That's not Pink Floyd! That's Rump Pink Floyd!
Not wanting to rub it in but being a bastard: That's one of those "Pink Floyd" albums that actually has not traces of Roger Waters in it. So it is perfectly safe to listen to it if you are highly allergic to him.
Also no traces of nuts. If you want those, I'd suggest Syd Barretts own "Opel".
... There's a reason we're increasingly the laughing stock not just of Europe (where we've always been seen as quaint and ridiculous) but now even in places like the Pacific Rim and parts of Latin America that we still believe engage in a kind of colonial worship of us.
Don't take names to yourself. Europe has gone through a lot an the US is still relatively young. Those are teething problems.
Which of course is offensive sanctimonious bullcrap.
The truth is it is simple bashing what we don't understand. Which is stupid. It's the nature of the ape of flinging poo at each other. But we have become better apes so we manage to throw poo all over the Atlantic. Either way.
Could be worse. We could still threaten to fling nuclear missiles, Kissinger or Genscher at each other.
>He also has access to an amazing amount of healthcare.
True. But after 50 years with that disease I think the luck-factor is even more amazing.
That and tenacity
When my dad faced the choice of constantly being dependent on dialysis or death, he simply got his affairs in order. It takes a lot of strength to go on like that and I marvel that he actually has it. I certainly would not. But I consider myself a lesser man of humbler capacities.
On the contrary. I think they still are kids.
Think of the capacity for idiocy as a function over age. You'd get a huge increase during puberty, a slow decline at age 20 and a long tail after that.
But at any point of time the capacity for idiocy never falls beneath 100%. We are born drooling idiots, we become blithering idiots, continue to be being grumpy idiots and end up being dead idiots(for which the accepted professional term seems to be "sadly misunderstood genius"). Having realized this fact of life the thought construct of "accountability" has been introduced. Which of course proves my earlier claim that we are idiots and embrace our idiocy and even codify the workarounds for our idiocy.
So having some kind of safety net is indeed something that might be in order. Which you shouldn't view as riding on the back of the public since we all did this at one point. What comes around goes around.
I think calling ourselves "homo sapiens"(or in the likelyhood of somebody protesting "hetero sapiens") might be wishful thinking.
It is.
That's why for the past 20 years there have been huge, grueling and major changes at least in Germany and the UK.
Especially in Germany everything no matter how minute is covered by a catalogue of measures, how long they should take and how much they do cost. I double dare you to try to implement something like this in the US. You'd be shot way before dawn.
While the necessity for some kind of change in the wake of changing demographics was undisputed we of course had a tremendous row over it. And don't think the tone was not as shrill as in the US.
I can't mod since I've been posting here but this is the single most insightful thing said on that topic.
And also quite obvious.
The current debate with all of its shrill overtones are just teething problems. There is no doubt there will be something changed in the long term. But it will be a US solution. Unique, flawed and functional as in any western country.
Will you get to choose if you join some healthcare system or not? Propably.
Even if you are too poor to afford it? Certainly.
Will you die in the gutter if you don't? Certainly not.
Will you be bankrupt? Propably.
Health insurance is not an insurance to be properly cared for. This isn't the dark ages! If it were then it would be a matter of national shame. And it would make national headlines.
It's an insurance not to go bankrupt. That's all there is to it. Same as any insurance since the history of forever.
True that. Even the arch-socialist Germany has two healthcare schemes. One is for the masses and based on your status and income income and heavily, heavily regulated. The other one is actually commercial. As in: in the business of making money. Warts and all.
Having either of the two is mandatory.
Both have one thing in common: sharing the load on as many shoulders as possible.
And I will spell it out since it is a popular myth: refusing treatment for a life threatening condition is actually a criminal offense in the US. Don't expect to be treated too kindly if you are convicted of something like that. Same goes for simply stepping over somebody who is dying in a gutter.
The basic idea of having and maintaining a nation is based on people working together.
The crushing-our-enemies bit surely can't be all we aspire to?
