Care to share some of your ham radio circle people with me?
Create your G+ account, put your call in your profile's "other names" field so people (readers of this/. story, anyway) can find you... You are not currently searchable by callsign. I checked.
Alternately just find one ham out there by searching for Contestia or CW or 20 meters or DX or SDR or whatever you're interested in (homebrew finds a completely different social circle), and join the conversation, next thing you know you'll get circled by some people, then someone publishes their circle with you as a member, then 500 people will circle you in about a day.
Aside: LadyAda is on G+? I need to check that out...I just bought an Arduino Uno and the LadyAda web site is an absolute treasure trove for learning Arduino and electronics!
I have a "hardware hackers" circle on G+, some highlights below. I have a separate "ham radio" circle which is full of radio designers and builders. Weirdly enough the hardware hackers circle has slightly more women than men, while the ham radio homebrewers circle has around ten times the people all of whom are men.
Limor Fried posts a lot, but I forgive her because its all good stuff (not the 50th repost I've seen of the at-at dog costume, but real hardware hacking stuff)
Lenore Edman is really cool but does not post a lot
ian lesnet never posts, but he should because ian is cool
Jeri Ellsworth posts something truly excellent once in a while.
Becky Stern posts on a fairly regular basis.
mitch altman posts constantly about hackerspaces, lately he has a "thing" for the one in Egypt. He reminds me of that security researcher who has a "thing" for squid so his blog intermixes compsci security and crypto stuff with squid stories.
Pete Prodoehl posts more good stuff about makerbots than the makerbot people post.
Either one of these experiences a breakthrough and down go both moore's and this.
Aren't both immensely larger than the "three atom transistor" postulated in the article?
Its hard to even define 3 atoms as being "bio" as in alive or not or biological or not. I suppose that limits you to at least one of the three being a carbon atom..
The value of a social network lies in having all your friends on it too, and that's true for Facebook but it isn't true for G+
People keep blindly insisting that is true, but I disagree.
G+ has 500 people in my ham radio circle, interesting reading every day.
G+ has seemingly every debian developer there, admittedly not too talkative.
G+ has every tech journalist / videoblogger / media type that I watch. Coincidence? Doesn't really matter.
G+ has several small shop online retailers whom I've purchased from on. Ladyada, etc. Coincidence? Doesn't really matter.
Supposedly more people are leaving every day, but I see more and more good stuff in my stream every day, so I'm not exactly a believer.
I do agree, the professional graphics artist kid I sat next to at lunch in 8th grade isn't on G+. The kid I got a loitering ticket with back in 1991 when we skipped out of gym class and I haven't seen since is not on G+. Do I care? No..
1) Forces you to talk to people of all backgrounds and cultures. Not just college educated teachers living in your city. Not just kids exactly three years older than you are (that was weird for me; I'm glad it only happened in math and science classes and I had kids my own age to talk to in gym, music, art, etc)
2) Annihilates stage fright and shyness in general. If you can handle being net control on a large net, something like a school presentation literally becomes laughable in comparison. Oh you want me to make a presentation in front of thirty people, OK whatever, lets start. That girl leaning up against the wall at the dance looks lonely, OK no problemo I'll go over to her and say hi.
3) Learn to stay away from 75M and 20M sideband where the nut cases hang out... Hang out with the respectable gentlemen on 160 M or the WARAC bands or VHF and up. Learning how to figure out who is a creep or weirdo and how to avoid them is in itself a valuable social skill to be practiced, best done when the creep or weirdo is on a radio 3000 miles away rather than in front of you in a dark alley or whatever.
4) Forces you to learn how to talk about something other than your studies, assuming your studies are not ham radio related and/or you don't exclusively talk to people preselected to be in your field. Essentially, anything other than contest QSOs means learning the art of small talk.
Whatever he does, make sure there are plenty of girls around. A kid like this needs to have some experience being around them, before hormones hit and he realizes he has no idea how to talk to them.
