Dunno if I'd call it "innovative" to build your reputation under the "everything made in USA" banner and then bring it all in from China, or how "innovative" it is to bully local gubmints into giving you tax abatements for decades, build your utility infrastructure out for you at cost, and undercut every local business in a 25-mile radius based on the promise of "jerbz" that don't even pay enough to keep your employees off the dole.
Also, Walmart keeps "reconfiguring the sales floor" to include less and less actual stuff. and more empty shelving, because who cares--you're too poor to shop somewhere else and there's nowhere else to go anyway. At least out here in the sticks.
Well, that's the thing. You're free to change it...if you know how. If you don't know how (the difference between "user" and "developer"), you move on to something else. I keep thinking the FOSS community forgets that only a small percentage of users are ever going to be programmers or developers. The appeal of FOSS is "tools anyone can use or modify" but there are far more anyones in the "use" group than the "can modify" group. FOSS has always struggled with maintaining a user-focus (without the benefit of profit in a non-judgmental sense) versus developer-focus (hey, I'm working on this because it interests me and I'm not getting paid, anyway).
For my part, of the programs I use in my daily life (Scrivener, PC games, Chrome, and Firefox), the games and Scrivener work in Windows. There's an "unofficial" Linux version of Scrivener, but with the development lag, it's hard enough getting the official Windows versions of Scriv to come up alongside their native Mac version. Many of my PC games *might* work in VMware...but they might not, depending on if it's Tuesday and it's raining. And maybe my mouse is jumpy and the extra seconds between the input and the game lag turns me into Leeroy Jenkins at the worst possible time.
I just need them to work. I want to click the button, run the program, and do my *real* work (or play my *real* game) instead of "hunt down the obscure bug/setting/command-line fix of the day. I don't need to be told "you should use the command line for that" when I want to use the button.
And it absolutely drives me up a wall to go into a user forum or IRC and say, "I need to do the thing. How do I use X to do the thing?" and be told the equivalent of, "Why would you want to do the thing at all? You should do the other thing. And don't use X. Use Y, Z, and Q, to do the other thing, and you should use the command-line because reasons."
I loved KDE. I loved KDE4.2 even harder. Yes, with all the bells and whistles and plasma. KDE was what Windows wanted to be when it grew up. I'm currently using Mate on my linux laptop because it's the only default that will work on my chokey little graphics card and Mint. I would love to "install it for grandma" but "Grandma" (my mom) needs Windows to do all her specific stuff.
What happened is that people stopped having time to understand "how computers work" as a hobby or a monolithic enterprise. Just like people stopped having to understand how cars work, unless it's their profession. Most of us just get in the things and point them towards work or the store. Operating Systems are becoming invisible. That's what happened. Ubiquitousness is invisibility.
Not just contractor grade stuff, but most home designs are not customized to the region or, more granularly, to the lot itself. Rather, they're customized to a footprint on a lot, and designed to keep the materials cost per square foot low. You won't see long breezeways with southern exposures or barrel-vaulted ceilings because the materials costs for living space will go through the (barrel-vaulted) roof, and the footprint won't fit the average square or rectangular lot as well.
An armed population can restore their other rights, if they decide to do so. A disarmed population has no rights.
What kind of moron thinks that anyone is planning to attack tanks and drones with hunting rifles and handguns?
Well, no, not really. An armed population can *attempt to* restore the rights that the portion of the population with the most arms wants restored. Which was the point the original upthread was making about the 2A and slaveowners.
I promise you that the people who think and write about this sort of thing are no more planning to charge an armor formation with an AR-15 than they would with a club or sword.
Thinking and writing and planning aside, the point at which this all falls apart is the simple fact that an armed population is simply a population that possesses arms. Possession does not imply skill, or even the knowledge of which end goes towards the other guy.
