Parenthetically, isn't it interesting how companies think that years of experience and expertise can be somehow magically transferred to a noob in a few weeks. There seems to be no understanding that programming (or most kinds of engineering) done well...
Most professions that rely heavily on experience & talent are viewed that way by outsiders -- you can even see the attitude here on Slashdot aimed at non-STEM professionals like writers, sociologists, or teachers. Very few people seem to be capable of gauging how much effort goes into it unless they've already worked at building up a related talent (or tried, failed, and were honest with themselves why).
I never saw CVS until I visited the East Coast long ago, and got the impression it specifically targeted the people without the ability, will or knowledge needed to go somewhere more affordable or better-run. Unfortunately, it bought out the popular West Coast drugstore chain Long's Drugs a few years ago, and transformed it to target the same population.
Doubly unfortunately, I have to pick my mother's medications up for her there, so I can't just use the grocery store nearby for everything... I haven't dealt with the CVS iOS app, but the pharmacy section of their website is a useless clusterfuck and the pharmacy's own computer system isn't much better most of the time.
Actually, schools and universities should focus on what they were originally intended for: developing the underlying skills that allow intelligent people to learn new things and adapt that basic knowledge to different situations.
When I was a teenager with a couple of identified talents, I spent most of my free time honing them at home and believed that apprenticeship-style "education" would be far better for me; I only resentfully took unrelated classes intended to make me a "well-rounded" student because the university I wanted to attend required them. It wasn't until I'd been there for a while that I realized that the wide variety of classes (sociology, philosophy, literature, psych, C programming, math, etc.) had been strengthening my mind's ability to make sense of new kinds of concepts by building on bits and pieces of seemingly-unrelated old subjects, and then to blend the old & new concepts together to tackle problems.
I also came to see much later on that all of the knowledge & abilities from my education let me view society's problems with scientific, historical, and a wide variety of personal perspectives rather than just my own experience/beliefs. If even half the population could do that, corrupt politicians & industries wouldn't be able to get away with a fraction as much, and we'd have some of our worst problems under much better control.
The above is why Western countries started making basic education compulsory and encouraged people to attend college: a good education will make someone more capable of making wise voting & personal decisions and a better citizen in general. Whether someone learned a trade or became an educated professional wasn't (and isn't) a fraction as important to their country's longevity as whether the population knew that they were stronger as a united force than all fighting for themselves or which voting decisions would most likely cause harm down the road.
A weak, dumb populace that is also trained to believe, not to question. Add a few creationism v/s evolution fights, a lot of propaganda on patriotism and some generated fears... perfect recipe for a schema where a few control the many, and rip the benefits.
You forgot some of the most crucial elements: propaganda asserting that education's only goal should be to produce useful workers, anything other than vocational or STEM classes is a waste, most teachers are incompetent, people whose abilities lie outside STEM fields lack useful insight, and an "every person for themselves" mentality is best for society. People are a whole lot easier to keep in line when they view one another as rivals rather than allies, lack the detailed knowledge needed to contradict statements of what's best for individuals or society, haven't learned to analyze things using perspectives different from their own, and won't trust anyone that might be able to help them learn how to see through the propaganda.
I can see a giant shift coming where the Valley is where the HQ sits, but you have projects centered in other large cities, which are largely autonomous.
They did that throughout the 80s & 90s -- the Bay Area had an abundance of satellite locations for large tech companies of all kinds, especially alongside companies launching in Telecom Valley. Then when the dot-com bust hit, the large companies started shutting down any-and-all external offices to save money, required employees work at HQ and laid off or fired anyone that couldn't/wouldn't. The chances seem slim that companies aware of that history will go down that road again for a long time, and the few that do will most likely just be creating a few alternate headquarters in far-away locations as Google has done.
if you can afford a smartphone and a phone control, you can damn well afford to pay a buck or two for the paid version.
Smartphones aren't expensive anymore, and someone that takes the time to do a bit of research on phone companies before picking one will be able to find options that also aren't pricy. I paid ~$85 each for the 2 refurbished LG Marquee smartphones I bought from my new cell service provider (Ting), got a $100 credit towards my future bills, and look likely to pay maybe $25/month for both of us put together -- less than we paid for dumbphone service through our previous provider. For the record, my income is ~$850/month each (hers about a third less due to bureaucratic crap) as we're both disabled; it took about a year to save up enough for our phones.
Also, I've seen relatively few high-quality apps that were just a dollar -- the prices I saw averaged around $4-5 with some doubling that -- and it seemed like quite a few of the 99 ones had something shady going on based on the warnings that appeared in reviews.
People prefer repos/"app stores" because they're centralized, removing the need to search all over the web for a particular application or type of application, and far less unlikely to have infected installers compared to software obtained individually online by potentially-bogus sites. While I can tell the difference, my parents certainly can't, and when I'm trying to quickly just get things done (due to time constraints, tiredness, etc.) I definitely am glad that Linux & Android offer massive repositories.
