I have two "jobs like" friends who left college after a couple years because they got great jobs and saw no point in continuing. Both have done very well.
OTH, I have a friend whose path into management is blocked until he finishes the degree. Even tho he has years experience, is well-liked, etc. They want the BA piece of paper.
You misunderstood his point.
Large numbers of college graduates make better than average incomes. Some do very well.
Large numbers of college dropouts do not do well. Some do very well.
Adding your comment in... At this time, it appears with a very small sample size that dropouts who do very well, do better than graduates. Of course the sample size is small, so who can say that the result isn't just a matter of random chance.
For every movie star there are 99 who ruin their lives trying to be a movie star. They end up poor with nothing.
College changes the odds. About 75% of college graduates that I know make double the average national wage or higher. 95% of them make at least $55k which is about $15k over the national average wage. 5% of them did not do well despite their degree.
Lot's of people SAY they can take on a huge project and finish it. A college graduate proves that they have already:
1) Worked in a complex bureaucracy for many years.
2) Learned huge amounts of material repeatedly.
3) Has decent reading and writing skills.
4) Worked and conformed in a complex organization with complex politics.
5) May have made a lot of useful contacts (more likely if they were in a fraternity or sorority).
People like Jobs or Gates (And Penn and Teller who recently dissed college on Bullshit!) are brilliant AND lucky. And not just mildly lucky- there are definately hundreds and probably Jobs', Gates' (and Penn and Teller)'s contemporaries who amounted to nothing.
Most colleges do a decent job of preparing you to be a -worker- and low level boss. Most colleges do not prepare you for being a high level boss or an entrepreneur. But it's not bad- I'll clear about 2 million over my life time- my pensions, investments and savings from that look like they will net another million. That's after kids, ski trips, owning a house, new cars, etc. so I wasn't a hermit or miser.
And that's on a bachelor's degree with a 2.99GPA.
Despair.com said it best...
NOT EVERYONE GETS TO BE AN ASTRONAUT WHEN THEY GROW UP.
So my advice is:
Go to college.
Take your CORE first.
If you really are brilliant and passionate and get the shot- dump college and go for it.
If your of average intelligence and passion, then get the degree and have a decent life. Understand that the levels of competition for those few top spots is insanely high. You have to really want it enough to sacrifice everything knowing you will almost certainly fail and end up with nothing.
You can buy a couple good 23db fan that moves 30cfm for about 20 bucks.
With the improved fan, it runs at 38c instead of 44c and it is almost silent.
My future marks are comparable to other pentium 3.0's. I currently have a 9600XT but it looks like the 9800 pro can be had for the same price and it is twice as fast according to tomshardwareguide and anandtech benchmarks.
I'm considering the 6600 as well. The leadtek is supposed to be quiet and fast and it is about 20 dollars more.
I'm really happy with my experience buying low and customising compared to scratch building in the past. It also seems cheaper.
There is nothing wrong with living by your own morality or code. I live by my own code as well.
If you are going to live by your own code you need to be discreet or prepared to accept or avoid the consequences society is going to lay on you when they find out.
The p2p society will blacklist you. The riaa society will take everything you own or at least a few thousand dollars.
---
I plugged in my home network cable and turned it on.
It started up and immediately worked.
I could see all other computers on my network.
I put in DVD's and they played.
I could burn DVD's.
The neighbors 3 blocks over called to complain about the noise.:)
---
Since then, I've made the following upgrades.
1) replaced the ram with a stick of 512mb mushkin ($29).
2) Installed two silent fans ($9 and $12). One replaced the noisy fan that was screwed to the heatsink- I kept the original heat sink.
3) New video card (but the 9250 is NOT dx9 like it says on the box so it's going back).
---
Out of the box, the GQ-7000 is a noisy good computer for playing, burning dvds, browsing the internet, and playing games that do not need heavy video performance. It is NOT suitable for modern games.
---
With MINOR upgrades ($29+$21+~$169), you have a very quiet, 3.0ghz computer with a 1 generation old (geo6600 or similar ati) graphics.
