Two identical cars on the lot, one had a Toyota badge, the other Geo. Which one had more "prestige"? Two SUVs are on the lot, one had a Honda name, the other had an Isuzu name, guess which one had more prestige.
People spend more for the same or less all the time, from cheap fashion accessories to multi thousand $ items.
However as a school providing email to children, the consensus of our community to to provide some level of filtering.
Filtering is.. at best.. problematic and ineffective. At worst it creates more problems than it solves. At best, it is consensus that doesn't work, and at worst it exemplifies the problems with differing values of parents and educators. I'm reminded that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Good intentions is not good enough.
I too work in a school district, and I am in IT, and I would not support our district giving email addresses to students for any reason, let alone trying to manage a "censor" list of banned words.The problems are too great to overcome, and one size fits all solution never works. Yeah, it is all well and good for students to have email, and use it with school, however that is best for PARENTS to decide for their kids, and how to implement it for their families. I'd simply give them a list of dozen free email websites that they can use to sign up their kids for school use.
Lastly, as many people have pointed out here in this thread, the list, no matter how complete it is, will always have dual purposed words in it. The problem with this is language is context based and because it is context based, context matters on defining words. By removing context from the equation, you're left with an ever increasing list of words, as language evolves to route around the problems.
I hope that your district figures out that banned lists of words will either be incomplete, or too restrictive, and there is NO in between gray area.
This is what most people who are trying to make tablets like the iPad can't fathom. Apple's profit margin is in the 20-25% range. EVEN if someone came out with tablet that beat the iPad feature to feature, Apple could cut prices immediately or... come out with a better model at the same price OR both.
Apple's profits are such and the cash in the bank allow them to buy whole factories for other companies in exchange for all the production Apple wants. Apple is CRUSHING the competition before it even gets to the gates.
And no, I don't own a single apple product except for my wife's three year old ipod.
And my guess is, Apple will buy what is left of Palm from HP... or perhaps HP itself in the next couple years.
What I would like is my local municipality simply state that they are OPEN for business and for proposals for bringing fiber to every house in the city limits, and what kind of guarantees will be offered. THEN give the person who wins a ten year (or whatever) contract to the best proposal.
Government should get out of the way and PROMOTE improvements to infrastructure, not make excuses as to why we should limit it, under the premise of "progressive" politics.
You're under the assumption that nobody can drive a tech company like Jobs. If that is the case, even a very ill Steve would be better than a fully healthy somebody else. But that may not be good for Steve.
The one thing Steve brought to Apple was the last details that are often missing from products. You may not like the iPhone lockdown or Macs or whatnot, but to ignore where smartphones and tablets are today, you have to admit that AAPL was THE driving force behind those products. THEY got it right, first time, out of the box.
Public schools would actually work better if people stopped letting the government assume what would otherwise be their own responsibility.
If schools acted like Parents should be responsible for their kids instead of the schools, then we might actually get there. The problem is, when parents care, and try to fix the short comings of schools, they are blasted out of the water by the educational "system". There is a huge "we know better than you" mentality in the system.
Basically the system is stacked against caring parents.
I'd rather fix TSA * than give them reason to inspect crotches to allow us to travel in "safety". IF everyone that REALLY hated the TSA, flew, made a BIG STINK at every fondle and naked scan, they would be forced to change. Too bad we've gone from "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" to "meh".
I've said, and will continue to say, that we already have a "high speed rail" system built in California. It is called Airplanes.
When a plane ticket from Sacramento to LAX goes for around $200, while a train/bus ticket costs $57 but takes 8 hours. Even if you could cut the time in half (doubtful), for only twice the price most people would take the plane.
AND have you been to a train station lately? Makes me want to wear a full body condom
Christmas is directly descended from pagan religions of sun worship. Almost all the traditions are based on winter solstice sun god mythos.With the exception of JC's birth, there is almost nothing of it that has anything to do with JC.
Date is wrong: Probably born in Fall Trees and greenery are wrong: Evergreen worship, pagan fertility Birthday Party: Two Birthdays mentioned in the Bible, both are ugly events Big Fat Man: Has much to do with sacrificing children
It is no surprise that the pagans are taking it back;)
They believe it exists, so they spend Billions on it, and yet still can't prove it exists. It all sounds like religion to me. It will continue to sound like religion to me, until they find it, or give up. And if they give up, then it sounds even MORE like religion to me. I hope for the sake of science, they find it.;)
Cite a single objectively rational basis for believing in God.
