Interesting that their iPhone and iPad risk assessment document comes up as "access denied"... Maybe I need one of those Dell Streak thingys to see it?
How is it that the current system is anything different from a "Soviet-syle Department of War Production"... you said yourself there is no market force to determine/optimize the price or availability of an F22 jet, the government sets out to get what they need and they pay whatever price is necessary. The difference is that either the government agency who wants the stuff will be responsible for the overhead of getting the project done, or they will "throw money" at someone else who is... Given that civilian contractors have a VERY poor track record in that regard, I don't think the government bureaucracy handling it directly could screw it up more than it is.
The salary is just one factor of the cost of employment.
If the government hired all of these sub-contractors as employees, then they would all be members of various federal unions, and the government would then be on the hook for all those unions' juice benefit plans and pensions. Also they would be paying payroll tax for them all (yes the government has to pay tax too).
If all these costs were accounted for then the supposed gap would be much narrower or potentially even non-existent.
The big question is, would you rather the money go to a middleman contractor company who turns around and gives employees the bare minimum of benefits and keeps all the profit for the only real benefit of shielding the government from additional unionized employees, or would you rather the workers just get those (arguably over-provided) benefits themselves? This looks like more ammunition for union reform, since the perceived benefit to society is obviously backfiring.
Instead of making grandiose statements that the Koch brothers fund global warming skeptics "whenever possible", why not link to their official position on global warming and what we should/shouldn't do about it?
Have a look at this summary of their activity and tell me their position is anything but skeptical. Not that there is anything wrong with that, they are self-proclaimed libertarians and as such are expected to be of the opinion that government has no place influencing the environment (or much of anything else) so it is natural that they will do whatever it takes to prevent public opinion from boiling over on this issue.
I am wondering, at this point, if Richard Muller isn't simply a very talented troll who agreed to take the Koch's money after presenting himself as a deep skeptic of climate change, only to turn around and use it to point out that the data was right all along.
Nice, so instead of either proving me wrong or ignoring me, you resort to calling me names and conjuring perverted fantasies... And in your mind I am the one with the problem. You are right about one thing, this IS hilarious.
How many of those smartphones are high-end models that are comparable to the iPhone?
Care to elaborate on why it matters? A phone is a phone; it is very unlikely for someone to carry even a basic phone and a Smartphone at the same time (unless one is for work and the other for personal use.) So, what would it actually matter if most or even all of the Samsung units were below the feature level of the iPhone? If you are interested in revenue, it is pretty clear that Apple is still making boatloads of money off iPhone sales, far more per unit and per subscriber unit-time than Samsung or any other smartphone maker.
With articles like this, you would think it really mattered who made more of what in a quarter... Never mind that geographies are different, carriers are different, and features are different. Time to buckle down for the hordes of apple and android gang-bangers to fill another thread with vitriol and made up words.
I point out a few observations about key differences the article in question left out, and this is what happens. Wow, just wow. With cognitive dissonance like that, you really should consider a career in politics. And what is it with people thinking Slashdot IDs matter? You know they are for sale, right? You too could have the "prestige" of a lower UID if that really matters to you, since apparently appearance is everything.
No, you're acting like an Android fanboy because you can't seem to grasp the concept that average users may care to some degree about major upgrades or new features
I don't give a crap if there are factual disadvantages to Android, or Apple, or anything. I'm just here looking for honesty, and the blog post that started this thread is so one sided that it has practically warped spacetime. Show me these average users that are so concerned with not getting Android 2.3. Until you do, spend some time in the mirror if you want to see a frantic, overly defensive zealot.
Probably just another pro-Apple troll post. By the time a handset is truly no longer being supported by Android, chances are good that it's out of warranty and you may as well just unlock it and install a custom firmware.
Unless you were dumb enough to get a phone that was tightly locked down with a custom UI, in which case it kind of serves you right.
Yeah, only a troll would suggest that it's reasonable for a vendor to support a phone for the entire length of the two-year contract you signed to get it.
