Irrelevant, since the President of the United States is the single most visible and powerful politician in the world. The number of people gunning for him well outstrips the number of people who'd want to assassinate, say, the President of Guatemala. Naturally, the latter can get away with far less security.
Also, the article describing all these costs is making a faulty comparison. The British royals are ceremonial figureheads with virtually no executive power. Our President runs an entire branch of the government, and has vast responsibilities, which require a substantial staff to carry out. The comparison is completely nonsensical.
I don't doubt that we could probably trim the executive office's budget somewhat, but to suggest we could do it a couple orders of magnitude more cheaply than we do now? Come on.
No offense, but not all workplaces are run the same way, and there certainly are employers who will fire you for taking even one sick day. This doesn't generally happen to people on salary, but it does happen to people who are paid by the hour, especially in jobs where you are easy to replace (such as retail sales and food service.)
Then you were denied a clearance for an obvious lack of community ties. Stuff like that is important, because if you're going to be trusted with sensitive information, your superiors will want to be sure you have "something to lose," like your family and friends back home. If you are a non-entity with no clear motives and no attachments to other people, what's to stop you from selling everything you know to the highest bidder?
Would a "thorough, thoughtful" analysis really convince the GGP that s/he is wrong, or at least arguing a completely nonsensical point?
Without getting into a blow-by-blow, the "everybody dies someday so there's no in medicine" angle is a joke. I see it all the time, usually promoted by self-described small-government libertarians who believe it is a brilliant insight into the human fear of mortality. In reality, it's a lazy and thoughtless justification for antisocial behavior, not to mention hypocritical, given that I'm sure these individuals do go to the doctor once in a while, because it turns out they don't want to die of a simple infection or other eminently treatable affliction.
At what point is someone supposed to be accountable for believing in things that are just plain wrong? I get that emotions factor heavily into it, but that's not an acceptable excuse from someone who is elected and paid to make sensible, informed decisions about public policy. Check your emotions at the door, or abstain from voting on those issues. At the very least, your emotions had better be tempered by information, so you're voting based on facts and not just "gut feelings" or because you're upset.
When did embracing our base instincts and engaging in intellectual laziness become virtues?
Sounds about right. Using the extremely exceptional cases of guys like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg to make the point just shows how absurd it is. Those guys are the absolute rarity, not even one in a million but more like one in a billion.
Another comment said this was a bit like appealing to black kids in the inner city to not worry about school because they can get rich playing for the NBA. Sure, a lucky handful will get to do that, but what about the rest?
The ultimate problem is that a college degree used to be a differentiator, and now it's virtually a requirement. So, people go on to get their master's so they can differentiate again, but that's becoming the standard in a lot of fields, too. What's next, requiring a PhD just to get your foot in the door? A workforce of heavily-indebted PhDs is in no way sustainable, for a whole host of reasons.
The sooner this "everyone needs a degree" expectation collapses, the better, for everyone.
It's not supposed to be job training, but ask most people why they are in college, and what will they tell you? "I want to get a good job." You describe a college education as an end in itself--becoming an educated, critically-thinking individual. But the vast majority of those attending college view it as only a means to the end of finding a steady job.
I spent three years in college and was quite enjoying myself. I wanted to get a good job, but I also thoroughly enjoyed the learning experience. Unfortunately, tuition was increasing rapidly from year to year, and despite working three jobs and getting student loans, I simply did not have enough to continue paying my way. I dropped out. One of my jobs became a full-time opportunity, which let me gain the experience to be where I am today.
At this point in my career, I can do without the degree, although I know I should probably get an MBA or something of that nature (which I know means finishing my BS, too.) I know it "should" be for the purposes of my own education, but ultimately I'll need it in order to advance to the next rung in a corporate environment.
This is all assuming I don't end up in a good position to be my own boss, which is another objective. I'm trying to hedge and either be a manager or running my own business by 40, and basically developing both paths as I go so I can jump to whichever looks like the better bet at that point.
If you believe science leads to facts or to truth - the real truth if you will - then you are making assumptions for which you have no proof.
That is not the purpose of science. The purpose of science is to improve our understanding of the universe and how it works. The ultimate truth about how everything works is likely to be unknowable, always limited by the tools available to us and our ability to mentally grasp and understand them. However, it does produce a clearer and clearer picture over time. Sometimes it is wrong, and we later learn better. It is not perfect, but it is the best method we have for exploring and understanding our universe.
First, you assume that there is no intelligent guiding hand who happens to choose to make things behave in a mathematically coherent way most of the time (but who may change things a bit when a point needs to be made).
