One of the first measures to fix the issues would be to make them responsible: if a parent they granted gets overthrown in justice, they should refund all the fees, plus the cost of the prior art research that was obviously botched. That would give them the incentive to do their work.
There just aren't enough dollars at issue to incentivize that kind of change. A tiny fraction of issued patents are ever litigated in their lifetime, and very few of those litigated are held invalid. Even refunding fees for all challenged patents, regardless of outcome, would still be pocket change to the Patent Office.
The first citation is of generally higher quality, even though the study it is based upon includes only about 6,500 valid respondents when there are about 1.5 million transgendered people in the USA
It's hard to discern your point here -- are you suggesting that kind of sample size is way outside the norm for a study like this, and that it therefore may have significantly skewed the results? This actually seems like a fairly healthy sample size, and the p-values throughout the study reflect that.
Further, it counts suicide attempts, not suicides.
Again, your point is unclear. You can't possibly be saying that we shouldn't pay attention to a massively disproportionate rate of suicide attempts simply because some of them weren't successful.
The study does not say what you guys want it to say.
Whether or not anybody "wants it to," here's what the study actually says (emphasis mine):
The prevalence of suicide attempts among respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality, is 41 percent, which vastly exceeds the 4.6 percent of the overall U.S. population who report a lifetime suicide attempt, and is also higher than the 10-20 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults who report ever attempting suicide.
The tipoff was the estimate of a whopping $2.1 meeeeeleeon increase in public health costs. FTFS:
We found that a 5% decline in MMR vaccine coverage in US children would result in a 3-fold increase in national measles cases in this age group, for a total of 150 cases
Elsewhere the study says that age group comprises about 30% of total measles cases. So in theory we'd see about 300 more cases per year.
Sorry, but that's not deserving of words like "explosive" or "unshakeable."
More like, "give us money to defend against a lawsuit that was filed against us months ago, which we're not going to mention because it might make us sound unsympathetic (at the very least)." The complaint is here.
It's worth understanding that there are, as always, two sides to the story. You can get a sense of the side of the "vendor" (otherwise known as 50% shareholder) by reading this.
Of all the states where someone might be trying to (undetectably) swing the result of an election through hacking, who in their right mind would pick South Carolina where Trump was already expected to win within the range of the 15 point margin he did?
Yes, we should ignore this story for desperately grasping at straws to the point of extinguishing critical thinking.
You're confusing average sustained speed over long distances (26.2 miles of running) with top speed.(shorter sprints). I read TFA as speculating on T-Rex's maximum speed (the "without bones breaking" part). As noted, top athletes sprint at well over 20mph, and even lesser mortals can make it into the double digits.
NCTA – The Internet & Television Association (formerly the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, and commonly known as the NCTA) is the principal trade association for the U.S. broadband and pay television industries, representing more than 90% of the U.S. cable market,[2] more than 200 cable networks, and equipment suppliers and providers of other services to the cable industry.
So 3 ISPs and 200+ other companies together spent $572 million over 10 years. That's less than $300k per company per year.
But the truth wouldn't be good for nearly as many clicks, would it?
The tech in the headset was fantastic for its time, but the wire ear loops repeatedly snapped off just from putting the unit on your ear. Their response to the raft of complaints was to put out a YouTube instructional video showing how to put a Jawbone on your ear "properly" (i.e., without breaking it), and to only sell replacements in 3-pack of different sizes -- use one, throw the other two away. This doesn't surprise me at all.
Expanding SS to everyone will obviously require additional sources of funding.
No doubt -- and the amounts required from those "additional sources" aren't feasible for the reasons both I and one of your very own articles explained (which, I note, you haven't even attempted to refute with actual numbers of your own).
As far as the amount of money per person. This is BASIC income designed to provide a minimum level of support so you don't starve. There are people who do get by on a very small income and it can be adequate especially when you consider that each member of a household can receive the income.
Exactly the same is presently true for minimum wage jobs, and as I mentioned before, the minimum wage is under immense upward pressure by activist groups that have declared the current minimum wage inadequate to support life. That dynamic isn't going to suddenly change by relabeling the same number (or, more likely, a smaller number) of dollars as a UBI.
