There is also China's Inflation rate to consider. I was teaching Economics in China and we were at the point that were were discussing the ideal inflation rate, which most experts put at 2%. It should come as no surprise that China's inflation rat was 2% and had been 2% for several years.
Then we compared the prices of a market basket of goods that we were able to find past prices for. I am just going to say that the results were "discomforting."
For those incapable of reading between the lines, the inflation rate we found was very different from the official inflation rate.
In really wanted to mod this up, but the OP posted as AC. If you have something good to say, put your name on it. If you don't have something good to say, then don't say anything until you have something worth saying. It really is that simple.
In this case the OP really had a good point. I regret that I was not able to apply mod points to a person rather than an AC.
As it stands, only about a quarter of the age eligible population is able to join the armed forces. If Cyber Command had become its own service then they could have opened recruiting to anyone who was willing to do the work, study hard, and become a member. As it stands, the ranks will be closed to those who are not a member of the physical elite.
Not only dies this close the door to service by those who are not in near perfect physical condition; but it also limits the pool of potential candidates based on a factor that has nothing to do with their acumen at cyber-security.
Facebook picture tags link to an existing Facebook user. Following that link led to a face book user (me) that had requested user deletion years ago. When a person has deleted their account, it should not be possible to view their page years later.
Further, I later needed to use facebook to access a company service page. I simply loogged into the account that I had requested to be closed years before. Very simply, the account was never closed even though I had requested it closed and deleted.
As far as Hillary, and I have no idea why people feel it necessary to drag her into the most unrelated discussions, I doubt that many of her supporters were swayed to trump. It is more likely that the undecideds, and those who are generally too lazy to vote at all, were more motivated,than the otherwise would have been, to vote against her due to a number of mechanisms, fake news on Facebook being one of them.
Years ago I deleted my Facebook account. I was tired of being "tagged" in pictures that I had little control over. What I found is that it isn't possible to delete myself from Facebook. The US needs German style laws that allow a person to to be "forgotten" by digital services.
I suspect that future generations will see this era of unregulated digital sharing and use it as an example of how a pattern of foolishness can spread across the entire world.
What you are describing is similar to a test that was done. A marshmallow was placed on the desks of pre-school students. They weer then told that the teacher had to step away. If they would wait until the teacher got back, before eating their marshmallow they would be given a second one as a reward for waiting for the teacher. Some waited and got a second, some ate theirs right away.
the study doesn't end there.
Many years later a different group of researchers got hold of that study and the raw data. They tracked down those kids who were now adults. What they found was that the kids who waited were more successful than their peers who had gobbled the marshmallow.
These kids all went to the same pre-school; so it is reasonable to believe that they were, generally demographic peers. However, I would like to have seen some of the data that no one looked for at that time.
Some of those kids had clearly already learned that the world is a bitter place and no one gets what they are promised. In Outliers, Malcomb Gladwell clearly establishes that is a loosing strategy. What I would like to have seen is what taught those kids that lesson. unfortunately, when reading the research, that information just doesn't seem to be there.
As a teacher, I can tell that the main reason for relaxing the cell phone bans is the parents demanding it. the research is in, cell phones detract from learning.
The following is part of a letter I sent to my building administrator on this topic. The first point, that is cut out, but mentioned, had to do with my student to robot ratio.
The second is more generalized, yet it remains a problem. It is the cell phones in the school.
The research done by the London School of Economics showed that the benefit to a cell phone ban was the equivalent to an extra week of instruction. However, even more relevant to our district, is that the gain was driven by low income students. they showed an improvement equal to receiving three extra weeks of instruction per year.
Simply telling the students to put the phones is not enough. A study by the University of Chicago determined that the negative effects of the cell phone are present when the phone is in close proximity, such as in a backpack. When in close proximity, the addictive nature of the phone continues to interfere with the cognitive process.
Based on research, a simple ban of cell phones could improve the students education. In cases where the parent believes that their child needs a phone, and will not be swayed by research, a area of small lock boxes in the office would allow the students to secure their phones at the beginning of the day.
These are two proposals that would increase student engagement and learning.
Here I include summaries and abstracts from recent cell phone research:
a couple of studies that have been completed in an attempt to assess the impact the impact of having cell-phones in school on education.
