In my opinion, no mind, no universe. Since no human life existed at the supposed time of the big bang, it could not have 'happened' in any real sense any more than a collapse sometime in the future has happened. I should also point out that I don't believe in other minds, so this makes it even less likely that it happened since I am not at the big bang or its time.
Any four star general that wishes to live a lavish civilian lifestyle can give up their rank and run for congress, otherwise they can deal with they military life they chose.
If for some reason you think rank holds some sort of implied status in society, lets remember that a four star general holds absolutely no command, rank, or power over the majority of the 300 million inhabitants of the US. You're confusing this country with another well known country of the past which got to the point of producing its own fine military dinnerware.
This hoax was already pulled off several years ago. Same type of picture of supposed natives shooting arrows at a helicopter made the rounds. Looks like its coming back around again.
The US uses smart bombs designed to NOT kill innocent people, to save the civillian lives. it avoids churches (who am i kidding, mosques), etc. Evidence?
There are many, many videos available of mosques being destroyed in Iraq. Are you sure you aren't just repeating something you heard someone claim on television or in a newspaper?
"The surveillance carried out in support of the "war on terror" is orders of magnitude greater than was contemplated when the FISA court was created."
I disagree. The cold war presented a far greater surveillance challenge. The simplest explanation is that the government doesn't want top secret judges to know who they are wiretapping. Given that there is already a history of the executive branch illegally spying for political purposes, this is the most likely explanation.
The 'paperwork' claim hasn't really been put forth by the administration because most people understand that things are done by computer over secure networks. In fact, the administration hasn't really offered any sort of explanation except threatening the public with terrorist attack. The administration probably can't and won't offer an explanation because only illegal programs such as mass wiretapping would require disposing of judicial review.
XML, its related technologies, and its rivals were designed to add cost to the business of managing data and information. In order to profit, developers interpose themselves between the product (data processing) and the customer (businesses). They do this by creating ridiculous technologies, dumb languages, over-complex components, and on and on. A perfect data language, while not existing, would not provide a profit opportunity to developers. The fact that a common function of XML editors is to display the structure without angle brackets is good evidence that they aren't needed. Many XML editor developers have obviously found a market in presenting XML without the ridiculous braces and open/close tag pairs (twice the work, twice the profit). GIS for XML editor and what do you see in every image? The proof is obvious.
What else are DOE machines used for other than research? Isn't this like saying "The Department of Transportation awards 100 million highway miles to travelers" or "NASA awards 100 shuttle flights to astronauts"?
As opposed to what? A "Stop Amerikkkan Imperiali$m" placard being carried by a guy smoking a massive blunt and wearing a "FUCK YOU!!" shirt? No, because that would read "Stop Amerikkkan Imperiali$m", which isn't what you wrote.
You've got absolutely no business criticizing anyone else's opinions when it's so painfully clear that you've been brainwashed past any semblance of rationality." I'm being very rational and I'll criticize whomever I want. When someone calls my ideas 'nonsense', I expect them to back it up with some sort of argument.
You offered an opinion. You said my post is 'nonsense'. You offer two very basic simple facts. 1. The navy has a budget 2. The navy's job is to defend the coast and nation's interests. These, of course, don't have anything to do with my argument, that the navy doesn't care about costs. Your post is so far out in left field that is seems you are just repeating something you heard. For instance, in the early 00's it seemed every service member one talked to was transfixed on parroting the 'new kind of war' theme. When you say "their purpose is very clear, to protect america's waters and interests abroad", you sound like a commercial without supporting your "nonsense" argument.
As for being brainwashed, maybe you want to throw in some "make no mistake"'s with your use of "very clear".
They have a budge like anyone else, and their purpose is very clear, to protect america's waters and interests abroad. I can see by your tone that the only appropriate response is "lol". Did you read that off a brochure? I'm not going to debate a talking points memo. Of course they have a budget, that's not at issue. Just because an organization has a budget doesn't imply that they are concerned with cost. Even the most lavish parties have a budget.
I suppose you probably think the government can't go broke because they can print more money to? The government can't go broke because their buying power is not measured in dollars.
It is ridiculous to suggest that the military is concerned about cost or spending. The taxpayer pays the bill, and the bill can grow to whatever is politically possible. Why would a department choose open source when a few well connected companies stand to make hundreds of millions selling closed source solutions. The primary role of the military in US society is to funnel tax money and reward political power and connection. A large percent of military spending is for parts that are scrapped months before they are even delivered. They go from the factory to the dump.
The navy doesn't care how much it costs because, in the end, you will pay. The navy will never go bankrupt no matter how much they spend.
