NASA, like many federal agencies, is in violation of the law, Not just the intent of the law, but the law itself. As I posted in a previous "article" here today, where if the EFF?
It is actually not that surprising. These sorts of things happen for the same reason that you occasionally find caches of undelivered junk mail, permit applications sometimes take too long or get "lost," and someone occasionally gets a ticket for going just one mile over the speed limit: government employees, at all levels, are regular people who hate their jobs as much as anybody else and who sometimes have bad days and take out on the public they are there to serve. It sucks, and it is wrong, but some government jobs suck more than others.
FOIA requests are particularly sucky because most federal agencies have rather poor records retention. All the problems that people talk about related to big data are the same sorts of problems that exist with FOIA. In addition to that, agencies who wish to undertake certain activities and ensure that those activities escape official notice by the public can engage in strategies that result in records being misclassified, improperly destroyed, or even never kept in the first place (Hillary Clinton's home email server was a good example of this). So, if you are the person tasked with going around to a bunch of people and departments who think they are too busy to keep proper records (because none of these records are stored in a central, properly indexed, easy to access repository) then the suck factor will make your every day rather miserable.
That said, nobody forces people to work for the government and if they don't like the job they should quit and let someone else do the job who takes the responsibility seriously enough to it properly. The proper application of lawsuits by the EFF and other watchdogs is sadly a necessary component to ensure that the government remains compliant with the law.
The only disadvantage is that you can't easily move it to another phone with the Google app, you basically have to generate new codes for all the services that use it.
In my experience, sites (like Google, Amazon, etc.) tend to allow you to see the actual secret (not just the QR code). I use this to store the secret in my password manager, so that if something were to happen to my phone I could simply input the secrets to another device to maintain access. The only thing I don't like is that Google requires you to have a backup in addition to a primary. If you choose SMS as a backup 2FA method, then you are still sort of in the same boat.
I know that some sites only allow phone-based (i.e., SMS and.or voice) verification. But most of the big ones support things like U2F and TOTP. Why not use those instead?.
I always recommend TOTP to people since you can save the secret and store it in a safe or some other secure location if, for example, you ever lose your phone. Then you can simply load up the authenticator app (pick your favorite) and reload the secret. In fact, I can't think of a major on-line service that offers 2FA or MFA that doesn't offer TOTP support. Of course, there is also U2F and if you want to be really secure you can get something like a YubiKey and not even store the secrets directly on your device. With a phone/tablet that supports NFC you can just have the YubiKey close by or you could plug it into the USB port on your computer if that happens to be more convenient.
The point is that the pain threshold for SMS-based 2FA/MFA is the same as the pain threshold for a TOTP/U2F solution and the TOTP/U2F solution is demonstrably more secure.
So should Coca-cola Company lose their trademark because a bunch of Georgians erroneously call all soft drinks "coke" ?
Hey! We do the same thing in Florida.
El Cubano: (walks into a restaurant and gets a table)
Waiter/waitress: What can I get you to drink?
El Cubano: Coke, please.
Waiter/waitress: What kind of coke would you like?
El Cubano: Ginger ale, please.
Waiter/waitress: OK, I'll be right back with that.
Here is what it is like in New York:
El Cubano: (walks into a restaurant and gets a table)
Waiter/waitress: What can I get you to drink?
El Cubano: Coke, please.
Waiter/waitress: OK, I'll be right back with that.
El Cubano: (thinks to self, but he/she didn't ask what kind of coke I wanted)
Or, even better:
El Cubano: (walks into a restaurant and gets a table)
Waiter/waitress: What can I get you to drink?
El Cubano: Coke, please.
Waiter/waitress: We only have Pepsi products.
El Cubano: (wonders why that factoid is relevant)
Conspiracy theories aside, the evidence points to him being killed when he bailed out of the plane. Some mastermind.
I still wonder about this. The amount of money he demanded ($200,000) seems like it was meant to be large enough to seem like a real demand, but small enough that it could be assembled fairly quickly. I cannot imagine that his real plan was to live out the the rest of his life on that sum, at least not anywhere near civilization. Even 45 years ago I don't think anyone could reasonably expect to live a few decades on that amount.
He likely would have been smart enough to know that every serial number of every bill he was handed would have been recorded. I suspect that the $200,000 was intentionally a red herring and that he quickly disposed of it, knowing that considerable effort would be expended looking for those bills. If I had to guess, I would think that he probably had some other loot already (probably much more than $200,000) somewhere else that was intended to be his real nest egg.
