My UHaul $19.95 a day truck cost me between $30 and $50 dollars. Plus mileage. It was a while back. They didn't include various special taxes and insurance fees in the listed price. I was pissed, but I turned right around and bent over anyway.
It's fucking infuriating and it hurts our economy. If people knew what the fuck they were going to spend, they'd be able to spend closer to their limit. Sure, given that every company out there is poisoning the well, consumer trust of corporations is shit, but if it weren't, we'd be spending sooo much more money.
Back when we were around 100 or 200 mHz, I remember hearing that we could get faster processors (or maybe it was bus speeds) if only for the horrible FM radio interference it would create. There'd be no way to get FCC approval.
I don't remember any large frequency segments getting skipped. So either they were wrong or my interpretation was.
Obviously, we're trying to prevent people from killing Americans using airplanes... but given that the most persistent and successful group is muslim extremists, the most obvious option is to search muslim extremists.
On how many separate occasions have Muslim extremists killed Americans by hijacking airplanes? I honestly thought it was just those four planes on 9/11, but I could be wrong. If it was only those 19 guys, I don't see what you mean by persistent. I honestly don't see Muslim extremists to be the only significant threat to American passenger planes.
Timothy McVeigh was nuts, pure and simple... but I'm greatly offended that you might be comparing me to him.
I don't mean to do that at all.
However, again, since he was only 1 person, and he's dead now, maybe we should work on the people that are still alive, and still dedicated to killing as many Americans as possible.
You think that Timothy McVeigh was the only person that held his belief structure (and to such a degree)?
His argument is, and always was, that no religious-based group has ever attempted to kill Americans using airplanes in any way.
Maybe. But why is he excluding non-religious terrorists? Religious groups aren't the only people that have attempted to kill Americans using airplanes. So if your goal is to hinder this particular Islamic fundamentalist jihad, searching Islamic fundamentalists would be a great place to start. However, if your goal is to prevent people from killing Americans using airplanes, you might want to search everyone.
Timothy McVeigh's attack wasn't religious, but there's no reason to believe that his successors will not use an airplane. (Although I guess his particular brand of crazy is probably too busy hating Muslims right now to give a fuck about the excesses of the US federal gov't.)
I know about the fucking IRA ceasefire. All I'm trying to say is that brown people aren't the only ones that might be dangerous to put on an airplane. Whether or not other groups can be reasoned with, some of them may try to kill us on airplanes. (Yeah, I know, not the IRA.) Fair enough?
Again, I don't recall the IRA ever targetting American planes or Americans.
Whatever. That's not what you said. You said "no one else has done international terrorism for irrational religious reasons," which is again obviously untrue. Yes, there are other groups that have committed international terrorism due to irrational religious reasons. No, I'm not going to go look up a name and an event for you. It's obvious.
You were trying to artificially constrain your subject until only arabs would be a part of the problem, and you failed. Why are you attempting to limit the discussion to religious groups? I thought we were talking about terrorists.
If you want to search people getting on a plane, search everyone. As I said: Even if that were true (It's not. The IRA leaps to mind.) that still wouldn't boil down to "We should give brown people a particularly hard time getting on airplanes."
Right, but half of the US population probably doesn't even know what the pentagon is now, let alone before 9/11. The whitehouse is sacred to all those folks that started wearing flag-motif clothing after nationalism was cool again. The pentagon might have more real importance, but knocking over the whitehouse might have mobilized us for a larger war (which was the ultimate goal of the terrorists).
...no one else has done international terrorism for irrational religious reasons.
Even if that were true (It's not. The IRA leaps to mind.) that still wouldn't boil down to "We should give brown people a particularly hard time getting on airplanes."
The listed cases are all of Cuban flights being hijacked to the US, but I take their word for the opposite occurence. If you don't want to, do your own research. It's not like what I'm saying is hotly contested.
If you don't think my examples are particularly relevant to 9/11, I don't care. I'm just pointing out that your comment ("When in the history of aviation has anyone from any other region of the world hijacked a plane?") is idiotic on the face of it.
