PFFFFFT! $132M... $17M... $60M... Bah! Nickels and dimes! Come see me and bitch when your school system's people soft implementation has cost you $800M+.
[wikipedia]The California State University system adopted PeopleSoft in the early 2000s. The university spent $500 million on this system in a process so deficient that it resulted in an investigation and a rebuke by the state legislature. The Report of the California State Auditor criticised the University, amongst other things, for not having a business case for the implementation. When asked why it never conducted a formal return-on investment analysis on the CMS project, the university explained that the magnitude of potential savings estimated by its consultants, IBM and Pacific Partners Consulting Group (Pacific Partners), led them to believe that such a formal analysis was unnecessary.
And yes we bitch that the state doesn't fund our university well enough. That we should be given more funding. When, in fact, we are given enough money. Our administrators, chancellors and trustees just choose to waste it in the most inefficient ways possible.
And don't get me started on the lack of business case. That's just S.O.P.
I have often wondered about something like this. When I was young I had no food, stomach or digestive problems or symptoms at all. I had my appendix out at age 14. Then in my mid twenties I developed all sorts of digestive problems. I'm Lactose intolerant though nobody else in my family is at all (all of english/scottish/german descent). Many foods cause a good deal of stomach tension and discomfort. Yeah go ahead, chalk it up to stress. I've got a job that promises a fantastic pension, I get four months a year off, I dictate my own hours, I'm essentially my own boss and in another eight months, most likely, I cannot be fired, ever (tenure). On top of all of that I have absolutely no debt of any kind and I can save almost half my pay check. Throw in a young blond girlfriend who's cool with letting me do my own thing. Life is good. Yet the stomach is not. So I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that what these researchers are proposing is true and that the removal of my appendix is somehow hampering my gut from obtaining a good state.
Basically, I'm inclined to listen to what these researchers have to say. I'm a doctor but of the PhD variety. When I'm formally introduced people naturally go "What kind?" and when I say "I specialize in robotics" they're reaction is usually "Oh... not a real doctor." But philosophers were getting answers right and following sound scientific principles and methods for thousands of years while the "real" doctors were using leaches and releases humours. (though I admit the greeks are also to blame for that.)
My point of that is not that M.D.s are bad, or stupid. It's just that medical science is still in its infancy. Ignorant reasoning and religious oppression stunted its growth while mathematics, physics, chemistry etc. grew or thrived. While the physical sciences enjoyed research and growth from about 400 to 2000 years ago (depending on how much you count growth during the dark ages) the medical professional has really only been getting it right for about 100 years and the majority of that understanding has come about in the last forty years. But we still have very little understanding of the brain, the pancrease, tissue differentiation, muscular diseases, etc.
Now that M.D.s are on the right I'm keen to see how fast we progress and all of the wonderful discoveries that we will see on our lifetime.
Back in 1988 or so, He stopped into the pizza restaurant I worked at. I made his lunch. Does that make me a skeptic now?
I'm skeptical that it does... so I must be a skeptic. But something must have made me skeptical and he's pretty influential, so it's probably his doing. Yet... I'm still skeptical about this cause and effect.
I feel extinction is too harsh a word. We generally use it when we imply that the absence of the item in question is a bad thing. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the entire human race speaking one, single language. Even if it isn't the one I learned as a child.
I'm stuck at an institution that prioritizes "diversity" over almost everything else, including educational outcomes. But a language is not who somebody is. A single language does not imply discrimination of a person any more than selecting only strong athletes for a professional team is. Discrimination is about penalizing somebody for who they are; for attributes they have no control over. But language is something we can choose. I can choose to learn a specific language or I can choose to ignore it and I should have to live with the consequences of my choice.
I'm glad to see languages dying off at a high rate. It's not "extinction", which I think implies destruction of living organisms. It's a move towards are more unified world where there is greater understanding between everybody. There is nothing special about any language that indicate that resources should be spent to "save" it. Yes, some people will feel nostalgic about their mother-tongue... get over it.
Yes, it's ethical. The company didn't chain you to a desk, hold a gun to your head or kidnap your family. Go home. You have tacitly agreed to donate your extra time to them.
You don't have an ethics problem. You have a disappointment problem with your current arrangement. An arrangement that you created.
Yes. It is wildly common here in the US. And there is nothing illegal, immoral or unethical about it.
First you buy the product. Then you fill out a form with your address and other info (usually provided by the store or obtained on-line). Then you clip the UPC code off the box and send it and a copy of your receipt to prove you made the purchase back to the manufacturer with the form. After about three to six months your check arrives.
I can't see anything immoral or unethical about this type of business deal. But I don't like them. Like many other posters I would rather see a lack of hoops to jump through. Manufacturers need to make a profit to stay in business. If a manufacturer sells a $100 product with a $20 rebate and they still make a profit then the following is true: They might lose a little profit on the $80.00 sales when people turn in the rebates but the larger profit from people who fail to follow-up covers these losses. And the company is admitting that more people will buy the product at a lower cost. That means that the "sweet spot" for the product is less than $100.00. I.e. If the company would drop their price to $95.00 more people would buy the product and the company would make more profit due to higher volume and the consumer wouldn't have to be hassled.
Same thing with coupons. All I can think of is... Why don't you just forget all this hassle and simply reduce the cost of the item by the amount that is saved by not having to deal with advertising trickery, actuarial costs and the labor wasted processing these stupid coupons??
Yes. Why don't you think about it... 40% of all traffic fatalities are alcohol related. For teens dying while out on their prom night this raises to over 55%. People don't just get hurt they get killed. The number of senior citizen/teen related crashes are just not that high by themselves. Alcohol and driving is just a big no-no and you should know it.
