I've started turning back to physical media. Streaming is bandwidth intensive, and the fidelity for even "HD" streams just isn't there sometimes. Amazon and Netflix often have to downsample their video to meet delivery needs. Most times streaming or DVD is OK, but I'll gladly pay the extra couple bucks for the movies that I want to enjoy in full HD.
Limited by whom? Stop using the passive and name the entity that will stop the government from simply assuming more power yet fails to use dictatorial power itself. A civic-minded populace can do it, sure, but it also tends to extend the role of the government to help further various agendas, resulting in Nordic welfare countries at best and the corrupt American mess at worst.
That's a bit cynical and narrow. Prior to the destruction of federalism in this country, sovereign states were capable of limiting federal powers, and the courts tended to err on the side of the people, rather than the legislature, when it came to adjudicating the constitutionality of laws. That was all turned on its ear during the FDR administration, with Wickard v. Filburn being one of the more egregious examples.
Also, in your model, who will build all the infrastructure that's enormously important to the society but can take a decade or more to begin turning a profit? The free market is notoriously bad at long-term planning. For that matter, who will force the re-internalization of externalities (such as pollution controls), without which the free market gets twisted in an outright psychotic manner (whoever cares the least makes the most profit)? A strictly limited government cannot do either of these, nor can it deal with whatever future issues come up unless its scope can extend (in which case it will extend right back to where it's now).
Why is it that every big-government proponent equates "limited government" with "nonexistent government." You will be hard-pressed to find anyone, aside from a libertarian who is so pure that he could be described as an anarchist, that would dispute that government has legitimate roles, your aforementioned examples among them. This is a common straw man, and it does nothing to bolster your point.
The right refuses to accept the fact that power cannot be destroyed, just shifted around. Strip the politicians of the power and the wealthy will wield it directly, like they did in the past. Big powerful government is the only institution standing between us and feudalism.
This is simply false. The US government, as originally designed, was unique in that it offered a way out of feudalism. It is only through government fiat that the wealthy could wield any power at all. They are inoculated from liability thanks to corporate law. Regulation and taxation has put up barriers to entry in nearly every market. Henry Ford was able to start his automobile company as a middle class worker. Today, with the exception of building out a web product like Twitter or Facebook (expect that particular area of opportunity to close once the US sees fit to slam the Internet with regulations), that notion is all but dead. To emulate Ford, one would have to navigate hundreds or more regulations, and submit permit after permit, just to get off the ground, and if he would manage some meager successes, existing corporations in that market would wield the most esoteric of rules like a cudgel in the court system, until he was pounded out of business. We have a system of megacorporate hegemony, enforced by US law, under which most of the people in this country serve as worker drones. This is simply modern feudalism. The lords are found in the Fortune 100, they carry water for their king in the US government, and their employees are serfs.
It's more about us. We have consistently abdicated our powers for relatively small payouts. A little social safety net here, some security theater there. Every time we clamor for government to intrude into some new area, we empower politicians at our expense. If politicians hadn't been handed unheard-of power over the past 80 years, what exactly would corporations be buying with their campaign donations? We like to act as if we have been wronged, when in reality we have done it to ourselves.
Politicians are corrupt. This is not new. It is the reason this country was founded on the notion that government should be granted very limited power. Humans are imperfect. The original design of our system of government was based on accepting that imperfection, and limiting the power that anyone can wield.
How would Obama help to strengthen the middle class? And why? A strong middle class erodes any political group's power base, but the Democrats have set themselves up to be particularly susceptible. Growing entitlements effectively taxes and inflates the middle class into extinction. Furthermore, there is no logical path to get from "all-powerful central government" to "people who are empowered." How can an agenda that dissolves individual sovereignty bring power back to the people? It's a fallacy.
If the budget of your IT needs is greater than the revenue of most companies, then it's probably worthwhile to take your operations in-house. I've always thought that whoever can sell ongoing, perpetual IT consulting to a company in the GM class can pretty much sell anything to anyone. "Pay us 2-3x what you'd pay your own staff. And by the way, we have no incentive to do things more efficiently." If you can pull off that sales pitch, you've got the Captain in you. I can understand going the outsourcing route for single projects and short timespans, where you can spin up lots of people in short order to get it done. I don't get why you would use them for nothing but staff augmentation for years and years.
