There are a lot of project management tools that are pretty much glorified web boards, and they're pretty popular. Basecamp for one, PBWiki for another.
There are benefits to having a shared archive of communication, and the good systems allow for all sorts of stuff like bug tracking and file repositories. I know I use them all the time, and am glad to have them.
Obviously if it's a one-time message you should keep it as simple as possible. Straw men are fun, but even yours isn't actually all that different from my day to day work, except we don't do it retarded.
I can't believe I'm seeing this argument again. Here. Now. In 2008.
Maybe I'll fire up IE6 to really complete the feeling I'm getting.
The counter arguments are everywhere, and this discussion has been dead for years now, so I won't bother repeating them. I sincerely hope you're not charging anyone for HTML.
I agree to a large extent but it depends a lot on the client. I say this as a fulltime independent web developer.
I once spent a month in negotiations with a client over a contract, until finally I walked away. The only thing that would have been acceptable to them was essentially a non-binding resolution governed by the state of Utah, their corporate home, suffice it to say I am not in Utah and it would have made even an effective contract impossible for me to enforce because I don't have the time or money to fly somewhere to fight over payment for one gig. A few months later I heard that they had stiffed the person they eventually found to do the job, and now more than a year later they still haven't made any progress but have lost the benefit of any referrals.
Point is, a contract wouldn't have saved me there, and it certainly burned some goodwill with the client. But it also showed me what kind of people they were, and the struggle ended up steering me away from a bad situation.
In general I agree with everything else said. Keep very detailed accounts of your hours and how you use them. Treat your good clients like gold - and I mean that. Send them Christmas cards, with handwritten notes - nothing sappy or long, but let them know you're a human being and you appreciate their faith in your work. If you love them, they will love you back. Always get money up front (this depends on the client and the project, but it's generally within 25%-40% for me).
I have made a gut call and not even mentioned a contract with a few clients. Just remember that to a stand-up client who intends to pay you money for the work you do, a contract shouldn't be a scary thing. If it is, that means you're presenting it wrong, it's written poorly, or something about them isn't aboveboard. Maybe they're just trying to keep the government out of their accounting, or maybe they want to be able to walk halfway through if they get a change of heart without having to pay anything. Whatever it is, it's important you find out before it hurts you.
Ideally, I have 2-3 major projects going at once and a handful of smaller ones with less demanding timelines, and almost all of my business comes from a fairly small circle (20 people or so) who pass around referrals. I think maybe the biggest thing I haven't seen mentioned is that us independent web developers and designers and coders and whatever are not competitors - even in bad economic times there's plenty of work out there for us, if anything it's the expensive agencies that will lose contracts to flexible independents. Cherish your network of trusted associates, it's through them that you build a reputation and grow your business. And the next time you've been offered some work that doesn't fit into your schedule, pay it forward and refer someone else.
With good clients and bad, the most important thing is getting a feel for them as people. Show respect, get respect. Do a good job, get paid for it. Pretty simple, really.
Of course, the roleplaying female night elf 37 year olds in basements are really weird, so they tend to stay away from normal people, making it even better for the rest of us.
This is old news for anyone working on the web, and unfortunately news that hasn't changed much. There are developments and new ways of tracking coming up all the time, like tracking unique vs repeating viewers, average time spent on a page, how a viewer got to a page and where they went to from it, etc etc etc. Some methods come in and out of vogue, and some are thrown out entirely - nobody talks about "hits" anymore.
The problem is that none of these tracking methods are really all that great when viewed on their own (spending a long amount of time on a page could mean you just walked away from the computer or opened it in a background tab without looking at it for a while), while combining these stats can paint a fuzzy picture that has to be looked at within the context of the site's content and purpose.
The best picture of a site's traffic can usually be gained by looking for specific trends within a limited set of stats and then combining conclusions from these narrow focuses into a broader view. For example, if visitors routinely enter your site through a page that is not the index, spend a couple of minutes on the page, and then disappear, odds are you have some high value external links coming into specific articles on your site but very few loyal repeat visitors. On the other hand, visitors primarily entering on your index and then browsing a bit usually means some of your advertising is paying off, while frequent visitors to the front page who then leave your site quickly and without browsing means the advertising is working but your content isn't. These sites could all have similar overall traffic but very different demographics that would only be made clear by looking at how individuals use the site.
