So, if you look at the foreign language requirement for what it is (an "expand your mind" requirement), then it is plainly obvious that coding achieves the same objective.
Heck, in 1900, Latin and Greek were required subjects in college, not because they served any purpose, but because they were sort of considered an obvious requirement for educated people. In some sense my argument is no different that the argument made by the pro-Latin people (all four of them). âoe[Latin] trains your mind. Trains your memory. Unraveling a Latin sentence is an excellent exercise in thought, a real intellectual puzzle, and a good introduction to logical thinking,â writes Scott Barker. But I canâ(TM)t find a single university that requires Latin any more. Are pointers and recursion the Latin and Greek of Computer Science?
Granted, he is arguing for CS students always having to learn fundamental CS concepts like pointers and recursion, but I think that it is not too much of a stretch to think that coding will eventually become the Latin and Greek of our culture. Everybody should have to learn a bit of it if they want to consider themselves well educated and well rounded, and a small number will choose to specialize in it as a field of endeavor.
And if you are thinking to yourself, "Well, what's the point, they won't remember any of it?" Please go find any random middle aged person whose only exposure to foreign language was their 2 year requirement in high school and ask them how much Spanish, French, German, etc. they remember? Hint: their high school foreign language class didn't make them an expert in the foreign language, so would two years of programming in high school be seen as any less valuable from a macro-pedagogic perspective?
I've been giving some thought to this whole botnet epidemic. It occurs to be that there is a very straightforward solution:
Every manufacturer, software vendor, etc., should ship their hardware, software, device, etc., in a mode in which all remote/external access is completely disabled. Then the user would be required to at least take a positive action to enable the remote or network capability.
However, I am relatively certain this won't happen, for these reasons:
If people can't just &plug and play" their devices, then the manufacturer will end up having to bear a greater support burden (i.e., more people calling with problems like "I can't make my printer work on the WiFi")
If people have more problems many will complain, costing the manufacturer brand reputation
The way things currently stand it is cheaper for the manufacturer, and when things go wrong the customer bears the cost of cleaning up the mess
The vast majority of people either never have a problem or never realize that they have a problem (i.e., they are on a private network, a techie friend or family member does the setup and properly secures the device, etc.)
Given that manufacturers are in no rush to do anything that costs them more money (hardware margins are razor thin for just about every hardware company not named "Apple"), I really don't see this changing anytime soon, which is sad because this sort of mentality is making the Internet a worse place for everyone all around.
Perhaps the President could convince Microsoft to hire back all of the American workers they laid off before worrying about getting more cheap tech workers into the country.
When I saw the headline that said "Microsoft's H-1B workers" I thought, "how many can that really be?" Then I got my answer in the summary: 5,000. Then I thought, "What!?!? Microsoft is so completely unable to find US workers that nearly 5% of their entire (global) workforce consists of people brought to the US under a program specifically designed to help companies bring in specialized skills which cannot be found in the US.
If anybody doubts that the entire program either needs to be massively reformed or completely eliminated (I think reform is the better route), then this single example should be all you need. According to the Wikipedia article on MS, they have laid off approaching 25,000-35,000 workers in the last three years. How many of those were H-1B visa holders? I'm not saying that H-1Bs should always be the first to go, but I wonder how many of those laid off would be considered to have specialized skills. The whole thing is just disgusting.
That may have been the case at one time. However, they have long since outlived their usefulness and have now become political behemoths that are so powerful that they can make just about every progressive (who claims to do everything "for the children") irrationally oppose anything that disturbs the status quo in education. I mean, we can't have hav communities or states set their own educational standards; it's all centrally planned in Washington now.
but your distain for democracy, workers and due process is noted.
Right, because taxing people and then also taking away their choice is the epitome of due process. The idea of vouchers or really any other meaningful reform of the public education system is all about due process for parents and students. The teachers unions don't like it because it is a threat to them.
Skip anecdotes as they are invariably 1) distorted 2) problem was lazy administration, not the union 3) easily countered with anecdotes from non-union, for-profit entities.
I live in a school district where everyone I know who can afford to have their kids in private school does so. Those who can't have to suffer with having their kids in a sub-par public system,with no way to change it other than moving to areas with considerably higher costs of living. You obviously don't know anyone with kids or have kids of your own. Or if you do, you don't have any actual experience with having or seeing kids in a school system that is simply failing them at every turn. If those schools feared losing their funding because the parents had the choice to move the kids elsewhere, things would change drastically.
Therein lies the problem, It doesn't matter if someone "agrees" with creationism: it's simply not a valid or useful explanation of our current existence. Unless by "valid" one includes subjugating impressionable people.
You seem really hung up on that. First, it isn't taught in all that many schools. Second, parents ought to have the right to choose for their children. Third, did you by chance grow up in a religious family and now you are rejecting all the mumbo jumbo? Because you seem really hung up on the creationism thing.
