...but when you're dealing with a situation that will begin and end in the course of a single second, that extra few moments of lost attention can make all the difference.
Add to this the fact that if you're talking--either on the phone or to another person in the car--you're not going to be as aware of your surroundings as you would be were you focusing that extra attention on the road. You may or may not be aware that there's another car just entering your blind spot in the direction you're about to swerve. Talking could even make the difference between seeing an accident coming a second sooner than you otherwise would have.
Every last ounce of concentration helps when you're driving. That's why DUI levels are set so low; while you may be able to walk around, open doors, talk to people, and turn the key in your car without any real trouble with a BAC of 0.05, that extra few tenths of a second it takes you to react makes driving much, much more dangerous.
Driving is a fundamentally dangerous activity for the driver and those around him--it's easily the most dangerous part of your typical American's daily routine. Even a cheap-ass Geo Metro is capable of instantly rendering a human body unrecognizable as such. Every slightest bit of extra attention you can give the road helps.
You're responsible for everything you do behind the wheel. We can't just outlaw everything that could possibly be a distraction while driving. If you smash into someone because you were talking on a cell phone, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE and will be punished accordingly. If you smash into someone because you were eating a burrito, it's the same thing. Can't outlaw burritos (yet).
By this logic, why require people to have driver's licenses? After all, if they're not qualified to operate a motor vehicle, then they're clearly going to be held for the consequences of their actions when they plow headlong into oncoming traffic, right?
The difficulty with this reasoning is that your actions can have direct and easily fatal consequences for the fifty-odd people sharing the freeway with you at any given moment. Yes, we can't outlaw everything because it might be a distraction to driving, but we can isolate things that tend to cause a person to drive significantly worse than they otherwise would--like DUI, cell phones, and dash-mounted television sets.
To point at the culprit and say "HE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS ACTIONS" provides little consolation to the family of the guy he just killed in a wreck. There's nothing wrong with taking preventative action to minimize the risk of traffic accidents.
Talking to a passenger isn't as distracting as talking on the cellphone, but it is certainly more distracting than not talking to anybody.
A passenger is aware of the traffic situation. If you suddenly stop talking to a passenger, they'll look and see it is because a bunch of brake lights just came on up ahead, you need to pay attention to traffic, and the passenger should just sit quietly until it's smooth sailing again.
In a cell phone conversation, the person you're talking to has no awareness of what traffic conditions are like. You, the driver, could suddenly need to jam the brakes and swerve to avoid somebody drifting into your lane--and the person on the phone would just keep on chirping away about how "so anyway, then I said that there's no way my card is overdrawn because you paid those bills, right, and so..."
It may not command all of your attention, but in an emergency traffic situation, every slightest bit of attention that gets pulled away from the road can make the difference. A cell phone conversation can make the difference between missing that other guy's bumper by inches and getting clipped into an uncontrolled spin at 60 miles per hour.
However, this brings up some of the hypocrisy: if we had trouble finding the WMD (for example, it is KNOWN that 720 *tons* of Sarin alone is unaccounted for), it was because we didn't have enough manpower. But we're supposed to be pulling troops out? So which is it, fundamentally? More, or less?
At root:
I'd have preferred we hadn't embarked on a voluntary invasion of Iraq. For all the places in this world we could have engaged in a military intervention--whether for national security, counter-terrorism activities, economic interest, or spreading democratic ideals--I could have thought of any number of nations that needed (and continue to need) more urgent attention than Iraq.
That said, I'd have much prefered we'd have gone in with overwhelming force. I'm a strong believer in the Powell Doctrine, and I think that we'd be in a whole lot better shape had the DoD listened to Shinseki instead of ridiculing him and swinging the door into his ass on his way out. Had we gone in with a significantly stronger force initially, we would likely not be facing the security problems we have today, and we'd be in a much better position to be bringing our troops home. The vast majority of Iraqis want democracy--but they need security and basic services before they'll thank us for a job well done. At this point, I honestly don't know what kind of troop level would be most useful, though. We've got an insurgency that is tens of thousands strong, and as much as I'd like to believe otherwise, it isn't terribly likely that elections will break their resolve.
