If my antivirus program falsely triggered a remediation effort that cost me boatloads of money replacing hardware and software in the past and had a history of making false claims of serious virus infections which turned out to be untrue, you bet I'd be asking the same kinds of questions.
So, Mr. Virus Software Vendor, what makes you think the software is correct this time? What have you done to make the product produce fewer false positives?
So, Mr. Climate Change Alarmist, what makes you think your dire predictions are correct now when your predecessors where so obviously wrong when they made the same kinds of forecasts? How are you doing your predictions differently?
In both cases, if the answer is "We are doing the same thing we did before" then I'm not believing the forecasts they make because their methods are provably wrong. This is especially true given the high financial costs of the purposed fixes for the "problem".
Oh, and by the way.. 2017 was only the 7th most active season recorded with EVERY other season which is more active except two (2005 and 2004), being years BEFORE Al made his ill fated prediction. And another By the Way... The WORST year recorded so far was 1933... I'm laughing about this.. I didn't realize exactly how wrong Mr. Gore actually was...
So.. ONE year out of 12 since has a couple of bad storms since Al Gore predicted higher and more intense hurricanes and you think he was right?
We are running WAY below average for 11 out of 12 years since Al, made his wrong prediction. I think he was wrong, even with 2017's season (which seemed about normal to me.) Do you have any better information than Al had 12 years ago?
Black Friday shopping, going to the store to wait in line to stampede some store for sale items, isn't really going away. It's just changing form. Retailers have realized that online sales are the most cost effective way to go, so things are morphing to online "deals" and away from brick an mortar, break the doors down at 1AM.
BUT, at this point, I'm guessing the numbers being seen as evidence for this article's conclusions isn't fully understood for what it really means. Christmas spending has been largely depressed for the last 8 or so years, mostly for economic reasons. The author seems to be making their case based on this and the retailers sour grapes attitude towards holiday sales. However, this year, the polling shows a marked increase in what people are expecting to spend, so I'm expecting most retailers to exceed expiations, both online and in stores. I'd also not be surprised in a massive resurgence of shoppers on Black Friday.
Excuse me... I'm not arguing that the earth isn't getting warmer...
My point is that the dire predictions being made are invalid being overstated alarmist over reactions to what we are seeing. Al Gore (and others) where wildly wrong with their predictions about what would happen. Why? Why did Al do this? To sell tickets, to sell his ideas for carbon credits (which would make him a load of money), not to save the earth from a fate worse than death. Where are those hurricanes he talked about being more frequent and stronger that he said would happen? He was wrong on that over the last 12 years at least.
If the alarmists where wrong 12 years ago, starting with Al G, how do we know that the alarmist prophesy we get in the headlines today is right? What's changed? Do we have better data? Better models? Better theories? Proof that our dire predictions are getting better? Um.. No on all accounts.
Maybe you have some information I don't? Please share if you do.
Are you saying sea level rise is due to *expanding* water because it's warmer??? Hmm... I would point out that the thermal expansion of water is pretty small, being 2% over about 60 degrees C. Isn't global warming only showing up as 1 or 2 degrees over the last 10 years?
So a couple of Al's predictions which where wrong after 10 years: 1. Hurricanes stronger and more frequent. (false on both accounts) , 2. Sea Level rise predictions where overstated by an order of magnitude.
There is more.... But you are not interested. Let's keep this manageable by picking one or two things to discuss..
So I ask you.. What do you think is the most important negative primary affect of Global warming? (And I mean a direct affect of warming like Sea Level rise or Sea Surface temperature, something which is a primary effect of global warming.) I'm not discussing secondary effects, yet, things like damage from hurricanes, which may or may not be directly attributable to the effects of global warming. We will get to those later if we can agree on primary effects
I'm not denying global warming... I'm saying that the prophesy of gloom and doom based on it's effects have been quite overstated before and I suspect they are now.
I'm questioning the effects of global warming here. Historically the proponents of the negative effects of global warming have WAY overstated their case. (See Al Gore's movie for examples). I'm asking the question "why does this matter?" or if you prefer "What's going to happen?"
