One of my theories about the Right's dislike of government has to do with these constitutional restrictions. The government is restricted by the constitution on what it can and cannot do, but private companies and individuals are not. So by hiring private contractors (not government employees), the right can get government to do thing that the government wouldn't be constitutionally allowed to do.
Here's a question: considering the rightward tilt of the SCOTUS, why hasn't anybody tried to get those rulings overturned? Or are they waiting for ("G-d help us all") Bush's second term?
In 2003, the US federal government employed between 21 and 22 million people. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Of those, 1.4 million were active duty military (U.S. Census). So yeah, the military is what makes our government a leviathan. RIIIGGHHHTT.
The military is far larger than just active-duty personnel. Let's not forget the various reservists and national guard units. Then you have ROTC and the like.
And oh, one more little thing. Defense contractors. Lockheed-Martin. Boeing. Halliburton. This list goes on and on.
I don't have any hard numbers in front of me, but I guarantee that all the people who support our military endeavors is far more significant percentage of the USA'a production than what you would have us believe.
Eisenhower didn't warn us about the Military-Industrial Complex for nothing.
The income floor for the top 5% of wage earners is $74,000. That means a whole lot more people than you think will be paying more taxes if Kerry gets his way.
That's for wage earners. What about in terms of a household's Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) which is the major basis for tax calculations and included dividends, capital gains, and other income.
Wrong. Republican tax policy is to cut taxes to stimulate economic growth. Economic growth and prosperity inevitably brings in more tax revenue.
Welcome to "Reaganomics", or what Bush 41 famously called "voodoo economics." So I guess if we dropped the tax rates to zero then the revenue generated by that booming economy would be enormous.
There is some optimum rate that will maximize revenue. It's not a given that this optimum is lower than the current tax rates. Remember, Reagan raised taxes, too.
I would say in a nutshell that current Republican tax policy is to increase the debt so much that the government will be unable to afford anything but the most basic governmental functions (e.g. defense, law enforcement). Anything smacking of "benefits for the undeserving" (welfare, public education, national parks, etc.) is eliminated, because "we can't afford it."
Spending doesn't have to decrease correspondingly. If your tax policy stimulates economic growth (as tax cuts have proven to do), all you have to do is make sure your spending does not outpace your potential in economic growth and revenue. This is the way it has been since the record setting deficits of LBJ, Carter, Reagan, and many other US presidents in the past century. Every time we have hit "record" deficits, our economy has eventually grown to marginalize those deficits. A prohibitive tax policy, on the other hand, has the opposite effect. The economy cannot grow because people just don't have as much money to spend. Your only way out of the deficit then is to tax more, and the effect compounds.
While that sounds reasonable in theory, you are taking an incredible risk with the wealth of a nation. While it's true that the US has always come out of the huge deficit periods, other countries have not been so fortunate. Look at Argentina. During the 90's, they were considered the perfect model of a working South American economy, but their deficit got too high, and they defaulted on their debt, which ruined their economy. They've been a complete basket case the last couple of years, with many people losing there entire life savings. Then the World Bank forces them onto "Austerity programs," where the country has to pay off the international financiers on the backs of the population of the country.
I can hear the response now. "The U.S. is nothing like Argentina." That is very true. For if the U.S. would default the way Argentina did, we wouldn't simply bring economic ruin on one country, we'd bring it to the entire world.
I have no statistics to back this up, but since the astronauts were converted test pilots, they all had a "Need For Speed". Since it is much easier to race cars or whatever in rural areas, it makes sense that the test pilots come from this general background, too.
For what it's worth, Ohio's two famous astronauts (Neil Armstrong and John Glenn) are both from rural areas.
True, he was a good guy intrinsically, but he was fighting the creations of other, "misguided" scientists.
Also, you do see Galileo as a hero faced up against the Inquisition, and it happens in set-in-the-future science fiction. But is never done in a contemporary setting. "Hero scientist battles parents who refuse to get vaccinations for their children because it's against their religion."
No, we have to "respect" all these nutball religions and their magical beliefs.
