Ok, so where on their web site or sign-up page do they mention that they're ridiculously oversold and typically can't honor the terms of their agreement, if you actually try to use what you paid for ?
I personally can't trust any company that's had the same "limited time" "code monster" discount for years, their marketing is deceptive and specifically aimed at the novice and gullible. It's especially heinous now that any chump can lease a cheap dedicated server for $40 a month.
There are tons of better hosts out there, they just don't advertise as much as DH.
If you're happy with Dreamhost, I'd like to interest you in this bridge.
I've seen teenagers with better-run servers... seriously! DH is so oversold they can't stand a Slashdotting or Digg flood, which kind of defeats the purpose of paying for hosting in the first place. Might as well run it off your DSL.
Stronger walls, and maybe armed security guards. Heck, we have them up here in Canada and we don't have a tenth of the violent crime problems Chicago has.
I really don't care about the implementation details, as long as they maintain excellent compatibility with legacy Javascript. Whether I have to write , who gives a damn!?!
I'm going to stick my neck out (as usual) and say that these particular gays are homophobic!
Seriously, what's the big deal ? So you like members of the same sex, ok! Be happy!
I know it's not as clean-cut as that, because a lot of people still have retarded knee-jerk reactions to homosexuality, but hiding it isn't going to help people accept it.
Now if only someone would post a Wikipedia article about my heterosexuality, maybe I can sue them! After all these years, trying to convince the world I'm still a virgin:P
Police and politicians don't pay speeding fines. You're either trolling or just plain oblivious to the world around you.
The problem is the sane people are getting fined as much as (or worse than) the reckless drivers and stupid yo-yo rice-rocket teenagers. It's the mindless meek folk who can't handle the stress of driving a 3000lb death machine that are the cause of most accidents... that overpaid under-brained ditz with the cute pink car who's doing her nails, chatting on the phone and reading Cosmo while driving... that 80 year old widow with the huge Lincoln who never drove a mile until her husband died, her eyes are tired and she thinks the limits are still 25 like they were in the 1930's.
Sure, bad driving is difficult to monitor, but bad drivers are easy to spot.
Excluding the group of teenagers looking for speed thrills, most mature speeders are skilled and highly alert, because in an accident, it doesn't matter who or what you hit, you're going to get hurt or killed either way.
Quite frankly on a highway, I don't think it makes much of a difference whether you're doing 55 or 180; both speeds are enough to kill you. Heck, doing 35 in opposite directions in the city can cause all sorts of death, because the force of impact is the result of the speed differential. Bumping a car on the highway is safer than a head-on collision in a school zone, which is partly why we build highways in the first place.
I occasionally speed to "run away" from bad drivers. There are few things more nerve-wracking than being stuck behind some tard in her Echo who doesn't know where she's going. I'll pull a stunt just to get away from that unpredictable driver, before we lock fenders.
I would say, as a casual speeder, the biggest thing people could do to help reduce accidents is to know their f'ing role and stay off the left lane. I used to regularly drive about 650 km (= 400 mi) on the 401, which is a long, smooth, flat highway with excellent visibility. With my compact car, I had no difficulty maintaining 185km/h (~115 mph), but inevitably I'd come across some loafer douche cruising in the left lane in his convertible (on an 8-lane road). What's the point in cruising around in your soft-top on a boring commercial highway with a bunch of freight trucks ? Those guys need a life (and Viagra).
You might say "Slow the %*@& down", but I say "Get out of the fast lane". I'd even say that in most cases, you shouldn't even be in the fast lane unless you're exceeding the speed limit. Why ? Because there always needs to me some difference between lanes, so that cars can pass on the left. If you're doing 100 (or 65) and you're in the fast lane, you're trapping everyone behind you. There's no reason why speeders and loafers can't co-exist, that's why we have such wide roads.
This brings me to another point: What do red-light/radar cameras do to help society ?
I say they do nothing. Do they help reduce the number of fender benders in the high-traffic areas where they're typically installed ? No. Do they help prevent violent crime, child abuse, theft, rape, gang activities, fraud, counterfeiting, spousal abuse, racism, or any of the other evils of society ? No.