I am appalled that this post ranked +4interesting when it implies that Drinking and Driving should be legal when every fact and statistic in existence supports otherwise! Buying guns are legal, People are legal why not combine the two and makie using guns on people legal? Your argument for legalizing a combination of components on the basis of their individual legality is ludicrous and ignorant. To answer your question, they made it illegal because allowing it causes great public harm and risk. (By the way, in 1982, before everybody cracked down on DUI/DWI, alcohol was related to 60% of traffic fatalities.)
Prohibition and your fear have nothing to do with each other. Prohibition meant that nobody could sell, manufacture or consume alcohol. Nobody is proposing that so your argument of comparison to something bad is baseless. A further fallacy in this post is the shifting of blame to separate problems such as fixing reaction speeds, intelligence tests, decision abilities, etc. Sure these all factor into accidents and fatalities. But there just isn't the same level of statistical proof that spending resources on these problems will improve the public good. Also they don't generally constitute negligent behavior. That is, a person is typically doing his best to react swiftly, think quickly and drive professionally. Are you going to make stupidity illegal? Based on whose relative measure?
Repeat after me: In every state driving is privilege, not a right. A privilege afforded to you by the state so long as you show that you are a trustworthy person acting in a responsible manner. Drinking and driving is not responsible, you shouldn't be allowed to drive... ever. Committing a criminal act while doing so should land your ass in jail for a long time. It has proven to be so probable of causing a criminal act (manslaughter is criminal) that the mere act of being drunk/influenced while driving should be (and was) made illegal.
I'll go you one step further: People who drink and get into accidents should be prosecuted for attempted murder, Such people involved in a fatality should be prosecuted for murder. Look, we all know it is bad. We all know it causes accidents and deaths. Therefore, choosing to do it can be argued as intentional murder.
In the time it took me to write this reply, somebody in the United States died because an idiot like you didn't think drinking and driving should be illegal and wanted to place the blame on senior citizens, teens and less significant problems. Almost two people actually.
I just bought my first Mac. A Santa Rosa macbook pro. And I use it almost exclusively now.
Here's what I don't like.
The OS/X user interface is crap.
The application menu constrained to the top of the screen hides information present in other
applications and forces the user to either learn all the shortcut keys or suffer rediculous
amounts of additional mouse travel.
A single mouse button was NEVER a good idea. It's a terrible idea actually. It was terrible
when the macintosh was launched and never got better. If you're too stupid to figure out the
different functions of two to five mouse buttons then you shouldn't be allowed to have a computer
and you should stick with pencil and paper. I've got ten fingers and I can move them
independently. Why should I have to be limited to operating a computer like I have mittens on
one hand? At least the mighty mouse fixes a lot of this. But Apple certainly could have put
two buttons under the mouse bar, one under each end. Just program OS/X to do the same thing
should either button be pressed to make the mac zealots happy and then for other operating
system bred people you could send the normal left/right/middle events.
Finder is a joke. Why does Apple hype this "application" up so much?? It's a frickin'
directory browser people!
Glitz wise they just aren't keeping up. Compviz/Beryl for instance is way better than
the eye-candy offered by either OS/X or Vista these days.
Hot!! Oh my god! don't set it on your lap if you have shorts. And this is the newer model
without the battery problems.
Ok, so why do I LIKE it (a lot)?
Design: The design is sleek and simple. It's the fastest laptop I've ever owned and yet
it is also the thinnest. It's no thicker than my fujitsu P7010 is but it's about five times
faster. (Though its footprint is much bigger too.)
backlit keyboard keys
Ambient light sensitive backlight (both lcd and keyboard)
USB AND Firewire ports!
Neodynium Magnetic power jack. (Yes, I've tripped over, and destroyed, power cables
before. This solution is just tits!)
Great sound, even from the speakers
Solid feel. Nothing seems to bend where it shouldn't. Hinges operate crisply and smoothly.
Absence of any stickers plastered all over it to provide useless FCC crap.
Incredibly bright LED backlit screen.
Built in 802.11N AND Bluetooth
2.4 Core 2 duo processors. That's as fast as any of my workstations save one. This makes it a workstation replacement by far. A better docking interface (such as power on the same side as DVI/USB) would have been a good idea.)
Intel based. I hate windows but my CAD program is only available for Windows. Windows needs an x86 CPU. Yes, you could use fusion or parallels to run windows, I know. Have you ever actually tried to work on a multi-dozen part 3D CAD assembly and compared your productivity of a native OS versus a virtual machine? Big difference! So I get to run windows natively and work remotely and do it fast..
Fast Nvidia GPU. I'm not an ATI fan but either way, great graphics
There's nothing not to like about this hardware.
Pair that up with the fact that their design team is solid and is producing exceptional quality designs such as the iPod line and the iPhone. (I don't own one and won't based on cost and that I have a good PDA phone but my colleague has one and I've tried it out and it's a good design.)
Apple made three pivotal moves:
The move to adopt OPENSTEP/FreeBSD/Unix as the foundation for their operating system. It made their OS flexible, scalable and more open to community involvement. This saved them. (It is also what is going to allow them to significantly penetrate the server and high-performance computing markets over then next five years.)
The iPod. A product that outclassed the competition by a mile. This made them profitable and restored people's trust in apple producing a relia
Wishful thinking. Yep, I agree with you, it is the directors and administrators who are responsible for measuring cost and benefit and making plans to minimize the former and maximize the latter.
Unfortunately, the way they do this is to "delegate" and they make the implementation people do it for them. This is standard operating procedure in many places I've seen and it is one of my top ten list items that when you notice it occurring it is time to switch jobs. Basically, if your boss isn't making your life easier, get another boss. If you are competent and took your education, training and experience seriously that will not be a problem for you.
