What I think you mean to say is that 99% of those that voted did so for one of the two major party candidates. Approx 120M voted in that election, per your source above. In 2004, there were more than 200M - probably more like 215-220M - adults in the US (I see there were 210M in 2000, but can't find better numbers than that for 2004 on census.gov).
So yes, 99% of the voting population voted for one of them, but what about the disenfranchised 40-50% of adults who did not vote?
Re:You're missing the most radical language of all
on
C# In-Depth
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· Score: 1
[offtopic]
Reminds me of a type of cymbal that was devised by one of the drum/cymbal companies, Sabian, a number of years ago. It's called a "Rocktagon".
It was actually an octagonal piece of cast metal. Sounded like utter garbage. I don't play drums regularly anymore, but I hope to God they stopped making it...
[/offtopic]
[offtopic]
Hey now, there's no reason to knock the "fraternity dwelling counterparts" in favor of engineers. Just think of what happens when the two become one!
The best parties (LAN or otherwise)...
The biggest study sessions...
The baddest audio/visual equipment...
And these behemoths. http://www.pbase.com/goldtimer/gt03wrecks
Can anyone but an engineer appreciate the ugliness yet shear ingenuity of some of these things? It's a wonder they actually run.
And they're all built new every year by... surprise surprise, fraternity men!
(Yes one of them was mine. No I'm not telling you which one)
[/offtopic]
Re:If I could do it all over again...
on
MIT's SAT Math Error
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I think that anyone who wants an engineering degree for the money will be disappointed. I have a degree in chemical engineering, and I make $55,000 (that is with 10 months of experience). That sounds like a lot for being just out of school, but given the extra effort of obtaining the degree, and the amount of work that is expected from me at my job, I don't think it's a better deal than a liberal arts degree would've been. I think that the value of any degree is what you do with it. If you work to gain valuable experience, advocate yourself, and work well with others, you can make a 6 figure income with any degree.
Yes but consider this. The average starting salary of a liberal arts degree holder is generally quoted as $30-35k. The average starting salary of an engineering degree holder is generally quoted in the $50-55k range. That's a pretty significant difference - the engineering degree yields a return of 40 to 80% straight off the bat. Granted the engineering degree is harder but I'd say it's well worth the effort.
Now that said, I do agree with you that a degree is only as valuable as you make it (to a certain point). But I think taking these numbers in the aggregate probably cuts a lot of the variance due to super high- and low- achievers.
You could even increase your options if instead of taking a technical or science major as your second one, you took one totally different, like finance or healthcare. You could then get a position setting up or programming financial or health systems for instance.
That was my thought exactly. I actually double-majored in a non-computer related engineering (Aerospace) and Business, with an IT minor. The Engineering degree kept me distanced from IT "fads" but taught the problem solving skills I was looking for, and I took enough extra courses in computer topics of interest (and side job/summer work coding), to develop a decent broad skillset (at least for what I ws looking for...when I graduated I had some db admin exposure, in addition to web and application development).
I'm working in an IT role (Systems Implementation Consultant, basically) where I get to write a little code, do some testing and flex my problem-solving muscles, while working to move towards a Project Manager role, which is really where I prefer to be.
Although Visa rules do not preclude merchants from asking for cardholder ID, merchants cannot make an ID a condition of acceptance. Therefore, merchants cannot refuse to complete a purchase transaction because a cardholder refuses to provide ID. Visa believes merchants should not ask for ID as part of their regular card acceptance procedures
So you can't *mandate* that someone provide ID in order to complete their transaction. But at least with Visa, merchants do have the right to ask (knowing that you don't have to give it to them).
any sensible browser configuration doesnt need a search bar. anything in the address bar thats not a domain name goes to a search engine. how hard is that? saves a lot of screen real estate (that google search box isnt small), and makes things easier all around. The problem for me is speed. When using the addess bar to search, you have to wait for the browser to check local and remote dns for every variation of your search term before it realizes that "jessica alba nak^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H msdn error number 512345" couldn't possibly be a domain name. THEN it takes you to your browser of choice. That takes a good 5 seconds on my box...much too long to wait for that important info;)
I'd say that when you get up around TEN million in assets, then you can shield yourself from bad decisions or risky investments, and you can maybe quit your day-job, live off the revenue-producing investments.
