... but of entertainment for the rest of us. Seriously, this is hilarious. It's like being back in high school again and watching the heartrending saga of Jill and her cavalcade of BFFs finally have a tragic argument destined to elicit tears at every juncture. For the participants, tears of frustration and despair, and for the viewing public, tears of laughter.
I mean, really.
Apple: "Our new phone is awesome!" Fans: "Yes, it is! Wait... where's cut and paste, and media messaging?" AT&T: LOLwhat?
Then...
Apple: "We now have cut and paste... kinda! And the phone is faster!" Fans: "Yay! Wait... I want a refund on the difference!" AT&T: "I'm sitting this one out!"
And now...
Apple: "We now have tethering, and media messaging!" AT&T: "No we don't! In fact, you're killing our network by using the extra capacity you paid for!" Fans: "I'll cut you!"
I just... don't even know what to say. Kudos, to all participants. You've provided more drama than money could buy, and for that, I thank you!
I was wondering about this myself. By bringing attention to this random blog apparently nobody reads, this model I've never heard of will now be the laughingstock of the internet for a few weeks. I saw this on the morning news on my way out the door, and I'm just amazed people still don't really understand how the internet actually works.
They kept talking about how they're trying to set the precedent that anonymity is not a shield against libel, as if this trial would magically end all anonymity on the entire internet, but that's not even what this is about. This is about someone who I've previously never heard of, who is suing somebody because she has a thin skin, and doesn't realize that doing so will draw even more attention to the very thing she's trying to suppress.
Now we get to look forward to the next few weeks as people express their first amendment rights by going even further than the original statements, on far more readable forums such as this one. I mean... look at this image. It's been all over the internet for years, and arguably damages this young woman's reputation worse than whatever this model is whining about, but look just how pervasive it is anyway. I can only imagine what kind of photoshopping an attempt to sue the intarwebs will inspire.
This really is just exacerbating the situation, and it's a shame nobody warned her or her lawyers before they made it a media spectacle. Now she's totally and irreversibly screwed, and doesn't even know it.
This really is a terrible stance by the DOJ. Punitive rulings are blatantly unconstitutional, and effectively punish a person for what others might do. It's also completely pointless. Few, if any, regular people have anywhere near that kind of money. All that will happen if this stands is a time in bankruptcy court, which accomplishes absolutely nothing. They might as well raise the damages to fifty billion dollars under the same logic... considering: if one large amount will deter others, then an even larger amount is even better, right?
Indeed, I believe they are being too conservative in this renaming. For regular customers of Radio Shack, we know the new name is too high class. The only possible remedy for this situation is to name the chain "Electronics Shanty," because we all know that's what they are.
Just because dextrocardia often presents with other flipped organs doesn't mean it describes the condition. I know because I also have dextrocardia, but without other organ mirroring. There are two major things which may affect your future together:
Situs Inversus can be caused by malfunctioning cellular cilia, which has been known to render sufferers infertile. This is easy enough to check, and can be countered by in-vitro fertilization, I believe.
Situs Inversus is actually far less dangerous than full-on dextrocardia. When the other organs aren't mirrored as well, the heart is often damaged during fetal development and almost always requires open-heart surgery to correct. Even then, quality of life will never be that of a normal person. My own surgery was in 1984, and that only corrected three of the seven major defects.
So, be glad she doesn't just have dextocardia, but for longer-term, if you want kids, she might need to be checked.
That's what I don't quite understand about all this. It's been the case for a while now that:
1. If you want a full RDBMS, use Oracle, or PostgreSQL, or a similar ACID + SQL92 compliant DB. 2. If you don't really care, use MySQL. 3. If you want ridiculous speed, and actively hate your data, use SQLite. 4. If you have one file, or maybe two, use BerkeleyDB or similar. 5. Flat files are fine for config.
I'm not sure we need yet another category here. Then again, we're now seeing things surfacing like database sharding which currently limits all data interaction to whichever application managed the data distribution. It would be nice to see a DB capable of hiding such things behind the classic SQL engine so not every client app and API requires the chosen sharding method implemented in possibly mutually exclusive and buggy ways.
