It's interesting how people so willingly give up their rights based on hearsay. The Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act states that a manufacturer cannot refuse to honor a warranty because a non-OEM part was used or a modification was made, unless they can prove that said part/modification caused the equipment failure in question. If you brick your device by mucking around in/system after rooting it, then you're out of luck. If the battery stops holding a charge, then rooting had nothing to do with it, so it's covered under warranty. Obviously you might not have much luck explaining this legal concept to a support drone, but realistically they won't notice it's rooted in the first place.
[Ukip MEP Paul Nuttall] said: "I had to read this four or five times before I believed it. It is a perfect example of what Brussels does best. Spend three years, with 20 separate pieces of correspondence before summoning 21 professors to Parma where they decide with great solemnity that drinking water cannot be sold as a way to combat dehydration."
Ok, I get why the application was rejection (marketing towards idiots) despite disagreeing with some of the reasoning (most subclinical cases of dehydration are due to exercise or temperature, not another medical condition, i.e. some medical professional has spent far too long in the clinic/hospital seeing people with renal disease and its ilk). All that said, this is a trifling matter. It is my understanding that Europeans are more fond of taxes than Americans, but surely this is not the sort of thing that anyone wants them spent on. I cannot say whether this is the indication for the need for less government (i.e. so there's not such a surplus of labor to allow this sort of behavior) or more (e.g. a committee to nix boondoggling).
I figured that plausible deniability applies both ways. You deny that you have any more hidden volumes, they deny that you've given them all relevant passwords. In the UK that means running afoul of that law. In less kind parts of the world (or society) that means you will be tortured until you give up the "real" password, repeated ad infinitum as there's no way to determine the number of hidden volumes. Sucks to be you if what they're looking for doesn't exist, there's no way for you to prove that and break the cycle.
IMHO, plausibly deniability is for reasonable and less motivated opponents (e.g. some family members). If you're worried about a less savory type, you need to visibly destroy the data. E.g., put it on RAM disks that will shut down if someone opens your closet door and doesn't type the correct code in 30 seconds. You'll be charged with destruction of evidence in a courtroom, and presumed guilty elsewhere, but it's a calculated risk. Wiping the header that is used to convert your password into the actual crypto key is another possibility that potentially allows for later recovery, but your opponent may assume that as well.
As I understand it, the theory is that anything galaxy-sized or smaller must be almost completely composed of either matter or antimatter since otherwise it'd destroy itself. But, if you had antimatter galaxies then you'd expect to see gamma particles created when they interacted with matter galaxies.
That hasn't been observed, so the prevailing theory is that the whole universe is almost exclusively comprised of matter, thus there must be some preference in the laws of physics for matter. Personally, I suspect we'll discover an alternate explanation for the missing gamma rays that doesn't require an asymmetry in physics, such as your idea, but I'm certainly not an expert on the topic ("neophyte" would be generous).
IMHO, such businesses ought to have their secured merchandise in a "locked" room (easily circumvented) with a security camera that looks like it was accidentally broken/disabled (e.g. insecurely mounted so it's pointing in the wrong direction). Send new employees back there alone regularly, after hours even.
Next, review video footage from the four hidden cameras and closely check stock over the weekend. Honest employees will never know, and dishonest employees will get weeded out before their first paycheck.
I remember being taught this as a sophomore in highschool. In 2003 there seems to have been a chain e-mail and Slashdot article that talked about it as well, . I'm not sure who could possibly think we subvocalize every word, that's obviously not what happens unless you're very inexperienced with a language.
IMHO, the problem isn't that these services aren't popular, they just aren't marketable. SpaceX, for example, has no products available for $300 (i.e. ~5% of the median income tax revenue), so there's no commercial way to support space exploration. As other posters have pointed out, $40k is a drop in the bucket for most research, so donations don't work too well either. (Plus there's incentive to exploit good will, such as "Awareness" fundraisers.)
One vital difference between research and roads is that we fund research because it's the right thing to do, not because we would suffer without it in the short term. So, if nobody wants to fund research into the hok/sok plasmid system, then it's not a huge deal. (Realistically, the researcher could explain that it serves to maintain drug resistance in such pathogens as E. coli O157:H7, and drum up some support that way, or just classify it under a "Medical Research" category.) OTOH, some pure science research is a hard sell to the public, so that's why one would rely on the politically apathetic to support it.
The problem is convincing a million people to part with their money. Remember, getting donations is merely a voluntary version of taxation and people despise taxation.
