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  1. Re:Not just ineffective (EEO bullshit) on Recruiters Use 'Digital Native' As Code For 'No Old Folks' · · Score: 1

    I don't want to pay my electric bill. I prefer to climb the pole and discover electricity for myself. I don't want the man keeping me down making me pay my bills!

  2. Re:The 30 and 40-somethings wrote the code... on Recruiters Use 'Digital Native' As Code For 'No Old Folks' · · Score: 4, Funny

    Surely, I must qualify as digital native in spite of being born in '66. I learned Fortran V ('77 wasn't out yet) on the school system's mainframe over a 300 baud modem. When I finally got a computer and modem of my own, I had to write a simple terminal program with Xmodem so I could download a real terminal program from a BBS.

    My wife informs me that she is 1/Commodore 64th digital on her father's side.

  3. Re:Suicide mission on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 1

    Perhaps you believe the myth that the climb to wealth wasn't upon the backs of others./

  4. Re:Suicide mission on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 1

    That would be voting in your own interest. You value your children and their future well-being above your current well being.

  5. Re:Suicide mission on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 1

    Look up! You might see the point going by.

  6. Re:Suicide mission on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 1

    (in unison) We ARE individuals!

    (lone man) I''m not!

    Look deeper and you'll find the myths. Even in science, it has been commented that often the old guard has to die off for new ideas to be accepted.

  7. Re:Suicide mission on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 1

    Apparently you believe me to be sufficiently psychic to determine which subset of myths you buy in to from an anonymous posting on /.

    I must say, that's an odd one.

  8. Re:Suicide mission on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 1

    It would be fair to say his writing has influenced my thinking. :-)

  9. Re: Suicide mission on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 1

    Sure, no particular ism has a monopoly on delusions.

    Often the delusions and myths are layered one upon the other so that the believer may behave in a manner repugnant to his base myth while believing he is following it to the letter.

  10. Re:Suicide mission on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 1

    I will agree that when it gets to the point of killing people for drawing things, it is truly sad.

    But we must not pat ourselves on the back too much for managing to get over that very low hurdle. After all, we did spend decades in a cold war over who's ism is best. We killed a lot of people based on the combination of "ism-ism" and faith in "the domino theory". We have a lot of beliefs running around that cause suffering daily.

  11. Re:Suicide mission on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 1

    As Rich Hudds said, you are conflating myth with supernatural belief.

    Many believe that medicine as practiced in the U.S. is a science when in fact it's more of a cargo cult. Others believe that name brands are actually different under the surface. Some believe the poor deserve to be poor because of something they did or didn't do. Others compound it by believing they are somehow functionally different from the preachers of prosperity gospel.

    Oddest of all are those who take on faith that by purging belief in a deity they have removed all faith from their lives.

  12. Re:Money does exist. on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 1

    No, what contract of exchange exists when the fed prints another billion and gives it to a bank at 0% interest?

  13. Re:Suicide mission on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 1

    Some believe that they can pull all the state's teeth and make it shun it's own people and somehow achieve freedom rather than takeover by a corporate state in all but name. Others believe the GOP wants smaller government. It takes an especially large amount of faith to believe that one.

    Some believe the Democrats are anything like 'the left' these days. That too takes an awful lot of faith.

  14. Re:Suicide mission on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Practically everyone arranges their life around a fairy tale of one sort or another.

    Some learn it in a mosque, some in church, some in history and civics class. Yes, that includes Atheists. Just because they don't believe in God doesn't mean they don't believe in a shared mythos. Some are more helpful and practical than others but make no mistake, they are myths.

    In America, many organize their lives around the myth that they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires and so consistently vote against their own interests.

  15. No, it wasn't premeditated. He premeditated changing his grade on the computer but failed. The fire thing was a spur of the moment act of frustration and fear for the consequences of a bad grade. He was acting exactly like a kid.

