"This is a 2nd amendment issue. The parents of the children in question, for the security of a free state, should collect firearms, organize a militia, and shoot dead everyone who has fast-tracked this case into the courtroom."
The new Administration would just do a Waco on the militia and is already committed to attacking the Second Amendment.
"I also found it disturbing. The death of a human should not be treated so... disgustingly. Somebody needs to do something about Samzenpus and the garbage he puts out."
He will surely be grieved and ashamed by the tiny amount of whining and ignore the many amused comments.
"Long : Yes, but you will have to tell the office whiners to STFU."
The people who "whine" need to get work done. They matter. Your office preferences in software don't.
Since it isn't your money, just cave and buy Office. I wouldn't stick my neck out at any job, because jobs exist to pay me. Part of retaining a job is to cover your ass, so you are retained, and continue to get paid.
Not all lives have value, and while I have not zapped anyone I've met enough other vets who have to know that assertion is an expression of personal belief and not more. There is no reason to care about taking the life of an enemy unless you have been CONDITIONED by other humans to that reaction.
One is of ones OWN society, so taking the life of an enemy thereof is the reverse of sociopathic! Even the Jihadist kamikaze bombers don't die for hate nearly as much as for religious/social affirmation.
We are conditioned to behave as good Wal-Mart shoppers, but not all life is experienced in happy cheerful chain stores.
"by simply admitting they need a coping mechanism, you are making a tacit admission of the wrongness of what they are doing. you don't need a coping mechanism to cope with a neutral experience or a good experience"
Don't forget that "right" and "wrong" are not more than matters of social conditioning which is dictated by current social fashion.
We are taught one set of rules for being good little Wal-Mart shoppers, then find out that those are just absurd in other situations. Part of the lies we are told about how we should behave is that they are more than a convenience for maintaining social order. Some understanding of the utility of situational rule sets would be useful.
"I used to be a blacksmith, and I still have a nice little power-hammer in my workshop"
Any method of drive destruction that does not require the purchase of new, fun equipment is obviously inadequate.
Your situation clearly requires a heavy duty plasma cutter and a TIG welder. Open drives with plasma cutter, weld spiral TIG beads over both sides of the platter, data is securely wiped. An engine-driven power source will assure drive destruction in the event of power failure.
You know they are ugly, but unless you are a mechanic and inspect them you don't know they are "deathtraps".
No important amount of crashes in the US are caused by mechanical failure, and even when working on very worn vehicles one doesn't encounter many safety hazards. Cars are designed to fail gracefully. They steer loosely before they spit tie rods (usually). They run poorly before they stop running. They become unpleasant to drive or quite running before they cause crashes.
Just because you are used to a vast inspection bureaucracy doesn't mean it does much for you.
"If I turn in my 1996 vehicle to them, I get less money than I can get selling it privately. Why exactly would I want to participate in this program?"
You'd be nuts. I'd buy and tag a shitbox for 120 days, then roll it over for the payoff. There is zero reason the dealer couldn't offer you a trade-in on your non-shit vehicle (which he can resell), pocket the governments gift, and both of you win.
"This "idea" from Congress is the equivalent of breaking all the windows in your house, just so you can keep the glass-makers employed."
There are also many people with many spare windows to lawfully install for the breaking. The legislation only covers a few "windows" by CAFE rating, so it really won't get (for example) small and mid-size clunkers off the road.
I'm sure it will pass. I'm also sure the automakers will share my sentiments of "thanks for the money, idiots".
"This proposal will help used car dealers at the expense of pretty much everyone. The demand for used cars will skyrocket as people try to trade in their $200 clunkers for $1,500 used cars. Of course in that $1,500 won't buy them what it would buy them now."
You are dead fucking right.
For one thing, dealers will lawfully sell clunkers to their buddies (repos, trade-ins,running wrecks) who will lawfully tag and register them. They will then lawfully use the money from turning them in elsewhere to buy rides from the same dealer. Dealers have dealers for buddies, by the way.
Lots of clunkers will lawfully be purchased by "straw men" buyers and funneled into the system. Liability and registration aren't high enough to take the profit out of this. A family effort could turn three or four clunkers into a nice used ride, LEGALLY.
