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[hops]

In the Netherlands,  prisoners convicted to long term imprisonments even have a right to have a 'social worker' tend to their sexual needs once every so often.
It's also available for certain chronically ill or disabled people. It's the only form of prostitution for which the workers classify as healthcare professionals, not as prostitutes.

Old post, but of course it's "Netherlands"

* Cinder snickers

[Sergarr]

So apparently farming is very profitable, by normal people's standards (143,158$ per year is not chump change), while being effectively a part-time job (the author complains about it not being enough, but that article was from 2003, clearly outdated by now).

And they still get government subsidies for that?

[smjjames]

So apparently farming is very profitable, by normal people's standards (143,158$ per year is not chump change), while being effectively a part-time job (the author complains about it not being enough, but that article was from 2003, clearly outdated by now).

And they still get government subsidies for that?

I think that analysis is WITH government subsidies, though it doesn't seem to include them in the calculations, not that I can tell. In any case, the subsidies are largely to keep food costs down.

[Kot]

Compare less developed countries (Like, well, Poland) and you'll understand. The government subsidies let them get to the point of mechanization and automatization that it's only a part-time job now. Upgrading everything to get to that point is insanely expensive and doesn't seem like it's included.

[TempAcc]

The land and structure you need to set up a profitable farm requires significant initial investment, yes, so while its profitable and essentialy a part time job once you get it going, its not something the average joe can just jump into. Farming machines are expensive, yo.

[EnigmaticHat]

So apparently farming is very profitable, by normal people's standards (143,158$ per year is not chump change), while being effectively a part-time job (the author complains about it not being enough, but that article was from 2003, clearly outdated by now).

And they still get government subsidies for that?

The government subsidies aren't about helping farmers, they're about two things.

First of all, the US is one of very few countries on Earth that exports food rather than importing it, and its largely because of the subsidies.  This is part of our continuing quest to be able to fight every single other country at the same time.

Its also a relic from the Bush era where we wanted to make ethenol to reduce our reliance on foreign oil.  That's why so much of it is corn.  In terms of food production the corn subsidies are terrible and a contributing factor to American nutrition being messed up.  But the corn subsidies are perfect if you want to make ethenol.  Of course, it would be cheaper to just harvest our untapped oil reserves (and damn if the Bush administration didn't give a poop about the environment).  I guess if we don't harvest our oil reserves and buy everyone elses', when it all runs out we'll be the last oil producing country standing?  See above point about wanting to be able to fight the whole world.

[Baffler]

The strategic reason exists but they actually are, in part, about helping farmers. The government gives farmers money to grow this, or to not grow that again, or even to leave their field fallow, as a means of managing commodity prices and preventing shortage/oversupply. Farmers have to sell their crop after all, and if prices fall too low paying rent (for the ~1.3 million or so US farmers who don't own the land they work) or buying the things they need to do it again next year can be problematic. And I don't think I have to explain what happens if prices get too high.

[milo christiansen]

Today I had two major WTFs, each more annoying than the last...

First my brand new XBox One controller refused to work properly via bluetooth, despite the fact that it works perfectly when connected via USB (it seems I need to update windows 10, kinda hard to do with no internet...)

Then I get to the library and start downloading the stuff I need and my connection drops for no reason I can divine. I go to the front desk and ask what is going on (can you reboot the router please?), and the librarian asks if I am using a PC named "shuttle". Well, yes. Why? "Oh, the tech guy just blocked it because it has a virus" Uhmmm... I run Linux, no virus. They get the tech guy on the phone, and he says "I detected a UDP flood attack coming from your computer". Now some light dawns on the problem! I am running Deluge (a bittorrent client). Bittorrent uses UDP, and creates many connections on semi-random ports, easy to confuse with a UDP flood attack. Trying to explain to the guy that it's not really an attack is probably futile, so I guess I'll just have to configure Deluge to use specific ports instead of random...

[Shadowlord]

Why are you trying to use butternut in a library, I mean, come on.

[Rolan7]

Still, I wonder if the SysAdmin identifying it as an UDP attack was casual laziness or practiced diplomacy.

[Shadowlord]

It's not that dissimilar, iirc.

[milo christiansen]

Why are you trying to use butternut in a library, I mean, come on.

Because that is the only place I have net access? It's cheaper to drive ~13 miles (one way) to the local library twice a week then it is to buy net access for our house (this is assuming we could even get it at our place, which is doubtful due to lots of tall trees between us and the antenna).

I suppose I'll just have to work around the issue somehow (VPN?), not using BT is simply not an option.

It's not that dissimilar, iirc.

I did some googling and it looks like erroneous identification of BT traffic as a UDP flood is not at all unheard of...

[Shadowlord]

Because the principle it works by is "you will send packets to dozens of ips simultaneously while being flooded by even more packets from even more ips, which will continue flooding your ip for a good while even after you shut the program down."

[Sirus]

One of these days I'll learn never to discuss politics with strangers. Or more preferably, anyone.

Another truck driver and I were waiting to get some paperwork processed. The dude said something about how ridiculous it was that all the Democrats were throwing tantrums over how Trump won the election.
I, in a temporary fit of insanity, decided to play the middle road and remarked that this election season had been so ugly, that if Hillary had won instead then the Republicans would likely be doing the same thing, and that it was a damn shame that tensions were running so high.
His immediate response was that if Hillary had won, then he and I (both white males, which I have the unfortunate feeling was the point he was trying to make) would have chains around our necks at this very moment. He then went into some sort of rant about Nelson Mandela and gang-style executions, then finished by saying that Hillary should be thrown in jail for life and that Obama had ruined this country and should be killed.

All I could do at that point was just sort of nod along, because screw trying to get into a debate with something like that.

[Shadowlord]

Yikes.