We developers are fond of saying that we eat our own dog food, meaning that we use the tools be build. So does ChoicePoint use their own service, implying their service is suboptimal, or do they simply feel that our data security isn't worth it?
Either way, how many more times do things like this need to occur before people will become widely convinced that companies such as these need to be more thoroughly scrutinized?
Um, what do you think they do with bulls too old to put out to stud?
True, I posted that too quickly. My point was that they're a hell of a lot happier living on a large ranch out in the open than penned up in a box so they stay tender. As well, they're not "sent to slaughter" in a cramped box car nor slaughtered en masse.
As I said, I understand your point about different areas of intelligence. But saying an octopus is as intelligent as a cat does get across the main point, I believe. While my cats weren't able to pick locks (perhaps because they lacked the tools like eight highly-flexible arms with suction devices or as you say, the desire to "perform"), they were able to get to the boxes of food stored up on a shelf, open them, and eat just enough to not starve when I ended up having a business trip extended and couldn't reach anyone to feed them.
In any case, the plural of the greek word octopus is octopodes
Yes, while I checked the dictionary and it made no reference to this (I only put it in there to be funny, and for that I think I did enough due diligence), I read a post further down that explained this as well. I still feel octopi sounds far cooler and will continue to work it into as many conversations as I can. Maybe I can change the common usage and take over the world!
This just confirms my suspicion that cats are holier-than-thou pompous jerkwads.
Having raised four cats, I must concede this point.:)
I think the point is that dogs and cats derive pleasure from being companions to humans (my assumption from observing all of my pets over the years) while other animals haven't been domesticated similarly. True, you can say that our ancestors harmed the original cats and dogs by domesticating them, but they are long since dead, and their offspring benefit from being around humans and we benefit from them.
I don't think this carries over to farm animals simply because we kill and eat them! Maybe the animals on old-school family farms where the animals are treated humanely and then killed swiftly with respect live happy lives, but today's factory farms are sick and demented. The animals are tormented from birth to slaughter. If you haven't, check out The Meatrix.
You sound like a dog person that hates cats. I love both animals (cats and dogs), and I certainly understand your point that there are different types of intelligence (problem-solving, social, technical, musical). But you seem to be offended by the implication that cats are intelligent. I may be wrong, but that's how I read your post.
I'll say one thing about cats, though. I've had four as pets over the years, and each and every one of them knew that the plural of octopus is octopi!:p
All that remains to be done is the creation of law that compels purchase.
No need, not when American culture does this so effectively. Christmas and birthday presents, anyone? Commercials via every vector immaginable protected as "free speech."
My first thought is that Microsoft had Matsushita go after them. For one thing, Microsoft may have licensed the patent and thus had the right to use the technology. But Microsoft has the most to gain by having this Word competitor "destroyed."
Wouldn't the concept of tool buttons in general be prior art. You click on a "Circle Tool" button and you cursor changes to a +. You then click where you want the circle. It's not to get help, but I think it's stupid to have a different patent for every type of thing you can do in the same way (click tool, cursor changes, use tool).
depending on how many of those TV's were made, and the age of the TV itself 8 fires from a particular model may not be outside normal electronics wearing out, especially if small power surges or brownouts were involved.
I probably should have been more clear. In all eight previous cases (I just smoke with my parents today and they corrected me; we were number nine) the investigators determined that the process Zenith used in their TV sets to make them instant-on, namely keeping the tube warm at all times, was faulty. When they malfunctioned, they didn't spark or get too hot, they literally ignited in flames.
Do one had died, but several people had been enjured while escaping their homes. The most Zenith was willing to do was recommend that people leave their TVs unplugged when not in use, but they weren't forced to send out a letter to that effect or make it public. If someone called and asked, they would tell them, but that was it.
when using these store discount cards, are only the
discounted items kept in store records?
They keep records of all of your purchases, not just discounted items. The reason they have the cards in the first place is so they can better track their inventory and demand over time, hopefully allowing them to maintain less stock and send back fewer spoiled goods. There goal is not to save you money but to increase profits as they are for-profit corporations and are beholden to their shareholders first above all else.
when paying with credit card, are the stores retaining a list of my purchases linked to my card?
I recall that most companies with club cards have claimed that they do not store the credit card number at all. I would not be able to verify that, nor you probably, but hopefully reputable auditing companies like Anderson Consulting . . . oh, uh, never mind. I guess we just have to trust the stores.
