>Actually, we spend more on our military than all other industrialized countries COMBINED
Remember that the US has WAY, WAY more land mass to protect than a lot of other countries. For example France has less than 1/17 of the land of the US. Therefore just to be as "equally protected" as France we would need approximately 17 times as much, not counting all of our coastline which is much greater than theirs too. Also we have perportionately less people than France(5 times the people, 17 times the land) which means the tax burden will be higher per person too. Having and keeping all of this wonderful land we have costs money.
>This will only instill even MORE fear...Which, coincidentally, is the reason for the growing animosity felt towards the US at the moment
We could just as easily say that France, Germany and Russia are angry with us for disrupting their tremendous, illegal oil & weapons contracts with Iraq. So they get their liberal media spin machine going to get their citizens all riled up and hating us. The fact is that fear is what keeps people in line. Always has and always will. From the first cave man waving a stick at another one when he got too close to their berry bush, all the way up until now. Humans a predators by nature, whether preying on animals for food or each other for land, resources, women, etc. Unless you can tell me one society ever, which has existed without a police or military force to keep the people in line?
Ummm, satellites orbit at something like 200-500miles above the earth. I don't think you can fairly say that the range was "much shorter" than that. You have already gotten modded to hell tho so probably no one is reading this... Oh well, just thought I'd throw some facts into this whole discussion.
>Well, if they don't have the courage to do something about him.. for all I know they loved the guy.
True, they have been doing nothing for a long time. Although the way their government dealt with dissidents indicates to me that the people were probably too frightened to act. I'm sure that some people liked him, especially those of his sect of Islam( is it Sunni or Shi'ite, I can't remember? ), but it seems like the other sect, and especially the Kurds disliked him.
>I think we have destabalized the region
Maybe in the short term we have, but I think in the long term, bringing Capitolism and Democracy to the middle east thru Afghanistan and Iraq is going to help the middle east immensely.
As for your other post, I have no idea why I got modded down for Trolling. I thought I was respectful and made a good point, in response to your post, but oh well... *shrugs helplessly*
>Well, I certainly wasn't talking about individual stocks... there will always be some that are over-valued and some that are under-valued.
Well it wasn't relegated to only a few. Almost all tech stocks of established companies went up, and there was a general trend upward as well. I don't have the NASDAQ numbers here but the late nineties were very good, if I remember correctly.
>the forward looking value of the stocks was high, in anticipation of phenomenal growth.
I agree that the stocks were bouyed up by the anticipation of growth and great returns, however that failed to materialize leading to... the next point.
>That balloon was burst when it became apparent that money was going to be channeled back to the dinosaur business... and... it has to come from somewhere.
Here is where I disagree. The bubble burst IMHO when the vast majority of internet startups crashed and burned. As companies' VC money dried up they had to shut their doors, sell their stuff and go under. And the money stopped pouring in because no one could make a profitable business. Then the whole thing imploded. In other words all of those huge gains in stocks were for nothing because the investors were investing in businesses which hadn't proven they could turn a profit.
>And... nowhere did I "blame" Bush... I simply
pointed out what the data seems to indicate.
That's true, there are just so many Bush haters on here I jumped to conclusions. My apologies.
>giving them all green cards and free transportation to the states
Leave their ancestral home because some psycho is in power in their country? Hell no. Also the U.S. can't handle 24M more people coming here. We are having problems with immigration already.
>It also concerns me that there are many people who agree with you that we should go to war with a country before trying to solve these problems peacefully.
We did try peaceful negotiations for 8-10 years. If I remember correctly UN inspectors never got co-operation and they routinely fired on our planes enforcing a no-fly zone.
As for the 12K lives, yes it is tragic. Of course it is. However if we can start spreading Democracy in the middle east using Afghanistan and Iraq then the millions of people there will benefit. Bringing Capitolism and Democracy can potentially revolutionize the whole area, and bring prosperity.
Imagine you lived in a shack, in a desert without running water, and had the equivalent of a bagel to eat every day, with no education, etc. (not to mention the possiblilty of toture, rape, etc ) and I tell you, you have a choice. 1) continue living like you are, with poverty, starvation, etc all around you for you and your family with no hope in sight. 2) A war in which 1/40th of 1% of your people will die(assuming 1/2 of the number you gave were from Iraq, you can adjust a little if my assumption was off), which would result in freedom, democracy, education, improvement in standard of living, etc. for you, your family, and your entire country. Which would you choose? I don't know about you but for the sake of my children and family's future I would choose war.
Just as an example IBM, which had been trading at between $25-45 since 1965 jumped from about $20 in 1995 to about $120 in 2000. You don't think that was overvalued? What about Protor and Gamble, $20 to $110. Don't those seem excessive to you? I don't care how good business is, a 40% increase in stock value annually for five consecutive years, especially large companies just doesn't happen. That is like buying a house at $120K and five years later it's worth $650K.
