I think that was the point. People will see a pattern of phones sold second-hand not working, and will cease to buy second-hand phones. Legitimate sellers are screwed.
Maybe so, but what do you intend to do about it? It's not like firing him is the best course of action--it's a huge expense. I would try to bypass the manager quietly--since the firm is paying me to tell them what's wrong and how to fix it, I'd tell them this manager isn't managing properly AND WE CAN FIX THAT.
Project Management. Start with work breakdown structures (scope management) and stakeholder management.
Stakeholder Management means identifying everyone who has a stake--the team working the project, the manager running it, the project manager, the functional managers over every team member, the people who need the work (customer, client; this may be another department--Accounting, web development, etc.), the company executives or middle managers who have direct stake, project managers for other projects that may be impacted (by the project itself or by the calling of resources THEY need for the project), and so on--and getting them all together to discuss what the fuck you are doing. What are we building for you, how do we build it, who doesn't have time for this, who has other projects, who does/doesn't want to be involved with this?
The stakeholders give you a lot. Requirements in many, many forms--requirements of what you need to build, requirements as to how much time it can take, requirements as to what your resource limits are (the guy wants something you don't have resources for, and management won't hire more people? He's going to have to extend deadlines or ask for less), and so on. They will review your scope and your WBS.
The WBS manages scope. You define the project and break it down into parts that describe 100% of the project. You break those down into parts that describe 100% of each part you're decomposing. You continue this until you have manageable, understandable pieces. Each piece is a deliverable--a noun-verb describing a thing (a document, a widget, a code module, a meeting). Level-of-effort (meetings, WBS creation, project management--things that will be done, but won't produce an object and will be ongoing until completed) or discrete (cups, code modules, graphics, research--intangible research even, i.e. I know how this shit works now and can complete the tasks on this leg).
The lowest level of the WBS is the Work Package. Each Work Package is a unit of work to be done that's understood and manageable. If you can't understand the whole project, you go rolling-wave planning and further decompose work when you've completed earlier work and discovered what completing later work will entail. If you miss work, you must add it to the WBS by adding work packages under decomposed WBS elements. You can change-manage this, have a process by which you explain what is being added and why and when and then add it--it takes five minutes to make a change instead of five seconds, but that's okay; we don't need to form a committee for this shit.
The WBS dictionary describes each work package in detail. The work package will be self-explanatory to some team members, but not to anyone else. The WBS dictionary describes the complete scope of the work package--what it is, what it does, how it's implemented.
These measures start to get everyone on the same page and ensure that experts have input on what work is to be done. They ensure that the work to be done follows the scope and meets requirements. They ensure that everyone knows wtf is going on, and that if something isn't known then it gets found out.
My fixed expenses are 1/7 of my income, plus debt repayment, plus discretionary. That's why I'm aiming to pay off my debt in a few years--by the time I'm 30, owning a house, no rent, no car payment.
I've run the expense schedules for if I'd gotten a wife and kids. Be mindful my expenses are roughly $500/mo and my paycheck is over $3500/mo. Also, with a non-working spouse, I'd drop from the 30% tax bracket to the 15% tax bracket, returning $6000/year; with a child, I'd be returned $3500/year in direct tax credit. That's $9500/year; in current tax rate salary dollars, a $13500 raise. I would have to exchange for better healthcare before having a child, of course, costing me some $200/mo additional--$2400/year, including upgrading to Family plan to cover the little woman. Baby healthcare is expensive and I'd rather control the risk than take it.
The expenses for having a woman include more food (I eat at $150/mo, $250/mo if I'm irresponsible; and I throw quite a bit of food away because it's hard to cook portion for one. Consider $400/mo, so... $200/mo, $2500/year), medical expenses ($2400/year upgrade to high-end health plan), and some additional water and power. The rest is effectively elective--yes, I understand that the woman will WANT those shoes and clothes and other gifts; I myself have some level of discretionary spending. Yes, I understand both the need for some concessions in courtship and the need for possessions and activities that may cost money to support individual health--people need things and need to be able to do things. Part of keeping a woman healthy--not just on your arm, but HEALTHY--is giving her a new dress or taking her out once in a while. But this is flexible, not a fixed expense; that more means that I'll boost it when it suits me. If you've got a woman, and you don't enjoy taking her out sometimes, get rid of her.
Jump ship for other reasons than money. I'm pretty well-off, but my job is not to my liking. The guy was complaining about retiring--I know people who will NEVER retire, and people who are retired on a comfortable nest egg and still work 40 hours because they can't stand being idle and want to accomplish something.
