The following site has a history of our top level classifications of life. It indicates that "5 Kingdoms" was developed in the 60's, though obviously it may have taken longer to get into school textbooks.
The real problem? Software development & other IT people are PROFESSIONALS who have to build and maintain professional skill sets through self-study and/or taking new job opportunities. The cryin' shame is that we aren't smart enough to set up a cartel like the lawyers (bar assc.) and doctors (medical board) do in order to prevent competition from low-quality & low-wage sources as well as establish peer-review for the needed skills and recognition in hiring process.
If you have skills that can't readily be replaced by an untrained foreigner, then you are WASTING the time and money spent on that self-study and new job opportunities. Someone with a valuable skillset with be paid what their skills are worth. If your skills are not demanded by a market which is satisfied with low quality and low wage employees, learn better skills. Don't walk around complaining about how nobody wants to overpay for what you can do anymore, or how the market has moved on and left your antiquated skillset in the dust. The market doesn't owe you anything, if you can't do anything that others find useful enough to pay for, the only person to blame is yourself.
Rotting pear crop illustrates farmers' plight Although consumers won't notice much difference in the supermarket, it's estimated this year's severe labor shortage will result in about 10,000 tons of pears being overripe and dumped.
Everyone likes to claim that there ARE Americans willing and able to take the jobs held by illegal immigrants. The above story though suggests that there are skilled positions that Americans are simply unwilling to do. There is nothing wrong with this, since a (high school) educated American can almost always find better paying work than picking pears. It does suggest we should be willing to make use of WILLING physical labor at low rates to improve OUR quality of life. When cheap labor is used to make shoes, it is the "working class" which gets cheaper shoes. (The wealthy really don't care that much if their shoes cost twice as much.)
The problem is that displays of crosses on the right of way of the road, which is government owned land, and the display of religious artifacts such as monuments to the ten commandments amount to an apparent endorsement, by the government, of religion, said religion almost always being Christianity. For example, I do not recall a single instance of seeing Shiva in a house of legislature, a voodoo altar at an accident site, or a monument to Ayn Rand on a courthouse lawn. When we talk about the US government's sponsorship of religion, It is Christianity first, last, and always.
I'm sorry, but I have a hard time equating decorating preferences for public spaces with someone's "freedom of religion". I have no problem with my local community deciding to put a voodoo altar in front of its courthouse. While I might personally vote against it because I dislike voodoo altars, I firmly believe that my community has the right to decorate its public spaces in any way it chooses. If I dislike it, I will campaign for a change of decorators, not try to circumvent the will of my community in court based on "freedom of religion".
Freedom of religion doesn't mean you don't have to see decorations you dislike. It means that you are not forced to engage in someone else's religion or prevented from engaging in your own religion (so long as it does not directly harm others). Funding or religious groups should only be provided using the same criteria used for other community groups (such as allowing local clubs to use community centers or school classrooms). We should never discriminate against someone based on their religion, but there is a difference between religious freedom and preventing a community from decorating their courthouse as they see fit.
If outlawing printing fake passes, is what it takes to keep terrorists from printing them, then we should do it. Terrorists wouldn't dare to break such a law, thus they won't be able to get boarding passes, thus they won't be able to fly, thus they won't be able to travel to my city, thus they won't be able to detonate a suicide bomb near me.
This gives me a better idea! We need to make a law against buying or using a plane ticket for travel to commit a crime, particularly terrorism. So far as I am aware, it is NOT currently illegal to travel by plane to a city in which you are planning to commit a crime (such as terrorism). This is a loophole we need to fix immediately.
Amazingly enough, the US are less energy efficient than the RoW. If you're looking for an exceptionally efficient economy, try the EU.
This post struck me as interesting enough to do the research. The numbers were pulled together from various sources (linked) and may be incorrect. The computations did present the image of a HIGHLY efficient US workforce though, which manages to produce 20% of the world's GDP with only 5% of the population.
World Energy = 353 Quads => 100.0% US Energy = 87.6 Quads => 24.8% China Energy = 60 Quads => 17.0% EU Energy = 75.45 Quads => 21.2%
(These numbers taken from Google)
World Population ~ 6,500,000,000 => 100.0% US Population = 295,734,134 => 4.6% EU population = 457,030,418 => 7.0% China population = 1,306,313,812 => 20.0%
Summary: US produces 20% of GDP with 25% of the energy and 5% of the population EU produces 20% of GDP with 21% of the energy and 7% of the population China produces 15% of GDP with 15% of the energy and 20% of the population
32% of the global population produces 55% of the wealth using 60% of the energy.
Perhaps. But if you *are* carrying a form of identification, a police officer in the US is allowed to ask you to present it with no justification whatsoever, and failing to do so is a jailable offense.
Can you provide support for this statement? Even in the case cited above, a person can only be jailed if there is "and reasonable suspicion--though not probable cause" that the person has committed a crime. This makes sense since I person who refuses to identify themselves cannot be located for future questioning if needed. I am unaware of any law requiring a person to identify themselves to an officer "with no justification whatsoever".
