Still, it is sad that so many people waste their money while the getting is good instead of being prudent and investing for the long term. Imagine if you graduated college and got a job where the first year salary was about $450k with a guaranteed 15% raise each year for 4 years. Because that is the minimum guaranteed to every rookie drafted into the NFL last year. You might think, "gee, I could bank most of that and retire comfortably before age 30."
And yet, odds are that most of those athletes will end up living in poverty in their later years.
It seems like sound financial management is not something most parents teach their kids (maybe because they themselves don't know/understand it). Neither do the schools teach it. Then of course, there is the marketing and advertising which permeates our society today. Then there is the lifestyle that people who into these high profile occupations a) think that they should be entitled to live, and b) think others expect them to live.
Ironically, rather than being a very liberating thing the deck is stacked pretty heavily against young people who get handed bags full of cash early in life.
So, it has a faster development cycle than Debian?
I kid! I kid! I've been a Debian user for a very long time and thoroughly love it. But looking back at how long the Sarge release took, it is difficult not to poke fun at it now.
But most rural folks also hate the government so that might not go over well.
Baseless assertion much?
To begin with, while there are certainly rural residents who hate the government, there are also suburban and urban residents who also hate the government. In fact, I will make my own baseless assertion here and say that the percentage of rural "government haters" is not meaningfully different from the percentages of suburban and urban "government haters." Boy, that was fun and easy.
Furthermore, there is a world difference between wanting smaller, less intrusive government and hating the government. You can find plenty of people who are one but not the other, the same as you can find those who are both and those who are neither.
Further-furthermore, you must not be familiar with things like farm subsidies, ethanol subsidies, and BLM (Bureau of Land Management, not the other one). There are plenty of rural people who like and support their various subsidies, as well as those who like that they can graze their livestock on BLM land and effectively multiply the amount of available pastureland that they have with no direct personal cost. I suspect that very few of those rural residents "hate the government."
We've paid them to do it. They promised to deliver high-speed internet to all wired subscribers and didn't.
There are really multiple sides to this issue. From the perspective of the principle of the matter, I agree with you 100% (it actually felt weird to write that). The monopoly carriers made a deal, took the money, but then didn't live up to their end of the bargain. It is sad that the government has permitted that to happen. The utter lack of competition and in some cases even a single viable option for service is a clear indicator that the marketplace will not solve this problem (and I say that as someone who strongly favors market-based solutions over regulation-based solutions).
That said, if you have always lived in the country and got left behind, you have a legitimate complaint. However, if you have moved into a rural area in the last 5 or 10 years, then you knew what you were getting. I personally moved to a very rural area a little over 10 years with full knowledge that my options for Internet service were going to be 1) considerably more expensive, and 2) considerably less capable than if I remained in an urban or suburban area. However, the immense improvement in my quality of life is more than worth the crappy Internet service I have to tolerate. I had already cut the cord on cable years prior, so I didn't feel like I was missing out on the rubbish that passes for television programming nowadays. I spend more time outside, am much more physically fit, let stressed, and so on and so on.
So, I would like to see better options for service where I live and I support that in whatever way I can (i.e., expressing interest to nearby local ISPs, writing my legislators, etc.). However, I feel like I am not entitled to whine about my crappy Internet because, well, I knew what I was signing up for.
Tiobe notes that Python's arrival in the top 3 "really took a long time," since it first entered their chart at the beginning of the 1990s. But today, "It is already the first choice at universities (for all kinds of subjects for which programming is demanded)
Undergraduate was all C/C++ for me then I ended up at a graduate school where everything was Java. I disliked it so much that I decided to find an alternative and teach myself. I found Python and loved it. I still love it. You can't find anything better for both heavy duty programming and quick and dirty scripting. It's versatility makes It like the Linux of programming languages.
I am not sure what is going on with the Troll/Overrated mods (actually, I think I know).
Either way, what is troll-ish about the idea that higher education is an investment in yourself and in society and looking the cost/benefit in those terms? The value which one derives from the investment should be commensurate with the investment that is made.
The value does not have to be strictly monetary. But let's face it, if you are not fortunate enough to come from a family that can foot the bill for an overpriced education, the only sensible thing to do is find a more affordable way to get that education. If you can land scholarships, then that's a good thing and might put something within reach that otherwise would be out of reach.
Still, colleges throw billions of dollars into athletic scholarship, but only a small fraction of that into academic scholarships. In fact, most academic scholarships come from private organizations. So, why not take the schools to task for focusing on athletics over academics? Don't bother answering, because I and everybody already knows why this has not and never will happen.
That assumes that schools are commodities with no difference between them.
It does not make that assumption. It makes the assumption that the students (and possibly their parents) make an honest assessment of whether attending UCSC and graduating with, say, $150k in debt is a better long term value than attending their local State University and emerging from that experience with like $20k in debt.
Will attending a local State University affect employability out of school? Possibly. While it affect life long earning potential? For 99%+ of people that is highly unlikely. The correlation in earning potential has to do far more with the field in which a degree is earned than it does the school which one attended.
