$400 to turn off? No. Go to Autozone or Checker, ask to borrow their OBD-2 scanner - they usually ask you to leave your license, or walk out to the car with you to test it them selves - follow their instructions and read the code. It will tell you why the light is on. It is often something very trivial that you can erase by hitting the "delete codes" button (left the gas cap open, for instance) or you can go to the mechanic and say "my X-sensor is throwing a code, how much to fix?"
Knowledge is power. Some stuff can cost a fortune to fix, but if you're letting someone bill you $400 every time that little light goes on, someone is raping you.
I liked your answer to the blog question, but didn't you leave something out?
h) Plaintiff's counsel's objection to my blog is especially perplexing in light of Plaintiff's multi-million dollar advertising that seeks to convince the public that downloading a song is the moral equivalent of auto theft. Plaintiff also spends a great deal of money lobbying to influence Congress to pass ever more restrictive legislation. It is disturbing that Plaintiff's counsel can feel so threatened by a simple text-based blog that simply seeks to shed light on the actions of their respective member companies.
"We do not need a daily reminder of what our worst fears look like," added Anzalone.
Uh, yes, we do. Maybe then people would realize what is at stake when they vote, instead of living in their insulated little world where their greatest concern is what time "Heroes" in on.
Of course, if a person is already riding the DC metro system, I guess they have some reason to already be having PTSD.
Here's an email I sent to the PA rep for this US Attorney's office:
Subject: Inaccurate and offensive statements by U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien
It was with dismay that I read the statements of US Attorney Thomas O'Brien concerning the Mongols Motorcycle Gang arrests.
Specifically, when speaking about the seizure of the Mongols' trademark, according to numerous sources he declared:
"It would allow law enforcement to seize the leather jackets right off their back," O'Brien said.
This is blatantly false. The government is well within its legally defined rights to seize any and all property from an organization involved in a RICO action. However, seizure of the rights to the trademark would merely grant an ownership interest in future commercial uses of the trademark itself; i.e., no one could manufacture new Mongols clothing that displays the trademark. However, ownership of any and all items produced prior to the government's seizure of the mark would be protected by the doctrine of first sale.
For example, if Nike was seized for some criminal activity, the government could theoretically claim ownership of the trademarked Nike "swoosh" symbol. Ownership of the trademark would prevent anyone else from putting the "swoosh" symbol on newly manufactured product. However, the government would not have the right to take all of the shoes from the people that purchased shoes prior to the seizure.
Thomas O'Brien's statement is offensive for two reasons:
1. It implies either a deep ignorance or an extreme apathy towards intellectual property law. Although it may not show up in conventional polls as a "hot button" issue, there are many thousands of people in this country deeply concerned with the increasing abuse and enlargement of intellectual properly legislation. Many people feel that IP issues are becoming an excuse for corporate interests to position themselves in a superior position over consumers, and there is great resentment over the tendencies of various corporations and organizations to claim previously unknown legal powers in defense of their nebulous IP rights. In light of these issues, making such an obviously false statement as what Mr. O'Brien said indicates a desire to place sound bites and publicity over responsible legal practice.
2. The statement about seizing jackets off of people's back indicates a callous disregard for the civil rights of those who may wear such clothing. Quite frankly, in light of his appointment by President George Bush, one would have a reasonable expectation that Mr. O'Brien would be in favor of Republican principles such as minimizing government encroachment and unwarranted usurpation of civil rights. Instead, Mr. O'Brien makes a highly inflammatory statement implying that police officers should have the right to just strip people of their belongings because of their views, using as justification the flawed legal argument that ownership of a trademark conveys an ownership interest in previously transferred goods bearing that trademark. One might not approve of motorcycle gangs, but the legal precedent at stake could be used a few years down the road to exert authority over law-abiding consumers. For example, if Microsoft was to purchase Apple, using the argument of Mr. O'Brien Microsoft could then revoke the "right" to use items bearing their newly acquired iPod trademark. They could legally demand that anyone who owns an iPod needs to surrender it to Microsoft. Such a ludicrous possibility sounds absurd, but this is just a logical extension of Mr. O'Brien's remarks.