This is all very basic, but the point is this - stat tracking is valuable and useful, but it has to be done with the specifics in mind. Just saying your site got 100,000 hits in an hour means absolutely nothing.
>> Also, the administrators would like you to take as long as possible to get your degree, to increase the revenue flow.
It's actually a pretty big black eye for universities to have a student body that takes forever to get through the program. It's taken as a sign that either the students aren't motivated, the departments are poorly run, and in general a poor investment compared to other schools that award degrees with less time invested. There are of course exceptions, but your average university it's really in their best interest to have every student graduate as quickly as possible.
All of that said, I spent four full years in a UC before even declaring a major, so at least I kept the professors happy.
>> Many professors would like students to explore and experiment in college rather than cram in as much as possible at top speed.
The feed isn't showing anything not already public, this is true.
However, it shows things that you might not really feel like broadcasting to the world, even if you don't feel like it needs to be a secret. For example, when a couple splits up, everyone in your network now gets a message saying "John Smith has changed his status from 'In a relationship' to 'Single'." Not really private information, and obviously having that on your profile at all means your comfortable with other people knowing your relationship status, but there's such a lack of respect or discretion for the real world situation that it's just incredibly dehumanizing.
Another example: my friend is vacationing in Europe right now, and she just posted a message to her boyfriend's wall about wishing he was there and related sappy whatnot. Sure the wall was already the most public way someone could post a message, but it was just a message on that person's page, not a message that gets broadcasted to everyone else in either person's network, front and center.
The point here is that there's a big difference between simply not hiding information and blasting that information through a loudspeaker.
>> It's best to have many smaller applications that each perform a function very well, rather than one big application that tries to do everything,
From a technical standpoint, I understand and agree with what you're saying. From a human standpoint, requiring multiple applications to be used at once to accomplish one task decreases usability and increases complexity. Considering that lots of people try to do more than one thing at once on a computer, for anyone who's not a UNIX guru (and there's a fair number of people who aren't and don't wish to be) you're more or less expecting someone who only listens to pop music to conduct an orchestra.
Bloated applications suck. But combining associated tasks into a single coherant interface is not an inherently flawed concept.
I'm with you, the study is weak, but you aren't exactly arguing from a fair playing field either. For example...
>> Death of a cartoon figure registers as little more then a Saturday morning cartoon with little association.
That one sentence could have (and probably has had) an entire study devoted to it. Presenting assertions like this as facts, without anything to support it, weakens your argument in the exact same way you're trying to weaken the study's.
Alexander the great and Napolean are the two great conquorers in the history of the world. Yes there are others but nobody comes close to these two.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what comes from an entirely euro-centric history curriculum. Perish the thought that other things have been happening in the whole rest of the world (and depending where you look, for a lot longer and with no less complex cultures or social structures.) I guess people just can't get enough of Waterloo.
These guys are actively trying to make their world a better place. They didn't start out with a silver spoon, they got lucky and made it big. Lots of people would stop there. Instead they're doing a hell of a lot of work that nobody ever asked or expected them to do, simultaneously improving the image of gamers while actually making a HUGE difference in people's lives.
Quite frankly, I don't care if you think their comic is funny or not. If you don't think it is, that's fair. Jokes about their comic sucking are more than acceptable as well. But to take a story like this as your opportunity to attack them just shows what an incredibly classless individual you are.
Two guys are out there trying to do good things, and not in the Bill Gates suddenly discovering his image stinks kind of way, but because they can and they want to. Be grateful. I wouldn't think I'd have to explain that.
I know. I said right wing idea. I'm not an idea, I'm a person. I've got plenty of ideas that are left of Jerry Brown, and a few that are right of Reagan. And one or two in between. So I really like what you said about there being too much polarization.
Let's put this to rest. I never called you right wing, or even put the words "right" and "wing" together aside from when I quoted you. I called my own ideas left wing, tongue-in-cheek style, and that's the end of it.
On the other hand, I'm not sure government is the most fair and efficient way to alleviate suffering.
I'd have to agree. I don't think our government is the most fair and efficient way to do much of anything. Despite this, it is often more fair and more efficient than doing nothing.
I wish I could prove that it wasn't, but to be honest it's only my best guess.
Which pretty much describes how even the most informed people look at these things, and definitely describes me.
Anyway, thanks for a great discussion.
Yes, it was nice to have one with minimal bickering:).
