I'm not taking much stock in the overwhelming rise of the majority rule of morning people here

The original comment, that noone is a morning person, was the sort of comment that will only produce responses that contradict it - why would someone bother with "yeah, I can't get things going before noon either"?

So, no, the responses saying, in effect, "I am a morning person you ignorant clod" should not be read as saying anything other than "yeah, there are some people who are morning people. Maybe not many, but some."

For what it's worth, I don't use an alarm to get up. 4:30 to 5:00 is just when I wake up naturally.

Once upon a time, many years ago, I drank a lot of coffee and sodas. I had a hard time waking up, and my ideal was to sleep till 11 or so.

I stopped with the caffeine, and after all the side-effects worked their way through my system, I found that I woke up like switching on a light switch - from fully asleep to fully awake in a second or two....

GDP is of relevance to everyone, the fact you don't understand it does not change anything. GDP is a measure of the size of the economy, and if the economy is growing then that means there is more money in it. You're correct that that does not mean that as soon as the economy grows people will see instant benefit from it, levels of inflation play in too and companies will not start handing out pay rises left and right the second the economy shows signs of growth, so yes you can see GDP go up, but no people wont instantly see benefit.

I don't know why you say Ireland has a high GDP, no it doesn't, it has a smaller GDP than countries like Iraq, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan, maybe you meant GDP per capita? If you want to know why Ireland's GDP per capita is high but the people aren't seeing the benefit of it then it's simple- Ireland is a tax haven and like all tax havens they have a high GDP per capita, there's a reason Apple has many tens of billions sat in banks there - it's a low tax regime, but that money sat in banks isn't in the real economy, it doesn't feed down to employees because it's being held in banks simply for the purpose of being kept off shore. This is the price of running your country as a tax haven, you get a lot of income, but it wont be productive money for the economy - it wont be used to pay higher wages or any such thing. The UK is not a tax haven so is not in even a remotely similar situation.

What we have in the UK is healthy growth because it's sustained, and the fact it's sustained means companies can start increasing wages, and guess what? contrary to your parroting of now obsolete memes that's exactly what's happening. Throughout last year wage rises started to track with inflation, and through this year they've finally started outpacing inflation.

Yes there have been big issues with zero hours contracts and self-employment over the last few years, and this has been key in Carney not increasing the bank of England's base rate, but as bank of England minutes have shown over this last year it's now clear that even that trend is in decline- those zero hours contracts, and that self employment is now being replaced by real sustained employment. It's for this reason that a rate rise now looks likely next year, instead of in 2016/2017 as originally planned. I suggest you catch up on this years monthly BoE meeting minutes if you want to get an updated view of the situation of the healthiness of employment in the UK rather than the outdated view you currently hold.

The things you cite were true a year ago or just over, but in the last year it's become clear that this is real growth and as a result even salaries are increasing (they're certainly not decreasing as you claim- go check the ONS stats on the issue, or see here for example: http://www.theguardian.com/bus... - this is from April just as above inflation wage growth started, the pace has improved even more since then).

So I hate to say it but your whole argument is wrong, it's based on a lack of understanding of economics on a national level, it's based on a naive belief that improvement should be instant, and it's based on a simple lack of knowledge about what the underlying trends actually are in our economy.

Our GDP is growing, our wage rises are outpacing inflation, zero hours contracts are no longer growing, debts are not soaring, bailiffs are not doing record business. That's what I consider healthy growth- you're right, your theorised claims would not be healthy growth but they're not what's actually happening in the country right now, they stopped being true at least a year ago, your information is now completely out of date and incorrect.

Sources:

- Wage increases: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/...

- Reposessions: https://www.gov.uk/government/...

- Household debt: http://www.libdemvoice.org/wp-...

I purposely left food banks out of that last paragraph above because their use has been growing even in the boom times before the recession, turns out if you offer free food with no checks, balances, and means testing that people will take it so drastic rise in their use has been occurring regardless of the economic weather:

http://blogs.channel4.com/fact...

Hence sure crying "but food banks!" sounds good, until you realise that whilst we can theorise that food banks are going to see an increase in visitors in times of poor economic performance we still see increase in their usage in times of good economic performance and so it's incorrect to assume that increase in food bank useage correlates purely with poor economic performance - clearly it doesn't because we can see it rising in boom times.

I suspect we both know what healthy growth is, the difference is I know what the underlying state of the economy is because I've bothered to research it, you however are claiming it's unhealthy based on outright falsehoods.

Can you substantiate this? Every time somebody has said this to me and they've gone into specifics, it's been bullshit.

You know, it's good that you come to me instead of the morons you've been talking to you, because I can definitely substantiate this:

http://www.nytimes.com/interac...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04...

http://arstechnica.com/busines...

See, the reason "Silicon Valley" (meaning the tech industry) is allowed to play this game is because they're willing to let the NSA upskirt your private information and communications. And since they've already got their hand up your dress, they're going to cop a little feel for themselves, you know? So the US Government is happy, the corporations get to make a shitload of money from your private information and communications, and they get to keep playing their little tax game.

