I did not say that feminism is anti biological or anti natural.
I was raised to believe, and I strongly believe that women should have the option to be treated as equals in our society. Sure - I don't have a problem with that.
What I *do* have a problem with is the extremists who believe that a woman who does not stand up for herself and TAKE her equality, is a traitor to her kind. Or that a man who may treat some women as equals, but maybe goes to a strip club to objectify some other women (who are performing for this purpose of their own free will and are being well paid for it) is a chauvanist. (there are many examples of things men do to satisfy their urges of social dominance, and many of them don't involve the objectification or degradation of women, like Golf, - but some are wrong, like rape, or discrimination, others are just offensive to feminazis - but not wrong - so the strip club was a good example of that. This does not mean that the "wrong" things like rape or discrimination should be encouraged - I'm not saying those things are acceptable, 'k?).
I know of a girl, who likes rough sex. She likes it. Sex without a little rough play is totally unsatisfying her. Add a little pain, and it becomes very enjoyable. It's not because she was abused, or raped as a child, or because she watched too much TV, or because the teachers in school didn't pay as much attention to her as they do to the boys. It's just the way she is. She likes to be spanked, she likes to have her hair pulled, she likes to be tied up, she even likes a smack in the face every once in a while. She went into a book store to ask if there were any books on BDSM. The lady directed her to the section on spouse abuse. To me, that is the essence of all that is wrong with feminism. Just because they can't understand something, they automatically assume that since a woman is being "mistreated" (even though she LIKES that, of her own free will) - that it's wrong, and somehow abuse, and just another example of the "Male Dominated Society Keeping The Women In Their Place".
It is a "fact" that we are "biologically wired" - and I didn't say it was depending on our sex - though sex is a strong factor.
My daughter is 5 years old, VERY independent, very stubborn, and very dominant, and she has been this way since she was an infant, I'm talking one, two months old. It's not something my wife and I conditioned into her - it's the way she is. Her older brother, my son, as a small infant, used to love laying on my chest, cuddling, being held, but has gradually worked into a more dominant personality. But my daughter did not like being held at all, she would push away, and resist any cuddling. She had a very strong urge to be in control of her physical situation.
The way a person is is decided by biology - of this I'm absolutely certain. Until you've raised kids, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about.
And can you think of books that you read as a teenager that brainwashed you? Books that changed your personality against your will? Books that programmed you to be something you weren't? I didn't think so. It's only "the other people" who are sucseptible to this evil mind-control plot by the communists/nazis/capitalists/illuminati. Yes, won't somebody think of the children?
I have had the same email address for 7 years. Other addresses I've maintained have come and gone, but this address, I've kept unchanged - and I never once had to send out a mass mailing to all my friends telling them my email address was changing.
Also, I'm a multi-platform kind of guy. I'm always certain that no matter where I am, what machine I'm on, if it's internet connected and has a reasonable browser, I can get my email. Hell, two years ago, when I was on vacation in Tahiti, and I was also waiting for an estimate to come through on some home repairs, I went into an internet cafe, and zing! Got my mail, and by the time I was back home, the repairs were done. I didn't have to have any special software installed, didn't have to remember the mail server's name, or protocol type, or configure where I wanted my messages to be stored, etc. etc. etc.
There's something to be said for browser-based mail. I wouldn't want to do ALL of my email commmunication through it - but I'm sure as hell happy I have it as a personal back up.
"Nervousness, anxiety, irritability, headache, disturbed sleep, and stomach upset or peptic ulcers. In women, it may aggravate the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome"
Holy shit, I've got all of those! (except the PMS thing).
And it was (and still is) a very aerodynamic design. Moreso than many new cars out today.
In fact - Hitler was kind of an armchair futurist (horrible person that he otherwise was), and thought a lot about aerodynamics (as much as he thought about streamlining the genepool - totally different debate). The Beetle was designed with aerodynamics in mind from the first basic sketch. Porsche's low-profile flat-four engine was ideal for the aerodynamic body shape. Especially placed in the rear.
You're telling me that your basic "brick" sedan has that much thought thought towards aerodynamics put into it?
Simple enough to fix it yourself is a GREAT benefit, unless you get off on paying $100/hr labor rates to guys who'll come out of the garage and tell you your tweakajammeter is blown, and you'll have to get a new one, and it's going to take a week. (guess you're hoofing it).
The simple fact is, that for all it's shortcomings, there were still some BASIC design principles that went into that car that were thrown out by later car designs, much to the extrememe detriment of the entire automotive industry. Well, not the industry, just the poor saps who have to buy these new cars every 3 years, and watch them depreciate down to junk. Mainly these priciples were thrown out because they went against the way the big three automakers did things going back to Ford. (ever see the movie "Tucker"? That's how resistant to change these people are).
