So then it depends on there never being a mass market print edition but would be fairly secure as long as it remained electronic.
Hmm and they would have to have a solid credit and never allow gift cards. If they allowed a cash sale, then the best they could do would be to invalidate the kindle.
Does it matter if the 1024 changes are in the same location (as a true bit-- either this word is "red" or "scarlet" or just two recorded changes "5th page, this word was changed to black from sable" vs "5th page, last sentence repeats "the the" on the last page."
Of course, spelling and grammar errors would be easy to clean automatically.
Once we get decent robots (and they can now pick loose nuts out of a bin), 99% of jobs (even low skill ones) go away. Buy a grocery shelf stocker robot for $50k and let go 6 people. It's never sick and works on holidays. 50 stockers lose their job and are replaced by one repairman-- but with proper design, even he is a minimum wagejob ("check code: A5, replace module 3") If you can read a piece of paper and enter numbers, your job is threatened in the near future.
We have to find a better way than scarcity to distribute time at the beach, good food, and other resources or it is going to get extremely ugly within the next 20 to 30 years.
Too many people- no value to society- 1% of people having stuff- 99% of people not having stuff. Historically that doesn't go well.
There are now easy sources for national news and commentary.
All news since the mid 1980's and maybe before has really been propaganda for one side or the other. Increasingly, the stories are written / filmed by the corporations they are reputed to be about.
People washed out of the Compsci program made 3.75's and higher in the Business degree programs. Frequently finishing the homework in under a half an hour a day. You have this illusion that compensation equals difficulty when you are young. It isn't until later that you see on the job that isn't true.
I saw the writing on the wall and left to manage. I see the idiocy of executives who waste enormous amounts of money and succeed mainly by moving the goal posts.
Most upper executive jobs are not open to the general public. You are born into those ranks. Bobby's cousin gets you a job starting at executive v.p. and you move up from there. The college folks mostly start out as leads, then go to supervisors, managers, and if they are lucky/very smart, get promoted to directors. After 22 years, they still are not in the executive ranks that "Biff's" son joined at 26 straight out of college. The way you have a shot of breaking into those ranks is if you get rich, your kids can go to the right schools and network. Not just because they are at the right school- but also because you are rich.
The shareholders have no ability to reign in over payment because the laws have been changed so that the shareholders votes are almost entirely "advisory". I.e. they can all vote "NO" and it changes nothing. The ceo's raise still goes in from his directors who are CEO's at other companies where he is a director.
The current health care system is one of the most effective forms of slavery invented yet. Most people don't even realize they are slaves. It's crazy that the work week was 40-45 hours a week in the 1950's and after 50 years of productivity, people still *must* work 40-45 hour work weeks.
It would be whining if I'd stayed and taken the abuse (best being-- 6 weeks of 72 hour weeks- followed by "take friday after noon off-- Great job" while the manager got a 15% bonus for delivering on time). I left it and advise others to do so a well until the working conditions and compensation equal out.
The funny thing is, most people in IT are not even asbergers syndrom social loners any more. They just got the degree without realizing it requires working on christmas and thanksgiving day (to avoid business downtime) and weekends (same) and 5am and 9pm-- sometimes back to back. And then-- seriously-- pisses me off- after one of my reports works at 4am to 5:30am and then is expected to be in and work from 8am to 5... er.. really 6pm.. and then respond to an emergency that night. Business doesn't even dream of asking accountants for that.
It irritates me the way managers make estimates and commitment dates-- without even bothering to ask an IT person what's possible. "Absolutely, this will be ready in 3 weeks." It's only because they have no respect for their reports that they do this. I would find a way to be very positive and yet hang them out to dry. Because if you succeed, the next time it'll be 2 weeks.
And those lovely charismatic sales people-- who get the account by promising IT will deliver 8 weeks of work in 5 weeks. Who get the bonus. Who get the dinner out. I've always managed that in my personal career by not putting up with it. But I also knew to get out of the front line. I take care of my guys as best as I can. If I was a soulless type like those around me, I'd be more focused uphill. So perhaps I am still being "stupid" in the hardest reckoning.