The one thing that really worries me about people relying on Android repositories in particular is that there's no easy access to older versions of software like there is in Linux. If a device manufacturer refuses to upgrade its version of Android and teams like Cyanogen don't pick it up, it doesn't take terribly long for the pool of available software to start rapidly shrinking regardless of how capable the hardware is.
at the moment, nobody really gives a fuck about nasa or space since they're trying to focus on figuring out how to pay their bills, and rightly so...
Exactly. A few decades ago, the old "we can't just keep throwing money at the poor" reaction made some sense, as things like homeless shelters, support for the elderly & disabled, public schools & universities (like the ones that created much of the original Internet) were relatively well-funded; unemployment wasn't out of hand, minimum wage wasn't being eclipsed by the cost of necessities but there was plenty of help for those that needed it. The situation wasn't remotely near perfect, but it was close enough to divert some funds into scientific endeavors that aren't devoted to saving & drastically improving lives.
That's not true anymore. Most adults over 30 are under a hell of a lot of pressure between knowing job security is shit, their pay not mirroring how hard/long they work, the cost of necessities is eating most of their paycheck, plus have kids plus elderly/disabled relatives they will (or are) need to help out substantially because the programs that would've done so 30 years ago were cut to the bone. Some of the geeks on Slashdot are (or should be) worrying even if they do earn a good living, as the age bias could easily cause long-term havoc unless they can excel enough at a new career to be hired in middle age with zero work experience in the field. It's usually the inexperienced younger folk that haven't had to help others out yet that shrug the issue off and focus on their dreams & ideals...
Personally, my thought is that we should return to the overall taxes & spending setup that helped spur the creation of the Internet and the space program, because it's all ultimately interconnected. Those of you whose reaction to the above is to resentfully think that a lack of dependents & current success means you shouldn't have to pitch in, that's what it will take if you want an America like the one that achieved great things several decades ago; if you want one like the stagnating, slowly failing one of the last 12 years where people focus on individually scrabbling for what they can grab for themselves rather than working together to achieve great things, keep pushing for the path we're on.
We need to end carrier only phones and phones with all the carrier software forced on you that you have to hack your own phone to remove it you should have the choice of how much of the software that you want. Visual voice mail (good), a app that let's you see how many mins / data / txt of your plan that you used...
The best way to do that for now is for people to quit choosing the carriers that require contracts, stuff phones full of crap then lock them down. If enough people stopped "voting" with their wallets in favor of those practices, the big companies would eventually change their tune.
It does mean (as in my case) going with what the person can afford rather than the absolute latest technology... However, IMHO it's more than worth it knowing I fully own my phone, I'm not locked to a contract or charged for a bundle of data/txt/minutes I'll never use just to get what I do need, and my funds support a company (in my case Ting) that favors our freedom rather than the ones that favor only whatever gets them more money. Complaining about how our nation's government-corrupting cell companies shaft their customers, then giving them money to continue doing it doesn't make a lot of sense in my book unless there are no other options whatsoever.
They don't need to: these days, relatively few VPNs around the world can be trusted to not throw users under the bus at the first hint of trouble from the **AA or US government, and there's no way to really know whether the 'trustworthy' VPNs were being totally honest. Outlawing VPNs would drive the users to companies or resources that are less **AA/government-friendly; if they're smart about it, they'll mimic lobbyists by giving nice large gifts to helpful VPNs as tokens of their gratitude.
They must have reasonably high IQs to still be in charge, and the law is clearly intended to help them stay that way; what they actually are is sickeningly controlling and unethical... Just slinging common insults like "retarded" reduces the conversation to the level of little kids that lack the vocabulary/maturity to be more specific on their own. Slashdot can do a hell of a lot better than that.
From what I've heard, as a VOIP service that's well-known & easy among non-techies, Skype is too useful for lower-income people that want/need to have long voice calls with people that live in a country that it costs a hefty amount to call. If worthwhile encryption is an option with it, then it could be particularly useful for finding out what's going on in reality (as opposed to government claims) from a trusted source without getting caught going onto "illegal" websites.
Besides, Skype isn't near-impossible to avoid on the Web like the other two; if someone's like me and either dislikes or doesn't have a use for it, we simply don't use it. It's not like there are many (if any) sites that requiring a Skype-based login to comment, scripts of theirs everywhere slowing systems down by tracking users, and so forth...
Actually, good writers *don't* get paid well, unless they're among the few Hollywood elite; it's now rare for even writers with multiple NYT best-sellers to make enough to quit their "day" job.
As far as volunteering for a massive project like that is concerned, that's the sort of thing that a writer would do in their spare time as a teenager or college student, because the impact of the quality of the actors, music, cinematography, directing, etc. is so great upon the end-result that there's far too great a chance that the end-result will reflect badly on the writer. (Also, screenwriters are, as far as I've ever read, judged on how well their past work sold or fared at a major competition/festival; the potential buyer or employer won't usually sit down to watch things the individual contributed to in the past.)
