I make this judgement on my own ground. In collge I tried to get a double major in either math or physics. I found that math was rather dry and physics did not have a potential job lined out, so I did not do them. However, I found both disciplines be less stressful than CS due to one requirement: no creativity necessary , at least on the undergrad level. You have all the formulas and theorems lined out for you. I aced physics while attending less than 20% of all lectures and barely doing homework. This is nothing compared to my software engineering classes that took forever. Plus, most of my theory classes that were CS happened to be cross-referenced with Math. I could have taken them for my math credit, if I wanted.
Programming 101 may be the easiest shit on earth, but combined with a butt load of homework for software engineering classes, science loads and shit load of creativity that one needs to have in order to make good designs, I'd say it is pretty damn hard. Also, you really have to read my fucking post again. I said "one of the hardest", not "the hardest." I hope that you know the difference between the two expressions...
You were lucky to miss the bubble. Things were right after the bust after I started looking for a job. Had it not been for a butt load of work that I completed during my school years (actual corporate stuff), I would have had hard time finding a decent place. Now I do stuff that is remotely related to things I've learned in college; hopefully, I will be able to move away from it and get into software sales or project management...
Mabbe nursing is a career for you, but not for me. That's why I did not choose it. I am not complaining about what I do (hint: it has very little to do with CS). It brings good cash, has a stable career path and I do enjoy it. Deal is done; go bitch somewhere else.
It sounds like you were never unemployed and that you do not have experience with a benefit called welfare.
See, after we lived in on $1,000 per month for a couple of years, this whole "do what you want" shit got old. My mom liked doing accounting and even got a Masters in the field. When we moved to the U.S. this didn't really matter and we started from scratch. Had my family had enough money, I'd be on my way towards an MD right now for the same fucking reason: income, enjoyment and career.
I don't even care about the amount of money I make as long as I can work and do things while getting paid for them. Yes, I am such a caplitalist pig! If I wanted to do what I truly enjoy, I'd be smoking weed and growing some illegal shit in the backyard; however, you can hardly call it a career. All I wanted is to get a job, do honest work and secure a future for myself and my mom. Is this against some sort of law? If so, please tell me more about it; I am here all week.
I have seen people who are after the money and only money. I delt with the ones who do what they love and get shit for pay. I chose to do something that I liked and that promised a good future. And you have balls to blame me for that? I am so sorry that I do not have time to save trees and work for nothing. The whole purpose of going to college and earning degrees is that you make yourself more marketable in order to secure your future. While future income is not the only variable that is used in choosing one's major, I believe it should be a factor. Would you still be doing what you're doing for living if you got $2K/year. I highly doubt that.
You should start reading the posts more carefully. I said that I had three criteria when I chose my field. Money, career and enjoyment. Nursing does not fit two of them: career and enjoyment.
Hi there. I graduated with a degree in Comp. Sci. a couple of years ago. Like many other people, I started CS because I liked computers and I was pretty darn good with them. I participated in different computer clubs, learned how to program and do other fun things at an early age. Given that and the fact that IT provided stable and well-paid careers in the past, it was a no brainer! But had IT sucked in terms of pay, I would have never gotten into it to begin with. You heard me correctly. If I had to choose a major in 2002, Comp. Sci. would not be on my list.
See, I was poor all my life. I could not major in Liberal Arts or English because I had to support myself and think of supporting my parents and relatives in the future. I had to choose something that I liked and that paid good. This is a fucking no-brainer and I know that 90% of you would do the same thing. Would you study your ass off to find out that your jobs are moving to India and that you get shit for pay? I highly doubt that.
Comp. Sci. was a perfect major for me. I thought of going to a medical school, but my parents could not afford that. I thought of doing science, but then I saw what most of research specialist brought in terms of income and I said "fuck that." Business and Economics were okay; however, I did not like them as much as I liked Computer Science and that is why I majored in it. After four years of pain, I got out of college with no job, a butt load of loans and no chances to find a good job. It took me a while to find one and I went through a lot of pain to get where I am right now. Not everybody can do that.
Anybody with more than two brain cells saw that IT got fucking smashed and that it was harder to get jobs in the field. With that in mind, who wants to take a risk? How many people would like to study one of the hardest fields and then end up without a job and a load of student loans? It is not pretty; take my word for it. For some people it does not make sense to get into a field if they can't earn good money. This is just a rational thought because there are individuals, believe it or not, who want to be financially secure. Why would I pay to go to college if four years down the road I am going to be unemployed?
Of course, there are people who can afford doing what they like regardless of financial benefits. I know a person who pissed through four years of Ivy League education majoring in some useless crap that can't get a her a job that pays more than $25K/year. She can afford loving what she does for living (whenever she has a job) only because her daddy supports her. In theory, she does not even have to work to be well-off. For me, it was not an option. It was either boom or bust. I had to choose a discipline that satisfied three criteria: a stable career and income while being interesting at the same time. If a career did not fit any of those three parameters, I'd pass. Would not you?
I assume that Comp. Sci. can no longer fit people in my situation; hence we have a drop in enrollment.
I was quite pleased the Pope passed away; he truly deserved that. Fuck him and other bigots who preach love and happiness unless it does not involve gay people or whoever does not believe in god. Perhaps clergy needs to have a history lesson. Did they miss the part that this is the 21st century? We have things like voting, women's rights and freedom of religion.
