For most people, the whole point of a headset on a phone is to move the transmitter farther away from one's head.
Huh...silly me. I thought most people used a headset so they didn't have to hold the phone next to their ear (frequently, but not always, while trying to do something that requires both hands, like typing on a computer keyboard or driving a car). At least, that's why I bought a (bluetooth) headset for my phone.
Check out Project Excelsior: 102,800 feet (~19.5 miles), free-falling for 13+ minutes and reaching a speed of 614 mph at -94F...yeah, probably unpleasant and frightening, at least for most people, but definitely survivable.
You forgot
e) can a MIG-25 execute a negative 4G dive?
Ugh...why would you want to? I love roller coasters and I'm a pilot that has pulled a few maneuvers in the just-barely-negative-g range when flying. I'd gladly take a ride that included some +4G maneuvers, but I'll pass on the negative 4G pushover, thanks. Negative G-forces are particularly hard on the body. Unless you are a practicing aerobatic/fighter pilot, -4G wouldn't be fun...it would be painful.
True, but social or political forces may influence you to include people that you'd possibly rather not include. For example, I created a Facebook account because I am a part-time youth pastor and one of my parent helpers suggested this might be a good way to communicate with other parents and the youth in my youth group. However, many of my personal friends (i.e., not associated with the youth group) discovered my Facebook profile and started sending friend requests. As many people have discovered, the union of personal and professional contacts can sometimes be, ahem, "awkward" and, unlike Google+, Facebook doesn't allow you to segregate your friends lists into categories that determine which group sees what. In my case, some of my political views don't match that of all the parents of kids in my youth group, and that has sometimes been poorly received (that's a shameless plug to one of my blogs, so don't click if you are offended by such things).
Having been slightly singed by this experience (I wasn't really "burned", but it did tick me off a bit), I've largely avoided Facebook since. With Google+, I plan to migrate my actual, personal "friends" list there, and leave the youth group on Facebook.
"It's just like Facebook, but with fewer morons..."
+1
That, in a nutshell, was the only reason I accepted a friend's Google+ invite. There are people I want to remain in contact with, but the signal to noise ratio on Facebook was approaching zero, and consequently, I had pretty much ditched social networking until Google+. We'll see if it stays that way or if it gets less interesting as it gets more popular.
The rule of law depends upon the people being governed being capable of knowing all the things which are prohibited.
Well...not exactly. I had a history teacher in high school (college, maybe?) discuss the difference between how laws are generally created, interpreted and enforced in the U.S.* and the U.K. vs. how they are generally created, interpreted and enforced in mainland Europe**. In the U.S. and U.K., there is a list of things that are prohibited, and the laws are enforced rather strictly. That which is not prohibited is allowed. In mainland Europe, he claimed, the laws are written to describe what is allowed and that which is not allowed is prohibited. However, the laws are not enforced as strictly. Rather, laws are enforced when a violation of the law causes a problem ("selective enforcement"). There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. In the U.S./U.K. model, "justice" is the goal -- you can't be arrested at the whim of the powers that be. In the mainland Europe model, common sense is the goal. Yes, technically something you are doing might be illegal, but you likely won't be arrested unless you are causing a problem.
*According to my instructor, there are exceptions in the U.S. He specifically mentioned NOLA, which is largely influenced by French culture.
**IANAL, and I have never been to mainland Europe, so I am merely repeating what I was told in class. It may or may not be accurate, although I would certainly be interested in hearing confirmation or rebuttal from someone who has better information than I.
No, people do NOT need to "calm down" about this. People should be INCENSED about this!
You may be okay with your family being molested by government thugs, but I'M NOT, and I really don't give a shit how much safer this crap makes you feel. It's fucking illegal, dimwit. Read the 4th Amendment -- the TSA does NOT have the right to x-ray and fondle me or my family without probable cause. Just because you are too much of a freaking coward to stand up for yourself when some yahoo pulls a box cutter in an airplane doesn't mean I have to sacrifice my dignity or that of my family, got it?
I agree with all of your arguments, but not your conclusion.
In a nutshell, the more people pissed off at TSA, the more likely it is that they will eventually go away. To me, this looks like "divide and conquer", not "the first of many concessions to common sense."
