The reason is: you'd have to nationalize the banking system, and take the profit motive out of finance. THEN you could have publicly-financed campaigns, without having to go through everyone's balance sheets with a microscope and invade everyone's privacy, and pick around and scrutize everything to make sure it's on the up and up.
Its the only way it would work - and because of that dependency, private banks fight this tooth and nail. Lincoln fought for public banking (via the Greenback system) - and he was assassinated. The conspiracy plot was never investigated, or widely disclosed. It was backed by the banks and corporate interests.
The simple demand of the protesters is: TAX THE RICH.
It's simple. Restore the progressivity of tax system. If you want to debate about it, discuss the technical minutae, sure that's fine - but you'll get called a DIRTY STINKIN COMMIE no matter what you do. So, TAX THE RICH is as good a slogan as any.
While I agree with most of what you say; I think it's a mistake to bash the protestors for getting a coffee at Starbucks. Yes, it's hypocritical, and shallow. . . but the fact is - we (and by "we" - I mean, all of us, but everyone else but ME) have accumulated a tremendous amount of momentum running and screaming FRANTICALLY away from "COMMUNISM" for going on something like 60 years now, because we're afraid of some unknown scary under-the-bed-monster like, gulags, or dirty hippies, or union thugs, or whatever other stereotypical name-calling gag, used for probably the last 150 years, (and works well. It's not "neo McCarthyism... it's very very old, stale, frankly boring, and uncreative, but highly effective propaganda).
Personally - I don't think that our "beef" should be with "capitalism" - (because we don't really HAVE a capitalist system); I think that our beef should be with a system that was designed to be able to change - but now, is resistant to change, and that resistance is baked-in, and enshrined in the very fundamental rules and freedoms that we all hold dear - (we WILL miss them when they are gone!). I think that just as the "OMG commies!" scare tactics are bullshit, I think that the "die capitalist pigs!" scare tactics from the other side, are likewise, just stupid namecalling. When it comes down to it - I'm pretty sure that there's a very small minority of people who have a really sweet deal, and have had that for a long time, and are pretty secure that nothing's going to change out from under them as long as they can keep everybody else fighting eachother over islam/christian, black/white, commie/market, etc.
Once people figure out that the real problem is simple: the golden rule, and that that is how it must be attacked - (and progressive taxation is a nice thought, but does not get at the root of the problem, and corporate personhood is a nice thought, but won't change our system, and does not begin to bring an understanding of what's REALLY wrong here).. . . people will figure out that we're really all on the same side. Except for that very tiny minority. I think that's what I first found so exciting about the "99%" - I thought. . . FINALLY, someone "gets" it. But they don't. They're just reciting statistics. The statistics are correct, of course, and they reflect the truth. But they haven't informed us as to what needs to be done.
Yes - we need to eschew Starbucks. In fact, yes, we need to be paying like $10 for a cup of Columbian coffee, because that's what it really costs, if you're not stealing from the 8 year old Columbian girl who's getting up at 5 in the morning to pick the beans, and the 15 year old Somalian boy whose villiage was bulldozed to put in a pipeline for Dutch Shell Co. to extract the fuel oil that goes to power the ship that brings those beans to market. Presently - YOU the consumer, save $5. Maybe the COST could be $.20; but the rest of that goes into the CEO's pocket. We're bitching about the $4.80. We need to understand there's another $5 that's not being paid. . . by US.
We haven't been paying that shit for 30 years. And because of that, we've enjoyed a nice high standard of living. And now we're having to start paying those costs. And it's hurting. Now it's going to be our kids and grandkids getting up at 5am to pick coffee beans. Not going to school. This is what we're protesting. We just don't REALIZE it yet.
The sad thing is: we have a chance here to change what happens, so that there isn't a CEO sitting on our $4.80, when there's someone on the other end paying $5 retail for our product.
But that's not what these people are going to fight for. They're going to try to fight for their right to keep buying $5 coffee. They're not realizing that these CEO's aren't going to keep paying them enough to do that for very much longer.
People haven't found out so far - what makes you think people will find out?
How fair is it to withhold life saving/extending treatment from someone willing and able to pay for it?
We're questioning in this society - what does this mean? Someone willing and able to pay for it? What is the moral difference between someone whose parent was rich, and someone whose parent was not; and maybe that person who is not able to pay for it, labored hard for many years, and innovated and saved many lives with their work - but due to the vagaries of the invisible hand, or maybe due to financial fraud that was never "caught" by officials, the guy got to old age with no savings. . . so we deny that person this treatment, because he has no money? He's less worthy than maybe the guy who "stole" the money from him?