Get a menial labor job with the ladies that is age appropriate (work at McDonalds when you're 16, not as a medical doctor even if you have a degree)... That way you can work on actual socialization, not clothing style since you're "in uniform", and if there's a awkward pause in the conversation, no worries, you're supposed to be working anyway. I was extremely successful at work, not so much at school.
Also, there are no race-based limitations on membership.
I checked, and I acknowledge you are technically correct. However where I live they don't let asian immigrants (or humans of any race) in unless they're part of the judeo-christian tradition. christian asian immigrant = OK, buddhist or free = No. So... your average fillipino immigrant OK, your average Chinese immigrant not OK. I listened to an Indian (curry eating Indian not native american Indian) whining about not allowing hindus in; not sure if thats official from HQ or the local good ole boys were giving him a hard time. The usually close linkage between religion and race was the root of my confusion.
The badges are a joke for anyone remotely intelligent
Agreed the radio badge was beyond laughable for a ham radio / electrical engineer wannabe guy like me. At least try to make the kids "work" for it?
Disagree in that all the brains in the world won't make the hiking, sailing, or whitewater badge any easier.
Some of them have been wimped up over the decades... I believe its now possible to earn the modern wilderness survival badge without setting foot outside; how weird is that?
Can this farce of a political system get any worse?
Oh Yeah, election by/. poll:
1) Bachmann/Palin 2) Obama/whoever the VP is today 3) Ron Paul write in 4) Cowboy Neal 5) Goatse man, because he understands what the financial industry is doing to America
How do you know if a candidate is "liked" or "+1" because they'll vote for them in the election, or because they'll be easy to beat?
The Dali Lama has "recently" joined G+ and I've circled and +1'd him, because he is one of the very few "world leaders" I actually respect. That is an entirely different relationship from me +1'ing Palin because I think she is the most easy to beat out of the R field; +1 for being a humorous caricature in her field.
I suppose you could analyze my other +1s to figure out I don't want to throw my vote away on a D or R, and I'm gonna vote straight LP (unless RP is somehow on the ballot for the R in which case I'd hold my nose only a little tiny bit and vote for him). So maybe that data would show LP supporters think the best way for the R to lose is to put up Palin (or her cronies), or if they want LP supporters maybe they need a party plank that if they win RP will be the next (last?) chairman of the Fed. That might be actionable data, might not.
For socialization, find local clubs for kids and kids activities. Maybe a sport. Hell, even a church, though caution is needed with that
Some personal suggestions from growing up in a similar although nowhere near as extreme situation:
1) Assuming he meets the modern mandatory entrance requirements of white straight christian, the Boy Scouts are interesting and badge collecting certainly enforces a wide breadth of knowledge. When I was in, they didn't care who was an atheist, its much more theocratic now. 2) Ham radio / ham radio club? Speaking from experience, bye bye public speaking stage fright. From terrified of speaking in front of groups to "eh, shrug shoulders" 3) Move to a place big enough to have multiple schools. The one and only kid in the whole community who doesn't attend Nowhere-ville High School is a weird outcast. On the other hand, 50% of the kids don't go to North High and 50% don't go to South High so that works out very comfortably when you meet similar aged kids in public. I lived in one territory and dated girls I met at work from the other territory who had no idea how uncool I was because I was in calculus and multiple science and engineering classes during high school... Take a "nerdy" guy out of the nerd uniform and drop him in a nice suit and the ladies suddenly can't take their hands off him... 4) Get a menial labor job, part time, for the experience. Some folks pay to exercise, you'll be paid. Plus you'll meet girls (assuming you select the correct menial labor). And have enough spending cash to pay car insurance to get a car to take the ladies out on dates. This was my favorite non-technical activity. 5) Cons. HOPE conference every other year in NYC or something. Just get the heck out of the house and meet people who are very smart in fields you know nothing at all about. 6) Exercise. I was a hard core weight lifter in my early 20s / late teens. Not much DIRECT socialization in weight lifting, but my love life was pretty decent. Men think ladies care how well they can throw a ball, but the ladies just care that you look studly.
Not one bit different, down to the careless, unempathic, arrogant perspective he has of the rest of the world and those who don't share his belief. JUST like a fundamentalist nutcase.
Not quite.
