The only long term effect of the tax brackets is to increase the separation between upper and lower class.
This is 100% backwards, and it's not funny either.
Actually, the parent poster has a point. You might get to keep more of your income on a percentage basis as a low-wage earner, get breaks on food, housing, etc. But you're going to get shafted on medical and dental care, either directly (ie, if you can't afford insurance, you get to pay exorbitant amounts for on-demand care), or indirectly (ie, you go on a 3 month waiting list to see a doctor because fewer med students want to be GPs.) Plus, what is the benefit to sacrificing your income and time to either go to school yourself, or to send your kids to school, when you're doing so well with all sorts of tax breaks, credits, and special programs (assuming you make less than $X a year.)
The professionals with money can afford to stay professionals, in one guise or another (hell, they can probably stop working and live off of their investments.) However, the lower income folks do not necessarially benefit from robbing Peter to pay Paul, because there are only so many Peters (and they have the option of fleeing the country if need be) and a lot more Pauls. Actually, it's worse than that - the people who really get shafted are middle-income folks. When the top 10% are no longer the top 10%, we start scalping off the next tier of folks. AMT (alternative minimum tax) is a big issue because it is projected to affect middle income wage earners in the next year or so, and it isn't adjusted for inflation.
Is it a Spamassassin rule or a Procmail recipie? If so, can you share? I'm still stuck using SA 2.63 (too much of a pain to migrate right now, since so much was changed between SA 2.63 and SA 3) and I'm sticking with doing some incremental rule upgrades.
I love my iBook. I just spent the last weekend bringing it up to spec, loading dev tools, installing Virtual PC and Win2k for a couple of apps, getting my scripts and programs to work under Classic, customizing the icons and the appearance (no more brushed metal), and upgrading the ram.
The one thing that I need to do is to upgrade the hard drive - 40GB (really more like 37GB, minus 15GB for all the system related stuff). This, unfortunately, is not a trivial undertaking...
So to the people who want to fund "Enterprise" only to keep "Star Trek" on the air, I ask that you save your money, and get behind a new Trek show (already rumored to be in development (think 2006 or 2007)), or one of the new SciFi shows that demonstrates quality worthy of your devotion.
I would give Enterprise two seasons more to prove itself, now that it's been freed from Berman/Braga, and the whole BS temporal cold war plotline.
Oil provides feedstocks for manufacturing plastics, in addition to providing things like paraffin, lubricants, solvents, and of course, fuel (for heating, power generation, and transportation - air, ground, and water.) This technology is useful even if the end product is no longer burned for power or transport.
I'd say it's not an either-or proposition - you can still spend money solving this problem (ie, what to do with all this industrial and consumer waste), without detracting from say, trying to produce fusion power. Pyrolytic decomposition just happens to be working now, with net energy out, as opposed to fusion, hence the effort to commercialize...
Get yourself a surplus ammo belt. Lot of little Batman-style utility pouches for storing your gear. On the plus side, you don't have to worry about a hole in your pocket creating a situation where half of your life disappears. On the downside, the ammo-belt definitely does not go with suits. For that, you'll need a holster rig...
People who buy the $27K setups have money to waste.
Or they're getting older, and are willing to spend the money so they can husband the precious time they have left doing other things.
Futzing with hardware when you enjoy it is one thing. Futzing with hardware when you'd rather be doing something else is another. Besides, why complain? You should try selling your setup to some of these guys for the mere price of $20k:)
Your state is just a logical partition of the federal government
Um... NO. If my state was just a logical partition of the federal government, there would be no need for an independent legislature, no need for state elections, no need for our own state police, our own tax board, different tax rates, our own laws, etc.
There are some who would like to standardize everything, so that every law in California is the same as every law in New Jersey. Personally, I think that's just asking for trouble. If you don't like the laws where you live, you can always move elsewhere - there's a good chance you'll find a more comfortable environment in one of the many counties and parishes somewhere in this country. If the feds controlled it all, down to the state and local level, where would you go if you didn't like what they were doing?
To give a concrete example, some states use your Social Security number as your driver's license number (a really BAD idea) - others don't. Some states allow right turns on red lights, others don't. Some states have sales tax/income tax, others don't.
Come to the US and spend some time touring the countryside. We're cut from the same common history as a nation, but we're not tailored in the same way everywhere. Trust me, this is a GOOD thing.
If the military wanted his weapons, they could pay him enough to keep him in business.