The first is a study completed by the London School of Economics. Here is the abstract:
This paper investigates the impact of schools banning mobile phones on student test scores. By surveying schools in four English cities regarding their mobile phone policies and combining it with administrative data, we find that student performance in high stakes exams significantly increases post ban. We use a difference in differences (DID) strategy, exploiting variations in schools’ autonomous decisions to ban these devices, conditioning on a range of student characteristics and prior achievement. Our results indicate that these increases in performance are driven by the lowest achieving students. This suggests that restricting mobile phone use can be a low-cost policy to reduce educational inequalities. Source: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/down...
A more readable summary is provided by CNN: The authors looked at how phone policies at 91 schools in England have changed since 2001, and compared that data with results achieved in national exams taken at the age of 16. The study covered 130,000 pupils. It found that following a ban on phone use, the schools' test scores improved by 6.4%. The impact on underachieving students was much more significant -- their average test scores rose by 14%. Source: http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/1...
This study was supported by a recent study conducted by the University of Chicago. Further, they determined that the negative effect of the cell-phone were present even if the cell-phone is put away, such as in a backpack. From the Abstract: Results from two experiments indicate that even when people are successful at maintaining sustained attention—as when avoiding the temptation to check their phones—the mere presence of these devices reduces available cognitive capacity. Source: http://www.journals.uchicago.e...
It is interesting that this was not discussed when I was in College Psyc. The first I can recall coming across this was in the book "before you know it" by John Bragh, PhD. It was published in 2017. However, when I checked just now I say that the mention (on page 99) references papers published in the mid 1970's. So it was known; however, it was probably waiting for the next generation of text books.
But then, maybe I am a survivor. I got laid off and never seemed to bounce back. I saw some of my friends languish and eventually become unemployable.
I decided to "retrain." I now teach at a middle school. Depending on the students or the class, I teach Word, Photoshop and Excel, which substitutes for a High School class that teaches the same. In another class I each robotics, starting with the Lego EV-3 and expanding into the Arduino boards. no, it isn't exciting; but it is keeping me from unemployment.
All that being said, there needs to be a reworking of the labour relationship in the US. The Social Security retirement age is unrealistically high and private pensions have evaporated. At the same time people are seen as "used up" at earlier ages with each passing decade. Someone will inevitably chime in with some small exception; but the reality is that the labour potential of people 50-70 is being unrealized at the same time that they are treated as being too young for most forms of retirement safety nets.
Let's see. . . how many replacements will I need to make? . . . Looks like three (with one of this being a "replace all"). Oh, and this version is still nothing but a straw-man, just like yours .
American Conservatives (including the local Slashdot Conservatives) admire the Chinese Communist System.
Economic growth and Despotism all in one package.
They'd like to censor things like the Chinese do. They'd like to make social policy, like the Chinese do. They'd like to oppress Islam, like the Chinese do. Many of the Eugenicists would buy into the One Child policy in a heartbeat. And of course the whole idea of the oligopies controlling the economy just makes their panties wet.
More often, the business teachers. The Business Education endorsement on a teachers license specifically includes computer courses.
The trouble with that approach is that, at least at the middle school level, is that the computer courses are computer apps only (at my school, Word, Excel, and Photoshop).
In this short story I compare three friends. The trade I mention was repairing office equipment. It is very similar to robot repair. In fact I use that experience to teach Robotics. When it comes to the difference between the trades and college paths I am reminded of the story of three friends, of which I am one. We met in a community college trade program. All three of us were recently out of the military and drew together.
We had a similar starting point; but ended in different places. Two of us went directly into a trade, repairing office equipment (I am one of those two). Another bounced around a bit between various county and state technical jobs until re started his own HVAC business.
The friend who started his business because his mother poured, quite literally, everything she had into his business to get him started. I remember delivering some of her personal jewelry to be sold in order to raise money for his business. He is now doing ok. We are all now in our 50s and he is pretty much completely broken down from the physical demand of his job. However, financially he is now stable (and has a lot of great guns, I love going out to his place just to see what he has added to his collection).
The other friend tried to stay in Office equipment too long. As he got older his numbers declined and he was let go right about 50. For reasons not understood by me, he decided to take that “opportunity” to get his college degree in a field that doesn’t hire people over 35 unless they are entering with a tremendous amount of experience. He is now delivering pizzas and struggling to hold onto his house.