Science does not assume this, it simply fails to a) find evidence of such an "intelligent guiding hand" and b) has encountered no situations which require an "intelligent guiding hand" to explain them.
You're assuming that your brain is functioning properly and that you're sense of logic is correct - that If a implies b and b implies c, that a does imply c.
Which is why science is not advanced by the conclusions of any one scientist, but of many who work independently and review each other's work. It is a group effort, never relying solely on the research or conclusions of any one individual, who may have taken a flawed approach.
Perhaps it does, or perhaps you believe it so fervently that anytime something contradicts it you refuse to see it and come up with some other excuse. Perhaps the logic of the universe is incredibly simple and the only reason we keep having to invent new smaller particles and weird forms of matter is that our brains have a fundamental flaw that doesn't let us see the logic. Of course, none of these other ideas can be proven, but neither can your idea that science reveals the real truth.
There is no evidence that this is the case. You are essentially implying that your "intelligent guiding hand" deliberately plays tricks on all of us. If it does, it does so in a completely consistent manner, which means the science is still valid. But such an agent is not required in our explanation.
Instead we find that science seems to work for us so we use it, and it has been very reliable. That's good enough to make it part of our curriculum. That's good enough for us to trust our lives to it when we get surgery or fly through the sky at Mach 1. But we go too far if we declare that science is therefor the only truth. Looking at it logically, we just can't be sure. So people who try to push science are fine, but people who try to push science to the exclusion of everything else are indeed promoting a religious belief.
"Knowledge" and "truth" are not the same thing, nor did I equate them. That was all you.
As I like to say, science tells us the "how," but does not care about the "why." The "why" is left for philosophy and religion. Where the latter overstep their bounds is in saying science is wrong because it contradicts them.
Science is the process by which we expand and refine our knowledge. It is not a system of belief. The debate has been framed in such a way that you have two sets of beliefs--science and religion--and they are in conflict, but on equal ground. Applied more broadly, this is an illustration of "my opinions are just as good as your facts." It comes from people who fundamentally misunderstand what science is and how it works.
Only on Slashdot could an effort to raise money for worthy charities be construed as "compromis[ing] the brand in a significant way." HIB doesn't need to rehabilitate their image, nor "save" it. Their image is just fine.
Your entire letter just reads like bile against THQ and major video game publishers for not supporting Linux/Mac and for using DRM. You have every right not to like them for those reasons, but to smear HIB as guilty by association when the goal is to raise money for charity makes you sound like a hopeless elitist.
And who is this "we" you refer to? You certainly don't represent me.
I have no strong feelings about THQ one way or the other, but I understand they are in a very bad way financially, and no doubt that is a result of their own poor management. That does not, however, diminish their efforts here. They (and HIB) are doing something good, which should be rewarded, so they will do more good things. Seeking to punish THQ for their past or present misdeeds is pointless--they're already being "punished" by the market. Praise and reward when people do a good thing. Chastise and punish when they do a bad thing. Don't chastise someone who has a history of doing bad things at the moment when they do a good thing. All that does is convince them they shouldn't bother even trying to do good things, because no one will appreciate it.
It's as though you have no idea how behavior works.
Yeah, I'm not bothered so much by Steam's DRM because, rather than provide an impediment to my ability to enjoy games, it adds a lot of conveniences like automatic updates, the ability to download and play on any PC, and no need for optical media (a big one with me.) I am bothered when there is DRM on top of the Steam DRM, though, such as Games For Windows Live! and games that come with their own DRM-infested launchers/updaters.
In any case, I bought this last night since I didn't have any of the games in the bundle, and it's not a bad collection, certainly not for the price you pay.
Yup. If there's only one line going in or out of the country, it's easy to sever that and cut it off completely. Same if you have only two, or three, or ten.
Well, what if you have hundreds, or thousands? Good luck shutting all those down!
(Of course, you can also ruin things by polluting DNS and BGP.)
Drupal's a good choice, if you've got the hardware to run it. But it is probably the most flexible system out there for this sort of thing, short of writing your own from scratch.
This is why I got the base model for my new car (2012 Kia Soul.)
Its dash features:
* Bluetooth phone pairing * CD player that also plays MP3 CDs * USB port to attach an iPod or thumb drive, from which the stereo can read MP3s (from a thumb drive) or control the iPod
That's basically it, and using technologies that have been around a while and should persist for many years more. I suppose if there's a future revision of Bluetooth that doesn't degrade gracefully to a previous standard, I may eventually be unable to pair my phone, but then I wasn't able to do that with my last car, either (a 1992 Chevy.)
