Frankly, I'd go CRAZY after 20 years of working at the same company, driving up and down the same roads, and sitting in the same office/cubicle every day. I don't plan on staying in one place even if that's still an option.
In fact, one of the reasons I'm studying computer science and networking is because of the global demand for it. I'd love to travel to different places.
The funny thing is that all it would take for big, bad, dastardly Iran to wreak havoc on one of our cities is... a bunch of old crop-dusting (or WWII) biplanes. Biplanes travel slow and low enough to completely bypass US radar systems. And why, you ask, don't our radar systems read at altitudes low enough for them? Because (1) there's too much interference from other structures to make it cheap and (2) none of our planes can even safely fly that low!
You can't gauge a country's technological advancement based on military expenditure alone. China has more fighter jets than Japan, but I don't think you'd agree that China is more advanced than Japan. IN FACT, one might even say that military expenditure today varies INVERSELY with the average intelligence of a country's population (China excluded, since their people don't really get a say in it)
Funny how "un-innovative" Japan manages to have 10x our internet speeds for the same costs, or how they're largely responsible for video games (one of the most innovative ideas ever made) even existing today. For such an innovative country, America is strangely behind Japan and China in terms of public transportation and high-speed rail.
Sony isn't very innovative today, but really, do you think Microsoft or Google or (oh god) Dell or HP are any better? All the new tech you're hearing about in the news is made by STARTUPS, which are just bought out by big tech companies. One of the only big American companies that still "innovates" (how I hate that word now) is IBM. Meanwhile just look at the Japanese auto industry compared to the American auto industry.
But since we're talking about software innovation, I guess we should just forget about a little thing called Linux that was written by a college kid in Finland. You don't hear about software innovation outside the US because most of it isn't big enough to be news all around the world. Do you think Instagram receives much media attention in Europe?
I expect the opposite. With salaries stagnating, health care still employer-based, and politics that are increasingly moving toward "xenophobia and batshit insane theocracy", who's going to choose the US over the EU or Japan or China 20--hell, even 10--years from now? There's only so much that a slightly higher salary and slightly lower income tax can do to attract smart people when those countries offer better hospital access, public transportation, and education for their kids: All things that sound pretty appealing to people who grow up in countries offering none of that.
Brain drains don't include everyone in a country. In fact, particularly in Iran's case, I suspect that many educated people REFUSE to come to the west because of how they've been treated their whole lives by us. And what about Iran's "regime" is any worse than recent American regimes? (I don't think I need to point to our last president, who's responsible for 100x more deaths than 9/11, while simultaneously using 9/11 as an excuse).
You're also assuming that being smart automatically gives someone the means to leave the country. They need money for that first, and that means even those prospective emigrants need to work in their own country before they can do that. And those who DO emigrate are more likely to go to China than the US, because of China's good relations, treatment, and trade with Iran relative to the west's.
And "Selfish?" If we're getting into broad generalizations, then I'd bet that those STAYING in Iran are likely to do so for less selfish reasons than those leaving it. Those leaving it are just trying to make better lives for themselves (which is understandable); those staying--with the freedom to go to richer, less barren countries--are doing so to make better lives for their neighbors, co-workers, friends, and complete strangers. But that's only assuming that someone from their perspective would have the CRAZY opinion that the giant rich country bombing them, spying on them, threatening them with trade embargoes, and actively supporting their regional rivals doesn't have their family's (or 80 million fellow Iranians') best interests at heart.
The only fair part of that "Fair Tax" is the title. Leave it to Americans to listen to some rich guy saying "You know what would be a great idea? If I paid the same taxes on my Hummer and 10-room mansion that you pay for bread!"
US taxes aren't complicated because of paper; they're complicated because the whores in Congress keep writing new loopholes for their business partners and rich constituents to exploit.
Don't forget all the cost of manufacturing and printing on that paper. And getting that paper in the first place. And driving people into the woods to cut down the trees to get the wood needed to make that paper. You don't even need to do any math to know that e-readers use none of the resources and a fraction of the energy.
There are a lot of dumb people out there.Including intelligence in their search queries could cost Microsoft customers by sending more people toward Apple results.
Bullshit. The reason the roads built by European countries grew dilapidated was because they were useless for the locals' travel and commerce. When European powers colonized Africa, they just build roads leading straight from villages to port towns, paying more for goods than the locals could and consequently pretty much killing all trade between villages. The roads they built were generally in tropical areas where the cement couldn't dry before getting doused in rain, and the undergrowth constantly damaged what the rain hadn't. So even if the roads that Europeans built were useful in any way for the Africans themselves, they still wouldn't have lasted until the present day.
