That is, IF the programmers and administration are willing to spend the money and take the time to bulletproof the code. to do so, would take at least a second team to do nothing but debug the code as in FDA validation. Every step had to be proven and probably cost as much or more than the original programming. This is far from what hey required for the ACA, Had we tried to pass off that kind of code, the fines and jail sentences would have been huge. The Govt violated their own FDA requirements for rolling out that code,

It's no wonder why science is failing. Students "in general" take the easy courses. They earn degrees the would have been better off financially had the went to work right out og high school. I taught while working as a GA on my quest for a masters. This was intro to CS. The lack of knowledge was ...difficult to describe. That these people were going to vote4 with equal weight to intelligent people is scary. The came out of college or a university with an education, but in many cases no more intelligent than when they went in. The old saying about sending a Jackass to college and you get an educated Jackass. Gone are the days when a degree helped. No t5he degree needs to be in a specific field and specifically a science field. They need to make passing a tough money management course a prerequisite for entering college to prevent these huge tuition loans. Can't get a job with a degree so borrow another 50 - 75 thousand for an advanced degree in the same field?. It's hard to imagine people like that ever getting out of high school. Sure college is expensive. I quit a well above average job to earn a degree and earned a full ride GA for a masters. I figured $60,000 a year was probably on the low side, but I paid for it (up front). If you can't afford it, wait till you can and make certain you are cut out for college! This approach would have kept tuition at an affordable level and a lot of people out of debt!

I have to ask myself, what does each have to gain? We know the Kotches are after money and that creates jobs, lots of jobs. What does soros gain? Remember what he said his hobbies were in an interview? Playing wit the the currencies and economies of countries. He bragged about having caused the collaps of economies of countries. Think of the misery that caused. He bragged that his next target was to cause the colapse of the US economy. Think of that the next time he offers help. How the kotches can boost coal as it's on the way oun by natural selection? Any coal increases would only be temporary. Gas is better for the utilities and consumers. Natural gas has become very cheap! and is far less poluting than coal. NG is only 10% of what it was a little over a decade ago, or so. Wind generation of power is approaching par with conventional power. Particularly the newer installations. The Gratiot County (Michigan) wind farm has apparently been making money without subsidies since its inception. So renewables are approaching the point where they dont't need subsidies. Last year, we reached the point where China replaced the US as the #1 importer of energy and the US passed Saudi Arabia as the #1 exporter. AND, many renewables reached parity with fossile fuels. There are still many renewable companies left to go under, but we've reached some major milestiones. Solar is still very expensive. Other than coal, the interests of thr kotch Brothers are more in line with middle class Americans. Their standars of living may be different, but their overall goals benefit us as well as it does them. Soros? From his own statements in that interview, "Not so much!" It's on the net, if it, like many documents hasn't been scrubbed.

Our education system has been failing a lot more subjects than IT. Although I know the majority on here are liberals, school is not a place for indoctrination into any political belief as that is time taken from learning the important subjects like science, history, and English. We need history to prevent redoing the mistakes of the past. We need to be able to construct our writing into logical order, so people will understand what we are talking about and to get our point across no matter what your political beliefs. Being able to out shout the opposition wins no argument and loses converts. "Common core" is far worse than bad. Their approach to math makes it overly complicated, they are weak on science and strong on political correctness. IOW they teach kids to be meek and obedient little elves. They kill creative thinking which is essential for science. Get hold of a teaching guide for common cor. Don't listen to either side. Read the manual and decide for your self. If our school system is poor with science, it will look great compared to common core. They are dumbing school down to the lowest common denominator and making it a cheering section for the entitlement crowd.

And that is just one of many! I sometime think the average person could not understand science were they given the tools. They do not have the mental make up to understand science. Even when you take them through step-by-step, they get lost. They don't have to do the math. They can accept you do, but given all the numbers, step-by-step they still don't understand. When it reaches that level, it's not only frustrating, but a lost cause.