Hey, I thought that's what the whole deal behind hybrids are in the first place. Not to mention all the work that has gone into CVT's (continuously variable transmissions - designed to allow an engine to run at a more limited RPM range - instead of attacking the problem from the other direction, where you have to vary spark advance, fuel and air, and valve timing per RPM to squeeze the best efficiency out of an engine that runs across a range).
Don't tell me that the Cadillac Escalade is more aerodynamic than: 1959 Porsche 356 1965 VW Karmann Ghia 1949 VW Beetle 1969 Corvette Stingray
In the 70's we sacrificed good styling for... bad styling. No excuses. There's no reason why we all went from airplane-inspired sloped and rounded bodies with tailfins to. . . bricks on wheels.
Perhaps safety concerns? Compare the 1973 Porsche 911 with the 1974 Porsche 911 - with the new federally mandated 5mph bumpers. (compare Detroit's changes to meet those federal mandates). Not much difference. Compare deathraps like the 70's Pinto, to the Volvo. I don't think that safety, aerodynamics, or efficiency played much of a role if any in the styling changes of cars from the 60's to the 70's and 80's - other than, at least in America, it was - more mass, more internal space - up through the late 70's where it was, "oh crap, the Japs are kicking our silly asses, lets make some econoboxes that look like Hondas" (hence the Chevy Citation and Ford Escort). And THEN, styling was dictated by - "cut weight at all costs".
Any cars with ANY design sense engineered into them at all in the past 30 years? Maybe the late Camaro. The 'Vette. But both of those suffer from really shoddy interior work. On the Ford side theres: The Mustang, which looked like a big Escort for most of the 80's. The Taurus was a good, and honest effort - though it's dated now. The RX-7, (no longer available in the US). The Miata (probably the most successful sports car of the 90's). The Prowler (not a *real* production car). The Viper (also not a *real* production car).
The only other example is that PT Cruiser. Which is pretty neat looking, I guess, if you're into that sort of thing.
But the rest of the auto industry is a vast wasteland of "variation on a theme" - econobox, sedan, SUV/Truck.
As far as other so-called "improvements"? Coming out of the 80's I think was the best thing - 80's cars sucked so bad in every way possible, I'd say that overall, there's not one example that was as good as it's 70's or 60's counterpart. Especially American cars. Fragile and delicate. Incredibly unreliable and expensive. Having to smog-test one of these cars was a reason to buy a new one, because even on a car just 3 or 4 years old, you'd end up dropping hundreds of dollars replacing computers, broken sensors, cracked plastic ductwork, etc. I think only in the past 5 years have there been newer cars that are compellingly as good as cars from the late 60's or 70's. All the hacks they had to put on cars to meet efficiency and pollution standards finally have the bugs worked out - though there's still a lack of simple engineering which makes it nearly impossible to maintain or modify one of these beasts yourself. Repair or restore? Forget it. Then plug price into the equation - and for your AVERAGE car, you're talking about $20,000 - for anything special, even remotely above average, you're talking about $25,000+ Go getchyerself an old 60's classic, for anywhere from $5000-$20,000, you get power, maintainability, hackability, classic design, like nothing available on the market to day for that price.
When Dr. Ferdinand Porsche built the FIRST electric car almost 100 years ago, he powered it with 4 separate motors housed in the wheels.
I think GM might be on to something here. ..
Of course, the powerplant issue is kind of weak though. But then again, if you had to ditch the fuel-cell idea and stick with an IC engine, look at the engine Porsche designed - the aircooled flat-four isn't much thicker than 12" or so (not including the fan housing, which could easily be designed differently). Throw a flat-6 or 8 in the same chassis, run a generator like your typical hybrid, power the electric motors at the wheels, and you can still take advantage of the same overall design. Now engineer the IC engine and cooling ductwork to be swappable with the fuel cell, you have recyclable engineering for when fuel cell technology catches up with IC technology.
Sure, I'd go to work for GM, but I can't stand living in Detroit.
Yes, I did think that the silly notion that they could put the same chassis under all cars was well, silly. You don't WANT 20" of ground clearance in a sedan. And in a sports coupe, you DO want to be within 3-5" of the ground if at all possible.
This vehicle will not be taken seriously in ANY sporting (professional, amateur, or poseur) application period.
Hell, with that argument, the GREENEST choice seems to be to say, fuck it, new cars are for suckers, I'm gonna spend $1000 on a 30 year old aircooled VW, and keep driving it and fixing it until the universe dies.
Replacement parts are cheap - these cars get 30 miles per gallon, and pass emissions testing (which they are not required to do) - when kept properly tuned, and rebuilding an engine is trivially cheap, and simple enough that anyone can do it in their garage with a modest investment in tools. Why bother with anything newer when the old stuff works just fine? Why foster this market of super-expensive repair parts for modern cars? Why have them fire up the forge to stamp out a new car for every man, woman, and child on the planet every two years?
