"Leaking" the contents of an unclassified memo that you wrote is no different that simply calling the press and saying "Hey, I had a private conversation with Trump about xyz". It just carries a bit more weight when it is written up and dated appropriately. If you aren't divulging classified info, then there is absolutely nothing illegal about publishing it. Unlike what Snowden did....
I agree nuclear is a viable, and necessary source for the future. I also agree that wind is overblown (pardon the bad pun). I wouldn't say it so bluntly or insult people who may not know better, but that's not why I am commenting.
The one aspect of wind power that I rarely see mentioned, including in your post, is that it is absolutely the least efficient in terms of power output/acreage required. Even if you count areas around coal mines and oil fields that are essentially unlivable, they do not come close to wind. Arguably, this is less important than greenhouse gases, and doesn't matter so much for local supplemental production and such. Wind power certainly has a role in the future. But I think it is disingenuous to switch to a source that would require us to monopolize so much of the landscape. All those windmills in remote valleys would require roads and infrastructure to service them. We're basically talking about wholesale destruction of pristine environments on a scale that coal and oil couldn't come close to matching.
FOr those who think I'm exaggerating, consider that wind currently generates less than 10% of our power needs, and many of the most suitable locations for them are already well-developed (See: Kansas, Texas panhandle). We'd have to either go massively offshore, which is possible but has it's own problems, or build an order of magnitude more of them in less than ideal locations, spoiling millions of acres of land. If it were the only option, I could get on board, but with nuclear available.... why on earth would you do that?
I agree face time is useful in building a team, and getting everyone on the same page. I like your approach, and think it would be useful in my office, where I spend 80% with the door closed working on programming, and 20% of my time in meetings and such.
Might not work best for me, since my office is often quieter than my house. I have a 1-year-old. But I think it would work for most others, and the mere effect of emptying out the building would also help a lot.
The phone tag thing is BS. I often miss phone calls while sitting in my office. I simply don't answer if I am involved with something important and requiring focus. I may not answer the door either. And I go to meetings, the occasional lunch, bathroom break, etc, and sometimes I am just plain unavailable. The solution is low-tech. If it is very high-priority and you really need to speak with me, I have an old pager with me nearly 100% of the time. You can page me and I'll respond as soon as it is feasible.
I was inside the offices for a major tech firm in San Jose recently, and I was wondering how in the hell they got any work done at all. There were no offices whatsoever, and I was told that they were very committed to the open floor plan idea, and it didn't matter of you were a manager or a lowly grunt, you had a desk out in the open with everybody else. Not a company I'd want to work for...
It's not interfering with someone's private life unless they opt to work for a union shop... Unions are a collective of people freely associating and negotiating a contract with a private entity which stipulates that all new hires must be amenable to joining the union. Sounds pretty free-market libertarian to me. If enough union members are pissed about mandatory membership, that's probably a sign the union isn't functioning properly. In that case, the union members themselves can then vote to disband or to not require membership. But in an otherwise normal union, removing mandatory membership from the contract turns the situation into a tragedy of the commons dilemma, wherein people will avoid paying dues while still enjoying the protections that a union affords. That is, until the union shrivels and dies.
The 'interference' comes in the form of the government meddling with contracts between otherwise private and freely associated entities, and weakening the tools that one party has at its disposal.
Ballot access laws suck terribly in a few states, but a well-organized group with a charasmatic candidate should still be able to do it in all 50 every time. I have also wondered why I never see nearly as many Green/Libertarian/Other candidates for representative, senator, state offices, or even city councilors. If you really want to grow a party, that's the place to start. After winning a few more minor elections, people will see your guys in office and not immediately assume "wasted vote" if they see your party name. It also will allow you to groom your own candidates in a more constructive way, and eventually allow for more competent candidates at teh top of the ticket. You don't grow a new party by randomly winning the presidency and holding no other major offices.
Right, but as soon as he walks out of that embassy, the US will charge him with espionage and ask for extradition, regardless of the rape charges. That's why he's hiding out in an embassy from a country with no extradition treaty with the US. Not to dodge the rape charge, but to avoid being dragged before a US court. I imagine he'll stay there until he gets some guarantee from the US not to charge him. He won't get that, and he'll spend a significant portion of his life cooped up in the Ecuadorian embassy for as long as they'll have him, and probably prison after that.
