think they were trying to say was that they're hoping that a site dedicated to pointing out leftward/rightward bias would hopefully attract people interested in intelligent discussion, not propaganda.
I guess. My perspective is the exact opposite though: that a site that points out only rightward/leftward bias will attract those who think this is an important feature of news stories, and that this cannot lead to intelligent discussion.
Or, alternatively, listen closely when Cheney and Rumsfeld talked about the unitary executive. They strongly believe that by definition, whenever the executive does anything, it is legal. Crises like 9/11 was in this context nothing but the fig leaf to cover what they thought is the way it ought to be.
In this particular instance, I find that language appropriate. If I can't say "fuck you" when someone is deliberately subverting the Constitution and turning the US into a shithole, when should I say it? If I would want to shut someone up, I'd beat him to an inch of his life (or beyond it), not say "Fuck You".
Yes, it doesn't further debate. Then again, I'd like to argue that the initial post was so idiotic that there was no chance of ever having a civilized debate to begin with. A quick curse gets the point across succinctly and satisfactorily.
Yup. I tagged the story "duh" for exactly that reason. When I heard about Mueller's testimonial, my first thought was "Is this going to be like the WMDs?" Apparently, it is.
Actually, for something on this scale, I'd like to see jail time for criminally negligent programming. The cost of being on a sex offender list by mistake is mindboggling - I'm on a "have a long chat with a customs officer every time I enter the US" because some data entry monkey made a mistake with my passport, and it's not pretty. I can only imagine what being on a sex offender list can do to you...
I think this was done deliberately. Few people have the knowledge to accurately determine whether a post is factually incorrect or not. Yes, I've chafed at incorrect modding quite a few times, and wished for some modding options in that vein. However, I think the potential for abuse is higher than it's potential for good use. As a result, the Overrated option will have to do.
It seems to me you misunderstand net neutrality. You seem to argue that the bandwidth of your connection is tied to net neutrality. It isn't. Net neutrality is about what happens to packets when both sides of a connection have a standing agreement with the provider about each one's bandwidth. By default, and the way the Internet was designed to work, the end points are the only points with any intelligence built in. Everything in between just carries stuff around in a best effort fashion.
What providers try to do now is to say "yes, I know both sides already paid for a certain amount of data to be delivered. Now I want to be paid to make sure that nothing happens to said data." I don't have a problem with dynamic throttling of all sites, or any other generic traffic shaping. What I do object to is ISPs trying to tell me that msn.com will load quickly (because MS paid up), but google.com won't (because Google hasn't).
If you think Net Neutrality isn't a big deal, it is. As a matter of fact, it is the reason that we have Amazon.com, Netflix, Google, Yahoo or any of the other major internet players. They would have died in an environment where they would have had to pay to load as quickly as other established players.
what makes you think that Oil doesn't control the world?
Ah. This is where we differ. I need positive evidence to believe an assertion. You merely look for absence of negation to believe an assertion.
As for the difference between Israel and USA - Israel has terrorists on its border and inside. Still, suicide bombings aren't daily, and there are no major attacks. Random rocket attacks and random bombings are not major successes. Terrorists have to cross rather large oceans to get in. And they did manage to get in not once, but at least twice. The second time, they managed to succeed in a spectacular fashion. Plus, why go to the US when you can kill Americans much more easily in Iraq and Afghanistan?
... "great question, but the Skewz discussion is actually really smart." This is specifically for any question that targets the assertion that skewz merely perpetuates the political divide, rather than addresses it. Isn't this just side-stepping the whole problem? There's nothing within skewz that encourages smart discussion - from a systematic perspective, digg could be the place for really smart discussion as well, but it isn't.
Aren't you worried that as your site gains popularity, its flaws (as in, pandering to the political divide) will drive the level of discourse down, not up?
Well, just because I have 5 minutes to kill, and like the comedy, here's a what-if: What if 9-11 really wasn't a government conspiracy. What proof would it take to convince you that it isn't a government conspiracy?
For the record, I'm perfectly aware that nothing will change your way (considering how splendidly wrong you are about me), but am looking for some entertainment. I'm always curious how the brains of the deluded work.
