being overpriced. As a general proposition product sold in a competitive market can only be considered overpriced when it is priced at a point higher than where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. Translated that means that it isn't overpriced until raising the price any further causes profits to fall from being priced too high.
Just because their products are higher than YOUR willingness to pay doesn't (necessarily) mean that they are overpriced as a general proposition. You can only call something overpriced if you can show that profits would increase if they lowered the price. Conversely something is underpriced if the company can make more money by raising the price. If marginal revenue = marginal cost then the product is priced optimally.
There's no evidence any more that women are getting paid less for the same job.
There is substantial evidence that women get paid less than men for the same jobs. It's not even a debate. Your assertion is plainly contradicted by the evidence. Women get paid less even after controlling for factors like child rearing, working hours, education, etc.
There's a teacher at my alma mater capable of running twelve miles from home to his office.
Which proves what exactly? Cripes *I* can run 12 miles if I need to but that doesn't mean it's a good idea for me to commute that way. Running that distance would take me 90-110 minutes in good weather. Each way. Do you have a spare 3 hours per day? Do you have a shower available to you at work? Do you have roads you can safely run on? I don't. I live in an area that gets lots of snow 4 months per year, I live 20 miles from work, sidewalks don't exist for much of the commute, I need to be at work before dawn most days. Not to mention that I sometimes need to visit a client so showing up sweaty and smelly isn't a good idea. So I'm supposed to get up at 4am, run to work hoping I don't get run over, be sweaty and smelly all day, and repeat the process at night? And in winter somehow avoid frostbite or hypothermia as well?
Yeah sounds great.
What's so problematic about biking for twenty miles?
Nothing if you have the time, live in an area with good weather and roads, have a shower available at your destination, etc. That doesn't describe a whole lot of us. I bike 20 miles fairly often but it's simply not practical or safe for me to commute by bike.
I could maybe accept that argument if Trump were saying things that were truly racist, sexist, etc
If you don't understand that Trump has said and done HUGELY racist and sexist things then you don't understand what the words mean.
I'm pretty sure you don't appreciate people on the right labeling all Clinton supporters as "baby murderers" because Hillary Clinton said she supports abortion, do you?
If you'll notice I mentioned that you have to own ALL of the positions of the person you vote for. That applies to anyone.
That said your example is utter nonsense and it certainly isn't an equivalent argument. If the fetuses and embryos were actually babies they might have a point. They aren't. They are a fetus or an embryo and they don't become a baby until they are actually born. Until the fetus is sufficiently developed to survive outside the mother there is no credible argument that they are a baby. Until then they are nothing more than a mass of growing cells little different from a cancer biologically speaking. Arguing against abortion and/or contraception is to argue that women have no right to control their reproductive system which is to argue that they are not allowed to control what happens to their body. It's an absurd infringement on a person's rights that we do not condone in almost any other circumstance. We can't even harvest organs from a dead person without their prior consent and yet we don't consider that murder despite the fact that there is a shortage of donor organs and the fact that people WILL die because of it. You can't have it both ways.
Why wouldn't something be constant? Equally valid question. So far we have observed some things that seem to remain constant. Why that is the case is a separate and interesting question. We also have models based on those constants that fit really, really well with our observations.
Maybe the variability is beyond our ability to observe.
Perhaps but it's kind of hard to make rational scientific models and predictions about something that cannot be even theoretically observed. You're getting outside of science at that point.
Being welcomed to a country you are not citizen of is not a human right.
True but let's not pretend that there isn't a HUGE component of racism driving the discussion. Let's not pretend that uninformed religious tribalism plays no role.
Refusing to have a rational discussion on this subject without accusations of hate and racism is how we got Trump.
You have that backwards. Pretending that there isn't hate and racism and failing to point it out is why we can't get a rational discussion. There IS racism and hate from those who oppose immigration. If someone is bigoted and you say nothing about it then you are effectively endorsing their ideas. You don't have to be an ass about pointing it out but remaining silent about the mistreatment of others is to condone that mistreatment. The people who are freaking out most (white conservatives primarily) about immigrants aren't interested in having a calm rational informed discussion about the topic and never have been.
