I don't believe "oversupply" is the word to use here.
It's real hard to have too much of a commodity. If there is an "oversupply" of pork then people will eat pork instead of beef or chicken, therefore the "oversupply" goes away before it even happens. If there is an "oversupply" of cement then prices come down, people start to think they'd like a new driveway, cities build more roads, and the "oversupply" disappears.
With DRAM this just means that smartphones, computers, and TV sets, will have more DRAM for the same price or prices drop on the devices. There's an endless demand for more memory on consumer devices, I find it very difficult to believe that there will ever be a true "oversupply".
So, when the government uses threats of violence to wrench children from their parents, you will happily not only pay to educate them but also to provide food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare (not to mention extensive bills for therapy)?
I see you did not comprehend what I wrote. Here it is again...
The parents have an obligation to educate their children and if they fail in this obligation to the point that it causes harm to me then I would think the government is not obligated to educate the children for them but to remove the children from the parents and find foster parents that take the obligation of children to be educated seriously.
I said foster parents would raise the children. There are many childless couples, and parents that already have children of their own, that seek to grow their own family willing to take on the burden for parents unable to do so. Alternatively, again...
If you believe that I should pay to educate your children then ask me for a donation, don't use the force of government to take that money. There's a number of private schools that offer scholarships for those unable to pay the tuition, including ones created by my family and other families in the community to attend the same private schools I attended.
A parent unable to afford an education for their children should do what they can to get that education. That might mean asking for help from the community. There are numerous people that will provide such assistance. They may simply volunteer to take the children to the library and teach them.
If you think education is 'real cheap' in America, your parents quietly paid a lot more than you think and know it or not, you were born on third base.
My parents did pay a lot, and I know that. I also know that "a lot" is relative. What you don't seem to comprehend is that bringing children to the level of a high school education does not take considerable skill or expense. Parents can go to any of a number of resources to find lesson plans, recommended reading lists, and so on to teach at home. Given the sad state of public education this trend of home schooling is gaining ground.
As for being "born on third base"... My parents didn't go to college. My mom finished high school but my dad did not, having been pulled out of the school after 9th grade to work on the family farm. My parents took pride in being able to provide for their children and refused to apply for subsidized school lunches even though they would have qualified. They worked hard, invested wisely, and were able to retire in a nice brick house in the countryside. You see, everyone in the USA was "born on third base" because everyone has the opportunity to be born to a life of a dirt farmer and retire a millionaire.
Because one day, you and your children (if any) will have to depend on them to help run the world.
That's true but that does not create an obligation for me to educate your children. The parents have an obligation to educate their children and if they fail in this obligation to the point that it causes harm to me then I would think the government is not obligated to educate the children for them but to remove the children from the parents and find foster parents that take the obligation of children to be educated seriously.
If you believe that I should pay to educate your children then ask me for a donation, don't use the force of government to take that money. There's a number of private schools that offer scholarships for those unable to pay the tuition, including ones created by my family and other families in the community to attend the same private schools I attended. Using the force of government to get my money because you've failed to meet your obligations is immoral. If you can't afford to educate your children then you are an unfit parent.
I presume you got an education?
My parents saw to it that I was educated. They paid for my education as a child in private schools. They offered assistance as a young adult at university, the rest I paid by finding work and enlisting in the military. Education in the USA is real cheap, there are few excuses for a parent to be unable to educate their children. Those with such a need will find people to help. For those cases where a parent cannot provide for things like food, shelter, clothing, and education then the children should be removed from the parents.
Here's the biggest problem I have with public education, the waste. For as much as the government spends on public education we should be able to afford private tutors for every family, not this impersonal assembly line crap we have now.
I noticed you made no effort to disprove that white and asian students are being discriminated against based only on their race. I made my case that this racial discrimination exists. I'd like to see you prove otherwise.
Saying that no one wants to see this data is provably false, numerous colleges and universities have been sued for this data. There are people that want to know. I'm sure that some schools sued over their blatantly racist admissions will fight for this to not come out. That's not because they want to protect their white male privilege, or not only because of that, but because if the claims are proven to be school policy (as opposed to some crazy coincidence) then people could end up in jail.
If you can show that white male students were allowed to get into college without meeting the minimum admission requirements, stay in college when they should have been flunked out, and/or graduated even though they didn't meet the graduation requirements, then this would be breaking the law and I'd want to see it stopped. I don't want to see substandard students of any race get degrees they didn't earn so don't accuse me of being racist here.
Again, you make the mistake of not considering the base rate to begin with.
What does that even mean? The article was quite clear, the guy got in to medical school, with lower grades than his Asian American friend who was denied entry, because he pretended to be African American. What does "base rate" have to do with this?
You rant against "minority quota", but how many straight white males also should have flunked out but stayed in?
Listen, facts don't care about your feelings. If you have data that straight white males have been allowed to stay in college even after failing to meet requirements then I'd like to see it.
Kind of stupid of you to assume that everything was all hunky-dory until the minorities got in.
It's kind of stupid to assume everything is "hunky dory" now by letting in students based on race rather than their test scores and other measures of academic achievement. Racial discrimination is illegal in the USA, even if it's to the benefit of minorities. Maybe this tactic of having racial quotas was necessary at some point but it's not helpful any more.
If minorities want to be respected in their fields then their peers need to know that they met the same level of rigor to get where they are as anyone else.
What is horrifying is that this racist tactic of having differing levels on admittance to medical schools is that these people are treating patients when there were others more qualified for the job. This means more mistakes, and it means more people die. I like the idea of computerized diagnostics, but for it to work it takes people with proper knowledge of medicine to enter the right data, interpret the recommendations, and know when the computer is making a mistake. We see this with airline pilots leaning on the automatic pilot too much, they don't realize when the computer has screwed up and/or don't know how to fly the plane when the computer fails. This means people die.
This tactic of taking race of university applicants into account to determine fitness for entry is, by definition, racism. I thought we were trying to do away with racism in America.
In some countries they require women to wear burkas so American Airlines is planning this for all their female stewardesses and pilots world-wide?
I do recall hearing something about flights to certain countries requiring that female crew wear at least a headscarf. There were also restrictions on where the crew may go and what they do while in the country. This caused problems for the airlines, of course. I might have to look this up, I recall an airline (from France?) allowing female crew to opt out of flights to these Muslim countries. This is highly unusual as the airlines typically just tell crew which flights they will work.
