We've used Amazon for some staples. Running low on toilet paper during the winter and don't want to brave the snow/ice to go to the store? Order a large package from Amazon. Two days later it arrives and we'll be set for weeks.
My boys are 9 and 12. There are times when I wish they were little babies again so I could cuddle them like I used to. Then, I remember diaper changes (like our infamous Seven Diaper Diaper Change - when one boy filled up seven diapers one after another as soon as we could get them on him) and I'm glad they're older. They don't like the cuddle as much (especially not our preteen), but at least they use the bathroom by themselves now!
That and there are so many more geeky activities I can do with them now.
Although I'm a Bernie supporter also, I understand that there are people whose views don't line up with Bernie's. That's fine. So on Election Night if it's Trump vs. Clinton (as it looks like it might be), find a third party candidate to vote for. It doesn't matter if they don't have a shot at winning. Your vote is being registered as a protest and as a "I want more candidates like this in the future" statement. But not voting at all gives the major parties no feedback and only leads to more of the same. (As does voting for a candidate simply because "I always vote Democrat/Republican so I guess I'll vote for this person regardless of how I really feel about them.")
In my case, if Bernie doesn't get the nomination, I'll be voting for Jill Stein. Her views line up nicely with Bernie's so she'll wind up being a good protest vote.
Does this count as irony after the news that Disney canceled the Disney Infinity line and shuttered the studio that was producing it? (An event that have my boys upset and outraged.)
Boy howdie did the telco industry really drop the ball. They should have aggressively laid fiber on their rights of way and brought out speeds coax cable was never going to compete with and priced them competitively. Hindsight is 20/20.
Verizon started to do that with FIOS. Then, if I recall correctly, they had a change in management and the new managers decided not to spend money on laying fiber (in the hopes of long-term gains) when they could just sit back and make money short-term with wireless. So all FIOS deployments (except for a couple of instances) stopped. Verizon actually pushes some customers to cable or sells FIOS areas to other companies so they can focus on money-making wireless.
It's not just IPTV that can be affected. If your cable ISP all but forces you to get TV service from them along with your Internet service, what is the likelihood that you'd pay for satellite TV as well? This is abusing one monopoly (Internet access) to gain leverage over competition in another market (TV/Video services).
So now we will have machines that will try to up-sell fries?
Pop up ads as you try to order.
"Let's see, I want a burger with pickles and onions and... No, I don't want curly fries! *closes popup* And lettuce and ketchup and... No! No milkshakes. *closes popup* And... No supersizing! *closes popup* *closes popup* *closes popup*"
You still wouldn't get a burger that looks like the picture. Those are carefully prepared by hand and most times not with the actual ingredients that would go into a fast-food burger (e.g. hand picked perfect lettuce leafs instead of shredded half-wilted lettuce). Then, there is the prep work that can include inedible (or partially inedible) things like glue which make the burger look good for the photo. You might get close to the photo if each burger was prepared by a skilled human artisan who took pride in his work, but then it wouldn't be a fast-food burger.
I live in upstate NY, not NYC, but I think this is true. I was pulled over once for running a stop sign (I did the standard "rolling stop" that most people do) When I went into court, all people with offenses like mine were told to talk with a representative from the city who offered a reduction to "parking on the pavement." This carried a smaller fine and didn't go on your license. (It also meant people were less likely to challenge the tickets since they could just get off with a small fine instead of a drawn out legal proceeding which might result in a larger fine and points on your license.)
My Droid Turbo had a feature that let me say an activation phrase and then perform tasks. I had it active for a short time but turned it off because it would hear anything as the activation phrase. We'd be talking about a random topic and suddenly my phone would beep to indicate that it Googled what we were talking about. So, yes, these features can be constantly listening and it wouldn't take much to turn them from "Ok, Google [now perform search]" to always sending recordings of you to some server somewhere.
But maybe the poster really did date a woman named Jennifer Anniston (with two n's) who is constantly annoyed by people asking if she starred in Friends.