I finally saw this the other day and enjoyed it. talking to a colleague about it the next morning we decided that it could have a fairly decent spin-off tv series. Each week a scientist gets an envelope in the mail containing items he needs to get through that week's adventures.
Seriously, the biggest problem I had with "Paycheck" was that I just never really believed Affleck was this super-intelligent guy. Uma Thurman was a little more convincing, but not much.
But you should know by now that mainstream Hollywood will never let a scientist (engineer, general nerd, etc.) be an intrinsic "good guy". In Paycheck, Affleck was a Dr. Frankenstein, battling his own creation.
In War Games, Matthew Broderick started the whole incident with his hacking, again having to fix his own mistake.
"Short Curcuit". Guttenberg's scientist has to battle his own creations to keep "number 5" alive.
"Jurassic Park." Same theme of scientist vs. scienist.
You never see a scientist battling the forces of unreason ("Tune in for Dr. Quinn, Embyronic Stem-Cell Researcher"). The only mainstream movie I can think of that did this was "Contact". Sadly, people got so caught up in the unwise decision to use real polical speeches (one from Clinton in particular) that the real point of that movie was obscured.
I really don't understand how the pictures that JC Penny's takes of my kids are the property of JC Penny's after I pay for them. First, I didn't ever sign anything allowing them to have rights to the photos. Second, this is a clear case of "work for hire" since I paid the studio to take the pictures (a sitting fee) as well as develop copies. I guess someone is going to have to test this in court some day.
And you will lose. The taker of the photograph owns the copyright, no matter what the subject is. You hired the service of the photographer to come in and take the pictures, but the photographer owns the copyright to the pictures.
Now why this same principle doesn't apply to software development, I don't know.
That pretty much happened (at least to me) during last years contest.
There was a time penalty if you submitted your answers after the deadline. I tried submitting mine with about 3-4 minutes to spare, and I got nothing on the connection for at least 10 minutes. Unfortunatly, they didn't give you a breakdown per individual on your scoring, so I don't know if I had a penalty or not.
I still did OK, around 350th place or so. I'm hoping they publish individual results this time.
Reports are that this was a binary type artillery shell which would mix the chemicals upon the acceleration of launch to create sarin, which whould then be dispersed in a cloud upon impact.
However, it was used as just an roadside bomb, which was an extremely ineffective way to use a binary shell, since not a lot of chemical mixing occurred. It's likely that the insurgents did not know it was a chemical weapon.
It's also likely that it was a prototype weapon from the 1980's that was never mass-produced. Remember the administration claimed there were hunderds of tons of chemical weapons and we knew where they were, not a few 15-year-old prototypes that found their way into the hands of ignorant insurgents.
Here's the list of Cleveland's major league franchises, and their mostly sorry history.
NFL - Cleveland Browns - Dominated 1950's NFL, winning 5 or 6 championships. Last championship 1964. No championship appearances since (The Drive, The Fumble, The Franchise Shift).
MLB - Cleveland Indians - Last championship in 1948. Lost World Series in 1954 (Willie Mays), 1995 (Dave Justice and National League strike zones), and 1997 (Jose Mesa'a choke job. I don't blame Nagy).
NBA - Cleveland Cavaliers - No championships since league entry in 1970(?). No Title series appearences either (Michael Jordan and The Shot stole the best chance, and Jim Chones's foot injury ended The Miracle of Richfield run).
NHL - Cleveland Barons (1976-8). No championships. Formerly the California Golden Seals. Pathetic team that couldn't make the playoffs when 4 out of 5 teams in the division made the playoffs. Failed to pay players for a while and then merged with the (then) Minnesota North Stars.
WHA - Cleveland Crusaders (1972-6) - No championships. Replaced Cleveland's longtime AHL franchise. Decent franchise, but lust for an NHL team and the disastrous move of home areana to the Richfield Coliseum killed the franchise, else it probably would have joined the NHL when the WHA folded. Moved to Minneapolis after 75-76 season.
Cleveland had simply had the most pathetic set of professional sports teams for the last 40 years. To counter the previous post, yes, we do whine, but since Boston's much more important to the East Cost media, you never hear about it.
