The game isn't easy because of this, it's less frustrating. Forcing the player to restarting huge segments at the smallest error is a very cheap way to make something "difficult".
Emulators are often superior to real hardware in this respect. My wife is an avid player of classic SNES and Genesis RPGs but probably wouldn't bother with most of them on real hardware. The emulators have at least 8 quick save-state slots and she undoes frustrating small mistakes with a keypress.
Now that we own a Wii, we both often say "a save state" would be nice here.........
Er, what exactly is Nvidia doing in this regard? They've put out more or less OK closed drivers for Linux for a number of years now but they go out of their way to frustrate FOSS efforts. The "open source" nv driver is obfuscated. About all you can say about it is that it compiles to a basic 2D driver.
Intel releases fully realized drivers and some docs. ATI/AMD is releasing ever more complete docs and more or less cruddy closed drivers. With the help of Mr. Weite, VIA is starting to release docs and is co-operating with current FOSS driver authors. I don't see Nvidia doing anything of this sort.
I always liked the idea of putting the genes for THC into common lawn grass. It'd give a whole new meaning to "smoking grass". Since we're being completely irresponsible here, put it into all sorts of common plants and weeds for that matter. Drug enforcers would go completely insane.
On ours they don't because we don't allow students to bring in their personal equipment. But even if the computer in question did belong to them, the network being employed does not. For the most part, I don't nail kids for abusing equipment. I nail them for putting in things like "slutty women" in Google or even "unblocking MySpace". Personally, I think MySpace is inane and stupid and if it were up to me I wouldn't block it. But the Administration doesn't want them doing it and I've been directly asked by more than one parent "Can they get to MySpace?" The local school districts here last year also had to endure a hit piece from a local TV station about "flawed filters in your child's school". It of course painted the most alarming possible picture and sparked off CYA thinking in every superintendant and technology director in the area. I suspect I've been modsmacked by one of three kinds of people:
The ones who ran rings around the personnel when they were in school and therefore have nothing but contempt for them. Or it was some of the ones who got caught doing something not permitted or it was one of the crypto-libertarians who think I'm the devil for even doing this job in the first place.
I have to wonder if some of these kids think it will be any different when they go to work. There are aspects of this that I find stupid and distasteful but I took this job nonetheless so I do it as professionally as possible.
I'll also note that most school districts rely at least to some extent on E-Rate funding to build their networks. That funding mandates filtering as one of it's conditions so even the most liberal districts that turn to E-Rate (which is most districts) will have a filter of some description in place. I further suspect that the lax filtering that some kids like to brag about getting around may be nothing more than window dressing to secure those funds. It isn't the case here fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you want to look at it. I'm still mildly amazed there is Internet access of any kind in schools. It wasn't as though I could get a Penthouse out of my school library growing up and it shouldn't be a big surprise they don't want the digital equivalent there either.
You can go about this the same way you get an image made on one machine to (possibly) run on another. Set your virtual machine to boot from a CD that has an imaging product; you may want to sysprep it as well. I like PING (http://ping.windowsdream.com/) myself. Create a new VirtualBox image at least as large as the machine you are transferring. Boot VirtualBox with the same imaging product and write the image you created to the new drive. If you can't get it to boot then a Windows Repair Install may fix the HAL, bootloader, and Mass Storage to the point that you can get it to boot. That done, uninstall the other virtualizer's extensions and install VirtualBox'.
If there is a proper incubator to use sure. But if the choice is between a car-part one and nothing and the child will almost certainly die with nothing then the car-part incubator starts looking pretty good.
The initial increase can (and should) be reduced by providing contraceptives, legalizing abortion, teaching sexual education in schools, and minimizing the influence of religion (if it goes against the first 3). These are things that all modern societies have done, I don't see any reason why others would be unable to do so.
Trying to explicitly do that won't work well. Religion tends to violently oppose direct attempts to "reduce it's influence". Those things tend happen anyway in societies that increase their affluence. In affluent career-oriented societies children are a burden. They have to be housed and educated to quite high levels. They also pretty much need to be maintained well above sustenance levels to gain entry to work/social ladders. So it isn't common to have more than two or three or even one kid in such societies. Most people also survive to old age in these societies and many AREN'T supported and maintained by their children in old age.