Of course, if what you say about him being killed shortly after leaving the plane then it is sort of moot.
Imagine what all that cash will be worth now with all that interest over the years.
Imagine what all that cash would be worth if the Fed had not been on a money printing binge for the last...well, I don't remember when they haven't been on a money printing binge.
If you wonder what I mean by "money printing binge" then look up "quantitative easing".
I came here to say just that. You might be surprised at just how bad it is.
In most cases, government IT is a dumpster fire. I could go on at length, but the absolute best example of it is the failed FBI Virtual Case File project. IEEE did a very in depth write up of it several years ago.
If I recall correctly, the objective was that the FBI tried implement a system after 9/11 that would allow its field agents to collaborate more effectively than phone calls and non-government email (apparently most field agents used things like Yahoo! and HotMail because they either couldn't get government email accounts or they sucked so badly). After years of ill-defined and constantly changing requirements and $300+ million spent, the project was terminated as a failure and the government actually got nothing out of it. Go read the IEEE story on it for more details.
The problem is that this sort of thing happens constantly with projects of all sizes and scopes. Of course, if you've worked in corporate IT, you will recognize that similar things happen there as well.
We were told how GOP government in Wisconsin was going to create this great economic boom by "unleashing" the free market. Now they're just trying to prop up a Potemkin president by using corporate welfare.
We were also told that the Affordable Care Act would result in an average savings of $2500 per family per year, that the quality of healthcare would improve for everyone, and that if we had a plan and/or doctor that we liked we could keep that plan and/or doctor. It turns out that none of those things were actually true.
I guess life is all about learning to live with disappointments.
Of course, the real point is that neither political party in the US is any good actually doing what they say. It absolutely amazes me at how they both promise things that their constituent base want to hear, their base totally eats it up, and yet the plans that get pushed through always end up as a massive corporate handout. The only difference is which corporations end up receiving the handout.
How much money from state lotteries has gone to the schools it was intended for? Precious little I'm afraid.
Hence my comment about there being a serious problem with fiscal policy. You were more direct than I was.
I remember when Florida instituted its state lottery. There were big promises of more funding for education. What actually happened was that the state legislature basically reduced the general fund budgetary obligation for education funding by whatever amount the state lottery kicked in. In that way, the state lottery became the exact same sort of slush fund you describe, while still technically conforming to the letter of the promise "more funding for schools." It was pretty shady, if you ask me.
The government still needs money to run. And despite what the rich's media outlets tell you there's no magic 'government waste' to cut that makes the need for taxes go away.
Basically, sales tax revenues in Illinois are up 10% over four years. Gas taxes are also up. Granted, income taxes are down. That said, gas taxes go for roads and transportation, so they actually have more funding for that now that tax revenues have gone up. I am sure that income tax revenues being down have some impact, but all those specific taxes being up should mean that those specific things for which the taxes are levied should be in better shape.
Your monthly bill for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and other streaming entertainment services could go up soon as states such as Illinois try to find ways to offset declining sales taxes and other revenue shortfalls.
In fact, sales tax revenues are up around 10% over 4 years. If you look at the table, excise taxes are flat and gas taxes are up. Income, gaming, and other taxes are down. Income tax being down is a no brainer with the economy how it is.
If sales tax revenues go up 10% over 4 years (in a state with one of the highest sales tax rates in the nation) and they are looking for more ways to tax, then there is a serious problem with fiscal policy. Even if you factor in the decline in income, gaming, and other taxes the total decline is 10%. If a 10% decline over fours years wreaks that much havoc, then, well, there is a serious problem with fiscal policy.
wow, $30+ bucks for the privilege to watch some shitty movie at home vs waiting 6 months to watch the same shitty movie at home for $1 (or free)? Such a compelling value proposition, tell me more.
I came here with the intention of pointing out that all the movie theaters have to do is to create a good enough value and experience so as to make people want to see the movie in the theater instead of via whatever digital mechanism the studios are cooking up.