BTW - you do know that some people are ridiculed because they are, well, crazy?
Wow. Some tinfoil hatter had mod points today. I'm not even going to qualify your ramblings as theories. They're paranoid delusions. Not to mention, completely wrong, even in the questions you're asking. Sheesh.
The difference that with yellow lights of proper length, it is possible for careful drivers to not break the law and endanger others. You'll always have idiots, and I don't have a problem watching out for those (especially if they get a nice, fat ticket). But short lights without a buffer endanger everyone, because even defensive drivers will be forced to run a red light at some point.
Heck, considering how long it takes to run lawsuits through, that's at least 3-4 budget cycles into the future, and maybe even a whole election. I don't know a single politician who thinks that far ahead. Kinda like the few executives who think more than a quarter ahead.
A better comparison to this is actual war (for which sports used to be a training ground). Do you have problems with soldiers popping pills to perform better?
If you want to keep things similar, you might want to compare javelin throws to the various Trivia bowls, science competitions, etc. But there's no reason to talk about fairness and even field in the realm of actual science.
I see. You mistake opinion pieces for peer review. I'm also highly amused by the fact that you refer to scientific consensus supporting your pet theory in one breath, then deride it with another.
2 things to keep in mind: As new land is opened up for farming, other land is lost. It's up for debate exactly how that's going to pan out, but the transition period, where people still farm less productive land while no one has moved to the more productive land, will be brutal. Also, Aluminum production is very energy intensive - a lot of Aluminum plants sit right next to hydrological power stations to take advantage of cheap power. As water dries up, hydropower is either less available or becomes more expensive, both of which drives up the price of Aluminum.
I don't like making predictions about the impact on specific industries in specific locations (butterfly effect and all that), but there's a causal effect there. It's just not certain whether this is actually what's happening there right now.
Not this guy again... Though I'm glad to see that only tired and debunked arguments are brought up by people who believe there is no Global Warming. If there'd actually be solid science behind Monckton's arguments, I'd have to do my research into Global Warming all over again.
You're entire argument about the Ozone hole runs contrary to every scientific study done about it. Pretty much everything you said about it is wrong. For actual information, see for example http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/2002/
You're similarly wrong in pretty much everything you said about Global Warming. I'd point you to the IPCC reports, but I'm sure they're just a bunch of hacks with political agendas and redistribution of wealth schemes in their head.
Hey, since Global Warming isn't a problem, I've got some choice sand bars I want to sell you. I'm sure in a few years they'll be beautiful islands off the coast of Florida.
And you might want to know the difference between effect and affect. You know, so you don't come across like a complete dumass.
There's more to it than even that. I talked to some people working with tar sands, and not only does it require abundant water, but what is left after the extraction is nasty. They had pictures of the holding lakes on the wall, and the stuff was pitch black. Apparently, the joke is that if someone falls into that gunk during inspection, it is more merciful to just hold their head under water until they drown.
Well, yes. I said I'd love to see it, I didn't say it was likely to happen. And as I mentioned, the people responsible for this kind of oversight are on the Board of Directors. The fact that most of them are spineless cronies, clueless or treat the Board as a social club that pays them rather than the other way around is one of the major problems in American capitalism. Not to mention that CEOs are quite frequently Chairman of the Board, which just compounds the issue.
Then again, there are some precedents. Steve Jobs takes home a salary of $1. Everything else is tied to bonuses or stock price. In the aftermath of WW 2, Japanese executives used to slash their salaries to keep a company afloat. In 1991, the Japanese Minister of Finance slashed his own pay (by 10%, but still) to atone for the handling of the crash.
But yeah, this will never happen in the US. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.
Staff is an asset that comes with a recurring cost. Here's my question: if a company is losing money, how is it supposed to stay in business? Answer A: increase revenue. Answer B: reduce cost. Consider that revenue is dependent on a lot of external factors: business environment, general economy, competitors, etc. What's easier: increase revenue, or reduce cost?
