About 2 to 4 of every 1,000 people in the United States are "functionally deaf," though more than half became deaf relatively late in life; fewer than 1 out of every 1,000 people in the United States became deaf before 18 years of age.
However, if people with a severe hearing impairment are included with those who are deaf, then the number is 4 to 10 times higher. That is, anywhere from 9 to 22 out of every 1,000 people have a severe hearing impairment or are deaf. Again, at least half of these people reported their hearing loss after 64 years of age.
Finally, if everyone who has any kind of "trouble" with their hearing is included then anywhere from 37 to 140 out of every 1,000 people in the United States have some kind of hearing loss, with a large share being at least 65 years old.
So even at 140, even ignoring those that cannot be helped by hearing aids and those that cannot afford hearing aids, the truth is that far more than 140 out of 1,000 people buy the products you mentioned. If you move a higher volume, you can price them lower and approach their true cost as your design and overhead costs diminish with numbers. What's more is that "a laptop" will more or less work for me the same as it will work for you. We don't need to mold the laptop to put it in our ears or have it tuned to our needs.
You also seem to overlook two factors: as electronics get smaller they get more expensive. The second part is that as electronics need to power themselves and get smaller they get even more expensive. And on top of that, my cell phone puts out a lot of heat. The kind of heat I would not want in my ear. So you have to consider that the battery must be small and must not dissipate tons of heat and so therefore the electronics must have a very low power draw. There's not much of a conspiracy to find here, it's an unfortunate reality that prevents someone from storming the market with the new better cheaper hearing aid (pending tech advancements).
In my family, we look at chipping in to buy our elders hearing aids for presents, I know the nice ones are crazy expensive.
I work in drug marketing, (software dev at an ad agency) and all I can say is that my pot dealer is more ethical than a typical multinational drug company.
Well let's take a look at the relationships you propose here. Your drug dealer is a single entity, probably not making a ton of money. I mean, he's making money but he in turn pays it to the supplier and then X middle men back to whoever is growing it. It's probably not as much as a software developer. Even if he is making a lot of money, he depends on you to not rat him out to the cops. So if he starts busting your balls or raising prices and you feel like he's unfair you can just turn him over to the cops and face little or no repercussions. So he will probably be friendly, courteous and -- assuming he doesn't mix business with pleasure -- have his shit together enough to accommodate your emergency needs. He/She is the interface to your whole pot experience and has reason to make sure personally that you are a very happy camper.
Let's look at a multinational drug company. They have infinite resources, they have infinite lawyers, they will sue you on a whim, they will sue you if voice concern. They are faceless, they never meet you, they actually abuse a broken system to interface with you (HMOs and prescriptions). They operate "within the law" (like you said if it isn't illegal they'll do it) so you have no leverage on them if your relationship goes sour. In fact, if your relationship goes sour your goose is pretty much cooked. Oh, and if you manage to threaten their infinite capital, they have ways of generating more of it. When they fight amongst themselves, people die. That's how powerful they are... when someone wants to license a patented drug in India and Pfizer wants $200 per dosage and that means that Indian patients can't get the super expensive research compounds, people die. And when an Indian firm just makes a generic version of it, they've basically painted a target on their back for international IP laws. When something does go wrong that they are indeed liable for, you are clumped into a class action lawsuit with no voice... you have the option to opt out of the class action lawsuit (which I think are opt in by default) but to do so would mean going toe to toe with your personal resources and lawyers against their infinite sums of both. Tell me, what incentive do they have to even give a shit about you? And you, Anonymous Coward, you are doubly F'd in the A because you work for one, so that's just more leverage they hold over your head.
And I'm supposed to be surprised that your pot dealer is more ethical and humane than big pharma? He'd have to develop some pretty complicated drugs and then go on a rampage of carnage and bloodshed and looting to come close.
As for me... yes I sold out.. no I don't care. It's a cold world.
Listen, from various points of view, everyone has sold out. You live in a capitalistic society and in your employment respect you cannot hold yourself to higher standards than that unless you're okay with living on the street. And nobody should blame you for putting good food in your mouth and living in the best place you can afford. Capitalism's the name of the game and if you don't play it right, you get screwed over. So just suck it up and embrace it, I have. Might make us hypocrites but it doesn't invalidate our logic.
Unsurprisingly, even Newegg can't afford super competent folks for their RMA service. So let me help anyone out who things that Newegg left this guy high and dry with some tips. Whenever I buy something, it seems like there's no way to get it without Windows. This means that I am paying for something I don't want. Sucks, right? Well, there's something you can do to monetize this if you want. Sometimes they have stickers with Windows keys on them but if they don't there's a way around this. Boot into windows and download some crappy tool that tells you what your Windows key is (I'm not going to plug any of these tools, most come with adware but who cares, you're about to blow that partition away). Go to My Computer and right click for properties and find where it tells you what version this is. Example: Windows 7 64 bit Professional. Write all that information down or e-mail it to yourself.
Now, you're free to wipe the whole machine and install whatever the hell you want. If something goes wrong and you need to RMA, you're in luck. You just torrent the ISO for that particular windows and burn it (or use Netbootin in the case of no optical drive) and reinstall it with your key and ship it back. Although this sounds like a lot of work, it actually can be quite useful when a relative or friend needs a copy of Windows. You make them a disc and transfer that heavily subsidized key to them. Sure, it might be illegal in the eyes of someone but it's worked for me and I keep it down to one use per key that I was extorted into buying. Personally, this sort of second sale doesn't feel morally wrong to me but if it does to you, you can always just hold on to your info and consider it an "asset" in your software library.
"As far as toyed with... I feel toyed with when plotlines are left unresolved, a promising show is cancelled before it's given a chance to find it's audience, and wrestling and ghosthunters displace science fiction on a science fiction network"
I don't think that quote says it all. I mean take a look at some shows that overstayed their time in the name of money like Lost, Heroes or The X-Files. They were given a seemingly indefinite amount of time to get around to wrapping up their story arc and instead dawdled and expanded and answered questions with more questions in an almost seemingly serial model to acquire more money. I think we need to stop relying on his situation of: "a promising show is cancelled before it's given a chance to find it's [sic] audience" and instead shift more toward a BBC/British approach where a show is given one or two seasons to shit or get off the pot. You'll get a better mix of ideas in front of people and you won't find yourself stringing fans along and milking them for all they're worth while your material jumps the shark. It will force writers into more potent offerings and stop the last minute expansions to drag on after they're out of material.
He's right about Syfy, that channel is dead to me. I think when they changed their name to "Syfy" they were sending a message to all their fans that they were no longer a 'sci-fi' channel and the pressure to capitalize on their programming has made them their own thing -- directed by money from advertisers. This means wrestling and ghosts (what a large portion of people who watch a large amount of TV want to see).