Maybe old people should fight eachother to the death for the right to have this drug. A cage match.
I would want to live to be 150 - but you must define "live". If that's live with decrepitude. . . then you can keep your immortality potion. I assume that this thought-problem includes some kind of biological process that boosts physical health so that other age-related diseases are diminished. I've been dealing with arthritis since my teen years. Not pleasant - I guess I could do 150. But if this got worse, and I got crippled, that would suck. I don't want to spend the next 110 sitting in a darkened living room watching Glenn Beck rant about Nazis because I'm too feeble to go backpacking in to the Gobi backcountry. I want to be able to DO something with that time.
I'm taking the ml class, and while other students are complaining that the math is over-simplified, I'm finding that he's skipping over steps (such that, for someone who is already familiar with the math, it's no problem, but for someone who is just gaining familiarity, it's troublesome).
On the other hand, there's a lot of great benefits to how the material is presented, and if I were sitting in a regular class watching this lecture, I would be completely lost. (surely, I'd be asking the professor a TON of questions. Whether I'd be getting answers is up for debate. . . I've been in classes where teachers just skate-out, and you never see them, so if you have any confusion about a topic, you're just on your own fucked).
I posted this before but here, in a more direct, to the point, response: I think that face-to-face interaction is overrated in some cases, and can be detrimental. I think there are some students that can learn better from a set of video lectures. There's articles on Khan Academy that explain why, and my personal experience (not with Khan Academy, but other online schools - and this is not necessarily limited to online classes: A brick-and-mortar school can certainly provide mp4 downloads of lectures! As long as they're decent lectures).
The ability to pause, play slowly, faster, replay, etc. is HUGE. As long as sound quality is good, video is sufficiently sharp such that lecture notes and demonstrations are clearly visible, and as long as the lecture content doesn't suck-ass. (many lectures just DO).
It's true that everything you need to know is in the textbook. But not everyone can just read the textbook and "get it". In some subjects, maybe. Not all.
Personally, I've always had a really really hard time learning math in a classroom setting - and I've rarely found teachers with the patience to explain things to me. I'm a smart person. Really I am. What it has actually boiled down to - is 12 years of wasted time in public schools, 4 years of college wasted struggling with the wrong curriculum, because I couldn't get on a "technical" track, because I couldn't get my foot in the door in post-algebra math. I just couldn't get it. I felt stupid. AP Chemistry, Biology, and Physics student. I couldn't understand math - period. What's that heavy science background good for, without math? Nothing.
Now - I'm in software engineering. (How's that for irony - the only field that would accept me without credentials of rigorous formal math training!) - and I've finally figured out that I can learn calculus and linear algebra just fine, on my own. Not from a textbook alone. But simply by watching "Khan academy" style lectures. (I haven't actually looked at those - but that's the school most people are familiar with). They're sufficiently detailed, they walk through the process of problem solving step by step, and they get me through the textbook examples sufficiently (ie. repeatedly) until I learn it. In a way that I can't talk a teacher into doing. I suppose I could have hired private tutors and tested their patience. I don't know. If I had the internet and video lectures 35 years ago - I would not have struggled nearly as much. I probably would have had a much more productive secondary school and college education, and a much better career.
I can't really be super bitter about the lost opportunities and struggles I've had to endure in the past.
But I can say that different people really do have different learning styles, and you can cay that that is or is not related to intelligence. I don't think that it is. For me, it's a focus issue, I think. But the math that I my teachers struggled to ram down my throat in 8th grade, to me, was EASY, when I watched a video lecture - and re-ran it 3 times, in slow motion, doing the steps by hand in my notebook, as the teacher did them. . . . and then I suddenly understood. It went that way for intro univariate calculus, multivariate calculas, and linear algebra. I got out of High School thinking I was *never* going to understand anything past quadradic equations. And that was because of the teaching format of sitting in a classroom of 20 students, with a teacher who didn't want to take 1 minute of extra time to help 1 slower student out, and was happy to watch that student fail-out, and get stuck with a crappy life.
