My reseller cost on that is $3250. They aren't cheap even for us.

I concur. I took my 12 year olds test. Just to see what it was like. It covered his school year quite well and was focused on the things the kids that age should be learning. It did lack some art and music sections, but was very strong in reasoning and analytical skills. And teaching to the test as far as I can tell, means making sure that you cover a number of basic subjects thoroughly. Esp. math and reading. Also kids with special needs have the scores factored out. Schools are required to provide IEPs for those kids. Also our public schools in Southern IL and elsewhere have AT programs where above average kids can be challenged and what not. At least around here the schools don't mind the tests too much and try and deal with all of the kids above and below average as well as they can. The tests and "teaching to them" seems to have a nice added effect, that when the child goes on to the next grade, the teacher knows what basic skills they'll have from the previous year.

You do realize that the site you're recommending is financed by the koch brothers right? Not trying to stir things up, just an FYI. I can't support any movement that's back by large corporations asking for more deregulation. I think People need less regulation, not the corporations. I'm tired of living in a country that's on the brink of fascism.

"Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power."
-Benito Mussolini -

As someone who's built and runs a fairly large government website, I agree with you. Every year 3 months there are more legislative requirements and fields to deal with etc, permissions, changing points of interest, reporting etc. It's a complex moving target, with no one to have a dialog with. The governor will mandate one thing, while the house will do another, the feds another, and the supreme court another. 1/3 of the time all conflicting with each other. Then you layer that on top of 102 local government rules, and political agendas, and things start to get complicated, then make it real time. There of course is the lack of budget, due to cutbacks, but that just makes it fun.

Most of the data exchanges between agencies are XML based. Check out IEPD's and NIEM for a sense of what folks are dealing with. You have to have a large amount of flexibility to collect and store the ever changing data that gets submitted to you. In a way that can be gone through later when someone out there decides that some piece of data is important, or indexable/searchable, yet you may end up in a situation where a large majority of your data providers won't/ can't even provide that data for months or years. They are all different/independent vendors with their own priorities and budgets. It's a glorious mess out there. We use a combination NoSQL and RDBMS to get it done.

I've been surprised that healthcare.gov made it as far as they did. I don't think the marklogic call was a bad one though. I think what looks to be the hiring of a company without a lot of experience in the XML/NoSQL/NIEM arena was.

Now you're talking! I miss all of the creativity that came out of "The Well" back then. Back when you had a "zine" that helped you choose what to wear, what brain enhancing drugs to take, where to stand on social issues, and how subvert the phone company. All in one randomly produced at various times throughout the year publication.

Unions: The largest obstacle to autonomous trains. Esp in Spain. It the reason that will have autonomous cars before we have autonomous trucks. Imagine a world where the Teamsters no longer exist. Do you really think they're going to let that happen without hard a fight? Lord only knows what we're going to do with 3.5 million laid off workers, when there are already 11.5 million unemployed. It also looks like there are so few train operators in the us, that it may not be worth the money to do it automatically. In 2010 there were only 67,100 with little or no expected change in their numbers, so unless the safety issue comes to a head it probably won't change.

you can 3d print metal FYI..

http://www.3dsystems.com/3d-printers/production/spro-125-direct-metal#.UgKVbkBDtIM

http://gpiprototype.com/services/metal-3d-printing.html

Just some quick google search results on on the topic of "3d printer metal"

The proper term here is "Opertunivore" w/ vegetarian leanings...

is my screen protector, so it's whichever one I happen to be using while he's around, and not doing my dishes, feeding my like a roman senator, or being my preferred Cloud solution.

Having had to read through some of your older code recently, StreamTokenizer.java, it smacks of a terse 'C' style of coding. I love the way it uses byte arrays and bit masks to do it's tokenizing very efficiently. It's wonderfully subtle, but a PITA the read compared to more recent Java coding styles, that use longer more readable variable names etc. At times I wondered if it was the result of an all nighter/quick hack. I'm curious if you like/influenced the way Java's coding style has developed over the years.

I got Bruce Campbell to sign my chainsaw.... that took some work, but I felt it was worth it...

wikipedia says: Poverty is the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money.[1] Absolute poverty or destitution refers to the deprivation of basic human needs. Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions.

I think you have a choice in how you define an economic class, by income, spending, net worth, or some combination thereof. I'm willing to say that I define wealth by income. If you earn 1 million dollars a year, and have annual debt load of 1 million dollars. A financial high amperage as it were, and zero net worth I'd still call you rich/wealthy. I also believe that at some point you have to draw a line. Apparently my line is at least when you earn 5 times what the average person earns, if not less.

There's a lot of things Obama doesn't have the stomach for anymore... I haven't been talking about Family income, just single person income, and tax rates. Our concept of "Rich" has changed so much in the last 10 - 15 years because the "extremely rich" have moved the mark so far beyond what we can even imagine. The top 5% of of income in the US starts at $167,000. That's below the 175K mark, I willing to accept that anyone in the top 5% of income should be considered as "rich" According to one accepted definition, the middle class is the middle 66% of income earners. I'm pretty sure that 5% fits into the 11% that is the top third of the top 33% that is the upper class. This is of course a definition of the rich that is only based on Income and not on Influence. There may be a line here though as only 4% of the US population are millionaires. Unless of course you're saying that a millionaire isn't rich. Chances are that if your income is $175,000 a year you're going to be a millionaire, and therefore rich. If not, then you've got deeper problems. Did you know that 6% of the american population considers themselves rich?

My argument is at the 175K mark. That's 14,583 dollars a month. We'll subtract out your 50% tax burden to get $7291 dollars a month. We'll assume you're paying $3,166/month to pay off your $250,000 debt in 10 years, leaving you $4125/month or $49,508 after taxes. Median income in the US is $32,000 - pre tax, or at a 25% tax rate, $24,000 aka $2,000/ month. That's $2125 a month more than the average person, for 10 years after you get a job, more than enough to get a decent place to live and a couple of cars. Given that the tax rate for 175, is actually only 33% you'd get an extra $2479/month to spend on top of that $4125. So, no I don't have any sympathy for someone bringing in that much money.

At the 90K level on the other hand, It's going to be fairly rough compared to the average middle class family, and I empathize. You're still going to have it better than a third of americans though. Not seeing your spouse for nights at a time is rough and i applaud you for making it through together.

Have you ever been required to work 36 hour shifts without any sleep? No
Yes, and don't forget you have it better than active duty deployed military. Same crappy hours plus gunfire, and their pay will never be that good.

I'm sorry... are you saying $175,000/ year isn't a FUCK TON of money? boo fucking hoo; 60 - 80 hours a week? Welcome to minimum wage just trying to get by while supporting a family. FIX YOUR PERSPECTIVE!

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