Even though I was prepared for my question the state of sci-fi to be met with extreme disdain, nostalgia and complaining, it wasn't. The majority of comments on Slashdot don't even dignify the modern elements of movies that are sci-fi as being recognized as sci-fi and instead it seems to get marked more as fantasy or "soft" sci-fi. I was pleased to read otherwise from these folks -- perhaps that's a requirement to get anything done in the business?
Was also rather surprised that Philip K. Dick and Stanislaw Lem wasn't on their reading lists, however. I feel like Lem gets looked over simply for not being British or American despite having some of the earliest and most original/creative writing that special effects guys should be reading and treating as case studies in impossible things to lay on film. Although PKD wasn't super popular during his time, they sure are optioning the heck out of his works today to make them into film!
but axing them after issuing a legal threat alleging that assertions of copyright infringement were defamatory sure smells like destruction of evidence... And courts tend to take a very dim view of destruction of evidence...
So let's talk about FJ's strategy in this quagmire they've created. First it started out with a pretty innocuous (though informative) question post and there is no indication of an offensive attack between one party or the other. FJ's response to this is to respond by describing two completely different scenarios to everyone while destroying evidence. First, they contact all their users and alledge that The Oatmeal is suing FJ while in reality they fire a threat of slander and libel lawsuit at The Oatmeal. Meanwhile The Oatmeal is being harassed by FJ users who seem to be confused that this is about The Oatmeal doesn't believe FJ has any members and is really just a bot.
Basically the FJ admin and/or legal team is playing this like a money making entity would -- they're doing everything in their power to make users see one situation and the original content creators face another situation. And that's what happens when revenues are threatened, bad people get creative in bad ways and it usually has a very bad effect but is effective nonetheless. I hope The Oatmeal sticks to his guns on this one -- he's definitely in the right and he's definitely tackling a problem that persists on imgur, FunnyJunk and a number of other sites (yes, even YouTube).
Don't misinterpret this, I am against H-1B as well but you're missing two pieces of the puzzle that are, unfortunately, heartless as well. One is that when you remove a geek or nerd from their regular environment they often have nothing but their work and hobbies on the side. Make them a foreigner in America and some of them will practically live in their office cube instead of going home to stare blankly at foreign (to them) television. If you're lucky, they'll have a hard time making new friends and have less conflicts outside of work.
Most of the comp sci classes I took were filled to the gills, and the program I got into in college was so impacted that I had to go in on another major and switch after the fact.
Right but the top ten percent of your classes is still only ten percent of that. The companies that are arguing for more H-1B visas are licking their lips at countries that have a top ten percent they can still tap. The government likes it because it equates to a brain drain with the added benefit that the really smart ones actually get to stay. "The cream of the crop" doesn't just apply to American masses and I'm sure these H-1B employees help them toward their diversity and EEO goals.
In 2006, these [outsourcing] firms collectively were issued 19,512 of the 65,000 H-1B visas granted, with 4 outsourcing firms among the top 5 receivers of H-1B visas. These are Infosys, Satyam Computer Services, Tata Consultancy Services, and Wipro Technologies. Critics have argued that granting H-1B visas to these outsourcing firms is not the real intent of the H-1B Visa program.
So, even worse for American workers and unemployment is that it could eventually lead to even more off-shoring of work.
1) where does "driftwood" come from then? I'm nearly certain that land-species (to say nothing of aquatic ones) have been migrating all over the world through all sorts of avenues probably about as likely or frequent as the washing up of what happens-this-time-to-be-a-manmade-object.
I grew up around 10,000 lakes and was taught that burning driftwood is a very bad idea as it contains chlorine which is, in part, why they look bone white. If a tree falls into water and becomes driftwood, it usually loses its outer layer of bark and all of its leaves. On top of that, any animal that doesn't like chlorine probably wouldn't survive on it. Go pick up a piece of driftwood and look for barnacles... usually all you'll find are ants and insects that have inhabited it after it washes back up. And, like you would assume, long ago anything that could live in driftwood has probably long ago made the journey by chance. So the key difference with docks is that they are often loaded with barnacles. Many of them that are in bays or calm enough water are floating boxes of wood that are chained together and simply anchored in the beach. They are flat, they often contain tons of organisms seeking shelter on the beach and when they are in water, they often have one side exposed to air (or they wouldn't be used as docks). Sure, some of these have come loose over time but what you had was thousands of them during the tsunami. So that's why the scientists are concerned and, given the large number of objects you can imagine, they may have good reason to be concerned. I don't think anyone's suggesting you quit your job and walk up and down the shore line throwing GPS devices down for the US to nuke from space but locals should take note of strange new insects or anything if they notice them.
2) Not sure if you were joking, if so my apologies in advance for taking you literally. Of course, anyone who is interested in facts is aware that the 'great pacific garbage patch' (a colossal and deliberately sensational overstatement) is an area of sea where the density of microscopic plastic particulates is 'as high as' a single-digit number per cubic meter of water. I know a lot of people were fooled by environmentalists' clever 'accidental (?) misappropriation' of a picture of some plastic trash floating in the water into thinking that's what the patch is. It's effectively some water where there's a little more plastic DUST.
I was not joking and I would like to simply point out that what you call "plastic dust" is actually matter and some of it is solid and was not there a hundred years ago. I cheated and I didn't say when this transformation was complete so I could be talking about fifty years or five hundred years from now -- on the other hand I also didn't say which animals and some of them don't need a solid land bridge and are perfectly capable of swimming and have adventured far and wide up the and down the Asian coast. Others are insects that just might need something solid in water to lay eggs on and then a food source. Also, let's not make this sound like some nice homogenous even flowing plastic -- it's full of garbage and shit bigger than your "dust" (and that's a Natgeo album, not some treehugger crap). The fact is that unless we stop dumping, at some point it's going to get full and solid enough to start ejecting crap into the currents that line the shores of continent(s) and that's when you will need to take notice of transcontinental species migration.
Tsunamis have been happening for a few billion years, and moving stuff around for just as long. Scientists realize that.
The problem are the man-made materials and treated woods that will survive an ocean voyage where all other natural materials would not.
When a floating dock the size of a boxcar washed up on a sandy beach in Oregon
Docks survive for so long in water because the wood has to be treated or they would blister, bloat and split and become waterlogged. As a result, when one comes loose it can act as a raft indefinitely. Same goes for plastics and foam that might have been used on houses. If you threw an untreated tree or vegetation in the ocean, it would simply never make it.
All of this will become a moot point, however, when the great pacific garbage patch finally reaches both shores and enables all water based organisms to freely traverse from Asia to North America.
Hmmm, you know Nature is not afraid of what will happen when these unnaturally treated pieces of wood acts as rafts for any species to traverse an ocean. Perhaps you should share some genuine concern for the effect it will have on humans. Case studies you might care to research: kudzu, zebra mussel, Asian carp and actually a lot of organisms like rats and weeds that currently traverse the Americas were brought over accidentally on ships. The full effect of them is lost to time and the Native American's knowledge of what used to be available.
Because Xfce (personal use) and no windowing or graphical interface at all (work servers) completely satisfies all my needs?
