this doesn't mean that I propose immediatly pulling out of Iraq any more then I propose immediatly stopping public education; unfortunatly we are stuck with the choices we've made in the past and any change would take time to avoid even greater evil.
"Over here" hardly counts as a free country if state sponsored indoctrination is required by threat of force. Freedom does include the right to be stupid or screw up.
That's the way how a society works!
Instead of each spending our own money on what we want, we take someone else's money and spend it for them then let them turn around and do the same to us? That doesn't seem very sensible. Under your arguement there is as much justification for teaching creationism and banning modern synthesis if that's what the majority believes is right. What if religious conservatives want to teach their particular brand of religion as the "truth"?
self-centered Ayn Rand inspired whining
It was actually the traditional arguement for separation of Church and State applied to a broader swath of knowledge. Incidentally this brings up my problem with Rand. She copied many ideas from the British Whigs and the Old Liberals (see especially from von Mises's Socialism), but she never mentions any of them in her writings. She even claims that many of the ideas were her own. Atlus is a decent work of literature, but there are far better arguements in favor of liberty out there.
As a side point, the review that says this isn't Mises's best book is correct. Socialism and Human Action are both MUCH better. Readers looking for a short book that covers the basic topics might want to read Economic Policy. If you are interested a discussion Nazism and Fascism, Omnipotent Government may be more up your alley.
First there are dozens of review of the book, you picked one of the few negative ones. That the publisher put negative reviews on the same page of the positive ones is a sign of honesty. Second, the author of the book and The Economist never saw eye to eye. The Economist didn't like Mises's critisism of the US and the UK, and Mises didn't like the habbit they held for promoting the theories of British economists and ignoring the work of prominent German and Austrian ones.
Why should the pharmaceutical companies, or anyone, waste money getting FDA approval on stuff you can already buy over the counter? All that would do is take something currently readily available and turn it into a highly regulated product. Everyone already know's it's safe, it might work; why spend the money on that instead of trying to come up with a new medicine?
But that has nothing to do with what yagu posted. He listed a bunch of problems he has with the world: people not liking his favorite music, technology having been worse in the past (so that Leonardo's knowledge couldn't be used), a large selection of providers for the same good, etc. Then he proceeded to blame "business" for corrupting truth and knowledge and calls for it's overthrow (or at least a reduction in its importance).
As I said, this is a standard Marxist arguement. It also has no bearing on reality and the supposed connections are caused by a philosophical bias. that's why I linked to a book that dealt with the issue, so that slashdot readers could decide for themselves.
Are you advocating that schools should stop teaching science altogether or that just public school should stop teaching science?
Just public schools.
Not teaching science in schools is not an option.
Sure it is. It is preferable to teaching it incorrectly, or worse, using the position of authority the teacher has to indoctrinate vulnerable children.
The public schools have repeatedly demonstrated that they are incapable of teaching science. By their nature they are incapable of teaching anything about which there is a contraversy, because teaching such a subject necessarily entails forcing at least some taxpayers to violate their convictions by providing funds for the dissemination of ideas which they consider to be false and possibly vicious.
As stupid and ignorant as the people supporting all the anti-science BS are, they have a right not to have their tax money spent on things they consider sinful and immoral. As much as I would like to be able to teach them real science and convince them that they were wrong, I don't have the right to do it with their money.
The public schools should focus on providing a basic education for those who have no other option. That is: reading, writting, and arithmetic should be the initial focus. Bright students could learn Greek, Latin, Algebra, Geometry, the laws of physics, and the periodic table. But the public schools are incapable of teaching no only religion but also history, economics, civics, and biology without becomming machines of indoctrination.
The post to which I was refering is a traditional Marxist arguement. That's why I linked an example of a book dealing with the very issue. If you don't like what I have to say, respond and prepare to defend your point of view. Don't mod me down because you don't like hearing the truth.
