You're using the same roads, bridges, schools and hospitals.
No, I'm not: - A lot of the very rich people don't use roads and bridges very much. For example, Paul Krugman relates driving in for a meeting in New York with some banker types, and making small talk commented on how bad the traffic was. The bankers were confused, because they'd gotten to the meeting by helicopter. If they do use the road, it's a good guess that they have a chauffeur doing the driving.
- They absolutely don't use the public school system. Their kids are likely to attend exclusive and expensive boarding schools.
- They may be in the same hospital building, but they get very different treatment from what you or I get. That's because your average Joe is as valuable to a hospital as his insurance policy, but a rich guy is worth far more.
For those kids who don't know what that's all about: Back about 5 years ago, Roland Piquepaille, an enthusiastic tech writer, was submitting dozens of stories a day to Slashdot, and they were all linking back to his blog. The suspicion was that he was trying to increase his blog's Google rank and advance his career by piggybacking on/.'s relatively good reputation.
Roland died in 2009, so this is a bit of a dated joke.
That's all part of the corporate culture that treats shareholders, employees, fellow citizens, etc as "little people". The only people that actually matter in that world are upper management of major corporations, lobbyists, corrupted current / former politicians, and corrupted regulators, in approximately that order. This is George Carlin's "It's a big club, and you ain't in it." Journalists spend most of their time with people in the Big Club and depend on their relationships to people in the Big Club for their careers, and thus tend to present the worldview from inside the Big Club (some also erroneously believe themselves to be part of the Big Club, but they aren't, they're PR people for the Big Club).
This leads naturally to the idea that any challenge to the people in the Big Club from anyone outside it constitutes some sort of insurrection or revolt. The Big Club protects its own, regardless of where that challenge comes from or what the law says about who's right and who's wrong.
On the other hand, when a company pays a large amount of money to acquire something, whoever supported the acquisition it is on the hook for proving that whatever they bought was worth the money. One way those people can delay the day of reckoning on a bad investment is to convince the higher-ups that if you just give it more time and money you can make it worth something.
I do not believe in God. I am not an atheist though, I just don't care about the existence of God, or not.
This position is either agnostic atheism or apatheism, depending on whether you find the existence of God to be at all worthy of any of your attention. It's basically either "I don't know, so I'll act like there isn't a God", or "I don't know and I really don't care".
That's a different position from strong atheism, which specifically declares that there is no God.
(x) It has no impact on political robo-calls, which are the vast majority of robo-calls made and are unsurprisingly, completely legal.
No, they aren't. Most robo-calls are commercial scammers: Rachel from Cardholder Services, fake cruises, etc. Although I could understand how you, like me, have difficulty telling the difference between a scammer and a politician.
What exactly is wrong with practicing to or actually killing animals?
It depends on the animal, how you kill it, and what you do with it. For example, killing deer (and then eating the venison, making stuff from the hide, etc) makes sense. Killing endangered mountain gorillas, not so much, as that's usually done just so some rich guy can get a trophy on his wall. Spraying chemicals that kill bees (as it turns out farmers have been doing for a while now) is downright dangerous, because no bees leads to no flowering plants leads to a lot less food for people.
One of my coworkers regularly shoots at the local range and teaches concealed carry classes. He keeps guns so that: 1. He can kill criminals if he needs to defend himself. 2. He can fight effectively against the US Army if they turn on the civilian population.
He's never shot anyone, but he's prepared to do so and feels safer if he can present a lethal threat to those around him.
The purpose of killing people is reflected in the design of some guns: A 9 mm is neither made for hunting nor commonly used to hunt.
Hominids aren't adapted to out-fighting, out-running or out-hiding big cats either, but I'm fairly sure lions and tigers exist alongside human beings.
Hominids have lots of ways of dealing with big cats that don't work as well against dinosaurs: - They can outfight the smaller ones. For instance, modern humans have beaten mountain lions barehanded. - Hominids are much better at climbing than the larger big cats. That helps a lot against animals that can reach about 4 meters high, not so much against predators reaching 10-12 meters up. - Hominids all knew how to throw rocks, and fairly early on invented simple spears and clubs. Against lions, tigers, and other large mammals, these were all pretty effective tools. Against a bone-armored dinosaur, not so much.
The mammals that we absolutely know were coexisting with dinosaurs tended to be small enough to hide from them by burrowing.
It is a decent, but non scientific, philosophical question.
No, it's not a decent question. Hominids are in no way adapted to out-fighting, out-running, or out-hiding dinosaurs, and no group of hominids would last long enough among dinosaurs to out-smart them. That's why they didn't coexist.
It always amazes me that so many people are willing to credulousness accept "statistics" like that from total propaganda.
All available evidence suggests that your average Cuban is literate, doesn't lose children in infancy, and has access to medical care that international organizations routinely rate as highly effective and remarkably low-cost.