We're past fixing this with changes in troop levels. The real hope lies in the hands of the Iraqis now, and the situation we've handed them is a lot more difficult than it could have been.
Yes. However: I don't defend it. I don't condone it. But I realize that is the nature of a wartime situation.
...but we've been in wartime situations before, and we've always taken great pains to distance ourselves as much as possible from the demons of torture and cruelty. Of course we've had events in the past, but this is the first time our leadership has actively sought to position our national policy as "not quite torture". It is clear from Gonzales' confirmation hearings (and Bush's continued strong support for his AG appointee) that the administration is very interested in the distinction between "torture" and "cruel, inhumane and degrading, but not technically torture". We've seen tortured legal arguments surrounding Gitmo--technically, it isn't U.S. soil, and technically these people aren't POWs, so technically the Geneva Conventions don't apply.
This is the first time in our nation's history that our leaders have openly and actively probed just how badly they can treat detainees without crossing the line to torture. Dammit, this is not what our nation stands for. I don't care one whit whether or not the powers that be believe that waterboarding qualifies as torture. That we're even engaging in anything less than complete, humane, and dignified treatment for our prisoners chills my blood. We cannnot be a beacon to the world so long as we continue to legitimize behavior such as what we've seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and elsewhere. This is simply not even a negotiable point; the president should have--and could have--ended this mess years ago, well before the atrocities of Abu Ghraib.
When the world community immediately balked (incorrectly mind you, since the UN was not only authorized, but indeed, by the UN charter, COMPELLED to act, with force if necessary for the dozens of times Iraq was in verified, material breach of binding Security Council resolutions), we made plans for a coalition of the willing.
I agree that there was a lot of overreaction from the liberal camp, and I'm willing to admit that I was guilty of a my share. There were times I simply didn't listen; I've since reflected on this and real
Heh. Powerful opening, that. "Go ahead and mod me down for saying this, but..."
You say want an honest debate, and yet you go out of your way to insult, belittle and demean those you wish to engage in debate. Fair enough.
Let's debate. We invaded Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction and were poised to use them against the United States. We never found these weapons, and we've given up the search.
Now, let's be honest. Which of the following two scenarios strikes you as most plausible?
The WMDs--the hundreds upon hundreds of tons of which we swore were there in Iraq, the WMDs for which the administration said they had concrete physical evidence of their existence, the WMDs that the Secretary of State told the world existed without question--were actually never there. The sole reason for this failure was that our intelligence operations were so fatally flawed that they couldn't even tell their asses from holes in the ground, and our best military and covert intelligence operatives have spent the past decade running around sloshing their dribble cups all over the floor.
The weapons were there, the best damn intel agents in the world weren't total fucking lobotomy cases, but we failed to secure them due to a lack of manpower on the ground. It took us weeks to get to some sites, only to find 'em gutted and crawling with looters, for crying out loud. Hence, several hundred tons of military-grade neurotoxins, radiological material, high-grade explosives and god-knows-what-else are floating loose on the black market or are in terrorist hands because we failed to fulfill the primary mission of our invasion.
On Abu Ghraib: so you're saying that because, in your opinion, we probably commited thousands of acts of sodomy, rape, beating, near-drowning and 'accidental' homocide on prisoners of war back in World War II that it really isn't a big deal for us to continue to sodomize, rape, beat, near-drown and 'accidentally' kill prisoners of war today. Is this correct?
Finally, a couple questions for you. What are the three biggest mistakes you believe the administration has made, and what have they done to rectify these mistakes? Conversely, what are the three things you think the administration has done the best?
Now there's a nifty little way to do one's scrolling with the trackpad--use one finger, it's a pointing device; two, and it behaves like a scroll wheel. If it works as advertised, it'll be a far cry better than the "scroll zone" trackpad hacks out there today...
These guys aren't exactly archivists, and seeing as their site just got dropped on Slashdot, well, can you blame them for cutting out 75% of the frame?
This site is there for the authors' amusement, not to preserve the history of the human race. Give 'em a break.
Start small, and don't arrange the furniture before you've built the house.
