Remember the Simpsons where Disco Stu shows Homer how Disco album sales are up 400% for the year ending 1976? "If these trends continue.... Ehy!" While I'm not sure how to spell that sound, I am sure that the idea of future-proof career is a dream. What careers seemed future-proof thirty years ago, and could anyone have picked the winners and losers? There's a hindsight fallacy there. Just like the stock market, if there was such a thing as a future-proof career then everyone would want it, driving the salary to zero and making it worthless.
As other worthies have probably pointed out elsewhere in the comments, the best idea is to learn critical thinking and remain flexible. STEM education is valuable whether you're working in your specialty or not. Unlike Underwater Basket-Weaving or other majors that seem like a great idea as a freshman, STEM educations generally push students to learn basics about how the world works that can be universal (including submarine crafting mechanics). I have this same issue with my kids and I think the answer is just to let them know that building a network and constantly learning is the highest-payoff strategy but no guarantee. Anyone giving a job guarantee is, to paraphrase, lying or selling something.
Also I'm planning to have my drugs delivered by Amazon Drones(tm), so that's not a future-proof occupation either.
Charging a higher interest rate for "credit-unworthy" people makes it more likely that they'll default, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is only true if you assume that people have no choice but to borrow. Young people have a choice. They can decide not to borrow an insane amount of money at an unaffordable interest rate. Higher interest is the market's way of signaling: "Are you SURE you want to borrow?" In most cases, if you can't afford the loan, there's a reason. Going to any college that you want isn't a right.
None of this should be a surprise. Part of getting treated like an adult means making rational decisions. I'm frustrated by the high price of higher education, but until people start looking at the pricetag and saying "Jeez, no thanks!" then the demand will be there to drive 10% a year price increases. A lot of people have complained to me about their loans, but no one forced them to make that decision. They apparently thought that going to that expensive school was worth the cost. Instead of complaining about having to pay those debts, they should be thanking their stars that they were able to GO to college (many people don't) and have the opportunities that affords. If they spent 80K$ on an English degree, that implies they thought that they could pay it off with whatever job they could get with that degree. If they made a bad decision, why shouldn't they have to undergo the consequences? Sounds like college is teaching them a lesson even after they graduate.
How is the EFF going to establish that it has the standing necessary to bring this suit? That seems to be the central Catch-22 in this story; it's plainly illegal, but the only way to take the NSA to court is to prove you were monitored, but the people who were monitored are secret, which means you can't take them to court, which means it must not be illegal. How do we establish standing when the victims are secret?
So, we're easilly talking on the order of... a million dollars in equipment, labor and other expenses. Oh, and this is just talking about RAID 0. If any of those 150,000 floppies fail the whole array fails. Even with massive redundancy you will still need at least a full time employee going around swapping in floppies when one fails.
Will someone with knowledge (or, I guess, anyone who sounds knowledgeable) opine on the following question: Will IPv6 do away with NAT, and thus make tracking people's home IP address much easier (by removing the need for an address pool)?
The Supreme Court doesn't agree with you, and I'd guess that more people would find them a better source on the value of anonymity than some guy posting on slashdot.
Reading this raises a question in my mind that someone here might be able to answer. The parents quotes the grandparent's assertion, notes that the Supreme Court doesn't agree (without mentioning anything about the SCOTUS reasoning) and then ends his post. Is this a logical fallacy? Or are there some cases where an appeal to authority is a fair and conclusive way to dismiss an argument? I agree that the SCOTUS is more likely to have thought out these issues than the writer of the grandparent post, but if those arguments aren't mentioned by the parent, then how is it relevant to the discussion? Didn't the SCOTUS come up with the Dred Scott decision, too?
In order to allow for the possibility that supernatural forces exist, why don't we just legislate that science teachers add the phrase "or God could have done it." to the end of every description of scientifically observed events?
For example:
"Approximately 25% of the resulting sprouts were phenotype a, so the genotypes of the parents were Aa and Aa, or God could have done it."
"When the laser hit the surface, energy was transferred and a burn mark appeared, or God could have done it."
"We found that half the population of monkeys died at a dosage of 0.5 milligrams of Substance A, or God could have done it."
"Rays of light seem to curve as they pass the Sun because of the star's intense gravitational field, or God could be doing it." Note that the phrase can be "mixed up" for flexibility
"The victim died from a three inch laceration that punctured the aerotal artery, causing massive hemorraging, or God could have done it."
If the problem is that scientists are prejudiced towards a belief that naturalistic explanations always exist, then this short, reasonable disclaimer will correct for that prejudice.
While the lawmakers have their pens in one hand and Bibles in the other, they might also consider the fact that only God is infinite, and yet so-called "irrational" numbers (e.g. "pie") can be expressed as an infinite decimal with no set of consecutive digits repeating itself indefinitely and that cannot be expressed as the quotient of two integers!