I'd say that his attitude is what would get us out of this mess. He looked at the candidates from the two major parties, didn't like any of them, and decided to vote third party. Nothing wrong with that at all. It's the people who say "I'm voting Democrat/Republican because that's how I always vote regardless of who is running" or the people who say "I don't like anyone so I'm protesting by not voting" that I have a problem with. The former allow party affiliation to rule their choice regardless of policy positions. The latter aren't really "protesting" because not voting is essentially invisible to the politicians.
So you're reasoning that there aren't an infinite amount of numbers between 1 and 2 is that you've defined "infinite" as impossible? This is circular reasoning. Suppose you set a computer up to run:
i = 1; do while (i 2) {
i = (i + 2)/2;
print i; }
How many numbers would this computer produce before it reached 2? (Assuming the computer could handle numbers of any decimal length, of course. No allowing the computer to take 1.9999999999999999999995 and just round it off to 2.) If you could let this computer run 24/7/365 for billions of years, would it ever find an ending point? If it somehow could run after the Universe itself ended, would it ever reach 2? Or would it run on for an infinite period of time.
If you are asserting that there are a finite amount of numbers between 1 and 2, then how many are there? How long would this hypothetical computer run before it spat out 2?
Obviously, the article talks about France, but in the US my boys don't have any right to agree to any legal contract. If a photographer took a photo of them and wanted to use it for commercial purposes, they'd need the approval of me and my wife. We actually did this with one photo we took that Western Digital wanted to use for an ad campaign. We signed the paperwork and collected the money. My son didn't really have any say in the matter. (He was too young to understand what this all meant. Had he been older, we'd have talked with him about it and likely would have respected his wishes on the subject. However, we wouldn't have been under legal obligation to do so.)
I do wonder how France supposes that parents will get permission to post "My baby boy/girl was born" photos. Do they think that a baby that is mere minutes old will give valid consent? Or is this completely "Child turns 18, decides he didn't like his parents posting baby photos of him 18 years ago because he wasn't wearing clothes, sues parents"?
The essence of the problem is that when a government and media incite fear and paranoia in an undereducated society, and when the true prevalence of threats is already very low, all this does is magnify (in dramatic fashion) the incidence of false positives. And the government knows this, and exploits this, because they are able to leverage that fear to accumulate ever more draconian powers, until the government becomes a police state.
Exactly this. How many people have been victims of terrorist attacks in the US in the past 10 years? A quick check shows that there were 57 fatalities due to terrorism in the US from 2005 - 2014. (Source) Fifty seven in ten years. Even if we go from 1995 to 2014 (including the 9-11 attacks), there were 3,264. Since that's over 20 years, that means there's an average of about 163 fatalities in the US every year due to terrorism. And that's including 9-11 which was clearly an outlier.
He'd also have to discount many rational numbers. Take 1 and 2. Now go halfway from 1 to 2 and you land on 1.5. Go halfway the remaining distance and you get 1.75. Again and you have 1.875. Keep going and you'll never reach 2. You'll get infinitely close but will never actually reach 2. Obviously, if infinity isn't allowed, you can't have any numbers between 1 and 2!
Pretty much the FBI's response to my identity theft. They might have noted it in some crime statistics database somewhere but otherwise there was no followup. I didn't lose a large sum of money so they weren't interested in following up on it.
What do you do when the local police won't follow up because it will likely cross jurisdictions and the FBI won't follow up because you didn't lose enough money to get on their radar?
Stories like this get me angry for more than just the standard "misuse of power" reasons. Years back, my identity was stolen (someone opened a credit card in my name and only a quirk of fate caused it to come to me instead of the thieves). The police investigating it seemed uninterested in following up any leads and confessed to me that they didn't want to pursue it because the trail would likely lead to another jurisdiction. The fact that they'd do the work and someone else would get the collar meant, to them, that it wasn't worth it doing the work at all. The thief was never caught and, as far as I know, could still be opening credit cards in other people's names to this day.