Push all the "great ideas" to the back of your head, for now. They'll only get in the way at this point. Lay out a very basic game design and write it down. Do this both in plain English and in pseudocode. Resist the temptation to dive into feature details; don't go on about how different guns will do different things, and how there will be ten different types of enemies, or how you want the explosions to be green and shimmery. For now, make it simple: one guy, one gun, one type of enemy, one behavior. Note that this doesn't mean you shouldn't design for such expansion, though--be thinking about how to go about building your code to allow all sorts of things down the road, just don't get mired down in the minutae.
Build a basic, working prototype. Get input working; get drawing working; get audio working; get physics working; get collisions working; get interaction working; get menus and user interface working. Use placeholder graphics and sounds for now. Once you've made a good, solid, stable engine, then start working on graphics, audio, backgrounds, et. cetera. A good way to tell if you've reached this point is if you can play your ugly, bare-bones game and enjoy it. If you don't enjoy the game without the flashy stuff, adding finished content will just be like putting lipstick on a pig.
Finally, stick to 2D. You'll learn more about the "game" part of making games if you don't need to wade through all the extra crap you need to know to work in 3D. (It is also much faster and easier to create 2D content than it is to create 3D content, but again--that comes after you've got a solid engine in place...)
Our penitentiaries are punitive institutions where those who have committed crimes against society are sent to pay for their actions.
Whatever happened to rehabilitation? When did we become a nation that values vindication over elevation?
Video games could be used as a reward--stay on good behavior, complete a VoTech course, get gaming privs. They could be a useful tool; they're something an inmate desires, so make it something they strive to get.
But no. First things first: punish the criminal. After all, if we give 'em reasons to be happy or comfortable, they won't be suffering for their crimes--and that's what matters. Make 'em pay.
Heck, why not just turn all 5+ year prison terms into life sentences? All a long prison sentence does for most people these days is make 'em even worse than they were when they went in. It's not like our "tough on crime" policies are designed to make them better people while they're on the inside...
If you want to be a dull dumb boy and just BUY everything in this world, do it, become a robot consumer slave where in your view, NO ONE should have any skills apart from the job you do and be 100% a clueless idiot for anything else.
I'll assume that you not only made the shirt on your back, but you also planted, cultivated, picked, ginned, spun and wove the cotton fabric, too.
Or are you one of those dull dumb boys who can't even be bothered to make his own clothing?
You're deliberately avoiding my main argument--that there's no good evidence supporting the implementation of private accounts, which has been the centerpiece of Bush's proposals thus far. To the contrary--there's plenty of evidence aginst. Look at Argentina; look at the UK.
Raising the retirement age is certainly a sensible way to help ease the burden on Social Security, as is reducing benefits. What is not a sensible option is to shunt trillions of dollars out of the system to pay for the implementation and ongoing maintenance of private accounts. The only real winners with private accounts will be the firms who manage these accounts. Joe Proletariat won't see any appreciable improvement in his Social Security benefits--if the plans we're hearing about are what gets put into action, he'll only be able to shuffle his money between a handful of tame, stable, SS-approved funds; it's not like he's going to be playing the market or raking in big bucks. Over the decades, trillions of dollars in taxpayer money will become corporate profit for a small handful of lucky management institutions.
Wait a minute, you just said it was fine!
I did? Where? Kindly quote the passage where I say that Social Security is fine.
I like to think I made my point perfectly clear. Social Security does need maintenance and attention, much like it has throughout its entire history as a program. There are problems that need to be addressed. That said, it's utterly asinine to suggest that there is a looming crisis of epic proportions; that's pure politcal hyperbole. It's designed to get people scared, so that the administration can force through ill-concieved changes that don't stand up under careful scrutiny. Ain't nothing like a sense of dire urgency to get people to line up behind you. Just like what happened in the run up to the war in Iraq. As you'll recall, we went to war because we faced an immediate and imminent threat from Saddam Hussein, and that if we waited for a smoking gun, it could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. Now, we're going to war with a system that is "headed for a train wreck"--only it isn't, really. That's just to get us riled up.
...you don't qualify as a "frustrated, non-tech" user. You clearly know what you're doing; the broad range of show-stoppers that non-techies encounter are but annoyances to you--if not welcome tinkering opportunities!