You mean on life support? Like the splitting of ever-shrinking defense contracts Lockheed and Boeing to maintain at least the semblance of competitive bidding (can't have competitive bidding if there's only one military aerospace company left.) Face it, only having one customer is BAD. Any business will tell you this - if the customer wants to jerk you around (ie, change order terms, conveniently "forget" to pay on time, etc.) you're left with either sucking it in, or going out of business (think WalMart on this one.) Having one customer that is subject to political whims ("Oh, guns are bad this year. Sorry, but we can't fund this project.") is even worse. Having one customer who only orders stuff in huge lots, once every half-dozen years really plays havoc with staffing, manufacturing, and cash flow.
Besides, do YOU want to pay to subsidze his company, if you can let him operate in the free market instead? I'd rather my tax money be doing something useful, rather than pay someone NOT to innovate.
may I suggest that you put your efforts into opposing the sale to civilians of ANY armament which is sold to ANY military organization in the world.
This would effectively ban almost all firearms. Many rifles, pistols, shotguns, etc. have at one point or another been used by SOME military, SOMEWHERE. Take for example the.50BMG rifles manufactured by Barrett (which became classified as an "assault weapon" as of Jan 1st 2005 in California, meaning that common Californians are effectively barred from posessing and using them). Those were civilian rifles first, military rifles second. The Mini-14, which is based on a proven military design, but is meant strictly for civilian markets, at one point had a select-fire/full-auto machine gun variant for sale to military.
Sniper rifles are essentially hunting rifles, pistols are pretty much the same between LEO, military, and private ownership, as are semi-auto shotguns. And, if you wanted to be devious about this, just commission some military group, somewhere, to start using arms that were previously not used by civilians, to finish classifying all possible firearms as "military firearms".
At this point, many of these firearms manufacturers (except for the ones that have government contracts, which will shortly become inflated in price) will go out of business, ammo manufacturers will consolidate, and people will then start bitching about how expensive ammo and how short the supply of replacement parts is for LEO/military firearms. Keep this in mind, it is the civilian market, which purchases millions of rounds of ammo, thousands of guns, and accessories to go with those guns, on a yearly basis, that keeps most of these businesses afloat. Aimpoints, accessory rails, custom barrels, spare magazines, etc. were manufactured in mass quantities in response to civilian markets, not for military markets (which tend to be one-time deals, and subject to political whimsy).
Do you routinely practice with them just in case the power goes out?
No, but I do use several of them on a daily basis, and I check the batteries and bulbs every couple of months. I recently had to overhaul 3 of my mini-maglites because I had let them sit for too long, and the batteries leaked, corroding the inner tubes of the flashlights, and jamming the batteries in place.
If the power hasn't gone out in monthes, are you going to get rid of them?
All of the flashlights that I own would barely fill half of my kitchen drawer. I doubt that the same holds true for the rigs (including the antenna and power supplies) that people have. Even then, you need to maintain and test equipment to ensure proper functioning. I left for a trip for about half a year, and when I came back, my stereo refused to work due to some dried out caps.
You think batteries are going to charge and water themselves, if you have a backup power system, or even a car (I'm talking conventional/low-maint batteries). Try leaving your car in your garage for a year without exercising it. By then the gas will have turned to gunk, your tires would have gone flat, seals would have shrunk - about a weekend's worth of maintenance to get back on the road.
Unless it's designed to sit there, or has been carefully stored away, most equipment requires maintenance. If it's equipment that requires skilled operation, then it's not just the equipment that requires maintenance, the operator needs practice to maintain their skill set as well.
Re:Nobody does long storylines anymore. Even PBS.
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People won't tolerate programs that cut less (slower pacing) - or at least, that's the conventional wisdom in the industry. People blame MTV for introducing the music-video style cut, although such cutting was used experimentally prior to the music video. What's undeniable is that many films are being heavily influenced by music-video style cutting, and similar practices are used in television in order to cram more scenes and dialogue into each episode.
This is one of the reasons I liked Firefly - because the show pacing was a throwback to 60's style shows. I believe this was also one of the reasons the execs in charge were so eager to bury the show.
Here's a question though - is it even possible to get the older Sesame Street programs in their entirety? They reuse some segments in today's programs, but it seems like the newer shows are more and more chroma-key and CG.
But it was the logical culmination of larger and larger roads that linked various cities. Think of this as the granddady of the Missouri to Texas circuit.
