But I have an ethical objection to considering universities as jobs factories. They are not. They never have been. If you want job training, you can go to a VoTech and learn a marketable skill and that will give you a much better ROI, if that is all you are concerned with.
I agree. That's why I pointed out that you can certainly minor in something that isn't marketable.
There's a big diff between getting a well-rounded education, and trying to convert a degree in basketweaving into something sufficiently profitable to pay off the debts.
So only kids with trust funds can study philosophy or art and get to be a museum curator or somesuch?
Nope, I said no such thing. What I said was that you should consider that the market for "museum curator"s is incredibly tight at best, so you'd better know the risks before you take on a mountain of debt in an attempt to be one.
...working their tails off, are stretched to the limit, are missing a spouse, or are otherwise unable to provide their little snowflakes a free ride at college (especially given the insane tuition costs at most schools nowadays).
I'm the oldest of eight kids... my parents paying for college was a non-starter, and yet 6 of us are college graduates (the other two decided on a different route, but one became a housewife while the other dropped out to eventually be a horse farmer... does rather well for himself).
On my part, I did a combination of the GI Bill, self-study (that is, CLEPing like crazy) while in uniform, and otherwise working as I went to school. I busted my ass and did without a lot of neat stuff (e.g. nearly all of my clothes and small appliance shopping happened at garage sales), but I graduated free of any college loan debt as a result. My siblings either took a similar route, or paid as they went at local community colleges (or in one case, Nursing School - she has a BSN now and commands a pretty healthy salary).
So yeah - parents? Dunno about yours, but not everyone's parents (assuming there are two parents - not always the case) have fat, growing college savings funds and a fat bank account. Maybe it's just that my generation (I was born at the tail end of the Baby Boom, my youngest sibling was born in the mid 1980s) was expected to have enough drive and skill to get that done on our own once we were old enough to vote.
To be fair, there is a difference between a realistic-yet-slightly-exaggerated claim like most companies give, and Billy Mays 'as-seen-on-TV' territory...
What you CAN hold them accountable for is the outrageous cost increases that far exceed inflation and infrastructure growth.
You can, but consider that Uncle Sugar is literally throwing money at them in the form of free loans and grants... can you blame them for taking full advantage of that? I mean, people bitch at defense contractors and healthcare companies for doing it, but raise nary a peep at collegiate boards who have been doing the same damned thing all these years.
I'm willing to wager that there is only one tenure-track job out there for every five Philosophy PhD holders, and the odds are even slimmer at a university that pays enough to get some sort of ROI off of that degree.
I don't think that's exactly what GP said... I say this mostly because you can get a useful degree *and* learn something interesting at the same time if you do it right: Major in a profitable field, and minor in something that ignites your passions. It's more than possible to do *both*... it also allows you to pursue the minor as a hobby or side-gig until you either retire or you find something that pays you for doing it.
Philosophy, ${buzzword}-Studies, History, Archaeology, whatever... those are great subjects to *minor* in. Unless you have a fantastic gift that allows you to pursue such fields in academia for the rest of your life, or you can get published in them otherwise, they're worthless towards getting the loans paid off. You remember, that mountain of debt you bought into when you accepted those student loans?
And yes, unless you're sufficiently wealthy, you're still going to have to look out for your own future and use your education as an investment first and foremost. Life isn't fair, deal with it.
Any other route and, well, get used to being poor and in debt while you try and pursue some sort of living off of that Philo or Art History major.
Nobody owes you a living - this is just as much a truth for EE and Chem grads as it is for Feminist Studies grads.
Err, no, that's not how it works. At best, you'll get your ass kicked into the dirt. At worst, you'll end up dead with a largish ragged hole bored into your skull or chest.
Dude is minding his own business - you have no rights at all to commit assault and battery on him, and the act gives your target free rein to respond however he thinks necessary... neither option will end well for you.
But then, I've lost count of the number of keyboard warriors who claim online that they intend to do such a thing, so maybe common sense will hit you right before you decide to run and jump?
Mr. Snowden, love him or hate him, actually did a service to the world by pointing out something that, if left ignored, would have rivaled the old East German Stasi in scope and reach (well, if it hasn't already. Hint: It probably has.)
I would say that if anyone deserved the title of 'whistleblower', this man damned sure qualifies.
Now, the next step - what in the hell do we actually do about it aside from individual protection? Sure, recent congressional actions (Thank you, Sen. Paul!) have put an end to at least one program... problem is, another grew to take its place (basically, the FBI is picking up where the NSA is allegedly leaving off).
I suspect this is going to take a lot more work than deleting web cookies and an occasional filibuster...
