If you remember back when XP was released it did suck compared to 2000. 2000 was the mature product. You want a fair comparison you'll need compare Vista now to XP 1 year after release.
Actually, a fair comparison would be to compare Windows XP to Windows ME (or Windows 98). And I was actually able to find one: ZDNet Review
They seam to be pretty happy with the upgrade, saying that it is "Definitely worth the cost of the upgrade!... Two thumbs up! While some of the features in this new operating system aren't all that exciting, the overall consensus is that those features in the areas of stability and support definitely make Windows XP Home Edition worth the cost of upgrading. ".
I know that this is just one review, but I am pretty sure that most reviews did agree. A company can release an upgrade that is better right away, as even Microsoft has done it before. This review was dated Sept 15 2001, a month before Windows XP's release.
Thinking that Windows Vista must be the future of the Windows OS is like going back to early 2001 and saying that Windows ME is the future of Windows. If enough people keep complaining (especially with their pocket books) then Microsoft might actually listen. They did with Windows ME.
but I fully accept that almost everyone else is going to have Vista in the next few months
I wonder how many people said in early 2001 that everyone else is going to have Windows ME in the next few months. I think the main reason why everyone is constantly trying to point out how crappy Vista has been is to help Microsoft see that they need to make big changes. Either a widely different SP2 or a completely new operating system.
I for one hope that Microsoft has a new operating system out before I need to upgrade my current PC.
Uhm, this guy said that he happened to find code in some forum that looks exactly like code in his company's software. I dont think anyone could call an employee stupid for not searching every forum on the internet for any code that matches theirs.
Who ever said anything about shipping something late? When you get standard shipping, the range is usually 3-9 business days. They can easy prioritize shipping and still meet their obligations.
Where is this research that your appetite raises proportionally with calories burned by working out? That is very counter-intuitive and goes against virtually all current theories, so for him to even suggest that is the case he must have exhaustive data confirming it. If he doesnt then he probably is just a quack.
It is true that your body tries to stay at equilibrium, but that is usually given as a reason why diet has very little to do with your weight. If you eat less your resting metabolism just adjusts. But working out can significantly affect your body type. Back when I ran 3-5 miles each weekday and lifted weights I could eat and drink whatever I wanted and gain nothing. And I was overweight in highschool, so it was just being young that kept me thin. But now that I have a real job and dont spend 20 hours a week at the gym I am back up to about 200 again (not so bad; I am 6'4").
Where does this 6 billion bodies number come from? I dont know how much population growth and/or inflation it would take for there to be 6 billion people on Earth that could afford a clone of themselves.
If you have a fixed term employment contract (such as being hired as a contractor for 6 months) then you could use that argument. But if you have standard employment, then in most states I know of companies have the ability to fire at any time without breaking any contracts. That mean every day they dont fire you they are giving you something (a job).
Unless you have a contract that guarantees you your job tomorrow, if they ask you to sign a new contract in return for keeping your job then you are getting something. They are giving you continued employment.
To claim economic duress you must show that you are being forced to breach the terms of a previous contract. Adding new stipulations does not breach an old contract. And if you do not have a contract guaranteeing yourself employment, then you also cannot prove economic duress.
The only reason it is being used by a group he doesnt agree with is because of mistakes he has found in his paper. Without the mistakes there is no problem with his research being used incorrectly.
He states two examples in the article of mistakes in his paper that are being used by creationists. It is those mistakes that have caused him to retract his paper. He probably would have let those mistakes slide if no one was using the paper for bad reasons, but that isnt the case.
This is itself dogma. Instead, when there is no clear answer, the correct response is to state "I do not know; let us formulate a test to obtain futher information".
There are shades of gray in everything in life. There are also levels of dogmatic belief. You are technically correct that this is a dogmatic belief, but only by the most strict of definitions. In fact the term "dogma" almost loses all of its meaning when you start lumping ideas like "accept the most plausible theory until it is proven wrong."
People are often forced to choose an answer when all the facts are not in, because you never know all of the facts. You should never stop looking for more answers (through further tests as you mentioned), but that does not mean you cannot make educated decisions on the topic at hand.
If this kind of thinking scores a 5 on the "dogma scale", believing in the afterlife scores a 500.
No one can be a perfect human. Everyone holds dogmatic beliefs. But some are far worse than others.
