As a native New Englander, I concur with you 100%. Don't get me wrong I am Sox and Pats all the way but there is a stranger kind of racism in Boston that I have never experienced anywhere else. Southern California had neo Nazis, Texas has its rednecks, but there is something more cold and insidious about the racism in Boston.
More to the other points, I have lived in Boston, So. Cal., and Texas. For me at this point in my life, Texas works for me better than the others. Inexpensive housing and low cost of living for my family is what matters most. I am employed by an out of state company that baselines the pay for all employees to the bay area. I worked for the same company in socal and my living conditions were pretty awful being a single parent at the time. Between rent and day care, I had only a few hundred dollars a month to feed 3. My 1 bedroom apartment for me and my 2 kids, had mic and my neighbours were clearly dealing in illegally substances.
In Texas, I have a big house, big yard, and pool, parks, family activities and money left over. I know its not for everybody bit for a homebody who just wants to raise his kids Texas has been good to me.
I have a few questions and perhaps one of the more enlightened slashdotters can help me out.
If the Earth was really hit with a Mars sized object that eventually became our moon, does that put the earth "behind" other earth like planets in the amount of time it would have taken the earth to restabilize and have the right conditions for life? In other words, if the Earth was never hit by the Mars sized object and conditions for life were still present, would the Earth have developed life millions if not billions of years sooner? So there is a chance could be millions of years behind other extraterrestrial civilizations.
My other question: If we assume the earth was hit by a Mars sized object, giving our oceans tides and our mantel stability, and if we also assume that the these factors speed up the evolutionary process, is it possible that we could be much more advanced than other alien civilizations?(assuming we all started at the same time). They could still be working on crawling out of the water.
I am going to second his story. I didn't take high school seriously, joined the military and learned the electronics. I also do six figures in the Houston area after leaving the LA area. My life is 100% improved with much more disposable income since moving. I wonder about my old classmates some are still paying on their college loans . I wonder how common mine and the parent poster's story are..
My son has autism and I agree with you whole heartedly. After I got custody I cut of my cable. No TV, no Movies, no DVDs. The improvemt in my son in a six month period was dramatic. He literally knew nothing and the only activity he would do was fold up paper to make Blue Cluesn notebooks. No ABCs, No colors, No numbers no interactions with others. After 6 months he knew all of that. After a year he could read and now he is acedemically at grade level. His communication is still poor and he barely speaks in complete sentences at age 7. He does interact more with kids and he will play with other kids rather than parallel play. I have given the TV back but it is limited. I do my best to engage him in activities that force him to interact with others. We started Cub scouts this year and I I bring him out in public to teach him how to behave(many parents do not bring out there autistic children because its to stressful.) But how else are they going to learn appropriate behavior unless they experience it? So please if you see a parent with a screaming kid have some patience with us, we want our kids to be productive members of society rather than another SSI check.
I had a glimpse of a new Republican party , Old John McCain, Arnold, Romney when he was Governor of Mass. All Guys who worked for common ground. But the idealoges are in control now.
Sticking to the economy. I don't think either candidate gets "it". A few things that need to happen IMO for the economy to not only make a rebound but to also be strong fundamentally 1) Outlaw sub prime loans(i.e any loans that have significant bumps in the interest rate or require a significant down payment on those loans. 2) Pay down the national debt. High debt devalues the dollar and increases inflation. 3) Of course we have the distressing situation of American automobile manufactures cut jobs faster than new industries can replace them. Much of this is self inflicted. They should have been converting current vehicle line ups to to hybrids a long time ago. I like the idea of moving to a "green" economy where new jobs a re created in the search and production of cleaner and more efficent products.
It is with some hesitance I say this I am a Republican(albeit a liberal republican) and veteran of the USMC. I think we need to cut our defense budget as much as possible. Close all bases overseas Korea, Okinawa, Japan, those native people don't want us there we pay a lot of money to be there and the actual people who serve there don't like it there either(with some exceptions of course). We have the technology and ability to quickly moves forces to any location on the globe from the US.