Well, you could look at it this way: rather than siezing miles of right of way in bits and pieces, owned by dozens of entities, criscrossing the countryside and each requiring access rodes, utilities, etc., for gas, electricity, water, cable, fiber, roads, freight/passenger rail, and busways, just squish 'em into one structure, save space and time, and make that the backbone you can then hang everything else off of.
The question is, will sound urban planning be used to then maximize the potential of the mega-road to connect communities without disrupting the countryside, or will the road be used instead to facilitate massive sprawl?
Any implementation of a road that spans a quarter-mile in width is going to need sections that are either elevated or underground, or else you're going to have issues with wildlife and drainage...
Nowadays, with mass media and Internet hype about to cause the end of the world, now's a probably good time to get yourself a survival kit, a good pair of shoes, a topographic map, instantly removable hard drive enclosure kit, and become acquainted with a treadmill.
Don't forget a compass if you're going to be using a topo map. Also, a mountain bike isn't a bad idea - it allows you to leverage your leg power, and still gives you the option of ditching and running if need be. In many places in the US, a basic survival kit is a good idea anyways - in earthquake country, you want one in your car and at work (food, water, flashlight, pocketknife, reasonable shoes if you have a dress code and need to walk back, limited first-aid supplies), in areas where you might get snowed in, warm clothing, where there might be floods, etc.
Now if you want to get fancy, you can go full 9/11 and add escape hoods (good against smoke and limited chemical agents), chem gear, etc. I find that a small monocular makes a good addition to any kit - scope potential dangers from a distance and useful for locating navigation waypoints.
In the US all buyers purchasing firearms from licensed dealers must pass a background check. Some states have also mandated that private party transfers must go through a licensed dealer, thereby creating a background check.
Also, there's enough information out there to tell people that aiming a gun at people, animals, buildings, vehicles, etc. is a bad idea (fewer people seem to realize that the same rules also apply to BB guns, crossbows, etc.) I'm not so sure that some of the target market for laser devices are sufficiently well educated (I'm not sure some of those who purchase firearms are educated enough - perhaps there should be a mandatory weapons safety class in junior/senior high school?)
Certainly there are enough people who can be a serious ass without incurring the wrath of law enforcement for this to be a problem - next thing you know some politician has to "pass a law" to restrict something that already had existing safety regulations to govern it.
Mind you, a handheld comp is no replacement for a compass, a good topo map, a hiking buddy, and common sense, but given the electronics gear we pack already (ie, my digital camera, and others use GPS, radios, and cell-phones), it's a complementary piece of technology.
Now, the major protest may be the incursions required to wire and power these wi-fi points. If you need to put in a fire-road where there wasn't one before, and run new poles and wire, just to have a wi-fi point, then no, that's not a good idea.
I fail to see how WiFi must always be associated with work. Cell-phones used to fall in this category, because they were so expensive that only business people could afford them (and had to use them to justify having one.) However, as prices have lowered, and coverage expanded, cell-phones have become consumer items, like portable CD players and cheap cameras, to be taken on vacation.
WiFi can be used similarly to keep in touch with friends, to communicate (imagine using IM to coordinate between parties of hikers, rather than trying to use cellphones or 2-way radios), to keep track of weather in realtime (the weather service has a radio channel you can tune to with the right kind of receiver, but it's a bit dated), and if you want to use it that way, as a personal tracker (register your tracker unit with the rangers before you go on your day hike.)
If people go out into the forest to work, that's their problem. So long as they don't demand paved roads and electricity on demand. The rest of us will use the wi-fi for personal communications, looking up reference maps, navigation, checking weather forecasts, etc.
Warning. Do not even attempt to run NeoOffice on any OS X Mac running 256MB or less. Your disk will start thrashing to handle the swapping required, and you won't be able to get any work done. (At least, this was my experience on an 10.3 equipped 1ghz iBook.):(
With that said though, NeoOffice actually looks and behaves like a MacOS application, a considerable feat in itself when you compare it against the X11 version of OpenOffice, which takes forever to "convert" your fonts during the install, and still looks like garbage.
> Why not just quit paying actors millions per film?