If your only reasoning is that dealing with hurricanes is really, really expensive, I'd say that's all the more reason not to continue providing incentives for people to live in hurricane-prone areas.
The more I think about it, that does seem to be the one huge qualifier for me. Hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes - they're freakin expensive. I used to live in Colorado and have spent more than a few days shovelling a hole through the snow to the world, without even the thought of receiving federal aid, but to be honest that just seems absurd. Adults miss some work, kids miss some school, maybe a few unlucky drivers die, but the thought of comparing that to a hurricane hitting New Orleans just seems absurd to me.
Actually, that anyone thinking federal aid for a hurricane hitting New Orleans doesn't warrant disaster relief is rather hard for me to wrap my head around.
Also hard for me to understand... If I follow your argument correctly, is the final goal the complete depopulation of California, Alaska, Maine, and anywhere within hurricane distance of the Gulf of Mexico? That's just, well, inconceivable.
You did. Quote from the end of your first post:: "Just a crazy right wing idea."
I'm not a huge fan of left/right labels in general, since I hardly find the Democratic party appealing but feel forced into it due to my revulsion with much of the Republican, but you're the one who brought it into the discussion. I said it as more of a snide comment than for making an actual point, because I guess I'm just a jerk. Sorry..
As for average joes paying taxes - I'm one of them too. There's two sides to me on this - on the one hand, the liberal "let people do what they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else" side thinks that if you live in a padded room underground, you probably shouldn't have to pay a tax that provides hurricane relief. The other side of me says we're all in this United States, and it doesn't do anybody much good if everybody decides they'd rather opt out of disaster relief funding. I tell you, it's hard to try and keep a realistic view of the world when everywhere you look you're being forced to polarize, but I think the best I can put it is that I pay my taxes, and I wish they were lower, but some things are just worth supporting even if they don't directly affect me.
Do you realize that to a certain extent there are poor people in Virginia paying taxes to rebuild the property of rich business owners in New Orleans?
Yes. And I support that. I could get into that in detail, but I think it's enough to say that if the rich Virginian's taxes are going to help some poor guy in New Orleans, why shouldn't any other Virginian's? I have one of those "we're all in this together" viewpoints which is far from universal. If things were to change to a flat tax my stance would change, but that's a different issue.
But you're absolutely right: I have no idea if this can be done without unpredictable consequences. But can't that be said about any change? I guess I'm just more progressive than you.
I'd agree with that. Big changes scare me. They're not inherently bad - the exodus from the south I mentioned in my previous post exposed the blues to the world, after all. It just seems to me that your method of making people accountable for risk has tremendous potential to cause social, political, and economic shifts that may be far from positive. Seems just as risky to minimize the risk as to set aside a bit of funding for it.
You know what's kind of weird, I actually had to think a little before writing this. I'm not sure that's ever happened to me on slashdot before.
You know the world's coming to an end when a liberal is pointing out the notion of unintended consequences!
Looking for unintended consequences is pretty much my job, so it's only natural it would seep into my political views:).
First off, federal disaster aid gets spread around. It does not all go to hurricanes. That should be enough of a counter, but for the sake of argument I'm going to pretend what you base your point on is true.
Assuming that what you want happens, and federal aid for disaster relief becomes a thing of the past, what are the effects? You seem to assert that people will simply not wish to live with the risk, so they'll move. That might apply to a relatively small number of people with the means to move, but what about everyone else, the people lacking not only the means/education/whatever to pick up and move, but also most in need of aid after a disaster?
Let's pretend everyone will be able to move after a cutback in disaster funding, for whatever reason (my guess is a gov-funded program, which kind of defeats the purpose, but whatever). Where will they all go? What will happen to where they move? The black exodus from the south in the 50s had a pretty profound effect, and the actual number of people who moved was tiny compared to the number that stayed. What happens when everyone moves?
Personally, I don't think the upper classes will move, or the lower classes, or really much of anybody. People would stay, a disaster would (agreed, inevitably) come, and some people would come out of it better than others - which would seem fairly similar to how things are today. The difference is that everyone would come out worse. I'm not going to pretend to know the future, but it seems to me that this might be something of a drain on the economy of many southern states, which already doesn't compare favorably to much of the country, which could conceivably cause some less-than-satisfactory changes to how the south interacts economically with the rest of the country. I know, slippery slope argument, and I'm hardly an economist, meteorologist, or geologist, but these things should at least be kept in mind when making decisions that affect a huge number of people.