It seems like a decent solution might be to allow people the option to determine what their current tax dollars go towards. Right now the government supports a great amount of research, disaster relief, art, non-profits, etc.. Now that we live in the information age it'd be simple to pull those out of the normal budget and allow politically non-apathetic people to decide where that 5% or so of their taxes go. If you like NASA, throw your 5% there. Breast cancer survivors would probably put their 5% into that sort of medical research. Those on Florida's East coast would probably favor FEMA, and so on. The really picky could divvy up their dollars, and the apathetic would default to what we do now.
It seems more like throwing a handful of seeds into a field and seeing what takes root. Starting all these side offerings probably isn't costing Google very much money, so if it fails it's no big deal, but if it succeeds then the profit potential is huge. They also create publicity for Google and ensure they keep a following of early adopters.
I would imagine they're holding out because they want Google to open a service that allows them to sell songs for > $0.99. That way, they have a far better position to negotiate a price increase with iTunes. OTOH, I'd imagine Google is resisting such a deal for a couple reasons. First, it serves the record companies, but is not designed to help Google (works just as well or even better if Google Music later goes flop). Second, it gives them no pricing advantage, and likely a disadvantage, thus ensuring an uphill battle in competing with iTunes.
Most of those aware of Zynga's demands for the return of stock said the effort was designed to replenish the pool of shares that could be awarded to attract new talent.
IMHO, Zynga has a lesson to learn. I highly doubt unvested shares are going to attract very much talent in the future for their company. Or at least among prospects who do the slightest bit of research and have a modicum of common sense.
The average American watches 5 hours of television per day. While that's bad for a number of reasons, it's not terribly reliable as that only leaves a 20.8% chance someone will be watching TV during an emergency. It's also not independently distributed, so a family of four isn't going to always have someone watching TV, and a neighborhood may well not have anyone watching at 4:00 in the morning. Radio is even less likely, as a good portion of people don't listen to AM/FM radio, and I'm sure Apple et al. are working hard to reduce the numbers. And people who are working are unlikely to be watching/listening to either. IMHO, cell phone emergency alerts are a must, as it's highly probably someone around you will always have one, and they work at night.
Hmm... I can just picture it now. China starts going on again about how Taiwan isn't a sovereign nation, so the US dispatches a carrier fleet to the Taiwan Strait and tries to fire a warning shot at an interloping Chinese warship. The missile blows up inside the missile launcher. So, do we blame that on shoddy Chinese workmanship, or did it do exactly what was intended?
IOW, other countries are fine with buying weaponry from the US as they're our allies and, beyond that, wouldn't stand a chance of winning a war against us so it's a moot point if the weaponry is designed to be loyal to its manufacturer. The US doesn't have that kind of relationship with China. Heck, we already have enough issues with them stealing military technology as-is.
Plus the carbon footprint for getting the bears to Antarctica! Though I'd imagine that'd take polar bears off the threatened species list, and put penguins on it...
The Flynn Effect describes the trend that raw IQ test scores increase over time. So far, the trend has been an increase of 0.25 points per year (an IQ of 100 in 1932 is now ~80... sorry old-timers). IQ is standardized to a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.
Now, as for selection pressure, who reproduces more on average, people with high IQs off getting graduate degrees and deferring children until advance maternal/paternal age, or people with low IQs who refuse to believe that having sex regularly without any form of birth control equals "trying to get pregnant"? Fortunately, intelligence is based on both genetics and environment, so we aren't quite doomed to Idiocracy, albeit it seems that way at times.
Industrial farming uses modern tools on a single crop whereas rural farming does not, hence why the latter is far more labor intensive. I'm talking about the archetypical American farm with a single family raising crops and livestock primarily for their own consumption. This has fallen way to industrial farming, but people spent pretty much all their time working in that lifestyle. Ask a traditional Amish or Mennonite if you don't believe me.
I read the article and regret it. The author called Dell and HP "spokespersons" and asked about their company's plans. One non-decision-making employee says Dell is currently planning to provide an option, and a similar HP employee has no idea what SecureBoot is, but can confirm that HP is not participating in a conspiracy (the stated question apparently).
So, after two phone calls and an e-mail, the author's fact-checking work is done, so the article moves on to mocking selected quotes by open source advocates. I'll try to remember Ed Bott's name, as he obviously has such high journalistic standards.