If you think for one second that Trump would go to war with China over Taiwan, you're delusional.
A war with China? That should be a fun half hour.
First, he doesn't even know the difference between the two.
Trump owns his own airplane, which he's flown all over the world. You want to pretend that Trump doesn't know where these countries are? I'll admit that he's not the most educated man but I'm guessing he knows where these places are and how they do business.
Second, he'll follow the money, which is China.
I read about what he did to get Otto Warmbier home. When Trump heard about Warmbier being ill he basically called up North Korea and told them that he was sending a plane to come pick him up. There was no negotiation, there was a demand. North Korea folded, granted a pardon to Warmbier and allowed the plane to leave with him on board. That's not "following the money". It's also far more than Obama tried to do.
I have no idea what Trump might do. I'm guessing that he'd like to flatten some of these nations that have caused trouble for the USA for so long, but if it isn't his better judgement stopping him then it's his advisors.
If Trump was just following the money then he wouldn't be in a trade war with China right now. I'm not all that pleased that POTUS has such authority to effectively dictate the price of steel but that's an authority granted to Congress in the Constitution and Congress delegated some of this authority to POTUS. I'd like to see Congress get in the business of... well, doing their damned job.
That brings up another authority Congress delegated to POTUS, the ability to effectively enact a war without first getting permission from Congress. That was real funny hearing Congress making a bunch of noise on POTUS after POTUS waging war all over the world. At the same time Congress approved the budget to wage war, and did nothing to dial back the delegated authority of POTUS to continue waging war.
I've noticed that much of the world stopped laughing at the USA now that Trump is in the Oval Office. That's probably because they realize that Trump just might be crazy enough to wage a war on China.
It's really a pity they didn't go with BeOS instead. That was some fresh new design, again from people who had escaped the Apple fogzone.
Maybe they would have if the asking price wasn't so high. At least that's how I recall the story from news reports at the time. Be Inc had a nice OS but it was far from a finished product even at the R5 stage of development. Sure, it booted and ran but that's not a complete product. BeOS may have been a complete operating system but without development tools, libraries to build on, and so forth, it was not something valuable to developers.
Near the end they started to add in open source software to make it appeal to some of the Linux and BSD types but at that point it just started to look like any other *nix clone, except it had an untested kernel, a non-X11 window system, and a funny file system. As I recall the multi-user capability on BeOS was incomplete or absent. Having that in the days of MacOS 7 and Windows 98 might have been acceptable but people were demanding multi-user systems, especially in education and corporate environments where BeOS was (supposedly) competing.
Of course a lot of things were going on at the time that made things difficult for BeOS to get adopted. Microsoft was playing games with licensing for end users and computer manufacturers, where they'd have to pay for a Windows license even if the computer shipped with BeOS. There was the "browser wars" that left BeOS in a spot with their browser being limited by the lack of web standards and no one willing to put much effort in porting a browser. Apple licensed their design to others, allowing BeOS a platform to run on, and then Apple pulling the licensing.
I played with BeOS quite a bit for a while. Used it to play some games, write some code, but it became clear that the hardware developers weren't interested (again likely because of games Apple and Microsoft were playing), and the software people didn't come without a base of users and hardware.
An AI can only be as good as the data used to train it. The article pointed out that Watson was trained using what was possibly based as much on objective data as much as it was on subjective preferences of the physicians that fed it data.
I recall reading an article about someone doing a study on medical procedures done throughout the USA and they noticed "hot spots" of procedures being done in certain areas. What they found was that in these places they'd see physicians that would recommend procedures out of personal preference. One example was a an area with a lot of tonsillectomies, because a physician felt that any throat infection meant the tonsils had to come out. Another area had an elevated number of hysterectomies, because a physician felt that post-menopause women had an elevated risk of developing cysts and cancers on the uterus. The article went on to say that while such treatments may be unusual no one was willing to consider this malpractice.
So, Watson recommended a treatment for someone that might aggravate an existing problem of severe bleeding. Is this bad coding for not taking this into account? Or, is there a physician that entered such a prescription for their patient with similar symptoms? It's real difficult to second guess a physician. It's real easy to second guess the computer. Even if both the computer and the human came to the same recommendation for treatment.
Why should the local taxpayers pay for your books and 3D printed gewgaws?
An excellent question. Here's another, why should my tax dollars pay for the education of your children?
I had someone argue with me that the Library of Congress was unconstitutional and a waste of taxpayer money. The library's original purpose was to be a resource for members of Congress, and others in government, so that they might be able to educate themselves on topics that concern the nation. To meet this purpose they kept not just books but also maps and other materials that would meet this purpose. The size of the library grew to a point that it was thought best to open access to the public, and to serve an additional purpose of maintaining a record of copyrighted works. That was my argument for the Library of Congress, to be a store of copyrighted works so that there is a store of what was copyrighted so that the government had a record of what works the copyright was granted. An additional purpose I pointed out for the Library of Congress is to be a store of the laws we are supposed to follow, and other records of importance.
On a local level a library can and should serve a similar purpose as the Library of Congress does on the federal level. A local government is not tasked with enforcing copyrights but every government on every level must keep records for the functioning of the government. It can also be a store of reference material for government employees. The lawmakers should have access to knowledge that concerns the area they govern. Other employees would need information on a variety of topics as well. A county medical examiner might need access to references on various diseases. A city engineer might need access to things like the strengths of materials, materials on how to manage traffic, and topographical maps. Getting to the point on public schools, the teachers and administrators will want to have books of all kinds for educating children.
So, why have a public library? Well, we could have each public school in an area maintain books for the students. The public hospital could maintain a library for their staff. The government might keep a library for it's lawmakers and civil servants. Or, we could consolidate all these materials into a central location, managed by people that specialize in managing large volumes of documents, and as an added bonus open this up to the public so that they can take advantage of this store of knowledge as well.
I'm convinced that governments on every level should keep a public library. I'm not so convinced we need public schools. Private schools, and their students, can take advantage of the works contained in a public library just as well as a public school could. Also, parent could educate his or her own children without the need of a public school so long as there is a public library.