I care that children are taught real facts, objective history (as much as this is possible) and real science.
Right. You care so much that if some parents happen to decide to send their children to a school that teaches one thing you don't like you would rather force everyone who cannot financially afford to move their children to suffer with schools that effectively teach them nothing. Bravo, sir. What a noble approach this problem.
Your position on this matter is highly irrational.
Because sending kids to religious schools that will teach creationism as fact will help develop STEM education in the US?
Your argument makes no sense. You are saying that forcing people who cannot afford private school to send their kids to a failing school is the right answer because if you let them choose some of them might send their kids to schools that teach things you don't agree with?
Just curious, but would you agree or disagree with food stamps because some recipients might by junk food items instead of more healthful food items? Or, should Planned Parenthood keep getting federal and state funding? Because lots of people disagree with abortion.
How will American kids even have the chops to enter university with Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education ?
Because she won't let the teacher's unions continue to undermine the quality of public education in the name of their own political and financial objectives? Seriously, why should parents who can't afford to live in good school districts be forced to send their kids to substandard schools? A simple voucher system where the parents choose the school and the money follows the student will produce some excellent competition. Of course, that is precisely what the teachers unions want to prevent. Ask yourself why that is.
most of these same commenters also want to "shrink government", "cut taxes", etc. NONE of which is going to: improve training and testing; expand, fund and enforce standards across municipalities; enhance LEO capabilities to track and prosecute attackers. But - Hey! - we get to sound awful tough!!
Actually, it is not difficult to accomplish both. For example, you could shrink government substantially by implementing a national retail sales tax (lots of conservative lawmakers have proposals, so there plenty of choices) and replacing the entire IRS with something like a 10-20 person office responsible for processing sales tax receipts (this would actually be super easy since sales tax is already collected in something like 99.9% of the US). You could also eliminate entire executive departments that don't actually do anything productive (like education; seriously, the more money the federal government spends on education, the worse it gets, so we should try something different). Those two changes alone would free up considerable funding to apply to the items you list and would result in a net smaller federal government that is also leaner (as defined by doing more of what government should do, like LEO, and less of what it shouldn't, like anything not specifically listed in the constitution). And that is without even touching the sacred cows of social security and medicare.
I made an error there. I definitely meant $17,000,000,000 / 5,500 with the $17,000,000,000 from the article. It would have been better to just use $17B.
"Over the years, disk drives, power supplies and some other components have been replaced but Hogan estimates that close to 80% of the system is original," according to Computerworld.
Personally, I have a computer that lives in a case I got in 2003. I am on motherboard #4, power supply #2, processor #2, memory modules #6 & #7, hard drives #4 & #5, etc. However, I still consider it to be the same computer. Perhaps there is something psychological about it, but the name (or in this case the case) has a special significance even if all the guts have been swapped out.
If I buy a part for my car and the part's manufacturer claims that it complies with some ASE or similar standard, then if the part fails I might have a legal case (e.g., if I can prove negligence in the design or manufacture, or something that the established case law will respect). However, if I buy a part off a guy who makes them in his tool shed and hey tells me "hey, I'm not sure that this thing won't explode when apply the brake," then I am pretty sure I have no recourse whatsoever.
How is software different? If the manufacturer warrants it, then it should work as it is represented and if it fails then there is a discussion to be had. If the manufacturer disclaims warranty and it breaks (and the applicable laws don't override that; you know that in some jurisdictions that there are laws that still hold the maker or seller responsible to a degree for things they make or sell?) then I don't have a legal case.
Of course, even professionally produced commercial software normally has a EULA with a clause that reads something like "the manufacturer provides no warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose and shall not be liable for losses arising from blah, blah, blah..." If you are NASA and paying your contractors (an enormous amount of money) to mathematically prove their software correct then you might get a "yup, we certify that this software will work as designed," otherwise you have no such assurance.
In a similar amount of time solar still hasn't taken off like the internet. ARPAnet started in 1969 by the 1990s the internet was really taking off. Solar on was a focus since 1979 , Carter solar heating panels on the white house. In 30+ years it still hasn't taken off, primarily due to cost.
I think that looking at it on a timeline is partly to blame for the current situation. The technology simply has a long way to go before it is mature enough and cheap enough to spur widespread adoption on its own based on cost-benefit, which is basically what you said:
he biggest issue holding back solar is the cost, once it gets the price of putting a new roof plus 2-3 years of energy savings I think it will take off, right now it isn't there.
Had someone come along in 1973: "hey this Internet thing is going fundamentally transform commerce, the government should start dumping billions of dollars into commercializing it." Had something like that been done it would have been a political and fiscal disaster (kind of like what has happened with solar). If instead we take the approach of maturing the technology, the rest will come on its own if the technology turns out to be a revolutionary improvement (which it seems likely to be). Sadly, there are people who will not be deterred from trying to make solar the answer regardless of whether the technology is ready. They might be helping a little bit in terms of advancing the idea, but they sure are creating lots of baggage with it.
