Ha! As if anything happened for only one reason, ever. You can't even get water to freeze with just temperature. You also have to have the right pressure! Nothing in this world is single variate. Any argument depending on a single reason is bunk.
So you're saying that our network of telecommunications, our satellite net, the ability to look anywhere on Earth, our advanced computing knowledge, biologic knowledge, chemistry knowledge... all of these are worth nothing to society now?
What the study of history really shows us is that regardless of our motivation to get serious about the science, getting serious about it has netted us huge rewards to every aspect of society. This was true during the Space Race. It was true during WWII. It was true during the Industrial Revolution. It was true during the Renaissance. It was true during the Classical era.
Spend the money on NASA. Stop spending it on bailing out antiquated industries.
No, they do not. They were originally supposed to be run like airliners, with a cost much lower than expendable rockets. They utterly and completely failed at that goal.
Such stories as Post-its demonstrate that though something may, at the outset, have an intended goal, it's actual best use may be far off that mark.
I hear this argument a lot; "x sucks because it was supposed to be y and it's not". The question is really; is there any utility to x? For what it did, the shuttle program was successful. What it did didn't happen to be what it set out to do, but only a very narrowly defined vision will see that as a failure.
The real tragedy here is how much of the taxpayers' money has been wasted on this lobbyist-driven boondoggle over the decades, and what we could have achieved in space, had we spent that money wisely.
This is also a common refrain, "Think of what we could have done if we spent the money wisely!" What is never included is what else is needed. Money may be a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient - unless you spend orders of magnitude more. Does that seem like a familiar pattern?
NASA has a $17B 2008 budget. Ten times that was dropped by Congress in a tax rebate early this year. More than forty times that was given to the Administration as discretionary bailout spending. Neither of these expenditures is guaranteed to achieve the goal they set out to do, and even if they succeed have no direct permanent benefit to society; forestalling economic collapse is all well and good, but only if you also go in and fix underlying issues.
On the other hand, NASA provides tangible benefits to science, and science has always, in the long run, improved society both culturally and economically. Knowledge gleaned is not lost. As a tax payer, I will far more readily spend $17B a year, even if it's vastly inefficient, for small, tangible scientific advances, than spend ten times that much to cover up major problems in the economy. Nothing is gained by axing NASA, and even less is gained by claiming that NASA is totally and irrevocably useless and has always been.
Long story short: our resource investment in NASA is low, and the claims of it's inefficiency are entirely out of proportion to it's actual inefficiency, meaning that such claims are inherently deceptive.
I have to disagree with much of your post, as you're conflating a number of (yes, related) issues - such as how to live frugally versus how to be a freelance web developer.
More importantly, right off the bat on your first remark, you've told the person that, in all likelihood, they've earned an 'F' because they don't know their market, and that is that. I mean, that line (and most in this post) read as though they were taken straight out of a 'how to' book on business - and not the freelance Web work they're looking at. If the poster wanted that, there are plenty of places to go.
To my mind, the most important adage is "Don't train, do." You can spend a lot of time on the various points suggested - market research, for instance, or cold calling businesses, or making business cards. But there is a core to the business - doing web development. Figure out what the bare minimum is for that, and get going. Every moment wasted on anything else is moments you're not getting paid. Why sit around trying to think of ten good reasons someone shouldn't hire you? And what to say? The best reasons someone won't hire you will come up when they don't, and the best rejoinders will come with practice.
The point is that no one, out of the gate, has really any of this. You can go from zero to a successful business, but you're asking them to plan on plenty - when in all likelihood they should plan on nothing, keep an eye out for why they fail the first ten times, and learn to adapt. That is the learning curve that is needed - not how many business cards they need, or how to see fifty clients a week (which, by the way, good luck - that's ten clients a day, which is highly unlikely even if you can find them). If the person in question wants to be a salesman, then by all means, go that route. If they're going to be a developer, then they need to develop.
To my mind, there are three important pieces that all else are subordinate to:
1) Be capable. Know what you're trying to sell. You may fail to sell it, but that will get you farther than if you sell something you fail to be able to deliver.
2) Have something to show. Suits and business cards are all well and good, but if you cannot demonstrate the product they want, they'll see right through you.
3) Document everything, and review it. People get shafted by not having documentation that proves they did the work. They also lose track of where a project started to fail and why. By documenting (and showing the clients) everything, you not only keep them honest, protect yourself for the future, but you also are able to trace where it is you went wrong, and adapt.
But all of that aside, if you want to do it, you're ready. Ignore anyone who says otherwise. You may fail - but you'll get over that. Not starting is a far worse fate.
By that logic, if you load a gun and point it at someone's head, it's totally fine just so long as you have no plans to threaten, extort or shoot that person. Which means, of course, that if accidentally happens, can you be held responsible?
I'm not a super big fan of slippery slope arguments, but you have to pretty much assume that if you give someone an option, and based on their value system it will beat out any other option, you have to assume they'll take it.
In general, how many business ventures fail? How many fail within the first few decades of their industry existing? Until you can show that business projects in general fail less than 80% (assuming for a moment that's an accurate number), an 80% failure rate is not necessarily bad.
'Everything computers' has not been a disaster. Unfortunately, this is just not true. It is true that most computer related exercises are disasters, but most of those still have some value - possibly significant. AOL sucks, but a lot was learned from it. OS/2 is in the same boat. And for every software project that was ultimately abandoned, chances are that it carried some work load for some period of time. It may not have been the best possible solution available, but it still has facilitated useful endeavors.
Windows is a pretty good example of this; it is rife with problems, even if you like it. But apart from the innumerable businesses that use it, it has allowed for and pushed things like personal games, which in turn push video cards - and having evolved graphical capabilities has been a huge boon for everything from media to medicine.
Computers are not an unmitigated disaster - to claim that is way off base. Those countless failed projects are also, in their own right, useful. The port of LA, when initially built, was hopelessly unprofitable. It failed and it's parts were sold off. Those cheap parts let new investors come in and piggy back on previous work, making a now wildly profitable port. In the same way, those failures are pushing current profitability.
And for that reason, numbers like '80%' are terribly misleading.