Of couse I moved to St. Louis in 1988. The Cardinals last series was 1987. I fail to see a correlation.
You are joking, right? At the current exchange rate (€1 = $1.18 and that 1 US gallon is about 3.8 liters, that rise of €0.1/L is equivalent to a rise of about $0.45/gal. Pretty darn close to the $0.5 you stated in your post.
"Global Warming to Destroy Life as We Know it!" sells to those who who are unhappy with the status quo or who are concerned about what the future holds, and are afraid we are making unrecoverable mistakes.
"Everything's Fine and Dandy." sells to those who currently have wealth and power or who aspire to acquire wealth and power in the current environment, where any changes might harm their positions.
But by the same token, why do we assume the best? Doesn't it seem more reasonable to avoid making major changes to the atmophere's chemistry until we understand more of what the effects are?
Although after Peak Oil hits, the question will be moot.
Personally, I think all interscholastic competitions based on school run organizations should be eliminated.
Teach physical education, fine. Have intramural games, fine. Field teams to play against other schools, no. This can be done at a private club level. Same for other activities.
But the reasons why you don't hold back kids goes far beyond "we don't want kids feeling bad." There's plenty of research that shows that the outcomes for children who are "retained" are far worse for those who are "socially promoted." I mean just look at example number 1 of social promotion, good old George W. Bush. One of his Harvard Business school professors was interviewed about Bush, and said that Bush got a "gentlemen's C" as his grade, because that was the lowest grade they would give.
Ah yes, HR, the favorite punching boy of disillusioned employees everywhere.
The sad part is, I agree with you, and I am pursuing a related field (Industrial/Organizational Psychology) which is very similar but has one tool that many HR folks lack: We like to do research and find out what makes the best employee.
You just hit on the most important thing. You do research. Something that seems beyond the ken of most corporate HR departments.
I have absolutely no problem with using reasonable screening tools to help decide which employees will be best, as long as those tools have sound research behind them.
The reason why HR is the punching bag for us "disillusioned" employees is that they are the ones preventing us from getting a fair hearing with the people we would be working with, by using reasons that seem arbitrary and capricious. The perople who get rewarded accoring to typical HR measures are the ones who essential say, "To Hell with what the company needs, I need to use <latest technology buzzword> so I can put it on my resume."
And I will stay the hell away from any employer with that attitude
I really like the way that sounds, and I agree with you whole-heartedly. Unfortunately, i believe that attitude is completely divorced from the reality of most (but not all) companies.
After 14 years in the industry with a BSEE and MSCS, my company closed it's St. Louis office in late 2001. I was out of work for 7 months in 2002 and underemployed for a year and a half after that. I have you're so-called "wide base of skills," but they weren't the right ones. Companies here in St. Louis were not at all interested in poeople who can "can easily adapt to new problems and environments," they were looking for those specific technologies and if you didn't have those 3 years of J2EE experience, they didn't want to even acknowledge your existence.
Of course I attribute this to the typical HR department, who wouldn't know a good engineer from a hole in the ground. So their method of separating the wheat from the chaff is a score card based on what technologies you have on your resume. So even though I had done Java and was well acquainted with OO through my experience and schooling, they wouldn't even talk to me because I didn't have "work experience" with J2EE.
Some of us who have families to support don't have the option to just walk away or cherry-pick companies. We're forced to take what we can get. This attitude runs rampant through corporate culture. I would love to be less pessimistic, but unless there is some massive groundswell, nothing will change.
Oh, please. I believe in science because it works. If I set up an experiement just like the scientist described, the same thing will happen in my experiment that happened in the scientist's experiment. There's no other "faith" involved, except "doing the same thing gives you the same results".
You are also confusing the scientific "why" with the religious "why." The scientific "why" is, "What are the rules that control the behavior of the universe." There is no question of why the rules exist, they are simply accepted. The religious "why" is concerned about "why the universe exists." Also a valid question, but one that can't be answered scientifically.
Yes it's true that scientists want to explain the world. But they want to explain what the rules are, not why they exist.
