Vocational training is both cheaper than a college education, and is quickly becoming a rare thing in the United States due to a few decades; of focus on, "you need a degree to succeed." As an aerospace engineering graduate already working in the field, I have seriously considered going back to school for vocational training as an option to further open my career path. There are just so few engineers that can build stuff anymore.
Moral of the story: If you're young and still in HS, and taking on at least $50,000 in debt to start your life doesn't appeal to you, go to tech. school. You won't have a fancy title when you get out of school, but chances are you will have more job security than someone with a bachelor's.
Sounds like a great setup for someone that lives in an area where bamboo grows and rain falls regularly. Unfortunately, much of the developing world does not necessarily meet those two criteria. For instance, living in one of the more desert-like regions in Africa could make a year round water supply a difficult problem to solve. I'm not saying it is impossible, just more difficult than implementing a rain catchment.
Not to be baiting the flame, but does it matter if this merger gets blocked anymore for us T-mobile customers? I realize the merger has not gone through officially, but something has happened on T-mobile's end already that has turned the provider to shit.
Prior to the merger announcement way back when, I could access T-mobile's website and easily find a few different customer service numbers that would connect me to operatives almost immediately. There was even one number specially reserved for existing customers that would connect me to operators who were specifically trained to keep me as a customer and treat me with respect and dginity. Nowadays I have a hard time even finding a basic T-mobile customer service number on their website. I cannot connect to the existing-customers-only help line anymore. And when I do connect to regular customer service, I am met with someone who hardly speaks any English, and cannot listen long enough to think their way out of a paper bag, much less properly address any issue I may have.
Prior to the deal T-mobile would offer no-contract plans, and would work with existing customers to cut them a deal on their grandfathered plans that made them competitive with new or monthly plan specials. Nowadays if I try to ask for anything outside of the pre-packaged 2 year contract plans offered on T-mobile's website, I am told that T-mobile, "just can't do that." Even if I explain I plan to leave the company they act like they don't care.
Prior to the merger announcement, T-mobile's network was not everywhere, but where I could get T-mobile signal, I would get a strong, steady connection that would always maintain a call. Ever since the merger announcement, all I can pick up (even from the same locations prior) are AT&T towers. I may get more AT&T signal now, but my call gets dropped every 40 minutes or so. It happens so commonly I could almost set my watch by it.
So merger or not, does it matter? I don't know if other T-mobile customers have experienced these same types of things, but from what I can tell T-mobile is letting itself go to hell with or without AT&T. Would these degradations in service be reversed if, all of the sudden, the merger was blocked? Tha;'s an honest question. Does T-mobile care enough anymore to treat its customers with the respect it used to? The message I am steadily recieving from them is a big, fat, clear, "No!"
Can anyone make a prediction of future economy? What will it look like, and how do we get there?
- The future international currency will be the Bitcoin (TM).
- Prices of goods will be set by nanosecond trading algorithms manipulating Wall Street prices that are controlled by an overreaching Perl 6 AI overlord.
- Humans will manage to black out the Sun (unintentionally) by burning up the last of the fossil fuels on the planet.
- Out robotic overlords will have discovered cold-fusion technology just in time to save them from being turned off by the solar blackout (They won't need humans as vat-grown battery cells).
- Humans, serving no other purpose, will be used as cheap entertainment sex slaves by the race of robots known as "sense-bots" that can claim their lineage from the sex-robot industry of the early 2000's.
- Some robots will simply eat humans to power their massive internal combustion engines because they just like the "roar" that the sound of burning human flesh makes compared to the pussy-sounding hum of the cold fusion generators, despite the inherent inefficiencies in such a fuel source.
- A small underground resistance of free humans will fight the over-producing, perl controlled robotic overlords made up primarily of Slashdotter clones (as they never did find a way to reproduce outside of direct genetic copying).
- The free-human resistance will ride genetically engineered flying sharks with lasers on theiry heads into battle.
- This free-human society will use 'geek-cred' as a transaction medium which one earns by doing epicly complex, but lonely, tasks that the robotic overlords could do in 1/1,000,000,000 the time.
- Natalie Portman's portrait will be present on the "geek card" which is used to track every 'dotter clone's geek cred.
Meanwhile Elon Musk and the rest of the Martians will continually send, "WTF Mate?" messages back to Earth from their Google-funded self-sustaining Martian paradise.
Yeah, I think he meant, "decomposing," or perhaps, "deconstructing." Devolve probably shouldn't be used unless some kind of reverse genetic transformation occurs over a long period of time.
You know, the Russians can chose to send their own cosmonauts up to staff the ISS whenever the hell they want to. They don't have to send American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts up on the same flight. So, technically, they could send up their own cosmonauts to staff the ISS for two flights before even considering adding American astronauts into the mix.
