Good point, but you're not really meddling, per se. You're not saying, "Go to my church, heathen." It's more like saying, "Go to a church|temple|mosque|wicca circle." You can encourage your friends to vote without encouraging them to vote for someone in particular, if you take my meaning.
And besides, it's not like knocking on a door, or calling during dinner time. When the topic du jour rolls around to politics in general, just say you hope your soap-box-toting friends are going to back up their wind-baggery with a vote. I've actually used that phrasing. The friends (both of them) had a laugh, but I got my point across.
Of course, if you and your friends never actually discuss anything even remotely political, then yeah, maybe it is meddling.
Agreed. Beyond that, I'd rather have a car notice when another *car* is coming at them. We have those lovely (northbound|turn lane|southbound) lanes which have a different use depending on the time of day (0600-0900 is one way, 1600-1800 is the other, and everything in between is left turns). There are, literally, signs over the lane, about 3 per block (one is never out of sight one that is legible - based on DL sight tests I presume), stating when to use it and when to stay out of it. Yet, every single day, when I am driving home at 1630 (not even 1602 or something), there is someone about to pull in to that lane, into oncoming traffic (and don't get me started about the No Left Turn signs at the major intersections for the same time period - those go ignored all the time as well). I have my lights on, and I use my horn liberally, and still these Darwin award contenders pull in to oncoming traffic! How f*&^ing stupid can these drivers be? Even if you didn't see the signs (impossible), or can't read them (more plausible - we're close to Mexico), if you see cars coming towards you, you just don't pull in to that lane. Unless you're a lobotomized idiot or a semi-trained chimpanzee.
Skip the sign readers, let's try crash avoidance tech, or just plain better, required driver training first.
I've been asking that same question about anything Ballmer has said for the past 4 years. Someone needs to make a t-shirt with a screen shot from the monkey dance video with the above question emblazoned on the back.
This is true in a lot of cases. Take a look at almost any franchise that has to start out with a $10 specical effects budget. What do they do? Rely on better writing. As the series gains in popularity, the FX budget increases, and almost inevitably the writing suffers.
I'm thinking specifically of one of my favorite shows, Red Dwarf, but it seems to hold true for a lot of shows. Even the wonderul TNG had this problem in the first season, until someone decided that having the saucer separate wasn't an excuse for flat, recycled plots (seriously, go back to the first season). It became a useful device in the "Locutus of Borg" episodes (I forget the actual title) later in the series, but the writing for those episodes was already outstanding.
I'm not disagreeing with the recorder idea a priori. If posted speed limits are too low, then the best thing to do is lobby for higher ones, or failing that, get you and all your friends, and friend's friends to speed and fight every single ticket in court. Neither of which is cheap or feasible in many cases.
I don't, however, agree that the current rules of the road encapsulate everything required to be a socially responsible user of the road. "Keep right except to pass" seems more of a suggestion. Not all states have a "Only hands-free" clause for cell phone usage while driving, and I don't know of any that restrict careless use of the radio (which is, by far, the #1 cause of driver distraction, which in turn is a major cause of accidents). I think there may be some rules as to how many cars can be piled up behind you before it's illegal to continue to impede traffic (on two-lane highways anyway), but those don't seem to be enforced, and no one seems to care anyway. Beyond that, is it socially responsible to dogmatically maintain the speed limit when everyone around you is doing 5, 10 or 15 over? Not is it legal, which it clearly isn't, but is it socially responsible? I guess I just don't think that legal automatically means socially responsible.
Data recorders are a good way to enforce that responsibility, because one look at accident statistics will confirm, there are way to many drivers on the road that just dont understand the concept of responsibility.
Agreed. And data recorders may in fact be a good way to enforce responsibility. But not *these* recorders. There are any number of issues relating to yielding, right-of-way, and other road responsibilities that are not collected by this recorder.
The point here is that a single class of irresponsibility is being tagged, and improperly at that, since there is little or no context (which I understand airline recorders have much more of) associated with the data. If a recorder can be created which identifies irresponsible drivers of all classes, then by all means, put it in my car. But we'd have to come up with a socially acceptable definition of responsible. Changing the radio station 20 times in a minute? Talking on a cell phone? Hands anywhere but 10 and 2? Turn signals for all lane changes and turns? Left lane for passing? Ignoring the string of cars stacked up behind you? Stereo loud enough to be heard under 30 fathoms of water? What does responsible really mean?
The comparison with airline black boxes is flawed from the stance that (a) there are vastly fewer pilots than drivers, (b) pilots are far more rigorously trained and regularly vetted than drivers are, and (c) the likelyhood that the cause of an airplane crash is a pilot in another airplane is small compared to other factors.
