A large percentage of the price of a pack of smokes is taxes already. It would be lovely to see the weight/class restrictions on SUVs and large trucks (like those F450 Duallys I keep seeing people driving around as their daily driver, they only want one car and they pull a fifth wheel) so that people had to have a commercial license to drive them. Hummer, Escalade, Excursion, etc would have this requirement, at least in most states. You wouldn't even be allowed to drive them on some residential streets, such as in San Francisco. One side benefit of this would be that people with commercial licenses get hit harder when they get a ticket...
Maybe up North or out on the West Coast, but it won't happen in the Texas or Florida. Arkansas or LA won't either. Why? Think about why people need them. My mom has always had something that can haul 4+ kids and their stuff. You must be single or without any kids. Ask your mom if she and your dad would have gone on vacation or just run around town with your siblings in a compact or subcompact car or SUV if given a choice. My wife drives a Tarus and it just barely works. The truck is large for a car, but it doesn't work for elementary school kid's backpacks or sports equipment. I'd love a sub compact car myself, but I can't afford a car. I'm riding around after my last piece of crap car stopped working and took up a paycheck looking at it but not fixing it. You seem to think that I have money to afford a sub compact car for a daily commute, a truck for the times that we need to move stuff (which happens atleast once a month), and a passager vehicle for moving a family around. I'd have to get a truck rather than a compact car just because I would lose a function that I will need some time if I go another route. You may be able to rent a vehicle for a given trip, but I can't so I'd need that piece of crap 6+ year old used truck some one else has to get rid of because that's all that I can afford. If you really want to help the environment, make selling used cars illegal in your state. Almost any new vehicle would be better than the class of vehicles that I can afford that are all used and atleast 6-7 years old.
In order to get a good pair of socks that last, you have to move up to a brand like Gold Toe that isn't sold at Wal Mart. To get this sock, you now shop at JC Penneys, Dillards, etc. Yes, you gladly pay more, because you want your socks to last more than a few months.
All my socks are from Walmart. I've had my socks for a good 5-6 years. Other than the washing machine and dryer monster; I've not had socks wear out fast from Walmart.
Raise your hand if you've ever bought a PC game from WalMart. Me neither.
Oh, I always pickup some of those "older" games in the $10 section. I can wait for the price to drop. I can't afford to pay $40-50 for games. I bet most of the games that others get me are bought from Walmart.
Lastly, don't underestimate the buying power of the low-end of the market. The Median household income for 2004 was around $44,000 with the poverty rate ringing in around 13% [source: ESRB-Income [whitehouse.gov]] You can bet those people aren't spending their money at Sak's and Banana Republic. Wal-Mart's huge margins are created by buying product at dirt prices, and selling them at rock prices to the lowest end of the market, which also happens to be a very LARGE market base in the United States. And for that market, Wal-Mart is about all they've got.
My parents, I consider some where either middle or upper middle class. We always shoped at Walmart growing up that was before supercenters to we had to get food else where. My wife and I have shopped at Walmart since college. I have no intention of shopping at places other than Walmart for most goods. The only thing that you learn not to buy from Walmart is large furniture. (Chairs are o.k. everything else try to avoid.)
Since no stink is made with video, they sell damn near everything except hardcore.
Must be an out of state Walmart. I've, yet to see an Arkansas or Texas Walmart carry anything close to porn. (A scene or too of nudity or implied sex, yes, but no softcore.) Walmart has always been my favorite company. Why? It makes all these sorry high priced local businesses go out of business. I'd much rather shop at a clean, organized, and cheap Walmart rather than some small overpriced "local" small business. I'm from Arkansas. I believe as soon as Walmart intergrates solar power and an apartment complex into their buildings they'll be ready to take over the rest of the world. Travel around Arkansas sometime, Walmart IS civilization to us! We get our gas, guns, bullets, clothes, food, & sports equipments from Walmart. For everything else, we usually have to travel 1.5-2 hours.
They can deal out the retribution outside of it. And suing people is not going to stop the teasings. It will only make them worse. No one teaches a person how to defend themselves? Are you serious? Maybe it was just my town, but pretty much every one of my friends, myself included, was taught by their parents, elder siblings, and each other how to fight and defend themselves. It could have been overtly, such as with parents, or semi-covertly, as with fighting with siblings, or somewhere in between, such as when friends wrestle or box with each other. The person learns defense from all of these.
It was just your town. Around where I grew up you'd be put in either juvenile detention or suspended or expelled for that kind of behavior. I see suing as the ideal solution. Why? Because your siblings were guilty of assault. Look it up the definition of assualt and battery. You see it as cruel that they'd be punished for the rest of their lives. I see it as justice plain and simple. I was taught never ever to use any sort of violence. Violence and your version of defending yourself doesn't work. Time and distance does. The only reason that I can stand my brothers is because I only see them a handful of times a year. I've only hit my brother once. I got punished for 3 months, and it didn't help anything. Should I have beat my brother within an inch of his life? I could have easily at the time, but I had more sense than that. The only way this kid will have a half way normal life is to change his name, move, and seriously work out or buff up for about a year or two, and become totally unrecongizable from the person in the video.
Suing people is not going to solve his problem, it will just create even worse problems for the KIDS that did that to him....
Oh, and before you say anything about me, yes, I was bullied from grade school up until the first part of high school, when I defended myself, and the bullying stopped really quick.
