Well competency is the issue, isn't it? It takes a great deal more to lock-down a Windows establishment than a Linux one: you have to read the news every night. Just like the Italian websites getting hammered over the weekend- there are so many exploits published that maintining such a complex is a bigger job than it has to be. (I know, I've been a sysadmin since the start of the microcomputer revolution.)
Let's not ignore the fact that people willing to work for the government, being subject to blind, powerful government caprice are more hard-core: it takes a thick skin to put up with it, as a businessman.
A great deal of 'sea change' awaits us in re-aligning our government logistics. The idea of pyramids and the enormous bureacracy that follows is very outdated- that's an underlying problem at the base.
Most of you are too young to recall when the Post Office was run like AmTrak is now- at the whim of the Senators. They'd waste all kinds of time debating the "blue uniforms with grey trim" amendments, the "grey uniforms with blue trim" amendments, and all this unnecessary contol of every step, by people unworthy of making such internal decisions, and wasting enough money to bail out several third world nations.
Then came Nixon, of all people. Scanalous as he was, he moved it to a much more private organization. The task became to _produce_ and not dally with uniform styles. Nixon gave us the zip codes...mail started moving faster. Thankfully, they were permitted to invest in letting the private sector pre-sort the mail (the large bulk-mailings) to get a discount, and this section just keeps getting better and better. (At least, outside of Chicago.)
Back to Homeland Security...this is just another meta-buraucracy, and it's not needed. But with the senators calling the tune and playing CYA all over the place, it's amazing our system isn't as slow and costly as the Indians. There, it took EIGHTEEN YEARS to cut through the red tape and allow Coca-Cola to be sold in their country.
We've got to get away from the 'let's grow the government' mindset of the 30's.
Notice how ATM transactions have the customers doing data-entry for the banks? That'd be a good way for governmental organizations to offload the costs. But not if they're going to use known-defective operating systems, and then not start to work patching it a week before go-live...
Did you know that both Los Angeles and Las Vegas are two towns made strictly out of desert? Both towns, I'm guessing for similar reasons, were irrigated and continue to be irritgated as they grow. (Although LA is now shrinking, nonethless).
There's the world's largest mall...and then there's the world's SECOND largest mall. It's attached to a ski resort. Odd combination, sure- the two don't seem to be connected. But when you consider that it, too, is parked in the middle of the desert (Daubai, I believe) and that the temperature outside the complex is 140F, and the temperature inside is only 20F, and it snows there, I think you can see we're doing well on modifying the environment.
Just because there's swampland, or the ground doesn't have bedrock and you can't put Manhattan's skyline on it, doesn't mean it can't be farmland. And if things should get tight, food will be the most important thing.
Not to mention the climate change, which *could* give us more usable area, returning us to the sort of climate that gave reason for the Vikings to call a snow-covered island "Greenland".
Trust me: room to grow, even if you _don't_ think there was a reason for us to be here.
And since when are Earthlike planets common? I've not heard of a single similar planet out there- not one. Sure, there's a likelihood, but no proof of terra firma.
There are a lot of....well....lies...that propogate, like that a man controls his own destiny, so he can do literally anything he wants and suceed. (the E-rooms, prisons, and pencils with erasers are all stark contradictions to that idea.) Similarly, the idea that we're all here without purpose and in such an unlikely planet is one of them.
I don't believe in the illuminati, or complex conspiracy theories, but there are reasons why so many people believe these obviously untrue things. I thin kit was Sir Francis Bacon that once determined the speed of light; 30mph. He took a june bug on a string and calculated the speed at which it blurred. That was wrong too, but it stood as "the answer" for at least a century as I recall.
Things are never as simple as they appear; sometimes they're simpler.
Yeah, sans works better; being a tiny bit larger helps, too. It seems the biggest thing is the margins; a narrow colum of about 30-40 characters is the easiest- I can kinda speed-read that.
Kerning...the kind i n t h e newspapers t h a t widens things in a surreal way, is merely annoying.:)
I don't know what the condition is called, but it's something I've grown to recognize, like (after 20 years of doing minatures of various kinds) my sight has started to get blurry just like everyone else.
Similarly, at least in metaphor, are other strange things:
1. ADHD or just Adult ADD 2. Pot smoking, even of the 70's varieties OR the 90's, has zero effect. 3. My nerve net won't "shut down". I've had 5 novacaine shots for a single tooth, then dealt with the pain anyway. But general anesthetics work fine. 4. Reflexes; I fought for three hours at an optical shop trying to get my eyelids to relax and install contact lenses- no luck.
So back when that woman told me, "You've got some nerve!" I shoulda said, "Yeah, they're all like that.":)
None of these problems are debilitating; just peculiar things I've noticed over several decades. Isn't that weird?
If it were one nitwit, I wouldn't say anything. It's a legion of people discarding common sense for hatred.
You're an example:
making millions of tiny sources of propaganda is the way to go. And it's working. "Ahh yes, the fox news model."
How many news sources agree with the Democratic National Committee? One doesn't, and that's Fox. My point still stands. Just because lots of people are doing something doesn't make it right- history's full of such diversions.
How many actors now *love* Castro? Ed Asner's a huge fan, Sean Penn, the whole "hip" crowd, too. Now...doesn't it bother anyone that it's a police state, with political prisoners there until they die?
And I don't mean, "You don't agree with me- you watch Fox News, so I'm arresting you on public drunkenness..." but instead, "You carried an item declared by the state to be treasonous; you will be shot." (An eerie echo of thousands of SS raids in the 30's)
The liberal left _tells_ you they want enlightenment, they say they care, but instead they house vast numbers of people in poverty, promise them a better life they never get, and gain more power. Yeah, the welfare state. If they really _cared_ about these poor (of multiple races, by the way) they'd educate them. They'd make them work, and become useful, so they could have their shot at the American Dream, too.
Instead, the left loves victims. And they want you to drink (but not smoke: that money powers industry) take all the drugs you want, have sex as much as possible, and don't feel too bad if you kill someone along the way. They don't want a concept of right-versus-wrong, they just want to rule. The more victims they have, the more power they have, because they own the TV, radio, academia, a huge chunk of scientists, and most celebrities. Once they rule, it will be equal misery for all...except those in the PolitBureau.
Chaves is a good example of this; make victims...victims who vote for you. Promise to work for you, take care of you, but then it somehow doesn't happen.
