The Off Topic Topic

[Ideologue]

Shots fired at South Carolina's new school of public health 

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/2015/02/05/shooting-reported-at-the-university-of-south-carolinas-new-school-of-public-health/22929027/

Damn, for a minute I was thinking it might be my ex's dad.  It's not.

Anyway, first I heard of it.

[The Brain]

An excerpt for CdM.

I recently visited an investor who manages more than a trillion dollars.
You might think a trillion dollars sounds impossible. I
did. But there's a
lot more money out there than people let on. It's squirreled away by
families who have been hoarding and investing and reinvesting for
hundreds of years. And this trillion dollars I speak
of belonged to just one family.
We were high up in the vertical City of New York. His entire office was
surrounded by glass windows. He brought me over to one of them.
"What do you see?" he said.
I don't know, I thought. Buildings.
"Empty floors!" he said.
"Look at that one. Some bank. All empty." He
pointed at another building. His fingers scraping across his window
like...I don't know...whatever a spider uses to weave its web. "And that
one: an ad agency or a law firm or an accounting firm. Look at all the
empty desks. They used to be full, with full-time employees. Now
they're empty and they will never fill up again."
I spoke with several CEOs around that time and asked them point-blank,
"Did you fire people simply because this was a good excuse to get rid of
the people who were no longer useful?"
Universally, the response was a nervous laugh and a "Yeah, I guess
that's right!"
And because of the constant economic uncertainty, they told me, they
are never going to hire those people again. Recently I joined the board
of directors of a temporary staffing company with $700 million in
revenue. The year before they had $400
million. That growth occurred in a flat economy. I now can see firsthand and immediately what parts of
the economy are hiring full-time and what parts of the economy are
moving toward using more temporary workers.
I'll tell you the answer: ZERO sectors in the economy are moving
toward more full-time workers. Everything is either being cut back,
moved toward outsourcing out of the country, or hiring temp workers.
And this goes not just for low-paid industrial workers, but middle managers, computer programmers, accountants, lawyers, and even senior executives.

I prefer Tennyson.

[CountDeMoney]

An excerpt for CdM.

You realize nobody cares, right?

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Relevant (to 10 posts ago): http://data.heapanalytics.com/how-to-lie-with-data-visualization/

[mongers]

Was going to post in the Fitness thread, but can't be arsed to got find it on probably page 3 or 4 by now.

edit:
towards the bottom of page three. 

[Sheilbh]

I got back to the gym post-cold last week. I tried the machines for the first time a couple of days ago and haven't gone back because my arms ache  

[The Brain]

Nuclear arms can't ache.

[mongers]

Nuclear arms can't ache.

Silly, he's a weapons dealer whose keyboard has a dodgy c-key.

[Ed Anger]

Just had an encounter on the phone with a very mouthy SirusXM sales rep.

War has been declared.

[Caliga]

Just had an encounter on the phone with a very mouthy SirusXM sales rep.

War has been declared.

QUESTION:  Why do you answer your phone when you don't recognize the caller?  I presume this was a blocked caller ID or something like that?

[Ed Anger]

Just had an encounter on the phone with a very mouthy SirusXM sales rep.

War has been declared.

QUESTION:  Why do you answer your phone when you don't recognize the caller?  I presume this was a blocked caller ID or something like that?

I'm old

[Caliga]

Ah, I forgot.  Carry on then gramps.

[Ed Anger]

Also, if it is a scammer, I take great pleasure in tormenting them. Especially Indians.

[Admiral Yi]

Thank God I stopped getting calls for Branson packages.

[Caliga]

Also, if it is a scammer, I take great pleasure in tormenting them. Especially Indians.

One time when I was a kid some lady called trying to sell new windows, and my mom said "We don't need windows because we live in a cave."