One is not truly financially independent until one has probably fifty million dollars in assets.
How are you defining financial independence? My definition is that I have enough money in the bank that, in lieu of working, I could live off the interest on my money and not suffer a loss in my standard of living.
With that in mind, we'll assume a value of $65k for the amount you need per year to make this work (just because that's the amount you mentioned you make).
My calculations tell me that investing X dollars at 4% (a very realistic estimate of return on very very low risk investments)
to yield $65k annually makes X = $1.625 million. Even if you bump your expectation of current salary up to $100k, that number still only goes to $2.5million. I suppose you could throw paying cash for a house on top of that, so you can add another $500k or so to the value...but that still puts you up to $3million for a very reasonable middle class existance without working (and no mortgage payment to boot)
Where you got numbers like $10million or $50million as a minimum is beyond me...
> >all of which again benefit (to a lesser degree) local businesses
> Which are owned by rich people.
And employ non-rich people. Who go out and make the cycle happen again. I don't see the problem.
The thing that you are not considering is the liquidity of wealth. In the case of somebody like Bill Gates, a lot of his wealth is concentrated in owning something like 10% of Microsoft stock.
When you own 50 or 100 shares of a stock like you and I do, we can buy and sell as we wish with basically no effect on the price of the stock. In this regard, you could say that our ownership of this stock is fairly liquid -- within an hour or so, you could sell the stock and pretty much take home whatever money you make (after tax, and assuming the stock doesn't co crazy in the interim for other reasons). However, if Bill tried to sell some $20 billion in stock, the value of the company would absolutely plummet. Hence, this investment for him is extremely illiquid.
So yes, in this regard, Bill Gates is *worth* these tens of billions of dollars -- on paper. But he can't do anything with them except sit there and look at the stock certificates.
So when you ask " it kinda makes you think what exactly are they doing with this money anyways?" the answer is -- there's nothing they CAN do with the money, because for the time being it's not real money
I guarantee anybody who has GOOD DBA skills will not have interpersonal skills, and anybody with interpersonal skills will not be a good DBA. Those two skillsets are mutually exclusive.
How can you say that with such assurance? It seems to me that one can be good at both of these skills if they work on developing them both. Why do you think someone could have one of these skills max?
From the www.donotcall.gov website -- "The National Do Not Call Registry does not limit calls by political organizations, charities, or telephone surveyors." "A telemarketer or seller may call a consumer with whom it has an established business relationship for up to 18 months after the consumer's last purchase, delivery, or payment - even if the consumer's number is on the National Do Not Call Registry"
Finally -- "30. What happens to companies that don't pay for access to the registry?
A company that is a seller or telemarketer could be liable for placing any telemarketing calls (even to numbers NOT on the registry) unless the seller has accessed the registry and paid the fee, if required. Violators may be subject to fines of up to $11,000 per violation. Each call may be considered a separate violation."
So in summary -- if you are still getting calls, first tell any telemarketer calls you get to remove you from their lists. Then if they continue to call, file a complaint against them at the aforementioned website.
I think it's referring to lulu.com -- which is where the link goes anyways. *That* Lulu is a self-publishing website, aimed at authors who want to run short prints of their book for limited distribution. It allows them not to go through one of the big publishing houses and keep more of the money from their book sales to boot.
While S and C corp business owners pay a flat 15%.
This is not true. S and C corp business owners pay 15% on whatever money they are paid in *dividends* or by cashing in on options. However, S corp owners still pay ordinary income tax on their distributions (their share of net income at the end of the year), whether the money stays in the business or goes into their pockets. And the net income of a c corp is taxed at the corporate rate, which reduces net income, which reduces retained earnings and has the effect of reducing the value of the organization (from a balance sheet perspective) by the amount of money they paid in taxes.
Q: So a plane was flying north, over the border between Germany and Poland. Suddenly for no apparent reason, the plane starts losing altitude and crashes!! Why did the plane crash?
A: All of the poles were on the right side of the plane!!
heh heh...poles
"Biometric info on my ATM card? Sure! As long as it *remains tied* to that account. If you start cross correlating that with my purchasing and medical data, that starts to worry the hell out of me. Not for what will happen in the next few years - but for how my children's children will live."
