same difference- record companies lose money. But those companies are not privately held corporations. NO!!! They are Shareholder driven. And when shareholders lose money, they get pissed. And management gets fired.
Not really. Record companies simply raise their prices slightly to cover the cost. Oh, look at that, they already have. Nothing in the settlement prevents this from happening.
Those who buy their albums will be the ones to bear the cost. What? Did you think they would chose to screw their shareholders over the consumer?
And if you want to do something about it don't buy records. Buy a guitar and make your own music.
Even if you only see $5, it adds up to a large penalty against RIAA
Holy shit, the ignorance flying around here is blinding today. Sorry to single you out, but you are one of many who seems to completely misunderstand what you are signing up for here.
1. The RIAA loses nothing. This is a lawsuit against a group of record labels. Yes, the RIAA lobbies on their behalf, but if anything this will result in the labels investing more money into the RIAA, to help insure that they don't get stung like this again over something.
2. Your signing up does not mean more money gets added to the penalty. The penalty was already settled by the ambulance-chasing lawyers who set up this class action... and it ain't much. You signing up just means the tiny fraction of the settlement that actuallly goes to those who were "damaged" by high CD prices gets divided up more thinly.
3. The settlement didn't do jack shit about high CD prices. Go to your local record store, and notice that albums that used to cost $13 about two years ago are now going for $17. Like almost all corporate class-action lawsuits, the lawyers get rich convincing you that you got "free money" coming, but the reality is that the costs of litigation and penalties are typically passed on to you, the consumer, while the handful of lawyers who suckered you into helping them make the suit look legitimate are making off like bandits... which is what they are.
If you want to fight the RIAA, give money (more than $5 would be nice) to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or 2600's legal defense fund, or Senator Hatch's campaign fund. Signing up for this settlement just makes you a participant in the over-litigious culture we are rapidly becoming, while doing nothing about the problem other than make you feel like you are doing something about it.
Because stereotypes are hard to break. I know a lot of people who would never consider buying a mobile phone at any price, simply because they want to avoid the stigma of becoming one of those cell phone owners they hate so much.
Throwing in an environmental angle is just Slashdot's way of being in the "in crowd." It's silly.
I've noticed this trend too, and I'm beginning to suspect that it's the latest Editor Troll of choice.
Complaining about Apple computers having only one mouse button is the old busted. The new hotness is expressing vague concerns about environmental impact.
CB radios are exempt from proposed anti-phone laws for one simple reason above all: The CB inspires no sweet, vote-getting class envy. Nobody has ever said "that fucking yuppie with his fucking CB." Get the idea?
As for the loss of pay phones making things tough for emergencies, I would be all for the idea of putting up emergency call boxes, like they used to have in England... as long as it was done by local municipalities, so people could vote in local referrenda whether they wanted them. Some neighborhoods should probably have one on nearly every corner, IMHO.
That was an interesting take on it... but not entirely historically accurate.
When the bad old days of the Ma Bell monopoly ended, Bell Telephone pay-phone calls were still a dime, and nearly every home in America had a phone, including poor families.
They did not go up to a quarter until long after the break-up.
Also, cellular phones continued to cost far more than a land-line, both in terms of immediate cost and in terms of ongoin rates. The mobile phone did not become the cheaper alternative until digital phone networks arrived, by which time the Baby Bells had long since lost their hold on the market. Here in Minnesota, our Baby Bell, like many others, was bought out by Qwest.
Digital mobile phones do rock, however. Free long distance, free caller ID, etc. If it were not for "Qworst" providing the leased line for my VISI DSL service, I would have snipped the land line years ago.
Modded down to 0 as a troll for expressing my honest opinion about an anime show which, quite frankly, doesn't really appeal to everybody... whatever.
Like my post said (for those of you who now find it below your reading threshold), "Lain" can be very dull, even for people like me who occationally like slow-moving, "deep" entertainment. I've only seen a couple episodes so far, but what I have seen is chock full of long scenes where nothing is happening. If the show does it for you, fine. We don't all have to like the same things, do we?
I've noticed that as well. As I was watching "Lilo and Stitch" in the theater a few months ago, I found myself asking "holy shit, is there even one Disney animation director who grew up with both of their biological parents!?"
And these are the same people who kick gays out of their theme parks.
