One thing I've often thought about is how/. has an impressive amount of smart people that are unemployed, and if they all worked together on something, they would be a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps a 'distributed' start-up of some kind - I would think that the OS community would be knowlegable in working with widely located people.
Brilliant idea. And you know, the first person with enough energy to actually get up and DO this is going to make a killing...I've had the same idea and don't see the flaw in it. Slashdot has a lot of millionth monkey effects that readers could take advantage of if they wanted...
You do realize, don't you, that people sailed around the world in the 16th Century. On a regular basis. Not all of them made it. Many died. On each voyage. We didn't know how to desalinate water then. We didn't have radio then. Hell, we didn't know about sanitation then. Doctors didn't wash their hands for another 300 years still. Even a simple thing like vitamin C to prevent scurvy was centuries off...
But still people did it. They explored. Because they know the long term payoff was there. And that there were willing souls ready to go now... and that the rewards and the victory go to the strong and the brave. The timid sit back and let others collect.
...or do you think the Chinese are faking it when they say they are going to the moon by 2020? Do you think they aren't planning to go to Mars and mine the astroids? This is China, where millions have been displaced in the last few years -- entire cities moved -- for a DAM that is being built... today! You don't think they plan ahead? Shouldn't we?
Rome faltered when it got soft. It became brittle. The people were interested in bloody spectacles... infighting and political intrigue took over in the Senate. Then Barbarians with a different religion attacked -- Of course Rome could always defeat them -- but again and again they attacked until finally the capital fell.
Just a random historical bit of trivia to throw at the end of my rant... It wasn't supposed mean anything...or maybe it was. Look, all I know is that someone from our generation needs to start inspiring people. Let's go to Mars and stop worrying so much, OK? Humanity NEEDS this and people are tougher than you think.
Ask yourself this question... the people who go on Fear Factor... the people who fly solo across Antarctica... the people who sail across the Pacific alone, with no radio... I bet most of them are in pretty great shape. I bet you could get 1000 of them to volunteer for a manned Mars mission in 2006 in a heartbeat. I bet out of that 1000 -- these are people who climb mountains and run triathalons, remember -- at least 50 or 100 of the candidates would be able to pass a training program and be "able" to fly to Mars. Especially if we build our ships right -- let the machines and the computers do most the work and train these people to do what they already get off on doing: surviving.
When they're there -- they can take pictures of the rocks the mission wants, take the soil samples of the areas the mission asks... things space agencies spend billions for each primitive 100 kg. robot to do one time... Why not instead send out tens of manned missions? Do it right. And sure, we might lose 1 trip out of 3. More at first. I bet ANY of these people would be MORE than willing to go... AND you'd be saving money!!! Tons of money. The first crew that arrived successfully... think of it. Think of the presige. The honor of having your name go down as that man or woman in history? And think of all the experiments they we perform with PEOPLE there... Just imagine! And if they were to arrive home... what it could do for the world...
Does this sound brutal? To me it feels visionary -- it makes just so much common sense; why don't people ever spell it out like this? Let people freely decide if they are willing to take that risk. Here we are, legalizing assisted suicide across the Western world but we don't have the balls to let adventurers sign up for one of the last ULTIMATE adventures???
THC is not physically addictive, no.. But it can definitely be mentally addictive provided you make it a daily habbit. You don't NEED it, you just really really really WANT it..
Right. You just really, really WANT it. Like watching your favorite TV show. So? Are you "addicted" or is it just "hard to stop". This whole "mentally" addictive sounds like a crutch for non-thinking liberals and conservatives who want their world to be nice and black and white with good guys and bad. The fact is there are many pleasurable activities that you really, really WANT to do. Sex, for instance. Or, this being slashdot, masturbation... these are things you really, really WANT to do but your body doesn't change your brain chemistry to require it. Mentally addictive is a code-word used by people who don't believe in free will as much as the rest of us. And it robs people from understanding what a real physical addiction means and why it is fundamentally different from any "mental addiction"...
Bling bling? Don't you just laugh when you hear that? Or want to injure someone? It's not a word, it's just stupid
Wow...
I'm doomed. I'm actually over the hill. I now have proof. I'm posting this anonymously because what I'm about to write is 100% true:
I'd never even heard of the term "bling bling" before this article here today, this morning. The first day of 2004. I don't even know if that makes me racist or something somehow. Doesn't the phrase "bling bling" come from rap music or something? Or does this say I'm hopelessly out of touch with youth culture (I'm 30 and live just blocks outside of a mid-sized city's downtown!!!) Or is this phrase just not in wide usage after all? Please someone reply and tell me I wasn't alone in never having heard this term before...
think they'd have much better luck requesting hosting/hardware donations.
