Do you really think that owning a firearm protects you against a police state?
Saddam Hussein, right before his downfall, gave guns left and right to everybody who would carry one, for free.
So, indeed, having everyone have a gun does not prevent dictatorships... (Unless, of course, the US was jealous of the irakis' freedom)...
Canada has ridiculous gun laws. I guess they only want their violent criminals to own guns.
They are well on the way to outlawing Christianity through BS 'hate crime legislation.'
Outlawing guns is the reason why Canada has a much lower violent crime rate than the US.
As for christianity, well, if we can eradicate whatever christian religion (we'd like to know which so we could adjust our laws to be more effective) fosters hate crimes, so much the better.
Instead, they ended up with the culture of the US, the cuisine of the British, and the technology of the French!
If only we HAD french technology. Fastest trains in the world... Cars that ride like on a cloud on bad roads (Citroen suspensions)... Having been wired for almost 25 years (Minitel)... But no, we've got instead the dumb american technology that's driven by bean-counters and MBAs instead of engineers...
I remember one time I was playing America's Army, and I was going on about how we shared a border with Russia, and were the country furthest north. The guy I was talking to never clued in.
The US, too, shares a border with Russia (both soviet and post-soviet).
And I would have held-up my point that you fucker did not specify how it would have to be written, especially that I had the whole class witness at both times.
It's common knowledge that the kids are smarter than the teachers, computer-wise... but hasn't it always been that way?
Around 1977, I was told by a teacher, for punishment, to write 500 times some phrase (don't ask, I don't remember what). The next day, I came back with a printout with the phrase printed 500 times (it took a while, because it was on a KSR-33, a 11 cps printer. The people were rolling on the floor at the computer shop where I did it). As it was obvious that I would hold my end ("you did not specify how I was to write them") when I gave back the listing, the teacher did not dare bitch about it.
Sometimes, you just have to gracefully admit defeat.
And no one ever had to write something 500 times ever after...
Ubisoft, in the past, has turned out some pretty good stuff. I'm not arguing this. What I am concerned about is the current government's tendency to spend wads of cash without asking us, the taxpayers, what we think.
Are we a tad jealous that only in Montréal, you can congregate the talents needed to have a big videogame (and pharmaceutical and aeronautical) industry? As the french don't have a culture where becoming an entrepreneur* is de rigueur, high-tech employers are very glad to setup shop there and hire extremely competent people who will almost never risk jumping ship to become the competition; after all, the worst thing for any business is it's competition, so you want to miminize the change of breeding competition within your own ranks...
* The problem with the french is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur - Ronald Reagan.
There was a "sponsorship scandal" here recently in which the federal government supplied the Quebecois government with millions of dollars of cash in order to make the Canada "brand" more visible in the francophone province.
Er, no. The sponsorship scandal (scandal it's *AINT*) was federal money pumped into federal liberal party friends' pockets where outrageous fees were charged to display the word CANADA at various venues. Like, paying $15 million to a racecar driver to wear the word Canada on the back of his suit.
This scandal, to the tune of less than $150 million, is mere window-dressing to divert the attention from the **REAL** scandal: $45 BILLION (yes $4.5 e10) stolen from the pockets of the salaried workers who paid into the unemployment insurance fund in order to finance the tax cuts of the rich.
I love computer games, but I like health care more, which is what our MINORITY government *should* be spending more money on. $57 million dollars would go a long way in hiring new doctors and nurses, equipment, and other hospital staff. I'm also really appalled that the first I've heard of this is on Slashdot and not on CTV, CBC or Global (three major news outlets in Canada).
If you listened to Radio-Canada (french CBC), you would have heard of this above all else (we only first heard from the Singh expulsion yesterday)...
Public Health Care is a big thorn in the feet of outfits such as Great West Life Insurance who would dearly want it to be totally scrapped, in order to milk the canadian public, just like the US health insurance industry is hammering the people with higher and higher health-care premiums, so it can pad it's 15% overhead (in comparison to the mere 3% overhead of canadian government insurance monopolies).
Hopefully, the current US administration will raise tariffs for foreign subsidized videogames, in order to protect the interests of the indigenous American videogame productors! Otherwise, this would be the end of fair trade!!!!
b) Guido the Fish and Two Finger Tony get hired to smoke the top 100 spam offenders, reducing the need for antispam spending worldwide, and freeing the cash for:
Are you aware that if you google for "Guido the fish", you get kiddy porn????
Send your children to Catholic school and they will learn that the church is the answer to all life's problems and that when in need you can always turn to the church. Send you children to government school and they learn that the government is always right and can do no wrong even when doing wrong.
The corollary is: "send your children to private schools and they will learn that private companies are the answer to all life's problems and that when in need, you can always turn to private-entreprise, and that it can do no wrong.
Man is a social animal only too willing to surrender to the alpha-male of the colony.
Let's not forget that the ideas brought forward by the American Revolution, specifically the absolute freedom of speech, was not an acceptable idea in the time it was passed.
Until then, people unquestioningly accepted that their monarch could suppress speech at will, and, at the time, the notion that it could not was, well, revolutionnary.
What is 230 years in Human History? Practically nothing at all, so it is not surprising that the notion that free speech is not natural can very easily hide within the general human psyche and spontaneously burt out whenever someone is confronted by it.
