In all of these inquiries to push evolution to the the fringe, could someone discuss attempts to do the same with theists?
One of the greatest arguments against a God came from a chapter in "The Brother's Karamazov" called "The Suffering of Little Children" http://www.online-literature.com/dostoevsky/brothers_karamazov/35/ In this chapter, Dostoevsky discusses how a fair, loving, and just God can permit violence against innocent children and other such atrocities.
Another great discourse came in Love & Rocket's song, "Dear God". http://studiotwentythree.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html
This sort of stuff should be discussed in any high school curriculum.
Well, there are a couple of incidents which I'd like to bring up.
In the mid 1990's, I read an article in Newsweek about a young Eastern European intern student [young and naive] who worked at Tampa Bay Electric. His task was to find some economical and environmentally friendly way to break up calcium deposits in water pipes. He was not all that successful during his six month or so position. However, the problem intrigued him and he thought about it afterward. A couple of years later, he tried out some ideas and hit upon a solution. He tried to patent his idea, but Tampa Bay Electric intervened and claimed that the idea was protected by his official employment agreement with them. He claimed that they had given up on the idea, and discarded further interest in pursuing a solution. What he did was outside their region of interest, or so he claimed. He had some notebooks, which Tampa Bay Electric claimed were theirs as well. He refused to turn those over to his former employer and was subsequently jailed on contempt issues.
Another story was one that I had seen on "60 Min". This young student claimed to have discovered or had certain ideas about making artificial diamonds. He with the help of his graduate director, set up an appointment with GE. GE listened to his ideas but never really pursued employing him, or compensating him for his efforts. Later on, GE developed certain technologies which used those ideas. GE claimed that what he had suggested was something which they were pursing. Maybe they were. After all, ideas are a dime a dozen. However, sometimes, the confirmation is what you need to get things going in the first place.
Most of us go on to create business ideas which depend upon our previous experience and accumulated knowledge. I never saw a follow up on the story, nor know the outcome of those events. Does anyone have any leads on this story? I have been trying to find a follow up to this story for years.
One of my friends made a joke. Highly educated people give away their knowledge freely, as if to show off their depth of understanding. Yet, you take the stupidest plumber and ask him were to get such and such a part for your sink, he will shut up. If you happen to bring the part to him, he will charge you a surcharge because you are depriving him of potential profit. Actually, I listened to a http://www.youtube.com/ interview with Harlan Ellison (the guy who sued for the rights to "The Terminator" because the studio plagiarized his idea from his earlier stories for Outer Limits TOS, "Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand"). Ellison basically said something interesting, that "Amateurs give away their craft, while as professionals know the value of their contribution."
Lawyers on the other hand, charge you for their time, whether or not they will or lose. (I hear that many management consultants do the same. Seeing that the US taxpayer is bailing out our industry to the STARTING SUM of $700B, I have to agree.) There is no such thing as a FREE consultation. You are in their office not for FREE advice, but as an attempt to get you to sign on with them. They might say a multitude of reasonable things, but its the going to court task that will cost you money!
Years ago, I use to write proposals for work with the US government. For each project bid phase, many vendors would submit their ideas and work. Some government liaison officer would read the proposals, and assign the project to one of the submitted vendors. The winner would have access to all the other ideas presented in the proposals. Maybe you might have lost the bid on one concept, however, you might have been right on some other concepts. The winner of the project was free to incorporate all submitted ideas into the deliverable.
The Wright brothers were far more successful in their ideas with planes than Curtis. However, the government [in anticipation of The Great War] decided to force the Wright brothers to sell out and merge with Curtis. Curtis
Ironically, when the US decided to dispose of its nuclear waste in Utah, the time horizon was that the containment should be for around 75000, while as it takes about 2 million years for most of the radioactive isotopes to decay.
I think calculations like this assume something else is going to kill us before our waste does. Who knows, maybe nature will be far more forgiving, and we will poison ourselves first.
The world will end not with a bang, but with a whimper.
-Read that on the bathroom wall when I was a kid.
Now, only if you had paid attention to your English lessons. The first letter of a sentence is capitalized. "I" is always capitalized.
Personally, I couldn't care less. However, at "Our Lady Gate of Heaven" in Livonia, MI, I had a nun teacher who would whack me with a ruler if I wasn't doing that by the third grade.
Maybe not now. Probably because Catholicism does not possesses the power it once did.
No, today, we just bomb countries whose ideologies conflict with ours (really because they have assets that we don't).
This country was stolen from the Indians using techniques far more barbaric.
You said "If you get your financial advice from Kramer you need help. The guy really is out there."
You might be right, however, unless you really give me a well formulated and well thought out arguement, I think you are just mindlessly bashing and raving nothings.
Yes, Cramer is a clown. However, he presents a well thought out formulation on his GOOD days. Of all the financial advisors I have heard, Cramer has been right over the last few months.
But to allow the short sellers to bring the prices down so low, only to bail the banks out is not serving the taxpayers interests. You can't have government intervention and claim to have free markets at the same time.
The only place where Kensian economics exists in in Keynes's and his follower's minds!