IANA pilot, because I can't be (colorblindness - I think an FAA waiver is required, and not easy to obtain), but I am one hell of a responsible driver. But only for a given value of responsible. I speed. But I don't use my cell, my hands are almost always on the wheel, I play one CD at a reasonable volume, I use my signals religiously, if my wipers are on, my headlights are on, I keep a safe (2-3 second) distance, I am constantly aware of my surroundings, and if I'm behind you in the left lane, it's because I am going faster than you, so please yield.
The 9th circuit has always been the "rogue" circuit, making controversial decisions, and so on. As of 2 days ago (Sept. 1, 2004), *all* of the leadership posts for the 9th will be filled by women, from Justice O'Connor on down. How's that for rogue?
"Among some of the issues decided or, in one notable instance not decided, by the Supreme Court from the Ninth Circuit were: whether "under God" should remain in the Pledge of Allegiance as recited in California schools; whether the EPA needs to perform an environmental impact assessment before allowing Mexican trucks to operate in the U.S. under NAFTA; whether murderers sentenced to death by a judge, in violation of the Constitution's jury trial guarantee, can nonetheless be executed without re-sentencing; whether reasonable suspicion is needed for immigration agents to disassemble a car crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in order to search its gas tank for drugs. These are not easy issues."
Indeed they aren't. Plus, the 9th has the most cases reviewed by the Supreme Court. They're rogues alright. But they make hard decisions, and generally are in favor of keeping the government the hell out of people's business.
There are alternatives to calling for a ride. There are taxis, or shuttles, or even the wonderful ExecuCar. Some planes still have airphones, so you can call that way. Or call when you hit the tarmac, as most airlines now allow calls once you're taxiing to the gate, so out of 40 minutes, call it 5 for getting to the gate, 10 to get off the plane, sometimes upwards of 15 minutes to get the bags off, and bingo, you only have to wait 10 more minutes. Or possibly whomever is picking you up can just keep track of your flight and plan to pick you up accordingly, with the airline's website, 1-800 number, or oneofthemanyservices which will notify people of arrivals.
Not that it isn't a pita to have to wait, but I wait at least that long, or I take a taxi. The company is covering it for business, and if it's not business, then anyone who would be picking me up probably came in on the same plane as me.
In short, there are plenty of ways around a 40 minute wait that don't require a cell phone call from the air. So it's hardly a reason for me to have to suffer the droves of cell phone yappers in a cramped environment. Anyway, the only people who could possibly need to be at that level of constant contact have an entourage of people to take care of such things, or better yet, their own damn airplane. Think POTUS. People still flying a commercial airline don't need to be able to call from the air.
Oh snap! I never thought of that! Thanks! I just got Panther (yeah, late adopter), and love Expose, but couldn't come up with a good place to make it convenient. I forgot my trackball's wheel clicks (too many buttons syndrome).
Of course it would. It's the only thing keeping IE on most people's desktops. If ActiveX went away, you could use the store (or other websites) with Mozilla on a Mac, or Galeon on Linux, or, hell, maybe even Lynx on a dumb terminal! How will MS ever sell a crappy product without this kind of lock-in?
Agreed. What's worse is, if a game is still remotely popular and has an online component (Q3A for instance), when the Mac users get online, they're smacked down by all the cockmongers who have been playing for months without sleep, food or light, on the PC side. I ran my own server for a choice few Mac (fanboys|friends|owners|gamerz) for a while until we could join the larger community and hold our own.
Let's go even further, the license you have from iTMS, which the RIAA has (tacitly|explicitly) agreed to, allows you to burn a playlist X number of times (I can't check on X at the moment, but it's a single digit). So, really, Apple isn't encouraging "piracy" at all. You don't have to delete the file, you just can't make 1000 copies of a given CD. Just a few, which covers the "special someone" aspect. So. It's sharing, sort of. And all nice and legal.
Isn't the iPod the lion's share of the market? Something like 70% or so? So, doing the math, if MS corners the non-iPod market, they still won't have the lion's share. Well, unless Rio's new "iPod killer" lives up to it's hype. But you're right, it won't have the cachet. And MS won't get it to work right, they'll do what they always do: get it to work sort of good enough and blame the hardware. This time, though, MS might actually need it to work right. I suspect anything harder than plugging in the iPod might be daunting for many non-geek end users. And if they just want to listen to some music, that dog won't hunt, monsignor.
One word: MacTV. I don't think it sold well. A black iMac would be cool though. Or possibly hot. Still, it would be handy for dorm rooms where space is at a serious premium. Aside from that, there is this aftermarket item that may help.
Well, I did get an infected CD with a copy of MacAddict once. I don't recall the exact situation, or which virus it was, but MacAddict was very responsive to my concerns and posted information on avoiding it to their website, as well as sending an uninfected copy out to at least me, if not the entire subscription base (yes, yes, both of us, very funny). I think the circumstances were that they had sent the virus-checked master to replication in the very small window of time between a virus appearing in the wild, and being nerfed by the virus companies. Turned out there was a virus (or maybe it was a trojan) on the master that was so new it hadn't been caught yet. What I remember most is that MacAddict was very helpful, so I guess it's a PR win for them, but that's offtopic.