---
And seriously- those executives... omg. Now that I deal with them directly I can see just how clueless they are. How inconsistent they are. It's amazing. Things happen because they have *power* - not because they are smart. They are absolutely driving our companies into the ground and most of them could be replaced with just about anyone and the outcome would be very similar.
Why do I care, that some anonymous person five states over was murdered? If it's of national import, it's going to be all over the web and television anyway.
Newspapers should give very deep news on local issues, sports, local editorials, etc.
Based on what I've seen, it's better to be a tradesman or an accountant than it is to be a programmer these days. The job gets no respect, abusive hours, requires constant retraining (imagine if "Accounting Rules 1995, 1998, 2000" was the norm- accounting rules became obsolete every 3 years and you had to retrain or lose your job-- or if the electrical code changed completely every 3 years. It's insane. We have 5 year old programs that have been out of support for 3 years. Anyone who works on them is signing a death warrant on his or her career).
I started computers in 1981. My mother in law had programmed professionally in the 1960's.
I'm in management now. IT no longer gives you a career- every few years it's a new lottery.
I'm saving my ass off and if things turn badly, I'll probably go for accounting. Lawyers are starting to have problems in New York. I think we may *finally* have too many of them.
That's the thing--- managers maybe-- executive branch- no.
Yet, there are executives overseas leading huge companies that make 500 to 600k a year.
Outsourcing our executive branch would provide us huge savings and make for much better contact with upcoming economies.
But you sea, the executives decide whose job goes and whose stays. just like they decide that 110 million dollars is fair compensation even after the guy drives the company into the ground.
I left it. I went to management because I had a brain and saw the writing on the wall. IT may not generate any revenue... but IT didn't spew 2.7 million dollars on a project IT had said (not once, not twice, but THREE times) was a non-starter before it even began. But the bright boys upstairs told us we were idiots and gave it to an overseas dot firm who said it could be done. And now no one talks about it. But that's 27 U.S. jobs worth of wasted money.
Given half a chance, IT is also hell of a good polisher and can bring great efficiency to processes. But these days, SOX and stupid executives intervening in literally single line code changes make what used to be a 4 hour no brainer into an 8 week cost justification nightmare. You wouldn't believe the miniscule level of code changes that require three or four meetings with people who have no IT experience to approve. But it pays for now. It's horrendously wasteful and has been lampooned in dilbert for years with just cause. 7 years ago, if something made sense to refactor,we just did so.
Meanwhile, at my friend's company they a) drove away one programmer so ineptly they were successfully sued. b) then drove away a second one (and were shocked). c) are going to hire a "friend of the boss" who has *NO RELEVANT TECHNICAL SKILLS* to replace the programmers because "they need a job right now." d) are leaving my friend with 6am on-call. They expect her to train the new idiot. I personally don't think new idiot will last with the hours. I've recommended go elsewhere she leave them without any support. They've earned it by placing no value on her. Hell, she even found out she was making less than the people who left and she had written the code and trained them. Businesses don't have ANY decency!!! They are pigs and deserve no loyalty but boy.. they sure ask for it and expect it.
There is no justification for a 7 or 8 figure salary for someone who didn't found the company. Anything 7 figures and up is ripping off the shareholders of return on their investment. It's like hollywood accounting-- our local paper had an article on the poor medical companies who are only making 5% profits-- but left out the fact that their "salaryman" ceo's and presidents took most of the profit in salary and bonuses.
IT jobs get absolutely no respect any more. They get paid crap. They have *ON CALL* work. They have to read the minds of dolts who make more money (and work in a more sex balanced environment and who often get to go out drinking on the company dime).
I had to beg our manager to take the guys to lunch. And he wouldn't spring 15 bucks for an appetizer.