Don't bother to reply; I've seen this throughout history. And it chills my blood that the truth has become "propoganda" and vice-versa. Look up "Arbite Macht Frei" if you want to know what that feels like.
Be happy with that feeling; you 'can read'. I can _read_, sure- I'm here typing this. But when long lines are present in dense text-fields, my eyes lose track of the line I'm on, and I have to read a given book, (if I love it enough to try) nearly a dozen times before I "get it". What a pain in the ass. Strangely, reading things on the web usually don't have this problem. (Better margins)
For me, the movie would be good. I'd really like to see Sandman done right, though. I'd love to see something every bit as good as, say, Dante's Inferno done with _good_ CGI.:/
This guy is so transparent. And huge amounts of people are gullible enough to be moved by it. It's not hyperbole to liken this to the bigtime propaganda days of "Work makes Freedom" and "A lie told often enough is the truth".
He and the left are dedicated to ruining this country; the one that defended Europe and basically freed the world last century, one of the first (if not THE first) to outlaw slavery, and the power keeping the crazies from slaughtering their neighbors ever since.
If Moore wanted to spread the propaganda around, putting it onto BT is about the best place to do it; that's the exact same content reachable by DemocracyPlayer and many others. When people capable of buying an entire media network turn their money to making a mass appeal spring from nowhere, making millions of tiny sources of propaganda is the way to go. And it's working.
Just remember Rosie's words: "Fire doesn't melt steel!"
And that's a very valid point: can we trust the scientists? I think not.
Consider this: the scientists that 'cleared' GM corn for use in the wild said, "It'll be fine, as long as you plant it 200 yards away from the natural corn."
However, the range of a typical honeybee, the thing MOST likely to polinate it, has a range of about 5 MILES in a day.
I shudder to think what will happen when the "grey goo" gets out of the lab, eats a battleship for testing, then eats the port...and the city...and the fish...and anything else, just because there was no "idiot" to do some real-world oversight.
Not really; I'm a guy that saw "plastics" being only bakeolite (not really plastics at all!) and vacuum tubes in my childhood. The only tech was very CRUDE tech. But the early 60's started seeing returns on the promises- space flight. And all kinds of technical promises like the flying cars and bubble-cities turn into vapor.
There are a great many problems that can still be solved on Earth; hoping the rest of your life to go someplace, and seeing that your grandchildren don't even have a shot is worse.
In 1978 (!) I thought it'd be a great idea to replace stop lights with LEDs. Computers-in-cars is how I spent most of my time. (I've been in computers longer than Microsoft, for example.)
But for some reason, only one in a hundred promises ever sees the light of day, and that day *might* happen in your own lifetime. Physics problems are things we seem to 'snap' through- and this kinda thing has lots of those problems.:(
Again, missing the point: it's farmland, it's just not *used* as farmland. The central plaines of America, for example- scrubland. A little irrigation and it's farmland.
There's plenty of organic space on this planet for LOTS more people here. And, as civilizations develop, their growth rate slows...in some cases, reverses. Japan, for example, has a tiny amount of young people to care for the very old people- that's part of why so many robots are coming from there.
There's a prevailing misunderstanding about capitalism and industry: it _starts_ messy, and naturally keeps getting cleaner. China's going through this right now....very similar to America when the Industrial Revolution kicked in. They have no OSHA; a lot of people are maimed on the job. No EPA, and they still think it's OK to throw broken car batteries into the same river from which people drink. It's crazy. But every engine, literal or figurative, puts off much 'smoke' when starting.
Remember the "London Fog"? It was actually smog; back on those days there were hundreds-of-thousands of coal-powered fires, heating houses and powering early factories. It was so bad gardening requird _dusting_ a couple of times a day. It sounds romantic in the Sherlok Holmes novels, but it was a nightmare.
See "1900" from...I think it was the Discovery Channel...to get a good idea of the conditions.
It's not intuitive, but it's the way it works. Production improves over time, not continually gets worse. And capitalism is the best engine for all this, this world has seen.
It's fair, too: if you work, you get fed/clothed/etc. Work more, get more. And since this creates extra production, there's money to care for the disabled, the insane, and the elderly, etc.
No, I think you miss the point; these people are so far away that radio signals, each half of a dual-simplex converation, would take centuries- they'd be SO far away as to be meaningless.
And is there any proof there's even _one_ Earth-like planet there? Or anywhere? All I've heard is a likelihood.
(Yeah, and 30mph was considered moving so fast, no one could _breathe_ at that speed, until someone figured out the windshield.):>
But what's so important about saving the human race? Why now? There's no impending doom that perhaps _hundreds_ of generations from now will know, other than the usual 'madmen with guns' problem we've always had.
At every turn, mankind finds a way to deal with the challenges. And we occupy a tiny space on this planet; 3/4 of it's water (with various kinds of fish, etc) and a huge part is unused farmland. The Democratic National Committee aside, why does everyone respond to the Chicken Little call?
Even so...when the 20-30 people are away to the other planet...how would it change us? Our parents send a message to them in their children's name, and before the children die they hear "Hello?"
Sure, it'd be ****COOL***** to follow our technological fantasies. It's just not going to happen any time soon. Live now, make the best choices we can and let's all get along, aye?
Like I've told you several times- if you don't want to believe, feel free. You'd be ignoring loads of contrary evidence, continue a life without reason, but that's your choice.
Every retort you've sent my way is right out of the same old playbook. It's the playbook handed out by the culture- not your fault. But understand that mankind by it's very nature is prone to assume more than it controls; you're free to group-think with the scientists or you can research on your own.
But don't expect that spewing their programmed propaganda helps the issue. And the hate is very shiny, either.
Notice it isn't the Christian that said "Fuck you"? Moderate Christian, indeed. Go play.
"Please - history is replete with people 'meeting' deities of all various kinds. It is not unique to Christianity and all you can say is that they are wrong and you are right... because you're are sure that you have really met your deity and they are just delusional. Hmm..."
Sure; delusional. Why, again? Just because it's not unique? Is it unique to visit Rally's for a burger, while McDonalds is in existance. Sorry- just too easy to pass.
This that I have found is larger than all the musings of your pseudo-scientific friends. I get revelations...an idea that pops into my head that is *waay* too complete and correct to be my own. I can't show you that- there's no obolisk I can take you to, to prove it's true. But there are millions of people (thousands that actually MET Jesus Christ in the flesh and died rather than deny his existance).
