Why would you assume that someone would have to work without a SSN number? They are trivial to get - you can just ask people for it in the right circumstances.
I'd like to add to your comment. I think you need to define success and failure here. The public school system is primarily concerned with socializing human beings - not education. If this is your objective, it makes perfect sense to take this away from localities and create a school system based on state or federal requirements.
By that definition, the public school system is a complete success. You may not know how to read upon graduation, but you will know how to respond properly to authority. Also, you will have been given a framework of the world that supports your submission to it that is often difficult to escape the influence of.
I'm not sure that was his point. For example, he also claims reading science fiction is an escape from the real world. I also think it is dubious to claim that gamers need this because they do not like the real world. Perhaps, gamers just like to play games?
Is there a correlation? I would love to see some data on it - especially any data that would compare it to other activities. I personally think it is prejudice that isn't based on facts. Gamers are no more maladjusted than artists, truckers or probably any other population you can think of.
I don't know what kind of science fiction you read. But, I don't think most can be described as pleasant.
I also find it interesting that you leap to these conclusions. Would you say the same of people that do needle point? They should just stop deluding themselves and get more social and "adult"?
How about gardening, reading, golf, long distance running - or any other mostly solitary activity that people enjoy. What all these people need to do is just go to more parties and be more social?
Gaming is, in fact, more social than these activities, yet no calls you socially inept if you happen to be an ultra-marathon runner - even though as one you spend much more time away from people. What makes gaming such that you assume gamers are socially inept? Might it merely be a prejudice on your part? I've known people to make these comments because they don't find gaming useful - whereas running, gardening, needle point are considered useful in our society.
Further, it is okay for people not to like social situations. I've found that most people are fairly interesting alone. Turn something into a social situation where people do not know one another, and they immediately make themselve less interesting. I've wasted enough time talking about the weather with people and I'm extremely anxious that someone will take up more of my life wanting to talk about this inane topic. You know what I mean?
I don't tend to be a stickler for grammar, but the following sentence is barbarous.
"A few folks don't mind sitting in front of a computer to read, but the rest of us like good old fashioned, physical books in our hands, and what Google is doing is not only NOT a threat to the sale of traditional bound books, it is a boon."
A period or two? Eliminate the double negative? Thank you.
Brain chemistry is to mental illness as metabolism is to obesity. There are methods to dealing with each and medication is typically only good as a short term solution for most people.
More on point, you cannot sell me a medically induced personality. Perhaps I like my destructive compulsions and the fact that I am only realizing a fraction of my full potential. Perhaps society is what causes the problem in the first place - all this focus on productivity and playing well with others. Either our way or we'll force feed you these fucking drugs and make you "normal". I'd like to say a word for keeping it a bit crazy and putting more waste back into life - best days of my life were the "wasted" ones.
I'd rather more of us waste more life than those 13% start gulping pills - modern day lobotomies - and reaching their "full potentional", whatever that means.
Ender's Game is interesting because it tells a story about a child that is not condescending - a rare treat in any type of writing. It also is not a bad reference for leadership and tactics. Is it the best sci-fi? Probably not, although tastes vary.
There seems to be some confusion here. The original comment you made that got this string started was:
"...but hardly any political science or sociology student has even a passing interest in the sciences. I'm starting to believe that the latter are just to stupid to realise how much of an impact those things have on their life."
The topic was not about training scientists. It was about making science education more accessible to non-scientists. So, I am not sure what you are talking about when you assert that I am reframing the argument. I'm not.
Another interesting thing is that it seems to me that you and I agree. I agree that science is complex and takes time to learn. I also agree that to be a scientist you need to know the math to master the techniques to do good science. However, the only comment I made about scientists is that they can be - and frequently are - one-diminensional.
The bulk of my comments were directed at making the argument that sciences need to be made more accessible - not necessarily at the exclusion of a more scientist track but more offerings that were geared toward a non-scientist audience would probably get more students interested in the sciences. From what I can tell, you do not think this is very useful. I think it is useful. We simply disagree on this issue.
