As a black nerd guy, the only thing I think you got right is the culture aspect. My parents didn't like me 'wasting time' with computers, but I worked around them and 'wasted time' with computers anyway.
I don't think that's a race thing. All of the adults in my nearly 100% white suburbs were saying the exact same thing when I was growing up. I was told it was wasted time. Teachers didn't want me typing up papers on my computer. They asked "How will you do it in the real world when you don't have your computer there to do it all for you?" One professor at my very expensive private university said "The internet will never amount to anything. It's a toy for computer geeks." The older generation really got caught with their pants down on the whole computer thing.
When I was a kid the computer "wasn't there" already. (Of course that way about 1980.) There wasn't any in school either.
My parents basically bought me a VIC-20 to make me stop taking apart the household electrical appliances I found in the house or in the garbage. Someone who likes to tinker with technology can't be stopped by not having a ready-made computer around.
This describes me too. Although it was an Atari 800, not a VIC-20.
#3 Nothing much else matters to them in this life other than acquiring more money
Given the above, I believe that most VC's would gladly suck a bag of dicks if it meant an additional $1B in their bank account. I assume that funding a black guy's tech firm is much more pleasant than sucking a bag of dicks. My conclusion is that VC's would be happy to fund black tech firms, or asian tech firms, or latino tech firms if they thought they could make a bunch of money from doing so.
The open question is whether or not VC's underestimate the ability of black/asian/latino firms to make them a ton of cash.
If you haven't tried the new GNOME shell, you're missing out on a really cool experience. I haven't this happy with my desktop since I ran a very customized AfterStep about 10 years ago.
+1
I wouldn't go back to the old gnome if you paid me.
Big government paired with cronyism is not part of capitalism. It never was.
You are soooooo wrong. Big government + cronyism is the default steady state of capitalism. The capitalist system can have no other outcome. Wealth concentrates. The rich use it to brainwash the masses and pay for political favors. The two dynamics amplify each other until you get what we have today. It's inevitable.
Spotify is the first streaming service that I've consistently used. I've tried the others but none of them "stuck" with me. The unique thing it provides is full access to albums played any way I choose.
I use it to listen to albums I already like and to discover new artists. When I'm looking for new artists, I don't want to hear one or two songs ala Pandora. I want to listen to entire albums. I usually need to listen to songs two or more times before I can decide if they're really great. Spotify lets me do that. I can queue up (via playlists) artists that I've discovered now but don't have time to listen to until later.
It's changed music's place in my life, seriously! Before Spotify I was stuck listening to the same old stuff from my collection. I thought I didn't have enough time to find new artists. With Spotify, I'm listening to new stuff all the time with little effort on my part.
When I want to listen to a mix of artists I listen to a professional DJ mix or a decent radio station. The Pandora model just doesn't do it for me.
That said, it REALLY sucks that Spotify is in bed with Facebook. I was contemplating the paid premium Spotify membership but no way in hell will I associate my billing information with a fucking Facebook profile. Fuck that!
What's in it for me? What do I gain by agreeing to teach on-line?
This attitude is exactly why education in this country (university, secondary, and elementary) are such a goddamn mess. When my employers told me to do something I never asked "What's in it for me?" The sense of entitlement of American "educators" never ceases to amaze and disgust me.
The University of Pittsburgh is on the Public Ivy "runner's up list." Seeing that and knowing 50+ people who attended Pitt as undergrads, I take the notion of "Public Ivy" with a grain of salt. Pitt U. is far below even mid tier-private schools.
So if it's good enough for Berkeley or Harvard, why is it not good enough for an elementary school in Phoenix?
Of course the answer is that this isn't really about the quality of teaching, it's about xenophobia.
It's not "good enough" when college students can't understand their instructors. It's a serious problem and a slap in the face to students. It's bad enough when the student is an adult and paying for instruction. At least college students can (ostensibly) stand up for themselves and demand better. Allowing small children to be subjected to teachers they can't understand is a travesty. The public school teachers of this country seem to think that the education system exists primarily to provide them with jobs. The fact that maybe some kids will learn...or not...is a complete afterthought. Reason #1006 why this country is doomed.
BTW, way to play the race bias card. I'd love to see YOUR KID stuck with teachers he can't understand. I wonder if you'd still think it is all about race then.
Linking to the Heritage Foundation for an article on the plight of the poor is like linking to the Westboro Baptist Church Home Page for an article on LGBT rights.
Selective breeding over generations is genetic modification, and it's been going on for the past four millennia. Did you mean "recombinant genetic modification"?
The phrase "genetically modified" means genetically engineered. No one uses the term to mean selective breeding.
Plenty of companies offer 2 hour a day jobs. It's just that they happen to think that they are 8 hour a day jobs. One of my friends worked at a senior position at a major bank in NYC. The place was filled with clueless people and inexperienced H1B's. In contrast, he's a top guy who knows his shit. He was easily able to crank through everything the bank expected from him and more in 2 hours per day.
Seems like you're the guy who needs to stop acting like a 3 year old. This is the third "OMG which router to buy?" question in the last ~6 months. It is getting old. Take these questions to smallnetbuilder.com or hardforum where they belong.