I went to private schools as a kid, and we made regular trips to the library as a class. The schools had their own "library" as well but that was mostly for keeping track of the textbooks and keeping other materials of high demand close at hand. The public library was a resource for the students, teachers, government employees, and the community.
In other words, the public library is there so you can access books and make 3D printed trinkets. Just because you don't see value in it is your problem.
At first I thought this meant something that could cut vinyl phonograph recordings. That would be awesome, and something that libraries used to offer long ago. I never saw one, that was before my time, but I've read about them. A quick search on the interwebs though tells me what was referred to was likely a device that makes cutouts into sheets of vinyl for stencils and such. Still useful, but not near as awesome.
I do agree that libraries are now far more than a place people go to read books. I found that the local libraries offer a wide selection of video and music recordings as well. They offer free internet (well, taxpayer funded internet, nothing is free). I didn't explore the child's section but as I walked by it looked like they had toys there to play with, and I assume people can check those out like a book. They offer artwork for checkout, a friend of mine and his wife like to take advantage of this so they can hang a different piece of art in their living room every month.
One time I was at the library I found a gaggle of screaming little kids being escorted into a small movie theater of sorts attached to the library. I found out that they were showing Frozen, the sing-along version, and gave out coloring books for the kids. I don't know if there was a fee for this but lots of neighborhood kids were there. This room was available to be checked out for meetings, and they held other events in the room as well.
So, a library is a place to get more than books, and a place for the community to gather for events that are fun and/or educational. That cannot be replaced with a website.
These are just glorified call centers with very low wages.
In a call center there are a lot of low wage jobs but these are skilled labor positions. The people on the phones need managers, and computers they use need support. The people on the phones will gain further skills on the job, and be able to save money for certifications, training, and college. I worked in call centers and the people there were probably 2/3rds those that will work that job until they die, and the rest moving on to be managers, programmers, and other high wage jobs. Maybe I'm being optimistic on the future prospects of those working there but then at a minimum it's jobs that didn't end up elsewhere.
Some might laugh at working in a call center as "skilled labor". I worked as a computer lab monitor in college, basically I was there to keep the printer stocked with paper and make sure people didn't walk off with the computers. I'd also be responsible for answering questions students had with the computers. You'd be surprised at how much "skill" it takes to just operate a computer because I saw people that lacked these skills. These were people that graduated high school. Granted, some were from overseas and taking biology or something where they might not need to interact with a computer often. That just means that while they were intelligent enough for college they lacked the skills to operate a computer. If there's jobs for these intelligent people to get some experience with a phone and and computer then unskilled people can get skills needed for many other technical, clerical, and managerial positions.
Another thing, the people in these jobs might not be bound for some high wage technical position but their children might. A parent with a job that they only have to answer the phone and type some things into a computer will have the money to buy a phone and computer for their home, and teach their children how to use them.
There are all kinds of governments (city, state, national, whatever) that are willing to invest real money in getting a call center into their area. Or, they would if they were smart and cared about the future. This means in 20 years, give or take, they will have a large population of experienced workers that have basic skills needed to move up to high wage jobs, young adults that grew up in a home with literate and skilled parents, and many others somewhere in between.
Go ahead and laugh. We'll see who laughs last. California is in a downward spiral. If they can't even attract call centers to their state then they will have much greater problems very soon.
I'll believe that the TSA agents are taking airplane security seriously when they start putting the TSA agents on the planes. I know that the crew have their best interests in mind on that plane because they have to ride in the plane. Maybe that's how it can work, the TSA agents become the crew. They take a shift working security, then they take a shift as attendants on the plane. Of course they can't check themselves through security so someone else has to check them.
Here's a better idea. Have the airlines provide their own security. I don't believe that Congress has any real concern over the security of an airplane except to the point that one might land on their collective laps like was the plan on 9/11. The airlines on the other hand have a very real interest in not losing an airplane. The crew of the airplanes have a very real interest in not getting lost with the plane. Make the airlines responsible for the security because if they screw up then I can find a different airline. If the TSA screws up then what's my option? Find a new government? Right, let's do that.
I propose we put in the document that creates the government something like this:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
If the government wants to search my bags before getting on an airplane then they should need a warrant.
honestly, this country would be a better place if we went back to pre-9/11 levels of security with locked/reinforced cockpit doors.
And arming the pilots. Armed pilots was common practice for a long time. This was stopped when passengers weren't allowed to have weapons, after numerous hijackings in the 1970s as I recall. It was restored for a while after 9/11 but Obama put an end to that.
So whilst permits may be issued for 4200 (which is per year, I thought it was over 30 years, as that would still be massively more than the observed number of deaths), it is highly unlikely that wind turbines will kill that many eagles.
If there is no expectation that the eagle kill rate would exceed more than a few hundred per year then why did the wind energy lobby ask for a quadrupling of the existing levels to reach an allowed 4200 kills per year? Seems to me that they expected to exceed prior limits or they would not have asked for the limits to be raised.
There is no CO2 savings from wind power, not yet anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... The YouTube video goes through more than the problems of greenhouse gasses, CO2 and methane. It also discusses costs in dollars. The CO2 impact really gets going about 18 minutes in.
Wind and solar need storage to work. Right now and for the foreseeable future that storage is fuel. Fuel is storage. We have inherent energy storage now in the form of fuel tanks, coal piles, and uranium pellets.
And when the wind blows, those peaking plants are not on. If they are half as efficient as combined cycle, but are on less than half as often, then overall the CO2 output is reduced.
Then when natural gas leakage is taken into account, because no pipe is perfect, the greenhouse gas effect exceeds that of using coal. This is mentioned in the video. You also assume a best case scenario where wind blows half the time. Germany found out that this cannot be relied upon. They made a big deal about the wind energy they produced one year only to see a significant drop the next when the weather did not produce as much usable wind. Germany has admitted they will be unable to meet agreed upon CO2 reductions even with their past and planned investments in wind and solar.
The choices we have are not limited to wind or coal. I'd like to see more nuclear power. Nuclear power kills far fewer birds than wind or coal.
It's not like mining ends with using windmills. Those windmills use a lot of metal, concrete, and even coal, to make. The coal is used to refine the aluminum and steel. Maybe alternatives could be found but that won't be easy because the carbon in coal is part of the chemical process, not just burned for heat. That carbon would have to come from something.