I think most people here don't realize how irritating and problematic being recorded constantly during private conversations can be. From experience just with someone that had a voice recorder, knowing that the slightest thing you say could be shared out of context or edited to make you look bad and subsequently (perhaps after a couple of bad experiences) *trying* to police every word becomes stressful enough to spark real resentment and anger.
Considering the amount of pressure that a lot of people are under these days between job, financial, and personal issues, and that being recorded on video would be even more stressful than mere audio, this situation is likely to push a lot of them over the edge into violence or worse. I wouldn't be surprised if pressure from voters & police experts results in politicians banning devices of this sort.
Before anyone says it: no, cellphones, cameras and standard surveillance cameras are not the same thing. The cellphones/cameras aren't used to record constantly (doing so would be a major battery drain), so as I said in another thread, the difference between them and GGlasses is similar to that of a friend bringing his dog and a friend bringing his incontinent diarrhea-prone dog. Civilian surveillance cameras are intended to record constantly but usually either lack audio or can't hone in on one specific conversation, plus they're under the control of a neutral third party that has little incentive to abuse the recording.
Cellphones don't record & upload constantly, so that's a bit different. It's the gap between a friend bringing along his dog, versus bringing his diarrhea-prone semi-incontinent dog: one most people & places will at least tolerate, the other they'll avoid if at all possible.
120 years ago...people realized that...the only thing you can pick is big or small.
Actually, the polarized beliefs that are common now are fairly recent. More importantly, the people with that mentality didn't "realize" anything, as it's not remotely close to a factual truth -- it's a *belief* that arises from either resenting the presence of any government/authority within their lives, generally viewing things in simplistic black-and-white terms, or both. In the vast majority of cases, their knowledge on the matter relies on information cherry-picked to support those beliefs, and is notably absent of extensive data on both how society has fared in the countless configurations that can exist within every level between big & small or of what life was like for individuals with a variety of circumstances living in each socioeconomic status (e.g. non-disabled white female poverty, physically disabled hispanic female lower middle class, undereducated black male with mental illness born into upper-middle class, and so forth).
Now what we have is a welfare party and a warfare party just arguing about which to spend money on.
Wow, you've really fallen for their rhetoric... What we have in the US now is, going by both historical and global criteria, an extreme far-right party and a less extreme right-edge party, both of which are focused on ensuring as much money as possible is given to the corporate interests that they're beholden to. They make near-identical decisions:
* What you refer to as the "welfare party" enacted a healthcare system designed by Republicans in the 90s, has severely cut the systems that support and/or educate our most vulnerable citizens, continues the previous Republican administration's focus on pseudo-wartime spending and *opposed* forcing the defense department to disclose drone use within our country.
* What you refer to as the "warfare party" has just been the one to push in favor of forcing the defense department to disclose domestic drone usage and completely failed to support the needs of returning soldiers disabled while deployed overseas, though yes, it has *also* made cuts to core programs that educate or assist those in need and did initiate the last 11.5 years of war.
It's a puppet show intended to further the belief that we cannot and never have had a moderate-sized government whose actions improved our economy and life for the people living here, that all government beyond 'small' must necessarily be a despotic dictatorship, and to further ignorance of the fact that in other countries with governments that are mid-sized or larger than ours all across the Western world, citizens are faring better than ours do with less day-to-day interference or dictatorship-style problems than we encounter.
As they say, it's not how big (or small) it is, it's how you use it!
I don't think that "we" are apathetic half as much as that the vast majority of the population feels powerless to make any significant change and no longer truly dares hope that we ever will. That's why the most that happens now is that once in a while, a small percentage of the population becomes angry/frustrated enough at the situation to protest physically for a while, like the protests against invading Iraq almost a decade ago.
Once in a *long* while, part of the population starts to manage a bit more in terms of action because many of them are young and their frustration is joined with the sense that they have little to lose. When they start to show signs of having a real effect, those with political power use our media to spread propaganda (typically by claiming those involved have whatever moral failings are most hated at the time), shows of force by the police/military, and threatened or actual punishment through the legal system. Even when the government has made some degree of change, it has been done in a way that made it look like concern or benevolence from the politicians rather than any effect citizens had. The message to citizens is the same as it has been for millennia: be obedient to your masters without substantial protest, or face harsh punishment from them and be reviled by all.
In addition to the resulting sense of powerlessness & hopelessness is that most people are being too taxed by mental & physical stress to spare the intellectual or emotional resources needed to look beyond survival and momentary distractions from how stressed they are. Everyone has heard of "bread and circuses" by now, but we rarely think about what it truly meant, beyond that their government was giving them just enough to avoid rioting... It meant that those citizens had only what was needed for most to survive physically & psychologically, enough to view & treat one another as rivals, but not what's needed feel energetic (well-rested, well-fed, confident) enough to band together and truly challenge the folks in charge.