Is it so hard for you to believe that a book, found in so many continents, with an error-rate of "an occasional typo", with internal consistancy, with another copy coming from 1,000 years before could actually BE RIGHT? Is that possible?
A long time ago a scientist tied a string onto a junebug, calculated the speed of his flight, and declared the "speed of light" to be about 30 miles an hour. And the standard stuck.
Not long ago a great deal of scientist believed that the Ozone Hole (a hole in an invisible thing in the sky, to be healed by money) would kill us all if we didn't change freon. Before the litigation had settled, the hole was healing- turns out it rebuilds from lighting. Now, we pay more money for replaing freon for no good reason.
Your "religion" has been wrong a great many more times than my "religion". Any mine has had millions of people trying to throw rocks at it for centuries, many skeptics dedicating their lives and learning multiple languages. But the closer you look, with your own eyes, the more you'll see. Listen to your friends, though, and share their fate.
You don't want to believe; that fate would leave you in some kind of dire consequences, none of which I've seen. You're on the other side of the argument as the Christian that can't fathom that Adam didn't come from prototypical men.
For those who will not believe, no proof is satisfactory. For those who will believe, no proof is necessary.
Now either do some research on this topic that people have convinced you is totally bogus, or just shut the hell up, aye?
Fantastic: You've just learned (at least) 2 things about Christianity you didn't know before:
1. A guy was wrong a long time ago, a guy _trying_ to do the right thing.
2. A lot of people follow their beliefs (the young-Earthers) without research. (Exactly like the rest of us)
So I got the year wrong; the core idea is true. And, I'm very proud of you for looking it up! See- you are, in fact, open minded. GoodOnya!
And these people, flawed as we all are, need to learn the difference. It will also calm the unnecessary rift between religion and science. There comes a time where seeing is believing. (John Clayton's good at pointing that out, BTW)
Here's another, crazy-strange one that's at work.
Darby, an Irish cleric, was the source for the idea that Jews need to go back to that plot of land given them in Leviticus, make animal sacrifices (despite Christ's sacrifice), then 2/3 of them will be slaughtered in what's called the "Tribulation"...and somehow this is a good thing for us to do to Jews. It's called Zionism, and it's wrong. Their time there is long-over.
Check for books from Hank Hannigraff; he has a couple of books that are really good for skeptics- based only on the Bible, not the inventions of such people like LeHay (The "left behind" series) and Hal Lindsey ("The late great planet Earth"). He's read, and more importantly retained, all the books of the Bible, from the original text, the books of Mormon, JW, and some variants of Indian religions....and can call upon all of it from the top of his head!
His view is simpler; uncomplicated by tradition, able to convey the actual, simple message intended by the Bible (an in agreement, for example with folks like Luther). In this way it satisfies Aachem's Razor.
He has the "Bible Answer Book" series; get'em at the library or just eyeball'em at the bookstore...that clarifies a lot of the seemingly-wrong BS that's floated about the Bible out there. He's humble, has no intention of any 'in your face' tactics, and explains things clearly with lots of bookmarks.
It's a stretch, but if you'd like to clear the air, it'll go along way. Not everything said about the Bible is true; certain factions have an interest in stopping you from doing just that.
"What are your millions of reasons for rejecting the insanely large body of superstitious beliefs?"
Because I've "met" the man- I'm not one of these people that join the church because of the nice people there. Don't get me wrong- there's a lot of wrong-headed people there, too, but that same fact doesn't stop me from going to the mall, swimming pools, or anywhere else that people are. But unlike a sad, great deal of them, I've interacted with Him. In showing my submission to Him, he's arranged things for me. Never what I *want*, but always what I need. And He knows best.
As to the millions specifically, if you take a scientific eye to the staggeringly impossible longshot this planet is, you'll see for yourself. Something like 80-90%% of the stars out there have no planets, gas giants only, or other "other life out there" denying conclusion.
Sure, there *could* be life out there....but we're not going any time soon- the physics just aren't right. You know this; sublight speeds put them so far away that even if we *could* carry that much food and fuel, it's farther than a lifetime away. It's just not happening any time soon.
"You give me better reasons than the ones I've seen currently - and no, tacit threats about the fate of an eternal essence I have no reason to believe exists is not going to cut it."
Well, that's best, isn't it? God doesn't want you to be forced to him, devoid of free will- or love wouldn't mean anything at all. But in your lifetime...a lifetime where all your knowledge starts with a blank slate...you have a good chance to actually make contact. If you do, you can stay with him in a new reality. If you never do, He's not going to force you to be with Him.
I, too, was a skeptical scientific kinda guy. I worked for years trying to understand how "ghosts" could scientifically exsit: everyone dies. Everyone. So why, when a good _story_ is associated, do ghosts happen? I now know this to my satisfaction, but I'm not sharing it with you because it'd rip your sensabilities off. (Really, you're just not open enough.)
" The world was not built for us. We evolved to use the world as is - no warranties, no lifetime guarantees. Our existence on the Earth today is entirely irrelevant to the universe as a whole. "
Ah, yes. And relying (on faith, by the way) that the scientist that deny God are right. You're actually more religious than you think. Isn't there some curiosity that, whether you live in a time of horse-drawn carts or laser-firing network devices, two things have never changed:
1. The way we treat each other.
2. The results of the choices we make.
That's all for now- you're going to pull some more hair out and talk about the semantic argument, etc- all in an effort to miss the point. But to be specific, scientists assume it all happened by accident, but personal experience proves otherwise, to me.
"Serenity is irrelevant to truth."
Wow, you *are* lost. Tell me why the Artic Tern bypasses all the lush feeding ground of the space between the poles and migrates to the poles anyway. No matter of obscuring their vision, deterring magnet direction, or even the family in which they are raised, they *still* take the huge trip for what seems to be no reason at all.
I know why.
Every night I deal with college kids that start learning about drugs and alchohol. By the time they're 30, it's all gone and the party days are over. There's a purpose for that, too, and I know why.
Tranquility is being able to cope when it's quiet.
Yeah, see? There's that, too: if a person has decided as a core of their being *not* to believe, he can come up with millions of reasons not to. It's simplicity and logic is the routine perfection I've come to expect from Him.
Yeah, the Earth was designed differently in previous incarnations- like the dinosaurs. And they were wiped out, multiple times. But for the last 100,000 years or so, our time, it's built for us. We have domain, sure- but it also means we need to take care of it, like the animals.