Dude, no one teachs a person "how to defend themselves." If you say that usually it is taken as violently kick butt on your bullies. Now a days you'd get expelled for that. In order to defend himself; he did do the right thing. When you stated that the bullies may not go to college because of the money that their parents had to pay out. I say good. That sends a loud message to others that think about doing the same sort of things.
Although I sympathize with him, I'm also sympathetic toward the point of view that he needs to get over it. EVERYONE does something foolish and embarrasing in their lives. Maybe not with the notoriety that this guy got, but you know what? His problems would be over if he would just laugh at it, too. And then film a sequel.
You don't get it. Yes, I've done something foolish and so have you. But guess what. Total strangers and people that you casaly know don't walk up to you and laugh at you because you are "that kid." I would think he should get a 1/2 to 1 million from the families of those responsible. Why? To punish and hurt those bastards families in a slightly different way. I'm sure that this kid has felt the urge to do a school shooting spree because of this. That he hasn't is more surprising than any thing.
Americans will only start caring when they lose some coastal cities.
You mean like new Orleans?
Um, you guys, New Orleans was warned by local scientists that odds were if big hurricane hit them it would be some flooding. Trust me; I could care less about New Orleans except now that city will end up being rebuilt on the same spot with Federal money rather than just giving the locals some money to relocate to other places. I'm more ticked that my taxes will go up because those New Orleans idiots didn't want to tax themselves to pay for larger dams / walls. Why not just relocate them all to one of those two countries that we've got troops at? Peace in the middle east through repopulation!
I'd say the public's morals are just about right, and it's time for the government to take notice and change its backward policies.
Hey, my morals are o.k. When we bought our home, the first thing that I did when we could afford it was replace all the lights with those compact 13 watt light bulbs. I can't really afford to do anything else. They might as well just throw down some laws that force companies to R&D into those more efficient products. The goal should be to make everything that I can buy from Wal-mart be energy efficient. If the cheapest goods out there are energy efficient, then you whouldn't have to worry about the expensive stuff.
There is no federal mandate for financing science or art or anythink of the sort, and the reason for it was so that the science and the art wouldn't be corrupted by opinion or political control.
Um, I don't about you, but I don't think that the feds should fund "any" art just on the basis that most people will disagree on what's good/bad art. And then you'll have some one through up nude art and you'll have groups try to ban that art as publically sponsored porn, which it isn't, but a debate will happen. Art should only be funded by rich guys like Bill Gates, and if he want's to fund a 10m tall statue of his wife or any random person, so be it.
There are many valid reasons that the government should sponser research. Personanlly, the last time I checked the whole global warming thing, I just came to the opinion that the entire field was just a scam that the scientists were running on the government to get more research dollars. I studied this stuff to death in highschool back in 1996. As far as I can see, we've not made any progress but some scientists have been funded for research for the past 10 years so new debate on the topic keeps popping up.
Folks just because the last 2 years has been hot doesn't mean we have global warming! You don't want to know the number of people that I've run into that "believe" in global warming apparently just because the last 2 years have been warmer than average. I complain about the heat also, but that alone doesn't mean we have global warming. It's sad that just some hot weather will get changes made. You know what's next? Global cooling! In the future, scientists will warn people to beware of white stuff falling from the sky during the winter months.
The belief that prayer has beneficial medical effects is a widlely-held hypothesis that can be tested.
I'm interested more in the respect of testing mass PSI powers rather than a diety choosing to heal or not to heal. If it were possible for 30-100 people to "pray" or think "get well person X" and that person X get better or healed wouldn't we want to be able to test it out? I'd want to know what kinds of injuries/sicknesses could be healed in that manner, and the number and type of people required to do it. I'm not if thinking about religious "prayer." I'm just thinking of testing 100 random people and determining if massed PSI healing abilites exist within humans and if so what are its limits?
My idea was more along a cut being put toward "open source" groups to fullfill an EU governmental need. I was assuming more EU universitis/highschools/ programming groups would be interested an open source group rather than US natives. My own private thought is if they ever got a good city wide utilities package that did everything from water utilites, to court courts, to police & fire reports & dispatch, then they'd have a product that almost every small & mid sized city would be "interested" in. My idea for it being "open source" was mainly as an excuse that a single private contractor/company outright own something being funded by government money. I'd think that the EU would have a little more of a footing to stand on. Now if they were giving the money to a local private contractor to write the same sort of software then that would be different.
You know although one always hears about politicans being bribed/lobbied in one way or another. I doubt that the US could do anything if the EU decides to impose a large hefty fine of several XX billions on Microsoft. I don't know if anyone here kept track of the dividing of the spoils after that tobacco lawsuit a few years ago? The US states were more than happy to take that money. If the EU basically puts down a fine of several billion or a flat ban on the sale of any MS OS in the EU, you'll see MS either shutting up and trying to pay as quietly as possible or yelling and screaming while paying the EU.
I hate to be really cruel, but if they really wanted to pound it into MS that they've been bad, they'd set up a percentage to be used funding open source government software solutions for nearly ever level of EU government. Actually, in several respects it makes sense for the EU to do that anyway just to stick to a US company and use the money to fund domestic EU programing groups.
I'd actually be shocked if MS didn't try to use the US government to get around other government's fines if at all possible. Part of me wants to say that it would be a bad idea preventing/limiting the sale of MS OS and Office apps in the EU, but then there is the other part of me that says that the EU has just as many able programmers as the US and should be able to come up with their own EU version of MS in 3-5 years. I'd also be interested if India or China developed their own OS and/or office products. Both markets should be able to support a lively local OS/Office suite.