If you had a government worth a damn (like during the trust-busting era), they wouldn't allow companies like Apple to perpetrate their little willful fraud.

Now, the next time somebody tells you about Apple and the government playing footsie to protect Apple's tax advantage, I hope you won't continue to say it's bullshit.

Same here. Which anti-trust laws? Be specific.

Same here. Now when somebody asks you "Which anti-trust laws is Apple violating?" you'll be able to tell them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

http://www.jstor.org/discover/...

See, the problem is "vertical integration". You can't control both the product, the store that sells the product, the insurance that covers the product, the consumables (media) that plays on the product and on and on down the distribution chain. Even making both the hardware and the software is arguably a violation of anti-trust. But when you start to also own the only store that sells software for the product and have a vested interest in every bit of software that runs on the product you've crossed so many lines that Apple should have been broken up into several companies long ago. Same with Microsoft and many others. They're not just over the line, they're WAY over the line. The technical term is an oligopoly. They are anti-competitive and they destroy entire markets. Oligopolies are what happen in fascist countries.

I hope you appreciate the time and energy I spend disabusing you of your notion that "it's bullshit". And I hope you enjoyed edification as much as I enjoyed providing it.

"But that's not the case. There's nothing magical about living in Antarctica that would cause millions of people to lose their homes elsewhere."

Of course there is, human activity generates heat, and heat melts ice. You can't melt ice in Antarctica and have it magically not increase sea levels, where do you think it goes? or do you think the ice in Antarctica is magical and immune to melt from heat? or that we can create a magical device that just vanishes every single bit of heat humans might generate? When that sea level rise happens there are many people living in coastal areas whose current homes would become flooded. You then have to find somewhere else for them to go.

"No, those species are quite notorious for exhibiting behavior that strongly favors their own species at the expense of pretty much everything else aside from a few symbiotes."

Ah, but now you're changing the parameters of the discussion to suit your argument- I wasn't talking about selfishness that benefits the species as a whole, I was clearly talking about selfishness of the individual making the point that individual humans will look after themselves over the rest of their species - this is why we even have things like racism in the first place.

Yeah, and aliens could land too, and there will be nuclear war, and the world will end also!

Oh wait, you were being serious? You used the words "the way things are going" but that's not actually the way things are going. Based on current trajectories the UK is showing the healthiest growth of just about all rich Western economies and it's doing so whilst maintaining a reduction in deficit too.

Further, a number of studies suggest it's likely to see itself increase in global rankings overtaking France, and maybe even Germany in the next 20 years:

http://www.theguardian.com/bus...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/busi...

So yeah, you may be right, maybe something drastic will happen and things will go into reverse again, but that's not what the current figures suggest so any such possibility is merely unfounded speculation.

Yeah, sure, Scotland could've chosen not to be part of that and that would've been their decision, but I think most Scots saw through the nationalist pessimism towards the UK and recognised that for all our faults, maybe things aren't so bad - we're growing faster than anyone else in the G7 and seeing drastic declines in unemployment to boot - find me a country without political issues, but as far as ours go they're pretty small fry compared to some of the issues some countries are having, we've been growing well for well over a year now and some of our neighbours are still slipping in and out of recession - right now and for the foreseeable future the UK is still a pretty good place to be.

Faster political change would be nice, many people think it's not happening at all, but it is. In recent years we've seen things like the exposure of the expenses scandal, we've seen the closeness of phone hacking and the political classes, we've seen an alternative voting system referendum that was lost, exposure of sexual abuse in parliament, we've seen a coalition for the first time in 60 years- now many people will view all these things are negatives, things that ended badly, didn't turn out well, but they're not, they're all part of a bigger picture- the tide is turning against entrenched Westminster, in the last 50 years most of those things listed above would've been unthinkable, the fact they're happening is evidence that the vested minorities that've had so much power for so long in Westminster are losing their grip. I'm normally a cynical, pessimistic person myself, but since I started to take a step back on this issue and piece it all together, rather than look at individual events in isolation, as well as looking at the wider world in general (i.e. the arab spring) it seems pretty clear that politicians are losing power to the people as part of a long slow, probably multi-decade process - it's slow but it's happening, and I'm optimistic that Westminster cannot and will not be able to carry on with business as usual for much longer- they're already faltering and I fully suspect that this independence referendum is another nail in the coffin for the old way of doing things.

God only knows I've hated my country long enough and thought about leaving enough times (thankfully I can easily obtain dual citizenship through my partner, or just make use of our EU membership to fuck off elsewhere in the EU) but right now I think the signs are good, I think change is happening, it's painfully slow but I'm not convinced this is something that you can fix overnight, I think it takes almost a generational change in politicians (which might explain why there has been some progress already- I believe last election that far more than half the MPs that were elected were completely new) but it's happening, and we're getting there.

