Personally I find the opposite... I just can't stand wearing headphones and the lower resonance annoys me compared to good speakers. Though due to having a roommate I often am forced to wear headphones anyways.
I bought a Radeon HD 6950 recently to replace my failing 3870 and found it to be extremely quiet (my PSU and CPU fans made more noise) unless I was putting it under serious strain. You can also control the fan through a host of different apps including a custom fan profile (temp vs percent max fan speed). Personally I wanted it to run cooler, so I made the fan more aggressive in its fan speeds. However you can make it less aggressive yet, like say under 80C it runs at 30% fan speed. The default is 30% until about 70C and then it jumps to 60% and at 100C becomes 100%. Since the temp range doesn't extend beyond 100C I'm guessing 100% fan speed is a last ditch effort to get temps under control before it exceeds the cards tolerance.
Anyways... While not utterly silent it remains very quiet on default.
Well It was in the sense it couldn't wait, I had no idea before going there that I wouldn't end up dead in the next few hours if left untreated. I haven't described why I went, but I had one foot swell up to easily twice its size and I think rightfully freaked out a little bit since I'd never had that happen. I hadn't been bitten or stung by anything so it is more than a bit abnormal. As a normal person I felt it required attention that day and not 'sometime next month' as a doctor's office visit was going to be. Lucky me I found out within 10 minutes that it was an allergic reaction and I take a bit of x medicine and avoid the allergen and I'd be fine. The doctor agreed I made the right call, letting it go on as is would have meant possible death as the reaction spread. That it wasn't complex to solve upon seeing a doctor does not mean it's not a relative emergency.
I would think the posting that what we need is a reduction of working people directly correlates with our system needing to be ready to deal with it. It was implied (though not stated) that current trends of capitalism already show the effect of which you mention.
A growing part of america is on foodstamps FYI and they programs have never gone away here. I had an ex who lived on welfare while going to college for her associates degree for instance. Though she had a child and so qualified for money, food, housing, and medical assistance. That had an overlap when I ended up between jobs and had a hospital visit, which sans insurance (it's tied to employment in the US) meant I suddenly owed $5000 USD for effectively a emergency room visit that didn't require any expensive tests or complex actions, just a doctor to look at me for 10 minutes and write up a prescription. No agency would help, though they could if they wanted to.
And exactly what is supposed to happen to those who find themselves without jobs? Especially for men with no kids government will not help you. You don't qualify for state medical aid programs so better not get sick. You won't qualify for state monetary support. You may manage to squeak by for food stamps. You won't qualify for housing support. So... That's looking really great there.
Women on the other hand usually qualify for all of those when not working and not supported by someone else. They go to the top of the lists if they have kids. Men with kids rank just below women, though often still have issues with certain programs.
I have needed those very support programs before and been let down as a single man. I'm hardly alone either, the economy is much better for women than men in the first place. Women are in demand by business. So your suggesting we need less men (as the most often to be let go and who in their younger years make less than their female counterparts on average) who then can't get support to continue to live without family to take care of them. That so isn't a long term solution.
Education is key, not so much the economy. Proper education and a will to take advantage of it will lead to a good economy. The only thing worth giving them is education and we have only very recently started to do that.
The contraceptives will have zero value and insignificant use without the education and prosperity to make a difference. Handing them contraceptives and saying "here use these" has no effect. We have in fact done that in some parts of the world and it has had near zero effect (margin of error levels). I can find you some reports on the attempts to do this if you really want to see them, but it hasn't helped any more than the missionaries teaching abstinence.
The need education and prosperity before the contraceptives have value. If they have the education and prosperity they can make them themselves. It is very much like the ancient proverb about teaching a man to fish versus giving him a fish. Until one has the education to realize that your old method (begging for food or having 20 kids) is a bad solution, then you have no desire to change your behavior.
I think you are either a troll or you missed the point. Trying to stop them from following their beliefs without using education leaves only economic and violent means. They are already 'poor' so economic means is likely to fail in any significant way. So you are left with violence. The developed world cannot be the police of the developing world! We cannot force our ideological opinions on them through violent means and succeed at doing more than pissing them off! Come on, how many times have we already seen this? Add to that the simple fact they outnumber us and it's just not a worthwhile means of achieving things. Education must be the means.
The whole point you offer of 40% of African men thinking that raping virgin women will cure aids is frankly I think the best example for why we need more education in those areas. Very few people turn down increased education. As much as some here on Slashdot may hate him, Bill Gates even realized this and has put schools into Africa.
