I think many of the people you speak of are thinking of ways not to get shot by their lovely dictator.
Many of those people are at risk of being shot because their "lovely dictators" are US puppets. Take Saudi Arabia, for example. The government plays nice, while the bulk of the people hate the US. Or do you think it is just a co-incidence that bin Laden, 14 of the 19 9/11 hijackers, and fat wads of terrorist cash all came out of Saudi Arabia?
Folks might not be so angry at the US if we just stopped supporting repressive tyrants?
Although I support local Democracy, if you read our Constitution you see that most local rights are overriden by Federal laws. This is one of them. Your local resolution means nothing in force, merely that you are morally disagreeing with the Feds.
You couldn't be more wrong. Such local resolutions are very powerful. They can force a national debate, ultimately ending in a change in a law or policy. US support of apartheid South Africa was changed because of local movements and laws.
These types of resolutions have a fiscal impact as well. Federal agents often rely upon local police support in enforcing these laws. By banning local police support, residents are ensured that their local tax dollars are not used in a way they find distasteful. This has the added effect of shifting the cost to the national level. If enough communities take similar action, the cost on the federal government may make enforcement impractical.
As progressives say "think global, act local."
Re:What About OSS Failures?
on
Open Source Studies
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Not only that, but I'd like to see projects that have deadlines that HAVE to be met, as opposed to your hobby code that's finished when its finished.
I'm working on a closed source project -- a vendor product with a huge amount of customized code -- that has some hard deadlines: first release for testing by mid-August; pilot by mid-September; general release by November 1. Except that we ran into problems getting the team up to speed, so we cut the scope of the project, and decided to skip the august release. And then we ran into more delay and we moved the pilot to the end of September. Then we decided to push the pilot to mid-October. Now we are skipping the pilot and going straight to general release in November.
I can hardly wait for the cries of incompetence, but I respond with the real-world: lay-offs happen. Or key people get new jobs. Or reorgs interfere. Or the business users change the scope (find me a company where business users are ignored). I have as yet to see a plan that accounts for all of these items.
I've worked in large corporations since 1993, as both a programmer and tech lead, with mature and immature development teams. Development is about negotiation. Dates and deliverables are constantly re-evaluated. If a project date can slip then it will slip. If the date is hard, then the scope is cut. In other words, closed source projects are finished when they are finished.
Does anyone else find it ironic that the certain government interest groups are currently running television ads that attempt to show what American life would be like if certain liberties were taken away?
I sure don't. Doesn't anyone around here read Geoge Orwell? Go buy a _1984_ so that you can read about the times we are living in. Of course the powers that be are going to trumpet our rights, even while they are taking them away. Can't have people thinking about what is happening. Only way to keep the proles in line...
Come on, that (last part about covering for Lay, the first part seems correct from what I'm hearing) is nonsense! If Pres. Bush was so ready to go to bat for Enron then why would he refuse help prop Enron before the whole scadal broke?
I love this argument. Gee, the Bush administration was getting phone calls from Enron and did nothing. This is something to be proud of? Using this logic, if a neighbor's house was on fire one shouldn't warn the occupants. When Bush's admin started hearing about the troubles at Enron, they should have taken action rather then ignore it all and hope that it went away.
Pres. Bush is a good and honorable person who makes his decisions based on what's morally and ethically correct, not by putting his finger to the wind; unlike our last president.
The current "President" is a sociopath getting ready to start a war in Iraq to finish the work daddy bungled while making the middle east safe for big oil. Meanwhile, he's at home, still pushing for privitization of Social Security, more tax breaks for the rich, and the rest of his hyper-conservaitve agenda. All despite the fact that most people don't support this agenda. An actual, honest to god, elected leader would pay attention to the will of the people.
I'm really tired of hearing people smear a good and decent man, I may not agree with everything he's done but he's certainly a person with integrity.
integrity: 1. Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.
Are we talking about the same George Bush who committed all sorts of acts at Harken, acts that he is now calling criminal and unethical (for others, at least)? Man, you have a much different definition of integrity then most.
In the financial services sector (where I have worked for 12 years), the average work week is easily 50 hours, with many folks getting up to 60 hours with no problem. In fact, it has gotten much worse since the dot com bust. We went through a number of rounds of layoffs, but we did not decrease the amount of work being done. My normal work day is from 8:30 - 6:30. I know some folks who work for several hours from home, in addition to the normal work hours.
