Unfortunately, it has... but being political means thinking and interacting before acting. It means telling someone where their faults are and working through it, not holding it all in for the when the shit hits the fan. You can tell someone they are wrong in a constructive way.
However I think most people now will associate the term with GP's definition. I normally hear this definition phrased as "being tactful".
It's only a trade-off if the backscatter machines actually successfully stop a terrorist hiding a bomb wrapped around their genitals. As this is pretty much zero, it's not a trade-off... it's just an expensive affront on dignity, human rights, and common sense.
Exactly.
I'm not going to spell it out here but think of the most commonly known method inmates use to smuggle things into prison through the checkpoint. These machines can only detect something external to your body, last time I checked even those enhanced pat downs didn't come with cavity searches. I'm not saying everyone should submit to a cavity search either, just pointing out that at some point you have to put your foot down and say "This is ridiculous, the 'solution' has become worse than the problem."
While prison is a far cry from fun times US prisons are for the most part quite safe and not very horrible for the inmates. One of my good friends works as a prison guard, they are actually quite limited in how they are allowed to respond to situations in the interest of inmates not being harmed, sometimes even to the detriment of the guards' ability to defend themselves. The inmates get food of similar if not better quality to food served in public schools, cable TV, workout equipment and a lot more available to them. Granted the situation at a super-max will probably be a little different but I'd much rather be thrown in jail here than in China any day.
ITYM the US should slap Google with a huge tax bill for running a bunch of business through Ireland's 12.5% tax rate rather than the Us 35% corporate tax rate in the first place. They are based in the US, after all. Google shelters itself from US taxes using Ireland and shelters itself from Irish taxes in Bermuda. It's not speculation on my part. It's all very well documented.
We should slap Google? No, we should slap ourselves. In the Bloomberg article you linked you will find this passage showing that the IRS allowed them to do this:
Income shifting commonly begins when companies like Google sell or license the foreign rights to intellectual property developed in the U.S. to a subsidiary in a low-tax country. That means foreign profits based on the technology get attributed to the offshore unit, not the parent. Under U.S. tax rules, subsidiaries must pay “arm’s length” prices for the rights -- or the amount an unrelated company would.
Because the payments contribute to taxable income, the parent company has an incentive to set them as low as possible. Cutting the foreign subsidiary’s expenses effectively shifts profits overseas.
After three years of negotiations, Google received approval from the IRS in 2006 for its transfer pricing arrangement, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The IRS gave its consent in a secret pact known as an advanced pricing agreement. Google wouldn’t discuss the price set under the arrangement, which licensed the rights to its search and advertising technology and other intangible property for Europe, the Middle East and Africa to a unit called Google Ireland Holdings, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Sounds like it is high time for a global tax treaty. No tax havens, not B$ tax rates where only the profits and none of the production is shifted, multi-national corporations need to be forced to 'PAY THEIR TAXES' at the location where the profits were made, not some bullshit offshore location.
Paying taxes where the profit was made could also be codified into law at the country level and does not require a global treaty. It just requires the law to be well written and revised to close loopholes when they are discovered, which requires lawmakers to be fully behind the principle of the law (something I rather doubt in the current US situation).
I would much rather see this handled by individual countries as they see fit. Countries have different cultures, environments, and needs and one set of laws for the globe doesn't fit that model well.
I would love to see a Descent remake with next gen tech. Even if this would result in neighbors calling the cops as I'm screaming "Where's the damn exit? Where Is It? SHIT I CAN'T ESCAPE!!!!" Evil reactor explosions...
I can imagine you drove a lot of people nuts doing that. I would have predicted the car wouldn't last a half hour, certainly an impressive feat.
As for the 3 months, I was hoping it would motivate her to check the oil herself but if not then at least someone with some knowledge of autos would be seeing it on a normal basis.
But the MG is also much more fun to drive. Given the choice between the two I would personally take the MG (this is assuming I have a reliable daily driver for the inevitable days where the MG doesn't feel like running).
A decent gasoline engine won't reach 8000 RPM, either, unless you're one of those people that thinks a few more horsepower at insanely high RPM is worth having practically zero torque anywhere below 3500.
Having owned a car where the engine fits that description (1994 Acura Integra GS-R) I can tell you that they're quite fun to drive and the engine moves the car along more than fine assuming you know how to drive it. Currently I drive an American V8 and I quite enjoy that too. Either setup is a "decent" engine, before you dismiss one setup as not decent you should drive it.
I had assumed that keeping your car in reasonably well shape would have been obvious in any case;)
Right here is where my confusion started.
Plus, I am from Germany.
Ah, now it makes sense. Unfortunately most people in the US are missing the obvious here. People wait until the car is making several horrific noises and not driving right before they bring it to the dealer for repair where they get charged far more than they would at an honest mechanic (admittedly hard to find in some areas). Not everyone shirks out of taking care of their car but to a lot of the populace their vehicle is just an appliance.
