I had to spend 24 hours in jail years ago. Upon check-in, I was made to strip naked, turn around, pull my butt cheeks apart and bend over to show the guard my brown rosebud. No joke. It was hot (kidding). Anyway, I got the feeling it was pretty standard. What's my point? You want to never do anything that could possibly land you in jail. What I did was definitely minimal, but I did have to go to jail for 24 hours. If you were a guard in that place and had to deal with some of the people I saw, you'd want to make sure there wasn't anything hanging out between those butt cheeks, too. From my brief stay, I got the definite feeling from the other inmates that they a) think they're real smart b) are sneaky c) are dangerous. I think the employees at the jail have probably figured out the same and are looking to avoid being cut, shot or having the unpleasant job of dragging a dead body out of a cell. If you land in jail, even for a short time, the strip search is just one of the many indignities you'll endure there. I don't think anybody on here has much to worry about and I'm probably one of the few/,ers who's ever even been, but do try avoiding it! Aren't a lot of constutional protections suspended when you're incarcerated? Your right to be clothed is definitely one of them.
Yeah, French music is contrived, but their culture is so superior. Maybe they just don't have to throw themselves into music. Maybe they're just happy with their society and don't have enough angst to churn out the most emotive music. It takes real misery to make good music, as almost any artist's life will show you. France has a lot less misery than the US, so their music is flat...And they can just buy ours, so who cares really?
See, folks?? THIS is why we can't have universal healthcare in the US: It would kill our creativity!!!
It's why we can't have all manner of nice things. It's not the greed that stops conservatives voting for universal healthcare, it's that they know the beat here is so right.
It sucks so much that if you manage to get from one place to another without a *major* fiasco, you keep your mouth shut.
Translation: I not only don't have an argument, my mind is already made up and I'm not interested in hearing anything that fails to meet my preconceived notions.
Uh WRONG. Beacuse some industry rag did a "study" doesn't negate the experience of millions of users. The airline industry is 47th of 47 industries in customer satisfaction. That was the/. submission. I suppose they had nowhere to go but up from 47th, but forgive me if I'm one of the MAJORITY who says they suck. They fucking suck. Pile on all you want, but nearly every thinking person agrees they suck and the entire experience sucks. Yeah, I'm not listening to you schmucks because you're wrong and in a very small minority of people who apparently enjoy the ass fucking that is air travel.
Flown 40 years ago? It sucked. Airfares were hugely more expensive than they are today. Today, a family can easily fly to visit Grandma. A generation ago they would never have been able to afford it.
That's fine and flying still sucks. Plenty of costs have come down. Buy a microwave 30 years ago? A radio? Just because airlines haven't especially benefitted from globilization doesn't make it a fun experience and I don't care that poor people can go to Jamaica now. Do you know how annoying they are to travel with anyway? Hardly the point. Flying sucks and I don't care why they just need to fix it. Charge more then...maybe then I'd not do anything in my power to avoid it. And I shouldn't have to choose between $1k RT to europe in hell or $7500. How about $2500 and everybody can have some fucking leg room?
Most people think it sucks and has gotten worse over the years, not better
That's because 'most people' are idiots with selective memories - Sure, security sucks and there is no free food, but people also forget that in the 'good old days' all the airfares were regulated. There was no shopping around for a good deal because all fares were exactly the same across all the airlines - And air travel was EXPENSIVE - Tickets today, on average, cost less than half of what they did in the 'good ol' days' (indexed to inflation.) If you want a good non-sucky experience, buy a business class ticket. You'll get a big chair, free food and all the perks, and still pay less than you would have back in the day.
Yeah, I mentioned "people don't want to pay more than $300 RT and maybe that's the cause". Wasn't assigning blame. Got anything I don't already know?