I suspect that most people who rack enormous debts in school do not actually consider the alternatives.
Ah yes, the slogan of the right wing: "You peasants don't deserve an education at the university you desire".
Why turn this into a left/right thing?
Up until a couple of years ago I was driving a 15+ year old vehicle. When it gave up the ghost I had to get a new one. Now, I desired Lamborghini Huracan because I thought it would best meet my transportation needs. I looked at the price, however, and realized it was not possible for me. Now, at this point, I had two possibilities: 1) take out a loan larger than a typical home mortgage to buy the Lamborghini; or, 2) go with something more affordable. I went with 2 and bought a small Honda (without a loan). It turns out that the Honda gets me from place to place just fine and not having a car loan has some considerable benefits.
Now, when it comes to college, people have to separate what they want from what they need. Sure, everybody wants to go to a top-flight school in a trendy city. But not everybody can afford that. So, people have to decide whether the actual education is more important than the cachet of the name and location of the school that they attended. For the vast majority of people who borrow to attend college, the benefits of emerging with smaller debt (or none at all) is far an excess of the benefit of attending a school with name recognition that is in a trendy city.
Is this perfect? Nope. But if you don't think that what I suggest is part of the solution to the student loan and cost of education crisis, then you are just sticking your head in the sand.
Alternative: students who cannot afford housing on the local market (at schools which do not provide these dormitories of which you speak), should attend different schools. Two possibilities that spring to mind are schools in more affordable markets, or schools which the student could attend while living with family.
"Community Activists": Businesses and white people are leaving downtown areas for the suburbs, and it is not fair to the poor who have no where else to go. They need to come back, help rebuild the neighborhoods, and open new businesses.
White people and business owners: OK. (start returning, improving the neighborhoods, and opening businesses)
"Community Activists": It's not fair. Businesses and white people are flooding the neighborhoods, improving them (the cause of higher rents, prices, and tax valuations), and opening businesses, and it is not fair to the poor who have nowhere else to go.
Somebody needs to get their head on straight and decide what they really want.
Speaking as someone who teaches at the university level, there is an amazing amount of wasteful spending. This is made possible by, in fact caused by, the schools being flush with money (in the form of federal student grants and loans). The solution is to let the air out of the balloon by reducing the amount of money available. Of course, as you point out....
but it's going to violent and messy when it does.
Yes, it certainly will be. Cutting off the flow of money will prevent some students going to college and it will hurt the schools as they will have to decide what is important and what can be cut. However, there does not appear another viable path to restore the balance. The effect will be similar to a significant market disruption: painful for the established players and rewarding to those who can adapt.
The problem is that the US is so big that no one is really represented anymore. It would be better for the US (and the world) if the US split into a few different countries, or a loose confederation of super-states.
Perhaps it is more accurate to say, "The problem is that the US federal government is so big..."
Interestingly, the Articles of Confederation created a federal government that was effectively unable to do anything. This reflected the greatest fear of the founders: an overly powerful central government. The US Constitution moderated a bit and permitted the federal government more power but put strict checks on that power. The original structure was a Federal Republic where the principal decisionmaking happened at the state level. For instance, US senators were initially chosen by state legislatures. A Constitutional amendment changed it to popular election. I am not convinced that was a good move. It seems that since the beginning we have trended toward increasing federal government size, scope, and power.
What you suggest could be accomplished by eliminating income tax and going strictly to a model where state governments fund the federal government (by whatever means the voters of each state choose to meet their state's obligation), drastically reducing the size of the federal government, returning the Senate to its originally intended role as the "states' house", and perhaps a few other things. It would be less radical than what you suggest and more likely to be implementable.
No. As a US citizen, you're being ROBBED of your tax money...
I'll stop you right there. You are more right than you know. Taxation is not robbery only if you disagree with the use of the funds. If you think about the nature of taxation, it is really a confiscation of money from a person (remember that corporations are persons too). It is a confiscation because it is not is not an equitable and mutually agreed upon exchange. Therefore, it is always robbery. Also, the one on whom the tax is levied does not have the ability to not pay (in practice people evade taxes, but the government enforces compliance with harsh penalties) and market forces have on bearing on taxes (really taxes are themselves an influencer of the market).
All that said, taxes are necessary. The governed populace collectively identifies those matters which the government must discharge, manage, execute, etc., and via their representatives they levy taxes on themselves to see to it that those functions are accomplished.
This is what underlies the principal grievance of the American colonists prior to the American Revolution: taxation without representation. If taxation were not by its nature confiscatory, there would have been no grievance.
So, where we are left is to strike a careful balance of the things that the government should do and the things it should not do, then levy taxes appropriate to accomplishing the things it should do. This exercise must be accomplished at each level of government. It is painful, arduous, tedious, and never-ending. If you look at the last 100 years of history in the US, various crises have enabled the government to tip the balance toward expanding what government does at every level and especially at the federal level.
