I went back and did some research and it looks like it was about 800 at that time. My memory of 183 was probably from a few years before that when I started. I remember tuition doubling in one year at one point when the legislature adjusted the really super-low hourly rate to something more realistic.
I reread it and my position doesn't change one iota.
By definition increasing costs over time -is- inflation. I'm not ignoring any point- you seem to be trying to redefine inflation in some wierd way.
I also paid less for apartments, food, transportation and insurance 13 years ago.
Sometimes costs rise slowly for a while and then rise rapidly. When I was going- we were getting a very good bargain- basically a week's pay for a semester of college.
Failing to increase government programs at least as fast as inflation is a cut.
If inflation is 4% and the government cuts the rate of increase from 4% to 2%, it -is- a cut in benefits.
If inflation raises tuition 10% and the grant budget was supposed to go up 10% and they only increase it 2%, then a lot less students are going to get grants.
As another poster in this thread said: If you consider getting a 1% raise a raise when there is 3% inflation, then your employer must love you.
You must always adjust things for inflation- it is the single biggest problem with the way they write many laws in this country. It is why the AMT is becoming a defacto "flat tax" because they didn't index it for inflation.
--- On a separate note, for those who can't read what I wrote...
My tuition 13 years ago was 183 for 12-14 hours of courses. The same college now charges 1700+ for 12-14 hours of courses.
During that time pell grants and other government assistance has not kept pace with that increase. In inflation adjusted dollars, the programs have experience over a 50% cut while huge tax cuts were given to the wealthy. We are wasting a lot of brains willing to work hard for the country and produce new wealth because of these cuts. These programs encouraged behavior beneficial to society and they were -cheap- and would be -cheap- (basically a rounding error) even if they had been inflation adjusted.
If you doubt that consider: I went to college for at most $183 a semester (12 to 14 hour load). Same college only 13 years later now charges $1,780 for the same load.
Sure no problem in divx6 (180mb to 200mb!). A bit of a problem in divx5 (300mb to 400mb)
Best HD episode download I've seen was 23 minutes-- peaked at 487k per second. It helps that shows are up to almost 20 minutes of commercials so you are not really getting an "hour" of video.
There are now inexpensive divx6 players so folks don't even have to transcode it to watch it on their big screen TVs. I like the more expensive portable Toshiba player with an 8" screen.
You have IP of Anonymizer. Anonymizer has your IP and target IP.
Anonymizer is in a country that is not subject to U.S. Laws, does not keep logs, and uses encrypted communications with you.
Target IP may be another anonymizer in yet another country.
Ultimate target id is offering file you want.
So much for how it works...
Problem: No accountability. Leeches overwhelm seeders.
So you really need accountability to support p2p.
What seems to be happening. Private invitation only tracker sites with limited membership are springing up which mimic the old warez networks. Best invitations are for those with thick pipes and good connections to content creators (some of them literally in hollywood). Many layers like an onion- most folks will only get a few layers in and be happy.
You and your 50 closest buds share stuff and are members of multiple similar groups. Riaa and other agencies lose the big fat target they currently have. It gets a lot harder for "mom" to download so Riaa is happy as they can be when they know they are not getting every last dime possible. It gets harder to get the rare stuff since storage is smaller.
CSI: Las Vegas - The others still don't have the magic... nope Will & Grace - Their last season is starting off pretty good... nope NCIS - Abby nope Close to Home nope Without a Trace nope Cold Case nope Law & Order nope Threshold nope Commander & Chief nope Numbers nope
What do I watch... Veronica Mars Moonlighting (just out on dvd- missed it when it was on) Ghost in the Shell: Complex Series
I think 24, Lost, and Desperate Housewives would have been a lot better as single season shows. They all seem to have lost my interest after a few episodes into the second season.
Admittedly, TV doesn't have a lot of interest to me.
I think you should consider Mandarin before Cantonese.
China and India are a about generation away from turning lazy like we did, like the japanese did, etc.
You can't maintain depression era work ethic once you live in a rich society. The next generation won't see the point in working as hard as the current one.
If you are using a windows computer, it is very easy to lose control of your computer. As long as it is turned on and connected to the internet, then they can do whatever they want with it- download and upload porn, attack government internets, etc.
