My mistake.
I called the people being targeted traitors,
when they are enemy fighters trying to kill people from afar, in their own self declared war on the country of their citizenship. ( Which also makes them a traitor ).
But enemy fighters above all. On their own field of battle.
So no, no trial.
From what I understand, there are many, many 'American citizens' scheming against the American government.
Those people are Not on a 'hit list' that I am aware of. Though I am sure that they are being watched.
So I must disagree with your statement of the U.S. government asserting that it's allowed to 'arbirtarily' (sic) kill its own citizens.
These people of various citizenships are at war with America. Making themselves the enemy.
And this field of battle is almost worldwide.
All of which is leading this administration to publicly determine whether this enemy soldier/warrior/traitor should be hunted down across borders into his own battlefield and eliminated.
I know, the last administration, as well as this one at first, just went ahead and blew these enemies up by drone wherever they were hiding, without any kind of public notice or oversight. We the People reacted to that strongly and negatively, and apparently they've learned that lesson, at least. They are at least making the public aware that there is a debate going on. Which should lead to many mixed feelings and input about the situation.
My feeling ?
Someone just accused of being a traitor, then yes, a trial to decide if that is fact or not.
An enemy soldier trying to kill Americans, then yeah, they are fair game. No matter how widespread the battlefield, no matter what country the enemy has his citizenship. No trial needed.
When the American south went to war against the American government in the civil war, no soldier on the battlefield expected a trial before he was allowed to be shot in battle.
Same deal here. Attack us, then it is war. And you will be a target. No matter what country you came from.
So, I apologize.
That was where I went wrong in my first reply to you. I simply called these 'targeted Americans' traitors.
But they are more than that, they are enemy fighters actively trying to kill Americans in a war they started.
As for having to drone bomb them from afar, well, I don't like the idea because of the uncertainty, and the risk of bombing civilians or even the wrong people, as this article points out.
I also see how the situation can leave not a lot of choice here, without invading a lot of other countries just find all the enemy soldiers.
In the case of the last few conflicts, there are no clearly drawn battle lines.
In times past, an army marched across land and sea and air and met in battle with usually clearly drawn lines of battle, under their banners, or in their uniforms, and fighting it out, with the winners moving the battleline forward.
Now, this enemy is hiding in homes and caves, holes or basements, across vast areas of several other countries, persuading, or forcing, other men and women to blow up groups of unarmed American civilians at work or at play, thousands of miles away, and sacrificing their own lives in the process ( since the bombs are strapped to them, or they are wearing the thing ).
They do this Not to claim land or to free the people, but apparently just to make a statement, since they can't possibly hope to take over the United States by doing this.
There is no real battlefield. No battlelines. No front.
The enemy is not with his army marching across the field of battle. He can't be shot, wounded or killed in the battle, because he is no where near the battle.
He has to be hunted down in his hidey hole.
So, as enemy soldiers, I think that these people have forfeited any right to a trial, regardless of their citizenship.
I see that the U.S. government is trying to target the most dangerous enemy soldiers in their hidey holes, and not just any American with a grudge and
Well, During earlier wars, traitors would be hung. Or face a firing squad. American citizens or not.
If these are in deed traitors, they decided their own fate.
I betcha they paid for this with the change from those $ 500.00 toilet seats and $ 200.00 hammers.
Oh, and maybe they siphoned some money from those $100 Million dollar F-35's.
No wonder the government is always close to broke.
*snip* By a conservative estimate, lets say 100 dollars to buy the game, plus 15*12 = 280 dollars MINIMUM to play this game for a year.
It'd cost you much less than $100.00 to get the game and all of it's expansions now. About half that, actually.
With the newest patch, [ 4.2.0 ] - anyone who has a retail version of vanilla WOW ( The first CD ) is automatically upgraded to The Burning Crusade expansion now. see http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2993743#technical ( last item under general patch notes ).
And that first version of WoW is on sale often for about $ 10.00 these days.
So for $10 bucks if you catch it on sale, you get World of Warcraft and the first expansion ( The Burning Crusade ), which is now included. ( It downloads for you automatically when you begin playing ).
I found the Cataclysm expansion on sale at Buy.com during the month of May for $18.00 shipped.
So I'm up to $28.00, and just waiting for the WoLK expansion to go on sale somewhere. I figure I should be able to snag it for $20.00 or less. Making WoW - with all the expansions - cost about $48.00 for the software this year, or about the price of most other games on CD / DVD lately. Whether they be for PC, Mac, XBox, etc.
Rock on man! I agree with 1000% of your post, including the sig. I gotta get back and check out The Realm myself. Very nice, and really seemed to start this whole MMORPG thing, via transitioning MUDs to "modern" MMORPGS via tolerable graphical interfaces and reward systems. I waited and waited for someone on this thread to chime in about it. You sir, are the victor. Simple and fun (not to mention affordable), and yet, largely forgotten. I would mod you up, but I really wanted to post a letter of appreciation from another Realm brother!
Great to see your post, BigSes !
I couldn't believe it myself when I searched these posts and saw no mention of the grand-daddy of MMORPG's ! I had to chirp up.
Glad to meet you, if/when you log in to The Realm, look for WebWarrior ( 400 Warrior ), Wryen ( 400 Wizzie ), Kalann ( 520 Adventurer, or MorningGlory. ( Yeah, I prefer watching the female form on my screen all day:) A male Warriors arse is just too 'butt' ugly to be having to look at on my monitor for hours at a time, even if we are just talking about pixels !
Thanks for the Cheers, brother. Made my day meeting a fellow Realmer.