Of course, people are going to come out and say how every civilized nation provides healthcare, education, and jobs for their people. I suppose that is fine when you talk about a nation that has the population of Florida and you do not have a founding document that enumerates the power of the national government and then specifically prohibits it all other powers. To say nothing of the economic complexity of implementing those things on the scale of a nation and economy the size of the US.
Politics in the US is so polarized right now because lots of people want to rebalance the "things government should do" and "things government shouldn't do" while those who benefit from the expansion of government are not particularly excite about ceding their benefits. Add to that the fact that while many Republicans want to paint the party as being about small government, the reality is that they want as much government as the Democrats, but they want to get there by growing different parts of it.
I will add to that. I think that there is a general cultural/societal idea that nearly every young person perceives that screams to them "thou shalt attend college." I was fortunate in that I wanted to be a rocket scientist from the time I saw my first space shuttle launch and then decided a few years later that I wanted to be a computer engineer. I became a computer engineer and have thoroughly loved it.
In my case my own career aspirations meshed well with the push to go to college. However, I teach comp sci/eng now and I see plenty of students around school who clearly have no idea what they are doing there (even in the comp sci program). They have no career aspiration and are there because mom and dad said they needed to be there and so did the rest of the world. However, there are lots more of those type in the humanities.
The ones who "randomly" pick CS at least have descent career prospects out of the gate (even if it was not a lifelong career aspiration). But the ones that graduate with English or History or whatever degrees that don't know what they want to do with their careers are at a real disadvantage.
I am curious if the decline in humanities correlates to an increase in STEM, people going to skilled trades, or something else. I wonder that because the schools around where I teach are all seeing declining enrollment across the board (though I don't know what the numbers look like by field of study.
I thought something similar about the "multiple kernels" bit. Because each version of Windows has a kernel that is at least as different from the others as you find in varying Linux distros. Yet, you don't see most software companies fretting about the versioning of the Windows kernel. Same for the multiple desktops: pick a widget set (GTK or Qt are popular) and that is about all you need.
I think the case of Dropbox is perhaps slightly different, as they might need to do lower level FS access than most typical desktop software and they might have tighter integration to the desktop (e.g., if they want to provide a system tray icon or widget).
That said, the world of software is complex and this is what software companies get to deal with. For example, not long ago I encountered an interesting bug in Java 8u151 that requires annoying workarounds in code. It is not going to cause me to abandon Java for this particular project.
The truth about software is that nearly all of it is conceptually simple and straightforward and nearly all of the complexity exists in the handling of exceptional conditions. It is no different (for better or worse, generally) in a Linux context than in any other.
That show was never laughing *WITH* us. It was laughing *AT* us.
More likely that the portrayal of a given group in an entertainment setting rarely sits well with the group being portrayed. It is why there are doctors who refuse to watch ER and House, cops who refuse to watch NYPD blue, etc.
The artistic license required to make something entertaining is what makes people knowledgeable about that something scream, "that's not how it works!" at the screen when they are watching. For example, police work is not all high speed chases, kicking down doors, and arresting suspects. It is like 95% boring paperwork. Medical diagnostics is not some sociopath verbally abusing a group of medical students into committing crimes because they are too afraid to stand up to him.
To look at two movies that I think most people just assume all geeks like, take Hackers and Sneakers. Both were based on somewhat flimsy premises, thought Sneakers was more believable. Hackers was all about hacking itself and showed that activity like it was some sort of real-time battle between the attackers and the defender. It normally doesn't work like that. Sneakers was all about the social engineering. It turns out, that hacking tends to be far more about social engineering that actual technical exploits (though those do play a role). That is why, to me as a geek, Sneakers was so much more appealing. Despite the plot holes and other flaws, it felt more believable than Hackers.
Probably why shows like Star Trek and Firefly were much more appealing to geeks that BBT. They go off into territory where believability is much less important and they generally do a good job of making the unbelievable believable.
People don't want to go to a doctor and hear that there isn't a pill to solve their problem, real or imagined. They want solutions, and if the medical profession doesn't have the solution they want, they'll find an alternative.
As evidenced by the prevalence of people demanding antibiotics for viral concerns. I had to go to the hospital recently and there was a big poster in the ER that said something like, "antibiotics are not effective against the cold and other viruses, don't be offended if you don't leave with a prescription for antibiotics." It was a bit catchier than that but had that general theme, and then the smaller print at the bottom had some interesting information about overprescription of antibiotics contributes to superbugs like MRSA. The fact is that people just don't bother to learn about the things that affect them. I mean, how many people even really don't bother to learn about the basic automotive maintenance that is required for their vehicle or basic home maintenance (e.g., changing filters and things)? Is it any surprise that it is not any different with healthcare and medicine?
Another aspect of what you point out is that there are people who fear the doctor (family member/friend/acquaintance misdiagnosed or ended up with some untreatable condition and hence modern medicine is just a sham) or because of their own anxiety will not see a medical provider unless it is a life or death emergency.