I'd moderate this up, but it's already +5. So I'll just concur. The article is indeed excellent, and even if it's only half true, I don't even know where to begin on the implications. I'd say it's bad enough that the only way to crawl out would be to immediately disband the guilty corporations, disperse their assets to smaller community banks, declare the FED illegal and oust it, all while restarting the dollar from scratch.
Of course, doing that would instantly render so many worldwide investments worthless...:(
To make a stretched analogy: one of our applications (The FED, AIG, related) went rogue (no oversight infinite lending), and it consumed all available resources until the entire system crashed. So, our economy is going to need a reboot and a better sandbox. Unfortunately that will never happen with the amount of lobbyists and special interest groups obscuring or further manipulating the situation.
Vitriol aside, I grew up poor. Having been poor, we learned to be gypsies. Sometimes an apartment got sold out from under us, sometimes jobs changed, sometimes we chased lower rents, sometimes we wanted to start over, move near family, etc. Sometimes we didn't have a car, other times we did. Sometimes we changed cities, schools, whatever.
The overriding factor was that we were willing to compromise to make up for what we didn't have. Sometimes it meant bussing, or getting food donations, or just plain doing without until situations improved one way or another. There are many places a man can't work without a car; people who can't afford, or don't want to depend on a car should not live where vehicle ownership is an implied prerequisite. Ignoring the inconvenience and expense, it just complicates everything.
Poor people can move. We did, dozens of times, sometimes with only the most precious of our possessions. Sometimes starting over is better anyway. But there's this: I personally wonder about the sense of entitlement some cling to. We made it, just barely, by doing what we could to get by. I stuck to the books so I could escape into college and the real world, but some of my upbringing remains: even if I lost everything, I'd find a way to make it work.
Something tells me someone claiming they can't get by without a car is not being creative, or is simply lazy or unwilling to change their situation. But, I can't really feel any other way, considering. I understand they may have it hard, but an excuse is an excuse.
As no studies I've seen have collected data on the statistical distribution or predisposition of specific personality archetypes within a career or general field, I sadly must defer to a random distribution of the human genotype among them, else I risk projecting my own cultural or personal bias onto the situation and reach a predetermined, and thus fundamentally flawed conclusion. But that is a constraint I place only upon myself; you, of course, are more than welcome to utilize your own methods of scientific inquiry when vetting dubious sweeping statements and agendas.
I was going to moderate this "funny," but thought the same thing myself. My answer to the OP's question was "Yes." Because anyone, really, can be these things, and we need to stop with the fallacy that only IT people can be self-absorbed assholes.
Anyone can be brilliant. Anyone can be a jerk. Sometimes these two things overlap. I'm not convinced that there's a higher penetration of this in IT than any other profession.
But why not? Accountability is really the issue. Few like to admit they've made a mistake, and in something as high-stakes as a bust of any flavor... well, it's easier for the police to continue, or even preemptively sue, than to admit wrongdoing. Any excuse is often good enough when a person is caught with his pants down, so imagine that same person has the ability to abuse authority to avoid taking blame.
Not even the mayor is safe in the presence of ubiquitous self-justification.
It's a human-nature problem that really has no solution, not a conspiracy. "Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence." That's the real problem with blindly accepting authority—they're people just like us, and have the same foibles. It really is interesting just how quickly people appeal to authority and meekly accept whatever outcome is handed down. Anthropologists love this stuff.
Considering the nature of gravity, it's the medium that's important. I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a graviton or gravity wave, just areas of distorted space-time. Of course, this implies a theorist could determine the makeup of space-time itself—that granularity or substance that makes up the medium—then negate gravity by inverting the local distortion via directly influencing the medium instead of relying on a mass or energy distortion to "naturally" achieve the effect.
I wouldn't go so far as to immediately suggest "ZOMG simulation!" but it does raise interesting questions if there really is an "aether" that acts as a universal substrate.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, these tests are highly transparent in nearly every possible degree. Almost all of them derive from OCEAN one way or the other, so in evaluating each question, the only necessary determination is the focus of the question; which part of the Big Five is being addressed currently? Figure that out, and answer toward the more socially accepted norm: extroversion in favor of introversion, be highly agreeable, avoid neuroticism, etc. Juggle your answers so they're not all perfect and boom, ideal candidate.