Anyway, these are just some crazy left wing ideas. You know, that big things might have effects.
My analogy isn't perfect. Whatever, it gets the point across. In answer to they should keep their crap private, I'll just say that it's hard to advance as a designer (or really much of anything) without peer review.
Also, calling their emotional ramblings valueless is a pretty closed-minded view of things. I'm not saying I go and read those sites, but for some people they're important. Whatever makes them happy, I guess.
And finally, even if you somehow find a way to disprove both of these points, you still haven't said how some kid's blog hurts you in any conceivable way.
People that don't know even the basics of HTML, or how to create a website shouldn't be allowed
You're right, only people who already know everything should be allowed to attempt anything. Let's keep math books out of schools and close the freeways, because only mathematicians and NASCAR drivers have any right to numbers and cars. I don't know about you, but my first site was almost 10 years ago on Angelfire, and it was crap as all of them are. Then I bought books, viewed source, and have done a number of sites professionally with all that fancy high-tech wizardry I never would have even known existed if I hadn't started somewhere.
Maybe this would also get rid of the million's of those MySpace or Piczo type websites that plague the internet with the writings of illiterate 13 year old girls.
Sure, their sites might be pointless and juvenile, but I can't remember the last time I spent an hour reading a site before slapping my forehead and saying "Oh, now I understand why this sucks, it was written by a 13 year old!" That just doesn't happen, because the only people who ever end up at those sites are the 13 year olds who write them and their other 13 year old friends. This "plague" does not affect most people in the slightest, and if it affects you then perhaps you shouldn't be allowed to use the internet because of a lack of basic navigation skills.
People can be so quick to discourage and dismiss beginners, it makes me wonder how anybody ever learns anything.
Slashdot Mirror
There are a lot of project management tools that are pretty much glorified web boards, and they're pretty popular. Basecamp for one, PBWiki for another.
There are benefits to having a shared archive of communication, and the good systems allow for all sorts of stuff like bug tracking and file repositories. I know I use them all the time, and am glad to have them.
Obviously if it's a one-time message you should keep it as simple as possible. Straw men are fun, but even yours isn't actually all that different from my day to day work, except we don't do it retarded.
I can't believe I'm seeing this argument again. Here. Now. In 2008.
Maybe I'll fire up IE6 to really complete the feeling I'm getting.
The counter arguments are everywhere, and this discussion has been dead for years now, so I won't bother repeating them. I sincerely hope you're not charging anyone for HTML.
Exactly what he said.
I agree to a large extent but it depends a lot on the client. I say this as a fulltime independent web developer.
I once spent a month in negotiations with a client over a contract, until finally I walked away. The only thing that would have been acceptable to them was essentially a non-binding resolution governed by the state of Utah, their corporate home, suffice it to say I am not in Utah and it would have made even an effective contract impossible for me to enforce because I don't have the time or money to fly somewhere to fight over payment for one gig. A few months later I heard that they had stiffed the person they eventually found to do the job, and now more than a year later they still haven't made any progress but have lost the benefit of any referrals.
Point is, a contract wouldn't have saved me there, and it certainly burned some goodwill with the client. But it also showed me what kind of people they were, and the struggle ended up steering me away from a bad situation.
In general I agree with everything else said. Keep very detailed accounts of your hours and how you use them. Treat your good clients like gold - and I mean that. Send them Christmas cards, with handwritten notes - nothing sappy or long, but let them know you're a human being and you appreciate their faith in your work. If you love them, they will love you back. Always get money up front (this depends on the client and the project, but it's generally within 25%-40% for me).
I have made a gut call and not even mentioned a contract with a few clients. Just remember that to a stand-up client who intends to pay you money for the work you do, a contract shouldn't be a scary thing. If it is, that means you're presenting it wrong, it's written poorly, or something about them isn't aboveboard. Maybe they're just trying to keep the government out of their accounting, or maybe they want to be able to walk halfway through if they get a change of heart without having to pay anything. Whatever it is, it's important you find out before it hurts you.
Ideally, I have 2-3 major projects going at once and a handful of smaller ones with less demanding timelines, and almost all of my business comes from a fairly small circle (20 people or so) who pass around referrals. I think maybe the biggest thing I haven't seen mentioned is that us independent web developers and designers and coders and whatever are not competitors - even in bad economic times there's plenty of work out there for us, if anything it's the expensive agencies that will lose contracts to flexible independents. Cherish your network of trusted associates, it's through them that you build a reputation and grow your business. And the next time you've been offered some work that doesn't fit into your schedule, pay it forward and refer someone else.