Of course I am still in favor of combing the through other branches of the government to look for instances of fraud, waste and abuse and looking for way to make things run more effiecently.
Regarding Social Security we should get rid of the 92K cap. and consider raising the age benefits take effect.
One last thing regarding National health care, I am not opposed to the concept in and of itself I only worry about the tax implications. If it can be done with minimal effect on taxes then it should be done.
Housing values suck in Silicon Valley. Sure they are higher than other place but, you can't live there unless you already own and if you bought in the last 5 years you are probably upside down in your mortgage.
I agree with you 100%. I grew up in Massachusetts and lived in California for 8 years and recently moved to Texas. The most amazing about Texas is the racial integration that I never saw in states I previously lived. The South in general gets a bad rap when in actuality many northerner are far more racist.
I have to call bullcrap on that. Middle American's don't give a flying crap about FISA or telco immunity. As a matter of fact if anyone could explain it to them I would think it would be Obama and he could have made a very persuasive argument on why it would be bad. Instead he rolled. IARR(I Am a Registered Republican) but I agree with all the upset Obama supporters on this. This whole mess has been a complete desecration of the 4th Amendment.
We allow women both in our military and in our police force, we alter the requirements to accommodate them. I am not making a judgment on whether that is right or wrong, but under our current system denying someone entrance in to these organization would be considered discrimination. There are height and weight requirements in these organizations but usually as long as the person is not unhealthy no action is taken.
If we assume that there are 1000's or even millions of civilizations out there at different stages of development and a different distances from the earth we should receive transmissions eventually. Follow me for a second. Imagine a civ that is on a parallel development track as us but they are 2000 LY(light years) from us. We won't receive their transmissions for another 2000 years. They would have to be 2000 years ahead of for us to receive their transmissions. If the universe does support a variety of civilizations we should eventually receive a transmission sometime of the course of a 100 year period. Also even if there are civilizations a million years more advanced than us as long as they are a million light years away we would have received their transmissions. Of course we are kind of threading the needle here but if the universe is abundant in life forms than we should have transmissions from somewhere by now or at least in the next 100 years or so.
If we don't find a transmission in my lifetime I will have to come to the conclusion that life is in fact rare in the universe. And if there is other civilizations out there they are so rare that it may be many 1000's if not millions of years before we make contact, if ever we just may miss each other in the end.
I am a Field Service Engineer for a major Biomedical company. Basically if one of our machines break, I will be there within 24 hours to fix it. We have many instruments nation wide. It is impossible for us to register 48 hours in advance. These machines are used at Blood Banks, and in cross matching. They would seriously jeapordize the lives of people by passing this.
I say this as a parent. If US citizens do not have a right to privacy from corporations, why should a 13 year olds have a right to privacy from their parents?
My son was diagnosed with Autism at age 4. We had suspect autism a little before that. He is exteremly bright gives my 6 year old a run for her money when we do flash cards. Due to a series of events I cut my TV off 6 months ago. I figured it was a distraction for me and my kids and we would be better served doing something else rather than watch TV together. In this past 6 months my son has come leaps and bounds in development. Most of this period was during the summer so I really can't credit his school entirely with the improvements. But with no TV he interacts much more with his sister and I. He has even started to become conversational a huge improvement. 1.5 years ago he didn't say 3 words. He didn't know numbers, colors, letters, shapes or anything kids his age were doing. He didn't play with other kids and he didn't interact with anyone including me and his mother. He knows all that stuff and more now. The social aspect is the real challenge but he plays with other kids now even if he he doesn't always play right.
As to the point of over-diagnosis of autism, I agree. Autism isn't really a neurological disfunction as it is a set of common behaviors displayed by slow learners. I fully believe my son will be integrated in to regular school in the next 1-2 years. It has been a hard road and we have all worked hard but it is really paying off. But I do miss football...