Yes, mastrubation is much easier when you only need one hand to drive your computer (using the mouse). If you have to keyboard, you get lube all over everything.
Yes, it's time once again for file-format(and codec) roulette. Where you install an update to your media player, and wonder, which files that used to not play will play, and which files that used to play will not (as some obscure alpha codec you downloaded last year gets overwritten by it's broken progeny, or removed altogether by the installer looking to "tidy things up").
I swear, with QT 3.0 I could play ANYTHING. Then with 4.0, a bunch of files just wouldn't play anymore, then with 5.0, a bunch more broke, and pretty much every new file coming out was in some bastardized version of DivX that either didn't work at all or had no audio, or had audio but no video, and I downloaded every codex imaginable, DivX, 3ivX, and every media-cleaner program, converter, translator, set of video tools, and nothing fucking fixed it - and nobody could offer a coherent explanation as to why.
So should I install QT 6 - and watch another round of the player helplessly trying to download codecs that aren't there, never were there, and never will be there, while the player shows a white screen? Or should I go back to QT 3.0, where I can simply watch everything. (except the DivX crap).
The patent dispute was over code Microsoft stole from Apple from Quicktime that somehow ended up, comments and all, in WMP.
They payout was rumored to have been in the neighborhood of an additional 600+ million.
Ironic when you later hear that Microsoft had asked Apple to "knife the baby". They steal the code, and then tell the company they stole the code from to kill their own product. Then they make a huge costly effort to go out to all major video serving sites on the net (CNN being a prime example) and GIVE them hardware, and free streaming server software, in order to beg them to serve WMP content instead of Quicktime. (CNN used to be a MAJOR bastion of Quicktime).
Seems nobody at Microsoft has ever thought about competing on merit.
I understand that a "true pedophile" is ONLY attracted to PREPUBESCENT children etc. - whoever's definition that is. If you listen to all the hysteria and witch-hunting going on in the press right now - even guys like R.Kelly, (no I don't like him, don't give a crap about him or his music) are branded pedophiles for having sex with some 16 year old bimbo. Who gives a crap? Non issue, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I'd be pretty steamed if my 16 year old daughter was taking it in the kiester from some rap star in his personal video collection, but that's a far cry from child-rape.
Yes, I'm very unhappy about the current witch-hunt going on. I'm sure there are a lot of guys out there who are sexually ashamed and confused when they're attracted to a young (post-pubescent) girl and told that they're wrong and evil, and need treatment, jail time, and chemical castration. Do those individuals need to control their urges? Yeah, they do. But they're not sick. They're natural urges.
I think that a lot of Nazi prison guards were just happy they weren't on the Eastern front. Stalingrad was a great motivator for Nazis to blindly and obediently follow orders.
Oh jeez yeah, I *hate* the fact that society says I'm evil because I get a Woodrow when I see a pair of perky boobies. Uh huh.
(disclaimer; havent' ever, not ever going to have intercourse with an underage person)
Did it ever occur to you that maybe he's corresponded with pedophiles in prison because they read his books, got turned on by it, realized that's why they were in prison and decided to write him a letter, him being a famous author who happened to write that book? I don't think Piers meant that he went through the prison system looking specifically for pedophiles to correspond with and trade poloroids with.
Piers has it right on the money - depicting a thing, or portraying a thing does not glorify it. It's a fact, that what he says about male attitudes towards women, even the desirability of (what US puritanical culture determines to be) "underage" women is pretty much true. We're hard-wired for this. It's biological fact. As is social dominance in primates. Men want to dominate control and rule their sex partners. No, not all men - I suspect everybody's wired a bit differently, and for some people it's a much stronger urge than others. And the urge for dominance can also often be redirected in other ways: (prime example - a physically weak male can't win the dominance game on the football field, so he takes up the dominance game on his own terms, using his own strengths, perhaps he's a mathematical genius, or has a talent for memorizing obscure command-line or programming syntax. When this person develops total 1337-ness, he has won the dominance game). So even though it can be redirected, it's primarily a sexual thing - and so is a button that's best pressed through fantasy and sexual imagery.
Which is NOT to say that all women are hopelessly wired by nature to be submissive sex slaves. That's not at all what I'm saying.