And by that, I mean that Cohen is entirely writing to support his perspective, upon which his business is based on. While it is true - and has always been true - that profiting on open source software has always been hard, he doesn't provide any new evidence of this.
Moreover, he doesn't provide any novel solution. He's just replacing "Open Source" with "Collaborative", in such a way as to suggest more ownership for the businesses in question. He's saying he can provide this; but not what 'this' really is.
Really, I feel like this is the same sort of marketing article as all those articles that try to push 'The Web 3.0'; at least 'Web 2.0' spoke to a shift in how to build the underlying architecture. 'Collaborative' software, like '3.0', like a grade-schooler naming their fictional robot the Terminator 4 Million, he isn't talking about any real fundamental shift in either how open source is run, or how business is run. He's just come up with a new branding and buzzwords.
Any release that is not widely adopted is money they're not making, and cannot reinvest. I'm not saying they don't have a lot of money - MS obviously does. But their growth rate is slowing and that is a warning indicator.
... Microsoft bleeds money, because they're not receiving fresh capital from upgrades. It can obviously take some of that - even a lot. But it can't do it forever.
When you look at the rise of distributed systems and a return to client-server architecture, the failure of Vista is actually a significant setback for MS.
You pay for electricity by the pound, not on a monthly rate. If you want to run an ISP like a power company, then you have to accept a rate plan based on how much you use, rather than based on how much you want access to.
The disconnect with ISPs is that they are overselling because they're selling access - except they can't deliver on it certain peak situations. For the vast though shrinking majority of their customers, the maximum access potential will never be reached. It's those few times, people and places that actually hit that max that are causing them problems - because in those cases they've sold a product they can't deliver.
Unfortunately, without changing to a pay-as-you-go scheme, they don't have many tools for reducing the problem users; forcing them to quit, suing them, or trying to ignore them being the obvious ones. If they raised their rates to match the power user use, they'd lose market out of the bottom bunch of people. Who is going to pay $100 a month to check their email at home? No one, especially with cell phones covering that these days.
Telecoms don't WANT to move to a pay as you go plan, though, because they're making a lot of money right now off of those customers who don't use the service much. Ideally, all their customers would be like that - paying more for less - and they will want to manipulate the market in that direction.
Somehow, I don't think people are going to be as excited about buying a $100 special controller that doesn't make them *feel* like a rock star, or in this case, a generic fantasy adventurer. Maybe if the 'controller' in question were a suit of armor or something...
The *Hero games work because the controllers are tangible artifacts of the genre, and uniquely tied to the flavor of that genre. Few people are going to buy keyboards for their consoles - as is already well demonstrated.
Of course, in ten or twenty years, the difference between PC controllers and Console controllers will be negligible.
Movie trailers for a long time have been advertisements that people have sought out. Make your advertisement a narrative, or some other entertainment, and people will actively seek it out - especially if, like trailers, they require a minimal time investment. Then, if the 'trailer' is interesting enough, they might go after the actual product.
Games with demos are in this category as well - and successfully, I might add.
As artists find more ways to get exposure of the same level that the RIAA used to provide, they're going to be more and more disincentivized to utilize record companies. They'll look to companies that provide the ability to sell the songs over the net, to whatever device, without basically assuming ownership over it.
In the near term, as the RIAA thrashes, royalties will go up. They need to maintain their profits somehow. That increase in cost to the consumer, though, will drive new market strategies that will eventually kill the RIAA dead as we move into a new generation that was never dependent on physical media.
It's just going to be a bumpy - and rather injust - ride.
As others have pointed out, money is a big motivator, and we do not really put a great deal of monetary value on being brilliant. Arguably, the greatest value lays in being able to give the brilliant guy a paycheck, because then you can license/own his work.
But suppose the sort of brilliant criminal who is doing this sort of thing actually approached an institute of higher education? Without presupposing anything about them, what do you think the chances are that that person fits the criteria to go to the school, never mind be supported through x years of that school and be let into the somewhat more competitive field of higher academia?
We filter a lot of people out in our class structure, for a lot of reasons. Some of them good. Some of them bad. But one of the choices society seems to have made is that we do sideline any number of brilliant folks.
One thing I've never liked about cable providers in particular, but most internet access services, is that they average an 'up to' speed. In this case, Comcast is explicitly saying, "You can get up to this speed until we can't handle it any more, at which point we pick and choose who gets their max, or close to their max, speed."
The subtlety is that in their advertising, it is very hard, if possible at all, to find out what the limit is on the CMTS port that you're subscribing to. They're servicing some number of users with each port, and promising those users 'up to x speed'. The letter indicates, I think, a very strategy for handling traffic within those parameters (presumably, for instance, the high priority traffic is utilizing less bandwidth, so percentage-wise you get the most effect); but the parameters are still bad by design. And could get worse if they up the number of people on a port.
In short, I think they simply need to be more honest about how they advertise their service.
I am not saying that better education makes for better people - though you are clearly jumping there quite readily. What I am saying is that all else held equal, if you have more and better education then you're going to be more qualified than if you did not. For instance, if you had to have one, would you prefer Obama with a Harvard degree or without?
In the real world, I think what this means is that you have to consider education a positive. Now, if Sarah Palin and John McCain are just so much better, then perhaps education does not matter. But to say that education is a detriment is pretty silly. To say that it automatically gives you character traits that are unworthy is ridiculous.
There is another point I think that you're continually missing; that is to say I think (and most people do) that on average people who come out of top schools are better qualified than people who don't. But these things are a spectrum; as you correctly point out, Bush is a moron. Yale didn't save us from that. But, if you were able, what would the results be from giving the same presidency once to each member of a class from Yale, versus the results from giving the same presidency once to each member of a median quality school? I fully believe that some members of the median school would kick some members of the top school's ass, but that on average the top school would do better.
Now, you mention 'relating'. As the army can tell you, you don't need to 'relate' to your commanding officers. Sometimes it helps, but it's not necessary. Leaders need only speak to the problems at hand. Now, you may not like him, and therefore not vote for him. Others may like him - relate to him - and therefore vote for him. But I think it's an incredible flaw to decide that someone is a good leader because they're 'like you'. You are, however, probably right; there are a lot of people who will vote for someone who is uneducated because they feel better about it. Hence, Bush. It's a reason, but it's not a great reason. Often, the best person to run a country is different from you. For instance, I'd want to vote for someone who is not as into video games as I am, or perhaps more saliently, does not spend as much time on Slashdot. It's not that video games or Slashdot are inherently bad - I believe quite the opposite. Rather, the best person to run the country probably does not have those attributes.
