Wow, you're right. I read it as WengoVision. So. It's just audio then? Not a video phone? If it were a video phone, WengoVision might be a better name for it.
Was it cold enough to sled where you were? For the relatively few hours spent on them, sleds have to be far more dangerous than bikes. We had a good hill that sloped towards another street. We didn't have those wimpy plastic sleds either. We had the good ol steel runner flexible flyer. Worst injury I ever saw was a hit on the head that resulted in blood coming out an ear. That guy was recovered 100% though. Usually it was just bumps and bruises, but you'd hear of the occasional broken bone. We never did car towing in our neighborhood, I guess because we had hills. Car towing causes a lot of accidents I think; but I don't know what the stats are.
On the surface, this seems like a stupid decision; but it's really impossible to say exactly what the motive is because... that might be secret too!
On the one hand, you might ask... "so what if Al Qaeda has the source code for the programs that run the fighter? It's not like running it on a PowerBook is going to make it fly mach 2 and shoot missiles". OTOH, a more sophisticated military, like the Chinese, might find a bug in it, develop an exploit that could be used in combat, and give it to North Korea or something.
Now, the Brittish wouldn't send this stuff to China... not as far as we know... so... maybe the US thinks there is a problem with the UK's ability to keep secrets.
OK, that's a bit far fetched. Maybe the contract under which this stuff was developed doesn't permit this. Ha-ha. Maybe it's tied up in legal limbo. That'd be more in keeping with the US that I know these days.
Maybe they're just afraid the Brits might find a bug, or come up with better code, or just laugh at all the "fucks" and "shits" they left in the comments. That wouldn't surprise me either.
The bottom line though, is our grandchildren find out the answer to "Why?", but we may never know. It might be top secret.
In fact, you could remove the first part of the 2nd ammendment, and it wouldn't really matter. The "regulated militia" part, is just a justification, not a description of the right. It could just as easily be:
Hamburgers on Tuesday begin desireable, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The knowledge of what a "hamburger" is could have been lost in the mists of time, just as the meaning of "militia" has been muddied. It doesn't matter, becaues the "actionable" part of the ammendment is that the right of the people to to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
You could argue that without justfication the action is not supported, but many of the other rights are spelled out without justification. Also, as a general rule, laws are not removed from the books just because their justification is no longer relevant. Until they have an ammendment to remove the 2nd, I don't see how anyone could say they uphold the Constitution without supporting the right to keep and bear arms.
If you can't even control the data in you own god damned account because your account has been deactivated, who cares about MS and all that crap?
Get it?
Besides, anyone with half a brain would never count on a service like that. SPF.
I think you'd be surprised. "SPF"? Sorry, I'm not up on all the latest text-speak. Anyway, the point is that any service delivered over the network can grab you by the balls just as much as this MS business can. The mechanism may be different, but the outcome is the same. The silver lining is that in both cases, the services are limited in how far they can crack down, based on the negative PR and loss of business it would cause. You can also control the damage by backing up your data in an open format. Web-based services like (blogs, picture sites with categorization and metadata) don't tout their ability to convert to open formats any more than say, MS Office, now do they? At least I know I haven't seen any "open blog format" that would let you move from Blogger to MySpace to (whatever), whereas I have seen Office file converters. Based on all of this, I'd feel a lot more comfortable committing a lot of time and effort to MS files (which you can always rescue from the HD image if the OS won't boot) than I would committing time and effort to data that's stored on a remote server that can be unplugged any time.
Why anyone would run their business (or hobby) on a system that is subject to DeActivation
Hold on... Before we answer that we need to upload some more pictures to flickr.com. Then we need to update our blogs on MySpace and reply to some contact invites on LinkedIn.
And yes, an unfavorable change in the ToS on these sites is not as bad as deactivation. A complete loss of service appears unlikely at this stage; but you never know what might change. The bottom line? Unless you control your data, and store it in a format that can be easily converted to use with other Operating Systems or services, you are vulnerable.