I apologize if you found my comments unfair or that I was attacking you. I just thought this was an interesting point worth bringing out and explains the issue you brought up in your aside. It was not intended to be personal at all.
Not to mention install a Microsoft patch that breaks your machine's configuration. Automatic Update has a habit of making a computer unusable. How do you explain that people need to patch their machines and that doing so make break them?
In the humanities, there is a degree program called art history. If I were looking for the definition of "knowledge with the means to act", this degree program would be hard to beat.
I've known a few art history majors, and none of the people I knew were artists themselves. It is not unusual.
These people simply like art, appreciate it and generally worked in related field that promoted the understanding of the field - fund raising, research librarians, etc. I would argue that they provide a useful functon.
By analogy, it makes sense that there could be room for an appreciation of the sciences without being a scientist. There is not the same need for researchers and fund raisers because corporations want to tap science for their ends. However, encouraging interest still serves a useful function.
Or perhaps it is better to put it this way. I may not know how to code open source software. However, the fact that I understand what it is, how it works, why it is important and so forth means that I can promote open source - even though from a code base point of view, I would be useless.
There is more to life than science, open source or any other area of human endeavor. Having people that understand different areas more generally and who can relate them and make them relevant in new and interesting ways - or even just support them - are valuable people. Not understanding this simple fact is why scientists are frequently viewed as myopic and irrelevant by people that do not work in the sciences. To some degree, it is true.
Personally, I find I'm not a decision maker is a great way to start (and potentially end) a conversation - especially with vendors. It cuts through the BS beautifully.
I would agree that there is a disproportionate number of lawyers in legislative bodies and other areas of government. I also agree that people with management degrees tend to be paid a premium in the labor market that seems excessive given what they bring to the table.
However, neither is relevant to the parent post's point that people in humanities or social sciences seem to be less interested in physical sciences. Nor is it germane to my point that the science curriculum is designed to create science specialist - not provide a liberal education in the sciences.
In fact, I would probably argue that enrollment decreases in the physical sciences might be caused by the fact that the courses are not set-up for casual exploration. You have to know what you want to be - physician, chemist, physicist, engineer, or whatever and take a massive body of course work that all have prerequisites. Most humanities and social sciences have limited prerequisities - and those can frequently be waived. If you are uncertain what you want to do, the physical sciences aren't particularly friendly to just trying something out.
Add in the fact that scientists are not compensated or respected the same as other groups - and it isn't hard to see why enrollment might be down.
This is BS. There are plenty of one dimensional people in the world and many have a primary and fairly exclusive interest in the sciences - or more accurately, one fairly small area of the sciences.
I think there are two problems here: One, social sciences tend to use scientific techniques at higher levels. So, if all you ever have taken is Political Science 101, then you probably do not realize that the statistical and more scientific techniques required at graduate levels very much requires an interest in science. Don't judge a field based on your limited experience with it.
Two, science is hampered by its focus on technique. The concepts of most sciences could be taught without requiring all the background such as a degree of proficiency in calculus, preliminary courses, and so forth. Humanities structures their undergraduate courses for exposure. Most of the science curriculum is not set-up that way; it is set-up as a trade school.
These days, you almost have to go somewhere like St. John's to get a science curriculum that is integrated and approached as part of the liberal education. The problem lies more with the way that curriculum is structured and the unnecessary elitism of the sciences.
As a side note, ever notice who has the nicer facilities? Where I went to graduate school, the science/engineering part of campus was beautiful. The facilities for social science less so. Pure humanities? The facilities are a dump.
Ever think that the reason the science curriculum is set-up the way it is might be because industry is footing the bills? They want people graduating and filling science jobs. Industry does not care about a liberally educated populace. They care about getting a labor pool to draw from.
If industry is footing the bills, where do you think the university adminstration is going to come down when an question comes up (such as the structure of a science curriculum) where the needs of a liberal education run counter to the needs of creating science specialists? Who wins that battle do you think? Might this be the reason for the lack of exposure of educated people to the sciences?
Robert McNamara: LeMay said, "If we lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals". And I think he's right.
Robert McNamara: He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals.
Robert McNamara: LeMay recognised that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose, and not immoral if you win?