I would like you to obtain a clarification of Mr. O'Brien's remarks. I am hoping that upon reflection he will realize that perhaps he was a bit over enthusiastic over what otherwise appears to be a solid step in fighting crime.
Here's a copy of an email I sent to my fellow Arizonan:
Ah, John. Your ill-advised vote back in 1998 for the DMCA has come back to bite you. It was with great pleasure that I read that Youtube was taking down your campaign videos due to a DMCA demand by Fox and CBS. You helped pass it. Sir, Barry Goldwater was a conservative. William Buckley was a conservative. A conservative wants FEWER laws, not more. LESS government regulation, not more. A conservative encourages a business-friendly environment - NOT a "business gets anything it wants" environment. You have forgotten the difference, and now you are paying the price. Your presidential campaign is all but over. You have lost the conservative base with your poorly-thought-out desperate attempts to please everyone. You had us, right until you took the supremely idiotic step of suspending your campaign - which was a clear political ploy that backfired. Capitalism is vital, but part of the price of capitalism is sometimes suffering failure. Bankruptcy, too is part of the failure process - entrepreneurs and other people need to know that they have a chance to start over if they fail. Your vote on the Bankruptcy Act of 2005, making it MORE difficult for all but the richest Americans to declare bankruptcy was another gift to business. And still, you persist in giving business whatever they want, at the expense of average Americans, with your recent idiotic vote on the "Copyright Czar" legislation. The record companies and motion picture companies have a broken business model that is being supplanted by new technologies, and like your ridiculous bank bailout bill you have chosen to give them what they want rather than letting them pay the price of failure. I will be voting for Bob Barr this election, not out of any hope that he will win, but rather in the hope that Republican political operatives will realize that increasing numbers of their traditional base can no longer stomach voting for so-called "Republicans" who don't seem any different from Democrats. I look forward to supporting your continued efforts in the Senate on behalf of Arizona, but your presidential campaign is over.
Too bad we didn't see this thing coming earlier. With a year's warning, it would be great practice to see if we could get some sort of vehicle close enough to destroy it. If we could find a way to target this thing, we could rest assured that we know how to target a larger object that could actually do damage. It would have been great target practice; big enough to track and try to hit but small enough that it doesn't matter if we miss.
Strictly speaking, if you're talking about continuity of government, the "Chinese Government" is a robust democracy in Taiwan - they are the heirs to the traditional Chinese government. The murderous thugs ruling mainland China don't have a pedigree going back past 1949.
I've always wondered if there would have been a war in 1997 if England had said, "Ok...our 100 year lease on Hong Kong is up. Time to give Hong Kong back to China...here you go, TAIWAN!"\
Actually, if memory serves, the TJ Maxx connection was a wireless link between two buildings - it was a WEP connection. So, yeah, it was encrypted, but it only took them about 10 minutes to crack it. Too bad the company was too lazy to use WPA. The other interesting part about this (again going from memory) is that they popped the back cover off one of those "Apply for a Job" kiosks in the store, and lo and behold, the job kiosk was on the hardwire, unencrypted network. Oops. And then the bad guys plugged in a USB key with a bootable Linux system on it. Double oops. They then had access to everything on the corporate network. Everything. Triple oops.
None of this means a damned thing if the RIAA succeeds in getting their private gestapo made into an arm of the Department of Justice. Remember, they are pushing a bill to create a Federal framework for billing the US Government for both civil and criminal actions using Federal officers to do their dirty work. Even if you don't download music, you're gonna pay through the nose in tax dollars and the loss of more civil rights as the government bureaucrats try to ram through new laws to "support their mission" - mandatory ISP snooping and filtering, legitimized abuse of due process, lower standards of evidence, and a grab bag of laws to "protect jobs" (that's the rationale being currently used to get this bill passed). We're setting ourselves up for an Orwellian nightmare of epic proportions if this nightmare passes.
...the next call the Indian tech took was from some guy who had a one-word name - "McLovin" and he didn't get any issue, nor did the caller after that, "Mike Hunt."
Yeah, great. Up until recently, I made a healthy living just by carrying a phone that rang when someone needed tech support - enough $$$ to support my family by itself. I had a lot more money and a lot more time to spend with my family, with the catch that sometimes - not always - the phone would ring. I was able to attend multiple amusement parks that I would not have been able to attend if I was working a "real job", and it was rare that the phone would ring on one of those occasions - but if it did, I *HAD* to deal with it.
