I repeat: I don't see it as a 1st ammendment issue as all those banned books are still available -- just no public moneies are spent on them.
You didn't refute my point. There are no laws abridging the freedom of speech (those books are still available), or of the press (those books can still be printed at will). Emphasizing the text may make the works stick out more, but that doesn't change their meaning. The government (local, state or federal) is under no obligation to spend tax dollars on every book ever published.
And the opinion of "some Christian organizations" is impacting what's in a public school? (Maybe it's nothing new, but it still shouldn't be happening.)
Welcome to the unintended concequences of true 'democracy'. Communities which are populated mostly by people who find some material objectionable can try and often succeed in 'banning' such materials from public schools/libraries.
Such bannings are on a 'micro' level. You don't see such things occur at the 'macro' level as you see much more diverse 'value systems'.
Is this REALLY a bad thing? While personally, I don't like the idea -- I still think that local communities have the right to that kind of autonomy. I don't see it as a 1st ammendment issue as all those banned books are still available -- just no public moneies are spent on them.
This usually isn't being "penalized for loyalty". You've signed a contract and already got your "good deal". It's now up to you to fullfill your end of the contract. Once you've done that (1 or 2 years usually), you can sign another contract and get your new "good deal".
Racist? I didn't know "french" was a race. Or "austrialian" was a race. Or "new zealander" or "american". Perhaps you meant "...modded this nationalist shit up"?
Maybe my closing argument invoking Tammany Hall and line about "nothing good coming out of government" crossed the line.
That's probably what most caught my attention.
Bah... if there's one thing I've learned it's that it's far too easy to tear apart an argument. Constructing a good, cogent, well thought out argument -- ah -- there's the challenge! An even greater challenge to hear and respond to attacks on one's argument without taking it personally.
You have my most humblest of apologies if *I* appeared to cross the line and attack you. You've given no cause for such an action and it was never my intention.
Good job on your part. You only selected the OP's question and then you used that question to clobber me while ignoring the rest of his post
Actually, I took his post in toto. It's obvious when he asks if the explosive growth of government in the "past 100 years has helped more than it's hurt" that he concedes that GOOD does come from government -- but a greater harm. If thats true or not is debatable.
The ONLY line that suggests ANYTHING like you claim (at least when taken out of the context of the entire post) is when the OP states "I know that I don't benefit from this expansion of power. "And all that says is that the OP believes he himself has not benefited from this 'explosive growth'. He makes no claims as to any "overall good".
I didn't need to put words in his mouth. Ratamacue suggested, rather clearly IMHO, that "NOTHING GOOD COMES OUT OF GOVERNMENT" when he used the two statements above and also gave us a link to a libertarian web site. His opinions on government couldn't be more clear.
Yet clearly you did put words in his mouth. Further, I believe you are misrepresenting libertarian ideals here -- perhaps unintentially. By reassurting (incorrectly, in any reasonable opinion) that the OP stated "NOTHING GOOD COMES OUT OF GOVERNMENT" then suggesting that linking to a libertarian website supports your claim you essentially claim that libertarians believe nothing good comes out of government. This is not true -- libertarians believe that is not the ROLE of the federal government to the "good" they do -- that should be up to the states and/or private industry.
Ratamacue's negative opinions of government in general were clearly stated, not just hinted at, in the part of the post that you chose to ignore:
o The reason is simple: because expansion of government benefits those in power. o Look what's happend in the US: government today is many times more powerful, more oppressive, and more costly than only a hundred years ago
I didn't choose to ignore it. It wasn't supportive of your claim so wasn't mentioned. Believe me, I took read the OP in total -- and didn't remove thoughts out of context. Those "points" clearly make no claim about "NO GOOD" coming from big government. It clearly only claims that:
(1) big government benefits those in power (which I'll accepted as a given -- note that the OP didn't say ONLY benefits those in power)
(2) the government is many times more powerful (I'll accept that as a given as well -- it IS many times more powerful than it was. The fed holds an axe over the heads of the states in the form of federal dollars)
(3) more oppressive (While I don't agree with this, I'd really like to see more arguements before I dismiss it)
AND (4) more costly than only a hundred years ago (Again, I accept this as a given).