From where I stand, everybody is equal. Black, white, hispanic, asian -- all of us are in the same shit. By discriminating against each other we only make matters worse. This country/world is screwed in so many ways that I do not know where to start.
We can have violence on TV, but not some skin. You know, naked ladies are dangerous for kids, unlike guns and explosives. Rush L. can blast about kids having oral sex, but Howard Stern gets beeped everytime he says "poo"... What the hell is wrong with us, Americans? We say that families are foundations of societies but at the same time we deny a union if it involves two loving people of the same sex. Apparently, heterosexual marriages are always perfect; even if a woman gets a beating from her husband! We came up to the point where pharmacists can choose not to sell birth control pills to women. WTF? What's next? Mandatory bible readings in school? Why can't we let people live and be happy. Is it that hard to do? Instead of celebrating unity, we always find a way to separate people into "us" and "them". Is religion really worth it? If so, I hope I burn in hell. So far, I noticed that "sinners" are much cooler than god-fearing men. I'd rather spend my time in hell, but in a good company as opposed to a life in heaven (if there is such thing) with a bunch of morons.
The land of the free and the home of the brave looks like the land of the retarded religious slaves...
I am fully aware of several popular programs trying to collect data from people. In order to avoid that, I installed "LittleSnitch" on my Mac box. This is basically a firewall wrapper that tells you whenever a program is trying to make an outgoing connection. Little bastard works well for me.
TurboTax products worked just fine on my Mac and I haven't noticed any outgoing connections so far. Although I compute taxes via software, I always file the myself through good old snail mail.
You missed the point. The system should be easy to enter and exit; however, the exit part should be regulated on the administrative level as well as on personal.
Say your dad who is a professor of geology goes on a trip to Africa for a year. I believe that in this case you should be able to go with your dad and skip a year of school in order to do something else (hopefully beneficial to you). That, and re-entering higher education is good. However, I remember being stuck in class with kids who clearly did not want to do anything productive. Those kids were wasting my time and my teacher's time. Instead of reading something new, I had to listen to a fucking lecture on topics such as "Fighting is Bad" and "Thou shall not play cards during class." WTF? Is this what I want to learn? Fuck no.
Under our system grades were just a part of the equation. Some kids could move on and do their own thing as long as they did not cause any trouble. Some smart asses, like me, were about to be kicked out numerous times due to pranks and other shit that I managed to pull out on a daily basis. I barely avoided being 'let go' and it took a lot of self-discipline to straighten things out. The GPA part was a stretch because I cannot really think of anything else that can work in the county where everybody can get sued. However, we can implement bechmarks which kids must complete before moving on forward.
Beats me. BTW, I do speak 3 languages as well... I never bothered to find out my IQ because I never had a problem. However, I remember having many problems due to stupid kids fucking up everything they could possibly fuck up back in high school. Instead of spending time on teaching, teachers wasted MY time on finding out why somebody decided to skip 10 classes in a row. WTF? If you're a lazy fuck who does not want to study, go do something else. My freedom stops where your begins.
It is obvious that you haven't been to the USSR. Back in the days right before and right after the collapse, the education system was so fucking good, that only top American private and public schools could compare to it. I was not best of the best, but I came out a well-rounded invididual who passed American school whithout any effort only because I knew everything when I got here. The only thing that stopped from going further was the language barrier and only because I was too fucking shy to meet people and make friends (I have been speaking English since the age of 5).
With numerous gangs all across the United States, I highly doubt that this country is behind post-Soviet Russia in term of crimes. Organized crime is everywhere in the world; in Russia it just gets out of hand more often. Please do not forget the history of this country when you talk about mafia and other aspects of illegal world. However, I am willing to bet that a high school graduate who completes eleven grades in Russia, Belarus or the Ukraine is more prepared for college than an average American student. How many of you read War and Peace in the tenth grade? In other words, "Dude, you simply crack me up." You just do not know what current high school students miss.
In college I remember taking a course on geography. My classmate asked me if I could show her the location of Russia on the map (since I spoke the language, she assumed that I'd help her). Enough said.... I believe that a person who can't find the biggest fucking country in the world does not belong in college (or even high school). Do you? If so, enjoy your sub-standard education.
Wow, apparently you cant fucking read. Do me a favor, help yourself to that "Back" button and read what I have said: this was just a simple suggestion and not something that I'd propose as a final draft.
It is impossible to get cheap good stuff. Period. Everything of quality costs money in this world. Take a look at everything from cars to clothing: once quality starts to rise, so does the price. "Cheap" Hondas are no longer cheap (but reliable). I pay a bit more for good service from Speakeasy because I enjoy fast ticket resolution (if problems exists) and talking to Bobs, Marrys and Johns from the United States.
If customers are willing to accpet cheaper goods, they should be willing to accept lower quality. Period. People do not shop at Wal-Mart becuase they have excellent customer service or high quality goods. People shop there because of low prices. Quality vs. price.... The choice is yours.
This problem is very easy to fix. Let's do what was done in the former USSR in order to make sure that only the ones who can go on to get more education when it comes to public schools. I went to one of the best schools in the United States (according to Newsweek) and I was astonished by a number of people who clearly did not belong there. I can only imagine what happens in the rest of the public schools that are ranked lower than mine.