If those "95% of competent EEs" provided experimental and straightforward proof (very easy to do and has likely been done numerous times already), no problem at all. The EEs have solid and widely-provable theory on their side; the results are *very* reproducible by anyone at a 8-grade education level using nothing more than a decent multimeter and a cheap calculator. It also helps that EE as a science has been around for well over a century now, with the basic frameworks and mathematics pretty well hashed out.
It also helps that electronics doesn't have a shitload of politically powerful interests hanging and haranguing on both sides of the 'Batteriser' debate, not are there liberties, trillions of dollars, or millions of livelihoods at stake in the debate.
Now AGW on the other hand still depends mostly on flawed/incomplete computer models, and very imperfect (oftentimes wildly inaccurate) actual measurements taken over a very short timespan of maybe 150 years or so (that is, very short relative to the speed of climate change in general). Sure there's ice cores, tree rings, etc, but those are not hard data, but merely assumptions based on general principles. Finally, climate scientists rely far too heavily on statistics to extrapolate what little hard data they do have, because what they're trying to measure is too large, too complex, and too dynamic to accurately measure or predict (at least at this time). Mind you, this particular field of science is still way too embryonic in structure and nature, yet the cultists still point at it and hotly claim that it's "settled".
I don't have to tell you what all is hanging on the whole 'Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Disruption/Catchphrase-of-the-month' debate, I trust.
One thing that can be done: ditch the gerrymandering of districts. Simply lay out a grid based on population density and call those districts. The corners of each square can be GPS coordinates, and homes that are exactly on a line or point can be randomly moved to one side or the other.
It's totally doable technology-wise, but I doubt that any Congresscritter would do anything less than recoil in fear and disgust at it.
The sad part is, you could show the people at large that these politicians are bought and paid for, and they *still* vote for the crooks. Why? Because they've been trained to think and believe that "the other guy" is evil/hateful/fascist/$badBadBad.
H1Bs instead need to be paid more than the prevailing wage for the position, the theory being that they will therefore not be favoured over Americans.
Here's how it *really* works:
First, realize that the largest two companies who hoover up H1-B visas are... companies HQ'd in India. Infosys and Tata, to be specific, who combined swallow the vast majority of the visas. They in turn offer their 'consultants' to companies like Disney on a contract basis. This in turn means that Disney actually pays way less per head... here's why:
* The contractor status of each H1-B means that Disney no longer has to pay the 401k/insurance/regulatory/etc costs that they would have to pay an employee, thus cutting their base cost per head by roughly half.
* To comply with your assertion (which is correct, BTW), Disney pays Tata/Infosys something like 110% of the typical posted (not actual, but "posted") salary for the job per head, thus fulfilling your requirement, but still saving Disney roughly half the cost per head or more, depending on what they were paying the guy that the H1-B replaced.
* Tata/Infosys in turn pay their 'consultants' a pittance - say 50-70% of what they get - which generates profit for them.
Now you may be thinking that the consultants are victims, but in reality they're not: In return, the H1-B 'consultant' comes here, busts his ass, and tries like Hell to find a means to stay here permanently. He doesn't mind the pittance, because he's after the opportunity to stay on after the contract is up. Failing that, he is still infinitely more marketable job-wise back in India once he returns, so it's all upside for him, in exchange for busting ass here.
Note that there is a difference between the actions of an individual that the rest of the party had no clue about, and the actions of an individual that the rest of the party comes rushing to the defense of.
Hastert is most certainly the former - dude does something criminal/stupid long ago, but the rest of the party has no clue that it happened. Note that no one credible in his party is defending his actions, pre or post.
There are however plenty of examples of politicians in a certain other party that have committed outright crimes, yet are hotly defended by their party at large.
They didn't charge him with the sexual crime most likely because the statute of limitations ran out on that a very, very long time ago. So... they'll settle for nailing him with this.
IIRC, the original 1980's-era laws were only interested in transactions $10k or greater. The Patriot Act addiction/enhancements were to use semi-regular transactions of under $10k as 'structuring' (that is, to try and close the workaround of, say, withdrawing or depositing substantial amounts under $10k on a semi-regular or regular basis.)
The overall effect is to make you a felon if you cannot fully account for (and prove!) where you got or spent the money. The mortgage payment? Yeah - easy to account for, so you're not a felon. Taking money out on a regular basis to support a pricey hobby where you don't keep all the receipts? Now you're a felon if the Feds decide they want you to be one. This is why it's a bullshit law - it can be very easily abused by the first federal prosecutor who has a hate-on for you, and by the way, happens to know that you throw around a lot of money that you don't have all the receipts for.
