I haven't read all the comments, but it seems to me that those which are critical of the US also appear to be critical of China. There is a certain moral consistency here, which I think is good.
Seems to me your hatred of American values has blinded you to what these people are saying.
Just curious. I was trying to understand what this OpenSocial was, so clicked through the links... ultimately ended up looking at some site called Orkut. joined some random group to see how it worked.
And I saw a forum filled with spam. In fact 99% of the content was spam.
I don't use myspace, et al... is this how all of them are?
I stopped using Blockbuster years ago, when they were doing 5 day rentals that were really only 4 days. Was tired of late fees I guess. That was years ago, I think I still owe them $20 and I refuse to pay.
For a while we were using the kiosk at the grocery store, and it was good. Until everybody else found out about it. Then I'd have to wait 15 minutes in line only to find out that the movies weren't available. There was the sign on the side of the kiosk showing the movie, but it was nowhere to be found in their menus.
I gave up, and went with Netflix. Yes, it's $12/month and I was probably only spending $4 at the kiosk, but I was also spending several hours of my time waiting in line for that stupid thing.
Plus, the nice thing about Netflix is I can get foreign films and older movies that I'd never have gotten at any kiosk or store front.
We use paper here in Minnesota, and the ballots are scanned with an optical scanner. It's pretty damn easy, on the ballot are two arrows next to the name and you draw a line between them if you want that selection.
The amazing thing is you can still vote if the power goes out.
It's highly scalable, as voting station tables are cheap and easy to store and setup. you can have a two dozen of them at a polling station for not much money.
The optical scanner is there to count ballots. But they can be counted by hand if need be.
Anything else is TECHNOLOGY IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM.
Oh yeah, Florida dumped their stupid electronic machines and plan to use the optical scanner like we have in minnesota. Maybe because it works. duh
Whilst that is true, the problem is that a typical CD recording available today will be overcompressed whereas a typical vinyl recording won't be.
Ahh, someone who doesn't remember vinyl very well.
Back in the day, when I had a Dual turntable and a Ortofon needle, I bought contemporary pop music on vinyl. Vinyl had a rather limited surface area to record on, maybe only 20 minutes a side or so. But if you compressed the dynamic range of the music down, you could fit a few more grooves on the record giving you just enough to add an extra track per side.
And see there was another problem too. To keep a record from wearing out, you wanted as light of pressure as possible on the needle. But light pressure on the needle meant if there was too much dynamic range in the album, the needle could skip by being thrown out of a groove.
Not to mention, all the work that vinyl required. cleaning the records regularly, cleaning your needle... adjusting the pressure on the needle, and so on. Much easier to use a CD.
When I first started buying CD's, there were labels like Telarc who prided themselves in using the full dynamic range offered by the CD, and it was incredible and impressive. I'm sure there are still some labels today who master stuff that way. I haven't read any audiophile rags in many years.
What's going to kill the compression idiots, is that most of the digital music players recompress stuff so it sounds the same between tracks. So they can't gain anything in terms of loudness.
He said those things are true... because they are, as far as we can tell.
I'm not a evolution denier, but it bothers the hell out of me when I see people trying to debate the flat earthers by taking a position that a theory is considered a law, when it is not.
Evolution is arguably *more* well supported then gravity.,/blockquote>
Cite a reliable source for that number. I think you'll find that the majority of the US wish it was over, and quickly, but aren't such fools as to think that just packing up and leaving is actually in anyone's interests, excepts Iran's.
It's too late, we already did Iran's bidding when we invaded. Look up the name Chalabi sometime.
Secondly, yes, there is Fox News and they tend to feature columnists that are sympathetic to the right wing of American politics. Guess what, that's half the country dude. The only reason Republicans are in trouble now, well, there are a lot, is because of the skyrocketing cost of energy and the growing realization that the Republicans in Washington aren't so Republican after all.
If you think that's the reason why Republicans are in trouble now, you are seriously out of touch with America.
The troops don't increase instability. That's why everyone says there will be a civil war when we leave.
There's been a Civil War in Iraq for the past 3 years. The only thing which may change when the US leaves is the level of violence will escalate.
But as we've seen time and time again, trying to put a lid on violence only prolongs it. If the US stays in Iraq, it is guaranteed to be destabilized as long as the US is there. We leave, yes there will be violence, but one side will defeat the other, come to power, and install a military force to maintain discipline. Such is the way of things.
I don't like the war either, but we are NOT doing the same thing we were a year ago. A year ago (pre-Patraeus and "surge") we kept the majority of our troops on base, reasoning as you are now that their presence was causing instability, and that if we lowered their footprint, violence would go down. Didn't work. The new strategy puts troops much closer to the locals - as in increased presence - and the country is more stable.
Is that what is happening? Or did the insurgent forces such as Muqtada al-Sadr's militia simply go into hiding, rebuilding, retraining, and waiting for the right moment to strike?