It works like this. Everybody is evaluated in terms of academic performance after then 10th grade. Anybody with a GPA of 3.0 and higher can move on further. People who have GPAs of 2.6-3.0 can move on after a consulation with councelors and only if their GPA is going to improve from there. Students who have a GPA of lower than 2.6 must find education somewhere else (vocational schools, private schools, etc.). Why should we waste our taxmoney on people who are not willing to study to begin with? In my case, 60% of people who attended the 9th grade did not come back to the 10th. That was pretty kick ass, considering the fact that everybody who made it actually wanted to study and move on. Classes were better, people were better and teachers had more room to breathe. Some of them finally started teaching instead of policing the ones who caused problems.
When I came to the United States, I was surprised to find out that this education system was willing to keep everybody regardless of their academic performance and behavior. In order to get expelled you had to some something quite outrageous that even most troublemakers did not attempt to do on a daily basis. This system is basically designed to have as many suckers as possibe. WTF? I believe this is the core of the problem. However, I do not have a Ph.D in Education; therefore, the final word is not mine.
Anyway, after you 'take care' of students who underperform and caused troubles, make sure that people who graduate from high schools meet certain requirements and make Information Studies as a part of the deal. Some bright kids do not have computers at home and it is hard for them to learn about something they do not have. Make sure that there is a class that these folks can take in order to broaden their knowledge. Then add a programming course or two because in the future everybody will need to be able to do something like that. I can't tell you how many biology and geography students I've met who were not prepared to take even simple programming classes in college (part of their requirements in order to do some sort of studies). In Belarus we had a course on simple algorithms where students had to write simple programs using BASIC. Mind you, this was in a country where majority of households do not have computers! We had only one class with 20 computers where kids had to share machines. I am sure that in the States we can come up with a better alternative. Once you make classes smaller by, weeding out the ones who do not want to study anyway, our schools can spend more money per student.
The fact that keyboards and mice harbor bacteria is not new. My freshman year we performed an experiment on bacteria cultivation: common areas/things were swiped and the results of the swipes were grown in petri dishes. As a result, we found out that mice and keyboards had more bacteria that toilet lids. Why? Because toilets were cleaned on a daily basis as opposed to common articles, such as keyboards, pens, pencils, etc. This brings me to a totally different point: why are keyboards are so fucking hard to clean?
I have yet to find a perfect keyboard that costs less than $300 and has two things: good ergonomics for my wrists and is easy to clean on a daily basis. So far, I found only one item that satisfied this, TouchStreamLP. This keyboard is sold out almost everywhere despite its hefty price tag of more than $300. It does not have conventional keys (hence touch), so it is easy to clean it. It also happens to be ergonomic and supports multiple schemes for emacs users:)
Wrong car makers, buddy. Ford and GM outwhored U.S. manufacturing a long time ago. Most of these cars are made here form parts that are made in Mexico or some other third world countries. For all practical purposes, I do not consider them to be American anymore. BMW is way too overpriced and Daimler/Chrysler has its own problems due to decreasing car quality and hefty price tags. A survey by Consumer Reports magazine revealed that Mercedes cars were more prone to problems that fucking Buicks, cars which many Americans consider to be the bottom of the barrel.
Take a look at "Asian" cars that are being produced in the States. Toyota, Nissan, and Honda make good, cheap and reliable vehicles here in the States. Not in China or India. These care are designed, manufactured and sold by Americans for Americans. So far so good.
How do you explain the fact that U.S. has a higher economic growth rate in terms of GDP? It seems that U.S. economy is growing faster than any European economy... EU pulled a whooping 1.2% GDP... Please:)
It is obvious that you know very little about Eastern Europe. Trust me, no sane person would want to live there now; people exist there, not live. Take it from somebody who lived there for a long time. I still have to send money to my relatives in the Ukraine so they can have meat for holiday dinners.
No, I am not. And whoever modded this shit down better put an extra lock on the house door (caz I am going to pay a visit).
On a more serious note. I work hard for my money. If a bank decides to save some loot and offshore the operations, the bank must be resposible for the actions. I realize that all the money is insured by FDIC (up to $100K); however, this is not the matter of government insurance. This is a matter of whoring American jobs out somewhere else in order to pay less money. Why stop at that? Why not make sure that we get a good bang out of the smaller sum of money. If it were up to me, I'd put every "John" who steals money on a death row.
Look, since these people work in a different country under different laws, we can highly improve the security situation with fear and punishment unknown to American workers.
Put security guards and cameras everywhere. I have seen some pictures of offshore call centers and I guess that this step has been done already.
Do not let the fuckers use anything that can be used for writing.
Use furniture made out of glass only!
Search them before they go out of the office.
Shoot everybody who participates in fraud. The person who does not report fraud gets shot too, but only after his family goes through public humiliation and capital punishment.
If an American citizen/legal resident gets ripped off by a call center worker. Grant that person a right to go to wherever the call center is and execute the thief. Bill the bank for ammo, a getaway helicopter, ships, subs, nukes, etc. used for the process of payback. As an alternative, persons involved in the frad can be shipped to the U.S. and execute here!
Treat call center employees like fucking dogs before people realize that working for such centers is a death sentence.