$65k is a decent middle-class salary. He was complaining about being 50 and 20 years from retirement. I'm on a middle-class salary in a big city with high taxes and making it easy. How can you be so far from retirement? I keep seeing "you can't save money on $60,000-$80,000 anymore" claims, but hell I'm doing it... stop buying huge ass houses for "what I can afford for 30 years". Oh, you make $3000 take-home a month and your mortgage is $1800/mo for 30 years? You have three cars, but no kids? Yeah I can see how that's hard.
I've been aggressively attacking my expenses. It's a thing. I want out of debt; getting out of debt is a bigger imperative than anything else. That's been my way out.
I count raises to amusement. Also when I did the division I did it in my head as an exercise to see if I could pull it off quickly--I can't. Need to memorize my division tables.
As for mentioning it, 3.14 is pi. I thought it'd be appreciated to 2 decimal places, given the crowd. Instead I got hostility from a bunch of people who are bad at money and think "Social Skills" means "blowing $400/week on beer."
Alcohol is very beneficial to your health. In the same way as cholesterol, in fact--you sure don't want a LOT of it, but you're going to be better off having a moderate amount than none.
This is why, once you've convinced the hipsters that the $11 wine bottle tastes like the $300 wine bottle, the $11 wine bottle will be a $45 wine bottle.
What's hilarious is that modern technology is worse than... modern technology. Medicine from 2000 years ago? Yeah, no thanks. Medicine from 20 years ago? It's well known that classical anti-depressants are much, much better than modern medication. So much so that doctors are starting to prescribe the old drugs because, shit, Zoloft and Xanax don't work nearly as well and have horrible side effects.
Similarly, we've been hit-and-miss with "natural" or "naturopathic" or "whateverthefuckingrootiscalled" remedies. Tea? Tea was considered a medicine. That's funny. Then you realize that they inject EGCG directly into cancer as a form of chemotherapy--EGCG extracted from green tea. L-Theanine is fucking amazing--it's novel to green tea. At the same time, stuff like Lipitor (Lovastatin--extract of red yeast rice)... have proven dangerous and horrible and overall bad. 50% chance of killing your liver without being the damnedest bit effective. But eating plenty of red yeast rice somehow has the desired effect without toxicity? Okay, so some tradition works.
We need balance. Modern science, scientific advancement, understanding of our world, that's all well and good; but the haughtiness of proclaiming anything old and "voodo-y" as being unscientific and thus complete bullshit is a symptom of severe imbalance. We know meditation works for reducing stress and providing cognitive benefits--yet many people will claim no benefits exist because meditation is thought of as some kind of spiritual mind magic thing and thus is hilarious bullshit. We think of new drugs as improvements over old drugs and immediately believe the old drugs were ineffective--yet they were fantastically effective in their time, and new drugs are huge money-making machines for drug companies, so why would we believe such a thing? The science behind the studies is even controlled by those who have interest in convincing you that a new drug is better and safer, regardless of its effectiveness or safety. Can't we at least question it, rather than blindly marching on?
Funny enough, scientific studies have shown that vitamin C and orange juice and such don't prevent colds or any other disease except scurvy. People still believe that?
Actually Damascus steel is superior to most modern steel for a subset of specific applications. It takes one hell of an edge. Excessively hard steels tend to chip, and soft steels don't hold the edge; Damascus is some kind of black magic that easily takes a sharp edge and holds it for unusually long. Now, as structural steel? Hell no.
There's also an iron-making process that causes the iron to not rust, despite not being a rust-resistant iron. It's unknown currently, but the mechanism of action from study of samples is theorized to be an outer coating of impurities.
As for violins, there's a lot to consider there. Playability--how well it feels, how easy it is to work with, how well it keeps tune, intonation, etc--as well as sound quality--which is completely subjective. Sound quality changes with age, to the point that a lute that's been played even sounds different than one that hasn't been played due to the way the wood settles over time. Generally the changes to a played instrument are considered pleasant.
It's a lot more than "X is better than Y". The concept is kind of silly.
His problem is he doesn't understand that it's GOOD to be able to get away with crimes. A society where you can't commit a crime without getting caught would be a TERRIBLE society.
Imagine you have downloaded a movie illegitimately, and the Feds show up with the NET-PROTECT act or whatever it was called that Clinton signed making it a Federal criminal offense to download copyrighted movies and music. 5 years in jail. But the courts have ruled that the activity happening from your connection does not constitute sufficient evidence to convict you of the crime. Think about the situation.
