JackFr

1346 ms·

1. 3721.▲
   by JackFr 13y ago

   Why are Al Gore's finances any less relevant than the finances of those producing reports which are skeptical? It seems to me completely reasonable to consider one if considering the other.
2. 3722.▲
   by JackFr 13y ago

   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooli...
3. 3723.▲
   by JackFr 13y ago

   I assume because monopolists can demand economic rents. But I imagine that Amazon is continuously under competitive pressure -- consider the disruption e-books caused. Had that caught Amazon flat-footed, it could have decimated their book
4. 3724.▲
   by JackFr 13y ago

   I don't think its fair to say that "it isn't good for anyone." I remember buying books before Borders, the big Barnes & Nobles and Amazon. It sucked. The selection was poor, it was impossible to order, because it
5. 3725.▲
   by JackFr 13y ago

   This argument makes no sense. Small presses fail because they generate the bulk of their sales from Amazon, but the margins are too thin when they sell on Amazon. Presumably if they don't sell on Amazon the margins would be healthier,
6. 3726.▲
   by JackFr 13y ago

   Can anyone corroborate this story? Frankly, I find it hard to believe that gate staff of a delayed flight are monitoring Twitter and comparing it to their passenger manifests in realtime. A more likely scenario in my mind is that the dude
7. 3727.▲
   by JackFr 13y ago

   The book ain't gonna sell itself -- someone's gottta do the shilling.
8. 3728.▲
   by JackFr 13y ago

   Alternate title for article: Nuclear Weapons 65-Year Flawless Safety Record
9. 3729.▲
   by JackFr 13y ago

   Also: Wheels on luggage. Cameras in phones.
10. 3730.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    I'm no expert, but if both Chicago and New York are synching their clocks to NIST(Gaithersburg, MD) or the Naval Observatory (Washington DC), the a message from Washington sent at the same instant, should arrive at the same instant, as
11. 3731.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines "This story is a great demonstration of my maxim that any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no.' The reason
12. 3732.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    [I somehow inadvertently deleted the comment you responded to sorry]
13. 3733.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    Consider Bernie Madoff. If ever there was a guy in jail solely for punishment, it is he. Prison is doing nothing to rehabilitate him, "so he can function in society" when he gets out. And his lifetime ban from the security indu
14. 3734.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    Well the dictionary definition of society is: the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. "More or less ordered" comes from the creation and enforcement of norms. That's how I get legitimate
15. 3735.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    "In the US, many people see prisoners as fundamentally failed human beings, they are in prison because they are "Bad", not so much because they broke law X or law Y." I don't believe this -- neither do you. Thus in
16. 3736.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    The typical rationales are 1) the society as a whole is more well-ordered and better off when people do not benefit from evil acts; 2) such punishments act as a deterrent. One can reasonably disagree with either or both of those. I suppos
17. 3737.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    That article is one of the most thoughtful I've read -- at its heart it is not a simple or obvious problem. "For example, why do Wyoming and Oregon have the lowest overall recidivism rates for offenders released in 2004, and why d
18. 3738.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    I imagine I might agree with you on many things -- there is much to be admired in this Norwegian system and an there is much to be lamented in the US system. However you lose me when you say 'perceived transgressions'. The trans
19. 3739.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    I get your point of course, but indoor plumbing is orders of magnitude more complicated than a well and outhouses. Replacing wells with fountains and eliminating outhouses are driven by population density and public health concerns -- but
20. 3740.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    Well it's tough (though not impossible) to build a any sort of value system on top of "I exist."
21. 3741.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    Consider mental illness -- apart from physical deformities of the brain (the organ) and bacterial and viral infection -- the rest is pure cultural bias as to what constitutes normal behavior. That is to say, the only reason you believe you
22. 3742.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    You could write bestselling management books with empty platitudes like that: "The (number) (abstract noun) of Disempowered (People/Managers/Teams) " Bam! Bestseller.
23. 3743.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    To your first point, I guess I don't understand your definition of corruption. I think your example is exercising a legitimate power as a mayor, to the benefit of a friend rather than to the benefit of some other deserving party, and
24. 3744.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    Well, the thing is trading favors with the city council is politics, not corruption. You might not like what he did to have the city council extend term limits so he could run a third time, but it was above board, and no different politick
25. 3745.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    Bloomberg doesn't. As a mayor he's fairly incorruptible, at least in terms of money. He pays for his own elections, and basically does whatever he feels like. With a net worth of 27 billion it's unlikely that anyone could
26. 3746.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    A little of both -- draw your own conclusions Census City Metro Region 1940 1,623,452 2,544,287 2,911,681 1950 1,849,568 3,219,256 3,700,490 1960 1,670,144 4,012,607 4,660,480 1970 1,514,063 4,490,902 5,289,76
27. 3747.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    Not to mention that the survivable g's are not scale invariant. At the size of an insect it would be easy to survive 400 g's, but at I mile tall, one g would probably kill us.
28. 3748.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    Don't be an idiot. Semantic UI has a meaning. The authors chose to ignore its meaning while trading on the cachet of the name. While their web dev skills may be unsurpassed, it's a reasonable criteria on which to judge them.
29. 3749.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    This article is dramatically light on specifics and historical context and heavy on innuendo and fearmongering.
30. 3750.▲
    by JackFr 13y ago

    That is the agency problem and bans on insider trading do not directly address that. The agency problem is addressed through bans short-selling and put options, as long as the officers and directors have along exposure to the share price,