I respectfully disagree...the odds of getting one geek out of 10,000 to take the time to package and pay for the shipping of some half rate hardware -- and then the hours invested going through this junk to cobble something together... (Wasn't it just 2 days ago that Slashdot was talking about many schools no longer accepting hardware "donations" because much of it is little more than other people's toxic disposal problem?) -- versus maybe, what, 50 geeks in 10,000 willing to say, "What the heck, I'll donate $5." 50 in 10,000 doesn't sound that unreasonable. That means that if you had a football stadium sized crowd of geeks, you'd have 250 of them willing to donate $5. (Apologies for having to introduce the nightmarish vision of a stadium filled with open-source espousing, tin hat wearing, anonymous coward writing Slashdotters to make my point.) OK, well, how many visitors does Slashdot get a day? Seriously, I'd like to know. But I am confident it is more than a few stadiums full. So -- if they do it right, they might have MUCH better luck requesting cash and doing it right themselves. The smart money is on those odds, in my opinion.
Man... you cats are all so cynical. Hip places that do it right don't come around every day. What's a few bucks here and there? Wow. Didn't any of ya'll ever see the movie Empire Records? Do the right thing for the little guy once in a while on faith.
Since you keep mentioning Earth so many times in your post (twice) I thought it would be interesting to ask a question. Are the same "this project is too big, spends too much money, it solves some neat engineering challenges but what good does it actually do" people also willing to take a stand against sending probes to Europa or trying to land a human on Mars? I'm sure they are. I'm sure there are lots and lots of very consistent Slashdot readers who are equally disgusted at the tens of billions of dollars that we, as taxpayers, are forced to throw away on spaceflight and exploratory missions.
Right?
Where is the critical thinking??
on
Global Dimming
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· Score: 1
the ultraviolet light increasingly penetrating the leaky ozone layer is not affected.
Please mod this guy up. The grandparent poster is either a troll or a lazy fool who completely disregarded the RESEARCH being reported in the article. Look, the article states that sunny days are JUST AS SUNNY as they've ever been. UV rays are what cause the burns. When you wrote:
In the early eighties I needed to use suncream in the summer and had a few cases of vicious sunburns when I did not. Nowdays I no longer need it unless I go as far south as the tropics.
You were reporting an anecdotal, non-statistical observation that completely discounted the actual data being presented in the article. Your comment basically said, "Rah rah, I have the same superstitions myself, hurray!" but you obviously didn't even READ THE ARTICLE. Man -- it wouldn't be so bad but this means you get your news from SLASHDOT SUMMARIES...Not the actual articles, but the misspelled, error ridden written-for-the-Editors summaries And that is frightening!
This isn't the sort of critical thinking that I used to come to Slashdot for. This is rabble that gets modded up because someone likes the conclusion. Well, so what?! Oh well. I'll get modded flamebait. Figures.
Probably true. Commercial FM just plain sucks, and to the point that it's audible even in the miserable audio environment of a car.
And, this, friends, is why audiophiles get the rap that they do...
We are living in a time of utter magic. We can get into a metal box and travel quickly, in warmth and comfort, to places far away. At the press of a button, we can listen to recorded music, of our own choosing. We can get that music with a few simple clicks in our own homes. Or, we can tune in to signals that are freely available and broadcast over the AIR WAVES, listening to music, news, sports or even "message boards" (call in shows) where we can contribute.
The sound quality of all of these is great... Even on AM radio it is good enough for what people are interested in: the content.
We listen to music, to news, to whatever because we are interested in the content. And even with Clear Channel, even with the recording industry feeding us the same thing again and again or whatever else problem you might manufacture -- it is still magical to me that I can flick a switch and get all of this free content sounding as great as it does.
Sorry we don't live in Star Trek world soon enough for you. Sorry that it isn't an exact reproduction, if you actually think FM quality "sucks" -- and you aren't just being a snob to make a point to fellow snobs about how snobbish you can be.
I am encountering a widespread feeling that the Const is "too old" and on that basis alone, it should be ignored or subject to that most deadly of mechanisms: subjective, changing and individual unwritten rules.
You realize that the highest court in the land, the US Supreme Court, the ultimate arbitor of what is and isn't allowed, ultimately bases its decisions on the US Constitution. It really doesn't matter if you are encountering a feeling about the Constitution or not. The laws that shape what we do ultimately go back to the Constitution. The laws that don't are ultimately struck down as unconstitutional (heard that word before?) and hold no sway.
And why do we have our Constitution, anyway? Why did we sit down and codify these things that we have? We did so because they are ideals -- Because we recognize and we understand that people live best when they live up to these ideals. And because we understand that there are often forces/pressures to do just the opposite. If it wasn't natural to want to take away people's right to dissent because it was unpopular, we wouldn't need to have that protection written into law. If there weren't people trying keep classes of people from voting since the history of the Republic, we wouldn't keep trying to write into law ways to solve the problem.
Humans are not angels. In fact, a snapshot of any period of time will show you that the players are flawed and amazingly smaller-minded than you would like to believe. But we have safeguard after safeguard built into this amazingly robust system to ensure that the popular will of the people CONTINUES TO BE REFLECTED because in the long run, this is the way that you ensure a people is free. All this talk of "quiet wars" and "people rising up" is really rather foolish when the system in place still allows for popular will to be expressed. If people are quietly ceding this gift/responsibility -- well, there are bigger problems then than the political system and simply overhauling that won't change the larger issue... I think you are a very well-meaning person but your solutions are short-sighted and immature and I'd really ask you to THINK about the things you are proposing rather than just spouting off what sounds "neat" to you at the time.