Because the presence of those actors almost always has a direct correlation to the amount of money the film brings in
Actually, it's a little more complicated than that. Movies are expensive to make, even without A-list cast (think $15 million for a low-budget film, with a total cost of around $40-60 million for prints and advertising.) Films are often financed by selling off foreign distribution rights, or by relying on foreign markets, to the tune of 50% or more of production funds, typically. This means, taking into account foreign tastes is extremely important in the kind of film you make, and in how you cast it.
That's why when you go to staff/cast your film, you get handed a list of directors, a list of male leads, a list of female leads, and are told to choose. You have the right to decline of course, just as your financieers are free to decide not to fund your project. This is how we get films like Gigli.
I honestly can't explain this...it might be because some young people see no relevant benefits to an education.
I think that's EXACTLY it. When you see someone with 10 years of university education (ie, a Ph.D) making less than than a high-school drop out, and the standards of success (as defined by pop culture) are a big house, fast car, and the latest fashions, you can do the mental math. Of course, most of these kids will then go on to work that Wal-Mart and Best Buy, restocking shelves and hussling electronics, and wonder why their credit cards are maxed out all the time.
Personally, I believe that all students should be given the opportunity to work part time in middle-school. There's nothing like working some shitty dead-end job for less than minimum wage (probationary pay), like cleaning floors and emptying wastbaskets as a movie usher, to make you realize the value of a good post-secondary education. After you realize what will happen to you without any skills (and seeing the myriad deductions on your first paycheck are always an eye-opener), you can then set your sights on a trade, or toward college once you hit high school, BEFORE it's too late to get your GPA up, and score well on standardized tests.
The other 95% will get jobs to service others, i.e. mechanics, carpenters, etc.
Um, I don't want somebody who can't do basic math changing the oil on my car. "Um 3 liters or 5 liters? Oh well, I'll just fill it up until it can't take no more. 10 ft lbs torque? Ahh, who cares. Charlie, hand me the air wrench."
I certainly don't want someone who can't do math doing my carpentry. "Measure once cut twice. Or was that measure twice and cut once? Ahh it doesn't matter, I'll just bill him for the extra materials."
As long as we have a few smart people, it doesn't matter how many dumb people you have
Have you ever tried hiring people for a skilled position? Do you know how difficult it is to find someone who is: #1 qualified, #2 capable (not the same thing as qualified), #3 a decent worker (ie, will show up more or less on time, and put in more or less a full day's worth of work.) Most skilled workers who fit in that category are already hired and paid very, very well. It doesn't matter if we can invent the coolest technologies, if our tech/worker base doesn't allow us to develop the industries domestically.
I'm not worried, I've visited or have researched several of the top colleges in this country and outside of this country and we are doing just fine. Why else do you think the United States has the highest number of foreign exchange students? Everyone comes here, gets educated and then takes it back home.
Um. If we're doing fine because of the high number of foreign exchange students feeding our schools, and they're all taking the stuff they learn here and going home, then what does that do to our pool of geniuses that supposedly power our country's economy?
It doesn't help that the way we teach math is horrible. How many times are they going to teach fractions? How many times are they going to teach decimals? If you make it to algebra (and that this is even an issue points to serious problems earlier on in the math process) then you take Algebra 1, you get full year to forget everything, then you spend half the year re-learning everything you forgot in Algebra 1 when you take Algebra 2.
What's the common thread here? No applied math. Getting docked in pay for continually shorting or overaging the register is a good inducement to do your sums correctly. Figuring out how much money you'll earn if you keep your allowance/paycheck in the bank at X% compounded over time is another good application. Calculating the trajectories of artillery so you can kill Enemy X before they take your position is also a good application for learning math, as you want the commanding officer to be competent in the field. Memorization is good for muliplication tables and not much else, since you'll be looking things up in a book anyways.
A better route would be to publish a companion math book that a student could keep throughout their K-12 education with all of the math that they'll ever be expected to know, with formulas and tables to calculate everything. That way those who only wish to apply the math will have the tools to do so, and we can free up some space (and end the boredom) of those who wish to take the extra step and prove the math, rather than merely doing them by rote (as they currently do), or applying the formulas and tables out of the back of a book (which is the way most people do it in the real world after a decade or so after their last undergraduate math class.)
Unfortunately, none of my suggestions seem to address the basic problem highlighted by the math skills survey - which is that we're turning out students who can't even do BASIC math. Could this be one instance where we need to stuff kids into a computer lab and chain them to desks until they can do basic math problems?
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This is 100% backwards, and it's not funny either.