My point is, is that society has created a backlash against this natural tendency - a backlash called "the feminist movement" - and while it has done great things for freeing women, particularly, individual women who are not wired for submissiveness, freeing them from the constraints imposed upon them by a male-dominated society. Somewhat. But in pursuing this backlash - they've also completely vilified men, and dominance, and competitveness in general. Any place where these traits are displayed is now evil, backwards, and contributing to "enslaving women". A woman who is, herself, submissive, becomes shamed by her role, as if she's betraying her own kind. Contributing to the system that keeps all women down. Which is complete hogwash. The only thing that keeps women down is people refusing to admit their own nature - and buying into some sort of system of predestination - whether it's someone's twisted idea of "equality" or an absolutist view of "All Men Are Dominant over All Women" - both extremes are wrong, and end up forcing a life onto people for which they are not suited. Some men do not feel driven to beat everyone at some particular game. Maybe they like to be tied up and spanked by a dominatrix because of the pressure they feel in day to day life of having to always be in competition. Perhaps some homosexual men are really driven by an urge to submit. Why not leave these men alone, and let them live their lives the way that makes them happy? Some women do not feel driven to find a man to rescue them, take care of them, and then have their babies wash their laundry and clean their toilets for the rest of their lives. But the women who DO feel that way should be allowed to live the lives that make them happy. They should not be forced to go to college, become lawyers, and wait until they're 45 to have one mildly retarded child. The ones that want to do that - sure - whatever floats your boat. But live and let live.
Which is all Piers is saying. Yes, there are TONS of women out there who love the sexual imagery in his books. In fact, back in the 80's Sci-Fi fandom scene, I pretty much saw the whole Xanth series as books for girls. I didn't know any males who really got into them. How can such exploitation of women possibly appeal to so many women? Especially to a group with such a high percentage of "pagan" Goddess-worshipers, etc. ? It's biology. You can fight it. But in the end, biology pumps your blood, regulates your hormones, and fires your neurons. You have free will, but there are certain things that are biologically engineered by nature to make you happy and content. It's often wise to listen to them.
Nobody believed "us" back in the day when MS first adopted Java. We all TOLD YOU SO! That Microsoft was going to embrace and extend the standard, and fuck it up so that it would not work properly on Windows.
Oh no, you said. We were just a bunch of paranoid unix loving long haired hippies that needed a bath and got off on bashing Microsoft because they were the embodiment of "the man".
Here it is, 2002. See where Java on WIndows is today.
Back in the 80's we told you that NOBODY was going to be able to stop Microsoft. You told us in 1993 when the DOJ sued them for anticompetitive behavior that that was it for MS. They got the consent decree in 95, and wiped their asses with it and stuffed it in the judge's mouth. Then in 1998, when the DOJ came a knockin again, you said - that was IT, no more mister nice guy, they'll put a stop to that evil Microsoft, but we'll keep running Windows over here in our little corner, because it was "most compatible" "most convenient".
Well, look. Here it is, 2002, no sign of a settlement with any degree of teeth - Microsoft has it's fingers in nearly every aspect of computing, and has extended into entertainment, banking, even fucking HISTORY for christ's sake (buying DaVincci's stuff and locking it down). And there you people go, still saying Windows is great, Office is a great app, etc. Well, thanks. You've sold us all into slavery.
You'll now say - don't worry, they won't close off OpenGL (hm - I wonder if they think if all that money they spent on marketing XBox was effective. OF COURSE NOT! Not until they kill of OpenGL). You say, they won't close off identity and privacy (.NET, Palladium).
Judging by the astounding variety of Estes rocket shapes and designs that fly, well or not, I'd say this guy doesn't have much to worry about. I think that if it looks remotely like a rocket, is structurally sound, balanced, it's gonna fly. Is it an ideal (aerodynamically) shape? probably not. But up against newton's 3rd law of motion, I don't think it's going to make much difference if it's not.
my wife is also dyslexic, and while, she used to have serious problems in any written venue, after she met me, and we started tag-teaming message boards and things like that, the practice paid off. She still has terrible spelling and grammatical problems, but she can construct the most devious arguments. Yes, we're trolls, we work as a team, we're made for eachother:). We love harrassing young know-it-all AOL teenagers the best.
Just how would "pay for every use" destroy the economy?
If "pay for every use" became standard, I think most people would just shrug and find something else to do other than sit in front of the boob tube.
Might possibly be a good thing.
Remember when OPEC had the petroleum market cornered in the 70's and created an artificial "energy crisis"? Sure, gas prices went through the roof - but consumption and demand went DOWN.
I rate music and movie entertainment as something quite a bit further down on the prioritised list of necessities of life than petroleum (which is *required* to drive to work, heat homes, cook food, etc). Maybe lower than most folks, but certainly most folks don't have it up so high that "pay for each use" wouldn't totally fuck the entertainment industry into utter collapse.
Slashdot Mirror
I did not say that feminism is anti biological or anti natural.
I was raised to believe, and I strongly believe that women should have the option to be treated as equals in our society. Sure - I don't have a problem with that.
