Anyway, Netflix UK has a lot more really good documentaries and since they're for UK viewers, particularly the BBC where there aren't adverts
This and it's not just the Beeb that produces good doco's.
I didn't understand why I've never seen a PBS produced documentary before Netflix... I watched one and found out not only was it preceded by the electronic equivalent of pan handling but the quality was terrible.
Finally, I remember watching a US produced documentary called "WWII in HD" when it should have been called "America in WWII in HD". The British were mentioned as an afterthought, the Australians were mentioned once and the Russians were completely forgotten in 10 x 1 hour episodes.
My Netflix account even has three sub accounts for the same price! Each account has its own preferences and watch list. There is no reason for my kids, or my parents, to go out and get their own accounts as there is nothing they are missing out on by sharing my account.
I have the most basic level of Netflix (My ADSL tops out at 3 gbps on a good day, thanks LNP for killing the NBN) and I can still create several profiles. It's actually rather annoying as I would rather Netflix just logs in with my profile by default.
Phone numbers are the defacto, common and relatively stable identifier that most people possess today. Yes, it may be archaic, but most people are comfortable with it, a global, relatively neutral means of communication.
Not to mention globally unique within a nation. Imagine trying to do that with names.
Frank: Hey John, what's your ID? John: John.smith. Frank: I've got 2239 John Smiths. John: John Smith from Idaho. Frank: That's narrowed it down to 147. John: Try John F Smith. v
Frank: Still got 32. John: OK, let me try to message you... There's 243 Frank Blogs in this state alone, which one are you.
Isn't it much easier to say.
Frank: Hey John, what's your number John: Give me a moment to look it up, I can never remember it... 063-732-0898.
As someone with common first name but an uncommon surname, I find it near impossible to get it as a username on any large national (Australian) bank, let alone on something like Gmail (fortunately I signed up shortly after public sign ups were permitted and got it).
I figure prices can stay the same. If you're paying by card (electronically) or by check then the price stands. If you're paying in cash it's rounded to the nearest small denomination (say $0.10 in this case). If the shop wants to take the policy that it rounds up at 0.03 then so be it, but state that up front.
Who accepts cheques these days?
When Australia phased out it's 1 and 2 cent coins, the rules were set that you rounded up or down to the nearest 0 or 5. If you had a 3 it rounded down to a 0, an 8 rounded up to a 0. However in reality, every retailer just started dealing in 0.05 increments (this is the way Australians were taught at school, so it's second nature to us). Nothing here is sold for $0.97, it's either going to be $1.00 or $0.95. As much as the data collection teams at your bank may wish, we'll never be rid of cash because it's cheap for businesses and so damn useful for everyone. The only businesses that do rounding are those who sell their product by weight/volume such as petrol because they have to.
The lowest denomination in common circulation determines the amount prices can be incremented. Colombia for example, despite having a 20 peso coin (0.6 of a US cent), prices are never incremented in less than 50 peso (1.5 US cents) because the 20 peso coin is not in common circulation.
think a big part of the hesitation to change currencies here, whether coin or paper, is the installation of machine readers (meaning vending machines, atms, etc).
Yep, they'll have to be replaced. Australia never had an issue as we have $1 and $2 coins for machines. Eventually it will need to be done as US notes are far too easy to forge and will remain so until they're radically changed to combat it.
People say 'you don't need assault weapons to defend yourself', but in actuality, that is exactly what you need to defend yourself against the government.
And what is an assault rifle going to do against a tank.
You need to get over the delusion that a semi drunk, untrained, barely competent rabble with commercial grade rifles is going to stand up against a trained armed force with military equipment. They have a hard time doing that in 3rd world revolutions where they've got access to rocket launchers and the government is using 40 yr old+ US/Russian army surplus.
Or what's happening in Oregon right now... They're doing a lot against the government... I mean taking over a bird aviary and then starting fist fights amongst themselves. Great advertisement for your citizen army there.
The thing is, it's not guns that defend freedom. It's people and ordinary people are depending on the army or at least a large part of the army doing the right thing when the wrong orders are handed down (one of the big things that came out of WWII is that "just following orders" is not acceptable when given an illegal or immoral order). People forget that George Washington and a large number of the people who followed him were in the Colonial army, who fought wars against the French under the British flag. It wasn't a bunch of rabble who turned against the English, it was the very army England had trained.
