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There is a reason why I never give money to beggars.

Luckily you rarely see them here and if you do, they usually have a dog with them, trying to get people to sympathize with the poor animal. But owning a dog means he has to buy food for it and there is a tax on holding a dog. So it cannot be that bad.

I'm all up for people playing music in a pedestrian area or a mall or acrobats doing tricks. They actually work for their money. But simple holding a hand out with a torn piece of cardboard saying "Homeless, need money" simply won't do.

For a while a group of homeless people were loitering around a supermarket here, together with their inevitable dogs. From the talks they had with each other (always with a bottle of beer in their hands), you could gather that they are even proud of their lifestyle and consider it kinda cool to live out in the open, getting your money from bottle deposits of returnable bottles other people threw away.

We live in a country, where "poverty" means you have to shop at Aldi, Lidl and other discounters and cannot afford original Nike or Adidas shoes for your kids. Sure, hurts your pride but nobody's forced to live on the street here and nobody's starving and our social system even considers a TV or an internet connection part of your basic needs by now.

So why should I give money to beggars here?

Dealing with beggars is tougher in other countries, though, mainly in Southern Europe. Like in Italy, where groups of elderly women in black clothing mob you at any tourist sight, faking to be crying their eyes out. Would be touching, if you wouldn't know they're organized in gangs...
 
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You'd be surprised, but beggars make a hell of a lot more money than a person living off a minimum wage job or social assistance ... anywhere in the world. And they don't even get taxed for it, because they're considered gifts. I forget where I saw it, but there was a TV show that showed the life of a common beggar on a Los Angeles strip. The guy had a convertible Mercedes and a pretty nice big house. Sure, he had to wear dirty nasty shit to work and try to wash people's windshield's off with dirty water all day ... but damn. A merc and a house in LA? Who wouldn't want that?

They play off on people's sympathy, but they probably make a lot more money than you do, just from begging.
 
Topgearfanatic said:
Make your head hurt.
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Awesome. Totally.

MacGuffin said:
There is a reason why I never give money to beggars.
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You're so empathic for putting that in so many words. In Helsinki this scourge has also hit the population. Everyone hates them, but for reasons of common decency or whatever, they can't be gotten rid of.

You know, I'm not a racist and I generally love people. But with these things scattered among the streets, I can't not be tempted to employ a huge oven and..
 
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Don't know if it's a harmonized law across the EU but our government expell beggars on reasons that they cannot maintain an honest living. If the police had more free time to go about the town we could get rid of even more beggars.
 
1hp. :D
 
There's a guy in Ireland, of Indian/Middle Eastern descent I'd say, who has severe club foot.

I was on O'Connell Street in Dublin a couple of months ago and he was sitting right there, near the Spire.
Then a week or so later I was on O'Connell St. in Limerick, and there he was. Same sign and everything.

He's been spotted in Cork aswell.

He must be doing alright if he can afford the commute.
 
http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/10/13/father-son-team-launch-balloon-with-hd-camera-iphone-into-space/

Father-Son Team Launch Balloon With HD Camera, iPhone Into Space



Apparently fishing just doesn't cut it anymore.

In one of the coolest amateur science experiments NewsFeed has come across, a father-and-son team, and others from the ?Brooklyn Space Program,? launched a weather balloon into the stratosphere along with an HD video camera that captured virtually the entire flight. The team placed some hand-warmers inside a specially built insulated capsule that held the camera and an iPhone, which, through its GPS capabilities, allowed the team to track it down once it landed. (See the must-have iPhone apps.)

The team was headed by Luke Geissbuhler and his 7-year-old son Max, who found the camera about 30 miles from the launch site in upstate New York. At its peak, the balloon reached an altitude of about 100,000 feet and battled 100-m.p.h. winds before it burst, sending the camera and iPhone hurtling back to earth at rates of 150 m.p.h. A specially designed parachute attached to the capsule eventually slowed it to about 15 m.p.h. Note to Max's school: if there's a science fair this year, give this guy the top prize.



Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/10/13...th-hd-camera-iphone-into-space/#ixzz12hVWHaBA
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http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/17/early-distributed-co.html

Ealry video showing distributed computing.
 
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So the printer beat the race car by printing a model version of the track that was engineered to be just small enough to do it? Why not make it 1/2 the size and really pummel the Atom into the ground? Or maybe make it 10x as big and then even I could beat the printer.

More staged than Top Gear... :rolleyes:
 
Well,I'm pretty sure the whole marketing department would be fired if they had lost. Interesting way to show speed and better than their usual ads, so I'm happy.
 
 
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