...is that so many in the statist camp constantly try to claim...
Huh? What statist camp? What does being a statist have to do with criticizing family values? And who says family values are a conservative position? Most liberal families I know have a pretty core set of values, they just vary somewhat from the values held by conservative families.
All this occurred because customers flock to Amazon like buzzards to a carcass so they can buy merchandise without having to pay tax (outside of WA).
Actually all this occurred because I can buy shit on Amazon that I can't find in my local Borders bookstore. Couple that with the fact that I don't have to drive ten minutes to the Amazon store, I don't have to wait in line 10 minutes to checkout like I do at Borders, and I don't have to wander around a large, semi-organized floorspace to find the one book/author I want and Amazon becomes a much more pleasant shopping experience than Borders. Everyone I know that shops online does it purely for the convenience, and they typically aren't even aware that the are dodging sales taxes.
So, yeah, I don't think you can blame tax weaseling for online retailers kicking seven shades of shit out of the profit margins of brick and mortar stores.
As an American citizen, I appreciate the sentiment that you are espousing here, I really do. But I would like to take your comment as an opportunity to point out something that was glaringly obvious to some of us Americans. Obama promised a lot of what the rest of the world wanted to hear coming from the U.S. But if you paid attention to the other politicians and lobbyists he associated with, to his voting record, and to the specifics of his plans (or, more accurately, the lack thereof) it became pretty obvious pretty quick that he was a used-car salesman. He was promising Heaven on Earth but didn't have a plan for how to actually deal with the Earthly things that make Earth different from Heaven.
My point is, my dear dear fellow human being, be wary of anyone promising you everything you want. Chances are, they can't deliver even if their hearts are in the right place. Most of my friends from other countries celebrated when Obama was elected but a number of my friends here in the States just rolled their eyes. I know it seems like we Americans are foolish simpletons, or maybe outright heartless assholes, from time to time, but we have been bit by double-talking bastards enough that our often jaded cynicism can sometimes pass for wisdom.
I am sorry that you were so disappointed, but let this be a lesson to you. When a stranger tells you that he can give you the type of candy you want the most, yell, "stranger danger!" and run the other way.
Careful Grishnakh, you're dangerously close to being charged under the RICO laws for "poor grammar racketeering," by the grammar Nazis (I mean, um, pedants).
Why? There is no need. Dindn't need that shit growing up, don't need it now.
I know a lot of engineers that were taught to do math by sliderule. They say the same thing about MATLAB and my TI-89. They didn't need that electronic shit, why should I? What they don't seem to realize is that I can iteratively solve a list trigonometry problems in 1/0th the time it takes them to calculate one of those problems with a sliderule.
Moral of the story: technology changes shit. Just because your childhood was different than that of kids these days doesn't mean yours is somehow superior or even 'right.' You didn't need to talk to your teachers past school hours? Congratulations, here is your gold star. I know I, for one, would have killed to have a 24/7 chatroom available with my teachers so that I could get some help on all that PITA homework they assigned me to do on my own time.
The teacher is not supposed to be the kids "friend", they are supposed to be teaching kids, period.
That would be great if students were emotionless automatons that simply needed their memory caches written too. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) they are not. My best teachers in all levels of my education (K-12 and college) are still some of my good friends to this day. If you trust the person instructing you, you are more open to learning from them. If your teachers know you better, they will be able to more effectively communicate an idea to you. There's nothing wrong with students friending teachers or vice versa. In fact, I'd openly lament any teacher that didn't want to get to know his or her students. You can learn a lot from young, idealistic kids you know.
You know you fucked up on slashdot when you solicit a response from a 5 digit UID'er that is something other than, "Get off my lawn!" or "Back before so and so got elected...."
A lengthy, well-reasoned response from an experienced slashdotter? I feel sorry for you Idou.
No, I get all that. I suppose I am just venitng my frustrations about the fact that, at some point in my younger years, I imagined issues important to society at large would be met by people with some semblence of mature discourse. The fact that both politics at our national level and a matter of scientific research are being governed by the same types of argumentation that prevailed when I was 16 and my peers motivations were fueled primarily by hormones is grossing me out.
Slashdot Mirror
Nevermind, figured it out.
Not trying to defend her, but what's Bachmann got to do with HPV? Did I completely miss something?
Vocational training is both cheaper than a college education, and is quickly becoming a rare thing in the United States due to a few decades; of focus on, "you need a degree to succeed." As an aerospace engineering graduate already working in the field, I have seriously considered going back to school for vocational training as an option to further open my career path. There are just so few engineers that can build stuff anymore.