But I can tell you're "open minded" and "enlightened", perhaps by progressive blogs and such...I'm just not going to waste my time trying to give you the serenity I've found. You didn't visit the site before replying; that's a good sign you've already decided to be lost.
As an actual Christian, I'm a little irked by such things as this.
One one side we have the "scientists" who claim all the trillions of happy circumstances just *happened* to organized into the perfectly-balanced biosphere complete with plants, animals, and energy sources. Yeah, because robot-trucks run into battery trucks on the highway and we're always chasing robots trying to wash windows for money.:/
On the other side we have Christians so blinded by tradition, not the truth, that look at almost 300 means of dating systems (not just carbon dating) and say that "the Earth is only 6,000 years old" while standing next to a fjord in Norway with 30,000 layers of snow and (summertime) dirt.
Why is it so hard to believe that apes once played a part in the development of man? Why is it so hard for scientist to look at the "big bang" and reason that everything that _starts_ has a reason?
It was Usher in 1530 or so that reasoned through the book of Numbers and guessed at the 5,000 year total. But as well-intentioned as he was, he was wrong.
But while the Bible doesn't give a play-by-play on each of the 16+M animal's development, it *does* summarize the development of plants, and that matches the fossil record. It *does* offer the form-factor of sea-going vessels a long time before the rest of the community of mankind figured it out.
And if there's one thing the Bible tells us, it's how we can live a happy, fulfilled life. In fact it's a huge part of it. When we act in ways that aren't part of the intended "scope" of this human animal, misery is the result. Cocaine, hurtful, betraying sex outide of marriage, ignoring the plight of widows, taking the virginity of young people.
These aren't capricious entries in a checklist- this is the 'handbook' for this human animal.
And the obfuscation of just what the message is, helps no one. Science and Christianity serve each other...not deny each other.
See http://doesgodexist.com/ for more details. Or get "The Privelaged Planet" DVD to see all the details.
Here's a nice, simple non-controversial example: the economy.
When we broke 10,000 on the Dow in the Clinton Administration, all three broadcast media threw a party. The other day we broke 11,000 (and then broke THAT) and NOT EVEN ONE of the "big three" mentioned it. Some national papers put it in the 'deep' pages, but it was a definate non-starter.
Not to mention about 20 "personal jihad" stories, like the guy that drove over people at the UNC commons, the 'New Jersey 6' who were ready to kill people at Fort Dix, and several other stories that were written off as kooks and incompetents gone awry.
Yeah, it's important not to panic people...but at this point 1/3 of the Democrats think BUSH is the terrorist, not the guy with the ravine of 400,000 dead Iraqis. And am I ever tired of hearing how we shouldn't "impose Democracy" on people.
Huh? Democracy = Freedom. When is giving anyone freedom an imposition?
Stuff's just upside down; lotsa bots walkin' the street.
Rosie: "Fire doesn't melt steel!" (Her reason for 911 being an inside job.) She's right ya know, we've been making car bodies with pixie dust since the beginning.:>
But wait for it- when a mushroom cloud is over a US city, no one will doubt the news, and maybe then the Liberals will awake to the business at hand. Or, not.
For years SCOX has been tanking...around $4 for a long time, but starting at like $30 or more. But now, around the time of this announcement, there are actually people BUYING SCO STOCK!
Put "SCOX" in the firefox google-search; it's hilarious!
It's not like the snail-mail is spam-free...it just takes days instead of microseconds.
It's also a complaint against their system administrators- they're not doing their job. But, with so many companies hiring a 'book keeper' and letting them admin the sites, it's no wonder. And in the big shops, it's all about giving every corporate machine a 'flush-n-fill' every night to stop the virus problems, so they're really busy.
Thank Microsoft. Or to be more precise- thank the Microsoft mindset. You know, "This is best...and only thing out there." And "There couldn't be anything better- this has a logo in case there's a problem." (Nevermind Microsoft not being a support center, if you don't have $1M/year support contract.)
This isn't computing the way it used to be; it's computing at the pleasure of Microsoft. I'm tellin' ya: Linux is the way it used to be, back before Microsoft: it's your machine. It only fails when something's broken. You only reboot rarely. You retain complete control, AND it's fun. You guys starting in 1985 or later don't realize what it's become these days.
After 27 years of computing, I got stuck in a town without any serious computer jobs, waiting for Mom to die. So I'm a security guard, and MAN, is that little old 10 YEAR OLD palm 5 a big help. I can take notes without looking, send emails that are legible instead of written reports that aren't, and it's a single sync and the night's paperwork is done and archived.
It was a good idea; branching out into hundreds of alternatives (and keeping their handwriting recognition sacred) limited the span. And just like SCO learned, charging $1,100 for a development system to create more software for your platform, there are worse things to lose than your money.
If they could just be talked into licensing their handwriting analysis code to other businesses, they just might save theirs...
Shock jocks are useless; they're always uninformed, sometimes taking the whole show into a "snipe hunt" direction. Not to mention rudeness in all quarters.
I had my XM for about 2 years; I never head an O&A advertisement that made me laugh, smirk, or even smile. But blocking the channel doesn't mean I would stop hearing them- advertising on everything but the jazz channel.
If there's something you dislike enough to block the channel (assuming you can get them to actually do it) you shouldn't have to listen to 8-10 copies of the same advertisment of that channel each hour. It's just nuts.
I was a year and a half trying to get them to turn ON the Fox News Radio channel, they never did get it right.
And of course the website is/was tailored to IE almost exclusively, so that gave me grief, too. I'm not sure what the management is doing, but it doesn't seem to have a long-term usefulness.
I mean, you rarely hear an ad that isn't for XM; that doesn't STOP them from playing 8-10 ads back to back, but they also haven't inspired large firms to at least *test* advertisements on the new medium, either. Dorky ads for Bob Dylan, all these "let's listen to what aging rockstars like to listen to" shows, when what I'd really like to hear from them is their on the road experiences, and THEIR music.
But I'm sure I'm just missing something. In about an hour someone will mark this as off-topic, trollbait, or something...
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Well competency is the issue, isn't it? It takes a great deal more to lock-down a Windows establishment than a Linux one: you have to read the news every night. Just like the Italian websites getting hammered over the weekend- there are so many exploits published that maintining such a complex is a bigger job than it has to be. (I know, I've been a sysadmin since the start of the microcomputer revolution.)