From article linked above: # Supreme Court Upholds Constitutionality of Arrest for Refusal to Identify. In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court has narrowly upheld a Nevada law allowing law enforcement to arrest an individual when he refuses to identify himself, and reasonable suspicion--though not probable cause--exists that he has committed a crime. (June 21, 2004)
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
The freedom of speech is not limited only to speak against the government. That said, this case is not about penalizing a blogger for his speech, and there is no lawsuit being filed (at present). Instead, this is about whether someone can be compelled to give back corporate documents which might reveal a source.
Actually, the Earth itself is not a "closed system", and in itself has absolutely no "regenerative powers". The Earth receives a constant stream on incoming energy in the form of sunlight, which is then captured and used. This constant influx of energy can allow for a stable ecosystem that uses less than the total output of the Sun to the Earth if all energy is perfectly captured. Obviously perfect capture is not likely, so the long term energy requirements of organisms on the Earth will need t be significantly less.
At present, humans are using energy captured in the past. This is not a long term sustainable model, since we will eventually use it all up. This may or may not be an immediate concern. Regardless though, the Earth itself is not a "closed system". So long as we have sunlight, "renewable energy" is possible. Like any other kind of organism, we need to adapt ourselves to make use of available energy sources. This may mean that we should use the bounty of fossil fuels to produce better energy gathering tools, or simply to improve ourselves for future use. It may mean we simply enjoy the good times, and adjust when they go bad. Like any organism, if we do not adjust ourselves and our behaviors to our own well being we will suffer.
I make a very good income by giving all my data away for free and billing for my personal time (on the phone, in face-to-face consultations and in public speaking engagements). Nothing restricts others from doing it but they are LAZY because of the government force of copyright.
I can understand your position with regard to copyright. I do not entirely agree, but I understand your position. Where you are confusing me here is in your lack of support for trademarks. Are you honestly indicating that you would not mind someone hiring a lookalike to you, then going around billing for the time of that look alike while claiming that person was really you? A trademark law is designed simply to prevent one person or group of persons from dishonestly claiming to be another person or group of people.
Trademark law should not even matter here, because this writer did not ever represent himself as being Blizzard, or owning WOW. It simply should not apply. The purpose of trademark law (to prevent misrepresentation) really does not apply here, so neither should the protections granted by trademark law.
So work on finding a way to explain "source code" to non-programmers. Good luck.
I've actually had little difficulty explaining "source code" to people. It takes me about 20 minutes, and contains the following content:
1) The computer can only understand 1's and 0's. This is how you instruct it how to do at a low level. It is possible to make an "executable" file using only 1's and 0's, but this takes a long time and is pretty hard to do. Most programmers can't even understand what the 1's and 0's mean.
2) Each kind of computer has an "assembly language". This is basically using short cryptic words to represent the commands you make using 1's and 0's. It makes it easier to program, but is still really hard. You use a special program called an "assembler" to make an "executable" program. (An executable program being one you can click on to run.)
3) Most programmers use a "higher level" programming language, which also allows them to structure and comment their instructions for the computer. While it is still hard to understand, it is much, much easier than either "machine code" (1's and 0's) or "assembly language" (short cryptic words).
4) Being able to see the language that the program was written in makes it much easier to understand what the program is doing. This is called looking at the "source code". "Source" because this is the words that the program was written in, and "Code" because it is still a tricky language you need a programmer to understand. A programmer looking at the "source code" though can figure out how the program works and even make improvements. If they don't have the "source code", it is really hard to tell what the program is designed to do by looking only at the "machine code".
The only people I have ever found to have difficulty understanding this are those with an attention span under 20 minutes. Unfornately, this may include many managers. Hopefully it does not include the students taking a class on Open Source Software (whom one might suspect might be familiar with what "Code" means).
I thought the point of insurance was to spread risk. Since noody can afford the treatment for certain catastrophic illnesses, the idea is to put everyone in a pool to share the risk. If insurers are allowed to cherry pick, why bother even having insurance, other than for accidental trauma?
Your misunderstanding is regarding the point of "insurance". Insurance is purchased when the cost of loss is such that the buyer of the insurance cannot afford the risk. The buyer does not expect to face the loss, but wants to be sure that they will not be financially ruined if they do experience loss.
Let's look at insuring a shipment of gold as an example. If I am shipping $1,000,000 worth of gold across the country, I want to get it insured. This is not because I expect to lose the gold, or becuase I want to "spread the risk". I want insurance so that in the unlikely event that the gold is lost I am not held responsible. If I am paid $5,000 to transport the gold, and can insure it for only $1,000 then I can offload the risk of theft from me to the insurer and still make money transporting gold.
Why would anyone accept this responsibility though? They would accept it only if they are confident enough that the gold will not be stolen to take the risk. Preferably for them, they are selling insurance to lots of people shipping gold, and figure that the probability of them ALL being robbed is low. So long as fewer than 1 in 1000 shippers make a claim, the insurer makes money. To figure out if this makes sense, the insurer must do detailed studies to ensure that they do not lose out by accepting the responsibility for someone else's risks.
The problem with "forcing" insurers to accept risks they are unwilling to take is that we are telling them how to run their business. If the risk is bad for the money, it would be foolish for them to accept responsibility. Pre-existing conditions, or high probability problems should not be addressed by "insurance", but rather by charities or social assistance programs run by the government if the individual is unable to afford the cost of their condition. Normal doctor visits or routine medications should never be paid for through "insurance", because insurance should only be used for unexpected emergencies. Other programs ought to be organized for collective bargaining and shared cost programs, neither of which is really "insurance".