Yeah, French music is contrived, but their culture is so superior. Maybe they just don't have to throw themselves into music. Maybe they're just happy with their society and don't have enough angst to churn out the most emotive music. It takes real misery to make good music, as almost any artist's life will show you. France has a lot less misery than the US, so their music is flat...And they can just buy ours, so who cares really?
I didn't say I enjoy it; I said I don't experience big problems on anything like the sort of regular basis you are suggesting most people do.
The link you post is discussing factors that by and large don't apply to me - the vast majority of my flying is for business, so someone else books and pays for me, so I don't really care about the prices.
I also don't pay bag fees - my trips are of short duration, so I always take a carry-on bag. However, that frequently has to be checked as the airplane is full. So I'm at risk of lost baggage, but again I've been lucky and not had that problem.
And BTW, I didn't "imply" most people experience "major" problems. if I was implying anything, it was that a LACK of "major problems" is behind any mediocre increase in satisfaction, not that the experience has somehow gotten better. So they don't completely screw up and lose your luggage..does that make it a good experience? No. It's just that the airline employess make it EVER so clear that they don't give a flying shit about you, that you'd not bother complaining and that's why complaints are down. Has nothing to do with a customer focus, has more to do with customer hopelessness. Wasn't implying major problems happen all the time, if anything, I'd say those types of problems are down. Probably due to some programmer slaving away making smarter software and nothing their lame service employees do.
I didn't say I enjoy it; I said I don't experience big problems on anything like the sort of regular basis you are suggesting most people do.
The link you post is discussing factors that by and large don't apply to me - the vast majority of my flying is for business, so someone else books and pays for me, so I don't really care about the prices.
I also don't pay bag fees - my trips are of short duration, so I always take a carry-on bag. However, that frequently has to be checked as the airplane is full. So I'm at risk of lost baggage, but again I've been lucky and not had that problem.
Aren't you special? Out of 47 industries, airlines are last. That's behind Pharma, Banking, Oil, Internet (Comcast), Agrobusiness (Monsanto)...yeah, last. I'm glad you're having a grand old time, but you're in the minority. Sorry, just not going along with you on this one. Airlines suck. The entire experience is needlessly sucky. The "flight attendants" suck. The service sucks. There's a reason they came in....again LAST out of 47 entire industries. That's from mid 2011. Things have not gotten that much better since then. I get on those things and can't get a bloody mary in FAST enough..and are they ever slow and surly delivering them. I don't know that I completely blame the airlines...if people were willing to pay more than $300 for a RT ticket, things might improve, but they aren't and airlines haven't adapted. So, not blaming anyone in particular, but flying, a thing that could be fun as all get out, is reduced to the worst experience outside discovering a lump.
That's an extremely high cost business, unlike say Software, so they have to do something. Their profit margins are seriously razor thin and the Iphone made things worse, not better, from a profitability perspective. It's very complicated, but if you want companies to trash for gouging, the cell phone companies are barely getting by. You'd be better of posting stories on BANKING or HEALTH...industries that are *really* turning the screws on working people.
Yep, lots. I feel pretty confident in stating I likely fly far more frequently than you.
And I don't experience a "major fiasco" on any kind of a regular basis. Maybe I'm lucky, but I should be having a lot of problems to justify your comments. For reference, I'm flying out of PHL, one of the busiest airports in the U.S.
The flight time listed for ATL-> RIC when purchasing tickets is about 90 minutes, but the time from takeoff to touchdown is only 63 minutes.
Do they list 'flight time' or 'travel time?' Usually it's the latter - Travel time. In this scenario, time spent on the tarmac taxiing should be factored into the equation.
Yeah time spent having your life shortened breathing up diesel exhaust, taxiing around the runway an average of 10-20 minutes, should definitely be factored into the equation.
Flown lately? It sucks. It sucks so much that if you manage to get from one place to another without a *major* fiasco, you keep your mouth shut. Just because expectations have been lowered to the basement, doesn't mean things are getting better. More like passengers are just feeling more powerless and complaining less. As for on-time arrivals and all that...wow nice. Probably not as difficult, since they've gutted most routes to bare minimum and use sophisticated software to keep planes packed like sardines. Sorry, but air travel sucks and no report of marginal statistical improvement will change anybody's view on that.
