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User: Darinbob

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  1. Re:Schooling, perhaps? on Poverty Stunts IQ In the US But Not In Other Developed Countries (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Schools without unions are private, meaning they get lots more money than public schools, and this directly correlates to how well students do. Private school teachers are paid more than public school teachers, and they also get respect rather than being accused of being the one and only cause of school declines. Private schools have funds to maintain the buildings, keep around additional classes like art and music that contribute to learning, they can afford to have up to date school books, they don't have cafeterias with budgets cut to the bare bone so that ketchup has to be considered a vegetable to meet standards, etc. Private schools have never had to deal with white flight, they never have a mass migration of parents worried that their kids are associating with the wrong sort, and they don't have to deal with lobbying groups asking for vouchers so that their kids can be taught elsewhere.

    There is a breakdown in schools and it is primarily caused by the citizens abandoning the schools and insisting that education is not a right but a privilege that has to be paid for by something other than tax dollars.

  2. Re:Schooling, perhaps? on Poverty Stunts IQ In the US But Not In Other Developed Countries (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Ohh, that sounds like a well researched and thoughtful comment. Did some teacher give you bad grade one day to leave a chip on your shoulder?

  3. Re:Schooling, perhaps? on Poverty Stunts IQ In the US But Not In Other Developed Countries (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2, Informative

    This doesn't happen as much as hysteria claims. Teachers are a part of the union and teachers *do* want the best for the children. No teacher would take such a lousy low paying job like this if they didn't care about the children. Yes, the unions have problems but the unions are also vital because the school boards often try their hardest to ruin things even more.

    The biggest problem I see is white flight. All the rich and upper middle class people have moved their kids out of public schools. Maybe they want better schools, maybe they think all those poorer kids get in fights too much, whatever, but there is a huge migration. This leaves the public school system damaged, they can't get better teachers, they can't fix the schools, there is no money left. The only public schools that do well are those in richer neighborhoods, and there is no equality of schools across even a single school district. The worse it gets the more people leave, and it's a vicious cycle. Fix the schools and no one would come back, people at work look at me like I'm insane if I suggest going to a public school instead of spending most of their income on private schools, and then they whine about how they have to be interviewed in order to have the kids accepted at a kindergarten.

  4. Re:Schooling, perhaps? on Poverty Stunts IQ In the US But Not In Other Developed Countries (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Blame the teachers, but no one ever blames the school administration and school boards. The teacher's unions are there to protect their interests against that of the administrators. They already have some of the lowest paying professional jobs.

  5. Re:Economic Change on Cold Fusion and the Reputation Trap (aeon.co) · · Score: 2

    As far as religion goes in some parts of Christianity, God has promised not to destroy the planet again until the second coming. Ie, no more global deluge. So a man made global delute would be considered heresy in some places. Also the idea that something as puny as mankind could destroy God's creation is also denied and I have seen that sort of opinion expressed (not that anyone is predicting the earth would be destroyed mind you, just a climate change).

    It's all a part of big business (in this case oil industries) getting political support from wherever they can get it. Get people offended that someone would damage the good God fearing oil and coal industry that are the mainstays of America and that heathen liberals are trying to destroy the economy (this is hardly going to happen, the fossil fuels will run out first on their own).

  6. Re:Climate Change on Cold Fusion and the Reputation Trap (aeon.co) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So we wait until the sky falls? Given lots and lots of evidence of climate change already happening? Don't give up smoking until the xrays show a tumor.

    Your "way of life" is trivial to change. Stop driving some wannabe-cowboy SUV that does 3mpg on a good day, start recycling, turn the lights off when you're not in the room, etc. Cut back on American style conspicuous consumption.

  7. Re:So?! on Cold Fusion and the Reputation Trap (aeon.co) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If some area of research is claimed as "discredited" it should mean that a higher burden of proof is required. There's no reason to shun cold fusion and declare that any research in it is wasted, that's unscientific. However it is reasonable to assume anyone working on cold fusion research should be prepared to go beyond some simple papers claiming relevant results in one lab. Part of the shunning of cold fusion also came from the embarrassment factor, as a lot of people had been quickly interested in it, world wide news reports, early hype followed by disappointment.