Let's not ignore the fact that people willing to work for the government, being subject to blind, powerful government caprice are more hard-core: it takes a thick skin to put up with it, as a businessman.
A great deal of 'sea change' awaits us in re-aligning our government logistics. The idea of pyramids and the enormous bureacracy that follows is very outdated- that's an underlying problem at the base.
Most of you are too young to recall when the Post Office was run like AmTrak is now- at the whim of the Senators. They'd waste all kinds of time debating the "blue uniforms with grey trim" amendments, the "grey uniforms with blue trim" amendments, and all this unnecessary contol of every step, by people unworthy of making such internal decisions, and wasting enough money to bail out several third world nations.
Then came Nixon, of all people. Scanalous as he was, he moved it to a much more private organization. The task became to _produce_ and not dally with uniform styles. Nixon gave us the zip codes...mail started moving faster. Thankfully, they were permitted to invest in letting the private sector pre-sort the mail (the large bulk-mailings) to get a discount, and this section just keeps getting better and better. (At least, outside of Chicago.)
Back to Homeland Security...this is just another meta-buraucracy, and it's not needed. But with the senators calling the tune and playing CYA all over the place, it's amazing our system isn't as slow and costly as the Indians. There, it took EIGHTEEN YEARS to cut through the red tape and allow Coca-Cola to be sold in their country.
We've got to get away from the 'let's grow the government' mindset of the 30's.
Notice how ATM transactions have the customers doing data-entry for the banks? That'd be a good way for governmental organizations to offload the costs. But not if they're going to use known-defective operating systems, and then not start to work patching it a week before go-live...
Did you know that both Los Angeles and Las Vegas are two towns made strictly out of desert? Both towns, I'm guessing for similar reasons, were irrigated and continue to be irritgated as they grow. (Although LA is now shrinking, nonethless).
There's the world's largest mall...and then there's the world's SECOND largest mall. It's attached to a ski resort. Odd combination, sure- the two don't seem to be connected. But when you consider that it, too, is parked in the middle of the desert (Daubai, I believe) and that the temperature outside the complex is 140F, and the temperature inside is only 20F, and it snows there, I think you can see we're doing well on modifying the environment.
Just because there's swampland, or the ground doesn't have bedrock and you can't put Manhattan's skyline on it, doesn't mean it can't be farmland. And if things should get tight, food will be the most important thing.
Not to mention the climate change, which *could* give us more usable area, returning us to the sort of climate that gave reason for the Vikings to call a snow-covered island "Greenland".
Trust me: room to grow, even if you _don't_ think there was a reason for us to be here.
And since when are Earthlike planets common? I've not heard of a single similar planet out there- not one. Sure, there's a likelihood, but no proof of terra firma.
There are a lot of....well....lies...that propogate, like that a man controls his own destiny, so he can do literally anything he wants and suceed. (the E-rooms, prisons, and pencils with erasers are all stark contradictions to that idea.) Similarly, the idea that we're all here without purpose and in such an unlikely planet is one of them.
I don't believe in the illuminati, or complex conspiracy theories, but there are reasons why so many people believe these obviously untrue things. I thin kit was Sir Francis Bacon that once determined the speed of light; 30mph. He took a june bug on a string and calculated the speed at which it blurred. That was wrong too, but it stood as "the answer" for at least a century as I recall.
Things are never as simple as they appear; sometimes they're simpler.
Yeah, sans works better; being a tiny bit larger helps, too. It seems the biggest thing is the margins; a narrow colum of about 30-40 characters is the easiest- I can kinda speed-read that.
:)
:)
Kerning...the kind i n t h e newspapers t h a t widens things in a surreal way, is merely annoying.
I don't know what the condition is called, but it's something I've grown to recognize, like (after 20 years of doing minatures of various kinds) my sight has started to get blurry just like everyone else.
Similarly, at least in metaphor, are other strange things:
1. ADHD or just Adult ADD
2. Pot smoking, even of the 70's varieties OR the 90's, has zero effect.
3. My nerve net won't "shut down". I've had 5 novacaine shots for a single tooth, then dealt with the pain anyway. But general anesthetics work fine.
4. Reflexes; I fought for three hours at an optical shop trying to get my eyelids to relax and install contact lenses- no luck.
So back when that woman told me, "You've got some nerve!" I shoulda said, "Yeah, they're all like that."
None of these problems are debilitating; just peculiar things I've noticed over several decades. Isn't that weird?
Very cool; thanks for the authorative clarification. But I'm to believe *nothing* polinates the GM corn...not even by mistake?
(It's just that scientists learn by making mistakes, like the rest of us...and what they work on these days can get pretty out of control...)
If it were one nitwit, I wouldn't say anything. It's a legion of people discarding common sense for hatred.
You're an example:
making millions of tiny sources of propaganda is the way to go. And it's working. "Ahh yes, the fox news model."
How many news sources agree with the Democratic National Committee? One doesn't, and that's Fox. My point still stands. Just because lots of people are doing something doesn't make it right- history's full of such diversions.
How many actors now *love* Castro? Ed Asner's a huge fan, Sean Penn, the whole "hip" crowd, too. Now...doesn't it bother anyone that it's a police state, with political prisoners there until they die?
And I don't mean, "You don't agree with me- you watch Fox News, so I'm arresting you on public drunkenness..." but instead, "You carried an item declared by the state to be treasonous; you will be shot." (An eerie echo of thousands of SS raids in the 30's)
The liberal left _tells_ you they want enlightenment, they say they care, but instead they house vast numbers of people in poverty, promise them a better life they never get, and gain more power. Yeah, the welfare state. If they really _cared_ about these poor (of multiple races, by the way) they'd educate them. They'd make them work, and become useful, so they could have their shot at the American Dream, too.
Instead, the left loves victims. And they want you to drink (but not smoke: that money powers industry) take all the drugs you want, have sex as much as possible, and don't feel too bad if you kill someone along the way. They don't want a concept of right-versus-wrong, they just want to rule. The more victims they have, the more power they have, because they own the TV, radio, academia, a huge chunk of scientists, and most celebrities. Once they rule, it will be equal misery for all...except those in the PolitBureau.
Chaves is a good example of this; make victims...victims who vote for you. Promise to work for you, take care of you, but then it somehow doesn't happen.
Don't bother to reply; I've seen this throughout history. And it chills my blood that the truth has become "propoganda" and vice-versa. Look up "Arbite Macht Frei" if you want to know what that feels like.