Furthermore, you don't have to install the OS and you have a restore CD to quickly reinstall the OS later.
---
$300 computers are usually celeron/semprons in my experience and too far back. But at $400, you can get last year's state of the art performance without overclockiing.
1) P2p of copyrighted materials is about cheating the system to get free material you would other wise have to pay for.
2) So why should they suddenly be moral and not cheat the P2p system if they can find a way to?
Well the first problem is that I think your entire story is a big fat made up lie.
But granting that this --really-- happened.
You face a lot bigger problems than p2p. Walmart sells the same CD's that you do at a fraction of the cost and your big buddies give walmart a better price break than they do you. The price walmart charges for CD's is below the price you PAY wholesale for your CD's.
Then there is amazon and other similar services. I buy most of my dvd's and crap like that online now. The product is delivered to my door and it is STILL cheaper than buying it in your store.
But there's more. 12 years ago, there were maybe 40 tv stations, no real dvd's to watch, a lot less videogames, etc. I listened to music a couple hours a week more then than I do now.
But there's still more. The music they put out these days is generic crap. It all sounds the same- most of the artists can't sing their own material in concert- and it doesn't have anything to say. I listen to new songs a couple times on the radio and have no interest in purchasingthem.
But there's still more. The price of CD's is SO expensive compared to the physical cost to make them that it just pisses me off and I wouldn't buy a new CD even if I DID like the music. I'll record it off the radio, buy a used cd, buy it off "Allofmp3.com", etc.
CD sales and profits are UP. WAY UP. So while your poor mythical store is suffering someone is selling a hell of a lot of CD's somewhere.
Next time you might also add how you are supporting your old feeble grandmother and a young child. That's what politicians always do when they want to pass another onerous law.
If they just came out and said, "We are going to have copyright -FOREVER- people might fight. But by doing it a small chunk at a time, they are going to get the same thing a lot easier.
They bust them but they are likely to be found not guilty.
There is an article in today's houston chronicle that says about 1-2% of people who thought they were dealing drugs were actually unknowingly selling things like baking soda so their lawyer advised them not to plead guilty until the lab test results came back and proved the substance they had been selling was really an illegal substance.
I conclude from the article that either the sentence would be greatly reduced, or they might even be found not guilty if tried.
Had to go to a meeting and missed an "end bold" tag.
Here is a correctly formatted version.
"National prohibition of file swapping (2005-)--the "noble experiment" -- was undertaken to protect the distribution chain of large multi-national businesses and to create perpetual monopolies well past the death of artists to continue lining the pockets of the rich with more money and to suppress creation of any new works based on the same ideas indefinately. The results of that experiment clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure on all counts. The evidence affirms that the process caused a great deal of debate and had many unexpected outcomes. Ultimately it showed that prohibiting something widely desired by the masses is doomed to failure
The lessons of Prohibition remain important today. They apply not only to the debate over the war on file swapping, the war on drugs and other "arbitrary" moral wars but also to the mounting efforts to drastically reduce access to file swapping and to such issues as censorship and bans on insider trading, abortion, and gambling.
Although consumption of illegal music fell at the beginning of Prohibition, it subsequently increased as people came to feel "illegal" was not the same as "immoral". The court and prison systems found it infeasible to even prosecute since the vast majority of the population was engaged in the activity; even tho the corruption of public officials by large corporations was rampant. No measurable gains were made in art quality or artists' standard of living for "pop" artists because the unfair contracts and account the distribution company had always used were unchanged. However, it did lead to the growth of independent distribution channels such as "Magnatune" where artists received 50% of donations for works which consumers could FREELY sample before paying. Prohibition removed a significant source of tax revenue and greatly increased government spending. Hostile action by music producers against their own customers led many listeners to switch to new artists who did not work for the major music companies and abandon stupid artists like Brittney Spears, Ashlee Simpson, NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys. Those results are documented from a variety of sources, most of which, ironically, are the work of supporters of Copyright Law--most economists and social scientists supported it. Their findings make the case against Copyright Law that much stronger."
