It's like animation fans who complained the Oscars had "ghettoized" them by creating a separate category for animated films. I kept asking them why they even cared what that circle jerk of pampered, Moon-sized egos did.
Like it or not, winning an Oscar turns into huge money for a film. Having a separate category for animated films has guaranteed that they'll never win Best Picture. Which goes a long way towards the idiot argument of "animated films aren't Real Cinema - when's the last time one won an Oscar?"
As little as I care, I'm glad they are included in an existing award, rather than put down at the kiddy table. Not expected one to *win* anytime soon, but at least they're included.
The bill also says that its "shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine."
And apparently it's all OK.
But yes, I look forward to a few teachers starting to teach the wackiest stuff they can think of. I'd pick old-school, myself. The four humors and all that.
Ah, but there is. You take science on faith when you take a vaccination, vote to protect the environment from DDT or vote to build the next Hadron Collider...
That logic lands you firmly in metaphysical territory - you have to take nearly everything on "faith" at that point. You take on faith that your wife won't stab you in the neck with a pencil in the next five minutes, or that your boss will pay you at the end of the week, or that the air you breath won't turn into chocolate pudding in the next five seconds.
Right. So you have empirically tested certain aspects of chemistry/physics. However, there are many many areas of research with no practical application yet. How would you test those ? You don't, you take them on faith.
Wrong - if I'm not studying them, and there's no practical application, and I'm not testing them... then it most likely doesn't mean anything to me. I don't have to take anything on faith, because there's nothing to decide.
Yes, if only because that's pretty much Industry Standard now. (It wasn't when Wii came out.)
real controller pack in
Maybe I'm weird, but I like the Wiimote + Nunchuk combo. I have a Classic Controller, and I only use it for older games that require it. Mario Kart, Smash Bros, etc - W+N all the way. And I *really* like the point-and-click ability. Give me my freakin' lightgun games, would ya?
backwards compatibility with Wii
Double-plus Yes. If they can keep the Gamecube emulation as well, that would be perfect. I look at PS3s, but I'm not willing to sacrifice my PS2 collection for it.
I'd also add - make MotionPlus standard on the controllers - I've tried Kinect, and it's barely equal to non-Plus Wiimote. With the Plus, you can start getting really fancy.
Also, important to remember - I don't think Wii 2 is going to make a huge push into hardcore gaming. Nintendo came out far ahead by letting Sony and MS fight out that market, while keeping things simple and amusing for the kids and grandparents. I wouldn't be surprised if they keep that same logic.
Except that you personally haven't demonstrated or repeated anything.
Except that when I push the gas pedal on my car and it moves forward, it doesn't matter that I personally don't understand the exact chemistry and physics that is going on under the hood. What matters is that someone does.
This seems like an attempt to claim that since each of us individually can't hope to understand the science behind everything we do all day, that science is no better than religion (oh, sorry, "faith").
Here's the difference - if I need or want to know how my car works, there are actual, physical people around who can teach me, because they understand the science. Everyone keeps track of their own specialty, and anyone could learn it if they wanted.
Should any of you younger./ers have any hope of procreating. Learn to cook. It's like edible science.
Agreed - you should be able to build yourself breakfast, lunch and dinner with a minimum of prepared foods. It's not hard, kids - and it'll save you cash, impress the ladies (and this is *definitely* where making the effort counts!), and keep you healthier than the folks who are living off day-old pizza and ramen noodles.
Up here HomeEc is actual sewing and cooking and such - there's a required Grade 11 class called "Career and Life Management" which (theoretically) covered budgeting and so on. Was a bit of a time-waste, if memory served.
But judging from the example problems in the article, that's Grade 10 or 11 Math. It was required study here in Alberta (and still is, if the grumblings I hear are right).
That's true, so far as it goes - but it ignores that these sorts of things shouldn't be secret in the first place. To throw the party line back at them, if you don't want us to know what you're doing, maybe you shouldn't be doing it.
What govt should do is provide a basic income (as founding father Tom Paine proposed in 1795's "Agrarian Justice") and stimulate innovation through challenges (of course private businesses such as Google, Netflix etc. can hold challenges too).
I agree on the basic income, but I'd put it in jobs. Call it "mercenary volunteerism". Sweep sidewalks. Be an extra pair of hands in the classroom. Anything that can give a sense of pride, maybe teach some skills, and helps the community.
