Which do you think is safer, an experienced high speed driver doing 150MPH in a high performance sports car, or a ninety year old driving a beat up pickup truck down the highway? Assuming the ninety year old in the beat up truck is your average ninety year old and not, say, Jackie Stewart, then definitely the experienced high speed driver. The experienced high speed driver is likely to take his driving more seriously and therefore is more likely to be driving a well maintained car as well as being more likely to be paying attention to what the fuck he is doing. That's more than can be said for most drivers on the road these days. Despite what many people like to think, it is possible to safely drive at speeds greater than 100MPH. After all, it's not the speed that kills you, but the sudden stop at the end.:)
Neither do I understand an arbitrary speed limit of 55 mph which exists pretty much across the whole USA. Yes, it might have made sense in the 50s when cars could often go not much more than 55, and more often than not 55 was already a rather unsafe speed in said cars. We're now half a century further down the road and cars got heaps safer. I've seen North of 120MPH in a 1955 Chevy Coupe. Yes, it was unsafe and I wasn't driving, but that's not the point -- the point is that a 40 year old (at that time) 1955 Chevy, albeit with some minor engine work and an automatic transmission, was able to do 120MPH. Also, 55MPH hasn't been the national speed limit in the US for a loooong time. In most states, rural Interstate quality freeways, comparable to M roads in GB, have speed limits of 70MPH. Some states have higher limits than that. (I think Texas has 75 in some areas and at least one state didn't have a daytime speed limit at all for a few years.) 55 is only seen on most freeways around major metropolitan areas, but a lot of areas still have 60 - 65 limits in cities. 55MPH is the accepted standard for most US Highways (two to four lane, non-controlled access roads, probably comparable to A roads), but many states have greater speed limits in rural areas on US Highways as well, usually dependent on the road quality and local population density.
...undertaking 18 wheelers and so and so on. Actually, in the US undertaking isn't as big of a deal as it is elsewhere in the world. Due to our poor driver training standards, the majority of the assholes on the road insist on driving in the left hand lane, whether there's any traffic in the right lane or not. I would wager that on my 26 mile commute to work, on average I undertake just as many cars as I overtake. And lest you accuse me of being a speed demon, note that on average I only drive 2 - 4 over the limit.
That said, while I'll agree that he doesn't appear to have had any professional training as a driver, I do have to say that experience counts for something. Like it or not, Alex Roy has probably clocked over 30,000 miles driving at high rates of speed on public roads due to his annual participation in both the Gumball Rally and the Bullrun Rally over the last 5 years. He's most definitely safer than your average teenager out for a joyride in Mom's Accord. While most people I know have a fear of driving at any speed over 100mph -- the century mark seems to make most people panic -- the more one does it, the more confident one becomes.
(And I'm sure you'll rail on me for driving >100MPH on public roads. Note that I do live in America where we do have vast expanses of freeway with very good visibility where 100MPH would be a perfectly reasonable speed if it weren't for speed limits. Speeding alone on a long flat road with no other traffic isn't much of a danger.)
Note, I'm not defending the Porsche drivers, but here's a question I think everybody needs to ask themselves: what would I do if involved in a fatal accident in a 3rd world nation? This didn't happen in the US or England or any other developed 1st world nation where we can count on a properly functioning justice system to determine that the event was indeed an accident and not instead give us a (very short) life sentence in some back woods 3rd world prison. I personally am not sure what I would do, but I can see where it would be easy to panic.
Additionally, as a fan of the Gumball I kept close tabs on the Macedonian accident story. While I don't have a link, I do remember reading that the Macedonian accident investigators royally botched some part of the investigation, lending further creedance that the justice system in Macedonia may not function quite as it should. Of course, the flip side of the coin is that many people state that part of the reason the drivers got off was due to large "donations" to several parties, including the family of the deceased and members of the government. With no evidence either way, who's to say if the "donations" actually happened, but the claims were more food for thought.
Lastly, let me say that I think Maximillion Cooper, the organizer of the Gumball, handled the accident situation very poorly. From all reports, he allowed the rally to go on for a full day after the accident before he cancelled it. Next year he's planning to take the rally through North Korea. I think he's a conceited asshole who's letting his pride and image get in the way of what little safety there was on the Gumball.
