By this logic, life is always a failure. You die in the end. Until we create an immortal, every life is a failure.
Often we determine success or failure by the original expectations of the project. The Xbox was meant to carve a segment into the market. I'm sure they hoped to make money, but most didn't expect so much on the first iteration. The Xbox 360 is a continuation of the original goals to have a main stay in the living room, feed into other Microsoft services and eventually make money. They're still on the journey. In some sense they're still on target, in others they've fallen behind. It's premature to call it a failure or success.
Because marking a post 'redundant' is a punishment. That's the system that we have. A person trying to help out the community by providing a proper link shouldn't be punished and their comment doesn't need cleaning up. We do have to assume the intentions of people and that's why this post shouldn't be marked redundant (at the time they starting typing, the other 'redundant' post didn't exist). If it's rated high when a previous post does the job, then you can rate it 'overrated'. That follows the spirit of the rules, IMO.
Computer memory is not HD space. Hard-drives are the exception to the rule. So a 100GB hard drive will not be reported as 100GB by the OS. You can hate it, as I do, but it's now pretty much implicit regarding hard-drives.
I'll do even better, I'll give you her address! Right now, she's sleeping with a lot of people though. They're making sure she's clean so if you're worried, you can wait a bit:p
Currently, I forward all my email from my domain to my gmail address. And for my family members, to their gmail (and other) respective addresses. When using gmail, I can use my own domain name email address as the sender.
Actually, for my various aliases, even with multiple gmail accounts, I have them all go to one final account. And when sending back emails, it's easy to switch "identities". So what advantage would the service have for me?
I can understand the advantages for universities and some companies, but then you're storing your data on their servers. For the small guys that have our own domain name, is it really useful?
My mistake. When all you remember is the computer being inoperable, one can forget the distinction. Though to be fair, when I upgraded to Ubuntu Dapper and for some reason Xserver wouldn't run properly and hog the system where I couldn't kill it and had to restart several times (and install lynx to find a solution) I considered it as the upgrade crashing my system.
Why would anyone want to separate them? Konqueror is my favorite file manager for that reason. I can have one tab with my web folder, another tab using ftp or sftp, another tab viewing the page on localhost, and another checking the page through the internet. That's how it should be. When I open a file in Kate, I want to be able to open a file remotely or locally. Should be no difference.
The problem with MS's version was that the whole freaking system crashed if IE crashed. And holes in IE left system critical holes in the kernel. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
How convenient. You disregard data because it might contradict your views. You talk in general terms but really don't address SS itself. And your previous post which had no more substance is still moderated insightful. How sad.
We don't have a Social Security crisis. It's all crap propaganda. It definitely needs to be tweaked, but the politicians are just trying to rile people up and divert attention from real issues. And they're succeeding.
We have a surplus of SS money for at least until 2040. The projections go out for 75 years and sometime before then, we start having a debt regarding SS taxes coming in and money going out. Congressional Budge Office (CBO) studies show that if we don't extend Bush's tax cuts after 2009, we'll have SS surplus until 2050. So at worst, we'd have to reduce SSI handout out if we don't increase the retirement age or increase the budget towards SS. But a temporary debt is okay because population levels fluctuates. After the baby boomers die, our SS situation will be fine again.
Including health care costs for wounded soldiers, Iraq war and occupation could top $2 trilion. How about those tax cuts? I saw a NY Times article stating CBO projections estimated a difference in revenues of $1.7 trillion over the 10 years. A San Francisco Chronicle article mentions a difference of $737 billion. The difference could be due to when the projections started and ended. This doesn't include reports of the economy improving slower then from any previous recession and being short on the administration's projections of jobs by millions (just think of the revenue difference there).
If even a portion of those funds went to social security, we would have not debt for social security for 75 years! The fact remains, the US government takes out enough money from taxpayers to pay for Social Security for the forseeable future.
The problem isn't the social security system. It's the men and women of the Executive and Legislative branch that balloon the deficit with pork barrel spending. Even if we remove the SS blanket, there's no gaurantee that these people wouldn't spend the money elsewhere. Before we talk about changing social security, we need to have people that would be fiscally responsible.
If you have the money, why spend it on software? Spend the money on good broadband connection and networking the computers. If you have all that, spend it on books that you can keep in the place and possibly loan out so they can read some thing on their own.