Actually, the parent poster has a point. You might get to keep more of your income on a percentage basis as a low-wage earner, get breaks on food, housing, etc. But you're going to get shafted on medical and dental care, either directly (ie, if you can't afford insurance, you get to pay exorbitant amounts for on-demand care), or indirectly (ie, you go on a 3 month waiting list to see a doctor because fewer med students want to be GPs.) Plus, what is the benefit to sacrificing your income and time to either go to school yourself, or to send your kids to school, when you're doing so well with all sorts of tax breaks, credits, and special programs (assuming you make less than $X a year.)
The professionals with money can afford to stay professionals, in one guise or another (hell, they can probably stop working and live off of their investments.) However, the lower income folks do not necessarially benefit from robbing Peter to pay Paul, because there are only so many Peters (and they have the option of fleeing the country if need be) and a lot more Pauls. Actually, it's worse than that - the people who really get shafted are middle-income folks. When the top 10% are no longer the top 10%, we start scalping off the next tier of folks. AMT (alternative minimum tax) is a big issue because it is projected to affect middle income wage earners in the next year or so, and it isn't adjusted for inflation.
Is it a Spamassassin rule or a Procmail recipie? If so, can you share? I'm still stuck using SA 2.63 (too much of a pain to migrate right now, since so much was changed between SA 2.63 and SA 3) and I'm sticking with doing some incremental rule upgrades.
I love my iBook. I just spent the last weekend bringing it up to spec, loading dev tools, installing Virtual PC and Win2k for a couple of apps, getting my scripts and programs to work under Classic, customizing the icons and the appearance (no more brushed metal), and upgrading the ram.
The one thing that I need to do is to upgrade the hard drive - 40GB (really more like 37GB, minus 15GB for all the system related stuff). This, unfortunately, is not a trivial undertaking...
So to the people who want to fund "Enterprise" only to keep "Star Trek" on the air, I ask that you save your money, and get behind a new Trek show (already rumored to be in development (think 2006 or 2007)), or one of the new SciFi shows that demonstrates quality worthy of your devotion.
I would give Enterprise two seasons more to prove itself, now that it's been freed from Berman/Braga, and the whole BS temporal cold war plotline.
Oil provides feedstocks for manufacturing plastics, in addition to providing things like paraffin, lubricants, solvents, and of course, fuel (for heating, power generation, and transportation - air, ground, and water.) This technology is useful even if the end product is no longer burned for power or transport.
I'd say it's not an either-or proposition - you can still spend money solving this problem (ie, what to do with all this industrial and consumer waste), without detracting from say, trying to produce fusion power. Pyrolytic decomposition just happens to be working now, with net energy out, as opposed to fusion, hence the effort to commercialize...
Get yourself a surplus ammo belt. Lot of little Batman-style utility pouches for storing your gear. On the plus side, you don't have to worry about a hole in your pocket creating a situation where half of your life disappears. On the downside, the ammo-belt definitely does not go with suits. For that, you'll need a holster rig...
People who buy the $27K setups have money to waste.
:)
Or they're getting older, and are willing to spend the money so they can husband the precious time they have left doing other things.
Futzing with hardware when you enjoy it is one thing. Futzing with hardware when you'd rather be doing something else is another. Besides, why complain? You should try selling your setup to some of these guys for the mere price of $20k
Your state is just a logical partition of the federal government
Um... NO. If my state was just a logical partition of the federal government, there would be no need for an independent legislature, no need for state elections, no need for our own state police, our own tax board, different tax rates, our own laws, etc.
There are some who would like to standardize everything, so that every law in California is the same as every law in New Jersey. Personally, I think that's just asking for trouble. If you don't like the laws where you live, you can always move elsewhere - there's a good chance you'll find a more comfortable environment in one of the many counties and parishes somewhere in this country. If the feds controlled it all, down to the state and local level, where would you go if you didn't like what they were doing?
To give a concrete example, some states use your Social Security number as your driver's license number (a really BAD idea) - others don't. Some states allow right turns on red lights, others don't. Some states have sales tax/income tax, others don't.
Come to the US and spend some time touring the countryside. We're cut from the same common history as a nation, but we're not tailored in the same way everywhere. Trust me, this is a GOOD thing.
If the military wanted his weapons, they could pay him enough to keep him in business.