New York, which faces an affordable housing shortage...
Have they tried building more housing? Of course, good luck trying to build anything of reasonable size in NYC. All the NIMBYs come out and shout things like, "but it will ruin my view of the skyline," or, "it will negatively affect the character of the neighborhood.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that U.S. law does not apply outside U.S. soil
Not so fast there, Sparky.
Try telling US citizens residing overseas that US law does not apply and they no longer have to pay taxes to the US government (hint: it does and they do, subject to customary offsets for taxes paid in the nation where the income was earned)
Also try telling that to US citizens abroad who engage in what is considered human trafficking by US standards:
The original TVPA of 2000 has been reauthorized three times, the most recent being the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. These reauthorizations have clarified definitions of trafficking and forced labor in order both to aid in prosecution of traffickers and to aid the victims of trafficking. The reauthorization versions have also required the federal government to terminate all contracts with overseas contractors involved in human trafficking or forced labor. Extraterritoriality jurisdiction was also extended to cover all U.S. nationals and permanent residents who are living overseas.[75]
If you want to refuse service on the grounds of being a bigot as a private citize, that's 100% your right.
Note that the bakery case was not about refusing service, but about what is essentially refusing a commission to produce an artistic work.
I work as a consultant, but I only take work involving Linux/Unix development in some way and typically only for back-end, server-side, or platform-type work (i.e., I don't do Windows and I don't do UI). Suppose someone approaches me and offers to hire me to do some development on a Windows desktop or mobile application. I am a programmer and I certainly have the necessary skills (given time to get up to speed on the particulars of the job). Do I have the right to refuse the offer? Why or why not?
I call a landscape service out to my house and ask them to provide an estimate to redo the landscaping all around the house. After hearing me describe the job, the landscape architect decides that it is not the sort of landscape gig he wants to take on for his crew and refuses to submit a bid. Does he have the right to refuse to submit the bid? Why or why not?
What if his refusal was because I requested nude statuary be installed in the back yard? What if he tries to be a nice guy and says, "I don't mind doing your landscape job, but I disagree with public nudity. I can install another type of statuary that is not nude people." Is he now in trouble for refusing because he gave a reason. Would it have been better for him to just say, "no" and leave it at that?
All of those examples are different than someone having a business that is open to the general public to provide standard goods/services. A shopkeeper cannot make those same refusals nor can he or she charge different prices on the basis of some protected aspect. Look at the restaurant (in Ohio or Michigan, I think) that recently faced backlash because they offered a 10% discount on Sundays to anyone who presented their church bulletin.
In the bakery case, the baker offered to sell the couple any product that is generally made available to the public, but refused to accept a commission to produce an artistic work. For example, if I approach Alex Baldwin and offered to pay him to make a video of himself doing his Trump impression but in a way that portrayed the president in a positive light, by your logic he would not be allowed to refuse. If you advocate for not allowing the baker to refuse the commission, then I should be able to go to any artist and offer to pay them a fair amount for any artistic work that I desire, and they would have to comply without having the right to refuse. I don't think we want to go down that road.
"Any failure to secure our elections amounts to disenfranchising American voters."
OK. Got it. So, how do you feel about requiring voters provide government issued ID in order to vote? Because requiring voters to identify themselves and verify eligibility to vote is part of securing an election. If you oppose that, then you obviously want to disenfranchise voters.
I suspect that many of the people who are going to stand there and beat the drum on this one will also oppose requirements for voter ID. This despite the fact that every US state offers non-driver license state issued ID cards for a nominal fee or free in the case of financial hardship. At least, I am not aware of a state where that isn't the case.
Oh well. If not for double standards we would have no standards at all, it seems.
Those currently in charge of this administration simply do not care about their own rules.
First, they are the rules of the previous administration. Second, they care enough to get rid of them.
You may not agree with the administration, but that is how executive rules/regulations work. One executive makes them and another can change or abolish them. If you don't like that possibility, then you need legislation. But that would require actual work and not just political posturing. It has been so long since Congress passed a meaningful piece of legislation that had a decent amount of bi-partisan involvement and support that it is somewhat embarrassing. The last one that springs to mind is the PATRIOT act, but then...well.
Not while they're trying to make sure all of their buddies are as rich as possible.
Huh? I don't see this sort of thing happening. What I do continue to see is massive government spending which tends to mostly benefit a few very large defense, technology, and finance firms. But then, that is not really any different than it was in the Obama administration, or the Bush administration, or the Clinton administration, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Still, it is sad that so many people waste their money while the getting is good instead of being prudent and investing for the long term. Imagine if you graduated college and got a job where the first year salary was about $450k with a guaranteed 15% raise each year for 4 years. Because that is the minimum guaranteed to every rookie drafted into the NFL last year. You might think, "gee, I could bank most of that and retire comfortably before age 30."
And yet, odds are that most of those athletes will end up living in poverty in their later years.