If you are required to answer or be presumed guilty, and you are required to answer truthfully or face perjury charges, then lying is a big risk. You're likely to go to jail, since if they find the videos on your hard disk they've got more than "it came from your connection" and they can now force you to assist them by providing them with all passwords and keys and other shit you used. Oops.
The Fifth Amendment is there because it's understood that it's the government's job to prosecute you and it's your job to stay the fuck out of jail. The rules are that you get to make a defense, and you don't have to fucking cooperate in your own prosecution; there are NO rules for withholding evidence here, you don't have to offer up an explanation or tell them where to find the body or what caliber weapon you used. YOU'RE the prosecutor, YOU figure that shit out.
If it were such that you could be compelled, then every time they found new evidence they could accuse you of the crime of non-cooperation with the prosecution, of withholding critical facts, and then you go to jail. Essentially, even if innocent, you're going to want to offer up facts that are going to look terrible, with full explanations, and let the prosecution twist the details until you're going to have your ass pounded off.
Fuck all that. Sometimes the law is bullshit; sometimes you're an idiot, and you'll learn eventually; and sometimes you just don't want to be held responsible for not helping the state put your ass in jail, guilty or not.
Well, as someone who is nearly 28, and has just gotten a 3.14% raise up to $65k, and owns a house that will be paid off in 3 years, and has savings, and a $2000 bicycle, and can retire around 45 at this rate... too bad you suck at money.
I want to jump ship from this and get a better paying job. Oh the pay's fine; the work sucks. I've realized I like project management and hate actual tech--I like solving problems and hate wrenching the solutions. Now, what kind of job involves getting information out of a billion people who collectively couldn't find their asses if they were naked in prison with a bar of soap because none of them can understand each other (seriously, finance talking to IT?), and figuring out how to make them all achieve useful work that requires them to cross-communicate and examine problems?
Really? It looks like all of Europe did pretty good for a while. The Irish Potato Famine didn't seem to get much help from their British overlords. France didn't fail so much as they threw out their asinine Government. Germany didn't fail so much as they lost a war with the entire fucking world, twice--and the first one drove them into economic depression, which is what's happening to the US (don't ask what's going on with the EU). Russia didn't fail so much as it's just never been any good to begin with--Russia sucks, the Russian people aren't so bad. Poland didn't fail so much as it was invaded by Germany, and still did fine. Africa didn't fail so much as it was invaded by France and Britain and stripped for resources, like the Cardassians did to Bajor. Norway didn't fail so much as it's a fucking rich tiny ass nation state. Switzerland didn't fail so much as you'll get your ass kicked if you march an army in there. Sweden didn't fail, but they've been looking at ruining themselves by joining the EU--a move economists have speculated would destroy the Swedish Economy by conjoining it directly to an unstable empire. Puerto Rico isn't a failed state, but it's scoffed at by Americans who just don't get the culture--a culture where the hard-working white collar man is held in revere, unlike the American culture of wishing you were rich and hating the rich because you're not one of them.
You have the wrong attitude. Throw that "Republic" shit out. This is New Europe and we need 50 little states, not another Roman Empire (failed) or German Empire (failed) or Mongolian Empire (failed) or French Napoleonic Empire (failed) or Oceanic Empire (failing). Look at the European Union (failing) and you'll see the same shit.
It's entirely possible and common practice for a sailing vessel to make an average of, say, 60 knots south-east when the wind is blowing directly south-east at 40 knots. Sure the boat is going faster than 60 knots, zigging back and forth; but overall its motion south-eastward comes out to be somewhat less, since the direct south-eastward distance is less than the total distance going all over the place. Its total displacement in the direction of the wind is still greater than it would be if it were traveling at the velocity of the wind.
The side-effect of free speech is people are gullible and stupid, and so you can spread lies and half-truths. Manipulation of how you cover issues is a good way to confuse people.
For example, here in my city we had a mayor hire a contractor to run business process analysis on the school system and figure out how they can spend $13,000/student/year and yet have half as many books as they need, no technology in classrooms, decaying desks, underpaid teachers, and a 50% graduation rate. When it came time to elect a new governor for the state, his opponents came out and told everybody that he dared to pay a commercial institution to address the city's school system issues... instead of what, exactly? Bringing in the experts is a bad thing?
Online, free and anonymous speech lets you start slanderous rumors about your government founded on lies and half-truths without paying the price of outright slander. Even offline, you're pretty much allowed to say whatever the hell you want about government in most free-speech nations; that includes slandering your leaders. People take the bait hook, line, and sinker. Now what?
Nothing is without consequence. The consequence of freedom is nobody takes care of you; the consequence of liberty is people do terrible things.
