I can understand buying water in a place like Boston where the water sucks
Ever since 1988's presidential election, people have been repeating this line of BS. Boston's water supply isn't just very good, it's exceptional. And not just "for a big city" but for any place in the country. I lived in Boston for a decade and the water not only tasted great, but you could actually lather and wash yourself in it, unlike the craptacular water in, say, Nebraska. Just about the only thing you'd have to worry about is living in an ancient building and having lead in your pipes, but that ain't the city's fault.
I lived in NYC for a while as well, and their water is great, too. I just can't stand all this FUD from small-town America about the "evil big cities" when they're usually dealing with much stricter regulations than the rest of the country.
When I lived in Boston, the (unwritten rule) was reversed: if you parked with more than a meter separating you from the next car, you were taking up far too much space. If you have a block of people parking like this, you'll cut at least a couple of car lengths out of the block -- that's two or three residents who could have parked there if people had just learned how to parallel park better.
Officer: What's your name, boy? Jon Smith: My name's Jon Smith. Officer: I have reasonable suscpicion that you're lying to me. Please show me some proof that you are who you say you are.
For example, I believe the Canon Digital Rebel's CF slot can only write or read at 1x or 2x. So buying a 40x card doesn't help you when you're taking pictures.
Nikon's D70 can take as many pictures as the buffer can hold, and it's continually dumping data to the card. With SanDisk Ultra II's, you can fill the first 9 shots @ 3 fps., then get about 1.5 fps. until the card is full. If you try this with slow CF cards, you're looking at 1 frame / 2 secs. Fast CF cards do matter, when the camera's buffer is designed properly.
I suppose you could use the gravitational attraction of large planets or stars to "pull" your craft, which would slow it down (slowly). I think a more important question would be "how do you steer the damned thing?"
The problem is that our society doesn't like it when there are different rights applied to different people. Thus the popularity of "universal" rights that can be applied to everyone. Unfortunately, this betrays the very simple fact that some people are better than other people at some things, and thus are more deserving of certain privileges.
Take driving, for instance. Why on earth should a person who competes in car racing for a living, who attends or even teaches driving schools (for example) be subjected to the same driving rules as a senile geriatric who last took a driving test in the 50's? You could make them take different tests, but administrative costs would be prohibitive (not just giving the tests, but also policing drivers).
I've long thought that drivers should be subjected to different tests to determine their actual ability. Not just to make sure that old people (notoriously bad drivers) are kept off the roads. But also to keep rural drivers off of city streets, slow drivers out of the left-hand lane, etc. I hate the fact that a kid in the middle of Idaho gets the same license as a commuter in a big, congested city (like Boston or New York). Keep these morons off our city streets, and you'll see an end to traffic as we know it.
No LCD display. Yep, you heard me right. Take this thing off and it'll lower the price & form factor. I don't need to review the shots I took, if I'm concerned about the exposure I'll bracket the shots +/- a stop. And I'm not worried about deleting a picture to save disk space when I've got a 1 gig compact flash card.
The instant feedback of a display is one of the best things about digitals -- you can instantly see if your exposure and focus is correct. Particularly focus. You can always bracket your exposures, but if my auto-focus is choosing the wrong subject to focus on, I need to know now, not after the model and her makeup artist have gone home.
For the beginner, it's a great learning tool (if used correctly) to instantly see the differences a change in aperature can make to the depth of field, for instance. If you're in a wierdly-lit situation and just starting out, you might not know what's the best part of the shot to expose for -- simple bracketing isn't going to help if you're off by several stops because you don't know what you're doing.
I agree with the rest of your suggestions, however.
This is why I have to laugh at those that still think "the people" are in the driver's seat of this country. I think the problem stems from the idea of "the people" as a group. "We" is really just you and me, with our own agendas and desires, times a few million. Very rarely, a lot of people will share the same desire, and then something gets done. More often than not, "we" fall into disarray and end up sitting on our asses.
Mortgages, phone bills, kids, food on the table, getting your car to run on a cold December morning when you're late for work and fearful of being fired -- these are our priorities. What we really need in this country is a disenfranchised leisure class to stir shit up.