This study does not say that P2P downloaders buy more music, but it underscores a commonly-known (but commercially ignored) fact: music lovers will get their music by any means necessary. P2P, mail-order, and the local record store; they're all equal players, and the price of an item is usually not the primary purchasing factor (unless said price is abnormally high). Convenience, in my opinion, is the primary factor. I'm a music lover (big time), and I hate the music industry... where did they go wrong ?
If I'm looking for something popular, chances are it will be all over P2P and I can get it in a matter of seconds. If I'm seeking a full album, or something less mainstream like an older release, Amazon might be my best bet. If I don't feel like buying online (and waiting for the mail), I'll stop by the mall on my way home from work. Either way, the moment I get home, the disc gets ripped to MP3 (SQ freaks, get off my lawn!). Every player I own is MP3, heck I still have my old MPTrip in a box somewhere, god bless that piece of shit!
The fact that the record store is my last resort says a lot about the industry. The concept of piling a ton of albums in a store is just dumber than dumb; it's like a warehouse, because you can't glean much information from the sealed package to help you in your purchase. The kid at checkout is little more than a cash jockey, he/she doesn't know shit about anything older than last week. Even Costco at least tries to demo the goods before you buy that big bland bulk box. Those listening stations with a half-dozen rap albums don't help either! Amazon has preview clips for a large number of albums. Vinyl stores will let you audition just about any record in stock, on a good set of headphones too - not the dollar-store junk they have at HMV or Music World.
I like the concept of iTunes, but it's wrapped in DRM and Apple's megalomania and I don't have an iPod, so to me it's more trouble than it's worth. I play most of my music in the car, on an MP3 deck that I've owned for years, and spent dozens of hours setting up and tuning for the tightest sound. If someone were to make a high-end iTunes-compatible car deck, it would be a step in the right direction (to me).
I know there are lots of smaller MP3 peddlers on the net, but I'm not after the indie stuff (sorry!), I want the big labels to grow a brain and offer the products I want to buy. Lucky for me, I'm into house music and Beatport is a godsend for that stuff... it's pricey at $1.99+ per track, but their model is great, you can preview almost every track, and download as a 320kbps MP3 or even uncompressed WAV for an extra dollar. Beatport is great, but they only cover house/techno. If someone would apply that model to mainstream music, I would be all over it.
For example, a Dell Poweredge 1900 dual socket quad core Xeon 5365 machine w/ 1 GB ram and 250 GB disk costs $3747 with no OS. The same CPUs, disk, and RAM from apple is $3997 but includes the OS, iLife, etc.
... OR you can custom-build one for less than half that price.
The thing that stumps me with Apple is they would probably do very well even if they sold the parts separately. Honestly, a lot of people would pay $500-600 for a sexy Apple "barebone" system (chassis + mb + power), because they already pay those absurd prices for ghetto barebone kits from Asus and Supermicro. They'd even pay $200-300 for OS-X, because they pay that for Vista and they don't even like it. I'd much sooner buy OS-X for my beefy PC than Vista, but I don't want to give up the freedom of building a machine that's specifically tailored to my hardware desires.
I just built a freakin' powerhouse of a box last month for $1500, but a similar Mac Pro is $8k, and by similar I mean crappy graphics card, slower CPUs and that slow-ass junk FB-DIMM Ram. I could justify spending maybe $2500 on that hardware for the Mac brand, simply because you get the sexy styling and OS, and it would probably be quieter than my PC... but $8k is ridiculous, might as well build a 5-way cluster of my cheap machines, with enough cash left over for hookers and booze!
Let's face it: in the desktop computing world, Apple is the only shop that puts any effort into their products. Everyone else is too busy flogging cheap imitations of one-another to ever stop and think "Hey, this start button is a dumb idea" or "Maybe people don't want our stupid misspelled chinese company name (and our 4 partners) printed on the these big noisy neon-lit tin cans".
In a pile of scattered text, puns are sometimes our only outlet. Would you prefer that the store be referred to as "That fucking retarded crook-harboring scamshop Best Buy" ?
It's not the medium that's at fault here, it's the hot-shot producer who's too busy getting his dick sucked to bother turning down the gain to reasonable levels.
Well-produced CDs can sound quite excellent, they're just non-existent in the pop genre. Pick up a decent jazz album and you'll find it sounds completely different, with far more detail and subtlety than the latest Stones release.
Compression is good for certain things, like electronic music, drums and distorted guitars, and to smooth out a crappy vocalist. Putting one of those "magic compressor" stages on the entire mix is something that should not be done outside of a house club.
