I didn't have use for such a term as crusader or jihadist to describe people in my own community up until December last year. The only person who had come close to being violent with me was the owner of a Diary Queen over in South Haven, MI. Even then, that situation did not require a gun on my part, even though he thought it required men in uniform with guns.
Fortunately, the men in uniform with guns weren't nutters. That was also about 6 years ago before gays were "enslaving" straights into making them cakes or somesuch. I mean, personally, if you make ice cream for a living, but you don't want my money, just tell me and I'll leave! Sheesh! No need to make a scene.
That was before yelling MERRY CHRISTMAS at somebody one suspects of being gay became a thing last year.
I don't know exactly what's going on these days. That's why I thinking that perhaps I do need a gun. There are people right here in flyover country who do think being gay should have a death penalty. They're frustrated that they can't implement their goals in law, and that frustration grows every time there's an article about Caitlyn Jenner in the news or every time there's some advance to allow gay marriage.
They also have guns. I don't want to start a fight. I just want to be able to survive should one of them become violent with me due to a belief that it's what god wants. You can't talk sense into somebody who's become convinced that god wants them to kill or maim you. A revolver is more eloquent in those situations than I could ever hope to be.
I want things to go back to the way they were 10 years ago, when it didn't matter if I was gay or straight or whatever.
But wow, we since we already have all this toothpaste all over the place, why don't we just stop squeezing?
We can't stop squeezing. The Christian jihadists want guns to defend their families against demons like me from the burning hells. Gays like me want guns to defend their loved ones against Christian jihadists.
Yep, that's right. I'm far more afraid of a Christian jihadist getting violent with me over some persecution complex or because the idiot couldn't figure my gender out than I am worried about needing to be a hero during a mass shooting. Not that I wouldn't mind being a hero. I'm just speaking from statistics. The Christian jihadists know that premediated cold blooded murder of somebody of my demographic merely amounts to manslaughter.
Hey, let me throw this out there. I've just started researching where I want to get my concealed carry training (apparently there are more advanced self defense courses available so I might take those as well), but if I haven't purchased a weapon by the time "smart" (read: dumb, unsafe, script kiddie friendly, and rapist and other violent attacker-friendly) guns are mandated, I'll make it my project to crack the "smart" lock.
I don't need no damned "smart" shit getting in my way if a Christian jihadist wants to get violent with me and wants to send me to my supposed master, Lucifer. The last thing I need is for things to escalate to the point I've begun getting my gun out just to point it at the bastard, have him make a move that has a very real threat of disabling me (read, rendering unconscious and possibly fatally injured if lack of emergency treatment--remember, I'm a little, tiny person and the prospect of a jihadist with three times the body mass of me taking swings at me is... unnerving), and have it refuse to fire because the humidity is wrong, my heart is racing, or one of the other millions of reasons it won't recognize my fingerprint or whatever the hell screwball scheme they're thinking of implementing.
tl;dr Hell no, and I will hack/remove/disable it if my pistol has such a thing.
Disclaimer for European readers: please take me in as a refugee!!!!
Ok, to respond to TFS, why not just put the documents in a torrent and link to Patreon? Maybe make a Facebook page? People like me will provide the bandwidth to distribute it and also drop a few bucks if it's good. I also have a small running list of rare works I seed with no ratio cap. Maybe $20 once the series is complete depending on how extensive the other content besides the main work is. At least $10 (price of a paperback) if the main work is good. I'll even do the work of creating the torrent and providing a seedbox free of charge if necessary.
If an author requires typesetting for a paperback edition that can be downloaded and brought to a local print shop to be printed and bound, I've become rather handy with \LaTeX . I haven't actually had the fanfictions I've reformatted this way printed and bound (for obvious copyright reasons), but I'm certain a creative commons license would obviate those concerns. Is there a startup somewhere I can throw a PDF at that will mail me a printed and bound paperback? I suppose if the work is popular, the startup could make actual bulk production runs, put them in a warehouse, and have a robot pick them when the uploaded PDF's hash matches. That would work nicely with the torrent distribution model.
I'm not very good at convincing investors, but I'm certain I could at least start with an auto-cropping double-sided laser printer and one of these. I'm sure there's potential there for other distribution models and kickbacks to the author every time an order comes through. Amazon.com/Barnes and Noble and Patreon/PayPal integration?
Everything has to have an app. I'll bet all the live streaming goes up to a cloud that's not yours, where a frame here and there will be handily processed to see which brands you buy, just to deliver ads.
I was thinking the other day how amazing it would be if the average person would see the value in owning their own cloud and manufacturers would make it easy to configure their devices to use standard protocols to upload to anybody's personal cloud. I can dream, eh?
That reminds me. I have a cloud-enabled treadmill. I poked at it briefly, and the jogging routes it downloads are stored on a FAT32 filesystem. I still haven't done a packet inspection to determine how it uploads the telemetry (how far, how fast, incline changes, dates, times, etc) to the cloud. I've been meaning to see if I can figure out what it's sending and how to use a NAT rule on the router to send it towards my cloud where I can store the data myself.
Even better, why can't we realize the promise of IPv6? I'd like to set up a kerberos server I can authenticate to remotely that then grants access to all internet-of-things goodies in my house. I'd set it up so that the firewall would block traffic to everything except the kerberos server until I authenticate to kerberos and then only for the IPv6 addr that authenticated. I think that would work. Might need to set up some script hooks to add/remove ip6tables rules on the fly.
To join in the general sentiment of this discussion: why haven't the public figured out that sending personal data one wishes to be private to somebody else's cloud is a Bad Idea? I trust the security I've set up myself on my server in the clouds. I'm not sure I trust a disinterested corporation in a climate of Everybody Can Code! and H1Bs and brazen shows by corporations that no, there is no talent shortage and yes, they really do want to replace native workers with indentured servants and keep wages down.
(Note to grammar nazis: I'm aware that last sentence is a severe run-on.)
For a counterexample, go back to TNG's 1st season episode "Conspiracy"
Locating. S01E25 identified. Ah, Pacifica! Damn, it, Geordi, it doesn't help me if I just hear the punchline! Now I want to know the rest... of the joke? (Please tell me it doesn't involve T'Pol tripping on trellium-D again.) Oh, this was way back on that stardate, before Riker got sexy (protip, boys, the facial hair does make a difference!) and Troy was still into him for some unfathomable reason. Nice 2001 reference with voice print identification.
Hold on, it's the main theme, which completely destroys all other themes from the Brannon Braga era!
Computer, hold frame. No, that's not the one. Advance 2.3 seconds. Eh, I guess I'll just need to watch the whole episode.
at the beginning of the show, Picard meets up with some other Starfleet captains who he calls "Starfleet's finest". One of them was a black woman. I don't know who the actress was now
Ah, her! Why isn't she in the credits?! Captain Tryla Scott. Computer, cross-reference that with IMDB.
I am not a time traveler, but it's pretty clear how things go. One way or another, Clinton will win the Democrat primary. At this point, things are uncertain. Remember that her current opponent is I-VT. Trump easily gets the Republican nomination. That's where things get ugly. Trump makes a complete ass out of himself (as if he hasn't already) and the Republican party.
