Aye. Jeez, they openly joked and boasted about the wealthy being "their base".
One guy a few days ago on a conservative talk show host said he was about to lose his unemployment benefits and with that, his house, car, probably family. Conversion story, right?
Nope-- he felt he did the right thing on principle to slit his own throat, even tho the wealthy will be walking away with $100,000 in tax savings alone.
It is going to take hard poverty to break these folks from the fox news and radio talk show host brainwashing. They literally identify with billionaires while they are losing everything and being tossed out to starve. When do they wake up and start voting in their own self interest?
Or will they just bypass that step entirely and go straight to violence in a couple years.
I had trouble keeping up with it, even with a DVR.
I found the character conflict realistic but unpleasant. I didn't like adding the new characters- it was already a huge cast.
I thought it had a few really original episodes and ideas. I thought it handled the "lost out in space on a dying ship" handled better than voyager.
I think part of the problem is just salaries and expenses. Would this series have been cancelled if union rules allowed cheaper salaries for everyone involved (not just actors- everyone) with the series?
I see this last problem in so many areas of life these days. Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s (hell even part of the 80s) many things were "too cheap to measure"-- getting space to do things was dirt cheap.
Now, you maybe looking at $5000 to put on a small convention which might have run $500 back in the 80's. Meanwhile, strip centers and malls sit empty. It may be liability? Or perhaps people's standards are "too high".
Anyway, sad the series is gone. But there are more I haven't seen yet. Not enough hours in the day to keep up with everything coming out.
There is only one Rowling. There are many talented writers with other series.
I have no problem with her asking whatever she wants.
And I have no problem with putting my money into other areas.
Coffee is 4x more expensive. Starbucks gets a premium price but normal coffee is a buck.
Computers are a special case- not a stable market since your childhood. but their prices have been basically stable for the last 10 years. $300 for a cheap one, $1000 for a good one, and $2000 for a high end one (and as always a sprinkling of folks who pay $5000ish).
When i was a child, books were 2.00 and 2.25. Gasoline was 88 cents. Electricity was 6 cents a kilowatt hour.
On that baseline with inflation, books should be about four to six dollars. They are eight dollars and some authors like Rowling are billionaires.
Books have gone up faster than inflation for successful series. They are currently overcompensated (a successful author shouldn't be a billionaire if we have an efficient market).
Since there is a glut of entertainment, I've mitigated this by starting with the less expensive entertainment first and working my way up. Something like Potter, I wait a couple months and borrow a friends copy, check it out of the library, or buy a used copy. In many cases, I just do without. If there are 10 excellent series to read and I only have *time* to read 5 of them, then I can easily cut the 5 most expensive.
The entertainment glut is only getting worse. Sometimes when I talk to 30 and 40 year olds, there are movies and books I consider staples that they haven't gotten too yet.
As soon as you back a mere 90 days off the leading edge, your costs drop by 50%.
...On July 28, 1932, Attorney General Mitchell ordered the police evacuation of the Bonus Army veterans. When the veterans moved back into their old camp, they rushed two policeman trapped on the second floor of a building. The cornered police drew their revolvers and shot two veterans, William Hushka and Eric Carlson, who died later.[3] When told of this, President Hoover ordered the army to effect the evacuation of the Bonus Army from Washington.
At 4:45 p.m., commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, Fort Myer, Virginia, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of civil service employees left work to line the street and watch the U.S. Army attack its own veterans. The Bonus Marchers, believing the display was in their honour, cheered the troops until Maj. Patton ordered the cavalry to charge them--an action which prompted the civil service spectators to yell, "Shame! Shame!"
http://www.alternet.org/rights/102220/is_posse_comitatus_dead/ Is Posse Comitatus Dead? Why are there active duty soldiers stationed on U.S. streets?... Military Officer: So we've been given control of these forces so that we can train them, ensure they're responsive and direct them to participate in our exercises, so that were they called to support civil authority, those governors or local state jurisdictions that might need our help,...
It does note that for the time being heavy weaponry is still forbidden and other weapons would be "containerized" and only used as needed.
I suspect that is true of 90% of the population. Another 10% would probably slowly harden and then start to react. There would also be those who supported any resistance.
The military would used if there were sufficient civil disorder. A lot of people would die before order was restored.
This is part of the reason we pay taxes and provide benefits-- to keep things like that from ever really happening.
What happens when we hit 50% unemployment AND no benefits (as could happen in the next two decades with offshoring, automation, minimum wage laws, illegal immigrants, and robotics).
Those apache helicopters wikileaks reported on have an effective range of 12000 feet.
Note, in the video they start firing, and it's over a second before the bullets start landing- and they are landing in a 24" targeting circle. Plus night vision, and now the ability to see your heat pattern inside a framed structure.
