And the kids still don't learn a damn thing. The quality of education in this country is plummeting... rapidly. All they are doing is babysitting until they're old enough to take their rightful place at Wal-Mart or McDonald's.
You get what you pay for. Look at the starting salary for teachers in many states...considering it requires, at minimum, a 4-year degree, are you surprised that Education programs at universities aren't attracting the best and the brightest? Add to that the sheer number of teachers we need, and you end up with large numbers of poor-quality teachers.
Not all teachers are bad, of course...my wife is a teacher, and I'd like to think she's one of the better ones. But I met some of her classmates, and saw her curriculum. I wouldn't trust half the kids in the average university's Education department to watch my house over the weekend, let alone trust them with my kids.
Of course, if teaching paid more, it would attract more qualified people, and in turn Education programs would become more competitive, and quality would increase. If lawyers made what teachers made, do you think that law school would be hard to get into? Would it be very demanding? A large number of graduates from teaching programs across the country are just one notch above those that end up at McDonald's. Some aren't even THAT intelligent or qualified*. So is it any wonder that that is what our schools are preparing kids for?
Again, you get what you pay for. In the US, it seems most people are willing to pay just enough to give them a place to send their kids while they go to work, and if they're lucky teach them to read at a decent level.
Of course, to an extent, that is all many people in the US CAN afford. Which is why school funding is always such an issue. I've seen the difference between schools in a fairly wealthy suburban area and a decidedly poor urban area. It isn't pretty.
* - The average teacher is, of course, much better qualified to teach than the average employee at McDonald's. However, if you were to take many employees of Mickey-D's, pay for them to go through college, I think you'd find that many of them would be as qualified, if not more, to teach as many teachers. Teachers are often smarter than fry cooks because of education, not necessarily intelligence.
Frankly, the cost of gas just isn't that high. Look at the overall budget for a school, and then look at how much of it is fuel costs. It's just not very much money.
From the couple articles I read, it isn't the busses that are draining the schools, it's heating/air conditioning the buildings. A problem that generally has nothing to do with suburban sprawl, so everybody blaming it on that should look elsewhere.
As for making kids living withing a mile walk, many districts already do. Some actually push it out farther than that. Though usually elementary schools pick kids up a little closer to school than junior-high/high schools.
But one day, those kids are gonna be old enough to vote, and their level of education is going to affect their votes which is going to affect you.
Unfortnuately, considering how poorly educated the average US student seems to be when it comes to history as well as current political events, I think we're getting a pretty low return on our investment right now.
Not that this is entirey the school's fault. You cannot force kids to learn. Though you can fail them if they choose not to do so, and then they should, theoretically, force themselves to learn. Or stop wasting our money. Either way.
I call "bullshit". No way any guilty verdicts can ever be reached here.
Except, since copyright infringement isn't theft (as we so vehemently, and in my opinion accurately, argue around here), there is no guilty or not guilty. The word you're looking for is, I belive, "liable."
They're not charging you with theft, they're suing you for damages. And all they would need is to download enough of the file to ascertain that it is extremely likely that Matrix.avi is, in fact, The Matrix, then they could check the tracker logs to see how much you seeded of that file. Now they've got an IP, and they've got you sending a gig of Matrix.avi.
But how do they know it was really YOU at that IP, you ask! They don't need to...if the ISP says that it was your account with them using that IP at that time, it was "you enough." Unsecured WAP at your house? Guess what...you could still theoretically be held liable. Then it's up to you to figure out who was using that WAP and sue them for damages. That's how the legal shit rolls downhill in the US.
Oh wait...I'm not a lawyer, and any or all of what I just said could probably be bullshit. But I do know that civil trials and criminal trials are two totally different animals. I know that O.J. was found not guilty of murder but still found liable in a wrongful death suit (unless I'm mistaken, again). I know of somebody who didn't have enough evidence, according to the DA, to pursue a rape charge, but still won a civil case against the perpetrator (or rather, the perps homeowner's insurance company, since it happened at his house), and recieved a sizable settlement for damages. Funny how these things work.
...not so much whether the tests were valid, or whether then conclusions were valid, or why the results came out the way they did, or any of that crap.
In my opinion, the biggest question studies like this leave me with is, "Who gets to define intelligence, and what is that definition?"
Seems to me that if a bunch of white males decide what "intelligence" is, and then test everybody for it, they will likely find that white males are the smartest (or, of course, it could backfire and show that Asians are smarter because they out white-maled the white males). Get a bunch of women together and let them define intelligence, and then have them test for it, and you'd probably find that women come out on top. So who is right?
This is where you get into things like the theory of multiple intelligences. Like it or not, there is some merit to that theory...people really are gifted in different categories (and some people are still gifted in none of them). The problem is who gets to decide which of those categories are important...mathematical? linguistic? musical? spatial? interpersonal?
IQ tests are an absolutely fabulous measure of intelligence...as long as your definition of "intelligence" is pretty narrow. All this is coming for somebody with a pretty damn high IQ.
there is simply no evidence to correlate a decrease in theater tickets sold to pirating.
Common sense would suggest that pirating might lead to some loss in ticket sales. However, you're right that there is little evidence that it leads to a significant loss in ticket sales.
This isn't music piracy. The generally crappy quality of pirated movies that are still in theatres available online is no substitute for the real thing. I should know...my only access to current movies for the last 10-11 months has been pirated movies out of Asia, usually just burned DVD copies of the same vids you'd get from BitTorrent. They suck. I gave up watching them after about a month, and now I just wait for the "real" DVD release, at which point I either buy it or borrow it.
If the studios want to argue that pirating movies online hurts DVD sales, I might be with them on that...but it does very little to affect ticket sales. Even DVD sales aren't affected nearly as badly as music sales, as there are other features on the DVD you are generally missing out on, and storage is generally an issue as well (movies being quite a bit larger than albums).