When in the history of aviation has anyone from any other region of the world hijacked a plane?
You moron. Tons of other ethnic and non-ethnic groups have hijacked planes. Cubans were getting famous for it in the 1970s. All kinds of non-racially-oriented nationalists have hijacked planes.
Ugh. Posting with no karma bonus because I don't want intelligent people to have to read this thread.
First of all, the people in that plane only learned about the other hijackings after the terrorists had control of the plane. If five guys started cutting up flight attendants on an airplane today, they'd be beaten to death in minutes. They'd never see the inside of the cockpit.
And still. The terrorists were attempting to fly the plane into the whitehouse. I'd say that the result they got was much much less effective as a method of inducing terror.
Sure, they killed a lot of us, but if they only succeeded at knocking down four planes in a single day, they would have inspired a much much smaller amount of terror. They wouldn't have done nearly as well at aligning the non-Islamic nations against the Islamic nations. They'd be much much further from the world war they seek.
9/11 can't happen again. And it didn't take airport security to make the change. All it took was cellphones.
Whether or not the passengers did crash the plane, they could have. Dudes with boxcutters aren't knocking down anymore big buildings, and it's not because of airport security or fighter jets.
I imagine that SBC might offer such a service. However, I'm pretty sure that Covad-based third party ISPs can't give you service unless you've got a phone number. If anyone can tell me different, I'd love to hear about it.
My cell phone doesn't work all that well in my apartment, it rarely gets a call through on the first four or five times on the weekend, and it drops calls like mad when a plane flies overhead.
Sounds like an excellent reason to use number portability in two years when your contract is up. That's what I did. GSM carriers get shitty reception in my building. Verizon gets perfect reception. My contract was already up. I got a Verizon phone two months ago so that I could make calls from my apartment, and now that number portability is here, I'm going to switch my old number onto my Verizon phone. (Yes, I've been paying for two cellphones for a few months now.)
Worth it for me. I've kept my number and I've got excellent reception in my house. No local phone necessary.
My only question is how are we non-cable-watching non-land-line-phone-using people supposed to get broadband internet access. Fortunately my roomie feels the need to have a land line, so I can piggyback DSL. I've got a bunch of friends that just don't have internet access 'cause of this.
And since the terrorists know what will happen if they try to hijack planes in a similar fashion, they have much less reason to try.
We've taken away most of the effectiveness of that particular method. This may be sufficient to discourage hijackers in the future. It took 30 minutes.
prior to 9/11, airlines just didn't want to inconvenience passengers even though even simple measures could have prevented 9/11.
The measures required to prevent 9/11 were in place 30 minutes after the second plane hit. The airlines didn't need to change a thing. All it took was cell phones, and the passengers on the third plane knew not to let the hijackers get their way. Problem solved.
I had a similar issue. My mass transit (ferryboat) got me into SF with a total trip time of an hour and fifteen minutes. I could theoretically nap for 40 minutes on the boat, but I didn't.
So I moved somewhere directly next to the light rail station. I sold my car. My commute is now 20 minutes. I get a woody every time I think about how much better this is.
Uh... even mass transit proponents hate busses. They're slow and uncomfortable. Just like a car except less convenient. Light rail has real advantages to the individual. The only advantage to busses is that they're cheaper than your own car.
And if your stuff needs high security, hire people that will understand that and not write down their passwords. Sorry; there aren't any magic-bullet solutions that will allow an end run around that requirement.
Yes there are. Smart cards with passwords valid for short durations. Public/Private key pairs. If your stuff needs high security, and you're using a password that can go on a sticky to protect it, you've hacked yourself.
Let your users use one of those methods, plus a simple memorized password that rarely changes (but expires after a few failed attempts), and you've got security. You also don't have any passwords on post it notes. Make the secure way the easiest way. Make the insecure way really really inconvenient.
As a startup, apparently you don't know that contractors get screwed like that by absolutely everyone. The feds are mildly worse.