My suggestion would be to use Ubuntu. And when you show them software, show them cross-platform solutions. Firefox/Opera, Thunderbird or some webmail, Gaim, Gimp, OpenOffice.org2.
I mean, that's the crux of learning computers. Typing documents and emails. Sending IMs to stay connected. Looking up stuff online for learning, entertainment and procrastination.
My brother has a scanner and he lost the drivers for it. It was a pain to find them online. For me, with Ubuntu, it worked without any setting up. I was surprised. If you're getting hardware that you might not have the driver CD for, Linux really is much better at support (unless you can hunt down the drivers online).
But the main thing is, people are capable of learning if you have faith in them and put in effort and create a good atmosphere. If you dumb everything down too much, then they'll learn less. But if you expect more, they'll surpise you. Don't be afraid to teach them about the hardware a little bit and the network. They might not fully grasp everything, but they'll be a little better off. And you'll be able to spot the smarter ones who'll be more motivated to learn.
First, you said yourself that "the Cuban standard of living continues to slouch". Don't you think the embargo is partly to blame? Don't you think that possibly lifting that embargo would help those very same people? And doesn't that mean the plan is a failure?
I'm sure Google has many Chinese researchers. And I'm sure most Chinese people in China would prefer to have Google with censoring then no Google (as those are the only two options really). So you're condemning Google for offering a service in China which also explains that the results are censored (which most other search engines there don't do) when that action does no harm to you and benefits the Chinese, yet you want them to not offer the service which would have no affect upon you and not benefit the Chinese either. Really easy for you to decide no?
But if the traits people pick for mates to have children with don't have a correlation with their genes, then natural selection is keeping the same diversity.
It's the instances when genes are correlating with more children, that's where the effects will occur. As others have pointed how, it'll probably be more pronounced for people having many kids (for whatever reasons).
We have services like Napster and Rhapsody that allows for "unlimited" music under subsription. We have XM and Sirius that allows digital music subscription. We have cell phones that have broadband capabilities and can store music (take photos, etc). And we have portable music players.
So, just combine them. Cell phones can play streaming video, of course they can stream music. Just get user subscriptions and software that allows people to search/scan artists/albums/songs and let them play. There is no [technological] reason this service can't come out by next year. Have a web interface and/or application that allows people to go online and create playlists that they can store in their settings so on the cell phone, they can just choose the playlists to play.
No need for huge hard drives (just a small one for transferring files between computers). How hard is that to program the software? No hard at all. I could do it.
Sony is part of the RIAA, has cell phones (Sony Ericsson) and is a "leader" in consumer electronics. The next device is obvious to anyone that thinks for a moment. And Sony should be at the forefront of this.
How the heck is this insightful? You think all the "spectator" sports were designed in mind for the spectator, instead of say, the players?! Yes, the Colosseum had spectator sport with its killings and a soccer like sport were played by the Aztecs (Mayans?) where the losers were sacrificed. But mosts sports become popular because it's fun to play!
Basketball has changed some rules but it wasn't nearly so popular in the 50s and 60s. You can't underestimate marketing at all. Nor can you determine how some things/activiies/events take on a life of its own.
"Reality TV" has shown you can clip/edit pieces of people's regular lives and others will be fascinated by it. Similar for sports, you can do things to make it more interesting. And don't forget how much gambling (or fantasy sports) has increased veiwership. March Madness is popular because the population likes men's college basketball? Please...
I remember sitting in a Linux lab with a bunch of guys and we'd all be playing xboing. Sometimes people would come in and try to tease us for playing. And then an odd thing would happen. They'd stand over our shoulders and watched us play while making fun of us! And if someone was doing well, others would pause and everyone would watch that game. You could feel the tension increasing with each bounce as the ball got faster, as the levels increased. And as time went along, it became normal for others stop by few minutes to watch others play.
The fact is, people appreciate skill. People also like to find out how things go. Whether the competition is player versus player, team versus team or man versus nature/game environment. When you have done the event yourself and recognize the difficulty and challenges, you appreciate it even more. So whether it's reading over other's game on Civilization 4, watching someone tear up through Super Mario Brothers, listening to a skilled pianist or watching a fluid dancer, people appreciate skill and talent. And if there is competition, assuming it's quality competition, people love it even more. American Idol!
