Comment Re: Let's rephrase the article (Score 2) 253
Oooooooo, a philosopher.
..which, from TFA it is - an act of economic desperation. Their currency loses 25% per year and trying to convert it to dollars takes time and huge fees - losing roughly 30%. If bitcoin provides a better, faster arbitrage, then it is, in this case, a more "reliable store of value."
I think it's more of a damning comment on Argentinian currency rather than a spotlight on the quality and fungibility of bitcoins.
Or it could be seen also as a spotlight of bitcoins as a tool to preserve wealth in a free-falling economy.
The US preaches free markets to the rest of the world, yet the IT programmers there seem to think they are entitled to a monopoly on jobs. I thought free market capitalism was about open market and prices based on demand-supply. Why are IT workers so threatened by this? Is it insecurity about their skills or ability to compete?
Why won't India allow Walmart to open stores in India?
Stop trying to make sense to these sock puppets. It is like trying to teach math to a coconut.
By law, H1-B's earn at least $60K.
By law, H1-Bs can only come for jobs that cannot be filled with the local work force. By law, they cannot replace working locals. But shit, guess what happens? Do you think H1-B visa holders are actually compensated fairly by Infosys and the like?
I have a bridge to sell, and a bottle of snake oil to boot. Let me know if you are interested.
The US preaches free markets to the rest of the world
Let me stop you right there from continuing with this stupid-as-shit line of thinking. Certain interest groups in the US preach free markets to the world. That doesn't imply "The US preaches free markets" or whatever shit else these interest groups try to peddle.
, yet the IT programmers there seem to think they are entitled to a monopoly on jobs.
Like almost anywhere else. You don't see engineering in general (and IT in particular) being offshored en-mass in, say, Japan and Germany, do you? I've never been in Germany, but I have been in Japan. So I can claim with some certainty that what I'm saying here holds.
There is also the rule of the law. The law says that H1-B visas are for jobs where companies have a hard time filling in with local talent (be them US workers, or foreign workers with a permanent residence status.)
It is not a replacement of US citizens and legal residents with temporary visa workers to lower costs. That is a violation of the law. In any other country, that would warrant an immediate investigation by a department of labor. Not here, and that is stupid.
And people thinking that we should not investigate (when every other country would), those people are either stupid, obtuse or disingenuous.
I thought free market capitalism was about open market and prices based on demand-supply.
And it is... within the definintion/demarcation of an economy. Any nation that does not treat its economy as a national asset of strategic value is an stupid nation that deserves whatever gets coming.
Look at China, India, Japan, Germany, and so on. They all have specific protections in place according to whatever they consider strategic or vital.
It is only in the US that private enterprises (and politicians in their pockets) who do not think that way. As long as profit is made, the nation as a whole can go screw itself.
Why are IT workers so threatened by this? Is it insecurity about their skills or ability to compete?
Do you understand the meaning of "begging the question"?
There is no competition when locals are being replaced without even giving a chance to compete, being replaced completely and unilaterally with cheaper labor in contradiction of what the law says.
And this just doesn't affect US citizens. It also affects legal residences. I've seen with my own eyes India workers with permanent resident status getting replaced with H1-B visas. So it is not just a question of talent and competition. It is a disingenuous violation of the law.
Not only that, the H1-B abuse is heavily slanted towards India workers and consulting firms? Why?
If we are going to get inundated and replaced by H1-B workers, let them be more diverse, from Russia, China, Africa, and LATAM, not just India. This is the biggest problem I have with abuses of the H1-B program. It artificially skews one of most profitable segments of our economy towards a specific foreign nationality.
The country as it is has a history of racial segmentation. There is no need to make that problem even worse.
What does punishment achieve? Makes people feel a bit better? The crime has been done: The focus of the justice system should be on minimizing future crimes, and punishment should be regarded only as a tool towards that end. Not a means to satisfy some perverse public desire to see others suffer so they can feel like some scales have been balanced.
I wonder how this applies to a victim of rape, or say, child molestation.
I mean, really now. What's the point of this article?
. If the sun were ten times hotter, there wouldn't be life on Earth.
If humans needed to breathe in methane instead of oxygen, there wouldn't be humans on Earth.
See, I can play the game as well....
This is a prime example of an individual who doesn't get the meaning and purpose of science and the pursuit of knowledge.
Incorrect. Abstract mathematical objects are not "encoded within the observable universe"
Sure they are. The set of concepts that humans can conceive are those which human brains, either directly or through tools like computers, can handle. Human brains evolved in the context usually called "the observable universe", so all concepts - including but not limited to abstract mathematical objects - we can think about are encoded within it, just in a real roundabout way. In other words, you can not know anything that isn't encoded in your causal past; even the very notion of abstraction only exists because it's inherent in the physical universe to such a degree that evolution encoded the principle into your brain.