It is similar to the fact that everyone sins. Everyone does things in their life that they are not proud of. But simply saying that I cheated on a test 10 years ago does not mean that I am no different than a serial killer.
Faith in the scientific method = Faith in the supernatural only in a world where spitting on someone = killing their whole family.
that wasn't a mistake, and it's not his nor the paper's fault that some people took it to mean something it didn't say. That is not a good reason to retract the paper, IMO.
It was a mistake that he left out different sources of energy that could help create them. And it is someone's fault if they find an obscure paper from 50 years ago and try to prove something with it without further research. Or without looking at more recent research on the topic that refutes the earlier paper.
Okay, when I said evidence I guess I should have said reliable evidence. A three year old saying he saw a monster in his room is technically evidence, just not very good evidence.
And someone saying they think they experienced something when their body was dying and their brain was going haywire isnt reliable evidence. Explaining how the chemicals in your brain continue to produce conciousness after they break down and drain into the dirt would be reliable evidence. So far nothing along those lines has been uncovered.
Two groups have two different opinions. One group minds their own business. Other group tries to push their beliefs on the first group.
In this case the religious group is the group number one. Scientific group tries to push their beliefs on it.
Is that sarcasm?
Science wouldnt care about religion if it minded its own business. But when people start thinking 30 cell embryos have "souls" and that homosexuals are evil, science has to do something.
And it is the "moderate" religious individuals that feed the frenzy. If 90% of people were athiests, the 10% of people who are dogmatic zealots would be thought of as virtually insane. But with 90% of people at least believing in a personal god, those zealots are empowered. Now they are simply the small minority that actually take their beliefs seriously, instead of a clinically insane minority.
The first step is not to attack fundamentalists. The first step is to help rational people who were simply raised in religious environments. That is where a shift from dogmatic views to rational thought can positively affect our society. --
I would challenge you to present credible evidence for or against any belief in what occurs after death (including, but clearly *NOT* limited to, the belief that death ends conciousness).
While there is no difinitive proof either way, all current evidence points to there being no afterlife.
Neuroscience has shown that all thought processes that we have found so far are caused by chemicals in your brain. We are constantly making strides in understanding concepts such as conciousness. There is plenty of evidence that shows that our sense of conciousness is causes by neurochemical reactions in our brain. There is no evidence that there are spiritual causes.
This does not mean that there is no spiritual soul. It just shows that it is far more likely that there is no soul. It is okay to believe that you have a soul. You only become irrational and rediculous when you make decisions that assume there is an afterlife. When someone allows themselves to die because they think heaven is a better place, that is when clinging to dogmatic believes is dangerous.
When there is no clear answer to a problem, the correct answer is not to cling to dogma. It is to take the most plausible answer and accept that it is most likely the correct one. Clinging to dogma is never a good answer, it is just the easy answer.
But I rather take this that the scientific community is trying to be dogmatic, by retracting [not withdrawing] a referreed paper for the reason that the results of the paper conflict with a deeply held belief.
The only reason you could have that take on this situation is if your opinion is being led by your religious beliefs or if you didnt read the actual article (but that never happens on Slashdot).
First off, there was a part of the paper when he mentioned that it takes energy to make glycine. It was taken out of context by creationists to say that it couldnt be made on its own. But the author had left out the numerous types of energy that could do it by mistake.
From the article: Another assertion in the paper, about what would have had to occur simultaneously for living matter to arise, is just plain wrong, he said, adding, "It was a dumb mistake, but nobody ever caught me on it."
Creationists have been using mistakes of his 50 years ago to make their beliefs seam scientific. That is why he retracted his paper.
His letter shows, Ms. Reid wrote, "the distinction between a scientist who cannot let error stand, no matter the embarrassment of public correction," and people who "cling to dogma."
By retracting his paper, he has shown himself as a true scientist who can admit to being wrong even though it may cause him embarrassment. He couldnt bring himself to let his incorrect research help others further their dogmatic beliefs, so he did the noble thing and admitted his mistakes.
but Microsoft has been recommending since NT 3.5 days to not assume that the logged on user has admin rights, unfortunately everyone just ignored that advice until now...
You are right, it is the fault of the programmers. They should have known better, they had ample warning.
