General Questions Thread

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

I have always been wondering, what do the Scots wear underneath their kilts? Do they go commando or do they wear something?

Some people do go commando, some don't, but I think the classical style is to not wear underwear iirc.

[Dist]

Originally Posted by Da_Box

OH MY GOD IT DOES EXIST

thanks man, i feel like crying now

You should watch it first and cry afterwards. It's a pretty good OVA, and sad too.

[frubam]

I would like to get one of those things that they use in the coney islands; its like an iron(yes, the "iron" for ironing clothes), it has a wooden handle attached to a thin piece of metal that is placed on top of bacon so that both sides cook and keeps the bacon cooking evenly. If anyone can give me the name for this item, I would greatly appreciate it =03.

[Irenicus]

Is PirateBay really blocked in the US or is it just me?

The rest of the Internet works fine, obviously. Also PB is accessible via proxy.

Google'd it up and Comcast denies responsibility, though Comcast users reported first -- I'm actually on Cox btw.

WTF?

[-KarumA-]

Our teacher has asked us a bit silly in our class who uses a laptop and who doesn't now instead of swarming him we have to reply in 1 email for everyone.
So I figured maybe I can start making a poll where people of my class can vote in:

The question now is, where can I make such a thing?
I don't want random people voting only the people I email it to.
I'd use google docs but people who do not use gmail cannot open it for as far as I know. So any suggestions?

[WordShaker]

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

Our teacher has asked us a bit silly in our class who uses a laptop and who doesn't now instead of swarming him we have to reply in 1 email for everyone.
So I figured maybe I can start making a poll where people of my class can vote in:

The question now is, where can I make such a thing?
I don't want random people voting only the people I email it to.
I'd use google docs but people who do not use gmail cannot open it for as far as I know. So any suggestions?

http://www.surveymonkey.com/

Try this place out. IIRC, SurveyMonkey gives you a URL to your poll that you can send out to others through email and they access it from there. You can also add things like passwords and such, so that's good stuff.

[Kagayaki]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Is PirateBay really blocked in the US or is it just me?

The rest of the Internet works fine, obviously. Also PB is accessible via proxy.

Google'd it up and Comcast denies responsibility, though Comcast users reported first -- I'm actually on Cox btw.

WTF?

Hmmm, works fine for me on Cox.

Maybe just DNS weirdness or something.

[Malkuth]

Originally Posted by Tsuyoshi

Some people do go commando, some don't, but I think the classical style is to not wear underwear iirc.

WOW, I remember it was freaking cold in Scotland

Originally Posted by Dist

You should watch it first and cry afterwards. It's a pretty good OVA, and sad too.

Actually, it aired on TV

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by Malkuth

WOW, I remember it was freaking cold in Scotland

Scottish people are badass. They'll just walk through the cold with no undies like it's a normal thing

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Kagayaki

Hmmm, works fine for me on Cox.

Works again. () Thanks for the response, btw.

[Dist]

Originally Posted by Malkuth

Actually, it aired on TV

Yeah saw this today too when I was adding anime to MAL. I claimed it as an OVA since it had only 6 episodes.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Tsuyoshi

Scottish people are badass. They'll just walk through the cold with no undies like it's a normal thing

Of course, its also why they're so bad-tempered (que centuries of comedic stereotypes)

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Of course, its also why they're so bad-tempered (que centuries of comedic stereotypes)

Something stinks in the state of Scotland... and I don't want to know where the smell came from.

I imagine that summers must get very painful for hurly-burly men in skirts: Highland biting midge.

[Endless Soul]

Why is the word "short" longer than the word "long", and the word "longer" is shorter than the word "shorter"?

[Asuras]

Cause English sucks?

[SaintessHeart]

This question is directed at the people who lived through the major economic crises, like the dotcom burst, lost decade, Arab oil embargo, 1989 flash crash, Asian financial crisis, etc while at their working age.

Does the financial news at that time hype as much shit as they do now? I feel that there is another impending dotcom, precious metals or REE bubble booming with all these "LinkedIn IPO", "FB overseas investments", "Buy gold and hard property" news flying all over the place.

