You can call the cop a cocksucking piece of shit and there's jack she can do about it
There are a lot of stupid self-trained legal "experts" on Slashdot, but you have to be the stupidest.
Rather than argue with you, I'm going to propose a very simple experiment. Walk up to a cop and call him a cocksucking piece of shit. Then we can determine exactly what they can do about it. I really encourage you to try this. If you're right, then you will have had the satisfaction of proving me wrong. And if you're wrong, then I will have satisfaction, period.
You think talking to somebody without getting obnoxious is "kissing their ass"? Remind me not to hire you for any job that requires actual human interaction.
Not to defend Officer Abed's overreaction (nor her probably violation of your civil rights) but when interacting a heavily armed lady who's authorized to use deadly force and deprive you of your freedom, it's absolutely the wrong time to cop an attitude. Save the "playing the 9/11 card" rhetoric for your blog.
When dealing with a police officer who you believe is abusing their authority, there is only one sensible strategy: you say, "Officer, would you please explain to me what law I've broken?" If they can't give you a proper answer, you say, "I'm sorry, but if I'm not accused of anything, I don't think I have to talk to you."
Say these things in a respectful tone of voice. And then Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Getting into lame political arguments with a cop is not ever going to accomplish anything useful. On the contrary, arguments and self-justification can give them the legal hook they need to act against you. If you don't believe me, ask Randal Schwartz.
I knew that MS didn't have any debt. But somehow my feeble brain didn't connect that with the idea that they couldn't have any outstanding bonds...
Anyway, we're both wrong. Bloomberg is reporting that it's mostly about stock buyback, along with a little capital improvement and being prepared for any small companies they can grab at today's discount prices.
Microsoft... plans to help fund a $40 billion share repurchase program, as well as build data centers to help narrow the gap with Internet search leader Google Inc. Microsoft has also said it wants to amass cash as a weak economy provides opportunities to acquire small and midsize companies.
Yahoo Market Cap: $21B Current Microsoft cash reserves: $24B Last MS offer for Yahoo: $44B
Against numbers like these, it's difficult to see how Microsoft having, or not having, an extra $3B, would make any difference. Either way, they'd have to borrow at least half of the purchase price.
I suspect that the Microsoft CFO is just playing the usually games that CFOs play. These guys are always shifting money around. When you've got that much cash, you can't just leave it in a bank account — even minor tweaks in the way you stash it can save you (or cost you) millions.
One possibility: they're borrowing money at a low interest rate in order to retire debts that are carrying a higher interest rate.
A recession is the right time to get a good interest rate. But you're right, the "dry spell" theory doesn't make sense. The industry is already in Mojave Mode, and if it gets any worse a few extra gigabucks isn't going to make that much difference.
You can morph any innocuous action (politely telling somebody you can't talk to them right now) by small steps (being rude, being angry and insulting, making threats if they don't leave you alone) to stuff that's totally illegal (using force to make them go away, using deadly force...) and downright heinous (setting off a bomb that kills them and a lot of other people). It can be hard to define precisely the boundaries between legal, illegal, really illegal, and crimes against humanity — hence all the legal hairsplitting. But they do exist.
Which is not to defend the legal abuses that owners of IP have indulged in. But that comes from legal principles based on assumptions about the technology that no longer apply. (Plus, of course, their extreme influence over the people who make and interpret the law involved.) But there's no "slippery slope" situation here.
But would you buy from them again, that's the thing?
Obviously not, since they stopped making graphics workstations a long time ago. Like Sun, they've long since conceded that market to commodity PCs and specialized in servers and HPC clusters.
Correction: Sun does still have a couple of workstations left. But sadly, they're Intel-based.
You mean, like computers making a clickity noise whenever they display something? That's always been lame, but what's really weird is that now most people who go to the movies know it's wrong.
I have a niece who's a nurse-practitioner. She can't watch "ER" because of all the technical goofs. Yet she's a big fan of "House", which, to my mind, is even more implausible.