Meanwhile the other side of the building is meeting for drinks at the bar at night dropping easily 10 to 20 bucks per person.
At my friend's company, the IT folks get up at 6am, get left at work while everyone goes out drinking for extended lunches (because they are "sales and executives")-- entire company is smaller than my last team. Executives my ass.
Somehow, we let them do this to us. When I was getting into the field, we were priest kings in air-conditioned rooms with complete power. But with each passing year, we underbid each other and passed control over to people who worked us to death.
Leave the field. If your in it, learn to fail gracefully. Negotiate for more money and leave when they don't give it to you. Leave them in a lurch.
This all sounds like a troll but it's more bitterness seeing complete idiots making 6 and 7 figure salaries while the "intelligent" folks are working as slaves.
Tho the comment was modded back up, the comment was immediately modded down as flamebait.
As a C.S. major, I took both courses in both philosophical and mathematical logic as well as english composition (when will english majors be required to take logic courses?) and received good grades in both. As a Slashdot poster, there is a limit on the amount of effort I'm willing to put into a given ephemeral post. As the suitable responses show, I got my points across.
If people are willing to bid up college degrees and health care to a million dollars, then colleges will happily charge them that much.
I find the idea that a creator being would be BOTH interested in the human race, AND create processes that take 13 billion years from the beginning of the universe to get us (AND require wiping out the prior dominant species so mammals could become the dominant species) harder to believe than Last Tuesdayism. Since people who dispute that the history of the earth and universe are unreal are closer to Last Tuesdayism, I would probably find it easier to be religious than to believe there is a god who cares about humans that created us in such an indirect way.
Of course, I do not find it credible that a god requires we believe in him to have our anonymous souls (or continuing personalities) preserved after death.
It's possible a god exists... but there is no evidence for one.
I'll either be surprised when I die or I'll just be dead.
So far.. and after nearly dying... I can't believe in dieties. The brainwashing at 6 to 12 years old didn't take.
It sucked. I didn't get to go ivy league (not a big problem since only a 1270 sat, 3.2gpa, and activities were computer club and D&D club).
Mainly, I didn't get to take a 4 to 5 year vacation. I studied 20 hours on top of 12 hours of classes on top of 40 to 55 hours a week of work.
But I graduated with no debt. It was my choice.
Students have the choice of going to public schools, or cheaper schools over seas, or on-line schools.
One of the reasons colleges have gotten so expensive is that children are willing to take on $200,000 debt to get a degree.
Look- if the professors were not making mid 100k incomes (yea, I know adjunct professors are poorly paid), if the universities were not funding research on the student's backs, if the university presidents were not making $350k!!! and if the universities JUST TAUGHT THE MATERIAL like they used to back in the 50's, then school wouldn't be so expensive.
Health care is super expensive for the same reason. People have shown that they *will* pay anything for it, so the providers have jacked up the bill.
You can get a good solid degree from a public university and graduate with little or no debt.
You can't get an idiot degree of course.
Given the work climate (that any INDIAN or CHINESE national can get a similar quality degree and take your job for $16,000 to $25,000 working in their companies for our corporations), you are an idiot to get a degree for something with that kind of exposure. At least get something that requires you be physically present, or that has national security implications.
Tesla has a 300 mile range tho you can trade price for range to some extent.
I love my Honda Element but it *REALLY SUCKS* that it has a 275 mile range. So really about 265. What the hell were they thinking? How much space can one more gallon of fuel take????
