There are surely some jurisdictions where the USA will be unable to enforce this stupid law. People will adjust and some business will leave the USA, but their customers will remain in the USA.
Maybe $0.25 / hour in 1934 wasn't a living wage.
Relying on "Most Economists don't like/like X" is a weak argument strategy. In 1850, most Physician's didn't believe in washing their hands before performing surgery. That the majority believed it, did not make it true.
It's more than just a scare tactic. Filing what you know is a losing lawsuit is often a winning strategy when there's a large imbalance in wealth between the parties invovled.
The blogger is a grad student. Most grad students don't have a spare $50,000 for attorney fees. Without an attorney, the grad student will likely not succeed in court (thanks to attorneys making court opaque and inscrutable in what's effectively a massive confluence of rent-seeking behavior).
Capitalism relies on the fundamental assumption that 80-90% of humans can find something valuable to do with their time for ~40 hours per week. If/when automation reaches the point where most of us cannot find something of value to do with our work week, Capitalism will break down and society will need to find another way to portion out resources.
In most companies, HR works for your manager, not you.
You've got the following options as you approach 50.
1. Get promoted to upper management. This works for like 1-2% of tech workers. Maybe less. And you're no longer a tech worker when it happens.
2. Burrow into an unpopular niche that your employer needs to maintain a profitable line of business. I've seen this work for friends who were gainfully employed into their 70s. It works for like 0.1% of tech workers.
3. Start your own company. It doesn't have to be tech-based, but your chances of successs go way up if you start a business that competes with a business for which you've worked as an employee. You'll need interpersonal skills that most tech workers lack. This works for like 5% of techies.
4. Live very frugally, save most of your take-home pay in your 20s and 30s and retire in your mid 40s to live in a small RV as a campground host in a state park. This takes incredible discipline. The kind of discipline that, if you had it, you'd have gone to medical school. It works for like 1% of techies.
5. Win powerball. No need to do the math here, it won't happen.
Default Option for 80%: Become an Uber driver, Bite Squad delivery driver or temp worker. Big income downshifting and lack of employment is what's happening for most tech workers after age 50.
You're assuming the market is rationally optimizing for lowest cost. But we all know a market is just an aggregation of a bunch of people. These "markets" are comprised largely of people who wore bell-bottom jeans for about 10 years from the late 60s to the late 70s. So assuming they'll make rational power-use decisions is a bit of a stretch.
The USA, has an average rate that's more than 1 mass shooting per day for 2015, Obviously, we're doing something wrong. Given how well things work in America, I expect we are going to have some deep and serious debates at all levels of government....about raising the threshold in the definition of Mass Shooting from 4 victims to something more reasonable. Maybe 7? 10? What do you think?
Read Asimov's Robot novels for an alternate view on how things will play out in a fully automated economy. The 0.001% won't need the rest of us and wind up living on giant estates, surrounded by robots fulfilling their every wish.
Economics of Light Rail? How about comparing the economics of Light Rail to rather outsized subsidies for oil production, including $150 billion per year in military subsidies just counting money spent on the ill-conceived Iraq debacle.
I'm a fan of solar and wind. I buy into the optional wind-source program offered by our local utility even though it raises my electricity bill by about 5%.
But when I recently looked into installing solar, got a quote from a local installer, it was going to cost $13k (after federal tax credit/subsidy) to buy and install a grid-tied system. That would replace about 1/2 the 700 kwH / month that we use at our house (gas heat, gas hot water, gas cooktop). Our utility charges $0.135 / kwH. The payback for the installation without counting on any alternative return on investment for the $13k was 16 years. The other assumption is that the solar system requires no maintenance.
Here is some of the information I got from the installer during the bid process:
1. In northern states in the USA, you can figure on about 1,250 kwH per year from 1,000 watts (manufacturer peak rating?) of panels. So if you use 625 Kwh / month, you need 6,000 watts of rated power to replace your usage 100%. That's only 24 250 watt panels, or a panel price of 6,000-$7,500.
2. If your panels do not get 100% equal sunlight, the array will produce at the rate of the most shaded panel. UNLESS you buy the panels with the inverter/converter built into it. Then each panel produces whatever it can, independent of the production of the other panels.
3. Batteries are expensive and they wear out in 10 years. So if you buy a big battery system for $6,000, you're effectively spending $600 / year on the batteries unless you make unicorn-rainbow assumptions about advances in battery technology. For this reason, a grid-tied system is probably going to be about $50 / month more cost effective.
4. Mounting systems for attaching the panels to your roof can cost around $100 per panel.
So, install it if it makes you feel good, or if you live in a place where power costs far more than the $0.135 / kwh it costs where I live. But until the costs drop by 50% or the price of power doubles, I'm not going to buy.
