I still have my HP Laserjet 4p. It's a great printer. I have no problems with it and never have. And to look back at how old it actually is? Wow. It's impressive. And toner? I have plenty. Home use just isn't that much you know? And I do have a color printer as well, but the toner is expensive and I just don't need color that often.
Nice thing about laser printers -- they can sit on a shelf a lot longer.
As I run adblock and noscript, I'm already extremely comfortable with the white-list approach to securing browsers... so grains of salt in all of that -- users are not usually accustomed to the concept. I hadn't considered it when I first posted at 3-something AM this morning in my sleep. That said, it's useful to know that there are indeed still public/internet facing sites out there using Java. Shame on them.
Yes, while I tend to agree with that notion, I also have to remind that this is web Java applets we're talking about. Who does that any more? There are four places where I see that:
1. Business/Office web based apps (Documentum in my case) 2. Cisco "web interfaces" 3. An older HP print server "web interface." 4. Webmin (optional) controls for telnet/ssh and file management.
In each of those cases, I am very comfortable making those explicit exceptions. There may be more. Not wanting to speak for the whole world, but at this point, I can't imagine this being a huge problem. So anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong by providing other examples.
Well in this case, it's about actively seeking to deceive people about reality. Wikipedia is supposed to be factual and up to date. Opinions and spin have no place there.
As for theft? I'm going to say "you caught me" on that. Upon reflection, I will admit I have "perspectivized" my own actions on occasion. And in retrospect, I was doing myself no favor by doing so. I should have decided differently back then and wish I had. I suffered no ill consequence, but the benefit of doing the right thing was not clear to see until after I had chosen right.
People are more concerned with whether or not they are to be caught and less with whether or not it's the right thing to do. These bits and pieces of character should be coming from parents and school and society at large. I got lots of that sense growing up. I teach those lessons to my sons. I think for most people, however, those lessons never made it in and they are people of lesser character because of it. It makes me sad. None of those people even care that they are of weak and/or poor character. They care little about what they do to society, to culture, to their neighbors or just about anything that doesn't have a direct impact on their lives. I could ask "why" all day long and never get an answer that could lead to a solution. But I think since the 80s and attitude changes such as "looking out for number one" have managed to shift things in a bad and irreversable way. Am I wrong? Does anyone else here see things wrong and try to correct them when they see them? Or do you, like so many others say "it's not my business" and move on? You live in this world. Make it better if you can.
Firstly, they are using words with presumed [erroneous] meaning to "react" to a one-party claim of damage without validation or verification and merely presuming "oh he said hacker so he's a danger!!!" Sorry, but things shouldn't work like that.
But the assertions you are making ALSO happen. Usually, it's when women complain something about men and not so often when men complain about women or other men. (Because you know, men are evil, brutal people while women are good, kind, gentle and never ever lie about anything.) But you hyperbole is well received.
The constitution says they will not do things mentioned in the fourth amendment except upon probable cause. Is someone calling himself a hacker constitute probable cause? Especially probable cause to believe that he will destroy evidence or respond in any uncivil or unlawful way if he were tipped off to an impending investigation? I'm sorry, but that rarely, if ever happens to big business... big business which is famous for hiring paper shredder trucks to dispose of evidence on a regular basis. No, let's just trample rights because it's just a person and a business decision maker claims there is a possibility that a person might behave unethically. The response? Armed assaults on person and property over a damned civil case? I'm sorry, but I don't see why that should happen. This is all white collar stuff and should be handled appropriately.
And once again, there was a complete failure to show that the victim would likely have destroyed evidence of any sort. That's like forcing everyone to wear eye protection when using cutlery. Yes, it's "possible" but seriously?
Exceeding authority and using excessive force is a problem in this country. It's a big problem.
Yes, because due process is less important than the individual interests of people or businesses.
Clue-stick: by setting aside constitutionally mandated limits on government behavior, we are and have been endangering the very existence of the USA. We're kind of at a critical moment in US history. Do we step back from the evil ways of business, money and influence over government or do we swing back in favor of the words in the constitution which were written specifically to prevent exactly what is happening today?