This isn't to say that something like Stingray should be used in cases of identity theft, but that police can go overboard - violating civil rights - trying to get a suspect in one instance (using Stingray to catch a chicken wing thief) and not do their basic job in other instances. There's got to be a middle ground where they do their job, are happy when they contribute to an arrest even if they don't MAKE the arrest, and don't violate people's civil rights in the process.
We did listen to the audio book copy of The Princess, The Scoundrel, And The Farm Boy (a retelling of Star Wars Episode 4 with sections from Leia's, Han's, and Luke's perspective) on a recent road trip. It was very nice. I still prefer the act of sitting down, letting the book be my entire focus, and actually reading it myself, though. I wouldn't look down on someone who's into audio books (we also used them to help one of my son's get into reading - he'd read the book along with the audio book), but they're just not my cup of tea.
I'll let you know when my book is done. It was originally supposed to just be a short story, but at 37,000 words I think it's headed more towards short-novel territory.
Putting "using Snapchat" (or any other distraction) aside, I've heard of people seeing how fast their cars would go before. Back in college, a close friend of mine went 100mph on a straight, deserted road just to see what it was like. Even then, I told him that was idiotic. I've done 80mph on highways before and I could feel my control of the car slipping. At 85mph, I'd be much more prone to an accident. I couldn't even conceive of doing 100mph. I'm sure there might be some who could do 100mph safely, but this is a minority. Unfortunately, there are a lot more people who think they can do 100mph safely but can't.
I know all about audio books. My wife likes using them so she can crochet and "read" at the same time. I'm more into electronic books since I can have a stack of "books" with me at all times.
Of course, I've also moved into writing my own book so hopefully one day I'm fueling someone else's book addiction.
There have only been three Presidents without any previous political experience: Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. However, all three have military experience. There has never been someone elected President without political or military experience.
There's that XKCD comic about Electoral Precedent. "No woman has ever been elected President" vs. "No one without political or military experience has ever been elected President". Which streak will break now?
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We've used Amazon for some staples. Running low on toilet paper during the winter and don't want to brave the snow/ice to go to the store? Order a large package from Amazon. Two days later it arrives and we'll be set for weeks.
My boys are 9 and 12. There are times when I wish they were little babies again so I could cuddle them like I used to. Then, I remember diaper changes (like our infamous Seven Diaper Diaper Change - when one boy filled up seven diapers one after another as soon as we could get them on him) and I'm glad they're older. They don't like the cuddle as much (especially not our preteen), but at least they use the bathroom by themselves now!
That and there are so many more geeky activities I can do with them now.
Although I'm a Bernie supporter also, I understand that there are people whose views don't line up with Bernie's. That's fine. So on Election Night if it's Trump vs. Clinton (as it looks like it might be), find a third party candidate to vote for. It doesn't matter if they don't have a shot at winning. Your vote is being registered as a protest and as a "I want more candidates like this in the future" statement. But not voting at all gives the major parties no feedback and only leads to more of the same. (As does voting for a candidate simply because "I always vote Democrat/Republican so I guess I'll vote for this person regardless of how I really feel about them.")
In my case, if Bernie doesn't get the nomination, I'll be voting for Jill Stein. Her views line up nicely with Bernie's so she'll wind up being a good protest vote.
Does this count as irony after the news that Disney canceled the Disney Infinity line and shuttered the studio that was producing it? (An event that have my boys upset and outraged.)
Verizon started to do that with FIOS. Then, if I recall correctly, they had a change in management and the new managers decided not to spend money on laying fiber (in the hopes of long-term gains) when they could just sit back and make money short-term with wireless. So all FIOS deployments (except for a couple of instances) stopped. Verizon actually pushes some customers to cable or sells FIOS areas to other companies so they can focus on money-making wireless.
It's not just IPTV that can be affected. If your cable ISP all but forces you to get TV service from them along with your Internet service, what is the likelihood that you'd pay for satellite TV as well? This is abusing one monopoly (Internet access) to gain leverage over competition in another market (TV/Video services).