Every time I hear the answer given to these questions, folks way over play their hands, just like Al Gore did, appealing to emotional arguments and making predictions which are dire and bad. This leads me to question these predictions and ask the follow on question "How do you know your predictions are belter than Al's who turned out to be pretty wrong with his claims? Do we have better information? nope, Better models? Nope. Different theories? Nope. We just have more studies...
I'm questioning the negative effects being as bad as claimed, that there might not be positive effects.... Is that clearer?
Look, the climate on this planet has changed *many* times in the past. It's gone from hot to cold back to hot many times. How do we know this is necessarily an overall bad trend? How do you know this?
back in my day we just called it propaganda. Folks do know the US Government does this every time we go to war, right? We did it before Iraq and we're starting to do it for North Korea.
Not to make too much of a fine point on this... You do realize that we ARE at war with NK now, technically. The Korean War never really ended, all we really got was a cease fire agreement...
Also, I'd like to point out that NK represents a "clear and present danger" (to use the legal term) to the USA given they have demonstrated both the technologies necessary to launch a nuclear strike on our main land and have expressed their desire to actually DO it. (ICBMs with sufficient range and Nuclear bomb technology).
They threaten the world in general and the USA specifically along with it's allies in the region.... The USA is right to object and seek both diplomatic, economic and military options to enforce the NK compliance with proper world order and end the open threat to the USA, it's allies and the world. It's the right thing to do.
That North Korea refuses to go willingly toward giving up their WMD programs is not OUR choice, but it is our problem.
And then there are the people who actually THINK about this stuff..
Come on, Global Warming science has some serious questions which it hasn't answered, chief of which is "what does this actually mean?"
We hear a lot of dire predictions about how bad things will be, but here-to-fore nobody has actually advanced a model that seems to be right. 20 years ago, Al Gore was playing fast and loose with the science and making some pretty outlandish claims, the majority of which have not happened on his given time table. But his claims have ONE thing in common with today's provayers of global doom via Global Warming/Climante Change (or what ever your name of the day happens to be.)
What is that one thing? Outlandish alarmist claims that grab headlines and make news.
I'm growing weary of the trumped up "the sky is falling" ("the temperature is going up") global Armageddon coming from the press and the obvious confirmation bias by the likes of you who claim "the science is settled" on this. No it's not, Actually the jury is still out on the big question on this whole thing and that is "What does this mean?" What's going to happen because of this? Apparently Al Gore got it wrong some 20 years ago, so what makes you think we have it right now? Are we somehow working with better models or data? Have the theories changed any? Nope, same data, generally the same models and the theories are the same. Al was wrong, why do you now think we understand this better now?
Then you bring politics into this? LOL... Yea, that's shilling for sure... The left OBVIOUSLY has a corner on intellect in this world (NOT!). Pssst! (I think you are about as wrong as you can be on this, and your politics are too.)
Just make sure the rider and the driver's GPS show the same route. If the routes differ, somebody (one or both) is scamming the system. Keep tracking enough fares, and it will become apparent who's scamming and who you can trust. Couple that with a bit of post processing the reported route being charged verses the total time and known traffic conditions, it's going to be really clear what's going on and then Uber can correct the charges.
Eventually, armed with a zero tolerance policy that prescribes an ever increasing level of punishment for those who attempt to scam and reimbursement for ill gotten gains, you will weed out the bad apples. You won't get away with doing this very long before Uber gives you the boot and the problem corrects itself.
If you think investing is no different than betting on games of chance, I feel for you. You obviously don't get what I'm saying and will have issues holding on to your "investments" because you are playing games. The wolves will have their way with you.
Good luck, I hope you win the lottery or what ever game you think you are playing.
As for BitCoin... It's a crap shoot, literally. This thing is driven by all the same market forces that made fidget spinners, pet rocks and PokimonGO popular. My recommendations on BitCoin are to stay out, or if you must, mine if the ROI is competitive. Being an Exchange operator isn't a bad deal either if you can charge enough fees. But buying BitCoin to hold, hoping it will be worth more later is literally worse than flipping coins and betting it will come up heads. The value of the currency has shot up recently to record levels, there is no reason to think this run up is sustainable because nobody is offering a reason for it.