The point is, the general public has NO reference point on which to judge any particular science topic. No, they don't have to be capable of doing that science themselves, or doing the calculations to believe. If they understand enough science to know how it works then they can have enough of an understanding to evaluate the theory. I got into a discussion about AGW in a blog and made the statement that I understood the theory and data. One woman, who obviously didn't, got upset, claimed she could understand the data as well as I and became downright angry when I asked her why then were her conclusions counter to what I said, and mainstream science had to say. I'm far from being an expert, but my entire education has been based on science, not the liberal arts. I admire artists and musicians, or even business men with MBAs who chose their fields because they like those fields. With the exception of the MBA which has potential they realize and understand the likelihood of their chosen field supporting them in the style to which they'd like to become accustomed to is close to nil. They love their field and understand the prospects. The key words are love and understand. However there is absolutely nothing in these fields to aid in understanding science. Many chose the arts because most of the courses are easier and contain very little math. When asked why she didn't choose science because an OWS demonstrater stated, "because those courses are too hard. I graduated at 50 and earned a full ride for my masters in CS as a GA. Unfortunately a degree does not make a person intelligent, it just shows they have been educated. For many years you only needed a degree. This ended up in many useless degrees that taught very little useful information. Gone now are the days of "any degree". The degree needs to be in a specific field, or closely associated field. Still. students run up horrendous debt, earning these useless degrees. No jobs? Continue on and earn an advanced degree in the same useless field and double the debt! I think they need to make practical decision making and basic economics mandatory before allowing entry into any college, or university. I taught many students as a GA, I wondered how many of them ever made it into the university.. Their ability to solve practical problems was abysmal. Out of 200, mostly business students, I had maybe 10 who could type. This was intro to CS, something most on here would find very boring. It was hoe to turn 'em on, turn 'em off, load a program, run a word processor, spread sheet, paint program, and combine the results into a paper. IOW an add for a job with some imaginary company. The best one was for a condom company. The guy was a good writer and understood the assignments. He received a "A". There were probably 10 in there who weren't going to make it. A course, most 5th graders could ace and I had 10 college students who were going to fail. I had one Einstein who took a girls disk out of the computer and turned it in as his own work...with out even changing the name on the paper. He sat between my boos and me in a small, hot room. I'll swear we could have put a drip pan under him and got enough grease to make candles, but he never cracked, so all we could do was dock him (and her) a grade, Her for sharing homework, and him for mistakenly turning in the wrong disk. So, I can well understand why far more than the majority do not understand science.

I hired in as a sys admin. In a year, I was a Developmental analyst ( fancy name for programmer), and after a total of less than 3 years I was a major project manager. (about 5 pay scales above programmer) As I understood the work flow, I never had to go the call center route, nor did I hire in at starting wage scale. So I was 3 years ahead on the pay scale when I started Most places want people who have a broad skill set and do not want someone who is a programmer and wants to stay a programmer. They want some one with the broad skill set, who is a fast learner, has the desire and ambition to move up the food chain as rapidly as possible. If you want to stay a programmer there are only a few locations where that is possible and in most industry, programmers are a long way from the top pay scale. Be careful of "burn 'em and turn 'em" companies. They milk you for all your ideas, then instead of a promotion, show you the door and hire some one new for more ideas...and repeat.

We've known for a long time that ethanol is a polluter. Yes, it lets us recycle CO2, bu that's the only good thing about it. Besides, it takes land out of food production and reduces food for animals, raising meat prices.

I can purchase a 500 Gig SSD for less than a 500 Gig Hd as of 4 or 5 years ago. That's plenty of high speed room for the OS, Program, and mail.

At least to start, the same group the Tobacco companies use to combat the health issues were hired to spread confusion and dissent against AGW. Now some of the oil companies "appear" to be coming around. IOW, they see the science as concrete enough they do not want to be seen on the losing side.

The rational in that post made no sense at all. Knowledge must be based on fact, even if just a seed at the start. Knowledge not based on fact is not knowledge, it is faith which has little place in a scientific discussion. People "believe" in something, but they don't know it with out some concrete basis. One of the first steps is learning the difference between faith and science. I can believe in something because it fits within what I do know, I ca believe in something just because it sounds right, I can believe in something...just because, but I can't know something unless I am able to derive a concrete answer from what information I do have and that information must be fact, or based on fact. No one can know something just because. They can't just know something. That's a belief!. I can know within a given percentage that what "I believe I know is the correct interpretation" In faith, you believe or don't believe, there is no room for statistically saying, this belief is 99% likely to be true while this belief is only 30% likely. It's my faith is right and yours is wrong. We can say (with a great amount of risk) your belief is barbaric and ignores the laws of common decency. Look at the Crusades and "Dark ages". Look at Galileo and the church which is a classic example of the collision between faith, science, and control of power.. One problem today is revisionist history. Science is based on laws and theories. Accepted theories have survived the test of time and gone through many rigorous tests.