Jeeeeezus is Slashdot out of touch with reality. Unlock it and install custom firmware? Seriously? You want to tell your Mom that she has to pay $200 for a phone, then pay $70 a month for the next two years, but after ten months she has to go find and install firmware herself? And anyone who doesn't think that's reasonable is a troll? BUUUUULLLLSHITTT.
No, actually, for all the mothers out there who bought an Android phone there is precisely 0 chance they give a flying **** whether or not their phone is running android 4.0 or 9.0 or cyborg 2.7 or whatever. After ten months, the phone is still a phone that still does all the things the phone has always done. If she wants to get on a forum and brag about how her rooted rommed phone runs android 2.4.6.8 then yes, she will need to do the downloading her self. Otherwise, she will just keep using the phone like she always has and not even care that there is different (newer) software out there.
Until you can point to something that actually makes an Android phone break and become useless when its firmware magically passes the expiration date, how is any of this not just an Android bash fest from Apple zealots?
What they don't mention is that every "wonderful new software update" by Apple came (until after the new iOS 5 release) in the form of a 500+ megabyte software download that was only accessible through iTunes. Never mind that the Android updates are all on the order of 2-100MB and most are available over the air, that would distract from the reader's impression that Apple devices were superior in every way possible
Seriously?
The iPhone user has to wait 'til they get home, plug in and then wait an extra 15 minutes for the download. But updates for all phones are available at the same time. With an iPhone when I read about a new update available I know it'll be there once I get home.
The Android user gets a shorter download but it's rolled out to each phone at a different time and inside each phone the updates get rolled out over time. With an Android phone, even if it's available for my phone model it not be available for my phone for a week.
Different issues, both are frustrations of one sort or another but it's not the major win for Android that you imply. Plus this really only occur a couple times a year anyway.
Where did I credit Android with a major win? I am only playing the role of Android Informant because the article in question is disgustingly pro-apple. What I have said is factual, take it for what you will, and move on. So many people come to android/apple threads looking for a fight that its a wonder there hasn't been a civil war yet (given the millions of devices sold on each side)...
Go ask an android user if their phone does what they want it to, then ask them if they have any idea what software version is on it. Sure, every new release will have the requisite bullets of improved features but the bottom line is that even old versions of Android "just work"; there is a reliable keyboard, a good UI, and yes they have wi-fi and play angry birds. Digging into the minutia of version numbers, release dates, and backward availability is nothing more than an Apple-inspired pissing match (just like everything else on that blog). Its nice to see the "Death to Android" torch that Steve lit is burning nicely. Back outside the reality distortion field, those of us who pay attention to how smartphones are bought and used know the real score between Apple and Android.
It's not "minutia" and you are the one that is trying to engage in an Android/Apple pissing match, not me. I have in fact made no statements at all about Apple, the iPhone, or which one is "better". All I have done is say that yes, there are people out there that can be informed enough to know and care about *major* Android updates without having to be technically inclined enough to understand bootloaders, rooting, and custom ROMs.
Frankly, all your posts come across as the Android version of an Apple fanboy, and it's pretty ironic you would tell anyone else that they are existing inside a reality distortion field.
If Android wasn't being compared directly with Apple on the blog post in question, what exactly would your argument be? That some users (those with certain handsets a year or more old) won't get this killer new "enhanced keyboard" experience and are therefore being deprived of a proper smartphone? I am being extremely pragmatic in looking for the actual differences that make people care about software, but nothing so far has really been brought up besides this whole "Apple gives you 3 years of the latest iOS if you bought an iPhone instead of an Android"... So please, one more time, where is it? I am only an Android fanboy if you try to compare me to Apple fans; in which case yes, guilty as charged, I do not take everything from the mouth of the Apple marketing machine as the word of law. How dare I.
Go ask an android user if their phone does what they want it to, then ask them if they have any idea what software version is on it. Sure, every new release will have the requisite bullets of improved features but the bottom line is that even old versions of Android "just work"; there is a reliable keyboard, a good UI, and yes they have wi-fi and play angry birds. Digging into the minutia of version numbers, release dates, and backward availability is nothing more than an Apple-inspired pissing match (just like everything else on that blog). Its nice to see the "Death to Android" torch that Steve lit is burning nicely. Back outside the reality distortion field, those of us who pay attention to how smartphones are bought and used know the real score between Apple and Android.