Y'know, since TSA's budget is in the billions and our country is in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since 1929, I'd kind of imagine that the onus is on THEM to convince the taxpayer that they (TSA, not the taxpayer, just to be clear) are providing value for the money we are spending on them...
My wife and my step-daughter have BOTH been fondled at airports. I have had to boot laptops. My step-daughter was asked to go through the electronic nudie-scope on her last flight, and told TSA no.
Just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it isn't happening, and it definitely doesn't mean people shouldn't be incensed about TSA's abusive, degrading, demeaning security theater. If that makes me a "malcontent", so be it.
Even if TSA could tell with 100% accuracy who was a pilot, who was a passenger and who was a terrorist, it wouldn't solve anything:
"Hello, my name is Achmed bin Farteen. Your wife and son are with me. Would you like to speak to them?" <hands the wife the phone long enough to convince the pilot that he really does have the pilot's family with him.> "I will begin torturing your family by <insert fiendish plan here> unless you carry this package through security for me and leave it in the third stall in the second men's bathroom to the right after you clear security..."
Obviously I can't say how productive Number6.2 is,
I would say twice as productive as Number3.1 is.
No, version numbers increase with new generations. Therefore, number6.2 is only half as productive as number3.1, but is twice as productive as number12.4.
But. Try going in to a job interview and saying "No, I don't have 5 years of this language, but give me a week, some small changes to work on and access to google and I'll be able to program it as well as most of your other developers". It may be true, but it doesn't wash with HR people or project managers. They have a ticksheet of skills and levels and they don't care a damn how easily transferrable any of them are - if you don't have it exact, tough.
The "ticksheet" comment is half the answer. The other is that to someone who isn't literate in computer programming, saying "give me a week..." comes off as being cocky and arrogant. If you are looking for a linguist who speaks French, you don't hire someone who knows a different language -- even a different Romance language -- because you will *NOT* become fluent in French in a week if you don't already know the language.
However, CS people understand that computer languages aren't like natural languages. The syntax and grammar is much less complex and there is much less variety in the language itself (except for Perl;) so it is easy for someone who already "thinks programming" to learn a new syntax and grammar. You already know how to think through the problem solving steps, so finding how to express the algorithm in ${random_language_1} when you already know ${random_language_2} is relatively trivial.
...but chances are you have a "oh shit.. gotta learn this new crap fast" moment.
That's true for IT in general, though. I'm not a developer; I'm a network/systems admin. We recently upgraded a Linux-based Samba PDC with an OpenLDAP backend to a new version of both Samba and OpenLDAP. In this particular migration, both Samba and OpenLDAP (especially OpenLDAP) had significantly changed, and I had to "learn this new crap fast". I spent several years learning Solaris and FreeBSD (and using Slackware at home) before coming to this job, and then had to learn how to use and troubleshoot emerge on Gentoo to update systems. "Oh, @#$!!!...gotta learn this new crap fast" too, since the other network admin was on leave the week I started (LOL!).
IT changes rapidly. You either learn the new crap fast, or you become obsolete. My mortgage payment won't make itself, so I learn new crap fast.
Good advice and good commentary, but I can't help but nitpick one of your statements:
2. I'm expensive. I have 30 years of experience in the 'biz and a masters degree in CS. I'm not cheap. You could hire two 25 year olds for what I'm asking.
In other words, you place a higher value on your labor than the market does. That's not a bad thing; it just means that you have a choice to make. You can either stay unemployed, move into another field (management is what you've mentioned) or drop your asking price. <shrug> I would be very surprised if there wasn't *someone*willing to hire you with your experience, assuming of course that you actually can walk the walk as well as talk the talk (and I mean no disrespect there, nor am I trying to imply otherwise -- I am only pointing out that I don't know you and just because ${random_guy_on_the_internet} says he can do a job doesn't necessarily mean he really can).