My department head was getting yelled at by our HR, because out of 75 field service engineers we had 1 female. I feel for him finding an experianced electronics technician, knowledgeable in both fluidic systems and biology and who won't mind flying to a different state at a moments notice and work 12 hour days is somewhat rare. NTM being able to supervise yourself 99% of the time and have good customer skills. Heck its rare to find a man that would do the same. So he went through all the motions advertising in women magazine and journals etc. I approached him with an applicants resume(my sister has the qualifications). And I asked him, "are you still looking to hire a woman?" He gets a look of horror on his face and explains to me that even if you are looking to hire a woman you cannot say you are looking to hire a woman or else that is discrimanation against men. So I gave my sisters resume and she got hired.
Good question. Worthy of answer even if it is here on slashdot. Before my divorce, I believed marriage to be sacred. That one should have 100% faith and trust in their spouse. That all requests should be considered and all mistakes should be forgiven. I was married for 7 years.
My wife, the love of my life, the apple of my eye, the woman that no temptation could turn me away from her left me one fine december evening. She maxed out every credit card, forced into bankrupty, abused drugs(meth and coke), moved me away from my family so we could be close to hers, I supported her even though it was against my better judgement for her gastric bypass surgery so she could be skinny. Supported her even as she got her second DUI and smashed our car. She left that day with a 23 time felon, with no job, fat, and dumb as a stumpand practically droolling over the child support checks. So in my time alone I had much time for personal reflection. And I have come up with this: People Suck. I never provocated a fight, I always tried to be peacable even if it meant I was on the short end of the stick.
Now almost a year later, my kids live with me. They go to School. They go speech therapy, they go to the doctors and dentists like they are supposed to. All the things my former wife failed to do while obsessing about herself. Luckily I have been able to keep my job and have managed to keep things together on an emotional and financial levels at least.
So to answer the original question: What have I learned? Trust No One.
I actually met my current girlfriend on Yahoo. I have to say I am very pleased with the results. I am a divorced man with 2 kids. I don't want any more kids. I wanted a woman who can take care of herself because sometimes I am going to be distracted with my kids. I like rock music but prefer classic rock. I despise rap. I don't like to dance but I do like to go to concerts. I like to have my own space. I definately do not want to break another woman into marriage. Cause lets face it there is alot of learning going on in a marriage just not about each other but about the way marriage really works. It would be nice not go through that whole thing again.
So as you can see I have some pretty stringent requirements for a mate. Well along comes my girlfriend. Divorced with no kids and cannot have kids but likes kids. Likes Iron Maiden and Def Leppard.
Here previous husband liked anime and played video games so it no big surprise to her that I do and in fact likes to give me surprise games like Doom3 and Half-life 2 annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd a 40GB iPod.
SO thank you yahoo. I never would have met her without your service. Totally worth the money I spent and I would have spent more knowing the results.
Thats is what I really need. My ex-wife and ex-girlfriends spouting on about everything I did wrong. I can just see it "He doesn't pay enough attention", "He wants sex too much.", "he sits on home on saturdays and watch's SciFI and [adult swim]" , "he leaves shit stains on his underwear" blah blah blah. But you know what if a girls is willing to put up with that pre-emptively rather than just something she discovers down the road, I guess I am willing to give her a try.
I was in the Marines from 94-02. Me and all the Marines from my shop get together online and play socom. What is funny about it is that I play with guys I have never met, they just happen to work at the same unit I used to work at. Its like some sort of Bizarre Reunion. I esp. like hearing about pvts that I used to make clean urinals with toothbrushes and razor blades who are now Sgts and SSGts doing the same thing to new pvts. Good to know I raised them right.
I am in no way denying these things do not happen. I just don't think you are giving the cops or the military a fair shot. Most of of our serviceman and cops(like 99.999%) are great people, ethical people only trying to do what is right.
By your same logic all computer geeks are bad too because the ones we read about are all h/crackers, Spammer, and ID thieves.
Slashdot Mirror
As a native New Englander, I concur with you 100%. Don't get me wrong I am Sox and Pats all the way but there is a stranger kind of racism in Boston that I have never experienced anywhere else. Southern California had neo Nazis, Texas has its rednecks, but there is something more cold and insidious about the racism in Boston.
