Is that America is a society of 'Caveat Emptor' - let the buyer beware. We've got laws and a social order that reviles scamsters, conmen, and thieves BUT there is also a sort of Robin-Hood admiration for someone with the chutzpah and intelligence to pull this over on someone. Hollywood has been fascinated by these characters for decades: Paper Moon, The Sting, The Grifters, etc
Let's be totally honest: when you read about some grandma or naive intarweb n00b being taken in on one of these scams, your gut reaction isn't "that darn naughty criminal!" it's "WTF? Who could be STUPID enough to fall for this nonsense?"
It's financial Darwinism. Frankly, if someone with $200,000 to blow loses it to a Nigerian scammer, it's practically justified. If they were a different moral character, they'd blow it on drugs, gambling, the Church, or any number of the millions of expensive tarpits lying around for the unwary.
It's rated +5,Funny but I think it's more insightful than anything.
It's common knowledge when writing grant proposals (particularly for grant projects that are going to DoD) that a clever acronym is a HUGE step toward acceptance.
HD-DVD now needs to find a cute icon to overcome its pedestrian abbreviation ("Tux"?) to regain parity in the base appeal market.
Australian government officials have announced today that the Australian economy has been ruined and near irreparable harm has been done to nearly every sector of Australian life due to their ill-considered policy of "open borders". "We saw this posted on the Slashdot site," one official commented off the record, "and we thought 'Why not? Sounds like a jolly good idea.' So, due to our bolloxed IT systems we decided to let goods travel freely until we could get the things worked out." Unfortunately for Australians, it's not something as simple as a slightly reduced revenue for the government. During the 'open borders' span which stretched from the orinally-estimated 3 weeks to several months' duration, a tidal wave of imports hit Australian shores. Seizing the opportunity to sell goods without tarrifs, manufacturers across the world dumped millions of tons of products into the Australian economy that have almost immediately destroyed domestic manufacturing businesses. Ball bearings and steel goods, produced by heavily subsidized companies in the former Eastern Europe have driven all Australian producers out of business by selling far below cost. Commercial stores have been swamped with knockoff electronics, media, and fashion apparel, destroying consumer confidence in formerly respected brand names like Nike, Polo, and Sony. Millions of consumers are further at risk from several hundred containerloads of tainted food products now in grocery chains across the continent, shipped here after being rejected for importation by several other countries. Not least, a thriving trade in illegal immigration has sprung up from Darwin to Melbourne, as hundreds of thousands of South Asians are willing to pay up to several thousand AUS$ to be loaded aboard ships for the short hop from Singapore's container terminals to economic opportunity in Oz. Finally, some scientists estimate it may take decades to recover, if ever, from the unchecked infestations of alien plant and animal species that invaded the Australian ecosystems during this poorly-thought-out plan. From wood beetles to plant fungi to new, aggressive rat species, environmentalists are demanding immediate government efforts to eradicate or at least control the 'blooms' of invasive species surrounding every major transport hub, efforts which most scientist believe will be useless in the long term. "It seemed like such a simple idea," the government official continued, "but we must have been idiots to think it wouldn't have catastrophic consequences. Say, that thing isn't on, is it?"
(Genius)+(Wealth)+(Too Little To Do) = CLOCK THAT WILL RUN FOR 10,000 YEARS! W00T!
Alternative: place stick in vertically in the ground in the dark.*
When you can see the shadow = morning When the shadow is the shortest during the day = noon When you can't see the shadow anymore = sunset Interpolate other times as needed. Bonus weather detection capability: if the stick is wet, it's probably raining. If the stick has fallen over, it's windy. If the stick is moving, earthquake or landslide. If you can't see the stick, fog or heavy snow.
* if you think I'm being facetious, well, I am. But IIRC from TFA in Wired, his superclock has a 'precisely' angled lens that uses solar heating to heat a metal strip that acts as a correction mechanism...i.e. it's correcting for local noon daily, ala a frikken stick in the ground.
In a June 2004demonstration, an ALONtm test pieces held up to both a.30 caliber Russian M-44 sniper rifle and a.50 caliber Browning Sniper Rifle with armor piercing bullets. While the bullets pierced the glass samples, the armor withstood the impact with no penetration.
NO penetration? None? This is either hyperbole or a near-miracle substance.