It's not like this is not found in other areas though. For example, "gang" is now a magic word which means criminal. Back in the day, "gang" just meant a bunch of friends... well, not always but sometimes. "Our Gang" was not quite a 'gang' by contemporary definitions. But it strikes me that in the legal sense the implication by a word can actually lead to all sorts of legal and real mayhem. This is why motorcycle clubs are now called clubs. Because to be identified as a gang would mean they lose all sorts of things. 'Hacker' doesn't and shouldn't mean what THEY think it means. The entertainment/media industries have managed to take a good word and made it bad. The [blind] justice system has taken Hollywood's notion of hacker and applied it to people inappropriately. (And why not, they believe just about everything the MPAA/RIAA has to say.)
So now we're on notice. We need a new word. The old word is useless. The word "Hacker" has gone "gay."
Large applications determine the client. The client does not determine the application. Documentum (at least the version we use at the office) will not work with current versions of Java. One of the banks we use will not work with MSIE9 or greater. (Though thankfully, it works with Chrome and Firefox... go figure?!)
There could be a lowest-common-denominator working on both ends, but when it comes to my infrastructure, I see all of the holdback caused by the applications on the server side.
See, they aren't even attempting to cloak this under a new threat of some kind. Now they are just trying to pretend it makes things more efficient. It won't. They will still scan you and your belongings. You will still not be able to save a few bucks by bringing your own drinks on board or even within the airport. You will still have to spend extra money on "travel-sized" things in order to comply with their nonsense.
Ah! I see what you mean now! You mean to explain to everyone here that customers are aware of HTML compliance and how important it is to work within the standards to ensure compatibility.
"Customers" and consumers in general are dumber than dirt. So yes, you're correct to say that but it is also completely irrelevant to say that. The people who care about it and those who have helped to reign in the idiocy of vendor lock-in over the web have pushed for and helped to make the changes.
While the problems have always started on the server side due to people writing to incompatible standards (hey look! I can make blinking text!) you want to turn around and blame the consumer for having outdated clients which, at times, are required for OUTDATED SERVER SOFTWARE? MSIE 6 and 7 are still required by some banks. It's TRUE! And (I know it's not precisely relevant but serves as further indication) Java 1.6.x is still required by many server-side applications as well. The servers hold back the clients from advancing quite often and has less to do with clients (customers, consumers) failing to update. Bad IT strategy is bad IT strategy and it comes from bad IT strategists, not consumers. And let's not even talk about the horrible mess that is PC software development which is literally built around the notion of breaking standards and rules.
It's "the server side" because it's not the client side. If the pages were written to be standards compliant, then it would just work. But Microsoft's [server] applications have for a long time discriminated against non-IE browsers to the point that "everything else" gets a degraded experience if any at all.
The whole point of HTML/HTTP and all that is supposed to be "your documents appear nicely no matter what platform." Microsoft has famously used the web to exclude more than to include. Those days are ending, but the echos are still sounding.
And according to the knowledge base, since the problem is the user agent string, it seems to me the REAL fix is on the server side. As the web has gone back to standards compliance, servers which attempt to discriminate against browsers need to discriminate less. Once they stop that, a lot of problems disappear.
No, people can't opt out of accidents and exposure to disease. But they should be able to make their own decision, right or wrong, to seek out health insurance or to handle their problems in their own way as they see fit. And this includes anything along the lines of religious and moral objections to current medical practices.
As for data? Gonna be hard to find now. For most people, the requirement is based on laws which are about 20 years old. (Meaning most people here don't have a full appreciation of the before-after effects of such law.) But as a person in his mid 40s, I can recall clearly how my rates changed after laws were passed and how much news there was discussing the problem in that day. I am unable to find news or other articles related to that. This is as close as I could find:
The basic fact is that insurance companies have less incentive to lower rates once the requirement laws were put into place. It also shows their profitability went up following the passage of such law. Meanwhile, the amount of actual coverage went down for many people simply because they couldn't afford the newer, higher rates. And at the end of the day, it didn't curb the most frequent offenders of failure to be insured -- illegal immigrants.
Just as in the case of health insurance requirements, you only have to look at who benefits most and who is harmed the most to see what's wrong with such law and programs.