So what this stat means is that it takes 110x more people to generate each kWh of electricity with solar than with fossil fuels. If anything, this is an excellent argument for not using solar to generate electricity.
I tend to be pretty dead-set against big government (I mean really, the government screws up just about everything), so I understand where you are coming from. That said, the main thought that comes to mind for me is not so much an argument against solar, but rather that isn't necessarily ready. Let me explain.
I think that if you were to look at the start of ARPAnet, you would look at that and wonder why it should be OK to have dozens or hundreds of very highly educated extremely talented engineers working on something that didn't really have a clear benefit moving forward. Sure, connecting computers together seemed like a great idea, but in the pre-ARPAnet days it wasn't really possible unless you bought all your gear from the same manufacturer. Even then it was a crap shoot in terms of how well it would suit your needs.
The government made a modest investment in an idea and some emerging technology, not to score political points but for something that would deliver a military capability. It turns out that it formed the basis of the modern information economy. But, the technology had to mature and the idea had to develop. While I know it is not a perfect parallel, I think that battery technology has followed a path more like that. I don't think it will fundamentally transform humanity, but the US government (particularly the Army) has been all about batteries for a long time (smaller, longer lasting so a soldier can wear more gear, and bigger, more powerful so they can use one to power a tank). There has been no political objective, just a legitimate "we want to see this technology improve because it helps us (in this case the military) and everybody else can benefit from the advancement in the state of the art and improvements in batteries across the board."
Sadly, solar is a political football. So, instead of focusing on the technology, people are upset about things like "loans" to companies that burn through mountains of cash only to go out of business. On top of that, there is an established energy industry that is actively trying to avoid being disrupted and one of their key strategies is to turn anything solar-related into a political issue.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but I feel like it is part government-funded research (something like ARPAnet that was focused on technology and utility, not on politics), part technology maturation, part commercial marketplace leadership (when the technology matures and it makes financial sense companies will naturally go that direction), and part policy (remove some of the barriers that utility companies have put up; for example, if you fit out your house with solar panels and become a net generator of electricity, the local utility company should be required to purchase your power at market rates before they buy from outside their service area, or something like that).
They'll win out in the end, and the loser will be their taxpayers...
From the summary:
Apple today is the biggest private employer in Cork, the Irish Republic's second-largest city, with a workforce exceeding 5,500. Economists estimate Apple's Cork operation pumps around $17 billion annually in salaries, tax and investment into the Irish economy.
$17,000,000 annually divided by 5,500 employees is over $3,000,000 per employee per annum of economic impact. If that's what it means to be a loser, then please sign me up! I'll talk to my city council and I am relatively certain I can get them on board.
Why? Because I refuse to accept the liberal fear-mongering about Trump the same way I refused to accept the conservative fear-mongering about Obama? People seem to think, wrongly as it were, that everything is suddenly changing overnight. Obama, for all of his popularity was only able to accomplish a very small part of what he campaigned on. The same has been true going back a long time. Why do people think this will all of a sudden be different? Running screaming "the sky is falling" just because your candidate lost the election only makes you look like a fool. Just the same as it made the conservatives who did the same thing when Obama won look like fools.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I love the sig by the way. It is a cute little straw man that: a) ignores the fact that the popular vote is absolutely not relevant at a national level; and b) distracts from the real issue being that the Democrats lost because like idiots they had to scheme to get Clinton (literally the only person on the face of the planet who could have lost to Trump) the nomination and clearly pissed off a non-trivial fraction of their supporters in the process (obviously a large enough fraction to affect the election).
All your complaints seem to be policy points, not facts of any kind,and certainly not government data.
They seem to be policy points, that hasn't stopped the responsible administrations from treating them as facts, particularly when you look at their unwillingness to entertain that their assertions may not be entirely merit worthy.
Of course, if instead I had decided to point out the "Iraq has WMD, we must invade," or "mission accomplished" (regarding Iraq, in 2003!), or "we need the wall street bail out" of the Bush administration, or the "we have to arm the Contras" of the Reagan administration. I probably would have been modded to +5 insightful.
But that wasn't the point. The point was to show that administrations of all stripes will engage in the same sort of behavior when it suits their narrative and political objectives. Heck, Obama himself blasted the Bush administration' method of calculating unemployment as wrongly characterizing unemployment figures as too low, then he didn't change it within his own administration. I'll give you three guesses why that was.
Those were similarly policy issues where the administration deliberately twisted the facts, just like the Clinton and Obama administrations had done with the examples I mentioned in my first post. If you don't believe me, go talk to some folks in the intelligence community who were specifically told what facts they could and could not include in their reports and what the results and conclusions of their analyses had to be. It has happened under every administration at least that I can remember.
Only a koolaid drinking disingenuous douche-shill thought that the government was magically trustworthy with Obama but all of the sudden is magically not to be trusted anymore because there's a new president.
