US Bond Rates (US Debt) is currently under inflation. Really that means countries are buying US dollars at a loss to them. In a global recession like this, the whole world is screwed. The US is strong enough to endure this. The idea of China is going to cash in all at once is ludicrous because if the US economy is killed so is China's.
What people don't seem to realize, we are in a global recession, during these recessions most of the normal rules of economics are messed up.
Recession isn't a lack of money but the lack of moving it around. So... 1. The Rich will hoard all their money they make. They will not start investing it out (trickle down) until the economy improves, right now many investments are too risky so they will hold on to their profits, vs using it towards growth.
2. Putting money in Low Yield but Safe investments. (High US debt,) US Bonds are the safest place to put your money... Yes at the rates you will loose money, but you will loose it at a slower rate then other investments.
3. Increased Crime, People who do not have an income will get what they want at any costs, also the rich who do have what they want will try every trick in the book to prevent too much loss. So more crime happens and the victims (sometimes poor, sometime rich) loose what is theirs, thus making life harder for them.
4. Radical Political Stance. Things have gone wrong. the guys in charge seem to be moderates and doing too little too slowly. Lets try to get someone who will make the trains run on time, and punish the opposition who possibly caused the problem in the first time.
5. Less funding on infrastructure. Things go in disrepair and we cannot benefit as much from it.
What happened with this recession (A very basic explanation/my opinion) is that it was building up for a long time (I would say from the mid 90's) Because between the mid-late 90's-mid 2000's we had a decade of bubbles (false economic success) First we had the y2k fix/internet tech bubble, we had a need to upgrade or redo our infrastructure to handle Y2K, being that a lot of it is just get new stuff, we started to take advantage of the new stuff (Aka Internet) so we had a bubble there, with young kids with Economy 2.0 and sell at a loss and make it up by selling a lot of it. After 2001/2 the infrastructure had been upgraded, and the stupid business models couldn't hold on for that long. So the Tech bubble popped. But at the same time, of the tech bubble popped we got the housing bubble. Like the tech bubble, we got a lot of bad (illegal) business ideas accepted by well known companies. Democrats and Republicans didn't do much to stop it, because citizens are getting the American dream of their own home, and the growth seemed endless. We saw signs of trouble but were ignorant of it because the bubble was keeping us going. After the housing bubble popped, we didn't have a strong bubble to go onto the next step. Thus a Huge recession.
It is a perfect storm that causes a downward spiral, that feeds itself. Unfortunately the only thing that will really fix it, is time. At some point there will some new invention or idea that will spur more innovation. The rich will want to expand again, and things will improve. Having this recovery be slow, although it is very painful for a lot of people, is probably a good thing over all. We are building strong fundamentals (which Bush was incorrect when he said that) again, our core values are returning, get rich quick isn't the mantra anymore. So things will slowly get better.
The United States has actually weathered the recession over all a lot better then most other countries.
If you have a class of say 50 students. and their average is 30% and the standard deviation is around 5% So roughly People who got the following grades will get the following... under 20% F 25% D 30% C 35% B 40%+ A
Being that the grades are Low we can expect that the material taught / tested was very difficult (too difficult, for example if you try to teach second graders algebra, where they can barely do addition and subtraction, and they are just learning multiply and divide. You will probably find a few kids who can get a handle on it to do a decent job, but most of the kids will making mistakes and not fully getting it. However these kids will be doing a lot of practice with addition and subtraction multiplication and division and will probably learn this much better)
As for B. Statistics based on class size will give a margin of error. For normal class sizes we can expect to see margins of errors of 5% - 10% So Ok the A student going to an other class is a B student. However, if the teacher of one class teaches his class very easy vs. the other one who teaches it hard, will have the same effect.
How many schools measure in details their expenditures and success based on expenditures.
A school will keep the Math textbooks for an other 5 years, Algebra hasn't changed much, new books is just wasting money, just so kids have a shiny new textbook.
How much of the school bus seats are utilized when transporting kids, could you adjust your routs to pick up more kids with less buses.
Which classes can be taught with more kids and what classes are really more successful with smaller class sizes.