Does it solve the: 1. picture is blurry because camera's autofocus did not lock on subject (or operator locked it onto a subject other than what was intended) - and intended subject was outside of the camera's depth-of-field for that distance+lens+aperture)? or 2. picture is blurry because it's a crappy digicam with an unsensitive sensor or crappy flash recharge cycle rate, and any photo taken out of full-sunlight either drives the auto ISO adjustment to "super-mega-grainy" or shutter-speed to "1-full-second, next-time-bring-a-tripod-sucker".
The argument that keeps coming up, that says that we can't afford it (as a public service) - is really a bunch of crap.
Yes - it is TRUE, that if a space program is run as a pork-barrel project (like STS was), then it will be an unsafe, money-suck. Meaningful science will be done, and it will still be FAR cheaper than your imperial war machine. But, please, politicians, sit the FUCK down, and let the engineers do the rocket science. Thanks.
The argument that it must be a sound business proposition, is also a great big pile of crap.
How much did Queen Isabella "invest" in exploring the new world? (not really all that much, in the big scheme of things. I'm sure her jewels were precious to her - but as monarchs and royalty go. . . it was fucking peanuts, and was a no-brainer). What was HER PERSONAL RETURN on that investment? BUPKUS! (actually really awful, since Columbus gets blamed for the extermination of all the indiginous people. It really wasn't solely HIS doing. . . he was a sailor and navigator, not a conqueror or exterminator. I think you're confusing him with someone else. Clearly - extermination HAPPENED. Genocide HAPPENED. But Columbus wasn't really directly responsible.) But overall - as an ROI to Western Civilization, what was the New World worth?
You can't even estimate that.
Listen - our monetary system - this banking crisis, it's all fucking manufactured. It's ridiculous. A farce. The people who are in charge now, are in charge, because we allow them to be in charge. Their currency has value, because we believe it has value. They preferentially lend it to whomever or whatever, continues their hegemony. So don't fall for the bullshit that we don't have enough money for NASA or space exploration.
The argument that we don't currently have the technology - IS A VALID ARGUMENT. Oh my! So do we roll over and die? Do we crawl back into the slime at the bottom of the ocean? Or do we choose to do the hard things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard? Sounds like an easy decision to me.
Personally - I believe that robots will make much better "searchers" for extraterrestrial life. But I also believe that humans need to be there, to manage the robotic systems. Spirit and Opportunity could both use a tune-up right about now. A new wheel, maybe some upgraded sensors, faster RAM, etc. Those are probably overy-simplistic examples as a model for the future. Almost anywhere within our solar system, the economics probably favor sending new robots. The capabilities of sensors, mobility and longevity of telerobotic platforms, favor robotics over direct human observation by tens of thousands to one. But someday, we'll be expanding our operations beyond that range.
Just as soon as we solve the technical problem of how we keep bankers from wetting their beds every time the business cycle flips. I believe that this is a psychopharmaceutical problem. Not an economic problem.
I think it's time to assume that we have not heard the full story from the mainstream news source. If they were interested in telling us the full and correct story in the first place. . . then we probably never would have been a need for WikiLeaks to exist. Am I right?
. . . and the thing is: When (for example) the "tax the rich" goal is unwound to very specific technical items like - get rid of offshore tax havens, reform corporate tax law, eliminate unfair deductions like mortgage interest for second, third, vacation homes, and investment properties, etc. - basically - we want a simplification of tax code that returns REAL progressivity, and returns fairness and justice to our economic system. . . . most people tend to fall asleep, and the rest get mired down into arguments of minutia that really don't matter. So we boil it down to the #twitter, foxnews drone, and bumper-sticker-friendly - "Tax the Rich" - and suddenly, their eyes light up, and then they understand! Ah! STALIN! You are engaging in CLASS WARFARE! You want to send us to FUCKING GULAGS YEW FUCKING NAZI KENYAN COMMUNIST!
See? You can't argue with these people. The teajadists want to pull out their sixguns and start shootin'.
They won't open their eyes, and look around at their own fucking country, at the plight of their own fucking neighbors - their OWN FUCKING CHILDREN, and see - that what we've been doing for the past 30 years, is NOT FUCKING WORKING.
Without succumbing to neo-McCarthyite crap, or descent into technocratic minutia - yes, the jist of the argument is: in the absence of any incentive for employers to widely compensate workers such that demand is sufficiently stimulated such that our economy actually functions. . . then, MILDLY progressive taxation coupled with Keynesian stimulative policy is required to restore economic demand.
