Just because something is psychosomatic, doesn't mean that they are just making it up.
Psychosomatic illnesses have psycological roots, but it is far more than being a hypochondriac. For example, someone is nervous or upset. This gives them heartburn or an upset stomach. The stomach trouble is caused by the psycological stress, but it does not mean that the person doesn't really have an upset stomach.
What do most Americans want in a car? Something that is big (which implies safety), roomy (which implies comfortable), and has a reasonable amount of power (which implies that it is easy to drive). Once upon a time, Americans bought large sedans to satisfy their auto buying needs. How many people owned full sized Chevy Impala's/Ford LTD's during the 1960's-1980's?
However, thanks to CAFE (Coporate Average Fuel Economy) Standards that our government has, you can no longer buy this type of car. To produce this car under CAFE standards, the automaker must produce a fair amount of smaller more fuel efficient cars, which most Americans hate and American auto makers tend to lose money on.
Therefore, in order to satisfy their customers and keep costs down, American auto makers have been trying to get around CAFE for years. One of the more humorous examples was the Cadillac Cimmarron, which was a Chevy Cavalier dressed up in Cadillac trim so Cadillac could make CAFE standards.
SUV's however, do not fall under the same CAFE standards as cars. They are considered trucks. CAFE standards are much lower for trucks than cars. To illustrate the absurdity of this law, a station wagon (car) which got 20 mpg would be worse under CAFE than an SUV that got 15mpg.
With SUV's American auto makers could give their customers big, roomy, cars and not run into trouble with the government. In other words, in trying to raise fuel economy standards, the government has only made them worse. If the market wants more fuel efficient cars, auto makers will provide them or suffer the consequences. If not, then the law hurts both customer and consumer.
(Not to mention that the lighter post CAFE cars are more dangerous. Because of this, and estimated 40,000 people have died because of CAFE. So I say, "No blood for oil - Repeal CAFE!")
Unfortunately, diesel will probably not catch on in the U.S. for three reasons.
1) Americans are prejudiced against diesels. America's main experience with diesel cars is the infamous Oldsmobile Diesel disasters of the late 1970's/early 1980's. (Didn't use much fuel - they were always in the shop!)
2) Americans don't know much about diesels. They treat the just like gasoline fueled cars, which will kill them. Also, many auto mechanics don't work on diesels.
3) The U.S. government taxes the hell out of diesel fuel. Diesel is cheaper than gasoline to produce, but high taxes make it more expensive at the pump.
Diesel was ruined in the United States by the notorious Oldsmobile 350 (5.7L) Diesel Engine.
It came out in 1978 and was supposed to be the solution to all our energy problems. A huge Olds 98 with a diesel engine could get 25 city/30 highway mpg. (Compared to the gas 98: 17/22)
Unfortunately, the diesel had a few problems:
1) It was a cheap knock off of the gas Olds 350. However, diesel runs at much higher compression. The engine couldn't take it. There were cases of cylinder heads literally being blown off the engine by the high (22:1) compression.
2) It didn't have the horse power that the gas engine had. It could cruise on the freeway once it got to speed, but couldn't get out of it's own way if it had to. They later came out with a 4.1L diesel V6 which was even worse.
3) No one in the USA knows how to take care of a diesel. No one really knows how to fix them either. There are a bunch of little things that a diesel requires that a gas engine doesn't. Not expensive or troublesome, but still required. GM didn't really educate the public on this aspect.
4)The U.S. taxes the hell out of diesel fuel. Diesel is less expensive than gasoline to produce, but after taxes, diesel costs more at the pump.
What happens come upgrade time? While there was a surplus when the program started, most states now have a deficit. Some of the schools in my state have resorted to turning off all hall lights to save money. Granted, Maine is better off than S.C., but the money has to come from somewhere.
Media coverage made school shootings the ultimate attention crime.
Columbine was the last in a long string of school shootings beginning in Mississippi in Fall 1997. With around the clock media coverage of the shooter saying "people picked on me", mass murder suddenly became a viable option for those who were angry and outside of the mainstream.
Anyone who blames it on guns/video games/movies/etc. is blind to the obvious.
The Columbine killers said in their video that they wanted to be famous. For their efforts, they were "rewarded" by being on the cover of Time - twice!