1. Pay teachers very well so they are in say the top 5% of all wage earners. This will attract the highly skilled and educated back into teaching. I fully agree. If we want good teachers, we need to pay a rate that allows us to hire the best and fire anyone who fails to meet the standard. Without better pay, teaching will continue to be a last resort for those who can't do.
2. Send teachers to school during school holidays to further their own knowledge. Pay them for this. This ensures teachers are constantly updating their knowledge instead of driving taxi's during the school breaks. Absolutely. If we are going to make teachers the best paid people around, it only makes sense that they should be expected to work year round like everyone else. Three months of training every summer would assist in keeping teachers at the top of their field.
3. Don't let your local community decide what should be taught in schools. Curriculum should be decided by a national panel made up of leaders in each field of study. Education should be a national issue, not one decided based on local beliefs no matter how "intelligent" those beliefs are. This is where I have to firmly disagree with you. While there should be a national minimum educational requirement, families and communities ought to be allowed a great deal of leeway in regards to what they are allowed to teach. Allowing them to do so gives the ability for more visionary communities to better prepare for the future, setting an example to other schools. The idea that a monolithic education system can make all the "right choices" regarding what needs to be taught is presumptuous.
4. Provide options for traineeships in traditional trades (e.g. electrical, plumbing etc) for the non-academic students. This will help remove disruptive elements from classes allowing those who want to study or have the aptitude to study to do so in peace. (not that you don't need to study to become a plumber and such, but I'm sure you all know what I mean) Trade school ought to be an option for all high school students. They should still be given enough academic training to allow them flexibility in life if they later decide they would like to go to college though. Locking people into a societal role early in life just isn't fair.
5. Properly fund the schools and get rid of the Coke/Chip machines. I know the sugary drinks and food taste great, but they don't help you sit still and concentrate. (A new slogan perhaps?:) Eh, I'd leave this decision to the local schools. Junk food in small quantities can be a welcome break from a rough test. Proper nutrition should be taught to all students though, and healthy meal choices should be available if food is provided.
6. Ban the teaching of religion on any and all school grounds. AND ENFORCE IT!!! Religion has it's place in society, but not in schools! Yes, because more ignorance of the beliefs of others is what we really need. I would prefer to have at least the top 3-5 religions in the area and the top 3-5 religions in the world taught by actual practitioners of the religion whenever possible. Suppressing religious expression without good reason is never justified, and in the US at least it is actually unconstitutional.
Ever think there might be a reason for the higher margins? Like maybe because Apple has always developed their own hardware, motherboards, some of the major chipsets.... and (especially) the operating system.
Regardless of the "reason" for the higher margins, it doesn't necessarily apply to this discussion. IBM would be selling hardware that they manufacture themselves in large volumes, using already existing motherboards, with existing chipsets, and with an operating system developed by others with no licensing fees. They would pay less for the hardware than Apple paid, and they would not have any cost in developing the operating system. The main expenses of such a plan would be assembly and possibly having to provide support for Linux. Believing that they could surpass the specifications of the mac mini for the same price and still make a profit is entirely reasonable. Whether IBM would prefer to demand similar margins to Apple though is another question entirely.
If there was no longer a need for something, it would become obsolete on its own. Demanding that something become obsolete is quite suspicious.
I agree, and if this were being justified entirely on the basis of "obsolescence" I would be strongly opposed to it. The justification for this decision though is based on the desire to cut down on the portion of the spectrum monopolized by television signals. Digital TV can fit far more channels into a smaller section of spectrum, allowing us to use the old spectrum for things like cell phones and wireless internet connectivity. This is supposedly less about obsolescence and more about reducing bandwidth consumption. Of course, I'm still rather suspicious of the claimed motivation.
My original post(s) still stand. We should not have been forced to move to a different format at our own expense and then have to subsidize others that can't afford the move!
No, no format change is required. We just will not allow analog broadcasts to continue to monopolize large portions of the spectrum that would be better used for other, more efficient, purposes. According to the topic, only 15% of households use broadcast television. Redistributing this bandwidth for something like cell phones or wireless internet connectivity seems quite reasonable.
That said, if instead it is just held "in reserve" either by the government or by corporations, I will be very irritated by the results of this whole process.
I believe that most power plants are not highly adjustable. Even if they are "adjustable", the cost of adjusting them up and down exceeds that of just letting them overproduce. Since under-producing means lost revenue and angry customers, most utilities tend to overproduce.
I'm guessing that you don't understand what it's like to have no spare money or to be forced to work a miserable job to keep food on the table because I'm guessing you can't relate.
I will admit to being the guy with the nice middle class ride through life to whom you refer. I have never in my life worked a minimum wage job, and the least I was ever paid was $6.25 an hour as a lab assistant in college. I have never had difficulty finding work as a soccer referee for over $15/hr on weekends, I have taken entry level grocery bagger positions for $9/hr and I have babysat for $7.50 an hour. During college I mostly worked internships at around $13/hr, which combined with $30,000 in government subsidized loans paid my tuition.