Not the point. The point is the actual flow of a program is a mathematical concept, and higher mathematical concepts will give you a much better understanding of exactly what you're doing. I mean that on the level of "implement an HTTP session handler" or "implement an HTML reflow engine"--stuff that isn't calculus--you will benefit strongly from a strong mathematics background.
Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.
Mathematics is highly important in computer security, software engineering, and network engineering. I started writing an access control system several years ago; the first thing I did was ingest an 18 page international standard describing the proper implementation of role-based access control systems. It was a *lot* of mathematics describing the relationships between security contexts--between objects, between accounts, between roles.
Networking seems pretty straight forward; but try bringing graph theory to the table once. You'll suddenly have a lot to say about the wonderful, efficient network you designed and how it's not your fault it's not meeting performance requirements because the technology just doesn't exist yet.
Software engineering is the practice of turning a project plan (a scope, work breakdown structure, design considerations, requirements, etc.) into a finite state automation. Program control flow and algorithmic efficiency are highly relevant in all cases. You're not writing an LZ77 encoder, just a PHP application? And how are you passing data from your Ajax application through JavaScript? And it doesn't work all the time? Why, that's because you've missed a critical race condition in this section of the flow; and besides, if you handled this action in this way instead it'd be 1000 times faster.
It's not; it's environmentally aware. Cats and dogs are not self-aware: they see themselves in a mirror and bark because they think it's another dog. Humans and elephants are self-aware: they see themselves in a mirror and realize it's an image of themselves, as their actions correlate to responses in the mirror. Self-aware beings are aware of their impact on the environment and on the environment's impact on them. If a dog gets its leg caught, it will thrash and cry loudly; a human or an elephant will examine the interaction between the leg and the environment, accounting for that they control their limb and that the environment responds to their actions.
Con artists are most successful with people of high-intelligence who think they're too smart to be taken.
Everyone is vulnerable in some way. Even the ultra-paranoid, the ultra-intelligent, hell you can even con a con. The only reason some people have success with the police is because the process is inflexible--essentially you know what to expect, and some people have taken to heart to refuse answering questions without a lawyer present. That worked great for a friend of mine who took a plea bargain for a case the prosecution couldn't possibly win, at advice of her lawyer, when he threatened 20 years incarceration but bargained for one year and a clean record.
You should see how fast some people throw false confessions at the police when you start investigating their accomplices. Let's drag your wife into this, or your daughter. Maybe she knows something; in fact, we suspect she was an accomplice. 19 years old, in college... a shame she's going to jail with you for a few years. By the way, the police have immunity and can detain and question anyone without charges for 48 hours in most states (in some states, 2 weeks!); maybe your daughter will crack and try to protect you by confessing herself... you wouldn't want that, would you?
Oh sure we can't torture you physically, but we've got some dirty tricks.
I'm a natural anchor. You'll notice in the super-extreme discussions I always take the center position--sometimes they're not one-sided, often (as with this) they are and I have to ask: what's so wrong about people jacking it to kiddy porn?
The question gets answers like: "It's just WRONG!" It's so wrong, in fact, that if you have 5 images the judge may give you 5 consecutive 15 year terms--75 years in jail; and for murder, 10 year sentences are a real thing (20 years is a "life" sentence in many states, parole after 50% served). On top of that, people respond to murderers with "hang 'em", and to pedophiles with raving and screaming and torches and pitch forks--because having a picture of a 9 year old sucking a dick is just so much worse than murdering someone in the throat.
What's SO WRONG about this that it makes murder look like petty theft?
I've also raised the argument numerous times that we're constantly seeing articles about people who have child porn or people who are hard-core-raping kids and getting caught; but nothing about catching people with groomed kids (the willing--we still call this "rape" and that's an abuse of terms, call it something else) or nailing down the human trafficking rings supplying the child porn. So we're jailing essentially harmless people while protecting almost no one from harm.
If you want to do something with a child, I suggest you cut its throat. That will get you far less jail time than looking at a picture of it naked.
You know, Mary Mother of Jesus was 14 when she gave birth. Back in the day, it was common for 25-30 year old men to marry 13 year old girls and nail them and have children. You know, back when America was young. 150, 200 years ago.
I get the thing about how you shouldn't want to have sex with a 5 year old; but sometimes I wonder if pedophilia isn't largely a manufactured condition, what with "she's 12 dude wtf" going on when she has bigger boobs than your damn Playboy model wife. My cousin had large Cs when she was 11, she got called a whore just 'cause her boobs were so big... middle school boys are assholes.
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I think that was the point. People will see a pattern of phones sold second-hand not working, and will cease to buy second-hand phones. Legitimate sellers are screwed.