If we really wanted to do something to reduce illegal immigration from Mexico and central America then the best solution would be to help those countries improve their lot in life. People come here for jobs and opportunity. That is why you don't see a lot of illegal Canadian immigrants - they have jobs. Fix Mexico's economy and the problem will go away. But instead we have a bunch of scared white people talking nonsense about building thousand mile long walls to keep out the people who are just coming here to earn an honest living. If we helped our neighbors instead of trying to keep them away we could actually solve some of these problems without wasting money on border security that won't secure our border.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure SJW's will still be free to call every Trump support a racist, sexist, homphobe.
If you supported Trump then you supported his position on those issues whether or not you care about them yourself. You don't get a free pass to endorse him only for the non-bigoted portions of what he stands for. It's a package deal. The same would be true for any other candidate you vote for and their respective positions. Hillary Clinton stood for a different package deal, some of it unpleasant in a different way. Own what you did. So if you voted for Trump you voted in favor of racism, sexism, and the rest of the his hateful positions. If you think those things don't matter then that says something rather unpleasant about you.
Love it or leave it. And stand the fuck up for the anthem too, you aren't being oppressed.
"Love it or leave it" is what privileged fools say when they are actively sticking their fingers in their ears so they don't have to hear the truth from people who are being abused by our government. There are plenty of people who genuinely ARE being oppressed in this country. Sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in very blatant ones. Ask any black person if they feel oppressed by the police. Ask a person with brown skin how easy it is to get a bank loan. Compare the number of unarmed minorities who get shot by police to the number of white people. Ask women how things are going with that equal pay for equal work.
I am a US Citizen because I was born here. I didn't ask to be born nor did I ask to be a citizen. Love isn't unconditional. The notion that I should automatically love the country if it is doing things to actively harm me or things I care about is just nonsense. There are lots of people who are oppressed. Just because YOU aren't being oppressed doesn't mean shit to someone who is. If they want to sit down to make a statement during the playing of the national anthem then they are doing EXACTLY what the first amendment is for. So is burning a flag. Free speech isn't about what is comfortable for you to hear. It is making a statement that tells what they think without harming anyone.
should have had such a deep gravity well that the speed of light should have been about 0 for the first few milliseconds of the universe' existence
All that matter would affect its path but (so far) there is no evidence that gravity affects the speed of light at all or that it ever did. The reason light cannot escape a black hole isn't that gravity is pulling on the photon so hard but rather because gravity warps spacetime so much that there is literally no path for light to take which can get beyond the event horizon. It's kind of like being in a maze with no exit.
Slashdot Mirror
the movie catalog is shrinking, and the quality of the movies aren't that great anymore.
I've had a Netflix subscription twice and I've cancelled it twice. Why? Glad you asked. Reason #1 was that I wasn't getting adequate value for the money. No it wasn't hugely expensive but the catalog of shows was mostly older movies, B movies, or stuff that I had little to no interest in. Their original programming simply didn't hold my interest. Reason #2 was that it was a pain in the ass to find anything interesting to watch. Their navigation system was annoying and clumsy at best. It took WAY too long to find something interesting to watch and their suggestions were usually not very good even after a lot of training about what I liked and didn't. When you add Reason #1 into the mix with Reason #2 you have a pretty irritating needle-in-a-haystack problem. Just not worth the bother.
I like the idea of Netflix but it just wasn't worth the price to me given its current state. Maybe in time that will change.
If said companies overstep their bounds customers are free to form rival websites that are not run by over zealous individuals.
Ok go ahead and start a company that will supplant Google. Good luck with that. Back here in the real world we understand that market forces do not solve every problem and in fact it market forces are the source of many of them. You are being very glib with a non-solution to a very real problem.
They are way overpriced, just because you are a member of their cult doesn't change that simple truth.
