Give me a break! Firstly, I am not a fanatic anything. I am open to anything. Secondly, not wanting a million laws does not a right winger make. I've never voted for a Republican in my life.
And as far as destroying what makes America great, well if you read the same writings from our founding fathers that I did growing up, America is great because we limit our government. Inching ever closer to a completely regulated environment hardly seems like the spirit America was founded under.
And to respond to what you saif about it being "optional". Shit, man, that's how it is now. This yokel wants to make it mandatory. (He said "required"). So where would that put us? At the mercy of politicians, who have a great track record with technology and policy making.
Don't confuse mistrust of the government with the antics of a right wing nutter. I know how fun it is to quickly categorize someone from a few sentences, but not all of us can only think in 2 tones. It is possible to simultaneously mistrust the government and large corporations, you know. Not everyone is either begging for the government teet or waving Limbaugh banners in the street.
Get a certification? Sure. Like I said, I have many. Ask the government to require regulation? Jesus Hopscotching Christ, does it really make me Trent Lott to not want that? We are doing fine. Fact is, law or no law, when you call Dell Phone Support, you are still getting a 16 year old who is getting paid 6 dollars an hour to read possible fixes from a list on a terminal, A+ or no. And you would just end up paying 20 dollars a minute for the call instead of 10 after people are required to pay taxes and licensing fees to hold the crappy job.
And, BTW, going to the doctor is a FAR CRY from getting a NIC replaced. Yes, I do want some assurance the man giving me a colonoscopy has an education to do so. But the guy adding a hard drive? If he screws up, I don't pay. Does an A+ hanging on the wall mean he'll do a better job? Of course not. Does a new government office setup to track him make our tech woes any better? Of course not.
Does thinking this make me some kind of militant NRA member who uses words like "feminazi" and "gimmecrats"? I don't really give a shit. I think it just means I can hold a thought for more than 3 seconds without barfing out an opinion. Americans need to THINK before they come up with another use for our government. Be they a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or Anonymous Coward!
Yeah, that's what we need....more regulation. Because there's nothing to make your job worthwile like having Uncle Sam having strings attached. Hey, Cliff, instead of doing the California Soccer Mom Shuffle and recommending NEW FREAKING LAWS, why don't you not take any more days off, if you're just going to sit around thinking, "How could the government regulate me MORE?" I have the certifications you listed, as well as many other useless pieces of paper. They were never what got me my previous jobs, nor were they what qualified me to do what I've done. So, before you go dreaming up new bureaucracies to create, new lines to stand in, new fees to pay, DON'T. The only thing that would happen is the A+ would cost 400 dollars US, require a 6 hour wait in an office 20 miles from your house in the most crumbling part of town, and guarantee NOTHING in the way of quality tech work.
Thanks to great minds like yours, 6 years from now, you won't be allowed to work a tech job in America unless you have a US Department of Technology Oversite license, which requires an A+ type test to receive, a large license fee, and have strings. Guess what? You can never be issued our license if you've ever visited a DIVX newsgroup, or burned mp3s of songs you didn't pay the RIAA for the permission to burn.
Good thinking, pinko moron!
I recently bought the new album from a band called Sigur Ros, an Icelandic band that just came through San Francisco. The band is somewhat pretentious, as many artists are, and refused to name the album or the songs, leaving you to interpret what the songs mean to you. Instead, the album simply has empty parenthesis on the cover. As a concept album, they wanted no text to appear on the CD sleeve, but they still had to give props to the production studio, mixers, former bandmate's sister's dog, etc... So all that appeared on the CD case was the URL
Of course, the site contained all of the thank yous and credits. It seemed a lot more efficient to me, and gave them the freedom to express a lot more information about the compilation of the album and to present it in new ways. Also, the information only had to be recorded once, rather than remove a forest from the planet to release 1 CD. (Not that they were conservative with the number of leaves they used used in the booklet.) But it made me think that one day, all any product would need would be a URL. This would also allow the content to be dynamic if changes needed to be made. This would work for Twinkie ingredients, DVD extra features, or percent of post-consumer recycled materials used. Not that it would revolutionize anything, but packaging would be much less cluttered, and you would always know where to go to get product info. Of course for this to work, every retail outfit would have to have a web page.