P2p doesn't HAVE to share with 50 people. You could rewrite the software so each person only gets things from 2 other people. And if you wanted something from "James", the software would trace a line of "friends" from you to a person that has it.
Person "1" would only let person "31" copy it who would only let person "73" copy it who would let you copy it. Picture it like the social networking software.
Done this way you could prove that -you- were only giving 2 other people copies of the item.
The only reason it's done differently now is because past practices and legal pressures produced that result. Under new legal pressures, people will find a way.
Nice try but I think this is closer to the truth.
"National prohibition of file swapping (2005-)--the "noble experiment" -- was undertaken to protect the distribution chain of large multi-national businesses and to create perpetual monopolies well past the death of artists to continue lining the pockets of the rich with more money and to suppress creation of any new works based on the same ideas indefinately. The results of that experiment clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure on all counts. The evidence affirms that the process caused a great deal of debate and had many unexpected outcomes. Ultimately it showed that prohibiting something widely desired by the masses is doomed to failure
The lessons of Prohibition remain important today. They apply not only to the debate over the war on file swapping, the war on drugs and other "arbitrary" moral wars but also to the mounting efforts to drastically reduce access to file swapping and to such issues as censorship and bans on insider trading, abortion, and gambling.
Although consumption of illegal music fell at the beginning of Prohibition, it subsequently increased as people came to feel "illegal" was not the same as "immoral". The court and prison systems found it infeasible to even prosecute since the vast majority of the population was engaged in the activity; even tho the corruption of public officials by large corporations was rampant. No measurable gains were made in art quality or artists' standard of living for "pop" artists because the unfair contracts and account the distribution company had always used were unchanged. However, it did lead to the growth of independent distribution channels such as "Magnatune" where artists received 50% of donations for works which consumers could FREELY sample before paying. Prohibition removed a significant source of tax revenue and greatly increased government spending. Hostile action by music producers against their own customers led many listeners to switch to new artists who did not work for the major music companies and abandon stupid artists like Brittney Spears, Ashlee Simpson, NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys. Those results are documented from a variety of sources, most of which, ironically, are the work of supporters of Copyright Law--most economists and social scientists supported it. Their findings make the case against Copyright Law that much stronger."
I agree that this argument, as a snippet, is still a little lacking. However, the fundamental problems originally addressed by copyright protection as well as patent protection are no longer handled by said laws.
Say that they say "You can share a song with TWO other people legally".
That's all you need to effectively share the song with everyone.
I share with Paul and Sam.
They each share with 1 new person who does the same.
In fact, that is a way to reduce the damages in current lawsuits. Have the software limit you to sharing with X other people at a time and "Z" people total. Then you can prove you were not responsible for distributing more than "Z" copies which limits your financial liability.
If you want the therapeutic effect, you are not supposed to use cold for more than 20 minutes at a time. Then you need to let the area warm back up so fresh blood will flush it of toxins.
You can repeat this cycle several times until you get to a point of diminishing returns.
The answer to that is impossible to determine. If I or anyone -could- answer that question, we could probably get rich.
It won't be another mmog tho- you can't be a virgin twice. You can't regain that "first mmorg" feel with another mmog. True "plugin/matrix" VR is decades away but even a mmorg in a VR would still be just a mmog unless you could -feel- things like they were real...
Slashdot Mirror
That if you went back and killed your grandfather, then you do not return to the future you left from but to a split off universe.
So you would exist but you would never have existed in that parallel universe.
So you can't change the past of your home universe but you could go back and fork off into a different one.
OTH,
How cool is it to work with other mathemeticians on math and science that is years ahead of the rest of the world. How much money is that worth?
Is it worth the ability to publish to know you may be working on problems that the someone at the NSA solved 10 years ago?
That's a good point.
I have two "jobs like" friends who left college after a couple years because they got great jobs and saw no point in continuing. Both have done very well.
OTH, I have a friend whose path into management is blocked until he finishes the degree. Even tho he has years experience, is well-liked, etc. They want the BA piece of paper.
You misunderstood his point.
Large numbers of college graduates make better than average incomes. Some do very well.
Large numbers of college dropouts do not do well. Some do very well.