Unfortunately these improvements get spit out to the media like the following. Not giving our kids the latest text books. (We are only holding off on textbooks on material that isn't that different from year to year) Reducing the transportation (We are still picking up your kids, we are just making them fill up the buses.) Increasing Class sizes (We are increasing class sizes in classes that don't effect their education, as they tend not to need as much one on one in those topics)
How much money can we save and put towards people who do good work, if we stop getting these political groups twisting the facts around, and actually work towards more efficient schools, where we get optimal education per dollar.
More to the point. How easy for citizens in the school district to volunteer their time to help teach children in these schools? I would love to take my lunch hour off, and teach a math, or computer programming class, or lead an after school activity...
But for a Non-Union person to work for free. I am just opening a can of worms. I mean just imagine a Teachers strike where the learned citizens come in and educate the kids during this time. Journalists teaching English and History, Engineers teaching Math and Science, MD's and Nurses teaching Health and Fitness, Graphic Designers and Local Musicians teaching Art and Music... Madness I tell you Madness, the would will just go to hell, during this strike if that was allowed to happen.
There is a HUGE amount of ports of Open Source Apps for windows.
With windows you allowing yourself to purchase if needed that closed source tool that will really help (whatever class) that there isn't an open source (or Linux Port) software version. Also schools have a library of old software that they can run on Windows too.
Windows does have tools to automatically update itself. Also for a lot of software you can use a Schedule Task to update other software... But really today what are kids going to be using the computer for.
What do you want in a grading system? All schools have different rules for grading some systems can handle some others do not. We have the traditional College Grading Method, that in general statistically automatically curves the grades. Where your final grade is based on the standard deviation from the average. So in a class the average grade was 30% and most students got around that 30% you happen to get a 40% you may have just aced that class. I actually prefer this method, this allows the teacher to teach harder stuff to the students, so the easier concepts get a lot more practice and sink in better. However colleges seem to dislike the High 2.0's which this method would most likely have the bulk to f the students get. There is also talk about the entire class failing the test on purpose so they all get better grades... However I have heard the talk before however I have never saw it happen, because there is always a good handful of kids, who just don't trust the others, so they will study and do their best.
We have Letter Grades, A, B, C, D, (E/F) then we need to determine if A is the Top or A+ is the top. Does F+ allow you to pass, or just pisses off the student. We have Percentages... What percentage is passing... 50% 60% 65%? Do you round up or round down? How about weighted graded? Some grades count for more then other grades. We got the Check no Check type of grading. We have Drop your Lowest Grade. We got extra credit scores that can boost your grade above maximum... Don't forget the end of the semester Mom Yelling at the teacher and principal to turn that F to a C grade. How about the ability to scan the paper back into the system so there is a full audit, to prove to Angry Mom, that her kid is an idiot.
There should be a movie about people living in poverty and bankrupt governments and coprorations due to the massive capital damage movie heroes occur on cities every year.
DC, LA, and NYC will probably need to be rebuilt every 6 months.
I mean 9/11 was considered a major tragedy, the people who caused the damage are considered as some of our most evil people living in the world. But a couple of movie comic book hero's cause wide mass destruction and we parade them as heroes!!!
Because every time something nuclear comes up, there is a slew of OH MY GOD NUCLEAR BAD!!! people. Who is not willing to compare its safety record, with fossil fuels (It best alternative).
I am not touting the Nuclear Energy is Clean, Safe, too Cheap to meter. However right now the effects of Fossil fuels is worse then the effect of nuclear energy.
We should expand our Nuclear Energy usage. At the same time we need a strong set of regulations involved and enforced to make sure Nuclear Energy stays safe. Using any mistake that goes on as a lesson learn to make it safer.
I think this could be modified to detect bugs on the plant. Right now we are using pesticides or bio-engineering plants to produce their own. But if we can get Real time monitoring of each plant we may be able to to make agriculture from a losing preventative maintenance to an effective reactive maintenance. If we know where the bugs are, we could embed lasers onto robotic farm equipment and zap the bugs dead without having to use chemicals.
They should have tried to operate a more reputable site.