Ignorance is no excuse is going to take a beating in an age where your possessions can take actions on their own. Imagine if your car could start it self, drive down the street, carry some drugs across town, and return to your driveway without your knowledge. The police find traces of drugs in your car and observed it on the scene- mean while you were working the entire time.
Back when I was poor, I could work 20 hours a week to get "free" software. Once I made enough money, the attraction of maintaining connections and uploading so much crap to download items lost its appeal and I purchased most of my software.
The problem is that the cost of music is too high- to me movies are not too high- I mean come on- if you wait 3 months you can get just about anything for 7.50. If I spend more than 15 minutes getting it "Free", I just blew more than 7.50.
However- as bandwidth improves this equation slides. I know their effective cost is -zero- and that many of their products -should- have been out of copyright by now. I would feel no moral problems and no time problems if getting the beatles entire pre-1970 discography if it only took a few seconds to download.
Personally, I like the tax idea- it's close to "all you can eat" subscription model. I think content businesses should provide you a fast, easy way to download content and in return you pay a monthly fee (like cable). When your copy goes bad, is stolen, comes out in a better form, then you are going to want to be subscribed to download it again.
The insanity of Sony's position that if your CD is stolen, you must destroy your backup copies is unbelievable.
Of course, I havn't bought a Sony product in almost 5 years now.
Not at all, an intelligent designer creates a new virus after we solve the previous problem. It could be the intelligent designer is testing us or that it just likes to see huge numbers of us die periodically smothering as our lungs fill up with fluids. Virii are clearly to complicated to have come about randomly so all the pain and suffering they inflict must be with a purpose as well.:)
What's the use of max karma, if you don't spend it once in a while.
Dude... they did a global search and replace of "creationism" with "intelligent design" in one of the books submitted into the case as evidence.
The judge was extremely pissed because the many of the ID folks clearly lied -under oath on a bible-.
Evolution does not attack the central tenet of the christian faith- that jesus died and was reborn to take away your sins so you can get into heaven.
Christians used to be such friendly, nice, appealing folks- their hatred of evolution is turning them into hypocrites, liers, and generally nasty obnoxious people who are not really witnessing the faith very well but instead are driving a lot of folks away.
It's pretty clear that modern man has only existed about 100k years. It's pretty clear the earth has existed 4.5 billion yeras and that it started out barren (molten) and was uninhabitable for a long time after that (at least a billion years).
These are facts.
Evolution is conclusion about a set of facts. It proposes tests that are repeatable. It may be replaced with another theory tomorrow (unlikely but that's how science works). It says nothing about religion except most religions start with a creation story.
I'm sorry guy but it takes a leap of faith to start believing in supernatural beings so I'm going to have to disagree with you that atheism is a faith.
I'll give you this-
People who have faith that there are no gods of any kind are being religious.
I find nothing beautiful about the huge numbers of creatures eaten alive every day. Nothing wonderful about the huge number of people who starve, die of disease, or live short pointless lives ending in barbaric deaths-many of those due to religious reasons.
Those folks you quote are very smart- I'll grant you that, but that doesn't make them any less afraid of the dark at the end of the road. Without hope for a light, many would find life pretty pointless. It doesn't stop them from having been brainwashed before they could think rationally. Personally, I'd say mr. hoyle was talking out of his ass and that it was his personal opinion and not any kind of scientific argument he was advancing.
You may be engaging in a common misdirection used in these arguments. While each of them spoke of a creator, it is by no means clear they were talking about the christian god or the same god. Just as many of the american founding fathers were -deists- and not christians (some mocked it in their journals).
Finally, these fine gentlemen are not proposing any test or procedure that I can come to the same conclusion independently so you are basically arguing from authority figures which is not a valid way to advance an argument. Just accept that you cannot prove that god exists and all revelation is personal. You'll be happier if you do.
This universe is a terrible miserable place but it is great to be alive and among the the small percentage of people on this planet living comfortably.
I'm sure you do not believe in Thor- yet many sincerely did- we have never PROVEN THor does not exist.
Another sig here puts it best man. I'll paraphrase.
There are millions of gods not to believe in. Atheists simply believe in one less.
As an agnostic or atheist (the definition seems to wander around a bit) I do not believe that Gods do not exist. I do not believe that Gods do exist.
I have not stopped beating my wife since last tuesday.
Why would snowflake cause a huge pile of snow to kill thousands in a village below? Random crap happens all the time in the world.