He has an interesting perspective - and related experience that few have. He understands the problems far better than the current US adminstration.
I'd move the doomsday clock to two minutes to midnight. Perhaps someone should read that interesting article by McNamara - who has good insight on the topic. His conclusion:
We are at a critical moment in human history--perhaps not as dramatic as that of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but a moment no less crucial. Neither the Bush administration, the congress, the American people, nor the people of other nations have debated the merits of alternative, long-range nuclear weapons policies for their countries or the world. They have not examined the military utility of the weapons; the risk of inadvertent or accidental use; the moral and legal considerations relating to the use or threat of use of the weapons; or the impact of current policies on proliferation. Such debates are long overdue. If they are held, I believe they will conclude, as have I and an increasing number of senior military leaders, politicians, and civilian security experts: We must move promptly toward the elimination--or near elimination--of all nuclear weapons. For many, there is a strong temptation to cling to the strategies of the past 40 years. But to do so would be a serious mistake leading to unacceptable risks for all nations.
While I sympathize with your libertarian critique of government spending, I do take issue with your free market fundamentalism. Free markets can be good at efficient allocation of resources. However, research is notoriously inefficient.
The more you outsource research to companies, the more incentive you have to offer them in terms of monopolistic protections such as copyright laws and patents. Whereas if the government sponsors this kind of work, it ultimately can be used for the benefit of society - by making the innovation available to the citizenry faster than when technology is developed by private industry given the monopolisitc protections they would need to be viable.
The Internet is the quintessential example of how this works. Would we be using Slashdot right now if we used your preferred method of outsourcing this work to private companies that "do it better"? I'd wager we would not. We would either have one company dominate the market a la Mircosoft or we would have many companies with only large corporations being able to pay the cost involved in all the duplication of effort and monopolisitc licensing fees.
Also, government monopoly is one way to deal with the inefficienies of free markets and can drive adoption rates. You wouldn't want 20 sets of telephone poles in your neighborhood for 20 different telephone companies. Being able to concentrate infrastucture enables you to distribute the technology to a wider population, faster. Of course, monopolies also have their inefficiencies. They have their place - just as free markets do.
On an unrelated note, The Constitution says in Article 1, Section 8 - Powers of Congress:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;...To borrow money on the credit of the United States;..."
If you believe, as I do, that the history of the Republic is important for its future and its current Welfare, then it doesn't seem too much of a stretch that this covers the taxes and spending of it on a project like this one.
Spare us your free market fundamentalism. Gauging is taking advantage of people - that's why it's called gauging. In these situations, if it can be brought in, it should be done by the government at no cost - that's why its called emergency aid.
I don't need economists to tell me what's right. I also know that most economists have the defect of thinking that the free market solves all problems - and the fact is it doesn't which is partly why we have government.
Ever try conversation? My guess is that you only have part of the picture and are judging the person you report to by the same criteria you apply to yourself. Here's the fact: management rarely means technically superior or even knowledgable about the work you do.
People that are technical superior and knowledgable - don't tend to manage well. It is too easy for them to just jump in rather than let you struggle with the problem and find a solution on your own.
Management is also a different skill set. It is about helping people find their strengths and use them in the best possible way. Also, tasks that you consider insignificant - like having meetings, talking on the phone or whatever he is doing that you consider insignificant - might actually be hard work.
Example: Have you ever been in the point position to take responsibility for things that do not work - even though you have very little control over why they broke or getting them fixed? That job is called management - and it isn't much fun.
Maybe you should cut him some slack in the short term, assume you really do not know enough about the situation and try to figure out the scenario better. My guess is that if you try that you might find out a lot of things that will change your perception.
Even if you are right, it might be best to change your expectations. Your boss doesn't have to be your technical mentor - find someone that can be and then figure out what your boss can teach you.
"An analysis of the Justice Department's own list of terrorism prosecutions by The Washington Post shows that 39 people -- not 200, as officials have implied -- were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security...For the entire list, the median sentence was just 11 months...Among all the people charged as a result of terrorism probes in the three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, The Post found no demonstrated connection to terrorism or terrorist groups for 180 of them."