It seems like sound financial management is not something most parents teach their kids (maybe because they themselves don't know/understand it). Neither do the schools teach it. Then of course, there is the marketing and advertising which permeates our society today. Then there is the lifestyle that people who into these high profile occupations a) think that they should be entitled to live, and b) think others expect them to live.
Ironically, rather than being a very liberating thing the deck is stacked pretty heavily against young people who get handed bags full of cash early in life.
So, it has a faster development cycle than Debian?
I kid! I kid! I've been a Debian user for a very long time and thoroughly love it. But looking back at how long the Sarge release took, it is difficult not to poke fun at it now.
But most rural folks also hate the government so that might not go over well.
Baseless assertion much?
To begin with, while there are certainly rural residents who hate the government, there are also suburban and urban residents who also hate the government. In fact, I will make my own baseless assertion here and say that the percentage of rural "government haters" is not meaningfully different from the percentages of suburban and urban "government haters." Boy, that was fun and easy.
Furthermore, there is a world difference between wanting smaller, less intrusive government and hating the government. You can find plenty of people who are one but not the other, the same as you can find those who are both and those who are neither.
Further-furthermore, you must not be familiar with things like farm subsidies, ethanol subsidies, and BLM (Bureau of Land Management, not the other one). There are plenty of rural people who like and support their various subsidies, as well as those who like that they can graze their livestock on BLM land and effectively multiply the amount of available pastureland that they have with no direct personal cost. I suspect that very few of those rural residents "hate the government."
We've paid them to do it. They promised to deliver high-speed internet to all wired subscribers and didn't.
There are really multiple sides to this issue. From the perspective of the principle of the matter, I agree with you 100% (it actually felt weird to write that). The monopoly carriers made a deal, took the money, but then didn't live up to their end of the bargain. It is sad that the government has permitted that to happen. The utter lack of competition and in some cases even a single viable option for service is a clear indicator that the marketplace will not solve this problem (and I say that as someone who strongly favors market-based solutions over regulation-based solutions).
That said, if you have always lived in the country and got left behind, you have a legitimate complaint. However, if you have moved into a rural area in the last 5 or 10 years, then you knew what you were getting. I personally moved to a very rural area a little over 10 years with full knowledge that my options for Internet service were going to be 1) considerably more expensive, and 2) considerably less capable than if I remained in an urban or suburban area. However, the immense improvement in my quality of life is more than worth the crappy Internet service I have to tolerate. I had already cut the cord on cable years prior, so I didn't feel like I was missing out on the rubbish that passes for television programming nowadays. I spend more time outside, am much more physically fit, let stressed, and so on and so on.
So, I would like to see better options for service where I live and I support that in whatever way I can (i.e., expressing interest to nearby local ISPs, writing my legislators, etc.). However, I feel like I am not entitled to whine about my crappy Internet because, well, I knew what I was signing up for.
Tiobe notes that Python's arrival in the top 3 "really took a long time," since it first entered their chart at the beginning of the 1990s. But today, "It is already the first choice at universities (for all kinds of subjects for which programming is demanded)
Undergraduate was all C/C++ for me then I ended up at a graduate school where everything was Java. I disliked it so much that I decided to find an alternative and teach myself. I found Python and loved it. I still love it. You can't find anything better for both heavy duty programming and quick and dirty scripting. It's versatility makes It like the Linux of programming languages.
I am not sure what is going on with the Troll/Overrated mods (actually, I think I know).
Either way, what is troll-ish about the idea that higher education is an investment in yourself and in society and looking the cost/benefit in those terms? The value which one derives from the investment should be commensurate with the investment that is made.
The value does not have to be strictly monetary. But let's face it, if you are not fortunate enough to come from a family that can foot the bill for an overpriced education, the only sensible thing to do is find a more affordable way to get that education. If you can land scholarships, then that's a good thing and might put something within reach that otherwise would be out of reach.
Still, colleges throw billions of dollars into athletic scholarship, but only a small fraction of that into academic scholarships. In fact, most academic scholarships come from private organizations. So, why not take the schools to task for focusing on athletics over academics? Don't bother answering, because I and everybody already knows why this has not and never will happen.
That assumes that schools are commodities with no difference between them.
It does not make that assumption. It makes the assumption that the students (and possibly their parents) make an honest assessment of whether attending UCSC and graduating with, say, $150k in debt is a better long term value than attending their local State University and emerging from that experience with like $20k in debt.
Will attending a local State University affect employability out of school? Possibly. While it affect life long earning potential? For 99%+ of people that is highly unlikely. The correlation in earning potential has to do far more with the field in which a degree is earned than it does the school which one attended.
I suspect that most people who rack enormous debts in school do not actually consider the alternatives.
Ah yes, the slogan of the right wing: "You peasants don't deserve an education at the university you desire".
Why turn this into a left/right thing?
