I never suggested only the perfect countries get nukes, just the ones I don't think will turn around and nuke me. The thing about nukes is that once someone has them it's kind of hard to go and take them away. We currently are the only country that has used nukes offensively and I would prefer it stay that way.
As for who decides who is playing nice? Right now it's the US, China, and Russia. The only reason North Korea exists is because of China. Had China not become involved, we would have actually won the Korean war. Had China and Russia not taken an interest in preserving North Korea, North Korea would have ceased to exist. China has protected North Korea and permitted them to continue their nuclear ambitions.
You cannot simultaneously criticize the US for invading Iraq and not invading Pakistan/North Korea while also clamoring for the US to invade parts of Africa. Realistically you can expect one war at a time, maybe two. Perhaps, while clamoring for the US to withdraw troops from the middle east, you should also ask for a withdraw from Europe, South Korea, etc. The US became the police of the world when they became responsible for defending other countries after World War II. If you do not wish to fall under US jurisdiction, then you should build your own army and not expect US troops to defend you. You can't have both.
What we need right now is a president and congress willing to actually fight and win a war. Iran wouldn't be threatening naval blockades of international waters if Bush were still president.
And that is different from our policy how? The deal during the cold war was "You nuke us, we nuke you back." We called it mutually assured destruction. It is a deterrence strategy through promising massive retaliation. Note that it worked with the Russians because Russia didn't want to get nuked. Isreal, like us and the Russians, likes living in the world and isn't going to start nuking people for kicks. Iran, however, doesn't care if they get glassed in retaliation so long as they take out their enemy in the process. I don't ask that a nuclear power be perfect, just sane enough to care about its continued existence.
They go along with the giant yellow thing in the sky. I forget what we are supposed to call it, but one rare occasions it comes out to make our eyes hurt.
The problem is that Iran doesn't care if it survives. So what if we glass the country in retaliation? They would still have obliterated a major city. Also, you don't need a missile to deliver a nuke. You can deliver it with a ship or plane. We also have friends and allies much closer to Iran than North America who they could easily strike with their current missile capabilities. The other thing about nukes is they are area of effect weapons. It doesn't take many and your aim doesn't have to be particularly good.
If I had two neighbors who were being aggressive, violent, and threatening, I would thank the other person for taking care of them. Yes, I have actually been there and done that. The entire neighborhood got together and thanked the ex-marine that patrolled the neighborhood with an assault rifle, preventing it from being looted when everyone else had evacuated for a hurricane. We valued and rewarded his actions, as did the local authorities. No one mourned the would-be-looters.
Other countries routinely say bad things about the US and we don't sanction them. There is, however, a difference between blatant threats and voicing dissident opinions. You have the right to criticize the US as much as you want. You run into problems when you threaten violence and destruction.
So... why can't you set a budget and stick with it for free-to-play games? If you planned on spending $15 a month in subscription fees, why can't you plan to spend $15 a month on hats/weapons/whatever and if the "super cool hat that I need NOW" happens to push you over that $15, wait until next month? Isn't that what you do with the rest of your expenses? You don't know your exact electric bill every month beforehand, but you still manage to plan for it in your budget. If you see a shiny new toy that is outside your budget in a store window, do you immediately go and buy it, or do you first evaluate if you have enough money to afford it? Poor budget and impulse control skills sound like a personal problem, not a problem with the free to play model.
For the same reason that we occasionally take drivers licenses or weapons permits away from people that have demonstrated an inability to use their fun toys in a responsible manner conducive to the safety of others. Do you have a problem with your neighbor having a small arsenal when he behaves like a responsible citizen? No. However, when he starts brandishing the weapons around and threatening your family you call the cops and have him dealt with.
Iran has expressed a repeated and rather vocal interest in destroying the US and Isreal. I happen to live in the US and so have a vested interested in our continued existence. No one gives a crap about countries like France having nukes because no one thinks France is crazy enough to destroy the world. We like to postulate about Russia's nukes, but in the end Russia also does not want to destroy the world because Russia likes living in the world. Iran, conversely, has stated multiple times that self-destruction is an acceptable end game provided they get to take us with them. If I thought Iran would play nice, I wouldn't have a problem with them arming themselves. Once they demonstrate the ability to behave like a responsible nation in the world community, they too can have the big weapons.