My father owned a couple of taxi cabs for a while. The way it works is that somebody owns the cab. The cab is leased to a dispatch company. The dispatch company staffs the cab with a driver. The driver performs the duties assigned and reports fees collected and distances back to the dispatch. The dispatch pays the driver and retains a portion of the money for themselves. The remainder is paid to the actual owner of the vehicle who is also responsible for paying for vehicle repairs which are performed and coordinated by the dispatch company.
And here is where human nature steps in and makes your 15 minute airport cab fare a whopping $60.00 when it should be $10.00... Both the dispatch and the driver strongly tend to be unethical people. (Do not bother replying with "all people are good" propaganda, I have enough experience to know otherwise. "Well, my dad is an honest driver/dispatcher" is also a waste of time as, yes, I'm generalizing. It's a perfectly valid way of dealing effectively with real problems; get over it.)
The driver picks up fares which it does not report. The driver also misrepresents how much was collected from the clients so that they keep the unaccounted funds. This of course reduces the dispatch's profit. The dispatch in turn does two things: It attempts to pay the driver less; increasing the likelihood of the driver exhibiting immoral behavior. The dispatch also underhandedly reports vehicle malfunctions that are either not entirely necessary or possibly don't exist in order to get a bigger slice of the pie by getting the owner to pay them a bigger chunk of the pie by either performing unnecessary work or no work at all with phantom papers.
So f*cking boo-hoo to anybody that claims "My employer shouldn't know where I am and what I'm doing on their time." Part of agreeing to be employed is to be responsible to the company and you have an obligation to prove you are performing those responsibilities professionally.
I have no sympathy for the drivers who claim invasion of privacy. The only reason they care is that it inhibits their ability to engage in criminal behavior. I would similarly argue that the dispatchers should have a "GPS" system attached to their shenanigans as well so that they fulfill their obligations to their employers and clients. The owners should be "GPSed" too in order to make sure they are providing a safe reliable vehicle for the customers.
Basically everybody should be held accountable for their responsibilities and these drivers' complaints are about nothing other than being able to continue avoiding such accountability.
And if you still think I'm wrong, think about your last taxi ride on a trip. Did you fall safely asleep in the cab or think "I love cabs; I'd pay double for this fantastic service and I wish this driver handled personal finance planning too." Or, like all of us did you keep an eye on the meter and occasionally think "Is this really the shortest route. I thought the hotel was much closer?" While, yes, there is a huge fallacy in this argument it none the less describes a valid doubt that is the result of rampant corruption in such a system.
When are people going to wise up and realize that most consultants are overpriced, incompetent and do not hold the same interests or priorities as those who hire them? Now, I'll admit bias. I'm one of the peons of a very large institution who has recently ramped up its IT consultant usage and is paying through the nose for it. We have also caused it to be the case, through a variety of causes and reactions, that any technically competent employees we use to have no longer work for us. I expect the same sort of attention to detail and security from our consultants as Ohio received.
There is no escaping the fact that a consultant's priority is to make a profit for the stakeholders of the consulting company. If you are a state or large institution then your resources, need or scope outstrip the benefit of utilizing a consultant. You should be doing the job yourself instead of presenting yourself as a wallet for a consultant to dip into. It becomes an unfair trade and one in which the consultant has negligible risk (notice that Ohio/intern IS vilified in the paper and the consultant is NOT).
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Please avoid putting words in people's mouths. I never said governments are "evil". I implied that they are inefficient and wasteful; that is far different from evil. Nor did I say government is always evil. Though I can see how falsely promoting that I said that would help to bolster your weak argument in defense of social government programs. There was also no cause to cuss at me.
I'll also point out that during the 1990s the Swiss economy was Western Europe's weakest. 0% annual growth. circa 2000 saw an improvement but that has also stagnated. Switzerland's budget runs rather large annual deficits (though this is acceptable in light of their large GDP). However, in recent years there has been a decline in GDP as well as a 42% increase in unemployment in addition to unprecedented labor disputes. Your social postal system costs US$0.83 (excluding government subsidies) to send domestic mail over an area of 42K square kilometers (an area equivalent to just the state of Tenessee) while the private US postal system costs US$0.41 (less than half of the Swiss rate) to deliver domestically to an area of 9.6M square kilometers (233 times the size of Switzerland).
No, sorry, my analysis stands. governments are inefficient and wasteful. A truly free market without regulations would provide you with even better healthcare, transport, etc. and would do so at lower cost. I like Switzerland too, beautiful place and nice people, and while I applaud your patriotism I assert that you may have allowed it to cloud your judgment.
I've mentioned before that there are good reasons to push the development of the orbital elevator for Earth.
This is a perfect example of a human endeavor that certainly benefits from it. Not only is landing on mars a problem but getting back is even harder. at 5km/s escape velocity you are going to need a large amount of fuel if you are going to leave by rocket. You're going to have to have a vehicle of substantial size to carry and survive that much expendable fuel and resources.
On earth much of the difficulty is in raising an elevator the first time. But in Martian orbit none of that is a problem. You just tow an orbital elevator into position. There's nothing about the technology that says you can only go up an elevator. So you can slowly descend men and supplies as necessary. And you can go right back up the way you came without the need for expendables.
You also have lots of advantages on Mars working for the elevator. Lack of Lightning and threats to the elevator's structure. Smaller geosynchronous distance (50% that of Earth) so the tensile strength requirements are a bit less and the atmosphere is thinner which allows for more efficient broadcast of power via optical transmission to power the ascent vehicle.
Re:This is also the Pirate Party's stance
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Who determines the "priorities" of the ailments?
What if the 57th priority is actually quite easily solved and maximally profitable?
How do we ensure integrity of the data used by the government to decide upon the priorities?
