I think video games today and those of the past are DIFFERENT. I remember enjoying violent bloody games, partially because they were so un-P.C. They had no story, were visually they were abstract, and were not as engrossing... that is, they didn't try to become a movie version of "choose your own adventure" putting you into the role of a main character to role play.
Therapists are trained to use various kinds of role playing to work thru emotional problems; including hypnosis - where you re-live experiences in a controlled environment where you can better deal with them. Having some training in hypnosis, I can tell you that I'm convinced that watching TV really is a semi-hypnotic state for most people. It's impact is proven by the actions of advertisers, propagandists, and the military for generations!
It does not matter what anybody says about media not being influential because in practice it has been long proven otherwise. Does it turn a rabbit into a wolf? No, it is not that simple. Violent Media doesn't MAKE killers; but it also doesn't MAKE you buy stuff.... it DOES however influence you to varying degrees! To be overly simplistic: brand sales cause irrational impulse decisions when somebody's brain is not fully firing (which is more often than you'd feel comfortable with.) It works. Now when somebody is in an emotionally charged situation and not thinking clearly they are doing to be swayed to the irrational "brand" of solution to the situation. You can see this in the form of mindless talking point parrots who are too upset to think rationally in a debate or when somebody reaches for a gun...
I think modern games are too realistic and too close to the role playing a therapist uses making their impact far stronger today than it was in the past. Subtle things can make all the difference how it impacts the gamer; ultimately, it is the gamer who interprets it. A nutter is going to take something safe and twist it around - so going for the strongest emotional impact may win over the largest audience and fuel endless sequels but the nuts are probably going to be strongly impacted in another direction. That being said, I think these things could be designed to create antisocial behavior in "healthy" people... not that anybody is doing that intentionally, yet. It will happen someday. It has already been done with TV/Movies during wartime; hell, that bore the propaganda industry of today.
Apparently all the advertizing for Visas has high school students confused that there is a shortage of CS people. The side benefit is that having too many graduates will result in the same outcome if the Visa program can not continue to be abused.
Walmart used to hire people with bad credit (after performing credit checks on applicants) because those employees are the closest to indentured servants. THAT business ethic is not restricted to Walmart management. Indentured servants are the goal. CS graduates with huge debts doing IT support jobs a teenager can perform can fill the gap the Visas have not been filling...
Stop with the mind games and just have 1 fixed time. It should be a scientific metric not political mind game.
Above the 40 latitude lines it only gives weeks of sunlight before it is dark again.
The real problem is WORK HOURS. I remember the futurists of the 50s who besides the flying cars etc, were predicting people would work less hours per week as part of their better quality of life. Farmers were and are doing about 35 hours per week average; yet somehow with our non-agrarian societies that are supposed to have advanced, we work more hours than ever. The #2 death bed confession is regret about working too much and missing out of what is important in life.
I am opposed to "Obamacare" but you are full of shit. Pulling numbers out of Fox's ass/mouth again?
It is not even fully implemented yet so the impact can't be realized; even then, you have to use the system before/after to notice any change - so right there that rules out most people and makes it easy to appeal to people's ignorance and gullibility.
Obamacare doesn't solve the drug cost problem, it doesn't solve the 30% of all costs being wasted by the insurance "industry" but it doesn't make those problems worse either. That is why it was able to pass at all. It can't be blamed for rising costs - it never was allowed touch the real problem (like every other problem of today.)
The wars kill people and screw up many more people with unpredictable blow back, not to mention how many Americans it negatively impacts. When more of the military dies at their own hands than by the enemy; you have to ask yourself, who is the real enemy?
Doctors develop a big EGO; having a form of "code review" is going to bruise their egos.
The public expects too much of doctors and believes in them too much the doctors enjoy it despite the fears of liability.
Doctors are human biological mechanics. The machine may be more complex but dealing with both auto mechanics and doctors for me has been surprisingly similar with their cycle of educated guess -> routine maintenance procedures -> bill -> success/failure -> repeat.
If you ask doctors if patients NEED access, they should say no. If you ask doctors if patients have a right to access their records you'll get a different answer.
Going forward, some IBM Watson + website will also be providing interpretations... if they can get around the legal and political issues it will eventually out perform real doctors at diagnosis (who are not that good at it.)