Regarding the poster's original question: 40 isn't old. You don't have Alzheimer's, dementia or some other disability that prevents you from learning like you used to, do you? If you were able to learn new languages back then, you can still do it now. If you love programming and don't enjoy project management, go back to what you love. You've still got 20+ years left in you, and that's too long to do something you don't enjoy. Plus, in my experience, people tend to be better at what they enjoy. If your job is a drudgery, it will show in your work. If you job is a joy to you, that will show in the quality of your work. As for which language, well, do the research. See what employers in your area (or in the area you want to live in) are looking for, and start studying it. You're a geek -- you can do some market research on the Internet and see what skills are most valuable and provide the best opportunity for you:)
When I was working on my pilot's license, a "standard rate turn" was considered a turn at which you traveled 180 degrees per minute*, or 3 degrees per second. 13,000 mph is 216 miles per minute, or 3.6 miles per second. If you plot out your x and y vectors for the track across the ground (i.e., you are assuming that your speed is purely in a plane parallel to the ground, thus neglecting any vertical component of your speed) so that x represents vectors to the left or right of your track before initiating the turn, and y represents the vectors along the direction you were traveling before initiating your turn, then you can approximate how far you travel in the x and y axis for each second with trigonometry. In the first second, you have turned one degree, for an average of 0.5 degree. The y distance vector is 3.6 * cos a (where a is the angle of your turn at any given time), and the x distance vector is 3.6 * sin a, so in the first second, y = 0.03 miles; in the second, y = 0.09 miles, etc. Sum up all of the miles for the first 90 degrees of turn, and you've got a reasonable approximation of the turning radius (~210 miles, if my math is correct). You could get a more accurate figure with calculus, but for a thumbnail estimate, this is probably good enough.
* IIRC, a "standard rate turn" for a jet was a four minute turn, resulting in only 90 degrees per minute, which I believe would double the turning radius calculated above. I suppose it is sufficient to say that at 13,000 mph, the turning radius is "large":)
Well, maybe...but Google is a U.S. company, as is Apple and Microsoft. Maybe I'm just not thinking this through all the way, but it seems to me that until/unless these companies remove themselves from the U.S. or until/unless comparable companies with no U.S. presence arise, legal issues here will still have ramifications abroad.
Look, I despise the practices of lawyers (as a group) just as much as the next/.'er, but I don't think you thought this through very well.
Prevent people from serving in two branches of government at the same time.
I'm not well-enough versed in the Constitution to claim whether or not an individual person could legally hold offices in two or more branches of the government simultaneously. Intuitively, I'd say "not" but I don't know for sure, because honestly, the idea never occurred to me. However, for the point I believe you are trying to make (as opposed to what you actually wrote), that is somewhat irrelevant. "Lawyers" are a group of people, rather than specific individuals. Good luck excluding groups of people from serving in more than one branch of government, because there are countless ways to subdivide people into various groups. I would guess it would be just about impossible to fill the branches of government with people whose group memberships contained no intersections. </pedantic>
Since this is only a problem with Lawyers (part of the Judicial branch by default) prevent Lawyers from EVER holding office of Executive or Legislative branches of government... ever.
Ummm...I'm not so sure I agree that lawyers are "part of the judicial branch by default". You can't exclude lawyers from the Executive Branch because a non-lawyer wouldn't be able to read a bill and catch the loopholes. We average joes sometimes find ourselves screwed because we signed contracts that we didn't understand; how much worse would it be if the President was signing bills into law without understanding the ramifications of the legal terms in the bill? Similarly, the Legislative Branch has to be composed of lawyers because the lawyers arguing cases before a judge would have a field day with laws written by people who didn't understand legal language. That would be like you or me writing a contract with a business that could afford an army of lawyers in Armani suits. They would pick apart the best contract that geeks like us could write just as any geek worth his salt could pick apart code written by your average user. Of the three options in the U.S., I would argue that putting non-lawyers in the Judicial Branch might be the best option, since hopefully, they would hopefully be more inclined to rule based on "spirit of the law" rather than "letter of the law." Maybe. If we were lucky.
Well, yeah. That was kind of my point in the post you are replying to. Some people are rocket scientists. Others are chemists. Others are doctors. Pulling someone out of the career field they are best at -- and most passionate about -- doesn't make them rock stars in another field. Ergo, the people who are clever at exploring space aren't necessarily going to contribute nearly as much if there is no rocket science for them to pour their passion into.
Some people are smarter and/or have more opportunities than others - life's unfair like that.
And that's just making excuses. "I *could* have done it, but the deck was stacked against me. I'm just not that smart. I didn't have the opportunities that she did." Meh. I've had to overcome a lot of bad luck to get to where I'm at right now, but you know what? I didn't let that stop me. I've faced major illness. I've been unemployed. Twice, in fact. But I didn't waste time complaining, "life's unfair like that." Whining does nothing to solve the problems I have to face, so I don't have time for it.