The economy was held up by a technological revoltion, as investors got greedy and paid way too much for stocks in the hopes of making it big. It was bound to collapse sooner or later. Blaming Bush for the economy being in the crapper is a very convienent and simplistic view of it.
So they gave NFS and Xemacs to the open source community. It's like giving a person standing on a ledge on a cliff a bottle of rum and a blindfold. Oh yeah, real friendly. Do you still need more proof they are against all that is good and right in the world?
Just kidding BTW. Even if I don't use either it is still a nice contribution.
-Comedian
P.S. vi forever
I probably shouldn't be giving out my secret to getting past the endless menus since if we all start doing it, it may go away but here it is. Just press 0. That's it. Anytime you get a choice of anything like "Press 1 for automated balance, blah blah blah", just press 0 instead. They seem to leave this undocumented option open as a last resort. In my experience 9 times out of 10 you get directed to a real live person, and although it is usually a secretary you can get him/her to transfer you to whoever you want. Plus your service level may be upgraded because you are being transfered from an inside line instead of being "just another call from the pool". Works with banks, power companies, cable companies, you name it.
And if 0 doesn't work then just start entering a bunch of crap. Usually if you cause an error, they will assume you are too dumb to use the automated system and give you a person. Example, "Please enter your social security number." So you type "7#887893274289*2173897###8712634". There you go. Please use sparingly. We want the 0 to be available for us and for our children.
> Nobody goes out of their way to add unrequested features to a product, causing more work and more testing headaches.
I disagree. MS and the hardware manufacturers have spent the last 20 years getting used to the idea that we need a new computer every 2-3 years. MS adds new features(making their products more resource intensive), and then hardware manufacturers(Intel, et al.) make faster processor, bigger HDDs and RAM, etc.(to accomodate the new software). If we were faced with a legitimate technology barrier on hardware everyone would be yelling at MS to trim their stuff down ASAP.
Trust me, they add those features for a very good reason: So they can sell more products and so their partners can sell more hardware. I would LOVE to see what kind of kickbacks MS gets from Intel and the other hardware manufacturers.
BTW, as I sit here with only 5 apps open I am using 212MB of physical RAM. And the worst offender of the apps taking RAM is IE weighing in at a svelte 22MB.
Why don't you post your computer specs so we can at least narrow our suggestions down to what we know will run on your machine. Maybe you could say whether you like more realistic games or more arcade style play too to help us narrow it down.
Also take a look at gamespy.com and see how many servers are currently being played on for each game you want to try. Don't waste $40 on a game only to learn it is impossible to find a good server in your area.
Excellent points Robert. The government does have difficult decisions to make and I don't want to paint this problem as a black and white issue. There is certainly room for a comprimise solution.
I understand your point about Linux however there are a few main differences between Linux and comparable US company products. The first is that Linux does not come from any one country, it is written by people all over the world so we can't really put a country specific tariff on it. The second main difference is that it is free, so no company is making profit directly from the software itself. Of course many companies make money off of the support of it, installation products, patches, etc. such as Red, SUSE, etc.
However for the sake of arguement, if Nigeria were suddenly to make an OS, develop it with workers getting paid Nigerian wages, etc. and sell it here in the US I would say we need to tax it to keep US companies competitive. Just like cars or any other good we import. The US citizens are free to buy, they just can't buy it at Nigerian prices, the prices get adjusted going into the US.
Now, I am NOT in favor of taxing things so high that US companies can charge whatever they want for products. Some competition is good. We just can't allow ourselves to be undercut, price-wise in our own countries, simply because there is someone out there willing to do the work cheaper. This pours money from rich countries to poor ones, but not in a way that is fair to anyone. In the poor countries you again have an elite few make 20 times the wages of other people which causes the same polarizing effect there as well. I don't know, maybe that is the way the world is going and I am fighting a hopeless battle.
If the economy growth slows down a little I can accept that. I would rather have stead 1-2% growth and have everyone in the US who wants a decent paying job able to find one than have what we have now. Thousands of small towns around the country were absolutely devastated when manufacturing left and I would like to see us avoid that if possible with the IT sector.
BTW, I am in favor of anything to get rid of our dependence on oil. Fission, Fusion, Solar, Tidal, giant mutant mice running in wheels, whatever.
We are indeed growing richer, or at least a very small percentage of us are. The middle class is disappearing and a select few are getting richer and richer(maybe 10%). THAT is what I am trying to avoid. Maybe I shouldn't care because I am one of the select few who can drive whatever car I want, and buy a new stereo tomorrow if I want while my neighbor is working two jobs just to make ends meet? I'm sorry but that bothers me. The divide between rich and poor has been growing since the 60s and the loss of manufacturing jobs. We keep shuffling people around from one meaningless job to another while a few of our citizens are making 1000s of times the minimum wage.