It also does not limit other income so a person could easily supplement the income with a part time minimum wage job.
That assumes that a plentiful supply of jobs exists for anyone who wants to work. That runs counter to one of the fundamental rationales people usually float for UBI -- that jobs are becoming scarce due to automation etc.
The UBI is to be financed by getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, housing subsidies, welfare for single women and every other kind of welfare and social-services program, as well as agricultural subsidies and corporate welfare.
Which isn't anywhere close to OP's proposition of just expanding Social Security -- that to which I responded.
From your second article:
Kevin Milligan, professor of economics at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia:
UBI gets all this attention and popularity, but I haven’t seen one model that’s even on the planet of financial feasibility. These things are utopian. Finland is conducting an experiment in giving every adult a check for €800 a month, which would require spending far more than what the government raises in taxes. Whatever you think about giving €800 checks to every citizen, the only way you’re getting that money is by taxing citizens double what you’re taxing them now.
I guess it’s not difficult to understand the attraction: We’re giving out free ponies here. But the math matters a lot because the money has to come from somewhere. Under any kind of UBI scheme, you’re sending checks not just to existing benefit recipients but to a wide host of working poor and middle class families. Which sounds great except for the fact that you have to get that money from taxing those people to start with.
Which is pretty much exactly what I said.
I'll also gently point out that Murray's proposal (discussed in your first article) is net $10k/year. At an hourly rate, that's far less than the current minimum wage that we're regularly informed isn't enough to live on -- the $15/hr movement annualizes to about 3x that. It beggars belief that a UBI system equivalent to $5/hr would suddenly be accepted as adequate. So if it were instituted, there would immediately be screaming/rioting/etc. to increase it -- substantially. An intellectually honest proposal will need to factor that in.
In short, money doesn't grow on trees. UBI proposals are going to have to thoughtfully address that fact to get taken seriously.
Don't know why the same system wouldn't work for everyone. Just increase the SS tax and give everyone a basic income.
It wouldn't work for all kinds of reasons. Most notably, workers pay the SS tax throughout their working lives (40-45 years) and only receive benefits for about 10-15 years. That ratio of tax period to benefits period is part of what allows the system to work even as well as it currently does.
Your proposal would actually invert the ratio of tax period to benefits period (~60 years of payments for ~45 years of work). Back-of-the-envelope suggests the SS tax rate would have to increase ~5-fold (to ~65%!) to support that.
All of these you can do without internet access but life is so much more convenient with it....just like every other utility.
I suppose at bottom we're debating a matter of degree. That said, I think it's a bit melodramatic to compare a household without Internet access to one lit by oil lamps and warmed by a wood-burning stove. The former is on a far higher Maslowian tier than the latter.
Volvo is a high-end, low-volume manufacturer. Worldwide sales are about half a million out of total worldwide sales of nearly 90 million.
Whether this is a smart move in their chosen market segment remains to be seen. But it's not going to noticeably move the needle in the overall market.
The topic, if you'd like to try to catch up, is whether having an Internet connection in your house is a convenience or a necessity. The fact that certain employers will only take job applications through the Internet does not make an Internet connection in your house a necessity. There are plenty of places people can get free Internet to engage in infrequent transactions like job applications. None of your ad-hominem-laden invective changes that.
Try to have a better day than you're currently allowing yourself to have.
No, it is a utility just like gas, water and electricity.
We're less than 20 years from AOL CDs, brother. The Internet has not suddenly transformed into a basic utility in that timeframe. It's still very much a convenience. "I want it" does not make it a necessity.
and while an internet connection might be regarded as a luxury while camping it isn't really a luxury anymore for everyday life.
The judge didn't say Facebook "can do" anything. The judge said the plaintiffs can't pursue certain specific legal theories against Facebook, but can pursue others:
The plaintiffs cannot bring privacy and wiretapping claims again, Davila said, but can pursue a breach of contract claim again.
19-year-old couple, 3 year old daughter, one in the oven - and you expect responsible behaviour on the internet?
Yes, I quite reasonably expect a young adult couple not to point guns at each other and pull the trigger simply because they had unprotected sex a few years ago.