The American people are too far gone at this point to carry Sanders even as far as Perot went. Watch Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. We might have the making of a successor party to the Republican party, much like how the Republican party replaced the Whigs. (Probability: <0.01% in 100 years, but I can dream.)
Michigan and Ohio will vote to legalize cannabis flower among others; Ohio will be the first Eastern state to do so while Michigan will reject the ballot proposal. We might see a competing ballot initiative in Michigan to merely decriminalize the plant, and that might have a chance of passing, because the people of Michigan completely, utterly, consistently fucking fail at making money. Pennsylvania will debate a legalization bill, but it will be ultimately defeated.
Expect to hear more noise out of Indiana. You thought the gay marriage angst is done? Ha! Just wait. I just hope the gays over there have guns and know how to use them.
Naturally, #blacklivesmatter isn't nearly done social justice trolling. Expect them to lash out more at Sanders and other political objectives that threaten the Clinton coronation. Along those lines, #translivesmatter will go nowhere. Cold-blooded, premeditated murder of a trans woman will continue to constitute manslaughter. Business as usual. (Protip: I may not be right about all these things, but I have a nice piece of metal that says attempting that shit with me won't go your way. Good thing Indiana is nowhere near me!)
I have another prediction I redacted, but listen up, Brianna Wu, Lulzsec, and mikeeusa. I'm on to you, and I'm packing digital heat. (Btw, that DDOS missed the target! How do you social justice types always miss the target?! To test my theory, see previous posts for the correct target. Don't think knocking ns1.linode.com offline will affect what I care about.) Don't do it. Just don't. I don't want a war, not even a meaningless, stupid internet war.... If somebody I care very deeply about gets hurt, all bets are off. I sure as hell hope whatever script kiddies and goons you've got know their shit, because I won't have mercy. Especially if the worst happens. My blustering about Amazons on the red site might just get real, but it doesn't have to be.
On the first day of Kwanzaa the black candle is lit in the Kinara. The black candle represents the first principle -- Umoja (oo-MOH-jah): Unity.
Think about that, Wu. Don't escalate shit. Think about the other days of Kwanzaa. Just replace the black candle with a pink one. The rest applies perfectly. You could even help her.
One other prediction: Slashdot will be bought out by either Vice's owners or Ars Technica. Hopefully they'll fix the fucking login issues. I can live with SJW Friday, but srsly, I can't post while logged in again?
What they fail to understand is that Big Media and "pundits" crapping their pants over his statements only increases his popularity with people, who see through the years and decades of lies and BS.
Hum. Look a bit closer. Why do you think Rupert Murdoch is broadcasting said crapping of pants?
I really don't want to play the IRL version of Fallout 4. Hint: it won't be Trump that causes it. Why do you think Jeb! isn't polling so well despite being a well-reasoned man who might have some interesting debates with Sanders?
Clinton. That isn't the candidate you're looking for. Move along.
One more thing. Why... exactly why did Trump switch from being a Democrat, to independent, to Republican once the [Bill] Clinton administration had finished? It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the coronation in progress....
> ping xyz.com PING xyz.com (555.123.45.67) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=69.0 ms 64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=2 ttl=50 time=69.0 ms 64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=3 ttl=50 time=72.8 ms 64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=4 ttl=50 time=66.7 ms 64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=5 ttl=50 time=67.2 ms 64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=6 ttl=50 time=68.7 ms 64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=7 ttl=50 time=69.0 ms
Looks good from flyover country. According to the status page, it seems it's primarily the Atlanta datacenter that's affected. Protip: don't spin up all your nodes in the same datacenter! Fortunately, Linode has a few of those. I'm certain they have top women on this, and they'll have this resolved quickly. (Even better if there are strange, up, down, or charmed women on the job. Not sure about the bottom women....)
Linode is a quite good VPS provider. They have several stock distro installs to choose from (Linux and BSD), and then the sky is the limit. They also pay for user-generated documentation, and the focus is on FLOSS software that you can install and configure on your node. This isn't some PHP MySQL crap. I've been a happy user for years now, running a private mail, web, and IRC server. The prices are quite than reasonable. I'm not sure if they offer Xen nodes anymore since KVM is the way to go.
My nodes at Fremont haven't been affected yet. Soylentnews, also hosted on Linode, seems to be doing well too.
Wikipedia's core staff is overwhelmingly male (87%) and mostly white.
Small nitpick. Being white and male does not prevent a person from adopting the "social justice" bully mindset. In fact, I've found it can often reinforce that mindset. In their minds, they're warriors, they're guilty about having these intangible privileges they think they have, so they're going to use those privileges to fight the good fight.
Perhaps ironically, they miss the obvious privileges they do have. Having, say, parents who will pay for one's college education including room and board is a tangible privilege for an individual. One can use demographic data to determine that if one is white, one has a higher chance of having that privilege. One can determine from demographic data that we do still have a race problem in the USA.
A while back, one idiot seriously thought I was going to mansplain (or something) programming to somebody I was teaching because I'm white, present as male to do business, and am a programmer. The person I was tutoring was black and presents as female. Conclusion: I was going to do something to prevent her from learning programming anybody who is white, male, and a programmer is part of a giant conspiracy). Well, he decided to babysit our first few sessions. I hope he felt pretty damned sheepish when Boolean algebra went straight over his vacuous head and my student grasped it instantly.
So, let's look at where the logic in the middle of that anecdote went wrong. I believe it's the hasty generalization, otherwise known as being, deep down, a sexist, racist bigot who thought he would need to white knight for my student. At any rate, certainly not my first IRL encounter with the creature known as the "social justice" bully but hopefully one of the last....
The rest of your comment is well reasoned, although I did have a few "[citation needed]" moments myself, but then again I have this wonderful thing called a search engine integrated into the UI of my browser so I'll leave it at that.
*looks over shoulder to see AC sibling comment while trying to post this logged in* You again? Strange. You're like a non-tl;dr version of me.
I don't understand the hate for Janeway. Granted, the series started with a macguffin, but once they got rid of Kes, imho it was one of the better series. Then again, I liked the Xindi arc as well. I can't stand episodic series.
Well, no, I do understand the hate for Janeway. What I don't understand is the irrational hatred I see pretty much everywhere for a woman who isn't a supermodel to be top dog. (Circle of Protection: AVfM. Hilary Clinton is a lying, two-faced, war-mongering, traitorous, fascist Illuminati sock puppet and all-around enemy of liberty.)
Crap, I had thought I had submitted my back-of-the-envelope calculation to the red site. I guess I hadn't. I'll attempt to repeat the calculation tomorrow, when I'm less influenced by the b33r. (I hate doing calculation while drinking b33r, but I'm certain I didn't perform that one with b33r.)
Here are two links from the red site the folks there seemed to like wrt basic guaranteed income:
Unless the game is designed to move my character's aim independently of where I'm looking, this is a non-starter for me but not because of people who are pro at mouse/keyboard. I mean, if I aim at something that at the top of my field of vision, does that just move my character's head? It sounds too much like the weirdness that is mouse/keyboard with Star Citizen and Freelancer wrt gimbaled weapons.