As for poverty = increased kids, it's backwards because typically they have the least resources to care for the kids. Though biologically it's encouraged on the ideal that the more kids you have the better the chance some survive. Wealthy people don't worry to much about child survival rates.
Most of the areas you point out as 'backward' in fact would be less so if they had quality educations. Even in the US a increase in education lead to the women's rights movement. Their are even some feminist groups who work to raise awareness and desire for education in women in those very places. With very good success rates.
I still say that forcing people to not have kids as an outside agent on their culture is both morally wrong and a waste. If we don't educate them then we will simply create more hate for us and increase things like terrorism. You cannot force someone else to do something they don't want to without creating negative feelings. If you forced your neighbor to mow his yard (how you get him to do that matters little) he isn't going to like you very much for it. When it comes to a biological imperative like reproduction it will be worse.
China can do it because they are willing to declare you an enemy of the state and even hunt you down. Mostly rural peasants tried to defy the policy and would literally flee the country to have more kids, the military however would be sent to find and return them up until their borders. Your ideal would require at least an equal amount of effort and across all of the developing world. I cannot in any way see that as good or productive.
Personally I wouldn't suggest abstinence _only_ anything, but importing condoms (contraceptive drugs, etc) into places without the industry to make them for themselves is not going to help. Alot of the religious cause for going to these places is missionaries. Who of course preach abstinence as the only method, it is effectively free for them to do. Which was my point.
The much bigger issue is making it so these places have infrastructure to create their own contraceptives. They also have to want it. Education and wealth historically always leads to lower birth rates. Correcting those can be the only moral solution.
In the developed world few parents have a dozen kids. In fact outside of poverty in our own country, the cases of large families are anomalies (like sextuplet births). Statistically countries like the UK and US just don't have high birth rates. Certain segments of the population may (mostly immigrants and those in the poorest sections of the economy), but they are made up for by very low birth rates of those in the higher brackets. Most of the middle class for instance hovers between 0-2 kids, with 1 being normal.
Developing or developed the biggest growth rates are always in the lowest earning and least educated populations. How does it not make sense to reduce those populations and hence reduce population? I have a lovely video link I can post if needed on the effects of educating women in developing nations and how it effects birthrate if you need proof of concept.
By and large the developed world is _Not_ the ones who have a growing population. The numbers say it pretty clearly, but the poorer you are the more kids you have (which seems extremely backwards, but it's true). Which is why the problem is almost completely in the developing world. It's also why China created it's 1 child policy.
Your first several points target the developed world and won't do anything. The later points start going into your rant about abstinence being wrong headed. That you think taxes on multi-child births can even pay for contraceptives is rather messed up, remember what I just said about number of kids and poverty? I won't say that it's wrong to think about birth control, but abstinence is at least a free way to do something which may explain why it was first used (beside religious considerations).
I don't think we can realistically force developing nations to simply stop having kids. They don't want it and will resist if pushed. The far better way to deal with it is first to see about improving the education of women in the developing world (educated women typically have fewer kids). And improving their wealth potential thereby leading them into population growth reduction in the same pattern as the developed world. No coercion needed. They want more education and more money, which have all the benefits you want to achieve.
I've argued that free college tuition would certainly cause an upswing of people who get college degrees which business certainly insists they want, but their is to much money in college level education for that to ever happen.
We've seen what an attempt at 'equal access' medicine has caused... It wasn't pretty and isn't at all equal.
Transit is never going to improve in the US. We won't build rail/subways in developed cities and busing sucks (inefficient to both customers and those running it to start). Leading to us relying on cars if you live more than a couple miles from where you work, which with city layout like it is (business over in these blocks, housing in those other blocks, industrial spread about almost unused now) will almost always be the case.
Rent won't go down because the cost of housing in general would have to come down including the cost for all things that go into a house. A plot of land in the middle of no where will cost you about 10k, but to build a house on it that isn't a shack will start at 80k... In a city a much smaller plot of land will run you 60-80k and the same house still costs 80k on that. A apartment building for 8 families will run you 180k to build to code (plus that 80k for the land again, so a quarter mil roughly). That doesn't include property taxes either... To afford to rent that quarter million apartment building out will cost quite a bit each year, to make back the money will mean fairly 'high' rent. And these are prices for my area which has fairly low housing costs.
That is also leaving out the other things that go into cost of living like the costs for food and clothes. And the price of those is going up, not down. Cheaper food is also usually less healthy food, we already have a crisis over that... We don't need to make it worse.
