Change that... gotten stupid. In the mad rush to distinguish themselves and demonize the opponent, campaigning in this country has just gotten ridiculous. One of the reasons that Romney lost was that he kept saying things about Obama that simply weren't true. The problem supporting Romney became trying to figure out what was correct and what was just flaming bat guano. He destroyed his own credibility (well his campaign manager did it, but Romney let him.) Of course in past elections, the bull pucky would have stood, but so many people have ways of validating claims now and there were so many independent fact checkers this election that BS on both sides got shot down in record time.
We live a diverse and interesting society. The fact that Conservatives want desperately to take the nation back to 40s is interesting but more than a little brain dead. By the way I distinguish social conservatives from fiscal conservatives. I'm talking about mostly Fundies, folks from smaller more agriculturally based communities, you know pretty much the entire middle of the country outside of big cities. If you look at the red and blue distribution, it should be clear. Maybe in a generation, the impact of technology will have stomped so hard on "Traditional Values" that it'l stop being the source of so much mischief in our society.
Wow... where were you living the last 10 years. The cost of homes was driven to insane heights by investors and banks, forcing anyone who wanted as much as a tool shed in a decent neighborhood to "OVER BUY". Then when the bubble burst, your tool shed suddenly passed the sane price for a tool shed and suddenly became valued at something just north of a Habitrail Hamster Home. How is any of that the fault of the home buyer, save they should have seen the "bubble bursting" and the "bubble headed" coming at great distance, sold high, and rented for a couple years.
Yes and I'm presuming you did move during the second worst unemployment situation in our nations history.
What exactly is living within your means? We just set the highest number of people in history receiving food stamps and the middle class is approaching full on gravitational collapse. The vast number of jobs that have been created since since 2008 are minimum wage service jobs. Jobs who's means suggest a person should just find a warm dry spot under a bridge and starve to death. I don't have a problem with this Objectivist idea that altruism is the problem not the solution, except that what y'all are calling altruism is some clown suffering from terminal hubris infliction his ego on society at large. Real altruism looks like Sean Penn wading through hip deep sewage in the aftermath of Katrina, saving people's lives stranded in flooded homes in the ninth ward. Real altruism looks like someone donating a pint of blood or running a food drive to feed the hungry. Its rests on this funny thing called compassion and it involves using your heart as much as your brain. I don't have to know what serves you best in any given social context to know that if your don't have clean water to drink you have about a week to live, and a meaningful expression of altruism would be for me to bring you water so your don't expire.
Friend, there are way more people than available job, and that means a lot of good hard working, proud folk, who haven't worked in quite a while, through no fault of their own. With the advent of increasing automation and computers being able to do more and more of what we do, you should enjoy your job while you have one. But you might also consider not looking down your nose at those who've been left holding the bag, a bunch them only committed the unforgivable crime of getting older than 50.
Emergency phones. A simple virtually indestructible phone that runs on solar power and normally uses the standard cell network for calling, but in times of disaster can utilize shortwave, video frequencies to assure that people everywhere can remain in communication and have access to emergency resources as they may be available.
Not really, I looked at the book list... unless you're a burning urn of churning funk for algebra... or just gotta have a book on social science... walk away from this pointless waste of electrons. I can't imagine with this book list they'll do any better with a for profit model.
Don't forget the pixieish smile with the finger wave... it made the scene. Especially later when he actually does it with Morden's head on a pike... poetic justice doesn't come often, but when it does, is there anything sweeter?
I was driving home from Arizona, on the 10, just outside Palm Springs on a Sunday afternoon. A gold Cadillac came flying around me going over 90 mph, almost taking my front end off, then proceeds to weave through traffic like an escapee from Mad Max. I turn to my passenger and say "Where's a cop when you need one?..." when lo and behold... there's a cop. We roll down the window and yell "Crazy fsck in a gold caddy up ahead..." and the cop takes off like a bat outta hell. About 5 minutes later, we drive by the cop and the caddy, the cop waves at us as he's writing a 50 lb ticket for that rude asshole. Like I said "Does it get any sweeter?
So I wonder what the prison term is for 2,000,000,000 acts of fraud, illegal phone use and misrepresentation? Please let the sentences be served consecutively!