As bad as the school system is in this country, schools and public libraries offer sufficient resources for any interested person to obtain an education. I was homeschooled from K-12 grade, which meant that for the most part I taught myself. By buying used books online, you are looking at an investment of a couple hundred dollars a year. (And if you don't believe me I can put together a book list to show you.) It does not require a privleged middle class upbringing to obtain a quality education. I will agree though that for a kid whose parents don't really care, getting a quality education is much more difficult.
Obtaining a state college education is also not difficult for someone wanting to do so. My local state school has in-state education costs of under $500 a semester. Take your highly motivated examples who work two full time jobs. At $10/hr each job, that person is making about $40,000 a year. While $10/hr is high for starting salary, it is well within the reach of someone who is a good employee and is willing to relocate. Particularly if said party is willing to live in an inexpensive area (ie NOT San Francisco), they can very quickly have enough savings to go to school. If they can continue to work while in school, they may be able to avoid even needing much from their savings.
The real way a person gets into an untenable position is by making poor decisions. Not obtaining a quality high school education is the first mistake most people make. They then follow this by getting married or having kids they can support that family. Our society is unwilling to wait for anything or plan for the future. A person cannot end up a single mother with 3 kids working a minimum wage job without making some stupid decisions. While I do believe we should help such people recover from those mistakes, your claims that people aren't at fault for where they are in life just do not reflect the facts.
I also have a cell phone, and I have made it very clear to all my friends (including my girlfriend) that I will not answer it if I am busy doing something else. I have it primarily for free weekend calling and so that I can make use of "dead time" when I'm not doing anything else. My cell phone is freeing, in that I never wait at home for a call to come, but can go do something else while I'm waiting. I almost never turn the ringer on, since vibrate is enough to let me know I have a call. If I don't feel like answering, I don't. It always surprises me to hear people talk about how they let their cell phone take over their life. I feel sorry for those who are unable to just be inaccessible.
I've also had poor experience with SORBS. During my interaction with their staff, they even admitted that we had a double opt-in list server, and that they had accidentally opted in using their support address. They were still unwilling to remove us from their list though on the grounds that they felt that it was too easy to deliberately opt in. We weren't about to pay them off when they could just as easily opt in to the list again and demand another payoff. In the end, we just sent out a notification to all our customers that users of the SORBS blacklist could not be supported.
And don't even kid yourself into thinking that private industry will do dick for pure science -- everything private industry does has to have a dollar sign at the end of it.
Actually, this particular program is an example of an area where a private "non-proft" could well have a meaningful impact. $4 million a year is well within the fundraising capabilities of a non-profit, and as others have said we likely have enough people here to keep the issue alive.
This is currently the main advantage of non-governmental programs. Disinterested parties don't decide how our money is spent, and those who are interested can dedicate as much money as they would like to. I'd actually like to see the ability to "designate" a portion tax money toward programs I like. We should only be forced to support essential programs, but we should be encouraged to fund anything that we feel is deserving of funding. If nobody is willing do willingly designate money for a space program, then perhaps we don't deserve the benefits of such a program. I would like to see things like NASA and other research funded by privately designated dollars, because then nobody can decide to redirect my money toward stupid programs instead of those more deserving of my support.
I've seen guys with CS degrees go years in california without a job. Maybe in other parts of the country a degree is a job, but not in california. It's still a really hard market.
I can't speak for your experience, but it sure has not matched my own. I relocated to California from Chicago as a recent graduate last February for a job offer paying ~40K. In October, I decided to look for a better position. Within three months, I accepted a position paying over 60K. I had no inside contacts, did all my own legwork, and didn't have a particularly outstanding resume. It may still be a little difficult for a new graduate with no experience to get a job, but there are definitely jobs available for people with a little experience who are willing to relocate a few hundred miles.
And literally "liberal" means "1. not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry; 2. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded".
Whereas "conservative" means: "Of or relating to treatment by gradual, limited, or well-established procedures; not radical."
Using dictionary definitions for political terms is meaningless. The fact of the matter is that the meaning of the terms "liberal" and "conservative" has shifted in teh United States. They now refer to specific political preferences which relate more to socialism and free market economics than they do to change or openness to change.
You have set up a straw man, since few people looking on the term "liberal" as an insult are using the archaic definition you choose to champion.
Actually, it's not over the top at all. There are a number of worms that will infect a Windows box as soon as it's plugged in. I've seen a new XP install get infected within 20 minutes of first bootup. Actually, I just managed to get my home machine infected in under 10 minutes last week. I reformat and reinstall my Windows Server 2003 partition every 3-4 months. During my most recent reinstall, I made the mistake of leaving my computer plugged into my DSL line. While I was installing my firewall, I became infected and had the joy of watching my my computer shut down. I solved the problem by rebooting into Linux, and a few days later wiping the Windows partition and reinstalling again. This time I was careful to have a firewall up before I hooked up the DSL.
I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree with your conclusion. You are correct that there are experts that know far more about the subject than we do. You are also correct about the AI researcher knowing more about AI than the secretary or mechanic. However, in both cases I think that the non-expert has a right to consider the possible consequences of a technology, and determine whether they feel the dangers outweigh the benefits.
There are always dangers to implementing a new technology, particularly one that may be difficult to purge if its consequences are undesirable. While I support the cautious use of genetically engineered plants, there is a real concern of loosing control of those plants if we are not careful.