For what it's worth, my mother took several trips to the more rural areas of Cuba in the early 1990's, during the worst of the post-Soviet depression they went through, and the people she met were universally literate, fairly healthy, and had enough to eat. They felt safe enough from the government that they could crack subtle jokes at Fidel Castro's expense in private homes (and yes, they had decently confortable private homes). The core of their health care system was the village doctor who lived just down the block and not only cared for everyone who lived there but also promoted public health and sanitation. The Americans on the trip were not followed around by government minders or anything like that. As part of the same program, several Cubans came to the US, and several other Americans made different trips to Cuba over a decade.
The general impression I get: Florida is a paradise compared to Cuba. Cuba is a paradise compared to Haiti, Hondurus, and many other Latin American countries. GDP per capita tells a pretty clear story: US - $48,000 Cuba - $9,900 Haiti - $1,200 Hondurus - $4,400 (all numbers from CIA estimates)
The other part of the story: The US government and the Cuban exiles in Miami have been demonizing Castro's government for over 50 years, so it's hardly surprising that most Americans have a very warped idea of what Cuba is actually like.
We all know inflation on the dollar is crazy and trending toward never getting better.
We don't "all know" that, because it's not true. Inflation is at about 2% and has been basically unchanged since 1984 or so. Any ideas to the contrary are primarily in the minds of those who have a financial interest in convincing people holding dollars to buy some other kind of asset e.g. Glenn Beck and his gold interests.
Actually, anyone who pays any kind of attention to the history of the banking industry. The idea of using banks to steal money from depositors or governments or borrowers is about as old as the idea of banks.
Either you're holding a bunch of bitcoins and trying to boost their value, or you are a sucker.
As soon as you think that a bubble can't pop, you get in and stay in longer than you should. Bitcoins, like any other currency, only have value when people are willing to exchange something for them. A piece of paper saying "One Dollar" has no inherent value, only a social value, as many Bitcoin fans correctly point out. Their mistake is thinking that a chunk of bits valued at "One Bitcoin" have any inherent value either.
Some big-ticket assets that have inherent value include: - Land - Houses - A rail car's worth of feed corn - Cattle You get the idea. It's either something you can directly use, or something you can use to make something else you can use.
Slashdot Mirror
You're using the same roads, bridges, schools and hospitals.
No, I'm not:
- A lot of the very rich people don't use roads and bridges very much. For example, Paul Krugman relates driving in for a meeting in New York with some banker types, and making small talk commented on how bad the traffic was. The bankers were confused, because they'd gotten to the meeting by helicopter. If they do use the road, it's a good guess that they have a chauffeur doing the driving.
- They absolutely don't use the public school system. Their kids are likely to attend exclusive and expensive boarding schools.
- They may be in the same hospital building, but they get very different treatment from what you or I get. That's because your average Joe is as valuable to a hospital as his insurance policy, but a rich guy is worth far more.
For those kids who don't know what that's all about: Back about 5 years ago, Roland Piquepaille, an enthusiastic tech writer, was submitting dozens of stories a day to Slashdot, and they were all linking back to his blog. The suspicion was that he was trying to increase his blog's Google rank and advance his career by piggybacking on /.'s relatively good reputation.
Roland died in 2009, so this is a bit of a dated joke.
I, on the other hand, am content to have Samuel L Jackson reading my obit.
Especially when it was pointed out to him that this was a different kind of pinhead.
That's all part of the corporate culture that treats shareholders, employees, fellow citizens, etc as "little people". The only people that actually matter in that world are upper management of major corporations, lobbyists, corrupted current / former politicians, and corrupted regulators, in approximately that order. This is George Carlin's "It's a big club, and you ain't in it." Journalists spend most of their time with people in the Big Club and depend on their relationships to people in the Big Club for their careers, and thus tend to present the worldview from inside the Big Club (some also erroneously believe themselves to be part of the Big Club, but they aren't, they're PR people for the Big Club).
This leads naturally to the idea that any challenge to the people in the Big Club from anyone outside it constitutes some sort of insurrection or revolt. The Big Club protects its own, regardless of where that challenge comes from or what the law says about who's right and who's wrong.
On the other hand, when a company pays a large amount of money to acquire something, whoever supported the acquisition it is on the hook for proving that whatever they bought was worth the money. One way those people can delay the day of reckoning on a bad investment is to convince the higher-ups that if you just give it more time and money you can make it worth something.
I bet it isn't an English accent...
Not necessarily: Most scammers are from the Third World, e.g. Yorkshire.
Jobs and Zuckerberg, not so much, but Gates by all accounts could code reasonably well and had a good nose for architecture issues.
I am too, but that doesn't stop him from thinking differently.
I do not believe in God. I am not an atheist though, I just don't care about the existence of God, or not.
This position is either agnostic atheism or apatheism, depending on whether you find the existence of God to be at all worthy of any of your attention. It's basically either "I don't know, so I'll act like there isn't a God", or "I don't know and I really don't care".
That's a different position from strong atheism, which specifically declares that there is no God.
(x) It has no impact on political robo-calls, which are the vast majority of robo-calls made and are unsurprisingly, completely legal.
No, they aren't. Most robo-calls are commercial scammers: Rachel from Cardholder Services, fake cruises, etc. Although I could understand how you, like me, have difficulty telling the difference between a scammer and a politician.
