Re:Where do these guys get money from?
on
Flying Humans
·
· Score: 1
Same as anyone else with an un-cheap hobby. When people are really into something, they'll make whatever sacrifices / do whatever extra work is necessary to fund it, given their initial financial position.
And that's not much of an answer because I am primarily writing to say I think your sig is quite awesome and clever.:-)
These figures appear in a number of places with no citation, however
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
appears to have done its homework, citing a number of studies. I have not gone digging further to verify the cited sources, but it looks good.
Although I see we are being satirical here, there is the valid point that some things are very similar to configure on both OSes, yet people get the impression that Linux is harder - simply because as the GP said, "their suspicions are already armed." They have certain things they are used to doing on Windows (and this includes dealing with arbitrary upgrade hassles), and those things are invisible, even when more complicated than the Linux alternative. I never really *noticed* how annoying the upgrade/reinstall process on Windows was until I b0rked my Linux install and did a full recovery (data, settings, programs, everything except the b0rkage) in half an hour and 5 commands.
I've seen much the opposite, as other responders to your post have already emphasized. However, one thing that many of us *are* guilty of (myself included, although since having it pointed out to me, I try very hard to avoid it) is overzealous unsolicited promotion to the point that we produce backlash and/or get tuned out. Someone once put it to me in terms of "signal to noise ratio" - a gentler approach might engender more listening and create more converts.
This is especially true of relatively new users who are excited and feel that their solution *clearly* must be right for everyone else. (Again, guilty!) Perhaps it is among this demographic that you have a higher concentration of condescending users (perhaps feeling defensive and belittling newbies unable to make something work because that calls into question the hard selling they've been doing). I think I'm innocent of this latter crime though.
This was one of the many cool things about the, uh, ending of the big duel in Dark Knight Returns (written a mere 4 years later) - the immediate reaction is that . . . the guy who dies . . . is doing the same thing there that Roy is at the end of Blade Runner. Incredibly poignant and striking. [I have only seen the DC, came to the same conclusion re: Roy's motive, and would have some difficulty believing that Deckard could be that dumb.]
Also, you lucky *$(^#&^#. *shakingofthefist at people who saw it in theaters*
Well, in addition to the various reasons various figures in the porn industry have stated, the porn idustry is always the bad guy, esp. for politicians. The RIAA can lobby politicians to support them in 'protecting artists and american jobs' against 'amoral teens stealing valuable intellectual property,' and the pols can then stand up and use these arguments to justify facilitating legislature, etc etc. Also, the RIAA can market its campaign in the same way, to limit the public backlash. No politician is going to be on the side of pornography! And in fact, if the porn industry started doing this, there'd be public outrage and possibly legislation passed to 'stop them terrorizing our innocent youth.' Or some such.
Unfortunately, this isn't a strategy that could be of use in stopping the RIAA - any counter-porn legislation would consist of increases in censorship, government monitoring, and possibly federally-mandated DRM (which wouldn't help, but would be aggressively sold as a solution to technologically-illiterate pols).
It isn't so much about connecting them to jobs (at least initially) - the target market far exceeds the number of existing suitable open jobs. It *is* about empowering them, giving them the ability to learn enough to find ways to help themselves and their communities, and connecting them to the outside world, so they can help to coordinate efforts for change. OLPC is a way to give the next generation access to the world outside of their small village/refugee camp/whatever - it isn't unreasonable to expect leaders and organized communites to arise out of this. A few groups communicating and learning together can make a world of difference from the inside in ways that will stick, ultimately creating new economic units, complete with their own job markets - that's a long term view, but the only feasible solution to the general problem of mass poverty. We can't effect the needed changes from the outside, no matter how much time we have, so we need a method to enable change from within, however slowly it may occur. OLPC, alongside of some food support and efforts to create sustainable agriculture, has a LOT of potential.
Point 1 + Point 2 == . . . Oh wow, Dvorak is a Machiavellian double-agent!!