On the "evolution" (technically modern evolutionary synthesis) comment,
At least 90% of laymen have no concept of what the theory says or predicts, nor how it is tested. The way the theory gets presented in high schools across the country is absolutly unacceptable. Such a muddle, confused, and illogical presentaion of science directly leads to such pseudoscience as intelligent design. Experience has forced me to agree with von Mises, public schools should be banned from teaching science because they incapable of presenting it correctly and will only cause confusion.
I think you got shafted by piss poor management. Unfortunatly that's running rampant here in the US, mostly because the government won't hesitate to bail the f-ups out when their shit comes home to roost. I say we should lift all of the bs restrictions designed to protect the multimillion dollor pay checks and let the nimbler competition and the corporate raiders slit their lousy throats.
Your statement is way off.
If you want to be successful you must be effective. That means producing something that customers will buy at a cost that makes you a profit. People who don't think about the return and people who don't think about the product are idiots.
There are only two types of products: goods (stuff) and services (doing something better/cheeper than someone can do it for themselves). There are only two kinds of employees: those who provide the good or service and those who's job it is to make the others more effective. Good managers (and good HR, IT, etc) can dramatically increase the productivity of a team; bad managers are worse than nothing. The OP is doing exactly right -- trying to shield his team for the BS so that they can be more productive.
First I think there are much more exciting things for google to do then office applications, BUT if they were going to do them, they'd probably do what they do with for search now -- sell the business an appliance that requires no effort to use.
Having worked in corporate research I can shed some light on this conversation. The main idea is to try to figure out what new scientific/technological discoveries will allow you to do (i.e. what new technologies you CAN make). Usually you come up with a very expensive proof of concept that works out the major hurdles in the technology and you leave it to the development guys to figure out when/if the technology is marketable and how it would actually be built. The development guys then pass the technology to the product guys who integrate it into the company's product line.
I found research really depressing because 99% of what you work on leads to dead ends and when you hit on a success, it will still be decades before the technology is remotely affordable. The upside of research is that the jobs tend to be very secure (and your budget tends to increase durring an economic down turn). The downside is that it tends to be VERY slow.
There are limits to the sort of liability a merchant will have. Traditionally they were much tighter but trial lawyers have gotten together pressure groups and have convinced legislatures to relax the traditional common law limits.
The general assumption is that if the buyer had wanted the seller to assume more liability, the seller would have charged a much higher price to offset the potential risk. The actual law is really complicated and deals with things like "reasonable forseeability". I don't think the software industry (or any industry) could function with the sort of complete liability the article is talking about.
Oops! Let's try that link again:
Electromagnetic Compatibility Handbook. There are three shorter books that contain exerpts from this bigger one, but they are priced too high. Unless you feel like supporting Prof. Kaiser, you should just buy the big book.
foil is for electric field shielding (an occasionally plane wave shielding). If you want to block magnetic fields you need a magnetic material.
There is a really good referance book that deals with this advanced stuff: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0849 320879/qid=1128098404/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl 14/104-6945549-8695159?v=glance&s=books&n=507846. It covers everything you'd ever want to know and more (it weighs about 6lbs. and has close to 4000 pages)
Let's take a look at how what I said above is related to this.
You are entirely correct that lack of food and water caused problems for rome, but the food and water didn't suddenly stop being available after hundreds of years of being there. Something changed to make it substantially harder to get food and water. Let's look at a this:
Rome suffered from massive currency devaluation combined with price controls making it was practically impossible for a farmer to come out ahead. As a result only the connected people in the cities could get food. The random joe's had to starve or leave. When they left there was no one to do the grudgy waste removal jobs or provide other key services. So even the higher ups were driven from the city. The major reduction of population in the urban center's lead to a near total colapse of trade forcing the major agrigultural areas to provide all the goods they needed for themselves. By the time the barbarians invaded, Rome had already become a feudal empire, the invaders just took advantage of the situation and made themselves the rulers.