Reagan was attempting to "Starve the Beast", but some of you fuckers continue to feed it by demanding MORE from government. Well, who's going to pay for it?
You make a deal with the Devil, he will demand your soul in return. Pay up bitch!
And he should rightfully be pilloried for it - it's easy to "lower taxes". If he'd had a bit more intestinal fortitude, he would have cut expenses as well, instead of leaving the hard parts for later presidents.
The ideal solution would be for everyone to manage their own investments, but not very many have the knowledge, desire, or discipline. It would also help if the IRA contribution limits were increased, so nobody is at the mercy of lame 401k's (which is most of them).
Or possibly tighten up the rules around 401Ks to prevent the obvious gouging? (You'll never stop the subtle gouging.)
Let's face it - not everyone has the knowledge (or the time) to manage investments (and if they tried, they'd probably get screwed even worse). So let's look up the chain - why do we let companies (who have HR departments *with* the knowledge and time) to pick 401Ks that are substandard? Easy fix: require all executives to be enrolled in the same program.
(Local example: my company provides free coffee and tea to it's workers. The coffee is awful, but the tea is first-rate. Why? Because the president's a tea-drinker.)
Presumption 1: that all young people can afford to set aside a "rather small percentage of their income". I spend a good chunk of my "young years" making just enough to survive (defined as rent-food-transportation). And there are many people who sadly never get beyond that point.
Presumption 2: that all these interest-bearing accounts magically never fail. You may have heard of these recent banking issues? Many of those people were the responsible types, who's life savings got wiped out.
Presumption 3: that people who fall prey to (1) and (2) above, or otherwise have a few bad knocks in life that eat up that nest egg, are somehow inferior and unworthy of help.
A budget is how much money you spend. The only way to cut how much you spend is to cut how much you spend.
Wrong - a budget includes both income and expenses (That's how you know if you're "on budget" or not).
Let's reduce the US problem down to a normal household. You're making $80,000 a year. You budget to spend 80K a year. (Yes, I'm glossing over taxes and what-not). To make a family member's life easier, you cut down the number of hours he has to work every week. This lowers your income to $70,000.
You're not running a $10,000 deficit, without "increasing spending". Now, you have two options to make up the difference - you can cut spending, or you can increase revenue. Doesn't even have to be either/or - you can make a bit more money and cut spending a little bit. The third (bad) option is that you start taking out loans to make up the difference. The problem there is that you now have to pay the interest on the loans (increasing your expenses), so now you have a bigger problem next year.
Scaling back up, the problem is that the US has been steadily reducing corporate taxes. Personal taxes can't make up the difference, which means you have to cut programs.
It's an open secret that the Conservative party up here (which is the only-slightly kinder gentler version of the Tea Party Republicans) like this policy - it's easy to push through tax cuts, and it forces program cuts to balance the budget. Long-term, you simply starve the government - if there's no money to spend, government can't "interfere" in people's lives. And the "win-win" for them is that it places the burden on *raising* taxes (or more accurately, undoing the damage) on the other party, which lines up nicely with the general talking points.
Hate to break it to you, but Russia isn't going to bother messing with the US any time soon, for the same reason the US won't be messing with China - the former is pulling too many of the latter's economic strings.
To repeat this more simply - Russia won't mess with the US, because the US holds too many of the economic levers. The US won't do anything against China, because who do you think has been buying all that US debt?
Seriously - check the news in the last year or so. China has started flexing those economic muscles, and the US has sat there and done nothing. Because it's no longer in a *position* to do anything.
Not unless you want to pay the price of losing certain essential government services.
And that's the catch - to the Tea Party, there's no such thing. Partly because they're all rich enough (or think they're rich enough) to pay for those services on their own - they have a pool in their backyard, why do they need to pay for the rec center? They don't need a library or a school, either.
I'd love to see one of these ultra-individualists try to spend any substantial amount of time living without using *any* government services. Go live in the desert and see what life is like without a safety net.
We'll have to means-test SS. Probably severely (as in, cut off payments to anyone making over $50k).
Ignoring the political problems with this plan, and that I think your cut-off is too low (unless 50K goes a lot farther down there than it does up here), it ignores the simple fact that people will simply *not* make over whatever the cutoff is - they'll go part-time or retire. And remember, we do want these people retiring to keep job positions opening for younger folks.