In short, government agencies are power tripping. They are doing it because they can, not because it helps them or us. They have hundreds of new ways and technologies to break the laws and no one to stand in their way. In the US, congress has already shown that they will do nothing, presumably because they benefit from all this crime. We live in an age where nearly everyone has a cell phone/listening device, everything we buy or do goes into a database next to our name, and there is a huge amount of computing power to process it all. It is the golden age for the corrupt, criminally infiltrated government. Who is going to stop them, the Bush administration?
"We know sentience is possible in biological organism..."
And what evidence do we have of this? A bunch of biological machines running around saying "I'm sentient" is not good enough for me. No one can explain where sentience comes from or at what point on the tree of life it begins. Most people would agree that bugs and dogs are not sentient but argue that people are without explaining much about their reasoning. The simplest explanation is that people, dogs, and bugs really aren't sentient even though people may believe, talk, and act as if they are. In this case, it should be possible to recreate human behavior perfectly in a machine.
"Not only that, but when the person he delegates something to messes up, he takes the blame and protects his people, thus insulating his delegation from public scrutiny."
Seriously? Have you been under a rock for a long period of time? Not only is GW incapable of accepting blame, the man can't even bring himself to utter the phrase 'shame on me' out of some psychological roadblock. The buck has been passed so many times in the Bush administration that its now worth about 2c.
The entire, ENTIRE mantra of regimes such as the Bush administration, is 'protect the leader'. Everybody else be damned. It is beyond me how you got the complete opposite of reality. Seriously.
There's no such thing as a 'gifted' student at the university. One person's gifted is another's obsessive compulsive with not very many real world responsibilites, low course load, and a bad sense of economics (anything above 90% effort is not optimal).
2. Using this strategy you will only be able to hire misinformed MS candidates. It sounds like your strategy is based on the "familiarity breeds liking" effect. Your bias doesn't accomplish anything other than keep higher educated people out of the company. Since you are considering BS and MS for the same positions, I think the true situation is that your hypothetical jobs don't really need MS degrees, but you would hire MS people anyways at near BS salaries. Seniority based pay may make sense in engineering because the skill requirements plateau after an initial period, but for science jobs I don't think this is the case.
3. When there is a salary difference and the employer is paying COLA increases, the salary difference isn't lessened year after year. 100k in the bank at 0% is losing value year after year. So, receiving a higher salary and investing the difference grows larger than 100k invested over the long term.
4. Maybe. If a BS is ever kept over a MS, the MS wasn't required for the job, industry, or company in the first place.
5. You are not including tuition/fee waivers or internships.
1. You assume the person who got the MS/MA applied for the same BS/BA job and did not look for a MS/MA required job that paid significantly more. Any MS/MA graduate that takes a BS/'some college required' job is doing themselves a disservice.
2. The assumption that after 2 years the BS will be on the same ground with the MS is wrong in my opinion. Companies like to carrot-stick employees into thinking this, but it is not unreasonable to think that the BS person will remain within 10k of the starting after 2 years. At my school, the starting difference between BS and MS is $13k on average. No intelligent MS graduate is going to start below or equal to what a BS + 2 years is making.
Companies also like to "award" 2 years of experience for a MS degree, to get MS people to work BS level jobs at a discount. This scam short changes employees into thinking their MS is worth a flat 2 years of BS level work (which it is if they are dumb enough to buy that).
3. Every dollar beyond living expenses is huge from an investment standpoint. The person who makes $55k (BS guy) and spends $55k invests nothing. The person who makes $68k (MS guy) and spends $55k invests $13k per year. After 25 years, the difference will outstrip the opportunity cost and tuition saved by BS guy. Why? Because, presumably, the MS guy is getting cost of living raises and so, the $13k difference never suffers from inflation year after year. The BS guy's tuition savings and 2 years of increased income are constantly fighting against inflation when invested.
4. Companies will be more reluctant to downsize employees with an MS. On average, someone with a BS will be sidelined more during their career (perhaps more than 2 years).
5. Most graduate students are also working either professionally or as an assistant, so the opportunity cost is more like $20k per year. Missing out on 'family' living or living in college conditions for an extra 2 years is not an opportunity cost to everybody because they would have preferred to live the same (single and cheap) even after receiving their BS.
The opportunity cost is much higher for US students who can directly enter the high paying US workforce after a Bachelors. The opportunity cost for overseas students is lower. Graduate school is a ticket to get into the US and stay in the US for some foreign students.
I doubt you are or are at the center of the universe.
Maybe you are just very, very close to the center of the universe in space and time. Things might appear the same in all directions. Perhaps if you leave the galaxy things would look a lot different. No one has really made it much farther than orbit.
It is amazing to me that anyone who claims to wake up in the morning and stare out across his or her nose cannot identify a very explicit and easily observable 'center' of the universe which stands out from all other points and times.