I suppose that is true to a certain extent. However, I don't think removing malware, or at least isolating it from the original email and providing it separately and with warning for those interested enough to dig into it is really "editing". More of just making sure they protect their own audience.
I also disagree with things like releasing the names of known homosexuals when that information could put their life in danger. Redacting to protect a life seems like a bright enough editorial line that can be drawn without losing sight of their core mission.
But then again, I also think that some things are secret for a reason, and thus don't support wikileak's mission at all.
It is a show of good faith. I'd agree that release of tax returns is kind of an arbitrary litmus test for trustworthiness, but it's one that presidential candidates have adhered to for quite some time now. I honestly don't give two hoots how much he paid in taxes, or what his net worth appears to be, as long as everything he did appears to be legal. I can't blame him for taking advantage of existing loopholes, anymore than I can blame myself for every valid deduction and credit that I take. I made the same type of argument when Romney hemmed and hawed about this for awhile.
He has every right to keep them to himself, I don't deny it. Releasing his taxes could make him vulnerable, either by embarrassing him, or reducing his leverage with an ongoing audit by giving the IRS 1000s of extra CPAs to pore over them for free. I fully expect that releasing his returns would damage him in some way. But it's SOP for presidential candidates to do this, and doing so helps a candidate demonstrate they are more interested in the job of governing than they are about their own stake. He has never once shown any willingness to defer his own interests in the name transparency or the public good, and for this reason alone (along with a whole host of others in his case) I cannot support him.
As an aside, even if he didn't release this year's tax returns due to the audit, he could still try and show good faith by showing several of his most recent accepted tax returns. They aren't all under audit.
To be fair, Johnson did name someone in Peres, and the interviewer disallowed that answer and asked for a current head-of-state office-holder. I think it threw him off being rebuffed like that. To be clear, I'm not a Johnson supporter, and he definitely should have been able to name somebody.
The whole thing then made Jill Stein look like an even bigger moron when she doubled down by giving three answers that the interviewer had specifically disallowed.
Agree that this is all a big part of why third party candidates don't get any traction. They are generally way out of their league, have kooky niche ideas, or both.
True, but that doesn't mean that Obama didn't send her an email, or vice-versa.
This is all speculation, at best. I really hate the subject of Hillary's emails, because I do not, and never will know the truth. It was certainly dumb of her to have a private server, but that much appears to not be criminal in and of itself.
Beyond that, the mere fact that classified info was on her server also isn't enough. I can think of a thousand reason why that could certainly be a crime, possibly even with malicious intent. There are also a thousand reasons why it might not be, depending on hundreds of variables that I simply don't have information on. The FBI had better info than me, and chose not to prosecute, so I am content to leave it at that. Otherwise, it's like worrying about an undetected asteroid hitting earth or a supervolcano erupting or the like. It's not totally unfounded, but there's all of jack bupkis you can really do about it. You'll just drive yourself crazy and forever be known as the doomsday nut.
Well, yeah. Knowing a gun is loaded and firing at someone (unless self-defense) is grounds for Murder 1, or at least Murder 2, and you'd likely face 20 years to life in prison. Not knowing the gun was loaded and accidentally shooting someone would more likely be prosecuted as some level of criminally negligent manslaughter, depending on how the definitions are worded in your jurisdiction and what exactly happened. In that case, you'd probably face no more than 10 years. Intent plays a pretty major role when a death is involved.
I've been listening to Pandora for years for free, no subscription. I'd say I regularly listen to it anywhere between 4-10 hours a week, and I sometimes go months without hearing an ad.
So, serious question: What do other people hear? Are there lots of ads? Is this a regional thing? Or maybe a city/rural area thing, where cities get ads and rural areas get ad-free Pandora for free? Or is it just that some people find even one targeted ad a month an unacceptable intrusion?
I mostly use Dropbox as an extra external backup, which is conveniently also easy to share with others without having to host anything myself. Certainly not as mission critical primary storage, or for sensitive documents. Mine is mostly full of family pictures and videos that we all share with each other. Nothing business related, and nothing that would be potentially compromising if it were to be lost and/or stolen.
Whatever your usage, and however trivial the website is, you cannot go wrong with strong passwords, rotated occasionally, and non-repeated across various sites.
All of this, mod it up. I have Dropbox and just changed my password anyways, even though they say I wasn't part of the hack. It's a good thing to do every year or so anyhow, because not all hacks get noticed and reported.