You mean on life support? Like the splitting of ever-shrinking defense contracts Lockheed and Boeing to maintain at least the semblance of competitive bidding (can't have competitive bidding if there's only one military aerospace company left.) Face it, only having one customer is BAD. Any business will tell you this - if the customer wants to jerk you around (ie, change order terms, conveniently "forget" to pay on time, etc.) you're left with either sucking it in, or going out of business (think WalMart on this one.) Having one customer that is subject to political whims ("Oh, guns are bad this year. Sorry, but we can't fund this project.") is even worse. Having one customer who only orders stuff in huge lots, once every half-dozen years really plays havoc with staffing, manufacturing, and cash flow.
Besides, do YOU want to pay to subsidze his company, if you can let him operate in the free market instead? I'd rather my tax money be doing something useful, rather than pay someone NOT to innovate.
may I suggest that you put your efforts into opposing the sale to civilians of ANY armament which is sold to ANY military organization in the world.
.50BMG rifles manufactured by Barrett (which became classified as an "assault weapon" as of Jan 1st 2005 in California, meaning that common Californians are effectively barred from posessing and using them). Those were civilian rifles first, military rifles second. The Mini-14, which is based on a proven military design, but is meant strictly for civilian markets, at one point had a select-fire/full-auto machine gun variant for sale to military.
This would effectively ban almost all firearms. Many rifles, pistols, shotguns, etc. have at one point or another been used by SOME military, SOMEWHERE. Take for example the
Sniper rifles are essentially hunting rifles, pistols are pretty much the same between LEO, military, and private ownership, as are semi-auto shotguns. And, if you wanted to be devious about this, just commission some military group, somewhere, to start using arms that were previously not used by civilians, to finish classifying all possible firearms as "military firearms".
At this point, many of these firearms manufacturers (except for the ones that have government contracts, which will shortly become inflated in price) will go out of business, ammo manufacturers will consolidate, and people will then start bitching about how expensive ammo and how short the supply of replacement parts is for LEO/military firearms. Keep this in mind, it is the civilian market, which purchases millions of rounds of ammo, thousands of guns, and accessories to go with those guns, on a yearly basis, that keeps most of these businesses afloat. Aimpoints, accessory rails, custom barrels, spare magazines, etc. were manufactured in mass quantities in response to civilian markets, not for military markets (which tend to be one-time deals, and subject to political whimsy).
Do you have flashlights in your house?
Yes.
Do you routinely practice with them just in case the power goes out?
No, but I do use several of them on a daily basis, and I check the batteries and bulbs every couple of months. I recently had to overhaul 3 of my mini-maglites because I had let them sit for too long, and the batteries leaked, corroding the inner tubes of the flashlights, and jamming the batteries in place.
If the power hasn't gone out in monthes, are you going to get rid of them?
All of the flashlights that I own would barely fill half of my kitchen drawer. I doubt that the same holds true for the rigs (including the antenna and power supplies) that people have. Even then, you need to maintain and test equipment to ensure proper functioning. I left for a trip for about half a year, and when I came back, my stereo refused to work due to some dried out caps.
You think batteries are going to charge and water themselves, if you have a backup power system, or even a car (I'm talking conventional/low-maint batteries). Try leaving your car in your garage for a year without exercising it. By then the gas will have turned to gunk, your tires would have gone flat, seals would have shrunk - about a weekend's worth of maintenance to get back on the road.
Unless it's designed to sit there, or has been carefully stored away, most equipment requires maintenance. If it's equipment that requires skilled operation, then it's not just the equipment that requires maintenance, the operator needs practice to maintain their skill set as well.
People won't tolerate programs that cut less (slower pacing) - or at least, that's the conventional wisdom in the industry. People blame MTV for introducing the music-video style cut, although such cutting was used experimentally prior to the music video. What's undeniable is that many films are being heavily influenced by music-video style cutting, and similar practices are used in television in order to cram more scenes and dialogue into each episode.
This is one of the reasons I liked Firefly - because the show pacing was a throwback to 60's style shows. I believe this was also one of the reasons the execs in charge were so eager to bury the show.
Here's a question though - is it even possible to get the older Sesame Street programs in their entirety? They reuse some segments in today's programs, but it seems like the newer shows are more and more chroma-key and CG.
But it was the logical culmination of larger and larger roads that linked various cities. Think of this as the granddady of the Missouri to Texas circuit.