I'm on the Internet where I'm going to sign up for Facebook, Twitter, Gawker, ETC, let them all build a marketing profile off me, let them build a record of my email addresses and friends/associations, allow them to build a psych profile, allow them to determine my worth, and finally I'm going to give them all that for free.
Goldman Sachs referred to their clients as "muppets" I wonder what the above refers to their customer as...
Probably refer to them as "Users" as in addicted drug Users. They might emulate Mr Burns and refer to them as "Organ Banks", "Chair Moisteners", or "Fork and Spoon Operators".
I've seen so many of these projects never get off of the ground, but this would be handy for travel to places too near to justify having your genitals felt up and scanned, then treated like a prisoner by gestapo sky waitresses. We need something that goes about 200 mph and hits most major cities. Of course TSA would get their Freudian, genital obsessed guards on the case if rail ever became too popular.
Given that their epistemological gold standard is "I read in a book that a dude said god told him...", it isn't a huge surprise that media literacy might not be among their strengths.
Sad but true. And since Afghanistan's citizens are educated by the likes of the US financed 'Ministry of Education' and the American inspired and financed 'Lincoln Learning Centers', it's really no wonder. They probably teach creationism.
Trust in corporate ethics is so incredibly low. Privacy expectations plummet every year. If I was a hardware manufcaturer, I'd fund an independent organization (like Consumer Reports) and say "use this money to investigate which new devices coming out violate consumer privacy, and issue ratings". If we can have Energy Star compliance, why not Privacy Star compliance? If all my tvs had Privacy Star stickers, and my competitors did not, +1 for me and my business.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but what you seem to be implying is that industry can regulate itself. I think the Banking sector, Oil industry, Pharma, Agriculture all prove that industry (the market, corporations...whatever you want to call it) cannot regulate itself. The reason for the success, which your post either deliberately or naively ignores, is that Energy Star was created by the EPA and the Department of Energy during the Clinton administration. What corporations are real good at is rolling back regulation...see the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act, which the banks worked to repeal for years, finally got their way, then began engaging in reckless behavior.
Not to bash your post, be everyone is so indoctrinated that Goverment=bad, Corporations=good. Most what's left of the good life, the masses owe to organizing, unions, federal regulations and the court decisions of some "liberal activist" judges that they're supposed to hate now.
Your plan sounds great, but don't forget who's going to have to implement it...Your Government.
Just hope the North Seattle Best Buy is on the closure list. I don't even want the temptation. The sad truth is they all suck in one way or another. Fry's isn't a whole lot better. It's not orders of magnitude better than Best Buy. It's bigger and a lot more fun to shop, but it's ten miles south of the city, it's still a cattle herd line-up at check-out, a mistrustful return policy and pushy sales people who aren't real knowledgable. What I really hate is how manufacturers are making it harder to comparison shop by creating unique model numbers for the same products at different stores, which also negates any prices matching (conveniently). I had to practically take up a research project before buying my Samsung LED TV....by the time you're finished educating yourself sufficiently, you've got no need for sales people...they only serve to annoy because they actually know less than you do and full of opinions (like all dumb people). So why have any of them? All the info is available online with a lot less dumb bias and far better prices on just about everything. The price difference on the TV was especially huge. Apple Airport Extreme, not so much. Good riddance, Best Buy.
This coming from the 'Catholic engineer' who thinks evolution "is a theory" and just one of the many valid theories out there (Hello, Bush)...like the theories they teach in Bible (ancient plagiarized Mesopotamian lore) study. Yeah, i don't really expect you to agree. I don't expect common sense out of anybody who believes in a talking snake, a virgin birth, a contradictory and vicious, wrathful god, etc. I don't expect much at all. Got it?
