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Things I still can't do in November 2014

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Re: Things I still can't do in November 2014

#61
post #42

"Get a discount from the federal government for being healthy. Fat people should pay more taxes because they cost society more. This means some approved weigh in and testing centers" This argument seems to be pretty common among the glitterati from Wall Street. I wonder why they don't see the incredible irony.

Not that I agree with the quote but, can you explain the irony?

Bailouts and ZIRP facilitating and propping up the great American casino which he was a part of cost trillions of dollars. That isn't even counting the many Americans who have been scammed via their mortgages or 401Ks.

I'm not sure what fat people cost the taxpayer. Given that they typically pay their own medical expenses, I would guess not a lot.

Also, clearly their sad state of affairs is due to the quirky American agricultural and food processing industries. France doesn't have this problem with obesity and neither did the US in 1970.

I don't see him crying out for a special tax on Monsanto. Maybe because his portfolio would take a hit.

Either way, this facebook post is pretty representative of the inhuman views that American neo-royalty holds.

Re: Things I still can't do in November 2014

#63
> 26. Be able to sell my advice online. It's worth something and I should have some way to monetize it.

It is called Google Helpouts[0], and it isn't going very well. Reason why - almost everybody overvalues what their advice is actually worth. People who can provide value usually already are through their usual economic activity - be it a job or entrepreneurialism (ie. If your advice was worth something, you'd already be monetizing it).

Websites that create Shingy[1] As A Service type markets around paid advice often just become cesspools of psychics and webcam sex operators.

[0] https://helpouts.google.com/home

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/17/crystal-ball-3

Re: Things I still can't do in November 2014

#64

> 30. Get a discount from the federal government for being healthy. Fat people should pay more taxes because they cost society more. This means some approved weigh in and testing centers Am I the only one finding this insulting, disgusting and backwards? People can be overweight for a multitude of reasons, some of which are: * Genetics * Medication * Health conditions * Smoking * Enviromental reasons * Lack of sleep…

Most fat people don't have reasons other than stuffing their faces for being fat. As evidence for this, consider the fact that obesity is skyrocketing while most of the things on your list are not changing.

Re: Things I still can't do in November 2014

#65
> 4. Locate where my dog is right now using a barely noticeable GPS chip.

> 13. Keep track of where everybody in my team is physically right now.

I think we can kill two birds with one stone here. Your team is collared, right?

Re: Things I still can't do in November 2014

#66

6. Get somebody to come to my house, pick up my dry cleaning and drop it back off the next day (Amazon "Clean"). We do exactly that :) http://temizlikyolda.com/

It's oldstyle in London too. Lockers in the basement, lock your laundry in, send a mail off, and get them delivered in time.

Works brilliantly.

Re: Things I still can't do in November 2014

#67
post #32
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's easy to call emergency services by 911, it's more difficult to call, say, the local sheriff's office for something that's not an emergency especially when you're traveling. An app could help solve that and resolve the best non-emergency number for you in your current location.

http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/about-112

112 is an emergency number, though.

Re: Things I still can't do in November 2014

#68
Most of the points are about scarce resources that must be retrieved using a specialized network of experts. If a company has to build a solution, there must be a market large enough to make it profitable in the long run. If no, we need some crowdsourced enterprise similar to what OpenStreetMap did for maps or Wikipedia did for general knowledge.

Some random thoughts on some points that stand out more for me.

There are tools for 4, but non barely noticeable. There are problems with batteries too.

13 is disturbing. I won't work with him and he probably won't be willing to hire me.

14 would be great but I'm afraid paper and pencil are still the best tools if we want to trust the results of an election and keep ballots anonymous, notwithstanding a lot or research on the subject. I won't trust any solution with an IP header that can be traced to me or with a database that could receive fake votes. At least in physical elections parties can send their representatives to polling stations and check if anything strange is going on.

29. Indoor Maps from Google is tackling that problem. Probably they are not the only ones working on that.

Getting 31 for free is pretty common in Europe and probably in other areas of the world. That's not a matter of being in 2014 but of where one lives.

Re: Things I still can't do in November 2014

#69

> 30. Get a discount from the federal government for being healthy. Fat people should pay more taxes because they cost society more. This means some approved weigh in and testing centers Am I the only one finding this insulting, disgusting and backwards? People can be overweight for a multitude of reasons, some of which are: * Genetics * Medication * Health conditions * Smoking * Enviromental reasons * Lack of sleep…

Most fat people don't have reasons other than stuffing their faces for being fat. As evidence for this, consider the fact that obesity is skyrocketing while most of the things on your list are not changing.

I don't disagree, but I feel you're implying that obese individuals have complete "self-aware" autonomy over their decision making.

I can pick an obese individual out of a crowd and go "That guy is fat because he eats too much. Dude... have some self control, stop eating so much, buy healthy food, do some exercise, learn to cook for yourself."

Focusing on an individual, all these things may be true, and one may seek to place all the blame on that individual. However, take a step back and look at the cohort of obese people. When entire swathes of society are suffering from these problems, I don't think you can point your finger and blame every obese person for "stuffing their faces."

What collective forces are acting on the majority of the population that results in them eating poorly, not exercising, putting on weight year after year, etc?

The more and more I've read about psychology, self-awareness, political science, etc, and observed how the media and business interests clearly influence behavior, the less and less I feel it's a viable position to attribute individual blame to "fat people" "poor people" "homeless people" for what are society wide issues.

Re: Things I still can't do in November 2014

#70
post #21

> 6. Get somebody to come to my house, pick up my dry cleaning and drop it back off the next day (Amazon "Clean"). Isn't this what HomeJoy is doing? If not, I have a friend who tried that, but failed. I'd be happy to forward his details. > 9. Send $10,000 to my caretaker in France and have her get the cash and withdraw it from an ATM that same day. Within Europe, you can. > 10. Get investors for my startup by adverti…

Transferring money across countries in Europe (and even across different banks in the same country) is not that fast. Maybe it takes a couple of days. Doing it with PayPal is probably the closest thing to instantaneous transfers.

However actually getting those money out of the bank or PayPal as banknotes is more difficult. The times when banks and states where letting go the money in their vaults are long gone. Larger greeds and larger debts mean that there are de facto limits to how much you can cash out per day. I don't even want to think about what I should go through to get 10,000 EUR in cash at my bank.

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