There are lots of problems in the financial system that have nothing to do with computers. If anything, computers have brought these problems to light.
You see a lot of this pointed out on Jim Cramer's show "Mad Money", http://madmoney.cnbc.com/
Most of our problems have to do with the lack of transparency in financial systems on supposedly public traded companies. As Cramer pointed out, "How can you have these levels of fiction after Sarbone-Oxley?" Moreover, with the recent Ponzi scheme uncovered, it makes you wonder just how interested is the SEC in maintaining the integrity of the financial system? That and allowing the short sellers to destroy the banks, leaving the tax payer to bail out the investors in order to preserve the financial system.
Thank god, we have the best form of government money can buy. Unfortunately, it even works to preserve the status quo when the original players are bankrupt. Nothing new here, after all, Japan's emperor was able to maintain control long after he had been defeated.
I am sure the US empire will survive this minor setback. The Hessian empire was bankrupt for hundreds of years before it ultimately collapsed. Maybe we can drag this on until the next Ice Age or until we poison all life to extinction, so who cares about the messes in the meantime?
One quote I have heard is that this county is good at socializing the losses and privatizing the gains.
Look back, at other bail outs. In 1989, we bailed out the S&L's for $500B. However, this was really just bailing out banks that had decided to get into commercial real estate, which they lobbied hard to get into by getting rid of "antiquated laws" which stood in their way (of using the FDIC to cover commercial real estate loans). Had the bank investments in TX commercial real estate been profitable, I would not have received any windfall.
In 1992, the US bailed out ($500B) rich US investors in Mexico's oil pipeline industry.
In many ways, these bail outs are written into the investments long before hand. For example, while as I do not support drilling in Alaska, I can't stop companies from drilling there for oil.
However, when the Alaskan Oil Pipeline was guaranteed by the US taxpayer to be profitable, I did not get a any bonds to cover my "investment".
Now we hear a similar rallying call on how this is going to save our jobs, How this is not a bail out of Wall St. but Main St. Great, but where is the free market at work here? First of all, I want bonds, and second, in a free market, I want banks to issue bonds at a price at which I feel link investing at.
Over the last two years, the government has pumped a lot of money into banks (by offering ridiculously low terms), which they used to make loans at a much higher rate.
This is no longer capitalism or socialism at work. I think the better term is called THEFT. When King George II of England manipulated the economy of the colonies, it resulted in a revolution. However, when Pres George II does it, it is called an economic stimulus. This is class warfare. Unfortunately, most of us are too stupid to know what is going on. The rest are too powerless to change things. Any sort of class struggle is going to result in a crackdown like that used during the Counter Intelligence Program during the 1970's, or if disent gets more widespread, like that used in Chili in the mid 1970's. So we are just going pay for it, since we are better off sitting at home and paying to keep the peace.
I think there is a great trend in the US (and elsewhere) to look upon smart guys as geeks or nerds. Not that some of this isn't true. Most smart people are smart because they spend a lot of their time studying and thus forgoing lots of other talents, or hygine. I remember cramming for tests so much during finals week, that I would skip showers. Unfortunately, I have met many classmates that would take that to the extreme. So, if you skip a few days of showers, pretty soon, you start doing it more often. The same happens with sports. Well, I didn't do my exercises for the last week because I was busy with work. Well, pretty soon, this becomes a standard pattern, and you don't exercise enough. Next thing you know, you are the last kid chosen for the basket ball game. Why bother anyway, at this point.
From what I heard amongst Indians, intelligent guys are looked at with some envy in India. An interesting thing happens in the US. Smart kids choose to study medicine, law, or business. Pretty soon, we have to import computer scientist and mathematicians, because the best and brightest went off to more lucrative pastures.
One hundred and fifty years ago, pure aluminum was as expensive as gold. Then someone came out and discovered that if you heat aluminum oxide until it is molten, and use electrolysis, you can generate as much pure aluminum as you want, cheap enough to wrap left over foods and threw it away afterward.
As long as you are criminally inclined, a bit more laws aren't going to change your behavior. Moreover, the more you have to lose, the more you are likely to take measures to prevent them from being compromised. Hence, as far as encryption is concerned, people with money and motive are going to really buy to top end merchandise.
This really brings to mind the situation with encryption keys for cell phones. While as laws were passed to outfit cell phones in the US, French phones used technologies to by-pass these laws. Now, if you are selling drugs, doesn't it make sense to buy and use a French phone, especially if it is far more difficult to crack. Unless you are stupid and decide to risk your $100K shipment of coke by opting for a cheaper Motorola cell phone.
I will go in after a night of heavy drinking, unshaven, and get stung by a couple of bees "at critical points", and pop a couple of zits, as well as put a drop of an allergic pollen in my left nostril. Maybe even put on lots of weight beforehand and stuff cotton balls in my cheeks like Marlon Brando did for "The Godfather".
Can anyone think of any other natural things I can do? You heard of the C obfuscation contest. Maybe we can form the DMV face obfuscation contest.
One interesting thing that I learned recently [from the 50th year annivesary the Cuban Missle Crisis] was that during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the Soviets had given an order to sink a US submarine. The Soviet captain decided not to carry out that order, and thus an all out conflict was avoided.