It seems the FTC has identified the miscreants. How about a couple million people converge on these places and the government just looks the other way for about... oh 10 hours. Problem solved with extreme prejudice!
I'm sorry but the story's author made superb points about the fact that corporations (specifically Google) do what's good for them, and if its good for society great, if not, tough. Her specific and very personal example of the need for protecting some people's identity from a gamut of real threats including employers, future employers, bigots, religious fanatics, and a government that is perfectly happy to march up your posterior to ascertain what it was you had for dinner last night, should be a critical concern to every card carrying geek breathing today. You can't possibly sit there with that smug "Capitalism will fix everything" look on your face and tell me that the global corporation as it currently exists and the IP laws, and Banking laws, and near gutting of our system of government that said corporations have inflicted on society are a positive things. Every system that deals with primates needs to inspire the best in, and account for the worst in, said primates. Pure Socialism and pure Capitalism are equally bankrupt in the fact that they first assume people are saintly won't make fertilizer out of one another to get what they want (and history is sadly chock full of examples to the contrary.)
I believe that Capitalism is a healthy part of future workable system, there will always be a need for people to interact and gain mutual value from those very interactions. The question is how do you balance that needs of the one with the needs of the many. With 7 billion of us maybe 11 billion by the end of the century, you are going to have to make some very pointed tradeoffs between personal rights and civil liberties and social responsibility and personal integrity. All of that not withstanding the exploding technology threatens all aspects of traditional commerce and the integrity of the social fabric. What happens when we have nanotechnology, and the only things of value are IP, energy and raw atomic feed stocks? There will be no labor, save artistic self expression or side economies. No production per se (yes machines will work but not people.) How do you run your Capitalism in such a place? How do you prevent the machines recycle all the people for their carbon?
We need to invent a future that is conducive to being human, and the time for such invention is running out ever more quickly. We need to ask hard questions about how we preserve the best in what it means to be human in the face of what it will mean to become trans-human. As the interesting stuff happens more and more outside of the meat in our heads, how do we address the deepest aspects of who and what we are and how will we protect that from being ground up in the sausage machine of an automated economy which ultimately transcends that ability of human beings to manage or even impact in any meaningful way.
Your arrogance at not bothering to get what this woman is saying, and the vital importance of trying to see past your own prejudices with regards to evolving human social dynamics is at least disturbing. You represent the problem solvers and here you are being part of the problem. Those guys running the corporations. They're just like you and me, only they are playing the corporation game, and what kind of social engineering is called for to reward those players for improving the human condition and not subjugating it. People are mostly cattle told what they will want, eat and think by talking head in little boxes. I do not thrill to riding with a race of Pavlovian knucklehead as they meet their fates head on.
I think he's referring to the "My Belief" is as good as "Your Belief" conversation. Now you would have to explain to him the reason he's buggered is that he has "A Belief System based on something somebody invented from some source other that verifiable physical reality", and you have a rational framework of ideas based on validation tested against the physical universe and that if at any point in time the universe disagrees with any of the ideas in your rational framework, you excise the offending idea as proven false. Beliefs exist in the absence of facts. There are many unanswerable questions about being human and alive in this place. For these eternal questions, beliefs are a potentially valid way to look at these aspects of life and the universe. There are a growing number of places for which we have good theories and experimental data, and in these places you can dispense with belief, because there are facts, and facts trump opinions every time.
Just because I don't believe in gravity don't mean I can pull a Bugs Bunny and float on my belief... physical reality trumps every single time.
Apples and Oranges... Mexico is a mess, and you have to face the fact we are more than a little responsible for the sucking going on there. The drug cartels have made Mexico hell, and those same cartels are using American money and American weapons to wreak havoc. Part of the problem with Mexican labor is that Corps like Walmart HEAVILY grease politician's hands to keep the gate open so they can have cheap labor. You and I try to close the gate, but who's got the Senator's ear? I do have sympathy for people in a hard place not of their choosing and through no fault but accident of birth.
