kethinov

28 ms·

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by kethinov 11y ago
There are two ways to look at the middle class: 1. The actual statistical average or median whatever that number happens to be is the middle class, full stop. 2. The middle class is the ideal standard of living one should expect for people
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by kethinov 11y ago
For what it's worth, I've met an alarming number of people making minimum wage or close to it who see themselves as middle class and see those making only modestly more money as rich. From what I've observed, it seems to be b
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by kethinov 11y ago
Which says a lot about our political discourse. "Rich by the standards of where" the author came from is arguably just middle class, but the author's family probably doesn't see themselves as poor and would balk at chara
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by kethinov 11y ago
Well we need to take into account a transitional program. We can't eliminate SS instantly, it has to be done over generational time as part of a transition program. The SS program would taper off over time as it's slowly replaced
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by kethinov 11y ago
Eliminating SS and replacing it with UBI is not budget neutral unless we're operating from the assumption that it's okay for UBI to be below subsistence levels. Nobody I know, libertarian or otherwise, sees that as viable. We all
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by kethinov 11y ago
I don't think that's quite right. The liberal crowd I run with sees basic income as a replacement for Social Security, or, another way of putting it, "Social Security for all" (rather than just for the old) in the same s
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by kethinov 11y ago
I've never understood why this is not a more popular idea. I'm a Bernie-supporting lefty liberal weenie and yet all my hardcore small government libertarian friends agree with me on this one. They tend to characterize basic income
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by kethinov 11y ago
From the article: "and you can also purchase a card scanner (so you don’t have to type the number in)."
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by kethinov 11y ago
Intuit's actually predates both Square's and PayPal's: http://venturebeat.com/2009/05/21/intuit-gopayment-lets-you-...
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by kethinov 11y ago
Job role: I'm the manager and lead dev of a team working on a number of military software projects for the US Air Force. Side projects: I've been tinkering with new approaches for doing MVC and templating in JS. See my projects on
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by kethinov 11y ago
The relative population is not the point. Sweden's lower Gini coefficient is the point. The fact that the bottom 160 million Americans are worse off than the bottom 4.3 million Swedes is the point.
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by kethinov 11y ago
It seems to me that the top 50% of Swedes not doing as well as the top 50% of Americans is kind of the whole point. A society should be judged not based on which serves the wealthiest half the best, but how it treats its most disadvantaged.
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by kethinov 11y ago
They need a third amendment flowchart too. You never know when you might be unjustly asked to quarter soldiers.
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by kethinov 11y ago
TIL learning new skills can be considered worst career move ever.
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by kethinov 11y ago
Exactly. We long ago accepted the compromise of buy it once, share it with many for free so long as only one person got to experience that copy at a time. (Or more accurately one household at a time at least since some content can be experi
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by kethinov 11y ago
Funny how we work so hard to simulate old models of scarcity rather than be brave enough to adopt new models that accept post-scarcity as the way forward.
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by kethinov 11y ago
A related sentiment: http://freepubliclibrary.org
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by kethinov 11y ago
I'm so often amazed when I see posts asking how to apply agile/scrum. The real question to me is why apply agile/scrum? What specific problem is it solving for you? Or are you just doing it because everyone else is? If it&#x2
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by kethinov 11y ago
Getting younger? I could go for that! ;)
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by kethinov 11y ago
Two things: 1. Bundle this into an NW.js app and we've finally got a Hangouts desktop app at long last! 2. Those tiny chat windows are a usability disaster. Come on. Take a cue from messenger.com!
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by kethinov 11y ago
While I agree with you that people are overreacting, I think overreaction is to be expected given that MS chose pretty much the most intrusive defaults possible. People have to opt-out of this stuff rather than opt-in which causes people to
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by kethinov 11y ago
If the Danes wanted a hypothetical something (money, favors, something) badly enough, it's not a completely unreasonable notion that they might entertain selling to a nominally unfriendly power. As I mentioned before, a large number of
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by kethinov 11y ago
It's a tough hypothetical to consider because a large number of political realities would have to change on the ground, not least of which is the national pride argument you made in your terrific article. However, let's assume for
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by kethinov 11y ago
You've got to wonder what would happen if someone tried to take that full year off, then was fired for taking "too much" of their "unlimited (up to a year)" time off after having a child.
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by kethinov 11y ago
"Calling for a moratorium sounds very dramatic, but I suspect PPK wanted to use dramatic language to make the point" Good points can be made without hyperbole. I think ppk's article had much value to offer, but it drowns unde
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by kethinov 11y ago
I have great admiration for their work, but it's missing two key things: 1. Their backend advancements have come at the expense of a focus on a more modern user experience. Their fork of Slashcode simply is not competitive with modern
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by kethinov 11y ago
I remain active on both (along with reddit and Ars Technica too). I see value in each community's ways of doing things, and it doesn't bother me one bit that Slashdot's editors have bias, so long as they're transparent a
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by kethinov 11y ago
I really hope someone can turnaround Slashdot. To this day I find it to have the highest quality discussion threads on average out of any tech news site, largely due to its very mature community and quirky but effective moderation system. I
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by kethinov 11y ago
Back when it was in place, was 100% contribution a thing or was my info incorrect for back then too?
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by kethinov 11y ago
I'm not suggesting that such a program should be eliminated. Instead it should be reformed to benefit the majority more fairly rather than disproportionately benefitting those who are already wealthy. If poor employees can only afford

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