I agree with him. His post is why we have a 2nd ammendment. Now I'm flagged too. Anyone else wanna join us? A significant fraction of the country. Scattered everywhere. Now we're all flagged. See? Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Big brother only works when you're afraid of him. Stand up, and he runs away like a scared little kitten.
Some businessmen were born to "employ people", others to "utilize human resources". There are far too many of the latter; but we can't blame them totally. The other side of the equation is the worker who doesn't like the fact that he "works for them" and actually feels better being a "team member". Then there is the investor who probably doesn't buy companies that are "laying people off", but might be more interested in purchasing the stock of a company that is "engaging in refocusing the business and remaining agile". Everybody knows what they really mean. My favorite one is when a Washington, DC powerplayer who has fallen out of favor decides to "spend more time with the family". That one has become such a cliche that I think it's actually seems to have fallen out of favor in recent years. I don't know what is replacing it; but you can be certain something will. The need for sugar coating is probably as old as the human race.
So. All this tells me is that if you install from an image, you can include anything on the image you want. Well, Linux or any other OS is just as vulnerable to this. Bringing it up in the context of Vista is just pure FUD against MS. Why doesn't Slashdot wait until Vista is in enough hands for some real vulnerabilities to emerge? I'm fairly confident that will happen at some point.
I wager these garage doors have that little notice on them, you know, the one that says "this is an FCC class B(?) device... must not interfere, must accept any such interference, blah, blah, blah...". The manufacturer can stand behind that. It's CYA compliant, probably, from a legal standpoint. It's definitely not PR compliant. I don't see this so much as a problem with the Air Force trampling on our rights, as a company that took a gamble that there would never be any powerful interference that would mess with their device. Usually there isn't.
All that aside, USAF should either stop using the frequency or offer to refund a retrofit of existing doors--whichever is cheaper. I can also foresee the mfct recalling the doors; but if they do that they probably have no recourse with the government. After all, they knew they were taking a chance by producing such a device. And then the garage door people could start using ultrasonic or infrared, with a crypto key of some kind between the receiver and transmitter to guarantee non-interference, and that would be that.
This is just another reason for me to be happy I don't have a car, nevermind a garage.
You're a major nation, and you can't pull off a simple hit? I mean, it's pure evil, but if somebody gave me the job I don't think it would take me too long to find a mobster, tap into his network, and get a decent hit-man who could pull off a plausible "robbery" where the guy got shot, or a car "accident" or even the good old standby like a bomb wired into the ignition. But NooooOOO. They had to go scattering radioactivity that would produce collataral damage, potentially ruining international relationships, and best of all... leaving a trail of radioactive breadcrumbs leading right back to the source!
What are they going to do to the guy who came up with that idea? Send him to China and then explode a dirty bomb in his apartment in downtown Beijing?
A Chevy engine. The machine shop bored stuff out and cleaned it up, but the actual reassembly of the engine was done by me, in the shed in our backyard. It started fairly easily, but a sparkplug wire came loose and burned on the exhaust manifold which got very hot because the engine wasn't properly timed. I shut it down and the next day got it started and running normally. I think I did well because it had the really nice, quiet, smooth sound that a new car engine has. Unfortunately I ran out of money for such projects, and I had to go back to school. I sold the car and never heard back how many more miles came out of it. The most important thing I probably learned was that I can do mechanical stuff if I put my mind to it, but that I would never be really great at it. Also, there were a couple of minor injuries along the way. My best friend got splashed with gasoline due to a loose fuel line, which irritated his skin badly. He ran to the shower and was fine. Some of the skin on my father's hand got caught between two pieces of metal on the engine stand. IIRC, that required a few stiches. I felt quite guilty about having injured people around me, and I didn't get hurt. It seemed like that project was jinxed. I had a '72 Ford Torino for a while and that was a fun car. I fixed the steering and the brakes, no troble at all. I would have had the machine shop do the engine, but money was short again and it needed body work. That one was sold to a BMW dealer who had plans to take the Cleveland V8 out and put it in a sports car body. I bet that would have rocked; but I have no idea if he actually did it. I stopped messing around with cars in my early 20s, and haven't looked back... probably a good thing.