To my mind this is very short-sighted. Perhaps it's appropriate that we have fallen back to regroup, but not going into space in a large scale is suicidal
We aren't ready to go into space yet. I for one think about the only reason that a US man walked on the moon was because of the USSR. The US government could have cared less except that they needed something that they could do better than the USSR. I think that it was a mistake spending all that money for that purpose. Telcommunications, weather monitoring, spying, yes those are good reasons, but for 2 or 3 hand fuls to make into space and walk on the moon? Um, nope not worth it. When will we be ready? You aren't going to like this answer, but when 5-10% of the industrialized nation's population can easily go into space as cheaply as crossing a major ocean; then we'll be ready for space.
But that's for people, the average person can wait 200-300 years for tech to be developed and refined so that price comes down. The only 3 things in space that I want is an orbital mine, a massive power station that transmits power down to Earth, and orbital factory. One power station could justify the entire space program. I just don't see the purpose in spending billions for a hand ful to be in space and do stuff. It is a very big waste currently. Give it 100 years, and it might not be.
I don't think that humanity will be interested in the short term next 200 years into going into space. I think that we'll have some bio revolution and either start developing custom drugs/cures for individuals, discover something that extends the average lifespan by 100-200 years, or something else that would benefit everyone Earth bound. Trust me those sorts of advances would have 100s of billions pumped into them. If the average life span of a US citizen jumped up to 500-600, I believe that we'd take a look at all those long term risks again, and maybe start researching on how to build really safe things on Earth. That'd would take up 100-200 years of our time making Earth safe so we could comfortably life here for a very long time. By that time, we just might have finally figured fusion power out or how to cheaply get alot of supplies or personnel into space. I'm thinkng thousands to millions of people and making the solar popluation/economy self sustaining as well.
Trust me... I'm shocked myself. I remember a time when we didn't have cell phones, computers with hard drives (I miss my old IBM pc jr), internet, 4-7 channel TVs, and every thing else that is happening now... And I'm only 27.
Damn, I'm 27 and now I feel old. When I first read your post I was like, I can remember dad having a cell phone for the longest time. If I remember correctly it was either a bag phone or mounted in his company vehicle. Now, my wife, mom, dad, and two brothers have one. Computers with HD drives... I remember using our Apple IIC. I think my mom still has it and it was working if I ever cared to hook it up. Internet. My first exposure to the internet was in 1995 in Highschool. I had it in college. I've had dail up on and off again since 2000. 4-7 Channel TVs. Actually this could be a trick one. TVs really should only have a video selector switch. I grew up on Cable. We moved to the boons in junior high and only had ABC 3, NBC 6, CBS 12, FOX 16, UPN 33, 2 PBS stations. In college, I had basic cable. Since college, we've been strict DVD & VHS with rabbit ears every now and then.
Although I like the idea of exploring space and all the neat things that we could do up there, I'm gald we've said forget it. I'd rather have cheap entertainment and cell phones than have "a man" walk on the moon. If I could afford $50ish a month, we'd have broadband. If I spend the same amount again, I'd have cable or direct tv. There is a reason that I don't have those things... It's lack of money.
In my opinion Alienware sells overpriced hardware that simply looks cooler because of their case mods. I think the typical Alienware buyer thinks that this makes them oh-so-much better than someone who buys a Dell, I mean they don't even come standard with neon lights. I am going to enjoy asking Alienware customers how their Dell is doing. Lets see them try and brag about a Dell computer, with a straight face.
Well, this could be good for Alienware, it's not like they will lower their prices when Dell shares some tips on how to increase their profits. It could even be good for Dell. They could get a prettier standard case.
CNS News is about as credible as Ann Coulter. It's a right-wing site with no particular attachment to truth. And there is no such thing as the "Democrat Party". That should have been your tip-off. *Very* disappointed in Slashdot editors today.
I wonder more that your post got modded insightful than the fact that a/. reader is disappointed in the editores. Come on this is/. almost every other thread has folks that are disappointed in the/. editors. Actually, this is of the exact same brand of news worthyness at most/. stories./. is sort of like getting all your news through the onion. If you believe it you, you deserve what you end up with. My honest opinion is that their should be a random and random except for current office holder on the ballots. I'd think those 2 items would truely freak out people. I could actually believe all those undecided folks would just bubble in random or you could always bubble in "random except for current" to always make sure your government officals were rotating. What would be fun with "random" on the ballot though is if a large percentage vote it and they stick to math rules, then the outcome could be different every time they do a recount.;)
I work for my local police department as their "computer guy." Well, it surprised me, but they will verbally tell our local newpaper reporters information that would be blacked out if the report is released under FOI. They have an understanding that the reporters can have access to some information, but if it winds up in print, then the entire process will cease until the case is closed. I can't believe that newspaper was quite that stupid/careless. Maybe it comes from being large enough to have multiple newspapers in the city. Our newspaper doesn't have to be quite that cut throat about releasing the information that has been gathered by their reporters. Ex. If an underage rape occurrs that's about all the newspaper is allowed to print even though they may have alot more information. Of course, they know (or should know anyway) that if they release any of the little details as news; then details that the police could use to verify that a suspect had knowledge of a crime scene would be usless if it were all printed in the newspaper. I find this newspaper more careless than anything else. I think the raid on their equipment may have been alittle much though. I didn't read the article though so I don't know what they released. Here is something for you to think about. IF a murder or rapist is let go because of something this newspaper printed, how will you react/think then?