You don't have to like any particular one event, you can't discredit their similarity. Video games has huge hurdles due to public perception. But it's not a product that sells itself. Major League Baseball and college baseball is both baseball, but almost no one watches the latter. However, comparing college football and NFL, many watch only one or the other. It's not just talent. For whatever reasons, different people have bought different products. Sometimes, you have to make a good sell for something new in the market. For video games in the US, it's going to be real tough. Hell, soccer barely makes a noise here and it's the most popular sport in the world.
Only 3000?! What if one day YOU are a victim? Then even if it was only 1, only you, it wouldn't be a small deal for you.
Juxtapose 3000 with 3 million. That's 3 orders of magnitude of difference. Any pain and suffering, it doesn't even have to be death, can be devasting if it happens to you. Lose your job, break up from a long relationship, etc. Or comparing deaths, how about cancer or other illness related or even car accidents. That doesn't mean driving should be illegal and every has to take mass transportation and let professional drivers handle it.
We do not have a fully oppressive regime but such governments do no form overnight. And it doesn't even need an intelligent designer to get us there. Many good willing misguided people can accidently take us there. It is at this juncture (or way before actually) when we should complain and work together to prevent such things from ever occuring. It is very easy for Congress to give powers to the President (or people give powers to government) for action A (global terrorism) and then next thing you know, they're using those powers and slightly expanding on those powers to watch over things they have nothing to do with their jurisdiction or spirit of the law. It is very common in nature for power to accumulate. WE have to be the resistence to force equilibrium BEFORE the whole institution collapses on itself. WHY wait before it gets worse? Can't you see the transgressions that have already happened? Regardless of party, partisan politics, biases, look at what is happening!
I have a Chinese friend who studied in Switzerland and now is working in the US. His opinion on the subject is, if the government didn't do what they did, then China would decay into what happened to the USSR. So the government is in the right. He says it's unfornuate that students were tricked by those that wanted to disrupt China, but kids can be swayed to believe about anything. And anyway, China has a lot of people, if some thousands die for the name of stability, that's okay.
It's hard for the many in the west to remember that people have different viewpoints and their views are founded are different priority of values. One man's truth is another's propaganda, and vice versa.
Education system has a LOT to do with it. But it's a hell of a lot more.
My sister and I went through the public school system. We're Nepali (inbetween India and China). We went through the ghetto schools, but still were able to get into private colleges. My mom has worked at McDonalds for over 15 years and my father as a parking booth attendant.
But difference include family, cultural pressures and EXPECTATIONS. My parents were educated. My father was supporting his graduate school at Ohio State through such jobs (immigration issues affecting job possibilities). We didn't grow up with cable television or nice shoes or whatever. We ate rice for dinner every night (both because that's an Asian thing and because it's about the cheapest staple you can get). We had cereal every morning. We had free and once reduced meal plans at school for lunch. We NEVER ate out.
They saved money for our education. Assume my parents combine for $2K a month. Then 700 a month for rent and utilities (no cable, internet, cell phones or none of that), no more than $300 on food and a few hundred for other expenses. You have 500 a month for a year and that $6K. Do that for 10 years and you can send you kids to college.
My parents stressed education. They sacrificed so we'd get good education (comparatively to being in Nepal at a non-boarding school). Graduating college was expected!
But not so for my friends in school. I lived in college campus family housing while they lived in the ghetto. They had to deal with living in a dangerous neighborhood. I never lacked confidence that I would graduate college. Many of my friends parents didn't graduate college and some of their parents never graduated high school. You can understand that education is your ticket out, but it's different from rationally knowing it and actually believing it and living it.
I have some close friends that are Jews. I've always been fascinated by the perseverance of their race and their successes throughout the world despite their astonishingly miniscule population and being persecuted everywhere. Some left persecution from the Soviet Union, but even there, their grandparents were educated. This long line of educated family members where it's expected. Where the culture stresses it.
America is going through a problem of undervaluing education. And it's more noticable among the poor, where it's most needed because they have fewer opportunities that can even open up. You can't go all day complaining about how the man is holding you back when after school, you spent 3 hours playing basketball and another 3 playing video games and relaxing the rest of the time and not doing homework. Being poor, having less connections, you'll have to face greater obstacles than someone that does the same thing in the suburbs. But the expectations and pressures by society and yourself to succeed just isn't there.