More to the other points, I have lived in Boston, So. Cal., and Texas. For me at this point in my life, Texas works for me better than the others. Inexpensive housing and low cost of living for my family is what matters most. I am employed by an out of state company that baselines the pay for all employees to the bay area. I worked for the same company in socal and my living conditions were pretty awful being a single parent at the time. Between rent and day care, I had only a few hundred dollars a month to feed 3. My 1 bedroom apartment for me and my 2 kids, had mic and my neighbours were clearly dealing in illegally substances.
In Texas, I have a big house, big yard, and pool, parks, family activities and money left over. I know its not for everybody bit for a homebody who just wants to raise his kids Texas has been good to me.
That hurt, I am currently watching all of ST:Voyager.
On Topic I am smoking my turkey.
I have a few questions and perhaps one of the more enlightened slashdotters can help me out.
If the Earth was really hit with a Mars sized object that eventually became our moon, does that put the earth "behind" other earth like planets in the amount of time it would have taken the earth to restabilize and have the right conditions for life? In other words, if the Earth was never hit by the Mars sized object and conditions for life were still present, would the Earth have developed life millions if not billions of years sooner? So there is a chance could be millions of years behind other extraterrestrial civilizations.
My other question: If we assume the earth was hit by a Mars sized object, giving our oceans tides and our mantel stability, and if we also assume that the these factors speed up the evolutionary process, is it possible that we could be much more advanced than other alien civilizations?(assuming we all started at the same time). They could still be working on crawling out of the water.
Scary thought either way.
I am going to second his story. I didn't take high school seriously, joined the military and learned the electronics. I also do six figures in the Houston area after leaving the LA area. My life is 100% improved with much more disposable income since moving. I wonder about my old classmates some are still paying on their college loans . I wonder how common mine and the parent poster's story are..
My son has autism and I agree with you whole heartedly. After I got custody I cut of my cable. No TV, no Movies, no DVDs. The improvemt in my son in a six month period was dramatic. He literally knew nothing and the only activity he would do was fold up paper to make Blue Cluesn notebooks. No ABCs, No colors, No numbers no interactions with others.
After 6 months he knew all of that. After a year he could read and now he is acedemically at grade level. His communication is still poor and he barely speaks in complete sentences at age 7. He does interact more with kids and he will play with other kids rather than parallel play. I have given the TV back but it is limited. I do my best to engage him in activities that force him to interact with others. We started Cub scouts this year and I I bring him out in public to teach him how to behave(many parents do not bring out there autistic children because its to stressful.) But how else are they going to learn appropriate behavior unless they experience it? So please if you see a parent with a screaming kid have some patience with us, we want our kids to be productive members of society rather than another SSI check.
I had a glimpse of a new Republican party , Old John McCain, Arnold, Romney when he was Governor of Mass. All Guys who worked for common ground. But the idealoges are in control now.
Sticking to the economy. I don't think either candidate gets "it". A few things that need to happen IMO for the economy to not only make a rebound but to also be strong fundamentally
1) Outlaw sub prime loans(i.e any loans that have significant bumps in the interest rate or require a significant down payment on those loans.
2) Pay down the national debt. High debt devalues the dollar and increases inflation.
3) Of course we have the distressing situation of American automobile manufactures cut jobs faster than new industries can replace them. Much of this is self inflicted. They should have been converting current vehicle line ups to to hybrids a long time ago. I like the idea of moving to a "green" economy where new jobs a re created in the search and production of cleaner and more efficent products.
It is with some hesitance I say this I am a Republican(albeit a liberal republican) and veteran of the USMC. I think we need to cut our defense budget as much as possible. Close all bases overseas Korea, Okinawa, Japan, those native people don't want us there we pay a lot of money to be there and the actual people who serve there don't like it there either(with some exceptions of course). We have the technology and ability to quickly moves forces to any location on the globe from the US.
Of course I am still in favor of combing the through other branches of the government to look for instances of fraud, waste and abuse and looking for way to make things run more effiecently.