According to US Army FM23-65, Browning Machine Gun Caliber.50 HB, M2 (June 1991), Chapter 1, Table1-6, "Maximum penetration for ball cartridge.": "(.50 Cal Ball Ammunition) can penetrate one inch of concrete, six inches of sand, or 21 inches of clay at a range of 1,640 yards." According to the USMC (Department of the Navy) Warfaring Publication 3-35.3, Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain, Appendix B, "Employment and Effects of Weapons", B-8:"...the Raufoss multi-purpose round can penetrate an inch of steel at 2000 yards."
I find it credible (and impressive) that it didn't penetrate completely. I find it extremely unlikely that there was no penetration - i.e. the surface wasn't penetrated at ALL.
Slashdotters are generally libertarian in their views of government involvement in the body private. They are opposed to "government" placing (what they consider) morally arbitrary controls or limits on just about any personal behavior, be it from downloading mp3s without paying for them, all the way to antisodomy laws and abortion restrictions.
Yet when it crosses YOUR moral line - i.e. when individuals or corporations do something that offends your personal sacred cows - then the overwhelming majority of posts are "geez, why doesn't the government ban this?" or "why doesn't the government pass a law punishing companies that do this?"
Note to all: Freedom is freedom. If you want to prevent the government from legislating YOUR morality (commendable goal, in my view), then you can't ask it to legislate someone ELSE's. If you do, you're just a hypocrite with an agenda.
Ironically, this would probably ^improve^ the overall internet experience of most US users.
No more Chinese Spam, no more Nigerian 'opportunities', while within the US we'd still have access to Google, slashdot, and the overwhelming majority of web content. Hey, sorry about that all you online gamers - most games (although not all) are hosted primarily in the US.
But what's your standard? Where, between da Vinci and Pauly Shore movies, is the breaking point? Yes, da Vinci's scribblings are priceless insights into genius. Should we save the storyboards for Madonna's "Erotica" because they 'might' be?
It's an entirely irresolvable conflict of subjectives, obviously, which actually is resolved economically. If anyone really felt these W&G things had intrinsic value for the ages, they'd have stored them in a safer place. So they were lost, that's too bad, but obviously someone felt that they had no more value than any other props.
Nick Park certainly earned my deepest respect for his comments on the subject.
Congress passes law (for example, majority oppressing minority), Judicial branch slaps it down = not judicial activism.
Dispute comes before it, Judicial branch not only rules on the dispute, but then expands on the consequences of its ruling to mandate/allow a host of other activities beyond the scope of the dispute (bussing, gay marriage) = judicial activism.
Just because you build a straw man doesn't mean the rest of us think he's alive.
...one of the most popular questions they ask is, "can I join your clan?" One time, after MANY times saying no, I said to one of my friends, "No, but you can be my waterboy!" Imagine my shock when he came back minutes later with a tag that said PMS Waterboy! Next thing I know, every guy was asking to be a "waterboy" and we couldn't keep up.
Why is this blatant sexism any less disgusting because a female does it. Novelty? Because (some) men *like* the idea of being sexploited?
Hi, I'm going to have a l33t kl4n. Every time a grrl asks to join I'm going to say "No way baby, but you can be my stroke-kitten!"
Yeah, I thought it would sound just as stupid from a guy. I was right.
How about this? How about we all enjoy the fact that we're males and females, and we all just play the freaking games? I mean, if you want to make a HUGE deal out of your vagina, go for it, but don't expect special treatment.
You make an issue out of your being a chick, and I may just objectify you since you brought it up. Otherwise, I'm just going to play the game, m'kay?
Not wanting to sound like an ass, let me make the following pre-comment caveats: - I love Nick Park's work - I own all the videos/DVDs of his films, including Creature Comforts on compilation - I can't wait to see whatever else his fertile brain imagines.
But, having said that, is this so much a tragedy? The storyboards, the sets - why are we saving all that crap? Isn't the work itself the treasure, not necessarily the tools used to make it? I mean seriously, Shakespeare was great, but would we want to have saved every piece of parchment he scribbled on? "Oh look, here's the backdrop of the setting which hung outside the prop window on his One-Act play which only showed one night and then closed because it sucked!"