Wow, and people call me a cynic! It would take far more than that. They'd better have his fellow firefighters on the stand talking about his "deep, disturbing fascination with fire" and how he "would often get to the fire in his own vehicle before the fire trucks."
His wife would need to cry through the stories of his drinking and abuse and how he neglected the child(ren).
But above all, I'd want at least one piece of physical evidence, and that someone else knew his phone number and used it to purchase lighter fluid doesn't count.
All I can say is, I hope you're never on a jury!;)
His house was set on fire.
He was charged with and arrested for arson.
What part of this story is "happy"?
Oh I don't know, could it be the part where the frickin' charges were dropped? Yes, the beginning and middle part of that story sucked for him, but it sounds like the ending was pretty damn happy.
. . . Unless it turns out k98sven's pure speculation was right.
By the way, my house has burned down completely to the ground . . . twice! Luckily, no people or pets were hurt, and no arson was involved. But if anyone still has one of the first generation "instant-on" televisions made by Zenith, unplug them when not in use. Yes, that defeats the instant-on feature, but which is more important to you?
And that whole bit in Fight Club about not doing a recall until the cost of lawsuits gets more expensive is entirely true. Our house was the eighth, but since no one had been killed they never did a recall.
Terrible stuff, but I turned out okay. I'd bet this guy ends up feeling the same way after a few years, too.
Are you surprised that the major deciding factor in you getting stuff done is being motivated (giving a shit), and that you were looking for a more motivational book? The book can't address every person's challenges, but being organized and making the quick one-minute decision of "is this a do now or delegate task?" is a big challenge for many people.
In fact, I found that the more I read it, the more I obsessed about Getting Things Organized RIGHT.
It sounds like you and I share the perfectionist bent. Sometimes I'll catch myself micro-organizing files or emails or code, and more often than not it turns out I'm avoiding a task I'm just not motivated to do. Find a book with good tips on motivating yourself.
One trick I learned from a friend for helping discipline yourself with keeping agreements is to put a "consequence" on not keeping the agreement apart from the actual consequences the agreement itself holds (like losing your house if you don't make the payments). Instead, creaet a harmless yet unpleasant task you'll have to do.
Said friend upon breaking an agreement will do the following. When she gets to a signal that has just turned red for her (plenty of time before green), she gets out of her car and dances around it singing randomly. I've seen her do this, and it's amazing the number of shades of red a person can turn in the span of two minutes.:) Needless to say, it's helped her a lot, and she hasn't had to do that in quite some time.
To bring it back around, perhaps with a little inventiveness you can create your own motivation... at least enough to go look for a motivational book.:P
I tested it out too on my home machine, and the only thing it found was the Download Manager for Gamespot (based on Kontiki). Thank you Mozilla.:)
In any case, I uncheked the "install real time protection agents" option during installation, but after running the scan I ran through the options to see what other features it had. Surprise, RTP was enabled. Oh the irony of MS AntiSpyware behaving in the same shady fashion as Spyware apps.;)
So if you do install it but don't want the RTP agents, make sure you hit up the options before quitting.
In one sense, an inconsistent bias requires the reader to think critically about the articles. With a consistent bias, most people simply dismiss the entire site without review or accept it all as true without thinking for themselves or checking facts.
The funny thing is that your consistent bias is another person's neutrality. There are several people at my office that go on and on about how Fox News is so balanced unlike all the "liberal media" out there. I can see someone thinking the New York Times is unbiased -- though I'd disagree -- but Fox News?
The number 1 priority for the Federal government is to protect the United States of America.
Let's accept that at face value for this discussion. Given that, why does the U.S. administration insist on implenting a foreign policy that increases world hatred of America's policies, making it unsafe? By letting our multinational corporations dictate policy, we increase the divide between "us" and "them," creating jealousy and hatred the world over.
This does not make me feel safe by any means. Neither does the knowledge that the rich of this country continue to get richer in comparison to everyone else. Sure, they're happy, but I feel unsafe.
That is it's number 1 priority. That is where the bulk of the dollars should be spent.
Your logic is flawed. That it's the top priority doesn't mean that it will require the most amount of money to fund it. If we decided that the top priority was to ensure that every person in the U.S. gets a one dollar tax refund next year, that would cost only about $300 million.
There's no reason to spend more money on it than necessary simply because it's the top priority. Being the top priority only means that it gets higher priority of funding -- not necessarily more funding.
