Nobody is suggesting that people can't think at all without college, nor that there aren't exceptions, but generally college teaches people better critical thinking skills. People in other countries want to go to college, to American colleges in particular, as much as we do; and in several countries more go to college.
the new fed chairman's love affair with inflation
An odd statement. Inflation has been low by historical standards; in fact at the outset of the financial crisis we risked a deflation spiral; the CPI (the number used to measure inflation) dropped 0.4% in 2009, the first drop since 1955.
because the followers all went to college and graduated with a diploma in multicultural studies, $100K in debt, and a coffee barrista job to pay it off, and you have to be at least median to above median smart to literally survive the job.
People with college degrees do tend to earn significantly more than people without them, and college is more valuable, IMHO, to teach you how to think than to teach specific skills. I find the people with multicultural studies degrees have better critical thinking skills than those who studied specific professions (e.g., engineering).
Also, your undergrad degree in engineering or business isn't going to take you far in those professions; you need a masters degree and professional experience.
This is what caused the unions to form to begin with. Large, dangerous industry like mining and manufacturing, paid enough for people to survive but not enough for them to ever prosper. It was a form of "voluntary" indentured servitude.
If everyone got together and demanded better conditions or raises, they would get fired and replaced with the never-ending line of people desperate just to survive. Only by striking and creating a picket line to actually shut down business would any real change ever get made.
It was more than that. Employers politically dominated the towns. Oppose them and nobody would do business with you, your bank would call in your mortgage, and you might have trouble with the sheriff. Employers also would beat up and kill people who opposed them, often with the help of state law enforcement. Unions not only provided negotiating power, but political power: Politicians who need union votes aren't going to send in the state militia to assault strikers, and will pass laws that take into account more interests than just the industrialists, such as child labor, worker safety, and overtime laws.
Unions are political organizations. They can be used for good or for ill, like the political power of the US Chamber of Commerce, but at least the working class can protect their interests.
As far as I can tell, you are both making it up. Can anyone cite something?
If America has "lost its way", it's because people today actually believe the bullshit that you're spewing out all over the place.
It strikes me that racism by the white majority has been the greatest problem in our nation's history. I don't think talking about it is the problem. Your response is the new political correctness: Mention racism and someone will be sure to try to shut you up.
OT: I rarely meet someone who cares about it so I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask: What good news sources have you found for Sub-Saharan Africa? I'll dump what I have below in case anyone is interested:
Here's what I know:
* AllAfrica.com: Unfortunately they take the "All" too seriously; far too comprehensive
* BBC: I have to wade through too much trivia to find nuggets of valuable knowledge
* Financial Times (ft.com): Sparse coverage, but the reporting is among the best in the world
* The Economist: Sparse, but excellent analysis
* The East African (theeastafrican.co.ke): Best English reporting I've found from Sub-Saharan Africa, but not enough content to cover the continent.
* Daily Nation (nation.co.ke): Similar to The East African, and I think from the same publisher
* AfricaFocus.org: I don't know much about it
A friend who works in intelligence once joked that Stratfor is just The Economist a week later and several hundred times more expensive. As of 2001, a Stratfor subscription could cost up to $40,000 per year.
I think it costs around $100-200 per year, about the same as the Economist. As a reader of both, and much more, Stratfor is an excellent source of original, well-written analysis that you can't find elsewhere. Certainly calling them a private CIA is an exaggeration (I imagine their budget is a little smaller too), and certainly they have flaws (their obsession with geopolitical analysis, for example), but they are worth reading.
I don't understand the complaint. First pigrabbitbear complains that they are spying on private citizens, groups, etc.
But when the article says they are not spying, but only compiling publicly available information, pigrabbitbear complains that they are spying too little.
Which is it? Isn't the latter what privacy advocates would want? The author of the article complains about the cost, but doesn't say how much the government paid.
And why do I trust or care what an "Electronic musician and computer culture journalist." posts to a site called vice.com? This post is a lot of noise and confusion based on nothing; one rant based on another.
Just track users anonymously. The problem isn't that your online activities are tracked, it's that you are tracked.
If they anonymized the data, then they could target their services and your privacy would be safe. The advertisers have a simple solution, they just don't want to do it. Note how motivated Google and Facebook are to know your real identity.
