What I really not love is the unintelligent rule that disallows me from not avoiding double negatives in sentences. Nonliberated pedants. As Chaucer might say, "He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde, In all his lyf unto no maner wight"
Translation:
What I really [hate] is the [stupid] rule that [forbids] me from [using] double negatives in sentences. [Tyrannical] pedants. "He never yet no vileness not said, in all his life unto no man or weight (status)."
I understand fanboyism because I used to be one. First it was "Commodore is better than Atari" then "Amiga is better than ST" then "Motorola/Mac is better than Intel/IBM PC".
Now that's I've grown-up I just buy the top two systems (Nintendo 64/PS1, Gamecube/PS2, Wii/X360) and be done with it. I no longer care whose name is on the box, and recommend the fanboys do the same.
>>>>> there's a much shallower learning curve. >> >>I get really annoyed by people getting this the wrong way around. If something's easy to learn, it has a steep learning curve:
I get really annoyed by people who get really annoyed about English idioms - especially when they're correction is wrong (as you are here). A steep learning curve is if I cracked-open my Calculus textbook and tried to teach it to my 6-year-old niece. For her it would be like trying to climb the side of a mountain.
A shallow learning curve is if I asked her to learn the ABCs. Since she already know them fairly well, obtaining proficiency would be as easy as walking-up a wheelchair ramp. Easy learn == shallow slope.
So now we have a fusion reactor which must be run just-below supercritical in order to produce a useful amount of power. Mess up the settings just a little bit, and..... boom.
What about persons who are both geeks AND jocks? People like Barack Obama. They will rule over all of us, because they're not just smart but damn cool.;-)
I don't see the big deal. When I first startup a new PC, or after a fresh CD install, I immediately go into the Add/Remove Programs manager and get rid of the junk I don't want.
Some of the more-stubborn programs like Apple iTunes still like to hang-around as resident startup files (iUpdate.exe, iPodService.exe), but they too can be dealt with after each startup by opening Task Manager/Processes-->End Processes.
Firefox 3.0 seems very stable on my WinXP system. I can have it open for day-after-day and not encounter problems. The only time I restart is when the memory usage grows above 300,000 K (either real or virtual/HDD memory).
In contrast Opera 10 crashes every other day. K-Meleon CFF is extremely unstable, and I'll probably uninstall it.
>>>my property in Northern Tasmania, although not a vast distance (as the crow flies about 40 km) from a regional centre, is not serviced in ANY way
Ahhh. Well if Tasmania was under U.S. jurisdiction, you'd have electric and phone hookups. This expense would not be paid by you, but by raising everyone's prices slightly higher, and then using the excess money to connect you and other rural residents. It's called the Universal Service Fund, and that's why I said rural (U.S.) connections are subsidized by city residents.
>>>I often see attacks on/. hidden as "red zones" are backwards, inept, religious, etc
Well first-off I live in a red zone. I certainly wouldn't attack myself as backwards, inept, et cetera, so you can strike that argument. As for food, a lot of rural residents don't grow any. They simple moved-out of the city into a small country home, with no intent to do farming. So you can strike that argument too.
And for the rest of my message you basically agreed with me - rural areas are more-costly to connect for electricity/phone service than city areas. But they don't pay higher rates. Why? The USF. The city residents pay higher rates to subsidize lower-cost rural hookups.
That wasn't point. My point is that if we meant some advanced race, they'd just laugh at us and say, "Of course the electron's momentum and position can be determined. There's no need for probability functions." We humans just haven't reached that stage yet.
>>>You have to buy from the corporation or do without.
Yes. Which is exactly what I do with Comcast TV - ignore them. They hold a monopoly (actually a duopoly), but at least they can't suck money directly out of my wallet, or draft me into the army to die in Iraq, or throw me in jail. Government monopolies have that power - example: the proposed healthcare bill. I either pay, or I get fined (~900 per person; 3000 per family), or I get jailed by the IRS. Comcast doesn't have any of those powers.