The other problem is how the money is spent by the administration. $200 billion to colonize Iraq so far (not counting roughly 98,000 dead Iraqi civilians and over 1,000 American soldiers) has increased the threat of terrorism for years to come. This seems to have been the goal all along, for now there's reason to increase our "defense" spending in a never-ending cycle.
the same folks that blame President Bush for not defending us from the 9/11 attacks.
While I believe he acted foolishly in ignoring his own presidential security briefings, I didn't expect him to be flying an F-16 shooting down jetliners to save us. That would be unreasonable to expect given that it's not his job. But I do blame the system and power structure for provoking the terrorists in the first place. You can't keep kicking someone and expect them to never fight back.
And no I do not condone violence against civilians to achieve political aims. My stance on this is clear; read my criticisms of U.S. foreign policy. But I'm not surprised that terrorism is used by people without power -- it's the only option that the U.S. leaves them. The real question to ask is Why does the U.S. employ terrorism so eagerly?
We already have stealth ICBM's
And so how long until the Chinese develop or acquire this technology? By the time we get the ABM system working, everyone will have "stealth ICBMs" too. And we've just spent another couple hundred billion on useless crap. Good job!
And this ignores the other point brought up in the other threads: ICBMs are the least likely attack vector. Great, if France nukes us, we'll be safe. And how likely is that? Again, good job!
No, in 1989 Iraq used gas against Iran and the Kurds in the north. Bush Sr. blocked attempts to condemn Saddam's use of gas at the U.N. It wasn't until he went too far -- invading Kuqait -- that the U.S. stepped in.
Is it possible that he's just a very poor public speaker, but given the chance to sit down and think over his answers, can provide at least coherent responses?
Sure, I suppose anything's possible. But then why didn't he do that with his responses here?;)
It's like the "What's your greatest weakness" question that gets asked during job interviews.
And that's a very good question for a job interview. If you cannot recognize your own faults and challenges, you have absolutely no hope of overcoming them.
And if you recognize them privately but refuse to admit them publicly when appropriate, then you are a fool to think others don't already know about them.
Either way you don't belong in a leadership position.
If Bush came out tomorrow and said, "Based on our intelligence, we believed that Saddam was a grave threat and could have weaponized WMDs in months, and the faulty inspection process was undermining our allies and allowing the summer heat to jeopardize operations. . . .
No, what I want to see is the truth, not backpeddling and justification for the war. It should start like this:
Based on our intelligence, Saddam had neither viable WMDs nor sources for rebuilding his WMD programs. However, I as President of the United States took it upon myself to ignore those reports and instead tell the American people and Congress that he had active WMDs and posed a serious threat to the U.S.
You see, he's evil, and though the U.S. signed the U.N. Charter which delineates the specific cases under which one nation may use force against another (posessing WMDs not being one of those cases), evil must be vanquished. Yes, even when we as civilized nations have agreed that nations tend not to be good at discerning between good and evil.
And God is on my side. He told me so. Therefore, I made no mistake. I purposefully misled all of you for your own best interests. Clearly, I know your best interests better than you, and I certainly know the best interests of companies like Haliburton. How? They tell me every time I meet with their executives.
Yes, that would be an admission I'd tune in to hear. Trying to claim it was a mistake of intelligence when he flat out dismissed the intelligence he received is disingenuous at best.
Then spend the next 4 years trying to fix the 2-party system ok?
Can you imagine how boring sports would be if there were only two teams? They'd each tailor their offense against the one other team's defense. There would be only slight innovation as each reacted to counter the other.
Now look at the two party system. What gets argued about? Big vs. really big government, higher vs. much higher taxes, barely distinguishable environmental policies, ad nauseum. They keep the voters focused on issues that polarize them but aren't much acted upon in the end (or are very similar in position).
Look, just get off your ass and vote Kerry in so we can put a stop to this insanity
If you're in a swing state, by all means vote Kerry rather than your preferred candidate, as I absolutely agree that while Kerry is bad, Bush is far, far worse and vastly more dangerous.
However, if you're not in a swing state, vote however you want, for more than the presidency is determined by your vote. Votes for third parties increase their campaign funding, ballot access and perceived credibility.
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Either way, how many more times do things like this need to occur before people will become widely convinced that companies such as these need to be more thoroughly scrutinized?
True, I posted that too quickly. My point was that they're a hell of a lot happier living on a large ranch out in the open than penned up in a box so they stay tender. As well, they're not "sent to slaughter" in a cramped box car nor slaughtered en masse.