Actually I couldn't care less about Apple and my argument would be the same for any other company. Just because YOU think their products are overpriced is irrelevant except for your own decision to buy them or not. There is a clear mathematical way to determine whether a product is overpriced. It happens when profits fall when you raise the price further. (Specifically when marginal revenue becomes less than marginal cost) This is economics 101 stuff. A product being overpriced is a market decision not personal one.
You get a vote on whether it is overpriced but so does everyone else. It's the outcome of all those votes that determines whether it is overpriced. To use a different example I don't like Budweiser beer and even though it is quite inexpensive, to me the price is still too high. But millions of cans are sold every year to enthusiastic buyers so my (un)willingness to pay for the product does not make it overpriced even though I wouldn't buy it at the price offered.
Not overpriced. Man, that'll keep me chuckling all day.
Laugh all you want but what I said is correct. You are conflating YOUR willingness to pay for what Apple offers with what OTHERS are willing to pay for it. To you it might seem overpriced but to others just the opposite is true. And BOTH of you are right. But until Apple starts losing profits when they raise the price further it is by definition not overpriced. It is meaningless to say something is overpriced unless you are considering the entire market for that product.
Basically you are arguing that Apple products are overpriced because you think they are overpriced. That is circular reasoning and not applicable to anyone but yourself. Essentially the market votes on whether something is overpriced and you get a vote but you don't determine the outcome with your opinion alone.
I'm not arguing one way or the other whether Apple's products are good value for money. Merely observing whether others have found them to be good value and clearly many have. Whether they could have gotten better value elsewhere is a separate question. You could substitute Samsung for Apple in the above argument and the argument would be identical and equally correct.
Definition of overpriced, for those of us who aren't long winded blowhards. "Anything that costs more than I as an individual think it's worth."
That definition is a tautology. "It's overpriced because I think it's overpriced" is the very definition of meaningless.
I'm sure many of you have had the same thought but there is no way in hell this would be used merely for "extremist" content.
First off good luck consistently defining extremist. Sometimes it's obvious but sometimes it's a matter of perspective. There is no bright line test.
Second, sometime "extreme" viewpoints are merely sane ones being suppressed by another group. Fifty years ago people arguing peacefully for civil rights for minorities were considered "extremist" by our own government.
Third, you know for a fact that what this will actually be used for is cross site protection of copyrighted material that has nothing to do with any extreme viewpoints because the technology has more than one use. But it's easy to develop it to ostensibly combat "extremism" and then quietly use it for other purposes.
The reason they have large piles of cash isn't that they can't figure out what to do with it, it's that it's cash they generated overseas they can't move it to the US without giving 35% of it to the federal government.
They don't have to repatriate it to do useful things with it. Believe it or not you can actually do interesting things outside the USA. I know right? Who knew? Furthermore they don't actually have to repatriate it to return money to shareholders. Have you wondered why Apple has taken out loans in recent years despite having gobs of cash and no actual need for the money? They are doing it to shuffle money around without triggering a tax liability. They have $79B in long term debt on their balance sheet despite not needing a dime of it.
They can't pay it out as dividends without repatriating it, nor can they invest it in anything in the US.
Over 50% of Apple's business is outside the US. They can invest in plenty of things without returning a penny to the US. Furthermore just because the US has a high statutory tax rate doesn't mean that companies actually pay that rate. The effective tax rate in the US for corporations is actually below the world average.
the reason they have big piles of cash is because the US has the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world.
The tax issue is certainly a complication but it's not the elephant in the room. Not even close. The actual reason these companies have huge piles of cash is that it is REALLY hard to find investment opportunities worth tens of billions of dollars with a 20%+ net profit margin. There just aren't a lot of opportunities like that out there and creating new ones isn't trivial. Apple has revenues of $215B for the last 12 months. For them to grow just 4% they have to create a business the size of eBay (revenue $8B) from scratch. THAT is what is keeping their money in cash. It has almost nothing to do with tax policy.
"Football is a simple game that is made complicated by the players" Sir Alex Ferguson.
That's not a quote about the game being simple. It's a comment about the players making mistakes and thereby needlessly complicating things.