You're a computer-saavy gamer. I don't recommend Macs to people who are primarily interested in gaming. I do recommend Macs to people who enjoy the occasional game of solitare, or who really don't mind not having all the latest games available to them.
From the cost perspective, again--by acting as your own manufacturing center and tech support office, you're able to shave a sizeable chunk off the total bill. Most people do not share your expertise; at this point, cost really ceases to be a factor.
Re:+5: Anti-Bush Tirade
on
In the Year 2020
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Case in point: Bush is trying to overhaul Social Security and rescue it from the inevitable financial ruin that Bill Clinton predicted in 1998.
If this is true, why haven't the economists been coming out of the woodwork in support of this plan? Why have so many of them come out of the woodwork to say that the centerpiece of his plan--private accounts--is more likely to hurt Social Security than help it?
It's Iraq all over again. Remember why we went to war? Because we were facing a grave and imminent crisis that required immediate action. Most experts on the subject disagreed with his analysis of the situation. Instead of substantive responses to these questions, the administration raised the specter of the "smoking gun as mushroom cloud" and essentially scared a whole bunch of people into backing them. Now, which group ended up being right--"grave and imminent threat" or "there's no substantive evidence of that, slow down"?
This is the exact same thing all over again.
Economic experts are raising valid questions about the efficacy of private accounts. Instead of substantive responses, the administration has been hammering into our heads that "we're headed for a crisis" and that we need to take action.
I don't doubt that Bush really, truly believes that his medicine can fix the economy. What I do doubt is his competence in reaching this conclusion. He wears the fact that he's not one for bookishness and intellect like it was the Silver Star, and he's big on talking about faith--not just religious faith, but faith in his advisors, as well. In short, when one of his trusted advisors tells him something, it is Absolute Truth for him. He's said as much on multiple occasions.
I do not trust a good number of his advisors. I genuinely believe that they're harboring some heavy-duty ulterior motives, and that they're willing to do a whole lot to achieve these hidden goals. Some are hardcore theocrats, others dream of pax Americana, and they're willing to mask their intent and promote emotion over logic for the sake of achieving their goals.
The surface: We're trying to fix Social Security. Dig deeper: We're trying to dismantle a socialist program and return it to the hands of private industry. Dig deeper still: We believe it will benefit us in the long run, but we're not about to get bogged down by actually debating this.
Hence, we end up abusing projections, cherrypicking data for the worst case scenarios, and hauling out the boogeyman of a "bankrupt social security" that will leave us broke and destitute--which simply isn't the case. Yes, Social Security needs attention and adjustment. No, it's not the ticking time bomb the administration is so fervently claiming it is.
XML, as originally designed, is deliciously straightforward. Data is encoded into discrete, easy-to-process chunks that any given XML parser can make sense of.
XML, as implemented today, is often little more than a thin wrapper for huge gobs of proprietary-format data. Thus, any given XML parser can identify the contents as "a huge gob of proprietary data", but can't do a damned thing with it.
Too many developers have "embraced" XML by simply dumping their data into a handful of CDATA blocks. Other programmers don't want to reveal their data structure, and abuse CDATA in the same way. Thus, a perfectly good data format has been bastardized by legions of lazy/overprotective coders.
The slew publications exist for the sole purpose of "clarifying" XML serves as testament to the abuse of XML.
you should understand that just because the Mac has least market peneteration, people and companies just don't care to make Spyware for it. Nobody wants to work on something that'll give them the computer usage statistics of just a few percent of user among the billions of those out there.
What, you genuinely think I don't understand that part of Apple's advantage is that they're "under the radar" right now?
True this may change, but for the here and now, OS X is indisputably better than Windows. Windows isn't going to get any better in this department; OS X may get worse over the course of several years.
You've got a choice between a machine that will get mired in crap today and a machine that may eventually get mired in crap at some unspecified point in the future. Hell, Linux is in the same boat, as is any other operating system out there. Stick to the "low profile" argument you make and you're never going to have a reason to switch operating systems.
That won't help prevent Spam. A Mac only solves half of the problem.