If for no other reason than to protect the driver's CDL and job. You get a ticket as a CDL holder and it's off to purgatory for you. Many places won't hire you, some will fire you if you have a ticket on your record, especially an accident that's your fault.
There is a big difference between placing a bet and investing...
If you look at investments like you are placing bets, you will lose in the long run. Betting is speculating on chance, and speculation on chance is not a good investment strategy in the long term. The house always wins in the end when you are betting.
My advice is that you become the house and take advantage of the idiots who are betting. Be the Casino, not the guy betting his next paycheck on the next turn of the card. If you cannot be the Casino and win when others bet; DON'T bet, invest.
My point is that BitCoin has zero intrinsic value and owning one gives you nothing except the perceived market value. You own nothing but a pile of digital bytes. Gold, on the other hand, DOES have value, is something you can hold in your hand, is used for a lot of industrial processes AND has a perceived market value. Stocks have a "book value" where the holder of the share actually owns a part of the company and possibly gets a share of the profits.
My second point is that if you insist on trading in BitCoin, THINK about what you are doing. Understand the risks. And if you insist on trying this, try to make sure YOU are the one who's making money on market movements, not the other guy.
Yet, they think they are smarter if you talk to them. I remember when I was dumb too, so I guess I cannot complain that much about the young skulls full of mush not listening to my sage advice born from the wisdom of experiences brought about by both success and failures. They will learn, the hard way, just like I did.
Fredrick Brooks was right, there is no silver bullet.
Investing in BitCoin? Yep, it's a big fat ugly bubble and folks will be slaughtered when it pops. Some will get rich, but only some, and at the expense of others but how can ANYTHING that has literally *nothing* to back it but the perception that it is worth something going to be a good investment in the long term? The Dot.Com bust was this, except, in some cases there actually was the POSSIBLITY of a profit for that stock, albeit a remote one. A BitCoin is only a collection of data bytes that some machines made up somewhere, and that's all it will ever be. That somebody is willing to trade you something of value for it is all that gives it value.
My advice? Speculate in BitCoin if you like, but don't treat it like an "investment" and absolutely DO NOT bet money on it you cannot afford to lose. And Remember, the folks who can play the BitCoin market faster or better will make all the money, so if you are serious about this, work out a way to be the guy that makes money, if not, stick to things with intrinsic value.
The most common mistake when forming partnerships is to not define in advance how it gets dissolved. What happens when it goes pear shaped and you have to close up shop? EXACTLY what happens, who pays what, gets to keep what and is responsible for what. What happens to any assents? Do they get sold at auction and the proceeds split in some way? How do you determine this?
The Second most common mistake is not clearly defining up front what the necessary and expected contributions for each of the partners along with what compensation they get from the company, both initially and in the future and how these contributions/compensations (or lack of them) affects the most common mistake mentioned above.
Finally, the third most common issue is related to the first. Should you make a go of it and decide to sell at a profit, who actually owns what?
You simply must know how you will divide up the baby, in advance, should one of the partners or circumstances dictate that you must because this usually happens under less than ideal conditions.
Which is when I'd advise you call law enforcement. There is no shame in this scenario for the victim who didn't have anything to do with taking or sending the picture. Call the police.
I'd call them if it happened to me, but For your protection, not mine.
Facebook? Not a thing, only a new profit center...
For the poor unfortunate unwashed masses who are uploading embarrassing pictures for free? The cat's already out of the bag so what are they going to lose now?
Hey, idiots, here's a thought.... How about not taking such pictures in the first place? That way there is no risk of "exposure" no matter what happens.
Slashdot Mirror
If my antivirus program falsely triggered a remediation effort that cost me boatloads of money replacing hardware and software in the past and had a history of making false claims of serious virus infections which turned out to be untrue, you bet I'd be asking the same kinds of questions.
So, Mr. Virus Software Vendor, what makes you think the software is correct this time? What have you done to make the product produce fewer false positives?