By most he is confining himself to the set of "people who give a shit what the difference between Android 2.2 and 2.3 is". Apple's fanfare (and iTunes lock-in) basically requires that the user be intimately aware of what version they are running. If they are behind, they will feel emptiness inside (and they wont have access to app updates and new iTunes downloads). Android, on the other hand, just "works".
It does seem a bit skewed towards Apple with the exclusion of the Samsung Galaxy.
As for the iPhone 2G, the graph clearly does not indicate that it has current support updates. This is NOT a timeline, it is a bar graph, so read it appropriately. The support was terminated shortly after the second year, which was early 2010. It is now late 2011 - so support updates for it have been missing for over a year and a half.
Given that the SGS and SGS2 represent a HUGE portion of the installbase, as well as the Droid 2, Droid X, (and other handsets too numerous to mention) this whole "expose" is basically ad advertisement for the Apple software update process, which to their credit is quite comprehensive (but to put it in perspective they have exactly 3 hardware builds for 3 years of sales.) What they don't mention is that every "wonderful new software update" by Apple came (until after the new iOS 5 release) in the form of a 500+ megabyte software download that was only accessible through iTunes. Never mind that the Android updates are all on the order of 2-100MB and most are available over the air, that would distract from the reader's impression that Apple devices were superior in every way possible. It's clear that the author of this article set out to prove that Apple devices are "better", nothing more nothing less.
Unless you were dumb enough to get a phone that was tightly locked down with a custom UI, in which case it kind of serves you right.
Yes because the majority of consumers clearly should have to concern themselves with researching the concepts of bootloaders and the effects of custom UIs on the inner workings of the OS and impact it will have on future software updates. The only dumb people around here are those with your attitude.
If you aren't concerned with bootloaders, root exploits, and all the trappings of low level android device operation then why exactly would you give two shits if your handset had an official 2.3 release or if it was "abandoned" on version 2.2? Trying to map the Android software world over to Apple's is amazingly disingenuous, to the point of being a complete troll (and anyone in this thread here to point that out is pretty trollish by relation.) Where are these huge gaps in features, stability, or security that have come from not running the very latest code from Google?
"In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.
So a powerful 1% owns 40% of the global wealth...
You mean a powerful less-than-1%... 147 companies makes up closer to.3% of the companies based on the selection criteria for their study (and certainly excludes many more). This means that those 147 are controlling at a rate of over 100x their proportion in the market. While it's probably natural (and beneficial) to have a small number of large companies at "the top" instead of a flat sea of small companies all inefficiently bickering for control, you have to wonder at what point it becomes almost unavoidable that they will collude with each other to maintain dominance at the sacrifice of the free market at large.
Anytime a government subsidizes a product or service - the price will increase to match the subsidy. Period. The producers know how much the subsidy is(A), and how much a consumer can spend(B). They will always add a+b in the end because the elasticity of price can be known to support that level.
There isn't even an unknown pricing curve here - the University already knows your finances when you apply for financial aid. They can simply and easily price an education to target the population of students they want.
Except for the most part federal assistance is NOT a subsidy, it is a LOAN which the student agrees to pay back. If the market difference is trivial, then we have a disturbing disconnect in the minds of the consumers of these loans, since they apparently think it is "free money" or at the least "very cheap money" instead of just "money paid at a later time". Many loan consumers are under the impression that any money they spend on education will be returned several fold, which is just plain dumb. This is not a problem with the fact that the loans are there, it is a problem with the way they are used.
Improve the way they are used and you will see education prices go down AND availability of funds go up (since fewer people will be competing for "unproductive" educations). If you just want to cut out the federal loan program because it is abused (make way for the car metaphor!) you might as well argue that no one deserves to drive a car because every year 15,000 people are killed and untold billions in damage is caused by those who choose to drive drunk.
[Did it "confirm" it was caused by man?] Because that's the real issue that most skeptics have been questioning of late.
