In the states, we already have need-based scholarships and other grants. Hell, in many states, you can go to community college for zero tuition if you can't afford it.
The problem in the states is that we give unlimited loans with zero lending criteria because the government guarantees the loans. Need $150,000 for your undergrad in Inuit Art History? Sure, no problem! If the government stopped guaranteeing the loans, some underwriter would say, "ummm, no. How about you go to state school and major in something real and minor in art history."
There are plenty of need-based scholarships available for those who can't afford college, and more would be available if government-backed college loans ceased to be a thing.
I think the underlying thinking behind most educational technology is take the work out of the hands of the local practitioner, deskill the teacher.
I don't know if this is the intent, but it is certainly the (predictable) result.
I remember when my daughter was struggling with one of the New Math algorithms for subtraction. Naturally, I was only taught the traditional algorithm in elementary school, so my helping her was out of the question. As good fortune would have it, I had a parent-teacher conference scheduled with her math teacher the following morning, so my plan was to take 2 minutes and have the teacher demonstrate the new algorithm so that I might help my daughter with it.
Well, the teacher took several minutes just trying to contrive a subtraction problem that this specialized algorithm would apply to, and when she was unable to do so, she admitted in frustration that she doesn't understand the new algorithm either and that only the computer teaches that algorithm. I sat there with my jaw on the floor for what felt like an eternity and said not to worry about it and that I was sure I could find a YouTube to explain it.
So yes. What you say is true. The teachers are slowly but surely becoming little more than glorified exam proctors. It's pretty sad.
The current charges could be motivated by a desire to prosecute Hastert for sex crimes.
Exactly. It's easier to prove structuring than it is to prove an ancient sex crime. While I agree with you that he should be charged with the sex crime and that withdrawing money from your bank account should never be illegal, prosecutorial expediency is what's going on here.
Actually, security by checklist is the way to go for writing an insurance policy. An underwriter should be able to work out actuarial tables for companies that follow which security best practices, and then price policies accordingly. For instance, if you pass a PCI scan and have virus scanners installed and don't give your users admin rights, and have websense installed, and you have data of $X value, you have an Y% chance of getting jacked, so your policy costs $Z.
I'm not saying that the checklist should be the company's only security practice. That would be madness. I'm just saying that the insurance underwriter should be able to use a checklist to quote an insurance policy.
Well, I guess it's flagships only or something. I dunno. Looks like the Galaxy Core LTE hasn't been out long, so maybe that's why? I wouldn't even want to speculate.
If that were the case, you'd be safe. I don't know of a manufacturer that consistently provides bug-free devices and support for them for, say, 2 years back.
I don't know of any manufacturer, Apple included, that consistently provides bug-free devices. But if 2 years of updates is your benchmark, Samsung meets it. They have Android Lollipop (5.0.1) running on their Galaxy S4 (released April 29, 2013, so it's just over 2 years old). Granted, 5.1.1 is the true latest and greatest Android version, but it was only released on April 21, 2015, so it's a unrealistic to expect Samsung to push that out to a 2 year old device so quickly.
If I'm configuring some sort of local mail store, I don't just need to know how to set up Dovecot. I need to know how to set up Dovecot, Postfix, Roundcube, and so on, and I need to know how to set them up together.
That type of information is typically also in the docs because you're right. It's important, and if everyone has to hammer it out themselves, it's reinventing the wheel.
it seems to be an excuse for developers to skip QA/QC procedures "because we're already into the next scrum"
You shouldn't be marking stories as complete if they haven't passed QA.
If you find that you aren't completing the stories that were in your sprint plan during your sprint, you bit off more than you could chew. Adjust for the next sprint.
In the first place, how many people would rather watch porn than have sex? I'm not saying there's none, but in most cases it's probably rooted in anxiety as opposed to an actual preference, all else being equal.
I would prefer the porn, personally, and it has nothing to do with anxiety. It's just easier, it's novel, I can get precisely the stimulus that I want for maximum pleasure. It's really just pretty awesome.