Water can be nice, but don't skimp on the ventilation!:)
This - especially in Western Oregon, where doing that indoors without adequate ventilation is just begging to be plagued with black mold, dry rot, and worse.
OT: I'd lay in a shitload of 3/4" conduit from room to room, and from a central closet/location to all rooms (in case I wanted to put in some sort of server). Terminate each with a blank wall-plate until/unless I needed one for something. That way I could always upgrade any wiring. The rest is simply fungible at this point.
In almost any climate, there are a lot more productive ways to use your land than raising an eternal crop of stuff you just cut and throw away.
Err, not really. Some of us have dogs (makes dealing with dog crap easier, and gives them an open area to play on). Others of us have kids (which are usually happy to have something relatively soft to play on). A few others of us use grass as actual pasture for small livestock such as goats and sheep (at least out in rural areas). And, as you pointed out, grass clippings make great compost.
Agreed with the rest, though a funny thing: the house I live in was built in 1905, yet the porches are perfect for shading out summer sun but letting in winter sun... and unless you're a septuagenerian or older, the porches are the same age as the house - older than the two of us combined. It also has a central HVAC setup built in where the fireplace/chimney used to be, making heating and cooling highly efficient throughout the house. The only thing we really had to do was insulate the crap out of it, and replace a couple of old single-pane windows still in-place with triple-paned ones.
Back in the Real World, we use PowerShell to automate all sorts of processes.
Judging by way too much time spent among 'doze admins, I vehemently disagree: 10% of 'you' use PowerShell to automate things and pass around the resulting scripts... the other 90% of you still clicky-clicky in places like Task Scheduler.;)
The big difference is that *nix started with short easy-to-type options... PowerShell did it the other way 'round. The difference is stark, truth be told; the former grew from a CLI mindset, whereas the latter is easing (back) into CLI from a GUI mindset.
TBH, I rarely if ever use --option unless I have to, since the original -o is right frickin' there.
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But I have an ethical objection to considering universities as jobs factories. They are not. They never have been. If you want job training, you can go to a VoTech and learn a marketable skill and that will give you a much better ROI, if that is all you are concerned with.
I agree. That's why I pointed out that you can certainly minor in something that isn't marketable.
There's a big diff between getting a well-rounded education, and trying to convert a degree in basketweaving into something sufficiently profitable to pay off the debts.
So only kids with trust funds can study philosophy or art and get to be a museum curator or somesuch?
Nope, I said no such thing. What I said was that you should consider that the market for "museum curator"s is incredibly tight at best, so you'd better know the risks before you take on a mountain of debt in an attempt to be one.
Where are the parents?
...working their tails off, are stretched to the limit, are missing a spouse, or are otherwise unable to provide their little snowflakes a free ride at college (especially given the insane tuition costs at most schools nowadays).
I'm the oldest of eight kids... my parents paying for college was a non-starter, and yet 6 of us are college graduates (the other two decided on a different route, but one became a housewife while the other dropped out to eventually be a horse farmer... does rather well for himself).
On my part, I did a combination of the GI Bill, self-study (that is, CLEPing like crazy) while in uniform, and otherwise working as I went to school. I busted my ass and did without a lot of neat stuff (e.g. nearly all of my clothes and small appliance shopping happened at garage sales), but I graduated free of any college loan debt as a result. My siblings either took a similar route, or paid as they went at local community colleges (or in one case, Nursing School - she has a BSN now and commands a pretty healthy salary).
So yeah - parents? Dunno about yours, but not everyone's parents (assuming there are two parents - not always the case) have fat, growing college savings funds and a fat bank account. Maybe it's just that my generation (I was born at the tail end of the Baby Boom, my youngest sibling was born in the mid 1980s) was expected to have enough drive and skill to get that done on our own once we were old enough to vote.
To be fair, there is a difference between a realistic-yet-slightly-exaggerated claim like most companies give, and Billy Mays 'as-seen-on-TV' territory...
Our society doesn't value artistic expression as much as it does technological prowess, and that's really sad.
Most of Hollywood and it's zillion-dollar industry says otherwise. So does the recording industry.
(Hey, I didn't say it was *good* artistic expression, but it is artistic expression nonetheless.)
What you CAN hold them accountable for is the outrageous cost increases that far exceed inflation and infrastructure growth.
You can, but consider that Uncle Sugar is literally throwing money at them in the form of free loans and grants... can you blame them for taking full advantage of that? I mean, people bitch at defense contractors and healthcare companies for doing it, but raise nary a peep at collegiate boards who have been doing the same damned thing all these years.
A professor of Philosophy?