But of all departments of our government, Department of Education should flat out be available for donations.
Just stop by your local school - they're *always* fundraising for something or other. You can tell how well-off your neighborhood is by what they're fundraising *for*. The rich schools are getting new scoreboards. The average schools are getting new computers for the lab, or maybe replacing some worn out equipment. The poor schools will be thrilled if you show up with a few boxes of copier paper.
stop cutting important social programs like nutrition assistance
i guess that means free/reduced school lunches, WIC, food stamps, etc. yeah by all means we must continue to guarantee peoples right to have a bunch of kids they can't afford. that's real great for society and helps instill realism and personal responsibility, yeah right.
My issue with all of those programs is that they're treating small symptoms and ignoring the root problem - minimum wage doesn't pay enough to live on. Giving kids a hot meal is a great idea, and makes for warm and fuzzy photo-ops. However, I'd argue that money would be better spent helping the kid's parents make enough money to pay for their own kid's lunch. Yeah, it doesn't lend itself to oversized cheques and the like, but it's a better use of public funds.
While the stereotype is "poor people sitting on their fat asses leeching from the public purse", my experience has been that most of them do so because they can't get a job that pays as well as the government support. And since benefits get clawed back at 1:1 or worse, that removes any incentive to get into the workforce - why work and get paid *less* than if you stay home?
(Yes, yes, there are lazy sacks that do nothing as well. File under "exception that proves the rule" - there are lazy rich people too.)
Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard and Valve both make great games, and take many years to do it. Steam is of little relevence to this.
Well, I'd say Steam is the steady income that prevents Valve from having to rush half-finished product out the door.
Does it slow down release dates? Maaybe. Is it preventing crap games? Almost definitely.
first person shooters are some of the easiest games to make, provided you're using an existant engine
That's sort of like saying "Great writing is easy. After all, you already have words and phrases."
Which is technically true - you're not having to invent a language first.
It's like animation fans who complained the Oscars had "ghettoized" them by creating a separate category for animated films. I kept asking them why they even cared what that circle jerk of pampered, Moon-sized egos did.
Like it or not, winning an Oscar turns into huge money for a film. Having a separate category for animated films has guaranteed that they'll never win Best Picture. Which goes a long way towards the idiot argument of "animated films aren't Real Cinema - when's the last time one won an Oscar?"
As little as I care, I'm glad they are included in an existing award, rather than put down at the kiddy table. Not expected one to *win* anytime soon, but at least they're included.
Google could create a little program where users could sign up as Freelance Police and report them for money.
Only if I get a badge, a gun, and a DeSoto. (I'll find my own homicidal little buddy.)
Just say:
The bill also says that its "shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine."
And apparently it's all OK.
But yes, I look forward to a few teachers starting to teach the wackiest stuff they can think of. I'd pick old-school, myself. The four humors and all that.
Ah, but there is. You take science on faith when you take a vaccination, vote to protect the environment from DDT or vote to build the next Hadron Collider...
That logic lands you firmly in metaphysical territory - you have to take nearly everything on "faith" at that point. You take on faith that your wife won't stab you in the neck with a pencil in the next five minutes, or that your boss will pay you at the end of the week, or that the air you breath won't turn into chocolate pudding in the next five seconds.
Right. So you have empirically tested certain aspects of chemistry/physics. However, there are many many areas of research with no practical application yet. How would you test those ? You don't, you take them on faith.
Wrong - if I'm not studying them, and there's no practical application, and I'm not testing them... then it most likely doesn't mean anything to me. I don't have to take anything on faith, because there's nothing to decide.
So bottom line: 1080p support,
Yes, if only because that's pretty much Industry Standard now. (It wasn't when Wii came out.)
real controller pack in
Maybe I'm weird, but I like the Wiimote + Nunchuk combo. I have a Classic Controller, and I only use it for older games that require it. Mario Kart, Smash Bros, etc - W+N all the way. And I *really* like the point-and-click ability. Give me my freakin' lightgun games, would ya?
backwards compatibility with Wii
Double-plus Yes. If they can keep the Gamecube emulation as well, that would be perfect. I look at PS3s, but I'm not willing to sacrifice my PS2 collection for it.