And that's exactly the problem. Because every step that we take in this direction is one step closer to the scenario that you're talking about. Once we start giving out our biometric info, I promise it's only a matter of time before someone suggests "well, why don't we just link it all together...ATM card, drivers license, etc" Little by little, privacy and individual rights get eroded away...
Slashdot Mirror
Eat in moderate amounts. Fresh stuff. Mostly plants. Move your ass regularly.
Michael is that you??
/.er ...
I didn't know Michael Pollan was a
I'd say most appear satisfied with either one of the Two Parties given that 99% of them voted for one of the Two in 2004 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2004 )
What I think you mean to say is that 99% of those that voted did so for one of the two major party candidates. Approx 120M voted in that election, per your source above. In 2004, there were more than 200M - probably more like 215-220M - adults in the US (I see there were 210M in 2000, but can't find better numbers than that for 2004 on census.gov).
So yes, 99% of the voting population voted for one of them, but what about the disenfranchised 40-50% of adults who did not vote?
[offtopic]
Reminds me of a type of cymbal that was devised by one of the drum/cymbal companies, Sabian, a number of years ago. It's called a "Rocktagon".
It was actually an octagonal piece of cast metal. Sounded like utter garbage. I don't play drums regularly anymore, but I hope to God they stopped making it...
[/offtopic]
[offtopic]
... surprise surprise, fraternity men!
Hey now, there's no reason to knock the "fraternity dwelling counterparts" in favor of engineers. Just think of what happens when the two become one!
The best parties (LAN or otherwise)...
The biggest study sessions...
The baddest audio/visual equipment...
And these behemoths.
http://www.pbase.com/goldtimer/gt03wrecks
Can anyone but an engineer appreciate the ugliness yet shear ingenuity of some of these things? It's a wonder they actually run.
And they're all built new every year by
(Yes one of them was mine. No I'm not telling you which one)
[/offtopic]
Yes but consider this. The average starting salary of a liberal arts degree holder is generally quoted as $30-35k. The average starting salary of an engineering degree holder is generally quoted in the $50-55k range. That's a pretty significant difference - the engineering degree yields a return of 40 to 80% straight off the bat. Granted the engineering degree is harder but I'd say it's well worth the effort.
Now that said, I do agree with you that a degree is only as valuable as you make it (to a certain point). But I think taking these numbers in the aggregate probably cuts a lot of the variance due to super high- and low- achievers.
You could even increase your options if instead of taking a technical or science major as your second one, you took one totally different, like finance or healthcare. You could then get a position setting up or programming financial or health systems for instance.
That was my thought exactly. I actually double-majored in a non-computer related engineering (Aerospace) and Business, with an IT minor. The Engineering degree kept me distanced from IT "fads" but taught the problem solving skills I was looking for, and I took enough extra courses in computer topics of interest (and side job/summer work coding), to develop a decent broad skillset (at least for what I ws looking for...when I graduated I had some db admin exposure, in addition to web and application development).
I'm working in an IT role (Systems Implementation Consultant, basically) where I get to write a little code, do some testing and flex my problem-solving muscles, while working to move towards a Project Manager role, which is really where I prefer to be.
According to Visa's Rules for Visa Merchants: http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/rules_for_v isa_merchants.pdf
Although Visa rules do not preclude merchants from asking for cardholder ID, merchants cannot make an ID a condition of acceptance. Therefore, merchants cannot refuse to complete a purchase transaction because a cardholder refuses to provide ID. Visa believes merchants should not ask for ID as part of their regular card acceptance procedures
So you can't *mandate* that someone provide ID in order to complete their transaction. But at least with Visa, merchants do have the right to ask (knowing that you don't have to give it to them).
"To believe that God does not exist, is to believe that a stiff wind could blow through a junk yard a create a 747."
r em
What about a near-infinite number of stiff winds, or a near-infinite number of junk yards blowing continuously for an infinite amout of time?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theo
offtopic
/offtopic
Haha I love how this is modded "informative"...
I'd say that when you get up around TEN million in assets, then you can shield yourself from bad decisions or risky investments, and you can maybe quit your day-job, live off the revenue-producing investments.
One is not truly financially independent until one has probably fifty million dollars in assets.
How are you defining financial independence? My definition is that I have enough money in the bank that, in lieu of working, I could live off the interest on my money and not suffer a loss in my standard of living.