I've only had one employer ever subject me to a personality test, and I never heard back from them. Of course, this was when I was about to graduate college and enter the work force, and nearly ten years ago. Since then, I've learned enough to chuckle at the test, hand it back unanswered and leave the interview. They're too subjective, easily circumvented, and like France's handwriting analysis, and similar evaluation methods, are effectively mumbo-jumbo akin to phrenology or palm reading. There are simply different types of people in the world; knowing which type is applying for a particular situation isn't a predictor for success or failure; even after having possible correlations identified by double-blind studies, I'd be skeptical about strongly associating specific types to specific job duties.
I'm not entirely sure how this got started, but It's illogical to participate, in my opinion.
It's not just that. The grandparent seems to believe his company exists in a completely insular dimension where it doesn't have to sell products to any other companies, or otherwise interact with customers. In a recession, customers have less money and thus spend less. In a recession, other businesses must cut costs and may therefore cut their advertising, materials, or other budgets, negatively affecting suppliers, which could be any type of company: software, warehouse, widget, anything.
Less customers spending money leads to businesses also cutting back, resulting in a ripple which can mean manpower reductions across completely unrelated economic segments. If nobody is buying your software, you'll be eating just as much ramen as the next guy when your company has a 40% staff reduction.
Go ahead and try to arbitrarily "not participate" in a recession, because buddy, you don't have a say in the matter. You can be more secure, but with all the companies currently outright failing, job security isn't what it used to be.
Whoever wrote the original post is a troll or woefully ignorant of... well... everything. I don't want to call anyone stupid, so I'll vote for "troll," and suggest you stop feeding him.:p
If someone is performing poorly, you can't just fire them because there is no one to replace them. Why? Because no one will take the job for the pay. I've personally known many individuals who love children and love to teach. Financially they could not afford to live on a public teacher's salary and had to pursue other employment.
Same here. And worse, I know a lot of teachers, and am marrying into a family with three generations of teachers. Having seen, first hand, what teachers have to deal with on a daily basis, I would never in my entire life, ever even conceive of such a vocation. Hilariously, the standards for my elementary Music Education K-6 fiancee are vastly higher than what I endured as a DBA, and I get paid more than twice as much. Her? Demonstrated rudimentary proficiency in every major instrument, since she's expected to be able to teach them all. Elementary Education certification, which has its own taxonomy of requirements including student teaching, continuing education, and so on.
I've seen the pay bands, and around here, teachers that don't have a Master's degree by their 6th year stop getting raises. Does educating children day to day really change so regularly that in order to even maintain consistent output, a teacher must themselves be forever embroiled in further schooling? For that kind of a headache, a person could get a PhD and do paid research or even get grants to perform studies on effective education programs. The ratio between time, effort, and results is hilariously lopsided. I keep wondering how this state has any teachers remaining, because love of the vocation can only work for so long.
... and under NCLB, in public schools, that same autistic student would take the same standardized tests as everyone else. So would all the kids who think school is a waste of time, who would rather concentrate on sports, or are only in school to avoid being picked up for truancy. All of which put the school in the "high risk" category which cuts its funding, sending it elsewhere. That school can't afford good teachers, supplies, or programs, feeding the loop. Where'd that money go? Maybe to the seemingly infinite hierarchy of administrators, or the "good" suburban school that hasn't yet displayed signs of "trouble."
Public schools are worse at this point because of government bureaucracy shackling each to untested standards and criteria driven by emotionally charged and subjective expectations. Private schools have all the leeway to be better, because they can treat autistic children as different. If little Johny can barely tie his shoes, giving him a test on integrals, grammar, and world history, then using the results to evaluate the effectiveness of the school seems more than just a little disingenuous.
I was wondering about that myself. My open-heart surgery in 1984 obviously used the old method of hypothermia to stop the heart, and as expected, required several hours to install a dacron patch to close a ventricular septal defect, close an atrial septal defect, widen my pulmonary artery, and surgically separate my tricuspid and mitral valves... and that was just what they could fix back then. That's a ton of crap, and I have to wonder how effectively a robot could work on a beating heart while having it open and basically re-arranging the entire inside.
Then again, this seems obviously aimed at things like bypass surgery. I still have to wonder how invasive this technology can get before it gets too risky.