Actually, I am quite surprised that the Soviets did not launch everything that they had in 1992, and had opted to dissolve. After all, the Soviets did not trust (nor had any reason to) that the US would not uphold peace in the future. The US sent a division of soldiers to Russia to suppress the Bolishvik Revolution, something that would never be dismissed in Soviet history lessons. As to whether or not technology has maintained the peace is questionable. Biological weapons really level the playing field, especially if you know that you have nothing to lose (aka the Sampson option).
I wonder how long luck will keep us alive!
Based on the 2 movies about Jobs, "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" and "The Triumph of the Nerds", he comes across as being a bit of an asshole.
After his plane crash, Woz seems to describe him [Jobs] as an arrogant prick, especially with the allocation of stock options to employees after the first few founders. If someone works his butt off for you and you forget to leave enough options for him, then either you are disorganized or greedy. One thing I was impressed about was that lots of employees worked 110 hour weeks for the glory of Jobs. Only Jim Jones had a more faithful cult following. [A direct reference in the movie.]
I use to work 70 hours/week as an employee for companies that never made it big. I got a $5K bonus that year during my performance review. I did a mental calculation and said that I would have received more had I worked flipping burgers on the weekends. One day, when I was traveling with a 3 hour layover at an airport, so I started browsing a book like, "101 Ways to Reward your Employees." This books started off with an opening like, "Professional employees, unlike management, often respond to non-monetary incentives." Oftentimes, a manager can get away with simple employee recognition awards printed out on a laser-printer and handed out in front of their peers during an company meeting accompanied by a small monetary gift."
Ok, I might have 2 degrees from prestigious universities, but I am dumb as shit if I will fall for this. I quit within a month.
One good thing is that it will be possible to standardize statistical tests and results against such a common database. One big problem with a lot of statistical analysis is the skewing of data due to insufficient size, vastly different population sample sets, and the presence of colored noise.
Take a simple radix sort algorithm applied to a telephone directory. Radix sort works if the pre-allocation of slots matches the data. One example where it breaks down is if you used a Boston matrix [having large concentrations of Irish names] on San Francisco's population [having clusters of Asian names].
Given the tremendous progress in genomic research, I would be interested in comparing my DNA with Craig Venture's. I guess one drawback might be with what I call the white lab mouse issue. White lab mice's DNA are becoming a laboratory benchmark because they are so well studied and breed to keep providing consistency of data by the money making labs which furnish them. However, white mice are very rare in nature (easily spotted in nature). So, we have an entire industry focused on investigating a marginal population.
However, as my mother makes fun about, we spend more money subsidizing Viagra [probably due to the large white male population of "elected officials"] than we do on Alzheimer medication, so progress is good!
Well, since the USA was built on stealing land from the Injuns, labor via slaves from Africa, oil from Iraq (and Injuns living in Oklahoma in the 1920's), rocket technology from Germany, why should we be surprised when its inhabitants decide to follow in the old fashioned traditions.
But I guess most/. 's aren't that surprised. Explaining it this to most patitiots is another matter.
For more info, read "War is a Racket" by Smedley Butler!
I don't know about the UK, but in the US, most professionals are scared that they will become an obsolete and discarded product in mid-career. Lots of them become discouraged by the process and give up or change careers. If you visit your local career transition networking groups, you will learn about many such people who have opted to become truck drivers or retail sales clerks.
I know lots of people with impressive degrees who work at menial jobs for minimum wage. I don't think the vast majority of them are any less motivated or bright today as any other time.
When people fail in their professional life, we discard them, unless they are very powerful bankers and investors who lose on very large bets. We just bail them out and let them try again!
Given that this occurs to their parents, most kids become apathetic too. Why not just train for truck driving at the onset? It avoids lots of unnecessary expenses and moreover, you don't spend your days wondering what you could have been.
During WWII, most of the best physics and math books around were written in Germany. Obviously, rather than stepping down and using "perceived" second rate books written in by Allied authors or worse, paying royalties to a government with which you are at war, the Allies decided to reprint German books in the Allied countries without paying royalties. If you look on the inside copyright notice, it is stated that the books were reprinted under the "War Time Publications Act" which made this perfectly legal and was encouraged. Even after the war, you can see vast collections of these books still held by libraries.
After WWII, some countries, like France rewrote the subject matter authored under the collective pseudonym Bourbaki.
When people in government offices give it the seal of approval, it is legal. If some poor peon does the same thing, it is illegal.
Likewise, there are lots of herbal supplements whose medicinal value, the FDA is calling into question. Yet, pharmaceuticals are isolating and artificially manufacturing the same chemical ingredients and targeting them towards curing various aliments, supported with tax payer dollars.
-We have the best form of government MONEY can BUY!
And the bottled water industry will be looking for a handout too, as people are drinking from the FREE water fountain.
Next thing you know, the entertainment industry will get one too, as people as sitting around at home unemployed and posting on/.