(By the way, where is the logic there? I would think that Disney World could pretty much be a gay Mecca. The whole place looks like what the world would be like if it were run by gay drag queens... and furries, too, I guess.)
I think the One Guardian rule is not so much a result of Disney's social agenda, as it is part of the formula... and Disney never strays from the formula (until they give up on a project, as with The Emporer's New Groove). The One Guardian is just another manditory tool, like the Funny Undersized Sidekick. Disney Cartoons are like Bond movies. You pretty much know what to expect. In fact, I would argue that Bond movies are slightly less predictable than Disney cartoons. Every now and again, there's a Bond movie without a ski chace.
Well, any sci-fi anime feature is a meaningless excercise if it fails to include Nadesico anyway.
And yes, as an American, I've found Lain to be rather dull. I may change my tune after enduring a few more episodes, but how long can you look at drawings of empty streets without wanting to reach for the "faster" button on your DVD remote?
(And I'm one of those Americans that actually likes Wim Wenders movies! I can't imagine what a typical American "Friends" fan would think of it.)
Fan service on Trigun??? The only two regular female characters are always wearing heavy dusters over loose clothing.
Cowboy Bebop is also not terribly gratuitous. Yes, Fay Valentine dresses and acts kind of slutty when she is working her cons, but that's just following the "lovely pickpocket" that goes back to Lauren Bacall in "To Have or Have Not." It serves the story, not just young perverts looking for cartoon T&A.
Right... earring phone it is, then. Do you think the early models look like that chunky earpeice that Lt. Uhura wore on the old Star Trek? That would be cool, in a retro-chic kind of way.
I was also a "default ring only" guy... until I took a contract job with the TSA which required all employees to be on the road. When you find yourself in a mobile office of about 200 employees, each required to carry a cell phone so various "home offices" can reach us, you quickly learn the value of different ring tones: It's the only way to tell your phone's ring from everybody elses. Before you suggest "vibrate", understand that it was seldom practical to actually wear the phones while we were working, so they tended to pile up on nearby desks.
As for "man sized" phones... that's all well and good, except that any phone too big to carry in your jeans pocket requires that you tote around a very un-manly fanny pack, or leave it in your girlfriend's purse all evening.
Personally, I hate carrying a lot of shit around. During the summer, it's the driver's license, a loose roll of bills (money clips are redundant), one Visa card, a small ring of two keys (car and house), and my phone. Even the smallest currently affordable phone is still probably going to be the biggest thing I carry when the weather is warm.
Please read my post again. I said "damn near free".
If I am at your house and use your phone for 500 minutes, how much does it cost you? Nothing (beyond the money you already spent to have active service).
You see, in many other countries, there is a per minute fee, on top of the monthly fees, to use your land line phone. Given the insane prices of local phone service, it is no surprise that mobile phone rates (especially the early days of digital networks) looked very reasonable to them, and completely outragous to us.
As for the notion that we like big out of gluttony, I think you are overgeneralizing. Small cars are popular in Europe because of their narrow, treacherous streets, many of which were laid down before cars existed. Most midwestern US cities became heavilly populated after cars existed, and grew up around big roads. I own a massive Crown Victoria, but if I lived in Europe or Japan, I would want a little Mini or something, if I owned a car at all.
Likewise, we have big yards because real estate is so much more cheap and abundant than elsewhere. I would need to be a multi-millionare to own a house as big as mine in Japan.
How we dress? Have you been following Japanese fashion at all? The most excessive "fashion slave" in the US would become exhausted trying to keep up with changing J-pop trends.
"A smaller phone is not very likely to be perceived as being better, here in the US. Put some beazzler jewels on them, and a "Polo" label on them and then they'll move."
A stroll through Best Buy proves you wrong almost immediately. Small fold up phones are almost always double the price of a big blocky one with the same features. We put a very high value on small phones, and the only time people buy color bezels is when groups of them get identical phones from work, and want to be able to tell everybody's phones apart at a glance.
Why the fuck would I want a big full color screen on a phone? It makes about as much sense as attaching an ice machine to a women's purse.
I want two things from my phone: 1) For it to work. 2) For it to be as little inconvenience as possible to carry around.
If I were the sort of person to carry a PDA around all the time anyway, attaching a phone to my PDA would make sense. Ditto for forest workers who always have a GPS on hand. Since I carry neither, for me the perfect phone would be the size of a typical earring, and worn as one. Or perhaps a sub-dermal device in my jaw.
