I think that there is an equivalent to "other duties as assigned" that is in just about every freakin' job description in the world, right?
So poking around in space is just part of the "job description" of a government whose primary constitutional power is to defend the nation?
Perhaps if we were to implement Reagan's "Star Wars" idea. But that hasn't happened, nor is it likely.
If poking around on the surface of the moon or Mars could be shown as part of providing for our national defense, then it could be Constitutional. But, I don't see that being the case...
Besides, you have left off one more box, the SCOTUS box."
True, a "jury box" != "SCOTUS box", since the SCOTUS doesn't use a jury. I don't think that quote was meant quite so literally, but it could be worth updating.
If you feel that a given entity of the government is beyond its constitutional mandate, then build your case through the court system.
Plenty of people do. But the courts don't always agree, because the courts don't interpret the Consitution strictly or look at the law from the eyes of the Founding Fathers, not even the SCOTUS...
You know that the third world is basically laissez faire, for all practical purposes....
No, many of the third-world nations are run by dictators who don't allow the freedoms required for any economy -- socialist or capitalist -- to flourish.
Other nations have governments that take food aid from other countries and use it on the govn't officials -- North Korea does exactly this (and look where *their* people are in relation to Kim Jong-Il and the like. The people of this socialist economy can't even afford daily meals of rice; meanwhile, Kim Jong-Il drinks cognac and has his bodyguards kidnap women from Japan so Kim can rape them. Quite a class divide in a supposedly "equal" socialist nation, I think.).
Define what you mean by "corruption" -- corruption of who/what?
Are you asking "what exactly would stop corruption of government under laissez faire?" In that case, the answer is simple -- with such a minimal government, there would be little for the public to analyze and watch over. It is therefore trivial to maintain an eye on the government to ensure that its few members are being corrupted by outside influence.
This is not the case when you have several million people in a 280m person nation working for the government. I can keep tabs on a few Congressmen; I sure as hell don't have a clue what Joe the janitor in the Dept. of Homeland Security is doing (even though he could be bought-off by al-Qaeda terrorists to steal sensitive documents from the building to be used in attacking us again).
Now, if you are asking "what exactly would stop corruption under laissez faire?" of corporations, the answer again, is simple. The free-market. If a company -- let's call them "Enron" -- decides to fuck over a bunch of shareholders and employees, then the public will see it is a dishonest company and give it the corporate death-sentence of no more business. Oddly enough (or is it?), that's exactly what happened to Enron.
Same thing with Microsoft. People see MS as a big, evil corporation, albeit, a minimally-corrupt one. People don't like how expensive their software is. So what's the market's response? The Apple corporation, and, increasingly, Linux.
Same thing with racist businesses in Alabama during the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Black people didn't like the practices of anti-black businesses, and so they stopped buying from those businesses; this is called a "boycott" (a practice that sadly has been lost on many Americans lately, it seems). Those businesses either changed their practices, went out of business entirely, or faced new competition (like the "Freedom Rides" bus system that emerged after the Rosa Parks incident).
There are companies in relatively-socialist countries that do reasonably-well, yes. Deutsche Bank is one; SuSE is another; BMW is a third. But they do so *in spite* of their relatively-socialist economies, or, in some cases, *because* of their governments which run their relatively-socialist economies.
After all, no country has ever legislated its way into a strong economy.
Governments running a relatively-socialist economy are not immune to being bought by corporations either -- are they?
Your (and other socialists) complaints about corporations manipulating our government are *exactly* why we should shrink the size and services of our government -- so that there is less government to be manipulate.
And look at the gains they are making, slowly but surely. More people employed, less starvation, and more people able to buy non-essential, luxury items (computers, for instance). They have teething problems with their slow conversion to a market economy to be sure -- their healthcare and pollution problems leave plenty to be desired -- but those problems will be solved as their economy grows and as their increasingly-democratic people start demanding those problems be fixed, rather than waiting for the govn't to get off its ass to command work on it. "In time, everything is fine" (as a socialist I once knew liked to say).
GDP growth is only 1 indicator of an economy's strength, that is true. That's why I included per-capita GDP, which indicates an *average* slice of the GDP pie that each citizen gets (a median would be better, to remove the effects of the extrema of the population, but it's still an indicator).
You ask why we should value GDP growth. We should value it because it shows the technological and scientific advancement of a nation. The faster that grows, the less-expensive technology becomes (like computers), and therefore, the less-expensive access to that technology becomes. As the price of access drops, more people can afford to access that technology (better medical/health care, etc.).
For instance, look at the U.S. in 1900. What would happen if you got smallpox then? You probably died. But what has happened since then? Our medical technology advanced -- rapidly! At first, only the rich could afford to fight smallpox -- poorer people still died. But as time has gone on, an increasing number of people were able to be vaccinated against it.
And now look -- in the 1970s, the world was able to practically eradicate smallpox; the virus now exists in Moscow and Atlanta, GA, USA, as far as public knowledge knows. And the collective wealth of the world is increased as a result.
That's what happens when scientific and technological advances are made, and, as a result, GDP growth occurs because of the increase in the amount of output we are capable of thanks to that advancement (consider the effects on output when you can prevent smallpox infection with a vaccine, for instance. What does that do to productivity of the people as a whole? It increases -- and, usually, so does the output of the economy, and thus, the GDP).
Consider another example: safety systems in automobiles.
Notice that most safety features are introduced in expensive cars (Mercedes, BMW, etc.)? That's because the systems were expensive to do R&D for.
But notice! Those systems eventually trickle-down into more-plebian cars. That's why my Ford Focus -- at less than $20k -- has side-impact airbags. 10 years ago, only Mercedes, etc. had them. Now regular cars have them.
So it goes with every advancement -- the rich are, and always have been, the first to be able to use those advances. But with time, those advances reach the rest of the population. That is part of the effect of GDP growth.
1 more example -- the printing press. When it was originally created, only the rich could afford it. Poorer people could not, correct?
Now any Tom, Dick, or Harry can go down to OfficeMax and make 10 copies of a piece of paper for $0.80 -- most Americans have lost more change into the seats of their sofa than that.
That again, is scientific progress, and it is directly-linked to GDP growth (it's more-productive for you to make machine copies of your papers than to do it by hand, is it not? That increased productivity leaves you more time to produce other things,
I would vote against a fair amount of defense funding, yes. Our military budget is much too large, IMO.
However, our national Constitution provides that the fundamental role of government is protection for the people from enemies, foreign and domestic. That is why we pay taxes for a military and for police forces.
I don't see "to build rocket ships to the moon" as one of the roles of govn't defined in the Constitution.
