I'm not really saying high fees. A couple grand for a semester or even a year would be plenty to keep people who just don't care out. They could spend that kind of money on a lot of fun stuff or as a deposit on their own place or any one of a bunch of things. Perhaps even end any public student loan programs since we know they only serve to drive up prices and fund an administrative class that doesn't add any value to an education.
When I went to school, we started with 8 classes of 45 students. 3/4 of them were gone by the end of the first semester. Being able to have a "cooldown period" where you can pull the funds out and drop out if you realize you're not going to be able to do anything would make sense. Even if it meant more funding up-front, it could help people who aren't going to make it jump ship faster.
The schools cry poor, but if you run the numbers (including massive government subsidies per-student) it quickly becomes clear someone other than the teacher is getting rich.
When I went to school, we started with 8 classes of 45 students. 3/4 of them were gone by the end of the first semester. Being able to have a "cooldown period" where you can pull the funds out and drop out if you realize you're not going to be able to do anything would make sense. Even if it meant more funding up-front, it could help people who aren't going to make it jump ship faster.
The schools cry poor, but if you run the numbers (including massive government subsidies per-student) it quickly becomes clear someone other than the teacher is getting rich.
I wouldn't agree with totally free, but I would absolutely agree with heavily, heavily subsidized. The cost should be enough that anyone could afford it working over the summer in a job a student could get, so kids can work put themselves through school with minimal help from parents besides food and shelter. Without ensuring that students have some skin in the game, I think a system would end up clogged up with people who don't really want to be there or people who don't have the aptitude for the courses they've taken.
Such subsidized systems exist in a few countries, and allow people to achieve post-secondary education without ending their lives due to crippling debt if they don't succeed in school or don't succeed in getting a decent job after school, or if they do succeed but school prices just went too crazy.
Such subsidized systems exist in a few countries, and allow people to achieve post-secondary education without ending their lives due to crippling debt if they don't succeed in school or don't succeed in getting a decent job after school, or if they do succeed but school prices just went too crazy.
It seems to me like we are getting very close to being able to roll over to Open source hardware as well, where you can get something that you can have every line of code and every schematic for and still have something that's a reasonably functional.
I don't think I've ever understood free as in libre more than the last few years.
I don't think I've ever understood free as in libre more than the last few years.
I was under the impression that the issue with eugenics wasn't the idea that you can breed in good qualities and breed out bad qualities, but rather that it's immoral for some self proclaimed authority to start sticking it's fingers into reproduction, particularly if it's a government telling people who can and can not breed with who.
The idea that eugenics doesn't work is clearly false once you take away the moral question about it being state enforced. We breed dogs for certain qualities, and cows, and most of our fruits and vegetables are specifically bred to be better sources of food.
The idea that eugenics doesn't work is clearly false once you take away the moral question about it being state enforced. We breed dogs for certain qualities, and cows, and most of our fruits and vegetables are specifically bred to be better sources of food.
I would bet it's really dependent on the mechanism of the color degradation. If this is due to crystalization of the plastic in the sun or it's due to scratches accumulating over years, then quickly melting a top layer of plastic could have big results. For C64s, bromine molecules that are in the plastic as a fire retardant migrate to the surface and retrobriting involves bleaching away those molecules.
But I dunno. It's sorta neat!
But I dunno. It's sorta neat!
When people say "Nobody could have known" or "Nobody predicted", that's a lie. Of course it's a lie. All the smart people on the entire planet ever even conceived that an obvious outcome of a series of actions could take place?
Doesn't even matter if it's this. Could be a lot of things. Of course someone predicted it.
Doesn't even matter if it's this. Could be a lot of things. Of course someone predicted it.
Aluminium was once a precious metal more valuable than gold.
The top of the Washington monument is aluminium purchased during those days, and Napoleon had a set of aluminium plates that was reserved for his most distinguished guests.
At that time, if you said "Aluminium is worthless, it's just shiny" then probably the same people would have agreed, but what happened later was the bauxite process for aluminium extraction made it possible for aluminium to be produced at prices far lower than before, and in massive quantities.
Now, it's true that Aluminium was no longer a precious metal more valuable than gold, but rather than prove worthless, in many ways it was only once it was inexpensively available at industrial volumes that its true worth as a light, easy to machine and cast, highly corrosion resistant material became apparent and it was used in everything from drink containers to vehicles.
So gold is valuable because it's rare, but it would arguably be worth way more as a highly maleable, highly corrosion resistant metal available at industrial quantities.
Ok, I'm done my rant that probably doesn't really have much with the conversation.
The top of the Washington monument is aluminium purchased during those days, and Napoleon had a set of aluminium plates that was reserved for his most distinguished guests.
At that time, if you said "Aluminium is worthless, it's just shiny" then probably the same people would have agreed, but what happened later was the bauxite process for aluminium extraction made it possible for aluminium to be produced at prices far lower than before, and in massive quantities.
Now, it's true that Aluminium was no longer a precious metal more valuable than gold, but rather than prove worthless, in many ways it was only once it was inexpensively available at industrial volumes that its true worth as a light, easy to machine and cast, highly corrosion resistant material became apparent and it was used in everything from drink containers to vehicles.