Me, I saw the writing on the wall. Right around the time the company I was working for canceled the defined benefits pension program I looked around and realized that I saw no old guys. I went back to college and got my BA and eventually my MBA. I am not tall or good looking, I lack family connections and there was no way I could afford an expensive internship. I came from one of Americas poverty areas and, without question, it is part of who I am. I was able to get a job teaching and took the accreditation over a period of a couple of years of evening courses. I now work as a teacher in rural district that, due to the number of immigrants, has many very urban problems.
What does this short biography have to do with the trades? Of the three of us one made it in the trades, mostly because his family had the resources to prop him up as long as it took to become stable. One just plain left, bounced around and left the trades. The other tried to stay until he was pushed out.
Those promoting trades, look around. Do you see many old guys in that trade? How many 60 year olds? How many 70 year olds? As we push up the national retirement age who is going to hire that 70 year old?
I do not think trades are wrong, what I think is wrong is how our society treats tradesmen. As long as people are nothing but disposable cogs to be discarded once they are worn I am concerned about the pure trades’ path. It can, and I think should, be part of a person’s life
My first computer was a Radio Shack Color Computer. It came with two great tutorial manuals for coding in Basic.
There is a lack of material written at that level. Almost all I write in, anymore, is in Vbasic and Vensim (Systems Dynamics, I realize it is a bit obscure). Vensim has a great walk through; However, most of the manuals are either too complicated for beginners; or they don't take the user to the point where thy can do something productive.
As a teacher, I would love to find something, a bit more applicable than hour of code, that will keep my students engaged and leave them with applicable knowledge.
At least the UK leadership did not, publicly and directly, implore Russia to involve themselves in the internal decision making process in the UK.It is kind of hard to act self-righteous if you first ask them to do it.
I think the book you are trying to remember is this one: How PowerPoint Makes You Stupid: The Faulty Causality, Sloppy Logic, Decontextualized Data, and Seductive Showmanship That Have Taken Over Our Thinking – February 28, 2012 by Franck Frommer (Author), George Holoch (Translator).
If you just google "PowerPoint Makes You Stupid" you will find a range of articles on the topic.
I am not saying that they shouldn't. After all, nearly everyone derives benefit from all of the public goods that we fund. The problem starts when people forget that their favorite means is subsidized, just like the means that they don't, personally, like.
So, no, bicyclists don't, often, complain about subsidizing the roads that autos run on. The problem is that people in autos often think that they are paying the full cost and assume that all other road users are free riders. One hears the same about rail in the US. The rather odd thing about the misunderstanding about rail is that rail receives less subsidies as a percentage of total operating costs, than autos do.
What I am addressing is the perception that public transit users are somehow getting subsidies while autos are paying their own way. All, major, forms of transit are subsidized. To do otherwise would create an unworkable mess of toll roads. As is so often, and rightfully, said, taxes are the price of civilization.
You are forgetting that roads are also heavily subsidized. So, each time you drive to work you are taking money from a neighbor who cycles, or walks, to work. https://frontiergroup.org/repo...
"Aside from gas taxes and individuals’ expenditures for their own driving, U.S. households bear on average an additional burden of more than $1,100 per year in taxes and other costs imposed by driving. Including: An estimated $597 per U.S. household per year in general tax revenue dedicated to road construction and repair. Between $199 and $675 per household per year in additional tax subsidies for driving, such as the sales tax exemption for gasoline purchases in many states and the federal income tax exclusion for commuter parking benefits. An estimated $216 per year in government expenditures made necessary by vehicle crashes, not counting additional, uncompensated damages to victims and property. Approximately $93 to $360 per household in costs related to air pollution-induced health damage."
This is only a small snip from the article that I provided the link to.
As you noted, Libre Office wasn't even on the list. Even in the article the most popular were computer management apps and no mention of productivity apps.
This is a large part of the reason I stopped using Linux on the desktop. When the computer was the ends, rather than the means, it was great. However, at this point in my life, the computer is the means, not the ends. When I just need to get work done, Linux just isn't the tool.
"Snaps are containerised software packages that are simple to create and install. They auto-update and are safe to run. And because they bundle their dependencies, they work on all major Linux systems without modification."
When it comes to the difference between the trades and college paths I am reminded of the story of three friends, of which I am one. We met in a community college trade program. All three of us were recently out of the military and drew together.
We had a similar starting point; but ended in different places. One of us went directly into a trade, repairing office equipment. Another bounced around a bit between various county and state technical jobs until he started his own HVAC business.
