Check the Wikipedia budget breakdown, and usdebtclock.org. 70% sounds a bit high to me, but it's clearly more than 60% (just from social security, MediX, income security (food stamps etc), and federal pensions). Debt interest is about 7%, and defense about 16%.
Everything "roads and police and NASA etc" related is less that 20%.
Ah, I see. You don't see the government as "profiteering middlemen" then? Interesting.
For retirement, I'm concerned with the net result. Very low fees are of course important to that, crucial even. But low fees are not the actual goal, and I certainly don't begrudge an index fund a 1/10th of a % annual management fee, since there are actual logistics they take care of. I'm sure a lower fee still would find takers for a pool of money this big, even for the retirement-year funds that would make sense here (they have a gradual transition to more safe investments over time, so there's slightly more work than an index fund, but not much).
But you seem to be thinking that investment banks, of all people, would somehow be involved in this. That would be quite silly of course. The point is for the people to own the means of production, not get involved with scams.
So, yes, there are very bad ways to solve these problems. What part of "the government has a needed role in setting standards" was unclear?
There's a gigantic difference between "the government has it's hand in keeping the programs honest, and in ensuring minimal levels of contribution" and "you give your money to the government and they mail checks to voters". All the difference in the world.
As long as no one needs to read past the first page to discover that they want to call you, the rest probably doesn't matter. A resume gets about 30 seconds of attention - just make sure the graphic design of page 1 points attention at a couple of bullet points that say "I did X", where X is relevant and important. Or at least that's the best advice I can give.
Why should the government's sticky fingers be involved in the money flow for these programs? For retirement, the government has a needed roll in setting standards for "safety net" investment choices, and in insuring people actually do save, but they don't need to handle the money. Charity is great, and we should all be compassionate, and again the government has a needed role in setting standards, but they don't need to handle the money.
Plus lets never forget that if you depend on the government each month for a check you can't live without, you've given the government total power over you. Governments attract people who want nothing more than total power over others, and it's never smart to give it to them! We haven't seen the first "dictatorship through the monthly check", but we've seen early hints of it. London protestors were threatened with being cut off from benefits just recently.
Helping people is great. Having power over people is what megalomaniacs seek over all else. We can do the first without feeding the latter.
I've only once been hired anywhere as a result of sending my resume directly to a company (well, a recruiter as it happened, so no HR dweeb). But yeah, that time there were degree requirements that I ignored. What a hiring manager wants is some evidence that you can solve the problem he has. Do you have enough relevant technical experience that it's worth phone-screening you? Those are the requirements that matter, not the boilerplate stuff.
Since LinkedIn emerged, keeping my resume up-to-date there has been enough for recruiters to reach out to me (sorry Dice, but you never managed that). In the US, the software jobs are fairly concentrated in a few cities (not sure where you are, but if you're using a "CV" and not a terse resume in the US, that's your problem). If you don't live in one of them, that could be your problem.
I hate to be the guy saying "why is this on Slashdot", especially since I've been posting these very budget numbers here for years, when it has been relevant to the thread, but WTF? This is a blatant political click-troll story. It's not news (been this way for many years), and it's not "for nerds".
Sure, I guess we could rehash the same old "NASA's budget is trivial in the scheme of thing" posts, but really.
Yet I can't seem to get out of low-pay, entry level positions; why? Because I don't have a Bachelor's degree.
My experience is completely the opposite. Do you work for the government or something? Do you actually self-filter when the requirements say "BA required, MS preferred"?
Past my (crappy) first job, no one has ever cared. Wait, I take that back: there was one team at Google that didn't want to interview me once (but Google recruiters for other teams still pester me often). So once in 20 years someone cared.
20+ years says you're wrong. I've never had a dependable job - it's not the 1950s any more - but I've had a perfectly dependable career. I stay on top of changes in tools and technology, don't get stuck in a niche, and see strong demand for my skills. When I want or need to change jobs, I just start responding to the recruiters contacting me.
That guy who automates the automating? Has a job. We won't run out of things to automate in my lifetime, and if we ever do get strong AI, it will likely demand higher wages than I will.
Yes, I was exploited (worse than you're thinking). So what? I needed to break into the field. I did. Goal achieved. The money I made for the first couple of years just doesn't matter now - it opened the door, and was way the hell easier than a medical internship.
Bennet Hazelton is the source of the bottom tier of Slashdot stories. I swear they post his stories just to get the page hits from everyone complaining about them.
Sure, just in case there's some tiny aspect of your web browsing that Google doesn't already know, use their DNS too! OpenDNS is there for good reason.
If only there were some file on your PC in which you could define IP-hostname pairs to avoid needing DNS for that handful of boxes. I'd name that file, but it would summon APK.
Software development pays well, and demand is high, but it sucks to break into the field. It's the one dependable career though: every job that can be automated will (and should) be automated, but someone needs to write that automation.
There's no degree any more where someone will hand you a job just for graduating. Welcome to the adult world, where you won't be handed anything. Pick a field where there's high demand and most people can't do the work well, and you'll be fine in the long run.