"As a Scot living through the referendum, it has been a sea of optimism and YES flags and events. Many people, including myself woke up this morning very disappointed but also wondering how did this happen:"

I can explain it to you, but like most yes voters you probably wouldn't get it, but here, I'll try anyway.

Those of us sat outside of Scotland, not caught up in the sea of supporters here and there and who bothered to look at the polls - not just the headlines, and that paid attention to events not just in a single locale but across the country, especially in the last few weeks saw something slipping through. We saw the ugly side of nationalism finally shine through, and we saw the impact that was having.

You see dear rapiddescent, all those yes flags, all those events, coupled with the things you'd probably rather not hear about or deny ever happened such as militant yes voters physically attacking no campaigners and even splitting up families and neighbourhoods, telling people they weren't true scotsmen if they voted no. All those things - they weren't a sign you were winning, you'd overwhelmed the opposition sure, all anyone could hear was yes because they'd either silence or out-shouted no at every turn, no, they were simply a sign that you weren't letting people with opposing opinions have their say.

So whilst you were busy silencing and out-shouting the opposition you missed something important- the importance of actually winning the arguments.

Along comes polling day, and guess what? all those people you'd silenced, shouted over, and prevented from expressing their opinion as vocally as you did got to have their say in the ballot box, a place you couldn't silence them, couldn't harass them, and guess what? that's where your weakness of focussing on a a blitzkrieg of yes spam rather than actually putting forward good ideas and rational arguments let you down.

That dear sir, is why the streets were full of yes campaigners, why all you could see and hear was them in the streets, on social media, and in classic media, but why when it came to, you still lost. You militantly silenced the majority, but the silent majority still got to have their say in the end.

The media wasn't biased in it's reporting, most media outlets didn't declare a preference, and those that did largely only did so in the last week or so (it was actually the pro-independence media that declared and actively backed first). You may wish to tell yourself that you've been cheated out of something, that you've been hard done by, that the media was against you, that vested corporate interests stopped it, but none of that is true. You lost simply because a majority were smart enough to see that your arguments didn't stack up, and were put off by your vile nationalist tendencies that kept slipping out from under your mask (like say, when Jim Sillars stood alongside Alex Salmond said post-independence they'd nationalise foreign companies in a revenge act for not supporting independence: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.u...).

Who the hell do you know is a morning person?

Well, me, for one. Get up between 4:30 and 5:00 AM every morning, walk several miles before breakfast.

Note that there are 21 States more than twice the size of Scotland, of which eight are more than three times the size of Scotland, of which one each are four times, five times, seven times, and twenty times as big as Scotland.

And, on an unrelated note, for you Texans out there, remember that if Alaska were split into two States, Texas would then be the THIRD largest State....

I love lying to survey takers. If someone wants to waste my time asking me stupid questions, I'll waste his with stupid answers.

Ditto.

After all, what's the point of a poll other than to amuse yourself at the expense of the pollster?

Don't they realize that by definition, "non-piratable" means less useful? How does Apple and Bono's new magical DRM know the difference between me putting the song I bought on my Nexus and copying it for a friend?

And you know what? Bono is becoming a little embarrassing. For that matter, Apple has become a lot embarrassing. You would think that after their recent, "You will take this album whether you want it or not" routine that they'd maybe take a deep breath before coming up with another brainstorm together.

Wake me up when Apple partners with some interesting artists, like Deerhunter or Demdike Stare or Charlie Boyer And The Voyeurs. Fuck Bono and fuck Tim Cook and fuck Apple and their jewelry.

I'm glad I got that out of my system. So, how about them Bears?

Apple does some odd things, but I can't imagine anyone could watch the Charlie Rose interview of Tim Cook and come away with the impression that he and Apple don't care about their customers. To hold that position you'd have to believe he was a pathological liar and just plain evil.

Well, there is a very high potential benefit to having a CEO who is a pathological liar. So high, in fact, that it would be incredible if someone rose to that position without being a pathological liar. And didn't Steve Jobs set the precedent?

And you do understand the reason Tim Cook goes on Charlie Rose, right? It's not because they're old friends having a nice chat. It's a very carefully planned and controlled public relations effort. They're trying to "shape the narrative" which is pretty much the definition of pathological lying. Celebrity CEOs are all about image, and image exists to fool people.

Because when it comes to security, "almost" is "not at all".

How would providing data to the USA government raise their stock prices? If anything, it would lower them.

Maybe you don't get the full picture. They cooperate with the US gov't, and the gov't looks the other way when they try to claim that 80% of their profits come from outside the US when it's tax time. Apple has so many sweetheart deals with the US gov that it's not funny, mostly in the area of non-compliance with tax code or outright tax evasion.

This increases the bottom line and that increases stock price.

Just the fact that Apple is allowed to flaunt the anti-trust laws is a good example of why Apple (and shareholders) benefit from spying.

[Full disclosure: Apple stock bought in the '80s and throughout the '90s paid for my daughter's undergraduate and graduate education. Plus a couple of new cars (though modest ones, not the Gallardo I had hoped. You know, Mazdas and like that. I cashed out around $650.)