With good clients and bad, the most important thing is getting a feel for them as people. Show respect, get respect. Do a good job, get paid for it. Pretty simple, really.
Of course, the roleplaying female night elf 37 year olds in basements are really weird, so they tend to stay away from normal people, making it even better for the rest of us.
This is old news for anyone working on the web, and unfortunately news that hasn't changed much. There are developments and new ways of tracking coming up all the time, like tracking unique vs repeating viewers, average time spent on a page, how a viewer got to a page and where they went to from it, etc etc etc. Some methods come in and out of vogue, and some are thrown out entirely - nobody talks about "hits" anymore.
The problem is that none of these tracking methods are really all that great when viewed on their own (spending a long amount of time on a page could mean you just walked away from the computer or opened it in a background tab without looking at it for a while), while combining these stats can paint a fuzzy picture that has to be looked at within the context of the site's content and purpose.
The best picture of a site's traffic can usually be gained by looking for specific trends within a limited set of stats and then combining conclusions from these narrow focuses into a broader view. For example, if visitors routinely enter your site through a page that is not the index, spend a couple of minutes on the page, and then disappear, odds are you have some high value external links coming into specific articles on your site but very few loyal repeat visitors. On the other hand, visitors primarily entering on your index and then browsing a bit usually means some of your advertising is paying off, while frequent visitors to the front page who then leave your site quickly and without browsing means the advertising is working but your content isn't. These sites could all have similar overall traffic but very different demographics that would only be made clear by looking at how individuals use the site.
This is all very basic, but the point is this - stat tracking is valuable and useful, but it has to be done with the specifics in mind. Just saying your site got 100,000 hits in an hour means absolutely nothing.
>> Also, the administrators would like you to take as long as possible to get your degree, to increase the revenue flow.
It's actually a pretty big black eye for universities to have a student body that takes forever to get through the program. It's taken as a sign that either the students aren't motivated, the departments are poorly run, and in general a poor investment compared to other schools that award degrees with less time invested. There are of course exceptions, but your average university it's really in their best interest to have every student graduate as quickly as possible.
All of that said, I spent four full years in a UC before even declaring a major, so at least I kept the professors happy.
>> Many professors would like students to explore and experiment in college rather than cram in as much as possible at top speed.
I would if I could. An interesting question.
The punishment is probably pretty far from trivial for tinkering in any way with a national election though, even if you don't really do anything
The feed isn't showing anything not already public, this is true.
However, it shows things that you might not really feel like broadcasting to the world, even if you don't feel like it needs to be a secret. For example, when a couple splits up, everyone in your network now gets a message saying "John Smith has changed his status from 'In a relationship' to 'Single'." Not really private information, and obviously having that on your profile at all means your comfortable with other people knowing your relationship status, but there's such a lack of respect or discretion for the real world situation that it's just incredibly dehumanizing.
Another example: my friend is vacationing in Europe right now, and she just posted a message to her boyfriend's wall about wishing he was there and related sappy whatnot. Sure the wall was already the most public way someone could post a message, but it was just a message on that person's page, not a message that gets broadcasted to everyone else in either person's network, front and center.
The point here is that there's a big difference between simply not hiding information and blasting that information through a loudspeaker.
>> It's best to have many smaller applications that each perform a function very well, rather than one big application that tries to do everything,
From a technical standpoint, I understand and agree with what you're saying. From a human standpoint, requiring multiple applications to be used at once to accomplish one task decreases usability and increases complexity. Considering that lots of people try to do more than one thing at once on a computer, for anyone who's not a UNIX guru (and there's a fair number of people who aren't and don't wish to be) you're more or less expecting someone who only listens to pop music to conduct an orchestra.
Bloated applications suck. But combining associated tasks into a single coherant interface is not an inherently flawed concept.
I thought it sounded a little funny too, but it's actually standard football terminology to degrade your linemen.
I'm with you, the study is weak, but you aren't exactly arguing from a fair playing field either. For example...
>> Death of a cartoon figure registers as little more then a Saturday morning cartoon with little association.