Also I am trying to avoid US reliance on other countries for EVERYTHING. They intentionally get us buying 100,000 widgets from them every year. We decide that we need widgets for our daily lives and then they decide to use widgets for political power over the US. A trade imbalance IS a loss of power and money because other countries use it to essentially blackmail us.
The Middle East is a perfect example. We buy billions of barrels of oil from them, they buy virually nothing from us. If they want to put pressure on the US for anything, and magically "Oops the price of oil just went up until X happens." Happens every day, from countries all over the world. Remember the dune quote, "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing."(could be a little off, if so my apologies).
The other respondant to your post answered you other question very well so I won't try to elaborate on it.
Yeah, but construction is a result of growth in other sectors of the economy. No IT, maufacturing, etc., no construction. As a country we actually need to MAKE something. Service industries don't count. How is a plumber going to charge $60/hr if everyone else is making $12?
-Comedian
Trade is fine you have something to trade. The US comes up with an industry and gives all the jobs to outsiders while our own people can't find decent paying work. We have to protect our jobs, and actually make something. I can't be the only person in the US seeing rows of closed factories in almost every city but a Walmart and Starbuck's on every corner. Answer me how Starbuck's is helping our GDP. Great, if there is a latte shortage in the world we can be there to help.
The US is manufacturing virtually nothing compared to what we used to. Take a look at our trade imbalances with EVERYONE and then tell me Free Trade is good. Also don't believe everything you read or hear, take a look around you and see for yourself. I see people with Masters Degrees working at Circuit City, and some people have been out of work for almost a year with no end in sight. Doesn't sound like moving into the future to me. Sounds like the a bunch of our states are nearly bankrupt and the US debt is huge.
Every job we send overseas is less money and less power for the US. But believe what you want.
Umm, what country are you living in? Unemployment is high. Jobs are not being created. Uneducated people can only work at Walmart, restaurants, and other jobs making a few dollars above minimum wage and producing nothing. How is that strengthening our country? So a few highly trained people can get jobs in bi-tech? Great, that takes care of about 1% of the work force, and the rest of the people are supposed to take hand-outs from them? Or live of wellfare funded by the taxes paid by the rich which are constantly increasing.
I don't want to strain you here, but if we have 1% of the population actually producing something, and the rest simply serving those elite few, A) we have no middle class, B) we have a HUGE trade imbalance and C)we are making other countries rich off of American ingenuity. This doesn't bother you? Maybe you want your children to compete for a few highly coveted jobs which pay extremely well but are taxed at 50%, or else give up and work at burger world as a slave to the rich. The rest of us want the US to actually produce and sell a variety of good all over the world so the US can grow and prosper even more. And yes, we would be better off if we made memory chips here and charged enought to make a profit. We can counter competition from other countries by adding tariffs to cover differences in price and use that money to pay off the deficit. Of course the deficit wouldn't be nearly as high because we would actually be producing and selling stuff rather than just consuming as fast as we can.
>And since when is it sexist to show women playing football?
Don't you see that we are using and objectifying those women? What, they are each getting paid for 4 hours worth of "work" what most of us make in a year? Oh...never mind.
I used to work in a tiny office of about 1000 sq. ft. There were about 25+ people and 60+ computers packed in there so it go SUPER hot. And yes, I know this was highly illegal. So they bought an air conditioner with a snorkel exhaust(like a clothes dryer) and turned it on with the snorkel out the window. Sounds good so far right? Except when it would start to rain they would move the snorkel inside, and close the window, but leave the AC running.
Now, I am no physics major, but even I can see that even if the AC defined the laws of physics and was 100% efficient we would only be breaking even. This one hurt my brain. Can anyone top that for physics-impaired co-workers?
> Its somewhat more likely that NASA will start to wind down the shuttle and the space station to free funds for Bush's bold new initiative so both of these old programs die. No serious money will be invested in Bush's new space initiative in the mean time.
This has already been decided exactly as you say, on paper at least. NASA's budget is increasing very little over the next few years and funds are being redistributed to the new programs from the shuttle and ISS. All space research at NASA will be directed toward these new goals.
> especially given NASA's recent track record in manned spaceflight
NASA's track record is 111 out of 113 successful shuttle flights. Not bad considering we are basically strapping people to a large exposive device and shooting them into space to travel at over 20 times the speed of sound. Not to mention the two rovers we have on Mars right now sending back data from a few million miles away.
You seem to want space flight and the realization of all of these goals that get set, but disagree with the president that is proposing budget increases for NASA. During the Clinton years NASA's budget dropped significantly, never once going above the budget it was at when Clinton took office(which is significant considering inflation during an 8 year period). I agree Bush is spending WAY TOO MUCH on other things but at least he is gradually increasing the budget for NASA to help us reach these goals.