If the question of whether or not the warming is anthropogenic, then why the Climategate stink? The researchers involved in those studies (as referenced here) had no skin in the anthropogeny game, they were merely reporting on collected warming/cooling data. If self-proclaimed "skeptics" were not contentious about warming and instead only worried about the cause, there would not have been a scandal at all...
NOAA and NIST have huge headquarters in Boulder, Co. Cutting these departments would affect Boulder in a *huge* way - much like GE's pull-out of Michael Moore's home town devastated that town.
If the $12 billion that he wants to save means creating the next Michael Moore, I think I speak for a majority when I say "JUST SPEND THE MONEY!"
But the story is about the student loan "bubble"... and OWS was only tangentially mentioned. I can point you to a dozen stories which similarly mention the Tea Party (or you can google them yourself.)
Successful, unchallenged capitalism makes the population so safe, so indolent, so comfortable, so well-off that it literally breeds away ambition, determination, and self-reliance.
To put it even more briefly, capitalism is its own worst enemy...
1) Why the hell is this a topic for Slashdot? Has Slashdot given up all pretense of being either unbiased, or a tech news site?
What part of this is biased? The student loans bit is relevant because Slashdot has an extremely over-represented population of current or past students. Same goes for the OWS stuff, a large part of that is social-media aware hipsters (also hugely over-represented on/.) so it fits pretty squarely with the mission statement of delivering relevant news to the present audience.
Just because you don't agree with the information in a story does not make it any less relevant, or factual. Get over yourself.
Facial recognition is not just a "how much does this pic look like that pic" type of operation. The algorithm (or a useful algorithm anyway) looks at the key metrics of your face, such as pupil separation vs distance from eyes to mouth (to judge distance and aspect ratio) and then looks at nose size, jaw width, ear width, and a number of other features to determine if the two faces are identical. Otherwise, you would lock yourself out of your phone (in this case) by simply growing a beard or adding/removing glasses from your face (something a true recog algo has no problem overcoming).
Slashdot Mirror
for a semi-complete list of smart phones that DISA is looking at, check here: http://iase.disa.mil/stigs/net_perimeter/wireless/smartphone.html (A simple google search takes you right there).
Interesting that their iPhone and iPad risk assessment document comes up as "access denied"... Maybe I need one of those Dell Streak thingys to see it?
How is it that the current system is anything different from a "Soviet-syle Department of War Production"... you said yourself there is no market force to determine/optimize the price or availability of an F22 jet, the government sets out to get what they need and they pay whatever price is necessary. The difference is that either the government agency who wants the stuff will be responsible for the overhead of getting the project done, or they will "throw money" at someone else who is... Given that civilian contractors have a VERY poor track record in that regard, I don't think the government bureaucracy handling it directly could screw it up more than it is.
The salary is just one factor of the cost of employment.
If the government hired all of these sub-contractors as employees, then they would all be members of various federal unions, and the government would then be on the hook for all those unions' juice benefit plans and pensions. Also they would be paying payroll tax for them all (yes the government has to pay tax too).
If all these costs were accounted for then the supposed gap would be much narrower or potentially even non-existent.
The big question is, would you rather the money go to a middleman contractor company who turns around and gives employees the bare minimum of benefits and keeps all the profit for the only real benefit of shielding the government from additional unionized employees, or would you rather the workers just get those (arguably over-provided) benefits themselves? This looks like more ammunition for union reform, since the perceived benefit to society is obviously backfiring.
Instead of making grandiose statements that the Koch brothers fund global warming skeptics "whenever possible", why not link to their official position on global warming and what we should/shouldn't do about it?
Have a look at this summary of their activity and tell me their position is anything but skeptical. Not that there is anything wrong with that, they are self-proclaimed libertarians and as such are expected to be of the opinion that government has no place influencing the environment (or much of anything else) so it is natural that they will do whatever it takes to prevent public opinion from boiling over on this issue.
I am wondering, at this point, if Richard Muller isn't simply a very talented troll who agreed to take the Koch's money after presenting himself as a deep skeptic of climate change, only to turn around and use it to point out that the data was right all along.