There is none. There is no reason to believe he/she/it doesn't exist either. There is no reason why people who don't believe he exists go apeshit crazy at the sound of the word "god", but they do. And the amazing thing is they think they are being rational.
It would be more rational to ignore people who believe in god, aliens, ghosts, or whatever...
Higgs Boson can exist even if we can't find it. Dumping the whole theory or modifying it significantly because we can't find it, is equally troubling to me.
Science is "looking" for the Higgs Boson particle. They THINK (believe) it exists, but have no "Proof" it exists. They are falsifying NOTHING by looking for it. Eventually, they will either find it, or not find it. IF they don't find it, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it just means that they can't find it.
But the point I was making was that people BELIEVE it exists, and are looking for it, without any proof that it DOES exist. In fact, we're spending BILLIONS of looking for it, so I actually hope they DO find it. But as of this moment, it makes a perfect example of where FAITH gets applied by those that deny it has any real value.
If that were the case then the run up in prices on a stock that is being manipulated like that is a sure sign that the company is doomed, and thus actually worth less (worthless) as an investment. And you're voting for board members of those corporations, you should make sure you know which people support long term planning verses those that support "get rich quick" accounting schemes.
Which is why you should be looking at companies like AAPL and not HP.
For example, if I was at HP, I'd be looking at trying to get WebOS Tablets down below $200 after they sold out this in this weekends fire sale. People are willing to buy it, just not at the prices HP was offering them at ($399). Even if I had to do it as a loss leader to other "services". Instead, HP is going to TRY to be IBM, and will fail at that as well, having no clue how to be a "services" company like IBM is.
I have no idea what AAPL has for its next "trick", but I bet it is more profitable than anything HP thinks it is going to do. In fact, if I were AAPL, I'd look to buy HP's Computer Operations, especially if they are looking to sell. Imagine AAPL selling standard PCs and Servers with the AAPL logo. Now add in AAPL going all corporate, now that they have an "in" into the Corporate world with iPads and iPhones.
I've read most of this thread (119 post already) and without exception, everyone making the case of PC is better than iPad (or visa versa) case is completely missing the point of either and both. These are TOOLS. Arguing over iPad over PC is like arguing that a phillips screwdriver is better than a boxed end wrench. Both are used to turn something (screw, nut) but other than that, they aren't the same tool.
8.35% sales tax on everything. That is a great start towards not realizing how much in taxes you really pay. Here's a suggestion, and I mean it. Take all your receipts for the next three months and save them. ALL of them. Take your pay check, and count all taxes collected, including those paid on your behalf by your employer. What? Your employer doesn't include those? Mine does it should be required by law. Keep track of gasoline taxes and don't forget the sales tax on the federal and state taxes included in the gallon of gasoline, all states do this. Add in property taxes. If you rent, include these too, you're paying taxes, just not directly.
I guarantee that your 20% is not even close. THIS is why I'm opposed to more taxes, even on the "rich" (I'm not "rich") because all taxes are regressive. To imply that government has a right to do with what I earn more than I do, is... quite frankly, nothing short of serfdom. And the stupid socialists say "but the master protects us" is reason enough to extort more from us peasants.
I don't think the IT people have any idea what the employees using their network have to do in their day-to-day work
You're not hanging around the same kind of IT people I do then. Most of the IT people I know, have to know at least something about the job someone is doing, in order to recommend, support, show and otherwise train people how IT can enhance their job performance and productivity with technology. We may not be intimate with the details of their job, but we know way more about what they do, than they know about we do.
What we IT people do is pure magic* to these people. They have NO clue what it takes to keep 4500 computers, across 19 sites, running everyday with a staff of only 11. All they know is that it has something to do with boxes sitting under desks and flashing lights in a rack.
*Any sufficient level of technology is indistinguishable from magic. We type magical incantations into computers, and the ghosts in the machine obey us. Magic.
Do you think a Gardner/Landscaper should earn the same as a Doctor? No?? Then why do you complain when a Doctor takes a day off to play golf and drink a martini with the practice's partners?