I see it all so clearly now! He establishes himself as a popular analyst-for-hire, then helps valuable underdog projects to succeed when bad guys identify themselves to him with bribery-for-bad-PR. He writes the PR carefully so that it looks like what the company asked for, but instead ends up raising the profile of the good guys a bit, and whatever else keeps happening - the good guys always win! Wow, thanks Dvorak!
It's a darn good thing the bad guys are so slow to realize the pattern, I'd hate to see this beautiful model fail . . . hopefully nobody outs him. Oh shi-
And I'd pay a lot more then $20 for a doctor to be watching my important internal bits and not trying to remember how many sponges he and 4 other specialists used over an 8-hour procedure. And sometimes things go wrong, there's a hurry, and you aren't counting so much as you are moving as quickly as possible to stop the bleeding from somewhere that shouldn't be open. Having a nice pile of scanned-in sponges waiting for use that you can instead count as they come out, when things are [relatively] nice and calm . . . that's BIG.
And to the response to my post - all good points. On further research, I feel that all my concerns are well addressed by the existing systems. Still, double-layering ain't a bad idea.:-)
I'm cool with that if we can calibrate correctly and stop it somewhere in the 30-36 range. That'd be just about right. I could maintain a daily sleep schedule for more than 2 days at a time, it'd be *amazing*! >.>
There are environmentalists, and there are misanthropes who pretend to be environmentalists. The former are enthusiastic about alternative energy sources. The latter want us all to just freeze in the dark.
Hey, hey, that's not fair! Some of them want us to burn or explode instead! Represent all sides of the fringe equally!;-b
However, all of those mentioned objects have the advantage of being heavy things *sitting on* the seafloor. The only tugging going on is on lateral support cables, if they are needed. If you have a system that is actively pulling upwards against an anchor, it's going to require a lot more work to set up, and will probably require more maintenance even before you consider that they want these in wave-heavy zones that may coincide nicely with unstable, rapidly moving seafloor. All in all, recipe for difficult engineering challenges. (Although I agree that it's not impossible!)
Still, I like barcodes better because of the breakage possibility - scan barcodes going in == guaranteed count, don't use a failed scan. Scan barcodes coming out - if one fails, manually count, easy enough. RFID has the advantage of catching error where something got used without going through the counter, though . . . . mebbe a combo is a good idea. Although in that case you may have slightly higher compliance issues because of the greater ease of one system . . . I'm too pessimistic to design medical devices, apparently.
No. RFID chips can break . . . better to have something that you can't come to rely on being able to track remotely. More importantly, though, adding barcodes to sponges and assorted other inserted instruments is easy and inexpensive, adding rfid chips is not. Especially something like sponges and other things that should not have hard bits in, not to mention that it's a bit wasteful for single-use items that you may use a hundred or more of in a single surgery.
You could also RTFA, or even the S . . . the correlation coefficient between turnout and votes for Putin is *really* high. Look at the lovely graphs in TFA for a nice visual presentation of it. This is very strong evidence of fraud. In that light, the >100% turnout figures are simply evidence of sloppy fraud from a dictator who knows he can get away with anything and perhaps even wants to make sure the people know it by throwing out things like this.
Thanks to whoever counter-modded the 'Troll' on this one. While I do find high-ranking negative-descriptor posts amusing in general concept, "-1 Troll" != "I disagree with your political opinion", even when it's stated in a caustic manner. 'Cause this *is* on topic and relevant.
Ouch. Also, this strikes me as being a hit against Linux too . . . double whammy, congrats M$, what can we do? 'Cause you can bet banks are interested in where the money is, and that ain't F/OSS companies.:-(
Until the average undergraduate is capable of making that distinction
If you're not capable of making that decision, you shouldn't be an undergraduate.
Not quite - an educated populace is one of the most important defenses against Bad Things, especially in a democracy . . . so if you lack critical thinking skills, you should not be allowed to graduate until you acquire them, but you should be an undergrad if you stand a chance of doing so (although it's lamentable that you managed to go through secondary education without picking up such basic skills). We need to impart those skills to as many people as possible, in whatever environments we've got, late if necessary.