I have a customized Unicomp myself. Worth every penny and it is not made cheaply in China. It makes noise but so did the model M... I can't see this thing wearing out, but those cherry switches look like they would go before my springs. (I've heard claims of millions of clicks before... I've got two worn out mice to prove the numbers are not high enough.)
Also, the springs in mine look like normal springs you could buy online somewhere (naturally, I took it apart upon getting it!) It'll be easy for the next generation to replace worn springs; that is if your children bother to get a USB adapter for their phone... and if they can't afford the brain implant computers.
Can somebody please point me to where in the constitution and bill of rights does it say the limitations on government ONLY exist on US soil? Outside war, is it ok to ignore fundamental rights simply as a matter of location? What about in war? (not that Geneva matters to the US anymore.)
Free speech... as long as you do it in this fenced in area... Freedom to peaceably assemble.... as long as you are approved for a permit and pay the fee and limit it in every way prescribed.
Microsoft was convicted and lost the appeal. If you were on parole and violated it they would nail you even if it was an accident! It isn't fair when a human on parole forgets some legal detail and is nailed. That's 1 person who is not a lawyer trying to continue living their life. Microsoft is a large number of people with their own law firms who are paid to deal with such things. ZERO EXCUSES for almost any human (except the politically connected) and they can have reasonable excuses; Microsoft doesn't.
Just because they are a corporation (that is, a person in the USA) doesn't mean they should get special treatment. The fact the EU can even fine them a decent amount shows they can't just bribe their way out of the legal system; like in the USA... Weak punishments just become part of doing business, nothing changes - the whole purpose is to force compliance!
You go to foreign nation break their laws you and you are stuck with them. Operate a business in a foreign nation and you are stuck with them too.
He did operate a business in the USA; however, it was hiring a US company and not actually doing it himself which becomes tricky. Use a CDN that is in the USA and you are subject to all US laws. Wonder if this works for FedEx...a physical CDN.
He personally is the target despite being a corporation; which is inequitable because we all know CEOs are rarely EVER touched for their actions. The corporation ends up in court. Recent big case: drug money laundering of HSBC (although if it weren't so powerful they would get some employees...but probably not all the right ones.)
Charges of crimes that are valid for extradition let all the invalid ones pass. Something should be done about that. The judge has to decide to block it based upon the whole list; problem is that some good ones are all that are needed to let a whole list of others that would be rejected pass. Then the US could change the charges once they get you. The extradition should decide WHICH charges can be applied and nothing else can be done outside those. Take US conspiracy law- that is one of the toughest things to survive because it is so broad.
Look what Franklin said in his closing speech of the constitutional convention.
Democracies always fall to despotism, that is reality. Thinking your government will continue forever is foolish and is not an evidence backed position. At some point a new government needs to replace the corrupt one; this is always an unpleasant transition and often is slow because it takes years of suffering despotism (which may include a new form of gov) before people are willing to collaborate enough to form another democracy (or other system) that is at least initially superior to the prior level of despotism.
Good governments can only be judged by how long they raise living conditions for the majority (because everybody "rounds off" the lowest minority elements. Think about that, especially in the USA.) Utopia isn't great if it only lasts for a day. Arguably, the utopia is never good because it is the pursuit of a theoretically obtainable utopia that great evils are justified.
Keep what we have; there is no cold war but we keep up a pace as if we had somebody we had to keep pace with. The "old" stuff is good enough and in high enough numbers. Work on AI drones and forget this stop gap next gen. Dumping that kind of money into AI could benefit mankind, putting it into these things is a waste.
Not that I'm for AI/remote control killer robots so cowards can rule the world, but there are plenty of rich cowards besides those in the USA who will build robot armies so they can take the diminishing resources. Yes, it is cowardly to fight by remote; war needs a high price or it becomes a game. To the psychopaths it already is a game and we have plenty of them already but when you lower the bar more people pass the threshold.
This development may lower things for a while and raise demand for a while until more expensive sources are found to replace the cheap ones that ran out quickly (due to increased demand.) This will be the peak for that resource and it'll not ever likely do that again. It may not even peak that much with the delay in production rate increase and the commodity traitors (misspelling intentional.)
