So you want Swiss-style availability of guns, but none of the mores, laws and culture that the Swiss have built up before putting guns into everybody's hands? Yeah, you just keep proving me right about American gun nuts being, well, nuts.
The idea that we can get rid of guns is just a fantasy.
And that's one of the very few valid reasons for the way that we have gun laws. Guns are American culture. It'd be like taking guns from Afghanis, or cheese and wine from the French. The only question is: how do we contain the amount of guns in circulation, and how do we contain the violence when a gun gets abused? Unfortunately, the NRA makes a reasoned discussion by screaming like a baby without candy anytime the topic of gun control comes up.
So as Jeff Cooper said, we realistically only have two options: bad guys have guns and good guys are disarmed, or bad guys have guns and good guys have guns. Those are the only two realistic options.
There are far more options than that. Stop looking at the world in black and white, it doesn't work like that.
I wish Americans would stop using Switzerland as an example for how they would like the US to work. Every Swiss I know recoils in horror at the thought of Americans just taking their gun laws, and applying them to the US. The Swiss aren't Americans, and don't have the same kind of baggage. They don't have the same society, the same values, or the same habits. Blindly importing their laws into the US is just a recipe for disaster.
I find it hilarious that on one hand, gun advocates argue that gun-control laws only affect law-abiding citizens, because criminals already all have guns. On the other hand, all the scenarios they play out to show how awesome guns are for self-defense involve either no guns on the criminal side, or criminals who do not pull their guns first. The first scenario is just a failure in logic, and the second scenario is just wishful thinking. The advantage always lies with the criminal, because they know their victim, while the victim doesn't realize they're about to be victimized. Unless there is an advantage in ability on the side of the victim, the attacker always has the upper hand.
I'm not sure how you can possibly argue that 22 non-fatal stabbings are as violent as 27 murders through guns. Do you have any ability to understand gray-scales, levels of violence and sliding scales of anything?
Not sure what you're arguing. Are you saying that no laws were made after these events regarding bomb material or ability to get into cockpits? Are you saying that all of the laws put into place after these events had zero effect?
I can think of at least one law that was put into place that had great effect - the requirement that cockpit doors are reinforced and locked from inside the cockpit. Are you really willing to go down this road?
4 people died from the knife attacks in Akibahara. You can bring up 100 knife attacks, and I'll show you 1000 shootings that had more deaths. You can actually defend yourself from knife attacks, and staying out of arms-reach of the attacker provides 100% protection from knife attacks. None of which work against someone with a gun. Again, what is so god-damn hard to understand about guns being inherently more dangerous than any other tool available, and guns having exactly one purpose: to kill?
Yes, the people going on these rampages are insane. But do we need to outfit every person with an arsenal, and wait for insanity statistics to kick in? And no, arming everyone on campus isn't the solution. One, you just guarantee who the first victim is (the teacher). Two, you guarantee that there'll be plenty of friendly fire accidents. Or do you really want to now argue that professionally trained people in the Army and Police are somehow less able to avoid friendly fire than untrained civilians?
The only thing insane here is the idea that guns are somehow the same as knives or toasters, and that they need to be treated exactly the same.
Correct - in the original scenario, it is useless. But the discussion has long since veered into the standard topic of "solar isn't viable in any situation".
So in your scenario, without subsidies, payoff should be in about 10 years or so. Which matches mine. If you intend to stick around for 10 years in a place, solar is pretty much a no-brainer.
As said, kinda hard to say exactly when the house came with the solar panels. The only comparisons I have are installations for solar panels that differ from mine, and a sunny season electricity bill for a one bedroom apartment with a single occupant. All of which don't apply right now. In all of the scenarios I can calculate with the approximations I have, I come out ahead after 10 years - regardless of whether I factor in mortgage payments that include solar shingles, conservative electricity usages, etc.