    For astrology, it's been discredited over and over and over. There's never been any hint of evidence into validity, not even preliminary theories. The burden of proof to be accepted as a valid scientific researcher here is vastly higher than with cold fusion.

  8. Re:Climate Change on Cold Fusion and the Reputation Trap (aeon.co) · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Part of the problem is that while they claim there's no proof that it's caused by man, they also implicitly take the next step and imply that it's not that big a disaster.
    What I don't see is the notion that it's not caused by man but it's still a massive problem and we need to do something about it. The whole point of denying that climate change is man made is as an excuse to do nothing; the thinking that if it's not our fault then we don't have to fix it.

  9. Money may follow brains but the brains don't get that money. The brains get hired as workers and the guys at the top keep the money. Or were you one of those who thought Steve Jobs invented the smart phone single handledly through the sheer might of his engineering prowess?

    But we have many cases of money not following brains. Offshoring of jobs for instance, it is not going to the brighest and best workers, very often it's about hiring 2 workers instead of 1 for the same price and if the workers aren't trained well enough then they'll buy 3 workers for 1. This is not even good for the business except in the short term (boss saves costs and gets a raise today but though the product is now substandard and late and gets the boss fired next year). If you want to hire the best brains from third world emerging countries then those brains are already in the US and Europe because they left those countries and got educated elsewhere. What's left are workers trained in basic tech services (help desk support, computer management) where low cost is more important than high quality.

  10. A class envy exploited by both parties. The extreme Republicn position is about getting the poor people to vote for politicians that will hurt them in the long run with policies that only help rich people (unless you believe in trickle down voodoo economics).

  11. The United States has not remained strong economically. That is, the economics of all its citizens not just the economics of companies that are based here. Wages stay the same even though it's claimed that the economy is improving, which is an absurdity.

    The talent pool is global but no one is looking for talent anymore, they just want warm bodies at the lowest rate possible. The economic models don't even take this into account. The models assume we ship product A overseas and then they ship back product B to us. What really is going to happen is that we build product A overseas and hire workers overseas so that there's no one local who can afford to buy product B. We essentially swap our good economy for their poor economy rather than equalizing the economies and helping both out. A robust trade in goods is something we want but a trade in workers is bad.

    Protectionism for goods is one thing and it may be bad in some cases (not all) but there should be protectionism for the workers since the purpose of a government is to protect its citizens. If the government won't protect its workers then the workers should replace it with a different government.

  12. To the free market believer, civil liberties are unimportant compared to economic liberties and a 2% growth in in their stock portfolios.

  13. Problem is we need to learn to either make corporations loyal to their country, or to stop treating them as citizens and legal residents. If the corporations screw with this country then we should be allowed to screw them right back, if you harm us we harm you back. Kick their headquarters off shore to a third world country where their workers live and send the executives there too. If workers and production are moved overseas then why keep the executives here? But some free market true believer will say "but what about trickle down, and all the new domestic service jobs created by all the rich American fat cats, what are you some sort of commie?"

    The problem is that while we are competing globally for products and services, we should not necessarily be competing globally for employees, and definitely there should be no free trade with regards to employees. This is a part of the economic model that often overlooked.

  14. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev on US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Programmer Jobs Will Decline 8% (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    Has anyone ever outsourced a major product that requires a fair amount of thinking and interaction with the home team to an offshore firm and gotten good results? Maybe it works for web pages, e-commerce, and IT, but not for building a real product. You wouldn't want a medical device surgically implanted in you if it was developed by the cheapest workers with minimal schooling using the lowest bidder for parts, so why trust a company's future to the same thing?

  15. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev on US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Programmer Jobs Will Decline 8% (computerworld.com) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I've been programming for 30 years, and only at the start was I in anything I call a "tech" job. Granted the term is flexible and vague but it mostly seems to imply working with technology without having to know how it actually works - pushing buttons on a black box, following the script from the certification course, thinking inside the box.