Which means either prices need a radical shift down to support your lower wages (effectively a massive anti-inflation) or wages need to continue to rise. In fact I'd say inflation is the cause of this issue all told, a penny today can't buy what it did in 1920 yet to be price-competitive to foreign markets we need to make as much as we did in 1920.
I guess his administration didn't give a damn. Mine certainly did. Plans were required to be updated and turned in on a regular basis. In fact one of my many projects was an easy method for them to turn them in electronically to be filed (somehow email to a account a secretary can check was to hard compared to paper). Lots of teachers complain when given more work, but they really are required to do alot. Heck the school will abuse anyone for as much extra time without pay they can. I complained they were requiring me to use my personal cell phone for work, mainly SMS from the the servers on failures/outages, and they gave me a cell phone 2 years later with no SMS.... Heck the servers still send me SMS messages to this day (1.5 years after leaving).
Having worked as the network admin for a school for years I can tell you that teachers are required by law to have current class plans for K-12. Some teachers also do help students after class, though it's not required... Also typically a teacher must continue their education into the masters level when possible even PhD in a number of cases, teachers are required to continue increasing their level of education all the time. Added to things like grading homework, which unless they do it during their planning time, is done at home on their time.
Now that's not to say teachers can't be lazy SOB's who don't really do anything, but no one is making you work 60 hours+ a week and then requiring you to continue your college education path on the side while paying you just ~$35k/year. That is a reasonable starting wage.
For where I worked starting wage was typically closer to 30k then 35k. In fact I made as much as the highest paid teacher and that was no 60k+ let me tell you... The ones who made money where the directors. If you had 'director' in your title you made over 70k without exception. However some of those directors were teachers once, in fact men are usually pushed out of classrooms and into directorships as their career path in education. Women however are allowed to remain teachers indefinitely.
I've long been a dabbler in all fields and a master of none. My passions range across such a wide variety I could never include them all in a conventional degree. Because of that when it came time to enter the 'real world' I had to pick the lesser of evils among things I'd like. Money was a factor of that, though back then (90's era tech bubble) IT could make you a millionaire or so the popular wisdom said. So guess which field I chose?
Of course the bubble burst before I ever got to share in any real money (which is the way fades work), but changing fields is a pain. So you keep doing it anyways... I don't think Academia is all that better off right now though, so personally I'm not looking to continue my education or work in academia.
I'd call it frustration myself. In nearly 2 years I've had six interviews and I apply for anything vaguely related to my area. Those I have gotten say I interview well, but they can afford to be extremely picky in who they hire or even if they hire. 2 of the 6 jobs I was interviewed for went back up to see if they could get an even better bargain in who they hired. Heck 6 interviews in over 400 jobs applied to is just sick. It's why I went back to college right now in the first place.
Though $100k in my area isn't going to ever happen. My CEO where I last worked took home $105k/year and he was one of the highest paid CEO's in our field in the state. The 'old timer' admins I've meet and dealt with who have been at this for 20-40 years make ~45-55k/year. For my area my ending rate of 38k/year wasn't bad. Not quite what I wanted as 42 is closer to where I'd want to be entering my mid 30's... But it wasn't horrible.
Erie Insurance (a fortune 500 company) is headquartered in my area and I've had dealings with them before. They pay their network manager 58k/year and the CIO makes 72k/year. I can also assure you no CS graduate in my area starts at 60k/year... they are lucky if they start at 32k/year. Heck a Project Lead for them was recently open and that was 42k (in fact I applied for it as it was heavily network/data base oriented and I already have the programming requirements of the position) and they wanted a masters or doctorate! The CIO above was required to get his doctorate and last I talked to their network head he was being pushed to finish his masters on the side.
I can't imagine getting a doctorate at this point at all, mostly due to already owing ~$80k in student loans. I started a degree, ran out of money to pay for it (the school assumed my parents would help and instead they refused), went back to get an associates (which I got), and now I'm back at college again (but it's been 10 years since last time so they tossed out 95% of all my prior credits from my first college). I need to move where I can make more, but the chance of me being able to afford to do so is extremely low. Which all leads into the frustration bit.
1.5 years sans work has meant I have no money to move with. Even when I was a 'network administrator', I 'only' made 38k/year. I'd had raises since they hired me originally at 26k/year. That meant I was getting about 2k/year raises... Though I was paid hourly and my yearly was factored back (we'd talk about yearly amount and they would create a hourly rate based on that). Anyways, that sort of money doesn't really give you much to 'save' and it's meaningless in comparison to Silicon Valley costs. I doubt even right out of work if I'd be able to have afforded more than a shack. I'd love some company to decide I'm worth paying to move elsewhere, but they haven't yet.