It happens rarely, but it happens. And this was a major publisher. I trust CDs I get from my friends less than that.
Moe: Oh boy, my deep fryer's here. I got it used from the Navy. You could flash-fry a buffalo in 40 seconds.
Homer: 40 seconds? Aww, but I want it now.
It seems to me that many journalists these days don't actually investigate or research anything, they just take industry or political press releases and report the spin as fact. Or am I too cynical?
I don't think you're too cynical, you're just not looking far enough. The conglomeration of media means that the same people who produce the numbers are the ones who report on it (an over-simplification, but broadly close to the current state of media). Journalistic integrity is something to strive for, but when, for instance, 20th Century Fox is paying your bills, there's a stronger motive to report what the boss wants to hear, or to be used as a mouthpiece for their agenda.
I found it to be a little hit or miss. And not engaging enough for me to program my VCR (at the time) to record it, as I did with TNG. I watched it when it was handy, and I kept track of when it was on. Voyager, I didn't keep track of, and Enterprise I am just short of keeping track of so I can avoid it entirely.
Not a reflection on the acting pools for any of these shows, as I think they've always done a good casting job, but the story lines have become re-hash after re-hash. Just have T'Pol jump the shark already.
Slashdot Mirror
The same feeling that tells the SysAdmins at the company I currently work for that I have to use Outlook/IE on a company provided system?
And besides, it's not like knocking on a door, or calling during dinner time. When the topic du jour rolls around to politics in general, just say you hope your soap-box-toting friends are going to back up their wind-baggery with a vote. I've actually used that phrasing. The friends (both of them) had a laugh, but I got my point across.
Of course, if you and your friends never actually discuss anything even remotely political, then yeah, maybe it is meddling.
Or possibly a "trek." I've also heard "snit."
This one is fun, a joxquiz.
Or perhaps we should just call ourselves "a slashdot of nerds."
Skip the sign readers, let's try crash avoidance tech, or just plain better, required driver training first.
I've been asking that same question about anything Ballmer has said for the past 4 years. Someone needs to make a t-shirt with a screen shot from the monkey dance video with the above question emblazoned on the back.
Because it's not a 3rd party DLL? Because it's a MS DLL distributed by a 3rd party? It's still MS's code. RTFA.
Hey now, let's not bring strippers down to Bush's level.
I'm thinking specifically of one of my favorite shows, Red Dwarf, but it seems to hold true for a lot of shows. Even the wonderul TNG had this problem in the first season, until someone decided that having the saucer separate wasn't an excuse for flat, recycled plots (seriously, go back to the first season). It became a useful device in the "Locutus of Borg" episodes (I forget the actual title) later in the series, but the writing for those episodes was already outstanding.
I don't, however, agree that the current rules of the road encapsulate everything required to be a socially responsible user of the road. "Keep right except to pass" seems more of a suggestion. Not all states have a "Only hands-free" clause for cell phone usage while driving, and I don't know of any that restrict careless use of the radio (which is, by far, the #1 cause of driver distraction, which in turn is a major cause of accidents). I think there may be some rules as to how many cars can be piled up behind you before it's illegal to continue to impede traffic (on two-lane highways anyway), but those don't seem to be enforced, and no one seems to care anyway. Beyond that, is it socially responsible to dogmatically maintain the speed limit when everyone around you is doing 5, 10 or 15 over? Not is it legal, which it clearly isn't, but is it socially responsible? I guess I just don't think that legal automatically means socially responsible.
And though I have some concerns that WMP 10 might still leave a bit too much on the table for competitors such as Apple, . . .
If there was a way for me to filter out anything posted concerning a Paul Thurrott "review", I would. What a piece. Mouth-piece, that is.
Agreed. And data recorders may in fact be a good way to enforce responsibility. But not *these* recorders. There are any number of issues relating to yielding, right-of-way, and other road responsibilities that are not collected by this recorder.
The point here is that a single class of irresponsibility is being tagged, and improperly at that, since there is little or no context (which I understand airline recorders have much more of) associated with the data. If a recorder can be created which identifies irresponsible drivers of all classes, then by all means, put it in my car. But we'd have to come up with a socially acceptable definition of responsible. Changing the radio station 20 times in a minute? Talking on a cell phone? Hands anywhere but 10 and 2? Turn signals for all lane changes and turns? Left lane for passing? Ignoring the string of cars stacked up behind you? Stereo loud enough to be heard under 30 fathoms of water? What does responsible really mean?
The comparison with airline black boxes is flawed from the stance that (a) there are vastly fewer pilots than drivers, (b) pilots are far more rigorously trained and regularly vetted than drivers are, and (c) the likelyhood that the cause of an airplane crash is a pilot in another airplane is small compared to other factors.