China's intentions are probably no better, for that matter.
Why, because only Americans are ingenious enough to be engineers? Just because it's beyond your understanding doesn't mean it's beyond someone else's even if they are from a country you seem to judgmentally believe can't have smart people.
And good for them. What were we even doing sending drones into that country in the first place? Because "they're making nukes"? Even if Iran made a nuclear bomb, that would do nothing more than.. put them on equal footing with every country surrounding them who also has a nuclear bomb (most of which got theirs directly or indirectly from us). Frankly, any country spending $600 billion/year on the military doesn't get to cry when other people reverse-engineer the technology we're using to push them around.
unless an accountant committing fraud is actively emailing co-workers saying "I'M COMMITTING FRAUD," there aren't many clues the company's going to find about it in their emails. They check emails for the same reasons they're starting to ask for their employees' facebook information; so they can make sure they're unreasonably devoted to someone who underpays them (I'm going out on a limb and assuming this is the case for any company who so callously violates their employees' civil rights) and eventually ask them to take up a second (unpaid) job as marketers.
My issue is with KIDS--most of whom need internet access more than their parents--being denied that access. And you can't exactly expect every kid to get to the library on his own, especially not a kid who lives in a poor neighborhood, where libraries aren't known for being located in. Telecommunications services are nowhere near as expensive in the rest of the world, since most other developed countries still have PUBLIC infrastructures. You can thank Congress for paying $70/month for that Comcast connection that rarely reaches the advertised download speeds, since Comcast (along with AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner) took that public property away from you in the first place 15 years ago; so it seems kind of wrong to say that you'd be taking anything from them.
In fact, while Comcast and AT&T actively campaign against public telecommunications and net neutrality in the US "because it's socializing our lines", they were some of the companies campaigning FOR the socialization of telecommunications in the UK, since they weren't the ones holding local monopolies there. And once the lines went public, the cost of services dropped dramatically.
But while we're on the subject of "taking" from others, I'm also one of those crazy people who believes we should have publicly-funded roads, schools, airports, and other things (also universal health care) that involve "taking" money from the rich. But I have no problem with that, since CEOs don't actually work 400x harder than their employees despite making 400x their employees in this country.
Well if talking about computers casually means they must believe it to be sentient, that same logic would explain why sailors have a reputation for sleeping around alot: It's not because they've been at sea for weeks, it's to drown out the pain of being friend-zoned by their ship.
And apparently Halogen gases really ARE just greedy assholes for stealing Alkali metals' sole valence electrons.
Those transactions have nothing to do with emails, though. You aren't going to find signs of account fraud in emails; you're going to find them in accounting records.
most things listed in the Bill of Rights don't help with survival either (except for the 2nd amendment... 200 years ago). Sheltered suburbanites need to stop saying "well they can SURVIVE without that."
The simple fact is that, when most people have access to the internet, it leaves those without access at a SEVERE disadvantage--and most don't have that access because they're already at a disadvantage to begin with. And before people go all libertarian and say "that's their problem", it's not just theirs: It's also their kids' problems. Nobody can seriously expect a kid growing up in a poor neighborhood--most likely with one parent working afternoon shifts to pay bills instead of staying home to raise them--to somehow compete with all the other kids who can just google any subject they're having trouble with.
A modern new bill of rights regarding the internet and computer science really is needed, and not just limited to giving everyone affordable internet access (which would require the prostitutes we call Congressmen to take back the telecommunications infrastructure they sold to Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon for a fraction of its cost in the 90s), but should also include guarantees such as net neutrality, privacy protection, and rights to any algorithms too basic to be patented.
"Bigger government" is a vague term used by the same politicians who incidentally campaign on adding to the annual $700 billion military budget. "Providing health care like the rest of the developed world" != "Constructing giant Big Brother stations to monitor the populace". Likewise, "Taxing the rich and and telling Exxon they can't dump chemicals into rivers" != "Abolishing the First Amendment."
You don't have to look any further than Canada to see that a government can be "big" enough to adequately provide medicine to citizens without requiring them to bend over for rectal exams upon arrest. EU countries incidentally provide the same services without making up half the entire world's military spending. You seem to be confusing the word "freedom" with "anarchy."
Slashdot Mirror
Amnesia
Thief
Minecraft
Total War
Civilization
Pretty much any strategy game, really.
Good AI and advanced physics engines are generally limited to PC's too, since consoles' main strength is their parallel processing.
For that matter, forget even thinking about those longer hours and just pay your coders by the line. That will get you ahead.
I can already see everyone brushing up on C
Because the ones doing the work don't have the keys to the vault and fuck you, get your own $100 million.