Since I lived in Pennsylvania my 'range' actually covers a good section of the 'East Coast' not actually along the coast. It's very possible the East just isn't up on things like the West, but that does in fact seem to be an issue with colleges (though not a universal one, but large regional one). I'm also hardly going to even try to get into a 'top tier' college, my loans to return to school give me ~10k/semester. I hadn't even paid off my old loans, so them lending me money is fairly limited.
Because no college within 400 miles of where I live except DeVry offers CIS? None offer MIS. None offer 'IT'. I'm hardly going to move to go to a college now as an adult, so what I attend must be local.
I have an associates in CIS: Networking. I wanted an education that was specific to my future career. Now a Network Admin position requires a Comp Sci degree, they won't even look at my resume without it. I can't get a lower level job either because of 5 years as an admin. I'm 'overqualified' to be a tech again. So I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place and my 'out' is a Comp Sci degree... Which is geared to be a computer science researcher and programmer.
I don't plan to get a job as a programmer after. I'd have to start at the bottom, I've tried a few 'basic' programming jobs that didn't require a bachelors and told my experience doesn't count. Even after getting the degree it would move me back out of management and back into the cubicles. What exactly did I work 11 years for if it's all useless and I'll make less after increasing my debt?
Network engineering (not programming) and Network administration isn't a clear field? I don't deal in code outside of possible scripting to make networked devices or resources work where no other tool exists. I don't write any code in my job that isn't closer to a SQL query then C++.
I 'program' routing tables, sometimes. Very few local companies write code for themselves where I am. They may have 'web developers' who make their company website, but I don't consider that the same thing. I've been an entire 'IT' department before and still never programmed anything.
Not all of IT involves programming! Yet Comp Sci is all about theory relating to (in effect) programming. All I'm arguing is that these get split up into discrete subsections, rather being lumped together.
I rebuilt my PC a week ago and over several days I re-downloaded the games in my collection. Which is over 80 GB by itself. While I can't measure any other traffic as easily, that alone was a sizable chunk of usage when compared to this plan. I couldn't measure everything else that went into bandwidth usage to get things back to normal, but I'd say that alone would ruin a 150 GB cap with even light usage afterwards. Now obviously that's not exactly 'normal' usage, but I'd say I probably manage 5 GB a day in normal usage (Mostly downloading BBC programs stateside, some gaming, and web surfing including streaming video) if I had to guess. Times 30 days in a month that would be exactly their 150 GB cap...
Their are equivalents to polytechnics. However business swears they don't produce people they want, thus forcing people who would not otherwise go into a CS bachelors into doing so. Even for things that prove to be dramatically bad fits. Anything related to computers makes HR departments require 'a Bachelors in CS' and they discard applications that don't have that on them.
I do just fine in my career. Which revolves around OS's, hardware, virtualization, networking, databases, and to some degree scripting (as examples). AI, Compilers, advanced programming techniques (graphics, algorithmic complexity), and other things that may be part of 'computer science' are really unimportant to me.
Again it's about the 'one size fits all' education. At the 300-400 level classes I get one class of database theory (doesn't even cover SQL) and a 'protocol' class that touches on networking at it's protocol stack level. Yet in industry a CS degree is required. I was an admin for 5 years, I spent 6 years before that as a network tech. I know what's involved in both fields. A CS education suites it horribly badly in actually learning anything that will help. I have never seen a non-associates degree program that actually hits on things a networker would do or be involved in. 'Software Engineering' (which btw isn't offered by any college near me) is not networking either. 'Network Engineering' doesn't exist as far as I've ever seen.... Instead CS gets shoe horned into a 'one size fits all' fix to any IT field.
How is that not a problem? How can that possibly be a good thing?
Would you really want to be shut out from understanding computer graphics, understanding artificial intelligence, and algorithmic complexity?
Yes. I couldn't care less about any of those. Then again I went back to school for Comp Sci after already having a long career in IT. Not as a programmer, but as a network admin/technician. However my career reached a dead end because I didn't have a CS degree. I then went back to get said degree and so far I've found 90% of it useless to anything I'm ever likely to do when I go back to my career. Yet I can't even get my foot in the door without it.
That is what I feel the real problem is in. Industry demands a degree in field 'X'. Field 'X' is often considered 'one size fits all' and ends up being worthless in peoples future careers.