IANA pilot, because I can't be (colorblindness - I think an FAA waiver is required, and not easy to obtain), but I am one hell of a responsible driver. But only for a given value of responsible. I speed. But I don't use my cell, my hands are almost always on the wheel, I play one CD at a reasonable volume, I use my signals religiously, if my wipers are on, my headlights are on, I keep a safe (2-3 second) distance, I am constantly aware of my surroundings, and if I'm behind you in the left lane, it's because I am going faster than you, so please yield.
From the State of the Circuit speech:
- "Among some of the issues decided or, in one notable instance not decided, by the Supreme Court from the Ninth Circuit were: whether "under God" should remain in the Pledge of Allegiance as recited in California schools; whether the EPA needs to perform an environmental impact assessment before allowing Mexican trucks to operate in the U.S. under NAFTA; whether murderers sentenced to death by a judge, in violation of the Constitution's jury trial guarantee, can nonetheless be executed without re-sentencing; whether reasonable suspicion is needed for immigration agents to disassemble a car crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in order to search its gas tank for drugs. These are not easy issues."
Indeed they aren't. Plus, the 9th has the most cases reviewed by the Supreme Court. They're rogues alright. But they make hard decisions, and generally are in favor of keeping the government the hell out of people's business.Not that it isn't a pita to have to wait, but I wait at least that long, or I take a taxi. The company is covering it for business, and if it's not business, then anyone who would be picking me up probably came in on the same plane as me.
In short, there are plenty of ways around a 40 minute wait that don't require a cell phone call from the air. So it's hardly a reason for me to have to suffer the droves of cell phone yappers in a cramped environment. Anyway, the only people who could possibly need to be at that level of constant contact have an entourage of people to take care of such things, or better yet, their own damn airplane. Think POTUS. People still flying a commercial airline don't need to be able to call from the air.
Two words: was Japanese.
Oh snap! I never thought of that! Thanks! I just got Panther (yeah, late adopter), and love Expose, but couldn't come up with a good place to make it convenient. I forgot my trackball's wheel clicks (too many buttons syndrome).
Of course it would. It's the only thing keeping IE on most people's desktops. If ActiveX went away, you could use the store (or other websites) with Mozilla on a Mac, or Galeon on Linux, or, hell, maybe even Lynx on a dumb terminal! How will MS ever sell a crappy product without this kind of lock-in?
Agreed. What's worse is, if a game is still remotely popular and has an online component (Q3A for instance), when the Mac users get online, they're smacked down by all the cockmongers who have been playing for months without sleep, food or light, on the PC side. I ran my own server for a choice few Mac (fanboys|friends|owners|gamerz) for a while until we could join the larger community and hold our own.
Let's go even further, the license you have from iTMS, which the RIAA has (tacitly|explicitly) agreed to, allows you to burn a playlist X number of times (I can't check on X at the moment, but it's a single digit). So, really, Apple isn't encouraging "piracy" at all. You don't have to delete the file, you just can't make 1000 copies of a given CD. Just a few, which covers the "special someone" aspect. So. It's sharing, sort of. And all nice and legal.
Isn't the iPod the lion's share of the market? Something like 70% or so? So, doing the math, if MS corners the non-iPod market, they still won't have the lion's share. Well, unless Rio's new "iPod killer" lives up to it's hype. But you're right, it won't have the cachet. And MS won't get it to work right, they'll do what they always do: get it to work sort of good enough and blame the hardware. This time, though, MS might actually need it to work right. I suspect anything harder than plugging in the iPod might be daunting for many non-geek end users. And if they just want to listen to some music, that dog won't hunt, monsignor.
One word: MacTV. I don't think it sold well. A black iMac would be cool though. Or possibly hot. Still, it would be handy for dorm rooms where space is at a serious premium. Aside from that, there is this aftermarket item that may help.
Phew. All this computer hacking is making me thirsty. I think I'll order a Tab.
It happens rarely, but it happens. And this was a major publisher. I trust CDs I get from my friends less than that.
Moe: Oh boy, my deep fryer's here. I got it used from the Navy. You could flash-fry a buffalo in 40 seconds.
Homer: 40 seconds? Aww, but I want it now.
I don't think you're too cynical, you're just not looking far enough. The conglomeration of media means that the same people who produce the numbers are the ones who report on it (an over-simplification, but broadly close to the current state of media). Journalistic integrity is something to strive for, but when, for instance, 20th Century Fox is paying your bills, there's a stronger motive to report what the boss wants to hear, or to be used as a mouthpiece for their agenda.
Not a reflection on the acting pools for any of these shows, as I think they've always done a good casting job, but the story lines have become re-hash after re-hash. Just have T'Pol jump the shark already.