This is rather sketchy, but look on the bright side: people will refuse to work for callcenters, banks who whore out American workers will pay for things one way or another. It will cost $$$ to do work somewhere else and jobs will be back in the U.S. Who cares if some shmuck has to die:)
No offense, but I think you can't read. First of all, I have nothing against special education or people with disabilities. Secondly, I my post is related to genetic disorders that can be recognized on the DNA level. I am not talking about your hair color, eye sight, or ability to see through walls. I stated my opinion based on what my family has gone through. There is a big ass difference between not being able to hear and not being able to think for yourself!
Some genetic disorders are so taxing on the system, that kids who need a little attention in order to become mainstream may not get it because the resources are thrown towards the ones who can barely think. What you end up having is two categories of kids: ones who can succeed and ones who cannot due to genetic limitations in terms of brain power. Please notice that I am not talking about injuries or disorders obtained during pregnancies. I am talking about simple stuff (like seeing extra chromosomes) that can weed up potential bad embryos.
Disclaimer: this post may offend some of you. I have no problems with children who have special needs and I respect their parents. However, I am willing to do anything possible to end up as one of those parents.
My girlfriend and I were talking about genetic selection of babies. She is a religious person and at first she did not approve the idea of selecting a child based on its genes. However, this changed right away after she started working some special ed. kids.
Let's call my girlfriend Ann. Ann is a therapist; she works for public schools in order to help kids with different aspects of education. Some kids need help with handwriting, some kids need assistance due to injuries, some kids need a little push when it comes to physical education. Ann helps them out. However, there is a growing number of kids with genetic disorders who need extreme help and who are in the school system. These are by-products of tobacco and alcohol companies, kids of ex-drug users or just unfortunate parents. Nobody wants them. Nobody wants to deal with them. Because our public schools are designed to accept everyone, these kids end up in an environment that can't really fit their needs. Parents drop them off and let Ann deal with all this shit. The same parents are ready to sue the living shit out of the school system if their kids do not progress. Moreover, not a single public school that I know is able to accomodate kids with special needs due to financial restraints. Would I want my kids to have a chance of living that life? Two words: fuck that.
After working with many special ed kids for years, Ann and I have concluded that we'll screen our potential babies for genetic disorders because we simply do not want to deal with a kid who has Down's Syndrome or something along those lines. If there is a possibility of a genetic disorder, why not eliminate it? I do not want to end up with a kid who acts like Timmy from South Park; the society can live without such a kid just fine as well. The school system where Ann works spends a lot of time on kids who can barely tie their shoes. Some of those kids will lose their skills and degenerate. It is so sad to see those poor souls... I would hate to have a child like that. A child that can't really understand, a child that can't be a part of the mainstream life, a child that will be always a second class citizen. As somebody who had a speech problem as a kid, I know what it feels like when everybody makes fun of you and I saw only the tip of the iceberg! I would hate to see my kid to go through numerous humiliations, classifications, doctors, special ed instructors and then endup earning minimum wage at some sweatshop or Burger King.
The bottom line is that this is up to you. I choose life, but life that is capable of living and not suffering. After what I have seen and heard from the people who do with special kids for living, I made up my mind.
First of all, IMAX made a bad business move: there is no such thing as bad publicity in business. Instead of being different, the company fell into the same hole as other businesses, like Wal-Mart, that try to generalize themselves and appeal to almost everybody from rich hippies to poor vegitarians. I remember reading an article published by a seasoned angel investor and he mentioned that fear of not being accepted by a group of customers (people) is one of the worst feeling to have when you run a business. You need to define a product and sell it to a group of people who are interested in this product. Do not make your goods nice and fuzzy show they appeal to everybody. Make goods that your target customers crave and you will succeed. For example, when making a hunting rifle, make sure that the hunting rifle appeals to hunters and their needs. Do not try to make it look good in the eyes of animal lovers. IMAX should do the same thing: churches are for god-fearing people, scientific movies are for geeks. Cater to geeks and other interested individuals (as always) and forget about the haters. Look at what happened to "Desperate Housewives." Despite an outcry for the religious right, the show's still on and getting more viewers (who'd want to miss watching several milfs getting it on?).
The second issue is a much broader issue for it deals with everyday life in the United States: political corectness. There is so much of this shit that it makes me wanna puke everytime when I hear how miserable Americans have become. We generalize ourselves so much that at the end we'll have only one belief, one color and one taste. You can't raise a radical idea anymore. Whoever does something controversial is going to get it from freaks who call themselves "fundamentalists." We are so fucking caught up in doing what is morally right that we almost forget that human beings are imperfect. Nobody wants to live freely anymore. All we want to do is to make up stupid rules and have everbody obey them. Our kids can't learn anything interesting in school because people object anything that falls outside the "normal" margins. Chemistry teachers can't make a simple explosive just for the sake of an experiment, biology teachers have to be careful when teaching evolution and I will not be surprised that soon physics teachers will get jammed for teaching basics of quantinum mechanics and how gravity can bend light. Our judges tell women how to deal with abortions, two loving people of the same gender can't form a family and weed is still illegal despite the fact that it is okay to drink 5 cups of coffee per day. I can only imagine what being a gay pot-smoking scientist feels like.... Anti-American?
