I get your points and I agree. Since the great "lead tainting and pet food poisoning of 2006", my wife and I have made a conscious effort to look for and buy things not made in China. It actually made it really hard for us to buy a toaster, of all things--I was afraid of anything that was painted or made with plastic exteriors for fear of lead contamination. Since the only toasters we could find at the time were from China we settled on a stainless-steel model.
It's really hard to buy non-Chinese, let alone non-foreign items in this contry now; specifically the mundane items, like the razor you mentioned. It's gotten to be a sad suprise when I find the words "Made in the USA" on the tag of or stamped on to whatever I'm looking at in any store these days. Part of the problem is that we have gotten used to such low prices; it's akin to greed for most people. Walmart prices aren't just the cheapest around anymore--no no no, that's just what stuff actually COSTS these days, and we've all gotten so used to it that if it were suddenly all to dissapear we WOULD have a recession. Period.
The part that really bums me out is that not one of our elected officials seem to be able to do anything about it, which is why it is so shameful that we have not, nor will we (for the near-term, anyhow) revoke China's favored nation status. There is simply too much money involved, too much lobbying, too much corruption. Today's status quo will continue until one day, cheap, foreign-made stuff actually starts killing Americans en-masse, and not just our pets. But by then I fear it will be too late...
There was only one candidate I saw (and still see, come to think of it) who actually tried to address this issue and bring it to the fore-front, but despite being marginalized, and also kind of a nut-case, I think I'm still going to vote for him unless one of the other three (currently) can convince me that the people's interests outweight those of the marketplace.
Seriously, why is anything that Rush has to say relevant to/.? If I could mod down the article I would.
I fear for anyone gullible to take any talk show host at their word and support them blindly. I fear for their souls, and yet I hope that some day they shall become enlightened as I have, before it is too late.
The only reason this is news is because it caters to the lowest common denominator. For shame, Slashdot. For SHAME.
What's next, reporting on that blond girl that went missing in Aruba? Spears? Who. The Fuck. Cares.
While I'd love for some of the "neteratti" out there (please comment below) to tell me how internet- (or more specifically, forum- or comment-) trolling is any different from those people who used to leave messages at my house, when I was in HS, inviting me to "book burning parties" (I was the only Jewish kid in my HS), I'll settle instead for not only being irritating with my run-on sentences and eerily perfect grammar but also with the fact that neither I nor your mom cares much atm. BTW I knew who they were because they routinely made my life difficult even though it was not possible to to tell exactly who they were by just listening to the recordings. (Phone records would probably have identified them though). Did their supposed anonymity give them constitutional rights to be fucktards, or more importantly, to cause my family grief and humiliation?
I think not. Nowadays, you come on my forums and threaten vile things against me and I'm not going to "shrug it off". No I'm going to see to it that you get a nice, friendly visit from the local PD (or maybe a friendly local goon) for harassment (yes I know where you live, troglodyte). Thick skin notwithstanding, how am I supposed to know that some lunatic won't actually track down my address and cause harm to my families, just because they can? Yes, an extreme example to be sure, but still. I bet if I try hard enough I can track down anyone who posts a reply to this, and all I gotta say is that you're lucky I'm not a sociopath*.
This is an incredibly murky subject area. Who's to say what's right and what's wrong on the internet besides some fuckwit judge who can't even operate her pc's on/off discriminator, much less have a clue to what actually goes on in these tubes? Are our Wild West days of saying whatever the fuck we want coming to a close, or will these days ever end? Is disparaging a person separate and distinct from disparaging a product? A corporation? The calls stopped, btw, right around the time I grew a pair (hey, I'm a late bloomer).
Well, for what it's worth, I am not anonymous and if I wouldn't say something to a person's face, I won't say it online. (Unless it's in jest, of course.) So fuck you. JK. Maybe.
It seems to me that the mainstream Muslim religion is at the point right now where Christianity was about 6 hundred years ago. Sure, there is still violence and intolerance caused by secular Christian groups (i.e.: white supremacists) but on no where near the same scale as that of the crusades or the inquisition. Christianity has become whole orders of magnitude more tolerant (if such a thing could be quantified) since the dark ages. Hopefully it won't take the "Muslim Right" another 600 years to mellow out...