No where is the claim suggested that NO GOOD comes from the government -- other than the words placed in the OPs mouth by you.
I'm sorry if I'm coming off confrontational. A 'bad' habit I picked up in college many years ago.
You must write political attack ads for a living.
No -- a philosophy/mathematics major turned IT professional -- I blame my phil background. It's heavy in linguistics and formal logic.
You were asked: Can anyone here (who doesn't work in government) honestly say that the exponential growth of the US government over the past 100 years has helped more than it's hurt?
You responded with a list of 'benefits'. You then procede to answer in a way that suggested the OP said something other than he said -- YOUR answer suggests the OP stated or suggested "NOTHING GOOD COMES OUT OF GOVERNMENT". The OP said nothing of the sort. He was suggesting that the GROWTH has hurt MORE than it has helped. Your 'Tammany Hall' suggestion further tips your arguement in to the 'falacy' catagory by suggesting that the only alternative is terrible and frightening. This is very specious.
Way to 'strawman', pal! And you get modded up! I guess some moderators just don't read carefully...
Granted, you weren't provided a list of 'negatives' -- they were only hinted at. But that's hardly an excuse to put words in someones mouth.
Marginally better than last month? Yes. Marginally better than last year? Much better. Marginally better than 1999? Nope -- much worse.
I think the point is that we are starting to see a return of 'perks' as an incentive for talent as the job market gets better. Not a return to dot-com boom days -- but I think that was a fluke and obviously not sustainable. It was a fun fluke, though...
Well, yeah -- I was suggesting a bit further out -- I'm surprised that a gas giant much larger than Jupiter could form that close to a star.
And wouldn't moons be much harder to detect? Right now, we can't really see these 'planets' directly, if I correctly understand the techniques used. We 'infer' they exist by either measuring any changes in position over time or doppler shifts. Wouldn't a 'moon' be much harder to detect? Even earth sized? If we can't even see the 'gas giant', we couldn't possibly use astrometry on it to detect satilites around it -- further, what measurements we can record on the host-star would detect the entire mass of it's satellite (gas-giant AND its own satellites), wouldn't it?
One thing that frustrates me about the articles I've seen on this subject is that they don't explain why formation of big, close-in gas giants precludes formation of Earth-like planets farther out. Accretion disks are really, really big; surely parts of them can clump into gas giants while others slowly form smaller, rocky planets?
Why couldn't life form on a MOON of one of these 'big, close-in gas giants'? Seems there are quite a few 'rocky' moons around OUR gas giants -- perhaps one of them is within that narrow band from it's sun and 'host planet(?)' that it might have liquid water.
I had said "It all depends on your 'situation'. Plus, working for a privately owned company vs. a heartless evil corporation is a major asset -- and humans appricate effort more than faceless 'boardrooms'. ymmv".
It's obvious the 'guy' isn't going to stand much of a chance of 'moving up' in *his* company with an attitude like *yours*. However, if his goal is to have an employment life like *yours* he'll need to change employment.
5 years as a contractor servicing dozens of clients and 5 years at my current employer.
My biggest complaint were PS fans. Next CPU fans. I've never had a tape drive fail on me -- but pleanty of fans, HDs, mobos, CDRs, whathaveyou... There are 100 workstations at this location and my guys and I are replacing fans about once or twice a month. I've gone so far as replacing a number of the older workstations with fanless netier's running win2k. Those suckers last forever.
I've got a Dual Pentium Pro server that's been in service for 7 years here (I got hired by one of my clients). It's got a Colorado T4000s. This particular server is just running for archive purposes now (it gets retired next year and I'm yanking the RAID controller for myself!), but the tape drive has been running happily these many years. Tapes are only run weekly now (since aug 03), but are still verified.
I have had one server come with a busted tape drive -- the eject mechinism failed and it was like that on delivery. That was a Dell "powervault 100T", which is I believe a re-branded Taravan. Dell sent out another the next day.
Of course, I'm pretty anal about dust and clean the hardware regularly and our server room rarely gets above 65.