Web sites with HitBox counters (used by WebSideStory to generate their stats) are small, niche, and nothing like the mainstream. I tired of these self-appointed experts dictating who uses what browser.
I did not know that Hitbox and WebSideStory were related. I find WSS so lame that I never bother to look at the site, let alone read how they compile numbers.
This matters because I have Mozilla block images and cookies from HitBox, and I'm sure that many Mozilla users do the same. I suspect that IE's numbers would take a bit of a hit if all Moz users where included in the mix.
Some thoughts from a geek who worked in HR, and has dabbled around the edges of management:
First things first: there are few rules in HR that can't be broken.
Second things second: the page you refrenced is from a professional pimp. Of course they are going to advise agasint accepting counter offers. Not only does that screw them out of their commission, but it will sour their relationship with their customer (You ain't the customer in this market; you are the product).
Third things third: I'm guessing your current employer lowered your pay because they couldn't afford to keep you at your current pay rate, but they still wanted to retain your knowledge and skills. Unless the situation at your company has radicaly improved, they most likely still can't afford you. If I was in your manager's position and you accepted the counter-offer, I would hire your replacement, have you train your repalcement, then let you go.
Of course, what the hell do I know about the specifics of your situation? My only advice to you is to ignore eventhing that I wrote above and seek advice from someone (other then your pimp) that you know and trust.
Joy. The worst thing that has happend to gaming is the internet. It used to be that companies would rarely ship a game if it was not bug free. Now, they don't care what shape the game is in, as long as it meets Marketing's street date. They just release a patch.
And to be honest, I didn't even mind when I just had to download a small file to get the game going. Now, the patches are longer, and more frequent. The worst offender that I have purchased was World War 2 On-line. The "patch" was 70 megs, and the game was still unplayable.
I'm really very sick of the whole process now. The game vendors don't seem to have much of a problem asking folks to spend $40 to enter a beta program. My solution is that I won't purchase a game until I hear seriously good word from regular folks. Pity more folks don't take the same attitude; it might increase the quality of that first release.
The real advantage of going digital that no one bothers to point out is this: Movies could be released simultaneously to every theatre in the world, without requiring a ridiculous number of prints (at $30,000 a pop). . . Too bad the studios don't appear to be smart enough to figure this out!
Actualy, the studios prefer releasing in the US before releasing world-wide. A huge opening weekend in the United States implies that the movie is very popular. The studios use this as a selling point when distributing their movies in Europe and Asia.
As soon as Lucas said he was waiting for the new three to be released before putting the originals on DVD, I said he was going to do this. What will it be called?
The creation of jobs and economic development (creating a new market hungry for Windows, X-Boxes, and Office 2004) is what Microsoft's initiative is all about.
The first one is always free. In the next few years, we will see a Slashdot story about Microsoft using the BSA to crawl up Mexico's ass. Mexico is going to be paying a lot for their Microsoft brand herion.
You are making a lot of assumptoins in your post, most of them wrong. The biggest assumption: your demographic represents most, if not all, PC and console gamers.
Alot of gamers are in college or below,
But many are not. Let's take a look at the last three generations of the 20th Century:
Baby Boomers: All the folks born between 1941 - 1960. The generation of my parents, and most likely yours.
Gen X: 1961 - 1980. My generation.
Gen Y or the Lost Generation: 1981 - 2000. Your generation?
The Boomers never really played video games, and the Ys have always had video/console/PC games. The Xers are the special case here. We played the first v/c/PC games. I remeber dropping quarters into a Pong machine. Pong for crying out loud, when $0.35 would buy you a can of coke.
By the late 70s, we had gone crazy. There were arcades everywhere you looked. I used to ditch ninth grade english to play at the arcade one block from my school. However, by the late-80s, the arcades had started to die off, because we were now playing console and PC games.
Why the history lesson? Because GenX was the first generation to grow up playing v/c/PC games. And we are still playing them. Most of my friends have their own consoles, and most of them don't have kids. We have LAN parties. Go into EBX sometime, and listen to the conversations between the 30 something guy in a suit, and the store worker. Many times, the suit is asking about the game for his own usage. Gen Y and the Boomers think that games are only for kids, but GenX - and more importantly - game makers know that GenX is a big part of the market.
and have no money. I make 6$ an hour, there is no way I would even spend 2$ a month on this subscription service.