The artworks themselves are treasures. The other stuff is honestly refuse, unless they seriously plan to use them again. Extrapolated further, in 50 years we're all going to be posting our bitter comments on Slashdot from rooms hip-deep in "priceless memorabilia" (Reese Witherspoon's earrings from Legally Blonde XVII, the dorsal fin worn by a stuntman from Jaws III, etc.). Eventually we'll have to develop the technology to build dynamic-foundation skyscrapers on the mounds of movie-memorabilia that cover the countryside....
Granted, things like this can really IMPROVE daily life for the disabled.
But then we better stop acting so surprised when people who take advantage of such improvements to live, then have trouble surviving in cases of disaster or emergency when these items generally fail.
I'm glad your mother and grandfather find this a generally less painful and safer way to handle doors. However, you need to understand that if a storm comes, and knocks out the power and they can't get out to flag down help, or to exit the home in case of flooding, etc then they MAY die where a more "old fashioned" system is ultimately more reliable.
TAANSTAFL. You can have all sorts of technological conveniences, you can even have them cheaply - but that doesn't mean that ultimately there IS a price. You just may not have encountered it yet.
I'd agree with you only insofar as the court conceives of rights in order to strike DOWN overreaching legislation by the duly elected representatives of the people. HOWEVER when (in Roe, for example) the court invents from whole cloth an implied right which mandates things like busing, that is NOT suggested in *any* way by anything I've ever read of the framers' original intent.
In effect the court has a veto power over the legislature, on the grounds of conflict with the constitution. Everytime the court oversteps this, they are on thin ice, are frequently overruled by later legislation, and engender a great deal of resentment for their hubris.
While I understand the resentment for giant corporate monsters here, I have to say that I was actually quite pleased the few times that I have gone through Dell to buy PCs (mandated by my giant corporate monster HQ IT dept).
I called to buy 3 similarly configured PCs, and while navigating the choices, the sales person advised me of some specials I wasn't aware of, and then offered me 2 of them as PCs that were clearly better than what I was looking for, for less $ (I'm guessing they were already built to a previous, cancelled order and they wanted to get rid of them).
So I was in fact very pleased by Dell and particularly their telephone sales dept.
...and what you consider so clever and revolutionary in your MUD was done much more interestingly 10 years before in RPGs. And before that, some Greek dramatist invented the concept of "tragedy as entertainment" 2700 years ago.
Face it, it WAS a novel thing to happen in a mass-market MMO. It is news because it reached and affected millions of people, as opposed to an event limited to the (at best) hundreds of computer wonks playing a MUD.
I understand that your ego prefers the pretentious "yawn, I've been there before" response (oh, but I forget, you "hate" to say it....yah...).
But for a rather significant fraction of the population of the planet, it IS interesting exactly because it impacted so many people (and, in a sideline, therefore far more useful as a representation of interpersonal psychology in real-life disaster situations).
The US Constitution doesn't list the RIGHTS people have. The US Constitution limits the powers of government to circumscribe the rights inherent to its citizens.
We've been so deeply brainwashed by the "Hollywood" (i.e. shallow) presentation of the Constitution that every time a question like this comes up, we LOOK for the "Right" to be listed in the document, and if it's not there, we must not have it.
We have it UNLESS: a) our state constitution specifically allow the government to have a say in it, and b) that state provision doesn't exceed the powers allowed to the states according to the US Constitution.
This would be billion$ to the UN that, until the recent negotiations, was 25% paid for by the US? For a debating club whose main points for the last 50 years were: - Israel suxx0rs! - USA suxx0rs too!
Yeah, that's fair. I'm sure the UN *would* appreciate the US departing, then they could have thier kickback-laden, corrupt, ineffectual bureacracy without the interference of anyone that would actually like to get policy accomplished. But then, if the UN got kicked out to another country, would so many worthless dilettante 'diplomats' want to hang out there?
It's very UN-like of you to post as an Anonymous Coward. Irony, anyone?
I'm definitely impressed. This is the cutting edge of gaming goodness, all pixelly and shaderly, I think everyone should go out and get them. ATI should aggressively price them to entirely redefine the video card market and seize share from Nvidia.
What?
Oh, no, I'm not impressed with this card. I'm impressed with the opportunity that ATI will jump totally on this bandwagon, thus reducing dramatically the prices for all their other cards that are from previous generations but offer nearly identical performance.
W00t for the bleeding edge, and the price breaks behind the curve!
