It's a voluntary relationship where each side can expect the other to exploit any weakness for their own interest.

For the engineers, it is a weakness that they are peasants before they are engineers. The CEOs have an unfair advantage over them, and that advantage is not part of engineers voluntary agreement.

Why do I have to even explain this to you?

Here is a good takedown: http://www.priceplow.com/blog/... . From the link:

We find it unnerving (but not surprising) that somebody with zero background in health, fitness, or nutrition is leading a cadre of lemmings to near-certain long-term trouble.

You uh... realize that the alternative to sideing with the EU is being eaten by Russia again?

Yes, I do, and I realize that this is not good,

You don't think that Russia has any ability to sway politics and policy in Ukraine?

Where did I say they don't? But I don't think they are behind the protests, and I don't think you do, either.

Just to clarify. Whenever I think about these issues, I make a point of trying to see what is true, and not confuse this with what I would wish were true. A prosperous Ukraine as a member of the EU would be a very nice thing in my opinion. More likely, IMO less nice, would be a Ukraine that is not prosperous (and whose democracy has been lobotomized) and is a member of the EU, because, you see, the EU isn't a club of philantropists either. Much more likely, unfortunately, is that Russia keeps a tight grip on Ukraine.

What also seems likely (coold blooded, factual consideration) is that a lot of young people will get tragically ground down in a standoff whose dimensions they do not understand.

They could kick out Yanukovitch and show the future leaders that they have to respect the rights of their citizens.

Much to my regret, I see about zero chance of this actually happening.

Sometimes digging in and waiting for a better time to fight is the best you can do.

Things are very bad for Ukraine right now. I don't fully understand the ideological issues they're fighting over, but I can certainly recognize the nature of the government's response.

IIUC, this is at the core about wether to join the EU at some point or not. At least, this is the culmination of an escalation that started right after the breakdown of talks between the gov. of Ukraine and the EU, followed by a move to closer ties with Russa.

One should not be fooled by any of this. The EU is quite capable of funding and supporting disruptive agitators, and has about zero qualms of doing that. After all, this is about the geopolitics of power, so none of the big boys cares if a few lives are ruined. It is a tragedy that those protesting (who have, I am convinced, goals they believe to be virtuous) are being exploited and fooled like this from one side, and shot down like this from the other. There is literally nothing they can win, and quite a bit they can lose.

Experiments in Europe with 35 and 38 work hours failed and were rolled back to nearly 40 hours or even more.

These "experiments" did not really fail except in the sense that bosses and conservatives felt the employees and lower classes where having it too good.

In theory, you cannot be competitive with that number of hours. In practice, a lot could be gained by having employees that are less stressed, less sleep-deprived, and generally happier. But there is a sadistic streak running in those well off that refuses to see it that way.

GEtting PCI compliance certification is not cheap, and you need it if you want integrated payment. So far, not a lot of open source POS systems are lining up to pay for certification...

Oh I get it. You run a POS software on a POS operating system on a POS hardware? And that's why the system stinks!!

Really? The beauty of Flash websites, here on Slashdot of all places?

Indeed. While reading the sumary, I thought they had a database mistake and republished a review from when authoring websites in flash was thought to be a good idea (about ten years ago? I've not seen one of those for a while now.)

These are fantastic news!

Indeed. And it wasn't the free market that did it. Go figure.

The benefits system is not there to provide a lifestyle, it is there to TEMPORARILY provide the bare essentials until you find another job. People should have to work if they want any kind of luxury items.

And if they don't find work, what then? Do you let them starve?

The amount of people on long term benefits, who have all manner of luxury goods is absolutely sickening.

This number is actually very small, and it constitutes the rare exception, not the rule.

What is there to stop the Bitcoin exchange to start functioning like the goldsmiths you mentioned above?

Nothing, of course. You would have pre-central bank banking.

What if they start issuing "scripts" to facilitate trading, finance, debt ?

People participating in that scheme would be setting themselves up for some "interesting" (read: horrible) economic phenomena that have become very rare since the invention of central banking. There is a reason for this, of course, and maybe some gold bugs will be enlightend. Most of them, being a little dense, will just suffer and start again.

all cryptocurrencies have no actual reason to have a value outside of the gullibility of their users.
They're modern art.

Really you can say the same thing about any fiat currency.

Uh, no, not realy. When it comes to fiat currency, it matters a great deal who declares it to be a currency. And this is in fact a practical matter. It makes a huge difference wether your currency is backed by the government of the US or that of Zimbabwe, say.

There is a significant portion of christians that doesn't take the bible literally.

From all I can tell, there actually is almost nobody who takes it literally.

I'm an atheist, but it's completely possible to believe in God and evolution. Not everyone who is a christian believes the bible is literal.

Sure. But what the hell do they actually believe in and why are they not embarrassed?

I was speaking to my great uncle, who happens to be a practicing Catholic priest and somehow the creation story came up. He flatly said it is simply a story and in no way actually happened.

Ok. But so WTF does he actually believe in? Evolution + personal god? That's a contradiction, you know? The seven day creationists are at least consistent (whacky to the bone).

Of course it probably helped that I am both a christian and believe in evolution.

How do you pull that off? I mean, evolution on one hand and a personal god on the other are really incompatible ideas. Sounds to me as if you are just deluding yourself.

There are a couple of things I found quite disturbing about this story.

One was how easily he got off from prosecution. To mention just one episode,

"It was an out-and-out hijacking," LeFevre told me. "They counterfeited our product, they pirated our Web site, and they basically directed all of their customer service to us."

So how come this Jesse guy not in jail? Isn't that fraud, piracy, etc?

Another disturbing thing in this article is that it turns out people actually click on shady adds for colon cleansers, buy these things, and then use them!!!. What?!?