Not to mention the fact that the world isn't even ASKING for a Photoshop replacement.
It would be amazing if MS could seriously hurt Photoshop with the simple 20%/80% rule and not to sell this separetly, but just an update on mspaint. One of the "little" features that made me like WinXP was the Picture and Fax viewer and viewing folders as thumbnaiils. Oh programs to do the same things have been around, but they'd be something that I'd have to hunt and buy a licensed copy for each machine. It's much nicer having little OS apps intergrated right in that do those things. They wouldn't even need to copy GIMP or PhotoShop. I'm thinking of MS more likely copying Paint Shop Pro and including that in Vista. Photoshop is for professionals. Paint Shop Pro is aimmed at everyone. I've not really used the MS Office Picture Manager, but they may be aiming at blending that and a PSP clone. It would be "good enough" for those that can't afford $X00 on Photoshop or the $X0 on PSP, but still need a graphics app. I'd expect professonals to still use photoshop and most power users to use PSP, but if mom buys a new low end Vista computer, she'd use this builtin MS tool that works well enough. (I'd hope.)
I don't have a laptop or PDA. I've looked into "e-book" readers and maybe the PSP for that purpose. Most of what I've found is near useless. All I really want is a device that will read lit, pdf, html, rtf, txt, pdb, and maybe office documents that either uses standard compact flash cards that you can buy anywhere for storage and can connect with to a computer with a simple USB cable. I'm willing to only pay $100-150 for that though. I don't want to shell out 300+ for a custom e-book reader that can only use a single publisher and just the files of a single DRM format. I've seen several good e-book readers, but they all wanted you to have all your content in their format. Um, no thank you. I have tons of media already in several different formats. I esp love Baen books. I've made it a point to buy almost every hard cover book of theirs with the CD in it. It's been mentioned before, but you usually get the entire series and just enough to hook you on a couple of more series on that CD. I've only bought Baen books lately. (On their CD, you ge t the same book in rtf, doc, html, and lit. I don't remember if you get it in txt though.)
... Neither was your nation able to prevent most of the damage, nor was it able to provide adequate assistance. That is the non-performance people here in Europe associate with 3rd world countries.... Personal opinion: Not only an incredible level of incompetence, but also an incredible level of arrogance.
I knew that those Europeans had some arrogance, but know they believe that the US should have weather control! O.k. I may have missed something in the news, but I believe that the EU doesn't have weather control either so reguardless of what you think we couldn't prevent most of the damage. (Actually, from all that I've read, it was both local and state level corruption and locals voting against properly funding the dams/levis around New Orleans. The City of New Orleans and the state of LA didn't want to spend their money on that. They wanted the federal government to pay it for them. Um, I'm not really sure about you, but what 3rd world countries tries to evuacate pets? (Food/farming animals I can understand, but pets?) Actually, I saw it as a non-issue after the fact and after actually doing a little bit of research. I don't feel bad for the local population of poor people because they should've spent their local tax money fixing their levi's rather on other projects. Actually, I feel bad for all the areas that have to absorb these voters that didn't vote for defensives against nature. They survived and will likely vote for that type of policy in the future as well. The only good side that I see is that they'll be such a small group and example that whereever they move to the locals may spend that little extra fixing those local natural problems. Personnally, I'd like to strangle everyone that wants to rebuild New Orleans on the same spot and restore everything, but that's just politics and room for massive corruption so there isn't really any point to it. New Orleans will be rebuilt for the pride of those locals and some weird sense of guilt that it should have been "preventable."
As previously commented, most people have no idea when the PS3 is going to come out. "Everyone" knows that the PS3 is going to be backwards comp. with PS2 though. So what's the issue here? The/. commentary seems to state that publishers are going to cut prices on PS2 games before PS3 games come out. Hmm, I doubt it. I'd say that most PS2 games will stay right at their current price point until shortly after the PS3 goes on sale. You'll see maybe a $5-10 drop on the big seller games while those that have been on the shelves and not moving will be dropped to $20-25 dollars. Alot of PS3 buyers will just pickup cheap PS2 games rather than spend $50-70 on "new" PS3 games. Backwards compatiblity is really bad for "new game" sell, but great for reselling the same stock over and over again. (That publisher that has sequel 3 that is moving well, with I don't really see a negative if they plan on just dropping prices for the PS3 release just to move stock. Trust me, the publishers aren't going to be losing money.
It's obvious that we, as a species, should ever so slightly more alcohol-resistant, because drunk driving kills a lot of young people before they can reproduce....
Humans of European ancestory are already more resistant to alchol than most mammals. Because for a long time brewing was the normal method of purifying drinking water. Cars have only been around for just over a century, where as water living pathogens have been around a lot longer.
Let's say that we don't develop self driving cars, but manage to keep human piloted planes, automotives, and ships. (Ok planes and ships are automated in their piloting.) Well, if we can keep or slowly optimize a driving standard that will last us say 1,000-2,000 years, we should slowly breed better drivers. Drunk drivers, underage accidents, driving while sleeping/y, and just poor drivers will slowly remove themselves from the gene pool. We won't see any advantages, but in 1,000-2,000 we may have humans that are generally alot better drivers "on average."