On Washington State "thriftiness"... http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/Centers/government/policybrief/08_guppy_piglet.html... Legislators work in a world of unending spending requests. When there is no countervailing pressure for tax-cuts, it is often easier for lawmakers to just say "yes" to the special interests. As The Seattle Times reports, "Since 2005, lawmakers have spent or allocated nearly $270 million on earmarks in the capital budget... That's more than the previous 15 years combined."[ii] The following chart illustrates the long-term trend.... Washington is one of the most heavily-taxed states in the nation. In all, residents pay more than 50 different kinds of taxes at the state and local level. The large number of taxes, combined with a growing economy, is why a record level of revenues is flowing into the treasury.... In historical terms, Washington's level of taxation is perhaps the highest ever. Today, Washingtonians pay more in taxes than they do for food, clothing and transportation combined.... Suquamish Inviting House, Longhouse and Museum $2,550,000 Just one pork item, like $2.5 million to benefit the owners of a wealthy tribal casino, represents the entire yearly tax contribution of 1,059 Washington taxpayers.... The Ship Nobody Wants $4.5 million... Battle Equipment the Army Can't Use $6 million... Ending wasteful spending at Washington State Ferries $9.6 million... Tacoma Narrows Bridge Lights $1.5 million This earmark is to provide tax-funded night-time lighting decoration for the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge.... Hiawatha Artist Lofts, Seattle $1 million
One million dollars is devoted in the state budget for 61 units of living/work spaces for artists, plus five commercial storefronts for artist-related businesses.[xix]... "SayWA" Tourism Campaign $442,000... Money Stolen from the Crime Victims Fund $431,376... Animal Massage Practitioners $142,000 Medicaid Checks for Services to Dead People $44,687 Pension Payments to Dead People $254,694... Local Community Projects $132,619,000 (long list of things like $130k for an opera house)....
Governments always wave the baby in front of the budget cut gun. But the reality is, they are sitting on a rich leather $750 executive chair behind a $10,000 desk while they do it.
Most of the music in the 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's was made on equipment we can purchase for under $10,000 (probably way less) by tiny groups of people (under a dozen) who were mostly paid reasonable salaries compared to the rest of the population.
Making music *is* easy and cheap. You sit down with an instrument that costs at most $1000 and sing while playing the instrument.
Only the monopoly prices charged these days combined with infinite copyrights is causing music to be expensive.
Since people have a *fixed* amount of money they can spend on entertainment, raising the price of music reduces "legal" sales. Once you have spent your $160 a month, you either infringe, find a legal way to bypass purchase (internet radio, radio, cable music stations), etc. But you do not purchase more songs. If songs were 50% cheaper, people would most likely buy 100% more songs. In my experience, people are as moral as they can afford to be.
They like feeling like "nice" people. If you push them hard enough, they'll redefine "nice" and then you are screwed.
My monthly spending on DVD's was about the same whether I purchased a $160 set, or 8 $20 dvd's. I finally realized I was only watching them once and stopped purchasing (and now i check out from the library or borrow from friends).
The expense of making music is 80% bullshit. 10% is the actual cost of making it, 10% goes to the artists (at most-- in many cases not a dime goes to them but i'm feeling generous). A lot of the rest is where the music company pays an inflated value for "promotion" and "post production work" to another company which is owned by the same parent company.
So I tell you the artist, I'll give you 50% of the profits. Then out of the $20 cost of the CD, I pay my brother companies $18 for essentially doing things that should cost $1.
Slashdot Mirror
That's really cool and informative.
So then it depends on there never being a mass market print edition but would be fairly secure as long as it remained electronic.
Hmm and they would have to have a solid credit and never allow gift cards. If they allowed a cash sale, then the best they could do would be to invalidate the kindle.
Does it matter if the 1024 changes are in the same location (as a true bit-- either this word is "red" or "scarlet" or just two recorded changes "5th page, this word was changed to black from sable" vs "5th page, last sentence repeats "the the" on the last page."
Of course, spelling and grammar errors would be easy to clean automatically.
hmmm
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
vs
Xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
That fingers other mapmakers but not people who purchase your maps.
Encyclopedia makers did this too.
Amazon seems to hope to individually change each book sold--- I think their goal is unrealistic.
Acquires two copies of the work in question. Merges the differences- compares those lists and generates a copy that fingers someone else or no one.
Once we get decent robots (and they can now pick loose nuts out of a bin), 99% of jobs (even low skill ones) go away.
