hudibras

48 ms·

451.
by hudibras 12y ago
(Twenty-five minutes too late...) No discussion of Japan's economy (whether it's government debt, inflation rates, recession, etc.) is complete without mentioning that the unemployment rate is 3.6%, the 2nd-lowest (behind South Ko
452.
by hudibras 12y ago
No serious economist believes the old wives tale about deflation keeping consumers on the sidelines while they wait to save 1 cent (or yen) on a can of soda next year. But it's got "truthiness" so it keeps getting brought up
453.
by hudibras 12y ago
A country defaults when it can no longer service the interest on its debt. Japan's interest on the public debt is around $250B/year, or around 5% of GDP. 5% is a higher percentage than most countries (U.S. is around 2.5%) but less
454.
by hudibras 12y ago
There's so much about your post which is incorrect that I don't have time to debunk it all. So let me just hit the biggest error, so that others don't have to waste their time: It's literally impossible for Japan to defa
455.
by hudibras 12y ago
It's bread all the way down.
456.
by hudibras 12y ago
Here's the link to the video mentioned in the article. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_bMhNI_TY8 Warning: Watching the section between 1:20 and 1:45 will cause your blood pressure to rise to unhealthy levels.
457.
by hudibras 12y ago
In all seriousness, that's one of my favorite things about Japan: those buttons always work. And the braille on the drive-through ATMs is for blind people in taxis.
458.
by hudibras 12y ago
Classic article, and Ricky Jay is the real deal. But the first two tricks mentioned can be explained by the use of confederates: Gregory Mosher for the first and "Mort" in the second.
459.
by hudibras 12y ago
Thanks, I hadn't read that jwz post before. This is another killer quote: >But the people who made 100x as much as the engineers did? I can tell you for a fact that none of them slept under their desk.
460.
by hudibras 12y ago
Twenty years ago, I spent ten weeks in Antarctica and the experience changed my life. It's hard to describe (and I'm not the guy to do it) but the bleakness and immensity of the continent is overwhelming--but then you realize that
461.
by hudibras 12y ago
I might be cynical, but I think they were putting on a show a bit. They already had some sort of apparatus set up to do the simultaneous drops. My guess is that it's a standard demonstration for visiting dignitaries and the like.
462.
by hudibras 12y ago
Using this right now; love it.
463.
by hudibras 12y ago
And going the other direction, euphemistically-wise, the U.S. military's official designation for things* that fall off aircraft is TFOA: Things Falling Off Aircraft. *Anything from loose nuts or fasteners up to improperly-attached fue
464.
by hudibras 12y ago
Wow, I've somehow lived through 40 years of math/science/space-geekdom without learning that the pointy thing on top of the Saturn V is a part of an escape system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_esca
465.
by hudibras 12y ago
It's a testament to his thesis on Old Masters and Second Acts that you cite his founding of Lapham's Quarterly instead of him being the editor of Harper's for almost forty years.
466.
by hudibras 12y ago
It's a bit disturbing that he thinks "American people" equals white people and that women just need to lean in more. It's all a meritocracy, you know, nothing we can do about it. But, hey, maybe Those People can still na
467.
by hudibras 12y ago
Griffin collected names through personal experience with sick players, and acknowledges that her list is not a scientific data set. But it’s enough to make her ask whether crumb rubber artificial turf...is safe for the athletes and kids wh
468.
by hudibras 12y ago
joezydeco's comments elsewhere in this thread are dead-on, but the short version is that there are specific gambling laws and regulations which prohibit this sort of thing. Something along the lines of "It is hereby illegal to fin
469.
by hudibras 12y ago
Authors usually don't get to pick the titles of their articles. That's the editor's job and they try to pick headlines which will attract readers.
470.
by hudibras 12y ago
Nice keyboard, too. Must sound like a machine gun going off when you're "in the zone."
471.
by hudibras 12y ago
Just a quick glance at those screenshots and I'm instantly transported twenty years into the past, sitting in the campus computer lab printing out a report at 3 a.m. the day it's due. It's weird how the brain works.
472.
by hudibras 12y ago
Discussion from last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6376498
473.
by hudibras 12y ago
A bit off topic, but one of my favorite parts of any social science paper is when the authors describe how they developed the dataset. In this case, it's a clever linking of tax forms, Census Bureau surveys of business owners, and stat
474.
by hudibras 12y ago
Median household income in Alaska is $61,000/year, so there are definitely lots of Alaskans who can scrimp by on $72k. https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/statemedian/
475.
by hudibras 12y ago
This blog post gives a good summary of shadowstats's work on CPI. http://azizonomics.com/2013/06/01/the-trouble-with-shadowsta... Basically, they think (without evidence) that the government has moved th
476.
by hudibras 12y ago
As an example, if you look closely at the alternative unemployment chart that rayiner linked to [0] you can see that the shadowstats line (blue) exactly matches the U6 line (grey) down to the very last wiggle. Until 2010, that is, when unem
477.
by hudibras 12y ago
Shadowstats is a huge scam site. Their methodology is to to take the official government numbers (unemployment, inflation, whatever) and add an arbitrary constant to it to make the numbers more attractive to right-wingers so that they'
478.
by hudibras 12y ago
The author of the article, Paul Campos, has a blog where he regularly talks about the law school scam in much more general terms than just the for-profit schools. He probably circumscribed the article for space considerations at The Atlant
479.
by hudibras 12y ago
This is Hyperloop's MVP.
480.
by hudibras 12y ago
Great comment, very informative. "and enjoyed the very low tax rate Hours of Service workers get (9%, taking the standard deduction x days worked, typically)." I'm sorry, but I don't understand this part. Would you mind

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