I think he meant without scaling or scrolling the screen. I use it all the time to play NES and GBC games, but gave up on SNES, Genesis, or anything requiring more than 256x192 pixels.
About the only thing the Pandora can't emulate is the DS thanks to its dual screens... I've got my CycloDS to keep me from cartridge-swapping and save-file backup, and while I was able to emulate most of the old consoles, the games were pretty much unplayable beyond NES/GBC/SMS/Atari.
I would actually say it's the best example. We see how little effect such a constraint as making family members ineligible accomplishes, but that's people actively circumventing the system and further proof of laxity in the voting process. I mean, if McDonalds is more strict, and still gets subverted, imagine the free-for-all in the political process.
There are enough psychological studies to effectively predict several motivators and stimuli reactions in the human animal, such that properly applied constructions of emotionally charged or dissonance-driving pseudo-propaganda can direct behavior. It's almost trivial at this point. And like you said, with infinite resources, nobody really wins that war, so we end up with a 50% split, right down the middle, based on mathematical and geographic distribution effects.
Not enough people question their own reactions to stimuli, or listen to mentally challenging arguments they actively question, for appealing to our base natures to fail. That's the trick, and the damning part. We're all fat and happy, so have no incentive to actively pursue academic interests, leaving us ripe for the plucking, so to speak. We're left with the government we deserve, really.
But the more the controversies pile up, eventually I wonder if people will actually start paying attention and overriding natural instinct to once again reach equilibrium, if only to reduce the entropy in the system caused by the constant political turmoil. Maybe only time will tell.
I liked the idea of Ron Paul too, and his points about the banking system have become hilariously obvious in the last few weeks, but it's just not meant to be. Our elections don't run on sapient points anymore, but marketing. I'm fairly certain our system could sell snow to Eskimos, and human beings, due to their easily predictable and exploitable reactions to measured stimuli and various psychological research, are trivially manipulable.
And like it or not, the entrenched Republican and Democrat parties have too much terminal momentum to be so easily thwarted. It'll probably be different in a couple generations, but different isn't necessarily better. I'm curious, but not too optimistic, given how closely history is repeated due to human nature.
Slashdot Mirror
... but of entertainment for the rest of us. Seriously, this is hilarious. It's like being back in high school again and watching the heartrending saga of Jill and her cavalcade of BFFs finally have a tragic argument destined to elicit tears at every juncture. For the participants, tears of frustration and despair, and for the viewing public, tears of laughter.
I mean, really.
Apple: "Our new phone is awesome!"
Fans: "Yes, it is! Wait... where's cut and paste, and media messaging?"
AT&T: LOLwhat?
Then...
Apple: "We now have cut and paste... kinda! And the phone is faster!"
Fans: "Yay! Wait... I want a refund on the difference!"
AT&T: "I'm sitting this one out!"
And now...
Apple: "We now have tethering, and media messaging!"
AT&T: "No we don't! In fact, you're killing our network by using the extra capacity you paid for!"
Fans: "I'll cut you!"
I just... don't even know what to say. Kudos, to all participants. You've provided more drama than money could buy, and for that, I thank you!
I was wondering about this myself. By bringing attention to this random blog apparently nobody reads, this model I've never heard of will now be the laughingstock of the internet for a few weeks. I saw this on the morning news on my way out the door, and I'm just amazed people still don't really understand how the internet actually works.
They kept talking about how they're trying to set the precedent that anonymity is not a shield against libel, as if this trial would magically end all anonymity on the entire internet, but that's not even what this is about. This is about someone who I've previously never heard of, who is suing somebody because she has a thin skin, and doesn't realize that doing so will draw even more attention to the very thing she's trying to suppress.
Now we get to look forward to the next few weeks as people express their first amendment rights by going even further than the original statements, on far more readable forums such as this one. I mean... look at this image. It's been all over the internet for years, and arguably damages this young woman's reputation worse than whatever this model is whining about, but look just how pervasive it is anyway. I can only imagine what kind of photoshopping an attempt to sue the intarwebs will inspire.
This really is just exacerbating the situation, and it's a shame nobody warned her or her lawyers before they made it a media spectacle. Now she's totally and irreversibly screwed, and doesn't even know it.