I don't have a problem with HB-1 recipients. I have the same problem with the Corporations that use them as I do with Walmart screwing with our border for its own bottom line. I don't like people messing with my livelihood, and putting me in a fiscal hard spot, because they want that third McMansion in the Hamptons. I find that more than a little hard to swallow thanks.
Not just stock numbers contractors don't get benefits (med costs are going through the roof these days.) Contractors can hired and fired at the drop of a hat, and there is little or no drama. Contractors can be buried in the accounting of project and can improve the apparent cost of a project. Point is, the American corporation no longer has any sense of obligation to its employees and their only interest is getting the most for the least and if they have to do that over your dead body, well it doesn't matter if its white or brown.
Exactly, so now an entire generation owes the bank for crushing college loans WHICH NEVER GO AWAY, and now that debt is over a Trillion dollars, and with most of those kids unable to find work because foreign nationals are doing those jobs... well you can figure out the rest. It involves Soylent Green.
Friend, I'm happy for you. There will always be the pro fro Dover who is a person everyone needs and will pay dearly for. Would you say your rare? We're talking about the fact that I worked for a company in 2001, and they let go of over 100 perfectly skilled and capable engineers to they could offshore to India instead. Three support centers, one in San Jose, Another in Austin, and the last in Mass. Please explain any justification for that save fiscal, and explain to me how wiping out the technical labor force of California from 2002 - 2004 was in way conducive to the general well being of America?
You're absolutely right friend, once you fall out of your Mother's womb, its all up to you. Perhaps we should go back to child labor and sweatshops. Work a few to death maybe, at least get that national fat problem solved, a little less food and a lot more hard labor would do the country good. Maybe if we're lucky, kill off the surplus populations, you know have them get on with the business of dying... who said that.. oh yeah Scrooge, there's a guy with his head on his shoulders. The problem is that this whole thing has gotten all messed up. I didn't deserve to have my personal wealth sucked out of my stock portfolio by bankers gambling with the nation's wealth, but they did that too, and looking around, not a single one is being prosecuted, in fact all I see is Congressmen with their faces so far up banker's behinds they can see daylight out the other side. Is that fair?
The "Asphalt Jungle" spoke of a world where the American laborer barely rated as human and their corporate masters worked them in ways that were inhumane, unscrupulous and detrimental to a society that served the better interests of all. By the time we got to post WWII, our infrastructure was strong, our taxes (for the wealthy) high, but it didn't matter, our economy and middle class were booming, and the sky was the limit. Even with tax brackets in excess of 90%, the wealthy got wealthier and the system worked well. Corporations paid their fair share of taxes (in 1945 corporations paid 40% of all taxes... today they pay just over 5% and bitch like we're killing... repeat after me... LIARS!!!) and getting a pension was the norm. A man could earn enough real wealth to buy a car, a house, put his kids through school including college, and retire without debt all on a single income and all without a credit card.
There are tens of millions of proud Americans who up to a few years ago had long and successful careers and for whom the probability is will never work again save asking folks if they want fries with that. You can't live on that wage, nobody can. The largest number of people in history are now receiving food stamps and you best believe without that assistance, the number of Americans going to bed hungry every night would be beyond shocking, past appalling, right into soul shattering.
My question then, is what has happened to this nation, once the wealthiest in the world and its generous people, that have so many people now saying what sounds vaguely like "If your hungry tough, I got mine to hell with you." People building zombie shelters. The Fiscal Cliff... when did out society fall off the deep end?
I'll grant you that there are obvious advantage to the rest of the world for an open America, the problem you miss is that now all those nations hold a tremendous amount of American debt. What happens when the American economy implodes? Just as there is goodness for everyone to take now, there will be unhappiness galore for everyone to take a nice fat slice of. American are suffering terribly. Some say in a year or five everything will be better, how long can you hold your breath?
Our government threw a trillion dollars at trying to bail out the deep water American middle class is in, and the banks took that earmarked money, gave it to one another as bonuses and hid it in foreign banks. If you think the very same bankers will treat anyone else on the planet with any more grace I think you don't know bankers. We are all playing at a crooked poker table, and the dealing is dirty. All of this is an exercise in manipulation and misdirection. The problem is that we of the American middle class, and all the good people of the world are focusing on the wrong hand. Our masters are greedy and without compassion. We need to find our own way, and we best get about it soon while there are ways still left to us.