Let me just throw out a quick observation. The fact that gerrymandering leads to "safe" districts means that more ideologically extreme candidates are viable -- a solidly democratic district is more likely to vote for an extreme liberal and a solidly republican district is more likely to vote for an extreme conservative. This leads to ideological gridlock -- We fill our legislatures with members less wiling to compromise on issues and the swings from left to right and back again grow sharper and sharper. Not really representative of the people's will. And not exactly a formula for long-term stability. THAT would be one potential objection. This really is a problem once you think about it.
*shakes head* You guys are sooooo elite. You know why everyone wants to have a computer, right? It is obviously so they can have the fastest machine and the most elite monitor and, and, uh...
Yeah, I'm willing to guess that for millions of people, having a machine sit in their living room that they can turn on and click a button and be "connected" to someplace friendly -- with a buddy list and communities and a friendly voice TELLING them they have mail... this feels like what they want from the Internet. So it takes them an extra 10 seconds to boot up Microsoft Works. SO WHAT? They are happy. Show me the problem.
the more self-aware people become to their true 'roles' in the economy, the less they act in the interests and wishes of companies
Maybe for you, Mr. CounterCulture "software wants to be free" late-night-coding, caffeine-drinking, Slashdot posting person that you are. But there really isn't anything in the mechanism of the free market that says just because you can look under the hood you'll suddenly walk away. In fact, a lot of people are sheep -- not in a bad way. But the fact is that if you take a mass of people, across cultures and throughout time, you'll find a lot of them tend to act in very predictable, self-interested manners. (Often times, these expressed preferences will shape themselves into well behaved curves.) And if it is in peoples' self-interest to act in line with the interests and wishes of companies, then they, for the most part, will. That's the beauty of the free-market. That's the beauty of living in an open society. Because once companies start to stray too far, that invisible hand starts to move back in again. Dissatisfied customers start looking for other options... and a market arises for a newly expressed preference. No LAWS need to be made DICTATING what people want. They are allowed to express it. Collectively.
So, I respectfully disagree. I think in a culture/economy that is relatively free/healthy, you won't see large masses of people walking away...Unless, of course, you are suggesting that our culture isn't relatively free/healthy, in which case I'd love to hear more, certainly more than just blanket assertions.
I am sticking with T-Mobile since they are the only ones not putting additional fees on my bill for this. I was seriously considering Sprint but quite frankly, the only thing T-Mobile doesn't have is coverage in rural areas like Sprint does with analog roam.
Things like this make my free-market heart jump for joy. Increased competition. Leading to people shopping around. Leading to increased value. For some people that values translates into less expensive service/fees. For others it means increased service. People get to choose what they want and the market accomodates, as if by magic. Remove barriers and everyone wins. All without having to impose any LAWS. Crazy, I know...something to think about, though...
People won't be switching cellular providers fast, they will simply stay loyal to the providers that have been assraping them for their entire cellular lives.
You are assuming that just because the (valid) problems you listed above are true that somehow lifting this other (valid) barrier to switching isn't going to shake up the market and lead to increased competition?
How often do you hear people saying, "My Sprint (Verizion/Cingular/etc.) service is a joke..." People want to switch. Now they'll start shopping around. Providers will start doing things like improving customer service or offering incentives to get people to switch. Competition will lead to a better customer experience.
Besides, people like buying cool new phones with cool new features. If your old number can switch to a new phone with a new provider -- great. You have your rationalization to upgrade to a new phone.
You may have presented some facts about SIM card locking, but given the frequency with which people buy new cell phones (computers, shirts, etc.) in the USA, it really won't hit that many people. They won't feel a pinch so I suspect your "problem" may stay the way it is for a while. But to say that people won't switch providers because we've "only" allowed them to keep their numbers is willful ignorance on your part.
At the risk of making even more enemies than my original primary/secondary post made me (*grin* Love all those orange bullets by your names, kids, keep 'em coming...) I have an answer for this one, too...
So I asked her what word we should use - and she replied "chairPERSON"..
That's just silly. I fail to see why the word "chair" wouldn't be perfectly appropriate and gender neutral. "Toni was the chair of the commission."
The point here is that if the mores shift and parts of the language start to offend, there really are perfectly acceptable alternatives...provided you aren't so stubborn about being "right" and you actually want to communicate. I shouldn't say this on Slashdot, I know, I should let everyone's thinly veiled racism/hatred of women/need to be "different" shine, but still...
Seriously... what the hell are we supposed to call them?
Get over it. Primary/Secondary is a perfectly valid way to refer to drive relationships and it doesn't offend people. I've been doing this for years, myself. I don't see the problem. Unless you want to offend people because you, personally, don't see the problem. What is so hard about referring to things in a new way?