Up until a couple of years ago I was driving a 15+ year old vehicle. When it gave up the ghost I had to get a new one. Now, I desired Lamborghini Huracan because I thought it would best meet my transportation needs. I looked at the price, however, and realized it was not possible for me. Now, at this point, I had two possibilities: 1) take out a loan larger than a typical home mortgage to buy the Lamborghini; or, 2) go with something more affordable. I went with 2 and bought a small Honda (without a loan). It turns out that the Honda gets me from place to place just fine and not having a car loan has some considerable benefits.
Now, when it comes to college, people have to separate what they want from what they need. Sure, everybody wants to go to a top-flight school in a trendy city. But not everybody can afford that. So, people have to decide whether the actual education is more important than the cachet of the name and location of the school that they attended. For the vast majority of people who borrow to attend college, the benefits of emerging with smaller debt (or none at all) is far an excess of the benefit of attending a school with name recognition that is in a trendy city.
Is this perfect? Nope. But if you don't think that what I suggest is part of the solution to the student loan and cost of education crisis, then you are just sticking your head in the sand.
Alternative: students who cannot afford housing on the local market (at schools which do not provide these dormitories of which you speak), should attend different schools. Two possibilities that spring to mind are schools in more affordable markets, or schools which the student could attend while living with family.
"Community Activists": Businesses and white people are leaving downtown areas for the suburbs, and it is not fair to the poor who have no where else to go. They need to come back, help rebuild the neighborhoods, and open new businesses.
White people and business owners: OK. (start returning, improving the neighborhoods, and opening businesses)
"Community Activists": It's not fair. Businesses and white people are flooding the neighborhoods, improving them (the cause of higher rents, prices, and tax valuations), and opening businesses, and it is not fair to the poor who have nowhere else to go.
Somebody needs to get their head on straight and decide what they really want.
I don't know how this carousel stops,
Speaking as someone who teaches at the university level, there is an amazing amount of wasteful spending. This is made possible by, in fact caused by, the schools being flush with money (in the form of federal student grants and loans). The solution is to let the air out of the balloon by reducing the amount of money available. Of course, as you point out ....
but it's going to violent and messy when it does.
Yes, it certainly will be. Cutting off the flow of money will prevent some students going to college and it will hurt the schools as they will have to decide what is important and what can be cut. However, there does not appear another viable path to restore the balance. The effect will be similar to a significant market disruption: painful for the established players and rewarding to those who can adapt.
The problem is that the US is so big that no one is really represented anymore. It would be better for the US (and the world) if the US split into a few different countries, or a loose confederation of super-states.
Perhaps it is more accurate to say, "The problem is that the US federal government is so big ..."
Interestingly, the Articles of Confederation created a federal government that was effectively unable to do anything. This reflected the greatest fear of the founders: an overly powerful central government. The US Constitution moderated a bit and permitted the federal government more power but put strict checks on that power. The original structure was a Federal Republic where the principal decisionmaking happened at the state level. For instance, US senators were initially chosen by state legislatures. A Constitutional amendment changed it to popular election. I am not convinced that was a good move. It seems that since the beginning we have trended toward increasing federal government size, scope, and power.
What you suggest could be accomplished by eliminating income tax and going strictly to a model where state governments fund the federal government (by whatever means the voters of each state choose to meet their state's obligation), drastically reducing the size of the federal government, returning the Senate to its originally intended role as the "states' house", and perhaps a few other things. It would be less radical than what you suggest and more likely to be implementable.
No. As a US citizen, you're being ROBBED of your tax money...
I'll stop you right there. You are more right than you know. Taxation is not robbery only if you disagree with the use of the funds. If you think about the nature of taxation, it is really a confiscation of money from a person (remember that corporations are persons too). It is a confiscation because it is not is not an equitable and mutually agreed upon exchange. Therefore, it is always robbery. Also, the one on whom the tax is levied does not have the ability to not pay (in practice people evade taxes, but the government enforces compliance with harsh penalties) and market forces have on bearing on taxes (really taxes are themselves an influencer of the market).
All that said, taxes are necessary. The governed populace collectively identifies those matters which the government must discharge, manage, execute, etc., and via their representatives they levy taxes on themselves to see to it that those functions are accomplished.
This is what underlies the principal grievance of the American colonists prior to the American Revolution: taxation without representation. If taxation were not by its nature confiscatory, there would have been no grievance.
So, where we are left is to strike a careful balance of the things that the government should do and the things it should not do, then levy taxes appropriate to accomplishing the things it should do. This exercise must be accomplished at each level of government. It is painful, arduous, tedious, and never-ending. If you look at the last 100 years of history in the US, various crises have enabled the government to tip the balance toward expanding what government does at every level and especially at the federal level.
Of course, people are going to come out and say how every civilized nation provides healthcare, education, and jobs for their people. I suppose that is fine when you talk about a nation that has the population of Florida and you do not have a founding document that enumerates the power of the national government and then specifically prohibits it all other powers. To say nothing of the economic complexity of implementing those things on the scale of a nation and economy the size of the US.