Teaching students *how* to use Wikipedia (&c) would be a decent step in that direction, and would be wonderful if it could reliably and successfully be integrated into high school curricula nationally (but I have no confidence that it would do anything but cause further problems . . . there are many other baby steps to be taken before we're ready for that).
Example: What did Book do before he was a Shephard, and why does the Alliance like him so much? Where else can you find out, except in a prequel or a flashback?
That's the biggest mystery of the series (OK, it's as obvious that he was a hunter-killer like the guy in Serenity as it was that River was trained as a super-assassin early in Firefly . . . but there's no *solid* evidence, and it *could* be anything), and one of the things I am most dying to know more about . . . but it's also the most important one to leave mysterious, because that's where it gets its power. It was awesome to slowly realize what we can surmise during my first viewing of Serenity, though.
Inara, though, has serious prequel potential. I'm really ticked that he had to take the cliffhanger ending from Season 1 and run it into the final movie, because that was shaping up to be an awesome ongoing issue in Season 2 . . . we can only go backwards now.:-( It was the right thing to do in the circumstances, but curse Fox for forcing his hand!
Be careful for what you wish! Most of the TV-series-inspired novels of which I can think have been terrible . . . although if Whedon was given veto power, I'd trust him, I guess.
It is true that both Anakins were atrocious . . . however, recall that Lucas really liked them! If his taste changed that much, his writing could have too! (Granted, he's never been good at dialogue . . . another major reason the originals were better is that Lucas got some help for Ep. V & VI - Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett. As part of the new insanity for 1-3, he backed away from that wise decision, writing his 'pure vision' without any meddling interference from anyone who could have rescued us.)
I did virtually the same thing . . . In what has to be their first intelligent move, Fox must have been targeting Firefly fans - it was just too perfect. Of course, it is consistently evil to do so only to dash our fragile and easily-raised hopes.:-(
Slashdot Mirror
Same as anyone else with an un-cheap hobby. When people are really into something, they'll make whatever sacrifices / do whatever extra work is necessary to fund it, given their initial financial position. And that's not much of an answer because I am primarily writing to say I think your sig is quite awesome and clever. :-)
These figures appear in a number of places with no citation, however http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html appears to have done its homework, citing a number of studies. I have not gone digging further to verify the cited sources, but it looks good.
For a great deal of data running from 1983 to 2004, see Edward Wolff: "Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the United States: Rising Debt and the Middle-Class Squeeze" (pdf) from this year.
As with GP . . . cool! I didn't know they had a movie editor either! I'd mod you up Informative, but no points. :-(
Although I see we are being satirical here, there is the valid point that some things are very similar to configure on both OSes, yet people get the impression that Linux is harder - simply because as the GP said, "their suspicions are already armed." They have certain things they are used to doing on Windows (and this includes dealing with arbitrary upgrade hassles), and those things are invisible, even when more complicated than the Linux alternative. I never really *noticed* how annoying the upgrade/reinstall process on Windows was until I b0rked my Linux install and did a full recovery (data, settings, programs, everything except the b0rkage) in half an hour and 5 commands.
I've seen much the opposite, as other responders to your post have already emphasized. However, one thing that many of us *are* guilty of (myself included, although since having it pointed out to me, I try very hard to avoid it) is overzealous unsolicited promotion to the point that we produce backlash and/or get tuned out. Someone once put it to me in terms of "signal to noise ratio" - a gentler approach might engender more listening and create more converts.
This is especially true of relatively new users who are excited and feel that their solution *clearly* must be right for everyone else. (Again, guilty!) Perhaps it is among this demographic that you have a higher concentration of condescending users (perhaps feeling defensive and belittling newbies unable to make something work because that calls into question the hard selling they've been doing). I think I'm innocent of this latter crime though.
This was one of the many cool things about the, uh, ending of the big duel in Dark Knight Returns (written a mere 4 years later) - the immediate reaction is that . . . the guy who dies . . . is doing the same thing there that Roy is at the end of Blade Runner. Incredibly poignant and striking. [I have only seen the DC, came to the same conclusion re: Roy's motive, and would have some difficulty believing that Deckard could be that dumb.]