As to your last question, yes, the electric bill is low enough that I make money on the investment. I.e., I get back more in electricity savings than it cost me to finance that portion of the house. Again, it's all approximations, because the house was bought as is.... but it's based on pretty standard numbers for installations and non-solar electricity costs.
You need to ask another question: how available will gas be (most portable generators operate on gas) when a storm hits? I remember some pretty significant lines in NYC from the last storm.
[Citation Needed]. From my personal experience, my solar panels make my energy bill a net zero from Spring to Fall. I don't have a previous comparison, as my house had solar panels when I moved in, but by my estimate, it's putting the break-even point at about 10 years tops.
No, you shouldn't invest in solar panels if you're in Chicago or even Seattle. But in a nice and sunny place, like the entire southern half of the US, solar panels can pay off in less than ten years. What's also being missed is that they reduce overall consumption of gas, coal and oil, which lowers prices overall, makes them more available in other industries, and generally contribute to massive efficiencies in energy distribution.
All in all, I don't know why anyone with the capital handy wouldn't do this. On the other hand, for those without the capital handy.... well, there's a reason why it is so hard to move out of the working poor class. It's hard to save money when you don't have the capital on hand to invest in durable goods that are cheaper over the long run.
My thoughts exactly. Yes, MobileMedia might be a patent troll, but Apple well deserves this lawsuit. I hope that Steve Jobs' thermonuclear approach to Android will backfire on an epic level: once the patent wars leave the shell of dead corporations strewn all over the landscape, people will huddle together and promise themselves "never again" And the only way to do that: no more patents.
Either that, or we wisen up and make the patent system much more reasonable (working prototype, truly limited time, no patents on math or business methods, etc.). I wonder which one will happen first.
The Do No Evil mantra cannot be taken literally when said by a company. Any company that seriously goes out to follow that either has to be a non-profit - and even then it has to make trade-offs that can reasonably be argued to fall into a grey area. Furthermore, Evil is a moral judgment that is 100% dependent on your particular moral compass. As a result, it is physically impossible for Google to not be evil as measured by 7 billion people. At this point, I'm ok if Google is just slightly less amoral than its competitors. The alternative is that Google ceases to exist to comply with the demands of all 7 billion humans to be not Evil, and to me, that's a greater loss than them just being somewhat Evil.
semi-anarchy where one is free to build ones own future as best one can
You forget that semi-anarchy is not filled with individuals fighting with other individuals over how to best live their lives, it is filled with individuals banding together under warlords fighting other warlords. Those who do not have a warlord over them will get crushed.
some sort of perpetual serfdom to the landed classes
Some people consider living as a serf better than living as a foot soldier to a warlord. Sometimes the distinction is difficult to see.
You want semi-anarchy, you already have plenty of options to chose from today. I'm not surprised you haven't moved to any of those locations already, as they are hell holes. I'm sure you have some justification as to why they're not TRUE semi-anarchist places, but as someone who paid attention in history and philosophy, please spare me it. I've heard it all before, and they are as tediously self-serving and ignorant now as they were 50 years ago, 150 years ago and a 1000 years ago.
Note that they can't fire you for being sick too often. However, they can fire you for calling in sick when you're not. It's a subtle distinction, and can be abused on both ends.
That said, they can fire you for any reason - at least in work-at-will states. Sounds to me like either your people had shitty managers/HR departments or were trying to game the system. I've seen both things happen.
Possible that that changed since the last time I checked my old ATT plan (it was a few years ago). My current TMobile pay-as-you-go plan also required extra fee for international. Also - I think the rates are different. If you get an international plan, calling is cheap. If you don't, you're looking at dollars per minute. Again, based on information that is from an old ATT plan.
I guess Europe is a bit different from the US, where International calls are fairly common, at least to European countries. I was surprised how easy it was to call Germany from France via a cell phone. In the US, you need to let your carrier know ahead of time, and generally pay extra. In Europe, apparently it's all bundled.