Some things in life come only with practice. Some things in life come only with hard work and patience. The most important things we need to do in life aren't fun. Self discipline is a worthwhile goal in and of itself.
And, really, I was as numerate as any kid is likely to be, but algebra would have been wasted on me before I was 10 or so. When we're young, we're naturally programmed to learn by example, to discover the patterns in life and the rules that let us cope with them. Teaching math is of curse important, but you first need some base on which to build the abstraction. Basic numeracy is just as important as basic literacy, and practice matters for both.
Drill makes the computation faster. Drill also helps build the basic self-discipline we all need to get through life on our own. Both have diminishing returns once you get the hang of them.
For the first few years of schooling, drill to improve performance at basic computation is perfectly appropriate. There's no excuse for being 10 and not being able to do sums as fast as you normally write, or to read out loud as fast as you normally speak. Most people seem to fail at both, which is a really sad note about our society. Elementary school is not a babysitting service!
A regular HDD left sitting for 5 years is unlikely to spin up. Drop one and its odds are poor. Ship one to storage on a truck and you take your chances. LTO is good as long as you don't shatter the cartridge (and even then, that's the cheapest kind of data recovery).
Sure, "store it in a cool dry place" as the song goes, but that's true of anything you want to keep.
LTO lasts 15+ years (and if you can afford the drive, chances are you won't need to re-use tape too often). Cheap tape was always bad.
However, it's vital to verify tapes as you write them. Non-cheap tape doesn't really "go bad", but can be bad when created (even though the tape drives verify in hardware, I've seen issues). You don't need to verify the whole tape, just verify something on the tape, ideally with a different drive.
First copy is to spare HDD (kept in a box). Tapes are the "just in case". It's just much easier to store tape off-site: mail to a friend, stuff in storage or safe deposit, whatever.
Tape drives are quite expensive, but if you can afford them they rock. If I had the bandwidth, I'd use glacier or whatnot, but since I have DSL I'm saving for tape.
If you're using 2-factor auth, what's the issue? Someone's going to both hijack my gmail account and steal my badge/smartcard/token? Seems far-fetched. There's simply no reason to depend on strong passwords.
With sufficient social engineering, anything is vulnerable, of course, but a better password doesn't help that.
Slashdot Mirror
Check the Wikipedia budget breakdown, and usdebtclock.org. 70% sounds a bit high to me, but it's clearly more than 60% (just from social security, MediX, income security (food stamps etc), and federal pensions). Debt interest is about 7%, and defense about 16%.
Everything "roads and police and NASA etc" related is less that 20%.
Ah, I see. You don't see the government as "profiteering middlemen" then? Interesting.
For retirement, I'm concerned with the net result. Very low fees are of course important to that, crucial even. But low fees are not the actual goal, and I certainly don't begrudge an index fund a 1/10th of a % annual management fee, since there are actual logistics they take care of. I'm sure a lower fee still would find takers for a pool of money this big, even for the retirement-year funds that would make sense here (they have a gradual transition to more safe investments over time, so there's slightly more work than an index fund, but not much).
But you seem to be thinking that investment banks, of all people, would somehow be involved in this. That would be quite silly of course. The point is for the people to own the means of production, not get involved with scams.
You'll like this then: http://usdebtclock.org/
Also, just Wikipedia for the US budget breakdown, but the debt clock is well-sourced and has the big-ticket items.
So, yes, there are very bad ways to solve these problems. What part of "the government has a needed role in setting standards" was unclear?
There's a gigantic difference between "the government has it's hand in keeping the programs honest, and in ensuring minimal levels of contribution" and "you give your money to the government and they mail checks to voters". All the difference in the world.
As long as no one needs to read past the first page to discover that they want to call you, the rest probably doesn't matter. A resume gets about 30 seconds of attention - just make sure the graphic design of page 1 points attention at a couple of bullet points that say "I did X", where X is relevant and important. Or at least that's the best advice I can give.
Well, it's helps if you don't admit to "more" than 20+. :) Technically accurate, but gives less fodder for age-based hiring discrimination.
Why should the government's sticky fingers be involved in the money flow for these programs? For retirement, the government has a needed roll in setting standards for "safety net" investment choices, and in insuring people actually do save, but they don't need to handle the money. Charity is great, and we should all be compassionate, and again the government has a needed role in setting standards, but they don't need to handle the money.
Plus lets never forget that if you depend on the government each month for a check you can't live without, you've given the government total power over you. Governments attract people who want nothing more than total power over others, and it's never smart to give it to them! We haven't seen the first "dictatorship through the monthly check", but we've seen early hints of it. London protestors were threatened with being cut off from benefits just recently.
Helping people is great. Having power over people is what megalomaniacs seek over all else. We can do the first without feeding the latter.
I've only once been hired anywhere as a result of sending my resume directly to a company (well, a recruiter as it happened, so no HR dweeb). But yeah, that time there were degree requirements that I ignored. What a hiring manager wants is some evidence that you can solve the problem he has. Do you have enough relevant technical experience that it's worth phone-screening you? Those are the requirements that matter, not the boilerplate stuff.