Also, you lucky *$(^#&^#. *shakingofthefist at people who saw it in theaters*
Well, in addition to the various reasons various figures in the porn industry have stated, the porn idustry is always the bad guy, esp. for politicians. The RIAA can lobby politicians to support them in 'protecting artists and american jobs' against 'amoral teens stealing valuable intellectual property,' and the pols can then stand up and use these arguments to justify facilitating legislature, etc etc. Also, the RIAA can market its campaign in the same way, to limit the public backlash. No politician is going to be on the side of pornography! And in fact, if the porn industry started doing this, there'd be public outrage and possibly legislation passed to 'stop them terrorizing our innocent youth.' Or some such.
Unfortunately, this isn't a strategy that could be of use in stopping the RIAA - any counter-porn legislation would consist of increases in censorship, government monitoring, and possibly federally-mandated DRM (which wouldn't help, but would be aggressively sold as a solution to technologically-illiterate pols).
It isn't so much about connecting them to jobs (at least initially) - the target market far exceeds the number of existing suitable open jobs. It *is* about empowering them, giving them the ability to learn enough to find ways to help themselves and their communities, and connecting them to the outside world, so they can help to coordinate efforts for change. OLPC is a way to give the next generation access to the world outside of their small village/refugee camp/whatever - it isn't unreasonable to expect leaders and organized communites to arise out of this. A few groups communicating and learning together can make a world of difference from the inside in ways that will stick, ultimately creating new economic units, complete with their own job markets - that's a long term view, but the only feasible solution to the general problem of mass poverty. We can't effect the needed changes from the outside, no matter how much time we have, so we need a method to enable change from within, however slowly it may occur. OLPC, alongside of some food support and efforts to create sustainable agriculture, has a LOT of potential.
Point 1 + Point 2 == . . . Oh wow, Dvorak is a Machiavellian double-agent!!
I see it all so clearly now! He establishes himself as a popular analyst-for-hire, then helps valuable underdog projects to succeed when bad guys identify themselves to him with bribery-for-bad-PR. He writes the PR carefully so that it looks like what the company asked for, but instead ends up raising the profile of the good guys a bit, and whatever else keeps happening - the good guys always win! Wow, thanks Dvorak!
It's a darn good thing the bad guys are so slow to realize the pattern, I'd hate to see this beautiful model fail . . . hopefully nobody outs him. Oh shi-
And I'd pay a lot more then $20 for a doctor to be watching my important internal bits and not trying to remember how many sponges he and 4 other specialists used over an 8-hour procedure. And sometimes things go wrong, there's a hurry, and you aren't counting so much as you are moving as quickly as possible to stop the bleeding from somewhere that shouldn't be open. Having a nice pile of scanned-in sponges waiting for use that you can instead count as they come out, when things are [relatively] nice and calm . . . that's BIG.
:-)
And to the response to my post - all good points. On further research, I feel that all my concerns are well addressed by the existing systems. Still, double-layering ain't a bad idea.
Depends on which New Wave you prefer . . .
I'm cool with that if we can calibrate correctly and stop it somewhere in the 30-36 range. That'd be just about right. I could maintain a daily sleep schedule for more than 2 days at a time, it'd be *amazing*! >.>
Hey, hey, that's not fair! Some of them want us to burn or explode instead! Represent all sides of the fringe equally!
However, all of those mentioned objects have the advantage of being heavy things *sitting on* the seafloor. The only tugging going on is on lateral support cables, if they are needed. If you have a system that is actively pulling upwards against an anchor, it's going to require a lot more work to set up, and will probably require more maintenance even before you consider that they want these in wave-heavy zones that may coincide nicely with unstable, rapidly moving seafloor. All in all, recipe for difficult engineering challenges. (Although I agree that it's not impossible!)
