We're not being scared like children every other day by orange alert levels.
Unless you're flying...
March 15, 2010
The United States government's national threat level is Elevated, or Yellow. For all domestic and international flights, the U.S. threat level is High, or Orange.
Economic growth and stable governments providing strong social safety nets are population control. Not of the mandatory, authoritarian kind, but there the one thing that has consistently led to declining family sizes in human history, because they are the things that stop people from investing in creating children as a form of old-age support.
So, do you believe the U.S. has strong social safety nets, or is it time to go screw my way to retirement? I'm thinking there might be more to "Big Love" than meets the eye.
When you've been told by authorities that:
1. Eggs are bad for you...oh, nevermind
2. The world is flat...oh, nevermind
3. Iraq has WMD...oh, nevermind
4. Peptic ulcers are caused by stress and spicy food...oh nevermind. There are countless other examples.
So when I hear arguements on both sides, I'm just looking for someone to show me evidence that the average Joe can understand (hey, Steven Hawking explained relativity to me, surely someone can do a decent job on GW). I'm sick of fanatics on both sides, and I'm not gonna believe something just because some "authority" says so...show me evidence, or shut the hell up.
The tactic used by Lomborg (quote mining) is the definitive modus operandi of a denialist. It is the bread and butter of Creationists, and for the person employing it, it is a strong indicator of either severe cognitive dissonance or outright lying.
The tactic of linking one issue and a nonrelated issue, and trying to make a connection that doesn't exist is either severe cognitive dissonance or outright lying.
I think the real question should be, how much should a paid subscription cost?
...not necessarily directed at the NYTimes Until they start publishing unopinionated news, I'd suggest free. I can get all the talking heads, left and right, on the Sunday morning shows for that price now.
rant... I'm tired of the constant bias, and the bullshit entertainment "news". Seriously, if I wanted to see that, I'd tune into the entertainment channel...sorry, I don't give a shit about Tiger Woods flings, or any such nonsense. Give us the real news, and put it into the proper perspective instead of hyping everything. Haven't heard much about bird flu (263 deaths), SARS (774 deaths), or swine flu (14,286 deaths) lately, have we? They all got the big scary "pandemic" word attached to them. Now, I don't want to marginalize anyone's lost relatives here, only put it in perspective. According to wikipedia, 1,200,000 people died in car accidents in 2004...nearly 84 times the fatalities resulting from the worst "pandemic". Hell, we lose over 500,000 to cancer every year in the U.S. Should people go get their shots?...certainly, but let's not cause a god damn panic. The systemic problem with the media these days, is that they're all more concerned with their advertising revenue than they are with doing their jobs. Off my soapbox
Ok, I'm going to have to look at my policy, but I'm fairly certain that even if I left the front door wide open, and was robbed, that the insurance company would be liable to pick up the expenses minus my deductable. y experts out there?
Regarding some earlier comments... I know people are exposing themselves (don't twist those words) to anyone who cares to follow their breadcrumb trail. But there are plenty of homes with alarm systems, big dogs, and other inhabitants. I'm fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood where anyone casing the place long enough to find a pattern would likely have already had their license number, turned in to the local police...the neighbors watch out for each other, and let each other know when we're away for longer periods.
I think the real reason is simple. People older than me (almost 40) are likely to be mainframe programmers. Back then, there weren't a lot of computers. So there weren't a lot of programmers. The office where I work now is filled with people around 40yo doing c++/unix. Come back in about 10 or 20 years, and you'll see a lot of older programmers.
51 here, and I was working on minis (DG Nova was my first) back in the late 70s. The majority of us have moved to management or SE positions. Recent layoffs I've seen have all been targeting older developers. I'm surprised they haven't resulted in more age discrimination suits.
I.T.'s loss is the rest of the world's gain. The less time people spend fucking around with irrelevant I.T. wheels the more time spent on the real problems and solutions of the world.
I'm so sick of IT management thinking that everyone must have the same shit. You'd think they were the only people who know squat about computers.
I work in an engineering group (and have been since before anyone knew what "IT" was). We have to ask IT "pretty please" for things that we used to be able to build/buy/design/do ourselves. So then we get to fill out the forms, and wait for the outsourced people to arrive...oh, you want it when?
Making everyone use the same products may keep it easier for IT, but it keeps everyone else from innovating.
Anyone who finds a girlfriend through the internet is a fucking loser.