The real problem long term is recycling. We don't recycle most materials and won't until they become rare enough or costly enough to make recycling cost competitive. It might be already except that mining land fills is going to need many rare materials to start mining them... especially the ones where communities have been built on top.
The most expensive, difficult, LARGEST, and publicly owned part of any direct connect service is the last mile. The ISPs must use public land or public airwaves to get to your home; they get permission from the public using public institutions (government which used to be by and for the people but that is off topic.) The same system which provides water, sewer, roads, phone, power - although some of those are too new to be public and instead are privatized at our expense (but we love to pay more so somebody can get rich off a monopoly, our water, sewer, and roads are next...)
ISPs didn't build up the infrastructure completely on their own, they had plenty of public (gov) support in doing it and they did a bad job of it too. ISP motives were to milk profit not keep the USA on top and so here we sit while the world advances. Asians are going to be video editing home videos faster on the cloud (500Gbps) while we get excited we can finally play 2 HD netflix streams at once and can't upload jack.
The public can demand anything they want because it is OUR land that allows the last mile connection to be possible. You can put your stuff on that land but if the landlord changes their mind, you are evicted!
If the people (gov) want your stuff, they are allowed to take it from you but must pay you for it; that is, unless they say it is a form of drug money or terrorism, then you lose it without due process and must prove your innocents. This loophole on fundamental rights never happens to corporations (cough, HSBC) but too often it happens to citizens. The government always had that power for the public good but thanks to the SCOTUS, Walmart can buy your house and kick you out by bribing your town council for the corporate good.
You prove it. It wasn't a universal statement, you have to do more than find 1 person harmed by busy work.
Busy work doesn't kill anybody; people act like its the cigarettes of education! Stop bitching you lazy addicts!!! You have a TON of free time to spend HOURS everyday on TV, internet, videogames, pointless consumer addictions... If your education was THAT important you would dedicate more time to it instead of bitching because the busy work robbed you of escaping reality by watching TV (somewhat ironically, watching reality TV.)
I'm not a fan of "busy work" because it wastes time; however, people who waste their time have no leg to stand on.
Subjective bitching: Some people "get it" at a halfway point and so it feels like the other half was a waste. Some feel they don't need to do the work not realizing they actually do need to do it. Repetition DOES work, sometimes it is needed. Everybody wants to lose weight without exercise. Memorization used to be taught by "wasting time" memorizing poems; now we don't memorize anything in school and the kids would have no memory skills if the education wasn't degrading into wrote learning (which is ideal for the Meritocracy.) We used to do cursive writing and now we find out it has other benefits beyond the pointless skill of cursive writing in a digital age! What worked in the past doesn't need to be changed without PROOF the new way is better. Why are we so willing to experiment on children?
All the parties involved play games with the budget with different motives and incentives.
It would be nice if things could be handled in an open way the public could understand (is that possible anymore, most Americans can't do math?) But the reality is that the politicians benefit from the complexity involved and the confusion they create - if the public finally did their job, then the politicians would step up the complexity (unless voted out of office...)
I'm not worried about a national debt at WW2 levels I'm worried that we didn't have anything near WW2 to justify running it up. It signifies the dysfunctional electorate and is merely a symptom of the classic despotic disease - the one which always ends fatally.
I'm glad the cuts are coming because the important things will be forced and hopefully they won't get as many compromise pork as if they prevented it from happening in 1 mega bill. Even though it may only be for a short period, this may be the biggest military pork CUT we will see until the collapse of the republic.
Politicians in modern times; having such a dysfunctional system, must force impossible situations in order to make the necessary deals happen. Reasoned timely debate is no longer possible; lobbyists have less influence during such deadline crises (unless they helped create them and prepared.) No matter what, there are always bad parts put in with the good parts so thinking a mock crisis changes that is foolish. What it does seem to do is force problems into big massive compromises where maybe there are more bad deals. I would think this is the case since they love to push things back into shared deadlines and combine issues into big bills; however, it could simply be they need to raise the stakes high enough to force it to get done when enough politicians suffer.
Correspondence courses never were considered that good, neither were the degrees from those schools. Today we place "cyber" onto anything and somehow whatever it was is all new and wonderful. Except for cyber crime, which needs all new laws for some reason...