I haven't seen those addresses spammed (I don't use Twitter), but I have gotten spammed at FAFSA@mydomain.net, which is kind of depressing. Also illegal, IIRC. I traced it down to the alumni dept at my university, but who knows how far that information has spread. Random message boards tend to be compromised frequently (or they sell the info?), so I see all kinds of spam from addresses given to them.
IIRC, there's a prison in Tennessee that lets prisoners farm their own food. Farming is a useful skill, reduces the cost of imprisonment, exercises the prisoners, teaches responsibility, and it can take well over 100 hours a week (unless it's industrial). It's also hard work, such that people gladly chose to work in a factory for pennies a day rather than be a farmer in most of the world.
This is in contrast to prisons where farming is one occupational training option for inmates, rather than a full-time, "if you don't work, you don't eat" type arrangement. OTOH, I'd imagine people would complain that living like most rural people did 50+ years ago is cruel and unusual.
Or, a classic psych example is that if you become conditioned to punch something (e.g. pillow, wall, tree, whatever) when you're angry, guess what happens when the only punchable thing nearby is someone's face?
IMHO, Windows has a pretty nice solution. Program files go into a subdirectory of %PROGRAMFILES% and config files into %APPDATA%. These variables change depending on the version of Windows, and the type of program (32 VS 64 bit). The user can rename or move those directories as well. Back when I had more time I used to keep each on its own partition for backup and multi-boot reasons (e.g. shared config files for ported programs). Linux had some issues with that, and Firefox was schizophrenic about case-sensitivity. (Technically, I suppose "borderline" might be a more accurate description of its behavior...) Of course, it was also hilarious to see your standard cocky IT guy scratch his head trying to install something when he realized my C:\ was missing a few directories and under one gigabyte in total size (this was after I opened explorer rather than my usual shell, I wasn't *too* cruel).
That said, a lot of developers don't understand this "power user" detail about Windows. They hard code "C:\Program Files\" or do foolish things like keep their config files in the home directory (linux devs are horrible for this) or application directory. It's also funny to see people give shell commands in a tutorial, but not understand environmental variables (e.g. "Replace [User] with your username"). Surely anyone who used XP preferred typing "%USERPROFILE%" or "%APPDATA" rather than "C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Roaming\", while remembering to quote and escape as needed. OTOH, Linux probably needs to rename/bin to "Program Files" before we'll see the end of space sensitivity in scripts.
Well, with any test there are several possible outcomes:
Test picked up a disease while it's treatable but effectively asymptomatic
Test picked up a disease that isn't treatable
Test picked up a disease that would have eventually shown symptoms and been treated at that time
Test picked up a "disease" that never would have actually amounted to anything
Test was wrong
Of these, only the first is useful. The way we determine whether to administer a screening test or not is based on the NNT (Number needed to treat before one patient benefits), NNH (number needed to harm, e.g. guy becomes impotent after you resect his prostate unnecessarily), the cost of the test and the size of the population at risk. IIRC, we can allocate ~$30k per life saved (the TSA OTOH...).
Another part of the problem is that a lot of our tests have only really been studied in patients with symptoms. E.g. patient has back pain, CT or MRI is done, it shows disease, surgery is performed to alleviate symptoms. If you start looking at people in the general population, a lot will have normal variants that look like disease. Individually, these variants ("incidentalomas") are rare, but in aggregate they're really common; a full third of people would have something abnormal on CT scan.
While it's a ripoff, what's the alternative for the non-scholarship student (or scholarship student that wants to get a higher degree)? A generation without college graduates? A generation of debt slaves? I don't think a trillion dollar handout is a good idea, but something needs to be done to prevent the latter from being realized, and the former from being our future. Our long-term economic security depends on it. (Not on the art student obviously, but that's probably something the free market or government regulation ought to take care of.)
Given the very skewed income-based distribution of tax revenue, I'd venture to guess that more than 95% of the tax revenue is collected from college graduates, either directly or indirectly. In recent years both tuition and interest rates have undergone geometric expansion, and the terms of the loans keep getting worse (e.g. no bankruptcy... wait a sec, wasn't that a founding principle of this nation?). Now that the job market is in the shape it's in (obviously predictable 4+ years out by highschool graduates), not agreeing to these terms effectively denies higher education to all but those with wealthy parents. In most schools, you can't even work your way through anymore, as tuition plus living expenses is greater than what you'd be able to earn as a full-time worker and part-time student. So, allowing these problems to persist and worsen is raising the ladder behind those who enjoyed dirt cheap tuition and loans with negligible interest financed by their predecessors.