There's more wrong with that site than the software. The problems are so many ranging from how it came to be, what its results are, who it most affects, who it doesn't affect [as in who it excludes], what parties wrote the legislation in its current form and how it coincidentally benefits primarily them, and lots more.
This is the worst government trainwreck of a law I have ever seen. Requiring auto insurance for drivers and (in some states) driver-license holders has demonstrably had the effect of raising auto insurance rates for all. How this lesson learned did not translate into higher healthcare insurance rates is proof that the people either have no good intentions or are simply unqualified to make such plans and decisions as they failed to consider something so simple and obvious. That there are so many exemptions sprinkled in and about proves they are aware of the problems it poses for people but they only wish to help or protect themselves or their friends.
We need the proposed 28th amendment ratified so that this sort of unfair and unbalanced legislative practice can never happen again.
You are suggesting that I read the words written by the hand of man, translated and edited numerous times, and are asking me to believe it's the word of a god?
I know you must believe what you are saying, but if you were talking about anything else, let's say Roman mythology, would you be able to say "Perseus 3:12 contains the word of Zeus and if you don't believe that, look over Oedipus 6:9."
Sorry. I just can't give myself over to that line of thinking. I'm sorry you have. If it weren't for the fact that your belief is shared by so many others, you might be otherwise considered to be delusional and emotionally unstable. If you were the last Christian on earth, you most definitely would be considered as such. And then ask yourself why that would be. The only thing that keeps you from being labelled as such (delusional and unstable) is because there are many like you. And that's the ONLY reason.
The difference is that in science, they say things like "working theory" and never claim that something is the absolute truth and nothing can challenge or dispute it. Science is all about finding new facts and updating our understanding. Politics and religion are the ones who respond to new facts with... well, death and killing often enough.
All of the Abrahamic religions are based on about the same amount of proof and evidence. If you doubt one, you must doubt them all and for the same reasons. Just because Joseph Smith pulled the same stunt more recently and on this continent doesn't invalidate that the basis, principles and mechanics of the religion. So as you point to one aspect which is wrong with the LDS church, there is an analogue of the same problem in the other Abrahamic religions. And to be clear, they are all Abrahamic religions.
To me, that's the most ridiculous aspect of religious people. They are quick to point at others and completely miss that it's a huge matter of all the pots calling each other black. "Oh but my religion is different!" Yeah sure it is. If any of them are different, it's Islam and only because it was founded by a frikken murderous warlord.
My initial reaction to the story was "Good! Now maybe people will begin to see the others as stupid too!" Perhaps not. Religion holds back the potential of the human mind. So long as we can accept two opposing ideas as fact and so long as belief is more powerful than fact, humans will be crippled slaves and will not survive the next mass extinction event. We still can't get beyond our primitive need for monetary exchange because no one does anything "for mankind." Everything requires someone else get paid for something and we will continue to exploit workers until their miserable deaths. Religion is the distraction being used to keep people thinking about something other than reality.
Taste? When I was in, it was your basic "school cafeteria" level. On a ship at sea, it was a bit better actually... in some cases, exceptionally better. (I think that is mostly because the guys making it also have to eat it... on land, it's usually "cafeteria ladies" who serve but do not eat.)
I can't speak to the other branches of the service. Navy's at least passable.
The NSA has demonstrated government out of control. The whole agency has got to go. The US, my country, has not only created terrorism where it is the primary target (If the "they hate our freedom" is the cause, then why aren't other free countries targeted as well?) but has managed to lose its trust and influence all over the world due to the NSA's behaviors. Worse, it is also affecting American business as they have been shown to be extremely complicit and so also cannot easily be trusted. I'd like to say we never saw it coming, but we did. I have seen other people saying this would happen. I have said it myself. No one believed it would happen to the great and powerful USA... but it's happening
There are a lot of "addictive" qualities of many of the food products we ingest. Many of them are engineered to delay the "satisfy button" in our systems so that we eat more. (The common response to this problem is people asserting "eat more slowly" and "drink more water") and to that I say... uh, no. In a busy life, one doesn't always have time to pause and "enjoy" food. Eating is sometimes an interruption of whatever it is we are doing... fun, work, whatever. We are not always at leisure to determine how much time we have to eat. And of course my experience in the military didn't help forming bad habits did it? (But here's a mystery -- military food seems a lot more satisfying and healthy than civilian food... could also be the exercise regimen... I dunno. But some foods are easier to get fat on that others. It's not only about carbs and calories it's about the source of them and the way they are prepared... if you eat raw wheat, you will get less "stuff" than from processed wheat right?)