Hard disk prices are up 20% since the Thai Tsunami, SDD prices are coming down, but are still too high for mass adoption. Tapes just seem like a primitive solution, but hard drives aren't really any more amazing, if you think about it. The movement is just hidden, but it's still movement and it's still a bit clunky. We should all just hang our collective head in shame.:)
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1968042,00.html
Study after study points to the fact that people with more conservative beliefs just don't know what's going on, fear change, fear differences and generally distrust anything. Watch any Youtube conspiracy video about global warming, beast 666, the Illumnati, masonry...the list goes on and on. These people are trying desperately to understand what's going on around them, but they just don't have the CPU upstairs to put the peices together. The scary part is they elect each other into leadership positions, then they're something we all have to reckon with. I'm not dissing democracy (not like we have a real one or anything), but there should probably be some other litmus test than a popularity contest allowing these people to govern our society (government *and* corporate). It all comes down to...the big brains know we're all in this together and want to fashion a society that handles that reality in an orderly manner. Dumb people are absoutely convinced that we're all separate and only responsible for ourselves...yeah, until they show up at the emergency room and we ALL have to pay for them. I get tired of it. I get tired of them.
Slashdot Mirror
I had to spend 24 hours in jail years ago. Upon check-in, I was made to strip naked, turn around, pull my butt cheeks apart and bend over to show the guard my brown rosebud. No joke. It was hot (kidding). Anyway, I got the feeling it was pretty standard. What's my point? You want to never do anything that could possibly land you in jail. What I did was definitely minimal, but I did have to go to jail for 24 hours. If you were a guard in that place and had to deal with some of the people I saw, you'd want to make sure there wasn't anything hanging out between those butt cheeks, too. From my brief stay, I got the definite feeling from the other inmates that they a) think they're real smart b) are sneaky c) are dangerous. I think the employees at the jail have probably figured out the same and are looking to avoid being cut, shot or having the unpleasant job of dragging a dead body out of a cell. If you land in jail, even for a short time, the strip search is just one of the many indignities you'll endure there. I don't think anybody on here has much to worry about and I'm probably one of the few /,ers who's ever even been, but do try avoiding it! Aren't a lot of constutional protections suspended when you're incarcerated? Your right to be clothed is definitely one of them.
Maybe they're just happy with their society and don't have enough angst to churn out the most emotive music.
https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=france+riots
But lots of good music is about getting laid, err love, so your point is moot anyways.
Eh it wasn't the most serious point I ever had anyway.
Interested in reading about that. Any suggestions?
How about $2500 and everybody can have some fucking leg room?
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/world-traveller-plus/public/en_us
The submission was of US based carriers.
French music sucks. NEXT!
Yeah, French music is contrived, but their culture is so superior. Maybe they just don't have to throw themselves into music. Maybe they're just happy with their society and don't have enough angst to churn out the most emotive music. It takes real misery to make good music, as almost any artist's life will show you. France has a lot less misery than the US, so their music is flat...And they can just buy ours, so who cares really?
See, folks?? THIS is why we can't have universal healthcare in the US: It would kill our creativity!!!
It's why we can't have all manner of nice things. It's not the greed that stops conservatives voting for universal healthcare, it's that they know the beat here is so right.
Yes.
Translation: I not only don't have an argument, my mind is already made up and I'm not interested in hearing anything that fails to meet my preconceived notions.
Uh WRONG. Beacuse some industry rag did a "study" doesn't negate the experience of millions of users. The airline industry is 47th of 47 industries in customer satisfaction. That was the /. submission. I suppose they had nowhere to go but up from 47th, but forgive me if I'm one of the MAJORITY who says they suck. They fucking suck. Pile on all you want, but nearly every thinking person agrees they suck and the entire experience sucks. Yeah, I'm not listening to you schmucks because you're wrong and in a very small minority of people who apparently enjoy the ass fucking that is air travel.