The only time Keynesianism has been demonstrated to cause problems is when jackholes like Ronald Reagan and George W Bush chose to DEFICIT SPEND during a boom-cycle, causing economic bubbles, causing subsequent credit crises (massively exacerbated by FAILURE to criminally prosecute widespread white-collar crime: banking and securities fraud - which further undermined public trust in the banking system; killing demand, and plundering consumer wealth).
Yes. The 99% have been pissed off since Neal Bush and the S&L crisis. Fucking deal with it.
The demands are pretty simple, even a dinosaur-riding flat earther flat-taxer can understand it.
The General Assemblies have posted a list of specific demands.
Much more coherent and actionable than what has been coming out of the Tea Party.
The problem is: our current crop of congress and executive branch, and their enablers in the mainstream media (MSNBC, CNN, FoxNews) are anything but ideologically coherent and action-oriented. They want status-quo, and they don't want to talk about it.
So - I can readily understand your point of view. Even though it is wrong.
. . . in the US, you are among the top 1% in the world.
While - this is not strictly "true" . . more likely, you are among the top 2-5%. . . this is a very important point to make. And it's not a point to say. . . "you are just a whiney bitch" - NO.
It is a point to say: keep your eye on the prize. Or, at least know what you are really fighting for.
You are not fighting to regain, or maintain, the standard of living that your parents had, or that you used to have. That standard was an illusion. It was not sustainable, and it was obtained at the expense of the poverty and suffering of the hundreds of millions of others in the world.
Simply feeding them, in the past, may have made us "feel better". And it drove up their population, and made their problems worse.
What we should have fought for then, instead - - - what we need to fight for NOW - - - is equality, and social justice. Real, lasting, sustainable solutions to these problems.
The #1, first and foremost goal; I believe, is to GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS. Eliminate the Money=Speech fallacy. (I have a strong pro-freedom streak running through me - but there is something wrong with this logic that private money, which can be controlled by private hands, is equivalent to public, political discourse, access to influence the system, right to assemble, and representation. Our mass-media is corporatized, monetized, monopolized, and regulated, and there is NO way that this is equivalent to "free speech") - the more we de-regulate campaign financing, the worse this problem gets. This must be stopped, and soon. Everybody deserves a voice. Everybody has a right to speak. But the money has to STOP. All of it.
All anyone really wants is validation. Most of us are in school to prime us for a career to earn a living. I think this kid's got it covered. Figure on whatever's going to feed the prodigy the human validation he needs, and he'll probably be fine. I guess.
I do this, mainly - but then I take my "reference" folder, and subdivide that into topical folders, which I periodically groom.
My inbox, I move, on a weekly basis, to a series of archive subfolders, yyyy\mm\w
(mail incoming to my inbox is further autofiltered, so that crap from automatic builds, out of office traffic, and other assorted notification-type messages, are "classified" into their own reference folders).
I have been burned by the stupidity of search in the past. Search NEVER finds what I'm looking for, and takes too long.
The only problem with my folders' organization is that stuff older than 1 month, that's not in my inbox, is ONLY available on mobile devices. All my stuff that's in folders, is archived - to my localfolders on my machine, so I have to remote into that machine to access it. This is almost never a problem for me in practical terms though.
This is true - many economists seem to be of the opinion that "consolidation" is a sign of maturity in an industry, and it eliminates malinvestment and inefficiency.
In my opinion - of course, this view is completely ignorant, and stupid, and utterly bonkers. Because consolidation eliminates any meaningful competition and innovation. A consolidated industry is the complete opposite of what is good and desirable in Capitalism.
Are you kidding? They would have outlawed DIGITAL AUDIO TECHNOLOGY 30 years ago, when Apple engineers named one of the Macintosh system sounds: "Sosume" (So Sue Me) - based on the premise that - if we make it THIS convenient for you to record, edit, and copy audio, then, inevitably, someone's going to get sued. (which, of course, did happen). The recording industry enjoyed the efficiency, cost reduction, and profits that digital technology provided. They didn't want to pass that efficiency, cost reduction, and savings on to the consumer, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
. . . and they said that bitcoin isn't backed by any "real commodity" IT IS! It is backed by silicon fashioned into GPU's!
Yeah, and then once they evolved into land-dwelling species, they learned how to fish.
The reason is: you'd have to nationalize the banking system, and take the profit motive out of finance.
THEN you could have publicly-financed campaigns, without having to go through everyone's balance sheets with a microscope and invade everyone's privacy, and pick around and scrutize everything to make sure it's on the up and up.