Societies with high birth and deathrates need many children for their version of social support. Many won't survive to even young adulthood so the birthrate goes high to offset that. In addition, those few who survive into old age are respected elders and can expect that the younger generations will provide for them. Cut the birthrate without addressing the economic side and the societal balance is gone.
If one wants to help a society in such straits, then find a way to raise the industrial/tech level. All else is band-aids.
It means that the virtual network adapter can get IP connected without resorting to NAT. This was usually done by bridging a physical interface to a tun device and setting that tun device as VirtualBox's network device. Setting up this bridge requires using a script outside of VirtualBox to get everything set up. Now VirtualBox can do it from the GUI with no scripting required. In short, one can dedicate a physical NIC to VirtualBox by bridging it or allow VBox direct access to the host NIC.
The easy way to do networking with virtuals is to use NAT to pass TCP traffic to the virtual from the host's IP connection. That suffices for web surfing and other apps that don't severely exercise networking but it doesn't work well for things like VPN clients.
That is a nice conceit but it isn't the case. The reality is that the huge part of the influx only lasts the first month or two after implementing such a network. Whats left after that is manageable and practical. Corporate and school networks aren't the same animals as what general use ISPs provide. The list of things employees absolutely need access to is very definable and those are whitelisted first. What's permissible for users like students is contentious but also definable. Incidentally, the proxies need not block everything. They're configured to block things that have proved to be problems but all is logged since things happen that I haven't thought of.
My traffic stats alone tell me that they aren't "giving up on using it at all". Yes, there are inconveniences. Yes, nobody likes to encounter them. The answer is to be fast and responsive to legitimate (as defined by organization policy) requests.
What isn't manageable is an open ended network full of teenagers one is mandated to keep within acceptable norms. As I've said in another post: public schools aren't libertarian geek fantasy playgrounds. What motivated the implementation of such a network here was flash drives loaded with PortableFirefox and an extension to use a constantly updated list of open proxies. The emergence of Tor and other services designed to facilitate circumvention drove it as well. Without default deny, one is constantly fingerplugging dikes as the kids try one thing after another. The smart-aleck with his custom proxy would have been cheerfully busted here.
Incidentally, it isn't all done with just technology. There is administrative will to come down on those I find trying to use cgi proxies and the like. And I don't care what they do at home. They can very well do their P2P, instant messaging whatever there.
You're school's admins were morons. That trick wouldn't work on a default deny firewall that only allows monitored proxies and a small whitelist of machines outside. Add a proxy that disallows connects to IPs without domain names and variations on the trick are still possible but risky since the proxy will log all and many places are motivated to monitor those logs and will act on what they see in them.
I don't give a hang one way or another about the DRM on iTunes Store content since I do not permanently keep DRMed video or audio for any reason whatsoever. However, I DO care about being able to use my hardware with the software of my choice. I have a 4G iPod Nano and I like it pretty well but it will be the last iPod I ever own unless Apple gets their heads out of their butts on this. Nor do I dare update the firmware on this unit. The bottom line for me is that I like the player itself but I don't care for iTunes at all. Even if there was a Linux version I wouldn't use that pig of an app.
Apple is using the DMCA to bully those trying to get the iPod to interoperate with other software. Being able to load up an iPod with Amarok or some other software in no way compromises the DRM on content. But I suppose Apple doesn't like people trying to escape from their iPod+iTunes+Store trifecta. This isn't any sort of "boycott". I simply won't buy hardware that is useless to me. Hardware that only works with OS X/Windows+iTunes and Steve's middle finger to everyone else is useless to me.
I don't buy the runaway doomsday scenario either. However, the small amount of bias that humans can inject into the planetary climate could have economic and political consequences. Places like Manhattan becoming flood prone, grain growing "bread baskets" shifting north, small islands becoming flooded out and so-forth aren't things we should ignore. Is it likely we'll turn the Earth into another Venus? Doubtful. Could we cause no end of trouble for ourselves? It isn't like we haven't before.......