Professional sports teams have vast libraries of tape, full time employees to analyze strategy and tactics, statistical analysts breaking down performance, nutritionists, psychologists, strength coaches, not to mention the coaching staff. And you think these games are simple? A glib statement about a game being simple doesn't actually make it simple. If it actually was simple Sir Alex Ferguson wouldn't be paid huge sums of money to coach.
Think of it a bit like chess. You can learn the basic rules and strategies of the game in a few minutes but it takes a lifetime to master it and it is anything but simple once you understand the full depth of the game being played.
45 minutes is about the amount of time they're actually playing, the rest is between downs, mostly with the clock stopped.
The actual amount of time spent actually playing a game of football is around 10 minutes per game. Somebody did a study about that a while back. The rest of it is just standing around and people shuffling back and forth. It's actually a really slow paced game where not much happens most of the time.
Once the final score is known is there much point to watching?
If all you care about is the score then why are you bothering to watch at all? You have that argument backwards. I watch sports because I like seeing how things unfold. I like seeing the grace of movement, the tactics and strategy, the choices and mistakes, the effort and hustle, etc. That is FAR more interesting than the final score which is merely the summary of what happened. None of that is diminished in any way by knowing (or not) the ultimate outcome of the contest.
Isn't it like watching a murder mystery after someone tells you whodunnit?
Not at all. You can appreciate a dance for the pure aesthetics of it even if you've seen it before. Do you ever watch a movie you've seen previously? How about eating a meal you've previously enjoyed? If you want to make it all about keeping the final outcome a mystery you're going to miss a lot of interesting stuff along the way.
Certainly 84% of people don't watch sports.
You have that statistic quite wrong.
Only about 1/3 of the US even watches the Super Bowl and I'm guessing that's the most viewed sporting event in the US.
Why should that be surprising? Football is a popular sport in the US but not universally so. For example most of my family a good number of my friends couldn't give a mouse fart about football. We like sports but we like OTHER sports. As a spectator I find Rugby Sevens to be considerably more entertaining if we are comparing similar sports. I have sports I like watching and playing. Football just isn't among them. Some like basketball. Some like soccer. American football is just one option among many.
Hardly anyone would enjoy gambling if you just put your $250 dollars in a hole and it said "you lost/won XYZ... if you would like to see how you got there, please proceed to play".
There is a HUGE difference between watching someone else play and playing yourself. You are conflating the two. I get how knowing the outcome for an event you are participating in would ruin things. But why should I care whether or not I know the outcome of an event that I am a spectator for? It's fine if I don't know the outcome in advance but I get just as much enjoyment watching the game when I do know who won. And if I don't care how the game unfolded (whether or not I know the ultimate outcome) then it raises the question why I'm bothering to watch in the first place? Might as well just fast forward to the end and see the exciting conclusion if you don't care how it happens.
To say you are watching games for strategy and tactics seems odd unless you are a coach.
I am a coach. I've been one for over 25 years. I'm a very competitive peson but unless it is a team I am coaching or someone I have a personal relationship with involved in the event I don't really get emotionally invested in the outcomes of most sporting events. Not knowing the outcome of a match doesn't increase my enjoyment of it. Sure I'd like to see the home team win and all that but if they don't I rarely am bothered by it unless I'm a participant in the event. Maybe this is because I'm originally from Cleveland and if you are from that city and get too invested in the local teams you are on a one way train to disappointment (Cavaliers this year notwithstanding). The real beauty in sports is in the execution of them and understanding how it happens. People that really understand them appreciate this beauty very much like a mathematician appreciates an elegant proof. Outsiders really can't fully understand though they often appreciate the sport for less subtle reasons.
My point is that even the best coaches will admit that sports games are extremely simple.
Not true at all. Actually they are often ludicrously complex. Saying that sports are simple clearly marks you as an outsider who doesn't fully comprehend what is going on. Most coaches will tell you that few people really appreciate the full depth and complexity of most sports. I know that is very much true in my chosen sport (wrestling) where it takes years for most people to be able to execute even relatively basic techniques with any real proficiency. I've been doing my sport for over 35 years and I'm still learning new things all the time. Simple? No. Not at all.