I had to explain to a friend in high school that if she was never going to check her oil she should just take it in to be changed every 3 months if not sooner rather than going 2 years on the same oil (wasn't even registering on the dipstick, I'm surprised that poor car survived). People don't show any respect to others' vehicles either, I have plenty of little door dings and scratches to prove that (have to love parking specifically away from everyone else and then people cluster around you).
As to people saying you will be tracked, well, you are already tracked. Each of your IPv4 assignments is tracked by the ISP./64 just specifies a network, not individual. The benefits of static IP outweigh the negatives. It allows you to specify that you will only login from a given/64 to your bank, your stock account, etc...
The ISP tracks you but currently if you have a decent ISP a subpoena will be required for anyone else to track you that closely. When you are able to be tracked on that level by anyone it is not the same issue at all.
My experience is the opposite, compared to what I have in Visual Studio Eclipse and Netbeans seem painful. Granted we only target Windows so cross-platform might be a different story.
Last physical disk I bought for PC was Starcraft II. The vast majority of my PC game purchases are through Steam now. I also feel like the retailers deserve it, when was the last time you saw a decent PC game collection in one of the box stores? If they have any they're hidden in a corner somewhere and the titles are usually lacking. Game stores shunned PC gamers and now the gamers are shunning the game stores in favor of download services like Steam.
Currently Steam isn't coercing publishers, they simply offer Steamworks as something beneficial you can add to your game, some publishers seem to see value in it. Personally I like games integrating with Steam since I use it but I do recognize the dangers posed with Steam as the one and only power in the market. Thus far Valve has been upright with it, let's hope that continues in the future.
Considering that taxpayers are the ones footing the bill I personally find his $124,000 figure more relevant. It may be $44,107 per citizen but that doesn't help us pay it. Arguments can be made for either number being inflammatory, so long as both are accurate they are different ways of breaking down the same data and I personally consider both to be far too high. $44,107 is near or above median salary for most of the country.
Few manufacturers will support you if you buy a PC and replace the installed OS with Linux.
As a matter of fact Dell will claim that by doing so you have voided the hardware warranty and they are not responsible for hardware failures after 3 days of ownership (yes I'm speaking from experience, sadly)
My personal favorite, and by far the most popular, is the Cyanogenmod ROM. Keep in mind that the relatively open nature of the open-source Android operating system has made this a legitimate affair: this is not remotely comparable to what iPhone users suffer under Apple's heavy-handed rule. Frankly, having used Cyanogen's product (generally faster, more stable, and more featureful than the stock firmware) for over a year now, if a particular phone won't let me install it... well, that's one handset I won't be buying.
As a CyanogenMod user since shortly after getting my N1 I fully agree. Capability to flash custom ROMS and a solid release of CM are prerequisites for me even considering a new phone.
Unfortunately, it has... but being political means thinking and interacting before acting. It means telling someone where their faults are and working through it, not holding it all in for the when the shit hits the fan. You can tell someone they are wrong in a constructive way.
However I think most people now will associate the term with GP's definition. I normally hear this definition phrased as "being tactful".
Where do you find these "honest politicians"? And can we order some from there?
The cost is astronomical and they're all on indefinite backorder...
It's only a trade-off if the backscatter machines actually successfully stop a terrorist hiding a bomb wrapped around their genitals. As this is pretty much zero, it's not a trade-off... it's just an expensive affront on dignity, human rights, and common sense.
Exactly.
I'm not going to spell it out here but think of the most commonly known method inmates use to smuggle things into prison through the checkpoint. These machines can only detect something external to your body, last time I checked even those enhanced pat downs didn't come with cavity searches. I'm not saying everyone should submit to a cavity search either, just pointing out that at some point you have to put your foot down and say "This is ridiculous, the 'solution' has become worse than the problem."
Which is especially amusing since most of the disabling mechanisms on factory systems are easily bypassed.
While prison is a far cry from fun times US prisons are for the most part quite safe and not very horrible for the inmates. One of my good friends works as a prison guard, they are actually quite limited in how they are allowed to respond to situations in the interest of inmates not being harmed, sometimes even to the detriment of the guards' ability to defend themselves. The inmates get food of similar if not better quality to food served in public schools, cable TV, workout equipment and a lot more available to them. Granted the situation at a super-max will probably be a little different but I'd much rather be thrown in jail here than in China any day.
Here's a working version of the second article link. I was getting an infinite redirect error with the one in the summary.
ITYM the US should slap Google with a huge tax bill for running a bunch of business through Ireland's 12.5% tax rate rather than the Us 35% corporate tax rate in the first place. They are based in the US, after all. Google shelters itself from US taxes using Ireland and shelters itself from Irish taxes in Bermuda. It's not speculation on my part. It's all very well documented.
We should slap Google? No, we should slap ourselves. In the Bloomberg article you linked you will find this passage showing that the IRS allowed them to do this:
(Emphasis added)
Sounds like it is high time for a global tax treaty. No tax havens, not B$ tax rates where only the profits and none of the production is shifted, multi-national corporations need to be forced to 'PAY THEIR TAXES' at the location where the profits were made, not some bullshit offshore location.