Even if you allow for the fact that Bush is not using courts and using a system of secret, off-shore prisons, this seems an absurdly low number - possibly 20. I mean you would think they would at least be able to find a few people like the Unabomber or something that would at least make the argument even plausible when they talk about all these "terrorists".
You are modded as funny and this would have been a great troll. But sadly, I think you are putting forth this argument in earnest. It is certainly an argument that is out there and is why many cities around the world have started putting cameras everywhere.
What with all the terrorists running around, we've got make sure we're safe.
Where are all these terrorists? Can you show me convictions in a US court? I'd love to hear about some. And how does this capability make the US safer?
Considering that I am not involved in anything that could be flagged as suspicious by law enforcement, I am confident that my reputation as an honest American will ensure my privacy.
I'm sure quite a few of the 2 million people currently being held in US prisons thought the same thing. Perhaps you cannot imagine that there might be corrupt cops or the justice system might favor the white and rich over the colored and poor. The whole premise of this comment falls apart the moment you can no longer trust the justice system - and you are a fool if you trust ours.
The issue is not the nanny state. The issue is about a police state. It is why we have the Fourth Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
To recap, a system the FCC proposes violates the right of citizens to be secure from unreasonable searches. It is not based on probable cause and it is not particular as to what is being searched and why. In other words, it is unconstitutional. It is really that simple.
"Alternative" would indicate that the lifestyle choice being made was unusual or different from the norm. Sadly, the woe-is-me my life is such that I must have an SUV, McMansion, gated community, generator for my TV on my camping trip and so forth is not all that unusual in the US. It certainly isn't behavior that can be called "conservative".
Let's say you happen to survive that accident - whose picking up the tab on your rehab when your are paralysed and cannot work for the rest of your life? Let say you die, whose taking care of your kids, elderly parents or whatever?
If you want it cheap, you should have to live with all the decisions that come from it - because in the long run, safety is cheaper for all of us. The fact you want to save a few thousand now and have me and the rest of society taking care of you and yours when your roll of the dice doesn't work out - it frankly pisses me off.
So, make sure you sign off a contract and wear some identification so when your car is in flames on the roadside, the police and fireman know that they can just let it burn.
Oh, and one more thing, how do you plan to take care of me and mine when your body flies through the windshield and you cause us to crash or sustain an injury because you couldn't be bothered with all that safety? I think it is better you just shut up, buy the safety equipment and take some fucking responsibility for yourself.
Actually, most of the problems you talk about here are a result of your lifestyle choices. It is possible to camp without a lot of gear, boats can be rented or stored on location, and public modes of transportation are available that can accomodate even larger families.
It may not be as nice or as easy as having all your own gear or just traveling with your group - but that is also a lifestyle choice.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would you assume that someone would have to work without a SSN number? They are trivial to get - you can just ask people for it in the right circumstances.
Didn't Friedrich Nietzsche and countless others makes this argument already?
Out of life's school of war.--What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
I'd like to add to your comment. I think you need to define success and failure here. The public school system is primarily concerned with socializing human beings - not education. If this is your objective, it makes perfect sense to take this away from localities and create a school system based on state or federal requirements.
By that definition, the public school system is a complete success. You may not know how to read upon graduation, but you will know how to respond properly to authority. Also, you will have been given a framework of the world that supports your submission to it that is often difficult to escape the influence of.
I'm not sure that was his point. For example, he also claims reading science fiction is an escape from the real world. I also think it is dubious to claim that gamers need this because they do not like the real world. Perhaps, gamers just like to play games?
Is there a correlation? I would love to see some data on it - especially any data that would compare it to other activities. I personally think it is prejudice that isn't based on facts. Gamers are no more maladjusted than artists, truckers or probably any other population you can think of.
I don't know what kind of science fiction you read. But, I don't think most can be described as pleasant.
I also find it interesting that you leap to these conclusions. Would you say the same of people that do needle point? They should just stop deluding themselves and get more social and "adult"?
How about gardening, reading, golf, long distance running - or any other mostly solitary activity that people enjoy. What all these people need to do is just go to more parties and be more social?