So, Mr. Climate Change Alarmist, what makes you think your dire predictions are correct now when your predecessors where so obviously wrong when they made the same kinds of forecasts? How are you doing your predictions differently?
In both cases, if the answer is "We are doing the same thing we did before" then I'm not believing the forecasts they make because their methods are provably wrong. This is especially true given the high financial costs of the purposed fixes for the "problem".
Oh, and by the way.. 2017 was only the 7th most active season recorded with EVERY other season which is more active except two (2005 and 2004), being years BEFORE Al made his ill fated prediction. And another By the Way... The WORST year recorded so far was 1933... I'm laughing about this.. I didn't realize exactly how wrong Mr. Gore actually was...
So.. ONE year out of 12 since has a couple of bad storms since Al Gore predicted higher and more intense hurricanes and you think he was right?
We are running WAY below average for 11 out of 12 years since Al, made his wrong prediction. I think he was wrong, even with 2017's season (which seemed about normal to me.) Do you have any better information than Al had 12 years ago?
Black Friday shopping, going to the store to wait in line to stampede some store for sale items, isn't really going away. It's just changing form. Retailers have realized that online sales are the most cost effective way to go, so things are morphing to online "deals" and away from brick an mortar, break the doors down at 1AM.
BUT, at this point, I'm guessing the numbers being seen as evidence for this article's conclusions isn't fully understood for what it really means. Christmas spending has been largely depressed for the last 8 or so years, mostly for economic reasons. The author seems to be making their case based on this and the retailers sour grapes attitude towards holiday sales. However, this year, the polling shows a marked increase in what people are expecting to spend, so I'm expecting most retailers to exceed expiations, both online and in stores. I'd also not be surprised in a massive resurgence of shoppers on Black Friday.
It's the year for the Linux Desktop for sure!
Can you imagine how many desktops the DOD has and is paying Microsoft for?
Excuse me... I'm not arguing that the earth isn't getting warmer...
My point is that the dire predictions being made are invalid being overstated alarmist over reactions to what we are seeing. Al Gore (and others) where wildly wrong with their predictions about what would happen. Why? Why did Al do this? To sell tickets, to sell his ideas for carbon credits (which would make him a load of money), not to save the earth from a fate worse than death. Where are those hurricanes he talked about being more frequent and stronger that he said would happen? He was wrong on that over the last 12 years at least.
If the alarmists where wrong 12 years ago, starting with Al G, how do we know that the alarmist prophesy we get in the headlines today is right? What's changed? Do we have better data? Better models? Better theories? Proof that our dire predictions are getting better? Um.. No on all accounts.
Maybe you have some information I don't? Please share if you do.
Are you saying sea level rise is due to *expanding* water because it's warmer??? Hmm... I would point out that the thermal expansion of water is pretty small, being 2% over about 60 degrees C. Isn't global warming only showing up as 1 or 2 degrees over the last 10 years?
So a couple of Al's predictions which where wrong after 10 years: 1. Hurricanes stronger and more frequent. (false on both accounts) , 2. Sea Level rise predictions where overstated by an order of magnitude.
There is more.... But you are not interested. Let's keep this manageable by picking one or two things to discuss..
So I ask you.. What do you think is the most important negative primary affect of Global warming? (And I mean a direct affect of warming like Sea Level rise or Sea Surface temperature, something which is a primary effect of global warming.) I'm not discussing secondary effects, yet, things like damage from hurricanes, which may or may not be directly attributable to the effects of global warming. We will get to those later if we can agree on primary effects
Hmmm.. Appeal to spelling as a way to discredit an argument... I'd call that a Logical Fallacy...
If you had any issues understanding what I was saying, let me know, I'll be happy to clarify for you.
I'm not denying global warming... I'm saying that the prophesy of gloom and doom based on it's effects have been quite overstated before and I suspect they are now.
I'm questioning the effects of global warming here. Historically the proponents of the negative effects of global warming have WAY overstated their case. (See Al Gore's movie for examples). I'm asking the question "why does this matter?" or if you prefer "What's going to happen?"
