Is there something wrong with the Apache license? I'm really not up on the nuances of open source licensing - but I thought Apache was "good". A lot like the BSD license, right? You're allowed to make money with the software, but you can't lock the software away. This is good, in my book. Money isn't the determining factor in my book (gratis), but the freedom to use the software (libre).
Personally, I don't have much use for dotnet, or.net, or whatever. I played with it a little when I was strictly using Windows. Never saw much point in it. Not a coder, just a user - and all that I could see, was that MS was trying to corner a market where there was no market. Yeah - Enterprise fell in love with it, but what does dotnet offer Joe Schmuck, or his cousin, Joe Sixpack? Phht. Same with Silverlight. And, oh yeah, that Windows Virtual Machine thing that was supposed to displace Sun's JVM or JRE. Phhht.
Does anyone ever wonder what Windows might be like now, if MS had concentrated on building an OPERATING SYSTEM, first and foremost? We might have seen Win7 around 2003 or 4, without the Vista fiasco. Now in 2009, we might be looking at something really amazing.
Come on, Microsoft. Stop futzing around with crap like browsers, dotnet, and other meaningless drivel. Just make an operating system, and let other people worry about what to run on the operating system. Kinda like Linux does. And, stop changing your numbering system twice per decade while you're at it. It's still just freaking Windows NT6 - we didn't need Win2K, WinXP, the Vista failure, and now, somehow magically start fresh with a Windows 7.
Alright, I'm done bashing Microsoft - for awhile, anyway.
You should have had a few hard-headed Pollocks in your family tree. When I got divorced (22 years ago, and 3 sons later) I TOLD her what she was getting. She could have the furniture, her car (I still owed 2 grand on it) her clothes and jewelry, everything in the kitchen - and I would take my car and personal stuff, and split. No house, no kids.
She says "What about alimony?"
I says, "Nope. Don't matter WHAT a judge might say, I'm not paying for pussy that I'm not getting."
She huffed and puffed a little bit over that, but alimony was never brought up in court. She KNEW she wouldn't get it, because she knew me.
Ditto what Bolthole said. There are female soldiers, sailors, police, electricians, you name it. A programmer has the advantage that they can mostly remain anonymous, if they don't want their bodies and/or personalities put on public display. Anything a man can do, a woman can do, with VERY few exceptions, and often enough, better. That is, IF they just decide to do it.
Truck driving, for instance. It's a tough job, it takes you into some dangerous places, and it is dangerous in and of itself. Women have been driving for YEARS - and fleet controllers will readily tell you that they LIKE women drivers. Their equipment requires much less maintenance than male drivers, and they tend to get into fewer accidents.
Female cops have an advantage over their male counterparts. I got into an altercation in Chicago years ago. This lady cop was trying to calm me down, and put her hand on my upper arm, and chatted away. Some DUDE putting his hands on me would have made me more defensive - but when SHE did that, I started realizing how attractive she was, and LISTENED to her. Sexist? Yeah - but it works, and she knew how to make it work.
Ehhh. Whatever a person wants to do, they just need to get off their ass, and DO IT!!!
Fair question, I suppose. I really can't answer that. I can tell you, Walnut Hill was here when my father in law's parents had their first telephone installed. Things were kinda wild back in those days - three miles from the Oklahoma border, the various tribes would have a few people go off the reservations, Arkinda was a booming border town with killings every other weekend, an occasional bank robbery, so on and so forth. The big companies provided telephone service to Texarkana, but couldn't see the point in buying all the wire necessary to put in lines to Foreman, Wallace, Arkinda, Winthrop, and other backwoods little holes in the wall, scattered along the rail lines.
So, some relatively wealthy people got together, sold some bonds, and came up with the money necessary to start stringing wire, and buy a few switchboards.
They haven't sold out YET!! And, from what I understand, AT&T and Ma Bell tried really, really hard to get this market several times.
That situation reminds me of something - what could that be? Oh yeah - that infamous last freaking mile that the big telcos are so incapable of providing to rural America. Same deal. They won't invest in the country, they just want the tax breaks, the monopolies, and your money. I can't see people around here approving of a big telco buying away what they are used to.