Actually, the picture in the article was from this year's Gumball 3000 -- an event where they are contractually obliged to deck their cars out in the event's sponsors' logos. It was also an event that took place after Alex's speed record attempt. Jalopnik has some pictures of the car as it was decked out for the transcontinental run. Aside from the abundance of antennas and a few small stickers on the trunk, the car looked like a relatively normal E39 BMW sedan.
One thing the Wired article also neglected to mention and that was mentioned in one of the Jalopnik articles (that I'm too lazy to look up a link for) was that they actually crafted a cover story in classic Cannonball tradition. Their cover for their fast driving and for all of the gadgets on their car was that they were storm chasers chasing a fast moving front across the country. I find it kind of funny since, to my knowledge, most storm fronts in the US move from West to East, not East to West as they were driving.
I could be wrong, but I thought moderation at least was in place when I signed up. Not sure about nesting, though. Back when there were still only a couple hundred comments per story, I just read everything in flat mode.
Thank god for people like you. These days I look at all of the posts from people with 500000+ UIDs and I start to feel like an old timer. It's nice to know that there are bigger nerds out there than myself.;)
Congrats again, Taco, for a successful website that has probably caused me more lost productivity than any other site on the web.
If they really need their fix, they are more than welcome to get a cable modem from the local cable company. I can't vouch for all Universities, but nobody here is forced to use our LAN. I can't speak for all universities either, but as a counter example my University did not allow students living on campus to acquire internet from outside providers. This is because they had their own internal cable network and phone network. On the one hand, it was nice having those amenities provided to us automatically, but on the other hand, we were kind of stuck when the quality of service would drop. However, cellular modem cards weren't nearly as popular or as cheap when I graduated as they are now, so in the case of bandwidth, that might be an option for some students. (I would imagine latency kind of sucks, though...)
Frankly, having to manage a person with a bad attitude can turn into more work than it needs to be. People with a negative attitude have a tendancy to create friction with other employees. This is a pain. Most of us don't like to have to mediate disputes between our employees. It is a drain on our time and a drain of our resources -- resources that could be better spent tackling the next project or problem to be solved. In the end, overall productivity can go down. As people become more disatisfied with their jobs, they tend to slack off more. I know that I have when in jobs where I wasn't happy.
Additionally, employees with a negative attitude can be the ones who are more likely to challange a decision, any decision, based soley on the fact that they don't like it. This means having to look up the necessary regulation and having the backup to support your decision. This is a pain and is another drain on our resources.
To put it bluntly, given the choice between an average employee with a good attitude and a an above employee with an overly negative attitude, I would probably hire the average employee as well. We can't all be happy all of the time, and I understand that. However, what a lot of people -- especially those who don't have and who have never had any direct reports -- don't think about is that the overall impact somebody with a negative impact can have on an organization. It's a net effect sort of thing. Overall, the more pleasant the work evnironment for all of you employees, the greater their productivity will be in the long run.
I've long ago come to the conclusion that the Nerd Patrol/Geek Squad/FireDog/CatFucker people are idiots. You most likely can install XP on those machines -- it just may be more difficult than usual. For instance, a friend of mine is starting up a small business and needed a couple of the cheapest-laptop-I-can-find. These machines likely won't even spend time on the internet and he already had a couple of unused XP licenses. So, he walks out of Best Buy with a pair of $400 Toshiba laptops. I forget the specs but they included a Cely processor and 512MB of RAM. Once you factor in all of the crapware that is installed by default on a store bought PC, the machine becomes damn near unusable.
To make a long story short, Toshiba doesn't provide Vista drivers for the machine. They don't support XP on the machine so they apparently didn't want to give people the means to install XP on the machine. In the end, I was able to install XP but it took a good couple of days worth of research to track down all of the drivers for the machine to get it working like it should under XP.
It was a friend who worked at Sam's Club, actually. That's a case where it could very well be in the contract that you sign when you become a member at Sam's. Not ever having paid for a membership there, I couldn't tell you for sure, though. I would most definitely make a big stink if it happened to me though. That said, it's not a policy that I'm going to purposely test unless I know the law behind it. I have reason to need to "keep my nose clean" and it's not worth the potential of police involvement if I am in the wrong. I will stand behind anybody else who would want to challenge the legality of that policy, though. It's certainly a policy that I don't agree with and I wish somebody would challenge it and let the rest of us know about it.