Oh, and finally, the program under which the Federal government provided loan guarantees to Solyndra actually made a profit for the US government.
Without the underlying numbers, "made a profit" is a meaningless statement. If you take a look at the Dept. of Energy's own rosy projections, you see that even they are not predicting the program will turn an actual (inflation-adjusted) profit.
For a loan portfolio around $30 billion, they're predicting $5 billion in interest payments over the entire term of the program, with average loan terms around 25 years. That $5 billion apparently does not account for defaults (over half a billion already over the first several years of the program, with around 20 years to go even assuming they haven't issued new loans since this 2014 report), but let's be super-generous and say they ultimately net the entire $5 billion. That's an average annual return of about 1.25% on the program's capital at risk -- not even enough to keep pace with inflation.
That's a disastrous return on invested capital that no investor in their right mind would consider (1) a success or (2) something worth even thinking about repeating.
I think I can safely predict that even you wouldn't voluntarily put your retirement savings into a fund that couldn't even keep up with inflation over a 25-year period.
3D printed structural parts have been in use for more than a decade, including in military aircraft. It is proven technology.
Then TFA's description of Norsk's specific process as a "novel approach" and "cutting-edge technology" seems a bit off. Are you sure it's exactly the same process that has been around for a decade plus? If not, then giving the FAA until sometime in 2018 to get their arms around it doesn't seem crazy to me.
I have zero interest in flying in an airplane using parts that have the least bit to do with the aerodynamics or structural integrity of the airplane that are rushed to market simply because they're using a Cool New Process that coincidentally happens to be cheaper.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the first measures to fix the issues would be to make them responsible: if a parent they granted gets overthrown in justice, they should refund all the fees, plus the cost of the prior art research that was obviously botched. That would give them the incentive to do their work.
There just aren't enough dollars at issue to incentivize that kind of change. A tiny fraction of issued patents are ever litigated in their lifetime, and very few of those litigated are held invalid. Even refunding fees for all challenged patents, regardless of outcome, would still be pocket change to the Patent Office.
This would just provide a new target for the p-hackers.
The first citation is of generally higher quality, even though the study it is based upon includes only about 6,500 valid respondents when there are about 1.5 million transgendered people in the USA
It's hard to discern your point here -- are you suggesting that kind of sample size is way outside the norm for a study like this, and that it therefore may have significantly skewed the results? This actually seems like a fairly healthy sample size, and the p-values throughout the study reflect that.
Further, it counts suicide attempts, not suicides.
Again, your point is unclear. You can't possibly be saying that we shouldn't pay attention to a massively disproportionate rate of suicide attempts simply because some of them weren't successful.
The study does not say what you guys want it to say.
Whether or not anybody "wants it to," here's what the study actually says (emphasis mine):
The prevalence of suicide attempts among respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality , is 41 percent, which vastly exceeds the 4.6 percent of the overall U.S. population who report a lifetime suicide attempt , and is also higher than the 10-20 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults who report ever attempting suicide.
The tipoff was the estimate of a whopping $2.1 meeeeeleeon increase in public health costs. FTFS:
We found that a 5% decline in MMR vaccine coverage in US children would result in a 3-fold increase in national measles cases in this age group, for a total of 150 cases
Elsewhere the study says that age group comprises about 30% of total measles cases. So in theory we'd see about 300 more cases per year.
Sorry, but that's not deserving of words like "explosive" or "unshakeable."
And even that would require a drop in coverage TFA dismissively couches as a "mere" 5%, but which would in reality be an enormous move for a statistic that is now only about 1% off its one-time peak and is running right around its mean over the last couple of decades.
Before you go there, my children are vaccinated. But this sort of sensationalism is not helpful.
Just "give us money to file a lawsuit".
More like, "give us money to defend against a lawsuit that was filed against us months ago, which we're not going to mention because it might make us sound unsympathetic (at the very least)." The complaint is here.
It's worth understanding that there are, as always, two sides to the story. You can get a sense of the side of the "vendor" (otherwise known as 50% shareholder) by reading this.
Of all the states where someone might be trying to (undetectably) swing the result of an election through hacking, who in their right mind would pick South Carolina where Trump was already expected to win within the range of the 15 point margin he did?