...unless you're a poor schmoe who gets thousands upon thousands of pieces of spam a day, getting a Mac will solve this problem. Mail.app has a very straightforward, very effective, user-trained junk mail filter. Furthermore, it won't perpetuate virus-generated spam.
It doesn't stop spam from coming in, but it does solve the problem for your average user.
I guess you think AutoCAD and ArcGIS are "silly apps." I know Mac people like to use their computer to make a fashion statement, but some people use computers to do work.
Well gosh, Apple should get right on that before they lose all those home users who simply want to send email, surf the web, and make industry-grade schematic diagrams of skyscrapers.
Any advice for frustrated users, especially non-technical users?
For the first time in ages, I can say this with a perfectly straight face and without reservation:
Get a Mac.
They're affordable, they're stable, they're powerful, they're easy-to-use, they're resilient against infection, they come with excellent software, there are some great games available, and yes, Virginia, they'll even work with your multi-button mouse.
When you find a bug like this, you should first and foremost submit it to the party responsible for the maintenance of the code. You should at least give the responsible party the opportunity to review/respond/repair before making vulnerabilities public knowledge.
Security exploits are a serious matter, and they need to be handled properly. Throwing this kind of thing out in the open willy-nilly is, at best, irresponsible. For one, it means that Google must now rush a fix for something which may have already been in the bugfix queue; rush jobs can disrupt the entire project and increases the odds of human error--which can lead to unnecessary security vulnerabilities.
As for these guys getting hired by Google--being smarmy twits about Google's code review practices probably isn't gonna help their case any. Shame, because a little tact and professional courtesy would have given them a damn good running start at it...
Slashdot Mirror
Add to this the fact that if you're talking--either on the phone or to another person in the car--you're not going to be as aware of your surroundings as you would be were you focusing that extra attention on the road. You may or may not be aware that there's another car just entering your blind spot in the direction you're about to swerve. Talking could even make the difference between seeing an accident coming a second sooner than you otherwise would have.
Every last ounce of concentration helps when you're driving. That's why DUI levels are set so low; while you may be able to walk around, open doors, talk to people, and turn the key in your car without any real trouble with a BAC of 0.05, that extra few tenths of a second it takes you to react makes driving much, much more dangerous.
Driving is a fundamentally dangerous activity for the driver and those around him--it's easily the most dangerous part of your typical American's daily routine. Even a cheap-ass Geo Metro is capable of instantly rendering a human body unrecognizable as such. Every slightest bit of extra attention you can give the road helps.
By this logic, why require people to have driver's licenses? After all, if they're not qualified to operate a motor vehicle, then they're clearly going to be held for the consequences of their actions when they plow headlong into oncoming traffic, right?
The difficulty with this reasoning is that your actions can have direct and easily fatal consequences for the fifty-odd people sharing the freeway with you at any given moment. Yes, we can't outlaw everything because it might be a distraction to driving, but we can isolate things that tend to cause a person to drive significantly worse than they otherwise would--like DUI, cell phones, and dash-mounted television sets.
To point at the culprit and say "HE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS ACTIONS" provides little consolation to the family of the guy he just killed in a wreck. There's nothing wrong with taking preventative action to minimize the risk of traffic accidents.
A passenger is aware of the traffic situation. If you suddenly stop talking to a passenger, they'll look and see it is because a bunch of brake lights just came on up ahead, you need to pay attention to traffic, and the passenger should just sit quietly until it's smooth sailing again.
In a cell phone conversation, the person you're talking to has no awareness of what traffic conditions are like. You, the driver, could suddenly need to jam the brakes and swerve to avoid somebody drifting into your lane--and the person on the phone would just keep on chirping away about how "so anyway, then I said that there's no way my card is overdrawn because you paid those bills, right, and so..."
It may not command all of your attention, but in an emergency traffic situation, every slightest bit of attention that gets pulled away from the road can make the difference. A cell phone conversation can make the difference between missing that other guy's bumper by inches and getting clipped into an uncontrolled spin at 60 miles per hour.
At root:
I'd have preferred we hadn't embarked on a voluntary invasion of Iraq. For all the places in this world we could have engaged in a military intervention--whether for national security, counter-terrorism activities, economic interest, or spreading democratic ideals--I could have thought of any number of nations that needed (and continue to need) more urgent attention than Iraq.