If anything, I see this as an attempt to stem the tide of downloading before it can really take a chunk out of DVD sales. It hasn't done too much damage to DVD sales yet, and I don't imagine it would ever do that much damage to theatrical releases, but they have the opportunity now to avoid the mistakes the record companies made and now allow (illegal) online downloading to get a foothold.
Actually I think one of the best ways to deal with drugs might be to allow people to sell them legally, tax them specifically (much like cigarettes and alcohol) and then earmark that tax money specifically for treatment of drug-related problems when patients can't pay, and to counteract other negative effects.
Of course, when the taxes get high enough (because the negative effects get expensive enough), you'll see a black market crop up for untaxed drugs...but then at least you're likely to see dealers getting nailed instead of users...at least hopefully.
But yes, I'm with you that straight prohibition isn't the answer...I was just giving a very good reason why simple legalization would be a bad idea as well.
Personally, I'm not sure there is any real answer for the drug issue. I do know that what we are doing now isn't working, but I can't think of anything that I truly believe -will- work. It's all damage control...you're not going to solve anything.
I can see him cringing every time his new cellmate gets an email advertising "Increased Girth! Stay hard longer!" (mispelled in creative filter-avoiding ways, of course)
Insurance companies won't carry them if they're an addict, and if they're somehow admitted to a hospital they will be stuck with a nice debt if they're unable to pay it off. It seems to me would be punishment enough for being so naive and not in control with yourself.
I think you missed that part in bold...or rather it should be reworded "they'll be stuck with a nice debt that they'll be unable to pay off. And when that happens, guess who gets to pay it off? Me, you, my mom, my friends, and everybody else. Debts don't just go away...at some point the person owed WILL get their money, whether from higher costs of treatment (which then are passed on through higher insurance premiums, etc.) to higher interest rates to taxes levied to pay for gov't sponsored healthcare. Or whatever.
The point is, there is no such thing as free treatment, or unpaid debt...somebody eventually has to foot the bill. And anybody (such as the hospital) that has the ability to pass the cost down will do so, guaranteed. So it falls on the patients/insurance companies/insured citizens/taxpayers. Or, to put it in terms that matter to me, ME.
This is the reason that even reasonable people like myself, who don't much care what the hell anybody does to destroy themselves, can see why drugs are illegal. It's hard to argue with simple economics.
It's one action: providing prescriptions. The phrase you've labelled as #2 simply explains the circumstances which made the action unlawful. You [hopefully] wouldn't say there are two actions involved in "I ate a sandwich at Arby's", despite similar structure.
Here's a way of rewriting it where the "both" part would be appropriate, which is I believe what the original author was getting at:
"The doctor, Philip Mach, had a license to practice medicine in New Jersey but he provided prescriptions to people outside of New Jersey, and also provided precriptions without ever evaluating the patients, both of which are big no-no's."
"Both" was originally (I think) meant to refer to:
1. Writing prescriptions outside of his state of licensing
2. Writing prescriptions without examining the patients
While the writing of the prescription(s) is one act, it is actually two rules being broken, thus both. Much the same way if I am driving over the speed limit while drunk I am breaking two laws, even though the driving is one action. I am driving over the speed limit, and driving while drunk. And I could be charged with two seperate crimes. Or maybe not...I'm no lawyer.
As much as I approve of crimes like this... I just don't get why they don't know when to stop.
If you've made 3 million... walk away with what ya have. It's not worth pursuing another 3 million to risk losing it ALL.
Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of criminals out there who DO know when to stop, or at least dial it down. You just never hear about them, because they are also the ones who don't tend to get caught.
I vaguely remember reading about a bank robber who went quite some time (decade or two?) without getting busted because he didn't get too greedy...he'd score so much in a year and call it good. It helped that he didn't tend to get violent, and hadn't killed anybody. The details are fuzzy in my mind, but the point is that there are criminals who know when to back off or even just walk away. This joker obviously wasn't one of them. I could live quite nicely off just one million dollars for the rest of my life, assuming I picked up even a low-paying job or even just invested wisely.
Of course, it's also quite possible the IRS would eventually notice me and wonder where the money came from, especially if I didn't have gainful employment.
Bring back the drive-in movie theater... BTW Are there any left ? I haven't seen one in years:-( They could really build some great venues with the latest technology.
Some major metro areas still have one or two left, I believe. I think Phoenix had one when I lived there, but I'm not sure because I never went to it. I was on a trip to Sacramento and there was one there...the wife and I went to check it out. Unfortunately, while I agree that they could build some nice venues with newer technology, this was NOT one of them. They had obviously let it get steadily more run-down since the late 70's, and unless I'm mistaken it was actually scheduled to be torn down and have a standard multiplex built in it's place.
Personally, I still enjoyed it though. My wife and I could talk about the movie while it played, just like we could at home, while at the same time not have to worry about listening to anybody else's cellphones/kids/conversations. I can only imagine how nice it might be if the place had been new, with decent equipment and facilities.
Now nearest Gigantagoogplex of screens is in the suburbs because Showcase/AMC etc fear urban areas so much that Magic Johnson is making a mint setting up theatres in cities. My city has 105k people and not a single screen in the city limits but immediately outside of them we have 30 plus screens.
Before I start, I have to say I'm right with you on everything else...but...
Maybe things have changed, or maybe it was just an anomoly, but Phoenix had a pretty nice, brand new (I believe) 24 screen theatre right in the middle of downtown (at the Arizona Centre). Nobody ever went to it. You could pick the biggest movie of the weekend, the one selling out multiple screens everywhere else, and at the Arizona Centre 24 you could walk up 5 minutes after it started, still get a ticket, and walk into a half-empty theatre and still get decent seats.
Oh, and if you brought your parking stub for the garage there, they'd validate up to four hours for you. It was actually my favorite place to go to movies (after the Cine Capri), and I lived WAY out in the 'burbs. Usually well worth the drive.