Maybe so, but what do you intend to do about it? It's not like firing him is the best course of action--it's a huge expense. I would try to bypass the manager quietly--since the firm is paying me to tell them what's wrong and how to fix it, I'd tell them this manager isn't managing properly AND WE CAN FIX THAT.
Project Management. Start with work breakdown structures (scope management) and stakeholder management.
Stakeholder Management means identifying everyone who has a stake--the team working the project, the manager running it, the project manager, the functional managers over every team member, the people who need the work (customer, client; this may be another department--Accounting, web development, etc.), the company executives or middle managers who have direct stake, project managers for other projects that may be impacted (by the project itself or by the calling of resources THEY need for the project), and so on--and getting them all together to discuss what the fuck you are doing. What are we building for you, how do we build it, who doesn't have time for this, who has other projects, who does/doesn't want to be involved with this?
The stakeholders give you a lot. Requirements in many, many forms--requirements of what you need to build, requirements as to how much time it can take, requirements as to what your resource limits are (the guy wants something you don't have resources for, and management won't hire more people? He's going to have to extend deadlines or ask for less), and so on. They will review your scope and your WBS.
The WBS manages scope. You define the project and break it down into parts that describe 100% of the project. You break those down into parts that describe 100% of each part you're decomposing. You continue this until you have manageable, understandable pieces. Each piece is a deliverable--a noun-verb describing a thing (a document, a widget, a code module, a meeting). Level-of-effort (meetings, WBS creation, project management--things that will be done, but won't produce an object and will be ongoing until completed) or discrete (cups, code modules, graphics, research--intangible research even, i.e. I know how this shit works now and can complete the tasks on this leg).
The lowest level of the WBS is the Work Package. Each Work Package is a unit of work to be done that's understood and manageable. If you can't understand the whole project, you go rolling-wave planning and further decompose work when you've completed earlier work and discovered what completing later work will entail. If you miss work, you must add it to the WBS by adding work packages under decomposed WBS elements. You can change-manage this, have a process by which you explain what is being added and why and when and then add it--it takes five minutes to make a change instead of five seconds, but that's okay; we don't need to form a committee for this shit.
The WBS dictionary describes each work package in detail. The work package will be self-explanatory to some team members, but not to anyone else. The WBS dictionary describes the complete scope of the work package--what it is, what it does, how it's implemented.
These measures start to get everyone on the same page and ensure that experts have input on what work is to be done. They ensure that the work to be done follows the scope and meets requirements. They ensure that everyone knows wtf is going on, and that if something isn't known then it gets found out.
It's a start, but a good one.
My fixed expenses are 1/7 of my income, plus debt repayment, plus discretionary. That's why I'm aiming to pay off my debt in a few years--by the time I'm 30, owning a house, no rent, no car payment.
I've run the expense schedules for if I'd gotten a wife and kids. Be mindful my expenses are roughly $500/mo and my paycheck is over $3500/mo. Also, with a non-working spouse, I'd drop from the 30% tax bracket to the 15% tax bracket, returning $6000/year; with a child, I'd be returned $3500/year in direct tax credit. That's $9500/year; in current tax rate salary dollars, a $13500 raise. I would have to exchange for better healthcare before having a child, of course, costing me some $200/mo additional--$2400/year, including upgrading to Family plan to cover the little woman. Baby healthcare is expensive and I'd rather control the risk than take it.
The expenses for having a woman include more food (I eat at $150/mo, $250/mo if I'm irresponsible; and I throw quite a bit of food away because it's hard to cook portion for one. Consider $400/mo, so ... $200/mo, $2500/year), medical expenses ($2400/year upgrade to high-end health plan), and some additional water and power. The rest is effectively elective--yes, I understand that the woman will WANT those shoes and clothes and other gifts; I myself have some level of discretionary spending. Yes, I understand both the need for some concessions in courtship and the need for possessions and activities that may cost money to support individual health--people need things and need to be able to do things. Part of keeping a woman healthy--not just on your arm, but HEALTHY--is giving her a new dress or taking her out once in a while. But this is flexible, not a fixed expense; that more means that I'll boost it when it suits me. If you've got a woman, and you don't enjoy taking her out sometimes, get rid of her.
Overall it's a wash.
Jump ship for other reasons than money. I'm pretty well-off, but my job is not to my liking. The guy was complaining about retiring--I know people who will NEVER retire, and people who are retired on a comfortable nest egg and still work 40 hours because they can't stand being idle and want to accomplish something.