Slashdot Mirror
In my opinion, no mind, no universe. Since no human life existed at the supposed time of the big bang, it could not have 'happened' in any real sense any more than a collapse sometime in the future has happened. I should also point out that I don't believe in other minds, so this makes it even less likely that it happened since I am not at the big bang or its time.
Any four star general that wishes to live a lavish civilian lifestyle can give up their rank and run for congress, otherwise they can deal with they military life they chose.
If for some reason you think rank holds some sort of implied status in society, lets remember that a four star general holds absolutely no command, rank, or power over the majority of the 300 million inhabitants of the US. You're confusing this country with another well known country of the past which got to the point of producing its own fine military dinnerware.
Seriously? You're supposed to be acting like you're participating in a war, remember?
You're going to blow the whole thing. No more $700 million per day money spigot.
This hoax was already pulled off several years ago. Same type of picture of supposed natives shooting arrows at a helicopter made the rounds. Looks like its coming back around again.
There are many, many videos available of mosques being destroyed in Iraq. Are you sure you aren't just repeating something you heard someone claim on television or in a newspaper?
"The surveillance carried out in support of the "war on terror" is orders of magnitude greater than was contemplated when the FISA court was created."
I disagree. The cold war presented a far greater surveillance challenge. The simplest explanation is that the government doesn't want top secret judges to know who they are wiretapping. Given that there is already a history of the executive branch illegally spying for political purposes, this is the most likely explanation.
The 'paperwork' claim hasn't really been put forth by the administration because most people understand that things are done by computer over secure networks. In fact, the administration hasn't really offered any sort of explanation except threatening the public with terrorist attack. The administration probably can't and won't offer an explanation because only illegal programs such as mass wiretapping would require disposing of judicial review.
XML, its related technologies, and its rivals were designed to add cost to the business of managing data and information. In order to profit, developers interpose themselves between the product (data processing) and the customer (businesses). They do this by creating ridiculous technologies, dumb languages, over-complex components, and on and on. A perfect data language, while not existing, would not provide a profit opportunity to developers. The fact that a common function of XML editors is to display the structure without angle brackets is good evidence that they aren't needed. Many XML editor developers have obviously found a market in presenting XML without the ridiculous braces and open/close tag pairs (twice the work, twice the profit). GIS for XML editor and what do you see in every image? The proof is obvious.
You have to be a moron to accept this sort of personal liability at an engineer's salary.
What else are DOE machines used for other than research? Isn't this like saying "The Department of Transportation awards 100 million highway miles to travelers" or "NASA awards 100 shuttle flights to astronauts"?
You offered an opinion. You said my post is 'nonsense'. You offer two very basic simple facts. 1. The navy has a budget 2. The navy's job is to defend the coast and nation's interests. These, of course, don't have anything to do with my argument, that the navy doesn't care about costs. Your post is so far out in left field that is seems you are just repeating something you heard. For instance, in the early 00's it seemed every service member one talked to was transfixed on parroting the 'new kind of war' theme. When you say "their purpose is very clear, to protect america's waters and interests abroad", you sound like a commercial without supporting your "nonsense" argument.
As for being brainwashed, maybe you want to throw in some "make no mistake"'s with your use of "very clear".
They have a budge like anyone else, and their purpose is very clear, to protect america's waters and interests abroad. I can see by your tone that the only appropriate response is "lol". Did you read that off a brochure? I'm not going to debate a talking points memo. Of course they have a budget, that's not at issue. Just because an organization has a budget doesn't imply that they are concerned with cost. Even the most lavish parties have a budget. I suppose you probably think the government can't go broke because they can print more money to? The government can't go broke because their buying power is not measured in dollars.
It is ridiculous to suggest that the military is concerned about cost or spending. The taxpayer pays the bill, and the bill can grow to whatever is politically possible. Why would a department choose open source when a few well connected companies stand to make hundreds of millions selling closed source solutions. The primary role of the military in US society is to funnel tax money and reward political power and connection. A large percent of military spending is for parts that are scrapped months before they are even delivered. They go from the factory to the dump.
The navy doesn't care how much it costs because, in the end, you will pay. The navy will never go bankrupt no matter how much they spend.
"YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL."
Or maybe just not truly conscious.
I noticed the project was built in the middle of campus instead of a lab facility. Is this just campus showboating?
In short, government agencies are power tripping. They are doing it because they can, not because it helps them or us. They have hundreds of new ways and technologies to break the laws and no one to stand in their way. In the US, congress has already shown that they will do nothing, presumably because they benefit from all this crime. We live in an age where nearly everyone has a cell phone/listening device, everything we buy or do goes into a database next to our name, and there is a huge amount of computing power to process it all. It is the golden age for the corrupt, criminally infiltrated government. Who is going to stop them, the Bush administration?