I agree with AGW, but disagree with the Carbon taxes and Credits. Encourage conservation (one way or another) convince people to save, not raise the prices. Gas taxes, are generally based on gallons rather than price. The amount of fuel used has dropped to the point where many states are having problems maintaining roads. Not only do most cars on the roads use less, but with higher prices on both food and fuel (neither of which is used in computing the cost of living so inflation numbers are far less than reality), people are driving less. States that are vacation spots are seeing fewer out of state visitors and less income. Thing is, these are happening naturally, without carbon taxes and credits. A recent study showed that "in general", renewables are reaching parity (they can produce power for the same cost as conventional fuels) with drastic reductions in the subsidies that got them started. . OTOH there are still many of these corporations that will go bankrupt. A good deal of this is the rising cost of energy produced by conventional fuels but the cost of the renewables is coming down while the volume is going up. The same study showed that China has replaced the US as the #1 importer of energy AND the US passed Saudi Arabia as the #1 exporter. Fracking has produced so much natural gas the current price is about 10% that of 10 years ago. Looking at the numbers, I believe converting from crude and coal to natural gas would would more than meet the desired reduction in our carbon footprint with no expensive taxes or credits. We need to drop the demand for importing products that are causing forest land to be converted to farming, particularly when the forest soil is not suited for growing crops. Indirectly, our buying habits are contributing to the third world countries increasing carbon footprints. Had AGW been announced without carbon taxes and credits, I think it's quite likely that we wouldn't see anywhere near the number of deniers that we have now. A large percentage of them see AGW used as a source of money, therefore "it must be a manufactured hoax". Most scientists are not known as people who are good at explaining "things" to non scientific people (the majority of the population) and that same majority is not capable of properly interpreting the raw data on their own, so anyone who can come up with a halfway plausible sounding reason that it's a hoax is believed.. Unfortunately we don't know all the mechanisms by which the climate tries to stay in equilibrium, so when the temp rise flattens out, we need a concrete answer for the deniers. Unfortunately it's unlikely they will accept any reason now. It's like those who still blame Bush for Obama's failures.

Making News instead of Reporting News has been the mainstay for the network news for quite some time. It sorta reduces the credibility on whatever they report on, knowing their "Creative Editing" changes the news to mean what ever they desire.

For some that's science, religion, or lack of religion. After all, Atheism is faith in ones self. Most of the posts seem to be rantings, for or against "something", but I think INT_QRK is closest with his/her tagging zealots. I'm pretty much live and let live. I don't care about a person's race religion, or even persuasion, UNTIL they can not engage in a rational discourse. As soon as any religion or group tries to convert me, or get me to accept them by force, intimidation, threats, or shouting down anyone who disagrees with them, I'm likely to vote against anything they want or stand for. Used to be you could see just how well founded, or secure a person was in their belief, by being able to discuss rationally those beliefs with someone of opposing beliefs. The liberal arts have mostly been indoctrination for several generations...or more. Some colleges and universities are worse than others with the schools being destroyed by political correctness. Colleges and universities are "supposed to be institutions of learning. They are not democracies to be run by students, or aren't supposed to be. Be it any religion, atheists, or any other group that feel they have to resort to shouting down the opposition makes them sound like spoiled kids that didn't get their way.. That goes particularly for those who resort to threats, intimidation, and violence. As for educated voters. I've found many politicians quite willing to listen to the voters. Thing is, very few voters ever contact them. They hear from special interest groups and unhappy voters, but very few "concerned citizens" that have any understanding of the issue about which they write. It's those zealots that get their attention, although, I think the rantings probably head straight for the round file. Most of those go to a co-op with the instructions:"standard form letter". Yes, there are those who have their own agenda and could care less what those who put the in office want. Although I'm not a conservative, I find the Liberals are far more likely to reply with form letters than the conservatives. Maybe that will change if they lose control of both the house and senate. Conservatives consider me a liberal and liberals consider me a conservative.

It hasn't affected my beliefs one bit except for Learning the goals of of one are "convert or die".