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Personally I find the opposite... I just can't stand wearing headphones and the lower resonance annoys me compared to good speakers. Though due to having a roommate I often am forced to wear headphones anyways.
I bought a Radeon HD 6950 recently to replace my failing 3870 and found it to be extremely quiet (my PSU and CPU fans made more noise) unless I was putting it under serious strain. You can also control the fan through a host of different apps including a custom fan profile (temp vs percent max fan speed). Personally I wanted it to run cooler, so I made the fan more aggressive in its fan speeds. However you can make it less aggressive yet, like say under 80C it runs at 30% fan speed. The default is 30% until about 70C and then it jumps to 60% and at 100C becomes 100%. Since the temp range doesn't extend beyond 100C I'm guessing 100% fan speed is a last ditch effort to get temps under control before it exceeds the cards tolerance.
Anyways... While not utterly silent it remains very quiet on default.
Well It was in the sense it couldn't wait, I had no idea before going there that I wouldn't end up dead in the next few hours if left untreated. I haven't described why I went, but I had one foot swell up to easily twice its size and I think rightfully freaked out a little bit since I'd never had that happen. I hadn't been bitten or stung by anything so it is more than a bit abnormal. As a normal person I felt it required attention that day and not 'sometime next month' as a doctor's office visit was going to be. Lucky me I found out within 10 minutes that it was an allergic reaction and I take a bit of x medicine and avoid the allergen and I'd be fine. The doctor agreed I made the right call, letting it go on as is would have meant possible death as the reaction spread. That it wasn't complex to solve upon seeing a doctor does not mean it's not a relative emergency.
I would think the posting that what we need is a reduction of working people directly correlates with our system needing to be ready to deal with it. It was implied (though not stated) that current trends of capitalism already show the effect of which you mention.
A growing part of america is on foodstamps FYI and they programs have never gone away here. I had an ex who lived on welfare while going to college for her associates degree for instance. Though she had a child and so qualified for money, food, housing, and medical assistance. That had an overlap when I ended up between jobs and had a hospital visit, which sans insurance (it's tied to employment in the US) meant I suddenly owed $5000 USD for effectively a emergency room visit that didn't require any expensive tests or complex actions, just a doctor to look at me for 10 minutes and write up a prescription. No agency would help, though they could if they wanted to.
And exactly what is supposed to happen to those who find themselves without jobs? Especially for men with no kids government will not help you. You don't qualify for state medical aid programs so better not get sick. You won't qualify for state monetary support. You may manage to squeak by for food stamps. You won't qualify for housing support. So... That's looking really great there.
Women on the other hand usually qualify for all of those when not working and not supported by someone else. They go to the top of the lists if they have kids. Men with kids rank just below women, though often still have issues with certain programs.
I have needed those very support programs before and been let down as a single man. I'm hardly alone either, the economy is much better for women than men in the first place. Women are in demand by business. So your suggesting we need less men (as the most often to be let go and who in their younger years make less than their female counterparts on average) who then can't get support to continue to live without family to take care of them. That so isn't a long term solution.
Education is key, not so much the economy. Proper education and a will to take advantage of it will lead to a good economy. The only thing worth giving them is education and we have only very recently started to do that.
The contraceptives will have zero value and insignificant use without the education and prosperity to make a difference. Handing them contraceptives and saying "here use these" has no effect. We have in fact done that in some parts of the world and it has had near zero effect (margin of error levels). I can find you some reports on the attempts to do this if you really want to see them, but it hasn't helped any more than the missionaries teaching abstinence.
The need education and prosperity before the contraceptives have value. If they have the education and prosperity they can make them themselves. It is very much like the ancient proverb about teaching a man to fish versus giving him a fish. Until one has the education to realize that your old method (begging for food or having 20 kids) is a bad solution, then you have no desire to change your behavior.
I think you are either a troll or you missed the point. Trying to stop them from following their beliefs without using education leaves only economic and violent means. They are already 'poor' so economic means is likely to fail in any significant way. So you are left with violence. The developed world cannot be the police of the developing world! We cannot force our ideological opinions on them through violent means and succeed at doing more than pissing them off! Come on, how many times have we already seen this? Add to that the simple fact they outnumber us and it's just not a worthwhile means of achieving things. Education must be the means.
The whole point you offer of 40% of African men thinking that raping virgin women will cure aids is frankly I think the best example for why we need more education in those areas. Very few people turn down increased education. As much as some here on Slashdot may hate him, Bill Gates even realized this and has put schools into Africa.