I spent a couple of lovely weeks in Beirut City, helping to sort the mess - not to mention months of deployment aboard a guided missile destroyer prior to and after the evacuation of Beirut.
Worse, I have military aged sons. One is in uniform now, another will be in June. I have a stake in the situation.
I am thankful that my kids were allowed to grow up in peace, unlike the children born in the region. I'll be even more thankful if my kids aren't pulled into yet another fracas before they have THEIR kids.
Turning the television off doesn't make these real life problems go away.
Remember the USS Liberty. Remember the Cole. Remember the marines killed in Beirut. Remember 9/11 - which was a result of our support for Israel. So many casualties over the years - and so little return on our investment.
"I have it on good authority that there are only two kinds of people who spend their time thinking about killing people, and only one of them is mystery writers."
Citations?
Allow me to cite Grand Theft Auto, and dozens of similar games. And, I'll cite the entire list of Hollywood releases since 1900.
People being killed, mutilated, and horribly tortured sell movies by the billions. All this violence ranks right behind sex.
I'll wager that there isn't a single human being who does NOT fantasize violent endings for people they dislike.
I'll also cite history. "Peacetime" has been defined as interludes between wars, and I'm convinced that definition is more accurate than what dictionary publishers have to say.
The terrorists won. We, as a society, live in terror. Thanks George, and thanks Congress. And, thanks to all the freaky little nobodies who constantly chant "What if?" and "Think of the children!"
At some point, people have to face their fears, and just fucking get over it. Hey, when I was a kid, I was afraid of the dark. I got over it. Try it, everyone.
Yes, I just MIGHT be murdered by some drug crazed freak the next time I run to the convenience store late at night. Am I going to let that stop me?
Yes, Amanda just MIGHT be serious about stabbing someone in the throat. Chances are, she's just venting. And, a bunch of pussies have allowed that venting to disrupt their miserable little fearful lives.
Maybe they should have stayed in Mama's basement.....
I used VMWare first. Dabbled with Parallels, and went back to VMWare. They're pretty darned good. Then, I read an article on the philosophies of the competing virtualization teams, which lead me to google around for more.
Everyone, whether in research, or whatever, has a basic philosophy in their approach. You can't avoid it - even those who don't realize that they have one.
Anyway - VMWare seeks to do most of their work in software, whereas VBox seeks to make the hardware do most of the work. And, it makes sense. Why convert ANYTHING from one format to another, when the VM can be allowed to communicate directly with the hardware? If/when reformatting any data is necessary, keep it to the absolute minimum.
IMHO, at the time I switched to VBox, the hardware philosophy beat the software philosophy by a decent margin. As time goes on, I expect that margin to grow.
Am I right, or am I wrong? Only time will tell. For the time being, I'm very happy with VirtualBox 3.10 and I'll probably not change unless I hear of something happening elsewhere.
"you are going to end up with only a few companies after the shakeout occurs. "
Largely because the US has become conditioned to the idea that big companies are good. Globalization is a "good thing" and we want corporations large enough to compete on a global scale. "World class" is a benchmark we use to judge companies.
My telco serves 4 counties, I think - maybe a 5th. No one has ever heard of it. But, they are successful, in that they attract investors, and they show a profit every year. Rates are mostly competitive with the big companies. Like the big companies, they have a monopoly in their service area. I've come to like them, because I can talk to real people. And, if I ever feel the need to talk eyeball to eyeball with a service rep, it's a short drive over to Lewisville from my house.
Next time they start shooting at each other, just sit back and let them shoot. When one side is beaten into oblivion, they surrender, unconditionally. The other side writes the law, the beaten side obeys, or else.
And, I don't give a small rat's ass which side wins.
A year or two of all-out warfare, for survival, winner takes all, will ultimately mean fewer casualties than decades (or centuries) of off-again, on-again guerilla warfare and terrorism on both sides.
I'm half a century old (plus a couple years) and this shit's been going on for longer than I've been alive. Fight it out, get it over with. This silly assed squabble has gotten BORING!! There's never anything new, never any good news, never any peace. Just alternating open warfare, and covert warfare, interspersed with a terrorist attack. Fucking inbred idiots - on BOTH sides!