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A large percentage of the price of a pack of smokes is taxes already. It would be lovely to see the weight/class restrictions on SUVs and large trucks (like those F450 Duallys I keep seeing people driving around as their daily driver, they only want one car and they pull a fifth wheel) so that people had to have a commercial license to drive them. Hummer, Escalade, Excursion, etc would have this requirement, at least in most states. You wouldn't even be allowed to drive them on some residential streets, such as in San Francisco. One side benefit of this would be that people with commercial licenses get hit harder when they get a ticket...
Maybe up North or out on the West Coast, but it won't happen in the Texas or Florida. Arkansas or LA won't either. Why? Think about why people need them. My mom has always had something that can haul 4+ kids and their stuff. You must be single or without any kids. Ask your mom if she and your dad would have gone on vacation or just run around town with your siblings in a compact or subcompact car or SUV if given a choice. My wife drives a Tarus and it just barely works. The truck is large for a car, but it doesn't work for elementary school kid's backpacks or sports equipment. I'd love a sub compact car myself, but I can't afford a car. I'm riding around after my last piece of crap car stopped working and took up a paycheck looking at it but not fixing it. You seem to think that I have money to afford a sub compact car for a daily commute, a truck for the times that we need to move stuff (which happens atleast once a month), and a passager vehicle for moving a family around. I'd have to get a truck rather than a compact car just because I would lose a function that I will need some time if I go another route. You may be able to rent a vehicle for a given trip, but I can't so I'd need that piece of crap 6+ year old used truck some one else has to get rid of because that's all that I can afford. If you really want to help the environment, make selling used cars illegal in your state. Almost any new vehicle would be better than the class of vehicles that I can afford that are all used and atleast 6-7 years old.
In order to get a good pair of socks that last, you have to move up to a brand like Gold Toe that isn't sold at Wal Mart. To get this sock, you now shop at JC Penneys, Dillards, etc. Yes, you gladly pay more, because you want your socks to last more than a few months.
All my socks are from Walmart. I've had my socks for a good 5-6 years. Other than the washing machine and dryer monster; I've not had socks wear out fast from Walmart.
Wouldn't it be better if the gaming companies could just use Walmart as their publisher?
Raise your hand if you've ever bought a PC game from WalMart.
Me neither.
Oh, I always pickup some of those "older" games in the $10 section. I can wait for the price to drop. I can't afford to pay $40-50 for games. I bet most of the games that others get me are bought from Walmart.
Lastly, don't underestimate the buying power of the low-end of the market. The Median household income for 2004 was around $44,000 with the poverty rate ringing in around 13% [source: ESRB-Income [whitehouse.gov]] You can bet those people aren't spending their money at Sak's and Banana Republic. Wal-Mart's huge margins are created by buying product at dirt prices, and selling them at rock prices to the lowest end of the market, which also happens to be a very LARGE market base in the United States. And for that market, Wal-Mart is about all they've got.
My parents, I consider some where either middle or upper middle class. We always shoped at Walmart growing up that was before supercenters to we had to get food else where. My wife and I have shopped at Walmart since college. I have no intention of shopping at places other than Walmart for most goods. The only thing that you learn not to buy from Walmart is large furniture. (Chairs are o.k. everything else try to avoid.)
Since no stink is made with video, they sell damn near everything except hardcore.
Must be an out of state Walmart. I've, yet to see an Arkansas or Texas Walmart carry anything close to porn. (A scene or too of nudity or implied sex, yes, but no softcore.) Walmart has always been my favorite company. Why? It makes all these sorry high priced local businesses go out of business. I'd much rather shop at a clean, organized, and cheap Walmart rather than some small overpriced "local" small business. I'm from Arkansas. I believe as soon as Walmart intergrates solar power and an apartment complex into their buildings they'll be ready to take over the rest of the world. Travel around Arkansas sometime, Walmart IS civilization to us! We get our gas, guns, bullets, clothes, food, & sports equipments from Walmart. For everything else, we usually have to travel 1.5-2 hours.
They can deal out the retribution outside of it. And suing people is not going to stop the teasings. It will only make them worse. No one teaches a person how to defend themselves? Are you serious? Maybe it was just my town, but pretty much every one of my friends, myself included, was taught by their parents, elder siblings, and each other how to fight and defend themselves. It could have been overtly, such as with parents, or semi-covertly, as with fighting with siblings, or somewhere in between, such as when friends wrestle or box with each other. The person learns defense from all of these.
It was just your town. Around where I grew up you'd be put in either juvenile detention or suspended or expelled for that kind of behavior. I see suing as the ideal solution. Why? Because your siblings were guilty of assault. Look it up the definition of assualt and battery. You see it as cruel that they'd be punished for the rest of their lives. I see it as justice plain and simple. I was taught never ever to use any sort of violence. Violence and your version of defending yourself doesn't work. Time and distance does. The only reason that I can stand my brothers is because I only see them a handful of times a year. I've only hit my brother once. I got punished for 3 months, and it didn't help anything. Should I have beat my brother within an inch of his life? I could have easily at the time, but I had more sense than that. The only way this kid will have a half way normal life is to change his name, move, and seriously work out or buff up for about a year or two, and become totally unrecongizable from the person in the video.
Suing people is not going to solve his problem, it will just create even worse problems for the KIDS that did that to him. ...
Oh, and before you say anything about me, yes, I was bullied from grade school up until the first part of high school, when I defended myself, and the bullying stopped really quick.