If you're unarmed, you're counting on the Army saying no when ordered to shoot civilians, if you're armed you're still counting on the army saying no to that order because you're semi-drunk, untrained rabble will be shot down with ease. The only difference is that armed civilians make it easier for the common soldier to say "yes" to that order even though the danger to their life is minimal.
The value of currency is not just it's face value. The value of a currency is that it allows people to exchange goods and services.
This, I never got the obsession with a coins face value, it's value is far greater as a medium for exchange. If you get rid of the penny, the smallest increment in a price becomes $0.05. It only makes sense to do this if the naturally the minimum increment for prices.
Even raw material prices are exceed by its value as a means of payment, US pennies are 97.5% Zinc which dont even have a scrap value, so you're not going to get very many people trying to melt them down as the 2.5% copper means that you'd need thousands of coins to make a single KG of copper. Only the dumbest of people will even attempt it (the dime is 91% copper, but still not worth it because you'd need 470 coins to make 1KG of mixed scrap copper which is worth about $5).
But the US currency needs a radical redesign, not just the coins but the notes because it is the most user unfriendly currency in the world. The Nickel (US$0.5) is bigger than the Dime (US$.10), but notes are the huge failure because they're all the same colour, size and texture. You dont know if you've got a 1, 20 or 100 until you read it. You'll have two "faces" if currency for a while but within a few years, the new notes will supplant the old ones, Australia changed it's notes back in the mid 90's to new polymer notes and the old paper notes became rare within 5 years. Even though the old paper notes are still legal tender, but so rarely seen it's not funny. Almost all of the people who still have them are keeping them for prosperity.
2) Regarding housing and commutes: this concerns only Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, a tiny part of the world. A large, large majority of us techies work somewhere else: Australia, Europe, Asia, other parts of the world. Scope of post seems limited. Also TLDR.
I live in Perth, Western Australia and affordable housing causing long commutes happens everywhere. Even here in Perth with it's low population density. In fact combine our poor public transport system, lots of single lane roads and overly aggressive drivers, it's easier to get around peak hour LA than it is to get around peak hour Perth.
If you want an affordable house here in Perth (meaning $250-350,000 USD) you need to live on the outskirts of Perth. This means a driving commute into your place of employment (which for a lot of white collar workers is the CBD and blue collar workers, various industrial parks that are often on the other side of the CBD). Housing affordability and commuting problems are not the sole domain of large, popular cities like London, SF and NY.
Land of the free my ass. It's a nation of lunatics ruled by fear.
It was never outlawed; but if some neurotic busybody called the Podunk PD because they saw a kid outside and decided that they were either about to be abducted by pedo-terrorists or on their way to delinquency, and Podunk PD decided to throw some spurious neglect/endangerment charge at you, it would still ruin your day. That's the real problem. Even if the first judge who sees it tosses the case in disgust, you'll still have a lousy time until then.
So pretty much this is due entirely to the over-reaction of the PD.
I'm from Australia where kids walking themselves to school is a common sight... Hell, avoid getting on public transport around 3-4PM in Perth because it'll be full of kids (but more specifically teens who haven't figured out what deodorant is for)... In fact, strike that, just avoid public transport in Perth entirely if you can avoid it.
In this scenario, at worst the cops could have given the kid a ride and then called the mother, but police in the US are not just over-funded, but drunk on their own sense of importance.
Why is it that "conservatives" in so many countries have completely lost their minds?
That's part and parcel of being a conservative.
These are people who live in a bubble based around rose tinted memories of their childhood, pretending that the problems of 40-60 years ago didn't exist. This means that when reality breaks their bubble, they go mad trying to rebuild a society that never really existed.
Whether you like his music or not, there is no denying that David Bowie was a true artist, a real entertainer. There was nothing fake about him. Nowadays, we don't see real artists like him very often.
I suspect that you're seeing history through rose-tinted glasses. There were plenty of pop-acts in every era that Bowie overlapped with, we simply don't remember many of them.
Which is why we remember Bowie.
I wonder if anyone 30 years from now will remember Beyonce. We are officially in a worse period of music than disco.
Beyonce will probably end up going the way of Celine Dion... Permanent Vegas show playing hits from the past for aging fans who cant let go of their youth. However that is a special case.