In order to do that, you need to believe in science. Because in the end, science is always assumption without proof. Scientific theories can only be proven wrong, never proven right. Scientific theories can be immensely useful but absolutely wrong (like Newton's laws).
Newton's laws are not "absolutely wrong," they are perfectly wonderful approximations that work amazingly well until you get to extermely small or large masses, or velocities of a significant fraction of c, measurements that were completely unknown in Newton's time.
there are other stories of a great flood in that area, not just the story of noah's ark. it's very possible that the ark does exist and that there was a flood.
The Hebrew flood story isn't even the oldest. And it's possible that there was some kind of localized flooding, one theory being that the Black Sea used to be dry, but somehow the Mediterranean broke through the Bosphorus and flooded the area. This theory doesn't have a lot of support, but it's at least somewhat plausible, as opposed to the worldwide flood theory, which has no peer-reviewed scientific support whatsoever.
But to take these shreds of evidence and assume a specificity that says it's "very possible" the ark exists simply boggles the mind and starts Occam spinning in his grave.
Not to mention that the building techniques stated in the Bible would never allow a boat of such size to sail for the length of time necessary.
as for your daughter... well, i feel bad for her. you gonna tell her that santa is also a hoax? ruin her childhood? now nice...
I fail to see how telling my children that the "Santa Claus" of popular mythology is equivalent to "ruining their childhood." I mean, if you think about it, the whole Santa thing just teaches children how to be consumers, and as we all know in today's society, the one who dies with the most toys wins.
That's because it's from the Beeb, from the U.K., where, compared to the United States of "Praise Jesus!" America, there is far less pandering to the religious fundamentalists, since there are far fewer of them.
I am in the crowd who does not support most global warming theories. Why? Because they are just that, theories. We try to explain how something works, have the audacity to think we can model it, then go along the lines of where the most money is.
How about that controversial Theory Of Gravity? I mean, why should we support it, because after all it's "just a theory?"
This rant sounds like something straight out of the mouth of Rush Limbaugh and the other right-wing "there is no problem here" people. Most of these "facts" have been debunked time and time again, but your side always cynically believes that the scientists are looking for a meal ticket rather that solving real problems.
One side effect of clean energy is more energy consumption and production. This leads to a new pollution which may account for some of what we see, heat. Heat is a standard byproduct of all energy use. As we get more efficient in producing it we consume more... so how long before we stop worrying about what chemicals go into the air and start worrying about the excess heat we push there.
Most of your post was right-wing claptrap, but this isn't. It is a real problem, and is one of the big concerns about some clean energy technologies such as solar, especially space-based solar. And I'll also agree about the problem with Eastern countries and their pollution. Many in the West would like to have trade based on trade between equals (i.e. don't trade with China until they bring their environmental regulations up to a reasonable level), but the free-trade zealots won't here of it. Buy those cheap Chinese products, and don't worry about the Chinese environment or Chinese greenhouse gases.
I'll certainly agree that these studies would be interesting and potentially useful. However, it obscures the main point, which is that we know we are contributing to the problem, but we are doing little to stop our contributions to it.
Let me make an analogy. Say thet there is a ald, rusty car on a plateau. It is on a downslope, and is slowly rolling to the edge of a cliff. There's a guy behind with his hands on the rear bumper. He seems to be pushing, but we can't tell for certain. You don't want the car to go over the cliff, but you may be unable to stop it.
Now, what do you do? Do you take careful measurements of the slop, the friction within the car, and conclusively determine if the car can be stopped from going over on it's own accord, or do you tell the guy, "Stop Pushing!" first and then do the calculations, or do you also try to stop the car as well?
I submit that our current U.S. administration doing little more then standing at the side saying, "Well, perhaps you shouldn't push so hard, but I'm not going to force you to change what your doing."
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I certainly understand about the individual, but have you heard about the idea of "Corporate Personhood."
I submit that this was the beginning of the end for our Constitutional government where individual rights mattered.