Adding your comment in... At this time, it appears with a very small sample size that dropouts who do very well, do better than graduates. Of course the sample size is small, so who can say that the result isn't just a matter of random chance.
For every movie star there are 99 who ruin their lives trying to be a movie star. They end up poor with nothing.
College changes the odds. About 75% of college graduates that I know make double the average national wage or higher. 95% of them make at least $55k which is about $15k over the national average wage. 5% of them did not do well despite their degree.
Lot's of people SAY they can take on a huge project and finish it. A college graduate proves that they have already:
1) Worked in a complex bureaucracy for many years.
2) Learned huge amounts of material repeatedly.
3) Has decent reading and writing skills.
4) Worked and conformed in a complex organization with complex politics.
5) May have made a lot of useful contacts (more likely if they were in a fraternity or sorority).
People like Jobs or Gates (And Penn and Teller who recently dissed college on Bullshit!) are brilliant AND lucky. And not just mildly lucky- there are definately hundreds and probably Jobs', Gates' (and Penn and Teller)'s contemporaries who amounted to nothing.
Most colleges do a decent job of preparing you to be a -worker- and low level boss. Most colleges do not prepare you for being a high level boss or an entrepreneur. But it's not bad- I'll clear about 2 million over my life time- my pensions, investments and savings from that look like they will net another million. That's after kids, ski trips, owning a house, new cars, etc. so I wasn't a hermit or miser.
And that's on a bachelor's degree with a 2.99GPA.
Despair.com said it best...
NOT EVERYONE GETS TO BE AN ASTRONAUT WHEN THEY GROW UP.
So my advice is:
Go to college.
Take your CORE first.
If you really are brilliant and passionate and get the shot- dump college and go for it.
If your of average intelligence and passion, then get the degree and have a decent life. Understand that the levels of competition for those few top spots is insanely high. You have to really want it enough to sacrifice everything knowing you will almost certainly fail and end up with nothing.
You can buy a couple good 23db fan that moves 30cfm for about 20 bucks.
With the improved fan, it runs at 38c instead of 44c and it is almost silent.
My future marks are comparable to other pentium 3.0's. I currently have a 9600XT but it looks like the 9800 pro can be had for the same price and it is twice as fast according to tomshardwareguide and anandtech benchmarks.
I'm considering the 6600 as well. The leadtek is supposed to be quiet and fast and it is about 20 dollars more.
I'm really happy with my experience buying low and customising compared to scratch building in the past. It also seems cheaper.
There is nothing wrong with living by your own morality or code. I live by my own code as well.
If you are going to live by your own code you need to be discreet or prepared to accept or avoid the consequences society is going to lay on you when they find out.
The p2p society will blacklist you. The riaa society will take everything you own or at least a few thousand dollars.
GQ-7000 (Fry's cheapy brand)
:)
Pentium 3.0.
motherboard video
Generic motherboard, case.
Speakers, mouse, keyboard.
DVD burner. 4.7 gig dual standard.
256mb ram.
--- I plugged in my home network cable and turned it on.
It started up and immediately worked.
I could see all other computers on my network.
I put in DVD's and they played.
I could burn DVD's.
The neighbors 3 blocks over called to complain about the noise.
--- Since then, I've made the following upgrades.
1) replaced the ram with a stick of 512mb mushkin ($29).
2) Installed two silent fans ($9 and $12). One replaced the noisy fan that was screwed to the heatsink- I kept the original heat sink.
3) New video card (but the 9250 is NOT dx9 like it says on the box so it's going back).
---
Out of the box, the GQ-7000 is a noisy good computer for playing, burning dvds, browsing the internet, and playing games that do not need heavy video performance. It is NOT suitable for modern games.
---
With MINOR upgrades ($29+$21+~$169), you have a very quiet, 3.0ghz computer with a 1 generation old (geo6600 or similar ati) graphics. Furthermore, you don't have to install the OS and you have a restore CD to quickly reinstall the OS later.
---
$300 computers are usually celeron/semprons in my experience and too far back. But at $400, you can get last year's state of the art performance without overclockiing.
