All the states developing their own websites, and the feds, should have pooled their money and offered an X-Prize worth $100 million to whatever individual or group could first create an open-source health insurance purchasing web service meeting the requirements. That would have saved money and produced a better result.
If you've played WoW for any time, you'll know that the game only really "begins" once you hit the level cap.
The most interesting aspect of MMORPG gaming is interacting with other players and attempting to influence the direction of the game by conversing with the game designers. That can occur at any level.
Genuine pay-to-win would be the sale of any kind of advantage, be it gear, increased access to instances (such as a waiver on weekly lock-outs) or any kind of character power-boost or income-boost once at the level cap.
In WoW, the power of a character increases with the time spent playing the game. The power comes primarily through leveling to the cap and once at the cap it's from getting better gear. If you're able to start at the cap, then all the time that would have been spent leveling can be spent getting better gear, for a net increase in character power given the same time investment as a character that starts at level 1. However, for a serious raider, the time spent leveling to the cap is miniscule compared to the time spent playing at the cap, so the level skip does not make a difference in the long run, so I'm in agreement that there isn't a substantial pay-to-win aspect to this.
The extra cost for a rental copy is not for the disc (or tape) itself, but rather for the right to rent out the movie to consecutive users. Should the original disc/tape be lost or damaged, then the replacement for the disc/tape would be the cost of the physical media. The privilege of renting out the disc/tape transfers from the lost/damaged disc to the new disc. The number of licenses to rent discs that the rental company has is unchanged.
Arresting someone for theft under $10 ("Monster-In-Law" on DVD retails for about $5) seems to be a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars. A more efficient punishment would be to seize wages/tax refunds/etc. in the amount of the theft + some additional punitive amount.
How did they get the malware deployed onto thousands of POS terminals without anyone noticing? After the malware collected the data, how did the POS terminals report the stolen data back to the controller? Are these POS terminals just directly connected to the internet?
Janet Black: Doctor Manhattan as you know the Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face analogizing humankind's proximity to extinction, midnight representing the threat of nuclear war. As of now it stands at four minutes to midnight. Would you agree that we are that close to annihilation?
Jon Osterman: My father was a watch maker. He abandoned it when Einstein discovered time is relative. I would only agree that a symbolic clock is as nourishing to the intellect as photograph of oxygen to a drowning man.
Have to call BS on this. Anyone in WA can choose to observe the vote counting process. Fraud by one party could only occur with exceptional incompetence by other parties and independents.
"Anyone has the right to observe any part of the election process. Major political parties also have a responsibility to provide observers to monitor the election process. A political party is designated as a major party if one of its nominees received more than 5 percent of the total votes cast for President, United States Senator, or a statewide office in a General Election in an even numbered year. Observers may watch all parts of the election including opening absentee ballots, counting ballots, and securing ballots. Prior to an election, County Auditors or Elections Departments contact the political parties to inform them of how many observers will be needed."
No one knows how I vote when I step into a voting booth.
A consequence is that you don't know whether your vote was actually counted for the candidate you believe you chose, so long as the election results show that candidate receiving at least 1 vote.
They view the use of contraceptives as the murder of innocent children
If that is true, these people are the most cowardly and despicable people on the planet, because they have watched hundreds of millions of innocent children be murdered every year and done nothing effective to stop the murder. For example, they shop and work at grocery and drug stores that sell the tools that will be used to murder these children every night. If I walked into a store and saw a row of shelves with "Baby Killer 9000, 99.9% guaranteed kill probability, 12-pack, on sale for $9.99" then I'd go to the police and BBB to get that item removed from the shelves. I haven't seen any of these "believers" protesting at any store I go to.
I get the joke, but to be anal I think that it will be 2020 when four astronauts leave for Mars to bury the previous four. The ones who leave in 2018 will arrive with no bodies on the planet to bury. (There may be up to 4 bodies in the spacecraft.)
The Crimson Bolt might say: "Unless we increase human population to the point where we exceed the capacity of the planet, we can never know for certain what the maximum capacity is."
Suppose there was a minimum income tax amount of $N per year (where N is some number set by law and greater than 0). Thus the 47% number would be reduced to 0%, as every adult would pay some income tax, at least $1. Would that make Mitt happy? Or would he then find something else to complain about? Perhaps Mitt would then complain "Why do I have to pay more income tax than my housekeeper?
There are many States that successfully implemented working websites for the ACA. I don't understand why the Feds can't just license the best of these and clone it 36 times for each of the States that refused to implement their own site.
Which begs the pre-Oct 1 question: Why didn't the Feds just test each of the websites developed by the dozen or so states that implemented their own, then license the best one for cloning purpose for each of the other 36 states?
A manager not knowing who you are or what you are doing is a problem, I agree. But even if a software engineering manager read every line of code written by every one of his employees, I don't think it would be generally possible to rank them.
e.g. Joe was assigned to design and implement Foo last quarter, and did it on time and with good quality. Dave was assigned to design and implement Bar last quarter, and did it on time with good quality. What information would you use to determine whether to rank Joe higher or lower than Dave?