I don't want to carry around a big honkin' video screen all day, just so I can see a choppy picture of the person I'm talking to (if the happen to own a phone on the same service network).
No, we are "behind" because, unlike Europe and Japan, we don't get overcharged out the ass for land-line calls. Mobile phone adoption was slow in the US because Americans are used to local phone service being damn near free.
Dog will protect your home even if you are not there
When you are not home, your dog is the most valuable thing still in the house. What is it protecting? I don't give a shit about my stereo, that's what I buy insurance for. Home defense is all about protecting yourself and your family.
Criminal can't steal dog from you and use it against you, as they can with a gun
Ever since Bogart's "everybody keeps handing me guns" scene, Hollywood has made it seem like the easiest thing in the world to disarm a gun owner and point the gun back at them. However, this doesn't happen often in real life. Most criminals are not brave and talented enough to grab your gun from you, and wouldn't be confronting you anyway unless they were already armed themselves.
Dogs cannot be used to commit suicide
Sure they can. Take Robert Falcon Scott, for example. Okay, it takes a little more effort, but it's do-able.
A dog cannot be (easily) used to attack a loved one in a fit of irrational rage
What about attacking "loved one" in a fit of perfectly rational rage? Many of the "gun deaths in the home" that anti-gun folk like to cite are really just abused wives who finally shoot the bastard that they should have killed years earlier. If somebody really is "in a fit of irrational rage", then a desk lamp or a kitchen tool becomes a very effective murder weapon. Getting rid of guns will not stop somebody who is enraged enough to kill from killing.
In the dark, a dog can tell an intruder from a member of the household more easily than you can - hence fewer accidental shootings
Fido probably can not tell an intruder from a distant relative who is visiting, though, so you better be home when they arrive.
In the act of defending against an intruder, you don't have to reload a dog
You don't have to reload your gun either. Let's say you have a six-shooter, and seven criminals break into your home (very unlikely). You brandish your gun, and they do not run away (also very unlikely). You shoot one of them, center mass, and the rest of them still don't run away... okay, we've now strayed beyond the reamls of even bad action movies into pure speculation. The chance of you ever needing to reload in a home defense situation is zero, unless you are part of a small religious-nut cult, defending against an overzealous Attorney General's BATF troopers, in which case your german shepard would be of little help.
Dogs can be fun to have around even if you don't need protection - no gun ever will greet you when you come home and lick your face
No argument there.
On the other side of the ledger...
A gun will not piss on your carpet.
A gun will not run out into traffic if you leave the gate open.
A gun will not unexpectedly attack neighborhood children, resulting in lawsuits against you.
A gun will not terrorize your cat.
A gun will not need $3000 sugery for hip displacia, nor will it need herion rubbed into its eyes by a vet after swallowing the chicken bones that were in your trash.
A gun will not break your heart when it dies after 10-15 years of being your most loyal friend.
To summraize, all of the arguments against getting a gun can apply equally to the arguments against getting a big, territorial dog. A "guard dog" is far more likely to hurt or kill a loved one or an innocent child than it is a burglar. Likewise, dogs, like guns, are very effective deterrents to crime even when not used to attack, becuase the sight of either a big doberman or a remmington shotgun are equally likely to make an intruder crap themselves and run.
I say get both. In fact, get a black labrador and a shotgun. Then not only are you doubly protected at home, but you can take your dog bird hunting.
Re:Reliability and ease of use? Surely you jest!
on
Build Your Own Mac
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· Score: 1
The greatest strength of the post-industrial West is that we maximize economies of scale though diverse specialization.
For example, let's say there's a big-shot lawyer that never changes his own oil. Your first response might be to say "hah, what a chump. Paying some quick-lube place $25 to change his oil!"... but look at it this way: It would take him about 15 minutes to change his oil, and his time is worth about $150 and hour. That's $37.50 right there. Plus about $5 for the oil, and another couple bucks for the filter (he probably drives some swanky import, so let's call it $3 if he shops hard for a good deal). That's a total of $45.50 for his oil change, and doesn't even count the hassle of hauling the used oil down the block to the very same quick-lube shop he was avoiding to have it disposed of legally. Changing his own oil would cost him over $20 more than just letting somebody else do it. Sure, he misses out on the macho feeling of being the sort of guy who changes his own oil, but he's got better things to do.