Russian subs used to employ a cutting device on some of their submarines designed to cut the cables used in undersea sonar nets... I'm thinking it wouldn't take too much to start a war these days given how much we rely on these underwater communication cables. That said, it's more likely that a ship's anchor snagged it.
Ooh, neat! A space-science-based MMO! I can party with other astronauts and take quests like growing tomatoes in space or repairing that busted solar cell array! "Watch out for those meteors! Oh no, I've aggroed too much cosmic radiation! Do I have enough oxygen to survive an extended spacewalk?"
But then I thought about it. I'm a huge supporter of shutting down the shuttle program--IMHO, it jumped the shark a long time ago. My taxes could be much better spent on newer and more innovative space programs or even could be better spent here on earth. Who needs NASA anyhow? It's a DINOSAUR. A relic of the space race and the cold war. Let Richard Branson and the private sector innovate the "next stage". Let capitalism fund the new space race; they will do it better and cheaper than any bloated, corrupt, and inept government agency ever could.
BUT THEN... I thought about my childhood; I remembered how important the space missions seemed at the time, how important they were to our national identity. We had the Space Shuttle, and We we doing Important Things. In Space. I thought about it again. I remember sitting cross-legged on the floor in Mrs. Bartlett's class when I watched the Challenger crew "slip the surly bonds". I thought about the congressional hearings and the first time I learned what an o-ring was. I remember hearing that perhaps Christa Mcauliffe and the other crew members might have been alive during their inexorable plunge back to the ocean and how horrible that must have been. I remember seeing the reconstructed orbiter in that hangar on the news.
Since then I have followed the goings on at NASA with a somewhat skewed perception. I though it was cool how they were able to land that craft on that asteroid, and I smugly laughed at how much longer those Mars rovers have lasted down there than anyone had expected (yeah I know the engineers purposely underestimated the lifespans). I also recall with sadness the Columbia, but how we would not let that deter us. I've viewed every flight since with skepticism, but still. Space is The Future, and we're still there. I often wonder when the next mission to the moon will occur and who will undertake it. I'm a fan of science fiction, and the space program is sci-fi turned reality.
So. Perhaps the thought of a NASA-based video game, let alone an MMO, brought back the thought of my innocent childhood, back when NASA meant The Space Shuttle, and I had a three-foot-long paper model of Columbia hanging in my bedroom. How awesome would it be to explore our near-Earth environment, or maybe even the solar system without repercussion? No Challenger disaster, no Columbia breakup; no launch-pad fires and no explosions. Let me take the wheel, don that space suit, and explore the cosmos right here from my comfy chair. Let me fly through Google Sky in a realistic simulator, and let me turn over rocks on Mars; I want to go ice-fishing on Europa.
State control of my thermostat does not sound at all like a good idea to me. Granted, FTFA it's only a four degree swing, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to give up that sort of control. Who sets how low to go? Would I have to or be able to compensate by setting my thermostat higher? Seems that if I'm cold, I'm going to set the temp to where I like it, "the state" be damned. I'll determine what my threshold is concerning how much I want to pay verses how much comfort I want to have, thankyouverymuch.
OTOH I'm all for using less resources and the whole green thing, but I don't think a 1984 approach is what's warranted here. How about giving me more incentives to lower my home heating bill instead?
What I can tell you is that the day that CA is able to set how warm my home is will be the day I figure out how to bypass it.
Why on earth would I want to pay for that? Why on earth would I want to even p2p that? Why on earth does anyone think this is even music, let alone good music? Barry Manilow, otoh...
maybe if the majority of new music didn't suck so hard this wouldn't be happening as bad as it is? Who wants to buy $18 for a full album when you only like once song from it?? I dunno, just a thought. Side note, I'm so glad I bought into the whole satellite radio thing. I much prefer being brainwashed by Sirius than by Clearchannel these days.
...don't expect it to be cheap. And I mean that even if Apple produces such a thing, the Logitech diNovo is going to seem cheap by comparison.
Judging by the pictures on this site: Optimus Mini, the backplane for the full blown 103 key version must be staggeringly complex, not to mention extemely difficult to manufacture within the confines of a standard-sized keyboard. Plus, a regular keyboard must be able to withstand normal typing, unlike the three-button jobbie; you have to wonder at the amount of abuse a standard flex-pcb can withstand. I'm seriously concerned about that aspect.
