These surveys are only worthless if you try to generalize excessively about what they mean. At the very least, a survey like this tells you something about the self-perceptions of the people who responded. Extrapolating to all American workers would be rash, but you could still make inferences about American office workers who have web-access and enough free time to respond to web surveys.
Every survey tells you something. You just have to be realistic about how far you extrapolate that something.
Yeah, people who live in drought-stricken areas just don't want to grow their own food. The land they live in doesn't support plant-life because they're lazy.
Or what about the seriously disabled? They just don't want to work, right? It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that no one in their right mind would ever hire them.
Plus, they actually respond in a timely fashion, and aren't afraid to get their hands dirty with real work. They're faster and more efficient about providing aid than many government relief organizations. And unlike some government organizations, they don't try to fool themselves about the extent of a disaster situation so as to avoid having to respond.
Those guys from Penny Arcade are pretty cool about charity. I mean, anyone can give, but it takes pretty great people to lead others into giving as well.
Agreed. Corporate charity is nice when it happens, but it absolutely can't be counted on in any way. Social support has to be provided by either the government (reliable but inefficient) or by well-funded non-profit societies (unreliable but much more fiscally efficient). Corporations should just be relied on to do what they do best -- generate wealth. Assuming that they'll do ANYTHING else is foolish and naive.
Ah, Hams -- the geeks' geeks. Could we love 'em more?
As far as communications go, it would be nice if the feds had real mechanisms and contingency plans in place for ensuring communications during disasters. But given that the US wont be giving in to such dangerously socialist ideas anytime soon, thank god for hams going to such great lengths to help.
It probably depends a lot on the business. When I was writing design documents at work, and when I was submitting documents to my school, OpenOffice was completely satisfactory. But in an environment where object embedding and all that kind of thing were being used, or where perfect reproduction where required, MS Office would be the only satisfactory tool.
The usability of the Gimp is actually a lot better if you are using more than one monitor (which a lot of graphics artists do anyway). It's only in the far more common scenario of using a single monitor that the Gimp becomes hideously ackward.
It's so sad that you got yourself stuck with a bunch of expensive products that bind you to an expensive, defective OS. I bet you feel like quite a sucker for not demanding better value for your money.
Of course, in real life $4000 for tools is a bargain in almost any industry you care to name. And many of the replacement tools are FREE and don't create any vendor lock-in at all. Have you ever heard of OpenOffice?
I don't think anyone would dispute the incredibly destructive effect that the baby boomers (and the echo booms) have on the economies of the world. Alternating between labour surpluses and labour shortages is unhealthy. Massive surges in the number of retired people, massive surges in the number of people in the public school system and in postsecondary schools, etc. The world's infrastructures are meant to handle stable or gradually increasing population sizes, and the baby boom and echo booms mess it all up.
Psychiatrists are normally the ones who determine whether someone is a sociopath, using the DSM-4 -- a very precise, unambiguous test that is considered very reliable because it doesn't flag people who kind-of its various criteria. You either match, or you don't. It's been a boon in psychiatry because it has greatly reduced the incidence of people being stuck in hospitals just for being weird.
As for pedophiles, even being a known to be a pedophile will get one fired from their job. School boards don't have to employ anyone they don't want too (as long as they don't discriminate by race, religion, gender). If they know one of their teachers looks at kiddy porn, they'll fire that teacher. Being convicted is irrelevant.
You are correct that everyone has the right to the same kinds of opportunities. But they aren't entitled to have those opportunities fulfilled. Just because I have the opportunity to be Prime Minister of Canada doesn't mean I'll ever actually BE the Prime Minister of Canada. Just because I have the opportunity to be head of the RCMP doesn't mean I'll ever actually BE the head of the RCMP. I have qualities about myself that disqualify me, like my flagrant disrespect for laws that don't agree with. There are numerous jobs that require you to possess a certain type of personality, or that you have to pass a psych profile to be eligible for.