Most 'nix systems will allow a rename or replacement of an open binary but any processes using that binary will keep the inode open until the last process closes it. Any new processes will use the new binary at it's new inode. Updater processes should be written to restart services and it should only be necessary to reboot a 'nix if the kernel has been replaced.
It is for this reason that 'nix systems can be upgraded in place from one release to another necessitating a reboot only if the kernel is updated. Apps like Firefox will throw errors when libraries and binaries are swapped out from under them but the worst one might have to do is restart a desktop.
This is one of the things that irritates me about OS X. A little smarts about restarting processes would cut the reboots necessary for updating way way down but they seem to still be stuck in a "Classic" mentality on this. They have the infrastructure to support that style of updating and indeed Unixy things CAN be replaced this way on OS X. Just don't tell Software Update.
I personally don't think those things are a big deal. To the social conservatives I work with, it would be and the situation is common. My objective isn't pointless prudery but to warn those who do have to deal with it. UQM isn't beyond a bright 8th or even 5th grader. A 60 year classroom teacher in red state coming across those scenes would definitely wig out and want someone in trouble.
Public school classrooms aren't libertarian geek paradises as many us know all too well.
I love UQM/SC2 but they do include the Syreen. The Syreen's ships look like marital aids with fins attached. There is PG-13 section where the game's hero uh..."interacts" with the Syreen commander. And the avatar for a Syreen ship's captain is a nearly naked blue girl seen from the side.
I wouldn't dare put SC2 in any school or institutional situation unless those graphics can be sanitized. Ditto for an individual child with blue nose parents.
Actually it was mentioned that Mr. Fusion powered the flight circuits. Still, Doc Brown missed a major trick. If he had the gas engine removed and an electric motor installed in it's place then Mr. Fusion could have powered the entire car.
Again you miss the point. If confronted with GUI Linux or OS X or anything else an organization may deploy, a user shouldn't be a deer in the headlights. When speaking of organizations, what workers want or think that they want is irrelevant. They'll use what the organization provides; and no this isn't arrogance. The same is true when it is MS products that are provided.
The issue in this case is why should a school or workplace use Linux and that is a separate set of arguments though there are good ones for it. That a major argument against is that people can't use anything but MS products points to a failure in so-called "computer literacy" education. That MS and the BSA has successfully imparted a blinkered idea of copyright can and cannot do is another.
Incidentally, it isn't that things can "only be done in Linux". There is very little under the sun that is the exclusive domain of one vendor's product. The issue is that things can potentially be done at lower cost while giving vendors less control over how your organization does things and those are items of legitimate concern.
The teacher started out by leveling legal threats. I'd left out the MS conspiracy stuff but I'd roasted her to a smoking crisp too....and I'm a K-12 admin.
You missed the OP's point entirely. He was taught and well drilled on concepts common to all Word Processors and windowing systems. He was able to ace a test on Office 2003 without touching it because he understands how word processing works on a higher level than a recipe book approach to MS Office. I'm the same way. I often help people out with software I've never used because I tend to have a high level understanding of the job they are trying to accomplish and need only find the appropriate UI or items in the help that pertain.
What usually happens once I suss out how to help the user is that they get out a Post-It note and start creating what amounts to a recipe for accomplishing that task. I call such people "brittle users" because very small changes in software or procedure suffice to break such people.
The OP is advocating imparting a better level of understanding on how to use computers rather than turning our schools and colleges into vo-eds for MS products.
Well, then it seems that you aren't for legalizing other drugs. Why would meth be treated differently than alcohol? And why would the sentence be increased for doing something legal?
That wasn't what I was getting at. I wouldn't treat meth different from alcohol. If someone angled for lighter treatment in court with "It was the booze that made me do it! I'm not that kind of guy your Honor!" It would be the same thing. Ever see Trainspotting? There is a scene where two of them get busted for knocking over a jewelry store and Renton gets lighter treatment by attributing his behavior to heroin.