Lawyers shouldn't be allowed to make laws. There's an inherent conflict of interest. Also, a programmer's perspective on law might be worth something; maybe not this particular programmer, but someone who knows how to code. Ever notice how many laws have actual dollar ammounts in them? That's stupid coding. The dollar ammounts should be indexed to inflation, but they never are. Ever notice how complicated these laws are? They need to be refactored. Something like 99 percent of Federal Law is probably the legal equivalent of some patch that was put in at the last minute to get the product out the door quickly. Only a good programmer, somebody who understands when to throw it away and start over, could really appreciate this. Too many redundant laws. Anti-terrorist measures? Pulleeze. Last time I checked, it was already illegal to kill people. That's cruft. Sorry, no commit bits for the guys who write that crap. Improperly named laws. Patriot act? Sorry. Variable and module names must reflect function. "int OMG_we_got_attakced_let_us_panic_and_give_up_some_ liberties_Act(PERSON *hapless_citizen);". It should be struck from the codebase, of course, but before we do that we should at least make sure it's all readable. Comments? None. None at all, not in the code anyway. It's all someplace else. Comments are separate from the code. They might as well be coding the country in Perl. Wankers. I wouldn't let these guys write a 2 line batch script, nevermmind write the code that runs the country. Hire a good team of software engineers, and maybe we can have Federal law reduced to less than 100,000 lines. One thing's for sure though, if BG writes the law at least it'll be easier to use. You might not need a lawyer to understand it. I wouldn't let a bunch of Open Source guys do this job. You'd need a coder to understand their laws, just like you need a lawyer to understand laws now. Nope. We need somebody who can produce user-friendly laws that won't crash too often, and since we have control of the hardware, I say maybe we should let some Mac developers have at it. What say, guys?
I seem to recall having seen something on Discovery about how ancients living in quake zones eventually hit upon this too. Their early buildings were all stone, and crumbled. Then they learned to reinforce the stones with heavy timbers. Those were more prone to fire, but you can't have everything. Walking around Washington, DC I get to see plenty of rowhouse renovations. Many are wood frames with masonry shells. The classics never really go out of style. It's still not perfect, but it comes in at a price the market will bear.
Sometime around 2016, modern English usage was revised so that "its" was used in both cases, and the reader deduced the meaning from context. By that time, most scholars were in agreement that this was accepted usage. At least, that's what John Titor told me.
I guess were you're from, nobody uses the "it might be X" construct, where X is obviously true. Maybe the proper usage would have been "it may be X", but in my experience people generally deduce the meaning from context, and don't question it. So. My grammar may simply not be correct. Or... it might be pedantry on your part.:)
This is a bit of an answer to the question "Why go to the Moon, Mars, or an Asteroid?". I bet more candidates would get excited about something like that. Either they need to inspire these guys, or offer them more pay to twirl around in LEO tightening bolts and tending experiments. It might be more economical in the short run simply to offer more pay. In the long run, a partnership with other spacefaring nations to further exploration is probably the best thing for the long-term health of the program.
If the Efficient Market Hypothesis were true, stock pickers like Cramer should have been driven out of the market by now. Some investors do, on average, beat the market. See Warren Buffet. Now. The hard part is figuring out if your analyst is the next WB, or just some MBA who isn't too stupid and had good luck on top of not being too stupid... for the last 5 years until he regresses to the mean for the next 10 years. So. If you could write software that picked *analysts* then maybe you'd have something. Trouble is, they're humans. They get divorced, get sick, die, decide they've made enough and want to drop out and do Yoga, etc. Anyway. Bottom line? Not everybody agrees that the market is efficient. I know I don't. No way. Not by a long shot. It's like poker. You'd think that skill is only a small part of the game, and that it's mostly chance. For many players, it is... or at least that's what I thought until I saw a truly skilled player take out an entire table. It was amazing to watch this guy know exactly how to play every hand. Amazing. Never saw it before. Might not see it again, since I'm not a big poker guy. I suspect investing is a lot like that--there are a handful of guys that belong in the investing equivalent of the big poker tourneys. Everybody else is a loser.