As a side note, Rome colapsed when a similar system came unraveled over several hundred years. 8 went first. Several hundred years later, 2,3, and 4 went. Consequently 5-9 couldn't be continued. And 1 disintigrated as a result.
There is reasonable cause for concern reguarding America's future because of recent events. Over the past 60 years, #s 2, 3, 4, and 6 have been seriously undermined. #s 5 and 9 are now practically non-existant. #7 is presently under attack. The reactionaries are demonstrably winning. Given sufficient economic and legal knowledge, a strong case could be made that these developments are the cause of a majority of the problems facing America today.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting proposal; it would solve most of the problems I've mentioned.
this doesn't mean that I propose immediatly pulling out of Iraq any more then I propose immediatly stopping public education; unfortunatly we are stuck with the choices we've made in the past and any change would take time to avoid even greater evil.
Teaching science is almost as critical to a strong economy and solid work force as Iraq is to the security of the US...
That's the way how a society works!
Instead of each spending our own money on what we want, we take someone else's money and spend it for them then let them turn around and do the same to us? That doesn't seem very sensible. Under your arguement there is as much justification for teaching creationism and banning modern synthesis if that's what the majority believes is right. What if religious conservatives want to teach their particular brand of religion as the "truth"?
self-centered Ayn Rand inspired whining
It was actually the traditional arguement for separation of Church and State applied to a broader swath of knowledge. Incidentally this brings up my problem with Rand. She copied many ideas from the British Whigs and the Old Liberals (see especially from von Mises's Socialism), but she never mentions any of them in her writings. She even claims that many of the ideas were her own. Atlus is a decent work of literature, but there are far better arguements in favor of liberty out there.
As a side point, the review that says this isn't Mises's best book is correct. Socialism and Human Action are both MUCH better. Readers looking for a short book that covers the basic topics might want to read Economic Policy. If you are interested a discussion Nazism and Fascism, Omnipotent Government may be more up your alley.
You stated my point much better then I did. :)
First there are dozens of review of the book, you picked one of the few negative ones. That the publisher put negative reviews on the same page of the positive ones is a sign of honesty. Second, the author of the book and The Economist never saw eye to eye. The Economist didn't like Mises's critisism of the US and the UK, and Mises didn't like the habbit they held for promoting the theories of British economists and ignoring the work of prominent German and Austrian ones.
But that has nothing to do with what yagu posted. He listed a bunch of problems he has with the world: people not liking his favorite music, technology having been worse in the past (so that Leonardo's knowledge couldn't be used), a large selection of providers for the same good, etc. Then he proceeded to blame "business" for corrupting truth and knowledge and calls for it's overthrow (or at least a reduction in its importance).
As I said, this is a standard Marxist arguement. It also has no bearing on reality and the supposed connections are caused by a philosophical bias. that's why I linked to a book that dealt with the issue, so that slashdot readers could decide for themselves.
Not teaching science in schools is not an option.
Sure it is. It is preferable to teaching it incorrectly, or worse, using the position of authority the teacher has to indoctrinate vulnerable children.
The public schools have repeatedly demonstrated that they are incapable of teaching science. By their nature they are incapable of teaching anything about which there is a contraversy, because teaching such a subject necessarily entails forcing at least some taxpayers to violate their convictions by providing funds for the dissemination of ideas which they consider to be false and possibly vicious.
As stupid and ignorant as the people supporting all the anti-science BS are, they have a right not to have their tax money spent on things they consider sinful and immoral. As much as I would like to be able to teach them real science and convince them that they were wrong, I don't have the right to do it with their money.
The public schools should focus on providing a basic education for those who have no other option. That is: reading, writting, and arithmetic should be the initial focus. Bright students could learn Greek, Latin, Algebra, Geometry, the laws of physics, and the periodic table. But the public schools are incapable of teaching no only religion but also history, economics, civics, and biology without becomming machines of indoctrination.