Yes, we should ignore this story for desperately grasping at straws to the point of extinguishing critical thinking.
You're confusing average sustained speed over long distances (26.2 miles of running) with top speed.(shorter sprints). I read TFA as speculating on T-Rex's maximum speed (the "without bones breaking" part). As noted, top athletes sprint at well over 20mph, and even lesser mortals can make it into the double digits.
Well in the good old US of A your credit rating is far more important than you bank balance.
I'll take a $1B bank balance with a 350 credit rating any day of the week. You?
Comcast, AT&T, Verizon... and, oh, by the way, the itty bitty National Cable & Telecommunications Association.
NCTA – The Internet & Television Association (formerly the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, and commonly known as the NCTA) is the principal trade association for the U.S. broadband and pay television industries, representing more than 90% of the U.S. cable market,[2] more than 200 cable networks, and equipment suppliers and providers of other services to the cable industry.
So 3 ISPs and 200+ other companies together spent $572 million over 10 years. That's less than $300k per company per year.
But the truth wouldn't be good for nearly as many clicks, would it?
The tech in the headset was fantastic for its time, but the wire ear loops repeatedly snapped off just from putting the unit on your ear. Their response to the raft of complaints was to put out a YouTube instructional video showing how to put a Jawbone on your ear "properly" (i.e., without breaking it), and to only sell replacements in 3-pack of different sizes -- use one, throw the other two away. This doesn't surprise me at all.
Expanding SS to everyone will obviously require additional sources of funding.
No doubt -- and the amounts required from those "additional sources" aren't feasible for the reasons both I and one of your very own articles explained (which, I note, you haven't even attempted to refute with actual numbers of your own).
As far as the amount of money per person. This is BASIC income designed to provide a minimum level of support so you don't starve. There are people who do get by on a very small income and it can be adequate especially when you consider that each member of a household can receive the income.
Exactly the same is presently true for minimum wage jobs, and as I mentioned before, the minimum wage is under immense upward pressure by activist groups that have declared the current minimum wage inadequate to support life. That dynamic isn't going to suddenly change by relabeling the same number (or, more likely, a smaller number) of dollars as a UBI.
It also does not limit other income so a person could easily supplement the income with a part time minimum wage job.
That assumes that a plentiful supply of jobs exists for anyone who wants to work. That runs counter to one of the fundamental rationales people usually float for UBI -- that jobs are becoming scarce due to automation etc.
Oh dear.
From your first article:
The UBI is to be financed by getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, housing subsidies, welfare for single women and every other kind of welfare and social-services program, as well as agricultural subsidies and corporate welfare.
Which isn't anywhere close to OP's proposition of just expanding Social Security -- that to which I responded.
From your second article:
Kevin Milligan, professor of economics at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia:
UBI gets all this attention and popularity, but I haven’t seen one model that’s even on the planet of financial feasibility. These things are utopian. Finland is conducting an experiment in giving every adult a check for €800 a month, which would require spending far more than what the government raises in taxes. Whatever you think about giving €800 checks to every citizen, the only way you’re getting that money is by taxing citizens double what you’re taxing them now.
I guess it’s not difficult to understand the attraction: We’re giving out free ponies here. But the math matters a lot because the money has to come from somewhere. Under any kind of UBI scheme, you’re sending checks not just to existing benefit recipients but to a wide host of working poor and middle class families. Which sounds great except for the fact that you have to get that money from taxing those people to start with.
Which is pretty much exactly what I said.
I'll also gently point out that Murray's proposal (discussed in your first article) is net $10k/year. At an hourly rate, that's far less than the current minimum wage that we're regularly informed isn't enough to live on -- the $15/hr movement annualizes to about 3x that. It beggars belief that a UBI system equivalent to $5/hr would suddenly be accepted as adequate. So if it were instituted, there would immediately be screaming/rioting/etc. to increase it -- substantially. An intellectually honest proposal will need to factor that in.
In short, money doesn't grow on trees. UBI proposals are going to have to thoughtfully address that fact to get taken seriously.
Don't know why the same system wouldn't work for everyone. Just increase the SS tax and give everyone a basic income.
