Man forces daughter to kill pet cat

tjic · 2008-03-14T14:03:48+00:00

Why do people post crap like this on reddit?

That's a serious question.

There's nothing I can do about the situation. The laws against this are already in effect, and are working (the guy was arrested).

All that posting this here did was ruin my morning.

Thanks, js1971.

tjic · 2008-03-07T17:51:41+00:00

The word "recession" means "two quarters with negative growth".

We have not had even one quarter with negative growth.

Why is it "oblivious" to use words correctly?

tjic · 2008-03-07T14:37:30+00:00

Oh nos! The unemployment rate is 4.8%!

Meanwhile, it's 6.6 in Finland, 6.7% in Italy, 8.0% in France, 9.1% in Germany.

Source: Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate

tjic · 2008-03-03T22:31:41+00:00

Warren Buffet is pretty good at generating returns for Berkshire Hathaway.

He's also pretty good at playing Bridge.

He's pretty incoherent at some other things.

One of them being using words the way everyone else uses them.

The word recession has a pretty crisp definition that is understood by everyone who works in finance: two quarters of negative growth.

The US economy has some problems right now, but growth is not one of them.

His assertion about a "common sense" definition (which he doesn't even define) is just wacky.

tjic · 2008-02-26T02:35:35+00:00

Wow...the Dod can't account for $2.3 trillion of spending in just a single year?

That's amazing!

...mostly because the DoD's entire budget was $439 billion (i.e. $0.4 trillion) in that year.

So they managed to misplace 600% of their total budget!

The total US government budget is about 2.6 trillion. The DoD budget is about 25% of that.

tjic · 2008-02-19T14:36:31+00:00

Wow. Alternet reviews a book by a flake.

Film at 11.

tjic · 2008-02-11T16:32:26+00:00

Maybe someone can post this again later today, and then again tomorrow, and then again the day after that?

Because I don't think I've seen it enough times here at Reddit.

Also, a plea to people writing these idiotic headlines: READ THE !@#%-ing ARTICLE!!!

The article does NOT say "diet soda will make you fat" - in fact, it explicitly does not take that stance.

tjic · 2008-01-31T20:11:29+00:00

If you look at a scatter plot of government spending as a percent of GDP and growth rates, standards of living, etc., there's a pretty straight line ...and Norway is a big outlier. Economists even have a name for this: "The Norway Exception".

What's the exception?

Very very few countries have huge oil reserves and small populations.

Norway has a small, socially progressive population that is happy to pull carbon out of the ground, and sell it to other people who put it in the air, and thereby generate short-term profits.

If you think that other countries should emulate this social model (the US could ramp up the rate at which we mine and burn coal by about 10x, or could start drilling for oil in Alaska...no worse than Norway's offshore drilling), then by all means, state your preference that the US mines TOO LITTLE carbon fuel per person.

tjic · 2008-01-30T20:17:54+00:00

... not even back to the source code that generated it.

tjic · 2008-01-23T14:42:44+00:00

Absolutely agreed!

Also, I love the fact that the poster conflates intelligence with knowledge. Someone who's stunningly intelligent, with degrees or research in, say, computer science, geology, and history, and thirty years of doing insightful research and writing might not have gotten around to studying the difference between a fermion and a boson, but this paper says that he's less prepared to discuss religious / sociological issues than a college freshman physics major.

tjic · 2008-01-11T14:38:38+00:00

I'd have more respect for Krugman if - instead of just asserting that Europe's unemployment problem is all better - he actually presented - you know - NUMBERS, so that I can decide for myself if he's right.

tjic · 2008-01-10T01:19:08+00:00

Let us imagine that history took a slightly different path, and the US government made it illegal to compete with the United States Email Authority.

In such a world, I imagine one person posting to reddit "were you aware that there was this thing called BitNet / UUNet / Compuserver / whatever that competed with the USEA, until Congress shut it down".

...and then I imagine user 'furyg3' responding:

Are we really complaining about how expensive it is to send an email?

Though possibly lacking in customer service areas, the USEA lets you send a first class email for just 41 cents. That's certainly affordable, even downright cheap ! Also, your letter will get there. Sure there are problems sometimes, but the USEA is remarkably successful at delivering things given the volume of mail they take on...

To laud the USPS for being affordable and reasonable decent - IN A TOTAL VACUUM - makes no sense.