I use Xubuntu at home on two desktops and a netbook and have yet to encounter the inability to do anything while at the same time requiring very little of my time to maintain it. I'm sorry if this sounds like a plug for Xfce, it's not. I'm simply responding by asking a counter question: what exactly am I missing if I use these machines for web surfing, e-mail and lots of hobby development? I'm forced to maintain a Windows 7 x64 partition for Diablo III, netflix and some other crappy windows stuff I can't shake so maybe I'm unaware that with KDE we can now satisfy some of those things?
Can someone tell me what Linux Jesus means when he says:
Simply because my old F14 comes with ancient X versions that don't contain all the fixes to make intel 3D really work well. And yes, things really do work better on the graphical side.
Intel 3D? Does he have a 3D monitor? Are these more than just novelties now?
Since all their attempts just result in complete awkwardness, I know that Tim & Eric sometimes do product skits (like this board game) and I think that Microsoft should just go full intended awkward and hire Tim & Eric. That way nobody can make fun of them for being awkward and, like, twenty years from now they will be seen as doing comedy WAY ahead of its time.
Right. And it's no surprise that that is what the NTSB is recommending. From the article:
The National Transportation Safety Board hasn’t weighed in on any apps. Its recommendation is a human solution: Just don’t use your phone at all while driving, even if you’re using a hands-free device.
subsidies are there to maintain a stable food market...and it works.
No, subsidies exist to feed money into corporate farms that in turn give their lobbying groups the edge to make sure that they come out turning taxpayer dollars into profit (often with negative or little disposition towards the family farms and little guys).
Soda are marginally cheaper because of it. Less then a penny a liter.
That's not true at all. To come to that conclusion, you're taking the billions of dollars that the federal government is paying out to farmers and dividing it across the number of servings in that time frame. But that's not the true net effect of what those subsidy dollars have on the industry. The market is literally flooded with corn now that ethanol subsidies have been put in place and removed. The price is going to plummet and you'll be able to make as much HFCS as you want for nothing. The amount the government put in to bait these farmers into this system is paltry compared to the effect it's going to have on the price of corn. You didn't even read the article I linked to, did you? A ton of people are producing corn right now thinking they're going to get a ton of money just like last year as that corn is turned into "green" ethanol and when that doesn't happen, HFCS will basically be free for soda manufacturers. Hell, the government (read: taxpayer) will probably end up paying (er, "incentivizing") again to prevent that corn from rotting in the fields.
"Don't even get me started on how US corn subsidies and NAFTA have destroyed Mexico's farming and forced millions to turn to other crops like drugs."
Since it isn't true, there is nothing to start.
Citation granted. You don't realize it, but the poorest parts of Mexico are suffering from the above subsidies paid for on my and your dime.
Uh, I think a lot of counties and states do tax driving. Property taxes on vehicles, taxes in the form of registration, fines if you're caught without insurance (to pay for said deaths), the list goes on and on in that respect. So that's already been taken care of.
Tax running because it can cause joint problems.
In this case, I think any study would find that the benefits of running (on average) far outweigh joint problems. I'm pretty sure runners live a lot longer than non-runners and experience far less negative health effects than sedentary individuals.
Tax all non-"organic" foods because they contain neurotoxins.
It's for our own good.
You are so full of shit, it's hilarious. All non-"organic" food contains neurotoxins? Bananas? Potatoes? Horseshit. You know as well as I do that the FDA and a number of other watchdog groups keep their eyes on what you will actually find in a supermarket and that those pesticides and crap they do find are put through rigorous tests on other mammals to ascertain their safety. And, yes, the company responsible will find a very steep "tax" should that link ever arise -- just look at what happens in the cases of tainted produce that somehow make it through the processes involved to ensure they are safe.
What you don't seem to understand is that sweeteners have enjoyed an artificially low price due to subsidies and these subsidies are the reason why you can buy a big gulp at 7 eleven for pennies when there are 744 calories in that thing. Just like smoking, cities should be able to decide what measures need to be taken when lobbyist groups cause soda to be less expensive than water and this "tax" is actually an adjustment to reflect the true cost of these products. If you think that you're not being taxed already to pay for subsidies to make people fat that in turn drives up health care costs to everyone, you just can't comprehend the big picture.
Don't even get me started on how US corn subsidies and NAFTA have destroyed Mexico's farming and forced millions to turn to other crops like drugs.
People need to realize that the United States has a very brutal regime in charge at the moment.
In my opinion and from experience it's not about brutality, it's about money. Sure, if they find something on you that links you to Al-Queda, you're in trouble. They'll treat you like any Allied nation would treat a Nazi war criminal. But the secondary that you're often pulled into has the primary purpose of tariffs and taxes that you might owe the government. Next on their list is export/import control of stuff like Cuban cigars or controlled substances.
So I used to be in a band and this band told me a story about how they were crossing the US-Canada border to play one show at a bar. Well, they were in their van, they had weed on them and they had all their guitars and crap and the side of their van said their band name. Well, they made up some excuse about how they were just "passing through" and after an hour of googling, the border guards determined that their intent was to play a show at a bar. They didn't have work permits and, as such, were denied entry. The weed wasn't a problem. The problem was that they were trying to go "work" at a bar and, as a result, a bar owner became very very upset with them. Guess which country's border guards did this to them? Canada's. Is Canada a "very brutal regime"? No.
What happened with the CryptoCat guy is that they asked him what he did for work and he got too specific. One of the guards apparently knows that there is export control on levels of encryption. There was a very very famous case about this involving Phil Zimmerman and PGP that I think has since been dropped. Of course, the guards came to the conclusion that this guy wasn't purposefully exporting high level encryption software to enemy entities. So nothing came of it after they googled for an hour.
Just because Russian border guards are lax or corrupt doesn't mean "the United States has a very brutal regime in charge at the moment." 'Brutal' means savagely violent, vicious, ruthless, or cruel... I think the words you were looking for are arcane, ignorant, laughable, annoying, etc. If you cry wolf at the stupid stuff, nobody's going to listen to you about the genuinely bad stuff.
According to the CryptoCat developer, border guards confiscated his passport
Maybe I'm the only one that was confused by that but the phrasing of this in the summary lead me to believe that they confiscated his passport indefinitely in some sort of draconian move to prevent him from leaving the country or traveling in general. But, luckily, I read the article:
This: “Also worth noting: my passport was confiscated for around an hour.”
I'm not saying it's okay but I've been pulled into secondary coming back from the Caribbean and, the customs official had my passport for about 45-60 minutes while he asked me the stupidest of questions (far more mundane and pointless than what algorithms I develop).
And "R is for Rocket" I read 40-some years ago. They were collections of Bradbury short stories.
Indeed, I too cut my teeth on Ray Bradbury's works for fantasy and science fiction. Recently I discovered an edition of 100 of his collected short stories (chosen by the man himself) that appeared to include most if not all of my favorites. For anyone looking to discover/rediscover, this is an inexpensive and fairly comprehensive route to take. These stories are written for a younger mind but are still enjoyable to me.