And, what exactly do you have against the nose picking, drooling, playing with his own feces insane sumbitch who recently vacated the White House? The one who made all the idiot voters believe that he was a Texan, but was actually an eastern pansy assed cheerleader in college? The batshit sumbitch who invaded Iraq, in response to an attack by a man known to be in Afghanistan?
I've not met any Libertarians who drool as much as that freaking Republican.
We should have made Robert Heinlein our President. He would have changed things - among other things, non-veterans wouldn't be allowed to vote. Starship Troopers!! Yeah!!
I know what has changed!! The Illegal Aliens, allied with Wall Street criminals, have won their war. Almost all American citizens are broke, losing their homes, and wondering if they can find a job in time to buy groceries before Grandma starves. (alright, I'll compromise - it's not really "almost all" Americans - it's only somewhere between 15 and 20%)
Making fun of Ozzies is mandatory for Americans. After all - many of the criminals shipped to Australia were first and second cousins to the criminals shipped to the American colonies, right? If we didn't bash each other verbally, we'd resort to bashing each other physically.;^)
It never ceases to amaze me just how holier than thou Americans are vis a vis the Chinese. FD: I've never been to either country. I have, however, traveled extensively, and I know many, many people from both places. =
There, sir, is your problem. Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to maintain a healthy ethnocentricity among people who TRAVEL?!?! Had you stayed in your native village, barefoot and hungry, as God intended you, then YOU TOO could be convinced that you are superior to everyone!!
Alright - end sarcasm.
Sometimes, I am embarrassed at my countrymen. People who have never been anywhere or done anything are so VERY certain that the US is the end-all, and the be-all of creation. God created the world just for us, because we are so perfect!!
To which I can only say - "BARF"!
Like yourself, I've traveled some. I never found a town where I couldn't find a pretty girl, nor have I ever found a town without a phat ugly broad. Life's pretty much the same, wherever you go, huh?
I'll have some Russian Caravan, please. And, no, it's not a "flavored tea". Maybe I live to far out in Backwoods, Nowhere, but no, I've not seen any real teas in the supermarket aisles.
That's one opinion. 3rd degree burns involve the destruction of underlying muscle and tissue. I've seen a lot of scalds in my life, NONE of which were 3rd degree. I've seen a man burnt with live steam, which most definitely WAS 3rd degree. I've seen people burnt from gasoline and gunpowder explosions, some of which were 3rd degree, others weren't.
I've read several accounts of that case, and my most honest opinion is, the old lady hired some good lawyers. I don't believe that she suffered 3rd degree burns. Irregardless of the severity of the burns, I'm pretty sure that the woman was at least equally at fault. The award was out of line.
Not that I like McDonald's or Corporate America, and I most certainly won't defend either one when they take advantage of the little guy. It's just that in this case, I don't believe the hype. I won't drink anyone's Kool-Aid.
Have you looked at our president this year? What - 8 generations ago, he would be seen as a runaway slave, right? Some lowlife SOB would hogtie him and take him back to the south for auction. "A fine, strong, healthy buck, do I hear 5000 dollars?"
We have Shrillary running all around the world making us look silly, and Rice before her. And, Rice is BOTH black and female!
We've even had a Catholic president.
Some queer bitch was just elected mayor of Houston.
We have some Native Americans holding office in this nation.
You want diversity? India has nothing on us. You need to keep up with current events, dude.
I can believe that. Most Americans think that Lipton's blend of black and orange pekoe is real tea. If Lipton's tea was thrown in the harbor, then nothing was lost after all. To get some REAL tea around here is almost impossible. If I do find some, they want a week's wages for a pound of tea. There's something wrong with this whole picture.
Agreed. Few people have any idea how to build a gaming (or any other) rig. A million kids (or their parents) buy a shit computer with insufficient memory, shitty video, underpowered CPU for ~300 to ~600 bucks, and find that they can't play games. The console sellers are right there to tell them that they COULD play games, if they bought that special console. So, now they've spent about a thousand dollars on a shitty computer AND a shitty console. If they had spent the thousand dollars properly to start with, they would have one heckuva computer that can be used for anything.