Slashdot Mirror
It's interesting how people so willingly give up their rights based on hearsay. The Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act states that a manufacturer cannot refuse to honor a warranty because a non-OEM part was used or a modification was made, unless they can prove that said part/modification caused the equipment failure in question. If you brick your device by mucking around in /system after rooting it, then you're out of luck. If the battery stops holding a charge, then rooting had nothing to do with it, so it's covered under warranty. Obviously you might not have much luck explaining this legal concept to a support drone, but realistically they won't notice it's rooted in the first place.
[Ukip MEP Paul Nuttall] said: "I had to read this four or five times before I believed it. It is a perfect example of what Brussels does best. Spend three years, with 20 separate pieces of correspondence before summoning 21 professors to Parma where they decide with great solemnity that drinking water cannot be sold as a way to combat dehydration."
Ok, I get why the application was rejection (marketing towards idiots) despite disagreeing with some of the reasoning (most subclinical cases of dehydration are due to exercise or temperature, not another medical condition, i.e. some medical professional has spent far too long in the clinic/hospital seeing people with renal disease and its ilk). All that said, this is a trifling matter. It is my understanding that Europeans are more fond of taxes than Americans, but surely this is not the sort of thing that anyone wants them spent on. I cannot say whether this is the indication for the need for less government (i.e. so there's not such a surplus of labor to allow this sort of behavior) or more (e.g. a committee to nix boondoggling).
I figured that plausible deniability applies both ways. You deny that you have any more hidden volumes, they deny that you've given them all relevant passwords. In the UK that means running afoul of that law. In less kind parts of the world (or society) that means you will be tortured until you give up the "real" password, repeated ad infinitum as there's no way to determine the number of hidden volumes. Sucks to be you if what they're looking for doesn't exist, there's no way for you to prove that and break the cycle.
IMHO, plausibly deniability is for reasonable and less motivated opponents (e.g. some family members). If you're worried about a less savory type, you need to visibly destroy the data. E.g., put it on RAM disks that will shut down if someone opens your closet door and doesn't type the correct code in 30 seconds. You'll be charged with destruction of evidence in a courtroom, and presumed guilty elsewhere, but it's a calculated risk. Wiping the header that is used to convert your password into the actual crypto key is another possibility that potentially allows for later recovery, but your opponent may assume that as well.
As I understand it, the theory is that anything galaxy-sized or smaller must be almost completely composed of either matter or antimatter since otherwise it'd destroy itself. But, if you had antimatter galaxies then you'd expect to see gamma particles created when they interacted with matter galaxies.
That hasn't been observed, so the prevailing theory is that the whole universe is almost exclusively comprised of matter, thus there must be some preference in the laws of physics for matter. Personally, I suspect we'll discover an alternate explanation for the missing gamma rays that doesn't require an asymmetry in physics, such as your idea, but I'm certainly not an expert on the topic ("neophyte" would be generous).
When I read it my first impression was someone who custom fitted clothing online... which would actually be rather impressive.
IMHO, such businesses ought to have their secured merchandise in a "locked" room (easily circumvented) with a security camera that looks like it was accidentally broken/disabled (e.g. insecurely mounted so it's pointing in the wrong direction). Send new employees back there alone regularly, after hours even.
Next, review video footage from the four hidden cameras and closely check stock over the weekend. Honest employees will never know, and dishonest employees will get weeded out before their first paycheck.
I remember being taught this as a sophomore in highschool. In 2003 there seems to have been a chain e-mail and Slashdot article that talked about it as well, . I'm not sure who could possibly think we subvocalize every word, that's obviously not what happens unless you're very inexperienced with a language.
IMHO, the problem isn't that these services aren't popular, they just aren't marketable. SpaceX, for example, has no products available for $300 (i.e. ~5% of the median income tax revenue), so there's no commercial way to support space exploration. As other posters have pointed out, $40k is a drop in the bucket for most research, so donations don't work too well either. (Plus there's incentive to exploit good will, such as "Awareness" fundraisers.)
One vital difference between research and roads is that we fund research because it's the right thing to do, not because we would suffer without it in the short term. So, if nobody wants to fund research into the hok/sok plasmid system, then it's not a huge deal. (Realistically, the researcher could explain that it serves to maintain drug resistance in such pathogens as E. coli O157:H7, and drum up some support that way, or just classify it under a "Medical Research" category.) OTOH, some pure science research is a hard sell to the public, so that's why one would rely on the politically apathetic to support it.