Anyway, back to addictive food qualities. I there are some well documented secrets of food that people should be made aware of. Among these is the fifth flavor sense. So after "sweet" "sour" "bitter" and "salty" there is a "new one" that the Chinese have known about for centuries if not millennia. It's called "savory" but the Chinese have another name for it... we also know it as "MSG."
And there's lots lots more to know about food and eating and how it all works.
I accept your corrections as an expression of outrage. I agree with you in principle. However, when people are attempting to speak to a situation, using a common language of names and expressions is important for continuity purposes. And while it is, in action, the "department of war" it is actually called "department of defense" and so it is called "defense spending." And if it helps to spin and twist, "defense of one's interests" is still defense even if it appears to be offense. For example, I shot and killed a deer in my garden to defend my property.
They aren't usually locked down to a particular store. Specialty devices are, at times, such as those child-focused ones where app selection is rather important. But otherwise not so much. That phones are locked to carriers is also a problem of Apple devices. And that Samsung and others insist on their own UI over the stock Android? Well... it's annoying, I agree but its not generally a show-stopper and some people prefer the alternatives.
Anyway, I don't care about this any more... I know how to make crap work for me, but most people don't know how to learn about things before diving in. They just stumble on to a device and software and cry when things don't go as expected. But then again, I have been known to support users from time to time... people are just frikken dumb. One remote user forgot the password she changed and can't log in. She blames the computer. Funny how people never look to themselves when finding the cause of a problem.
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I still have my HP Laserjet 4p. It's a great printer. I have no problems with it and never have. And to look back at how old it actually is? Wow. It's impressive. And toner? I have plenty. Home use just isn't that much you know? And I do have a color printer as well, but the toner is expensive and I just don't need color that often.
Nice thing about laser printers -- they can sit on a shelf a lot longer.
As I run adblock and noscript, I'm already extremely comfortable with the white-list approach to securing browsers... so grains of salt in all of that -- users are not usually accustomed to the concept. I hadn't considered it when I first posted at 3-something AM this morning in my sleep. That said, it's useful to know that there are indeed still public/internet facing sites out there using Java. Shame on them.
Yes, while I tend to agree with that notion, I also have to remind that this is web Java applets we're talking about. Who does that any more? There are four places where I see that:
1. Business/Office web based apps (Documentum in my case)
2. Cisco "web interfaces"
3. An older HP print server "web interface."
4. Webmin (optional) controls for telnet/ssh and file management.
In each of those cases, I am very comfortable making those explicit exceptions. There may be more. Not wanting to speak for the whole world, but at this point, I can't imagine this being a huge problem. So anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong by providing other examples.
Well in this case, it's about actively seeking to deceive people about reality. Wikipedia is supposed to be factual and up to date. Opinions and spin have no place there.
As for theft? I'm going to say "you caught me" on that. Upon reflection, I will admit I have "perspectivized" my own actions on occasion. And in retrospect, I was doing myself no favor by doing so. I should have decided differently back then and wish I had. I suffered no ill consequence, but the benefit of doing the right thing was not clear to see until after I had chosen right.
People are more concerned with whether or not they are to be caught and less with whether or not it's the right thing to do. These bits and pieces of character should be coming from parents and school and society at large. I got lots of that sense growing up. I teach those lessons to my sons. I think for most people, however, those lessons never made it in and they are people of lesser character because of it. It makes me sad. None of those people even care that they are of weak and/or poor character. They care little about what they do to society, to culture, to their neighbors or just about anything that doesn't have a direct impact on their lives. I could ask "why" all day long and never get an answer that could lead to a solution. But I think since the 80s and attitude changes such as "looking out for number one" have managed to shift things in a bad and irreversable way. Am I wrong? Does anyone else here see things wrong and try to correct them when they see them? Or do you, like so many others say "it's not my business" and move on? You live in this world. Make it better if you can.