Flown lately? It sucks
Flown 40 years ago? It sucked. Airfares were hugely more expensive than they are today. Today, a family can easily fly to visit Grandma. A generation ago they would never have been able to afford it.
That's fine and flying still sucks. Plenty of costs have come down. Buy a microwave 30 years ago? A radio? Just because airlines haven't especially benefitted from globilization doesn't make it a fun experience and I don't care that poor people can go to Jamaica now. Do you know how annoying they are to travel with anyway? Hardly the point. Flying sucks and I don't care why they just need to fix it. Charge more then...maybe then I'd not do anything in my power to avoid it. And I shouldn't have to choose between $1k RT to europe in hell or $7500. How about $2500 and everybody can have some fucking leg room?
Most people think it sucks and has gotten worse over the years, not better
That's because 'most people' are idiots with selective memories - Sure, security sucks and there is no free food, but people also forget that in the 'good old days' all the airfares were regulated. There was no shopping around for a good deal because all fares were exactly the same across all the airlines - And air travel was EXPENSIVE - Tickets today, on average, cost less than half of what they did in the 'good ol' days' (indexed to inflation.) If you want a good non-sucky experience, buy a business class ticket. You'll get a big chair, free food and all the perks, and still pay less than you would have back in the day.
Yeah, I mentioned "people don't want to pay more than $300 RT and maybe that's the cause". Wasn't assigning blame. Got anything I don't already know?
French music sucks. NEXT!
Yeah, French music is contrived, but their culture is so superior. Maybe they just don't have to throw themselves into music. Maybe they're just happy with their society and don't have enough angst to churn out the most emotive music. It takes real misery to make good music, as almost any artist's life will show you. France has a lot less misery than the US, so their music is flat...And they can just buy ours, so who cares really?
AT&T  Gross Profit  2010  Q3 $18.06 billion complicated my ass
That's AT&T overall, not the mobile unit.
I didn't say I enjoy it; I said I don't experience big problems on anything like the sort of regular basis you are suggesting most people do.
The link you post is discussing factors that by and large don't apply to me - the vast majority of my flying is for business, so someone else books and pays for me, so I don't really care about the prices.
I also don't pay bag fees - my trips are of short duration, so I always take a carry-on bag. However, that frequently has to be checked as the airplane is full. So I'm at risk of lost baggage, but again I've been lucky and not had that problem.
And BTW, I didn't "imply" most people experience "major" problems. if I was implying anything, it was that a LACK of "major problems" is behind any mediocre increase in satisfaction, not that the experience has somehow gotten better. So they don't completely screw up and lose your luggage..does that make it a good experience? No. It's just that the airline employess make it EVER so clear that they don't give a flying shit about you, that you'd not bother complaining and that's why complaints are down. Has nothing to do with a customer focus, has more to do with customer hopelessness. Wasn't implying major problems happen all the time, if anything, I'd say those types of problems are down. Probably due to some programmer slaving away making smarter software and nothing their lame service employees do.
I didn't say I enjoy it; I said I don't experience big problems on anything like the sort of regular basis you are suggesting most people do.
The link you post is discussing factors that by and large don't apply to me - the vast majority of my flying is for business, so someone else books and pays for me, so I don't really care about the prices.
I also don't pay bag fees - my trips are of short duration, so I always take a carry-on bag. However, that frequently has to be checked as the airplane is full. So I'm at risk of lost baggage, but again I've been lucky and not had that problem.