$65k is a decent middle-class salary. He was complaining about being 50 and 20 years from retirement. I'm on a middle-class salary in a big city with high taxes and making it easy. How can you be so far from retirement? I keep seeing "you can't save money on $60,000-$80,000 anymore" claims, but hell I'm doing it... stop buying huge ass houses for "what I can afford for 30 years". Oh, you make $3000 take-home a month and your mortgage is $1800/mo for 30 years? You have three cars, but no kids? Yeah I can see how that's hard.
I've been aggressively attacking my expenses. It's a thing. I want out of debt; getting out of debt is a bigger imperative than anything else. That's been my way out.
I count raises to amusement. Also when I did the division I did it in my head as an exercise to see if I could pull it off quickly--I can't. Need to memorize my division tables.
As for mentioning it, 3.14 is pi. I thought it'd be appreciated to 2 decimal places, given the crowd. Instead I got hostility from a bunch of people who are bad at money and think "Social Skills" means "blowing $400/week on beer."
Alcohol is very beneficial to your health. In the same way as cholesterol, in fact--you sure don't want a LOT of it, but you're going to be better off having a moderate amount than none.
This is why, once you've convinced the hipsters that the $11 wine bottle tastes like the $300 wine bottle, the $11 wine bottle will be a $45 wine bottle.
What's hilarious is that modern technology is worse than ... modern technology. Medicine from 2000 years ago? Yeah, no thanks. Medicine from 20 years ago? It's well known that classical anti-depressants are much, much better than modern medication. So much so that doctors are starting to prescribe the old drugs because, shit, Zoloft and Xanax don't work nearly as well and have horrible side effects.
Similarly, we've been hit-and-miss with "natural" or "naturopathic" or "whateverthefuckingrootiscalled" remedies. Tea? Tea was considered a medicine. That's funny. Then you realize that they inject EGCG directly into cancer as a form of chemotherapy--EGCG extracted from green tea. L-Theanine is fucking amazing--it's novel to green tea. At the same time, stuff like Lipitor (Lovastatin--extract of red yeast rice) ... have proven dangerous and horrible and overall bad. 50% chance of killing your liver without being the damnedest bit effective. But eating plenty of red yeast rice somehow has the desired effect without toxicity? Okay, so some tradition works.
We need balance. Modern science, scientific advancement, understanding of our world, that's all well and good; but the haughtiness of proclaiming anything old and "voodo-y" as being unscientific and thus complete bullshit is a symptom of severe imbalance. We know meditation works for reducing stress and providing cognitive benefits--yet many people will claim no benefits exist because meditation is thought of as some kind of spiritual mind magic thing and thus is hilarious bullshit. We think of new drugs as improvements over old drugs and immediately believe the old drugs were ineffective--yet they were fantastically effective in their time, and new drugs are huge money-making machines for drug companies, so why would we believe such a thing? The science behind the studies is even controlled by those who have interest in convincing you that a new drug is better and safer, regardless of its effectiveness or safety. Can't we at least question it, rather than blindly marching on?
Funny enough, scientific studies have shown that vitamin C and orange juice and such don't prevent colds or any other disease except scurvy. People still believe that?
Actually Damascus steel is superior to most modern steel for a subset of specific applications. It takes one hell of an edge. Excessively hard steels tend to chip, and soft steels don't hold the edge; Damascus is some kind of black magic that easily takes a sharp edge and holds it for unusually long. Now, as structural steel? Hell no.
There's also an iron-making process that causes the iron to not rust, despite not being a rust-resistant iron. It's unknown currently, but the mechanism of action from study of samples is theorized to be an outer coating of impurities.
As for violins, there's a lot to consider there. Playability--how well it feels, how easy it is to work with, how well it keeps tune, intonation, etc--as well as sound quality--which is completely subjective. Sound quality changes with age, to the point that a lute that's been played even sounds different than one that hasn't been played due to the way the wood settles over time. Generally the changes to a played instrument are considered pleasant.
It's a lot more than "X is better than Y". The concept is kind of silly.
His problem is he doesn't understand that it's GOOD to be able to get away with crimes. A society where you can't commit a crime without getting caught would be a TERRIBLE society.
Imagine you have downloaded a movie illegitimately, and the Feds show up with the NET-PROTECT act or whatever it was called that Clinton signed making it a Federal criminal offense to download copyrighted movies and music. 5 years in jail. But the courts have ruled that the activity happening from your connection does not constitute sufficient evidence to convict you of the crime. Think about the situation.
If you are required to answer or be presumed guilty, and you are required to answer truthfully or face perjury charges, then lying is a big risk. You're likely to go to jail, since if they find the videos on your hard disk they've got more than "it came from your connection" and they can now force you to assist them by providing them with all passwords and keys and other shit you used. Oops.