You can see everything I described above -- people in bread & circus survival mode protesting with barely a glimmer of hope that it will work, then their own mental/physical state plus the powers in charge slowly tearing the movement apart in last December's "Eulogy for Occupy". Americans that feel that our fellow citizens are truly just apathetic should read it.
In stark comparison, you can also see a stirring example of what rebelling citizens sound like when they've been faring well enough to work together against their government in this letter written by Canadian revolutionary leader Chevalier de Lorimier shortly before his execution. Things written during other uprisings or times of conflict decades later where the citizens ultimately succeeded (e.g. UK & US women's suffrage, the US Civil Rights Era, anti-Vietnam protests) show a similar tone of determined optimism that tends to be conspicuously absent in cases more like OWS.
I can correlate that just from what my doctor has said... She's among the few daring to give out the major painkillers when needed, and she explained that if *any* of her patients on them fails to visit her in-person every 6 months for a basic checkup, urine/blood tests & often-extended discussion of our condition, the government starts harassing her through phone, letter, and sometimes in-person, with (as you said) jail as the ultimate result if there are too many issues. From things she's said, they even start getting twitchy if someone on a patch-based drug (like I am) takes the tests several hours before they're supposed to swap out the old patch for a new one.
Unfortunately, being non-profit isn't a reliable indicator that funds are going towards treating employees well or good patient care. There are more than a few legal "non-profit" orgs that do make a substantial profit, but "spend" it on extremely high executive/management salaries. Others take the approach of being split primarily into for-profit entities; for example, Kaiser Permanente in the US is a non-profit managed care org that is comprised mostly of regional clusters of for-profit clinics & hospitals.
This is where knowing which school someone's degree(s) came from. The top-tier universities in particular are actually harder to get into than ever to the high number of international & American students vying for acceptance. It's the community colleges & generic state/private schools that are being forced to lower their standards, and that's not because the students are stupid -- it's because so many are being pushed through the K-12 system with abilities that wouldn't have gotten them past the third grade 20 years ago.
That's speaking both as a 30something aware I wouldn't get into my high-ranked alma mater if my 18-year-old self applied today, and as someone that tutored & the graded papers of local community college freshmen in the mid-late 90s & 2002. The kids in the 90s basically needed help editing their papers or other college-level stuff; the ones in '02 were barely fucking literate despite being white middle-class native English speakers without learning disabilities, and the instructor told me it had been like that for 2-3 years by then, but that the dean said we couldn't flunk anyone unless they turned *nothing* in.
That said, the main reason for going to college isn't supposed to be job training for the elite -- it's to learn the many things that result in a well-informed citizen and aren't available by just hanging around one's hometown or just traveling for a year or two. That's why our government decided to begin educating our population rather than leaving it to the elite, why it's traditional to have students take courses in multiple fields unrelated to what they *think* they'll want to do with their lives for at least the first 2 years, and why a hell of a lot of students at the good schools find their viewpoints or awareness of what's really going on shifting broadly during that time period.
You might want to change numbers and use a free online service like Google Voice when registering for something. Since taking that approach upon getting my current number 2.5 years ago, I've only gotten 1-2 spam texts/year and the rare unwanted calls are from locals trying to reach somebody else.
If you write for a living, as I do, you need a decent keyboard, and by that, I do not mean an "ergonomic" one. If your wrists are that bad, I'm sorry for you, but you'll never be a really effective typist. With squish comes missed keys, double presses, constant backing up for errors and overall low typing speeds.
I've seen a few surveys that indicate that most writers use standard keyboards; just because you weren't able to transition from the old mechanical style well enough to type effectively doesn't mean that most people have that problem. It's all a matter of what the individual is used to: I can only type a fraction as quickly or accurately on my old mechanical keyboards (Apple IIgs ADB & IBM Model M) as I do on the newer technology despite having spent the second half of my teens on those older keyboards writing for 3-8+ hours per day.
I'm considering hooking a MythTV recording box up at my brother's house (who has cable), and pay him double the "extra TV" charge per month...
I can attest that a Slingbox (or other device for remote watching) in that setup works well, too -- that's the approach my household has gone with for the past few years.
You can't tell how bad a person's problems are based on what they ask in public. Without going into detail, if I post on a forum asking about Nook Touch cases or soldering tips, it's not because my problems have qualified as remotely 'petty' at any point. It's because this isn't an appropriate forum for "real" problems, and their presence in life doesn't mean that the person loses the ability to feel pleasure, just that they have to work around more obstacles to reach it than most do.
Slashdot Mirror
Parenthetically, isn't it interesting how companies think that years of experience and expertise can be somehow magically transferred to a noob in a few weeks. There seems to be no understanding that programming (or most kinds of engineering) done well ...
