she was ugly after about 0:15

*dead

Holy fucking shit. I wish there were politicans in the US who talked as frankly as that. This guy is a winner.

martini-cue? roflmao.

if you could wave a magic wand to clone a car IRL, no one would call that theft

>> ^Pring4:

According to the logo, this project has aspirations of sending these rails from the arctic circle to anywhere in the world. I support this.


Hate to burst your bubble, but at earth's surface escape velocity the kinetic energy of a projectile is only 32 times its weight in TNT. With suborbital flights and resistance on reentry the effect would be considerably less than that. Wind during the ascent would throw it off farther than the destruction radius unless the slug was really huge (multiple tons) or they put in some internal guidance system that can survive the biggest EMP ever.

arrr>> ^DrewNumberTwo:

99% of the people of the world are pirates? There's about one computer for every three people. My parents don't even know what pirating is. There are less than 10 billion people on Earth, not 50 billion. This guy's exaggeration makes it look like he just doesn't know what he's talking about.
Granted, copyright reform is needed. But I think it's a mistake to put it in a different category from physical media without recognizing that 3d printers are on track to become household items.


99% of people who use the internet daily at home are participating in some form of copyright infringement, such as watching unauthorized excerpts of copyrighted works on youtube which are neither brief nor quoted for the sake of commentary. Or downloading and viewing images which were redistributed without the consent of the rightsholder. Or reposting entire news articles in forums. All online communities are full of copyright infringement. The vast majority of the content on the 'Sift is infringing too.

All oil speculation is a perfectly legit market reaction to anticipation of future oil shortages. These stockpiles of oil created by speculators will help consumers at some future date when the stockpiles are sold. Prohibiting oil speculation globally is not feasable, and even if it were, it would only delay and amplify the inevitable rise in oil prices as global oil reserves are depleted. Free market speculation that raises the price of oil early will increase the incentive to develop alternatives to finite fossil fuel reserves.

yo dawg, I heard you like cellular automata

We certainly don't need any law to prevent employers from paying nonunion workers less than union workers since it is against their interest to provide an incentive for union membership. Likewise the laws against discriminating against union members are what enabled unions to browbeat employers into agreeing to closed-shop contracts. Unequal pay for an unequal value proposition is fair. If category X were overpaid relative to the actual value of their contribution to the business then no sane businessperson would hire X. We don't need any wage-discrimination laws because the free market will handle it. Implement socialism through eliminating sales and payroll taxes which disproportionately affect the poor, and and providing single-payer healthcare and education, not by fucking over the market with price controls on labor.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^jwray:
That free rider problem is fictitious. Unions need not write contracts that apply to non-union employees.
From the paper you linked, 1st paragraph, 3rd sentence:

In fact, they make it illegal for a group of unionized workers to negotiate a contract that requires each employee who enjoys the benefits of the contract terms to pay his or her share of costs for negotiating and policing the contract.

Which is to say, the whole point of the legislation is to create a free rider problem as a way to financially undermine unions.
It's definitely true that the proponents of Right to Work will tell you that they're really about giving workers "freedom" from the job-killing tyranny of unions, but that's why it's on my list of perverse ways in which Republicans use the word freedom.


That's incidental and avoidable consequence of the law, not part of the actual law. Right to work laws do not say that union contracts have to apply to all employees regardless of whether they're in the union or not. Many union contracts just happen to have been written without considering that. Employers would easily agree to changing the terms of union contracts to be inapplicable to non-union workers.

Here is the actual text of some right to work laws:

Full Text of Oklahoma’s Right to Work State Law: (“RTW States O”).
Oklahoma. Constitution. Article. 23, § 1A provides:
A. As used in this section, "labor organization" means any organization of any kind, or agency or employee representation committee or union, that exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning wages, rates of pay, hours of work, other conditions of employment, or other forms of compensation.

B. No person shall be required, as a condition of employment or continuation of employment, to:
Resign or refrain from voluntary membership in, voluntary affiliation with, or voluntary financial support of a labor organization;
Become or remain a member of a labor organization;
Pay any dues, fees, assessments, or other charges of any kind or amount to a labor organization;
Pay to any charity or other third party, in lieu of such payments, any amount equivalent to or pro rata portion of dues, fees, assessments, or other charges regularly required of members of a labor organization; or
Be recommended, approved, referred, or cleared by or through a labor organization.



Full Text of Texas’s Right to Work State Law: (“RTW States T”).
§ 101.004. Contract for Withholding Union Dues from Employee's Compensation Void Without Employee's Consent
A contract that permits or requires the retention of part of an employee's compensation to pay dues or assessments on the employee's part to a labor union is void unless the employee delivers to the employer the employee's written consent to the retention of those sums. (Enacted 1993.)

§ 101.052. Denial of Employment Based on Labor Union Membership Prohibited
A person may not be denied employment based on membership or nonmembership in a labor union. (Enacted 1993.)

§ 101.053. Contract Requiring or Prohibiting Labor Union Membership Void
A contract is void if it requires that, to work for an employer, employees or applicants for employment:
(1) must be or may not be members of a labor union; or
(2) must remain or may not remain members of a labor union.

Overreaction to a few anecdotes. Every system makes mistakes occasionally.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^jwray:

Right to work: I have the right to demand unions represent me even if I don't pay union dues.

That's an incorrect assessment. Nothing forces corporations to pay union workers the same as non-union workers or give them the same benefits. Union negotiations don't necessarily have any effect on non-union workers. Union workers have effectively formed a cartel to raise prices, and in a free market, competitors would be free to come along and undercut them by working for less money or working on more flexible terms (c.f. the massive bureaucracy involved in firing blatantly incompetent teachers due to teachers' unions).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law


That free rider problem is fictitious. Unions need not write contracts that apply to non-union employees.

RTW states have 3.2% lower wages on average, but they have 1% lower unemployment and 8% lower cost-of-living.*

http://www.epi.org/page/-/old/briefingpapers/BriefingPaper299.pdf

well, he doesn't get to that until part 2 of the interview

Online only prevents hacks and piracy. It also makes the developers' job easier by not having to support two parallel systems for online and offline.