Seeya in the game:)
Ok, moving away from the PvP conversation and more towards the OP's queries about the old games with housing, house thieves, pick pocketing, and whatnot, brought to mind a game I'd played for years, in a galaxy far, far away....:)
No, nothing to do with Star Wars, but it is in it's own little world.
It's one of the oldest MMORPG games is still going. ( It claims to be THE Oldest still going ).
The Realm Online http://www.realmserver.com/ , though not as popular as EQ or WoW, still has it's cartoonish charm, PvE or PvP, ( You can switch your own PvP on or off, or just attack another PvP flagged player to turn it on ).
And last I knew, each player still had their own password protected house, with lock chests in the bedrooms, but you needed to get into the habit of typing/evict and using your see invisibility spell to make sure you weren't going to get robbed.
I return to The Realm every few years or so, it's such a neat trip down memory lane.. and I'm glad it's still there. And, every time I return, my trusty old characters are right there waiting for me.
Last time I'd played the max level was 1000.
And it didn't come easy.
Gee.. Thanks guys... now I'm thinking it's time to renew my subscription.
Well, I guess it won't hurt to help keep a piece of history going !
Way to Create New Jobs !
Instead of hiring the many unemployed in the country to watch these cameras at, say, $15.00 an hour, our Gov't decides to ask for 300,000 volunteers to do the job for them for free ! Good thinking, that.
Does this mean that these volunteers are considered part and parcel of Homeland Security ?
It's not just users. Applications still aren't being written to work properly with non-administrator accounts. I just installed SimplyAccounting 2010 on Windows XP and started getting weird errors poking around in it using a Limited Account, but switching to an Administrator account, no more errors.
I agree, the problem with Windows is not so much the OS itself but poorly written applications.
One of the largest examples is World of Warcraft. After five years, it still insists on storing all of its data in its program directory. I actually had to install it outside of Program Files to get it to work on Vista, even with UAC turned off and logged in as Administrator (the account, not an account in that group).
I think more software developers need to look at Firefox, a good example. Data, including plugins, are kept in the user's home. Different users can have different plugins and data, and everything just works even on a properly-secured system.
Blizzard can even download the source code to figure out basic stuff like "where to put files" because after all these years of writing Windows games, they still lack that basic knowledge.
Actually, in Windows 7, WoW installs itself all over ones hard drive.
In Win7, WoW primarily installs into the Users-Public folders by default, apparently to avoid UAC issues, especially while updating. ( Users-Public-Games-World of WarCraft ).
But it now also installs files into several other folders throughout the hierarchy.
Like the update and cache info in the Users-[your user name ]- AppData-Local-Blizzard Entertainment folder.
And a log file in ProgramData-Blizzard,
as well as dll files and Uninstall info in Program Files-Common Files- Blizzard Entertainment-World of Warcraft.
There may be other locations now as well, but the point is Blizzard must have heard your wish, because now WoW is 'installed' into so many different places in my hard drive that I'd have trouble backing this one particular application up easily on a regular basis.
I don't like the way it installs now in Windows 7.
I'd rather it all be in one place, so I don't have to hunt all over my hard drive in order to back this program up. Or to remove it.
Most cows are kept in a field, milked then slaughtered, and they don't seem to mind. They make little effort to escape their field, look happy while chewing the cud as they are milked, and only in the last few minutes of their lives do they show signs of concern. By then of course, it is too late.
What most people think doesn't matter when one person can see what is happening and appreciates the consequences. It is their view I am interested in.
To you Mad Merlin, I say moo. Keep chewing the cud.
Dude, do you know how long a cow would last in the Serengeti ? Or even in the woods in upstate NY ?
As soon as the lions and tigers and bears caught a sniff of that cow, said cow would be chased down until it either fell from exhaustion or was tackled by fangs and claws in it's neck. Then it would be mercilessly ripped apart while alive, to feed the animals above it in natures food chain.
Said cow might last 2 days in the wild. 2 days of nervous 'freedom' while it looked for food whilst trying to not become food.
So, you're right. A cow in a field full of food and virtually no predators would stay put, happily. Hell, we humans pretty much do the same.
Even though this cow still ends up being food someday, it has a better life. ( I'm talkin' field raised cattle here, obviously. The pen operations suck. )
With humans, I would venture to say that the cow's death is less dramatic, and probably less painful.
Getting back on the subject,
The point is,
If you aren't living in the wild yourself, then somebody, somewhere, has your history. Your credit history, your employment history, you health history, your shopping history, your web page history, and on and on...
If you use a shopping card, Like Krogers, Marsh, IGA, etc, then you probably get coupons in the mail for just the exact foods that you like to eat and that you normally buy. Your coupon is a thank you for having allowed your grocer to sell your purchasing and eating habits to other firms.
Your bank regularly sells your information to brokers, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, and anyone else with some cash to pony up for the information. In fact, almost ALL of the companies you've Ever done business with, sells your information in some form or another. This gives them even more income to further enhance their bottom line.
So why are you so paranoid about this company verses all the others ?
btw, this is all Just in case you were unaware of, but might become interested in, this view.
As mentioned in several posts before this one, I prefer to be redirected to PayPal's own website, and being asked to confirm my UID and password there.
The whole idea behind PayPal was always anonymity when making payments online. The website you were purchasing from never had a chance to get your payment information. Being redirected to PayPal to make such an 'anonymous' payment to any website, made transactions safe and secure ( with any legitimate website, anyway ), and it also let me double check that I was indeed being redirected to PayPal, and not to some web page in Nigeria. .
With this API, I don't think that I can never be sure of that. Too much is happening behind the scene.