I'm willing to wager that there is only one tenure-track job out there for every five Philosophy PhD holders, and the odds are even slimmer at a university that pays enough to get some sort of ROI off of that degree.
I don't think that's exactly what GP said... I say this mostly because you can get a useful degree *and* learn something interesting at the same time if you do it right: Major in a profitable field, and minor in something that ignites your passions. It's more than possible to do *both*... it also allows you to pursue the minor as a hobby or side-gig until you either retire or you find something that pays you for doing it.
Philosophy, ${buzzword}-Studies, History, Archaeology, whatever... those are great subjects to *minor* in. Unless you have a fantastic gift that allows you to pursue such fields in academia for the rest of your life, or you can get published in them otherwise, they're worthless towards getting the loans paid off. You remember, that mountain of debt you bought into when you accepted those student loans?
And yes, unless you're sufficiently wealthy, you're still going to have to look out for your own future and use your education as an investment first and foremost. Life isn't fair, deal with it.
Any other route and, well, get used to being poor and in debt while you try and pursue some sort of living off of that Philo or Art History major.
Nobody owes you a living - this is just as much a truth for EE and Chem grads as it is for Feminist Studies grads.
Err, no, that's not how it works. At best, you'll get your ass kicked into the dirt. At worst, you'll end up dead with a largish ragged hole bored into your skull or chest.
Dude is minding his own business - you have no rights at all to commit assault and battery on him, and the act gives your target free rein to respond however he thinks necessary... neither option will end well for you.
But then, I've lost count of the number of keyboard warriors who claim online that they intend to do such a thing, so maybe common sense will hit you right before you decide to run and jump?
Mr. Snowden, love him or hate him, actually did a service to the world by pointing out something that, if left ignored, would have rivaled the old East German Stasi in scope and reach (well, if it hasn't already. Hint: It probably has.)
I would say that if anyone deserved the title of 'whistleblower', this man damned sure qualifies.
Now, the next step - what in the hell do we actually do about it aside from individual protection? Sure, recent congressional actions (Thank you, Sen. Paul!) have put an end to at least one program... problem is, another grew to take its place (basically, the FBI is picking up where the NSA is allegedly leaving off).
I suspect this is going to take a lot more work than deleting web cookies and an occasional filibuster...
Depends:
If those "95% of competent EEs" provided experimental and straightforward proof (very easy to do and has likely been done numerous times already), no problem at all. The EEs have solid and widely-provable theory on their side; the results are *very* reproducible by anyone at a 8-grade education level using nothing more than a decent multimeter and a cheap calculator. It also helps that EE as a science has been around for well over a century now, with the basic frameworks and mathematics pretty well hashed out.
It also helps that electronics doesn't have a shitload of politically powerful interests hanging and haranguing on both sides of the 'Batteriser' debate, not are there liberties, trillions of dollars, or millions of livelihoods at stake in the debate.
Now AGW on the other hand still depends mostly on flawed/incomplete computer models, and very imperfect (oftentimes wildly inaccurate) actual measurements taken over a very short timespan of maybe 150 years or so (that is, very short relative to the speed of climate change in general). Sure there's ice cores, tree rings, etc, but those are not hard data, but merely assumptions based on general principles. Finally, climate scientists rely far too heavily on statistics to extrapolate what little hard data they do have, because what they're trying to measure is too large, too complex, and too dynamic to accurately measure or predict (at least at this time). Mind you, this particular field of science is still way too embryonic in structure and nature, yet the cultists still point at it and hotly claim that it's "settled".
I don't have to tell you what all is hanging on the whole 'Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Disruption/Catchphrase-of-the-month' debate, I trust.
"Infosec professionals do not generally wish to install secondary offers."
WTF? Nobody with a clue wants to install "secondary offers". Otherwise we'd seek that crap out and install it ourselves, dumbasses...
Because the packets crossed an imaginary geophysical line to get to you, that's why!
Now be a good citizen and support proper balkaniz^M taxatio^M patriotism!
One thing that can be done: ditch the gerrymandering of districts. Simply lay out a grid based on population density and call those districts. The corners of each square can be GPS coordinates, and homes that are exactly on a line or point can be randomly moved to one side or the other.
It's totally doable technology-wise, but I doubt that any Congresscritter would do anything less than recoil in fear and disgust at it.
The sad part is, you could show the people at large that these politicians are bought and paid for, and they *still* vote for the crooks. Why? Because they've been trained to think and believe that "the other guy" is evil/hateful/fascist/$badBadBad.
H1Bs instead need to be paid more than the prevailing wage for the position, the theory being that they will therefore not be favoured over Americans.