Poor people have cable, nice shoes, eat out at fast food restuarants and so forth. They don't know how to pinch money or care to. There isn't expectations for their children to do well in school and parents celebrate with a 3.0 GPA. Parents feel that since they didn't succeed academically and/or financially, they can't put pressure on their own kids to. Kids play a lot of video games, watch movies and dream of being star athletes without real guidance or direction (much less backup plans). People can afford Air Jordans and weed but can't afford time to read a book. Hell, I never read a book growing up unless I had to for a class. And even then, sometimes I just used the cliff notes.
The education system is pathetic. I know. My high school had the worst percentage of people passing 9th grade proficiency tests in the city. I graduated a year early and my original class started from 550 and dwindled to 100 graduates with the highest GPA being 3.5 (and she didn't take honors courses). We had limited AP classes and for Computer Science 2, we played Encarta and learned ClarisWorks on the Mac instead of programming. But a lot of issues need to be addressed. And if politicians aren't going to fix schools, people still need to find a way to deal with the other social issues.
I drove over 10K miles just this July. The automobile industry is 120 years old or so? How about the airline industry? Intercontinental flights are nothing special. Both of those have been expected to be safe for a LONG time.
We're not talking about space travel to Mars or beyond. But just launch, orbit, tests and re-entry. It should NOT be something special after 45 years. I'm glad everyone made it home safely and I hope NASA gained a lot of information. But I'm not impressed with them and I'm sure they're disappointed that this matter isn't mundane. It sure as hell should be.
Bullshit. A lot of imams and others have spoken out against it. It just doesn't get the same airplay. You do a Google News search and you'll see many articles pointing out a recent instance. But many Muslim organizations in the US and elsewhere have spoken out against it.
But Islam it's not like Catholicism where you have the Pope. I mean, many Christians wouldn't want their views to be portrayed by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.
I'm not saying I don't wish moderate Muslims would do more, I'm just saying you can't say they haven't done anything.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess we should be thankful Microsoft didn't join forces with Nintendo in the console business. They would've released Micro Wii.
By this logic, life is always a failure. You die in the end. Until we create an immortal, every life is a failure.
Often we determine success or failure by the original expectations of the project. The Xbox was meant to carve a segment into the market. I'm sure they hoped to make money, but most didn't expect so much on the first iteration. The Xbox 360 is a continuation of the original goals to have a main stay in the living room, feed into other Microsoft services and eventually make money. They're still on the journey. In some sense they're still on target, in others they've fallen behind. It's premature to call it a failure or success.
Because marking a post 'redundant' is a punishment. That's the system that we have. A person trying to help out the community by providing a proper link shouldn't be punished and their comment doesn't need cleaning up. We do have to assume the intentions of people and that's why this post shouldn't be marked redundant (at the time they starting typing, the other 'redundant' post didn't exist). If it's rated high when a previous post does the job, then you can rate it 'overrated'. That follows the spirit of the rules, IMO.
Not when the time of the other post is exactly the same!
Computer memory is not HD space. Hard-drives are the exception to the rule. So a 100GB hard drive will not be reported as 100GB by the OS. You can hate it, as I do, but it's now pretty much implicit regarding hard-drives.
I'll do even better, I'll give you her address! Right now, she's sleeping with a lot of people though. They're making sure she's clean so if you're worried, you can wait a bit :p
That pink was just hideous.
I scanned through it, but couldn't find that information.
Currently, I forward all my email from my domain to my gmail address. And for my family members, to their gmail (and other) respective addresses. When using gmail, I can use my own domain name email address as the sender.
Actually, for my various aliases, even with multiple gmail accounts, I have them all go to one final account. And when sending back emails, it's easy to switch "identities". So what advantage would the service have for me?
I can understand the advantages for universities and some companies, but then you're storing your data on their servers. For the small guys that have our own domain name, is it really useful?
My mistake. When all you remember is the computer being inoperable, one can forget the distinction. Though to be fair, when I upgraded to Ubuntu Dapper and for some reason Xserver wouldn't run properly and hog the system where I couldn't kill it and had to restart several times (and install lynx to find a solution) I considered it as the upgrade crashing my system.