This is why the NRA really doesn't want the CDC to be able to collect data and do research on gun violence. In fact, they've successfully pushed legislation through a Republican congress that
Why should the Center for Disease control study crime? Wouldn't you rather they spent their money on researching disease?
You mean like the "mental health issues" that every white perpetrator of a mass shooting is explained away with? The CDC has every right to study the effect that plentiful and free movement of firearms in America have on our culture's overall health the same way they study the effect of other types of lead poisoning.
Of course it's an uncomfortable topic for the NRA. They're not about *giving* people guns, they're about people *buying* guns. If you *give* them guns, you can't get at their money now, can you? And if you can't get at their money, you don't have the money to buy the congresscritters to suppress the information about how many gunfails there are in the US each day. And you don't have the money to send out those glossy mailers ginning up the fear that someone is coming to Take Yer Gunz Awayz so you rush right out and buy more, giving them more money so they can tell you how much more you should be afraid, so you buy more guns and they get more money so they can tell you why else you should be afraid and you buy more...
With even more obvious irony that the UK, after exporting its empire to the world, decides that when the world "returns export" that it doesn't want to play anymore...
A cultural default assumption in this culture is that mens' opinions are desired and valued for everything, including stuff that isn't targeted to them (or conversations of which they are not a part). Women do not share this same assumption.
It shouldn't be terribly difficult to stream out the data according to a number of demographic separations - gender, age, physical location, method of viewing (theater, streaming, DVD), rent/purchase, first-run or later viewing, etc.
It's not that hard to rack up the bills. In the US, as soon as you mention "wedding" there are people lining up to part you from your money at a 10X mark-up rate because it's a wedding and not, say, a corporate picnic. Weddings are also big social status things in the US. In the absence of titled nobility, status gets achieved by ostentatious displays of wealth. Plus, Madison Ave. advertising is really, really good at hitting hard in the weak spots, and bypassing the logical brain and going right for the id.
"Gubmint Bureaucracy Simulator 5000! Download the first five levels FREE From Zaxxar's App Store Now! (In-app purchases may cost significant currency. Not responsible for addictive behavior.)"
Right, because the military has the time, interest and competence to monitor all these various communications feeds and shut them down. They couldn't even stop a contractor from walking out the door of a secure facility with tons of sensitive documents.... Whenever I hear these conspiracy theories that involve the government engaging in huge multi-decade clandestine operations that are run perfectly with not a single person leaking information, my response is "I only wish my government were competent enough to actually do something like that"...
Well, if they weren't so busy watching satellite feeds for the aliens...
Some of 'em *would* lose money accommodating a state with backwards local laws. If you've got a corporate policy of non-discrimination regarding LGBTQ people and their rights, and corporate practices that reflect that, you have to put together a whole 'nother "alternative" HR policy, educate your HR staff in what it is, where it applies, and when to invoke it and when to nullify it, and potentially have to waste a fsckton of money on personnel retraining, legal review, policy maintenance, and staff enforcement for something stupid because some legislators in the south don't want to get a surprise when they're peeking under bathroom stalls.
Sometimes taking a stand is a side-effect of self-interest and cost savings. And isn't that nice?
The first one's actually a western in space, structured in Hero myth. Lucas followed Campbell's Hero's Journey on purpose.
Meaning isn't always intent, but a story is always a dialogue between creator and consumer. And meaning isn't always consciously put down on the page.
Aside from "Jeff"'s parenting contribution, passive physical attractiveness, and workplace productivity...do he and his wife actually *talk* to each other? Quite honestly, "Jeff" sounds like a hell of an employee, and I'd hire him in a heartbeat, but a spouse is not a resume. Even if "Jeff" is fulfilling all these task duties (while Mrs. "Jeff" is also doing parenting, housekeeping, financial contribution, and personal upkeep), does he *like* his wife? Does she like him? Are they friends? Do they socialize together? Does "Jeff" know what turns her on in bed? Has he ever asked? Or does he stick his fingers in his ears and say, "Lalala I can't hear you" whenever the subject of foreplay comes up?
