I haven't ever heard it put in exactly those terms, but it makes more sense to me now. We are all going to get old, and while we may or may not be as effective as a younger (and cheaper) employee, that doesn't mean we are valueless or unable to do the work. By and large the young can pickup and move more easily (god knows I did my fair share of that to advance my career), and they can take more chances. When you are old and just need to hang on 5 more years to retire, that Union starts to look a lot more beneficial.

It's funny you should mention basterdisation of the English language as according to Oxford University many subsets of American English are much closer to the original Anglo-Germanic root English language than those dialects of Brittish English that exist today.

Go visit the fishermen in Tangiers Island, or the 7th district in Maryland if you want to hear what "English" actually sounds like.

I think you may have placed the emphasis on the wrong word on your response. It is likely less about being Asian and more about being an immegrant. Being willing to go to such lengths in order to improve your situation in life may contribute a lot more to how much effort your children put forth in school than the color of your skin or your "culture" (believe it or not, not all Asian cultures are similar or place the same values on things such as formal schooling).

I'm pretty tired of hearing this temporarily embarrased millionares trope. The middle-class, poor, or what have you that vote in droves for policies that clearly benefit the wealthy do not do it because they believe they will be wealthy themselves one day; they do it because the TV, Internet, and print media they choose to view tells them it's the fair or moral thing to do. We Americans do like to feel that we are the good guys, even if we may be misguided or misled.

And while the middle class may be disappearing on paper, people who "believe" themselves to be middle class, or upper middle class, likely do so because they are living a comfortable lifestyle and as such have no reason to think that they are poor. Just because the wealthy have greater wealth now than they did in the past (shifting the mean income) doesn't mean two cars, a tv, and the means to feed your children is no longer middle class.

I wonder if the Natalie Portman thing will still be mentioned when she is 40. Of course presuming /. will still be around.

Just reminds me of the late '90s / early 00's when Amazon was losing so much money each quarter for years on end. I thought there was no way they would ever dig themselves out of debt.

If we aren't talking about the autonomous cars of today, but rather purpose built vehicles of tomorrow, isn't it much more likely that they could survive a more unbalanced accident? If you don't have the drivers directly behind the engine/motor facing a wall of glass, etc. Maybe sitting backwards with proper neck/head support and a harness seatbelt.

I wonder what would happen if everyone utilized these autonomous cars programmed for the greater good. In this 3-way accident situation as outlined above, do all three cars spontaneously decide to swerve off the road and crash into a tree?

When this is common, I will be first in line for the OBD-999 hack that shows I always have 5 children in the back of my car.

There was a online poll this week hosted by the largest radio station for Southern Maryland, and the result was >94% would leave if they could.

Just because human intelligence may not be based on simple triggering does not mean that the model wouldn't work for a computational AI. Or are you arguing that anything produced by such mechanics wouldn't be "true" AI?

Car loans used to regularly reach the double digit interest percentages as well. Sure, you may get a 6 year loan now, but if you are literally paying less interest than the inflation rate (I got 1.9% financing last year), you are being paid to take a loan.

I had enough cash to purchase the vehicle outright (though it would have put a hurt on my savings), or I could have paid about 1/2 to 1/3rd comfortably, but when I saw the breakdown of how much I would be paying in interest I chose to finance the whole thing. I then took a good chunk of that savings I had expected to put on the car and knocked several years off of my home mortgage.

$50 for enough material to cover a watch face sounds expensive. If it were the same price for a 7" phone screen you would be looking at thousands of dollars.

Poverty and drug culture (rather than race) are more closely linked to crime.

For an example of this look to Eureka, California. 80% White, less than 2% Black, and one of highest crime (both violent and non-violent) in the entire country.

So, how do you propose to do this if those people do not have a considerable body of experience?

Will everyone have to work on some open source project while flipping burgers for years to prove their worth?