Actually, I used to shop at a Wal-Mart in the New Orleans metro area (pre-Katrina) that had a wheelchair bound man checking receipts. Not to sound like a callous jerk, but is a wheelchair bound man going to come after me? No.
In any respect, I will generally only stop in a couple of situations, none of which I am certain of the legality: 1) If I know that the store refuses to process returns on a receipt that has not been checked (highlighted) and I think I may want to return the item, I will acquiesce 2) If I am proceeding through the doorway and the security alarm rings, I will acquiesce
Regarding point 1), it would most certainly be trivial for me to note which color highlighter the door nazi is using and mark the receipt myself at home. But I don't due to the fact that I don't know the legality of the practice of only accepting returns on marked receipts. Should I attempt to return something at such a store, I do not want to give them any reason to believe that I may have committed fraud -- even if I don't believe in their policy. That said, the only stores around here which mark receipts are Sam's and I don't shop there anyway. (Sam's also brings about the question of what exactly is in the contract that you sign to become a member. Maybe the marked receipt clause is in their contract...)
Regarding point 2) I am not sure of my legal rights in such a situation. The alarm ringing off is essentially a tacit accusation that I am stealing before I actually leave the store's premesis which, from what I've been told, is not reason enough to process shoplifting charges on a person. That said, there may also be legal allowances for electronic theft protection methods which I am not sure of.
Regarding the accusation of shoplifting, I have not worked in retail in 6 years, but the following are the conditions that, in my state at least, constitute legal shoplifting: 1) An employee must observe the concealment of the merchandise. If we did not observe the concealment and/or it was not observed on camera, then we cannot assert that the customer stole the merchandise from our store. I have been informed that some states do count the sole act of concealment as an act of shoplifting, but I was told this did not apply in our state. 2) The customer MUST leave the store premesis before we could make any accusations of shoplifting. We cannot accuse the customer of shoplifting before they exit the store because until they actually exit the store with unpaid merchandise, the act of shoplifting has not occured. The customer can still make a claim that they intended to pay for the merchandise. This is a possible reason that, according to some people, concealment is enough to press shoplifting charges.
Anyway, on at least one occasion I did stop and query one of the door workers at the aforementioned Wal-Mart (not the wheelchair bound one because I do have some compassion left in me) as to whether or not he was accusing me of stealing. It became quickly apparent that he was plainly ignorant of the law regarding customers and that he also hated having to do it, but simply did it because he was ordered to. From that point on, I would make a show of displaying my receipt for that particular gentleman and he would make a show of actually looking at it. I truly felt sorry for that guy for being stuck doing a crappy job for a crappy company. As for the other guys that worked there, fuck 'em.
Mostly, though, I just choose not to spend my money at stores with door nazis.
Good point. I tried once about 9 years ago, but I haven't tried since. Additionally, you are probably right about the student part. I've found that most university libraries tend to have good online periodical resources.
He did have one in New Orleans, but he's since moved. Last I heard the New Orleans studio was up for sale. I'm sure he's probably built a new one somewhere near where he lives now...
There are such things as libraries, though. The San Francisco Public Library, for one, offers access to a complete online newspaper archive that includes the New York Times in addition to many other papers. The deal is, you have to punch in your library card number to access it. After that, though, you can read, save, and print all those articles that the Times purportedly keeps under lock and key.
The fact that most people don't even know this makes me fearful for the future of libraries. There are also such things as underfunded back-woods county libraries that don't offer this level of access. Yeah, I know. My fault for living where I do, but the rent's cheap. The point is: by opening up their archives to the internet their content can be accessed by a MUCH larger audience than before. Not everybody lives in large US metropolitan areas with properly funded libraries.
Some of us live in the next county where the funding just plain sucks.
In the grand scheme of things, what I can contribute is very little, but you will receive a check from me. Also, don't be surprised if you find a modest bottle of scotch deliverd to that address as soon as I figure out the best way to have one legally delivered.