Here's how it *really* works:
First, realize that the largest two companies who hoover up H1-B visas are... companies HQ'd in India. Infosys and Tata, to be specific, who combined swallow the vast majority of the visas. They in turn offer their 'consultants' to companies like Disney on a contract basis. This in turn means that Disney actually pays way less per head... here's why:
* The contractor status of each H1-B means that Disney no longer has to pay the 401k/insurance/regulatory/etc costs that they would have to pay an employee, thus cutting their base cost per head by roughly half.
* To comply with your assertion (which is correct, BTW), Disney pays Tata/Infosys something like 110% of the typical posted (not actual, but "posted") salary for the job per head, thus fulfilling your requirement, but still saving Disney roughly half the cost per head or more, depending on what they were paying the guy that the H1-B replaced.
* Tata/Infosys in turn pay their 'consultants' a pittance - say 50-70% of what they get - which generates profit for them.
Now you may be thinking that the consultants are victims, but in reality they're not: In return, the H1-B 'consultant' comes here, busts his ass, and tries like Hell to find a means to stay here permanently. He doesn't mind the pittance, because he's after the opportunity to stay on after the contract is up. Failing that, he is still infinitely more marketable job-wise back in India once he returns, so it's all upside for him, in exchange for busting ass here.
I doubt they could charge him with a sexual offense, given the statute of limitations.
Note that there is a difference between the actions of an individual that the rest of the party had no clue about, and the actions of an individual that the rest of the party comes rushing to the defense of.
Hastert is most certainly the former - dude does something criminal/stupid long ago, but the rest of the party has no clue that it happened. Note that no one credible in his party is defending his actions, pre or post.
There are however plenty of examples of politicians in a certain other party that have committed outright crimes, yet are hotly defended by their party at large.
It's a pretty big difference.
They didn't charge him with the sexual crime most likely because the statute of limitations ran out on that a very, very long time ago. So... they'll settle for nailing him with this.
I get that, but why target the money when you can instead target the illegal activity, and point to the money-laundering activity as evidence thereof?
IIRC, the original 1980's-era laws were only interested in transactions $10k or greater. The Patriot Act addiction/enhancements were to use semi-regular transactions of under $10k as 'structuring' (that is, to try and close the workaround of, say, withdrawing or depositing substantial amounts under $10k on a semi-regular or regular basis.)
The overall effect is to make you a felon if you cannot fully account for (and prove!) where you got or spent the money. The mortgage payment? Yeah - easy to account for, so you're not a felon. Taking money out on a regular basis to support a pricey hobby where you don't keep all the receipts? Now you're a felon if the Feds decide they want you to be one. This is why it's a bullshit law - it can be very easily abused by the first federal prosecutor who has a hate-on for you, and by the way, happens to know that you throw around a lot of money that you don't have all the receipts for.
Water can be nice, but don't skimp on the ventilation! :)
This - especially in Western Oregon, where doing that indoors without adequate ventilation is just begging to be plagued with black mold, dry rot, and worse.
OT: I'd lay in a shitload of 3/4" conduit from room to room, and from a central closet/location to all rooms (in case I wanted to put in some sort of server). Terminate each with a blank wall-plate until/unless I needed one for something. That way I could always upgrade any wiring. The rest is simply fungible at this point.
In almost any climate, there are a lot more productive ways to use your land than raising an eternal crop of stuff you just cut and throw away.
Err, not really. Some of us have dogs (makes dealing with dog crap easier, and gives them an open area to play on). Others of us have kids (which are usually happy to have something relatively soft to play on). A few others of us use grass as actual pasture for small livestock such as goats and sheep (at least out in rural areas). And, as you pointed out, grass clippings make great compost.
Agreed with the rest, though a funny thing: the house I live in was built in 1905, yet the porches are perfect for shading out summer sun but letting in winter sun... and unless you're a septuagenerian or older, the porches are the same age as the house - older than the two of us combined. It also has a central HVAC setup built in where the fireplace/chimney used to be, making heating and cooling highly efficient throughout the house. The only thing we really had to do was insulate the crap out of it, and replace a couple of old single-pane windows still in-place with triple-paned ones.
Back in the Real World, we use PowerShell to automate all sorts of processes.
Judging by way too much time spent among 'doze admins, I vehemently disagree: 10% of 'you' use PowerShell to automate things and pass around the resulting scripts... the other 90% of you still clicky-clicky in places like Task Scheduler. ;)
The big difference is that *nix started with short easy-to-type options... PowerShell did it the other way 'round. The difference is stark, truth be told; the former grew from a CLI mindset, whereas the latter is easing (back) into CLI from a GUI mindset.
TBH, I rarely if ever use --option unless I have to, since the original -o is right frickin' there.