After all, how many of those kids got their face slapped when they said something ++ungood to their parents???
He got a pHD in nuclear physics, which he obtained by doing an experiment that involved extensive graphics programming on a SGI computer.
Another friend working at $AVIONICS_COMPANY told him that they're looking for a guy with exactly his experience with SGI computers...
So he applies for the job, only to have it rejected because he's "overqualified" (that pHD shure must have shocked the socks off the HR drone who read it)...
Fortunately, some pushing was done and he has got the job...
As a manager, I agree with the first part but disagree with the second. It is indeed a failure of management when the IT project fails. However, it's usually because management has lost sight of what the original objective was and/or was unable to commmunicate it to the people doing the work.
If project management is unable to communicate with "the people doing the work", whose fault is it more likely to be? The 50 workers, or the 5 project managers????
Why accept only million-unit plus orders, from governments only? To please the Dells, Apple and HPs?
By asking for at least a million units, you can bet your ass that some corrupt third-world government (aren't they all corrupt, in the third-world?) will gladly sell them on the gray market for $200...
And if it's a laptop, they could get away selling it at $500...
Sure, but don't you expect at some point the Media Powers That Be will divulge their ultimate plan, when the ask US Congress to approve certain requirements for recording Television and effectively criminalize unapproved PVRs (those which don't erase stuff after so much time, those that don't automatically include some sort of DRM to prevent you burning DVDs of shows to give to your friends, etc.)?
So what? Even then, people will **STILL** be able to download and install Videora, because the Congress can't reach into Canada, which is where the developper is.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm only a wiseass when I'm sure of winning.
So, indeed, having everyone have a gun does not prevent dictatorships... (Unless, of course, the US was jealous of the irakis' freedom)...
As for christianity, well, if we can eradicate whatever christian religion (we'd like to know which so we could adjust our laws to be more effective) fosters hate crimes, so much the better.
Funny, that did not happen when I crossed it along with somebody from South-Africa...
This is far from being surprising, given that canadian was sent to Syria by US authorities and tortured there for a year, thanks to the "Patriot" "act".
And I would have held-up my point that you fucker did not specify how it would have to be written, especially that I had the whole class witness at both times.
Sometimes, you just have to gracefully admit defeat.
And no one ever had to write something 500 times ever after...
Are we a tad jealous that only in Montréal, you can congregate the talents needed to have a big videogame (and pharmaceutical and aeronautical) industry? As the french don't have a culture where becoming an entrepreneur* is de rigueur, high-tech employers are very glad to setup shop there and hire extremely competent people who will almost never risk jumping ship to become the competition; after all, the worst thing for any business is it's competition, so you want to miminize the change of breeding competition within your own ranks...
* The problem with the french is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur - Ronald Reagan.
Er, no. The sponsorship scandal (scandal it's *AINT*) was federal money pumped into federal liberal party friends' pockets where outrageous fees were charged to display the word CANADA at various venues. Like, paying $15 million to a racecar driver to wear the word Canada on the back of his suit.
This scandal, to the tune of less than $150 million, is mere window-dressing to divert the attention from the **REAL** scandal: $45 BILLION (yes $4.5 e10) stolen from the pockets of the salaried workers who paid into the unemployment insurance fund in order to finance the tax cuts of the rich.
If you listened to Radio-Canada (french CBC), you would have heard of this above all else (we only first heard from the Singh expulsion yesterday)...
Public Health Care is a big thorn in the feet of outfits such as Great West Life Insurance who would dearly want it to be totally scrapped, in order to milk the canadian public, just like the US health insurance industry is hammering the people with higher and higher health-care premiums, so it can pad it's 15% overhead (in comparison to the mere 3% overhead of canadian government insurance monopolies).Hopefully, the current US administration will raise tariffs for foreign subsidized videogames, in order to protect the interests of the indigenous American videogame productors! Otherwise, this would be the end of fair trade!!!!
Spam is **** NEVER **** sollicited.
Aaahhh. Yes. One of the most insightful pieces of ST I ever read...
Man is a social animal only too willing to surrender to the alpha-male of the colony.
Let's not forget that the ideas brought forward by the American Revolution, specifically the absolute freedom of speech, was not an acceptable idea in the time it was passed.
Until then, people unquestioningly accepted that their monarch could suppress speech at will, and, at the time, the notion that it could not was, well, revolutionnary.
What is 230 years in Human History? Practically nothing at all, so it is not surprising that the notion that free speech is not natural can very easily hide within the general human psyche and spontaneously burt out whenever someone is confronted by it.
After all, how many of those kids got their face slapped when they said something ++ungood to their parents???
He got a pHD in nuclear physics, which he obtained by doing an experiment that involved extensive graphics programming on a SGI computer.
Another friend working at $AVIONICS_COMPANY told him that they're looking for a guy with exactly his experience with SGI computers...
So he applies for the job, only to have it rejected because he's "overqualified" (that pHD shure must have shocked the socks off the HR drone who read it)...
Fortunately, some pushing was done and he has got the job...
Corruption is not the fault of government, but the fault of the people willing to buy-off officials.
By asking for at least a million units, you can bet your ass that some corrupt third-world government (aren't they all corrupt, in the third-world?) will gladly sell them on the gray market for $200...
And if it's a laptop, they could get away selling it at $500...