Re:You always give up a right in a contract.
on
EULA In Games
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· Score: 1
This puts me in mind of a simple remedy for this problem. Most credit cards these days offer consumer protection. Simply call your credit card company and tell them the vendor is not acting in good faith to refund your money and you are not responsible for the charges. I have used this in the past and it works quite well.
You could also find places such as Hot Topic that sell brand parodies. My favorite I've seen so far is "Pimpercrombie & Bitch." When we had a guest from Japan staying with us, I took him around and just happened to find a t-shirt that said "Fuck Sony" in Japanese. He loved it and bought some for his friends too.
This really isn't new for us, either. Several states (including Michigan, where I live) have what's called a use tax. You are obligated to pay tax on anything that is shipped to you, whether you order it from a catalog, from your friend or online. You can read all about the Michigan Use Tax in the FAQ
They are going to be doing some cutting from the story to make it fit into three feature-length films. Most of the cutting is being done in the first book, when they were mostly just wandering around anyway. The movies will not stop and pick up again at the same points that the books do. Expect all the important parts to be there, however.
Like NC as posted above, Michigan already has a use tax that applies:
Use tax on tangible personal property is similar to sales tax, but applies to purchases when Michigan sales tax is not charged. Use tax of 6 percent must be paid on the total price (including shipping and handling charges) of all taxable items brought into Michigan or purchases by mail from out-of-state retailers. It applies to purchases made in foreign countries as well as other states.
These are some suggestions to the writers of the new D&D movie to make the movie more authentic and closely follow how the game is really played. Feel free to add your own suggestions.
1. At the start of the movie, all of the characters should buy 500 feet of rope.
2. For the first half hour, all of the characters should be concerned with how much weight they are carrying, and how bulky things are. Later, they will get tired of keeping track, and start shoving everything they come across into a bag, including pole-arms and silver statues.
3. Every time one of the characters swings his weapon, he has a 5% chance of dropping his weapon or falling on his ass. Make sure the fight choreographer knows this.
4. The first scene has to open in a tavern, with all the characters sitting at a bar. Suddenly, a mysterious, well-dressed stranger walks into the room and asks if there are any adventurers looking to make a little money.
5. Speaking of money, all half-human monsters carry it.
6. Whenever the actors enter a room, they should declare loudly what order they go in.
7. If the characters fight a monster, make sure that even when the monster is severely wounded, it is not slowed or weakened in the least. To be completely accurate, it should fight effectively up until the moment it drops dead. Also, the final blow should usually cleave off the monster's head.
8. Alas! 75% of sea voyages in the movie should be cut short by pirate raids.
9. For the sake of convenience, all characters should sleep in their platemail. Also, wearing the platemail should make it easier for the character to dodge arrows.
10. The actors need to have the unusual talent of being able to count coins in excess of 10,000 instantaneously.
11. All characters will have two weeks worth of iron rations, that will last the entire length of the movie.
I really did not like this movie. If Arnold had shot himself in the opening scene he would have saved us all a lot of pain. The movie was inconsistent at best, and the it was actually contradicting itself in at least three places. Except for Gabriel, he acting was horrible (but you can expect that of Arnold). The plot seemed like someone wrote some ideas down, then wrote some lines to go with it and didn't bother to proof-read the mess. It was just too far-fetched in some places. Stigmatics in church basements? Satan can't see into a church, but can just walk in whenever he pleases? Priests performing ritual sacrifices of innocents? When was the last time you saw a church statue holding a real sword (and what saint was that supposed to be anyway)? Arnold crucified? Is he supposed to be our savior now? And why, why does satan have to do the dirty deed between 11pm and 12am on Dec 31, 1999? Save yourself the grief of seeing this movie.
NPR ran a spot on the meteor shower this morning. One thing they mentioned is that hard-core astronomers are heading to Europe and the Middle East because that is where the center of the storm will be at peak intensity. They said that best viewing will be between 9-10pm EST, and the possiblity exists for up to 1000 shooting stars per hour. The main subject was how vulerable the sattelites in orbit are going to be. Tune in your favorite NPR station today at 4pm, they should rerun the spot.