I think Morgan Stanley is probably going to turn out to be wrong. I don't think we'll see solar panel prices continue to drop 20% / year and right now, panel prices are only about 1/3d the cost of a system, the other pieces and the labor are 2/3rds, so even if solar panels dropped 20%, the cost of an installation would drop at best 10%, and more likely something like 6.7%.
Mr. Snowden exposed, in an undeniable manner, a grave threat to the freedom of each and every US citizen. He deserves a Presidential pardon or some kind of get out of jail free card on this act, because he did break the law, but the law in this case is shielding people who are secretly undermining our fundamental freedoms through massive unwarranted spying on US citizens.
Is Snowden a criminal? Yes. Is he a hero to those of us who wish to continue to live in the land of the freer than average? Yes.
Here's what our government has been doing since 9/11/2001 gave the anti-freedom brigade carte blanche:
1. As Mr. Snowden rubs our face in it: massive and sweeping unwarranted surveillance and collection of data and meta data of our phone and internet communications,
2. Secret courts.
3. Extra-judicial assassinations of both foreign nationals and in rare cases, US citizens.
4. Drone strikes on people in many countries outside of our declared war zones (Iraq and Afghanistan).
5. Declaring war on a country that has not invaded us or attacked us or any of our allies (Iraq).
6. Detaining criminals without due process, no sentence, no release date.
7. Torture on a massive scale. Abu Ghraib is just where we got caught on film. We've funded the torture of thousands of individuals. We as taxpayers are complicit and accruing a pretty massive karmic debt.
8. CIA black sites where our government can and does operate outside any bounds of law or moral constraint.
Since 9/11, we have been sliding into a nasty democracy of evil and unconstrained government behavior. We need to start rolling this stuff back. Strike down the patriot act and adopt a pre-9/11 stance towards freedom, due process, privacy and the constitution. It'd be a bargain to suffer a dozen 9/11 attacks, compared to what we're becoming because of our craven fear.
1. 99.999% of end users/customers do not understand software design documents and never will understand software design documents. So we must prototype rapidly into existence so we can get useful feedback early and often directly from the people that will use the tools we build is important.
2. I rarely optimize for performance. But when I do, I always measure first, record the results, and after each change, measure again. Use a stop-watch, a routine you build yourself, or a fancy-pants Profiler that tells you how much time each line of code took, but never ever optimize without measuring.
3. Software Engineers/Programmers are usually religious fanatics when it comes to languages and tools. Almost any problem can be solved in almost any language. If you're on a project with someone who loves Java, they'll write better code in Java. This idea extends to OS choices. If someone loves the Mac OS, their programs written on the Mac OS will be much better than anything that programmer would ever write on Windows or Linux.
4.
1. None of the essential services, such as air traffic control, will be shut down. You'll still be able to hop into your G5 and fly to Paris for dinner tonight.
2. OSHA, on the other hand, will stop inspecting your refineries, so some of your human resources employees may need to work a little harder to replace losses due to on-the-job mortality and morbidity.
If the #1 and #2 above do not apply to you, please ignore this post, it's not your government that shut down.
1. Do not eat at any establishment that normally has a drive-thru window.
2. Do not drink any carbonated beverage except beer or sparkling wine.
3. Do not eat candy.
4. Eat one fresh apple per day. Generally favor fresh vegetables and fruits over grains, meats and dairy.
5. Eat stuff you like, but don't gorge. For instance, I go to my favorite Taqueria once every week or two, but I get two tacos instead of five. Most days, I eat food I cook myself.
6. Restaurants are not usually making low-calorie high-nutrient food in reasonable portions. If you are going out to eat, eat 1/2 the portion they put in front of you and share the other 1/2 or take it home or throw it out. There's no points for cleaning your plate.
7. Avoid packaged convenience foods. If it comes in a cardboard box with a picture of food on the outside, skip it. It's not food.
8. Count your calories with a smart-phone app. Be honest with yourself. If you log everything you eat, you'll make better choices.
9. A normal deck of playing cards is roughly the size of a day's healthy portion of meat (3 oz).
10. Get a moderate amount of exercise throughout the day. By exercise, I mean getting up and walking 15 mins or doing pushups or planking for 90 seconds. Building the big muscles in your body helps you burn more energy while resting. Overdoing this is useless and causes injury.
For extra credit, try fasting once per week to reset your hunger point and save one day's calories. Learn that being hungry for an hour or two isn't necessarily signaling the imminent end of your world.
Slashdot Mirror
There are surely some jurisdictions where the USA will be unable to enforce this stupid law. People will adjust and some business will leave the USA, but their customers will remain in the USA.
You make love.
... your mother can't find it. Did you ask your mom where you left your Bitcoins?
They had a good run.
Said the Russian troll.