My uncle's cattle have it even better -- he raises them only as prized studs, not food. What a great job (being the stud)! :)
Yes, while I checked the dictionary and it made no reference to this (I only put it in there to be funny, and for that I think I did enough due diligence), I read a post further down that explained this as well. I still feel octopi sounds far cooler and will continue to work it into as many conversations as I can. Maybe I can change the common usage and take over the world!
Having raised four cats, I must concede this point. :)
No worries. Microsoft is so very close to perfecting their Pr0n Surfer Elite(tm) keyboard that will be useful here.
I don't think this carries over to farm animals simply because we kill and eat them! Maybe the animals on old-school family farms where the animals are treated humanely and then killed swiftly with respect live happy lives, but today's factory farms are sick and demented. The animals are tormented from birth to slaughter. If you haven't, check out The Meatrix.
I'll say one thing about cats, though. I've had four as pets over the years, and each and every one of them knew that the plural of octopus is octopi! :p
A designer suit that never wrinkles or gets dirty, of course.
No need, not when American culture does this so effectively. Christmas and birthday presents, anyone? Commercials via every vector immaginable protected as "free speech."
Wouldn't the concept of tool buttons in general be prior art. You click on a "Circle Tool" button and you cursor changes to a +. You then click where you want the circle. It's not to get help, but I think it's stupid to have a different patent for every type of thing you can do in the same way (click tool, cursor changes, use tool).
*sigh* Oh how I hate software patents.
I probably should have been more clear. In all eight previous cases (I just smoke with my parents today and they corrected me; we were number nine) the investigators determined that the process Zenith used in their TV sets to make them instant-on, namely keeping the tube warm at all times, was faulty. When they malfunctioned, they didn't spark or get too hot, they literally ignited in flames.
Do one had died, but several people had been enjured while escaping their homes. The most Zenith was willing to do was recommend that people leave their TVs unplugged when not in use, but they weren't forced to send out a letter to that effect or make it public. If someone called and asked, they would tell them, but that was it.
They keep records of all of your purchases, not just discounted items. The reason they have the cards in the first place is so they can better track their inventory and demand over time, hopefully allowing them to maintain less stock and send back fewer spoiled goods. There goal is not to save you money but to increase profits as they are for-profit corporations and are beholden to their shareholders first above all else.
I recall that most companies with club cards have claimed that they do not store the credit card number at all. I would not be able to verify that, nor you probably, but hopefully reputable auditing companies like Anderson Consulting . . . oh, uh, never mind. I guess we just have to trust the stores.
Wow, and people call me a cynic! It would take far more than that. They'd better have his fellow firefighters on the stand talking about his "deep, disturbing fascination with fire" and how he "would often get to the fire in his own vehicle before the fire trucks."
His wife would need to cry through the stories of his drinking and abuse and how he neglected the child(ren).
But above all, I'd want at least one piece of physical evidence, and that someone else knew his phone number and used it to purchase lighter fluid doesn't count.
All I can say is, I hope you're never on a jury! ;)
Oh I don't know, could it be the part where the frickin' charges were dropped? Yes, the beginning and middle part of that story sucked for him, but it sounds like the ending was pretty damn happy.
. . . Unless it turns out k98sven's pure speculation was right.
By the way, my house has burned down completely to the ground . . . twice! Luckily, no people or pets were hurt, and no arson was involved. But if anyone still has one of the first generation "instant-on" televisions made by Zenith, unplug them when not in use. Yes, that defeats the instant-on feature, but which is more important to you?
And that whole bit in Fight Club about not doing a recall until the cost of lawsuits gets more expensive is entirely true. Our house was the eighth, but since no one had been killed they never did a recall.
Terrible stuff, but I turned out okay. I'd bet this guy ends up feeling the same way after a few years, too.
Look, I've already explained this to your supervisors, so I'm only going to tell you once.
The detonator was disconnected and wrapped in a protective cloth!
Sheesh, where am I . . . China?
It sounds like you and I share the perfectionist bent. Sometimes I'll catch myself micro-organizing files or emails or code, and more often than not it turns out I'm avoiding a task I'm just not motivated to do. Find a book with good tips on motivating yourself.
One trick I learned from a friend for helping discipline yourself with keeping agreements is to put a "consequence" on not keeping the agreement apart from the actual consequences the agreement itself holds (like losing your house if you don't make the payments). Instead, creaet a harmless yet unpleasant task you'll have to do.
Said friend upon breaking an agreement will do the following. When she gets to a signal that has just turned red for her (plenty of time before green), she gets out of her car and dances around it singing randomly. I've seen her do this, and it's amazing the number of shades of red a person can turn in the span of two minutes. :) Needless to say, it's helped her a lot, and she hasn't had to do that in quite some time.