Firstly, they are using words with presumed [erroneous] meaning to "react" to a one-party claim of damage without validation or verification and merely presuming "oh he said hacker so he's a danger!!!" Sorry, but things shouldn't work like that.
But the assertions you are making ALSO happen. Usually, it's when women complain something about men and not so often when men complain about women or other men. (Because you know, men are evil, brutal people while women are good, kind, gentle and never ever lie about anything.) But you hyperbole is well received.
The constitution says they will not do things mentioned in the fourth amendment except upon probable cause. Is someone calling himself a hacker constitute probable cause? Especially probable cause to believe that he will destroy evidence or respond in any uncivil or unlawful way if he were tipped off to an impending investigation? I'm sorry, but that rarely, if ever happens to big business... big business which is famous for hiring paper shredder trucks to dispose of evidence on a regular basis. No, let's just trample rights because it's just a person and a business decision maker claims there is a possibility that a person might behave unethically. The response? Armed assaults on person and property over a damned civil case? I'm sorry, but I don't see why that should happen. This is all white collar stuff and should be handled appropriately.
And once again, there was a complete failure to show that the victim would likely have destroyed evidence of any sort. That's like forcing everyone to wear eye protection when using cutlery. Yes, it's "possible" but seriously?
Exceeding authority and using excessive force is a problem in this country. It's a big problem.
Yes, because due process is less important than the individual interests of people or businesses.
Clue-stick: by setting aside constitutionally mandated limits on government behavior, we are and have been endangering the very existence of the USA. We're kind of at a critical moment in US history. Do we step back from the evil ways of business, money and influence over government or do we swing back in favor of the words in the constitution which were written specifically to prevent exactly what is happening today?
It's not like this is not found in other areas though. For example, "gang" is now a magic word which means criminal. Back in the day, "gang" just meant a bunch of friends... well, not always but sometimes. "Our Gang" was not quite a 'gang' by contemporary definitions. But it strikes me that in the legal sense the implication by a word can actually lead to all sorts of legal and real mayhem. This is why motorcycle clubs are now called clubs. Because to be identified as a gang would mean they lose all sorts of things. 'Hacker' doesn't and shouldn't mean what THEY think it means. The entertainment/media industries have managed to take a good word and made it bad. The [blind] justice system has taken Hollywood's notion of hacker and applied it to people inappropriately. (And why not, they believe just about everything the MPAA/RIAA has to say.)
So now we're on notice. We need a new word. The old word is useless. The word "Hacker" has gone "gay."
Large applications determine the client. The client does not determine the application. Documentum (at least the version we use at the office) will not work with current versions of Java. One of the banks we use will not work with MSIE9 or greater. (Though thankfully, it works with Chrome and Firefox... go figure?!)
There could be a lowest-common-denominator working on both ends, but when it comes to my infrastructure, I see all of the holdback caused by the applications on the server side.
...and THAT will disappear when every sneetches has star upon thars.
See, they aren't even attempting to cloak this under a new threat of some kind. Now they are just trying to pretend it makes things more efficient. It won't. They will still scan you and your belongings. You will still not be able to save a few bucks by bringing your own drinks on board or even within the airport. You will still have to spend extra money on "travel-sized" things in order to comply with their nonsense.
Ah! I see what you mean now! You mean to explain to everyone here that customers are aware of HTML compliance and how important it is to work within the standards to ensure compatibility.
"Customers" and consumers in general are dumber than dirt. So yes, you're correct to say that but it is also completely irrelevant to say that. The people who care about it and those who have helped to reign in the idiocy of vendor lock-in over the web have pushed for and helped to make the changes.
