I did this. I spent 10 years in IT (network admin), and when the bubble burst, I took my savings and went back to college.
In 2005, according to government data, the top paying jobs, in order, were lawyer, 11 kinds of doctor, and then physicist, so I majored in physics.
Anyone see where this is going?
When I graduated in late 2010, NASA was already shedding employees, and just a few months later, laid off 3,500 physicists (a good chunk of the total number of working physicists in the country). The two jobs I had lined up disappeared, and I found myself competing with Masters and Ph.D.s with years of experience for $12/hour lab tech jobs.
And, of course, my IT knowledge was completely out of date, at that point. I spent 3 years delivering pizza and repairing bicycles before finally getting a job as a chemist, for a lower salary than my last IT position.
It's been 7 years now, and despite the occasional break, I keep coming back.
The current state of the game is basically 3.5e adapted for online play (spell points instead of spells/day, etc) with a couple of enhancement-tree systems grafted onto it.
There is multiclassing (with alignment restrictions!), real dungeon crawls (traps, puzzles, riddles, etc), guild housing (airships), plenty of content and more being added (Ed Greenwood is narrating his Haunted Halls of Eveningstar module for the next expansion)....
I had high hopes for ESO, but... no.
EQN, maybe; EQ was fantastic, but dated, now, and EQ2 sucked. Fingers crossed:)
"Snowden perhaps is neither a traitor nor a hero but something else entirely"
This is just nonsense of the highest order; there is a strong legal argument that he was required to expose the crimes our government has committed under our various treaty obligations which, according the U.S. Constitution, have the full force of law and in fact trump any domestic law requiring him to keep silent.
Of course, he would never be allowed to use that argument, or any other effective defense, in court were he to return to this country, but from an objective point of view, Snowden should be the star witness in the prosecution of everyone involved in national security from the last 2 presidential administrations.
He took a plea bargain of wire fraud and obstructing an agency proceeding. 8 months.
"The details are sealed," and I have no personal knowledge of the case, but I imagine that he took the plea to avoid a kangaroo court charging him with a count of misprision of felony for each of the several undercover officers who had posed as drug dealers and corrupt federal employees seeking his help.
He did appear to have knowingly taught people to lie about crimes, but the entire nature of the argument, "We are accusing this guy of exposing our ability to lie to people who are trying to lie to us in order for us to trick them into admitting to crimes that they may or may not have actually committed, and have managed to trick him into admitting to it," should have been thrown out on the grounds that it is not clear which side should be prosecuted.
There is always that risk, but I would ask you to consider two points:
1. There is safety in numbers, not to mention lack of influence. When they start offing opposing Senators, then I'll worry. Er, I hope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
2. "It may be that my role in life is only to serve as a warning to others" is something you need to accept. We value life perhaps too much, these days. It has made us selfish, as well as complacent about evil, as your pathetic comment shows.
The worst part is that the real people you want to keep out of sensitive positions don't even need training to pass the polygraph; a true sociopath will lie with no more concern than normal people have ordering a cup of coffee, and even the old soldiers' trick of "brassing it out," i.e. you have to have brass balls to stick with that story, seems to work.
As Mr. Williams says, it's honest people who get nervous that get branded as liars, mostly, and maybe that's the trick. Everyone running the government since they started relying on polygraphs is evil, and they all know that they can keep good people out by continuing to use it.
He seems to think he knows what the agency should be doing and how, which is more than I can say for anyone else in the government, so hire him back and let him run it.
I have a phone on my shelf that was perfectly serviceable.... until X phone company decided to "upgrade" its software, including preinstalled apps, that just happened to completely fill up its memory and ask for more. After complaining to the company that this had killed the battery from the constant "updates necessary" alerts, their advice was, naturally, to buy a new phone. There ought to be a law....
...even though it's from the same developer: Dungeons & Dragons Online.
Active Playerbase? Check.
Reasonable rate of new content? Check. (Actually pretty good)
Replayability? Check.
Character customization? Not only does each class get 2 or 3 separate prestige trees (basically on top of the old 3.5 D&D feat system), but you can multiclass up to 3 classes, alignment restrictions allowing, and you can pick from up to 6 class trees, as well as your racial tree.
You can solo most of the quests in the game or play them on increasing difficulty, there are raids from levels 6-25, wilderness areas, challenge quests, puzzles; you can craft your own weapons, armor, and items, or customize the very best named items in the game through the augment system.