However, you make an excellent point that most movies are not actually worth watching. I watch several movies a week on DVD or Blu-Ray (from my local library). I have yet to see one on DVD or Blu-Ray that caused me to wish I had seen it in the theater. I see maybe two or three movies a year in the theater. The last one that I saw that felt was worth it was last year's Star Wars anthology movie (Rogue One), but that was more because I have been watching the Star Wars (and Star Trek) movies in the theater since I was a kid. Most every other movie I have seen in the theater has been forgettable and some even made me upset that I had spent that kind of money on a movie that ended up not being worth it. It is sort of difficult for the theaters to make a worthwhile experience when their product is so awful.
tl;dr - most movies are rubbish, no matter how they try to package them or how much or how little they charge for them, and given the incredibly easy access we now have to all sorts of media and entertainment, the theaters are on borrowed time.
Right now about 55,000 coal miners in swing states are holding our national elections hostage trying to hold onto jobs made increasingly irrelevant by fracking and cheap natural gas...
Your statement is provably false.
According to the Wikipedia article on coal mining in the US, here are the top 10 coal producing states as of 2014, with their annual production numbers (millions of short tons) and their electoral vote allocations according the articles on the 2012 and 2008 US presidential elections:
So, for 2012, the top 10 coal producing states had 120 electoral votes which were split 71 for Romney/Ryan and 49 for Obama/Biden, while in 2008 it was 118 electoral votes which were split 56 for McCain/Palin and 62 for Obama/Biden. If you include Ohio (#11 on the list), the numbers change to in 2012 138 electoral votes split 71 for Romney/Ryan and 67 for Obama/Biden, and 2008 138 electoral votes split 56 for McCain/Palin and 82 for Obama/Biden.
If you go to #15 on the list, you get down to New Mexico and Virginia (5 and 13 electoral votes for Obama/Biden in both elections) along with Utah and Alabama (5/6 and 9 electoral votes for the Republican Ticket).
Of course, those are just raw numbers. Of the most populous states (Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas, plus Ohio and Virginia if you extend the list to #15), only Texas is reliably Republican. Of those states, Texas and Virginia are probably the most economically diverse and likely see the smallest overall impact to their state economies as a result of coal mining. The states with a much larger proportion of their state economy impacted by coal mining (Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio) appear to be fairly reliably democratic.
Now, you may ask why I overlooked the 2016 election. The reason is that your assertion that 55,000 coal miners who are trying to hold on to their jobs are preventing us from making progress on energy policy. However, in both campaigns Obama stated that he wanted to bring an end to coal mining in the US and put coal miners out of work (perhaps he did not state it so directly). With that, he picked up a majority of coal state electoral votes in 2008 and came up nearly even in 2012. I would think a presidential candidate saying he wanted to eliminate your job might be a motivator to vote against him. And it may well have been for the coal miners, but in enough states to matter it was not enough to overcome the rest of the voters.
So, Obama got elected in both 2008 and 2012 we made amazing progress on wind, solar, and other renewable energy as result of the Obama administration energy policies. Right? Oh wait, he was so busy giving the big health insurance companies a gigantic handout in the form of the Affordable Care Act that there was no political capital for any other meaningful legislation, so all he could do was flush a bunch of money down the toilet with grants to supposed renewable energy companies that ended up burning through the taxpayer dollars and then going bankrupt. We would have been better off handi
I have come to expect getting moderated as Troll or Flamebait in political discussions as those are popular moderations in those sorts of discussion (some of my views are in fact outside the Slashdot mainstream), even though I do not intend to troll or flame. I have even come accept that I will get regularly moderated as Overrated in politically-oriented discussions (that seems to be a fairly common substitute for "I just disagree with what you say").
But what in my above comment could possibly be Overrated? Do you just feel the need to punish me for the other comments I have made because you cannot moderate a comment more than once? I'll understand if you don't want to reply directly (as then the moderation would be negated), but if you would kindly reply as AC and tell me what about my original comment was overrated, I would appreciate it.
I read an interesting analysis about automobile purchasing behavior. The main point of it was that most people want to get a good enough deal to be able to brag about doing well on the purchase ("check me out, I am a skilled negotiator") but not so low that they appear to be cheap. I have to admit I don't fully understand why that is, as I always seek the absolute lowest price I can find, but hey some college professors studied it, so I guess it is accurate.
Of course, there is also the same sort of thing for "lifestyle" and luxury brands. Would a Rolex that cost $100 have the same value as one that cost $10,000? In some ways yes, but not in the ways which make a Rolex a Rolex.
On the flip side I remember having interesting "discussions" with people regarding the various merits of Linux and Windows. This was probably 10-15 years ago. A surprising number (at least surprising to me) were of the mindset that since Linux was basically given away for free that it must not be very good. Of course, that has somewhat changed over the years, but you still come across people like that.