And this is why people don't take the enviro-nuts seriously. If you seriously believed in being carbon neutral you would give up all your fancy planet killing technology and go join some group like the Amish. There is a thing called quality of life and some of us believe that it is important.
If companies realize that some 50% of the 'work' I do (all the email/meeting stuff) is worthless bureaucratic drivel, the working environment will change and we will see large productivity spikes.
So... they are a successful ad company because they have manged to convince millions of people to use their search engine/browser/whatever by having the best available free search engine/browser/whatever. This makes them a monopoly? Because google has more eyes to sell than bing? So should google runs ads sold by other companies? If bing wants more market share they should make a better product and attract more eyes to sell. You can't really separate the ad business from the free service business since the ads are worthless without the eyes.
I think people (management) are finally starting to realize that they can charge $1 for a stupid hat that doesn't effect game play and people will buy it...
It was being prepared for commercial distribution. It just wasn't done yet. Notice the present tense. Copyright doesn't only apply to a finished product, but also to works still in production.
I know! Everyone knows the best way to get through a light faster is to lay on your horn as loudly and often as you can. It works for ambulances and firetrucks, so it should work for normal people, right?
In all seriousness though, the "defensive driving" people that try to claim that any accident can be avoided piss me off. My car has been rear-ended twice (once while stopped at an intersection) and also hit while parked legally in a church parking lot for Christmas mass. If people can't avoid hitting parked cars, what makes anyone think they can avoid the moving ones?
Not sure where you live, but a lot of places have laws about not discharging weapons within city limits, etc. And I suspect that they will fly at sufficient altitude to not be shot at easily.
Oh, the other patent is just as stupid and obvious as ours and the patent office granted it. The lawyer sent it to us as an example of what kind of documents he wanted from us:P You guys have a real special gift for being vague and then lighting on one minor detail to differentiate two implementations. "See... we are totally different cause we have Phillips screws instead of flat screws..." or something equally stupid like "we used the internet!" or "we did it on a mobile device!"
I am currently in the process of filing a software patent because management directed me to. If you asked me, I (and everyone else who worked on the software) would tell you that our software is stupid. Anyone else who sets out to solve the same problem we did would probably end up solving it the same way. It is not innovative. We were told that the success of our project is measured by the amount of IP filed and so we made some crap up to look like IP so management would be happy and we would look successful. The reality is we have crap. Management, however, decided that our idea was great and sent it off to some patent lawyer who is currently trying to make it look innovative and unique. The best part is, another company already has a patent for a product that already does what we did, but they did it the correct way, not the cheap dirty way that doesn't really work.
That is why the software patent system is broken. We, the engineers, know the patent is crap. We, the engineers, get paid nice bonuses for filing IP and our projects' success are measured by how much IP we file each year. Ergo, we want to be successful, well paid engineers, so we file crap IP and management somehow buys into it. A patent lawyer then gets paid a boatload of money to make the crap idea look good, and I seriously doubt cares if the idea is crap or not. In then end a lot of money is going to be wasted and if someone else sets out to solve the same problem we solved and stumbles across our obvious solution, they are going to get sued.
They did the same thing when Katrina hit New Orleans. They knew the sea walls and levees couldn't take that kind of hurricane before Katrina. What did they do after Katrina? Rebuilt to the pre-Katrina standards. There were also people on TV yelling about why was it taking so long to get back into the city, as if 30 feet of water was something you clean up with a wet-dry vac. You will also notice that no one ever talks about what went right. The fact that there is a nuclear power plant in New Orleans that rode out the storm just fine is not news. The other nuclear power plants in Japan that did not fail are not news. And sadly, OMG RADIATION makes a better headline than "small town no longer exists because of tsunami." Fear, destruction, and conspiracy sell.
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I never suggested only the perfect countries get nukes, just the ones I don't think will turn around and nuke me. The thing about nukes is that once someone has them it's kind of hard to go and take them away. We currently are the only country that has used nukes offensively and I would prefer it stay that way.