Any way, if you actually believe that not letting sociopaths be world leaders is somehow analogous to putting them in death camps, this discussion is pretty much over. It's already treading dangerously close to have Godwin's law invoked.
Who's talking about locking people up? This is just about not letting sociopaths be in charge of other people -- in exactly the same way that pedophiles aren't allowed to be teachers. You don't let people do a job where they are extremely likely to hurt people. That's just good sense. No one has a right to be a CEO or a politician. Just like any other job, you have to be qualified -- and being a sadistic ass should be a disqualification.
Being a sociopath is not, nor should it be, illegal. But it is a very serious disqualification for any job where the person in question will have power over others -- in exactly the same way that being blind is a disqualification for driving, or that being suicidally depressed is a disqualification for... well... almost all jobs, or that schizophrenia is a disqualification for a career in the armed forces or law enforcement, or that pedophilia is a disqualification for working with children. You get the picture.
So most US presidents have been sociopaths -- that's what you're saying? Not that I don't believe you, I'm just surprised by how unconcerned you sound about this. Frankly, I'm pretty damn concerned that I live so close to the kind of nitwits that would consistently elect sociopaths to their highest seat of government and not see anything wrong with that. Canada has certainly had some sociopathic leaders, but at least most people here see that as a bad thing.
Sigh... the ultra-pacifist hippy in me says that putting weapons in space is barbaric and dangerous, but the rapibly pro-technology geek in me remembers how military R&D gave us the microwave oven, the computer, cheap nuclear power, and about a billion other things that rule in ways that defy conventional attempts at description.
I hate the idea of tungsten kill-rods hanging over my head, but I love the idea of cheap, ubiquitous access to satellites for massive data transfers and media feeds and whatnot. Not to mention all the things that we can't even imagine yet that could come out of an enormous increase in satellite and near-earth space research.
I loathe the concept of "karma whoring", but come on -- George W. Bush is an illiterate retard, and everyone knows it. Pull your kisser away from his ass for a while and pay attention to the rampant anti-illectualism his administration has been breeding.
Are you seriously suggesting that the only possibilities are: 1) Do nothing. 2) Treat your own citizens like terrorists. ?
Wow -- way to totally miss the point. There are far, far better options. Like: 1) Attack the terrorists in their base of operations, while leaving your own citizens alone.
This can easily be facilitated by doing any or all of the following: 1) Avoid going to war with uninvolved third parties. 2) Avoid alienating your allies and the UN. 3) Actually pursue your war against the terrorists, rather than losing focus so that you can wage war on uninvolved third parties. 4) Treat your citizens as if they were freedom-loving Americans, despite their tendency to vote for proto-fascists.
Frankly, it's shocking that the US has even a single soldier in the field for reasons OTHER than hunting down Al-Quaeda. They killed 5000 Americans, and no one is even bothering to look for them anymore. It's as if the Allied army in World War II had taken an enormous detour on their way to Germany, and tried to conquer India instead (giving the Axis years of time to rebuild and concentrate their power).
America -- truly a nation of belligerant children.
Our government usually is pretty reasonable, but it's in a bit of a crisis on account of the government being a minority. All kinds of strange politcking is going on as the government struggles to survive.
But's that exactly what we're talking about here -- better solutions. A fission reactor is better than a conventional coal reactor, as is this new variation on fossil fuel reactors (at least from the sounds of it). No one is suggesting that they're the supreme solutions, after which no more research into clean power generation need be done. Far from it. But they're better than what preceded them.
I honestly can't tell what you seem to think. Should we just stick with burning coal and wood the old-fashioned way, simply because nuclear power isn't perfect? Of course not -- that would be stupid. Deeply, deeply stupid. Should we not scrub the emissions from coal plants, just because it doesn't magically destroy the emissions completely? Of course not. That too would be deeply stupid. We take what improvements we can get, even if they're only incremental ones.