Don't get me wrong; I still have sex with my wife and I still enjoy the feelings of connection. I wouldn't want to stop. But at any given time.... I'd probably choose the porn if I could be guaranteed that my wife wouldn't find out that I chose porn over her, because who wants to deal with the fallout of that little gem?
Could you please take a moment and familiarize yourself with what neoconservatism even is? I feel like it just represents "that which I hate" in your mind. Neocons don't give a shit about porn or video games, and James Dobson sure as shit is not a neocon.
All that being said, I think that there is some room for studying the effects of modern pornography on the human brain. Never in the history of humans has there been access to unlimited HD visual sexual stimuli. Unlimited in the sense that porn is always available, it never gets tired, and never gets stale. You could watch new porn every time you watch porn.
And don't think that I'm anti-porn. I love porn! And why shouldn't I? Humans are evolved to feel reward for sex and sexual stimulation. Porn makes me feel great! But like I said before, it's an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord that we aren't really evolved to deal with yet.
It's like how now that we have unlimited high-carb food, we're getting super fat. Obesity rates are through the roof! Perhaps there are also some consequences of the great porn buffet, but it's not so visible because porn doesn't make you fat? I have no idea, but intuitively it feels like there might be, and that we ought to be studying this.
And if anyone wants me to participate in a study by watching some porn, sign me the fuck up!
(And as an aside, if men are so under-valued why are movies and TV, and the merchandise associated with them, targeted at men so frequently? Do we have more money then the women? (In which case we're certainly not under-valued.)
I'm not really sure what you mean here. There are plenty of action shows and there are plenty of romantic comedies. Do you have any evidence that TV and movies are targeted more toward men? One thing that I have noticed is that if any character in a commercial is supposed to be stupid or dense, that character will always be male because it's not PC to have that character be female.
If men are so highly-prized by the US, how come in the last war where there was a draft, 58,156 of those killed were men while only 8 were female? You can't really say that those 58,156 men really wanted to go die in Vietnam since they were forced by the government.
Men are always the ones who are asked to sacrifice. We even have a phrase for it: "Man up!" If you were imploring a woman to do something for you that was the opposite of what is in her self-interest, would you tell her to "Woman up!"? Would anyone even know what that meant?
I've used Java for roughly as long and before that I used C++.
One thing that I've noticed is that there is a lot of reflexive hate for the language. I don't necessarily fault people for it because it was marketed as a panacea in the beginning and early version of Java fell far short of expectations. If there's one thing I've noticed about Java, it's that it's really kept up with the times. Just look at Java 8. Is its implementation of Lambdas perfect? No, it's a little ugly, but I really credit Oracle for recognizing that Java would ignore functional programming at its peril.
I would never say that Java is always the optimal solution to every problem in computing, but I would say that Java is nearly always an adequate solution. To ignore Java is to ignore a very useful toolset that can be used almost anywhere.
They've already released the type and size of the knife, and that knife is not illegal in Baltimore. The arrest was almost certainly illegal.
I haven't seen any stories that said that the knife was legal in Baltimore, but in the context of determining if the arrest was legal, the legality of the knife isn't the main driver.
If you're arrested for something and are later found not guilty, that doesn't retroactively make the original arrest illegal. Police arrest based on probable cause, not absolute guilt or even reasonable doubt. The question we need to answer to determine if the arrest was legal is: Would a reasonable police officer (not the arresting officer--a reasonable one!) have thought that the knife was probably illegal to carry?
In this case, proving that probable cause was lacking is going to be a seriously uphill battle. If you look at the stories coming out about the knife, a police investigation has determined that the knife was illegal. Don't waste your breath, I realize that a court would have to determine that if Gray were still alive and facing charges over the knife, but the important thing is that in the comfort of a police station (rather than out in a field), a group of officers found the knife to be illegal. That means that the officers out in the field who also determined that it was probably illegal almost certainly were reasonable in that determination. It will be unlikely that the prosecution will be able to show the absence of probable cause.
Now, the officers still should have treated Gray like a human being, so they probably are guilty of something, but they are going to get a lot more latitude since the arrest was legal.