Be happy with that feeling; you 'can read'. I can _read_, sure- I'm here typing this. But when long lines are present in dense text-fields, my eyes lose track of the line I'm on, and I have to read a given book, (if I love it enough to try) nearly a dozen times before I "get it". What a pain in the ass. Strangely, reading things on the web usually don't have this problem. (Better margins)
:/
For me, the movie would be good. I'd really like to see Sandman done right, though. I'd love to see something every bit as good as, say, Dante's Inferno done with _good_ CGI.
This guy is so transparent. And huge amounts of people are gullible enough to be moved by it. It's not hyperbole to liken this to the bigtime propaganda days of "Work makes Freedom" and "A lie told often enough is the truth".
He and the left are dedicated to ruining this country; the one that defended Europe and basically freed the world last century, one of the first (if not THE first) to outlaw slavery, and the power keeping the crazies from slaughtering their neighbors ever since.
If Moore wanted to spread the propaganda around, putting it onto BT is about the best place to do it; that's the exact same content reachable by DemocracyPlayer and many others. When people capable of buying an entire media network turn their money to making a mass appeal spring from nowhere, making millions of tiny sources of propaganda is the way to go. And it's working.
Just remember Rosie's words: "Fire doesn't melt steel!"
And that's a very valid point: can we trust the scientists? I think not.
Consider this: the scientists that 'cleared' GM corn for use in the wild said, "It'll be fine, as long as you plant it 200 yards away from the natural corn."
However, the range of a typical honeybee, the thing MOST likely to polinate it, has a range of about 5 MILES in a day.
I shudder to think what will happen when the "grey goo" gets out of the lab, eats a battleship for testing, then eats the port...and the city...and the fish...and anything else, just because there was no "idiot" to do some real-world oversight.
Not really; I'm a guy that saw "plastics" being only bakeolite (not really plastics at all!) and vacuum tubes in my childhood. The only tech was very CRUDE tech. But the early 60's started seeing returns on the promises- space flight. And all kinds of technical promises like the flying cars and bubble-cities turn into vapor.
:(
There are a great many problems that can still be solved on Earth; hoping the rest of your life to go someplace, and seeing that your grandchildren don't even have a shot is worse.
In 1978 (!) I thought it'd be a great idea to replace stop lights with LEDs. Computers-in-cars is how I spent most of my time. (I've been in computers longer than Microsoft, for example.)
But for some reason, only one in a hundred promises ever sees the light of day, and that day *might* happen in your own lifetime. Physics problems are things we seem to 'snap' through- and this kinda thing has lots of those problems.
Sorry- just speaking from experience.
Well, yeah....but everyone dies, though it's one-per-customer. :)
Again, missing the point: it's farmland, it's just not *used* as farmland. The central plaines of America, for example- scrubland. A little irrigation and it's farmland.
There's plenty of organic space on this planet for LOTS more people here. And, as civilizations develop, their growth rate slows...in some cases, reverses. Japan, for example, has a tiny amount of young people to care for the very old people- that's part of why so many robots are coming from there.
There's a prevailing misunderstanding about capitalism and industry: it _starts_ messy, and naturally keeps getting cleaner. China's going through this right now....very similar to America when the Industrial Revolution kicked in. They have no OSHA; a lot of people are maimed on the job. No EPA, and they still think it's OK to throw broken car batteries into the same river from which people drink. It's crazy. But every engine, literal or figurative, puts off much 'smoke' when starting.
Remember the "London Fog"? It was actually smog; back on those days there were hundreds-of-thousands of coal-powered fires, heating houses and powering early factories. It was so bad gardening requird _dusting_ a couple of times a day. It sounds romantic in the Sherlok Holmes novels, but it was a nightmare.
See "1900" from...I think it was the Discovery Channel...to get a good idea of the conditions.
It's not intuitive, but it's the way it works. Production improves over time, not continually gets worse. And capitalism is the best engine for all this, this world has seen.
It's fair, too: if you work, you get fed/clothed/etc. Work more, get more. And since this creates extra production, there's money to care for the disabled, the insane, and the elderly, etc.
No, I think you miss the point; these people are so far away that radio signals, each half of a dual-simplex converation, would take centuries- they'd be SO far away as to be meaningless.
And is there any proof there's even _one_ Earth-like planet there? Or anywhere? All I've heard is a likelihood.
But yeah...people will go...
(Yeah, and 30mph was considered moving so fast, no one could _breathe_ at that speed, until someone figured out the windshield.) :>
But what's so important about saving the human race? Why now? There's no impending doom that perhaps _hundreds_ of generations from now will know, other than the usual 'madmen with guns' problem we've always had.
At every turn, mankind finds a way to deal with the challenges. And we occupy a tiny space on this planet; 3/4 of it's water (with various kinds of fish, etc) and a huge part is unused farmland. The Democratic National Committee aside, why does everyone respond to the Chicken Little call?
Even so...when the 20-30 people are away to the other planet...how would it change us? Our parents send a message to them in their children's name, and before the children die they hear "Hello?"
Sure, it'd be ****COOL***** to follow our technological fantasies. It's just not going to happen any time soon. Live now, make the best choices we can and let's all get along, aye?
Well, no...._we're_ not doomed....people living millions of years from now would be doomed, as the sun goes supernova. (or thereabouts).
:)
One very universal truth: the death rate is strictly 100%. Everyone does, anyway.
Like I've told you several times- if you don't want to believe, feel free. You'd be ignoring loads of contrary evidence, continue a life without reason, but that's your choice.
Every retort you've sent my way is right out of the same old playbook. It's the playbook handed out by the culture- not your fault. But understand that mankind by it's very nature is prone to assume more than it controls; you're free to group-think with the scientists or you can research on your own.
But don't expect that spewing their programmed propaganda helps the issue. And the hate is very shiny, either.
Notice it isn't the Christian that said "Fuck you"? Moderate Christian, indeed. Go play.
"Please - history is replete with people 'meeting' deities of all various kinds. It is not unique to Christianity and all you can say is that they are wrong and you are right... because you're are sure that you have really met your deity and they are just delusional. Hmm..."
Sure; delusional. Why, again? Just because it's not unique? Is it unique to visit Rally's for a burger, while McDonalds is in existance. Sorry- just too easy to pass.
This that I have found is larger than all the musings of your pseudo-scientific friends. I get revelations...an idea that pops into my head that is *waay* too complete and correct to be my own. I can't show you that- there's no obolisk I can take you to, to prove it's true. But there are millions of people (thousands that actually MET Jesus Christ in the flesh and died rather than deny his existance).