Well put. When I saw this supposed question from the article, "In the Trump administration era of 'alternative facts,' what happens to government data?" I had a similar thought to what you stated. In fact, my first response to the "question" was, oh, do you mean 'alternative facts' like 'Islamic terrorism' not being a real thing, or like that we can pull out of Iraq and be free of our involvement there, or like that we can let Russia come in and take control and that won't have a bad impact on the US or our allies, or how if we just build schools, hospitals and give them jobs, everybody who would have become a terrorist will instead live a happy productive life without perpetrating any violence, or how we should release the bad people from Gitmo because they aren't really bad people they're just misunderstood, or going back to the Clinton administration how we don't have a problem with terrorists that requires a military solution, we have a problem that requires a criminal justice solution?
The list goes on, but you get the idea. All of those 'alternative facts' from Democrat administrations have resulted in the direct and indirect violent deaths of many Americans and other westerners. The Republicans have their fair share, but you can't lay the blame for the problem solely one party.
Why don't software makers look at the average income level in a given country -- per capita GDP for example -- and adjust their software prices in these countries accordingly? Most software makers in the U.S. and EU currently insist on charging the full U.S. or EU price in much poorer countries. "Rampant piracy" and "low sales" is often the result in these countries. Why not change this by charging lower software prices in less wealthy countries?
Because if you want to make cheap goods and flood my market indiscriminately and then call me a protectionist and accuse me of impeding free trade for creating a level playing field, then I should be allowed to freely (as in, I am free to do as I please) sell my software at whatever price I like in your country. That is, if I can't have a level playing field, then neither should you. After all, it's only fair.
Seriously, was not a single developer or architect from Code.org around when Slashdot overflowed its 24-bit index? I know it has been a few years now, but I'm sure there are folks here who remember threading breaking and all other sorts of problems when it happened. Remember: https://slashdot.org/story/06/11/09/1534204/slashdot-posting-bug-infuriates-haggard-admins
Granted, that was Slashdot, and while annoying, it was hardly the end of the world This problem with Code.org clearly reinforces "cloud bad" to people who are already fearful of putting their data in the cloud.
I am guessing that Code.org didn't bother tracking things like how to close to various limits they were getting, but I bet that they are now. In any event, when this happened to Slashdot 10+ years ago, I suppose you could argue that we weren't as advanced. In 2016-2017 there is no excuse for such a critical architectural flaw. To me, it completely undermines my confidence in their entire platform. What other time bombs are ticking under the surface there?
The reason people like dogs is that no mind-reading tool is ever necessary. It's always immediately obvious what's on their mind.
How true! Now, a mind-reading device for a cat...that's something I would help crowd fund. Then again, if you are going to crowd fund something, it should at least be possible to build, so maybe not.
the FTC said the patents that Qualcomm sought to license are standard essential patents, which means that the industry uses them widely and they are supposed to be licensed on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
I don't get this. Why do industry groups allow patented technologies in standards? Yes, I'm looking at you, IEEE.
The way I look at it, if you patent something, industry should not give you the unfair advantage of codifying your particular patented technology or whatnot. Feel free to make a market for yourself and make it a defacto standard. However, if you want the endorsement of a reputable industry group, you should be required to offer an irrevocable royalty-free license to anyone wants to implement the standard. At least, that is how it would work in my perfect little world.
If this were a free market, we could pay money in exchange for the goods and services we want. Assuming we can agree on a price, but I doubt even a million dollars would could get Microsoft's attention.
It is a free market. What you describe actually exists. In fact, something better than what you describe exists: Linux. It may seem tired, but there are literally dozens of distributions out there. Some have corporate backing (e.g., RedHat, SuSE), others are developed by a community (e.g., Debian), and others are the result of heroics by primarily one individual (e.g., Slackware). The point is that there are so many options, some which will take your money, others of which will not.
Many of those Linux distributions are a viable alternative for many people now. Of course, they may not be what you are accustomed to, and they may not run all of your favorite applications, but most things in life are some of trade-off. Do you want to run a particular app or group of apps at the expense of your privacy? Or are you willing to give up something else in order to secure your privacy?
On the flip side, in a free market producers are free to produce what they want. For example, I can walk in to a Chick-Fil-A and try to order a cheeseburger. Of course, they don't make cheeseburgers, so they won't be able to sell it to me. At that point I have to make a choice: do I stick with Chick-Fil-A because I really want the waffle-cut fries, or do I go to Burger King next door?
You and everyone else out there has a choice now, you just have to decide what is really important.
I will simply refer you to my comment in last week's discussion on "Microsoft To Enhance User Privacy Controls In Upcoming Windows 10 Update": here
Bottom line: Microsoft's only objective was "get people to quit trashing us openly". Of course, the current state very well could have been their desired end goal and they went extreme from the outset to give them room to appear to compromise. Either way, whether or not it was planned, they make themselves look (comparatively) like the good guys.