Scientific publications have had peer review since they first started. The "main-stream" media seem to have the idea that their readership is plain stupid. I think the real problem with un-informative news outlets is un-informed reporters. These days, it seems that the only important consideration is to push the piece out the door, and veracity, accuracy, and relevancy be damned. The push to be first with a scoop is overriding the idea of integrity. Whereas in the scientific community the opposite is true. I don't think my local newspapers have any plans to follow in Jane's footsteps and solicit their readers for feedback (besides, they're supposed to tell US what is right!!). It will get worse before it gets better.
You can get wide-format monitors from SGI as part of the Octane package, I believe. We installed a bunch of them at work a few months back. They are really nice, but heavy as hell, and you need the SGI graphics card to run it. We set them up to run 1600x1024 at 75Hz.
I hardly ever use cash anymore. Vending machines and laundry, mostly. I simply charge everything that I can and pay off my bill at the end of the month. I get my paycheck directly deposited so I rarely have to go to the bank. I do most of my transactions on line, or with the phone system the bank has set up. My bank account is set up to pay most of my bills electronically, including rent. The rest I pay with personal checks. If I had to estimate, I'd say that less than 15% of my money outflow involves cash. That would be percent of all outgoing money, not simply number of transactions.
This is really nothing new. The ancient Greeks did it to the babies who were defective in some way, or just because they were unwanted. They would just leave them on the side of a hill to die of exposure or to be eaten by the first predator that happened by. Do we vilify Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Hippocrates, et. al. as "soulless monsters?" The last time I checked, the answer was no. In fact, the Greeks are held in very high regard. Do we lament the loss of ancient philosophers that never were? Did you even know this about the ancient Greeks?
Re:Civil Rights in the UK
on
Dear Mr. Straw
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· Score: 1
The government doesn't need to charge you with conspiracy. They have a nifty system in place already if you don't cooperate. They just charge you with contempt of court and throw you in jail for an indefinite amount of time. It happend to one of Clinton's supporters in the Whitewater investigation. She (I forget her name) refused to turn over some documents and was in jail for a number of years.
My siblings and I could not get enough of Paradroid. I will never forget the time that my brother managed to take over the 999 Commander droid with a pipsqueak 139 Trash Collector. Truly an amazing feat.
Slashdot Mirror
This puts me in mind of a simple remedy for this problem. Most credit cards these days offer consumer protection. Simply call your credit card company and tell them the vendor is not acting in good faith to refund your money and you are not responsible for the charges. I have used this in the past and it works quite well.
You could also find places such as Hot Topic that sell brand parodies. My favorite I've seen so far is "Pimpercrombie & Bitch." When we had a guest from Japan staying with us, I took him around and just happened to find a t-shirt that said "Fuck Sony" in Japanese. He loved it and bought some for his friends too.
More info can be found on Michigans use tax page
I took my little sister rock climbing. But we did get home in time to catch the last half of the game. I guess I'm not a "real" geek either.
1. At the start of the movie, all of the characters should buy 500 feet of rope.
2. For the first half hour, all of the characters should be concerned with how much weight they are carrying, and how bulky things are. Later, they will get tired of keeping track, and start shoving everything they come across into a bag, including pole-arms and silver statues.
3. Every time one of the characters swings his weapon, he has a 5% chance of dropping his weapon or falling on his ass. Make sure the fight choreographer knows this.
4. The first scene has to open in a tavern, with all the characters sitting at a bar. Suddenly, a mysterious, well-dressed stranger walks into the room and asks if there are any adventurers looking to make a little money.