Yet still, it was always empty. Now, while it's not as vibrant and active as some, downtown Phoenix does contain people...people who, like, live there. So why is this theatre relatively dead even on weekend nights? I think in many major metro areas people don't want to go to a movie downtown. Combine that with higher real estate prices, and of course nobody wants to open a theatre there!
I think the largest factor is that theatre chains know that you will drive to the 'burbs, but most suburbanites (except, I suppose, me) won't drive downtown. So it's just a good business decision, not necessarily greed. But yeah, I imagine it's annoying as hell.
The quoted portion was supposed to be this...guess I didn't hit Ctrl-C hard enough.:)
So, question: Did you get, walk out, and tell the theatre you wanted your money back because you couldn't enjoy the movie because the lady in the next seat was oboxious? Did you even change seats?
Why would anyone get into a business where its sole distributor charges it more than the business can charge the customer? Why wouldn't they just stop showing the big budget movies and make more money?
I'm a frequent dime-dropper in theatres...but I've found that the theatres in my area generally won't do a thing about it. I think largely it's because of lack of competition, but I think it's partly lack of balls on the part of the management. As for getting my money back, I've been told by both chains in my area that they do not do that; you're lucky if you even get free passes to use next time, and those free passes aren't good for "Special Engagements," which seem to be any movie that isn't on it's last week in the theatre.
I think what it comes down to is that most theatres don't have the balls to kick somebody out without refunding them (which they should be able to do), but they know that if you leave on your own they won't have to refund you. So they go path of least resistance.
Another Hollywood characteristic of the typical bad movie -- remakes remakes remakes. The percentage of original ideas coming out of Hollywood these days is pretty low. One reason for this (IMHO) is the perpetual extension of copyright. No need to come up with an original idea if you can simply regurgitate that same old movie modernized with new special effects.
So letting "Dukes of Hazzard" into the public domain, thus allowing ANYBODY to make a movie based on it, would do good things for the state of film?
I think the worst trend in movies today is the straight remake. A movie doesn't have to have an original idea...good, even excellent, movies have been made based on books, plays, or comic books for decades. But the new fad of making movies based either on older movies (which tend to be bad) or on old TV shows (which are almost guaranteed to be bad) is, in my opinion, a sign of the coming apocalypse.
Oh, and any movie based either on a Saturday Night Live skit, or based around the personality of a former Saturday Night Live star (exceptions made for Chris Farley and Adam Sandler), runs the risk of ripping the fabric of the space and time with the sheer force of its sucking.
So what do they give us? 70's TV show remakes followed by Will Ferrell* movies followed by more 70's TV show remakes. Then they scratch their heads wondering why nobody goes to the movies anymore. Even the occasional blockbuster special-effects bonanza isn't always enough to draw many people out of their living rooms anymore...they've been decieved too many times before.
Oh, and sequels. Every movie that does well in the theatre does not necessarily require a sequel. There are movies that in no way inspire the need for a sequel. Just enjoy the success and keep an eye out for the next good idea. Don't destroy a good thing.
So yeah, mostly I'm just agreeing with you...I just felt the need to bitch and get a little of that off my chest.
* - Will Ferrell can be hilarious as a bit part or minor player in a movie, but any movie starring him makes me want to kill things. He, to me, embodies the whole problem with movies based on SNL skits/actors: that which is funny for 3-5 minutes is not necessarily funny for 90 or 120.
Hell, that's awesome. I used their dial-up rate to convince my wife that DSL was a good deal (knowing full well there were several other dial-up providers in my area that were cheaper). Thanks, AOL!
Is this the fault of the Indians for speaking english as best they can, or the fault of the corporation who has outsourced the job to them, for not making sure they picked a good call center?
Oh, overall it's the fault of the corporation doing the outsourcing, to be sure. But at the same time, the Indian (or Chinese, or whatever) person in question should not get indignant or upset when I say I cannot understand what they are saying. -I- am not the one who is wrong because I cannot understand them.
Also (I'm assuming you are from the US), I'm sure that if you went to England, many people there would not say you speak English without an accent.
Oh, I'm not US-centric enough not to realize this...I actually addressed this elsewhere in this mini-thread. To summarize, I said that while I realize that should I travel to England, or India for that matter, that I would be the one who was talking funny, because accents are relative. But if I'm in a classroom in the US, or calling tech support from the US for a product bought from a US company (or the US division of a foreign company, for that matter), and I cannot understand the other person, THEY are the unintelligible ones, not I.
Considering the accent we Americans have in our English, I guess we will be unhappy even if we get an English tech support from England. I guess what goes around comes around.
Oh, I've had the opportunity to speak to many British people, especially over here, and sometimes on a first run-through it's not entirely obvious that they are speaking the same language as me. Generally all it takes is maybe one repetition and I can figure it out, and once I'm ready for the accent I can decode it in "real time.":)
I would hope that most Americans realize that we ourselves do have an accent, though I doubt it. I think Hollywood English is, to most Americans, "standard" English, and anything else is considered to have an accent (whether it be Northeastern US, Southern US, or something really wild like actual English). Personally I realize that when I travel abroad, whether to Canada or someday if I make it to England, that I am the the one who is talking funny, not them. But, in my opinion, that is only because of my location at the time. The general rule, in my mind, is that if I'm talking to sombody in London, I have the accent. If I'm sitting in my living room in the US, and I've called for tech support on a computer that I bought in the US, dialing what is arguably a US number (1-800), and I can't understand the rep easily, then THEY have the accent. Accents are, of course, relative...but if you're in my hometown, they're relative to ME.
Maybe I'm unreasonable, and anybody is welcome to disagree with me. I think a majority of people would be with me on this one, though.
If you want high paid tech support or manufacturing jobs in the US, you will have to pay for them in more expensive products. Most of us are not willing to do that so we buy whatever is cheaper and functional most of the time.
