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User: theNAM666

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  1. Article is Horse Dung on NY Magistrate: Legal Papers Can Be Served Via Facebook · · Score: 1

    First, if he's paying her $440/month, there *is* a way to contact her, and the Court has it.

    Otherwise, personal service is a sine qua non of rights intended by the Founders. How do you know, she read it? You don't.

    The judge may have told the guy to send it via Facebook, but he likely did not assert that it constitutes proper service.

  2. Re:No. Ideology and political positions *are* link on When Beliefs and Facts Collide · · Score: 1

    Ah, it seems we have someone who thinks there's a -1 "disagree" option.

  3. Lyft drivers dangerous? on Lyft's New York Launch Halted By Restraining Order · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Are you kidding? The last guy who picked me up at LGA barely managed to communicate with me in Farsi -- neither my nor his native language, took the long way on the BQE to Williamsburg, then got lost-- fortunately, in the Hasidic sections (at least *I* would have been safe on the streets). Managed to rack up an extra $20 on the meter compared to a cab service while doing it, and drove in a manner that suggested he couldn't maintain a license in Mexico City.

    Give me a Lyft driver anyday compared to the typical NYC borough cabbie.

  4. No. Ideology and political positions *are* linked on When Beliefs and Facts Collide · · Score: 0

    Evidently the writer does not understand coorelation as it applies to the social sciences. For instance, the OP includes such a silly statement as:

    >making clear that you can believe in human-induced climate change and still be a conservative Republican.

    Yes, you can be-- but that would make you a strange outlier. The nature of conservative Republicanism, in short, is to be host to a series of memes, which define conservative Republicans (and which are largely determined by the central Rove mind). One does not truly have freedom to remove oneself as a carrier of these memes, and continue to be part of the groupMind.

    To be a conservative Republican zombie is to be entirely immune to scientific fact, and the only way to prevent further spread of the badMemes contagion is destruction of its zombie hosts, which are no longer human.

    For methods, I refer you to CONPLAN 8888.

  5. How many people will actually use this? on Starbucks Offers Workers 2 Years of Free College · · Score: 1

    How many qualifying Starbucks employees already have undergrad degrees?
    How much is Starbucks playing ASU per pupil (if anything)?
    What's the value (if any) of an ASU online degree (better than Phoenix, but...)?
    What percentage and raw number of Starbucks employees, will choose an ASU online degree over a more traditional degree?

    I'd love if the answers to those questions made this program look great, but I doubt they will, or that the cost of the program is more than its marketing value as calculated by the beancounters in Starbucks' corporate offices.

  6. Re:IRS Rules / Discount Rate on Starbucks Offers Workers 2 Years of Free College · · Score: 1

    Given that Starbucks is bringing more revenue to ASU, want to take a guess at how much Starbucks will actually be paying ASU for this benefit (if anything)? It can't be 50%. I doubt 25%. If I'd have been Starbucks, I'd have asked ASU to pay for the marketing.

  7. Re:Thyroid problem on EU's Top Court May Define Obesity As a Disability · · Score: 1

    Oh, you insensitive BRUTE! It may be TRUE, but it's doubleplusungood! Equality for all, especially the stupid-- it's not their fault! From each according to their talents, to each according to their ability to leach!

  8. Lower Court decision that applies NOWHERE on Teacher Tenure Laws Ruled Unconstitutional In California · · Score: 1

    Y'all realize, perhaps, that this is an unpublished "tenative" decision by the lowest Court available in California and, likely, even if it were binding, would be immediately lifted on appeal?

    Then go read the decision. The judge accepts bunk, such as, that one student in one class with one "underperforming" teacher, looses $1.2 MILLION in income over a lifetime (try to calculate that over 12 years of education!). It is accepted that 5% of teachers are underperforming, by being in the bottom 5%!

    Oh, the Court of Appeals is going to just LOVE this one...

  9. Sunset Story: First Sun 1 to XOC on After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Roger Gregory tells a good story of making the first private (non-government entity) order from Sun as COO of Project Xanadu (XOC).

    In Palo Alto, Roger hears of the Sun 1 via word-of-mouth and trade journals, raises the cash, fills out the form and sends in his order. And invoice comes back, with instructions to pay via bank (wire) transfer and an estimated delivery date.

    About a month after the date, Roger and others are eagerly awaiting the machine, which has not arrived.