A true fundamentalist would damn his followers to eternal hell torture, blame their parents for not raising them properly, promote social shunning of his followers, claim some old book proves the fundamentalist correct, swear the nations founders were all fundamentalists despite all evidence to the contrary, accuse the followers of a vast conspiracy to discredit the reputation of the fundamentalists, and have a problem solving strategy focused solely on prayer for deliverance.
Not just, in summary, say its too bad the guy died before he his opinions could have been corrected.
Less tax is paid, there is less money to run a decent human society
Ah that is the core argument, not sales tax or not sales tax. How do those internet ordered goods arrive? UPS? Doesn't UPS pay a tax? If you want parcel insurance, doesn't it cost more based on the value of the parcel?
I'm thinking its a heck of a lot simpler to collect tax on a per-delivery route basis from a handful of shipping companies, than from "everyone who could theoretically sell something on ebay" basis.
3077 counties! Oh lordy! How would we keep track of so many different taxes? That would take either a big piece of paper, or several, even! Too bad there isn't a better way of keep track of lists of things...
First of all its by municipality, not county. Individual cities have different rates here.
Ah that's easy, once you have the data. How do you get the data? The expensive part is keeping track of the endless seemingly random changes. Is soda a tax free food or taxable luxury good in that city? How bout energy drinks?
All joking apart, how would you manage to give perks to those who do well but _without_ anyone being able to notice that others are not getting said perks and thus by simple logic must be 'dumb' (your words) ?
Alternative answer #2... Think of the stereotypical "hot for teacher" pr0n genre... People wanna keep that kind of stuff very quiet, only change would be pairing up would occur based on test scores rather than who catches who's eye... I like this idea, because as an A++ physics student who in his second year of high school physics literally only got two things wrong during the entire year, I get the 23 year old ex- college cheer leader librarian for my "special tutoring session". Heck, even if nothing inappropriate happens, just looking at her was Very nice... On the other hand, my best friend who was smart enough but had a huge attitude problem and thus legendarily poor test results would get the 60 year old 350 pound english teacher for his "special tutoring session". Heck, even if nothing inappropriate happens, just looking at her was... not as nice as my tutoring session, that's for sure.
Every day I see more and more items coming out of our educational system that make me ask 'where the heck are the parents' when these dumbass policies are being implemented?
Probably at work in a highly classist environment where certain "grades" of people have to share cubes in open plan, some have their own cubes in open plan, some have their own "full wall" cubes in non-open plan, some have an office... Management is allowed to park in the nearby attached parking garage, minions get to find their own spot far away, etc. Probably the plan makes a lot of sense to them.
All joking apart, how would you manage to give perks to those who do well but _without_ anyone being able to notice that others are not getting said perks and thus by simple logic must be 'dumb' (your words) ?
Open your eyes? I hung out with a rather "diverse" group when I was in H.S. This was before the school equals prison movement got started. So our "hall monitors" were teachers walking from task to task, and an old granny or two. Now a days we have intimidation squads of SWAT and K9 units roaming the halls to teach the serfs they are just slaves to big brother and keep in their place. But I digress.
Anyway, think back to high school a couple decades ago:
1) I get caught in a minor (heck, even major) rule infractions by my former 2nd year physics teacher, or one of the academic decathlon coaches, or one of the "wise old women" and I get at most a finger wagging and a bit of a talking to. Even for stuff that would get me arrested now a days (repeated counts of possession of certain things on school property, use of fireworks on school property, repeated habitual truancy, etc, admittedly never "really bad stuff" like violence). I was also inspired by some Richard Feynman "breaking security theater" stories of his that probably would be categorized as terrorism now because of embarrassing the administration.
2) My partners in crime / fellow metalheads who were not in advanced placement classes and/or after school academic activities get caught in the most minor rule infraction by my former physics teacher or calculus teacher or AD coach and they get the book thrown at them, marched down to the vice principals office, suspension, calls to parents, etc.
How 'bout this. Starting with 5th grade give $1000 cash per year to each student in the top 5%. Then, the best might have $8000 ready for college and stand a fighting chance of actually being able to pay for it.