But they never ask the Cobolers if they WANT a big cut in salary before they can then. They just simply can them without asking. How is that supply-and-demand?
The thing that makes our system so good at accurately gauging what people really want is that we don't have committees decide what is "valuable" or not. People decide. Individually. Collectively. With their pocketbooks. With what they choose to pay for (goods and wages -- they are ultimately the same thing). That is the definition of supply and demand. People collectively express their preferences by what they buy and what they are willing to pay. That's what "market forces" are: An aggregate of people's preferences with capital as the way to keep score. I'm sure the cobblers or the HTML developers or whichever group you highlighted would not, for the most part, voluntarily walk away from what they are doing or take a "big cut in salary" if the demand for their craft dried up. But the system does what it does extremely well. If you have a suggestion for a better system -- I'd love to hear it. Seriously.
Actually, I did. But my point wasn't about how I worked 40 hours/week and carried 19 credits and you know it. That's a straw man. My point was to think back to a time when you could afford $28,000/year. Or even when $28,000/year felt like a lot.
I live in the suburbs (because I can afford a house there)
Thanks for making my case for me there. Sort of the whole point, isn't it? I buy $50 meals in restaurants each night... because I can afford it. (Not really) That doesn't exactly prove that eating out costs $50/night.
Do you know that a private medical insurance policy costs about $1000/month for a basic family insurance?
Ding ding ding I'm totally with you on this one and couldn't agree more. $28,000 is a fair wage which you can easily live on... except for this skyrocketing thing we have called health insurance which is out of control. We have to "do something" about it (and its timebomb of a cousin, Social Security/Medicare) because they threaten to not just overrun the budgets of lower income Americans but also to bankrupt the system in the long run. I'd be glad to use this thread to continue a discussion about that topic because I think you're right on the money there.
Of course I have. Haven't you? Did you go to college? Did you have need to have roommates, just to pay rent? Did you end up having to take the bus everywhere because you couldn't afford a car?
Those two steps right there can go a long way to making that $28,000 enjoyable. You can actually live on much less. But by the time you are at $28,000 you can assume that you'll be able to meet all your basic needs. Certainly not living in luxury. You'll probably have to do without a lot of things that you might mistakenly call "necessities"... but I guess I'm wondering when those became rights or entitlements or even had anything to do with being happy or unhappy. People on Slashdot are always bashing the consumerist culture that is taking over -- but heaven forbid you actually post a way around that trap!
What? are people supposed to be in and out of school all their lives? Who is going to pay?
What? There is no Santa Claus? People need to adapt to changing conditions?
The progression that we've seen people make over time, from gatherers to farmers to industrial creaters to manipulators of information, happened as a result of people needing to adapt to new conditions. If you really believe that the future won't look like the world of today then you are forced to concede that some jobs/categories of jobs will disappear. Your might just happen to be one of them. You want a safe choice? Pick janitor. Otherwise, admit that lifelong learning might be the price you pay for saying near the top. Oh, and because there isn't any Santa, you might make a "wrong" choice. It happens. Ask assembly line workers in Detroit.
What about old age?
Actually talk about this as a society, maybe? Instead of acting like old people are the same as everyone else and then suddenly we put them in homes and ignore them because they aren't "useful" anymore. Oh, and maybe, just maybe, own up to the fact that social security is about 15 years away from complete bankruptcy -- in a best case scenario -- and start doing something about it?
those fuckers are doing my job for $2000-4000 a year. How the fuck am I going to afford my weekly lap dance when I get replaced?
I'll take a stab at it and answer your question: You'll adapt, find a new skill that someone is willing to pay $25,000 a year for and you'll get by just fine. Not rich, not in luxury, but you'll eat and have a place to live. You won't be destitute. What about weavers? They couldn't weave forever. Eventually something came along to replace them. That's the nature of things. It sucks if you're in the group being replaced but it is what it is. You can fight the invisible hand but you're only staving off the inevitable at the cost of the future...
companies don't seem to give a flying flip about domain experience...They don't want to pay for training and "seniority"
I think it would be more accurate to say that companies don't want to pay what you think they should pay for training and seniority. They (that is, the market) value(s) it, certainly, but they aren't willing to paid the absurd premium prices they were paying for it in the late 90s. Tough luck. The market adjusted to reflect the actual supply and demand. And that actual supply includes offshore workers. Get over it. If you actually have tech skills, they are still willing to pay for those skills, just not at the price you expect. But you can't change reality by whining about it. And setting up artifical contols on prices or wages won't change that reality.
If you really want to work in IT, price yourself accordingly and realize you will be competing with offshore workers. So, maybe you'll have to take a job for half the salary you expect, but I bet any programmer could find some job for $28,000/year. That's still a liveable wage. Show me the problem...
A well crafted troll doesn't put people down, it elicits responses...
Slashdot Mirror
One thing I've often thought about is how /. has an impressive amount of smart people that are unemployed, and if they all worked together on something, they would be a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps a 'distributed' start-up of some kind - I would think that the OS community would be knowlegable in working with widely located people.