The Second World War brought welfare states to various Western European countries which reduced suffering dramatically and demonstrated how it can be done.
That's your idea of a good solution??? Look, I'm totally in favor of helping out others when they are down on their luck. BTDT, from both sides of the equation. But the "welfare state" doesn't solve the root problem. It just masks it. I'm sure you've heard the old adage about giving a man a fish vs. teaching him how to fish? The welfare state is giving a man a fish. The problem is he needs to learn how to fish so he can fish for himself. Sure, when you're starving, you need something to eat while you learn to fish. But you shouldn't be expecting someone to give you a fish every single day for the rest of your life! The welfare state is ultimately a losing gambit. What happens when you reach a tipping point in your ratio of working members of society vs. welfare recipients? Who provides the resources that the state allocates to the needy when your entire population -- or at least, an unsustainable proportion of it -- is needy? And in a welfare state, this isn't a self-correcting situation. If the state will meet my needs if I don't, what incentive do I have to better myself so that I'm no longer needy?
But you are basically either missing or simply ignoring JoshuaZ's most important point:
Overtime [sic], the amount of suffering has gone down by many metrics.
Science is working. It's making a definite and measurable improvement in the life of everyone on the planet. Space exploration is but one of the fields of research that is making this possible. You are looking at the world today, looking at the world as it should be, and seeing that they don't match. The cognitive dissonance bothers you, obviously quite a bit. That's a Good Thing, BTW. However, just because you are sensitive to the problems the world faces does NOT imply that the world is not getting better. It's fashionable right now to focus on the doom and gloom and complain about how bad things are getting. There's a word for that: nostalgia. JoshuaZ is right -- the world is getting BETTER, and you can thank science for that -- ALL the sciences, including space exploration.
Slashdot Mirror
For most people, the whole point of a headset on a phone is to move the transmitter farther away from one's head.
Huh...silly me. I thought most people used a headset so they didn't have to hold the phone next to their ear (frequently, but not always, while trying to do something that requires both hands, like typing on a computer keyboard or driving a car). At least, that's why I bought a (bluetooth) headset for my phone.
Check out Project Excelsior: 102,800 feet (~19.5 miles), free-falling for 13+ minutes and reaching a speed of 614 mph at -94F...yeah, probably unpleasant and frightening, at least for most people, but definitely survivable.
You forgot e) can a MIG-25 execute a negative 4G dive?
Ugh...why would you want to? I love roller coasters and I'm a pilot that has pulled a few maneuvers in the just-barely-negative-g range when flying. I'd gladly take a ride that included some +4G maneuvers, but I'll pass on the negative 4G pushover, thanks. Negative G-forces are particularly hard on the body. Unless you are a practicing aerobatic/fighter pilot, -4G wouldn't be fun...it would be painful.
True, but social or political forces may influence you to include people that you'd possibly rather not include. For example, I created a Facebook account because I am a part-time youth pastor and one of my parent helpers suggested this might be a good way to communicate with other parents and the youth in my youth group. However, many of my personal friends (i.e., not associated with the youth group) discovered my Facebook profile and started sending friend requests. As many people have discovered, the union of personal and professional contacts can sometimes be, ahem, "awkward" and, unlike Google+, Facebook doesn't allow you to segregate your friends lists into categories that determine which group sees what. In my case, some of my political views don't match that of all the parents of kids in my youth group, and that has sometimes been poorly received (that's a shameless plug to one of my blogs, so don't click if you are offended by such things).
Having been slightly singed by this experience (I wasn't really "burned", but it did tick me off a bit), I've largely avoided Facebook since. With Google+, I plan to migrate my actual, personal "friends" list there, and leave the youth group on Facebook.
"It's just like Facebook, but with fewer morons..."
+1
That, in a nutshell, was the only reason I accepted a friend's Google+ invite. There are people I want to remain in contact with, but the signal to noise ratio on Facebook was approaching zero, and consequently, I had pretty much ditched social networking until Google+. We'll see if it stays that way or if it gets less interesting as it gets more popular.
The rule of law depends upon the people being governed being capable of knowing all the things which are prohibited.