Actually it's called a less restrictive exhaust system, which I already said. It will increase power in any stock engine. The HP gains are dependent on the size of the engine you are using. A dump valve is something else entirely, which is used only on turbo cars.
For an explanation of exhaust systems, and backpressure in cars look at the Automotive Encyclopedia for sale on Amazon.
>Funny how every Lincoln, Cadillac, Lexis, BMW, Mercedes, Bently, Rolls Royce, and other cars you will never afford all strive like crazy to make the engine silent as possible.
>In fact Porche, Ferarri and Lamborgini all have very silent engines until you rev them up to a resonance point.
While this is true, remember that these are luxury cars, NOT race cars. If you go anywhere where real racing is done, whether a drag strip or a road race they cars are LOUD! Trust me the Lamborghinis racing at Laguna Seca Raceway don't sound anything like the ones you see on the street. This isn't because they want to look cool, but because the engine performs better without backpressure which is caused by mufflers and cats, among other things.
Therefore if you remove the mufflers, or get a less restrictive muffler(a.k.a. make it louder) you get more power. However, I'm sure you know this since you know about automobiles and automobile engineering.
Good points. It boggles my mind how so many movies with great potential turn out like pure crap. I guess there is no reason for the video game industry to be any different, especially now that it is big business.
>Ever play Black and White?
No. I was going to pick it up in the bargain bin at the mall if I ever saw it, but if you are using it as an example of great things gone bad, maybe I better not.
>If you don't have the right qualifications, don't apply for the job.
Anyone who has ever gotten a job other than flipping burgers knows that the "requirements" are a wish list of things the company would like. DO NOT follow this advise while looking for a job. Apply to any that look like you could do it even if you have 6 months too little experience or 8 out of 10 required skills!
>Even stupider is submitting two big Word documents with no body text in the email. This just gets you spam filtered. I don't even SEE these
I hope you explicity say this, otherwise this is your problem.
>Please do not use cover letters that you copied out of a book
Your potential employees are not mind readers, they have no idea if they are going to be talking to a techie or a marketoid or a VP. Just because you like casual, matter-of-fact language doesn't mean Mr. Burns the VP of IT will like it. How are they supposed to know how to make the letter other than to make it as formal as possible? They are actually giving you the benefit of the doubt(misplaced?) that you will be smart enough to look past that.
>And while I'm on it, anonymous email accounts and AOL accounts just don't send a good message.
This could be the dumbest part of the whole article, although there are so many dumb parts, it's hard to decide. Anonymous emails are how 98% of the world communicates via email. Sorry Joel, I'm not going to go through getting an email from my school of 5 years ago, and check my mail with pine when I can get a prefectly good web email account from yahoo or hotmail, which is accessable from any computer, any OS, anywhere in the world.
>They won't exactly disqualify you since so many people use them, but crazydood2004 at hotmail.com does not really impress me as much as name at alumni.something.edu.
So every college is supposed to have an email for it's alumni b/c you are elitist?
>Do you really need to know if I Yahoo!?
Do I really give a crap about what you think of my email account? If you are this petty who would want to work for you anyway?
Grow up and realize that to the person applying for the job you are one out of 100+ jobs they are applying for. They don't have time to stroke you ego for a half-hour, as they are probably taking classes, working another job, or just sending out TONS of resumes trying to get a job as their bills keep piling up. If you cared about your company you would do yourself a favor and go back thru this article and think about what you are saying about yourself and your company.
>There is a place for Europe and the US and [insert name of country here] in space exploration.
No way. It is far too crowded in Space for more than one country. Stop trying to take our valuable Space you damn Euros. I claim for the U.S. everything above 70,000ft( 21,000M ). If you want a Space, go get your own!!!
P.S. Please send the U.S. a check for your Sun usage, made payable to "The United States of America(Department of Universal Energy)". Oh yeah, and we will access a small service charge for use of the stars and the Moon too.
We can't base future manned missions on the theory that water should be there. As a scientist you should know that until it's proven empirically you can't assume it is there.
Yes, this comes as no suprise to anyone, but it is still very valuable knowledge.
Imagine what would happen if we sent people their with plant seeds, planning to use the martian water to grow the plants to provide food. They get millions of miles away from earth and then, oh shit, that white stuff we saw from space wasn't frozen water, it was dry ice. Oh damn, let's hop back in the interplanetary shuttle and go back to the Earth for a few gallons of H2O.
The point is that every single thing we can find on Mars that we can use is one less thing we have to take with us(hence cheaper).
Slashdot Mirror
>Actually, we spend more on our military than all other industrialized countries COMBINED
Remember that the US has WAY, WAY more land mass to protect than a lot of other countries. For example France has less than 1/17 of the land of the US. Therefore just to be as "equally protected" as France we would need approximately 17 times as much, not counting all of our coastline which is much greater than theirs too. Also we have perportionately less people than France(5 times the people, 17 times the land) which means the tax burden will be higher per person too. Having and keeping all of this wonderful land we have costs money.