While the problems have always started on the server side due to people writing to incompatible standards (hey look! I can make blinking text!) you want to turn around and blame the consumer for having outdated clients which, at times, are required for OUTDATED SERVER SOFTWARE? MSIE 6 and 7 are still required by some banks. It's TRUE! And (I know it's not precisely relevant but serves as further indication) Java 1.6.x is still required by many server-side applications as well. The servers hold back the clients from advancing quite often and has less to do with clients (customers, consumers) failing to update. Bad IT strategy is bad IT strategy and it comes from bad IT strategists, not consumers. And let's not even talk about the horrible mess that is PC software development which is literally built around the notion of breaking standards and rules.
It's "the server side" because it's not the client side. If the pages were written to be standards compliant, then it would just work. But Microsoft's [server] applications have for a long time discriminated against non-IE browsers to the point that "everything else" gets a degraded experience if any at all.
The whole point of HTML/HTTP and all that is supposed to be "your documents appear nicely no matter what platform." Microsoft has famously used the web to exclude more than to include. Those days are ending, but the echos are still sounding.
I wonder if any of this has anything to do with that ridiculous "security" Microsoft created for PCs to prevent them from running Linux?
And according to the knowledge base, since the problem is the user agent string, it seems to me the REAL fix is on the server side. As the web has gone back to standards compliance, servers which attempt to discriminate against browsers need to discriminate less. Once they stop that, a lot of problems disappear.
No, people can't opt out of accidents and exposure to disease. But they should be able to make their own decision, right or wrong, to seek out health insurance or to handle their problems in their own way as they see fit. And this includes anything along the lines of religious and moral objections to current medical practices.
As for data? Gonna be hard to find now. For most people, the requirement is based on laws which are about 20 years old. (Meaning most people here don't have a full appreciation of the before-after effects of such law.) But as a person in his mid 40s, I can recall clearly how my rates changed after laws were passed and how much news there was discussing the problem in that day. I am unable to find news or other articles related to that. This is as close as I could find:
http://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/partingshots/2000/06/26/22647.htm
The basic fact is that insurance companies have less incentive to lower rates once the requirement laws were put into place. It also shows their profitability went up following the passage of such law. Meanwhile, the amount of actual coverage went down for many people simply because they couldn't afford the newer, higher rates. And at the end of the day, it didn't curb the most frequent offenders of failure to be insured -- illegal immigrants.
Just as in the case of health insurance requirements, you only have to look at who benefits most and who is harmed the most to see what's wrong with such law and programs.
There's more wrong with that site than the software. The problems are so many ranging from how it came to be, what its results are, who it most affects, who it doesn't affect [as in who it excludes], what parties wrote the legislation in its current form and how it coincidentally benefits primarily them, and lots more.
This is the worst government trainwreck of a law I have ever seen. Requiring auto insurance for drivers and (in some states) driver-license holders has demonstrably had the effect of raising auto insurance rates for all. How this lesson learned did not translate into higher healthcare insurance rates is proof that the people either have no good intentions or are simply unqualified to make such plans and decisions as they failed to consider something so simple and obvious. That there are so many exemptions sprinkled in and about proves they are aware of the problems it poses for people but they only wish to help or protect themselves or their friends.
We need the proposed 28th amendment ratified so that this sort of unfair and unbalanced legislative practice can never happen again.
You are suggesting that I read the words written by the hand of man, translated and edited numerous times, and are asking me to believe it's the word of a god?
I know you must believe what you are saying, but if you were talking about anything else, let's say Roman mythology, would you be able to say "Perseus 3:12 contains the word of Zeus and if you don't believe that, look over Oedipus 6:9."
Sorry. I just can't give myself over to that line of thinking. I'm sorry you have. If it weren't for the fact that your belief is shared by so many others, you might be otherwise considered to be delusional and emotionally unstable. If you were the last Christian on earth, you most definitely would be considered as such. And then ask yourself why that would be. The only thing that keeps you from being labelled as such (delusional and unstable) is because there are many like you. And that's the ONLY reason.
The difference is that in science, they say things like "working theory" and never claim that something is the absolute truth and nothing can challenge or dispute it. Science is all about finding new facts and updating our understanding. Politics and religion are the ones who respond to new facts with ... well, death and killing often enough.