Note, too, that I'm not arguing that intellectualism, or a top school, is a necessary and sufficient condition to run the country. I just think it's a benefit, and if it's considered a negative, it's because someone has had their fears preyed upon. The Republican party has done this a lot; Kerry wasn't the brightest bulb, but he was cast as an intellectual and therefore unpalatable, unfit to be President. I believe that Americans, if they're not comprehensively lied to, are capable of accepting smart, educated people who can sensibly run the country, just as they're capable of accepting down to earth, intuitive people who can sensibly run the country. As you suggest, there are many forms of intelligence; the analytical intelligence taught at universities is a powerful form. It's particularly applicable in this case. It's not necessarily always the only acceptable choice - but viewing it as a negative? That's usually the result of someone trying to highlight differences in order to leverage factionalism.
I think you missed the point about the librarian; politically Palin didn't have the power to fire her and keep her fired. It was a mistake, it was a bad move. But it is a salient example where she tried to get rid of a competent person. Given that she's hired a vast swath of her high school friends, I find it statistically unlikely that she's hiring them because they're all simply better than the people they're replacing. Your mileage may vary.
I disagree with you on taxes; our country's economy is in the crapper after a number of decades of record
Sorry... I was going to quit! It's just that current events prove you so wrong...
In the USA, free enterprise and open capitalism made this country enormously rich, with some social costs.
So, uh... did you mean made some enormously rich, while passing the buck off to the rest when the house of cards came atumblin' down? You're wrong on two points: that free enterprise made this country rich, and that this country has free enterprise.
I guess you were watching one too many AIG commercials?
Alright, you clearly have a chip on your shoulder, so I'm not going to respond to your entire post; at best you're trolling, see? But let us debunk your backpedaling.
No I didn't say the ALL are that way, I said I've never MET anyone with a pedigree who didn't act utterly arrogant.
Actually, you said, "When I see a University "pedigree" I instantly know it also comes with an incredible level of arrogance." You made a 100% blanket statement, and you should own that. I would accept that you probably didn't mean it as that, but it is what you said.
Secondly, I would challenge you to take a class at any of your so-called 'pedigreed' schools and tell me it was easier than the equivalent level class at a median-ranked state school. The reason those pedigreed schools are flat out better, and turn out, on average, more qualified people is because they have more resources. More resources means, on one level, better equipment and better space. But it also means that the top minds want to work there as teachers and researchers. And that means the students there are exposed to a far higher level of learning. It is a tougher environment to succeed in. It turns out better people. You have no objective basis to claim otherwise.
So, instead, it seems you go through a litany of schools and your opinion on them - which is next to meaningless, even if I agree with some of it. I do think, though, based on what you've said and the verbiage you used, that you don't know too many Harvard graduates, or Princeton or Brown graduates. It seems like maybe you've found one or two MIT folks you like, and you seem to know a lot of RPI people. You don't need to confirm or deny that; just consider, on the off chance I'm right, that your impressions are formed by the people you know - or more importantly, those you don't.
Any idiot from Harvard can run a company into the ground just as fast as an idiot from a State no-name school.
They could, especially if that were their objective. On average they're going to have a better grasp of how to do that. For the same reason, on average, they're not going to do it as fast as your median student from a median state school if their goal is to run it successfully.
As a side note, one of the more brilliant insights Warren Buffet has shared is that some people do better with different levels of money. You might consider that, were that true (I think it is; you may not), might you see the sort of profile of win/loss that you're basing your views on? It is a hard lesson to learn that in life that save for that one thing (in your case, a 'pedigreed school), not all else is held ceteris paribus.
Regarding Sarah Palin; I think that the librarian case is the one easiest to point to. A very popular librarian, good at what she does, who did not agree with her. The librarian was fired, and the city objected strongly. Only at that objection did Palin reinstate her - her original reasons for firing never coming out. But incompetence? Doesn't seem likely, given the judgment of the rest of the city. So, yeah, I think that she cares more about having supporters than competent people. I think that's a true thing, and I think that you can still support her knowing that. That's a reasonable point of view. Outright objecting to her having ever done anything wrong ever is not.
What I find outright laughable, though, is the claim that the current administration is run by snob intellectuals. Honestly, I'd rather a meritocracy than a fascism, even if the virtues of the merits selected are dubious. Well, that and the claim that the taxes leveled on you are all that dire. Grow up. You have plenty of money. The only problem is that you don't think that's enough. How long are you going to blame that on Congress? Or do you actually find it morally reasonable to sluff off all blame onto someone else?
Really? You're going to pull the 'I have totally unsubstantiated credentials' now? If you have any independent evidence supporting any of your claims, go ahead and cite them. Until then, I am going to think you're making it up.
And, by the by, the OKC bombing had nothing to do with Iraq. At. All. This claim alone proves you're not an intelligence analyst (never mind that I doubt there are actually many analysts on the ground in Iraq - but what do I know? I haven't made an outrageous claim about my profession.) Regardless, involvement in OKC, WTC '93 or any other terrorist attack provides absolutely no proof - only suspicion - that they had anything to do with 9/11. It is for that reason that US courts don't allow, in most cases, prior bad acts to be mentioned in a court case. It's a logical fallacy, and only an emotional plea.
Heaven forbid we elect someone who is proud of an accomplishment. And, you know, completing law school - any law school, but in particular the top notch ones - is a real accomplishment. Completing an undergraduate degree at a variety of barely-known schools (it has nothing to do with their State nature - there are plenty of good state schools) is, by comparison, less of an accomplishment.
But that's not your problem; you've made a blanket statement that anyone who goes to such a highly ranked school is arrogant and incapable of being a good leader. That's as insane as thinking anyone who has gone to a state school is incapable of running the country. Even if your basic statement is true, it's still utterly anecdotal - a terrible argument all around.