Nice, so instead of either proving me wrong or ignoring me, you resort to calling me names and conjuring perverted fantasies... And in your mind I am the one with the problem. You are right about one thing, this IS hilarious.
How many of those smartphones are high-end models that are comparable to the iPhone?
Care to elaborate on why it matters? A phone is a phone; it is very unlikely for someone to carry even a basic phone and a Smartphone at the same time (unless one is for work and the other for personal use.) So, what would it actually matter if most or even all of the Samsung units were below the feature level of the iPhone? If you are interested in revenue, it is pretty clear that Apple is still making boatloads of money off iPhone sales, far more per unit and per subscriber unit-time than Samsung or any other smartphone maker.
With articles like this, you would think it really mattered who made more of what in a quarter... Never mind that geographies are different, carriers are different, and features are different. Time to buckle down for the hordes of apple and android gang-bangers to fill another thread with vitriol and made up words.
I point out a few observations about key differences the article in question left out, and this is what happens. Wow, just wow. With cognitive dissonance like that, you really should consider a career in politics. And what is it with people thinking Slashdot IDs matter? You know they are for sale, right? You too could have the "prestige" of a lower UID if that really matters to you, since apparently appearance is everything.
LOL, says the guy who can't drag himself away. Keep it up, chief. You are really coming out as the smart one in this discourse.
No, you're acting like an Android fanboy because you can't seem to grasp the concept that average users may care to some degree about major upgrades or new features
I don't give a crap if there are factual disadvantages to Android, or Apple, or anything. I'm just here looking for honesty, and the blog post that started this thread is so one sided that it has practically warped spacetime. Show me these average users that are so concerned with not getting Android 2.3. Until you do, spend some time in the mirror if you want to see a frantic, overly defensive zealot.
Probably just another pro-Apple troll post. By the time a handset is truly no longer being supported by Android, chances are good that it's out of warranty and you may as well just unlock it and install a custom firmware.
Unless you were dumb enough to get a phone that was tightly locked down with a custom UI, in which case it kind of serves you right.
Yeah, only a troll would suggest that it's reasonable for a vendor to support a phone for the entire length of the two-year contract you signed to get it.
Jeeeeezus is Slashdot out of touch with reality. Unlock it and install custom firmware? Seriously? You want to tell your Mom that she has to pay $200 for a phone, then pay $70 a month for the next two years, but after ten months she has to go find and install firmware herself? And anyone who doesn't think that's reasonable is a troll? BUUUUULLLLSHITTT.
No, actually, for all the mothers out there who bought an Android phone there is precisely 0 chance they give a flying **** whether or not their phone is running android 4.0 or 9.0 or cyborg 2.7 or whatever. After ten months, the phone is still a phone that still does all the things the phone has always done. If she wants to get on a forum and brag about how her rooted rommed phone runs android 2.4.6.8 then yes, she will need to do the downloading her self. Otherwise, she will just keep using the phone like she always has and not even care that there is different (newer) software out there.
Until you can point to something that actually makes an Android phone break and become useless when its firmware magically passes the expiration date, how is any of this not just an Android bash fest from Apple zealots?
Seriously?
The iPhone user has to wait 'til they get home, plug in and then wait an extra 15 minutes for the download. But updates for all phones are available at the same time. With an iPhone when I read about a new update available I know it'll be there once I get home.
The Android user gets a shorter download but it's rolled out to each phone at a different time and inside each phone the updates get rolled out over time. With an Android phone, even if it's available for my phone model it not be available for my phone for a week.
Different issues, both are frustrations of one sort or another but it's not the major win for Android that you imply. Plus this really only occur a couple times a year anyway.
Where did I credit Android with a major win? I am only playing the role of Android Informant because the article in question is disgustingly pro-apple. What I have said is factual, take it for what you will, and move on. So many people come to android/apple threads looking for a fight that its a wonder there hasn't been a civil war yet (given the millions of devices sold on each side)...