Politics in the US is so polarized right now because lots of people want to rebalance the "things government should do" and "things government shouldn't do" while those who benefit from the expansion of government are not particularly excite about ceding their benefits. Add to that the fact that while many Republicans want to paint the party as being about small government, the reality is that they want as much government as the Democrats, but they want to get there by growing different parts of it.
A new study from email security company Mimecast shows that malicious links in emails are being missed by many security systems
Of The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security, this is a combination of 1 (on the part of the MUAs) and 2 (on the part of the scanners). So, no kidding.
You said it.
I will add to that. I think that there is a general cultural/societal idea that nearly every young person perceives that screams to them "thou shalt attend college." I was fortunate in that I wanted to be a rocket scientist from the time I saw my first space shuttle launch and then decided a few years later that I wanted to be a computer engineer. I became a computer engineer and have thoroughly loved it.
In my case my own career aspirations meshed well with the push to go to college. However, I teach comp sci/eng now and I see plenty of students around school who clearly have no idea what they are doing there (even in the comp sci program). They have no career aspiration and are there because mom and dad said they needed to be there and so did the rest of the world. However, there are lots more of those type in the humanities.
The ones who "randomly" pick CS at least have descent career prospects out of the gate (even if it was not a lifelong career aspiration). But the ones that graduate with English or History or whatever degrees that don't know what they want to do with their careers are at a real disadvantage.
I am curious if the decline in humanities correlates to an increase in STEM, people going to skilled trades, or something else. I wonder that because the schools around where I teach are all seeing declining enrollment across the board (though I don't know what the numbers look like by field of study.
I thought something similar about the "multiple kernels" bit. Because each version of Windows has a kernel that is at least as different from the others as you find in varying Linux distros. Yet, you don't see most software companies fretting about the versioning of the Windows kernel. Same for the multiple desktops: pick a widget set (GTK or Qt are popular) and that is about all you need.
I think the case of Dropbox is perhaps slightly different, as they might need to do lower level FS access than most typical desktop software and they might have tighter integration to the desktop (e.g., if they want to provide a system tray icon or widget).
That said, the world of software is complex and this is what software companies get to deal with. For example, not long ago I encountered an interesting bug in Java 8u151 that requires annoying workarounds in code. It is not going to cause me to abandon Java for this particular project.
The truth about software is that nearly all of it is conceptually simple and straightforward and nearly all of the complexity exists in the handling of exceptional conditions. It is no different (for better or worse, generally) in a Linux context than in any other.
That show was never laughing *WITH* us. It was laughing *AT* us.
More likely that the portrayal of a given group in an entertainment setting rarely sits well with the group being portrayed. It is why there are doctors who refuse to watch ER and House, cops who refuse to watch NYPD blue, etc.
The artistic license required to make something entertaining is what makes people knowledgeable about that something scream, "that's not how it works!" at the screen when they are watching. For example, police work is not all high speed chases, kicking down doors, and arresting suspects. It is like 95% boring paperwork. Medical diagnostics is not some sociopath verbally abusing a group of medical students into committing crimes because they are too afraid to stand up to him.
To look at two movies that I think most people just assume all geeks like, take Hackers and Sneakers. Both were based on somewhat flimsy premises, thought Sneakers was more believable. Hackers was all about hacking itself and showed that activity like it was some sort of real-time battle between the attackers and the defender. It normally doesn't work like that. Sneakers was all about the social engineering. It turns out, that hacking tends to be far more about social engineering that actual technical exploits (though those do play a role). That is why, to me as a geek, Sneakers was so much more appealing. Despite the plot holes and other flaws, it felt more believable than Hackers.
Probably why shows like Star Trek and Firefly were much more appealing to geeks that BBT. They go off into territory where believability is much less important and they generally do a good job of making the unbelievable believable.
People don't want to go to a doctor and hear that there isn't a pill to solve their problem, real or imagined. They want solutions, and if the medical profession doesn't have the solution they want, they'll find an alternative.
As evidenced by the prevalence of people demanding antibiotics for viral concerns. I had to go to the hospital recently and there was a big poster in the ER that said something like, "antibiotics are not effective against the cold and other viruses, don't be offended if you don't leave with a prescription for antibiotics." It was a bit catchier than that but had that general theme, and then the smaller print at the bottom had some interesting information about overprescription of antibiotics contributes to superbugs like MRSA. The fact is that people just don't bother to learn about the things that affect them. I mean, how many people even really don't bother to learn about the basic automotive maintenance that is required for their vehicle or basic home maintenance (e.g., changing filters and things)? Is it any surprise that it is not any different with healthcare and medicine?
Another aspect of what you point out is that there are people who fear the doctor (family member/friend/acquaintance misdiagnosed or ended up with some untreatable condition and hence modern medicine is just a sham) or because of their own anxiety will not see a medical provider unless it is a life or death emergency.
New York, which faces an affordable housing shortage...