I've had Apple Airport Express, Airport Extreme and Time Capsule and they're all still in working order with uptime's of hundreds of days, my Airport Express attached to a UPS has 700 days of uptime and only goes out in case I'm moving it or extended power outages.
A quick google will show that Time Capsules are notorious for dieing just after the warranty period is up.
$250k is still rich, even today. A person with that yearly income is one of the richest people on the planet, and one of the richest people to ever live on planet Earth. The fact that people making that amount do not recognize and appreciate exactly how fucking lucky they are makes me sick. "It doesn't go as far as it used to." Seriously? $250k and you are not happy with what you have? You need it to "go further?" I imagine these same people, if they made $1mil a year, would be complaining that they couldn't afford the stuff that the $50mil a year guys can afford. What a bunch of bastards.
BTW, this rant was not directed at the parent poster.
I'd rather tax those who are sitting on trust funds than those who are aggressively making lots of money, as they are quite likely to be the wealth creators rather than the fat cats doing nothing but sucking money out of the system.
The only wealth creators in any economic system are the workers. The guys who own everything are not creating wealth. They gather all of the wealth created by their slaves/workers and pretend it's theirs.
Corporations do not pay taxes at all.
That's economics from junior high school.
All corporations do is pass their tax costs on to the price of their goods.
Don't go around admitting that you fell for that line of bullshit unless you're still in junior high.
Companies charge as much for their product as consumers will pay. That's basic economics. When a company is already charging the absolute maximum that it's customers will pay, money to pay for additional tax increases must come out of their profit on the item.
If the company added the additional tax cost (C) to the cost of the item (X) then the item would cost X + C. When X is already the maximum that customers will pay, X+C is over that maximum. Customers will not buy the product. This doesn't apply for things that customers must purchase like food and shelter but it can move their preferences between products that satisfy those basic needs.
From a purely common sense viewpoint, if corporations (aka the rich / the Republicans) didn't pay taxes but only passed them on to consumers then why would the rich guys be so opposed to tax hikes? What the fuck would they care? They would happily say a-ok and pass that shit onto the middle and lower classes.
Slashdot Mirror
As a black nerd guy, the only thing I think you got right is the culture aspect. My parents didn't like me 'wasting time' with computers, but I worked around them and 'wasted time' with computers anyway.
I don't think that's a race thing. All of the adults in my nearly 100% white suburbs were saying the exact same thing when I was growing up. I was told it was wasted time. Teachers didn't want me typing up papers on my computer. They asked "How will you do it in the real world when you don't have your computer there to do it all for you?" One professor at my very expensive private university said "The internet will never amount to anything. It's a toy for computer geeks." The older generation really got caught with their pants down on the whole computer thing.
When I was a kid the computer "wasn't there" already. (Of course that way about 1980.) There wasn't any in school either.
My parents basically bought me a VIC-20 to make me stop taking apart the household electrical appliances I found in the house or in the garbage. Someone who likes to tinker with technology can't be stopped by not having a ready-made computer around.
This describes me too. Although it was an Atari 800, not a VIC-20.
What I know about VC's:
#1 They love money
#2 They never have enough money
#3 Nothing much else matters to them in this life other than acquiring more money
Given the above, I believe that most VC's would gladly suck a bag of dicks if it meant an additional $1B in their bank account. I assume that funding a black guy's tech firm is much more pleasant than sucking a bag of dicks. My conclusion is that VC's would be happy to fund black tech firms, or asian tech firms, or latino tech firms if they thought they could make a bunch of money from doing so.
The open question is whether or not VC's underestimate the ability of black/asian/latino firms to make them a ton of cash.
Fuck! There goes another hobby. Chemistry, Rocketry, RC Planes... I wonder which geeky hobby is next up to be regulated into oblivion.
If you haven't tried the new GNOME shell, you're missing out on a really cool experience. I haven't this happy with my desktop since I ran a very customized AfterStep about 10 years ago.
+1
I wouldn't go back to the old gnome if you paid me.
Big government paired with cronyism is not part of capitalism. It never was.
You are soooooo wrong. Big government + cronyism is the default steady state of capitalism. The capitalist system can have no other outcome. Wealth concentrates. The rich use it to brainwash the masses and pay for political favors. The two dynamics amplify each other until you get what we have today. It's inevitable.
To each his own I guess. I've tried those and think they suck. I think Spotify is awesome.
I listened to the same old shit over and over again.
Spotify is the first streaming service that I've consistently used. I've tried the others but none of them "stuck" with me. The unique thing it provides is full access to albums played any way I choose.
I use it to listen to albums I already like and to discover new artists. When I'm looking for new artists, I don't want to hear one or two songs ala Pandora. I want to listen to entire albums. I usually need to listen to songs two or more times before I can decide if they're really great. Spotify lets me do that. I can queue up (via playlists) artists that I've discovered now but don't have time to listen to until later.
It's changed music's place in my life, seriously! Before Spotify I was stuck listening to the same old stuff from my collection. I thought I didn't have enough time to find new artists. With Spotify, I'm listening to new stuff all the time with little effort on my part.