It's easy to justify. What's the life expectancy of that $100 DVD drive? How easy can you automate backups with it? How do you plan on automating the DVD-swap when you break 4 gigs (or 8 gigs for that matter)? How reliable is the media and how often do you need to replace it? In 10 years, I've had no tape drives bust on me. A few TAPES, but not the drives. Can't say that for CDRW drives. I can't really speak about DVD-Rs, but I'm sure low-cost consumer versions are just as brittle.
Once a backup procedure is in place, it's simply a matter of cycling tapes, grep'in the logs and emailing/sms'ing any alerts. Every friday, send a tape off site, every monday get back the old off-site tape. Replace tapes as they break or after 1 year of service.
While your DVD drive might work, you're pretty much stuck in front of it swapping out 5-10 DVD-Rs for every 40 gigs of data. What fun. Me? I like to go home and sleep during backup cycles. Then scan the logs in the morning. It takes me all of about 30 seconds (including swapping the tapes).
Because there is no driving need for the home user to back up gobs of data and maintain a history of such backups. Most home users data fit nicely on a single CD-R (sans music/video).
Since there's no real consumer-need, there's no real consumer model and no consumer production. That keeps the production costs up in the realm of the corporate/business users.
Got any idea where I can get a sub 300$ tape backup system?
Yup. When I can get 10 or 15 2in x 3in sized doo-hickey that can store 80+ gigs at under $20-$30 per doo-hickey, I may change.
Although, we *do* also use live HD backups as part of our backup procedure -- just for a single nights backup. Sometimes you need to go back 5 or more days...
I KNOW I earn more than most. And I also know I haven't let my employers abuse me. I've no idea what your point is other than a subtle flame of me while providing a narcissistic description of how 'cool' you are for being so 'independent' and unwilling to lift a little finger without compensation. Wow. I bet you wear a mean looking leather jacket, too.
Trust me, I'm more than adequately compensated for my work.
Companies should provide for the means to do your work, otherwise you should refuse to do the work.
That may work for *YOU* and you may actually get through life with the attitude you push here. I'm fairly certain you wont be moving much upward within any particular company. About the only way you'll see much improvement of salary will be moving horizontally (jumping from company to company). Unless you have a skillset that's hard to duplicate... Event then, many employers would consider the attitude you presented here to be too much trouble. I hope you interview without the attitude...
But how would you have responded if before you made that decision, management demanded it of you and hinted at handing you your hat if you didn't comply?
Sometimes the 'rules' change. Thats the way employment is. I'd be annoyed and frustrated -- and based on how I much I valued (needed/liked) the job I'd decide to either stay or look elsewhere. It sounds obvious that failure to comply with the new rules would at the very least freeze any 'upward' movement within the company.
If the OP is truly unhappy with the change in policy, he's free to walk out today. My only point was to provide a broader view to the picture to allow him to better make his choice.
Personally, I get annoyed when I'm asked to devote a weekend afternoon to some damn stupid company picnic...free Jello or no.
Heh... I had the owner come to me some time ago and sit me down for a very 'serious' discussion. As management, it's part of my job to help keep up the morale of not just my department, but the company as a whole -- the end result of that conversation was that I showed up to work one (and all consecutive) Halloween in costume (with all the other managers and many employees). While this isn't something I would normal do, nor something I would enjoy doing, I don't have a huge problem doing it and it was brought up to me as a suggestion. And quite honestly, the company as a whole does seem to enjoy those days. Blows off some steam.
That's true, but for the entire year tax withholding is performed based on the HIGHER rate on a larger part of your income. At the end of the year, when calculating, your 'taxable' income is significantly lower -- well under that higher tax rate. That means the difference in the tax rate is 'refunded' (or corrected at filing time).
Granted, I could file quarterly -- as I did when a contractor -- and do my 'best guess', but I do a fairly decent job of calculating what my withholding should be to maximize my monthly income while minimizing my yearly tax bill (either get a smallish refund or pay out a smallish amount).
I'm all for the 'give a bit more' camp, but when the employer responds by sucking you dry on the backside, I'd say you should at least keep your ear to the ground for better opportunities.
That, my friend, is sound advice.