Slashdot Mirror
So, if you look at the foreign language requirement for what it is (an "expand your mind" requirement), then it is plainly obvious that coding achieves the same objective.
Joel Spolsky,in his rant on Java Schools, sort of touches on this:
Heck, in 1900, Latin and Greek were required subjects in college, not because they served any purpose, but because they were sort of considered an obvious requirement for educated people. In some sense my argument is no different that the argument made by the pro-Latin people (all four of them). âoe[Latin] trains your mind. Trains your memory. Unraveling a Latin sentence is an excellent exercise in thought, a real intellectual puzzle, and a good introduction to logical thinking,â writes Scott Barker. But I canâ(TM)t find a single university that requires Latin any more. Are pointers and recursion the Latin and Greek of Computer Science?
Granted, he is arguing for CS students always having to learn fundamental CS concepts like pointers and recursion, but I think that it is not too much of a stretch to think that coding will eventually become the Latin and Greek of our culture. Everybody should have to learn a bit of it if they want to consider themselves well educated and well rounded, and a small number will choose to specialize in it as a field of endeavor.
And if you are thinking to yourself, "Well, what's the point, they won't remember any of it?" Please go find any random middle aged person whose only exposure to foreign language was their 2 year requirement in high school and ask them how much Spanish, French, German, etc. they remember? Hint: their high school foreign language class didn't make them an expert in the foreign language, so would two years of programming in high school be seen as any less valuable from a macro-pedagogic perspective?
I've been giving some thought to this whole botnet epidemic. It occurs to be that there is a very straightforward solution:
Every manufacturer, software vendor, etc., should ship their hardware, software, device, etc., in a mode in which all remote/external access is completely disabled. Then the user would be required to at least take a positive action to enable the remote or network capability.
However, I am relatively certain this won't happen, for these reasons:
Given that manufacturers are in no rush to do anything that costs them more money (hardware margins are razor thin for just about every hardware company not named "Apple"), I really don't see this changing anytime soon, which is sad because this sort of mentality is making the Internet a worse place for everyone all around.
Perhaps the President could convince Microsoft to hire back all of the American workers they laid off before worrying about getting more cheap tech workers into the country.
When I saw the headline that said "Microsoft's H-1B workers" I thought, "how many can that really be?" Then I got my answer in the summary: 5,000. Then I thought, "What!?!? Microsoft is so completely unable to find US workers that nearly 5% of their entire (global) workforce consists of people brought to the US under a program specifically designed to help companies bring in specialized skills which cannot be found in the US.
If anybody doubts that the entire program either needs to be massively reformed or completely eliminated (I think reform is the better route), then this single example should be all you need. According to the Wikipedia article on MS, they have laid off approaching 25,000-35,000 workers in the last three years. How many of those were H-1B visa holders? I'm not saying that H-1Bs should always be the first to go, but I wonder how many of those laid off would be considered to have specialized skills. The whole thing is just disgusting.
Teachers unions protect public education,
That may have been the case at one time. However, they have long since outlived their usefulness and have now become political behemoths that are so powerful that they can make just about every progressive (who claims to do everything "for the children") irrationally oppose anything that disturbs the status quo in education. I mean, we can't have hav communities or states set their own educational standards; it's all centrally planned in Washington now.
but your distain for democracy, workers and due process is noted.
Right, because taxing people and then also taking away their choice is the epitome of due process. The idea of vouchers or really any other meaningful reform of the public education system is all about due process for parents and students. The teachers unions don't like it because it is a threat to them.
Skip anecdotes as they are invariably 1) distorted 2) problem was lazy administration, not the union 3) easily countered with anecdotes from non-union, for-profit entities.
I live in a school district where everyone I know who can afford to have their kids in private school does so. Those who can't have to suffer with having their kids in a sub-par public system,with no way to change it other than moving to areas with considerably higher costs of living. You obviously don't know anyone with kids or have kids of your own. Or if you do, you don't have any actual experience with having or seeing kids in a school system that is simply failing them at every turn. If those schools feared losing their funding because the parents had the choice to move the kids elsewhere, things would change drastically.
Therein lies the problem, It doesn't matter if someone "agrees" with creationism: it's simply not a valid or useful explanation of our current existence. Unless by "valid" one includes subjugating impressionable people.
You seem really hung up on that. First, it isn't taught in all that many schools. Second, parents ought to have the right to choose for their children. Third, did you by chance grow up in a religious family and now you are rejecting all the mumbo jumbo? Because you seem really hung up on the creationism thing.
I care that children are taught real facts, objective history (as much as this is possible) and real science.
Right. You care so much that if some parents happen to decide to send their children to a school that teaches one thing you don't like you would rather force everyone who cannot financially afford to move their children to suffer with schools that effectively teach them nothing. Bravo, sir. What a noble approach this problem.
Your position on this matter is highly irrational.