Aren't you special? Out of 47 industries, airlines are last. That's behind Pharma, Banking, Oil, Internet (Comcast), Agrobusiness (Monsanto)...yeah, last. I'm glad you're having a grand old time, but you're in the minority. Sorry, just not going along with you on this one. Airlines suck. The entire experience is needlessly sucky. The "flight attendants" suck. The service sucks. There's a reason they came in....again LAST out of 47 entire industries. That's from mid 2011. Things have not gotten that much better since then. I get on those things and can't get a bloody mary in FAST enough..and are they ever slow and surly delivering them. I don't know that I completely blame the airlines...if people were willing to pay more than $300 for a RT ticket, things might improve, but they aren't and airlines haven't adapted. So, not blaming anyone in particular, but flying, a thing that could be fun as all get out, is reduced to the worst experience outside discovering a lump.
That's an extremely high cost business, unlike say Software, so they have to do something. Their profit margins are seriously razor thin and the Iphone made things worse, not better, from a profitability perspective. It's very complicated, but if you want companies to trash for gouging, the cell phone companies are barely getting by. You'd be better of posting stories on BANKING or HEALTH...industries that are *really* turning the screws on working people.
Flown lately?
Yep, lots. I feel pretty confident in stating I likely fly far more frequently than you.
And I don't experience a "major fiasco" on any kind of a regular basis. Maybe I'm lucky, but I should be having a lot of problems to justify your comments. For reference, I'm flying out of PHL, one of the busiest airports in the U.S.
Glad you enjoy it. Most people think it sucks and has gotten worse over the years, not better. The fact that you fly more and don't hate it says more about the human ability to adapt to unpleasant situations than that flying doesn't blow. it blows, it blows more and more every year and you're nearly the only person I've ever heard, outside airline executives that doesn't agree. And if you want stats, here's a nice link http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-21/travel/customer.satisfaction.airlines.hotels_1_passenger-satisfaction-claes-fornell-american-customer-satisfaction-index?_s=PM:TRAVEL Airlines score lowest in customer satisfaction. duh.
The flight time listed for ATL-> RIC when purchasing tickets is about 90 minutes, but the time from takeoff to touchdown is only 63 minutes.
Do they list 'flight time' or 'travel time?' Usually it's the latter - Travel time. In this scenario, time spent on the tarmac taxiing should be factored into the equation.
Yeah time spent having your life shortened breathing up diesel exhaust, taxiing around the runway an average of 10-20 minutes, should definitely be factored into the equation.
Flown lately? It sucks. It sucks so much that if you manage to get from one place to another without a *major* fiasco, you keep your mouth shut. Just because expectations have been lowered to the basement, doesn't mean things are getting better. More like passengers are just feeling more powerless and complaining less. As for on-time arrivals and all that...wow nice. Probably not as difficult, since they've gutted most routes to bare minimum and use sophisticated software to keep planes packed like sardines. Sorry, but air travel sucks and no report of marginal statistical improvement will change anybody's view on that.
I'm on the Internet where I'm going to sign up for Facebook, Twitter, Gawker, ETC, let them all build a marketing profile off me, let them build a record of my email addresses and friends/associations, allow them to build a psych profile, allow them to determine my worth, and finally I'm going to give them all that for free.
Goldman Sachs referred to their clients as "muppets" I wonder what the above refers to their customer as...
Probably refer to them as "Users" as in addicted drug Users. They might emulate Mr Burns and refer to them as "Organ Banks", "Chair Moisteners", or "Fork and Spoon Operators".
I've seen so many of these projects never get off of the ground, but this would be handy for travel to places too near to justify having your genitals felt up and scanned, then treated like a prisoner by gestapo sky waitresses. We need something that goes about 200 mph and hits most major cities. Of course TSA would get their Freudian, genital obsessed guards on the case if rail ever became too popular.
Given that their epistemological gold standard is "I read in a book that a dude said god told him...", it isn't a huge surprise that media literacy might not be among their strengths.
Sad but true. And since Afghanistan's citizens are educated by the likes of the US financed 'Ministry of Education' and the American inspired and financed 'Lincoln Learning Centers', it's really no wonder. They probably teach creationism.
I am curious of what they think about Fox news ?
Probably big fans.
