Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

And done

$700 for a custom loop worth of supplies and parts. I'll wait I think.

Meh, science is interfering with my story. We are just going with Vitamin K and if anyone questions it they can remember they are reading a scifi fanfiction -_-

Hey, when you get to top, a hole's a hole. ;)

Adventure!

the origins of bringing flowers to the ill has me wondering what was a bigger influence on that tradition. Two things I could think of, and I'm sure there are others-

1. Flowers were brought to the dead/deathly ill to combat the smell of decomposition. While it may have appeared to be a kindness to those past, I'd wager it had more to do with being kind to those living with a rotting corpse in their home during wakes.

2. Living plants would (unknowingly in ancient times) increase oxygen levels in the room they were in with the ill, and may have at times assisted in recovery. A couple good stories of "magical flowers saved my husband" or the like start spreading around a village, and in a few generations the practice becomes regional.

Other known reasons or theories?

I mean, there was also the plague doctor masks being filled with flowers, perfumes, and incense in order to keep the, "miasma" of the diseases at bay.

Rant;

Ya know, the body is... irritating.

1989 me eats a twinkie
"thats more energy than we need today, I'm gonna store that in the right butt cheek for when I need it"
Next day; So how about burning that twinkie off body
"Might need it!"
30 years later
Ready to burn that 30 year old twinkie off today body?
"lolnope might need it"
....................

Body carries around stores of "energy" in the event it might need it... but carrying the extra weight requires more energy. The body is pretty stupid.

"yeah but when the apocalypse happens and you have no food you're gonna want that twinkies energy there"

Hold extra weight for your entire life on a what if.

Our bodies react to our eating habits.

If you overeat for a fairly long period of time with little exercise your body will put a lot of energy into building up fat cells to store it all, it will "assume" that the reason you're gorging is in anticipation of upcoming starvation periods. Once these fat cells are created the majority of them never go away. Even if you lose weight those fat cells are still there ready to store the fat again quickly. After that point it is now incredibly easy to put weight on for the rest of your life, even just overeating for a day will put weight on because your body has put the foundations of mass fat storage into place now.

If you never overeat for prolonged periods of time then those fat cells are never created in the same excessive way (because they are actually very costly to create in the first place), so short term overeating won't really put weight on in the same way for people like that. If you feed a lifelong underfed person chocolates for days they won't get fat, they will just have "digestion problems" for that time and all those excess calories are wasted. Someone that was previously fat doing the same thing will put on excessive weight fast though.

Ironically, when people diet and then go back to overeating they're confirming to their body that it needs to store fat as a priority for the next period of starvation (diet). So short term diets are often far far worse than not dieting at all, repeated starvation diets are incredibly counter productive. All you're doing is telling your body as the top priority to store all calories as fat.

If people go on brutal diets that they are never going to be able to stick to it's self defeating and utterly pointless. It's better to remove things from your diet in a slower manner that you will be able to stick to, like changing from whole milk to skimmed or white bread to wholemeal (or keeping a log on how many "bad" things you eat per week so you can limit it)

Agreed. It's way better to cut back miniscule amounts and make a routine out of exercise than to try any significant changes.

Reduce your meal size by like 5% and even just do jumping jacks every once in a while. Jumping jacks are an amazing way to get your blood pumping :)

Same reason I'm still using an inventory slot for Ducal Guard's Ring.

Yesterday saw only one race, but it felt like 2. Italy opened up almost an 1800 metre lead in just the first leg, as New Zealand fell off foil. At one point, race diagnostics had ETNZ at 4.2 knots while LRPP cruising at 33 knots. Considering how every prior race had played out, this was a clear win for 'Luna Rossa'.

But we got quite the shocker. The winds shifted angles, and FINALLY we got the chance to see 'Te Rehutai' open up and at full boar. She topped the day over 43 knots, and roared back, winning the first race of the final where the team who won the start lost the race.

That leaves this best of 13 match race format at ETNZ 6, LRPP 3, with race 10 today starting at 8pm PST (sorry in advance to my Odyssey group, I won't be around^^). We've got the first race of the final with winds predicted above 14 knots...current conditions are 13-15 knots with gusts above 18. Its basically made for 'Te Rehutai' to stomp all over the Italians, as they simply haven't been able to compete in such high winds throughout the regatta.

But in this sport, nothing is guaranteed. While we call the teams by their home nation, this isn't the Olympics. "Home Nation" is determined often by where a sailor has lived for the past 18 months- quite an easy fix to get the sailors and skipper a team wants...and that's exactly what LRPP did 3 years ago when they grabbed Jimmy Spithill to helm 'Luna Rossa'.