How does the government guarantee unbiased expertise in the panel deciding the priorities
No, government intervention is, again, the wrong thing to do. It is almost never the right thing to do. let a free market decide the priorities and how it gets solved. The government should only provide protection to make sure the ingenious company that identifies the proper combination of molecules to any disease makes the initial profit and doesn't have to fear having its idea ripped off by somebody not willing to take the risk to invest the research costs.
Yep, somebody suffering from government disease #3 that gets ignored by the free market might die. But so does person suffering from free market #57 who doesn't make the government's top 20 list. You might as well choose the efficient free market system.
Governments have proven time and time again that that they are horrible at providing services or products.
Which, by the way, is in line with the length of the lifetime granted to patents, an alternate form of intellectually property.
I have been saying for years that intellectual properties are similar enough that they should be treated equally. The lifetime of patents and copyrights should be equal. The extendability and transferability should also enjoy the same rules.
I am sick to death of seeing the technical works of scientists and engineers forced into the public domain only a decade after their invention while "artists" enjoy protection long after they're dead. The lifetime of a patent is often not sufficient to secure a profit for the inventor since often the invention is created long before its time. By the time other technologies have caught up to it so that it can be used effectively of cost-efficiently or before somebody has found the best purpose for the invention the patent has expired. Therefore the profit for the inventor is lost.
The only rationale I can see for the current system is that the technological properties are required for survival, or at least highly useful at improving quality of life, while the artistic properties typically improve the enjoyment of life. As a result the public mass demands, by vote, immediate access to the required intellectual properties and is less inclined to demand such access of the artistic items since they can live without them. That, or the artists/distributors are in the sweet spot where they make enough money to successfully fight for better protections while not presenting a product that the public unanimously demands and cannot survive with out, which would overwhelm any amount of money spent trying to legislate protection for it.
It's stupid the way science and its achievements are back-burnered and taken of advantage of in favor of artists, sports and celebrities.
I get very nervous about legislation justified on the basis of prevent X because X causes Y since I have yet to see strong evidence that demonstrates that the human mind behaves according to this rule. (such as X=content, Y=disturbed behavior in this case)
For instance I think it just as likely that indulging in X could release the pressure to truly perform Y. The classic example being games like GTA or violent first person shooters. I and others have played them frequently in the past and they have never triggered real violent behavior and it makes me feel more at ease afterwards.
Space aliens crossed vast interstellar space in a craft identical in shape to the one that the fictional Mork arrived in, or
I'm a fun guy like everybody else, with a thankless government job, like almost everybody else, that requires me to always be serious and tell people the truth that Area 51 never had aliens and on my death bed I decide to liven things up with a joke and recant, with no possible personal consequences, just to get people's goat.
Given the lack of credible evidence of aliens or viable flying egg shaped craft other than bathyspheres, compared to the overwhelming mountain of evidence of human proclivity for pranking, I'd say this is an easy one to figure out.
That argument makes no sense. I cannot fathom how that got +5 insightful.
Written history is perhaps 5000 years old. Geological recorded history is millions to billions of years old. There is nothing credible in either of these historical records to suggest that your missing 45,000 year gap, or any time before it, included any homo sapien (nor any other species') abilities, achievement or potential to produce a being capable of leaving this planet let alone survive or create a civilization to come back from and "visit the old farm."
The only credible evidence to suggest that some being may leave this planet in the reasonable future is a few successful test trips to its nearest moon. That history is only 40 years old. And even, then the last 30 of those 40 years indicates very little continued progress.
Further, An undetectable, advanced alternate terrestrial civilization is just as implausible as an undetectable flying spaghetti monster. So yes, I would look for space aliens before the undetectable civilization. And I don't think any advanced alien race has ever crossed stellar distances and visited this planet.
The observations presented are not insightful; at best they are +1 thoughtless fantasy.
This is not going to work. Have you ever stood under a tall tree and wondered... "Hmm, why aren't there many leaves on the inside?" or "Why do golf balls have a good chance of going through a tree or hit only one or two branches?"
Sunlight is required for plant growth and they are nearly 100% efficient in its use. But you have to be in direct sunlight for it to work. So trees have evolved to produce a "Canopy". That is, all the leaves are on the outside. Almost every leaf in a tree has access to direct sunlight. and thus the tree works well. The tree wastes as little energy as possible on the interior "volume" as is required to produce a stable and large surface area on the canopy. Thus no leaves on the inside and as few branches as possible.
This vertical farm concept won't work. why? The volume of the building may be impressive, like the voluminous office space provided in the Manhattan skyscapers that will surround it. The problem is two fold: 1) only the surface area of the vertical farm will be able to receive direct sunlight; vastly diminishing the productivity of the farm (N^2 vs N^3). 2) Only the top will probably receive any light since the surrounding skyscapers will eclipse the sides of the vertical farm. Further diminishing the productivity to the footprint of the building. And in Manhattan you're not going to be able to afford anything but the tiniest of footprints.
But wait theres more. The environmental "savings" spoken of won't materialize due to the inefficiency of the vertical farm. California has a huge agricultural business because it receives tons of sunlight. WAAAAY more than New York can dream of (I grew up in Buffalo). So California can grow crops year round and efficiently; New York can't produce squat in the winter and very little during fall and spring. Oh? You say: "but the crops will grow indoors, sheltered during the winter." Won't matter, the length of the day (and thus sunlight) in New York is significantly shorter than in California, and all other agricultural areas closer to the equator, where they currently ship their food from. During the whole year in fact, this building will be less efficient than the places they currently ship their food from. That loss in efficiency will waste any "savings" they are touting.
Sorry, farming is a matter of surface area and sunlight. New York city has neither to spare. Unless you convert Central Park; and nobody's gonna due that just to grow food they can import inexpensively from other locations.