Just like the residents of New Orleans had ample warning that they were living in a dangerous area that could be easily flooded.
In the real world things are not perfect. People do not always make perfect decisions. And purposely penalizing hundreds of thousands of computer users because less than 100% of programmers are perfect is absolutely rediculous.
But it does show that if you truly believe in every fiber of your being that there is a dog in the room but every other peice of evidence shows that it isnt there (no one else sees it, you cannot pet it, etc.), you are probably just fooling yourself.
Showing that it is possible that your brain can just be confused about there being a dog in the room would just help you realize that you are very likely wrong.
Everything you say is correct except for saying that these results are completely inconclusive.
The first and most major result of such experiments is to show that no "religious experiences" can be trusted as personal proof of an almighty being. Just because you have had a few instances in your life when you truly felt God's presense, that alone should mean virtually nothing without some other verification. If this sensation can be created without God's presense, then it is no longer valid "proof" of his existance.
While this induced stimuli is artificial, it still shows that such stimuli can be false. A computer screen can "trick" the human brain into thinking there are actual monsters on a screen, but that just shows that simply seeing something is not proof that it is really there. I will need some other form of proof other than just a vision of a monster is inside my wall, because there could be a tv projector creating the image.
There are also natural causes of false stimuli. I could see a mirage of water on the road ahead of me when there is no water for instance.
Of course nothing in this study "proves" that there are no such things as true divine experiences. All it "proves" (as if a single study could ever prove anything) is that simply believing that you have had a religious experience is largely meaningless. The next step in the research is to find natural causes of such metaphysical perceptions. That would still not prove anything, but it would again make if far more likely that any divine experience is untrustworthy.
Why do people keep thinking that middle class has anything to do with average?
While semantically it might sound like middle class means "people in the middle of the bell curve of family incomes". Middle class has nothing to do with median incomes, or average incomes. It has to do with how a certian class of people live their lives.
Classes are generally broken up into six groups. First is the underclass, who live well below the poverty line and rely on the government to live. Next is the working poor, who make minimum wage and still probably rely on the government for some help. These two classes make up about 25% of our population.
Next is the working class. They do your standard factory work and low level clerical work, and generally make around 16-30k a year (household income). In the mid to late 20th century many jobs that originally were considered working class jobs started to pay enough to be considered lower middle class. A garbage man for instance can easily make $40k-50k/yr today. They make up about 30% of the population.
The middle class is split into Lower/Upper. There is no Middle Middle class, which is probably what is creating so much confusion on this forum. Lower Middle class are people who have very good jobs, but not necessarily overly professional jobs. They tend to have family incomes that range from $30k-75k/yr. Almost all of their income comes from their salary, but they generally have enough money to easily save for retirement. They make up about 30% of the population.
The upper middle class are your doctors/lawyers/engineers who generally have six figure family incomes. They often hold graduate degrees or greater, and live very affluently. They still get most of their income from their salary, but they often get a decent amount of extra income from investments. They make up about 15% of the population.
The upper class is the rich people. They tend to make at least $500k/yr, and usually most of their income comes from investments and not their job. They are your CEOs and other very successful business owners. They make up less than 1% of our population.
Being in a large city and making $70k/yr combined income, you are most likely on the high end of Lower Middle Class. The very fact that you even have to worry about things like keeping your mortgage payment low shows that you are not in the upper middle class. That is not a bad thing though, people in the lower middle class usually live very good lives. They tend to live in nice homes and drive nice cars. They can send their kids to college and save for retirement.
But if you have ever worried about your mortgage, you are in the lower middle class. If you have ever worried about how much college costs, you are in the lower middle class. If you have ever worried about retirement, you are in the lower middle class.
If you are in the upper middle class and worry about any of these things, then you are drastically overspending on things like lamburghinis and million dollar homes. Even sending three kids to harvard should be a fairly easy thing for a family that is truly in the upper middle class.
In what part of the country is $60k/yr lower middle class? Maybe in SF, but you can pull down that sort of money hauling trash there.
Basically everywhere. In San Francisisco it wouldnt even be considered middle class at all. Maybe in Kentucky $60k/yr is a decent family income, but you would be hard pressed to afford a $200k house on that.
$60k/yr is definetly middle class, but just barely. I think it is around $45k-$55k in most areas that you move out of the working class and into the middle class.