If we as a nation believe that should be one of its roles, then we should put it in the Constitution; until then, that is not one of the govnt's roles.
I think Laissez faire is a bad thing, as it is public funding to obtain private profits.
Read my lips: Laissez-faire has NOTHING to do with public funding. NONE.
What you have described is "crony capitalism". That is nothing at all like laissez-faire, free-market capitalism. It is, in fact, more like fascism -- something I think we can both agree is a Bad Thing...
A true laissez-faire, free-market approach removes as much government as possible from the market, leaving the competitors in the market to compete against one another.
Please, for the love of god, go read an economics textbook...
Your claim that other socialist economies are "more vibrant than the U.S." is crap. You, like Cryofan, are clueless about socialism (you're probably the same person I replied to here).
Even Canada pales. 1.6% real GDP growth, $29,700 per-capita GDP.
Look retard, I have just taken all your examples of socialism and shown you that they pale in comparison to the U.S.'s generally-capitalist economy -- and our economy, IMO (and in the opinion of John Kerry and various private corporate economists, like Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach) is in the shitter.
We could be doing much better, and in a couple years, we will as the natural business cycle brings us back into better growth. Even so, we're beating our EU counterparts.
You obviously don't know a damn thing about socialism, or economics in general for that matter.
Look at GDP growth rates. Why isn't Sweden -- a socialist's best and most-often cited real-world reference for modern socialism -- growing as quickly economically as the U.S.?
Why is it that Sweden has a lower per-capita GDP than the U.S., despite our current period of relative economic stagnation?
* under Chairman Mao in China, 35m intellectuals died as a result of the "Great Leap Forward".
* under Hitler (leader of the National Socialists (Nazi) Party), 6m Jews died
* under Stalin (leader of the United Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)), over 20m people died
These are all unrefuted facts. Notice also, that by strict economic definition, these were all socialist economies. They were all state-run, command economies -- that is the very definition of socialism.
Why is it that socialist nations tend to be totalitarian? Perhaps it is because in order to get the economy to be productive (rather than having people loaf around on their welfare checks), the state must force those people to work?
And why is it that socialist nations which do not use such force, generally -- such as Sweden -- have low rates of economic and technological growth compared to capitalist nations? (please see the CIA World Factbook).
I am quite aware of what socialism is. I have been studying economics for a few years now.
I have a better idea. Rather than me telling you what socialism is, why don't you go read The Road to Serfdom, then come back and tell me why socialism is a good thing?
That's right -- and that's the problem with socialized (read: tax-funded) scientific research. I can't use the output of my funding.
That's why socialism is neither fair nor equitable, despite the claims of its proponents. Socialism steals from one man and gives to another for the second's benefit.
At least with the NIH proposal posted here, I would be able to make use of the output of my tax dollars. That is better than the current situation.
Wouldn't using tax dollars for public good just socialism?
Yes.
And isn't socialism evil?
Yes.
Now, this does run strictly to our wonderful new lasseiz-faire/globalized/neoliberal economy, which has as one of its main principles, "if there is a way through which any corporation may make money, then that is a Good Thing."
Now you're sounding economically-illiterate.
Of course, what we have here is just another example of "public financing, private profit."
Which is called "crony capitalism," a.k.a. "fascism."
Crony capitalism has nothing to do with real, free-market capitalism because it necessarily involves the government.
I'm amazed we Americans have allowed this form of double-taxation on our research to occur.
I really don't know why our tax-funded resesarch hasn't been open to the public in the first place. Why should I pay taxes (input) on something for which I cannot personally use the results (output) without paying again (input)?
Fuck the scientific publishing companies. Welcome to the free market of ideas; adapt or die.
Your points are strong (particularly w.r.t. externalities and the IT-enabled disconnection between labor and capital movement).
My apologies. I was going to question your Chicago School-ness, b/c as a diehard Milton Friedman fan myself (although IAAAEWOAMIE (I am an an armchair economist with only a minor in Econ)), your argument here sounded only vaguely Friedman-like (in style yes), and your working on the "fair-trade not free-trade" Dean campaign had me wondering...
But after clarifying your point by reading your explanation from last February, I needn't question your Friedman-like view on trade. I agree; Friedman *would* probably call for freer-flowing labor-mobility so as to minimize the current effect of the disconnect between capital and labor mobility, as you explained. After all, free trade isn't just about the ability of capital to trade anywhere; labor (i.e. people) need to be able to trade themselves to other countries too.
Hence, immigration laws need to be reduced and the transaction costs of making that move need to be reduced. i.e., there ought to be privately-run services which make it easier to sell one's house and major belongings so they can move to India and keep coding, should they want to continue coding for a living; likewise, if Indian MBAs want to come here and lower our cost of executive compensation, it should be made easier for them to do so.
Yes, that certainly seems a Friedman-like argument.:)
Assuming your statement were true (which it (mostly) is not, if you ask virtually any small businessman or look at the internal accounting spreadsheets of a Fortune 500 firm like I casually once did), then it would behoove you to ask "why do they not pay taxes?"
The answer would be that there are tax loopholes for them to exploit. "Why are there loopholes?"
Because various politicians seeking re-election have created them.
That's right -- the corporation is just doing what is in its own best interest, i.e. finding a way to avoid paying taxes. The sole responsibility of a corporation is to turn a profit for its owners (shareholders, etc.). It is the politician -- the government (or at least the legislators who allowed it to happen) -- that is corrupt.
Er, I'm not a research scientist. Just a college student...
I actually did commercial programming for a large company whose name I won't mention. I never used IM to talk to coworkers; email was much better because if the email client dies (it was Lotus Notes, believe me, it died often), I didn't lose the message. Not so with an IM client because the message is stored in RAM once it's been received, unlike email which is stored on-disk...
I hardly ever use IM much at home for the same reason. I want to read messages from friends/family, and I don't trust my IM client to work all the time and stay up 24/7 to be able to receive those messages and store them in RAM.
I do hope the account numbers your tech support people paste to you via AIM aren't important accounts, i.e. tied in any way to any money transactions (credit card, etc.), because if they are, you're receiving those numbers plaintext through AOL's IM servers. The data sent over AIM isn't private -- anybody between the sender and AOL, and anybody between AOL and you could sniff those packets and grab the acct numbers.
That's the reason that where I worked, we used our own custom IM client and all network traffic was encrypted with IPSEC. But we handled sensitive data...
Good for you! I see so many people willing to give up their free time for work, just because they don't have the balls to push back and say "no". For the sake of one's mental health, IMO it's imperative that people do so...