This really is a terrible stance by the DOJ. Punitive rulings are blatantly unconstitutional, and effectively punish a person for what others might do. It's also completely pointless. Few, if any, regular people have anywhere near that kind of money. All that will happen if this stands is a time in bankruptcy court, which accomplishes absolutely nothing. They might as well raise the damages to fifty billion dollars under the same logic... considering: if one large amount will deter others, then an even larger amount is even better, right?
I honestly don't understand where this is going.
Ok, I have to admit that Gadget Hovel made me LOL, and in general, I never, ever do that. Well played, sir!
Indeed, I believe they are being too conservative in this renaming. For regular customers of Radio Shack, we know the new name is too high class. The only possible remedy for this situation is to name the chain "Electronics Shanty," because we all know that's what they are.
I think you mean your girlfriend has Situs Inversus Totalis.
Just because dextrocardia often presents with other flipped organs doesn't mean it describes the condition. I know because I also have dextrocardia, but without other organ mirroring. There are two major things which may affect your future together:
So, be glad she doesn't just have dextocardia, but for longer-term, if you want kids, she might need to be checked.
Isn't it great? Though I don't know to be more amused or frightened that my Unicomp weighs more than my entire netbook.
That's what I don't quite understand about all this. It's been the case for a while now that:
1. If you want a full RDBMS, use Oracle, or PostgreSQL, or a similar ACID + SQL92 compliant DB.
2. If you don't really care, use MySQL.
3. If you want ridiculous speed, and actively hate your data, use SQLite.
4. If you have one file, or maybe two, use BerkeleyDB or similar.
5. Flat files are fine for config.
I'm not sure we need yet another category here. Then again, we're now seeing things surfacing like database sharding which currently limits all data interaction to whichever application managed the data distribution. It would be nice to see a DB capable of hiding such things behind the classic SQL engine so not every client app and API requires the chosen sharding method implemented in possibly mutually exclusive and buggy ways.
I'd moderate this up, but it's already +5. So I'll just concur. The article is indeed excellent, and even if it's only half true, I don't even know where to begin on the implications. I'd say it's bad enough that the only way to crawl out would be to immediately disband the guilty corporations, disperse their assets to smaller community banks, declare the FED illegal and oust it, all while restarting the dollar from scratch.
Of course, doing that would instantly render so many worldwide investments worthless... :(
To make a stretched analogy: one of our applications (The FED, AIG, related) went rogue (no oversight infinite lending), and it consumed all available resources until the entire system crashed. So, our economy is going to need a reboot and a better sandbox. Unfortunately that will never happen with the amount of lobbyists and special interest groups obscuring or further manipulating the situation.
Psssst! You're doing it wrong.
Vitriol aside, I grew up poor. Having been poor, we learned to be gypsies. Sometimes an apartment got sold out from under us, sometimes jobs changed, sometimes we chased lower rents, sometimes we wanted to start over, move near family, etc. Sometimes we didn't have a car, other times we did. Sometimes we changed cities, schools, whatever.
The overriding factor was that we were willing to compromise to make up for what we didn't have. Sometimes it meant bussing, or getting food donations, or just plain doing without until situations improved one way or another. There are many places a man can't work without a car; people who can't afford, or don't want to depend on a car should not live where vehicle ownership is an implied prerequisite. Ignoring the inconvenience and expense, it just complicates everything.
Poor people can move. We did, dozens of times, sometimes with only the most precious of our possessions. Sometimes starting over is better anyway. But there's this: I personally wonder about the sense of entitlement some cling to. We made it, just barely, by doing what we could to get by. I stuck to the books so I could escape into college and the real world, but some of my upbringing remains: even if I lost everything, I'd find a way to make it work.
Something tells me someone claiming they can't get by without a car is not being creative, or is simply lazy or unwilling to change their situation. But, I can't really feel any other way, considering. I understand they may have it hard, but an excuse is an excuse.
The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".
As no studies I've seen have collected data on the statistical distribution or predisposition of specific personality archetypes within a career or general field, I sadly must defer to a random distribution of the human genotype among them, else I risk projecting my own cultural or personal bias onto the situation and reach a predetermined, and thus fundamentally flawed conclusion. But that is a constraint I place only upon myself; you, of course, are more than welcome to utilize your own methods of scientific inquiry when vetting dubious sweeping statements and agendas.