I don't know if all the subttle 3D gestures are unique. Who knows what sort of actions will be associated with them. I tried to design a 2D UI in MS-Windows, and ran into all sorts of action association problems which sank X-Windows. I can't even keep my MUSIC ( McGill University's System for Interactive Computing on IBM mainframes), UNIX & VAX syntax straight on a silly 1 D interface. On MUSIC, I remember when you typed "fuck" at the command prompt. The system would say "In Progress" and handle the next person's request. Some sys admin had to program that into the OS system commands.
Speaking of which, why is "fuck" beeped out on TV, but "frak" is used in "Battlestar Galactic", "frell" in Farscape, and "shagged" in Austin Powers. Yes, frack is a contrived word, but the implied meaning is understood.
What about internationalization issues. I grew up in the US, but lived in Montreal (a city with a large gay population). Most French swear words have a religious connotation. Saying "Fuck You" in NYC might be offensive, but in Montreal's St. Dennis Street, yelling it out loud will get you approached by a half dozen old perverts thinking you are offering your services for the night.
The same with the old US middle finger salute. In the 70's it use to have all sorts of different meanings where ever you traveled.
Now suppose you are surfing http://us.3d-youporn-space.com/ . All sorts of weird and unexpected result could come up. Is someone going to program the UI to pick up your gestures and say, "STOP that or you will go BLIND!" How will it treat your reply, "Shucks, can't I go on until I need glasses?"
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Why do we say "A penny for your thoughts", but here is "My 2 cents worth?"
Besides, I am still having hard time operating this mouse foot petal. It is so damn hard to get the selection of a word with my toes!
Next thing you know, they'll design away my CD-RW coffee cup holder!
I still miss my D parallel printer, what am I going to do with all the cheap cables I got at the discount bin at BestBuy!
I too cannot recommend "The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol I-III" enough. This was written for first year undergrad students, but should have been aimed for 3rd year students. It is very nice in that is very detailed, at the expense of going overboard. For example, Feynman discusses the fact that solutions to differential equations are in fact the minimal energy solutions. I did not grok this until I got to grad school and studied Finite Element Methods.
Another great series is the one by Laudau and Liftshitz.
Surprisingly, about 70% of the people who called their elected representatives voiced their opinion AGAINST the bail out. However, as was evident on CNBC during an interview with one of our ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES, our representatives chose to ignore our overwhelming opinion and decided to do what was in the best interests of the country (e.g. the lobbiest who put them in power). The interviewee said that he ignored the flood of calls and emails on this subject, even if it meant his losing his seat.
Another interesting thing was that the Republicans voted against the second proposal [I guess so that they could claim that they opposed it], but Bush [the banker family] signed it into law.
As long as we have the college electoral system in place, third parties cannot obtain a position in government nor grow. This was by design. The last time the two dominate parties changed was during the formation of the Republican party and Abe Lincoln. However, this was funded by a massive support of the railroad companies. The railroad companies couldn't care less if the South wanted slavery and the North didn't, but they were not going to stay idle and watch the Confederacy tax their business. The rallying cry was, "The power to tax is the power to destroy."
Will someone point out that $120 Billion is a lot of money to bail out AIG? Oh yes, it is a loan. Well, first, what happens if that loan is never paid back because AIG fails anyway. Second, the terms on that loan are ridiculously low and do not reflect the fair market rates. Where can I get such a loan? Never the less, this $700B is going to bail out rich investors and a few middle class investors, but I doubt that it is going to avoid the Greater Depression in the following years to come. Why should I get stuck with the bill?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10812
Thank god we have the best form of government MONEY can BUY!
Well, college was originally intended for the "well to do" to round off their education. A university is suppose to be a place for you to study to learn about something, not as a career prep. Otherwise you get a job at a company and work your way up.
However, it should be said that college serves as a barrier to entry for many occupations. Sort of a test to see if you can handle problem solving, expression or writing. Given two candidates with similar grades, the one with a college education from a better name school is going to have a major competitive advantage over his peers from a less well known rival.
I had a college friend who was offered a scholarship to a mediocre school, while just admission to a private elite school. The admission official for the lesser known institute told him, well you can be a valedictorian at our school, or average at the top rated school. Perhaps it makes a difference in your first couple of years. But after a decade, people ask what school you went to, not your GPA.
Another one of my friends, short on money, decided to study Comp. Eng. at Univ of Ill at Champana-Urbana. His strategy was to avoid any classes not relevant to his goal. He took preliminary college classes in his junior & senior year in HS and skipped all of his electives and took only the core courses. He got a co-op job after his second year (while taking third year classes). He worked the co-op job as a programmer for a year and managed to get hired full time without a degree.
Another smart friend who studied EE at U of WI at Plattville for 2 years [because it was much cheaper a school] and then transferred to U of WI at Madison [much more expensive]. Madison made him repeat most of his 2nd year classes, so in the end, he did not save money by this strategy. He did acknowledge that Platteville was a much easier school.
I studied math with the full intention of getting my Ph. D. Somewhere along the line, I finished up my M. Sc., got a job as a programmer and never returned for my Ph. D. In retrospect, I should have studied computational biology, which would have been just as interesting, and probably far more in demand.
Now I just sit around, post on www.slashdot.org, and wonder what the hell I want to be if I grow up.