Its the only way it would work - and because of that dependency, private banks fight this tooth and nail. Lincoln fought for public banking (via the Greenback system) - and he was assassinated. The conspiracy plot was never investigated, or widely disclosed. It was backed by the banks and corporate interests.
This is where you're wrong.
The simple demand of the protesters is:
TAX THE RICH.
It's simple.
Restore the progressivity of tax system. If you want to debate about it, discuss the technical minutae, sure that's fine - but you'll get called a DIRTY STINKIN COMMIE no matter what you do. So, TAX THE RICH is as good a slogan as any.
While I agree with most of what you say; I think it's a mistake to bash the protestors for getting a coffee at Starbucks. Yes, it's hypocritical, and shallow. . . but the fact is - we (and by "we" - I mean, all of us, but everyone else but ME) have accumulated a tremendous amount of momentum running and screaming FRANTICALLY away from "COMMUNISM" for going on something like 60 years now, because we're afraid of some unknown scary under-the-bed-monster like, gulags, or dirty hippies, or union thugs, or whatever other stereotypical name-calling gag, used for probably the last 150 years, (and works well. It's not "neo McCarthyism. .. it's very very old, stale, frankly boring, and uncreative, but highly effective propaganda).
Personally - I don't think that our "beef" should be with "capitalism" - (because we don't really HAVE a capitalist system); I think that our beef should be with a system that was designed to be able to change - but now, is resistant to change, and that resistance is baked-in, and enshrined in the very fundamental rules and freedoms that we all hold dear - (we WILL miss them when they are gone!). I think that just as the "OMG commies!" scare tactics are bullshit, I think that the "die capitalist pigs!" scare tactics from the other side, are likewise, just stupid namecalling. When it comes down to it - I'm pretty sure that there's a very small minority of people who have a really sweet deal, and have had that for a long time, and are pretty secure that nothing's going to change out from under them as long as they can keep everybody else fighting eachother over islam/christian, black/white, commie/market, etc.
Once people figure out that the real problem is simple: the golden rule, and that that is how it must be attacked - (and progressive taxation is a nice thought, but does not get at the root of the problem, and corporate personhood is a nice thought, but won't change our system, and does not begin to bring an understanding of what's REALLY wrong here).. . . people will figure out that we're really all on the same side. Except for that very tiny minority. I think that's what I first found so exciting about the "99%" - I thought. . . FINALLY, someone "gets" it. But they don't. They're just reciting statistics. The statistics are correct, of course, and they reflect the truth. But they haven't informed us as to what needs to be done.
Yes - we need to eschew Starbucks. In fact, yes, we need to be paying like $10 for a cup of Columbian coffee, because that's what it really costs, if you're not stealing from the 8 year old Columbian girl who's getting up at 5 in the morning to pick the beans, and the 15 year old Somalian boy whose villiage was bulldozed to put in a pipeline for Dutch Shell Co. to extract the fuel oil that goes to power the ship that brings those beans to market. Presently - YOU the consumer, save $5. Maybe the COST could be $.20; but the rest of that goes into the CEO's pocket. We're bitching about the $4.80. We need to understand there's another $5 that's not being paid. . . by US.
We haven't been paying that shit for 30 years. And because of that, we've enjoyed a nice high standard of living. And now we're having to start paying those costs. And it's hurting. Now it's going to be our kids and grandkids getting up at 5am to pick coffee beans. Not going to school. This is what we're protesting. We just don't REALIZE it yet.
The sad thing is: we have a chance here to change what happens, so that there isn't a CEO sitting on our $4.80, when there's someone on the other end paying $5 retail for our product.
But that's not what these people are going to fight for. They're going to try to fight for their right to keep buying $5 coffee. They're not realizing that these CEO's aren't going to keep paying them enough to do that for very much longer.
People haven't found out so far - what makes you think people will find out?
How fair is it to withhold life saving/extending treatment from someone willing and able to pay for it?
We're questioning in this society - what does this mean? Someone willing and able to pay for it? What is the moral difference between someone whose parent was rich, and someone whose parent was not; and maybe that person who is not able to pay for it, labored hard for many years, and innovated and saved many lives with their work - but due to the vagaries of the invisible hand, or maybe due to financial fraud that was never "caught" by officials, the guy got to old age with no savings. . . so we deny that person this treatment, because he has no money? He's less worthy than maybe the guy who "stole" the money from him?
