There's basically no incentive to be productive if you don't own the business. Salaries have been stagnant for a long long time, a large segment of the workforce is on temporary contracts and promotions are rarely (if ever) based on performance. Also, roughly 25% of the workforce is on a dead-end career track... office ladies.
The American Service-Members' Protection Act (ASPA, Title 2 of Pub.L. 107–206, H.R. 4775, 116 Stat. 820, enacted August 2, 2002) is a United States federal law that aims "to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party." Introduced by U.S. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) and U.S. Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX) it was an amendment to the 2002 Supplemental Appropriations Act for Further Recovery From and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States (H.R. 4775). The bill was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on August 2, 2002.
Title II: American Servicemembers' Protection Act - American Servicemembers' Protection Act of 2002 - Prohibits U.S. cooperation with the International Criminal Court. Specifies restrictions on: (1) participation by covered U.S. persons in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations; (2) transfer to the Court of U.S. classified national security and law enforcement information; and (3) the provision of U.S. military assistance, with specified exceptions, to the government of a country that is a party to the Court.
(Sec. 2003) Prescribes conditions for a presidential waiver of the prohibitions and requirements of this Act.
(Sec. 2004) Declares that the requirements of this Act shall not prohibit: (1) any action authorized by the President to bring about the release from captivity of any U.S. military personnel (covered U.S. persons) and certain other persons (covered allied persons) who are being detained or imprisoned against their will by or on behalf of the Court; or (2) communication by the United States of its policy with respect to a matter.
(Sec. 2008) Authorizes the President to use all means necessary (including the provision of legal assistance) to bring about the release of covered U.S. persons and covered allied persons held captive by, on behalf, or at the request of the Court.
(Sec. 2009) Urges the President to report to appropriate congressional committees on the degree to which: (1) each military alliance to which the United States is a party may place U.S. armed forces under foreign control subject to the Court's jurisdiction; and (2) U.S. armed forces engaged in military operations pursuant to such alliance may be exposed to greater risks as a result of being placed under such foreign control.
(Sec. 2010) Authorizes funds withheld from the U.S. share of assessments to the UN or other international organizations pursuant to the Admiral James W. Nance and Meg Donovan Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001 to be transferred to the Embassy Security, Construction and Maintenance Account of the Department of State.
(Sec. 2011) Sets forth the relationship between the President's exercise of his constitutional authority as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, this Act, and actions taken with respect to a specific matter involving the Court, requiring congressional notification as specified.
(Sec. 2014) Amends the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2002 to repeal the limitation on use of division A funds to provide assistance to the International Criminal Court or its prosecutorial activity.
(Sec. 2015) Permits the United States to continue rendering assistance to international efforts to bring to justice Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, other members of Al Qaeda, leaders of Islamic Jihad, and other foreign nationals accused of genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity.
Then again, PRISM is what the Usenet conspiracy theorists were talking about in the 90s as well... I'm not sure if it is behind schedule or if we only found out a tiny part of what has been happening pretty much since day 1 of the internet.
Companies found in breach of data protection regulations can be fined up to 5% of annual revenue, and the local management can get jailed for 20 days. 20 days doesn't seem much, but it is enough to hurt their job prospects for the next five years in regulated markets. That means basically that they can't work for payment institutions, insurance companies, banks, companies storing personal data, companies sub-contracting for the preceding,..., in most of Europe until the conviction gets "time barred" after 5 years.
Of course, if the company has no local office in Europe it isn't a risk.
So if Uber takes hold, the bar owners will convince government to provide a Post Office equivalent of a taxi service. Price will be low, but it will be a single bus that takes all the patrons from that area, travel all around the town and drop them in their homes over the next six hours.
Actually such a service is already provided in Luxembourg, for example. On weekend nights, you have a free bus service from the party areas to the residential areas and the train station. It didn't require Uber to take hold, it was just done to reduce the amount of accidents caused by drunk driving. It's very successful.