My entire point was an attempt to broaden the picture -- so that the OP may make a more informed decision.
My situation is unique to me -- as JoeSchmo's is to him.
BTW, my company wasn't a startup -- it had been in business 15 years before I came along. Long story and completely OT. I'll just say that our owner decided to change our 'menu' of tests to something more attractive to a number of medical groups...
So what are you saying? That my employer is different from yours? Yup. You got me there. What you did do is further illustrate my point -- which is that there are more than one type of employer and "the guy" should consider all sides of this before he makes a decision.
I'm glad you likewise have the flexability I enjoy. I hope you use it to your advantage. Particularly if you have kids.
My personal attitide is that unless I have a stake in the company, I'm not gona put in the extra effort, I've seen too many people get screewed over that way.
As have I. However, I have seen very few people rise up through management who didn't put in the extra effort -- hell, never mind management, regular employees passed over for raises -- or only given small raises.
So yeah, you can work your arse off for an unappreciative employer and as you say, get 'burned'. But I can almost guarantee you that you wont progress much in position or standing with your employer if you dont. But maybe it's more important to not 'get burned' that it is to progress?
Of course, all of this is just 'rules of thumb' based on experience. Both as a schlub and now as a guy who manages/hires schlubs. I'm sure your statements are likewise based on your experience.
No I'm not asserting his company will somehow reward him for his efforts. What I am asserting is that his company may fail to continue REWARDING him -- or penalize him if he doesn't comply with these 'changes'. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts they will. That's my assertion.
Of course, it's up to him to guage. I have no idea who he or his employer are. He'll need to figure out whats best for him. A full picture helps.
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I repeat: I don't see it as a 1st ammendment issue as all those banned books are still available -- just no public moneies are spent on them.
You didn't refute my point. There are no laws abridging the freedom of speech (those books are still available), or of the press (those books can still be printed at will). Emphasizing the text may make the works stick out more, but that doesn't change their meaning. The government (local, state or federal) is under no obligation to spend tax dollars on every book ever published.
Such bannings are on a 'micro' level. You don't see such things occur at the 'macro' level as you see much more diverse 'value systems'.
Is this REALLY a bad thing? While personally, I don't like the idea -- I still think that local communities have the right to that kind of autonomy. I don't see it as a 1st ammendment issue as all those banned books are still available -- just no public moneies are spent on them.
Racist? I didn't know "french" was a race. Or "austrialian" was a race. Or "new zealander" or "american". Perhaps you meant "...modded this nationalist shit up"?
Bah... if there's one thing I've learned it's that it's far too easy to tear apart an argument. Constructing a good, cogent, well thought out argument -- ah -- there's the challenge! An even greater challenge to hear and respond to attacks on one's argument without taking it personally.
You have my most humblest of apologies if *I* appeared to cross the line and attack you. You've given no cause for such an action and it was never my intention.
The ONLY line that suggests ANYTHING like you claim (at least when taken out of the context of the entire post) is when the OP states "I know that I don't benefit from this expansion of power. "And all that says is that the OP believes he himself has not benefited from this 'explosive growth'. He makes no claims as to any "overall good".Yet clearly you did put words in his mouth. Further, I believe you are misrepresenting libertarian ideals here -- perhaps unintentially. By reassurting (incorrectly, in any reasonable opinion) that the OP stated "NOTHING GOOD COMES OUT OF GOVERNMENT" then suggesting that linking to a libertarian website supports your claim you essentially claim that libertarians believe nothing good comes out of government. This is not true -- libertarians believe that is not the ROLE of the federal government to the "good" they do -- that should be up to the states and/or private industry.I didn't choose to ignore it. It wasn't supportive of your claim so wasn't mentioned. Believe me, I took read the OP in total -- and didn't remove thoughts out of context. Those "points" clearly make no claim about "NO GOOD" coming from big government. It clearly only claims that:
(1) big government benefits those in power (which I'll accepted as a given -- note that the OP didn't say ONLY benefits those in power)
(2) the government is many times more powerful (I'll accept that as a given as well -- it IS many times more powerful than it was. The fed holds an axe over the heads of the states in the form of federal dollars)
(3) more oppressive (While I don't agree with this, I'd really like to see more arguements before I dismiss it)
AND (4) more costly than only a hundred years ago (Again, I accept this as a given).