Most professions that rely heavily on experience & talent are viewed that way by outsiders -- you can even see the attitude here on Slashdot aimed at non-STEM professionals like writers, sociologists, or teachers. Very few people seem to be capable of gauging how much effort goes into it unless they've already worked at building up a related talent (or tried, failed, and were honest with themselves why).
I never saw CVS until I visited the East Coast long ago, and got the impression it specifically targeted the people without the ability, will or knowledge needed to go somewhere more affordable or better-run. Unfortunately, it bought out the popular West Coast drugstore chain Long's Drugs a few years ago, and transformed it to target the same population.
Doubly unfortunately, I have to pick my mother's medications up for her there, so I can't just use the grocery store nearby for everything... I haven't dealt with the CVS iOS app, but the pharmacy section of their website is a useless clusterfuck and the pharmacy's own computer system isn't much better most of the time.
Actually, schools and universities should focus on what they were originally intended for: developing the underlying skills that allow intelligent people to learn new things and adapt that basic knowledge to different situations.
When I was a teenager with a couple of identified talents, I spent most of my free time honing them at home and believed that apprenticeship-style "education" would be far better for me; I only resentfully took unrelated classes intended to make me a "well-rounded" student because the university I wanted to attend required them. It wasn't until I'd been there for a while that I realized that the wide variety of classes (sociology, philosophy, literature, psych, C programming, math, etc.) had been strengthening my mind's ability to make sense of new kinds of concepts by building on bits and pieces of seemingly-unrelated old subjects, and then to blend the old & new concepts together to tackle problems.
I also came to see much later on that all of the knowledge & abilities from my education let me view society's problems with scientific, historical, and a wide variety of personal perspectives rather than just my own experience/beliefs. If even half the population could do that, corrupt politicians & industries wouldn't be able to get away with a fraction as much, and we'd have some of our worst problems under much better control.
The above is why Western countries started making basic education compulsory and encouraged people to attend college: a good education will make someone more capable of making wise voting & personal decisions and a better citizen in general. Whether someone learned a trade or became an educated professional wasn't (and isn't) a fraction as important to their country's longevity as whether the population knew that they were stronger as a united force than all fighting for themselves or which voting decisions would most likely cause harm down the road.
A weak, dumb populace that is also trained to believe, not to question. Add a few creationism v/s evolution fights, a lot of propaganda on patriotism and some generated fears... perfect recipe for a schema where a few control the many, and rip the benefits.
You forgot some of the most crucial elements: propaganda asserting that education's only goal should be to produce useful workers, anything other than vocational or STEM classes is a waste, most teachers are incompetent, people whose abilities lie outside STEM fields lack useful insight, and an "every person for themselves" mentality is best for society. People are a whole lot easier to keep in line when they view one another as rivals rather than allies, lack the detailed knowledge needed to contradict statements of what's best for individuals or society, haven't learned to analyze things using perspectives different from their own, and won't trust anyone that might be able to help them learn how to see through the propaganda.
I can see a giant shift coming where the Valley is where the HQ sits, but you have projects centered in other large cities, which are largely autonomous.
They did that throughout the 80s & 90s -- the Bay Area had an abundance of satellite locations for large tech companies of all kinds, especially alongside companies launching in Telecom Valley. Then when the dot-com bust hit, the large companies started shutting down any-and-all external offices to save money, required employees work at HQ and laid off or fired anyone that couldn't/wouldn't. The chances seem slim that companies aware of that history will go down that road again for a long time, and the few that do will most likely just be creating a few alternate headquarters in far-away locations as Google has done.
if you can afford a smartphone and a phone control, you can damn well afford to pay a buck or two for the paid version.
Smartphones aren't expensive anymore, and someone that takes the time to do a bit of research on phone companies before picking one will be able to find options that also aren't pricy. I paid ~$85 each for the 2 refurbished LG Marquee smartphones I bought from my new cell service provider (Ting), got a $100 credit towards my future bills, and look likely to pay maybe $25/month for both of us put together -- less than we paid for dumbphone service through our previous provider. For the record, my income is ~$850/month each (hers about a third less due to bureaucratic crap) as we're both disabled; it took about a year to save up enough for our phones.
Also, I've seen relatively few high-quality apps that were just a dollar -- the prices I saw averaged around $4-5 with some doubling that -- and it seemed like quite a few of the 99 ones had something shady going on based on the warnings that appeared in reviews.
People prefer repos/"app stores" because they're centralized, removing the need to search all over the web for a particular application or type of application, and far less unlikely to have infected installers compared to software obtained individually online by potentially-bogus sites. While I can tell the difference, my parents certainly can't, and when I'm trying to quickly just get things done (due to time constraints, tiredness, etc.) I definitely am glad that Linux & Android offer massive repositories.