As for poverty = increased kids, it's backwards because typically they have the least resources to care for the kids. Though biologically it's encouraged on the ideal that the more kids you have the better the chance some survive. Wealthy people don't worry to much about child survival rates.
Most of the areas you point out as 'backward' in fact would be less so if they had quality educations. Even in the US a increase in education lead to the women's rights movement. Their are even some feminist groups who work to raise awareness and desire for education in women in those very places. With very good success rates.
I still say that forcing people to not have kids as an outside agent on their culture is both morally wrong and a waste. If we don't educate them then we will simply create more hate for us and increase things like terrorism. You cannot force someone else to do something they don't want to without creating negative feelings. If you forced your neighbor to mow his yard (how you get him to do that matters little) he isn't going to like you very much for it. When it comes to a biological imperative like reproduction it will be worse.
China can do it because they are willing to declare you an enemy of the state and even hunt you down. Mostly rural peasants tried to defy the policy and would literally flee the country to have more kids, the military however would be sent to find and return them up until their borders. Your ideal would require at least an equal amount of effort and across all of the developing world. I cannot in any way see that as good or productive.
Personally I wouldn't suggest abstinence _only_ anything, but importing condoms (contraceptive drugs, etc) into places without the industry to make them for themselves is not going to help. Alot of the religious cause for going to these places is missionaries. Who of course preach abstinence as the only method, it is effectively free for them to do. Which was my point.
The much bigger issue is making it so these places have infrastructure to create their own contraceptives. They also have to want it. Education and wealth historically always leads to lower birth rates. Correcting those can be the only moral solution.
In the developed world few parents have a dozen kids. In fact outside of poverty in our own country, the cases of large families are anomalies (like sextuplet births). Statistically countries like the UK and US just don't have high birth rates. Certain segments of the population may (mostly immigrants and those in the poorest sections of the economy), but they are made up for by very low birth rates of those in the higher brackets. Most of the middle class for instance hovers between 0-2 kids, with 1 being normal.
Developing or developed the biggest growth rates are always in the lowest earning and least educated populations. How does it not make sense to reduce those populations and hence reduce population? I have a lovely video link I can post if needed on the effects of educating women in developing nations and how it effects birthrate if you need proof of concept.
By and large the developed world is _Not_ the ones who have a growing population. The numbers say it pretty clearly, but the poorer you are the more kids you have (which seems extremely backwards, but it's true). Which is why the problem is almost completely in the developing world. It's also why China created it's 1 child policy.
Your first several points target the developed world and won't do anything. The later points start going into your rant about abstinence being wrong headed. That you think taxes on multi-child births can even pay for contraceptives is rather messed up, remember what I just said about number of kids and poverty? I won't say that it's wrong to think about birth control, but abstinence is at least a free way to do something which may explain why it was first used (beside religious considerations).
I don't think we can realistically force developing nations to simply stop having kids. They don't want it and will resist if pushed. The far better way to deal with it is first to see about improving the education of women in the developing world (educated women typically have fewer kids). And improving their wealth potential thereby leading them into population growth reduction in the same pattern as the developed world. No coercion needed. They want more education and more money, which have all the benefits you want to achieve.
I've argued that free college tuition would certainly cause an upswing of people who get college degrees which business certainly insists they want, but their is to much money in college level education for that to ever happen.
We've seen what an attempt at 'equal access' medicine has caused... It wasn't pretty and isn't at all equal.
Transit is never going to improve in the US. We won't build rail/subways in developed cities and busing sucks (inefficient to both customers and those running it to start). Leading to us relying on cars if you live more than a couple miles from where you work, which with city layout like it is (business over in these blocks, housing in those other blocks, industrial spread about almost unused now) will almost always be the case.
Rent won't go down because the cost of housing in general would have to come down including the cost for all things that go into a house. A plot of land in the middle of no where will cost you about 10k, but to build a house on it that isn't a shack will start at 80k... In a city a much smaller plot of land will run you 60-80k and the same house still costs 80k on that. A apartment building for 8 families will run you 180k to build to code (plus that 80k for the land again, so a quarter mil roughly). That doesn't include property taxes either... To afford to rent that quarter million apartment building out will cost quite a bit each year, to make back the money will mean fairly 'high' rent. And these are prices for my area which has fairly low housing costs.
That is also leaving out the other things that go into cost of living like the costs for food and clothes. And the price of those is going up, not down. Cheaper food is also usually less healthy food, we already have a crisis over that... We don't need to make it worse.
