I get that, I'm not commenting on that fact. I'm commenting on the 90% or better is an unrealistic expectation in the summary.

Now, as to 95 vs 93% affecting promotion speed? I don't see the problem there either. The person who studied harder (or better) than his rival should definitely have their higher score have more weight when considered for promotion.

Did both pass the test? Yes, but candidate x passed better than y. If all other things are equal, then X should get the promotion.

no, it's Technologist.

Get off your PC thought control horse and watch War Games to get his reference

Are you kidding me? 90% competency in protocol is unrealistic?
When it comes to a nation's nuclear weapons, I don't want a B or less, I want the person with the A managing the switch.

Has this country become so lazy and apologetic towards 'bad grades hurt feelings' pansies that they will pass everyone?
If I recall from ye olde school days:
A = 94-100%
B = 84-93%
C = 74-83%
D = 64-73%
F = 64%

C shouldn't even be a passing grade. It was never acceptable in my house. C's wait tables. D's are garbage collectors, F's live in government housing and vote for the people that continue to favor teacher's unions over children's educations and to take money from those the paid attention and succeeded to support them.

Everyone should be striving to be top in their desired field, whatever that be, from software dev to mechanic to entertainer. And if one isn't in their desired field, then they should be spending their free time to improve themselves to get into their desired fields.

90% is not unrealistic, it's a MINIMUM requirement for success.

You forgot about the pr0n and cats. I will say, faster pics of cats is probably worth some merit.

I'm not talking about OS, i'm talking applications, like games, like big data. A good game engine is heavily optimized with different code for the most popular hardware, or the hardware vendors adjust their specs to meet a specific standard. When you draw your polygons, you call make a (relatively) simple function call, but that function call packs the vertices for your triangles in vector arrays that are byte aligned to the hardware that will be processing them. The same thing is done when processing very large data in "big data" if you want your algorithms to complete in a reasonable time frame, where cpu time is rented and costs money. You first optimize your algorithms to be generally efficient, then anyone that wants to save lots of time and money, optimizes to take full advantages of the hardware they are running on. Are you running in a MIC (many integrated core) architecture? How big are the registers? Etc, all these things need to be taken into consideration when writing software for the HPC environment. Write once, run anywhere doesn't cut it when you have to pay for time.

Has little to do with hand optimizing asembly language, tho that definitely can be a benefit.

I'm talking about things such as properly aligning vector array data to match the memory alignment of the CPU during loops, knowing when and how to take advantage of installed installed modern coprocessors such as the Intel Xeon Phi series. Hell, even having the code for photoshop use MMX instruction sets when available or utilitzing hardware mpeg encoder/decoders versus standard CPU.

All about knowing the hardware you'll be running on.

No, this is stupid, wasteful, unoptimized software that performs like feces compared to a platform optimized piece of software.

The whole myth I've heard about software portability most of my life has never bore fruit that didn't need tweaks for different platforms.

The whole notion in the first place was to expand programming to the masses by giving the appearance of the elimination of the need of specialists.
A good intention, to be sure, except for the specialists.
The problem was that a specialist with knowledge of how the hardware operates could write software that took more advantage and/or better performed on a given platform. Things like CPU instruction set options, memory alignment, etc.

There is now a resurgence of platform optimized specialization thanks to big data. Do you want your humungous data sets processed and analyzed in months or years by the average programmer, or do you want it in days and weeks by the programmer that really, really knows how to squeeze the hardware.

Don't be a fool, Jesus is obviously a velociraptor!

Look forward to the Velocirapture!

Thor has been in a dress before, a wedding dress, at the behest of Loki:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I loved that movie as a kid!

I should dig out some old DIY robot kits....

Who cares about a computer hard drive, what about the mail server? Surely her mail is archived by exchange or something. I mean, corporate email has to be archived for what, 5-7 years or something? Delicious bacon forbid that a business doesn't backup it's communications. Even IMs are archived via corporate email these days, via Office Communicator or it's successor. Sure, her local PST files are probably lost with drive erasure, but the server archive has to be there. If not, someone needs to be going to prison, and I can guarantee the IT ppl are going to point fingers in the proper direction, they aren't going to take the fall.

I dunno about that.
I would classify "voluntary" as indirect taxation.
Direct taxation such as income or property tax is significantly less "voluntary". tho granted, until the ACA, I could "choose" not to work or own taxable property and not be taxed simply for existing.

uh... what? what in the name of delicious bacon are you talking about?

You're clearing leaping to ludicrous inferences and conclusions.
Money in banks does not sit stagnant. It moves around to create more money to fund the bank and pay interest on accounts.

Let's get one thing clear. It's THEIR money. No one has to spend money in a way you believe would be more beneficial or efficient. You have no claim over it. If you want someone of any level of wealth to transition THEIR money in a direction you desire, you must entice them via exchange of goods or services that person believes is equivalent (or better) in value, or show that you can make them a profitable return on their capital investment.

When one tries to force, via seizing or forfeiture of assets, those assets are going to move away from the source of that force very quickly.
Taxation of assets is tolerable to a degree until the taxed feel that the services paid for by taxation no longer benefit their interests or exceeds that individual's tolerance level for taxation. Once the threshold has been passed, individuals move their assets to a more tolerable environment. This is why wealth flees heavily taxed states.

The attitude that one is misusing wealth by spending (or not spending) according to another person's desires is arrogant, classist, statist, and morally evil.

Good DAY, sir.

Much as I don't like taxation myself, Article 1 Section 8 would like to disagree with you.
Of course, this only applies to indirect taxation (which we can both agree is prefer, and is what the Fair Tax is). direct taxation (income/property tax) didn't come until later.

Sigh, you didn't bother to read what I posted in full, did you.

The Fair Tax is 100% voluntary. One only pays taxes when one purchases a *New* good or a service at the retail level. Purchase second hand, and there is no tax collected.

The "Fair" in fair taxes comes into play in that ALL NEW goods and services are taxed at the exact same rate, and that all households receive the prebate regardless of income level.
There are no exempt items except second hand.
There are no tax loopholes for the wealthy to avoid other than buying second hand.
There are no extra "sin" taxes to be manipulated by politicians for things such as sugary drinks or lessened rates for "good" things.
It's all flat at the same rate, for everything.

Under this system, the more one spends, the more tax is collected.
The hidden embedded tax costs of new products and services due to payroll, medicare, and corporate taxes inflating price no longer exists. Thus the price drops. Then a line item is added to the receipt for a 22-23% Inclusive (as opposed to exclusive) tax. The brings the price of the good or service back to within 1% of it's starting price before such a plan went into effect, only now it is in the open on the receipt, and only collected at retail so an item is only taxed once.

"Now good sir" one might say, "if the embedded taxes disappear, what's to stop companies from keeping the current price and adding the inclusive tax on top of what currently exists and pocketing the difference?"

Greed my dear friend, Wonderful Greed. As soon as a competitor figures out that they can undercut others that pocket the difference from the original price, they will start a race to the minimum price to sell more than the competition, which will balance out at the point of not having pocketed the difference in the first place.

The Fair Tax is about equal treatment for everyone and everything under tax law, not what some politician likes or dislikes.