What I *do* have a problem with is the extremists who believe that a woman who does not stand up for herself and TAKE her equality, is a traitor to her kind. Or that a man who may treat some women as equals, but maybe goes to a strip club to objectify some other women (who are performing for this purpose of their own free will and are being well paid for it) is a chauvanist. (there are many examples of things men do to satisfy their urges of social dominance, and many of them don't involve the objectification or degradation of women, like Golf, - but some are wrong, like rape, or discrimination, others are just offensive to feminazis - but not wrong - so the strip club was a good example of that. This does not mean that the "wrong" things like rape or discrimination should be encouraged - I'm not saying those things are acceptable, 'k?).
I know of a girl, who likes rough sex. She likes it. Sex without a little rough play is totally unsatisfying her. Add a little pain, and it becomes very enjoyable. It's not because she was abused, or raped as a child, or because she watched too much TV, or because the teachers in school didn't pay as much attention to her as they do to the boys. It's just the way she is. She likes to be spanked, she likes to have her hair pulled, she likes to be tied up, she even likes a smack in the face every once in a while. She went into a book store to ask if there were any books on BDSM. The lady directed her to the section on spouse abuse. To me, that is the essence of all that is wrong with feminism. Just because they can't understand something, they automatically assume that since a woman is being "mistreated" (even though she LIKES that, of her own free will) - that it's wrong, and somehow abuse, and just another example of the "Male Dominated Society Keeping The Women In Their Place".
Some guys like a challenge.
Some guys like a woman with spirit.
Or, some guys like a woman who's strong and independent - whom he doesn't need to take care of and protect like some simpering little waif.
I doubt it's cultural. yes, there's fashion and influences in things like movies. But in every era there are women of all types, and men of all types.
It is a "fact" that we are "biologically wired" - and I didn't say it was depending on our sex - though sex is a strong factor.
My daughter is 5 years old, VERY independent, very stubborn, and very dominant, and she has been this way since she was an infant, I'm talking one, two months old. It's not something my wife and I conditioned into her - it's the way she is. Her older brother, my son, as a small infant, used to love laying on my chest, cuddling, being held, but has gradually worked into a more dominant personality. But my daughter did not like being held at all, she would push away, and resist any cuddling. She had a very strong urge to be in control of her physical situation.
The way a person is is decided by biology - of this I'm absolutely certain. Until you've raised kids, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about.
And can you think of books that you read as a teenager that brainwashed you? Books that changed your personality against your will? Books that programmed you to be something you weren't? I didn't think so. It's only "the other people" who are sucseptible to this evil mind-control plot by the communists/nazis/capitalists/illuminati. Yes, won't somebody think of the children?
However, you must look at it's good points:
I have had the same email address for 7 years. Other addresses I've maintained have come and gone, but this address, I've kept unchanged - and I never once had to send out a mass mailing to all my friends telling them my email address was changing.
Also, I'm a multi-platform kind of guy. I'm always certain that no matter where I am, what machine I'm on, if it's internet connected and has a reasonable browser, I can get my email. Hell, two years ago, when I was on vacation in Tahiti, and I was also waiting for an estimate to come through on some home repairs, I went into an internet cafe, and zing! Got my mail, and by the time I was back home, the repairs were done. I didn't have to have any special software installed, didn't have to remember the mail server's name, or protocol type, or configure where I wanted my messages to be stored, etc. etc. etc.
There's something to be said for browser-based mail. I wouldn't want to do ALL of my email commmunication through it - but I'm sure as hell happy I have it as a personal back up.
If it's a FREE service, then why, oh, why do we need HTML mail anyway? Plain text is perfectly adequate!
Frankly, the only HTML mail I ever get is spam anyway. They should just not render html period.
"Nervousness, anxiety, irritability, headache, disturbed sleep, and stomach upset or peptic ulcers. In women, it may aggravate the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome"
Holy shit, I've got all of those! (except the PMS thing).
And it was (and still is) a very aerodynamic design. Moreso than many new cars out today.
In fact - Hitler was kind of an armchair futurist (horrible person that he otherwise was), and thought a lot about aerodynamics (as much as he thought about streamlining the genepool - totally different debate). The Beetle was designed with aerodynamics in mind from the first basic sketch. Porsche's low-profile flat-four engine was ideal for the aerodynamic body shape. Especially placed in the rear.
You're telling me that your basic "brick" sedan has that much thought thought towards aerodynamics put into it?
Simple enough to fix it yourself is a GREAT benefit, unless you get off on paying $100/hr labor rates to guys who'll come out of the garage and tell you your tweakajammeter is blown, and you'll have to get a new one, and it's going to take a week. (guess you're hoofing it).
The simple fact is, that for all it's shortcomings, there were still some BASIC design principles that went into that car that were thrown out by later car designs, much to the extrememe detriment of the entire automotive industry. Well, not the industry, just the poor saps who have to buy these new cars every 3 years, and watch them depreciate down to junk. Mainly these priciples were thrown out because they went against the way the big three automakers did things going back to Ford. (ever see the movie "Tucker"? That's how resistant to change these people are).