Frankly, I'd go CRAZY after 20 years of working at the same company, driving up and down the same roads, and sitting in the same office/cubicle every day. I don't plan on staying in one place even if that's still an option.
In fact, one of the reasons I'm studying computer science and networking is because of the global demand for it. I'd love to travel to different places.
The funny thing is that all it would take for big, bad, dastardly Iran to wreak havoc on one of our cities is... a bunch of old crop-dusting (or WWII) biplanes. Biplanes travel slow and low enough to completely bypass US radar systems. And why, you ask, don't our radar systems read at altitudes low enough for them? Because (1) there's too much interference from other structures to make it cheap and (2) none of our planes can even safely fly that low!
You can't gauge a country's technological advancement based on military expenditure alone. China has more fighter jets than Japan, but I don't think you'd agree that China is more advanced than Japan. IN FACT, one might even say that military expenditure today varies INVERSELY with the average intelligence of a country's population (China excluded, since their people don't really get a say in it)
Funny how "un-innovative" Japan manages to have 10x our internet speeds for the same costs, or how they're largely responsible for video games (one of the most innovative ideas ever made) even existing today. For such an innovative country, America is strangely behind Japan and China in terms of public transportation and high-speed rail.
Sony isn't very innovative today, but really, do you think Microsoft or Google or (oh god) Dell or HP are any better? All the new tech you're hearing about in the news is made by STARTUPS, which are just bought out by big tech companies. One of the only big American companies that still "innovates" (how I hate that word now) is IBM. Meanwhile just look at the Japanese auto industry compared to the American auto industry.
But since we're talking about software innovation, I guess we should just forget about a little thing called Linux that was written by a college kid in Finland. You don't hear about software innovation outside the US because most of it isn't big enough to be news all around the world. Do you think Instagram receives much media attention in Europe?
I expect the opposite. With salaries stagnating, health care still employer-based, and politics that are increasingly moving toward "xenophobia and batshit insane theocracy", who's going to choose the US over the EU or Japan or China 20--hell, even 10--years from now? There's only so much that a slightly higher salary and slightly lower income tax can do to attract smart people when those countries offer better hospital access, public transportation, and education for their kids: All things that sound pretty appealing to people who grow up in countries offering none of that.
Brain drains don't include everyone in a country. In fact, particularly in Iran's case, I suspect that many educated people REFUSE to come to the west because of how they've been treated their whole lives by us. And what about Iran's "regime" is any worse than recent American regimes? (I don't think I need to point to our last president, who's responsible for 100x more deaths than 9/11, while simultaneously using 9/11 as an excuse).
You're also assuming that being smart automatically gives someone the means to leave the country. They need money for that first, and that means even those prospective emigrants need to work in their own country before they can do that. And those who DO emigrate are more likely to go to China than the US, because of China's good relations, treatment, and trade with Iran relative to the west's.
And "Selfish?" If we're getting into broad generalizations, then I'd bet that those STAYING in Iran are likely to do so for less selfish reasons than those leaving it. Those leaving it are just trying to make better lives for themselves (which is understandable); those staying--with the freedom to go to richer, less barren countries--are doing so to make better lives for their neighbors, co-workers, friends, and complete strangers. But that's only assuming that someone from their perspective would have the CRAZY opinion that the giant rich country bombing them, spying on them, threatening them with trade embargoes, and actively supporting their regional rivals doesn't have their family's (or 80 million fellow Iranians') best interests at heart.
The only fair part of that "Fair Tax" is the title. Leave it to Americans to listen to some rich guy saying "You know what would be a great idea? If I paid the same taxes on my Hummer and 10-room mansion that you pay for bread!"
US taxes aren't complicated because of paper; they're complicated because the whores in Congress keep writing new loopholes for their business partners and rich constituents to exploit.
You know, every single automobile being made today has computer chips in it. So even if this were true... it still wouldn't be.
Don't forget all the cost of manufacturing and printing on that paper. And getting that paper in the first place. And driving people into the woods to cut down the trees to get the wood needed to make that paper. You don't even need to do any math to know that e-readers use none of the resources and a fraction of the energy.
There are a lot of dumb people out there.Including intelligence in their search queries could cost Microsoft customers by sending more people toward Apple results.
Lots of those groups of people building roads nowadays aren't American citizens. So which roads do you choose to value?
Bullshit. The reason the roads built by European countries grew dilapidated was because they were useless for the locals' travel and commerce. When European powers colonized Africa, they just build roads leading straight from villages to port towns, paying more for goods than the locals could and consequently pretty much killing all trade between villages. The roads they built were generally in tropical areas where the cement couldn't dry before getting doused in rain, and the undergrowth constantly damaged what the rain hadn't. So even if the roads that Europeans built were useful in any way for the Africans themselves, they still wouldn't have lasted until the present day.