All of the Abrahamic religions are based on about the same amount of proof and evidence. If you doubt one, you must doubt them all and for the same reasons. Just because Joseph Smith pulled the same stunt more recently and on this continent doesn't invalidate that the basis, principles and mechanics of the religion. So as you point to one aspect which is wrong with the LDS church, there is an analogue of the same problem in the other Abrahamic religions. And to be clear, they are all Abrahamic religions.
To me, that's the most ridiculous aspect of religious people. They are quick to point at others and completely miss that it's a huge matter of all the pots calling each other black. "Oh but my religion is different!" Yeah sure it is. If any of them are different, it's Islam and only because it was founded by a frikken murderous warlord.
My initial reaction to the story was "Good! Now maybe people will begin to see the others as stupid too!" Perhaps not. Religion holds back the potential of the human mind. So long as we can accept two opposing ideas as fact and so long as belief is more powerful than fact, humans will be crippled slaves and will not survive the next mass extinction event. We still can't get beyond our primitive need for monetary exchange because no one does anything "for mankind." Everything requires someone else get paid for something and we will continue to exploit workers until their miserable deaths. Religion is the distraction being used to keep people thinking about something other than reality.
Taste? When I was in, it was your basic "school cafeteria" level. On a ship at sea, it was a bit better actually... in some cases, exceptionally better. (I think that is mostly because the guys making it also have to eat it... on land, it's usually "cafeteria ladies" who serve but do not eat.)
I can't speak to the other branches of the service. Navy's at least passable.
The NSA has demonstrated government out of control. The whole agency has got to go. The US, my country, has not only created terrorism where it is the primary target (If the "they hate our freedom" is the cause, then why aren't other free countries targeted as well?) but has managed to lose its trust and influence all over the world due to the NSA's behaviors. Worse, it is also affecting American business as they have been shown to be extremely complicit and so also cannot easily be trusted. I'd like to say we never saw it coming, but we did. I have seen other people saying this would happen. I have said it myself. No one believed it would happen to the great and powerful USA... but it's happening
There are a lot of "addictive" qualities of many of the food products we ingest. Many of them are engineered to delay the "satisfy button" in our systems so that we eat more. (The common response to this problem is people asserting "eat more slowly" and "drink more water") and to that I say... uh, no. In a busy life, one doesn't always have time to pause and "enjoy" food. Eating is sometimes an interruption of whatever it is we are doing... fun, work, whatever. We are not always at leisure to determine how much time we have to eat. And of course my experience in the military didn't help forming bad habits did it? (But here's a mystery -- military food seems a lot more satisfying and healthy than civilian food... could also be the exercise regimen... I dunno. But some foods are easier to get fat on that others. It's not only about carbs and calories it's about the source of them and the way they are prepared... if you eat raw wheat, you will get less "stuff" than from processed wheat right?)
Anyway, back to addictive food qualities. I there are some well documented secrets of food that people should be made aware of. Among these is the fifth flavor sense. So after "sweet" "sour" "bitter" and "salty" there is a "new one" that the Chinese have known about for centuries if not millennia. It's called "savory" but the Chinese have another name for it... we also know it as "MSG."
And there's lots lots more to know about food and eating and how it all works.
I accept your corrections as an expression of outrage. I agree with you in principle. However, when people are attempting to speak to a situation, using a common language of names and expressions is important for continuity purposes. And while it is, in action, the "department of war" it is actually called "department of defense" and so it is called "defense spending." And if it helps to spin and twist, "defense of one's interests" is still defense even if it appears to be offense. For example, I shot and killed a deer in my garden to defend my property.
They aren't usually locked down to a particular store. Specialty devices are, at times, such as those child-focused ones where app selection is rather important. But otherwise not so much. That phones are locked to carriers is also a problem of Apple devices. And that Samsung and others insist on their own UI over the stock Android? Well... it's annoying, I agree but its not generally a show-stopper and some people prefer the alternatives.
Anyway, I don't care about this any more... I know how to make crap work for me, but most people don't know how to learn about things before diving in. They just stumble on to a device and software and cry when things don't go as expected. But then again, I have been known to support users from time to time... people are just frikken dumb. One remote user forgot the password she changed and can't log in. She blames the computer. Funny how people never look to themselves when finding the cause of a problem.