Gaming is, in fact, more social than these activities, yet no calls you socially inept if you happen to be an ultra-marathon runner - even though as one you spend much more time away from people. What makes gaming such that you assume gamers are socially inept? Might it merely be a prejudice on your part? I've known people to make these comments because they don't find gaming useful - whereas running, gardening, needle point are considered useful in our society.
Further, it is okay for people not to like social situations. I've found that most people are fairly interesting alone. Turn something into a social situation where people do not know one another, and they immediately make themselve less interesting. I've wasted enough time talking about the weather with people and I'm extremely anxious that someone will take up more of my life wanting to talk about this inane topic. You know what I mean?
I cannot imaging wanting to watch Fox News at all....but on a computer? You got larger problems my friend.
I don't tend to be a stickler for grammar, but the following sentence is barbarous.
A period or two? Eliminate the double negative? Thank you.
Brain chemistry is to mental illness as metabolism is to obesity. There are methods to dealing with each and medication is typically only good as a short term solution for most people.
More on point, you cannot sell me a medically induced personality. Perhaps I like my destructive compulsions and the fact that I am only realizing a fraction of my full potential. Perhaps society is what causes the problem in the first place - all this focus on productivity and playing well with others. Either our way or we'll force feed you these fucking drugs and make you "normal". I'd like to say a word for keeping it a bit crazy and putting more waste back into life - best days of my life were the "wasted" ones.
I'd rather more of us waste more life than those 13% start gulping pills - modern day lobotomies - and reaching their "full potentional", whatever that means.
Ender's Game is interesting because it tells a story about a child that is not condescending - a rare treat in any type of writing. It also is not a bad reference for leadership and tactics. Is it the best sci-fi? Probably not, although tastes vary.
There seems to be some confusion here. The original comment you made that got this string started was:
The topic was not about training scientists. It was about making science education more accessible to non-scientists. So, I am not sure what you are talking about when you assert that I am reframing the argument. I'm not.
Another interesting thing is that it seems to me that you and I agree. I agree that science is complex and takes time to learn. I also agree that to be a scientist you need to know the math to master the techniques to do good science. However, the only comment I made about scientists is that they can be - and frequently are - one-diminensional.
The bulk of my comments were directed at making the argument that sciences need to be made more accessible - not necessarily at the exclusion of a more scientist track but more offerings that were geared toward a non-scientist audience would probably get more students interested in the sciences. From what I can tell, you do not think this is very useful. I think it is useful. We simply disagree on this issue.
I apologize if you found my comments unfair or that I was attacking you. I just thought this was an interesting point worth bringing out and explains the issue you brought up in your aside. It was not intended to be personal at all.
Not to mention install a Microsoft patch that breaks your machine's configuration. Automatic Update has a habit of making a computer unusable. How do you explain that people need to patch their machines and that doing so make break them?
In the humanities, there is a degree program called art history. If I were looking for the definition of "knowledge with the means to act", this degree program would be hard to beat.
I've known a few art history majors, and none of the people I knew were artists themselves. It is not unusual.
These people simply like art, appreciate it and generally worked in related field that promoted the understanding of the field - fund raising, research librarians, etc. I would argue that they provide a useful functon.
By analogy, it makes sense that there could be room for an appreciation of the sciences without being a scientist. There is not the same need for researchers and fund raisers because corporations want to tap science for their ends. However, encouraging interest still serves a useful function.
Or perhaps it is better to put it this way. I may not know how to code open source software. However, the fact that I understand what it is, how it works, why it is important and so forth means that I can promote open source - even though from a code base point of view, I would be useless.
There is more to life than science, open source or any other area of human endeavor. Having people that understand different areas more generally and who can relate them and make them relevant in new and interesting ways - or even just support them - are valuable people. Not understanding this simple fact is why scientists are frequently viewed as myopic and irrelevant by people that do not work in the sciences. To some degree, it is true.
Personally, I find I'm not a decision maker is a great way to start (and potentially end) a conversation - especially with vendors. It cuts through the BS beautifully.