Pop up ads as you try to order.
"Let's see, I want a burger with pickles and onions and... No, I don't want curly fries! *closes popup* And lettuce and ketchup and... No! No milkshakes. *closes popup* And... No supersizing! *closes popup* *closes popup* *closes popup*"
You still wouldn't get a burger that looks like the picture. Those are carefully prepared by hand and most times not with the actual ingredients that would go into a fast-food burger (e.g. hand picked perfect lettuce leafs instead of shredded half-wilted lettuce). Then, there is the prep work that can include inedible (or partially inedible) things like glue which make the burger look good for the photo. You might get close to the photo if each burger was prepared by a skilled human artisan who took pride in his work, but then it wouldn't be a fast-food burger.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... Oh, wait. You're serious. Let me laugh harder. HA HA HAAAA HA HA HAAAAA HAAAAA!!!!!
I live in upstate NY, not NYC, but I think this is true. I was pulled over once for running a stop sign (I did the standard "rolling stop" that most people do) When I went into court, all people with offenses like mine were told to talk with a representative from the city who offered a reduction to "parking on the pavement." This carried a smaller fine and didn't go on your license. (It also meant people were less likely to challenge the tickets since they could just get off with a small fine instead of a drawn out legal proceeding which might result in a larger fine and points on your license.)
My Droid Turbo had a feature that let me say an activation phrase and then perform tasks. I had it active for a short time but turned it off because it would hear anything as the activation phrase. We'd be talking about a random topic and suddenly my phone would beep to indicate that it Googled what we were talking about. So, yes, these features can be constantly listening and it wouldn't take much to turn them from "Ok, Google [now perform search]" to always sending recordings of you to some server somewhere.
But maybe the poster really did date a woman named Jennifer Anniston (with two n's) who is constantly annoyed by people asking if she starred in Friends.
I just uninstalled ES File Manager - a shame because I loved that app. (Now, the "battery booster" popup on my son's tablet makes sense.)
I installed Amaze File Manager. It's free and open source. So far, it's very quick and seems full featured (at least for the uses I need it for).
I'd say that his attitude is what would get us out of this mess. He looked at the candidates from the two major parties, didn't like any of them, and decided to vote third party. Nothing wrong with that at all. It's the people who say "I'm voting Democrat/Republican because that's how I always vote regardless of who is running" or the people who say "I don't like anyone so I'm protesting by not voting" that I have a problem with. The former allow party affiliation to rule their choice regardless of policy positions. The latter aren't really "protesting" because not voting is essentially invisible to the politicians.
So you're reasoning that there aren't an infinite amount of numbers between 1 and 2 is that you've defined "infinite" as impossible? This is circular reasoning. Suppose you set a computer up to run:
i = 1;
do while (i 2) {
i = (i + 2)/2;
print i;
}
How many numbers would this computer produce before it reached 2? (Assuming the computer could handle numbers of any decimal length, of course. No allowing the computer to take 1.9999999999999999999995 and just round it off to 2.) If you could let this computer run 24/7/365 for billions of years, would it ever find an ending point? If it somehow could run after the Universe itself ended, would it ever reach 2? Or would it run on for an infinite period of time.
If you are asserting that there are a finite amount of numbers between 1 and 2, then how many are there? How long would this hypothetical computer run before it spat out 2?
Obviously, the article talks about France, but in the US my boys don't have any right to agree to any legal contract. If a photographer took a photo of them and wanted to use it for commercial purposes, they'd need the approval of me and my wife. We actually did this with one photo we took that Western Digital wanted to use for an ad campaign. We signed the paperwork and collected the money. My son didn't really have any say in the matter. (He was too young to understand what this all meant. Had he been older, we'd have talked with him about it and likely would have respected his wishes on the subject. However, we wouldn't have been under legal obligation to do so.)