OTOH, at least it's easy money for some of the lower classes. While this is as stupid and wasteful as a gun "buy-back" program it will turn more money and make the famously out-of-touch Schumer and Feinstein feel good,
There is yet another issue that makes this proposal quite stupid. It goes by CAFE ratings instead of being across the board. Why is that stupid? Because it doesn't take "clunkers" that are over the arbitrary CAFE limit. A ragged out Escort is still a polluter and a ragged out midsize car can still be a gas hog. Charlie and Diane have hate-ons for vehicles over a certain weight, not for inefficient or polluting vehicles per se.
Lots of things, all proven in practice and not hypothetical!
1. It creates a huge expensive bureaucracy. 2. It will use millions of gallons of fuel to get vehicles to inspection. 3. It costs the driving public AND their employers millions of lost workdays (millions of drivers x at least 2-3hrs) to go to inspection stations, not counting repeats. 4. It opens up opportunities for corrupt mechanics to fix emission "failures" by "swaptronics" at customer expense. Seen labor rates lately?
Yay for the law of unintended consequences. Yes, I'm a mechanic. The idea that an older car is automatically a "heap of junk" doesn't always fit reality. It's easy to run up serious money fixing a minor problem that happens to trigger a Check Engine Light.
I can spin a wrench, so MY rides will be fine. Not everyone else will be so fortunate.
"First you make your lips like a doughnut then you use your cheek muscles to pull inward. It helps to have a lot of spit. and dont be afraid to take as much as you can. push your limits."
I'll get with HR about creating a position, but you're SO hired! If you bring a resume, make sure it's absorbent.
"It was just dumb luck that we ordered machines with floppy drives or we would have had to try flashing the CD we were booting from...good luck with that...jeez."
You can build a bootable "floppy emulation" CD (after building the floppy image with Winimage on Windows or IIRC dd on Linux) and add whatever flash utils to it as required. You aren't restricted to a 1.44 meg image either, and you can easily toss more software on the rest of the CD if it doesn't fit on a 2.88 image.
There are also lots of tools for making bootable USB keys, and if you have a prog that supposedly requires Windows you might try WinPE/BartPE/etc instead. Everyone should IMO have a good stash of live CDs and their images. There is no reason not to have both PE and Linux CDs handy.
I also have a CF card in an IDE adapter (they make bootable SATA adapters too) which is a convenient way to boot whatever will fit on the card (DOS, Linux, PE but I've not tried that) instead of the PC hard disk. Cheap and handy, and you can use it to rescue systems with no CD drive.
"Any idea how big the FCC fine is for transmitting on a licensed band without a license? Do they send you to PMITA prison?"
Any idea if they have the time and money to spend sniffing for transmissions that don't step on people who have the slightest way to know they are being stepped on and hence will never report it?:)
"choice of $0.99 to download the song and use it on your MP3 player, or have to go to a website, on your computer, and stream the video every time you want to listen to it"
Stream whut???
If you want to listen to something not available elsewhere, downloading the video with DownloadHelper is effortless as is playing the file with vlc. Older concert clips come to mind as examples.
The company tolerated it, so the company ought to know that such conduct will not be tolerated by consumers.
I'll not be buying Belkin, and will ensure those who ask me what to buy will be steered away from their products. Those who piss off geeks forget that non-geeks ask us for advice.
"I reckon that in ten to twenty years time Iraq will freely elect yet another lunatic, and we'll be going back again to try and straighten out another mess. You heard it here first."
Saddam was and is quite popular. Only his methods can keep order in Iraq, which is why it will revert to disorder if it is not allowed to break up into its natural components. Saddams only "lunatic" behavior was external aggression against Kuwait. He could have cut deals and stayed in his box. He certainly played Sunni against Shia quite well.
Democracy does not suit primitive religionists, which is why they have always killed people who espouse it.
Slashdot Mirror
"If children aren't allowed to experience the world, then as adults they will walk blindly into it and wither."
So long as they find Jesus before they wither, our laws will have fulfilled their purpose.
"This is a 2nd amendment issue. The parents of the children in question, for the security of a free state, should collect firearms, organize a militia, and shoot dead everyone who has fast-tracked this case into the courtroom."
The new Administration would just do a Waco on the militia and is already committed to attacking the Second Amendment.
"frags, literally speaking, refer to killings of superior officers.
I do believe sir, that you should use different terminology when marketing it to the military."
No, "fragging" does. "Frags" is the plural of "fragmentation grenades".
http://home.mweb.co.za/re/redcap/vietcrim.htm
FWIW:
"Frag order" is a (WWII vintage at least) military for "Fragmentary Order" that is still in standard current daily use.