There's no such thing as perfect power. Hydroelectric flood vallies and destroys ecosystems river ecosystems (and damages some parts of oceanic ecosystems). Wind turbines kill birds, and you need outrageous numbers of them. Manufacturing solar panels produces enormous amounts of toxic by-products. We simply have to face the fact that NOTHING is perfect. But some things are definitely better than others. And a small amount of contained nuclear waste is far, far better than a somewhat larger amount of nuclear waste being dumped straight into the atmosphere along with dangerous amounts of mercury and vast quantities of CO^2 (among other things). Finding a place to stick nuclear waste (and relocating anyone living nearby) is much easier to manage than dealing with the rest of the population getting mercury poisoning while they die of smog-induced lung cancer during a near-lethal heat-wave.
But please, enlighten me. What better solution do you propose? What solution could there possibly be that doesn't involve SOME nasty set of consequences? And what should we be using for power while this magical perfect solution is being developed and deployed?
Thanks for spitting on progress just because it doesn't proceed immediately to utopian perfection.
Better that the radioactive waste from nuclear power be stored than simply dumped into the atmosphere, the way coal plants do. Fission reactors COULD simply vaporize their waste, and they'd still be producing fewer radioactive emissions than coal plants (not to mention all the other emissions that they wouldn't be producing). God, talk about bitching about nothing. Finding someplace to put nuclear waste really isn't the huge problem alarmists make it out to be -- people just want to be sure that it's done right.
As for these fossil fuel plants, this is ultimately a good thing. For a small reduction in efficiency, these plants produce less harmful emissions and are able to store those emissions for disposal. These plants can therefore continue operating without having a terrible effect on the environment (a single coal plant in Ontario was estimated to be producing as much CO^2 as one million cars, on average).
On behalf of the world, I thank the US for once again lowering the bar for all of us. The USPTO is truly the archetype of corrupt lazy beauracries.
Seriously -- when are Americans going to curb-stomp their government and government agencies back into reality? How long are the politics of fear and stupidity going to rule? How long until Americans stop voting for lizards, just to make sure that the wrong lizard doesn't elected? Or shirking the blame because they voted for Kodos?
Bah. Stupid yankee assholes. I'd hate them if the rest of us weren't following in their footsteps as fast as we possibly can. I hassle my local parliment-monkey by email all the time (and I try to get through to him on the phone). What more can one do to fend of the scourge of American-style idiot-patents? In Canada, there's really nothing we can do about them, thanks to our patent treaties.
If you think about it, $5000 is pretty cheap -- that's ony the cost of about a month and a half or so of a developer's labour; a good tool can easily increase productivity enough to regain that month and a half in additional productivity.
Libraries are totally fair game. Otherwise we'd have to say that C is the worst language ever developed -- it has no gui or networking components whatsoever! The fact that Java comes with a robust, full API shouldn't make its support for potentially superior 3rd party libraries any less relevant.
So, in the vein of the original poster, I'm going to claim that Java is the best 3G application-development language going: it's the only one that includes GUI components of any kind in its API (except maybe Microsoft's C# API, which is debatable). Sounds pretty silly huh?
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Every survey tells you something. You just have to be realistic about how far you extrapolate that something.
Or what about the seriously disabled? They just don't want to work, right? It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that no one in their right mind would ever hire them.
Americans are such monstrous, horrible people.
Plus, they actually respond in a timely fashion, and aren't afraid to get their hands dirty with real work. They're faster and more efficient about providing aid than many government relief organizations. And unlike some government organizations, they don't try to fool themselves about the extent of a disaster situation so as to avoid having to respond.
Those guys from Penny Arcade are pretty cool about charity. I mean, anyone can give, but it takes pretty great people to lead others into giving as well.
Agreed. Corporate charity is nice when it happens, but it absolutely can't be counted on in any way. Social support has to be provided by either the government (reliable but inefficient) or by well-funded non-profit societies (unreliable but much more fiscally efficient). Corporations should just be relied on to do what they do best -- generate wealth. Assuming that they'll do ANYTHING else is foolish and naive.
