Corinthian's comments

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!