Yep. Apparently, that's part of the cycle for every new technology: first comes porn. Or if not first, at least soon after the first. Photography. Instant photography. Home video. Maybe even the printing press.
A few years back I read a book that makes a pretty good case for it, anyway. For the life of me, I can't recall the title. Seems like it had the word "sex" in the title, and maybe some reference to food and drugs. Maybe it was "lust", instead, and maybe "violence" and/or "greed", too.
In a fit of trusting paranoia, I told my public library not to record my borrowing record, so I can't look it up that way. And I doubt the NSA would be of any help, even though they might have the information.
When people talk about the decline in manufacturing, they're generally worried about the decline in the number of people employed in manufacturing and not at all interested in the amount of goods produced.
And why do they care about the number of people? Seems to me that most of the are overmuch concerned with voters, not economics. So that one input to the process is more important than the results of that process.
The Illinois town of Valmeyer was moved from the flood plain to a nearby bluff after the Mississippi River flood of 1993. I'm not sure how much of the actual town (other than its charter) actually moved.
It got pretty damp there (ahem), and there may not been much worth salvaging, even before taking into account the cost of the move. (Not that the cost mattered. It was free. The federal government paid for it, so it didn't cost anybody anything.;-) ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valmeyer,_Illinois
There was a time when massive buildings were moved several blocks, and it was no big thing. As in banks-built-during-the-19th-Century massive. Cheaper than tearing it down and building a new one, or selling the old one and building a new one where you wanted it, I guess. Just like moving a one-story frame house, only a bit more challenging. https://www.google.com/search?q=moving+large+structures
So if they wanted to move some of those buildings when they move the city, it might (possibly) be worth doing.
Well, not all of them. Borrowing and c\o\u\n\t\e\r\f\e\i\t\i\n\g\ monetary policy cover whatever taxation doesn't -- which is a biiiigggg chunk, nowadays.
"You say Weimar, I say Zimbabwe. Let's call the whole thing off."
According to a little-known grammar rule (I made up), sentences of the form "X need/needs/should Y", to be complete, require a phrase that explains why, such as "in order to obtain Z" or "in order to avoid Z".
So, this part of the sentence is incomplete: "We need energy efficiency in order to ____".
Near as I can tell, the replacement for the blank should be either "be less inefficient in our use of energy" or "not make Mother Nature cry".
Oopsie. Forgot something.
And at the end, append "in order to express explicitly what the writer declined to mention because it seemed self-evident".
As I recall, * from several years ago when I worked for a firm that had similar data to keep safe, adhering to the PCI contractual requirements would keep credit card numbers from being saved in unencrypted form, period. If memory serves, * not updating our software to meet that standard on January 01 (of 2006? 2007? *) would have meant either not processing credit card payments (unthinkable) or paying a fine to the credit card companies of some substantial amount of money (also unthinkable). How big a fine? $10,000/day is the figure that comes to mind. *
If my recollection is close to correct, and Target was also bound by that contractual requirement, they owe a metric $#!+-ton in PCI violation fines. (And somebody in charge of auditing Target for compliance really, really dropped the ball.)
* Best to seek confirmation/correction of what I think I recall. I'm sure it's not horribly mistaken, but it's probably not completely accurate. A couple of queries to get you started:
If you want to mark up a copy of the US Constitution, either with a highlighter to show what parts are still in effect, or with a Sharpie to hide what is not, pick the highlighter.
There's been some work on monetary theory -- and some experience in economies -- since that was published. It could be its conclusions are not as valid as they once were.
Regardless of the merits (or lack of them) of any specific change to the definition of the dollar, freedom of choice in currencies seems like an obvious thing to permit. If people would rather use some other currency for some purposes -- or all purposes -- makes sense to let them.
That also sends a signal to the Fed to get their act together, if people increasingly prefer to use Canadian dollars or Euros or British pounds or whatever when ordering printer ink or getting paid at their job or getting (or offering) a home mortgage. (It sends an even more powerful signal if they prefer first-class "forever stamps" or pre-1965 silver coins or Big-Mac-fifty-percent-off coupons.:-) )
Having a garden is illegal in some jurisdictions, too. Or at least, city hall said it was. (The city in question: Ferguson, MO, a suburb of St. Louis.)