That said, here's why a cell phone will not replace my desk phone, even though I have both a work and a personal cell phone (never, EVER get roped into having your personal phone subsidized - you will never have actual off-time again): * Call quality. My desk phone provides rock solid connection with a call quality that is unmatched by any cell phone. * Head sets. The head sets that are available for desk phones are miles beyond those available for cell phones, both in ergonomics and sound quality. * International calls. I can call India, Costa Rica and any other company location directly without having to wait for someone to provision that capability on my cell phone.
Desk phones will go away when cell phones can match them in every single of these aspects. Until then, I will fight to have one.
I know La Jetee was on it, as was THX and Blade Runner. Seems Netflix is either doing some rotating, or other contracts expired as well.
Don't blame Netflix, blame content providers. They hold all the reins here. Goes to show though how hard Netflix's position is: streaming services aren't black magic, and streaming abilities without content mean nothing. And since copyright provides a de facto monopoly position.... as said, I don't understand the hate towards netflix when it comes to availability of titles. That's all dependent on content providers.
And you were solely responsible for the startup not completely going under within 6 months, right? You got lucky in your choice of startup. Not everyone is that lucky.
Re:Did Zuckerberg ever have to get past HR?
on
Just Say No To College
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
It just takes effort, drive, and a willingness to work for what you want.
Thought about using modpoints, decided to pick up on this point instead, just because it's a common and very misleading argument.
Yes, step one to success is effort and drive, as well as having a vision of what you want to achieve. But that's just step one. To take the NBA example for inner city kids: they all believe that all it takes is hard work and determination. Little do they know that millions of others also have that. It also takes athleticism - or at least height - fine motor control and good hand-eye coordination. Actually, to play in the NBA, it takes exceptional levels of at least one of these. If all you have is effort and drive, you will be a side note in your high school's hall of fame. And on top of that, you need luck: don't blow your ACL in high school and get bad care for it. Don't get hit by a bus. Don't be forced to pick of a McDonald's job because you need to support your family in high school. And don't be subject to chronic injuries, for whatever genetic/random reason. See Greg Oden as the poster child for how that can kill your NBA career.
Same thing in tech. If you don't have the brains and ability to absorb code and technical documentation all day long, all your drive and vision won't help. If you can't schmooze people, forget about leading a business. And that's why I think that people like Thiel are well-intentioned, but doing much more harm than good. They're the equivalent of the basketball clinics, but instead of just saying "here, you'll be a better basketball player if you pay us", they're saying "we'll make you an NBA star".
In short: not everyone can be a business mogul, and there's nothing wrong with it. We need to stop telling people that a) they will be if they work hard enough, and b) they're not a business mogul only because they're lazy. Neither of those statements are true, and they're behind a good chunk of the problems the US is facing.
That said....
Electricians, plumbers, welders, mechanics... the world needs more of these. They make more than most college graduates, after 4 years of getting paid instead of paying to learn a craft.
More people should take this to heart. There's nothing wrong with being a blue-collar worker. Some of those jobs pay very well. Notice though: some of them do. You can pull down $150k as a welder, but it's hard, technical work that you won't be doing forever.
While The PA Report postdeals specifically with games and how they are just not tracked properly by NPD, the same principle applies to any software: the retail store aspect of sales is small and getting smaller every day. Ignore NPD, they really don't matter anymore.
The conditions that the LHC can recreate are unique in that they are thought to have been present only during the Big Bang. As such, yes, this could be new matter that we haven't seen before anywhere else.
And that's why the LHC was and is every particle physicist's wet dream: they get to see and play with the conditions of the Big Bang. Nothing else does.
Spot on. Quite frankly, I think most American Libertarians should call themselves Randians. They worship her books, and are actually pretty far removed from classic Libertarians like Locke.
Yeah, I know, Libertarianism always leads to paradise on earth, and ipso facto, anything that isn't paradise isn't Libertarianism. Well, you got that right. Exactly like how communism has never actually been properly implemented.