I'd also add - make MotionPlus standard on the controllers - I've tried Kinect, and it's barely equal to non-Plus Wiimote. With the Plus, you can start getting really fancy.
Also, important to remember - I don't think Wii 2 is going to make a huge push into hardcore gaming. Nintendo came out far ahead by letting Sony and MS fight out that market, while keeping things simple and amusing for the kids and grandparents. I wouldn't be surprised if they keep that same logic.
That (trust) is pretty much the same thing as Faith.
I would disagree - trust implies that you have a reason to believe that something was done/happened. If it doesn't happen, you don't trust it.
Faith implies that you believe it, regardless of evidence or lack thereof.
I have faith that $local_sports_team will make the playoffs next season. I trust that my mechanic will fix my car properly.
Except that you personally haven't demonstrated or repeated anything.
Except that when I push the gas pedal on my car and it moves forward, it doesn't matter that I personally don't understand the exact chemistry and physics that is going on under the hood. What matters is that someone does.
This seems like an attempt to claim that since each of us individually can't hope to understand the science behind everything we do all day, that science is no better than religion (oh, sorry, "faith").
Here's the difference - if I need or want to know how my car works, there are actual, physical people around who can teach me, because they understand the science. Everyone keeps track of their own specialty, and anyone could learn it if they wanted.
Being the only straight male in class with 24 females was just a bonus.
+1 Truth
Should any of you younger ./ers have any hope of procreating. Learn to cook. It's like edible science.
Agreed - you should be able to build yourself breakfast, lunch and dinner with a minimum of prepared foods. It's not hard, kids - and it'll save you cash, impress the ladies (and this is *definitely* where making the effort counts!), and keep you healthier than the folks who are living off day-old pizza and ramen noodles.
That's what Home Economics used to be...
Up here HomeEc is actual sewing and cooking and such - there's a required Grade 11 class called "Career and Life Management" which (theoretically) covered budgeting and so on. Was a bit of a time-waste, if memory served.
But judging from the example problems in the article, that's Grade 10 or 11 Math. It was required study here in Alberta (and still is, if the grumblings I hear are right).
That's true, so far as it goes - but it ignores that these sorts of things shouldn't be secret in the first place. To throw the party line back at them, if you don't want us to know what you're doing, maybe you shouldn't be doing it.
What govt should do is provide a basic income (as founding father Tom Paine proposed in 1795's "Agrarian Justice") and stimulate innovation through challenges (of course private businesses such as Google, Netflix etc. can hold challenges too).
I agree on the basic income, but I'd put it in jobs. Call it "mercenary volunteerism". Sweep sidewalks. Be an extra pair of hands in the classroom. Anything that can give a sense of pride, maybe teach some skills, and helps the community.
Reagan was attempting to "Starve the Beast", but some of you fuckers continue to feed it by demanding MORE from government. Well, who's going to pay for it?
You make a deal with the Devil, he will demand your soul in return. Pay up bitch!
And he should rightfully be pilloried for it - it's easy to "lower taxes". If he'd had a bit more intestinal fortitude, he would have cut expenses as well, instead of leaving the hard parts for later presidents.
The ideal solution would be for everyone to manage their own investments, but not very many have the knowledge, desire, or discipline. It would also help if the IRA contribution limits were increased, so nobody is at the mercy of lame 401k's (which is most of them).
Or possibly tighten up the rules around 401Ks to prevent the obvious gouging? (You'll never stop the subtle gouging.)
Let's face it - not everyone has the knowledge (or the time) to manage investments (and if they tried, they'd probably get screwed even worse). So let's look up the chain - why do we let companies (who have HR departments *with* the knowledge and time) to pick 401Ks that are substandard? Easy fix: require all executives to be enrolled in the same program.
(Local example: my company provides free coffee and tea to it's workers. The coffee is awful, but the tea is first-rate. Why? Because the president's a tea-drinker.)
Presumption 1: that all young people can afford to set aside a "rather small percentage of their income". I spend a good chunk of my "young years" making just enough to survive (defined as rent-food-transportation). And there are many people who sadly never get beyond that point.
Presumption 2: that all these interest-bearing accounts magically never fail. You may have heard of these recent banking issues? Many of those people were the responsible types, who's life savings got wiped out.
