> Bottom line: we do not have a good orbit for this rock yet, and as observations get better the chance of an impact will certainly drop.

What is that supposed to mean? It should get closer to 1 or to 0. It will get closer to 0 with probability .9999998, and to 1 with probability .0000002. So it will not "certainly" drop.

Err... I just looked down at my [US] keyboard and there is a key labeled "Alt" immediately to the right of the space bar.

The Compose key is a much better way to handle extra symbols. Sun keyboards used to have a key with that name, and on Linux you can assign one of those useless keys to the right of the space bar (I use "Window") to act as a Compose key. Compose = E to get €, Compose ' e to get é, Compose / l to get , Compose ~ n to get ñ, etc.

Perhaps I shouldn't answer your question because it is completely off topic, but that argument is just horrible. How does that supernatural entity explain anything? Where did *it* come from?

Not knowing some things is OK. It's certainly better than fooling yourself.

This usage of "better" is completely standard, and it's always from the point of view of the liquidity taker: A quote is better if it gives the other side a better deal. This is consistent with common language usage.

In other words it means "higher price if it's a quote to buy, lower price if it is a quote to sell". "Better" is a much better word.

In case others are too lazy to look it up, it's lower than the rate for those who majored in accounting, business or finance: http://www.studentsreview.com/unemployment_by_major.php3?sort=Rate

Although you are technically correct in that the statement is not as mathematically inevitable as the GP indicated, the concavity of the utility function at the scale of $100 is tiny for most people, and the statement stands.

I went through this ridiculous process to get my green card. I had been working for my company for 6 years with an H1-B visa. I am a smart guy, I get along with everyone in the group, I know the system we work on in and out. I haven't seen the adds they ran, but I wouldn't be surprised if they looked like what's described in that video. Why would the company be interested in firing me and hiring someone else that comes with huge uncertainties and with months of training to get up to speed?

It gets even more ridiculous than what's in that video. Over the years, immigration lawyers have learned what requirements they can get away with listing in the add. For instance, I have a M.S. degree, but they couldn't list it as a requirement because I am not a manager. Of course there is no connection between being a manager and having a M.S. degree, but I guess this makes sense if you posses a lawyer's brain.

There are two things that don't match your story, though:
  (1) My salary is not low by any standards.
  (2) The company has hired people that responded to these "fake adds", because the scarcity of good candidates is real. They just had to come up with some excuse why the candidate wasn't qualified for that specific job, and then offer him a different job.

It's all a strange dance, where the government knows and understands what the company is trying to do and why, but the government has to keep the appearance of being protecting the U.S. workers. The solution is to stop requiring these ridiculous adds.

No! It's plural, so "minutia".

Perhaps you can read the whole chapter, and you'll see that the sentence is uttered by a king in a story that Jesus was telling. It still seems like the king is being portrayed positively by Jesus, so the message remains contradictory, but you shouldn't remove the context so blatantly.