If all you have is the text of a software patent, you don't have the invention. Software patents would fulfill this societal obligation if, and only if, the patent disclosed a full working implementation. Source code and everything. In that case, a software patent system would actually be better than the copyright system we have now. MS-DOS would be off patent and in the Public Domain now under such a system, with early versions of Windows just a few years from expiration.
My father was a member of the WWII generation. He joined CCC in his teens, joined the Navy in '42, and at some point, probably after the war, got a GED. This did not harm his career one bit. We were solidly middle class growing up, and that was when middle class meant that Mom didn't work unless she wanted to get something "extra" for us.
There were a few kids in my school who didn't do college--they decided to do trade school and become plumbers. One guy was going to run a Domino's Pizza outlet (they were expanding quickly in our area). Word was, the Domino's guy would have to work hellacious hours, but that he'd pull down close to 6 figures, which was twice the promised starting salary for an engineer. The starting sal for engineers was a lie, at least in my case. I don't know what became of the Domino's manager.
Now, I'd like to think that these kids are dropping out because they think they have better ideas, but chances are they are either dysfunctional or just really, really need the money and have no hope of going to college.
It's really hard to say. Statistics are just dry numbers. I'd like to see some interviews with these kids. Are they bright and on the ball? Is this becomeing the social norm for their area? Don't forget--there are vast swaths of "fly-over" country where a decent house costs a FIFTH of what a decent house costs on the Blue Coasts. If this is just a regression to the cultural norm of the early 20th century, it might not be as dire as some people think.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, you're right. I read it as WengoVision. So. It's just audio then? Not a video phone? If it were a video phone, WengoVision might be a better name for it.
Was it cold enough to sled where you were? For the relatively few hours spent on them, sleds have to be far more dangerous than bikes. We had a good hill that sloped towards another street. We didn't have those wimpy plastic sleds either. We had the good ol steel runner flexible flyer. Worst injury I ever saw was a hit on the head that resulted in blood coming out an ear. That guy was recovered 100% though. Usually it was just bumps and bruises, but you'd hear of the occasional broken bone. We never did car towing in our neighborhood, I guess because we had hills. Car towing causes a lot of accidents I think; but I don't know what the stats are.
On the surface, this seems like a stupid decision; but it's really impossible to say exactly what the motive is because... that might be secret too!
On the one hand, you might ask... "so what if Al Qaeda has the source code for the programs that run the fighter? It's not like running it on a PowerBook is going to make it fly mach 2 and shoot missiles". OTOH, a more sophisticated military, like the Chinese, might find a bug in it, develop an exploit that could be used in combat, and give it to North Korea or something.
Now, the Brittish wouldn't send this stuff to China... not as far as we know... so... maybe the US thinks there is a problem with the UK's ability to keep secrets.
OK, that's a bit far fetched. Maybe the contract under which this stuff was developed doesn't permit this. Ha-ha. Maybe it's tied up in legal limbo. That'd be more in keeping with the US that I know these days.
Maybe they're just afraid the Brits might find a bug, or come up with better code, or just laugh at all the "fucks" and "shits" they left in the comments. That wouldn't surprise me either.
The bottom line though, is our grandchildren find out the answer to "Why?", but we may never know. It might be top secret.
In fact, you could remove the first part of the 2nd ammendment, and it wouldn't really matter. The "regulated militia" part, is just a justification, not a description of the right. It could just as easily be:
Hamburgers on Tuesday begin desireable, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The knowledge of what a "hamburger" is could have been lost in the mists of time, just as the meaning of "militia" has been muddied. It doesn't matter, becaues the "actionable" part of the ammendment is that the right of the people to to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
You could argue that without justfication the action is not supported, but many of the other rights are spelled out without justification. Also, as a general rule, laws are not removed from the books just because their justification is no longer relevant. Until they have an ammendment to remove the 2nd, I don't see how anyone could say they uphold the Constitution without supporting the right to keep and bear arms.