It seems that a lot of people assume that everyone at AMD (or any company in trouble, really) is a top-notch, AAA, hardworking team-player who puts out nothing but 100% effort and always meets goals. From my experience, the percentage of people who fall into that category is about 5%. Then there's the bottom 5% which, quite frankly, sucks. Getting rid of the people in that bracket would actually improve overall output.
As a result, firing people is and ought to be par for the course for any company. If it isn't, I'd like to point you to France. Job security for employed people means that new jobs only rarely open up, and unemployment is high among young graduates. This doesn't mean that you can and should fire 10% of your workforce every year, or even fire everyone, as someone suggested. As with everything, there needs to be a good reason for firings. And being $500 million in the red, to me at least, is a good reason to get rid of the bottom 10% of your work force.
There's of course the question whether AMD actually got rid of its bottom 10%, but then again, none of us are qualified to answer that question.
Well, if your revenue is down, you've got to cut costs in order to remain profitable. Since employees are by far the largest expenditure (ignoring for a second the opening of a new fab), it makes sense to cut costs there. Furthermore, in light of the fact that the last set of products were pretty underwhelming, I'm sure that there was some fat there that needed some trimming.
That said - I agree with your feeling that executives never seem to take responsibility for screw-ups. Instead, they take million dollar golden parachutes into semi-retirement. I'd love to see an exec who says: "Wow, we stunk this year. I'm cutting my salary in half to help the company stay profitable." Or a CEO who says "Wow, we stunk these past two years. I'm obviously the wrong person to run this company, and am forfeiting all salary, bonuses and payments that were supposed to come my way." I guess that technically, the Board of Directors is supposed to do this, but that's a whole different issue.
Heard an interesting story on NPR yesterday on why this is going on and why we're listening. It was called "The braindead megaphone". The way it works is exactly as titled - some idiot walks around with a megaphone, and because of how loud he is, everyone more or less has to listen... and no matter how hard anyone tries, at some point, conversation will gravitate to what the guy with the megaphone is talking about.
As for why the people with megaphones are braindead... beats me. Maybe it's the fact that stories about strangers taps into a general xenophobia. Maybe most journalists really are retarded. Probably a combination of it all.
Slashdot Mirror
... and already slashdotted. Whoda thunk that a post about a fully automated coffee machine would cause a geek stampede.
I guess. My perspective is the exact opposite though: that a site that points out only rightward/leftward bias will attract those who think this is an important feature of news stories, and that this cannot lead to intelligent discussion. True.
Or, alternatively, listen closely when Cheney and Rumsfeld talked about the unitary executive. They strongly believe that by definition, whenever the executive does anything, it is legal. Crises like 9/11 was in this context nothing but the fig leaf to cover what they thought is the way it ought to be.
In this particular instance, I find that language appropriate. If I can't say "fuck you" when someone is deliberately subverting the Constitution and turning the US into a shithole, when should I say it? If I would want to shut someone up, I'd beat him to an inch of his life (or beyond it), not say "Fuck You".
Yes, it doesn't further debate. Then again, I'd like to argue that the initial post was so idiotic that there was no chance of ever having a civilized debate to begin with. A quick curse gets the point across succinctly and satisfactorily.
Yup. I tagged the story "duh" for exactly that reason. When I heard about Mueller's testimonial, my first thought was "Is this going to be like the WMDs?" Apparently, it is.
Actually, for something on this scale, I'd like to see jail time for criminally negligent programming. The cost of being on a sex offender list by mistake is mindboggling - I'm on a "have a long chat with a customs officer every time I enter the US" because some data entry monkey made a mistake with my passport, and it's not pretty. I can only imagine what being on a sex offender list can do to you...
I think this was done deliberately. Few people have the knowledge to accurately determine whether a post is factually incorrect or not. Yes, I've chafed at incorrect modding quite a few times, and wished for some modding options in that vein. However, I think the potential for abuse is higher than it's potential for good use. As a result, the Overrated option will have to do.
It seems to me you misunderstand net neutrality. You seem to argue that the bandwidth of your connection is tied to net neutrality. It isn't. Net neutrality is about what happens to packets when both sides of a connection have a standing agreement with the provider about each one's bandwidth. By default, and the way the Internet was designed to work, the end points are the only points with any intelligence built in. Everything in between just carries stuff around in a best effort fashion.
