Yeah, because it's so easy and cheap to get a moving van, or rent a car, put down money on a new apartment, and pay for gas to get where your going! It makes perfect sense. I wonder why more poor people haven't ever thought of moving before. This will really change the world! Thank you for your insight, AC.

There's a reason 5% unemployment or so is considered full employment. At some point you're only left with people who are unemployable. In certain parts of the country you can go thorough a 25-man crew in one shift, firing one person after another. At some point you run out of warm bodies and you have to hire two idiots to fill what should be one person's job. You just pray that they don't end up costing you more than just their wages (bad product, injuries, etc.). I'm not even talking about skilled workers. I have had people who literally couldn't figure out how to sweep the floor.

So I guess this becomes an ethics question. Is there any job that working full time is not worth the amount of money it costs to rent an apartment and feed yourself? I would think so. Then the question becomes, what do we do about it? Tell the guy he's got to share a room? Yeah maybe; that's how the working class got by in tsarist Russia.

Or maybe we can realize there's enough $$ floating at the top that a little redistribution wouldn't kill anybody. I don't know if I want to live in a completely communist society, but I don't think your kids should have to choose between new school clothes and food if you are working full time at minimum wage. Yeah, I know: cable TV and cell phones, yadda yadda. But believe it or not, some American kids with working parents do go hungry.

I really don't have the answers.

unfortunately I couldn't find one without a camera. Now get off my lawn.

American Idol to get cancelled?

While 99.9% is high, you will spend much more than 40% of your time determining income if you own a business. You might not spend all that time at once, either. It will be spent throughout the year going through P&Ls, inventory, etc. I don't own rental property, so I can't speak to that one, but I'm sure it's in the same vein.

Also, I call shenanigans on the whole, "flat rate is easy" battle cry. Flat tax says T=r*I (where r is the flat rate). There are any other number of one liner equations that are not "flat" but are just as trivial to solve. T=r*I(1-e^(-I/R)), where r is a max rate and R is whatever the psychological threshold of "rich people who should be paying a lot."

Who pays full price for something like this up front?! Across an international border?! I would never sign T&C's without some recourse for a non-functioning product. Things like paying customs and shipping, installation and support costs, that's all divvied up ahead of time.

Wanting 100% cash up front is just not how business is done. You might pay some portion of it, but you never shell out the whole price unless you have some other leverage. Especially on something that is months out. In this case Robocoin had all the leverage. Even if they did ship a functioning ATM, they could flip a kill switch any time they wanted. I would have paid at most 30% up front, written proof of functionality prior to shipment, some payment at time of shipment, some payment at time of installation, and withhold a symbolic 5-10% for at least 30 days to make sure all the bugs are worked out.

OT - I'm no deletionist, but I was a wee bit surprised to see Mr. Wilkinson's company had a Wikipedia article. Seems like this guy might just be after some limelight.

It might not be legal. But they do it all the time. Why do you think there are so many websites asking if debt collectors can do that? It's because the people they're doing it to want to know if it's legal.

But it's not just governments who tax. Once an organization becomes large enough, they can tax individuals. Look at banks foreclosing on people that didn't actually have a mortgage through them. Or recording companies in Canada getting a tax on blank CDs that you never used as a recording media. Or my personal favorite, power companies with a low monthly rate "guaranteed" for 12 months, who then get special written permission from the government to charge more during that period, but I cannot get out of my contract and find a new power provider. These companies act like governments. They are bigger than some governments. They should be beholden to the populace the same as governments. If a company can claim first amendment religious rights, why shouldn't they respect the rights of others?

While I agree with you on the whole shame thing, I think people should absolutely have control over what parts of their body they want the rest of the planet to see. This cuts both ways: if a lady wants to walk around topless, that should be OK too. *crosses fingers*

This sort of reminds me of that case a couple of years ago when that guy bought his son a used Xbox or something for Christmas and it had porno on it. The kid was probably waaaaay more mortified and traumatized by his dad's disproportional response than by the actual event. It just seems that by sensationalizing everything, we're giving more power to the rabblerousers. Somebody cuts off somebody's head? I know! Let's make machetes illegal!

There are always ways to deflect something like this, to respond to it without giving power or credence to little shits. Jennifer Lawrence could have just said "Man, nice photoshopping job. It's sad you have such little social life that you have time to photoshop all these actresses."

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I've wondered about the bulbs I got for the can lights in my kitchen. They specifically say they're rated for can mount, but I'll be surprised if they last more than a year. The CFLs supposedly rated for can lights only lasted 6-8 months. I assume that was a thermal issue, since two different brands had the same lifespan. I love the color of the newer white LEDs, waaay better than CFLs.

You are wrong. You may know whether you have paid or not, but the little computer telling your car not to start doesn't. There is a used car dealership in the Houston area well known for having these installed on their cars. They apparently have a high frequency of false positives. They always attribute it to problems with their database, but I suspect they just have lazy people doing their accounting.

They were the primary choice for sharing photos amongst photographers back before Yahoo! bought them out. Yahoo! systematically destroyed everything that the photographers liked. At every turn they ignored the feedback of PAYING users. Some of the most talented artists dropped out and went to deviantart, or some others I can't remember the name of. These days they switch to Facebook, or just started hosting their own photos.

Exploring new artists became challenging and tedious. It seemed like the only way to make the front page was to have some washed out HDR crap. The community has dwindled dramatically; maybe not in numbers, but the sense of actually belonging to a community of like-minded artists has certainly faded. I hardly post, and most of my contacts hardly post anymore either. I primarily use it for a place to keep family photos instead of my art photography.

Why you gotta drag Texas Republicans into this? It's not like they're any worse than any other deep red state.

So "100% more" and "2 times more" both mean "double"? My understanding when I was learning word problems many, many moons ago was that "N times more" means (N+1)*original value. On the other hand "N times as much/many" meant N*original value. Are they teaching it differently these days? Not trying to be cheeky, just concerned that the language has changed without me knowing it.

The phrase "three times less" is frequently used to mean "one third of," but it is ambiguous. I don't think there's much consensus anymore on whether it's acceptable practice or not. I personally hate it, but I've even seen it on word problems from major test makers.

But really in general reporting, there are much more egregious math/science mistakes, like "exponential," where using the wrong phrase leads to a misrepresentation of the facts, not just a misunderstanding of semantics. Another common problem is when talking about probability things. I have heard respectable people say "most people ..." when referring to, say, 40%. Let's focus on these blatant errors first, then we can move on to bad units like "volts of energy." These are all things I'm sure everybody on /. can agree to hate.