Everyone's life and circumstances are different. How dare some stupid amusement park try to decide what is best for my family? Screw them.
1. My sincere apologies 2. I agree that a business is free to trial anything they want, but I believe the atmosphere in the UK (cameras everywhere, people being arrested for self defense or for critizing Islam, etc) makes such a proposal possible - if Disneyland tried this attendance would plummet after people got done with their prepaid vacations. 3. Good for you! The euro sucks, although at the moment the dollar sucks more.
The UK is already becoming known as a nation of sheep that allows the government and private corporations to do whatever they want to their citizens - but the US is quickly catching up! If drastic action is not taken, the US may actually take the title of super-nanny-police-state-that-only-speaks-in-doublespeak.
Actions like this, where large multi-million euro corporations arbitrarily impose their will without regard go a long way towards reinforcing the attitude of British Subjects that they are merely units that exist for the benefit of the state tax coffers and corporate revenues and should be seen and not heard. Perhaps the lessons learning in once-proud England will go towards properly conditioning those backwards colonials in America, who still have to be lied to by their government before they will accept being treated like cattle.
The problem I have with the ACLU is they're a bunch of hypocrites, screaming for the broadest possible interpretation of all Amendments EXCEPT for the 2nd. They argue, ridiculously, the the 2nd amendment is there to give the government the right to have a military.
The entire Bill of Rights - the first 10 Amendments - were passed ONLY because there were those who feared the government had too much power. They were passed to guarantee rights for the people. The government already has authority to have a military in the un-amendended Constitution.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
The key word is PEOPLE. Many people fixate on the words "well regulated", forgetting that in the 18th century, "well regulated" meant to regulate your shots, i.e., to shoot straight.
The 2nd amendment is not there to preserve the right to hunt, as the ACLU would claim. It is there for three contingencies:
1. When the police cannot respond - remember, the police have NO LEGAL OBLIGATION to guarantee your safety. If they can stop bad things from happening, great, but ultimately, legally, a person is responsible for their own safety.
2. In the event of government failure or breakdown - we've seen the right to bear arms heavily utilized in 3 disasters in the last 15 years - Hurricane Andrew, LA Riots, and New Orleans. In each case, civil authority broke down and armed bands of citizens defended their property while unarmed people were exploited.
3. In the last, ultimate extremity, it is there in case the government starts ignoring the other amendments. In the words of one of the founding fathers who wrote the Federalist Papers in order to get the Constitution ratified, "it is inconceivable that the government could use the army to oppress the people, for the whole of the people are armed and will not stand for it." This is still relevant today, for every national politician should have in the back of their mind the specter of a guerrilla campaign on US soil if they go too far. Iraq is just more proof that such campaigns can be effective.
I've seen a mockup of the Pan Am bomb, which was based on a similar device that was seized prior to detonation. It actually was only a pound of explosive; it was enough to tear the aluminum skin of the aircraft in just the wrong place and the aircraft disintegrated due to wind pressure. It looked like a normal radio on x-ray except the batteries were somewhat malformed and bigger than they should have been; howover, most of the circuitry was still there.
Aircraft are weird things; a 737 survived the entire upper hull ripped off near hawaii inflight but several aircraft have been brought down by much smaller tears in areas where the wind get in.
The fear of a laptop carrying explosives is valid, seeing as how a radio-cassette stereo player - a medium size boom box - with a pound of plastic explosive in it - brought down a 747 - pan am 103 - over Scotland.
Yes, it's true that RMS will no longer the main Emacs maintainer, but the truth is he will still be very close to the project. RMS is merely shifting to a subset; he has dedicated himself to filling a gap that has been missing in the Emacs operating system for a long time; the lack of a robust, powerful, yet easy-to-use editor.
What's the last Microsoft project that Bill Gates spent considerable time writing code for before his managerial duties took away his time for coding?
The portable, handheld battery-operated TRS-80.
Solid as a rock. There are tales of people skipping them across concrete and they still work.