I remember from a Communications course, a transcript was only 20% of the message being conveyed or something like that was said. Audio is better, Video is even better than that. But nothing compares with the interactive aspect; even if not utilized, somebody asks a question and it takes another direction that a video can't. Also, by having other people raise issues it impacts the others in a way a 1 on 1 can't -- and I can tell you that online courses have LESS interaction, because despite a student saying nothing and being completely passive they do benefit (on average) from the other active students. I suggest people look into communications, which is a field of study. look into what is ACTIVE LISTENING. A college lecture is supposed to be an active listening exercise not a 1 person repeat performance.
So, one could say the questions and discussions should be in a forum so everybody can read it-- except that getting students to read the forum isn't going to happen. Sitting there physically, they LIVE the experience and it is not as easily dismissed as an optional transcript of a question they don't need the answer to (the answer given might not be what they expected) or if they do need the information they end up skimming and skipping which also can rob them. Also, even dull info you already know is going to be more cemented by repetition, especially when it has slight variations to it.
Mostly, I think it has to do with BEING somewhere, forced to do it all with minimal distraction on a SCHEDULE. The #1 problem is students not doing what they should and when they should - anybody in education should tell you that within minutes of a discussion. Once you realize this, it should be obvious how foolish these online correspondence programs are for the majority of students. If you dig deeper, you'll also find that the self motivated driven students can gain MORE from the traditional model as well -- that is, if they are not solely into making the grade and want to learn the subject as opposed to just passing the class. You see this with non-traditional students who must learn it and apply it on the job they wish to keep, they'd be fine on their own without a course but do better when they utilize one.
On the Wii you don't have to move around much - it doesn't actually track your whole movements like Kinect. Didn't you figure out how to do most the stuff without literally doing what they say? Who really wants to move around like crazy all the time? The Kinect missed the point, if you want exact movement tracking that is handy for niche uses but for a lot of games it isn't.
Without government there are not corporations. They are a legal entity defined by and their existence maintained by the force of government. If you remove them then you still have the "Free Market" confined by LAW. Company X doesn't hire gunman and give new meaning to hostile take over BECAUSE of the government. Companies that break contracts or copy ideas go to the government provided court system which is FREE except for those vile lawyers everybody must pay too much... who also run our government...
I've gotten good traction with Republicans saying nobody should make more than the President of the USA because that is the most important job there is. Since Obama got in, that argument doesn't work so well but it worked great during the Bush years.
One reason Clinton could mess with CEO pay was because it left open huge massive loopholes! Also messing with corps is easier than changing income tax.
The RICH could be untouched by the CEO cap if they'd forgo the legal firewall corporations provide them - maybe they deserve the super high income when they can be executed for crimes their company does... and they can be personally sued for their company...
Historically, the professor didn't have to worry about you learning. The kind of students they had would teach themselves and use the access to an expert to guide and help them find their own way. This was not for everybody. College graduates were sought after and elite (in the good way) largely because of what kind of person made it; even getting in and not completing was valuable (not anybody could even get in.) We continue to heavily value college education today but it does not mean what it did that made it into the highly valuable accomplishment it is/was. Have you seen what the old entrance exams looked like 100 years ago?
You only need to know enough of the topic to direct the student's work and aid them in their own education. ACTIVE LEARNING not passive; passive what high school is for most students and this is the kind of expectations people have on college today.
Grad school is still more old fashioned, where they'll say go illustrate X in java and if you don't know java you are expected to learn enough to do it on your own and NOT bitch about it. I'm not saying undergrad should do that, but more of that mentality existed there than it does today.
I found this info from old professors I have known.
Employers are starting to wonder why the degree is so important when they are not getting the increasingly specialized niche skills they desire and are too cheap to train or allow time for employees to train themselves (you can... but you train yourself on your own time and expense. Until then they'll hire a consultant who will cleverly create as much lock-in as they can.) So even with the old-school student they are increasingly less satisfied as they shift the blame from themselves to others (a long standing trend in business culture for generations.)
Private schools can also be horrible. The ones in my town were horrible, when those kids joined up with us in high school they were way behind in science... also in dealing with the diverse real world of mean nasty angry people (or nice people who think differently.)