Speaking of which, that leads to more problems. Ok, so let's say the game supports this device. So then do I have to take my hands off the mouse and keyboard or maybe keep on hand on WSAD for some movement while I'm aiming?
So back to the point of opponents who are pro at mouse/keyboard. I really like racing in Star Citizen using my HOTAS controller. I run into crap and get lost less. On the other hand, back in the 1.3 "beta" release it was pretty clear that HOTAS dogfighting just wasn't going to work. I didn't start earning REC (in-game beta currency that lets you rent different ships in addition to which ever one(s) you bought) until I switched to mouse/keyboard. Aiming is more fine-grained, but the big thing was there was no interaction between gimbaled weapons and the FCS, so mouse was the only way to aim them.
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think this controller will work without an Ocular Rift or similar or perhaps some new kind of controller, maybe a WSAD mounted on a mouse. Only problem, though, is that I have a feeling most people prefer to aim a gun with the same hand they prefer for the mouse.
On the other hand, things like HOTAS controllers and especially driving game rigs are probably the best VR we can hope for until we get said holodecks.
Oh, I almost forgot about this game: Police 911. The sequel was pretty good too. It's a rail shooter with one important feature: motion detection. So you actually have to crouch or move left and right to crane around something you're hiding behind. I suppose it wouldn't be difficult to achieve similar with a Wii-mote and a Kinect (both hooked up to a PC, obviously).
Well, I realized a while back that the purpose of my job is to eliminate jobs. I've been meaning to get into massively distributed systems for a while now out of sheer curiosity. Anybody who writes a program, even if that "program" is an Excel sheet, is eliminating jobs, even if the "job" eliminated is a fraction of a job.
One thing before my main rant: I disagree about C++. I'd say it's more an issue of knowing which features to use and which to avoid. For example, std::string and std::unique_ptr/std::shared_ptr, RAII good. strlen, malloc/new bad. (Unless, like you said, it really is necessary, but then I'd argue that one should be using straight-up C instead). Oracle may be bad, but it would be difficult to replace the Java open source ecosystem, especially all the Apache Commons stuff (just use IcedTea?). Also, the sooner we decide to completely scrap Javascript as the programming language of the web, the better.
My biggest fear is the people will become unable to function without all these dashboards and reports and high-level process management apps that we're cooking up. What I mean is that it seems like the more advanced and abstracted these things get, the more people forget the processes and policies we've modeled and automated. I've run into this before when something just works too well. People forget what policies and rules they decided on that the system is modeling.
There's a lot of magical thinking here too. The most frequent thing I get is that when there's been a data entry error, people will think there's a bug in the system causing the data to be reported incorrectly. Sometimes it's a simple typo in a name or date of birth I can point to and correct. What I really hate is when it's an intricate issue involving difficult to use proprietary software where workers on the floor frequently make the same mistake. I have a few "favorites" that I have to explain the same thing to over and over again, but because the explanation is more complex than two sentences, they always forget it.
As an example, the shifts of the workers out on the floor are now scheduled by computer program, and nobody really understands what the computer is doing, only that it makes their existing metrics look better. We found out that there were some data that were being included in the computation that shouldn't have been because it never occurred to people that $special_project_x would throw off the historical data. That went on for a few months before the metrics were impacted, they assumed there was a bug in the program (never connected that what was actually happening on the floor, but hey, it's not like the people who call the shots need to actually know what the workers do), and after some digging and some calls to the vendor, we identified the anomalous data that were being included. It turned out one of our "leap before look"ers did what they do best and leaped before looking (once again).
What I'm getting at is just the complete failure to comprehend how all of our dashboards and reports arrive at their conclusions and how that failure of comprehension can lead to actual impacts on the business end. Perhaps it's because one person has taken on too many different roles because each of those roles only needs a fractional worker due to the skyrocketing productivity we've been delivering. I'm not sure what the answer is other than hoping my cynicism about this supposed "singularity" is misplaced.
Then when there really is a bug or some other systemic issue (a policy that sounded good on paper with poor results in practice), they'll spend hours trying to figure out what they did wrong or trying to work around it. I'm thinking this one may be more related to the fact that nobody outside of my department can seem to understand what the words proprietary closed source mean. It may happen because they think if they pressure me and irritate me enough, that I'll break a licensing agreement and possibly eve
Prediction: some place like Reddit or code.org will buy up Dicedot. Not going on any real evidence, just a hunch.
At any rate, hopefully the site will stop wonking out for a day or two every other month. Either that or it would be the tipping point for a mass migration to the red site (maybe even a bump for the blue site, too).
I'm not sure what strawman you're tilting at, but please try to use your noggin a bit. Let me help!
I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation for an $800 per month guaranteed income for the entire USA. Granted, I didn't figure in overhead, but I'm assuming that will amount to a rounding error. I picked $800 because it's possible to get by over here in flyover country on that much. Many moons ago, I managed at that level of income, and the major prices haven't changed since then where I live (rent, electricity, phone/internet, although food has gone up in price a bit).
My result was roughly $4,100,000,000 per year to fund the thing. As big as that number is, it's still an order of magnitude less than the USA's GDP according to the CIA World Factbook. So it really is correct that we could do this today if we really wanted to.
most people will quit their jobs
This is demonstrably false and will be shown as such once more in this case. Some people do quit their jobs, however, except they do so because they have an idea and want to innovate, invent, and start a new business. Others work less but contribute to the community in other ways.
There will always be a deadbeat here and there, but there's not much you can do about that. In fact, you may already be paying for said deadbeats. If you have the right medical condition, say you had a seizure once or you can successfully make a convincing presentation of back pain, you'll get social security disability and food stamps currently. You can also get subsidized housing, too. This all happens right here in god-fearing, Puritan work ethic flyover country right now already.
My major recommendation is to get rid of minimum wage when enacting a basic guaranteed income. Some of those deadbeats are only deadbeats because they're not worth $8/hr and certainly not worth $15/hr in places where that's the minimum wage. Most everybody has an intrinsic need to feel useful.
because of course being an enterpreneuer also is no fun as all earnings are immediately taxed 100% to finance the greater good.
Oh, and fuck Pomperipossa if that's who you were thinking of. That tale makes no sense at all even if it did actually happen to somebody. The only way a 102% tax rate can happen is through bad policy (such as double-dipping income tax, but income tax for individuals at least should be repealed as well).
There are some real synergies to be had between a basic guaranteed income and the free market.
As always in the real world, socialism eventually and unconditionally produces a violent regime to keep things under control.
I'm not sure that capitalism, given a narrow reading that you seem to be giving your "socialism" demon, has a much better track record. I think you're confusing socialism as practiced in Europe with fascism elsewhere and socialism as practiced in the USA.
You do know that the USA has several socialist policies such as the aforementioned social security disability, no? The problem with pretty much all of them is that the minute you return to work (and this applies to Pomperipossa as well), you lose basically all benefits except food stamps, and those shrink away too if you prove to be a good worker worth promoting and giving raises to. What this means, getting back to the deadbeats, is that they are actively encouraging people not to work.
There are people right now living in my town in flyover country who want to return to work. They feel out the job market now and then. The problem is that the minute they become employed, the income+benefits they'd get is less than the value of the benefits they're receiving now. This is wrong. This is wrong as hell on so many levels.