Funnily enough, in some places in Europe there are different driving license requirements for the cab drivers and the bus drivers. Because they tend to drive 8+ hours a day and clock insane mileage in a year, unlike the average driver.
Annual full medical checkup
Annual driving test
Regular inspection of the vehicle (time-based or mileage based, whichever is reached first)
It is still the case in Germany, at least partially. Plastic bottles require a deposit, glass bottles don't. You're supposed to drop the glass bottles, sorted by color, in your suburb recycling point. Hobos do check all the trash cans for plastic bottles to return, but they can't cash it in. They receive a voucher for that specific shop. Most shops only take back bottles from their own inventory (based on bar code), but a few accept any bottle.
I see things being done in a way that costs around five times as much as we would do it in small- to mid-scale private industry, and even at that expense level the quality of work is outright appalling.
Having worked on both sides of the fence, most of the cost saving I have seen so far in the small-to-mid-scale industry comes from cutting corners on things seen as "uncool" (to be honest, that also applies to large industry). Like, for example, compliance with the laws and regulations. I have worked in education, in the automotive industry, in the banking industry, in the risk management industry, in investment banks, in the cloud hosting industry and in local/national/international administrations. I honestly can say I haven't seen as much difference as people claim to see.
I have seen CTOs playing Farmville 8h a days in their startup while complaining about the ton of work they had and I have seen civil servants clocking 80+ hours a week to fix issues (without any hope of overtime compensation). I have seen automotive engineers write books on the evolution of money from the Roman times to modern day during their work hours, then clocking extra time to actually do their work. I have seen systems administrator actively sabotaging servers to get extra money through on-call.
Before anyone is given access to classified information, my understanding is that they have to take a class in how to manage classified information and they have to sign an agreement saying they will abide by the rules governing classified information.
We have a similar class at work, followed by a test that you have to pass again every year. I actually had to do the test two months in a row as I joined the company 6 weeks before the annual company-wide refresh. Failure to score 100% on that test in the required time frame, being caught violating one of the security rules outlined in the class or witnessing a violation without reporting it are all causes for dismissal. Yet, it seems that all but a handful of employees have forgotten anything to do with the class within 30 seconds of finishing the test.
For the first part of your response, it's called having discipline. I love looking at beautiful girls and I love sex, that doesn't mean I'm humping every girl I see in the street. Am I superhuman because I can resist a basic human desire that is third only to breathing and eating?
I agree with you that people overeat out of habit or even boredom. That's a self-reinforcing mechanism, too. The more you eat, the more you can eat and want to eat. Feeling full can be addictive. As I indicated in another post, I went from 180 lbs to 265 lbs through lack of portion control in the last 10 years... at my worst, I was eating Japanese food in family-sized portions. I have lost 55lbs in the last 12 months by getting my portions back under control. It's the second time I am going through this, the first time I went from 143 lbs to 220 lbs when I started working, then lost fat and gained muscle to reach 175 lbs. When I started working, I switched from being very physically active (track and field, basketball, judo, cycling and rock climbing) with a keto-type diet to a helpdesk job with no control on the food available. The shitty diet worked its magic in less than 3 years, a better diet took about a year to fix it. I actually felt better at 175lbs than at 143, so I went in maintenance mode from there on.
If you believe what you claim, how do you explain that even when people DO lose weight dieting, they almost inevitably gain it back and more within a few years?
Based on observations on both myself and others... people tend to see the diet as a quick fix. Eat less until you reach your desired weight then eat as usual. People also tend to underestimate how many calories they eat, they forget to account for the snacks and so on. A guy I know went from morbidly obese to slightly overweight by switching to a keto diet. Once he got to that point, he broke down and wolfed down bread and cookies. He eats over 2000 calories a day in bread, pastries and cookies. I eat 2000 calories total in a day. When we were still working together, he was claiming I could eat whatever I wanted and still lose weight while he was gaining weight on thin air. My food tray was meat with loads of vegetables, his food tray had meat, extra potatoes, extra sauce and 3 desserts.