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I make this judgement on my own ground. In collge I tried to get a double major in either math or physics. I found that math was rather dry and physics did not have a potential job lined out, so I did not do them. However, I found both disciplines be less stressful than CS due to one requirement: no creativity necessary , at least on the undergrad level. You have all the formulas and theorems lined out for you. I aced physics while attending less than 20% of all lectures and barely doing homework. This is nothing compared to my software engineering classes that took forever. Plus, most of my theory classes that were CS happened to be cross-referenced with Math. I could have taken them for my math credit, if I wanted.
Programming 101 may be the easiest shit on earth, but combined with a butt load of homework for software engineering classes, science loads and shit load of creativity that one needs to have in order to make good designs, I'd say it is pretty damn hard. Also, you really have to read my fucking post again. I said "one of the hardest", not "the hardest." I hope that you know the difference between the two expressions...
You were lucky to miss the bubble. Things were right after the bust after I started looking for a job. Had it not been for a butt load of work that I completed during my school years (actual corporate stuff), I would have had hard time finding a decent place. Now I do stuff that is remotely related to things I've learned in college; hopefully, I will be able to move away from it and get into software sales or project management...
Mabbe nursing is a career for you, but not for me. That's why I did not choose it. I am not complaining about what I do (hint: it has very little to do with CS). It brings good cash, has a stable career path and I do enjoy it. Deal is done; go bitch somewhere else.
Bravo. Well said. That is exactly what I tell people when they ask me if they should major in Comp. Sci.
It sounds like you were never unemployed and that you do not have experience with a benefit called welfare.
See, after we lived in on $1,000 per month for a couple of years, this whole "do what you want" shit got old. My mom liked doing accounting and even got a Masters in the field. When we moved to the U.S. this didn't really matter and we started from scratch. Had my family had enough money, I'd be on my way towards an MD right now for the same fucking reason: income, enjoyment and career.
I don't even care about the amount of money I make as long as I can work and do things while getting paid for them. Yes, I am such a caplitalist pig! If I wanted to do what I truly enjoy, I'd be smoking weed and growing some illegal shit in the backyard; however, you can hardly call it a career. All I wanted is to get a job, do honest work and secure a future for myself and my mom. Is this against some sort of law? If so, please tell me more about it; I am here all week.
I have seen people who are after the money and only money. I delt with the ones who do what they love and get shit for pay. I chose to do something that I liked and that promised a good future. And you have balls to blame me for that? I am so sorry that I do not have time to save trees and work for nothing. The whole purpose of going to college and earning degrees is that you make yourself more marketable in order to secure your future. While future income is not the only variable that is used in choosing one's major, I believe it should be a factor. Would you still be doing what you're doing for living if you got $2K/year. I highly doubt that.
You should start reading the posts more carefully. I said that I had three criteria when I chose my field. Money, career and enjoyment. Nursing does not fit two of them: career and enjoyment.
Hi there. I graduated with a degree in Comp. Sci. a couple of years ago. Like many other people, I started CS because I liked computers and I was pretty darn good with them. I participated in different computer clubs, learned how to program and do other fun things at an early age. Given that and the fact that IT provided stable and well-paid careers in the past, it was a no brainer! But had IT sucked in terms of pay, I would have never gotten into it to begin with. You heard me correctly. If I had to choose a major in 2002, Comp. Sci. would not be on my list.
See, I was poor all my life. I could not major in Liberal Arts or English because I had to support myself and think of supporting my parents and relatives in the future. I had to choose something that I liked and that paid good. This is a fucking no-brainer and I know that 90% of you would do the same thing. Would you study your ass off to find out that your jobs are moving to India and that you get shit for pay? I highly doubt that.
Comp. Sci. was a perfect major for me. I thought of going to a medical school, but my parents could not afford that. I thought of doing science, but then I saw what most of research specialist brought in terms of income and I said "fuck that." Business and Economics were okay; however, I did not like them as much as I liked Computer Science and that is why I majored in it. After four years of pain, I got out of college with no job, a butt load of loans and no chances to find a good job. It took me a while to find one and I went through a lot of pain to get where I am right now. Not everybody can do that.
Anybody with more than two brain cells saw that IT got fucking smashed and that it was harder to get jobs in the field. With that in mind, who wants to take a risk? How many people would like to study one of the hardest fields and then end up without a job and a load of student loans? It is not pretty; take my word for it. For some people it does not make sense to get into a field if they can't earn good money. This is just a rational thought because there are individuals, believe it or not, who want to be financially secure. Why would I pay to go to college if four years down the road I am going to be unemployed?
Of course, there are people who can afford doing what they like regardless of financial benefits. I know a person who pissed through four years of Ivy League education majoring in some useless crap that can't get a her a job that pays more than $25K/year. She can afford loving what she does for living (whenever she has a job) only because her daddy supports her. In theory, she does not even have to work to be well-off. For me, it was not an option. It was either boom or bust. I had to choose a discipline that satisfied three criteria: a stable career and income while being interesting at the same time. If a career did not fit any of those three parameters, I'd pass. Would not you?
I assume that Comp. Sci. can no longer fit people in my situation; hence we have a drop in enrollment.
You're absolutely right. I got five extra points on my physics labs only because they looked cool.