It probably boils down to the fact that people, especially in consumerist societies, tend to equate price with value.
Because pointing out the greater likelihood of being shot by police if you're black than if you're white is clearly hate speech...
Well, that is not hate speech. An example of BLM-related hate speech might be calling for the assassination of law enforcement officers or praising it when it happens, like what happened in Dallas.
How dare the Trump Administration go through the Justice Department and obtain a warrant for information related to its political opponents? I am sorry, but that is flat out unacceptable.
What they should have done is follow the morally pure example set by the Obama administration. They should have had the NSA spy on their opponents (directly or indirectly) and then used a questionable procedure of obtaining their identities via unmasking requests by people like US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. Because, you know, their political opponents could be colluding with a foreign power.
This wasn't until a few years after 2003, but after trying to install Mandrake Whatever and Red Hat 9.0, I remember installing Debian Sarge. It wasn't magic, but I remember thinking, "So this is what an easy install feel like." No crashes or anything, it just installed easily, 1 step at a time.
I had a somewhat different experience. I started with RedHat 8.0 around 2001, since the school Linux cluster on which I was doing a class assignment ran RedHat (6.x or 7.x). A friend from class (who also worked tech support in the CS department) told me that I would be better off with Debian but that I would probably need some help to get through the installation. That was Debian Woody. I remember thinking that I would not have made it through the install without the hand holding.
That said, after some months of using RedHat, the Debian way just made so much more sense to me. It seemed far more natural than the way RedHat approached so many things. I liked so much that I start getting involved, contributing bug reports, writing documentation, and after a couple of years becoming a Debian developer. I think Debian has come such a long way that when I look back I am surprised at how far we have come, both in the sense on how Debian has been able to build on the work of others and how Debian itself has formed an incredible platform from which so many derivatives have sprung forth.
A Russian government-sponsored group accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee last year
You can just stop right there. I have been following the news coverage on everything to do with Russia and from what I have seen there is absolutely nothing worth mentioning regarding any connection between the Russians and the DNC or any other Democrat politician or candidate. The DNC was not hacked and what they did with torpedoing the Sanders campaign and colluding^W coordinating with the Clinton campaign during the debate run-ups was perfectly legitimate and in fact done in a spirit of patriotism.
Now, the Russians and the Republicans are a real problem and a threat to the security of the United States. In fact, Trump and Putin have a weekly phone call where they plan how best perpetrate the downfall of the United States. We should not get distracted and stay focused on the real issue. The evidence is out there and we just have to be patient, like we were with Benghazi.
Note: in case your sarcasm filter is on the blink, this was meant to be sarcastic.
A decent public transport system and a city that is spatially planned around the needs of people who live there.
Agreed. When I have visited New York City (usually for work) I have been able to get by for a week by mostly walking around, taking the subway (e.g., in inclement weather or for long distances, I mean I am not going to walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan just because), and only occasionally taking an Uber or taxi (e.g., late at night, going some place where the subway does not reach or is inconvenient). It is actually kind of nice to visit there because I live in an area where the public transport is, shall we say, lacking. I like being in a city where you can live without an automobile. NYC is clearly very friendly toward the non-automobile owning crowd.
I know that visiting is different than living some place but NYC is the only place I visit where I simply know before I even go that I will not be renting a car or even be taking some sort of motorized surface transport very much. The only exception was a trip I took to Seattle this past year. I was there for an event downtown and got a hotel a few blocks away so I was able to walk everywhere I needed to go that week. But usually even in Seattle I have a need to go to the outlying areas far enough away that I usually just rent a car.
Owning a car is just a pain and costs a lot of money. I have a few years-old Honda that is relatively inexpensive to own and operate (compared to many other vehicles) and I probably spent in the neighborhood of $4000-$5000 on it in the last twelve months. That includes gas, insurance, scheduled maintenance (I did hit a major service interval), a new set of tires, and other miscellany. That averages out to near $400 per month, which is crazy. I cannot imagine what it would be like to own a real gas guzzler or a European car or sports car with higher maintenance costs.
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NASA, like many federal agencies, is in violation of the law, Not just the intent of the law, but the law itself. As I posted in a previous "article" here today, where if the EFF?