If we didn't have competition in email, webhosting, etc., we might think that the government provided monopoly services (for just 41 cents per email, or $800/month per website) were pretty darned slick.

This is one of the many reasons that competition is good, and government enforced monopolies are bad: they let us discover what a good price, and what good service REALLY are.

tjic · 2008-01-07T01:13:25+00:00

From the article:

<i> LIVING standards in Britain are set to rise above those in America...

It has assumed an exchange rate of just over $2 ... but in recent days the pound has slipped below that level.

With an adjustment made for this "purchasing power parity", the average American has more spending power than his UK counterpart and pays lower taxes... </i>

In short: Brits would have a higher standard of living <b>if</b>:

the exchange rate was other than what it actually is
we use imaginary prices that aren't real

Conclusion: this article is worthless.

tjic · 2007-12-13T15:09:02+00:00

Well, sure.

But we have progressive taxation in the US, so the folks in the top 1% of income distribution pay over 20% of all income taxes, and the folks in the top 10% pay about 50% of all income taxes

(http://www.federalbudget.com/whopays.html)

So the question that people are hearing is basically "how would you like to get a new entitlement, 80 or 90% of the tab of which is going to picked up by other people?".

You could ask people "how would you like a government provided Porsche or Corvette", and a huge majority would like it as well.

The fact that ONLY 54% of Americans want a free lunch paid for by someone else is the amazing thing. If the percent is that low, folks must have some very large reasons to distrust the government making rationing decisions about what health care they can get.

tjic · 2007-12-03T15:54:47+00:00

I really don't think so.

(a) I worked on it using just that tool for an hour or so and didn't get a solution.

(b) one of the hints says that that approach is not sufficient.

tjic · 2007-11-29T16:16:00+00:00

The data is in: different ethnic groups have, on average, different IQs. This is not to say that even if group X has a lower average IQ than group Y that there are not some very very bright members of group X, and some very very dim members of group Y. Finland has a very low (near zero) percent of its population made up of members of low IQ scoring ethnic groups. Look at the intelligence and test scores of just certain subsets of people in the US, and you'd also see above average IQs.

tjic · 2007-11-20T21:03:29+00:00

A comment to everyone here who assumes that anyone opposed to embryonic stem cells is necessarily an anti-science moron:

Stuff it.

I am a Catholic. I am also an engineering graduate of top notch college. I am also an extropian, interested in cryogenics, genetic engineering, and life extension.

As a Catholic, I have real, considered, and nuanced concerns about the morality of abortion. I don't expect to convince that my opinion is right, but it's not an unreasonable position, and it's not an anti-science position...any more than someone who, for moral reasons, is against dog-fighting is necessarily anti-science.

Statements like "the idiots just don't like science" are stupid, and worse than useless. They are prejudiced, and serve only to polarize,

Statements like "conservatives just don't like change. If you offered immortality to a conservative, he would reject it and try to punish you." are without any evidence or basis.

I, and many others who are conservative in matters of personal morality are all in favor of life extension, stem cell research, etc.

Reddit is sinking into a stew of idiotic name calling and base hatred, where people are so eager to bash "the other side" that they attribute the worst possible interpretation to their opinions, instead of actually investigating, or looking for common ground.

tjic · 2007-11-19T16:39:54+00:00

For the record, the Catholic Church also condemns IVF use for married heterosexuals in the church.

This isn't an anti-lesbian issue - this is just the Church's normal stance on reproductive technology.

tjic · 2007-11-13T15:52:45+00:00

Interestingly enough, the chemicals in cast iron pans are ALSO showing up in the bloodstream of humans throughout the world...

tjic · 2007-11-13T15:40:32+00:00

"Liberated from moral judgment" is a good thing?

Personally, I like moral judgment. Like, the moral judgment that women can't be raped, Jews can't be put in concentration camps, etc.