Slashdot Mirror
In all of these inquiries to push evolution to the the fringe, could someone discuss attempts to do the same with theists?
One of the greatest arguments against a God came from a chapter in "The Brother's Karamazov" called "The Suffering of Little Children" http://www.online-literature.com/dostoevsky/brothers_karamazov/35/ In this chapter, Dostoevsky discusses how a fair, loving, and just God can permit violence against innocent children and other such atrocities. Another great discourse came in Love & Rocket's song, "Dear God".
http://studiotwentythree.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html This sort of stuff should be discussed in any high school curriculum.
Well, there are a couple of incidents which I'd like to bring up.
In the mid 1990's, I read an article in Newsweek about a young Eastern European intern student [young and naive] who worked at Tampa Bay Electric. His task was to find some economical and environmentally friendly way to break up calcium deposits in water pipes. He was not all that successful during his six month or so position. However, the problem intrigued him and he thought about it afterward. A couple of years later, he tried out some ideas and hit upon a solution. He tried to patent his idea, but Tampa Bay Electric intervened and claimed that the idea was protected by his official employment agreement with them. He claimed that they had given up on the idea, and discarded further interest in pursuing a solution. What he did was outside their region of interest, or so he claimed. He had some notebooks, which Tampa Bay Electric claimed were theirs as well. He refused to turn those over to his former employer and was subsequently jailed on contempt issues.
Another story was one that I had seen on "60 Min". This young student claimed to have discovered or had certain ideas about making artificial diamonds. He with the help of his graduate director, set up an appointment with GE. GE listened to his ideas but never really pursued employing him, or compensating him for his efforts. Later on, GE developed certain technologies which used those ideas. GE claimed that what he had suggested was something which they were pursing. Maybe they were. After all, ideas are a dime a dozen. However, sometimes, the confirmation is what you need to get things going in the first place.
Most of us go on to create business ideas which depend upon our previous experience and accumulated knowledge. I never saw a follow up on the story, nor know the outcome of those events. Does anyone have any leads on this story? I have been trying to find a follow up to this story for years.
One of my friends made a joke. Highly educated people give away their knowledge freely, as if to show off their depth of understanding. Yet, you take the stupidest plumber and ask him were to get such and such a part for your sink, he will shut up. If you happen to bring the part to him, he will charge you a surcharge because you are depriving him of potential profit. Actually, I listened to a http://www.youtube.com/ interview with Harlan Ellison (the guy who sued for the rights to "The Terminator" because the studio plagiarized his idea from his earlier stories for Outer Limits TOS, "Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand"). Ellison basically said something interesting, that "Amateurs give away their craft, while as professionals know the value of their contribution."
Lawyers on the other hand, charge you for their time, whether or not they will or lose. (I hear that many management consultants do the same. Seeing that the US taxpayer is bailing out our industry to the STARTING SUM of $700B, I have to agree.) There is no such thing as a FREE consultation. You are in their office not for FREE advice, but as an attempt to get you to sign on with them. They might say a multitude of reasonable things, but its the going to court task that will cost you money!
Years ago, I use to write proposals for work with the US government. For each project bid phase, many vendors would submit their ideas and work. Some government liaison officer would read the proposals, and assign the project to one of the submitted vendors. The winner would have access to all the other ideas presented in the proposals. Maybe you might have lost the bid on one concept, however, you might have been right on some other concepts. The winner of the project was free to incorporate all submitted ideas into the deliverable.
The Wright brothers were far more successful in their ideas with planes than Curtis. However, the government [in anticipation of The Great War] decided to force the Wright brothers to sell out and merge with Curtis. Curtis
Ironically, when the US decided to dispose of its nuclear waste in Utah, the time horizon was that the containment should be for around 75000, while as it takes about 2 million years for most of the radioactive isotopes to decay. I think calculations like this assume something else is going to kill us before our waste does. Who knows, maybe nature will be far more forgiving, and we will poison ourselves first.
The world will end not with a bang, but with a whimper.
-Read that on the bathroom wall when I was a kid.
Now, only if you had paid attention to your English lessons. The first letter of a sentence is capitalized. "I" is always capitalized.
Personally, I couldn't care less. However, at "Our Lady Gate of Heaven" in Livonia, MI, I had a nun teacher who would whack me with a ruler if I wasn't doing that by the third grade.
Maybe not now. Probably because Catholicism does not possesses the power it once did.
No, today, we just bomb countries whose ideologies conflict with ours (really because they have assets that we don't).
This country was stolen from the Indians using techniques far more barbaric.
You said "If you get your financial advice from Kramer you need help. The guy really is out there."
You might be right, however, unless you really give me a well formulated and well thought out arguement, I think you are just mindlessly bashing and raving nothings.
Yes, Cramer is a clown. However, he presents a well thought out formulation on his GOOD days. Of all the financial advisors I have heard, Cramer has been right over the last few months.
But to allow the short sellers to bring the prices down so low, only to bail the banks out is not serving the taxpayers interests. You can't have government intervention and claim to have free markets at the same time.
The only place where Kensian economics exists in in Keynes's and his follower's minds!