However bands like One Direction will end up going the way of the likes of Westlife or the Backstreet Boys (as anyone under 28 who they were) without Marc Whalberg's short lived acting career.
Who remembers Bardot (the band, not Bridget), Lifehouse, LeAnn Rimes, Mandy Moore, Sonique or even Atomic Kitten? These were all in the top 100 in 2001. Hell, I lived then and I had to look up the charts. Even someone like Ronan Keating will be pretty unknown to someone under 25.
Bowie stood out not just because he was the best of his time, but because he continued to be good beyond his time. Much like Frank Sinatra or Deep Purple and much like these bands, his music gets covered a lot (OK, not quite as much as Deep Purple, but that's because of the first song every guitarist learns).
Also he's a relic of a better age. It took 9 people to write "Single Ladies" for Beyonce, David Bowie wrote most of his music himself.
In my experience, anti-vaxxers lean both left and right, often for different reasons.
And sometimes at the same time. A little hypocrisy is nothing to the likes of Anti-vaxxers.
However outside the United states, people are not strictly defined by strict left/right template. It is possible to hold liberal views on education or health care and conservative views on economic policies.
Then the freaking women need to start drinking more if they want to be equal.
I get the joke, but on a serious note, there are so many more important variables in alcohol tolerance and metabolism that gender isn't a big one.
I've seen women (small Asian women as well) that could drink most men under the table. This is because they've got a fast metabolism and a built up resistance to alcohol (and when you see the way they drink in Thailand, you understand why they've developed such a resistance so early in life). Its not just built up tolerance either, I can easily drink 10-12 pints of beer* but fatigue plays a huge factor, there have been times where 1 or 2 pints have put me on my arse because I was too tired or sick.
However the UK government is doing this because alcoholism is seen as a huge problem to some in England. It's just a recommendation, not a legal requirement so changing it makes it look like the government is "Doing Something (TM)" to all the busy bodies whilst doing nothing at all.
* Please keep in mind I'm not American, so I drink beer around 5% ABV.
We're not currently under a state of total war fighting for survival every single day.
The amount of hatred against us is, probably, only greater. That most of it is impotent, and we've grown so big and powerful, we barely notice it — heck, we even have the luxury of blaming ourselves for it at times — does not change the fact, that it is out there.
Thousands of minds — some of them brilliant — are thinking up ways to hurt us.
You've reminded me of an excerpt from Herman Goring at Nuremberg
Goring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars. Goring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
Seems you've copied your propaganda strategy. Well at least you copied from the best.
The fact is, we're not at threat from a horde of terrorists, or even a handful. We're at threat from the people who want to make us afraid of shadows and use that fear to send us to fight a pointless war in some godforsaken shithole where we have no business being... But I expect you to call me names and denounce me for my lack of whatever it is.
Way too many workers are too stupid or lack the backbone to tell their boss, "no, I will not give up my life because you are an asshole and refuse to hire the workers needed"
Boss, "Ok, fuck you then. I'll hire someone else. I have 30 resumes on my desk with people desperate to work here. Bye bye!"
And there in lies the problem.
I fortunately live in a country where it's illegal to do that (Australia). If my employer wants me to work more than the 37.5 hours prescribed in my employment contract they need to offer me an incentive to do so. The problem is Americans have pissed away all their working rights and the bosses have all the power. In Australia, you still get companies who try to abuse their workers, however these companies almost always end up with the worst and most incompetent employees (if they dont end up in court) because anyone who exercise their rights is gotten rid of, so they end up with the workers who literally cant get work anywhere else. This is true in blue as well as white collar.
As a side note, I'm happy to put in an extra hour or two here and there when needed to get things done... By the same token my employer is happy to let me go an extra hour or two early every now and then so I can get things done that can only be done in business hours (I.E. like taking my car for a service).
Also 4 weeks annual leave and 10 days sick leave mandated by law rocks.
I am a power station engineer and I spend hours sitting in meetings with a dozen other qualified engineers discussing eg whether to replace a slightly leaking seal on a large valve, whether it is cost-effective, whether we have a safety case, whether we can spare a fitter to do it. I generally take the line "Just give me a fucking spanner and I'll go down and do it this morning"; but I am treated as if that would be spoil the meeting.