>This will only instill even MORE fear...Which, coincidentally, is the reason for the growing animosity felt towards the US at the moment
We could just as easily say that France, Germany and Russia are angry with us for disrupting their tremendous, illegal oil & weapons contracts with Iraq. So they get their liberal media spin machine going to get their citizens all riled up and hating us. The fact is that fear is what keeps people in line. Always has and always will. From the first cave man waving a stick at another one when he got too close to their berry bush, all the way up until now. Humans a predators by nature, whether preying on animals for food or each other for land, resources, women, etc. Unless you can tell me one society ever, which has existed without a police or military force to keep the people in line?
-Comedian
Ummm, satellites orbit at something like 200-500miles above the earth. I don't think you can fairly say that the range was "much shorter" than that. You have already gotten modded to hell tho so probably no one is reading this... Oh well, just thought I'd throw some facts into this whole discussion.
-Comedian
>Well, if they don't have the courage to do something about him.. for all I know they loved the guy.
True, they have been doing nothing for a long time. Although the way their government dealt with dissidents indicates to me that the people were probably too frightened to act. I'm sure that some people liked him, especially those of his sect of Islam( is it Sunni or Shi'ite, I can't remember? ), but it seems like the other sect, and especially the Kurds disliked him.
>I think we have destabalized the region
Maybe in the short term we have, but I think in the long term, bringing Capitolism and Democracy to the middle east thru Afghanistan and Iraq is going to help the middle east immensely.
As for your other post, I have no idea why I got modded down for Trolling. I thought I was respectful and made a good point, in response to your post, but oh well... *shrugs helplessly*
-Comedian
>Well, I certainly wasn't talking about individual stocks... there will always be some that are over-valued and some that are under-valued.
Well it wasn't relegated to only a few. Almost all tech stocks of established companies went up, and there was a general trend upward as well. I don't have the NASDAQ numbers here but the late nineties were very good, if I remember correctly.
>the forward looking value of the stocks was high, in anticipation of phenomenal growth.
I agree that the stocks were bouyed up by the anticipation of growth and great returns, however that failed to materialize leading to... the next point.
>That balloon was burst when it became apparent that money was going to be channeled back to the dinosaur business... and... it has to come from somewhere.
Here is where I disagree. The bubble burst IMHO when the vast majority of internet startups crashed and burned. As companies' VC money dried up they had to shut their doors, sell their stuff and go under. And the money stopped pouring in because no one could make a profitable business. Then the whole thing imploded. In other words all of those huge gains in stocks were for nothing because the investors were investing in businesses which hadn't proven they could turn a profit.
>And... nowhere did I "blame" Bush... I simply pointed out what the data seems to indicate.
That's true, there are just so many Bush haters on here I jumped to conclusions. My apologies.
>TANSTAAFL
I don't know this one, sorry.
-Comedian
>giving them all green cards and free transportation to the states
Leave their ancestral home because some psycho is in power in their country? Hell no. Also the U.S. can't handle 24M more people coming here. We are having problems with immigration already.
>It also concerns me that there are many people who agree with you that we should go to war with a country before trying to solve these problems peacefully.
We did try peaceful negotiations for 8-10 years. If I remember correctly UN inspectors never got co-operation and they routinely fired on our planes enforcing a no-fly zone.
As for the 12K lives, yes it is tragic. Of course it is. However if we can start spreading Democracy in the middle east using Afghanistan and Iraq then the millions of people there will benefit. Bringing Capitolism and Democracy can potentially revolutionize the whole area, and bring prosperity.
Imagine you lived in a shack, in a desert without running water, and had the equivalent of a bagel to eat every day, with no education, etc. (not to mention the possiblilty of toture, rape, etc ) and I tell you, you have a choice. 1) continue living like you are, with poverty, starvation, etc all around you for you and your family with no hope in sight. 2) A war in which 1/40th of 1% of your people will die(assuming 1/2 of the number you gave were from Iraq, you can adjust a little if my assumption was off), which would result in freedom, democracy, education, improvement in standard of living, etc. for you, your family, and your entire country. Which would you choose? I don't know about you but for the sake of my children and family's future I would choose war.
-Comedian
Just as an example IBM, which had been trading at between $25-45 since 1965 jumped from about $20 in 1995 to about $120 in 2000. You don't think that was overvalued? What about Protor and Gamble, $20 to $110. Don't those seem excessive to you? I don't care how good business is, a 40% increase in stock value annually for five consecutive years, especially large companies just doesn't happen. That is like buying a house at $120K and five years later it's worth $650K.