I'm also in CS and people wonder why I'm never on AIM. It's because I won't get any real work done if I spend all my time typing IM's to people! At least with my cellphone on all the time, if somebody calls me, I can still work on my computer and talk at the same time; an active IM conversation doesn't really allow that (and the problem worsens at O(n) rate w/ each new conversation).
IM services, as used by most people, are one of the biggest wastes of time in the world, IMO, b/c the temptation is there to have a never-ending, unpausing conversation as you would in the real world, rather than perhaps a more-sporadic conversation like you find on IRC...
You are mostly correct. The sole interest of a corporation is to earn a profit for its owners.
Corporations are not people, so why our law treats them as people is beyond me... And likewise, why people expect corporations to have a "community spirit" or "play nice" is similarly-silly.
However, I disagree where you say that stockholders, as a group entity, have no morals. Your sentence just previous to that statement says that "people have morals, not corporations."
Cannot *groups of people* have morals? Do churches -- groups of religious people -- not have morals? Do animal-rights groups (whatever you may think of them in terms of looniness) not have morals? (if nothing else, don't they have a moral code to try to protect the rights of animals?)
How about a Presidential administration? I'd say ours presently is a very moralistic admin. I don't live by many of the morals this admin. upholds (and tries to impose upon the rest of us), but it is still a group of people with a set of morals they believe in.
(Personally, I have no compunction about investing in those industries. People should be allowed to do with their bodies what they wish; if they want to die by smoking-caused lung cancer, so be it. If they want to shoot themselves in the head with a Glock (or if they're one your more-typical normal gun owners who simply want to go hunting or go to a range), that's their business. So long as markets exist for those people, businesses will exist to serve those needs; so long as those businesses exist and have a future and so long as I believe in the right of the individual to do with themselves as they please, I might as well invest in them.)
Talking out of *his* ass? Why don't you stop using red herrings, retard. The grandparent is comparing Britain to its own history -- NOT Britain to America.
Britain's gun crime rate has risen since its handgun ban. That is a comparison of Britain to itself; nowhere is America mentioned, because America is irrelevant to the claim.
Thus, Britain's *rate* of gun crime is rising (positively-sloped, but a negative to British society). This again, is a comparison of Britain to itself, and nowhere is America relevant to the argument.
Admit it, the law has backfired and the grandparent provided several very-credible sources showing this is true. Like the NRA famously claims, "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." Britain is learning this the hard, violent, bloody way. That's what you get for trusting the big British government...
"We have been forgetting the basic truth that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentration of power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else. We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, provided it is for good reasons."
1) Text-to-speech, HTML-to-speech, e-book-to-speech, PDF-to-speech, etc. -- I have lengthy commutes. I don't want to feel like I'm wasting my life sitting in traffic, so, why not listen to a book or set of webpages being read to me while I drive?
2) A *good* built-in keyboard. -- The Zaurus 5x00 and 6000 have them. The HP 4350 has one. The Treo 600 has one. But they all massively suck compared to the old touch-typable Psion 5mx's kickass fold-out keyboard.
3) Good developer support. -- I wanna write my own apps (read: games) for it. And I don't want to pay a lot (read: over $50 for non-commercial use) to do so.
4) Java runtime. -- See #3. Java ain't fast, it's not always stable, but dammit, it from a developer's standpoint, it gets the job done fast enough and easy enough that those problems pale in comparison. Still, C++ is cool too as long as the libs don't suck...
5) 802.11(b|g) access and the driver compatibility to run Kismet or some other similar quality passive sniffer. Bluetooth would be cool too.
6) A *nix-ish command line. -- Yes, even on a PDA I want a command line.
7) At least 1 road navigation + GPS system. -- This is what keeps me from mostly fulfilling my desires by buying a Zaurus... No quality commercial navigation map software, AFAIK.
8) Quality PIM apps. -- It's a friggen' PDA. It damn well better be able to handle my contacts, text notes, calendar, etc...
9) At least 640x480 resolution, in a clamtop form factor. -- After all, with the Zaurus 6000, you're stuck either reading a webpage at 640 width (turning the device sideways), or typing into a field -- not both simultaneously, due to the form factor. The Psion 5mx had 640x200 resolution -- so you could surf with Opera at minimum width on regular pages (but, being a non-color PDA, why would you unless you were looking up an all-text Linux HOWTO?).
10) VoIP capability. -- Not really of use now, but as 802.11(b|g) access becomes increasingly-common, IMO this will become more useful. So, the device needs a microphone, as well as either an external speaker or a headphone jack (which would also be used for MP3/OGG/whatever output).
11) >= 2.0Mpixel digital camera. -- I want to take digital pics, but I don't want to lug around a camera and a PDA.
12) Cell phone. -- Same as #11 but with phone access. True, this partly infringes on #10 in functionality, but if I can make a call for cheaper via VoIP, I'll do it; otherwise, if I'm away from an AP and have to use my cell (as is almost always the case), then that's possible as well...
13) USB host capability. -- The Zaurus 6000 has it, as does one of the newer Toshiba PocketPC's. Plugging in USB devices on one of these things could be both very useful and very cool... It'd be kinda neat to play DVDs on the PDA with an external DVD drive. Or consider the nav. system problem again -- put the DVD drive in your car's trunk, have a USB cable running to your dash where your PDA controls the DVD player and reads maps off of the DVD. No need to swap maps to/from flash memory (as is the current case w/ PocketPCs, etc.), yet the data storage stays out of sight...
14) A semi-serious gamepad-style control design. -- If you're going to play games on it, how about some decent controls while you're at it, rather than the D-pad in the center with the "action" buttons surrounding the pad? (I know, most PDAs aren't meant for gaming/media. But I would still prefer a design like this for scrolling through contacts, etc.)
15) Replaceable battery pack. -- If one battery pack runs out of power, I want to be able to swap in another and keep working while the first one charges. None of this built-in charge-it-at-home-or-else and send-in-the-PDA-to-the-OEM-to-replace-the-battery crap.
Summary: My dream PDA is basically the hackability of the Zaurus 5x00/6000, the k
If I hand out copies of a list of the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of "uppity niggers" at a Ku Klux Klan rally, do you think that my actions are purely informational?
Yes, because the anti-black *actions* taken based on that information are still the responsibility of the KKK.
The same goes for the anti-white actions based on similar info about white people passed to the Black Panthers.
Ditto for info about the "uppity homeless" going to homeless-hating corporate executives.
Same goes for info about globalizing corporate execs going to exec-hating globalization protesters.
Information doesn't kill people any more than guns kill people or any more than pornography rapes/kills people or any more than the spoon and chocolate pudding make Rosie O'Donnell fat. People kill people - always have, always will.