I'll preface this with "I hate bureaucracy as much as the next man" but...
I used to know an electrician like you. He'd sit through safety briefings with a blank look and say "Just let me go and do it". That was until he opened a malfunctioning oil filled transformer like it was an ordinary transformer. It blew up and killed him and another worker. Even made the news as it shut down a major shopping centre. The result of the investigation was that the electrician in question was told the transformer was filled with oil but didn't pay attention in the safety meeting.
If you're renting, you're borrowing a property. It's basically the same as paying interest.
I read your earlier post on the matter to determine what you mean by "same". The answer is no, renting is not the same as borrowing. A loan means you borrow money now in exchange for creating an obligation to pay in the future. Renting usually does not. For example, I might be renting a very expensive apartment in Manhattan today, but I can move out. I can't decide that I want a smaller loan and just move out of my old big one.
This.
I rent because I dont want to live where I am for the rest of my life. This goes double for places where I can work for significantly higher than where I'd like to live such as London. It makes sense to rent in London if you're being paid 4-600 pounds a day and save that money to buy or pay off a house somewhere else.
That being said, paying off a house is not a bad debt as houses typically appreciate. However the GP is right that a lot of people are up to their eyeballs in bad debt. Bad debt are for things that depreciate. In simple terms, debt is acceptable for investments, but unacceptable for consumption. Consumption are things like toys (computers, tablets, jet ski's), cars, groceries and sundries. Generally you're paying interest and fees on things that are losing value or lose all their value when you buy them.
This goes double for people who put everything on their credit cards. Triple for those who think they get anything out of their CC, they dont seem to understand that banks dont do anything for free. Interchange and merchant fees are the things paying for the bonuses, points and cashback schemes and in the end, the merchant passes those fees back to the consumer. It's a negative feedback loop, Derp believes he's winning when he gets 1% "cashback" when the bank is charging the merchant 3% and the merchant raises the prices Derp pays. Even if you pay no interest on a CC, you still have to pay the fees as obscured as they are.
Given how easy it is to rack up massive debt with massive interest and no assets to show for it on credit cards, they are the most dangerous form of credit. I'm continually confounded that people use them so blithely.
I started travelling recently for business when I changed jobs in 2012. Since then, I spent two years hailing taxis... every single one of them tried to cheat in one way or another. In Seattle, taxi drivers have a flat fee of $40 to take you from the airport to downtown; I never paid less than $45. In DC, taxis would say "Yes, I take cards" but when they get to your destination they refuse to take your card. In Texas they pretended their credit card machine was broken. When they give you a receipt (if they give you a receipt) the receipt is blank, and you're expected to write in whatever you feel like, so you can expense a different amount of money and pocket the change.
Now I ride Uber and the payments aren't an issue. I even like chitchatting with the drivers.
You must have the word "mark" tattooed to your forehead.
I've been travelling the world since 2002 and this includes living in Thailand and the Phillippines. If taxi's in western countries are scamming you, they will tear you to shreds in South East Asia. I've travelled extensively in the US and was never ripped off by a taxi driver. Maybe it's because I dont treat them like shit. Even in SE Asia, if you get caught out by a scamming Tuk Tuk driver more than once, you aren't smart enough to travel, their scams are easy to spot (no I dont want to go to your "brothers" gold shop).
And here's the harsh reality for you. The Uber situation wont last and soon they'll be the ones scamming you because they aren't even making minimum wage. You'll end up with the worst of the worst, drivers no-one else will hire because no-one else will work for the pittance Uber offers. Yep, that's what comes out of your race to the bottom.
To be honest, I dont get why people in the US are complaining, your taxis are relatively cheap compared to other western countries. But I guess it'll take a situation like Phuket in the US to teach you the hard way why your ancestors put in taxi regulations.
Slashdot Mirror
This and it's not just the Beeb that produces good doco's.
I didn't understand why I've never seen a PBS produced documentary before Netflix... I watched one and found out not only was it preceded by the electronic equivalent of pan handling but the quality was terrible.
Finally, I remember watching a US produced documentary called "WWII in HD" when it should have been called "America in WWII in HD". The British were mentioned as an afterthought, the Australians were mentioned once and the Russians were completely forgotten in 10 x 1 hour episodes.
What a looser. I'll bet he could care less.