One of my theories about the Right's dislike of government has to do with these constitutional restrictions. The government is restricted by the constitution on what it can and cannot do, but private companies and individuals are not. So by hiring private contractors (not government employees), the right can get government to do thing that the government wouldn't be constitutionally allowed to do.
Here's a question: considering the rightward tilt of the SCOTUS, why hasn't anybody tried to get those rulings overturned? Or are they waiting for ("G-d help us all") Bush's second term?
In 2003, the US federal government employed between 21 and 22 million people. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Of those, 1.4 million were active duty military (U.S. Census). So yeah, the military is what makes our government a leviathan. RIIIGGHHHTT.
The military is far larger than just active-duty personnel. Let's not forget the various reservists and national guard units. Then you have ROTC and the like.
And oh, one more little thing. Defense contractors. Lockheed-Martin. Boeing. Halliburton. This list goes on and on.
I don't have any hard numbers in front of me, but I guarantee that all the people who support our military endeavors is far more significant percentage of the USA'a production than what you would have us believe.
Eisenhower didn't warn us about the Military-Industrial Complex for nothing.
The income floor for the top 5% of wage earners is $74,000. That means a whole lot more people than you think will be paying more taxes if Kerry gets his way.
That's for wage earners. What about in terms of a household's Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) which is the major basis for tax calculations and included dividends, capital gains, and other income.
Wrong. Republican tax policy is to cut taxes to stimulate economic growth. Economic growth and prosperity inevitably brings in more tax revenue.
Welcome to "Reaganomics", or what Bush 41 famously called "voodoo economics." So I guess if we dropped the tax rates to zero then the revenue generated by that booming economy would be enormous.
There is some optimum rate that will maximize revenue. It's not a given that this optimum is lower than the current tax rates. Remember, Reagan raised taxes, too.
I would say in a nutshell that current Republican tax policy is to increase the debt so much that the government will be unable to afford anything but the most basic governmental functions (e.g. defense, law enforcement). Anything smacking of "benefits for the undeserving" (welfare, public education, national parks, etc.) is eliminated, because "we can't afford it."
Spending doesn't have to decrease correspondingly. If your tax policy stimulates economic growth (as tax cuts have proven to do), all you have to do is make sure your spending does not outpace your potential in economic growth and revenue. This is the way it has been since the record setting deficits of LBJ, Carter, Reagan, and many other US presidents in the past century. Every time we have hit "record" deficits, our economy has eventually grown to marginalize those deficits. A prohibitive tax policy, on the other hand, has the opposite effect. The economy cannot grow because people just don't have as much money to spend. Your only way out of the deficit then is to tax more, and the effect compounds.
While that sounds reasonable in theory, you are taking an incredible risk with the wealth of a nation. While it's true that the US has always come out of the huge deficit periods, other countries have not been so fortunate. Look at Argentina. During the 90's, they were considered the perfect model of a working South American economy, but their deficit got too high, and they defaulted on their debt, which ruined their economy. They've been a complete basket case the last couple of years, with many people losing there entire life savings. Then the World Bank forces them onto "Austerity programs," where the country has to pay off the international financiers on the backs of the population of the country.
I can hear the response now. "The U.S. is nothing like Argentina." That is very true. For if the U.S. would default the way Argentina did, we wouldn't simply bring economic ruin on one country, we'd bring it to the entire world.
If programming isn't art, then why is it covered by copright law in the first place?
I have no statistics to back this up, but since the astronauts were converted test pilots, they all had a "Need For Speed". Since it is much easier to race cars or whatever in rural areas, it makes sense that the test pilots come from this general background, too.
For what it's worth, Ohio's two famous astronauts (Neil Armstrong and John Glenn) are both from rural areas.
True, he was a good guy intrinsically, but he was fighting the creations of other, "misguided" scientists.
Also, you do see Galileo as a hero faced up against the Inquisition, and it happens in set-in-the-future science fiction. But is never done in a contemporary setting. "Hero scientist battles parents who refuse to get vaccinations for their children because it's against their religion."
No, we have to "respect" all these nutball religions and their magical beliefs.
Except the Muslims, of course. Them we can kill.