What I'm saying is legalize dope but not allowing dope to be an extenuating circumstance when a doper gets in trouble. There is a strain of thought that says addiction is the same as any other disease so those afflicted deserve all our sympathy and tender mercies. I agree that it is a disease but it is a self-inflicted one.
We already do this with drunk drivers. Weaving all over the road and driving fast sober gets you some sort of "reckless driving" charge. Do it drunk and you are screeewwwwwed.
I'm all for legalizing anything one might put in their body using the orifice of their choice. Two things though:
1. I'm still for draconian penalties for anybody who sells heavy dope like heroin or methamphetamine to a minor. Anything crap like that should be heavily regulated in it's sale and taxed heavily but intelligently. The taxes should be just high enough that the bootleg bathtub stuff doesn't look good. Tax evaders can share cells with ones selling dope to kids.
2. Being under the influence should be a crime enhancer rather than an exonerator: "Your honor! It was the crystal meth that made me go crazy with that axe!"
"Fine. I hereby double your sentence for axe craziness"
Ditto for crimes committed for the purpose of obtaining drugs though they should be much more pure and affordable being regulated and with mafias mostly out of the picture. Cheaper pure drugs and delivery devices mean that dopers will be able to hold down jobs and so-forth a bit longer before skid-rowing themselves. And who knows? Dopers with dead end McJobs may have enough brain cells remaining to hold them indefinitely.....just like the alcoholics.
This is only meant to accomplish two things. We don't pack the prisons full of non-violent recreational users and small time sellers and we remove the biggest profit center of organized crime. I don't deny that out-in-the-open drug use won't make apparent new out-in-the-open social problems. I suspect that conspicuously not coddling people who mess themselves up may be be the best deterrent to "having all you can eat".
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The game isn't easy because of this, it's less frustrating. Forcing the player to restarting huge segments at the smallest error is a very cheap way to make something "difficult".
Emulators are often superior to real hardware in this respect. My wife is an avid player of classic SNES and Genesis RPGs but probably wouldn't bother with most of them on real hardware. The emulators have at least 8 quick save-state slots and she undoes frustrating small mistakes with a keypress.
Now that we own a Wii, we both often say "a save state" would be nice here.........
Er, what exactly is Nvidia doing in this regard? They've put out more or less OK closed drivers for Linux for a number of years now but they go out of their way to frustrate FOSS efforts. The "open source" nv driver is obfuscated. About all you can say about it is that it compiles to a basic 2D driver.
Intel releases fully realized drivers and some docs. ATI/AMD is releasing ever more complete docs and more or less cruddy closed drivers. With the help of Mr. Weite, VIA is starting to release docs and is co-operating with current FOSS driver authors. I don't see Nvidia doing anything of this sort.
I always liked the idea of putting the genes for THC into common lawn grass. It'd give a whole new meaning to "smoking grass". Since we're being completely irresponsible here, put it into all sorts of common plants and weeds for that matter. Drug enforcers would go completely insane.
On ours they don't because we don't allow students to bring in their personal equipment. But even if the computer in question did belong to them, the network being employed does not. For the most part, I don't nail kids for abusing equipment. I nail them for putting in things like "slutty women" in Google or even "unblocking MySpace". Personally, I think MySpace is inane and stupid and if it were up to me I wouldn't block it. But the Administration doesn't want them doing it and I've been directly asked by more than one parent "Can they get to MySpace?" The local school districts here last year also had to endure a hit piece from a local TV station about "flawed filters in your child's school". It of course painted the most alarming possible picture and sparked off CYA thinking in every superintendant and technology director in the area. I suspect I've been modsmacked by one of three kinds of people:
The ones who ran rings around the personnel when they were in school and therefore have nothing but contempt for them.
Or it was some of the ones who got caught doing something not permitted or it was one of the crypto-libertarians who think I'm the devil for even doing this job in the first place.