Intensely DUMB idea.
1) Like all govt interference in the free market, the colleges will all raise their prices by $8000 in response, regardless if the student earned the eight grand or even if the student lives in a district or state where the $8K is offered. After all, by supply and demand, the supply of cash just increased $8K, correct? The school is leaving free money on the table if they don't increase their tuition by $8K. As a former "tuition reimbursement" guy, why should my employer pay an extra $8K?
2) It'll cost more to administer than the existing financial aid programs, if not because its more complex, at least because its a second system in addition to financial aid, so rather than $10K going to students via "old fashioned financial aid" the students will only get $8K with $2K for salaries of the drones, program managers, executive level, etc.
3) Huge legal and admin overhead to make sure the parents / kids don't just turn the $ into crack or weed. Big brother / 1984 style social engineering and control of all aspects of ones financial life is expensive and complicated.
4) After income taxes on the gift, the kid only gets $X where $X is basically a transfer payment from the local district / state to the feds. So the feds "have to" (or do they?) transfer more money to the district... Its basically a bunch of highly paid bean counters passing monopoly money back and forth without really accomplishing anything.
Now they just seriously fumbled the iPhone ball by...
... selling out the complete stock of the new device in only a couple days?
Nothing says failure like profit. Nothing says fumble like tripping over piles of gold.
I don't have a dog in the fight; I have no desire to own a smart phone. But I do like laughing at the android folks, those guys are hilarious. I hope they win, they have a cool idea, ethic, and philosophy, but that doesn't mean the rest of us aren't laughing at them.
Who? The MBAs? They all lie, that's their job. A "pet" petroleum engineer paid by the marketing department to boost stock price? A misinterpretation by the art history majors at NPR? A waitress at the local truck stop probably has a better idea than anything you're likely to hear.
"People have been saying that since 1920... well... they said it would run out in 1920... and then they said it would run out in 1950... and then they said it would run out in 1980... and then they said it would run out in 2000..."
Who are those "they"? Mr Hubbert, geologist working for the oil industry, said in 1956 that with 1950's oil extraction technology US oil production would peak in 1970.
In summary, hippies, journalists, and the occasional scare mongering apocalyptic zealot have historically gotten it wrong. But the geologists are legendary for getting it right, not just domestic production but every other field and country out there...
Once you get a nice magnifying glass and some fine tweezers.
And a nice iron. The smaller the tip, the smaller the thermal mass. "big" thru-hole can get away with free running a dumb power resistor across the AC mains. Tiny tips either overheat and self destruct, or have to be retinned every 5 minutes, or get cold and can't heat the pad instantly. Don't need digital display, although its nice, but do need active electronic control of the tip.
It took me decades to get around to buying some rather elaborate Hakko gear, and after about an hour of use I wondered why the heck I waited. There are others out there that are probably just as good.
Also there exists a telecom wire tracing tool that is basically a plastic stick with a L shaped 18 gauge or so stainless steel (solder won't stick) wire sticking out of the end of it. That comes in handy... so you stick the IC or the cap or whatever on the PCB with a touch of solder, then you nudge the device into perfect position with this thing, then let it cool into place before soldering all the other pins.
I prefer SMD over thru-hole. Its frankly easier and faster.
If Steve Jobs was selling his used toilet paper, Apple fans would have been buying it.
You may have missed the news, but he's dead now.
His death was the first thing I thought of, that there's gonna be a 4S-2 released momentarily with one of his inspirational quotes or maybe a silhouette laseretched into the back of the phone. Or a pic of SJ as the default background or whatever.
I suspect SJ memorial goods (engraved iphone cases, etc) will flood DX and ebay real soon now...
Slashdot Mirror
From the point of view of the prey, a scarecrow isn't a good idea.
If corn could walk and talk, it would sound something like "we gotta get the heck away from this straw dude before the meat dude eats us"
I'm not thinking making a homemade scarecrow is a positive evolutionary adaptation.
So there must be some other bonus. Attract a mate?
Care to share some of your ham radio circle people with me?