Buy a grocery shelf stocker robot for $50k and let go 6 people. It's never sick and works on holidays.
50 stockers lose their job and are replaced by one repairman-- but with proper design, even he is a minimum wagejob ("check code: A5, replace module 3")
If you can read a piece of paper and enter numbers, your job is threatened in the near future.
We have to find a better way than scarcity to distribute time at the beach, good food, and other resources or it is going to get extremely ugly within the next 20 to 30 years.
Too many people- no value to society- 1% of people having stuff- 99% of people not having stuff. Historically that doesn't go well.
There are now easy sources for national news and commentary.
All news since the mid 1980's and maybe before has really been propaganda for one side or the other. Increasingly, the stories are written / filmed by the corporations they are reputed to be about.
I like the paper
a) it doesn't hurt my hands to read it.
b) it's easy to take to lunch with me.
c) it's cheap ($60 a year).
I'll subscribe til I die or it goes under.
Oh please.
People washed out of the Compsci program made 3.75's and higher in the Business degree programs. Frequently finishing the homework in under a half an hour a day.
You have this illusion that compensation equals difficulty when you are young. It isn't until later that you see on the job that isn't true.
I saw the writing on the wall and left to manage. I see the idiocy of executives who waste enormous amounts of money and succeed mainly by moving the goal posts.
Most upper executive jobs are not open to the general public. You are born into those ranks. Bobby's cousin gets you a job starting at executive v.p. and you move up from there. The college folks mostly start out as leads, then go to supervisors, managers, and if they are lucky/very smart, get promoted to directors. After 22 years, they still are not in the executive ranks that "Biff's" son joined at 26 straight out of college. The way you have a shot of breaking into those ranks is if you get rich, your kids can go to the right schools and network. Not just because they are at the right school- but also because you are rich.
The shareholders have no ability to reign in over payment because the laws have been changed so that the shareholders votes are almost entirely "advisory". I.e. they can all vote "NO" and it changes nothing. The ceo's raise still goes in from his directors who are CEO's at other companies where he is a director.
The current health care system is one of the most effective forms of slavery invented yet. Most people don't even realize they are slaves. It's crazy that the work week was 40-45 hours a week in the 1950's and after 50 years of productivity, people still *must* work 40-45 hour work weeks.
It would be whining if I'd stayed and taken the abuse (best being-- 6 weeks of 72 hour weeks- followed by "take friday after noon off-- Great job" while the manager got a 15% bonus for delivering on time). I left it and advise others to do so a well until the working conditions and compensation equal out.
The funny thing is, most people in IT are not even asbergers syndrom social loners any more. They just got the degree without realizing it requires working on christmas and thanksgiving day (to avoid business downtime) and weekends (same) and 5am and 9pm-- sometimes back to back. And then-- seriously-- pisses me off- after one of my reports works at 4am to 5:30am and then is expected to be in and work from 8am to 5... er.. really 6pm.. and then respond to an emergency that night. Business doesn't even dream of asking accountants for that.
It irritates me the way managers make estimates and commitment dates-- without even bothering to ask an IT person what's possible. "Absolutely, this will be ready in 3 weeks." It's only because they have no respect for their reports that they do this. I would find a way to be very positive and yet hang them out to dry. Because if you succeed, the next time it'll be 2 weeks.
And those lovely charismatic sales people-- who get the account by promising IT will deliver 8 weeks of work in 5 weeks. Who get the bonus. Who get the dinner out. I've always managed that in my personal career by not putting up with it. But I also knew to get out of the front line. I take care of my guys as best as I can. If I was a soulless type like those around me, I'd be more focused uphill. So perhaps I am still being "stupid" in the hardest reckoning.
---
And seriously- those executives... omg. Now that I deal with them directly I can see just how clueless they are. How inconsistent they are. It's amazing. Things happen because they have *power* - not because they are smart. They are absolutely driving our companies into the ground and most of them could be replaced with just about anyone and the outcome would be very similar.