And how on earth does this demand/supply thing in Capitalism work? We don't have enough people who work in healthcare. Do we
a)increase the price
or
b)see the market opportunity and send our kids into med school
The whole notion that medical treatment is a limited resource is preposterous. Wake me up when 75% of the population need immediate medical attention and the other 25% work in healthcare. This is not a battlefield where you do only have limited medical attention to give. This is supposed to be a self balancing system. And in some way it is because everybody has the right to choose his own profession. This is not a huge issue even with the access to training for such a profession or even qualifying for the training not being equally distributed. But even if the situation is not ideal you will only get the old paint-an-x-on-his-forehead-and shove-him-into-the-broom-cabinet treatment in case of a real and MASSIVE disaster of epic proportions. You'd notice it.
I think the current discussion about health care has taken a turn towards the outright despicable within the US. Especially the rumor of "death panels" is very, very nasty indeed. Nobody gets the triage treatment. Not now not ever. That would be a matter of national shame. How come that all political campaigns are fear based at the moment? Has the US become a nation of whimps?
Hint: it has not. This fear mongering isn't striking a chord with most US citizens when they see the effect it has.
I don't know if the broken window theory has any merit. And frankly that's besides the point.
As a matter of fact it is a good idea to keep an area clean and well maintained. And I'm not talking about sidewalks and crumbling facades. I'm talking about sending building inspectors into the houses and taking a good look at business papers from local shop owners.
Also misdemeanors should result in local community service. If you are caught urinating next to some house then you should spend 20 hours with a shovel and a plastic bag in your own neighbourhood. It may sound petty but once you spent a hunderd hours picking up litter around your block then you will sure as hell don't drop your Big Mac wrappers around there.It doesn't matter if this really does stop crime. But it will give the inhabitants a feeling of investment in their block.
Also non-functional street lights are out of the question. A city council can't simply pick where it wants to react promptly. There is no valid excuse for broken streetlights whatsoever. And if the place becomes unruly during the night then patrol it. On foot. Don't tolerate any misdemeanor. That includes making a racket during the night when most people want to sleep. No fines. No week in prison. 20 hours community service. If you do not have enough coppers for it then have private security patrol the area in groups of four. They'd call any petty thing in since they can't book anybody. But they should be cheaper. Just don't hire one of the usual rent-a-Nazi outfits.
This may or may not make real crime go away but at least it's worth the effort.
That's basically what Rudy Guiliani did. And in hindsight it is pretty obvious. If the city council gives up on the city then the inhabitants will, too.
Oh dear, you are a sly one, aren't you?
Nobody has ever won an argument on the internet and it is completely valid to walk away when somebody comes over as a bit of a prat. .
Mr Coward, eh? I once watched a movie starring Noel Coward. Are you by chance related?
There is no political correctness in statistics and science. In fact, political correctness will have a restraining order matching the one handed to religion once I take over the world.
In the meantime, if all you do with those figures is planning routes and determine housing prices then the country goes to hell in a handbasket. And rightfully so. But it might cost a bit of money spent on poor people and landlords might be forced to paint the facades and do something about the plumbing. So the same people who complain about bad spots will be the same who complain about the measures against it.
Hypocrisy is one ironic mother.
Did they catch that dirty rat fink bastard who broke your car? They have DNA samples, finger prints, the lot. That'll get him one strike, a couple years in the slammer and a proper education how to nick the merchandize instead of rendering it unsellable. You can't beat a proper education when you want to earn a living.
I know the broken window theory. It's disputed because it mixes correlation with causation. And recent studies don't quite support it. I remember there was a story about this a couple of years ago but I can't quite remember what it was.
But I do remember being surprised since it sounded so plausible.
We should take inspiration from StarCraft 2. If you are Terran, don't step on the creep. It's darn inconsiderate of those "Crisps"(what a shoddy name) not to spread creep so we know where they are at.
You could simply say that that particular district is supposed to be covered by another branch. Very hard to disprove. If they catch you on that lie then you thank them for the heads up and say that that mistake has cost you quite a bit of business.
Indeed
Most "bad neighborhoods" have an improvement plan. Especially after the local council deems it might have not been wise to have a whole neighbourhood consisting purely of council housing with no rozzers anywhere neare there at night because it might be a bit tedious. Having those places blacklisted by some idiotic scheme won't help one jot.