It was over 10 years after the passage of this law that DC became the murder capital of the nation.
I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm just saying it's not the only threat.
If you can't even control the data in you own god damned account because your account has been deactivated, who cares about MS and all that crap?
Get it?
Besides, anyone with half a brain would never count on a service like that. SPF.
I think you'd be surprised. "SPF"? Sorry, I'm not up on all the latest text-speak. Anyway, the point is that any service delivered over the network can grab you by the balls just as much as this MS business can. The mechanism may be different, but the outcome is the same. The silver lining is that in both cases, the services are limited in how far they can crack down, based on the negative PR and loss of business it would cause. You can also control the damage by backing up your data in an open format. Web-based services like (blogs, picture sites with categorization and metadata) don't tout their ability to convert to open formats any more than say, MS Office, now do they? At least I know I haven't seen any "open blog format" that would let you move from Blogger to MySpace to (whatever), whereas I have seen Office file converters. Based on all of this, I'd feel a lot more comfortable committing a lot of time and effort to MS files (which you can always rescue from the HD image if the OS won't boot) than I would committing time and effort to data that's stored on a remote server that can be unplugged any time.
Why anyone would run their business (or hobby) on a system that is subject to DeActivation
Hold on... Before we answer that we need to upload some more pictures to flickr.com. Then we need to update our blogs on MySpace and reply to some contact invites on LinkedIn.
And yes, an unfavorable change in the ToS on these sites is not as bad as deactivation. A complete loss of service appears unlikely at this stage; but you never know what might change. The bottom line? Unless you control your data, and store it in a format that can be easily converted to use with other Operating Systems or services, you are vulnerable.
I agree with him. His post is why we have a 2nd ammendment. Now I'm flagged too. Anyone else wanna join us? A significant fraction of the country. Scattered everywhere. Now we're all flagged. See? Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Big brother only works when you're afraid of him. Stand up, and he runs away like a scared little kitten.
Some businessmen were born to "employ people", others to "utilize human resources". There are far too many of the latter; but we can't blame them totally. The other side of the equation is the worker who doesn't like the fact that he "works for them" and actually feels better being a "team member". Then there is the investor who probably doesn't buy companies that are "laying people off", but might be more interested in purchasing the stock of a company that is "engaging in refocusing the business and remaining agile". Everybody knows what they really mean. My favorite one is when a Washington, DC powerplayer who has fallen out of favor decides to "spend more time with the family". That one has become such a cliche that I think it's actually seems to have fallen out of favor in recent years. I don't know what is replacing it; but you can be certain something will. The need for sugar coating is probably as old as the human race.
This guy hates freedom
We found Osama!
So. All this tells me is that if you install from an image, you can include anything on the image you want. Well, Linux or any other OS is just as vulnerable to this. Bringing it up in the context of Vista is just pure FUD against MS. Why doesn't Slashdot wait until Vista is in enough hands for some real vulnerabilities to emerge? I'm fairly confident that will happen at some point.
Heh. Mea culpa for not reading TFA. Yeh. Company should totally pay then.
So, why should the Air Force have to change or pay?
There's probably no legal reason for them to change or pay. I think it would be the moral thing to do.
I wager these garage doors have that little notice on them, you know, the one that says "this is an FCC class B(?) device... must not interfere, must accept any such interference, blah, blah, blah...". The manufacturer can stand behind that. It's CYA compliant, probably, from a legal standpoint. It's definitely not PR compliant. I don't see this so much as a problem with the Air Force trampling on our rights, as a company that took a gamble that there would never be any powerful interference that would mess with their device. Usually there isn't.