Apparently economics is not your strong suit, friend. America through the 70s and 80s protected its middle class by managing a complex structure of trade barriers intended to keep American wages high and prevent the flood of dollars into the world economy diluting American wealth. At the same time American corporations began to globalize and build strong networks with the other global enterprises, and opening American borders to trade was great for them but sadly destructive to the American middle class as it began to have to compete for jobs with people who could afford to work for pennies an hour for labor jobs and just a few dollars an hour for technical jobs. These people lived in economies where the cost of living was a tenth of what it was in America and so American Nationals had no sane way of competing. So you want to get something clear off the bat, fair market wage is a fantasy. Until you homogenize the economies of the world so everyone has the same cost of living, same tax burden, same access to educational resources, medicine, and civil liberties, there can be no such thing as a fair market because your trading apples and oranges.
America has been bled dry so that the dollar and the rupee are quick approaching the same value. The American people will soon be able to compete with laborers in the global market because their wages will be in fact the same. This is not a good thing for Americans. We have been reduced to a third world nation and our wealth has been squandered on multinational corporations who no longer owe American any allegiance. I've personally known hundreds of engineers who don't engineer anymore, because after the Dotcom crash, their jobs went away and they never came back. I lost my retirement in two massive stock crashes. I work for 60% of what I made in 2001, and if I account for the real value of the dollar that's probably closer to 45% (and don't let them lie to you about inflation, the dollar is a shadow of its pre 2000 value.)
I'm not big on waving flags, but let me ask you a few questions. Do you believe that the vast majority of dollars foreign workers are paid remains in the American economic system, or does a lot of it go back to the home country to support family there, and what is the impact of dollars flying out of out economy? Do you think that foreign workers have any loyalty to America, or do your think they take what they learn back home to start businesses that compete with us? I could actually go on quite a while, but hope I'm painting a picture here for you. The wealth of all kinds leaves out country and makes us all poorer. This is the place your children will inherit. What will be left of it when you've taken your share?
All I need to say, is what is the state of the middle class in this country, and what is the state of technology workers in the U.S. today, and my first question is how many of the AMERICAN workers were American in 1995 and how many are today.
Idiocy!!! All M$ had to do was create a repository for monthly fixes and update with some breakdown by priority and whether the patch is critical. Then have a small but effective tool that allows a Windows install to automagically traverse the patch database itself, so M$ doesn't need to do any more work than its doing now, just smarter work, and users are grotesquely inconvenienced. If this is just a shallow attempt to squeeze the user base by making the use of the current OS a draconian pain in the ass, then its clear that M$ doesn't want our business any more and we should comply forth with... there are plenty of other great alternatives out there including windows emulators.
Oh yeah, if labels were for instance to condone the abomination of legal ass rape of people who shared music files, just as an example, it would show them in a very poor light indeed.
No Lawyers are the enemy of humor. Corporations out to dominate the world and the people in it are the enemy of comedy. Fact is, these people are a threat to human expression, thought, and artistic self expression everywhere. We need to yank these clowns up short so hard their grandkids will feel the choke. Its time to dispense with these structures because their misuse and abuse by greedy scum sucking pigs has become a detriment to society at large. Or at least a MAJOR overhaul is called for. For certain we need to make nuisance suits expensive to those suing so they think twice.
For that 2 to 6 demographic where a child is able to go somewhere, but may not have the forethought of sophistication to get back (of course depending on the child... I knew a 3 year old who could read, name all the states, presidents, vice presidents, and current governors, and use the phone and locate herself on a google map... what are they feeding kids these days?)
You could always give the kid a device they can turn on that transmits images and sound and sends a locating beacon. That and perhaps a shaped charge in one of their shoes, so as you're watching when the freak takes one of your child's shoes off... BANG!!!... no hands ma! Modern science can prove its incredibly hard to molest a child without hands.