Depends on how old the loans are, actually. Nowadays the federal government is the originator and servicer of all student loans. I am not sure if they bought older loans off the books of other originators or not.
Not sure how the details of the forgiveness aspect works for these cases, but I doubt the gov't is asking any servicers of government backed student loans to take a loss.
This option for forgiveness in the case of disablement was actually already available, but I guess it was a huge bureaucratic headache to actually get it done if you applied for it. Thus it was almost never used. Apparently what they have done is streamline the process to make it much easier, and send out notices to those eligible. Hardly an earth-shattering change.
Lastly, the government loans out money to students, and takes payments with interest in return. It does not cost the taxpayers a dime, as the government actually makes money on the loans it issues. In this case, the 'taxpayers' being burdened are the students actively paying their debt, as the interest could be construed as a tax going into federal coffers. So you have students paying back loans, and subsidizing the forgiveness of loans for some.
There's a broader point to be made about whether the debt should be forgiven based on how disabled someone actually is. Disability fraud is a big thing, and this might make it bigger. Also, I've met blind, deaf, wheelchair-bound, and one-armed people at all levels of academia. So there is at least some question as to whether your disability actually inhibits you from performing in your chosen career. Lose function of an arm and a leg due to a stroke? That concert pianist job you had is probably gone for good. But a computer programmer might be more or less unaffected. It would have to be on a case-by-case basis to get it right. But that more nuanced discussion is not what you brought up at all.
I took a graduate course in manufacturing reliability when I was in grad school. One of the more interesting things I learned from that class was that the Japanese recognized very quickly that the US car market was their best chance at international success, being the largest market around at the time. They figured the best way to win the market was by building a reputation as a reliable car manufacturer.
All parts off the line obviously have a desired spec, with an allowable tolerance. Actual parts produced vary a bit within that tolerance, and a few will even fall out of it. So they built a system where the car parts that matched spec most closely were used to build cars destined for the US. Parts inside the spec tolerance, but not at the same "A-level, spot on" were used to build cars destined for Japan and Europe. Car parts that were barely in tolerance or even out of it were used to build cars for Africa. So the US market got cars that were noticeably "better" than the US manufacturers. The US manufacturing capabilities weren't actually that much worse than the Japanese, but they didn't presort their cars by expected reliability for separate markets like the Japanese makers, which led to a lot more "lemons" showing up in car lots.
That was all back in the 70s. Obviously things have changed since then. But, according to my reliability engineering professor, that was how the Japanese automaker built their US reputation for quality.
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The false dichotomy is pretty clear. He did not simply say that adopting is an unselfish act, perhaps more so than having your own natural child. He said that having your own children is selfish, and that the only way to raise a child unselfishly is to adopt. That pretty clearly sets up a false choice.
So I'm just confused why I'm being called selfish for making that choice, when I never asked or advocated for "handouts" from anybody to do it. And if your position is that parents are necessarily defined by being selfish at some deep core level... Well, okay then, but then why should I feel shame about it? That would speak to a pretty essential part of being human.
What's even funnier is the constant ad hominem attack, when I point out in another post elsewhere in the thread that I agree that paid paternity/maternity leave (of which I have received NONE) is an unfair perk, and I think it would be better if employees simply had much better access to generous vacation time.
Regardless of your thoughts on this subject, you really have a lot to learn about positive and productive human interactions. Agree it is best for you not to have kids.
It's funny because properly raising a child is one of the least selfish things you can do... It requires you to think of another person above yourself.
You, on the other hand, can only think of how someone is getting a "free vacation" on your dime, and lack a shred of empathy for your fellow man who have given in to one of the most common human instincts out there, procreation.
Yeah, I have a couple of thoughts about that, as a new parent myself (baby is 11 weeks old). Granted, for places that offer paid leave, it must seem like a free vacation to some. But paid leave for a new child isn't exactly a vacation. It is mostly an exhausting and stressful period of time, as well as one that is of critical importance to the development of the child. Honestly, I'm generally more worn out each day than I was when I was in grad school.