Go ask an android user if their phone does what they want it to, then ask them if they have any idea what software version is on it. Sure, every new release will have the requisite bullets of improved features but the bottom line is that even old versions of Android "just work"; there is a reliable keyboard, a good UI, and yes they have wi-fi and play angry birds. Digging into the minutia of version numbers, release dates, and backward availability is nothing more than an Apple-inspired pissing match (just like everything else on that blog). Its nice to see the "Death to Android" torch that Steve lit is burning nicely. Back outside the reality distortion field, those of us who pay attention to how smartphones are bought and used know the real score between Apple and Android.
It's not "minutia" and you are the one that is trying to engage in an Android/Apple pissing match, not me. I have in fact made no statements at all about Apple, the iPhone, or which one is "better". All I have done is say that yes, there are people out there that can be informed enough to know and care about *major* Android updates without having to be technically inclined enough to understand bootloaders, rooting, and custom ROMs.
Frankly, all your posts come across as the Android version of an Apple fanboy, and it's pretty ironic you would tell anyone else that they are existing inside a reality distortion field.
If Android wasn't being compared directly with Apple on the blog post in question, what exactly would your argument be? That some users (those with certain handsets a year or more old) won't get this killer new "enhanced keyboard" experience and are therefore being deprived of a proper smartphone? I am being extremely pragmatic in looking for the actual differences that make people care about software, but nothing so far has really been brought up besides this whole "Apple gives you 3 years of the latest iOS if you bought an iPhone instead of an Android"... So please, one more time, where is it? I am only an Android fanboy if you try to compare me to Apple fans; in which case yes, guilty as charged, I do not take everything from the mouth of the Apple marketing machine as the word of law. How dare I.
Go ask an android user if their phone does what they want it to, then ask them if they have any idea what software version is on it. Sure, every new release will have the requisite bullets of improved features but the bottom line is that even old versions of Android "just work"; there is a reliable keyboard, a good UI, and yes they have wi-fi and play angry birds. Digging into the minutia of version numbers, release dates, and backward availability is nothing more than an Apple-inspired pissing match (just like everything else on that blog). Its nice to see the "Death to Android" torch that Steve lit is burning nicely. Back outside the reality distortion field, those of us who pay attention to how smartphones are bought and used know the real score between Apple and Android.
By most he is confining himself to the set of "people who give a shit what the difference between Android 2.2 and 2.3 is". Apple's fanfare (and iTunes lock-in) basically requires that the user be intimately aware of what version they are running. If they are behind, they will feel emptiness inside (and they wont have access to app updates and new iTunes downloads). Android, on the other hand, just "works".
It does seem a bit skewed towards Apple with the exclusion of the Samsung Galaxy.
As for the iPhone 2G, the graph clearly does not indicate that it has current support updates. This is NOT a timeline, it is a bar graph, so read it appropriately. The support was terminated shortly after the second year, which was early 2010. It is now late 2011 - so support updates for it have been missing for over a year and a half.
Given that the SGS and SGS2 represent a HUGE portion of the installbase, as well as the Droid 2, Droid X, (and other handsets too numerous to mention) this whole "expose" is basically ad advertisement for the Apple software update process, which to their credit is quite comprehensive (but to put it in perspective they have exactly 3 hardware builds for 3 years of sales.) What they don't mention is that every "wonderful new software update" by Apple came (until after the new iOS 5 release) in the form of a 500+ megabyte software download that was only accessible through iTunes. Never mind that the Android updates are all on the order of 2-100MB and most are available over the air, that would distract from the reader's impression that Apple devices were superior in every way possible. It's clear that the author of this article set out to prove that Apple devices are "better", nothing more nothing less.
Unless you were dumb enough to get a phone that was tightly locked down with a custom UI, in which case it kind of serves you right.
Yes because the majority of consumers clearly should have to concern themselves with researching the concepts of bootloaders and the effects of custom UIs on the inner workings of the OS and impact it will have on future software updates. The only dumb people around here are those with your attitude.