Personally I think for the good of the country people in the US should try to get used to "expensive" goods again. It would hurt at first, because we would be able to buy less toys (new TVs, new cars, new computers, etc.), but in the long run it would ensure that more people are able to buy necessities, like adequate food and shelter. I actually try to do this, to an extent, but it can be hard...both because at the moment I tend to be poor (still a student), and because often it's hard to even find things I want that have been made in the US...we don't produce much anymore.
Move where? When you have a company as large as Google (along with their massive hiring needs), where else could they go besides CA?
The east coast between Boston and Washington, D.C. still boasts a pretty high population, and some areas there have decent costs of living, especially compared to urban California. A lot of the people moving to California for tech jobs have to come FROM somewhere, I imagine...unless for some reason California just happens to grow programmers at an amazingly high rate for some reason. Some would probably rather move east than west.
Like it or not, Google's product would suffer if they moved out of Silicon Valley...
Google, perhaps, due to their size...but we were talking about the other potential start-ups or competitors that are unable to compete directly with Google on salaries. I imagine many of them would be more than able to fill their needs in one of the larger midwestern cities, such as Minneapolis, Chicago, or Kansas City. Or mountain west cities like Denver, Salt Lake, Vegas, or Phoenix. Or east coast cities like Philly, Baltimore/DC, or even smaller ones like Providence or Hartford. The point is that there are a hundred places in the US that many potential programmers/general tech employees would rather live than California, if given the option. Some already boast fairly large populations. Many/most are cheaper to live in (and thus cheaper to hire in than Silicon Valley.
I've told people for the last 8+ years that the only way to cancel AOL is to call your credit card company and report the card lost.
Don't know about AOL specifically, but in general companies can still rack up a bill for you, then just report you for nonpayment. I wouldn't count on this working.
I found the most effective way to cancel AOL, as well as MSN or Xbox Live or any other service where the phone jockeys are paid to try to convince you not to go, is the following line:
You: "I am done talking to you. I am going to remain on the line, silently, until you tell me my account is cancelled."
Their usual response: "You really should reconsider, you could blah blah blah (or something like that)..."
You: ".... (crickets chirping)...."
Them: "Um...okay. You're account will be cancelled as of the end of this billing period (or whatever)."
Works like a charm. Especially if we're talking about 1-800 numbers (which pretty much all customer service numbers are), and they're footing the bill for you to silently wait for them to not be stupid.
Oh yeah, speaking about their English accent which probably might be their third or fouth language, how many languages can you speak without accent? Stop looking down at the third world countries. You are not any better....
Okay, I have to address this one. I have quite a bit of experience with Indians and their somewhat limited mastery of spoken English, both from tech support as well as a TA I had at an American university.
First, I'll say this: often their grammar is superior to the average American's. I have no doubt their written English would exceed that of many American's. And I fully understand that English is probably not their primary language. You ask how many languages I speak without accent. Just one...English. I can speak broken Spanish with what I would assume is a horrendous accent. But do you want to know something important? I do not try to offer technical support to Spanish speakers, or try to teach at a Latin American university.
To be fair, most English-speaking Indians speak much better English than I do Spanish, so the comparison is not absolutely fair. But if I cannot understand them, the effect is the same. I am actually impressed by the number of languages many non-Americans speak. But if you are trying to teach a class at a university in the US, or trying to offer tech support for a US company, and you cannot be understood, you are not accomplishing the job you are being paid to do. This actually bothers me less in the tech-support example, because I can always just call back later and try to get a better representative who I can understand. But in the education example, it is often a choice of staying in the class and hoping you just don't even need any help from the instructor (or ever need to understand what they are asking/telling you), or dropping it and hoping you can pick it up later. And hoping that you aren't in the same boat later. And you're paying a lot more for those credits than you are for tech support.
And it isn't necessarily racism. I've had a white European (German, specifically) TA I could barely understand as well. And if companies switch to Eastern European call centers, the problem will likely be the same. I cannot tell the color of your skin over the phone. But I CAN tell if I can understand you.
And yes, if I went to a street in Bangalore and rounded up 10 guys, I'm sure 9 of them would be smarter than our president. Hell, one or two might even be more effective speakers (in English) than our president (ever heard the guy talk?) Most of us are not trying to say than Indians, or anybody else from the countries being outsourced to, are stupid. Just that their English is damn near incomprehensible.
For those that haven't attended larger schools (then again, neither have I...just visited them), most major state universities have several libraries, even several major libraries. They are basically just pulling the books out of one and distributing them to the others (which, I'm guessing, have even been expanded physically over the years...so no net loss).
The only reason this is even a story is because they are still calling it a "library," rather than an additional student union building or electronic research center or whatever.
My school basically already has all these things, they're just all located in the one library building we have. Coffee shop, lounge area, 3 large computer areas, a couple smaller ones, reservable conference rooms, etc...all scattered among the four floors. It's probably pretty nice to be able to cordon all these off into one library building...it sucks when some jackass who has been hanging out in the lounge area too long thinks it's appropriate to wander into the stacks or study areas talking on his cell phone or just generally making a load of noise.
Upon further reading of the article, I even noticed this:
"So to ease some of the apprehension, administrators took the word "library" out of their vocabulary when referring to the Flawn Academic Center."
So they're not even calling it a library. It's just a major university closing one of it's libraries and using it for a different purpose. This is news how?
The only thing I wonder is did they distribute the 90,000 books to other libraries on this campus, or through other campuses throughout the system. I'd hope, this being their main campus, that they'd try to maintain the collection there...especially since in a state the size of Texas the next closest campus is probably not exactly nearby (unlike say A(rizona)SU or UC(alifornia), where there are multiple campuses in the same Metro area as the "main" campuses).
Funny that you'd decry materialism in a thread basically bashing Christians, who should be decidedly not materialistic. Not saying all Christians are. We all have our struggles. But that is one of the things that we're cautioned against frequently from the pulpit.
Should be...but don't tend to be. Christians in America tend to be very bit as materialistic as anybody else.
Slashdot Mirror
And the kids still don't learn a damn thing. The quality of education in this country is plummeting... rapidly. All they are doing is babysitting until they're old enough to take their rightful place at Wal-Mart or McDonald's.