And as far as the code? Bill must have done something right, because as of a few years ago (I last heard this in 2005 or 2004) there are still some of these beasts in use. Not much computing power, but they have an RS-232 port. The O/S is flexible enough that there are corporations using the device still. Apparently, the thing is so tough that there are off-shore oil platforms running some ancient equipment that dumps data through an RS-232 port, and the crews that have to service them use the portable TRS-80's to grab the data and take it back to their offices where they upload it to their PC's. More modern equipment apparently chokes after constant exposure to salt air, constant shock, and, well, oil workers. They're tough guys, you know.:)
There are exceptions, of course. Ronald Reagan always insisted on viewing a small portion of his mail and answering it himself.
Anyone who wants to learn how a President should think should read the Reagan Diaries. It's really a fascinating glimpse into a President's mind. Reagan seemed to enjoy calling people whose stories had touched him in someway and sometimes he noted, "they didn't believe it was me calling at first."
Bloom County fans will enjoy reading about Reagan's call to Berkley Breathed. I paraphrase it below, but the profanity is actually Reagan's:
"Called Bereley Breathed, author of the comic strip Bloom County. He sounded apprehensive at first - I'm very sure he thought I was calling to bitch at him - but I just wanted to thank him for drawing a lovely picture of Nancy in his latest strip. He was nice and told me he would send me the original."
Love him or hate him, reading the Reagan diaries will reveal that this was a man who was very, very much concerned with the "big picture" yet made quite an effort to stay in contact with the "average guy in the street". It is clear that he felt talking with normal, everyday Americans kept him grounded.
With respect,in response your statement that democracy can't suddenly be implemented, I would submit that General Douglas MacArthur and postwar Japan would prove your argument to be false.
A more correct argument would be that "Democracy can't just suddenly be implemented without extreme skill and a firm hand in control during the transition."
Alas, extreme skill - or, indeed, skill of any sort - seems to be lacking in our "nation-building" efforts of late.
Finally, I shall place myself in the center of the largest city where my corporation was chartered and not resist as I am raped by a rapid dog. I may avoid this penalty if I track, capture and bind Darl McBride and dip him in molten steel while chanting "Filing frivolous lawsuits is not a viable business model."
Of course, it's a shame that the ex post facto clause of the Constitution would prohibit us from making it retroactive. Perhaps it's for the best, thought; it would be hard to find a rabid dog that would have the poor taste to rape Darl McBride.
Infrastructure and corporate organization comes first.
Here's a good analogy. It's the early days of aviation, and you want a plane that can cross the Atlantic in 8 hours. No plane can cross the Atlantic at all at that point in time. What do you do? If you are bound by economic reality, you realize that if you build a functioning route structure with existing tech, and build it with future development in mind, it will be less of a jump from that than simply magically building a plane.
Continental airlines started flying mail and one or two passengers. Using that, over a couple of decades they built a route structure and employee organization that could barely - just barely - support the purchase of four jets. It worked. Prior to that, everyone said "you can never, ever run jets at a profit unless you have a fleet of at least ten." Continental did it. They made it profitable. And it never would have happened if Bob Six, CEO of Continental, had just showed up with a pile of cash saying "I want to build jets."
All the scientific people who are posting stuff on here about why "Scaled Composites doesn't make sense" don't get it. They think that aircraft fly because of Bernoulii's principle, they think that physics and technology make rockets and aircraft fly.
In reality, aircraft and rockets and spacecraft fly on money. Or, as the movie "The Right Stuff" pointed out, "no bucks, no Buck Rogers!"
Scaled Composites thinks that if they build a gradual business that provides enough excitement and entertainment that people want more then they might be able to use that ground infrastructure to build something better. They think that the next logical step after that, perhaps, will be sub-orbital hops to Europe and Japan. And then, when some big business realises there's something that might be profitable to do in orbit, Scaled Composites will step forward and say "We can build something like that. When do you need it?"
And, big business will listen, and treat them seriously...because well, hell, that company has been in business for a while and they build spaceships, they have shipping product so to speak, we're just asking them to build a bigger one.
Slashdot Mirror
re: Same thing could be said about Oracle or Microsoft. Answer is; it depends.
I dunno, I think Microsoft would be somewhat better off if Steve Jobs wasn't around.