So gold is valuable because it's rare, but it would arguably be worth way more as a highly maleable, highly corrosion resistant metal available at industrial quantities.
Ok, I'm done my rant that probably doesn't really have much with the conversation.
I got in a discussion earlier this week, and was surprised to discover that people don't realize that student loan debt forgiveness would be a massive wealth transfer to the rich.
Reality check for a second: Student loan debt forgiveness is a massive wealth transfer to the rich.
There are some sob stories out there of people getting useless educations at massive expense, but reality is that college educated individuals still have the lowest unemployment rate and the highest incomes. That's indisputable.
Some people might counter saying that the rich wouldn't have student loans. That isn't true. If you're wealthy and you can get someone else to pay for something, you do. Especially if it's the government. Once you have student loans, you could pay them off, but your financial planner is going to advise against it because of something called opportunity cost. If you spend the money to pay off your student loans right away, then that money won't be available to invest, and if your student loans are charging 4% and you can make 7% in a balanced and diversified portfolio over time, you're basically giving money away by paying off the loans.
I've seen people saying that the rich don't have debt. That's absurd. Of course the rich have debt. Again, if you can use someone else's money then that's how you get really filthy rich.
So poor people pay for inflation that will be part of the way government pays for student loan forgiveness. Poor people will be paying taxes as well. Poor people's kids will be on the hook for the federal debt. And all so we can give people who are statistically speaking the most likely to be rich a bunch of money.
Odd, isn't it?
Reality check for a second: Student loan debt forgiveness is a massive wealth transfer to the rich.
There are some sob stories out there of people getting useless educations at massive expense, but reality is that college educated individuals still have the lowest unemployment rate and the highest incomes. That's indisputable.
Some people might counter saying that the rich wouldn't have student loans. That isn't true. If you're wealthy and you can get someone else to pay for something, you do. Especially if it's the government. Once you have student loans, you could pay them off, but your financial planner is going to advise against it because of something called opportunity cost. If you spend the money to pay off your student loans right away, then that money won't be available to invest, and if your student loans are charging 4% and you can make 7% in a balanced and diversified portfolio over time, you're basically giving money away by paying off the loans.
I've seen people saying that the rich don't have debt. That's absurd. Of course the rich have debt. Again, if you can use someone else's money then that's how you get really filthy rich.
So poor people pay for inflation that will be part of the way government pays for student loan forgiveness. Poor people will be paying taxes as well. Poor people's kids will be on the hook for the federal debt. And all so we can give people who are statistically speaking the most likely to be rich a bunch of money.
Odd, isn't it?
Bigger question: How do people like this get away with calling anyone anywhere a "conspiracy theorist"?
I believe we need some sort of copyright and patent law to incentivise both creation of new works and the publishing of those new works in public. Work won't end if such a system doesn't exist, but in order to get paid those works won't be distributed to the public. Patronage by the rich sounds great, except that the people who tend to get copies of those works are the patrons.
To me, the correct reform is to focus copyright and patents. Make them very strong, but for a very limited time. If I sing a song to my child, then my child sings that song to his child, then most of the time that probably shouldn't be something that that child would then grow up and still be owned by someone.
Our current arts are dominated by a bunch of old dead guys, showing that copyright at the moment specifically does not incentivize the creation of new works. If things continue, cultural stagnation will result, and arguably is already resulting.
To me, the correct reform is to focus copyright and patents. Make them very strong, but for a very limited time. If I sing a song to my child, then my child sings that song to his child, then most of the time that probably shouldn't be something that that child would then grow up and still be owned by someone.
Our current arts are dominated by a bunch of old dead guys, showing that copyright at the moment specifically does not incentivize the creation of new works. If things continue, cultural stagnation will result, and arguably is already resulting.
Bubble continues, of course it is, fed policy is still essentially accommodative. Irrational exuberance abounds.
Most people who are actually doing well do lots to not advertise it. Looking like you're rich is something you do when you expect to get something out of it.
Printed a wall mount for my wii mini.
Printed reasonably well and it works, but it's 3 identical pieces I had to hang on the wall individually so it took extreme precision to make it correctly hold the wii to the wall. If I were going to design it again, I'd print all 3 at once with a plastic bottom that keeps them exactly where they need to be so you don't need to be perfect mounting them.
Printed reasonably well and it works, but it's 3 identical pieces I had to hang on the wall individually so it took extreme precision to make it correctly hold the wii to the wall. If I were going to design it again, I'd print all 3 at once with a plastic bottom that keeps them exactly where they need to be so you don't need to be perfect mounting them.
Hate to say, but the other question is who cares?
I don't mean in terms of the frame that you're reporting the story in, obviously hypocrisy and disinformation need to be rooted out. What I mean is, at this point are there any people left in government who haven't gotten it? For something charged as the most deadly thing since the Spanish flu, sure seems like an awful lot of people get it and are fine.
I don't mean in terms of the frame that you're reporting the story in, obviously hypocrisy and disinformation need to be rooted out. What I mean is, at this point are there any people left in government who haven't gotten it? For something charged as the most deadly thing since the Spanish flu, sure seems like an awful lot of people get it and are fine.