Or did you see me at the expensive restaurant dressed up really nice because I was taking my wife out for a nice dinner for the first time in seven years, because I could finally afford to?
Tell me, who are you seeing when you paint with such broad strokes? Ever get off your high horse long enough to ask?
Envy is a terrible emotion, it distorts everything.
Here we have taxes on taxes (sales tax on gasoline tax). 7.25 % sales tax, property taxes, income taxes, fuel taxes. Not to mention all the fees that need collecting. As I stated before, I don't have any debt to get "credit" for when I pay taxes. I pay social Security Taxes, Unemployment insurance, and so on.
Simply put, you have NO idea how much you actually pay in "taxes", because most of it is hidden away so you won't notice. A little here, a little there...
I don't have credit card debt, or debt of any kind for that matter. I live within my means and always have. I wasn't always "middle class", I have dumpster dived a time or two to make ends meet.
Capital Gains are investments (ostensibly). IF you want to fix the problem fix it here. Capital Gains should be based on how long you held your investment before gains were realized. I proposed taxing all earnings on hedge trades and market players as regular income if they held the investment less than one year, at normal rates.
And from there a sliding scale based on length of time held to a marginal rate of 0% if held long enough (TBD). We should be rewarding long term behavior called savings. I also propose that we stop subsidizing borrowing with tax credits and deductions.
And lastly, all taxes are regressive. You tax the "Rich" guy at 90%, he'll find a way to hide the money and you'll not have the benefit of it in the economy. They tried nailing the "rich" with "luxery tax" on boats, it ended up killing the boat manufacturers who laid off people. The rich don't have to spend their money, so attacking them will hurt you eventually.
Most of the problems of the current recession can be placed in DC and really bad policies that were designed to help "the poor". And in case you missed it, that is exactly who it has hurt the most. Creating more regulations and taxes isn't going to solve the problem other than make YOU feel better by "sticking it to the man".
Slashdot Mirror
Two identical cars on the lot, one had a Toyota badge, the other Geo. Which one had more "prestige"? Two SUVs are on the lot, one had a Honda name, the other had an Isuzu name, guess which one had more prestige.
People spend more for the same or less all the time, from cheap fashion accessories to multi thousand $ items.
Filtering is .. at best .. problematic and ineffective. At worst it creates more problems than it solves. At best, it is consensus that doesn't work, and at worst it exemplifies the problems with differing values of parents and educators. I'm reminded that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Good intentions is not good enough.
I too work in a school district, and I am in IT, and I would not support our district giving email addresses to students for any reason, let alone trying to manage a "censor" list of banned words .The problems are too great to overcome, and one size fits all solution never works. Yeah, it is all well and good for students to have email, and use it with school, however that is best for PARENTS to decide for their kids, and how to implement it for their families. I'd simply give them a list of dozen free email websites that they can use to sign up their kids for school use.
Lastly, as many people have pointed out here in this thread, the list, no matter how complete it is, will always have dual purposed words in it. The problem with this is language is context based and because it is context based, context matters on defining words. By removing context from the equation, you're left with an ever increasing list of words, as language evolves to route around the problems.
I hope that your district figures out that banned lists of words will either be incomplete, or too restrictive, and there is NO in between gray area.
This is what most people who are trying to make tablets like the iPad can't fathom. Apple's profit margin is in the 20-25% range. EVEN if someone came out with tablet that beat the iPad feature to feature, Apple could cut prices immediately or ... come out with a better model at the same price OR both.
Apple's profits are such and the cash in the bank allow them to buy whole factories for other companies in exchange for all the production Apple wants. Apple is CRUSHING the competition before it even gets to the gates.
And no, I don't own a single apple product except for my wife's three year old ipod.
And my guess is, Apple will buy what is left of Palm from HP ... or perhaps HP itself in the next couple years.
What I would like is my local municipality simply state that they are OPEN for business and for proposals for bringing fiber to every house in the city limits, and what kind of guarantees will be offered. THEN give the person who wins a ten year (or whatever) contract to the best proposal.
Government should get out of the way and PROMOTE improvements to infrastructure, not make excuses as to why we should limit it, under the premise of "progressive" politics.