The friend who started his business was able to do it because his mother poured, quite literally, everything she had into his business to get him started. I remember delivering some of her personal jewelry to be sold in order to raise money for his business. He is now doing ok. We are all now in our 50s and he is pretty much completely broken down from the physical demand of his job. However, financially he is now stable (and has a lot of great guns, I love going out to his place just to see what he has added to his collection).
The other friend tried to stay in Office equipment too long. As he got older his numbers declined and he was let go right about 50. For reasons not understood by me, he decided to take that “opportunity” to get his college degree in a field that doesn’t hire people over 35 unless they are entering with a tremendous amount of experience. He is now delivering pizzas and struggling to hold onto his house.
Me, I saw the writing on the wall. Right around the time the company I was working for canceled the defined benefits pension program I looked around and realized that I saw no old guys. I went back to college and got my BA and eventually my MBA. I am not tall or good looking, I lack family connections and there was no way I could afford an expensive internship. I came from one of Americas poverty areas and, without question, it is part of who I am. I was able to get a job teaching and took the accreditation over a period of a couple of years of evening courses. I now work as a teacher in rural district that, due to the number of immigrants, has many very urban problems.
What does this short biography have to do with the trades? Of the three of us one made it in the trades, mostly because his family had the resources to prop him up as long as it took to become stable. One just plain left, bounced around and left the trades. The other tried to stay until he was pushed out. Those promoting trades, look around. Do you see many old guys in that trade? How many 60 year olds? How many 70 year olds? As we push up the national retirement age who is going to hire that 70 year old?
I do not think trades are wrong, what I think is wrong is how our society treats tradesmen. As long as people are nothing but disposable cogs to be discarded once they are worn I am concerned about the pure trades’ path. It can, and I think should, be part of a person’s life
Slashdot Mirror
There is also China's Inflation rate to consider. I was teaching Economics in China and we were at the point that were were discussing the ideal inflation rate, which most experts put at 2%. It should come as no surprise that China's inflation rat was 2% and had been 2% for several years.
Then we compared the prices of a market basket of goods that we were able to find past prices for. I am just going to say that the results were "discomforting."
For those incapable of reading between the lines, the inflation rate we found was very different from the official inflation rate.
In really wanted to mod this up, but the OP posted as AC. If you have something good to say, put your name on it. If you don't have something good to say, then don't say anything until you have something worth saying. It really is that simple.
In this case the OP really had a good point. I regret that I was not able to apply mod points to a person rather than an AC.
As it stands, only about a quarter of the age eligible population is able to join the armed forces. If Cyber Command had become its own service then they could have opened recruiting to anyone who was willing to do the work, study hard, and become a member. As it stands, the ranks will be closed to those who are not a member of the physical elite.
Not only dies this close the door to service by those who are not in near perfect physical condition; but it also limits the pool of potential candidates based on a factor that has nothing to do with their acumen at cyber-security.
From the summary it looks like they are reverting to only using something you have, which is, normally, a lower level of security.
Facebook picture tags link to an existing Facebook user. Following that link led to a face book user (me) that had requested user deletion years ago. When a person has deleted their account, it should not be possible to view their page years later.
Further, I later needed to use facebook to access a company service page. I simply loogged into the account that I had requested to be closed years before. Very simply, the account was never closed even though I had requested it closed and deleted.
As far as Hillary, and I have no idea why people feel it necessary to drag her into the most unrelated discussions, I doubt that many of her supporters were swayed to trump. It is more likely that the undecideds, and those who are generally too lazy to vote at all, were more motivated,than the otherwise would have been, to vote against her due to a number of mechanisms, fake news on Facebook being one of them.
Years ago I deleted my Facebook account. I was tired of being "tagged" in pictures that I had little control over. What I found is that it isn't possible to delete myself from Facebook. The US needs German style laws that allow a person to to be "forgotten" by digital services.
I suspect that future generations will see this era of unregulated digital sharing and use it as an example of how a pattern of foolishness can spread across the entire world.
What you are describing is similar to a test that was done. A marshmallow was placed on the desks of pre-school students. They weer then told that the teacher had to step away. If they would wait until the teacher got back, before eating their marshmallow they would be given a second one as a reward for waiting for the teacher. Some waited and got a second, some ate theirs right away.
the study doesn't end there.