And there are plenty of small businesses and startups that make their living contracting for the gov't. You just have to know how long it takes to get paid.
Regarding your second point that artistic merit is limited by gameplay concern:
I couldn't disagree more. My favorite part of any game, be it an FPS, RPG or a sidescroller, is when an innovative story is revealed to me. This is one of the reasons that Half Life was considered such an excellent game. It certainly didn't innovate in gameplay.
And I have yet to see an RPG with dialog or a plot that didn't have obvious room for improvement. There are plenty that are good enoughto be lots of fun. There are none so good that they could be made into a movie that I'd like.
Iduno. When I handed my GBA with Golden Sun to my girlfriend's younger sister, every five minutes or so, she'd complain, "I told it my name is Sarah. Why the hell does it keep calling me a he?"
Personally, I could give a fuck what sex characters are if video game writing was about 4000x better. Maybe we outgrossed movies recently, but video games aren't exactly approaching the artistic merit of, say, 21 Grams. Games aren't even approaching the artistic merit of the best comic books. imnsho.
Those were the days when you would dial up some BB and hear EEEEE aaaaaa iiiii shhhhhh oooo bong bong bing (you get the point....)
Ah, but if you concentrate you'll remember that before 56k (or maybe 28.8) modems, it didn't do the boing boing noise at the end. It ended with the static sshhhhhhh, (and maybe had a short even "aeaea" tone or two over the static), and then cut out. The boing boing sound was a shocking late development in modem handshaking art.
It's not always free from problems, what with monopolies and a shortage of long-term thinking, but it is why I had a 9600 baud modem in 1994 and a direct connection to the whole damn Internet in my study today.
Um. I'd attribute that to legislation. Sure, it might have happened if we didn't regulate telecom the way we do, but... as it happened, it doesn't feel like capitalism to me.
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My UHaul $19.95 a day truck cost me between $30 and $50 dollars. Plus mileage. It was a while back. They didn't include various special taxes and insurance fees in the listed price. I was pissed, but I turned right around and bent over anyway.
It's fucking infuriating and it hurts our economy. If people knew what the fuck they were going to spend, they'd be able to spend closer to their limit. Sure, given that every company out there is poisoning the well, consumer trust of corporations is shit, but if it weren't, we'd be spending sooo much more money.
Back when we were around 100 or 200 mHz, I remember hearing that we could get faster processors (or maybe it was bus speeds) if only for the horrible FM radio interference it would create. There'd be no way to get FCC approval.
I don't remember any large frequency segments getting skipped. So either they were wrong or my interpretation was.
Obviously, we're trying to prevent people from killing Americans using airplanes... but given that the most persistent and successful group is muslim extremists, the most obvious option is to search muslim extremists.
On how many separate occasions have Muslim extremists killed Americans by hijacking airplanes? I honestly thought it was just those four planes on 9/11, but I could be wrong. If it was only those 19 guys, I don't see what you mean by persistent. I honestly don't see Muslim extremists to be the only significant threat to American passenger planes.
Timothy McVeigh was nuts, pure and simple... but I'm greatly offended that you might be comparing me to him.
I don't mean to do that at all.
However, again, since he was only 1 person, and he's dead now, maybe we should work on the people that are still alive, and still dedicated to killing as many Americans as possible.
You think that Timothy McVeigh was the only person that held his belief structure (and to such a degree)?
His argument is, and always was, that no religious-based group has ever attempted to kill Americans using airplanes in any way.
Maybe. But why is he excluding non-religious terrorists? Religious groups aren't the only people that have attempted to kill Americans using airplanes. So if your goal is to hinder this particular Islamic fundamentalist jihad, searching Islamic fundamentalists would be a great place to start. However, if your goal is to prevent people from killing Americans using airplanes, you might want to search everyone.
Timothy McVeigh's attack wasn't religious, but there's no reason to believe that his successors will not use an airplane. (Although I guess his particular brand of crazy is probably too busy hating Muslims right now to give a fuck about the excesses of the US federal gov't.)