>>>There are no death panels
No you're right, and I too am tired of the hyperbole. However Massachusetts has something almost as bad. Due to a shortage in Mitt Romney's government-run healthcare, they are starting to ration care, turning-away people are considered too old. i.e. No better than the insurance companies... may, worse than them (you can say "no" and not buy insurance).
And if I have a negative view of governments, well that's because I've studied history. Governments are responsible for ~90 million deaths during the 1900s. And I'm not talking about wars - those are just deaths of their own citizens - enemies of the state. Even here in the "free" U.S., citizens were killed for nuclear experimentation during the 1950s, and Americans of asian descent imprisoned during WW2.
You (plaque) marked me troll just because I expressed an opinion??? Creep.
And those examples you listed are the exception, not the norm. Every place I've ever lived the electricity and phone was provided by regulated, private companies.
Only because the politicians sat on their asses and did nothing. If they had been more forceful, they could have brought TDS to its knees, as happened when Obama's pay czar forced CEOs and other top-level managers to accept 50% pay reductions.
I was discussing rural homes far, far away being subsidized for long-distance electric/phone hookups, and somehow you twisted it into an argument about innercity slums. What the fej??? (shrug). Perhaps if the rural homes were not subsidized, then the poor city folk would have lower electric/phone bills.
I agree. Most utilities are privately owned, regulated monopolies. I think internet should be too. (Or if feasible, have multiple providers like in the Dialup era.)
>>>So, I no longer wish to pay for lights in areas of town that I will never visit
You idea is reasonable, albeit the scale is off. If you expanded to the level of the state, where you are not required to pay for lighting in California if you live in Oregon, then I agree with your statement 100%.
>>>can see no purpose to having my tax dollars pay for the Interstate Highway system in New Hampshire as I will never go there
You probably don't (or if you do, it's just pennies). New Hampshire interstate is covered by New Hampshire drivers paying Gax taxes or tolls as they use the road.
>>>will not subsidize additions to my local airport as I do not fly
You probably don't. Airports expenses are owned by the government, but covered by the airlines' leases and the tolls charged for parking.
>>>and refuse to subsidize the building of fire houses except in the area that I live in.
Sounds reasonable to me.
>>>refuse to pay for schools because I have no children
I wouldn't go that far, but when you do have kids, and decide to send them to a private school, why should you have to pay double tuition each year (both the government school and the private school). Talk about being raped..... not even Microsoft does things like that. I would say that if your kids are going to a private school, and you can provide a receipt for that bill, you should be exempt from school taxes that year. That way you're only paying ONE tuition rather than two.
>>>>>Roads are funded by user fees. Those who drive pay - those who don't, don't pay. >> >>Right and if the polluted water or air isn't passing through your sources then you shouldn't have to clean it up..... If some indigent gets sick or insured you shouldn't have to pay for their care.
Fine.
If that's your view (not just you but all the persons that rejected my Gas Tax==usage fee for roads==fair), then I want your taxpayer dollars to buy a field for my modeling club so we have someplace to fly our airplanes, instead of renting one from the local farmer. Also I enjoy basket-weaving, so why don't you ship some free reeds to my house, paid with your taxes? For that matter what am I paying my house mortgage for? Let the taxpayers pay the bill instead.
When you start to make arguments like you made (quoted above), justifying why others should pay YOUR bills, then there's no end to what people like me can demand we be provided for free. Some expenses like police to protect my rights make logical sense. Others such as making me replace a chain-smokers' burnt-out lung, don't. He created that problem himself; let him pay the bill.
>>>If children are stupid enough to have poor or dysfunctional parents, screw em
Children can not provide for themselves. They cannot go get a job and improve their condition, so they need a government to protect them. An adult has no such excuse; even in a downturn like this eventually things will improve and he/she can start earning money. An adult might need a *temporary* safety net, but is not entitled to a lifelong government check.
(shrug).
Oh fuck it. I'm going to quit engineering and live off welfare for the rest of my life. If fools like ye are going to give me free money out of your taxpayer waller, then I'll take it. SUCK0RS!/end sarcasm. I was just joking of course.;-)
That's not really a "subsidy" but simply reducing the State gas tax from ~50 to ~30 cents, if you buy E85 ethanol. It's unfair to have disproportionate taxation like that, but E85 users are still paying a gasoline tax per gallon. They are not getting-off scotfree.