It is actually not that surprising. These sorts of things happen for the same reason that you occasionally find caches of undelivered junk mail, permit applications sometimes take too long or get "lost," and someone occasionally gets a ticket for going just one mile over the speed limit: government employees, at all levels, are regular people who hate their jobs as much as anybody else and who sometimes have bad days and take out on the public they are there to serve. It sucks, and it is wrong, but some government jobs suck more than others.
FOIA requests are particularly sucky because most federal agencies have rather poor records retention. All the problems that people talk about related to big data are the same sorts of problems that exist with FOIA. In addition to that, agencies who wish to undertake certain activities and ensure that those activities escape official notice by the public can engage in strategies that result in records being misclassified, improperly destroyed, or even never kept in the first place (Hillary Clinton's home email server was a good example of this). So, if you are the person tasked with going around to a bunch of people and departments who think they are too busy to keep proper records (because none of these records are stored in a central, properly indexed, easy to access repository) then the suck factor will make your every day rather miserable.
That said, nobody forces people to work for the government and if they don't like the job they should quit and let someone else do the job who takes the responsibility seriously enough to it properly. The proper application of lawsuits by the EFF and other watchdogs is sadly a necessary component to ensure that the government remains compliant with the law.
The only disadvantage is that you can't easily move it to another phone with the Google app, you basically have to generate new codes for all the services that use it.
In my experience, sites (like Google, Amazon, etc.) tend to allow you to see the actual secret (not just the QR code). I use this to store the secret in my password manager, so that if something were to happen to my phone I could simply input the secrets to another device to maintain access. The only thing I don't like is that Google requires you to have a backup in addition to a primary. If you choose SMS as a backup 2FA method, then you are still sort of in the same boat.
I know that some sites only allow phone-based (i.e., SMS and.or voice) verification. But most of the big ones support things like U2F and TOTP. Why not use those instead?.
I always recommend TOTP to people since you can save the secret and store it in a safe or some other secure location if, for example, you ever lose your phone. Then you can simply load up the authenticator app (pick your favorite) and reload the secret. In fact, I can't think of a major on-line service that offers 2FA or MFA that doesn't offer TOTP support. Of course, there is also U2F and if you want to be really secure you can get something like a YubiKey and not even store the secrets directly on your device. With a phone/tablet that supports NFC you can just have the YubiKey close by or you could plug it into the USB port on your computer if that happens to be more convenient.
The point is that the pain threshold for SMS-based 2FA/MFA is the same as the pain threshold for a TOTP/U2F solution and the TOTP/U2F solution is demonstrably more secure.
So should Coca-cola Company lose their trademark because a bunch of Georgians erroneously call all soft drinks "coke" ?
Hey! We do the same thing in Florida.
El Cubano: (walks into a restaurant and gets a table)
Waiter/waitress: What can I get you to drink?
El Cubano: Coke, please.
Waiter/waitress: What kind of coke would you like?
El Cubano: Ginger ale, please.
Waiter/waitress: OK, I'll be right back with that.
Here is what it is like in New York:
El Cubano: (walks into a restaurant and gets a table)
Waiter/waitress: What can I get you to drink?
El Cubano: Coke, please.
Waiter/waitress: OK, I'll be right back with that.
El Cubano: (thinks to self, but he/she didn't ask what kind of coke I wanted)
Or, even better:
El Cubano: (walks into a restaurant and gets a table)
Waiter/waitress: What can I get you to drink?
El Cubano: Coke, please.
Waiter/waitress: We only have Pepsi products.
El Cubano: (wonders why that factoid is relevant)
QE was the reason 2009 wasn't 1931 all over again.
I understand QE and what is meant to do. I question whether doing it for basically 5+ years was the right thing.
Conspiracy theories aside, the evidence points to him being killed when he bailed out of the plane. Some mastermind.
I still wonder about this. The amount of money he demanded ($200,000) seems like it was meant to be large enough to seem like a real demand, but small enough that it could be assembled fairly quickly. I cannot imagine that his real plan was to live out the the rest of his life on that sum, at least not anywhere near civilization. Even 45 years ago I don't think anyone could reasonably expect to live a few decades on that amount.
He likely would have been smart enough to know that every serial number of every bill he was handed would have been recorded. I suspect that the $200,000 was intentionally a red herring and that he quickly disposed of it, knowing that considerable effort would be expended looking for those bills. If I had to guess, I would think that he probably had some other loot already (probably much more than $200,000) somewhere else that was intended to be his real nest egg.
Of course, if what you say about him being killed shortly after leaving the plane then it is sort of moot.