Actually, they hate Fox, and are big MSNBC fans. The same piece in the Washington Post also said that they were bummed when Keith Olbermann was fired.
They must be as dumb as most Americans, who haven't figured out that they're all corporate propaganda outlets and are all unreliable news sources.
Trust in corporate ethics is so incredibly low. Privacy expectations plummet every year. If I was a hardware manufcaturer, I'd fund an independent organization (like Consumer Reports) and say "use this money to investigate which new devices coming out violate consumer privacy, and issue ratings". If we can have Energy Star compliance, why not Privacy Star compliance? If all my tvs had Privacy Star stickers, and my competitors did not, +1 for me and my business.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but what you seem to be implying is that industry can regulate itself. I think the Banking sector, Oil industry, Pharma, Agriculture all prove that industry (the market, corporations...whatever you want to call it) cannot regulate itself. The reason for the success, which your post either deliberately or naively ignores, is that Energy Star was created by the EPA and the Department of Energy during the Clinton administration. What corporations are real good at is rolling back regulation...see the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act, which the banks worked to repeal for years, finally got their way, then began engaging in reckless behavior. Not to bash your post, be everyone is so indoctrinated that Goverment=bad, Corporations=good. Most what's left of the good life, the masses owe to organizing, unions, federal regulations and the court decisions of some "liberal activist" judges that they're supposed to hate now. Your plan sounds great, but don't forget who's going to have to implement it...Your Government.
Just hope the North Seattle Best Buy is on the closure list. I don't even want the temptation. The sad truth is they all suck in one way or another. Fry's isn't a whole lot better. It's not orders of magnitude better than Best Buy. It's bigger and a lot more fun to shop, but it's ten miles south of the city, it's still a cattle herd line-up at check-out, a mistrustful return policy and pushy sales people who aren't real knowledgable. What I really hate is how manufacturers are making it harder to comparison shop by creating unique model numbers for the same products at different stores, which also negates any prices matching (conveniently). I had to practically take up a research project before buying my Samsung LED TV....by the time you're finished educating yourself sufficiently, you've got no need for sales people...they only serve to annoy because they actually know less than you do and full of opinions (like all dumb people). So why have any of them? All the info is available online with a lot less dumb bias and far better prices on just about everything. The price difference on the TV was especially huge. Apple Airport Extreme, not so much. Good riddance, Best Buy.
This coming from the 'Catholic engineer' who thinks evolution "is a theory" and just one of the many valid theories out there (Hello, Bush)...like the theories they teach in Bible (ancient plagiarized Mesopotamian lore) study. Yeah, i don't really expect you to agree. I don't expect common sense out of anybody who believes in a talking snake, a virgin birth, a contradictory and vicious, wrathful god, etc. I don't expect much at all. Got it?
Hard disk prices are up 20% since the Thai Tsunami, SDD prices are coming down, but are still too high for mass adoption. Tapes just seem like a primitive solution, but hard drives aren't really any more amazing, if you think about it. The movement is just hidden, but it's still movement and it's still a bit clunky. We should all just hang our collective head in shame. :)
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1968042,00.html Study after study points to the fact that people with more conservative beliefs just don't know what's going on, fear change, fear differences and generally distrust anything. Watch any Youtube conspiracy video about global warming, beast 666, the Illumnati, masonry...the list goes on and on. These people are trying desperately to understand what's going on around them, but they just don't have the CPU upstairs to put the peices together. The scary part is they elect each other into leadership positions, then they're something we all have to reckon with. I'm not dissing democracy (not like we have a real one or anything), but there should probably be some other litmus test than a popularity contest allowing these people to govern our society (government *and* corporate). It all comes down to...the big brains know we're all in this together and want to fashion a society that handles that reality in an orderly manner. Dumb people are absoutely convinced that we're all separate and only responsible for ourselves...yeah, until they show up at the emergency room and we ALL have to pay for them. I get tired of it. I get tired of them.