Paying taxes where the profit was made could also be codified into law at the country level and does not require a global treaty. It just requires the law to be well written and revised to close loopholes when they are discovered, which requires lawmakers to be fully behind the principle of the law (something I rather doubt in the current US situation).
I would much rather see this handled by individual countries as they see fit. Countries have different cultures, environments, and needs and one set of laws for the globe doesn't fit that model well.
It did, though personally I found it less enjoyable than AVP2 was.
Can you still throw remote mines and detonate them mid-air?
I would love to see a Descent remake with next gen tech. Even if this would result in neighbors calling the cops as I'm screaming "Where's the damn exit? Where Is It? SHIT I CAN'T ESCAPE!!!!" Evil reactor explosions...
Only if you want the EPA to come dig up your entire lawn and then charge you for it (assuming they find out).
I can imagine you drove a lot of people nuts doing that. I would have predicted the car wouldn't last a half hour, certainly an impressive feat.
As for the 3 months, I was hoping it would motivate her to check the oil herself but if not then at least someone with some knowledge of autos would be seeing it on a normal basis.
But the MG is also much more fun to drive. Given the choice between the two I would personally take the MG (this is assuming I have a reliable daily driver for the inevitable days where the MG doesn't feel like running).
A decent gasoline engine won't reach 8000 RPM, either, unless you're one of those people that thinks a few more horsepower at insanely high RPM is worth having practically zero torque anywhere below 3500.
Having owned a car where the engine fits that description (1994 Acura Integra GS-R) I can tell you that they're quite fun to drive and the engine moves the car along more than fine assuming you know how to drive it. Currently I drive an American V8 and I quite enjoy that too. Either setup is a "decent" engine, before you dismiss one setup as not decent you should drive it.
I had assumed that keeping your car in reasonably well shape would have been obvious in any case ;)
Right here is where my confusion started.
Plus, I am from Germany.
Ah, now it makes sense. Unfortunately most people in the US are missing the obvious here. People wait until the car is making several horrific noises and not driving right before they bring it to the dealer for repair where they get charged far more than they would at an honest mechanic (admittedly hard to find in some areas). Not everyone shirks out of taking care of their car but to a lot of the populace their vehicle is just an appliance.
I had to explain to a friend in high school that if she was never going to check her oil she should just take it in to be changed every 3 months if not sooner rather than going 2 years on the same oil (wasn't even registering on the dipstick, I'm surprised that poor car survived). People don't show any respect to others' vehicles either, I have plenty of little door dings and scratches to prove that (have to love parking specifically away from everyone else and then people cluster around you).
As to people saying you will be tracked, well, you are already tracked. Each of your IPv4 assignments is tracked by the ISP. /64 just specifies a network, not individual. The benefits of static IP outweigh the negatives. It allows you to specify that you will only login from a given /64 to your bank, your stock account, etc...
The ISP tracks you but currently if you have a decent ISP a subpoena will be required for anyone else to track you that closely. When you are able to be tracked on that level by anyone it is not the same issue at all.
My experience is the opposite, compared to what I have in Visual Studio Eclipse and Netbeans seem painful. Granted we only target Windows so cross-platform might be a different story.
Fairly certain GP meant Nautical miles, nanometers obviously doesn't make sense.
Last physical disk I bought for PC was Starcraft II. The vast majority of my PC game purchases are through Steam now. I also feel like the retailers deserve it, when was the last time you saw a decent PC game collection in one of the box stores? If they have any they're hidden in a corner somewhere and the titles are usually lacking. Game stores shunned PC gamers and now the gamers are shunning the game stores in favor of download services like Steam.
Currently Steam isn't coercing publishers, they simply offer Steamworks as something beneficial you can add to your game, some publishers seem to see value in it. Personally I like games integrating with Steam since I use it but I do recognize the dangers posed with Steam as the one and only power in the market. Thus far Valve has been upright with it, let's hope that continues in the future.
Considering that taxpayers are the ones footing the bill I personally find his $124,000 figure more relevant. It may be $44,107 per citizen but that doesn't help us pay it. Arguments can be made for either number being inflammatory, so long as both are accurate they are different ways of breaking down the same data and I personally consider both to be far too high. $44,107 is near or above median salary for most of the country.
They can also tweak shift parameters on some automatics. My Superchips tuner allows me to modify the shift program and adjust the torque management.
Few manufacturers will support you if you buy a PC and replace the installed OS with Linux.
As a matter of fact Dell will claim that by doing so you have voided the hardware warranty and they are not responsible for hardware failures after 3 days of ownership (yes I'm speaking from experience, sadly)
My personal favorite, and by far the most popular, is the Cyanogenmod ROM. Keep in mind that the relatively open nature of the open-source Android operating system has made this a legitimate affair: this is not remotely comparable to what iPhone users suffer under Apple's heavy-handed rule. Frankly, having used Cyanogen's product (generally faster, more stable, and more featureful than the stock firmware) for over a year now, if a particular phone won't let me install it ... well, that's one handset I won't be buying.
As a CyanogenMod user since shortly after getting my N1 I fully agree. Capability to flash custom ROMS and a solid release of CM are prerequisites for me even considering a new phone.