Maybe old people should fight eachother to the death for the right to have this drug.
A cage match.
Many bosses resent having to pay for work period.
I would want to live to be 150 - but you must define "live". If that's live with decrepitude. . . then you can keep your immortality potion. I assume that this thought-problem includes some kind of biological process that boosts physical health so that other age-related diseases are diminished. I've been dealing with arthritis since my teen years. Not pleasant - I guess I could do 150. But if this got worse, and I got crippled, that would suck. I don't want to spend the next 110 sitting in a darkened living room watching Glenn Beck rant about Nazis because I'm too feeble to go backpacking in to the Gobi backcountry. I want to be able to DO something with that time.
Solyent Green prices will PLUMMET!!!!
I'm taking the ml class, and while other students are complaining that the math is over-simplified, I'm finding that he's skipping over steps (such that, for someone who is already familiar with the math, it's no problem, but for someone who is just gaining familiarity, it's troublesome).
On the other hand, there's a lot of great benefits to how the material is presented, and if I were sitting in a regular class watching this lecture, I would be completely lost. (surely, I'd be asking the professor a TON of questions. Whether I'd be getting answers is up for debate. . . I've been in classes where teachers just skate-out, and you never see them, so if you have any confusion about a topic, you're just on your own fucked).
I posted this before but here, in a more direct, to the point, response: I think that face-to-face interaction is overrated in some cases, and can be detrimental. I think there are some students that can learn better from a set of video lectures. There's articles on Khan Academy that explain why, and my personal experience (not with Khan Academy, but other online schools - and this is not necessarily limited to online classes: A brick-and-mortar school can certainly provide mp4 downloads of lectures! As long as they're decent lectures).
The ability to pause, play slowly, faster, replay, etc. is HUGE.
As long as sound quality is good, video is sufficiently sharp such that lecture notes and demonstrations are clearly visible, and as long as the lecture content doesn't suck-ass. (many lectures just DO).
It's true that everything you need to know is in the textbook. But not everyone can just read the textbook and "get it". In some subjects, maybe. Not all.
Personally, I've always had a really really hard time learning math in a classroom setting - and I've rarely found teachers with the patience to explain things to me. I'm a smart person. Really I am. What it has actually boiled down to - is 12 years of wasted time in public schools, 4 years of college wasted struggling with the wrong curriculum, because I couldn't get on a "technical" track, because I couldn't get my foot in the door in post-algebra math. I just couldn't get it. I felt stupid. AP Chemistry, Biology, and Physics student. I couldn't understand math - period. What's that heavy science background good for, without math? Nothing.
Now - I'm in software engineering. (How's that for irony - the only field that would accept me without credentials of rigorous formal math training!) - and I've finally figured out that I can learn calculus and linear algebra just fine, on my own. Not from a textbook alone. But simply by watching "Khan academy" style lectures. (I haven't actually looked at those - but that's the school most people are familiar with). They're sufficiently detailed, they walk through the process of problem solving step by step, and they get me through the textbook examples sufficiently (ie. repeatedly) until I learn it. In a way that I can't talk a teacher into doing. I suppose I could have hired private tutors and tested their patience. I don't know. If I had the internet and video lectures 35 years ago - I would not have struggled nearly as much. I probably would have had a much more productive secondary school and college education, and a much better career.
I can't really be super bitter about the lost opportunities and struggles I've had to endure in the past.
But I can say that different people really do have different learning styles, and you can cay that that is or is not related to intelligence. I don't think that it is. For me, it's a focus issue, I think. But the math that I my teachers struggled to ram down my throat in 8th grade, to me, was EASY, when I watched a video lecture - and re-ran it 3 times, in slow motion, doing the steps by hand in my notebook, as the teacher did them. . . . and then I suddenly understood. It went that way for intro univariate calculus, multivariate calculas, and linear algebra. I got out of High School thinking I was *never* going to understand anything past quadradic equations. And that was because of the teaching format of sitting in a classroom of 20 students, with a teacher who didn't want to take 1 minute of extra time to help 1 slower student out, and was happy to watch that student fail-out, and get stuck with a crappy life.