I know about the fucking IRA ceasefire. All I'm trying to say is that brown people aren't the only ones that might be dangerous to put on an airplane. Whether or not other groups can be reasoned with, some of them may try to kill us on airplanes. (Yeah, I know, not the IRA.) Fair enough?
Again, I don't recall the IRA ever targetting American planes or Americans.
Whatever. That's not what you said. You said "no one else has done international terrorism for irrational religious reasons," which is again obviously untrue. Yes, there are other groups that have committed international terrorism due to irrational religious reasons. No, I'm not going to go look up a name and an event for you. It's obvious.
You were trying to artificially constrain your subject until only arabs would be a part of the problem, and you failed. Why are you attempting to limit the discussion to religious groups? I thought we were talking about terrorists.
If you want to search people getting on a plane, search everyone. As I said: Even if that were true (It's not. The IRA leaps to mind.) that still wouldn't boil down to "We should give brown people a particularly hard time getting on airplanes."
Right, but half of the US population probably doesn't even know what the pentagon is now, let alone before 9/11. The whitehouse is sacred to all those folks that started wearing flag-motif clothing after nationalism was cool again. The pentagon might have more real importance, but knocking over the whitehouse might have mobilized us for a larger war (which was the ultimate goal of the terrorists).
...no one else has done international terrorism for irrational religious reasons.
Even if that were true (It's not. The IRA leaps to mind.) that still wouldn't boil down to "We should give brown people a particularly hard time getting on airplanes."
Hehe. Googling for cuba hijack yielded this buried CNN article about Cubans hijacking planes.
The listed cases are all of Cuban flights being hijacked to the US, but I take their word for the opposite occurence. If you don't want to, do your own research. It's not like what I'm saying is hotly contested.
If you don't think my examples are particularly relevant to 9/11, I don't care. I'm just pointing out that your comment ("When in the history of aviation has anyone from any other region of the world hijacked a plane?") is idiotic on the face of it.
When in the history of aviation has anyone from any other region of the world hijacked a plane?
You moron. Tons of other ethnic and non-ethnic groups have hijacked planes. Cubans were getting famous for it in the 1970s. All kinds of non-racially-oriented nationalists have hijacked planes.
Ugh. Posting with no karma bonus because I don't want intelligent people to have to read this thread.
First of all, the people in that plane only learned about the other hijackings after the terrorists had control of the plane. If five guys started cutting up flight attendants on an airplane today, they'd be beaten to death in minutes. They'd never see the inside of the cockpit.
And still. The terrorists were attempting to fly the plane into the whitehouse. I'd say that the result they got was much much less effective as a method of inducing terror.
Sure, they killed a lot of us, but if they only succeeded at knocking down four planes in a single day, they would have inspired a much much smaller amount of terror. They wouldn't have done nearly as well at aligning the non-Islamic nations against the Islamic nations. They'd be much much further from the world war they seek.
9/11 can't happen again. And it didn't take airport security to make the change. All it took was cellphones.
Whether or not the passengers did crash the plane, they could have. Dudes with boxcutters aren't knocking down anymore big buildings, and it's not because of airport security or fighter jets.
I imagine that SBC might offer such a service. However, I'm pretty sure that Covad-based third party ISPs can't give you service unless you've got a phone number. If anyone can tell me different, I'd love to hear about it.
My cell phone doesn't work all that well in my apartment, it rarely gets a call through on the first four or five times on the weekend, and it drops calls like mad when a plane flies overhead.
Sounds like an excellent reason to use number portability in two years when your contract is up. That's what I did. GSM carriers get shitty reception in my building. Verizon gets perfect reception. My contract was already up. I got a Verizon phone two months ago so that I could make calls from my apartment, and now that number portability is here, I'm going to switch my old number onto my Verizon phone. (Yes, I've been paying for two cellphones for a few months now.)
Worth it for me. I've kept my number and I've got excellent reception in my house. No local phone necessary.