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Give me a break! Firstly, I am not a fanatic anything. I am open to anything. Secondly, not wanting a million laws does not a right winger make. I've never voted for a Republican in my life. And as far as destroying what makes America great, well if you read the same writings from our founding fathers that I did growing up, America is great because we limit our government. Inching ever closer to a completely regulated environment hardly seems like the spirit America was founded under. And to respond to what you saif about it being "optional". Shit, man, that's how it is now. This yokel wants to make it mandatory. (He said "required"). So where would that put us? At the mercy of politicians, who have a great track record with technology and policy making. Don't confuse mistrust of the government with the antics of a right wing nutter. I know how fun it is to quickly categorize someone from a few sentences, but not all of us can only think in 2 tones. It is possible to simultaneously mistrust the government and large corporations, you know. Not everyone is either begging for the government teet or waving Limbaugh banners in the street. Get a certification? Sure. Like I said, I have many. Ask the government to require regulation? Jesus Hopscotching Christ, does it really make me Trent Lott to not want that? We are doing fine. Fact is, law or no law, when you call Dell Phone Support, you are still getting a 16 year old who is getting paid 6 dollars an hour to read possible fixes from a list on a terminal, A+ or no. And you would just end up paying 20 dollars a minute for the call instead of 10 after people are required to pay taxes and licensing fees to hold the crappy job. And, BTW, going to the doctor is a FAR CRY from getting a NIC replaced. Yes, I do want some assurance the man giving me a colonoscopy has an education to do so. But the guy adding a hard drive? If he screws up, I don't pay. Does an A+ hanging on the wall mean he'll do a better job? Of course not. Does a new government office setup to track him make our tech woes any better? Of course not. Does thinking this make me some kind of militant NRA member who uses words like "feminazi" and "gimmecrats"? I don't really give a shit. I think it just means I can hold a thought for more than 3 seconds without barfing out an opinion. Americans need to THINK before they come up with another use for our government. Be they a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or Anonymous Coward!
Yeah, that's what we need....more regulation. Because there's nothing to make your job worthwile like having Uncle Sam having strings attached. Hey, Cliff, instead of doing the California Soccer Mom Shuffle and recommending NEW FREAKING LAWS, why don't you not take any more days off, if you're just going to sit around thinking, "How could the government regulate me MORE?" I have the certifications you listed, as well as many other useless pieces of paper. They were never what got me my previous jobs, nor were they what qualified me to do what I've done. So, before you go dreaming up new bureaucracies to create, new lines to stand in, new fees to pay, DON'T. The only thing that would happen is the A+ would cost 400 dollars US, require a 6 hour wait in an office 20 miles from your house in the most crumbling part of town, and guarantee NOTHING in the way of quality tech work. Thanks to great minds like yours, 6 years from now, you won't be allowed to work a tech job in America unless you have a US Department of Technology Oversite license, which requires an A+ type test to receive, a large license fee, and have strings. Guess what? You can never be issued our license if you've ever visited a DIVX newsgroup, or burned mp3s of songs you didn't pay the RIAA for the permission to burn. Good thinking, pinko moron!
I recently bought the new album from a band called Sigur Ros, an Icelandic band that just came through San Francisco. The band is somewhat pretentious, as many artists are, and refused to name the album or the songs, leaving you to interpret what the songs mean to you. Instead, the album simply has empty parenthesis on the cover. As a concept album, they wanted no text to appear on the CD sleeve, but they still had to give props to the production studio, mixers, former bandmate's sister's dog, etc... So all that appeared on the CD case was the URL Of course, the site contained all of the thank yous and credits. It seemed a lot more efficient to me, and gave them the freedom to express a lot more information about the compilation of the album and to present it in new ways. Also, the information only had to be recorded once, rather than remove a forest from the planet to release 1 CD. (Not that they were conservative with the number of leaves they used used in the booklet.) But it made me think that one day, all any product would need would be a URL. This would also allow the content to be dynamic if changes needed to be made. This would work for Twinkie ingredients, DVD extra features, or percent of post-consumer recycled materials used. Not that it would revolutionize anything, but packaging would be much less cluttered, and you would always know where to go to get product info. Of course for this to work, every retail outfit would have to have a web page.