First, let me just mention that's PJ O'Rourke's line.
Second, I think you (like so many who are too 'sophisticated' for religion) deeply misunderstand what religion is and does for people.
A major cause of unhappiness today is anxiety, and I daresay it's been that way with humans for years. As far as we can tell, dolphins don't lie awake at night, worried about global warming; squirrels don't deeply regret the and inability to achieve rodent/feline cooperation; birds don't need counseling because they feel like bad parents because one of their chicks can't fly. Humans DO worry about big, non immediate things. We're sentient, self-aware creatures that see further than the next meal, the next mating (well, some of us), and the next predator. IMO it's concomitant with cognizance that we lot a lot of things concern us which we have NO POWER TO CHANGE. Humans naturally seek explanation and order - the sheer randomness of our environment and events therein can leave people feeling adrift.
Religion addresses this directly and at an emotional level. It's not that "their worries are God's worries" exactly. It's more that it helps people accept the things that they cannot control and thus be intrinsically happier because they don't feel powerless. Or, more accurately they are still powerless, but are more accepting of the limits of what they can control.
Religion - contrary to some modern media versions - is about humility, acceptance, and happiness. I'd say that history illustrates it's about as essential to "humanness" as is language.
So let me see if I understand it - this is merely a more nakedly obvious example of the government which we empower to tax us, showing that its only concern is revenue.
Anyone see a conflict of interest there? Would you give your landlord the LEGAL power to not only set your rent, but compel you to pay it (and you have no real chance to evade it by moving elsewhere)?
Tangetially, this is the problem with an estate tax...personally, I have a serious issue with a government that directly PROFITS by the death of its citizens. Budget shortfall in WA? The gov't of the state could whack Bill Gates and watch the budget crisis disappear...
Slashdot Mirror
Is that America is a society of 'Caveat Emptor' - let the buyer beware.
We've got laws and a social order that reviles scamsters, conmen, and thieves BUT there is also a sort of Robin-Hood admiration for someone with the chutzpah and intelligence to pull this over on someone. Hollywood has been fascinated by these characters for decades: Paper Moon, The Sting, The Grifters, etc
Let's be totally honest: when you read about some grandma or naive intarweb n00b being taken in on one of these scams, your gut reaction isn't "that darn naughty criminal!" it's "WTF? Who could be STUPID enough to fall for this nonsense?"
It's financial Darwinism. Frankly, if someone with $200,000 to blow loses it to a Nigerian scammer, it's practically justified. If they were a different moral character, they'd blow it on drugs, gambling, the Church, or any number of the millions of expensive tarpits lying around for the unwary.
It's the oldest wisdom in the con business.
The best cons work take advantage of people who believe they are already cheating someone or doing something illegal/unethical.
You cannot be tempted to do anything you wouldn't do anyway.
It's rated +5,Funny but I think it's more insightful than anything.
It's common knowledge when writing grant proposals (particularly for grant projects that are going to DoD) that a clever acronym is a HUGE step toward acceptance.
HD-DVD now needs to find a cute icon to overcome its pedestrian abbreviation ("Tux"?) to regain parity in the base appeal market.
This just in...
Reuters
Australian government officials have announced today that the Australian economy has been ruined and near irreparable harm has been done to nearly every sector of Australian life due to their ill-considered policy of "open borders".
"We saw this posted on the Slashdot site," one official commented off the record, "and we thought 'Why not? Sounds like a jolly good idea.' So, due to our bolloxed IT systems we decided to let goods travel freely until we could get the things worked out."
Unfortunately for Australians, it's not something as simple as a slightly reduced revenue for the government. During the 'open borders' span which stretched from the orinally-estimated 3 weeks to several months' duration, a tidal wave of imports hit Australian shores. Seizing the opportunity to sell goods without tarrifs, manufacturers across the world dumped millions of tons of products into the Australian economy that have almost immediately destroyed domestic manufacturing businesses. Ball bearings and steel goods, produced by heavily subsidized companies in the former Eastern Europe have driven all Australian producers out of business by selling far below cost. Commercial stores have been swamped with knockoff electronics, media, and fashion apparel, destroying consumer confidence in formerly respected brand names like Nike, Polo, and Sony. Millions of consumers are further at risk from several hundred containerloads of tainted food products now in grocery chains across the continent, shipped here after being rejected for importation by several other countries. Not least, a thriving trade in illegal immigration has sprung up from Darwin to Melbourne, as hundreds of thousands of South Asians are willing to pay up to several thousand AUS$ to be loaded aboard ships for the short hop from Singapore's container terminals to economic opportunity in Oz.