The Fifth Amendment is there because it's understood that it's the government's job to prosecute you and it's your job to stay the fuck out of jail. The rules are that you get to make a defense, and you don't have to fucking cooperate in your own prosecution; there are NO rules for withholding evidence here, you don't have to offer up an explanation or tell them where to find the body or what caliber weapon you used. YOU'RE the prosecutor, YOU figure that shit out.
If it were such that you could be compelled, then every time they found new evidence they could accuse you of the crime of non-cooperation with the prosecution, of withholding critical facts, and then you go to jail. Essentially, even if innocent, you're going to want to offer up facts that are going to look terrible, with full explanations, and let the prosecution twist the details until you're going to have your ass pounded off.
Fuck all that. Sometimes the law is bullshit; sometimes you're an idiot, and you'll learn eventually; and sometimes you just don't want to be held responsible for not helping the state put your ass in jail, guilty or not.
Well, as someone who is nearly 28, and has just gotten a 3.14% raise up to $65k, and owns a house that will be paid off in 3 years, and has savings, and a $2000 bicycle, and can retire around 45 at this rate ... too bad you suck at money.
I want to jump ship from this and get a better paying job. Oh the pay's fine; the work sucks. I've realized I like project management and hate actual tech--I like solving problems and hate wrenching the solutions. Now, what kind of job involves getting information out of a billion people who collectively couldn't find their asses if they were naked in prison with a bar of soap because none of them can understand each other (seriously, finance talking to IT?), and figuring out how to make them all achieve useful work that requires them to cross-communicate and examine problems?
Really? It looks like all of Europe did pretty good for a while. The Irish Potato Famine didn't seem to get much help from their British overlords. France didn't fail so much as they threw out their asinine Government. Germany didn't fail so much as they lost a war with the entire fucking world, twice--and the first one drove them into economic depression, which is what's happening to the US (don't ask what's going on with the EU). Russia didn't fail so much as it's just never been any good to begin with--Russia sucks, the Russian people aren't so bad. Poland didn't fail so much as it was invaded by Germany, and still did fine. Africa didn't fail so much as it was invaded by France and Britain and stripped for resources, like the Cardassians did to Bajor. Norway didn't fail so much as it's a fucking rich tiny ass nation state. Switzerland didn't fail so much as you'll get your ass kicked if you march an army in there. Sweden didn't fail, but they've been looking at ruining themselves by joining the EU--a move economists have speculated would destroy the Swedish Economy by conjoining it directly to an unstable empire. Puerto Rico isn't a failed state, but it's scoffed at by Americans who just don't get the culture--a culture where the hard-working white collar man is held in revere, unlike the American culture of wishing you were rich and hating the rich because you're not one of them.
A lot of people need to take the eye test.
I
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WE TODD ED
You have the wrong attitude. Throw that "Republic" shit out. This is New Europe and we need 50 little states, not another Roman Empire (failed) or German Empire (failed) or Mongolian Empire (failed) or French Napoleonic Empire (failed) or Oceanic Empire (failing). Look at the European Union (failing) and you'll see the same shit.
Well then let's class-action lawsuit them into hell.
More like forty days of fornication!
It's entirely possible and common practice for a sailing vessel to make an average of, say, 60 knots south-east when the wind is blowing directly south-east at 40 knots. Sure the boat is going faster than 60 knots, zigging back and forth; but overall its motion south-eastward comes out to be somewhat less, since the direct south-eastward distance is less than the total distance going all over the place. Its total displacement in the direction of the wind is still greater than it would be if it were traveling at the velocity of the wind.
The side-effect of free speech is people are gullible and stupid, and so you can spread lies and half-truths. Manipulation of how you cover issues is a good way to confuse people.
For example, here in my city we had a mayor hire a contractor to run business process analysis on the school system and figure out how they can spend $13,000/student/year and yet have half as many books as they need, no technology in classrooms, decaying desks, underpaid teachers, and a 50% graduation rate. When it came time to elect a new governor for the state, his opponents came out and told everybody that he dared to pay a commercial institution to address the city's school system issues... instead of what, exactly? Bringing in the experts is a bad thing?
Online, free and anonymous speech lets you start slanderous rumors about your government founded on lies and half-truths without paying the price of outright slander. Even offline, you're pretty much allowed to say whatever the hell you want about government in most free-speech nations; that includes slandering your leaders. People take the bait hook, line, and sinker. Now what?