That one sentence could have (and probably has had) an entire study devoted to it. Presenting assertions like this as facts, without anything to support it, weakens your argument in the exact same way you're trying to weaken the study's.
>> At this point in time this means you actually went and bought a Mac, as OSX is not available on its own.
Really?
Regardless, I'd be just as surprised as you are if even a sizable minority of people trying to run OS X on their PCs actually bought it.
Alexander the great and Napolean are the two great conquorers in the history of the world. Yes there are others but nobody comes close to these two.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what comes from an entirely euro-centric history curriculum. Perish the thought that other things have been happening in the whole rest of the world (and depending where you look, for a lot longer and with no less complex cultures or social structures.) I guess people just can't get enough of Waterloo.
you're a troll, but whatever.
These guys are actively trying to make their world a better place. They didn't start out with a silver spoon, they got lucky and made it big. Lots of people would stop there. Instead they're doing a hell of a lot of work that nobody ever asked or expected them to do, simultaneously improving the image of gamers while actually making a HUGE difference in people's lives.
Quite frankly, I don't care if you think their comic is funny or not. If you don't think it is, that's fair. Jokes about their comic sucking are more than acceptable as well. But to take a story like this as your opportunity to attack them just shows what an incredibly classless individual you are.
Two guys are out there trying to do good things, and not in the Bill Gates suddenly discovering his image stinks kind of way, but because they can and they want to. Be grateful. I wouldn't think I'd have to explain that.
I know. I said right wing idea. I'm not an idea, I'm a person. I've got plenty of ideas that are left of Jerry Brown, and a few that are right of Reagan. And one or two in between. So I really like what you said about there being too much polarization.
:).
Let's put this to rest. I never called you right wing, or even put the words "right" and "wing" together aside from when I quoted you. I called my own ideas left wing, tongue-in-cheek style, and that's the end of it.
On the other hand, I'm not sure government is the most fair and efficient way to alleviate suffering.
I'd have to agree. I don't think our government is the most fair and efficient way to do much of anything. Despite this, it is often more fair and more efficient than doing nothing.
I wish I could prove that it wasn't, but to be honest it's only my best guess.
Which pretty much describes how even the most informed people look at these things, and definitely describes me.
Anyway, thanks for a great discussion.
Yes, it was nice to have one with minimal bickering
If your only reasoning is that dealing with hurricanes is really, really expensive, I'd say that's all the more reason not to continue providing incentives for people to live in hurricane-prone areas.
The more I think about it, that does seem to be the one huge qualifier for me. Hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes - they're freakin expensive. I used to live in Colorado and have spent more than a few days shovelling a hole through the snow to the world, without even the thought of receiving federal aid, but to be honest that just seems absurd. Adults miss some work, kids miss some school, maybe a few unlucky drivers die, but the thought of comparing that to a hurricane hitting New Orleans just seems absurd to me.
Actually, that anyone thinking federal aid for a hurricane hitting New Orleans doesn't warrant disaster relief is rather hard for me to wrap my head around.
Also hard for me to understand... If I follow your argument correctly, is the final goal the complete depopulation of California, Alaska, Maine, and anywhere within hurricane distance of the Gulf of Mexico? That's just, well, inconceivable.
Anyway, who said I was right wing?
:).
You did. Quote from the end of your first post:: "Just a crazy right wing idea."
I'm not a huge fan of left/right labels in general, since I hardly find the Democratic party appealing but feel forced into it due to my revulsion with much of the Republican, but you're the one who brought it into the discussion. I said it as more of a snide comment than for making an actual point, because I guess I'm just a jerk. Sorry..
As for average joes paying taxes - I'm one of them too. There's two sides to me on this - on the one hand, the liberal "let people do what they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else" side thinks that if you live in a padded room underground, you probably shouldn't have to pay a tax that provides hurricane relief. The other side of me says we're all in this United States, and it doesn't do anybody much good if everybody decides they'd rather opt out of disaster relief funding. I tell you, it's hard to try and keep a realistic view of the world when everywhere you look you're being forced to polarize, but I think the best I can put it is that I pay my taxes, and I wish they were lower, but some things are just worth supporting even if they don't directly affect me.
Do you realize that to a certain extent there are poor people in Virginia paying taxes to rebuild the property of rich business owners in New Orleans?