GenXers are now 22 - 41 years old. Those of us in our late 20s, or older, have real jobs. And that means disposable income. Lots of it. Many of my friends pay more in taxes then you earn in a year. While you try to scrounge up $6 for a 12-pack of shit beer, I'm dropping $80 at a sushi bar for a single meal. All those folks collecting old arcade machines? GenXers. Look at how much Atari 2600 games - the first console for Genx - go for on eBay.
Here is the twist. Although I've gotten older, and have more cash to spend, I tend to be more selective. Sure, I've budgeted $30 - $50 a month for games, but I've also been burned enough on bad games. Now, I won't buy a game until I've read the reviews. If $20 a year is going to save me from wasting cash on a crap game, then that is money well spent.
And I am sure that 99.99% of others agree with me on that.
You are, of course, wrong. You represent a demographic that game makers could live without. You are no longer living at home, so mommy and daddy aren't subsiding your game play. You aren't out of school and gainfully employed, so you don't have any real cash to waste.
Who is gamespot marketing to? Teens, parents, and folks like me: life-longer gamers with with disposable cash. IN theory, Gamespot set their prices at a level that won't make any of these folks balk. Well soon find out if they are right.
Is that.01% of people who actually pay going to make them more money than the 100% of people that would otherwise just deal with the ads?
Ads? Gamespot is selling readers, not ads. You, who only makes $6/hour, are not the kind of reader that Gamespot wants to sell to their advertisers. If you can't afford the $20 for the sub, then you can't afford the products being advertised.
Welcome to our captialist, consumer driven society.
I think the reason why this report was drawn up is this: the existance of the B61-11 bunker buster bomb.
Essentially, is a B61 gravity-dropped nuclear bomb in the 45-50 kT yield variant that is designed to explode after it penetrates deep into the ground.
A gravity-dropped nuclear bomb? The United States has an unguided nuclear device that will dropped out of the belly of a B52 flying way the hell up in the air?
Unguided bombs have a distressing habit of missing their intended target and hitting civilian targets. While the drooling masses in the US don't seem to care what Resident Bush does, the rest of the world won't look very kindly on a nuclear fuck-up of this type.
Every few years, there are news stories in the Bay Area talking about the great new outpost for technology: Ireland, Boise, Reston, Columbus (OH), New York, Albaquerque, and now Canada. Everytime, a few companies move some business units out of the area, or maybe the whole company. And then the moving stops.
What people forget, and then soon relearn, is that the Bay Area is a very damn fine place to place your technology company, and a damn fine place to work in technology. This is an area with: a well educated populace; some of the best technology education in the world; dense population centers; a young workforce; great technology infrastructer; a critical mass of technology companies.
Sure, manufacturing, call centers, data centers, and developers, and even some companies are going to locate elsewhere. But the Bay Area a technology ghost town? I'll believe it when I see it.
You don't need a satalite to get alternative press. go to your local bookstore and browse through the periodicals; you'll find stuff from the far left, the far right and everything in between. Look for magazines and newspapers from overseas and discover what the rest of the world, particularly Europe, thnks about us.
Take a look at tax statistics: In the U.S. the top 1% of earners pay something like 30% of income taxes. The bottom 50% of earners pay something like 4%,
Give me a cite for your stats. The numbers that I'm finding show that the folks at the top pay more in taxes, because they earn more income. I'm also finding that the folks at the bottom pay a larger percentage of their gross income then the folks at the top.
and actually are tax-takers rather than tax-payers, based on the government programs they use.
The poor get more from the goverment then the rich? You really believe this, particulary with the current pro-business administration? Let me ask you a few questions:
Which is a more blatant form of welfare: A couple hundred bucks a month to a single mother; or a couple of billion bucks to a defense contractor, for an unneeded combat aircraft, all in the name of the war on terrorisim?
Who benefits more from the Fed's manipulation of interest rates: the individual worker who loses their jobs because of an increase in interest raters; or corporations that can now keep wages low because of employee fears?
Which side of the airline industry recieved more benefit from the bailout: the airlines or the laid-off employees?
Who did better under current goverment policy: Enron management or Enron employees?
In a situation where you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul's support, and if the income tax situation is any reflection, Paul's being heard loud and clear.
If access to the geoverment is an reflection, then I'd say that Peter is running the damn show.
Personally, I'd like to make property ownership a requirement for voting. Or institute a poll tax.
Oh, that's brilliant. These are steps that will do nothing more then increase the influncence of the rich, while marginalizing the poor and middle classes even more. Your path leads to revolution.