If you're terminated "for cause", no unemployment. Don't matter if your misdeeds are felonious on just not compliant with the employee handbook.
Incidentally, there have been many accusations that employers deliberately accuse employees of small infractions that would normally be no big deal, just so they can RIF them more cheaply.
The only reason to buy a gadget like this is its simplicity. If you're having to reconfigure it constantly, that kind of defeats the purpose
Also, unlike home routers, this puppy doesn't seem to have an ethernet port. Can the USB port provide a network connection? Otherwise, if something's blocking your WiFi connection, you have no way to reconfigure it!
How can I respond to that if you don't tell me why you think my opinions are inconsistent?
There seems to be a real surge in posts that confuse contradiction with argument. I seem to spend a lot of time explaining the difference lately. Maybe I'll just write a macro that inserts "Monty Python!" and let it go at that.
Let's see, you're lumping casual rudeness with total inability to hold a real conversation. And you're lumping both with beating somebody to death. Oversimplify much?
Been playing GTA: Chinatown Wars. I'm only 1/4 of the way through (hey, I know it's been out for a month, but I'm slow) and I've already had $100K in sales of illegal drugs. Getting there, I've killed 500 people, most of them innocent bystanders and a lot of them cops. Who, far from being vindictive when they catch me, simply confiscate my weapons and stash and accept a bribe for letting me go.
Similarly unrealistic is what happens when I get killed. Quick trip to the hospital and everything's back to normal.
Will this turn anybody into a criminal? Somehow I doubt it. Unlike most consumers of violent fiction and games, I don't buy the idea that there's no connection between media violence and real-world violence. I've certainly seen the effects on my own personality of growing up in a culture where violence is something you see every time you turn on the boob tube. But let's look at it a little more objectively.
What kind of media violence turns people violent? Not the gross-out violence you see in video games or Tarentino movies. That kind of violence is only attractive to people whose lives are so screwed up that becoming a gangsta and being gruesumely dead before you're 30 is an improvement over the alternatives. And I doubt that such a lifestyle is made any more violent by exposure to the cartoonish violence in the media.
The media violence that bothers me is the kind that makes violence innocuous. The hero gets knocked out and wakes up 15 minutes later with nothing worse than a splitting headache — no concussion symptoms such as extreme nausea and neurological impairment. Our plucky band of heroes shoot guns all over the place, and never kill anybody, except maybe the occasional badguy.
That last one disgusted the summer camp dude who taught me to shoot. The thing he was most concerned with drumming into our heads was that guns are dangerous. This was even more important to him that his strong believe that the 2nd amendment was a last safeguard against communist invasion. Which is pretty damn important.
The big problem with violence is people having their heads in the sand. And I don't just mean idiots who want to ban everything that even suggests violence. I mean you mister I've-got-a-shotgun-so-my-home-is-secure.
What, you're saying that maybe Slashdot might slant the story because they get ads from Sun? Do you see the slightest evidence of that? Can you imagine the explosion if Sun tried to get them to slant a story?
Influence of advertisers is an issue for all media. Ethical journalists (and admittedly not all are ethical) work under rules that prevent advertisers from influencing editorial decisions. Now, it's reasonable to look skeptically at a story that sucks up to a company that buys your ad. But have you ever seen Slashdot suck up to anybody?
I'm not going to go into the story: it's convoluted, but frankly its really not the key to this movie:
If so, I'm not sure I care about it. If TOS series had just been another fix for the adrenaline junkies, I never would have become a fan. If all they've done is accumulate the usual special effects and actions sequences and slap the Star Trek brand on it, I'll stay at home and read the latest Stirling.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you suggesting that Rush Limbaugh is not a real person? Come to think of it, you might have a point.
There are a lot of stupid self-trained legal "experts" on Slashdot, but you have to be the stupidest.
Rather than argue with you, I'm going to propose a very simple experiment. Walk up to a cop and call him a cocksucking piece of shit. Then we can determine exactly what they can do about it. I really encourage you to try this. If you're right, then you will have had the satisfaction of proving me wrong. And if you're wrong, then I will have satisfaction, period.