When I want to listen to a mix of artists I listen to a professional DJ mix or a decent radio station. The Pandora model just doesn't do it for me.
That said, it REALLY sucks that Spotify is in bed with Facebook. I was contemplating the paid premium Spotify membership but no way in hell will I associate my billing information with a fucking Facebook profile. Fuck that!
I think religious people can be scientific, but scientific people cannot be religious. Doubting Thomas was right to doubt
Yes they can. There's an App for that! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognative_dissonance
What's in it for me? What do I gain by agreeing to teach on-line?
This attitude is exactly why education in this country (university, secondary, and elementary) are such a goddamn mess. When my employers told me to do something I never asked "What's in it for me?" The sense of entitlement of American "educators" never ceases to amaze and disgust me.
The University of Pittsburgh is on the Public Ivy "runner's up list." Seeing that and knowing 50+ people who attended Pitt as undergrads, I take the notion of "Public Ivy" with a grain of salt. Pitt U. is far below even mid tier-private schools.
So if it's good enough for Berkeley or Harvard, why is it not good enough for an elementary school in Phoenix?
Of course the answer is that this isn't really about the quality of teaching, it's about xenophobia.
It's not "good enough" when college students can't understand their instructors. It's a serious problem and a slap in the face to students. It's bad enough when the student is an adult and paying for instruction. At least college students can (ostensibly) stand up for themselves and demand better. Allowing small children to be subjected to teachers they can't understand is a travesty. The public school teachers of this country seem to think that the education system exists primarily to provide them with jobs. The fact that maybe some kids will learn...or not...is a complete afterthought. Reason #1006 why this country is doomed.
BTW, way to play the race bias card. I'd love to see YOUR KID stuck with teachers he can't understand. I wonder if you'd still think it is all about race then.
Not if you can walk to your local library and access 500,000 books for free.
Linking to the Heritage Foundation for an article on the plight of the poor is like linking to the Westboro Baptist Church Home Page for an article on LGBT rights.
so tell me... why is Genetic Modification of food allowed?
Because corporations rule the world and they don't a fuck about anything other than the next few quarters' profits.
Selective breeding over generations is genetic modification, and it's been going on for the past four millennia. Did you mean " recombinant genetic modification"?
The phrase "genetically modified" means genetically engineered. No one uses the term to mean selective breeding.
Plenty of companies offer 2 hour a day jobs. It's just that they happen to think that they are 8 hour a day jobs. One of my friends worked at a senior position at a major bank in NYC. The place was filled with clueless people and inexperienced H1B's. In contrast, he's a top guy who knows his shit. He was easily able to crank through everything the bank expected from him and more in 2 hours per day.
Seems like you're the guy who needs to stop acting like a 3 year old. This is the third "OMG which router to buy?" question in the last ~6 months. It is getting old. Take these questions to smallnetbuilder.com or hardforum where they belong.
I've had Apple Airport Express, Airport Extreme and Time Capsule and they're all still in working order with uptime's of hundreds of days, my Airport Express attached to a UPS has 700 days of uptime and only goes out in case I'm moving it or extended power outages.
A quick google will show that Time Capsules are notorious for dieing just after the warranty period is up.
$250k is still rich, even today. A person with that yearly income is one of the richest people on the planet, and one of the richest people to ever live on planet Earth. The fact that people making that amount do not recognize and appreciate exactly how fucking lucky they are makes me sick. "It doesn't go as far as it used to." Seriously? $250k and you are not happy with what you have? You need it to "go further?" I imagine these same people, if they made $1mil a year, would be complaining that they couldn't afford the stuff that the $50mil a year guys can afford. What a bunch of bastards.
BTW, this rant was not directed at the parent poster.
I'd rather tax those who are sitting on trust funds than those who are aggressively making lots of money, as they are quite likely to be the wealth creators rather than the fat cats doing nothing but sucking money out of the system.
The only wealth creators in any economic system are the workers. The guys who own everything are not creating wealth. They gather all of the wealth created by their slaves/workers and pretend it's theirs.
The only class waging war in this country on other classes is the rich.
It's not so much a war...more like a massacre.
Corporations do not pay taxes at all. That's economics from junior high school. All corporations do is pass their tax costs on to the price of their goods.
Don't go around admitting that you fell for that line of bullshit unless you're still in junior high.
Companies charge as much for their product as consumers will pay. That's basic economics. When a company is already charging the absolute maximum that it's customers will pay, money to pay for additional tax increases must come out of their profit on the item.
If the company added the additional tax cost (C) to the cost of the item (X) then the item would cost X + C. When X is already the maximum that customers will pay, X+C is over that maximum. Customers will not buy the product. This doesn't apply for things that customers must purchase like food and shelter but it can move their preferences between products that satisfy those basic needs.
From a purely common sense viewpoint, if corporations (aka the rich / the Republicans) didn't pay taxes but only passed them on to consumers then why would the rich guys be so opposed to tax hikes? What the fuck would they care? They would happily say a-ok and pass that shit onto the middle and lower classes.
Netflix / Qwikster meet the shark. You've just jumped it.