As we a) require people to work b) cut benefits to people who don't work c) remove the jobs people could work at.
It has the potential to get really, really ugly.
Starting this month 1 million people a month lose their benefits. That's 12 million by next december when it roughly tops out. That is going to be large, very pissed off group of voters/rioters.
Thats not the way I remember it. That's very muddy and low contrast.
Sharp and High contrast. Skin color flattened to a grey blue. Evil denoted by thin red lines, good denoted by pinsharp blue lines, others denoted by green and yellow.
These are more typical screen shots of what it looks like.
Good point, but you can't use the "i'm an orphan defense" when you murder your parents.
It's no different than if you announced a secret. So I suppose the more legally correct method would be to say that if you are downstream of a published source, then that provides you legal protection. If you are upstream of the published source, you gave it away when it was still classified.
Seems like a good link. Not matching what I had read and heard elsewhere (which was that it was relatively good, not absolutely good). I'll have to adjust my mental model around that.
So I'll accept companies are actually making historical profits in absolute terms. It's amazing that none of it is getting to the employees yet.
I view the market as highly manipulated and only take short dips in, only buy and hold with about 20%.
On the rest
I hope that as india and china come on line they will raise the cost of workers there (as they have been doing) and it will get more difficult for the US to offshore. Some chinese manufacturers saw 100% labor wage increases in 2000 but that was to about $400 a year (from $190 a year). I can't see this getting high enough (even at 100%) in less than another 8 years.
I don't think they can get productivity gains again. We are already working 10 to 12 hour days at my company. they can't put us on 12 to 14 hour days next year. Plus I see things slowly falling apart/degrading under these pressures. If the economy even hints at getting better we could see mass turnover.
It was the most profitable relative to the prior year, not the most profitable. And those profits were built on cost cutting (layoffs), not on sales growth. If all company could lay off 100% of its employees and use only offshore labor and robotic labor then their profits would skyrocket... but who would be able to buy their products?
In absolute terms it was a bad year.
Likewise, Now that they have gotten the profits by laying everyone off, since sales are down (waaay down for some like Best Buy), how do they grow profits?
I think as people retire debt (either by paying it off or by going bankrupt) sales will get better. I'm more concerned about most manual labor jobs disappearing over the next 20 years.
With POMO and the PPT, I think they are actually using tax money to buy stocks at times. I think they direct the banks to buy stocks to protect prices.
One thing that has become excruciatingly clear over the past year is that it is easy to move the market price when volume is low. I think a lot of boomers are "frozen" below their strike price but that mental strike price is declining the closer they get to retirement. At some point they start selling and it will put long term pressure on the market.
I theorize that "new" stocks without boomers in them will out-perform during that period.
I had the "wonderful kid movie, terrible adult movie" experience with "Escape to Witch Mountain".
However, rewatching Tron did not produce that experience. It was okay and some parts were better than okay. The story about the people/characters was reasonably solid and a good story can overcome weak effects while awesome effects can't overcome weak characters and bad story.
Also amazing how our executive's private offices are 30' by 40'. That's larger than many houses.
We have 10x8 cubes (12x8 for supervisors and managers).
On a big project, I'm in a war room at a desk with people right next to me now. I see my cube about three times a month.
I don't think I'd leave for a bigger cube tho. I might leave for a private office. But the way policies change, I could leave for one and then not have one less than a year later. So they are probably right that this isn't a big issue.
But when times turn good again (6 years? 8 years?) folks are going to hop for stuff like this.
American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North's economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode.
When one of Afghanistan's two vice presidents visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash.
a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January that China's Politburo directed the intrusion into Google's computer systems in that country.
Slashdot Mirror
Aye. Jeez, they openly joked and boasted about the wealthy being "their base".
One guy a few days ago on a conservative talk show host said he was about to lose his unemployment benefits and with that, his house, car, probably family. Conversion story, right?
Nope-- he felt he did the right thing on principle to slit his own throat, even tho the wealthy will be walking away with $100,000 in tax savings alone.
It is going to take hard poverty to break these folks from the fox news and radio talk show host brainwashing. They literally identify with billionaires while they are losing everything and being tossed out to starve. When do they wake up and start voting in their own self interest?
Or will they just bypass that step entirely and go straight to violence in a couple years.
I had trouble keeping up with it, even with a DVR.
I found the character conflict realistic but unpleasant.
I didn't like adding the new characters- it was already a huge cast.
I thought it had a few really original episodes and ideas.
I thought it handled the "lost out in space on a dying ship" handled better than voyager.
I think part of the problem is just salaries and expenses. Would this series have been cancelled if union rules allowed cheaper salaries for everyone involved (not just actors- everyone) with the series?