1) P2p of copyrighted materials is about cheating the system to get free material you would other wise have to pay for. 2) So why should they suddenly be moral and not cheat the P2p system if they can find a way to?
See my reply to the previous posting of this spam/troll post here:
d =12768928
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=152166&ci
Thank you...
Well the first problem is that I think your entire story is a big fat made up lie.
But granting that this --really-- happened.
You face a lot bigger problems than p2p. Walmart sells the same CD's that you do at a fraction of the cost and your big buddies give walmart a better price break than they do you. The price walmart charges for CD's is below the price you PAY wholesale for your CD's.
Then there is amazon and other similar services. I buy most of my dvd's and crap like that online now. The product is delivered to my door and it is STILL cheaper than buying it in your store.
But there's more. 12 years ago, there were maybe 40 tv stations, no real dvd's to watch, a lot less videogames, etc. I listened to music a couple hours a week more then than I do now.
But there's still more. The music they put out these days is generic crap. It all sounds the same- most of the artists can't sing their own material in concert- and it doesn't have anything to say. I listen to new songs a couple times on the radio and have no interest in purchasingthem.
But there's still more. The price of CD's is SO expensive compared to the physical cost to make them that it just pisses me off and I wouldn't buy a new CD even if I DID like the music. I'll record it off the radio, buy a used cd, buy it off "Allofmp3.com", etc.
CD sales and profits are UP. WAY UP. So while your poor mythical store is suffering someone is selling a hell of a lot of CD's somewhere.
Next time you might also add how you are supporting your old feeble grandmother and a young child. That's what politicians always do when they want to pass another onerous law.
Not sure you are correct. If you zoom out two levels, you see blocks and blocks of perfectly right angle rectangular city blocks.
Of course, when they recently checked "pure" spring water up in the mountains it had over 70 modern contaminants including "rocket fuel".
So the formula probably is different because of a lot of contaminants that did not exist 200 years ago.
In 50 years, they are going to extend it again.
If they just came out and said, "We are going to have copyright -FOREVER- people might fight. But by doing it a small chunk at a time, they are going to get the same thing a lot easier.
I wonder if it would be like offering "Madonna - like a virgin.mp3" for download when it is really a recording of your opinion of the song?
They bust them but they are likely to be found not guilty.
There is an article in today's houston chronicle that says about 1-2% of people who thought they were dealing drugs were actually unknowingly selling things like baking soda so their lawyer advised them not to plead guilty until the lab test results came back and proved the substance they had been selling was really an illegal substance.
I conclude from the article that either the sentence would be greatly reduced, or they might even be found not guilty if tried.
Keep in mind that a 21" CRT is going to consume more power and pump more heat (which needs AC to cool).
The electricity costs will add up over time.
I had it for a year. It's not bad.
I did not work in some small towns but was fast in the big cities.
I'd test it in your area before you use it.
Many fatal diseases have survival value in certain circumstances (like sickle cell).
Today's "bad" gene may be the basis for tomorrow's "able to tolerate natural toxins and pollution" gene.
Had to go to a meeting and missed an "end bold" tag. Here is a correctly formatted version.
"National prohibition of file swapping (2005-)--the "noble experiment" -- was undertaken to protect the distribution chain of large multi-national businesses and to create perpetual monopolies well past the death of artists to continue lining the pockets of the rich with more money and to suppress creation of any new works based on the same ideas indefinately. The results of that experiment clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure on all counts. The evidence affirms that the process caused a great deal of debate and had many unexpected outcomes. Ultimately it showed that prohibiting something widely desired by the masses is doomed to failure The lessons of Prohibition remain important today. They apply not only to the debate over the war on file swapping, the war on drugs and other "arbitrary" moral wars but also to the mounting efforts to drastically reduce access to file swapping and to such issues as censorship and bans on insider trading, abortion, and gambling.
