anastasia: the real damage is allowing the banks to continue business models that assume unlimited liquidity, creating financial instruments that look like money and trade like money, and end up FUNCTIONING like money, causing the huge runups and... [
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favorited 14 times, recently by Penks, marble, HP LaserJet P10006, marsha56, Pope Guilty, krilli, Bangaioh, vorfeed, General Tonic, Senor Cardgage, null terminated, tippiedog, briank, stenseng
MetaFilter comment -
2 ½ hours ago
Ali's Missing Opponent
favorited 35 times, recently by lapolla, mumkin, imabanana, e40, Kattullus, inkyroom, Mister Moofoo, stavrogin, smartyboots, The Card Cheat, tkchrist, Tube, skyscraper, mrg, kryptondog, homuncula, Naberius, burnmp3s, artaxerxes, mosk, Benjy, MidAtlantic, HopperFan, ricochet biscuit, Len, shmegegge, joe lisboa, box, argybarg, LiliaNic, roll truck roll, madamjujujive, scblackman, 1f2frfbf, Abiezer
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10 hours ago
This obviously isn't intended to be actual investment advice, it's trying to show you what a crime these 0% interest rates are.
But, that said: this is terrible advice for someone who actually still wants to be in business in ten years. You're... [
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favorited 6 times, recently by robertc, five fresh fish, dansdata, mrgrimm, spacewrench, crayz
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Yesterday
Florida last year passed a law that automatically grants former inmates found innocent $50,000 for each year they spent in prison. No legislative approval is needed. That means Bain is entitled to $1.75 million.
Wow, in Florida? That's remarkably... [
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favorited 1 time, recently by ursus_comiter
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Yesterday
Well, the Time award is for the person who affected the world the most in a given year, and Bernanke's the obvious choice.
But he didn't do us any favors. All he did was put off the inevitable debt crisis, and made it worse. He avoided... [
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favorited 3 times, recently by HP LaserJet P10006, General Tonic, tippiedog
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Yesterday
they didn't have the face the consequences; they got to keep their yachts and their mansions, while we cleaned up the mess.
In other words... you know how so many people are badly underwater on their mortgages? A lot of the "money"... [
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favorited 5 times, recently by tizzie, marsha56, null terminated, tippiedog, stenseng
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2 days ago
Oh, also note that I'm entirely skipping the very central role that the GSEs played in the bubble, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They were an absolutely critical component to the mess. Economics is kind of like fractals... the closer you look the... [
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favorited 1 time, recently by General Tonic
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3 days ago
codacorolla: How realistic do you think the assertations are that if Bernanke hadn't propped up the banks that we would've had a far worse version of the great depression?
Well, absent other intervention, that's probably correct. I was talking... [
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favorited 1 time, recently by General Tonic
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3 days ago
Of all the people I know who download music via torrents, none of them actually pay for any music.
As a contrary anecdote, in years when I've done the most music downloading, I've also bought the most music. I just don't hear new music unless... [
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favorited 23 times, recently by arcticwoman, Ljubljana, zennoshinjou, tapesonthefloor, intelligentless, longdaysjourney, hot soup girl, rifflesby, Kadin2048, hotmud, maxwelton, Bageena, ArkhanJG, sauril, Kimothy, tomierna, leviathan3k, delmoi, porn in the woods, Joe Beese, Mick, GeckoDundee, bunnytricks
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3 days ago
I would strongly suggest not using the site. It is free, and at least semi-professionally done, meaning that someone with actual skill worked on it. It has no visible advertising, meaning they have to pay for the bandwidth in some other way.... [
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favorited 4 times, recently by dejah420, oneswellfoop, flatluigi, garlic
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3 days ago
funny how this works both ways. it's like a little rhetorical pocket mirror.
No, saulgoodman. I'm basing my opinion on evidence, not testimony. What I can actually see of our intelligence and military operations is business as usual. I see few... [
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favorited 1 time, recently by Goofyy
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4 days ago
In other words... all the positive things you just said about the Obama administration were based almost entirely on their verbal testimony, plus your imagination of what that testimony means.
The fact that they claimed to have closed down all... [
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favorited 1 time, recently by fuq
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5 days ago
As a related aside, Obama apparently continues to operate secret prisons in Afghanistan, and is covering up for Bush-era war crimes.
From that link:
The Obama administration "has gutted the hard-fought victories in Nuremberg where lawyers... [
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favorited 2 times, recently by fuq, dunkadunc
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5 days ago
Everyone involved seems to have a different, conflicting story. There are few points of agreement, even on the simplest things.