"We know sentience is possible in biological organism..."
And what evidence do we have of this? A bunch of biological machines running around saying "I'm sentient" is not good enough for me. No one can explain where sentience comes from or at what point on the tree of life it begins. Most people would agree that bugs and dogs are not sentient but argue that people are without explaining much about their reasoning. The simplest explanation is that people, dogs, and bugs really aren't sentient even though people may believe, talk, and act as if they are. In this case, it should be possible to recreate human behavior perfectly in a machine.
"Not only that, but when the person he delegates something to messes up, he takes the blame and protects his people, thus insulating his delegation from public scrutiny."
Seriously? Have you been under a rock for a long period of time? Not only is GW incapable of accepting blame, the man can't even bring himself to utter the phrase 'shame on me' out of some psychological roadblock. The buck has been passed so many times in the Bush administration that its now worth about 2c.
The entire, ENTIRE mantra of regimes such as the Bush administration, is 'protect the leader'. Everybody else be damned. It is beyond me how you got the complete opposite of reality. Seriously.
There's no such thing as a 'gifted' student at the university. One person's gifted is another's obsessive compulsive with not very many real world responsibilites, low course load, and a bad sense of economics (anything above 90% effort is not optimal).
2. Using this strategy you will only be able to hire misinformed MS candidates. It sounds like your strategy is based on the "familiarity breeds liking" effect. Your bias doesn't accomplish anything other than keep higher educated people out of the company. Since you are considering BS and MS for the same positions, I think the true situation is that your hypothetical jobs don't really need MS degrees, but you would hire MS people anyways at near BS salaries. Seniority based pay may make sense in engineering because the skill requirements plateau after an initial period, but for science jobs I don't think this is the case.
3. When there is a salary difference and the employer is paying COLA increases, the salary difference isn't lessened year after year. 100k in the bank at 0% is losing value year after year. So, receiving a higher salary and investing the difference grows larger than 100k invested over the long term.
4. Maybe. If a BS is ever kept over a MS, the MS wasn't required for the job, industry, or company in the first place.
5. You are not including tuition/fee waivers or internships.
Some points I would contend:
1. You assume the person who got the MS/MA applied for the same BS/BA job and did not look for a MS/MA required job that paid significantly more. Any MS/MA graduate that takes a BS/'some college required' job is doing themselves a disservice.
2. The assumption that after 2 years the BS will be on the same ground with the MS is wrong in my opinion. Companies like to carrot-stick employees into thinking this, but it is not unreasonable to think that the BS person will remain within 10k of the starting after 2 years. At my school, the starting difference between BS and MS is $13k on average. No intelligent MS graduate is going to start below or equal to what a BS + 2 years is making.
Companies also like to "award" 2 years of experience for a MS degree, to get MS people to work BS level jobs at a discount. This scam short changes employees into thinking their MS is worth a flat 2 years of BS level work (which it is if they are dumb enough to buy that).
3. Every dollar beyond living expenses is huge from an investment standpoint. The person who makes $55k (BS guy) and spends $55k invests nothing. The person who makes $68k (MS guy) and spends $55k invests $13k per year. After 25 years, the difference will outstrip the opportunity cost and tuition saved by BS guy. Why? Because, presumably, the MS guy is getting cost of living raises and so, the $13k difference never suffers from inflation year after year. The BS guy's tuition savings and 2 years of increased income are constantly fighting against inflation when invested.
4. Companies will be more reluctant to downsize employees with an MS. On average, someone with a BS will be sidelined more during their career (perhaps more than 2 years).
5. Most graduate students are also working either professionally or as an assistant, so the opportunity cost is more like $20k per year. Missing out on 'family' living or living in college conditions for an extra 2 years is not an opportunity cost to everybody because they would have preferred to live the same (single and cheap) even after receiving their BS.
The opportunity cost is much higher for US students who can directly enter the high paying US workforce after a Bachelors. The opportunity cost for overseas students is lower. Graduate school is a ticket to get into the US and stay in the US for some foreign students.
Wait 2 months, if you don't get at least a 10k raise, start looking for another job. Its called a job market for a reason.
I doubt you are or are at the center of the universe.
Maybe you are just very, very close to the center of the universe in space and time. Things might appear the same in all directions. Perhaps if you leave the galaxy things would look a lot different. No one has really made it much farther than orbit.
It is amazing to me that anyone who claims to wake up in the morning and stare out across his or her nose cannot identify a very explicit and easily observable 'center' of the universe which stands out from all other points and times.