That said... I'm sure this has been discussed before, but are there any legal reasons that you couldn't set up a website and/or Paypal account to accept further contributions? I'm sure that myself and Vlad Petric aren't the only/.'ers willing to contribute to the cause.
I really want to buy this woman (and her lawyers) a drink. They are probably doing more for our digital rights than any single group of people right now. I don't mean to discount the contributions of organizations such as the EFF (I have, in fact, contributed money in the past), but it's hard to root for a nameless, faceless group like that. This woman is fast becoming an icon for fighting the good fight against the frivilous lawsuits that the RIAA continues to file.
It may be a tad melodramatic to say this (especially now), but I certainly hope that she finds her place in the history books.
First of all, let me say that I love old Citroen's. I covet old SMs, but am afriad to actually own a car with a hydropneumatic suspension. You don't see a lot of Citroens in the US, and I don't think I've ever seen one at all anywhere near where I live now. Which brings up another question: are you in the US? I did a quick Google search, but couldn't really find any information as to whether or not that particular model was ever imported here. Whether you are or aren't, I do apologize for making the assumption that you were the typical American who would never be caught dead driving an estate and for whom 9 passengers typically means Minivan, SUV, or Crossover.
To get even more off topic and assuming that you're in Europe, have you considered upgrading to a new C6? I really appreciate the looks of that car and wish that it were imported to the US.
Getting back on topic...
Out of curiosity, what kind of mileage do you actually get in your CX? I tend to think that my (non-hybrid, mind you) Civic is on the upper range of things with a regular-driving average of ~33mpg. On long freeway trips I'll see 38 - 39.
Also, how much hydraulic fluid do you use every year?;)
OK, so how often do you actually drive around with 9 people in your large van/SUV/people carrier? If you're that worried about fuel savings, why not trade in your large vehicle and get a smaller, more fuel efficient car. I'll bet that a Prius would carry your typical five people plus luggage pretty easily.
Leaving that aside, could you drive your people carrier to, say, the North Pole. (OK, these guys did it so that's a bad example.) Could you drive your car to, say, Japan?
Whichever way you slice it, it's more juice than I'm going to burn in two years. Bet you could burn less in a Civic Hybrid.
C'mon! Either be a true environmentalist or just willingly admit that you're a red-blooded American who likes his large vehicles just like the rest of us. I'll bet you'd have your own jet too, if you could afford it. Or do you just plan to never venture outside of North and/or South America in your lifetime?
I guess we could save some C02 by reverting to sailing ships. They are green, but they also travel at about 1/6th the speed of your car.
I say, enjoy your large vehicle and don't worry about how much you or anybody else is polluting. That's what our kids are for!
(For the record, I drive a Civic that averages about 33 mpg during regular driving. I don't drive it to save on emissions, though. I drive it because I'm cheap.)
***Note: for any mods with a stick, this post was mostly meant in jest. Mod me down if you want -- I've got the karma to burn -- but I'd also suggest reviewing the guidlines where they suggest not modding down somebody just because you don't agree with them.:-D
There are a lot of people who work hard - and the majority of 1st gen. billionaires are no exception. But reading Bill Gates history, I believe there was a definite element of luck there - right place at the right time - along with some cunning to get where they are at.
With the same skill set and drive, just with different luck, I could definitely see Gates as head of just another software company and be worth "only" $50-100 million.
I don't think he's the exception among the billionaires. I could see a lucky break at the difference between moderately sucessful multi-millionaire businessmen no one heard of and the ultra-rich - in fact it seem to be that the once in the lifetime jackpot is what propels them to ridiculous wealth. Actually, this was very much the case of how Ross Perot earned his fortune. Growing up and seeing him on TV campaigning for president, I always just assumed that he was Yet Another Texas Oil Tycoon (TM). Turns out, after reading his autobiography, that he was indeed another case of being in the right place in the right time. He just happened to be the first one to found a working business around the model of selling computer processing time which eventually grew to be a full IT outsourcing company.
I'm sure some people could name others, but I think that for a lot of the uber-rich, luck did indeed play a pivotal role.