You get what you pay for. Look at the starting salary for teachers in many states...considering it requires, at minimum, a 4-year degree, are you surprised that Education programs at universities aren't attracting the best and the brightest? Add to that the sheer number of teachers we need, and you end up with large numbers of poor-quality teachers.
Not all teachers are bad, of course...my wife is a teacher, and I'd like to think she's one of the better ones. But I met some of her classmates, and saw her curriculum. I wouldn't trust half the kids in the average university's Education department to watch my house over the weekend, let alone trust them with my kids.
Of course, if teaching paid more, it would attract more qualified people, and in turn Education programs would become more competitive, and quality would increase. If lawyers made what teachers made, do you think that law school would be hard to get into? Would it be very demanding? A large number of graduates from teaching programs across the country are just one notch above those that end up at McDonald's. Some aren't even THAT intelligent or qualified*. So is it any wonder that that is what our schools are preparing kids for?
Again, you get what you pay for. In the US, it seems most people are willing to pay just enough to give them a place to send their kids while they go to work, and if they're lucky teach them to read at a decent level.
Of course, to an extent, that is all many people in the US CAN afford. Which is why school funding is always such an issue. I've seen the difference between schools in a fairly wealthy suburban area and a decidedly poor urban area. It isn't pretty.
* - The average teacher is, of course, much better qualified to teach than the average employee at McDonald's. However, if you were to take many employees of Mickey-D's, pay for them to go through college, I think you'd find that many of them would be as qualified, if not more, to teach as many teachers. Teachers are often smarter than fry cooks because of education, not necessarily intelligence.
Frankly, the cost of gas just isn't that high. Look at the overall budget for a school, and then look at how much of it is fuel costs. It's just not very much money.
From the couple articles I read, it isn't the busses that are draining the schools, it's heating/air conditioning the buildings. A problem that generally has nothing to do with suburban sprawl, so everybody blaming it on that should look elsewhere.
As for making kids living withing a mile walk, many districts already do. Some actually push it out farther than that. Though usually elementary schools pick kids up a little closer to school than junior-high/high schools.
But one day, those kids are gonna be old enough to vote, and their level of education is going to affect their votes which is going to affect you.
Unfortnuately, considering how poorly educated the average US student seems to be when it comes to history as well as current political events, I think we're getting a pretty low return on our investment right now.
Not that this is entirey the school's fault. You cannot force kids to learn. Though you can fail them if they choose not to do so, and then they should, theoretically, force themselves to learn. Or stop wasting our money. Either way.
I call "bullshit". No way any guilty verdicts can ever be reached here.
Except, since copyright infringement isn't theft (as we so vehemently, and in my opinion accurately, argue around here), there is no guilty or not guilty. The word you're looking for is, I belive, "liable."
They're not charging you with theft, they're suing you for damages. And all they would need is to download enough of the file to ascertain that it is extremely likely that Matrix.avi is, in fact, The Matrix, then they could check the tracker logs to see how much you seeded of that file. Now they've got an IP, and they've got you sending a gig of Matrix.avi.
But how do they know it was really YOU at that IP, you ask! They don't need to...if the ISP says that it was your account with them using that IP at that time, it was "you enough." Unsecured WAP at your house? Guess what...you could still theoretically be held liable. Then it's up to you to figure out who was using that WAP and sue them for damages. That's how the legal shit rolls downhill in the US.
Oh wait...I'm not a lawyer, and any or all of what I just said could probably be bullshit. But I do know that civil trials and criminal trials are two totally different animals. I know that O.J. was found not guilty of murder but still found liable in a wrongful death suit (unless I'm mistaken, again). I know of somebody who didn't have enough evidence, according to the DA, to pursue a rape charge, but still won a civil case against the perpetrator (or rather, the perps homeowner's insurance company, since it happened at his house), and recieved a sizable settlement for damages. Funny how these things work.
...not so much whether the tests were valid, or whether then conclusions were valid, or why the results came out the way they did, or any of that crap.
In my opinion, the biggest question studies like this leave me with is, "Who gets to define intelligence, and what is that definition?"
Seems to me that if a bunch of white males decide what "intelligence" is, and then test everybody for it, they will likely find that white males are the smartest (or, of course, it could backfire and show that Asians are smarter because they out white-maled the white males). Get a bunch of women together and let them define intelligence, and then have them test for it, and you'd probably find that women come out on top. So who is right?
This is where you get into things like the theory of multiple intelligences. Like it or not, there is some merit to that theory...people really are gifted in different categories (and some people are still gifted in none of them). The problem is who gets to decide which of those categories are important...mathematical? linguistic? musical? spatial? interpersonal?
IQ tests are an absolutely fabulous measure of intelligence...as long as your definition of "intelligence" is pretty narrow. All this is coming for somebody with a pretty damn high IQ.
there is simply no evidence to correlate a decrease in theater tickets sold to pirating.
Common sense would suggest that pirating might lead to some loss in ticket sales. However, you're right that there is little evidence that it leads to a significant loss in ticket sales.
This isn't music piracy. The generally crappy quality of pirated movies that are still in theatres available online is no substitute for the real thing. I should know...my only access to current movies for the last 10-11 months has been pirated movies out of Asia, usually just burned DVD copies of the same vids you'd get from BitTorrent. They suck. I gave up watching them after about a month, and now I just wait for the "real" DVD release, at which point I either buy it or borrow it.
If the studios want to argue that pirating movies online hurts DVD sales, I might be with them on that...but it does very little to affect ticket sales. Even DVD sales aren't affected nearly as badly as music sales, as there are other features on the DVD you are generally missing out on, and storage is generally an issue as well (movies being quite a bit larger than albums).
If anything, I see this as an attempt to stem the tide of downloading before it can really take a chunk out of DVD sales. It hasn't done too much damage to DVD sales yet, and I don't imagine it would ever do that much damage to theatrical releases, but they have the opportunity now to avoid the mistakes the record companies made and now allow (illegal) online downloading to get a foothold.