Most TV shows and movies these days are available on-demand from various sources, but live events, particularly sports, are considered among the most "DVR-proof" since there's more value in seeing the result live.
I never quite understood this. I don't deny that it is true for many people but it doesn't make sense to me personally. Knowing the outcome in advance doesn't make an event more or less enjoyable for me. In fact in some cases it make it less pleasant if I actually care about the outcome. (I don't enjoy being nervous) I'd actually rather know in advance which are the good games worth watching most of the time. When I watch sports I watch to admire the beauty of the game. I'm interested in the techniques and tactics and strategies. Knowing the outcome just makes it like watching a movie like Titanic where I know the outcome but the interesting bit is how they got there.
Apple : "We have so much money we literally don't know what to do with it anymore."
That's alright. Neither do Google or Microsoft and a few others. They simply can't find investment opportunities large enough and profitable enough to do anything with their piles of cash. So the pile keeps growing. Eventually I expect it to attract a dragon or something.
Really they should be paying it back as dividends if they can't figure out what to do with the money.
Apple products are almost certainly not over priced or if they are it isn't by much. Apples products are (mostly) priced high but that is something different than being overpriced. As a general proposition product sold in a competitive market can only be considered overpriced when it is priced at a point higher than where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. Translated that means that it isn't overpriced until raising the price any further causes profits to fall from being priced too high.
Just because their products are higher than YOUR willingness to pay doesn't (necessarily) mean that they are overpriced as a general proposition. You can only call something overpriced if you can show that profits would increase if they lowered the price. Conversely something is underpriced if the company can make more money by raising the price. If marginal revenue = marginal cost then the product is priced optimally.
There's no evidence any more that women are getting paid less for the same job.
There is substantial evidence that women get paid less than men for the same jobs. It's not even a debate. Your assertion is plainly contradicted by the evidence. Women get paid less even after controlling for factors like child rearing, working hours, education, etc.
"Haul him?" He's not a reefer full of fresh strawberries...
He's cargo. The term fits.
There's a teacher at my alma mater capable of running twelve miles from home to his office.
Which proves what exactly? Cripes *I* can run 12 miles if I need to but that doesn't mean it's a good idea for me to commute that way. Running that distance would take me 90-110 minutes in good weather. Each way. Do you have a spare 3 hours per day? Do you have a shower available to you at work? Do you have roads you can safely run on? I don't. I live in an area that gets lots of snow 4 months per year, I live 20 miles from work, sidewalks don't exist for much of the commute, I need to be at work before dawn most days. Not to mention that I sometimes need to visit a client so showing up sweaty and smelly isn't a good idea. So I'm supposed to get up at 4am, run to work hoping I don't get run over, be sweaty and smelly all day, and repeat the process at night? And in winter somehow avoid frostbite or hypothermia as well?
Yeah sounds great.
What's so problematic about biking for twenty miles?
Nothing if you have the time, live in an area with good weather and roads, have a shower available at your destination, etc. That doesn't describe a whole lot of us. I bike 20 miles fairly often but it's simply not practical or safe for me to commute by bike.
I could maybe accept that argument if Trump were saying things that were truly racist, sexist, etc
If you don't understand that Trump has said and done HUGELY racist and sexist things then you don't understand what the words mean.
I'm pretty sure you don't appreciate people on the right labeling all Clinton supporters as "baby murderers" because Hillary Clinton said she supports abortion, do you?
If you'll notice I mentioned that you have to own ALL of the positions of the person you vote for. That applies to anyone.
That said your example is utter nonsense and it certainly isn't an equivalent argument. If the fetuses and embryos were actually babies they might have a point. They aren't. They are a fetus or an embryo and they don't become a baby until they are actually born. Until the fetus is sufficiently developed to survive outside the mother there is no credible argument that they are a baby. Until then they are nothing more than a mass of growing cells little different from a cancer biologically speaking. Arguing against abortion and/or contraception is to argue that women have no right to control their reproductive system which is to argue that they are not allowed to control what happens to their body. It's an absurd infringement on a person's rights that we do not condone in almost any other circumstance. We can't even harvest organs from a dead person without their prior consent and yet we don't consider that murder despite the fact that there is a shortage of donor organs and the fact that people WILL die because of it. You can't have it both ways.