Any change in the voting system has to be designed to increase participation for everyone. Rather then focusing ways that make it easier for the well off to vote (like internet voting), we should be focusing on ways that increase voter participation at all levels.
I'm sick and tired of being shafted by the Imperial Federal Government so the leisure class at the bottom of the food chain can be provided with sustenance.
Sustenance? You would begrudge enough food for survivial to those who need it? I, for one, am sick of being shafted by the Goverment so that the real leisure class at the top can buy another vacation home (or a fourth vacation home in the case of GW Bush's friend Ken Lay).
News flash: The US is The Empire on this planet. There is no single nation that can stand up to the economic or military might of this nation. As demonstrated over the past decade, the US can impose its will upon any point on this planet. Sadly, the will of this nation is not that of a democracy concerned with human rights, but rather that of a plutocarcy trying to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the rest of the world.
However, this power is not enough to control every single person on the planet. Individual goverments may give in, but the peoples of those nations don't. As the citizens see their lives destroyed, they become desperate and will take steps that they feel will end the tyrany. They will march, and rally, and riot in the streets. And if they are even willing to give their lives.
I take it a step further: if I am unable to access a site with Mozilla, I will send a quick email to the site owner letting them know that I couldn't access their site, and thus unable to do business with them. Sure, I may have to fire up IE long enough to get an address, but they don't need to know that..
But seriously, what do you feel about nudity in ST movies? Does it belong there? Or does it make the movie anti-ST and/or lower the quality?
Hmmm... If Berman and Braga could find a way to slip in nudity, the would do so. Those two are marketing to 13 year old boys. The last two series have contained women who paint their costums on. And, let's not forget the post-recon/pre-coital love goop smeared all over T'Pol.
plot writeups and ratings by leonard maltin, quoted from IMDB.
More proof that Maltin's reviews are worthless. My ranking of the Star Trek movies:
ST2:TWoK
ST4:TVH
ST8:FC
ST1:TMP
ST3:TSFS
ST6:UC
ST9:I
ST7:G
ST5:TFF
My TOS bias really comes out here, although I found FC to be a very entertaining film. It was the most accessable of the TNG based films for non-TNG fans.
Generations was a rotten TV episode translated to the big screen. The plot was weak, the script was worse (coudln't they rewrite the opening scene after Nimoy and Kelly took a pass on this piece of shit), assumed the audience had seen every episode of TNG (who were the Klingon chicks with the tits?), and killed Kirk off in a rather lame manner. I had no problem with the man dying, but he desrved better.
I would have ranked Generations dead last, but
Shatner did his best to do his worst.
Slashdot Mirror
I think many of the people you speak of are thinking of ways not to get shot by their lovely dictator.
Many of those people are at risk of being shot because their "lovely dictators" are US puppets. Take Saudi Arabia, for example. The government plays nice, while the bulk of the people hate the US. Or do you think it is just a co-incidence that bin Laden, 14 of the 19 9/11 hijackers, and fat wads of terrorist cash all came out of Saudi Arabia?
Folks might not be so angry at the US if we just stopped supporting repressive tyrants?
Although I support local Democracy, if you read our Constitution you see that most local rights are overriden by Federal laws. This is one of them. Your local resolution means nothing in force, merely that you are morally disagreeing with the Feds.
You couldn't be more wrong. Such local resolutions are very powerful. They can force a national debate, ultimately ending in a change in a law or policy. US support of apartheid South Africa was changed because of local movements and laws.
These types of resolutions have a fiscal impact as well. Federal agents often rely upon local police support in enforcing these laws. By banning local police support, residents are ensured that their local tax dollars are not used in a way they find distasteful. This has the added effect of shifting the cost to the national level. If enough communities take similar action, the cost on the federal government may make enforcement impractical.
As progressives say "think global, act local."
Not only that, but I'd like to see projects that have deadlines that HAVE to be met, as opposed to your hobby code that's finished when its finished.
I'm working on a closed source project -- a vendor product with a huge amount of customized code -- that has some hard deadlines: first release for testing by mid-August; pilot by mid-September; general release by November 1. Except that we ran into problems getting the team up to speed, so we cut the scope of the project, and decided to skip the august release. And then we ran into more delay and we moved the pilot to the end of September. Then we decided to push the pilot to mid-October. Now we are skipping the pilot and going straight to general release in November.