Slashdot Mirror
I think video games today and those of the past are DIFFERENT. I remember enjoying violent bloody games, partially because they were so un-P.C. They had no story, were visually they were abstract, and were not as engrossing... that is, they didn't try to become a movie version of "choose your own adventure" putting you into the role of a main character to role play.
Therapists are trained to use various kinds of role playing to work thru emotional problems; including hypnosis - where you re-live experiences in a controlled environment where you can better deal with them. Having some training in hypnosis, I can tell you that I'm convinced that watching TV really is a semi-hypnotic state for most people. It's impact is proven by the actions of advertisers, propagandists, and the military for generations!
It does not matter what anybody says about media not being influential because in practice it has been long proven otherwise. Does it turn a rabbit into a wolf? No, it is not that simple. Violent Media doesn't MAKE killers; but it also doesn't MAKE you buy stuff.... it DOES however influence you to varying degrees! To be overly simplistic: brand sales cause irrational impulse decisions when somebody's brain is not fully firing (which is more often than you'd feel comfortable with.) It works. Now when somebody is in an emotionally charged situation and not thinking clearly they are doing to be swayed to the irrational "brand" of solution to the situation. You can see this in the form of mindless talking point parrots who are too upset to think rationally in a debate or when somebody reaches for a gun...
I think modern games are too realistic and too close to the role playing a therapist uses making their impact far stronger today than it was in the past. Subtle things can make all the difference how it impacts the gamer; ultimately, it is the gamer who interprets it. A nutter is going to take something safe and twist it around - so going for the strongest emotional impact may win over the largest audience and fuel endless sequels but the nuts are probably going to be strongly impacted in another direction. That being said, I think these things could be designed to create antisocial behavior in "healthy" people... not that anybody is doing that intentionally, yet. It will happen someday. It has already been done with TV/Movies during wartime; hell, that bore the propaganda industry of today.
Apparently all the advertizing for Visas has high school students confused that there is a shortage of CS people. The side benefit is that having too many graduates will result in the same outcome if the Visa program can not continue to be abused.
Walmart used to hire people with bad credit (after performing credit checks on applicants) because those employees are the closest to indentured servants. THAT business ethic is not restricted to Walmart management. Indentured servants are the goal. CS graduates with huge debts doing IT support jobs a teenager can perform can fill the gap the Visas have not been filling...
Stop with the mind games and just have 1 fixed time. It should be a scientific metric not political mind game.
Above the 40 latitude lines it only gives weeks of sunlight before it is dark again.
The real problem is WORK HOURS. I remember the futurists of the 50s who besides the flying cars etc, were predicting people would work less hours per week as part of their better quality of life. Farmers were and are doing about 35 hours per week average; yet somehow with our non-agrarian societies that are supposed to have advanced, we work more hours than ever. The #2 death bed confession is regret about working too much and missing out of what is important in life.
I am opposed to "Obamacare" but you are full of shit.
Pulling numbers out of Fox's ass/mouth again?
It is not even fully implemented yet so the impact can't be realized; even then, you have to use the system before/after to notice any change - so right there that rules out most people and makes it easy to appeal to people's ignorance and gullibility.
Obamacare doesn't solve the drug cost problem, it doesn't solve the 30% of all costs being wasted by the insurance "industry" but it doesn't make those problems worse either. That is why it was able to pass at all. It can't be blamed for rising costs - it never was allowed touch the real problem (like every other problem of today.)
The wars kill people and screw up many more people with unpredictable blow back, not to mention how many Americans it negatively impacts. When more of the military dies at their own hands than by the enemy; you have to ask yourself, who is the real enemy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Package_(Seinfeld)
Doctors develop a big EGO; having a form of "code review" is going to bruise their egos.
The public expects too much of doctors and believes in them too much the doctors enjoy it despite the fears of liability.
Doctors are human biological mechanics. The machine may be more complex but dealing with both auto mechanics and doctors for me has been surprisingly similar with their cycle of educated guess -> routine maintenance procedures -> bill -> success/failure -> repeat.
If you ask doctors if patients NEED access, they should say no. If you ask doctors if patients have a right to access their records you'll get a different answer.
Going forward, some IBM Watson + website will also be providing interpretations... if they can get around the legal and political issues it will eventually out perform real doctors at diagnosis (who are not that good at it.)