Why would anything in the universe be constant?
Why wouldn't something be constant? Equally valid question. So far we have observed some things that seem to remain constant. Why that is the case is a separate and interesting question. We also have models based on those constants that fit really, really well with our observations.
Maybe the variability is beyond our ability to observe.
Perhaps but it's kind of hard to make rational scientific models and predictions about something that cannot be even theoretically observed. You're getting outside of science at that point.
Being welcomed to a country you are not citizen of is not a human right.
True but let's not pretend that there isn't a HUGE component of racism driving the discussion. Let's not pretend that uninformed religious tribalism plays no role.
Refusing to have a rational discussion on this subject without accusations of hate and racism is how we got Trump.
You have that backwards. Pretending that there isn't hate and racism and failing to point it out is why we can't get a rational discussion. There IS racism and hate from those who oppose immigration. If someone is bigoted and you say nothing about it then you are effectively endorsing their ideas. You don't have to be an ass about pointing it out but remaining silent about the mistreatment of others is to condone that mistreatment. The people who are freaking out most (white conservatives primarily) about immigrants aren't interested in having a calm rational informed discussion about the topic and never have been.
If we really wanted to do something to reduce illegal immigration from Mexico and central America then the best solution would be to help those countries improve their lot in life. People come here for jobs and opportunity. That is why you don't see a lot of illegal Canadian immigrants - they have jobs. Fix Mexico's economy and the problem will go away. But instead we have a bunch of scared white people talking nonsense about building thousand mile long walls to keep out the people who are just coming here to earn an honest living. If we helped our neighbors instead of trying to keep them away we could actually solve some of these problems without wasting money on border security that won't secure our border.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure SJW's will still be free to call every Trump support a racist, sexist, homphobe.
If you supported Trump then you supported his position on those issues whether or not you care about them yourself. You don't get a free pass to endorse him only for the non-bigoted portions of what he stands for. It's a package deal. The same would be true for any other candidate you vote for and their respective positions. Hillary Clinton stood for a different package deal, some of it unpleasant in a different way. Own what you did. So if you voted for Trump you voted in favor of racism, sexism, and the rest of the his hateful positions. If you think those things don't matter then that says something rather unpleasant about you.
Love it or leave it. And stand the fuck up for the anthem too, you aren't being oppressed.
"Love it or leave it" is what privileged fools say when they are actively sticking their fingers in their ears so they don't have to hear the truth from people who are being abused by our government. There are plenty of people who genuinely ARE being oppressed in this country. Sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in very blatant ones. Ask any black person if they feel oppressed by the police. Ask a person with brown skin how easy it is to get a bank loan. Compare the number of unarmed minorities who get shot by police to the number of white people. Ask women how things are going with that equal pay for equal work.
I am a US Citizen because I was born here. I didn't ask to be born nor did I ask to be a citizen. Love isn't unconditional. The notion that I should automatically love the country if it is doing things to actively harm me or things I care about is just nonsense. There are lots of people who are oppressed. Just because YOU aren't being oppressed doesn't mean shit to someone who is. If they want to sit down to make a statement during the playing of the national anthem then they are doing EXACTLY what the first amendment is for. So is burning a flag. Free speech isn't about what is comfortable for you to hear. It is making a statement that tells what they think without harming anyone.
If the speed of light is dependent on the strength of the gravity field
It's not. Speed of light is a constant. Gravity affects its trajectory but not its speed.
should have had such a deep gravity well that the speed of light should have been about 0 for the first few milliseconds of the universe' existence
All that matter would affect its path but (so far) there is no evidence that gravity affects the speed of light at all or that it ever did. The reason light cannot escape a black hole isn't that gravity is pulling on the photon so hard but rather because gravity warps spacetime so much that there is literally no path for light to take which can get beyond the event horizon. It's kind of like being in a maze with no exit.