To bring it back around, perhaps with a little inventiveness you can create your own motivation ... at least enough to go look for a motivational book. :P
In any case, I uncheked the "install real time protection agents" option during installation, but after running the scan I ran through the options to see what other features it had. Surprise, RTP was enabled. Oh the irony of MS AntiSpyware behaving in the same shady fashion as Spyware apps. ;)
So if you do install it but don't want the RTP agents, make sure you hit up the options before quitting.
The funny thing is that your consistent bias is another person's neutrality. There are several people at my office that go on and on about how Fox News is so balanced unlike all the "liberal media" out there. I can see someone thinking the New York Times is unbiased -- though I'd disagree -- but Fox News?
Let's accept that at face value for this discussion. Given that, why does the U.S. administration insist on implenting a foreign policy that increases world hatred of America's policies, making it unsafe? By letting our multinational corporations dictate policy, we increase the divide between "us" and "them," creating jealousy and hatred the world over.
This does not make me feel safe by any means. Neither does the knowledge that the rich of this country continue to get richer in comparison to everyone else. Sure, they're happy, but I feel unsafe.
Your logic is flawed. That it's the top priority doesn't mean that it will require the most amount of money to fund it. If we decided that the top priority was to ensure that every person in the U.S. gets a one dollar tax refund next year, that would cost only about $300 million.
There's no reason to spend more money on it than necessary simply because it's the top priority. Being the top priority only means that it gets higher priority of funding -- not necessarily more funding.
The other problem is how the money is spent by the administration. $200 billion to colonize Iraq so far (not counting roughly 98,000 dead Iraqi civilians and over 1,000 American soldiers) has increased the threat of terrorism for years to come. This seems to have been the goal all along, for now there's reason to increase our "defense" spending in a never-ending cycle.
While I believe he acted foolishly in ignoring his own presidential security briefings, I didn't expect him to be flying an F-16 shooting down jetliners to save us. That would be unreasonable to expect given that it's not his job. But I do blame the system and power structure for provoking the terrorists in the first place. You can't keep kicking someone and expect them to never fight back.
And no I do not condone violence against civilians to achieve political aims. My stance on this is clear; read my criticisms of U.S. foreign policy. But I'm not surprised that terrorism is used by people without power -- it's the only option that the U.S. leaves them. The real question to ask is Why does the U.S. employ terrorism so eagerly?
And so how long until the Chinese develop or acquire this technology? By the time we get the ABM system working, everyone will have "stealth ICBMs" too. And we've just spent another couple hundred billion on useless crap. Good job!
And this ignores the other point brought up in the other threads: ICBMs are the least likely attack vector. Great, if France nukes us, we'll be safe. And how likely is that? Again, good job!
No, in 1989 Iraq used gas against Iran and the Kurds in the north. Bush Sr. blocked attempts to condemn Saddam's use of gas at the U.N. It wasn't until he went too far -- invading Kuqait -- that the U.S. stepped in.
Looks like fifty years of polluting the oceans wasn't the wrong thing to do after all. Guess you weren't right this time, Mr. "scientist"!
Sure, I suppose anything's possible. But then why didn't he do that with his responses here? ;)
And that's a very good question for a job interview. If you cannot recognize your own faults and challenges, you have absolutely no hope of overcoming them.
And if you recognize them privately but refuse to admit them publicly when appropriate, then you are a fool to think others don't already know about them.
Either way you don't belong in a leadership position.
No, what I want to see is the truth, not backpeddling and justification for the war. It should start like this:
Yes, that would be an admission I'd tune in to hear. Trying to claim it was a mistake of intelligence when he flat out dismissed the intelligence he received is disingenuous at best.
Can you imagine how boring sports would be if there were only two teams? They'd each tailor their offense against the one other team's defense. There would be only slight innovation as each reacted to counter the other.
Now look at the two party system. What gets argued about? Big vs. really big government, higher vs. much higher taxes, barely distinguishable environmental policies, ad nauseum. They keep the voters focused on issues that polarize them but aren't much acted upon in the end (or are very similar in position).
If you're in a swing state, by all means vote Kerry rather than your preferred candidate, as I absolutely agree that while Kerry is bad, Bush is far, far worse and vastly more dangerous.
However, if you're not in a swing state, vote however you want, for more than the presidency is determined by your vote. Votes for third parties increase their campaign funding, ballot access and perceived credibility.