Military folks are proficient at dealing with many different acronyms.
One would not mistake a "frag order" for an "order to frag" someone.
We also have MANY officers and enlisted troops who game.
"I also found it disturbing. The death of a human should not be treated so ... disgustingly. Somebody needs to do something about Samzenpus and the garbage he puts out."
He will surely be grieved and ashamed by the tiny amount of whining and ignore the many amused comments.
"Long : Yes, but you will have to tell the office whiners to STFU."
The people who "whine" need to get work done. They matter.
Your office preferences in software don't.
Since it isn't your money, just cave and buy Office. I wouldn't stick my neck out at any job, because jobs exist to pay me. Part of retaining a job is to cover your ass, so you are retained, and continue to get paid.
Unique snowflakes disregard where appropriate.
Bullshit.
Not all lives have value, and while I have not zapped anyone I've met enough other vets who have to know that assertion is an expression of personal belief and not more. There is no reason to care about taking the life of an enemy unless you have been CONDITIONED by other humans to that reaction.
One is of ones OWN society, so taking the life of an enemy thereof is the reverse of sociopathic! Even the Jihadist kamikaze bombers don't die for hate nearly as much as for religious/social affirmation.
We are conditioned to behave as good Wal-Mart shoppers, but not all life is experienced in happy cheerful chain stores.
"by simply admitting they need a coping mechanism, you are making a tacit admission of the wrongness of what they are doing. you don't need a coping mechanism to cope with a neutral experience or a good experience"
Don't forget that "right" and "wrong" are not more than matters of social conditioning which is dictated by current social fashion.
We are taught one set of rules for being good little Wal-Mart shoppers, then find out that those are just absurd in other situations. Part of the lies we are told about how we should behave is that they are more than a convenience for maintaining social order. Some understanding of the utility of situational rule sets would be useful.
It's hilarious.
(Sensitive people need a second, different internet.)
No child should do anything sexual without benefit of clergy.
"I used to be a blacksmith, and I still have a nice little power-hammer in my workshop"
Any method of drive destruction that does not require the purchase of new, fun equipment is obviously inadequate.
Your situation clearly requires a heavy duty plasma cutter and a TIG welder. Open drives with plasma cutter, weld spiral TIG beads over both sides of the platter, data is securely wiped. An engine-driven power source will assure drive destruction in the event of power failure.
You know they are ugly, but unless you are a mechanic and inspect them you don't know they are "deathtraps".
No important amount of crashes in the US are caused by mechanical failure, and even when working on very worn vehicles one doesn't encounter many safety hazards. Cars are designed to fail gracefully. They steer loosely before they spit tie rods (usually). They run poorly before they stop running. They become unpleasant to drive or quite running before they cause crashes.
Just because you are used to a vast inspection bureaucracy doesn't mean it does much for you.
"If I turn in my 1996 vehicle to them, I get less money than I can get selling it privately. Why exactly would I want to participate in this program?"
You'd be nuts. I'd buy and tag a shitbox for 120 days, then roll it over for the payoff. There is zero reason the dealer couldn't offer you a trade-in on your non-shit vehicle (which he can resell), pocket the governments gift, and both of you win.
"This "idea" from Congress is the equivalent of breaking all the windows in your house, just so you can keep the glass-makers employed."
There are also many people with many spare windows to lawfully install for the breaking. The legislation only covers a few "windows" by CAFE rating, so it really won't get (for example) small and mid-size clunkers off the road.
I'm sure it will pass. I'm also sure the automakers will share my sentiments of "thanks for the money, idiots".
"This proposal will help used car dealers at the expense of pretty much everyone. The demand for used cars will skyrocket as people try to trade in their $200 clunkers for $1,500 used cars. Of course in that $1,500 won't buy them what it would buy them now."
You are dead fucking right.
For one thing, dealers will lawfully sell clunkers to their buddies (repos, trade-ins,running wrecks) who will lawfully tag and register them. They will then lawfully use the money from turning them in elsewhere to buy rides from the same dealer. Dealers have dealers for buddies, by the way.
Lots of clunkers will lawfully be purchased by "straw men" buyers and funneled into the system. Liability and registration aren't high enough to take the profit out of this. A family effort could turn three or four clunkers into a nice used ride, LEGALLY.