I work in a casual office, but every once in a while someone comes to work in a suit & tie because of some meeting or something. If you stand out you are probably going to hear about it.
I am about 10 inches taller than anyone else in my office. I get "gently ribbed" about that all the time, because im the giant at the office. But its all in good fun, and helps add some levity to the work environment.
I guess that is another thing I have noticed about "geek culture", people can often make fun of eachother without getting offended. I know my wife was uneasy for a while when she first started meeting my friends because of the constant friendly ridicule (not that it sounds friendly when it comes out, its just that we all know its in jest).
How is this a stupid male idea? It is quite common for my wife to come to me the day after her period and apologize for being insane for the past few days. Sometimes she even comes to her senses sooner and apologizes in the middle of an argument for acting insane because its that time of the month.
Any man who doesnt give a woman on her period a little space sometimes is just asking for a problem. I would say a better stupid male idea would be:
9) Why should I have to give a woman a break just because its that time of the month?
10- If a male manager/supervisor is mad at me I must have screwed up. If a female manager is mad at me it's PMS.
All that said, discriminating against selling to age-challenged flunkies is probably legal though against store policy.
You could probably find someone in the NAACP that would argue that since inner city african american children are deprived of educational opportunities, they are more likely to get bad grades. So this policy is unfairly discriminating against African American kids.
Being more selective doesn't mean the school is any better.
First off, yes it does. Probably the #1 aspect that makes a college a good college is the people you are surrounded with. That means both professors and students. The laws of physics/chemistry/etc. are the same at a community college as they are at MIT. But at MIT you are going to have much smarter people in your study groups with you, leading to a much better education.
Second off, he never said anything about making schools better by becoming more selective anyway. He simply said that the country's talent pool would improve. If the same number of engineering students graduate, but the schools were more selective in their student choice, then the resulting engineers will be of greater quality. That is all he was saying.
Slashdot Mirror
If you remember back when XP was released it did suck compared to 2000. 2000 was the mature product. You want a fair comparison you'll need compare Vista now to XP 1 year after release.
... Two thumbs up! While some of the features in this new operating system aren't all that exciting, the overall consensus is that those features in the areas of stability and support definitely make Windows XP Home Edition worth the cost of upgrading. ".
Actually, a fair comparison would be to compare Windows XP to Windows ME (or Windows 98). And I was actually able to find one: ZDNet Review
They seam to be pretty happy with the upgrade, saying that it is "Definitely worth the cost of the upgrade!
I know that this is just one review, but I am pretty sure that most reviews did agree. A company can release an upgrade that is better right away, as even Microsoft has done it before. This review was dated Sept 15 2001, a month before Windows XP's release.
Thinking that Windows Vista must be the future of the Windows OS is like going back to early 2001 and saying that Windows ME is the future of Windows. If enough people keep complaining (especially with their pocket books) then Microsoft might actually listen. They did with Windows ME.
--
but I fully accept that almost everyone else is going to have Vista in the next few months
I wonder how many people said in early 2001 that everyone else is going to have Windows ME in the next few months. I think the main reason why everyone is constantly trying to point out how crappy Vista has been is to help Microsoft see that they need to make big changes. Either a widely different SP2 or a completely new operating system.
I for one hope that Microsoft has a new operating system out before I need to upgrade my current PC.
My expensive hobbies run me close to $1000 a year.
That is a contradiction right there. If your "expensive" hobbies run you $1000/yr ($83/mth), then you dont have any expensive hobbies.
Uhm, this guy said that he happened to find code in some forum that looks exactly like code in his company's software. I dont think anyone could call an employee stupid for not searching every forum on the internet for any code that matches theirs.
--
Who ever said anything about shipping something late? When you get standard shipping, the range is usually 3-9 business days. They can easy prioritize shipping and still meet their obligations.
Where is this research that your appetite raises proportionally with calories burned by working out? That is very counter-intuitive and goes against virtually all current theories, so for him to even suggest that is the case he must have exhaustive data confirming it. If he doesnt then he probably is just a quack.
It is true that your body tries to stay at equilibrium, but that is usually given as a reason why diet has very little to do with your weight. If you eat less your resting metabolism just adjusts. But working out can significantly affect your body type. Back when I ran 3-5 miles each weekday and lifted weights I could eat and drink whatever I wanted and gain nothing. And I was overweight in highschool, so it was just being young that kept me thin. But now that I have a real job and dont spend 20 hours a week at the gym I am back up to about 200 again (not so bad; I am 6'4").