>>>Most people here in the USA are bred to be against public transportation. They think it's "icky" and they see them belching black smoke so it's "dirty"... >>>
STRAWMAN ARGUMENT. You're making a claim without any kind of support, and apparently based upon one teenage daughter's opinion. *I* have no problems with trains, and have ridden the D.C. Metro many times. My objection is that train travel is too slow. My boss and I both live in the same town, but it takes him 1.5 hours to get to work (by train). It only takes me 45 minutes (by car). Why would I choose a method of travel that's twice as long?
And no the "you can read on the train" argument doesn't fly, because I prefer listening to the news radio in the morning. Or music. Or books-on-tape, so my time in the car is not wasted.
Building roads, adding lanes, installing lighting..... it all comes out of the maintenance budget, which is collected from gasoline taxes. And in my state where we have *excess* gasoline taxes, that extra cash funds the light rail.
Government doesn't run power or phones. They are private corporations that are merely regulated, not run. That gives you the advantages of both a free market (electricity is bought and sold all across the U.S.)(phone calls are available from AT&T or Sprint or MCI or Skype or whatever), but still making sure the monopoly does not abuse its power.
>>>How is a corporate monopoly (accountable only to their own profit) better than a government monopoly (accountable to voters)?
I would flip that around and ask (given recent events like healthcare) - How is a government monopoly (which routinely ignores the voters; can suck money directly from wallets, or send you off to die in Iraq or jail)..... better than a private monopoly like Comcast (which consumers can simply ignore and not buy the product)??? I think the gov't monopoly is far, far worse.
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What I really not love is the unintelligent rule that disallows me from not avoiding double negatives in sentences. Nonliberated pedants. As Chaucer might say, "He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde, In all his lyf unto no maner wight"
Translation:
What I really [hate] is the [stupid] rule that [forbids] me from [using] double negatives in sentences. [Tyrannical] pedants. "He never yet no vileness not said, in all his life unto no man or weight (status)."
I'm about to give Nintendo some more money.
I lost my Gameboy Advance's power cable. :-( Can I just borrow my friend's DS cable instead? Will it work with the GBA?
I understand fanboyism because I used to be one. First it was "Commodore is better than Atari" then "Amiga is better than ST" then "Motorola/Mac is better than Intel/IBM PC".
Now that's I've grown-up I just buy the top two systems (Nintendo 64/PS1, Gamecube/PS2, Wii/X360) and be done with it. I no longer care whose name is on the box, and recommend the fanboys do the same.
>>>>> there's a much shallower learning curve.
>>
>>I get really annoyed by people getting this the wrong way around. If something's easy to learn, it has a steep learning curve:
I get really annoyed by people who get really annoyed about English idioms - especially when they're correction is wrong (as you are here). A steep learning curve is if I cracked-open my Calculus textbook and tried to teach it to my 6-year-old niece. For her it would be like trying to climb the side of a mountain.
A shallow learning curve is if I asked her to learn the ABCs. Since she already know them fairly well, obtaining proficiency would be as easy as walking-up a wheelchair ramp. Easy learn == shallow slope.
"Hello I'm Linux..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-L-0s-7-Z0
"But with youses guyses computer, you work for the computer..... Linux is the infinite possibility of community!"
Ok.
So now we have a fusion reactor which must be run just-below supercritical in order to produce a useful amount of power. Mess up the settings just a little bit, and..... boom.
+1.
What about persons who are both geeks AND jocks? People like Barack Obama. They will rule over all of us, because they're not just smart but damn cool. ;-)
I don't see the big deal. When I first startup a new PC, or after a fresh CD install, I immediately go into the Add/Remove Programs manager and get rid of the junk I don't want.
Some of the more-stubborn programs like Apple iTunes still like to hang-around as resident startup files (iUpdate.exe, iPodService.exe), but they too can be dealt with after each startup by opening Task Manager/Processes-->End Processes.