A basic guaranteed income has the completely opposite effect. Everybody gets it. You, me, Bill Gates, everyone. So choose your poison: socialism that discourages work and encourages stupid angsting like the completely discredited notion that those deadbeats are "doing drugs" or socialism that encourages free market activities and frees people up who are working meaningless jobs to become innovators.
Nothing constructive to add, because the very nature of this topic is toxic and divisive. So, have some toxicity!
"In three states," lamented the DOE, "not a single female student took the AP computer science exam" (that only 8 boys took the AP CS exam in those same 3 states was apparently not a concern).
Hmm, I wonder how my home state ranks. *clicks link* WTF, a PNG of an Excel file? Ok, fine. Wow, there was a spike in 2015 with female enrollment, but watch the overall number crash for the three year period! Oh wait, it's still 2015. What is that 3rd group of numbers? It's clearly not an average. Oh well, I don't care. Hopefully all those folks who took the exam this year will choose a better, less stressful, and lucrative career than programming, like burger flipping.
Today's rant is shorter than usual. I knew I was a girl at age 7. When I was 9 or 10 (don't remember exactly), I expressed a desire to kill myself because I was being forced to live as a boy. This is probably not that unique of a story.
Ok, you have a sample size of ZE-RO! I refuse to believe that the same story as mine isn't playing out for some high schooler in those three states, probably even worse than mine since my ex-parents didn't go full retard Christian-branded Sharia-law white supremacist until I was about 17 or so. Then again, that's around the time I took the Computer Science AB exam and passed with flying colors.
So, here's how you fucking change that fucking ZE-RO to a positive fucking integer. Somewhere in those three states, there is at least one person going through what I went through at that time. LET HER FUCKING TRANSITON. GIVE HER THE FUCKING MEDS SHE NEEDS. Just. Stop. Telling. Her. that she is an invader and mentally ill. Just stop. Don't even fucking start up with that demonic possession shit. She is either going to transition in the long run anyway or kill herself (or get murdered), or some combination of those three.
I've got some Rad-X up and plenty of Radaway, so I'll respond to this.
On the one side, we have a candidate who has a proven track record of making the right vote no matter how unpopular. Looking at Sanders' votes on major things at least, I can say I would have voted the exact same way were I a senator. He's a socialist and I'm a libertarian!
On the other side, we have a businessman who can't seem to increase his own wealth beyond his inheritance but is a master of bluster and bullshit. In fact, his only profitable ventures seem to rely on his bluster and bullshit as selling points. (What was that called? The Apprentice or someshit? That crap actually gives me PTSD at this point--actually had an attack while watching Hell's Kitchen with a guy I was thinking about dating.)
Back to the first side, we have a very evil woman who wants the presidency above all else and may have even hired said incompetent business man to accomplish that very goal. In fact, it seems that she's conducted a deal with the DNC to get the nomination, and the DNC engaged in gaslighting asshole maneuvers recently with the Sanders campaign. Why did Trump change from D to R at the end of her husband's presidency? Some have speculated that this was in exchange for her overlooking her husband's infidelity, but somebody who would agree to such a thing probably doesn't have a soul to begin with.
What's surprising to me is that Jeb! isn't polling better. I hate dynasties, but he really does seem to be the most viable Republican candidate. He could actually give some decent, honest debates with Sanders.
However, consider this. Jeb! and that evil woman are both dynasties. Consider the similarity of the appeal of both Trump and Sanders. I think we're looking at a big upset in 2016.
Here's my suggestion. Perhaps we should create a service that's kind of like Uber but completely different. Call it a car-swapping service. Set up a designated time of the week to swap cars. We'd probably need some kind of meta-insurance to cover the deductible if there's a collision, but I haven't thought about this in detail so feel free to poke all kinds of holes in this idea.
The (apping) app would arrange random car swaps once per week or more or less frequently depending on user preference. I'm sure there are all kinds of considerations that we would need heuristics for such as swapping at a remote location unlikely to be monitored by bears/pigs at an odd hour. We'd also need to consider how to defeat a perfect surveillance apparatus such as license plate scanners at every intersection. It'd be trivial for the spooks to create a heuristic that two cars headed for the same destination are going to swap. So maybe the app could do a 50/50 coin flip, and if it's tails then no swap occurs, the drivers just go to the same destination and leave without swapping cars.
But yeah, I'm with the other folks who responded to you to the effect of "Welcome to NAZI Germany." Papers, please? I actually don't have a problem with a national ID. I seem to already have one that has a 9 digit ID printed on it that the financial sector has decided to co-op as a password when it's really a username (handily separated into 3 digits, then 2 digits, then 4 digits).
All though, my ideal national ID would be a crypto dongle that has 4 or so operations: encrypt, sign, output public key, and revoke old key and generate new key (both steps part of the same operation). It would be a democratized system that depends on a web of trust to establish identity, much like it used to be in small towns. Think of the town portrayed in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Everybody knows everybody else. I used to think that the level of familiarity that the protagonist has with everyone else in the town was weird, but I also realized that's an important plot point. It's also an important way that the crypto dongle I'm suggesting could be used to enable a way to detect when somebody applying for a loan is actually an identity-snatcher.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that my proposed crypto dongle isn't really much of a national ID at all. I take back my earlier support for a national ID. National ID is a single point of failure. The dongle I'm proposing is a community ID. It's a democratized ID.
Well, if your only requirement for functional programming is that functions are objects, why not Ruby?
Generally when I think of functional programming, I think of currying and lazy evaluation. Ruby and Javascript both have neither, but at least Ruby gives you a sane type system and sane scoping rules for anonymous functions. I haven't learned Python yet, but I understand it's in a similar place.
Well, I should qualify that. I had a hacking session with the person who taught me how to do Javascript correctly. We came up with a way to at least model public and private class members in Javascript. I tried to push the limits to add protected class members, but after a few hours I was like, eh, it's Javascript, whaddaya want?
The real caveat is with Ruby, since I wonder if I could actually implement parameter currying in Ruby by creating a Class subclass (yes, I've done it before to create a nearly transparent data layer in an experimental hobby project--think Java JPA's @Entity and @Basic annotations but with the Ruby-ism of, instead of declaring an attr_accessor, an attr_persistent) and overriding the method_missing method of Class to emulate currying. Hmm, maybe something to do if my love of programming comes back after I change career to burger flipping.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't have use for such a term as crusader or jihadist to describe people in my own community up until December last year. The only person who had come close to being violent with me was the owner of a Diary Queen over in South Haven, MI. Even then, that situation did not require a gun on my part, even though he thought it required men in uniform with guns.
Fortunately, the men in uniform with guns weren't nutters. That was also about 6 years ago before gays were "enslaving" straights into making them cakes or somesuch. I mean, personally, if you make ice cream for a living, but you don't want my money, just tell me and I'll leave! Sheesh! No need to make a scene.
That was before yelling MERRY CHRISTMAS at somebody one suspects of being gay became a thing last year.
I don't know exactly what's going on these days. That's why I thinking that perhaps I do need a gun. There are people right here in flyover country who do think being gay should have a death penalty. They're frustrated that they can't implement their goals in law, and that frustration grows every time there's an article about Caitlyn Jenner in the news or every time there's some advance to allow gay marriage.