Nothing is without consequence. The consequence of freedom is nobody takes care of you; the consequence of liberty is people do terrible things.
Not the point. The point is the actual flow of a program is a mathematical concept, and higher mathematical concepts will give you a much better understanding of exactly what you're doing. I mean that on the level of "implement an HTTP session handler" or "implement an HTML reflow engine"--stuff that isn't calculus--you will benefit strongly from a strong mathematics background.
Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.
Mathematics is highly important in computer security, software engineering, and network engineering. I started writing an access control system several years ago; the first thing I did was ingest an 18 page international standard describing the proper implementation of role-based access control systems. It was a *lot* of mathematics describing the relationships between security contexts--between objects, between accounts, between roles.
Networking seems pretty straight forward; but try bringing graph theory to the table once. You'll suddenly have a lot to say about the wonderful, efficient network you designed and how it's not your fault it's not meeting performance requirements because the technology just doesn't exist yet.
Software engineering is the practice of turning a project plan (a scope, work breakdown structure, design considerations, requirements, etc.) into a finite state automation. Program control flow and algorithmic efficiency are highly relevant in all cases. You're not writing an LZ77 encoder, just a PHP application? And how are you passing data from your Ajax application through JavaScript? And it doesn't work all the time? Why, that's because you've missed a critical race condition in this section of the flow; and besides, if you handled this action in this way instead it'd be 1000 times faster.
It's not; it's environmentally aware. Cats and dogs are not self-aware: they see themselves in a mirror and bark because they think it's another dog. Humans and elephants are self-aware: they see themselves in a mirror and realize it's an image of themselves, as their actions correlate to responses in the mirror. Self-aware beings are aware of their impact on the environment and on the environment's impact on them. If a dog gets its leg caught, it will thrash and cry loudly; a human or an elephant will examine the interaction between the leg and the environment, accounting for that they control their limb and that the environment responds to their actions.
Con artists are most successful with people of high-intelligence who think they're too smart to be taken.
Everyone is vulnerable in some way. Even the ultra-paranoid, the ultra-intelligent, hell you can even con a con. The only reason some people have success with the police is because the process is inflexible--essentially you know what to expect, and some people have taken to heart to refuse answering questions without a lawyer present. That worked great for a friend of mine who took a plea bargain for a case the prosecution couldn't possibly win, at advice of her lawyer, when he threatened 20 years incarceration but bargained for one year and a clean record.
You should see how fast some people throw false confessions at the police when you start investigating their accomplices. Let's drag your wife into this, or your daughter. Maybe she knows something; in fact, we suspect she was an accomplice. 19 years old, in college... a shame she's going to jail with you for a few years. By the way, the police have immunity and can detain and question anyone without charges for 48 hours in most states (in some states, 2 weeks!); maybe your daughter will crack and try to protect you by confessing herself... you wouldn't want that, would you?
Oh sure we can't torture you physically, but we've got some dirty tricks.
I'm a natural anchor. You'll notice in the super-extreme discussions I always take the center position--sometimes they're not one-sided, often (as with this) they are and I have to ask: what's so wrong about people jacking it to kiddy porn?
The question gets answers like: "It's just WRONG!" It's so wrong, in fact, that if you have 5 images the judge may give you 5 consecutive 15 year terms--75 years in jail; and for murder, 10 year sentences are a real thing (20 years is a "life" sentence in many states, parole after 50% served). On top of that, people respond to murderers with "hang 'em", and to pedophiles with raving and screaming and torches and pitch forks--because having a picture of a 9 year old sucking a dick is just so much worse than murdering someone in the throat.
What's SO WRONG about this that it makes murder look like petty theft?
I've also raised the argument numerous times that we're constantly seeing articles about people who have child porn or people who are hard-core-raping kids and getting caught; but nothing about catching people with groomed kids (the willing--we still call this "rape" and that's an abuse of terms, call it something else) or nailing down the human trafficking rings supplying the child porn. So we're jailing essentially harmless people while protecting almost no one from harm.
If you want to do something with a child, I suggest you cut its throat. That will get you far less jail time than looking at a picture of it naked.
You know, Mary Mother of Jesus was 14 when she gave birth. Back in the day, it was common for 25-30 year old men to marry 13 year old girls and nail them and have children. You know, back when America was young. 150, 200 years ago.
I get the thing about how you shouldn't want to have sex with a 5 year old; but sometimes I wonder if pedophilia isn't largely a manufactured condition, what with "she's 12 dude wtf" going on when she has bigger boobs than your damn Playboy model wife. My cousin had large Cs when she was 11, she got called a whore just 'cause her boobs were so big... middle school boys are assholes.