Because sending kids to religious schools that will teach creationism as fact will help develop STEM education in the US?
Your argument makes no sense. You are saying that forcing people who cannot afford private school to send their kids to a failing school is the right answer because if you let them choose some of them might send their kids to schools that teach things you don't agree with?
Just curious, but would you agree or disagree with food stamps because some recipients might by junk food items instead of more healthful food items? Or, should Planned Parenthood keep getting federal and state funding? Because lots of people disagree with abortion.
How will American kids even have the chops to enter university with Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education ?
Because she won't let the teacher's unions continue to undermine the quality of public education in the name of their own political and financial objectives? Seriously, why should parents who can't afford to live in good school districts be forced to send their kids to substandard schools? A simple voucher system where the parents choose the school and the money follows the student will produce some excellent competition. Of course, that is precisely what the teachers unions want to prevent. Ask yourself why that is.
most of these same commenters also want to "shrink government", "cut taxes", etc. NONE of which is going to: improve training and testing; expand, fund and enforce standards across municipalities; enhance LEO capabilities to track and prosecute attackers. But - Hey! - we get to sound awful tough!!
Actually, it is not difficult to accomplish both. For example, you could shrink government substantially by implementing a national retail sales tax (lots of conservative lawmakers have proposals, so there plenty of choices) and replacing the entire IRS with something like a 10-20 person office responsible for processing sales tax receipts (this would actually be super easy since sales tax is already collected in something like 99.9% of the US). You could also eliminate entire executive departments that don't actually do anything productive (like education; seriously, the more money the federal government spends on education, the worse it gets, so we should try something different). Those two changes alone would free up considerable funding to apply to the items you list and would result in a net smaller federal government that is also leaner (as defined by doing more of what government should do, like LEO, and less of what it shouldn't, like anything not specifically listed in the constitution). And that is without even touching the sacred cows of social security and medicare.
I made an error there. I definitely meant $17,000,000,000 / 5,500 with the $17,000,000,000 from the article. It would have been better to just use $17B.
"Over the years, disk drives, power supplies and some other components have been replaced but Hogan estimates that close to 80% of the system is original," according to Computerworld.
Then is it still considered the same server? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Personally, I have a computer that lives in a case I got in 2003. I am on motherboard #4, power supply #2, processor #2, memory modules #6 & #7, hard drives #4 & #5, etc. However, I still consider it to be the same computer. Perhaps there is something psychological about it, but the name (or in this case the case) has a special significance even if all the guts have been swapped out.
I have to agree here.
If I buy a part for my car and the part's manufacturer claims that it complies with some ASE or similar standard, then if the part fails I might have a legal case (e.g., if I can prove negligence in the design or manufacture, or something that the established case law will respect). However, if I buy a part off a guy who makes them in his tool shed and hey tells me "hey, I'm not sure that this thing won't explode when apply the brake," then I am pretty sure I have no recourse whatsoever.
How is software different? If the manufacturer warrants it, then it should work as it is represented and if it fails then there is a discussion to be had. If the manufacturer disclaims warranty and it breaks (and the applicable laws don't override that; you know that in some jurisdictions that there are laws that still hold the maker or seller responsible to a degree for things they make or sell?) then I don't have a legal case.
Of course, even professionally produced commercial software normally has a EULA with a clause that reads something like "the manufacturer provides no warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose and shall not be liable for losses arising from blah, blah, blah..." If you are NASA and paying your contractors (an enormous amount of money) to mathematically prove their software correct then you might get a "yup, we certify that this software will work as designed," otherwise you have no such assurance.
In a similar amount of time solar still hasn't taken off like the internet. ARPAnet started in 1969 by the 1990s the internet was really taking off. Solar on was a focus since 1979 , Carter solar heating panels on the white house. In 30+ years it still hasn't taken off, primarily due to cost.
I think that looking at it on a timeline is partly to blame for the current situation. The technology simply has a long way to go before it is mature enough and cheap enough to spur widespread adoption on its own based on cost-benefit, which is basically what you said:
he biggest issue holding back solar is the cost, once it gets the price of putting a new roof plus 2-3 years of energy savings I think it will take off, right now it isn't there.
Had someone come along in 1973: "hey this Internet thing is going fundamentally transform commerce, the government should start dumping billions of dollars into commercializing it." Had something like that been done it would have been a political and fiscal disaster (kind of like what has happened with solar). If instead we take the approach of maturing the technology, the rest will come on its own if the technology turns out to be a revolutionary improvement (which it seems likely to be). Sadly, there are people who will not be deterred from trying to make solar the answer regardless of whether the technology is ready. They might be helping a little bit in terms of advancing the idea, but they sure are creating lots of baggage with it.
So what this stat means is that it takes 110x more people to generate each kWh of electricity with solar than with fossil fuels. If anything, this is an excellent argument for not using solar to generate electricity.