In the mid '90s, I was a single dad (my kid was 3 yrs old) who had just moved to an area where I had no family, and only a couple of folks that I knew as coworkers. Not wanting to date coworkers (nearly always a recipe for disaster), and the inability to meet women in most of the traditional manners, I turned to online dating. Nearly all of those (carefully screened) dates went well, with the exception of one gal who completely misrepresented herself. I met my wife in '99, and we've been togeather ever since.
The "Insightful" parent's stats are not reflected in the link that he provided. Here's quoting directly from Wiki:
"The 2006 American Community Survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau found that 19.5 percent of the population had attended college but had no degree, 7.4 percent held an associate's degree, 17.1 percent held a bachelor's degree, and 9.9 percent held a graduate or professional degree."
You'll have to take the time of year in to consideration as well. Some locations have tax holidays for things like back to school sales...Virginia is an example of that.
The reason why they have so many servers is because Facebook contains so much data. The servers are there for a reason, and the reason is.....KAH-CHING.
Fixed that last word for ya.
Re:Speaking for myself as a Swedish brick driver,
on
A Requiem For Saab
·
· Score: 1
My own anecdotal evidence was the purchase of a new 1988 Saab 900 SPG (special performance group)...obviously prior to the GM purchase. In the two years I owned the car, the problems (below) I had made me eliminate Saab from any future purchase. You claim the Americans screw things up, but how come the quality surveys are all showing the European vehicles at the bottom of the barrel now? I know we could argue about who owns the companies, and that BMW & Mercedes are making vehicles in the US, but seriously your point about America is ignorant, and hardly "Insightful"
1. The vehicle came with Pirelli P6 tires. Don't even dream of driving on snow in these...they sucked in the rain too. The car (with front wheel drive) couldn't climb any kind of incline on snow. I swapped those tires for all weather Goodyear Eagles, and never had trouble again.
2. One year after the purchase, while passing another vehicle on a two lane road, the transmission locked up completely as I shifted from 3-4. Saab claimed that they would cover it, but in the end charged me $4500 (in '89 dollars)...the European warranty (I lived in Germany at the time) was only good for one year, and I was just past that....fuckers.
3. I owned the vehicle for another year, and had the driver's window get stuck in the down position, as well as the driver's side windshield wiper mechanism break.
Right now studios don't care much about game degrees...
...because they can outsource to cheap third world sweatshop programmers that you simply can not compete with. Have you actually looked at any available gaming positions? Go to EA's job site now, and you can see that while many positions mention a degree, it's not a requirement.
You're deluding yourself if you believe that any major gaming company's HR will require a gaming degree. And as for people making all their mistakes in school before getting a job, well, as a software manager I can guarantee that you have no clue. I've hired plenty of new grads, and they're great, but always need additional training, and experience. School is about getting the basics, becoming a well rounded adult, and maturing.
99.99% of the people who claim they can "tell the difference" are full of shit
Wish I had mod points. I always get a good laugh out of folks spending tons of cash on high end gear that they can barely afford, and claiming to be audiophiles. Mostly, they're elitist wannabes, and couldn't differentiate if given a blind test.
I admit to falling into this moneypit years ago, and have long since lost most of my high freq hearing due to age, loud music, and Cessna aircraft (cockpits are loud).
Or... you could just wait for Bin Laden to get old and die. Problem solved.
If you believe that Bin Laden's death would solve the problem, you're delusional. Knocking off a figurehead isn't going to bring the organization to it's knees. Oh wait, don't we have peace in Lebanon now that the PLO is gone and Arafat dead, right? Iran isn't a threat now that Ayatollah Khomeini is dead, right? How about North Korea with Kim Il-sung dead...damn, it's Kim Jong-il now.
$200K for the decades of training and experience to know what to do when one of the world's more complicated machines breaks, a mile in the air, with 200 souls on board. "Overpaid"? What a jackass.
Getting your commercial license does not take "decades of training", or even years (see below). It's not nearly as complicated as you may think, and the pilots don't have to learn how every little thing is engineered. You can personally learn to take off and fly around in one easy lesson (I have about 140 hours that I logged years ago), and solo between in around 10-20 hours. What does take longer is learning about airspace, weather, emergency procedures, navigation, regulations, etc., etc. For the vast majority of flights, it's as simple as a bus ride. The training pays off when the unusual happens, and you know what to do.
Most engineers have as much if not more training than the average airline pilot, so IMHO $200k is way out of line. I know their compensation is a complicated topic...seniority is lost if you change airlines, or it goes bankrupt. But the airline industry as a whole has issues...why can you buy a $99 ticket x-country, but one to the next state costs $400? The colusion between airlines for ticket pricing is scandalous as well.