Until they realized it wasn't.
Oopsie.
The homeowner provided them some assistance in learning their own ordinances, but it took a looong time.
If he knows more about the overall market than the little part that the corn farmer knows, then he's not gambling.
If he doesn't know but has a hunch and feels like taking a risk, he's gambling. If he thinks he knows but he doesn't, he's gambling -- he just doesn't know it yet.
How to tell the one who knows from one who doesn't know, but doesn't know he doesn't know? Check on him later to see if he made money in the futures market. The longer until "later", the more certain you'll be of your conclusion.
Now, if you think you know what you're doing but you're wrong, then it *is* gambling. You just didn't know it at the time.
Those people tend to leave the futures markets, either because they wise up, or because they run out of money to squander.
Side note: the posts I've noticed are about farmers protecting themselves from the risk of a price drop and speculators who can afford to take a few hits if there's an unexpected price change, and play the percentages (possibly supplemented by their own supposed expertise in analyzing markets).
It does work the other way. A baked goods manufacturer might want to insulate itself from rising prices, and be willing to pay to reduce or eliminate that risk, in the same way the farmer wants to reduce or eliminate the risk of falling prices. (My farming relatives that have used futures only hedge a portion of their expected crop.)
If there were no speculators, there would still be those who would want to insulate themselves against price swings (one direction or the other) who through the futures markets would find one another.
And if the speculators are, on balance, wrong about a commodity's future prices at any given time? They, as a group, have just subsidized the future buyers or sellers (depending on which way they were wrong) of that commodity.
After listening to my farming relatives talk about what they have done, will do or are considering doing, in their farming, I've concluded I'm not nearly smart enough to be a farmer. (I'd also mention that I'm too unhandy, and too lazy, but that's off -topic.)
If more farmers were allowed to go bankrupt, and to go into crops where they don't have permits (whatever the Ag. Dept. calls them), we'd see fewer screwed-up ones.
And if lenders were to take a closer look at aquifers under land before lending money using that land as collateral, even short-sighted farmers would pay more attention to depleting aquifers. There are, I suspect, limited incentives for banks to do that, and essentially none for whatever crazy-ass government agencies might make such loans (or guarantee bankers' loans).
Don't know what agencies or programs those might be, but given the ongoing need for politicians to buy votes to get re-elected, it's probably a safe bet that there are such agencies and programs.
There's a reason why Robin Williams' character in "Moscow On the Hudson" passed out in a grocery store, looking at all the varieties (and quantities) of coffee, or whatever the hell it was.
Some people seem to visualize rising water levels as a flash flood, where water levels will be rising several feet per hour, rather than orders of magnitude slower. Or maybe they just think that people will be too stupid to leave places that are slowly being encroached on by the ocean.
Even if the shore moves inward a bit, as is claimed, there will be time to move from places that are becoming less habitable to places that are becoming more habitable. The folks with the most foresight will already be on higher ground before their kids are born, so they won't have to move before their grandkids are born.
The handful of folks who live in certain places -- those with no higher ground nearby, like low coral atolls -- will have to move a long way away.
It's not like human beings never moved before. If the Clovis and pre-Clovis people, and the Australian Aborigines did it with considerably less technology, we can manage it, too.
So, in the interest of making lemonade from lemons, the best of a bad situation, and avoiding cliches like the plague...
Are there any open source JavaScript toolkits that do what this was supposed to do?
Well, I'm glad I didn't waste any time installing it or reading the documentation. If I'd read more than the original e-mail from Slashdot, I could have saved myself the bother of downloading it, too.
Now to save myself some disk space, and delete the thing. -Eric
Slashdot Mirror
Princeton, or Facebook?
No student loans for the time spent on FB.
"For the children."
Yep. Apparently, that's part of the cycle for every new technology: first comes porn. Or if not first, at least soon after the first. Photography. Instant photography. Home video. Maybe even the printing press.