I do, however, agree that non-parents can get the shaft in a number of ways for time off, and that paid leave does amount to an added "perk" for those that choose to have kids. As a compromise, I would settle for a much higher minimum standard on annual vacation, say from 6-8 weeks somewhere. Then, a simple rule: you can use up to 26 weeks (6 months) of vacation time for family leave whether you have it accumulated yet or not. If you don't have it accumulated, you go negative, and will owe your employer that amount of pay when you separate if you don't accumulate back up to 0. A brand new employee might be hesitant to take all 26 weeks for fear of owing a ton of money in the event of a separation, but a "forgiveness" could be made in the event of a forced layoff or something. To reduce negative hours for newer staff, you could also use a shorter term, or stipulate lower pay. Example: give yourself half pay for 16 weeks and use only 8 weeks of vacation, which will be made up within 2 years easily assuming you start with 0 accumulated. You can still charge vacation hours while you are making up your time, but are limited to 1 week per year until you get back up to zero. It would skew the benefit towards more senior staff, but would still be hugely better than what most people currently get.
Aside: I got my 12 weeks of FMLA, but it was unpaid unless I used vacation time, which I only accumulate 2 weeks of per year and didn't have anywhere close to enough of. I'm the dad, so it was back to work for me. But my wife just quit her job, which also gave a whole heaping 0 weeks of paid leave. You want to know where the "gender gap" comes from in the workplace payscales? Look no further than interrupted careers due to childrearing, due to the fact that you can't get any paid leave but yet still need to raise a child. Then people look at you funny and lowball your salary when you come looking for a job again a year later because you have a "blank spot" on your resume.
While I agree with the sentiment of your post, I would like to point out that while laws such as this one and the recent one in Indiana are clearly targeted at the LGBT community, that there is in fact a legitimate argument to be made for laws like these. (By "laws like these", I mean "Worded differently to prevent LGBT discrimination").
The main point would be to force businesses and other enterprises to make reasonable accomodations for sincerely held religious beliefs. One of the examples I read involves Native Americans who refuse to cut their hair for religious reasons. The problem is, prisons don't allow long hair, and neither do some employers nor the military. There have been many lawsuits over this, mostly ending in failure. But under these "religious freedom" laws, they can sue and potentially win as it is a reasonable exception for a sincerely held religious belief. Granted, the governor of Indiana and North Carolina aren't signing these laws because they give two hoots about hair lengths for Native Americans...
Even if it were just a bathroom law... I simply can't understand why anyone in their right mind would want bathroom access and privileges codified into state law. I mean, this is the party of "small government", right? The ones against excessive regulation are now regulating who can use which bathroom in which places?
I have no problem using either one, myself. I'll use the men's (I am a man) preferentially, but if the men's room is occupied while the women's is vacant? Yeah, I'll jump right in there. I'll make a mental note that I can now get arrested in North Carolina for doing that because they make a big damn deal out of it.
Been in many restaurants, schools, etc, where there is a single stall unisex bathroom available, often labelled as a "family" restroom, and sometimes even as an only option. Not an ideal solution, but it seems that if I run an establishment that has somehow repeatedly run into issues with bathroom usage and people getting upset, I could install one of those, or just relabel both bathrooms as gender neutral. Problem solved, at least to the point where nobody can really complain one way or the other.
My mom was a school nurse for a high school in Oklahoma back in the 90s. There was a trans kid at the school, who got mercilessly teased when using the men's room, and who got outraged teen girls screaming when using the women's. The kid ended up using the gender neutral bathroom in the nurse's office exclusively. You might expect better behavior from the rest of the population that is done with high school, but I guess I expect too much...
There are things like ResearchGate, where you can post your published works and other researchers in your field can see them, regardless of whether they are on an institutional network or not, but posting something solely there, or on arxiv, does nothing to increase the visibility of your work as a researcher, which is the primary purpose of publishing in the first place. Plus, mainstream publishers have something of a duty to maintain their archives, as you allude to. ResearchGate, and even arxiv have no such duty to maintain your postings well into the future.
I generally don't like the fact that a huge swatch of academic papers hide behind paywalls. I've personally run into problems with access to relevant articles at major research institutions, because no institution subscribes to every relevant journal in every field. Personally, I've had good luck in those instances with simply emailing the lead author. They are usually easy enough to find, and I've never had one refuse to send me a pdf. As has been mentioned, academics generally want to distribute their work as far and wide as possible. Saying "No" means turning down a likely citation (or several).
Slashdot Mirror
A thousand times this. Mod parent up.