Vamp Willow was bi, if you remember correctly. She was all over Vamp Xander, and liked girls as well. The show acts as if Willow is 100% gay ever since Tara came around.
Second of all, Vamp Willow liking girls didn't really sit well with regular Willow.
"In fact, Willow's first kiss with Tara was probably the first ever non-exploitative lesbian kiss in TV history. The characters never kissed on camera for an entire season of being in a relationship"
But it was stupid and contrived. "OOH we're being 'CONTROVERSIAL'". Willow was straight for 3 1/2 seasons. (Remember Oz? Remember her crush on Xander?) It was a cheap plot device and a sign of shark bait.
The first one I saw was "Living Conditions" (4x02). A very funny episode, but not one of the best. The next one I saw was "The Harsh Light of Day" (4x03) - A cheap Angel crossover (with Oz). The sexual humor in this episode makes no sense (and is a bit gratuitous) if you don't already know who Anya, Harmony, and Spike are.
This lead me to the conclusion that the series was as silly as the movie. I didn't get into the show until my wife started watching the reruns on FX and got me into it.
With the exception of a few very good episodes, Buffy just hasn't been as good since they left high school. That was a large part of why I enjoyed the show. It made fun of the whole high school experience. You had shallow and popularity obsessed Harmony, Johnathan, the guy who was always there but nobody noticed, there was the gay jock, the Principal who cares more about the swim team's success than the fact they're turning into monsters. And besides, who didn't think their high school was on a Hellmouth?
It kept the momentum through the beginning of season 4 (the early college episodes), but it jumped the shark when Riley the Psych TA became Riley the Initiative Commander. It still had some good episodes in it, but it wasn't good as consistantly as it had been in the past. There was another noticible drop in quality when it moved from the WB to UPN. S7 had so much "potential", but too many bad episodes. (Wow, Xander has another evil date. That joke was old in S4.) It's still better than 95% of other television, but it's time to end the show.
In South Carolina, we are required to pay "use tax" on things bought out of state. This is equal to the sales tax we would have paid had we bought it in state.
However, if we pay sales tax to other states, we can write it off.
For example: I buy something in N.C. (6% tax). I must pay 5% use tax to S.C. However, I get a 6% refund for paying out of state sales taxes. (Not quite mathematically accurate, but you get the idea)
Of course, very few people actually document everything that accurately.
The copy protection will be cracked within a week. Something this big and this unpopular doesn't stand a chance. Remember the "copy protected CD's"? The protection was circumvented with a black marker.
Then Microsoft will have to use the DMCA to shut people up.
Yes, it's old, but the X-Wing Alliance engine was one of the best I've seen for a space shooter. Good graphics and good AI. It still looks great on full detail (which only requires a PII-350 or so)
Unfortunately, Lucas Arts decided to kill the X-Wing series after this. Nothing they've come out with since can compare.
User Interface improvements can make all the difference in a game.
For example, Age Of Empires vs. Age of Empires 2. Don't get me wrong, AOE 1 was a great game, but it could be a pain in the ass to control. Villagers would finish working and do nothing and could easily get lost in a town. AOE 2's idle villager button solved that problem. Also organizing an army was a pain because you could not separate units once you selected them. AOE 2 allowed individual select, select by type, individual de-select and de-select by type for a large selected group. Although the two games were basically the same, the differences in gameplay made AOE 2 much more enjoyable.
The key is whether the work gets done in a timely fashion or not, especially with salaried employees. There is a difference between goofing off occasionally and seriously wasting company time and resources.
Floppy disks have seriously gone downhill in quality.
I still have a 720k floppy from 1994 that got me through all 4 years of high school (School provided the disk to avoid viruses.) Still worked last time I checked it.
I consider myself lucky to get a modern floppy to work more than a few times before dying.
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Just because something is psychosomatic, doesn't mean that they are just making it up.
Psychosomatic illnesses have psycological roots, but it is far more than being a hypochondriac. For example, someone is nervous or upset. This gives them heartburn or an upset stomach. The stomach trouble is caused by the psycological stress, but it does not mean that the person doesn't really have an upset stomach.
The SUV craze is about as ironic as you can get.