You're under the assumption that nobody can drive a tech company like Jobs. If that is the case, even a very ill Steve would be better than a fully healthy somebody else. But that may not be good for Steve.
The one thing Steve brought to Apple was the last details that are often missing from products. You may not like the iPhone lockdown or Macs or whatnot, but to ignore where smartphones and tablets are today, you have to admit that AAPL was THE driving force behind those products. THEY got it right, first time, out of the box.
If schools acted like Parents should be responsible for their kids instead of the schools, then we might actually get there. The problem is, when parents care, and try to fix the short comings of schools, they are blasted out of the water by the educational "system". There is a huge "we know better than you" mentality in the system.
Basically the system is stacked against caring parents.
I'd rather fix TSA * than give them reason to inspect crotches to allow us to travel in "safety". IF everyone that REALLY hated the TSA, flew, made a BIG STINK at every fondle and naked scan, they would be forced to change. Too bad we've gone from "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" to "meh".
*kill the program
I've said, and will continue to say, that we already have a "high speed rail" system built in California. It is called Airplanes.
When a plane ticket from Sacramento to LAX goes for around $200, while a train/bus ticket costs $57 but takes 8 hours. Even if you could cut the time in half (doubtful), for only twice the price most people would take the plane.
AND have you been to a train station lately? Makes me want to wear a full body condom
not a xian but ... Yawn ....
Christmas is directly descended from pagan religions of sun worship. Almost all the traditions are based on winter solstice sun god mythos.With the exception of JC's birth, there is almost nothing of it that has anything to do with JC.
Date is wrong: Probably born in Fall
Trees and greenery are wrong: Evergreen worship, pagan fertility
Birthday Party: Two Birthdays mentioned in the Bible, both are ugly events
Big Fat Man: Has much to do with sacrificing children
It is no surprise that the pagans are taking it back ;)
They believe it exists, so they spend Billions on it, and yet still can't prove it exists. It all sounds like religion to me. It will continue to sound like religion to me, until they find it, or give up. And if they give up, then it sounds even MORE like religion to me. I hope for the sake of science, they find it. ;)
There is none. There is no reason to believe he/she/it doesn't exist either. There is no reason why people who don't believe he exists go apeshit crazy at the sound of the word "god", but they do. And the amazing thing is they think they are being rational.
It would be more rational to ignore people who believe in god, aliens, ghosts, or whatever ...
Higgs Boson can exist even if we can't find it. Dumping the whole theory or modifying it significantly because we can't find it, is equally troubling to me.
People believe it exists, that is proof of faith in science. Skepticism is good but irrelevant to my point.
Science is "looking" for the Higgs Boson particle. They THINK (believe) it exists, but have no "Proof" it exists. They are falsifying NOTHING by looking for it. Eventually, they will either find it, or not find it. IF they don't find it, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it just means that they can't find it.
But the point I was making was that people BELIEVE it exists, and are looking for it, without any proof that it DOES exist. In fact, we're spending BILLIONS of looking for it, so I actually hope they DO find it. But as of this moment, it makes a perfect example of where FAITH gets applied by those that deny it has any real value.
Aptly named the God Particle. Lots of people believe it exists, without any substantial proof that it exists at all. Faith in Science ...
If that were the case then the run up in prices on a stock that is being manipulated like that is a sure sign that the company is doomed, and thus actually worth less (worthless) as an investment. And you're voting for board members of those corporations, you should make sure you know which people support long term planning verses those that support "get rich quick" accounting schemes.
Which is why you should be looking at companies like AAPL and not HP.
For example, if I was at HP, I'd be looking at trying to get WebOS Tablets down below $200 after they sold out this in this weekends fire sale. People are willing to buy it, just not at the prices HP was offering them at ($399). Even if I had to do it as a loss leader to other "services". Instead, HP is going to TRY to be IBM, and will fail at that as well, having no clue how to be a "services" company like IBM is.
I have no idea what AAPL has for its next "trick", but I bet it is more profitable than anything HP thinks it is going to do. In fact, if I were AAPL, I'd look to buy HP's Computer Operations, especially if they are looking to sell. Imagine AAPL selling standard PCs and Servers with the AAPL logo. Now add in AAPL going all corporate, now that they have an "in" into the Corporate world with iPads and iPhones.