An Auckland native, he grew up sailing on this tricky harbor that has many dead spots and wind tunnels due to the numerous islands that surround it. He's gone rogue multiple times, captaining for Aussie, American, Kiwi, and now Italian teams. And known in the sport as 'Jimmy Pitbull', he's also got a track record of being dangerously aggressive- something we haven't seen in these lighter conditions. Tonight is gonna be interesting.

Getting so sick of all this minimum wage law virtue signalling from politicians. Minimum wage laws are great in theory (and good for certain sectors like service industries), but unless it is done correctly it's terrible for your nations production work force. All they're doing is making western made products unable to compete on a global market. Big import taxes have to go hand in hand with these kinds of minimum wage laws, and they never want to do that because it's unpopular due to increasing costs of imports. All politicians care about is getting re-elected, nothing else.

The issue is, A) majority of customers just want cheap products and don't care where they come from and b) corporations do not care about workers here.

All that will happen is prices of labor will massively rise here, and so the corporations will put all those people out of work (slowly, over time) and open factories in China that have no minimum wage laws. They will then just import those same products back to here. If the corporation does not do this out of principle, the competition will and their products will cost far less (due to lower labor costs) and since customers just want the cheapest products the US companies will just go out of business and all the workers will be laid off anyway.

This is why China is such a powerhouse now, because every damn western corporation built factories there to get around minimum wage laws.

Minimum wage laws + large import taxes on products from nations without minimum wage laws (China and India) = win.

Not even then.

There is never a good reason to artificially inflate the value of anything. That's just asking for inflation, or in some cases, hyperinflation.

If you wanna raise the minimum wage, and there certainly is some argument for it, a couple things need to happen (at least in the US, which I believe is what we're talking about with this discussion)-

1. Tipping ends completely. It was first given only as a sign of good service, but in 70+ years has morphed into an excuse to underpay service industry employees. So go ahead, raise their rate, but I'm no longer tipping.

2. Don't think that YOUR cost is gonna stay the same- business owners will keep their portion the same, and raise prices to compensate. So that extra money you now make is just gonna get funneled off like it already was.

3. This will only happen to the level of increase people are clamouring for once automation eliminates enough jobs in total so that the overall cost to employers actually drops. Don't have to pay unemployment insurance and health care for a touchscreen.


People who scream to raise the minimum wage always strike me as completely uneducated in economics, but worse than that- completely oblivious to the world around them. Its not even some complex argument in economics...its just human nature.

That's a societal issue, not an economic issue. While some people may end up not tipping if minimum wage for waiters/waitresses goes up (and in some areas, it's at the federal minimum wage anyway, due to state regulations), others will continue to tip. You would ask society as a whole to change their perspective.

Some countries discourage tipping period though.

Mostly. It will be a race to the lowest price increase. Those who cannot keep their prices as low as their competitors due to overall labor costs will end up closing their businesses. It happens every single time minimum wage increases. Just look at Seattle, and how many businesses (not just restaurants either, but the overall service and productivity industry) closed because of the increases.

There has been studies over this (example)

Why do you think large corporations like Walmart and McDonanlds are going to touchscreen kiosks instead of cashiers now?

People in general are irrational beings. A person can be rational, but a mob is not.

I love it. There's no reason that such jobs should ever have been "livable" jobs vs just work for teenagers living at home. The very idea that people get worried about losing such a crap job that "allows" them to live below the poverty line is enough reason in my book to essentially eliminate all that wasted productivity. Adjustment will suck for a few years, but in the long run we're much better off with a workforce that is more focused on building careers vs living paycheck to paycheck- and I've been there when that was all that was available to me. Its demeaning work, not something someone should feel good about doing a second longer than needed.

Honestly, the way the economy is going now, those with careers will be living paycheck to paycheck.

It used to be considered economic success to be able to not only not have any debt, but also have a savings account that you can easily access for emergencies so you don't have to go into debt. Now, some people want to make it so the real economic success is being able to live paycheck to paycheck without outside help, such as government assistance and subsidies.

I agree with everything except for this. Automation doesn't eliminate jobs, it eliminates work. Employers eliminate jobs.

If things were handled properly, this should mean people can get paid more for less work. If an employer is getting paid the same amount of money, they could distribute that wealth between the entire workforce. Instead, they decide to take that money for themselves and kick out everyone they don't need.