The arrest itself is alleged by the prosecutor to have been illegal
The prosecutor has to allege that the arrest was illegal, because if it were legal, then the officers have a much stronger case. Everything that I've read, by the way, suggests that the arrest was legal. Probable cause for carrying a knife that was illegal under Baltimore city statute was almost certainly established.
the very first thing in the police report regarding the reason Gray was stopped was "made eye contact".
And then ran. The cops aren't going to chase you down, snap your spine, and toss you into a paddy wagon like a sack of meat just for looking at them.
The knife Gray was carrying was not illegal.
That can only be determined in a court of law, but the knife almost certainly was illegal by Baltimore city statue, which is the statute that he was alleged to have violated.
it's probably not even illegal to run away when you see police.
It is not illegal to run from the police unless you have been given a lawful order to stop.
Do I really have to list the names of unarmed black men who have been recently killed by police just to demonstrate that running away may in fact be the smartest thing that one can do?
One thing that all of those shootings have in common is that the deceased has either run from the officer, physically attacked the officer, or both.
Running from the police is a bad idea unless you know that you will be in trouble if caught, and also you are certain that you can evade them successfully. Physically attacking an officer is always a bad idea.
Freddie Gray was stopped by police, who later killed him just for eyeballing them.
That's not what is alleged.
The allegation is that he looked at the police, and then took off running away from them. So they chased him down, found what was probably an illegal weapon on him, and arrested him for it.
For what it's worth, I don't think that they killed Gary on purpose. But I do think that the officers were negligent in not getting Gray medial attention when he was clearly hurt badly. Had they called an ambulance instead of tossing him into the paddy wagon like a bag of meat, he'd probably at least be alive today.
The officers definitely fucked up, but I don't think it's quite as bad a picture as you're painting, that's all.
You know, it's funny. A few years back, I googled my fraternity to see if our secrets were published online. Results: I found some stuff. Some was correct; some was not. Oh well.
So what did I do about it? Absolutely nothing. Why? Two reasons: 1. Streisand Effect, and 2. nobody outside of our fraternity gives a shit.
I can't see this paying for itself in 5 years if you still have to purchase the solar panels, plus installation charges for everything.
Sorry for the confusion, but I was referring to two different scenarios. When I said 2kW could power a home at night, that was in response to another comment that said it couldn't. I really think that it could, in theory.
My comment about it paying for itself in 5 years was more to my personal situation. I'd charge the battery array at night and use the stored electricity during the day during peak rates. I don't know how much installation would cost, but if I could use 10kWh during the day at off-peak rates instead of peak, I'd probably save $75/mo or $4500 over 5 years, assuming rates stay constant. Figuring $1000 for inverter and installation (not panels, just wiring it into my electrical panel) + $3500 for the battery array.
If you have enough solar generation to power your home through the day and just use the batteries at night while you sleep, you've just got a fridge and some heat. 2kW won't power a large furnace, but if you live in a decently mild climate, you could power some space heaters or electric blankets.
Also, let's not forget that some of us have natural gas service, so our furnaces, stoves, and dryers don't need much electricity (just need enough to power the blower, ignition, drum, etc.). I'm not ready to go totally off-grid, but I would consider one of these battery packs to move some of my daytime electricity usage to night time and take advantage of better rates. Payback would be in about 5 years. Also, the battery bank could get me through most power outages since most power outages where I live are only for a few hours tops.
I'm going to do some research, but this could be a really good idea for me!
It is erroneous to assume that the lack of a license is indicative of a lack of need for a car
Exactly. I drove 3 kids to their baseball game yesterday (2 of them were not my kids). If I hadn't, it would have been 3 cars on the road instead of 1, and I was the only licensed driver.
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In the states, we already have need-based scholarships and other grants. Hell, in many states, you can go to community college for zero tuition if you can't afford it.
The problem in the states is that we give unlimited loans with zero lending criteria because the government guarantees the loans. Need $150,000 for your undergrad in Inuit Art History? Sure, no problem! If the government stopped guaranteeing the loans, some underwriter would say, "ummm, no. How about you go to state school and major in something real and minor in art history."