There are so many people being apologetic for software piracy. But we should all be working hard on fighting software piracy, and encouraging companies to release their DRM, as the general community is trying to keep piracy at bay too.
If you find that a file share site, it being widely used for piracy, then we should be good citizens and try to get them to stop. Not just turn a blind eye, or worse embrace it. Encourage legal use of the site.
Why do companies put DRM on their software, why does your business software needs you to keep a list of keys. It is because the company who put risk into making that product wants to get paid for use of their software. If we find the general culture is about doing the right thing and not pirating software, they will be more willing to drop DRM and other blocks, because it is costing them money to make their product secure from pirates.
Anti-Piracy and Free Software should go hand in hand. If you want the expansion of Free as in speech software, then you need to make sure the closed source programs are not available in Free as in Beer. Fostering a culture of I do not agree with that companies policies, so I will get a Free Open Source replacement. Also if the Open Source Community is big on Anti-Piracy (AKA Respect your competitors licenses as well) they will begin to respect yours as well.
When we reach physical limits, we can say this is the best we are going to make it. But it isn't saying we cant find a cheaper, faster, lighter, smaller, more efficient invention. We just can't do better, but we can match it.
Also a lot of inventions have reached good enough and don't need major fixes.
Lets take leather. It is still a popular product. It is very tough, it is flexible, it is light, and durable, insulates heat well. We had leather for thousands of years, we have improved on the process of making it, but still it is leather that people thousands of years ago will still recognize it.
We have made materials that can replace leather in some areas, but leather is still an important product.
It isn't quite my style of coding to do it that way but I can see how a 1.5 GB binary can be made. If you are trying to put more work on the CPU and less work on the Database, a lot of the configuration settings and master tables that don't get updated too often will probably be hard coded in the code.
Oh god! it is different. It is D I F F E R E N T ! ! ! Bad! Bad! Bad! Must make it look like before! Different is Bad. (Starts rocking back and forth) Windows 7 UI is Soo much better...
Here is the typical Slashdot Responce in 5 years with a new version of windows... Oh god! it is different. It is D I F F E R E N T ! ! ! Bad! Bad! Bad! Must make it look like before! Different is Bad. (Starts rocking back and forth) Windows 8 UI is Soo much better...
I think it is more to the issue, of more people getting off dial-up. For example my parents just last year got off dial up and to broad band (only 5 mbs too) but from 56k to 5mbs. raises the average up. that I get about 15mbs from my cable modem in my area, then you have the faster services that some people choose that offer 20+ mbs... so it adjusts the averages.
I really hate how the media white washes the Math for us. using Percentages and Averages... They really need to give us the average, and the standard deviation, that will at least give us a clear picture of a summary of the data.
The average american Internet speed is 10mbs, with a standard deviation of 5 mbs. Tells me far more about how it is used.
While you are not at-fault... However there are things you can do as humans to avoid such accidents. Just last week, I was driving down the highway and traffic started to slow down. So I started to slow down, and I saw the person in the car behind me, wasn't making eye contact with my car, so I began to swerve in the breakdown lane until she saw that something was happening, a surprised look on her face and a quick slowdown, no accident, however if she didn't pay attention for a second or so longer she would have hit me, if I wasn't paying attention.
They are punished. The problem is Most Medical Software is Mizerably out of date. The new stuff that comes out is still a decade behind what other industries have. And if you look at the list the core of the problems isn't as much people hacking the network (there are a few occurances) but mostly due to work flow processes that no one has the guts to change. Where things are printed on paper. The paper get lost and found by someone else. It is very hard to explain to MD's how email is insecure...
Oddly enough to help improve this problem Medical Records need to be able to share much easier. Over establish secure channels, and less with paper moving, faxing, scanning and emailing...
Slashdot Mirror
US Bond Rates (US Debt) is currently under inflation. Really that means countries are buying US dollars at a loss to them. In a global recession like this, the whole world is screwed. The US is strong enough to endure this. The idea of China is going to cash in all at once is ludicrous because if the US economy is killed so is China's.
What people don't seem to realize, we are in a global recession, during these recessions most of the normal rules of economics are messed up.