The economy was held up by a technological revoltion, as investors got greedy and paid way too much for stocks in the hopes of making it big. It was bound to collapse sooner or later. Blaming Bush for the economy being in the crapper is a very convienent and simplistic view of it.
-Comedian
So they gave NFS and Xemacs to the open source community. It's like giving a person standing on a ledge on a cliff a bottle of rum and a blindfold. Oh yeah, real friendly. Do you still need more proof they are against all that is good and right in the world? Just kidding BTW. Even if I don't use either it is still a nice contribution. -Comedian P.S. vi forever
I probably shouldn't be giving out my secret to getting past the endless menus since if we all start doing it, it may go away but here it is. Just press 0. That's it. Anytime you get a choice of anything like "Press 1 for automated balance, blah blah blah", just press 0 instead. They seem to leave this undocumented option open as a last resort. In my experience 9 times out of 10 you get directed to a real live person, and although it is usually a secretary you can get him/her to transfer you to whoever you want. Plus your service level may be upgraded because you are being transfered from an inside line instead of being "just another call from the pool". Works with banks, power companies, cable companies, you name it.
And if 0 doesn't work then just start entering a bunch of crap. Usually if you cause an error, they will assume you are too dumb to use the automated system and give you a person. Example, "Please enter your social security number." So you type "7#887893274289*2173897###8712634". There you go. Please use sparingly. We want the 0 to be available for us and for our children.
-Comedian
> Nobody goes out of their way to add unrequested features to a product, causing more work and more testing headaches.
I disagree. MS and the hardware manufacturers have spent the last 20 years getting used to the idea that we need a new computer every 2-3 years. MS adds new features(making their products more resource intensive), and then hardware manufacturers(Intel, et al.) make faster processor, bigger HDDs and RAM, etc.(to accomodate the new software). If we were faced with a legitimate technology barrier on hardware everyone would be yelling at MS to trim their stuff down ASAP.
Trust me, they add those features for a very good reason: So they can sell more products and so their partners can sell more hardware. I would LOVE to see what kind of kickbacks MS gets from Intel and the other hardware manufacturers.
BTW, as I sit here with only 5 apps open I am using 212MB of physical RAM. And the worst offender of the apps taking RAM is IE weighing in at a svelte 22MB.
-Comedian
Why don't you post your computer specs so we can at least narrow our suggestions down to what we know will run on your machine. Maybe you could say whether you like more realistic games or more arcade style play too to help us narrow it down.
Also take a look at gamespy.com and see how many servers are currently being played on for each game you want to try. Don't waste $40 on a game only to learn it is impossible to find a good server in your area.
-Comedian
Excellent points Robert. The government does have difficult decisions to make and I don't want to paint this problem as a black and white issue. There is certainly room for a comprimise solution.
I understand your point about Linux however there are a few main differences between Linux and comparable US company products. The first is that Linux does not come from any one country, it is written by people all over the world so we can't really put a country specific tariff on it. The second main difference is that it is free, so no company is making profit directly from the software itself. Of course many companies make money off of the support of it, installation products, patches, etc. such as Red, SUSE, etc.
However for the sake of arguement, if Nigeria were suddenly to make an OS, develop it with workers getting paid Nigerian wages, etc. and sell it here in the US I would say we need to tax it to keep US companies competitive. Just like cars or any other good we import. The US citizens are free to buy, they just can't buy it at Nigerian prices, the prices get adjusted going into the US.
Now, I am NOT in favor of taxing things so high that US companies can charge whatever they want for products. Some competition is good. We just can't allow ourselves to be undercut, price-wise in our own countries, simply because there is someone out there willing to do the work cheaper. This pours money from rich countries to poor ones, but not in a way that is fair to anyone. In the poor countries you again have an elite few make 20 times the wages of other people which causes the same polarizing effect there as well. I don't know, maybe that is the way the world is going and I am fighting a hopeless battle.
If the economy growth slows down a little I can accept that. I would rather have stead 1-2% growth and have everyone in the US who wants a decent paying job able to find one than have what we have now. Thousands of small towns around the country were absolutely devastated when manufacturing left and I would like to see us avoid that if possible with the IT sector.
BTW, I am in favor of anything to get rid of our dependence on oil. Fission, Fusion, Solar, Tidal, giant mutant mice running in wheels, whatever.
-Comedian
We are indeed growing richer, or at least a very small percentage of us are. The middle class is disappearing and a select few are getting richer and richer(maybe 10%). THAT is what I am trying to avoid. Maybe I shouldn't care because I am one of the select few who can drive whatever car I want, and buy a new stereo tomorrow if I want while my neighbor is working two jobs just to make ends meet? I'm sorry but that bothers me. The divide between rich and poor has been growing since the 60s and the loss of manufacturing jobs. We keep shuffling people around from one meaningless job to another while a few of our citizens are making 1000s of times the minimum wage.