I have recently read a report that the energy output of the sun has risen recently and is the highest it has ever been. The source of that report is at least as credible to me as any that have put forth arguments for global warming. I have also ferreted out as many facts, numbers and theories denying global warming as I have seen thrust upon me by the media as are in favor of. Should I now just ignore the possibility that any delta in Earth's temperature is quite possibly the Sun's faults and not mankind's (If such a delta exists)? Yes, I guess that would be convenient for you. Maybe all the evidence *that you are aware of* points to a single conclusion. I on the other hand, like the original poster implies, would like to keep an open-mind about it and resist exactly the sort of political dominance of a unproven theory that you have succumb to.
This is certainly not a scientifically proven theory yet. The results are varied, the cause is not yet known, it cannot be repeated in the lab and predictive models do not appear accurate enough to base decisions about action on. But it sounds great: "Feed the babies", "Save the whales", "Protect the planet" that it has become the mantra of many politicians and political organizations because it is so easy to apply it like a club. What you don't want to feed babies? you MUST be evil and therefore I'm good and right. And their followers grow because nobody wants to be singled out.
What I hate the most about it is the extremism that cultures are taking on this. They are acting and spending vast resources without any proof that it will achieve the desired results. We've got a whole bag of known problems that could achieve a greater benefit at a far cheaper cost. But they're actual science or work so they're boring. Cure diabetes... (we're actually quite close, but because we have an effective treatment nobody listens or cares and so my friend gets to wear a mechanical insuline pump for the rest of his life). Why not address the civil rights atrocities occurring in many places? How about just literacy... 14% of US Americans aren't literate. Think about that, that's 1 out of every 7 people. Alzheimer's disease? Corporate corruption? How about fixing the medicare or social security system?
See all of that is hard, and boring. Impossible to rally people together to support you. But politicians can use "Global Warming" like an idiot beacon so that you'll ignore the other failures and actually believe that good things are being accomplished; when in fact we're just wasting resources.
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I'm puzzled as to what is so "extreme" about 40C? My cat's temperature runs just slightly less than that and it purrs along quite nicely (literally).
PFFFFFT! $132M... $17M... $60M... Bah! Nickels and dimes! Come see me and bitch when your school system's people soft implementation has cost you $800M+.
And yes we bitch that the state doesn't fund our university well enough. That we should be given more funding. When, in fact, we are given enough money. Our administrators, chancellors and trustees just choose to waste it in the most inefficient ways possible.
And don't get me started on the lack of business case. That's just S.O.P.
I have often wondered about something like this. When I was young I had no food, stomach or digestive problems or symptoms at all. I had my appendix out at age 14. Then in my mid twenties I developed all sorts of digestive problems. I'm Lactose intolerant though nobody else in my family is at all (all of english/scottish/german descent). Many foods cause a good deal of stomach tension and discomfort. Yeah go ahead, chalk it up to stress. I've got a job that promises a fantastic pension, I get four months a year off, I dictate my own hours, I'm essentially my own boss and in another eight months, most likely, I cannot be fired, ever (tenure). On top of all of that I have absolutely no debt of any kind and I can save almost half my pay check. Throw in a young blond girlfriend who's cool with letting me do my own thing. Life is good. Yet the stomach is not. So I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that what these researchers are proposing is true and that the removal of my appendix is somehow hampering my gut from obtaining a good state.
Basically, I'm inclined to listen to what these researchers have to say. I'm a doctor but of the PhD variety. When I'm formally introduced people naturally go "What kind?" and when I say "I specialize in robotics" they're reaction is usually "Oh... not a real doctor." But philosophers were getting answers right and following sound scientific principles and methods for thousands of years while the "real" doctors were using leaches and releases humours. (though I admit the greeks are also to blame for that.)
My point of that is not that M.D.s are bad, or stupid. It's just that medical science is still in its infancy. Ignorant reasoning and religious oppression stunted its growth while mathematics, physics, chemistry etc. grew or thrived. While the physical sciences enjoyed research and growth from about 400 to 2000 years ago (depending on how much you count growth during the dark ages) the medical professional has really only been getting it right for about 100 years and the majority of that understanding has come about in the last forty years. But we still have very little understanding of the brain, the pancrease, tissue differentiation, muscular diseases, etc.
Now that M.D.s are on the right I'm keen to see how fast we progress and all of the wonderful discoveries that we will see on our lifetime.
Back in 1988 or so, He stopped into the pizza restaurant I worked at. I made his lunch. Does that make me a skeptic now?
I'm skeptical that it does... so I must be a skeptic. But something must have made me skeptical and he's pretty influential, so it's probably his doing. Yet... I'm still skeptical about this cause and effect.
Besides I forgot what he ordered.
I feel extinction is too harsh a word. We generally use it when we imply that the absence of the item in question is a bad thing. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the entire human race speaking one, single language. Even if it isn't the one I learned as a child.
I'm stuck at an institution that prioritizes "diversity" over almost everything else, including educational outcomes. But a language is not who somebody is. A single language does not imply discrimination of a person any more than selecting only strong athletes for a professional team is. Discrimination is about penalizing somebody for who they are; for attributes they have no control over. But language is something we can choose. I can choose to learn a specific language or I can choose to ignore it and I should have to live with the consequences of my choice.
I'm glad to see languages dying off at a high rate. It's not "extinction", which I think implies destruction of living organisms. It's a move towards are more unified world where there is greater understanding between everybody. There is nothing special about any language that indicate that resources should be spent to "save" it. Yes, some people will feel nostalgic about their mother-tongue... get over it.
I would very much like to see the statistics for the non-techies.
We're counting brain-dead as "asleep", right?
Yes, it's ethical. The company didn't chain you to a desk, hold a gun to your head or kidnap your family. Go home. You have tacitly agreed to donate your extra time to them.
You don't have an ethics problem. You have a disappointment problem with your current arrangement. An arrangement that you created.
Do not bet against Ethernet.