I'm seeing a lot of assumptions in this thread that treat a marriage as if it's a job interview or a performance review. These guys on AM--are they putting "good parenting skills" and "hard-worker with management potential" in their AM profiles? Hell, no (unless that's some new kink). They're putting, "Likes to party," or "adventurous" or "Let's play dress-up" - why is this not the purview of the women to whom they entrusted their seed and household?
If you can't ask your partner for intimacy, then it's not biology, it's communication. There's something wrong there, and you both need to re-negotiate the relationship. "Jeff" might do better to start figuring out why he married Mrs. "Jeff" in the first place, if they still feel the same about each other, why or why not, and both figure out what to do about it going forward. At the very least, it'll save on his credit card bill.
First off, the idea that marriage to a woman means that a man has "purchased" her compliance from thenceforth in all matters of sex. Protip: When a woman gets married and has children, her whole life changes AND SO DOES HER HUSBAND'S. If her husband discovers that teh_bewbz are no longer his toys and he has to share with the kid, it is up to him to learn how to share with the kid.
Assuming that the husband's role is just to keep stumbling through doing what he always did is straight outta 1958 and does not fly with Real Persons of Lady Persuasion.
Perhaps Mr. Desperate and Unhappy could try to modify his behavior with the radical change that the rest of his family has gone through.
Of course, if he just married her for easy, convenient, unrefusable sex, that's probably not a match made in heaven in the first place.
The real dialogue of the AM hack (after all the delightful schadenfreude of the "Family Values" crew's frequent-flyer statuses have been suitably mocked) should really focus on what marriage can and should mean. It's clear from the number of members (real or otherwise) that fidelity in marriage is a...somewhat fluid state in reality, as opposed to what the Powers That Be have declared. Maybe people will begin to understand that a modern marriage is a partnership, and within the relationship, it's the members of the marriage that should both agree to the same terms.
On the other hand, maybe all we'll get is sick and tired of sex scandals.
What I really don't understand is why anyone would let themselves get promoted to a role they weren't interested in. Promotion is your own choice, no one gets forced to. Is it just a money thing?
No one gets forced into a promotion just like press gangs didn't "force" people into the navy. You're free to step right off the boat any time after leaving the dock. Of course, once you do, you will sink to the bottom and/or be eaten by sharks. This sounds like metaphor, but it isn't. Refusing a promotion in most organizational structures is tantamount to fast-tracking right back to the bottom. The corporate culture is NOT meant for people to maintain a certain depth or altitude. It must constantly churn you by raising you up (because Growth Is Good), and if you hit your ceiling, then you must be pushed way down so as to make room for others. And not outshine those at higher levels. Refusing a managerial position because you know you're more technical and less of a people-person is a sound decision on paper, but what it actually does is, by default, take you out of the running for promotions of *every* sort--technical promotions, further certifications, lateral moves into new markets, etc. because you become either a "lifer" running out the clock to retirement or you're not a "team player" because you won't play the advancement game.
The idea is that people in the structure must always want to advance, and if they don't want to advance, they won't fight each other for the privilege. We can't have people content with their current level in the structure, because that decreases competition through extra work. If everyone started doing the work of one person only, we'd have to hire 50% more staff.
Exactly when were you forced to go into business against the tenets of your faith? Did the jack-booted troops come to your door and force you to open a gift shop full of Pagan idols or voodoo supplies?
Sure, except Christianity's tenets say fuck-all about serving gays. Not in the Commandments or the Beatitudes.
Jesus had a hell of a lot to say about hypocrites and greedy bastards, though.
Bottom line--if your BUSINESS uses MY tax money, my civic utilities like roads and cops and firefighters, and my civic infrastructure, then you Render Unto Caesar What Is Caesar's and abide by the same civic rules as everybody else. Be a special snowflake on your own dime and in your own church.
