Saying he's wrong three times doesn't make you right.
In fact, you're wrong by your own logic. The average returns of the US stock market are around 11%. By your logic, using his numbers, the price of Apple's stock should increase to.... Just about where it is right now. If the price of the stock would go any higher, the expected rate of return wouldn't be very attractive compared to other stocks.
Usually somebody makes an assertion, somebody else asks "why", and then somebody goes into more detail.
It's not very often that you see a conversation that goes the other way.
ummm, no. Apple's stock is high because Wall Street expects Apple's stock to be ever higher in the future. Stock price is only tenuously connected with expected profits - it's speculation that drives todays market.
Congratulations. You said exactly what the parent to your post said, but in far less detail. Bonus points for somehow convincing yourself ("umm, no.") that you said something different.
You can't get anything higher than 50/50 'cause there's no market for it. Most people don't even sign up for the 50/50... So they use the rest of the bandwidth for HDTV signals instead.
The Fiber you have connected to your house is capable of much higher speeds than that. Devices between your computer and the fiber probably can't even handle the full 50/50.
The population density in New Jersey is why you have fiber already while much of the country doesn't.
Indeed. Yeah, so they have fast broadband. Turns out it's easy to build that type of infrastructure when you have a high population density, and theirs is so high that people live with their parents until they are in their 30s.
In the meantime, we've got areas with Fios, and 50/50Mbit symmetrical fiber connections to the 'net. So instead of moving to Japan, you can move to Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, or Texas... Or quit twisting statistics into lies and wait until the fiber gets run to where you are. Which probably won't take anywhere near 100 years.
Or keep believing the grass is greener somewhere else, and move. We're still waiting for all those people who said they were moving to Canada if Bush won in 2004 to make good though, so I won't hold my breath on that one.
I think that it is you, sir, that needs to look up "straw man".
From Wikipedia:
A "straw man" argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to describe a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view but is easier to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent (for example, deliberately overstating the opponent's position).
I did not refute some other position and then claim it represented a valid argument against yours. Instead I provided a list of examples to demonstrate that this type of policy which dictates how people can live their lives and use their property is typical rather than an isolated incident.
Now, it is true that this isn't a "conspiracy", but you made two statements. The one which I have refuted was that this is something that is fairly unique to this "one small town's small-time comptroller". I do agree that there is no conspiracy. You don't need some nefarious plot to have a majority of a state's population be made up of idiots when it comes to public policy. However this is *not* an isolated incident that is being overblown. Given the opportunity, this person would make this same decision again tomorrow, and so would people in her position in most other towns in the eastern half of her state.
The far left (ie: socialists) are actually about increasing freedom and democracy
I thought you had a funny definition of freedom when you said it included forcing people to contribute to the common good (socialism), but then I read the rest of your comment...
When there are fewer restrictions on the rich and how they are allowed to push the rest of us around with their wealth, power and privilege, then it means the rest of us have less freedom.
It's not so much that you have a funny definition of freedom, as it is that you're a complete and total hypocrite. Freedom to you means freedom for you, but not necessarily freedom for those that use it in a way you disapprove of. You just said so yourself. In other words, the last sentence of my original post describes you spot on.
You're talking about a state where the government forces you to wear a bicycle helmet, forces you to buy health insurance (don't let Mr. Romney fool you. The Governor only has the power to take blame here. The 90+% Democratic state legislature has all the power), you have to be at the bus stop waiting for your kids (god forbid you ever spank them), in many areas you're not allowed to paint your house a different color without permission, you can't drive a car with visible rust on the exterior, you couldn't (until recently) get a tattoo, there's a good chance you'll be denied the privilege of putting up a sign for your business, if your neighbor doesn't like what you have in your front yard they can have you fined, if you want to sell any moderately sized piece of land that you own you're forced to sell some of it for less than it's worth to people with a sufficiently low salary....
This isn't some one-time thing around here. It's typical.
Exactly. The far left and the far right both have exactly the same goal: To tell others how to live their lives. They only way they differ is in how they think people's lives should be lived.
Interestingly enough, people I meet from both sides are typically keen on telling you how they think others should live, but not too keen on being told how to live themselves.