Ehh. I feel for you. I had an abusive father, and I can sympathize with what you are saying. Or, empathize. Even so - not all grandparents are assholes. And, some asshole parents mellow with age. I don't know if mine did or not - when I left his house at age 15, I never went back, he never saw his grandchildren, and I never even talked to him again.
But, there are literally MILLIONS of old bastards in this country who really do have a lot to offer today's kids. As a nation, we should tap into that resource. My wife's parents were great people, and Granny did her grandchildren a lot of good before we lost her. Grandpaw was just as great, but we lost him soon after our first son was born. I would have traded MY father's last thirty years for another ten years with HER father, in a heartbeat. To bad we can't make deals like that.....
All I'm saying is, look past the trees, and try to see the forest, alright?
People who have a calculator from age 5 may or may not learn to do long division. People who rely on GPS may or may not learn to read a map and navigate on their own. Both tools can become a crutch.
As for annoying and intrusive GPS systems - I've had them. Not my own, but company owned. Peoplenet was annoying as all hell. I had to take a pencil and gouge out the speaker to shut it up - there was no way for the user to turn the volume down, or off. That pencil took care of things, nicely. The other one I used was from Quallcom - another company owned thing. I ran the same route repeatedly from California to Houston and points east. It always routed me the same way. I told my boss that I could save miles, time, and fuel if I could route myself. He INSISTED that I follow Quallcom's routing. Finally, I TOLD him which way I was going, he said I'd be charged for out of route miles. End of trip odometer reading said I saved miles - can't remember how many now, I think it was about 180 miles. Talk about some breathtaking scenery - Apache country is just beautiful!! And, no, it isn't all desert scrub land, either. Quallcom was a little better than Peoplenet - I was able to turn the volume down on that stupid beeper thing - not off, but down.
I suppose that GPS sold to end consumers would be a lot less intrusive and annoying, but when the company is paying for it, they could care less how much that end user likes or dislikes it.
Slashdot Mirror
Is there something wrong with the Apache license? I'm really not up on the nuances of open source licensing - but I thought Apache was "good". A lot like the BSD license, right? You're allowed to make money with the software, but you can't lock the software away. This is good, in my book. Money isn't the determining factor in my book (gratis), but the freedom to use the software (libre).
Flamebait? Not the old Wombat!!
Personally, I don't have much use for dotnet, or .net, or whatever. I played with it a little when I was strictly using Windows. Never saw much point in it. Not a coder, just a user - and all that I could see, was that MS was trying to corner a market where there was no market. Yeah - Enterprise fell in love with it, but what does dotnet offer Joe Schmuck, or his cousin, Joe Sixpack? Phht. Same with Silverlight. And, oh yeah, that Windows Virtual Machine thing that was supposed to displace Sun's JVM or JRE. Phhht.
Does anyone ever wonder what Windows might be like now, if MS had concentrated on building an OPERATING SYSTEM, first and foremost? We might have seen Win7 around 2003 or 4, without the Vista fiasco. Now in 2009, we might be looking at something really amazing.
Come on, Microsoft. Stop futzing around with crap like browsers, dotnet, and other meaningless drivel. Just make an operating system, and let other people worry about what to run on the operating system. Kinda like Linux does. And, stop changing your numbering system twice per decade while you're at it. It's still just freaking Windows NT6 - we didn't need Win2K, WinXP, the Vista failure, and now, somehow magically start fresh with a Windows 7.
Alright, I'm done bashing Microsoft - for awhile, anyway.
You should have had a few hard-headed Pollocks in your family tree. When I got divorced (22 years ago, and 3 sons later) I TOLD her what she was getting. She could have the furniture, her car (I still owed 2 grand on it) her clothes and jewelry, everything in the kitchen - and I would take my car and personal stuff, and split. No house, no kids.
She says "What about alimony?"
I says, "Nope. Don't matter WHAT a judge might say, I'm not paying for pussy that I'm not getting."
She huffed and puffed a little bit over that, but alimony was never brought up in court. She KNEW she wouldn't get it, because she knew me.
Ditto what Bolthole said. There are female soldiers, sailors, police, electricians, you name it. A programmer has the advantage that they can mostly remain anonymous, if they don't want their bodies and/or personalities put on public display. Anything a man can do, a woman can do, with VERY few exceptions, and often enough, better. That is, IF they just decide to do it.