$400 to turn off? No. Go to Autozone or Checker, ask to borrow their OBD-2 scanner - they usually ask you to leave your license, or walk out to the car with you to test it them selves - follow their instructions and read the code. It will tell you why the light is on. It is often something very trivial that you can erase by hitting the "delete codes" button (left the gas cap open, for instance) or you can go to the mechanic and say "my X-sensor is throwing a code, how much to fix?"
Knowledge is power. Some stuff can cost a fortune to fix, but if you're letting someone bill you $400 every time that little light goes on, someone is raping you.
I liked your answer to the blog question, but didn't you leave something out?
h) Plaintiff's counsel's objection to my blog is especially perplexing in light of Plaintiff's multi-million dollar advertising that seeks to convince the public that downloading a song is the moral equivalent of auto theft. Plaintiff also spends a great deal of money lobbying to influence Congress to pass ever more restrictive legislation. It is disturbing that Plaintiff's counsel can feel so threatened by a simple text-based blog that simply seeks to shed light on the actions of their respective member companies.
TFA says,
"We do not need a daily reminder of what our worst fears look like," added Anzalone.
Uh, yes, we do. Maybe then people would realize what is at stake when they vote, instead of living in their insulated little world where their greatest concern is what time "Heroes" in on.
Of course, if a person is already riding the DC metro system, I guess they have some reason to already be having PTSD.
Here's an email I sent to the PA rep for this US Attorney's office:
Subject: Inaccurate and offensive statements by U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien
It was with dismay that I read the statements of US Attorney Thomas O'Brien concerning the Mongols Motorcycle Gang arrests.
Specifically, when speaking about the seizure of the Mongols' trademark, according to numerous sources he declared:
"It would allow law enforcement to seize the leather jackets right off their back," O'Brien said.
This is blatantly false. The government is well within its legally defined rights to seize any and all property from an organization involved in a RICO action. However, seizure of the rights to the trademark would merely grant an ownership interest in future commercial uses of the trademark itself; i.e., no one could manufacture new Mongols clothing that displays the trademark. However, ownership of any and all items produced prior to the government's seizure of the mark would be protected by the doctrine of first sale.
For example, if Nike was seized for some criminal activity, the government could theoretically claim ownership of the trademarked Nike "swoosh" symbol. Ownership of the trademark would prevent anyone else from putting the "swoosh" symbol on newly manufactured product. However, the government would not have the right to take all of the shoes from the people that purchased shoes prior to the seizure.
Thomas O'Brien's statement is offensive for two reasons:
1. It implies either a deep ignorance or an extreme apathy towards intellectual property law. Although it may not show up in conventional polls as a "hot button" issue, there are many thousands of people in this country deeply concerned with the increasing abuse and enlargement of intellectual properly legislation. Many people feel that IP issues are becoming an excuse for corporate interests to position themselves in a superior position over consumers, and there is great resentment over the tendencies of various corporations and organizations to claim previously unknown legal powers in defense of their nebulous IP rights. In light of these issues, making such an obviously false statement as what Mr. O'Brien said indicates a desire to place sound bites and publicity over responsible legal practice.
2. The statement about seizing jackets off of people's back indicates a callous disregard for the civil rights of those who may wear such clothing. Quite frankly, in light of his appointment by President George Bush, one would have a reasonable expectation that Mr. O'Brien would be in favor of Republican principles such as minimizing government encroachment and unwarranted usurpation of civil rights. Instead, Mr. O'Brien makes a highly inflammatory statement implying that police officers should have the right to just strip people of their belongings because of their views, using as justification the flawed legal argument that ownership of a trademark conveys an ownership interest in previously transferred goods bearing that trademark. One might not approve of motorcycle gangs, but the legal precedent at stake could be used a few years down the road to exert authority over law-abiding consumers. For example, if Microsoft was to purchase Apple, using the argument of Mr. O'Brien Microsoft could then revoke the "right" to use items bearing their newly acquired iPod trademark. They could legally demand that anyone who owns an iPod needs to surrender it to Microsoft. Such a ludicrous possibility sounds absurd, but this is just a logical extension of Mr. O'Brien's remarks.
I would like you to obtain a clarification of Mr. O'Brien's remarks. I am hoping that upon reflection he will realize that perhaps he was a bit over enthusiastic over what otherwise appears to be a solid step in fighting crime.
