greyboy

What they _didn't_ tell people was that, upon approval, most state funding would stop and be _replaced_ by the lottery proceeds.

In the end it turns out that the lottery proceeds were much less compared to the state funding and, therefore, the educational funding has been greatly reduced.

Congratulations is in order. I've been using Fastmail since at least 2001 and have been a paying user for the last eight years. I hope it continues to be the quality service it has been going forward.

OT: Hello fellow Wolfpack-er. I think there are a couple other NCSU grads on HN, too.

Plus, it's a little different that Europe. When I've been overseas in various European contries, they get free incoming calls. My wife would call from the States using Skype for a couple cents a minute and it wouldn't cost me a dime. Here in the US, it's an awkward system. You pay for all your minutes[1] and most the large carriers (Verizon, AT&T, etc) even charge daily access fees, up to $1/day whether you use the phone or not[2].

[1] Unless you get one of those hybrid plans, where you are pre-paid/off contract, but you pay for a certain number of minutes per month. [2] All the carriers differ, some only charge on the days you use the phone. T-mobile seems to be the best "large" operator for pre-paid service in the US, though there are decent regional MVNOs with good deals.

A new option is a Mac Mini with 2x 500GB drives (without an internal optical drive), running OS X Server, for $999.

http://www.apple.com/macmini/server/specs.html

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-SEALED-RETAIL-PACKAGE-Microsoft-Opti...

http://cgi.ebay.com/SEALED-BULK-RETAIL-PACKAGE-Microsoft-Opt...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Microsoft-TrackBall-Optical-Mouse-PS-2-U...

With a family member who spent many years working for a large carrier, this isn't how the airline industry works (in America, and I assume many other nations). Flights are almost never cancelled except due to mechanical failure, crew fatigue, or inclement weather. The reason being, that same plane taking you from NYC to SFO is also the plane that 130 people are waiting for in SFO to SEA. So, whether it is 100% full or only has 2 people, it still makes the trip. Have you ever been on a plane with only 2 passengers aboard? I have - and you can pick any seat you want! They will even send an empty plane out (with crew, of course).

C) raise the prices of refundable tickets so high that you will go to another carrier at the outset.

Refundable tickets are already that high - almost nobody buys them. They are already 3-5x as high as your average discount ticket and almost solely purchased by business travellers or foreigners who need that flexibility. The 99% of cow-herded casual travellers buy the bottom-of-the-barrel discount tickets, usually from Travelocity and the like, with the most restrictions. Unfortunately, I don't see that changing unless there is a massive uprooting of the current airline industry.

  MYMACRO(x,y,x+y)

Hmmm, a sample size of one, eh?

    The TSA says disciplinary action has been taken against
    one of its employees for inappropriate tone and language.

However, in the example in the article, he was using "ls" piped to "grep" in order to find all files with a 5 in the name. That would suffer from the same consequences you mentioned, on such systems, and is inefficient and verbose.

Note, I agree with your advice to teach "find" (and "xargs") to users.

  $ ls *5*

The find command is more powerful (descending into subdirs, etc.), but the original example in the link only specified the current directory.

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/db2/express/about.html

You appear to be one of the chosen who have access. My super-huge-ISP only gets me this message:

  ESPN360.com is available at no charge to fans who receive   
  their high-speed internet connection from an ESPN360.com 
  affiliated internet service provider. ESPN360.com is also 
  available to fans that access the internet from U.S. 
  college campuses and U.S. military bases.

  Your current computer network falls outside of these 
  categories. Here’s how you can get access to ESPN360.com.

> aside from the initial annoyance of waiting for Silverlight to install itself (which I did because it was the only way to watch the Olympics broadcasts).

You know, I tried to do the same thing. And on both machines I tried it on, Silverlight failed to install with some cryptic, unhelpful error message. Both machines were running Windows XP and installing inside IE. I couldn't believe I was seriously having problems with Microsoft installing Silverlight correctly in its own browser.

I browse with all audio/video media disabled by default - and I dislike RMS. If there is something I absolutely must see, I open IE to view it. Fortunately for me, I hardly need Flash and never need Silverlight.

That's a really heartwarming story. Unfortunately, it's a single data point. We certainly can't expand that to cover all poor people, right?

After hearing people speak at RU meetings (and others), many of them had a single purpose in life: get high, gambling, etc (whatever said person's vice was). I've never personally heard of a perfectly fine individuals thrown out onto the streets, though I don't doubt it happens. However, where are the family members and friends? That would be the first place I turned - I'm not proud (not implying he was).

Side note: If someone is poor because they blew all their money on drugs, then lost their job and found themselves on the streets, I don't want to "throw" money at that problem. Sure, I'll buy a meal/gift card (or other necessities) as I've done in the past, but I'm not blindly trusting someone in that position. I wouldn't expect anyone to blindly trust me.

> The U.S. spends a lot in taxes, and that money goes to such areas as defense ...

Ok, we realize that number is about 20% - where is the other 80% going? There's a lot to fix other than just getting out of Iraq.

You want to know how to fix the problem of dealing with the poor? Change people's hearts. A caring, loving people will do more than any government sponsored program will. Unfortunately, the average US citizen is so far removed from the everday reality many others face. Their only insight into those struggles are the latest sob story drama of an American Idol contestant (or a Christian Children's Fund commercial). It's pathetic.

> none of U.S. cities rank in the top 100 most livable places (Mercer Cities Ranking)

Unless I am mistaken, this link shows 8 US cities in the top 50. Are you referring to something else?

http://www.citymayors.com/features/quality_survey.html http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/livable_cit...

> crime, largest per capita prison population in the world

Honest question, is this totally a bad thing? Does punishing criminals under a certain standard imply something poor? Or am I fuzzy on the statement?

> infrastructure - roads, bridges, buildings etc. (don't get me started; it's almost third world country level)

Whoa! Have you ever been to the US? This is a very bold statement to make. (note: I've been all around the world in my days)

> average lasting quality of housing (drywall, cheap wood framing, bad carpentry on windows and doors etc.)

Hmm, I've never seen this in my travels around the States. Quality depends on many factors. I've lived in newly built to 40+ year old homes and I've never had the problems you've mentioned. I've never heard of anyone I've personally known with those problems, either (not that they don't exist, of course).

> no functioning Euro-style city cores, urban sprawl, stuffed highways with commuters

Some areas could use some help, but I've successfully navigated around San Diego, Seattle, Washington DC, NYC, and other metros without a personal vehicle, and have relatives who do so all the time. Does this not fit the description? On a side note, my personal city is 400,000 people over 115 sq miles (county: 900,000 people over 832 sq miles) - it's a different way of life and trying to force a metro-city transportation system into this area is bound for failure (though I will agree that there is room for improvement).

The US isn't perfect. But not that imperfect, either.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=619028

with virtually the same ranking. I guess it's very subjective what constitutes as "contributing to the discussion" or not.