Firefox 3.0 seems very stable on my WinXP system. I can have it open for day-after-day and not encounter problems. The only time I restart is when the memory usage grows above 300,000 K (either real or virtual/HDD memory).
In contrast Opera 10 crashes every other day. K-Meleon CFF is extremely unstable, and I'll probably uninstall it.
>>>my property in Northern Tasmania, although not a vast distance (as the crow flies about 40 km) from a regional centre, is not serviced in ANY way
Ahhh. Well if Tasmania was under U.S. jurisdiction, you'd have electric and phone hookups. This expense would not be paid by you, but by raising everyone's prices slightly higher, and then using the excess money to connect you and other rural residents. It's called the Universal Service Fund, and that's why I said rural (U.S.) connections are subsidized by city residents.
>>>I often see attacks on /. hidden as "red zones" are backwards, inept, religious, etc
Well first-off I live in a red zone. I certainly wouldn't attack myself as backwards, inept, et cetera, so you can strike that argument. As for food, a lot of rural residents don't grow any. They simple moved-out of the city into a small country home, with no intent to do farming. So you can strike that argument too.
And for the rest of my message you basically agreed with me - rural areas are more-costly to connect for electricity/phone service than city areas. But they don't pay higher rates. Why? The USF. The city residents pay higher rates to subsidize lower-cost rural hookups.
That wasn't point. My point is that if we meant some advanced race, they'd just laugh at us and say, "Of course the electron's momentum and position can be determined. There's no need for probability functions." We humans just haven't reached that stage yet.
>>>You have to buy from the corporation or do without.
Yes. Which is exactly what I do with Comcast TV - ignore them. They hold a monopoly (actually a duopoly), but at least they can't suck money directly out of my wallet, or draft me into the army to die in Iraq, or throw me in jail. Government monopolies have that power - example: the proposed healthcare bill. I either pay, or I get fined (~900 per person; 3000 per family), or I get jailed by the IRS. Comcast doesn't have any of those powers.
>>>There are no death panels
No you're right, and I too am tired of the hyperbole. However Massachusetts has something almost as bad. Due to a shortage in Mitt Romney's government-run healthcare, they are starting to ration care, turning-away people are considered too old. i.e. No better than the insurance companies... may, worse than them (you can say "no" and not buy insurance).
And if I have a negative view of governments, well that's because I've studied history. Governments are responsible for ~90 million deaths during the 1900s. And I'm not talking about wars - those are just deaths of their own citizens - enemies of the state. Even here in the "free" U.S., citizens were killed for nuclear experimentation during the 1950s, and Americans of asian descent imprisoned during WW2.
Do I fear corporations? Yes.
But I fear government much, much more.
You (plaque) marked me troll just because I expressed an opinion??? Creep.
And those examples you listed are the exception, not the norm. Every place I've ever lived the electricity and phone was provided by regulated, private companies.
Only because the politicians sat on their asses and did nothing. If they had been more forceful, they could have brought TDS to its knees, as happened when Obama's pay czar forced CEOs and other top-level managers to accept 50% pay reductions.
Amazing.
I was discussing rural homes far, far away being subsidized for long-distance electric/phone hookups, and somehow you twisted it into an argument about innercity slums. What the fej??? (shrug). Perhaps if the rural homes were not subsidized, then the poor city folk would have lower electric/phone bills.
I agree. Most utilities are privately owned, regulated monopolies. I think internet should be too. (Or if feasible, have multiple providers like in the Dialup era.)
>>>So, I no longer wish to pay for lights in areas of town that I will never visit
You idea is reasonable, albeit the scale is off. If you expanded to the level of the state, where you are not required to pay for lighting in California if you live in Oregon, then I agree with your statement 100%.
>>>can see no purpose to having my tax dollars pay for the Interstate Highway system in New Hampshire as I will never go there
You probably don't (or if you do, it's just pennies). New Hampshire interstate is covered by New Hampshire drivers paying Gax taxes or tolls as they use the road.
>>>will not subsidize additions to my local airport as I do not fly
You probably don't. Airports expenses are owned by the government, but covered by the airlines' leases and the tolls charged for parking.