Other than pointing out that I bought it (and where from, disclosing that ThinkGeek's a related company to Slashdot) and suggesting two other places to buy it, I'm not sure how much else there is for me say -- I think it was pretty darn aboveboard:)
I'm sorry; I didn't meant to question your ethics in this case. I meant, Slashdot could use a general statement of journalistic ethics (see my prior post for reasons).
By the 'duck' comment, I meant that it's a matter of perception. From the reader's point of view, both an honest person talking about something they like, and a sneaky blogger accepting kickbacks will profess their innocence. There is no way for you to win, so you are better off not playing -- avoid doing things that look/walk/sound like duck. That's my two cents, from someone who has never run a site like Slashdot!
The site is fantastic, by the way. Other discussion systems are only now just catching up. Thank you!
Timothy - It looks like duck, walks like a duck, and quacks just like a duck. Whatever your intent, it's a duck.
Perhaps/. would benefit from defining its journalistic ethics. Readers know what to expect from someplace like the NY Times; but there are no well-known customary rules for blogs. As long as anything goes, then they will suspect anything.
Those get spooked by loud noises, and are subject to SPCA and other organization complaints. bigdog does not spook, and can be abandoned in theatre if damaged.
My solutions have been used in battle for centuries. I'm pretty sure they can be trained to not spook. And I'm also pretty sure that they can be abandoned in theater if damaged.
They have many advantages, including that they are cheap, easy to replace, infrastructure and logistics for them were worked out long ago, and they can be powered anywhere there is something green growing, or even on the troops' own supplies.
Also I wait the landborne armed drone implementation, aka ED-209
They are already intelligent drones. DARPA is bragging that BigDog can avoid obstacles and follow someone. My solutions are better. Arming them is tricky, but I bet you could do remote control steering, aiming and firing.
I'm half-kidding, but I hope it has been considered.
and Exchange backup users to move to GMail for Google Apps. In total, nothing of value is being lost, and developer resources move from maintaining the old to innovating the new.
Is that sarcastic? A business is going to dump its massive investment in messaging systems: Servers, clients, handhelds, integration with other apps and systems -- and redo it all in GMail? Nothing of value is being lost?
It's exciting to take down the old tyrant, but once the 'new' industry obtains power and wealth, they will become the new tyrants for the same reasons the old ones did: Many people will have a lot of money, their careers, and status invested in their enterprise, and being people, will do whatever they can to protect it.
We need to make changes to our legal structure, etc, now that will prevent it and keep competition open.
I don't think drugs are the only reason for the contiunous record breaking we're seeing across practically all sports. Players now are "professional".
As recently as the late 1980s my mother worked with a bloke who was a international cricketer. But he wasn't actually paid - he had to take time off from work to compete. When he ran out of leave, then he had to take leave without pay. Since 70s to now we've seen professional sports really take off - as in, it's the player's full-time and only job and the player makes a living from his pay or sponsorship.
Now in many sports (gymanstics, swimming) professional players are picked as national level players in their early teens. Everything for these kids practically goes on hold - school, family, relationships - everything.
When you're able to dedicate that level of full time committment to a sport then records are going to get broken.
While I agree that 'professionalization' has boosted performance, it's been going on for decades and wasn't unique to the PED era. In baseball, performance leaped to extraordinary heights when PEDs were introduced, and then fell to earth when drug testing began.
Also, how can we say how many recent records are due to PEDs and how many are due to professionalism? The records in some sports are clearly falling to PEDs, such as cycling and track & field. Hard to believe that any sport without an effective drug-testing program doesn't have a large number of performers taking them.
ballparks with closer fences = easier to hit the ball out of diluted pitcher talent and longer seasons due to expansion (note that Maris got an asterisk on his 62 due to playing a longer season)
To the extent these things are true, they were true before the PED era and after drug testing began, but the HRs only occurred when there were PEDs.
Could someone explain to a non-sports person why steroids (which is what I assume you are talking about) is any different from taking vitamin supplements, diets planned by professional nutritionists, sports drink, specially designed running shoes, etc. Who cares? If it's not "fair" just allow everyone to take steroids.
A good question that's been discussed by many in sports. Here's my understanding and take:
First, technically there are other drugs besides steriods; Human Growth Hormone (HGH), for example. I think the proper all-encompassing term is performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).