I finally saw this the other day and enjoyed it. talking to a colleague about it the next morning we decided that it could have a fairly decent spin-off tv series. Each week a scientist gets an envelope in the mail containing items he needs to get through that week's adventures.
Didn't they do this already?
Seriously, the biggest problem I had with "Paycheck" was that I just never really believed Affleck was this super-intelligent guy. Uma Thurman was a little more convincing, but not much.
But you should know by now that mainstream Hollywood will never let a scientist (engineer, general nerd, etc.) be an intrinsic "good guy". In Paycheck, Affleck was a Dr. Frankenstein, battling his own creation.
In War Games, Matthew Broderick started the whole incident with his hacking, again having to fix his own mistake.
"Short Curcuit". Guttenberg's scientist has to battle his own creations to keep "number 5" alive.
"Jurassic Park." Same theme of scientist vs. scienist.
You never see a scientist battling the forces of unreason ("Tune in for Dr. Quinn, Embyronic Stem-Cell Researcher"). The only mainstream movie I can think of that did this was "Contact". Sadly, people got so caught up in the unwise decision to use real polical speeches (one from Clinton in particular) that the real point of that movie was obscured.
I really don't understand how the pictures that JC Penny's takes of my kids are the property of JC Penny's after I pay for them. First, I didn't ever sign anything allowing them to have rights to the photos. Second, this is a clear case of "work for hire" since I paid the studio to take the pictures (a sitting fee) as well as develop copies. I guess someone is going to have to test this in court some day.
And you will lose. The taker of the photograph owns the copyright, no matter what the subject is. You hired the service of the photographer to come in and take the pictures, but the photographer owns the copyright to the pictures.
Now why this same principle doesn't apply to software development, I don't know.
That pretty much happened (at least to me) during last years contest.
There was a time penalty if you submitted your answers after the deadline. I tried submitting mine with about 3-4 minutes to spare, and I got nothing on the connection for at least 10 minutes. Unfortunatly, they didn't give you a breakdown per individual on your scoring, so I don't know if I had a penalty or not.
I still did OK, around 350th place or so. I'm hoping they publish individual results this time.
Reports are that this was a binary type artillery shell which would mix the chemicals upon the acceleration of launch to create sarin, which whould then be dispersed in a cloud upon impact.
However, it was used as just an roadside bomb, which was an extremely ineffective way to use a binary shell, since not a lot of chemical mixing occurred. It's likely that the insurgents did not know it was a chemical weapon.
It's also likely that it was a prototype weapon from the 1980's that was never mass-produced. Remember the administration claimed there were hunderds of tons of chemical weapons and we knew where they were, not a few 15-year-old prototypes that found their way into the hands of ignorant insurgents.
Here's the list of Cleveland's major league franchises, and their mostly sorry history.
NFL - Cleveland Browns - Dominated 1950's NFL, winning 5 or 6 championships. Last championship 1964. No championship appearances since (The Drive, The Fumble, The Franchise Shift).
MLB - Cleveland Indians - Last championship in 1948. Lost World Series in 1954 (Willie Mays), 1995 (Dave Justice and National League strike zones), and 1997 (Jose Mesa'a choke job. I don't blame Nagy).
NBA - Cleveland Cavaliers - No championships since league entry in 1970(?). No Title series appearences either (Michael Jordan and The Shot stole the best chance, and Jim Chones's foot injury ended The Miracle of Richfield run).
NHL - Cleveland Barons (1976-8). No championships. Formerly the California Golden Seals. Pathetic team that couldn't make the playoffs when 4 out of 5 teams in the division made the playoffs. Failed to pay players for a while and then merged with the (then) Minnesota North Stars.
WHA - Cleveland Crusaders (1972-6) - No championships. Replaced Cleveland's longtime AHL franchise. Decent franchise, but lust for an NHL team and the disastrous move of home areana to the Richfield Coliseum killed the franchise, else it probably would have joined the NHL when the WHA folded. Moved to Minneapolis after 75-76 season.
Cleveland had simply had the most pathetic set of professional sports teams for the last 40 years. To counter the previous post, yes, we do whine, but since Boston's much more important to the East Cost media, you never hear about it.