Which means either prices need a radical shift down to support your lower wages (effectively a massive anti-inflation) or wages need to continue to rise. In fact I'd say inflation is the cause of this issue all told, a penny today can't buy what it did in 1920 yet to be price-competitive to foreign markets we need to make as much as we did in 1920.
I guess his administration didn't give a damn. Mine certainly did. Plans were required to be updated and turned in on a regular basis. In fact one of my many projects was an easy method for them to turn them in electronically to be filed (somehow email to a account a secretary can check was to hard compared to paper). Lots of teachers complain when given more work, but they really are required to do alot. Heck the school will abuse anyone for as much extra time without pay they can. I complained they were requiring me to use my personal cell phone for work, mainly SMS from the the servers on failures/outages, and they gave me a cell phone 2 years later with no SMS.... Heck the servers still send me SMS messages to this day (1.5 years after leaving).
Having worked as the network admin for a school for years I can tell you that teachers are required by law to have current class plans for K-12. Some teachers also do help students after class, though it's not required... Also typically a teacher must continue their education into the masters level when possible even PhD in a number of cases, teachers are required to continue increasing their level of education all the time. Added to things like grading homework, which unless they do it during their planning time, is done at home on their time.
Now that's not to say teachers can't be lazy SOB's who don't really do anything, but no one is making you work 60 hours+ a week and then requiring you to continue your college education path on the side while paying you just ~$35k/year. That is a reasonable starting wage.
For where I worked starting wage was typically closer to 30k then 35k. In fact I made as much as the highest paid teacher and that was no 60k+ let me tell you... The ones who made money where the directors. If you had 'director' in your title you made over 70k without exception. However some of those directors were teachers once, in fact men are usually pushed out of classrooms and into directorships as their career path in education. Women however are allowed to remain teachers indefinitely.
I've long been a dabbler in all fields and a master of none. My passions range across such a wide variety I could never include them all in a conventional degree. Because of that when it came time to enter the 'real world' I had to pick the lesser of evils among things I'd like. Money was a factor of that, though back then (90's era tech bubble) IT could make you a millionaire or so the popular wisdom said. So guess which field I chose?
Of course the bubble burst before I ever got to share in any real money (which is the way fades work), but changing fields is a pain. So you keep doing it anyways... I don't think Academia is all that better off right now though, so personally I'm not looking to continue my education or work in academia.
I'd call it frustration myself. In nearly 2 years I've had six interviews and I apply for anything vaguely related to my area. Those I have gotten say I interview well, but they can afford to be extremely picky in who they hire or even if they hire. 2 of the 6 jobs I was interviewed for went back up to see if they could get an even better bargain in who they hired. Heck 6 interviews in over 400 jobs applied to is just sick. It's why I went back to college right now in the first place.
Though $100k in my area isn't going to ever happen. My CEO where I last worked took home $105k/year and he was one of the highest paid CEO's in our field in the state. The 'old timer' admins I've meet and dealt with who have been at this for 20-40 years make ~45-55k/year. For my area my ending rate of 38k/year wasn't bad. Not quite what I wanted as 42 is closer to where I'd want to be entering my mid 30's... But it wasn't horrible.
Erie Insurance (a fortune 500 company) is headquartered in my area and I've had dealings with them before. They pay their network manager 58k/year and the CIO makes 72k/year. I can also assure you no CS graduate in my area starts at 60k/year... they are lucky if they start at 32k/year. Heck a Project Lead for them was recently open and that was 42k (in fact I applied for it as it was heavily network/data base oriented and I already have the programming requirements of the position) and they wanted a masters or doctorate! The CIO above was required to get his doctorate and last I talked to their network head he was being pushed to finish his masters on the side.
I can't imagine getting a doctorate at this point at all, mostly due to already owing ~$80k in student loans. I started a degree, ran out of money to pay for it (the school assumed my parents would help and instead they refused), went back to get an associates (which I got), and now I'm back at college again (but it's been 10 years since last time so they tossed out 95% of all my prior credits from my first college). I need to move where I can make more, but the chance of me being able to afford to do so is extremely low. Which all leads into the frustration bit.
Just wait for the AT&T/Verizon merger in another 5-6 years! You know it's going to happen.
1.5 years sans work has meant I have no money to move with. Even when I was a 'network administrator', I 'only' made 38k/year. I'd had raises since they hired me originally at 26k/year. That meant I was getting about 2k/year raises... Though I was paid hourly and my yearly was factored back (we'd talk about yearly amount and they would create a hourly rate based on that). Anyways, that sort of money doesn't really give you much to 'save' and it's meaningless in comparison to Silicon Valley costs. I doubt even right out of work if I'd be able to have afforded more than a shack. I'd love some company to decide I'm worth paying to move elsewhere, but they haven't yet.