Why would anyone want to separate them? Konqueror is my favorite file manager for that reason. I can have one tab with my web folder, another tab using ftp or sftp, another tab viewing the page on localhost, and another checking the page through the internet. That's how it should be. When I open a file in Kate, I want to be able to open a file remotely or locally. Should be no difference.
The problem with MS's version was that the whole freaking system crashed if IE crashed. And holes in IE left system critical holes in the kernel. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
How convenient. You disregard data because it might contradict your views. You talk in general terms but really don't address SS itself. And your previous post which had no more substance is still moderated insightful. How sad.
Insightful? Off-topic! and incorrect.
We don't have a Social Security crisis. It's all crap propaganda. It definitely needs to be tweaked, but the politicians are just trying to rile people up and divert attention from real issues. And they're succeeding.
We have a surplus of SS money for at least until 2040. The projections go out for 75 years and sometime before then, we start having a debt regarding SS taxes coming in and money going out. Congressional Budge Office (CBO) studies show that if we don't extend Bush's tax cuts after 2009, we'll have SS surplus until 2050. So at worst, we'd have to reduce SSI handout out if we don't increase the retirement age or increase the budget towards SS. But a temporary debt is okay because population levels fluctuates. After the baby boomers die, our SS situation will be fine again.
Including health care costs for wounded soldiers, Iraq war and occupation could top $2 trilion. How about those tax cuts? I saw a NY Times article stating CBO projections estimated a difference in revenues of $1.7 trillion over the 10 years. A San Francisco Chronicle article mentions a difference of $737 billion. The difference could be due to when the projections started and ended. This doesn't include reports of the economy improving slower then from any previous recession and being short on the administration's projections of jobs by millions (just think of the revenue difference there).
If even a portion of those funds went to social security, we would have not debt for social security for 75 years! The fact remains, the US government takes out enough money from taxpayers to pay for Social Security for the forseeable future.
The problem isn't the social security system. It's the men and women of the Executive and Legislative branch that balloon the deficit with pork barrel spending. Even if we remove the SS blanket, there's no gaurantee that these people wouldn't spend the money elsewhere. Before we talk about changing social security, we need to have people that would be fiscally responsible.
If you have the money, why spend it on software? Spend the money on good broadband connection and networking the computers. If you have all that, spend it on books that you can keep in the place and possibly loan out so they can read some thing on their own.
My suggestion would be to use Ubuntu. And when you show them software, show them cross-platform solutions. Firefox/Opera, Thunderbird or some webmail, Gaim, Gimp, OpenOffice.org2.
I mean, that's the crux of learning computers. Typing documents and emails. Sending IMs to stay connected. Looking up stuff online for learning, entertainment and procrastination.
My brother has a scanner and he lost the drivers for it. It was a pain to find them online. For me, with Ubuntu, it worked without any setting up. I was surprised. If you're getting hardware that you might not have the driver CD for, Linux really is much better at support (unless you can hunt down the drivers online).
But the main thing is, people are capable of learning if you have faith in them and put in effort and create a good atmosphere. If you dumb everything down too much, then they'll learn less. But if you expect more, they'll surpise you. Don't be afraid to teach them about the hardware a little bit and the network. They might not fully grasp everything, but they'll be a little better off. And you'll be able to spot the smarter ones who'll be more motivated to learn.
Insightful? More like flamebait.
First, you said yourself that "the Cuban standard of living continues to slouch". Don't you think the embargo is partly to blame? Don't you think that possibly lifting that embargo would help those very same people? And doesn't that mean the plan is a failure?
I'm sure Google has many Chinese researchers. And I'm sure most Chinese people in China would prefer to have Google with censoring then no Google (as those are the only two options really). So you're condemning Google for offering a service in China which also explains that the results are censored (which most other search engines there don't do) when that action does no harm to you and benefits the Chinese, yet you want them to not offer the service which would have no affect upon you and not benefit the Chinese either. Really easy for you to decide no?
Remember? I don't have to remember anything anymore. Google does that for me ;)
But if the traits people pick for mates to have children with don't have a correlation with their genes, then natural selection is keeping the same diversity.
It's the instances when genes are correlating with more children, that's where the effects will occur. As others have pointed how, it'll probably be more pronounced for people having many kids (for whatever reasons).