Actually I think one of the best ways to deal with drugs might be to allow people to sell them legally, tax them specifically (much like cigarettes and alcohol) and then earmark that tax money specifically for treatment of drug-related problems when patients can't pay, and to counteract other negative effects.
Of course, when the taxes get high enough (because the negative effects get expensive enough), you'll see a black market crop up for untaxed drugs...but then at least you're likely to see dealers getting nailed instead of users...at least hopefully.
But yes, I'm with you that straight prohibition isn't the answer...I was just giving a very good reason why simple legalization would be a bad idea as well.
Personally, I'm not sure there is any real answer for the drug issue. I do know that what we are doing now isn't working, but I can't think of anything that I truly believe -will- work. It's all damage control...you're not going to solve anything.
I can see him cringing every time his new cellmate gets an email advertising "Increased Girth! Stay hard longer!" (mispelled in creative filter-avoiding ways, of course)
Insurance companies won't carry them if they're an addict, and if they're somehow admitted to a hospital they will be stuck with a nice debt if they're unable to pay it off. It seems to me would be punishment enough for being so naive and not in control with yourself.
I think you missed that part in bold...or rather it should be reworded "they'll be stuck with a nice debt that they'll be unable to pay off. And when that happens, guess who gets to pay it off? Me, you, my mom, my friends, and everybody else. Debts don't just go away...at some point the person owed WILL get their money, whether from higher costs of treatment (which then are passed on through higher insurance premiums, etc.) to higher interest rates to taxes levied to pay for gov't sponsored healthcare. Or whatever.
The point is, there is no such thing as free treatment, or unpaid debt...somebody eventually has to foot the bill. And anybody (such as the hospital) that has the ability to pass the cost down will do so, guaranteed. So it falls on the patients/insurance companies/insured citizens/taxpayers. Or, to put it in terms that matter to me, ME.
This is the reason that even reasonable people like myself, who don't much care what the hell anybody does to destroy themselves, can see why drugs are illegal. It's hard to argue with simple economics.
It's one action: providing prescriptions. The phrase you've labelled as #2 simply explains the circumstances which made the action unlawful. You [hopefully] wouldn't say there are two actions involved in "I ate a sandwich at Arby's", despite similar structure.
Here's a way of rewriting it where the "both" part would be appropriate, which is I believe what the original author was getting at:
"The doctor, Philip Mach, had a license to practice medicine in New Jersey but he provided prescriptions to people outside of New Jersey, and also provided precriptions without ever evaluating the patients, both of which are big no-no's."
"Both" was originally (I think) meant to refer to:
1. Writing prescriptions outside of his state of licensing
2. Writing prescriptions without examining the patients
While the writing of the prescription(s) is one act, it is actually two rules being broken, thus both. Much the same way if I am driving over the speed limit while drunk I am breaking two laws, even though the driving is one action. I am driving over the speed limit, and driving while drunk. And I could be charged with two seperate crimes. Or maybe not...I'm no lawyer.
As much as I approve of crimes like this... I just don't get why they don't know when to stop.
If you've made 3 million... walk away with what ya have. It's not worth pursuing another 3 million to risk losing it ALL.
Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of criminals out there who DO know when to stop, or at least dial it down. You just never hear about them, because they are also the ones who don't tend to get caught.
I vaguely remember reading about a bank robber who went quite some time (decade or two?) without getting busted because he didn't get too greedy...he'd score so much in a year and call it good. It helped that he didn't tend to get violent, and hadn't killed anybody. The details are fuzzy in my mind, but the point is that there are criminals who know when to back off or even just walk away. This joker obviously wasn't one of them. I could live quite nicely off just one million dollars for the rest of my life, assuming I picked up even a low-paying job or even just invested wisely.
Of course, it's also quite possible the IRS would eventually notice me and wonder where the money came from, especially if I didn't have gainful employment.
Bring back the drive-in movie theater... BTW Are there any left ? I haven't seen one in years :-( They could really build some great venues with the latest technology.
Some major metro areas still have one or two left, I believe. I think Phoenix had one when I lived there, but I'm not sure because I never went to it. I was on a trip to Sacramento and there was one there...the wife and I went to check it out. Unfortunately, while I agree that they could build some nice venues with newer technology, this was NOT one of them. They had obviously let it get steadily more run-down since the late 70's, and unless I'm mistaken it was actually scheduled to be torn down and have a standard multiplex built in it's place.
Personally, I still enjoyed it though. My wife and I could talk about the movie while it played, just like we could at home, while at the same time not have to worry about listening to anybody else's cellphones/kids/conversations. I can only imagine how nice it might be if the place had been new, with decent equipment and facilities.
Now nearest Gigantagoogplex of screens is in the suburbs because Showcase/AMC etc fear urban areas so much that Magic Johnson is making a mint setting up theatres in cities. My city has 105k people and not a single screen in the city limits but immediately outside of them we have 30 plus screens.
Before I start, I have to say I'm right with you on everything else...but...
Maybe things have changed, or maybe it was just an anomoly, but Phoenix had a pretty nice, brand new (I believe) 24 screen theatre right in the middle of downtown (at the Arizona Centre). Nobody ever went to it. You could pick the biggest movie of the weekend, the one selling out multiple screens everywhere else, and at the Arizona Centre 24 you could walk up 5 minutes after it started, still get a ticket, and walk into a half-empty theatre and still get decent seats.
Oh, and if you brought your parking stub for the garage there, they'd validate up to four hours for you. It was actually my favorite place to go to movies (after the Cine Capri), and I lived WAY out in the 'burbs. Usually well worth the drive.
Yet still, it was always empty. Now, while it's not as vibrant and active as some, downtown Phoenix does contain people...people who, like, live there. So why is this theatre relatively dead even on weekend nights? I think in many major metro areas people don't want to go to a movie downtown. Combine that with higher real estate prices, and of course nobody wants to open a theatre there!