    There's been a disturbing trend recently about minimizing the amount of effort necessary to get a job. Taking the fewest classes, skipping the hard classes, skipping school altogether, etc. I think every single class I ever took in university has been useful in real life, even if in an abstract way (by learning how to think and exercise the brain), and for sure every single computer science class I ever took has been practical on the job including theory. Taking shortcuts does not help in the long run, so why settle for being no better than anyone in an low wage offshore firm?

    For the programming at younger ages, like high school, I get the impression that these are extremely dumbed down and are more oriented towards trade school type stuff. No theory, programming only in a popular language, the programming involves tying together existing components without knowing how those components work. I'd love it if they tought numerical methods, whether high school or college, because I see too many programmers who don't understand even the rudimentary parts of it. I'd be happy if they really taught algorithms and not how to make a web page.

  16. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev on US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Programmer Jobs Will Decline 8% (computerworld.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or just become useful. The problem is that so many programming jobs, in IT especially, are cookie-cutter. Anyone who can program can fill the role with minimal training. No degree or experience necessary, just present a certificate. But change it up a bit and it is very difficult to offshore the job. Know the math as well as programming, you'll be much more likely to keep your job even if your job is more difficult than moving around a box on a web page. Know the physics too, or the business, or the EE, or the economics, or whatever it is that the company actually *does*. In embedded systems learn how the system works, learn the hardware, learn the OS. Overall work together with the designers instead of sitting passively waiting for some bite sized pieces of programming assignments to filter down. Yes this is harder for junior level employees but that's also the best time to flex some mental muscles and learn new stuff, volunteer for projects, and make sure the boss thinks of you as more than adequate.

    And just by saying "tech" you dumb it down because tech is already dumbed down. Call it engineering or development or product creation, just call it anything other than something that can be done after a semester at a trade school.

  17. Re:I still use Pine and Lynx on Replacement For Mozilla Thunderbird? · · Score: 1

    Naw, I'm moving to 2043 so that I don't have to live through Corporate War II.

  18. Re:I still use Pine and Lynx on Replacement For Mozilla Thunderbird? · · Score: 2

    I had an island with no high speed broadband, but we had a ship bring in a crate of it every other week.

  19. Re:Sue em. on 12-Year-Old Sikh Boy Arrested In Texas After Bringing a Power Bag To School (salon.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Texas managed to rebel twice against their own country. The first time was very duplicitous - move in a lot of gringos, complain that they're not being treated fairly because of their race, they held illegally held slaves against Mexican law, then start a shooting war for independence (they did ask for help from the US who declined). Then they eventually end up in the union where they are grateful for being allowed to finally keep slaves without government interference. For 16 years anyway until they seceded with the confederate states for the sole reason of being allowed to continue the institution of slavery.

    So racist from their very beginnings, and the two rebellions certainly make Texas a very untrustworthy state. Even though 50 years ago a Texas born president forced them to become civilizied and abandon their institutionalized racism, it does not mean they've stopped being racist.

  20. But saying "it's a joke" doesn't make things go away. We don't know what the kid said. We're not even at this point entirely sure what the police said because multiple reports are saying slightly different things (one said he admitted to a bomb threat, but no details of the background or how scared he was or if there was pressure put on him to confess). Given that there is a court date then this is not just a case of locking him up to put the scare in him, someone in the police department took it seriously. Which is pretty stupid by itself considering that the kid is only 12 years old.

    What seems to be happening is that the schools and police near the Dallas area (and elsewhere) are cooperating to treat all students as potential criminals, treating schools as hostile territory, and making zero-tolerance a criminal matter rather than just a policy of stupid school boards.

    I wonder if we apologize real nicely to Mexico if they'll take Texas back.

  21. Re:Wow. on 12-Year-Old Sikh Boy Arrested In Texas After Bringing a Power Bag To School (salon.com) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The story is that he was making a bomb threat, not that there was a bomb. You can make a bomb threat while having only a box of cheerios in your backpack and it's still a bomb threat. The debate between the family and the school/police was whether there really was a bomb threat, a joke of a bomb threat, or a misunderstanding.