Brilliant idea. And you know, the first person with enough energy to actually get up and DO this is going to make a killing...I've had the same idea and don't see the flaw in it. Slashdot has a lot of millionth monkey effects that readers could take advantage of if they wanted...
You do realize, don't you, that people sailed around the world in the 16th Century. On a regular basis. Not all of them made it. Many died. On each voyage. We didn't know how to desalinate water then. We didn't have radio then. Hell, we didn't know about sanitation then. Doctors didn't wash their hands for another 300 years still. Even a simple thing like vitamin C to prevent scurvy was centuries off...
...or do you think the Chinese are faking it when they say they are going to the moon by 2020? Do you think they aren't planning to go to Mars and mine the astroids? This is China, where millions have been displaced in the last few years -- entire cities moved -- for a DAM that is being built ... today! You don't think they plan ahead? Shouldn't we?
But still people did it. They explored. Because they know the long term payoff was there. And that there were willing souls ready to go now... and that the rewards and the victory go to the strong and the brave. The timid sit back and let others collect.
Rome faltered when it got soft. It became brittle. The people were interested in bloody spectacles... infighting and political intrigue took over in the Senate. Then Barbarians with a different religion attacked -- Of course Rome could always defeat them -- but again and again they attacked until finally the capital fell.
Just a random historical bit of trivia to throw at the end of my rant... It wasn't supposed mean anything...or maybe it was. Look, all I know is that someone from our generation needs to start inspiring people. Let's go to Mars and stop worrying so much, OK? Humanity NEEDS this and people are tougher than you think.
You'd think it was worth it only if you survived.
Ask yourself this question... the people who go on Fear Factor... the people who fly solo across Antarctica... the people who sail across the Pacific alone, with no radio... I bet most of them are in pretty great shape. I bet you could get 1000 of them to volunteer for a manned Mars mission in 2006 in a heartbeat. I bet out of that 1000 -- these are people who climb mountains and run triathalons, remember -- at least 50 or 100 of the candidates would be able to pass a training program and be "able" to fly to Mars. Especially if we build our ships right -- let the machines and the computers do most the work and train these people to do what they already get off on doing: surviving.
When they're there -- they can take pictures of the rocks the mission wants, take the soil samples of the areas the mission asks... things space agencies spend billions for each primitive 100 kg. robot to do one time... Why not instead send out tens of manned missions? Do it right. And sure, we might lose 1 trip out of 3. More at first. I bet ANY of these people would be MORE than willing to go... AND you'd be saving money!!! Tons of money. The first crew that arrived successfully... think of it. Think of the presige. The honor of having your name go down as that man or woman in history? And think of all the experiments they we perform with PEOPLE there... Just imagine! And if they were to arrive home... what it could do for the world...
Does this sound brutal? To me it feels visionary -- it makes just so much common sense; why don't people ever spell it out like this? Let people freely decide if they are willing to take that risk. Here we are, legalizing assisted suicide across the Western world but we don't have the balls to let adventurers sign up for one of the last ULTIMATE adventures???
THC is not physically addictive, no.. But it can definitely be mentally addictive provided you make it a daily habbit. You don't NEED it, you just really really really WANT it..
Right. You just really, really WANT it. Like watching your favorite TV show. So? Are you "addicted" or is it just "hard to stop". This whole "mentally" addictive sounds like a crutch for non-thinking liberals and conservatives who want their world to be nice and black and white with good guys and bad. The fact is there are many pleasurable activities that you really, really WANT to do. Sex, for instance. Or, this being slashdot, masturbation... these are things you really, really WANT to do but your body doesn't change your brain chemistry to require it. Mentally addictive is a code-word used by people who don't believe in free will as much as the rest of us. And it robs people from understanding what a real physical addiction means and why it is fundamentally different from any "mental addiction"...
Bling bling? Don't you just laugh when you hear that? Or want to injure someone? It's not a word, it's just stupid
Wow...
I'm doomed. I'm actually over the hill. I now have proof. I'm posting this anonymously because what I'm about to write is 100% true:
I'd never even heard of the term "bling bling" before this article here today, this morning. The first day of 2004. I don't even know if that makes me racist or something somehow. Doesn't the phrase "bling bling" come from rap music or something? Or does this say I'm hopelessly out of touch with youth culture (I'm 30 and live just blocks outside of a mid-sized city's downtown!!!) Or is this phrase just not in wide usage after all? Please someone reply and tell me I wasn't alone in never having heard this term before...
think they'd have much better luck requesting hosting/hardware donations.