Is it so hard for you to believe that a book, found in so many continents, with an error-rate of "an occasional typo", with internal consistancy, with another copy coming from 1,000 years before could actually BE RIGHT? Is that possible?
A long time ago a scientist tied a string onto a junebug, calculated the speed of his flight, and declared the "speed of light" to be about 30 miles an hour. And the standard stuck.
Not long ago a great deal of scientist believed that the Ozone Hole (a hole in an invisible thing in the sky, to be healed by money) would kill us all if we didn't change freon. Before the litigation had settled, the hole was healing- turns out it rebuilds from lighting. Now, we pay more money for replaing freon for no good reason.
Your "religion" has been wrong a great many more times than my "religion". Any mine has had millions of people trying to throw rocks at it for centuries, many skeptics dedicating their lives and learning multiple languages. But the closer you look, with your own eyes, the more you'll see. Listen to your friends, though, and share their fate.
You don't want to believe; that fate would leave you in some kind of dire consequences, none of which I've seen. You're on the other side of the argument as the Christian that can't fathom that Adam didn't come from prototypical men.
For those who will not believe, no proof is satisfactory.
For those who will believe, no proof is necessary.
Now either do some research on this topic that people have convinced you is totally bogus, or just shut the hell up, aye?
Have a nice day anyway.
Fantastic: You've just learned (at least) 2 things about Christianity you didn't know before:
1. A guy was wrong a long time ago, a guy _trying_ to do the right thing.
2. A lot of people follow their beliefs (the young-Earthers) without research. (Exactly like the rest of us)
So I got the year wrong; the core idea is true. And, I'm very proud of you for looking it up! See- you are, in fact, open minded. GoodOnya!
And these people, flawed as we all are, need to learn the difference. It will also calm the unnecessary rift between religion and science. There comes a time where seeing is believing. (John Clayton's good at pointing that out, BTW)
Here's another, crazy-strange one that's at work.
Darby, an Irish cleric, was the source for the idea that Jews need to go back to that plot of land given them in Leviticus, make animal sacrifices (despite Christ's sacrifice), then 2/3 of them will be slaughtered in what's called the "Tribulation"...and somehow this is a good thing for us to do to Jews. It's called Zionism, and it's wrong. Their time there is long-over.
Check for books from Hank Hannigraff; he has a couple of books that are really good for skeptics- based only on the Bible, not the inventions of such people like LeHay (The "left behind" series) and Hal Lindsey ("The late great planet Earth"). He's read, and more importantly retained, all the books of the Bible, from the original text, the books of Mormon, JW, and some variants of Indian religions....and can call upon all of it from the top of his head!
His view is simpler; uncomplicated by tradition, able to convey the actual, simple message intended by the Bible (an in agreement, for example with folks like Luther). In this way it satisfies Aachem's Razor.
He has the "Bible Answer Book" series; get'em at the library or just eyeball'em at the bookstore...that clarifies a lot of the seemingly-wrong BS that's floated about the Bible out there. He's humble, has no intention of any 'in your face' tactics, and explains things clearly with lots of bookmarks.
It's a stretch, but if you'd like to clear the air, it'll go along way. Not everything said about the Bible is true; certain factions have an interest in stopping you from doing just that.
"What are your millions of reasons for rejecting the insanely large body of superstitious beliefs?"
Because I've "met" the man- I'm not one of these people that join the church because of the nice people there. Don't get me wrong- there's a lot of wrong-headed people there, too, but that same fact doesn't stop me from going to the mall, swimming pools, or anywhere else that people are. But unlike a sad, great deal of them, I've interacted with Him. In showing my submission to Him, he's arranged things for me. Never what I *want*, but always what I need. And He knows best.
As to the millions specifically, if you take a scientific eye to the staggeringly impossible longshot this planet is, you'll see for yourself. Something like 80-90%% of the stars out there have no planets, gas giants only, or other "other life out there" denying conclusion.
Sure, there *could* be life out there....but we're not going any time soon- the physics just aren't right. You know this; sublight speeds put them so far away that even if we *could* carry that much food and fuel, it's farther than a lifetime away. It's just not happening any time soon.
"You give me better reasons than the ones I've seen currently - and no, tacit threats about the fate of an eternal essence I have no reason to believe exists is not going to cut it."
Well, that's best, isn't it? God doesn't want you to be forced to him, devoid of free will- or love wouldn't mean anything at all. But in your lifetime...a lifetime where all your knowledge starts with a blank slate...you have a good chance to actually make contact. If you do, you can stay with him in a new reality. If you never do, He's not going to force you to be with Him.
I, too, was a skeptical scientific kinda guy. I worked for years trying to understand how "ghosts" could scientifically exsit: everyone dies. Everyone. So why, when a good _story_ is associated, do ghosts happen? I now know this to my satisfaction, but I'm not sharing it with you because it'd rip your sensabilities off. (Really, you're just not open enough.)
"
The world was not built for us. We evolved to use the world as is - no warranties, no lifetime guarantees. Our existence on the Earth today is entirely irrelevant to the universe as a whole. "
Ah, yes. And relying (on faith, by the way) that the scientist that deny God are right. You're actually more religious than you think. Isn't there some curiosity that, whether you live in a time of horse-drawn carts or laser-firing network devices, two things have never changed:
1. The way we treat each other.
2. The results of the choices we make.
That's all for now- you're going to pull some more hair out and talk about the semantic argument, etc- all in an effort to miss the point. But to be specific, scientists assume it all happened by accident, but personal experience proves otherwise, to me.
"Serenity is irrelevant to truth."
Wow, you *are* lost. Tell me why the Artic Tern bypasses all the lush feeding ground of the space between the poles and migrates to the poles anyway. No matter of obscuring their vision, deterring magnet direction, or even the family in which they are raised, they *still* take the huge trip for what seems to be no reason at all.
I know why.
Every night I deal with college kids that start learning about drugs and alchohol. By the time they're 30, it's all gone and the party days are over. There's a purpose for that, too, and I know why.
Tranquility is being able to cope when it's quiet.
Serenity is being able to cope when it's not.
Yeah, see? There's that, too: if a person has decided as a core of their being *not* to believe, he can come up with millions of reasons not to. It's simplicity and logic is the routine perfection I've come to expect from Him.