Yes. It is wildly common here in the US. And there is nothing illegal, immoral or unethical about it.
First you buy the product. Then you fill out a form with your address and other info (usually provided by the store or obtained on-line). Then you clip the UPC code off the box and send it and a copy of your receipt to prove you made the purchase back to the manufacturer with the form. After about three to six months your check arrives.
I can't see anything immoral or unethical about this type of business deal. But I don't like them. Like many other posters I would rather see a lack of hoops to jump through. Manufacturers need to make a profit to stay in business. If a manufacturer sells a $100 product with a $20 rebate and they still make a profit then the following is true: They might lose a little profit on the $80.00 sales when people turn in the rebates but the larger profit from people who fail to follow-up covers these losses. And the company is admitting that more people will buy the product at a lower cost. That means that the "sweet spot" for the product is less than $100.00. I.e. If the company would drop their price to $95.00 more people would buy the product and the company would make more profit due to higher volume and the consumer wouldn't have to be hassled.
Same thing with coupons. All I can think of is... Why don't you just forget all this hassle and simply reduce the cost of the item by the amount that is saved by not having to deal with advertising trickery, actuarial costs and the labor wasted processing these stupid coupons??
Yes. Why don't you think about it... 40% of all traffic fatalities are alcohol related. For teens dying while out on their prom night this raises to over 55%. People don't just get hurt they get killed. The number of senior citizen/teen related crashes are just not that high by themselves. Alcohol and driving is just a big no-no and you should know it.
I am appalled that this post ranked +4interesting when it implies that Drinking and Driving should be legal when every fact and statistic in existence supports otherwise! Buying guns are legal, People are legal why not combine the two and makie using guns on people legal? Your argument for legalizing a combination of components on the basis of their individual legality is ludicrous and ignorant. To answer your question, they made it illegal because allowing it causes great public harm and risk. (By the way, in 1982, before everybody cracked down on DUI/DWI, alcohol was related to 60% of traffic fatalities.)
Prohibition and your fear have nothing to do with each other. Prohibition meant that nobody could sell, manufacture or consume alcohol. Nobody is proposing that so your argument of comparison to something bad is baseless. A further fallacy in this post is the shifting of blame to separate problems such as fixing reaction speeds, intelligence tests, decision abilities, etc. Sure these all factor into accidents and fatalities. But there just isn't the same level of statistical proof that spending resources on these problems will improve the public good. Also they don't generally constitute negligent behavior. That is, a person is typically doing his best to react swiftly, think quickly and drive professionally. Are you going to make stupidity illegal? Based on whose relative measure?
Repeat after me: In every state driving is privilege, not a right. A privilege afforded to you by the state so long as you show that you are a trustworthy person acting in a responsible manner. Drinking and driving is not responsible, you shouldn't be allowed to drive... ever. Committing a criminal act while doing so should land your ass in jail for a long time. It has proven to be so probable of causing a criminal act (manslaughter is criminal) that the mere act of being drunk/influenced while driving should be (and was) made illegal.
I'll go you one step further: People who drink and get into accidents should be prosecuted for attempted murder, Such people involved in a fatality should be prosecuted for murder. Look, we all know it is bad. We all know it causes accidents and deaths. Therefore, choosing to do it can be argued as intentional murder.
In the time it took me to write this reply, somebody in the United States died because an idiot like you didn't think drinking and driving should be illegal and wanted to place the blame on senior citizens, teens and less significant problems. Almost two people actually.
I just bought my first Mac. A Santa Rosa macbook pro. And I use it almost exclusively now.
Here's what I don't like.
Ok, so why do I LIKE it (a lot)?
There's nothing not to like about this hardware.
Pair that up with the fact that their design team is solid and is producing exceptional quality designs such as the iPod line and the iPhone. (I don't own one and won't based on cost and that I have a good PDA phone but my colleague has one and I've tried it out and it's a good design.)
Apple made three pivotal moves:
Wishful thinking. Yep, I agree with you, it is the directors and administrators who are responsible for measuring cost and benefit and making plans to minimize the former and maximize the latter.
Unfortunately, the way they do this is to "delegate" and they make the implementation people do it for them. This is standard operating procedure in many places I've seen and it is one of my top ten list items that when you notice it occurring it is time to switch jobs. Basically, if your boss isn't making your life easier, get another boss. If you are competent and took your education, training and experience seriously that will not be a problem for you.
My father owned a couple of taxi cabs for a while. The way it works is that somebody owns the cab. The cab is leased to a dispatch company. The dispatch company staffs the cab with a driver. The driver performs the duties assigned and reports fees collected and distances back to the dispatch. The dispatch pays the driver and retains a portion of the money for themselves. The remainder is paid to the actual owner of the vehicle who is also responsible for paying for vehicle repairs which are performed and coordinated by the dispatch company.
And here is where human nature steps in and makes your 15 minute airport cab fare a whopping $60.00 when it should be $10.00... Both the dispatch and the driver strongly tend to be unethical people. (Do not bother replying with "all people are good" propaganda, I have enough experience to know otherwise. "Well, my dad is an honest driver/dispatcher" is also a waste of time as, yes, I'm generalizing. It's a perfectly valid way of dealing effectively with real problems; get over it.)
The driver picks up fares which it does not report. The driver also misrepresents how much was collected from the clients so that they keep the unaccounted funds. This of course reduces the dispatch's profit. The dispatch in turn does two things: It attempts to pay the driver less; increasing the likelihood of the driver exhibiting immoral behavior. The dispatch also underhandedly reports vehicle malfunctions that are either not entirely necessary or possibly don't exist in order to get a bigger slice of the pie by getting the owner to pay them a bigger chunk of the pie by either performing unnecessary work or no work at all with phantom papers.
