Iwritecode

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 26, 2013 -> 02:17 PM) Nothing lasts by more curb for more than 30 minutes. My friend thought the same thing. They put their TV on the curb and got in trouble with the city.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 26, 2013 -> 09:00 AM) No the 40 is currently upstairs, the main TV, and it's where I'd be placing the new 55". The 40 would go to the basement and the old CRT would go to the trash. I think you have to take them somewhere to be recycled or donated. You can't just put them out with the trash anymore. I've got two old computer monitors and a TV that I want to get rid of. The only places near me that will take them are Best Buy and American TV.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 26, 2013 -> 11:59 AM) Story mode, there is literally nothing on my map or phone or anything. I'm only like 30% through the story because I keep doing all the side stuff. Triathlons, car races, hunting, stunt jumps, epsilon tracts, rampages, letter scraps, flight school... I always try to save the last mission as one of the last things I do. Although I am saving the Lester assassinations for after the final heist so I can make lots of money.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 25, 2013 -> 12:15 PM) If she primarily uses it as a camera/music player, a tablet (even a small tablet) is too big for that soft of use. At least, it is IMO. But yes, technically, it can do all those same things as an iPod, but so can a desktop sized PC for that matter...but that's against the grain of it's actual use. When it comes to these phones/tablets/pods, I'd get her whatever she is going to primarily use it for (within affordability). The price is what caught my eye. I figured a 7" tablet isn't much bigger than many phones these days. We asked her about the Ipod and she wasn't thrilled with using itunes.

For being in the IT industry, I know embarrassingly little about tech stuff. My daughter has a cheap little $20 MP3 player that she uses constantly. A few months ago a friend got an Ipod touch and she used that a few times and had a blast with it. Mostly recording videos and going online when she could find a wi-fi connection. We looked at getting her one but the price deterred us a little. We were thinking about getting an older used one instead. In last week’s HH Gregg ad I saw a 7” Lenovo tablet for $99. That should pretty much do the same thing as an Ipod touch right? Although it would be a bit bigger.

So did anyone watch Family Guy last night? I didn’t see the episode but they spoiler’d it on the radio this morning.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 04:50 PM) Where does the 3 billion number come from? Because I'm an idiot. I looked up the US population because I wasn't sure about it and saw a 3 with a bunch of zeros behind it. I assumed 3 billion instead of 300 million. I should have known better.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 04:10 PM) My wife lost her wallet at some point today. $700 charged to our credit card at Walgreen's and Target before fraud took over. People are really s***ty. Indeed they are. What makes me even more worried about it is the number of times I've swiped my card for a $50+ purchase and the cashier doesn't even ask to look at my card.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 04:19 PM) You could tax the wealthy 100% and not get enough revenue to pay for this. 15K X 3 billion