It wouldn't work for all kinds of reasons. Most notably, workers pay the SS tax throughout their working lives (40-45 years) and only receive benefits for about 10-15 years. That ratio of tax period to benefits period is part of what allows the system to work even as well as it currently does.
Your proposal would actually invert the ratio of tax period to benefits period (~60 years of payments for ~45 years of work). Back-of-the-envelope suggests the SS tax rate would have to increase ~5-fold (to ~65%!) to support that.
All of these you can do without internet access but life is so much more convenient with it....just like every other utility.
I suppose at bottom we're debating a matter of degree. That said, I think it's a bit melodramatic to compare a household without Internet access to one lit by oil lamps and warmed by a wood-burning stove. The former is on a far higher Maslowian tier than the latter.
Volvo is a high-end, low-volume manufacturer. Worldwide sales are about half a million out of total worldwide sales of nearly 90 million.
Whether this is a smart move in their chosen market segment remains to be seen. But it's not going to noticeably move the needle in the overall market.
Anonymous coward is right.
The topic, if you'd like to try to catch up, is whether having an Internet connection in your house is a convenience or a necessity. The fact that certain employers will only take job applications through the Internet does not make an Internet connection in your house a necessity. There are plenty of places people can get free Internet to engage in infrequent transactions like job applications. None of your ad-hominem-laden invective changes that.
Try to have a better day than you're currently allowing yourself to have.
No, it is a utility just like gas, water and electricity.
We're less than 20 years from AOL CDs, brother. The Internet has not suddenly transformed into a basic utility in that timeframe. It's still very much a convenience. "I want it" does not make it a necessity.
and while an internet connection might be regarded as a luxury while camping it isn't really a luxury anymore for everyday life.
See above. People lose perspective so quickly.
The judge didn't say Facebook "can do" anything. The judge said the plaintiffs can't pursue certain specific legal theories against Facebook, but can pursue others:
The plaintiffs cannot bring privacy and wiretapping claims again, Davila said, but can pursue a breach of contract claim again.
19-year-old couple, 3 year old daughter, one in the oven - and you expect responsible behaviour on the internet?
Yes, I quite reasonably expect a young adult couple not to point guns at each other and pull the trigger simply because they had unprotected sex a few years ago.
Oh, and finally, the program under which the Federal government provided loan guarantees to Solyndra actually made a profit for the US government.
Without the underlying numbers, "made a profit" is a meaningless statement. If you take a look at the Dept. of Energy's own rosy projections, you see that even they are not predicting the program will turn an actual (inflation-adjusted) profit.
For a loan portfolio around $30 billion, they're predicting $5 billion in interest payments over the entire term of the program, with average loan terms around 25 years. That $5 billion apparently does not account for defaults (over half a billion already over the first several years of the program, with around 20 years to go even assuming they haven't issued new loans since this 2014 report), but let's be super-generous and say they ultimately net the entire $5 billion. That's an average annual return of about 1.25% on the program's capital at risk -- not even enough to keep pace with inflation.
That's a disastrous return on invested capital that no investor in their right mind would consider (1) a success or (2) something worth even thinking about repeating.
I think I can safely predict that even you wouldn't voluntarily put your retirement savings into a fund that couldn't even keep up with inflation over a 25-year period.
if you think states should decide this, maybe you also think states should allow slavery again? or that child labor is 'ok' in some states.
Barely 50 posts, and we're soooooo close to Godwin... come on now, don't disappoint.
3D printed structural parts have been in use for more than a decade, including in military aircraft. It is proven technology.
Then TFA's description of Norsk's specific process as a "novel approach" and "cutting-edge technology" seems a bit off. Are you sure it's exactly the same process that has been around for a decade plus? If not, then giving the FAA until sometime in 2018 to get their arms around it doesn't seem crazy to me.
no one would have names until they were 12 twelve
Perhaps not the strongest way to end a post complaining about unnecessary redundancies....
I have zero interest in flying in an airplane using parts that have the least bit to do with the aerodynamics or structural integrity of the airplane that are rushed to market simply because they're using a Cool New Process that coincidentally happens to be cheaper.