I have a customized Unicomp myself. Worth every penny and it is not made cheaply in China. It makes noise but so did the model M... I can't see this thing wearing out, but those cherry switches look like they would go before my springs. (I've heard claims of millions of clicks before... I've got two worn out mice to prove the numbers are not high enough.)
Also, the springs in mine look like normal springs you could buy online somewhere (naturally, I took it apart upon getting it!) It'll be easy for the next generation to replace worn springs; that is if your children bother to get a USB adapter for their phone... and if they can't afford the brain implant computers.
Mouse That Roared
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053084/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
An ok little movie, somewhat relevant.
Can somebody please point me to where in the constitution and bill of rights does it say the limitations on government ONLY exist on US soil? Outside war, is it ok to ignore fundamental rights simply as a matter of location? What about in war? (not that Geneva matters to the US anymore.)
Free speech... as long as you do it in this fenced in area... Freedom to peaceably assemble.... as long as you are approved for a permit and pay the fee and limit it in every way prescribed.
Microsoft was convicted and lost the appeal. If you were on parole and violated it they would nail you even if it was an accident!
It isn't fair when a human on parole forgets some legal detail and is nailed. That's 1 person who is not a lawyer trying to continue living their life. Microsoft is a large number of people with their own law firms who are paid to deal with such things. ZERO EXCUSES for almost any human (except the politically connected) and they can have reasonable excuses; Microsoft doesn't.
Just because they are a corporation (that is, a person in the USA) doesn't mean they should get special treatment.
The fact the EU can even fine them a decent amount shows they can't just bribe their way out of the legal system; like in the USA... Weak punishments just become part of doing business, nothing changes - the whole purpose is to force compliance!
You go to foreign nation break their laws you and you are stuck with them. Operate a business in a foreign nation and you are stuck with them too.
He did operate a business in the USA; however, it was hiring a US company and not actually doing it himself which becomes tricky. Use a CDN that is in the USA and you are subject to all US laws. Wonder if this works for FedEx...a physical CDN.
He personally is the target despite being a corporation; which is inequitable because we all know CEOs are rarely EVER touched for their actions. The corporation ends up in court. Recent big case: drug money laundering of HSBC (although if it weren't so powerful they would get some employees...but probably not all the right ones.)
Charges of crimes that are valid for extradition let all the invalid ones pass. Something should be done about that. The judge has to decide to block it based upon the whole list; problem is that some good ones are all that are needed to let a whole list of others that would be rejected pass. Then the US could change the charges once they get you. The extradition should decide WHICH charges can be applied and nothing else can be done outside those. Take US conspiracy law- that is one of the toughest things to survive because it is so broad.
Look what Franklin said in his closing speech of the constitutional convention.
Democracies always fall to despotism, that is reality. Thinking your government will continue forever is foolish and is not an evidence backed position. At some point a new government needs to replace the corrupt one; this is always an unpleasant transition and often is slow because it takes years of suffering despotism (which may include a new form of gov) before people are willing to collaborate enough to form another democracy (or other system) that is at least initially superior to the prior level of despotism.
Good governments can only be judged by how long they raise living conditions for the majority (because everybody "rounds off" the lowest minority elements. Think about that, especially in the USA.) Utopia isn't great if it only lasts for a day. Arguably, the utopia is never good because it is the pursuit of a theoretically obtainable utopia that great evils are justified.
Keep what we have; there is no cold war but we keep up a pace as if we had somebody we had to keep pace with. The "old" stuff is good enough and in high enough numbers. Work on AI drones and forget this stop gap next gen. Dumping that kind of money into AI could benefit mankind, putting it into these things is a waste.
Not that I'm for AI/remote control killer robots so cowards can rule the world, but there are plenty of rich cowards besides those in the USA who will build robot armies so they can take the diminishing resources. Yes, it is cowardly to fight by remote; war needs a high price or it becomes a game. To the psychopaths it already is a game and we have plenty of them already but when you lower the bar more people pass the threshold.
If they call it Vulcan, JJ Abrams must blow it up.
This development may lower things for a while and raise demand for a while until more expensive sources are found to replace the cheap ones that ran out quickly (due to increased demand.) This will be the peak for that resource and it'll not ever likely do that again. It may not even peak that much with the delay in production rate increase and the commodity traitors (misspelling intentional.)