I would be entering my payment info into the web server of company xyz. In fact, alot of different company xyz's, throughout the year. Are each of these companies promising me that they aren't keeping my payment info ? Is my payment info being automatically and silently backed up into a dozen places on the operating system ? Histories ? Web Logs ? Is company xyz promising me that their system is well maintained, locked down, and they can safeguard the information that I have entered into their web page ? Will there never be any scripts on their web server that can capture my information and send it to Nigeria ?
I don't think so.
I don't see why PayPal is moving away from the security model that sold so many of us into using their service to begin with. And, just for PayPal's information, I don't like the new idea.
I guess that all I can hope for is that PayPal insists that all of their clients include a link for me to go to the PayPal webpage to complete a transaction, just the way it has been for years now. And put that link somewhere close by this new API gizmo of theirs..
Wouldn't matter. You could shoot him and abuse his body, guillotine him, or drive him to suicide with his letter opener, and the next RIAA CEO would continue in the same vein (only with better security). It's the organization which needs to be destroyed, not any individual head of it.
It's not just one CEO.
That "RIAA Organization" is owned, or paid for, and representing, and suing people, at the behest of the record labels you buy your CD"s from.
These include;
Big Machine Records
BMG Entertainment
Disney
EMI ( Capitol, Capitol Nashville, Virgin Records, and others )
Flicker
HBO
MGM
MTV ( including Nick at Nite, Nickelodeon, VH-1 and others )
Paradigm
Sony BMG ( Columbia, Epic, RCA, Arista, and others )[ all part of the same family ]
Universal Music Group ( Universal Records )
Warner Music Group
etc.
There are hundreds of them.
If you haven't seen it before, here's a good list http://www.riaaradar.com/tree.asp
That is your RIAA. It isn't just one CEO. It's the group of companies in that list on that website.
Want to hurt them ? Stop buying their stuff and feeding their lawyers, till they fly right.
I haven't purchased a CD from any of these 'companies', or any Sony product in almost 4 years. And Counting. And I hear plenty of music all day long on the radio. It ain't killing me.
I don't want my money going to their lawyers to twist the laws the way they do. It's a matter of principle. And now, maybe even pride.
I'm not out to sink the RIAA. The record labels need that group to protect their interests. It's the way they are Going About protecting that interest that I am opposed to. And I don't want the record labels to disappear either. I like music.
But I won't give my money to any group that abuses peoples rights and the laws as they were Intended.
I'm not hurting them much, they seem to have made it through this last recession without having to ask for a handout from the feds. Even if they do claim they are in such poor financial condition from the abundant volumes of piracy they say is going on, they seem to be in good financial shape. So Somebody is still buying their products and supporting their RIAA "lawyers".
Which leads me to a parting question. Don't lawyers have to take some kind of oath to uphold the spirit of our Constitution and obey the laws that protect the people ?
I remember when dial up was priced per hour. Competition slowly and inevitably drove the price down further and further, and then some companies offered unlimited dial up at a fixed price. A few even offered unlimited monthly dial up for free ! ( NetZero, Surfree, and that little ISP in my hometown, and in hometowns across the country. to name but a few of the inexpensive dial up options that appeared. And that are even now out there, still, to this day ). And they still do a decent business.
So yes, Verizon, PLEASE start charging per Kb or MB or whatever. We've been down this road before. Your prices will all eventually be driven ever downward by the competition, like dial up was. Until the time, in the not so distant future, when your metered service will either become so cheap that that you will run away from the market with your tail between your legs, Verizon, or it will become such an expensive and poor choice for most folks that people will drop your company altogether and go elsewhere.
Ironically, NetZero is still out there, waiting for your next move, Verizon. I see their TV ads every day, telling people that all they really need is NetZero's basic service at around $10.00 a MONTH, saving folks about $300.00 a year over broadband. They're not free anymore, but they are a real bargain.
Go ahead and laugh, but dial up is really all that most folks really need for checking email and a short web surfing session. Think Grandma and Grandpa, and all of those out there with active lifestyles that only use their home desktops for maybe 10 minutes a day. They are usually out and about, playing and dining, and using their Smartphones all day long. Dial up suits lots of people just fine. And if Verizon or anyone else starts gouging folks with overage charges with their metered service, as they used to with their cell phone plans, I can see a whole lot more folks going back to dialup. Especially at just $10.00 a month. Unlimited.
I will watch Verizon and their ilk dig themselves another hole while trying to empty peoples pockets with this metered plan of theirs. Should be entertaining to see if they survive yet another attempt to gouge their customers with overage fees. Yeah, they'll make a bundle on overage fees for a while in the beginning, at their customers expense, of course. Which leads to them losing customers in droves, again. Which leads to lower prices, and spending tons in advertising and new service terms and lower price points than the competitors trying to get their market share back. Sound familiar Verizon ? And Sprint ? Life can be such a vicious circle.
Ok, the older car has a whole lot more metal than the newer car. If the newer car had hit a tractor trailer, which is made with more metal, the newer car would have been smished. If the newer car had hit a train, which is made with even more metal, the newer car would have been pulverized. Suggesting that more metal would equate to more protection. Certainly more protection than what I saw in this video. So why is the newer car, with less metal, looking better than the older car, which has more steel in it's front bumper the the newer car has throughout it's entire body.
Could it be that the 50 year old metal in the older car was just plain OLD ? Fatigued ? weakened ? not necessarily rusted, but just weaker than it was in 1959.
I think the solution is to have the concept of "intellectual property" work both ways. Obviously your private information has value, otherwise advertisers and other companies wouldn't go to such great lenghts to obtain and use it. The problem is that they obtain it without your consent and without directly compensating you. For example, if I don't actively block web bugs, cookies, HTTP "ping", analytics tools, and other similar attempts, then that data will be gathered whether or not I like it.