Well...not exactly. I had a history teacher in high school (college, maybe?) discuss the difference between how laws are generally created, interpreted and enforced in the U.S.* and the U.K. vs. how they are generally created, interpreted and enforced in mainland Europe**. In the U.S. and U.K., there is a list of things that are prohibited, and the laws are enforced rather strictly. That which is not prohibited is allowed. In mainland Europe, he claimed, the laws are written to describe what is allowed and that which is not allowed is prohibited. However, the laws are not enforced as strictly. Rather, laws are enforced when a violation of the law causes a problem ("selective enforcement"). There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. In the U.S./U.K. model, "justice" is the goal -- you can't be arrested at the whim of the powers that be. In the mainland Europe model, common sense is the goal. Yes, technically something you are doing might be illegal, but you likely won't be arrested unless you are causing a problem.
*According to my instructor, there are exceptions in the U.S. He specifically mentioned NOLA, which is largely influenced by French culture.
**IANAL, and I have never been to mainland Europe, so I am merely repeating what I was told in class. It may or may not be accurate, although I would certainly be interested in hearing confirmation or rebuttal from someone who has better information than I.
No, people do NOT need to "calm down" about this. People should be INCENSED about this!
You may be okay with your family being molested by government thugs, but I'M NOT, and I really don't give a shit how much safer this crap makes you feel. It's fucking illegal, dimwit. Read the 4th Amendment -- the TSA does NOT have the right to x-ray and fondle me or my family without probable cause. Just because you are too much of a freaking coward to stand up for yourself when some yahoo pulls a box cutter in an airplane doesn't mean I have to sacrifice my dignity or that of my family, got it?
I agree with all of your arguments, but not your conclusion.
In a nutshell, the more people pissed off at TSA, the more likely it is that they will eventually go away. To me, this looks like "divide and conquer", not "the first of many concessions to common sense."
Y'know, since TSA's budget is in the billions and our country is in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since 1929, I'd kind of imagine that the onus is on THEM to convince the taxpayer that they (TSA, not the taxpayer, just to be clear) are providing value for the money we are spending on them...
Ugh...BTDT. Definitely don't eat the cod sandwich <shudder> The turkey club was pretty good, though.
Lucky you.
My wife and my step-daughter have BOTH been fondled at airports. I have had to boot laptops. My step-daughter was asked to go through the electronic nudie-scope on her last flight, and told TSA no.
Just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it isn't happening, and it definitely doesn't mean people shouldn't be incensed about TSA's abusive, degrading, demeaning security theater. If that makes me a "malcontent", so be it.
Even if TSA could tell with 100% accuracy who was a pilot, who was a passenger and who was a terrorist, it wouldn't solve anything:
"Hello, my name is Achmed bin Farteen. Your wife and son are with me. Would you like to speak to them?" <hands the wife the phone long enough to convince the pilot that he really does have the pilot's family with him.> "I will begin torturing your family by <insert fiendish plan here> unless you carry this package through security for me and leave it in the third stall in the second men's bathroom to the right after you clear security..."
Unless the average lifespan is dramatically longer then than it is now, no, I won't.
Obviously I can't say how productive Number6.2 is,
I would say twice as productive as Number3.1 is.
No, version numbers increase with new generations. Therefore, number6.2 is only half as productive as number3.1, but is twice as productive as number12.4.
But. Try going in to a job interview and saying "No, I don't have 5 years of this language, but give me a week, some small changes to work on and access to google and I'll be able to program it as well as most of your other developers". It may be true, but it doesn't wash with HR people or project managers. They have a ticksheet of skills and levels and they don't care a damn how easily transferrable any of them are - if you don't have it exact, tough.
The "ticksheet" comment is half the answer. The other is that to someone who isn't literate in computer programming, saying "give me a week..." comes off as being cocky and arrogant. If you are looking for a linguist who speaks French, you don't hire someone who knows a different language -- even a different Romance language -- because you will *NOT* become fluent in French in a week if you don't already know the language.
;) so it is easy for someone who already "thinks programming" to learn a new syntax and grammar. You already know how to think through the problem solving steps, so finding how to express the algorithm in ${random_language_1} when you already know ${random_language_2} is relatively trivial.