The problem is convincing a million people to part with their money. Remember, getting donations is merely a voluntary version of taxation and people despise taxation.
It seems like a decent solution might be to allow people the option to determine what their current tax dollars go towards. Right now the government supports a great amount of research, disaster relief, art, non-profits, etc.. Now that we live in the information age it'd be simple to pull those out of the normal budget and allow politically non-apathetic people to decide where that 5% or so of their taxes go. If you like NASA, throw your 5% there. Breast cancer survivors would probably put their 5% into that sort of medical research. Those on Florida's East coast would probably favor FEMA, and so on. The really picky could divvy up their dollars, and the apathetic would default to what we do now.
It seems more like throwing a handful of seeds into a field and seeing what takes root. Starting all these side offerings probably isn't costing Google very much money, so if it fails it's no big deal, but if it succeeds then the profit potential is huge. They also create publicity for Google and ensure they keep a following of early adopters.
I would imagine they're holding out because they want Google to open a service that allows them to sell songs for > $0.99. That way, they have a far better position to negotiate a price increase with iTunes. OTOH, I'd imagine Google is resisting such a deal for a couple reasons. First, it serves the record companies, but is not designed to help Google (works just as well or even better if Google Music later goes flop). Second, it gives them no pricing advantage, and likely a disadvantage, thus ensuring an uphill battle in competing with iTunes.
Most of those aware of Zynga's demands for the return of stock said the effort was designed to replenish the pool of shares that could be awarded to attract new talent.
IMHO, Zynga has a lesson to learn. I highly doubt unvested shares are going to attract very much talent in the future for their company. Or at least among prospects who do the slightest bit of research and have a modicum of common sense.
The average American watches 5 hours of television per day. While that's bad for a number of reasons, it's not terribly reliable as that only leaves a 20.8% chance someone will be watching TV during an emergency. It's also not independently distributed, so a family of four isn't going to always have someone watching TV, and a neighborhood may well not have anyone watching at 4:00 in the morning. Radio is even less likely, as a good portion of people don't listen to AM/FM radio, and I'm sure Apple et al. are working hard to reduce the numbers. And people who are working are unlikely to be watching/listening to either. IMHO, cell phone emergency alerts are a must, as it's highly probably someone around you will always have one, and they work at night.
Hmm... I can just picture it now. China starts going on again about how Taiwan isn't a sovereign nation, so the US dispatches a carrier fleet to the Taiwan Strait and tries to fire a warning shot at an interloping Chinese warship. The missile blows up inside the missile launcher. So, do we blame that on shoddy Chinese workmanship, or did it do exactly what was intended?
IOW, other countries are fine with buying weaponry from the US as they're our allies and, beyond that, wouldn't stand a chance of winning a war against us so it's a moot point if the weaponry is designed to be loyal to its manufacturer. The US doesn't have that kind of relationship with China. Heck, we already have enough issues with them stealing military technology as-is.
Plus the carbon footprint for getting the bears to Antarctica! Though I'd imagine that'd take polar bears off the threatened species list, and put penguins on it...
The Flynn Effect describes the trend that raw IQ test scores increase over time. So far, the trend has been an increase of 0.25 points per year (an IQ of 100 in 1932 is now ~80... sorry old-timers). IQ is standardized to a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.
Now, as for selection pressure, who reproduces more on average, people with high IQs off getting graduate degrees and deferring children until advance maternal/paternal age, or people with low IQs who refuse to believe that having sex regularly without any form of birth control equals "trying to get pregnant"? Fortunately, intelligence is based on both genetics and environment, so we aren't quite doomed to Idiocracy, albeit it seems that way at times.
Industrial farming uses modern tools on a single crop whereas rural farming does not, hence why the latter is far more labor intensive. I'm talking about the archetypical American farm with a single family raising crops and livestock primarily for their own consumption. This has fallen way to industrial farming, but people spent pretty much all their time working in that lifestyle. Ask a traditional Amish or Mennonite if you don't believe me.
I read the article and regret it. The author called Dell and HP "spokespersons" and asked about their company's plans. One non-decision-making employee says Dell is currently planning to provide an option, and a similar HP employee has no idea what SecureBoot is, but can confirm that HP is not participating in a conspiracy (the stated question apparently).
