Duff

23 ms·

181.
by Duff 15y ago
Huh? You're looking at a simplistic measure of a single type of elected office. A broad measure isn't very interesting, because freshman house seats aren't very valuable. BIG money is spent to defend the seats of House members with seniorit
182.
by Duff 15y ago
I wouldn't stress it too much. Sustainability extremists will make you feel guilty for eating a diet of wild berries -- you're pillaging the bird's food. It sounds like a pretty cool adventure that you're having. My first reaction was "15 p
183.
by Duff 15y ago
Anything is possible. But no company is investing millions developing GMO seeds that farmers can replicate.
184.
by Duff 15y ago
Genetically engineered seed is sterile and patented. So the first hit is free, but you as a farmer is stuck buying seed for eternity. Handing out GMO seed is like giving Gilette razors to poor people. You know what would help African farmer
185.
by Duff 15y ago
This has been intuitively known since the Internet emerged. Hell, more people know me by a pseudonym that I've used since 1992 (not this one) than my real name. The only people pushing "real names" are Facebook and Google, and they are doin
186.
by Duff 15y ago
Beware of "open data" cheerleaders. Several of these things are simply resume fodder -- the CIO announces this amazing API at a fancy conference, (living it up traveling on the taxpayer dime) and the open data people fawn all over them. Val
187.
by Duff 15y ago
Yelp? Yelp is the home of people who post stuff like "they didn't serve chicken fingers!" for Sushi restaurants. A fundamental feature/flaw in the apartment/house rental place is inconsistency. You're dealing with one rental owner by proxy
188.
by Duff 15y ago
I agree with everything other than your first sentence 100%. A Ron Paul Presidency probably wouldn't be a member of the war-of-the-month club that we've been members of since 2001. But I think he would rapidly discover the limits of Preside
189.
by Duff 15y ago
He says things that politicians don't typically say. The average American politician chants "create jobs" when he orders breakfast. Paul says things that sound insightful and refreshing on the surface, when heard in terms of a soundbite. Mo
190.
by Duff 15y ago
The problem is that the "majority" isn't a set thing, and in a "pure democracy", the reality is that the rabble-rousers loudest voices control the mob. I've had the good fortune of observing the local occupy movement wreck the park that I
191.
by Duff 15y ago
It is a risk. But perhaps the Congress would decide that discretion was the better part of valor and back out of many issues that they really aren't adding alot of value to. I live in New York, so one of my Senators is Chuck Schumer. He's a
192.
by Duff 15y ago
I was a member of such a union, and when the rubber hits the road, seniority rules. I'm not anti-union either. If you're in a big multinational company, they are almost almost certainly better than not having a union.
193.
by Duff 15y ago
Health insurance makes employees "sticky".
194.
by Duff 15y ago
That solves problems and creates problems. Many things that are decided today based upon merit or by management discretion become tenure based. That is good and bad. The good: - Your contract will require things to be done in a fair and equ
195.
by Duff 15y ago
Pay is just part of this issue. I've seen places that paid peanuts, but treated people really well in other ways or had a mission that was particularly compelling or noble. They managed to retain folks surprisingly well. The bigger issue is
196.
by Duff 15y ago
State and local government. Some "knowledge worker" roles in phone companies are CWA positions.
197.
by Duff 15y ago
Both Google and Microsoft were able to independently produce ODF implementations from the spec.
198.
by Duff 15y ago
Open is just part of the equation. ODF is also an international standard: ISO/IEC 26300:2006 Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0 The point is, in the distant future, someone will be able to use the specification
199.
by Duff 15y ago
The Mayor of Munich didn't talk about the feature set available to public employees. He did talk about making "public knowledge accessible in the future". Public institutions have a moral and legal obligation to preserve certain items for p
200.
by Duff 15y ago
North Korea is a vassal state of the PRC, and exists because it is politically advantageous to China for them to do so. Until recently, China hasn't liked to take a direct approach to many aspects of international affairs. So they influence
201.
by Duff 15y ago
Or "Captain of Industry" in friendlier contexts.
202.
by Duff 15y ago
Makes sense. Cornell is already New York's land-grant college, and has affiliations with the State University of New York and state government. They probably have an edge in getting government funds, and the relationships with the state leg
203.
by Duff 15y ago
Elihu Yale was a Governor of the British East India Company, which made the King rich by peddling drugs to the Chinese, among other thing. Don't know about the rest.
204.
by Duff 15y ago
You're looking at one aspect of the problem, from the supply side. We've had industrial scale manufacturing of sanitary napkins for 100 years. Procter and Gamble can already produce these things for a fraction of the cost. But building and
205.
by Duff 15y ago
In my experience, people who agonize over the individual are usually not thinking about the team. Part of team-building is identifying people with potential and growing them. When we engineer systems, we try to avoid or deal with single poi
206.
by Duff 15y ago
Easy! Make every American move with a self-driving moving van!
207.
by Duff 15y ago
Not true. Drowsy driving is generally a serious moving violation or minor crime. In most states, you can be charged with reckless driving. If your eating was affecting your driving to the extent that a policeman thought you were drunk, he c
208.
by Duff 15y ago
There's a difference between the level and type of distraction associated with talking to a passenger, having a dog in the backseat or having kids in the car and using one of these devices. Most of those things that you are equating with de
209.
by Duff 15y ago
Have you ever looked at the vote tally in American cities? In my city, there was only one candidate (running for judge) in the last election who didn't run on the democratic line. Another candidate was running on the Democrat, Republican, C
210.
by Duff 15y ago
Absolutely... IIRC, the IEEE standard was ambiguous, and each vendor implemented things differently. I think the standard was "fixed" in 1999... This situation happened in 2009! But the technical problem wasn't the problem -- the issue was

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