With the level of automation we have now, every single human being in the world should be completely thriving. We could all be getting paid a living wage off of 16-hour weeks as the work of 1 person could be distributed between 4. Just as an example, if there are four people at my company designing houses, and we upgraded our computers so our output doubled, our company would consequently make twice as much money. It's then up to my boss whether he doubles everyone's paycheques or lays off two designers and pockets the savings.

That's an extremely naive way to look at automation. At least south of your border, automation= less workers or employers aren't going to spend the money on it.

Automation is just another form of technology, and the sole purpose of any technology is to reduce the amount of work required for a task.

If you want to get really nitty-gritty, though, take the McDonald's example with the automated cashiers. One of those does the work of one person. Now, what the manager does is the key, because they have a few options:
1. They could do nothing, firing no one, keeping profits the same, and distributing the remaining work among employees (reducing the amount of work they'd each need to do)
2. They could increase the pay of each employee, but reduce their hours, now that less work is needed. If this happened enough, they could get paid a living wage by working 4-day weeks!
3. They could reduce the prices, making things even more affordable to third parties, bolstering the economy all around them.
4. They could lay one employee off, increasing the profit of their branch, keeping the amount of work each employee does the same.

It's the choice of the employer if the reduced work means jobs are lost. It's not the fault of the technology, it's the fault of capitalism. Automation itself is not a bad thing. If the people at the top distributed the gains from technology even a little bit, even part-time employers like McDonald's could sustain a livable lifestyle.

I agree with your statement that "its not the fault of the technology". My comment referring to naivety is related to your belief that ANY employer is going to invest in expensive technology without direct benefits to their own bottom line.


Also, in the McDonald's example, its NOT the decision of the manager. Its the decision of corporate offices who have no personal connection with the employees in question. They're just numbers on a bottom line.

That's a bad example. The reason being that your employer does not have double the number of customers as a result of the double productivity made by upgrading your computers. Your employer just made productivity easier, that's all.

If you had a backlog of work and upgrading the technology increased productivity so the backlog disappears, nothing will change. If you didn't have a backlog, then you will have wasted hours of work, which is inefficient and either requires changes of labor (either transfer the employee(s) to a different department or remove the positions completely) or your employer may end up facing closure due to lack of work. Labor costs in your example stayed the same, work did not increase because demand did not increase, productivity increased so the availability of new projects rose but that doesn't increase any bottom lines. There is no additional income until new customers come in. Your employer in this case would reduce workhours (either stop paying overtime or just reduce regular hours period) because there is a lot of waste because of the new productivity levels.

You are correct in a sense that technology/automation reduces/eliminates work, but at the same time it also eliminates possible jobs unless new customers arise.

Think of it this way. Before, your company can be defined as a large bucket that holds so much water. Because the technology increased productivity, your "bucket" can now hold more water. Unless there is more water to pour into the bucket, the air between the top of the bucket and the waterline is considered waste, and the work needed to fill the bucket needs to be reduced until there is more water to fill it up.

And companies do that. Surprisingly, in a high-competition market like McDonalds, #3 is usually the one selected, or a combination of #3 and #1.

In lower competition markets, it could be a mixture of either #2 and #1, or #2 and #4.

It depends on other, outside forces. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

And yes, companies do give out raises on a regular basis.

Even larger corporations like McDonalds (although, to be fair, a vast majority of McDonalds are franchises and not owned by the corporation itself, the corporation only sees quality control towards the franchise itself and also quality control of the products/equipment).

Yeah I know. I'm not being super specific with the example. And I'm also not saying that most corporations don't go with that fourth option. So we're in agreement then.

I'm just always scared of these kinds of conversations going in directions of "technology is bad! robots are taking our jobs and ruining our economy", because not only does that make human advancement sound evil, it also super downplays the real economic issues around the world.

We have self driving trains right now, they just changed the drivers into safety officers. Same will apply to any lorry, van or car. Same can apply to warehouse or factory workers, if the laws are put in place.

As for automated checkouts, until all money is phased out and all poverty along with it they are nothing more than niche technology for middle class areas. Try putting automated checkouts in some places, the automated checkout machine will be in some guys garage the next day.

Only absolutists would say/think that honestly.

Or fearmongers.

Nothing wrong with technology period. It's how we use it that determines it's worth.

Yeah... I see it often enough though. I remember watching a video about that shipping robot made by Boston Dynamics and the entire comment section was just full of stuff like "these lunatics are trying to destroy the economy!" >_>