The same applies here. Building your own Mac is flat-out not worth it, most of the time, for most people. If you somehow think that a home project like this is going to lead you to some new level of enlightenment, then go ahead and do it for the sake of learning something. I, on the other hand, already know how to install computer parts, and have no desire to do so unless the savings are substatial.
Even in the PC world, you can save a bunch of money building your own instead of buying a new Dell... but even then, I've found that it doesn't cost that much more to have a local mom&pop PC store screwdriver it together for you, and it saves potential arguments about whether a DOA part really arrived wrecked, or was damaged by your lack of a wrist strap. (Plus, it helps keep that mom&pop store open, which is nice when you need another 512 of RAM right now.
This is why I have forsaken pricewatch.com in favor of Tran Microcomputers here in the Twin Cities. Sure, you can roll-yer-own for maybe $50 less than I spent, but I don't care anymore. When all PC's were well in excess of $1000 it was one thing to roll your own for $700, but spending $450 instead of $400 is not as big of an obstacle.
The only reason the upper-left feels wrong to you is because you've trained your mind to get used to the backwards way Windows organizes things. Why did MS choose the lower left? No real reason, other than being different than the Mac GUI.
If you read the user interface guidelines from back when Apple was creating MacOS, you will observe that the top edge of the screen is the easiest place to put a mouse cursor. You can't "overshoot" the top of the screen, and the curosr itself does not mostly disappear the way it does at the bottom of the screen, so you can still see where you are clicking along the x axis even when you mouse to the very edge.
Apple uses this precious screen real estate for a series of persistent, context-sensitive menus. The Windows work-around for this critical lack was to have small, limited contextual menus, with the most common commands included, pop up on right-click. The right-click menu saved Windows from being completely horrible, and at least made it useful, if still not elegant. Apple has since added pop-up menus, but the drop-down menu system (and the consistest, universal, keyboard shortcuts) make the pop-up menu a far less critical feature. It's nice enough to have that a lot of Mac users buy multi-button mice as a preference over "ctrl-clicking", but it's not really all that important to have, unless you are a Windows user who is brining the expectations of the MS-Windows experience to other environments.
I actually liked it as much as FOTR, but I must agree with you on the point about the ents. In the book, the march of the ents comes across as a massive, dark, stormcloud of trees creeping unstoppably toward Isengard. In the movie it was more like 20 really tall stick-figures lumbering (ugh... bad pun) their way down the hill. A small cinematic let-down, perhaps, but it was probably the scene I was most looking forward to, and I can't help but feel a little cheated.
Also, the speaches were a little heavy handed (first, a completely unnecesary voice-over by Galadriel half-way through... then a long ramble by Sam near the end), and should have been chopped in favor of more screen time for Faramir.
Oh well, I'm sure we will be thrown another bone or two when the "special edition" DVD arrives next November.
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And for the record, 20% is still a shitload of money for filing a suit and then taking damn near the first settlement offered.
Not really. Record companies simply raise their prices slightly to cover the cost. Oh, look at that, they already have. Nothing in the settlement prevents this from happening.
Those who buy their albums will be the ones to bear the cost. What? Did you think they would chose to screw their shareholders over the consumer?
And if you want to do something about it don't buy records. Buy a guitar and make your own music.
Already have. I highly reccomend it.
Holy shit, the ignorance flying around here is blinding today. Sorry to single you out, but you are one of many who seems to completely misunderstand what you are signing up for here.
1. The RIAA loses nothing. This is a lawsuit against a group of record labels. Yes, the RIAA lobbies on their behalf, but if anything this will result in the labels investing more money into the RIAA, to help insure that they don't get stung like this again over something.
2. Your signing up does not mean more money gets added to the penalty. The penalty was already settled by the ambulance-chasing lawyers who set up this class action... and it ain't much. You signing up just means the tiny fraction of the settlement that actuallly goes to those who were "damaged" by high CD prices gets divided up more thinly.
3. The settlement didn't do jack shit about high CD prices. Go to your local record store, and notice that albums that used to cost $13 about two years ago are now going for $17. Like almost all corporate class-action lawsuits, the lawyers get rich convincing you that you got "free money" coming, but the reality is that the costs of litigation and penalties are typically passed on to you, the consumer, while the handful of lawyers who suckered you into helping them make the suit look legitimate are making off like bandits... which is what they are.