Agreed.
An example,
Firefox, plus the Ghostery addon = the ability to block the Doubleclick web bug / tracking beacon on slashdot's pages.
P.S. - apologies to/. for reducing your ability to make money. But you're making that money by allowing a sleezy third party to track me online, which ticks me off. Find another way.
But, when you say
The reason why I actively go out of my way to prevent companies from gathering data on me is simple. No one asked me if I wanted to be data-mined. I refuse to honor agreements in which I did not participate. Why anyone else would do so is a mystery to me.
You would be told that just loading, looking at, or using a website, or promotion, or using a store card ( Krogers, Marsh, etc ), means that you have agreed to their terms of service, and said terms of service usually say that in return for the privilege of using their website or promotion or whatever, you give consent to such tracking.
They have themselves covered.
I understand where you're coming from, but the other replies to your ideas are right. Someone is going to have to clean up the mess. And someone is going to have to try to save your life.
Besides, if I tried one of your ideas, knowing my luck, I'd live through it, and be in that much more pain. As well as being crippled and requiring somebody to have to care for me.
I'll have to ponder this more, and find something that I'd love to do, wouldn't require someone to clean up the mess or try to save me, and would surely have the desired effect.
Sounds to me like the power companies are going to be making money hand over fist, buying up cheap rate solar power from it's customers, reselling it at almost double that rate, all while meeting the governments mandates to be whatever percent renewable by such n such a date at no expense to the power company, as the consumers lead the way. Of course.
Nice little bonus that the power companies can now negate any benefit a customer might have by moving to solar by demanding fees on the money a customer could have saved on their bills.
Oh, yeah, and those "rebates" to consumers for moving to solar or wind power do not cover anywhere Near the full costs of doing so. That is not even a valid argument by the power companies.
And NOW let's add the ongoing maintenance of producing that power for the next 25 years. On the consumers dime, of course.
I call BullShit on the whole deal. BS BS BS !
I cannot wait until everyone can go off grid.
I hope it happens soon, suddenly and completely.
LONG before we actually run out of oil and dirty coal.
The main concern is whether the computer controlled airspeed and altitude indicators malfunctioned. The investigations are coming to that conclusion. And when the airspeed and altitude data are incorrect, ( indicating to the flight control computers that the aircraft is flying too slow, or too low, or losing altitude, or all of those things, then the onboard flight computers are going to maximum thrust to regain speed and altitude. The result can be severe over-speed, with the possibility of the aircraft failing structurally, or a drmatic computer controlled mid-flight correction of the aircraftwhilst the computer is trying to make sense of bad data.
But if the flight is already at the correct altitude and at speed, then those adjustments could be disastrous. Such adjustments at altitude and at speed could make the aircraft pitch, and roll, and fly too fast for it's design.
As the pilots realize that something is wrong, the the plane is out of control now, and they take manual control of the aircraft from the computers and try, within seconds, to figure out what is happening, they may be in time to correct the aircraft's maneuvers and save it, as was the case in the other 2 incidences under investigation, or they may be too late, or make one wrong assumption and one wrong move, as it seems was the case with the Air France flight.
From the article, "The first incident the NTSB is investigating occurred May 21, when a TAM Airlines A330 "experienced a loss of primary speed and altitude information while in cruise flight," according to a release from the NTSB.
"Initial reports indicate that the flight crew noted an abrupt drop in indicated outside air temperature, followed by the loss of the Air Data Reference System and disconnections of the autopilot and autothrust, along with the loss of speed and altitude information."
The TAM flight was on route from Miami to São Paulo, Brazil. It took the flight crew five minutes to regain control of the aircraft, according to the NTSB.
There's less detail about the second incident. The safety board said it "became aware of another possibly similar incident" that occurred on a June 23 Northwest A330 flight between Hong Kong and Tokyo.
In both cases, the planes landed safely and there were no injuries, the NTSB said."
In the first case, the aircraft's flight computers lost the information ( Air Data Reference System and disconnections of the autopilot and autothrust, along with the loss of speed and altitude information ) that it needed to fly the plane. Even as the flight crew saw this happen, and they took over control of the aircraft, the NTSB states that it took them 5 MINUTES to regain control. When the aircraft is not 5 minutes above the earth, ( say just 4 minutes from the earth at 500 mph ), then this is a pretty big problem.
So, just to help you get it, the computers ( or sensors ) failed and this put the craft, crew, and passengers in a precarious position. So although you may be right, the cruise control might not have been "on" during the crash, it is still being looked at as the culprit, because the cruise control was supposed to be on, getting good data from it's sensors, and working... yet it malfunctioned, resulting in loss of control of the aircraft, and these malfunctions are putting many lives at peril.
Acquiring new credit isn't the issue here. The use of citizens SS numbers is the issue. Your SSN is your personal bank account number for your retirement. Last I knew, nobody, niether business, was legally allowed to deny one services for refusing to disclose their retirement bank account ( SSN ) number. It's NOT supposed to be an ID number or a credit number. Your retirement account is supposed to be the ONLY reason you have that number. This is the main reason that the IRS is mandated to issue and allow the use of Tax ID numbers for taxation purposes.
The reason for these laws is to be able to safe guard ones retirement bank acocunt ( SSN ) number.
Slashdot Mirror
^^^
I call mine the tundra slab.
Makes winter last an extra 6 weeks.
I called the people being targeted traitors, when they are enemy fighters trying to kill people from afar, in their own self declared war on the country of their citizenship. ( Which also makes them a traitor ).