Facebook isn't coming into your house, raiding your fridge, going over your credit report, reading your medical records, monitoring your driving habits, etc. etc. etc.
Facebook only knows what you tell it, with the exception of people who take photos of and tag you without permission. The solution to that is, of course, not to associate with people who don't understand how to ask permission or give basic courtesy.
I'm not a big fan of Facebook by any stretch, but all this fearmongering about it is just absurd.
I live in New Jersey and have seen these, as well. I've also seen them in the Columbus, Ohio area. I like them. It saves me the trouble of watching that light half a mile ahead, wondering if it's going to suddenly flip yellow and I have to make that snap judgment about whether to hit the brakes. When it's flashing to tell me the light will be going red soon, I let off the gas and just prepare to brake toward the light once I get closer.
I've not seen too many people try to gun through, though there are those who will do it regardless.
Wow. I am going to have to buy Planescape: Torment from GoG, then. I have a two-disc version I bought for $10 years ago, and I could never get it to work to the extent of bypassing the disc checks--and I never like to carry CDs around. I want everything installed to the hard drive.
It's a good enough game I'll happy buy it again just so I can play it the way I want.
Bingo! "My organization uses a bunch of home-grown ad hoc'd garbage that isn't versioned or managed by anyone sane or competent" isn't a problem with installers, it's a problem with having a deeply dysfunctional organization. There is no software that's gonna fix that problem, and it's not because packaging/distribution software is lacking in some functionality.
If you have to install it by hand, why? What are the steps? Why can't those steps be automated? Why can't those dependencies also be automated? What, you can't edit XML files,.ini files, or registry settings on the fly? Why not?
Slashdot Mirror
Irrelevant, since the President of the United States is the single most visible and powerful politician in the world. The number of people gunning for him well outstrips the number of people who'd want to assassinate, say, the President of Guatemala. Naturally, the latter can get away with far less security.
Also, the article describing all these costs is making a faulty comparison. The British royals are ceremonial figureheads with virtually no executive power. Our President runs an entire branch of the government, and has vast responsibilities, which require a substantial staff to carry out. The comparison is completely nonsensical.
I don't doubt that we could probably trim the executive office's budget somewhat, but to suggest we could do it a couple orders of magnitude more cheaply than we do now? Come on.
I've been at companies going in both directions. One went from split vacation/sick to PTO, another went from PTO to split vacation/sick.
The first made the switch they did to simplify timekeeping, mostly. The second made the switch because people had a habit of coming to work sick.
People are at least taking their sick days now and not coming in when they're coughing and sneezing everywhere.
4. Playing the latest Call of Duty that just came out yesterday.
(I have friends who do this. I think it's absurd to take time off work to play video games, personally.)
Yup. I have worked at companies with both systems, and there are tradeoffs either way, for the reasons you describe.
No offense, but not all workplaces are run the same way, and there certainly are employers who will fire you for taking even one sick day. This doesn't generally happen to people on salary, but it does happen to people who are paid by the hour, especially in jobs where you are easy to replace (such as retail sales and food service.)
Then you were denied a clearance for an obvious lack of community ties. Stuff like that is important, because if you're going to be trusted with sensitive information, your superiors will want to be sure you have "something to lose," like your family and friends back home. If you are a non-entity with no clear motives and no attachments to other people, what's to stop you from selling everything you know to the highest bidder?
Would a "thorough, thoughtful" analysis really convince the GGP that s/he is wrong, or at least arguing a completely nonsensical point?
Without getting into a blow-by-blow, the "everybody dies someday so there's no in medicine" angle is a joke. I see it all the time, usually promoted by self-described small-government libertarians who believe it is a brilliant insight into the human fear of mortality. In reality, it's a lazy and thoughtless justification for antisocial behavior, not to mention hypocritical, given that I'm sure these individuals do go to the doctor once in a while, because it turns out they don't want to die of a simple infection or other eminently treatable affliction.
At what point is someone supposed to be accountable for believing in things that are just plain wrong? I get that emotions factor heavily into it, but that's not an acceptable excuse from someone who is elected and paid to make sensible, informed decisions about public policy. Check your emotions at the door, or abstain from voting on those issues. At the very least, your emotions had better be tempered by information, so you're voting based on facts and not just "gut feelings" or because you're upset.
When did embracing our base instincts and engaging in intellectual laziness become virtues?
Yeah, but.... FREEEEEEEDOM!
