> 2- it encourages brain drain. Since the repayment is through the tax system, the easiest way to avoid it while still earning good money is to move to another country where they won't care about it.

What the fuck are you on about? You know that you still have to pay taxes for the country in which you have citizenship, right?

At least it's a step in the right direction.

Obviously, there would be a limit on the amount of subsidized education you can get. Did you seriously think that this proposal was as simple as "pay for it with some taxes"? Use some common sense.

This is actually a really good idea. However, it does need some limits, particularly with regard to tuition prices. This proposal will give universities to raise tuition prices like mad. We need to place some serious restrictions on those.

You did not pass the EIT, you passed the FE exam. That's the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam. Because you passed it, you are now an Engineer In Training (EIT) or an EI (Engineering Intern). (Those terms both mean the same thing and are entirely interchangeable.)

That's yet another terrible analogy! Dynamiting a bridge is akin to an IT administrator sabotaging a system from within. That's also a terrible analogy, but at least it's closer than your comparison.

They never were. That was actually the code for what essentially amounted to a superfluous lock on the devices. There were still multiple layers of security, physical and otherwise, that prevented any kind of unauthorized use of, or access to, nuclear weapons. The idea that someone, armed with the code 0000000, could have done anything sinister with regard to nuclear weapons is beyond laughable and is well into the realm of nutjob conspiracy theories.

Interesting. I'd normally be all for this, there are way to many kickstarter campaigns that consist of "I have an idea for something, I need an amount of money determined by pulling a number out of my ass, I won't offer you any return on your investment, I might not even come through with the project, give me your money!"

On the other hand, there's no fraud here, no one on kickstarter is claiming to know what they're doing. Also, the job of the SEC is to prevent financial fraud, not to prevent fools from being parted with their money. If idiots want to throw their money at stupid things on the internet, let them to it without silly extra taxes!

The better solution is actually to digitize all that stuff. Paper is absolutely terrible for archiving information. You have to be in close physical proximity to read it, only one person can see it at a time, it's incredibly flammable, it wears out (there's a reason that you can't physically touch most old books and papers), etc.

Paper archives are of interest only for the novelty of seeing the actual piece of paper. The US Constitution is a great example. Even if the thing were destroyed we'd still have a constitution, it wouldn't suddenly cease to be law just because it was destroyed. Visiting the national archives is only good if you want the novelty of seeing the first copy ever made. Sure, It's interesting, but it's entirely worthless if you actually want to read the document. To see the constitution you have to show up during visiting hours and try to read illegible handwriting through 3 inches of bulletproof glass under incredibly dim light. It's far more effective if you just pull up a copy on the internet.

This goes for libraries everywhere. It would be far more useful if we just digitized all of this stuff. It's not hard. There are many commercial devices that are capable of digitizing books, maps, charts, and all manner of written material. The ONLY obstacle to this is the fuckwits responsible for turning copyright law into the clusterfuck that it is today. The only reason that books aren't digitized is because someone will sue whoever is doing the digitizing. It doesn't matter if the book is out of print and isn't sold anymore, whoever owns the copyright just wants to make a quick buck by suing someone else.

It's going to cost way more to replace the e-readers than it does to fix/replace books. For one thing, repairing an e-reader is almost impossible and, even when it can be done, costs about half as much, or more, as buying a new one. Books, however, can be rebound and repaired to a decent extent before they need replacement. E-readers are also way more fragile than books. Show me even one e-reader that can be dropped from 5 feet, pushed off a desk, thrown into a backpack, dropped again, have a stack of junk (pencils, other books, water bottles, etc.) dropped onto it without breaking and I'll eat my hat. And don't forget the chargers for these things. The cords will break and the chargers will go missing like crazy.

The only reason this idea might work is because Texas now sees it fit to classify failure to return a library book or e-reader as a crime! I'm sure that throwing people in jail for failing to return library books will be a great help to society.

> the application of space science technology and research to "basic necessities" of life – health, education, energy, food security, environmental management – is critical for the development of the continent.

If a country can't even provide clean drinking water to their people then how in the fuck do they expect to give them space-age technology? It doesn't matter what they might learn from space travel, because they can't even make use of technology, like water purification, that was perfected more than half a century ago!

Your boss's job is to make sure that the company turns a profit. Why should he hire more people when everything is working fine right now? This might *sound* like a stupid question, but that's exactly what your boss is going to ask. You need to have an answer for him.

You say that projects are getting delayed so that you can put out fires. *What* projects? Could these projects save the company money? Could they reduce risk and therefore prevent a loss of money? Are they necessary for the business to continue operating thus make money? For example, you said that IT is getting pressure from other departments because IT is holding them up. There's a good business case for hiring more IT staff. The other department could get their projects going faster and thus make more money.

You also mentioned helpdesk staff. What are your current wait times? Are you tracking them? If so, pull the data. If not, start tracking them now. If wait times are excessive then that's lost money. If hiring helpdesk staff can help other people get back to work faster then the company can make more money.

Back all of this up with numbers. You don't have to have a perfect analysis, but you should have some kind of rough number to give to your boss.

And those could get through today's security measures as well.

>You can bet that terrorists would find it an easy attack vector if there were no checks anymore.

False dichotomy. We can go back to the old security measures (i.e. metal detector). It's not an all or nothing situation.

>Honestly, what would be your preference?

I'd prefer to do away with the new "security" measures. I'll gladly take the risk of a terrorist slipping through. I live in this country, I fly semi-regularly. I'm agreeing to assume as much risk as anyone else under my preference. There are two, and only two, things that have made air travel safer since 9/11":
1. Reinforced cockpit doors. If the hijackers can't get to the cockpit then they cannot take the plane by force. Even if they kill all the passengers, they cannot gain control of the airplane and use it as a weapon.
2. Passengers now know to resist hijackers. The old logic used to be that you should obey the hijackers, don't be a hero, and keep your head down. The hijackers wanted money, political stuff (e.g. prisoners released), or free travel to $country_without_extradition_treaty. If you shut up and did what they said then no one would get hurt. The plane would land, SWAT (or equivalent) would negotiate with them. The hijackers would either surrender or SWAT would storm the plane with minimal innocent casualties. But now we know that the hijackers might want to use the plane with a weapon. Thus, passengers now know to dogpile anyone who tries to take over the plane. Even with a fully-loaded, fully-automatic rifle, no hijacker could possibly take over an aircraft. Have you seen pictures of recent would-be terrorists? The passengers beat those fuckers to within an inch of their lives!

TL;DR: We're safer now, but not thanks to the TSA.

Agreed. Most of these "weapons" are useless at best. The "grenades" aren't powerful enough to do more than singe some eyebrows, the crossbow-like devices are obvious as fuck and you wouldn't be able to make them without someone noticing (nor are they any more effective than stabbing someone with a pencil), the "reloadable" shotgun isn't reloadable and takes *considerable* time to go off, the fire-making device would be entirely contained if in luggage (planes are *designed* to tolerate a fire in luggage) or quickly put out by a crew member if inside the cabin, the "remote detonator" is just a flint wheel and couldn't detonate anything, etc. They're all entirely worthless. This experiment doesn't really prove a damn thing other than that current security measures are such that ineffective gadgets like this can be fashioned.

What he *should* have tested is whether or not the TSA's security rules are more effective than the old security rules. That is to say, could you construct a better weapon, one that's actually effective, under the old rules but not the new rules? I don't think so, but that isn't what he tested.