But enemy fighters above all. On their own field of battle.
So no, no trial.
From what I understand, there are many, many 'American citizens' scheming against the American government.
Those people are Not on a 'hit list' that I am aware of. Though I am sure that they are being watched.
So I must disagree with your statement of the U.S. government asserting that it's allowed to 'arbirtarily' (sic) kill its own citizens.
These people of various citizenships are at war with America. Making themselves the enemy.
And this field of battle is almost worldwide.
All of which is leading this administration to publicly determine whether this enemy soldier/warrior/traitor should be hunted down across borders into his own battlefield and eliminated.
I know, the last administration, as well as this one at first, just went ahead and blew these enemies up by drone wherever they were hiding, without any kind of public notice or oversight. We the People reacted to that strongly and negatively, and apparently they've learned that lesson, at least. They are at least making the public aware that there is a debate going on. Which should lead to many mixed feelings and input about the situation.
My feeling ?
Someone just accused of being a traitor, then yes, a trial to decide if that is fact or not.
An enemy soldier trying to kill Americans, then yeah, they are fair game. No matter how widespread the battlefield, no matter what country the enemy has his citizenship. No trial needed.
When the American south went to war against the American government in the civil war, no soldier on the battlefield expected a trial before he was allowed to be shot in battle.
Same deal here. Attack us, then it is war. And you will be a target. No matter what country you came from.
So, I apologize.
That was where I went wrong in my first reply to you. I simply called these 'targeted Americans' traitors. But they are more than that, they are enemy fighters actively trying to kill Americans in a war they started.
As for having to drone bomb them from afar, well, I don't like the idea because of the uncertainty, and the risk of bombing civilians or even the wrong people, as this article points out.
I also see how the situation can leave not a lot of choice here, without invading a lot of other countries just find all the enemy soldiers.
In the case of the last few conflicts, there are no clearly drawn battle lines.
In times past, an army marched across land and sea and air and met in battle with usually clearly drawn lines of battle, under their banners, or in their uniforms, and fighting it out, with the winners moving the battleline forward.
Now, this enemy is hiding in homes and caves, holes or basements, across vast areas of several other countries, persuading, or forcing, other men and women to blow up groups of unarmed American civilians at work or at play, thousands of miles away, and sacrificing their own lives in the process ( since the bombs are strapped to them, or they are wearing the thing ).
They do this Not to claim land or to free the people, but apparently just to make a statement, since they can't possibly hope to take over the United States by doing this.
There is no real battlefield. No battlelines. No front. The enemy is not with his army marching across the field of battle. He can't be shot, wounded or killed in the battle, because he is no where near the battle.
He has to be hunted down in his hidey hole.
So, as enemy soldiers, I think that these people have forfeited any right to a trial, regardless of their citizenship.
I see that the U.S. government is trying to target the most dangerous enemy soldiers in their hidey holes, and not just any American with a grudge and
Well, During earlier wars, traitors would be hung. Or face a firing squad. American citizens or not. If these are in deed traitors, they decided their own fate.
I betcha they paid for this with the change from those $ 500.00 toilet seats and $ 200.00 hammers. Oh, and maybe they siphoned some money from those $100 Million dollar F-35's. No wonder the government is always close to broke.
Southwest, as the only airline not approved by the galactic empire, is probably not a good example.
They are much less evil than the others due to the fact they can actually make money honestly.
agreed... +1 to tripleevenfall
*snip* By a conservative estimate, lets say 100 dollars to buy the game, plus 15*12 = 280 dollars MINIMUM to play this game for a year.
It'd cost you much less than $100.00 to get the game and all of it's expansions now. About half that, actually.
With the newest patch, [ 4.2.0 ] - anyone who has a retail version of vanilla WOW ( The first CD ) is automatically upgraded to The Burning Crusade expansion now. see http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2993743#technical ( last item under general patch notes ). And that first version of WoW is on sale often for about $ 10.00 these days.
So for $10 bucks if you catch it on sale, you get World of Warcraft and the first expansion ( The Burning Crusade ), which is now included. ( It downloads for you automatically when you begin playing ).
I found the Cataclysm expansion on sale at Buy.com during the month of May for $18.00 shipped.
So I'm up to $28.00, and just waiting for the WoLK expansion to go on sale somewhere. I figure I should be able to snag it for $20.00 or less. Making WoW - with all the expansions - cost about $48.00 for the software this year, or about the price of most other games on CD / DVD lately. Whether they be for PC, Mac, XBox, etc.
Just FYI :)
*snip*
I don't want anyone to forget their illegal warrantless wiretapping and the massive lobbying effort get themselves retroactive immunity for their cooperation over the illegal spying on you.
Thank You for reminding everyone. I was gonna do that till I saw your post.
Rock on man! I agree with 1000% of your post, including the sig. I gotta get back and check out The Realm myself. Very nice, and really seemed to start this whole MMORPG thing, via transitioning MUDs to "modern" MMORPGS via tolerable graphical interfaces and reward systems. I waited and waited for someone on this thread to chime in about it. You sir, are the victor. Simple and fun (not to mention affordable), and yet, largely forgotten. I would mod you up, but I really wanted to post a letter of appreciation from another Realm brother!
Great to see your post, BigSes ! I couldn't believe it myself when I searched these posts and saw no mention of the grand-daddy of MMORPG's ! I had to chirp up. :) A male Warriors arse is just too 'butt' ugly to be having to look at on my monitor for hours at a time, even if we are just talking about pixels !