"Leaking" the contents of an unclassified memo that you wrote is no different that simply calling the press and saying "Hey, I had a private conversation with Trump about xyz". It just carries a bit more weight when it is written up and dated appropriately. If you aren't divulging classified info, then there is absolutely nothing illegal about publishing it. Unlike what Snowden did....
I agree nuclear is a viable, and necessary source for the future. I also agree that wind is overblown (pardon the bad pun). I wouldn't say it so bluntly or insult people who may not know better, but that's not why I am commenting.
The one aspect of wind power that I rarely see mentioned, including in your post, is that it is absolutely the least efficient in terms of power output/acreage required. Even if you count areas around coal mines and oil fields that are essentially unlivable, they do not come close to wind. Arguably, this is less important than greenhouse gases, and doesn't matter so much for local supplemental production and such. Wind power certainly has a role in the future. But I think it is disingenuous to switch to a source that would require us to monopolize so much of the landscape. All those windmills in remote valleys would require roads and infrastructure to service them. We're basically talking about wholesale destruction of pristine environments on a scale that coal and oil couldn't come close to matching.
FOr those who think I'm exaggerating, consider that wind currently generates less than 10% of our power needs, and many of the most suitable locations for them are already well-developed (See: Kansas, Texas panhandle). We'd have to either go massively offshore, which is possible but has it's own problems, or build an order of magnitude more of them in less than ideal locations, spoiling millions of acres of land. If it were the only option, I could get on board, but with nuclear available.... why on earth would you do that?
I agree face time is useful in building a team, and getting everyone on the same page. I like your approach, and think it would be useful in my office, where I spend 80% with the door closed working on programming, and 20% of my time in meetings and such.
Might not work best for me, since my office is often quieter than my house. I have a 1-year-old. But I think it would work for most others, and the mere effect of emptying out the building would also help a lot.
The phone tag thing is BS. I often miss phone calls while sitting in my office. I simply don't answer if I am involved with something important and requiring focus. I may not answer the door either. And I go to meetings, the occasional lunch, bathroom break, etc, and sometimes I am just plain unavailable. The solution is low-tech. If it is very high-priority and you really need to speak with me, I have an old pager with me nearly 100% of the time. You can page me and I'll respond as soon as it is feasible.
I was inside the offices for a major tech firm in San Jose recently, and I was wondering how in the hell they got any work done at all. There were no offices whatsoever, and I was told that they were very committed to the open floor plan idea, and it didn't matter of you were a manager or a lowly grunt, you had a desk out in the open with everybody else. Not a company I'd want to work for...
It's not interfering with someone's private life unless they opt to work for a union shop... Unions are a collective of people freely associating and negotiating a contract with a private entity which stipulates that all new hires must be amenable to joining the union. Sounds pretty free-market libertarian to me. If enough union members are pissed about mandatory membership, that's probably a sign the union isn't functioning properly. In that case, the union members themselves can then vote to disband or to not require membership. But in an otherwise normal union, removing mandatory membership from the contract turns the situation into a tragedy of the commons dilemma, wherein people will avoid paying dues while still enjoying the protections that a union affords. That is, until the union shrivels and dies.
The 'interference' comes in the form of the government meddling with contracts between otherwise private and freely associated entities, and weakening the tools that one party has at its disposal.
Oh for the want of modpoints....
Ballot access laws suck terribly in a few states, but a well-organized group with a charasmatic candidate should still be able to do it in all 50 every time. I have also wondered why I never see nearly as many Green/Libertarian/Other candidates for representative, senator, state offices, or even city councilors. If you really want to grow a party, that's the place to start. After winning a few more minor elections, people will see your guys in office and not immediately assume "wasted vote" if they see your party name. It also will allow you to groom your own candidates in a more constructive way, and eventually allow for more competent candidates at teh top of the ticket. You don't grow a new party by randomly winning the presidency and holding no other major offices.
Right, but as soon as he walks out of that embassy, the US will charge him with espionage and ask for extradition, regardless of the rape charges. That's why he's hiding out in an embassy from a country with no extradition treaty with the US. Not to dodge the rape charge, but to avoid being dragged before a US court. I imagine he'll stay there until he gets some guarantee from the US not to charge him. He won't get that, and he'll spend a significant portion of his life cooped up in the Ecuadorian embassy for as long as they'll have him, and probably prison after that.
I suppose that is true to a certain extent. However, I don't think removing malware, or at least isolating it from the original email and providing it separately and with warning for those interested enough to dig into it is really "editing". More of just making sure they protect their own audience.