A few years back I read a book that makes a pretty good case for it, anyway. For the life of me, I can't recall the title. Seems like it had the word "sex" in the title, and maybe some reference to food and drugs. Maybe it was "lust", instead, and maybe "violence" and/or "greed", too.
In a fit of trusting paranoia, I told my public library not to record my borrowing record, so I can't look it up that way. And I doubt the NSA would be of any help, even though they might have the information.
When people talk about the decline in manufacturing, they're generally worried about the decline in the number of people employed in manufacturing and not at all interested in the amount of goods produced.
And why do they care about the number of people? Seems to me that most of the are overmuch concerned with voters, not economics. So that one input to the process is more important than the results of that process.
The Illinois town of Valmeyer was moved from the flood plain to a nearby bluff after the Mississippi River flood of 1993. I'm not sure how much of the actual town (other than its charter) actually moved.
It got pretty damp there (ahem), and there may not been much worth salvaging, even before taking into account the cost of the move. (Not that the cost mattered. It was free. The federal government paid for it, so it didn't cost anybody anything. ;-) ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valmeyer,_Illinois
There was a time when massive buildings were moved several blocks, and it was no big thing. As in banks-built-during-the-19th-Century massive. Cheaper than tearing it down and building a new one, or selling the old one and building a new one where you wanted it, I guess. Just like moving a one-story frame house, only a bit more challenging. https://www.google.com/search?q=moving+large+structures
So if they wanted to move some of those buildings when they move the city, it might (possibly) be worth doing.
Well, not all of them. Borrowing and c\o\u\n\t\e\r\f\e\i\t\i\n\g\ monetary policy cover whatever taxation doesn't -- which is a biiiigggg chunk, nowadays.
"You say Weimar, I say Zimbabwe. Let's call the whole thing off."
Is "co-opted" the right word? Probably not.
The right word is probably "rented".
According to a little-known grammar rule (I made up), sentences of the form "X need/needs/should Y", to be complete, require a phrase that explains why, such as "in order to obtain Z" or "in order to avoid Z".
So, this part of the sentence is incomplete: "We need energy efficiency in order to ____".
Near as I can tell, the replacement for the blank should be either "be less inefficient in our use of energy" or "not make Mother Nature cry".
Oopsie. Forgot something.
And at the end, append "in order to express explicitly what the writer declined to mention because it seemed self-evident".
... perhaps posthumously.
An organization whose information is secured by "hiring the right people" rather than dividing responsibilities is rather dysfunctional.
Wasn't Sarbanes-Oxley (or one of its friends with an even funnier name, like L-1011 or PT-109 or BR549) supposed to prevent this sort of thing?
Guess that only applies to businesses, not to the federal government itself.
As I recall, * from several years ago when I worked for a firm that had similar data to keep safe, adhering to the PCI contractual requirements would keep credit card numbers from being saved in unencrypted form, period. If memory serves, * not updating our software to meet that standard on January 01 (of 2006? 2007? *) would have meant either not processing credit card payments (unthinkable) or paying a fine to the credit card companies of some substantial amount of money (also unthinkable). How big a fine? $10,000/day is the figure that comes to mind. *
If my recollection is close to correct, and Target was also bound by that contractual requirement, they owe a metric $#!+-ton in PCI violation fines. (And somebody in charge of auditing Target for compliance really, really dropped the ball.)
* Best to seek confirmation/correction of what I think I recall. I'm sure it's not horribly mistaken, but it's probably not completely accurate. A couple of queries to get you started:
http://duckduckgo.com/?s=pci+credit.card+encryption+fine+noncompliance
http://duckduckgo.com/?s=pci+credit.card+encryption+deadline
Uh, the US kinda already is.
If you want to mark up a copy of the US Constitution, either with a highlighter to show what parts are still in effect, or with a Sharpie to hide what is not, pick the highlighter.
You'll use less ink.
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
(Sorry.)
That's nice, for you. Where I live, taxes buy a whole lot of horrible, uncivilized things.