Also, I wish to be absolutely clear. I don't care about the birds. Birds are jerks. If the concern is saving the birds then the choices for our energy should be what has the least impact on birds. That's nuclear power. If the concern is to lower CO2 then we should choose the energy source with the lowest CO2 released per energy produced. That's nuclear power, wind, and hydro. If the concern is not relying on foreign sources of energy to maintain national security then we need to source as much energy as possible domestically. That means drilling for oil inside our borders, wind, hydro, and nuclear power. If the goal is to improve the quality of life of Americans by reducing pollution of air and water, reducing risks to the public from accidents, and providing inexpensive and reliable energy then that means using energy sources that provide this. That means nuclear power needs to be a part of that solution.
Again, birds are jerks. I don't care about the birds, but I'll pretend to care if it gets me more nuclear power.
People are amazed I don't do on-line banking, given my high tech lifestyle and knowledge of computers. I don't do online banking precisely because of what I know of computer security.
I'll take on-line banking seriously when my bank takes it seriously. That means offering some kind of key for user verification. This might be in the form of one of those pseudo-random number generators I had from a previous employer, a USB key like mentioned in the fine article, or whatever else of similar function that might be out there. I'd like something that I can use from any computer but even if it's limited to my home computer or smart phone then I'd be very pleased. Until then I'm fine with going to the conveniently located brick and mortar bank location and take advantage of the BTMs (bio-teller machines) inside.
Time Machine allows for use of a wide variety of means for a backup. The Airport Extreme and Time Capsule made sense when cable modems were fairly dumb devices, and people still used dial-up internet. Now it's rare for a cable modem to not have a built-in wireless router. Even low end routers and cable modems have a USB port to share a hard drive and/or printer. Printers have wireless communications built-in them now too.
I didn't hear of the discontinuation of Apple's wireless routers until today, but it makes sense. I'll help my mom with her computer and she had an Apple base station, all it did was make things more complicated. The DSL modem has wireless built into it. The printer has it's own Apple compatible print server and WiFi. I'd like to see her have a backup on her computer but she doesn't much care. If she did then there's home file server appliances people can get for this now.
For Apple to compete in the wireless base station space now would mean needing to include something that can connect to the internet people see at home. Maybe they can offer a Time Capsule with a cable modem interface, but what of the people with DSL like my mom? Or 4G to the home like one of my brothers? Or fiber, like another of my brothers? Or satellite, like I might have to get because Mediacom is pissing me off?
Apple used to be able to get away with having Ethernet to the modem of choice, and dial-up on early models, but that's not working any more. I don't blame them for leaving this product space. I don't like it, but I can see why they did it.
Being able to easily upgrade your products yourself? That hasn't been the industry standard in years.
I've been doing computer support and repair for longer than I care to admit. People just don't upgrade computers any more, at least not like they used to.
What I see happening now is computers getting smaller and being reduced from a series of parts into a single appliance. People used to replace parts in their TV sets. People used to have their VCR repaired. (Well, people used to have a VCR.) No one does that now. Same for a computer. The change happened very quickly, or so it seems to me. I'd be able to replace broken parts on a common PC but now a common PC is smaller than the first CD burner I bought. There's nothing to replace any more. I can swap out a hard drive. Maybe I can upgrade the RAM. Anything else and the PC is beyond repair.
Laptops have been sealed up appliances for a long time. It's not just Apple that's soldered drives to logic boards. Maybe someone could take out enough screws in a current non-Apple laptop to find the SSD in a socket. The sockets are rarely standard, and even if it was there's enough standards that just looking at the drive might not be enough to tell you what kind of replacement or upgrade will work. Seems like memory upgrades for laptops are still relatively common but I don't see many people bothering any more. Memory is cheap enough now that people don't bother buying a sub-par laptop with the intent to upgrade the RAM later. They just buy what they think will work for them now and buy a new laptop later if/when it no longer meets their needs.
Maybe Apple is ahead of the curve on this. Maybe you are thinking of laptops of old.
That's nice when you're traveling and don't want to carry an external storage device, and either choose not to trust the "cloud" with your data, or don't have the mobile bandwidth for it to work well. Why not give users a CHOICE of removing the internal storage device to recover their data?
They have a choice, buy an Apple or don't buy an Apple.
Because Apple, that's why? Instead of a $100 SSD upgrade, they want to foist an entire new laptop on their users. Plus they can upsell iCloud space based on the risk of data loss.
Apple does market research like most every company does. I suspect that Apple does far more research on this than other companies. There's a trade off here that had to be made, either make a laptop that's small and thin for the majority or make one with a removable drive for the minority that wants the ability to upgrade the drive and/or have the ability to remove the drive in case of a failure.
Marketeers are arseholes, and Apple are the worst of the worst.
"Marketeers" are aiming for the biggest market. What you are saying is that you are not in the market for an Apple. I'm guessing you have not ever bought an Apple product, so why should Apple "marketeers" care what you have to say about their products?
I claim that the threats posed to gray wolves and beetles from these changes to the endangered species act is also alarmist. I'm just asking for consistency here. If Trump just signed a death warrant for gray wolves then Obama did the same for the golden eagle. If Obama did nothing wrong then Trump did nothing wrong. If we can't develop land for windmills and oil wells because it threatens protected species then we need energy from something, I propose that something is nuclear power.
Would you support allowing the market to build affordable housing by restoring the rights of developers to build more densely than surrounding properties, or are you just playing games here?
Yes. I also support the rights of developers and property managers to set their own rates. Rent control and subsidized housing does not help the homeless, it only drives up prices. A city can force a developer to offer a percentage of rental units to be under a certain rent but that just forces the rent higher in the units that remain. High taxes to fund subsidized housing isn't helpful either. Prices need to reflect the market, that includes rent and wages.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't believe "oversupply" is the word to use here.
It's real hard to have too much of a commodity. If there is an "oversupply" of pork then people will eat pork instead of beef or chicken, therefore the "oversupply" goes away before it even happens. If there is an "oversupply" of cement then prices come down, people start to think they'd like a new driveway, cities build more roads, and the "oversupply" disappears.