False dichotomy after false dichotomy. Go pick up some rhetorical skills and then get back to us, champ.
Sounds about right. Using the extremely exceptional cases of guys like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg to make the point just shows how absurd it is. Those guys are the absolute rarity, not even one in a million but more like one in a billion.
Another comment said this was a bit like appealing to black kids in the inner city to not worry about school because they can get rich playing for the NBA. Sure, a lucky handful will get to do that, but what about the rest?
The ultimate problem is that a college degree used to be a differentiator, and now it's virtually a requirement. So, people go on to get their master's so they can differentiate again, but that's becoming the standard in a lot of fields, too. What's next, requiring a PhD just to get your foot in the door? A workforce of heavily-indebted PhDs is in no way sustainable, for a whole host of reasons.
The sooner this "everyone needs a degree" expectation collapses, the better, for everyone.
It's not supposed to be job training, but ask most people why they are in college, and what will they tell you? "I want to get a good job." You describe a college education as an end in itself--becoming an educated, critically-thinking individual. But the vast majority of those attending college view it as only a means to the end of finding a steady job.
I spent three years in college and was quite enjoying myself. I wanted to get a good job, but I also thoroughly enjoyed the learning experience. Unfortunately, tuition was increasing rapidly from year to year, and despite working three jobs and getting student loans, I simply did not have enough to continue paying my way. I dropped out. One of my jobs became a full-time opportunity, which let me gain the experience to be where I am today.
At this point in my career, I can do without the degree, although I know I should probably get an MBA or something of that nature (which I know means finishing my BS, too.) I know it "should" be for the purposes of my own education, but ultimately I'll need it in order to advance to the next rung in a corporate environment.
This is all assuming I don't end up in a good position to be my own boss, which is another objective. I'm trying to hedge and either be a manager or running my own business by 40, and basically developing both paths as I go so I can jump to whichever looks like the better bet at that point.
Well, if the VPS is being paid for in a way that's traceable back to you, I suspect you would be just as easy to arrest and prosecute.
If you believe science leads to facts or to truth - the real truth if you will - then you are making assumptions for which you have no proof.
That is not the purpose of science. The purpose of science is to improve our understanding of the universe and how it works. The ultimate truth about how everything works is likely to be unknowable, always limited by the tools available to us and our ability to mentally grasp and understand them. However, it does produce a clearer and clearer picture over time. Sometimes it is wrong, and we later learn better. It is not perfect, but it is the best method we have for exploring and understanding our universe.
First, you assume that there is no intelligent guiding hand who happens to choose to make things behave in a mathematically coherent way most of the time (but who may change things a bit when a point needs to be made).
Science does not assume this, it simply fails to a) find evidence of such an "intelligent guiding hand" and b) has encountered no situations which require an "intelligent guiding hand" to explain them.
You're assuming that your brain is functioning properly and that you're sense of logic is correct - that If a implies b and b implies c, that a does imply c.
Which is why science is not advanced by the conclusions of any one scientist, but of many who work independently and review each other's work. It is a group effort, never relying solely on the research or conclusions of any one individual, who may have taken a flawed approach.
Perhaps it does, or perhaps you believe it so fervently that anytime something contradicts it you refuse to see it and come up with some other excuse. Perhaps the logic of the universe is incredibly simple and the only reason we keep having to invent new smaller particles and weird forms of matter is that our brains have a fundamental flaw that doesn't let us see the logic. Of course, none of these other ideas can be proven, but neither can your idea that science reveals the real truth.
There is no evidence that this is the case. You are essentially implying that your "intelligent guiding hand" deliberately plays tricks on all of us. If it does, it does so in a completely consistent manner, which means the science is still valid. But such an agent is not required in our explanation.
Instead we find that science seems to work for us so we use it, and it has been very reliable. That's good enough to make it part of our curriculum. That's good enough for us to trust our lives to it when we get surgery or fly through the sky at Mach 1. But we go too far if we declare that science is therefor the only truth. Looking at it logically, we just can't be sure. So people who try to push science are fine, but people who try to push science to the exclusion of everything else are indeed promoting a religious belief.
"Knowledge" and "truth" are not the same thing, nor did I equate them. That was all you.
As I like to say, science tells us the "how," but does not care about the "why." The "why" is left for philosophy and religion. Where the latter overstep their bounds is in saying science is wrong because it contradicts them.
That is a great summary of the basic issue.