Finally, some scientists estimate it may take decades to recover, if ever, from the unchecked infestations of alien plant and animal species that invaded the Australian ecosystems during this poorly-thought-out plan. From wood beetles to plant fungi to new, aggressive rat species, environmentalists are demanding immediate government efforts to eradicate or at least control the 'blooms' of invasive species surrounding every major transport hub, efforts which most scientist believe will be useless in the long term.
"It seemed like such a simple idea," the government official continued, "but we must have been idiots to think it wouldn't have catastrophic consequences. Say, that thing isn't on, is it?"
Yeah, that's"+5 Insightful".
(Genius)+(Wealth)+(Too Little To Do) = CLOCK THAT WILL RUN FOR 10,000 YEARS! W00T!
Alternative: place stick in vertically in the ground in the dark.*
When you can see the shadow = morning
When the shadow is the shortest during the day = noon
When you can't see the shadow anymore = sunset
Interpolate other times as needed.
Bonus weather detection capability: if the stick is wet, it's probably raining. If the stick has fallen over, it's windy. If the stick is moving, earthquake or landslide. If you can't see the stick, fog or heavy snow.
* if you think I'm being facetious, well, I am. But IIRC from TFA in Wired, his superclock has a 'precisely' angled lens that uses solar heating to heat a metal strip that acts as a correction mechanism...i.e. it's correcting for local noon daily, ala a frikken stick in the ground.
No kidding.
.30 caliber Russian M-44 sniper rifle and a .50 caliber Browning Sniper Rifle with armor piercing bullets. While the bullets pierced the glass samples, the armor withstood the impact with no penetration.
.50 HB, M2 (June 1991), Chapter 1, Table1-6, "Maximum penetration for ball cartridge.": "(.50 Cal Ball Ammunition) can penetrate one inch of concrete, six inches of sand, or 21 inches of clay at a range of 1,640 yards."
In a June 2004demonstration, an ALONtm test pieces held up to both a
NO penetration? None? This is either hyperbole or a near-miracle substance.
According to US Army FM23-65, Browning Machine Gun Caliber
According to the USMC (Department of the Navy) Warfaring Publication 3-35.3, Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain, Appendix B, "Employment and Effects of Weapons", B-8:"...the Raufoss multi-purpose round can penetrate an inch of steel at 2000 yards."
I find it credible (and impressive) that it didn't penetrate completely. I find it extremely unlikely that there was no penetration - i.e. the surface wasn't penetrated at ALL.
So let me see if I understand.
Slashdotters are generally libertarian in their views of government involvement in the body private. They are opposed to "government" placing (what they consider) morally arbitrary controls or limits on just about any personal behavior, be it from downloading mp3s without paying for them, all the way to antisodomy laws and abortion restrictions.
Yet when it crosses YOUR moral line - i.e. when individuals or corporations do something that offends your personal sacred cows - then the overwhelming majority of posts are "geez, why doesn't the government ban this?" or "why doesn't the government pass a law punishing companies that do this?"
Note to all: Freedom is freedom. If you want to prevent the government from legislating YOUR morality (commendable goal, in my view), then you can't ask it to legislate someone ELSE's. If you do, you're just a hypocrite with an agenda.
Ironically, this would probably ^improve^ the overall internet experience of most US users.
No more Chinese Spam, no more Nigerian 'opportunities', while within the US we'd still have access to Google, slashdot, and the overwhelming majority of web content. Hey, sorry about that all you online gamers - most games (although not all) are hosted primarily in the US.
I'd miss the BBC site, though.
It's worth pointing out that the availability of really useful materials for incendiary warfare was notably lacking in the ancient world at this time.
Aside, of course from the significant exception of Greek Fire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire
And you know what, I even agree with you.
But what's your standard? Where, between da Vinci and Pauly Shore movies, is the breaking point? Yes, da Vinci's scribblings are priceless insights into genius. Should we save the storyboards for Madonna's "Erotica" because they 'might' be?