I also disagree with things like releasing the names of known homosexuals when that information could put their life in danger. Redacting to protect a life seems like a bright enough editorial line that can be drawn without losing sight of their core mission.
But then again, I also think that some things are secret for a reason, and thus don't support wikileak's mission at all.
*rolls eyes*
Hillary currently has the authority to order drone strikes on foreign soil? When did that happen? Did I miss the election or something?
It is a show of good faith. I'd agree that release of tax returns is kind of an arbitrary litmus test for trustworthiness, but it's one that presidential candidates have adhered to for quite some time now. I honestly don't give two hoots how much he paid in taxes, or what his net worth appears to be, as long as everything he did appears to be legal. I can't blame him for taking advantage of existing loopholes, anymore than I can blame myself for every valid deduction and credit that I take. I made the same type of argument when Romney hemmed and hawed about this for awhile.
He has every right to keep them to himself, I don't deny it. Releasing his taxes could make him vulnerable, either by embarrassing him, or reducing his leverage with an ongoing audit by giving the IRS 1000s of extra CPAs to pore over them for free. I fully expect that releasing his returns would damage him in some way. But it's SOP for presidential candidates to do this, and doing so helps a candidate demonstrate they are more interested in the job of governing than they are about their own stake. He has never once shown any willingness to defer his own interests in the name transparency or the public good, and for this reason alone (along with a whole host of others in his case) I cannot support him.
As an aside, even if he didn't release this year's tax returns due to the audit, he could still try and show good faith by showing several of his most recent accepted tax returns. They aren't all under audit.
To be fair, Johnson did name someone in Peres, and the interviewer disallowed that answer and asked for a current head-of-state office-holder. I think it threw him off being rebuffed like that. To be clear, I'm not a Johnson supporter, and he definitely should have been able to name somebody.
The whole thing then made Jill Stein look like an even bigger moron when she doubled down by giving three answers that the interviewer had specifically disallowed.
Agree that this is all a big part of why third party candidates don't get any traction. They are generally way out of their league, have kooky niche ideas, or both.
True, but that doesn't mean that Obama didn't send her an email, or vice-versa.
This is all speculation, at best. I really hate the subject of Hillary's emails, because I do not, and never will know the truth. It was certainly dumb of her to have a private server, but that much appears to not be criminal in and of itself.
Beyond that, the mere fact that classified info was on her server also isn't enough. I can think of a thousand reason why that could certainly be a crime, possibly even with malicious intent. There are also a thousand reasons why it might not be, depending on hundreds of variables that I simply don't have information on. The FBI had better info than me, and chose not to prosecute, so I am content to leave it at that. Otherwise, it's like worrying about an undetected asteroid hitting earth or a supervolcano erupting or the like. It's not totally unfounded, but there's all of jack bupkis you can really do about it. You'll just drive yourself crazy and forever be known as the doomsday nut.
Well, yeah. Knowing a gun is loaded and firing at someone (unless self-defense) is grounds for Murder 1, or at least Murder 2, and you'd likely face 20 years to life in prison. Not knowing the gun was loaded and accidentally shooting someone would more likely be prosecuted as some level of criminally negligent manslaughter, depending on how the definitions are worded in your jurisdiction and what exactly happened. In that case, you'd probably face no more than 10 years. Intent plays a pretty major role when a death is involved.
I've been listening to Pandora for years for free, no subscription. I'd say I regularly listen to it anywhere between 4-10 hours a week, and I sometimes go months without hearing an ad.
So, serious question: What do other people hear? Are there lots of ads? Is this a regional thing? Or maybe a city/rural area thing, where cities get ads and rural areas get ad-free Pandora for free? Or is it just that some people find even one targeted ad a month an unacceptable intrusion?
Sure, I'd agree with that.
I mostly use Dropbox as an extra external backup, which is conveniently also easy to share with others without having to host anything myself. Certainly not as mission critical primary storage, or for sensitive documents. Mine is mostly full of family pictures and videos that we all share with each other. Nothing business related, and nothing that would be potentially compromising if it were to be lost and/or stolen.
Whatever your usage, and however trivial the website is, you cannot go wrong with strong passwords, rotated occasionally, and non-repeated across various sites.