God pretty clearly hasn't intervened in evolution on earth in billions of years (not millions). If you prefer to believe that he caused those first primative animals before trilobytes (sp) to exist, more power to you man. Science is about what we can actually observe. It's a method- not a religion.
For what it's worth, if god DID exist and was real- I'd think it's a pretty sick creature based on what's in the bible. It did some pretty morally heinous things if it was real.
People are christians because they believe in CHRIST.
Not because they believe god created the universe.
Believe in christ and that he died so your sins* would be forgiven and you would get to go to heaven.
*Including rape, torture, murder- just about anything as long as you sincerely converted and repented and acted appropriately within a few seconds before you died.
---
I don't believe but I hang out with some sincere believers.
Having a creator pop out of nothing is a LOT more complex than having a simple energy gradient.
It may have happened.
It may also be true that a non-intelligent creator that shits universes created our universe. Lots of things MIGHT have happened. Occam's razor says which is the simplest which could have happened. I'd say a simple uphill/downhill energy gradient would do the rest.
Evolution doesn't cover either ground. It covers what happened once life was moving- the first moment of life isn't covered. That is worked on in other fields.
---
With regard to your rolex in the other post... Add one little constraint and it becomes pretty trivial. Whenever two pieces randomly land correctly, they will stick together.
Slashdot Mirror
I went back and did some research and it looks like it was about 800 at that time. My memory of 183 was probably from a few years before that when I started. I remember tuition doubling in one year at one point when the legislature adjusted the really super-low hourly rate to something more realistic.
I reread it and my position doesn't change one iota.
By definition increasing costs over time -is- inflation. I'm not ignoring any point- you seem to be trying to redefine inflation in some wierd way.
I also paid less for apartments, food, transportation and insurance 13 years ago.
Sometimes costs rise slowly for a while and then rise rapidly. When I was going- we were getting a very good bargain- basically a week's pay for a semester of college.
Failing to increase government programs at least as fast as inflation is a cut.
If inflation is 4% and the government cuts the rate of increase from 4% to 2%, it -is- a cut in benefits.
$183 a semester- not $138. Yup state school in texas.
No it is NOT apples to oranges.
If inflation raises tuition 10% and the grant budget was supposed to go up 10% and they only increase it 2%, then a lot less students are going to get grants.
As another poster in this thread said:
If you consider getting a 1% raise a raise when there is 3% inflation, then your employer must love you.
You must always adjust things for inflation- it is the single biggest problem with the way they write many laws in this country. It is why the AMT is becoming a defacto "flat tax" because they didn't index it for inflation.
---
On a separate note, for those who can't read what I wrote...
My tuition 13 years ago was 183 for 12-14 hours of courses.
The same college now charges 1700+ for 12-14 hours of courses.
During that time pell grants and other government assistance has not kept pace with that increase. In inflation adjusted dollars, the programs have experience over a 50% cut while huge tax cuts were given to the wealthy.
We are wasting a lot of brains willing to work hard for the country and produce new wealth because of these cuts. These programs encouraged behavior beneficial to society and they were -cheap- and would be -cheap- (basically a rounding error) even if they had been inflation adjusted.
'Lowering Increase Inflation' == "Cutting back"
If you doubt that consider:
I went to college for at most $183 a semester (12 to 14 hour load).
Same college only 13 years later now charges $1,780 for the same load.
With azureus you can lock your download & upload rates so that doesn't happen.
There are many sources of music not associated with Riaa.
I suggest you check out magnatune.com as a start.
Another great place with riaa associated music that irritates Riaa is allofmp3.com.
But you're right- most music that is ethically* under copyright DOES suck.
* I draw the line at the new "forever" copyright laws they are buyi. er.. getting passed.
87 employees.
185 indian infosys contractors (130 of them in bangladore) that -would- have been employees 5 years ago.
Your probably right.
The only hope is for 18% wage inflation to continue.
Sure no problem in divx6 (180mb to 200mb!). A bit of a problem in divx5 (300mb to 400mb)
Best HD episode download I've seen was 23 minutes-- peaked at 487k per second. It helps that shows are up to almost 20 minutes of commercials so you are not really getting an "hour" of video.
There are now inexpensive divx6 players so folks don't even have to transcode it to watch it on their big screen TVs. I like the more expensive portable Toshiba player with an 8" screen.
Here is how it works.