It might have been because I had not dealt with death on a profound level yet but his short story "Kaleidoscope" from The Illustrated Man was permanently etched upon my mind. Now Bradbury is a shooting star providing wishes and dreams to the young minds who read his works. Personally I feel that hundreds of years from now, Bradbury will join the ranks of Hans Christian Anderson, Road Dahl, etc and his works will be seen as mandatory classics for readers. Like all modern writing, some of these stories aren't the most original in their nature but they are perfect to capture a mind and set someone on a course for endless reading. It's a sad day to see such a wonderful mind pass but I will do my part to immortalize him through recommendations.
Any third option for the foreseeable future is a hippie pipe dream
I don't get it, all the free market preachers are promising that my energy problems will shortly be solved by the free market but your view is such a fatalistic-don't-even-try-jaded response that you seem to doubt the free market can provide.
And if anyone thinks that solar panels and wind turbines are going to supply Tokyo with even a fraction of its power needs, you've obviously never been there.
I don't think the situation is as dire as you describe it and, frankly, dismissing all the alternative efforts really undermines what we should be working toward which are transitional phases until some breakthrough comes in fusion or an unforeseen source.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Should now read:
"Give me your inventors, your geniuses,
Your bored singletons yearning to spur economic growth,
The fertile intellects left from your teeming chaff.
Send these, the able, patent-ers to me,
I lift my GDP beside the golden door!"
Let's face it, work visas are handed out like bouncers controlling admission to a club. You are asking these questions that sound like they treat people with respect and offer them opportunity but what I hear is basically: Are you going to be a net positive for the United States? And how do we accurately measure the Nikola Teslas and Yao Mings from the Dr. Nasser al-Aulaqis (Fullbright Scholar and father of Anwar al-Awlaki).
You know what? It's a dirty business and I don't want any part of it. In my own humble opinion, it's unethical. Your questions sound like "Can we implement a brain drain on the rest of the world with little or no risk?" I think it should be all law-abiding individuals or none and, despite 9/11 and the Mariel Boatlift that consisted of criminals and mental patients, I personally lean toward letting everyone in unless they are known to have committed or been convicted of crimes in their country of origin that are 1) credible sentences and 2) also misdemeanors or higher in the United States.
I can't remember where I read about this, I believe it was Simon Singh's The Code Book but anyway this was first proposed as far back as 1970 by Stephen Wiesner. It's sort of odd that it reappears every now and then.
Column: Quit fretting. U.S. is fine in science education
The article is correct in a lot of respects. But one thing I personally disagree with is that we should quit fretting. If you believe you are the best in the world at something, you might quit working hard to achieve that and stagnate into irrelevance. Personally I always view myself as "behind the curve" and therefore I am always working harder to overcome my self-perceived adjustment.
Likewise, when I am judging the United States, I'm often harsh. Because it's not going to get any better if I say "Yep, education is top notch, best in the world. We're #1." Unsurprisingly enough, my Republican friends call me a self-loathing liberal because my criticisms of the United States are often harsh. Better that than the alternative of stagnation and irrelevance.
American science education might not be 'dismal' but valid criticisms abound. Also, the measurements used for it being dismal or great are almost always flawed. For example, in the article:
Yet during this period of national "mediocrity," we created Silicon Valley, built multinational biotechnology firms, and continued to lead the world in scientific journal publications and total number of Nobel Prize winners. We also invented and sold more than a few iPads. Obviously, standardized tests aren't everything.
Surely, every one of these things had influences and inspiration other than the "United States public science education"? I'm reminded of someone from Alabama chastising me for complaining about states that have low literacy rates. She reminded me that Huntsville has more post-graduate degree holders per capita than any other city in the United States. Great. Good for them. Does that have anything to do with whether or not a random 15 year old can read in Alabama? You can cherry pick statistics one way or the other, I think China's got more published academic papers per year now than any other nation... of course the quality over quantity can be argued.
Don't be afraid to look at yourself critically -- if you don't how will you ever improve?
The problem I've found with pacing-enabled programming or even reading is that if you're moving your body has a natural bob to it. What follows is that it is incredibly tiring to try to train your eyes on something smaller than a person on a screen. So while I can hop on an elliptical and watch TV, it's much more difficult to read and even more difficult to try to coordinate in a programming way. I have coworkers who use standing workstations that they can swivel to alternate to a sitting position and then can swivel further to be on an aerobics inflated ball. Personally, I don't see the benefit of this and it seems half the people who try it love it and the other half hate it. It is expensive, swiveling the monitor, having the space to be either standing or sitting in two different ways.
At work I'm allowed to walk around outside. If I am about to start a problem, I'll often go for a walk while thinking about the package structure (yeah yeah Java sucks, whatever) or pattern usage and then come back and sketch it out. But when I do serious cardio, I just do serious cardio. There's no room for me to be able to do that in tandem with something. Whether it's a treadmill or erg machine, it's just too involved and bouncing. Until displays that are anchored to your head become better quality and cheaper (maybe the Google goggles will do this?) it's just not going to work for me. Everything I've seen today is just too gimmicky.
I commented on this years ago and still firmly believe that proper wrist exercises are necessary and probably the most important workout for my lifestyle. Since then I've learned some more from friends: wrist curls, reverse wrist curls, wrist rolls and wrist rotations. You can google them to see how to do them with a bar or ask a professional at your gym to show you how to do it properly (doing them improperly can be worse than not doing them at all). I have one of the Gyro Wrist Exercise Balls but it's a loud little device and is usually annoying for those around you.
How about you work on a next gen console, and stop adding useless crap to your tired console from 2005?
But but but, we can help you find products that you want to spend money on! Don't you want that? Don't you want to spend money? Don't you want to see the new shinies that are coming out on the expensive game system you paid moneys for? Are you some communist that is against buying stuff? And we can build a WEB SERVICE with the RIAA that helps you make sure that you're playing a REAL copy of your favorite movie or album and will make sure you're not some victim using victimizing bittorrent, horrible handbrake and the dangerous PS3MediaServer to enjoy your game system. We just want to give you more purchasing power and help you manage your digital rights. Don't you want power and rights? Huh?
Slashdot Mirror
About 2 to 4 of every 1,000 people in the United States are "functionally deaf," though more than half became deaf relatively late in life; fewer than 1 out of every 1,000 people in the United States became deaf before 18 years of age.
However, if people with a severe hearing impairment are included with those who are deaf, then the number is 4 to 10 times higher. That is, anywhere from 9 to 22 out of every 1,000 people have a severe hearing impairment or are deaf. Again, at least half of these people reported their hearing loss after 64 years of age.
Finally, if everyone who has any kind of "trouble" with their hearing is included then anywhere from 37 to 140 out of every 1,000 people in the United States have some kind of hearing loss, with a large share being at least 65 years old.