Since LinkedIn emerged, keeping my resume up-to-date there has been enough for recruiters to reach out to me (sorry Dice, but you never managed that). In the US, the software jobs are fairly concentrated in a few cities (not sure where you are, but if you're using a "CV" and not a terse resume in the US, that's your problem). If you don't live in one of them, that could be your problem.
I hate to be the guy saying "why is this on Slashdot", especially since I've been posting these very budget numbers here for years, when it has been relevant to the thread, but WTF? This is a blatant political click-troll story. It's not news (been this way for many years), and it's not "for nerds".
Sure, I guess we could rehash the same old "NASA's budget is trivial in the scheme of thing" posts, but really.
Yet I can't seem to get out of low-pay, entry level positions; why? Because I don't have a Bachelor's degree.
My experience is completely the opposite. Do you work for the government or something? Do you actually self-filter when the requirements say "BA required, MS preferred"?
Past my (crappy) first job, no one has ever cared. Wait, I take that back: there was one team at Google that didn't want to interview me once (but Google recruiters for other teams still pester me often). So once in 20 years someone cared.
20+ years says you're wrong. I've never had a dependable job - it's not the 1950s any more - but I've had a perfectly dependable career. I stay on top of changes in tools and technology, don't get stuck in a niche, and see strong demand for my skills. When I want or need to change jobs, I just start responding to the recruiters contacting me.
That guy who automates the automating? Has a job. We won't run out of things to automate in my lifetime, and if we ever do get strong AI, it will likely demand higher wages than I will.
Yes, I was exploited (worse than you're thinking). So what? I needed to break into the field. I did. Goal achieved. The money I made for the first couple of years just doesn't matter now - it opened the door, and was way the hell easier than a medical internship.
Bennet Hazelton is the source of the bottom tier of Slashdot stories. I swear they post his stories just to get the page hits from everyone complaining about them.
Sure, just in case there's some tiny aspect of your web browsing that Google doesn't already know, use their DNS too! OpenDNS is there for good reason.
If only there were some file on your PC in which you could define IP-hostname pairs to avoid needing DNS for that handful of boxes. I'd name that file, but it would summon APK.
Software development pays well, and demand is high, but it sucks to break into the field. It's the one dependable career though: every job that can be automated will (and should) be automated, but someone needs to write that automation.
There's no degree any more where someone will hand you a job just for graduating. Welcome to the adult world, where you won't be handed anything. Pick a field where there's high demand and most people can't do the work well, and you'll be fine in the long run.
My starting coding job paid $18k. And that was awesome, because it was a real, full-time coding job.
Your apprenticeship will likely not pay well. That's fine, it's just for a couple of years.
Some things in life come only with practice. Some things in life come only with hard work and patience. The most important things we need to do in life aren't fun. Self discipline is a worthwhile goal in and of itself.
And, really, I was as numerate as any kid is likely to be, but algebra would have been wasted on me before I was 10 or so. When we're young, we're naturally programmed to learn by example, to discover the patterns in life and the rules that let us cope with them. Teaching math is of curse important, but you first need some base on which to build the abstraction. Basic numeracy is just as important as basic literacy, and practice matters for both.
Drill makes the computation faster. Drill also helps build the basic self-discipline we all need to get through life on our own. Both have diminishing returns once you get the hang of them.
For the first few years of schooling, drill to improve performance at basic computation is perfectly appropriate. There's no excuse for being 10 and not being able to do sums as fast as you normally write, or to read out loud as fast as you normally speak. Most people seem to fail at both, which is a really sad note about our society. Elementary school is not a babysitting service!
A regular HDD left sitting for 5 years is unlikely to spin up. Drop one and its odds are poor. Ship one to storage on a truck and you take your chances. LTO is good as long as you don't shatter the cartridge (and even then, that's the cheapest kind of data recovery).
Sure, "store it in a cool dry place" as the song goes, but that's true of anything you want to keep.
LTO lasts 15+ years (and if you can afford the drive, chances are you won't need to re-use tape too often). Cheap tape was always bad.
However, it's vital to verify tapes as you write them. Non-cheap tape doesn't really "go bad", but can be bad when created (even though the tape drives verify in hardware, I've seen issues). You don't need to verify the whole tape, just verify something on the tape, ideally with a different drive.
First copy is to spare HDD (kept in a box). Tapes are the "just in case". It's just much easier to store tape off-site: mail to a friend, stuff in storage or safe deposit, whatever.
Tape drives are quite expensive, but if you can afford them they rock. If I had the bandwidth, I'd use glacier or whatnot, but since I have DSL I'm saving for tape.
Ooh, you mean a hard drive! I've been busy ripping everything I have on disc, as discs are just a pain.
If you're using 2-factor auth, what's the issue? Someone's going to both hijack my gmail account and steal my badge/smartcard/token? Seems far-fetched. There's simply no reason to depend on strong passwords.
With sufficient social engineering, anything is vulnerable, of course, but a better password doesn't help that.