On the contrary, my good man. If all the passengers had been armed, they'd have used up their ammunition shooting at the squalling baby in back and the businessman who used up all the overhead space.
The terrorists could still have done the job unhindered.
The truth is that we're taught from a young age to be good little sheep and do what we're told. When the bad guys and the flight crew both tell you to sit down and behave, your natural reaction is to do what you're told.
In every situation like this that's gone before, the planes wind up on the ground, negotiations commence, and usually the passengers get out alive. Since that's always been the case, the policy is for flight crews to keep everyone calm and not cause any trouble. I expect that this policy will be reviewed.
I seriously doubt that any passengers realized they were doomed; if they knew, they would have overpowered the hijackers, regardless of who was armed with what.
And I wasn't joking: if you let us take weapons on a plane, the businessman and the baby are gonna be the first to go.
What's stupid is hitting the Submit button without reading your own words.
What have today's astronauts done? Only strapped themselves into a huge, barely-controlled bomb and blasted themselves off the freakin planet. Just because somebody did it before doesn't make it any less crazy or remarkable. It's way, way different than hopping on a freighter for a few weeks, and it's insulting that you even make the comparison. There's no Coast Guard helicopter to drag you to safety if you lose an engine up there. Try applying to be an astronaut, and then try to join the Merchant Marine, and then get back to me with which is harder, 'kay?
There is NOTHING routine about going to space. If you fuck up just a little bit -- you die! If one of your mechanics or engineers screws up -- you die! If you happen to get unlucky and you're hit with a piece of debris or a meteorite -- you die! How is that routine? We earthbound types have no clue what zero-grav work is like, or what working in vacuum is like, and we shouldn't pretend that we do. Let's just agree that it's really, really hard.
We see and interpret today's missions as routine because a lot of people work real hard to make things work right. We consider it business as usual because the talking heads they point at us are the same talking heads we see for everything else. If NASA got rid of the PR-types, and just found a couple of engineers who were fairly telegenic, I'm sure they'd see a much better response from the public. As it is, they're selling their launches in much the same way as Toyota sells SUVs, or McDonalds sells Happy Meals, and it shouldn't work that way. Get a guy with real credibility, and real enthusiasm, to tell us how complicated and dangerous this is, not some slick infomercial salesdroid.
And finally: if you really want people to sit up and take notice, you have to do something Impossible. Like send people to Mars. Or start a permanent colony on the moon. In the meantime, the only way to wake people up about what NASA is doing is to have a very dramatic accident, where astronauts are very nearly killed, or even killed outright, and that's something I don't think they're willing to do right now.
I, too, am a grateful SimonDelivers customer in St. Paul. I'm neither an employee nor a shareholder, though you wouldn't guess it from the way I'm about to start gushing. I will admit that it's in my best interest to help them do well, since I fscking LOVE this service.
A large part of the reason for their waiting list is that they're being careful about rolling out their coverage. A company that offered grocery delivery Way Back When went under largely because they hired a whole bunch of sloppy, lazy drivers who did a lousy job of filling and packing orders. My wife and I did the Dance of Joy (tm) the day they added our ZIP code to their list.
It's true that delivery is not on demand, but that didn't matter for us. The shopping list is in the same spot on the fridge; it's just that the weekly shopping trip is now done in my underwear. I still giggle gleefully when I come home after work to a cooler full of groceries.
Another poster made a point about scheduled delivery services missing out on impulse shopping. That may be true, but I personally prefer to WALK to the corner market for a gallon of milk than to drive out to Grocery Coliseum and wait in the Express (what a fscking joke!) Lane for 20 minutes.
Simon's also done a pretty good job of rolling out his own specials, coupons, and suggestions on the website and the fliers that come with the groceries. In my experience, these are every bit as effective as your normal point-of-sale advertising (and I have the CC receipts to prove it!).
I really believe that for as long as the Bigass Supermarkets continue to employ drooling idiot employees to serve their drooling idiot consumers, I'll be staying as far away as possible.
Please, Simon, I'm begging you: don't screw this up!
First point: It's relevant because you don't often see people outside the software industry (though Kodak is heading there) with such glaring examples of monopoly abuses.
Second point: You say "...it's so simple: don't buy their products."