Truck driving, for instance. It's a tough job, it takes you into some dangerous places, and it is dangerous in and of itself. Women have been driving for YEARS - and fleet controllers will readily tell you that they LIKE women drivers. Their equipment requires much less maintenance than male drivers, and they tend to get into fewer accidents.
Female cops have an advantage over their male counterparts. I got into an altercation in Chicago years ago. This lady cop was trying to calm me down, and put her hand on my upper arm, and chatted away. Some DUDE putting his hands on me would have made me more defensive - but when SHE did that, I started realizing how attractive she was, and LISTENED to her. Sexist? Yeah - but it works, and she knew how to make it work.
Ehhh. Whatever a person wants to do, they just need to get off their ass, and DO IT!!!
Fair question, I suppose. I really can't answer that. I can tell you, Walnut Hill was here when my father in law's parents had their first telephone installed. Things were kinda wild back in those days - three miles from the Oklahoma border, the various tribes would have a few people go off the reservations, Arkinda was a booming border town with killings every other weekend, an occasional bank robbery, so on and so forth. The big companies provided telephone service to Texarkana, but couldn't see the point in buying all the wire necessary to put in lines to Foreman, Wallace, Arkinda, Winthrop, and other backwoods little holes in the wall, scattered along the rail lines.
So, some relatively wealthy people got together, sold some bonds, and came up with the money necessary to start stringing wire, and buy a few switchboards.
They haven't sold out YET!! And, from what I understand, AT&T and Ma Bell tried really, really hard to get this market several times.
That situation reminds me of something - what could that be? Oh yeah - that infamous last freaking mile that the big telcos are so incapable of providing to rural America. Same deal. They won't invest in the country, they just want the tax breaks, the monopolies, and your money. I can't see people around here approving of a big telco buying away what they are used to.
I spent a couple of lovely weeks in Beirut City, helping to sort the mess - not to mention months of deployment aboard a guided missile destroyer prior to and after the evacuation of Beirut.
Worse, I have military aged sons. One is in uniform now, another will be in June. I have a stake in the situation.
I am thankful that my kids were allowed to grow up in peace, unlike the children born in the region. I'll be even more thankful if my kids aren't pulled into yet another fracas before they have THEIR kids.
Turning the television off doesn't make these real life problems go away.
Remember the USS Liberty. Remember the Cole. Remember the marines killed in Beirut. Remember 9/11 - which was a result of our support for Israel. So many casualties over the years - and so little return on our investment.
"I have it on good authority that there are only two kinds of people who spend their time thinking about killing people, and only one of them is mystery writers."
Citations?
Allow me to cite Grand Theft Auto, and dozens of similar games. And, I'll cite the entire list of Hollywood releases since 1900.
People being killed, mutilated, and horribly tortured sell movies by the billions. All this violence ranks right behind sex.
I'll wager that there isn't a single human being who does NOT fantasize violent endings for people they dislike.
I'll also cite history. "Peacetime" has been defined as interludes between wars, and I'm convinced that definition is more accurate than what dictionary publishers have to say.
The terrorists won. We, as a society, live in terror. Thanks George, and thanks Congress. And, thanks to all the freaky little nobodies who constantly chant "What if?" and "Think of the children!"
At some point, people have to face their fears, and just fucking get over it. Hey, when I was a kid, I was afraid of the dark. I got over it. Try it, everyone.
Yes, I just MIGHT be murdered by some drug crazed freak the next time I run to the convenience store late at night. Am I going to let that stop me?
Yes, Amanda just MIGHT be serious about stabbing someone in the throat. Chances are, she's just venting. And, a bunch of pussies have allowed that venting to disrupt their miserable little fearful lives.
Maybe they should have stayed in Mama's basement.....
I used VMWare first. Dabbled with Parallels, and went back to VMWare. They're pretty darned good. Then, I read an article on the philosophies of the competing virtualization teams, which lead me to google around for more.
Everyone, whether in research, or whatever, has a basic philosophy in their approach. You can't avoid it - even those who don't realize that they have one.