So even at 140, even ignoring those that cannot be helped by hearing aids and those that cannot afford hearing aids, the truth is that far more than 140 out of 1,000 people buy the products you mentioned. If you move a higher volume, you can price them lower and approach their true cost as your design and overhead costs diminish with numbers. What's more is that "a laptop" will more or less work for me the same as it will work for you. We don't need to mold the laptop to put it in our ears or have it tuned to our needs.
You also seem to overlook two factors: as electronics get smaller they get more expensive. The second part is that as electronics need to power themselves and get smaller they get even more expensive. And on top of that, my cell phone puts out a lot of heat. The kind of heat I would not want in my ear. So you have to consider that the battery must be small and must not dissipate tons of heat and so therefore the electronics must have a very low power draw. There's not much of a conspiracy to find here, it's an unfortunate reality that prevents someone from storming the market with the new better cheaper hearing aid (pending tech advancements).
In my family, we look at chipping in to buy our elders hearing aids for presents, I know the nice ones are crazy expensive.
I work in drug marketing, (software dev at an ad agency) and all I can say is that my pot dealer is more ethical than a typical multinational drug company.
Well let's take a look at the relationships you propose here. Your drug dealer is a single entity, probably not making a ton of money. I mean, he's making money but he in turn pays it to the supplier and then X middle men back to whoever is growing it. It's probably not as much as a software developer. Even if he is making a lot of money, he depends on you to not rat him out to the cops. So if he starts busting your balls or raising prices and you feel like he's unfair you can just turn him over to the cops and face little or no repercussions. So he will probably be friendly, courteous and -- assuming he doesn't mix business with pleasure -- have his shit together enough to accommodate your emergency needs. He/She is the interface to your whole pot experience and has reason to make sure personally that you are a very happy camper.
... when someone wants to license a patented drug in India and Pfizer wants $200 per dosage and that means that Indian patients can't get the super expensive research compounds, people die. And when an Indian firm just makes a generic version of it, they've basically painted a target on their back for international IP laws. When something does go wrong that they are indeed liable for, you are clumped into a class action lawsuit with no voice ... you have the option to opt out of the class action lawsuit (which I think are opt in by default) but to do so would mean going toe to toe with your personal resources and lawyers against their infinite sums of both. Tell me, what incentive do they have to even give a shit about you? And you, Anonymous Coward, you are doubly F'd in the A because you work for one, so that's just more leverage they hold over your head.
Let's look at a multinational drug company. They have infinite resources, they have infinite lawyers, they will sue you on a whim, they will sue you if voice concern. They are faceless, they never meet you, they actually abuse a broken system to interface with you (HMOs and prescriptions). They operate "within the law" (like you said if it isn't illegal they'll do it) so you have no leverage on them if your relationship goes sour. In fact, if your relationship goes sour your goose is pretty much cooked. Oh, and if you manage to threaten their infinite capital, they have ways of generating more of it. When they fight amongst themselves, people die. That's how powerful they are
And I'm supposed to be surprised that your pot dealer is more ethical and humane than big pharma? He'd have to develop some pretty complicated drugs and then go on a rampage of carnage and bloodshed and looting to come close.
As for me... yes I sold out.. no I don't care. It's a cold world.
Listen, from various points of view, everyone has sold out. You live in a capitalistic society and in your employment respect you cannot hold yourself to higher standards than that unless you're okay with living on the street. And nobody should blame you for putting good food in your mouth and living in the best place you can afford. Capitalism's the name of the game and if you don't play it right, you get screwed over. So just suck it up and embrace it, I have. Might make us hypocrites but it doesn't invalidate our logic.
Unsurprisingly, even Newegg can't afford super competent folks for their RMA service. So let me help anyone out who things that Newegg left this guy high and dry with some tips. Whenever I buy something, it seems like there's no way to get it without Windows. This means that I am paying for something I don't want. Sucks, right? Well, there's something you can do to monetize this if you want. Sometimes they have stickers with Windows keys on them but if they don't there's a way around this. Boot into windows and download some crappy tool that tells you what your Windows key is (I'm not going to plug any of these tools, most come with adware but who cares, you're about to blow that partition away). Go to My Computer and right click for properties and find where it tells you what version this is. Example: Windows 7 64 bit Professional. Write all that information down or e-mail it to yourself.
Now, you're free to wipe the whole machine and install whatever the hell you want. If something goes wrong and you need to RMA, you're in luck. You just torrent the ISO for that particular windows and burn it (or use Netbootin in the case of no optical drive) and reinstall it with your key and ship it back. Although this sounds like a lot of work, it actually can be quite useful when a relative or friend needs a copy of Windows. You make them a disc and transfer that heavily subsidized key to them. Sure, it might be illegal in the eyes of someone but it's worked for me and I keep it down to one use per key that I was extorted into buying. Personally, this sort of second sale doesn't feel morally wrong to me but if it does to you, you can always just hold on to your info and consider it an "asset" in your software library.
"As far as toyed with... I feel toyed with when plotlines are left unresolved, a promising show is cancelled before it's given a chance to find it's audience, and wrestling and ghosthunters displace science fiction on a science fiction network"
I don't think that quote says it all. I mean take a look at some shows that overstayed their time in the name of money like Lost, Heroes or The X-Files. They were given a seemingly indefinite amount of time to get around to wrapping up their story arc and instead dawdled and expanded and answered questions with more questions in an almost seemingly serial model to acquire more money. I think we need to stop relying on his situation of: "a promising show is cancelled before it's given a chance to find it's [sic] audience" and instead shift more toward a BBC/British approach where a show is given one or two seasons to shit or get off the pot. You'll get a better mix of ideas in front of people and you won't find yourself stringing fans along and milking them for all they're worth while your material jumps the shark. It will force writers into more potent offerings and stop the last minute expansions to drag on after they're out of material.
He's right about Syfy, that channel is dead to me. I think when they changed their name to "Syfy" they were sending a message to all their fans that they were no longer a 'sci-fi' channel and the pressure to capitalize on their programming has made them their own thing -- directed by money from advertisers. This means wrestling and ghosts (what a large portion of people who watch a large amount of TV want to see).
Even though I was prepared for my question the state of sci-fi to be met with extreme disdain, nostalgia and complaining, it wasn't. The majority of comments on Slashdot don't even dignify the modern elements of movies that are sci-fi as being recognized as sci-fi and instead it seems to get marked more as fantasy or "soft" sci-fi. I was pleased to read otherwise from these folks -- perhaps that's a requirement to get anything done in the business?
Was also rather surprised that Philip K. Dick and Stanislaw Lem wasn't on their reading lists, however. I feel like Lem gets looked over simply for not being British or American despite having some of the earliest and most original/creative writing that special effects guys should be reading and treating as case studies in impossible things to lay on film. Although PKD wasn't super popular during his time, they sure are optioning the heck out of his works today to make them into film!
but axing them after issuing a legal threat alleging that assertions of copyright infringement were defamatory sure smells like destruction of evidence... And courts tend to take a very dim view of destruction of evidence...