From FAR 61.129:
For an airplane multi engine rating:
If you are applying for a commercial pilot certificate with an airplane category and multi engine class rating, you must log at least 250 hours of flight time as a pilot (of which 50 hours, or in accordance with FAA Part 142, a maximum of 100 hours may have been accomplished in an approved flight simulator or approved flight training device that represents a multi engine airplane) that consists of at least:
100 hours in powered aircraft, of which 50 hours must be in airplanes. 100 hours of pilot in command flight time, which includes at least 50 hours in airplanes, and 50 hours in cross-country flight in airplanes. 20 hours of training on the areas of operation as listed for this rating, that includes at least 10 hours of instrument training of which at least 5 hours must be in a multi engine airplane, 10 hours of training in a multi engine airplane that has a retractable landing gear, flaps, and controllable pitch propellers, or is turbine-powered, one cross-country flight of at least 2 hours in a multi engine airplane in day VFR conditions, consisting of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure, one cross-country flight of at least 2 hours in a multi engine airplane in night VFR conditions, consisting of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure. 10 hours of flight time performing the duties of a pilot in command in a multi engine airplane with an authorized instructor on the areas of operation as listed for this rating, which includes at least one cross-country flight of not less than 300 nautical miles total distance and as specified, and 5 hours in night VFR conditions with 10 takeoffs and 10 landings (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport with an operating control tower.
"If a civilization is so fucking retarded that it worships an invisible man in the sky, then one can't really take their prediction of the end of the world seriously, don't you think?"
This is insightful? The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other. There are plenty of people who are experts in one field, and complete morons in another (or every other). Just because they had a culture that had a faith that you find ignorant, doesn't make them "fucking retarded".
Now, all that said, I personally have zero belief in any of this.
Wonder if this thing could be adapted to drivers? "Sorry, but you're too stressed to drive...initiating vehicle shutdown in 30 seconds"
Seriously though, I've read through all the +3 posts, and all I see is a bunch of arguing about the legitamacy of day trading. Come on, this is supposed to be News for Nerds...is the device cool, or is it crap?
Slashdot Mirror
We're not being scared like children every other day by orange alert levels.
Unless you're flying...
March 15, 2010
The United States government's national threat level is Elevated, or Yellow.
For all domestic and international flights, the U.S. threat level is High, or Orange.
Economic growth and stable governments providing strong social safety nets are population control. Not of the mandatory, authoritarian kind, but there the one thing that has consistently led to declining family sizes in human history, because they are the things that stop people from investing in creating children as a form of old-age support.
So, do you believe the U.S. has strong social safety nets, or is it time to go screw my way to retirement? I'm thinking there might be more to "Big Love" than meets the eye.
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Taliban+&word2=Amish
When you've been told by authorities that:
1. Eggs are bad for you...oh, nevermind
2. The world is flat...oh, nevermind
3. Iraq has WMD...oh, nevermind
4. Peptic ulcers are caused by stress and spicy food...oh nevermind.
There are countless other examples.
So when I hear arguements on both sides, I'm just looking for someone to show me evidence that the average Joe can understand (hey, Steven Hawking explained relativity to me, surely someone can do a decent job on GW). I'm sick of fanatics on both sides, and I'm not gonna believe something just because some "authority" says so...show me evidence, or shut the hell up.
The tactic used by Lomborg (quote mining) is the definitive modus operandi of a denialist. It is the bread and butter of Creationists, and for the person employing it, it is a strong indicator of either severe cognitive dissonance or outright lying.
The tactic of linking one issue and a nonrelated issue, and trying to make a connection that doesn't exist is either severe cognitive dissonance or outright lying.
http://bestuff.com/images/images_of_stuff/210x600/mike-n-ikes-12314.jpg
I think the real question should be, how much should a paid subscription cost?
...not necessarily directed at the NYTimes
Until they start publishing unopinionated news, I'd suggest free. I can get all the talking heads, left and right, on the Sunday morning shows for that price now.
rant...
I'm tired of the constant bias, and the bullshit entertainment "news". Seriously, if I wanted to see that, I'd tune into the entertainment channel...sorry, I don't give a shit about Tiger Woods flings, or any such nonsense. Give us the real news, and put it into the proper perspective instead of hyping everything. Haven't heard much about bird flu (263 deaths), SARS (774 deaths), or swine flu (14,286 deaths) lately, have we? They all got the big scary "pandemic" word attached to them. Now, I don't want to marginalize anyone's lost relatives here, only put it in perspective. According to wikipedia, 1,200,000 people died in car accidents in 2004...nearly 84 times the fatalities resulting from the worst "pandemic". Hell, we lose over 500,000 to cancer every year in the U.S. Should people go get their shots?...certainly, but let's not cause a god damn panic. The systemic problem with the media these days, is that they're all more concerned with their advertising revenue than they are with doing their jobs.