So, after two phone calls and an e-mail, the author's fact-checking work is done, so the article moves on to mocking selected quotes by open source advocates. I'll try to remember Ed Bott's name, as he obviously has such high journalistic standards.
I haven't seen those addresses spammed (I don't use Twitter), but I have gotten spammed at FAFSA@mydomain.net, which is kind of depressing. Also illegal, IIRC. I traced it down to the alumni dept at my university, but who knows how far that information has spread. Random message boards tend to be compromised frequently (or they sell the info?), so I see all kinds of spam from addresses given to them.
IIRC, there's a prison in Tennessee that lets prisoners farm their own food. Farming is a useful skill, reduces the cost of imprisonment, exercises the prisoners, teaches responsibility, and it can take well over 100 hours a week (unless it's industrial). It's also hard work, such that people gladly chose to work in a factory for pennies a day rather than be a farmer in most of the world.
This is in contrast to prisons where farming is one occupational training option for inmates, rather than a full-time, "if you don't work, you don't eat" type arrangement. OTOH, I'd imagine people would complain that living like most rural people did 50+ years ago is cruel and unusual.
Or, a classic psych example is that if you become conditioned to punch something (e.g. pillow, wall, tree, whatever) when you're angry, guess what happens when the only punchable thing nearby is someone's face?
IMHO, Windows has a pretty nice solution. Program files go into a subdirectory of %PROGRAMFILES% and config files into %APPDATA%. These variables change depending on the version of Windows, and the type of program (32 VS 64 bit). The user can rename or move those directories as well. Back when I had more time I used to keep each on its own partition for backup and multi-boot reasons (e.g. shared config files for ported programs). Linux had some issues with that, and Firefox was schizophrenic about case-sensitivity. (Technically, I suppose "borderline" might be a more accurate description of its behavior...) Of course, it was also hilarious to see your standard cocky IT guy scratch his head trying to install something when he realized my C:\ was missing a few directories and under one gigabyte in total size (this was after I opened explorer rather than my usual shell, I wasn't *too* cruel).
/bin to "Program Files" before we'll see the end of space sensitivity in scripts.
That said, a lot of developers don't understand this "power user" detail about Windows. They hard code "C:\Program Files\" or do foolish things like keep their config files in the home directory (linux devs are horrible for this) or application directory. It's also funny to see people give shell commands in a tutorial, but not understand environmental variables (e.g. "Replace [User] with your username"). Surely anyone who used XP preferred typing "%USERPROFILE%" or "%APPDATA" rather than "C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Roaming\", while remembering to quote and escape as needed. OTOH, Linux probably needs to rename
Of these, only the first is useful. The way we determine whether to administer a screening test or not is based on the NNT (Number needed to treat before one patient benefits), NNH (number needed to harm, e.g. guy becomes impotent after you resect his prostate unnecessarily), the cost of the test and the size of the population at risk. IIRC, we can allocate ~$30k per life saved (the TSA OTOH...).
Another part of the problem is that a lot of our tests have only really been studied in patients with symptoms. E.g. patient has back pain, CT or MRI is done, it shows disease, surgery is performed to alleviate symptoms. If you start looking at people in the general population, a lot will have normal variants that look like disease. Individually, these variants ("incidentalomas") are rare, but in aggregate they're really common; a full third of people would have something abnormal on CT scan.
While it's a ripoff, what's the alternative for the non-scholarship student (or scholarship student that wants to get a higher degree)? A generation without college graduates? A generation of debt slaves? I don't think a trillion dollar handout is a good idea, but something needs to be done to prevent the latter from being realized, and the former from being our future. Our long-term economic security depends on it. (Not on the art student obviously, but that's probably something the free market or government regulation ought to take care of.)
Given the very skewed income-based distribution of tax revenue, I'd venture to guess that more than 95% of the tax revenue is collected from college graduates, either directly or indirectly. In recent years both tuition and interest rates have undergone geometric expansion, and the terms of the loans keep getting worse (e.g. no bankruptcy... wait a sec, wasn't that a founding principle of this nation?). Now that the job market is in the shape it's in (obviously predictable 4+ years out by highschool graduates), not agreeing to these terms effectively denies higher education to all but those with wealthy parents. In most schools, you can't even work your way through anymore, as tuition plus living expenses is greater than what you'd be able to earn as a full-time worker and part-time student. So, allowing these problems to persist and worsen is raising the ladder behind those who enjoyed dirt cheap tuition and loans with negligible interest financed by their predecessors.