Carbot: 'Hey, you look somehow angry. Why? Please calm down.' Billco: 'Good idea, shitbot!' (smashes carbot) Billco: 'I feel so much calmer now. Time to run over some kids!'
Yep, the 60 hour weeks are common. I actually find I don't mind it so much where I am now, because I typically enjoy what I do (in general, not in particular:P). My previous job was moderate, predictable, comfortable but boring to insanity (same pay too). You could say that I took a pay cut by switching jobs because I now have occasional overtime, and I'm certainly exerting my brain much much more, but I'm definitely happier.
Happy enough that even though I could do a quarter of the work for the 1.5 times the pay in a government position, right now I'd rather stick with the small shop where I'm not bound by the inevitable hypocrisy of bureaucracy. It works because my coworkers (and boss) are like-minded individuals; if they were a bunch of assholes (like those you find in most larger companies), I'd burn the building down and take my red stapler elsewhere!
What you need is a little concept called attrition planning. So you have the one guy (or gal) with 10 years, well, were they working alone ? Barring exceptional circumstances, you should have a next-in-command ready to step up. It's never perfectly seamless, but if you've been flying high with the lone gunman for 10 years with no backup planning, you brought it onto yourself.
It is well worth it, more often than not, to have a bit of redundancy in your business. If that means paying an apprentice to shadow the only guy who knows X-task, then you do it before that guy leaves for a nicer job where he will be able to take a day off from time to time. Far better to pay an extra salary now, than lose a few months' worth of business because no one's there to do the job. HR is a heck of a lot more than just doing interviews and payroll.
Well then, Mr Coward, how is it any different from all the other self-serving bills put forth by various government officials "on behalf of" the deep pocketed corporations that lobby them ?
I mean, Halliburton is a nice, community-focused, law-abiding facilitator of world peace... rrright ?
What I like about Canada is up here, we have sponsorship scandals. In the states, it's just business as usual. I'm not saying the Canadian government is devoid of corruption, geez, we've got a bunch of asshats too! The thing is, when any law prohibits some activity, people find ways around that law. People with money are typically better equipped to find, establish and employ those workarounds. Me, law or no law, I couldn't get any TV show to promote my campaign because I'm a broke ass geek.
Most everything follows the same pattern... copy-protection: no-cd patches, DVD CSS: decrypters, Laws: loopholes. The reason they all fail is because of the human factor. People make them, and people will break them.
Yep, police work is only performed where it matter$, aka speed traps and deliberately low limits. Saving lives is not a profitable business, which is why no matter what you do (or don't do), if a cop shows up, you get a fine.
In my opinion, if they're not enforcing speed limits in the few areas where they are actually beneficial, then we should abolish that system entirely as it is working for no one. I pay taxes like (most) everyone else, if that money isn't enough to afford proper police without the need for profiteering practices, then raise my goddamned taxes and destroy those stupid radar guns. Maybe then people will start respecting these so-called peace keepers again.
Something is very very wrong with the world when honest law-abiding citizens live in fear and/or contempt of the law.
If you're having that much difficulty staffing your positions, maybe you need to rethink the requirements. You don't need an all-star team to run a tech shop, you really just need one star and a gaggle of willing juniors.
He probably is worth double that, and if he is, then he should have no difficulty finding a better job elsewhere.
The only reason we techies get stuck in hell jobs is because we allow it to happen. We complain that outsourcing and ass-kissing immigrant workers are destroying our wages, well if you're in a ridiculous scenario, get out of it! Let the poorly managed company deal with sub-par staff, they will learn their lesson (or not), but the important thing is that you don't sell out to a faceless corporation. They don't give a rat's ass about anyone, why should you care about them ?
See the great thing about lawyers making ridiculous claims is they don't have to go very far to seek defense when the rest of the world sues them over prior art.
I now call to the stand the inventor of the "No Right Click" script!
Okay, so this guy went back in time 40 years and recreated what probably happened on some Intel engineer's workbench waaaaaaay back.
Pardon me while I go write a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800; I mean, my name IS Bill, after all.
Enlarge your manhood. She will love you more. You will die in 7 days if you don't.
Soft tabs cheap, buy in bulk. We will make your penis explode.