The one thing that really worries me about people relying on Android repositories in particular is that there's no easy access to older versions of software like there is in Linux. If a device manufacturer refuses to upgrade its version of Android and teams like Cyanogen don't pick it up, it doesn't take terribly long for the pool of available software to start rapidly shrinking regardless of how capable the hardware is.
at the moment, nobody really gives a fuck about nasa or space since they're trying to focus on figuring out how to pay their bills, and rightly so...
Exactly. A few decades ago, the old "we can't just keep throwing money at the poor" reaction made some sense, as things like homeless shelters, support for the elderly & disabled, public schools & universities (like the ones that created much of the original Internet) were relatively well-funded; unemployment wasn't out of hand, minimum wage wasn't being eclipsed by the cost of necessities but there was plenty of help for those that needed it. The situation wasn't remotely near perfect, but it was close enough to divert some funds into scientific endeavors that aren't devoted to saving & drastically improving lives.
That's not true anymore. Most adults over 30 are under a hell of a lot of pressure between knowing job security is shit, their pay not mirroring how hard/long they work, the cost of necessities is eating most of their paycheck, plus have kids plus elderly/disabled relatives they will (or are) need to help out substantially because the programs that would've done so 30 years ago were cut to the bone. Some of the geeks on Slashdot are (or should be) worrying even if they do earn a good living, as the age bias could easily cause long-term havoc unless they can excel enough at a new career to be hired in middle age with zero work experience in the field. It's usually the inexperienced younger folk that haven't had to help others out yet that shrug the issue off and focus on their dreams & ideals...
Personally, my thought is that we should return to the overall taxes & spending setup that helped spur the creation of the Internet and the space program, because it's all ultimately interconnected. Those of you whose reaction to the above is to resentfully think that a lack of dependents & current success means you shouldn't have to pitch in, that's what it will take if you want an America like the one that achieved great things several decades ago; if you want one like the stagnating, slowly failing one of the last 12 years where people focus on individually scrabbling for what they can grab for themselves rather than working together to achieve great things, keep pushing for the path we're on.
We need to end carrier only phones and phones with all the carrier software forced on you that you have to hack your own phone to remove it you should have the choice of how much of the software that you want. Visual voice mail (good), a app that let's you see how many mins / data / txt of your plan that you used ...
The best way to do that for now is for people to quit choosing the carriers that require contracts, stuff phones full of crap then lock them down. If enough people stopped "voting" with their wallets in favor of those practices, the big companies would eventually change their tune.
It does mean (as in my case) going with what the person can afford rather than the absolute latest technology... However, IMHO it's more than worth it knowing I fully own my phone, I'm not locked to a contract or charged for a bundle of data/txt/minutes I'll never use just to get what I do need, and my funds support a company (in my case Ting) that favors our freedom rather than the ones that favor only whatever gets them more money. Complaining about how our nation's government-corrupting cell companies shaft their customers, then giving them money to continue doing it doesn't make a lot of sense in my book unless there are no other options whatsoever.
They don't need to: these days, relatively few VPNs around the world can be trusted to not throw users under the bus at the first hint of trouble from the **AA or US government, and there's no way to really know whether the 'trustworthy' VPNs were being totally honest. Outlawing VPNs would drive the users to companies or resources that are less **AA/government-friendly; if they're smart about it, they'll mimic lobbyists by giving nice large gifts to helpful VPNs as tokens of their gratitude.
They must have reasonably high IQs to still be in charge, and the law is clearly intended to help them stay that way; what they actually are is sickeningly controlling and unethical... Just slinging common insults like "retarded" reduces the conversation to the level of little kids that lack the vocabulary/maturity to be more specific on their own. Slashdot can do a hell of a lot better than that.
From what I've heard, as a VOIP service that's well-known & easy among non-techies, Skype is too useful for lower-income people that want/need to have long voice calls with people that live in a country that it costs a hefty amount to call. If worthwhile encryption is an option with it, then it could be particularly useful for finding out what's going on in reality (as opposed to government claims) from a trusted source without getting caught going onto "illegal" websites.
Besides, Skype isn't near-impossible to avoid on the Web like the other two; if someone's like me and either dislikes or doesn't have a use for it, we simply don't use it. It's not like there are many (if any) sites that requiring a Skype-based login to comment, scripts of theirs everywhere slowing systems down by tracking users, and so forth...
I'm pretty that a cease-fire CAN be broken unilaterally. All you have to do is start attacking the other side again.
Yep, ask anyone with a sibling or kids... "Mom, he's touching me again!!!" "Northie, I thought I told you..."
Actually, good writers *don't* get paid well, unless they're among the few Hollywood elite; it's now rare for even writers with multiple NYT best-sellers to make enough to quit their "day" job.