>>>and refuse to subsidize the building of fire houses except in the area that I live in.
Sounds reasonable to me.
>>>refuse to pay for schools because I have no children
I wouldn't go that far, but when you do have kids, and decide to send them to a private school, why should you have to pay double tuition each year (both the government school and the private school). Talk about being raped..... not even Microsoft does things like that. I would say that if your kids are going to a private school, and you can provide a receipt for that bill, you should be exempt from school taxes that year. That way you're only paying ONE tuition rather than two.
>>>>>Roads are funded by user fees. Those who drive pay - those who don't, don't pay.
>>
>>Right and if the polluted water or air isn't passing through your sources then you shouldn't have to clean it up..... If some indigent gets sick or insured you shouldn't have to pay for their care.
Fine.
If that's your view (not just you but all the persons that rejected my Gas Tax==usage fee for roads==fair), then I want your taxpayer dollars to buy a field for my modeling club so we have someplace to fly our airplanes, instead of renting one from the local farmer. Also I enjoy basket-weaving, so why don't you ship some free reeds to my house, paid with your taxes? For that matter what am I paying my house mortgage for? Let the taxpayers pay the bill instead.
When you start to make arguments like you made (quoted above), justifying why others should pay YOUR bills, then there's no end to what people like me can demand we be provided for free. Some expenses like police to protect my rights make logical sense. Others such as making me replace a chain-smokers' burnt-out lung, don't. He created that problem himself; let him pay the bill.
>>>If children are stupid enough to have poor or dysfunctional parents, screw em
Children can not provide for themselves. They cannot go get a job and improve their condition, so they need a government to protect them. An adult has no such excuse; even in a downturn like this eventually things will improve and he/she can start earning money. An adult might need a *temporary* safety net, but is not entitled to a lifelong government check.
(shrug).
Oh fuck it. I'm going to quit engineering and live off welfare for the rest of my life. If fools like ye are going to give me free money out of your taxpayer waller, then I'll take it. SUCK0RS! /end sarcasm. I was just joking of course. ;-)
That's not really a "subsidy" but simply reducing the State gas tax from ~50 to ~30 cents, if you buy E85 ethanol. It's unfair to have disproportionate taxation like that, but E85 users are still paying a gasoline tax per gallon. They are not getting-off scotfree.
>>>Most people here in the USA are bred to be against public transportation. They think it's "icky" and they see them belching black smoke so it's "dirty"...
>>>
STRAWMAN ARGUMENT. You're making a claim without any kind of support, and apparently based upon one teenage daughter's opinion. *I* have no problems with trains, and have ridden the D.C. Metro many times. My objection is that train travel is too slow. My boss and I both live in the same town, but it takes him 1.5 hours to get to work (by train). It only takes me 45 minutes (by car). Why would I choose a method of travel that's twice as long?
And no the "you can read on the train" argument doesn't fly, because I prefer listening to the news radio in the morning. Or music. Or books-on-tape, so my time in the car is not wasted.
>>>It is easy to argue that users of the Light Rail system are lessening the load on roads
So you agree with me then: The money collected from gasoline/diesel taxes *exceed* the amount needed to maintain the roads. There are excess funds.
Building roads, adding lanes, installing lighting..... it all comes out of the maintenance budget, which is collected from gasoline taxes. And in my state where we have *excess* gasoline taxes, that extra cash funds the light rail.
Government doesn't run power or phones. They are private corporations that are merely regulated, not run. That gives you the advantages of both a free market (electricity is bought and sold all across the U.S.)(phone calls are available from AT&T or Sprint or MCI or Skype or whatever), but still making sure the monopoly does not abuse its power.
>>>How is a corporate monopoly (accountable only to their own profit) better than a government monopoly (accountable to voters)?
I would flip that around and ask (given recent events like healthcare) - How is a government monopoly (which routinely ignores the voters; can suck money directly from wallets, or send you off to die in Iraq or jail)..... better than a private monopoly like Comcast (which consumers can simply ignore and not buy the product)??? I think the gov't monopoly is far, far worse.