Also I am trying to avoid US reliance on other countries for EVERYTHING. They intentionally get us buying 100,000 widgets from them every year. We decide that we need widgets for our daily lives and then they decide to use widgets for political power over the US. A trade imbalance IS a loss of power and money because other countries use it to essentially blackmail us.
The Middle East is a perfect example. We buy billions of barrels of oil from them, they buy virually nothing from us. If they want to put pressure on the US for anything, and magically "Oops the price of oil just went up until X happens." Happens every day, from countries all over the world. Remember the dune quote, "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing."(could be a little off, if so my apologies).
The other respondant to your post answered you other question very well so I won't try to elaborate on it.
-Comedian
Yeah, but construction is a result of growth in other sectors of the economy. No IT, maufacturing, etc., no construction. As a country we actually need to MAKE something. Service industries don't count. How is a plumber going to charge $60/hr if everyone else is making $12? -Comedian
Trade is fine you have something to trade. The US comes up with an industry and gives all the jobs to outsiders while our own people can't find decent paying work. We have to protect our jobs, and actually make something. I can't be the only person in the US seeing rows of closed factories in almost every city but a Walmart and Starbuck's on every corner. Answer me how Starbuck's is helping our GDP. Great, if there is a latte shortage in the world we can be there to help.
The US is manufacturing virtually nothing compared to what we used to. Take a look at our trade imbalances with EVERYONE and then tell me Free Trade is good. Also don't believe everything you read or hear, take a look around you and see for yourself. I see people with Masters Degrees working at Circuit City, and some people have been out of work for almost a year with no end in sight. Doesn't sound like moving into the future to me. Sounds like the a bunch of our states are nearly bankrupt and the US debt is huge.
Every job we send overseas is less money and less power for the US. But believe what you want.
-Comedian
Umm, what country are you living in? Unemployment is high. Jobs are not being created. Uneducated people can only work at Walmart, restaurants, and other jobs making a few dollars above minimum wage and producing nothing. How is that strengthening our country? So a few highly trained people can get jobs in bi-tech? Great, that takes care of about 1% of the work force, and the rest of the people are supposed to take hand-outs from them? Or live of wellfare funded by the taxes paid by the rich which are constantly increasing.
I don't want to strain you here, but if we have 1% of the population actually producing something, and the rest simply serving those elite few, A) we have no middle class, B) we have a HUGE trade imbalance and C)we are making other countries rich off of American ingenuity. This doesn't bother you? Maybe you want your children to compete for a few highly coveted jobs which pay extremely well but are taxed at 50%, or else give up and work at burger world as a slave to the rich. The rest of us want the US to actually produce and sell a variety of good all over the world so the US can grow and prosper even more. And yes, we would be better off if we made memory chips here and charged enought to make a profit. We can counter competition from other countries by adding tariffs to cover differences in price and use that money to pay off the deficit. Of course the deficit wouldn't be nearly as high because we would actually be producing and selling stuff rather than just consuming as fast as we can.
-Comedian
>And since when is it sexist to show women playing football?
Don't you see that we are using and objectifying those women? What, they are each getting paid for 4 hours worth of "work" what most of us make in a year? Oh...never mind.
-Comedian
I have a good one too.
I used to work in a tiny office of about 1000 sq. ft. There were about 25+ people and 60+ computers packed in there so it go SUPER hot. And yes, I know this was highly illegal. So they bought an air conditioner with a snorkel exhaust(like a clothes dryer) and turned it on with the snorkel out the window. Sounds good so far right? Except when it would start to rain they would move the snorkel inside, and close the window, but leave the AC running.
Now, I am no physics major, but even I can see that even if the AC defined the laws of physics and was 100% efficient we would only be breaking even. This one hurt my brain. Can anyone top that for physics-impaired co-workers?
-Comedian
> Its somewhat more likely that NASA will start to wind down the shuttle and the space station to free funds for Bush's bold new initiative so both of these old programs die. No serious money will be invested in Bush's new space initiative in the mean time.
This has already been decided exactly as you say, on paper at least. NASA's budget is increasing very little over the next few years and funds are being redistributed to the new programs from the shuttle and ISS. All space research at NASA will be directed toward these new goals.
> especially given NASA's recent track record in manned spaceflight
NASA's track record is 111 out of 113 successful shuttle flights. Not bad considering we are basically strapping people to a large exposive device and shooting them into space to travel at over 20 times the speed of sound. Not to mention the two rovers we have on Mars right now sending back data from a few million miles away.
You seem to want space flight and the realization of all of these goals that get set, but disagree with the president that is proposing budget increases for NASA. During the Clinton years NASA's budget dropped significantly, never once going above the budget it was at when Clinton took office(which is significant considering inflation during an 8 year period). I agree Bush is spending WAY TOO MUCH on other things but at least he is gradually increasing the budget for NASA to help us reach these goals.