If you want to fight the RIAA, give money (more than $5 would be nice) to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or 2600's legal defense fund, or Senator Hatch's campaign fund. Signing up for this settlement just makes you a participant in the over-litigious culture we are rapidly becoming, while doing nothing about the problem other than make you feel like you are doing something about it.
Because stereotypes are hard to break. I know a lot of people who would never consider buying a mobile phone at any price, simply because they want to avoid the stigma of becoming one of those cell phone owners they hate so much.
I've noticed this trend too, and I'm beginning to suspect that it's the latest Editor Troll of choice.
Complaining about Apple computers having only one mouse button is the old busted. The new hotness is expressing vague concerns about environmental impact.
As for the loss of pay phones making things tough for emergencies, I would be all for the idea of putting up emergency call boxes, like they used to have in England... as long as it was done by local municipalities, so people could vote in local referrenda whether they wanted them. Some neighborhoods should probably have one on nearly every corner, IMHO.
When the bad old days of the Ma Bell monopoly ended, Bell Telephone pay-phone calls were still a dime, and nearly every home in America had a phone, including poor families.
They did not go up to a quarter until long after the break-up.
Also, cellular phones continued to cost far more than a land-line, both in terms of immediate cost and in terms of ongoin rates. The mobile phone did not become the cheaper alternative until digital phone networks arrived, by which time the Baby Bells had long since lost their hold on the market. Here in Minnesota, our Baby Bell, like many others, was bought out by Qwest.
Digital mobile phones do rock, however. Free long distance, free caller ID, etc. If it were not for "Qworst" providing the leased line for my VISI DSL service, I would have snipped the land line years ago.
So far, it seems to have only fooled those who oppose it. Sorry folks, but YHBT.
Like my post said (for those of you who now find it below your reading threshold), "Lain" can be very dull, even for people like me who occationally like slow-moving, "deep" entertainment. I've only seen a couple episodes so far, but what I have seen is chock full of long scenes where nothing is happening. If the show does it for you, fine. We don't all have to like the same things, do we?
Sheesh!
And these are the same people who kick gays out of their theme parks.
(By the way, where is the logic there? I would think that Disney World could pretty much be a gay Mecca. The whole place looks like what the world would be like if it were run by gay drag queens... and furries, too, I guess.)
I think the One Guardian rule is not so much a result of Disney's social agenda, as it is part of the formula... and Disney never strays from the formula (until they give up on a project, as with The Emporer's New Groove). The One Guardian is just another manditory tool, like the Funny Undersized Sidekick. Disney Cartoons are like Bond movies. You pretty much know what to expect. In fact, I would argue that Bond movies are slightly less predictable than Disney cartoons. Every now and again, there's a Bond movie without a ski chace.
And yes, as an American, I've found Lain to be rather dull. I may change my tune after enduring a few more episodes, but how long can you look at drawings of empty streets without wanting to reach for the "faster" button on your DVD remote?
(And I'm one of those Americans that actually likes Wim Wenders movies! I can't imagine what a typical American "Friends" fan would think of it.)
Cowboy Bebop is also not terribly gratuitous. Yes, Fay Valentine dresses and acts kind of slutty when she is working her cons, but that's just following the "lovely pickpocket" that goes back to Lauren Bacall in "To Have or Have Not." It serves the story, not just young perverts looking for cartoon T&A.
Right... earring phone it is, then. Do you think the early models look like that chunky earpeice that Lt. Uhura wore on the old Star Trek? That would be cool, in a retro-chic kind of way.
As for "man sized" phones... that's all well and good, except that any phone too big to carry in your jeans pocket requires that you tote around a very un-manly fanny pack, or leave it in your girlfriend's purse all evening.
Personally, I hate carrying a lot of shit around. During the summer, it's the driver's license, a loose roll of bills (money clips are redundant), one Visa card, a small ring of two keys (car and house), and my phone. Even the smallest currently affordable phone is still probably going to be the biggest thing I carry when the weather is warm.
If I am at your house and use your phone for 500 minutes, how much does it cost you? Nothing (beyond the money you already spent to have active service).