Have they tried building more housing? Of course, good luck trying to build anything of reasonable size in NYC. All the NIMBYs come out and shout things like, "but it will ruin my view of the skyline," or, "it will negatively affect the character of the neighborhood.
Same problem as in SF and numerous other places.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that U.S. law does not apply outside U.S. soil
Not so fast there, Sparky.
Try telling US citizens residing overseas that US law does not apply and they no longer have to pay taxes to the US government (hint: it does and they do, subject to customary offsets for taxes paid in the nation where the income was earned)
Also try telling that to US citizens abroad who engage in what is considered human trafficking by US standards:
From Wikipedia:
The original TVPA of 2000 has been reauthorized three times, the most recent being the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. These reauthorizations have clarified definitions of trafficking and forced labor in order both to aid in prosecution of traffickers and to aid the victims of trafficking. The reauthorization versions have also required the federal government to terminate all contracts with overseas contractors involved in human trafficking or forced labor. Extraterritoriality jurisdiction was also extended to cover all U.S. nationals and permanent residents who are living overseas.[75]
If you want to refuse service on the grounds of being a bigot as a private citize, that's 100% your right.
Note that the bakery case was not about refusing service, but about what is essentially refusing a commission to produce an artistic work.
I work as a consultant, but I only take work involving Linux/Unix development in some way and typically only for back-end, server-side, or platform-type work (i.e., I don't do Windows and I don't do UI). Suppose someone approaches me and offers to hire me to do some development on a Windows desktop or mobile application. I am a programmer and I certainly have the necessary skills (given time to get up to speed on the particulars of the job). Do I have the right to refuse the offer? Why or why not?
I call a landscape service out to my house and ask them to provide an estimate to redo the landscaping all around the house. After hearing me describe the job, the landscape architect decides that it is not the sort of landscape gig he wants to take on for his crew and refuses to submit a bid. Does he have the right to refuse to submit the bid? Why or why not?
What if his refusal was because I requested nude statuary be installed in the back yard? What if he tries to be a nice guy and says, "I don't mind doing your landscape job, but I disagree with public nudity. I can install another type of statuary that is not nude people." Is he now in trouble for refusing because he gave a reason. Would it have been better for him to just say, "no" and leave it at that?
All of those examples are different than someone having a business that is open to the general public to provide standard goods/services. A shopkeeper cannot make those same refusals nor can he or she charge different prices on the basis of some protected aspect. Look at the restaurant (in Ohio or Michigan, I think) that recently faced backlash because they offered a 10% discount on Sundays to anyone who presented their church bulletin.
In the bakery case, the baker offered to sell the couple any product that is generally made available to the public, but refused to accept a commission to produce an artistic work. For example, if I approach Alex Baldwin and offered to pay him to make a video of himself doing his Trump impression but in a way that portrayed the president in a positive light, by your logic he would not be allowed to refuse. If you advocate for not allowing the baker to refuse the commission, then I should be able to go to any artist and offer to pay them a fair amount for any artistic work that I desire, and they would have to comply without having the right to refuse. I don't think we want to go down that road.
somehow, I knew it would not be the R's that wanted an audit trail.
Every time the R's try to improve the audit trail (please prove your identity and eligibility to vote), they get told "no" by some court.
I normally don't reply to AC, but this one is too good to pass up.
The right to vote is a constitutional right.
Nowhere in the constitution does it say that presenting a government issued ID is required in order to exercise your rights.
The right to keep and bear arms is also a constitutional right.
Nowhere in the constitution does it say that a background check is required in order to exercise your rights.
"Any failure to secure our elections amounts to disenfranchising American voters."
OK. Got it. So, how do you feel about requiring voters provide government issued ID in order to vote? Because requiring voters to identify themselves and verify eligibility to vote is part of securing an election. If you oppose that, then you obviously want to disenfranchise voters.
I suspect that many of the people who are going to stand there and beat the drum on this one will also oppose requirements for voter ID. This despite the fact that every US state offers non-driver license state issued ID cards for a nominal fee or free in the case of financial hardship. At least, I am not aware of a state where that isn't the case.
Oh well. If not for double standards we would have no standards at all, it seems.
Those currently in charge of this administration simply do not care about their own rules.
First, they are the rules of the previous administration. Second, they care enough to get rid of them.
You may not agree with the administration, but that is how executive rules/regulations work. One executive makes them and another can change or abolish them. If you don't like that possibility, then you need legislation. But that would require actual work and not just political posturing. It has been so long since Congress passed a meaningful piece of legislation that had a decent amount of bi-partisan involvement and support that it is somewhat embarrassing. The last one that springs to mind is the PATRIOT act, but then...well.
Not while they're trying to make sure all of their buddies are as rich as possible.
Huh? I don't see this sort of thing happening. What I do continue to see is massive government spending which tends to mostly benefit a few very large defense, technology, and finance firms. But then, that is not really any different than it was in the Obama administration, or the Bush administration, or the Clinton administration, etc.