You have IP of Anonymizer.
Anonymizer has your IP and target IP.
Anonymizer is in a country that is not subject to U.S. Laws, does not keep logs, and uses encrypted communications with you.
Target IP may be another anonymizer in yet another country.
Ultimate target id is offering file you want.
So much for how it works...
Problem: No accountability. Leeches overwhelm seeders.
So you really need accountability to support p2p.
What seems to be happening.
Private invitation only tracker sites with limited membership are springing up which mimic the old warez networks. Best invitations are for those with thick pipes and good connections to content creators (some of them literally in hollywood). Many layers like an onion- most folks will only get a few layers in and be happy.
You and your 50 closest buds share stuff and are members of multiple similar groups. Riaa and other agencies lose the big fat target they currently have. It gets a lot harder for "mom" to download so Riaa is happy as they can be when they know they are not getting every last dime possible. It gets harder to get the rare stuff since storage is smaller.
Do I watch these...
CSI: Las Vegas - The others still don't have the magic...
nope
Will & Grace - Their last season is starting off pretty good...
nope
NCIS - Abby
nope
Close to Home
nope
Without a Trace
nope
Cold Case
nope
Law & Order
nope
Threshold
nope
Commander & Chief
nope
Numbers
nope
What do I watch...
Veronica Mars
Moonlighting (just out on dvd- missed it when it was on)
Ghost in the Shell: Complex Series
I think 24, Lost, and Desperate Housewives would have been a lot better as single season shows. They all seem to have lost my interest after a few episodes into the second season.
Admittedly, TV doesn't have a lot of interest to me.
I think you should consider Mandarin before Cantonese.
China and India are a about generation away from turning lazy like we did, like the japanese did, etc.
You can't maintain depression era work ethic once you live in a rich society. The next generation won't see the point in working as hard as the current one.
I don't think you under stand about botnets.
If you are using a windows computer, it is very easy to lose control of your computer. As long as it is turned on and connected to the internet, then they can do whatever they want with it- download and upload porn, attack government internets, etc.
Ignorance is no excuse is going to take a beating in an age where your possessions can take actions on their own. Imagine if your car could start it self, drive down the street, carry some drugs across town, and return to your driveway without your knowledge. The police find traces of drugs in your car and observed it on the scene- mean while you were working the entire time.
Follow me here...
If you BUY microsoft software for $350 a license you pay an annual tax.
If you download Openoffice for free, there is no tax.
I expect M$ to lobby hard against this one.
Not entirely true.
Back when I was poor, I could work 20 hours a week to get "free" software. Once I made enough money, the attraction of maintaining connections and uploading so much crap to download items lost its appeal and I purchased most of my software.
The problem is that the cost of music is too high- to me movies are not too high- I mean come on- if you wait 3 months you can get just about anything for 7.50. If I spend more than 15 minutes getting it "Free", I just blew more than 7.50.
However- as bandwidth improves this equation slides. I know their effective cost is -zero- and that many of their products -should- have been out of copyright by now. I would feel no moral problems and no time problems if getting the beatles entire pre-1970 discography if it only took a few seconds to download.
Personally, I like the tax idea- it's close to "all you can eat" subscription model. I think content businesses should provide you a fast, easy way to download content and in return you pay a monthly fee (like cable). When your copy goes bad, is stolen, comes out in a better form, then you are going to want to be subscribed to download it again.
The insanity of Sony's position that if your CD is stolen, you must destroy your backup copies is unbelievable.
Of course, I havn't bought a Sony product in almost 5 years now.
I would add...
Make sure to get sick once in a while.
Make sure to get enough sleep.
If an epidemic breaks out- remember OTHER people get you sick, not getting wet or cold. Try to work from home if you are a computer type.
Not at all, an intelligent designer creates a new virus after we solve the previous problem. It could be the intelligent designer is testing us or that it just likes to see huge numbers of us die periodically smothering as our lungs fill up with fluids. Virii are clearly to complicated to have come about randomly so all the pain and suffering they inflict must be with a purpose as well. :)
What's the use of max karma, if you don't spend it once in a while.
Dude... they did a global search and replace of "creationism" with "intelligent design" in one of the books submitted into the case as evidence.
The judge was extremely pissed because the many of the ID folks clearly lied -under oath on a bible-.
Evolution does not attack the central tenet of the christian faith- that jesus died and was reborn to take away your sins so you can get into heaven.