They also have guns. I don't want to start a fight. I just want to be able to survive should one of them become violent with me due to a belief that it's what god wants. You can't talk sense into somebody who's become convinced that god wants them to kill or maim you. A revolver is more eloquent in those situations than I could ever hope to be.
I want things to go back to the way they were 10 years ago, when it didn't matter if I was gay or straight or whatever.
But wow, we since we already have all this toothpaste all over the place, why don't we just stop squeezing?
We can't stop squeezing. The Christian jihadists want guns to defend their families against demons like me from the burning hells. Gays like me want guns to defend their loved ones against Christian jihadists.
Yep, that's right. I'm far more afraid of a Christian jihadist getting violent with me over some persecution complex or because the idiot couldn't figure my gender out than I am worried about needing to be a hero during a mass shooting. Not that I wouldn't mind being a hero. I'm just speaking from statistics. The Christian jihadists know that premediated cold blooded murder of somebody of my demographic merely amounts to manslaughter.
Hey, let me throw this out there. I've just started researching where I want to get my concealed carry training (apparently there are more advanced self defense courses available so I might take those as well), but if I haven't purchased a weapon by the time "smart" (read: dumb, unsafe, script kiddie friendly, and rapist and other violent attacker-friendly) guns are mandated, I'll make it my project to crack the "smart" lock.
I don't need no damned "smart" shit getting in my way if a Christian jihadist wants to get violent with me and wants to send me to my supposed master, Lucifer. The last thing I need is for things to escalate to the point I've begun getting my gun out just to point it at the bastard, have him make a move that has a very real threat of disabling me (read, rendering unconscious and possibly fatally injured if lack of emergency treatment--remember, I'm a little, tiny person and the prospect of a jihadist with three times the body mass of me taking swings at me is... unnerving), and have it refuse to fire because the humidity is wrong, my heart is racing, or one of the other millions of reasons it won't recognize my fingerprint or whatever the hell screwball scheme they're thinking of implementing.
tl;dr Hell no, and I will hack/remove/disable it if my pistol has such a thing.
Disclaimer for European readers: please take me in as a refugee!!!!
Mod parent up please!
Ok, to respond to TFS, why not just put the documents in a torrent and link to Patreon? Maybe make a Facebook page? People like me will provide the bandwidth to distribute it and also drop a few bucks if it's good. I also have a small running list of rare works I seed with no ratio cap. Maybe $20 once the series is complete depending on how extensive the other content besides the main work is. At least $10 (price of a paperback) if the main work is good. I'll even do the work of creating the torrent and providing a seedbox free of charge if necessary.
If an author requires typesetting for a paperback edition that can be downloaded and brought to a local print shop to be printed and bound, I've become rather handy with \LaTeX . I haven't actually had the fanfictions I've reformatted this way printed and bound (for obvious copyright reasons), but I'm certain a creative commons license would obviate those concerns. Is there a startup somewhere I can throw a PDF at that will mail me a printed and bound paperback? I suppose if the work is popular, the startup could make actual bulk production runs, put them in a warehouse, and have a robot pick them when the uploaded PDF's hash matches. That would work nicely with the torrent distribution model.
I'm not very good at convincing investors, but I'm certain I could at least start with an auto-cropping double-sided laser printer and one of these. I'm sure there's potential there for other distribution models and kickbacks to the author every time an order comes through. Amazon.com/Barnes and Noble and Patreon/PayPal integration?
But then again I'm a filthy LUDDITE! Oh well.
Everything has to have an app. I'll bet all the live streaming goes up to a cloud that's not yours, where a frame here and there will be handily processed to see which brands you buy, just to deliver ads.
I was thinking the other day how amazing it would be if the average person would see the value in owning their own cloud and manufacturers would make it easy to configure their devices to use standard protocols to upload to anybody's personal cloud. I can dream, eh?
That reminds me. I have a cloud-enabled treadmill. I poked at it briefly, and the jogging routes it downloads are stored on a FAT32 filesystem. I still haven't done a packet inspection to determine how it uploads the telemetry (how far, how fast, incline changes, dates, times, etc) to the cloud. I've been meaning to see if I can figure out what it's sending and how to use a NAT rule on the router to send it towards my cloud where I can store the data myself.
Even better, why can't we realize the promise of IPv6? I'd like to set up a kerberos server I can authenticate to remotely that then grants access to all internet-of-things goodies in my house. I'd set it up so that the firewall would block traffic to everything except the kerberos server until I authenticate to kerberos and then only for the IPv6 addr that authenticated. I think that would work. Might need to set up some script hooks to add/remove ip6tables rules on the fly.
To join in the general sentiment of this discussion: why haven't the public figured out that sending personal data one wishes to be private to somebody else's cloud is a Bad Idea? I trust the security I've set up myself on my server in the clouds. I'm not sure I trust a disinterested corporation in a climate of Everybody Can Code! and H1Bs and brazen shows by corporations that no, there is no talent shortage and yes, they really do want to replace native workers with indentured servants and keep wages down.
(Note to grammar nazis: I'm aware that last sentence is a severe run-on.)
For a counterexample, go back to TNG's 1st season episode "Conspiracy"
Locating. S01E25 identified. Ah, Pacifica! Damn, it, Geordi, it doesn't help me if I just hear the punchline! Now I want to know the rest... of the joke? (Please tell me it doesn't involve T'Pol tripping on trellium-D again.) Oh, this was way back on that stardate, before Riker got sexy (protip, boys, the facial hair does make a difference!) and Troy was still into him for some unfathomable reason. Nice 2001 reference with voice print identification.
Hold on, it's the main theme, which completely destroys all other themes from the Brannon Braga era!
Computer, hold frame. No, that's not the one. Advance 2.3 seconds. Eh, I guess I'll just need to watch the whole episode.
at the beginning of the show, Picard meets up with some other Starfleet captains who he calls "Starfleet's finest". One of them was a black woman. I don't know who the actress was now
Ah, her! Why isn't she in the credits?! Captain Tryla Scott. Computer, cross-reference that with IMDB.
The actress we're looking for is one Ursaline Bryant.
...and logging back in to try posting this comment again...
I am not a time traveler, but it's pretty clear how things go. One way or another, Clinton will win the Democrat primary. At this point, things are uncertain. Remember that her current opponent is I-VT. Trump easily gets the Republican nomination. That's where things get ugly. Trump makes a complete ass out of himself (as if he hasn't already) and the Republican party.
The American people are too far gone at this point to carry Sanders even as far as Perot went. Watch Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. We might have the making of a successor party to the Republican party, much like how the Republican party replaced the Whigs. (Probability: <0.01% in 100 years, but I can dream.)
Michigan and Ohio will vote to legalize cannabis flower among others; Ohio will be the first Eastern state to do so while Michigan will reject the ballot proposal. We might see a competing ballot initiative in Michigan to merely decriminalize the plant, and that might have a chance of passing, because the people of Michigan completely, utterly, consistently fucking fail at making money. Pennsylvania will debate a legalization bill, but it will be ultimately defeated.