With DRAM this just means that smartphones, computers, and TV sets, will have more DRAM for the same price or prices drop on the devices. There's an endless demand for more memory on consumer devices, I find it very difficult to believe that there will ever be a true "oversupply".
So, when the government uses threats of violence to wrench children from their parents, you will happily not only pay to educate them but also to provide food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare (not to mention extensive bills for therapy)?
I see you did not comprehend what I wrote. Here it is again...
The parents have an obligation to educate their children and if they fail in this obligation to the point that it causes harm to me then I would think the government is not obligated to educate the children for them but to remove the children from the parents and find foster parents that take the obligation of children to be educated seriously.
I said foster parents would raise the children. There are many childless couples, and parents that already have children of their own, that seek to grow their own family willing to take on the burden for parents unable to do so. Alternatively, again...
If you believe that I should pay to educate your children then ask me for a donation, don't use the force of government to take that money. There's a number of private schools that offer scholarships for those unable to pay the tuition, including ones created by my family and other families in the community to attend the same private schools I attended.
A parent unable to afford an education for their children should do what they can to get that education. That might mean asking for help from the community. There are numerous people that will provide such assistance. They may simply volunteer to take the children to the library and teach them.
If you think education is 'real cheap' in America, your parents quietly paid a lot more than you think and know it or not, you were born on third base.
My parents did pay a lot, and I know that. I also know that "a lot" is relative. What you don't seem to comprehend is that bringing children to the level of a high school education does not take considerable skill or expense. Parents can go to any of a number of resources to find lesson plans, recommended reading lists, and so on to teach at home. Given the sad state of public education this trend of home schooling is gaining ground.
As for being "born on third base"... My parents didn't go to college. My mom finished high school but my dad did not, having been pulled out of the school after 9th grade to work on the family farm. My parents took pride in being able to provide for their children and refused to apply for subsidized school lunches even though they would have qualified. They worked hard, invested wisely, and were able to retire in a nice brick house in the countryside. You see, everyone in the USA was "born on third base" because everyone has the opportunity to be born to a life of a dirt farmer and retire a millionaire.
Seriously? He has pilots to fly the plane.
Of course he has pilots fly his plane.
Because one day, you and your children (if any) will have to depend on them to help run the world.
That's true but that does not create an obligation for me to educate your children. The parents have an obligation to educate their children and if they fail in this obligation to the point that it causes harm to me then I would think the government is not obligated to educate the children for them but to remove the children from the parents and find foster parents that take the obligation of children to be educated seriously.
If you believe that I should pay to educate your children then ask me for a donation, don't use the force of government to take that money. There's a number of private schools that offer scholarships for those unable to pay the tuition, including ones created by my family and other families in the community to attend the same private schools I attended. Using the force of government to get my money because you've failed to meet your obligations is immoral. If you can't afford to educate your children then you are an unfit parent.
I presume you got an education?
My parents saw to it that I was educated. They paid for my education as a child in private schools. They offered assistance as a young adult at university, the rest I paid by finding work and enlisting in the military. Education in the USA is real cheap, there are few excuses for a parent to be unable to educate their children. Those with such a need will find people to help. For those cases where a parent cannot provide for things like food, shelter, clothing, and education then the children should be removed from the parents.
Here's the biggest problem I have with public education, the waste. For as much as the government spends on public education we should be able to afford private tutors for every family, not this impersonal assembly line crap we have now.
I noticed you made no effort to disprove that white and asian students are being discriminated against based only on their race. I made my case that this racial discrimination exists. I'd like to see you prove otherwise.
Saying that no one wants to see this data is provably false, numerous colleges and universities have been sued for this data. There are people that want to know. I'm sure that some schools sued over their blatantly racist admissions will fight for this to not come out. That's not because they want to protect their white male privilege, or not only because of that, but because if the claims are proven to be school policy (as opposed to some crazy coincidence) then people could end up in jail.
If you can show that white male students were allowed to get into college without meeting the minimum admission requirements, stay in college when they should have been flunked out, and/or graduated even though they didn't meet the graduation requirements, then this would be breaking the law and I'd want to see it stopped. I don't want to see substandard students of any race get degrees they didn't earn so don't accuse me of being racist here.
Again, you make the mistake of not considering the base rate to begin with.
What does that even mean? The article was quite clear, the guy got in to medical school, with lower grades than his Asian American friend who was denied entry, because he pretended to be African American. What does "base rate" have to do with this?
You rant against "minority quota", but how many straight white males also should have flunked out but stayed in?
Listen, facts don't care about your feelings. If you have data that straight white males have been allowed to stay in college even after failing to meet requirements then I'd like to see it.
It's been widely reported that medical schools have been discriminating on race for a long time now. Here's a few articles on it that I found with Google.
https://www.nationalreview.com...
http://www.aei.org/publication...
http://www.aei.org/publication...
http://www.savvypremed.com/sav...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
Kind of stupid of you to assume that everything was all hunky-dory until the minorities got in.
It's kind of stupid to assume everything is "hunky dory" now by letting in students based on race rather than their test scores and other measures of academic achievement. Racial discrimination is illegal in the USA, even if it's to the benefit of minorities. Maybe this tactic of having racial quotas was necessary at some point but it's not helpful any more.
If minorities want to be respected in their fields then their peers need to know that they met the same level of rigor to get where they are as anyone else.
What is horrifying is that this racist tactic of having differing levels on admittance to medical schools is that these people are treating patients when there were others more qualified for the job. This means more mistakes, and it means more people die. I like the idea of computerized diagnostics, but for it to work it takes people with proper knowledge of medicine to enter the right data, interpret the recommendations, and know when the computer is making a mistake. We see this with airline pilots leaning on the automatic pilot too much, they don't realize when the computer has screwed up and/or don't know how to fly the plane when the computer fails. This means people die.
This tactic of taking race of university applicants into account to determine fitness for entry is, by definition, racism. I thought we were trying to do away with racism in America.
In some countries they require women to wear burkas so American Airlines is planning this for all their female stewardesses and pilots world-wide?
I do recall hearing something about flights to certain countries requiring that female crew wear at least a headscarf. There were also restrictions on where the crew may go and what they do while in the country. This caused problems for the airlines, of course. I might have to look this up, I recall an airline (from France?) allowing female crew to opt out of flights to these Muslim countries. This is highly unusual as the airlines typically just tell crew which flights they will work.