Create your G+ account, put your call in your profile's "other names" field so people (readers of this /. story, anyway) can find you... You are not currently searchable by callsign. I checked.
Alternately just find one ham out there by searching for Contestia or CW or 20 meters or DX or SDR or whatever you're interested in (homebrew finds a completely different social circle), and join the conversation, next thing you know you'll get circled by some people, then someone publishes their circle with you as a member, then 500 people will circle you in about a day.
Aside: LadyAda is on G+? I need to check that out...I just bought an Arduino Uno and the LadyAda web site is an absolute treasure trove for learning Arduino and electronics!
I have a "hardware hackers" circle on G+, some highlights below. I have a separate "ham radio" circle which is full of radio designers and builders. Weirdly enough the hardware hackers circle has slightly more women than men, while the ham radio homebrewers circle has around ten times the people all of whom are men.
Limor Fried posts a lot, but I forgive her because its all good stuff (not the 50th repost I've seen of the at-at dog costume, but real hardware hacking stuff)
Lenore Edman is really cool but does not post a lot
ian lesnet never posts, but he should because ian is cool
Jeri Ellsworth posts something truly excellent once in a while.
Becky Stern posts on a fairly regular basis.
mitch altman posts constantly about hackerspaces, lately he has a "thing" for the one in Egypt. He reminds me of that security researcher who has a "thing" for squid so his blog intermixes compsci security and crypto stuff with squid stories.
Pete Prodoehl posts more good stuff about makerbots than the makerbot people post.
Quantum computing... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biocomputers
Either one of these experiences a breakthrough and down go both moore's and this.
Aren't both immensely larger than the "three atom transistor" postulated in the article?
Its hard to even define 3 atoms as being "bio" as in alive or not or biological or not. I suppose that limits you to at least one of the three being a carbon atom..
The value of a social network lies in having all your friends on it too, and that's true for Facebook but it isn't true for G+
People keep blindly insisting that is true, but I disagree.
G+ has 500 people in my ham radio circle, interesting reading every day.
G+ has seemingly every debian developer there, admittedly not too talkative.
G+ has every tech journalist / videoblogger / media type that I watch. Coincidence? Doesn't really matter.
G+ has several small shop online retailers whom I've purchased from on. Ladyada, etc. Coincidence? Doesn't really matter.
Supposedly more people are leaving every day, but I see more and more good stuff in my stream every day, so I'm not exactly a believer.
I do agree, the professional graphics artist kid I sat next to at lunch in 8th grade isn't on G+. The kid I got a loitering ticket with back in 1991 when we skipped out of gym class and I haven't seen since is not on G+. Do I care? No..
2)Ham radio is not a good idea for socialization.
Compared to reading another book?
1) Forces you to talk to people of all backgrounds and cultures. Not just college educated teachers living in your city. Not just kids exactly three years older than you are (that was weird for me; I'm glad it only happened in math and science classes and I had kids my own age to talk to in gym, music, art, etc)
2) Annihilates stage fright and shyness in general. If you can handle being net control on a large net, something like a school presentation literally becomes laughable in comparison. Oh you want me to make a presentation in front of thirty people, OK whatever, lets start. That girl leaning up against the wall at the dance looks lonely, OK no problemo I'll go over to her and say hi.
3) Learn to stay away from 75M and 20M sideband where the nut cases hang out... Hang out with the respectable gentlemen on 160 M or the WARAC bands or VHF and up. Learning how to figure out who is a creep or weirdo and how to avoid them is in itself a valuable social skill to be practiced, best done when the creep or weirdo is on a radio 3000 miles away rather than in front of you in a dark alley or whatever.
4) Forces you to learn how to talk about something other than your studies, assuming your studies are not ham radio related and/or you don't exclusively talk to people preselected to be in your field. Essentially, anything other than contest QSOs means learning the art of small talk.
Whatever he does, make sure there are plenty of girls around. A kid like this needs to have some experience being around them, before hormones hit and he realizes he has no idea how to talk to them.