Are you trying to provoke the Grammar nazi's.
My Netflix account even has three sub accounts for the same price! Each account has its own preferences and watch list. There is no reason for my kids, or my parents, to go out and get their own accounts as there is nothing they are missing out on by sharing my account.
I have the most basic level of Netflix (My ADSL tops out at 3 gbps on a good day, thanks LNP for killing the NBN) and I can still create several profiles. It's actually rather annoying as I would rather Netflix just logs in with my profile by default.
Ironic, I always heard it the other way, oh well, no one is perfect.
It's a common mispronunciation in the US, the mispronunciation is less common in English speaking countries.
Phone numbers are the defacto, common and relatively stable identifier that most people possess today. Yes, it may be archaic, but most people are comfortable with it, a global, relatively neutral means of communication.
Not to mention globally unique within a nation. Imagine trying to do that with names.
Frank: Hey John, what's your ID?
John: John.smith.
Frank: I've got 2239 John Smiths.
John: John Smith from Idaho.
Frank: That's narrowed it down to 147.
John: Try John F Smith.
v Frank: Still got 32.
John: OK, let me try to message you... There's 243 Frank Blogs in this state alone, which one are you.
Isn't it much easier to say.
Frank: Hey John, what's your number
John: Give me a moment to look it up, I can never remember it... 063-732-0898.
As someone with common first name but an uncommon surname, I find it near impossible to get it as a username on any large national (Australian) bank, let alone on something like Gmail (fortunately I signed up shortly after public sign ups were permitted and got it).
Yes, but video killed the radio star....
And we put all the blame on VCR (pokes the Betamax fanboys).
I figure prices can stay the same. If you're paying by card (electronically) or by check then the price stands. If you're paying in cash it's rounded to the nearest small denomination (say $0.10 in this case). If the shop wants to take the policy that it rounds up at 0.03 then so be it, but state that up front.
Who accepts cheques these days?
When Australia phased out it's 1 and 2 cent coins, the rules were set that you rounded up or down to the nearest 0 or 5. If you had a 3 it rounded down to a 0, an 8 rounded up to a 0. However in reality, every retailer just started dealing in 0.05 increments (this is the way Australians were taught at school, so it's second nature to us). Nothing here is sold for $0.97, it's either going to be $1.00 or $0.95. As much as the data collection teams at your bank may wish, we'll never be rid of cash because it's cheap for businesses and so damn useful for everyone. The only businesses that do rounding are those who sell their product by weight/volume such as petrol because they have to.
The lowest denomination in common circulation determines the amount prices can be incremented. Colombia for example, despite having a 20 peso coin (0.6 of a US cent), prices are never incremented in less than 50 peso (1.5 US cents) because the 20 peso coin is not in common circulation.
think a big part of the hesitation to change currencies here, whether coin or paper, is the installation of machine readers (meaning vending machines, atms, etc).
Yep, they'll have to be replaced. Australia never had an issue as we have $1 and $2 coins for machines. Eventually it will need to be done as US notes are far too easy to forge and will remain so until they're radically changed to combat it.
They think King George is still alive.
If they outlive William... He may be.
People say 'you don't need assault weapons to defend yourself', but in actuality, that is exactly what you need to defend yourself against the government.
And what is an assault rifle going to do against a tank.
You need to get over the delusion that a semi drunk, untrained, barely competent rabble with commercial grade rifles is going to stand up against a trained armed force with military equipment. They have a hard time doing that in 3rd world revolutions where they've got access to rocket launchers and the government is using 40 yr old+ US/Russian army surplus.
Or what's happening in Oregon right now... They're doing a lot against the government... I mean taking over a bird aviary and then starting fist fights amongst themselves. Great advertisement for your citizen army there.
The thing is, it's not guns that defend freedom. It's people and ordinary people are depending on the army or at least a large part of the army doing the right thing when the wrong orders are handed down (one of the big things that came out of WWII is that "just following orders" is not acceptable when given an illegal or immoral order). People forget that George Washington and a large number of the people who followed him were in the Colonial army, who fought wars against the French under the British flag. It wasn't a bunch of rabble who turned against the English, it was the very army England had trained.