Thank you for your time
Here's a copy of an email I sent to my fellow Arizonan:
Ah, John. Your ill-advised vote back in 1998 for the DMCA has come back to bite you. It was with great pleasure that I read that Youtube was taking down your campaign videos due to a DMCA demand by Fox and CBS. You helped pass it. Sir, Barry Goldwater was a conservative. William Buckley was a conservative. A conservative wants FEWER laws, not more. LESS government regulation, not more. A conservative encourages a business-friendly environment - NOT a "business gets anything it wants" environment. You have forgotten the difference, and now you are paying the price. Your presidential campaign is all but over. You have lost the conservative base with your poorly-thought-out desperate attempts to please everyone. You had us, right until you took the supremely idiotic step of suspending your campaign - which was a clear political ploy that backfired. Capitalism is vital, but part of the price of capitalism is sometimes suffering failure. Bankruptcy, too is part of the failure process - entrepreneurs and other people need to know that they have a chance to start over if they fail. Your vote on the Bankruptcy Act of 2005, making it MORE difficult for all but the richest Americans to declare bankruptcy was another gift to business. And still, you persist in giving business whatever they want, at the expense of average Americans, with your recent idiotic vote on the "Copyright Czar" legislation. The record companies and motion picture companies have a broken business model that is being supplanted by new technologies, and like your ridiculous bank bailout bill you have chosen to give them what they want rather than letting them pay the price of failure. I will be voting for Bob Barr this election, not out of any hope that he will win, but rather in the hope that Republican political operatives will realize that increasing numbers of their traditional base can no longer stomach voting for so-called "Republicans" who don't seem any different from Democrats. I look forward to supporting your continued efforts in the Senate on behalf of Arizona, but your presidential campaign is over.
Too bad we didn't see this thing coming earlier. With a year's warning, it would be great practice to see if we could get some sort of vehicle close enough to destroy it. If we could find a way to target this thing, we could rest assured that we know how to target a larger object that could actually do damage. It would have been great target practice; big enough to track and try to hit but small enough that it doesn't matter if we miss.
Strictly speaking, if you're talking about continuity of government, the "Chinese Government" is a robust democracy in Taiwan - they are the heirs to the traditional Chinese government. The murderous thugs ruling mainland China don't have a pedigree going back past 1949.
I've always wondered if there would have been a war in 1997 if England had said, "Ok...our 100 year lease on Hong Kong is up. Time to give Hong Kong back to China...here you go, TAIWAN!"\
Actually, if memory serves, the TJ Maxx connection was a wireless link between two buildings - it was a WEP connection. So, yeah, it was encrypted, but it only took them about 10 minutes to crack it. Too bad the company was too lazy to use WPA. The other interesting part about this (again going from memory) is that they popped the back cover off one of those "Apply for a Job" kiosks in the store, and lo and behold, the job kiosk was on the hardwire, unencrypted network. Oops. And then the bad guys plugged in a USB key with a bootable Linux system on it. Double oops. They then had access to everything on the corporate network. Everything. Triple oops.
-Steve
You're quite right - my apologies. Links here:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/26/0340215
None of this means a damned thing if the RIAA succeeds in getting their private gestapo made into an arm of the Department of Justice. Remember, they are pushing a bill to create a Federal framework for billing the US Government for both civil and criminal actions using Federal officers to do their dirty work. Even if you don't download music, you're gonna pay through the nose in tax dollars and the loss of more civil rights as the government bureaucrats try to ram through new laws to "support their mission" - mandatory ISP snooping and filtering, legitimized abuse of due process, lower standards of evidence, and a grab bag of laws to "protect jobs" (that's the rationale being currently used to get this bill passed). We're setting ourselves up for an Orwellian nightmare of epic proportions if this nightmare passes.
...the next call the Indian tech took was from some guy who had a one-word name - "McLovin" and he didn't get any issue, nor did the caller after that, "Mike Hunt."
-Steve
"The two biggest computing providers of today"?
What the hell does that mean?
Also, is it just me or does the article intro sound like it was written by someone who has taken way too many marketing classes?