Maybe $0.25 / hour in 1934 wasn't a living wage. Relying on "Most Economists don't like/like X" is a weak argument strategy. In 1850, most Physician's didn't believe in washing their hands before performing surgery. That the majority believed it, did not make it true.
It's more than just a scare tactic. Filing what you know is a losing lawsuit is often a winning strategy when there's a large imbalance in wealth between the parties invovled.
The blogger is a grad student. Most grad students don't have a spare $50,000 for attorney fees. Without an attorney, the grad student will likely not succeed in court (thanks to attorneys making court opaque and inscrutable in what's effectively a massive confluence of rent-seeking behavior).
American justice is often for sale.
Capitalism relies on the fundamental assumption that 80-90% of humans can find something valuable to do with their time for ~40 hours per week. If/when automation reaches the point where most of us cannot find something of value to do with our work week, Capitalism will break down and society will need to find another way to portion out resources.
$10 an hour in 2000 and you're living well? Maybe in your mom's basement.
In most companies, HR works for your manager, not you.
You've got the following options as you approach 50.
1. Get promoted to upper management. This works for like 1-2% of tech workers. Maybe less. And you're no longer a tech worker when it happens.
2. Burrow into an unpopular niche that your employer needs to maintain a profitable line of business. I've seen this work for friends who were gainfully employed into their 70s. It works for like 0.1% of tech workers.
3. Start your own company. It doesn't have to be tech-based, but your chances of successs go way up if you start a business that competes with a business for which you've worked as an employee. You'll need interpersonal skills that most tech workers lack. This works for like 5% of techies.
4. Live very frugally, save most of your take-home pay in your 20s and 30s and retire in your mid 40s to live in a small RV as a campground host in a state park. This takes incredible discipline. The kind of discipline that, if you had it, you'd have gone to medical school. It works for like 1% of techies.
5. Win powerball. No need to do the math here, it won't happen.
Default Option for 80%: Become an Uber driver, Bite Squad delivery driver or temp worker. Big income downshifting and lack of employment is what's happening for most tech workers after age 50.
You're assuming the market is rationally optimizing for lowest cost. But we all know a market is just an aggregation of a bunch of people. These "markets" are comprised largely of people who wore bell-bottom jeans for about 10 years from the late 60s to the late 70s. So assuming they'll make rational power-use decisions is a bit of a stretch.
And as your first act, you can rename it NERSA.
So I can hook your privates up to a car battery and give you some jolts to get evidence because you don't care how it is obtained?
Why would you let your daughter go to Disney World? That's just plain abusive parenting.
The USA, has an average rate that's more than 1 mass shooting per day for 2015, Obviously, we're doing something wrong. Given how well things work in America, I expect we are going to have some deep and serious debates at all levels of government....about raising the threshold in the definition of Mass Shooting from 4 victims to something more reasonable. Maybe 7? 10? What do you think?
Read Asimov's Robot novels for an alternate view on how things will play out in a fully automated economy. The 0.001% won't need the rest of us and wind up living on giant estates, surrounded by robots fulfilling their every wish.
Economics of Light Rail? How about comparing the economics of Light Rail to rather outsized subsidies for oil production, including $150 billion per year in military subsidies just counting money spent on the ill-conceived Iraq debacle.
If utilities increase their prices, they'll make solar more attractive and increase the rate at which they go out of business.
I'm a fan of solar and wind. I buy into the optional wind-source program offered by our local utility even though it raises my electricity bill by about 5%.
But when I recently looked into installing solar, got a quote from a local installer, it was going to cost $13k (after federal tax credit/subsidy) to buy and install a grid-tied system. That would replace about 1/2 the 700 kwH / month that we use at our house (gas heat, gas hot water, gas cooktop). Our utility charges $0.135 / kwH. The payback for the installation without counting on any alternative return on investment for the $13k was 16 years. The other assumption is that the solar system requires no maintenance.
Here is some of the information I got from the installer during the bid process:
1. In northern states in the USA, you can figure on about 1,250 kwH per year from 1,000 watts (manufacturer peak rating?) of panels. So if you use 625 Kwh / month, you need 6,000 watts of rated power to replace your usage 100%. That's only 24 250 watt panels, or a panel price of 6,000-$7,500.
2. If your panels do not get 100% equal sunlight, the array will produce at the rate of the most shaded panel. UNLESS you buy the panels with the inverter/converter built into it. Then each panel produces whatever it can, independent of the production of the other panels.
3. Batteries are expensive and they wear out in 10 years. So if you buy a big battery system for $6,000, you're effectively spending $600 / year on the batteries unless you make unicorn-rainbow assumptions about advances in battery technology. For this reason, a grid-tied system is probably going to be about $50 / month more cost effective.
4. Mounting systems for attaching the panels to your roof can cost around $100 per panel.
So, install it if it makes you feel good, or if you live in a place where power costs far more than the $0.135 / kwh it costs where I live. But until the costs drop by 50% or the price of power doubles, I'm not going to buy.