I have to wonder if some of these kids think it will be any different when they go to work. There are aspects of this that I find stupid and distasteful but I took this job nonetheless so I do it as professionally as possible.
I'll also note that most school districts rely at least to some extent on E-Rate funding to build their networks. That funding mandates filtering as one of it's conditions so even the most liberal districts that turn to E-Rate (which is most districts) will have a filter of some description in place. I further suspect that the lax filtering that some kids like to brag about getting around may be nothing more than window dressing to secure those funds. It isn't the case here fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you want to look at it. I'm still mildly amazed there is Internet access of any kind in schools. It wasn't as though I could get a Penthouse out of my school library growing up and it shouldn't be a big surprise they don't want the digital equivalent there either.
I bet the Wine devs could suss that out very very easily if true.
You can go about this the same way you get an image made on one machine to (possibly) run on another. Set your virtual machine to boot from a CD that has an imaging product; you may want to sysprep it as well. I like PING (http://ping.windowsdream.com/) myself. Create a new VirtualBox image at least as large as the machine you are transferring. Boot VirtualBox with the same imaging product and write the image you created to the new drive. If you can't get it to boot then a Windows Repair Install may fix the HAL, bootloader, and Mass Storage to the point that you can get it to boot. That done, uninstall the other virtualizer's extensions and install VirtualBox'.
If there is a proper incubator to use sure. But if the choice is between a car-part one and nothing and the child will almost certainly die with nothing then the car-part incubator starts looking pretty good.
The initial increase can (and should) be reduced by providing contraceptives, legalizing abortion, teaching sexual education in schools, and minimizing the influence of religion (if it goes against the first 3). These are things that all modern societies have done, I don't see any reason why others would be unable to do so.
Trying to explicitly do that won't work well. Religion tends to violently oppose direct attempts to "reduce it's influence". Those things tend happen anyway in societies that increase their affluence. In affluent career-oriented societies children are a burden. They have to be housed and educated to quite high levels. They also pretty much need to be maintained well above sustenance levels to gain entry to work/social ladders. So it isn't common to have more than two or three or even one kid in such societies. Most people also survive to old age in these societies and many AREN'T supported and maintained by their children in old age.
Societies with high birth and deathrates need many children for their version of social support. Many won't survive to even young adulthood so the birthrate goes high to offset that. In addition, those few who survive into old age are respected elders and can expect that the younger generations will provide for them. Cut the birthrate without addressing the economic side and the societal balance is gone.
If one wants to help a society in such straits, then find a way to raise the industrial/tech level. All else is band-aids.
VirtualBox is supposed to be able to open up VMDKs. Whether or not one can get it to boot on the other hand........
It means that the virtual network adapter can get IP connected without resorting to NAT. This was usually done by bridging a physical interface to a tun device and setting that tun device as VirtualBox's network device. Setting up this bridge requires using a script outside of VirtualBox to get everything set up. Now VirtualBox can do it from the GUI with no scripting required. In short, one can dedicate a physical NIC to VirtualBox by bridging it or allow VBox direct access to the host NIC.
The easy way to do networking with virtuals is to use NAT to pass TCP traffic to the virtual from the host's IP connection. That suffices for web surfing and other apps that don't severely exercise networking but it doesn't work well for things like VPN clients.
That is a nice conceit but it isn't the case. The reality is that the huge part of the influx only lasts the first month or two after implementing such a network. Whats left after that is manageable and practical. Corporate and school networks aren't the same animals as what general use ISPs provide. The list of things employees absolutely need access to is very definable and those are whitelisted first. What's permissible for users like students is contentious but also definable. Incidentally, the proxies need not block everything. They're configured to block things that have proved to be problems but all is logged since things happen that I haven't thought of.
My traffic stats alone tell me that they aren't "giving up on using it at all". Yes, there are inconveniences. Yes, nobody likes to encounter them. The answer is to be fast and responsive to legitimate (as defined by organization policy) requests.