Expect to hear more noise out of Indiana. You thought the gay marriage angst is done? Ha! Just wait. I just hope the gays over there have guns and know how to use them.
Naturally, #blacklivesmatter isn't nearly done social justice trolling. Expect them to lash out more at Sanders and other political objectives that threaten the Clinton coronation. Along those lines, #translivesmatter will go nowhere. Cold-blooded, premeditated murder of a trans woman will continue to constitute manslaughter. Business as usual. (Protip: I may not be right about all these things, but I have a nice piece of metal that says attempting that shit with me won't go your way. Good thing Indiana is nowhere near me!)
I have another prediction I redacted, but listen up, Brianna Wu, Lulzsec, and mikeeusa. I'm on to you, and I'm packing digital heat. (Btw, that DDOS missed the target! How do you social justice types always miss the target?! To test my theory, see previous posts for the correct target. Don't think knocking ns1.linode.com offline will affect what I care about.) Don't do it. Just don't. I don't want a war, not even a meaningless, stupid internet war.... If somebody I care very deeply about gets hurt, all bets are off. I sure as hell hope whatever script kiddies and goons you've got know their shit, because I won't have mercy. Especially if the worst happens. My blustering about Amazons on the red site might just get real, but it doesn't have to be.
On the first day of Kwanzaa the black candle is lit in the Kinara. The black candle represents the first principle -- Umoja (oo-MOH-jah): Unity.
Think about that, Wu. Don't escalate shit. Think about the other days of Kwanzaa. Just replace the black candle with a pink one. The rest applies perfectly. You could even help her.
One other prediction: Slashdot will be bought out by either Vice's owners or Ars Technica. Hopefully they'll fix the fucking login issues. I can live with SJW Friday, but srsly, I can't post while logged in again?
(War never changes.)
What they fail to understand is that Big Media and "pundits" crapping their pants over his statements only increases his popularity with people, who see through the years and decades of lies and BS.
Hum. Look a bit closer. Why do you think Rupert Murdoch is broadcasting said crapping of pants?
I really don't want to play the IRL version of Fallout 4. Hint: it won't be Trump that causes it. Why do you think Jeb! isn't polling so well despite being a well-reasoned man who might have some interesting debates with Sanders?
Clinton. That isn't the candidate you're looking for. Move along.
One more thing. Why... exactly why did Trump switch from being a Democrat, to independent, to Republican once the [Bill] Clinton administration had finished? It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the coronation in progress....
Wait.
> ping xyz.com
PING xyz.com (184.169.138.0) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from ec2-184-169-138-0.us-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com (184.169.138.0): icmp_seq=1 ttl=40 time=70.3 ms
64 bytes from ec2-184-169-138-0.us-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com (184.169.138.0): icmp_seq=2 ttl=40 time=71.1 ms
64 bytes from ec2-184-169-138-0.us-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com (184.169.138.0): icmp_seq=3 ttl=40 time=69.0 ms
Huh, who knew?
Let me check Fremont.
> ping xyz.com
PING xyz.com (555.123.45.67) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=69.0 ms
64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=2 ttl=50 time=69.0 ms
64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=3 ttl=50 time=72.8 ms
64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=4 ttl=50 time=66.7 ms
64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=5 ttl=50 time=67.2 ms
64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=6 ttl=50 time=68.7 ms
64 bytes from lidsfargeg.members.linode.com (555.123.45.67): icmp_seq=7 ttl=50 time=69.0 ms
Looks good from flyover country. According to the status page, it seems it's primarily the Atlanta datacenter that's affected. Protip: don't spin up all your nodes in the same datacenter! Fortunately, Linode has a few of those. I'm certain they have top women on this, and they'll have this resolved quickly. (Even better if there are strange, up, down, or charmed women on the job. Not sure about the bottom women....)
Cloud Hosting
Yes, but it's my cloud. I call the main server the "server in the clouds."
That's the essential question for the future of the interweb(s). Are you uploading to "the cloud" or your cloud?
That cloud is my cloud. There are many like it, but that one is mine.
Linode is a quite good VPS provider. They have several stock distro installs to choose from (Linux and BSD), and then the sky is the limit. They also pay for user-generated documentation, and the focus is on FLOSS software that you can install and configure on your node. This isn't some PHP MySQL crap. I've been a happy user for years now, running a private mail, web, and IRC server. The prices are quite than reasonable. I'm not sure if they offer Xen nodes anymore since KVM is the way to go.
My nodes at Fremont haven't been affected yet. Soylentnews, also hosted on Linode, seems to be doing well too.
Wow, my usual rant size is dwarfed! My hat is off to you, madam or sir!
Wikipedia's core staff is overwhelmingly male (87%) and mostly white.
Small nitpick. Being white and male does not prevent a person from adopting the "social justice" bully mindset. In fact, I've found it can often reinforce that mindset. In their minds, they're warriors, they're guilty about having these intangible privileges they think they have, so they're going to use those privileges to fight the good fight.
Perhaps ironically, they miss the obvious privileges they do have. Having, say, parents who will pay for one's college education including room and board is a tangible privilege for an individual. One can use demographic data to determine that if one is white, one has a higher chance of having that privilege. One can determine from demographic data that we do still have a race problem in the USA.
A while back, one idiot seriously thought I was going to mansplain (or something) programming to somebody I was teaching because I'm white, present as male to do business, and am a programmer. The person I was tutoring was black and presents as female. Conclusion: I was going to do something to prevent her from learning programming anybody who is white, male, and a programmer is part of a giant conspiracy). Well, he decided to babysit our first few sessions. I hope he felt pretty damned sheepish when Boolean algebra went straight over his vacuous head and my student grasped it instantly.
So, let's look at where the logic in the middle of that anecdote went wrong. I believe it's the hasty generalization, otherwise known as being, deep down, a sexist, racist bigot who thought he would need to white knight for my student. At any rate, certainly not my first IRL encounter with the creature known as the "social justice" bully but hopefully one of the last....
The rest of your comment is well reasoned, although I did have a few "[citation needed]" moments myself, but then again I have this wonderful thing called a search engine integrated into the UI of my browser so I'll leave it at that.
*looks over shoulder to see AC sibling comment while trying to post this logged in* You again? Strange. You're like a non-tl;dr version of me.
Testing. 1. 2. 3.
Is checking the public terminal box the answer key?
I don't understand the hate for Janeway. Granted, the series started with a macguffin, but once they got rid of Kes, imho it was one of the better series. Then again, I liked the Xindi arc as well. I can't stand episodic series.
Well, no, I do understand the hate for Janeway. What I don't understand is the irrational hatred I see pretty much everywhere for a woman who isn't a supermodel to be top dog. (Circle of Protection: AVfM. Hilary Clinton is a lying, two-faced, war-mongering, traitorous, fascist Illuminati sock puppet and all-around enemy of liberty.)
Let's see if I can post logged in this time.
Crap, I had thought I had submitted my back-of-the-envelope calculation to the red site. I guess I hadn't. I'll attempt to repeat the calculation tomorrow, when I'm less influenced by the b33r. (I hate doing calculation while drinking b33r, but I'm certain I didn't perform that one with b33r.)