Well, you could look at it this way: rather than siezing miles of right of way in bits and pieces, owned by dozens of entities, criscrossing the countryside and each requiring access rodes, utilities, etc., for gas, electricity, water, cable, fiber, roads, freight/passenger rail, and busways, just squish 'em into one structure, save space and time, and make that the backbone you can then hang everything else off of.
The question is, will sound urban planning be used to then maximize the potential of the mega-road to connect communities without disrupting the countryside, or will the road be used instead to facilitate massive sprawl?
Any implementation of a road that spans a quarter-mile in width is going to need sections that are either elevated or underground, or else you're going to have issues with wildlife and drainage...
Nowadays, with mass media and Internet hype about to cause the end of the world, now's a probably good time to get yourself a survival kit, a good pair of shoes, a topographic map, instantly removable hard drive enclosure kit, and become acquainted with a treadmill.
Don't forget a compass if you're going to be using a topo map. Also, a mountain bike isn't a bad idea - it allows you to leverage your leg power, and still gives you the option of ditching and running if need be. In many places in the US, a basic survival kit is a good idea anyways - in earthquake country, you want one in your car and at work (food, water, flashlight, pocketknife, reasonable shoes if you have a dress code and need to walk back, limited first-aid supplies), in areas where you might get snowed in, warm clothing, where there might be floods, etc.
Now if you want to get fancy, you can go full 9/11 and add escape hoods (good against smoke and limited chemical agents), chem gear, etc. I find that a small monocular makes a good addition to any kit - scope potential dangers from a distance and useful for locating navigation waypoints.
In the US all buyers purchasing firearms from licensed dealers must pass a background check. Some states have also mandated that private party transfers must go through a licensed dealer, thereby creating a background check. Also, there's enough information out there to tell people that aiming a gun at people, animals, buildings, vehicles, etc. is a bad idea (fewer people seem to realize that the same rules also apply to BB guns, crossbows, etc.) I'm not so sure that some of the target market for laser devices are sufficiently well educated (I'm not sure some of those who purchase firearms are educated enough - perhaps there should be a mandatory weapons safety class in junior/senior high school?)
Certainly there are enough people who can be a serious ass without incurring the wrath of law enforcement for this to be a problem - next thing you know some politician has to "pass a law" to restrict something that already had existing safety regulations to govern it.
Mind you, a handheld comp is no replacement for a compass, a good topo map, a hiking buddy, and common sense, but given the electronics gear we pack already (ie, my digital camera, and others use GPS, radios, and cell-phones), it's a complementary piece of technology.
Now, the major protest may be the incursions required to wire and power these wi-fi points. If you need to put in a fire-road where there wasn't one before, and run new poles and wire, just to have a wi-fi point, then no, that's not a good idea.
I fail to see how WiFi must always be associated with work. Cell-phones used to fall in this category, because they were so expensive that only business people could afford them (and had to use them to justify having one.) However, as prices have lowered, and coverage expanded, cell-phones have become consumer items, like portable CD players and cheap cameras, to be taken on vacation.
WiFi can be used similarly to keep in touch with friends, to communicate (imagine using IM to coordinate between parties of hikers, rather than trying to use cellphones or 2-way radios), to keep track of weather in realtime (the weather service has a radio channel you can tune to with the right kind of receiver, but it's a bit dated), and if you want to use it that way, as a personal tracker (register your tracker unit with the rangers before you go on your day hike.)
If people go out into the forest to work, that's their problem. So long as they don't demand paved roads and electricity on demand. The rest of us will use the wi-fi for personal communications, looking up reference maps, navigation, checking weather forecasts, etc.
No meetings. No managers. No legal worries. Not having to kowtow to public relations or marketing. Shipping millions of copies of your software.
The only downside was not getting paid, but even that seemed to work out.
Warning. Do not even attempt to run NeoOffice on any OS X Mac running 256MB or less. Your disk will start thrashing to handle the swapping required, and you won't be able to get any work done. (At least, this was my experience on an 10.3 equipped 1ghz iBook.) :(
With that said though, NeoOffice actually looks and behaves like a MacOS application, a considerable feat in itself when you compare it against the X11 version of OpenOffice, which takes forever to "convert" your fonts during the install, and still looks like garbage.
> Why not just quit paying actors millions per film?