There are lots of problems in the financial system that have nothing to do with computers. If anything, computers have brought these problems to light.
You see a lot of this pointed out on Jim Cramer's show "Mad Money", http://madmoney.cnbc.com/
Most of our problems have to do with the lack of transparency in financial systems on supposedly public traded companies. As Cramer pointed out, "How can you have these levels of fiction after Sarbone-Oxley?" Moreover, with the recent Ponzi scheme uncovered, it makes you wonder just how interested is the SEC in maintaining the integrity of the financial system? That and allowing the short sellers to destroy the banks, leaving the tax payer to bail out the investors in order to preserve the financial system.
Thank god, we have the best form of government money can buy. Unfortunately, it even works to preserve the status quo when the original players are bankrupt. Nothing new here, after all, Japan's emperor was able to maintain control long after he had been defeated.
I am sure the US empire will survive this minor setback. The Hessian empire was bankrupt for hundreds of years before it ultimately collapsed. Maybe we can drag this on until the next Ice Age or until we poison all life to extinction, so who cares about the messes in the meantime?
One quote I have heard is that this county is good at socializing the losses and privatizing the gains.
Look back, at other bail outs. In 1989, we bailed out the S&L's for $500B. However, this was really just bailing out banks that had decided to get into commercial real estate, which they lobbied hard to get into by getting rid of "antiquated laws" which stood in their way (of using the FDIC to cover commercial real estate loans). Had the bank investments in TX commercial real estate been profitable, I would not have received any windfall.
In 1992, the US bailed out ($500B) rich US investors in Mexico's oil pipeline industry. In many ways, these bail outs are written into the investments long before hand. For example, while as I do not support drilling in Alaska, I can't stop companies from drilling there for oil. However, when the Alaskan Oil Pipeline was guaranteed by the US taxpayer to be profitable, I did not get a any bonds to cover my "investment".
Now we hear a similar rallying call on how this is going to save our jobs, How this is not a bail out of Wall St. but Main St. Great, but where is the free market at work here? First of all, I want bonds, and second, in a free market, I want banks to issue bonds at a price at which I feel link investing at.
Over the last two years, the government has pumped a lot of money into banks (by offering ridiculously low terms), which they used to make loans at a much higher rate.
This is no longer capitalism or socialism at work. I think the better term is called THEFT. When King George II of England manipulated the economy of the colonies, it resulted in a revolution. However, when Pres George II does it, it is called an economic stimulus. This is class warfare. Unfortunately, most of us are too stupid to know what is going on. The rest are too powerless to change things. Any sort of class struggle is going to result in a crackdown like that used during the Counter Intelligence Program during the 1970's, or if disent gets more widespread, like that used in Chili in the mid 1970's. So we are just going pay for it, since we are better off sitting at home and paying to keep the peace.
I think there is a great trend in the US (and elsewhere) to look upon smart guys as geeks or nerds. Not that some of this isn't true. Most smart people are smart because they spend a lot of their time studying and thus forgoing lots of other talents, or hygine. I remember cramming for tests so much during finals week, that I would skip showers. Unfortunately, I have met many classmates that would take that to the extreme. So, if you skip a few days of showers, pretty soon, you start doing it more often. The same happens with sports. Well, I didn't do my exercises for the last week because I was busy with work. Well, pretty soon, this becomes a standard pattern, and you don't exercise enough. Next thing you know, you are the last kid chosen for the basket ball game. Why bother anyway, at this point.
From what I heard amongst Indians, intelligent guys are looked at with some envy in India.
An interesting thing happens in the US. Smart kids choose to study medicine, law, or business. Pretty soon, we have to import computer scientist and mathematicians, because the best and brightest went off to more lucrative pastures.
One hundred and fifty years ago, pure aluminum was as expensive as gold. Then someone came out and discovered that if you heat aluminum oxide until it is molten, and use electrolysis, you can generate as much pure aluminum as you want, cheap enough to wrap left over foods and threw it away afterward.
As long as you are criminally inclined, a bit more laws aren't going to change your behavior. Moreover, the more you have to lose, the more you are likely to take measures to prevent them from being compromised. Hence, as far as encryption is concerned, people with money and motive are going to really buy to top end merchandise.
This really brings to mind the situation with encryption keys for cell phones. While as laws were passed to outfit cell phones in the US, French phones used technologies to by-pass these laws. Now, if you are selling drugs, doesn't it make sense to buy and use a French phone, especially if it is far more difficult to crack. Unless you are stupid and decide to risk your $100K shipment of coke by opting for a cheaper Motorola cell phone.
I will go in after a night of heavy drinking, unshaven, and get stung by a couple of bees "at critical points", and pop a couple of zits, as well as put a drop of an allergic pollen in my left nostril. Maybe even put on lots of weight beforehand and stuff cotton balls in my cheeks like Marlon Brando did for "The Godfather". Can anyone think of any other natural things I can do? You heard of the C obfuscation contest. Maybe we can form the DMV face obfuscation contest.
One interesting thing that I learned recently [from the 50th year annivesary the Cuban Missle Crisis] was that during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the Soviets had given an order to sink a US submarine. The Soviet captain decided not to carry out that order, and thus an all out conflict was avoided.