But I thought wider was better!
Not theory. Fact.
Hey, I thought that's what the whole deal behind hybrids are in the first place. Not to mention all the work that has gone into CVT's (continuously variable transmissions - designed to allow an engine to run at a more limited RPM range - instead of attacking the problem from the other direction, where you have to vary spark advance, fuel and air, and valve timing per RPM to squeeze the best efficiency out of an engine that runs across a range).
Bullshit.
.. bad styling. No excuses. There's no reason why we all went from airplane-inspired sloped and rounded bodies with tailfins to. . . bricks on wheels.
Don't tell me that the Cadillac Escalade is more aerodynamic than:
1959 Porsche 356
1965 VW Karmann Ghia
1949 VW Beetle
1969 Corvette Stingray
In the 70's we sacrificed good styling for.
Perhaps safety concerns? Compare the 1973 Porsche 911 with the 1974 Porsche 911 - with the new federally mandated 5mph bumpers. (compare Detroit's changes to meet those federal mandates). Not much difference. Compare deathraps like the 70's Pinto, to the Volvo. I don't think that safety, aerodynamics, or efficiency played much of a role if any in the styling changes of cars from the 60's to the 70's and 80's - other than, at least in America, it was - more mass, more internal space - up through the late 70's where it was, "oh crap, the Japs are kicking our silly asses, lets make some econoboxes that look like Hondas" (hence the Chevy Citation and Ford Escort). And THEN, styling was dictated by - "cut weight at all costs".
Any cars with ANY design sense engineered into them at all in the past 30 years?
Maybe the late Camaro. The 'Vette. But both of those suffer from really shoddy interior work. On the Ford side theres: The Mustang, which looked like a big Escort for most of the 80's. The Taurus was a good, and honest effort - though it's dated now.
The RX-7, (no longer available in the US). The Miata (probably the most successful sports car of the 90's).
The Prowler (not a *real* production car).
The Viper (also not a *real* production car).
The only other example is that PT Cruiser. Which is pretty neat looking, I guess, if you're into that sort of thing.
But the rest of the auto industry is a vast wasteland of "variation on a theme" - econobox, sedan, SUV/Truck.
As far as other so-called "improvements"?
Coming out of the 80's I think was the best thing - 80's cars sucked so bad in every way possible, I'd say that overall, there's not one example that was as good as it's 70's or 60's counterpart. Especially American cars. Fragile and delicate. Incredibly unreliable and expensive. Having to smog-test one of these cars was a reason to buy a new one, because even on a car just 3 or 4 years old, you'd end up dropping hundreds of dollars replacing computers, broken sensors, cracked plastic ductwork, etc.
I think only in the past 5 years have there been newer cars that are compellingly as good as cars from the late 60's or 70's. All the hacks they had to put on cars to meet efficiency and pollution standards finally have the bugs worked out - though there's still a lack of simple engineering which makes it nearly impossible to maintain or modify one of these beasts yourself. Repair or restore? Forget it.
Then plug price into the equation - and for your AVERAGE car, you're talking about $20,000 - for anything special, even remotely above average, you're talking about $25,000+
Go getchyerself an old 60's classic, for anywhere from $5000-$20,000, you get power, maintainability, hackability, classic design, like nothing available on the market to day for that price.
New cars are for suckers.
When Dr. Ferdinand Porsche built the FIRST electric car almost 100 years ago, he powered it with 4 separate motors housed in the wheels.
.
I think GM might be on to something here. .
Of course, the powerplant issue is kind of weak though. But then again, if you had to ditch the fuel-cell idea and stick with an IC engine, look at the engine Porsche designed - the aircooled flat-four isn't much thicker than 12" or so (not including the fan housing, which could easily be designed differently). Throw a flat-6 or 8 in the same chassis, run a generator like your typical hybrid, power the electric motors at the wheels, and you can still take advantage of the same overall design. Now engineer the IC engine and cooling ductwork to be swappable with the fuel cell, you have recyclable engineering for when fuel cell technology catches up with IC technology.
Sure, I'd go to work for GM, but I can't stand living in Detroit.
Yes, I did think that the silly notion that they could put the same chassis under all cars was well, silly. You don't WANT 20" of ground clearance in a sedan. And in a sports coupe, you DO want to be within 3-5" of the ground if at all possible.
This vehicle will not be taken seriously in ANY sporting (professional, amateur, or poseur) application period.
Hell, with that argument, the GREENEST choice seems to be to say, fuck it, new cars are for suckers, I'm gonna spend $1000 on a 30 year old aircooled VW, and keep driving it and fixing it until the universe dies.