Although consumption of illegal music fell at the beginning of Prohibition, it subsequently increased as people came to feel "illegal" was not the same as "immoral". The court and prison systems found it infeasible to even prosecute since the vast majority of the population was engaged in the activity; even tho the corruption of public officials by large corporations was rampant. No measurable gains were made in art quality or artists' standard of living for "pop" artists because the unfair contracts and account the distribution company had always used were unchanged. However, it did lead to the growth of independent distribution channels such as "Magnatune" where artists received 50% of donations for works which consumers could FREELY sample before paying. Prohibition removed a significant source of tax revenue and greatly increased government spending. Hostile action by music producers against their own customers led many listeners to switch to new artists who did not work for the major music companies and abandon stupid artists like Brittney Spears, Ashlee Simpson, NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys. Those results are documented from a variety of sources, most of which, ironically, are the work of supporters of Copyright Law--most economists and social scientists supported it. Their findings make the case against Copyright Law that much stronger."
You are missing the point.
P2p doesn't HAVE to share with 50 people. You could rewrite the software so each person only gets things from 2 other people. And if you wanted something from "James", the software would trace a line of "friends" from you to a person that has it.
Person "1" would only let person "31" copy it who would only let person "73" copy it who would let you copy it. Picture it like the social networking software.
Done this way you could prove that -you- were only giving 2 other people copies of the item.
The only reason it's done differently now is because past practices and legal pressures produced that result. Under new legal pressures, people will find a way.
Nice try but I think this is closer to the truth. "National prohibition of file swapping (2005-)--the "noble experiment" -- was undertaken to protect the distribution chain of large multi-national businesses and to create perpetual monopolies well past the death of artists to continue lining the pockets of the rich with more money and to suppress creation of any new works based on the same ideas indefinately. The results of that experiment clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure on all counts. The evidence affirms that the process caused a great deal of debate and had many unexpected outcomes. Ultimately it showed that prohibiting something widely desired by the masses is doomed to failure The lessons of Prohibition remain important today. They apply not only to the debate over the war on file swapping, the war on drugs and other "arbitrary" moral wars but also to the mounting efforts to drastically reduce access to file swapping and to such issues as censorship and bans on insider trading, abortion, and gambling. Although consumption of illegal music fell at the beginning of Prohibition, it subsequently increased as people came to feel "illegal" was not the same as "immoral". The court and prison systems found it infeasible to even prosecute since the vast majority of the population was engaged in the activity; even tho the corruption of public officials by large corporations was rampant. No measurable gains were made in art quality or artists' standard of living for "pop" artists because the unfair contracts and account the distribution company had always used were unchanged. However, it did lead to the growth of independent distribution channels such as "Magnatune" where artists received 50% of donations for works which consumers could FREELY sample before paying. Prohibition removed a significant source of tax revenue and greatly increased government spending. Hostile action by music producers against their own customers led many listeners to switch to new artists who did not work for the major music companies and abandon stupid artists like Brittney Spears, Ashlee Simpson, NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys. Those results are documented from a variety of sources, most of which, ironically, are the work of supporters of Copyright Law--most economists and social scientists supported it. Their findings make the case against Copyright Law that much stronger." I agree that this argument, as a snippet, is still a little lacking. However, the fundamental problems originally addressed by copyright protection as well as patent protection are no longer handled by said laws.
With computers even that is abusable.
Say that they say "You can share a song with TWO other people legally".
That's all you need to effectively share the song with everyone.
I share with Paul and Sam. They each share with 1 new person who does the same.
In fact, that is a way to reduce the damages in current lawsuits. Have the software limit you to sharing with X other people at a time and "Z" people total. Then you can prove you were not responsible for distributing more than "Z" copies which limits your financial liability.
If you want the therapeutic effect, you are not supposed to use cold for more than 20 minutes at a time. Then you need to let the area warm back up so fresh blood will flush it of toxins.
You can repeat this cycle several times until you get to a point of diminishing returns.
Ah.
The answer to that is impossible to determine. If I or anyone -could- answer that question, we could probably get rich.
It won't be another mmog tho- you can't be a virgin twice. You can't regain that "first mmorg" feel with another mmog. True "plugin/matrix" VR is decades away but even a mmorg in a VR would still be just a mmog unless you could -feel- things like they were real...