Compare the portion sizes, too. I've been eating mostly Japanese food for the past 10 years, but with western portion sizes (literally eating family sized Japanese portions at each meal). At the same time, my job has become more and more sedentary. Guess what happened? I became the fattest I've ever been in my whole life. I went from 180 lbs to 265 lbs. My wife also gained 50 lbs in the same time frame, even tho it's the food she ate her whole life. Something must have changed our genes, I guess.
In the past year or so, I have reduced my portion sizes and started moving my ass more to keep at around 500 calories below my calculated TDEE. Guess what? My genetics must have changed again because I have lost a bit more than 55 lbs so far. Most of it was from reducing my portions and stopping all soda, now I'm running 3 times a week and trying to build up my endurance to run longer distances. I'm still overweight, but it's going in the good direction. I also feel less hungry and tired than I used to. I do realize that it is not an easy fix and that going back to my previous portion sizes and sedentary life will land me back in the exact same spot. Once I hit my target weight, I'll slowly increase the portion sizes until my weight stabilizes.
Where I grew up, there are several volunteer services that do just that for every big party or event. It sounds insane, but it works wonders. They also gamified staying sober... you received stuff if you left the party below the legal limit.
Where I lived 10 years ago, they have free public transport from the pub areas to the residential areas on weekend nights.
There is a theory of a link with asian aborigenes (not australian ones) for both the Ainu and the Jomon people that were there before the Ainu, based on the bone structure. The Ainu came from Sakhalin to the archipelago towards the end of the Jomon era. The Ainu and the Jomon may possibly be from the same genetic group or similar genetic groups, but they were very distinct cultures. The Jomon culture ran from about 10500 BCE to about 300 BCE.
Genetic analysis does point to a North-eastern Asian ancestry for both the Jomon and Ainu people. It's far from settled tho:)
The users (mods included) aren't the customers, they are the product. A customer is a person who buys goods or services from a shop or business. The advertisers buys ads placement from Reddit, that money pays for the infrastructure and the salaries. One could agree that the mods pay with the free time they spend maintaining their subreddit working, but in the grand scheme of things they're mostly there to attract more users.
Also, based on the fund raising last October, expect more attempts to increase revenue by any means. Reddit was valued at $500M (60 years of their latest annual advertisement revenue) and raised $50M from investors based on that valuation. At the current level of revenue, 10 years on, Reddit is still operating at a loss and can't survive without investors.
If German made cars end up priced out of Greeks budget, wouldn't the materials and equipment required to build Greek cars also be? Also their steel industry is already dying, due to energy costs, mismanagement and lack of demand (their production capacity was higher than the demand, and they borrow money to modernize and increase it). The largest Greek steel company already has over 1 billion euros in debts.
Reddit, so far, is living on investors money... their last published revenue from advertisement was $8.3M in 2014, of which they gave 10% to charity. In 2013, they operated in the red... as far as I know, they also operated in the red in 2014. In the last funding round (Oct 2014?), they were valued $500M and got $50M in extra funding. 6 times their annual advertisement revenue...
News at 11, reddit is a company and needs to produce money to stay afloat. Do you know what happens when an overvalued company runs out of investors while still not operating in the black?
I'm sure there was a time when 9 out of 10 scientists would have said the world is flat
The earth as a sphere has been known for something between 2400 years and 2600 years. Its size was calculated about 2250 years ago, with amazing accuracy for the time. The only major publication whose words could be twisted to reference a flat earth would be the New Testament in Revelations 7:1 (four corners of the earth).
Slashdot Mirror
There's basically no incentive to be productive if you don't own the business. Salaries have been stagnant for a long long time, a large segment of the workforce is on temporary contracts and promotions are rarely (if ever) based on performance. Also, roughly 25% of the workforce is on a dead-end career track... office ladies.