    Let's say we treat him like an adult as you suggest and he gets 2 years. So, there he is, 17 years old and out, sentence served. Naturally, he should be served alcohol on request since he is an adult, right? Naturally, he'll be able to vote, being an adult and all.

    Here's a question for you, what should happen if an adult acts like a kid? Do we try them as a minor?

  16. I'm guessing it was his amygdala.

  17. Re:What about the farmers who grew their food? on Bill Gates Owes His Career To Steven Spielberg's Dad; You May, Too · · Score: 1

    There actually is a point to that. Very wealthy people like to perpetuate the myth that they did everything with their own two hands from nothing but dirt, but there is no truth to it. Behind each and every one stand a rather large number of people who did a lot more for a lot less reward.

  18. Re:More like to his own parents on Bill Gates Owes His Career To Steven Spielberg's Dad; You May, Too · · Score: 1

    As they say, born on 3rd base.

  19. Re:More like to his own parents on Bill Gates Owes His Career To Steven Spielberg's Dad; You May, Too · · Score: 1

    Interestingly, even his history with Altair BASIC is a but checkered. Since he developed it using an emulator running on his school's mainframe, technically they owned the code, not him. I think that's a raw deal, but they would have been perfectly justified in billing him for the expensive computer time he burned up without authorization, at least. Even still, he had accepted a fair number of pre-orders and was over a year late delivering when someone pilfered a tape roll from him, fixed the remaining bugs in short order and began distributing fixed copies. That's what inspired Gates' somewhat infamous open letter about copying (never mind that the guy that pilfered it did so because he had paid and gotten nothing in return).

    To me, that more or less set the tone for MS a few years later.

  20. Re:Theft on Bill Gates Owes His Career To Steven Spielberg's Dad; You May, Too · · Score: 1

    You may be mis-remembering Stacker. Stacker did compression at the block level back in the days when 30MB was a big hard drive. Gzip is a file level user program.

  21. Re:idgi on My High School CS Homework Is the Centerfold · · Score: 1

    The thing is, as cropped the picture isn't pornographic and it's no more objectifying than any posed picture. Unless your beliefs demand that a woman wear a burka, there is nothing to be offended by in the actual image. There is nothing there that is at all inappropriate for any age.

    You are essentially arguing that a reminder of the idea of a pornographic image is offensive. Where does it stop? Is her yearbook picture offensive (after all, it's the same person and nearly as "revealing")? If she herself now "unclean" and intrinsically offensive? Should we lock her away?

  22. Re:AT&T Autopay - Ha! on AT&T Bills Elderly Customer $24,298.93 For Landline Dial-Up Service · · Score: 1

    There certainly was an AT&T error there. When he called about the 1st month, the rep couldn't figure out what was going on even though he should have easily seen it was all to one number and that the number was AOL. Further, he promised to send a tech out to investigate and failed to do so. That failure accounts for half of the bill.

    Meanwhile, warning your customer if they're running up an unusually large and potentially unpayable bill is just part of good business.

    And yeah, in this day and age, $0.36/minute for long distance is rapacious.

  23. Re:AT&T customer uses $24,298.93 in services on AT&T Bills Elderly Customer $24,298.93 For Landline Dial-Up Service · · Score: 2

    Except that it is a long running pattern across corporate America. Company keeps demanding the money, threatens collections. Problem drags on for weeks. Local consumer reporter makes a call, indicates interest in airing the story and BAM! no more bill. You think that's a coincidence?

  24. Re:"long distance" on AT&T Bills Elderly Customer $24,298.93 For Landline Dial-Up Service · · Score: 1

    Pretty much any responsible business that bills periodically will warn a customer when they are significantly deviating from the normal charges. They already keep that information so they can itemize your bill.

  25. Re:AT&T Autopay - Ha! on AT&T Bills Elderly Customer $24,298.93 For Landline Dial-Up Service · · Score: 2

    POTS lines will still accept pulse dialing pretty much everywhere even though it is rarely used.