Slashdot Mirror
So you want Swiss-style availability of guns, but none of the mores, laws and culture that the Swiss have built up before putting guns into everybody's hands? Yeah, you just keep proving me right about American gun nuts being, well, nuts.
The idea that we can get rid of guns is just a fantasy.
And that's one of the very few valid reasons for the way that we have gun laws. Guns are American culture. It'd be like taking guns from Afghanis, or cheese and wine from the French. The only question is: how do we contain the amount of guns in circulation, and how do we contain the violence when a gun gets abused? Unfortunately, the NRA makes a reasoned discussion by screaming like a baby without candy anytime the topic of gun control comes up.
So as Jeff Cooper said, we realistically only have two options: bad guys have guns and good guys are disarmed, or bad guys have guns and good guys have guns. Those are the only two realistic options.
There are far more options than that. Stop looking at the world in black and white, it doesn't work like that.
I wish Americans would stop using Switzerland as an example for how they would like the US to work. Every Swiss I know recoils in horror at the thought of Americans just taking their gun laws, and applying them to the US. The Swiss aren't Americans, and don't have the same kind of baggage. They don't have the same society, the same values, or the same habits. Blindly importing their laws into the US is just a recipe for disaster.
I find it hilarious that on one hand, gun advocates argue that gun-control laws only affect law-abiding citizens, because criminals already all have guns. On the other hand, all the scenarios they play out to show how awesome guns are for self-defense involve either no guns on the criminal side, or criminals who do not pull their guns first. The first scenario is just a failure in logic, and the second scenario is just wishful thinking. The advantage always lies with the criminal, because they know their victim, while the victim doesn't realize they're about to be victimized. Unless there is an advantage in ability on the side of the victim, the attacker always has the upper hand.
I'm not sure how you can possibly argue that 22 non-fatal stabbings are as violent as 27 murders through guns. Do you have any ability to understand gray-scales, levels of violence and sliding scales of anything?
Not sure what you're arguing. Are you saying that no laws were made after these events regarding bomb material or ability to get into cockpits? Are you saying that all of the laws put into place after these events had zero effect?
I can think of at least one law that was put into place that had great effect - the requirement that cockpit doors are reinforced and locked from inside the cockpit. Are you really willing to go down this road?
4 people died from the knife attacks in Akibahara. You can bring up 100 knife attacks, and I'll show you 1000 shootings that had more deaths. You can actually defend yourself from knife attacks, and staying out of arms-reach of the attacker provides 100% protection from knife attacks. None of which work against someone with a gun. Again, what is so god-damn hard to understand about guns being inherently more dangerous than any other tool available, and guns having exactly one purpose: to kill?
Yes, the people going on these rampages are insane. But do we need to outfit every person with an arsenal, and wait for insanity statistics to kick in? And no, arming everyone on campus isn't the solution. One, you just guarantee who the first victim is (the teacher). Two, you guarantee that there'll be plenty of friendly fire accidents. Or do you really want to now argue that professionally trained people in the Army and Police are somehow less able to avoid friendly fire than untrained civilians?
The only thing insane here is the idea that guns are somehow the same as knives or toasters, and that they need to be treated exactly the same.
And yet, no one died in the knife attack. Is the difference really that hard to understand?
Correct - in the original scenario, it is useless. But the discussion has long since veered into the standard topic of "solar isn't viable in any situation".
So in your scenario, without subsidies, payoff should be in about 10 years or so. Which matches mine. If you intend to stick around for 10 years in a place, solar is pretty much a no-brainer.
As said, kinda hard to say exactly when the house came with the solar panels. The only comparisons I have are installations for solar panels that differ from mine, and a sunny season electricity bill for a one bedroom apartment with a single occupant. All of which don't apply right now. In all of the scenarios I can calculate with the approximations I have, I come out ahead after 10 years - regardless of whether I factor in mortgage payments that include solar shingles, conservative electricity usages, etc.