You think talking to somebody without getting obnoxious is "kissing their ass"? Remind me not to hire you for any job that requires actual human interaction.
Your criticism of my rhetorical skills is very disheartening, especially in light of your own extreme ability in this area.
Not to defend Officer Abed's overreaction (nor her probably violation of your civil rights) but when interacting a heavily armed lady who's authorized to use deadly force and deprive you of your freedom, it's absolutely the wrong time to cop an attitude. Save the "playing the 9/11 card" rhetoric for your blog.
When dealing with a police officer who you believe is abusing their authority, there is only one sensible strategy: you say, "Officer, would you please explain to me what law I've broken?" If they can't give you a proper answer, you say, "I'm sorry, but if I'm not accused of anything, I don't think I have to talk to you."
Say these things in a respectful tone of voice. And then Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Getting into lame political arguments with a cop is not ever going to accomplish anything useful. On the contrary, arguments and self-justification can give them the legal hook they need to act against you. If you don't believe me, ask Randal Schwartz.
I see you're back in angry asshole mode. Was behaving like a real human being too much of a strain?
I knew that MS didn't have any debt. But somehow my feeble brain didn't connect that with the idea that they couldn't have any outstanding bonds...
Anyway, we're both wrong. Bloomberg is reporting that it's mostly about stock buyback, along with a little capital improvement and being prepared for any small companies they can grab at today's discount prices.
Oops. You're quite correct.
Here's the explanation on Bloomberg:
Microsoft... plans to help fund a $40 billion share repurchase program, as well as build data centers to help narrow the gap with Internet search leader Google Inc. Microsoft has also said it wants to amass cash as a weak economy provides opportunities to acquire small and midsize companies.
Some relevant numbers:
Yahoo Market Cap: $21B
Current Microsoft cash reserves: $24B
Last MS offer for Yahoo: $44B
Against numbers like these, it's difficult to see how Microsoft having, or not having, an extra $3B, would make any difference. Either way, they'd have to borrow at least half of the purchase price.
I suspect that the Microsoft CFO is just playing the usually games that CFOs play. These guys are always shifting money around. When you've got that much cash, you can't just leave it in a bank account — even minor tweaks in the way you stash it can save you (or cost you) millions.
One possibility: they're borrowing money at a low interest rate in order to retire debts that are carrying a higher interest rate.
A recession is the right time to get a good interest rate. But you're right, the "dry spell" theory doesn't make sense. The industry is already in Mojave Mode, and if it gets any worse a few extra gigabucks isn't going to make that much difference.
You can morph any innocuous action (politely telling somebody you can't talk to them right now) by small steps (being rude, being angry and insulting, making threats if they don't leave you alone) to stuff that's totally illegal (using force to make them go away, using deadly force...) and downright heinous (setting off a bomb that kills them and a lot of other people). It can be hard to define precisely the boundaries between legal, illegal, really illegal, and crimes against humanity — hence all the legal hairsplitting. But they do exist.
Which is not to defend the legal abuses that owners of IP have indulged in. But that comes from legal principles based on assumptions about the technology that no longer apply. (Plus, of course, their extreme influence over the people who make and interpret the law involved.) But there's no "slippery slope" situation here.
But would you buy from them again, that's the thing?
Obviously not, since they stopped making graphics workstations a long time ago. Like Sun, they've long since conceded that market to commodity PCs and specialized in servers and HPC clusters.
Correction: Sun does still have a couple of workstations left. But sadly, they're Intel-based.
Just get one of these.
You mean, like computers making a clickity noise whenever they display something? That's always been lame, but what's really weird is that now most people who go to the movies know it's wrong.
I have a niece who's a nurse-practitioner. She can't watch "ER" because of all the technical goofs. Yet she's a big fan of "House", which, to my mind, is even more implausible.
I'd like to see some statistics that back your claim. It certainly isn't consistent with what I've heard.