Where does this 6 billion bodies number come from? I dont know how much population growth and/or inflation it would take for there to be 6 billion people on Earth that could afford a clone of themselves.
--
If you have a fixed term employment contract (such as being hired as a contractor for 6 months) then you could use that argument. But if you have standard employment, then in most states I know of companies have the ability to fire at any time without breaking any contracts. That mean every day they dont fire you they are giving you something (a job).
Unless you have a contract that guarantees you your job tomorrow, if they ask you to sign a new contract in return for keeping your job then you are getting something. They are giving you continued employment.
To claim economic duress you must show that you are being forced to breach the terms of a previous contract. Adding new stipulations does not breach an old contract. And if you do not have a contract guaranteeing yourself employment, then you also cannot prove economic duress.
But then again, I am not a lawyer either.
--
The only reason it is being used by a group he doesnt agree with is because of mistakes he has found in his paper. Without the mistakes there is no problem with his research being used incorrectly.
He states two examples in the article of mistakes in his paper that are being used by creationists. It is those mistakes that have caused him to retract his paper. He probably would have let those mistakes slide if no one was using the paper for bad reasons, but that isnt the case.
This is itself dogma. Instead, when there is no clear answer, the correct response is to state "I do not know; let us formulate a test to obtain futher information".
There are shades of gray in everything in life. There are also levels of dogmatic belief. You are technically correct that this is a dogmatic belief, but only by the most strict of definitions. In fact the term "dogma" almost loses all of its meaning when you start lumping ideas like "accept the most plausible theory until it is proven wrong."
People are often forced to choose an answer when all the facts are not in, because you never know all of the facts. You should never stop looking for more answers (through further tests as you mentioned), but that does not mean you cannot make educated decisions on the topic at hand.
If this kind of thinking scores a 5 on the "dogma scale", believing in the afterlife scores a 500.
No one can be a perfect human. Everyone holds dogmatic beliefs. But some are far worse than others.
It is similar to the fact that everyone sins. Everyone does things in their life that they are not proud of. But simply saying that I cheated on a test 10 years ago does not mean that I am no different than a serial killer.
Faith in the scientific method = Faith in the supernatural only in a world where spitting on someone = killing their whole family.
that wasn't a mistake, and it's not his nor the paper's fault that some people took it to mean something it didn't say. That is not a good reason to retract the paper, IMO.
It was a mistake that he left out different sources of energy that could help create them. And it is someone's fault if they find an obscure paper from 50 years ago and try to prove something with it without further research. Or without looking at more recent research on the topic that refutes the earlier paper.
Okay, when I said evidence I guess I should have said reliable evidence. A three year old saying he saw a monster in his room is technically evidence, just not very good evidence.
And someone saying they think they experienced something when their body was dying and their brain was going haywire isnt reliable evidence. Explaining how the chemicals in your brain continue to produce conciousness after they break down and drain into the dirt would be reliable evidence. So far nothing along those lines has been uncovered.
Two groups have two different opinions. One group minds their own business. Other group tries to push their beliefs on the first group.
In this case the religious group is the group number one. Scientific group tries to push their beliefs on it.
Is that sarcasm?
Science wouldnt care about religion if it minded its own business. But when people start thinking 30 cell embryos have "souls" and that homosexuals are evil, science has to do something.
And it is the "moderate" religious individuals that feed the frenzy. If 90% of people were athiests, the 10% of people who are dogmatic zealots would be thought of as virtually insane. But with 90% of people at least believing in a personal god, those zealots are empowered. Now they are simply the small minority that actually take their beliefs seriously, instead of a clinically insane minority.
The first step is not to attack fundamentalists. The first step is to help rational people who were simply raised in religious environments. That is where a shift from dogmatic views to rational thought can positively affect our society.
--
I would challenge you to present credible evidence for or against any belief in what occurs after death (including, but clearly *NOT* limited to, the belief that death ends conciousness).
While there is no difinitive proof either way, all current evidence points to there being no afterlife.