If you're unarmed, you're counting on the Army saying no when ordered to shoot civilians, if you're armed you're still counting on the army saying no to that order because you're semi-drunk, untrained rabble will be shot down with ease. The only difference is that armed civilians make it easier for the common soldier to say "yes" to that order even though the danger to their life is minimal.
The value of currency is not just it's face value. The value of a currency is that it allows people to exchange goods and services.
This, I never got the obsession with a coins face value, it's value is far greater as a medium for exchange. If you get rid of the penny, the smallest increment in a price becomes $0.05. It only makes sense to do this if the naturally the minimum increment for prices.
Even raw material prices are exceed by its value as a means of payment, US pennies are 97.5% Zinc which dont even have a scrap value, so you're not going to get very many people trying to melt them down as the 2.5% copper means that you'd need thousands of coins to make a single KG of copper. Only the dumbest of people will even attempt it (the dime is 91% copper, but still not worth it because you'd need 470 coins to make 1KG of mixed scrap copper which is worth about $5).
But the US currency needs a radical redesign, not just the coins but the notes because it is the most user unfriendly currency in the world. The Nickel (US$0.5) is bigger than the Dime (US$.10), but notes are the huge failure because they're all the same colour, size and texture. You dont know if you've got a 1, 20 or 100 until you read it. You'll have two "faces" if currency for a while but within a few years, the new notes will supplant the old ones, Australia changed it's notes back in the mid 90's to new polymer notes and the old paper notes became rare within 5 years. Even though the old paper notes are still legal tender, but so rarely seen it's not funny. Almost all of the people who still have them are keeping them for prosperity.
2) Regarding housing and commutes: this concerns only Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, a tiny part of the world. A large, large majority of us techies work somewhere else: Australia, Europe, Asia, other parts of the world. Scope of post seems limited. Also TLDR.
I live in Perth, Western Australia and affordable housing causing long commutes happens everywhere. Even here in Perth with it's low population density. In fact combine our poor public transport system, lots of single lane roads and overly aggressive drivers, it's easier to get around peak hour LA than it is to get around peak hour Perth.
If you want an affordable house here in Perth (meaning $250-350,000 USD) you need to live on the outskirts of Perth. This means a driving commute into your place of employment (which for a lot of white collar workers is the CBD and blue collar workers, various industrial parks that are often on the other side of the CBD). Housing affordability and commuting problems are not the sole domain of large, popular cities like London, SF and NY.
Land of the free my ass. It's a nation of lunatics ruled by fear.
It was never outlawed; but if some neurotic busybody called the Podunk PD because they saw a kid outside and decided that they were either about to be abducted by pedo-terrorists or on their way to delinquency, and Podunk PD decided to throw some spurious neglect/endangerment charge at you, it would still ruin your day. That's the real problem. Even if the first judge who sees it tosses the case in disgust, you'll still have a lousy time until then.
So pretty much this is due entirely to the over-reaction of the PD.
I'm from Australia where kids walking themselves to school is a common sight... Hell, avoid getting on public transport around 3-4PM in Perth because it'll be full of kids (but more specifically teens who haven't figured out what deodorant is for)... In fact, strike that, just avoid public transport in Perth entirely if you can avoid it.
In this scenario, at worst the cops could have given the kid a ride and then called the mother, but police in the US are not just over-funded, but drunk on their own sense of importance.
Why is it that "conservatives" in so many countries have completely lost their minds?
That's part and parcel of being a conservative.
These are people who live in a bubble based around rose tinted memories of their childhood, pretending that the problems of 40-60 years ago didn't exist. This means that when reality breaks their bubble, they go mad trying to rebuild a society that never really existed.
I think most of the planet would support sending Trump into space.
Without a capsule.
Please, step into your designated cell. Your imprisonment for things you might do will begin in a second you potentially violent scumbag!
*BANG*BANG*BANG*BANG*
Sorry! We determined you were too much of a risk to our safety. You have been eliminated. Good bye!
Don't be silly.
We all know prisons of the future will be underground, run by computers and anyone who does not follow directions will be intestinated.
Whether you like his music or not, there is no denying that David Bowie was a true artist, a real entertainer. There was nothing fake about him. Nowadays, we don't see real artists like him very often.
I suspect that you're seeing history through rose-tinted glasses. There were plenty of pop-acts in every era that Bowie overlapped with, we simply don't remember many of them.
Which is why we remember Bowie.