Many years later a different group of researchers got hold of that study and the raw data. They tracked down those kids who were now adults. What they found was that the kids who waited were more successful than their peers who had gobbled the marshmallow.
These kids all went to the same pre-school; so it is reasonable to believe that they were, generally demographic peers. However, I would like to have seen some of the data that no one looked for at that time.
Some of those kids had clearly already learned that the world is a bitter place and no one gets what they are promised. In Outliers, Malcomb Gladwell clearly establishes that is a loosing strategy. What I would like to have seen is what taught those kids that lesson. unfortunately, when reading the research, that information just doesn't seem to be there.
A lot of the kids wear wrist watches. G-Shock watches are very popular.
Unfortunately I lost the watch I had in the Army. I searched all over for it too. It's gone.
As a teacher, I can tell that the main reason for relaxing the cell phone bans is the parents demanding it. the research is in, cell phones detract from learning.
The following is part of a letter I sent to my building administrator on this topic. The first point, that is cut out, but mentioned, had to do with my student to robot ratio.
The second is more generalized, yet it remains a problem. It is the cell phones in the school.
The research done by the London School of Economics showed that the benefit to a cell phone ban was the equivalent to an extra week of instruction. However, even more relevant to our district, is that the gain was driven by low income students. they showed an improvement equal to receiving three extra weeks of instruction per year.
Simply telling the students to put the phones is not enough. A study by the University of Chicago determined that the negative effects of the cell phone are present when the phone is in close proximity, such as in a backpack. When in close proximity, the addictive nature of the phone continues to interfere with the cognitive process.
Based on research, a simple ban of cell phones could improve the students education. In cases where the parent believes that their child needs a phone, and will not be swayed by research, a area of small lock boxes in the office would allow the students to secure their phones at the beginning of the day.
These are two proposals that would increase student engagement and learning.
Here I include summaries and abstracts from recent cell phone research:
a couple of studies that have been completed in an attempt to assess the impact the impact of having cell-phones in school on education.
The first is a study completed by the London School of Economics. Here is the abstract:
This paper investigates the impact of schools banning mobile phones on student test scores. By surveying schools in four English cities regarding their mobile phone policies and combining it with administrative data, we find that student performance in high stakes exams significantly increases post ban. We use a difference in differences (DID) strategy, exploiting variations in schools’ autonomous decisions to ban these devices, conditioning on a range of student characteristics and prior achievement. Our results indicate that these increases in performance are driven by the lowest achieving students. This suggests that restricting mobile phone use can be a low-cost policy to reduce educational inequalities.
Source: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/down...
A more readable summary is provided by CNN:
The authors looked at how phone policies at 91 schools in England have changed since 2001, and compared that data with results achieved in national exams taken at the age of 16. The study covered 130,000 pupils.
It found that following a ban on phone use, the schools' test scores improved by 6.4%. The impact on underachieving students was much more significant -- their average test scores rose by 14%.
Source: http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/1...
This study was supported by a recent study conducted by the University of Chicago. Further, they determined that the negative effect of the cell-phone were present even if the cell-phone is put away, such as in a backpack. From the Abstract:
Results from two experiments indicate that even when people are successful at maintaining sustained attention—as when avoiding the temptation to check their phones—the mere presence of these devices reduces available cognitive capacity.
Source: http://www.journals.uchicago.e...
It is interesting that this was not discussed when I was in College Psyc. The first I can recall coming across this was in the book "before you know it" by John Bragh, PhD. It was published in 2017. However, when I checked just now I say that the mention (on page 99) references papers published in the mid 1970's. So it was known; however, it was probably waiting for the next generation of text books.
I took a date to it in the 80's (campus showing). She fell asleep and had no energy later either.
But then, maybe I am a survivor. I got laid off and never seemed to bounce back. I saw some of my friends languish and eventually become unemployable.
I decided to "retrain." I now teach at a middle school. Depending on the students or the class, I teach Word, Photoshop and Excel, which substitutes for a High School class that teaches the same. In another class I each robotics, starting with the Lego EV-3 and expanding into the Arduino boards. no, it isn't exciting; but it is keeping me from unemployment.
All that being said, there needs to be a reworking of the labour relationship in the US. The Social Security retirement age is unrealistically high and private pensions have evaporated. At the same time people are seen as "used up" at earlier ages with each passing decade. Someone will inevitably chime in with some small exception; but the reality is that the labour potential of people 50-70 is being unrealized at the same time that they are treated as being too young for most forms of retirement safety nets.