What providers try to do now is to say "yes, I know both sides already paid for a certain amount of data to be delivered. Now I want to be paid to make sure that nothing happens to said data." I don't have a problem with dynamic throttling of all sites, or any other generic traffic shaping. What I do object to is ISPs trying to tell me that msn.com will load quickly (because MS paid up), but google.com won't (because Google hasn't).
If you think Net Neutrality isn't a big deal, it is. As a matter of fact, it is the reason that we have Amazon.com, Netflix, Google, Yahoo or any of the other major internet players. They would have died in an environment where they would have had to pay to load as quickly as other established players.
Ah. This is where we differ. I need positive evidence to believe an assertion. You merely look for absence of negation to believe an assertion.
As for the difference between Israel and USA - Israel has terrorists on its border and inside. Still, suicide bombings aren't daily, and there are no major attacks. Random rocket attacks and random bombings are not major successes. Terrorists have to cross rather large oceans to get in. And they did manage to get in not once, but at least twice. The second time, they managed to succeed in a spectacular fashion. Plus, why go to the US when you can kill Americans much more easily in Iraq and Afghanistan?
As said
... "great question, but the Skewz discussion is actually really smart." This is specifically for any question that targets the assertion that skewz merely perpetuates the political divide, rather than addresses it. Isn't this just side-stepping the whole problem? There's nothing within skewz that encourages smart discussion - from a systematic perspective, digg could be the place for really smart discussion as well, but it isn't.
Aren't you worried that as your site gains popularity, its flaws (as in, pandering to the political divide) will drive the level of discourse down, not up?
Well, just because I have 5 minutes to kill, and like the comedy, here's a what-if: What if 9-11 really wasn't a government conspiracy. What proof would it take to convince you that it isn't a government conspiracy?
For the record, I'm perfectly aware that nothing will change your way (considering how splendidly wrong you are about me), but am looking for some entertainment. I'm always curious how the brains of the deluded work.
BTW - you do know that some people are ridiculed because they are, well, crazy?
Wow. Some tinfoil hatter had mod points today. I'm not even going to qualify your ramblings as theories. They're paranoid delusions. Not to mention, completely wrong, even in the questions you're asking. Sheesh.
The difference that with yellow lights of proper length, it is possible for careful drivers to not break the law and endanger others. You'll always have idiots, and I don't have a problem watching out for those (especially if they get a nice, fat ticket). But short lights without a buffer endanger everyone, because even defensive drivers will be forced to run a red light at some point.
Heck, considering how long it takes to run lawsuits through, that's at least 3-4 budget cycles into the future, and maybe even a whole election. I don't know a single politician who thinks that far ahead. Kinda like the few executives who think more than a quarter ahead.
A better comparison to this is actual war (for which sports used to be a training ground). Do you have problems with soldiers popping pills to perform better?
If you want to keep things similar, you might want to compare javelin throws to the various Trivia bowls, science competitions, etc. But there's no reason to talk about fairness and even field in the realm of actual science.
I see. You mistake opinion pieces for peer review. I'm also highly amused by the fact that you refer to scientific consensus supporting your pet theory in one breath, then deride it with another.
Nice going, dumass.
2 things to keep in mind: As new land is opened up for farming, other land is lost. It's up for debate exactly how that's going to pan out, but the transition period, where people still farm less productive land while no one has moved to the more productive land, will be brutal. Also, Aluminum production is very energy intensive - a lot of Aluminum plants sit right next to hydrological power stations to take advantage of cheap power. As water dries up, hydropower is either less available or becomes more expensive, both of which drives up the price of Aluminum.
I don't like making predictions about the impact on specific industries in specific locations (butterfly effect and all that), but there's a causal effect there. It's just not certain whether this is actually what's happening there right now.
Not this guy again... Though I'm glad to see that only tired and debunked arguments are brought up by people who believe there is no Global Warming. If there'd actually be solid science behind Monckton's arguments, I'd have to do my research into Global Warming all over again.