As far as communications go, it would be nice if the feds had real mechanisms and contingency plans in place for ensuring communications during disasters. But given that the US wont be giving in to such dangerously socialist ideas anytime soon, thank god for hams going to such great lengths to help.
It probably depends a lot on the business. When I was writing design documents at work, and when I was submitting documents to my school, OpenOffice was completely satisfactory. But in an environment where object embedding and all that kind of thing were being used, or where perfect reproduction where required, MS Office would be the only satisfactory tool.
The usability of the Gimp is actually a lot better if you are using more than one monitor (which a lot of graphics artists do anyway). It's only in the far more common scenario of using a single monitor that the Gimp becomes hideously ackward.
Of course, in real life $4000 for tools is a bargain in almost any industry you care to name. And many of the replacement tools are FREE and don't create any vendor lock-in at all. Have you ever heard of OpenOffice?
I don't think anyone would dispute the incredibly destructive effect that the baby boomers (and the echo booms) have on the economies of the world. Alternating between labour surpluses and labour shortages is unhealthy. Massive surges in the number of retired people, massive surges in the number of people in the public school system and in postsecondary schools, etc. The world's infrastructures are meant to handle stable or gradually increasing population sizes, and the baby boom and echo booms mess it all up.
Hey, don't forget: loud is the new good.
As for pedophiles, even being a known to be a pedophile will get one fired from their job. School boards don't have to employ anyone they don't want too (as long as they don't discriminate by race, religion, gender). If they know one of their teachers looks at kiddy porn, they'll fire that teacher. Being convicted is irrelevant.
You are correct that everyone has the right to the same kinds of opportunities. But they aren't entitled to have those opportunities fulfilled. Just because I have the opportunity to be Prime Minister of Canada doesn't mean I'll ever actually BE the Prime Minister of Canada. Just because I have the opportunity to be head of the RCMP doesn't mean I'll ever actually BE the head of the RCMP. I have qualities about myself that disqualify me, like my flagrant disrespect for laws that don't agree with. There are numerous jobs that require you to possess a certain type of personality, or that you have to pass a psych profile to be eligible for.
Any way, if you actually believe that not letting sociopaths be world leaders is somehow analogous to putting them in death camps, this discussion is pretty much over. It's already treading dangerously close to have Godwin's law invoked.
Who's talking about locking people up? This is just about not letting sociopaths be in charge of other people -- in exactly the same way that pedophiles aren't allowed to be teachers. You don't let people do a job where they are extremely likely to hurt people. That's just good sense. No one has a right to be a CEO or a politician. Just like any other job, you have to be qualified -- and being a sadistic ass should be a disqualification.
Being a sociopath is not, nor should it be, illegal. But it is a very serious disqualification for any job where the person in question will have power over others -- in exactly the same way that being blind is a disqualification for driving, or that being suicidally depressed is a disqualification for... well... almost all jobs, or that schizophrenia is a disqualification for a career in the armed forces or law enforcement, or that pedophilia is a disqualification for working with children. You get the picture.
So most US presidents have been sociopaths -- that's what you're saying? Not that I don't believe you, I'm just surprised by how unconcerned you sound about this. Frankly, I'm pretty damn concerned that I live so close to the kind of nitwits that would consistently elect sociopaths to their highest seat of government and not see anything wrong with that. Canada has certainly had some sociopathic leaders, but at least most people here see that as a bad thing.
I hate the idea of tungsten kill-rods hanging over my head, but I love the idea of cheap, ubiquitous access to satellites for massive data transfers and media feeds and whatnot. Not to mention all the things that we can't even imagine yet that could come out of an enormous increase in satellite and near-earth space research.
Yeah, but the tests are being made easier every few years. Kids today are getting the same scores on easier tests.
I loathe the concept of "karma whoring", but come on -- George W. Bush is an illiterate retard, and everyone knows it. Pull your kisser away from his ass for a while and pay attention to the rampant anti-illectualism his administration has been breeding.