The analogy to making changes to a C library are quite valid. When we make substantial changes to any system, we need to be careful to have a pretty good idea what the side effects might be. This is true of new code, of new medications, and of introducing new plants to an ecosystem. We shouldn't let fear of the unknown paralyse us, but neither should we dive headlong into unknown waters without first taking some precautions.
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The following site has a history of our top level classifications of life. It indicates that "5 Kingdoms" was developed in the 60's, though obviously it may have taken longer to get into school textbooks.
http://www.palaeos.com/Kingdoms/kingdoms.htm
The real problem? Software development & other IT people are PROFESSIONALS who have to build and maintain professional skill sets through self-study and/or taking new job opportunities. The cryin' shame is that we aren't smart enough to set up a cartel like the lawyers (bar assc.) and doctors (medical board) do in order to prevent competition from low-quality & low-wage sources as well as establish peer-review for the needed skills and recognition in hiring process.
If you have skills that can't readily be replaced by an untrained foreigner, then you are WASTING the time and money spent on that self-study and new job opportunities. Someone with a valuable skillset with be paid what their skills are worth. If your skills are not demanded by a market which is satisfied with low quality and low wage employees, learn better skills. Don't walk around complaining about how nobody wants to overpay for what you can do anymore, or how the market has moved on and left your antiquated skillset in the dust. The market doesn't owe you anything, if you can't do anything that others find useful enough to pay for, the only person to blame is yourself.
Rotting pear crop illustrates farmers' plight
Although consumers won't notice much difference in the supermarket, it's estimated this year's severe labor shortage will result in about 10,000 tons of pears being overripe and dumped.
Everyone likes to claim that there ARE Americans willing and able to take the jobs held by illegal immigrants. The above story though suggests that there are skilled positions that Americans are simply unwilling to do. There is nothing wrong with this, since a (high school) educated American can almost always find better paying work than picking pears. It does suggest we should be willing to make use of WILLING physical labor at low rates to improve OUR quality of life. When cheap labor is used to make shoes, it is the "working class" which gets cheaper shoes. (The wealthy really don't care that much if their shoes cost twice as much.)
The problem is that displays of crosses on the right of way of the road, which is government owned land, and the display of religious artifacts such as monuments to the ten commandments amount to an apparent endorsement, by the government, of religion, said religion almost always being Christianity. For example, I do not recall a single instance of seeing Shiva in a house of legislature, a voodoo altar at an accident site, or a monument to Ayn Rand on a courthouse lawn. When we talk about the US government's sponsorship of religion, It is Christianity first, last, and always.
I'm sorry, but I have a hard time equating decorating preferences for public spaces with someone's "freedom of religion". I have no problem with my local community deciding to put a voodoo altar in front of its courthouse. While I might personally vote against it because I dislike voodoo altars, I firmly believe that my community has the right to decorate its public spaces in any way it chooses. If I dislike it, I will campaign for a change of decorators, not try to circumvent the will of my community in court based on "freedom of religion".
Freedom of religion doesn't mean you don't have to see decorations you dislike. It means that you are not forced to engage in someone else's religion or prevented from engaging in your own religion (so long as it does not directly harm others). Funding or religious groups should only be provided using the same criteria used for other community groups (such as allowing local clubs to use community centers or school classrooms). We should never discriminate against someone based on their religion, but there is a difference between religious freedom and preventing a community from decorating their courthouse as they see fit.
If outlawing printing fake passes, is what it takes to keep terrorists from printing them, then we should do it. Terrorists wouldn't dare to break such a law, thus they won't be able to get boarding passes, thus they won't be able to fly, thus they won't be able to travel to my city, thus they won't be able to detonate a suicide bomb near me.
This gives me a better idea! We need to make a law against buying or using a plane ticket for travel to commit a crime, particularly terrorism. So far as I am aware, it is NOT currently illegal to travel by plane to a city in which you are planning to commit a crime (such as terrorism). This is a loophole we need to fix immediately.
This post struck me as interesting enough to do the research. The numbers were pulled together from various sources (linked) and may be incorrect. The computations did present the image of a HIGHLY efficient US workforce though, which manages to produce 20% of the world's GDP with only 5% of the population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by
US produces 20% of GDP with 25% of the energy and 5% of the population
EU produces 20% of GDP with 21% of the energy and 7% of the population
China produces 15% of GDP with 15% of the energy and 20% of the population
32% of the global population produces 55% of the wealth using 60% of the energy.
Perhaps. But if you *are* carrying a form of identification, a police officer in the US is allowed to ask you to present it with no justification whatsoever, and failing to do so is a jailable offense.
Can you provide support for this statement? Even in the case cited above, a person can only be jailed if there is "and reasonable suspicion--though not probable cause" that the person has committed a crime. This makes sense since I person who refuses to identify themselves cannot be located for future questioning if needed. I am unaware of any law requiring a person to identify themselves to an officer "with no justification whatsoever".
From article linked above:
# Supreme Court Upholds Constitutionality of Arrest for Refusal to Identify. In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court has narrowly upheld a Nevada law allowing law enforcement to arrest an individual when he refuses to identify himself, and reasonable suspicion--though not probable cause--exists that he has committed a crime. (June 21, 2004)
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
The freedom of speech is not limited only to speak against the government. That said, this case is not about penalizing a blogger for his speech, and there is no lawsuit being filed (at present). Instead, this is about whether someone can be compelled to give back corporate documents which might reveal a source.