It's not a "jedi mind trick", it's a professional courtesy amongst most locksmiths.
If your key says "Do not duplicate", most locksmiths will refuse to duplicate the key unless they made the original, and you're the person they made it for.
Incidentally, if a landlord is charging you $50 to have all the perimeter locks re-pinned and new keys distributed 'cause you lost the key, either you're getting a bargain, or they found a locksmith that works for a really low hourly rate.
If it's worth spending $200k to save your life, you can afford it. That doesn't mean you necessarily have cash on hand already, or that you have health insurance... It simply means that if you have the earnings potential after being saved, you can afford it. $200k isn't all that much money in that context. It's not "catastrophically" expensive given appropriate financing (which admittedly is an area that we could use some work on).
My motivations are neither of those that you speculated. They are simply that I wish to be in control over my care, and the amount of risk I wish to mitigate. I don't want others making the decision, and I don't want to pay for others making different decisions. Nor should I have to.
Um. The explanation you've laid out here is just a repeat of your previous explanation, which is that pennypinching bureaucrats are cruelly denying Europeans of the care they so desperately need.
You seriously should consider lessons in reading comprehension.
The explanation I've laid out is that elective procedures are neglected if there is a cheaper option that covers the need. I don't know how that matches up with your description of my explanation in any way.
No. I was completely serious. I also think you're a moron.
I didn't put any numbers in my post, but I'm curious to hear where you'd draw the line. How much is it worth spending to save somebody's life, and how long do they need to be expected to live to justify it?
Given that the decision is going to be made by somebody, who would you want making the decision.
Yeah, that's the theory. If you ask me, the only word that can be used to describe the theory is bullshit.
Raising prices for last minute sales may get you some extra cash from the people who suddenly *must* be somewhere, but it eliminates any possible sale to the people who might fly at the last minute on a whim.
It has nothing to do with maximizing profits, and everything to do with reducing volatility. With the current scheme, they can do a fairly good job of predicting how many tickets they can sell well in advance. If they have any reliance on last minute sales, their projections won't be as accurate. It doesn't increase their profits long term. It merely reduces the risk of losses in the short term. It's the kind of corporate behavior that you see when the bottom line takes a back seat to the closing stock price.
You'll never convince anybody that can add and multiply that selling a few seats more at a huge markup is better for the bottom line than filling the plane the rest of the way at a discount. Unless there's a shortage of seats at the last minute the price should go down as the flight time approaches.
People who book last-minute must travel and will pay more.
This is true because of how the pricing works, not the other way around.
If the current model were so wonderful, we wouldn't be bailing out the airlines all the time. If only we'd stop kidding ourselves into thinking the established industry is 'vital' and let them go out of business so some people who aren't complete idiots could start some profitable airlines...
One way tickets cost more, or the same amount as a round trip ticket, and if you don't take the first leg of a round trip flight, they cancel the other half of the fare "for your convenience".
I never understood the whole "this was on Digg/Fark/Reddit/BoingBoing/Inquirer/Register/Kuro5shin yesterday" thing.
Was it? Great. When choosing between seeing it two days later, or having to go to one of those other sites that are polluted with even more nonsense than exists on Slashdot, I've chosen the former. The real question is, if people have already see this stuff on other sites, why don't they go there and stop coming here?
The story is full of spin too. Half of people aren't going to buy, and 23% won't buy until 2009 or later... So that means 27% have either already bought, or are planning to buy by year end? Honestly that sounds ridiculously optimistic given the negative tone of the article. I'm surprised the numbers are that high.
The other obvious explanation for the high rates of joint replacement in the US compared to everywhere else is that doctors and insurers are trigger happy and recommend earlier and more aggressive intervention.
That's not the "obvious" explanation. The obvious explanation is that from a bureaucratic perspective, a $600 wheelchair or $200 walker is just as much a solution to the problem as a $25,000 joint replacement.
Slashdot Mirror
Use mailinator.
Who's to say an "orb" doesn't fall out if you hit the boss hard enough? It doesn't necessarily have to die....
Saying he's wrong three times doesn't make you right.
In fact, you're wrong by your own logic. The average returns of the US stock market are around 11%. By your logic, using his numbers, the price of Apple's stock should increase to.... Just about where it is right now. If the price of the stock would go any higher, the expected rate of return wouldn't be very attractive compared to other stocks.