Nope, in most case I have to buy microsoft stuff wether I want it or not because: - the PC I need for my work is not offered without Microsoft OS (and not because I'm picky, but just because the few existing options are not really avaiable where I am, and in most case do pay the microsoft tax but hide it under the table) - Some government agency or similar insist on stuf that are depending on some other stuff that does not use an open format and forces me to have at least a Microsoft partition.
Neither of these is really Microsoft's problem. First and foremost, it's dishonest to claim that you can't get a non-Windows PC. There are plenty of viable buying options just a Google search away. If your organization will not certify such hardware, then that problem rests squarely on your organization. As to your latter point, that is based on the decisions of the customer involved. The only thing you can hold against Microsoft is that they're *really good* at selling into the government.
nobody can hold up an example country with fully privatized health care which is being run well
That's only tautologically correct. You will not find a country with fully privatized health care, therefore, you cannot find one whose fully privatized health care is run well.
People are really hating on this thing, and before I read anything about it I was one of them, but I have to admit this is kind of intriguing to me. The biggest gating factor to being useful (as something other than media reading devices), for tablets currently on the market, is input. It's hardware that exceeds netbooks and ultrabooks, without compromising a tablet form factor. Microsoft has an opportunity to hold a dominant market share in the business segment. It would be folly to try to compete in the consumer segment, and any sales there should just be considered gravy. Offer viable input methods, and good integration on Active Directory and corporate VPNs, and it's a winning strategy.
Not that recently. When I was in grade school (also, not that recently), that's the way the nuns presented the material. Evolution was also taught in science class.
"and the current Pope seems like the kind to reverse that position"
And you base your opinion on, what, exactly? Your ignorance smacks of irony in this context.
If the boss thinks he's getting any savings by offloading menial tasks to an offshore consulting team, he is sorely mistaken. It will still be an ongoing cost, without even considering the rework that will need to be managed and done.
This type of work can almost always be largely eliminated through better automation and better engineering practices.
Not only that, you only get what you pay for, for that billed hour. The billing rate of an offshore developer may be half what you would pay someone in-house, but you get billed 4x the hours.
I love douchebags like you who get all butthurt over the imposition of rules. In what world do you live where keeping teachers and students from being friends on Facebook is considered "punishment?" I don't believe that word means what you think it means.
Furthermore, explain to me what is appropriate about child students and adult teachers engaging in social relationships. Because I can think of plenty of reasons that make it not so. Namely, blurring the boundary of the student-teacher relationship undermines the teacher's authority, and therefore the student's education. It's similar to parenting. The worst thing a parent can be is his/her kid's "buddy."
These are things you will understand much better when you're a grownup.
So basically, an entire group of people should be banned from doing something merely because some people in that group may do things that some people do not agree with? You only speak of possibilities here. This is a perfect example of a collective punishment mentality.
Wrong. This is an example of setting boundaries. It is generally inappropriate for students and teachers to have social relationships. Ethics 101.
Software engineering is a career that requires constant dedication, and continuous self-education. In other jobs, you can get away with not keeping current. In software, those people either move to management or change careers entirely rather than maintain skills.
My company is a small company that develops and markets a software product. We just hired two new software developers. Both of them are over 40. Being in my 30s, I'm actually at the lower portion of the mid-range as far as age is concerned. Yet the skill sets of my colleagues are far from stale, and all have been dedicated to keeping their skills current on their own time.
Slashdot Mirror
I've started turning back to physical media. Streaming is bandwidth intensive, and the fidelity for even "HD" streams just isn't there sometimes. Amazon and Netflix often have to downsample their video to meet delivery needs. Most times streaming or DVD is OK, but I'll gladly pay the extra couple bucks for the movies that I want to enjoy in full HD.
And whom do you contact if you don't feel Anonymous is representing your interests, when it bullies some company or public official into compliance?