Replacement parts are cheap - these cars get 30 miles per gallon, and pass emissions testing (which they are not required to do) - when kept properly tuned, and rebuilding an engine is trivially cheap, and simple enough that anyone can do it in their garage with a modest investment in tools. Why bother with anything newer when the old stuff works just fine? Why foster this market of super-expensive repair parts for modern cars? Why have them fire up the forge to stamp out a new car for every man, woman, and child on the planet every two years?
Yes, mastrubation is much easier when you only need one hand to drive your computer (using the mouse). If you have to keyboard, you get lube all over everything.
Yes, it's time once again for file-format(and codec) roulette. Where you install an update to your media player, and wonder, which files that used to not play will play, and which files that used to play will not (as some obscure alpha codec you downloaded last year gets overwritten by it's broken progeny, or removed altogether by the installer looking to "tidy things up").
I swear, with QT 3.0 I could play ANYTHING. Then with 4.0, a bunch of files just wouldn't play anymore, then with 5.0, a bunch more broke, and pretty much every new file coming out was in some bastardized version of DivX that either didn't work at all or had no audio, or had audio but no video, and I downloaded every codex imaginable, DivX, 3ivX, and every media-cleaner program, converter, translator, set of video tools, and nothing fucking fixed it - and nobody could offer a coherent explanation as to why.
So should I install QT 6 - and watch another round of the player helplessly trying to download codecs that aren't there, never were there, and never will be there, while the player shows a white screen? Or should I go back to QT 3.0, where I can simply watch everything. (except the DivX crap).
I thought that the earliest periodic tables had only four elements. . .
The patent dispute was over code Microsoft stole from Apple from Quicktime that somehow ended up, comments and all, in WMP.
They payout was rumored to have been in the neighborhood of an additional 600+ million.
Ironic when you later hear that Microsoft had asked Apple to "knife the baby". They steal the code, and then tell the company they stole the code from to kill their own product. Then they make a huge costly effort to go out to all major video serving sites on the net (CNN being a prime example) and GIVE them hardware, and free streaming server software, in order to beg them to serve WMP content instead of Quicktime. (CNN used to be a MAJOR bastion of Quicktime).
Seems nobody at Microsoft has ever thought about competing on merit.
I understand that a "true pedophile" is ONLY attracted to PREPUBESCENT children etc. - whoever's definition that is. If you listen to all the hysteria and witch-hunting going on in the press right now - even guys like R.Kelly, (no I don't like him, don't give a crap about him or his music) are branded pedophiles for having sex with some 16 year old bimbo. Who gives a crap? Non issue, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I'd be pretty steamed if my 16 year old daughter was taking it in the kiester from some rap star in his personal video collection, but that's a far cry from child-rape.
Yes, I'm very unhappy about the current witch-hunt going on. I'm sure there are a lot of guys out there who are sexually ashamed and confused when they're attracted to a young (post-pubescent) girl and told that they're wrong and evil, and need treatment, jail time, and chemical castration. Do those individuals need to control their urges? Yeah, they do. But they're not sick. They're natural urges.
I think that a lot of Nazi prison guards were just happy they weren't on the Eastern front. Stalingrad was a great motivator for Nazis to blindly and obediently follow orders.
Oh jeez yeah, I *hate* the fact that society says I'm evil because I get a Woodrow when I see a pair of perky boobies. Uh huh.
(disclaimer; havent' ever, not ever going to have intercourse with an underage person)
Did it ever occur to you that maybe he's corresponded with pedophiles in prison because they read his books, got turned on by it, realized that's why they were in prison and decided to write him a letter, him being a famous author who happened to write that book?
I don't think Piers meant that he went through the prison system looking specifically for pedophiles to correspond with and trade poloroids with.
Wow, pretty harsh.
Piers has it right on the money - depicting a thing, or portraying a thing does not glorify it. It's a fact, that what he says about male attitudes towards women, even the desirability of (what US puritanical culture determines to be) "underage" women is pretty much true. We're hard-wired for this. It's biological fact. As is social dominance in primates. Men want to dominate control and rule their sex partners. No, not all men - I suspect everybody's wired a bit differently, and for some people it's a much stronger urge than others. And the urge for dominance can also often be redirected in other ways: (prime example - a physically weak male can't win the dominance game on the football field, so he takes up the dominance game on his own terms, using his own strengths, perhaps he's a mathematical genius, or has a talent for memorizing obscure command-line or programming syntax. When this person develops total 1337-ness, he has won the dominance game).
So even though it can be redirected, it's primarily a sexual thing - and so is a button that's best pressed through fantasy and sexual imagery.
Which is NOT to say that all women are hopelessly wired by nature to be submissive sex slaves. That's not at all what I'm saying.