What isn't manageable is an open ended network full of teenagers one is mandated to keep within acceptable norms. As I've said in another post: public schools aren't libertarian geek fantasy playgrounds. What motivated the implementation of such a network here was flash drives loaded with PortableFirefox and an extension to use a constantly updated list of open proxies. The emergence of Tor and other services designed to facilitate circumvention drove it as well. Without default deny, one is constantly fingerplugging dikes as the kids try one thing after another. The smart-aleck with his custom proxy would have been cheerfully busted here.
Incidentally, it isn't all done with just technology. There is administrative will to come down on those I find trying to use cgi proxies and the like. And I don't care what they do at home. They can very well do their P2P, instant messaging whatever there.
You're school's admins were morons. That trick wouldn't work on a default deny firewall that only allows monitored proxies and a small whitelist of machines outside. Add a proxy that disallows connects to IPs without domain names and variations on the trick are still possible but risky since the proxy will log all and many places are motivated to monitor those logs and will act on what they see in them.
I don't give a hang one way or another about the DRM on iTunes Store content since I do not permanently keep DRMed video or audio for any reason whatsoever. However, I DO care about being able to use my hardware with the software of my choice. I have a 4G iPod Nano and I like it pretty well but it will be the last iPod I ever own unless Apple gets their heads out of their butts on this. Nor do I dare update the firmware on this unit. The bottom line for me is that I like the player itself but I don't care for iTunes at all. Even if there was a Linux version I wouldn't use that pig of an app.
Apple is using the DMCA to bully those trying to get the iPod to interoperate with other software. Being able to load up an iPod with Amarok or some other software in no way compromises the DRM on content. But I suppose Apple doesn't like people trying to escape from their iPod+iTunes+Store trifecta. This isn't any sort of "boycott". I simply won't buy hardware that is useless to me. Hardware that only works with OS X/Windows+iTunes and Steve's middle finger to everyone else is useless to me.
I don't buy the runaway doomsday scenario either. However, the small amount of bias that humans can inject into the planetary climate could have economic and political consequences. Places like Manhattan becoming flood prone, grain growing "bread baskets" shifting north, small islands becoming flooded out and so-forth aren't things we should ignore. Is it likely we'll turn the Earth into another Venus? Doubtful. Could we cause no end of trouble for ourselves? It isn't like we haven't before.......
Most 'nix systems will allow a rename or replacement of an open binary but any processes using that binary will keep the inode open until the last process closes it. Any new processes will use the new binary at it's new inode. Updater processes should be written to restart services and it should only be necessary to reboot a 'nix if the kernel has been replaced.
It is for this reason that 'nix systems can be upgraded in place from one release to another necessitating a reboot only if the kernel is updated. Apps like Firefox will throw errors when libraries and binaries are swapped out from under them but the worst one might have to do is restart a desktop.
This is one of the things that irritates me about OS X. A little smarts about restarting processes would cut the reboots necessary for updating way way down but they seem to still be stuck in a "Classic" mentality on this. They have the infrastructure to support that style of updating and indeed Unixy things CAN be replaced this way on OS X. Just don't tell Software Update.
Shockwave is missing but I don't see as many sites that use it as I used to.
I personally don't think those things are a big deal. To the social conservatives I work with, it would be and the situation is common. My objective isn't pointless prudery but to warn those who do have to deal with it. UQM isn't beyond a bright 8th or even 5th grader. A 60 year classroom teacher in red state coming across those scenes would definitely wig out and want someone in trouble.
Public school classrooms aren't libertarian geek paradises as many us know all too well.
I love UQM/SC2 but they do include the Syreen. The Syreen's ships look like marital aids with fins attached. There is PG-13 section where the game's hero uh..."interacts" with the Syreen commander. And the avatar for a Syreen ship's captain is a nearly naked blue girl seen from the side.
I wouldn't dare put SC2 in any school or institutional situation unless those graphics can be sanitized. Ditto for an individual child with blue nose parents.
Actually it was mentioned that Mr. Fusion powered the flight circuits. Still, Doc Brown missed a major trick. If he had the gas engine removed and an electric motor installed in it's place then Mr. Fusion could have powered the entire car.