What really bothers me about Palin's education record is that her schools are no-name schools, not that they're state schools. The quality of a school really does matter, and better schools really do turn out more qualified people. Those people will, of course, make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. But on average they're going to do better. That is why they are, on average, promoted to higher positions; it's not just cronyism.
What I find particularly ironic about your post is Palin's behavior whenever she's been in office; she has been the heart of arrogance. She's driven out good people, and installed high school friends, in all the administrations she's been in. On pure chance, what do you think the odds are that the best people to be in those positions all went to school with her? She has acted consistently to surround herself with people whose primary credential is that they know her of old, not that they're qualified people.
If you've made your decision already, why bother using the education as the reason? You're free to not like Obama because he's not like you, but there is nothing that recommends poorly educated people to the office of President. It's just not a winning point to argue otherwise.
Normally I'd be disagreeing with Rowling, but the case clearly comes down to how much of the book was verbatim. The reason that matters is that if anyone is allowed to take a great deal of original text and add very little to it, reselling it, then yes, that is a violation of her rights. In our system, you have to protect those rights by suing in all instances such cases arise.
On NPR the other day Rowling made this argument cogently, and pointed out there are countless other works she has not intervened on - for precisely the reason that those works add a great deal to her original material.
The Lexicon may be a work of love - and if the A Canticle for Lebowitz taught me anything, it's that works of love are awesome things - but the expression of that love is important. It can't be mere copying, not if you're planning to sell it. Is there any reason to believe the judge didn't rule fairly on that matter?
I didn't say Obama had an insignificant lead at all...
Really, I think you need to put your shame face on. To begin with, I never said I thought anything because the Daily Kos said so. I said I thought they brought up a good point about the electoral college having pertinent impact. Ironically, your saying the former, and not the latter, means you're guilty of using straw man tactics. (You do know what that means, right?) The lack of 'critical thinking' on your part is here; I won't go so far as to presume you don't have any talent in that department, but you're providing good evidence to the idea. As another example, I don't think that the Daily Kos said that Obama has an insignificant lead. They clearly said otherwise; in fact, they said that he has a more significant lead than pure poll numbers would suggest. (Did you, btw, rtfa?)
You're clearly guilty of using a straw man; ironically so. Your quick judgment of anything I had to say, or that the referenced article had to say, was worthless because the article happened to come from the Daily Kos suggests that you judge books by their cover, as well. So I wonder; do you really want to start throwing stones?
Even a cursory look at Chinese history shows lots of major interruptions.
China wasn't even unified until roughly 200BCE, and quickly collapsed into another Dynastic regime that lasted about four hundred years. At which point it collapsed into several kingdoms - a period that lasted three hundred years. Seven hundred years and two dynasties later it was conquered by the Mongols, whose rule lasted a hundred years. In the seventeenth century, that dynasty was destroyed by another in a war that cost about twenty five million lives.
Once into the 19th century, China was almost continuously wracked by war, with millions upon millions of lives lost to many rebellions. The last imperial dynasty died as the country was caught in the throes of revolution across the country. For fifty years during the 20th century it was a democracy, and largely as a result of WWII it became a communist state.
So, out of curiosity, where in there can you claim that China has survived for thousands of years without major interruption? The idea that China is uninterrupted comes largely from the ignorant idea that all of China is the same, and it's done nothing particularly novel in those two thousand years - basically from a general lack of sensitivity and understanding of their culture or history that we have of Europe.
Actually, you're missing a subtle point: I'm trying to persuade people by showing them how their opinions are built on a bad basis.
Let's go through the comparisons, though; Palin went to four different state-level colleges, and graduated with a degree in communications. She won Miss Congeniality, was a sports reporter and helped in a fishing business. She was a city council member in a town of 7k people, and then mayor for two terms. After that she chaired a single commission on Oil and Gas conservation for a year. Then she was governor for two years.
Obama, in contrast, went to Occidental and then Columbia University - both considered to be very good schools. He has a BA in poli-sci. He worked at Business Internation and NY Public Interest Research. He worked as a community organizer, but more to the point was a director and ramped the budget for the Developing Communities Project from 70k to 400k. He went to Harvard Law School, and was selected for the review based on his writing. He taught Constitutional Law and U of Chicago Law School and was a lawyer for many years. He then went on to be a state legislator for six years and US Senator for three. There is literally no phase of his life wherein his experience doesn't totally outstrip Palin's.
In fact, I'm not sure where this idea that he's inexperienced comes from? Sure, he hasn't been a politician as long as other people - but why is that a bad thing?
Lots of people run for president - even lots of people who lose the first time and then win, like Reagan. Biden has actually only run for president three times, and only two serious bids. He's been a Senator for over thirty years. You cannot just chalk that up to Delawares GOP being 'utterly hopeless'. I mean, you can, but there is no evidence supporting it. If you're going to go after Biden, make it for something that matters, like his shift on drug policy.
So, as it turns out, I cannot refute that you have an opinion, but I can refute that your opinion is worth taking as sound advisement. Note, too, that you're twisting words: you added "for their taste" to "Obama is too egotistical or too leftist". Those labels; 'egotistical' and 'leftist' are being applied by the right, and being applied as though they are objective truth - without supporting basis. By the same basis I can say "You're too tall." But I'm not supporting it with facts, and so it's objective reality is called into question. Will you trust the opinion I just stated? If you do so on any basis other than evidence, well, then don't pretend that you're doing so on a rational basis. By the same token, don't pretend that you or the right think Obama is objectively egotistical or leftist unless you're willing to front some evidence.
1. This is true... to a point. In the recent two decades we've seen a huge consolidation of power into the executive branch. This does, in many cases, include economic policy. For instance, a President can increase or decrease environmental regulations, thereby directly affecting industry.
2. While this is true, correlation does tell you something - if only that (in this case) the Democrats are good at making good on good policy. I'd love to see more widely distributed in-depth studies of the effects of specific policies, though.
3. The capital wasn't *that* desperately needed. More to the point, we're still utilizing infrastructure created in the New Deal - and that includes the private sector. The people who think the New Deal prolonged the Depression is a definite minority.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha! As if anything happened for only one reason, ever. You can't even get water to freeze with just temperature. You also have to have the right pressure! Nothing in this world is single variate. Any argument depending on a single reason is bunk.