Yeah, the Earth was designed differently in previous incarnations- like the dinosaurs. And they were wiped out, multiple times. But for the last 100,000 years or so, our time, it's built for us. We have domain, sure- but it also means we need to take care of it, like the animals.
But I can tell you're "open minded" and "enlightened", perhaps by progressive blogs and such...I'm just not going to waste my time trying to give you the serenity I've found. You didn't visit the site before replying; that's a good sign you've already decided to be lost.
Good luck with that.
As an actual Christian, I'm a little irked by such things as this.
:/
One one side we have the "scientists" who claim all the trillions of happy circumstances just *happened* to organized into the perfectly-balanced biosphere complete with plants, animals, and energy sources. Yeah, because robot-trucks run into battery trucks on the highway and we're always chasing robots trying to wash windows for money.
On the other side we have Christians so blinded by tradition, not the truth, that look at almost 300 means of dating systems (not just carbon dating) and say that "the Earth is only 6,000 years old" while standing next to a fjord in Norway with 30,000 layers of snow and (summertime) dirt.
Why is it so hard to believe that apes once played a part in the development of man? Why is it so hard for scientist to look at the "big bang" and reason that everything that _starts_ has a reason?
It was Usher in 1530 or so that reasoned through the book of Numbers and guessed at the 5,000 year total. But as well-intentioned as he was, he was wrong.
But while the Bible doesn't give a play-by-play on each of the 16+M animal's development, it *does* summarize the development of plants, and that matches the fossil record. It *does* offer the form-factor of sea-going vessels a long time before the rest of the community of mankind figured it out.
And if there's one thing the Bible tells us, it's how we can live a happy, fulfilled life. In fact it's a huge part of it. When we act in ways that aren't part of the intended "scope" of this human animal, misery is the result. Cocaine, hurtful, betraying sex outide of marriage, ignoring the plight of widows, taking the virginity of young people.
These aren't capricious entries in a checklist- this is the 'handbook' for this human animal.
And the obfuscation of just what the message is, helps no one. Science and Christianity serve each other...not deny each other.
See http://doesgodexist.com/ for more details. Or get "The Privelaged Planet" DVD to see all the details.
It's the tip of the 'berg.
:>
Here's a nice, simple non-controversial example: the economy.
When we broke 10,000 on the Dow in the Clinton Administration, all three broadcast media threw a party. The other day we broke 11,000 (and then broke THAT) and NOT EVEN ONE of the "big three" mentioned it. Some national papers put it in the 'deep' pages, but it was a definate non-starter.
Not to mention about 20 "personal jihad" stories, like the guy that drove over people at the UNC commons, the 'New Jersey 6' who were ready to kill people at Fort Dix, and several other stories that were written off as kooks and incompetents gone awry.
Yeah, it's important not to panic people...but at this point 1/3 of the Democrats think BUSH is the terrorist, not the guy with the ravine of 400,000 dead Iraqis. And am I ever tired of hearing how we shouldn't "impose Democracy" on people.
Huh? Democracy = Freedom. When is giving anyone freedom an imposition?
Stuff's just upside down; lotsa bots walkin' the street.
Rosie: "Fire doesn't melt steel!" (Her reason for 911 being an inside job.) She's right ya know, we've been making car bodies with pixie dust since the beginning.
But wait for it- when a mushroom cloud is over a US city, no one will doubt the news, and maybe then the Liberals will awake to the business at hand. Or, not.
For years SCOX has been tanking...around $4 for a long time, but starting at like $30 or more. But now, around the time of this announcement, there are actually people BUYING SCO STOCK!
Put "SCOX" in the firefox google-search; it's hilarious!
Barnham was right: a sucker born every minute.
It's not like the snail-mail is spam-free...it just takes days instead of microseconds.
It's also a complaint against their system administrators- they're not doing their job. But, with so many companies hiring a 'book keeper' and letting them admin the sites, it's no wonder. And in the big shops, it's all about giving every corporate machine a 'flush-n-fill' every night to stop the virus problems, so they're really busy.
Thank Microsoft. Or to be more precise- thank the Microsoft mindset. You know, "This is best...and only thing out there." And "There couldn't be anything better- this has a logo in case there's a problem." (Nevermind Microsoft not being a support center, if you don't have $1M/year support contract.)
This isn't computing the way it used to be; it's computing at the pleasure of Microsoft. I'm tellin' ya: Linux is the way it used to be, back before Microsoft: it's your machine. It only fails when something's broken. You only reboot rarely. You retain complete control, AND it's fun. You guys starting in 1985 or later don't realize what it's become these days.
So you get spam; tell your admin!
After 27 years of computing, I got stuck in a town without any serious computer jobs, waiting for Mom to die. So I'm a security guard, and MAN, is that little old 10 YEAR OLD palm 5 a big help. I can take notes without looking, send emails that are legible instead of written reports that aren't, and it's a single sync and the night's paperwork is done and archived.
It was a good idea; branching out into hundreds of alternatives (and keeping their handwriting recognition sacred) limited the span. And just like SCO learned, charging $1,100 for a development system to create more software for your platform, there are worse things to lose than your money.
If they could just be talked into licensing their handwriting analysis code to other businesses, they just might save theirs...
Shock jocks are useless; they're always uninformed, sometimes taking the whole show into a "snipe hunt" direction. Not to mention rudeness in all quarters.
I had my XM for about 2 years; I never head an O&A advertisement that made me laugh, smirk, or even smile. But blocking the channel doesn't mean I would stop hearing them- advertising on everything but the jazz channel.
If there's something you dislike enough to block the channel (assuming you can get them to actually do it) you shouldn't have to listen to 8-10 copies of the same advertisment of that channel each hour. It's just nuts.
I was a year and a half trying to get them to turn ON the Fox News Radio channel, they never did get it right.
And of course the website is/was tailored to IE almost exclusively, so that gave me grief, too. I'm not sure what the management is doing, but it doesn't seem to have a long-term usefulness.
I mean, you rarely hear an ad that isn't for XM; that doesn't STOP them from playing 8-10 ads back to back, but they also haven't inspired large firms to at least *test* advertisements on the new medium, either. Dorky ads for Bob Dylan, all these "let's listen to what aging rockstars like to listen to" shows, when what I'd really like to hear from them is their on the road experiences, and THEIR music.
But I'm sure I'm just missing something. In about an hour someone will mark this as off-topic, trollbait, or something...