Need I point out that intently staring at a brightly lit mobile studying how bad your surroundings are might not be such a good idea? Hell, I'd even mug you myself even if I can't fathom why I would want a Windows phone. Might as well nail your ears to your knees just to make sure you get a better view of your bum.
Yeah, places can change a lot between day and night. And simply assuming you will be mugged because you are in what's supposed to be a rotten neighbourhood will make you ooze fear and contempt.
I have a similar story only slightly more idiotic.
A colleage and I had a had a 6 months gig in Derby. Since Nottingham is only a stone throw away we decided to have a night-out in this astonishing but also slightly infamous city. Now, I wouldn't call my colleage street-smart. So there we were. At 10pm in some dark inner city alley in Notts sometimes November. And we were a bit lost.So he unfolds right then and there, I kid you not, a street plan. In the dark alley. 10 metres away from two shady figures hanging out in a dark doorway. As I inched away from my colleague fully prepared to leg it and leave him to his Darwin award they started to saunter towards us.
-Hey there, mate!
-Goot evenink(My colleage had a very thick German accent. The thing is, Germans are not as popular in England as you might think. Shocking, I know...)
-You lost?
That's where I took over. Survival instincts, I guess.
-Actually yes. There's supposed to be a place that has live music at this hour but we can't quite locate it. *shows the name that I had written down*
-Yep, I know it. It's a cool place.
-Say, you lot look bored. Come with us. My treat.
-Ok.By the way, mate, unfolding a map like you just did is not very clever.
Turned out they too had watched the latest episode of Top Gear and we prepared a list of preopsterous complaints the BBC would get for JC driving that Range Rover up that hill. Bullshit bingo British. The complaints turned out to be even beyond our wits having been sharpend by multiple pints of bitter.
Easy as that. They could also have been 'orrible muggers and I swear to god, I was prepared to run as hell. Might have had to if we had mentioned that we quite liked Derby and wanted to see how the other half lives.
tl;dr:
Don't do anything idiotic.Be relaxed but watchful. Bring a mate and make sure you get a head start in case you have to leg it. As my dad used to say: Son, If you go on a journey, don't bring anything you aren't prepared to lose.
No, dude. It's...you know... when you are...like... new in town, yaknowwaddamean? And you need to score...like... you know... some weed then that's totally awesome, dude. You could score a whole barn of weed...
Hehe, want a toke on this?
Something along that line. Or maybe prostitutes. Or really cheap kebaps. Or every inner city bus stop that's ever been in existence since the history of forever.
I don't think there's an app for that. You will need local knowledge. And some common sense. Unpacking your Android 3g 10.1'' tablet and firing up Google maps at 2am in a dark corner of Nottingham in plain sight of two shady figures might not be a good idea. You'll be lit up like a christmas tree and might as well hold up a billboard saying "You can has Win7 tablet". They might stroll over to you and ask you if you are lost and give you the correct directions. Then again, they might not.
For all intents and purposes teens and idiotic 20 somethings who think gaining anything by force is a sustainable way of living are a rather sad sight to behold. Unfortunately they tend to clump together making neighbourhoods indeed go bad.
But as long education costs money which is to be coughed up by those who need education to actually earn money we fat lazy comfortable bastards can bitch and moan as much as we want.
Cool. Another proposal for a technical solution for a social problem. Spot on, Microsoft! Well done!
Dunno. Perhaps Blizzard should design those uniforms. That would include all kinds of skulls and should satisfy even the most picky TSA employee. Furthermore, they need fangs protruding from their lower jaw and a greenish skin tone.
"Mum, mum! That ork fondled me bum."
Yep, nothing to be seen here.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not Pink Floyd! That's Rump Pink Floyd!
Not wanting to rub it in but being a bastard: That's one of those "Pink Floyd" albums that actually has not traces of Roger Waters in it. So it is perfectly safe to listen to it if you are highly allergic to him.
Also no traces of nuts. If you want those, I'd suggest Syd Barretts own "Opel".