So you're saying that our network of telecommunications, our satellite net, the ability to look anywhere on Earth, our advanced computing knowledge, biologic knowledge, chemistry knowledge... all of these are worth nothing to society now?
What the study of history really shows us is that regardless of our motivation to get serious about the science, getting serious about it has netted us huge rewards to every aspect of society. This was true during the Space Race. It was true during WWII. It was true during the Industrial Revolution. It was true during the Renaissance. It was true during the Classical era.
Spend the money on NASA. Stop spending it on bailing out antiquated industries.
No, they do not. They were originally supposed to be run like airliners, with a cost much lower than expendable rockets. They utterly and completely failed at that goal.
Such stories as Post-its demonstrate that though something may, at the outset, have an intended goal, it's actual best use may be far off that mark.
I hear this argument a lot; "x sucks because it was supposed to be y and it's not". The question is really; is there any utility to x? For what it did, the shuttle program was successful. What it did didn't happen to be what it set out to do, but only a very narrowly defined vision will see that as a failure.
The real tragedy here is how much of the taxpayers' money has been wasted on this lobbyist-driven boondoggle over the decades, and what we could have achieved in space, had we spent that money wisely.
This is also a common refrain, "Think of what we could have done if we spent the money wisely!" What is never included is what else is needed. Money may be a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient - unless you spend orders of magnitude more. Does that seem like a familiar pattern?
NASA has a $17B 2008 budget. Ten times that was dropped by Congress in a tax rebate early this year. More than forty times that was given to the Administration as discretionary bailout spending. Neither of these expenditures is guaranteed to achieve the goal they set out to do, and even if they succeed have no direct permanent benefit to society; forestalling economic collapse is all well and good, but only if you also go in and fix underlying issues.
On the other hand, NASA provides tangible benefits to science, and science has always, in the long run, improved society both culturally and economically. Knowledge gleaned is not lost. As a tax payer, I will far more readily spend $17B a year, even if it's vastly inefficient, for small, tangible scientific advances, than spend ten times that much to cover up major problems in the economy. Nothing is gained by axing NASA, and even less is gained by claiming that NASA is totally and irrevocably useless and has always been.
Long story short: our resource investment in NASA is low, and the claims of it's inefficiency are entirely out of proportion to it's actual inefficiency, meaning that such claims are inherently deceptive.
I have to disagree with much of your post, as you're conflating a number of (yes, related) issues - such as how to live frugally versus how to be a freelance web developer.
More importantly, right off the bat on your first remark, you've told the person that, in all likelihood, they've earned an 'F' because they don't know their market, and that is that. I mean, that line (and most in this post) read as though they were taken straight out of a 'how to' book on business - and not the freelance Web work they're looking at. If the poster wanted that, there are plenty of places to go.
To my mind, the most important adage is "Don't train, do." You can spend a lot of time on the various points suggested - market research, for instance, or cold calling businesses, or making business cards. But there is a core to the business - doing web development. Figure out what the bare minimum is for that, and get going. Every moment wasted on anything else is moments you're not getting paid. Why sit around trying to think of ten good reasons someone shouldn't hire you? And what to say? The best reasons someone won't hire you will come up when they don't, and the best rejoinders will come with practice.
The point is that no one, out of the gate, has really any of this. You can go from zero to a successful business, but you're asking them to plan on plenty - when in all likelihood they should plan on nothing, keep an eye out for why they fail the first ten times, and learn to adapt. That is the learning curve that is needed - not how many business cards they need, or how to see fifty clients a week (which, by the way, good luck - that's ten clients a day, which is highly unlikely even if you can find them). If the person in question wants to be a salesman, then by all means, go that route. If they're going to be a developer, then they need to develop.
To my mind, there are three important pieces that all else are subordinate to:
1) Be capable. Know what you're trying to sell. You may fail to sell it, but that will get you farther than if you sell something you fail to be able to deliver.
2) Have something to show. Suits and business cards are all well and good, but if you cannot demonstrate the product they want, they'll see right through you.
3) Document everything, and review it. People get shafted by not having documentation that proves they did the work. They also lose track of where a project started to fail and why. By documenting (and showing the clients) everything, you not only keep them honest, protect yourself for the future, but you also are able to trace where it is you went wrong, and adapt.
But all of that aside, if you want to do it, you're ready. Ignore anyone who says otherwise. You may fail - but you'll get over that. Not starting is a far worse fate.
By that logic, if you load a gun and point it at someone's head, it's totally fine just so long as you have no plans to threaten, extort or shoot that person. Which means, of course, that if accidentally happens, can you be held responsible?
I'm not a super big fan of slippery slope arguments, but you have to pretty much assume that if you give someone an option, and based on their value system it will beat out any other option, you have to assume they'll take it.
In general, how many business ventures fail? How many fail within the first few decades of their industry existing? Until you can show that business projects in general fail less than 80% (assuming for a moment that's an accurate number), an 80% failure rate is not necessarily bad.
'Everything computers' has not been a disaster. Unfortunately, this is just not true. It is true that most computer related exercises are disasters, but most of those still have some value - possibly significant. AOL sucks, but a lot was learned from it. OS/2 is in the same boat. And for every software project that was ultimately abandoned, chances are that it carried some work load for some period of time. It may not have been the best possible solution available, but it still has facilitated useful endeavors.
Windows is a pretty good example of this; it is rife with problems, even if you like it. But apart from the innumerable businesses that use it, it has allowed for and pushed things like personal games, which in turn push video cards - and having evolved graphical capabilities has been a huge boon for everything from media to medicine.
Computers are not an unmitigated disaster - to claim that is way off base. Those countless failed projects are also, in their own right, useful. The port of LA, when initially built, was hopelessly unprofitable. It failed and it's parts were sold off. Those cheap parts let new investors come in and piggy back on previous work, making a now wildly profitable port. In the same way, those failures are pushing current profitability.
And for that reason, numbers like '80%' are terribly misleading.
And by that, I mean that Cohen is entirely writing to support his perspective, upon which his business is based on. While it is true - and has always been true - that profiting on open source software has always been hard, he doesn't provide any new evidence of this.