So f*cking boo-hoo to anybody that claims "My employer shouldn't know where I am and what I'm doing on their time." Part of agreeing to be employed is to be responsible to the company and you have an obligation to prove you are performing those responsibilities professionally.
I have no sympathy for the drivers who claim invasion of privacy. The only reason they care is that it inhibits their ability to engage in criminal behavior. I would similarly argue that the dispatchers should have a "GPS" system attached to their shenanigans as well so that they fulfill their obligations to their employers and clients. The owners should be "GPSed" too in order to make sure they are providing a safe reliable vehicle for the customers.
Basically everybody should be held accountable for their responsibilities and these drivers' complaints are about nothing other than being able to continue avoiding such accountability.
And if you still think I'm wrong, think about your last taxi ride on a trip. Did you fall safely asleep in the cab or think "I love cabs; I'd pay double for this fantastic service and I wish this driver handled personal finance planning too." Or, like all of us did you keep an eye on the meter and occasionally think "Is this really the shortest route. I thought the hotel was much closer?" While, yes, there is a huge fallacy in this argument it none the less describes a valid doubt that is the result of rampant corruption in such a system.
When are people going to wise up and realize that most consultants are overpriced, incompetent and do not hold the same interests or priorities as those who hire them? Now, I'll admit bias. I'm one of the peons of a very large institution who has recently ramped up its IT consultant usage and is paying through the nose for it. We have also caused it to be the case, through a variety of causes and reactions, that any technically competent employees we use to have no longer work for us. I expect the same sort of attention to detail and security from our consultants as Ohio received.
There is no escaping the fact that a consultant's priority is to make a profit for the stakeholders of the consulting company. If you are a state or large institution then your resources, need or scope outstrip the benefit of utilizing a consultant. You should be doing the job yourself instead of presenting yourself as a wallet for a consultant to dip into. It becomes an unfair trade and one in which the consultant has negligible risk (notice that Ohio/intern IS vilified in the paper and the consultant is NOT).
yell at kids walking on his lava flow?
Please avoid putting words in people's mouths. I never said governments are "evil". I implied that they are inefficient and wasteful; that is far different from evil. Nor did I say government is always evil. Though I can see how falsely promoting that I said that would help to bolster your weak argument in defense of social government programs. There was also no cause to cuss at me.
I'll also point out that during the 1990s the Swiss economy was Western Europe's weakest. 0% annual growth. circa 2000 saw an improvement but that has also stagnated. Switzerland's budget runs rather large annual deficits (though this is acceptable in light of their large GDP). However, in recent years there has been a decline in GDP as well as a 42% increase in unemployment in addition to unprecedented labor disputes. Your social postal system costs US$0.83 (excluding government subsidies) to send domestic mail over an area of 42K square kilometers (an area equivalent to just the state of Tenessee) while the private US postal system costs US$0.41 (less than half of the Swiss rate) to deliver domestically to an area of 9.6M square kilometers (233 times the size of Switzerland).
No, sorry, my analysis stands. governments are inefficient and wasteful. A truly free market without regulations would provide you with even better healthcare, transport, etc. and would do so at lower cost. I like Switzerland too, beautiful place and nice people, and while I applaud your patriotism I assert that you may have allowed it to cloud your judgment.
I've mentioned before that there are good reasons to push the development of the orbital elevator for Earth.
This is a perfect example of a human endeavor that certainly benefits from it. Not only is landing on mars a problem but getting back is even harder. at 5km/s escape velocity you are going to need a large amount of fuel if you are going to leave by rocket. You're going to have to have a vehicle of substantial size to carry and survive that much expendable fuel and resources.
On earth much of the difficulty is in raising an elevator the first time. But in Martian orbit none of that is a problem. You just tow an orbital elevator into position. There's nothing about the technology that says you can only go up an elevator. So you can slowly descend men and supplies as necessary. And you can go right back up the way you came without the need for expendables.
You also have lots of advantages on Mars working for the elevator. Lack of Lightning and threats to the elevator's structure. Smaller geosynchronous distance (50% that of Earth) so the tensile strength requirements are a bit less and the atmosphere is thinner which allows for more efficient broadcast of power via optical transmission to power the ascent vehicle.
No, government intervention is, again, the wrong thing to do. It is almost never the right thing to do. let a free market decide the priorities and how it gets solved. The government should only provide protection to make sure the ingenious company that identifies the proper combination of molecules to any disease makes the initial profit and doesn't have to fear having its idea ripped off by somebody not willing to take the risk to invest the research costs.
Yep, somebody suffering from government disease #3 that gets ignored by the free market might die. But so does person suffering from free market #57 who doesn't make the government's top 20 list. You might as well choose the efficient free market system.
Governments have proven time and time again that that they are horrible at providing services or products.
Which, by the way, is in line with the length of the lifetime granted to patents, an alternate form of intellectually property.
I have been saying for years that intellectual properties are similar enough that they should be treated equally. The lifetime of patents and copyrights should be equal. The extendability and transferability should also enjoy the same rules.
I am sick to death of seeing the technical works of scientists and engineers forced into the public domain only a decade after their invention while "artists" enjoy protection long after they're dead. The lifetime of a patent is often not sufficient to secure a profit for the inventor since often the invention is created long before its time. By the time other technologies have caught up to it so that it can be used effectively of cost-efficiently or before somebody has found the best purpose for the invention the patent has expired. Therefore the profit for the inventor is lost.
The only rationale I can see for the current system is that the technological properties are required for survival, or at least highly useful at improving quality of life, while the artistic properties typically improve the enjoyment of life. As a result the public mass demands, by vote, immediate access to the required intellectual properties and is less inclined to demand such access of the artistic items since they can live without them. That, or the artists/distributors are in the sweet spot where they make enough money to successfully fight for better protections while not presenting a product that the public unanimously demands and cannot survive with out, which would overwhelm any amount of money spent trying to legislate protection for it.