Stop blaming the object/instrument and start blaming the individual whose actions result from the misuse of that object/instrument.
There is a *lot* of truth in what you say. The optimist in me does see those points about not having had to deal with STDs, financial burdens (of children, etc.), pregnancy, etc. I probably give that point less credit than it deserves, b/c it *is* a significant relief, as I think about it.
That said, every one of my friends has gotten laid, multiple times. A couple of them have screwed probably a half-dozen or more women, by my count. And none of them have had those problems - at least so far. So, while the probability of running into one of those problems is > 0 when getting involved w/ women, it seems that the probability (at least as far as my friends - sample of the population - are concerned) of those events occurring are also rather low. Contraceptives keep the pregnancy and STD rates reasonably-low, albeit, not zero. But they are low enough that out of the 2 dozen or so friends I have (whom I only very occasionally talk to anymore, it seems, or who are really just "acquantainces"), none of them have had ill effects stemming from sex.
Still, you are right -- I have probably 65-80 years of life ahead of me in which I can meet plenty of women. To my credit, patience and persistence has always been one of my strongest points.
The problem is that all the most-attractive women are their most-attractive *right now*. And most people seem to look back on their late-teens/early 20s most-fondly where sex is concerned. Those are the years for which I've *already* missed out, completely. I can't have those years back, no matter how hard I wish or how much money I spend (God, I feel like a 50-something saying that).
Last year, when I was a junior and still hadn't had an internship yet, money was everything to me. Now that I have an idea of how/where I can make money, that's no longer the case. Like money, I'll realize that sex isn't everything once I've gotten some and figured out "the game" of obtaining it. Money doesn't seem so important to those of us who have it, but to the homeless or unemployed man, nothing else matters.
So, where my sex life is concerned, think of me as the bum standing by the dumpster drinking a bottle of Boonesfarm out of a paper bag with a sign saying "can you please spare some pussy?" as people walk by laughing at me...
(It's not just sex, BTW. It's the feeling of being loved. I don't get that from anybody but my parents and my best friend (in the platonic manly way only male friends have, that is). Perhaps even more than sex, that's who I'm after -- somebody who genuinely cares about me and thinks the world of me. I've never, in my entire life, had that experience, not even for a moment.)
Unless you bring your laptop to every class with you every day, or leave it in your car from time to time, your laptop will be out of your sight for several hours/day. As in, sitting on your desk where your roommate(s) and other dorm buddies might -- if they are the unseemly type -- consider stealing it and selling it while you're gone. In this case, no laptop security hardware will save you -- time is on their side, and your hardware, at best, is a lock strapped to a probably-wooden desk.
That said, a laptop lock is still better than nothing, and for that reason, is worth the investment.
Mostly though, I wouldn't worry *too* much about physical security unless your roommate is untrustworthy. Of course, you won't know that until you've lived with him/her for a few weeks, will you?:)
Now my other subject:
Sanity -- Self-discipline, time-management, and happiness
Here are my 3 main tips:
1) DO NOT SLACK OFF LIKE IT'S YOUR SENIOR YEAR IN HIGH SCHOOL, EVEN FRESHMAN YEAR. Your GPA is King if you want to go on to grad school, med school, law school, etc.. That said, you really only need a minimum of a 3.1-3.2 or so to get into grad school or law school. Med school is harder though.
2) DO NOT SPEND ALL YOUR FREE TIME LEARNING LINUX/*BSD IF YOU HAVE NEVER HAD EXPERIENCE WITH THESE OS'S. They will eat up all your free time (compiling god knows how many libraries you also have to download first, manhandling config files, reading poorly-written documentation, etc.). Learn them over time, but do not live them as I did. OSS is a very small subset of life.
3) DO NOT GET (too) BIG INTO THE CAMPUS LAN-GAMING AND WAREZ SCENES. Warez is too legally-risky these days, and besides, it requires lots and lots of manual searching; Google doesn't cut it here, and thus it takes lots of time to get the philez you want. It usually isn't worth it.
Welcome to the reasons I voluntarily dropped out of a major, well-funded, well-respected 2nd-tier science/engineering university, and will now be finishing up my degree at a shitty, underfunded 4th-tier liberal-arts state school.
Oh, and one more:
4) Don't fall into the "I wanna be a God admin/coder" trap and ignore women (or men, if you prefer) and dating for your 4 years of college. This has been the biggest reason I am a bitter, unhappy man in my early-mid 20s. I am only just now learning how to date women, and am still a virgin. [1] Most guys (about 73%) get laid by the time they're 18. Me? I might as well be a hardcore loony-bin Christian straight-edger waiting until marriage for sex, so far as I count, statistically.
I have a monetarily-successful life (almost certainly) coming to me in spite of all of the above, because I have managed to determine and pull myself up from my failings, but in doing so, like I said, I'm as bitter and unhappy a man as anybody I know.
I have discovered after years of soul-searching that money isn't everything (and if you read my previous posts, you will find that I am a diehard believer in the free-market, and resultingly, money transactions). Friends, love, laughter, and the free time and freedom to choose your own path in life are. Of those, my life is sorely lacking the first 3 (of any quality, at least). Money makes all of those things easier to obtain, and it makes those things go more-smoothly and easily. But money is the means, *not* the end...
Don't waste the most-vital years of your life geeking-out like I did. Go out, party, get drunk, get laid every weekend. Do your homework too, and if you're in CS or Engineering, you may well have to sacrifice a party or two to do the assignments, but what I have just described is a far-better balance than I have achieved the last 4 years in school.
Work hard during the week, and party hard on the weekends. That is how co
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I think that there is an equivalent to "other duties as assigned" that is in just about every freakin' job description in the world, right?
So poking around in space is just part of the "job description" of a government whose primary constitutional power is to defend the nation?
Perhaps if we were to implement Reagan's "Star Wars" idea. But that hasn't happened, nor is it likely.
If poking around on the surface of the moon or Mars could be shown as part of providing for our national defense, then it could be Constitutional. But, I don't see that being the case...
Besides, you have left off one more box, the SCOTUS box."
True, a "jury box" != "SCOTUS box", since the SCOTUS doesn't use a jury. I don't think that quote was meant quite so literally, but it could be worth updating.
If you feel that a given entity of the government is beyond its constitutional mandate, then build your case through the court system.
Plenty of people do. But the courts don't always agree, because the courts don't interpret the Consitution strictly or look at the law from the eyes of the Founding Fathers, not even the SCOTUS...
You know that the third world is basically laissez faire, for all practical purposes....
No, many of the third-world nations are run by dictators who don't allow the freedoms required for any economy -- socialist or capitalist -- to flourish.