I see this last problem in so many areas of life these days. Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s (hell even part of the 80s) many things were "too cheap to measure"-- getting space to do things was dirt cheap.
Now, you maybe looking at $5000 to put on a small convention which might have run $500 back in the 80's. Meanwhile, strip centers and malls sit empty. It may be liability? Or perhaps people's standards are "too high".
Anyway, sad the series is gone. But there are more I haven't seen yet. Not enough hours in the day to keep up with everything coming out.
There is only one Rowling. There are many talented writers with other series.
I have no problem with her asking whatever she wants.
And I have no problem with putting my money into other areas.
Coffee is 4x more expensive. Starbucks gets a premium price but normal coffee is a buck.
Computers are a special case- not a stable market since your childhood. but their prices have been basically stable for the last 10 years. $300 for a cheap one, $1000 for a good one, and $2000 for a high end one (and as always a sprinkling of folks who pay $5000ish).
That's because, unlike the PC market, apps are typically 99 cents or 1.99.
My risk is much lower than $30.00 (or even $70.00) for a pc or console applicaiton.
When i was a child, books were 2.00 and 2.25. Gasoline was 88 cents. Electricity was 6 cents a kilowatt hour.
On that baseline with inflation, books should be about four to six dollars. They are eight dollars and some authors like Rowling are billionaires.
Books have gone up faster than inflation for successful series. They are currently overcompensated (a successful author shouldn't be a billionaire if we have an efficient market).
Since there is a glut of entertainment, I've mitigated this by starting with the less expensive entertainment first and working my way up. Something like Potter, I wait a couple months and borrow a friends copy, check it out of the library, or buy a used copy. In many cases, I just do without. If there are 10 excellent series to read and I only have *time* to read 5 of them, then I can easily cut the 5 most expensive.
The entertainment glut is only getting worse. Sometimes when I talk to 30 and 40 year olds, there are movies and books I consider staples that they haven't gotten too yet.
As soon as you back a mere 90 days off the leading edge, your costs drop by 50%.
...On July 28, 1932, Attorney General Mitchell ordered the police evacuation of the Bonus Army veterans. When the veterans moved back into their old camp, they rushed two policeman trapped on the second floor of a building. The cornered police drew their revolvers and shot two veterans, William Hushka and Eric Carlson, who died later.[3] When told of this, President Hoover ordered the army to effect the evacuation of the Bonus Army from Washington.
At 4:45 p.m., commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, Fort Myer, Virginia, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of civil service employees left work to line the street and watch the U.S. Army attack its own veterans. The Bonus Marchers, believing the display was in their honour, cheered the troops until Maj. Patton ordered the cavalry to charge them--an action which prompted the civil service spectators to yell, "Shame! Shame!"
http://www.alternet.org/rights/102220/is_posse_comitatus_dead/ ...
Is Posse Comitatus Dead?
Why are there active duty soldiers stationed on U.S. streets?
Military Officer: So we've been given control of these forces so that we can train them, ensure they're responsive and direct them to participate in our exercises, so that were they called to support civil authority, those governors or local state jurisdictions that might need our help,...
It does note that for the time being heavy weaponry is still forbidden and other weapons would be "containerized" and only used as needed.
I suspect that is true of 90% of the population. Another 10% would probably slowly harden and then start to react.
There would also be those who supported any resistance.
The military would used if there were sufficient civil disorder. A lot of people would die before order was restored.
This is part of the reason we pay taxes and provide benefits-- to keep things like that from ever really happening.
What happens when we hit 50% unemployment AND no benefits (as could happen in the next two decades with offshoring, automation, minimum wage laws, illegal immigrants, and robotics).
Slashdot is green. It is big. It has lots and lots of users.
Slashdot people talk a lot. They type words.
Slashdot is a good site. I like slashdot.
A lot.
Slashdot is green. It is big. It has lots and lots of users.
Slashdot people talk a lot. They type words.
Slashdot is a good site. I like slashdot.
Those apache helicopters wikileaks reported on have an effective range of 12000 feet.
Note, in the video they start firing, and it's over a second before the bullets start landing- and they are landing in a 24" targeting circle. Plus night vision, and now the ability to see your heat pattern inside a framed structure.
It's really uneven these days.
We need to develop one.
As we
a) require people to work
b) cut benefits to people who don't work
c) remove the jobs people could work at.
It has the potential to get really, really ugly.
Starting this month 1 million people a month lose their benefits. That's 12 million by next december when it roughly tops out. That is going to be large, very pissed off group of voters/rioters.
Well that's okay. Facebook is going to mobile phone verifications instead of email verifications.
Well that's because we need to extend copyright. WIthout 200 years after death, what's his motivation to right more stories?