I think the largest factor is that theatre chains know that you will drive to the 'burbs, but most suburbanites (except, I suppose, me) won't drive downtown. So it's just a good business decision, not necessarily greed. But yeah, I imagine it's annoying as hell.
The quoted portion was supposed to be this...guess I didn't hit Ctrl-C hard enough. :)
So, question: Did you get, walk out, and tell the theatre you wanted your money back because you couldn't enjoy the movie because the lady in the next seat was oboxious? Did you even change seats?
Why would anyone get into a business where its sole distributor charges it more than the business can charge the customer? Why wouldn't they just stop showing the big budget movies and make more money?
I'm a frequent dime-dropper in theatres...but I've found that the theatres in my area generally won't do a thing about it. I think largely it's because of lack of competition, but I think it's partly lack of balls on the part of the management. As for getting my money back, I've been told by both chains in my area that they do not do that; you're lucky if you even get free passes to use next time, and those free passes aren't good for "Special Engagements," which seem to be any movie that isn't on it's last week in the theatre.
I think what it comes down to is that most theatres don't have the balls to kick somebody out without refunding them (which they should be able to do), but they know that if you leave on your own they won't have to refund you. So they go path of least resistance.
Another Hollywood characteristic of the typical bad movie -- remakes remakes remakes. The percentage of original ideas coming out of Hollywood these days is pretty low. One reason for this (IMHO) is the perpetual extension of copyright. No need to come up with an original idea if you can simply regurgitate that same old movie modernized with new special effects.
So letting "Dukes of Hazzard" into the public domain, thus allowing ANYBODY to make a movie based on it, would do good things for the state of film?
I think the worst trend in movies today is the straight remake. A movie doesn't have to have an original idea...good, even excellent, movies have been made based on books, plays, or comic books for decades. But the new fad of making movies based either on older movies (which tend to be bad) or on old TV shows (which are almost guaranteed to be bad) is, in my opinion, a sign of the coming apocalypse.
Oh, and any movie based either on a Saturday Night Live skit, or based around the personality of a former Saturday Night Live star (exceptions made for Chris Farley and Adam Sandler), runs the risk of ripping the fabric of the space and time with the sheer force of its sucking.
So what do they give us? 70's TV show remakes followed by Will Ferrell* movies followed by more 70's TV show remakes. Then they scratch their heads wondering why nobody goes to the movies anymore. Even the occasional blockbuster special-effects bonanza isn't always enough to draw many people out of their living rooms anymore...they've been decieved too many times before.
Oh, and sequels. Every movie that does well in the theatre does not necessarily require a sequel. There are movies that in no way inspire the need for a sequel. Just enjoy the success and keep an eye out for the next good idea. Don't destroy a good thing.
So yeah, mostly I'm just agreeing with you...I just felt the need to bitch and get a little of that off my chest.
* - Will Ferrell can be hilarious as a bit part or minor player in a movie, but any movie starring him makes me want to kill things. He, to me, embodies the whole problem with movies based on SNL skits/actors: that which is funny for 3-5 minutes is not necessarily funny for 90 or 120.
Hell, that's awesome. I used their dial-up rate to convince my wife that DSL was a good deal (knowing full well there were several other dial-up providers in my area that were cheaper). Thanks, AOL!
i'm sure you can sign up right now for a hotmail account and MS doesn't want your cell phone number.
No, they just want your soul.
Bastards didn't get mine, though...I signed up for my Hotmail account back before Microsoft.
Is this the fault of the Indians for speaking english as best they can, or the fault of the corporation who has outsourced the job to them, for not making sure they picked a good call center?
Oh, overall it's the fault of the corporation doing the outsourcing, to be sure. But at the same time, the Indian (or Chinese, or whatever) person in question should not get indignant or upset when I say I cannot understand what they are saying. -I- am not the one who is wrong because I cannot understand them.
Also (I'm assuming you are from the US), I'm sure that if you went to England, many people there would not say you speak English without an accent.
Oh, I'm not US-centric enough not to realize this...I actually addressed this elsewhere in this mini-thread. To summarize, I said that while I realize that should I travel to England, or India for that matter, that I would be the one who was talking funny, because accents are relative. But if I'm in a classroom in the US, or calling tech support from the US for a product bought from a US company (or the US division of a foreign company, for that matter), and I cannot understand the other person, THEY are the unintelligible ones, not I.
Considering the accent we Americans have in our English, I guess we will be unhappy even if we get an English tech support from England. I guess what goes around comes around.
:)
Oh, I've had the opportunity to speak to many British people, especially over here, and sometimes on a first run-through it's not entirely obvious that they are speaking the same language as me. Generally all it takes is maybe one repetition and I can figure it out, and once I'm ready for the accent I can decode it in "real time."
I would hope that most Americans realize that we ourselves do have an accent, though I doubt it. I think Hollywood English is, to most Americans, "standard" English, and anything else is considered to have an accent (whether it be Northeastern US, Southern US, or something really wild like actual English). Personally I realize that when I travel abroad, whether to Canada or someday if I make it to England, that I am the the one who is talking funny, not them. But, in my opinion, that is only because of my location at the time. The general rule, in my mind, is that if I'm talking to sombody in London, I have the accent. If I'm sitting in my living room in the US, and I've called for tech support on a computer that I bought in the US, dialing what is arguably a US number (1-800), and I can't understand the rep easily, then THEY have the accent. Accents are, of course, relative...but if you're in my hometown, they're relative to ME.
Maybe I'm unreasonable, and anybody is welcome to disagree with me. I think a majority of people would be with me on this one, though.
If you want high paid tech support or manufacturing jobs in the US, you will have to pay for them in more expensive products. Most of us are not willing to do that so we buy whatever is cheaper and functional most of the time.