Why do I care, that some anonymous person five states over was murdered?
If it's of national import, it's going to be all over the web and television anyway.
Newspapers should give very deep news on local issues, sports, local editorials, etc.
Based on what I've seen, it's better to be a tradesman or an accountant than it is to be a programmer these days. The job gets no respect, abusive hours, requires constant retraining (imagine if "Accounting Rules 1995, 1998, 2000" was the norm- accounting rules became obsolete every 3 years and you had to retrain or lose your job-- or if the electrical code changed completely every 3 years. It's insane. We have 5 year old programs that have been out of support for 3 years. Anyone who works on them is signing a death warrant on his or her career).
I started computers in 1981. My mother in law had programmed professionally in the 1960's.
I'm in management now. IT no longer gives you a career- every few years it's a new lottery.
I'm saving my ass off and if things turn badly, I'll probably go for accounting. Lawyers are starting to have problems in New York. I think we may *finally* have too many of them.
That's the thing--- managers maybe-- executive branch- no.
Yet, there are executives overseas leading huge companies that make 500 to 600k a year.
Outsourcing our executive branch would provide us huge savings and make for much better contact with upcoming economies.
But you sea, the executives decide whose job goes and whose stays. just like they decide that 110 million dollars is fair compensation even after the guy drives the company into the ground.
I left it. I went to management because I had a brain and saw the writing on the wall. IT may not generate any revenue... but IT didn't spew 2.7 million dollars on a project IT had said (not once, not twice, but THREE times) was a non-starter before it even began. But the bright boys upstairs told us we were idiots and gave it to an overseas dot firm who said it could be done. And now no one talks about it. But that's 27 U.S. jobs worth of wasted money.
Given half a chance, IT is also hell of a good polisher and can bring great efficiency to processes. But these days, SOX and stupid executives intervening in literally single line code changes make what used to be a 4 hour no brainer into an 8 week cost justification nightmare. You wouldn't believe the miniscule level of code changes that require three or four meetings with people who have no IT experience to approve. But it pays for now. It's horrendously wasteful and has been lampooned in dilbert for years with just cause. 7 years ago, if something made sense to refactor ,we just did so.
Meanwhile, at my friend's company they
a) drove away one programmer so ineptly they were successfully sued.
b) then drove away a second one (and were shocked).
c) are going to hire a "friend of the boss" who has *NO RELEVANT TECHNICAL SKILLS* to replace the programmers because "they need a job right now."
d) are leaving my friend with 6am on-call. They expect her to train the new idiot. I personally don't think new idiot will last with the hours. I've recommended go elsewhere she leave them without any support. They've earned it by placing no value on her. Hell, she even found out she was making less than the people who left and she had written the code and trained them. Businesses don't have ANY decency!!! They are pigs and deserve no loyalty but boy.. they sure ask for it and expect it.
There is no justification for a 7 or 8 figure salary for someone who didn't found the company.
Anything 7 figures and up is ripping off the shareholders of return on their investment.
It's like hollywood accounting-- our local paper had an article on the poor medical companies who are only making 5% profits-- but left out the fact that their "salaryman" ceo's and presidents took most of the profit in salary and bonuses.
IT jobs get absolutely no respect any more.
They get paid crap.
They have *ON CALL* work.
They have to read the minds of dolts who make more money (and work in a more sex balanced environment and who often get to go out drinking on the company dime).
I had to beg our manager to take the guys to lunch. And he wouldn't spring 15 bucks for an appetizer.
Meanwhile the other side of the building is meeting for drinks at the bar at night dropping easily 10 to 20 bucks per person.
At my friend's company, the IT folks get up at 6am, get left at work while everyone goes out drinking for extended lunches (because they are "sales and executives")-- entire company is smaller than my last team. Executives my ass.
Somehow, we let them do this to us. When I was getting into the field, we were priest kings in air-conditioned rooms with complete power. But with each passing year, we underbid each other and passed control over to people who worked us to death.