And besides, the notion that math is supernatural - something that exists above physical reality, independent of it - is an unproven and probably unprovable assertion.
You are confusing mathematics with the metalanguage we use to describe them.
What's fucked up is that when i was in grade school (25 years ago) they were still using Ditto machines (70 years after its invention) despite Xerography machines being widely available (and having been around for 60 years).
There is nothing fucked up about that. That technology worked on the cheap (compared to Xerography or God forbit, modern laser/inkjet printers.)
Just because it is old, that doesn't mean it is shit. Enter the #2 pencil.
Education is probably one of the areas that will benefit the most from 3D printers in the long run.
I don't see the reasoning for this conclusion, it seems to me this program is a colossal waste of money. I did a little searching and these benefits don't seem that great except in the cases of engineering classes.
And Fine Arts. And "shop" class. And adv. music classes where students experiment with manufacture of music instruments. And cooking/baking classes (be them introductory classes or classes that are part of a more serious culinary arts curriculum.).
I disagree with your assessment that STEM classes are the main beneficiary.
I do agree with you, however, in the need to proceed with caution, and not to expect an educational silver bullet out of this.
Posting anon to be able to mod up against the jerk that modded this down. Pity I cannot comment too without undoing mod points. Spain is also ass-kissing the church, has still a feudalist mentality, and as long they do not kick out the king and the church, they are a fucked up country corrupt to the core and obeying to 3 masters (politicos, priests and king).
What does the king has to do with any of this?
and unfortunately that requires police with guns and military gear now due to the influence of the NRA.
In the U.S., the police have always needed guns (at least to some degree). I am not sure how the influence of the NRA can be held responsible for the police "needing" military gear, considering that police began using military gear as laws restricting gun ownership increased. It is worth noting that when it was legal for the common citizen to own automatic firearms, the police were perfectly satisfied to be armed with civilian weaponry.
And back then when cops were using wheel guns, they were still doing stupid shit. Should I remind everyone that SF and NY PD used to have "queer hunts"?
Now, we have access to independent video in a relatively small and unsystematic sample of those cases; and it turns out to differ from the official story fairly frequently.
But are these videos widespread because they exist, or because of the disparity between stories?
How can you ask if these videos are widespread when the OP is pretty much telling a few lines above that the videos represent (and I quote) "a relatively small and unsystematic sample of those cases"?
There is no reason to believe (nor data to back the belief) that people are filming only when a cop shots/hurts someone just upload them when the cop is in the wrong (and not uploading them the cop is in the right.)
So, without evidence that filming folks are displaying such a bias, then we have to consider the films as a really good random sample (of a small size, but it still random) out of a larger population of events (police encounters ending in confrontation, officially described "justified" on average.)
So now that we take a random sample (the videos), and we see that the expected properties ("justified on average") doesn't hold, then we have to re-examine the basic premise (that "justified" might not hold as common as it is officially trumpeted.)
Obviously, more evidence, more films (larger, more representative samples) are needed. But that doesn't deny the troublesome picture these films portray.
And to be honest, we all know this shit has been going on forever. We just like to pretend this shit doesn't happen, that them folk got it coming, and that the entire American experience is (and was) a mix of The Andy Griffith Show, Leave It To Beaver and Lassie.
It takes a couple of death people caught on film to get that shit of a notion a second look, doesn't it. That speaks volumes about a society's infinite capacity of self-deception.
Are there videos that show justified shootings that don't make national news because there's no story other than "cop defends life of self and/or others"?
Are you trying to prove a negative?
Most who qualify as veteran achieved that status before President Obama was elected. It has nothing to do with serving HIM but rather serving the country. Veterans have a higher unemployment rate than the general public, mostly because most employers don't recognize the skills they bring and that their military training doesn't always translate clearly into civilian HR job listings. Also this isn't a jobs program but a training program. If the economy doesn't create 75k jobs for those trained through this program it won't help them. But if the market is there then they will have the training to work in the field.
Bingo... sort of. It is true that if there is no market, then there are no jobs, but I doubt that the training won't help them. Knowledge is knowledge. I bet quite a few of these people will go on their own establishing their own businesses, or work on the side along side some other activity.
Those who get the training and expect to get a job just like that, they will be seriously disappointing. Which is true for many people getting pursuing most venues of education and training nowadays.
An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you really care to know.