I tend to be pretty dead-set against big government (I mean really, the government screws up just about everything), so I understand where you are coming from. That said, the main thought that comes to mind for me is not so much an argument against solar, but rather that isn't necessarily ready. Let me explain.
I think that if you were to look at the start of ARPAnet, you would look at that and wonder why it should be OK to have dozens or hundreds of very highly educated extremely talented engineers working on something that didn't really have a clear benefit moving forward. Sure, connecting computers together seemed like a great idea, but in the pre-ARPAnet days it wasn't really possible unless you bought all your gear from the same manufacturer. Even then it was a crap shoot in terms of how well it would suit your needs.
The government made a modest investment in an idea and some emerging technology, not to score political points but for something that would deliver a military capability. It turns out that it formed the basis of the modern information economy. But, the technology had to mature and the idea had to develop. While I know it is not a perfect parallel, I think that battery technology has followed a path more like that. I don't think it will fundamentally transform humanity, but the US government (particularly the Army) has been all about batteries for a long time (smaller, longer lasting so a soldier can wear more gear, and bigger, more powerful so they can use one to power a tank). There has been no political objective, just a legitimate "we want to see this technology improve because it helps us (in this case the military) and everybody else can benefit from the advancement in the state of the art and improvements in batteries across the board."
Sadly, solar is a political football. So, instead of focusing on the technology, people are upset about things like "loans" to companies that burn through mountains of cash only to go out of business. On top of that, there is an established energy industry that is actively trying to avoid being disrupted and one of their key strategies is to turn anything solar-related into a political issue.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but I feel like it is part government-funded research (something like ARPAnet that was focused on technology and utility, not on politics), part technology maturation, part commercial marketplace leadership (when the technology matures and it makes financial sense companies will naturally go that direction), and part policy (remove some of the barriers that utility companies have put up; for example, if you fit out your house with solar panels and become a net generator of electricity, the local utility company should be required to purchase your power at market rates before they buy from outside their service area, or something like that).
They'll win out in the end, and the loser will be their taxpayers...
From the summary:
Apple today is the biggest private employer in Cork, the Irish Republic's second-largest city, with a workforce exceeding 5,500. Economists estimate Apple's Cork operation pumps around $17 billion annually in salaries, tax and investment into the Irish economy.
$17,000,000 annually divided by 5,500 employees is over $3,000,000 per employee per annum of economic impact. If that's what it means to be a loser, then please sign me up! I'll talk to my city council and I am relatively certain I can get them on board.
My dreams...they have come true.
Now, to hunt down an empty original Mac case and mouse.
you're an idiot.
Why? Because I refuse to accept the liberal fear-mongering about Trump the same way I refused to accept the conservative fear-mongering about Obama? People seem to think, wrongly as it were, that everything is suddenly changing overnight. Obama, for all of his popularity was only able to accomplish a very small part of what he campaigned on. The same has been true going back a long time. Why do people think this will all of a sudden be different? Running screaming "the sky is falling" just because your candidate lost the election only makes you look like a fool. Just the same as it made the conservatives who did the same thing when Obama won look like fools.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I love the sig by the way. It is a cute little straw man that: a) ignores the fact that the popular vote is absolutely not relevant at a national level; and b) distracts from the real issue being that the Democrats lost because like idiots they had to scheme to get Clinton (literally the only person on the face of the planet who could have lost to Trump) the nomination and clearly pissed off a non-trivial fraction of their supporters in the process (obviously a large enough fraction to affect the election).
All your complaints seem to be policy points, not facts of any kind ,and certainly not government data.
They seem to be policy points, that hasn't stopped the responsible administrations from treating them as facts, particularly when you look at their unwillingness to entertain that their assertions may not be entirely merit worthy.
Of course, if instead I had decided to point out the "Iraq has WMD, we must invade," or "mission accomplished" (regarding Iraq, in 2003!), or "we need the wall street bail out" of the Bush administration, or the "we have to arm the Contras" of the Reagan administration. I probably would have been modded to +5 insightful.
But that wasn't the point. The point was to show that administrations of all stripes will engage in the same sort of behavior when it suits their narrative and political objectives. Heck, Obama himself blasted the Bush administration' method of calculating unemployment as wrongly characterizing unemployment figures as too low, then he didn't change it within his own administration. I'll give you three guesses why that was.
Those were similarly policy issues where the administration deliberately twisted the facts, just like the Clinton and Obama administrations had done with the examples I mentioned in my first post. If you don't believe me, go talk to some folks in the intelligence community who were specifically told what facts they could and could not include in their reports and what the results and conclusions of their analyses had to be. It has happened under every administration at least that I can remember.
Only a koolaid drinking disingenuous douche-shill thought that the government was magically trustworthy with Obama but all of the sudden is magically not to be trusted anymore because there's a new president.