1) The non-PEDs that you mention haven't significantly altered performance. Take baseball for example: Before PEDs, in the 75 year modern history of the home run, once someone hit 61 HRs (Roger Maris in 1961) and once someone hit 60 (Babe Ruth, 1927). Nobody else hit 60 in all those seasons by all those players. In the 4 years from 1998 to 2001, players hit 63, 64, 65, 66, 70, and 73 home runs! Look at this list and note how many top HR single seasons occurred during the PED-era, and note that the trend stopped when drug testing began. (Many other records were set during the PED-era, HRs are just an easy example; the greatest individual hitting season ever and greatest individual pitching season ever both occurred (if you ignore the cheating) during the PED era).
2) Sports are interesting as a contest of physical ability and effort, not of chemistry. That may be arbitrary, and maybe the Chemistry Olympics would be more interesting to Slashdotters, but physical competition is what is being advertised.
3) PEDs involve health risks. Athletes are highly competitive by nature, and the difference between a good and bad season can be a multi-million dollar contract or the end of a career, being a minor-leaguer or making the big time. Unless PEDs are regulated, athletes are put in a position where they have to take greater and greater health risks, or lose.
First, any call regarding location could be decided electronically and instantly. Every time they position the ball after a tackle, determine a first down, out of bounds, touchdown... no reason not to use sensors and make instant, accurate calls. No more errors, no more wasting time on replays.
You could use sensors to decide issues of contact:Determine pass interference -- was the hit before the play? Facemasking... roughing the kicker... helmet-to-helmet... sensors in receivers gloves, in the ball, and in the field to determine possession on catches...
Sure, sensors won't be perfect, and probably some application would turn out to be impractical, but take the refs errors out of the game, spend less time referreeing and more time playing.
It's a nice theory but since Reaganites started pushing it in the early 1980s, the prosperity hasn't trickled down. The uber-wealthy have gotten richer, and everyone else's incomes have stayed the same or decreased.
Slashdot Mirror
Assuming people use SSL or something similar, how will ISPs know when someone is violating copyrights?
Nobody is suggesting that people can't think at all without college, nor that there aren't exceptions, but generally college teaches people better critical thinking skills. People in other countries want to go to college, to American colleges in particular, as much as we do; and in several countries more go to college.
the new fed chairman's love affair with inflation
An odd statement. Inflation has been low by historical standards; in fact at the outset of the financial crisis we risked a deflation spiral; the CPI (the number used to measure inflation) dropped 0.4% in 2009, the first drop since 1955.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt
because the followers all went to college and graduated with a diploma in multicultural studies, $100K in debt, and a coffee barrista job to pay it off, and you have to be at least median to above median smart to literally survive the job.
People with college degrees do tend to earn significantly more than people without them, and college is more valuable, IMHO, to teach you how to think than to teach specific skills. I find the people with multicultural studies degrees have better critical thinking skills than those who studied specific professions (e.g., engineering).
Also, your undergrad degree in engineering or business isn't going to take you far in those professions; you need a masters degree and professional experience.
This is what caused the unions to form to begin with. Large, dangerous industry like mining and manufacturing, paid enough for people to survive but not enough for them to ever prosper. It was a form of "voluntary" indentured servitude.
If everyone got together and demanded better conditions or raises, they would get fired and replaced with the never-ending line of people desperate just to survive. Only by striking and creating a picket line to actually shut down business would any real change ever get made.
It was more than that. Employers politically dominated the towns. Oppose them and nobody would do business with you, your bank would call in your mortgage, and you might have trouble with the sheriff. Employers also would beat up and kill people who opposed them, often with the help of state law enforcement. Unions not only provided negotiating power, but political power: Politicians who need union votes aren't going to send in the state militia to assault strikers, and will pass laws that take into account more interests than just the industrialists, such as child labor, worker safety, and overtime laws.
Unions are political organizations. They can be used for good or for ill, like the political power of the US Chamber of Commerce, but at least the working class can protect their interests.
As far as I can tell, you are both making it up. Can anyone cite something?
If America has "lost its way", it's because people today actually believe the bullshit that you're spewing out all over the place.
It strikes me that racism by the white majority has been the greatest problem in our nation's history. I don't think talking about it is the problem. Your response is the new political correctness: Mention racism and someone will be sure to try to shut you up.
OT: I rarely meet someone who cares about it so I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask: What good news sources have you found for Sub-Saharan Africa? I'll dump what I have below in case anyone is interested:
Here's what I know:
* AllAfrica.com: Unfortunately they take the "All" too seriously; far too comprehensive
* BBC: I have to wade through too much trivia to find nuggets of valuable knowledge
* Financial Times (ft.com): Sparse coverage, but the reporting is among the best in the world
* The Economist: Sparse, but excellent analysis
* The East African (theeastafrican.co.ke): Best English reporting I've found from Sub-Saharan Africa, but not enough content to cover the continent.