Slashdot Mirror
Change that... gotten stupid. In the mad rush to distinguish themselves and demonize the opponent, campaigning in this country has just gotten ridiculous. One of the reasons that Romney lost was that he kept saying things about Obama that simply weren't true. The problem supporting Romney became trying to figure out what was correct and what was just flaming bat guano. He destroyed his own credibility (well his campaign manager did it, but Romney let him.) Of course in past elections, the bull pucky would have stood, but so many people have ways of validating claims now and there were so many independent fact checkers this election that BS on both sides got shot down in record time.
We live a diverse and interesting society. The fact that Conservatives want desperately to take the nation back to 40s is interesting but more than a little brain dead. By the way I distinguish social conservatives from fiscal conservatives. I'm talking about mostly Fundies, folks from smaller more agriculturally based communities, you know pretty much the entire middle of the country outside of big cities. If you look at the red and blue distribution, it should be clear. Maybe in a generation, the impact of technology will have stomped so hard on "Traditional Values" that it'l stop being the source of so much mischief in our society.
Wow... where were you living the last 10 years. The cost of homes was driven to insane heights by investors and banks, forcing anyone who wanted as much as a tool shed in a decent neighborhood to "OVER BUY". Then when the bubble burst, your tool shed suddenly passed the sane price for a tool shed and suddenly became valued at something just north of a Habitrail Hamster Home. How is any of that the fault of the home buyer, save they should have seen the "bubble bursting" and the "bubble headed" coming at great distance, sold high, and rented for a couple years.
Yes and I'm presuming you did move during the second worst unemployment situation in our nations history.
What exactly is living within your means? We just set the highest number of people in history receiving food stamps and the middle class is approaching full on gravitational collapse. The vast number of jobs that have been created since since 2008 are minimum wage service jobs. Jobs who's means suggest a person should just find a warm dry spot under a bridge and starve to death. I don't have a problem with this Objectivist idea that altruism is the problem not the solution, except that what y'all are calling altruism is some clown suffering from terminal hubris infliction his ego on society at large. Real altruism looks like Sean Penn wading through hip deep sewage in the aftermath of Katrina, saving people's lives stranded in flooded homes in the ninth ward. Real altruism looks like someone donating a pint of blood or running a food drive to feed the hungry. Its rests on this funny thing called compassion and it involves using your heart as much as your brain. I don't have to know what serves you best in any given social context to know that if your don't have clean water to drink you have about a week to live, and a meaningful expression of altruism would be for me to bring you water so your don't expire.
Friend, there are way more people than available job, and that means a lot of good hard working, proud folk, who haven't worked in quite a while, through no fault of their own. With the advent of increasing automation and computers being able to do more and more of what we do, you should enjoy your job while you have one. But you might also consider not looking down your nose at those who've been left holding the bag, a bunch them only committed the unforgivable crime of getting older than 50.
Emergency phones. A simple virtually indestructible phone that runs on solar power and normally uses the standard cell network for calling, but in times of disaster can utilize shortwave, video frequencies to assure that people everywhere can remain in communication and have access to emergency resources as they may be available.
Not really, I looked at the book list... unless you're a burning urn of churning funk for algebra... or just gotta have a book on social science... walk away from this pointless waste of electrons. I can't imagine with this book list they'll do any better with a for profit model.
Don't forget the pixieish smile with the finger wave... it made the scene. Especially later when he actually does it with Morden's head on a pike... poetic justice doesn't come often, but when it does, is there anything sweeter?
I was driving home from Arizona, on the 10, just outside Palm Springs on a Sunday afternoon. A gold Cadillac came flying around me going over 90 mph, almost taking my front end off, then proceeds to weave through traffic like an escapee from Mad Max. I turn to my passenger and say "Where's a cop when you need one?..." when lo and behold... there's a cop. We roll down the window and yell "Crazy fsck in a gold caddy up ahead..." and the cop takes off like a bat outta hell. About 5 minutes later, we drive by the cop and the caddy, the cop waves at us as he's writing a 50 lb ticket for that rude asshole. Like I said "Does it get any sweeter?
So I wonder what the prison term is for 2,000,000,000 acts of fraud, illegal phone use and misrepresentation? Please let the sentences be served consecutively!
It seems the FTC has identified the miscreants. How about a couple million people converge on these places and the government just looks the other way for about... oh 10 hours. Problem solved with extreme prejudice!