Hell, if I shave I get carded - I'm 58. I'm also part Micmac... I drank for about 45 years (I'm only 56, do the math if you'd like)
I believe that is what he was talking about
It is already regulated in places... like Luxembourg
The American Service-Members' Protection Act (ASPA, Title 2 of Pub.L. 107–206, H.R. 4775, 116 Stat. 820, enacted August 2, 2002) is a United States federal law that aims "to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party." Introduced by U.S. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) and U.S. Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX) it was an amendment to the 2002 Supplemental Appropriations Act for Further Recovery From and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States (H.R. 4775). The bill was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on August 2, 2002.
Full text here, search for "American Service"
Title II: American Servicemembers' Protection Act - American Servicemembers' Protection Act of 2002 - Prohibits U.S. cooperation with the International Criminal Court. Specifies restrictions on: (1) participation by covered U.S. persons in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations; (2) transfer to the Court of U.S. classified national security and law enforcement information; and (3) the provision of U.S. military assistance, with specified exceptions, to the government of a country that is a party to the Court.
(Sec. 2003) Prescribes conditions for a presidential waiver of the prohibitions and requirements of this Act.
(Sec. 2004) Declares that the requirements of this Act shall not prohibit: (1) any action authorized by the President to bring about the release from captivity of any U.S. military personnel (covered U.S. persons) and certain other persons (covered allied persons) who are being detained or imprisoned against their will by or on behalf of the Court; or (2) communication by the United States of its policy with respect to a matter.
(Sec. 2008) Authorizes the President to use all means necessary (including the provision of legal assistance) to bring about the release of covered U.S. persons and covered allied persons held captive by, on behalf, or at the request of the Court.
(Sec. 2009) Urges the President to report to appropriate congressional committees on the degree to which: (1) each military alliance to which the United States is a party may place U.S. armed forces under foreign control subject to the Court's jurisdiction; and (2) U.S. armed forces engaged in military operations pursuant to such alliance may be exposed to greater risks as a result of being placed under such foreign control.
(Sec. 2010) Authorizes funds withheld from the U.S. share of assessments to the UN or other international organizations pursuant to the Admiral James W. Nance and Meg Donovan Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001 to be transferred to the Embassy Security, Construction and Maintenance Account of the Department of State.
(Sec. 2011) Sets forth the relationship between the President's exercise of his constitutional authority as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, this Act, and actions taken with respect to a specific matter involving the Court, requiring congressional notification as specified.
(Sec. 2014) Amends the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2002 to repeal the limitation on use of division A funds to provide assistance to the International Criminal Court or its prosecutorial activity.
(Sec. 2015) Permits the United States to continue rendering assistance to international efforts to bring to justice Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, other members of Al Qaeda, leaders of Islamic Jihad, and other foreign nationals accused of genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity.
Then again, PRISM is what the Usenet conspiracy theorists were talking about in the 90s as well... I'm not sure if it is behind schedule or if we only found out a tiny part of what has been happening pretty much since day 1 of the internet.
It's refreshing to see someone who has at least some knowledge of the data protection regulations.
Ever heard of Prism?
Companies found in breach of data protection regulations can be fined up to 5% of annual revenue, and the local management can get jailed for 20 days. 20 days doesn't seem much, but it is enough to hurt their job prospects for the next five years in regulated markets. That means basically that they can't work for payment institutions, insurance companies, banks, companies storing personal data, companies sub-contracting for the preceding, ..., in most of Europe until the conviction gets "time barred" after 5 years.
Of course, if the company has no local office in Europe it isn't a risk.
So if Uber takes hold, the bar owners will convince government to provide a Post Office equivalent of a taxi service. Price will be low, but it will be a single bus that takes all the patrons from that area, travel all around the town and drop them in their homes over the next six hours.
