his sentence should roughly equal the number human hours he has wasted.
No it shouldn't. The "lock em' up" mentality is why America has more than four times the incarceration rate of either China or Russia, and an even more disproportionate rate compared to almost any other country. Prison should be used to isolate irredeemably violent people from civilized society. For everyone else, there are better alternative punishments. For instance, this guy could be sentenced to spend 60 hours per week cleaning bedpans at a nursing home for the next 10 years, or some other suitable punishment where he can contribute to society rather than being a drain.
How is it that the scalpers can predict demand, but Ticketmaster cannot?
Because scalpers set prices to maximize profits. In most cases, ticketmaster does not set the price, and their clients generally set the price to FILL THE VENUE, with short-term profit as a secondary consideration.
For example, simply set it up so that you can only buy tickets either a) an hour before the show using cash abd getting your hand stamped, or b) with a credit card - that must be shown to pick up the tickets upto an hour before the show.
1. Many people are not going to go to a show that requires them to waste an hour of their time, with no guarantee of even getting a ticket. 2. Scalpers can simply pay homeless people to stand in line and buy up the tickets. 3. This scheme would likely INCREASE demand for scalping, since in addition to getting a guaranteed ticket, you don't have to stand in line.
The problem is that demand for many performances is hard to forecast, and the performers want sell-out crowds. So they price the tickets low to ensure that every seat is filled. But then the scalpers come along and buy up the tickets, boost the price, and often have unsold inventory, which means empty seats.
The solution is NOT to ban scalping. Scalping is a response to a market failure, and trying to ban it is not going to work. A better solution is to put the tickets on sale at a high price with a publicly announced sliding price scale, so the price drops each day as the performance gets closer. So customers have a choice of either paying now and having a guaranteed seat, or waiting and maybe getting a cheaper ticket next week. This will maximize revenue, fill every seat, and leave no space for scalpers.
Apple must open up the iPhone NFC to mobile wallets from Banks.
The retailers are saying they want access to the NFC to offer a "richer and more convenient customer experience", which means they want to collect customer data without explicit consent, and coerce more people into their "loyalty" programs. I am all for faster and more secure transactions, but increased privacy should also be an explicit goal of any future payment standard.
On one hand - that's illegal, but on the other hand - the government rarely enforces labor laws.
They will enforce them even less once Obama's NLRB members are termed out and replaced with Trump appointees. More Republicans in the federal courts will also lead to weaker unions.
It's more that they want more money diverted to their own pockets.
According to TFA, the workers are also upset about outsourcing. I am not sure that striking is a good way to convince AT&T that they should outsource less, and depend more on reliable American labor.
Except the summary and TFA specifically say they drove fewer miles. That does not make sense. They might save gas, they might save time, but how can the distance be shorter? I suspect that this may be a case of incompetent journalism, and the reduced miles was a result of all the efforts at route optimization, rather than just eliminating left turns.
The GPS in my Honda Odyssey also tries to eliminate left turns. I turned that feature off because it was sometimes doing a ridiculous amount of re-routing to avoid a single left turn. But, overall, the GPS is better at choosing routes than I am. Even on some routes that I drive almost everyday, it has shown me some shortcuts that I was unaware of.
Corruption is not something that "just happens". Corrupt systems are usually designed to be corruptible. In America, when I go to the city to pay my business license, I do it at a counter in full view of other customers. When I did the same in Shanghai, I was always escorted to a private office, where various "facilitation fees" were discussed.
Those most corrupt tend to be the ones in power who stand to lose the most by wiping out said corruption.
This is not always true. In America, most corruption is at the top, with the revolving door system between government and corporations, and lobbyists funding campaigns. But in many other countries, including India, local corruption is a much bigger problem. India's current welfare system is mostly "in kind", so instead of getting money to buy rice, the government actually gives you a bag of rice. That requires a complicated system to buy, store, and distribute the supplies, with "leakage" at every step. If that is wiped out, and replaced with a single transfer of money to a debit card with a clear audit trail, it will be a far less corruptible system.
In other words, you take money from the rich and give it to the poor.
That is exactly what UBI is. It is redistribution of wealth. In a world where the rich are getting richer, and goods and services will (supposedly) get cheaper and cheaper to produce because of robots and AI, yet require less and less labor, them some sort of redistribution will likely be needed to maintain social harmony.
India is probably most serious about UBI. They already have a huge welfare system that is badly corrupted, so they would benefit from just wiping it out and replacing it with something simpler.