The post to which I was refering is a traditional Marxist arguement. That's why I linked an example of a book dealing with the very issue. If you don't like what I have to say, respond and prepare to defend your point of view. Don't mod me down because you don't like hearing the truth.
Either you have been brain washed by Marxists or you really have no understanding of economics. See this: http://www.mises.org/etexts/mises/anticap.asp
At least 90% of laymen have no concept of what the theory says or predicts, nor how it is tested. The way the theory gets presented in high schools across the country is absolutly unacceptable. Such a muddle, confused, and illogical presentaion of science directly leads to such pseudoscience as intelligent design. Experience has forced me to agree with von Mises, public schools should be banned from teaching science because they incapable of presenting it correctly and will only cause confusion.
I think you got shafted by piss poor management. Unfortunatly that's running rampant here in the US, mostly because the government won't hesitate to bail the f-ups out when their shit comes home to roost. I say we should lift all of the bs restrictions designed to protect the multimillion dollor pay checks and let the nimbler competition and the corporate raiders slit their lousy throats.
There are only two types of products: goods (stuff) and services (doing something better/cheeper than someone can do it for themselves). There are only two kinds of employees: those who provide the good or service and those who's job it is to make the others more effective. Good managers (and good HR, IT, etc) can dramatically increase the productivity of a team; bad managers are worse than nothing. The OP is doing exactly right -- trying to shield his team for the BS so that they can be more productive.
First I think there are much more exciting things for google to do then office applications, BUT if they were going to do them, they'd probably do what they do with for search now -- sell the business an appliance that requires no effort to use.
That's at least partially the idea behind XML. As the tech matures it could become a threat to COM/DCOM.
I found research really depressing because 99% of what you work on leads to dead ends and when you hit on a success, it will still be decades before the technology is remotely affordable. The upside of research is that the jobs tend to be very secure (and your budget tends to increase durring an economic down turn). The downside is that it tends to be VERY slow.
The general assumption is that if the buyer had wanted the seller to assume more liability, the seller would have charged a much higher price to offset the potential risk. The actual law is really complicated and deals with things like "reasonable forseeability". I don't think the software industry (or any industry) could function with the sort of complete liability the article is talking about.
I thought Satan consulted for Blizard.
Oops! Let's try that link again: Electromagnetic Compatibility Handbook. There are three shorter books that contain exerpts from this bigger one, but they are priced too high. Unless you feel like supporting Prof. Kaiser, you should just buy the big book.
There is a really good referance book that deals with this advanced stuff: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0849 320879/qid=1128098404/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl 14/104-6945549-8695159?v=glance&s=books&n=507846. It covers everything you'd ever want to know and more (it weighs about 6lbs. and has close to 4000 pages)
Substantially harder than electric field shielding and much more expensive. It can be done though.
You are entirely correct that lack of food and water caused problems for rome, but the food and water didn't suddenly stop being available after hundreds of years of being there. Something changed to make it substantially harder to get food and water. Let's look at a this:
Rome suffered from massive currency devaluation combined with price controls making it was practically impossible for a farmer to come out ahead. As a result only the connected people in the cities could get food. The random joe's had to starve or leave. When they left there was no one to do the grudgy waste removal jobs or provide other key services. So even the higher ups were driven from the city. The major reduction of population in the urban center's lead to a near total colapse of trade forcing the major agrigultural areas to provide all the goods they needed for themselves. By the time the barbarians invaded, Rome had already become a feudal empire, the invaders just took advantage of the situation and made themselves the rulers.
There is reasonable cause for concern reguarding America's future because of recent events. Over the past 60 years, #s 2, 3, 4, and 6 have been seriously undermined. #s 5 and 9 are now practically non-existant. #7 is presently under attack. The reactionaries are demonstrably winning. Given sufficient economic and legal knowledge, a strong case could be made that these developments are the cause of a majority of the problems facing America today.