I was quite pleased the Pope passed away; he truly deserved that. Fuck him and other bigots who preach love and happiness unless it does not involve gay people or whoever does not believe in god. Perhaps clergy needs to have a history lesson. Did they miss the part that this is the 21st century? We have things like voting, women's rights and freedom of religion. From where I stand, everybody is equal. Black, white, hispanic, asian -- all of us are in the same shit. By discriminating against each other we only make matters worse. This country/world is screwed in so many ways that I do not know where to start.
We can have violence on TV, but not some skin. You know, naked ladies are dangerous for kids, unlike guns and explosives. Rush L. can blast about kids having oral sex, but Howard Stern gets beeped everytime he says "poo"... What the hell is wrong with us, Americans? We say that families are foundations of societies but at the same time we deny a union if it involves two loving people of the same sex. Apparently, heterosexual marriages are always perfect; even if a woman gets a beating from her husband! We came up to the point where pharmacists can choose not to sell birth control pills to women. WTF? What's next? Mandatory bible readings in school? Why can't we let people live and be happy. Is it that hard to do? Instead of celebrating unity, we always find a way to separate people into "us" and "them". Is religion really worth it? If so, I hope I burn in hell. So far, I noticed that "sinners" are much cooler than god-fearing men. I'd rather spend my time in hell, but in a good company as opposed to a life in heaven (if there is such thing) with a bunch of morons.
The land of the free and the home of the brave looks like the land of the retarded religious slaves...
I am fully aware of several popular programs trying to collect data from people. In order to avoid that, I installed "LittleSnitch" on my Mac box. This is basically a firewall wrapper that tells you whenever a program is trying to make an outgoing connection. Little bastard works well for me.
TurboTax products worked just fine on my Mac and I haven't noticed any outgoing connections so far. Although I compute taxes via software, I always file the myself through good old snail mail.
You missed the point. The system should be easy to enter and exit; however, the exit part should be regulated on the administrative level as well as on personal.
Say your dad who is a professor of geology goes on a trip to Africa for a year. I believe that in this case you should be able to go with your dad and skip a year of school in order to do something else (hopefully beneficial to you). That, and re-entering higher education is good. However, I remember being stuck in class with kids who clearly did not want to do anything productive. Those kids were wasting my time and my teacher's time. Instead of reading something new, I had to listen to a fucking lecture on topics such as "Fighting is Bad" and "Thou shall not play cards during class." WTF? Is this what I want to learn? Fuck no.
Under our system grades were just a part of the equation. Some kids could move on and do their own thing as long as they did not cause any trouble. Some smart asses, like me, were about to be kicked out numerous times due to pranks and other shit that I managed to pull out on a daily basis. I barely avoided being 'let go' and it took a lot of self-discipline to straighten things out. The GPA part was a stretch because I cannot really think of anything else that can work in the county where everybody can get sued. However, we can implement bechmarks which kids must complete before moving on forward.
Beats me. BTW, I do speak 3 languages as well... I never bothered to find out my IQ because I never had a problem. However, I remember having many problems due to stupid kids fucking up everything they could possibly fuck up back in high school. Instead of spending time on teaching, teachers wasted MY time on finding out why somebody decided to skip 10 classes in a row. WTF? If you're a lazy fuck who does not want to study, go do something else. My freedom stops where your begins.
It is obvious that you haven't been to the USSR. Back in the days right before and right after the collapse, the education system was so fucking good, that only top American private and public schools could compare to it. I was not best of the best, but I came out a well-rounded invididual who passed American school whithout any effort only because I knew everything when I got here. The only thing that stopped from going further was the language barrier and only because I was too fucking shy to meet people and make friends (I have been speaking English since the age of 5).
With numerous gangs all across the United States, I highly doubt that this country is behind post-Soviet Russia in term of crimes. Organized crime is everywhere in the world; in Russia it just gets out of hand more often. Please do not forget the history of this country when you talk about mafia and other aspects of illegal world. However, I am willing to bet that a high school graduate who completes eleven grades in Russia, Belarus or the Ukraine is more prepared for college than an average American student. How many of you read War and Peace in the tenth grade? In other words, "Dude, you simply crack me up." You just do not know what current high school students miss.
In college I remember taking a course on geography. My classmate asked me if I could show her the location of Russia on the map (since I spoke the language, she assumed that I'd help her). Enough said.... I believe that a person who can't find the biggest fucking country in the world does not belong in college (or even high school). Do you? If so, enjoy your sub-standard education.
Wow, apparently you cant fucking read. Do me a favor, help yourself to that "Back" button and read what I have said: this was just a simple suggestion and not something that I'd propose as a final draft.
It is impossible to get cheap good stuff. Period. Everything of quality costs money in this world. Take a look at everything from cars to clothing: once quality starts to rise, so does the price. "Cheap" Hondas are no longer cheap (but reliable). I pay a bit more for good service from Speakeasy because I enjoy fast ticket resolution (if problems exists) and talking to Bobs, Marrys and Johns from the United States.
If customers are willing to accpet cheaper goods, they should be willing to accept lower quality. Period. People do not shop at Wal-Mart becuase they have excellent customer service or high quality goods. People shop there because of low prices. Quality vs. price.... The choice is yours.
This problem is very easy to fix. Let's do what was done in the former USSR in order to make sure that only the ones who can go on to get more education when it comes to public schools. I went to one of the best schools in the United States (according to Newsweek) and I was astonished by a number of people who clearly did not belong there. I can only imagine what happens in the rest of the public schools that are ranked lower than mine.