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Also, Walmart keeps "reconfiguring the sales floor" to include less and less actual stuff. and more empty shelving, because who cares--you're too poor to shop somewhere else and there's nowhere else to go anyway. At least out here in the sticks.
Well, that's the thing. You're free to change it...if you know how. If you don't know how (the difference between "user" and "developer"), you move on to something else. I keep thinking the FOSS community forgets that only a small percentage of users are ever going to be programmers or developers. The appeal of FOSS is "tools anyone can use or modify" but there are far more anyones in the "use" group than the "can modify" group. FOSS has always struggled with maintaining a user-focus (without the benefit of profit in a non-judgmental sense) versus developer-focus (hey, I'm working on this because it interests me and I'm not getting paid, anyway).
For my part, of the programs I use in my daily life (Scrivener, PC games, Chrome, and Firefox), the games and Scrivener work in Windows. There's an "unofficial" Linux version of Scrivener, but with the development lag, it's hard enough getting the official Windows versions of Scriv to come up alongside their native Mac version. Many of my PC games *might* work in VMware...but they might not, depending on if it's Tuesday and it's raining. And maybe my mouse is jumpy and the extra seconds between the input and the game lag turns me into Leeroy Jenkins at the worst possible time.
I just need them to work. I want to click the button, run the program, and do my *real* work (or play my *real* game) instead of "hunt down the obscure bug/setting/command-line fix of the day. I don't need to be told "you should use the command line for that" when I want to use the button.
And it absolutely drives me up a wall to go into a user forum or IRC and say, "I need to do the thing. How do I use X to do the thing?" and be told the equivalent of, "Why would you want to do the thing at all? You should do the other thing. And don't use X. Use Y, Z, and Q, to do the other thing, and you should use the command-line because reasons."
I loved KDE. I loved KDE4.2 even harder. Yes, with all the bells and whistles and plasma. KDE was what Windows wanted to be when it grew up. I'm currently using Mate on my linux laptop because it's the only default that will work on my chokey little graphics card and Mint. I would love to "install it for grandma" but "Grandma" (my mom) needs Windows to do all her specific stuff.
What happened is that people stopped having time to understand "how computers work" as a hobby or a monolithic enterprise. Just like people stopped having to understand how cars work, unless it's their profession. Most of us just get in the things and point them towards work or the store. Operating Systems are becoming invisible. That's what happened. Ubiquitousness is invisibility.
You can't shoot cancer and heart disease.
Not just contractor grade stuff, but most home designs are not customized to the region or, more granularly, to the lot itself. Rather, they're customized to a footprint on a lot, and designed to keep the materials cost per square foot low. You won't see long breezeways with southern exposures or barrel-vaulted ceilings because the materials costs for living space will go through the (barrel-vaulted) roof, and the footprint won't fit the average square or rectangular lot as well.
An armed population can restore their other rights, if they decide to do so. A disarmed population has no rights.
What kind of moron thinks that anyone is planning to attack tanks and drones with hunting rifles and handguns?
Well, no, not really. An armed population can *attempt to* restore the rights that the portion of the population with the most arms wants restored. Which was the point the original upthread was making about the 2A and slaveowners.
I promise you that the people who think and write about this sort of thing are no more planning to charge an armor formation with an AR-15 than they would with a club or sword.
Thinking and writing and planning aside, the point at which this all falls apart is the simple fact that an armed population is simply a population that possesses arms. Possession does not imply skill, or even the knowledge of which end goes towards the other guy.
This is why the NRA really doesn't want the CDC to be able to collect data and do research on gun violence. In fact, they've successfully pushed legislation through a Republican congress that
Why should the Center for Disease control study crime? Wouldn't you rather they spent their money on researching disease?
You mean like the "mental health issues" that every white perpetrator of a mass shooting is explained away with? The CDC has every right to study the effect that plentiful and free movement of firearms in America have on our culture's overall health the same way they study the effect of other types of lead poisoning.