Other nations have governments that take food aid from other countries and use it on the govn't officials -- North Korea does exactly this (and look where *their* people are in relation to Kim Jong-Il and the like. The people of this socialist economy can't even afford daily meals of rice; meanwhile, Kim Jong-Il drinks cognac and has his bodyguards kidnap women from Japan so Kim can rape them. Quite a class divide in a supposedly "equal" socialist nation, I think.).
Define what you mean by "corruption" -- corruption of who/what?
Are you asking "what exactly would stop corruption of government under laissez faire?" In that case, the answer is simple -- with such a minimal government, there would be little for the public to analyze and watch over. It is therefore trivial to maintain an eye on the government to ensure that its few members are being corrupted by outside influence.
This is not the case when you have several million people in a 280m person nation working for the government. I can keep tabs on a few Congressmen; I sure as hell don't have a clue what Joe the janitor in the Dept. of Homeland Security is doing (even though he could be bought-off by al-Qaeda terrorists to steal sensitive documents from the building to be used in attacking us again).
Now, if you are asking "what exactly would stop corruption under laissez faire?" of corporations , the answer again, is simple. The free-market. If a company -- let's call them "Enron" -- decides to fuck over a bunch of shareholders and employees, then the public will see it is a dishonest company and give it the corporate death-sentence of no more business. Oddly enough (or is it?), that's exactly what happened to Enron.
Same thing with Microsoft. People see MS as a big, evil corporation, albeit, a minimally-corrupt one. People don't like how expensive their software is. So what's the market's response? The Apple corporation, and, increasingly, Linux.
Same thing with racist businesses in Alabama during the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Black people didn't like the practices of anti-black businesses, and so they stopped buying from those businesses; this is called a "boycott" (a practice that sadly has been lost on many Americans lately, it seems). Those businesses either changed their practices, went out of business entirely, or faced new competition (like the "Freedom Rides" bus system that emerged after the Rosa Parks incident).
That is the free-market at work.
"Corporate socialism"?
What, like the idea of "privatizing the profits, socializing the costs?"
That is also called "crony capitalism" or "fascism." NOT "capitalism" or "laissez-faire."
There are companies in relatively-socialist countries that do reasonably-well, yes. Deutsche Bank is one; SuSE is another; BMW is a third. But they do so *in spite* of their relatively-socialist economies, or, in some cases, *because* of their governments which run their relatively-socialist economies.
After all, no country has ever legislated its way into a strong economy.
Governments running a relatively-socialist economy are not immune to being bought by corporations either -- are they?
Your (and other socialists) complaints about corporations manipulating our government are *exactly* why we should shrink the size and services of our government -- so that there is less government to be manipulate.
Have you ever taken an economics course? I'm not being an ass (this time), I'm asking that as a serious question.
GDP growth is important because it shows us the rate of advancement of the economy as a whole.
For example, take a look at this page. See China? 382% GDP growth between 1980-2000.
And look at the gains they are making, slowly but surely. More people employed, less starvation, and more people able to buy non-essential, luxury items (computers, for instance). They have teething problems with their slow conversion to a market economy to be sure -- their healthcare and pollution problems leave plenty to be desired -- but those problems will be solved as their economy grows and as their increasingly-democratic people start demanding those problems be fixed, rather than waiting for the govn't to get off its ass to command work on it. "In time, everything is fine" (as a socialist I once knew liked to say).
GDP growth is only 1 indicator of an economy's strength, that is true. That's why I included per-capita GDP, which indicates an *average* slice of the GDP pie that each citizen gets (a median would be better, to remove the effects of the extrema of the population, but it's still an indicator).
You ask why we should value GDP growth. We should value it because it shows the technological and scientific advancement of a nation. The faster that grows, the less-expensive technology becomes (like computers), and therefore, the less-expensive access to that technology becomes. As the price of access drops, more people can afford to access that technology (better medical/health care, etc.).
For instance, look at the U.S. in 1900. What would happen if you got smallpox then? You probably died. But what has happened since then? Our medical technology advanced -- rapidly! At first, only the rich could afford to fight smallpox -- poorer people still died. But as time has gone on, an increasing number of people were able to be vaccinated against it.
And now look -- in the 1970s, the world was able to practically eradicate smallpox; the virus now exists in Moscow and Atlanta, GA, USA, as far as public knowledge knows. And the collective wealth of the world is increased as a result.
That's what happens when scientific and technological advances are made, and, as a result, GDP growth occurs because of the increase in the amount of output we are capable of thanks to that advancement (consider the effects on output when you can prevent smallpox infection with a vaccine, for instance. What does that do to productivity of the people as a whole? It increases -- and, usually, so does the output of the economy, and thus, the GDP).
Consider another example: safety systems in automobiles.
Notice that most safety features are introduced in expensive cars (Mercedes, BMW, etc.)? That's because the systems were expensive to do R&D for.
But notice! Those systems eventually trickle-down into more-plebian cars. That's why my Ford Focus -- at less than $20k -- has side-impact airbags. 10 years ago, only Mercedes, etc. had them. Now regular cars have them.
So it goes with every advancement -- the rich are, and always have been, the first to be able to use those advances. But with time, those advances reach the rest of the population. That is part of the effect of GDP growth.
1 more example -- the printing press. When it was originally created, only the rich could afford it. Poorer people could not, correct?
Now any Tom, Dick, or Harry can go down to OfficeMax and make 10 copies of a piece of paper for $0.80 -- most Americans have lost more change into the seats of their sofa than that.
That again, is scientific progress, and it is directly-linked to GDP growth (it's more-productive for you to make machine copies of your papers than to do it by hand, is it not? That increased productivity leaves you more time to produce other things,
I would vote against a fair amount of defense funding, yes. Our military budget is much too large, IMO.
However, our national Constitution provides that the fundamental role of government is protection for the people from enemies, foreign and domestic. That is why we pay taxes for a military and for police forces.
I don't see "to build rocket ships to the moon" as one of the roles of govn't defined in the Constitution.
If we as a nation believe that should be one of its roles, then we should put it in the Constitution; until then, that is not one of the govnt's roles.
I think Laissez faire is a bad thing, as it is public funding to obtain private profits.
Read my lips: Laissez-faire has NOTHING to do with public funding. NONE.
What you have described is "crony capitalism". That is nothing at all like laissez-faire, free-market capitalism. It is, in fact, more like fascism -- something I think we can both agree is a Bad Thing...
A true laissez-faire, free-market approach removes as much government as possible from the market, leaving the competitors in the market to compete against one another.
Please, for the love of god, go read an economics textbook...