Neuroscience has shown that all thought processes that we have found so far are caused by chemicals in your brain. We are constantly making strides in understanding concepts such as conciousness. There is plenty of evidence that shows that our sense of conciousness is causes by neurochemical reactions in our brain. There is no evidence that there are spiritual causes.
This does not mean that there is no spiritual soul. It just shows that it is far more likely that there is no soul. It is okay to believe that you have a soul. You only become irrational and rediculous when you make decisions that assume there is an afterlife. When someone allows themselves to die because they think heaven is a better place, that is when clinging to dogmatic believes is dangerous.
When there is no clear answer to a problem, the correct answer is not to cling to dogma. It is to take the most plausible answer and accept that it is most likely the correct one. Clinging to dogma is never a good answer, it is just the easy answer.
But I rather take this that the scientific community is trying to be dogmatic, by retracting [not withdrawing] a referreed paper for the reason that the results of the paper conflict with a deeply held belief.
The only reason you could have that take on this situation is if your opinion is being led by your religious beliefs or if you didnt read the actual article (but that never happens on Slashdot).
First off, there was a part of the paper when he mentioned that it takes energy to make glycine. It was taken out of context by creationists to say that it couldnt be made on its own. But the author had left out the numerous types of energy that could do it by mistake.
From the article:
Another assertion in the paper, about what would have had to occur simultaneously for living matter to arise, is just plain wrong, he said, adding, "It was a dumb mistake, but nobody ever caught me on it."
Creationists have been using mistakes of his 50 years ago to make their beliefs seam scientific. That is why he retracted his paper.
His letter shows, Ms. Reid wrote, "the distinction between a scientist who cannot let error stand, no matter the embarrassment of public correction," and people who "cling to dogma."
By retracting his paper, he has shown himself as a true scientist who can admit to being wrong even though it may cause him embarrassment. He couldnt bring himself to let his incorrect research help others further their dogmatic beliefs, so he did the noble thing and admitted his mistakes.
He should be proud of himself.
--
but Microsoft has been recommending since NT 3.5 days to not assume that the logged on user has admin rights, unfortunately everyone just ignored that advice until now ...
You are right, it is the fault of the programmers. They should have known better, they had ample warning.
Just like the residents of New Orleans had ample warning that they were living in a dangerous area that could be easily flooded.
In the real world things are not perfect. People do not always make perfect decisions. And purposely penalizing hundreds of thousands of computer users because less than 100% of programmers are perfect is absolutely rediculous.
--
In the religious helmet context, individuals could report "Allah", "God", "Buddha" or "No god" and those would all be equally true.
Or more likely all equally false.
But it does show that if you truly believe in every fiber of your being that there is a dog in the room but every other peice of evidence shows that it isnt there (no one else sees it, you cannot pet it, etc.), you are probably just fooling yourself.
Showing that it is possible that your brain can just be confused about there being a dog in the room would just help you realize that you are very likely wrong.
Everything you say is correct except for saying that these results are completely inconclusive.
The first and most major result of such experiments is to show that no "religious experiences" can be trusted as personal proof of an almighty being. Just because you have had a few instances in your life when you truly felt God's presense, that alone should mean virtually nothing without some other verification. If this sensation can be created without God's presense, then it is no longer valid "proof" of his existance.
While this induced stimuli is artificial, it still shows that such stimuli can be false. A computer screen can "trick" the human brain into thinking there are actual monsters on a screen, but that just shows that simply seeing something is not proof that it is really there. I will need some other form of proof other than just a vision of a monster is inside my wall, because there could be a tv projector creating the image.
There are also natural causes of false stimuli. I could see a mirage of water on the road ahead of me when there is no water for instance.
Of course nothing in this study "proves" that there are no such things as true divine experiences. All it "proves" (as if a single study could ever prove anything) is that simply believing that you have had a religious experience is largely meaningless. The next step in the research is to find natural causes of such metaphysical perceptions. That would still not prove anything, but it would again make if far more likely that any divine experience is untrustworthy.
--
Why do people keep thinking that middle class has anything to do with average?
While semantically it might sound like middle class means "people in the middle of the bell curve of family incomes". Middle class has nothing to do with median incomes, or average incomes. It has to do with how a certian class of people live their lives.
Classes are generally broken up into six groups. First is the underclass, who live well below the poverty line and rely on the government to live. Next is the working poor, who make minimum wage and still probably rely on the government for some help. These two classes make up about 25% of our population.