It's no wonder that the street price for these things is going to be so high; I think that the sheer complexity of mass-producing such a beast reliably is probably the only thing standing between us and our uber OLED planks.
Firefox burped and I lost my entire post. Rather than rewrite all 5 splendidly crafted paragraphs, suffice to say that I have only recently become aware of my own ignorance and naivette when it comes to following the news. And it depresses me terribly.
Being as how it's still an American car, I expect a lot of straight-away chases with no turns. That'll eliminate the lateral G's at least...
Here ya go, Anglophile car geeks:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQdSVSH-iF0 (YouTube Top Gear Mustang) Live rear axle? Pshht "A whacking great girder with a wheel at each end" is what I'll have, thanks.
the trailer they released around 2000 that showed Duke in all his shoot-em-up, explosive, flying through plate glass, motor-cycle driving, one-liner glory? I seem to recall it was a couple of minutes long, and back then it took me an age to download over dial-up (didn't have cable yet). This game looked miles above what I was playing at the time (that would have been Halflife and Quake 3 I think), with real, destructible environments and an action-movie paced storyline.
I haven't seen the new release yet but I'm wondering if that theme is still there. I remember getting chills from that 2000 trailer...
Cost. The small "mom and pops" are prohibitively expensive compared to the big box retailers, and you are not necessarily garanteed better or more knowledgeable service. I love the idea of "supporting the little guys" but about the only way I'd consider buying from one of these stores would be if I had vast ammounts of disposable income and saving a few hundred bucks on a system was not worth my time; (mind you, that's a goal of mine, like not having to care how much gas costs). The ones that can stay in business and actually turn a profit must by definition have wealthy clientelle; and to posit a theory, I'm pretty sure you won't find many of those clients posting in slashdot.
Visibility. Once in a long while one or two of the little guys will actually offer some deals, like say if they buy large ticket items like LCD's, cases, memory and processors etc in bulk. The problem lies in the fact that these places are the kind the either only advertize online, or have flyers in the local free news magazines. Fry's, BB, CC and the others can afford to have giant, multi-page glossy color adverts in all the major publications and television, so naturally they get more business.
Individuality. The third and most damning in my mind is that the same exact parts are available everywhere. Would you purposely buy all of your groceries at the local specialty shop at a 5-10% markup when you can just as easily go to a big box outlet and save that money? Most reasonable and cost-conscious people would not. But what if the more expensive store offered something "special", like a bigger organics section or a larger selection of imported foods? Well then there is something to justify an increased cost, and you know you are buying into exclusivity when you make the choice to shop there. So then the only way to "make a difference" is to sell something unique or special that you can't get at a big box store... Like Voodoo or Puget Sound computers do, just to name two.
And just to get back on topic, I'm sad to see CompUSA go because the loss of competition in this sector is bad in the end for the consumer. And also because I used to work at Computer City (their flagship store in Wilmington) and I danced a happy dance the day that I heard they got bought out by CompUSA.:(
on the matter is this: While I may not agree with all of Dr. Paul's ideals, I sure as heck agree with a damn sight more of his than I do with anyone else's and that alone is worth my vote next November.
Am I being too cynical in the belief that possibly, maybe, this was a way to try to hijack or discredit his campaign? We all know how internet savvy the campaign has been so far. Is this an attempt to try to alienate Dr. Paul's core or those who don't know of him and maybe fear things like the internet? I hope that if that turns out to be the case then all of this investigating will have caused the attempt to backfire.
I was being extremely generous given that while the layout and general planning take place months in advance, magazines can and do slip a hot story in right before the magazine prints. Also, I'm not your son.
Slashdot Mirror
I get your points and I agree. Since the great "lead tainting and pet food poisoning of 2006", my wife and I have made a conscious effort to look for and buy things not made in China. It actually made it really hard for us to buy a toaster, of all things--I was afraid of anything that was painted or made with plastic exteriors for fear of lead contamination. Since the only toasters we could find at the time were from China we settled on a stainless-steel model.