Does it solve the:
1. picture is blurry because camera's autofocus did not lock on subject (or operator locked it onto a subject other than what was intended) - and intended subject was outside of the camera's depth-of-field for that distance+lens+aperture)?
or
2. picture is blurry because it's a crappy digicam with an unsensitive sensor or crappy flash recharge cycle rate, and any photo taken out of full-sunlight either drives the auto ISO adjustment to "super-mega-grainy" or shutter-speed to "1-full-second, next-time-bring-a-tripod-sucker".
. . . assuming the hydraulic actuator fluid does not freeze at -50 C. . .
The argument that keeps coming up, that says that we can't afford it (as a public service) - is really a bunch of crap.
Yes - it is TRUE, that if a space program is run as a pork-barrel project (like STS was), then it will be an unsafe, money-suck. Meaningful science will be done, and it will still be FAR cheaper than your imperial war machine. But, please, politicians, sit the FUCK down, and let the engineers do the rocket science. Thanks.
The argument that it must be a sound business proposition, is also a great big pile of crap.
How much did Queen Isabella "invest" in exploring the new world? (not really all that much, in the big scheme of things. I'm sure her jewels were precious to her - but as monarchs and royalty go. . . it was fucking peanuts, and was a no-brainer). What was HER PERSONAL RETURN on that investment? BUPKUS! (actually really awful, since Columbus gets blamed for the extermination of all the indiginous people. It really wasn't solely HIS doing. . . he was a sailor and navigator, not a conqueror or exterminator. I think you're confusing him with someone else. Clearly - extermination HAPPENED. Genocide HAPPENED. But Columbus wasn't really directly responsible.)
But overall - as an ROI to Western Civilization, what was the New World worth?
You can't even estimate that.
Listen - our monetary system - this banking crisis, it's all fucking manufactured. It's ridiculous. A farce. The people who are in charge now, are in charge, because we allow them to be in charge. Their currency has value, because we believe it has value. They preferentially lend it to whomever or whatever, continues their hegemony. So don't fall for the bullshit that we don't have enough money for NASA or space exploration.
The argument that we don't currently have the technology - IS A VALID ARGUMENT. Oh my!
So do we roll over and die? Do we crawl back into the slime at the bottom of the ocean? Or do we choose to do the hard things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard? Sounds like an easy decision to me.
Personally - I believe that robots will make much better "searchers" for extraterrestrial life. But I also believe that humans need to be there, to manage the robotic systems. Spirit and Opportunity could both use a tune-up right about now. A new wheel, maybe some upgraded sensors, faster RAM, etc. Those are probably overy-simplistic examples as a model for the future. Almost anywhere within our solar system, the economics probably favor sending new robots. The capabilities of sensors, mobility and longevity of telerobotic platforms, favor robotics over direct human observation by tens of thousands to one. But someday, we'll be expanding our operations beyond that range.
Just as soon as we solve the technical problem of how we keep bankers from wetting their beds every time the business cycle flips. I believe that this is a psychopharmaceutical problem. Not an economic problem.
There IS NO short term economic justification for space exploration as of yet
There. Fixed that for you. You can thank me later. The day after "Columbus day". Oh right, that's TODAY.
I think it's time to assume that we have not heard the full story from the mainstream news source.
If they were interested in telling us the full and correct story in the first place. . . then we probably never would have been a need for WikiLeaks to exist. Am I right?
He does not trust the court to make the right decision. Legally, that's wrong, but realistically, I agree with him. The court is corrupt.
I prefer snake-oil. Digital snake-oil.
www.digital-snake-oil.com
. . . and the thing is:
When (for example) the "tax the rich" goal is unwound to very specific technical items like - get rid of offshore tax havens, reform corporate tax law, eliminate unfair deductions like mortgage interest for second, third, vacation homes, and investment properties, etc. - basically - we want a simplification of tax code that returns REAL progressivity, and returns fairness and justice to our economic system. . . . most people tend to fall asleep, and the rest get mired down into arguments of minutia that really don't matter.
So we boil it down to the #twitter, foxnews drone, and bumper-sticker-friendly - "Tax the Rich" - and suddenly, their eyes light up, and then they understand! Ah! STALIN! You are engaging in CLASS WARFARE! You want to send us to FUCKING GULAGS YEW FUCKING NAZI KENYAN COMMUNIST!
See? You can't argue with these people. The teajadists want to pull out their sixguns and start shootin'.
They won't open their eyes, and look around at their own fucking country, at the plight of their own fucking neighbors - their OWN FUCKING CHILDREN, and see - that what we've been doing for the past 30 years, is NOT FUCKING WORKING.