I respectfully disagree...the odds of getting one geek out of 10,000 to take the time to package and pay for the shipping of some half rate hardware -- and then the hours invested going through this junk to cobble something together... (Wasn't it just 2 days ago that Slashdot was talking about many schools no longer accepting hardware "donations" because much of it is little more than other people's toxic disposal problem?) -- versus maybe, what, 50 geeks in 10,000 willing to say, "What the heck, I'll donate $5." 50 in 10,000 doesn't sound that unreasonable. That means that if you had a football stadium sized crowd of geeks, you'd have 250 of them willing to donate $5. (Apologies for having to introduce the nightmarish vision of a stadium filled with open-source espousing, tin hat wearing, anonymous coward writing Slashdotters to make my point.) OK, well, how many visitors does Slashdot get a day? Seriously, I'd like to know. But I am confident it is more than a few stadiums full. So -- if they do it right, they might have MUCH better luck requesting cash and doing it right themselves. The smart money is on those odds, in my opinion.
Man... you cats are all so cynical. Hip places that do it right don't come around every day. What's a few bucks here and there? Wow. Didn't any of ya'll ever see the movie Empire Records? Do the right thing for the little guy once in a while on faith.
Since you keep mentioning Earth so many times in your post (twice) I thought it would be interesting to ask a question. Are the same "this project is too big, spends too much money, it solves some neat engineering challenges but what good does it actually do" people also willing to take a stand against sending probes to Europa or trying to land a human on Mars? I'm sure they are. I'm sure there are lots and lots of very consistent Slashdot readers who are equally disgusted at the tens of billions of dollars that we, as taxpayers, are forced to throw away on spaceflight and exploratory missions.
Right?
the ultraviolet light increasingly penetrating the leaky ozone layer is not affected.
Please mod this guy up. The grandparent poster is either a troll or a lazy fool who completely disregarded the RESEARCH being reported in the article. Look, the article states that sunny days are JUST AS SUNNY as they've ever been. UV rays are what cause the burns. When you wrote:
In the early eighties I needed to use suncream in the summer and had a few cases of vicious sunburns when I did not. Nowdays I no longer need it unless I go as far south as the tropics.
You were reporting an anecdotal, non-statistical observation that completely discounted the actual data being presented in the article. Your comment basically said, "Rah rah, I have the same superstitions myself, hurray!" but you obviously didn't even READ THE ARTICLE. Man -- it wouldn't be so bad but this means you get your news from SLASHDOT SUMMARIES...Not the actual articles, but the misspelled, error ridden written-for-the-Editors summaries And that is frightening!
This isn't the sort of critical thinking that I used to come to Slashdot for. This is rabble that gets modded up because someone likes the conclusion. Well, so what?! Oh well. I'll get modded flamebait. Figures.
Probably true. Commercial FM just plain sucks, and to the point that it's audible even in the miserable audio environment of a car.
And, this, friends, is why audiophiles get the rap that they do...
We are living in a time of utter magic. We can get into a metal box and travel quickly, in warmth and comfort, to places far away. At the press of a button, we can listen to recorded music, of our own choosing. We can get that music with a few simple clicks in our own homes. Or, we can tune in to signals that are freely available and broadcast over the AIR WAVES, listening to music, news, sports or even "message boards" (call in shows) where we can contribute.
The sound quality of all of these is great... Even on AM radio it is good enough for what people are interested in: the content.
We listen to music, to news, to whatever because we are interested in the content. And even with Clear Channel, even with the recording industry feeding us the same thing again and again or whatever else problem you might manufacture -- it is still magical to me that I can flick a switch and get all of this free content sounding as great as it does.
Sorry we don't live in Star Trek world soon enough for you. Sorry that it isn't an exact reproduction, if you actually think FM quality "sucks" -- and you aren't just being a snob to make a point to fellow snobs about how snobbish you can be.
it only weighs 15 grams
Better be careful there! With the former head of the ATF now heading the RIAA, I wouldn't be shocked if possession of 15 grams becomes a felony soon...
Who keeps modding you up?
I am encountering a widespread feeling that the Const is "too old" and on that basis alone, it should be ignored or subject to that most deadly of mechanisms: subjective, changing and individual unwritten rules.
You realize that the highest court in the land, the US Supreme Court, the ultimate arbitor of what is and isn't allowed, ultimately bases its decisions on the US Constitution. It really doesn't matter if you are encountering a feeling about the Constitution or not. The laws that shape what we do ultimately go back to the Constitution. The laws that don't are ultimately struck down as unconstitutional (heard that word before?) and hold no sway.
And why do we have our Constitution, anyway? Why did we sit down and codify these things that we have? We did so because they are ideals -- Because we recognize and we understand that people live best when they live up to these ideals. And because we understand that there are often forces/pressures to do just the opposite. If it wasn't natural to want to take away people's right to dissent because it was unpopular, we wouldn't need to have that protection written into law. If there weren't people trying keep classes of people from voting since the history of the Republic, we wouldn't keep trying to write into law ways to solve the problem.
Humans are not angels. In fact, a snapshot of any period of time will show you that the players are flawed and amazingly smaller-minded than you would like to believe. But we have safeguard after safeguard built into this amazingly robust system to ensure that the popular will of the people CONTINUES TO BE REFLECTED because in the long run, this is the way that you ensure a people is free. All this talk of "quiet wars" and "people rising up" is really rather foolish when the system in place still allows for popular will to be expressed. If people are quietly ceding this gift/responsibility -- well, there are bigger problems then than the political system and simply overhauling that won't change the larger issue... I think you are a very well-meaning person but your solutions are short-sighted and immature and I'd really ask you to THINK about the things you are proposing rather than just spouting off what sounds "neat" to you at the time.