Usually somebody makes an assertion, somebody else asks "why", and then somebody goes into more detail.
It's not very often that you see a conversation that goes the other way.
ummm, no. Apple's stock is high because Wall Street expects Apple's stock to be ever higher in the future. Stock price is only tenuously connected with expected profits - it's speculation that drives todays market.
Congratulations. You said exactly what the parent to your post said, but in far less detail. Bonus points for somehow convincing yourself ("umm, no.") that you said something different.
The majority of Americans are wealthy.
The issue between Compaq and IBM wasn't DOS... It was the PC BIOS.
However, Compaq implemented their version of the PC BIOS from scratch. Psystar didn't implement their own OSX clone from scratch.
You can't get anything higher than 50/50 'cause there's no market for it. Most people don't even sign up for the 50/50... So they use the rest of the bandwidth for HDTV signals instead.
The Fiber you have connected to your house is capable of much higher speeds than that. Devices between your computer and the fiber probably can't even handle the full 50/50.
The population density in New Jersey is why you have fiber already while much of the country doesn't.
Indeed. Yeah, so they have fast broadband. Turns out it's easy to build that type of infrastructure when you have a high population density, and theirs is so high that people live with their parents until they are in their 30s.
In the meantime, we've got areas with Fios, and 50/50Mbit symmetrical fiber connections to the 'net. So instead of moving to Japan, you can move to Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, or Texas... Or quit twisting statistics into lies and wait until the fiber gets run to where you are. Which probably won't take anywhere near 100 years.
Or keep believing the grass is greener somewhere else, and move. We're still waiting for all those people who said they were moving to Canada if Bush won in 2004 to make good though, so I won't hold my breath on that one.
I think that it is you, sir, that needs to look up "straw man".
From Wikipedia:
A "straw man" argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to describe a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view but is easier to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent (for example, deliberately overstating the opponent's position).
I did not refute some other position and then claim it represented a valid argument against yours. Instead I provided a list of examples to demonstrate that this type of policy which dictates how people can live their lives and use their property is typical rather than an isolated incident.
Now, it is true that this isn't a "conspiracy", but you made two statements. The one which I have refuted was that this is something that is fairly unique to this "one small town's small-time comptroller". I do agree that there is no conspiracy. You don't need some nefarious plot to have a majority of a state's population be made up of idiots when it comes to public policy. However this is *not* an isolated incident that is being overblown. Given the opportunity, this person would make this same decision again tomorrow, and so would people in her position in most other towns in the eastern half of her state.
I think you've confused "point" with "result".
The far left (ie: socialists) are actually about increasing freedom and democracy
I thought you had a funny definition of freedom when you said it included forcing people to contribute to the common good (socialism), but then I read the rest of your comment...
When there are fewer restrictions on the rich and how they are allowed to push the rest of us around with their wealth, power and privilege, then it means the rest of us have less freedom.
It's not so much that you have a funny definition of freedom, as it is that you're a complete and total hypocrite. Freedom to you means freedom for you, but not necessarily freedom for those that use it in a way you disapprove of. You just said so yourself. In other words, the last sentence of my original post describes you spot on.
Sorry, but you're way off base.
You're talking about a state where the government forces you to wear a bicycle helmet, forces you to buy health insurance (don't let Mr. Romney fool you. The Governor only has the power to take blame here. The 90+% Democratic state legislature has all the power), you have to be at the bus stop waiting for your kids (god forbid you ever spank them), in many areas you're not allowed to paint your house a different color without permission, you can't drive a car with visible rust on the exterior, you couldn't (until recently) get a tattoo, there's a good chance you'll be denied the privilege of putting up a sign for your business, if your neighbor doesn't like what you have in your front yard they can have you fined, if you want to sell any moderately sized piece of land that you own you're forced to sell some of it for less than it's worth to people with a sufficiently low salary....
This isn't some one-time thing around here. It's typical.
Exactly. The far left and the far right both have exactly the same goal: To tell others how to live their lives. They only way they differ is in how they think people's lives should be lived.