I purchased a pound of Black Powder last week, not Pyrodex. Why did I buy it?For my Black Powder rifle.
Let's see. . . how many replacements will I need to make? . . . Looks like three (with one of this being a "replace all").
Oh, and this version is still nothing but a straw-man, just like yours .
American Conservatives (including the local Slashdot Conservatives) admire the Chinese Communist System.
Economic growth and Despotism all in one package.
They'd like to censor things like the Chinese do.
They'd like to make social policy, like the Chinese do.
They'd like to oppress Islam, like the Chinese do.
Many of the Eugenicists would buy into the One Child policy in a heartbeat.
And of course the whole idea of the oligopies controlling the economy just makes their panties wet.
Yes, there are some nightmare authoritarian possibilities; but , it is unlikely he would be able to serve a third term.
As far as the nightmare authoritarian possibilities, people have been prediction those for every president from Clinton onward.
More often, the business teachers. The Business Education endorsement on a teachers license specifically includes computer courses.
The trouble with that approach is that, at least at the middle school level, is that the computer courses are computer apps only (at my school, Word, Excel, and Photoshop).
In this short story I compare three friends. The trade I mention was repairing office equipment. It is very similar to robot repair. In fact I use that experience to teach Robotics. When it comes to the difference between the trades and college paths I am reminded of the story of three friends, of which I am one. We met in a community college trade program. All three of us were recently out of the military and drew together.
We had a similar starting point; but ended in different places. Two of us went directly into a trade, repairing office equipment (I am one of those two). Another bounced around a bit between various county and state technical jobs until re started his own HVAC business.
The friend who started his business because his mother poured, quite literally, everything she had into his business to get him started. I remember delivering some of her personal jewelry to be sold in order to raise money for his business. He is now doing ok. We are all now in our 50s and he is pretty much completely broken down from the physical demand of his job. However, financially he is now stable (and has a lot of great guns, I love going out to his place just to see what he has added to his collection).
The other friend tried to stay in Office equipment too long. As he got older his numbers declined and he was let go right about 50. For reasons not understood by me, he decided to take that “opportunity” to get his college degree in a field that doesn’t hire people over 35 unless they are entering with a tremendous amount of experience. He is now delivering pizzas and struggling to hold onto his house.
Me, I saw the writing on the wall. Right around the time the company I was working for canceled the defined benefits pension program I looked around and realized that I saw no old guys. I went back to college and got my BA and eventually my MBA. I am not tall or good looking, I lack family connections and there was no way I could afford an expensive internship. I came from one of Americas poverty areas and, without question, it is part of who I am.
I was able to get a job teaching and took the accreditation over a period of a couple of years of evening courses. I now work as a teacher in rural district that, due to the number of immigrants, has many very urban problems.
What does this short biography have to do with the trades? Of the three of us one made it in the trades, mostly because his family had the resources to prop him up as long as it took to become stable. One just plain left, bounced around and left the trades. The other tried to stay until he was pushed out.
Those promoting trades, look around. Do you see many old guys in that trade? How many 60 year olds? How many 70 year olds? As we push up the national retirement age who is going to hire that 70 year old?
I do not think trades are wrong, what I think is wrong is how our society treats tradesmen. As long as people are nothing but disposable cogs to be discarded once they are worn I am concerned about the pure trades’ path. It can, and I think should, be part of a person’s life
My first computer was a Radio Shack Color Computer. It came with two great tutorial manuals for coding in Basic.
There is a lack of material written at that level. Almost all I write in, anymore, is in Vbasic and Vensim (Systems Dynamics, I realize it is a bit obscure). Vensim has a great walk through; However, most of the manuals are either too complicated for beginners; or they don't take the user to the point where thy can do something productive.
As a teacher, I would love to find something, a bit more applicable than hour of code, that will keep my students engaged and leave them with applicable knowledge.
At least the UK leadership did not, publicly and directly, implore Russia to involve themselves in the internal decision making process in the UK.It is kind of hard to act self-righteous if you first ask them to do it.
I think the book you are trying to remember is this one: How PowerPoint Makes You Stupid: The Faulty Causality, Sloppy Logic, Decontextualized Data, and Seductive Showmanship That Have Taken Over Our Thinking – February 28, 2012 by Franck Frommer (Author), George Holoch (Translator).