Like Orwell said:
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."
But one we always have by the balls (boycott) and one which although it may exert power (economic) it can never hold authority.
Boycott? That's how we're supposed to keep private corporations in check?! And how, pray tell, am I supposed to boycott a company like Diebolical? Don't vote?
We don't expect the FDA to slaughter the cattle and bring it to the neighborhood store. The FDA ensures that the people who do, do so responsibly.
But we're not talking about a product that is subject to the laws of supply and demand or other market forces. The IRS is a government agency, and gets paid through taxes. But how is a private company supposed to get paid to offer voting services? Through (you guessed it) the government, the "number one cause of loss of liberty" in your words.
Or I suppose we could just institute a poll tax. The IRS and FDA get paid through taxes, right? I'm sure people won't mind their hard-earned money going into private hands for the luxury of voting.
The problem is that government institutions continue to deal with Diebold, rather than seeking out other "better" private solutions. It's not the private market's fault.
They're not selling hammers and toilet seats -- this is the very essense of our liberty that we're putting into private hands. There are some things that are bigger and more important than greed, you know.
This would work because if a voting firm fucked up even one vote, everyone would run to another voting firm for the next election.
Oh sure, but I have to wait until the next election to try and pick a "winner". Absurd. Hell, why bother having an EPA, or an FDA? If you choose to eat from a company that sells you tainted meat, well, just buy from a different supplier next time.
I don't know about that. Seems to me, if you put the right people in charge, and keep the system as open as possible, you're far less likely to have the sorts of problems that a private firm will run into. Just like any other kind of software. More proof needed? Well, electronic voting seems to be working just fine in Brazil.
Sorry, man. The whole idea of a middle class was just a brief dream conjured up 60 years ago by people who knew that working together they could accomplish more than working alone. They probably got a lot of this ideology from being thrown into two world wars. But those days are *gone* -- you can see it here in the responses people give whenever someone says "union". "Whaa!? I'll do it myself, dammit, and make more than you." Silly, silly fools, doing battle with the windmills of industry. It's a losing game, as those in charge will simply pit us against each other for the honor of having a job.
It's amusing to watch how many mental hoops people will jump through just to hang on to their selfish and self-destructive principles.
How does it do with audio recording? That is, can you adjust recording levels from the input source on the fly? I've been looking for something to use for recording concerts, and I don't always have access to a mixer.
I wish product designers were forced to take classes in old 20's and 30's design thought. It kills me that people think that hunk of plastic shit is good looking.
You want your electronic device to look "cool"? Manufacture it in ONE DAMNED MATERIAL. No tacky bumper pads attached to the ends as an afterthought. If iRiver is so concerned about the abuse the player might take and insist on "shock-proofing" it, they could wrap the entire thing in the black rubber-plastic that made Glock firearms famous.
Just wrap everything in shiny aluminum or stainless steel. And keep the buttons to a minumum.
I was half-kidding about the oil filter. While it's a bitch to remove, everything else on the car is fantasticly designed, right down to the battery (the glass mat Panasonics that came stock with Miatas were originally based on batteries designed for jet fighters, and with proper care can last more than 5 years!!).
Oh, and they should have stuck with the real oil guages found in pre-'95 models -- though it's a fairly easy mod.
Slightly more on-topic, here are the diagnostic codes for the Miata. As you may have guessed, I'm a fan of the little roadster. But they really should have offered supercharging as an option from the get-go. At least now they're making up for it.
One of the reasons (excuses?) John Z. DeLorean gave for the stainless steel skin on the automobile that bore his name was that it would never rust
As I'm sure you already know, rust isn't the biggest problem with cars, unless you live in New England and have shoddy undercarriage spraying. You're far (far, far) more likely to get into an accident than live out your car body's life-expectancy. Even if stainless steel were easier to work with (and it's not), you've still got to take into account the "I've never seen one'a them before" factor when you take your wrecked Delorean into the shop. That can be quite a hit on the pocketbook.
The smartest, though, go to school so they can saturate themselves in an environment of their choice, to study with the brightest people in their field.