Of couse I moved to St. Louis in 1988. The Cardinals last series was 1987. I fail to see a correlation.
You are joking, right? At the current exchange rate (€1 = $1.18 and that 1 US gallon is about 3.8 liters, that rise of €0.1/L is equivalent to a rise of about $0.45/gal. Pretty darn close to the $0.5 you stated in your post.
It depends on which market you're selling to.
"Global Warming to Destroy Life as We Know it!" sells to those who who are unhappy with the status quo or who are concerned about what the future holds, and are afraid we are making unrecoverable mistakes.
"Everything's Fine and Dandy." sells to those who currently have wealth and power or who aspire to acquire wealth and power in the current environment, where any changes might harm their positions.
Which group is currently in control right now?
But by the same token, why do we assume the best? Doesn't it seem more reasonable to avoid making major changes to the atmophere's chemistry until we understand more of what the effects are?
Although after Peak Oil hits, the question will be moot.
Would you framework in a house?
Would you framework with a mouse?
Personally, I think all interscholastic competitions based on school run organizations should be eliminated.
Teach physical education, fine. Have intramural games, fine. Field teams to play against other schools, no. This can be done at a private club level. Same for other activities.
But the reasons why you don't hold back kids goes far beyond "we don't want kids feeling bad." There's plenty of research that shows that the outcomes for children who are "retained" are far worse for those who are "socially promoted." I mean just look at example number 1 of social promotion, good old George W. Bush. One of his Harvard Business school professors was interviewed about Bush, and said that Bush got a "gentlemen's C" as his grade, because that was the lowest grade they would give.
Don't forget physical encyclopedias, too!
Ah yes, HR, the favorite punching boy of disillusioned employees everywhere.
The sad part is, I agree with you, and I am pursuing a related field (Industrial/Organizational Psychology) which is very similar but has one tool that many HR folks lack: We like to do research and find out what makes the best employee.
You just hit on the most important thing. You do research. Something that seems beyond the ken of most corporate HR departments.
I have absolutely no problem with using reasonable screening tools to help decide which employees will be best, as long as those tools have sound research behind them.
The reason why HR is the punching bag for us "disillusioned" employees is that they are the ones preventing us from getting a fair hearing with the people we would be working with, by using reasons that seem arbitrary and capricious. The perople who get rewarded accoring to typical HR measures are the ones who essential say, "To Hell with what the company needs, I need to use <latest technology buzzword> so I can put it on my resume."
And I will stay the hell away from any employer with that attitude
I really like the way that sounds, and I agree with you whole-heartedly. Unfortunately, i believe that attitude is completely divorced from the reality of most (but not all) companies.
After 14 years in the industry with a BSEE and MSCS, my company closed it's St. Louis office in late 2001. I was out of work for 7 months in 2002 and underemployed for a year and a half after that. I have you're so-called "wide base of skills," but they weren't the right ones. Companies here in St. Louis were not at all interested in poeople who can "can easily adapt to new problems and environments," they were looking for those specific technologies and if you didn't have those 3 years of J2EE experience, they didn't want to even acknowledge your existence.
Of course I attribute this to the typical HR department, who wouldn't know a good engineer from a hole in the ground. So their method of separating the wheat from the chaff is a score card based on what technologies you have on your resume. So even though I had done Java and was well acquainted with OO through my experience and schooling, they wouldn't even talk to me because I didn't have "work experience" with J2EE.
Some of us who have families to support don't have the option to just walk away or cherry-pick companies. We're forced to take what we can get. This attitude runs rampant through corporate culture. I would love to be less pessimistic, but unless there is some massive groundswell, nothing will change.
Ah, well, but what about the religion of science?
Do you -believe- in science?
Oh, please. I believe in science because it works. If I set up an experiement just like the scientist described, the same thing will happen in my experiment that happened in the scientist's experiment. There's no other "faith" involved, except "doing the same thing gives you the same results".