Actually, the Earth itself is not a "closed system", and in itself has absolutely no "regenerative powers". The Earth receives a constant stream on incoming energy in the form of sunlight, which is then captured and used. This constant influx of energy can allow for a stable ecosystem that uses less than the total output of the Sun to the Earth if all energy is perfectly captured. Obviously perfect capture is not likely, so the long term energy requirements of organisms on the Earth will need t be significantly less.
At present, humans are using energy captured in the past. This is not a long term sustainable model, since we will eventually use it all up. This may or may not be an immediate concern. Regardless though, the Earth itself is not a "closed system". So long as we have sunlight, "renewable energy" is possible. Like any other kind of organism, we need to adapt ourselves to make use of available energy sources. This may mean that we should use the bounty of fossil fuels to produce better energy gathering tools, or simply to improve ourselves for future use. It may mean we simply enjoy the good times, and adjust when they go bad. Like any organism, if we do not adjust ourselves and our behaviors to our own well being we will suffer.
I make a very good income by giving all my data away for free and billing for my personal time (on the phone, in face-to-face consultations and in public speaking engagements). Nothing restricts others from doing it but they are LAZY because of the government force of copyright.
I can understand your position with regard to copyright. I do not entirely agree, but I understand your position. Where you are confusing me here is in your lack of support for trademarks. Are you honestly indicating that you would not mind someone hiring a lookalike to you, then going around billing for the time of that look alike while claiming that person was really you? A trademark law is designed simply to prevent one person or group of persons from dishonestly claiming to be another person or group of people.
Trademark law should not even matter here, because this writer did not ever represent himself as being Blizzard, or owning WOW. It simply should not apply. The purpose of trademark law (to prevent misrepresentation) really does not apply here, so neither should the protections granted by trademark law.
So work on finding a way to explain "source code" to non-programmers. Good luck.
I've actually had little difficulty explaining "source code" to people. It takes me about 20 minutes, and contains the following content:
1) The computer can only understand 1's and 0's. This is how you instruct it how to do at a low level. It is possible to make an "executable" file using only 1's and 0's, but this takes a long time and is pretty hard to do. Most programmers can't even understand what the 1's and 0's mean.
2) Each kind of computer has an "assembly language". This is basically using short cryptic words to represent the commands you make using 1's and 0's. It makes it easier to program, but is still really hard. You use a special program called an "assembler" to make an "executable" program. (An executable program being one you can click on to run.)
3) Most programmers use a "higher level" programming language, which also allows them to structure and comment their instructions for the computer. While it is still hard to understand, it is much, much easier than either "machine code" (1's and 0's) or "assembly language" (short cryptic words).
4) Being able to see the language that the program was written in makes it much easier to understand what the program is doing. This is called looking at the "source code". "Source" because this is the words that the program was written in, and "Code" because it is still a tricky language you need a programmer to understand. A programmer looking at the "source code" though can figure out how the program works and even make improvements. If they don't have the "source code", it is really hard to tell what the program is designed to do by looking only at the "machine code".
The only people I have ever found to have difficulty understanding this are those with an attention span under 20 minutes. Unfornately, this may include many managers. Hopefully it does not include the students taking a class on Open Source Software (whom one might suspect might be familiar with what "Code" means).
I thought the point of insurance was to spread risk. Since noody can afford the treatment for certain catastrophic illnesses, the idea is to put everyone in a pool to share the risk. If insurers are allowed to cherry pick, why bother even having insurance, other than for accidental trauma?
Your misunderstanding is regarding the point of "insurance". Insurance is purchased when the cost of loss is such that the buyer of the insurance cannot afford the risk. The buyer does not expect to face the loss, but wants to be sure that they will not be financially ruined if they do experience loss.
Let's look at insuring a shipment of gold as an example. If I am shipping $1,000,000 worth of gold across the country, I want to get it insured. This is not because I expect to lose the gold, or becuase I want to "spread the risk". I want insurance so that in the unlikely event that the gold is lost I am not held responsible. If I am paid $5,000 to transport the gold, and can insure it for only $1,000 then I can offload the risk of theft from me to the insurer and still make money transporting gold.
Why would anyone accept this responsibility though? They would accept it only if they are confident enough that the gold will not be stolen to take the risk. Preferably for them, they are selling insurance to lots of people shipping gold, and figure that the probability of them ALL being robbed is low. So long as fewer than 1 in 1000 shippers make a claim, the insurer makes money. To figure out if this makes sense, the insurer must do detailed studies to ensure that they do not lose out by accepting the responsibility for someone else's risks.
The problem with "forcing" insurers to accept risks they are unwilling to take is that we are telling them how to run their business. If the risk is bad for the money, it would be foolish for them to accept responsibility. Pre-existing conditions, or high probability problems should not be addressed by "insurance", but rather by charities or social assistance programs run by the government if the individual is unable to afford the cost of their condition. Normal doctor visits or routine medications should never be paid for through "insurance", because insurance should only be used for unexpected emergencies. Other programs ought to be organized for collective bargaining and shared cost programs, neither of which is really "insurance".
1. Pay teachers very well so they are in say the top 5% of all wage earners. This will attract the highly skilled and educated back into teaching.