Off my soapbox
Ok, I'm going to have to look at my policy, but I'm fairly certain that even if I left the front door wide open, and was robbed, that the insurance company would be liable to pick up the expenses minus my deductable. y experts out there?
Regarding some earlier comments...
I know people are exposing themselves (don't twist those words) to anyone who cares to follow their breadcrumb trail. But there are plenty of homes with alarm systems, big dogs, and other inhabitants. I'm fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood where anyone casing the place long enough to find a pattern would likely have already had their license number, turned in to the local police...the neighbors watch out for each other, and let each other know when we're away for longer periods.
I think the real reason is simple. People older than me (almost 40) are likely to be mainframe programmers. Back then, there weren't a lot of computers. So there weren't a lot of programmers. The office where I work now is filled with people around 40yo doing c++/unix. Come back in about 10 or 20 years, and you'll see a lot of older programmers.
51 here, and I was working on minis (DG Nova was my first) back in the late 70s. The majority of us have moved to management or SE positions. Recent layoffs I've seen have all been targeting older developers. I'm surprised they haven't resulted in more age discrimination suits.
I.T.'s loss is the rest of the world's gain. The less time people spend fucking around with irrelevant I.T. wheels the more time spent on the real problems and solutions of the world.
I'm so sick of IT management thinking that everyone must have the same shit. You'd think they were the only people who know squat about computers.
I work in an engineering group (and have been since before anyone knew what "IT" was). We have to ask IT "pretty please" for things that we used to be able to build/buy/design/do ourselves. So then we get to fill out the forms, and wait for the outsourced people to arrive...oh, you want it when?
Making everyone use the same products may keep it easier for IT, but it keeps everyone else from innovating.
Anyone who finds a girlfriend through the internet is a fucking loser.
In the mid '90s, I was a single dad (my kid was 3 yrs old) who had just moved to an area where I had no family, and only a couple of folks that I knew as coworkers. Not wanting to date coworkers (nearly always a recipe for disaster), and the inability to meet women in most of the traditional manners, I turned to online dating. Nearly all of those (carefully screened) dates went well, with the exception of one gal who completely misrepresented herself. I met my wife in '99, and we've been togeather ever since.
Color me a "fucking loser".
The "Insightful" parent's stats are not reflected in the link that he provided. Here's quoting directly from Wiki:
"The 2006 American Community Survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau found that 19.5 percent of the population had attended college but had no degree, 7.4 percent held an associate's degree, 17.1 percent held a bachelor's degree, and 9.9 percent held a graduate or professional degree."
...be able to see it from her front porch?
You'll have to take the time of year in to consideration as well. Some locations have tax holidays for things like back to school sales...Virginia is an example of that.
Good luck
The reason why they have so many servers is because Facebook contains so much data. The servers are there for a reason, and the reason is.....KAH-CHING.
Fixed that last word for ya.
My own anecdotal evidence was the purchase of a new 1988 Saab 900 SPG (special performance group)...obviously prior to the GM purchase. In the two years I owned the car, the problems (below) I had made me eliminate Saab from any future purchase. You claim the Americans screw things up, but how come the quality surveys are all showing the European vehicles at the bottom of the barrel now? I know we could argue about who owns the companies, and that BMW & Mercedes are making vehicles in the US, but seriously your point about America is ignorant, and hardly "Insightful"
1. The vehicle came with Pirelli P6 tires. Don't even dream of driving on snow in these...they sucked in the rain too. The car (with front wheel drive) couldn't climb any kind of incline on snow. I swapped those tires for all weather Goodyear Eagles, and never had trouble again.
2. One year after the purchase, while passing another vehicle on a two lane road, the transmission locked up completely as I shifted from 3-4. Saab claimed that they would cover it, but in the end charged me $4500 (in '89 dollars)...the European warranty (I lived in Germany at the time) was only good for one year, and I was just past that....fuckers.
3. I owned the vehicle for another year, and had the driver's window get stuck in the down position, as well as the driver's side windshield wiper mechanism break.
Right now studios don't care much about game degrees...
...because they can outsource to cheap third world sweatshop programmers that you simply can not compete with. Have you actually looked at any available gaming positions? Go to EA's job site now, and you can see that while many positions mention a degree, it's not a requirement.
