A few years ago an elderly relative needed help with medical expenses. She needed treatment medical treatment, and the only treatment the NHS could offer would have been very distressing to her. Was it right that I helped her with the cost of private treatment rather than saving that money as a buffer in case my bank made a mistake one day?
You also have to take quality of life into consideration. Suppose you have a housebound dependant. All they can do all day is watch TV. Is $50 a month for cable *really* something you would be happy cutting?
I do agree that a lot of people who complain about a tight budget are crazy about the way they do spend money. I remember seeing a TV programme about people who were living on government benefits. One complained that his benefits should be increased because after he had paid for alcohol, cigarettes, and mobile phone expenses he didn't have enough money for food. At the time I myself was working full time and bringing in a good salary, and I couldn't afford alcohol, cigarettes, or mobile phone expenses for myself after I had met my obligations.[1] I could really see why people like that annoy the Daily Mail.
[1] This is slightly academic as I don't drink or smoke, and was lucky enough to have a work phone, but even still it would have been nice to have an entertainment budget.
That is almost painfully naive. Today my budget is pretty good - outgoings lower than income, luxuries present but identified, etc. - but there have been times in my life where the only way I could reduce my outgoings were by doing things like walking home (about an hour) instead of spending £1 on the bus.
Life can be really difficult at times. Having a buffer of a month's salary may be easy for some people, but an impossible dream for others.
Oh a buffer will build up. Maybe a few quid a month when things are tough. And that buffer can be completely eroded by something happening like say the cooker needing fixed.
What do you suggest doing with dependants that I can't afford, BTW? Feeding kids on alternate days? Dependants aren't things like holidays, cars, or computers that you can decide to purchase. They are people who are there whether you want them to be or not.
In an ideal world everyone would always have enough spare money to be able to survive for several months with no income. In the real world that doesn't always happen. Even with the best planning things can change.
I could afford to support my dependants. I couldn't support my dependants and build up enough of a buffer to allow for glitches from the bank and so on.
Yeah, I guess that's an option when you still live in your parent's basement and the most pressing payment is your latest Steam download or XBox live bill.
Exactly. In the real world, adults often have scary responsibilities. On the one hand, you want to save for a rainy day. On the other, it is pissing down right now, and has been for several months. When faced with creditors screaming at you for money or kids screaming at you for food, any reasonable adult is going to feed the kids and worry about the creditors later.
The CODE tag is new in DocBook 4.3. Version of jade shipped with Ubuntu 9.10 is 1.2.1 and it does not know about the CODE tag. That's another problem with DocBook, it is a moving target with a standard that moves faster than the tools that support it.
Don't use the latest version unless you need something only it provides.
DocBook produces PDF by first converting the document to LaTeX
It can do that, but any time I've used DocBook, I've generated the PDF using XSL-FO and FOP. No LaTeX involved.
Re:DocBook DITA
on
DocBook 5
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I've used both DocBook and DITA. While you can do the same jobs with both of them, DocBook is better, in my experience, for linear documents. while DITA seems to work well for non-linear stuff. DITA also uses topic maps, which can be hard for people to understand.
It's because I need prismatic correction as well. The contacts would have to be about 5mm thick to correct that. I also have astigmatism and a degree of longsightedness too. I can get contacts that would fix those, but I'd still need glasses for the prismatic correction.
I'm sure there are lots of other conditions (or combinations of conditions) that mean you can't wear contacts. Simple longsightedness combined with a chronic eye infection springs to mind.
No, it is still true that glasses are needed for some corrections - at least that is what my optician told me not so long ago when I asked him if I could get contacts instead of glasses.
What is profit then? If I spend a few million building an operating theatre, and I allowed to recoup more than the cost of building the operating theatre during its useful lifetime?
There is a big difference between passing on something that can be cured with one dose of antibiotics, and something that will kill you. One is a nasty thing to do, the other is borderline murder. But I'd like to know what statistics you are using. How many people continue to have risky sex when they know they are infected with "lesser STDs"?
For your original suggestion to be valid, you will have to show that HIV detection rates would not have been adversely affected by your draconian solution. You still haven't done that.
People may be self-centred, arrogant, low-lifes, but most people do care about their sexual partners.