What's wrong with that?...
Let me just throw out a quick observation. The fact that gerrymandering leads to "safe" districts means that more ideologically extreme candidates are viable -- a solidly democratic district is more likely to vote for an extreme liberal and a solidly republican district is more likely to vote for an extreme conservative. This leads to ideological gridlock -- We fill our legislatures with members less wiling to compromise on issues and the swings from left to right and back again grow sharper and sharper. Not really representative of the people's will. And not exactly a formula for long-term stability. THAT would be one potential objection. This really is a problem once you think about it.
Aol is crap and makes computers run like crap.
*shakes head* You guys are sooooo elite. You know why everyone wants to have a computer, right? It is obviously so they can have the fastest machine and the most elite monitor and, and, uh...
Yeah, I'm willing to guess that for millions of people, having a machine sit in their living room that they can turn on and click a button and be "connected" to someplace friendly -- with a buddy list and communities and a friendly voice TELLING them they have mail... this feels like what they want from the Internet. So it takes them an extra 10 seconds to boot up Microsoft Works. SO WHAT? They are happy. Show me the problem.
the more self-aware people become to their true 'roles' in the economy, the less they act in the interests and wishes of companies
Maybe for you, Mr. CounterCulture "software wants to be free" late-night-coding, caffeine-drinking, Slashdot posting person that you are. But there really isn't anything in the mechanism of the free market that says just because you can look under the hood you'll suddenly walk away. In fact, a lot of people are sheep -- not in a bad way. But the fact is that if you take a mass of people, across cultures and throughout time, you'll find a lot of them tend to act in very predictable, self-interested manners. (Often times, these expressed preferences will shape themselves into well behaved curves.) And if it is in peoples' self-interest to act in line with the interests and wishes of companies, then they, for the most part, will. That's the beauty of the free-market. That's the beauty of living in an open society. Because once companies start to stray too far, that invisible hand starts to move back in again. Dissatisfied customers start looking for other options... and a market arises for a newly expressed preference. No LAWS need to be made DICTATING what people want. They are allowed to express it. Collectively.
So, I respectfully disagree. I think in a culture/economy that is relatively free/healthy, you won't see large masses of people walking away...Unless, of course, you are suggesting that our culture isn't relatively free/healthy, in which case I'd love to hear more, certainly more than just blanket assertions.
I am sticking with T-Mobile since they are the only ones not putting additional fees on my bill for this. I was seriously considering Sprint but quite frankly, the only thing T-Mobile doesn't have is coverage in rural areas like Sprint does with analog roam.
Things like this make my free-market heart jump for joy. Increased competition. Leading to people shopping around. Leading to increased value. For some people that values translates into less expensive service/fees. For others it means increased service. People get to choose what they want and the market accomodates, as if by magic. Remove barriers and everyone wins. All without having to impose any LAWS. Crazy, I know...something to think about, though...
People won't be switching cellular providers fast, they will simply stay loyal to the providers that have been assraping them for their entire cellular lives.
You are assuming that just because the (valid) problems you listed above are true that somehow lifting this other (valid) barrier to switching isn't going to shake up the market and lead to increased competition?
How often do you hear people saying, "My Sprint (Verizion/Cingular/etc.) service is a joke..." People want to switch. Now they'll start shopping around. Providers will start doing things like improving customer service or offering incentives to get people to switch. Competition will lead to a better customer experience.
Besides, people like buying cool new phones with cool new features. If your old number can switch to a new phone with a new provider -- great. You have your rationalization to upgrade to a new phone.
You may have presented some facts about SIM card locking, but given the frequency with which people buy new cell phones (computers, shirts, etc.) in the USA, it really won't hit that many people. They won't feel a pinch so I suspect your "problem" may stay the way it is for a while. But to say that people won't switch providers because we've "only" allowed them to keep their numbers is willful ignorance on your part.
At the risk of making even more enemies than my original primary/secondary post made me (*grin* Love all those orange bullets by your names, kids, keep 'em coming...) I have an answer for this one, too...
So I asked her what word we should use - and she replied "chairPERSON"..
That's just silly. I fail to see why the word "chair" wouldn't be perfectly appropriate and gender neutral. "Toni was the chair of the commission."
The point here is that if the mores shift and parts of the language start to offend, there really are perfectly acceptable alternatives...provided you aren't so stubborn about being "right" and you actually want to communicate. I shouldn't say this on Slashdot, I know, I should let everyone's thinly veiled racism/hatred of women/need to be "different" shine, but still...
Seriously... what the hell are we supposed to call them?
Get over it. Primary/Secondary is a perfectly valid way to refer to drive relationships and it doesn't offend people. I've been doing this for years, myself. I don't see the problem. Unless you want to offend people because you, personally, don't see the problem. What is so hard about referring to things in a new way?