Slashdot Mirror
As other worthies have probably pointed out elsewhere in the comments, the best idea is to learn critical thinking and remain flexible. STEM education is valuable whether you're working in your specialty or not. Unlike Underwater Basket-Weaving or other majors that seem like a great idea as a freshman, STEM educations generally push students to learn basics about how the world works that can be universal (including submarine crafting mechanics). I have this same issue with my kids and I think the answer is just to let them know that building a network and constantly learning is the highest-payoff strategy but no guarantee. Anyone giving a job guarantee is, to paraphrase, lying or selling something.
Also I'm planning to have my drugs delivered by Amazon Drones(tm), so that's not a future-proof occupation either.
Why can't we have a phone number whitelist just like I have for MAC addresses on my wireless router? Everything else dumps to VM.
The Diamond Age begins.
Most myths have an element of truth in them.
This is a myth.
Maybe the answer is that the company also can't hire anyone to do your old job for the same six months.
Oh well, we can always build more Kilobots
He's more machine than man now
Also go to work for the Federal government. They have loan forgiveness programs. How do I know? I am one.
Charging a higher interest rate for "credit-unworthy" people makes it more likely that they'll default, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is only true if you assume that people have no choice but to borrow. Young people have a choice. They can decide not to borrow an insane amount of money at an unaffordable interest rate. Higher interest is the market's way of signaling: "Are you SURE you want to borrow?" In most cases, if you can't afford the loan, there's a reason. Going to any college that you want isn't a right.
None of this should be a surprise. Part of getting treated like an adult means making rational decisions. I'm frustrated by the high price of higher education, but until people start looking at the pricetag and saying "Jeez, no thanks!" then the demand will be there to drive 10% a year price increases. A lot of people have complained to me about their loans, but no one forced them to make that decision. They apparently thought that going to that expensive school was worth the cost. Instead of complaining about having to pay those debts, they should be thanking their stars that they were able to GO to college (many people don't) and have the opportunities that affords. If they spent 80K$ on an English degree, that implies they thought that they could pay it off with whatever job they could get with that degree. If they made a bad decision, why shouldn't they have to undergo the consequences? Sounds like college is teaching them a lesson even after they graduate.
I think they took it literally when NASA said they would "Go to bat" for the space program
This will obviously occur on Jan 19th, 2009 to round out the Bush administration.
How is the EFF going to establish that it has the standing necessary to bring this suit? That seems to be the central Catch-22 in this story; it's plainly illegal, but the only way to take the NSA to court is to prove you were monitored, but the people who were monitored are secret, which means you can't take them to court, which means it must not be illegal. How do we establish standing when the victims are secret?
Wow, the IRS should upgrade to these!
I guess I'd better convert my p0rn collection to MPEG to secure it for future generations. Thanks, Slashdot!
Yeah, but only because Saddam didn't try to kill your dog's dad.
Does that mean that anyone who is laughing is a slick film pirate? 'Cause there are a lot of laughs from the /. people here.
Funny comment, but not really relevant to the discussion. Modded up as Insightful, however.
Will someone with knowledge (or, I guess, anyone who sounds knowledgeable) opine on the following question: Will IPv6 do away with NAT, and thus make tracking people's home IP address much easier (by removing the need for an address pool)?
I wonder what percentage of slashdot posts end with this sentence. It would be an interesting or perhaps disturbing thing to know.
Reading this raises a question in my mind that someone here might be able to answer. The parents quotes the grandparent's assertion, notes that the Supreme Court doesn't agree (without mentioning anything about the SCOTUS reasoning) and then ends his post. Is this a logical fallacy? Or are there some cases where an appeal to authority is a fair and conclusive way to dismiss an argument? I agree that the SCOTUS is more likely to have thought out these issues than the writer of the grandparent post, but if those arguments aren't mentioned by the parent, then how is it relevant to the discussion? Didn't the SCOTUS come up with the Dred Scott decision, too?
In order to allow for the possibility that supernatural forces exist, why don't we just legislate that science teachers add the phrase "or God could have done it." to the end of every description of scientifically observed events?
For example:
"Approximately 25% of the resulting sprouts were phenotype a, so the genotypes of the parents were Aa and Aa, or God could have done it."
"When the laser hit the surface, energy was transferred and a burn mark appeared, or God could have done it."
"We found that half the population of monkeys died at a dosage of 0.5 milligrams of Substance A, or God could have done it."
"Rays of light seem to curve as they pass the Sun because of the star's intense gravitational field, or God could be doing it." Note that the phrase can be "mixed up" for flexibility
"The victim died from a three inch laceration that punctured the aerotal artery, causing massive hemorraging, or God could have done it."
If the problem is that scientists are prejudiced towards a belief that naturalistic explanations always exist, then this short, reasonable disclaimer will correct for that prejudice.
While the lawmakers have their pens in one hand and Bibles in the other, they might also consider the fact that only God is infinite, and yet so-called "irrational" numbers (e.g. "pie") can be expressed as an infinite decimal with no set of consecutive digits repeating itself indefinitely and that cannot be expressed as the quotient of two integers!
Things to think about once my paladin hits level 60.
well, given the regularity of dupes around here, I'll go out on a limb and say as dupes go, this one is at least new to most of us.
The bank called and said they ran out of zeroes, so Lucas has no motivation to make any more movies.