There are plenty of need-based scholarships available for those who can't afford college, and more would be available if government-backed college loans ceased to be a thing.
I think the underlying thinking behind most educational technology is take the work out of the hands of the local practitioner, deskill the teacher.
I don't know if this is the intent, but it is certainly the (predictable) result.
I remember when my daughter was struggling with one of the New Math algorithms for subtraction. Naturally, I was only taught the traditional algorithm in elementary school, so my helping her was out of the question. As good fortune would have it, I had a parent-teacher conference scheduled with her math teacher the following morning, so my plan was to take 2 minutes and have the teacher demonstrate the new algorithm so that I might help my daughter with it.
Well, the teacher took several minutes just trying to contrive a subtraction problem that this specialized algorithm would apply to, and when she was unable to do so, she admitted in frustration that she doesn't understand the new algorithm either and that only the computer teaches that algorithm. I sat there with my jaw on the floor for what felt like an eternity and said not to worry about it and that I was sure I could find a YouTube to explain it.
So yes. What you say is true. The teachers are slowly but surely becoming little more than glorified exam proctors. It's pretty sad.
The current charges could be motivated by a desire to prosecute Hastert for sex crimes.
Exactly. It's easier to prove structuring than it is to prove an ancient sex crime. While I agree with you that he should be charged with the sex crime and that withdrawing money from your bank account should never be illegal, prosecutorial expediency is what's going on here.
Do you use nomorobo? How accurate do you find it to be? Does it cause any hassles?
If net metering were a good deal for the electric utilities, they wouldn't be fighting it tooth and nail.
Actually, security by checklist is the way to go for writing an insurance policy. An underwriter should be able to work out actuarial tables for companies that follow which security best practices, and then price policies accordingly. For instance, if you pass a PCI scan and have virus scanners installed and don't give your users admin rights, and have websense installed, and you have data of $X value, you have an Y% chance of getting jacked, so your policy costs $Z.
I'm not saying that the checklist should be the company's only security practice. That would be madness. I'm just saying that the insurance underwriter should be able to use a checklist to quote an insurance policy.
Well, I guess it's flagships only or something. I dunno. Looks like the Galaxy Core LTE hasn't been out long, so maybe that's why? I wouldn't even want to speculate.
If that were the case, you'd be safe. I don't know of a manufacturer that consistently provides bug-free devices and support for them for, say, 2 years back.
I don't know of any manufacturer, Apple included, that consistently provides bug-free devices. But if 2 years of updates is your benchmark, Samsung meets it. They have Android Lollipop (5.0.1) running on their Galaxy S4 (released April 29, 2013, so it's just over 2 years old). Granted, 5.1.1 is the true latest and greatest Android version, but it was only released on April 21, 2015, so it's a unrealistic to expect Samsung to push that out to a 2 year old device so quickly.
If I'm configuring some sort of local mail store, I don't just need to know how to set up Dovecot. I need to know how to set up Dovecot, Postfix, Roundcube, and so on, and I need to know how to set them up together.
That type of information is typically also in the docs because you're right. It's important, and if everyone has to hammer it out themselves, it's reinventing the wheel.
it seems to be an excuse for developers to skip QA/QC procedures "because we're already into the next scrum"
You shouldn't be marking stories as complete if they haven't passed QA.
If you find that you aren't completing the stories that were in your sprint plan during your sprint, you bit off more than you could chew. Adjust for the next sprint.
In the first place, how many people would rather watch porn than have sex? I'm not saying there's none, but in most cases it's probably rooted in anxiety as opposed to an actual preference, all else being equal.
I would prefer the porn, personally, and it has nothing to do with anxiety. It's just easier, it's novel, I can get precisely the stimulus that I want for maximum pleasure. It's really just pretty awesome.
Don't get me wrong; I still have sex with my wife and I still enjoy the feelings of connection. I wouldn't want to stop. But at any given time.... I'd probably choose the porn if I could be guaranteed that my wife wouldn't find out that I chose porn over her, because who wants to deal with the fallout of that little gem?