I've read most of this thread (119 post already) and without exception, everyone making the case of PC is better than iPad (or visa versa) case is completely missing the point of either and both. These are TOOLS. Arguing over iPad over PC is like arguing that a phillips screwdriver is better than a boxed end wrench. Both are used to turn something (screw, nut) but other than that, they aren't the same tool.
There is no need for such a pissing contest.
8.35% sales tax on everything. That is a great start towards not realizing how much in taxes you really pay. Here's a suggestion, and I mean it. Take all your receipts for the next three months and save them. ALL of them. Take your pay check, and count all taxes collected, including those paid on your behalf by your employer. What? Your employer doesn't include those? Mine does it should be required by law. Keep track of gasoline taxes and don't forget the sales tax on the federal and state taxes included in the gallon of gasoline, all states do this. Add in property taxes. If you rent, include these too, you're paying taxes, just not directly.
I guarantee that your 20% is not even close. THIS is why I'm opposed to more taxes, even on the "rich" (I'm not "rich") because all taxes are regressive. To imply that government has a right to do with what I earn more than I do, is ... quite frankly, nothing short of serfdom. And the stupid socialists say "but the master protects us" is reason enough to extort more from us peasants.
You're not hanging around the same kind of IT people I do then. Most of the IT people I know, have to know at least something about the job someone is doing, in order to recommend, support, show and otherwise train people how IT can enhance their job performance and productivity with technology. We may not be intimate with the details of their job, but we know way more about what they do, than they know about we do.
What we IT people do is pure magic* to these people. They have NO clue what it takes to keep 4500 computers, across 19 sites, running everyday with a staff of only 11. All they know is that it has something to do with boxes sitting under desks and flashing lights in a rack.
*Any sufficient level of technology is indistinguishable from magic. We type magical incantations into computers, and the ghosts in the machine obey us. Magic.
Definition of Fiat Currency: See above
Why would Z want to use that contract, when it is clearly a forgery? The problem with your theory is that Z is claiming that is the real contract.
Do you think a Gardner/Landscaper should earn the same as a Doctor? No?? Then why do you complain when a Doctor takes a day off to play golf and drink a martini with the practice's partners?
Or did you see me at the expensive restaurant dressed up really nice because I was taking my wife out for a nice dinner for the first time in seven years, because I could finally afford to?
Tell me, who are you seeing when you paint with such broad strokes? Ever get off your high horse long enough to ask?
Envy is a terrible emotion, it distorts everything.
Bullshit. Especially if you live in CA like I do.
Here we have taxes on taxes (sales tax on gasoline tax). 7.25 % sales tax, property taxes, income taxes, fuel taxes. Not to mention all the fees that need collecting. As I stated before, I don't have any debt to get "credit" for when I pay taxes. I pay social Security Taxes, Unemployment insurance, and so on.
Simply put, you have NO idea how much you actually pay in "taxes", because most of it is hidden away so you won't notice. A little here, a little there ...
I don't have credit card debt, or debt of any kind for that matter. I live within my means and always have. I wasn't always "middle class", I have dumpster dived a time or two to make ends meet.
Capital Gains are investments (ostensibly). IF you want to fix the problem fix it here. Capital Gains should be based on how long you held your investment before gains were realized. I proposed taxing all earnings on hedge trades and market players as regular income if they held the investment less than one year, at normal rates.
And from there a sliding scale based on length of time held to a marginal rate of 0% if held long enough (TBD). We should be rewarding long term behavior called savings. I also propose that we stop subsidizing borrowing with tax credits and deductions.
And lastly, all taxes are regressive. You tax the "Rich" guy at 90%, he'll find a way to hide the money and you'll not have the benefit of it in the economy. They tried nailing the "rich" with "luxery tax" on boats, it ended up killing the boat manufacturers who laid off people. The rich don't have to spend their money, so attacking them will hurt you eventually.
Most of the problems of the current recession can be placed in DC and really bad policies that were designed to help "the poor". And in case you missed it, that is exactly who it has hurt the most. Creating more regulations and taxes isn't going to solve the problem other than make YOU feel better by "sticking it to the man".
No thank you.