I do wonder how France supposes that parents will get permission to post "My baby boy/girl was born" photos. Do they think that a baby that is mere minutes old will give valid consent? Or is this completely "Child turns 18, decides he didn't like his parents posting baby photos of him 18 years ago because he wasn't wearing clothes, sues parents"?
Exactly this. How many people have been victims of terrorist attacks in the US in the past 10 years? A quick check shows that there were 57 fatalities due to terrorism in the US from 2005 - 2014. (Source) Fifty seven in ten years. Even if we go from 1995 to 2014 (including the 9-11 attacks), there were 3,264. Since that's over 20 years, that means there's an average of about 163 fatalities in the US every year due to terrorism. And that's including 9-11 which was clearly an outlier.
At 163 a year, "occupant of special agricultural vehicle" results in more deaths than terrorism.
He'd also have to discount many rational numbers. Take 1 and 2. Now go halfway from 1 to 2 and you land on 1.5. Go halfway the remaining distance and you get 1.75. Again and you have 1.875. Keep going and you'll never reach 2. You'll get infinitely close but will never actually reach 2. Obviously, if infinity isn't allowed, you can't have any numbers between 1 and 2!
Pretty much the FBI's response to my identity theft. They might have noted it in some crime statistics database somewhere but otherwise there was no followup. I didn't lose a large sum of money so they weren't interested in following up on it.
What do you do when the local police won't follow up because it will likely cross jurisdictions and the FBI won't follow up because you didn't lose enough money to get on their radar?
That second point makes it even more ridiculous. You commit armed robbery and all you get is $50 worth of chicken wings? That's just sad.
Stories like this get me angry for more than just the standard "misuse of power" reasons. Years back, my identity was stolen (someone opened a credit card in my name and only a quirk of fate caused it to come to me instead of the thieves). The police investigating it seemed uninterested in following up any leads and confessed to me that they didn't want to pursue it because the trail would likely lead to another jurisdiction. The fact that they'd do the work and someone else would get the collar meant, to them, that it wasn't worth it doing the work at all. The thief was never caught and, as far as I know, could still be opening credit cards in other people's names to this day.
This isn't to say that something like Stingray should be used in cases of identity theft, but that police can go overboard - violating civil rights - trying to get a suspect in one instance (using Stingray to catch a chicken wing thief) and not do their basic job in other instances. There's got to be a middle ground where they do their job, are happy when they contribute to an arrest even if they don't MAKE the arrest, and don't violate people's civil rights in the process.
We did listen to the audio book copy of The Princess, The Scoundrel, And The Farm Boy (a retelling of Star Wars Episode 4 with sections from Leia's, Han's, and Luke's perspective) on a recent road trip. It was very nice. I still prefer the act of sitting down, letting the book be my entire focus, and actually reading it myself, though. I wouldn't look down on someone who's into audio books (we also used them to help one of my son's get into reading - he'd read the book along with the audio book), but they're just not my cup of tea.
I'll let you know when my book is done. It was originally supposed to just be a short story, but at 37,000 words I think it's headed more towards short-novel territory.
Putting "using Snapchat" (or any other distraction) aside, I've heard of people seeing how fast their cars would go before. Back in college, a close friend of mine went 100mph on a straight, deserted road just to see what it was like. Even then, I told him that was idiotic. I've done 80mph on highways before and I could feel my control of the car slipping. At 85mph, I'd be much more prone to an accident. I couldn't even conceive of doing 100mph. I'm sure there might be some who could do 100mph safely, but this is a minority. Unfortunately, there are a lot more people who think they can do 100mph safely but can't.
I know all about audio books. My wife likes using them so she can crochet and "read" at the same time. I'm more into electronic books since I can have a stack of "books" with me at all times.
Of course, I've also moved into writing my own book so hopefully one day I'm fueling someone else's book addiction.
There have only been three Presidents without any previous political experience: Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. However, all three have military experience. There has never been someone elected President without political or military experience.
There's that XKCD comic about Electoral Precedent. "No woman has ever been elected President" vs. "No one without political or military experience has ever been elected President". Which streak will break now?