Corinthian

Why would that be guaranteed? Do you have a magic formula that tells you exactly what the exchange rate is going to do at any given moment?

If so, can I see it?

Can you transfer TO the UK? Specifically from Spain and Qatar? I'm literally about to send a huge amount of money home, and it boils me up how much even the reputable money transfer companies take from you on the exchange. It seems scandalous how much money they take for something which is surely, almost entirely automated.

"On Monday, the company announced the rollout of a new wage structure, including a minimum wage of $15.25 per hour and increases for its skilled workers, bringing the average salary to $20 per hour."

It seems obvious to me that it is referring it the minimum wage within the company's wage structure, and not a national minimum wage. I don't understand your point, "the company announced the rollout of a new wage structure, including a minimum wage of $15.25 per hour", means exactly that.

You'd be risking an armed response from the Houthis. They have missiles, drones, and heavy munitions. Would only take one of these to get through and we'd be in exactly the kind of situation we're trying to avoid.

Surely and influencer that has no influence, isn't an influencer at all?

I half agree, people with no talent that seek fame, rarely get it - yet some do. But I can't imagine there's many famous people that didn't actively seek fame.

I'm still not seeing much of a distinction. Celebrities got famous because they were popular and were then able to monetize that. I kind of get where you're coming from, but if there is a distinction to be made, it's not this.

Agreed. The problem is the word 'influencer', it also connotes that their followers and mindless drones that need influencing, because they can't think for themselves.

Let's just go back to calling them celebrities, or wannabe celebrities.

Couldn't agree more, and that is exactly the same story as with celebrities. For me, I'm a big fan of 'The Hoof GP' for reasons I can't adequately explain. As far as I can see he meets the criteria of influencer, I find his videos interesting and engaging, and I believe he makes a nice side-income from his online success. Bravo if you ask me.

Sure, the reach and scale is much bigger. But I still don't see how that distinguishes an influencer from a celebrity.

We've had celebrities since before electricity. The reach and scale of print was greater than word of mouth, the reach and scale of radio was greater than print, the reach and scale of TV was greater than radio. The internet is just another expansion of scope, but it's the same culture underneath. Never before have we felt the need to come up with a new word for celebrity.

You could have argued at one point that the internet gives everyone an equal chance to become famous and influential. But even that is less true every day as agencies are increasingly required to stand out in an increasingly saturated market.

I strongly dispute that celebrities need talent to get noticed too. That's never been true.

Are 'influencers' that much different from 'celebrities'? Some are famous purely for their looks, some for their talent, some for both, occasionally some for their lack of both. For me, it feels like we've always had influencers.

Sounds ripe for a congress pump and dump scheme.

For me, I need it to actually pay taxes on my US properties from abroad. Many US tax authorities inexplicably block foreign traffic. Several paid services I use don't allow payments unless the card and the IP address are from the same country.

But by and large I agree, most people are duped into believing it's somehow more secure.

Is it possible that UBI is inevitable? Machine learning is just getting started at making many jobs redundant, sooner or later it will explode. Yes, new jobs will be created too, but it's hard to imagine they will be on par with the amount lost. Those new jobs will most likely require a high level of education.

A massive wage gap and extreme poverty seems inevitable without UBI. In my personal utopian vision, I see us transitioning from a working culture to a learning culture, where personal growth is the goal.

I'm with you all the way on drug policy and prison reform. Addiction is an illness, not a crime. There's no such thing as good and evil, just cause and effect.

I would think the law is more concerned that the UK version of the service, is being paid for by a UK account registered at a UK address, and paying UK fees. It's still being distributed to the UK as far as every financial transaction is concerned.

But I see your point, it's a license issue. I guess Netflix's lawyers should sharpen their pencils, because what you described is already happening, because despite their best efforts, the VPN's have managed to remain ahead.

This is what I eventually had to do. Finding it was tough though, as the navigation was also in Arabic.

I honestly don't think it is a complicated problem to solve when it comes to paid services. I'm making an assumption here, but I imagine as a matter of policy, every bank keeps on record if a bank account is local or foreign owned. And I'm also making an assumption that it wouldn't be a big reach for banks to share that information with payment services.

Following that, if you're using a local UK bank account, you should be able to access UK structured services. Yes, I'm sure it's not as simple as that, but I can't see such a system requiring a radical overhaul of how services are distributed. Of course dual passport holders will be net winners, but no system is perfect, and I can't imagine many people going to the trouble of getting a US passport just to watch reruns of The Sopranos.

I was totally unaware of that, thank you, have an uptick!

The number of people working abroad globally is set to grow to over a hundred million in the next couple of years. I'd hardly call that niche, especially when that number looks set to continue climbing - especially when you also take into account the boom in remote work.