All that aside, USAF should either stop using the frequency or offer to refund a retrofit of existing doors--whichever is cheaper. I can also foresee the mfct recalling the doors; but if they do that they probably have no recourse with the government. After all, they knew they were taking a chance by producing such a device. And then the garage door people could start using ultrasonic or infrared, with a crypto key of some kind between the receiver and transmitter to guarantee non-interference, and that would be that.
This is just another reason for me to be happy I don't have a car, nevermind a garage.
You're a major nation, and you can't pull off a simple hit? I mean, it's pure evil, but if somebody gave me the job I don't think it would take me too long to find a mobster, tap into his network, and get a decent hit-man who could pull off a plausible "robbery" where the guy got shot, or a car "accident" or even the good old standby like a bomb wired into the ignition. But NooooOOO. They had to go scattering radioactivity that would produce collataral damage, potentially ruining international relationships, and best of all... leaving a trail of radioactive breadcrumbs leading right back to the source!
What are they going to do to the guy who came up with that idea? Send him to China and then explode a dirty bomb in his apartment in downtown Beijing?
A Chevy engine. The machine shop bored stuff out and cleaned it up, but the actual reassembly of the engine was done by me, in the shed in our backyard. It started fairly easily, but a sparkplug wire came loose and burned on the exhaust manifold which got very hot because the engine wasn't properly timed. I shut it down and the next day got it started and running normally. I think I did well because it had the really nice, quiet, smooth sound that a new car engine has. Unfortunately I ran out of money for such projects, and I had to go back to school. I sold the car and never heard back how many more miles came out of it. The most important thing I probably learned was that I can do mechanical stuff if I put my mind to it, but that I would never be really great at it. Also, there were a couple of minor injuries along the way. My best friend got splashed with gasoline due to a loose fuel line, which irritated his skin badly. He ran to the shower and was fine. Some of the skin on my father's hand got caught between two pieces of metal on the engine stand. IIRC, that required a few stiches. I felt quite guilty about having injured people around me, and I didn't get hurt. It seemed like that project was jinxed. I had a '72 Ford Torino for a while and that was a fun car. I fixed the steering and the brakes, no troble at all. I would have had the machine shop do the engine, but money was short again and it needed body work. That one was sold to a BMW dealer who had plans to take the Cleveland V8 out and put it in a sports car body. I bet that would have rocked; but I have no idea if he actually did it. I stopped messing around with cars in my early 20s, and haven't looked back... probably a good thing.
Lawyers shouldn't be allowed to make laws. There's an inherent conflict of interest. Also, a programmer's perspective on law might be worth something; maybe not this particular programmer, but someone who knows how to code. Ever notice how many laws have actual dollar ammounts in them? That's stupid coding. The dollar ammounts should be indexed to inflation, but they never are. Ever notice how complicated these laws are? They need to be refactored. Something like 99 percent of Federal Law is probably the legal equivalent of some patch that was put in at the last minute to get the product out the door quickly. Only a good programmer, somebody who understands when to throw it away and start over, could really appreciate this. Too many redundant laws. Anti-terrorist measures? Pulleeze. Last time I checked, it was already illegal to kill people. That's cruft. Sorry, no commit bits for the guys who write that crap. Improperly named laws. Patriot act? Sorry. Variable and module names must reflect function. "int OMG_we_got_attakced_let_us_panic_and_give_up_some_ liberties_Act(PERSON *hapless_citizen);". It should be struck from the codebase, of course, but before we do that we should at least make sure it's all readable. Comments? None. None at all, not in the code anyway. It's all someplace else. Comments are separate from the code. They might as well be coding the country in Perl. Wankers. I wouldn't let these guys write a 2 line batch script, nevermmind write the code that runs the country. Hire a good team of software engineers, and maybe we can have Federal law reduced to less than 100,000 lines. One thing's for sure though, if BG writes the law at least it'll be easier to use. You might not need a lawyer to understand it. I wouldn't let a bunch of Open Source guys do this job. You'd need a coder to understand their laws, just like you need a lawyer to understand laws now. Nope. We need somebody who can produce user-friendly laws that won't crash too often, and since we have control of the hardware, I say maybe we should let some Mac developers have at it. What say, guys?