You need to repeat this twice... its a mantra!
I'm sorry but the story's author made superb points about the fact that corporations (specifically Google) do what's good for them, and if its good for society great, if not, tough. Her specific and very personal example of the need for protecting some people's identity from a gamut of real threats including employers, future employers, bigots, religious fanatics, and a government that is perfectly happy to march up your posterior to ascertain what it was you had for dinner last night, should be a critical concern to every card carrying geek breathing today. You can't possibly sit there with that smug "Capitalism will fix everything" look on your face and tell me that the global corporation as it currently exists and the IP laws, and Banking laws, and near gutting of our system of government that said corporations have inflicted on society are a positive things. Every system that deals with primates needs to inspire the best in, and account for the worst in, said primates. Pure Socialism and pure Capitalism are equally bankrupt in the fact that they first assume people are saintly won't make fertilizer out of one another to get what they want (and history is sadly chock full of examples to the contrary.)
I believe that Capitalism is a healthy part of future workable system, there will always be a need for people to interact and gain mutual value from those very interactions. The question is how do you balance that needs of the one with the needs of the many. With 7 billion of us maybe 11 billion by the end of the century, you are going to have to make some very pointed tradeoffs between personal rights and civil liberties and social responsibility and personal integrity. All of that not withstanding the exploding technology threatens all aspects of traditional commerce and the integrity of the social fabric. What happens when we have nanotechnology, and the only things of value are IP, energy and raw atomic feed stocks? There will be no labor, save artistic self expression or side economies. No production per se (yes machines will work but not people.) How do you run your Capitalism in such a place? How do you prevent the machines recycle all the people for their carbon?
We need to invent a future that is conducive to being human, and the time for such invention is running out ever more quickly. We need to ask hard questions about how we preserve the best in what it means to be human in the face of what it will mean to become trans-human. As the interesting stuff happens more and more outside of the meat in our heads, how do we address the deepest aspects of who and what we are and how will we protect that from being ground up in the sausage machine of an automated economy which ultimately transcends that ability of human beings to manage or even impact in any meaningful way.
Your arrogance at not bothering to get what this woman is saying, and the vital importance of trying to see past your own prejudices with regards to evolving human social dynamics is at least disturbing. You represent the problem solvers and here you are being part of the problem. Those guys running the corporations. They're just like you and me, only they are playing the corporation game, and what kind of social engineering is called for to reward those players for improving the human condition and not subjugating it. People are mostly cattle told what they will want, eat and think by talking head in little boxes. I do not thrill to riding with a race of Pavlovian knucklehead as they meet their fates head on.
I think he's referring to the "My Belief" is as good as "Your Belief" conversation. Now you would have to explain to him the reason he's buggered is that he has "A Belief System based on something somebody invented from some source other that verifiable physical reality", and you have a rational framework of ideas based on validation tested against the physical universe and that if at any point in time the universe disagrees with any of the ideas in your rational framework, you excise the offending idea as proven false. Beliefs exist in the absence of facts. There are many unanswerable questions about being human and alive in this place. For these eternal questions, beliefs are a potentially valid way to look at these aspects of life and the universe. There are a growing number of places for which we have good theories and experimental data, and in these places you can dispense with belief, because there are facts, and facts trump opinions every time.
Just because I don't believe in gravity don't mean I can pull a Bugs Bunny and float on my belief... physical reality trumps every single time.
But there ain't no way Jamie Lee Curtis is going to convince me to eat shit... I don't care how regular it makes me, UUuuugggghhhh!
Apples and Oranges... Mexico is a mess, and you have to face the fact we are more than a little responsible for the sucking going on there. The drug cartels have made Mexico hell, and those same cartels are using American money and American weapons to wreak havoc. Part of the problem with Mexican labor is that Corps like Walmart HEAVILY grease politician's hands to keep the gate open so they can have cheap labor. You and I try to close the gate, but who's got the Senator's ear? I do have sympathy for people in a hard place not of their choosing and through no fault but accident of birth.
I don't have a problem with HB-1 recipients. I have the same problem with the Corporations that use them as I do with Walmart screwing with our border for its own bottom line. I don't like people messing with my livelihood, and putting me in a fiscal hard spot, because they want that third McMansion in the Hamptons. I find that more than a little hard to swallow thanks.