With that in mind, we'll assume a value of $65k for the amount you need per year to make this work (just because that's the amount you mentioned you make).
My calculations tell me that investing X dollars at 4% (a very realistic estimate of return on very very low risk investments) to yield $65k annually makes X = $1.625 million. Even if you bump your expectation of current salary up to $100k, that number still only goes to $2.5million. I suppose you could throw paying cash for a house on top of that, so you can add another $500k or so to the value...but that still puts you up to $3million for a very reasonable middle class existance without working (and no mortgage payment to boot)
Where you got numbers like $10million or $50million as a minimum is beyond me...
> >all of which again benefit (to a lesser degree) local businesses > Which are owned by rich people. And employ non-rich people. Who go out and make the cycle happen again. I don't see the problem.
The thing that you are not considering is the liquidity of wealth. In the case of somebody like Bill Gates, a lot of his wealth is concentrated in owning something like 10% of Microsoft stock. When you own 50 or 100 shares of a stock like you and I do, we can buy and sell as we wish with basically no effect on the price of the stock. In this regard, you could say that our ownership of this stock is fairly liquid -- within an hour or so, you could sell the stock and pretty much take home whatever money you make (after tax, and assuming the stock doesn't co crazy in the interim for other reasons). However, if Bill tried to sell some $20 billion in stock, the value of the company would absolutely plummet. Hence, this investment for him is extremely illiquid. So yes, in this regard, Bill Gates is *worth* these tens of billions of dollars -- on paper. But he can't do anything with them except sit there and look at the stock certificates. So when you ask " it kinda makes you think what exactly are they doing with this money anyways?" the answer is -- there's nothing they CAN do with the money, because for the time being it's not real money
I guarantee anybody who has GOOD DBA skills will not have interpersonal skills, and anybody with interpersonal skills will not be a good DBA. Those two skillsets are mutually exclusive.
How can you say that with such assurance? It seems to me that one can be good at both of these skills if they work on developing them both. Why do you think someone could have one of these skills max?
besides your dignity...?
From the www.donotcall.gov website --
"The National Do Not Call Registry does not limit calls by political organizations, charities, or telephone surveyors."
"A telemarketer or seller may call a consumer with whom it has an established business relationship for up to 18 months after the consumer's last purchase, delivery, or payment - even if the consumer's number is on the National Do Not Call Registry"
Finally -- "30. What happens to companies that don't pay for access to the registry?
A company that is a seller or telemarketer could be liable for placing any telemarketing calls (even to numbers NOT on the registry) unless the seller has accessed the registry and paid the fee, if required. Violators may be subject to fines of up to $11,000 per violation. Each call may be considered a separate violation."
So in summary -- if you are still getting calls, first tell any telemarketer calls you get to remove you from their lists. Then if they continue to call, file a complaint against them at the aforementioned website.
...welcome our new hopping, robotic, landmine overlords
I think it's referring to lulu.com -- which is where the link goes anyways. *That* Lulu is a self-publishing website, aimed at authors who want to run short prints of their book for limited distribution. It allows them not to go through one of the big publishing houses and keep more of the money from their book sales to boot.
While S and C corp business owners pay a flat 15%. This is not true. S and C corp business owners pay 15% on whatever money they are paid in *dividends* or by cashing in on options. However, S corp owners still pay ordinary income tax on their distributions (their share of net income at the end of the year), whether the money stays in the business or goes into their pockets. And the net income of a c corp is taxed at the corporate rate, which reduces net income, which reduces retained earnings and has the effect of reducing the value of the organization (from a balance sheet perspective) by the amount of money they paid in taxes.
Q: So a plane was flying north, over the border between Germany and Poland. Suddenly for no apparent reason, the plane starts losing altitude and crashes!! Why did the plane crash? A: All of the poles were on the right side of the plane!! heh heh...poles
"Biometric info on my ATM card? Sure! As long as it *remains tied* to that account. If you start cross correlating that with my purchasing and medical data, that starts to worry the hell out of me. Not for what will happen in the next few years - but for how my children's children will live."
And that's exactly the problem. Because every step that we take in this direction is one step closer to the scenario that you're talking about. Once we start giving out our biometric info, I promise it's only a matter of time before someone suggests "well, why don't we just link it all together...ATM card, drivers license, etc" Little by little, privacy and individual rights get eroded away...