The real problem long term is recycling. We don't recycle most materials and won't until they become rare enough or costly enough to make recycling cost competitive. It might be already except that mining land fills is going to need many rare materials to start mining them... especially the ones where communities have been built on top.
The most expensive, difficult, LARGEST, and publicly owned part of any direct connect service is the last mile. The ISPs must use public land or public airwaves to get to your home; they get permission from the public using public institutions (government which used to be by and for the people but that is off topic.) The same system which provides water, sewer, roads, phone, power - although some of those are too new to be public and instead are privatized at our expense (but we love to pay more so somebody can get rich off a monopoly, our water, sewer, and roads are next...)
ISPs didn't build up the infrastructure completely on their own, they had plenty of public (gov) support in doing it and they did a bad job of it too. ISP motives were to milk profit not keep the USA on top and so here we sit while the world advances. Asians are going to be video editing home videos faster on the cloud (500Gbps) while we get excited we can finally play 2 HD netflix streams at once and can't upload jack.
The public can demand anything they want because it is OUR land that allows the last mile connection to be possible. You can put your stuff on that land but if the landlord changes their mind, you are evicted!
If the people (gov) want your stuff, they are allowed to take it from you but must pay you for it; that is, unless they say it is a form of drug money or terrorism, then you lose it without due process and must prove your innocents. This loophole on fundamental rights never happens to corporations (cough, HSBC) but too often it happens to citizens. The government always had that power for the public good but thanks to the SCOTUS, Walmart can buy your house and kick you out by bribing your town council for the corporate good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy
You prove it. It wasn't a universal statement, you have to do more than find 1 person harmed by busy work.
Busy work doesn't kill anybody; people act like its the cigarettes of education! Stop bitching you lazy addicts!!!
You have a TON of free time to spend HOURS everyday on TV, internet, videogames, pointless consumer addictions... If your education was THAT important you would dedicate more time to it instead of bitching because the busy work robbed you of escaping reality by watching TV (somewhat ironically, watching reality TV.)
I'm not a fan of "busy work" because it wastes time; however, people who waste their time have no leg to stand on.
Subjective bitching:
Some people "get it" at a halfway point and so it feels like the other half was a waste.
Some feel they don't need to do the work not realizing they actually do need to do it.
Repetition DOES work, sometimes it is needed. Everybody wants to lose weight without exercise.
Memorization used to be taught by "wasting time" memorizing poems; now we don't memorize anything in school and the kids would have no memory skills if the education wasn't degrading into wrote learning (which is ideal for the Meritocracy.) We used to do cursive writing and now we find out it has other benefits beyond the pointless skill of cursive writing in a digital age! What worked in the past doesn't need to be changed without PROOF the new way is better. Why are we so willing to experiment on children?
All the parties involved play games with the budget with different motives and incentives.
It would be nice if things could be handled in an open way the public could understand (is that possible anymore, most Americans can't do math?) But the reality is that the politicians benefit from the complexity involved and the confusion they create - if the public finally did their job, then the politicians would step up the complexity (unless voted out of office...)
I'm not worried about a national debt at WW2 levels I'm worried that we didn't have anything near WW2 to justify running it up. It signifies the dysfunctional electorate and is merely a symptom of the classic despotic disease - the one which always ends fatally.
I'm glad the cuts are coming because the important things will be forced and hopefully they won't get as many compromise pork as if they prevented it from happening in 1 mega bill. Even though it may only be for a short period, this may be the biggest military pork CUT we will see until the collapse of the republic.
Politicians in modern times; having such a dysfunctional system, must force impossible situations in order to make the necessary deals happen. Reasoned timely debate is no longer possible; lobbyists have less influence during such deadline crises (unless they helped create them and prepared.) No matter what, there are always bad parts put in with the good parts so thinking a mock crisis changes that is foolish. What it does seem to do is force problems into big massive compromises where maybe there are more bad deals. I would think this is the case since they love to push things back into shared deadlines and combine issues into big bills; however, it could simply be they need to raise the stakes high enough to force it to get done when enough politicians suffer.
Correspondence courses never were considered that good, neither were the degrees from those schools. Today we place "cyber" onto anything and somehow whatever it was is all new and wonderful. Except for cyber crime, which needs all new laws for some reason...