:)
It's really hard to buy non-Chinese, let alone non-foreign items in this contry now; specifically the mundane items, like the razor you mentioned. It's gotten to be a sad suprise when I find the words "Made in the USA" on the tag of or stamped on to whatever I'm looking at in any store these days. Part of the problem is that we have gotten used to such low prices; it's akin to greed for most people. Walmart prices aren't just the cheapest around anymore--no no no, that's just what stuff actually COSTS these days, and we've all gotten so used to it that if it were suddenly all to dissapear we WOULD have a recession. Period.
The part that really bums me out is that not one of our elected officials seem to be able to do anything about it, which is why it is so shameful that we have not, nor will we (for the near-term, anyhow) revoke China's favored nation status. There is simply too much money involved, too much lobbying, too much corruption. Today's status quo will continue until one day, cheap, foreign-made stuff actually starts killing Americans en-masse, and not just our pets. But by then I fear it will be too late...
There was only one candidate I saw (and still see, come to think of it) who actually tried to address this issue and bring it to the fore-front, but despite being marginalized, and also kind of a nut-case, I think I'm still going to vote for him unless one of the other three (currently) can convince me that the people's interests outweight those of the marketplace.
^^^ Whew that felt good to rant. Thanks
Seriously, why is anything that Rush has to say relevant to /.? If I could mod down the article I would.
/..
I fear for anyone gullible to take any talk show host at their word and support them blindly. I fear for their souls, and yet I hope that some day they shall become enlightened as I have, before it is too late.
The only reason this is news is because it caters to the lowest common denominator. For shame, Slashdot. For SHAME.
What's next, reporting on that blond girl that went missing in Aruba? Spears? Who. The Fuck. Cares.
Calling you out
While I'd love for some of the "neteratti" out there (please comment below) to tell me how internet- (or more specifically, forum- or comment-) trolling is any different from those people who used to leave messages at my house, when I was in HS, inviting me to "book burning parties" (I was the only Jewish kid in my HS), I'll settle instead for not only being irritating with my run-on sentences and eerily perfect grammar but also with the fact that neither I nor your mom cares much atm. BTW I knew who they were because they routinely made my life difficult even though it was not possible to to tell exactly who they were by just listening to the recordings. (Phone records would probably have identified them though). Did their supposed anonymity give them constitutional rights to be fucktards, or more importantly, to cause my family grief and humiliation?
I think not. Nowadays, you come on my forums and threaten vile things against me and I'm not going to "shrug it off". No I'm going to see to it that you get a nice, friendly visit from the local PD (or maybe a friendly local goon) for harassment (yes I know where you live, troglodyte). Thick skin notwithstanding, how am I supposed to know that some lunatic won't actually track down my address and cause harm to my families, just because they can? Yes, an extreme example to be sure, but still. I bet if I try hard enough I can track down anyone who posts a reply to this, and all I gotta say is that you're lucky I'm not a sociopath*.
This is an incredibly murky subject area. Who's to say what's right and what's wrong on the internet besides some fuckwit judge who can't even operate her pc's on/off discriminator, much less have a clue to what actually goes on in these tubes? Are our Wild West days of saying whatever the fuck we want coming to a close, or will these days ever end? Is disparaging a person separate and distinct from disparaging a product? A corporation? The calls stopped, btw, right around the time I grew a pair (hey, I'm a late bloomer).
Well, for what it's worth, I am not anonymous and if I wouldn't say something to a person's face, I won't say it online. (Unless it's in jest, of course.) So fuck you. JK. Maybe.
brb, gotta burn some books. Yearbooks, that is...
*or am i...
It seems to me that the mainstream Muslim religion is at the point right now where Christianity was about 6 hundred years ago. Sure, there is still violence and intolerance caused by secular Christian groups (i.e.: white supremacists) but on no where near the same scale as that of the crusades or the inquisition. Christianity has become whole orders of magnitude more tolerant (if such a thing could be quantified) since the dark ages. Hopefully it won't take the "Muslim Right" another 600 years to mellow out...
Russian subs used to employ a cutting device on some of their submarines designed to cut the cables used in undersea sonar nets... I'm thinking it wouldn't take too much to start a war these days given how much we rely on these underwater communication cables. That said, it's more likely that a ship's anchor snagged it.