Recession isn't a lack of money but the lack of moving it around. So...
1. The Rich will hoard all their money they make. They will not start investing it out (trickle down) until the economy improves, right now many investments are too risky so they will hold on to their profits, vs using it towards growth.
2. Putting money in Low Yield but Safe investments. (High US debt,) US Bonds are the safest place to put your money... Yes at the rates you will loose money, but you will loose it at a slower rate then other investments.
3. Increased Crime, People who do not have an income will get what they want at any costs, also the rich who do have what they want will try every trick in the book to prevent too much loss. So more crime happens and the victims (sometimes poor, sometime rich) loose what is theirs, thus making life harder for them.
4. Radical Political Stance. Things have gone wrong. the guys in charge seem to be moderates and doing too little too slowly. Lets try to get someone who will make the trains run on time, and punish the opposition who possibly caused the problem in the first time.
5. Less funding on infrastructure. Things go in disrepair and we cannot benefit as much from it.
What happened with this recession (A very basic explanation/my opinion) is that it was building up for a long time (I would say from the mid 90's) Because between the mid-late 90's-mid 2000's we had a decade of bubbles (false economic success) First we had the y2k fix/internet tech bubble, we had a need to upgrade or redo our infrastructure to handle Y2K, being that a lot of it is just get new stuff, we started to take advantage of the new stuff (Aka Internet) so we had a bubble there, with young kids with Economy 2.0 and sell at a loss and make it up by selling a lot of it. After 2001/2 the infrastructure had been upgraded, and the stupid business models couldn't hold on for that long. So the Tech bubble popped. But at the same time, of the tech bubble popped we got the housing bubble. Like the tech bubble, we got a lot of bad (illegal) business ideas accepted by well known companies. Democrats and Republicans didn't do much to stop it, because citizens are getting the American dream of their own home, and the growth seemed endless. We saw signs of trouble but were ignorant of it because the bubble was keeping us going. After the housing bubble popped, we didn't have a strong bubble to go onto the next step. Thus a Huge recession.
It is a perfect storm that causes a downward spiral, that feeds itself. Unfortunately the only thing that will really fix it, is time. At some point there will some new invention or idea that will spur more innovation. The rich will want to expand again, and things will improve. Having this recovery be slow, although it is very painful for a lot of people, is probably a good thing over all. We are building strong fundamentals (which Bush was incorrect when he said that) again, our core values are returning, get rich quick isn't the mantra anymore. So things will slowly get better.
The United States has actually weathered the recession over all a lot better then most other countries.
You haven't taken statistics yet have you?
If you have a class of say 50 students. and their average is 30% and the standard deviation is around 5%
So roughly
People who got the following grades will get the following...
under 20% F
25% D
30% C
35% B
40%+ A
Being that the grades are Low we can expect that the material taught / tested was very difficult (too difficult, for example if you try to teach second graders algebra, where they can barely do addition and subtraction, and they are just learning multiply and divide. You will probably find a few kids who can get a handle on it to do a decent job, but most of the kids will making mistakes and not fully getting it. However these kids will be doing a lot of practice with addition and subtraction multiplication and division and will probably learn this much better)
As for B. Statistics based on class size will give a margin of error. For normal class sizes we can expect to see margins of errors of 5% - 10% So Ok the A student going to an other class is a B student. However, if the teacher of one class teaches his class very easy vs. the other one who teaches it hard, will have the same effect.
How many schools measure in details their expenditures and success based on expenditures.
A school will keep the Math textbooks for an other 5 years, Algebra hasn't changed much, new books is just wasting money, just so kids have a shiny new textbook.
How much of the school bus seats are utilized when transporting kids, could you adjust your routs to pick up more kids with less buses.
Which classes can be taught with more kids and what classes are really more successful with smaller class sizes.
Unfortunately these improvements get spit out to the media like the following.
Not giving our kids the latest text books. (We are only holding off on textbooks on material that isn't that different from year to year)
Reducing the transportation (We are still picking up your kids, we are just making them fill up the buses.)