Imagine what all that cash will be worth now with all that interest over the years.
Imagine what all that cash would be worth if the Fed had not been on a money printing binge for the last...well, I don't remember when they haven't been on a money printing binge.
If you wonder what I mean by "money printing binge" then look up "quantitative easing".
So just incompetence, then.
I came here to say just that. You might be surprised at just how bad it is.
In most cases, government IT is a dumpster fire. I could go on at length, but the absolute best example of it is the failed FBI Virtual Case File project. IEEE did a very in depth write up of it several years ago.
If I recall correctly, the objective was that the FBI tried implement a system after 9/11 that would allow its field agents to collaborate more effectively than phone calls and non-government email (apparently most field agents used things like Yahoo! and HotMail because they either couldn't get government email accounts or they sucked so badly). After years of ill-defined and constantly changing requirements and $300+ million spent, the project was terminated as a failure and the government actually got nothing out of it. Go read the IEEE story on it for more details.
The problem is that this sort of thing happens constantly with projects of all sizes and scopes. Of course, if you've worked in corporate IT, you will recognize that similar things happen there as well.
We were told how GOP government in Wisconsin was going to create this great economic boom by "unleashing" the free market. Now they're just trying to prop up a Potemkin president by using corporate welfare.
We were also told that the Affordable Care Act would result in an average savings of $2500 per family per year, that the quality of healthcare would improve for everyone, and that if we had a plan and/or doctor that we liked we could keep that plan and/or doctor. It turns out that none of those things were actually true.
I guess life is all about learning to live with disappointments.
Of course, the real point is that neither political party in the US is any good actually doing what they say. It absolutely amazes me at how they both promise things that their constituent base want to hear, their base totally eats it up, and yet the plans that get pushed through always end up as a massive corporate handout. The only difference is which corporations end up receiving the handout.
How much money from state lotteries has gone to the schools it was intended for? Precious little I'm afraid.
Hence my comment about there being a serious problem with fiscal policy. You were more direct than I was.
I remember when Florida instituted its state lottery. There were big promises of more funding for education. What actually happened was that the state legislature basically reduced the general fund budgetary obligation for education funding by whatever amount the state lottery kicked in. In that way, the state lottery became the exact same sort of slush fund you describe, while still technically conforming to the letter of the promise "more funding for schools." It was pretty shady, if you ask me.
The government still needs money to run. And despite what the rich's media outlets tell you there's no magic 'government waste' to cut that makes the need for taxes go away.
That is where you are wrong.
Have a look at an earlier comment I made in this discussion.
Basically, sales tax revenues in Illinois are up 10% over four years. Gas taxes are also up. Granted, income taxes are down. That said, gas taxes go for roads and transportation, so they actually have more funding for that now that tax revenues have gone up. I am sure that income tax revenues being down have some impact, but all those specific taxes being up should mean that those specific things for which the taxes are levied should be in better shape.
Your monthly bill for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and other streaming entertainment services could go up soon as states such as Illinois try to find ways to offset declining sales taxes and other revenue shortfalls.
Illinois sales tax revenues (2016 is the last table available) are actually rising:
In fact, sales tax revenues are up around 10% over 4 years. If you look at the table, excise taxes are flat and gas taxes are up. Income, gaming, and other taxes are down. Income tax being down is a no brainer with the economy how it is.
If sales tax revenues go up 10% over 4 years (in a state with one of the highest sales tax rates in the nation) and they are looking for more ways to tax, then there is a serious problem with fiscal policy. Even if you factor in the decline in income, gaming, and other taxes the total decline is 10%. If a 10% decline over fours years wreaks that much havoc, then, well, there is a serious problem with fiscal policy.
wow, $30+ bucks for the privilege to watch some shitty movie at home vs waiting 6 months to watch the same shitty movie at home for $1 (or free)? Such a compelling value proposition, tell me more.
I came here with the intention of pointing out that all the movie theaters have to do is to create a good enough value and experience so as to make people want to see the movie in the theater instead of via whatever digital mechanism the studios are cooking up.