Leave the field.
If your in it, learn to fail gracefully.
Negotiate for more money and leave when they don't give it to you. Leave them in a lurch.
This all sounds like a troll but it's more bitterness seeing complete idiots making 6 and 7 figure salaries while the "intelligent" folks are working as slaves.
How did it come to this?
The main problem I have with sharepoint is finding anything.
The search option doesn't seem attached to the content at my corporation.
Tho the comment was modded back up, the comment was immediately modded down as flamebait.
As a C.S. major, I took both courses in both philosophical and mathematical logic as well as english composition (when will english majors be required to take logic courses?) and received good grades in both.
As a Slashdot poster, there is a limit on the amount of effort I'm willing to put into a given ephemeral post. As the suitable responses show, I got my points across.
If people are willing to bid up college degrees and health care to a million dollars, then colleges will happily charge them that much.
I find the idea that a creator being would be BOTH interested in the human race, AND create processes that take 13 billion years from the beginning of the universe to get us (AND require wiping out the prior dominant species so mammals could become the dominant species) harder to believe than Last Tuesdayism. Since people who dispute that the history of the earth and universe are unreal are closer to Last Tuesdayism, I would probably find it easier to be religious than to believe there is a god who cares about humans that created us in such an indirect way.
Of course, I do not find it credible that a god requires we believe in him to have our anonymous souls (or continuing personalities) preserved after death.
It's possible a god exists... but there is no evidence for one.
I'll either be surprised when I die or I'll just be dead.
So far.. and after nearly dying... I can't believe in dieties. The brainwashing at 6 to 12 years old didn't take.
Looks like someone prefers to current situation over reality.
I worked my way through college.
It sucked. I didn't get to go ivy league (not a big problem since only a 1270 sat, 3.2gpa, and activities were computer club and D&D club).
Mainly, I didn't get to take a 4 to 5 year vacation. I studied 20 hours on top of 12 hours of classes on top of 40 to 55 hours a week of work.
But I graduated with no debt. It was my choice.
Students have the choice of going to public schools, or cheaper schools over seas, or on-line schools.
One of the reasons colleges have gotten so expensive is that children are willing to take on $200,000 debt to get a degree.
Look- if the professors were not making mid 100k incomes (yea, I know adjunct professors are poorly paid), if the universities were not funding research on the student's backs, if the university presidents were not making $350k!!! and if the universities JUST TAUGHT THE MATERIAL like they used to back in the 50's, then school wouldn't be so expensive.
Health care is super expensive for the same reason. People have shown that they *will* pay anything for it, so the providers have jacked up the bill.
You can get a good solid degree from a public university and graduate with little or no debt.
You can't get an idiot degree of course.
Given the work climate (that any INDIAN or CHINESE national can get a similar quality degree and take your job for $16,000 to $25,000 working in their companies for our corporations), you are an idiot to get a degree for something with that kind of exposure. At least get something that requires you be physically present, or that has national security implications.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/tesla-motors-model-s-electric-car-information-specifications-photos-performance-range-speed.php
Tesla has a 300 mile range tho you can trade price for range to some extent.
I love my Honda Element but it *REALLY SUCKS* that it has a 275 mile range. So really about 265. What the hell were they thinking? How much space can one more gallon of fuel take????
Not that I know of.
I searched for washington state budget + abuse pork waste, etc until this popped up.
It looks like the 132m in the generic bucket is a lot of pork for county and state folks.
Every dollar is paid to *some* business. And politicians decided *which* business is going to get the money.
It's pretty horrific.
On Washington State "thriftiness"... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/Centers/government/policybrief/08_guppy_piglet.html
Legislators work in a world of unending spending requests. When there is no countervailing pressure for tax-cuts, it is often easier for lawmakers to just say "yes" to the special interests. As The Seattle Times reports, "Since 2005, lawmakers have spent or allocated nearly $270 million on earmarks in the capital budget... That's more than the previous 15 years combined."[ii] The following chart illustrates the long-term trend.
