Maybe you also beleive there is no fun in chess because in real life enemy castles can't relocate straight into your territory and kill your king while he's out for an evening stroll.
Except that the "castle" is a basket mounted on top of an elephant, filled with archers and spearmen, not a fortress designed to tie up enemy troops in sieges. My problem with the realism in chess is that you cannot panic enemy troops and have them attack your their own lines -- panicky elephants/rooks could be really fun:-)
Just make sure that the meteors don't make the D-9 go sentient (like in the TV movie Killdozer based on a Sturgeon novella), because in a confined space that would really suck.
While they would be mad (in the English sense, not the usual American sense) to launch against the USA, that has nothing to do with Mutual Assured Destruction, but is rather initiating the earlier doctrine of Massive Retaliation against themselves. OTOH, they are more likely to ship it somewhere with crappy security, relabel it as something innocuous like Mengele tractors, and reship it to the US via container ship. Alternately, just wrap it in cocaine and let the Columbians smuggle it in.
But they WILL have their network of high school friends who never went to college against whom they can compare themselves. So long as they make more than beginner auto mechanics, dental assistants, secretaries, etc., and don't have to get dirty like "sanitation engineers" they will feel themselves in great shape. Heck, the code mechanics might even be right.
The ones who get tired of doing things that others defined for them for reasons unknown to them using tools beyond their understanding might be bothered to go on in schooling, then, and it might even improve the college CS crowd as my father claimed that all the post-WWII ex-GIs did his MechE classes, albeit while ruining the curve for all the would-be slackers in the class.
The ones who don't care to learn more, of course, don't matter in the long run.
You are not Google's customer, but the resource that Google's customers, the advertisers, pay to get info about. Since millions of other people don't mind giving Google their searching history, they will not care that you withhold yours, even if you are Bill Gates III.
Are you the only person with your name? My name is fairly uncommon, yet when I google it I come up with posts or emails from at least two different people; when I was in the whois database, about a decade ago, I received email every six months or so to someone else with my name (and different someones each time, from the contents). Clearly, you should just say that someone else with your name posted to alt.drugs (unless you leaked too many details in it for it NOT to be you) once upon a time.
Alternately, go with it, and travel on the lecture circuit like Timothy Leary did;-)
> but at least in Caesar's day the currency had intrinsic value
But seldom as high as its fiat value. The emperors almost always debased the currency so that the intrinsic was below its extrinsic (aka, fiat) value; one of the major plots against Nero started over this.
Are you certain that you did not mean H. Beam Piper? Most of his stories are set in a Multiverse built around different probability worlds keeping or losing Martian technology to different extents, then diverging. One time line kept all of the Martian tech, then developed the ability to cross to other lines before completely ruining their Earth, which is how the stories mesh together.
H. Beam Piper (or his estate, rather) is going to want his money for poaching his idea. Refuse to pay, and you will end up like Benjamin Bathurst or Calvin Morrison.
BTW, water used on golf courses automatically recycles (unless you crack the water and use the hydrogen for fusion). Piper's Martian colonists used up Mars in more realistic ways.
> Except that speeding, unless we're talking about misdemeanor > or felony speeding, isn't a crime. It's a civil matter, at > least everyplace I've ever lived.
Speeding is usually a summary offense, like excessive noise, public drunkenness, etc., and can be handled by any magistrate (often a local Justice Of The Peace). Civil offenses mean that you get sued by the offending party or parties (like OJ Simpson were sued by his children and Ron Browne's parents for Wrongful Death) for actions not a crime, but a tort. The town council doesn't sue speeders (at least not for speeding).
That pretty much concludes what I learned in the pre-law class that I took for the distribution requirements in college:-)
There are two problems with your hope. First, most alcohol regulation occurs at the state level. Second, since I have had 151 proof rum for years and have seen vodkas over 190 proof, the problem is not that it is banned, but that it is taxed more as the alcohol level increases (unless denatured, aka poisoned).
> One reason for actual home distilling being illegal is the fire risk.
And the possibility of making commercial quantities that evade the taxing authorities has NOTHING to do with it. Everyone knows that the military response to the Whiskey Rebellion, in Washington's term as POTUS, was to vigorously enforce fire safety regulations.
