stutefish

Reply to What's your most prized possession? in Blogging JoeUser Forums

More than anything else in this world, I prize my wife. No, really.

Reply to Our Tax Dollars At Work in Politics JoeUser Forums

Honestly, MasonM , I'd overlooked that. Thanks for reminding me. I got a little cranky yestreday, and I was unfair to you. My remarks were totally uncalled-for. I apologize. Please forgive me. You make some very good points, and in fact I agree with the substance of your article. Again, thank you.

Linux Training, Day 3, Unit 10 in Life Journals JoeUser Forums

The class is still interesting. The notes are still boring. Previous installments can be found by searching my JU blog. Don't bother, though. Unit 10: Advanced Topics in Users, Groups, and Permissions User and Group ID Numbers + User names map to UID numbers. + Group names map to GID numbers. + Da

Red Hat Training, Day 2 in Life Journals JoeUser Forums

If you've gotten this far, you should see all the previous installments on the right. Don't bother reading them, though. They're amazingly boring. This installment won't be much better. Unit 6: Users, Groups, and Permissions Oh my! The Linux Security Model + Users, Groups, and Other + root</

Reply to Our Tax Dollars At Work in Politics JoeUser Forums

Has it never occurred to any of you to compare the way our system of government works with other systems of government? Have none of you ever considered the possibility that this right here is about as efficient as government spending gets ? I mean, sure we could probably make some improvements here and there, but all that amounts to nothing more than tinkering and fine-tuning. Politicians are humans, not angels. They're not d

Reply to Atheism is Poor Science in Religion JoeUser Forums

dharma: You assert that evolution happens, but that we have not--indeed, cannot --observe it happening. Please include the part where you give some sort of non-faith-based justification for your claim that "evolution happens". Thanks!

Reply to Why I Hate: The Minimum Wage in Blogging JoeUser Forums

keithpup , here's your break: We're not talking about CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, here. This article is about Joe Smallbusinessman, who's operating on a tight margin already. Bad laws often prevent government from doing good things. So do corrupt politicians. Behold a sample dialogue! STUTEFISH: Bad laws are a problem. Let us discuss it. KEITHPUP: Yeah! Only, let's talk about corrupt politicians instead! STUTEFIS

Red Hat Training: Day 1, Unit 4 in Life Journals JoeUser Forums

The third installment . (http://stutefish.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=75646) Unit 4: The bash Shell Whoohoo! (the bang denotes sincerity) + Backward compatible with the Bourne shell (sh) + Apparently the de facto Linux standard shell S

Red Hat Training: Day 1, Unit 3 in Life Journals JoeUser Forums

The second installment (http://stutefish.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=75633). Linux File Hierarchy Concepts + Single-rooted, inverted-tree structure + "Root" is represented by a "/" symbol. + Case sensitive element names + Slash-delimited paths (

Red Hat Training: Day 1, Unit 2 in Life Journals JoeUser Forums

The first installment (http://stutefish.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=75620) Unit 2 Running Commands + Syntax: command [options] [arguments] + Each syntax item is space-delimited + Options modify the command's behavior (e.g., "ls -l

Red Hat Training: Day 1, Unit 1 in Life Journals JoeUser Forums

Yeah, so I'm in Red Hat training, finally. I've only been supporting a major Linux-based project here at work for over six months now.[1] So here's some notes, taken during class. Unit 1 UNIX History Bla bla bla. UNIX Principles + Everything is a file + Including hardware (!) +

Reply to Why I Hate: The Minimum Wage in Blogging JoeUser Forums

latour999: Goods or services. The easiest way to determine the value of your work is to ask a bunch of people how much they'd be willing to pay for your work. If you can find someone who's willing to pay you $7.25/hour CDN for your work, great. But if you can't, then the minimum wage is forcing your employer to lose money so long as he employs you (i.e., he's giving you more value for your work, than the value you're giving him by doing your

Reply to Why I Hate: The Minimum Wage in Blogging JoeUser Forums

latour999: Yes, but are you actually doing $7.25 CDN worth of work every hour? If not, then you're imposing a hidden cost on your community, in order to finance your education. Of course you like the minimum wage; you're getting paid for work you're not doing, at the expense of everyone else Also, did you mean my hypothetical factory (the values are given in the article), or in my real life job (I'm being paid at the upper

