Comment How the hell would I know? (Score 1) 240
On the other hand (hehehe) my son's speed on a smart phone is amazing.
On the other hand (hehehe) my son's speed on a smart phone is amazing.
It should be noted: “relative to the private sector, the federal workforce is less than half the size it was back in the 1950s and 1960s”
Does the "federal workforce" referred to in that article refer only to people who work directly for the government? Afaict there has been a trend away from the government directly paying people to do work for them and towards the government paying contractors to do it.
Yes, federal workforce are those civilians who receive a Federal paycheck, but that can include permanent full time, career conditional (not yet permanent), temp, term, part time, interns, students, and seasonal (I think that's most of the categories). Right now this may not include the Judicial system nor the Postal Service - I'm not certain. Some agencies make use of agencies that provide contract workers but they are not 'federal workers'. With sequestration agencies may need to cancel some contracts that provide workers (or goods and services) and many seasonal workers will not be hired.
I don't know how seasonals and workers other than permanent will be treated but expect that they can 'just' be let go more or less. There are also contracts for some jobs for "as needed" workers and I imagine that they won't be activated unless it's an emergency and then other employees man need to be furloughed to pay for them.
Whenever a government department is threatened with cuts, they announce that they'll cut front-line staff and not overpaid managers or worthless paper-pushers. That's why government spending expands forever until the economy collapses.
That's not how it works at all. First almost everyone is furloughed, that is, gets unpaid holidays. DoD will furlough their 800,000 civilian employees one day a week starting April 1. So 800,000 will loose 20% of their pay! Other Departments/Agencies my furlough more or less days per week or delay until after April 1. Of course employees don't spend what they don't get and the deductions for health plans and retirement stay the same. AFAIK the furloughs can last only 22 workdays or 30 calendar days and then a RIF (reduction in force starts automatically). When furloughs will start depends on the financial state of the Federal agency. Some, such as DoD will start at the earliest time, April 1. The Forest Service (US Dept. of Agriculture) will be able to hold off until 1 May or later, for instance.
The reduction in force list is developed mostly by formula and depends on skills, seniority, military service, etc. I think that most of the lists have been (or are being compiled) but not released. An employee on the RIF list can 'bump' a an employee not on the list if the employee is qualified for the position (some other conditions, too) and then that employee can bump someone else and so on. RIFs are expensive in present but will result in savings in the future.
It should be noted: “relative to the private sector, the federal workforce is less than half the size it was back in the 1950s and 1960s”
http://fcw.com/Articles/2012/09/13/Size-federal-workforce.aspx?Page=2
This is one of the most horrible and stupidest summaries I've read in a long time. Enzymes are biochemical catalysts. Ethanol and acetaldehyde are substrates. The substrates get converted into end products with the help of enzymes and energy. Ethanol does not get converted *into* an enzyme known as acetaldehyde. Ethanol gets converted to acetaldehyde by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, through the loss of one hydrogen atom. In the next step, acetaldehyde gets converted into acetic acid (same thing as in vinegar) by the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase through the loss of another hydrogen atom. Acetaldehyde a lot more toxic than acetic acid. If you block the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase (which lacks naturally in a minority of East Asians), there will be an accumulation of excess acetaldehyde, causing very noxious symptoms. This is exactly what drugs like disulfiram ("antabuse") do. What a badly written summary. Both the submitter and the editor need to read some biochemistry or learn to use google before posting rubbish.
Right on!
In the mid '70s when I was in grad school there was a discussion about whether education standards had been lowered and the general opinion was "yes". It was pointed out that the average grades in particular high school and university classes had been rising and that increasing numbers of freshmen were required to take make up courses in "language arts" as they couldn't write well. It was suggested that the proficiency level in the 2nd year of university corresponded to the proficiency level of high school graduates from 20 or 30 years before. One would think that the decline would have bottomed out by now; perhaps part of this perception of decline is just perception.
On the other hand this decline appears to be correlated with the "baby boomer" explosion and the introduction television in every household.
There must still be some records around of the required proficiency in written language skill from previous decades which could be compared with today's.
Example I notice today on Slashdot:
should be:
Red Dwarf? There's only one Red Dwarf; it needs a coat of paint and it is only seldom ever near an earth sized planet.
If hydrogen is mixed with oxygen in the right proportions, it becomes an incredibly dangerous substance.
Absolutely! And if it mixed in the right proportions and allowed to combine correctly the product can be really dangerous, for instance, it can cause fatal hyper-hydration.
On some roads I've seen signs that assert "Prayer Works". How would you design a protocol to test this assertion?
Domestication changes genes and presumably the epigenome. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to pick an undomesticated bird, perhaps a more "primitive" one than the highly domesticated chicken as the DNA source to "clone" a dinosaur?
The pictures of the bird are interesting, too. No explanation for them; probably because the larger image is a portion of the smaller image scaled up in size and reversed left to right. I guess viewers are to draw their own conclusions.
You forgot the windshield washing service.
BTW do Pringle cans hold liquids? The necks of Coke bottles are way too small for me. Well, whatever works for you.
"That was the best sex ever and BTW, I just gave you copies all my videos".
You know.... you could just interpret it outside of relative calendar restrictions as "within a week, a month, a year".
Because, like, that's what everyone else is probably doing
No, some with interpret it as written and others will interpret it as it should have been written so there goes the scientific objectivity of this Slashdot poll.
This poll is more useless than most because cell phones haven't been available to the public long enough. In order to make any sense out of the results of this poll, age data would need to be provided in order to categorize responses based on technological practicality. All the results for this poll tell me is what I already knew: the majority of people on this site are older than the internet.
And some of us are older than electronic computers!
"Engineering without management is art." -- Jeff Johnson