If you're terminated "for cause", no unemployment. Don't matter if your misdeeds are felonious on just not compliant with the employee handbook.
Incidentally, there have been many accusations that employers deliberately accuse employees of small infractions that would normally be no big deal, just so they can RIF them more cheaply.
The only reason to buy a gadget like this is its simplicity. If you're having to reconfigure it constantly, that kind of defeats the purpose
Also, unlike home routers, this puppy doesn't seem to have an ethernet port. Can the USB port provide a network connection? Otherwise, if something's blocking your WiFi connection, you have no way to reconfigure it!
How can I respond to that if you don't tell me why you think my opinions are inconsistent?
There seems to be a real surge in posts that confuse contradiction with argument. I seem to spend a lot of time explaining the difference lately. Maybe I'll just write a macro that inserts " Monty Python! " and let it go at that.
Let's see, you're lumping casual rudeness with total inability to hold a real conversation. And you're lumping both with beating somebody to death. Oversimplify much?
Yeah, I know you were making a joke. I looked for the smiley that means "OK, I admit it, I was wrong" but I couldnt' find it.
Been playing GTA: Chinatown Wars. I'm only 1/4 of the way through (hey, I know it's been out for a month, but I'm slow) and I've already had $100K in sales of illegal drugs. Getting there, I've killed 500 people, most of them innocent bystanders and a lot of them cops. Who, far from being vindictive when they catch me, simply confiscate my weapons and stash and accept a bribe for letting me go.
Similarly unrealistic is what happens when I get killed. Quick trip to the hospital and everything's back to normal.
Will this turn anybody into a criminal? Somehow I doubt it. Unlike most consumers of violent fiction and games, I don't buy the idea that there's no connection between media violence and real-world violence. I've certainly seen the effects on my own personality of growing up in a culture where violence is something you see every time you turn on the boob tube. But let's look at it a little more objectively.
What kind of media violence turns people violent? Not the gross-out violence you see in video games or Tarentino movies. That kind of violence is only attractive to people whose lives are so screwed up that becoming a gangsta and being gruesumely dead before you're 30 is an improvement over the alternatives. And I doubt that such a lifestyle is made any more violent by exposure to the cartoonish violence in the media.
The media violence that bothers me is the kind that makes violence innocuous. The hero gets knocked out and wakes up 15 minutes later with nothing worse than a splitting headache — no concussion symptoms such as extreme nausea and neurological impairment. Our plucky band of heroes shoot guns all over the place, and never kill anybody, except maybe the occasional badguy.
That last one disgusted the summer camp dude who taught me to shoot. The thing he was most concerned with drumming into our heads was that guns are dangerous. This was even more important to him that his strong believe that the 2nd amendment was a last safeguard against communist invasion. Which is pretty damn important.
The big problem with violence is people having their heads in the sand. And I don't just mean idiots who want to ban everything that even suggests violence. I mean you mister I've-got-a-shotgun-so-my-home-is-secure.
What, you're saying that maybe Slashdot might slant the story because they get ads from Sun? Do you see the slightest evidence of that? Can you imagine the explosion if Sun tried to get them to slant a story?
Influence of advertisers is an issue for all media. Ethical journalists (and admittedly not all are ethical) work under rules that prevent advertisers from influencing editorial decisions. Now, it's reasonable to look skeptically at a story that sucks up to a company that buys your ad. But have you ever seen Slashdot suck up to anybody?
I Rob is getting old. Once you get past 40, colonic cancer is something you have to watch out for.
I'm not going to go into the story: it's convoluted, but frankly its really not the key to this movie:
If so, I'm not sure I care about it. If TOS series had just been another fix for the adrenaline junkies, I never would have become a fan. If all they've done is accumulate the usual special effects and actions sequences and slap the Star Trek brand on it, I'll stay at home and read the latest Stirling.
... admitting that you are a Trekkie is not a mark of shame ...
Unless you're one of those really obsessive fans who insist on "trekker".