I would agree that there is a disproportionate number of lawyers in legislative bodies and other areas of government. I also agree that people with management degrees tend to be paid a premium in the labor market that seems excessive given what they bring to the table.
However, neither is relevant to the parent post's point that people in humanities or social sciences seem to be less interested in physical sciences. Nor is it germane to my point that the science curriculum is designed to create science specialist - not provide a liberal education in the sciences.
In fact, I would probably argue that enrollment decreases in the physical sciences might be caused by the fact that the courses are not set-up for casual exploration. You have to know what you want to be - physician, chemist, physicist, engineer, or whatever and take a massive body of course work that all have prerequisites. Most humanities and social sciences have limited prerequisities - and those can frequently be waived. If you are uncertain what you want to do, the physical sciences aren't particularly friendly to just trying something out.
Add in the fact that scientists are not compensated or respected the same as other groups - and it isn't hard to see why enrollment might be down.
This is BS. There are plenty of one dimensional people in the world and many have a primary and fairly exclusive interest in the sciences - or more accurately, one fairly small area of the sciences.
I think there are two problems here: One, social sciences tend to use scientific techniques at higher levels. So, if all you ever have taken is Political Science 101, then you probably do not realize that the statistical and more scientific techniques required at graduate levels very much requires an interest in science. Don't judge a field based on your limited experience with it.
Two, science is hampered by its focus on technique. The concepts of most sciences could be taught without requiring all the background such as a degree of proficiency in calculus, preliminary courses, and so forth. Humanities structures their undergraduate courses for exposure. Most of the science curriculum is not set-up that way; it is set-up as a trade school.
These days, you almost have to go somewhere like St. John's to get a science curriculum that is integrated and approached as part of the liberal education. The problem lies more with the way that curriculum is structured and the unnecessary elitism of the sciences.
As a side note, ever notice who has the nicer facilities? Where I went to graduate school, the science/engineering part of campus was beautiful. The facilities for social science less so. Pure humanities? The facilities are a dump.
Ever think that the reason the science curriculum is set-up the way it is might be because industry is footing the bills? They want people graduating and filling science jobs. Industry does not care about a liberally educated populace. They care about getting a labor pool to draw from.
If industry is footing the bills, where do you think the university adminstration is going to come down when an question comes up (such as the structure of a science curriculum) where the needs of a liberal education run counter to the needs of creating science specialists? Who wins that battle do you think? Might this be the reason for the lack of exposure of educated people to the sciences?
McNamara was Secretary of State during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, he admits that he was acting as a war criminal for his role in the fire bombing of Japan:
Robert McNamara: LeMay said, "If we lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals". And I think he's right.
Robert McNamara: He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals.
Robert McNamara: LeMay recognised that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose, and not immoral if you win?
He has an interesting perspective - and related experience that few have. He understands the problems far better than the current US adminstration.
While I sympathize with your libertarian critique of government spending, I do take issue with your free market fundamentalism. Free markets can be good at efficient allocation of resources. However, research is notoriously inefficient.
The more you outsource research to companies, the more incentive you have to offer them in terms of monopolistic protections such as copyright laws and patents. Whereas if the government sponsors this kind of work, it ultimately can be used for the benefit of society - by making the innovation available to the citizenry faster than when technology is developed by private industry given the monopolisitc protections they would need to be viable.
The Internet is the quintessential example of how this works. Would we be using Slashdot right now if we used your preferred method of outsourcing this work to private companies that "do it better"? I'd wager we would not. We would either have one company dominate the market a la Mircosoft or we would have many companies with only large corporations being able to pay the cost involved in all the duplication of effort and monopolisitc licensing fees.
Also, government monopoly is one way to deal with the inefficienies of free markets and can drive adoption rates. You wouldn't want 20 sets of telephone poles in your neighborhood for 20 different telephone companies. Being able to concentrate infrastucture enables you to distribute the technology to a wider population, faster. Of course, monopolies also have their inefficiencies. They have their place - just as free markets do.
On an unrelated note, The Constitution says in Article 1, Section 8 - Powers of Congress:
If you believe, as I do, that the history of the Republic is important for its future and its current Welfare, then it doesn't seem too much of a stretch that this covers the taxes and spending of it on a project like this one.