You see, in many other countries, there is a per minute fee, on top of the monthly fees, to use your land line phone. Given the insane prices of local phone service, it is no surprise that mobile phone rates (especially the early days of digital networks) looked very reasonable to them, and completely outragous to us.
As for the notion that we like big out of gluttony, I think you are overgeneralizing. Small cars are popular in Europe because of their narrow, treacherous streets, many of which were laid down before cars existed. Most midwestern US cities became heavilly populated after cars existed, and grew up around big roads. I own a massive Crown Victoria, but if I lived in Europe or Japan, I would want a little Mini or something, if I owned a car at all.
Likewise, we have big yards because real estate is so much more cheap and abundant than elsewhere. I would need to be a multi-millionare to own a house as big as mine in Japan.
How we dress? Have you been following Japanese fashion at all? The most excessive "fashion slave" in the US would become exhausted trying to keep up with changing J-pop trends.
"A smaller phone is not very likely to be perceived as being better, here in the US. Put some beazzler jewels on them, and a "Polo" label on them and then they'll move."
A stroll through Best Buy proves you wrong almost immediately. Small fold up phones are almost always double the price of a big blocky one with the same features. We put a very high value on small phones, and the only time people buy color bezels is when groups of them get identical phones from work, and want to be able to tell everybody's phones apart at a glance.
I want two things from my phone: 1) For it to work. 2) For it to be as little inconvenience as possible to carry around.
If I were the sort of person to carry a PDA around all the time anyway, attaching a phone to my PDA would make sense. Ditto for forest workers who always have a GPS on hand. Since I carry neither, for me the perfect phone would be the size of a typical earring, and worn as one. Or perhaps a sub-dermal device in my jaw.
I don't want to carry around a big honkin' video screen all day, just so I can see a choppy picture of the person I'm talking to (if the happen to own a phone on the same service network).
No, we are "behind" because, unlike Europe and Japan, we don't get overcharged out the ass for land-line calls. Mobile phone adoption was slow in the US because Americans are used to local phone service being damn near free.
When you are not home, your dog is the most valuable thing still in the house. What is it protecting? I don't give a shit about my stereo, that's what I buy insurance for. Home defense is all about protecting yourself and your family.
Criminal can't steal dog from you and use it against you, as they can with a gun
Ever since Bogart's "everybody keeps handing me guns" scene, Hollywood has made it seem like the easiest thing in the world to disarm a gun owner and point the gun back at them. However, this doesn't happen often in real life. Most criminals are not brave and talented enough to grab your gun from you, and wouldn't be confronting you anyway unless they were already armed themselves.
Dogs cannot be used to commit suicide
Sure they can. Take Robert Falcon Scott, for example. Okay, it takes a little more effort, but it's do-able.
A dog cannot be (easily) used to attack a loved one in a fit of irrational rage
What about attacking "loved one" in a fit of perfectly rational rage? Many of the "gun deaths in the home" that anti-gun folk like to cite are really just abused wives who finally shoot the bastard that they should have killed years earlier. If somebody really is "in a fit of irrational rage", then a desk lamp or a kitchen tool becomes a very effective murder weapon. Getting rid of guns will not stop somebody who is enraged enough to kill from killing.
In the dark, a dog can tell an intruder from a member of the household more easily than you can - hence fewer accidental shootings
Fido probably can not tell an intruder from a distant relative who is visiting, though, so you better be home when they arrive.
In the act of defending against an intruder, you don't have to reload a dog
You don't have to reload your gun either. Let's say you have a six-shooter, and seven criminals break into your home (very unlikely). You brandish your gun, and they do not run away (also very unlikely). You shoot one of them, center mass, and the rest of them still don't run away... okay, we've now strayed beyond the reamls of even bad action movies into pure speculation. The chance of you ever needing to reload in a home defense situation is zero, unless you are part of a small religious-nut cult, defending against an overzealous Attorney General's BATF troopers, in which case your german shepard would be of little help.
Dogs can be fun to have around even if you don't need protection - no gun ever will greet you when you come home and lick your face
No argument there.
On the other side of the ledger...
A gun will not piss on your carpet.
A gun will not run out into traffic if you leave the gate open.
A gun will not unexpectedly attack neighborhood children, resulting in lawsuits against you.
A gun will not terrorize your cat.
A gun will not need $3000 sugery for hip displacia, nor will it need herion rubbed into its eyes by a vet after swallowing the chicken bones that were in your trash.