UBI would be much harder to implement in America. There is little political support for redistribution, and there would be enormous resistance from people currently receiving entitlements that would be drastically reduced under any plausible UBI system.
Yes it is. The law requires records to be be preserved. They do not require records to be created. There is no law against the president having a private conversation, whether face-to-face, by phone, or by app.
Now, presidents have issued executive orders attempting to countermand this provision (Reagan, Bush I and Bush II), in an effort to circumvent it and to keep their evil-doing secret for as long as possible, but as recently as 2007, the courts have said, "Nah, fuck that".
Executive orders by Reagan, Bush, and Bush were still in effect until Obama rescinded them on his first day in office. They were not overturned by the courts.
Reducing full time employment does NOT help the underemployed. That is the Lump of Labor Fallacy. There is not a fixed amount of labor to be divvied up. Real economies just don't work that way. When someone is employed, they spend their earnings on goods and services, thus creating demand for more labor.
When France reduced standard working hours to 35 hours per week, proponents of the change were sure it would reduce France's persistently high unemployment. That didn't happen. Economists were not surprised.
As someone who's mother is also on welfare, please provide instructions for how she can leverage that into getting a nice car instead of just barely surviving.
There are several ways to do it. A common method is to use a fake address, but actually live in a household with a combined income above the threshold. Then if you want to work, do it under the table for cash, or have the paycheck made out to someone else. Another method, is when granny dies, just bury her out in the backyard, and continue to cash her checks.
Disclaimer: I used to live in Appalachia, so I learned a lot about welfare cheating from my relatives.
Actually they are. Records must be kept for presidential libraries.
Baloney. The Presidential Libraries acts of 1978 and 1986 allow government records to be transferred to Presidential Libraries, but they do not require presidential communications to use only government channels, or even to be recorded at all. That would require a constitutional amendment.
They may be hypocrites, but they are not breaking any laws. The president and his immediate staff are not required to use government communication channels, because of the constitutional separation of powers.
The purpose of employment is the production of goods and services, not "keeping people busy". Elimination of unproductive jobs is a GOOD THING, since it allows those people to be employed elsewhere doing something that actually makes sense.
Will we soon be banning attractive women because they are attractive?? Or strictly enforcing a dress code?
During Arafat's tenure, the PLO only killed a few hundred, most of whom were Jordanians killed in 1970-71. There is no evidence that Arafat ever personally killed anyone.
I do believe President Obama has claim to being the Nobel Peace prize recipient who bombed and killed the most people.
Kissinger had far bloodier hands than Obama. Menachem Begin may be the recipient who killed the most directly, rather than by giving orders. He was personally involved in the murder of more than 90 people, most of whom were British.
Republicans in Congress know that if they don't fall in line with President Bannon, they'll get primaried in their next election.
Only two Republicans went against Trump on DeVos. Susan Collins has nothing to fear and everything to gain with her vote. She is popular in Maine, and the core of the Maine Republican Party is far more moderate than at the national level. She has far more to fear in the general election against a Democrat. Lisa Mirkowski also has little to fear. DeVos wants to divert more resources toward charters and vouchers, and that does nothing for Alaskans. You can't use a voucher when the closest alternative school is 300 miles across the taiga/tundra.
This idea that America needs to try and help every country in the world when we have our own problems is what gets people like Trump elected.
Standing up for human rights worldwide does not diminish our ability to deal with our own problems. A far better argument is that efforts to "fix" other countries have been futile and counterproductive. Look at North Korea and Cuba. We have isolated and embargoed them for decades, and their oppressive regimes have lasted far longer than any others. The Castro and Kim dynasties would likely be long forgotten if they had been unable to blame their economic incompetence on foreign devils, and unable to accuse their opponents of being American stooges.
But this is the world we live in today with regards to discussion and debate.
Indeed. Yesterday the United States Senate voted to censor Elizabeth Warren and force her to shut up and sit down. So the idea that you can deal with opponents by silencing them certainly is not unique to Africa.
Disclaimer: I agree with Elizabeth on very few issues.
Slashdot Mirror
his sentence should roughly equal the number human hours he has wasted.
No it shouldn't. The "lock em' up" mentality is why America has more than four times the incarceration rate of either China or Russia, and an even more disproportionate rate compared to almost any other country. Prison should be used to isolate irredeemably violent people from civilized society. For everyone else, there are better alternative punishments. For instance, this guy could be sentenced to spend 60 hours per week cleaning bedpans at a nursing home for the next 10 years, or some other suitable punishment where he can contribute to society rather than being a drain.