I was going to moderate this "funny," but thought the same thing myself. My answer to the OP's question was "Yes." Because anyone, really, can be these things, and we need to stop with the fallacy that only IT people can be self-absorbed assholes.
Anyone can be brilliant. Anyone can be a jerk. Sometimes these two things overlap. I'm not convinced that there's a higher penetration of this in IT than any other profession.
But why not? Accountability is really the issue. Few like to admit they've made a mistake, and in something as high-stakes as a bust of any flavor... well, it's easier for the police to continue, or even preemptively sue, than to admit wrongdoing. Any excuse is often good enough when a person is caught with his pants down, so imagine that same person has the ability to abuse authority to avoid taking blame.
Not even the mayor is safe in the presence of ubiquitous self-justification.
It's a human-nature problem that really has no solution, not a conspiracy. "Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence." That's the real problem with blindly accepting authority—they're people just like us, and have the same foibles. It really is interesting just how quickly people appeal to authority and meekly accept whatever outcome is handed down. Anthropologists love this stuff.
That's because you've never visited Homestar Runner!
But yeah, unless it's some kind of entertainment, a fully flash website is just silly.
Considering the nature of gravity, it's the medium that's important. I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a graviton or gravity wave, just areas of distorted space-time. Of course, this implies a theorist could determine the makeup of space-time itself—that granularity or substance that makes up the medium—then negate gravity by inverting the local distortion via directly influencing the medium instead of relying on a mass or energy distortion to "naturally" achieve the effect.
I wouldn't go so far as to immediately suggest "ZOMG simulation!" but it does raise interesting questions if there really is an "aether" that acts as a universal substrate.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, these tests are highly transparent in nearly every possible degree. Almost all of them derive from OCEAN one way or the other, so in evaluating each question, the only necessary determination is the focus of the question; which part of the Big Five is being addressed currently? Figure that out, and answer toward the more socially accepted norm: extroversion in favor of introversion, be highly agreeable, avoid neuroticism, etc. Juggle your answers so they're not all perfect and boom, ideal candidate.
I've only had one employer ever subject me to a personality test, and I never heard back from them. Of course, this was when I was about to graduate college and enter the work force, and nearly ten years ago. Since then, I've learned enough to chuckle at the test, hand it back unanswered and leave the interview. They're too subjective, easily circumvented, and like France's handwriting analysis, and similar evaluation methods, are effectively mumbo-jumbo akin to phrenology or palm reading. There are simply different types of people in the world; knowing which type is applying for a particular situation isn't a predictor for success or failure; even after having possible correlations identified by double-blind studies, I'd be skeptical about strongly associating specific types to specific job duties.
I'm not entirely sure how this got started, but It's illogical to participate, in my opinion.
It's not just that. The grandparent seems to believe his company exists in a completely insular dimension where it doesn't have to sell products to any other companies, or otherwise interact with customers. In a recession, customers have less money and thus spend less. In a recession, other businesses must cut costs and may therefore cut their advertising, materials, or other budgets, negatively affecting suppliers, which could be any type of company: software, warehouse, widget, anything.
Less customers spending money leads to businesses also cutting back, resulting in a ripple which can mean manpower reductions across completely unrelated economic segments. If nobody is buying your software, you'll be eating just as much ramen as the next guy when your company has a 40% staff reduction.
Go ahead and try to arbitrarily "not participate" in a recession, because buddy, you don't have a say in the matter. You can be more secure, but with all the companies currently outright failing, job security isn't what it used to be.
Whoever wrote the original post is a troll or woefully ignorant of... well... everything. I don't want to call anyone stupid, so I'll vote for "troll," and suggest you stop feeding him. :p
Same here. And worse, I know a lot of teachers, and am marrying into a family with three generations of teachers. Having seen, first hand, what teachers have to deal with on a daily basis, I would never in my entire life, ever even conceive of such a vocation. Hilariously, the standards for my elementary Music Education K-6 fiancee are vastly higher than what I endured as a DBA, and I get paid more than twice as much. Her? Demonstrated rudimentary proficiency in every major instrument, since she's expected to be able to teach them all. Elementary Education certification, which has its own taxonomy of requirements including student teaching, continuing education, and so on.