    Then the next question, do you hold a 12 year old for this without notifying and having parents or guardians notified and present? And the notification must be from the police and not the school, the phone call should be from the police to the parents and not from the parents to the police. And not an excuse "we tried to contact them" without follow through.

    And given that it's a 12 year old why treat such a person as an adult? That's absurd. This is more of the zero-tolerance nonsense that's turning schools into daytime detention centers. Let he who is without childhood mistakes cast the first stone.

  22. Well, possibly it was within their roles if they believed it was really a bomb or there was a bomb threat. It is legal to detain juveniles. However, there is no right for police to lock up a minor without notifying the parents. Doesn't matter if the school claims they were going to notify the parents, because the school failed to provide all the necessary information.

    However the details in the story are extremely vague and the reports contradict each other. So maybe they were notified. Even if they were, it doesn't take a genius to recognize the public relations nightmare such a case would be and to make sure everything is above board and by the book.

  23. Re:Karma! It IS a bitch! on "Most Hated Man In America" Martin Shkreli Arrested On Suspicion of Fraud (ibtimes.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    He works in the finance industry. And a CEO. Of course he's a sociopath.

  24. Re:Seems reasonable on Landlords Want a Share of Renters' Airbnb Revenue (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    You can invite over, but that is not sub-leasing though. Sub-leasing means you are leaving the apartment temporarily but you don't want to lose your tenancy, so you sub-lease to someone else who will pay the rent. That person should meet the same standards you did when you applied for the rental. This does not seem to be what a weekend vacation rental is, you may be gone for 2 days but your rent is monthly and not daily.

    I have seen landlords raise rent when the figure out that there are now two people effectively living there when you signed an agreement for only one, because the girlfriend is a "guest" 7 nights out of 7. Ie, the guest became a roommate. If you pretend all those AirBnB visitors paying are merely guests then you're doing exactly what AirBnB wants and that's to be discrete and never say out loud that you're using AirBnB because otherwise the landlords and government would take an interest and screw up their business model.

    Of course lots of people cheat this stuff, especially when there's not much income. One person "cat sits" for a few months, effectively being a full time tenant. Landlords don't mind this too much if the person isn't trashing stuff. But AirBnB crosses a line that's hard to just wink away, especially when they're looking for any reason to get someone out of the rent controlled space so that they can charge full market again.

  25. Re:Seems reasonable on Landlords Want a Share of Renters' Airbnb Revenue (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    That's the point. Some locales have a "reasonable consent" for the landlord, which means that if the person is reasonable then consent to sub-lease should not be denied. However this "reasonable" does mean that the landlord is asked for consent in the first place, the sub-lessor is a known person (not to-be-named-later), there is reasonable expectation of financial ability to pay, possibly credit checks are done, criminal checks are done, etc. If these checks were done on the original tenant then they must be done on the temporary tenant. You can not come back after the fact and say "he seemed like a good guy who was going to treat it well" and be excused.

    However with AirBnB they pretend as if none of this matters. They want the tenants to rent for a weekend to a complete stranger without telling the landlord. If AirBnB is operating with the home owner then there's no problem, the owner can rent out for the weekend (subject to local laws). But if AirBnB is trying to get a renter to sub-rent for a few days then this is suddenly very problematic. There is much more to be done then just the two parties meeting over coffee and agreeing to be discrete so that the owner never finds out. If the owner is not informed then the tenant can be evicted, even in most rent controlled areas.

    Consider if it's a room in a house. What government is going to say that any random stranger can sub-lease there based on "renter's rights"? The same should apply to a rented house, or a rented apartment. Someone else owns it and the owner must be informed and give consent if someone is going to live there. This isn't about buying a cup of coffee so who cares who drinks it, it's about letting someone else live in property that you own who needs to take care of it and pay regular uninterrupted payments to do so.