You're entire argument about the Ozone hole runs contrary to every scientific study done about it. Pretty much everything you said about it is wrong. For actual information, see for example http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/2002/
You're similarly wrong in pretty much everything you said about Global Warming. I'd point you to the IPCC reports, but I'm sure they're just a bunch of hacks with political agendas and redistribution of wealth schemes in their head.
Hey, since Global Warming isn't a problem, I've got some choice sand bars I want to sell you. I'm sure in a few years they'll be beautiful islands off the coast of Florida.
And you might want to know the difference between effect and affect. You know, so you don't come across like a complete dumass.
There's more to it than even that. I talked to some people working with tar sands, and not only does it require abundant water, but what is left after the extraction is nasty. They had pictures of the holding lakes on the wall, and the stuff was pitch black. Apparently, the joke is that if someone falls into that gunk during inspection, it is more merciful to just hold their head under water until they drown.
Well, yes. I said I'd love to see it, I didn't say it was likely to happen. And as I mentioned, the people responsible for this kind of oversight are on the Board of Directors. The fact that most of them are spineless cronies, clueless or treat the Board as a social club that pays them rather than the other way around is one of the major problems in American capitalism. Not to mention that CEOs are quite frequently Chairman of the Board, which just compounds the issue.
Then again, there are some precedents. Steve Jobs takes home a salary of $1. Everything else is tied to bonuses or stock price. In the aftermath of WW 2, Japanese executives used to slash their salaries to keep a company afloat. In 1991, the Japanese Minister of Finance slashed his own pay (by 10%, but still) to atone for the handling of the crash.
But yeah, this will never happen in the US. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.
Staff is an asset that comes with a recurring cost. Here's my question: if a company is losing money, how is it supposed to stay in business? Answer A: increase revenue. Answer B: reduce cost. Consider that revenue is dependent on a lot of external factors: business environment, general economy, competitors, etc. What's easier: increase revenue, or reduce cost?
It seems that a lot of people assume that everyone at AMD (or any company in trouble, really) is a top-notch, AAA, hardworking team-player who puts out nothing but 100% effort and always meets goals. From my experience, the percentage of people who fall into that category is about 5%. Then there's the bottom 5% which, quite frankly, sucks. Getting rid of the people in that bracket would actually improve overall output.
As a result, firing people is and ought to be par for the course for any company. If it isn't, I'd like to point you to France. Job security for employed people means that new jobs only rarely open up, and unemployment is high among young graduates. This doesn't mean that you can and should fire 10% of your workforce every year, or even fire everyone, as someone suggested. As with everything, there needs to be a good reason for firings. And being $500 million in the red, to me at least, is a good reason to get rid of the bottom 10% of your work force.
There's of course the question whether AMD actually got rid of its bottom 10%, but then again, none of us are qualified to answer that question.
Well, if your revenue is down, you've got to cut costs in order to remain profitable. Since employees are by far the largest expenditure (ignoring for a second the opening of a new fab), it makes sense to cut costs there. Furthermore, in light of the fact that the last set of products were pretty underwhelming, I'm sure that there was some fat there that needed some trimming.
That said - I agree with your feeling that executives never seem to take responsibility for screw-ups. Instead, they take million dollar golden parachutes into semi-retirement. I'd love to see an exec who says: "Wow, we stunk this year. I'm cutting my salary in half to help the company stay profitable." Or a CEO who says "Wow, we stunk these past two years. I'm obviously the wrong person to run this company, and am forfeiting all salary, bonuses and payments that were supposed to come my way." I guess that technically, the Board of Directors is supposed to do this, but that's a whole different issue.
Heard an interesting story on NPR yesterday on why this is going on and why we're listening. It was called "The braindead megaphone". The way it works is exactly as titled - some idiot walks around with a megaphone, and because of how loud he is, everyone more or less has to listen... and no matter how hard anyone tries, at some point, conversation will gravitate to what the guy with the megaphone is talking about.
As for why the people with megaphones are braindead... beats me. Maybe it's the fact that stories about strangers taps into a general xenophobia. Maybe most journalists really are retarded. Probably a combination of it all.
Yes. It's a joke. Based on countless $0.02 US == $1 CDN jokes that existed when the US dollar was worth more than the CDN.