You are also confusing the scientific "why" with the religious "why." The scientific "why" is, "What are the rules that control the behavior of the universe." There is no question of why the rules exist, they are simply accepted. The religious "why" is concerned about "why the universe exists." Also a valid question, but one that can't be answered scientifically.
Yes it's true that scientists want to explain the world. But they want to explain what the rules are, not why they exist.
In order to do that, you need to believe in science. Because in the end, science is always assumption without proof. Scientific theories can only be proven wrong, never proven right. Scientific theories can be immensely useful but absolutely wrong (like Newton's laws).
Newton's laws are not "absolutely wrong," they are perfectly wonderful approximations that work amazingly well until you get to extermely small or large masses, or velocities of a significant fraction of c, measurements that were completely unknown in Newton's time.
there are other stories of a great flood in that area, not just the story of noah's ark. it's very possible that the ark does exist and that there was a flood.
The Hebrew flood story isn't even the oldest. And it's possible that there was some kind of localized flooding, one theory being that the Black Sea used to be dry, but somehow the Mediterranean broke through the Bosphorus and flooded the area. This theory doesn't have a lot of support, but it's at least somewhat plausible, as opposed to the worldwide flood theory, which has no peer-reviewed scientific support whatsoever.
But to take these shreds of evidence and assume a specificity that says it's "very possible" the ark exists simply boggles the mind and starts Occam spinning in his grave.
Not to mention that the building techniques stated in the Bible would never allow a boat of such size to sail for the length of time necessary.
as for your daughter... well, i feel bad for her. you gonna tell her that santa is also a hoax? ruin her childhood? now nice...
I fail to see how telling my children that the "Santa Claus" of popular mythology is equivalent to "ruining their childhood." I mean, if you think about it, the whole Santa thing just teaches children how to be consumers, and as we all know in today's society, the one who dies with the most toys wins.
That's because it's from the Beeb, from the U.K., where, compared to the United States of "Praise Jesus!" America, there is far less pandering to the religious fundamentalists, since there are far fewer of them.
I am in the crowd who does not support most global warming theories. Why? Because they are just that, theories. We try to explain how something works, have the audacity to think we can model it, then go along the lines of where the most money is.
How about that controversial Theory Of Gravity? I mean, why should we support it, because after all it's "just a theory?"
This rant sounds like something straight out of the mouth of Rush Limbaugh and the other right-wing "there is no problem here" people. Most of these "facts" have been debunked time and time again, but your side always cynically believes that the scientists are looking for a meal ticket rather that solving real problems.
One side effect of clean energy is more energy consumption and production. This leads to a new pollution which may account for some of what we see, heat. Heat is a standard byproduct of all energy use. As we get more efficient in producing it we consume more... so how long before we stop worrying about what chemicals go into the air and start worrying about the excess heat we push there.
Most of your post was right-wing claptrap, but this isn't. It is a real problem, and is one of the big concerns about some clean energy technologies such as solar, especially space-based solar. And I'll also agree about the problem with Eastern countries and their pollution. Many in the West would like to have trade based on trade between equals (i.e. don't trade with China until they bring their environmental regulations up to a reasonable level), but the free-trade zealots won't here of it. Buy those cheap Chinese products, and don't worry about the Chinese environment or Chinese greenhouse gases.
I'll certainly agree that these studies would be interesting and potentially useful. However, it obscures the main point, which is that we know we are contributing to the problem, but we are doing little to stop our contributions to it.
Let me make an analogy. Say thet there is a ald, rusty car on a plateau. It is on a downslope, and is slowly rolling to the edge of a cliff. There's a guy behind with his hands on the rear bumper. He seems to be pushing, but we can't tell for certain. You don't want the car to go over the cliff, but you may be unable to stop it.
Now, what do you do? Do you take careful measurements of the slop, the friction within the car, and conclusively determine if the car can be stopped from going over on it's own accord, or do you tell the guy, "Stop Pushing!" first and then do the calculations, or do you also try to stop the car as well?
I submit that our current U.S. administration doing little more then standing at the side saying, "Well, perhaps you shouldn't push so hard, but I'm not going to force you to change what your doing."