Dude, no one teachs a person "how to defend themselves." If you say that usually it is taken as violently kick butt on your bullies. Now a days you'd get expelled for that. In order to defend himself; he did do the right thing. When you stated that the bullies may not go to college because of the money that their parents had to pay out. I say good. That sends a loud message to others that think about doing the same sort of things.
Although I sympathize with him, I'm also sympathetic toward the point of view that he needs to get over it. EVERYONE does something foolish and embarrasing in their lives. Maybe not with the notoriety that this guy got, but you know what? His problems would be over if he would just laugh at it, too. And then film a sequel.
You don't get it. Yes, I've done something foolish and so have you. But guess what. Total strangers and people that you casaly know don't walk up to you and laugh at you because you are "that kid." I would think he should get a 1/2 to 1 million from the families of those responsible. Why? To punish and hurt those bastards families in a slightly different way. I'm sure that this kid has felt the urge to do a school shooting spree because of this. That he hasn't is more surprising than any thing.
Americans will only start caring when they lose some coastal cities.
You mean like new Orleans?
Um, you guys, New Orleans was warned by local scientists that odds were if big hurricane hit them it would be some flooding. Trust me; I could care less about New Orleans except now that city will end up being rebuilt on the same spot with Federal money rather than just giving the locals some money to relocate to other places. I'm more ticked that my taxes will go up because those New Orleans idiots didn't want to tax themselves to pay for larger dams / walls. Why not just relocate them all to one of those two countries that we've got troops at? Peace in the middle east through repopulation!
I'd say the public's morals are just about right, and it's time for the government to take notice and change its backward policies.
Hey, my morals are o.k. When we bought our home, the first thing that I did when we could afford it was replace all the lights with those compact 13 watt light bulbs. I can't really afford to do anything else. They might as well just throw down some laws that force companies to R&D into those more efficient products. The goal should be to make everything that I can buy from Wal-mart be energy efficient. If the cheapest goods out there are energy efficient, then you whouldn't have to worry about the expensive stuff.
There is no federal mandate for financing science or art or anythink of the sort, and the reason for it was so that the science and the art wouldn't be corrupted by opinion or political control.
Um, I don't about you, but I don't think that the feds should fund "any" art just on the basis that most people will disagree on what's good/bad art. And then you'll have some one through up nude art and you'll have groups try to ban that art as publically sponsored porn, which it isn't, but a debate will happen. Art should only be funded by rich guys like Bill Gates, and if he want's to fund a 10m tall statue of his wife or any random person, so be it.
There are many valid reasons that the government should sponser research. Personanlly, the last time I checked the whole global warming thing, I just came to the opinion that the entire field was just a scam that the scientists were running on the government to get more research dollars. I studied this stuff to death in highschool back in 1996. As far as I can see, we've not made any progress but some scientists have been funded for research for the past 10 years so new debate on the topic keeps popping up.
Folks just because the last 2 years has been hot doesn't mean we have global warming! You don't want to know the number of people that I've run into that "believe" in global warming apparently just because the last 2 years have been warmer than average. I complain about the heat also, but that alone doesn't mean we have global warming. It's sad that just some hot weather will get changes made. You know what's next? Global cooling! In the future, scientists will warn people to beware of white stuff falling from the sky during the winter months.
The belief that prayer has beneficial medical effects is a widlely-held hypothesis that can be tested.
I'm interested more in the respect of testing mass PSI powers rather than a diety choosing to heal or not to heal. If it were possible for 30-100 people to "pray" or think "get well person X" and that person X get better or healed wouldn't we want to be able to test it out? I'd want to know what kinds of injuries/sicknesses could be healed in that manner, and the number and type of people required to do it. I'm not if thinking about religious "prayer." I'm just thinking of testing 100 random people and determining if massed PSI healing abilites exist within humans and if so what are its limits?
My idea was more along a cut being put toward "open source" groups to fullfill an EU governmental need. I was assuming more EU universitis/highschools/ programming groups would be interested an open source group rather than US natives. My own private thought is if they ever got a good city wide utilities package that did everything from water utilites, to court courts, to police & fire reports & dispatch, then they'd have a product that almost every small & mid sized city would be "interested" in. My idea for it being "open source" was mainly as an excuse that a single private contractor/company outright own something being funded by government money. I'd think that the EU would have a little more of a footing to stand on. Now if they were giving the money to a local private contractor to write the same sort of software then that would be different.
You know although one always hears about politicans being bribed/lobbied in one way or another. I doubt that the US could do anything if the EU decides to impose a large hefty fine of several XX billions on Microsoft. I don't know if anyone here kept track of the dividing of the spoils after that tobacco lawsuit a few years ago? The US states were more than happy to take that money. If the EU basically puts down a fine of several billion or a flat ban on the sale of any MS OS in the EU, you'll see MS either shutting up and trying to pay as quietly as possible or yelling and screaming while paying the EU.
I hate to be really cruel, but if they really wanted to pound it into MS that they've been bad, they'd set up a percentage to be used funding open source government software solutions for nearly ever level of EU government. Actually, in several respects it makes sense for the EU to do that anyway just to stick to a US company and use the money to fund domestic EU programing groups.
I'd actually be shocked if MS didn't try to use the US government to get around other government's fines if at all possible. Part of me wants to say that it would be a bad idea preventing/limiting the sale of MS OS and Office apps in the EU, but then there is the other part of me that says that the EU has just as many able programmers as the US and should be able to come up with their own EU version of MS in 3-5 years. I'd also be interested if India or China developed their own OS and/or office products. Both markets should be able to support a lively local OS/Office suite.