As for who decides who is playing nice? Right now it's the US, China, and Russia. The only reason North Korea exists is because of China. Had China not become involved, we would have actually won the Korean war. Had China and Russia not taken an interest in preserving North Korea, North Korea would have ceased to exist. China has protected North Korea and permitted them to continue their nuclear ambitions.
You cannot simultaneously criticize the US for invading Iraq and not invading Pakistan/North Korea while also clamoring for the US to invade parts of Africa. Realistically you can expect one war at a time, maybe two. Perhaps, while clamoring for the US to withdraw troops from the middle east, you should also ask for a withdraw from Europe, South Korea, etc. The US became the police of the world when they became responsible for defending other countries after World War II. If you do not wish to fall under US jurisdiction, then you should build your own army and not expect US troops to defend you. You can't have both.
What we need right now is a president and congress willing to actually fight and win a war. Iran wouldn't be threatening naval blockades of international waters if Bush were still president.
And that is different from our policy how? The deal during the cold war was "You nuke us, we nuke you back." We called it mutually assured destruction. It is a deterrence strategy through promising massive retaliation. Note that it worked with the Russians because Russia didn't want to get nuked. Isreal, like us and the Russians, likes living in the world and isn't going to start nuking people for kicks. Iran, however, doesn't care if they get glassed in retaliation so long as they take out their enemy in the process. I don't ask that a nuclear power be perfect, just sane enough to care about its continued existence.
They go along with the giant yellow thing in the sky. I forget what we are supposed to call it, but one rare occasions it comes out to make our eyes hurt.
The problem is that Iran doesn't care if it survives. So what if we glass the country in retaliation? They would still have obliterated a major city. Also, you don't need a missile to deliver a nuke. You can deliver it with a ship or plane. We also have friends and allies much closer to Iran than North America who they could easily strike with their current missile capabilities. The other thing about nukes is they are area of effect weapons. It doesn't take many and your aim doesn't have to be particularly good.
If I had two neighbors who were being aggressive, violent, and threatening, I would thank the other person for taking care of them. Yes, I have actually been there and done that. The entire neighborhood got together and thanked the ex-marine that patrolled the neighborhood with an assault rifle, preventing it from being looted when everyone else had evacuated for a hurricane. We valued and rewarded his actions, as did the local authorities. No one mourned the would-be-looters.
Other countries routinely say bad things about the US and we don't sanction them. There is, however, a difference between blatant threats and voicing dissident opinions. You have the right to criticize the US as much as you want. You run into problems when you threaten violence and destruction.
So... why can't you set a budget and stick with it for free-to-play games? If you planned on spending $15 a month in subscription fees, why can't you plan to spend $15 a month on hats/weapons/whatever and if the "super cool hat that I need NOW" happens to push you over that $15, wait until next month? Isn't that what you do with the rest of your expenses? You don't know your exact electric bill every month beforehand, but you still manage to plan for it in your budget. If you see a shiny new toy that is outside your budget in a store window, do you immediately go and buy it, or do you first evaluate if you have enough money to afford it? Poor budget and impulse control skills sound like a personal problem, not a problem with the free to play model.
For the same reason that we occasionally take drivers licenses or weapons permits away from people that have demonstrated an inability to use their fun toys in a responsible manner conducive to the safety of others. Do you have a problem with your neighbor having a small arsenal when he behaves like a responsible citizen? No. However, when he starts brandishing the weapons around and threatening your family you call the cops and have him dealt with.
Iran has expressed a repeated and rather vocal interest in destroying the US and Isreal. I happen to live in the US and so have a vested interested in our continued existence. No one gives a crap about countries like France having nukes because no one thinks France is crazy enough to destroy the world. We like to postulate about Russia's nukes, but in the end Russia also does not want to destroy the world because Russia likes living in the world. Iran, conversely, has stated multiple times that self-destruction is an acceptable end game provided they get to take us with them. If I thought Iran would play nice, I wouldn't have a problem with them arming themselves. Once they demonstrate the ability to behave like a responsible nation in the world community, they too can have the big weapons.
Damn you and your pattern recognition skills!
And this is why people don't take the enviro-nuts seriously. If you seriously believed in being carbon neutral you would give up all your fancy planet killing technology and go join some group like the Amish. There is a thing called quality of life and some of us believe that it is important.