You want a blonde with big tits today and a redhead with little tits tomorrow?
No, I want them both at the same time, duh!
Could you please take a moment and familiarize yourself with what neoconservatism even is? I feel like it just represents "that which I hate" in your mind. Neocons don't give a shit about porn or video games, and James Dobson sure as shit is not a neocon.
All that being said, I think that there is some room for studying the effects of modern pornography on the human brain. Never in the history of humans has there been access to unlimited HD visual sexual stimuli. Unlimited in the sense that porn is always available, it never gets tired, and never gets stale. You could watch new porn every time you watch porn.
And don't think that I'm anti-porn. I love porn! And why shouldn't I? Humans are evolved to feel reward for sex and sexual stimulation. Porn makes me feel great! But like I said before, it's an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord that we aren't really evolved to deal with yet.
It's like how now that we have unlimited high-carb food, we're getting super fat. Obesity rates are through the roof! Perhaps there are also some consequences of the great porn buffet, but it's not so visible because porn doesn't make you fat? I have no idea, but intuitively it feels like there might be, and that we ought to be studying this.
And if anyone wants me to participate in a study by watching some porn, sign me the fuck up!
(And as an aside, if men are so under-valued why are movies and TV, and the merchandise associated with them, targeted at men so frequently? Do we have more money then the women? (In which case we're certainly not under-valued.)
I'm not really sure what you mean here. There are plenty of action shows and there are plenty of romantic comedies. Do you have any evidence that TV and movies are targeted more toward men? One thing that I have noticed is that if any character in a commercial is supposed to be stupid or dense, that character will always be male because it's not PC to have that character be female.
If men are so highly-prized by the US, how come in the last war where there was a draft, 58,156 of those killed were men while only 8 were female? You can't really say that those 58,156 men really wanted to go die in Vietnam since they were forced by the government.
Men are always the ones who are asked to sacrifice. We even have a phrase for it: "Man up!" If you were imploring a woman to do something for you that was the opposite of what is in her self-interest, would you tell her to "Woman up!"? Would anyone even know what that meant?
Until then men are going to be eating the shit sandwich we've been serving for quite a while.
Why must I pay for the sins of my ancestors?
I've used Java for roughly as long and before that I used C++.
One thing that I've noticed is that there is a lot of reflexive hate for the language. I don't necessarily fault people for it because it was marketed as a panacea in the beginning and early version of Java fell far short of expectations. If there's one thing I've noticed about Java, it's that it's really kept up with the times. Just look at Java 8. Is its implementation of Lambdas perfect? No, it's a little ugly, but I really credit Oracle for recognizing that Java would ignore functional programming at its peril.
I would never say that Java is always the optimal solution to every problem in computing, but I would say that Java is nearly always an adequate solution. To ignore Java is to ignore a very useful toolset that can be used almost anywhere.
They've already released the type and size of the knife, and that knife is not illegal in Baltimore. The arrest was almost certainly illegal.
I haven't seen any stories that said that the knife was legal in Baltimore, but in the context of determining if the arrest was legal, the legality of the knife isn't the main driver.
If you're arrested for something and are later found not guilty, that doesn't retroactively make the original arrest illegal. Police arrest based on probable cause, not absolute guilt or even reasonable doubt. The question we need to answer to determine if the arrest was legal is: Would a reasonable police officer (not the arresting officer--a reasonable one!) have thought that the knife was probably illegal to carry?
In this case, proving that probable cause was lacking is going to be a seriously uphill battle. If you look at the stories coming out about the knife, a police investigation has determined that the knife was illegal. Don't waste your breath, I realize that a court would have to determine that if Gray were still alive and facing charges over the knife, but the important thing is that in the comfort of a police station (rather than out in a field), a group of officers found the knife to be illegal. That means that the officers out in the field who also determined that it was probably illegal almost certainly were reasonable in that determination. It will be unlikely that the prosecution will be able to show the absence of probable cause.