It's stupid the way science and its achievements are back-burnered and taken of advantage of in favor of artists, sports and celebrities.
I get very nervous about legislation justified on the basis of prevent X because X causes Y since I have yet to see strong evidence that demonstrates that the human mind behaves according to this rule. (such as X=content, Y=disturbed behavior in this case)
For instance I think it just as likely that indulging in X could release the pressure to truly perform Y. The classic example being games like GTA or violent first person shooters. I and others have played them frequently in the past and they have never triggered real violent behavior and it makes me feel more at ease afterwards.
Let's see, our predictive models are:
Given the lack of credible evidence of aliens or viable flying egg shaped craft other than bathyspheres, compared to the overwhelming mountain of evidence of human proclivity for pranking, I'd say this is an easy one to figure out.
Ha Ha Ha. Nothing to see here... move along.
That argument makes no sense. I cannot fathom how that got +5 insightful.
Written history is perhaps 5000 years old. Geological recorded history is millions to billions of years old. There is nothing credible in either of these historical records to suggest that your missing 45,000 year gap, or any time before it, included any homo sapien (nor any other species') abilities, achievement or potential to produce a being capable of leaving this planet let alone survive or create a civilization to come back from and "visit the old farm."
The only credible evidence to suggest that some being may leave this planet in the reasonable future is a few successful test trips to its nearest moon. That history is only 40 years old. And even, then the last 30 of those 40 years indicates very little continued progress.
Further, An undetectable, advanced alternate terrestrial civilization is just as implausible as an undetectable flying spaghetti monster. So yes, I would look for space aliens before the undetectable civilization. And I don't think any advanced alien race has ever crossed stellar distances and visited this planet.
The observations presented are not insightful; at best they are +1 thoughtless fantasy.
This is not going to work. Have you ever stood under a tall tree and wondered... "Hmm, why aren't there many leaves on the inside?" or "Why do golf balls have a good chance of going through a tree or hit only one or two branches?"
Sunlight is required for plant growth and they are nearly 100% efficient in its use. But you have to be in direct sunlight for it to work. So trees have evolved to produce a "Canopy". That is, all the leaves are on the outside. Almost every leaf in a tree has access to direct sunlight. and thus the tree works well. The tree wastes as little energy as possible on the interior "volume" as is required to produce a stable and large surface area on the canopy. Thus no leaves on the inside and as few branches as possible.
This vertical farm concept won't work. why? The volume of the building may be impressive, like the voluminous office space provided in the Manhattan skyscapers that will surround it. The problem is two fold: 1) only the surface area of the vertical farm will be able to receive direct sunlight; vastly diminishing the productivity of the farm (N^2 vs N^3). 2) Only the top will probably receive any light since the surrounding skyscapers will eclipse the sides of the vertical farm. Further diminishing the productivity to the footprint of the building. And in Manhattan you're not going to be able to afford anything but the tiniest of footprints.
But wait theres more. The environmental "savings" spoken of won't materialize due to the inefficiency of the vertical farm. California has a huge agricultural business because it receives tons of sunlight. WAAAAY more than New York can dream of (I grew up in Buffalo). So California can grow crops year round and efficiently; New York can't produce squat in the winter and very little during fall and spring. Oh? You say: "but the crops will grow indoors, sheltered during the winter." Won't matter, the length of the day (and thus sunlight) in New York is significantly shorter than in California, and all other agricultural areas closer to the equator, where they currently ship their food from. During the whole year in fact, this building will be less efficient than the places they currently ship their food from. That loss in efficiency will waste any "savings" they are touting.
Sorry, farming is a matter of surface area and sunlight. New York city has neither to spare. Unless you convert Central Park; and nobody's gonna due that just to grow food they can import inexpensively from other locations.
All evidence?? No other theories?? Really...
I have recently read a report that the energy output of the sun has risen recently and is the highest it has ever been. The source of that report is at least as credible to me as any that have put forth arguments for global warming. I have also ferreted out as many facts, numbers and theories denying global warming as I have seen thrust upon me by the media as are in favor of. Should I now just ignore the possibility that any delta in Earth's temperature is quite possibly the Sun's faults and not mankind's (If such a delta exists)? Yes, I guess that would be convenient for you. Maybe all the evidence *that you are aware of* points to a single conclusion. I on the other hand, like the original poster implies, would like to keep an open-mind about it and resist exactly the sort of political dominance of a unproven theory that you have succumb to.
This is certainly not a scientifically proven theory yet. The results are varied, the cause is not yet known, it cannot be repeated in the lab and predictive models do not appear accurate enough to base decisions about action on. But it sounds great: "Feed the babies", "Save the whales", "Protect the planet" that it has become the mantra of many politicians and political organizations because it is so easy to apply it like a club. What you don't want to feed babies? you MUST be evil and therefore I'm good and right. And their followers grow because nobody wants to be singled out.
What I hate the most about it is the extremism that cultures are taking on this. They are acting and spending vast resources without any proof that it will achieve the desired results. We've got a whole bag of known problems that could achieve a greater benefit at a far cheaper cost. But they're actual science or work so they're boring. Cure diabetes... (we're actually quite close, but because we have an effective treatment nobody listens or cares and so my friend gets to wear a mechanical insuline pump for the rest of his life). Why not address the civil rights atrocities occurring in many places? How about just literacy... 14% of US Americans aren't literate. Think about that, that's 1 out of every 7 people. Alzheimer's disease? Corporate corruption? How about fixing the medicare or social security system?
See all of that is hard, and boring. Impossible to rally people together to support you. But politicians can use "Global Warming" like an idiot beacon so that you'll ignore the other failures and actually believe that good things are being accomplished; when in fact we're just wasting resources.