How is it that the scalpers can predict demand, but Ticketmaster cannot?
Because scalpers set prices to maximize profits. In most cases, ticketmaster does not set the price, and their clients generally set the price to FILL THE VENUE, with short-term profit as a secondary consideration.
And require a name for each ticket then require IDs at the door. Seems easy enough.
Because it takes 30 minutes to board 100 passengers. Go luck doing that with a 50,000 seat stadium.
For example, simply set it up so that you can only buy tickets either a) an hour before the show using cash abd getting your hand stamped, or b) with a credit card - that must be shown to pick up the tickets upto an hour before the show.
1. Many people are not going to go to a show that requires them to waste an hour of their time, with no guarantee of even getting a ticket.
2. Scalpers can simply pay homeless people to stand in line and buy up the tickets.
3. This scheme would likely INCREASE demand for scalping, since in addition to getting a guaranteed ticket, you don't have to stand in line.
The problem is that demand for many performances is hard to forecast, and the performers want sell-out crowds. So they price the tickets low to ensure that every seat is filled. But then the scalpers come along and buy up the tickets, boost the price, and often have unsold inventory, which means empty seats.
The solution is NOT to ban scalping. Scalping is a response to a market failure, and trying to ban it is not going to work. A better solution is to put the tickets on sale at a high price with a publicly announced sliding price scale, so the price drops each day as the performance gets closer. So customers have a choice of either paying now and having a guaranteed seat, or waiting and maybe getting a cheaper ticket next week. This will maximize revenue, fill every seat, and leave no space for scalpers.
Apple must open up the iPhone NFC to mobile wallets from Banks.
The retailers are saying they want access to the NFC to offer a "richer and more convenient customer experience", which means they want to collect customer data without explicit consent, and coerce more people into their "loyalty" programs. I am all for faster and more secure transactions, but increased privacy should also be an explicit goal of any future payment standard.
On one hand - that's illegal, but on the other hand - the government rarely enforces labor laws.
They will enforce them even less once Obama's NLRB members are termed out and replaced with Trump appointees. More Republicans in the federal courts will also lead to weaker unions.
It's more that they want more money diverted to their own pockets.
According to TFA, the workers are also upset about outsourcing. I am not sure that striking is a good way to convince AT&T that they should outsource less, and depend more on reliable American labor.
Depends on whether shorter is time or distance.
Except the summary and TFA specifically say they drove fewer miles. That does not make sense. They might save gas, they might save time, but how can the distance be shorter? I suspect that this may be a case of incompetent journalism, and the reduced miles was a result of all the efforts at route optimization, rather than just eliminating left turns.
The GPS in my Honda Odyssey also tries to eliminate left turns. I turned that feature off because it was sometimes doing a ridiculous amount of re-routing to avoid a single left turn. But, overall, the GPS is better at choosing routes than I am. Even on some routes that I drive almost everyday, it has shown me some shortcuts that I was unaware of.
Good luck wiping out the corruption.
Corruption is not something that "just happens". Corrupt systems are usually designed to be corruptible. In America, when I go to the city to pay my business license, I do it at a counter in full view of other customers. When I did the same in Shanghai, I was always escorted to a private office, where various "facilitation fees" were discussed.
Those most corrupt tend to be the ones in power who stand to lose the most by wiping out said corruption.
This is not always true. In America, most corruption is at the top, with the revolving door system between government and corporations, and lobbyists funding campaigns. But in many other countries, including India, local corruption is a much bigger problem. India's current welfare system is mostly "in kind", so instead of getting money to buy rice, the government actually gives you a bag of rice. That requires a complicated system to buy, store, and distribute the supplies, with "leakage" at every step. If that is wiped out, and replaced with a single transfer of money to a debit card with a clear audit trail, it will be a far less corruptible system.
In other words, you take money from the rich and give it to the poor.
That is exactly what UBI is. It is redistribution of wealth. In a world where the rich are getting richer, and goods and services will (supposedly) get cheaper and cheaper to produce because of robots and AI, yet require less and less labor, them some sort of redistribution will likely be needed to maintain social harmony.
India is probably most serious about UBI. They already have a huge welfare system that is badly corrupted, so they would benefit from just wiping it out and replacing it with something simpler.
UBI would be much harder to implement in America. There is little political support for redistribution, and there would be enormous resistance from people currently receiving entitlements that would be drastically reduced under any plausible UBI system.