Yeah, great. Up until recently, I made a healthy living just by carrying a phone that rang when someone needed tech support - enough $$$ to support my family by itself. I had a lot more money and a lot more time to spend with my family, with the catch that sometimes - not always - the phone would ring. I was able to attend multiple amusement parks that I would not have been able to attend if I was working a "real job", and it was rare that the phone would ring on one of those occasions - but if it did, I *HAD* to deal with it.
Everyone's life and circumstances are different. How dare some stupid amusement park try to decide what is best for my family? Screw them.
1. My sincere apologies
2. I agree that a business is free to trial anything they want, but I believe the atmosphere in the UK (cameras everywhere, people being arrested for self defense or for critizing Islam, etc) makes such a proposal possible - if Disneyland tried this attendance would plummet after people got done with their prepaid vacations.
3. Good for you! The euro sucks, although at the moment the dollar sucks more.
-Steve
The UK is already becoming known as a nation of sheep that allows the government and private corporations to do whatever they want to their citizens - but the US is quickly catching up! If drastic action is not taken, the US may actually take the title of super-nanny-police-state-that-only-speaks-in-doublespeak.
Actions like this, where large multi-million euro corporations arbitrarily impose their will without regard go a long way towards reinforcing the attitude of British Subjects that they are merely units that exist for the benefit of the state tax coffers and corporate revenues and should be seen and not heard. Perhaps the lessons learning in once-proud England will go towards properly conditioning those backwards colonials in America, who still have to be lied to by their government before they will accept being treated like cattle.
The problem I have with the ACLU is they're a bunch of hypocrites, screaming for the broadest possible interpretation of all Amendments EXCEPT for the 2nd. They argue, ridiculously, the the 2nd amendment is there to give the government the right to have a military.
The entire Bill of Rights - the first 10 Amendments - were passed ONLY because there were those who feared the government had too much power. They were passed to guarantee rights for the people. The government already has authority to have a military in the un-amendended Constitution.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
The key word is PEOPLE. Many people fixate on the words "well regulated", forgetting that in the 18th century, "well regulated" meant to regulate your shots, i.e., to shoot straight.
The 2nd amendment is not there to preserve the right to hunt, as the ACLU would claim. It is there for three contingencies:
1. When the police cannot respond - remember, the police have NO LEGAL OBLIGATION to guarantee your safety. If they can stop bad things from happening, great, but ultimately, legally, a person is responsible for their own safety.
2. In the event of government failure or breakdown - we've seen the right to bear arms heavily utilized in 3 disasters in the last 15 years - Hurricane Andrew, LA Riots, and New Orleans. In each case, civil authority broke down and armed bands of citizens defended their property while unarmed people were exploited.
3. In the last, ultimate extremity, it is there in case the government starts ignoring the other amendments. In the words of one of the founding fathers who wrote the Federalist Papers in order to get the Constitution ratified, "it is inconceivable that the government could use the army to oppress the people, for the whole of the people are armed and will not stand for it." This is still relevant today, for every national politician should have in the back of their mind the specter of a guerrilla campaign on US soil if they go too far. Iraq is just more proof that such campaigns can be effective.
I've seen a mockup of the Pan Am bomb, which was based on a similar device that was seized prior to detonation. It actually was only a pound of explosive; it was enough to tear the aluminum skin of the aircraft in just the wrong place and the aircraft disintegrated due to wind pressure. It looked like a normal radio on x-ray except the batteries were somewhat malformed and bigger than they should have been; howover, most of the circuitry was still there.
Aircraft are weird things; a 737 survived the entire upper hull ripped off near hawaii inflight but several aircraft have been brought down by much smaller tears in areas where the wind get in.
The fear of a laptop carrying explosives is valid, seeing as how a radio-cassette stereo player - a medium size boom box - with a pound of plastic explosive in it - brought down a 747 - pan am 103 - over Scotland.
Yes, it's true that RMS will no longer the main Emacs maintainer, but the truth is he will still be very close to the project. RMS is merely shifting to a subset; he has dedicated himself to filling a gap that has been missing in the Emacs operating system for a long time; the lack of a robust, powerful, yet easy-to-use editor.
What's the last Microsoft project that Bill Gates spent considerable time writing code for before his managerial duties took away his time for coding?
:)
The portable, handheld battery-operated TRS-80.
