Country music today is basically what rock 'n' roll was in the 70s (more true of the Eagles, CCR or Tom Petty than Zep, but I digress). So it wouldn't surprise me if similar music has similar fan-bases.
Out of curiosity: if you ignore stats, then why do you think deterrence does work? Can you show any case where more severe punishments have resulted in less crime?
I'm going to second this with a caveat: don't go into research if the only you're interested in is money. If you really love research for its own sake, then there are still plenty of opportunities. Get a good PhD adviser and do a bit of work to prove yourself, then you can pretty much work on whatever projects interest you. If you can work on things you find rewarding, travel to conferences and have the respect of your peers, what more do you want in life?
Spending your time chasing the next Big Thing that going to make Lots Of Money is the fast track for a mid-life crisis.
Microsoft's problem is that they spent billions developing a product, so they need to show some return on that investment. Corporations can't just maintain status quo, they need to grow to attract investors. How do you grow once your product is installed on 99% of computers in the world? That's why Microsoft is desperately trying to expand into other markets, like Zune and Xbox. That's why they NEED Vista to generate more revenue that XP.
A women who wants you to give up on your dreams so that she can have a house full of stuff doesn't seem very supportive or genuine. You sound very bitter and perhaps envious, why is that? BTW, I don't live off my parents by a long shot and I've already spelled out how I afford such trips elsewhere in this thread. It takes planning, but anyone can do it.
Or you could work as a contractor or otherwise self employed. Or you could work in academia. Or be good enough at your job that they're willing to give you 4 to 5 weeks of time off a year (there's nothing in that formula that says the vacation time is paid). Most of those options require not working for Fortune 500 companies, but again, I count that as a good thing.
Seriously, it's doable. I do it. I just got back from a month in Peru. If you want to live that way, you just stop coming up with excuses and start coming up with plans.
Simple. I put away about $300 a month into the "short term vacation fund", which is about what I would have spent on a car each month (payments+insurance+gas+maintenance). Right there is enough to take off a month once a year and go to someplace interesting. On top of that, I put my tax return each year into "long term vacation fund" along with about $100 a month, which is what I would have spent on video games and cell phones. That's enough for a year long vacation once every five years; so far I've done two of these. At some point I'll change the long term vacation fund into a bluewater sailing yacht fund, but that's another story.
If you're finished with college and don't have kids, saving $400 a month shouldn't be a real problem. The AC basically has it right, though, about only having enough possessions to fill a studio apartment. My material possessions don't even come close to filling up my apartment, but that's a good thing.
Honestly, different strokes for different folks. Your option 3 sounds really sad and boring to me. And option 4 needs a few edits like:
materiallistic, petty women don't like that nonsense
you feel an inexplicable need to take six months off to see the world and appreciate life
Myself, I'm basically on the option 2 path with no student loans (I'm smart, there were scholarships) and no car at all (I live in a city with decent public transportation). Have fun scrapping leaves out of the gutter while I'm learning how to surf in Costa Rica. And keep telling yourself that life will be good when you retire at 65. I'm sure that you'll still be able to backpack through Nepal at that age. Having contentment be based on factors that are out of your control, like the price of your house and retirement account, seems like a brilliant plan.
You have an excellent point about credulity and gullibility. I want to point out that neither lowers fitness in the Darwin sense. Religious and uneducated people reproduce much more than the educated and atheists. Its amusing, but evolution is favoring those who don't believe in it.
If you never learned calculus or any higher maths, how do you know that you would have never used them? Math is used for all kinds of research in history: population extrapolations, statistical correlations, dynamic modeling, hypothesis testing, etc.
You're like a blind person who has found ways to cope with what you're missing, but that doesn't mean that you wouldn't benefit from sight.
Before too long, insurance companies are going to start buying all of the data that's been gathered from those grocercy store shopping cards. Don't eat enough vegetables? Raise your rate. Eat too much red meat? Coverage denied because of an undisclosed risk. Orwell was an optimist.
I was paraphrasing what Jill Tarter said at an ASP conference that I was at a few years back. Obviously there is going to a variety of expectations and how they state those expectations will be different depending of the audience.
The 'brightest minds' don't really think that radio is the best way to communicate, its just that radio is the only thing that we can listen to. Maybe aliens would communicate with subspace tachyons technobabble emissions, but we can't really listen for those. I doubt anyone really thinks that our current search for extraterrestrial intelligence has a 'fair percentage chance' of success, but you have to start somewhere.
Congressmen do not read their emails. *maybe* a staffer will read the email and send a form response. But if you think sending emails makes a difference, then you're living in a fantasy land. Campaign donations can make a difference, but only if you making large enough contributions to get invited to some of their fundraising dinners and get some face time. If your congressman does not recognize you on sight, your not making any difference in their policy decisions.
It's not the whole MST3K crew, but RiffTrax have been around for a while and are extra awesome because they finally give the treatment to mainstream movies.
If this is the case, then they have some terrible supply chain problems. That kind of turn around time has been unacceptable for decades. At the very least, they should be able to overtime order the parts each day and ship out the laptops in 48 hrs or less.
Now that you mention it, one thing that should set off the fraud alarm is the 4-6 weeks delivery time. That's a eon in terms of modern service, but a long enough time to collect a lot of orders before anyone expects to receive their product.
It's a neat looking laptop, but info on the website is pretty scarce. For instance, what kind of battery life can I expect? Is it as upgradeable as normal laptop (eg. HDD and RAM)?