Not just stock numbers contractors don't get benefits (med costs are going through the roof these days.) Contractors can hired and fired at the drop of a hat, and there is little or no drama. Contractors can be buried in the accounting of project and can improve the apparent cost of a project. Point is, the American corporation no longer has any sense of obligation to its employees and their only interest is getting the most for the least and if they have to do that over your dead body, well it doesn't matter if its white or brown.
Exactly, so now an entire generation owes the bank for crushing college loans WHICH NEVER GO AWAY, and now that debt is over a Trillion dollars, and with most of those kids unable to find work because foreign nationals are doing those jobs... well you can figure out the rest. It involves Soylent Green.
Friend, I'm happy for you. There will always be the pro fro Dover who is a person everyone needs and will pay dearly for. Would you say your rare? We're talking about the fact that I worked for a company in 2001, and they let go of over 100 perfectly skilled and capable engineers to they could offshore to India instead. Three support centers, one in San Jose, Another in Austin, and the last in Mass. Please explain any justification for that save fiscal, and explain to me how wiping out the technical labor force of California from 2002 - 2004 was in way conducive to the general well being of America?
You're absolutely right friend, once you fall out of your Mother's womb, its all up to you. Perhaps we should go back to child labor and sweatshops. Work a few to death maybe, at least get that national fat problem solved, a little less food and a lot more hard labor would do the country good. Maybe if we're lucky, kill off the surplus populations, you know have them get on with the business of dying... who said that.. oh yeah Scrooge, there's a guy with his head on his shoulders. The problem is that this whole thing has gotten all messed up. I didn't deserve to have my personal wealth sucked out of my stock portfolio by bankers gambling with the nation's wealth, but they did that too, and looking around, not a single one is being prosecuted, in fact all I see is Congressmen with their faces so far up banker's behinds they can see daylight out the other side. Is that fair?
The "Asphalt Jungle" spoke of a world where the American laborer barely rated as human and their corporate masters worked them in ways that were inhumane, unscrupulous and detrimental to a society that served the better interests of all. By the time we got to post WWII, our infrastructure was strong, our taxes (for the wealthy) high, but it didn't matter, our economy and middle class were booming, and the sky was the limit. Even with tax brackets in excess of 90%, the wealthy got wealthier and the system worked well. Corporations paid their fair share of taxes (in 1945 corporations paid 40% of all taxes... today they pay just over 5% and bitch like we're killing... repeat after me... LIARS!!!) and getting a pension was the norm. A man could earn enough real wealth to buy a car, a house, put his kids through school including college, and retire without debt all on a single income and all without a credit card.
There are tens of millions of proud Americans who up to a few years ago had long and successful careers and for whom the probability is will never work again save asking folks if they want fries with that. You can't live on that wage, nobody can. The largest number of people in history are now receiving food stamps and you best believe without that assistance, the number of Americans going to bed hungry every night would be beyond shocking, past appalling, right into soul shattering.
My question then, is what has happened to this nation, once the wealthiest in the world and its generous people, that have so many people now saying what sounds vaguely like "If your hungry tough, I got mine to hell with you." People building zombie shelters. The Fiscal Cliff... when did out society fall off the deep end?
I'll grant you that there are obvious advantage to the rest of the world for an open America, the problem you miss is that now all those nations hold a tremendous amount of American debt. What happens when the American economy implodes? Just as there is goodness for everyone to take now, there will be unhappiness galore for everyone to take a nice fat slice of. American are suffering terribly. Some say in a year or five everything will be better, how long can you hold your breath?
Our government threw a trillion dollars at trying to bail out the deep water American middle class is in, and the banks took that earmarked money, gave it to one another as bonuses and hid it in foreign banks. If you think the very same bankers will treat anyone else on the planet with any more grace I think you don't know bankers. We are all playing at a crooked poker table, and the dealing is dirty. All of this is an exercise in manipulation and misdirection. The problem is that we of the American middle class, and all the good people of the world are focusing on the wrong hand. Our masters are greedy and without compassion. We need to find our own way, and we best get about it soon while there are ways still left to us.