So let's talk about FJ's strategy in this quagmire they've created. First it started out with a pretty innocuous (though informative) question post and there is no indication of an offensive attack between one party or the other. FJ's response to this is to respond by describing two completely different scenarios to everyone while destroying evidence. First, they contact all their users and alledge that The Oatmeal is suing FJ while in reality they fire a threat of slander and libel lawsuit at The Oatmeal. Meanwhile The Oatmeal is being harassed by FJ users who seem to be confused that this is about The Oatmeal doesn't believe FJ has any members and is really just a bot.
Basically the FJ admin and/or legal team is playing this like a money making entity would -- they're doing everything in their power to make users see one situation and the original content creators face another situation. And that's what happens when revenues are threatened, bad people get creative in bad ways and it usually has a very bad effect but is effective nonetheless. I hope The Oatmeal sticks to his guns on this one -- he's definitely in the right and he's definitely tackling a problem that persists on imgur, FunnyJunk and a number of other sites (yes, even YouTube).
Most of the comp sci classes I took were filled to the gills, and the program I got into in college was so impacted that I had to go in on another major and switch after the fact.
Right but the top ten percent of your classes is still only ten percent of that. The companies that are arguing for more H-1B visas are licking their lips at countries that have a top ten percent they can still tap. The government likes it because it equates to a brain drain with the added benefit that the really smart ones actually get to stay. "The cream of the crop" doesn't just apply to American masses and I'm sure these H-1B employees help them toward their diversity and EEO goals.
The willingness to work for less is just icing on the cake. The reason Microsoft is railing for more H-1B visas is simple: they win as far as they can tell. What critics might be correct about though, is that this is being used to learn how Americans do business and then move these workers back to the foreign country and lobby for outsourcing after mimicking their American counterparts. This is evident in stats like this:
In 2006, these [outsourcing] firms collectively were issued 19,512 of the 65,000 H-1B visas granted, with 4 outsourcing firms among the top 5 receivers of H-1B visas. These are Infosys, Satyam Computer Services, Tata Consultancy Services, and Wipro Technologies. Critics have argued that granting H-1B visas to these outsourcing firms is not the real intent of the H-1B Visa program.
So, even worse for American workers and unemployment is that it could eventually lead to even more off-shoring of work.
1) where does "driftwood" come from then? I'm nearly certain that land-species (to say nothing of aquatic ones) have been migrating all over the world through all sorts of avenues probably about as likely or frequent as the washing up of what happens-this-time-to-be-a-manmade-object.
I grew up around 10,000 lakes and was taught that burning driftwood is a very bad idea as it contains chlorine which is, in part, why they look bone white. If a tree falls into water and becomes driftwood, it usually loses its outer layer of bark and all of its leaves. On top of that, any animal that doesn't like chlorine probably wouldn't survive on it. Go pick up a piece of driftwood and look for barnacles ... usually all you'll find are ants and insects that have inhabited it after it washes back up. And, like you would assume, long ago anything that could live in driftwood has probably long ago made the journey by chance. So the key difference with docks is that they are often loaded with barnacles. Many of them that are in bays or calm enough water are floating boxes of wood that are chained together and simply anchored in the beach. They are flat, they often contain tons of organisms seeking shelter on the beach and when they are in water, they often have one side exposed to air (or they wouldn't be used as docks). Sure, some of these have come loose over time but what you had was thousands of them during the tsunami. So that's why the scientists are concerned and, given the large number of objects you can imagine, they may have good reason to be concerned. I don't think anyone's suggesting you quit your job and walk up and down the shore line throwing GPS devices down for the US to nuke from space but locals should take note of strange new insects or anything if they notice them.
2) Not sure if you were joking, if so my apologies in advance for taking you literally. Of course, anyone who is interested in facts is aware that the 'great pacific garbage patch' (a colossal and deliberately sensational overstatement) is an area of sea where the density of microscopic plastic particulates is 'as high as' a single-digit number per cubic meter of water. I know a lot of people were fooled by environmentalists' clever 'accidental (?) misappropriation' of a picture of some plastic trash floating in the water into thinking that's what the patch is. It's effectively some water where there's a little more plastic DUST.
I was not joking and I would like to simply point out that what you call "plastic dust" is actually matter and some of it is solid and was not there a hundred years ago. I cheated and I didn't say when this transformation was complete so I could be talking about fifty years or five hundred years from now -- on the other hand I also didn't say which animals and some of them don't need a solid land bridge and are perfectly capable of swimming and have adventured far and wide up the and down the Asian coast. Others are insects that just might need something solid in water to lay eggs on and then a food source. Also, let's not make this sound like some nice homogenous even flowing plastic -- it's full of garbage and shit bigger than your "dust" (and that's a Natgeo album, not some treehugger crap). The fact is that unless we stop dumping, at some point it's going to get full and solid enough to start ejecting crap into the currents that line the shores of continent(s) and that's when you will need to take notice of transcontinental species migration.
Knowledge is power. France is bacon.
Tsunamis have been happening for a few billion years, and moving stuff around for just as long. Scientists realize that.
The problem are the man-made materials and treated woods that will survive an ocean voyage where all other natural materials would not.
When a floating dock the size of a boxcar washed up on a sandy beach in Oregon
Docks survive for so long in water because the wood has to be treated or they would blister, bloat and split and become waterlogged. As a result, when one comes loose it can act as a raft indefinitely. Same goes for plastics and foam that might have been used on houses. If you threw an untreated tree or vegetation in the ocean, it would simply never make it.
All of this will become a moot point, however, when the great pacific garbage patch finally reaches both shores and enables all water based organisms to freely traverse from Asia to North America.
Start surviving....NOW!
Sincerely, Nature.
Hmmm, you know Nature is not afraid of what will happen when these unnaturally treated pieces of wood acts as rafts for any species to traverse an ocean. Perhaps you should share some genuine concern for the effect it will have on humans. Case studies you might care to research: kudzu, zebra mussel, Asian carp and actually a lot of organisms like rats and weeds that currently traverse the Americas were brought over accidentally on ships. The full effect of them is lost to time and the Native American's knowledge of what used to be available.
Why Aren't You Running KDE?
Because Xfce (personal use) and no windowing or graphical interface at all (work servers) completely satisfies all my needs?
I use Xubuntu at home on two desktops and a netbook and have yet to encounter the inability to do anything while at the same time requiring very little of my time to maintain it. I'm sorry if this sounds like a plug for Xfce, it's not. I'm simply responding by asking a counter question: what exactly am I missing if I use these machines for web surfing, e-mail and lots of hobby development? I'm forced to maintain a Windows 7 x64 partition for Diablo III, netflix and some other crappy windows stuff I can't shake so maybe I'm unaware that with KDE we can now satisfy some of those things?