That said, I'd have much prefered we'd have gone in with overwhelming force. I'm a strong believer in the Powell Doctrine, and I think that we'd be in a whole lot better shape had the DoD listened to Shinseki instead of ridiculing him and swinging the door into his ass on his way out. Had we gone in with a significantly stronger force initially, we would likely not be facing the security problems we have today, and we'd be in a much better position to be bringing our troops home. The vast majority of Iraqis want democracy--but they need security and basic services before they'll thank us for a job well done. At this point, I honestly don't know what kind of troop level would be most useful, though. We've got an insurgency that is tens of thousands strong, and as much as I'd like to believe otherwise, it isn't terribly likely that elections will break their resolve.
We're past fixing this with changes in troop levels. The real hope lies in the hands of the Iraqis now, and the situation we've handed them is a lot more difficult than it could have been.
Yes. However: I don't defend it. I don't condone it. But I realize that is the nature of a wartime situation.
This is the first time in our nation's history that our leaders have openly and actively probed just how badly they can treat detainees without crossing the line to torture. Dammit, this is not what our nation stands for. I don't care one whit whether or not the powers that be believe that waterboarding qualifies as torture. That we're even engaging in anything less than complete, humane, and dignified treatment for our prisoners chills my blood. We cannnot be a beacon to the world so long as we continue to legitimize behavior such as what we've seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and elsewhere. This is simply not even a negotiable point; the president should have--and could have--ended this mess years ago, well before the atrocities of Abu Ghraib.
When the world community immediately balked (incorrectly mind you, since the UN was not only authorized, but indeed, by the UN charter, COMPELLED to act, with force if necessary for the dozens of times Iraq was in verified, material breach of binding Security Council resolutions), we made plans for a coalition of the willing.
I agree that there was a lot of overreaction from the liberal camp, and I'm willing to admit that I was guilty of a my share. There were times I simply didn't listen; I've since reflected on this and real
Heh. Powerful opening, that. "Go ahead and mod me down for saying this, but..."
You say want an honest debate, and yet you go out of your way to insult, belittle and demean those you wish to engage in debate. Fair enough.
Let's debate. We invaded Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction and were poised to use them against the United States. We never found these weapons, and we've given up the search.
Now, let's be honest. Which of the following two scenarios strikes you as most plausible?
On Abu Ghraib: so you're saying that because, in your opinion, we probably commited thousands of acts of sodomy, rape, beating, near-drowning and 'accidental' homocide on prisoners of war back in World War II that it really isn't a big deal for us to continue to sodomize, rape, beat, near-drown and 'accidentally' kill prisoners of war today. Is this correct?
Finally, a couple questions for you. What are the three biggest mistakes you believe the administration has made, and what have they done to rectify these mistakes? Conversely, what are the three things you think the administration has done the best?
Now there's a nifty little way to do one's scrolling with the trackpad--use one finger, it's a pointing device; two, and it behaves like a scroll wheel. If it works as advertised, it'll be a far cry better than the "scroll zone" trackpad hacks out there today...
Well, it is now.
This site is there for the authors' amusement, not to preserve the history of the human race. Give 'em a break.
Push all the "great ideas" to the back of your head, for now. They'll only get in the way at this point. Lay out a very basic game design and write it down. Do this both in plain English and in pseudocode. Resist the temptation to dive into feature details; don't go on about how different guns will do different things, and how there will be ten different types of enemies, or how you want the explosions to be green and shimmery. For now, make it simple: one guy, one gun, one type of enemy, one behavior. Note that this doesn't mean you shouldn't design for such expansion, though--be thinking about how to go about building your code to allow all sorts of things down the road, just don't get mired down in the minutae.
Build a basic, working prototype. Get input working; get drawing working; get audio working; get physics working; get collisions working; get interaction working; get menus and user interface working. Use placeholder graphics and sounds for now. Once you've made a good, solid, stable engine, then start working on graphics, audio, backgrounds, et. cetera. A good way to tell if you've reached this point is if you can play your ugly, bare-bones game and enjoy it. If you don't enjoy the game without the flashy stuff, adding finished content will just be like putting lipstick on a pig.