What exactly is wrong with practicing to or actually killing animals?
It depends on the animal, how you kill it, and what you do with it. For example, killing deer (and then eating the venison, making stuff from the hide, etc) makes sense. Killing endangered mountain gorillas, not so much, as that's usually done just so some rich guy can get a trophy on his wall. Spraying chemicals that kill bees (as it turns out farmers have been doing for a while now) is downright dangerous, because no bees leads to no flowering plants leads to a lot less food for people.
Mine are for hunting and sport shooting.
One of my coworkers regularly shoots at the local range and teaches concealed carry classes. He keeps guns so that:
1. He can kill criminals if he needs to defend himself.
2. He can fight effectively against the US Army if they turn on the civilian population.
He's never shot anyone, but he's prepared to do so and feels safer if he can present a lethal threat to those around him.
The purpose of killing people is reflected in the design of some guns: A 9 mm is neither made for hunting nor commonly used to hunt.
Hominids aren't adapted to out-fighting, out-running or out-hiding big cats either, but I'm fairly sure lions and tigers exist alongside human beings.
Hominids have lots of ways of dealing with big cats that don't work as well against dinosaurs:
- They can outfight the smaller ones. For instance, modern humans have beaten mountain lions barehanded.
- Hominids are much better at climbing than the larger big cats. That helps a lot against animals that can reach about 4 meters high, not so much against predators reaching 10-12 meters up.
- Hominids all knew how to throw rocks, and fairly early on invented simple spears and clubs. Against lions, tigers, and other large mammals, these were all pretty effective tools. Against a bone-armored dinosaur, not so much.
The mammals that we absolutely know were coexisting with dinosaurs tended to be small enough to hide from them by burrowing.
Well, it's not surprising a prosecutor named McCracken would be rather harsh. If you want a laid-back prosecutor, you need McPotten.
It goes along with the US government having a Department of Justice.
It is a decent, but non scientific, philosophical question.
No, it's not a decent question. Hominids are in no way adapted to out-fighting, out-running, or out-hiding dinosaurs, and no group of hominids would last long enough among dinosaurs to out-smart them. That's why they didn't coexist.
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Vs lbh nfxrq Oehpr Fpuarvre gb qrpelcg guvf, ur'q pehfu lbhe fxhyy jvgu uvf ynhtu.
It always amazes me that so many people are willing to credulousness accept "statistics" like that from total propaganda.
All available evidence suggests that your average Cuban is literate, doesn't lose children in infancy, and has access to medical care that international organizations routinely rate as highly effective and remarkably low-cost.
For what it's worth, my mother took several trips to the more rural areas of Cuba in the early 1990's, during the worst of the post-Soviet depression they went through, and the people she met were universally literate, fairly healthy, and had enough to eat. They felt safe enough from the government that they could crack subtle jokes at Fidel Castro's expense in private homes (and yes, they had decently confortable private homes). The core of their health care system was the village doctor who lived just down the block and not only cared for everyone who lived there but also promoted public health and sanitation. The Americans on the trip were not followed around by government minders or anything like that. As part of the same program, several Cubans came to the US, and several other Americans made different trips to Cuba over a decade.
The general impression I get: Florida is a paradise compared to Cuba. Cuba is a paradise compared to Haiti, Hondurus, and many other Latin American countries. GDP per capita tells a pretty clear story: US - $48,000 Cuba - $9,900 Haiti - $1,200 Hondurus - $4,400 (all numbers from CIA estimates)
The other part of the story: The US government and the Cuban exiles in Miami have been demonizing Castro's government for over 50 years, so it's hardly surprising that most Americans have a very warped idea of what Cuba is actually like.
We all know inflation on the dollar is crazy and trending toward never getting better.
We don't "all know" that, because it's not true. Inflation is at about 2% and has been basically unchanged since 1984 or so. Any ideas to the contrary are primarily in the minds of those who have a financial interest in convincing people holding dollars to buy some other kind of asset e.g. Glenn Beck and his gold interests.
Actually, anyone who pays any kind of attention to the history of the banking industry. The idea of using banks to steal money from depositors or governments or borrowers is about as old as the idea of banks.
Constituents concerns can be tablulated by computer to steer voting in the Congress and Senate.
I like this: tyranny of the geeks who can hack the computers.
Either you're holding a bunch of bitcoins and trying to boost their value, or you are a sucker.
As soon as you think that a bubble can't pop, you get in and stay in longer than you should. Bitcoins, like any other currency, only have value when people are willing to exchange something for them. A piece of paper saying "One Dollar" has no inherent value, only a social value, as many Bitcoin fans correctly point out. Their mistake is thinking that a chunk of bits valued at "One Bitcoin" have any inherent value either.
Some big-ticket assets that have inherent value include:
- Land
- Houses
- A rail car's worth of feed corn
- Cattle
You get the idea. It's either something you can directly use, or something you can use to make something else you can use.
Hail Caesar!
In honor of Good Friday, and Monty Python, Hail Thaethar!