If you just google "PowerPoint Makes You Stupid" you will find a range of articles on the topic.
I am not saying that they shouldn't. After all, nearly everyone derives benefit from all of the public goods that we fund. The problem starts when people forget that their favorite means is subsidized, just like the means that they don't, personally, like.
So, no, bicyclists don't, often, complain about subsidizing the roads that autos run on. The problem is that people in autos often think that they are paying the full cost and assume that all other road users are free riders. One hears the same about rail in the US. The rather odd thing about the misunderstanding about rail is that rail receives less subsidies as a percentage of total operating costs, than autos do.
What I am addressing is the perception that public transit users are somehow getting subsidies while autos are paying their own way. All, major, forms of transit are subsidized. To do otherwise would create an unworkable mess of toll roads. As is so often, and rightfully, said, taxes are the price of civilization.
You are forgetting that roads are also heavily subsidized. So, each time you drive to work you are taking money from a neighbor who cycles, or walks, to work. https://frontiergroup.org/repo...
"Aside from gas taxes and individuals’ expenditures for their own driving, U.S. households bear on average an additional burden of more than $1,100 per year in taxes and other costs imposed by driving. Including:
An estimated $597 per U.S. household per year in general tax revenue dedicated to road construction and repair.
Between $199 and $675 per household per year in additional tax subsidies for driving, such as the sales tax exemption for gasoline purchases in many states and the federal income tax exclusion for commuter parking benefits.
An estimated $216 per year in government expenditures made necessary by vehicle crashes, not counting additional, uncompensated damages to victims and property.
Approximately $93 to $360 per household in costs related to air pollution-induced health damage."
This is only a small snip from the article that I provided the link to.
As you noted, Libre Office wasn't even on the list. Even in the article the most popular were computer management apps and no mention of productivity apps.
This is a large part of the reason I stopped using Linux on the desktop. When the computer was the ends, rather than the means, it was great. However, at this point in my life, the computer is the means, not the ends. When I just need to get work done, Linux just isn't the tool.
From the webpage https://snapcraft.io/
"Snaps are containerised software packages that are simple to create and install. They auto-update and are safe to run. And because they bundle their dependencies, they work on all major Linux systems without modification."
When it comes to the difference between the trades and college paths I am reminded of the story of three friends, of which I am one. We met in a community college trade program. All three of us were recently out of the military and drew together.
We had a similar starting point; but ended in different places. One of us went directly into a trade, repairing office equipment. Another bounced around a bit between various county and state technical jobs until he started his own HVAC business.
The friend who started his business was able to do it because his mother poured, quite literally, everything she had into his business to get him started. I remember delivering some of her personal jewelry to be sold in order to raise money for his business. He is now doing ok. We are all now in our 50s and he is pretty much completely broken down from the physical demand of his job. However, financially he is now stable (and has a lot of great guns, I love going out to his place just to see what he has added to his collection).
The other friend tried to stay in Office equipment too long. As he got older his numbers declined and he was let go right about 50. For reasons not understood by me, he decided to take that “opportunity” to get his college degree in a field that doesn’t hire people over 35 unless they are entering with a tremendous amount of experience. He is now delivering pizzas and struggling to hold onto his house.
Me, I saw the writing on the wall. Right around the time the company I was working for canceled the defined benefits pension program I looked around and realized that I saw no old guys. I went back to college and got my BA and eventually my MBA. I am not tall or good looking, I lack family connections and there was no way I could afford an expensive internship. I came from one of Americas poverty areas and, without question, it is part of who I am.
I was able to get a job teaching and took the accreditation over a period of a couple of years of evening courses. I now work as a teacher in rural district that, due to the number of immigrants, has many very urban problems.
What does this short biography have to do with the trades? Of the three of us one made it in the trades, mostly because his family had the resources to prop him up as long as it took to become stable. One just plain left, bounced around and left the trades. The other tried to stay until he was pushed out.
Those promoting trades, look around. Do you see many old guys in that trade? How many 60 year olds? How many 70 year olds? As we push up the national retirement age who is going to hire that 70 year old?
I do not think trades are wrong, what I think is wrong is how our society treats tradesmen. As long as people are nothing but disposable cogs to be discarded once they are worn I am concerned about the pure trades’ path. It can, and I think should, be part of a person’s life