Apparently economics is not your strong suit, friend. America through the 70s and 80s protected its middle class by managing a complex structure of trade barriers intended to keep American wages high and prevent the flood of dollars into the world economy diluting American wealth. At the same time American corporations began to globalize and build strong networks with the other global enterprises, and opening American borders to trade was great for them but sadly destructive to the American middle class as it began to have to compete for jobs with people who could afford to work for pennies an hour for labor jobs and just a few dollars an hour for technical jobs. These people lived in economies where the cost of living was a tenth of what it was in America and so American Nationals had no sane way of competing. So you want to get something clear off the bat, fair market wage is a fantasy. Until you homogenize the economies of the world so everyone has the same cost of living, same tax burden, same access to educational resources, medicine, and civil liberties, there can be no such thing as a fair market because your trading apples and oranges.
America has been bled dry so that the dollar and the rupee are quick approaching the same value. The American people will soon be able to compete with laborers in the global market because their wages will be in fact the same. This is not a good thing for Americans. We have been reduced to a third world nation and our wealth has been squandered on multinational corporations who no longer owe American any allegiance. I've personally known hundreds of engineers who don't engineer anymore, because after the Dotcom crash, their jobs went away and they never came back. I lost my retirement in two massive stock crashes. I work for 60% of what I made in 2001, and if I account for the real value of the dollar that's probably closer to 45% (and don't let them lie to you about inflation, the dollar is a shadow of its pre 2000 value.)
I'm not big on waving flags, but let me ask you a few questions. Do you believe that the vast majority of dollars foreign workers are paid remains in the American economic system, or does a lot of it go back to the home country to support family there, and what is the impact of dollars flying out of out economy? Do you think that foreign workers have any loyalty to America, or do your think they take what they learn back home to start businesses that compete with us? I could actually go on quite a while, but hope I'm painting a picture here for you. The wealth of all kinds leaves out country and makes us all poorer. This is the place your children will inherit. What will be left of it when you've taken your share?
All I need to say, is what is the state of the middle class in this country, and what is the state of technology workers in the U.S. today, and my first question is how many of the AMERICAN workers were American in 1995 and how many are today.
No, more of a Jurassic Pinata.
No Windows 8 is Windows 9 Alpha.
Idiocy!!! All M$ had to do was create a repository for monthly fixes and update with some breakdown by priority and whether the patch is critical. Then have a small but effective tool that allows a Windows install to automagically traverse the patch database itself, so M$ doesn't need to do any more work than its doing now, just smarter work, and users are grotesquely inconvenienced. If this is just a shallow attempt to squeeze the user base by making the use of the current OS a draconian pain in the ass, then its clear that M$ doesn't want our business any more and we should comply forth with... there are plenty of other great alternatives out there including windows emulators.
Oh yeah, if labels were for instance to condone the abomination of legal ass rape of people who shared music files, just as an example, it would show them in a very poor light indeed.
No Lawyers are the enemy of humor. Corporations out to dominate the world and the people in it are the enemy of comedy. Fact is, these people are a threat to human expression, thought, and artistic self expression everywhere. We need to yank these clowns up short so hard their grandkids will feel the choke. Its time to dispense with these structures because their misuse and abuse by greedy scum sucking pigs has become a detriment to society at large. Or at least a MAJOR overhaul is called for. For certain we need to make nuisance suits expensive to those suing so they think twice.
For that 2 to 6 demographic where a child is able to go somewhere, but may not have the forethought of sophistication to get back (of course depending on the child... I knew a 3 year old who could read, name all the states, presidents, vice presidents, and current governors, and use the phone and locate herself on a google map... what are they feeding kids these days?)
You could always give the kid a device they can turn on that transmits images and sound and sends a locating beacon. That and perhaps a shaped charge in one of their shoes, so as you're watching when the freak takes one of your child's shoes off... BANG!!!... no hands ma! Modern science can prove its incredibly hard to molest a child without hands.
That's not acceptable for users, developers, or a healthy ecosystem long-term, and we should continue to complain about it until they fix it.
In other words, Till hell freezes over that the devils go ice skating...