However, you make an excellent point that most movies are not actually worth watching. I watch several movies a week on DVD or Blu-Ray (from my local library). I have yet to see one on DVD or Blu-Ray that caused me to wish I had seen it in the theater. I see maybe two or three movies a year in the theater. The last one that I saw that felt was worth it was last year's Star Wars anthology movie (Rogue One), but that was more because I have been watching the Star Wars (and Star Trek) movies in the theater since I was a kid. Most every other movie I have seen in the theater has been forgettable and some even made me upset that I had spent that kind of money on a movie that ended up not being worth it. It is sort of difficult for the theaters to make a worthwhile experience when their product is so awful.
tl;dr - most movies are rubbish, no matter how they try to package them or how much or how little they charge for them, and given the incredibly easy access we now have to all sorts of media and entertainment, the theaters are on borrowed time.
That is only seven letters.
d*******
deadbeat?
Right now about 55,000 coal miners in swing states are holding our national elections hostage trying to hold onto jobs made increasingly irrelevant by fracking and cheap natural gas...
Your statement is provably false.
According to the Wikipedia article on coal mining in the US, here are the top 10 coal producing states as of 2014, with their annual production numbers (millions of short tons) and their electoral vote allocations according the articles on the 2012 and 2008 US presidential elections:
So, for 2012, the top 10 coal producing states had 120 electoral votes which were split 71 for Romney/Ryan and 49 for Obama/Biden, while in 2008 it was 118 electoral votes which were split 56 for McCain/Palin and 62 for Obama/Biden. If you include Ohio (#11 on the list), the numbers change to in 2012 138 electoral votes split 71 for Romney/Ryan and 67 for Obama/Biden, and 2008 138 electoral votes split 56 for McCain/Palin and 82 for Obama/Biden.
If you go to #15 on the list, you get down to New Mexico and Virginia (5 and 13 electoral votes for Obama/Biden in both elections) along with Utah and Alabama (5/6 and 9 electoral votes for the Republican Ticket).
Of course, those are just raw numbers. Of the most populous states (Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas, plus Ohio and Virginia if you extend the list to #15), only Texas is reliably Republican. Of those states, Texas and Virginia are probably the most economically diverse and likely see the smallest overall impact to their state economies as a result of coal mining. The states with a much larger proportion of their state economy impacted by coal mining (Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio) appear to be fairly reliably democratic.
Now, you may ask why I overlooked the 2016 election. The reason is that your assertion that 55,000 coal miners who are trying to hold on to their jobs are preventing us from making progress on energy policy. However, in both campaigns Obama stated that he wanted to bring an end to coal mining in the US and put coal miners out of work (perhaps he did not state it so directly). With that, he picked up a majority of coal state electoral votes in 2008 and came up nearly even in 2012. I would think a presidential candidate saying he wanted to eliminate your job might be a motivator to vote against him. And it may well have been for the coal miners, but in enough states to matter it was not enough to overcome the rest of the voters.
So, Obama got elected in both 2008 and 2012 we made amazing progress on wind, solar, and other renewable energy as result of the Obama administration energy policies. Right? Oh wait, he was so busy giving the big health insurance companies a gigantic handout in the form of the Affordable Care Act that there was no political capital for any other meaningful legislation, so all he could do was flush a bunch of money down the toilet with grants to supposed renewable energy companies that ended up burning through the taxpayer dollars and then going bankrupt. We would have been better off handi
I guess I should have seen the Overrated mod coming there. Thanks for confirming that this is a personal issue of some sort.
OK. This is getting a bit frustrating.
I have come to expect getting moderated as Troll or Flamebait in political discussions as those are popular moderations in those sorts of discussion (some of my views are in fact outside the Slashdot mainstream), even though I do not intend to troll or flame. I have even come accept that I will get regularly moderated as Overrated in politically-oriented discussions (that seems to be a fairly common substitute for "I just disagree with what you say").
But what in my above comment could possibly be Overrated? Do you just feel the need to punish me for the other comments I have made because you cannot moderate a comment more than once? I'll understand if you don't want to reply directly (as then the moderation would be negated), but if you would kindly reply as AC and tell me what about my original comment was overrated, I would appreciate it.
This phenomenon is true for lots of things.
I read an interesting analysis about automobile purchasing behavior. The main point of it was that most people want to get a good enough deal to be able to brag about doing well on the purchase ("check me out, I am a skilled negotiator") but not so low that they appear to be cheap. I have to admit I don't fully understand why that is, as I always seek the absolute lowest price I can find, but hey some college professors studied it, so I guess it is accurate.
Of course, there is also the same sort of thing for "lifestyle" and luxury brands. Would a Rolex that cost $100 have the same value as one that cost $10,000? In some ways yes, but not in the ways which make a Rolex a Rolex.