Interestingly enough, people I meet from both sides are typically keen on telling you how they think others should live, but not too keen on being told how to live themselves.
It's not a "jedi mind trick", it's a professional courtesy amongst most locksmiths.
If your key says "Do not duplicate", most locksmiths will refuse to duplicate the key unless they made the original, and you're the person they made it for.
Incidentally, if a landlord is charging you $50 to have all the perimeter locks re-pinned and new keys distributed 'cause you lost the key, either you're getting a bargain, or they found a locksmith that works for a really low hourly rate.
If a thief is willing to steal your stuff out of a safe, I doubt they're too concerned about violating a patent.
If it's worth spending $200k to save your life, you can afford it. That doesn't mean you necessarily have cash on hand already, or that you have health insurance... It simply means that if you have the earnings potential after being saved, you can afford it. $200k isn't all that much money in that context. It's not "catastrophically" expensive given appropriate financing (which admittedly is an area that we could use some work on).
My motivations are neither of those that you speculated. They are simply that I wish to be in control over my care, and the amount of risk I wish to mitigate. I don't want others making the decision, and I don't want to pay for others making different decisions. Nor should I have to.
Um. The explanation you've laid out here is just a repeat of your previous explanation, which is that pennypinching bureaucrats are cruelly denying Europeans of the care they so desperately need.
You seriously should consider lessons in reading comprehension.
The explanation I've laid out is that elective procedures are neglected if there is a cheaper option that covers the need. I don't know how that matches up with your description of my explanation in any way.
No. I was completely serious. I also think you're a moron.
I didn't put any numbers in my post, but I'm curious to hear where you'd draw the line. How much is it worth spending to save somebody's life, and how long do they need to be expected to live to justify it?
Given that the decision is going to be made by somebody, who would you want making the decision.
Stop "feeling", and think.
Yeah, that's the theory. If you ask me, the only word that can be used to describe the theory is bullshit.
Raising prices for last minute sales may get you some extra cash from the people who suddenly *must* be somewhere, but it eliminates any possible sale to the people who might fly at the last minute on a whim.
It has nothing to do with maximizing profits, and everything to do with reducing volatility. With the current scheme, they can do a fairly good job of predicting how many tickets they can sell well in advance. If they have any reliance on last minute sales, their projections won't be as accurate. It doesn't increase their profits long term. It merely reduces the risk of losses in the short term. It's the kind of corporate behavior that you see when the bottom line takes a back seat to the closing stock price.
You'll never convince anybody that can add and multiply that selling a few seats more at a huge markup is better for the bottom line than filling the plane the rest of the way at a discount. Unless there's a shortage of seats at the last minute the price should go down as the flight time approaches.
This is true because of how the pricing works, not the other way around.
If the current model were so wonderful, we wouldn't be bailing out the airlines all the time. If only we'd stop kidding ourselves into thinking the established industry is 'vital' and let them go out of business so some people who aren't complete idiots could start some profitable airlines...
They "fixed" that.
One way tickets cost more, or the same amount as a round trip ticket, and if you don't take the first leg of a round trip flight, they cancel the other half of the fare "for your convenience".
I never understood the whole "this was on Digg/Fark/Reddit/BoingBoing/Inquirer/Register/Kuro5shin yesterday" thing.
Was it? Great. When choosing between seeing it two days later, or having to go to one of those other sites that are polluted with even more nonsense than exists on Slashdot, I've chosen the former. The real question is, if people have already see this stuff on other sites, why don't they go there and stop coming here?
The story is full of spin too. Half of people aren't going to buy, and 23% won't buy until 2009 or later... So that means 27% have either already bought, or are planning to buy by year end? Honestly that sounds ridiculously optimistic given the negative tone of the article. I'm surprised the numbers are that high.
Generally, that hydrogen will require oxygen(e) to be useful, and they're splitting the oxygen off for other uses already.
Are they bringing any freeze-dried potatoe?
The other obvious explanation for the high rates of joint replacement in the US compared to everywhere else is that doctors and insurers are trigger happy and recommend earlier and more aggressive intervention.
That's not the "obvious" explanation. The obvious explanation is that from a bureaucratic perspective, a $600 wheelchair or $200 walker is just as much a solution to the problem as a $25,000 joint replacement.