It's an entirely irresolvable conflict of subjectives, obviously, which actually is resolved economically. If anyone really felt these W&G things had intrinsic value for the ages, they'd have stored them in a safer place. So they were lost, that's too bad, but obviously someone felt that they had no more value than any other props.
Nick Park certainly earned my deepest respect for his comments on the subject.
I'll pick your nit^2:
Congress passes law (for example, majority oppressing minority), Judicial branch slaps it down = not judicial activism.
Dispute comes before it, Judicial branch not only rules on the dispute, but then expands on the consequences of its ruling to mandate/allow a host of other activities beyond the scope of the dispute (bussing, gay marriage) = judicial activism.
Just because you build a straw man doesn't mean the rest of us think he's alive.
Why is this blatant sexism any less disgusting because a female does it. Novelty? Because (some) men *like* the idea of being sexploited?
Hi, I'm going to have a l33t kl4n. Every time a grrl asks to join I'm going to say "No way baby, but you can be my stroke-kitten!"
Yeah, I thought it would sound just as stupid from a guy. I was right.
How about this? How about we all enjoy the fact that we're males and females, and we all just play the freaking games? I mean, if you want to make a HUGE deal out of your vagina, go for it, but don't expect special treatment.
You make an issue out of your being a chick, and I may just objectify you since you brought it up. Otherwise, I'm just going to play the game, m'kay?
Not wanting to sound like an ass, let me make the following pre-comment caveats:
- I love Nick Park's work
- I own all the videos/DVDs of his films, including Creature Comforts on compilation
- I can't wait to see whatever else his fertile brain imagines.
But, having said that, is this so much a tragedy? The storyboards, the sets - why are we saving all that crap? Isn't the work itself the treasure, not necessarily the tools used to make it? I mean seriously, Shakespeare was great, but would we want to have saved every piece of parchment he scribbled on? "Oh look, here's the backdrop of the setting which hung outside the prop window on his One-Act play which only showed one night and then closed because it sucked!"
The artworks themselves are treasures. The other stuff is honestly refuse, unless they seriously plan to use them again. Extrapolated further, in 50 years we're all going to be posting our bitter comments on Slashdot from rooms hip-deep in "priceless memorabilia" (Reese Witherspoon's earrings from Legally Blonde XVII, the dorsal fin worn by a stuntman from Jaws III, etc.). Eventually we'll have to develop the technology to build dynamic-foundation skyscrapers on the mounds of movie-memorabilia that cover the countryside....
I know, then lets internationalize the internet by handing over control to the UN.
I'm *positive* these moves would be at least equally beneficial to society as a whole. They should be done together!
(w00t for Stalinist centralization and the power of the state! Go MAO!)
Granted, things like this can really IMPROVE daily life for the disabled.
But then we better stop acting so surprised when people who take advantage of such improvements to live, then have trouble surviving in cases of disaster or emergency when these items generally fail.
I'm glad your mother and grandfather find this a generally less painful and safer way to handle doors. However, you need to understand that if a storm comes, and knocks out the power and they can't get out to flag down help, or to exit the home in case of flooding, etc then they MAY die where a more "old fashioned" system is ultimately more reliable.
TAANSTAFL. You can have all sorts of technological conveniences, you can even have them cheaply - but that doesn't mean that ultimately there IS a price. You just may not have encountered it yet.
I'd agree with you only insofar as the court conceives of rights in order to strike DOWN overreaching legislation by the duly elected representatives of the people. HOWEVER when (in Roe, for example) the court invents from whole cloth an implied right which mandates things like busing, that is NOT suggested in *any* way by anything I've ever read of the framers' original intent.
In effect the court has a veto power over the legislature, on the grounds of conflict with the constitution. Everytime the court oversteps this, they are on thin ice, are frequently overruled by later legislation, and engender a great deal of resentment for their hubris.
While I understand the resentment for giant corporate monsters here, I have to say that I was actually quite pleased the few times that I have gone through Dell to buy PCs (mandated by my giant corporate monster HQ IT dept).
I called to buy 3 similarly configured PCs, and while navigating the choices, the sales person advised me of some specials I wasn't aware of, and then offered me 2 of them as PCs that were clearly better than what I was looking for, for less $ (I'm guessing they were already built to a previous, cancelled order and they wanted to get rid of them).
So I was in fact very pleased by Dell and particularly their telephone sales dept.