> > And they're smarter than you are. > > Now that requires some serious references, please. Unless you were flamebaiting, of course.
Actually, according to David Brin (of the 2 Uplift Trilogies), whales and dolphins are only about as smart as dogs. Although how they got a blue or sperm whale to sit down and take an IQ test is beyond me.
Anyway, if anyone would be in favor of smart cetaceans, one would expect that he would, so I expect that he bothered to double-check.
> When I finally got around to signing up for Facebook I used a fake > name. It's not false information, it's just not my legal name.
Marion Michael Morrison never legally changed his name to John Wayne, either.
OTOH, assuming that you do not have this same situation, why did you set up a Facebook account in the first place? I can understand setting one up to connect with absent friends (frex, high school classmates, as my sister did), but it seems that the whole idea is lost if you use a non-universally known pseudonym.
To be fair, it is more like Ambrose Bierce's Incident at the Owl Creek Bridge, in that Lost was sometimes (oft times in the first couple seasons) worth viewing, even though it all ends up as drivel.
> I'm not sure a showy ritual for a guy who's been dead for 500 years and hasn't been sainted
Is he even at the first stage on the path (at least in the RC Church; Wikipedia claims that the USA Episcopal Church has a feast day for him and Kepler)?
> Copernicus isn't the only victim of church injustice.
If an AC above is to be believed, he isn't a victim, at all. Just another average canon buried in an anonymous grave. After all, his heliocentric theory wasn't published until about his death, and was hardly heretical at first (just a mathematical trick to reduce the epicycle problem, after all).
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Except that the "castle" is a basket mounted on top of an elephant, filled with archers and spearmen, not a fortress designed to tie up enemy troops in sieges. My problem with the realism in chess is that you cannot panic enemy troops and have them attack your their own lines -- panicky elephants/rooks could be really fun :-)
> and a Caterpillar D-9.
Just make sure that the meteors don't make the D-9 go sentient (like in the TV movie Killdozer based on a Sturgeon novella), because in a confined space that would really suck.
While they would be mad (in the English sense, not the usual American sense) to launch against the USA, that has nothing to do with Mutual Assured Destruction, but is rather initiating the earlier doctrine of Massive Retaliation against themselves. OTOH, they are more likely to ship it somewhere with crappy security, relabel it as something innocuous like Mengele tractors, and reship it to the US via container ship. Alternately, just wrap it in cocaine and let the Columbians smuggle it in.
And why would I say that, unless I followed it with something like "Can I get you out of them?" or some other awful line?
Or do you mean telling the girl next to you that you want in her pants?
The ones who get tired of doing things that others defined for them for reasons unknown to them using tools beyond their understanding might be bothered to go on in schooling, then, and it might even improve the college CS crowd as my father claimed that all the post-WWII ex-GIs did his MechE classes, albeit while ruining the curve for all the would-be slackers in the class.
The ones who don't care to learn more, of course, don't matter in the long run.
Yellowcake uranium is easy to find in Niger. The question was whether Saddam was trying to buy it or not, and why.
You are not Google's customer, but the resource that Google's customers, the advertisers, pay to get info about. Since millions of other people don't mind giving Google their searching history, they will not care that you withhold yours, even if you are Bill Gates III.
Are you the only person with your name? My name is fairly uncommon, yet when I google it I come up with posts or emails from at least two different people; when I was in the whois database, about a decade ago, I received email every six months or so to someone else with my name (and different someones each time, from the contents). Clearly, you should just say that someone else with your name posted to alt.drugs (unless you leaked too many details in it for it NOT to be you) once upon a time.
Alternately, go with it, and travel on the lecture circuit like Timothy Leary did ;-)
> but at least in Caesar's day the currency had intrinsic value
But seldom as high as its fiat value. The emperors almost always debased the currency so that the intrinsic was below its extrinsic (aka, fiat) value; one of the major plots against Nero started over this.
Are you certain that you did not mean H. Beam Piper? Most of his stories are set in a Multiverse built around different probability worlds keeping or losing Martian technology to different extents, then diverging. One time line kept all of the Martian tech, then developed the ability to cross to other lines before completely ruining their Earth, which is how the stories mesh together.