Again, I'm not for the war, I don't like how it's being run, and I don't think we have a cost effective way to fix the place. But please don't spout general nonsense and stuff that hasn't been true for nearly a year.
How many more corners must we turn, for you to realize that Iraq cannot be stabilized with US blood?
I'm sorry, but that's a presupposition I just refuse to believe.
Refusing to believe something does not make it go away. You may refuse to believe that the earth is not flat, but that does not make it so.
You can't honestly tell me that these guys are saying "I hate these darn US troops walking around here trying to help us - so because of that - I'm gonna strap a bomb to my shoe and kill them"...
Actually they use vests, or plant the bombs by the side of the road and wait for our guys to drive by. Strapping a bomb to your shoe is too conspicuous.
If that's your reasoning behind the suicide bombings and constant terror, then explain to me why they crashed two planes into the side of the Twin Towers?
What was the World Trade Center? It was a symbol of the economic might of the United States. They hit the buildings because they wished to draw us out. They were hoping that the United States would invade the middle east, and justify their fight. AQ wanted the middle east to rise up and strike back at western nations. It's not the United States per se that is their enemy, it's western culture, but the United States plays surrogate.
Al Qaeda's goal is not to defeat the United States through military might. They're not dumb, and they know that won't work. Their goal is to destroy our economy. How does one do that? Well, oil seems to be an easy target. Obviously drawing us into a prolonged combat operation causes us to lose resources and further pressures our economy. The attacks in Spain, England, Indonesia, Australia, and so on were designed to isolate the United States from our allies.
Their goal is to defeat us, as they think they defeated the Soviet Union. Economically.
Was it because they wanted us to pull out of the United States?????
That's ironic, considering people such as yourself want the Iraqis to pull out of Iraq... or the Arabs to pull out of the middle east.
What Al Qaeda wanted, was exactly what you are giving them. Or rather not you, but Dear Leader Bush.
What we need to be doing, is something different. The problems in Iraq can be solved by Iraqis. They don't need us, they're perfectly capable of killing each other just fine. Just as all cultures have done through the ages. And as we've seen in al-Anbar province, the Iraqis hate AQ more than they hate the US. They want 'em out, and given they live there, it's very easy for them to root out the AQ operatives and eliminate them. That's how they found stability there. It wasn't a surge by US soldiers, it was Iraqis doing something for themselves.
It's really quite simple. There is no left or right bias. The news media is simply biased against rocking the boat, or as I like to say, they defend the status quo. Whatever that might be at any point in time. Some call it Conventional Wisdom, others Known Truths(tm), or an echo chamber. Whatever the assumptions, they are not questioned. For to question is work, and it invites attack. It is easier to just get along by going along.
Your conspiracy theories are fanciful dreams and nonsense, they are not insightful or remotely inspired. You heard this theory from someone, and you choose to repeat it. Because to come up with your own theory involves to much for your miniscule brain to comprehend.
It's about instability and anarchy in Iraq, and a heavy terrorist presence funded by the Iranian government.
This is a self-enforcing prophecy. You claim that we need to help with the instability by leaving troops there, which further increases the instability... We could be there 50 years, and that will not change.
Courage would involve doing something different, not following the same old methodology that has been proven a failure.
Do you pay taxes? then they are getting your money.
How? They don't receive govt funding.
Plus I get asked weekly.
I've never met someone from greenpeace. Never, not once. Nobody has ever asked me for money. I've had some other groups stop by, maybe once every 10 years. But never greenpeace.
Greenpeace and other put on a fake smile extend there hand to envoke a social reaction then use the to leverage you from your money with lies, misdirection, and a stack logical fallacies.
So who doesn't? Politicans.... The religious nuts... they all do this.
Hey this week is Islamofascist Awareness week. Guess why? David Horowitz needs money.
"Extremism" moves the debate. The more extreme the position, the more reasonable the people not quite that extreme appear.
This has been the secret behind Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and such for years. Their "extremism" is an act. It's calculated. It's designed to push the boundaries of reasonable debate.
The "left" used to have people on that side back in the 1960s. Not so much any more. There are a few crackpots out there, but nobody in the mainstream.
I understand what you are saying, but Greenpeace has never asked me for money.
Not that I'd give them money anyway. I don't like giving money to charities because most all of them exist for the sole purpose of existing... as you say.
Just like in Christianity, if you want to save someone, so it is in the environment. If you want to save the world, start with your own life first.
Yeah, but just like in Christianity, you have to spread the word to change your own life first.