No where is the claim suggested that NO GOOD comes from the government -- other than the words placed in the OPs mouth by you.
I'm sorry if I'm coming off confrontational. A 'bad' habit I picked up in college many years ago.No -- a philosophy/mathematics major turned IT professional -- I blame my phil background. It's heavy in linguistics and formal logic.
You were asked: Can anyone here (who doesn't work in government) honestly say that the exponential growth of the US government over the past 100 years has helped more than it's hurt?
You responded with a list of 'benefits'. You then procede to answer in a way that suggested the OP said something other than he said -- YOUR answer suggests the OP stated or suggested "NOTHING GOOD COMES OUT OF GOVERNMENT". The OP said nothing of the sort. He was suggesting that the GROWTH has hurt MORE than it has helped. Your 'Tammany Hall' suggestion further tips your arguement in to the 'falacy' catagory by suggesting that the only alternative is terrible and frightening. This is very specious.
Way to 'strawman', pal! And you get modded up! I guess some moderators just don't read carefully...
Granted, you weren't provided a list of 'negatives' -- they were only hinted at. But that's hardly an excuse to put words in someones mouth.
Marginally better than last month? Yes. Marginally better than last year? Much better. Marginally better than 1999? Nope -- much worse.
I think the point is that we are starting to see a return of 'perks' as an incentive for talent as the job market gets better. Not a return to dot-com boom days -- but I think that was a fluke and obviously not sustainable. It was a fun fluke, though...
Well, yeah -- I was suggesting a bit further out -- I'm surprised that a gas giant much larger than Jupiter could form that close to a star.
And wouldn't moons be much harder to detect? Right now, we can't really see these 'planets' directly, if I correctly understand the techniques used. We 'infer' they exist by either measuring any changes in position over time or doppler shifts. Wouldn't a 'moon' be much harder to detect? Even earth sized? If we can't even see the 'gas giant', we couldn't possibly use astrometry on it to detect satilites around it -- further, what measurements we can record on the host-star would detect the entire mass of it's satellite (gas-giant AND its own satellites), wouldn't it?
Splendid! Geek paradise. LINUX AND PORN!
I had said " It all depends on your 'situation'. Plus, working for a privately owned company vs. a heartless evil corporation is a major asset -- and humans appricate effort more than faceless 'boardrooms'. ymmv".
It's obvious the 'guy' isn't going to stand much of a chance of 'moving up' in *his* company with an attitude like *yours*. However, if his goal is to have an employment life like *yours* he'll need to change employment.
5 years as a contractor servicing dozens of clients and 5 years at my current employer.
My biggest complaint were PS fans. Next CPU fans. I've never had a tape drive fail on me -- but pleanty of fans, HDs, mobos, CDRs, whathaveyou... There are 100 workstations at this location and my guys and I are replacing fans about once or twice a month. I've gone so far as replacing a number of the older workstations with fanless netier's running win2k. Those suckers last forever.
I've got a Dual Pentium Pro server that's been in service for 7 years here (I got hired by one of my clients). It's got a Colorado T4000s. This particular server is just running for archive purposes now (it gets retired next year and I'm yanking the RAID controller for myself!), but the tape drive has been running happily these many years. Tapes are only run weekly now (since aug 03), but are still verified.
I have had one server come with a busted tape drive -- the eject mechinism failed and it was like that on delivery. That was a Dell "powervault 100T", which is I believe a re-branded Taravan. Dell sent out another the next day.
Of course, I'm pretty anal about dust and clean the hardware regularly and our server room rarely gets above 65.
It's easy to justify. What's the life expectancy of that $100 DVD drive? How easy can you automate backups with it? How do you plan on automating the DVD-swap when you break 4 gigs (or 8 gigs for that matter)? How reliable is the media and how often do you need to replace it? In 10 years, I've had no tape drives bust on me. A few TAPES, but not the drives. Can't say that for CDRW drives. I can't really speak about DVD-Rs, but I'm sure low-cost consumer versions are just as brittle.