My point is, is that society has created a backlash against this natural tendency - a backlash called "the feminist movement" - and while it has done great things for freeing women, particularly, individual women who are not wired for submissiveness, freeing them from the constraints imposed upon them by a male-dominated society. Somewhat. But in pursuing this backlash - they've also completely vilified men, and dominance, and competitveness in general. Any place where these traits are displayed is now evil, backwards, and contributing to "enslaving women". A woman who is, herself, submissive, becomes shamed by her role, as if she's betraying her own kind. Contributing to the system that keeps all women down. Which is complete hogwash. The only thing that keeps women down is people refusing to admit their own nature - and buying into some sort of system of predestination - whether it's someone's twisted idea of "equality" or an absolutist view of "All Men Are Dominant over All Women" - both extremes are wrong, and end up forcing a life onto people for which they are not suited.
Some men do not feel driven to beat everyone at some particular game. Maybe they like to be tied up and spanked by a dominatrix because of the pressure they feel in day to day life of having to always be in competition. Perhaps some homosexual men are really driven by an urge to submit. Why not leave these men alone, and let them live their lives the way that makes them happy?
Some women do not feel driven to find a man to rescue them, take care of them, and then have their babies wash their laundry and clean their toilets for the rest of their lives. But the women who DO feel that way should be allowed to live the lives that make them happy. They should not be forced to go to college, become lawyers, and wait until they're 45 to have one mildly retarded child.
The ones that want to do that - sure - whatever floats your boat. But live and let live.
Which is all Piers is saying. Yes, there are TONS of women out there who love the sexual imagery in his books. In fact, back in the 80's Sci-Fi fandom scene, I pretty much saw the whole Xanth series as books for girls. I didn't know any males who really got into them. How can such exploitation of women possibly appeal to so many women? Especially to a group with such a high percentage of "pagan" Goddess-worshipers, etc. ?
It's biology. You can fight it. But in the end, biology pumps your blood, regulates your hormones, and fires your neurons. You have free will, but there are certain things that are biologically engineered by nature to make you happy and content. It's often wise to listen to them.
Nobody believed "us" back in the day when MS first adopted Java. We all TOLD YOU SO! That Microsoft was going to embrace and extend the standard, and fuck it up so that it would not work properly on Windows.
Oh no, you said. We were just a bunch of paranoid unix loving long haired hippies that needed a bath and got off on bashing Microsoft because they were the embodiment of "the man".
Here it is, 2002. See where Java on WIndows is today.
Back in the 80's we told you that NOBODY was going to be able to stop Microsoft. You told us in 1993 when the DOJ sued them for anticompetitive behavior that that was it for MS. They got the consent decree in 95, and wiped their asses with it and stuffed it in the judge's mouth. Then in 1998, when the DOJ came a knockin again, you said - that was IT, no more mister nice guy, they'll put a stop to that evil Microsoft, but we'll keep running Windows over here in our little corner, because it was "most compatible" "most convenient".
Well, look. Here it is, 2002, no sign of a settlement with any degree of teeth - Microsoft has it's fingers in nearly every aspect of computing, and has extended into entertainment, banking, even fucking HISTORY for christ's sake (buying DaVincci's stuff and locking it down). And there you people go, still saying Windows is great, Office is a great app, etc. Well, thanks. You've sold us all into slavery.
You'll now say - don't worry, they won't close off OpenGL (hm - I wonder if they think if all that money they spent on marketing XBox was effective. OF COURSE NOT! Not until they kill of OpenGL). You say, they won't close off identity and privacy (.NET, Palladium).
Dude, we're living in a totally fucked up world.
Judging by the astounding variety of Estes rocket shapes and designs that fly, well or not, I'd say this guy doesn't have much to worry about. I think that if it looks remotely like a rocket, is structurally sound, balanced, it's gonna fly.
Is it an ideal (aerodynamically) shape? probably not. But up against newton's 3rd law of motion, I don't think it's going to make much difference if it's not.
my wife is also dyslexic, and while, she used to have serious problems in any written venue, after she met me, and we started tag-teaming message boards and things like that, the practice paid off. She still has terrible spelling and grammatical problems, but she can construct the most devious arguments. Yes, we're trolls, we work as a team, we're made for eachother :).
We love harrassing young know-it-all AOL teenagers the best.
Just how would "pay for every use" destroy the economy?
If "pay for every use" became standard, I think most people would just shrug and find something else to do other than sit in front of the boob tube.
Might possibly be a good thing.
Remember when OPEC had the petroleum market cornered in the 70's and created an artificial "energy crisis"? Sure, gas prices went through the roof - but consumption and demand went DOWN.
I rate music and movie entertainment as something quite a bit further down on the prioritised list of necessities of life than petroleum (which is *required* to drive to work, heat homes, cook food, etc). Maybe lower than most folks, but certainly most folks don't have it up so high that "pay for each use" wouldn't totally fuck the entertainment industry into utter collapse.
Good riddance, I say.