One thought that comes to mind is that perhaps she agreed to work for the CIA and was released, and then the... [
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favorited 1 time, recently by fuq
MetaFilter comment -
5 days ago
fourcheesemac: if I do what you say, and never download any music ever again, I will also never buy any. None. Zero. There have been years in the last decade where I didn't download any music at all, and in those years, I bought nothing. And this... [
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favorited 1 time, recently by schyler523
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6 days ago
Detailed accurate bug reports are for internal QA, which, apparently, Adobe doesn't believe in.
Typically, companies shipping products like this have large QA departments. They "believe" in QA, as in having some, they just don't listen... [
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favorited 1 time, recently by neewom
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6 days ago
They have some damn fine artists working there. Those things are PERFECT.
Boy, they aren't afraid to charge for them, either. Ouch. [
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favorited 1 time, recently by JHarris
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10 days ago
The idea of privatized profit and socialized risk is destroying us. Free markets are only free if they're allowed to go down, and companies are allowed to fail.
When we're willing to intervene when things blow up, when we backstop the biggest... [
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favorited 42 times, recently by vsync, titus-g, YouRebelScum, lucien_reeve, kev23f, ZakDaddy, Sinadoxa, moonbiter, lalochezia, alice ayres, handee, Deathalicious, aeschenkarnos, Strshan, rifflesby, niles, empyrean, marble, Lizc, eabomo, FireballForever, Meatbomb, tehloki, scrump, kuujjuarapik, hattifattener, snsranch, sriracha, toodleydoodley, jock@law, The Power Nap, Pope Guilty, meech, treepour, Bangaioh, vibrotronica, TheFlamingoKing, notswedish, General Tonic, Inspector.Gadget, lordrunningclam, qvantamon
MetaFilter comment -
10 days ago
delmoi said: The idea that Apple is more secure or has fewer flaws is just delusional fanboi speak. The only difference is that isn't targeted by spyware authors the same way (but it isn't completely untargeted)
This, by the way, is completely... [
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favorited 4 times, recently by pravit, gum, bergeycm, Nanukthedog
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13 days ago
Dollhouse failed because, primarily, Eliza Dushku does not have the range required to excel in that role. It was a vehicle to show off her acting ability, and she doesn't actually have very much. She does tough-girl really well, is fairly... [
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favorited 17 times, recently by fantine, crush-onastick, magstheaxe, gen, poppo, uri, xthlc, yellowbinder, amuseDetachment, Mngo, not_that_epiphanius, longdaysjourney, coolguymichael, TypographicalError, qxntpqbbbqxl, 1024x768, gerryblog
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13 days ago
Blazecock, as you say, with media you don't pay for, you aren't the customer, you're the product: eyeballs for advertisers. But I think you're missing an important difference between TV and newspapers, the subscription fees.
In theory, in that... [
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favorited 2 times, recently by Edgewise, treepour
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2 weeks ago
I still don't know what this rusty nautical item is, and it bugs the SHIT out of me. :)
I checked back steadily for a year to see if it ever got figured out. Sadly, it didn't.... [
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favorited 1 time, recently by rottytooth
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2 weeks ago
The thought occurred, while filling out the survey, that this whole thing has been a freaking disaster.
Why? Because they moved a fairly unimportant feature of the site to absolute center stage. The mods appear to have been worried that... [
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favorited 8 times, recently by Mick, Meagan, ambient2, ch1x0r, PhoBWanKenobi, Artw, Blazecock Pileon, Sys Rq
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2 weeks ago
At 640 dollars a pound, prices could come down a fair bit without impoverishing any French truffle farmers. :) [
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favorited 1 time, recently by IAmBroom
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2 weeks ago
We're gonna be seeing a lot more of that; we have a whole new generation of young men who've been sent off to war, many for longer than World War Two, and they feel even more disconnected than their parents and grandparents did, because this hasn't... [
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favorited 8 times, recently by toodleydoodley, marble, homuncula, dr_dank, Lou Stuells
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2 weeks ago
I think the one thing I'm really sure about the experiment is that, if you're gonna remove them, don't do it half-assed. Halfway doesn't work.