Perhaps the biggest of the big lies is that the government will not be able to pay what it owes on the national debt, creating a danger of default. Tax money keeps coming into the Treasury during the shutdown, and it vastly exceeds the interest that has to be paid on the national debt.
I'm not a bankruptcy lawyer, so I don't know whether creditors would consider a country to be in default if it paid interest on its loans, but reneged on promises to its citizens for things like Medicare and Social Security.
What I do know, is that if the American government kept paying Chairman Mao his usury, while cutting off Grandma's health care, then that government would be finished. Putting rich commies ahead of poor seniors is about the surest form of political suicide I can imagine.
"No, a proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof, and when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." - Jean Chretien
I do not have "actual proof" that a man walked on the moon. I read stuff, watch the news, and decide on what seems to have happened. Could the moon landing have been faked, and thousands of NASA employees and contractors kept quiet about it all these years? Sure, it's possible, but it just seems like it would have been much easier to actually land a man on the moon that to fake it.
Syria used chemical weapons on its own people. Obama asserts that this is a violation of international law. (Syria didn't sign the Chemical Weapons Convention, I'm not a legal scholar so I can't say whether they still have to comply.) Obama asserts that this violation must not go unanswered or else the whole system of international laws has no meaning.
Obama decides that the appropriate punishment for this violation is a military attack by the USA on Syria. Per the United Nations the only legal basis for such a military attack is to defend against imminent attack on your own country or else to get a security council resolution authorizing the use of force. Neither applies here, so the use of military force would be a violation of Article 2 of the UN Charter.
So, Obama believes that the only way the rule of law can be preserved is to break the law?
Side question: Absent a declaration of war, would any USA military forces captured while engaging in combat in Syria be treated as unlawful enemy combatants?
Slashdot Mirror
Assume "Paper" is a treaty guaranteeing "Territorial Integrity". Then:
Rock beats Paper
Nuke beats Paper
Nuke beats Rock
Nuke loses to Nuke (MAD)
Who would ever play Paper?
A cruel and useless Soviet WW2 tactic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
All the states developing their own websites, and the feds, should have pooled their money and offered an X-Prize worth $100 million to whatever individual or group could first create an open-source health insurance purchasing web service meeting the requirements. That would have saved money and produced a better result.
If you've played WoW for any time, you'll know that the game only really "begins" once you hit the level cap.
The most interesting aspect of MMORPG gaming is interacting with other players and attempting to influence the direction of the game by conversing with the game designers. That can occur at any level.
Genuine pay-to-win would be the sale of any kind of advantage, be it gear, increased access to instances (such as a waiver on weekly lock-outs) or any kind of character power-boost or income-boost once at the level cap.
In WoW, the power of a character increases with the time spent playing the game. The power comes primarily through leveling to the cap and once at the cap it's from getting better gear. If you're able to start at the cap, then all the time that would have been spent leveling can be spent getting better gear, for a net increase in character power given the same time investment as a character that starts at level 1. However, for a serious raider, the time spent leveling to the cap is miniscule compared to the time spent playing at the cap, so the level skip does not make a difference in the long run, so I'm in agreement that there isn't a substantial pay-to-win aspect to this.
"A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven."
Jean Chretien, former Prime Minister of Canada
The extra cost for a rental copy is not for the disc (or tape) itself, but rather for the right to rent out the movie to consecutive users. Should the original disc/tape be lost or damaged, then the replacement for the disc/tape would be the cost of the physical media. The privilege of renting out the disc/tape transfers from the lost/damaged disc to the new disc. The number of licenses to rent discs that the rental company has is unchanged.
In a rational world, anyway.
Arresting someone for theft under $10 ("Monster-In-Law" on DVD retails for about $5) seems to be a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars. A more efficient punishment would be to seize wages/tax refunds/etc. in the amount of the theft + some additional punitive amount.
http://dilbert.com/strips/comi...
How did they get the malware deployed onto thousands of POS terminals without anyone noticing?
After the malware collected the data, how did the POS terminals report the stolen data back to the controller?
Are these POS terminals just directly connected to the internet?
Janet Black: Doctor Manhattan as you know the Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face analogizing humankind's proximity to extinction, midnight representing the threat of nuclear war. As of now it stands at four minutes to midnight. Would you agree that we are that close to annihilation?
Jon Osterman: My father was a watch maker. He abandoned it when Einstein discovered time is relative. I would only agree that a symbolic clock is as nourishing to the intellect as photograph of oxygen to a drowning man.
Have to call BS on this. Anyone in WA can choose to observe the vote counting process. Fraud by one party could only occur with exceptional incompetence by other parties and independents.