OTOH, at least it's easy money for some of the lower classes. While this is as stupid and wasteful as a gun "buy-back" program it will turn more money and make the famously out-of-touch Schumer and Feinstein feel good,
There is yet another issue that makes this proposal quite stupid. It goes by CAFE ratings instead of being across the board. Why is that stupid? Because it doesn't take "clunkers" that are over the arbitrary CAFE limit. A ragged out Escort is still a polluter and a ragged out midsize car can still be a gas hog. Charlie and Diane have hate-ons for vehicles over a certain weight, not for inefficient or polluting vehicles per se.
"What's wrong with a yearly mandatory test? "
Lots of things, all proven in practice and not hypothetical!
1. It creates a huge expensive bureaucracy.
2. It will use millions of gallons of fuel to get vehicles to inspection.
3. It costs the driving public AND their employers millions of lost workdays (millions of drivers x at least 2-3hrs) to go to inspection stations, not counting repeats.
4. It opens up opportunities for corrupt mechanics to fix emission "failures" by "swaptronics" at customer expense. Seen labor rates lately?
Yay for the law of unintended consequences. Yes, I'm a mechanic. The idea that an older car is automatically a "heap of junk" doesn't always fit reality. It's easy to run up serious money fixing a minor problem that happens to trigger a Check Engine Light.
I can spin a wrench, so MY rides will be fine. Not everyone else will be so fortunate.
"I have to tell you, this has shaken my confidence in open source operating systems quite a bit."
Mepis worked. It is an underrated distro and there is probably no reason not to keep it.
Distro churning to find out what suits your needs is easy (yay for live CDs!) and was normal up until very recently.
"(Sound effects courtesy of Don Martin.)"
I remember his great work in Mad magazine.
Fuck I'm old...
"All hail Pres Bush the 3rd"
That would have been McCain. Obama is Clinton the Second, to judge by his cabinet.
"First you make your lips like a doughnut then you use your cheek muscles to pull inward. It helps to have a lot of spit. and dont be afraid to take as much as you can. push your limits."
I'll get with HR about creating a position, but you're SO hired!
If you bring a resume, make sure it's absorbent.
"It was just dumb luck that we ordered machines with floppy drives or we would have had to try flashing the CD we were booting from...good luck with that...jeez."
You can build a bootable "floppy emulation" CD (after building the floppy image with Winimage on Windows or IIRC dd on Linux) and add whatever flash utils to it as required. You aren't restricted to a 1.44 meg image either, and you can easily toss more software on the rest of the CD if it doesn't fit on a 2.88 image.
There are also lots of tools for making bootable USB keys, and if you have a prog that supposedly requires Windows you might try WinPE/BartPE/etc instead. Everyone should IMO have a good stash of live CDs and their images. There is no reason not to have both PE and Linux CDs handy.
Useful forum with shitload of info:
http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php
http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php
I also have a CF card in an IDE adapter (they make bootable SATA adapters too) which is a convenient way to boot whatever will fit on the card (DOS, Linux, PE but I've not tried that) instead of the PC hard disk. Cheap and handy, and you can use it to rescue systems with no CD drive.
"Bloody? That's gotta be pretty furious then."
This thread is worthless without pics!
"Any idea how big the FCC fine is for transmitting on a licensed band without a license? Do they send you to PMITA prison?"
Any idea if they have the time and money to spend sniffing for transmissions that don't step on people who have the slightest way to know they are being stepped on and hence will never report it? :)
"choice of $0.99 to download the song and use it on your MP3 player, or have to go to a website, on your computer, and stream the video every time you want to listen to it"
Stream whut???
If you want to listen to something not available elsewhere, downloading the video with DownloadHelper is effortless as is playing the file with vlc. Older concert clips come to mind as examples.
The company tolerated it, so the company ought to know that such conduct will not be tolerated by consumers.
I'll not be buying Belkin, and will ensure those who ask me what to buy will be steered away from their products.
Those who piss off geeks forget that non-geeks ask us for advice.
"I reckon that in ten to twenty years time Iraq will freely elect yet another lunatic, and we'll be going back again to try and straighten out another mess. You heard it here first."
Saddam was and is quite popular. Only his methods can keep order in Iraq, which is why it will revert to disorder if it is not allowed to break up into its natural components. Saddams only "lunatic" behavior was external aggression against Kuwait. He could have cut deals and stayed in his box. He certainly played Sunni against Shia quite well.
Democracy does not suit primitive religionists, which is why they have always killed people who espouse it.