I wonder if anyone 30 years from now will remember Beyonce. We are officially in a worse period of music than disco.
Beyonce will probably end up going the way of Celine Dion... Permanent Vegas show playing hits from the past for aging fans who cant let go of their youth. However that is a special case.
However bands like One Direction will end up going the way of the likes of Westlife or the Backstreet Boys (as anyone under 28 who they were) without Marc Whalberg's short lived acting career.
Who remembers Bardot (the band, not Bridget), Lifehouse, LeAnn Rimes, Mandy Moore, Sonique or even Atomic Kitten? These were all in the top 100 in 2001. Hell, I lived then and I had to look up the charts. Even someone like Ronan Keating will be pretty unknown to someone under 25.
Bowie stood out not just because he was the best of his time, but because he continued to be good beyond his time. Much like Frank Sinatra or Deep Purple and much like these bands, his music gets covered a lot (OK, not quite as much as Deep Purple, but that's because of the first song every guitarist learns).
Also he's a relic of a better age. It took 9 people to write "Single Ladies" for Beyonce, David Bowie wrote most of his music himself.
I loved working on my VAX systems - a great little healthcare OS.
Really, my VAX literally sucked.
In my experience, anti-vaxxers lean both left and right, often for different reasons.
And sometimes at the same time. A little hypocrisy is nothing to the likes of Anti-vaxxers.
However outside the United states, people are not strictly defined by strict left/right template. It is possible to hold liberal views on education or health care and conservative views on economic policies.
Still 25% more by volume vs American servings ... we'll be fine ... f i n e I say...
If the UK uses Imperial pints, does this mean Americans use Rebel pints?
Seriously, that 425ml per pint is bollocks. 568ml is a proper pint.
Then the freaking women need to start drinking more if they want to be equal.
I get the joke, but on a serious note, there are so many more important variables in alcohol tolerance and metabolism that gender isn't a big one.
I've seen women (small Asian women as well) that could drink most men under the table. This is because they've got a fast metabolism and a built up resistance to alcohol (and when you see the way they drink in Thailand, you understand why they've developed such a resistance so early in life). Its not just built up tolerance either, I can easily drink 10-12 pints of beer* but fatigue plays a huge factor, there have been times where 1 or 2 pints have put me on my arse because I was too tired or sick.
However the UK government is doing this because alcoholism is seen as a huge problem to some in England. It's just a recommendation, not a legal requirement so changing it makes it look like the government is "Doing Something (TM)" to all the busy bodies whilst doing nothing at all.
* Please keep in mind I'm not American, so I drink beer around 5% ABV.
The amount of hatred against us is, probably, only greater. That most of it is impotent, and we've grown so big and powerful, we barely notice it — heck, we even have the luxury of blaming ourselves for it at times — does not change the fact, that it is out there.
Thousands of minds — some of them brilliant — are thinking up ways to hurt us.
You've reminded me of an excerpt from Herman Goring at Nuremberg
Goring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Goring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
Seems you've copied your propaganda strategy. Well at least you copied from the best.
The fact is, we're not at threat from a horde of terrorists, or even a handful. We're at threat from the people who want to make us afraid of shadows and use that fear to send us to fight a pointless war in some godforsaken shithole where we have no business being... But I expect you to call me names and denounce me for my lack of whatever it is.
Way too many workers are too stupid or lack the backbone to tell their boss, "no, I will not give up my life because you are an asshole and refuse to hire the workers needed"
Boss, "Ok, fuck you then. I'll hire someone else. I have 30 resumes on my desk with people desperate to work here. Bye bye!"
And there in lies the problem.
I fortunately live in a country where it's illegal to do that (Australia). If my employer wants me to work more than the 37.5 hours prescribed in my employment contract they need to offer me an incentive to do so. The problem is Americans have pissed away all their working rights and the bosses have all the power. In Australia, you still get companies who try to abuse their workers, however these companies almost always end up with the worst and most incompetent employees (if they dont end up in court) because anyone who exercise their rights is gotten rid of, so they end up with the workers who literally cant get work anywhere else. This is true in blue as well as white collar.
As a side note, I'm happy to put in an extra hour or two here and there when needed to get things done... By the same token my employer is happy to let me go an extra hour or two early every now and then so I can get things done that can only be done in business hours (I.E. like taking my car for a service).