BTW, water used on golf courses automatically recycles (unless you crack the water and use the hydrogen for fusion). Piper's Martian colonists used up Mars in more realistic ways.
Seriously, use proper units. How many furlongs per fortnight?
> Except that speeding, unless we're talking about misdemeanor
> or felony speeding, isn't a crime. It's a civil matter, at
> least everyplace I've ever lived.
Speeding is usually a summary offense, like excessive noise, public drunkenness, etc., and can be handled by any magistrate (often a local Justice Of The Peace). Civil offenses mean that you get sued by the offending party or parties (like OJ Simpson were sued by his children and Ron Browne's parents for Wrongful Death) for actions not a crime, but a tort. The town council doesn't sue speeders (at least not for speeding).
That pretty much concludes what I learned in the pre-law class that I took for the distribution requirements in college :-)
> Hell even the CIA uses a .com in its recruiting ads. ...
> If you feel the people you are marketing to are so dumb
Not dumb, just not DNS-aware. Why should a Farsi-speaking PhD in Foreign Relations know the proper conventions for domain names?
Now, if the NSA recruiting site uses .com, I will be worried. That is their bailiwick, after all.
There are two problems with your hope. First, most alcohol regulation occurs at the state level. Second, since I have had 151 proof rum for years and have seen vodkas over 190 proof, the problem is not that it is banned, but that it is taxed more as the alcohol level increases (unless denatured, aka poisoned).
> One reason for actual home distilling being illegal is the fire risk.
And the possibility of making commercial quantities that evade the taxing authorities has NOTHING to do with it. Everyone knows that the military response to the Whiskey Rebellion, in Washington's term as POTUS, was to vigorously enforce fire safety regulations.
> Thalidomide's problem was that it was both ambidextrous and double-jointed.
And prescribed for Morning Sickness, rather than for Leprosy.
> > And they're smarter than you are.
>
> Now that requires some serious references, please. Unless you were flamebaiting, of course.
Actually, according to David Brin (of the 2 Uplift Trilogies), whales and dolphins are only about as smart as dogs. Although how they got a blue or sperm whale to sit down and take an IQ test is beyond me.
Anyway, if anyone would be in favor of smart cetaceans, one would expect that he would, so I expect that he bothered to double-check.
> No, you missed your payments, and the MPAA repossessed _their_ memory you rented from them.
Lucky bastard! Now if they can just do that for my memory of Jacob's Ladder...
> or even Cthulhu, who probably could strangle a kitten and not think twice about it.
If Great Cthulhu *DIDN'T* strangle a kitten when it could, THAT would be worth thinking about. :-)
> When I finally got around to signing up for Facebook I used a fake
> name. It's not false information, it's just not my legal name.
Marion Michael Morrison never legally changed his name to John Wayne, either.
OTOH, assuming that you do not have this same situation, why did you set up a Facebook account in the first place? I can understand setting one up to connect with absent friends (frex, high school classmates, as my sister did), but it seems that the whole idea is lost if you use a non-universally known pseudonym.
> Just like our generation will elect a divorcee,
You mean like Ronald Reagan?
To be fair, it is more like Ambrose Bierce's Incident at the Owl Creek Bridge, in that Lost was sometimes (oft times in the first couple seasons) worth viewing, even though it all ends up as drivel.
> I'm not sure a showy ritual for a guy who's been dead for 500 years and hasn't been sainted
Is he even at the first stage on the path (at least in the RC Church; Wikipedia claims that the USA Episcopal Church has a feast day for him and Kepler)?
> Copernicus isn't the only victim of church injustice.
If an AC above is to be believed, he isn't a victim, at all. Just another average canon buried in an anonymous grave. After all, his heliocentric theory wasn't published until about his death, and was hardly heretical at first (just a mathematical trick to reduce the epicycle problem, after all).
> but I have only one question for Benedict 16th: What the Hell took you so long?
He hasn't been Pope for that long, perhaps, and has been busy with problems related to living priests and has only now got to dead ones?