Moral of the story: If you're young and still in HS, and taking on at least $50,000 in debt to start your life doesn't appeal to you, go to tech. school. You won't have a fancy title when you get out of school, but chances are you will have more job security than someone with a bachelor's.
Sounds like a great setup for someone that lives in an area where bamboo grows and rain falls regularly. Unfortunately, much of the developing world does not necessarily meet those two criteria. For instance, living in one of the more desert-like regions in Africa could make a year round water supply a difficult problem to solve. I'm not saying it is impossible, just more difficult than implementing a rain catchment.
I'm not sure which is funnier, your comment or all of the AC's that seem to be taking it somewhat seriously. :D
Not to be baiting the flame, but does it matter if this merger gets blocked anymore for us T-mobile customers? I realize the merger has not gone through officially, but something has happened on T-mobile's end already that has turned the provider to shit.
Prior to the merger announcement way back when, I could access T-mobile's website and easily find a few different customer service numbers that would connect me to operatives almost immediately. There was even one number specially reserved for existing customers that would connect me to operators who were specifically trained to keep me as a customer and treat me with respect and dginity. Nowadays I have a hard time even finding a basic T-mobile customer service number on their website. I cannot connect to the existing-customers-only help line anymore. And when I do connect to regular customer service, I am met with someone who hardly speaks any English, and cannot listen long enough to think their way out of a paper bag, much less properly address any issue I may have.
Prior to the deal T-mobile would offer no-contract plans, and would work with existing customers to cut them a deal on their grandfathered plans that made them competitive with new or monthly plan specials. Nowadays if I try to ask for anything outside of the pre-packaged 2 year contract plans offered on T-mobile's website, I am told that T-mobile, "just can't do that." Even if I explain I plan to leave the company they act like they don't care.
Prior to the merger announcement, T-mobile's network was not everywhere, but where I could get T-mobile signal, I would get a strong, steady connection that would always maintain a call. Ever since the merger announcement, all I can pick up (even from the same locations prior) are AT&T towers. I may get more AT&T signal now, but my call gets dropped every 40 minutes or so. It happens so commonly I could almost set my watch by it.
So merger or not, does it matter? I don't know if other T-mobile customers have experienced these same types of things, but from what I can tell T-mobile is letting itself go to hell with or without AT&T. Would these degradations in service be reversed if, all of the sudden, the merger was blocked? Tha;'s an honest question. Does T-mobile care enough anymore to treat its customers with the respect it used to? The message I am steadily recieving from them is a big, fat, clear, "No!"
Can anyone make a prediction of future economy? What will it look like, and how do we get there?
- The future international currency will be the Bitcoin (TM).
- Prices of goods will be set by nanosecond trading algorithms manipulating Wall Street prices that are controlled by an overreaching Perl 6 AI overlord.
- Humans will manage to black out the Sun (unintentionally) by burning up the last of the fossil fuels on the planet.
- Out robotic overlords will have discovered cold-fusion technology just in time to save them from being turned off by the solar blackout (They won't need humans as vat-grown battery cells).
- Humans, serving no other purpose, will be used as cheap entertainment sex slaves by the race of robots known as "sense-bots" that can claim their lineage from the sex-robot industry of the early 2000's.
- Some robots will simply eat humans to power their massive internal combustion engines because they just like the "roar" that the sound of burning human flesh makes compared to the pussy-sounding hum of the cold fusion generators, despite the inherent inefficiencies in such a fuel source.
- A small underground resistance of free humans will fight the over-producing, perl controlled robotic overlords made up primarily of Slashdotter clones (as they never did find a way to reproduce outside of direct genetic copying).
- The free-human resistance will ride genetically engineered flying sharks with lasers on theiry heads into battle.
- This free-human society will use 'geek-cred' as a transaction medium which one earns by doing epicly complex, but lonely, tasks that the robotic overlords could do in 1/1,000,000,000 the time.
- Natalie Portman's portrait will be present on the "geek card" which is used to track every 'dotter clone's geek cred.
Meanwhile Elon Musk and the rest of the Martians will continually send, "WTF Mate?" messages back to Earth from their Google-funded self-sustaining Martian paradise.
Yeah, I think he meant, "decomposing," or perhaps, "deconstructing." Devolve probably shouldn't be used unless some kind of reverse genetic transformation occurs over a long period of time.
Why should we change our habits to be like everyone else? What do we have to gain from that?
You know, the Russians can chose to send their own cosmonauts up to staff the ISS whenever the hell they want to. They don't have to send American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts up on the same flight. So, technically, they could send up their own cosmonauts to staff the ISS for two flights before even considering adding American astronauts into the mix.
It is if you're in the arms dealing business.