Every time I hear the answer given to these questions, folks way over play their hands, just like Al Gore did, appealing to emotional arguments and making predictions which are dire and bad. This leads me to question these predictions and ask the follow on question "How do you know your predictions are belter than Al's who turned out to be pretty wrong with his claims? Do we have better information? nope, Better models? Nope. Different theories? Nope. We just have more studies...
I'm questioning the negative effects being as bad as claimed, that there might not be positive effects.... Is that clearer?
Look, the climate on this planet has changed *many* times in the past. It's gone from hot to cold back to hot many times. How do we know this is necessarily an overall bad trend? How do you know this?
back in my day we just called it propaganda. Folks do know the US Government does this every time we go to war, right? We did it before Iraq and we're starting to do it for North Korea.
Not to make too much of a fine point on this... You do realize that we ARE at war with NK now, technically. The Korean War never really ended, all we really got was a cease fire agreement...
Also, I'd like to point out that NK represents a "clear and present danger" (to use the legal term) to the USA given they have demonstrated both the technologies necessary to launch a nuclear strike on our main land and have expressed their desire to actually DO it. (ICBMs with sufficient range and Nuclear bomb technology).
They threaten the world in general and the USA specifically along with it's allies in the region.... The USA is right to object and seek both diplomatic, economic and military options to enforce the NK compliance with proper world order and end the open threat to the USA, it's allies and the world. It's the right thing to do.
That North Korea refuses to go willingly toward giving up their WMD programs is not OUR choice, but it is our problem.
And then there are the people who actually THINK about this stuff..
Come on, Global Warming science has some serious questions which it hasn't answered, chief of which is "what does this actually mean?"
We hear a lot of dire predictions about how bad things will be, but here-to-fore nobody has actually advanced a model that seems to be right. 20 years ago, Al Gore was playing fast and loose with the science and making some pretty outlandish claims, the majority of which have not happened on his given time table. But his claims have ONE thing in common with today's provayers of global doom via Global Warming/Climante Change (or what ever your name of the day happens to be.)
What is that one thing? Outlandish alarmist claims that grab headlines and make news.
I'm growing weary of the trumped up "the sky is falling" ("the temperature is going up") global Armageddon coming from the press and the obvious confirmation bias by the likes of you who claim "the science is settled" on this. No it's not, Actually the jury is still out on the big question on this whole thing and that is "What does this mean?" What's going to happen because of this? Apparently Al Gore got it wrong some 20 years ago, so what makes you think we have it right now? Are we somehow working with better models or data? Have the theories changed any? Nope, same data, generally the same models and the theories are the same. Al was wrong, why do you now think we understand this better now?
Then you bring politics into this? LOL... Yea, that's shilling for sure... The left OBVIOUSLY has a corner on intellect in this world (NOT!). Pssst! (I think you are about as wrong as you can be on this, and your politics are too.)
Just make sure the rider and the driver's GPS show the same route. If the routes differ, somebody (one or both) is scamming the system. Keep tracking enough fares, and it will become apparent who's scamming and who you can trust. Couple that with a bit of post processing the reported route being charged verses the total time and known traffic conditions, it's going to be really clear what's going on and then Uber can correct the charges.
Eventually, armed with a zero tolerance policy that prescribes an ever increasing level of punishment for those who attempt to scam and reimbursement for ill gotten gains, you will weed out the bad apples. You won't get away with doing this very long before Uber gives you the boot and the problem corrects itself.
If you think investing is no different than betting on games of chance, I feel for you. You obviously don't get what I'm saying and will have issues holding on to your "investments" because you are playing games. The wolves will have their way with you.
Good luck, I hope you win the lottery or what ever game you think you are playing.
As for BitCoin... It's a crap shoot, literally. This thing is driven by all the same market forces that made fidget spinners, pet rocks and PokimonGO popular. My recommendations on BitCoin are to stay out, or if you must, mine if the ROI is competitive. Being an Exchange operator isn't a bad deal either if you can charge enough fees. But buying BitCoin to hold, hoping it will be worth more later is literally worse than flipping coins and betting it will come up heads. The value of the currency has shot up recently to record levels, there is no reason to think this run up is sustainable because nobody is offering a reason for it.