Once a backup procedure is in place, it's simply a matter of cycling tapes, grep'in the logs and emailing/sms'ing any alerts. Every friday, send a tape off site, every monday get back the old off-site tape. Replace tapes as they break or after 1 year of service.
While your DVD drive might work, you're pretty much stuck in front of it swapping out 5-10 DVD-Rs for every 40 gigs of data. What fun. Me? I like to go home and sleep during backup cycles. Then scan the logs in the morning. It takes me all of about 30 seconds (including swapping the tapes).
Since there's no real consumer-need, there's no real consumer model and no consumer production. That keeps the production costs up in the realm of the corporate/business users.
Ebay?
Yup. When I can get 10 or 15 2in x 3in sized doo-hickey that can store 80+ gigs at under $20-$30 per doo-hickey, I may change.
Although, we *do* also use live HD backups as part of our backup procedure -- just for a single nights backup. Sometimes you need to go back 5 or more days...
I KNOW I earn more than most. And I also know I haven't let my employers abuse me. I've no idea what your point is other than a subtle flame of me while providing a narcissistic description of how 'cool' you are for being so 'independent' and unwilling to lift a little finger without compensation. Wow. I bet you wear a mean looking leather jacket, too.
Trust me, I'm more than adequately compensated for my work.That may work for *YOU* and you may actually get through life with the attitude you push here. I'm fairly certain you wont be moving much upward within any particular company. About the only way you'll see much improvement of salary will be moving horizontally (jumping from company to company). Unless you have a skillset that's hard to duplicate... Event then, many employers would consider the attitude you presented here to be too much trouble. I hope you interview without the attitude...
If the OP is truly unhappy with the change in policy, he's free to walk out today. My only point was to provide a broader view to the picture to allow him to better make his choice.Heh... I had the owner come to me some time ago and sit me down for a very 'serious' discussion. As management, it's part of my job to help keep up the morale of not just my department, but the company as a whole -- the end result of that conversation was that I showed up to work one (and all consecutive) Halloween in costume (with all the other managers and many employees). While this isn't something I would normal do, nor something I would enjoy doing, I don't have a huge problem doing it and it was brought up to me as a suggestion. And quite honestly, the company as a whole does seem to enjoy those days. Blows off some steam.
That's true, but for the entire year tax withholding is performed based on the HIGHER rate on a larger part of your income. At the end of the year, when calculating, your 'taxable' income is significantly lower -- well under that higher tax rate. That means the difference in the tax rate is 'refunded' (or corrected at filing time).
Granted, I could file quarterly -- as I did when a contractor -- and do my 'best guess', but I do a fairly decent job of calculating what my withholding should be to maximize my monthly income while minimizing my yearly tax bill (either get a smallish refund or pay out a smallish amount).
My entire point was an attempt to broaden the picture -- so that the OP may make a more informed decision.
My situation is unique to me -- as JoeSchmo's is to him.
BTW, my company wasn't a startup -- it had been in business 15 years before I came along. Long story and completely OT. I'll just say that our owner decided to change our 'menu' of tests to something more attractive to a number of medical groups...
So what are you saying? That my employer is different from yours? Yup. You got me there. What you did do is further illustrate my point -- which is that there are more than one type of employer and "the guy" should consider all sides of this before he makes a decision.
I'm glad you likewise have the flexability I enjoy. I hope you use it to your advantage. Particularly if you have kids.
So yeah, you can work your arse off for an unappreciative employer and as you say, get 'burned'. But I can almost guarantee you that you wont progress much in position or standing with your employer if you dont. But maybe it's more important to not 'get burned' that it is to progress?
Of course, all of this is just 'rules of thumb' based on experience. Both as a schlub and now as a guy who manages/hires schlubs. I'm sure your statements are likewise based on your experience.
No I'm not asserting his company will somehow reward him for his efforts. What I am asserting is that his company may fail to continue REWARDING him -- or penalize him if he doesn't comply with these 'changes'. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts they will. That's my assertion.
Of course, it's up to him to guage. I have no idea who he or his employer are. He'll need to figure out whats best for him. A full picture helps.