Bill, that's just not true.
Yes it is. The law requires records to be be preserved. They do not require records to be created. There is no law against the president having a private conversation, whether face-to-face, by phone, or by app.
Now, presidents have issued executive orders attempting to countermand this provision (Reagan, Bush I and Bush II), in an effort to circumvent it and to keep their evil-doing secret for as long as possible, but as recently as 2007, the courts have said, "Nah, fuck that".
Executive orders by Reagan, Bush, and Bush were still in effect until Obama rescinded them on his first day in office. They were not overturned by the courts.
This. They want to force us to accept a lessor amount in UBI than we would get from working.
The UBI is what you get IN ADDITION to your wages or salary.
The whole point of a UBI is EVERYONE GETS IT and there is no means test.
Reducing full time will help the underemployed
Reducing full time employment does NOT help the underemployed. That is the Lump of Labor Fallacy. There is not a fixed amount of labor to be divvied up. Real economies just don't work that way. When someone is employed, they spend their earnings on goods and services, thus creating demand for more labor.
When France reduced standard working hours to 35 hours per week, proponents of the change were sure it would reduce France's persistently high unemployment. That didn't happen. Economists were not surprised.
As someone who's mother is also on welfare, please provide instructions for how she can leverage that into getting a nice car instead of just barely surviving.
There are several ways to do it. A common method is to use a fake address, but actually live in a household with a combined income above the threshold. Then if you want to work, do it under the table for cash, or have the paycheck made out to someone else. Another method, is when granny dies, just bury her out in the backyard, and continue to cash her checks.
Disclaimer: I used to live in Appalachia, so I learned a lot about welfare cheating from my relatives.
Actually they are. Records must be kept for presidential libraries.
Baloney. The Presidential Libraries acts of 1978 and 1986 allow government records to be transferred to Presidential Libraries, but they do not require presidential communications to use only government channels, or even to be recorded at all. That would require a constitutional amendment.
Trump and the GOP are hypocrites?
They may be hypocrites, but they are not breaking any laws. The president and his immediate staff are not required to use government communication channels, because of the constitutional separation of powers.
In a strange way - it is taking away jobs.
The purpose of employment is the production of goods and services, not "keeping people busy". Elimination of unproductive jobs is a GOOD THING, since it allows those people to be employed elsewhere doing something that actually makes sense.
Will we soon be banning attractive women because they are attractive?? Or strictly enforcing a dress code?
RTFA. It is a dress code.
Arafat is the champion, of course.
During Arafat's tenure, the PLO only killed a few hundred, most of whom were Jordanians killed in 1970-71. There is no evidence that Arafat ever personally killed anyone.
I do believe President Obama has claim to being the Nobel Peace prize recipient who bombed and killed the most people.
Kissinger had far bloodier hands than Obama. Menachem Begin may be the recipient who killed the most directly, rather than by giving orders. He was personally involved in the murder of more than 90 people, most of whom were British.
As with the Nobel's, which are a *little* harder to get nominated for, the only thing that matters is winning. Being considered says nothing.
In 1939, Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He didn't win.
Republicans in Congress know that if they don't fall in line with President Bannon, they'll get primaried in their next election.
Only two Republicans went against Trump on DeVos. Susan Collins has nothing to fear and everything to gain with her vote. She is popular in Maine, and the core of the Maine Republican Party is far more moderate than at the national level. She has far more to fear in the general election against a Democrat. Lisa Mirkowski also has little to fear. DeVos wants to divert more resources toward charters and vouchers, and that does nothing for Alaskans. You can't use a voucher when the closest alternative school is 300 miles across the taiga/tundra.
This idea that America needs to try and help every country in the world when we have our own problems is what gets people like Trump elected.
Standing up for human rights worldwide does not diminish our ability to deal with our own problems. A far better argument is that efforts to "fix" other countries have been futile and counterproductive. Look at North Korea and Cuba. We have isolated and embargoed them for decades, and their oppressive regimes have lasted far longer than any others. The Castro and Kim dynasties would likely be long forgotten if they had been unable to blame their economic incompetence on foreign devils, and unable to accuse their opponents of being American stooges.
it's no longer funny.
Sad.
But this is the world we live in today with regards to discussion and debate.
Indeed. Yesterday the United States Senate voted to censor Elizabeth Warren and force her to shut up and sit down. So the idea that you can deal with opponents by silencing them certainly is not unique to Africa.
Disclaimer: I agree with Elizabeth on very few issues.