:)
I fully agree. If we want good teachers, we need to pay a rate that allows us to hire the best and fire anyone who fails to meet the standard. Without better pay, teaching will continue to be a last resort for those who can't do.
2. Send teachers to school during school holidays to further their own knowledge. Pay them for this. This ensures teachers are constantly updating their knowledge instead of driving taxi's during the school breaks.
Absolutely. If we are going to make teachers the best paid people around, it only makes sense that they should be expected to work year round like everyone else. Three months of training every summer would assist in keeping teachers at the top of their field.
3. Don't let your local community decide what should be taught in schools. Curriculum should be decided by a national panel made up of leaders in each field of study. Education should be a national issue, not one decided based on local beliefs no matter how "intelligent" those beliefs are.
This is where I have to firmly disagree with you. While there should be a national minimum educational requirement, families and communities ought to be allowed a great deal of leeway in regards to what they are allowed to teach. Allowing them to do so gives the ability for more visionary communities to better prepare for the future, setting an example to other schools. The idea that a monolithic education system can make all the "right choices" regarding what needs to be taught is presumptuous.
4. Provide options for traineeships in traditional trades (e.g. electrical, plumbing etc) for the non-academic students. This will help remove disruptive elements from classes allowing those who want to study or have the aptitude to study to do so in peace. (not that you don't need to study to become a plumber and such, but I'm sure you all know what I mean)
Trade school ought to be an option for all high school students. They should still be given enough academic training to allow them flexibility in life if they later decide they would like to go to college though. Locking people into a societal role early in life just isn't fair.
5. Properly fund the schools and get rid of the Coke/Chip machines. I know the sugary drinks and food taste great, but they don't help you sit still and concentrate. (A new slogan perhaps?
Eh, I'd leave this decision to the local schools. Junk food in small quantities can be a welcome break from a rough test. Proper nutrition should be taught to all students though, and healthy meal choices should be available if food is provided.
6. Ban the teaching of religion on any and all school grounds. AND ENFORCE IT!!! Religion has it's place in society, but not in schools!
Yes, because more ignorance of the beliefs of others is what we really need. I would prefer to have at least the top 3-5 religions in the area and the top 3-5 religions in the world taught by actual practitioners of the religion whenever possible. Suppressing religious expression without good reason is never justified, and in the US at least it is actually unconstitutional.
Ever think there might be a reason for the higher margins? Like maybe because Apple has always developed their own hardware, motherboards, some of the major chipsets.... and (especially) the operating system.
Regardless of the "reason" for the higher margins, it doesn't necessarily apply to this discussion. IBM would be selling hardware that they manufacture themselves in large volumes, using already existing motherboards, with existing chipsets, and with an operating system developed by others with no licensing fees. They would pay less for the hardware than Apple paid, and they would not have any cost in developing the operating system. The main expenses of such a plan would be assembly and possibly having to provide support for Linux. Believing that they could surpass the specifications of the mac mini for the same price and still make a profit is entirely reasonable. Whether IBM would prefer to demand similar margins to Apple though is another question entirely.
If there was no longer a need for something, it would become obsolete on its own. Demanding that something become obsolete is quite suspicious.
I agree, and if this were being justified entirely on the basis of "obsolescence" I would be strongly opposed to it. The justification for this decision though is based on the desire to cut down on the portion of the spectrum monopolized by television signals. Digital TV can fit far more channels into a smaller section of spectrum, allowing us to use the old spectrum for things like cell phones and wireless internet connectivity. This is supposedly less about obsolescence and more about reducing bandwidth consumption. Of course, I'm still rather suspicious of the claimed motivation.
My original post(s) still stand. We should not have been forced to move to a different format at our own expense and then have to subsidize others that can't afford the move!
No, no format change is required. We just will not allow analog broadcasts to continue to monopolize large portions of the spectrum that would be better used for other, more efficient, purposes. According to the topic, only 15% of households use broadcast television. Redistributing this bandwidth for something like cell phones or wireless internet connectivity seems quite reasonable.
That said, if instead it is just held "in reserve" either by the government or by corporations, I will be very irritated by the results of this whole process.
I believe that most power plants are not highly adjustable. Even if they are "adjustable", the cost of adjusting them up and down exceeds that of just letting them overproduce. Since under-producing means lost revenue and angry customers, most utilities tend to overproduce.
I'm guessing that you don't understand what it's like to have no spare money or to be forced to work a miserable job to keep food on the table because I'm guessing you can't relate.
I will admit to being the guy with the nice middle class ride through life to whom you refer. I have never in my life worked a minimum wage job, and the least I was ever paid was $6.25 an hour as a lab assistant in college. I have never had difficulty finding work as a soccer referee for over $15/hr on weekends, I have taken entry level grocery bagger positions for $9/hr and I have babysat for $7.50 an hour. During college I mostly worked internships at around $13/hr, which combined with $30,000 in government subsidized loans paid my tuition.
As bad as the school system is in this country, schools and public libraries offer sufficient resources for any interested person to obtain an education. I was homeschooled from K-12 grade, which meant that for the most part I taught myself. By buying used books online, you are looking at an investment of a couple hundred dollars a year. (And if you don't believe me I can put together a book list to show you.) It does not require a privleged middle class upbringing to obtain a quality education. I will agree though that for a kid whose parents don't really care, getting a quality education is much more difficult.