It was a while in KOTOR before you received Jedi powers. The big difference, though, is that the game was still interesting during that period of time. There were interesting quests to be handled and places to explore. I just found the beginning of JK2 to be too much like your typical, average fps.
Actually, this is EXACTLY how I felt when I played Jedi Knight II. I'm sure I'll take some flack around here for downing what is generally considered a popular geek game, but I just couldn't get into it. I saw the box art. I read the reviews. I saw commercials for it. The game looked very cool and the ability to use the force sounded awesome. And then I played the game. Frankly, while I knew the outline of the story, I found the beginning of the game to be too slow. I didn't play the game (thankfully borrowed from a friend) in order to run around and shoot at storm troopers with a couple of wimpy blasters. I wanted to be able to use the force on those fuckers and cut them down with my neon tube.
While I knew a lot of people who loved the game, I could only assume that they were bigger Star Wars fans than I and had the fortitude to stick out the boring parts. I know I didn't. When, after about an hour, I still didn't have a light saber, I gave up and uninstalled the game. I had a plethora of other games that demanded my attention (including my daily CS binges) that I had no desire to play what felt like, at that time, yet another mediocre FPS. I'll concede that it probably got better later on, but I'll never find out. The game started out with a wimper and met much the same fate on my computer.
(In defense of my geek cred, I absolutely loved Knights of the Old Republic and even the somewhat buggy KOTOR 2. And that says a lot for me since I rarely get into RPGs, let alone actually finish them.)
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...undertaking 18 wheelers and so and so on. Actually, in the US undertaking isn't as big of a deal as it is elsewhere in the world. Due to our poor driver training standards, the majority of the assholes on the road insist on driving in the left hand lane, whether there's any traffic in the right lane or not. I would wager that on my 26 mile commute to work, on average I undertake just as many cars as I overtake. And lest you accuse me of being a speed demon, note that on average I only drive 2 - 4 over the limit.That said, while I'll agree that he doesn't appear to have had any professional training as a driver, I do have to say that experience counts for something. Like it or not, Alex Roy has probably clocked over 30,000 miles driving at high rates of speed on public roads due to his annual participation in both the Gumball Rally and the Bullrun Rally over the last 5 years. He's most definitely safer than your average teenager out for a joyride in Mom's Accord. While most people I know have a fear of driving at any speed over 100mph -- the century mark seems to make most people panic -- the more one does it, the more confident one becomes.
(And I'm sure you'll rail on me for driving >100MPH on public roads. Note that I do live in America where we do have vast expanses of freeway with very good visibility where 100MPH would be a perfectly reasonable speed if it weren't for speed limits. Speeding alone on a long flat road with no other traffic isn't much of a danger.)
Note, I'm not defending the Porsche drivers, but here's a question I think everybody needs to ask themselves: what would I do if involved in a fatal accident in a 3rd world nation? This didn't happen in the US or England or any other developed 1st world nation where we can count on a properly functioning justice system to determine that the event was indeed an accident and not instead give us a (very short) life sentence in some back woods 3rd world prison. I personally am not sure what I would do, but I can see where it would be easy to panic.
Additionally, as a fan of the Gumball I kept close tabs on the Macedonian accident story. While I don't have a link, I do remember reading that the Macedonian accident investigators royally botched some part of the investigation, lending further creedance that the justice system in Macedonia may not function quite as it should. Of course, the flip side of the coin is that many people state that part of the reason the drivers got off was due to large "donations" to several parties, including the family of the deceased and members of the government. With no evidence either way, who's to say if the "donations" actually happened, but the claims were more food for thought.
Lastly, let me say that I think Maximillion Cooper, the organizer of the Gumball, handled the accident situation very poorly. From all reports, he allowed the rally to go on for a full day after the accident before he cancelled it. Next year he's planning to take the rally through North Korea. I think he's a conceited asshole who's letting his pride and image get in the way of what little safety there was on the Gumball.
Actually, the picture in the article was from this year's Gumball 3000 -- an event where they are contractually obliged to deck their cars out in the event's sponsors' logos. It was also an event that took place after Alex's speed record attempt. Jalopnik has some pictures of the car as it was decked out for the transcontinental run. Aside from the abundance of antennas and a few small stickers on the trunk, the car looked like a relatively normal E39 BMW sedan.