Increasing Class sizes (We are increasing class sizes in classes that don't effect their education, as they tend not to need as much one on one in those topics)
How much money can we save and put towards people who do good work, if we stop getting these political groups twisting the facts around, and actually work towards more efficient schools, where we get optimal education per dollar.
More to the point. How easy for citizens in the school district to volunteer their time to help teach children in these schools?
I would love to take my lunch hour off, and teach a math, or computer programming class, or lead an after school activity...
But for a Non-Union person to work for free. I am just opening a can of worms. I mean just imagine a Teachers strike where the learned citizens come in and educate the kids during this time. Journalists teaching English and History, Engineers teaching Math and Science, MD's and Nurses teaching Health and Fitness, Graphic Designers and Local Musicians teaching Art and Music... Madness I tell you Madness, the would will just go to hell, during this strike if that was allowed to happen.
There is a HUGE amount of ports of Open Source Apps for windows.
With windows you allowing yourself to purchase if needed that closed source tool that will really help (whatever class) that there isn't an open source (or Linux Port) software version. Also schools have a library of old software that they can run on Windows too.
Windows does have tools to automatically update itself. Also for a lot of software you can use a Schedule Task to update other software... But really today what are kids going to be using the computer for.
Browsing the Internet.
and nothing else.
What do you want in a grading system?
All schools have different rules for grading some systems can handle some others do not.
We have the traditional College Grading Method, that in general statistically automatically curves the grades. Where your final grade is based on the standard deviation from the average. So in a class the average grade was 30% and most students got around that 30% you happen to get a 40% you may have just aced that class. I actually prefer this method, this allows the teacher to teach harder stuff to the students, so the easier concepts get a lot more practice and sink in better. However colleges seem to dislike the High 2.0's which this method would most likely have the bulk to f the students get. There is also talk about the entire class failing the test on purpose so they all get better grades... However I have heard the talk before however I have never saw it happen, because there is always a good handful of kids, who just don't trust the others, so they will study and do their best.
We have Letter Grades, A, B, C, D, (E/F) then we need to determine if A is the Top or A+ is the top. Does F+ allow you to pass, or just pisses off the student.
We have Percentages... What percentage is passing... 50% 60% 65%?
Do you round up or round down?
How about weighted graded? Some grades count for more then other grades.
We got the Check no Check type of grading.
We have Drop your Lowest Grade.
We got extra credit scores that can boost your grade above maximum...
Don't forget the end of the semester Mom Yelling at the teacher and principal to turn that F to a C grade.
How about the ability to scan the paper back into the system so there is a full audit, to prove to Angry Mom, that her kid is an idiot.
There should be a movie about people living in poverty and bankrupt governments and coprorations due to the massive capital damage movie heroes occur on cities every year.
DC, LA, and NYC will probably need to be rebuilt every 6 months.
I mean 9/11 was considered a major tragedy, the people who caused the damage are considered as some of our most evil people living in the world. But a couple of movie comic book hero's cause wide mass destruction and we parade them as heroes!!!
Actually to get a Giant butterfly we will need far more Oxygen in our atmosphere for one to survive.
Because every time something nuclear comes up, there is a slew of OH MY GOD NUCLEAR BAD!!! people. Who is not willing to compare its safety record, with fossil fuels (It best alternative).
I am not touting the Nuclear Energy is Clean, Safe, too Cheap to meter. However right now the effects of Fossil fuels is worse then the effect of nuclear energy.
We should expand our Nuclear Energy usage. At the same time we need a strong set of regulations involved and enforced to make sure Nuclear Energy stays safe. Using any mistake that goes on as a lesson learn to make it safer.
I think this could be modified to detect bugs on the plant. Right now we are using pesticides or bio-engineering plants to produce their own. But if we can get Real time monitoring of each plant we may be able to to make agriculture from a losing preventative maintenance to an effective reactive maintenance. If we know where the bugs are, we could embed lasers onto robotic farm equipment and zap the bugs dead without having to use chemicals.
They will show all the bugs and bacteria that is in meat.
Face it we are very disgusting animals.
They should have tried to operate a more reputable site.
There are so many people being apologetic for software piracy.
