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I promise... this isn't just a geography joke. Like many Americans I tend to watch the State of the Union Address each year, followed by the response from the other party. While I'll try my best to keep my personal politics out of this article I found one part of the response speech that even still nags at me for how far from accurate it is: "In our economic stagnation and indebtedness, we are only a short distance behind Greece, Spain, and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe."
While people can argue over the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating from a single credit rating agency, a move which marked similar downgrades from other European countries shortly thereafter, this had less to do with the ability of the US to pay its bills and had much more to do with our willingness to pay our bills, primarily stemming from the control of the purse strings which rests with congress and an ugly public fight that marked the first time the raising of our debt ceiling was held hostage by our own representatives (and no one is surprised by Congress' 11% approval rating).
I digress. Greece just reached an initial deal that will help them cut their spending (known as Austerity). While people throw around the phrase "deficit reduction" what they really mean is cutting spending. Alexander Hamilton had envisioned how quickly the American economy could grow and our political position could improve by taking massive foreign loans. Yes, our country was founded on a principal of improved value through revolving debt. It's a practice that spread from our government to our people and it cost us about five very difficult years so far. The same thing is happening in Greece, except their economy generates an incredibly small amount of money compared to the U.S. and you have a nearly non-existent production rate for exported items.
Much of this is due to the 55 age limit for retirement, but there are myriad reasons. Now Greece is being forced into making tough decisions in order to not go bankrupt and see its current political upheaval turn far more reactive and potentially violent. Take for instance minimum wage. They are reducing it by 20%, or if you're under 25 it's being reduced by 32%. Could you imagine the Congress in the US reducing Minimum Wage by 1/3? While they aren't yet raising the age of retirement as we've done slowly over time they are slashing benefits to be proportional to the contribution you made to the fund while working. In other words... they're moving from a flat rate retirement system to something more closely resembling our social security system.
One of the next things Greece is moving towards is automatic deductions for taxes in each paycheck, something they don't currently do, instead expecting citizens to fork over all their taxes at the end of the year based on their year's earnings. The current method has resulted in constant and systemic fraud, whereby the country is being cheated out of millions of dollars of tax revenue every year. Once again, this is something the U.S. already does. Citizens can expect more fees levied against them for services because they hope to privatize more of the government "with the aim of collecting billions of euros" as described by Dave Gilbert's breakdown of the Austerity measures (http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/14/world/europe/greece-austerity-detail/index.html?hpt=hp_bn2).
My question to Gov. Mitch Daniels is this... if the U.S. is doing so badly that it is on the verge of a collapse more spectacular than Greece then why is Greece working so valiantly to operate more like the U.S.? I'm certain it's not just to slow the flush down the drain.
/rant
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There is an old axiom that most everyone is familiar with: "Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it." This holds true as much for massive corporations as it does for each of us as individuals. The proof of the matter is AT&T.
In 2007 a, frankly naive, corporation (or nefarious with future plans depending on your view point) called AT&T (a quite young corporation in archaeological time measurements) decided to get a stranglehold over the Smart Phone market by making an exclusivity deal with Apple for their most recent MUST HAVE tech toy... the iPhone. This deal would cement their market strength for years to come, and they could lure new customers by making all the features of the iPhone readily available as part of a tidy unlimited data plan. All things went according to plan.
But then issues started to crop up. People disliked the lack of reception from AT&T's network. People lamented leaving Verizon for AT&T and being locked into deals by virtue of their phone. Resentment grew. But AT&T owned the market on the iPhone and if people wanted one, they had to suffer for it. As time moved on the success of this pairing led to even greater resentment from the public beholden to AT&T to satiate their Apple Lust.
Then Verizon cracked the Apple Barrier. With another network competing for business it was time AT&T did something drastic to keep their customers. At this point AT&T never invested in their infrastructure to be able to appropriately maintain the needs of their customers. If you purchased an unlimited plan from them they couldn't back out of the deal... but they could force you to. Now they're pressuring customers to drop those old unlimited plans by killing their connection speed if they... you know... try to use what the phone for the reasons they bought it: http://news.yahoo.com/t-customers-surprised-unlimited-data-limit-080906861.html.
While this seems like a vile and detestable case of bait-and-switch it, surprisingly, isn't. You see AT&T is not preventing you from using your unlimited data; they are simply slowing down your service. Nothing said they had to provide you that data quickly. Even the phone itself isn't culpable as it's downloading at the speed of the network. The biggest kick being that this effect is punitively levied against customers with data consumption that is lower than the limited plans and if you contact AT&T they'll tell you should switch to the limited plan (maybe, if you're lucky, they'll be nice and waive the hefty fees related to cancelling your current unlimited contract early!)
AT&T was so unprepared for its success that now it’s using your Smart Phone to make you look like an idiot.
/rant
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As a geek I enjoy discussing and participating in geeky things. Over the course of my brief tenure on this blue ball of ours, I have geeked out in some interesting and not so geeky places.
The obvious places for public geekery center around conventions. I’ve been to NYC Comic Con two years in a row now proudly wearing It’s Geektime swag along with thousands of fellow geeks geeked out in costumes and graphic T-shirts. It is quite a site seeing a group of people dressed like the x-men sharing the same street as Naruto while waving to Mr. T.
Tonight being Valentine’s day and me being single I decided to treat myself to dinner. So I went down to the LGS (Local Game Store), bought myself a Warmachine book, and went to hooters to enjoy it and some good food. Both the book and the food were great. Nothing like dinner and a good book I always say.
So far the weirdest place I’ve geeked out was at a diner in Queens. For my friend’s “Bachelor Party” I ran a D&D adventure, dinosaurs were involved. The hotel room he was staying in was too small so we decided to move it to the diner for food and fun. A blast was had by all and I am sure the proprietor of the establishment loved having us as we kept ordering drinks and food while we gamed.
These are some of the weirdest and interesting places I’ve geeked out. Where was the weirdest place you have geeked out so far?
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As an avid gamer I have a voracious appetite for learning new games. I am always up for learning a new board game, RPG, card game, miniatures game, or video game. New versions of games are also a delicacy for my gaming appetite that I can never get enough of, this is why gaming companies love me. With so many different rule sets running around in my head, sometimes it can get confusing, or I start mixing them together.
Case in point; this past weekend I introduced my friend to Warmachine and Hordes. We had a blast playing it, but I started adding in rules from other games. Warmachine is a minis game by Privateer Press that is similar to Warhammer 40k but is more character focused. When I first started playing it I would treat it much like I played Warhammer 40k. Luckily I was playing with some experienced players that set me straight.
When I was playing last Friday with my friend, I started treating my warjacks and warcaster like Dungeons and Dragons characters. In Warmachines, when your model activates it must perform its move action before its other actions. I was doing my other actions first, and then moving part of the time as I would in Dungeons and Dragons. After looking through the rules I noticed that I was doing things wrong and quickly apologized to my friend who was just learning. I did not want to teach him wrong.
Has this happened to any of you? If so, how do you handle rules blurring?
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