"So you would punish kids and sacrifice the future of this country to teach those parents a lesson?"
In general, if the student and their family value education, the student will succeed in school. The dedicated student can succeed in spite of their family. Teachers and schools can improve the achievement of dedicated students.
Remember, parents and students can overcome bad teachers and schools. Teachers and schools cannot overcome bad parents and students. But in no case should the schools and teachers enable the poor choices of students and their parents. This is what we are currently doing and it must stop. Because it will sacrifice the future of the country.
"And it's not like you can section one part of the body off, it's very helpful to know about the entire thing."
Sure you can, you pretty much described most modern surgery. Especially eye doctors. Specialization is common. Knowledge is nice but I want experience and success. I'll take a stupid asshole that can operate half asleep over a highly intelligent nice guy doing his first surgery....
"Not a direct analogy, but seriously... when you are touching my eyes, my hearts, my lungs, my kidneys... I want you to be pretty qualified, educated, and skilled. And I'm willing to pay extra for that."
It depends on the specialty or lack thereof. In surgery, experience is important and that tends to equate to time (perhaps to your education component). But a GP can be replaced by a Nurse Practicioner in most cases. If a doctor is skilled, he will tend to be qualified. If a doctor is qualified and/or skilled, who gives a damn about the education.
I want a doctor that is sufficiently skilled to do the job. How they get there doesn't really matter. The real problem is that I as a patient have no real way to determine the skill level of a doctor....
Even better, JOBS. For instance, there are an awful lot of research scientists with advanced degrees that are currently being fired by drug companies. And the jobs aren't going to come back.
I routinely come across scientists working outside their field because their are no jobs in their field. Money isn't the problem. For the most part, lack of work is. Combine this with the rapid advances in tech and long education times, it's kind of hard to predict if the area you start studying will land you a good job or just a lot of crushing debt....
"I'm not in favor of pushing evolution out of the classroom, but I do think it's wrong to push creationism out just because the vast majority of slashdotters don't believe it."
I see. So you don't have any problem with the MANDATORY equal time teaching of any or all of the following (or more): Islam, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Judiasm, paganism, Chthulu, in your church? You wouldn't want to push out those other religions just because the vast majority of Christians don't believe it? Or would you prefer that we mandate the scientific explanation of religion be given equal time in church. Imagine the outcry in either of those cases.
"This same idea is now played with in the Obamacare projects: giving the States a "right" to "opt-out" of parts of the programs is a sham — the States will only be allowed to out-out of receiving services, not from paying for them."
Ah, yes, the whole entitlement mentality strikes again. I pay taxes, so I am entitled to receive something for them (better yet, give me as much as possible). The whole point of a government IS the redistribution of wealth for the society as a whole (it's called civilization). How much and for what purpose are certainly reasonable questions. This whole Bob is getting more me than me argument is getting really old.
"Wal-Mart has been the purveyor of crap for many years now."
Funny, I can get that Walmart model through Amazon too. Those models are not just the rejects, they often just have fewer features and hence a lower price. Just fine for people who did not want to pay for all of the worthless features in the first place.
There is a lot of junk too. But do not pretend that every other large retailer is any better than Walmart. They all want to be Walmart with a better reputation. Kind of like a golden turd.
"Local businesses (generally) have knowledgeable and helpful employees."
You have got to be kidding. Right?!? The best thing about the service at Walmart is that there IS NO SERVICE. No clueless person regardless of salary making shit up. If I need more information than is present on the box, I look it up or ask people who have used the product, not people who want to sell me the product whether or not I need it.
Most local stores never had good service. They might have had better quality products until most manufacturers stopped making them. Especially if you cannot easily tell the difference (or afford it). At that point, you might just as well shop where the product is the cheapest.
And where I live, the "local" grocery store is one of many national chain stores. Unless it is custom made, it is probably mass produced somewhere. Just like those Q-tips at your "local" store.
"Couldn't they just raise the price, then create a sale, saying that you saved?"
Absolutely. But that would take too much effort. All they really did was take their normal weekly sales and require their card to get the savings. Viola! Real, yet imaginary, savings plus a lot of marketing data.
Or you could actually have a compass in an emergency kit. You know, the emergency kit that you should have in every vehicle you own, where you live, work, etc. I mean, you have already done that right?
Oh, right, sorry, you were just trying to rationalize why everyone should wear a cheap digital watch for no apparent reason. Other than to make you feel better.
"Wealth and education are well known for being the most effective birth control measures we have."