^^^^
All of this, mod it up. I have Dropbox and just changed my password anyways, even though they say I wasn't part of the hack. It's a good thing to do every year or so anyhow, because not all hacks get noticed and reported.
Depends on how old the loans are, actually. Nowadays the federal government is the originator and servicer of all student loans. I am not sure if they bought older loans off the books of other originators or not.
Not sure how the details of the forgiveness aspect works for these cases, but I doubt the gov't is asking any servicers of government backed student loans to take a loss.
This option for forgiveness in the case of disablement was actually already available, but I guess it was a huge bureaucratic headache to actually get it done if you applied for it. Thus it was almost never used. Apparently what they have done is streamline the process to make it much easier, and send out notices to those eligible. Hardly an earth-shattering change.
Lastly, the government loans out money to students, and takes payments with interest in return. It does not cost the taxpayers a dime, as the government actually makes money on the loans it issues. In this case, the 'taxpayers' being burdened are the students actively paying their debt, as the interest could be construed as a tax going into federal coffers. So you have students paying back loans, and subsidizing the forgiveness of loans for some.
There's a broader point to be made about whether the debt should be forgiven based on how disabled someone actually is. Disability fraud is a big thing, and this might make it bigger. Also, I've met blind, deaf, wheelchair-bound, and one-armed people at all levels of academia. So there is at least some question as to whether your disability actually inhibits you from performing in your chosen career. Lose function of an arm and a leg due to a stroke? That concert pianist job you had is probably gone for good. But a computer programmer might be more or less unaffected. It would have to be on a case-by-case basis to get it right. But that more nuanced discussion is not what you brought up at all.
I took a graduate course in manufacturing reliability when I was in grad school. One of the more interesting things I learned from that class was that the Japanese recognized very quickly that the US car market was their best chance at international success, being the largest market around at the time. They figured the best way to win the market was by building a reputation as a reliable car manufacturer.
All parts off the line obviously have a desired spec, with an allowable tolerance. Actual parts produced vary a bit within that tolerance, and a few will even fall out of it. So they built a system where the car parts that matched spec most closely were used to build cars destined for the US. Parts inside the spec tolerance, but not at the same "A-level, spot on" were used to build cars destined for Japan and Europe. Car parts that were barely in tolerance or even out of it were used to build cars for Africa. So the US market got cars that were noticeably "better" than the US manufacturers. The US manufacturing capabilities weren't actually that much worse than the Japanese, but they didn't presort their cars by expected reliability for separate markets like the Japanese makers, which led to a lot more "lemons" showing up in car lots.
That was all back in the 70s. Obviously things have changed since then. But, according to my reliability engineering professor, that was how the Japanese automaker built their US reputation for quality.
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The false dichotomy is pretty clear. He did not simply say that adopting is an unselfish act, perhaps more so than having your own natural child. He said that having your own children is selfish, and that the only way to raise a child unselfishly is to adopt. That pretty clearly sets up a false choice.
So I'm just confused why I'm being called selfish for making that choice, when I never asked or advocated for "handouts" from anybody to do it. And if your position is that parents are necessarily defined by being selfish at some deep core level... Well, okay then, but then why should I feel shame about it? That would speak to a pretty essential part of being human.
What's even funnier is the constant ad hominem attack, when I point out in another post elsewhere in the thread that I agree that paid paternity/maternity leave (of which I have received NONE) is an unfair perk, and I think it would be better if employees simply had much better access to generous vacation time.
Regardless of your thoughts on this subject, you really have a lot to learn about positive and productive human interactions. Agree it is best for you not to have kids.
Holy false dichotomy, Batman!
It's funny because properly raising a child is one of the least selfish things you can do... It requires you to think of another person above yourself.
You, on the other hand, can only think of how someone is getting a "free vacation" on your dime, and lack a shred of empathy for your fellow man who have given in to one of the most common human instincts out there, procreation.
Yeah, I have a couple of thoughts about that, as a new parent myself (baby is 11 weeks old). Granted, for places that offer paid leave, it must seem like a free vacation to some. But paid leave for a new child isn't exactly a vacation. It is mostly an exhausting and stressful period of time, as well as one that is of critical importance to the development of the child. Honestly, I'm generally more worn out each day than I was when I was in grad school.