Again you miss the point. If confronted with GUI Linux or OS X or anything else an organization may deploy, a user shouldn't be a deer in the headlights. When speaking of organizations, what workers want or think that they want is irrelevant. They'll use what the organization provides; and no this isn't arrogance. The same is true when it is MS products that are provided.
The issue in this case is why should a school or workplace use Linux and that is a separate set of arguments though there are good ones for it. That a major argument against is that people can't use anything but MS products points to a failure in so-called "computer literacy" education. That MS and the BSA has successfully imparted a blinkered idea of copyright can and cannot do is another.
Incidentally, it isn't that things can "only be done in Linux". There is very little under the sun that is the exclusive domain of one vendor's product. The issue is that things can potentially be done at lower cost while giving vendors less control over how your organization does things and those are items of legitimate concern.
The teacher started out by leveling legal threats. I'd left out the MS conspiracy stuff but I'd roasted her to a smoking crisp too....and I'm a K-12 admin.
You missed the OP's point entirely. He was taught and well drilled on concepts common to all Word Processors and windowing systems. He was able to ace a test on Office 2003 without touching it because he understands how word processing works on a higher level than a recipe book approach to MS Office. I'm the same way. I often help people out with software I've never used because I tend to have a high level understanding of the job they are trying to accomplish and need only find the appropriate UI or items in the help that pertain.
What usually happens once I suss out how to help the user is that they get out a Post-It note and start creating what amounts to a recipe for accomplishing that task. I call such people "brittle users" because very small changes in software or procedure suffice to break such people.
The OP is advocating imparting a better level of understanding on how to use computers rather than turning our schools and colleges into vo-eds for MS products.
MySQL has never been a stable database program. I've never had any other database system that just blows a database table at random.
I see you've never tangled with FileMaker Pro.
Well, then it seems that you aren't for legalizing other drugs. Why would meth be treated differently than alcohol? And why would the sentence be increased for doing something legal?
That wasn't what I was getting at. I wouldn't treat meth different from alcohol. If someone angled for lighter treatment in court with "It was the booze that made me do it! I'm not that kind of guy your Honor!" It would be the same thing. Ever see Trainspotting? There is a scene where two of them get busted for knocking over a jewelry store and Renton gets lighter treatment by attributing his behavior to heroin.
What I'm saying is legalize dope but not allowing dope to be an extenuating circumstance when a doper gets in trouble. There is a strain of thought that says addiction is the same as any other disease so those afflicted deserve all our sympathy and tender mercies. I agree that it is a disease but it is a self-inflicted one.
We already do this with drunk drivers. Weaving all over the road and driving fast sober gets you some sort of "reckless driving" charge. Do it drunk and you are screeewwwwwed.
I'm all for legalizing anything one might put in their body using the orifice of their choice. Two things though:
1. I'm still for draconian penalties for anybody who sells heavy dope like heroin or methamphetamine to a minor. Anything crap like that should be heavily regulated in it's sale and taxed heavily but intelligently. The taxes should be just high enough that the bootleg bathtub stuff doesn't look good. Tax evaders can share cells with ones selling dope to kids.
2. Being under the influence should be a crime enhancer rather than an exonerator: "Your honor! It was the crystal meth that made me go crazy with that axe!"
"Fine. I hereby double your sentence for axe craziness"
Ditto for crimes committed for the purpose of obtaining drugs though they should be much more pure and affordable being regulated and with mafias mostly out of the picture. Cheaper pure drugs and delivery devices mean that dopers will be able to hold down jobs and so-forth a bit longer before skid-rowing themselves. And who knows? Dopers with dead end McJobs may have enough brain cells remaining to hold them indefinitely.....just like the alcoholics.
This is only meant to accomplish two things. We don't pack the prisons full of non-violent recreational users and small time sellers and we remove the biggest profit center of organized crime. I don't deny that out-in-the-open drug use won't make apparent new out-in-the-open social problems. I suspect that conspicuously not coddling people who mess themselves up may be be the best deterrent to "having all you can eat".