I've seen the pay bands, and around here, teachers that don't have a Master's degree by their 6th year stop getting raises. Does educating children day to day really change so regularly that in order to even maintain consistent output, a teacher must themselves be forever embroiled in further schooling? For that kind of a headache, a person could get a PhD and do paid research or even get grants to perform studies on effective education programs. The ratio between time, effort, and results is hilariously lopsided. I keep wondering how this state has any teachers remaining, because love of the vocation can only work for so long.
... and under NCLB, in public schools, that same autistic student would take the same standardized tests as everyone else. So would all the kids who think school is a waste of time, who would rather concentrate on sports, or are only in school to avoid being picked up for truancy. All of which put the school in the "high risk" category which cuts its funding, sending it elsewhere. That school can't afford good teachers, supplies, or programs, feeding the loop. Where'd that money go? Maybe to the seemingly infinite hierarchy of administrators, or the "good" suburban school that hasn't yet displayed signs of "trouble."
Public schools are worse at this point because of government bureaucracy shackling each to untested standards and criteria driven by emotionally charged and subjective expectations. Private schools have all the leeway to be better, because they can treat autistic children as different. If little Johny can barely tie his shoes, giving him a test on integrals, grammar, and world history, then using the results to evaluate the effectiveness of the school seems more than just a little disingenuous.
I was wondering about that myself. My open-heart surgery in 1984 obviously used the old method of hypothermia to stop the heart, and as expected, required several hours to install a dacron patch to close a ventricular septal defect, close an atrial septal defect, widen my pulmonary artery, and surgically separate my tricuspid and mitral valves... and that was just what they could fix back then. That's a ton of crap, and I have to wonder how effectively a robot could work on a beating heart while having it open and basically re-arranging the entire inside.
Then again, this seems obviously aimed at things like bypass surgery. I still have to wonder how invasive this technology can get before it gets too risky.
I think he meant without scaling or scrolling the screen. I use it all the time to play NES and GBC games, but gave up on SNES, Genesis, or anything requiring more than 256x192 pixels.
About the only thing the Pandora can't emulate is the DS thanks to its dual screens... I've got my CycloDS to keep me from cartridge-swapping and save-file backup, and while I was able to emulate most of the old consoles, the games were pretty much unplayable beyond NES/GBC/SMS/Atari.
I would actually say it's the best example. We see how little effect such a constraint as making family members ineligible accomplishes, but that's people actively circumventing the system and further proof of laxity in the voting process. I mean, if McDonalds is more strict, and still gets subverted, imagine the free-for-all in the political process.
Exactly.
There are enough psychological studies to effectively predict several motivators and stimuli reactions in the human animal, such that properly applied constructions of emotionally charged or dissonance-driving pseudo-propaganda can direct behavior. It's almost trivial at this point. And like you said, with infinite resources, nobody really wins that war, so we end up with a 50% split, right down the middle, based on mathematical and geographic distribution effects.
Not enough people question their own reactions to stimuli, or listen to mentally challenging arguments they actively question, for appealing to our base natures to fail. That's the trick, and the damning part. We're all fat and happy, so have no incentive to actively pursue academic interests, leaving us ripe for the plucking, so to speak. We're left with the government we deserve, really.
But the more the controversies pile up, eventually I wonder if people will actually start paying attention and overriding natural instinct to once again reach equilibrium, if only to reduce the entropy in the system caused by the constant political turmoil. Maybe only time will tell.
I liked the idea of Ron Paul too, and his points about the banking system have become hilariously obvious in the last few weeks, but it's just not meant to be. Our elections don't run on sapient points anymore, but marketing. I'm fairly certain our system could sell snow to Eskimos, and human beings, due to their easily predictable and exploitable reactions to measured stimuli and various psychological research, are trivially manipulable.
And like it or not, the entrenched Republican and Democrat parties have too much terminal momentum to be so easily thwarted. It'll probably be different in a couple generations, but different isn't necessarily better. I'm curious, but not too optimistic, given how closely history is repeated due to human nature.