You're deluding yourself if you believe that any major gaming company's HR will require a gaming degree. And as for people making all their mistakes in school before getting a job, well, as a software manager I can guarantee that you have no clue. I've hired plenty of new grads, and they're great, but always need additional training, and experience. School is about getting the basics, becoming a well rounded adult, and maturing.
99.99% of the people who claim they can "tell the difference" are full of shit
Wish I had mod points. I always get a good laugh out of folks spending tons of cash on high end gear that they can barely afford, and claiming to be audiophiles. Mostly, they're elitist wannabes, and couldn't differentiate if given a blind test.
I admit to falling into this moneypit years ago, and have long since lost most of my high freq hearing due to age, loud music, and Cessna aircraft (cockpits are loud).
Some of us had to work a LOT harder to get out "peace of paper" and in the process honed and sharpened our mental skills.
And some of you should ask for a refund. Sorry, I couldn't resist after the comment about sharpening your skills.
It's actually hugely popular in Easter Europe
Did the Vatican take over?
Data is available from USGS online regarding the Aquifers. This one http://pubs.usgs.gov/ha/ha730/ch_c/jpeg/C011.jpeg might be helpful to you.
Or... you could just wait for Bin Laden to get old and die. Problem solved.
If you believe that Bin Laden's death would solve the problem, you're delusional. Knocking off a figurehead isn't going to bring the organization to it's knees. Oh wait, don't we have peace in Lebanon now that the PLO is gone and Arafat dead, right? Iran isn't a threat now that Ayatollah Khomeini is dead, right? How about North Korea with Kim Il-sung dead...damn, it's Kim Jong-il now.
$200K for the decades of training and experience to know what to do when one of the world's more complicated machines breaks, a mile in the air, with 200 souls on board. "Overpaid"? What a jackass.
Getting your commercial license does not take "decades of training", or even years (see below). It's not nearly as complicated as you may think, and the pilots don't have to learn how every little thing is engineered. You can personally learn to take off and fly around in one easy lesson (I have about 140 hours that I logged years ago), and solo between in around 10-20 hours. What does take longer is learning about airspace, weather, emergency procedures, navigation, regulations, etc., etc. For the vast majority of flights, it's as simple as a bus ride. The training pays off when the unusual happens, and you know what to do.
Most engineers have as much if not more training than the average airline pilot, so IMHO $200k is way out of line. I know their compensation is a complicated topic...seniority is lost if you change airlines, or it goes bankrupt. But the airline industry as a whole has issues...why can you buy a $99 ticket x-country, but one to the next state costs $400? The colusion between airlines for ticket pricing is scandalous as well.
From FAR 61.129:
For an airplane multi engine rating:
If you are applying for a commercial pilot certificate with an airplane category and multi engine class rating, you must log at least 250 hours of flight time as a pilot (of which 50 hours, or in accordance with FAA Part 142, a maximum of 100 hours may have been accomplished in an approved flight simulator or approved flight training device that represents a multi engine airplane) that consists of at least:
100 hours in powered aircraft, of which 50 hours must be in airplanes.
100 hours of pilot in command flight time, which includes at least 50 hours in airplanes, and 50 hours in cross-country flight in airplanes.
20 hours of training on the areas of operation as listed for this rating, that includes at least 10 hours of instrument training of which at least 5 hours must be in a multi engine airplane, 10 hours of training in a multi engine airplane that has a retractable landing gear, flaps, and controllable pitch propellers, or is turbine-powered, one cross-country flight of at least 2 hours in a multi engine airplane in day VFR conditions, consisting of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure, one cross-country flight of at least 2 hours in a multi engine airplane in night VFR conditions, consisting of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure.
10 hours of flight time performing the duties of a pilot in command in a multi engine airplane with an authorized instructor on the areas of operation as listed for this rating, which includes at least one cross-country flight of not less than 300 nautical miles total distance and as specified, and 5 hours in night VFR conditions with 10 takeoffs and 10 landings (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport with an operating control tower.
"If a civilization is so fucking retarded that it worships an invisible man in the sky, then one can't really take their prediction of the end of the world seriously, don't you think?"
This is insightful? The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other. There are plenty of people who are experts in one field, and complete morons in another (or every other). Just because they had a culture that had a faith that you find ignorant, doesn't make them "fucking retarded".
Now, all that said, I personally have zero belief in any of this.
Wonder if this thing could be adapted to drivers? "Sorry, but you're too stressed to drive...initiating vehicle shutdown in 30 seconds"
Seriously though, I've read through all the +3 posts, and all I see is a bunch of arguing about the legitamacy of day trading. Come on, this is supposed to be News for Nerds...is the device cool, or is it crap?