Solid as a rock. There are tales of people skipping them across concrete and they still work.
And as far as the code? Bill must have done something right, because as of a few years ago (I last heard this in 2005 or 2004) there are still some of these beasts in use. Not much computing power, but they have an RS-232 port. The O/S is flexible enough that there are corporations using the device still. Apparently, the thing is so tough that there are off-shore oil platforms running some ancient equipment that dumps data through an RS-232 port, and the crews that have to service them use the portable TRS-80's to grab the data and take it back to their offices where they upload it to their PC's. More modern equipment apparently chokes after constant exposure to salt air, constant shock, and, well, oil workers. They're tough guys, you know.
There are exceptions, of course. Ronald Reagan always insisted on viewing a small portion of his mail and answering it himself.
Anyone who wants to learn how a President should think should read the Reagan Diaries. It's really a fascinating glimpse into a President's mind. Reagan seemed to enjoy calling people whose stories had touched him in someway and sometimes he noted, "they didn't believe it was me calling at first."
Bloom County fans will enjoy reading about Reagan's call to Berkley Breathed. I paraphrase it below, but the profanity is actually Reagan's:
"Called Bereley Breathed, author of the comic strip Bloom County. He sounded apprehensive at first - I'm very sure he thought I was calling to bitch at him - but I just wanted to thank him for drawing a lovely picture of Nancy in his latest strip. He was nice and told me he would send me the original."
Love him or hate him, reading the Reagan diaries will reveal that this was a man who was very, very much concerned with the "big picture" yet made quite an effort to stay in contact with the "average guy in the street". It is clear that he felt talking with normal, everyday Americans kept him grounded.
With respect,in response your statement that democracy can't suddenly be implemented, I would submit that General Douglas MacArthur and postwar Japan would prove your argument to be false.
A more correct argument would be that "Democracy can't just suddenly be implemented without extreme skill and a firm hand in control during the transition."
Alas, extreme skill - or, indeed, skill of any sort - seems to be lacking in our "nation-building" efforts of late.
Good so far, but you forgot the closing:
Finally, I shall place myself in the center of the largest city where my corporation was chartered and not resist as I am raped by a rapid dog. I may avoid this penalty if I track, capture and bind Darl McBride and dip him in molten steel while chanting "Filing frivolous lawsuits is not a viable business model."
Of course, it's a shame that the ex post facto clause of the Constitution would prohibit us from making it retroactive. Perhaps it's for the best, thought; it would be hard to find a rabid dog that would have the poor taste to rape Darl McBride.
Amen.
Infrastructure and corporate organization comes first.
Here's a good analogy. It's the early days of aviation, and you want a plane that can cross the Atlantic in 8 hours. No plane can cross the Atlantic at all at that point in time. What do you do? If you are bound by economic reality, you realize that if you build a functioning route structure with existing tech, and build it with future development in mind, it will be less of a jump from that than simply magically building a plane.
Continental airlines started flying mail and one or two passengers. Using that, over a couple of decades they built a route structure and employee organization that could barely - just barely - support the purchase of four jets. It worked. Prior to that, everyone said "you can never, ever run jets at a profit unless you have a fleet of at least ten." Continental did it. They made it profitable. And it never would have happened if Bob Six, CEO of Continental, had just showed up with a pile of cash saying "I want to build jets."
All the scientific people who are posting stuff on here about why "Scaled Composites doesn't make sense" don't get it. They think that aircraft fly because of Bernoulii's principle, they think that physics and technology make rockets and aircraft fly.
In reality, aircraft and rockets and spacecraft fly on money. Or, as the movie "The Right Stuff" pointed out, "no bucks, no Buck Rogers!"
Scaled Composites thinks that if they build a gradual business that provides enough excitement and entertainment that people want more then they might be able to use that ground infrastructure to build something better. They think that the next logical step after that, perhaps, will be sub-orbital hops to Europe and Japan. And then, when some big business realises there's something that might be profitable to do in orbit, Scaled Composites will step forward and say "We can build something like that. When do you need it?"
And, big business will listen, and treat them seriously...because well, hell, that company has been in business for a while and they build spaceships, they have shipping product so to speak, we're just asking them to build a bigger one.
Money is all.