We have services like Napster and Rhapsody that allows for "unlimited" music under subsription. We have XM and Sirius that allows digital music subscription. We have cell phones that have broadband capabilities and can store music (take photos, etc). And we have portable music players.
So, just combine them. Cell phones can play streaming video, of course they can stream music. Just get user subscriptions and software that allows people to search/scan artists/albums/songs and let them play. There is no [technological] reason this service can't come out by next year. Have a web interface and/or application that allows people to go online and create playlists that they can store in their settings so on the cell phone, they can just choose the playlists to play.
No need for huge hard drives (just a small one for transferring files between computers). How hard is that to program the software? No hard at all. I could do it.
Sony is part of the RIAA, has cell phones (Sony Ericsson) and is a "leader" in consumer electronics. The next device is obvious to anyone that thinks for a moment. And Sony should be at the forefront of this.
You mean people actually leave their parent's basement?
How the heck is this insightful? You think all the "spectator" sports were designed in mind for the spectator, instead of say, the players?! Yes, the Colosseum had spectator sport with its killings and a soccer like sport were played by the Aztecs (Mayans?) where the losers were sacrificed. But mosts sports become popular because it's fun to play!
Basketball has changed some rules but it wasn't nearly so popular in the 50s and 60s. You can't underestimate marketing at all. Nor can you determine how some things/activiies/events take on a life of its own.
"Reality TV" has shown you can clip/edit pieces of people's regular lives and others will be fascinated by it. Similar for sports, you can do things to make it more interesting. And don't forget how much gambling (or fantasy sports) has increased veiwership. March Madness is popular because the population likes men's college basketball? Please...
I remember sitting in a Linux lab with a bunch of guys and we'd all be playing xboing. Sometimes people would come in and try to tease us for playing. And then an odd thing would happen. They'd stand over our shoulders and watched us play while making fun of us! And if someone was doing well, others would pause and everyone would watch that game. You could feel the tension increasing with each bounce as the ball got faster, as the levels increased. And as time went along, it became normal for others stop by few minutes to watch others play.
The fact is, people appreciate skill. People also like to find out how things go. Whether the competition is player versus player, team versus team or man versus nature/game environment. When you have done the event yourself and recognize the difficulty and challenges, you appreciate it even more. So whether it's reading over other's game on Civilization 4, watching someone tear up through Super Mario Brothers, listening to a skilled pianist or watching a fluid dancer, people appreciate skill and talent. And if there is competition, assuming it's quality competition, people love it even more. American Idol!
You don't have to like any particular one event, you can't discredit their similarity. Video games has huge hurdles due to public perception. But it's not a product that sells itself. Major League Baseball and college baseball is both baseball, but almost no one watches the latter. However, comparing college football and NFL, many watch only one or the other. It's not just talent. For whatever reasons, different people have bought different products. Sometimes, you have to make a good sell for something new in the market. For video games in the US, it's going to be real tough. Hell, soccer barely makes a noise here and it's the most popular sport in the world.
Juxtapose 3000 with 3 million. That's 3 orders of magnitude of difference. Any pain and suffering, it doesn't even have to be death, can be devasting if it happens to you. Lose your job, break up from a long relationship, etc. Or comparing deaths, how about cancer or other illness related or even car accidents. That doesn't mean driving should be illegal and every has to take mass transportation and let professional drivers handle it.
We do not have a fully oppressive regime but such governments do no form overnight. And it doesn't even need an intelligent designer to get us there. Many good willing misguided people can accidently take us there. It is at this juncture (or way before actually) when we should complain and work together to prevent such things from ever occuring. It is very easy for Congress to give powers to the President (or people give powers to government) for action A (global terrorism) and then next thing you know, they're using those powers and slightly expanding on those powers to watch over things they have nothing to do with their jurisdiction or spirit of the law. It is very common in nature for power to accumulate. WE have to be the resistence to force equilibrium BEFORE the whole institution collapses on itself. WHY wait before it gets worse? Can't you see the transgressions that have already happened? Regardless of party, partisan politics, biases, look at what is happening!
I have a Chinese friend who studied in Switzerland and now is working in the US. His opinion on the subject is, if the government didn't do what they did, then China would decay into what happened to the USSR. So the government is in the right. He says it's unfornuate that students were tricked by those that wanted to disrupt China, but kids can be swayed to believe about anything. And anyway, China has a lot of people, if some thousands die for the name of stability, that's okay.
