Sorry Ma'am, but we already have enormous excise taxes on alcohol, the hours of sale and physical availability are already strictly limited, and alcohol advertising is already strictly controlled. Any other suggestions?
You can get substantial fine almost everywhere in the US by texting or talking on your cell phone while you drive, but apparently playing Frogger while you drive is OK. God bless America.
If the billionaire media barons can't succeed in blocking the distribution of stuff that they own and control, how successful do you think a bunch of state governments will be at keeping something off the internet that they don't own? I wouldn't want to guess how many websites are already mirroring the do-it-yourself handgun plans, and a lot of them will be outside the US and far from the control of these state legislators. Like many state legislators, they seem to think that they can make the moon shine brighter than the sun and make water flow uphill.
In "In the Beginning was the Command Line", Neal Stephenson says that while people can get Linux -- a tank that will go anywhere and do anything -- free, many often opt to purchase Windows -- a clunky station wagon that leaks oil, spends a lot of time in the shop, and is expensive -- instead. The reason for this is that all their neighbors have the leaky station wagon already and they are afraid of being different, the same reason that the German government seems to be using.
When cash is gone, there will be an electronic trail available to tell anyone who can look exactly where and when you have been spending all your time and what you ate for lunch every day, The New Jersey "Easy Pass" system for paying highway tolls had only been in place for a few months before it was used in a court case to prove that a cheating spouse was not where he said he was at a particular time. This is a very small, minor example of what can happen. I prefer cash, thanks.
If you survey a large sample of people living on government largesse, I am pretty sure you will find that they don't feel "in control" of their lives. Instead, they are at the mercy of the government and are often completely demoralized by this. The money from any guaranteed income scheme is never enough to provide more than a hardscrabble existence, certainly not enough for most people to feel comfortable. Of course, the government loves this. It provides a permanent underclass of people who depend entirely on the government for their existence, and who are always available to riot in the street when the government needs this. If you want to feel in control of your life, get a job. You can always quit it and get another if you don't like it. Once you are trapped on the dole, you have no control at all.
Banks love the "cashless society" because they get a profit from every transaction everywhere. The government loves it because it provides a trail of breadcrumbs through every place you visit, complete with time stamps. Does the government really need to know which fast food outlet you prefer or where you go to buy groceries? I don't think so, but the data is being collected nevertheless.
Next year the company will experiment with a work week of three days, with the workers being paid for five days. Management predicts that the workers will be even happier. So do I.
For many years, the TV manufacturers insisted that it was impossible to mute commercials, even though they were consistently louder than the program material that contained them. Of course, many people said that it was really possible but that the TV companies were afraid of what the TV sponsors would do if their commercial messages were interfered with. Now, finally, a company that does not have a vested interest in sponsor advertising has given us part of what we need. If they would allow us to completely mute commercials and block the video that goes with them, I would be even happier.
Welcome to the 21st century, senators. In case you hadn't heard, privacy is a quaint concept from the past. These TVs, which have now been around for years, are small potatoes compared to the small "digital assistant" spy devices people are voluntarily putting in their houses. Hey, Alexa! Tell Amazon that I thought about buying a pair of boots today! Hey Google! Call the FBI and tell them I said the word "bomb" three times!
Wow. This offer is nearly as attractive as the spy devices that Amazon and Google are selling people to put in their houses and order pizza for them. Now, for only $700 (plus a small monthly fee) you can make your vehicle immediately visible and tracked by the government or anyone else who really wants to. These people are taking away our last shreds of privacy, and many of us are dumb enough to pay for it.
Of course the customers who fill out evaluation forms know that they will be used, or at least hope that they will be used by the restaurant's managers. I have had far too many bad wait staff in restaurants to think that this is a bad thing. Until these tablets were provided, the only way to complain about service was to insist on seeing the manager and making a big scene. The waiters who insist that these ratings are unfair for some reason should think again. If their performance was rated consistently higher than their co-workers, then they would be getting extra shift time, not cuts. Maybe this will improve restaurant service to the level that exists in countries like Japan.
Don't the entertainment people ever have any new ideas? I was sick of Star Trek by 1971 and was never able to get interested in any of the interminable sequels. Yet, someone apparently does.
The UK's security minister is not content with having video cameras on every vertical support in the country, and feels the UK can only be saved from a "wild west" mob rule if every comment we make online is securely identified by a digital ID. The will allow the government to monitor all antisocial remarks and, of course, keep an eternal record of every one of them on the Internet. Obviously, the Land of Hope and Glory has descended into the pits of authoritarian government and totalitarian monitoring of all of its subjects. It was a good place once, but there's no England anymore.
If each of us planted a tree, it would consume enormous amounts of CO2 over its lifetime, it would produce O2 for us to breathe, and it would look great for many years. Of course this doesn't have the advantage of making some alternative-energy mogul rich.
The beggars and street bums in San Francisco already are equipped to take credit cards, but this will really step up their game. Thanks, tech industry!