If you aren't concerned with bootloaders, root exploits, and all the trappings of low level android device operation then why exactly would you give two shits if your handset had an official 2.3 release or if it was "abandoned" on version 2.2? Trying to map the Android software world over to Apple's is amazingly disingenuous, to the point of being a complete troll (and anyone in this thread here to point that out is pretty trollish by relation.) Where are these huge gaps in features, stability, or security that have come from not running the very latest code from Google?
This should:
"In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.
So a powerful 1% owns 40% of the global wealth...
You mean a powerful less-than-1%... 147 companies makes up closer to .3% of the companies based on the selection criteria for their study (and certainly excludes many more). This means that those 147 are controlling at a rate of over 100x their proportion in the market. While it's probably natural (and beneficial) to have a small number of large companies at "the top" instead of a flat sea of small companies all inefficiently bickering for control, you have to wonder at what point it becomes almost unavoidable that they will collude with each other to maintain dominance at the sacrifice of the free market at large.
Anytime a government subsidizes a product or service - the price will increase to match the subsidy. Period. The producers know how much the subsidy is(A), and how much a consumer can spend(B). They will always add a+b in the end because the elasticity of price can be known to support that level.
There isn't even an unknown pricing curve here - the University already knows your finances when you apply for financial aid. They can simply and easily price an education to target the population of students they want.
Except for the most part federal assistance is NOT a subsidy, it is a LOAN which the student agrees to pay back. If the market difference is trivial, then we have a disturbing disconnect in the minds of the consumers of these loans, since they apparently think it is "free money" or at the least "very cheap money" instead of just "money paid at a later time". Many loan consumers are under the impression that any money they spend on education will be returned several fold, which is just plain dumb. This is not a problem with the fact that the loans are there, it is a problem with the way they are used.
Improve the way they are used and you will see education prices go down AND availability of funds go up (since fewer people will be competing for "unproductive" educations). If you just want to cut out the federal loan program because it is abused (make way for the car metaphor!) you might as well argue that no one deserves to drive a car because every year 15,000 people are killed and untold billions in damage is caused by those who choose to drive drunk.
[Did it "confirm" it was caused by man?] Because that's the real issue that most skeptics have been questioning of late.
If the question of whether or not the warming is anthropogenic, then why the Climategate stink? The researchers involved in those studies (as referenced here) had no skin in the anthropogeny game, they were merely reporting on collected warming/cooling data. If self-proclaimed "skeptics" were not contentious about warming and instead only worried about the cause, there would not have been a scandal at all...
But there was.
NOAA and NIST have huge headquarters in Boulder, Co. Cutting these departments would affect Boulder in a *huge* way - much like GE's pull-out of Michael Moore's home town devastated that town.
If the $12 billion that he wants to save means creating the next Michael Moore, I think I speak for a majority when I say "JUST SPEND THE MONEY!"
But the story is about the student loan "bubble"... and OWS was only tangentially mentioned. I can point you to a dozen stories which similarly mention the Tea Party (or you can google them yourself.)
Successful, unchallenged capitalism makes the population so safe, so indolent, so comfortable, so well-off that it literally breeds away ambition, determination, and self-reliance.
To put it even more briefly, capitalism is its own worst enemy...
1) Why the hell is this a topic for Slashdot? Has Slashdot given up all pretense of being either unbiased, or a tech news site?
What part of this is biased? The student loans bit is relevant because Slashdot has an extremely over-represented population of current or past students. Same goes for the OWS stuff, a large part of that is social-media aware hipsters (also hugely over-represented on /.) so it fits pretty squarely with the mission statement of delivering relevant news to the present audience.
Just because you don't agree with the information in a story does not make it any less relevant, or factual. Get over yourself.
Facial recognition is not just a "how much does this pic look like that pic" type of operation. The algorithm (or a useful algorithm anyway) looks at the key metrics of your face, such as pupil separation vs distance from eyes to mouth (to judge distance and aspect ratio) and then looks at nose size, jaw width, ear width, and a number of other features to determine if the two faces are identical. Otherwise, you would lock yourself out of your phone (in this case) by simply growing a beard or adding/removing glasses from your face (something a true recog algo has no problem overcoming).