No they aren't. China was much more effective.
"Since the western way of life is built on our massive energy consumption per capita, it follows that one of the chief reasons for our lower birth rates is our energy consumption and thus our CO2-emissions."
I believe Italy has lower CO2 emmissions than the US and a declining birth rate. Thus it does not follow that the US usage rate is required as you imply. The US rate is not sustainable.
We currently have a major problem with a minority of the Earth's population living well. The problem is that the majority wants to live like us. We can't do it with the current technology, population and social/economic/political situation.
"PLoS ONE receives more money when it publishes more articles. Doesn't this just scream CONFLICT OF INTEREST to anyone else?"
As compared to what? Publishing costs money. You fund this in various ways including ads and charging authors fees. Higly regarded peer reviewed publications do both. Yes, that means that the authors PAID to publish that paper in that peer reviewed journal.
But I'm sure if you would like to pick up the tab the journals would stop charging fees. Of course, you might want to consider how many more (bad) papers you might get if there were no fees to discourage submission. I'm sure you wouldn't mind providing some of your time to weed out the bad papers either.....
Welcome to reality. Please feel free to stay and learn some facts.
"Please, I'll take Science and Nature any day."
Plenty of people have noted that if it is in Nature and Science, it must be wrong. They are all about cutting edge and controversial. In other words, I would consider them to be written conference presentations rather than peer reviewed journal publications. A first look at the data if you will.
"If these guys had been on the up-and-up about sharing their data and methodologies from the beginning, these e-mails would be harmless."
I know scientists who don't like to share data because it tends to get ripped off. I've seen it happen with no consequences. There are valid reasons to do what they did.
While they don't have to share their data or methodologies, it would make it easier to validate their work. It would also make them look a whole lot better. You pays your money and takes your chances...
Having worked with geological data, I would consider any climate data set that didn't have significant alterations to be suspect. Real world data sucks. Really badly. But the people who don't like the outcome would slam the fact the the data has been changed even if it was good science. In general, people who oppose the concept of global warming don't care about science or reason or logic. They have their conclusion and they are going to find the proof...
"These are TRULY damning! If you can explain how decades of data are skipped to "smooth" results, how "averaging" is determined in other areas... I am not qualified to comment on this research but I can certainly look at code. I smell a rat here."
I take it that you never have had to use real world data that varies widely in quality in a real world project? Welcome to the geological sciences.
Data is never perfect. If the data is perfect, then the data was probably faked. If you feed bad data into the model, you get bad results. Also known as GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). So any competant modeler will fix the data as best they can. Throw out obvious outliers. Smooth sampling artifacts. Trade precision for accuracy. Artificially constrain data. Etc. The key is to note what you did and why. And keep the original data. But in any project of any size the data files aren't going to be pretty. Just like a program, it's the results, not the code, that count.
"That's a big issue. Without releasing raw data there can be little science, where other people can try to replicate or falsify findings."
Who are these "other people"? If they are people with an adequate background and understanding of the data and the science behind it, then you would have a point. If you mean the general public or someone with an agenda, then no. There is an amazing wealth of papers and reports on this subject that summarize the data very well.
I believe that anyone that actually needs the data AND is potentially capable of using it correctly can access it. Raw data without context is not very useful. In other words, all of the assumptions, conclusions and adjustments is what makes raw data into useful data. I'm sure a lot of people THINK they can use and interpret the data better. But then there are a lot of inquisitive idiots out there. And many with an agenda. But many fewer scientists with the ability to do the needed research.
For the same reason we don't ban exotic sports cars, private jets, and mansions. Or regulate the power consumption of the computer equipment that you used to connect to the internet.
The rule is 100% stupid. And I just insulted stupid people. The stupid burns.
If you want to decrease energy usage, increase the price of energy. That would be easier and cheaper. It would allow you to eliminate at least part of the agency involved in this decision, thus reducing California's budget problem. This decision was probably made in large part to justify the existence of the agency in unertain budget times....
"You want to break the tax code, good for you. Most people aren't going to spend the time and money to drive to another state and get a TV."
They already do. They have this thing called the internet where you can order a TV without tax and have it delivered free via these things called delivery services.
"Of course, modern LED TV's already meat the standard,..."
I certainly hope an 11 inch $2500 TV could meet the standard. Those modern LED TVs are what informed people call LCDs.
This is merely a California state agency trying to justify its existence so it doesn't get eliminated. It will probably work.
"Sales tax is unfair because it's a regressive tax."
