One of the Great Lies of the Free Market is that if everyone has an equal shot, everyone will prosper.
The point of a free market is that all participants compete on an even footing. The point of it is fairness. Free markets do not guarantee anyone success. A market system that guarantees a certain economic outcome is by definition not a free market.
Both Windows and Linux can manage most people's computer needs about equally well.
Yes, and a motorcycle can manage nearly anyone's transportation needs as well as an automobile. But, if one has a license to drive an automobile, that skill does not convey even enough knowledge about how to start the engine of the motorcycle, much less drive it.
It's that the daily standup puts an expectation that "every" day you "will" be at "this" spot for "this" amount of time. And I find that overbearing.
With that attitude, I wouldn't want you on any development team I'm on, nor would any manager I've ever worked with in my entire career.
It turns out that we have only a vague idea as to where Earth got its water, and it will take a long time until we have any hint of this life-giving resource on worlds orbiting stars thousands of light-years away.
Where does this idea that water might be rare and special come from? Our own solar system is teeming with the stuff. It's on several planets, several moons, many comets, and there's probably a bunch of it locked up in asteroids as well. It's a simple compound of the most abundant element in the universe plus an element that is certainly not rare.
The default position should be to assume that our solar system is NOT unique. Other solar systems stars like our own will contain elements and compounds in similar proportions to our own, because they will have been formed from a similar quantity of a similar mixture of gasses and interstellar junk.
We've discovered many many planets orbiting nearby stars already, enough so that we can safely assume that planets are normal. It makes sense that water should also be pretty abundant as well.
Stuck? Why not go prepaid with an MVNO?
I recently canceled with AT&T and converted to TracFone. I bought a Motorola phone outright for $90, which came with a "triple minutes for the life of the phone" deal. The triple minutes thing brings my per-minute cost down to $0.047 per minute. Text messages cost me 0.3 minutes of time, and browsing the web charges minutes during usage.
Over the three months I've had it, I've been paying a little less than $17 per month on average. Compared to what AT&T was charging me -- and I was on the cheapest voice and data plans -- the phone paid for itself before the second month was up.
The only change I made was to start using my computer to make voice calls when I'm at home -- and my bluetooth headset allows me to talk away from the computer once the call is connected.
The "customer retention" tool that took my cancellation call tried to tell me that TracFone coverage would be lacking. TracFone runs over AT&T's network.
So how the hell can a third party resell AT&T pay-as-you-go service for half of what AT&T itself charges for that same service? Somebody is really getting screwed. And it's not me, at least not any more.
I do that at a macroscopic scale and at room temperature on a daily basis. Quantum mechanics is a huge scam.
QM predicts and experiments have verified that when pairs of entangled photons are passed through polarizing filters, they correlate at a rate that is a function of the difference in angle between the filters. If you do the same experiment with pairs of non-entangled photons, the results never correlate.
Go wrap your head around that. Seriously, think about it. In order for that kind of correlation to happen, each member of the entangled pair must be connected in some way across time and space. You can't replicate that kind of experiment by flipping coins.
After you've understood the thing well enough, then try calling QM a huge scam.
There are a lot of incredibly smart people who make this kind of thing their life's work, and a random anonymous nobody like you has no right at all to disrespect them or the truths they are working to discover.
was on a guitar forum when someone posted the question about bands with mediocre guitarists. One responder (not me) commented something along the lines of "John Flansburgh of TMBG qualifies... and I'd still rather listen to them than anything by Yngwie Malmsteen."
Hmm. I don't quite get that. I've always considered him to be a very underrated guitarist. He's incredibly versatile and amazingly subtle. But what he's really got is the gift of finding a great hook. There are plenty of amazingly skilled guitarists out there. But most of them aren't part of my mind's internal soundtrack. John Flansburgh's stuff is. So is Peter Buck's. And Ed Robertson.
Most people don't know who any of those guys are, but those are some of the best guitarists in the business today.
there is a bit of irony in protesting against corporate greed while blogging about it on the most expensive and fashionable laptops
How is it ironic? Apple provides quality products at a price point many are willing to meet. Also, I don't recall them ever having been in the news for screwing over their workforce. Plus, they haven't screwed up the global economy by committing real estate fraud on a global scale. As far as I know, they are not heavily subsidized by the government. And, you tend to associate Apple with Silicon Valley instead of Wall Street. The protest is "Occupy Wall Street", not "Occupy Silicon Valley".
Protesting against "corporate greed" does not require putting all corporations together in one group.
All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. -- Dawkins