Discounting greenpeace for a second. I've observed that in many cases, we end up with government regulations in thes arenas because companies and people don't listen to the marketplace. On a different scale, our state just passed a no-smoking act in public bars and restaurants. Opponents claim that we should have let the market decide. But the market has been for years demanding no-smoking, and the corporations didn't listen. I say this because anybody who has been to a restaurant in the past 20 years knows when the question "Smoking or non-smoking?" is asked, what they really mean is "do you want a table now, or do you want to wait an hour?" Now it doesn't take a genius to realize they could have maximized revenues by eliminating the smoking section.
The main danger is when groups go after government trying to push something because they can't convince people of it otherwise. That's hard to do, as generally when that is tried(see Terri Schiavo), there is a huge backlash. However, when they do convince the citizens of their point of view, and the market doesn't respond... that's when government comes down.
Many corporations in recent years have begun looking at environmental issues because they see the citizens are ahead of the game, and they want to be out there before or if government does come down. It's a market competitive issue.
I guess the point is... Things aren't as bad as they seem.
Slashdot Mirror
It's easier to just auto-delete after x number of days, then to try to set quotas and convince people to manage their inbox.
I haven't read all the comments, but it seems to me that those which are critical of the US also appear to be critical of China. There is a certain moral consistency here, which I think is good.
Seems to me your hatred of American values has blinded you to what these people are saying.
Just curious. I was trying to understand what this OpenSocial was, so clicked through the links... ultimately ended up looking at some site called Orkut. joined some random group to see how it worked.
And I saw a forum filled with spam. In fact 99% of the content was spam.
I don't use myspace, et al... is this how all of them are?
I stopped using Blockbuster years ago, when they were doing 5 day rentals that were really only 4 days. Was tired of late fees I guess. That was years ago, I think I still owe them $20 and I refuse to pay.
For a while we were using the kiosk at the grocery store, and it was good. Until everybody else found out about it. Then I'd have to wait 15 minutes in line only to find out that the movies weren't available. There was the sign on the side of the kiosk showing the movie, but it was nowhere to be found in their menus.
I gave up, and went with Netflix. Yes, it's $12/month and I was probably only spending $4 at the kiosk, but I was also spending several hours of my time waiting in line for that stupid thing.
Plus, the nice thing about Netflix is I can get foreign films and older movies that I'd never have gotten at any kiosk or store front.
We use paper here in Minnesota, and the ballots are scanned with an optical scanner. It's pretty damn easy, on the ballot are two arrows next to the name and you draw a line between them if you want that selection.
The amazing thing is you can still vote if the power goes out.
It's highly scalable, as voting station tables are cheap and easy to store and setup. you can have a two dozen of them at a polling station for not much money.
The optical scanner is there to count ballots. But they can be counted by hand if need be.
Anything else is TECHNOLOGY IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM.
Oh yeah, Florida dumped their stupid electronic machines and plan to use the optical scanner like we have in minnesota. Maybe because it works. duh
Ahh, someone who doesn't remember vinyl very well.
Back in the day, when I had a Dual turntable and a Ortofon needle, I bought contemporary pop music on vinyl. Vinyl had a rather limited surface area to record on, maybe only 20 minutes a side or so. But if you compressed the dynamic range of the music down, you could fit a few more grooves on the record giving you just enough to add an extra track per side.
And see there was another problem too. To keep a record from wearing out, you wanted as light of pressure as possible on the needle. But light pressure on the needle meant if there was too much dynamic range in the album, the needle could skip by being thrown out of a groove.
Not to mention, all the work that vinyl required. cleaning the records regularly, cleaning your needle... adjusting the pressure on the needle, and so on. Much easier to use a CD.
When I first started buying CD's, there were labels like Telarc who prided themselves in using the full dynamic range offered by the CD, and it was incredible and impressive. I'm sure there are still some labels today who master stuff that way. I haven't read any audiophile rags in many years.
What's going to kill the compression idiots, is that most of the digital music players recompress stuff so it sounds the same between tracks. So they can't gain anything in terms of loudness.
I'm not a evolution denier, but it bothers the hell out of me when I see people trying to debate the flat earthers by taking a position that a theory is considered a law, when it is not.
It's too late, we already did Iran's bidding when we invaded. Look up the name Chalabi sometime.
Clinton was at 70% approval.
Terri Schiavo
And they wonder why people question the sanity of the 24% club.
If you think that's the reason why Republicans are in trouble now, you are seriously out of touch with America.
There's been a Civil War in Iraq for the past 3 years. The only thing which may change when the US leaves is the level of violence will escalate.
But as we've seen time and time again, trying to put a lid on violence only prolongs it. If the US stays in Iraq, it is guaranteed to be destabilized as long as the US is there. We leave, yes there will be violence, but one side will defeat the other, come to power, and install a military force to maintain discipline. Such is the way of things.
Is that what is happening? Or did the insurgent forces such as Muqtada al-Sadr's militia simply go into hiding, rebuilding, retraining, and waiting for the right moment to strike?
How many more corners must we turn, for you to realize that Iraq cannot be stabilized with US blood?