:)
Glad to meet you, if/when you log in to The Realm, look for WebWarrior ( 400 Warrior ), Wryen ( 400 Wizzie ), Kalann ( 520 Adventurer, or MorningGlory. ( Yeah, I prefer watching the female form on my screen all day
Thanks for the Cheers, brother. Made my day meeting a fellow Realmer.
Seeya in the game
And, yeah, the sig, ain't it the truth though ? :)
No, nothing to do with Star Wars, but it is in it's own little world.
It's one of the oldest MMORPG games is still going. ( It claims to be THE Oldest still going ).
The Realm Online http://www.realmserver.com/ , though not as popular as EQ or WoW, still has it's cartoonish charm, PvE or PvP, ( You can switch your own PvP on or off, or just attack another PvP flagged player to turn it on ). /evict and using your see invisibility spell to make sure you weren't going to get robbed.
And last I knew, each player still had their own password protected house, with lock chests in the bedrooms, but you needed to get into the habit of typing
I return to The Realm every few years or so, it's such a neat trip down memory lane.. and I'm glad it's still there. And, every time I return, my trusty old characters are right there waiting for me.
Last time I'd played the max level was 1000. And it didn't come easy.
Gee.. Thanks guys... now I'm thinking it's time to renew my subscription.
Well, I guess it won't hurt to help keep a piece of history going !
Way to Create New Jobs ! Instead of hiring the many unemployed in the country to watch these cameras at, say, $15.00 an hour, our Gov't decides to ask for 300,000 volunteers to do the job for them for free ! Good thinking, that. Does this mean that these volunteers are considered part and parcel of Homeland Security ?
I agree, the problem with Windows is not so much the OS itself but poorly written applications.
One of the largest examples is World of Warcraft. After five years, it still insists on storing all of its data in its program directory. I actually had to install it outside of Program Files to get it to work on Vista, even with UAC turned off and logged in as Administrator (the account, not an account in that group).
I think more software developers need to look at Firefox, a good example. Data, including plugins, are kept in the user's home. Different users can have different plugins and data, and everything just works even on a properly-secured system.
Blizzard can even download the source code to figure out basic stuff like "where to put files" because after all these years of writing Windows games, they still lack that basic knowledge.
Actually, in Windows 7, WoW installs itself all over ones hard drive. In Win7, WoW primarily installs into the Users-Public folders by default, apparently to avoid UAC issues, especially while updating. ( Users-Public-Games-World of WarCraft ). But it now also installs files into several other folders throughout the hierarchy. Like the update and cache info in the Users-[your user name ]- AppData-Local-Blizzard Entertainment folder. And a log file in ProgramData-Blizzard, as well as dll files and Uninstall info in Program Files-Common Files- Blizzard Entertainment-World of Warcraft. There may be other locations now as well, but the point is Blizzard must have heard your wish, because now WoW is 'installed' into so many different places in my hard drive that I'd have trouble backing this one particular application up easily on a regular basis. I don't like the way it installs now in Windows 7. I'd rather it all be in one place, so I don't have to hunt all over my hard drive in order to back this program up. Or to remove it.
Most cows are kept in a field, milked then slaughtered, and they don't seem to mind. They make little effort to escape their field, look happy while chewing the cud as they are milked, and only in the last few minutes of their lives do they show signs of concern. By then of course, it is too late.
What most people think doesn't matter when one person can see what is happening and appreciates the consequences. It is their view I am interested in.
To you Mad Merlin, I say moo. Keep chewing the cud.
Dude, do you know how long a cow would last in the Serengeti ? Or even in the woods in upstate NY ?
As soon as the lions and tigers and bears caught a sniff of that cow, said cow would be chased down until it either fell from exhaustion or was tackled by fangs and claws in it's neck. Then it would be mercilessly ripped apart while alive, to feed the animals above it in natures food chain.
Said cow might last 2 days in the wild. 2 days of nervous 'freedom' while it looked for food whilst trying to not become food.
So, you're right. A cow in a field full of food and virtually no predators would stay put, happily.
Hell, we humans pretty much do the same.
Even though this cow still ends up being food someday, it has a better life. ( I'm talkin' field raised cattle here, obviously. The pen operations suck. )
With humans, I would venture to say that the cow's death is less dramatic, and probably less painful.
Getting back on the subject,
The point is,
If you aren't living in the wild yourself, then somebody, somewhere, has your history. Your credit history, your employment history, you health history, your shopping history, your web page history, and on and on...
If you use a shopping card, Like Krogers, Marsh, IGA, etc, then you probably get coupons in the mail for just the exact foods that you like to eat and that you normally buy. Your coupon is a thank you for having allowed your grocer to sell your purchasing and eating habits to other firms. Your bank regularly sells your information to brokers, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, and anyone else with some cash to pony up for the information. In fact, almost ALL of the companies you've Ever done business with, sells your information in some form or another. This gives them even more income to further enhance their bottom line.
So why are you so paranoid about this company verses all the others ?
btw, this is all Just in case you were unaware of, but might become interested in, this view.
As mentioned in several posts before this one, I prefer to be redirected to PayPal's own website, and being asked to confirm my UID and password there. The whole idea behind PayPal was always anonymity when making payments online. The website you were purchasing from never had a chance to get your payment information. Being redirected to PayPal to make such an 'anonymous' payment to any website, made transactions safe and secure ( with any legitimate website, anyway ), and it also let me double check that I was indeed being redirected to PayPal, and not to some web page in Nigeria. . With this API, I don't think that I can never be sure of that. Too much is happening behind the scene. I would be entering my payment info into the web server of company xyz. In fact, alot of different company xyz's, throughout the year. Are each of these companies promising me that they aren't keeping my payment info ? Is my payment info being automatically and silently backed up into a dozen places on the operating system ? Histories ? Web Logs ? Is company xyz promising me that their system is well maintained, locked down, and they can safeguard the information that I have entered into their web page ? Will there never be any scripts on their web server that can capture my information and send it to Nigeria ? I don't think so. I don't see why PayPal is moving away from the security model that sold so many of us into using their service to begin with. And, just for PayPal's information, I don't like the new idea. I guess that all I can hope for is that PayPal insists that all of their clients include a link for me to go to the PayPal webpage to complete a transaction, just the way it has been for years now. And put that link somewhere close by this new API gizmo of theirs..