Moreover, he doesn't provide any novel solution. He's just replacing "Open Source" with "Collaborative", in such a way as to suggest more ownership for the businesses in question. He's saying he can provide this; but not what 'this' really is.
Really, I feel like this is the same sort of marketing article as all those articles that try to push 'The Web 3.0'; at least 'Web 2.0' spoke to a shift in how to build the underlying architecture. 'Collaborative' software, like '3.0', like a grade-schooler naming their fictional robot the Terminator 4 Million, he isn't talking about any real fundamental shift in either how open source is run, or how business is run. He's just come up with a new branding and buzzwords.
Any release that is not widely adopted is money they're not making, and cannot reinvest. I'm not saying they don't have a lot of money - MS obviously does. But their growth rate is slowing and that is a warning indicator.
... Microsoft bleeds money, because they're not receiving fresh capital from upgrades. It can obviously take some of that - even a lot. But it can't do it forever.
When you look at the rise of distributed systems and a return to client-server architecture, the failure of Vista is actually a significant setback for MS.
You pay for electricity by the pound, not on a monthly rate. If you want to run an ISP like a power company, then you have to accept a rate plan based on how much you use, rather than based on how much you want access to.
The disconnect with ISPs is that they are overselling because they're selling access - except they can't deliver on it certain peak situations. For the vast though shrinking majority of their customers, the maximum access potential will never be reached. It's those few times, people and places that actually hit that max that are causing them problems - because in those cases they've sold a product they can't deliver.
Unfortunately, without changing to a pay-as-you-go scheme, they don't have many tools for reducing the problem users; forcing them to quit, suing them, or trying to ignore them being the obvious ones. If they raised their rates to match the power user use, they'd lose market out of the bottom bunch of people. Who is going to pay $100 a month to check their email at home? No one, especially with cell phones covering that these days.
Telecoms don't WANT to move to a pay as you go plan, though, because they're making a lot of money right now off of those customers who don't use the service much. Ideally, all their customers would be like that - paying more for less - and they will want to manipulate the market in that direction.
And that is why regulation is needed.
Somehow, I don't think people are going to be as excited about buying a $100 special controller that doesn't make them *feel* like a rock star, or in this case, a generic fantasy adventurer. Maybe if the 'controller' in question were a suit of armor or something...
The *Hero games work because the controllers are tangible artifacts of the genre, and uniquely tied to the flavor of that genre. Few people are going to buy keyboards for their consoles - as is already well demonstrated.
Of course, in ten or twenty years, the difference between PC controllers and Console controllers will be negligible.
Movie trailers for a long time have been advertisements that people have sought out. Make your advertisement a narrative, or some other entertainment, and people will actively seek it out - especially if, like trailers, they require a minimal time investment. Then, if the 'trailer' is interesting enough, they might go after the actual product.
Games with demos are in this category as well - and successfully, I might add.
As artists find more ways to get exposure of the same level that the RIAA used to provide, they're going to be more and more disincentivized to utilize record companies. They'll look to companies that provide the ability to sell the songs over the net, to whatever device, without basically assuming ownership over it.
In the near term, as the RIAA thrashes, royalties will go up. They need to maintain their profits somehow. That increase in cost to the consumer, though, will drive new market strategies that will eventually kill the RIAA dead as we move into a new generation that was never dependent on physical media.
It's just going to be a bumpy - and rather injust - ride.
As others have pointed out, money is a big motivator, and we do not really put a great deal of monetary value on being brilliant. Arguably, the greatest value lays in being able to give the brilliant guy a paycheck, because then you can license/own his work.
But suppose the sort of brilliant criminal who is doing this sort of thing actually approached an institute of higher education? Without presupposing anything about them, what do you think the chances are that that person fits the criteria to go to the school, never mind be supported through x years of that school and be let into the somewhat more competitive field of higher academia?
We filter a lot of people out in our class structure, for a lot of reasons. Some of them good. Some of them bad. But one of the choices society seems to have made is that we do sideline any number of brilliant folks.
One thing I've never liked about cable providers in particular, but most internet access services, is that they average an 'up to' speed. In this case, Comcast is explicitly saying, "You can get up to this speed until we can't handle it any more, at which point we pick and choose who gets their max, or close to their max, speed."
The subtlety is that in their advertising, it is very hard, if possible at all, to find out what the limit is on the CMTS port that you're subscribing to. They're servicing some number of users with each port, and promising those users 'up to x speed'. The letter indicates, I think, a very strategy for handling traffic within those parameters (presumably, for instance, the high priority traffic is utilizing less bandwidth, so percentage-wise you get the most effect); but the parameters are still bad by design. And could get worse if they up the number of people on a port.
In short, I think they simply need to be more honest about how they advertise their service.
Ah, I see.
I am not saying that better education makes for better people - though you are clearly jumping there quite readily. What I am saying is that all else held equal, if you have more and better education then you're going to be more qualified than if you did not. For instance, if you had to have one, would you prefer Obama with a Harvard degree or without?
In the real world, I think what this means is that you have to consider education a positive. Now, if Sarah Palin and John McCain are just so much better, then perhaps education does not matter. But to say that education is a detriment is pretty silly. To say that it automatically gives you character traits that are unworthy is ridiculous.
There is another point I think that you're continually missing; that is to say I think (and most people do) that on average people who come out of top schools are better qualified than people who don't. But these things are a spectrum; as you correctly point out, Bush is a moron. Yale didn't save us from that. But, if you were able, what would the results be from giving the same presidency once to each member of a class from Yale, versus the results from giving the same presidency once to each member of a median quality school? I fully believe that some members of the median school would kick some members of the top school's ass, but that on average the top school would do better.
Now, you mention 'relating'. As the army can tell you, you don't need to 'relate' to your commanding officers. Sometimes it helps, but it's not necessary. Leaders need only speak to the problems at hand. Now, you may not like him, and therefore not vote for him. Others may like him - relate to him - and therefore vote for him. But I think it's an incredible flaw to decide that someone is a good leader because they're 'like you'. You are, however, probably right; there are a lot of people who will vote for someone who is uneducated because they feel better about it. Hence, Bush. It's a reason, but it's not a great reason. Often, the best person to run a country is different from you. For instance, I'd want to vote for someone who is not as into video games as I am, or perhaps more saliently, does not spend as much time on Slashdot. It's not that video games or Slashdot are inherently bad - I believe quite the opposite. Rather, the best person to run the country probably does not have those attributes.