* Daily Nation (nation.co.ke): Similar to The East African, and I think from the same publisher
* AfricaFocus.org: I don't know much about it
Also, these sites list some options:
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/news.html
http://africa.wisc.edu/?page_id=892#AfricaNews
From TFA:
A friend who works in intelligence once joked that Stratfor is just The Economist a week later and several hundred times more expensive. As of 2001, a Stratfor subscription could cost up to $40,000 per year.
I think it costs around $100-200 per year, about the same as the Economist. As a reader of both, and much more, Stratfor is an excellent source of original, well-written analysis that you can't find elsewhere. Certainly calling them a private CIA is an exaggeration (I imagine their budget is a little smaller too), and certainly they have flaws (their obsession with geopolitical analysis, for example), but they are worth reading.
If you have a strong interest in international affairs, try them; currently their services are free:
http://stratfor.com/analysis
http://stratfor.com/situation-report
For example, here is an excellent explanation (now slightly out of date) of the groups resisting Assad in Syria:
http://stratfor.com/analysis/syria-opposition-struggles-gain-foreign-support
I don't understand the complaint. First pigrabbitbear complains that they are spying on private citizens, groups, etc.
But when the article says they are not spying, but only compiling publicly available information, pigrabbitbear complains that they are spying too little.
Which is it? Isn't the latter what privacy advocates would want? The author of the article complains about the cost, but doesn't say how much the government paid.
And why do I trust or care what an "Electronic musician and computer culture journalist." posts to a site called vice.com? This post is a lot of noise and confusion based on nothing; one rant based on another.
Just track users anonymously. The problem isn't that your online activities are tracked, it's that you are tracked.
If they anonymized the data, then they could target their services and your privacy would be safe. The advertisers have a simple solution, they just don't want to do it. Note how motivated Google and Facebook are to know your real identity.
Other than pointing out that I bought it (and where from, disclosing that ThinkGeek's a related company to Slashdot) and suggesting two other places to buy it, I'm not sure how much else there is for me say -- I think it was pretty darn aboveboard :)
I'm sorry; I didn't meant to question your ethics in this case. I meant, Slashdot could use a general statement of journalistic ethics (see my prior post for reasons).
By the 'duck' comment, I meant that it's a matter of perception. From the reader's point of view, both an honest person talking about something they like, and a sneaky blogger accepting kickbacks will profess their innocence. There is no way for you to win, so you are better off not playing -- avoid doing things that look/walk/sound like duck. That's my two cents, from someone who has never run a site like Slashdot!
The site is fantastic, by the way. Other discussion systems are only now just catching up. Thank you!
Timothy - It looks like duck, walks like a duck, and quacks just like a duck. Whatever your intent, it's a duck.
Perhaps /. would benefit from defining its journalistic ethics. Readers know what to expect from someplace like the NY Times; but there are no well-known customary rules for blogs. As long as anything goes, then they will suspect anything.
I don't know. I think machines are subject to the first and second laws of thermodynamics, just like mules are.
Machines don't require maintenance? Especially high-tech, cutting edge machines with lots of moving parts, used in hostile environments?
Even M-16s require maintenance. I imagine BigDog requires plenty also.
mass producing a robot is quicker and less costly than mass producing & training animals
Machines cost less than animals? How about that F-22 machine? Your car?
Those get spooked by loud noises, and are subject to SPCA and other organization complaints.
bigdog does not spook, and can be abandoned in theatre if damaged.
My solutions have been used in battle for centuries. I'm pretty sure they can be trained to not spook. And I'm also pretty sure that they can be abandoned in theater if damaged.
They have many advantages, including that they are cheap, easy to replace, infrastructure and logistics for them were worked out long ago, and they can be powered anywhere there is something green growing, or even on the troops' own supplies.
Also I wait the landborne armed drone implementation, aka ED-209
They are already intelligent drones. DARPA is bragging that BigDog can avoid obstacles and follow someone. My solutions are better. Arming them is tricky, but I bet you could do remote control steering, aiming and firing.
I'm half-kidding, but I hope it has been considered.
Why not use one of several existing cheap, proven bio-mechanical, intelligent solutions with long track records?
and Exchange backup users to move to GMail for Google Apps. In total, nothing of value is being lost, and developer resources move from maintaining the old to innovating the new.