Here's why:
What do most Americans want in a car? Something that is big (which implies safety), roomy (which implies comfortable), and has a reasonable amount of power (which implies that it is easy to drive). Once upon a time, Americans bought large sedans to satisfy their auto buying needs. How many people owned full sized Chevy Impala's/Ford LTD's during the 1960's-1980's?
However, thanks to CAFE (Coporate Average Fuel Economy) Standards that our government has, you can no longer buy this type of car. To produce this car under CAFE standards, the automaker must produce a fair amount of smaller more fuel efficient cars, which most Americans hate and American auto makers tend to lose money on.
Therefore, in order to satisfy their customers and keep costs down, American auto makers have been trying to get around CAFE for years. One of the more humorous examples was the Cadillac Cimmarron, which was a Chevy Cavalier dressed up in Cadillac trim so Cadillac could make CAFE standards.
SUV's however, do not fall under the same CAFE standards as cars. They are considered trucks. CAFE standards are much lower for trucks than cars. To illustrate the absurdity of this law, a station wagon (car) which got 20 mpg would be worse under CAFE than an SUV that got 15mpg.
With SUV's American auto makers could give their customers big, roomy, cars and not run into trouble with the government. In other words, in trying to raise fuel economy standards, the government has only made them worse. If the market wants more fuel efficient cars, auto makers will provide them or suffer the consequences. If not, then the law hurts both customer and consumer.
(Not to mention that the lighter post CAFE cars are more dangerous. Because of this, and estimated 40,000 people have died because of CAFE. So I say, "No blood for oil - Repeal CAFE!")
Diesel is better than gas.
Unfortunately, diesel will probably not catch on in the U.S. for three reasons.
1) Americans are prejudiced against diesels. America's main experience with diesel cars is the infamous Oldsmobile Diesel disasters of the late 1970's/early 1980's. (Didn't use much fuel - they were always in the shop!)
2) Americans don't know much about diesels. They treat the just like gasoline fueled cars, which will kill them. Also, many auto mechanics don't work on diesels.
3) The U.S. government taxes the hell out of diesel fuel. Diesel is cheaper than gasoline to produce, but high taxes make it more expensive at the pump.
Diesel was ruined in the United States by the notorious Oldsmobile 350 (5.7L) Diesel Engine.
It came out in 1978 and was supposed to be the solution to all our energy problems. A huge Olds 98 with a diesel engine could get 25 city/30 highway mpg. (Compared to the gas 98: 17/22)
Unfortunately, the diesel had a few problems:
1) It was a cheap knock off of the gas Olds 350. However, diesel runs at much higher compression. The engine couldn't take it. There were cases of cylinder heads literally being blown off the engine by the high (22:1) compression.
2) It didn't have the horse power that the gas engine had. It could cruise on the freeway once it got to speed, but couldn't get out of it's own way if it had to. They later came out with a 4.1L diesel V6 which was even worse.
3) No one in the USA knows how to take care of a diesel. No one really knows how to fix them either. There are a bunch of little things that a diesel requires that a gas engine doesn't. Not expensive or troublesome, but still required. GM didn't really educate the public on this aspect.
4)The U.S. taxes the hell out of diesel fuel. Diesel is less expensive than gasoline to produce, but after taxes, diesel costs more at the pump.
Doesn't one of Bush's daughters go to UT?
Could this possibly be related?
And two years ago, I was supposed to be able to take a vacation to the moon -- on PanAm!
What happens come upgrade time? While there was a surplus when the program started, most states now have a deficit. Some of the schools in my state have resorted to turning off all hall lights to save money. Granted, Maine is better off than S.C., but the money has to come from somewhere.
Media coverage made school shootings the ultimate attention crime.
Columbine was the last in a long string of school shootings beginning in Mississippi in Fall 1997. With around the clock media coverage of the shooter saying "people picked on me", mass murder suddenly became a viable option for those who were angry and outside of the mainstream.
Anyone who blames it on guns/video games/movies/etc. is blind to the obvious.
The Columbine killers said in their video that they wanted to be famous. For their efforts, they were "rewarded" by being on the cover of Time - twice!
Vamp Willow was bi, if you remember correctly. She was all over Vamp Xander, and liked girls as well. The show acts as if Willow is 100% gay ever since Tara came around.
Second of all, Vamp Willow liking girls didn't really sit well with regular Willow.