But they never ask the Cobolers if they WANT a big cut in salary before they can then. They just simply can them without asking. How is that supply-and-demand?
The thing that makes our system so good at accurately gauging what people really want is that we don't have committees decide what is "valuable" or not. People decide. Individually. Collectively. With their pocketbooks. With what they choose to pay for (goods and wages -- they are ultimately the same thing). That is the definition of supply and demand. People collectively express their preferences by what they buy and what they are willing to pay. That's what "market forces" are: An aggregate of people's preferences with capital as the way to keep score. I'm sure the cobblers or the HTML developers or whichever group you highlighted would not, for the most part, voluntarily walk away from what they are doing or take a "big cut in salary" if the demand for their craft dried up. But the system does what it does extremely well. If you have a suggestion for a better system -- I'd love to hear it. Seriously.
Who paid your tuition when you went to college?
Actually, I did. But my point wasn't about how I worked 40 hours/week and carried 19 credits and you know it. That's a straw man. My point was to think back to a time when you could afford $28,000/year. Or even when $28,000/year felt like a lot.
I live in the suburbs (because I can afford a house there)
Thanks for making my case for me there. Sort of the whole point, isn't it? I buy $50 meals in restaurants each night... because I can afford it. (Not really) That doesn't exactly prove that eating out costs $50/night.
Do you know that a private medical insurance policy costs about $1000/month for a basic family insurance?
Ding ding ding I'm totally with you on this one and couldn't agree more. $28,000 is a fair wage which you can easily live on... except for this skyrocketing thing we have called health insurance which is out of control. We have to "do something" about it (and its timebomb of a cousin, Social Security/Medicare) because they threaten to not just overrun the budgets of lower income Americans but also to bankrupt the system in the long run. I'd be glad to use this thread to continue a discussion about that topic because I think you're right on the money there.
Have you tried living on $28,000/year in the US?
... but I guess I'm wondering when those became rights or entitlements or even had anything to do with being happy or unhappy. People on Slashdot are always bashing the consumerist culture that is taking over -- but heaven forbid you actually post a way around that trap!
Of course I have. Haven't you? Did you go to college? Did you have need to have roommates, just to pay rent? Did you end up having to take the bus everywhere because you couldn't afford a car?
Those two steps right there can go a long way to making that $28,000 enjoyable. You can actually live on much less. But by the time you are at $28,000 you can assume that you'll be able to meet all your basic needs. Certainly not living in luxury. You'll probably have to do without a lot of things that you might mistakenly call "necessities"
Don't you agree?
What? are people supposed to be in and out of school all their lives? Who is going to pay?
What? There is no Santa Claus? People need to adapt to changing conditions?
The progression that we've seen people make over time, from gatherers to farmers to industrial creaters to manipulators of information, happened as a result of people needing to adapt to new conditions. If you really believe that the future won't look like the world of today then you are forced to concede that some jobs/categories of jobs will disappear. Your might just happen to be one of them. You want a safe choice? Pick janitor. Otherwise, admit that lifelong learning might be the price you pay for saying near the top. Oh, and because there isn't any Santa, you might make a "wrong" choice. It happens. Ask assembly line workers in Detroit.
What about old age?
Actually talk about this as a society, maybe? Instead of acting like old people are the same as everyone else and then suddenly we put them in homes and ignore them because they aren't "useful" anymore. Oh, and maybe, just maybe, own up to the fact that social security is about 15 years away from complete bankruptcy -- in a best case scenario -- and start doing something about it?
those fuckers are doing my job for $2000-4000 a year. How the fuck am I going to afford my weekly lap dance when I get replaced?
I'll take a stab at it and answer your question: You'll adapt, find a new skill that someone is willing to pay $25,000 a year for and you'll get by just fine. Not rich, not in luxury, but you'll eat and have a place to live. You won't be destitute. What about weavers? They couldn't weave forever. Eventually something came along to replace them. That's the nature of things. It sucks if you're in the group being replaced but it is what it is. You can fight the invisible hand but you're only staving off the inevitable at the cost of the future...
companies don't seem to give a flying flip about domain experience...They don't want to pay for training and "seniority"
I think it would be more accurate to say that companies don't want to pay what you think they should pay for training and seniority. They (that is, the market) value(s) it, certainly, but they aren't willing to paid the absurd premium prices they were paying for it in the late 90s. Tough luck. The market adjusted to reflect the actual supply and demand. And that actual supply includes offshore workers. Get over it. If you actually have tech skills, they are still willing to pay for those skills, just not at the price you expect. But you can't change reality by whining about it. And setting up artifical contols on prices or wages won't change that reality.
If you really want to work in IT, price yourself accordingly and realize you will be competing with offshore workers. So, maybe you'll have to take a job for half the salary you expect, but I bet any programmer could find some job for $28,000/year. That's still a liveable wage. Show me the problem...
A well crafted troll doesn't put people down, it elicits responses...