One thing the Wired article also neglected to mention and that was mentioned in one of the Jalopnik articles (that I'm too lazy to look up a link for) was that they actually crafted a cover story in classic Cannonball tradition. Their cover for their fast driving and for all of the gadgets on their car was that they were storm chasers chasing a fast moving front across the country. I find it kind of funny since, to my knowledge, most storm fronts in the US move from West to East, not East to West as they were driving.
That was my point. I enjoy seeing the old-timers around. It seems like many of you guys don't post as much as back in the day.
I could be wrong, but I thought moderation at least was in place when I signed up. Not sure about nesting, though. Back when there were still only a couple hundred comments per story, I just read everything in flat mode.
Thank god for people like you. These days I look at all of the posts from people with 500000+ UIDs and I start to feel like an old timer. It's nice to know that there are bigger nerds out there than myself. ;)
Congrats again, Taco, for a successful website that has probably caused me more lost productivity than any other site on the web.
Actually, all I could think about was the Ass Pennies skit from Kids In The Hall. Or were they talking about quarters?
Frankly, having to manage a person with a bad attitude can turn into more work than it needs to be. People with a negative attitude have a tendancy to create friction with other employees. This is a pain. Most of us don't like to have to mediate disputes between our employees. It is a drain on our time and a drain of our resources -- resources that could be better spent tackling the next project or problem to be solved. In the end, overall productivity can go down. As people become more disatisfied with their jobs, they tend to slack off more. I know that I have when in jobs where I wasn't happy.
Additionally, employees with a negative attitude can be the ones who are more likely to challange a decision, any decision, based soley on the fact that they don't like it. This means having to look up the necessary regulation and having the backup to support your decision. This is a pain and is another drain on our resources.
To put it bluntly, given the choice between an average employee with a good attitude and a an above employee with an overly negative attitude, I would probably hire the average employee as well. We can't all be happy all of the time, and I understand that. However, what a lot of people -- especially those who don't have and who have never had any direct reports -- don't think about is that the overall impact somebody with a negative impact can have on an organization. It's a net effect sort of thing. Overall, the more pleasant the work evnironment for all of you employees, the greater their productivity will be in the long run.
I've long ago come to the conclusion that the Nerd Patrol/Geek Squad/FireDog/CatFucker people are idiots. You most likely can install XP on those machines -- it just may be more difficult than usual. For instance, a friend of mine is starting up a small business and needed a couple of the cheapest-laptop-I-can-find. These machines likely won't even spend time on the internet and he already had a couple of unused XP licenses. So, he walks out of Best Buy with a pair of $400 Toshiba laptops. I forget the specs but they included a Cely processor and 512MB of RAM. Once you factor in all of the crapware that is installed by default on a store bought PC, the machine becomes damn near unusable.
To make a long story short, Toshiba doesn't provide Vista drivers for the machine. They don't support XP on the machine so they apparently didn't want to give people the means to install XP on the machine. In the end, I was able to install XP but it took a good couple of days worth of research to track down all of the drivers for the machine to get it working like it should under XP.
In short, it wasn't easy, but it was doable.
It was a friend who worked at Sam's Club, actually. That's a case where it could very well be in the contract that you sign when you become a member at Sam's. Not ever having paid for a membership there, I couldn't tell you for sure, though. I would most definitely make a big stink if it happened to me though. That said, it's not a policy that I'm going to purposely test unless I know the law behind it. I have reason to need to "keep my nose clean" and it's not worth the potential of police involvement if I am in the wrong. I will stand behind anybody else who would want to challenge the legality of that policy, though. It's certainly a policy that I don't agree with and I wish somebody would challenge it and let the rest of us know about it.
Actually, I used to shop at a Wal-Mart in the New Orleans metro area (pre-Katrina) that had a wheelchair bound man checking receipts. Not to sound like a callous jerk, but is a wheelchair bound man going to come after me? No.