China's intentions are probably no better, for that matter.
Why, because only Americans are ingenious enough to be engineers? Just because it's beyond your understanding doesn't mean it's beyond someone else's even if they are from a country you seem to judgmentally believe can't have smart people.
And good for them. What were we even doing sending drones into that country in the first place? Because "they're making nukes"? Even if Iran made a nuclear bomb, that would do nothing more than.. put them on equal footing with every country surrounding them who also has a nuclear bomb (most of which got theirs directly or indirectly from us). Frankly, any country spending $600 billion/year on the military doesn't get to cry when other people reverse-engineer the technology we're using to push them around.
unless an accountant committing fraud is actively emailing co-workers saying "I'M COMMITTING FRAUD," there aren't many clues the company's going to find about it in their emails. They check emails for the same reasons they're starting to ask for their employees' facebook information; so they can make sure they're unreasonably devoted to someone who underpays them (I'm going out on a limb and assuming this is the case for any company who so callously violates their employees' civil rights) and eventually ask them to take up a second (unpaid) job as marketers.
My issue is with KIDS--most of whom need internet access more than their parents--being denied that access. And you can't exactly expect every kid to get to the library on his own, especially not a kid who lives in a poor neighborhood, where libraries aren't known for being located in. Telecommunications services are nowhere near as expensive in the rest of the world, since most other developed countries still have PUBLIC infrastructures. You can thank Congress for paying $70/month for that Comcast connection that rarely reaches the advertised download speeds, since Comcast (along with AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner) took that public property away from you in the first place 15 years ago; so it seems kind of wrong to say that you'd be taking anything from them.
In fact, while Comcast and AT&T actively campaign against public telecommunications and net neutrality in the US "because it's socializing our lines", they were some of the companies campaigning FOR the socialization of telecommunications in the UK, since they weren't the ones holding local monopolies there. And once the lines went public, the cost of services dropped dramatically.
But while we're on the subject of "taking" from others, I'm also one of those crazy people who believes we should have publicly-funded roads, schools, airports, and other things (also universal health care) that involve "taking" money from the rich. But I have no problem with that, since CEOs don't actually work 400x harder than their employees despite making 400x their employees in this country.
Well if talking about computers casually means they must believe it to be sentient, that same logic would explain why sailors have a reputation for sleeping around alot: It's not because they've been at sea for weeks, it's to drown out the pain of being friend-zoned by their ship.
And apparently Halogen gases really ARE just greedy assholes for stealing Alkali metals' sole valence electrons.
Not that I disagree with how useful an internet connection is, but homeless people aren't known for having either facebook pages OR smartphones.
Those transactions have nothing to do with emails, though. You aren't going to find signs of account fraud in emails; you're going to find them in accounting records.
you're confusing those types of bosses with people who see you as something more than an exchangeable cash cow.
most things listed in the Bill of Rights don't help with survival either (except for the 2nd amendment... 200 years ago). Sheltered suburbanites need to stop saying "well they can SURVIVE without that."
The simple fact is that, when most people have access to the internet, it leaves those without access at a SEVERE disadvantage--and most don't have that access because they're already at a disadvantage to begin with. And before people go all libertarian and say "that's their problem", it's not just theirs: It's also their kids' problems. Nobody can seriously expect a kid growing up in a poor neighborhood--most likely with one parent working afternoon shifts to pay bills instead of staying home to raise them--to somehow compete with all the other kids who can just google any subject they're having trouble with.
A modern new bill of rights regarding the internet and computer science really is needed, and not just limited to giving everyone affordable internet access (which would require the prostitutes we call Congressmen to take back the telecommunications infrastructure they sold to Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon for a fraction of its cost in the 90s), but should also include guarantees such as net neutrality, privacy protection, and rights to any algorithms too basic to be patented.
you can get that version in most shady motels and bars.
"Bigger government" is a vague term used by the same politicians who incidentally campaign on adding to the annual $700 billion military budget. "Providing health care like the rest of the developed world" != "Constructing giant Big Brother stations to monitor the populace". Likewise, "Taxing the rich and and telling Exxon they can't dump chemicals into rivers" != "Abolishing the First Amendment."
You don't have to look any further than Canada to see that a government can be "big" enough to adequately provide medicine to citizens without requiring them to bend over for rectal exams upon arrest. EU countries incidentally provide the same services without making up half the entire world's military spending. You seem to be confusing the word "freedom" with "anarchy."