Refusing to believe something does not make it go away. You may refuse to believe that the earth is not flat, but that does not make it so.
Actually they use vests, or plant the bombs by the side of the road and wait for our guys to drive by. Strapping a bomb to your shoe is too conspicuous.
What was the World Trade Center? It was a symbol of the economic might of the United States. They hit the buildings because they wished to draw us out. They were hoping that the United States would invade the middle east, and justify their fight. AQ wanted the middle east to rise up and strike back at western nations. It's not the United States per se that is their enemy, it's western culture, but the United States plays surrogate.
Al Qaeda's goal is not to defeat the United States through military might. They're not dumb, and they know that won't work. Their goal is to destroy our economy. How does one do that? Well, oil seems to be an easy target. Obviously drawing us into a prolonged combat operation causes us to lose resources and further pressures our economy. The attacks in Spain, England, Indonesia, Australia, and so on were designed to isolate the United States from our allies.
Their goal is to defeat us, as they think they defeated the Soviet Union. Economically.
That's ironic, considering people such as yourself want the Iraqis to pull out of Iraq... or the Arabs to pull out of the middle east.
What Al Qaeda wanted, was exactly what you are giving them. Or rather not you, but Dear Leader Bush.
What we need to be doing, is something different. The problems in Iraq can be solved by Iraqis. They don't need us, they're perfectly capable of killing each other just fine. Just as all cultures have done through the ages. And as we've seen in al-Anbar province, the Iraqis hate AQ more than they hate the US. They want 'em out, and given they live there, it's very easy for them to root out the AQ operatives and eliminate them. That's how they found stability there. It wasn't a surge by US soldiers, it was Iraqis doing something for themselves.
No, I was referring specifically to your post.
It's really quite simple. There is no left or right bias. The news media is simply biased against rocking the boat, or as I like to say, they defend the status quo. Whatever that might be at any point in time. Some call it Conventional Wisdom, others Known Truths(tm), or an echo chamber. Whatever the assumptions, they are not questioned. For to question is work, and it invites attack. It is easier to just get along by going along.
Your conspiracy theories are fanciful dreams and nonsense, they are not insightful or remotely inspired. You heard this theory from someone, and you choose to repeat it. Because to come up with your own theory involves to much for your miniscule brain to comprehend.
SWAG means Stupid Wild Ass Guess
:-)
It's how most of us in the industry do estimates on IT projects.
It's nothing more than trite cliches.
This is a self-enforcing prophecy. You claim that we need to help with the instability by leaving troops there, which further increases the instability... We could be there 50 years, and that will not change.
Courage would involve doing something different, not following the same old methodology that has been proven a failure.
It's kind of tough being intelligent and honest, because the media accuses you of not being fun enough to hang out and have a beer with.
How? They don't receive govt funding.
I've never met someone from greenpeace. Never, not once. Nobody has ever asked me for money. I've had some other groups stop by, maybe once every 10 years. But never greenpeace.
So who doesn't? Politicans.... The religious nuts... they all do this.
Hey this week is Islamofascist Awareness week. Guess why? David Horowitz needs money.
I ignore 'em all. I suggest you do the same.
On the other hand...
"Extremism" moves the debate. The more extreme the position, the more reasonable the people not quite that extreme appear.
This has been the secret behind Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and such for years. Their "extremism" is an act. It's calculated. It's designed to push the boundaries of reasonable debate.
The "left" used to have people on that side back in the 1960s. Not so much any more. There are a few crackpots out there, but nobody in the mainstream.
Not that I'd give them money anyway. I don't like giving money to charities because most all of them exist for the sole purpose of existing... as you say.
Yeah, but just like in Christianity, you have to spread the word to change your own life first.
Discounting greenpeace for a second. I've observed that in many cases, we end up with government regulations in thes arenas because companies and people don't listen to the marketplace. On a different scale, our state just passed a no-smoking act in public bars and restaurants. Opponents claim that we should have let the market decide. But the market has been for years demanding no-smoking, and the corporations didn't listen. I say this because anybody who has been to a restaurant in the past 20 years knows when the question "Smoking or non-smoking?" is asked, what they really mean is "do you want a table now, or do you want to wait an hour?" Now it doesn't take a genius to realize they could have maximized revenues by eliminating the smoking section.
The main danger is when groups go after government trying to push something because they can't convince people of it otherwise. That's hard to do, as generally when that is tried(see Terri Schiavo), there is a huge backlash. However, when they do convince the citizens of their point of view, and the market doesn't respond... that's when government comes down.
Many corporations in recent years have begun looking at environmental issues because they see the citizens are ahead of the game, and they want to be out there before or if government does come down. It's a market competitive issue.
I guess the point is... Things aren't as bad as they seem.
$65k maybe.... but not a nickel over!
Thousands Standing Around
Am I wrong?