Finally, stick to 2D. You'll learn more about the "game" part of making games if you don't need to wade through all the extra crap you need to know to work in 3D. (It is also much faster and easier to create 2D content than it is to create 3D content, but again--that comes after you've got a solid engine in place...)
47 49 46 38 49 61 35 02 DC 02 C4 00 00 E0 E0 E0
F0 F0 F0 10 10 10 D0 D0 D0 A0 A0 A0 30 30 30 20
20 20 90 90 90 60 60 60 50 50 50 70 70 70 B0 B0
B0 40 40 40 80 80 80 C0 C0 C0 00 00 00 FF FF FF
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00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 21 F9 04
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FF 20 04 8E 64 69 9E 68 AA AE 6C EB BE 70 2C CF
[Lameness Filter encountered. Post aborted.]
Found [1] file(s):
C:\WINDOWS\UPDATE\AUTODOWNLOAD\TEMP\39FWI25\FOO\ DOWNWITHBIGBROTHER.MP3
Notify Ministry of Peace? (Y/y):
Our penitentiaries are punitive institutions where those who have committed crimes against society are sent to pay for their actions.
Whatever happened to rehabilitation? When did we become a nation that values vindication over elevation?
Video games could be used as a reward--stay on good behavior, complete a VoTech course, get gaming privs. They could be a useful tool; they're something an inmate desires, so make it something they strive to get.
But no. First things first: punish the criminal. After all, if we give 'em reasons to be happy or comfortable, they won't be suffering for their crimes--and that's what matters. Make 'em pay.
Heck, why not just turn all 5+ year prison terms into life sentences? All a long prison sentence does for most people these days is make 'em even worse than they were when they went in. It's not like our "tough on crime" policies are designed to make them better people while they're on the inside...
For example, re-read this post. Carefully.
I'll assume that you not only made the shirt on your back, but you also planted, cultivated, picked, ginned, spun and wove the cotton fabric, too.
Or are you one of those dull dumb boys who can't even be bothered to make his own clothing?
Raising the retirement age is certainly a sensible way to help ease the burden on Social Security, as is reducing benefits. What is not a sensible option is to shunt trillions of dollars out of the system to pay for the implementation and ongoing maintenance of private accounts. The only real winners with private accounts will be the firms who manage these accounts. Joe Proletariat won't see any appreciable improvement in his Social Security benefits--if the plans we're hearing about are what gets put into action, he'll only be able to shuffle his money between a handful of tame, stable, SS-approved funds; it's not like he's going to be playing the market or raking in big bucks. Over the decades, trillions of dollars in taxpayer money will become corporate profit for a small handful of lucky management institutions.
Wait a minute, you just said it was fine!
I did? Where? Kindly quote the passage where I say that Social Security is fine.
I like to think I made my point perfectly clear. Social Security does need maintenance and attention, much like it has throughout its entire history as a program. There are problems that need to be addressed. That said, it's utterly asinine to suggest that there is a looming crisis of epic proportions; that's pure politcal hyperbole. It's designed to get people scared, so that the administration can force through ill-concieved changes that don't stand up under careful scrutiny. Ain't nothing like a sense of dire urgency to get people to line up behind you. Just like what happened in the run up to the war in Iraq. As you'll recall, we went to war because we faced an immediate and imminent threat from Saddam Hussein, and that if we waited for a smoking gun, it could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. Now, we're going to war with a system that is "headed for a train wreck"--only it isn't, really. That's just to get us riled up.
You're a computer-saavy gamer. I don't recommend Macs to people who are primarily interested in gaming. I do recommend Macs to people who enjoy the occasional game of solitare, or who really don't mind not having all the latest games available to them.
From the cost perspective, again--by acting as your own manufacturing center and tech support office, you're able to shave a sizeable chunk off the total bill. Most people do not share your expertise; at this point, cost really ceases to be a factor.
If this is true, why haven't the economists been coming out of the woodwork in support of this plan? Why have so many of them come out of the woodwork to say that the centerpiece of his plan--private accounts--is more likely to hurt Social Security than help it?