No it isn't. I paid more tax (by %) in Ohio that had an income and sales tax than I did in Washington which has a sales tax.
Why?
Food, medicines and many services were exempt from sales tax. But ALL of my income was subject to city taxes of 2% (some payed more due to schools). And almost all of my income was subject to State income tax.
Poor people don't buy lots of stuff. And the stuff they buy tends to be cheap. If you exempt food, medications and services the sales tax can be less regressive than an income tax. I'll certainly take a sales tax over a combined sales/income tax any day.
"For example Medicare fraud now totals more than $60 billion per year."
A few points. First, that is estimated. May be low, may be high. Second, it has no context. Is it unreasonable compared to other insurance? Third, if there is so much fraud, why doesn't Congress allocate proper resources to fight it. Fourth, fraud is still cheaper than adding benefits to get the geezer vote (Plan D) without paying for it. Finally, what do STATE sales taxes have to do with a FEDERAL program?
You must have an interesting definition of the military. For instance, I would consider anything directly related to/in support of the defense department to be military. Therefore, our military budget is our defense budget.
It is certainly true that we have a much larger military force than is needed to physically protect US territories. Whether we have a large enough force to protect our actual interests is debatable. And what size of military is needed depends on how we define our interests....
If you sell or exchange something of value (barter) on a taxable item, then tax is probably owed on the value of the transaction. Who has to pay it, how it has to be payed and the likelihood anyone will even notice varies greatly depending on the state and the item.
This is not a new concept. It applied to the time before the internet when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and people used black corded phones to call companies and order out of paper catalogs....
"Its possible to do this with lots of 3-way switches and electrical wiring, but its simpler to do it in software."
Huh? How is adding software on top of three way switches simpler than proper planning and wiring in the first place?
Now if you mean fixing the pitiful excuse for planing and wiring that occurs in most places via wireless controls versus a remodel then you have an excellent point.
Slashdot Mirror
"So you would punish kids and sacrifice the future of this country to teach those parents a lesson?"
In general, if the student and their family value education, the student will succeed in school. The dedicated student can succeed in spite of their family. Teachers and schools can improve the achievement of dedicated students.
Remember, parents and students can overcome bad teachers and schools. Teachers and schools cannot overcome bad parents and students. But in no case should the schools and teachers enable the poor choices of students and their parents. This is what we are currently doing and it must stop. Because it will sacrifice the future of the country.
"And it's not like you can section one part of the body off, it's very helpful to know about the entire thing."
Sure you can, you pretty much described most modern surgery. Especially eye doctors. Specialization is common. Knowledge is nice but I want experience and success. I'll take a stupid asshole that can operate half asleep over a highly intelligent nice guy doing his first surgery....
"Not a direct analogy, but seriously... when you are touching my eyes, my hearts, my lungs, my kidneys... I want you to be pretty qualified, educated, and skilled. And I'm willing to pay extra for that."
It depends on the specialty or lack thereof. In surgery, experience is important and that tends to equate to time (perhaps to your education component). But a GP can be replaced by a Nurse Practicioner in most cases. If a doctor is skilled, he will tend to be qualified. If a doctor is qualified and/or skilled, who gives a damn about the education.
I want a doctor that is sufficiently skilled to do the job. How they get there doesn't really matter. The real problem is that I as a patient have no real way to determine the skill level of a doctor....
"Massive cash awards to US scientists."
Even better, JOBS. For instance, there are an awful lot of research scientists with advanced degrees that are currently being fired by drug companies. And the jobs aren't going to come back.
I routinely come across scientists working outside their field because their are no jobs in their field. Money isn't the problem. For the most part, lack of work is. Combine this with the rapid advances in tech and long education times, it's kind of hard to predict if the area you start studying will land you a good job or just a lot of crushing debt....
"I'm not in favor of pushing evolution out of the classroom, but I do think it's wrong to push creationism out just because the vast majority of slashdotters don't believe it."
I see. So you don't have any problem with the MANDATORY equal time teaching of any or all of the following (or more): Islam, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Judiasm, paganism, Chthulu, in your church? You wouldn't want to push out those other religions just because the vast majority of Christians don't believe it? Or would you prefer that we mandate the scientific explanation of religion be given equal time in church. Imagine the outcry in either of those cases.
"This same idea is now played with in the Obamacare projects: giving the States a "right" to "opt-out" of parts of the programs is a sham — the States will only be allowed to out-out of receiving services, not from paying for them."