In any respect, I will generally only stop in a couple of situations, none of which I am certain of the legality:
1) If I know that the store refuses to process returns on a receipt that has not been checked (highlighted) and I think I may want to return the item, I will acquiesce
2) If I am proceeding through the doorway and the security alarm rings, I will acquiesce
Regarding point 1), it would most certainly be trivial for me to note which color highlighter the door nazi is using and mark the receipt myself at home. But I don't due to the fact that I don't know the legality of the practice of only accepting returns on marked receipts. Should I attempt to return something at such a store, I do not want to give them any reason to believe that I may have committed fraud -- even if I don't believe in their policy. That said, the only stores around here which mark receipts are Sam's and I don't shop there anyway. (Sam's also brings about the question of what exactly is in the contract that you sign to become a member. Maybe the marked receipt clause is in their contract...)
Regarding point 2) I am not sure of my legal rights in such a situation. The alarm ringing off is essentially a tacit accusation that I am stealing before I actually leave the store's premesis which, from what I've been told, is not reason enough to process shoplifting charges on a person. That said, there may also be legal allowances for electronic theft protection methods which I am not sure of.
Regarding the accusation of shoplifting, I have not worked in retail in 6 years, but the following are the conditions that, in my state at least, constitute legal shoplifting:
1) An employee must observe the concealment of the merchandise. If we did not observe the concealment and/or it was not observed on camera, then we cannot assert that the customer stole the merchandise from our store. I have been informed that some states do count the sole act of concealment as an act of shoplifting, but I was told this did not apply in our state.
2) The customer MUST leave the store premesis before we could make any accusations of shoplifting. We cannot accuse the customer of shoplifting before they exit the store because until they actually exit the store with unpaid merchandise, the act of shoplifting has not occured. The customer can still make a claim that they intended to pay for the merchandise. This is a possible reason that, according to some people, concealment is enough to press shoplifting charges.
Anyway, on at least one occasion I did stop and query one of the door workers at the aforementioned Wal-Mart (not the wheelchair bound one because I do have some compassion left in me) as to whether or not he was accusing me of stealing. It became quickly apparent that he was plainly ignorant of the law regarding customers and that he also hated having to do it, but simply did it because he was ordered to. From that point on, I would make a show of displaying my receipt for that particular gentleman and he would make a show of actually looking at it. I truly felt sorry for that guy for being stuck doing a crappy job for a crappy company. As for the other guys that worked there, fuck 'em.
Mostly, though, I just choose not to spend my money at stores with door nazis.
Good point. I tried once about 9 years ago, but I haven't tried since. Additionally, you are probably right about the student part. I've found that most university libraries tend to have good online periodical resources.
He did have one in New Orleans, but he's since moved. Last I heard the New Orleans studio was up for sale. I'm sure he's probably built a new one somewhere near where he lives now...
The fact that most people don't even know this makes me fearful for the future of libraries. There are also such things as underfunded back-woods county libraries that don't offer this level of access. Yeah, I know. My fault for living where I do, but the rent's cheap. The point is: by opening up their archives to the internet their content can be accessed by a MUCH larger audience than before. Not everybody lives in large US metropolitan areas with properly funded libraries.
Some of us live in the next county where the funding just plain sucks.
Check your email. :)
Specifically, the email that's linked from your site.
In the grand scheme of things, what I can contribute is very little, but you will receive a check from me. Also, don't be surprised if you find a modest bottle of scotch deliverd to that address as soon as I figure out the best way to have one legally delivered.
/.'ers willing to contribute to the cause.
That said... I'm sure this has been discussed before, but are there any legal reasons that you couldn't set up a website and/or Paypal account to accept further contributions? I'm sure that myself and Vlad Petric aren't the only
I really want to buy this woman (and her lawyers) a drink. They are probably doing more for our digital rights than any single group of people right now. I don't mean to discount the contributions of organizations such as the EFF (I have, in fact, contributed money in the past), but it's hard to root for a nameless, faceless group like that. This woman is fast becoming an icon for fighting the good fight against the frivilous lawsuits that the RIAA continues to file.
It may be a tad melodramatic to say this (especially now), but I certainly hope that she finds her place in the history books.