Actually, I am quite surprised that the Soviets did not launch everything that they had in 1992, and had opted to dissolve. After all, the Soviets did not trust (nor had any reason to) that the US would not uphold peace in the future. The US sent a division of soldiers to Russia to suppress the Bolishvik Revolution, something that would never be dismissed in Soviet history lessons.
As to whether or not technology has maintained the peace is questionable. Biological weapons really level the playing field, especially if you know that you have nothing to lose (aka the Sampson option).
I wonder how long luck will keep us alive!
Based on the 2 movies about Jobs, "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" and "The Triumph of the Nerds", he comes across as being a bit of an asshole.
After his plane crash, Woz seems to describe him [Jobs] as an arrogant prick, especially with the allocation of stock options to employees after the first few founders. If someone works his butt off for you and you forget to leave enough options for him, then either you are disorganized or greedy.
One thing I was impressed about was that lots of employees worked 110 hour weeks for the glory of Jobs. Only Jim Jones had a more faithful cult following. [A direct reference in the movie.]
I use to work 70 hours/week as an employee for companies that never made it big. I got a $5K bonus that year during my performance review. I did a mental calculation and said that I would have received more had I worked flipping burgers on the weekends. One day, when I was traveling with a 3 hour layover at an airport, so I started browsing a book like, "101 Ways to Reward your Employees." This books started off with an opening like, "Professional employees, unlike management, often respond to non-monetary incentives." Oftentimes, a manager can get away with simple employee recognition awards printed out on a laser-printer and handed out in front of their peers during an company meeting accompanied by a small monetary gift."
Ok, I might have 2 degrees from prestigious universities, but I am dumb as shit if I will fall for this. I quit within a month.
One good thing is that it will be possible to standardize statistical tests and results against such a common database. One big problem with a lot of statistical analysis is the skewing of data due to insufficient size, vastly different population sample sets, and the presence of colored noise.
Take a simple radix sort algorithm applied to a telephone directory. Radix sort works if the pre-allocation of slots matches the data. One example where it breaks down is if you used a Boston matrix [having large concentrations of Irish names] on San Francisco's population [having clusters of Asian names].
Given the tremendous progress in genomic research, I would be interested in comparing my DNA with Craig Venture's. I guess one drawback might be with what I call the white lab mouse issue. White lab mice's DNA are becoming a laboratory benchmark because they are so well studied and breed to keep providing consistency of data by the money making labs which furnish them. However, white mice are very rare in nature (easily spotted in nature). So, we have an entire industry focused on investigating a marginal population.
However, as my mother makes fun about, we spend more money subsidizing Viagra [probably due to the large white male population of "elected officials"] than we do on Alzheimer medication, so progress is good!
Well, since the USA was built on stealing land from the Injuns, labor via slaves from Africa, oil from Iraq (and Injuns living in Oklahoma in the 1920's), rocket technology from Germany, why should we be surprised when its inhabitants decide to follow in the old fashioned traditions. /. 's aren't that surprised. Explaining it this to most patitiots is another matter.
But I guess most
For more info, read "War is a Racket" by Smedley Butler!
I don't know about the UK, but in the US, most professionals are scared that they will become an obsolete and discarded product in mid-career. Lots of them become discouraged by the process and give up or change careers. If you visit your local career transition networking groups, you will learn about many such people who have opted to become truck drivers or retail sales clerks.
I know lots of people with impressive degrees who work at menial jobs for minimum wage. I don't think the vast majority of them are any less motivated or bright today as any other time.
When people fail in their professional life, we discard them, unless they are very powerful bankers and investors who lose on very large bets. We just bail them out and let them try again!
Given that this occurs to their parents, most kids become apathetic too. Why not just train for truck driving at the onset? It avoids lots of unnecessary expenses and moreover, you don't spend your days wondering what you could have been.
During WWII, most of the best physics and math books around were written in Germany. Obviously, rather than stepping down and using "perceived" second rate books written in by Allied authors or worse, paying royalties to a government with which you are at war, the Allies decided to reprint German books in the Allied countries without paying royalties. If you look on the inside copyright notice, it is stated that the books were reprinted under the "War Time Publications Act" which made this perfectly legal and was encouraged. Even after the war, you can see vast collections of these books still held by libraries. After WWII, some countries, like France rewrote the subject matter authored under the collective pseudonym Bourbaki. When people in government offices give it the seal of approval, it is legal. If some poor peon does the same thing, it is illegal. Likewise, there are lots of herbal supplements whose medicinal value, the FDA is calling into question. Yet, pharmaceuticals are isolating and artificially manufacturing the same chemical ingredients and targeting them towards curing various aliments, supported with tax payer dollars. -We have the best form of government MONEY can BUY!
And the bottled water industry will be looking for a handout too, as people are drinking from the FREE water fountain. Next thing you know, the entertainment industry will get one too, as people as sitting around at home unemployed and posting on /.