Your claim that other socialist economies are "more vibrant than the U.S." is crap. You, like Cryofan, are clueless about socialism (you're probably the same person I replied to here).
Go look in the CIA World Factbook at the growth rates and (especially) per-capita GDP of all your socialist nations. Compare them to the U.S.. Come back and try again
The U.S. has 3.1% real GDP growth with a $37,800 per-capita GDP.
How about Britain? 2.1% real GDP growth, $27,700 per-capita GDP.
Sweden? 1.6% real GDP growth, $26,800 per-capita GDP.
Germany? HO HO, look at this! -0.1% real GDP growth! And a $27,600 per-capita GDP.
Switzerland ain't doing too well either, with -0.3% real GDP growth and $32,800 per-capita GDP.
Even Canada pales. 1.6% real GDP growth, $29,700 per-capita GDP.
Look retard, I have just taken all your examples of socialism and shown you that they pale in comparison to the U.S.'s generally-capitalist economy -- and our economy, IMO (and in the opinion of John Kerry and various private corporate economists, like Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach) is in the shitter.
We could be doing much better, and in a couple years, we will as the natural business cycle brings us back into better growth. Even so, we're beating our EU counterparts.
What do you have to say now, hmmm?
You obviously don't know a damn thing about socialism, or economics in general for that matter.
Look at GDP growth rates. Why isn't Sweden -- a socialist's best and most-often cited real-world reference for modern socialism -- growing as quickly economically as the U.S.?
Why is it that Sweden has a lower per-capita GDP than the U.S., despite our current period of relative economic stagnation?
Go cogitate, young padawan.
How about the facts that:
* under Chairman Mao in China, 35m intellectuals died as a result of the "Great Leap Forward".
* under Hitler (leader of the National Socialists (Nazi) Party), 6m Jews died
* under Stalin (leader of the United Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)), over 20m people died
These are all unrefuted facts. Notice also, that by strict economic definition, these were all socialist economies. They were all state-run, command economies -- that is the very definition of socialism.
This study shows that governments -- particularly Marxist/communist/socialist governments have killed about 120,000,000 people during the 20th century. 120 million.
Why is it that socialist nations tend to be totalitarian? Perhaps it is because in order to get the economy to be productive (rather than having people loaf around on their welfare checks), the state must force those people to work?
And why is it that socialist nations which do not use such force, generally -- such as Sweden -- have low rates of economic and technological growth compared to capitalist nations? (please see the CIA World Factbook).
I am quite aware of what socialism is. I have been studying economics for a few years now.
I have a better idea. Rather than me telling you what socialism is, why don't you go read The Road to Serfdom , then come back and tell me why socialism is a good thing?
That's right -- and that's the problem with socialized (read: tax-funded) scientific research. I can't use the output of my funding.
That's why socialism is neither fair nor equitable, despite the claims of its proponents. Socialism steals from one man and gives to another for the second's benefit.
At least with the NIH proposal posted here, I would be able to make use of the output of my tax dollars. That is better than the current situation.
Wouldn't using tax dollars for public good just socialism?
Yes.
And isn't socialism evil?
Yes.
Now, this does run strictly to our wonderful new lasseiz-faire/globalized/neoliberal economy, which has as one of its main principles, "if there is a way through which any corporation may make money, then that is a Good Thing."
Now you're sounding economically-illiterate.
Of course, what we have here is just another example of "public financing, private profit."
Which is called "crony capitalism," a.k.a. "fascism."
Crony capitalism has nothing to do with real, free-market capitalism because it necessarily involves the government.
I'm amazed we Americans have allowed this form of double-taxation on our research to occur.
I really don't know why our tax-funded resesarch hasn't been open to the public in the first place. Why should I pay taxes (input) on something for which I cannot personally use the results (output) without paying again (input)?
Fuck the scientific publishing companies. Welcome to the free market of ideas; adapt or die.
Your points are strong (particularly w.r.t. externalities and the IT-enabled disconnection between labor and capital movement).
:)
My apologies. I was going to question your Chicago School-ness, b/c as a diehard Milton Friedman fan myself (although IAAAEWOAMIE (I am an an armchair economist with only a minor in Econ)), your argument here sounded only vaguely Friedman-like (in style yes), and your working on the "fair-trade not free-trade" Dean campaign had me wondering...
But after clarifying your point by reading your explanation from last February, I needn't question your Friedman-like view on trade. I agree; Friedman *would* probably call for freer-flowing labor-mobility so as to minimize the current effect of the disconnect between capital and labor mobility, as you explained. After all, free trade isn't just about the ability of capital to trade anywhere; labor (i.e. people) need to be able to trade themselves to other countries too.
Hence, immigration laws need to be reduced and the transaction costs of making that move need to be reduced. i.e., there ought to be privately-run services which make it easier to sell one's house and major belongings so they can move to India and keep coding, should they want to continue coding for a living; likewise, if Indian MBAs want to come here and lower our cost of executive compensation, it should be made easier for them to do so.
Yes, that certainly seems a Friedman-like argument.
Corporations don't pay any taxes these days.
Assuming your statement were true (which it (mostly) is not, if you ask virtually any small businessman or look at the internal accounting spreadsheets of a Fortune 500 firm like I casually once did), then it would behoove you to ask "why do they not pay taxes?"
The answer would be that there are tax loopholes for them to exploit. "Why are there loopholes?"
Because various politicians seeking re-election have created them.
That's right -- the corporation is just doing what is in its own best interest, i.e. finding a way to avoid paying taxes. The sole responsibility of a corporation is to turn a profit for its owners (shareholders, etc.). It is the politician -- the government (or at least the legislators who allowed it to happen) -- that is corrupt.
Er, I'm not a research scientist. Just a college student...
I actually did commercial programming for a large company whose name I won't mention. I never used IM to talk to coworkers; email was much better because if the email client dies (it was Lotus Notes, believe me, it died often), I didn't lose the message. Not so with an IM client because the message is stored in RAM once it's been received, unlike email which is stored on-disk...
I hardly ever use IM much at home for the same reason. I want to read messages from friends/family, and I don't trust my IM client to work all the time and stay up 24/7 to be able to receive those messages and store them in RAM.
I do hope the account numbers your tech support people paste to you via AIM aren't important accounts, i.e. tied in any way to any money transactions (credit card, etc.), because if they are, you're receiving those numbers plaintext through AOL's IM servers. The data sent over AIM isn't private -- anybody between the sender and AOL, and anybody between AOL and you could sniff those packets and grab the acct numbers.
That's the reason that where I worked, we used our own custom IM client and all network traffic was encrypted with IPSEC. But we handled sensitive data...