Now, the officers still should have treated Gray like a human being, so they probably are guilty of something, but they are going to get a lot more latitude since the arrest was legal.
The arrest itself is alleged by the prosecutor to have been illegal
The prosecutor has to allege that the arrest was illegal, because if it were legal, then the officers have a much stronger case. Everything that I've read, by the way, suggests that the arrest was legal. Probable cause for carrying a knife that was illegal under Baltimore city statute was almost certainly established.
the very first thing in the police report regarding the reason Gray was stopped was "made eye contact".
And then ran. The cops aren't going to chase you down, snap your spine, and toss you into a paddy wagon like a sack of meat just for looking at them.
The knife Gray was carrying was not illegal.
That can only be determined in a court of law, but the knife almost certainly was illegal by Baltimore city statue, which is the statute that he was alleged to have violated.
it's probably not even illegal to run away when you see police.
It is not illegal to run from the police unless you have been given a lawful order to stop.
Do I really have to list the names of unarmed black men who have been recently killed by police just to demonstrate that running away may in fact be the smartest thing that one can do?
One thing that all of those shootings have in common is that the deceased has either run from the officer, physically attacked the officer, or both.
Running from the police is a bad idea unless you know that you will be in trouble if caught, and also you are certain that you can evade them successfully. Physically attacking an officer is always a bad idea.
Freddie Gray was stopped by police, who later killed him just for eyeballing them.
That's not what is alleged.
The allegation is that he looked at the police, and then took off running away from them. So they chased him down, found what was probably an illegal weapon on him, and arrested him for it.
For what it's worth, I don't think that they killed Gary on purpose. But I do think that the officers were negligent in not getting Gray medial attention when he was clearly hurt badly. Had they called an ambulance instead of tossing him into the paddy wagon like a bag of meat, he'd probably at least be alive today.
The officers definitely fucked up, but I don't think it's quite as bad a picture as you're painting, that's all.
You know, it's funny. A few years back, I googled my fraternity to see if our secrets were published online. Results: I found some stuff. Some was correct; some was not. Oh well.
So what did I do about it? Absolutely nothing. Why? Two reasons: 1. Streisand Effect, and 2. nobody outside of our fraternity gives a shit.
Tesla's website claims at 92% round trip efficiency for the battery wall. What does lead acid get?
Also, flooded lead acid batteries require maintenance. That's a bummer for lazy people like me.
I can't see this paying for itself in 5 years if you still have to purchase the solar panels, plus installation charges for everything.
Sorry for the confusion, but I was referring to two different scenarios. When I said 2kW could power a home at night, that was in response to another comment that said it couldn't. I really think that it could, in theory.
My comment about it paying for itself in 5 years was more to my personal situation. I'd charge the battery array at night and use the stored electricity during the day during peak rates. I don't know how much installation would cost, but if I could use 10kWh during the day at off-peak rates instead of peak, I'd probably save $75/mo or $4500 over 5 years, assuming rates stay constant. Figuring $1000 for inverter and installation (not panels, just wiring it into my electrical panel) + $3500 for the battery array.
It might be enough to power a home at night.
If you have enough solar generation to power your home through the day and just use the batteries at night while you sleep, you've just got a fridge and some heat. 2kW won't power a large furnace, but if you live in a decently mild climate, you could power some space heaters or electric blankets.
Also, let's not forget that some of us have natural gas service, so our furnaces, stoves, and dryers don't need much electricity (just need enough to power the blower, ignition, drum, etc.). I'm not ready to go totally off-grid, but I would consider one of these battery packs to move some of my daytime electricity usage to night time and take advantage of better rates. Payback would be in about 5 years. Also, the battery bank could get me through most power outages since most power outages where I live are only for a few hours tops.
I'm going to do some research, but this could be a really good idea for me!
It is erroneous to assume that the lack of a license is indicative of a lack of need for a car
Exactly. I drove 3 kids to their baseball game yesterday (2 of them were not my kids). If I hadn't, it would have been 3 cars on the road instead of 1, and I was the only licensed driver.