I seem to recall having seen something on Discovery about how ancients living in quake zones eventually hit upon this too. Their early buildings were all stone, and crumbled. Then they learned to reinforce the stones with heavy timbers. Those were more prone to fire, but you can't have everything. Walking around Washington, DC I get to see plenty of rowhouse renovations. Many are wood frames with masonry shells. The classics never really go out of style. It's still not perfect, but it comes in at a price the market will bear.
Sometime around 2016, modern English usage was revised so that "its" was used in both cases, and the reader deduced the meaning from context. By that time, most scholars were in agreement that this was accepted usage. At least, that's what John Titor told me.
I guess were you're from, nobody uses the "it might be X" construct, where X is obviously true. Maybe the proper usage would have been "it may be X", but in my experience people generally deduce the meaning from context, and don't question it. So. My grammar may simply not be correct. Or... it might be pedantry on your part. :)
This is a bit of an answer to the question "Why go to the Moon, Mars, or an Asteroid?". I bet more candidates would get excited about something like that. Either they need to inspire these guys, or offer them more pay to twirl around in LEO tightening bolts and tending experiments. It might be more economical in the short run simply to offer more pay. In the long run, a partnership with other spacefaring nations to further exploration is probably the best thing for the long-term health of the program.
If the Efficient Market Hypothesis were true, stock pickers like Cramer should have been driven out of the market by now. Some investors do, on average, beat the market. See Warren Buffet. Now. The hard part is figuring out if your analyst is the next WB, or just some MBA who isn't too stupid and had good luck on top of not being too stupid... for the last 5 years until he regresses to the mean for the next 10 years. So. If you could write software that picked *analysts* then maybe you'd have something. Trouble is, they're humans. They get divorced, get sick, die, decide they've made enough and want to drop out and do Yoga, etc. Anyway. Bottom line? Not everybody agrees that the market is efficient. I know I don't. No way. Not by a long shot. It's like poker. You'd think that skill is only a small part of the game, and that it's mostly chance. For many players, it is... or at least that's what I thought until I saw a truly skilled player take out an entire table. It was amazing to watch this guy know exactly how to play every hand. Amazing. Never saw it before. Might not see it again, since I'm not a big poker guy. I suspect investing is a lot like that--there are a handful of guys that belong in the investing equivalent of the big poker tourneys. Everybody else is a loser.
If all you have is the text of a software patent, you don't have the invention. Software patents would fulfill this societal obligation if, and only if, the patent disclosed a full working implementation. Source code and everything. In that case, a software patent system would actually be better than the copyright system we have now. MS-DOS would be off patent and in the Public Domain now under such a system, with early versions of Windows just a few years from expiration.
My father was a member of the WWII generation. He joined CCC in his teens, joined the Navy in '42, and at some point, probably after the war, got a GED. This did not harm his career one bit. We were solidly middle class growing up, and that was when middle class meant that Mom didn't work unless she wanted to get something "extra" for us.
There were a few kids in my school who didn't do college--they decided to do trade school and become plumbers. One guy was going to run a Domino's Pizza outlet (they were expanding quickly in our area). Word was, the Domino's guy would have to work hellacious hours, but that he'd pull down close to 6 figures, which was twice the promised starting salary for an engineer. The starting sal for engineers was a lie, at least in my case. I don't know what became of the Domino's manager.
Now, I'd like to think that these kids are dropping out because they think they have better ideas, but chances are they are either dysfunctional or just really, really need the money and have no hope of going to college.
It's really hard to say. Statistics are just dry numbers. I'd like to see some interviews with these kids. Are they bright and on the ball? Is this becomeing the social norm for their area? Don't forget--there are vast swaths of "fly-over" country where a decent house costs a FIFTH of what a decent house costs on the Blue Coasts. If this is just a regression to the cultural norm of the early 20th century, it might not be as dire as some people think.