I don't know if all the subttle 3D gestures are unique. Who knows what sort of actions will be associated with them. I tried to design a 2D UI in MS-Windows, and ran into all sorts of action association problems which sank X-Windows. I can't even keep my MUSIC ( McGill University's System for Interactive Computing on IBM mainframes), UNIX & VAX syntax straight on a silly 1 D interface. On MUSIC, I remember when you typed "fuck" at the command prompt. The system would say "In Progress" and handle the next person's request. Some sys admin had to program that into the OS system commands.
Speaking of which, why is "fuck" beeped out on TV, but "frak" is used in "Battlestar Galactic", "frell" in Farscape, and "shagged" in Austin Powers. Yes, frack is a contrived word, but the implied meaning is understood.
What about internationalization issues. I grew up in the US, but lived in Montreal (a city with a large gay population). Most French swear words have a religious connotation. Saying "Fuck You" in NYC might be offensive, but in Montreal's St. Dennis Street, yelling it out loud will get you approached by a half dozen old perverts thinking you are offering your services for the night.
The same with the old US middle finger salute. In the 70's it use to have all sorts of different meanings where ever you traveled.
Now suppose you are surfing http://us.3d-youporn-space.com/ . All sorts of weird and unexpected result could come up. Is someone going to program the UI to pick up your gestures and say, "STOP that or you will go BLIND!" How will it treat your reply, "Shucks, can't I go on until I need glasses?"
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Why do we say "A penny for your thoughts", but here is "My 2 cents worth?"
Besides, I am still having hard time operating this mouse foot petal. It is so damn hard to get the selection of a word with my toes! Next thing you know, they'll design away my CD-RW coffee cup holder! I still miss my D parallel printer, what am I going to do with all the cheap cables I got at the discount bin at BestBuy!
I too cannot recommend "The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol I-III" enough. This was written for first year undergrad students, but should have been aimed for 3rd year students. It is very nice in that is very detailed, at the expense of going overboard. For example, Feynman discusses the fact that solutions to differential equations are in fact the minimal energy solutions. I did not grok this until I got to grad school and studied Finite Element Methods. Another great series is the one by Laudau and Liftshitz.
Surprisingly, about 70% of the people who called their elected representatives voiced their opinion AGAINST the bail out. However, as was evident on CNBC during an interview with one of our ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES, our representatives chose to ignore our overwhelming opinion and decided to do what was in the best interests of the country (e.g. the lobbiest who put them in power). The interviewee said that he ignored the flood of calls and emails on this subject, even if it meant his losing his seat. Another interesting thing was that the Republicans voted against the second proposal [I guess so that they could claim that they opposed it], but Bush [the banker family] signed it into law. As long as we have the college electoral system in place, third parties cannot obtain a position in government nor grow. This was by design. The last time the two dominate parties changed was during the formation of the Republican party and Abe Lincoln. However, this was funded by a massive support of the railroad companies. The railroad companies couldn't care less if the South wanted slavery and the North didn't, but they were not going to stay idle and watch the Confederacy tax their business. The rallying cry was, "The power to tax is the power to destroy." Will someone point out that $120 Billion is a lot of money to bail out AIG? Oh yes, it is a loan. Well, first, what happens if that loan is never paid back because AIG fails anyway. Second, the terms on that loan are ridiculously low and do not reflect the fair market rates. Where can I get such a loan? Never the less, this $700B is going to bail out rich investors and a few middle class investors, but I doubt that it is going to avoid the Greater Depression in the following years to come. Why should I get stuck with the bill? http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10812 Thank god we have the best form of government MONEY can BUY!
Well, college was originally intended for the "well to do" to round off their education. A university is suppose to be a place for you to study to learn about something, not as a career prep. Otherwise you get a job at a company and work your way up. However, it should be said that college serves as a barrier to entry for many occupations. Sort of a test to see if you can handle problem solving, expression or writing. Given two candidates with similar grades, the one with a college education from a better name school is going to have a major competitive advantage over his peers from a less well known rival. I had a college friend who was offered a scholarship to a mediocre school, while just admission to a private elite school. The admission official for the lesser known institute told him, well you can be a valedictorian at our school, or average at the top rated school. Perhaps it makes a difference in your first couple of years. But after a decade, people ask what school you went to, not your GPA. Another one of my friends, short on money, decided to study Comp. Eng. at Univ of Ill at Champana-Urbana. His strategy was to avoid any classes not relevant to his goal. He took preliminary college classes in his junior & senior year in HS and skipped all of his electives and took only the core courses. He got a co-op job after his second year (while taking third year classes). He worked the co-op job as a programmer for a year and managed to get hired full time without a degree. Another smart friend who studied EE at U of WI at Plattville for 2 years [because it was much cheaper a school] and then transferred to U of WI at Madison [much more expensive]. Madison made him repeat most of his 2nd year classes, so in the end, he did not save money by this strategy. He did acknowledge that Platteville was a much easier school. I studied math with the full intention of getting my Ph. D. Somewhere along the line, I finished up my M. Sc., got a job as a programmer and never returned for my Ph. D. In retrospect, I should have studied computational biology, which would have been just as interesting, and probably far more in demand. Now I just sit around, post on www.slashdot.org, and wonder what the hell I want to be if I grow up.
Didn't Apple do Gates about 15 yo for some $.