I can hardly wait for the cries of incompetence, but I respond with the real-world: lay-offs happen. Or key people get new jobs. Or reorgs interfere. Or the business users change the scope (find me a company where business users are ignored). I have as yet to see a plan that accounts for all of these items.
I've worked in large corporations since 1993, as both a programmer and tech lead, with mature and immature development teams. Development is about negotiation. Dates and deliverables are constantly re-evaluated. If a project date can slip then it will slip. If the date is hard, then the scope is cut. In other words, closed source projects are finished when they are finished.
Does anyone else find it ironic that the certain government interest groups are currently running television ads that attempt to show what American life would be like if certain liberties were taken away?
I sure don't. Doesn't anyone around here read Geoge Orwell? Go buy a _1984_ so that you can read about the times we are living in. Of course the powers that be are going to trumpet our rights, even while they are taking them away. Can't have people thinking about what is happening. Only way to keep the proles in line...
Come on, that (last part about covering for Lay, the first part seems correct from what I'm hearing) is nonsense! If Pres. Bush was so ready to go to bat for Enron then why would he refuse help prop Enron before the whole scadal broke?
I love this argument. Gee, the Bush administration was getting phone calls from Enron and did nothing. This is something to be proud of? Using this logic, if a neighbor's house was on fire one shouldn't warn the occupants. When Bush's admin started hearing about the troubles at Enron, they should have taken action rather then ignore it all and hope that it went away.
Pres. Bush is a good and honorable person who makes his decisions based on what's morally and ethically correct, not by putting his finger to the wind; unlike our last president.
The current "President" is a sociopath getting ready to start a war in Iraq to finish the work daddy bungled while making the middle east safe for big oil. Meanwhile, he's at home, still pushing for privitization of Social Security, more tax breaks for the rich, and the rest of his hyper-conservaitve agenda. All despite the fact that most people don't support this agenda. An actual, honest to god, elected leader would pay attention to the will of the people.
I'm really tired of hearing people smear a good and decent man, I may not agree with everything he's done but he's certainly a person with integrity.
integrity: 1. Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.
Are we talking about the same George Bush who committed all sorts of acts at Harken, acts that he is now calling criminal and unethical (for others, at least)? Man, you have a much different definition of integrity then most.
In the financial services sector (where I have worked for 12 years), the average work week is easily 50 hours, with many folks getting up to 60 hours with no problem. In fact, it has gotten much worse since the dot com bust. We went through a number of rounds of layoffs, but we did not decrease the amount of work being done. My normal work day is from 8:30 - 6:30. I know some folks who work for several hours from home, in addition to the normal work hours.
Web sites with HitBox counters (used by WebSideStory to generate their stats) are small, niche, and nothing like the mainstream. I tired of these self-appointed experts dictating who uses what browser.
I did not know that Hitbox and WebSideStory were related. I find WSS so lame that I never bother to look at the site, let alone read how they compile numbers.
This matters because I have Mozilla block images and cookies from HitBox, and I'm sure that many Mozilla users do the same. I suspect that IE's numbers would take a bit of a hit if all Moz users where included in the mix.
eric
eric
Some thoughts from a geek who worked in HR, and has dabbled around the edges of management:
First things first: there are few rules in HR that can't be broken.
Second things second: the page you refrenced is from a professional pimp. Of course they are going to advise agasint accepting counter offers. Not only does that screw them out of their commission, but it will sour their relationship with their customer (You ain't the customer in this market; you are the product).
Third things third: I'm guessing your current employer lowered your pay because they couldn't afford to keep you at your current pay rate, but they still wanted to retain your knowledge and skills. Unless the situation at your company has radicaly improved, they most likely still can't afford you. If I was in your manager's position and you accepted the counter-offer, I would hire your replacement, have you train your repalcement, then let you go.
Of course, what the hell do I know about the specifics of your situation? My only advice to you is to ignore eventhing that I wrote above and seek advice from someone (other then your pimp) that you know and trust.
Joy. The worst thing that has happend to gaming is the internet. It used to be that companies would rarely ship a game if it was not bug free. Now, they don't care what shape the game is in, as long as it meets Marketing's street date. They just release a patch.
And to be honest, I didn't even mind when I just had to download a small file to get the game going. Now, the patches are longer, and more frequent. The worst offender that I have purchased was World War 2 On-line. The "patch" was 70 megs, and the game was still unplayable.