It's interesting that he uses malleability as an argument against videogames being art. 90% of games are highly linear. Look at Mario: you either rescue the princess or you just stand there. Even take something like Deus Ex, which is praised for its non-linear story line. It still just boils down to three endings and there's not much difference between those endings, other that some text and maybe a different cut-scene.
Basically I'm saying that almost every game ever made follows the model that you're talking about, where the outcome is inevitable.
Slashdot Mirror
HAHA, did you actually click on the "Hillary Dildo Bushwacker" link?
Country music today is basically what rock 'n' roll was in the 70s (more true of the Eagles, CCR or Tom Petty than Zep, but I digress). So it wouldn't surprise me if similar music has similar fan-bases.
Out of curiosity: if you ignore stats, then why do you think deterrence does work? Can you show any case where more severe punishments have resulted in less crime?
There are solid scientific reasons to believe that we are unique. Rare Earth Hypothesis
To sell more toys.
Spending your time chasing the next Big Thing that going to make Lots Of Money is the fast track for a mid-life crisis.
Microsoft's problem is that they spent billions developing a product, so they need to show some return on that investment. Corporations can't just maintain status quo, they need to grow to attract investors. How do you grow once your product is installed on 99% of computers in the world? That's why Microsoft is desperately trying to expand into other markets, like Zune and Xbox. That's why they NEED Vista to generate more revenue that XP.
A women who wants you to give up on your dreams so that she can have a house full of stuff doesn't seem very supportive or genuine. You sound very bitter and perhaps envious, why is that? BTW, I don't live off my parents by a long shot and I've already spelled out how I afford such trips elsewhere in this thread. It takes planning, but anyone can do it.
Seriously, it's doable. I do it. I just got back from a month in Peru. If you want to live that way, you just stop coming up with excuses and start coming up with plans.
If you're finished with college and don't have kids, saving $400 a month shouldn't be a real problem. The AC basically has it right, though, about only having enough possessions to fill a studio apartment. My material possessions don't even come close to filling up my apartment, but that's a good thing.
materiallistic, petty women don't like that nonsense
you feel an inexplicable need to take six months off to see the world and appreciate life
Myself, I'm basically on the option 2 path with no student loans (I'm smart, there were scholarships) and no car at all (I live in a city with decent public transportation). Have fun scrapping leaves out of the gutter while I'm learning how to surf in Costa Rica. And keep telling yourself that life will be good when you retire at 65. I'm sure that you'll still be able to backpack through Nepal at that age. Having contentment be based on factors that are out of your control, like the price of your house and retirement account, seems like a brilliant plan.
You have an excellent point about credulity and gullibility. I want to point out that neither lowers fitness in the Darwin sense. Religious and uneducated people reproduce much more than the educated and atheists. Its amusing, but evolution is favoring those who don't believe in it.
If you never learned calculus or any higher maths, how do you know that you would have never used them? Math is used for all kinds of research in history: population extrapolations, statistical correlations, dynamic modeling, hypothesis testing, etc.
You're like a blind person who has found ways to cope with what you're missing, but that doesn't mean that you wouldn't benefit from sight.
Before too long, insurance companies are going to start buying all of the data that's been gathered from those grocercy store shopping cards. Don't eat enough vegetables? Raise your rate. Eat too much red meat? Coverage denied because of an undisclosed risk. Orwell was an optimist.
I was paraphrasing what Jill Tarter said at an ASP conference that I was at a few years back. Obviously there is going to a variety of expectations and how they state those expectations will be different depending of the audience.
The 'brightest minds' don't really think that radio is the best way to communicate, its just that radio is the only thing that we can listen to. Maybe aliens would communicate with subspace tachyons technobabble emissions, but we can't really listen for those. I doubt anyone really thinks that our current search for extraterrestrial intelligence has a 'fair percentage chance' of success, but you have to start somewhere.
The Rare Earth Hypothesis is that microbial life is common, complex life is uncommon and 'intelligent' life is unique to earth.
Congressmen do not read their emails. *maybe* a staffer will read the email and send a form response. But if you think sending emails makes a difference, then you're living in a fantasy land. Campaign donations can make a difference, but only if you making large enough contributions to get invited to some of their fundraising dinners and get some face time. If your congressman does not recognize you on sight, your not making any difference in their policy decisions.
For example at the University of Washington patent revenue is 24% of funding and grants and contracts are about 29% of revenue. Guess which departments are bringing in those patents, grants and contracts? Not art history and communications.
It's not the whole MST3K crew, but RiffTrax have been around for a while and are extra awesome because they finally give the treatment to mainstream movies.
By 'upgrade' I meant AFTER purchase. That's the usual parlance.
Also their accessories page is a bunch of ads from other vendors, most not in English. Hardly reassuring.
If this is the case, then they have some terrible supply chain problems. That kind of turn around time has been unacceptable for decades. At the very least, they should be able to overtime order the parts each day and ship out the laptops in 48 hrs or less.
Now that you mention it, one thing that should set off the fraud alarm is the 4-6 weeks delivery time. That's a eon in terms of modern service, but a long enough time to collect a lot of orders before anyone expects to receive their product.
It's a neat looking laptop, but info on the website is pretty scarce. For instance, what kind of battery life can I expect? Is it as upgradeable as normal laptop (eg. HDD and RAM)?
It's interesting that he uses malleability as an argument against videogames being art. 90% of games are highly linear. Look at Mario: you either rescue the princess or you just stand there. Even take something like Deus Ex, which is praised for its non-linear story line. It still just boils down to three endings and there's not much difference between those endings, other that some text and maybe a different cut-scene.
Basically I'm saying that almost every game ever made follows the model that you're talking about, where the outcome is inevitable.