Here are two links from the red site the folks there seemed to like wrt basic guaranteed income:
Re:Cutting corners, dealing with Pomperipossa again.
Re:Socialism, regarding the synergy of a basic minimum income and a free market.
-- vel-ex-tech (When will I be able to post comments while logged in again? Not that I much care as concerns this site, lol.)
Unless the game is designed to move my character's aim independently of where I'm looking, this is a non-starter for me but not because of people who are pro at mouse/keyboard. I mean, if I aim at something that at the top of my field of vision, does that just move my character's head? It sounds too much like the weirdness that is mouse/keyboard with Star Citizen and Freelancer wrt gimbaled weapons.
Speaking of which, that leads to more problems. Ok, so let's say the game supports this device. So then do I have to take my hands off the mouse and keyboard or maybe keep on hand on WSAD for some movement while I'm aiming?
So back to the point of opponents who are pro at mouse/keyboard. I really like racing in Star Citizen using my HOTAS controller. I run into crap and get lost less. On the other hand, back in the 1.3 "beta" release it was pretty clear that HOTAS dogfighting just wasn't going to work. I didn't start earning REC (in-game beta currency that lets you rent different ships in addition to which ever one(s) you bought) until I switched to mouse/keyboard. Aiming is more fine-grained, but the big thing was there was no interaction between gimbaled weapons and the FCS, so mouse was the only way to aim them.
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think this controller will work without an Ocular Rift or similar or perhaps some new kind of controller, maybe a WSAD mounted on a mouse. Only problem, though, is that I have a feeling most people prefer to aim a gun with the same hand they prefer for the mouse.
On the other hand, things like HOTAS controllers and especially driving game rigs are probably the best VR we can hope for until we get said holodecks.
Oh, I almost forgot about this game: Police 911. The sequel was pretty good too. It's a rail shooter with one important feature: motion detection. So you actually have to crouch or move left and right to crane around something you're hiding behind. I suppose it wouldn't be difficult to achieve similar with a Wii-mote and a Kinect (both hooked up to a PC, obviously).
Well, I realized a while back that the purpose of my job is to eliminate jobs. I've been meaning to get into massively distributed systems for a while now out of sheer curiosity. Anybody who writes a program, even if that "program" is an Excel sheet, is eliminating jobs, even if the "job" eliminated is a fraction of a job.
One thing before my main rant: I disagree about C++. I'd say it's more an issue of knowing which features to use and which to avoid. For example, std::string and std::unique_ptr/std::shared_ptr, RAII good. strlen, malloc/new bad. (Unless, like you said, it really is necessary, but then I'd argue that one should be using straight-up C instead). Oracle may be bad, but it would be difficult to replace the Java open source ecosystem, especially all the Apache Commons stuff (just use IcedTea?). Also, the sooner we decide to completely scrap Javascript as the programming language of the web, the better.
My biggest fear is the people will become unable to function without all these dashboards and reports and high-level process management apps that we're cooking up. What I mean is that it seems like the more advanced and abstracted these things get, the more people forget the processes and policies we've modeled and automated. I've run into this before when something just works too well. People forget what policies and rules they decided on that the system is modeling.
There's a lot of magical thinking here too. The most frequent thing I get is that when there's been a data entry error, people will think there's a bug in the system causing the data to be reported incorrectly. Sometimes it's a simple typo in a name or date of birth I can point to and correct. What I really hate is when it's an intricate issue involving difficult to use proprietary software where workers on the floor frequently make the same mistake. I have a few "favorites" that I have to explain the same thing to over and over again, but because the explanation is more complex than two sentences, they always forget it.
As an example, the shifts of the workers out on the floor are now scheduled by computer program, and nobody really understands what the computer is doing, only that it makes their existing metrics look better. We found out that there were some data that were being included in the computation that shouldn't have been because it never occurred to people that $special_project_x would throw off the historical data. That went on for a few months before the metrics were impacted, they assumed there was a bug in the program (never connected that what was actually happening on the floor, but hey, it's not like the people who call the shots need to actually know what the workers do), and after some digging and some calls to the vendor, we identified the anomalous data that were being included. It turned out one of our "leap before look"ers did what they do best and leaped before looking (once again).
What I'm getting at is just the complete failure to comprehend how all of our dashboards and reports arrive at their conclusions and how that failure of comprehension can lead to actual impacts on the business end. Perhaps it's because one person has taken on too many different roles because each of those roles only needs a fractional worker due to the skyrocketing productivity we've been delivering. I'm not sure what the answer is other than hoping my cynicism about this supposed "singularity" is misplaced.
Then when there really is a bug or some other systemic issue (a policy that sounded good on paper with poor results in practice), they'll spend hours trying to figure out what they did wrong or trying to work around it. I'm thinking this one may be more related to the fact that nobody outside of my department can seem to understand what the words proprietary closed source mean. It may happen because they think if they pressure me and irritate me enough, that I'll break a licensing agreement and possibly eve
Prediction: some place like Reddit or code.org will buy up Dicedot. Not going on any real evidence, just a hunch.
At any rate, hopefully the site will stop wonking out for a day or two every other month. Either that or it would be the tipping point for a mass migration to the red site (maybe even a bump for the blue site, too).
Can I post this one while logged in? Let's see!
I'm not sure what strawman you're tilting at, but please try to use your noggin a bit. Let me help!
I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation for an $800 per month guaranteed income for the entire USA. Granted, I didn't figure in overhead, but I'm assuming that will amount to a rounding error. I picked $800 because it's possible to get by over here in flyover country on that much. Many moons ago, I managed at that level of income, and the major prices haven't changed since then where I live (rent, electricity, phone/internet, although food has gone up in price a bit).
My result was roughly $4,100,000,000 per year to fund the thing. As big as that number is, it's still an order of magnitude less than the USA's GDP according to the CIA World Factbook. So it really is correct that we could do this today if we really wanted to.
most people will quit their jobs
This is demonstrably false and will be shown as such once more in this case. Some people do quit their jobs, however, except they do so because they have an idea and want to innovate, invent, and start a new business. Others work less but contribute to the community in other ways.
There will always be a deadbeat here and there, but there's not much you can do about that. In fact, you may already be paying for said deadbeats. If you have the right medical condition, say you had a seizure once or you can successfully make a convincing presentation of back pain, you'll get social security disability and food stamps currently. You can also get subsidized housing, too. This all happens right here in god-fearing, Puritan work ethic flyover country right now already.
My major recommendation is to get rid of minimum wage when enacting a basic guaranteed income. Some of those deadbeats are only deadbeats because they're not worth $8/hr and certainly not worth $15/hr in places where that's the minimum wage. Most everybody has an intrinsic need to feel useful.
because of course being an enterpreneuer also is no fun as all earnings are immediately taxed 100% to finance the greater good.
Oh, and fuck Pomperipossa if that's who you were thinking of. That tale makes no sense at all even if it did actually happen to somebody. The only way a 102% tax rate can happen is through bad policy (such as double-dipping income tax, but income tax for individuals at least should be repealed as well).
There are some real synergies to be had between a basic guaranteed income and the free market.
As always in the real world, socialism eventually and unconditionally produces a violent regime to keep things under control.