Anyway - VMWare seeks to do most of their work in software, whereas VBox seeks to make the hardware do most of the work. And, it makes sense. Why convert ANYTHING from one format to another, when the VM can be allowed to communicate directly with the hardware? If/when reformatting any data is necessary, keep it to the absolute minimum.
IMHO, at the time I switched to VBox, the hardware philosophy beat the software philosophy by a decent margin. As time goes on, I expect that margin to grow.
Am I right, or am I wrong? Only time will tell. For the time being, I'm very happy with VirtualBox 3.10 and I'll probably not change unless I hear of something happening elsewhere.
"you are going to end up with only a few companies after the shakeout occurs. "
Largely because the US has become conditioned to the idea that big companies are good. Globalization is a "good thing" and we want corporations large enough to compete on a global scale. "World class" is a benchmark we use to judge companies.
My telco serves 4 counties, I think - maybe a 5th. No one has ever heard of it. But, they are successful, in that they attract investors, and they show a profit every year. Rates are mostly competitive with the big companies. Like the big companies, they have a monopoly in their service area. I've come to like them, because I can talk to real people. And, if I ever feel the need to talk eyeball to eyeball with a service rep, it's a short drive over to Lewisville from my house.
You're right, of course, but it sucks, IMHO
My solution to the whole mess?
Next time they start shooting at each other, just sit back and let them shoot. When one side is beaten into oblivion, they surrender, unconditionally. The other side writes the law, the beaten side obeys, or else.
And, I don't give a small rat's ass which side wins.
A year or two of all-out warfare, for survival, winner takes all, will ultimately mean fewer casualties than decades (or centuries) of off-again, on-again guerilla warfare and terrorism on both sides.
I'm half a century old (plus a couple years) and this shit's been going on for longer than I've been alive. Fight it out, get it over with. This silly assed squabble has gotten BORING!! There's never anything new, never any good news, never any peace. Just alternating open warfare, and covert warfare, interspersed with a terrorist attack. Fucking inbred idiots - on BOTH sides!
"Sorry but I'm just not willing to vote for someone who isn't smarter than I am."
That makes it tough on anyone smarter than a rock.....
And, what exactly do you have against the nose picking, drooling, playing with his own feces insane sumbitch who recently vacated the White House? The one who made all the idiot voters believe that he was a Texan, but was actually an eastern pansy assed cheerleader in college? The batshit sumbitch who invaded Iraq, in response to an attack by a man known to be in Afghanistan?
I've not met any Libertarians who drool as much as that freaking Republican.
We should have made Robert Heinlein our President. He would have changed things - among other things, non-veterans wouldn't be allowed to vote. Starship Troopers!! Yeah!!
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
I know what has changed!! The Illegal Aliens, allied with Wall Street criminals, have won their war. Almost all American citizens are broke, losing their homes, and wondering if they can find a job in time to buy groceries before Grandma starves. (alright, I'll compromise - it's not really "almost all" Americans - it's only somewhere between 15 and 20%)
Making fun of Ozzies is mandatory for Americans. After all - many of the criminals shipped to Australia were first and second cousins to the criminals shipped to the American colonies, right? If we didn't bash each other verbally, we'd resort to bashing each other physically. ;^)
by MrNaz
It never ceases to amaze me just how holier than thou Americans are vis a vis the Chinese. FD: I've never been to either country. I have, however, traveled extensively, and I know many, many people from both places.
=
There, sir, is your problem. Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to maintain a healthy ethnocentricity among people who TRAVEL?!?! Had you stayed in your native village, barefoot and hungry, as God intended you, then YOU TOO could be convinced that you are superior to everyone!!
Alright - end sarcasm.
Sometimes, I am embarrassed at my countrymen. People who have never been anywhere or done anything are so VERY certain that the US is the end-all, and the be-all of creation. God created the world just for us, because we are so perfect!!
To which I can only say - "BARF"!
Like yourself, I've traveled some. I never found a town where I couldn't find a pretty girl, nor have I ever found a town without a phat ugly broad. Life's pretty much the same, wherever you go, huh?
I'll have some Russian Caravan, please. And, no, it's not a "flavored tea". Maybe I live to far out in Backwoods, Nowhere, but no, I've not seen any real teas in the supermarket aisles.