Hi, my name is Courtney. I live in Ukraine. Marry me or the bitch dies.
Seriously, email threats creep me out.
They're too busy running the revenue generating speed traps.
Crime scenes, that's the insurance company's cash cow, let them handle the mess!
"Fool me twice... naw, I went to war and killed you after the first time"
-Bush
Ok, so where on their web site or sign-up page do they mention that they're ridiculously oversold and typically can't honor the terms of their agreement, if you actually try to use what you paid for ?
I personally can't trust any company that's had the same "limited time" "code monster" discount for years, their marketing is deceptive and specifically aimed at the novice and gullible. It's especially heinous now that any chump can lease a cheap dedicated server for $40 a month.
There are tons of better hosts out there, they just don't advertise as much as DH.
If you're happy with Dreamhost, I'd like to interest you in this bridge.
I've seen teenagers with better-run servers... seriously! DH is so oversold they can't stand a Slashdotting or Digg flood, which kind of defeats the purpose of paying for hosting in the first place. Might as well run it off your DSL.
Stronger walls, and maybe armed security guards. Heck, we have them up here in Canada and we don't have a tenth of the violent crime problems Chicago has.
I really don't care about the implementation details, as long as they maintain excellent compatibility with legacy Javascript. Whether I have to write , who gives a damn!?!
I'm going to stick my neck out (as usual) and say that these particular gays are homophobic!
:P
Seriously, what's the big deal ? So you like members of the same sex, ok! Be happy!
I know it's not as clean-cut as that, because a lot of people still have retarded knee-jerk reactions to homosexuality, but hiding it isn't going to help people accept it.
Now if only someone would post a Wikipedia article about my heterosexuality, maybe I can sue them! After all these years, trying to convince the world I'm still a virgin
Police and politicians don't pay speeding fines. You're either trolling or just plain oblivious to the world around you.
The problem is the sane people are getting fined as much as (or worse than) the reckless drivers and stupid yo-yo rice-rocket teenagers. It's the mindless meek folk who can't handle the stress of driving a 3000lb death machine that are the cause of most accidents... that overpaid under-brained ditz with the cute pink car who's doing her nails, chatting on the phone and reading Cosmo while driving... that 80 year old widow with the huge Lincoln who never drove a mile until her husband died, her eyes are tired and she thinks the limits are still 25 like they were in the 1930's.
Those people should not be driving, period!
Sure, bad driving is difficult to monitor, but bad drivers are easy to spot.
Excluding the group of teenagers looking for speed thrills, most mature speeders are skilled and highly alert, because in an accident, it doesn't matter who or what you hit, you're going to get hurt or killed either way.
Quite frankly on a highway, I don't think it makes much of a difference whether you're doing 55 or 180; both speeds are enough to kill you. Heck, doing 35 in opposite directions in the city can cause all sorts of death, because the force of impact is the result of the speed differential. Bumping a car on the highway is safer than a head-on collision in a school zone, which is partly why we build highways in the first place.
I occasionally speed to "run away" from bad drivers. There are few things more nerve-wracking than being stuck behind some tard in her Echo who doesn't know where she's going. I'll pull a stunt just to get away from that unpredictable driver, before we lock fenders.
I would say, as a casual speeder, the biggest thing people could do to help reduce accidents is to know their f'ing role and stay off the left lane. I used to regularly drive about 650 km (= 400 mi) on the 401, which is a long, smooth, flat highway with excellent visibility. With my compact car, I had no difficulty maintaining 185km/h (~115 mph), but inevitably I'd come across some loafer douche cruising in the left lane in his convertible (on an 8-lane road). What's the point in cruising around in your soft-top on a boring commercial highway with a bunch of freight trucks ? Those guys need a life (and Viagra).
You might say "Slow the %*@& down", but I say "Get out of the fast lane". I'd even say that in most cases, you shouldn't even be in the fast lane unless you're exceeding the speed limit. Why ? Because there always needs to me some difference between lanes, so that cars can pass on the left. If you're doing 100 (or 65) and you're in the fast lane, you're trapping everyone behind you. There's no reason why speeders and loafers can't co-exist, that's why we have such wide roads.
This brings me to another point: What do red-light/radar cameras do to help society ?