I'd call it pretty short-sighted to not see that as an ever increasing problem. I'd also posit that a solution wouldn't take a colossal amount of resources to solve in most cases.

You don't know the half of it. When they held the Asian cup, they were so concerned with the stadiums looking empty, they forced laborers to go and fill the seats. Problem is that many legitimate ticket holders were then denied entry! Of course people got angry about that, so the police saw fit to start administering beatings to people.

Now image that scenario with drunken football hooligans instead!

Netflix, like countless other online services, is not built for global citizens - people that work in different countries to their own.

I am a British born expat, living in Qatar, so of course I want to watch the UK orientated Netflix programming and not the Arabic or Hindi. I have a UK TV license but of course, I can't watch UK TV from Qatar. Trying to pay for things online is frequently a nightmare as many companies won't take payment from a UK card unless it's from a UK IP. Same trying to pay tax on my US houses, also some websites don't even let you connect to them unless you use a US IP address! Google rightly defaults to Arabic if you're not logged in, that's fine, but even they don't provide a simple way to change the language to English! Similar with Spotify, same with Apple music. Whatsapp voice calls are blocked in Qatar.

All of these problems and many more are bypassed with a good VPN. It amazes me how few services ever take into consideration that people don't always live and work in their country of origin. If VPN's are clamped down on it's going to make life difficult for tens of millions of people. VPN's are actually VITAL in many situations.

I live in Qatar, and the Qataris are notorious for finding ways to avoid paying their bills, delaying payment for extremely long periods, or asking for unreasonable reductions. Claiming something is wrong or faulty is a common tactic, another one is to substantially expand the scope of a project, and then refuse to pay when the project inevitably runs over the original deadline.

Akbar Al Baker pulled similar cons with the construction of Doha airport, demanding the project be accelerated but refusing to pay for the extra work that would be involved. Bechtel and Lindner/ Depa Interiors are two companies that spring to mind. They also suffered due to the erratic and insanely inefficient bureaucracy that is endemic in Qatar - 60-70% of Qataris "Work" in government jobs.

Similar stories can be heard of tower construction in Qatar. Empty and unfinished towers littler the country due the Qataris failing to pay their dues to construction companies. This article superficially covers it: https://www.constructionweekonline.com/business/article-3775...

"In a grim sense war is just another game."

Strange game, the only winning move is not to play.

I think I remember being told that pilots needed ten years flying experience before they were even allowed to attempt this landing. That can't be a pleasant first-attempt at all.

I can imagine it must have been an incredible site from the ground.

I wonder if that landing is in the new Microsoft Flight Simulator?

True story:

My Dad flew with BA and once a year (until the age of 25), I could get an annual free flight with him. For my last free trip we went to Hong Kong and Tim Lancaster was piloting, so I got to meet him - enjoyably, everyone affectionately knew him as 'Tim out the window'. He gave me a harrowing account of the whole experience, worst of all was trying to tilt his head backwards so he could breathe.

Also interestingly, as we were approaching to land in HK, we suddenly started gaining altitude again and ended up doing a lap round the island because, "The runway was busy". Tim later confessed to me that he'd hit the wrong button and withdrew the approach flaps.

They also regaled me with stories of the old HK landing strip that involved flying so low through the city, you could see into people's rooms, shortly before banking hard to the right when you saw a giant chequer board on the side of a mountain, and landing.

I then spend a week going out every night in Hong Kong city with several plane loads of Airline Stewardesses. That's another story, but suffice to say, I was very lucky 24 year old boy.

I'm afraid I don't have anything insightful to add, but I can say that was a strikingly good read!

Anecdotally, I've had covid 19 and I hate to say it, but it is taking me longer to gather my thoughts at present. My ability to sum up the correct word I need seems to have really suffered.

I understand tiredness is a longer term effect of covid, so I'm hoping it's that.

I didn't suffer any breathing difficulties, though I was told my viral count (I think they called it that) was very high. Also, my short sightedness seems to have noticeably got worse.

As I said, this is entirely anecdotal. However, I noticed these differences even before I read this article. I am a little worried.

Interesting, thank you.

This is going to sound silly to most people, but I've been suffering from Tinnitus for a long time. This technique won't cure it but it certainly brings relief for me, to the point where I can ignore it.

When my Tinnitus is particularly piercing, I imagine it as a radiant bright white line in my head. I then mentally begin to reduce the radiance of the light until it is gone. This dulls the sound immensely, I'm still aware of it but it no longer hinders me.

For bonus points, I use a similar technique for getting rid of ear worms. In that case, I mentally put the song into a wooden box, close the lid and let it fall into the sea. Works every time.

Thank you! I've tried to follow three.js's own tutorials, and slip into coma every time. These are a vast improvement!