People learn differently. Some like reading, lectures, tests and a more formal type of learning. Others, like myself, are more hands-on. I spent four years at college basically teaching myself -- the classes were for the most part a waste of time. It was nice to have the formal, structured routine to make me do the work, but I would much rather have four years of working at a company with people who are involved with problem-solving on a day-to-day basis. That's how I learn best.
The "best and brightest" at university are, more often than not, relegated to graduate level classes.
Slant Six's are some of the best engines ever manufactured. They are also some of the most fuel efficient motors ever mass-produced in this country. In 1975 the Feather Duster and Dart Light were equipped with/6's and got 36 mpg. This at the height of the oil crisis.
Please put the "American Gas-Guzzler" myth to rest.
In the old days, with a sliderule handling 2 or 3 significant figures, you'd round up forces and round down material strengths.
EXACTLY.
Not to mention, though it seems you already have, that the way in which businesses manage to pull off planned obsolesence nowadays isn't like it was in the 50s and 60s. Back then, they'd just throw ads at you saying you weren't a real man unless you had the new (whatever).
Nowadays, they still throw the ads at you insulting your masculinity, but they also have Ph.D's working overtime to manufacture cars that break down the hour after your warranty has expired. CV joints are one thing -- body rust is another. Take an old Chevy or Ford and you've got enough steel to work with for the next couple hundred years, providing you've got enough Bondo.:)
And as this article points out, it's far, far more difficult to work on your car these days than it has been. You can buy yourself a 60's American car and fix it up for peanuts (if you know what you're doing). Hell, the experience can be an educational, to boot.
And at the end of it, you've get a boss Mustang with a 429 that I can fix with real tools anytime I have to, while they've only got a crappy Civic with an "aero-wing" glued on the back that requires a diagnostic computer to tell you what you already know is wrong with it. Easy choice.
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I can understand buying water in a place like Boston where the water sucks
Ever since 1988's presidential election, people have been repeating this line of BS. Boston's water supply isn't just very good, it's exceptional. And not just "for a big city" but for any place in the country. I lived in Boston for a decade and the water not only tasted great, but you could actually lather and wash yourself in it, unlike the craptacular water in, say, Nebraska. Just about the only thing you'd have to worry about is living in an ancient building and having lead in your pipes, but that ain't the city's fault.
I lived in NYC for a while as well, and their water is great, too. I just can't stand all this FUD from small-town America about the "evil big cities" when they're usually dealing with much stricter regulations than the rest of the country.
Don't take my word for it; read the annual water report for yourself.
When I lived in Boston, the (unwritten rule) was reversed: if you parked with more than a meter separating you from the next car, you were taking up far too much space. If you have a block of people parking like this, you'll cut at least a couple of car lengths out of the block -- that's two or three residents who could have parked there if people had just learned how to parallel park better.
Officer: What's your name, boy?
Jon Smith: My name's Jon Smith.
Officer: I have reasonable suscpicion that you're lying to me. Please show me some proof that you are who you say you are.
Hey, that was easy!
For example, I believe the Canon Digital Rebel's CF slot can only write or read at 1x or 2x. So buying a 40x card doesn't help you when you're taking pictures.
Nikon's D70 can take as many pictures as the buffer can hold, and it's continually dumping data to the card. With SanDisk Ultra II's, you can fill the first 9 shots @ 3 fps., then get about 1.5 fps. until the card is full. If you try this with slow CF cards, you're looking at 1 frame / 2 secs. Fast CF cards do matter, when the camera's buffer is designed properly.
I suppose you could use the gravitational attraction of large planets or stars to "pull" your craft, which would slow it down (slowly). I think a more important question would be "how do you steer the damned thing?"
I'm banking on the absolute predictability of G. Lucas here. Since Ep. 3 must end on a "down" note (given Ep. 4), I'm making the following open bet.
If the words "A New Hope" are said during the movie, I win $10... if not, you win.
If the words "A New Hope" are said during the last 2 minutes (not including credits) I get $15.
Any takers?