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 04:00 PM) Everyone. It would not be means-tested. Children would also receive it, as opposed to their parents or guardian receiving a larger basic income to cover the costs of a dependent. Alaska's Permanent Fund functions this way. http://pfd.alaska.gov/application/ApplyingForAChild edit: thus ends my day of socialist rhetoric, back to work, comrades! So with my family of 5 we'd get 75K? My wife would probably retire immediately and we'd move into a much bigger house.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 03:58 PM) Yes, that's the idea behind it being a universal basic income. It's not tied to you being employed. What this does it remove a substantial amount of coercive power that employers have over the labor market because the labor market doesn't suddenly need to depend on them for basic subsistence. The obvious concern is long-term sustainability and voluntary joblessness, but in at least the limited study in Dauphine and comparisons to other related real-world examples, the decrease in employment was minimal and the overall societal effects were highly positive. I haven't read it before, but this page seems to give a pretty decent summary of the concept. http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.php The wiki link mentioned that the fact that the study was temporary might have had an affect. If you told people that they would suddenly get $15K every year for the rest of their life, I would think many would quit working or at least reduce their working hours. A higher percentage than what the study showed.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 03:43 PM) Probably yes to everything but the bolded unless we enact a full-blown socialized health care access system in addition to the UBI. Alaska already has a small basic income thanks to its natural resources. Every Alaskan citizen who spends at least half of the year in the state gets a check from the state government that's a result of the state's lease of the peoples' collective natural resources rights. Here's a quick wiki recap with some links of the "Mincome" experiment in Dauphine, Canada from the 1970's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome Who would get it? Everyone over 18? Would there be a cutoff based on current income?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 03:32 PM) Not to mention, who is providing it? The employer? The government making up the difference? Yes QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 01:59 PM) A universal basic income would simplify it greatly, and it would be a check from the government, not wage restrictions on an employer. Every single person would be entitled to $X, and that could vary based on location. We sort of do that with the Earned Income Tax Credit already. I'm not sure I like this idea either.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 03:23 PM) Still requires payments for 25 years. On $15k, I'm struggling to see how student loans fit into your budget. One could argue that college is a luxury.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 02:46 PM) If the job involves such a low level of skill that experience does not make you significantly better at your job, then you shoudn't make more just for being there longer. Maybe not, but that's how it works. Otherwise people would never stay at the same job for more than a year and never move up within the company. It builds employee loyalty. It lets the employee know they are appreciated and the company wants to keep them around.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 02:31 PM) Yes, because when I go through the Drive-Thru at McDonald's, my first thought is, "I sure hope the person taking my order has 6 years experience instead of 6 months." Well it doesn't matter to the customers obviously. But I've worked retail in the past and I know it matters to the employees. If you don't feel that you're being fairly compensated for years of loyalty, it doesn't make you want to care about your job that much. It makes all those raises you got in past years seem pretty worthless when somebody can walk in off the street and make the same amount.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 02:01 PM) Where are you getting rent + utilities for $583/month for a 1BR? I bet you could buy a house for less than that in Rockford.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 01:44 PM) 1. Generally, I believe a person with significant experience making $9 an hour would probably be happy with the raise. I still wouldn't be happy if suddenly I was making the same amount as the person that's been there 6 months when I'd been there for 6 years. It would make experience/seniority irrelevant.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 01:07 PM) Adjusting for inflation the minimum wage would be like 10 bucks. It's not a huge leap. Raising minimum wage is a good idea in theory but there may be some unintended consequences. If it goes up to 10 or 12/hour, what do we do about all the people with quite a few years of experience who are making less than that? Is it fair that they make the same amount as someone with no experience? How many small businesses would be forced to close or lay off employees because they couldn't afford that much of an increase?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 12:19 PM) It's not impossible to define. We already define per diem by county across the entire country, and look at taxes and other differently based on number of children,etc. Alternatively, we could simplify with a non-means-tested universal basic income. It would make wages 1000 times more complicated than they are now. What if you are working while still living at home with your parents and you move out on your own and get married Do you get a raise? What if you have a set of twins. Do you get another raise? The circumstances that define the monentary amount a person "needs" to live vary too drastically to try to nail it down to a single number.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 11:48 AM) What's a living wage? Please define it. It's not possible. There are way too many factors to consider. Family size, married or single, lifestyle, where you live, etc... There is no one-size-fits-all "living wage".

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 09:30 AM) OK, the blades I currently use (Mach 3) run me roughly $2/blade. The two comparable blades from Dollar Shave Club are $1.50/blade and $2.25/blade, so I don't get what the big deal is. Where are you finding them for $2 a blade? I usually don't see them much less than between $20 - $25 for an 8 pack.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 10:18 AM) No system is going to be perfect. No matter what system you put in place, you're going to have some people who legitimately need help and aren't going to get it, and you're going to have others soaking up all kinds of benefits they don't really need. The goal is to try to make the system as good as we can, but as long as we continue to single out the handful of outliers on either side as our reason for making (or not making) changes, things aren't going to improve. This.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 21, 2013 -> 09:36 AM) It's easy to say that when it's not the case. It's always easier to spend other peoples money, isn't it? Now, when it comes to me, I actually CAN say that. Where you pay 50$ a month, I get to pay 400+$ a month for my family, and I work for the industry, no less. That's actually not bad IMO. The last time I looked for insurance I was seeing premiums that were double that.

SOA last night. Ho-lee s***.