This means that I will be able to run Linux as a bag on the side of your wonderful Windows 10 product with two big advantages over a normal Linux installation: I will have the enormous overhead and slow boot time of Windows to deal with daily. And, Windows 10 will continue to spy on my every move and report it to you without telling me. I can hardly wait to get on the bandwagon with this one.
For me, music is the most emotional and involving of the arts. It can span the whole human experience and dig deep into all of us. Modern pop music is a clean departure from the realm of emotion and feeling. The droning high-pitched lead voice, an uninspired repetitive lyric, and accompaniment that seems to be exclusively the product of a drum machine and bits of electronically synthesized sound patched together. The "samplers" are even worse, stealing the content of legitimate artists and pasting chunks of it together. It's something I would expect a 12-year-old to do, and shows very little creativity and no artistry. The music industry has corrupted itself and now it's trying to corrupt us.
The most interesting thing is that people are willing to accept the crappy explanation they received. It now seems that most people are willing to sacrifice their privacy just so they can impress their friends by asking Alexa (or whoever) to order a pizza for them. It's pathetic.
I will never voluntarily place one of these spy devices in my home.
The first Star Wars movie was released over 40 (yes, forty!) years ago, targeted for 10-year-olds, mainly. It was popular beyond anyone's dreams or expectations, so of course the businessmen in Hollywood copied it. They copied it over and over again, in a seemingly endless series of sequels that are increasingly unrelated to the original movie. The latest Star Wars sequel, Solo, is now showing signs that the public is bored with the series, with very low initial revenue numbers.
Doesn't anyone in Hollywood have any new ideas? I, for one, am sick of the endless sequels like these. Even worse are the remakes of popular movies from the past. Sorry, Hollywood, Steve Martin does not compare well to Spencer Tracy in all those remakes he cranked out. Also quite a letdown are the movies that dramatize comic books of 50 years ago like the Ironman and Spiderman movies. I'm ready for something new.
Is it important to maintain the ability of a few web-based games to run at the expense of everyone else on the Web, who are then forced to watch irritating autoplay videos when they open a Web page? At least, they could make the autoplay function a non-default option in the settings.
This censorship plan is a logical extension of the speech police that are now operating at American universities. Not only will the miscreants be censored, they won't even know that they are being censored until someone asks them why they dropped out of a conversation. We are well on the way to a harmonious groupthink, where no one will be offended and everyone will be equally unhappy.
The control group in the study will be provided with a diet consisting exclusively of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Doritos (any flavor), and whatever the subject wants from the Taco Bell menu. If they are lucky, the study will not last long.
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Sorry Ma'am, but we already have enormous excise taxes on alcohol, the hours of sale and physical availability are already strictly limited, and alcohol advertising is already strictly controlled. Any other suggestions?
You can get substantial fine almost everywhere in the US by texting or talking on your cell phone while you drive, but apparently playing Frogger while you drive is OK. God bless America.
If the billionaire media barons can't succeed in blocking the distribution of stuff that they own and control, how successful do you think a bunch of state governments will be at keeping something off the internet that they don't own? I wouldn't want to guess how many websites are already mirroring the do-it-yourself handgun plans, and a lot of them will be outside the US and far from the control of these state legislators. Like many state legislators, they seem to think that they can make the moon shine brighter than the sun and make water flow uphill.
In "In the Beginning was the Command Line", Neal Stephenson says that while people can get Linux -- a tank that will go anywhere and do anything -- free, many often opt to purchase Windows -- a clunky station wagon that leaks oil, spends a lot of time in the shop, and is expensive -- instead. The reason for this is that all their neighbors have the leaky station wagon already and they are afraid of being different, the same reason that the German government seems to be using.
When cash is gone, there will be an electronic trail available to tell anyone who can look exactly where and when you have been spending all your time and what you ate for lunch every day, The New Jersey "Easy Pass" system for paying highway tolls had only been in place for a few months before it was used in a court case to prove that a cheating spouse was not where he said he was at a particular time. This is a very small, minor example of what can happen. I prefer cash, thanks.
If you survey a large sample of people living on government largesse, I am pretty sure you will find that they don't feel "in control" of their lives. Instead, they are at the mercy of the government and are often completely demoralized by this. The money from any guaranteed income scheme is never enough to provide more than a hardscrabble existence, certainly not enough for most people to feel comfortable. Of course, the government loves this. It provides a permanent underclass of people who depend entirely on the government for their existence, and who are always available to riot in the street when the government needs this. If you want to feel in control of your life, get a job. You can always quit it and get another if you don't like it. Once you are trapped on the dole, you have no control at all.
Banks love the "cashless society" because they get a profit from every transaction everywhere. The government loves it because it provides a trail of breadcrumbs through every place you visit, complete with time stamps. Does the government really need to know which fast food outlet you prefer or where you go to buy groceries? I don't think so, but the data is being collected nevertheless.
Next year the company will experiment with a work week of three days, with the workers being paid for five days. Management predicts that the workers will be even happier. So do I.