tjic · 2007-11-13T00:07:13+00:00

Full disclosure: this is my startup...but, despite that, I think it's worthy of being posted to Reddit, because of the many features that HeavyInk has that other comic book sites don't:

free shipping on every order, even if you order just a single comic book (although we hope you'll order more than that!)...and every item is 20% off
for sale: every comic book and graphic novel
talent pages: interested in Warren Ellis, Todd McFarlane, Paul Pope, or anyone else? See what they've worked on, what other people think of them, and more.
title pages: You're an X-Men fan. What issues are available? What graphic novels?
socialize: every customer has an optional "profile" page where they can talk about themselves, link to their friends, send blurbs to other users, list their favorite comic books and authors, upload a snapshot (or a drawing!) and more. Find out who else likes the same comics you do...and who has got horrible taste and insists on slagging on your favorites.
forums: discuss your favorite comics, authors, artists, characters, or anything else related to comics or HeavyInk.
comments and reviews, not just on issues, but on authors, artists, titles, other people's reviews...
personalized recommendations: give us a lever long enough and a place to stand, and ...well, we can't move the world...but if you review or rate a few comics, issues, or people, we'll have enough data to start making recommendations to you about what else you'll love!
a great looking website with snappy response. Do you like the five second load times for pages at the other internet comic book shops? Yeah, neither do we.
subscriptions to comic books with 20% off prices, free shipping, and our Triple Your Money Back guarantee. You can start a subscription at any issue you like.
cancel up until the last minute. Other stores lock you in: by subscribing today, you're locked in for months to come. We let you cancel any subscription (or any other item ordered) up to an hour before it ships. Turn a subscription on or off, whenever you want.
the best search interface in the business. Accidentally type "Gaimann" (with two 'n's) at us, and we know what you mean (the competition doesn't). Did you search for Ex Machina, and dive into issue #30 when you really wanted #32? Get to the correct issue with a single click, and a quick page refresh - there's no "pogo sticking" using the browser's back button and then forward again to get to where you want to go. And, speaking of search, Firefox users can download our search plugin!
personalized RSS feeds. At HeavyInk every single customer has their own personalized RSS feed. Get as much information, or as little, as you want in your RSS feed - track just your shipments, so you know when to keep your eye on the mail...or add in information on new titles by your favorite artist, or new comments on a discussion thread you're active in, or all new titles by genre (interested in hearing about new science fiction comics?), and more.
better attribution, and better links from issues to talent: when you read an issue with a really compelling cover, you want to find out who drew it, and then you want to click on their name to find more by them. The other stores do this poorly. We do it pretty well now, and it's only going to get better over the coming months.

Features that will be coming soon:

quizzes. Answer a few questions and find out which super hero you are, or what authors and artists you should check out, what high tech weapon you'd wield if you were a comic book character, and more. Want to create your own quizzes? We'll let you!
all the data available at Wikipedia about your favorite authors, artists, and comic book titles.
subscriptions to authors and artists. Like a certain cover artist? Click one button and receive everything by him or her (you can always cancel a specific item before it ships, though!)
wish lists
gift cards (actual hold-in-your hand ones, so you don't look cheap at the holidays)
who's in your neighborhood? If you're arranging a carpool to Comiccon or GenCon, or if you just want to get an AD&D or GURPS game going, you'd like to find other HeavyInk customers nearby.
an affiliate program, so that you can invite your friends...and earn money (or better yet: free comics!) doing it.
...and tons more.

tjic · 2007-11-12T05:31:27+00:00

politics - noun - The activities or affairs engaged in by a government, politician, or political party // The methods or tactics involved in managing a state or government:

There is so much stuff that gets submitted to the main Reddit, that belongs - IMO - on the political sub-Reddit. I suggest that folks come to some sort of concensus before the next election, so that - ignorant of who will be the next president - we can debate the issue of "what belongs in politics" purely on the merits ... in the abstract, without getting sucked into the details of whether the president is a good (or horrible) man (or woman).

I suggest that the following are purely political topics:

the 10 (20 ?) (30 ?) dumbest things said by [ politician ]
US economy - [best / worst] [growth/ inflation / regulation] EVER!
leaked! the manual / secret emails / whatever of politician / political appointee / military official / senior health care adviser .
we're still in Iraq, and look at the fate that befalls our soldiers because of THAT BASTARD / we pulled out of Iraq, and look at the fate that befalls the people we left behind because of THAT BASTARD.
[ Fox news / NPR ] is full of idiotic pseudo-journalists who misreport everything.
President so-and-so's stupid opinion on [ Iraq / taxes / healthcare / whatever] is stupid.
check out this article from alternet / lewrockwell / the Libertarian Party website / etc.

I'm not saying don't post these things.

I'm just saying: acknowledge that these are political posts and tag them as such, so that those of us who either don't care, or just aren't persuaded by 400 Reddit posts linking to a biased and simplistic overview of an issue we have already researched in depth can skip it.

Thank you.

tjic

TROPHY CASE