My copy of XP has been humming along nicely ever since Vista's release. Bravo!
Ooh, neat! A space-science-based MMO! I can party with other astronauts and take quests like growing tomatoes in space or repairing that busted solar cell array! "Watch out for those meteors! Oh no, I've aggroed too much cosmic radiation! Do I have enough oxygen to survive an extended spacewalk?"
But then I thought about it. I'm a huge supporter of shutting down the shuttle program--IMHO, it jumped the shark a long time ago. My taxes could be much better spent on newer and more innovative space programs or even could be better spent here on earth. Who needs NASA anyhow? It's a DINOSAUR. A relic of the space race and the cold war. Let Richard Branson and the private sector innovate the "next stage". Let capitalism fund the new space race; they will do it better and cheaper than any bloated, corrupt, and inept government agency ever could.
BUT THEN... I thought about my childhood; I remembered how important the space missions seemed at the time, how important they were to our national identity. We had the Space Shuttle, and We we doing Important Things. In Space. I thought about it again. I remember sitting cross-legged on the floor in Mrs. Bartlett's class when I watched the Challenger crew "slip the surly bonds". I thought about the congressional hearings and the first time I learned what an o-ring was. I remember hearing that perhaps Christa Mcauliffe and the other crew members might have been alive during their inexorable plunge back to the ocean and how horrible that must have been. I remember seeing the reconstructed orbiter in that hangar on the news.
Since then I have followed the goings on at NASA with a somewhat skewed perception. I though it was cool how they were able to land that craft on that asteroid, and I smugly laughed at how much longer those Mars rovers have lasted down there than anyone had expected (yeah I know the engineers purposely underestimated the lifespans). I also recall with sadness the Columbia, but how we would not let that deter us. I've viewed every flight since with skepticism, but still. Space is The Future, and we're still there. I often wonder when the next mission to the moon will occur and who will undertake it. I'm a fan of science fiction, and the space program is sci-fi turned reality.
So. Perhaps the thought of a NASA-based video game, let alone an MMO, brought back the thought of my innocent childhood, back when NASA meant The Space Shuttle, and I had a three-foot-long paper model of Columbia hanging in my bedroom. How awesome would it be to explore our near-Earth environment, or maybe even the solar system without repercussion? No Challenger disaster, no Columbia breakup; no launch-pad fires and no explosions. Let me take the wheel, don that space suit, and explore the cosmos right here from my comfy chair. Let me fly through Google Sky in a realistic simulator, and let me turn over rocks on Mars; I want to go ice-fishing on Europa.
Yeah, I'd buy into that. Ooh, neat!
Cheers~
That's the last time I fly through Los Angeles then.
State control of my thermostat does not sound at all like a good idea to me. Granted, FTFA it's only a four degree swing, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to give up that sort of control. Who sets how low to go? Would I have to or be able to compensate by setting my thermostat higher? Seems that if I'm cold, I'm going to set the temp to where I like it, "the state" be damned. I'll determine what my threshold is concerning how much I want to pay verses how much comfort I want to have, thankyouverymuch.
OTOH I'm all for using less resources and the whole green thing, but I don't think a 1984 approach is what's warranted here. How about giving me more incentives to lower my home heating bill instead?
What I can tell you is that the day that CA is able to set how warm my home is will be the day I figure out how to bypass it.
Why on earth would I want to pay for that? Why on earth would I want to even p2p that? Why on earth does anyone think this is even music, let alone good music? Barry Manilow, otoh...
is SO going in my Eee.
maybe if the majority of new music didn't suck so hard this wouldn't be happening as bad as it is? Who wants to buy $18 for a full album when you only like once song from it?? I dunno, just a thought. Side note, I'm so glad I bought into the whole satellite radio thing. I much prefer being brainwashed by Sirius than by Clearchannel these days.
I'm going to run my Optimus in stealth mode.
...don't expect it to be cheap. And I mean that even if Apple produces such a thing, the Logitech diNovo is going to seem cheap by comparison.
Judging by the pictures on this site: Optimus Mini, the backplane for the full blown 103 key version must be staggeringly complex, not to mention extemely difficult to manufacture within the confines of a standard-sized keyboard. Plus, a regular keyboard must be able to withstand normal typing, unlike the three-button jobbie; you have to wonder at the amount of abuse a standard flex-pcb can withstand. I'm seriously concerned about that aspect.