Do YOU have an idea why BitCoin is so high?
I would fight the ticket.
If for no other reason than to protect the driver's CDL and job. You get a ticket as a CDL holder and it's off to purgatory for you. Many places won't hire you, some will fire you if you have a ticket on your record, especially an accident that's your fault.
There is a big difference between placing a bet and investing...
If you look at investments like you are placing bets, you will lose in the long run. Betting is speculating on chance, and speculation on chance is not a good investment strategy in the long term. The house always wins in the end when you are betting.
My advice is that you become the house and take advantage of the idiots who are betting. Be the Casino, not the guy betting his next paycheck on the next turn of the card. If you cannot be the Casino and win when others bet; DON'T bet, invest.
And sometimes the herd is heading over a cliff where they all die... It's all in how you look at it.
My point is that BitCoin has zero intrinsic value and owning one gives you nothing except the perceived market value. You own nothing but a pile of digital bytes. Gold, on the other hand, DOES have value, is something you can hold in your hand, is used for a lot of industrial processes AND has a perceived market value. Stocks have a "book value" where the holder of the share actually owns a part of the company and possibly gets a share of the profits.
My second point is that if you insist on trading in BitCoin, THINK about what you are doing. Understand the risks. And if you insist on trying this, try to make sure YOU are the one who's making money on market movements, not the other guy.
Yet, they think they are smarter if you talk to them. I remember when I was dumb too, so I guess I cannot complain that much about the young skulls full of mush not listening to my sage advice born from the wisdom of experiences brought about by both success and failures. They will learn, the hard way, just like I did.
Fredrick Brooks was right, there is no silver bullet.
Investing in BitCoin? Yep, it's a big fat ugly bubble and folks will be slaughtered when it pops. Some will get rich, but only some, and at the expense of others but how can ANYTHING that has literally *nothing* to back it but the perception that it is worth something going to be a good investment in the long term? The Dot.Com bust was this, except, in some cases there actually was the POSSIBLITY of a profit for that stock, albeit a remote one. A BitCoin is only a collection of data bytes that some machines made up somewhere, and that's all it will ever be. That somebody is willing to trade you something of value for it is all that gives it value.
My advice? Speculate in BitCoin if you like, but don't treat it like an "investment" and absolutely DO NOT bet money on it you cannot afford to lose. And Remember, the folks who can play the BitCoin market faster or better will make all the money, so if you are serious about this, work out a way to be the guy that makes money, if not, stick to things with intrinsic value.
Now you may get off my lawn please...
Don't run with the herd if you want to make real money..
The most common mistake when forming partnerships is to not define in advance how it gets dissolved. What happens when it goes pear shaped and you have to close up shop? EXACTLY what happens, who pays what, gets to keep what and is responsible for what. What happens to any assents? Do they get sold at auction and the proceeds split in some way? How do you determine this?
The Second most common mistake is not clearly defining up front what the necessary and expected contributions for each of the partners along with what compensation they get from the company, both initially and in the future and how these contributions/compensations (or lack of them) affects the most common mistake mentioned above.
Finally, the third most common issue is related to the first. Should you make a go of it and decide to sell at a profit, who actually owns what?
You simply must know how you will divide up the baby, in advance, should one of the partners or circumstances dictate that you must because this usually happens under less than ideal conditions.
I'm starting to like this idea...
Which is when I'd advise you call law enforcement. There is no shame in this scenario for the victim who didn't have anything to do with taking or sending the picture. Call the police.
I'd call them if it happened to me, but For your protection, not mine.
This problem would be much easier to manage if we all just tattooed QR codes on our junk.
Mark of the beast then?
For who?
Facebook? Not a thing, only a new profit center...
For the poor unfortunate unwashed masses who are uploading embarrassing pictures for free? The cat's already out of the bag so what are they going to lose now?
Hey, idiots, here's a thought.... How about not taking such pictures in the first place? That way there is no risk of "exposure" no matter what happens.
What? Is Siri who's sorting my pictures, sending them to Facebook too?