Ah, yes, the whole entitlement mentality strikes again. I pay taxes, so I am entitled to receive something for them (better yet, give me as much as possible). The whole point of a government IS the redistribution of wealth for the society as a whole (it's called civilization). How much and for what purpose are certainly reasonable questions. This whole Bob is getting more me than me argument is getting really old.
"Wal-Mart has been the purveyor of crap for many years now."
Funny, I can get that Walmart model through Amazon too. Those models are not just the rejects, they often just have fewer features and hence a lower price. Just fine for people who did not want to pay for all of the worthless features in the first place.
There is a lot of junk too. But do not pretend that every other large retailer is any better than Walmart. They all want to be Walmart with a better reputation. Kind of like a golden turd.
"Local businesses (generally) have knowledgeable and helpful employees."
You have got to be kidding. Right?!? The best thing about the service at Walmart is that there IS NO SERVICE. No clueless person regardless of salary making shit up. If I need more information than is present on the box, I look it up or ask people who have used the product, not people who want to sell me the product whether or not I need it.
Most local stores never had good service. They might have had better quality products until most manufacturers stopped making them. Especially if you cannot easily tell the difference (or afford it). At that point, you might just as well shop where the product is the cheapest.
And where I live, the "local" grocery store is one of many national chain stores. Unless it is custom made, it is probably mass produced somewhere. Just like those Q-tips at your "local" store.
"Couldn't they just raise the price, then create a sale, saying that you saved?"
Absolutely. But that would take too much effort. All they really did was take their normal weekly sales and require their card to get the savings. Viola! Real, yet imaginary, savings plus a lot of marketing data.
Or you could actually have a compass in an emergency kit. You know, the emergency kit that you should have in every vehicle you own, where you live, work, etc. I mean, you have already done that right?
Oh, right, sorry, you were just trying to rationalize why everyone should wear a cheap digital watch for no apparent reason. Other than to make you feel better.
"Wealth and education are well known for being the most effective birth control measures we have."
No they aren't. China was much more effective.
"Since the western way of life is built on our massive energy consumption per capita, it follows that one of the chief reasons for our lower birth rates is our energy consumption and thus our CO2-emissions."
I believe Italy has lower CO2 emmissions than the US and a declining birth rate. Thus it does not follow that the US usage rate is required as you imply. The US rate is not sustainable.
We currently have a major problem with a minority of the Earth's population living well. The problem is that the majority wants to live like us. We can't do it with the current technology, population and social/economic/political situation.
"PLoS ONE receives more money when it publishes more articles. Doesn't this just scream CONFLICT OF INTEREST to anyone else?"
As compared to what? Publishing costs money. You fund this in various ways including ads and charging authors fees. Higly regarded peer reviewed publications do both. Yes, that means that the authors PAID to publish that paper in that peer reviewed journal.
But I'm sure if you would like to pick up the tab the journals would stop charging fees. Of course, you might want to consider how many more (bad) papers you might get if there were no fees to discourage submission. I'm sure you wouldn't mind providing some of your time to weed out the bad papers either.....
Welcome to reality. Please feel free to stay and learn some facts.
"Please, I'll take Science and Nature any day."
Plenty of people have noted that if it is in Nature and Science, it must be wrong. They are all about cutting edge and controversial. In other words, I would consider them to be written conference presentations rather than peer reviewed journal publications. A first look at the data if you will.
"If these guys had been on the up-and-up about sharing their data and methodologies from the beginning, these e-mails would be harmless."
I know scientists who don't like to share data because it tends to get ripped off. I've seen it happen with no consequences. There are valid reasons to do what they did.
While they don't have to share their data or methodologies, it would make it easier to validate their work. It would also make them look a whole lot better. You pays your money and takes your chances...
Having worked with geological data, I would consider any climate data set that didn't have significant alterations to be suspect. Real world data sucks. Really badly. But the people who don't like the outcome would slam the fact the the data has been changed even if it was good science. In general, people who oppose the concept of global warming don't care about science or reason or logic. They have their conclusion and they are going to find the proof...
"These are TRULY damning! If you can explain how decades of data are skipped to "smooth" results, how "averaging" is determined in other areas... I am not qualified to comment on this research but I can certainly look at code. I smell a rat here."
I take it that you never have had to use real world data that varies widely in quality in a real world project? Welcome to the geological sciences.