How do you guarantee that your method would mean fewer HIV positive people now? HIV testing saves lives, not least because people who know they are HIV positive are less likely to infect other people (at least most of the time).
With no HIV testing, the virus continues to spread unchecked.
With high-stigma HIV testing, testing rates are low, and the virus continues to spread almost as if there was no testing.
With stigma-free HIV testing, people with the virus can be identified and modify their lives to reduce the risk of infecting others.
Are you sure we would have saved millions of lives? Killing everyone who is HIV positive would not have stopped the pandemic, and may even have made it worse.
Today, HIV testing is routine and has very little stigma. If you have an HIV test, and it is positive, then you can take steps to minimise your chances of infecting other people, and you can manage the illness (at least to some degree). There is clear incentive to get tested, and so people do it. Stigma-fee HIV testing means the spread of the virus can be reduced.
But suppose a positive HIV test meant execution. Nobody would have one voluntarily. People would become HIV positive, and because they did not know they were HIV positive, they would continue to spread the infection. Probably the only people who would be identified were the people who were already in the terminal stages of AIDS.
The policy was mean to discourage people from purchasing a lot of iPads and then reselling them for profit
What's wrong with that? Shouldn't a person be allowed to sell his device at the price he wants to?
I guess that's fine, as long has he doesn't do it too quickly. If he starts trading in times of less than a second, people will complain he is a vulture.
The information published on market data feeds is public information; it is not insider trading. Everyone is on a level playing field. It is just some people can run faster.
Why should the practice be banned? There has always been an advantage to getting certain information first. If your trading strategy depends on you being first to have some information, then either pay to be among the first to get it, or change strategy.
If a company doesn't like the way a particular stock market works they can just go and get listed on another one. If an investor doesn't like the way a particular stock market works they can just invest elsewhere.
How would this work for the market makers et al? Sounds like your suggestion would make market making more difficult, thus reducing liquidity, and thus reducing prices.
Slashdot Mirror
Dependants aren't just children.
A few years ago an elderly relative needed help with medical expenses. She needed treatment medical treatment, and the only treatment the NHS could offer would have been very distressing to her. Was it right that I helped her with the cost of private treatment rather than saving that money as a buffer in case my bank made a mistake one day?
You also have to take quality of life into consideration. Suppose you have a housebound dependant. All they can do all day is watch TV. Is $50 a month for cable *really* something you would be happy cutting?
I do agree that a lot of people who complain about a tight budget are crazy about the way they do spend money. I remember seeing a TV programme about people who were living on government benefits. One complained that his benefits should be increased because after he had paid for alcohol, cigarettes, and mobile phone expenses he didn't have enough money for food. At the time I myself was working full time and bringing in a good salary, and I couldn't afford alcohol, cigarettes, or mobile phone expenses for myself after I had met my obligations.[1] I could really see why people like that annoy the Daily Mail.
[1] This is slightly academic as I don't drink or smoke, and was lucky enough to have a work phone, but even still it would have been nice to have an entertainment budget.
That is almost painfully naive. Today my budget is pretty good - outgoings lower than income, luxuries present but identified, etc. - but there have been times in my life where the only way I could reduce my outgoings were by doing things like walking home (about an hour) instead of spending £1 on the bus.
Life can be really difficult at times. Having a buffer of a month's salary may be easy for some people, but an impossible dream for others.
I'm gay. I don't have any kids. Family members circumstances changed, and they turned to me for help.
Oh a buffer will build up. Maybe a few quid a month when things are tough. And that buffer can be completely eroded by something happening like say the cooker needing fixed.
What do you suggest doing with dependants that I can't afford, BTW? Feeding kids on alternate days? Dependants aren't things like holidays, cars, or computers that you can decide to purchase. They are people who are there whether you want them to be or not.
In an ideal world everyone would always have enough spare money to be able to survive for several months with no income. In the real world that doesn't always happen. Even with the best planning things can change.
I could afford to support my dependants. I couldn't support my dependants and build up enough of a buffer to allow for glitches from the bank and so on.
If you can't even make a 1 month reserve in checking, time to change your budget.
Some of us have dependants and we can't change our budget.
Yeah, I guess that's an option when you still live in your parent's basement and the most pressing payment is your latest Steam download or XBox live bill.