Note, too, that I'm not arguing that intellectualism, or a top school, is a necessary and sufficient condition to run the country. I just think it's a benefit, and if it's considered a negative, it's because someone has had their fears preyed upon. The Republican party has done this a lot; Kerry wasn't the brightest bulb, but he was cast as an intellectual and therefore unpalatable, unfit to be President. I believe that Americans, if they're not comprehensively lied to, are capable of accepting smart, educated people who can sensibly run the country, just as they're capable of accepting down to earth, intuitive people who can sensibly run the country. As you suggest, there are many forms of intelligence; the analytical intelligence taught at universities is a powerful form. It's particularly applicable in this case. It's not necessarily always the only acceptable choice - but viewing it as a negative? That's usually the result of someone trying to highlight differences in order to leverage factionalism.
I think you missed the point about the librarian; politically Palin didn't have the power to fire her and keep her fired. It was a mistake, it was a bad move. But it is a salient example where she tried to get rid of a competent person. Given that she's hired a vast swath of her high school friends, I find it statistically unlikely that she's hiring them because they're all simply better than the people they're replacing. Your mileage may vary.
I disagree with you on taxes; our country's economy is in the crapper after a number of decades of record
Sorry... I was going to quit! It's just that current events prove you so wrong...
In the USA, free enterprise and open capitalism made this country enormously rich, with some social costs.
So, uh... did you mean made some enormously rich, while passing the buck off to the rest when the house of cards came atumblin' down? You're wrong on two points: that free enterprise made this country rich, and that this country has free enterprise.
I guess you were watching one too many AIG commercials?
Alright, you clearly have a chip on your shoulder, so I'm not going to respond to your entire post; at best you're trolling, see? But let us debunk your backpedaling.
No I didn't say the ALL are that way, I said I've never MET anyone with a pedigree who didn't act utterly arrogant.
Actually, you said, "When I see a University "pedigree" I instantly know it also comes with an incredible level of arrogance." You made a 100% blanket statement, and you should own that. I would accept that you probably didn't mean it as that, but it is what you said.
Secondly, I would challenge you to take a class at any of your so-called 'pedigreed' schools and tell me it was easier than the equivalent level class at a median-ranked state school. The reason those pedigreed schools are flat out better, and turn out, on average, more qualified people is because they have more resources. More resources means, on one level, better equipment and better space. But it also means that the top minds want to work there as teachers and researchers. And that means the students there are exposed to a far higher level of learning. It is a tougher environment to succeed in. It turns out better people. You have no objective basis to claim otherwise.
So, instead, it seems you go through a litany of schools and your opinion on them - which is next to meaningless, even if I agree with some of it. I do think, though, based on what you've said and the verbiage you used, that you don't know too many Harvard graduates, or Princeton or Brown graduates. It seems like maybe you've found one or two MIT folks you like, and you seem to know a lot of RPI people. You don't need to confirm or deny that; just consider, on the off chance I'm right, that your impressions are formed by the people you know - or more importantly, those you don't.
Any idiot from Harvard can run a company into the ground just as fast as an idiot from a State no-name school.
They could, especially if that were their objective. On average they're going to have a better grasp of how to do that. For the same reason, on average, they're not going to do it as fast as your median student from a median state school if their goal is to run it successfully.
As a side note, one of the more brilliant insights Warren Buffet has shared is that some people do better with different levels of money. You might consider that, were that true (I think it is; you may not), might you see the sort of profile of win/loss that you're basing your views on? It is a hard lesson to learn that in life that save for that one thing (in your case, a 'pedigreed school), not all else is held ceteris paribus.
Regarding Sarah Palin; I think that the librarian case is the one easiest to point to. A very popular librarian, good at what she does, who did not agree with her. The librarian was fired, and the city objected strongly. Only at that objection did Palin reinstate her - her original reasons for firing never coming out. But incompetence? Doesn't seem likely, given the judgment of the rest of the city. So, yeah, I think that she cares more about having supporters than competent people. I think that's a true thing, and I think that you can still support her knowing that. That's a reasonable point of view. Outright objecting to her having ever done anything wrong ever is not.
What I find outright laughable, though, is the claim that the current administration is run by snob intellectuals. Honestly, I'd rather a meritocracy than a fascism, even if the virtues of the merits selected are dubious. Well, that and the claim that the taxes leveled on you are all that dire. Grow up. You have plenty of money. The only problem is that you don't think that's enough. How long are you going to blame that on Congress? Or do you actually find it morally reasonable to sluff off all blame onto someone else?
Hahaha.
Really? You're going to pull the 'I have totally unsubstantiated credentials' now? If you have any independent evidence supporting any of your claims, go ahead and cite them. Until then, I am going to think you're making it up.
And, by the by, the OKC bombing had nothing to do with Iraq. At. All. This claim alone proves you're not an intelligence analyst (never mind that I doubt there are actually many analysts on the ground in Iraq - but what do I know? I haven't made an outrageous claim about my profession.) Regardless, involvement in OKC, WTC '93 or any other terrorist attack provides absolutely no proof - only suspicion - that they had anything to do with 9/11. It is for that reason that US courts don't allow, in most cases, prior bad acts to be mentioned in a court case. It's a logical fallacy, and only an emotional plea.
Heaven forbid we elect someone who is proud of an accomplishment. And, you know, completing law school - any law school, but in particular the top notch ones - is a real accomplishment. Completing an undergraduate degree at a variety of barely-known schools (it has nothing to do with their State nature - there are plenty of good state schools) is, by comparison, less of an accomplishment.
But that's not your problem; you've made a blanket statement that anyone who goes to such a highly ranked school is arrogant and incapable of being a good leader. That's as insane as thinking anyone who has gone to a state school is incapable of running the country. Even if your basic statement is true, it's still utterly anecdotal - a terrible argument all around.