Thats not the way I remember it. That's very muddy and low contrast.
Sharp and High contrast. Skin color flattened to a grey blue.
Evil denoted by thin red lines, good denoted by pinsharp blue lines, others denoted by green and yellow.
These are more typical screen shots of what it looks like.
http://www.inpapasbasement.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Evil_Guy_Tron.jpg
http://vulcanstev.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/tron-flynn-ram.jpg
Good point, but you can't use the "i'm an orphan defense" when you murder your parents.
It's no different than if you announced a secret. So I suppose the more legally correct method would be to say that if you are downstream of a published source, then that provides you legal protection. If you are upstream of the published source, you gave it away when it was still classified.
Hmm.
Seems like a good link. Not matching what I had read and heard elsewhere (which was that it was relatively good, not absolutely good). I'll have to adjust my mental model around that.
So I'll accept companies are actually making historical profits in absolute terms. It's amazing that none of it is getting to the employees yet.
I view the market as highly manipulated and only take short dips in, only buy and hold with about 20%.
On the rest
I hope that as india and china come on line they will raise the cost of workers there (as they have been doing) and it will get more difficult for the US to offshore. Some chinese manufacturers saw 100% labor wage increases in 2000 but that was to about $400 a year (from $190 a year). I can't see this getting high enough (even at 100%) in less than another 8 years.
I don't think they can get productivity gains again. We are already working 10 to 12 hour days at my company. they can't put us on 12 to 14 hour days next year. Plus I see things slowly falling apart/degrading under these pressures. If the economy even hints at getting better we could see mass turnover.
It was the most profitable relative to the prior year, not the most profitable. And those profits were built on cost cutting (layoffs), not on sales growth. If all company could lay off 100% of its employees and use only offshore labor and robotic labor then their profits would skyrocket... but who would be able to buy their products?
In absolute terms it was a bad year.
Likewise, Now that they have gotten the profits by laying everyone off, since sales are down (waaay down for some like Best Buy), how do they grow profits?
I think as people retire debt (either by paying it off or by going bankrupt) sales will get better. I'm more concerned about most manual labor jobs disappearing over the next 20 years.
With POMO and the PPT, I think they are actually using tax money to buy stocks at times.
I think they direct the banks to buy stocks to protect prices.
One thing that has become excruciatingly clear over the past year is that it is easy to move the market price when volume is low. I think a lot of boomers are "frozen" below their strike price but that mental strike price is declining the closer they get to retirement. At some point they start selling and it will put long term pressure on the market.
I theorize that "new" stocks without boomers in them will out-perform during that period.
Well, for one thing, I'd add this to the current policy.
A valid defense for sharing a "classified document" is showing that exact document has been published on the web or in a newspaper.
I had the "wonderful kid movie, terrible adult movie" experience with "Escape to Witch Mountain".
However, rewatching Tron did not produce that experience. It was okay and some parts were better than okay. The story about the people/characters was reasonably solid and a good story can overcome weak effects while awesome effects can't overcome weak characters and bad story.
The dow is up because the government is buying stock (through the banks).
That particular checkbox (girl from foreign country) eludes me.
I haven't been overseas in 10 years. :-(
Also amazing how our executive's private offices are 30' by 40'. That's larger than many houses.
We have 10x8 cubes (12x8 for supervisors and managers).
On a big project, I'm in a war room at a desk with people right next to me now. I see my cube about three times a month.
I don't think I'd leave for a bigger cube tho. I might leave for a private office. But the way policies change, I could leave for one and then not have one less than a year later. So they are probably right that this isn't a big issue.
But when times turn good again (6 years? 8 years?) folks are going to hop for stuff like this.
Absolutely.
The hallway was real. Even knowing how they did it, I was still emotionally blow away on my third viewing.
The elevator was real (they built an elevator on it's side and suspended him).
(if you look closely you can see a couple tiny hanging in the direction of gravity.)
The fortress was real... not a model. It showed. It FELT real.
The bar was real. It really tilted. You could tell that was real water in a real glass that was tilting completely inexplicably.
The mirror scene really did involve big square 12' mirrors.
The exploding crap in the street cafe scene was partially real (tho "safe" band of brothers compressed air explosions).
And so on.
Then the CGI was integrated with the reality.
Absolutely agree... amazing plot that the effects supported combined with reality based effects.
It seems to me if everyone else in the world has it, that it should be automatically considered declassified.
I mean, hell you could run into the facts that anywhere!
btw, don't read below this line if you are in the airforce.
----V-------V-----V-----V-------V-------V-----V------V-------V--------V--------V--------V------V-----V
American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North's economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode.
When one of Afghanistan's two vice presidents visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash.
a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January that China's Politburo directed the intrusion into Google's computer systems in that country.