Also 4 weeks annual leave and 10 days sick leave mandated by law rocks.
I am a power station engineer and I spend hours sitting in meetings with a dozen other qualified engineers discussing eg whether to replace a slightly leaking seal on a large valve, whether it is cost-effective, whether we have a safety case, whether we can spare a fitter to do it. I generally take the line "Just give me a fucking spanner and I'll go down and do it this morning"; but I am treated as if that would be spoil the meeting.
I'll preface this with "I hate bureaucracy as much as the next man" but...
I used to know an electrician like you. He'd sit through safety briefings with a blank look and say "Just let me go and do it". That was until he opened a malfunctioning oil filled transformer like it was an ordinary transformer. It blew up and killed him and another worker. Even made the news as it shut down a major shopping centre. The result of the investigation was that the electrician in question was told the transformer was filled with oil but didn't pay attention in the safety meeting.
Safety briefings are important.
If you're renting, you're borrowing a property. It's basically the same as paying interest.
I read your earlier post on the matter to determine what you mean by "same". The answer is no, renting is not the same as borrowing. A loan means you borrow money now in exchange for creating an obligation to pay in the future. Renting usually does not. For example, I might be renting a very expensive apartment in Manhattan today, but I can move out. I can't decide that I want a smaller loan and just move out of my old big one.
This.
I rent because I dont want to live where I am for the rest of my life. This goes double for places where I can work for significantly higher than where I'd like to live such as London. It makes sense to rent in London if you're being paid 4-600 pounds a day and save that money to buy or pay off a house somewhere else.
That being said, paying off a house is not a bad debt as houses typically appreciate. However the GP is right that a lot of people are up to their eyeballs in bad debt. Bad debt are for things that depreciate. In simple terms, debt is acceptable for investments, but unacceptable for consumption. Consumption are things like toys (computers, tablets, jet ski's), cars, groceries and sundries. Generally you're paying interest and fees on things that are losing value or lose all their value when you buy them.
This goes double for people who put everything on their credit cards. Triple for those who think they get anything out of their CC, they dont seem to understand that banks dont do anything for free. Interchange and merchant fees are the things paying for the bonuses, points and cashback schemes and in the end, the merchant passes those fees back to the consumer. It's a negative feedback loop, Derp believes he's winning when he gets 1% "cashback" when the bank is charging the merchant 3% and the merchant raises the prices Derp pays. Even if you pay no interest on a CC, you still have to pay the fees as obscured as they are.
Given how easy it is to rack up massive debt with massive interest and no assets to show for it on credit cards, they are the most dangerous form of credit. I'm continually confounded that people use them so blithely.
This is the biggest thing for me.
I started travelling recently for business when I changed jobs in 2012. Since then, I spent two years hailing taxis ... every single one of them tried to cheat in one way or another. In Seattle, taxi drivers have a flat fee of $40 to take you from the airport to downtown; I never paid less than $45. In DC, taxis would say "Yes, I take cards" but when they get to your destination they refuse to take your card. In Texas they pretended their credit card machine was broken. When they give you a receipt (if they give you a receipt) the receipt is blank, and you're expected to write in whatever you feel like, so you can expense a different amount of money and pocket the change.
Now I ride Uber and the payments aren't an issue. I even like chitchatting with the drivers.
You must have the word "mark" tattooed to your forehead.
I've been travelling the world since 2002 and this includes living in Thailand and the Phillippines. If taxi's in western countries are scamming you, they will tear you to shreds in South East Asia. I've travelled extensively in the US and was never ripped off by a taxi driver. Maybe it's because I dont treat them like shit. Even in SE Asia, if you get caught out by a scamming Tuk Tuk driver more than once, you aren't smart enough to travel, their scams are easy to spot (no I dont want to go to your "brothers" gold shop).
And here's the harsh reality for you. The Uber situation wont last and soon they'll be the ones scamming you because they aren't even making minimum wage. You'll end up with the worst of the worst, drivers no-one else will hire because no-one else will work for the pittance Uber offers. Yep, that's what comes out of your race to the bottom.
To be honest, I dont get why people in the US are complaining, your taxis are relatively cheap compared to other western countries. But I guess it'll take a situation like Phuket in the US to teach you the hard way why your ancestors put in taxi regulations.