Personally I think for the good of the country people in the US should try to get used to "expensive" goods again. It would hurt at first, because we would be able to buy less toys (new TVs, new cars, new computers, etc.), but in the long run it would ensure that more people are able to buy necessities, like adequate food and shelter. I actually try to do this, to an extent, but it can be hard...both because at the moment I tend to be poor (still a student), and because often it's hard to even find things I want that have been made in the US...we don't produce much anymore.
Move where? When you have a company as large as Google (along with their massive hiring needs), where else could they go besides CA?
The east coast between Boston and Washington, D.C. still boasts a pretty high population, and some areas there have decent costs of living, especially compared to urban California. A lot of the people moving to California for tech jobs have to come FROM somewhere, I imagine...unless for some reason California just happens to grow programmers at an amazingly high rate for some reason. Some would probably rather move east than west.
Like it or not, Google's product would suffer if they moved out of Silicon Valley...
Google, perhaps, due to their size...but we were talking about the other potential start-ups or competitors that are unable to compete directly with Google on salaries. I imagine many of them would be more than able to fill their needs in one of the larger midwestern cities, such as Minneapolis, Chicago, or Kansas City. Or mountain west cities like Denver, Salt Lake, Vegas, or Phoenix. Or east coast cities like Philly, Baltimore/DC, or even smaller ones like Providence or Hartford. The point is that there are a hundred places in the US that many potential programmers/general tech employees would rather live than California, if given the option. Some already boast fairly large populations. Many/most are cheaper to live in (and thus cheaper to hire in than Silicon Valley.
I've told people for the last 8+ years that the only way to cancel AOL is to call your credit card company and report the card lost.
...."
Don't know about AOL specifically, but in general companies can still rack up a bill for you, then just report you for nonpayment. I wouldn't count on this working.
I found the most effective way to cancel AOL, as well as MSN or Xbox Live or any other service where the phone jockeys are paid to try to convince you not to go, is the following line:
You: "I am done talking to you. I am going to remain on the line, silently, until you tell me my account is cancelled."
Their usual response: "You really should reconsider, you could blah blah blah (or something like that)..."
You: ".... (crickets chirping)
Them: "Um...okay. You're account will be cancelled as of the end of this billing period (or whatever)."
Works like a charm. Especially if we're talking about 1-800 numbers (which pretty much all customer service numbers are), and they're footing the bill for you to silently wait for them to not be stupid.
Oh yeah, speaking about their English accent which probably might be their third or fouth language, how many languages can you speak without accent? Stop looking down at the third world countries. You are not any better....
Okay, I have to address this one. I have quite a bit of experience with Indians and their somewhat limited mastery of spoken English, both from tech support as well as a TA I had at an American university.
First, I'll say this: often their grammar is superior to the average American's. I have no doubt their written English would exceed that of many American's. And I fully understand that English is probably not their primary language. You ask how many languages I speak without accent. Just one...English. I can speak broken Spanish with what I would assume is a horrendous accent. But do you want to know something important? I do not try to offer technical support to Spanish speakers, or try to teach at a Latin American university.
To be fair, most English-speaking Indians speak much better English than I do Spanish, so the comparison is not absolutely fair. But if I cannot understand them, the effect is the same. I am actually impressed by the number of languages many non-Americans speak. But if you are trying to teach a class at a university in the US, or trying to offer tech support for a US company, and you cannot be understood, you are not accomplishing the job you are being paid to do. This actually bothers me less in the tech-support example, because I can always just call back later and try to get a better representative who I can understand. But in the education example, it is often a choice of staying in the class and hoping you just don't even need any help from the instructor (or ever need to understand what they are asking/telling you), or dropping it and hoping you can pick it up later. And hoping that you aren't in the same boat later. And you're paying a lot more for those credits than you are for tech support.
And it isn't necessarily racism. I've had a white European (German, specifically) TA I could barely understand as well. And if companies switch to Eastern European call centers, the problem will likely be the same. I cannot tell the color of your skin over the phone. But I CAN tell if I can understand you.
And yes, if I went to a street in Bangalore and rounded up 10 guys, I'm sure 9 of them would be smarter than our president. Hell, one or two might even be more effective speakers (in English) than our president (ever heard the guy talk?) Most of us are not trying to say than Indians, or anybody else from the countries being outsourced to, are stupid. Just that their English is damn near incomprehensible.
For those that haven't attended larger schools (then again, neither have I...just visited them), most major state universities have several libraries, even several major libraries. They are basically just pulling the books out of one and distributing them to the others (which, I'm guessing, have even been expanded physically over the years...so no net loss).
The only reason this is even a story is because they are still calling it a "library," rather than an additional student union building or electronic research center or whatever.
My school basically already has all these things, they're just all located in the one library building we have. Coffee shop, lounge area, 3 large computer areas, a couple smaller ones, reservable conference rooms, etc...all scattered among the four floors. It's probably pretty nice to be able to cordon all these off into one library building...it sucks when some jackass who has been hanging out in the lounge area too long thinks it's appropriate to wander into the stacks or study areas talking on his cell phone or just generally making a load of noise.
Upon further reading of the article, I even noticed this:
"So to ease some of the apprehension, administrators took the word "library" out of their vocabulary when referring to the Flawn Academic Center."
So they're not even calling it a library. It's just a major university closing one of it's libraries and using it for a different purpose. This is news how?
The only thing I wonder is did they distribute the 90,000 books to other libraries on this campus, or through other campuses throughout the system. I'd hope, this being their main campus, that they'd try to maintain the collection there...especially since in a state the size of Texas the next closest campus is probably not exactly nearby (unlike say A(rizona)SU or UC(alifornia), where there are multiple campuses in the same Metro area as the "main" campuses).
Funny that you'd decry materialism in a thread basically bashing Christians, who should be decidedly not materialistic. Not saying all Christians are. We all have our struggles. But that is one of the things that we're cautioned against frequently from the pulpit.
Should be...but don't tend to be. Christians in America tend to be very bit as materialistic as anybody else.