There actually is a US government-sponsored nonprofit offering free guns to qualified citizens.
I believe that's called the US Army, and they also give you clothes, too.
Of course it's an uncomfortable topic for the NRA. They're not about *giving* people guns, they're about people *buying* guns. If you *give* them guns, you can't get at their money now, can you? And if you can't get at their money, you don't have the money to buy the congresscritters to suppress the information about how many gunfails there are in the US each day. And you don't have the money to send out those glossy mailers ginning up the fear that someone is coming to Take Yer Gunz Awayz so you rush right out and buy more, giving them more money so they can tell you how much more you should be afraid, so you buy more guns and they get more money so they can tell you why else you should be afraid and you buy more...
With even more obvious irony that the UK, after exporting its empire to the world, decides that when the world "returns export" that it doesn't want to play anymore...
Pfft. So you had grass, huh? Lucky.
A cultural default assumption in this culture is that mens' opinions are desired and valued for everything, including stuff that isn't targeted to them (or conversations of which they are not a part). Women do not share this same assumption.
It shouldn't be terribly difficult to stream out the data according to a number of demographic separations - gender, age, physical location, method of viewing (theater, streaming, DVD), rent/purchase, first-run or later viewing, etc.
It's not that hard to rack up the bills. In the US, as soon as you mention "wedding" there are people lining up to part you from your money at a 10X mark-up rate because it's a wedding and not, say, a corporate picnic. Weddings are also big social status things in the US. In the absence of titled nobility, status gets achieved by ostentatious displays of wealth. Plus, Madison Ave. advertising is really, really good at hitting hard in the weak spots, and bypassing the logical brain and going right for the id.
"Gubmint Bureaucracy Simulator 5000! Download the first five levels FREE From Zaxxar's App Store Now! (In-app purchases may cost significant currency. Not responsible for addictive behavior.)"
Right, because the military has the time, interest and competence to monitor all these various communications feeds and shut them down. They couldn't even stop a contractor from walking out the door of a secure facility with tons of sensitive documents.... Whenever I hear these conspiracy theories that involve the government engaging in huge multi-decade clandestine operations that are run perfectly with not a single person leaking information, my response is "I only wish my government were competent enough to actually do something like that"...
Well, if they weren't so busy watching satellite feeds for the aliens...
Some of 'em *would* lose money accommodating a state with backwards local laws. If you've got a corporate policy of non-discrimination regarding LGBTQ people and their rights, and corporate practices that reflect that, you have to put together a whole 'nother "alternative" HR policy, educate your HR staff in what it is, where it applies, and when to invoke it and when to nullify it, and potentially have to waste a fsckton of money on personnel retraining, legal review, policy maintenance, and staff enforcement for something stupid because some legislators in the south don't want to get a surprise when they're peeking under bathroom stalls. Sometimes taking a stand is a side-effect of self-interest and cost savings. And isn't that nice?
The first one's actually a western in space, structured in Hero myth. Lucas followed Campbell's Hero's Journey on purpose. Meaning isn't always intent, but a story is always a dialogue between creator and consumer. And meaning isn't always consciously put down on the page.
Aside from "Jeff"'s parenting contribution, passive physical attractiveness, and workplace productivity...do he and his wife actually *talk* to each other? Quite honestly, "Jeff" sounds like a hell of an employee, and I'd hire him in a heartbeat, but a spouse is not a resume. Even if "Jeff" is fulfilling all these task duties (while Mrs. "Jeff" is also doing parenting, housekeeping, financial contribution, and personal upkeep), does he *like* his wife? Does she like him? Are they friends? Do they socialize together? Does "Jeff" know what turns her on in bed? Has he ever asked? Or does he stick his fingers in his ears and say, "Lalala I can't hear you" whenever the subject of foreplay comes up?