Because the presence of those actors almost always has a direct correlation to the amount of money the film brings in
Actually, it's a little more complicated than that. Movies are expensive to make, even without A-list cast (think $15 million for a low-budget film, with a total cost of around $40-60 million for prints and advertising.) Films are often financed by selling off foreign distribution rights, or by relying on foreign markets, to the tune of 50% or more of production funds, typically. This means, taking into account foreign tastes is extremely important in the kind of film you make, and in how you cast it.
That's why when you go to staff/cast your film, you get handed a list of directors, a list of male leads, a list of female leads, and are told to choose. You have the right to decline of course, just as your financieers are free to decide not to fund your project. This is how we get films like Gigli.
I honestly can't explain this...it might be because some young people see no relevant benefits to an education.
I think that's EXACTLY it. When you see someone with 10 years of university education (ie, a Ph.D) making less than than a high-school drop out, and the standards of success (as defined by pop culture) are a big house, fast car, and the latest fashions, you can do the mental math. Of course, most of these kids will then go on to work that Wal-Mart and Best Buy, restocking shelves and hussling electronics, and wonder why their credit cards are maxed out all the time.
Personally, I believe that all students should be given the opportunity to work part time in middle-school. There's nothing like working some shitty dead-end job for less than minimum wage (probationary pay), like cleaning floors and emptying wastbaskets as a movie usher, to make you realize the value of a good post-secondary education. After you realize what will happen to you without any skills (and seeing the myriad deductions on your first paycheck are always an eye-opener), you can then set your sights on a trade, or toward college once you hit high school, BEFORE it's too late to get your GPA up, and score well on standardized tests.
The other 95% will get jobs to service others, i.e. mechanics, carpenters, etc.
Um, I don't want somebody who can't do basic math changing the oil on my car. "Um 3 liters or 5 liters? Oh well, I'll just fill it up until it can't take no more. 10 ft lbs torque? Ahh, who cares. Charlie, hand me the air wrench."
I certainly don't want someone who can't do math doing my carpentry. "Measure once cut twice. Or was that measure twice and cut once? Ahh it doesn't matter, I'll just bill him for the extra materials."
As long as we have a few smart people, it doesn't matter how many dumb people you have
Have you ever tried hiring people for a skilled position? Do you know how difficult it is to find someone who is: #1 qualified, #2 capable (not the same thing as qualified), #3 a decent worker (ie, will show up more or less on time, and put in more or less a full day's worth of work.) Most skilled workers who fit in that category are already hired and paid very, very well. It doesn't matter if we can invent the coolest technologies, if our tech/worker base doesn't allow us to develop the industries domestically.
I'm not worried, I've visited or have researched several of the top colleges in this country and outside of this country and we are doing just fine. Why else do you think the United States has the highest number of foreign exchange students? Everyone comes here, gets educated and then takes it back home.
Um. If we're doing fine because of the high number of foreign exchange students feeding our schools, and they're all taking the stuff they learn here and going home, then what does that do to our pool of geniuses that supposedly power our country's economy?
Clarification, when I mean chain them to desks, I mean chain them to desks with computers that have individualized math programs.
It doesn't help that the way we teach math is horrible. How many times are they going to teach fractions? How many times are they going to teach decimals? If you make it to algebra (and that this is even an issue points to serious problems earlier on in the math process) then you take Algebra 1, you get full year to forget everything, then you spend half the year re-learning everything you forgot in Algebra 1 when you take Algebra 2.
What's the common thread here? No applied math. Getting docked in pay for continually shorting or overaging the register is a good inducement to do your sums correctly. Figuring out how much money you'll earn if you keep your allowance/paycheck in the bank at X% compounded over time is another good application. Calculating the trajectories of artillery so you can kill Enemy X before they take your position is also a good application for learning math, as you want the commanding officer to be competent in the field. Memorization is good for muliplication tables and not much else, since you'll be looking things up in a book anyways.
A better route would be to publish a companion math book that a student could keep throughout their K-12 education with all of the math that they'll ever be expected to know, with formulas and tables to calculate everything. That way those who only wish to apply the math will have the tools to do so, and we can free up some space (and end the boredom) of those who wish to take the extra step and prove the math, rather than merely doing them by rote (as they currently do), or applying the formulas and tables out of the back of a book (which is the way most people do it in the real world after a decade or so after their last undergraduate math class.)
Unfortunately, none of my suggestions seem to address the basic problem highlighted by the math skills survey - which is that we're turning out students who can't even do BASIC math. Could this be one instance where we need to stuff kids into a computer lab and chain them to desks until they can do basic math problems?