It's no wonder that the street price for these things is going to be so high; I think that the sheer complexity of mass-producing such a beast reliably is probably the only thing standing between us and our uber OLED planks.
Cheers~
Firefox burped and I lost my entire post. Rather than rewrite all 5 splendidly crafted paragraphs, suffice to say that I have only recently become aware of my own ignorance and naivette when it comes to following the news. And it depresses me terribly.
The Tata
oh noes! A car named after a boobie! sweet!
is a pet project of Cornell-trained architect Ratan Tata, which he helped design.
Oh. OH. *blush* Well, erm, good on him. GJ and all that, ahem.
Being as how it's still an American car, I expect a lot of straight-away chases with no turns. That'll eliminate the lateral G's at least...
:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQdSVSH-iF0 (YouTube Top Gear Mustang) Live rear axle? Pshht "A whacking great girder with a wheel at each end" is what I'll have, thanks.
Here ya go, Anglophile car geeks
Awesome, thanks for that.
I mean, I'm sure it will be totally awesome and all, but it's like if they brought back the A-Team and used a Honda Odyssey as the van.
the trailer they released around 2000 that showed Duke in all his shoot-em-up, explosive, flying through plate glass, motor-cycle driving, one-liner glory? I seem to recall it was a couple of minutes long, and back then it took me an age to download over dial-up (didn't have cable yet). This game looked miles above what I was playing at the time (that would have been Halflife and Quake 3 I think), with real, destructible environments and an action-movie paced storyline.
I haven't seen the new release yet but I'm wondering if that theme is still there. I remember getting chills from that 2000 trailer...
Cost. The small "mom and pops" are prohibitively expensive compared to the big box retailers, and you are not necessarily garanteed better or more knowledgeable service. I love the idea of "supporting the little guys" but about the only way I'd consider buying from one of these stores would be if I had vast ammounts of disposable income and saving a few hundred bucks on a system was not worth my time; (mind you, that's a goal of mine, like not having to care how much gas costs). The ones that can stay in business and actually turn a profit must by definition have wealthy clientelle; and to posit a theory, I'm pretty sure you won't find many of those clients posting in slashdot.
:(
Visibility. Once in a long while one or two of the little guys will actually offer some deals, like say if they buy large ticket items like LCD's, cases, memory and processors etc in bulk. The problem lies in the fact that these places are the kind the either only advertize online, or have flyers in the local free news magazines. Fry's, BB, CC and the others can afford to have giant, multi-page glossy color adverts in all the major publications and television, so naturally they get more business.
Individuality. The third and most damning in my mind is that the same exact parts are available everywhere. Would you purposely buy all of your groceries at the local specialty shop at a 5-10% markup when you can just as easily go to a big box outlet and save that money? Most reasonable and cost-conscious people would not. But what if the more expensive store offered something "special", like a bigger organics section or a larger selection of imported foods? Well then there is something to justify an increased cost, and you know you are buying into exclusivity when you make the choice to shop there. So then the only way to "make a difference" is to sell something unique or special that you can't get at a big box store... Like Voodoo or Puget Sound computers do, just to name two.
And just to get back on topic, I'm sad to see CompUSA go because the loss of competition in this sector is bad in the end for the consumer. And also because I used to work at Computer City (their flagship store in Wilmington) and I danced a happy dance the day that I heard they got bought out by CompUSA.
on the matter is this: While I may not agree with all of Dr. Paul's ideals, I sure as heck agree with a damn sight more of his than I do with anyone else's and that alone is worth my vote next November.
Am I being too cynical in the belief that possibly, maybe, this was a way to try to hijack or discredit his campaign? We all know how internet savvy the campaign has been so far. Is this an attempt to try to alienate Dr. Paul's core or those who don't know of him and maybe fear things like the internet? I hope that if that turns out to be the case then all of this investigating will have caused the attempt to backfire.
interesting
I was being extremely generous given that while the layout and general planning take place months in advance, magazines can and do slip a hot story in right before the magazine prints. Also, I'm not your son.
Cheers~
Oooh, good eye!