And does the general crowd at that time (or at least around you) follow and agree with what those hype-news say?

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

This question is directed at the people who lived through the major economic crises, like the dotcom burst, lost decade, Arab oil embargo, 1989 flash crash, Asian financial crisis, etc while at their working age.

Does the financial news at that time hype as much shit as they do now? I feel that there is another impending dotcom, precious metals or REE bubble booming with all these "LinkedIn IPO", "FB overseas investments", "Buy gold and hard property" news flying all over the place.

And does the general crowd at that time (or at least around you) follow and agree with what those hype-news say?

I was swept along by the first dot-com boom from the mid 90s to 2001, and personally experienced the pain of the Asian financial crisis in 1998.

More sensible minds were already warning extensively about the first dot-com bubble when we were in the middle of it, so when it finally did burst, not many people were surprised. But that didn't make the fallout any less severe. Technology companies worldwide suffered and, suddenly, IT workers at every level had to deal with frozen wages — if not outright wage cuts — or, worse, layoffs.

As far as I recall, no one saw the Asian financial crisis of 1998 coming. Or, if someone did, I wasn't paying enough attention. Meaning, I don't remember the possibility of that crisis being as widely reported as it had been for that of Europe's present sovereign-debt problems.

The lesson I learnt: Hindsight is always 20/20. Looking back, it's easy to see the tell-tale signs of a bubble or financial/economic bomb. But when you're in the middle of a bubble, almost everyone is blind to it.

=========

So... here's the advice: If you start noticing questions that have become too inconvenient to ask, it's time to start worrying.

For example, about two years ago, friends in the financial sector all dodged my questions about the stability of China's growth, particularly when I asked about the actual health of the banks' finances, and about the prospects of the country's property market. One friend even told me, in the middle of 2009, that it was best not to look too closely.

That was then. The underlying concerns that led me to those questions are no longer as worrying today. China has dodged the bullet — for now.

Today, with regard to the apparent second dot-com boom, I don't know yet if it's a bubble. It's hard to tell because the business models of today's social media-driven tech companies are very different from those of the first boom. Google is a bona fide giant with the revenues and profit to back its valuation. Groupon, the next big fish, also has a bona fide model that generates revenue, so its estimated value is not built on just empty hopes and dreams.

Facebook, well... yeah, maybe overhyped. But it is indeed sitting on a potential advertising-revenue gold mine and, depending on how it handles privacy concerns, the company stands to make a lot more money selling consumer-profile information. So, again, like Groupon, Facebook's prospects are not just built on snake oil. Among the current crop of dot-com stars, it's only Twitter that I'm not fully convinced about.


As for commodities, both oil and non-oil as well as precious metals, the current boom is the result of a combination of supply shortage/logistical bottlenecks and a sudden surge in hot money. I remain highly sceptical about the supposed benefits of the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing programme. I don't believe it has helped the American economy that much and, worse, I feel it has resulted in a flight of capital from America to higher-yielding assets in fast-growing Asia, in economies such as China, India or even Indonesia.

As long as the Middle East and North Africa remain in political turmoil, oil prices, I believe, will continue to trend upwards. Metals, industrial and precious, will inevitably go up as China and India's surging economies continue to use up ever more resources. Food is the major worry, because we're looking at a potential catastrophe of epic social proportions if we don't take steps to expand agricultural production right away.

So, high commodity prices do not, in my opinion, indicate a short-term bubble. I think we're looking at a trend that is going to stay around for a long time, even after the immediate problem of hot money is resolved.

[Dextro]

So... How do you get a poster out of magazines like Newtype and alike without ruining the poster or the magazine? Scissors?

[Vexx]

The "news media" in GENERAL has entered a "tabloid" and "short on facts or research" era... I know from history about the muck-raking and other news nonsense of the past... so I guess I was just lucky enough to live part of my life in an era when the news attempted to "do the right thing". There's still good news out there... but its really easy to miss amidst all the howling and barking of the "Inside Edition covers Finance" crapola.

[Asuras]

So, how exactly does one calculate the day of Rapture?