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/pdf/An_Observers_Guide_to_Washington_State_Elections.pdf
"Anyone has the right to observe any part of the election process. Major political parties also have a responsibility to provide observers to monitor the election process. A political party is designated as a major party if one of its nominees received more than 5 percent of the total votes cast for President, United States Senator, or a statewide office in a General Election in an even numbered year. Observers may watch all parts of the election including opening absentee ballots, counting ballots, and securing ballots. Prior to an election, County Auditors or Elections Departments contact the political parties to inform them of how many observers will be needed."
No one knows how I vote when I step into a voting booth.
A consequence is that you don't know whether your vote was actually counted for the candidate you believe you chose, so long as the election results show that candidate receiving at least 1 vote.
They view the use of contraceptives as the murder of innocent children
If that is true, these people are the most cowardly and despicable people on the planet, because they have watched hundreds of millions of innocent children be murdered every year and done nothing effective to stop the murder. For example, they shop and work at grocery and drug stores that sell the tools that will be used to murder these children every night. If I walked into a store and saw a row of shelves with "Baby Killer 9000, 99.9% guaranteed kill probability, 12-pack, on sale for $9.99" then I'd go to the police and BBB to get that item removed from the shelves. I haven't seen any of these "believers" protesting at any store I go to.
I get the joke, but to be anal I think that it will be 2020 when four astronauts leave for Mars to bury the previous four. The ones who leave in 2018 will arrive with no bodies on the planet to bury. (There may be up to 4 bodies in the spacecraft.)
Agreed. For more examples, look at the salaries of executives at "non-profit" hospitals.
http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/compensation-issues/ceo-compensation-of-the-25-top-grossing-non-profit-hospitals.html
The government does not compel you to drive.
The government does compel caregivers to provide health care to you.
The Crimson Bolt might say: "Unless we increase human population to the point where we exceed the capacity of the planet, we can never know for certain what the maximum capacity is."
Suppose there was a minimum income tax amount of $N per year (where N is some number set by law and greater than 0). Thus the 47% number would be reduced to 0%, as every adult would pay some income tax, at least $1. Would that make Mitt happy? Or would he then find something else to complain about? Perhaps Mitt would then complain "Why do I have to pay more income tax than my housekeeper?
There are many States that successfully implemented working websites for the ACA. I don't understand why the Feds can't just license the best of these and clone it 36 times for each of the States that refused to implement their own site.
Which begs the pre-Oct 1 question: Why didn't the Feds just test each of the websites developed by the dozen or so states that implemented their own, then license the best one for cloning purpose for each of the other 36 states?
A manager not knowing who you are or what you are doing is a problem, I agree. But even if a software engineering manager read every line of code written by every one of his employees, I don't think it would be generally possible to rank them.
e.g. Joe was assigned to design and implement Foo last quarter, and did it on time and with good quality. Dave was assigned to design and implement Bar last quarter, and did it on time with good quality. What information would you use to determine whether to rank Joe higher or lower than Dave?
If you want to apply for a job at the NSA, just pick up the phone. Any phone.
Perhaps the biggest of the big lies is that the government will not be able to pay what it owes on the national debt, creating a danger of default. Tax money keeps coming into the Treasury during the shutdown, and it vastly exceeds the interest that has to be paid on the national debt.
I'm not a bankruptcy lawyer, so I don't know whether creditors would consider a country to be in default if it paid interest on its loans, but reneged on promises to its citizens for things like Medicare and Social Security.
What I do know, is that if the American government kept paying Chairman Mao his usury, while cutting off Grandma's health care, then that government would be finished. Putting rich commies ahead of poor seniors is about the surest form of political suicide I can imagine.
Syria used chemical weapons on its own people.
You have actual proof of this?
"No, a proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof, and when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." - Jean Chretien
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX6XMIldkRU
I do not have "actual proof" that a man walked on the moon. I read stuff, watch the news, and decide on what seems to have happened. Could the moon landing have been faked, and thousands of NASA employees and contractors kept quiet about it all these years? Sure, it's possible, but it just seems like it would have been much easier to actually land a man on the moon that to fake it.
Syria used chemical weapons on its own people. Obama asserts that this is a violation of international law. (Syria didn't sign the Chemical Weapons Convention, I'm not a legal scholar so I can't say whether they still have to comply.) Obama asserts that this violation must not go unanswered or else the whole system of international laws has no meaning.
Obama decides that the appropriate punishment for this violation is a military attack by the USA on Syria. Per the United Nations the only legal basis for such a military attack is to defend against imminent attack on your own country or else to get a security council resolution authorizing the use of force. Neither applies here, so the use of military force would be a violation of Article 2 of the UN Charter.
So, Obama believes that the only way the rule of law can be preserved is to break the law?
Side question: Absent a declaration of war, would any USA military forces captured while engaging in combat in Syria be treated as unlawful enemy combatants?
The first stage of grief is shock and denial. Sometimes that can take a while (years) to get through. Eventually you reach acceptance and recovery.