For many years, the TV manufacturers insisted that it was impossible to mute commercials, even though they were consistently louder than the program material that contained them. Of course, many people said that it was really possible but that the TV companies were afraid of what the TV sponsors would do if their commercial messages were interfered with. Now, finally, a company that does not have a vested interest in sponsor advertising has given us part of what we need. If they would allow us to completely mute commercials and block the video that goes with them, I would be even happier.
Just like solar energy. Maybe more people will realize that there's no free lunch.
Welcome to the 21st century, senators. In case you hadn't heard, privacy is a quaint concept from the past. These TVs, which have now been around for years, are small potatoes compared to the small "digital assistant" spy devices people are voluntarily putting in their houses. Hey, Alexa! Tell Amazon that I thought about buying a pair of boots today! Hey Google! Call the FBI and tell them I said the word "bomb" three times!
Wow. This offer is nearly as attractive as the spy devices that Amazon and Google are selling people to put in their houses and order pizza for them. Now, for only $700 (plus a small monthly fee) you can make your vehicle immediately visible and tracked by the government or anyone else who really wants to. These people are taking away our last shreds of privacy, and many of us are dumb enough to pay for it.
Of course the customers who fill out evaluation forms know that they will be used, or at least hope that they will be used by the restaurant's managers. I have had far too many bad wait staff in restaurants to think that this is a bad thing. Until these tablets were provided, the only way to complain about service was to insist on seeing the manager and making a big scene. The waiters who insist that these ratings are unfair for some reason should think again. If their performance was rated consistently higher than their co-workers, then they would be getting extra shift time, not cuts. Maybe this will improve restaurant service to the level that exists in countries like Japan.
Don't the entertainment people ever have any new ideas? I was sick of Star Trek by 1971 and was never able to get interested in any of the interminable sequels. Yet, someone apparently does.
The UK's security minister is not content with having video cameras on every vertical support in the country, and feels the UK can only be saved from a "wild west" mob rule if every comment we make online is securely identified by a digital ID. The will allow the government to monitor all antisocial remarks and, of course, keep an eternal record of every one of them on the Internet. Obviously, the Land of Hope and Glory has descended into the pits of authoritarian government and totalitarian monitoring of all of its subjects. It was a good place once, but there's no England anymore.
If each of us planted a tree, it would consume enormous amounts of CO2 over its lifetime, it would produce O2 for us to breathe, and it would look great for many years. Of course this doesn't have the advantage of making some alternative-energy mogul rich.
The beggars and street bums in San Francisco already are equipped to take credit cards, but this will really step up their game. Thanks, tech industry!
This means that I will be able to run Linux as a bag on the side of your wonderful Windows 10 product with two big advantages over a normal Linux installation: I will have the enormous overhead and slow boot time of Windows to deal with daily. And, Windows 10 will continue to spy on my every move and report it to you without telling me. I can hardly wait to get on the bandwagon with this one.
For me, music is the most emotional and involving of the arts. It can span the whole human experience and dig deep into all of us. Modern pop music is a clean departure from the realm of emotion and feeling. The droning high-pitched lead voice, an uninspired repetitive lyric, and accompaniment that seems to be exclusively the product of a drum machine and bits of electronically synthesized sound patched together. The "samplers" are even worse, stealing the content of legitimate artists and pasting chunks of it together. It's something I would expect a 12-year-old to do, and shows very little creativity and no artistry. The music industry has corrupted itself and now it's trying to corrupt us.
The most interesting thing is that people are willing to accept the crappy explanation they received. It now seems that most people are willing to sacrifice their privacy just so they can impress their friends by asking Alexa (or whoever) to order a pizza for them. It's pathetic.
I will never voluntarily place one of these spy devices in my home.
The first Star Wars movie was released over 40 (yes, forty!) years ago, targeted for 10-year-olds, mainly. It was popular beyond anyone's dreams or expectations, so of course the businessmen in Hollywood copied it. They copied it over and over again, in a seemingly endless series of sequels that are increasingly unrelated to the original movie. The latest Star Wars sequel, Solo, is now showing signs that the public is bored with the series, with very low initial revenue numbers.
Doesn't anyone in Hollywood have any new ideas? I, for one, am sick of the endless sequels like these. Even worse are the remakes of popular movies from the past. Sorry, Hollywood, Steve Martin does not compare well to Spencer Tracy in all those remakes he cranked out. Also quite a letdown are the movies that dramatize comic books of 50 years ago like the Ironman and Spiderman movies. I'm ready for something new.
But none of the girls replied to his request.
Is it important to maintain the ability of a few web-based games to run at the expense of everyone else on the Web, who are then forced to watch irritating autoplay videos when they open a Web page? At least, they could make the autoplay function a non-default option in the settings.
This censorship plan is a logical extension of the speech police that are now operating at American universities. Not only will the miscreants be censored, they won't even know that they are being censored until someone asks them why they dropped out of a conversation. We are well on the way to a harmonious groupthink, where no one will be offended and everyone will be equally unhappy.
The control group in the study will be provided with a diet consisting exclusively of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Doritos (any flavor), and whatever the subject wants from the Taco Bell menu. If they are lucky, the study will not last long.