    Roger gets on the phone and calls the number for Sun in Berkeley. Bill Joy answers the phone and, after some back-and-forth, says he will need to transfer Roger to the “accounting department.”

    Bill sets down the phone and it becomes clear to Roger, who can hear the background noise, that Sun likely only has *one* phone line at this point. Shortly, Vinod Khosla picks up the phone with a "Hey, Roger!"

    After about three minutes of chat, Vinod explains “Oh! We were wondering where that $40,000 in our account came from!” and promises to get the machine to XOC ASAP.

    The Sun 1 shows up at XOC’s offices about two weeks later, as I remember. The machine is still in Roger’s basement last I knew.

    We attached it to the Internet and ran a simple webserver for a short period in mid-’99 or so. Around that time, Bill stopped by for breakfast and offered a six-figure sum to buy the machine back, which Roger declined.

  10. Alternative: Glimpse on Take a Picture: Snapchat Settles With FTC Over "Dissapearing" Claims · · Score: 1

    http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/...

    "Images are truly ephemeral: They disappear after being viewed, from a user’s inbox as well as the Glimpse servers. Photos are shown for eight seconds, while video is just four seconds or shorter..."

  11. Re:10% * 417 = ??? on Polio Causes Global Health Emergency · · Score: 1

    Flying mammals' population growth is, presumably, exponential under nominal circumstances. Stop the oppression of the bumblebee bat, and the motorcycle will be done for! :)

  12. There are some... er, limits: on Is There a Limit To a Laser's Energy? · · Score: 4, Informative
  13. KY judge rules gay marriage legal, &... on Sinkhole Swallows 8 Vehicles Inside Bowling Green KY Corvette Museum · · Score: 1, Funny

    the netherworld swallows up seven symbols of hypermasculinity. // just sayin'... seriously, build your museum *on top of* a known cave system...

  14. That old business partner I want to get back at... on EU Considering Sensors In Sewers To Detect Bomb-Makers · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is just great! Pour a few bags of fertilizer down the drain by his house... next stop, my local IT competitor's shop...

  15. Re:And nothing of value was lost... on Microsoft To Can Skype API; Third-Party Products Will Not Work · · Score: 1

    Price competition?

    My most expensive calls are Mexico. Since most of it is termination, especially to cell phones, no one offers a signricant difference.

    Germany? Singapore? Korea? Geez, it's all a few cents per minute. Even if we assume 10 hours/week, 600 minutes, saving 3 cents/minute... that's less than half my hourly per month.

    Who cares? The question is, service. (Admittedly, Skype isn't so good there, either, but neither are the alternatives).

  16. Re:DOH. Because China's most likely to get screwed on China's State Press Calls For 'Building a De-Americanized World' · · Score: 1

    You cease to amuse. Suggestion: pick up a copy of the Financial Times. Google "Bernanke peg China".

  17. Re:DOH. Because China's most likely to get screwed on China's State Press Calls For 'Building a De-Americanized World' · · Score: 1

    >>the US will fulfill its obligations to allies and creditors who've played the game in good faith.

    >Nope, not even close. The USA will default on those debts by inflation.

    Inflation is not default. Plus, it may very well be in the US interest, to selectively pay down debts.

  18. Re:DOH. Because China's most likely to get screwed on China's State Press Calls For 'Building a De-Americanized World' · · Score: 1

    I think your analysis is faulty in many aspects.

    China does not own *all* dollars; by far, not. For instance, Switzerland, Austria and many other countries, owe debts to China in USD.

    So what's one consequence if China tried to dump its dollars? Well, on the most basic level, it would *also* devalue the debts owed to it. Hard to get around that, though, of course, "it's complex."

    They're also owed RMB. If they keep RMB tagged to USD, they loose capital value, but lower cost of goods/labour-- you have to run some complex analysis to understand that. If they decouple the RMB from the USD, then... well, the US probably wants that, doesn't it? COGS has to go up, which puts a big break on China's economy, presumably...

  19. Re:DOH. Because China's most likely to get screwed on China's State Press Calls For 'Building a De-Americanized World' · · Score: 1

    I assume nothing. Your understanding is evidently severely lacking. For one, if China starts dumping dollars, they have to unpeg the RMB from the dollar, don't they?

    What happens when they do that? Hmmm?