Washington is one of the most heavily-taxed states in the nation. In all, residents pay more than 50 different kinds of taxes at the state and local level. The large number of taxes, combined with a growing economy, is why a record level of revenues is flowing into the treasury.
In historical terms, Washington's level of taxation is perhaps the highest ever. Today, Washingtonians pay more in taxes than they do for food, clothing and transportation combined.
Suquamish Inviting House, Longhouse and Museum
$2,550,000
Just one pork item, like $2.5 million to benefit the owners of a wealthy tribal casino, represents the entire yearly tax contribution of 1,059 Washington taxpayers.
The Ship Nobody Wants
$4.5 million
Battle Equipment the Army Can't Use
$6 million
Ending wasteful spending at Washington State Ferries
$9.6 million
Tacoma Narrows Bridge Lights
$1.5 million This earmark is to provide tax-funded night-time lighting decoration for the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
Hiawatha Artist Lofts, Seattle
$1 million
One million dollars is devoted in the state budget for 61 units of living/work spaces for artists, plus five commercial storefronts for artist-related businesses.[xix] ... ... ... ... ...
"SayWA" Tourism Campaign
$442,000
Money Stolen from the Crime Victims Fund
$431,376
Animal Massage Practitioners
$142,000
Medicaid Checks for Services to Dead People
$44,687
Pension Payments to Dead People
$254,694
Local Community Projects
$132,619,000
(long list of things like $130k for an opera house).
Governments always wave the baby in front of the budget cut gun. But the reality is, they are sitting on a rich leather $750 executive chair behind a $10,000 desk while they do it.
Keeping your job at most places has a lot more to do with how well other people like you than your performance.
Your ability to get exciting work, move up the chain, gain responsibility, and get training is based on your competence.
Subtly over a few years, one person is leader of tech, going to las vegas for conferences and another is supporting legacy applications at 6am.
Op: Computer, please calculate the optimum trajectory to venus.
chee chee chee... working
Optimal path... CHEESE.
Op: Grr... Computer, please calculate the best stock to buy.
chee chee chee... working
Optimal stock... CHEESE.
I agree... oh wait, NO.. I mean I disagree... er.
I've purchased items from magnatune.
You can try before you buy.
You can download the format you want (128mp3 up to WAV).
http://www.magnatune.com/genres/classical/
Most of the music in the 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's was made on equipment we can purchase for under $10,000 (probably way less) by tiny groups of people (under a dozen) who were mostly paid reasonable salaries compared to the rest of the population.
Making music *is* easy and cheap. You sit down with an instrument that costs at most $1000 and sing while playing the instrument.
Only the monopoly prices charged these days combined with infinite copyrights is causing music to be expensive.
Since people have a *fixed* amount of money they can spend on entertainment, raising the price of music reduces "legal" sales. Once you have spent your $160 a month, you either infringe, find a legal way to bypass purchase (internet radio, radio, cable music stations), etc. But you do not purchase more songs. If songs were 50% cheaper, people would most likely buy 100% more songs. In my experience, people are as moral as they can afford to be.
They like feeling like "nice" people. If you push them hard enough, they'll redefine "nice" and then you are screwed.
My monthly spending on DVD's was about the same whether I purchased a $160 set, or 8 $20 dvd's. I finally realized I was only watching them once and stopped purchasing (and now i check out from the library or borrow from friends).
The expense of making music is 80% bullshit. 10% is the actual cost of making it, 10% goes to the artists (at most-- in many cases not a dime goes to them but i'm feeling generous). A lot of the rest is where the music company pays an inflated value for "promotion" and "post production work" to another company which is owned by the same parent company.
So I tell you the artist, I'll give you 50% of the profits. Then out of the $20 cost of the CD, I pay my brother companies $18 for essentially doing things that should cost $1.