Obtaining a state college education is also not difficult for someone wanting to do so. My local state school has in-state education costs of under $500 a semester. Take your highly motivated examples who work two full time jobs. At $10/hr each job, that person is making about $40,000 a year. While $10/hr is high for starting salary, it is well within the reach of someone who is a good employee and is willing to relocate. Particularly if said party is willing to live in an inexpensive area (ie NOT San Francisco), they can very quickly have enough savings to go to school. If they can continue to work while in school, they may be able to avoid even needing much from their savings.
The real way a person gets into an untenable position is by making poor decisions. Not obtaining a quality high school education is the first mistake most people make. They then follow this by getting married or having kids they can support that family. Our society is unwilling to wait for anything or plan for the future. A person cannot end up a single mother with 3 kids working a minimum wage job without making some stupid decisions. While I do believe we should help such people recover from those mistakes, your claims that people aren't at fault for where they are in life just do not reflect the facts.
I also have a cell phone, and I have made it very clear to all my friends (including my girlfriend) that I will not answer it if I am busy doing something else. I have it primarily for free weekend calling and so that I can make use of "dead time" when I'm not doing anything else. My cell phone is freeing, in that I never wait at home for a call to come, but can go do something else while I'm waiting. I almost never turn the ringer on, since vibrate is enough to let me know I have a call. If I don't feel like answering, I don't. It always surprises me to hear people talk about how they let their cell phone take over their life. I feel sorry for those who are unable to just be inaccessible.
I've also had poor experience with SORBS. During my interaction with their staff, they even admitted that we had a double opt-in list server, and that they had accidentally opted in using their support address. They were still unwilling to remove us from their list though on the grounds that they felt that it was too easy to deliberately opt in. We weren't about to pay them off when they could just as easily opt in to the list again and demand another payoff.
In the end, we just sent out a notification to all our customers that users of the SORBS blacklist could not be supported.
And don't even kid yourself into thinking that private industry will do dick for pure science -- everything private industry does has to have a dollar sign at the end of it.
Actually, this particular program is an example of an area where a private "non-proft" could well have a meaningful impact. $4 million a year is well within the fundraising capabilities of a non-profit, and as others have said we likely have enough people here to keep the issue alive.
This is currently the main advantage of non-governmental programs. Disinterested parties don't decide how our money is spent, and those who are interested can dedicate as much money as they would like to. I'd actually like to see the ability to "designate" a portion tax money toward programs I like. We should only be forced to support essential programs, but we should be encouraged to fund anything that we feel is deserving of funding. If nobody is willing do willingly designate money for a space program, then perhaps we don't deserve the benefits of such a program. I would like to see things like NASA and other research funded by privately designated dollars, because then nobody can decide to redirect my money toward stupid programs instead of those more deserving of my support.
I've seen guys with CS degrees go years in california without a job. Maybe in other parts of the country a degree is a job, but not in california. It's still a really hard market.
I can't speak for your experience, but it sure has not matched my own. I relocated to California from Chicago as a recent graduate last February for a job offer paying ~40K. In October, I decided to look for a better position. Within three months, I accepted a position paying over 60K. I had no inside contacts, did all my own legwork, and didn't have a particularly outstanding resume. It may still be a little difficult for a new graduate with no experience to get a job, but there are definitely jobs available for people with a little experience who are willing to relocate a few hundred miles.
And literally "liberal" means "1. not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry; 2. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded".
Whereas "conservative" means: "Of or relating to treatment by gradual, limited, or well-established procedures; not radical."
Using dictionary definitions for political terms is meaningless. The fact of the matter is that the meaning of the terms "liberal" and "conservative" has shifted in teh United States. They now refer to specific political preferences which relate more to socialism and free market economics than they do to change or openness to change.
You have set up a straw man, since few people looking on the term "liberal" as an insult are using the archaic definition you choose to champion.
Actually, it's not over the top at all. There are a number of worms that will infect a Windows box as soon as it's plugged in. I've seen a new XP install get infected within 20 minutes of first bootup.
Actually, I just managed to get my home machine infected in under 10 minutes last week. I reformat and reinstall my Windows Server 2003 partition every 3-4 months. During my most recent reinstall, I made the mistake of leaving my computer plugged into my DSL line. While I was installing my firewall, I became infected and had the joy of watching my my computer shut down. I solved the problem by rebooting into Linux, and a few days later wiping the Windows partition and reinstalling again. This time I was careful to have a firewall up before I hooked up the DSL.
I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree with your conclusion. You are correct that there are experts that know far more about the subject than we do. You are also correct about the AI researcher knowing more about AI than the secretary or mechanic. However, in both cases I think that the non-expert has a right to consider the possible consequences of a technology, and determine whether they feel the dangers outweigh the benefits.
There are always dangers to implementing a new technology, particularly one that may be difficult to purge if its consequences are undesirable. While I support the cautious use of genetically engineered plants, there is a real concern of loosing control of those plants if we are not careful.
The analogy to making changes to a C library are quite valid. When we make substantial changes to any system, we need to be careful to have a pretty good idea what the side effects might be. This is true of new code, of new medications, and of introducing new plants to an ecosystem. We shouldn't let fear of the unknown paralyse us, but neither should we dive headlong into unknown waters without first taking some precautions.