Presumption 3: that people who fall prey to (1) and (2) above, or otherwise have a few bad knocks in life that eat up that nest egg, are somehow inferior and unworthy of help.
It's perfectly fine to point out stupidity while taking advantage of it.
No, the word you're looking for here is "hypocrisy". If they think EI is wrong, then *don't take the money* and make your point.
A budget is how much money you spend. The only way to cut how much you spend is to cut how much you spend.
Wrong - a budget includes both income and expenses (That's how you know if you're "on budget" or not).
Let's reduce the US problem down to a normal household. You're making $80,000 a year. You budget to spend 80K a year. (Yes, I'm glossing over taxes and what-not). To make a family member's life easier, you cut down the number of hours he has to work every week. This lowers your income to $70,000.
You're not running a $10,000 deficit, without "increasing spending". Now, you have two options to make up the difference - you can cut spending, or you can increase revenue. Doesn't even have to be either/or - you can make a bit more money and cut spending a little bit. The third (bad) option is that you start taking out loans to make up the difference. The problem there is that you now have to pay the interest on the loans (increasing your expenses), so now you have a bigger problem next year.
Scaling back up, the problem is that the US has been steadily reducing corporate taxes. Personal taxes can't make up the difference, which means you have to cut programs.
It's an open secret that the Conservative party up here (which is the only-slightly kinder gentler version of the Tea Party Republicans) like this policy - it's easy to push through tax cuts, and it forces program cuts to balance the budget. Long-term, you simply starve the government - if there's no money to spend, government can't "interfere" in people's lives. And the "win-win" for them is that it places the burden on *raising* taxes (or more accurately, undoing the damage) on the other party, which lines up nicely with the general talking points.
Hate to break it to you, but Russia isn't going to bother messing with the US any time soon, for the same reason the US won't be messing with China - the former is pulling too many of the latter's economic strings.
To repeat this more simply - Russia won't mess with the US, because the US holds too many of the economic levers. The US won't do anything against China, because who do you think has been buying all that US debt?
Seriously - check the news in the last year or so. China has started flexing those economic muscles, and the US has sat there and done nothing. Because it's no longer in a *position* to do anything.
Not unless you want to pay the price of losing certain essential government services.
And that's the catch - to the Tea Party, there's no such thing. Partly because they're all rich enough (or think they're rich enough) to pay for those services on their own - they have a pool in their backyard, why do they need to pay for the rec center? They don't need a library or a school, either.
I'd love to see one of these ultra-individualists try to spend any substantial amount of time living without using *any* government services. Go live in the desert and see what life is like without a safety net.
We'll have to means-test SS. Probably severely (as in, cut off payments to anyone making over $50k).
Ignoring the political problems with this plan, and that I think your cut-off is too low (unless 50K goes a lot farther down there than it does up here), it ignores the simple fact that people will simply *not* make over whatever the cutoff is - they'll go part-time or retire. And remember, we do want these people retiring to keep job positions opening for younger folks.
But of all departments of our government, Department of Education should flat out be available for donations.
Just stop by your local school - they're *always* fundraising for something or other. You can tell how well-off your neighborhood is by what they're fundraising *for*. The rich schools are getting new scoreboards. The average schools are getting new computers for the lab, or maybe replacing some worn out equipment. The poor schools will be thrilled if you show up with a few boxes of copier paper.
i guess that means free/reduced school lunches, WIC, food stamps, etc. yeah by all means we must continue to guarantee peoples right to have a bunch of kids they can't afford. that's real great for society and helps instill realism and personal responsibility, yeah right.
My issue with all of those programs is that they're treating small symptoms and ignoring the root problem - minimum wage doesn't pay enough to live on. Giving kids a hot meal is a great idea, and makes for warm and fuzzy photo-ops. However, I'd argue that money would be better spent helping the kid's parents make enough money to pay for their own kid's lunch. Yeah, it doesn't lend itself to oversized cheques and the like, but it's a better use of public funds.
While the stereotype is "poor people sitting on their fat asses leeching from the public purse", my experience has been that most of them do so because they can't get a job that pays as well as the government support. And since benefits get clawed back at 1:1 or worse, that removes any incentive to get into the workforce - why work and get paid *less* than if you stay home?
(Yes, yes, there are lazy sacks that do nothing as well. File under "exception that proves the rule" - there are lazy rich people too.)