On the flip side I remember having interesting "discussions" with people regarding the various merits of Linux and Windows. This was probably 10-15 years ago. A surprising number (at least surprising to me) were of the mindset that since Linux was basically given away for free that it must not be very good. Of course, that has somewhat changed over the years, but you still come across people like that.
It probably boils down to the fact that people, especially in consumerist societies, tend to equate price with value.
Because pointing out the greater likelihood of being shot by police if you're black than if you're white is clearly hate speech...
Well, that is not hate speech. An example of BLM-related hate speech might be calling for the assassination of law enforcement officers or praising it when it happens, like what happened in Dallas.
How dare the Trump Administration go through the Justice Department and obtain a warrant for information related to its political opponents? I am sorry, but that is flat out unacceptable.
What they should have done is follow the morally pure example set by the Obama administration. They should have had the NSA spy on their opponents (directly or indirectly) and then used a questionable procedure of obtaining their identities via unmasking requests by people like US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. Because, you know, their political opponents could be colluding with a foreign power.
Oh, wait...
This wasn't until a few years after 2003, but after trying to install Mandrake Whatever and Red Hat 9.0, I remember installing Debian Sarge. It wasn't magic, but I remember thinking, "So this is what an easy install feel like." No crashes or anything, it just installed easily, 1 step at a time.
I had a somewhat different experience. I started with RedHat 8.0 around 2001, since the school Linux cluster on which I was doing a class assignment ran RedHat (6.x or 7.x). A friend from class (who also worked tech support in the CS department) told me that I would be better off with Debian but that I would probably need some help to get through the installation. That was Debian Woody. I remember thinking that I would not have made it through the install without the hand holding.
That said, after some months of using RedHat, the Debian way just made so much more sense to me. It seemed far more natural than the way RedHat approached so many things. I liked so much that I start getting involved, contributing bug reports, writing documentation, and after a couple of years becoming a Debian developer. I think Debian has come such a long way that when I look back I am surprised at how far we have come, both in the sense on how Debian has been able to build on the work of others and how Debian itself has formed an incredible platform from which so many derivatives have sprung forth.
https://www.debian.org/distrib...
A Russian government-sponsored group accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee last year
You can just stop right there. I have been following the news coverage on everything to do with Russia and from what I have seen there is absolutely nothing worth mentioning regarding any connection between the Russians and the DNC or any other Democrat politician or candidate. The DNC was not hacked and what they did with torpedoing the Sanders campaign and colluding^W coordinating with the Clinton campaign during the debate run-ups was perfectly legitimate and in fact done in a spirit of patriotism.
Now, the Russians and the Republicans are a real problem and a threat to the security of the United States. In fact, Trump and Putin have a weekly phone call where they plan how best perpetrate the downfall of the United States. We should not get distracted and stay focused on the real issue. The evidence is out there and we just have to be patient, like we were with Benghazi.
Note: in case your sarcasm filter is on the blink, this was meant to be sarcastic.
A decent public transport system and a city that is spatially planned around the needs of people who live there.
Agreed. When I have visited New York City (usually for work) I have been able to get by for a week by mostly walking around, taking the subway (e.g., in inclement weather or for long distances, I mean I am not going to walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan just because), and only occasionally taking an Uber or taxi (e.g., late at night, going some place where the subway does not reach or is inconvenient). It is actually kind of nice to visit there because I live in an area where the public transport is, shall we say, lacking. I like being in a city where you can live without an automobile. NYC is clearly very friendly toward the non-automobile owning crowd.
I know that visiting is different than living some place but NYC is the only place I visit where I simply know before I even go that I will not be renting a car or even be taking some sort of motorized surface transport very much. The only exception was a trip I took to Seattle this past year. I was there for an event downtown and got a hotel a few blocks away so I was able to walk everywhere I needed to go that week. But usually even in Seattle I have a need to go to the outlying areas far enough away that I usually just rent a car.
Owning a car is just a pain and costs a lot of money. I have a few years-old Honda that is relatively inexpensive to own and operate (compared to many other vehicles) and I probably spent in the neighborhood of $4000-$5000 on it in the last twelve months. That includes gas, insurance, scheduled maintenance (I did hit a major service interval), a new set of tires, and other miscellany. That averages out to near $400 per month, which is crazy. I cannot imagine what it would be like to own a real gas guzzler or a European car or sports car with higher maintenance costs.