Wouldn't matter. You could shoot him and abuse his body, guillotine him, or drive him to suicide with his letter opener, and the next RIAA CEO would continue in the same vein (only with better security). It's the organization which needs to be destroyed, not any individual head of it.
It's not just one CEO.
That "RIAA Organization" is owned, or paid for, and representing, and suing people, at the behest of the record labels you buy your CD"s from.
These include;
Big Machine Records
BMG Entertainment
Disney
EMI ( Capitol, Capitol Nashville, Virgin Records, and others )
Flicker
HBO
MGM
MTV ( including Nick at Nite, Nickelodeon, VH-1 and others )
Paradigm
Sony BMG ( Columbia, Epic, RCA, Arista, and others )[ all part of the same family ]
Universal Music Group ( Universal Records )
Warner Music Group
etc.
There are hundreds of them.
If you haven't seen it before, here's a good list http://www.riaaradar.com/tree.asp
That is your RIAA. It isn't just one CEO. It's the group of companies in that list on that website.
Want to hurt them ? Stop buying their stuff and feeding their lawyers, till they fly right.
I haven't purchased a CD from any of these 'companies', or any Sony product in almost 4 years. And Counting. And I hear plenty of music all day long on the radio. It ain't killing me.
I don't want my money going to their lawyers to twist the laws the way they do. It's a matter of principle. And now, maybe even pride.
I'm not out to sink the RIAA. The record labels need that group to protect their interests. It's the way they are Going About protecting that interest that I am opposed to. And I don't want the record labels to disappear either. I like music.
But I won't give my money to any group that abuses peoples rights and the laws as they were Intended.
I'm not hurting them much, they seem to have made it through this last recession without having to ask for a handout from the feds.
Even if they do claim they are in such poor financial condition from the abundant volumes of piracy they say is going on, they seem to be in good financial shape. So Somebody is still buying their products and supporting their RIAA "lawyers".
Which leads me to a parting question. Don't lawyers have to take some kind of oath to uphold the spirit of our Constitution and obey the laws that protect the people ?
I remember when dial up was priced per hour. Competition slowly and inevitably drove the price down further and further, and then some companies offered unlimited dial up at a fixed price. A few even offered unlimited monthly dial up for free !
( NetZero, Surfree, and that little ISP in my hometown, and in hometowns across the country. to name but a few of the inexpensive dial up options that appeared. And that are even now out there, still, to this day ). And they still do a decent business.
So yes, Verizon, PLEASE start charging per Kb or MB or whatever. We've been down this road before. Your prices will all eventually be driven ever downward by the competition, like dial up was. Until the time, in the not so distant future, when your metered service will either become so cheap that that you will run away from the market with your tail between your legs, Verizon, or it will become such an expensive and poor choice for most folks that people will drop your company altogether and go elsewhere.
Ironically, NetZero is still out there, waiting for your next move, Verizon.
I see their TV ads every day, telling people that all they really need is NetZero's basic service at around $10.00 a MONTH, saving folks about $300.00 a year over broadband. They're not free anymore, but they are a real bargain.
Go ahead and laugh, but dial up is really all that most folks really need for checking email and a short web surfing session. Think Grandma and Grandpa, and all of those out there with active lifestyles that only use their home desktops for maybe 10 minutes a day. They are usually out and about, playing and dining, and using their Smartphones all day long. Dial up suits lots of people just fine.
And if Verizon or anyone else starts gouging folks with overage charges with their metered service, as they used to with their cell phone plans, I can see a whole lot more folks going back to dialup. Especially at just $10.00 a month. Unlimited.
I will watch Verizon and their ilk dig themselves another hole while trying to empty peoples pockets with this metered plan of theirs.
Should be entertaining to see if they survive yet another attempt to gouge their customers with overage fees.
Yeah, they'll make a bundle on overage fees for a while in the beginning, at their customers expense, of course. Which leads to them losing customers in droves, again. Which leads to lower prices, and spending tons in advertising and new service terms and lower price points than the competitors trying to get their market share back. Sound familiar Verizon ? And Sprint ?
Life can be such a vicious circle.
Ok, the older car has a whole lot more metal than the newer car.
If the newer car had hit a tractor trailer, which is made with more metal, the newer car would have been smished.
If the newer car had hit a train, which is made with even more metal, the newer car would have been pulverized.
Suggesting that more metal would equate to more protection. Certainly more protection than what I saw in this video.
So why is the newer car, with less metal, looking better than the older car, which has more steel in it's front bumper the the newer car has throughout it's entire body.
Could it be that the 50 year old metal in the older car was just plain OLD ? Fatigued ? weakened ? not necessarily rusted, but just weaker than it was in 1959.
A possibility ?
>> They would also be perfectly within their rights to stop making
>> Windows altogether and start manufacturing refrigerators...
>"Knowing Microsoft, it'll probably be their first product that never freezes."
Now, THAT was FUNNY !
I'm looking for work. Who do I have to know to get a job there ?