Regarding Social Security we should get rid of the 92K cap. and consider raising the age benefits take effect.
One last thing regarding National health care, I am not opposed to the concept in and of itself I only worry about the tax implications. If it can be done with minimal effect on taxes then it should be done.
That's my take.
Housing values suck in Silicon Valley. Sure they are higher than other place but, you can't live there unless you already own and if you bought in the last 5 years you are probably upside down in your mortgage.
I agree with you 100%. I grew up in Massachusetts and lived in California for 8 years and recently moved to Texas. The most amazing about Texas is the racial integration that I never saw in states I previously lived. The South in general gets a bad rap when in actuality many northerner are far more racist.
I have to call bullcrap on that. Middle American's don't give a flying crap about FISA or telco immunity. As a matter of fact if anyone could explain it to them I would think it would be Obama and he could have made a very persuasive argument on why it would be bad. Instead he rolled. IARR(I Am a Registered Republican) but I agree with all the upset Obama supporters on this. This whole mess has been a complete desecration of the 4th Amendment.
We allow women both in our military and in our police force, we alter the requirements to accommodate them. I am not making a judgment on whether that is right or wrong, but under our current system denying someone entrance in to these organization would be considered discrimination. There are height and weight requirements in these organizations but usually as long as the person is not unhealthy no action is taken.
and that technically would be discrimination many females are around that weight.
If we assume that there are 1000's or even millions of civilizations out there at different stages of development and a different distances from the earth we should receive transmissions eventually. Follow me for a second.
Imagine a civ that is on a parallel development track as us but they are 2000 LY(light years) from us. We won't receive their transmissions for another 2000 years. They would have to be 2000 years ahead of for us to receive their transmissions. If the universe does support a variety of civilizations we should eventually receive a transmission sometime of the course of a 100 year period. Also even if there are civilizations a million years more advanced than us as long as they are a million light years away we would have received their transmissions. Of course we are kind of threading the needle here but if the universe is abundant in life forms than we should have transmissions from somewhere by now or at least in the next 100 years or so.
If we don't find a transmission in my lifetime I will have to come to the conclusion that life is in fact rare in the universe. And if there is other civilizations out there they are so rare that it may be many 1000's if not millions of years before we make contact, if ever we just may miss each other in the end.
I am a Field Service Engineer for a major Biomedical company. Basically if one of our machines break, I will be there within 24 hours to fix it. We have many instruments nation wide. It is impossible for us to register 48 hours in advance. These machines are used at Blood Banks, and in cross matching. They would seriously jeapordize the lives of people by passing this.
That was my first anime and one of my favorites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Blazers
I say this as a parent. If US citizens do not have a right to privacy from corporations, why should a 13 year olds have a right to privacy from their parents?
As a registered Republican, I promise you. If Bush tries to stay in office past his term I will personally organize a movement to throw him out.
My son was diagnosed with Autism at age 4. We had suspect autism a little before that. He is exteremly bright gives my 6 year old a run for her money when we do flash cards. Due to a series of events I cut my TV off 6 months ago. I figured it was a distraction for me and my kids and we would be better served doing something else rather than watch TV together. In this past 6 months my son has come leaps and bounds in development. Most of this period was during the summer so I really can't credit his school entirely with the improvements. But with no TV he interacts much more with his sister and I. He has even started to become conversational a huge improvement. 1.5 years ago he didn't say 3 words. He didn't know numbers, colors, letters, shapes or anything kids his age were doing. He didn't play with other kids and he didn't interact with anyone including me and his mother. He knows all that stuff and more now. The social aspect is the real challenge but he plays with other kids now even if he he doesn't always play right.
As to the point of over-diagnosis of autism, I agree. Autism isn't really a neurological disfunction as it is a set of common behaviors displayed by slow learners. I fully believe my son will be integrated in to regular school in the next 1-2 years. It has been a hard road and we have all worked hard but it is really paying off. But I do miss football...