Can someone tell me what Linux Jesus means when he says:
Simply because my old F14 comes with ancient X versions that don't contain all the fixes to make intel 3D really work well. And yes, things really do work better on the graphical side.
Intel 3D? Does he have a 3D monitor? Are these more than just novelties now?
developers, Developers, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS ?
Since all their attempts just result in complete awkwardness, I know that Tim & Eric sometimes do product skits (like this board game) and I think that Microsoft should just go full intended awkward and hire Tim & Eric. That way nobody can make fun of them for being awkward and, like, twenty years from now they will be seen as doing comedy WAY ahead of its time.
'The words MICRO and SOFT don't apply to my penis.' In a strange effort to be inclusive, a monitor displaying the lyrics added, 'or vagina.'
What in the hell is an "or vagina"? Is that new hardware slang for an OR gate?
Easy, just use my patented DPUTFP method.
Don't Pick Up The Fucking Phone.
Right. And it's no surprise that that is what the NTSB is recommending. From the article:
The National Transportation Safety Board hasn’t weighed in on any apps. Its recommendation is a human solution: Just don’t use your phone at all while driving, even if you’re using a hands-free device.
I'm glad to see that their prosecution efforts are coming to fruition. Now we just need to get the word out that, like drinking and driving, this is socially unacceptable and a harsh negative stigma should be associated with it. If you do it, fuck you, you're endangering people's lives. They're finally looking at cell phone records for the time periods surrounding crashes, just like BAC and sobriety checks although most people are probably lying to escape any ability of police checking those records.
subsidies are there to maintain a stable food market...and it works.
No, subsidies exist to feed money into corporate farms that in turn give their lobbying groups the edge to make sure that they come out turning taxpayer dollars into profit (often with negative or little disposition towards the family farms and little guys).
Soda are marginally cheaper because of it. Less then a penny a liter.
That's not true at all. To come to that conclusion, you're taking the billions of dollars that the federal government is paying out to farmers and dividing it across the number of servings in that time frame. But that's not the true net effect of what those subsidy dollars have on the industry. The market is literally flooded with corn now that ethanol subsidies have been put in place and removed. The price is going to plummet and you'll be able to make as much HFCS as you want for nothing. The amount the government put in to bait these farmers into this system is paltry compared to the effect it's going to have on the price of corn. You didn't even read the article I linked to, did you? A ton of people are producing corn right now thinking they're going to get a ton of money just like last year as that corn is turned into "green" ethanol and when that doesn't happen, HFCS will basically be free for soda manufacturers. Hell, the government (read: taxpayer) will probably end up paying (er, "incentivizing") again to prevent that corn from rotting in the fields.
"Don't even get me started on how US corn subsidies and NAFTA have destroyed Mexico's farming and forced millions to turn to other crops like drugs." Since it isn't true, there is nothing to start.
Citation granted. You don't realize it, but the poorest parts of Mexico are suffering from the above subsidies paid for on my and your dime.
Tax driving, because it can kill you.
Uh, I think a lot of counties and states do tax driving. Property taxes on vehicles, taxes in the form of registration, fines if you're caught without insurance (to pay for said deaths), the list goes on and on in that respect. So that's already been taken care of.
Tax running because it can cause joint problems.
In this case, I think any study would find that the benefits of running (on average) far outweigh joint problems. I'm pretty sure runners live a lot longer than non-runners and experience far less negative health effects than sedentary individuals.
Tax all non-"organic" foods because they contain neurotoxins.
It's for our own good.
You are so full of shit, it's hilarious. All non-"organic" food contains neurotoxins? Bananas? Potatoes? Horseshit. You know as well as I do that the FDA and a number of other watchdog groups keep their eyes on what you will actually find in a supermarket and that those pesticides and crap they do find are put through rigorous tests on other mammals to ascertain their safety. And, yes, the company responsible will find a very steep "tax" should that link ever arise -- just look at what happens in the cases of tainted produce that somehow make it through the processes involved to ensure they are safe.
What you don't seem to understand is that sweeteners have enjoyed an artificially low price due to subsidies and these subsidies are the reason why you can buy a big gulp at 7 eleven for pennies when there are 744 calories in that thing. Just like smoking, cities should be able to decide what measures need to be taken when lobbyist groups cause soda to be less expensive than water and this "tax" is actually an adjustment to reflect the true cost of these products. If you think that you're not being taxed already to pay for subsidies to make people fat that in turn drives up health care costs to everyone, you just can't comprehend the big picture.
Don't even get me started on how US corn subsidies and NAFTA have destroyed Mexico's farming and forced millions to turn to other crops like drugs.
People need to realize that the United States has a very brutal regime in charge at the moment.
In my opinion and from experience it's not about brutality, it's about money. Sure, if they find something on you that links you to Al-Queda, you're in trouble. They'll treat you like any Allied nation would treat a Nazi war criminal. But the secondary that you're often pulled into has the primary purpose of tariffs and taxes that you might owe the government. Next on their list is export/import control of stuff like Cuban cigars or controlled substances.
... I think the words you were looking for are arcane, ignorant, laughable, annoying, etc. If you cry wolf at the stupid stuff, nobody's going to listen to you about the genuinely bad stuff.
So I used to be in a band and this band told me a story about how they were crossing the US-Canada border to play one show at a bar. Well, they were in their van, they had weed on them and they had all their guitars and crap and the side of their van said their band name. Well, they made up some excuse about how they were just "passing through" and after an hour of googling, the border guards determined that their intent was to play a show at a bar. They didn't have work permits and, as such, were denied entry. The weed wasn't a problem. The problem was that they were trying to go "work" at a bar and, as a result, a bar owner became very very upset with them. Guess which country's border guards did this to them? Canada's. Is Canada a "very brutal regime"? No.
What happened with the CryptoCat guy is that they asked him what he did for work and he got too specific. One of the guards apparently knows that there is export control on levels of encryption. There was a very very famous case about this involving Phil Zimmerman and PGP that I think has since been dropped. Of course, the guards came to the conclusion that this guy wasn't purposefully exporting high level encryption software to enemy entities. So nothing came of it after they googled for an hour.
Just because Russian border guards are lax or corrupt doesn't mean "the United States has a very brutal regime in charge at the moment." 'Brutal' means savagely violent, vicious, ruthless, or cruel
According to the CryptoCat developer, border guards confiscated his passport
Maybe I'm the only one that was confused by that but the phrasing of this in the summary lead me to believe that they confiscated his passport indefinitely in some sort of draconian move to prevent him from leaving the country or traveling in general. But, luckily, I read the article:
This: “Also worth noting: my passport was confiscated for around an hour.”
I'm not saying it's okay but I've been pulled into secondary coming back from the Caribbean and, the customs official had my passport for about 45-60 minutes while he asked me the stupidest of questions (far more mundane and pointless than what algorithms I develop).
And "R is for Rocket" I read 40-some years ago. They were collections of Bradbury short stories.