Regardless of the merits (or lack of them) of any specific change to the definition of the dollar, freedom of choice in currencies seems like an obvious thing to permit. If people would rather use some other currency for some purposes -- or all purposes -- makes sense to let them.
That also sends a signal to the Fed to get their act together, if people increasingly prefer to use Canadian dollars or Euros or British pounds or whatever when ordering printer ink or getting paid at their job or getting (or offering) a home mortgage. (It sends an even more powerful signal if they prefer first-class "forever stamps" or pre-1965 silver coins or Big-Mac-fifty-percent-off coupons. :-) )
Not me, of course.
Until they realized it wasn't.
Oopsie.
The homeowner provided them some assistance in learning their own ordinances, but it took a looong time.
If he doesn't know but has a hunch and feels like taking a risk, he's gambling. If he thinks he knows but he doesn't, he's gambling -- he just doesn't know it yet.
How to tell the one who knows from one who doesn't know, but doesn't know he doesn't know? Check on him later to see if he made money in the futures market. The longer until "later", the more certain you'll be of your conclusion.
Those people tend to leave the futures markets, either because they wise up, or because they run out of money to squander.
Side note: the posts I've noticed are about farmers protecting themselves from the risk of a price drop and speculators who can afford to take a few hits if there's an unexpected price change, and play the percentages (possibly supplemented by their own supposed expertise in analyzing markets).
It does work the other way. A baked goods manufacturer might want to insulate itself from rising prices, and be willing to pay to reduce or eliminate that risk, in the same way the farmer wants to reduce or eliminate the risk of falling prices. (My farming relatives that have used futures only hedge a portion of their expected crop.)
If there were no speculators, there would still be those who would want to insulate themselves against price swings (one direction or the other) who through the futures markets would find one another.
And if the speculators are, on balance, wrong about a commodity's future prices at any given time? They, as a group, have just subsidized the future buyers or sellers (depending on which way they were wrong) of that commodity.
After listening to my farming relatives talk about what they have done, will do or are considering doing, in their farming, I've concluded I'm not nearly smart enough to be a farmer. (I'd also mention that I'm too unhandy, and too lazy, but that's off -topic.) If more farmers were allowed to go bankrupt, and to go into crops where they don't have permits (whatever the Ag. Dept. calls them), we'd see fewer screwed-up ones. And if lenders were to take a closer look at aquifers under land before lending money using that land as collateral, even short-sighted farmers would pay more attention to depleting aquifers. There are, I suspect, limited incentives for banks to do that, and essentially none for whatever crazy-ass government agencies might make such loans (or guarantee bankers' loans). Don't know what agencies or programs those might be, but given the ongoing need for politicians to buy votes to get re-elected, it's probably a safe bet that there are such agencies and programs.
There's a reason why Robin Williams' character in "Moscow On the Hudson" passed out in a grocery store, looking at all the varieties (and quantities) of coffee, or whatever the hell it was.
Some people seem to visualize rising water levels as a flash flood, where water levels will be rising several feet per hour, rather than orders of magnitude slower. Or maybe they just think that people will be too stupid to leave places that are slowly being encroached on by the ocean. Even if the shore moves inward a bit, as is claimed, there will be time to move from places that are becoming less habitable to places that are becoming more habitable. The folks with the most foresight will already be on higher ground before their kids are born, so they won't have to move before their grandkids are born. The handful of folks who live in certain places -- those with no higher ground nearby, like low coral atolls -- will have to move a long way away. It's not like human beings never moved before. If the Clovis and pre-Clovis people, and the Australian Aborigines did it with considerably less technology, we can manage it, too.
So, in the interest of making lemonade from lemons, the best of a bad situation, and avoiding cliches like the plague ...
Are there any open source JavaScript toolkits that do what this was supposed to do?
Well, I'm glad I didn't waste any time installing it or reading the documentation. If I'd read more than the original e-mail from Slashdot, I could have saved myself the bother of downloading it, too. Now to save myself some disk space, and delete the thing. -Eric