... There's a reason we're increasingly the laughing stock not just of Europe (where we've always been seen as quaint and ridiculous) but now even in places like the Pacific Rim and parts of Latin America that we still believe engage in a kind of colonial worship of us.
Don't take names to yourself. Europe has gone through a lot an the US is still relatively young. Those are teething problems.
Which of course is offensive sanctimonious bullcrap.
The truth is it is simple bashing what we don't understand. Which is stupid. It's the nature of the ape of flinging poo at each other. But we have become better apes so we manage to throw poo all over the Atlantic. Either way.
Could be worse. We could still threaten to fling nuclear missiles, Kissinger or Genscher at each other.
>He also has access to an amazing amount of healthcare.
True. But after 50 years with that disease I think the luck-factor is even more amazing.
That and tenacity
When my dad faced the choice of constantly being dependent on dialysis or death, he simply got his affairs in order. It takes a lot of strength to go on like that and I marvel that he actually has it. I certainly would not. But I consider myself a lesser man of humbler capacities.
Whoopsie daisy. Right reply to wrong comment.
I'm such a moran.
On the contrary. I think they still are kids.
Think of the capacity for idiocy as a function over age. You'd get a huge increase during puberty, a slow decline at age 20 and a long tail after that.
But at any point of time the capacity for idiocy never falls beneath 100%. We are born drooling idiots, we become blithering idiots, continue to be being grumpy idiots and end up being dead idiots(for which the accepted professional term seems to be "sadly misunderstood genius"). Having realized this fact of life the thought construct of "accountability" has been introduced. Which of course proves my earlier claim that we are idiots and embrace our idiocy and even codify the workarounds for our idiocy.
So having some kind of safety net is indeed something that might be in order. Which you shouldn't view as riding on the back of the public since we all did this at one point. What comes around goes around.
I think calling ourselves "homo sapiens"(or in the likelyhood of somebody protesting "hetero sapiens") might be wishful thinking.
It is.
That's why for the past 20 years there have been huge, grueling and major changes at least in Germany and the UK.
Especially in Germany everything no matter how minute is covered by a catalogue of measures, how long they should take and how much they do cost. I double dare you to try to implement something like this in the US. You'd be shot way before dawn.
While the necessity for some kind of change in the wake of changing demographics was undisputed we of course had a tremendous row over it. And don't think the tone was not as shrill as in the US.
Oh wow!
I can't mod since I've been posting here but this is the single most insightful thing said on that topic.
And also quite obvious.
The current debate with all of its shrill overtones are just teething problems. There is no doubt there will be something changed in the long term. But it will be a US solution. Unique, flawed and functional as in any western country.
Will you get to choose if you join some healthcare system or not? Propably.
Even if you are too poor to afford it? Certainly.
Will you die in the gutter if you don't? Certainly not.
Will you be bankrupt? Propably.
Health insurance is not an insurance to be properly cared for. This isn't the dark ages! If it were then it would be a matter of national shame. And it would make national headlines.
It's an insurance not to go bankrupt. That's all there is to it. Same as any insurance since the history of forever.
Letting your fellow countrymen die on the street from wholly preventable conditions is a worse evil.
...and a criminal offence, actually.
True that. Even the arch-socialist Germany has two healthcare schemes. One is for the masses and based on your status and income income and heavily, heavily regulated. The other one is actually commercial. As in: in the business of making money. Warts and all.
Having either of the two is mandatory.
Both have one thing in common: sharing the load on as many shoulders as possible.
And I will spell it out since it is a popular myth: refusing treatment for a life threatening condition is actually a criminal offense in the US. Don't expect to be treated too kindly if you are convicted of something like that. Same goes for simply stepping over somebody who is dying in a gutter.
We allow protest so democracy doesn't become a dictatorship of the majority.
Every voice must be heard and if the concerns are valid(as opposed to vapid) then they need to be taken into account.
The basic idea of having and maintaining a nation is based on people working together.
The crushing-our-enemies bit surely can't be all we aspire to?