Are you seriously suggesting that the only possibilities are:
1) Do nothing.
2) Treat your own citizens like terrorists.
?
Wow -- way to totally miss the point. There are far, far better options. Like:
1) Attack the terrorists in their base of operations, while leaving your own citizens alone.
This can easily be facilitated by doing any or all of the following:
1) Avoid going to war with uninvolved third parties.
2) Avoid alienating your allies and the UN.
3) Actually pursue your war against the terrorists, rather than losing focus so that you can wage war on uninvolved third parties.
4) Treat your citizens as if they were freedom-loving Americans, despite their tendency to vote for proto-fascists.
Frankly, it's shocking that the US has even a single soldier in the field for reasons OTHER than hunting down Al-Quaeda. They killed 5000 Americans, and no one is even bothering to look for them anymore. It's as if the Allied army in World War II had taken an enormous detour on their way to Germany, and tried to conquer India instead (giving the Axis years of time to rebuild and concentrate their power).
America -- truly a nation of belligerant children.
Our government usually is pretty reasonable, but it's in a bit of a crisis on account of the government being a minority. All kinds of strange politcking is going on as the government struggles to survive.
I honestly can't tell what you seem to think. Should we just stick with burning coal and wood the old-fashioned way, simply because nuclear power isn't perfect? Of course not -- that would be stupid. Deeply, deeply stupid. Should we not scrub the emissions from coal plants, just because it doesn't magically destroy the emissions completely? Of course not. That too would be deeply stupid. We take what improvements we can get, even if they're only incremental ones.
There's no such thing as perfect power. Hydroelectric flood vallies and destroys ecosystems river ecosystems (and damages some parts of oceanic ecosystems). Wind turbines kill birds, and you need outrageous numbers of them. Manufacturing solar panels produces enormous amounts of toxic by-products. We simply have to face the fact that NOTHING is perfect. But some things are definitely better than others. And a small amount of contained nuclear waste is far, far better than a somewhat larger amount of nuclear waste being dumped straight into the atmosphere along with dangerous amounts of mercury and vast quantities of CO^2 (among other things). Finding a place to stick nuclear waste (and relocating anyone living nearby) is much easier to manage than dealing with the rest of the population getting mercury poisoning while they die of smog-induced lung cancer during a near-lethal heat-wave.
But please, enlighten me. What better solution do you propose? What solution could there possibly be that doesn't involve SOME nasty set of consequences? And what should we be using for power while this magical perfect solution is being developed and deployed?
Thanks for spitting on progress just because it doesn't proceed immediately to utopian perfection.
As for these fossil fuel plants, this is ultimately a good thing. For a small reduction in efficiency, these plants produce less harmful emissions and are able to store those emissions for disposal. These plants can therefore continue operating without having a terrible effect on the environment (a single coal plant in Ontario was estimated to be producing as much CO^2 as one million cars, on average).
Seriously -- when are Americans going to curb-stomp their government and government agencies back into reality? How long are the politics of fear and stupidity going to rule? How long until Americans stop voting for lizards, just to make sure that the wrong lizard doesn't elected? Or shirking the blame because they voted for Kodos?
Bah. Stupid yankee assholes. I'd hate them if the rest of us weren't following in their footsteps as fast as we possibly can. I hassle my local parliment-monkey by email all the time (and I try to get through to him on the phone). What more can one do to fend of the scourge of American-style idiot-patents? In Canada, there's really nothing we can do about them, thanks to our patent treaties.
If you think about it, $5000 is pretty cheap -- that's ony the cost of about a month and a half or so of a developer's labour; a good tool can easily increase productivity enough to regain that month and a half in additional productivity.
So, in the vein of the original poster, I'm going to claim that Java is the best 3G application-development language going: it's the only one that includes GUI components of any kind in its API (except maybe Microsoft's C# API, which is debatable). Sounds pretty silly huh?