But we should all be working hard on fighting software piracy, and encouraging companies to release their DRM, as the general community is trying to keep piracy at bay too.
If you find that a file share site, it being widely used for piracy, then we should be good citizens and try to get them to stop. Not just turn a blind eye, or worse embrace it. Encourage legal use of the site.
Why do companies put DRM on their software, why does your business software needs you to keep a list of keys. It is because the company who put risk into making that product wants to get paid for use of their software. If we find the general culture is about doing the right thing and not pirating software, they will be more willing to drop DRM and other blocks, because it is costing them money to make their product secure from pirates.
Anti-Piracy and Free Software should go hand in hand. If you want the expansion of Free as in speech software, then you need to make sure the closed source programs are not available in Free as in Beer. Fostering a culture of I do not agree with that companies policies, so I will get a Free Open Source replacement. Also if the Open Source Community is big on Anti-Piracy (AKA Respect your competitors licenses as well) they will begin to respect yours as well.
When we reach physical limits, we can say this is the best we are going to make it. But it isn't saying we cant find a cheaper, faster, lighter, smaller, more efficient invention. We just can't do better, but we can match it.
Also a lot of inventions have reached good enough and don't need major fixes.
Lets take leather. It is still a popular product.
It is very tough, it is flexible, it is light, and durable, insulates heat well. We had leather for thousands of years, we have improved on the process of making it, but still it is leather that people thousands of years ago will still recognize it.
We have made materials that can replace leather in some areas, but leather is still an important product.
I can see it happening.
It isn't quite my style of coding to do it that way but I can see how a 1.5 GB binary can be made.
If you are trying to put more work on the CPU and less work on the Database, a lot of the configuration settings and master tables that don't get updated too often will probably be hard coded in the code.
But we have gotten old and many of us are managers now.
I get more of an impression that they found a creative way to fund their Sim City playing.
I thought Jon Stewart was a Green Lantern?
Is there ever a case where a Simpson quote isn't apt?
It is a new era in more disgusting looking robots.
Here is the Typical Slashdot Response...
Oh god! it is different.
It is D I F F E R E N T ! ! !
Bad! Bad! Bad!
Must make it look like before!
Different is Bad.
(Starts rocking back and forth)
Windows 7 UI is Soo much better...
Here is the typical Slashdot Responce in 5 years with a new version of windows...
Oh god! it is different.
It is D I F F E R E N T ! ! !
Bad! Bad! Bad!
Must make it look like before!
Different is Bad.
(Starts rocking back and forth)
Windows 8 UI is Soo much better...
I think it is more to the issue, of more people getting off dial-up. For example my parents just last year got off dial up and to broad band (only 5 mbs too) but from 56k to 5mbs. raises the average up. that I get about 15mbs from my cable modem in my area, then you have the faster services that some people choose that offer 20+ mbs... so it adjusts the averages.
I really hate how the media white washes the Math for us. using Percentages and Averages... They really need to give us the average, and the standard deviation, that will at least give us a clear picture of a summary of the data.
The average american Internet speed is 10mbs, with a standard deviation of 5 mbs. Tells me far more about how it is used.
While you are not at-fault... However there are things you can do as humans to avoid such accidents.
Just last week, I was driving down the highway and traffic started to slow down. So I started to slow down, and I saw the person in the car behind me, wasn't making eye contact with my car, so I began to swerve in the breakdown lane until she saw that something was happening, a surprised look on her face and a quick slowdown, no accident, however if she didn't pay attention for a second or so longer she would have hit me, if I wasn't paying attention.
We are fining you because you didn't have the money to get a modern system.
They are punished.
The problem is Most Medical Software is Mizerably out of date. The new stuff that comes out is still a decade behind what other industries have. And if you look at the list the core of the problems isn't as much people hacking the network (there are a few occurances) but mostly due to work flow processes that no one has the guts to change. Where things are printed on paper. The paper get lost and found by someone else. It is very hard to explain to MD's how email is insecure...
Oddly enough to help improve this problem Medical Records need to be able to share much easier. Over establish secure channels, and less with paper moving, faxing, scanning and emailing...
First Impressions, are always the biggest ones.