What really bothers me about Palin's education record is that her schools are no-name schools, not that they're state schools. The quality of a school really does matter, and better schools really do turn out more qualified people. Those people will, of course, make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. But on average they're going to do better. That is why they are, on average, promoted to higher positions; it's not just cronyism.
What I find particularly ironic about your post is Palin's behavior whenever she's been in office; she has been the heart of arrogance. She's driven out good people, and installed high school friends, in all the administrations she's been in. On pure chance, what do you think the odds are that the best people to be in those positions all went to school with her? She has acted consistently to surround herself with people whose primary credential is that they know her of old, not that they're qualified people.
If you've made your decision already, why bother using the education as the reason? You're free to not like Obama because he's not like you, but there is nothing that recommends poorly educated people to the office of President. It's just not a winning point to argue otherwise.
Normally I'd be disagreeing with Rowling, but the case clearly comes down to how much of the book was verbatim. The reason that matters is that if anyone is allowed to take a great deal of original text and add very little to it, reselling it, then yes, that is a violation of her rights. In our system, you have to protect those rights by suing in all instances such cases arise.
On NPR the other day Rowling made this argument cogently, and pointed out there are countless other works she has not intervened on - for precisely the reason that those works add a great deal to her original material.
The Lexicon may be a work of love - and if the A Canticle for Lebowitz taught me anything, it's that works of love are awesome things - but the expression of that love is important. It can't be mere copying, not if you're planning to sell it. Is there any reason to believe the judge didn't rule fairly on that matter?
I didn't say Obama had an insignificant lead at all...
Really, I think you need to put your shame face on. To begin with, I never said I thought anything because the Daily Kos said so. I said I thought they brought up a good point about the electoral college having pertinent impact. Ironically, your saying the former, and not the latter, means you're guilty of using straw man tactics. (You do know what that means, right?) The lack of 'critical thinking' on your part is here; I won't go so far as to presume you don't have any talent in that department, but you're providing good evidence to the idea. As another example, I don't think that the Daily Kos said that Obama has an insignificant lead. They clearly said otherwise; in fact, they said that he has a more significant lead than pure poll numbers would suggest. (Did you, btw, rtfa?)
You're clearly guilty of using a straw man; ironically so. Your quick judgment of anything I had to say, or that the referenced article had to say, was worthless because the article happened to come from the Daily Kos suggests that you judge books by their cover, as well. So I wonder; do you really want to start throwing stones?
Even a cursory look at Chinese history shows lots of major interruptions.
China wasn't even unified until roughly 200BCE, and quickly collapsed into another Dynastic regime that lasted about four hundred years. At which point it collapsed into several kingdoms - a period that lasted three hundred years. Seven hundred years and two dynasties later it was conquered by the Mongols, whose rule lasted a hundred years. In the seventeenth century, that dynasty was destroyed by another in a war that cost about twenty five million lives.
Once into the 19th century, China was almost continuously wracked by war, with millions upon millions of lives lost to many rebellions. The last imperial dynasty died as the country was caught in the throes of revolution across the country. For fifty years during the 20th century it was a democracy, and largely as a result of WWII it became a communist state.
So, out of curiosity, where in there can you claim that China has survived for thousands of years without major interruption? The idea that China is uninterrupted comes largely from the ignorant idea that all of China is the same, and it's done nothing particularly novel in those two thousand years - basically from a general lack of sensitivity and understanding of their culture or history that we have of Europe.
Actually, you're missing a subtle point: I'm trying to persuade people by showing them how their opinions are built on a bad basis.
Let's go through the comparisons, though; Palin went to four different state-level colleges, and graduated with a degree in communications. She won Miss Congeniality, was a sports reporter and helped in a fishing business. She was a city council member in a town of 7k people, and then mayor for two terms. After that she chaired a single commission on Oil and Gas conservation for a year. Then she was governor for two years.
Obama, in contrast, went to Occidental and then Columbia University - both considered to be very good schools. He has a BA in poli-sci. He worked at Business Internation and NY Public Interest Research. He worked as a community organizer, but more to the point was a director and ramped the budget for the Developing Communities Project from 70k to 400k. He went to Harvard Law School, and was selected for the review based on his writing. He taught Constitutional Law and U of Chicago Law School and was a lawyer for many years. He then went on to be a state legislator for six years and US Senator for three. There is literally no phase of his life wherein his experience doesn't totally outstrip Palin's.
In fact, I'm not sure where this idea that he's inexperienced comes from? Sure, he hasn't been a politician as long as other people - but why is that a bad thing?
Lots of people run for president - even lots of people who lose the first time and then win, like Reagan. Biden has actually only run for president three times, and only two serious bids. He's been a Senator for over thirty years. You cannot just chalk that up to Delawares GOP being 'utterly hopeless'. I mean, you can, but there is no evidence supporting it. If you're going to go after Biden, make it for something that matters, like his shift on drug policy.
So, as it turns out, I cannot refute that you have an opinion, but I can refute that your opinion is worth taking as sound advisement. Note, too, that you're twisting words: you added "for their taste" to "Obama is too egotistical or too leftist". Those labels; 'egotistical' and 'leftist' are being applied by the right, and being applied as though they are objective truth - without supporting basis. By the same basis I can say "You're too tall." But I'm not supporting it with facts, and so it's objective reality is called into question. Will you trust the opinion I just stated? If you do so on any basis other than evidence, well, then don't pretend that you're doing so on a rational basis. By the same token, don't pretend that you or the right think Obama is objectively egotistical or leftist unless you're willing to front some evidence.
1. This is true... to a point. In the recent two decades we've seen a huge consolidation of power into the executive branch. This does, in many cases, include economic policy. For instance, a President can increase or decrease environmental regulations, thereby directly affecting industry.
2. While this is true, correlation does tell you something - if only that (in this case) the Democrats are good at making good on good policy. I'd love to see more widely distributed in-depth studies of the effects of specific policies, though.
3. The capital wasn't *that* desperately needed. More to the point, we're still utilizing infrastructure created in the New Deal - and that includes the private sector. The people who think the New Deal prolonged the Depression is a definite minority.
4. Everyone votes for their blind spots. ;)