Indeed, I too cut my teeth on Ray Bradbury's works for fantasy and science fiction. Recently I discovered an edition of 100 of his collected short stories (chosen by the man himself) that appeared to include most if not all of my favorites. For anyone looking to discover/rediscover, this is an inexpensive and fairly comprehensive route to take. These stories are written for a younger mind but are still enjoyable to me.
It might have been because I had not dealt with death on a profound level yet but his short story "Kaleidoscope" from The Illustrated Man was permanently etched upon my mind. Now Bradbury is a shooting star providing wishes and dreams to the young minds who read his works. Personally I feel that hundreds of years from now, Bradbury will join the ranks of Hans Christian Anderson, Road Dahl, etc and his works will be seen as mandatory classics for readers. Like all modern writing, some of these stories aren't the most original in their nature but they are perfect to capture a mind and set someone on a course for endless reading. It's a sad day to see such a wonderful mind pass but I will do my part to immortalize him through recommendations.
Any third option for the foreseeable future is a hippie pipe dream
I don't get it, all the free market preachers are promising that my energy problems will shortly be solved by the free market but your view is such a fatalistic-don't-even-try-jaded response that you seem to doubt the free market can provide.
And if anyone thinks that solar panels and wind turbines are going to supply Tokyo with even a fraction of its power needs, you've obviously never been there.
I haven't been there. But no one's asking those solutions to go from zero to powering Tokyo over night. Look how gradually it's taken wind power to start in the United States (current numbers here). Japan is comparable at our state level and is looking at connecting with Korea, China, Russia and Mongolia power grids to buy more renewable energy. So why call these hippie pipe dreams? If these are hippie pipe dreams, when will our innovation kick in and 'save us' from nuclear and coal?
(unless you count regular, sustained blackouts as an option)
Did you hear that Japan did actually make small adjustments following Fukushima and called the movement setsuden?
I don't think the situation is as dire as you describe it and, frankly, dismissing all the alternative efforts really undermines what we should be working toward which are transitional phases until some breakthrough comes in fusion or an unforeseen source.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Should now read:
"Give me your inventors, your geniuses,
Your bored singletons yearning to spur economic growth,
The fertile intellects left from your teeming chaff.
Send these, the able, patent-ers to me,
I lift my GDP beside the golden door!"
Let's face it, work visas are handed out like bouncers controlling admission to a club. You are asking these questions that sound like they treat people with respect and offer them opportunity but what I hear is basically: Are you going to be a net positive for the United States? And how do we accurately measure the Nikola Teslas and Yao Mings from the Dr. Nasser al-Aulaqis (Fullbright Scholar and father of Anwar al-Awlaki).
You know what? It's a dirty business and I don't want any part of it. In my own humble opinion, it's unethical. Your questions sound like "Can we implement a brain drain on the rest of the world with little or no risk?" I think it should be all law-abiding individuals or none and, despite 9/11 and the Mariel Boatlift that consisted of criminals and mental patients, I personally lean toward letting everyone in unless they are known to have committed or been convicted of crimes in their country of origin that are 1) credible sentences and 2) also misdemeanors or higher in the United States.
I can't remember where I read about this, I believe it was Simon Singh's The Code Book but anyway this was first proposed as far back as 1970 by Stephen Wiesner. It's sort of odd that it reappears every now and then.
Column: Quit fretting. U.S. is fine in science education
The article is correct in a lot of respects. But one thing I personally disagree with is that we should quit fretting. If you believe you are the best in the world at something, you might quit working hard to achieve that and stagnate into irrelevance. Personally I always view myself as "behind the curve" and therefore I am always working harder to overcome my self-perceived adjustment.
Likewise, when I am judging the United States, I'm often harsh. Because it's not going to get any better if I say "Yep, education is top notch, best in the world. We're #1." Unsurprisingly enough, my Republican friends call me a self-loathing liberal because my criticisms of the United States are often harsh. Better that than the alternative of stagnation and irrelevance.
American science education might not be 'dismal' but valid criticisms abound. Also, the measurements used for it being dismal or great are almost always flawed. For example, in the article:
Yet during this period of national "mediocrity," we created Silicon Valley, built multinational biotechnology firms, and continued to lead the world in scientific journal publications and total number of Nobel Prize winners. We also invented and sold more than a few iPads. Obviously, standardized tests aren't everything.
Surely, every one of these things had influences and inspiration other than the "United States public science education"? I'm reminded of someone from Alabama chastising me for complaining about states that have low literacy rates. She reminded me that Huntsville has more post-graduate degree holders per capita than any other city in the United States. Great. Good for them. Does that have anything to do with whether or not a random 15 year old can read in Alabama? You can cherry pick statistics one way or the other, I think China's got more published academic papers per year now than any other nation ... of course the quality over quantity can be argued.
Don't be afraid to look at yourself critically -- if you don't how will you ever improve?
The problem I've found with pacing-enabled programming or even reading is that if you're moving your body has a natural bob to it. What follows is that it is incredibly tiring to try to train your eyes on something smaller than a person on a screen. So while I can hop on an elliptical and watch TV, it's much more difficult to read and even more difficult to try to coordinate in a programming way. I have coworkers who use standing workstations that they can swivel to alternate to a sitting position and then can swivel further to be on an aerobics inflated ball. Personally, I don't see the benefit of this and it seems half the people who try it love it and the other half hate it. It is expensive, swiveling the monitor, having the space to be either standing or sitting in two different ways.
At work I'm allowed to walk around outside. If I am about to start a problem, I'll often go for a walk while thinking about the package structure (yeah yeah Java sucks, whatever) or pattern usage and then come back and sketch it out. But when I do serious cardio, I just do serious cardio. There's no room for me to be able to do that in tandem with something. Whether it's a treadmill or erg machine, it's just too involved and bouncing. Until displays that are anchored to your head become better quality and cheaper (maybe the Google goggles will do this?) it's just not going to work for me. Everything I've seen today is just too gimmicky.
I commented on this years ago and still firmly believe that proper wrist exercises are necessary and probably the most important workout for my lifestyle. Since then I've learned some more from friends: wrist curls, reverse wrist curls, wrist rolls and wrist rotations. You can google them to see how to do them with a bar or ask a professional at your gym to show you how to do it properly (doing them improperly can be worse than not doing them at all). I have one of the Gyro Wrist Exercise Balls but it's a loud little device and is usually annoying for those around you.
How about you work on a next gen console, and stop adding useless crap to your tired console from 2005?
But but but, we can help you find products that you want to spend money on! Don't you want that? Don't you want to spend money? Don't you want to see the new shinies that are coming out on the expensive game system you paid moneys for? Are you some communist that is against buying stuff? And we can build a WEB SERVICE with the RIAA that helps you make sure that you're playing a REAL copy of your favorite movie or album and will make sure you're not some victim using victimizing bittorrent, horrible handbrake and the dangerous PS3MediaServer to enjoy your game system. We just want to give you more purchasing power and help you manage your digital rights. Don't you want power and rights? Huh?