Or you can roll a cleric, click on the party invites you will get as soon as you log in, and just follow everyone around healing, and they will carry you through the game:)
The best part, in my opinion, is that there is no safety net: The game will absolutely let you make a character that is useless; Wizards that can't cast spells, fighters with so few hit points that monsters 10 levels lower can kill them in one hit, frenzied clerics with greataxes and no healing... I've seen them all.
The only other game that I was as obsessed with was the original Everquest; EQ2 didn't float my boat, but I am keeping an eye on EQN.
The point of the 5th amendment is to prevent coerced testimony; the police/prosecutor/judge should not even ask the question. This was in response to our forefathers' experience with such concepts as the Star Chamber and crushing people to force confessions.
The benefit to society, in that light, should be obvious: it is a key protection against tyranny, and since it has been weakened, the incidence of torture and abuse by the authorities has skyrocketed.
The unfortunate situation that we find ourselves in, today, is, for the most part, an artifact of the consequences of employing our law enforcement organizations in moral crusades, against drugs, alcohol, prostitution, etc. This has had the effect of transforming public perception of the police from being the people you go to if you have a problem to just the biggest gang around, as dangerous (or more so!) than the guy breaking into your house.
Personally, I think that the police and FBI have permanently tarnished their reputations and should be abolished and replaced with something else.
Seriously, where was this guy 20 years ago? The basic idea of global warming is not that hard to understand, and we've had decades to work it all out, now. Frankly, this guy's rejection of the "large, complex global climate models, the huge computer programs" in favor of shape fitting (one of my former profs joked that he could fit a curve to the New York skyline with only 3 free variables) has all the hallmarks of a student laboriously working out for himself the implications of the reading he chose not to do; it works, and maybe he himself has a better appreciation of some of the finer points of the gross theory, but otherwise it was nothing but a waste of time and money.
I am frankly convinced that it is too late to stop the worst consequences and that we need to start preparing to deal with the it. Personally, I won't miss Florida...
As for what we could have done, my not-so-humble opinion is that subsidizing energy lead to profligate use and that people would drive smaller cars less often if gas cost $15/gal.
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I did this. I spent 10 years in IT (network admin), and when the bubble burst, I took my savings and went back to college.
In 2005, according to government data, the top paying jobs, in order, were lawyer, 11 kinds of doctor, and then physicist, so I majored in physics.
Anyone see where this is going?
When I graduated in late 2010, NASA was already shedding employees, and just a few months later, laid off 3,500 physicists (a good chunk of the total number of working physicists in the country). The two jobs I had lined up disappeared, and I found myself competing with Masters and Ph.D.s with years of experience for $12/hour lab tech jobs.
And, of course, my IT knowledge was completely out of date, at that point. I spent 3 years delivering pizza and repairing bicycles before finally getting a job as a chemist, for a lower salary than my last IT position.
It's been 7 years now, and despite the occasional break, I keep coming back.
The current state of the game is basically 3.5e adapted for online play (spell points instead of spells/day, etc) with a couple of enhancement-tree systems grafted onto it.
There is multiclassing (with alignment restrictions!), real dungeon crawls (traps, puzzles, riddles, etc), guild housing (airships), plenty of content and more being added (Ed Greenwood is narrating his Haunted Halls of Eveningstar module for the next expansion)....
I had high hopes for ESO, but... no.
EQN, maybe; EQ was fantastic, but dated, now, and EQ2 sucked. Fingers crossed :)
"Snowden perhaps is neither a traitor nor a hero but something else entirely"
This is just nonsense of the highest order; there is a strong legal argument that he was required to expose the crimes our government has committed under our various treaty obligations which, according the U.S. Constitution, have the full force of law and in fact trump any domestic law requiring him to keep silent.
Of course, he would never be allowed to use that argument, or any other effective defense, in court were he to return to this country, but from an objective point of view, Snowden should be the star witness in the prosecution of everyone involved in national security from the last 2 presidential administrations.
He took a plea bargain of wire fraud and obstructing an agency proceeding. 8 months.
"The details are sealed," and I have no personal knowledge of the case, but I imagine that he took the plea to avoid a kangaroo court charging him with a count of misprision of felony for each of the several undercover officers who had posed as drug dealers and corrupt federal employees seeking his help.