Data is never perfect. If the data is perfect, then the data was probably faked. If you feed bad data into the model, you get bad results. Also known as GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). So any competant modeler will fix the data as best they can. Throw out obvious outliers. Smooth sampling artifacts. Trade precision for accuracy. Artificially constrain data. Etc. The key is to note what you did and why. And keep the original data. But in any project of any size the data files aren't going to be pretty. Just like a program, it's the results, not the code, that count.
"That's a big issue. Without releasing raw data there can be little science, where other people can try to replicate or falsify findings."
Who are these "other people"? If they are people with an adequate background and understanding of the data and the science behind it, then you would have a point. If you mean the general public or someone with an agenda, then no. There is an amazing wealth of papers and reports on this subject that summarize the data very well.
I believe that anyone that actually needs the data AND is potentially capable of using it correctly can access it. Raw data without context is not very useful. In other words, all of the assumptions, conclusions and adjustments is what makes raw data into useful data. I'm sure a lot of people THINK they can use and interpret the data better. But then there are a lot of inquisitive idiots out there. And many with an agenda. But many fewer scientists with the ability to do the needed research.
For the same reason we don't ban exotic sports cars, private jets, and mansions. Or regulate the power consumption of the computer equipment that you used to connect to the internet.
The rule is 100% stupid. And I just insulted stupid people. The stupid burns.
If you want to decrease energy usage, increase the price of energy. That would be easier and cheaper. It would allow you to eliminate at least part of the agency involved in this decision, thus reducing California's budget problem. This decision was probably made in large part to justify the existence of the agency in unertain budget times....
Picky, picky, picky. Just because you can't make an OLED display very large, reasonable priced or for that matter really buy one....
Now that you mention it, I think OLED also has problems with lifespan and burn-in compared to plasma.
Oops. :)
truck freight?
No need to do any driving at all. And you can probably get it cheaper....
"You want to break the tax code, good for you. Most people aren't going to spend the time and money to drive to another state and get a TV."
They already do. They have this thing called the internet where you can order a TV without tax and have it delivered free via these things called delivery services.
"Of course, modern LED TV's already meat the standard,..."
I certainly hope an 11 inch $2500 TV could meet the standard. Those modern LED TVs are what informed people call LCDs.
This is merely a California state agency trying to justify its existence so it doesn't get eliminated. It will probably work.
"There's a LOT of room for adjustment here that doesn't require collecting additional taxes."
Really? You might want to look at this graphical representation of the US budget.
"http://mibi.deviantart.com/art/Death-and-Taxes-9410862"
I doubt that there is a significant amount of waste in the government (as compared to a similar sized private company) that is not there by design.
"Sales tax is unfair because it's a regressive tax."
No it isn't. I paid more tax (by %) in Ohio that had an income and sales tax than I did in Washington which has a sales tax.
Why?
Food, medicines and many services were exempt from sales tax. But ALL of my income was subject to city taxes of 2% (some payed more due to schools). And almost all of my income was subject to State income tax.
Poor people don't buy lots of stuff. And the stuff they buy tends to be cheap. If you exempt food, medications and services the sales tax can be less regressive than an income tax. I'll certainly take a sales tax over a combined sales/income tax any day.
"For example Medicare fraud now totals more than $60 billion per year."
A few points. First, that is estimated. May be low, may be high. Second, it has no context. Is it unreasonable compared to other insurance? Third, if there is so much fraud, why doesn't Congress allocate proper resources to fight it. Fourth, fraud is still cheaper than adding benefits to get the geezer vote (Plan D) without paying for it. Finally, what do STATE sales taxes have to do with a FEDERAL program?
You must have an interesting definition of the military. For instance, I would consider anything directly related to/in support of the defense department to be military. Therefore, our military budget is our defense budget.
It is certainly true that we have a much larger military force than is needed to physically protect US territories. Whether we have a large enough force to protect our actual interests is debatable. And what size of military is needed depends on how we define our interests....
If you sell or exchange something of value (barter) on a taxable item, then tax is probably owed on the value of the transaction. Who has to pay it, how it has to be payed and the likelihood anyone will even notice varies greatly depending on the state and the item.
This is not a new concept. It applied to the time before the internet when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and people used black corded phones to call companies and order out of paper catalogs....
I know at least one other person that does so. So there are at least two of you. :)
"Its possible to do this with lots of 3-way switches and electrical wiring, but its simpler to do it in software."
Huh? How is adding software on top of three way switches simpler than proper planning and wiring in the first place?
Now if you mean fixing the pitiful excuse for planing and wiring that occurs in most places via wireless controls versus a remodel then you have an excellent point.