I think Morgan Stanley is probably going to turn out to be wrong. I don't think we'll see solar panel prices continue to drop 20% / year and right now, panel prices are only about 1/3d the cost of a system, the other pieces and the labor are 2/3rds, so even if solar panels dropped 20%, the cost of an installation would drop at best 10%, and more likely something like 6.7%.
Large-scale wind farms look more likely to me.
Mr. Snowden exposed, in an undeniable manner, a grave threat to the freedom of each and every US citizen. He deserves a Presidential pardon or some kind of get out of jail free card on this act, because he did break the law, but the law in this case is shielding people who are secretly undermining our fundamental freedoms through massive unwarranted spying on US citizens.
Is Snowden a criminal? Yes. Is he a hero to those of us who wish to continue to live in the land of the freer than average? Yes.
Here's what our government has been doing since 9/11/2001 gave the anti-freedom brigade carte blanche:
1. As Mr. Snowden rubs our face in it: massive and sweeping unwarranted surveillance and collection of data and meta data of our phone and internet communications,
2. Secret courts.
3. Extra-judicial assassinations of both foreign nationals and in rare cases, US citizens. 4. Drone strikes on people in many countries outside of our declared war zones (Iraq and Afghanistan).
5. Declaring war on a country that has not invaded us or attacked us or any of our allies (Iraq).
6. Detaining criminals without due process, no sentence, no release date.
7. Torture on a massive scale. Abu Ghraib is just where we got caught on film. We've funded the torture of thousands of individuals. We as taxpayers are complicit and accruing a pretty massive karmic debt.
8. CIA black sites where our government can and does operate outside any bounds of law or moral constraint.
Since 9/11, we have been sliding into a nasty democracy of evil and unconstrained government behavior. We need to start rolling this stuff back. Strike down the patriot act and adopt a pre-9/11 stance towards freedom, due process, privacy and the constitution. It'd be a bargain to suffer a dozen 9/11 attacks, compared to what we're becoming because of our craven fear.
Live free or die.
1. 99.999% of end users/customers do not understand software design documents and never will understand software design documents. So we must prototype rapidly into existence so we can get useful feedback early and often directly from the people that will use the tools we build is important.
2. I rarely optimize for performance. But when I do, I always measure first, record the results, and after each change, measure again. Use a stop-watch, a routine you build yourself, or a fancy-pants Profiler that tells you how much time each line of code took, but never ever optimize without measuring.
3. Software Engineers/Programmers are usually religious fanatics when it comes to languages and tools. Almost any problem can be solved in almost any language. If you're on a project with someone who loves Java, they'll write better code in Java. This idea extends to OS choices. If someone loves the Mac OS, their programs written on the Mac OS will be much better than anything that programmer would ever write on Windows or Linux. 4.
1. None of the essential services, such as air traffic control, will be shut down. You'll still be able to hop into your G5 and fly to Paris for dinner tonight.
2. OSHA, on the other hand, will stop inspecting your refineries, so some of your human resources employees may need to work a little harder to replace losses due to on-the-job mortality and morbidity.
If the #1 and #2 above do not apply to you, please ignore this post, it's not your government that shut down.
Alistair Reynolds. Charles Stross. Gregory Benford. There's three.
Try drugs like oxycontin, pot, booze, crack or meth or opium to dull the existential pain. Instead of food. It'll have you in a size 2 in no time.
1. Do not eat at any establishment that normally has a drive-thru window.
2. Do not drink any carbonated beverage except beer or sparkling wine.
3. Do not eat candy.
4. Eat one fresh apple per day. Generally favor fresh vegetables and fruits over grains, meats and dairy.
5. Eat stuff you like, but don't gorge. For instance, I go to my favorite Taqueria once every week or two, but I get two tacos instead of five. Most days, I eat food I cook myself.
6. Restaurants are not usually making low-calorie high-nutrient food in reasonable portions. If you are going out to eat, eat 1/2 the portion they put in front of you and share the other 1/2 or take it home or throw it out. There's no points for cleaning your plate.
7. Avoid packaged convenience foods. If it comes in a cardboard box with a picture of food on the outside, skip it. It's not food.
8. Count your calories with a smart-phone app. Be honest with yourself. If you log everything you eat, you'll make better choices.
9. A normal deck of playing cards is roughly the size of a day's healthy portion of meat (3 oz).
10. Get a moderate amount of exercise throughout the day. By exercise, I mean getting up and walking 15 mins or doing pushups or planking for 90 seconds. Building the big muscles in your body helps you burn more energy while resting. Overdoing this is useless and causes injury.
For extra credit, try fasting once per week to reset your hunger point and save one day's calories. Learn that being hungry for an hour or two isn't necessarily signaling the imminent end of your world.