Actually such a service is already provided in Luxembourg, for example. On weekend nights, you have a free bus service from the party areas to the residential areas and the train station. It didn't require Uber to take hold, it was just done to reduce the amount of accidents caused by drunk driving. It's very successful.
Funnily enough, in some places in Europe there are different driving license requirements for the cab drivers and the bus drivers. Because they tend to drive 8+ hours a day and clock insane mileage in a year, unlike the average driver.
It is still the case in Germany, at least partially. Plastic bottles require a deposit, glass bottles don't. You're supposed to drop the glass bottles, sorted by color, in your suburb recycling point. Hobos do check all the trash cans for plastic bottles to return, but they can't cash it in. They receive a voucher for that specific shop. Most shops only take back bottles from their own inventory (based on bar code), but a few accept any bottle.
I see things being done in a way that costs around five times as much as we would do it in small- to mid-scale private industry, and even at that expense level the quality of work is outright appalling.
Having worked on both sides of the fence, most of the cost saving I have seen so far in the small-to-mid-scale industry comes from cutting corners on things seen as "uncool" (to be honest, that also applies to large industry). Like, for example, compliance with the laws and regulations. I have worked in education, in the automotive industry, in the banking industry, in the risk management industry, in investment banks, in the cloud hosting industry and in local/national/international administrations. I honestly can say I haven't seen as much difference as people claim to see.
I have seen CTOs playing Farmville 8h a days in their startup while complaining about the ton of work they had and I have seen civil servants clocking 80+ hours a week to fix issues (without any hope of overtime compensation). I have seen automotive engineers write books on the evolution of money from the Roman times to modern day during their work hours, then clocking extra time to actually do their work. I have seen systems administrator actively sabotaging servers to get extra money through on-call.
Before anyone is given access to classified information, my understanding is that they have to take a class in how to manage classified information and they have to sign an agreement saying they will abide by the rules governing classified information.
We have a similar class at work, followed by a test that you have to pass again every year. I actually had to do the test two months in a row as I joined the company 6 weeks before the annual company-wide refresh. Failure to score 100% on that test in the required time frame, being caught violating one of the security rules outlined in the class or witnessing a violation without reporting it are all causes for dismissal. Yet, it seems that all but a handful of employees have forgotten anything to do with the class within 30 seconds of finishing the test.
Given the choice between ground support from 1 'hog or supports form 1 F35... I'd pick the hog.
For the first part of your response, it's called having discipline. I love looking at beautiful girls and I love sex, that doesn't mean I'm humping every girl I see in the street. Am I superhuman because I can resist a basic human desire that is third only to breathing and eating?
I agree with you that people overeat out of habit or even boredom. That's a self-reinforcing mechanism, too. The more you eat, the more you can eat and want to eat. Feeling full can be addictive. As I indicated in another post, I went from 180 lbs to 265 lbs through lack of portion control in the last 10 years... at my worst, I was eating Japanese food in family-sized portions. I have lost 55lbs in the last 12 months by getting my portions back under control. It's the second time I am going through this, the first time I went from 143 lbs to 220 lbs when I started working, then lost fat and gained muscle to reach 175 lbs. When I started working, I switched from being very physically active (track and field, basketball, judo, cycling and rock climbing) with a keto-type diet to a helpdesk job with no control on the food available. The shitty diet worked its magic in less than 3 years, a better diet took about a year to fix it. I actually felt better at 175lbs than at 143, so I went in maintenance mode from there on.
If you believe what you claim, how do you explain that even when people DO lose weight dieting, they almost inevitably gain it back and more within a few years?
Based on observations on both myself and others... people tend to see the diet as a quick fix. Eat less until you reach your desired weight then eat as usual. People also tend to underestimate how many calories they eat, they forget to account for the snacks and so on. A guy I know went from morbidly obese to slightly overweight by switching to a keto diet. Once he got to that point, he broke down and wolfed down bread and cookies. He eats over 2000 calories a day in bread, pastries and cookies. I eat 2000 calories total in a day. When we were still working together, he was claiming I could eat whatever I wanted and still lose weight while he was gaining weight on thin air. My food tray was meat with loads of vegetables, his food tray had meat, extra potatoes, extra sauce and 3 desserts.