Exactly. In the real world, adults often have scary responsibilities. On the one hand, you want to save for a rainy day. On the other, it is pissing down right now, and has been for several months. When faced with creditors screaming at you for money or kids screaming at you for food, any reasonable adult is going to feed the kids and worry about the creditors later.
The CODE tag is new in DocBook 4.3. Version of jade shipped with Ubuntu 9.10 is 1.2.1 and it does not know about the CODE tag. That's another problem with DocBook, it is a moving target with a standard that moves faster than the tools that support it.
Don't use the latest version unless you need something only it provides.
DocBook produces PDF by first converting the document to LaTeX
It can do that, but any time I've used DocBook, I've generated the PDF using XSL-FO and FOP. No LaTeX involved.
I've used both DocBook and DITA. While you can do the same jobs with both of them, DocBook is better, in my experience, for linear documents. while DITA seems to work well for non-linear stuff. DITA also uses topic maps, which can be hard for people to understand.
It's because I need prismatic correction as well. The contacts would have to be about 5mm thick to correct that. I also have astigmatism and a degree of longsightedness too. I can get contacts that would fix those, but I'd still need glasses for the prismatic correction.
I'm sure there are lots of other conditions (or combinations of conditions) that mean you can't wear contacts. Simple longsightedness combined with a chronic eye infection springs to mind.
No, it is still true that glasses are needed for some corrections - at least that is what my optician told me not so long ago when I asked him if I could get contacts instead of glasses.
There are no advantages of glasses over contacts whatever.
Apart from the fact that glasses can correct some vision problems that contacts cannot.
What is profit then? If I spend a few million building an operating theatre, and I allowed to recoup more than the cost of building the operating theatre during its useful lifetime?
Why does it have to be done at cost price? If I'm a technician and I put work into saving someone's life, why shouldn't I get paid?
So you have no statistics or projections to back up your original proposal?
There is a big difference between passing on something that can be cured with one dose of antibiotics, and something that will kill you. One is a nasty thing to do, the other is borderline murder. But I'd like to know what statistics you are using. How many people continue to have risky sex when they know they are infected with "lesser STDs"?
For your original suggestion to be valid, you will have to show that HIV detection rates would not have been adversely affected by your draconian solution. You still haven't done that.
People may be self-centred, arrogant, low-lifes, but most people do care about their sexual partners.
How do you guarantee that your method would mean fewer HIV positive people now? HIV testing saves lives, not least because people who know they are HIV positive are less likely to infect other people (at least most of the time).
With no HIV testing, the virus continues to spread unchecked.
With high-stigma HIV testing, testing rates are low, and the virus continues to spread almost as if there was no testing.
With stigma-free HIV testing, people with the virus can be identified and modify their lives to reduce the risk of infecting others.
Are you sure we would have saved millions of lives? Killing everyone who is HIV positive would not have stopped the pandemic, and may even have made it worse.
Today, HIV testing is routine and has very little stigma. If you have an HIV test, and it is positive, then you can take steps to minimise your chances of infecting other people, and you can manage the illness (at least to some degree). There is clear incentive to get tested, and so people do it. Stigma-fee HIV testing means the spread of the virus can be reduced.
But suppose a positive HIV test meant execution. Nobody would have one voluntarily. People would become HIV positive, and because they did not know they were HIV positive, they would continue to spread the infection. Probably the only people who would be identified were the people who were already in the terminal stages of AIDS.
You do know some piercings can enhance the way parts of the body function, don't you?
The policy was mean to discourage people from purchasing a lot of iPads and then reselling them for profit
What's wrong with that? Shouldn't a person be allowed to sell his device at the price he wants to?
I guess that's fine, as long has he doesn't do it too quickly. If he starts trading in times of less than a second, people will complain he is a vulture.
The information published on market data feeds is public information; it is not insider trading. Everyone is on a level playing field. It is just some people can run faster.
But why eliminate it at all? Why ban a practice that increases liquidity?
Why should the practice be banned? There has always been an advantage to getting certain information first. If your trading strategy depends on you being first to have some information, then either pay to be among the first to get it, or change strategy.
If a company doesn't like the way a particular stock market works they can just go and get listed on another one. If an investor doesn't like the way a particular stock market works they can just invest elsewhere.
How would this work for the market makers et al? Sounds like your suggestion would make market making more difficult, thus reducing liquidity, and thus reducing prices.