Is that sarcastic? A business is going to dump its massive investment in messaging systems: Servers, clients, handhelds, integration with other apps and systems -- and redo it all in GMail? Nothing of value is being lost?
It's exciting to take down the old tyrant, but once the 'new' industry obtains power and wealth, they will become the new tyrants for the same reasons the old ones did: Many people will have a lot of money, their careers, and status invested in their enterprise, and being people, will do whatever they can to protect it.
We need to make changes to our legal structure, etc, now that will prevent it and keep competition open.
World somehow doesn't have problem with Pakistan having nukes
The world does have a problem, but there's nothing they can do about it.
I don't think drugs are the only reason for the contiunous record breaking we're seeing across practically all sports. Players now are "professional".
As recently as the late 1980s my mother worked with a bloke who was a international cricketer. But he wasn't actually paid - he had to take time off from work to compete. When he ran out of leave, then he had to take leave without pay. Since 70s to now we've seen professional sports really take off - as in, it's the player's full-time and only job and the player makes a living from his pay or sponsorship.
Now in many sports (gymanstics, swimming) professional players are picked as national level players in their early teens. Everything for these kids practically goes on hold - school, family, relationships - everything.
When you're able to dedicate that level of full time committment to a sport then records are going to get broken.
While I agree that 'professionalization' has boosted performance, it's been going on for decades and wasn't unique to the PED era. In baseball, performance leaped to extraordinary heights when PEDs were introduced, and then fell to earth when drug testing began.
Also, how can we say how many recent records are due to PEDs and how many are due to professionalism? The records in some sports are clearly falling to PEDs, such as cycling and track & field. Hard to believe that any sport without an effective drug-testing program doesn't have a large number of performers taking them.
ballparks with closer fences = easier to hit the ball out of
diluted pitcher talent and longer seasons due to expansion (note that Maris got an asterisk on his 62 due to playing a longer season)
To the extent these things are true, they were true before the PED era and after drug testing began, but the HRs only occurred when there were PEDs.
Could someone explain to a non-sports person why steroids (which is what I assume you are talking about) is any different from taking vitamin supplements, diets planned by professional nutritionists, sports drink, specially designed running shoes, etc. Who cares? If it's not "fair" just allow everyone to take steroids.
A good question that's been discussed by many in sports. Here's my understanding and take:
First, technically there are other drugs besides steriods; Human Growth Hormone (HGH), for example. I think the proper all-encompassing term is performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).
1) The non-PEDs that you mention haven't significantly altered performance. Take baseball for example: Before PEDs, in the 75 year modern history of the home run, once someone hit 61 HRs (Roger Maris in 1961) and once someone hit 60 (Babe Ruth, 1927). Nobody else hit 60 in all those seasons by all those players. In the 4 years from 1998 to 2001, players hit 63, 64, 65, 66, 70, and 73 home runs! Look at this list and note how many top HR single seasons occurred during the PED-era, and note that the trend stopped when drug testing began. (Many other records were set during the PED-era, HRs are just an easy example; the greatest individual hitting season ever and greatest individual pitching season ever both occurred (if you ignore the cheating) during the PED era).
2) Sports are interesting as a contest of physical ability and effort, not of chemistry. That may be arbitrary, and maybe the Chemistry Olympics would be more interesting to Slashdotters, but physical competition is what is being advertised.
3) PEDs involve health risks. Athletes are highly competitive by nature, and the difference between a good and bad season can be a multi-million dollar contract or the end of a career, being a minor-leaguer or making the big time. Unless PEDs are regulated, athletes are put in a position where they have to take greater and greater health risks, or lose.
First, any call regarding location could be decided electronically and instantly. Every time they position the ball after a tackle, determine a first down, out of bounds, touchdown ... no reason not to use sensors and make instant, accurate calls. No more errors, no more wasting time on replays.
You could use sensors to decide issues of contact:Determine pass interference -- was the hit before the play? Facemasking ... roughing the kicker ... helmet-to-helmet ... sensors in receivers gloves, in the ball, and in the field to determine possession on catches ...
Sure, sensors won't be perfect, and probably some application would turn out to be impractical, but take the refs errors out of the game, spend less time referreeing and more time playing.
It's a nice theory but since Reaganites started pushing it in the early 1980s, the prosperity hasn't trickled down. The uber-wealthy have gotten richer, and everyone else's incomes have stayed the same or decreased.
Thanks.