*sigh* I stand very quickly corrected:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=383979&cid=21629409
(Post in thread just above)
Still, I like barcodes better because of the breakage possibility - scan barcodes going in == guaranteed count, don't use a failed scan. Scan barcodes coming out - if one fails, manually count, easy enough. RFID has the advantage of catching error where something got used without going through the counter, though . . . . mebbe a combo is a good idea. Although in that case you may have slightly higher compliance issues because of the greater ease of one system . . . I'm too pessimistic to design medical devices, apparently.
No. RFID chips can break . . . better to have something that you can't come to rely on being able to track remotely. More importantly, though, adding barcodes to sponges and assorted other inserted instruments is easy and inexpensive, adding rfid chips is not. Especially something like sponges and other things that should not have hard bits in, not to mention that it's a bit wasteful for single-use items that you may use a hundred or more of in a single surgery.
You could also RTFA, or even the S . . . the correlation coefficient between turnout and votes for Putin is *really* high. Look at the lovely graphs in TFA for a nice visual presentation of it. This is very strong evidence of fraud. In that light, the >100% turnout figures are simply evidence of sloppy fraud from a dictator who knows he can get away with anything and perhaps even wants to make sure the people know it by throwing out things like this.
Thanks to whoever counter-modded the 'Troll' on this one. While I do find high-ranking negative-descriptor posts amusing in general concept, "-1 Troll" != "I disagree with your political opinion", even when it's stated in a caustic manner. 'Cause this *is* on topic and relevant.
Ouch. Also, this strikes me as being a hit against Linux too . . . double whammy, congrats M$, what can we do? 'Cause you can bet banks are interested in where the money is, and that ain't F/OSS companies. :-(
Interesting, and useful information - I wish I had some mod points. Mod Parent Up!
If you're not capable of making that decision, you shouldn't be an undergraduate.
Not quite - an educated populace is one of the most important defenses against Bad Things, especially in a democracy . . . so if you lack critical thinking skills, you should not be allowed to graduate until you acquire them, but you should be an undergrad if you stand a chance of doing so (although it's lamentable that you managed to go through secondary education without picking up such basic skills). We need to impart those skills to as many people as possible, in whatever environments we've got, late if necessary.
Teaching students *how* to use Wikipedia (&c) would be a decent step in that direction, and would be wonderful if it could reliably and successfully be integrated into high school curricula nationally (but I have no confidence that it would do anything but cause further problems . . . there are many other baby steps to be taken before we're ready for that).
That's the biggest mystery of the series (OK, it's as obvious that he was a hunter-killer like the guy in Serenity as it was that River was trained as a super-assassin early in Firefly . . . but there's no *solid* evidence, and it *could* be anything), and one of the things I am most dying to know more about . . . but it's also the most important one to leave mysterious, because that's where it gets its power. It was awesome to slowly realize what we can surmise during my first viewing of Serenity, though.
Inara, though, has serious prequel potential. I'm really ticked that he had to take the cliffhanger ending from Season 1 and run it into the final movie, because that was shaping up to be an awesome ongoing issue in Season 2 . . . we can only go backwards now. :-( It was the right thing to do in the circumstances, but curse Fox for forcing his hand!
Be careful for what you wish! Most of the TV-series-inspired novels of which I can think have been terrible . . . although if Whedon was given veto power, I'd trust him, I guess.
Er, another important bit is that in between, he went bat$#!7 insane.
http://www.hanshootsfirst.org/
Need I say more?
It is true that both Anakins were atrocious . . . however, recall that Lucas really liked them! If his taste changed that much, his writing could have too! (Granted, he's never been good at dialogue . . . another major reason the originals were better is that Lucas got some help for Ep. V & VI - Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett. As part of the new insanity for 1-3, he backed away from that wise decision, writing his 'pure vision' without any meddling interference from anyone who could have rescued us.)
I did virtually the same thing . . . In what has to be their first intelligent move, Fox must have been targeting Firefly fans - it was just too perfect. Of course, it is consistently evil to do so only to dash our fragile and easily-raised hopes. :-(