Yes. And I support that. I could get into that in detail, but I think it's enough to say that if the rich Virginian's taxes are going to help some poor guy in New Orleans, why shouldn't any other Virginian's? I have one of those "we're all in this together" viewpoints which is far from universal. If things were to change to a flat tax my stance would change, but that's a different issue.
But you're absolutely right: I have no idea if this can be done without unpredictable consequences. But can't that be said about any change? I guess I'm just more progressive than you.
I'd agree with that. Big changes scare me. They're not inherently bad - the exodus from the south I mentioned in my previous post exposed the blues to the world, after all. It just seems to me that your method of making people accountable for risk has tremendous potential to cause social, political, and economic shifts that may be far from positive. Seems just as risky to minimize the risk as to set aside a bit of funding for it.
You know what's kind of weird, I actually had to think a little before writing this. I'm not sure that's ever happened to me on slashdot before.
You know the world's coming to an end when a liberal is pointing out the notion of unintended consequences!
Looking for unintended consequences is pretty much my job, so it's only natural it would seep into my political views
First off, federal disaster aid gets spread around. It does not all go to hurricanes. That should be enough of a counter, but for the sake of argument I'm going to pretend what you base your point on is true.
Assuming that what you want happens, and federal aid for disaster relief becomes a thing of the past, what are the effects? You seem to assert that people will simply not wish to live with the risk, so they'll move. That might apply to a relatively small number of people with the means to move, but what about everyone else, the people lacking not only the means/education/whatever to pick up and move, but also most in need of aid after a disaster?
Let's pretend everyone will be able to move after a cutback in disaster funding, for whatever reason (my guess is a gov-funded program, which kind of defeats the purpose, but whatever). Where will they all go? What will happen to where they move? The black exodus from the south in the 50s had a pretty profound effect, and the actual number of people who moved was tiny compared to the number that stayed. What happens when everyone moves?
Personally, I don't think the upper classes will move, or the lower classes, or really much of anybody. People would stay, a disaster would (agreed, inevitably) come, and some people would come out of it better than others - which would seem fairly similar to how things are today. The difference is that everyone would come out worse. I'm not going to pretend to know the future, but it seems to me that this might be something of a drain on the economy of many southern states, which already doesn't compare favorably to much of the country, which could conceivably cause some less-than-satisfactory changes to how the south interacts economically with the rest of the country. I know, slippery slope argument, and I'm hardly an economist, meteorologist, or geologist, but these things should at least be kept in mind when making decisions that affect a huge number of people.
Anyway, these are just some crazy left wing ideas. You know, that big things might have effects.
rofl
because the summary kind of sucks and by "censor images" it means censor the images within Google Maps' satellite view.
At least, that's what makes sense to me. Why else would there be low-quality images of the plant floating around the web?
My analogy isn't perfect. Whatever, it gets the point across. In answer to they should keep their crap private, I'll just say that it's hard to advance as a designer (or really much of anything) without peer review.
Also, calling their emotional ramblings valueless is a pretty closed-minded view of things. I'm not saying I go and read those sites, but for some people they're important. Whatever makes them happy, I guess.
And finally, even if you somehow find a way to disprove both of these points, you still haven't said how some kid's blog hurts you in any conceivable way.
no hard feelings :)
I hope you're not serious.
People that don't know even the basics of HTML, or how to create a website shouldn't be allowed
You're right, only people who already know everything should be allowed to attempt anything. Let's keep math books out of schools and close the freeways, because only mathematicians and NASCAR drivers have any right to numbers and cars. I don't know about you, but my first site was almost 10 years ago on Angelfire, and it was crap as all of them are. Then I bought books, viewed source, and have done a number of sites professionally with all that fancy high-tech wizardry I never would have even known existed if I hadn't started somewhere.
Maybe this would also get rid of the million's of those MySpace or Piczo type websites that plague the internet with the writings of illiterate 13 year old girls.
Sure, their sites might be pointless and juvenile, but I can't remember the last time I spent an hour reading a site before slapping my forehead and saying "Oh, now I understand why this sucks, it was written by a 13 year old!" That just doesn't happen, because the only people who ever end up at those sites are the 13 year olds who write them and their other 13 year old friends. This "plague" does not affect most people in the slightest, and if it affects you then perhaps you shouldn't be allowed to use the internet because of a lack of basic navigation skills.
People can be so quick to discourage and dismiss beginners, it makes me wonder how anybody ever learns anything.
Wow, did someone just defend Karl Rove? For some reason I just got all shivery.