Good for you! I see so many people willing to give up their free time for work, just because they don't have the balls to push back and say "no". For the sake of one's mental health, IMO it's imperative that people do so...
I'm also in CS and people wonder why I'm never on AIM. It's because I won't get any real work done if I spend all my time typing IM's to people! At least with my cellphone on all the time, if somebody calls me, I can still work on my computer and talk at the same time; an active IM conversation doesn't really allow that (and the problem worsens at O(n) rate w/ each new conversation).
IM services, as used by most people, are one of the biggest wastes of time in the world, IMO, b/c the temptation is there to have a never-ending, unpausing conversation as you would in the real world, rather than perhaps a more-sporadic conversation like you find on IRC...
You are mostly correct. The sole interest of a corporation is to earn a profit for its owners.
Corporations are not people, so why our law treats them as people is beyond me... And likewise, why people expect corporations to have a "community spirit" or "play nice" is similarly-silly.
However, I disagree where you say that stockholders, as a group entity, have no morals. Your sentence just previous to that statement says that "people have morals, not corporations."
Cannot *groups of people* have morals? Do churches -- groups of religious people -- not have morals? Do animal-rights groups (whatever you may think of them in terms of looniness) not have morals? (if nothing else, don't they have a moral code to try to protect the rights of animals?)
How about a Presidential administration? I'd say ours presently is a very moralistic admin. I don't live by many of the morals this admin. upholds (and tries to impose upon the rest of us), but it is still a group of people with a set of morals they believe in.
So, to return to my question -- why can't a group of investors have morals? Can't some investors believe in avoiding investing in "vice" companies -- companies dealing in alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, say? Many such funds exist for those so-called "socially-conscious" investors.
(Personally, I have no compunction about investing in those industries. People should be allowed to do with their bodies what they wish; if they want to die by smoking-caused lung cancer, so be it. If they want to shoot themselves in the head with a Glock (or if they're one your more-typical normal gun owners who simply want to go hunting or go to a range), that's their business. So long as markets exist for those people, businesses will exist to serve those needs; so long as those businesses exist and have a future and so long as I believe in the right of the individual to do with themselves as they please, I might as well invest in them.)
Talking out of *his* ass? Why don't you stop using red herrings, retard. The grandparent is comparing Britain to its own history -- NOT Britain to America.
Britain's gun crime rate has risen since its handgun ban. That is a comparison of Britain to itself; nowhere is America mentioned, because America is irrelevant to the claim.
Thus, Britain's *rate* of gun crime is rising (positively-sloped, but a negative to British society). This again, is a comparison of Britain to itself, and nowhere is America relevant to the argument.
Admit it, the law has backfired and the grandparent provided several very-credible sources showing this is true. Like the NRA famously claims, "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." Britain is learning this the hard, violent, bloody way. That's what you get for trusting the big British government...
"We have been forgetting the basic truth that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentration of power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else. We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, provided it is for good reasons."
- Milton Friedman in "Free To Choose" (1980)
1) Text-to-speech, HTML-to-speech, e-book-to-speech, PDF-to-speech, etc. -- I have lengthy commutes. I don't want to feel like I'm wasting my life sitting in traffic, so, why not listen to a book or set of webpages being read to me while I drive?
2) A *good* built-in keyboard. -- The Zaurus 5x00 and 6000 have them. The HP 4350 has one. The Treo 600 has one. But they all massively suck compared to the old touch-typable Psion 5mx's kickass fold-out keyboard.
3) Good developer support. -- I wanna write my own apps (read: games) for it. And I don't want to pay a lot (read: over $50 for non-commercial use) to do so.
4) Java runtime. -- See #3. Java ain't fast, it's not always stable, but dammit, it from a developer's standpoint, it gets the job done fast enough and easy enough that those problems pale in comparison. Still, C++ is cool too as long as the libs don't suck...
5) 802.11(b|g) access and the driver compatibility to run Kismet or some other similar quality passive sniffer. Bluetooth would be cool too.
6) A *nix-ish command line. -- Yes, even on a PDA I want a command line.
7) At least 1 road navigation + GPS system. -- This is what keeps me from mostly fulfilling my desires by buying a Zaurus... No quality commercial navigation map software, AFAIK.
8) Quality PIM apps. -- It's a friggen' PDA. It damn well better be able to handle my contacts, text notes, calendar, etc...
9) At least 640x480 resolution, in a clamtop form factor. -- After all, with the Zaurus 6000, you're stuck either reading a webpage at 640 width (turning the device sideways), or typing into a field -- not both simultaneously, due to the form factor. The Psion 5mx had 640x200 resolution -- so you could surf with Opera at minimum width on regular pages (but, being a non-color PDA, why would you unless you were looking up an all-text Linux HOWTO?).
10) VoIP capability. -- Not really of use now, but as 802.11(b|g) access becomes increasingly-common, IMO this will become more useful. So, the device needs a microphone, as well as either an external speaker or a headphone jack (which would also be used for MP3/OGG/whatever output).
11) >= 2.0Mpixel digital camera. -- I want to take digital pics, but I don't want to lug around a camera and a PDA.
12) Cell phone. -- Same as #11 but with phone access. True, this partly infringes on #10 in functionality, but if I can make a call for cheaper via VoIP, I'll do it; otherwise, if I'm away from an AP and have to use my cell (as is almost always the case), then that's possible as well...
13) USB host capability. -- The Zaurus 6000 has it, as does one of the newer Toshiba PocketPC's. Plugging in USB devices on one of these things could be both very useful and very cool... It'd be kinda neat to play DVDs on the PDA with an external DVD drive. Or consider the nav. system problem again -- put the DVD drive in your car's trunk, have a USB cable running to your dash where your PDA controls the DVD player and reads maps off of the DVD. No need to swap maps to/from flash memory (as is the current case w/ PocketPCs, etc.), yet the data storage stays out of sight...
14) A semi-serious gamepad-style control design. -- If you're going to play games on it, how about some decent controls while you're at it, rather than the D-pad in the center with the "action" buttons surrounding the pad? (I know, most PDAs aren't meant for gaming/media. But I would still prefer a design like this for scrolling through contacts, etc.)
15) Replaceable battery pack. -- If one battery pack runs out of power, I want to be able to swap in another and keep working while the first one charges. None of this built-in charge-it-at-home-or-else and send-in-the-PDA-to-the-OEM-to-replace-the-battery crap.
Summary : My dream PDA is basically the hackability of the Zaurus 5x00/6000, the k
Wow! I guess my car was FREE!! too (after paying $20,000)!