However, CS people understand that computer languages aren't like natural languages. The syntax and grammar is much less complex and there is much less variety in the language itself (except for Perl
...but chances are you have a "oh shit.. gotta learn this new crap fast" moment.
That's true for IT in general, though. I'm not a developer; I'm a network/systems admin. We recently upgraded a Linux-based Samba PDC with an OpenLDAP backend to a new version of both Samba and OpenLDAP. In this particular migration, both Samba and OpenLDAP (especially OpenLDAP) had significantly changed, and I had to "learn this new crap fast". I spent several years learning Solaris and FreeBSD (and using Slackware at home) before coming to this job, and then had to learn how to use and troubleshoot emerge on Gentoo to update systems. "Oh, @#$!!!...gotta learn this new crap fast" too, since the other network admin was on leave the week I started (LOL!).
IT changes rapidly. You either learn the new crap fast, or you become obsolete. My mortgage payment won't make itself, so I learn new crap fast.
Many people are going back to two-year dates. 2100 is going to be a lot of fun.
Why do I care? I'll be 130 then :D
2. I'm expensive. I have 30 years of experience in the 'biz and a masters degree in CS. I'm not cheap. You could hire two 25 year olds for what I'm asking.
In other words, you place a higher value on your labor than the market does. That's not a bad thing; it just means that you have a choice to make. You can either stay unemployed, move into another field (management is what you've mentioned) or drop your asking price. <shrug> I would be very surprised if there wasn't *someone*willing to hire you with your experience, assuming of course that you actually can walk the walk as well as talk the talk (and I mean no disrespect there, nor am I trying to imply otherwise -- I am only pointing out that I don't know you and just because ${random_guy_on_the_internet} says he can do a job doesn't necessarily mean he really can).
:)
Regarding the poster's original question: 40 isn't old. You don't have Alzheimer's, dementia or some other disability that prevents you from learning like you used to, do you? If you were able to learn new languages back then, you can still do it now. If you love programming and don't enjoy project management, go back to what you love. You've still got 20+ years left in you, and that's too long to do something you don't enjoy. Plus, in my experience, people tend to be better at what they enjoy. If your job is a drudgery, it will show in your work. If you job is a joy to you, that will show in the quality of your work. As for which language, well, do the research. See what employers in your area (or in the area you want to live in) are looking for, and start studying it. You're a geek -- you can do some market research on the Internet and see what skills are most valuable and provide the best opportunity for you
Who is Senator Palin? We have Senator Murkowski and Senator Begich as well as Congressman Young, but I've never heard of Senator Palin.
Oh, you meant (former) GOVERNOR Palin...
The cynic in me asks, "What did you think it was created for?"
Terrorism was just an excuse, same as Communism was the excuse back in the '50s.
When I was working on my pilot's license, a "standard rate turn" was considered a turn at which you traveled 180 degrees per minute*, or 3 degrees per second. 13,000 mph is 216 miles per minute, or 3.6 miles per second. If you plot out your x and y vectors for the track across the ground (i.e., you are assuming that your speed is purely in a plane parallel to the ground, thus neglecting any vertical component of your speed) so that x represents vectors to the left or right of your track before initiating the turn, and y represents the vectors along the direction you were traveling before initiating your turn, then you can approximate how far you travel in the x and y axis for each second with trigonometry. In the first second, you have turned one degree, for an average of 0.5 degree. The y distance vector is 3.6 * cos a (where a is the angle of your turn at any given time), and the x distance vector is 3.6 * sin a, so in the first second, y = 0.03 miles; in the second, y = 0.09 miles, etc. Sum up all of the miles for the first 90 degrees of turn, and you've got a reasonable approximation of the turning radius (~210 miles, if my math is correct). You could get a more accurate figure with calculus, but for a thumbnail estimate, this is probably good enough.
:)
* IIRC, a "standard rate turn" for a jet was a four minute turn, resulting in only 90 degrees per minute, which I believe would double the turning radius calculated above. I suppose it is sufficient to say that at 13,000 mph, the turning radius is "large"
Well, maybe...but Google is a U.S. company, as is Apple and Microsoft. Maybe I'm just not thinking this through all the way, but it seems to me that until/unless these companies remove themselves from the U.S. or until/unless comparable companies with no U.S. presence arise, legal issues here will still have ramifications abroad.
Prevent people from serving in two branches of government at the same time.