And how on earth does this demand/supply thing in Capitalism work? We don't have enough people who work in healthcare. Do we
a)increase the price
or
b)see the market opportunity and send our kids into med school
The whole notion that medical treatment is a limited resource is preposterous. Wake me up when 75% of the population need immediate medical attention and the other 25% work in healthcare. This is not a battlefield where you do only have limited medical attention to give. This is supposed to be a self balancing system. And in some way it is because everybody has the right to choose his own profession. This is not a huge issue even with the access to training for such a profession or even qualifying for the training not being equally distributed. But even if the situation is not ideal you will only get the old paint-an-x-on-his-forehead-and shove-him-into-the-broom-cabinet treatment in case of a real and MASSIVE disaster of epic proportions. You'd notice it.
I think the current discussion about health care has taken a turn towards the outright despicable within the US. Especially the rumor of "death panels" is very, very nasty indeed. Nobody gets the triage treatment. Not now not ever. That would be a matter of national shame. How come that all political campaigns are fear based at the moment? Has the US become a nation of whimps?
Hint: it has not. This fear mongering isn't striking a chord with most US citizens when they see the effect it has.
Being lame I respond to myself.
I don't know if the broken window theory has any merit. And frankly that's besides the point.
As a matter of fact it is a good idea to keep an area clean and well maintained. And I'm not talking about sidewalks and crumbling facades. I'm talking about sending building inspectors into the houses and taking a good look at business papers from local shop owners.
Also misdemeanors should result in local community service. If you are caught urinating next to some house then you should spend 20 hours with a shovel and a plastic bag in your own neighbourhood. It may sound petty but once you spent a hunderd hours picking up litter around your block then you will sure as hell don't drop your Big Mac wrappers around there.It doesn't matter if this really does stop crime. But it will give the inhabitants a feeling of investment in their block.
Also non-functional street lights are out of the question. A city council can't simply pick where it wants to react promptly. There is no valid excuse for broken streetlights whatsoever. And if the place becomes unruly during the night then patrol it. On foot. Don't tolerate any misdemeanor. That includes making a racket during the night when most people want to sleep. No fines. No week in prison. 20 hours community service. If you do not have enough coppers for it then have private security patrol the area in groups of four. They'd call any petty thing in since they can't book anybody. But they should be cheaper. Just don't hire one of the usual rent-a-Nazi outfits.
This may or may not make real crime go away but at least it's worth the effort.
That's basically what Rudy Guiliani did. And in hindsight it is pretty obvious. If the city council gives up on the city then the inhabitants will, too.
That's really fucked up when things get so out of hands. How long has that gone on? That doesn't sound like a bad neighborhood. That's a warzone!
Oh dear, you are a sly one, aren't you?
Nobody has ever won an argument on the internet and it is completely valid to walk away when somebody comes over as a bit of a prat.
.
Mr Coward, eh? I once watched a movie starring Noel Coward. Are you by chance related?
There is no political correctness in statistics and science. In fact, political correctness will have a restraining order matching the one handed to religion once I take over the world.
In the meantime, if all you do with those figures is planning routes and determine housing prices then the country goes to hell in a handbasket. And rightfully so. But it might cost a bit of money spent on poor people and landlords might be forced to paint the facades and do something about the plumbing. So the same people who complain about bad spots will be the same who complain about the measures against it.
Hypocrisy is one ironic mother.
Did they catch that dirty rat fink bastard who broke your car? They have DNA samples, finger prints, the lot. That'll get him one strike, a couple years in the slammer and a proper education how to nick the merchandize instead of rendering it unsellable. You can't beat a proper education when you want to earn a living.
I know the broken window theory. It's disputed because it mixes correlation with causation. And recent studies don't quite support it. I remember there was a story about this a couple of years ago but I can't quite remember what it was.
But I do remember being surprised since it sounded so plausible.
Except Google will have gone bust since all their shiny robots are in some chop shop resting on bricks instead on wheels.
...or swarm the streat at night just to be picked of by muggers.
We should take inspiration from StarCraft 2. If you are Terran, don't step on the creep. It's darn inconsiderate of those "Crisps"(what a shoddy name) not to spread creep so we know where they are at.