It's hard for the many in the west to remember that people have different viewpoints and their views are founded are different priority of values. One man's truth is another's propaganda, and vice versa.
Education system has a LOT to do with it. But it's a hell of a lot more.
My sister and I went through the public school system. We're Nepali (inbetween India and China). We went through the ghetto schools, but still were able to get into private colleges. My mom has worked at McDonalds for over 15 years and my father as a parking booth attendant.
But difference include family, cultural pressures and EXPECTATIONS. My parents were educated. My father was supporting his graduate school at Ohio State through such jobs (immigration issues affecting job possibilities). We didn't grow up with cable television or nice shoes or whatever. We ate rice for dinner every night (both because that's an Asian thing and because it's about the cheapest staple you can get). We had cereal every morning. We had free and once reduced meal plans at school for lunch. We NEVER ate out.
They saved money for our education. Assume my parents combine for $2K a month. Then 700 a month for rent and utilities (no cable, internet, cell phones or none of that), no more than $300 on food and a few hundred for other expenses. You have 500 a month for a year and that $6K. Do that for 10 years and you can send you kids to college.
My parents stressed education. They sacrificed so we'd get good education (comparatively to being in Nepal at a non-boarding school). Graduating college was expected!
But not so for my friends in school. I lived in college campus family housing while they lived in the ghetto. They had to deal with living in a dangerous neighborhood. I never lacked confidence that I would graduate college. Many of my friends parents didn't graduate college and some of their parents never graduated high school. You can understand that education is your ticket out, but it's different from rationally knowing it and actually believing it and living it.
I have some close friends that are Jews. I've always been fascinated by the perseverance of their race and their successes throughout the world despite their astonishingly miniscule population and being persecuted everywhere. Some left persecution from the Soviet Union, but even there, their grandparents were educated. This long line of educated family members where it's expected. Where the culture stresses it.
America is going through a problem of undervaluing education. And it's more noticable among the poor, where it's most needed because they have fewer opportunities that can even open up. You can't go all day complaining about how the man is holding you back when after school, you spent 3 hours playing basketball and another 3 playing video games and relaxing the rest of the time and not doing homework. Being poor, having less connections, you'll have to face greater obstacles than someone that does the same thing in the suburbs. But the expectations and pressures by society and yourself to succeed just isn't there.
Poor people have cable, nice shoes, eat out at fast food restuarants and so forth. They don't know how to pinch money or care to. There isn't expectations for their children to do well in school and parents celebrate with a 3.0 GPA. Parents feel that since they didn't succeed academically and/or financially, they can't put pressure on their own kids to. Kids play a lot of video games, watch movies and dream of being star athletes without real guidance or direction (much less backup plans). People can afford Air Jordans and weed but can't afford time to read a book. Hell, I never read a book growing up unless I had to for a class. And even then, sometimes I just used the cliff notes.
The education system is pathetic. I know. My high school had the worst percentage of people passing 9th grade proficiency tests in the city. I graduated a year early and my original class started from 550 and dwindled to 100 graduates with the highest GPA being 3.5 (and she didn't take honors courses). We had limited AP classes and for Computer Science 2, we played Encarta and learned ClarisWorks on the Mac instead of programming. But a lot of issues need to be addressed. And if politicians aren't going to fix schools, people still need to find a way to deal with the other social issues.
I drove over 10K miles just this July. The automobile industry is 120 years old or so? How about the airline industry? Intercontinental flights are nothing special. Both of those have been expected to be safe for a LONG time.
We're not talking about space travel to Mars or beyond. But just launch, orbit, tests and re-entry. It should NOT be something special after 45 years. I'm glad everyone made it home safely and I hope NASA gained a lot of information. But I'm not impressed with them and I'm sure they're disappointed that this matter isn't mundane. It sure as hell should be.
Bullshit. A lot of imams and others have spoken out against it. It just doesn't get the same airplay. You do a Google News search and you'll see many articles pointing out a recent instance. But many Muslim organizations in the US and elsewhere have spoken out against it.
But Islam it's not like Catholicism where you have the Pope. I mean, many Christians wouldn't want their views to be portrayed by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.
I'm not saying I don't wish moderate Muslims would do more, I'm just saying you can't say they haven't done anything.