    There's a lot China can do, but in the end, they have to accept devaluation, and that they can be the primary dumpee of devaluation.

    And of course they know. Of course the Central Banks have thought about this. And Sherlock-- I don't need to assume a singular US. I have the fact, of a singular Fed.

  20. DOH. Because China's most likely to get screwed.. on China's State Press Calls For 'Building a De-Americanized World' · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The bottom line here is, the US owes-- as my economics professors (Reagan advisers) pointed out 25 years ago-- the one thing it can produce infinitely and with no cost: US dollars.

    What happens in a meltdown? Well, if I ran the Fed along the principles my advisers taught me-- I'd pour payments to my allies (Europe, etc.); then I'd devalue the currency-- meaning, the creditors I didn't pay, now are owed much less. That's China, primarily, which, after all, has played quite a currency game with the US, and who's debt is quite arguably overvalued due to cheating on exchange rates.

    Would China like the world to adopt the RMB as a default currency? Sure. Obvious. It's in their self-interest, at least. If everyone owes RMB, then they have to accept the global exchange rates.... they can't print or otherwise acquire USD, and pay off debts to China with the new currency.

    Guess what? In short: no one's going to trust China as the global standard, as much as they aspire to it. If you're Switzerland, you know, that in a pinch, the US is going to pay off its debts to you-- not to China-- and give you a lot of notice, that it's going to devalue the dollar, so you can take advantage of the opportunity to erase 15% or 20% of your net debt to China, as well.

    What's this called? Global political economics. China knows the game; it knows that it played the game to dump cheap labour and goods on the US, and accumulate capital debts (loans); and it knows, if the US reaches debt ceiling, it's China's debts that are going to get radically devalued to balance the sheets.

    And good that. Unless, of course, you'd prefer that the Central Party, and not the US Treasury, is the final guarantor of the money you've loaned. A risk, I doubt, many of you (and many Central Banks) wish to take.

    Or in short: the US will fulfill its obligations to allies and creditors who've played the game in good faith. To China and others who've gamed the system-- well, that's another story, and in the next days and weeks, we may very well see, what action the US can use, to re-balance the sheets.

  21. Re:Finally I can start flying again on FAA May Let You Use Electronic Devices During Airplane Takeoff and Landing Soon · · Score: 1

    Cute. Did I say my life was shitty? I get to be in eight major cities around the world this month, all of which I have friends in. I said the time counted and provided examples. You're projecting ASSumptions.

  22. Just not careful ... etc... use data and analysis on Two Years In Prison For Using Infrared Contact Lenses To Cheat At Poker · · Score: 1

    OK, point looks to already have been made (-1, redundant?)

    They weren't careful. A careful strategy, would not raise alarms by taking extraordinarily high wins, and would accept reasonable losses, ie, not fold with a great hand *even if* you know you'll loose.

    What you'd want, is to scrape in marginally better positive wins, not great hits, -- and then move on. Heck, just in case, take some more-than-usual losses at some casinos. Build a data model; speadsheet it; look for a reasonably higher ROI, say 50%/annum on the operation, not spectacular wins.

  23. It doesn't really matter... on Can There Be a Non-US Internet? · · Score: 1

    Because the NSA is still going to p0wn your routers. And find a way to get the data home. Done.

  24. Re:Finally I can start flying again on FAA May Let You Use Electronic Devices During Airplane Takeoff and Landing Soon · · Score: 2

    Yeah yeah yeah. Guess you don't fly much.

    Oh the 32-34 minute flight from BNA-ATL, ATL having really poor WiFi and equally bad 3G/4G/LTE, even in the lounges-- that time below 10K can really matter. It can mean a few minutes of catching up with family, before a long-haul to Amman with no connectivity out of ATL (last month). It can mean, catching and responding to a client email that's *critical* ($10K, $100K on the line...), even deciding to skip the next flight and reschedule to make sure the client is OK. And so on.

    May not be your life, but it is some peoples'. And heck, it may seem glamourous to you, but it can be darn stressful. Especially for the people, headed in harm's way, who may not make it back to see their families, or who may not have a chance to communicate for days or weeks.

    Nice joke. But you're the horse's petunia, for making it at the expense of people who are doing far more important things than tending your virtual farm, buddy.

  25. Oh c'mon. Your TSA groping is the most fun you have all week. Admit it.