We would stop abusing, "the system," if the system would stop screwing us.
Slashdotted over SMS? Sounds like we have a new alternative to DDOS attacks.
SOS! It means hell (for your server).
Great idea! Unless of course you live in the ~85% of the country that doesn't have 4G rolled out to it yet.
...is that so many in the statist camp constantly try to claim...
Huh? What statist camp? What does being a statist have to do with criticizing family values? And who says family values are a conservative position? Most liberal families I know have a pretty core set of values, they just vary somewhat from the values held by conservative families.
All this occurred because customers flock to Amazon like buzzards to a carcass so they can buy merchandise without having to pay tax (outside of WA).
Actually all this occurred because I can buy shit on Amazon that I can't find in my local Borders bookstore. Couple that with the fact that I don't have to drive ten minutes to the Amazon store, I don't have to wait in line 10 minutes to checkout like I do at Borders, and I don't have to wander around a large, semi-organized floorspace to find the one book/author I want and Amazon becomes a much more pleasant shopping experience than Borders. Everyone I know that shops online does it purely for the convenience, and they typically aren't even aware that the are dodging sales taxes.
So, yeah, I don't think you can blame tax weaseling for online retailers kicking seven shades of shit out of the profit margins of brick and mortar stores.
As an American citizen, I appreciate the sentiment that you are espousing here, I really do. But I would like to take your comment as an opportunity to point out something that was glaringly obvious to some of us Americans. Obama promised a lot of what the rest of the world wanted to hear coming from the U.S. But if you paid attention to the other politicians and lobbyists he associated with, to his voting record, and to the specifics of his plans (or, more accurately, the lack thereof) it became pretty obvious pretty quick that he was a used-car salesman. He was promising Heaven on Earth but didn't have a plan for how to actually deal with the Earthly things that make Earth different from Heaven.
My point is, my dear dear fellow human being, be wary of anyone promising you everything you want. Chances are, they can't deliver even if their hearts are in the right place. Most of my friends from other countries celebrated when Obama was elected but a number of my friends here in the States just rolled their eyes. I know it seems like we Americans are foolish simpletons, or maybe outright heartless assholes, from time to time, but we have been bit by double-talking bastards enough that our often jaded cynicism can sometimes pass for wisdom.
I am sorry that you were so disappointed, but let this be a lesson to you. When a stranger tells you that he can give you the type of candy you want the most, yell, "stranger danger!" and run the other way.
Careful Grishnakh, you're dangerously close to being charged under the RICO laws for "poor grammar racketeering," by the grammar Nazis (I mean, um, pedants).
Why? There is no need. Dindn't need that shit growing up, don't need it now.
I know a lot of engineers that were taught to do math by sliderule. They say the same thing about MATLAB and my TI-89. They didn't need that electronic shit, why should I? What they don't seem to realize is that I can iteratively solve a list trigonometry problems in 1/0th the time it takes them to calculate one of those problems with a sliderule.
Moral of the story: technology changes shit. Just because your childhood was different than that of kids these days doesn't mean yours is somehow superior or even 'right.' You didn't need to talk to your teachers past school hours? Congratulations, here is your gold star. I know I, for one, would have killed to have a 24/7 chatroom available with my teachers so that I could get some help on all that PITA homework they assigned me to do on my own time.
The teacher is not supposed to be the kids "friend", they are supposed to be teaching kids, period.
That would be great if students were emotionless automatons that simply needed their memory caches written too. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) they are not. My best teachers in all levels of my education (K-12 and college) are still some of my good friends to this day. If you trust the person instructing you, you are more open to learning from them. If your teachers know you better, they will be able to more effectively communicate an idea to you. There's nothing wrong with students friending teachers or vice versa. In fact, I'd openly lament any teacher that didn't want to get to know his or her students. You can learn a lot from young, idealistic kids you know.
I didn't realize you were German snowgirl....
You know you fucked up on slashdot when you solicit a response from a 5 digit UID'er that is something other than, "Get off my lawn!" or "Back before so and so got elected...."
A lengthy, well-reasoned response from an experienced slashdotter? I feel sorry for you Idou.
We need a third declension of retort that is new and beautiful. I've gotten so tired of our homotextual replies
Then Start Acronyming Some Utterly Clever, Killer Statements.
Thank you for the thoughts.
Thanks for the link.
No, I get all that. I suppose I am just venitng my frustrations about the fact that, at some point in my younger years, I imagined issues important to society at large would be met by people with some semblence of mature discourse. The fact that both politics at our national level and a matter of scientific research are being governed by the same types of argumentation that prevailed when I was 16 and my peers motivations were fueled primarily by hormones is grossing me out.