I say they do nothing. Do they help reduce the number of fender benders in the high-traffic areas where they're typically installed ? No. Do they help prevent violent crime, child abuse, theft, rape, gang activities, fraud, counterfeiting, spousal abuse, racism, or any of the other evils of society ? No.
They don't do shit!
This study does not say that P2P downloaders buy more music, but it underscores a commonly-known (but commercially ignored) fact: music lovers will get their music by any means necessary. P2P, mail-order, and the local record store; they're all equal players, and the price of an item is usually not the primary purchasing factor (unless said price is abnormally high). Convenience, in my opinion, is the primary factor. I'm a music lover (big time), and I hate the music industry... where did they go wrong ?
If I'm looking for something popular, chances are it will be all over P2P and I can get it in a matter of seconds. If I'm seeking a full album, or something less mainstream like an older release, Amazon might be my best bet. If I don't feel like buying online (and waiting for the mail), I'll stop by the mall on my way home from work. Either way, the moment I get home, the disc gets ripped to MP3 (SQ freaks, get off my lawn!). Every player I own is MP3, heck I still have my old MPTrip in a box somewhere, god bless that piece of shit!
The fact that the record store is my last resort says a lot about the industry. The concept of piling a ton of albums in a store is just dumber than dumb; it's like a warehouse, because you can't glean much information from the sealed package to help you in your purchase. The kid at checkout is little more than a cash jockey, he/she doesn't know shit about anything older than last week. Even Costco at least tries to demo the goods before you buy that big bland bulk box. Those listening stations with a half-dozen rap albums don't help either! Amazon has preview clips for a large number of albums. Vinyl stores will let you audition just about any record in stock, on a good set of headphones too - not the dollar-store junk they have at HMV or Music World.
I like the concept of iTunes, but it's wrapped in DRM and Apple's megalomania and I don't have an iPod, so to me it's more trouble than it's worth. I play most of my music in the car, on an MP3 deck that I've owned for years, and spent dozens of hours setting up and tuning for the tightest sound. If someone were to make a high-end iTunes-compatible car deck, it would be a step in the right direction (to me).
I know there are lots of smaller MP3 peddlers on the net, but I'm not after the indie stuff (sorry!), I want the big labels to grow a brain and offer the products I want to buy. Lucky for me, I'm into house music and Beatport is a godsend for that stuff... it's pricey at $1.99+ per track, but their model is great, you can preview almost every track, and download as a 320kbps MP3 or even uncompressed WAV for an extra dollar. Beatport is great, but they only cover house/techno. If someone would apply that model to mainstream music, I would be all over it.
The thing that stumps me with Apple is they would probably do very well even if they sold the parts separately. Honestly, a lot of people would pay $500-600 for a sexy Apple "barebone" system (chassis + mb + power), because they already pay those absurd prices for ghetto barebone kits from Asus and Supermicro. They'd even pay $200-300 for OS-X, because they pay that for Vista and they don't even like it. I'd much sooner buy OS-X for my beefy PC than Vista, but I don't want to give up the freedom of building a machine that's specifically tailored to my hardware desires.
I just built a freakin' powerhouse of a box last month for $1500, but a similar Mac Pro is $8k, and by similar I mean crappy graphics card, slower CPUs and that slow-ass junk FB-DIMM Ram. I could justify spending maybe $2500 on that hardware for the Mac brand, simply because you get the sexy styling and OS, and it would probably be quieter than my PC... but $8k is ridiculous, might as well build a 5-way cluster of my cheap machines, with enough cash left over for hookers and booze!
Let's face it: in the desktop computing world, Apple is the only shop that puts any effort into their products. Everyone else is too busy flogging cheap imitations of one-another to ever stop and think "Hey, this start button is a dumb idea" or "Maybe people don't want our stupid misspelled chinese company name (and our 4 partners) printed on the these big noisy neon-lit tin cans".
In a pile of scattered text, puns are sometimes our only outlet. Would you prefer that the store be referred to as "That fucking retarded crook-harboring scamshop Best Buy" ?
WorstBuy it is.
Screw vinyl... Screw CD too!
It's not the medium that's at fault here, it's the hot-shot producer who's too busy getting his dick sucked to bother turning down the gain to reasonable levels.
Well-produced CDs can sound quite excellent, they're just non-existent in the pop genre. Pick up a decent jazz album and you'll find it sounds completely different, with far more detail and subtlety than the latest Stones release.