It works like this. Everybody is evaluated in terms of academic performance after then 10th grade. Anybody with a GPA of 3.0 and higher can move on further. People who have GPAs of 2.6-3.0 can move on after a consulation with councelors and only if their GPA is going to improve from there. Students who have a GPA of lower than 2.6 must find education somewhere else (vocational schools, private schools, etc.). Why should we waste our taxmoney on people who are not willing to study to begin with? In my case, 60% of people who attended the 9th grade did not come back to the 10th. That was pretty kick ass, considering the fact that everybody who made it actually wanted to study and move on. Classes were better, people were better and teachers had more room to breathe. Some of them finally started teaching instead of policing the ones who caused problems.
When I came to the United States, I was surprised to find out that this education system was willing to keep everybody regardless of their academic performance and behavior. In order to get expelled you had to some something quite outrageous that even most troublemakers did not attempt to do on a daily basis. This system is basically designed to have as many suckers as possibe. WTF? I believe this is the core of the problem. However, I do not have a Ph.D in Education; therefore, the final word is not mine.
Anyway, after you 'take care' of students who underperform and caused troubles, make sure that people who graduate from high schools meet certain requirements and make Information Studies as a part of the deal. Some bright kids do not have computers at home and it is hard for them to learn about something they do not have. Make sure that there is a class that these folks can take in order to broaden their knowledge. Then add a programming course or two because in the future everybody will need to be able to do something like that. I can't tell you how many biology and geography students I've met who were not prepared to take even simple programming classes in college (part of their requirements in order to do some sort of studies). In Belarus we had a course on simple algorithms where students had to write simple programs using BASIC. Mind you, this was in a country where majority of households do not have computers! We had only one class with 20 computers where kids had to share machines. I am sure that in the States we can come up with a better alternative. Once you make classes smaller by, weeding out the ones who do not want to study anyway, our schools can spend more money per student.
The fact that keyboards and mice harbor bacteria is not new. My freshman year we performed an experiment on bacteria cultivation: common areas/things were swiped and the results of the swipes were grown in petri dishes. As a result, we found out that mice and keyboards had more bacteria that toilet lids. Why? Because toilets were cleaned on a daily basis as opposed to common articles, such as keyboards, pens, pencils, etc. This brings me to a totally different point: why are keyboards are so fucking hard to clean?
I have yet to find a perfect keyboard that costs less than $300 and has two things: good ergonomics for my wrists and is easy to clean on a daily basis. So far, I found only one item that satisfied this, TouchStreamLP. This keyboard is sold out almost everywhere despite its hefty price tag of more than $300. It does not have conventional keys (hence touch), so it is easy to clean it. It also happens to be ergonomic and supports multiple schemes for emacs users :)
Wrong car makers, buddy. Ford and GM outwhored U.S. manufacturing a long time ago. Most of these cars are made here form parts that are made in Mexico or some other third world countries. For all practical purposes, I do not consider them to be American anymore. BMW is way too overpriced and Daimler/Chrysler has its own problems due to decreasing car quality and hefty price tags. A survey by Consumer Reports magazine revealed that Mercedes cars were more prone to problems that fucking Buicks, cars which many Americans consider to be the bottom of the barrel.
Take a look at "Asian" cars that are being produced in the States. Toyota, Nissan, and Honda make good, cheap and reliable vehicles here in the States. Not in China or India. These care are designed, manufactured and sold by Americans for Americans. So far so good.
How do you explain the fact that U.S. has a higher economic growth rate in terms of GDP? It seems that U.S. economy is growing faster than any European economy... EU pulled a whooping 1.2% GDP... Please :)
It is obvious that you know very little about Eastern Europe. Trust me, no sane person would want to live there now; people exist there, not live. Take it from somebody who lived there for a long time. I still have to send money to my relatives in the Ukraine so they can have meat for holiday dinners.
No, I am not. And whoever modded this shit down better put an extra lock on the house door (caz I am going to pay a visit).
On a more serious note. I work hard for my money. If a bank decides to save some loot and offshore the operations, the bank must be resposible for the actions. I realize that all the money is insured by FDIC (up to $100K); however, this is not the matter of government insurance. This is a matter of whoring American jobs out somewhere else in order to pay less money. Why stop at that? Why not make sure that we get a good bang out of the smaller sum of money. If it were up to me, I'd put every "John" who steals money on a death row.
Look, since these people work in a different country under different laws, we can highly improve the security situation with fear and punishment unknown to American workers.
Put security guards and cameras everywhere. I have seen some pictures of offshore call centers and I guess that this step has been done already.
Do not let the fuckers use anything that can be used for writing.
Use furniture made out of glass only!
Search them before they go out of the office.
Shoot everybody who participates in fraud. The person who does not report fraud gets shot too, but only after his family goes through public humiliation and capital punishment.
If an American citizen/legal resident gets ripped off by a call center worker. Grant that person a right to go to wherever the call center is and execute the thief. Bill the bank for ammo, a getaway helicopter, ships, subs, nukes, etc. used for the process of payback. As an alternative, persons involved in the frad can be shipped to the U.S. and execute here!
Treat call center employees like fucking dogs before people realize that working for such centers is a death sentence.