A gun will not break your heart when it dies after 10-15 years of being your most loyal friend.
To summraize, all of the arguments against getting a gun can apply equally to the arguments against getting a big, territorial dog. A "guard dog" is far more likely to hurt or kill a loved one or an innocent child than it is a burglar. Likewise, dogs, like guns, are very effective deterrents to crime even when not used to attack, becuase the sight of either a big doberman or a remmington shotgun are equally likely to make an intruder crap themselves and run.
I say get both. In fact, get a black labrador and a shotgun. Then not only are you doubly protected at home, but you can take your dog bird hunting.
Yes. I have two. Next question.
The greatest strength of the post-industrial West is that we maximize economies of scale though diverse specialization.
For example, let's say there's a big-shot lawyer that never changes his own oil. Your first response might be to say "hah, what a chump. Paying some quick-lube place $25 to change his oil!"... but look at it this way: It would take him about 15 minutes to change his oil, and his time is worth about $150 and hour. That's $37.50 right there. Plus about $5 for the oil, and another couple bucks for the filter (he probably drives some swanky import, so let's call it $3 if he shops hard for a good deal). That's a total of $45.50 for his oil change, and doesn't even count the hassle of hauling the used oil down the block to the very same quick-lube shop he was avoiding to have it disposed of legally. Changing his own oil would cost him over $20 more than just letting somebody else do it. Sure, he misses out on the macho feeling of being the sort of guy who changes his own oil, but he's got better things to do.
The same applies here. Building your own Mac is flat-out not worth it, most of the time, for most people. If you somehow think that a home project like this is going to lead you to some new level of enlightenment, then go ahead and do it for the sake of learning something. I, on the other hand, already know how to install computer parts, and have no desire to do so unless the savings are substatial.
Even in the PC world, you can save a bunch of money building your own instead of buying a new Dell... but even then, I've found that it doesn't cost that much more to have a local mom&pop PC store screwdriver it together for you, and it saves potential arguments about whether a DOA part really arrived wrecked, or was damaged by your lack of a wrist strap. (Plus, it helps keep that mom&pop store open, which is nice when you need another 512 of RAM right now.
This is why I have forsaken pricewatch.com in favor of Tran Microcomputers here in the Twin Cities. Sure, you can roll-yer-own for maybe $50 less than I spent, but I don't care anymore. When all PC's were well in excess of $1000 it was one thing to roll your own for $700, but spending $450 instead of $400 is not as big of an obstacle.
The only reason the upper-left feels wrong to you is because you've trained your mind to get used to the backwards way Windows organizes things. Why did MS choose the lower left? No real reason, other than being different than the Mac GUI.
If you read the user interface guidelines from back when Apple was creating MacOS, you will observe that the top edge of the screen is the easiest place to put a mouse cursor. You can't "overshoot" the top of the screen, and the curosr itself does not mostly disappear the way it does at the bottom of the screen, so you can still see where you are clicking along the x axis even when you mouse to the very edge.
Apple uses this precious screen real estate for a series of persistent, context-sensitive menus. The Windows work-around for this critical lack was to have small, limited contextual menus, with the most common commands included, pop up on right-click. The right-click menu saved Windows from being completely horrible, and at least made it useful, if still not elegant. Apple has since added pop-up menus, but the drop-down menu system (and the consistest, universal, keyboard shortcuts) make the pop-up menu a far less critical feature. It's nice enough to have that a lot of Mac users buy multi-button mice as a preference over "ctrl-clicking", but it's not really all that important to have, unless you are a Windows user who is brining the expectations of the MS-Windows experience to other environments.
In the movie it was pretty much the handfull of Ents working on their own. Alas.
"No trees were awakened in the making of this movie."
Also, the speaches were a little heavy handed (first, a completely unnecesary voice-over by Galadriel half-way through... then a long ramble by Sam near the end), and should have been chopped in favor of more screen time for Faramir.
Oh well, I'm sure we will be thrown another bone or two when the "special edition" DVD arrives next November.
"This is what you got to look forward to, if you keep haning around. Shall I call Dr. Kevorkian now? We have his office on speed-dial."
Will version II of the suit also screw up your short-term memory and give you bad skin?
90% of the people in the world are complete idiots, and everybody thinks they are part of the other 10%.