Without succumbing to neo-McCarthyite crap, or descent into technocratic minutia - yes, the jist of the argument is: in the absence of any incentive for employers to widely compensate workers such that demand is sufficiently stimulated such that our economy actually functions. . . then, MILDLY progressive taxation coupled with Keynesian stimulative policy is required to restore economic demand.
The only time Keynesianism has been demonstrated to cause problems is when jackholes like Ronald Reagan and George W Bush chose to DEFICIT SPEND during a boom-cycle, causing economic bubbles, causing subsequent credit crises (massively exacerbated by FAILURE to criminally prosecute widespread white-collar crime: banking and securities fraud - which further undermined public trust in the banking system; killing demand, and plundering consumer wealth).
Yes. The 99% have been pissed off since Neal Bush and the S&L crisis. Fucking deal with it.
The demands are pretty simple, even a dinosaur-riding flat earther flat-taxer can understand it.
The General Assemblies have posted a list of specific demands.
Much more coherent and actionable than what has been coming out of the Tea Party.
The problem is: our current crop of congress and executive branch, and their enablers in the mainstream media (MSNBC, CNN, FoxNews) are anything but ideologically coherent and action-oriented.
They want status-quo, and they don't want to talk about it.
So - I can readily understand your point of view. Even though it is wrong.
. . . in the US, you are among the top 1% in the world.
While - this is not strictly "true" . . more likely, you are among the top 2-5%. . . this is a very important point to make. And it's not a point to say. . . "you are just a whiney bitch" - NO.
It is a point to say: keep your eye on the prize. Or, at least know what you are really fighting for.
You are not fighting to regain, or maintain, the standard of living that your parents had, or that you used to have.
That standard was an illusion. It was not sustainable, and it was obtained at the expense of the poverty and suffering of the hundreds of millions of others in the world.
Simply feeding them, in the past, may have made us "feel better". And it drove up their population, and made their problems worse.
What we should have fought for then, instead - - - what we need to fight for NOW - - - is equality, and social justice. Real, lasting, sustainable solutions to these problems.
The #1, first and foremost goal; I believe, is to GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS.
Eliminate the Money=Speech fallacy.
(I have a strong pro-freedom streak running through me - but there is something wrong with this logic that private money, which can be controlled by private hands, is equivalent to public, political discourse, access to influence the system, right to assemble, and representation. Our mass-media is corporatized, monetized, monopolized, and regulated, and there is NO way that this is equivalent to "free speech") - the more we de-regulate campaign financing, the worse this problem gets. This must be stopped, and soon. Everybody deserves a voice. Everybody has a right to speak. But the money has to STOP. All of it.
All anyone really wants is validation. Most of us are in school to prime us for a career to earn a living. I think this kid's got it covered. Figure on whatever's going to feed the prodigy the human validation he needs, and he'll probably be fine. I guess.
I do this, mainly - but then I take my "reference" folder, and subdivide that into topical folders, which I periodically groom.
My inbox, I move, on a weekly basis, to a series of archive subfolders, yyyy\mm\w
(mail incoming to my inbox is further autofiltered, so that crap from automatic builds, out of office traffic, and other assorted notification-type messages, are "classified" into their own reference folders).
I have been burned by the stupidity of search in the past. Search NEVER finds what I'm looking for, and takes too long.
The only problem with my folders' organization is that stuff older than 1 month, that's not in my inbox, is ONLY available on mobile devices. All my stuff that's in folders, is archived - to my localfolders on my machine, so I have to remote into that machine to access it. This is almost never a problem for me in practical terms though.
This is true - many economists seem to be of the opinion that "consolidation" is a sign of maturity in an industry, and it eliminates malinvestment and inefficiency.
In my opinion - of course, this view is completely ignorant, and stupid, and utterly bonkers. Because consolidation eliminates any meaningful competition and innovation. A consolidated industry is the complete opposite of what is good and desirable in Capitalism.
Are you kidding? They would have outlawed DIGITAL AUDIO TECHNOLOGY 30 years ago, when Apple engineers named one of the Macintosh system sounds: "Sosume" (So Sue Me) - based on the premise that - if we make it THIS convenient for you to record, edit, and copy audio, then, inevitably, someone's going to get sued. (which, of course, did happen). The recording industry enjoyed the efficiency, cost reduction, and profits that digital technology provided. They didn't want to pass that efficiency, cost reduction, and savings on to the consumer, of course.