Get a menial labor job with the ladies that is age appropriate (work at McDonalds when you're 16, not as a medical doctor even if you have a degree) ... That way you can work on actual socialization, not clothing style since you're "in uniform", and if there's a awkward pause in the conversation, no worries, you're supposed to be working anyway. I was extremely successful at work, not so much at school.
Also, there are no race-based limitations on membership.
I checked, and I acknowledge you are technically correct.
However where I live they don't let asian immigrants (or humans of any race) in unless they're part of the judeo-christian tradition.
christian asian immigrant = OK, buddhist or free = No.
So... your average fillipino immigrant OK, your average Chinese immigrant not OK.
I listened to an Indian (curry eating Indian not native american Indian) whining about not allowing hindus in; not sure if thats official from HQ or the local good ole boys were giving him a hard time.
The usually close linkage between religion and race was the root of my confusion.
The badges are a joke for anyone remotely intelligent
Agreed the radio badge was beyond laughable for a ham radio / electrical engineer wannabe guy like me. At least try to make the kids "work" for it?
Disagree in that all the brains in the world won't make the hiking, sailing, or whitewater badge any easier.
Some of them have been wimped up over the decades... I believe its now possible to earn the modern wilderness survival badge without setting foot outside; how weird is that?
Screw it... just use perl.
Sorry, its not on The List
https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages-that-compile-to-JS
Supposedly you can compile scheme, ruby, or basic into JS. Never tried it, don't know.
I transitioned from Perl to Ruby probably about 6 years ago, it was fairly painless, would advise if you feel you're "stuck" on perl to try ruby.
Can this farce of a political system get any worse?
Oh Yeah, election by /. poll:
1) Bachmann/Palin
2) Obama/whoever the VP is today
3) Ron Paul write in
4) Cowboy Neal
5) Goatse man, because he understands what the financial industry is doing to America
How do you know if a candidate is "liked" or "+1" because they'll vote for them in the election, or because they'll be easy to beat?
The Dali Lama has "recently" joined G+ and I've circled and +1'd him, because he is one of the very few "world leaders" I actually respect. That is an entirely different relationship from me +1'ing Palin because I think she is the most easy to beat out of the R field; +1 for being a humorous caricature in her field.
I suppose you could analyze my other +1s to figure out I don't want to throw my vote away on a D or R, and I'm gonna vote straight LP (unless RP is somehow on the ballot for the R in which case I'd hold my nose only a little tiny bit and vote for him). So maybe that data would show LP supporters think the best way for the R to lose is to put up Palin (or her cronies), or if they want LP supporters maybe they need a party plank that if they win RP will be the next (last?) chairman of the Fed. That might be actionable data, might not.
For socialization, find local clubs for kids and kids activities. Maybe a sport. Hell, even a church, though caution is needed with that
Some personal suggestions from growing up in a similar although nowhere near as extreme situation:
1) Assuming he meets the modern mandatory entrance requirements of white straight christian, the Boy Scouts are interesting and badge collecting certainly enforces a wide breadth of knowledge. When I was in, they didn't care who was an atheist, its much more theocratic now.
2) Ham radio / ham radio club? Speaking from experience, bye bye public speaking stage fright. From terrified of speaking in front of groups to "eh, shrug shoulders"
3) Move to a place big enough to have multiple schools. The one and only kid in the whole community who doesn't attend Nowhere-ville High School is a weird outcast. On the other hand, 50% of the kids don't go to North High and 50% don't go to South High so that works out very comfortably when you meet similar aged kids in public. I lived in one territory and dated girls I met at work from the other territory who had no idea how uncool I was because I was in calculus and multiple science and engineering classes during high school... Take a "nerdy" guy out of the nerd uniform and drop him in a nice suit and the ladies suddenly can't take their hands off him...
4) Get a menial labor job, part time, for the experience. Some folks pay to exercise, you'll be paid. Plus you'll meet girls (assuming you select the correct menial labor). And have enough spending cash to pay car insurance to get a car to take the ladies out on dates. This was my favorite non-technical activity.
5) Cons. HOPE conference every other year in NYC or something. Just get the heck out of the house and meet people who are very smart in fields you know nothing at all about.