As to your last question, yes, the electric bill is low enough that I make money on the investment. I.e., I get back more in electricity savings than it cost me to finance that portion of the house. Again, it's all approximations, because the house was bought as is.... but it's based on pretty standard numbers for installations and non-solar electricity costs.
You need to ask another question: how available will gas be (most portable generators operate on gas) when a storm hits? I remember some pretty significant lines in NYC from the last storm.
[Citation Needed]. From my personal experience, my solar panels make my energy bill a net zero from Spring to Fall. I don't have a previous comparison, as my house had solar panels when I moved in, but by my estimate, it's putting the break-even point at about 10 years tops.
No, you shouldn't invest in solar panels if you're in Chicago or even Seattle. But in a nice and sunny place, like the entire southern half of the US, solar panels can pay off in less than ten years. What's also being missed is that they reduce overall consumption of gas, coal and oil, which lowers prices overall, makes them more available in other industries, and generally contribute to massive efficiencies in energy distribution.
All in all, I don't know why anyone with the capital handy wouldn't do this. On the other hand, for those without the capital handy.... well, there's a reason why it is so hard to move out of the working poor class. It's hard to save money when you don't have the capital on hand to invest in durable goods that are cheaper over the long run.
My thoughts exactly. Yes, MobileMedia might be a patent troll, but Apple well deserves this lawsuit. I hope that Steve Jobs' thermonuclear approach to Android will backfire on an epic level: once the patent wars leave the shell of dead corporations strewn all over the landscape, people will huddle together and promise themselves "never again" And the only way to do that: no more patents.
Either that, or we wisen up and make the patent system much more reasonable (working prototype, truly limited time, no patents on math or business methods, etc.). I wonder which one will happen first.
The Do No Evil mantra cannot be taken literally when said by a company. Any company that seriously goes out to follow that either has to be a non-profit - and even then it has to make trade-offs that can reasonably be argued to fall into a grey area. Furthermore, Evil is a moral judgment that is 100% dependent on your particular moral compass. As a result, it is physically impossible for Google to not be evil as measured by 7 billion people. At this point, I'm ok if Google is just slightly less amoral than its competitors. The alternative is that Google ceases to exist to comply with the demands of all 7 billion humans to be not Evil, and to me, that's a greater loss than them just being somewhat Evil.
semi-anarchy where one is free to build ones own future as best one can
You forget that semi-anarchy is not filled with individuals fighting with other individuals over how to best live their lives, it is filled with individuals banding together under warlords fighting other warlords. Those who do not have a warlord over them will get crushed.
some sort of perpetual serfdom to the landed classes
Some people consider living as a serf better than living as a foot soldier to a warlord. Sometimes the distinction is difficult to see.
You want semi-anarchy, you already have plenty of options to chose from today. I'm not surprised you haven't moved to any of those locations already, as they are hell holes. I'm sure you have some justification as to why they're not TRUE semi-anarchist places, but as someone who paid attention in history and philosophy, please spare me it. I've heard it all before, and they are as tediously self-serving and ignorant now as they were 50 years ago, 150 years ago and a 1000 years ago.
Note that they can't fire you for being sick too often. However, they can fire you for calling in sick when you're not. It's a subtle distinction, and can be abused on both ends.
That said, they can fire you for any reason - at least in work-at-will states. Sounds to me like either your people had shitty managers/HR departments or were trying to game the system. I've seen both things happen.
Possible that that changed since the last time I checked my old ATT plan (it was a few years ago). My current TMobile pay-as-you-go plan also required extra fee for international. Also - I think the rates are different. If you get an international plan, calling is cheap. If you don't, you're looking at dollars per minute. Again, based on information that is from an old ATT plan.
I guess Europe is a bit different from the US, where International calls are fairly common, at least to European countries. I was surprised how easy it was to call Germany from France via a cell phone. In the US, you need to let your carrier know ahead of time, and generally pay extra. In Europe, apparently it's all bundled.