Spare us your free market fundamentalism. Gauging is taking advantage of people - that's why it's called gauging. In these situations, if it can be brought in, it should be done by the government at no cost - that's why its called emergency aid.
I don't need economists to tell me what's right. I also know that most economists have the defect of thinking that the free market solves all problems - and the fact is it doesn't which is partly why we have government.
Ever try conversation? My guess is that you only have part of the picture and are judging the person you report to by the same criteria you apply to yourself. Here's the fact: management rarely means technically superior or even knowledgable about the work you do.
People that are technical superior and knowledgable - don't tend to manage well. It is too easy for them to just jump in rather than let you struggle with the problem and find a solution on your own.
Management is also a different skill set. It is about helping people find their strengths and use them in the best possible way. Also, tasks that you consider insignificant - like having meetings, talking on the phone or whatever he is doing that you consider insignificant - might actually be hard work.
Example: Have you ever been in the point position to take responsibility for things that do not work - even though you have very little control over why they broke or getting them fixed? That job is called management - and it isn't much fun.
Maybe you should cut him some slack in the short term, assume you really do not know enough about the situation and try to figure out the scenario better. My guess is that if you try that you might find out a lot of things that will change your perception.
Even if you are right, it might be best to change your expectations. Your boss doesn't have to be your technical mentor - find someone that can be and then figure out what your boss can teach you.
The Oklahoma City bombing was 10 years ago. Here let me help:
According to The Washington Post:
Even if you allow for the fact that Bush is not using courts and using a system of secret, off-shore prisons, this seems an absurdly low number - possibly 20. I mean you would think they would at least be able to find a few people like the Unabomber or something that would at least make the argument even plausible when they talk about all these "terrorists".
You are modded as funny and this would have been a great troll. But sadly, I think you are putting forth this argument in earnest. It is certainly an argument that is out there and is why many cities around the world have started putting cameras everywhere.
Where are all these terrorists? Can you show me convictions in a US court? I'd love to hear about some. And how does this capability make the US safer?
I'm sure quite a few of the 2 million people currently being held in US prisons thought the same thing. Perhaps you cannot imagine that there might be corrupt cops or the justice system might favor the white and rich over the colored and poor. The whole premise of this comment falls apart the moment you can no longer trust the justice system - and you are a fool if you trust ours.
The issue is not the nanny state. The issue is about a police state. It is why we have the Fourth Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
To recap, a system the FCC proposes violates the right of citizens to be secure from unreasonable searches. It is not based on probable cause and it is not particular as to what is being searched and why. In other words, it is unconstitutional. It is really that simple.
"Alternative" would indicate that the lifestyle choice being made was unusual or different from the norm. Sadly, the woe-is-me my life is such that I must have an SUV, McMansion, gated community, generator for my TV on my camping trip and so forth is not all that unusual in the US. It certainly isn't behavior that can be called "conservative".
Let's say you happen to survive that accident - whose picking up the tab on your rehab when your are paralysed and cannot work for the rest of your life? Let say you die, whose taking care of your kids, elderly parents or whatever?
If you want it cheap, you should have to live with all the decisions that come from it - because in the long run, safety is cheaper for all of us. The fact you want to save a few thousand now and have me and the rest of society taking care of you and yours when your roll of the dice doesn't work out - it frankly pisses me off.
So, make sure you sign off a contract and wear some identification so when your car is in flames on the roadside, the police and fireman know that they can just let it burn.
Oh, and one more thing, how do you plan to take care of me and mine when your body flies through the windshield and you cause us to crash or sustain an injury because you couldn't be bothered with all that safety? I think it is better you just shut up, buy the safety equipment and take some fucking responsibility for yourself.
Actually, most of the problems you talk about here are a result of your lifestyle choices. It is possible to camp without a lot of gear, boats can be rented or stored on location, and public modes of transportation are available that can accomodate even larger families.
It may not be as nice or as easy as having all your own gear or just traveling with your group - but that is also a lifestyle choice.