I remember from a Communications course, a transcript was only 20% of the message being conveyed or something like that was said. Audio is better, Video is even better than that. But nothing compares with the interactive aspect; even if not utilized, somebody asks a question and it takes another direction that a video can't. Also, by having other people raise issues it impacts the others in a way a 1 on 1 can't -- and I can tell you that online courses have LESS interaction, because despite a student saying nothing and being completely passive they do benefit (on average) from the other active students. I suggest people look into communications, which is a field of study. look into what is ACTIVE LISTENING. A college lecture is supposed to be an active listening exercise not a 1 person repeat performance.
So, one could say the questions and discussions should be in a forum so everybody can read it-- except that getting students to read the forum isn't going to happen. Sitting there physically, they LIVE the experience and it is not as easily dismissed as an optional transcript of a question they don't need the answer to (the answer given might not be what they expected) or if they do need the information they end up skimming and skipping which also can rob them. Also, even dull info you already know is going to be more cemented by repetition, especially when it has slight variations to it.
Mostly, I think it has to do with BEING somewhere, forced to do it all with minimal distraction on a SCHEDULE. The #1 problem is students not doing what they should and when they should - anybody in education should tell you that within minutes of a discussion. Once you realize this, it should be obvious how foolish these online correspondence programs are for the majority of students. If you dig deeper, you'll also find that the self motivated driven students can gain MORE from the traditional model as well -- that is, if they are not solely into making the grade and want to learn the subject as opposed to just passing the class. You see this with non-traditional students who must learn it and apply it on the job they wish to keep, they'd be fine on their own without a course but do better when they utilize one.
On the Wii you don't have to move around much - it doesn't actually track your whole movements like Kinect. Didn't you figure out how to do most the stuff without literally doing what they say? Who really wants to move around like crazy all the time? The Kinect missed the point, if you want exact movement tracking that is handy for niche uses but for a lot of games it isn't.
Without government there are not corporations. They are a legal entity defined by and their existence maintained by the force of government. If you remove them then you still have the "Free Market" confined by LAW. Company X doesn't hire gunman and give new meaning to hostile take over BECAUSE of the government. Companies that break contracts or copy ideas go to the government provided court system which is FREE except for those vile lawyers everybody must pay too much... who also run our government...
I've gotten good traction with Republicans saying nobody should make more than the President of the USA because that is the most important job there is. Since Obama got in, that argument doesn't work so well but it worked great during the Bush years.
One reason Clinton could mess with CEO pay was because it left open huge massive loopholes! Also messing with corps is easier than changing income tax.
The RICH could be untouched by the CEO cap if they'd forgo the legal firewall corporations provide them - maybe they deserve the super high income when they can be executed for crimes their company does... and they can be personally sued for their company...
Historically, the professor didn't have to worry about you learning. The kind of students they had would teach themselves and use the access to an expert to guide and help them find their own way. This was not for everybody. College graduates were sought after and elite (in the good way) largely because of what kind of person made it; even getting in and not completing was valuable (not anybody could even get in.) We continue to heavily value college education today but it does not mean what it did that made it into the highly valuable accomplishment it is/was. Have you seen what the old entrance exams looked like 100 years ago?
You only need to know enough of the topic to direct the student's work and aid them in their own education. ACTIVE LEARNING not passive; passive what high school is for most students and this is the kind of expectations people have on college today.
Grad school is still more old fashioned, where they'll say go illustrate X in java and if you don't know java you are expected to learn enough to do it on your own and NOT bitch about it. I'm not saying undergrad should do that, but more of that mentality existed there than it does today.
I found this info from old professors I have known.
Employers are starting to wonder why the degree is so important when they are not getting the increasingly specialized niche skills they desire and are too cheap to train or allow time for employees to train themselves (you can... but you train yourself on your own time and expense. Until then they'll hire a consultant who will cleverly create as much lock-in as they can.) So even with the old-school student they are increasingly less satisfied as they shift the blame from themselves to others (a long standing trend in business culture for generations.)
Private schools can also be horrible. The ones in my town were horrible, when those kids joined up with us in high school they were way behind in science... also in dealing with the diverse real world of mean nasty angry people (or nice people who think differently.)