You could simply say that that particular district is supposed to be covered by another branch. Very hard to disprove. If they catch you on that lie then you thank them for the heads up and say that that mistake has cost you quite a bit of business.
Indeed
Most "bad neighborhoods" have an improvement plan. Especially after the local council deems it might have not been wise to have a whole neighbourhood consisting purely of council housing with no rozzers anywhere neare there at night because it might be a bit tedious. Having those places blacklisted by some idiotic scheme won't help one jot.
Need I point out that intently staring at a brightly lit mobile studying how bad your surroundings are might not be such a good idea? Hell, I'd even mug you myself even if I can't fathom why I would want a Windows phone. Might as well nail your ears to your knees just to make sure you get a better view of your bum.
Yeah, places can change a lot between day and night. And simply assuming you will be mugged because you are in what's supposed to be a rotten neighbourhood will make you ooze fear and contempt.
I have a similar story only slightly more idiotic.
A colleage and I had a had a 6 months gig in Derby. Since Nottingham is only a stone throw away we decided to have a night-out in this astonishing but also slightly infamous city. Now, I wouldn't call my colleage street-smart. So there we were. At 10pm in some dark inner city alley in Notts sometimes November. And we were a bit lost.So he unfolds right then and there, I kid you not, a street plan. In the dark alley. 10 metres away from two shady figures hanging out in a dark doorway. As I inched away from my colleague fully prepared to leg it and leave him to his Darwin award they started to saunter towards us.
-Hey there, mate!
-Goot evenink(My colleage had a very thick German accent. The thing is, Germans are not as popular in England as you might think. Shocking, I know...)
-You lost? That's where I took over. Survival instincts, I guess.
-Actually yes. There's supposed to be a place that has live music at this hour but we can't quite locate it. *shows the name that I had written down*
-Yep, I know it. It's a cool place.
-Say, you lot look bored. Come with us. My treat.
-Ok.By the way, mate, unfolding a map like you just did is not very clever.
Turned out they too had watched the latest episode of Top Gear and we prepared a list of preopsterous complaints the BBC would get for JC driving that Range Rover up that hill. Bullshit bingo British. The complaints turned out to be even beyond our wits having been sharpend by multiple pints of bitter.
Easy as that. They could also have been 'orrible muggers and I swear to god, I was prepared to run as hell. Might have had to if we had mentioned that we quite liked Derby and wanted to see how the other half lives.
tl;dr:
Don't do anything idiotic.Be relaxed but watchful. Bring a mate and make sure you get a head start in case you have to leg it. As my dad used to say: Son, If you go on a journey, don't bring anything you aren't prepared to lose.
No, dude. It's ...you know... when you are ...like... new in town, yaknowwaddamean? And you need to score ...like... you know ... some weed then that's totally awesome, dude. You could score a whole barn of weed...
Hehe, want a toke on this?
Something along that line. Or maybe prostitutes. Or really cheap kebaps. Or every inner city bus stop that's ever been in existence since the history of forever.
I don't think there's an app for that. You will need local knowledge. And some common sense. Unpacking your Android 3g 10.1'' tablet and firing up Google maps at 2am in a dark corner of Nottingham in plain sight of two shady figures might not be a good idea. You'll be lit up like a christmas tree and might as well hold up a billboard saying "You can has Win7 tablet". They might stroll over to you and ask you if you are lost and give you the correct directions. Then again, they might not.
For all intents and purposes teens and idiotic 20 somethings who think gaining anything by force is a sustainable way of living are a rather sad sight to behold. Unfortunately they tend to clump together making neighbourhoods indeed go bad.
But as long education costs money which is to be coughed up by those who need education to actually earn money we fat lazy comfortable bastards can bitch and moan as much as we want.
Cool. Another proposal for a technical solution for a social problem. Spot on, Microsoft! Well done!
Dunno. Perhaps Blizzard should design those uniforms. That would include all kinds of skulls and should satisfy even the most picky TSA employee. Furthermore, they need fangs protruding from their lower jaw and a greenish skin tone.
"Mum, mum! That ork fondled me bum."
Yep, nothing to be seen here.