As far as volunteering for a massive project like that is concerned, that's the sort of thing that a writer would do in their spare time as a teenager or college student, because the impact of the quality of the actors, music, cinematography, directing, etc. is so great upon the end-result that there's far too great a chance that the end-result will reflect badly on the writer. (Also, screenwriters are, as far as I've ever read, judged on how well their past work sold or fared at a major competition/festival; the potential buyer or employer won't usually sit down to watch things the individual contributed to in the past.)
I think most people here don't realize how irritating and problematic being recorded constantly during private conversations can be. From experience just with someone that had a voice recorder, knowing that the slightest thing you say could be shared out of context or edited to make you look bad and subsequently (perhaps after a couple of bad experiences) *trying* to police every word becomes stressful enough to spark real resentment and anger.
Considering the amount of pressure that a lot of people are under these days between job, financial, and personal issues, and that being recorded on video would be even more stressful than mere audio, this situation is likely to push a lot of them over the edge into violence or worse. I wouldn't be surprised if pressure from voters & police experts results in politicians banning devices of this sort.
Before anyone says it: no, cellphones, cameras and standard surveillance cameras are not the same thing. The cellphones/cameras aren't used to record constantly (doing so would be a major battery drain), so as I said in another thread, the difference between them and GGlasses is similar to that of a friend bringing his dog and a friend bringing his incontinent diarrhea-prone dog. Civilian surveillance cameras are intended to record constantly but usually either lack audio or can't hone in on one specific conversation, plus they're under the control of a neutral third party that has little incentive to abuse the recording.
Cellphones don't record & upload constantly, so that's a bit different. It's the gap between a friend bringing along his dog, versus bringing his diarrhea-prone semi-incontinent dog: one most people & places will at least tolerate, the other they'll avoid if at all possible.
120 years ago...people realized that...the only thing you can pick is big or small.
Actually, the polarized beliefs that are common now are fairly recent. More importantly, the people with that mentality didn't "realize" anything, as it's not remotely close to a factual truth -- it's a *belief* that arises from either resenting the presence of any government/authority within their lives, generally viewing things in simplistic black-and-white terms, or both. In the vast majority of cases, their knowledge on the matter relies on information cherry-picked to support those beliefs, and is notably absent of extensive data on both how society has fared in the countless configurations that can exist within every level between big & small or of what life was like for individuals with a variety of circumstances living in each socioeconomic status (e.g. non-disabled white female poverty, physically disabled hispanic female lower middle class, undereducated black male with mental illness born into upper-middle class, and so forth).
Now what we have is a welfare party and a warfare party just arguing about which to spend money on.
Wow, you've really fallen for their rhetoric... What we have in the US now is, going by both historical and global criteria, an extreme far-right party and a less extreme right-edge party, both of which are focused on ensuring as much money as possible is given to the corporate interests that they're beholden to. They make near-identical decisions:
* What you refer to as the "welfare party" enacted a healthcare system designed by Republicans in the 90s, has severely cut the systems that support and/or educate our most vulnerable citizens, continues the previous Republican administration's focus on pseudo-wartime spending and *opposed* forcing the defense department to disclose drone use within our country.
* What you refer to as the "warfare party" has just been the one to push in favor of forcing the defense department to disclose domestic drone usage and completely failed to support the needs of returning soldiers disabled while deployed overseas, though yes, it has *also* made cuts to core programs that educate or assist those in need and did initiate the last 11.5 years of war.
It's a puppet show intended to further the belief that we cannot and never have had a moderate-sized government whose actions improved our economy and life for the people living here, that all government beyond 'small' must necessarily be a despotic dictatorship, and to further ignorance of the fact that in other countries with governments that are mid-sized or larger than ours all across the Western world, citizens are faring better than ours do with less day-to-day interference or dictatorship-style problems than we encounter.
As they say, it's not how big (or small) it is, it's how you use it!
I don't think that "we" are apathetic half as much as that the vast majority of the population feels powerless to make any significant change and no longer truly dares hope that we ever will. That's why the most that happens now is that once in a while, a small percentage of the population becomes angry/frustrated enough at the situation to protest physically for a while, like the protests against invading Iraq almost a decade ago.
Once in a *long* while, part of the population starts to manage a bit more in terms of action because many of them are young and their frustration is joined with the sense that they have little to lose. When they start to show signs of having a real effect, those with political power use our media to spread propaganda (typically by claiming those involved have whatever moral failings are most hated at the time), shows of force by the police/military, and threatened or actual punishment through the legal system. Even when the government has made some degree of change, it has been done in a way that made it look like concern or benevolence from the politicians rather than any effect citizens had. The message to citizens is the same as it has been for millennia: be obedient to your masters without substantial protest, or face harsh punishment from them and be reviled by all.