Christians used to be such friendly, nice, appealing folks- their hatred of evolution is turning them into hypocrites, liers, and generally nasty obnoxious people who are not really witnessing the faith very well but instead are driving a lot of folks away.
It's pretty clear that modern man has only existed about 100k years. It's pretty clear the earth has existed 4.5 billion yeras and that it started out barren (molten) and was uninhabitable for a long time after that (at least a billion years).
These are facts.
Evolution is conclusion about a set of facts. It proposes tests that are repeatable. It may be replaced with another theory tomorrow (unlikely but that's how science works). It says nothing about religion except most religions start with a creation story.
Personally I hope we keep it.
I like christmas with all of it's drinking, partying and debauchery.
But then again, that's what MERRY is all about- being drunk.
That's why christmas WAS banned by puritans and why in the 1800's they said HAPPY christmas, not MERRY christmas.
I'm sorry guy but it takes a leap of faith to start believing in supernatural beings so I'm going to have to disagree with you that atheism is a faith.
I'll give you this-
People who have faith that there are no gods of any kind are being religious.
But
People who lack faith in any gods are not.
I find nothing beautiful about the huge numbers of creatures eaten alive every day. Nothing wonderful about the huge number of people who starve, die of disease, or live short pointless lives ending in barbaric deaths-many of those due to religious reasons.
Those folks you quote are very smart- I'll grant you that, but that doesn't make them any less afraid of the dark at the end of the road. Without hope for a light, many would find life pretty pointless. It doesn't stop them from having been brainwashed before they could think rationally. Personally, I'd say mr. hoyle was talking out of his ass and that it was his personal opinion and not any kind of scientific argument he was advancing.
You may be engaging in a common misdirection used in these arguments. While each of them spoke of a creator, it is by no means clear they were talking about the christian god or the same god. Just as many of the american founding fathers were -deists- and not christians (some mocked it in their journals).
Finally, these fine gentlemen are not proposing any test or procedure that I can come to the same conclusion independently so you are basically arguing from authority figures which is not a valid way to advance an argument. Just accept that you cannot prove that god exists and all revelation is personal. You'll be happier if you do.
This universe is a terrible miserable place but it is great to be alive and among the the small percentage of people on this planet living comfortably.
I'm sure you do not believe in Thor- yet many sincerely did- we have never PROVEN THor does not exist.
Another sig here puts it best man. I'll paraphrase.
There are millions of gods not to believe in. Atheists simply believe in one less.
As an agnostic or atheist (the definition seems to wander around a bit) I do not believe that Gods do not exist. I do not believe that Gods do exist.
I have not stopped beating my wife since last tuesday.
Why would snowflake cause a huge pile of snow to kill thousands in a village below? Random crap happens all the time in the world.
God pretty clearly hasn't intervened in evolution on earth in billions of years (not millions). If you prefer to believe that he caused those first primative animals before trilobytes (sp) to exist, more power to you man. Science is about what we can actually observe. It's a method- not a religion.
For what it's worth, if god DID exist and was real- I'd think it's a pretty sick creature based on what's in the bible. It did some pretty morally heinous things if it was real.
Are you serious?
People are christians because they believe in CHRIST.
Not because they believe god created the universe.
Believe in christ and that he died so your sins* would be forgiven and you would get to go to heaven.
*Including rape, torture, murder- just about anything as long as you sincerely converted and repented and acted appropriately within a few seconds before you died.
---
I don't believe but I hang out with some sincere believers.
And there is also a pretty good possibility that only by thinking in religious ways can we influence certain body systems.
The placebo effect is stronger than medicine sometimes. Faith/belief can do a lot without religion or god needing to be around.
No.
Having a creator pop out of nothing is a LOT more complex than having a simple energy gradient.
It may have happened.
It may also be true that a non-intelligent creator that shits universes created our universe. Lots of things MIGHT have happened. Occam's razor says which is the simplest which could have happened. I'd say a simple uphill/downhill energy gradient would do the rest.
Evolution doesn't cover either ground. It covers what happened once life was moving- the first moment of life isn't covered. That is worked on in other fields.
---
With regard to your rolex in the other post...
Add one little constraint and it becomes pretty trivial.
Whenever two pieces randomly land correctly, they will stick together.
That's what atoms in the universe are more like.