I'm really very sick of the whole process now. The game vendors don't seem to have much of a problem asking folks to spend $40 to enter a beta program. My solution is that I won't purchase a game until I hear seriously good word from regular folks. Pity more folks don't take the same attitude; it might increase the quality of that first release.
eric
The real advantage of going digital that no one bothers to point out is this: Movies could be released simultaneously to every theatre in the world, without requiring a ridiculous number of prints (at $30,000 a pop). . . Too bad the studios don't appear to be smart enough to figure this out!
Actualy, the studios prefer releasing in the US before releasing world-wide. A huge opening weekend in the United States implies that the movie is very popular. The studios use this as a selling point when distributing their movies in Europe and Asia.
eric
As soon as Lucas said he was waiting for the new three to be released before putting the originals on DVD, I said he was going to do this. What will it be called?
Shit.
IANASW( I am not a script writer)
Based on Episode 1 and 2, neither is George Lucas.
The creation of jobs and economic development (creating a new market hungry for Windows, X-Boxes, and Office 2004) is what Microsoft's initiative is all about.
The first one is always free. In the next few years, we will see a Slashdot story about Microsoft using the BSA to crawl up Mexico's ass. Mexico is going to be paying a lot for their Microsoft brand herion.
Alot of gamers are in college or below,
But many are not. Let's take a look at the last three generations of the 20th Century:
The Boomers never really played video games, and the Ys have always had video/console/PC games. The Xers are the special case here. We played the first v/c/PC games. I remeber dropping quarters into a Pong machine. Pong for crying out loud, when $0.35 would buy you a can of coke.
By the late 70s, we had gone crazy. There were arcades everywhere you looked. I used to ditch ninth grade english to play at the arcade one block from my school. However, by the late-80s, the arcades had started to die off, because we were now playing console and PC games.
Why the history lesson? Because GenX was the first generation to grow up playing v/c/PC games. And we are still playing them. Most of my friends have their own consoles, and most of them don't have kids. We have LAN parties. Go into EBX sometime, and listen to the conversations between the 30 something guy in a suit, and the store worker. Many times, the suit is asking about the game for his own usage. Gen Y and the Boomers think that games are only for kids, but GenX - and more importantly - game makers know that GenX is a big part of the market.
and have no money. I make 6$ an hour, there is no way I would even spend 2$ a month on this subscription service.
GenXers are now 22 - 41 years old. Those of us in our late 20s, or older, have real jobs. And that means disposable income. Lots of it. Many of my friends pay more in taxes then you earn in a year. While you try to scrounge up $6 for a 12-pack of shit beer, I'm dropping $80 at a sushi bar for a single meal. All those folks collecting old arcade machines? GenXers. Look at how much Atari 2600 games - the first console for Genx - go for on eBay.
Here is the twist. Although I've gotten older, and have more cash to spend, I tend to be more selective. Sure, I've budgeted $30 - $50 a month for games, but I've also been burned enough on bad games. Now, I won't buy a game until I've read the reviews. If $20 a year is going to save me from wasting cash on a crap game, then that is money well spent.
And I am sure that 99.99% of others agree with me on that.
You are, of course, wrong. You represent a demographic that game makers could live without. You are no longer living at home, so mommy and daddy aren't subsiding your game play. You aren't out of school and gainfully employed, so you don't have any real cash to waste.
Who is gamespot marketing to? Teens, parents, and folks like me: life-longer gamers with with disposable cash. IN theory, Gamespot set their prices at a level that won't make any of these folks balk. Well soon find out if they are right.
Is that
Ads? Gamespot is selling readers, not ads. You, who only makes $6/hour, are not the kind of reader that Gamespot wants to sell to their advertisers. If you can't afford the $20 for the sub, then you can't afford the products being advertised.
Welcome to our captialist, consumer driven society.
We're good, decent people most of the time.
We may be good, decent people most of the time but are leaders are acting like homicidal maniacs.
I think the reason why this report was drawn up is this: the existance of the B61-11 bunker buster bomb.
Essentially, is a B61 gravity-dropped nuclear bomb in the 45-50 kT yield variant that is designed to explode after it penetrates deep into the ground.
A gravity-dropped nuclear bomb? The United States has an unguided nuclear device that will dropped out of the belly of a B52 flying way the hell up in the air?
Unguided bombs have a distressing habit of missing their intended target and hitting civilian targets. While the drooling masses in the US don't seem to care what Resident Bush does, the rest of the world won't look very kindly on a nuclear fuck-up of this type.