In addition to the resulting sense of powerlessness & hopelessness is that most people are being too taxed by mental & physical stress to spare the intellectual or emotional resources needed to look beyond survival and momentary distractions from how stressed they are. Everyone has heard of "bread and circuses" by now, but we rarely think about what it truly meant, beyond that their government was giving them just enough to avoid rioting... It meant that those citizens had only what was needed for most to survive physically & psychologically, enough to view & treat one another as rivals, but not what's needed feel energetic (well-rested, well-fed, confident) enough to band together and truly challenge the folks in charge.
You can see everything I described above -- people in bread & circus survival mode protesting with barely a glimmer of hope that it will work, then their own mental/physical state plus the powers in charge slowly tearing the movement apart in last December's "Eulogy for Occupy". Americans that feel that our fellow citizens are truly just apathetic should read it.
In stark comparison, you can also see a stirring example of what rebelling citizens sound like when they've been faring well enough to work together against their government in this letter written by Canadian revolutionary leader Chevalier de Lorimier shortly before his execution. Things written during other uprisings or times of conflict decades later where the citizens ultimately succeeded (e.g. UK & US women's suffrage, the US Civil Rights Era, anti-Vietnam protests) show a similar tone of determined optimism that tends to be conspicuously absent in cases more like OWS.
I can correlate that just from what my doctor has said... She's among the few daring to give out the major painkillers when needed, and she explained that if *any* of her patients on them fails to visit her in-person every 6 months for a basic checkup, urine/blood tests & often-extended discussion of our condition, the government starts harassing her through phone, letter, and sometimes in-person, with (as you said) jail as the ultimate result if there are too many issues. From things she's said, they even start getting twitchy if someone on a patch-based drug (like I am) takes the tests several hours before they're supposed to swap out the old patch for a new one.
Unfortunately, being non-profit isn't a reliable indicator that funds are going towards treating employees well or good patient care. There are more than a few legal "non-profit" orgs that do make a substantial profit, but "spend" it on extremely high executive/management salaries. Others take the approach of being split primarily into for-profit entities; for example, Kaiser Permanente in the US is a non-profit managed care org that is comprised mostly of regional clusters of for-profit clinics & hospitals.
This is where knowing which school someone's degree(s) came from. The top-tier universities in particular are actually harder to get into than ever to the high number of international & American students vying for acceptance. It's the community colleges & generic state/private schools that are being forced to lower their standards, and that's not because the students are stupid -- it's because so many are being pushed through the K-12 system with abilities that wouldn't have gotten them past the third grade 20 years ago.
That's speaking both as a 30something aware I wouldn't get into my high-ranked alma mater if my 18-year-old self applied today, and as someone that tutored & the graded papers of local community college freshmen in the mid-late 90s & 2002. The kids in the 90s basically needed help editing their papers or other college-level stuff; the ones in '02 were barely fucking literate despite being white middle-class native English speakers without learning disabilities, and the instructor told me it had been like that for 2-3 years by then, but that the dean said we couldn't flunk anyone unless they turned *nothing* in.
That said, the main reason for going to college isn't supposed to be job training for the elite -- it's to learn the many things that result in a well-informed citizen and aren't available by just hanging around one's hometown or just traveling for a year or two. That's why our government decided to begin educating our population rather than leaving it to the elite, why it's traditional to have students take courses in multiple fields unrelated to what they *think* they'll want to do with their lives for at least the first 2 years, and why a hell of a lot of students at the good schools find their viewpoints or awareness of what's really going on shifting broadly during that time period.
You might want to change numbers and use a free online service like Google Voice when registering for something. Since taking that approach upon getting my current number 2.5 years ago, I've only gotten 1-2 spam texts/year and the rare unwanted calls are from locals trying to reach somebody else.
If you write for a living, as I do, you need a decent keyboard, and by that, I do not mean an "ergonomic" one. If your wrists are that bad, I'm sorry for you, but you'll never be a really effective typist. With squish comes missed keys, double presses, constant backing up for errors and overall low typing speeds.
I've seen a few surveys that indicate that most writers use standard keyboards; just because you weren't able to transition from the old mechanical style well enough to type effectively doesn't mean that most people have that problem. It's all a matter of what the individual is used to: I can only type a fraction as quickly or accurately on my old mechanical keyboards (Apple IIgs ADB & IBM Model M) as I do on the newer technology despite having spent the second half of my teens on those older keyboards writing for 3-8+ hours per day.
I'm considering hooking a MythTV recording box up at my brother's house (who has cable), and pay him double the "extra TV" charge per month...
I can attest that a Slingbox (or other device for remote watching) in that setup works well, too -- that's the approach my household has gone with for the past few years.
You can't tell how bad a person's problems are based on what they ask in public. Without going into detail, if I post on a forum asking about Nook Touch cases or soldering tips, it's not because my problems have qualified as remotely 'petty' at any point. It's because this isn't an appropriate forum for "real" problems, and their presence in life doesn't mean that the person loses the ability to feel pleasure, just that they have to work around more obstacles to reach it than most do.