I'm seeing a lot of assumptions in this thread that treat a marriage as if it's a job interview or a performance review. These guys on AM--are they putting "good parenting skills" and "hard-worker with management potential" in their AM profiles? Hell, no (unless that's some new kink). They're putting, "Likes to party," or "adventurous" or "Let's play dress-up" - why is this not the purview of the women to whom they entrusted their seed and household?
If you can't ask your partner for intimacy, then it's not biology, it's communication. There's something wrong there, and you both need to re-negotiate the relationship. "Jeff" might do better to start figuring out why he married Mrs. "Jeff" in the first place, if they still feel the same about each other, why or why not, and both figure out what to do about it going forward. At the very least, it'll save on his credit card bill.
First off, the idea that marriage to a woman means that a man has "purchased" her compliance from thenceforth in all matters of sex. Protip: When a woman gets married and has children, her whole life changes AND SO DOES HER HUSBAND'S. If her husband discovers that teh_bewbz are no longer his toys and he has to share with the kid, it is up to him to learn how to share with the kid.
Assuming that the husband's role is just to keep stumbling through doing what he always did is straight outta 1958 and does not fly with Real Persons of Lady Persuasion.
Perhaps Mr. Desperate and Unhappy could try to modify his behavior with the radical change that the rest of his family has gone through.
Of course, if he just married her for easy, convenient, unrefusable sex, that's probably not a match made in heaven in the first place.
The real dialogue of the AM hack (after all the delightful schadenfreude of the "Family Values" crew's frequent-flyer statuses have been suitably mocked) should really focus on what marriage can and should mean. It's clear from the number of members (real or otherwise) that fidelity in marriage is a...somewhat fluid state in reality, as opposed to what the Powers That Be have declared. Maybe people will begin to understand that a modern marriage is a partnership, and within the relationship, it's the members of the marriage that should both agree to the same terms.
On the other hand, maybe all we'll get is sick and tired of sex scandals.
"Still standing on the earth."
What I really don't understand is why anyone would let themselves get promoted to a role they weren't interested in. Promotion is your own choice, no one gets forced to. Is it just a money thing?
No one gets forced into a promotion just like press gangs didn't "force" people into the navy. You're free to step right off the boat any time after leaving the dock. Of course, once you do, you will sink to the bottom and/or be eaten by sharks. This sounds like metaphor, but it isn't. Refusing a promotion in most organizational structures is tantamount to fast-tracking right back to the bottom. The corporate culture is NOT meant for people to maintain a certain depth or altitude. It must constantly churn you by raising you up (because Growth Is Good), and if you hit your ceiling, then you must be pushed way down so as to make room for others. And not outshine those at higher levels. Refusing a managerial position because you know you're more technical and less of a people-person is a sound decision on paper, but what it actually does is, by default, take you out of the running for promotions of *every* sort--technical promotions, further certifications, lateral moves into new markets, etc. because you become either a "lifer" running out the clock to retirement or you're not a "team player" because you won't play the advancement game. The idea is that people in the structure must always want to advance, and if they don't want to advance, they won't fight each other for the privilege. We can't have people content with their current level in the structure, because that decreases competition through extra work. If everyone started doing the work of one person only, we'd have to hire 50% more staff.
And the answer is...
None! We're not even talking enough laser to blind someone at that range, much less vaporize something/someone....
Just you wait until the cats see that red dot...
Exactly when were you forced to go into business against the tenets of your faith? Did the jack-booted troops come to your door and force you to open a gift shop full of Pagan idols or voodoo supplies?
Sure, except Christianity's tenets say fuck-all about serving gays. Not in the Commandments or the Beatitudes. Jesus had a hell of a lot to say about hypocrites and greedy bastards, though. Bottom line--if your BUSINESS uses MY tax money, my civic utilities like roads and cops and firefighters, and my civic infrastructure, then you Render Unto Caesar What Is Caesar's and abide by the same civic rules as everybody else. Be a special snowflake on your own dime and in your own church.