5. Speaking of money, all half-human monsters carry it.
6. Whenever the actors enter a room, they should declare loudly what order they go in.
7. If the characters fight a monster, make sure that even when the monster is severely wounded, it is not slowed or weakened in the least. To be completely accurate, it should fight effectively up until the moment it drops dead. Also, the final blow should usually cleave off the monster's head.
8. Alas! 75% of sea voyages in the movie should be cut short by pirate raids.
9. For the sake of convenience, all characters should sleep in their platemail. Also, wearing the platemail should make it easier for the character to dodge arrows.
10. The actors need to have the unusual talent of being able to count coins in excess of 10,000 instantaneously.
11. All characters will have two weeks worth of iron rations, that will last the entire length of the movie.
I really did not like this movie. If Arnold had shot himself in the opening scene he would have saved us all a lot of pain. The movie was inconsistent at best, and the it was actually contradicting itself in at least three places. Except for Gabriel, he acting was horrible (but you can expect that of Arnold). The plot seemed like someone wrote some ideas down, then wrote some lines to go with it and didn't bother to proof-read the mess. It was just too far-fetched in some places. Stigmatics in church basements? Satan can't see into a church, but can just walk in whenever he pleases? Priests performing ritual sacrifices of innocents? When was the last time you saw a church statue holding a real sword (and what saint was that supposed to be anyway)? Arnold crucified? Is he supposed to be our savior now? And why, why does satan have to do the dirty deed between 11pm and 12am on Dec 31, 1999? Save yourself the grief of seeing this movie.
NPR ran a spot on the meteor shower this morning. One thing they mentioned is that hard-core astronomers are heading to Europe and the Middle East because that is where the center of the storm will be at peak intensity. They said that best viewing will be between 9-10pm EST, and the possiblity exists for up to 1000 shooting stars per hour. The main subject was how vulerable the sattelites in orbit are going to be. Tune in your favorite NPR station today at 4pm, they should rerun the spot.
Scientific publications have had peer review since they first started. The "main-stream" media seem to have the idea that their readership is plain stupid. I think the real problem with un-informative news outlets is un-informed reporters. These days, it seems that the only important consideration is to push the piece out the door, and veracity, accuracy, and relevancy be damned. The push to be first with a scoop is overriding the idea of integrity. Whereas in the scientific community the opposite is true. I don't think my local newspapers have any plans to follow in Jane's footsteps and solicit their readers for feedback (besides, they're supposed to tell US what is right!!). It will get worse before it gets better.
I hardly ever use cash anymore. Vending machines and laundry, mostly. I simply charge everything that I can and pay off my bill at the end of the month. I get my paycheck directly deposited so I rarely have to go to the bank. I do most of my transactions on line, or with the phone system the bank has set up. My bank account is set up to pay most of my bills electronically, including rent. The rest I pay with personal checks. If I had to estimate, I'd say that less than 15% of my money outflow involves cash. That would be percent of all outgoing money, not simply number of transactions.
This is really nothing new. The ancient Greeks did it to the babies who were defective in some way, or just because they were unwanted. They would just leave them on the side of a hill to die of exposure or to be eaten by the first predator that happened by. Do we vilify Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Hippocrates, et. al. as "soulless monsters?" The last time I checked, the answer was no. In fact, the Greeks are held in very high regard. Do we lament the loss of ancient philosophers that never were? Did you even know this about the ancient Greeks?
The government doesn't need to charge you with conspiracy. They have a nifty system in place already if you don't cooperate. They just charge you with contempt of court and throw you in jail for an indefinite amount of time. It happend to one of Clinton's supporters in the Whitewater investigation. She (I forget her name) refused to turn over some documents and was in jail for a number of years.
My siblings and I could not get enough of Paradroid. I will never forget the time that my brother managed to take over the 999 Commander droid with a pipsqueak 139 Trash Collector. Truly an amazing feat.
Hate to freak you out even more, but they can already do that using infrared cameras. Your local police force probably has a few.
You can hold a copyright for 50 years, then it has to be reinstated by you, your estate, or whomever gets it after you die.