Well put. When I saw this supposed question from the article, "In the Trump administration era of 'alternative facts,' what happens to government data?" I had a similar thought to what you stated. In fact, my first response to the "question" was, oh, do you mean 'alternative facts' like 'Islamic terrorism' not being a real thing, or like that we can pull out of Iraq and be free of our involvement there, or like that we can let Russia come in and take control and that won't have a bad impact on the US or our allies, or how if we just build schools, hospitals and give them jobs, everybody who would have become a terrorist will instead live a happy productive life without perpetrating any violence, or how we should release the bad people from Gitmo because they aren't really bad people they're just misunderstood, or going back to the Clinton administration how we don't have a problem with terrorists that requires a military solution, we have a problem that requires a criminal justice solution?
The list goes on, but you get the idea. All of those 'alternative facts' from Democrat administrations have resulted in the direct and indirect violent deaths of many Americans and other westerners. The Republicans have their fair share, but you can't lay the blame for the problem solely one party.
Why don't software makers look at the average income level in a given country -- per capita GDP for example -- and adjust their software prices in these countries accordingly? Most software makers in the U.S. and EU currently insist on charging the full U.S. or EU price in much poorer countries. "Rampant piracy" and "low sales" is often the result in these countries. Why not change this by charging lower software prices in less wealthy countries?
Because if you want to make cheap goods and flood my market indiscriminately and then call me a protectionist and accuse me of impeding free trade for creating a level playing field, then I should be allowed to freely (as in, I am free to do as I please) sell my software at whatever price I like in your country. That is, if I can't have a level playing field, then neither should you. After all, it's only fair.
Seriously, was not a single developer or architect from Code.org around when Slashdot overflowed its 24-bit index? I know it has been a few years now, but I'm sure there are folks here who remember threading breaking and all other sorts of problems when it happened. Remember: https://slashdot.org/story/06/11/09/1534204/slashdot-posting-bug-infuriates-haggard-admins
Granted, that was Slashdot, and while annoying, it was hardly the end of the world This problem with Code.org clearly reinforces "cloud bad" to people who are already fearful of putting their data in the cloud.
I am guessing that Code.org didn't bother tracking things like how to close to various limits they were getting, but I bet that they are now. In any event, when this happened to Slashdot 10+ years ago, I suppose you could argue that we weren't as advanced. In 2016-2017 there is no excuse for such a critical architectural flaw. To me, it completely undermines my confidence in their entire platform. What other time bombs are ticking under the surface there?
The reason people like dogs is that no mind-reading tool is ever necessary. It's always immediately obvious what's on their mind.
How true! Now, a mind-reading device for a cat...that's something I would help crowd fund. Then again, if you are going to crowd fund something, it should at least be possible to build, so maybe not.
I think you hit right on. It was clearly a stunt.
From the summary:
The commitment to accept extradition to the U.S. was based on Ms Manning being released immediately,
This folks, is what we call a technicality.
the FTC said the patents that Qualcomm sought to license are standard essential patents, which means that the industry uses them widely and they are supposed to be licensed on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
I don't get this. Why do industry groups allow patented technologies in standards? Yes, I'm looking at you, IEEE.
The way I look at it, if you patent something, industry should not give you the unfair advantage of codifying your particular patented technology or whatnot. Feel free to make a market for yourself and make it a defacto standard. However, if you want the endorsement of a reputable industry group, you should be required to offer an irrevocable royalty-free license to anyone wants to implement the standard. At least, that is how it would work in my perfect little world.
If this were a free market, we could pay money in exchange for the goods and services we want. Assuming we can agree on a price, but I doubt even a million dollars would could get Microsoft's attention.
It is a free market. What you describe actually exists. In fact, something better than what you describe exists: Linux. It may seem tired, but there are literally dozens of distributions out there. Some have corporate backing (e.g., RedHat, SuSE), others are developed by a community (e.g., Debian), and others are the result of heroics by primarily one individual (e.g., Slackware). The point is that there are so many options, some which will take your money, others of which will not.
Many of those Linux distributions are a viable alternative for many people now. Of course, they may not be what you are accustomed to, and they may not run all of your favorite applications, but most things in life are some of trade-off. Do you want to run a particular app or group of apps at the expense of your privacy? Or are you willing to give up something else in order to secure your privacy?
On the flip side, in a free market producers are free to produce what they want. For example, I can walk in to a Chick-Fil-A and try to order a cheeseburger. Of course, they don't make cheeseburgers, so they won't be able to sell it to me. At that point I have to make a choice: do I stick with Chick-Fil-A because I really want the waffle-cut fries, or do I go to Burger King next door?
You and everyone else out there has a choice now, you just have to decide what is really important.
I will simply refer you to my comment in last week's discussion on "Microsoft To Enhance User Privacy Controls In Upcoming Windows 10 Update": here
Bottom line: Microsoft's only objective was "get people to quit trashing us openly". Of course, the current state very well could have been their desired end goal and they went extreme from the outset to give them room to appear to compromise. Either way, whether or not it was planned, they make themselves look (comparatively) like the good guys.