Science is the process by which we expand and refine our knowledge. It is not a system of belief. The debate has been framed in such a way that you have two sets of beliefs--science and religion--and they are in conflict, but on equal ground. Applied more broadly, this is an illustration of "my opinions are just as good as your facts." It comes from people who fundamentally misunderstand what science is and how it works.
What arrogance!
Only on Slashdot could an effort to raise money for worthy charities be construed as "compromis[ing] the brand in a significant way." HIB doesn't need to rehabilitate their image, nor "save" it. Their image is just fine.
Your entire letter just reads like bile against THQ and major video game publishers for not supporting Linux/Mac and for using DRM. You have every right not to like them for those reasons, but to smear HIB as guilty by association when the goal is to raise money for charity makes you sound like a hopeless elitist.
And who is this "we" you refer to? You certainly don't represent me.
I have no strong feelings about THQ one way or the other, but I understand they are in a very bad way financially, and no doubt that is a result of their own poor management. That does not, however, diminish their efforts here. They (and HIB) are doing something good, which should be rewarded, so they will do more good things. Seeking to punish THQ for their past or present misdeeds is pointless--they're already being "punished" by the market. Praise and reward when people do a good thing. Chastise and punish when they do a bad thing. Don't chastise someone who has a history of doing bad things at the moment when they do a good thing. All that does is convince them they shouldn't bother even trying to do good things, because no one will appreciate it.
It's as though you have no idea how behavior works.
Yeah, I'm not bothered so much by Steam's DRM because, rather than provide an impediment to my ability to enjoy games, it adds a lot of conveniences like automatic updates, the ability to download and play on any PC, and no need for optical media (a big one with me.) I am bothered when there is DRM on top of the Steam DRM, though, such as Games For Windows Live! and games that come with their own DRM-infested launchers/updaters.
In any case, I bought this last night since I didn't have any of the games in the bundle, and it's not a bad collection, certainly not for the price you pay.
Yup. If there's only one line going in or out of the country, it's easy to sever that and cut it off completely. Same if you have only two, or three, or ten.
Well, what if you have hundreds, or thousands? Good luck shutting all those down!
(Of course, you can also ruin things by polluting DNS and BGP.)
Drupal's a good choice, if you've got the hardware to run it. But it is probably the most flexible system out there for this sort of thing, short of writing your own from scratch.
This is why I got the base model for my new car (2012 Kia Soul.)
Its dash features:
* Bluetooth phone pairing
* CD player that also plays MP3 CDs
* USB port to attach an iPod or thumb drive, from which the stereo can read MP3s (from a thumb drive) or control the iPod
That's basically it, and using technologies that have been around a while and should persist for many years more. I suppose if there's a future revision of Bluetooth that doesn't degrade gracefully to a previous standard, I may eventually be unable to pair my phone, but then I wasn't able to do that with my last car, either (a 1992 Chevy.)
Why does shit like this get modded up?
Facebook isn't coming into your house, raiding your fridge, going over your credit report, reading your medical records, monitoring your driving habits, etc. etc. etc.
Facebook only knows what you tell it, with the exception of people who take photos of and tag you without permission. The solution to that is, of course, not to associate with people who don't understand how to ask permission or give basic courtesy.
I'm not a big fan of Facebook by any stretch, but all this fearmongering about it is just absurd.
When did you last use Linux, 10 years ago??
I live in New Jersey and have seen these, as well. I've also seen them in the Columbus, Ohio area. I like them. It saves me the trouble of watching that light half a mile ahead, wondering if it's going to suddenly flip yellow and I have to make that snap judgment about whether to hit the brakes. When it's flashing to tell me the light will be going red soon, I let off the gas and just prepare to brake toward the light once I get closer.
I've not seen too many people try to gun through, though there are those who will do it regardless.
On the whole, I think they're a good idea.
Wow. I am going to have to buy Planescape: Torment from GoG, then. I have a two-disc version I bought for $10 years ago, and I could never get it to work to the extent of bypassing the disc checks--and I never like to carry CDs around. I want everything installed to the hard drive.
It's a good enough game I'll happy buy it again just so I can play it the way I want.
Bingo! "My organization uses a bunch of home-grown ad hoc'd garbage that isn't versioned or managed by anyone sane or competent" isn't a problem with installers, it's a problem with having a deeply dysfunctional organization. There is no software that's gonna fix that problem, and it's not because packaging/distribution software is lacking in some functionality.
If you have to install it by hand, why? What are the steps? Why can't those steps be automated? Why can't those dependencies also be automated? What, you can't edit XML files, .ini files, or registry settings on the fly? Why not?