That said, here's why a cell phone will not replace my desk phone, even though I have both a work and a personal cell phone (never, EVER get roped into having your personal phone subsidized - you will never have actual off-time again):
* Call quality. My desk phone provides rock solid connection with a call quality that is unmatched by any cell phone.
* Head sets. The head sets that are available for desk phones are miles beyond those available for cell phones, both in ergonomics and sound quality.
* International calls. I can call India, Costa Rica and any other company location directly without having to wait for someone to provision that capability on my cell phone.
Desk phones will go away when cell phones can match them in every single of these aspects. Until then, I will fight to have one.
I know La Jetee was on it, as was THX and Blade Runner. Seems Netflix is either doing some rotating, or other contracts expired as well.
Don't blame Netflix, blame content providers. They hold all the reins here. Goes to show though how hard Netflix's position is: streaming services aren't black magic, and streaming abilities without content mean nothing. And since copyright provides a de facto monopoly position.... as said, I don't understand the hate towards netflix when it comes to availability of titles. That's all dependent on content providers.
And you were solely responsible for the startup not completely going under within 6 months, right? You got lucky in your choice of startup. Not everyone is that lucky.
It just takes effort, drive, and a willingness to work for what you want.
Thought about using modpoints, decided to pick up on this point instead, just because it's a common and very misleading argument.
Yes, step one to success is effort and drive, as well as having a vision of what you want to achieve. But that's just step one. To take the NBA example for inner city kids: they all believe that all it takes is hard work and determination. Little do they know that millions of others also have that. It also takes athleticism - or at least height - fine motor control and good hand-eye coordination. Actually, to play in the NBA, it takes exceptional levels of at least one of these. If all you have is effort and drive, you will be a side note in your high school's hall of fame. And on top of that, you need luck: don't blow your ACL in high school and get bad care for it. Don't get hit by a bus. Don't be forced to pick of a McDonald's job because you need to support your family in high school. And don't be subject to chronic injuries, for whatever genetic/random reason. See Greg Oden as the poster child for how that can kill your NBA career.
Same thing in tech. If you don't have the brains and ability to absorb code and technical documentation all day long, all your drive and vision won't help. If you can't schmooze people, forget about leading a business. And that's why I think that people like Thiel are well-intentioned, but doing much more harm than good. They're the equivalent of the basketball clinics, but instead of just saying "here, you'll be a better basketball player if you pay us", they're saying "we'll make you an NBA star".
In short: not everyone can be a business mogul, and there's nothing wrong with it. We need to stop telling people that a) they will be if they work hard enough, and b) they're not a business mogul only because they're lazy. Neither of those statements are true, and they're behind a good chunk of the problems the US is facing.
That said....
Electricians, plumbers, welders, mechanics... the world needs more of these. They make more than most college graduates, after 4 years of getting paid instead of paying to learn a craft.
More people should take this to heart. There's nothing wrong with being a blue-collar worker. Some of those jobs pay very well. Notice though: some of them do. You can pull down $150k as a welder, but it's hard, technical work that you won't be doing forever.
While The PA Report postdeals specifically with games and how they are just not tracked properly by NPD, the same principle applies to any software: the retail store aspect of sales is small and getting smaller every day. Ignore NPD, they really don't matter anymore.
The conditions that the LHC can recreate are unique in that they are thought to have been present only during the Big Bang. As such, yes, this could be new matter that we haven't seen before anywhere else.
And that's why the LHC was and is every particle physicist's wet dream: they get to see and play with the conditions of the Big Bang. Nothing else does.
Spot on. Quite frankly, I think most American Libertarians should call themselves Randians. They worship her books, and are actually pretty far removed from classic Libertarians like Locke.
Yeah, I know, Libertarianism always leads to paradise on earth, and ipso facto, anything that isn't paradise isn't Libertarianism. Well, you got that right. Exactly like how communism has never actually been properly implemented.