We don't need weapons for the dangerous wildlife. We need them for the dangerous people. The fact we can use them on the wildlife is just a bonus.
If companies realize that some 50% of the 'work' I do (all the email/meeting stuff) is worthless bureaucratic drivel, the working environment will change and we will see large productivity spikes.
FTFY.
Volvo already thought of that...
So... they are a successful ad company because they have manged to convince millions of people to use their search engine/browser/whatever by having the best available free search engine/browser/whatever. This makes them a monopoly? Because google has more eyes to sell than bing? So should google runs ads sold by other companies? If bing wants more market share they should make a better product and attract more eyes to sell. You can't really separate the ad business from the free service business since the ads are worthless without the eyes.
Really? I know several people running their own DNS servers. How can they make a DNS server illegal?
I think people (management) are finally starting to realize that they can charge $1 for a stupid hat that doesn't effect game play and people will buy it...
It was being prepared for commercial distribution. It just wasn't done yet. Notice the present tense. Copyright doesn't only apply to a finished product, but also to works still in production.
They already put hidden cameras in teddy bears.
I know! Everyone knows the best way to get through a light faster is to lay on your horn as loudly and often as you can. It works for ambulances and firetrucks, so it should work for normal people, right?
In all seriousness though, the "defensive driving" people that try to claim that any accident can be avoided piss me off. My car has been rear-ended twice (once while stopped at an intersection) and also hit while parked legally in a church parking lot for Christmas mass. If people can't avoid hitting parked cars, what makes anyone think they can avoid the moving ones?
Clearly she should have run the light...
One of my co-workers goes and shoots the chipmunks in his backyard with his .22. If no one complains...
Not sure where you live, but a lot of places have laws about not discharging weapons within city limits, etc. And I suspect that they will fly at sufficient altitude to not be shot at easily.
Oh, the other patent is just as stupid and obvious as ours and the patent office granted it. The lawyer sent it to us as an example of what kind of documents he wanted from us :P You guys have a real special gift for being vague and then lighting on one minor detail to differentiate two implementations. "See... we are totally different cause we have Phillips screws instead of flat screws..." or something equally stupid like "we used the internet!" or "we did it on a mobile device!"
I am currently in the process of filing a software patent because management directed me to. If you asked me, I (and everyone else who worked on the software) would tell you that our software is stupid. Anyone else who sets out to solve the same problem we did would probably end up solving it the same way. It is not innovative. We were told that the success of our project is measured by the amount of IP filed and so we made some crap up to look like IP so management would be happy and we would look successful. The reality is we have crap. Management, however, decided that our idea was great and sent it off to some patent lawyer who is currently trying to make it look innovative and unique. The best part is, another company already has a patent for a product that already does what we did, but they did it the correct way, not the cheap dirty way that doesn't really work.
That is why the software patent system is broken. We, the engineers, know the patent is crap. We, the engineers, get paid nice bonuses for filing IP and our projects' success are measured by how much IP we file each year. Ergo, we want to be successful, well paid engineers, so we file crap IP and management somehow buys into it. A patent lawyer then gets paid a boatload of money to make the crap idea look good, and I seriously doubt cares if the idea is crap or not. In then end a lot of money is going to be wasted and if someone else sets out to solve the same problem we solved and stumbles across our obvious solution, they are going to get sued.
They did the same thing when Katrina hit New Orleans. They knew the sea walls and levees couldn't take that kind of hurricane before Katrina. What did they do after Katrina? Rebuilt to the pre-Katrina standards. There were also people on TV yelling about why was it taking so long to get back into the city, as if 30 feet of water was something you clean up with a wet-dry vac. You will also notice that no one ever talks about what went right. The fact that there is a nuclear power plant in New Orleans that rode out the storm just fine is not news. The other nuclear power plants in Japan that did not fail are not news. And sadly, OMG RADIATION makes a better headline than "small town no longer exists because of tsunami." Fear, destruction, and conspiracy sell.
That would require them to know what they wanted...
Can we return men then too and get refunds when it turns out they aren't the suave gentlemen they portray themselves to be while dating?