Limited by whom? Stop using the passive and name the entity that will stop the government from simply assuming more power yet fails to use dictatorial power itself. A civic-minded populace can do it, sure, but it also tends to extend the role of the government to help further various agendas, resulting in Nordic welfare countries at best and the corrupt American mess at worst.
That's a bit cynical and narrow. Prior to the destruction of federalism in this country, sovereign states were capable of limiting federal powers, and the courts tended to err on the side of the people, rather than the legislature, when it came to adjudicating the constitutionality of laws. That was all turned on its ear during the FDR administration, with Wickard v. Filburn being one of the more egregious examples.
Also, in your model, who will build all the infrastructure that's enormously important to the society but can take a decade or more to begin turning a profit? The free market is notoriously bad at long-term planning. For that matter, who will force the re-internalization of externalities (such as pollution controls), without which the free market gets twisted in an outright psychotic manner (whoever cares the least makes the most profit)? A strictly limited government cannot do either of these, nor can it deal with whatever future issues come up unless its scope can extend (in which case it will extend right back to where it's now).
Why is it that every big-government proponent equates "limited government" with "nonexistent government." You will be hard-pressed to find anyone, aside from a libertarian who is so pure that he could be described as an anarchist, that would dispute that government has legitimate roles, your aforementioned examples among them. This is a common straw man, and it does nothing to bolster your point.
The right refuses to accept the fact that power cannot be destroyed, just shifted around. Strip the politicians of the power and the wealthy will wield it directly, like they did in the past. Big powerful government is the only institution standing between us and feudalism.
This is simply false. The US government, as originally designed, was unique in that it offered a way out of feudalism. It is only through government fiat that the wealthy could wield any power at all. They are inoculated from liability thanks to corporate law. Regulation and taxation has put up barriers to entry in nearly every market. Henry Ford was able to start his automobile company as a middle class worker. Today, with the exception of building out a web product like Twitter or Facebook (expect that particular area of opportunity to close once the US sees fit to slam the Internet with regulations), that notion is all but dead. To emulate Ford, one would have to navigate hundreds or more regulations, and submit permit after permit, just to get off the ground, and if he would manage some meager successes, existing corporations in that market would wield the most esoteric of rules like a cudgel in the court system, until he was pounded out of business. We have a system of megacorporate hegemony, enforced by US law, under which most of the people in this country serve as worker drones. This is simply modern feudalism. The lords are found in the Fortune 100, they carry water for their king in the US government, and their employees are serfs.
It's more about us. We have consistently abdicated our powers for relatively small payouts. A little social safety net here, some security theater there. Every time we clamor for government to intrude into some new area, we empower politicians at our expense. If politicians hadn't been handed unheard-of power over the past 80 years, what exactly would corporations be buying with their campaign donations? We like to act as if we have been wronged, when in reality we have done it to ourselves.
Politicians are corrupt. This is not new. It is the reason this country was founded on the notion that government should be granted very limited power. Humans are imperfect. The original design of our system of government was based on accepting that imperfection, and limiting the power that anyone can wield.
That's where "federal" has become quite a misnomer. This is becoming more and more a national government.
You know what they say: Once you go black (helicopters), you never go back (to your wife and kids).
Yet who is financing their efforts?
How would Obama help to strengthen the middle class? And why? A strong middle class erodes any political group's power base, but the Democrats have set themselves up to be particularly susceptible. Growing entitlements effectively taxes and inflates the middle class into extinction. Furthermore, there is no logical path to get from "all-powerful central government" to "people who are empowered." How can an agenda that dissolves individual sovereignty bring power back to the people? It's a fallacy.
If the budget of your IT needs is greater than the revenue of most companies, then it's probably worthwhile to take your operations in-house. I've always thought that whoever can sell ongoing, perpetual IT consulting to a company in the GM class can pretty much sell anything to anyone. "Pay us 2-3x what you'd pay your own staff. And by the way, we have no incentive to do things more efficiently." If you can pull off that sales pitch, you've got the Captain in you. I can understand going the outsourcing route for single projects and short timespans, where you can spin up lots of people in short order to get it done. I don't get why you would use them for nothing but staff augmentation for years and years.