I'm not well-enough versed in the Constitution to claim whether or not an individual person could legally hold offices in two or more branches of the government simultaneously. Intuitively, I'd say "not" but I don't know for sure, because honestly, the idea never occurred to me. However, for the point I believe you are trying to make (as opposed to what you actually wrote), that is somewhat irrelevant. "Lawyers" are a group of people, rather than specific individuals. Good luck excluding groups of people from serving in more than one branch of government, because there are countless ways to subdivide people into various groups. I would guess it would be just about impossible to fill the branches of government with people whose group memberships contained no intersections. </pedantic>
Since this is only a problem with Lawyers (part of the Judicial branch by default) prevent Lawyers from EVER holding office of Executive or Legislative branches of government ... ever.
Ummm...I'm not so sure I agree that lawyers are "part of the judicial branch by default". You can't exclude lawyers from the Executive Branch because a non-lawyer wouldn't be able to read a bill and catch the loopholes. We average joes sometimes find ourselves screwed because we signed contracts that we didn't understand; how much worse would it be if the President was signing bills into law without understanding the ramifications of the legal terms in the bill? Similarly, the Legislative Branch has to be composed of lawyers because the lawyers arguing cases before a judge would have a field day with laws written by people who didn't understand legal language. That would be like you or me writing a contract with a business that could afford an army of lawyers in Armani suits. They would pick apart the best contract that geeks like us could write just as any geek worth his salt could pick apart code written by your average user. Of the three options in the U.S., I would argue that putting non-lawyers in the Judicial Branch might be the best option, since hopefully, they would hopefully be more inclined to rule based on "spirit of the law" rather than "letter of the law." Maybe. If we were lucky.
This is bullshit '80s everyone-can-do-it fantasy.
Well, yeah. That was kind of my point in the post you are replying to. Some people are rocket scientists. Others are chemists. Others are doctors. Pulling someone out of the career field they are best at -- and most passionate about -- doesn't make them rock stars in another field. Ergo, the people who are clever at exploring space aren't necessarily going to contribute nearly as much if there is no rocket science for them to pour their passion into.
Some people are smarter and/or have more opportunities than others - life's unfair like that.
And that's just making excuses. "I *could* have done it, but the deck was stacked against me. I'm just not that smart. I didn't have the opportunities that she did." Meh. I've had to overcome a lot of bad luck to get to where I'm at right now, but you know what? I didn't let that stop me. I've faced major illness. I've been unemployed. Twice, in fact. But I didn't waste time complaining, "life's unfair like that." Whining does nothing to solve the problems I have to face, so I don't have time for it.
The Second World War brought welfare states to various Western European countries which reduced suffering dramatically and demonstrated how it can be done.
That's your idea of a good solution??? Look, I'm totally in favor of helping out others when they are down on their luck. BTDT, from both sides of the equation. But the "welfare state" doesn't solve the root problem. It just masks it. I'm sure you've heard the old adage about giving a man a fish vs. teaching him how to fish? The welfare state is giving a man a fish. The problem is he needs to learn how to fish so he can fish for himself. Sure, when you're starving, you need something to eat while you learn to fish. But you shouldn't be expecting someone to give you a fish every single day for the rest of your life! The welfare state is ultimately a losing gambit. What happens when you reach a tipping point in your ratio of working members of society vs. welfare recipients? Who provides the resources that the state allocates to the needy when your entire population -- or at least, an unsustainable proportion of it -- is needy? And in a welfare state, this isn't a self-correcting situation. If the state will meet my needs if I don't, what incentive do I have to better myself so that I'm no longer needy?
Overtime [sic], the amount of suffering has gone down by many metrics.
Science is working. It's making a definite and measurable improvement in the life of everyone on the planet. Space exploration is but one of the fields of research that is making this possible. You are looking at the world today, looking at the world as it should be, and seeing that they don't match. The cognitive dissonance bothers you, obviously quite a bit. That's a Good Thing, BTW. However, just because you are sensitive to the problems the world faces does NOT imply that the world is not getting better. It's fashionable right now to focus on the doom and gloom and complain about how bad things are getting. There's a word for that: nostalgia. JoshuaZ is right -- the world is getting BETTER, and you can thank science for that -- ALL the sciences, including space exploration.