Every few years, there are news stories in the Bay Area talking about the great new outpost for technology: Ireland, Boise, Reston, Columbus (OH), New York, Albaquerque, and now Canada. Everytime, a few companies move some business units out of the area, or maybe the whole company. And then the moving stops.
What people forget, and then soon relearn, is that the Bay Area is a very damn fine place to place your technology company, and a damn fine place to work in technology. This is an area with: a well educated populace; some of the best technology education in the world; dense population centers; a young workforce; great technology infrastructer; a critical mass of technology companies.
Sure, manufacturing, call centers, data centers, and developers, and even some companies are going to locate elsewhere. But the Bay Area a technology ghost town? I'll believe it when I see it.
You don't need a satalite to get alternative press. go to your local bookstore and browse through the periodicals; you'll find stuff from the far left, the far right and everything in between. Look for magazines and newspapers from overseas and discover what the rest of the world, particularly Europe, thnks about us.
Want to stay on your computer? Try this:
http://www.commondreams.org
Acutaly, the word you are looking for is plutocracy.
No, it was V.I. Lenin. And he said:
"When the time comes to hang the last capitalist, he'll sell us the rope,"
Give me a cite for your stats. The numbers that I'm finding show that the folks at the top pay more in taxes, because they earn more income. I'm also finding that the folks at the bottom pay a larger percentage of their gross income then the folks at the top.
and actually are tax-takers rather than tax-payers, based on the government programs they use.
The poor get more from the goverment then the rich? You really believe this, particulary with the current pro-business administration? Let me ask you a few questions:
In a situation where you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul's support, and if the income tax situation is any reflection, Paul's being heard loud and clear.
If access to the geoverment is an reflection, then I'd say that Peter is running the damn show.
Personally, I'd like to make property ownership a requirement for voting. Or institute a poll tax.
Oh, that's brilliant. These are steps that will do nothing more then increase the influncence of the rich, while marginalizing the poor and middle classes even more. Your path leads to revolution.
Any change in the voting system has to be designed to increase participation for everyone. Rather then focusing ways that make it easier for the well off to vote (like internet voting), we should be focusing on ways that increase voter participation at all levels.
I'm sick and tired of being shafted by the Imperial Federal Government so the leisure class at the bottom of the food chain can be provided with sustenance.
Sustenance? You would begrudge enough food for survivial to those who need it? I, for one, am sick of being shafted by the Goverment so that the real leisure class at the top can buy another vacation home (or a fourth vacation home in the case of GW Bush's friend Ken Lay).
News flash: The US is The Empire on this planet. There is no single nation that can stand up to the economic or military might of this nation. As demonstrated over the past decade, the US can impose its will upon any point on this planet. Sadly, the will of this nation is not that of a democracy concerned with human rights, but rather that of a plutocarcy trying to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the rest of the world.
However, this power is not enough to control every single person on the planet. Individual goverments may give in, but the peoples of those nations don't. As the citizens see their lives destroyed, they become desperate and will take steps that they feel will end the tyrany. They will march, and rally, and riot in the streets. And if they are even willing to give their lives.
eric
I take it a step further: if I am unable to access a site with Mozilla, I will send a quick email to the site owner letting them know that I couldn't access their site, and thus unable to do business with them. Sure, I may have to fire up IE long enough to get an address, but they don't need to know that..
eric
But seriously, what do you feel about nudity in ST movies? Does it belong there? Or does it make the movie anti-ST and/or lower the quality?
Hmmm... If Berman and Braga could find a way to slip in nudity, the would do so. Those two are marketing to 13 year old boys. The last two series have contained women who paint their costums on. And, let's not forget the post-recon/pre-coital love goop smeared all over T'Pol.
eric
More proof that Maltin's reviews are worthless. My ranking of the Star Trek movies:
My TOS bias really comes out here, although I found FC to be a very entertaining film. It was the most accessable of the TNG based films for non-TNG fans.
Generations was a rotten TV episode translated to the big screen. The plot was weak, the script was worse (coudln't they rewrite the opening scene after Nimoy and Kelly took a pass on this piece of shit), assumed the audience had seen every episode of TNG (who were the Klingon chicks with the tits?), and killed Kirk off in a rather lame manner. I had no problem with the man dying, but he desrved better.
I would have ranked Generations dead last, but
Shatner did his best to do his worst.
eric