Next is the working class. They do your standard factory work and low level clerical work, and generally make around 16-30k a year (household income). In the mid to late 20th century many jobs that originally were considered working class jobs started to pay enough to be considered lower middle class. A garbage man for instance can easily make $40k-50k/yr today. They make up about 30% of the population.
The middle class is split into Lower/Upper. There is no Middle Middle class, which is probably what is creating so much confusion on this forum. Lower Middle class are people who have very good jobs, but not necessarily overly professional jobs. They tend to have family incomes that range from $30k-75k/yr. Almost all of their income comes from their salary, but they generally have enough money to easily save for retirement. They make up about 30% of the population.
The upper middle class are your doctors/lawyers/engineers who generally have six figure family incomes. They often hold graduate degrees or greater, and live very affluently. They still get most of their income from their salary, but they often get a decent amount of extra income from investments. They make up about 15% of the population.
The upper class is the rich people. They tend to make at least $500k/yr, and usually most of their income comes from investments and not their job. They are your CEOs and other very successful business owners. They make up less than 1% of our population.
Being in a large city and making $70k/yr combined income, you are most likely on the high end of Lower Middle Class. The very fact that you even have to worry about things like keeping your mortgage payment low shows that you are not in the upper middle class. That is not a bad thing though, people in the lower middle class usually live very good lives. They tend to live in nice homes and drive nice cars. They can send their kids to college and save for retirement.
But if you have ever worried about your mortgage, you are in the lower middle class.
If you have ever worried about how much college costs, you are in the lower middle class.
If you have ever worried about retirement, you are in the lower middle class.
If you are in the upper middle class and worry about any of these things, then you are drastically overspending on things like lamburghinis and million dollar homes. Even sending three kids to harvard should be a fairly easy thing for a family that is truly in the upper middle class.
In what part of the country is $60k/yr lower middle class? Maybe in SF, but you can pull down that sort of money hauling trash there.
Basically everywhere. In San Francisisco it wouldnt even be considered middle class at all. Maybe in Kentucky $60k/yr is a decent family income, but you would be hard pressed to afford a $200k house on that.
$60k/yr is definetly middle class, but just barely. I think it is around $45k-$55k in most areas that you move out of the working class and into the middle class.
Its just a joke.
I work in a casual office, but every once in a while someone comes to work in a suit & tie because of some meeting or something. If you stand out you are probably going to hear about it.
I am about 10 inches taller than anyone else in my office. I get "gently ribbed" about that all the time, because im the giant at the office. But its all in good fun, and helps add some levity to the work environment.
I guess that is another thing I have noticed about "geek culture", people can often make fun of eachother without getting offended. I know my wife was uneasy for a while when she first started meeting my friends because of the constant friendly ridicule (not that it sounds friendly when it comes out, its just that we all know its in jest).
9- Periods induce insanity.
How is this a stupid male idea? It is quite common for my wife to come to me the day after her period and apologize for being insane for the past few days. Sometimes she even comes to her senses sooner and apologizes in the middle of an argument for acting insane because its that time of the month.
Any man who doesnt give a woman on her period a little space sometimes is just asking for a problem. I would say a better stupid male idea would be:
9) Why should I have to give a woman a break just because its that time of the month?
10- If a male manager/supervisor is mad at me I must have screwed up. If a female manager is mad at me it's PMS.
Now that is a valid stupid male idea.
All that said, discriminating against selling to age-challenged flunkies is probably legal though against store policy.
You could probably find someone in the NAACP that would argue that since inner city african american children are deprived of educational opportunities, they are more likely to get bad grades. So this policy is unfairly discriminating against African American kids.
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Being more selective doesn't mean the school is any better.
First off, yes it does. Probably the #1 aspect that makes a college a good college is the people you are surrounded with. That means both professors and students. The laws of physics/chemistry/etc. are the same at a community college as they are at MIT. But at MIT you are going to have much smarter people in your study groups with you, leading to a much better education.
Second off, he never said anything about making schools better by becoming more selective anyway. He simply said that the country's talent pool would improve. If the same number of engineering students graduate, but the schools were more selective in their student choice, then the resulting engineers will be of greater quality. That is all he was saying.
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