-Comedian
Actually it's called a less restrictive exhaust system, which I already said. It will increase power in any stock engine. The HP gains are dependent on the size of the engine you are using. A dump valve is something else entirely, which is used only on turbo cars.
For an explanation of exhaust systems, and backpressure in cars look at the Automotive Encyclopedia for sale on Amazon.
-Comedian
>Funny how every Lincoln, Cadillac, Lexis, BMW, Mercedes, Bently, Rolls Royce, and other cars you will never afford all strive like crazy to make the engine silent as possible.
>In fact Porche, Ferarri and Lamborgini all have very silent engines until you rev them up to a resonance point.
While this is true, remember that these are luxury cars, NOT race cars. If you go anywhere where real racing is done, whether a drag strip or a road race they cars are LOUD! Trust me the Lamborghinis racing at Laguna Seca Raceway don't sound anything like the ones you see on the street. This isn't because they want to look cool, but because the engine performs better without backpressure which is caused by mufflers and cats, among other things.
Therefore if you remove the mufflers, or get a less restrictive muffler(a.k.a. make it louder) you get more power. However, I'm sure you know this since you know about automobiles and automobile engineering.
-Comedian
Good points. It boggles my mind how so many movies with great potential turn out like pure crap. I guess there is no reason for the video game industry to be any different, especially now that it is big business.
>Ever play Black and White?
No. I was going to pick it up in the bargain bin at the mall if I ever saw it, but if you are using it as an example of great things gone bad, maybe I better not.
-Comedian
>If you don't have the right qualifications, don't apply for the job.
Anyone who has ever gotten a job other than flipping burgers knows that the "requirements" are a wish list of things the company would like. DO NOT follow this advise while looking for a job. Apply to any that look like you could do it even if you have 6 months too little experience or 8 out of 10 required skills!
>Even stupider is submitting two big Word documents with no body text in the email. This just gets you spam filtered. I don't even SEE these
I hope you explicity say this, otherwise this is your problem.
>Please do not use cover letters that you copied out of a book
Your potential employees are not mind readers, they have no idea if they are going to be talking to a techie or a marketoid or a VP. Just because you like casual, matter-of-fact language doesn't mean Mr. Burns the VP of IT will like it. How are they supposed to know how to make the letter other than to make it as formal as possible? They are actually giving you the benefit of the doubt(misplaced?) that you will be smart enough to look past that.
>And while I'm on it, anonymous email accounts and AOL accounts just don't send a good message.
This could be the dumbest part of the whole article, although there are so many dumb parts, it's hard to decide. Anonymous emails are how 98% of the world communicates via email. Sorry Joel, I'm not going to go through getting an email from my school of 5 years ago, and check my mail with pine when I can get a prefectly good web email account from yahoo or hotmail, which is accessable from any computer, any OS, anywhere in the world.
>They won't exactly disqualify you since so many people use them, but crazydood2004 at hotmail.com does not really impress me as much as name at alumni.something.edu.
So every college is supposed to have an email for it's alumni b/c you are elitist?
>Do you really need to know if I Yahoo!?
Do I really give a crap about what you think of my email account? If you are this petty who would want to work for you anyway?
Grow up and realize that to the person applying for the job you are one out of 100+ jobs they are applying for. They don't have time to stroke you ego for a half-hour, as they are probably taking classes, working another job, or just sending out TONS of resumes trying to get a job as their bills keep piling up. If you cared about your company you would do yourself a favor and go back thru this article and think about what you are saying about yourself and your company.
-Comedian
>a small and friendly startup in New York City
ummm, yeah...right...
LOL, I forgot my Simpsons.
>There is a place for Europe and the US and [insert name of country here] in space exploration.
No way. It is far too crowded in Space for more than one country. Stop trying to take our valuable Space you damn Euros. I claim for the U.S. everything above 70,000ft( 21,000M ). If you want a Space, go get your own!!!
P.S. Please send the U.S. a check for your Sun usage, made payable to "The United States of America(Department of Universal Energy)". Oh yeah, and we will access a small service charge for use of the stars and the Moon too.
Thank you.
We can't base future manned missions on the theory that water should be there. As a scientist you should know that until it's proven empirically you can't assume it is there.
Yes, this comes as no suprise to anyone, but it is still very valuable knowledge.
Imagine what would happen if we sent people their with plant seeds, planning to use the martian water to grow the plants to provide food. They get millions of miles away from earth and then, oh shit, that white stuff we saw from space wasn't frozen water, it was dry ice. Oh damn, let's hop back in the interplanetary shuttle and go back to the Earth for a few gallons of H2O.
The point is that every single thing we can find on Mars that we can use is one less thing we have to take with us(hence cheaper).
-Comedian