I'm not sure that capitalism, given a narrow reading that you seem to be giving your "socialism" demon, has a much better track record. I think you're confusing socialism as practiced in Europe with fascism elsewhere and socialism as practiced in the USA.
You do know that the USA has several socialist policies such as the aforementioned social security disability, no? The problem with pretty much all of them is that the minute you return to work (and this applies to Pomperipossa as well), you lose basically all benefits except food stamps, and those shrink away too if you prove to be a good worker worth promoting and giving raises to. What this means, getting back to the deadbeats, is that they are actively encouraging people not to work.
There are people right now living in my town in flyover country who want to return to work. They feel out the job market now and then. The problem is that the minute they become employed, the income+benefits they'd get is less than the value of the benefits they're receiving now. This is wrong. This is wrong as hell on so many levels.
A basic guaranteed income has the completely opposite effect. Everybody gets it. You, me, Bill Gates, everyone. So choose your poison: socialism that discourages work and encourages stupid angsting like the completely discredited notion that those deadbeats are "doing drugs" or socialism that encourages free market activities and frees people up who are working meaningless jobs to become innovators.
Nothing constructive to add, because the very nature of this topic is toxic and divisive. So, have some toxicity!
"In three states," lamented the DOE, "not a single female student took the AP computer science exam" (that only 8 boys took the AP CS exam in those same 3 states was apparently not a concern).
Hmm, I wonder how my home state ranks. *clicks link* WTF, a PNG of an Excel file? Ok, fine. Wow, there was a spike in 2015 with female enrollment, but watch the overall number crash for the three year period! Oh wait, it's still 2015. What is that 3rd group of numbers? It's clearly not an average. Oh well, I don't care. Hopefully all those folks who took the exam this year will choose a better, less stressful, and lucrative career than programming, like burger flipping.
Today's rant is shorter than usual. I knew I was a girl at age 7. When I was 9 or 10 (don't remember exactly), I expressed a desire to kill myself because I was being forced to live as a boy. This is probably not that unique of a story.
Ok, you have a sample size of ZE-RO! I refuse to believe that the same story as mine isn't playing out for some high schooler in those three states, probably even worse than mine since my ex-parents didn't go full retard Christian-branded Sharia-law white supremacist until I was about 17 or so. Then again, that's around the time I took the Computer Science AB exam and passed with flying colors.
So, here's how you fucking change that fucking ZE-RO to a positive fucking integer. Somewhere in those three states, there is at least one person going through what I went through at that time. LET HER FUCKING TRANSITON. GIVE HER THE FUCKING MEDS SHE NEEDS. Just. Stop. Telling. Her. that she is an invader and mentally ill. Just stop. Don't even fucking start up with that demonic possession shit. She is either going to transition in the long run anyway or kill herself (or get murdered), or some combination of those three.
That is all. Hope that helped. Thank you.
I've got some Rad-X up and plenty of Radaway, so I'll respond to this.
On the one side, we have a candidate who has a proven track record of making the right vote no matter how unpopular. Looking at Sanders' votes on major things at least, I can say I would have voted the exact same way were I a senator. He's a socialist and I'm a libertarian!
On the other side, we have a businessman who can't seem to increase his own wealth beyond his inheritance but is a master of bluster and bullshit. In fact, his only profitable ventures seem to rely on his bluster and bullshit as selling points. (What was that called? The Apprentice or someshit? That crap actually gives me PTSD at this point--actually had an attack while watching Hell's Kitchen with a guy I was thinking about dating.)
Back to the first side, we have a very evil woman who wants the presidency above all else and may have even hired said incompetent business man to accomplish that very goal. In fact, it seems that she's conducted a deal with the DNC to get the nomination, and the DNC engaged in gaslighting asshole maneuvers recently with the Sanders campaign. Why did Trump change from D to R at the end of her husband's presidency? Some have speculated that this was in exchange for her overlooking her husband's infidelity, but somebody who would agree to such a thing probably doesn't have a soul to begin with.
What's surprising to me is that Jeb! isn't polling better. I hate dynasties, but he really does seem to be the most viable Republican candidate. He could actually give some decent, honest debates with Sanders.
However, consider this. Jeb! and that evil woman are both dynasties. Consider the similarity of the appeal of both Trump and Sanders. I think we're looking at a big upset in 2016.
Here's my suggestion. Perhaps we should create a service that's kind of like Uber but completely different. Call it a car-swapping service. Set up a designated time of the week to swap cars. We'd probably need some kind of meta-insurance to cover the deductible if there's a collision, but I haven't thought about this in detail so feel free to poke all kinds of holes in this idea.
The (apping) app would arrange random car swaps once per week or more or less frequently depending on user preference. I'm sure there are all kinds of considerations that we would need heuristics for such as swapping at a remote location unlikely to be monitored by bears/pigs at an odd hour. We'd also need to consider how to defeat a perfect surveillance apparatus such as license plate scanners at every intersection. It'd be trivial for the spooks to create a heuristic that two cars headed for the same destination are going to swap. So maybe the app could do a 50/50 coin flip, and if it's tails then no swap occurs, the drivers just go to the same destination and leave without swapping cars.
But yeah, I'm with the other folks who responded to you to the effect of "Welcome to NAZI Germany." Papers, please? I actually don't have a problem with a national ID. I seem to already have one that has a 9 digit ID printed on it that the financial sector has decided to co-op as a password when it's really a username (handily separated into 3 digits, then 2 digits, then 4 digits).
All though, my ideal national ID would be a crypto dongle that has 4 or so operations: encrypt, sign, output public key, and revoke old key and generate new key (both steps part of the same operation). It would be a democratized system that depends on a web of trust to establish identity, much like it used to be in small towns. Think of the town portrayed in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Everybody knows everybody else. I used to think that the level of familiarity that the protagonist has with everyone else in the town was weird, but I also realized that's an important plot point. It's also an important way that the crypto dongle I'm suggesting could be used to enable a way to detect when somebody applying for a loan is actually an identity-snatcher.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that my proposed crypto dongle isn't really much of a national ID at all. I take back my earlier support for a national ID. National ID is a single point of failure. The dongle I'm proposing is a community ID. It's a democratized ID.
Well, if your only requirement for functional programming is that functions are objects, why not Ruby?
Generally when I think of functional programming, I think of currying and lazy evaluation. Ruby and Javascript both have neither, but at least Ruby gives you a sane type system and sane scoping rules for anonymous functions. I haven't learned Python yet, but I understand it's in a similar place.
Well, I should qualify that. I had a hacking session with the person who taught me how to do Javascript correctly. We came up with a way to at least model public and private class members in Javascript. I tried to push the limits to add protected class members, but after a few hours I was like, eh, it's Javascript, whaddaya want?
The real caveat is with Ruby, since I wonder if I could actually implement parameter currying in Ruby by creating a Class subclass (yes, I've done it before to create a nearly transparent data layer in an experimental hobby project--think Java JPA's @Entity and @Basic annotations but with the Ruby-ism of, instead of declaring an attr_accessor, an attr_persistent) and overriding the method_missing method of Class to emulate currying. Hmm, maybe something to do if my love of programming comes back after I change career to burger flipping.