OK. You first. I promise we'll carry on your vision after you're gone.
Nope, in most case I have to buy microsoft stuff wether I want it or not because:
- the PC I need for my work is not offered without Microsoft OS (and not because I'm picky, but just because the few existing options are not really avaiable where I am, and in most case do pay the microsoft tax but hide it under the table)
- Some government agency or similar insist on stuf that are depending on some other stuff that does not use an open format and forces me to have at least a Microsoft partition.
Neither of these is really Microsoft's problem. First and foremost, it's dishonest to claim that you can't get a non-Windows PC. There are plenty of viable buying options just a Google search away. If your organization will not certify such hardware, then that problem rests squarely on your organization. As to your latter point, that is based on the decisions of the customer involved. The only thing you can hold against Microsoft is that they're *really good* at selling into the government.
nobody can hold up an example country with fully privatized health care which is being run well
That's only tautologically correct. You will not find a country with fully privatized health care, therefore, you cannot find one whose fully privatized health care is run well.
People are really hating on this thing, and before I read anything about it I was one of them, but I have to admit this is kind of intriguing to me. The biggest gating factor to being useful (as something other than media reading devices), for tablets currently on the market, is input. It's hardware that exceeds netbooks and ultrabooks, without compromising a tablet form factor. Microsoft has an opportunity to hold a dominant market share in the business segment. It would be folly to try to compete in the consumer segment, and any sales there should just be considered gravy. Offer viable input methods, and good integration on Active Directory and corporate VPNs, and it's a winning strategy.
It was taught in science class when I was in Catholic grade school. And that was several decades ago.
Not that recently. When I was in grade school (also, not that recently), that's the way the nuns presented the material. Evolution was also taught in science class.
"and the current Pope seems like the kind to reverse that position"
And you base your opinion on, what, exactly? Your ignorance smacks of irony in this context.
"The measure is intended to curb violent crime in Venezuela, where 78% of homicides are linked to firearms."
That's what Venezuela claims. In reality, the government prefers a citizenry armed with sticks and rocks when the inevitable revolt comes to pass.
Catholic dogma treats the book of Genesis as an allegorical work.
If the boss thinks he's getting any savings by offloading menial tasks to an offshore consulting team, he is sorely mistaken. It will still be an ongoing cost, without even considering the rework that will need to be managed and done.
This type of work can almost always be largely eliminated through better automation and better engineering practices.
Not only that, you only get what you pay for, for that billed hour. The billing rate of an offshore developer may be half what you would pay someone in-house, but you get billed 4x the hours.
I love douchebags like you who get all butthurt over the imposition of rules. In what world do you live where keeping teachers and students from being friends on Facebook is considered "punishment?" I don't believe that word means what you think it means.
Furthermore, explain to me what is appropriate about child students and adult teachers engaging in social relationships. Because I can think of plenty of reasons that make it not so. Namely, blurring the boundary of the student-teacher relationship undermines the teacher's authority, and therefore the student's education. It's similar to parenting. The worst thing a parent can be is his/her kid's "buddy."
These are things you will understand much better when you're a grownup.
So basically, an entire group of people should be banned from doing something merely because some people in that group may do things that some people do not agree with? You only speak of possibilities here. This is a perfect example of a collective punishment mentality.
Wrong. This is an example of setting boundaries. It is generally inappropriate for students and teachers to have social relationships. Ethics 101.
Ding ding ding.
Software engineering is a career that requires constant dedication, and continuous self-education. In other jobs, you can get away with not keeping current. In software, those people either move to management or change careers entirely rather than maintain skills.
My company is a small company that develops and markets a software product. We just hired two new software developers. Both of them are over 40. Being in my 30s, I'm actually at the lower portion of the mid-range as far as age is concerned. Yet the skill sets of my colleagues are far from stale, and all have been dedicated to keeping their skills current on their own time.
I read once that the thing a PhD in English prepares you for is creating other PhDs in English...
Sounds like an Amway pitch.
Your naivete is adorable.