"In fact, Willow's first kiss with Tara was probably the first ever non-exploitative lesbian kiss in TV history. The characters never kissed on camera for an entire season of being in a relationship"
But it was stupid and contrived. "OOH we're being 'CONTROVERSIAL'". Willow was straight for 3 1/2 seasons. (Remember Oz? Remember her crush on Xander?) It was a cheap plot device and a sign of shark bait.
The first one I saw was "Living Conditions" (4x02). A very funny episode, but not one of the best. The next one I saw was "The Harsh Light of Day" (4x03) - A cheap Angel crossover (with Oz). The sexual humor in this episode makes no sense (and is a bit gratuitous) if you don't already know who Anya, Harmony, and Spike are.
This lead me to the conclusion that the series was as silly as the movie. I didn't get into the show until my wife started watching the reruns on FX and got me into it.
With the exception of a few very good episodes, Buffy just hasn't been as good since they left high school. That was a large part of why I enjoyed the show. It made fun of the whole high school experience. You had shallow and popularity obsessed Harmony, Johnathan, the guy who was always there but nobody noticed, there was the gay jock, the Principal who cares more about the swim team's success than the fact they're turning into monsters. And besides, who didn't think their high school was on a Hellmouth?
It kept the momentum through the beginning of season 4 (the early college episodes), but it jumped the shark when Riley the Psych TA became Riley the Initiative Commander. It still had some good episodes in it, but it wasn't good as consistantly as it had been in the past. There was another noticible drop in quality when it moved from the WB to UPN. S7 had so much "potential", but too many bad episodes. (Wow, Xander has another evil date. That joke was old in S4.) It's still better than 95% of other television, but it's time to end the show.
Alyson Hannigan, Emma Caulfield, Elizabeth Anne Allen (Amy the witch), and Charisma Carpenter ...all hotter than SMG. (IMHO)
However, none of them are anywhere near as talented.
Not quite.
In South Carolina, we are required to pay "use tax" on things bought out of state. This is equal to the sales tax we would have paid had we bought it in state.
However, if we pay sales tax to other states, we can write it off.
For example: I buy something in N.C. (6% tax). I must pay 5% use tax to S.C. However, I get a 6% refund for paying out of state sales taxes. (Not quite mathematically accurate, but you get the idea)
Of course, very few people actually document everything that accurately.
The copy protection will be cracked within a week. Something this big and this unpopular doesn't stand a chance. Remember the "copy protected CD's"? The protection was circumvented with a black marker.
Then Microsoft will have to use the DMCA to shut people up.
Yes, it's old, but the X-Wing Alliance engine was one of the best I've seen for a space shooter. Good graphics and good AI. It still looks great on full detail (which only requires a PII-350 or so)
Unfortunately, Lucas Arts decided to kill the X-Wing series after this. Nothing they've come out with since can compare.
User Interface improvements can make all the difference in a game.
For example, Age Of Empires vs. Age of Empires 2. Don't get me wrong, AOE 1 was a great game, but it could be a pain in the ass to control. Villagers would finish working and do nothing and could easily get lost in a town. AOE 2's idle villager button solved that problem. Also organizing an army was a pain because you could not separate units once you selected them. AOE 2 allowed individual select, select by type, individual de-select and de-select by type for a large selected group. Although the two games were basically the same, the differences in gameplay made AOE 2 much more enjoyable.
Give credit where credit is due. Secession was our idea. It didn't work out too well though.
The South will rise again... one of these days.
Isn't it ironic that this article on Slashdot is followed by an ad for .NET?
Proof that California is a one party state.
If Gray Davis is that incompetent and that corrupt, then how the hell did he get reelected?
The key is whether the work gets done in a timely fashion or not, especially with salaried employees. There is a difference between goofing off occasionally and seriously wasting company time and resources.
Another pointy haired boss policy. Treating professionals like children does lead to decreased productivity.
Floppy disks have seriously gone downhill in quality.
I still have a 720k floppy from 1994 that got me through all 4 years of high school (School provided the disk to avoid viruses.) Still worked last time I checked it.
I consider myself lucky to get a modern floppy to work more than a few times before dying.
Iraq isn't using a PlayStation, they're using an old IBM PS/2.
Iraqi technology at it's finest.