To my mind this is very short-sighted. Perhaps it's appropriate that we have fallen back to regroup, but not going into space in a large scale is suicidal
We aren't ready to go into space yet. I for one think about the only reason that a US man walked on the moon was because of the USSR. The US government could have cared less except that they needed something that they could do better than the USSR. I think that it was a mistake spending all that money for that purpose. Telcommunications, weather monitoring, spying, yes those are good reasons, but for 2 or 3 hand fuls to make into space and walk on the moon? Um, nope not worth it. When will we be ready? You aren't going to like this answer, but when 5-10% of the industrialized nation's population can easily go into space as cheaply as crossing a major ocean; then we'll be ready for space.
But that's for people, the average person can wait 200-300 years for tech to be developed and refined so that price comes down. The only 3 things in space that I want is an orbital mine, a massive power station that transmits power down to Earth, and orbital factory. One power station could justify the entire space program. I just don't see the purpose in spending billions for a hand ful to be in space and do stuff. It is a very big waste currently. Give it 100 years, and it might not be.
I don't think that humanity will be interested in the short term next 200 years into going into space. I think that we'll have some bio revolution and either start developing custom drugs/cures for individuals, discover something that extends the average lifespan by 100-200 years, or something else that would benefit everyone Earth bound. Trust me those sorts of advances would have 100s of billions pumped into them. If the average life span of a US citizen jumped up to 500-600, I believe that we'd take a look at all those long term risks again, and maybe start researching on how to build really safe things on Earth. That'd would take up 100-200 years of our time making Earth safe so we could comfortably life here for a very long time. By that time, we just might have finally figured fusion power out or how to cheaply get alot of supplies or personnel into space. I'm thinkng thousands to millions of people and making the solar popluation/economy self sustaining as well.
We have to face facts; we just aren't ready yet.
Trust me... I'm shocked myself. I remember a time when we didn't have cell phones, computers with hard drives (I miss my old IBM pc jr), internet, 4-7 channel TVs, and every thing else that is happening now... And I'm only 27.
Damn, I'm 27 and now I feel old. When I first read your post I was like, I can remember dad having a cell phone for the longest time. If I remember correctly it was either a bag phone or mounted in his company vehicle. Now, my wife, mom, dad, and two brothers have one. Computers with HD drives... I remember using our Apple IIC. I think my mom still has it and it was working if I ever cared to hook it up. Internet. My first exposure to the internet was in 1995 in Highschool. I had it in college. I've had dail up on and off again since 2000. 4-7 Channel TVs. Actually this could be a trick one. TVs really should only have a video selector switch. I grew up on Cable. We moved to the boons in junior high and only had ABC 3, NBC 6, CBS 12, FOX 16, UPN 33, 2 PBS stations. In college, I had basic cable. Since college, we've been strict DVD & VHS with rabbit ears every now and then.
Although I like the idea of exploring space and all the neat things that we could do up there, I'm gald we've said forget it. I'd rather have cheap entertainment and cell phones than have "a man" walk on the moon. If I could afford $50ish a month, we'd have broadband. If I spend the same amount again, I'd have cable or direct tv. There is a reason that I don't have those things... It's lack of money.
In my opinion Alienware sells overpriced hardware that simply looks cooler because of their case mods. I think the typical Alienware buyer thinks that this makes them oh-so-much better than someone who buys a Dell, I mean they don't even come standard with neon lights. I am going to enjoy asking Alienware customers how their Dell is doing. Lets see them try and brag about a Dell computer, with a straight face.
Well, this could be good for Alienware, it's not like they will lower their prices when Dell shares some tips on how to increase their profits. It could even be good for Dell. They could get a prettier standard case.
CNS News is about as credible as Ann Coulter. It's a right-wing site with no particular attachment to truth. And there is no such thing as the "Democrat Party". That should have been your tip-off. *Very* disappointed in Slashdot editors today.
/. reader is disappointed in the editores. Come on this is /. almost every other thread has folks that are disappointed in the /. editors. Actually, this is of the exact same brand of news worthyness at most /. stories. /. is sort of like getting all your news through the onion. If you believe it you, you deserve what you end up with. My honest opinion is that their should be a random and random except for current office holder on the ballots. I'd think those 2 items would truely freak out people. I could actually believe all those undecided folks would just bubble in random or you could always bubble in "random except for current" to always make sure your government officals were rotating. What would be fun with "random" on the ballot though is if a large percentage vote it and they stick to math rules, then the outcome could be different every time they do a recount. ;)
I wonder more that your post got modded insightful than the fact that a
I work for my local police department as their "computer guy." Well, it surprised me, but they will verbally tell our local newpaper reporters information that would be blacked out if the report is released under FOI. They have an understanding that the reporters can have access to some information, but if it winds up in print, then the entire process will cease until the case is closed. I can't believe that newspaper was quite that stupid/careless. Maybe it comes from being large enough to have multiple newspapers in the city. Our newspaper doesn't have to be quite that cut throat about releasing the information that has been gathered by their reporters. Ex. If an underage rape occurrs that's about all the newspaper is allowed to print even though they may have alot more information. Of course, they know (or should know anyway) that if they release any of the little details as news; then details that the police could use to verify that a suspect had knowledge of a crime scene would be usless if it were all printed in the newspaper. I find this newspaper more careless than anything else. I think the raid on their equipment may have been alittle much though. I didn't read the article though so I don't know what they released. Here is something for you to think about. IF a murder or rapist is let go because of something this newspaper printed, how will you react/think then?