I do, however, agree that non-parents can get the shaft in a number of ways for time off, and that paid leave does amount to an added "perk" for those that choose to have kids. As a compromise, I would settle for a much higher minimum standard on annual vacation, say from 6-8 weeks somewhere. Then, a simple rule: you can use up to 26 weeks (6 months) of vacation time for family leave whether you have it accumulated yet or not. If you don't have it accumulated, you go negative, and will owe your employer that amount of pay when you separate if you don't accumulate back up to 0. A brand new employee might be hesitant to take all 26 weeks for fear of owing a ton of money in the event of a separation, but a "forgiveness" could be made in the event of a forced layoff or something. To reduce negative hours for newer staff, you could also use a shorter term, or stipulate lower pay. Example: give yourself half pay for 16 weeks and use only 8 weeks of vacation, which will be made up within 2 years easily assuming you start with 0 accumulated. You can still charge vacation hours while you are making up your time, but are limited to 1 week per year until you get back up to zero. It would skew the benefit towards more senior staff, but would still be hugely better than what most people currently get.
Aside: I got my 12 weeks of FMLA, but it was unpaid unless I used vacation time, which I only accumulate 2 weeks of per year and didn't have anywhere close to enough of. I'm the dad, so it was back to work for me. But my wife just quit her job, which also gave a whole heaping 0 weeks of paid leave. You want to know where the "gender gap" comes from in the workplace payscales? Look no further than interrupted careers due to childrearing, due to the fact that you can't get any paid leave but yet still need to raise a child. Then people look at you funny and lowball your salary when you come looking for a job again a year later because you have a "blank spot" on your resume.
While I agree with the sentiment of your post, I would like to point out that while laws such as this one and the recent one in Indiana are clearly targeted at the LGBT community, that there is in fact a legitimate argument to be made for laws like these. (By "laws like these", I mean "Worded differently to prevent LGBT discrimination").
The main point would be to force businesses and other enterprises to make reasonable accomodations for sincerely held religious beliefs. One of the examples I read involves Native Americans who refuse to cut their hair for religious reasons. The problem is, prisons don't allow long hair, and neither do some employers nor the military. There have been many lawsuits over this, mostly ending in failure. But under these "religious freedom" laws, they can sue and potentially win as it is a reasonable exception for a sincerely held religious belief. Granted, the governor of Indiana and North Carolina aren't signing these laws because they give two hoots about hair lengths for Native Americans...
Even if it were just a bathroom law... I simply can't understand why anyone in their right mind would want bathroom access and privileges codified into state law. I mean, this is the party of "small government", right? The ones against excessive regulation are now regulating who can use which bathroom in which places?
I have no problem using either one, myself. I'll use the men's (I am a man) preferentially, but if the men's room is occupied while the women's is vacant? Yeah, I'll jump right in there. I'll make a mental note that I can now get arrested in North Carolina for doing that because they make a big damn deal out of it.
Been in many restaurants, schools, etc, where there is a single stall unisex bathroom available, often labelled as a "family" restroom, and sometimes even as an only option. Not an ideal solution, but it seems that if I run an establishment that has somehow repeatedly run into issues with bathroom usage and people getting upset, I could install one of those, or just relabel both bathrooms as gender neutral. Problem solved, at least to the point where nobody can really complain one way or the other.
My mom was a school nurse for a high school in Oklahoma back in the 90s. There was a trans kid at the school, who got mercilessly teased when using the men's room, and who got outraged teen girls screaming when using the women's. The kid ended up using the gender neutral bathroom in the nurse's office exclusively. You might expect better behavior from the rest of the population that is done with high school, but I guess I expect too much...
Agreed on all counts.
There are things like ResearchGate, where you can post your published works and other researchers in your field can see them, regardless of whether they are on an institutional network or not, but posting something solely there, or on arxiv, does nothing to increase the visibility of your work as a researcher, which is the primary purpose of publishing in the first place. Plus, mainstream publishers have something of a duty to maintain their archives, as you allude to. ResearchGate, and even arxiv have no such duty to maintain your postings well into the future.
I generally don't like the fact that a huge swatch of academic papers hide behind paywalls. I've personally run into problems with access to relevant articles at major research institutions, because no institution subscribes to every relevant journal in every field. Personally, I've had good luck in those instances with simply emailing the lead author. They are usually easy enough to find, and I've never had one refuse to send me a pdf. As has been mentioned, academics generally want to distribute their work as far and wide as possible. Saying "No" means turning down a likely citation (or several).