Compression is good for certain things, like electronic music, drums and distorted guitars, and to smooth out a crappy vocalist. Putting one of those "magic compressor" stages on the entire mix is something that should not be done outside of a house club.
Carbot: 'Hey, you look somehow angry. Why? Please calm down.'
Billco: 'Good idea, shitbot!'
(smashes carbot)
Billco: 'I feel so much calmer now. Time to run over some kids!'
Yep, the 60 hour weeks are common. I actually find I don't mind it so much where I am now, because I typically enjoy what I do (in general, not in particular :P). My previous job was moderate, predictable, comfortable but boring to insanity (same pay too). You could say that I took a pay cut by switching jobs because I now have occasional overtime, and I'm certainly exerting my brain much much more, but I'm definitely happier.
Happy enough that even though I could do a quarter of the work for the 1.5 times the pay in a government position, right now I'd rather stick with the small shop where I'm not bound by the inevitable hypocrisy of bureaucracy. It works because my coworkers (and boss) are like-minded individuals; if they were a bunch of assholes (like those you find in most larger companies), I'd burn the building down and take my red stapler elsewhere!
There's a lot more to a career than money.
What you need is a little concept called attrition planning. So you have the one guy (or gal) with 10 years, well, were they working alone ? Barring exceptional circumstances, you should have a next-in-command ready to step up. It's never perfectly seamless, but if you've been flying high with the lone gunman for 10 years with no backup planning, you brought it onto yourself.
It is well worth it, more often than not, to have a bit of redundancy in your business. If that means paying an apprentice to shadow the only guy who knows X-task, then you do it before that guy leaves for a nicer job where he will be able to take a day off from time to time. Far better to pay an extra salary now, than lose a few months' worth of business because no one's there to do the job. HR is a heck of a lot more than just doing interviews and payroll.
Well then, Mr Coward, how is it any different from all the other self-serving bills put forth by various government officials "on behalf of" the deep pocketed corporations that lobby them ?
I mean, Halliburton is a nice, community-focused, law-abiding facilitator of world peace... rrright ?
What I like about Canada is up here, we have sponsorship scandals. In the states, it's just business as usual. I'm not saying the Canadian government is devoid of corruption, geez, we've got a bunch of asshats too! The thing is, when any law prohibits some activity, people find ways around that law. People with money are typically better equipped to find, establish and employ those workarounds. Me, law or no law, I couldn't get any TV show to promote my campaign because I'm a broke ass geek.
Most everything follows the same pattern... copy-protection: no-cd patches, DVD CSS: decrypters, Laws: loopholes. The reason they all fail is because of the human factor. People make them, and people will break them.
Yep, police work is only performed where it matter$, aka speed traps and deliberately low limits. Saving lives is not a profitable business, which is why no matter what you do (or don't do), if a cop shows up, you get a fine.
In my opinion, if they're not enforcing speed limits in the few areas where they are actually beneficial, then we should abolish that system entirely as it is working for no one. I pay taxes like (most) everyone else, if that money isn't enough to afford proper police without the need for profiteering practices, then raise my goddamned taxes and destroy those stupid radar guns. Maybe then people will start respecting these so-called peace keepers again.
Something is very very wrong with the world when honest law-abiding citizens live in fear and/or contempt of the law.
If you're having that much difficulty staffing your positions, maybe you need to rethink the requirements. You don't need an all-star team to run a tech shop, you really just need one star and a gaggle of willing juniors.
He probably is worth double that, and if he is, then he should have no difficulty finding a better job elsewhere.
The only reason we techies get stuck in hell jobs is because we allow it to happen. We complain that outsourcing and ass-kissing immigrant workers are destroying our wages, well if you're in a ridiculous scenario, get out of it! Let the poorly managed company deal with sub-par staff, they will learn their lesson (or not), but the important thing is that you don't sell out to a faceless corporation. They don't give a rat's ass about anyone, why should you care about them ?
This wouldn't be a problem if Real Networks would just fuck off and die.
I've always considered their software to be borderline spyware, even back in the 90's, and it's only gotten worse with every new release.
Death to Real!
See the great thing about lawyers making ridiculous claims is they don't have to go very far to seek defense when the rest of the world sues them over prior art.
I now call to the stand the inventor of the "No Right Click" script!
Seriously. Screw em!