He did appear to have knowingly taught people to lie about crimes, but the entire nature of the argument, "We are accusing this guy of exposing our ability to lie to people who are trying to lie to us in order for us to trick them into admitting to crimes that they may or may not have actually committed, and have managed to trick him into admitting to it," should have been thrown out on the grounds that it is not clear which side should be prosecuted.
There is always that risk, but I would ask you to consider two points:
1. There is safety in numbers, not to mention lack of influence. When they start offing opposing Senators, then I'll worry. Er, I hope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
2. "It may be that my role in life is only to serve as a warning to others" is something you need to accept. We value life perhaps too much, these days. It has made us selfish, as well as complacent about evil, as your pathetic comment shows.
The worst part is that the real people you want to keep out of sensitive positions don't even need training to pass the polygraph; a true sociopath will lie with no more concern than normal people have ordering a cup of coffee, and even the old soldiers' trick of "brassing it out," i.e. you have to have brass balls to stick with that story, seems to work.
As Mr. Williams says, it's honest people who get nervous that get branded as liars, mostly, and maybe that's the trick. Everyone running the government since they started relying on polygraphs is evil, and they all know that they can keep good people out by continuing to use it.
He seems to think he knows what the agency should be doing and how, which is more than I can say for anyone else in the government, so hire him back and let him run it.
That will teach him.
I have a phone on my shelf that was perfectly serviceable.... until X phone company decided to "upgrade" its software, including preinstalled apps, that just happened to completely fill up its memory and ask for more. After complaining to the company that this had killed the battery from the constant "updates necessary" alerts, their advice was, naturally, to buy a new phone.
There ought to be a law....
...even though it's from the same developer: Dungeons & Dragons Online.
Active Playerbase? Check.
Reasonable rate of new content? Check. (Actually pretty good)
Replayability? Check.
Character customization? Not only does each class get 2 or 3 separate prestige trees (basically on top of the old 3.5 D&D feat system), but you can multiclass up to 3 classes, alignment restrictions allowing, and you can pick from up to 6 class trees, as well as your racial tree.
You can solo most of the quests in the game or play them on increasing difficulty, there are raids from levels 6-25, wilderness areas, challenge quests, puzzles; you can craft your own weapons, armor, and items, or customize the very best named items in the game through the augment system.
Or you can roll a cleric, click on the party invites you will get as soon as you log in, and just follow everyone around healing, and they will carry you through the game :)
The best part, in my opinion, is that there is no safety net: The game will absolutely let you make a character that is useless; Wizards that can't cast spells, fighters with so few hit points that monsters 10 levels lower can kill them in one hit, frenzied clerics with greataxes and no healing... I've seen them all.
The only other game that I was as obsessed with was the original Everquest; EQ2 didn't float my boat, but I am keeping an eye on EQN.
The point of the 5th amendment is to prevent coerced testimony; the police/prosecutor/judge should not even ask the question. This was in response to our forefathers' experience with such concepts as the Star Chamber and crushing people to force confessions.
The benefit to society, in that light, should be obvious: it is a key protection against tyranny, and since it has been weakened, the incidence of torture and abuse by the authorities has skyrocketed.
The unfortunate situation that we find ourselves in, today, is, for the most part, an artifact of the consequences of employing our law enforcement organizations in moral crusades, against drugs, alcohol, prostitution, etc. This has had the effect of transforming public perception of the police from being the people you go to if you have a problem to just the biggest gang around, as dangerous (or more so!) than the guy breaking into your house.
Personally, I think that the police and FBI have permanently tarnished their reputations and should be abolished and replaced with something else.
Seriously, where was this guy 20 years ago? The basic idea of global warming is not that hard to understand, and we've had decades to work it all out, now. Frankly, this guy's rejection of the "large, complex global climate models, the huge computer programs" in favor of shape fitting (one of my former profs joked that he could fit a curve to the New York skyline with only 3 free variables) has all the hallmarks of a student laboriously working out for himself the implications of the reading he chose not to do; it works, and maybe he himself has a better appreciation of some of the finer points of the gross theory, but otherwise it was nothing but a waste of time and money. I am frankly convinced that it is too late to stop the worst consequences and that we need to start preparing to deal with the it. Personally, I won't miss Florida... As for what we could have done, my not-so-humble opinion is that subsidizing energy lead to profligate use and that people would drive smaller cars less often if gas cost $15/gal.