It's Iraq all over again. Remember why we went to war? Because we were facing a grave and imminent crisis that required immediate action. Most experts on the subject disagreed with his analysis of the situation. Instead of substantive responses to these questions, the administration raised the specter of the "smoking gun as mushroom cloud" and essentially scared a whole bunch of people into backing them. Now, which group ended up being right--"grave and imminent threat" or "there's no substantive evidence of that, slow down"?
This is the exact same thing all over again.
Economic experts are raising valid questions about the efficacy of private accounts. Instead of substantive responses, the administration has been hammering into our heads that "we're headed for a crisis" and that we need to take action.
I don't doubt that Bush really, truly believes that his medicine can fix the economy. What I do doubt is his competence in reaching this conclusion. He wears the fact that he's not one for bookishness and intellect like it was the Silver Star, and he's big on talking about faith--not just religious faith, but faith in his advisors, as well. In short, when one of his trusted advisors tells him something, it is Absolute Truth for him. He's said as much on multiple occasions.
I do not trust a good number of his advisors. I genuinely believe that they're harboring some heavy-duty ulterior motives, and that they're willing to do a whole lot to achieve these hidden goals. Some are hardcore theocrats, others dream of pax Americana, and they're willing to mask their intent and promote emotion over logic for the sake of achieving their goals.
The surface: We're trying to fix Social Security. Dig deeper: We're trying to dismantle a socialist program and return it to the hands of private industry. Dig deeper still: We believe it will benefit us in the long run, but we're not about to get bogged down by actually debating this.
Hence, we end up abusing projections, cherrypicking data for the worst case scenarios, and hauling out the boogeyman of a "bankrupt social security" that will leave us broke and destitute--which simply isn't the case. Yes, Social Security needs attention and adjustment. No, it's not the ticking time bomb the administration is so fervently claiming it is.
We've been through this before, dammit.
XML, as implemented today, is often little more than a thin wrapper for huge gobs of proprietary-format data. Thus, any given XML parser can identify the contents as "a huge gob of proprietary data", but can't do a damned thing with it.
Too many developers have "embraced" XML by simply dumping their data into a handful of CDATA blocks. Other programmers don't want to reveal their data structure, and abuse CDATA in the same way. Thus, a perfectly good data format has been bastardized by legions of lazy/overprotective coders.
The slew publications exist for the sole purpose of "clarifying" XML serves as testament to the abuse of XML.
What, you genuinely think I don't understand that part of Apple's advantage is that they're "under the radar" right now?
True this may change, but for the here and now, OS X is indisputably better than Windows. Windows isn't going to get any better in this department; OS X may get worse over the course of several years.
You've got a choice between a machine that will get mired in crap today and a machine that may eventually get mired in crap at some unspecified point in the future. Hell, Linux is in the same boat, as is any other operating system out there. Stick to the "low profile" argument you make and you're never going to have a reason to switch operating systems.
It doesn't stop spam from coming in, but it does solve the problem for your average user.
Well gosh, Apple should get right on that before they lose all those home users who simply want to send email, surf the web, and make industry-grade schematic diagrams of skyscrapers.
For the first time in ages, I can say this with a perfectly straight face and without reservation:
Get a Mac.
They're affordable, they're stable, they're powerful, they're easy-to-use, they're resilient against infection, they come with excellent software, there are some great games available, and yes, Virginia, they'll even work with your multi-button mouse.
For the basic user, what else is there?
Simple.
All you communications are belong to them.
Security exploits are a serious matter, and they need to be handled properly. Throwing this kind of thing out in the open willy-nilly is, at best, irresponsible. For one, it means that Google must now rush a fix for something which may have already been in the bugfix queue; rush jobs can disrupt the entire project and increases the odds of human error--which can lead to unnecessary security vulnerabilities.
As for these guys getting hired by Google--being smarmy twits about Google's code review practices probably isn't gonna help their case any. Shame, because a little tact and professional courtesy would have given them a damn good running start at it...
Heh. There's a reason there aren't many funny geeks--we're too freakin' pedantic to let a decent joke stand...