If you think for one second that Trump would go to war with China over Taiwan, you're delusional.
A war with China? That should be a fun half hour.
First, he doesn't even know the difference between the two.
Trump owns his own airplane, which he's flown all over the world. You want to pretend that Trump doesn't know where these countries are? I'll admit that he's not the most educated man but I'm guessing he knows where these places are and how they do business.
Second, he'll follow the money, which is China.
I read about what he did to get Otto Warmbier home. When Trump heard about Warmbier being ill he basically called up North Korea and told them that he was sending a plane to come pick him up. There was no negotiation, there was a demand. North Korea folded, granted a pardon to Warmbier and allowed the plane to leave with him on board. That's not "following the money". It's also far more than Obama tried to do.
I have no idea what Trump might do. I'm guessing that he'd like to flatten some of these nations that have caused trouble for the USA for so long, but if it isn't his better judgement stopping him then it's his advisors.
If Trump was just following the money then he wouldn't be in a trade war with China right now. I'm not all that pleased that POTUS has such authority to effectively dictate the price of steel but that's an authority granted to Congress in the Constitution and Congress delegated some of this authority to POTUS. I'd like to see Congress get in the business of... well, doing their damned job.
That brings up another authority Congress delegated to POTUS, the ability to effectively enact a war without first getting permission from Congress. That was real funny hearing Congress making a bunch of noise on POTUS after POTUS waging war all over the world. At the same time Congress approved the budget to wage war, and did nothing to dial back the delegated authority of POTUS to continue waging war.
I've noticed that much of the world stopped laughing at the USA now that Trump is in the Oval Office. That's probably because they realize that Trump just might be crazy enough to wage a war on China.
It's really a pity they didn't go with BeOS instead. That was some fresh new design, again from people who had escaped the Apple fogzone.
Maybe they would have if the asking price wasn't so high. At least that's how I recall the story from news reports at the time. Be Inc had a nice OS but it was far from a finished product even at the R5 stage of development. Sure, it booted and ran but that's not a complete product. BeOS may have been a complete operating system but without development tools, libraries to build on, and so forth, it was not something valuable to developers.
Near the end they started to add in open source software to make it appeal to some of the Linux and BSD types but at that point it just started to look like any other *nix clone, except it had an untested kernel, a non-X11 window system, and a funny file system. As I recall the multi-user capability on BeOS was incomplete or absent. Having that in the days of MacOS 7 and Windows 98 might have been acceptable but people were demanding multi-user systems, especially in education and corporate environments where BeOS was (supposedly) competing.
Of course a lot of things were going on at the time that made things difficult for BeOS to get adopted. Microsoft was playing games with licensing for end users and computer manufacturers, where they'd have to pay for a Windows license even if the computer shipped with BeOS. There was the "browser wars" that left BeOS in a spot with their browser being limited by the lack of web standards and no one willing to put much effort in porting a browser. Apple licensed their design to others, allowing BeOS a platform to run on, and then Apple pulling the licensing.
I played with BeOS quite a bit for a while. Used it to play some games, write some code, but it became clear that the hardware developers weren't interested (again likely because of games Apple and Microsoft were playing), and the software people didn't come without a base of users and hardware.
An AI can only be as good as the data used to train it. The article pointed out that Watson was trained using what was possibly based as much on objective data as much as it was on subjective preferences of the physicians that fed it data.
I recall reading an article about someone doing a study on medical procedures done throughout the USA and they noticed "hot spots" of procedures being done in certain areas. What they found was that in these places they'd see physicians that would recommend procedures out of personal preference. One example was a an area with a lot of tonsillectomies, because a physician felt that any throat infection meant the tonsils had to come out. Another area had an elevated number of hysterectomies, because a physician felt that post-menopause women had an elevated risk of developing cysts and cancers on the uterus. The article went on to say that while such treatments may be unusual no one was willing to consider this malpractice.
So, Watson recommended a treatment for someone that might aggravate an existing problem of severe bleeding. Is this bad coding for not taking this into account? Or, is there a physician that entered such a prescription for their patient with similar symptoms? It's real difficult to second guess a physician. It's real easy to second guess the computer. Even if both the computer and the human came to the same recommendation for treatment.
Why should the local taxpayers pay for your books and 3D printed gewgaws?
An excellent question. Here's another, why should my tax dollars pay for the education of your children?
I had someone argue with me that the Library of Congress was unconstitutional and a waste of taxpayer money. The library's original purpose was to be a resource for members of Congress, and others in government, so that they might be able to educate themselves on topics that concern the nation. To meet this purpose they kept not just books but also maps and other materials that would meet this purpose. The size of the library grew to a point that it was thought best to open access to the public, and to serve an additional purpose of maintaining a record of copyrighted works. That was my argument for the Library of Congress, to be a store of copyrighted works so that there is a store of what was copyrighted so that the government had a record of what works the copyright was granted. An additional purpose I pointed out for the Library of Congress is to be a store of the laws we are supposed to follow, and other records of importance.
On a local level a library can and should serve a similar purpose as the Library of Congress does on the federal level. A local government is not tasked with enforcing copyrights but every government on every level must keep records for the functioning of the government. It can also be a store of reference material for government employees. The lawmakers should have access to knowledge that concerns the area they govern. Other employees would need information on a variety of topics as well. A county medical examiner might need access to references on various diseases. A city engineer might need access to things like the strengths of materials, materials on how to manage traffic, and topographical maps. Getting to the point on public schools, the teachers and administrators will want to have books of all kinds for educating children.
So, why have a public library? Well, we could have each public school in an area maintain books for the students. The public hospital could maintain a library for their staff. The government might keep a library for it's lawmakers and civil servants. Or, we could consolidate all these materials into a central location, managed by people that specialize in managing large volumes of documents, and as an added bonus open this up to the public so that they can take advantage of this store of knowledge as well.
I'm convinced that governments on every level should keep a public library. I'm not so convinced we need public schools. Private schools, and their students, can take advantage of the works contained in a public library just as well as a public school could. Also, parent could educate his or her own children without the need of a public school so long as there is a public library.