I don't truly care either way. If I had to put numbers on it, I'm probably 60/40 weighted toward... [
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favorited 2 times, recently by vincele, kuujjuarapik
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2 weeks ago
I, for one, am glad services like this exist, even though I have no need to use them myself. Just because a government somewhere, including that of the US, says something is bad, doesn't make it so. And it's nice to know that there are alternate... [
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favorited 3 times, recently by Hactar
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3 weeks ago
It's pretty clear that Tolkien was quite central to D&D; the sum total of the disagreement seems to be a matter of how strong the influence was, not so much whether it existed.
I sort of watched the evolution of the system; I owned a box set of... [
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favorited 3 times
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3 weeks ago
It's really interesting how memory works. I replayed Adventure for the first time in, oh, probably eight or ten years. I ran it at least once on an emulator to see the easter egg, so it's not like it's been the full three decades since the original,... [
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favorited 8 times
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3 weeks ago
there's so far not a whole lot of evidence that [bigger media companies] result in lots of cost-savings for the bloated giants that result...Aren't huge mergers like these driven more by ego
AOL was vastly, vastly overvalued, and the AOL execs... [
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favorited 14 times
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3 weeks ago
Wow, watching this in 1080p is weird. Seeing individual hairs on Gonzo's nose is a bit... disturbing. [
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favorited 1 time
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3 weeks ago
We have no moral ground to stand on here. None. We are more guilty than they are. [
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favorited 1 time
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3 weeks ago
And this gets national newsplay, when the inmates in Guantanamo have been held for more than eight years, as opposed to a paltry four months. By their standards, this guy was treated with kid gloves, merely beaten with open hands, where several of... [
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favorited 6 times
MetaFilter comment -
3 weeks ago
I thought of that too, but unless there were geostationary debris bits in the ring I think it wouldn't help much with longitude
The rings themselves would obviously be an instant compass and latitude marker; measure the visible height of the ring,... [
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favorited 2 times
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3 weeks ago
I dunno, I think a number of things from 'above the fold' are pretty cute, although the later things you point out are quite bad. The 'overcozied' post on the Kraftomatic link strikes as me pretty clever, actually, assuming that the glasses are... [
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favorited 3 times
MetaFilter comment -
3 weeks ago
I wonder if magnetism might not be involved somehow; rapidly rotating blades would probably pick up a heck of a static charge, and there's lots of iron in the Earth's crust. A rotating static charge would look like current, and moving current causes... [
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favorited 1 time
MetaFilter comment -
3 weeks ago
Smoking is a bad idea around computers because the tar particles in the smoke stick to electronics. Then dust sticks to the tar. Then more tar sticks to the dust, and so on. It very gradually makes a rather gooey mess that takes some work to... [
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favorited 2 times
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4 weeks ago
I'm a little torn here, because while I entirely agree with the outcome (deleted post), I'm uncomfortable with the stated reasons why.
Personally, I think something should either pass or fail on its own merits, not based on whatever's happening... [
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favorited 1 time
MetaTalk comment -
Last month
That's:
A) not 8-bit; it's more 16-bit. Too high resolution, too many colors.
B) Among the most misogynistic things I've ever seen.
BLECH. [
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favorited 2 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last month
There was a big local hardware store in Sonoma County, California that my father patronized for many years. I don't remember exactly what it was called anymore, but I remember it had two branches; I think one was in Petaluma and one was in Santa... [
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favorited 2 times
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Last month
The end of TR bugged the shit out of me too, not just because of the stupid eye-bulging, but the conceit that you could fill an entire planet's atmosphere in time to save two people from suffocating. The winds from the newly-created atmosphere... [
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favorited 3 times
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Last month
As for the tank/dps/healer trinity, I've been trying to track down where those gameplay roles originated.
I think it really took effect in the MMO era, probably with Everquest 1. The entire reason for tank/healer/dps is because monster AI is... [
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favorited 3 times
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Last month
Regardless of the 'full story', it's not claimed in any way that he threatened anyone with the gun, or that he attempted to use it.
Have the British gone fucking insane?... [
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favorited 2 times
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Last month
Nah, that's just a symptom. If you fill the forest with underbrush, by fighting fires with fertilizer-laced water, you will get opportunistic species that populate that vegetation. They're not the blame for the later, greater fires.
I agree... [
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favorited 10 times
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Last month
It's pretty clear what 2000-2009 should be called. 70s, 80s, 90s, naughties. [
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favorited 2 times
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Last month
Offhand, I'd guess it's probably codespeak for 'fewer commercials'. [
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favorited 1 time
MetaFilter comment -
Last month