I don't see how it has a chance otherwise...
Not to mention the fact that the world isn't even ASKING for a Photoshop replacement.
It would be amazing if MS could seriously hurt Photoshop with the simple 20%/80% rule and not to sell this separetly, but just an update on mspaint. One of the "little" features that made me like WinXP was the Picture and Fax viewer and viewing folders as thumbnaiils. Oh programs to do the same things have been around, but they'd be something that I'd have to hunt and buy a licensed copy for each machine. It's much nicer having little OS apps intergrated right in that do those things. They wouldn't even need to copy GIMP or PhotoShop. I'm thinking of MS more likely copying Paint Shop Pro and including that in Vista. Photoshop is for professionals. Paint Shop Pro is aimmed at everyone. I've not really used the MS Office Picture Manager, but they may be aiming at blending that and a PSP clone. It would be "good enough" for those that can't afford $X00 on Photoshop or the $X0 on PSP, but still need a graphics app. I'd expect professonals to still use photoshop and most power users to use PSP, but if mom buys a new low end Vista computer, she'd use this builtin MS tool that works well enough. (I'd hope.)
I don't have a laptop or PDA. I've looked into "e-book" readers and maybe the PSP for that purpose. Most of what I've found is near useless. All I really want is a device that will read lit, pdf, html, rtf, txt, pdb, and maybe office documents that either uses standard compact flash cards that you can buy anywhere for storage and can connect with to a computer with a simple USB cable. I'm willing to only pay $100-150 for that though. I don't want to shell out 300+ for a custom e-book reader that can only use a single publisher and just the files of a single DRM format. I've seen several good e-book readers, but they all wanted you to have all your content in their format. Um, no thank you. I have tons of media already in several different formats. I esp love Baen books. I've made it a point to buy almost every hard cover book of theirs with the CD in it. It's been mentioned before, but you usually get the entire series and just enough to hook you on a couple of more series on that CD. I've only bought Baen books lately. (On their CD, you ge t the same book in rtf, doc, html, and lit. I don't remember if you get it in txt though.)
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Neither was your nation able to prevent most of the damage, nor was it able to provide adequate assistance. That is the non-performance people here in Europe associate with 3rd world countries.
Personal opinion: Not only an incredible level of incompetence, but also an incredible level of arrogance.
I knew that those Europeans had some arrogance, but know they believe that the US should have weather control! O.k. I may have missed something in the news, but I believe that the EU doesn't have weather control either so reguardless of what you think we couldn't prevent most of the damage. (Actually, from all that I've read, it was both local and state level corruption and locals voting against properly funding the dams/levis around New Orleans. The City of New Orleans and the state of LA didn't want to spend their money on that. They wanted the federal government to pay it for them. Um, I'm not really sure about you, but what 3rd world countries tries to evuacate pets? (Food/farming animals I can understand, but pets?) Actually, I saw it as a non-issue after the fact and after actually doing a little bit of research. I don't feel bad for the local population of poor people because they should've spent their local tax money fixing their levi's rather on other projects. Actually, I feel bad for all the areas that have to absorb these voters that didn't vote for defensives against nature. They survived and will likely vote for that type of policy in the future as well. The only good side that I see is that they'll be such a small group and example that whereever they move to the locals may spend that little extra fixing those local natural problems. Personnally, I'd like to strangle everyone that wants to rebuild New Orleans on the same spot and restore everything, but that's just politics and room for massive corruption so there isn't really any point to it. New Orleans will be rebuilt for the pride of those locals and some weird sense of guilt that it should have been "preventable."
As previously commented, most people have no idea when the PS3 is going to come out. "Everyone" knows that the PS3 is going to be backwards comp. with PS2 though. So what's the issue here? The /. commentary seems to state that publishers are going to cut prices on PS2 games before PS3 games come out. Hmm, I doubt it. I'd say that most PS2 games will stay right at their current price point until shortly after the PS3 goes on sale. You'll see maybe a $5-10 drop on the big seller games while those that have been on the shelves and not moving will be dropped to $20-25 dollars. Alot of PS3 buyers will just pickup cheap PS2 games rather than spend $50-70 on "new" PS3 games. Backwards compatiblity is really bad for "new game" sell, but great for reselling the same stock over and over again. (That publisher that has sequel 3 that is moving well, with I don't really see a negative if they plan on just dropping prices for the PS3 release just to move stock. Trust me, the publishers aren't going to be losing money.
It's obvious that we, as a species, should ever so slightly more alcohol-resistant, because drunk driving kills a lot of young people before they can reproduce. ...
Humans of European ancestory are already more resistant to alchol than most mammals. Because for a long time brewing was the normal method of purifying drinking water. Cars have only been around for just over a century, where as water living pathogens have been around a lot longer.
Let's say that we don't develop self driving cars, but manage to keep human piloted planes, automotives, and ships. (Ok planes and ships are automated in their piloting.) Well, if we can keep or slowly optimize a driving standard that will last us say 1,000-2,000 years, we should slowly breed better drivers. Drunk drivers, underage accidents, driving while sleeping/y, and just poor drivers will slowly remove themselves from the gene pool. We won't see any advantages, but in 1,000-2,000 we may have humans that are generally alot better drivers "on average."