6) Exercise. I was a hard core weight lifter in my early 20s / late teens. Not much DIRECT socialization in weight lifting, but my love life was pretty decent. Men think ladies care how well they can throw a ball, but the ladies just care that you look studly.
Not one bit different, down to the careless, unempathic, arrogant perspective he has of the rest of the world and those who don't share his belief. JUST like a fundamentalist nutcase.
Not quite.
A true fundamentalist would damn his followers to eternal hell torture, blame their parents for not raising them properly, promote social shunning of his followers, claim some old book proves the fundamentalist correct, swear the nations founders were all fundamentalists despite all evidence to the contrary, accuse the followers of a vast conspiracy to discredit the reputation of the fundamentalists, and have a problem solving strategy focused solely on prayer for deliverance.
Not just, in summary, say its too bad the guy died before he his opinions could have been corrected.
Less tax is paid, there is less money to run a decent human society
Ah that is the core argument, not sales tax or not sales tax. How do those internet ordered goods arrive? UPS? Doesn't UPS pay a tax? If you want parcel insurance, doesn't it cost more based on the value of the parcel?
I'm thinking its a heck of a lot simpler to collect tax on a per-delivery route basis from a handful of shipping companies, than from "everyone who could theoretically sell something on ebay" basis.
3077 counties! Oh lordy! How would we keep track of so many different taxes? That would take either a big piece of paper, or several, even! Too bad there isn't a better way of keep track of lists of things...
First of all its by municipality, not county. Individual cities have different rates here.
Ah that's easy, once you have the data. How do you get the data? The expensive part is keeping track of the endless seemingly random changes. Is soda a tax free food or taxable luxury good in that city? How bout energy drinks?
All joking apart, how would you manage to give perks to those who do well but _without_ anyone being able to notice that others are not getting said perks and thus by simple logic must be 'dumb' (your words) ?
Alternative answer #2... Think of the stereotypical "hot for teacher" pr0n genre... People wanna keep that kind of stuff very quiet, only change would be pairing up would occur based on test scores rather than who catches who's eye... I like this idea, because as an A++ physics student who in his second year of high school physics literally only got two things wrong during the entire year, I get the 23 year old ex- college cheer leader librarian for my "special tutoring session". Heck, even if nothing inappropriate happens, just looking at her was Very nice... On the other hand, my best friend who was smart enough but had a huge attitude problem and thus legendarily poor test results would get the 60 year old 350 pound english teacher for his "special tutoring session". Heck, even if nothing inappropriate happens, just looking at her was ... not as nice as my tutoring session, that's for sure.
Every day I see more and more items coming out of our educational system that make me ask 'where the heck are the parents' when these dumbass policies are being implemented?
Probably at work in a highly classist environment where certain "grades" of people have to share cubes in open plan, some have their own cubes in open plan, some have their own "full wall" cubes in non-open plan, some have an office... Management is allowed to park in the nearby attached parking garage, minions get to find their own spot far away, etc. Probably the plan makes a lot of sense to them.
All joking apart, how would you manage to give perks to those who do well but _without_ anyone being able to notice that others are not getting said perks and thus by simple logic must be 'dumb' (your words) ?
Open your eyes? I hung out with a rather "diverse" group when I was in H.S. This was before the school equals prison movement got started. So our "hall monitors" were teachers walking from task to task, and an old granny or two. Now a days we have intimidation squads of SWAT and K9 units roaming the halls to teach the serfs they are just slaves to big brother and keep in their place. But I digress.
Anyway, think back to high school a couple decades ago:
1) I get caught in a minor (heck, even major) rule infractions by my former 2nd year physics teacher, or one of the academic decathlon coaches, or one of the "wise old women" and I get at most a finger wagging and a bit of a talking to. Even for stuff that would get me arrested now a days (repeated counts of possession of certain things on school property, use of fireworks on school property, repeated habitual truancy, etc, admittedly never "really bad stuff" like violence). I was also inspired by some Richard Feynman "breaking security theater" stories of his that probably would be categorized as terrorism now because of embarrassing the administration.