Or that bowl of Wheaties I had for breakfast -- FREE!! (after paying about $0.80 for 1/5 of a regular-sized box).
Wait a sec, gasoline is FREE!!!! too! (after spending $1.95/gallon)
Wake up Slashdolts. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Learn some goddamn fundamental economics.
If I hand out copies of a list of the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of "uppity niggers" at a Ku Klux Klan rally, do you think that my actions are purely informational?
Yes, because the anti-black *actions* taken based on that information are still the responsibility of the KKK.
The same goes for the anti-white actions based on similar info about white people passed to the Black Panthers.
Ditto for info about the "uppity homeless" going to homeless-hating corporate executives.
Same goes for info about globalizing corporate execs going to exec-hating globalization protesters.
Information doesn't kill people any more than guns kill people or any more than pornography rapes/kills people or any more than the spoon and chocolate pudding make Rosie O'Donnell fat. People kill people - always have, always will.
Stop blaming the object/instrument and start blaming the individual whose actions result from the misuse of that object/instrument.
There is a *lot* of truth in what you say. The optimist in me does see those points about not having had to deal with STDs, financial burdens (of children, etc.), pregnancy, etc. I probably give that point less credit than it deserves, b/c it *is* a significant relief, as I think about it.
That said, every one of my friends has gotten laid, multiple times. A couple of them have screwed probably a half-dozen or more women, by my count. And none of them have had those problems - at least so far. So, while the probability of running into one of those problems is > 0 when getting involved w/ women, it seems that the probability (at least as far as my friends - sample of the population - are concerned) of those events occurring are also rather low. Contraceptives keep the pregnancy and STD rates reasonably-low, albeit, not zero. But they are low enough that out of the 2 dozen or so friends I have (whom I only very occasionally talk to anymore, it seems, or who are really just "acquantainces"), none of them have had ill effects stemming from sex.
Still, you are right -- I have probably 65-80 years of life ahead of me in which I can meet plenty of women. To my credit, patience and persistence has always been one of my strongest points.
The problem is that all the most-attractive women are their most-attractive *right now*. And most people seem to look back on their late-teens/early 20s most-fondly where sex is concerned. Those are the years for which I've *already* missed out, completely. I can't have those years back, no matter how hard I wish or how much money I spend (God, I feel like a 50-something saying that).
Last year, when I was a junior and still hadn't had an internship yet, money was everything to me. Now that I have an idea of how/where I can make money, that's no longer the case. Like money, I'll realize that sex isn't everything once I've gotten some and figured out "the game" of obtaining it. Money doesn't seem so important to those of us who have it, but to the homeless or unemployed man, nothing else matters.
So, where my sex life is concerned, think of me as the bum standing by the dumpster drinking a bottle of Boonesfarm out of a paper bag with a sign saying "can you please spare some pussy?" as people walk by laughing at me...
(It's not just sex, BTW. It's the feeling of being loved. I don't get that from anybody but my parents and my best friend (in the platonic manly way only male friends have, that is). Perhaps even more than sex, that's who I'm after -- somebody who genuinely cares about me and thinks the world of me. I've never, in my entire life, had that experience, not even for a moment.)
Gear -- Laptop security hardware
:)
Unless you bring your laptop to every class with you every day, or leave it in your car from time to time, your laptop will be out of your sight for several hours/day. As in, sitting on your desk where your roommate(s) and other dorm buddies might -- if they are the unseemly type -- consider stealing it and selling it while you're gone. In this case, no laptop security hardware will save you -- time is on their side, and your hardware, at best, is a lock strapped to a probably-wooden desk.
That said, a laptop lock is still better than nothing, and for that reason, is worth the investment.
Mostly though, I wouldn't worry *too* much about physical security unless your roommate is untrustworthy. Of course, you won't know that until you've lived with him/her for a few weeks, will you?
Now my other subject:
Sanity -- Self-discipline, time-management, and happiness
Here are my 3 main tips:
1) DO NOT SLACK OFF LIKE IT'S YOUR SENIOR YEAR IN HIGH SCHOOL, EVEN FRESHMAN YEAR. Your GPA is King if you want to go on to grad school, med school, law school, etc.. That said, you really only need a minimum of a 3.1-3.2 or so to get into grad school or law school. Med school is harder though.
2) DO NOT SPEND ALL YOUR FREE TIME LEARNING LINUX/*BSD IF YOU HAVE NEVER HAD EXPERIENCE WITH THESE OS'S. They will eat up all your free time (compiling god knows how many libraries you also have to download first, manhandling config files, reading poorly-written documentation, etc.). Learn them over time, but do not live them as I did. OSS is a very small subset of life.
3) DO NOT GET (too) BIG INTO THE CAMPUS LAN-GAMING AND WAREZ SCENES. Warez is too legally-risky these days, and besides, it requires lots and lots of manual searching; Google doesn't cut it here, and thus it takes lots of time to get the philez you want. It usually isn't worth it.
Welcome to the reasons I voluntarily dropped out of a major, well-funded, well-respected 2nd-tier science/engineering university, and will now be finishing up my degree at a shitty, underfunded 4th-tier liberal-arts state school.
Oh, and one more:
4) Don't fall into the "I wanna be a God admin/coder" trap and ignore women (or men, if you prefer) and dating for your 4 years of college. This has been the biggest reason I am a bitter, unhappy man in my early-mid 20s. I am only just now learning how to date women, and am still a virgin. [1] Most guys (about 73%) get laid by the time they're 18. Me? I might as well be a hardcore loony-bin Christian straight-edger waiting until marriage for sex, so far as I count, statistically.
I have a monetarily-successful life (almost certainly) coming to me in spite of all of the above, because I have managed to determine and pull myself up from my failings, but in doing so, like I said, I'm as bitter and unhappy a man as anybody I know.
I have discovered after years of soul-searching that money isn't everything (and if you read my previous posts, you will find that I am a diehard believer in the free-market, and resultingly, money transactions). Friends, love, laughter, and the free time and freedom to choose your own path in life are. Of those, my life is sorely lacking the first 3 (of any quality, at least). Money makes all of those things easier to obtain, and it makes those things go more-smoothly and easily. But money is the means, *not* the end...
Don't waste the most-vital years of your life geeking-out like I did. Go out, party, get drunk, get laid every weekend. Do your homework too, and if you're in CS or Engineering, you may well have to sacrifice a party or two to do the assignments, but what I have just described is a far-better balance than I have achieved the last 4 years in school.
Work hard during the week, and party hard on the weekends. That is how co
You wield anti-liberty dark sarcasm like a true anti-American.
The grandparent made a cogent pro-liberty point, and you bash him for it. FOAD, pinko.