That's one opinion. 3rd degree burns involve the destruction of underlying muscle and tissue. I've seen a lot of scalds in my life, NONE of which were 3rd degree. I've seen a man burnt with live steam, which most definitely WAS 3rd degree. I've seen people burnt from gasoline and gunpowder explosions, some of which were 3rd degree, others weren't.
I've read several accounts of that case, and my most honest opinion is, the old lady hired some good lawyers. I don't believe that she suffered 3rd degree burns. Irregardless of the severity of the burns, I'm pretty sure that the woman was at least equally at fault. The award was out of line.
Not that I like McDonald's or Corporate America, and I most certainly won't defend either one when they take advantage of the little guy. It's just that in this case, I don't believe the hype. I won't drink anyone's Kool-Aid.
*cough*
Have you looked at our president this year? What - 8 generations ago, he would be seen as a runaway slave, right? Some lowlife SOB would hogtie him and take him back to the south for auction. "A fine, strong, healthy buck, do I hear 5000 dollars?"
We have Shrillary running all around the world making us look silly, and Rice before her. And, Rice is BOTH black and female!
We've even had a Catholic president.
Some queer bitch was just elected mayor of Houston.
We have some Native Americans holding office in this nation.
You want diversity? India has nothing on us. You need to keep up with current events, dude.
I can believe that. Most Americans think that Lipton's blend of black and orange pekoe is real tea. If Lipton's tea was thrown in the harbor, then nothing was lost after all. To get some REAL tea around here is almost impossible. If I do find some, they want a week's wages for a pound of tea. There's something wrong with this whole picture.
Agreed. Few people have any idea how to build a gaming (or any other) rig. A million kids (or their parents) buy a shit computer with insufficient memory, shitty video, underpowered CPU for ~300 to ~600 bucks, and find that they can't play games. The console sellers are right there to tell them that they COULD play games, if they bought that special console. So, now they've spent about a thousand dollars on a shitty computer AND a shitty console. If they had spent the thousand dollars properly to start with, they would have one heckuva computer that can be used for anything.
Consoles were a ripoff from day one.
But, there's a sucker born every day.
Ehh. I feel for you. I had an abusive father, and I can sympathize with what you are saying. Or, empathize. Even so - not all grandparents are assholes. And, some asshole parents mellow with age. I don't know if mine did or not - when I left his house at age 15, I never went back, he never saw his grandchildren, and I never even talked to him again.
But, there are literally MILLIONS of old bastards in this country who really do have a lot to offer today's kids. As a nation, we should tap into that resource. My wife's parents were great people, and Granny did her grandchildren a lot of good before we lost her. Grandpaw was just as great, but we lost him soon after our first son was born. I would have traded MY father's last thirty years for another ten years with HER father, in a heartbeat. To bad we can't make deals like that.....
All I'm saying is, look past the trees, and try to see the forest, alright?
People who have a calculator from age 5 may or may not learn to do long division. People who rely on GPS may or may not learn to read a map and navigate on their own. Both tools can become a crutch.
As for annoying and intrusive GPS systems - I've had them. Not my own, but company owned. Peoplenet was annoying as all hell. I had to take a pencil and gouge out the speaker to shut it up - there was no way for the user to turn the volume down, or off. That pencil took care of things, nicely. The other one I used was from Quallcom - another company owned thing. I ran the same route repeatedly from California to Houston and points east. It always routed me the same way. I told my boss that I could save miles, time, and fuel if I could route myself. He INSISTED that I follow Quallcom's routing. Finally, I TOLD him which way I was going, he said I'd be charged for out of route miles. End of trip odometer reading said I saved miles - can't remember how many now, I think it was about 180 miles. Talk about some breathtaking scenery - Apache country is just beautiful!! And, no, it isn't all desert scrub land, either.
Quallcom was a little better than Peoplenet - I was able to turn the volume down on that stupid beeper thing - not off, but down.
I suppose that GPS sold to end consumers would be a lot less intrusive and annoying, but when the company is paying for it, they could care less how much that end user likes or dislikes it.
Maybe you have Mr. Tech toolkit, and you've told FF not to check version compatibility?