Reply to More on inherited wealth in Politics JoeUser Forums

little_whip: Those Hummel figurines are an interesting case. The fact of the matter is, your parents worked very hard for many years, to accumulate the wealth that those figurines represent. The reason you cannot afford the tax on them is the same reason you cannot afford to buy your own Hummel collection right now: you haven't focused your wealth on that task. Now, I'm not sure it's good to put descendants in

Reply to Russian History Of Missile Superiority in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Reiki, where did you read about their capabilities? I wouldn't presume to give you a professional opinion about them, since I've been out of the Intel analyst game for longer than I was in it. But I can give you an educated amateur's opinion, at least. Honestly, I'd be surprised if Russia has anything truly ground-breaking in this field right now. And I'd like to point out that the devotion of a totalitarian regime will always out

Reply to Why I Hate: The Minimum Wage in Blogging JoeUser Forums

J.E.: I'm with you, that a little inflation is a good thing, or at least an okay thing. And I'm totally with you about deflation being the real killer. But don't we have enough drivers of inflation, without the minimum wage? Especially since when the minimum wage drives inflation, it does so for no reason except to cancel out the supposed benefits of the pay increase. In other words, rather than doing go

Reply to Russian History Of Missile Superiority in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Oh, and another thing: The reason the Soviets opposed our anti-ballistic-missile programs in the early 80s (e.g., "Star Wars"), was because they couldn't match the programs technologically or militarily, nor could they counter the programs. If the Russians were able to build a missile defense system as good as ours, don't you think they would have done so, rather than fighting so hard for so many years to stop us from building ours?<

Reply to Russian History Of Missile Superiority in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Oh, and let's not forget that one of the reasons the Soviets bothered to master heavy lift in the first place was because they were most definitely not able to compete in the area of miniaturization. While the U.S. focused on doing more with less (in the long run, a much greater technological and economic achievement), the Soviet Union attempted to keep up by doing more with more (which, while impressive, was much less efficient--and mu

Reply to Russian History Of Missile Superiority in Current Events JoeUser Forums

The Russians have always been experts at heavy lift vehicles. The challenges for launching exteremely heavy payloads into orbit are both extreme and unique, and for at least two generations the Soviet Union devoted a huge portion of its smartest people and its struggling economy to mastering those problems. That they successfully orbited the first satellite and the first human is a testament to Soviet perseverance, dedication, and con

Reply to Massively Multiplayer Gaming Challenges in Game Ideas JoeUser Forums

It seems to me that one major problem is that most MMOs are competitive in nature. Thus, the things players tend to care about are things that increase their chances of "winning". If other players can't take away my core assets, they can't compete with me. If I can't take away their core assets, why should I bother competing with them? On the other hand, if my character is imperiled, I'm not going to play much. And

Reply to Why I Hate: The Minimum Wage in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Thanks, anon, but I'm just some guy who can't figure out what the minimum wage does for me. And don't tell me it keeps The Man from exploiting me. If that was the case, my current employer would be paying me the minimum wage right now. The fact is, my employer pays me much more than the minimum wage, by several orders of magnitude. The same is true for almost every job that doesn't involve unskilled laborers providing low-value goods

Reply to Why I Hate: The Minimum Wage in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Dr. Guy: How can you say that "withdrawing [the minimum wage floor] will have no visible effect"? It seems to me that it would have the immediate effect of increasing profits, productivity, and employment. If you agree that the minimum wage causes the problems I listed, what makes you think that eliminating the minimum wage won't eliminate the problems it causes? Also, could somebody please explain to me how th

Reply to Why I Hate: The Minimum Wage in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Zoomba: I'm not sure you read my article. You say "The only claim I make about increasing the minimum wage is that it should be adjusted to reflect inflation rates." But you make no attemp to acknowledge or refute my argument that the minimum wage is a cause of inflation. In effect, you're saying we should solve the problem by causing the problem. What's up with that?

Reply to Why I Hate: The Minimum Wage in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Thank you all for your replies. I'm relieved to discover that so far, Gideon's pessimistic prediction has proven false, and nobody is telling me how stupid I am. Now, could somebody please explain to me how this "price floor" thing works, and how its benefits more than offset the inflation, unemployment, and failing economies created by the minimum wage? Thanks again, everybody!

Why I Hate: The Minimum Wage in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Let's say I own a small factory. The factory produces about $100[1] worth of widgets every day, and requires a crew of seven people to operate at full efficiency. Let's also say that this factory operates in a country where it is customary to pay workers by the day, and that $10 per day is a low but acceptable wage. Now, I could pay my seven wo