2) My partners in crime / fellow metalheads who were not in advanced placement classes and/or after school academic activities get caught in the most minor rule infraction by my former physics teacher or calculus teacher or AD coach and they get the book thrown at them, marched down to the vice principals office, suspension, calls to parents, etc.
How 'bout this. Starting with 5th grade give $1000 cash per year to each student in the top 5%. Then, the best might have $8000 ready for college and stand a fighting chance of actually being able to pay for it.
Intensely DUMB idea.
1) Like all govt interference in the free market, the colleges will all raise their prices by $8000 in response, regardless if the student earned the eight grand or even if the student lives in a district or state where the $8K is offered. After all, by supply and demand, the supply of cash just increased $8K, correct? The school is leaving free money on the table if they don't increase their tuition by $8K. As a former "tuition reimbursement" guy, why should my employer pay an extra $8K?
2) It'll cost more to administer than the existing financial aid programs, if not because its more complex, at least because its a second system in addition to financial aid, so rather than $10K going to students via "old fashioned financial aid" the students will only get $8K with $2K for salaries of the drones, program managers, executive level, etc.
3) Huge legal and admin overhead to make sure the parents / kids don't just turn the $ into crack or weed. Big brother / 1984 style social engineering and control of all aspects of ones financial life is expensive and complicated.
4) After income taxes on the gift, the kid only gets $X where $X is basically a transfer payment from the local district / state to the feds. So the feds "have to" (or do they?) transfer more money to the district... Its basically a bunch of highly paid bean counters passing monopoly money back and forth without really accomplishing anything.
Now they just seriously fumbled the iPhone ball by ...
... selling out the complete stock of the new device in only a couple days?
Nothing says failure like profit. Nothing says fumble like tripping over piles of gold.
I don't have a dog in the fight; I have no desire to own a smart phone. But I do like laughing at the android folks, those guys are hilarious. I hope they win, they have a cool idea, ethic, and philosophy, but that doesn't mean the rest of us aren't laughing at them.
the companies involved expect
Who? The MBAs? They all lie, that's their job. A "pet" petroleum engineer paid by the marketing department to boost stock price? A misinterpretation by the art history majors at NPR? A waitress at the local truck stop probably has a better idea than anything you're likely to hear.
"People have been saying that since 1920... well... they said it would run out in 1920... and then they said it would run out in 1950... and then they said it would run out in 1980... and then they said it would run out in 2000..."
Who are those "they"? Mr Hubbert, geologist working for the oil industry, said in 1956 that with 1950's oil extraction technology US oil production would peak in 1970.
In summary, hippies, journalists, and the occasional scare mongering apocalyptic zealot have historically gotten it wrong. But the geologists are legendary for getting it right, not just domestic production but every other field and country out there...
Once you get a nice magnifying glass and some fine tweezers.
And a nice iron. The smaller the tip, the smaller the thermal mass. "big" thru-hole can get away with free running a dumb power resistor across the AC mains. Tiny tips either overheat and self destruct, or have to be retinned every 5 minutes, or get cold and can't heat the pad instantly. Don't need digital display, although its nice, but do need active electronic control of the tip.
It took me decades to get around to buying some rather elaborate Hakko gear, and after about an hour of use I wondered why the heck I waited. There are others out there that are probably just as good.
Also there exists a telecom wire tracing tool that is basically a plastic stick with a L shaped 18 gauge or so stainless steel (solder won't stick) wire sticking out of the end of it. That comes in handy... so you stick the IC or the cap or whatever on the PCB with a touch of solder, then you nudge the device into perfect position with this thing, then let it cool into place before soldering all the other pins.
I prefer SMD over thru-hole. Its frankly easier and faster.
If Steve Jobs was selling his used toilet paper, Apple fans would have been buying it.
You may have missed the news, but he's dead now.
His death was the first thing I thought of, that there's gonna be a 4S-2 released momentarily with one of his inspirational quotes or maybe a silhouette laseretched into the back of the phone. Or a pic of SJ as the default background or whatever.
I suspect SJ memorial goods (engraved iphone cases, etc) will flood DX and ebay real soon now...