I went to private schools as a kid, and we made regular trips to the library as a class. The schools had their own "library" as well but that was mostly for keeping track of the textbooks and keeping other materials of high demand close at hand. The public library was a resource for the students, teachers, government employees, and the community.
In other words, the public library is there so you can access books and make 3D printed trinkets. Just because you don't see value in it is your problem.
vinyl cutting machine
At first I thought this meant something that could cut vinyl phonograph recordings. That would be awesome, and something that libraries used to offer long ago. I never saw one, that was before my time, but I've read about them. A quick search on the interwebs though tells me what was referred to was likely a device that makes cutouts into sheets of vinyl for stencils and such. Still useful, but not near as awesome.
I do agree that libraries are now far more than a place people go to read books. I found that the local libraries offer a wide selection of video and music recordings as well. They offer free internet (well, taxpayer funded internet, nothing is free). I didn't explore the child's section but as I walked by it looked like they had toys there to play with, and I assume people can check those out like a book. They offer artwork for checkout, a friend of mine and his wife like to take advantage of this so they can hang a different piece of art in their living room every month.
One time I was at the library I found a gaggle of screaming little kids being escorted into a small movie theater of sorts attached to the library. I found out that they were showing Frozen, the sing-along version, and gave out coloring books for the kids. I don't know if there was a fee for this but lots of neighborhood kids were there. This room was available to be checked out for meetings, and they held other events in the room as well.
So, a library is a place to get more than books, and a place for the community to gather for events that are fun and/or educational. That cannot be replaced with a website.
We'll see if the economy still exists in 15 or 20 years.
These are just glorified call centers with very low wages.
In a call center there are a lot of low wage jobs but these are skilled labor positions. The people on the phones need managers, and computers they use need support. The people on the phones will gain further skills on the job, and be able to save money for certifications, training, and college. I worked in call centers and the people there were probably 2/3rds those that will work that job until they die, and the rest moving on to be managers, programmers, and other high wage jobs. Maybe I'm being optimistic on the future prospects of those working there but then at a minimum it's jobs that didn't end up elsewhere.
Some might laugh at working in a call center as "skilled labor". I worked as a computer lab monitor in college, basically I was there to keep the printer stocked with paper and make sure people didn't walk off with the computers. I'd also be responsible for answering questions students had with the computers. You'd be surprised at how much "skill" it takes to just operate a computer because I saw people that lacked these skills. These were people that graduated high school. Granted, some were from overseas and taking biology or something where they might not need to interact with a computer often. That just means that while they were intelligent enough for college they lacked the skills to operate a computer. If there's jobs for these intelligent people to get some experience with a phone and and computer then unskilled people can get skills needed for many other technical, clerical, and managerial positions.
Another thing, the people in these jobs might not be bound for some high wage technical position but their children might. A parent with a job that they only have to answer the phone and type some things into a computer will have the money to buy a phone and computer for their home, and teach their children how to use them.
There are all kinds of governments (city, state, national, whatever) that are willing to invest real money in getting a call center into their area. Or, they would if they were smart and cared about the future. This means in 20 years, give or take, they will have a large population of experienced workers that have basic skills needed to move up to high wage jobs, young adults that grew up in a home with literate and skilled parents, and many others somewhere in between.
Go ahead and laugh. We'll see who laughs last. California is in a downward spiral. If they can't even attract call centers to their state then they will have much greater problems very soon.
I'll believe that the TSA agents are taking airplane security seriously when they start putting the TSA agents on the planes. I know that the crew have their best interests in mind on that plane because they have to ride in the plane. Maybe that's how it can work, the TSA agents become the crew. They take a shift working security, then they take a shift as attendants on the plane. Of course they can't check themselves through security so someone else has to check them.
Here's a better idea. Have the airlines provide their own security. I don't believe that Congress has any real concern over the security of an airplane except to the point that one might land on their collective laps like was the plan on 9/11. The airlines on the other hand have a very real interest in not losing an airplane. The crew of the airplanes have a very real interest in not getting lost with the plane. Make the airlines responsible for the security because if they screw up then I can find a different airline. If the TSA screws up then what's my option? Find a new government? Right, let's do that.
I propose we put in the document that creates the government something like this:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
If the government wants to search my bags before getting on an airplane then they should need a warrant.
honestly, this country would be a better place if we went back to pre-9/11 levels of security with locked/reinforced cockpit doors.
And arming the pilots. Armed pilots was common practice for a long time. This was stopped when passengers weren't allowed to have weapons, after numerous hijackings in the 1970s as I recall. It was restored for a while after 9/11 but Obama put an end to that.
Actually there was a misread of the text, it's Virginians
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
(Note: The video has Robin Williams saying some four letter words.)
So whilst permits may be issued for 4200 (which is per year, I thought it was over 30 years, as that would still be massively more than the observed number of deaths), it is highly unlikely that wind turbines will kill that many eagles.
If there is no expectation that the eagle kill rate would exceed more than a few hundred per year then why did the wind energy lobby ask for a quadrupling of the existing levels to reach an allowed 4200 kills per year? Seems to me that they expected to exceed prior limits or they would not have asked for the limits to be raised.
There is no CO2 savings from wind power, not yet anyway.
Citation needed.
https://blog.oup.com/2017/10/s...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The YouTube video goes through more than the problems of greenhouse gasses, CO2 and methane. It also discusses costs in dollars. The CO2 impact really gets going about 18 minutes in.
Wind and solar need storage to work. Right now and for the foreseeable future that storage is fuel. Fuel is storage. We have inherent energy storage now in the form of fuel tanks, coal piles, and uranium pellets.
And when the wind blows, those peaking plants are not on. If they are half as efficient as combined cycle, but are on less than half as often, then overall the CO2 output is reduced.
Then when natural gas leakage is taken into account, because no pipe is perfect, the greenhouse gas effect exceeds that of using coal. This is mentioned in the video. You also assume a best case scenario where wind blows half the time. Germany found out that this cannot be relied upon. They made a big deal about the wind energy they produced one year only to see a significant drop the next when the weather did not produce as much usable wind. Germany has admitted they will be unable to meet agreed upon CO2 reductions even with their past and planned investments in wind and solar.
The choices we have are not limited to wind or coal. I'd like to see more nuclear power. Nuclear power kills far fewer birds than wind or coal.