Since I lived in Pennsylvania my 'range' actually covers a good section of the 'East Coast' not actually along the coast. It's very possible the East just isn't up on things like the West, but that does in fact seem to be an issue with colleges (though not a universal one, but large regional one). I'm also hardly going to even try to get into a 'top tier' college, my loans to return to school give me ~10k/semester. I hadn't even paid off my old loans, so them lending me money is fairly limited.
Because no college within 400 miles of where I live except DeVry offers CIS? None offer MIS. None offer 'IT'. I'm hardly going to move to go to a college now as an adult, so what I attend must be local.
I have an associates in CIS: Networking. I wanted an education that was specific to my future career. Now a Network Admin position requires a Comp Sci degree, they won't even look at my resume without it. I can't get a lower level job either because of 5 years as an admin. I'm 'overqualified' to be a tech again. So I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place and my 'out' is a Comp Sci degree... Which is geared to be a computer science researcher and programmer.
I don't plan to get a job as a programmer after. I'd have to start at the bottom, I've tried a few 'basic' programming jobs that didn't require a bachelors and told my experience doesn't count. Even after getting the degree it would move me back out of management and back into the cubicles. What exactly did I work 11 years for if it's all useless and I'll make less after increasing my debt?
Network engineering (not programming) and Network administration isn't a clear field? I don't deal in code outside of possible scripting to make networked devices or resources work where no other tool exists. I don't write any code in my job that isn't closer to a SQL query then C++.
I 'program' routing tables, sometimes. Very few local companies write code for themselves where I am. They may have 'web developers' who make their company website, but I don't consider that the same thing. I've been an entire 'IT' department before and still never programmed anything.
Not all of IT involves programming! Yet Comp Sci is all about theory relating to (in effect) programming. All I'm arguing is that these get split up into discrete subsections, rather being lumped together.
I rebuilt my PC a week ago and over several days I re-downloaded the games in my collection. Which is over 80 GB by itself. While I can't measure any other traffic as easily, that alone was a sizable chunk of usage when compared to this plan. I couldn't measure everything else that went into bandwidth usage to get things back to normal, but I'd say that alone would ruin a 150 GB cap with even light usage afterwards. Now obviously that's not exactly 'normal' usage, but I'd say I probably manage 5 GB a day in normal usage (Mostly downloading BBC programs stateside, some gaming, and web surfing including streaming video) if I had to guess. Times 30 days in a month that would be exactly their 150 GB cap...
Their are equivalents to polytechnics. However business swears they don't produce people they want, thus forcing people who would not otherwise go into a CS bachelors into doing so. Even for things that prove to be dramatically bad fits. Anything related to computers makes HR departments require 'a Bachelors in CS' and they discard applications that don't have that on them.
I do just fine in my career. Which revolves around OS's, hardware, virtualization, networking, databases, and to some degree scripting (as examples). AI, Compilers, advanced programming techniques (graphics, algorithmic complexity), and other things that may be part of 'computer science' are really unimportant to me.
Again it's about the 'one size fits all' education. At the 300-400 level classes I get one class of database theory (doesn't even cover SQL) and a 'protocol' class that touches on networking at it's protocol stack level. Yet in industry a CS degree is required. I was an admin for 5 years, I spent 6 years before that as a network tech. I know what's involved in both fields. A CS education suites it horribly badly in actually learning anything that will help. I have never seen a non-associates degree program that actually hits on things a networker would do or be involved in. 'Software Engineering' (which btw isn't offered by any college near me) is not networking either. 'Network Engineering' doesn't exist as far as I've ever seen.... Instead CS gets shoe horned into a 'one size fits all' fix to any IT field.
How is that not a problem? How can that possibly be a good thing?
Would you really want to be shut out from understanding computer graphics, understanding artificial intelligence, and algorithmic complexity?
Yes. I couldn't care less about any of those. Then again I went back to school for Comp Sci after already having a long career in IT. Not as a programmer, but as a network admin/technician. However my career reached a dead end because I didn't have a CS degree. I then went back to get said degree and so far I've found 90% of it useless to anything I'm ever likely to do when I go back to my career. Yet I can't even get my foot in the door without it.
That is what I feel the real problem is in. Industry demands a degree in field 'X'. Field 'X' is often considered 'one size fits all' and ends up being worthless in peoples future careers.