My only question is how are we non-cable-watching non-land-line-phone-using people supposed to get broadband internet access. Fortunately my roomie feels the need to have a land line, so I can piggyback DSL. I've got a bunch of friends that just don't have internet access 'cause of this.
And since the terrorists know what will happen if they try to hijack planes in a similar fashion, they have much less reason to try.
We've taken away most of the effectiveness of that particular method. This may be sufficient to discourage hijackers in the future. It took 30 minutes.
prior to 9/11, airlines just didn't want to inconvenience passengers even though even simple measures could have prevented 9/11.
The measures required to prevent 9/11 were in place 30 minutes after the second plane hit. The airlines didn't need to change a thing. All it took was cell phones, and the passengers on the third plane knew not to let the hijackers get their way. Problem solved.
What simple measures were you thinking of?
I had a similar issue. My mass transit (ferryboat) got me into SF with a total trip time of an hour and fifteen minutes. I could theoretically nap for 40 minutes on the boat, but I didn't.
So I moved somewhere directly next to the light rail station. I sold my car. My commute is now 20 minutes. I get a woody every time I think about how much better this is.
Uh... even mass transit proponents hate busses. They're slow and uncomfortable. Just like a car except less convenient. Light rail has real advantages to the individual. The only advantage to busses is that they're cheaper than your own car.
And if your stuff needs high security, hire people that will understand that and not write down their passwords. Sorry; there aren't any magic-bullet solutions that will allow an end run around that requirement.
Yes there are. Smart cards with passwords valid for short durations. Public/Private key pairs. If your stuff needs high security, and you're using a password that can go on a sticky to protect it, you've hacked yourself.
Let your users use one of those methods, plus a simple memorized password that rarely changes (but expires after a few failed attempts), and you've got security. You also don't have any passwords on post it notes. Make the secure way the easiest way. Make the insecure way really really inconvenient.
As a startup, apparently you don't know that contractors get screwed like that by absolutely everyone. The feds are mildly worse.
And there are plenty of small businesses and startups that make their living contracting for the gov't. You just have to know how long it takes to get paid.
This is a brand new account reposting a highly moderated comment from the previous slashdot story.
While the comment remains true, I hope the mods will send him right back down to -1. It looks like a troll charging up karma to me.
Regarding your second point that artistic merit is limited by gameplay concern:
I couldn't disagree more. My favorite part of any game, be it an FPS, RPG or a sidescroller, is when an innovative story is revealed to me. This is one of the reasons that Half Life was considered such an excellent game. It certainly didn't innovate in gameplay.
And I have yet to see an RPG with dialog or a plot that didn't have obvious room for improvement. There are plenty that are good enoughto be lots of fun. There are none so good that they could be made into a movie that I'd like.
Iduno. When I handed my GBA with Golden Sun to my girlfriend's younger sister, every five minutes or so, she'd complain, "I told it my name is Sarah. Why the hell does it keep calling me a he?"
Personally, I could give a fuck what sex characters are if video game writing was about 4000x better. Maybe we outgrossed movies recently, but video games aren't exactly approaching the artistic merit of, say, 21 Grams. Games aren't even approaching the artistic merit of the best comic books. imnsho.
Those were the days when you would dial up some BB and hear EEEEE aaaaaa iiiii shhhhhh oooo bong bong bing (you get the point....)
Ah, but if you concentrate you'll remember that before 56k (or maybe 28.8) modems, it didn't do the boing boing noise at the end. It ended with the static sshhhhhhh, (and maybe had a short even "aeaea" tone or two over the static), and then cut out. The boing boing sound was a shocking late development in modem handshaking art.
It's not always free from problems, what with monopolies and a shortage of long-term thinking, but it is why I had a 9600 baud modem in 1994 and a direct connection to the whole damn Internet in my study today.
Um. I'd attribute that to legislation. Sure, it might have happened if we didn't regulate telecom the way we do, but... as it happened, it doesn't feel like capitalism to me.