Compare the portion sizes, too. I've been eating mostly Japanese food for the past 10 years, but with western portion sizes (literally eating family sized Japanese portions at each meal). At the same time, my job has become more and more sedentary. Guess what happened? I became the fattest I've ever been in my whole life. I went from 180 lbs to 265 lbs. My wife also gained 50 lbs in the same time frame, even tho it's the food she ate her whole life. Something must have changed our genes, I guess.
In the past year or so, I have reduced my portion sizes and started moving my ass more to keep at around 500 calories below my calculated TDEE. Guess what? My genetics must have changed again because I have lost a bit more than 55 lbs so far. Most of it was from reducing my portions and stopping all soda, now I'm running 3 times a week and trying to build up my endurance to run longer distances. I'm still overweight, but it's going in the good direction. I also feel less hungry and tired than I used to. I do realize that it is not an easy fix and that going back to my previous portion sizes and sedentary life will land me back in the exact same spot. Once I hit my target weight, I'll slowly increase the portion sizes until my weight stabilizes.
Where I grew up, there are several volunteer services that do just that for every big party or event. It sounds insane, but it works wonders. They also gamified staying sober... you received stuff if you left the party below the legal limit.
Where I lived 10 years ago, they have free public transport from the pub areas to the residential areas on weekend nights.
There is a theory of a link with asian aborigenes (not australian ones) for both the Ainu and the Jomon people that were there before the Ainu, based on the bone structure. The Ainu came from Sakhalin to the archipelago towards the end of the Jomon era. The Ainu and the Jomon may possibly be from the same genetic group or similar genetic groups, but they were very distinct cultures. The Jomon culture ran from about 10500 BCE to about 300 BCE.
Genetic analysis does point to a North-eastern Asian ancestry for both the Jomon and Ainu people. It's far from settled tho :)
The users (mods included) aren't the customers, they are the product. A customer is a person who buys goods or services from a shop or business. The advertisers buys ads placement from Reddit, that money pays for the infrastructure and the salaries. One could agree that the mods pay with the free time they spend maintaining their subreddit working, but in the grand scheme of things they're mostly there to attract more users.
Also, based on the fund raising last October, expect more attempts to increase revenue by any means. Reddit was valued at $500M (60 years of their latest annual advertisement revenue) and raised $50M from investors based on that valuation. At the current level of revenue, 10 years on, Reddit is still operating at a loss and can't survive without investors.
If German made cars end up priced out of Greeks budget, wouldn't the materials and equipment required to build Greek cars also be? Also their steel industry is already dying, due to energy costs, mismanagement and lack of demand (their production capacity was higher than the demand, and they borrow money to modernize and increase it). The largest Greek steel company already has over 1 billion euros in debts.
The Weimar Republic would like a word with you about that value of paper money without the industrial production matching it.
Reddit, so far, is living on investors money... their last published revenue from advertisement was $8.3M in 2014, of which they gave 10% to charity. In 2013, they operated in the red... as far as I know, they also operated in the red in 2014. In the last funding round (Oct 2014?), they were valued $500M and got $50M in extra funding. 6 times their annual advertisement revenue...
News at 11, reddit is a company and needs to produce money to stay afloat. Do you know what happens when an overvalued company runs out of investors while still not operating in the black?
I'm sure there was a time when 9 out of 10 scientists would have said the world is flat
The earth as a sphere has been known for something between 2400 years and 2600 years. Its size was calculated about 2250 years ago, with amazing accuracy for the time. The only major publication whose words could be twisted to reference a flat earth would be the New Testament in Revelations 7:1 (four corners of the earth).
Amazon is really located in Luxembourg... unlike Apple and Google, who basically only have a postbox for tax reasons.