Well, it's not that simple, when almost all PCs come pre-loaded with the stuff. And while it's one thing to tell the/. crowd to stay away from Windows, it's quite another to try and teach my Aunt Maxine how to use Linux. Or to get my PHB to abandon MS Everything.
Here's a quick tip you might want to remember (taken right from the article): MOST USERS ARE AVERAGE! They don't have degrees in CS, they don't know what DLL Hell is, and they don't care.
It's not important what we buy today -- we only buy a few thousand machines anyway. The really important battle is to give my Aunt Maxine and my PHB a decent alternative to Windows. If you want to put your money where your mouth is, then help the people who are working on these projects.
If you're going to call the community to arms, at least get the argument right.
You say "Here we are over 50 years after the war..." I would posit that it should be "only 50 years since the war."
For as long as Brokaw and his "greatest generation" are still kicking around, we're not going to be able to get rid of the swastika's connotations of evil.
Hell, we may never be rid of that baggage if they keep making "Pearl Harbor" movies...
You'll have to forgive me if somebody else made the point, but one has to ask the question "Why insure myself?" Assuming for a moment that my insurance company insists on screening me, I in turn will INSIST on seeing the results. If I am at risk for a disease, the company will not want to insure me. If my screen is clean, why the hell would I want insurance?
A lot of people seem to think that the insurance companies won't insure 'at-risk' persons. But they HAVE to. The healthy ones won't want insurance. Oh, sure, maybe ten bucks a month just in case you get hit by a bus, but that's not enough for the insurer to make any money off you.
And if the healthy don't want insurance, then the insurers will have to cover those at risk, in order to have any customers at all. And if they only insure the at-risk, they'll price their product out of everyone's reach.
I guess I'm trying to say that genetic screening will put insurers out of business long before it make them rich (assuming, of course, that we retain the right to see the results of our screen). They exist to buy risk; if we eliminate risk and replace it with certainties, then we eliminate the need for the insurers, and they go away. Then the problem becomes a matter of finding a new method of delivering medical or death benefits to the public.
I only hope that the insurers recognize this before the fit hits the shan.
A bunch of us used to hang out in Bob's room and play MOM for hours on end. A favorite unit was the Invisible Flying Battleship. All was well, until one of us figured out that what we really had just invented was the B-2 Bomber!
For a little while that day, we all became Republicans...
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On the contrary, my good man. If all the passengers had been armed, they'd have used up their ammunition shooting at the squalling baby in back and the businessman who used up all the overhead space.
The terrorists could still have done the job unhindered.
The truth is that we're taught from a young age to be good little sheep and do what we're told. When the bad guys and the flight crew both tell you to sit down and behave, your natural reaction is to do what you're told.
In every situation like this that's gone before, the planes wind up on the ground, negotiations commence, and usually the passengers get out alive. Since that's always been the case, the policy is for flight crews to keep everyone calm and not cause any trouble. I expect that this policy will be reviewed.
I seriously doubt that any passengers realized they were doomed; if they knew, they would have overpowered the hijackers, regardless of who was armed with what.
And I wasn't joking: if you let us take weapons on a plane, the businessman and the baby are gonna be the first to go.
What's stupid is hitting the Submit button without reading your own words.
What have today's astronauts done? Only strapped themselves into a huge, barely-controlled bomb and blasted themselves off the freakin planet. Just because somebody did it before doesn't make it any less crazy or remarkable. It's way, way different than hopping on a freighter for a few weeks, and it's insulting that you even make the comparison. There's no Coast Guard helicopter to drag you to safety if you lose an engine up there. Try applying to be an astronaut, and then try to join the Merchant Marine, and then get back to me with which is harder, 'kay?
There is NOTHING routine about going to space. If you fuck up just a little bit -- you die! If one of your mechanics or engineers screws up -- you die! If you happen to get unlucky and you're hit with a piece of debris or a meteorite -- you die! How is that routine? We earthbound types have no clue what zero-grav work is like, or what working in vacuum is like, and we shouldn't pretend that we do. Let's just agree that it's really, really hard.