First of all, let me say that I love old Citroen's. I covet old SMs, but am afriad to actually own a car with a hydropneumatic suspension. You don't see a lot of Citroens in the US, and I don't think I've ever seen one at all anywhere near where I live now. Which brings up another question: are you in the US? I did a quick Google search, but couldn't really find any information as to whether or not that particular model was ever imported here. Whether you are or aren't, I do apologize for making the assumption that you were the typical American who would never be caught dead driving an estate and for whom 9 passengers typically means Minivan, SUV, or Crossover.
;)
To get even more off topic and assuming that you're in Europe, have you considered upgrading to a new C6? I really appreciate the looks of that car and wish that it were imported to the US.
Getting back on topic...
Out of curiosity, what kind of mileage do you actually get in your CX? I tend to think that my (non-hybrid, mind you) Civic is on the upper range of things with a regular-driving average of ~33mpg. On long freeway trips I'll see 38 - 39.
Also, how much hydraulic fluid do you use every year?
Leaving that aside, could you drive your people carrier to, say, the North Pole. (OK, these guys did it so that's a bad example.) Could you drive your car to, say, Japan? Whichever way you slice it, it's more juice than I'm going to burn in two years. Bet you could burn less in a Civic Hybrid.
C'mon! Either be a true environmentalist or just willingly admit that you're a red-blooded American who likes his large vehicles just like the rest of us. I'll bet you'd have your own jet too, if you could afford it. Or do you just plan to never venture outside of North and/or South America in your lifetime?
I guess we could save some C02 by reverting to sailing ships. They are green, but they also travel at about 1/6th the speed of your car.
I say, enjoy your large vehicle and don't worry about how much you or anybody else is polluting. That's what our kids are for!
(For the record, I drive a Civic that averages about 33 mpg during regular driving. I don't drive it to save on emissions, though. I drive it because I'm cheap.)
***Note: for any mods with a stick, this post was mostly meant in jest. Mod me down if you want -- I've got the karma to burn -- but I'd also suggest reviewing the guidlines where they suggest not modding down somebody just because you don't agree with them.
With the same skill set and drive, just with different luck, I could definitely see Gates as head of just another software company and be worth "only" $50-100 million.
I don't think he's the exception among the billionaires. I could see a lucky break at the difference between moderately sucessful multi-millionaire businessmen no one heard of and the ultra-rich - in fact it seem to be that the once in the lifetime jackpot is what propels them to ridiculous wealth. Actually, this was very much the case of how Ross Perot earned his fortune. Growing up and seeing him on TV campaigning for president, I always just assumed that he was Yet Another Texas Oil Tycoon (TM). Turns out, after reading his autobiography, that he was indeed another case of being in the right place in the right time. He just happened to be the first one to found a working business around the model of selling computer processing time which eventually grew to be a full IT outsourcing company.
I'm sure some people could name others, but I think that for a lot of the uber-rich, luck did indeed play a pivotal role.
It was a while in KOTOR before you received Jedi powers. The big difference, though, is that the game was still interesting during that period of time. There were interesting quests to be handled and places to explore. I just found the beginning of JK2 to be too much like your typical, average fps.
Actually, this is EXACTLY how I felt when I played Jedi Knight II. I'm sure I'll take some flack around here for downing what is generally considered a popular geek game, but I just couldn't get into it. I saw the box art. I read the reviews. I saw commercials for it. The game looked very cool and the ability to use the force sounded awesome. And then I played the game. Frankly, while I knew the outline of the story, I found the beginning of the game to be too slow. I didn't play the game (thankfully borrowed from a friend) in order to run around and shoot at storm troopers with a couple of wimpy blasters. I wanted to be able to use the force on those fuckers and cut them down with my neon tube.
While I knew a lot of people who loved the game, I could only assume that they were bigger Star Wars fans than I and had the fortitude to stick out the boring parts. I know I didn't. When, after about an hour, I still didn't have a light saber, I gave up and uninstalled the game. I had a plethora of other games that demanded my attention (including my daily CS binges) that I had no desire to play what felt like, at that time, yet another mediocre FPS. I'll concede that it probably got better later on, but I'll never find out. The game started out with a wimper and met much the same fate on my computer.
(In defense of my geek cred, I absolutely loved Knights of the Old Republic and even the somewhat buggy KOTOR 2. And that says a lot for me since I rarely get into RPGs, let alone actually finish them.)