You're one of those people that incessantly pointed out that the "21st Century" didn't start out until 2001, aren't you?
Hey, but you Euro/UN types go ahead an slap down your new root servers wherever you want....that certainly won't screw everything up.
/ 06/1241227&tid=95&tid=219
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10
...and what you consider so clever and revolutionary in your MUD was done much more interestingly 10 years before in RPGs. And before that, some Greek dramatist invented the concept of "tragedy as entertainment" 2700 years ago.
Face it, it WAS a novel thing to happen in a mass-market MMO. It is news because it reached and affected millions of people, as opposed to an event limited to the (at best) hundreds of computer wonks playing a MUD.
I understand that your ego prefers the pretentious "yawn, I've been there before" response (oh, but I forget, you "hate" to say it....yah...).
But for a rather significant fraction of the population of the planet, it IS interesting exactly because it impacted so many people (and, in a sideline, therefore far more useful as a representation of interpersonal psychology in real-life disaster situations).
The US Constitution doesn't list the RIGHTS people have.
The US Constitution limits the powers of government to circumscribe the rights inherent to its citizens.
We've been so deeply brainwashed by the "Hollywood" (i.e. shallow) presentation of the Constitution that every time a question like this comes up, we LOOK for the "Right" to be listed in the document, and if it's not there, we must not have it.
We have it UNLESS:
a) our state constitution specifically allow the government to have a say in it, and
b) that state provision doesn't exceed the powers allowed to the states according to the US Constitution.
This would be billion$ to the UN that, until the recent negotiations, was 25% paid for by the US? For a debating club whose main points for the last 50 years were:
- Israel suxx0rs!
- USA suxx0rs too!
Yeah, that's fair. I'm sure the UN *would* appreciate the US departing, then they could have thier kickback-laden, corrupt, ineffectual bureacracy without the interference of anyone that would actually like to get policy accomplished. But then, if the UN got kicked out to another country, would so many worthless dilettante 'diplomats' want to hang out there?
It's very UN-like of you to post as an Anonymous Coward. Irony, anyone?
I'm definitely impressed. This is the cutting edge of gaming goodness, all pixelly and shaderly, I think everyone should go out and get them. ATI should aggressively price them to entirely redefine the video card market and seize share from Nvidia.
What?
Oh, no, I'm not impressed with this card. I'm impressed with the opportunity that ATI will jump totally on this bandwagon, thus reducing dramatically the prices for all their other cards that are from previous generations but offer nearly identical performance.
W00t for the bleeding edge, and the price breaks behind the curve!
First, let me just mention that's PJ O'Rourke's line.
Second, I think you (like so many who are too 'sophisticated' for religion) deeply misunderstand what religion is and does for people.
A major cause of unhappiness today is anxiety, and I daresay it's been that way with humans for years. As far as we can tell, dolphins don't lie awake at night, worried about global warming; squirrels don't deeply regret the and inability to achieve rodent/feline cooperation; birds don't need counseling because they feel like bad parents because one of their chicks can't fly. Humans DO worry about big, non immediate things. We're sentient, self-aware creatures that see further than the next meal, the next mating (well, some of us), and the next predator. IMO it's concomitant with cognizance that we lot a lot of things concern us which we have NO POWER TO CHANGE. Humans naturally seek explanation and order - the sheer randomness of our environment and events therein can leave people feeling adrift.
Religion addresses this directly and at an emotional level. It's not that "their worries are God's worries" exactly. It's more that it helps people accept the things that they cannot control and thus be intrinsically happier because they don't feel powerless. Or, more accurately they are still powerless, but are more accepting of the limits of what they can control.
Religion - contrary to some modern media versions - is about humility, acceptance, and happiness. I'd say that history illustrates it's about as essential to "humanness" as is language.
So let me see if I understand it - this is merely a more nakedly obvious example of the government which we empower to tax us, showing that its only concern is revenue.
Anyone see a conflict of interest there? Would you give your landlord the LEGAL power to not only set your rent, but compel you to pay it (and you have no real chance to evade it by moving elsewhere)?
Tangetially, this is the problem with an estate tax...personally, I have a serious issue with a government that directly PROFITS by the death of its citizens. Budget shortfall in WA? The gov't of the state could whack Bill Gates and watch the budget crisis disappear...