It's not like mining ends with using windmills. Those windmills use a lot of metal, concrete, and even coal, to make. The coal is used to refine the aluminum and steel. Maybe alternatives could be found but that won't be easy because the carbon in coal is part of the chemical process, not just burned for heat. That carbon would have to come from something.
Also, I wish to be absolutely clear. I don't care about the birds. Birds are jerks. If the concern is saving the birds then the choices for our energy should be what has the least impact on birds. That's nuclear power. If the concern is to lower CO2 then we should choose the energy source with the lowest CO2 released per energy produced. That's nuclear power, wind, and hydro. If the concern is not relying on foreign sources of energy to maintain national security then we need to source as much energy as possible domestically. That means drilling for oil inside our borders, wind, hydro, and nuclear power. If the goal is to improve the quality of life of Americans by reducing pollution of air and water, reducing risks to the public from accidents, and providing inexpensive and reliable energy then that means using energy sources that provide this. That means nuclear power needs to be a part of that solution.
Again, birds are jerks. I don't care about the birds, but I'll pretend to care if it gets me more nuclear power.
People are amazed I don't do on-line banking, given my high tech lifestyle and knowledge of computers. I don't do online banking precisely because of what I know of computer security.
I'll take on-line banking seriously when my bank takes it seriously. That means offering some kind of key for user verification. This might be in the form of one of those pseudo-random number generators I had from a previous employer, a USB key like mentioned in the fine article, or whatever else of similar function that might be out there. I'd like something that I can use from any computer but even if it's limited to my home computer or smart phone then I'd be very pleased. Until then I'm fine with going to the conveniently located brick and mortar bank location and take advantage of the BTMs (bio-teller machines) inside.
Time Machine allows for use of a wide variety of means for a backup. The Airport Extreme and Time Capsule made sense when cable modems were fairly dumb devices, and people still used dial-up internet. Now it's rare for a cable modem to not have a built-in wireless router. Even low end routers and cable modems have a USB port to share a hard drive and/or printer. Printers have wireless communications built-in them now too.
I didn't hear of the discontinuation of Apple's wireless routers until today, but it makes sense. I'll help my mom with her computer and she had an Apple base station, all it did was make things more complicated. The DSL modem has wireless built into it. The printer has it's own Apple compatible print server and WiFi. I'd like to see her have a backup on her computer but she doesn't much care. If she did then there's home file server appliances people can get for this now.
For Apple to compete in the wireless base station space now would mean needing to include something that can connect to the internet people see at home. Maybe they can offer a Time Capsule with a cable modem interface, but what of the people with DSL like my mom? Or 4G to the home like one of my brothers? Or fiber, like another of my brothers? Or satellite, like I might have to get because Mediacom is pissing me off?
Apple used to be able to get away with having Ethernet to the modem of choice, and dial-up on early models, but that's not working any more. I don't blame them for leaving this product space. I don't like it, but I can see why they did it.
Allow me to fix that for you...
Being able to easily upgrade your products yourself? That hasn't been the industry standard in years.
I've been doing computer support and repair for longer than I care to admit. People just don't upgrade computers any more, at least not like they used to.
What I see happening now is computers getting smaller and being reduced from a series of parts into a single appliance. People used to replace parts in their TV sets. People used to have their VCR repaired. (Well, people used to have a VCR.) No one does that now. Same for a computer. The change happened very quickly, or so it seems to me. I'd be able to replace broken parts on a common PC but now a common PC is smaller than the first CD burner I bought. There's nothing to replace any more. I can swap out a hard drive. Maybe I can upgrade the RAM. Anything else and the PC is beyond repair.
Laptops have been sealed up appliances for a long time. It's not just Apple that's soldered drives to logic boards. Maybe someone could take out enough screws in a current non-Apple laptop to find the SSD in a socket. The sockets are rarely standard, and even if it was there's enough standards that just looking at the drive might not be enough to tell you what kind of replacement or upgrade will work. Seems like memory upgrades for laptops are still relatively common but I don't see many people bothering any more. Memory is cheap enough now that people don't bother buying a sub-par laptop with the intent to upgrade the RAM later. They just buy what they think will work for them now and buy a new laptop later if/when it no longer meets their needs.
Maybe Apple is ahead of the curve on this. Maybe you are thinking of laptops of old.
I suspect that for the security conscious this is a feature, not a bug. Think about that.
That's nice when you're traveling and don't want to carry an external storage device, and either choose not to trust the "cloud" with your data, or don't have the mobile bandwidth for it to work well. Why not give users a CHOICE of removing the internal storage device to recover their data?
They have a choice, buy an Apple or don't buy an Apple.
Because Apple, that's why? Instead of a $100 SSD upgrade, they want to foist an entire new laptop on their users. Plus they can upsell iCloud space based on the risk of data loss.
Apple does market research like most every company does. I suspect that Apple does far more research on this than other companies. There's a trade off here that had to be made, either make a laptop that's small and thin for the majority or make one with a removable drive for the minority that wants the ability to upgrade the drive and/or have the ability to remove the drive in case of a failure.
Marketeers are arseholes, and Apple are the worst of the worst.
"Marketeers" are aiming for the biggest market. What you are saying is that you are not in the market for an Apple. I'm guessing you have not ever bought an Apple product, so why should Apple "marketeers" care what you have to say about their products?
You are a bit of an alarmist.
I claim that the threats posed to gray wolves and beetles from these changes to the endangered species act is also alarmist. I'm just asking for consistency here. If Trump just signed a death warrant for gray wolves then Obama did the same for the golden eagle. If Obama did nothing wrong then Trump did nothing wrong. If we can't develop land for windmills and oil wells because it threatens protected species then we need energy from something, I propose that something is nuclear power.
Would you support allowing the market to build affordable housing by restoring the rights of developers to build more densely than surrounding properties, or are you just playing games here?
Yes. I also support the rights of developers and property managers to set their own rates. Rent control and subsidized housing does not help the homeless, it only drives up prices. A city can force a developer to offer a percentage of rental units to be under a certain rent but that just forces the rent higher in the units that remain. High taxes to fund subsidized housing isn't helpful either. Prices need to reflect the market, that includes rent and wages.