This is rather sketchy, but look on the bright side: people will refuse to work for callcenters, banks who whore out American workers will pay for things one way or another. It will cost $$$ to do work somewhere else and jobs will be back in the U.S. Who cares if some shmuck has to die :)
No offense, but I think you can't read. First of all, I have nothing against special education or people with disabilities. Secondly, I my post is related to genetic disorders that can be recognized on the DNA level. I am not talking about your hair color, eye sight, or ability to see through walls. I stated my opinion based on what my family has gone through. There is a big ass difference between not being able to hear and not being able to think for yourself!
Some genetic disorders are so taxing on the system, that kids who need a little attention in order to become mainstream may not get it because the resources are thrown towards the ones who can barely think. What you end up having is two categories of kids: ones who can succeed and ones who cannot due to genetic limitations in terms of brain power. Please notice that I am not talking about injuries or disorders obtained during pregnancies. I am talking about simple stuff (like seeing extra chromosomes) that can weed up potential bad embryos.
Disclaimer: this post may offend some of you. I have no problems with children who have special needs and I respect their parents. However, I am willing to do anything possible to end up as one of those parents.
My girlfriend and I were talking about genetic selection of babies. She is a religious person and at first she did not approve the idea of selecting a child based on its genes. However, this changed right away after she started working some special ed. kids.
Let's call my girlfriend Ann. Ann is a therapist; she works for public schools in order to help kids with different aspects of education. Some kids need help with handwriting, some kids need assistance due to injuries, some kids need a little push when it comes to physical education. Ann helps them out. However, there is a growing number of kids with genetic disorders who need extreme help and who are in the school system. These are by-products of tobacco and alcohol companies, kids of ex-drug users or just unfortunate parents. Nobody wants them. Nobody wants to deal with them. Because our public schools are designed to accept everyone, these kids end up in an environment that can't really fit their needs. Parents drop them off and let Ann deal with all this shit. The same parents are ready to sue the living shit out of the school system if their kids do not progress. Moreover, not a single public school that I know is able to accomodate kids with special needs due to financial restraints. Would I want my kids to have a chance of living that life? Two words: fuck that.
After working with many special ed kids for years, Ann and I have concluded that we'll screen our potential babies for genetic disorders because we simply do not want to deal with a kid who has Down's Syndrome or something along those lines. If there is a possibility of a genetic disorder, why not eliminate it? I do not want to end up with a kid who acts like Timmy from South Park; the society can live without such a kid just fine as well. The school system where Ann works spends a lot of time on kids who can barely tie their shoes. Some of those kids will lose their skills and degenerate. It is so sad to see those poor souls... I would hate to have a child like that. A child that can't really understand, a child that can't be a part of the mainstream life, a child that will be always a second class citizen. As somebody who had a speech problem as a kid, I know what it feels like when everybody makes fun of you and I saw only the tip of the iceberg! I would hate to see my kid to go through numerous humiliations, classifications, doctors, special ed instructors and then endup earning minimum wage at some sweatshop or Burger King.
The bottom line is that this is up to you. I choose life, but life that is capable of living and not suffering. After what I have seen and heard from the people who do with special kids for living, I made up my mind.
First of all, IMAX made a bad business move: there is no such thing as bad publicity in business. Instead of being different, the company fell into the same hole as other businesses, like Wal-Mart, that try to generalize themselves and appeal to almost everybody from rich hippies to poor vegitarians. I remember reading an article published by a seasoned angel investor and he mentioned that fear of not being accepted by a group of customers (people) is one of the worst feeling to have when you run a business. You need to define a product and sell it to a group of people who are interested in this product. Do not make your goods nice and fuzzy show they appeal to everybody. Make goods that your target customers crave and you will succeed. For example, when making a hunting rifle, make sure that the hunting rifle appeals to hunters and their needs. Do not try to make it look good in the eyes of animal lovers. IMAX should do the same thing: churches are for god-fearing people, scientific movies are for geeks. Cater to geeks and other interested individuals (as always) and forget about the haters. Look at what happened to "Desperate Housewives." Despite an outcry for the religious right, the show's still on and getting more viewers (who'd want to miss watching several milfs getting it on?).
The second issue is a much broader issue for it deals with everyday life in the United States: political corectness. There is so much of this shit that it makes me wanna puke everytime when I hear how miserable Americans have become. We generalize ourselves so much that at the end we'll have only one belief, one color and one taste. You can't raise a radical idea anymore. Whoever does something controversial is going to get it from freaks who call themselves "fundamentalists." We are so fucking caught up in doing what is morally right that we almost forget that human beings are imperfect. Nobody wants to live freely anymore. All we want to do is to make up stupid rules and have everbody obey them. Our kids can't learn anything interesting in school because people object anything that falls outside the "normal" margins. Chemistry teachers can't make a simple explosive just for the sake of an experiment, biology teachers have to be careful when teaching evolution and I will not be surprised that soon physics teachers will get jammed for teaching basics of quantinum mechanics and how gravity can bend light. Our judges tell women how to deal with abortions, two loving people of the same gender can't form a family and weed is still illegal despite the fact that it is okay to drink 5 cups of coffee per day. I can only imagine what being a gay pot-smoking scientist feels like.... Anti-American?
Enjoy~