My department head was getting yelled at by our HR, because out of 75 field service engineers we had 1 female. I feel for him finding an experianced electronics technician, knowledgeable in both fluidic systems and biology and who won't mind flying to a different state at a moments notice and work 12 hour days is somewhat rare. NTM being able to supervise yourself 99% of the time and have good customer skills. Heck its rare to find a man that would do the same. So he went through all the motions advertising in women magazine and journals etc. I approached him with an applicants resume(my sister has the qualifications). And I asked him, "are you still looking to hire a woman?" He gets a look of horror on his face and explains to me that even if you are looking to hire a woman you cannot say you are looking to hire a woman or else that is discrimanation against men. So I gave my sisters resume and she got hired.
Good question. Worthy of answer even if it is here on slashdot. Before my divorce, I believed marriage to be sacred. That one should have 100% faith and trust in their spouse. That all requests should be considered and all mistakes should be forgiven. I was married for 7 years.
My wife, the love of my life, the apple of my eye, the woman that no temptation could turn me away from her left me one fine december evening. She maxed out every credit card, forced into bankrupty, abused drugs(meth and coke), moved me away from my family so we could be close to hers, I supported her even though it was against my better judgement for her gastric bypass surgery so she could be skinny. Supported her even as she got her second DUI and smashed our car. She left that day with a 23 time felon, with no job, fat, and dumb as a stumpand practically droolling over the child support checks. So in my time alone I had much time for personal reflection. And I have come up with this: People Suck. I never provocated a fight, I always tried to be peacable even if it meant I was on the short end of the stick.
Now almost a year later, my kids live with me. They go to School. They go speech therapy, they go to the doctors and dentists like they are supposed to. All the things my former wife failed to do while obsessing about herself. Luckily I have been able to keep my job and have managed to keep things together on an emotional and financial levels at least.
So to answer the original question: What have I learned?
Trust No One.
I actually met my current girlfriend on Yahoo. I have to say I am very pleased with the results. I am a divorced man with 2 kids. I don't want any more kids. I wanted a woman who can take care of herself because sometimes I am going to be distracted with my kids. I like rock music but prefer classic rock. I despise rap. I don't like to dance but I do like to go to concerts. I like to have my own space. I definately do not want to break another woman into marriage. Cause lets face it there is alot of learning going on in a marriage just not about each other but about the way marriage really works. It would be nice not go through that whole thing again.
So as you can see I have some pretty stringent requirements for a mate. Well along comes my girlfriend. Divorced with no kids and cannot have kids but likes kids. Likes Iron Maiden and Def Leppard.
Here previous husband liked anime and played video games so it no big surprise to her that I do and in fact likes to give me surprise games like Doom3 and Half-life 2 annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd a 40GB iPod.
SO thank you yahoo. I never would have met her without your service. Totally worth the money I spent and I would have spent more knowing the results.
Thats is what I really need. My ex-wife and ex-girlfriends spouting on about everything I did wrong. I can just see it "He doesn't pay enough attention", "He wants sex too much.", "he sits on home on saturdays and watch's SciFI and [adult swim]" , "he leaves shit stains on his underwear" blah blah blah. But you know what if a girls is willing to put up with that pre-emptively rather than just something she discovers down the road, I guess I am willing to give her a try.
I was in the Marines from 94-02. Me and all the Marines from my shop get together online and play socom. What is funny about it is that I play with guys I have never met, they just happen to work at the same unit I used to work at. Its like some sort of Bizarre Reunion. I esp. like hearing about pvts that I used to make clean urinals with toothbrushes and razor blades who are now Sgts and SSGts doing the same thing to new pvts. Good to know I raised them right.
I apoligize sir, but we have to revoke your Nerd Membership Card.
Have A Nice Day.
I am in no way denying these things do not happen. I just don't think you are giving the cops or the military a fair shot. Most of of our serviceman and cops(like 99.999%) are great people, ethical people only trying to do what is right.
By your same logic all computer geeks are bad too because the ones we read about are all h/crackers, Spammer, and ID thieves.