We see and interpret today's missions as routine because a lot of people work real hard to make things work right. We consider it business as usual because the talking heads they point at us are the same talking heads we see for everything else. If NASA got rid of the PR-types, and just found a couple of engineers who were fairly telegenic, I'm sure they'd see a much better response from the public. As it is, they're selling their launches in much the same way as Toyota sells SUVs, or McDonalds sells Happy Meals, and it shouldn't work that way. Get a guy with real credibility, and real enthusiasm, to tell us how complicated and dangerous this is, not some slick infomercial salesdroid.
And finally: if you really want people to sit up and take notice, you have to do something Impossible. Like send people to Mars. Or start a permanent colony on the moon. In the meantime, the only way to wake people up about what NASA is doing is to have a very dramatic accident, where astronauts are very nearly killed, or even killed outright, and that's something I don't think they're willing to do right now.
I, too, am a grateful SimonDelivers customer in St. Paul. I'm neither an employee nor a shareholder, though you wouldn't guess it from the way I'm about to start gushing. I will admit that it's in my best interest to help them do well, since I fscking LOVE this service.
A large part of the reason for their waiting list is that they're being careful about rolling out their coverage. A company that offered grocery delivery Way Back When went under largely because they hired a whole bunch of sloppy, lazy drivers who did a lousy job of filling and packing orders. My wife and I did the Dance of Joy (tm) the day they added our ZIP code to their list.
It's true that delivery is not on demand, but that didn't matter for us. The shopping list is in the same spot on the fridge; it's just that the weekly shopping trip is now done in my underwear. I still giggle gleefully when I come home after work to a cooler full of groceries.
Another poster made a point about scheduled delivery services missing out on impulse shopping. That may be true, but I personally prefer to WALK to the corner market for a gallon of milk than to drive out to Grocery Coliseum and wait in the Express (what a fscking joke!) Lane for 20 minutes.
Simon's also done a pretty good job of rolling out his own specials, coupons, and suggestions on the website and the fliers that come with the groceries. In my experience, these are every bit as effective as your normal point-of-sale advertising (and I have the CC receipts to prove it!).
I really believe that for as long as the Bigass Supermarkets continue to employ drooling idiot employees to serve their drooling idiot consumers, I'll be staying as far away as possible.
Please, Simon, I'm begging you: don't screw this up!
First point: It's relevant because you don't often see people outside the software industry (though Kodak is heading there) with such glaring examples of monopoly abuses.
/. crowd to stay away from Windows, it's quite another to try and teach my Aunt Maxine how to use Linux. Or to get my PHB to abandon MS Everything.
Second point: You say "...it's so simple: don't buy their products."
Well, it's not that simple, when almost all PCs come pre-loaded with the stuff. And while it's one thing to tell the
Here's a quick tip you might want to remember (taken right from the article): MOST USERS ARE AVERAGE! They don't have degrees in CS, they don't know what DLL Hell is, and they don't care.
It's not important what we buy today -- we only buy a few thousand machines anyway. The really important battle is to give my Aunt Maxine and my PHB a decent alternative to Windows. If you want to put your money where your mouth is, then help the people who are working on these projects.
If you're going to call the community to arms, at least get the argument right.
You say "Here we are over 50 years after the war..." I would posit that it should be "only 50 years since the war." For as long as Brokaw and his "greatest generation" are still kicking around, we're not going to be able to get rid of the swastika's connotations of evil. Hell, we may never be rid of that baggage if they keep making "Pearl Harbor" movies...
A lot of people seem to think that the insurance companies won't insure 'at-risk' persons. But they HAVE to. The healthy ones won't want insurance. Oh, sure, maybe ten bucks a month just in case you get hit by a bus, but that's not enough for the insurer to make any money off you.
And if the healthy don't want insurance, then the insurers will have to cover those at risk, in order to have any customers at all. And if they only insure the at-risk, they'll price their product out of everyone's reach.
I guess I'm trying to say that genetic screening will put insurers out of business long before it make them rich (assuming, of course, that we retain the right to see the results of our screen). They exist to buy risk; if we eliminate risk and replace it with certainties, then we eliminate the need for the insurers, and they go away. Then the problem becomes a matter of finding a new method of delivering medical or death benefits to the public.
I only hope that the insurers recognize this before the fit hits the shan.
A bunch of us used to hang out in Bob's room and play MOM for hours on end. A favorite unit was the Invisible Flying Battleship. All was well, until one of us figured out that what we really had just invented was the B-2 Bomber! For a little while that day, we all became Republicans...