I think the solution is to have the concept of "intellectual property" work both ways. Obviously your private information has value, otherwise advertisers and other companies wouldn't go to such great lenghts to obtain and use it. The problem is that they obtain it without your consent and without directly compensating you. For example, if I don't actively block web bugs, cookies, HTTP "ping", analytics tools, and other similar attempts, then that data will be gathered whether or not I like it.
Agreed.
An example,
Firefox, plus the Ghostery addon = the ability to block the Doubleclick web bug / tracking beacon on slashdot's pages.
P.S. - apologies to /. for reducing your ability to make money. But you're making that money by allowing a sleezy third party to track me online, which ticks me off. Find another way.
But, when you say
The reason why I actively go out of my way to prevent companies from gathering data on me is simple. No one asked me if I wanted to be data-mined. I refuse to honor agreements in which I did not participate. Why anyone else would do so is a mystery to me.
You would be told that just loading, looking at, or using a website, or promotion, or using a store card ( Krogers, Marsh, etc ), means that you have agreed to their terms of service, and said terms of service usually say that in return for the privilege of using their website or promotion or whatever, you give consent to such tracking.
They have themselves covered.
Get hired by Google.
They'll get ya funded.
I understand where you're coming from, but the other replies to your ideas are right.
Someone is going to have to clean up the mess. And someone is going to have to try to save your life.
Besides, if I tried one of your ideas, knowing my luck, I'd live through it, and be in that much more pain. As well as being crippled and requiring somebody to have to care for me.
I'll have to ponder this more, and find something that I'd love to do, wouldn't require someone to clean up the mess or try to save me, and would surely have the desired effect.
I was sure the first domain would have been sex.com
Sounds to me like the power companies are going to be making money hand over fist, buying up cheap rate solar power from it's customers, reselling it at almost double that rate, all while meeting the governments mandates to be whatever percent renewable by such n such a date at no expense to the power company, as the consumers lead the way. Of course. Nice little bonus that the power companies can now negate any benefit a customer might have by moving to solar by demanding fees on the money a customer could have saved on their bills. Oh, yeah, and those "rebates" to consumers for moving to solar or wind power do not cover anywhere Near the full costs of doing so. That is not even a valid argument by the power companies. And NOW let's add the ongoing maintenance of producing that power for the next 25 years. On the consumers dime, of course. I call BullShit on the whole deal. BS BS BS ! I cannot wait until everyone can go off grid. I hope it happens soon, suddenly and completely. LONG before we actually run out of oil and dirty coal.
The main concern is whether the computer controlled airspeed and altitude indicators malfunctioned.
The investigations are coming to that conclusion.
And when the airspeed and altitude data are incorrect, ( indicating to the flight control computers that the aircraft is flying too slow, or too low, or losing altitude, or all of those things, then the onboard flight computers are going to maximum thrust to regain speed and altitude. The result can be severe over-speed, with the possibility of the aircraft failing structurally, or a drmatic computer controlled mid-flight correction of the aircraftwhilst the computer is trying to make sense of bad data.
But if the flight is already at the correct altitude and at speed, then those adjustments could be disastrous. Such adjustments at altitude and at speed could make the aircraft pitch, and roll, and fly too fast for it's design.
As the pilots realize that something is wrong, the the plane is out of control now, and they take manual control of the aircraft from the computers and try, within seconds, to figure out what is happening, they may be in time to correct the aircraft's maneuvers and save it, as was the case in the other 2 incidences under investigation, or they may be too late, or make one wrong assumption and one wrong move, as it seems was the case with the Air France flight.
From the article,
"The first incident the NTSB is investigating occurred May 21, when a TAM Airlines A330 "experienced a loss of primary speed and altitude information while in cruise flight," according to a release from the NTSB.
"Initial reports indicate that the flight crew noted an abrupt drop in indicated outside air temperature, followed by the loss of the Air Data Reference System and disconnections of the autopilot and autothrust, along with the loss of speed and altitude information."
The TAM flight was on route from Miami to São Paulo, Brazil. It took the flight crew five minutes to regain control of the aircraft, according to the NTSB.
There's less detail about the second incident. The safety board said it "became aware of another possibly similar incident" that occurred on a June 23 Northwest A330 flight between Hong Kong and Tokyo.
In both cases, the planes landed safely and there were no injuries, the NTSB said."
In the first case, the aircraft's flight computers lost the information ( Air Data Reference System and disconnections of the autopilot and autothrust, along with the loss of speed and altitude information ) that it needed to fly the plane. Even as the flight crew saw this happen, and they took over control of the aircraft, the NTSB states that it took them 5 MINUTES to regain control.
When the aircraft is not 5 minutes above the earth, ( say just 4 minutes from the earth at 500 mph ), then this is a pretty big problem.
So, just to help you get it, the computers ( or sensors ) failed and this put the craft, crew, and passengers in a precarious position.
So although you may be right, the cruise control might not have been "on" during the crash, it is still being looked at as the culprit, because the cruise control was supposed to be on, getting good data from it's sensors, and working... yet it malfunctioned, resulting in loss of control of the aircraft, and these malfunctions are putting many lives at peril.
Acquiring new credit isn't the issue here.
The use of citizens SS numbers is the issue.
Your SSN is your personal bank account number for your retirement.
Last I knew, nobody, niether business, was legally allowed to deny one services for refusing to disclose their retirement bank account
( SSN ) number. It's NOT supposed to be an ID number or a credit number.
Your retirement account is supposed to be the ONLY reason you have that number.
This is the main reason that the IRS is mandated to issue and allow the use of Tax ID numbers for taxation purposes.
The reason for these laws is to be able to safe guard ones retirement bank acocunt ( SSN ) number.