The problem is that our society doesn't like it when there are different rights applied to different people. Thus the popularity of "universal" rights that can be applied to everyone. Unfortunately, this betrays the very simple fact that some people are better than other people at some things, and thus are more deserving of certain privileges.
Take driving, for instance. Why on earth should a person who competes in car racing for a living, who attends or even teaches driving schools (for example) be subjected to the same driving rules as a senile geriatric who last took a driving test in the 50's? You could make them take different tests, but administrative costs would be prohibitive (not just giving the tests, but also policing drivers).
I've long thought that drivers should be subjected to different tests to determine their actual ability. Not just to make sure that old people (notoriously bad drivers) are kept off the roads. But also to keep rural drivers off of city streets, slow drivers out of the left-hand lane, etc. I hate the fact that a kid in the middle of Idaho gets the same license as a commuter in a big, congested city (like Boston or New York). Keep these morons off our city streets, and you'll see an end to traffic as we know it.
Are you pulling my teeth -- er, leg? Hair, for Christ's sake?! That is even more revolting than the 2nd challenge of Fear Factor I watched tonight.
No LCD display. Yep, you heard me right. Take this thing off and it'll lower the price & form factor. I don't need to review the shots I took, if I'm concerned about the exposure I'll bracket the shots +/- a stop. And I'm not worried about deleting a picture to save disk space when I've got a 1 gig compact flash card.
The instant feedback of a display is one of the best things about digitals -- you can instantly see if your exposure and focus is correct. Particularly focus. You can always bracket your exposures, but if my auto-focus is choosing the wrong subject to focus on, I need to know now, not after the model and her makeup artist have gone home.
For the beginner, it's a great learning tool (if used correctly) to instantly see the differences a change in aperature can make to the depth of field, for instance. If you're in a wierdly-lit situation and just starting out, you might not know what's the best part of the shot to expose for -- simple bracketing isn't going to help if you're off by several stops because you don't know what you're doing.
I agree with the rest of your suggestions, however.
This is why I have to laugh at those that still think "the people" are in the driver's seat of this country. I think the problem stems from the idea of "the people" as a group. "We" is really just you and me, with our own agendas and desires, times a few million. Very rarely, a lot of people will share the same desire, and then something gets done. More often than not, "we" fall into disarray and end up sitting on our asses.
Mortgages, phone bills, kids, food on the table, getting your car to run on a cold December morning when you're late for work and fearful of being fired -- these are our priorities. What we really need in this country is a disenfranchised leisure class to stir shit up.
Like Orwell said:
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."
But one we always have by the balls (boycott) and one which although it may exert power (economic) it can never hold authority.
Boycott? That's how we're supposed to keep private corporations in check?! And how, pray tell, am I supposed to boycott a company like Diebolical? Don't vote?
We don't expect the FDA to slaughter the cattle and bring it to the neighborhood store. The FDA ensures that the people who do, do so responsibly.
But we're not talking about a product that is subject to the laws of supply and demand or other market forces. The IRS is a government agency, and gets paid through taxes. But how is a private company supposed to get paid to offer voting services? Through (you guessed it) the government, the "number one cause of loss of liberty" in your words.
Or I suppose we could just institute a poll tax. The IRS and FDA get paid through taxes, right? I'm sure people won't mind their hard-earned money going into private hands for the luxury of voting.
The problem is that government institutions continue to deal with Diebold, rather than seeking out other "better" private solutions. It's not the private market's fault.
They're not selling hammers and toilet seats -- this is the very essense of our liberty that we're putting into private hands. There are some things that are bigger and more important than greed, you know.
This would work because if a voting firm fucked up even one vote, everyone would run to another voting firm for the next election.
Oh sure, but I have to wait until the next election to try and pick a "winner". Absurd. Hell, why bother having an EPA, or an FDA? If you choose to eat from a company that sells you tainted meat, well, just buy from a different supplier next time.
Why are people so frickin' hard to get the results of an election, like, on election day.
/., "Just because you fixed it doesn't mean it was broken."
I believe it's a case of a hammer in search of a nail. Or, to quote a sig I saw once on
It's not like the country will come to a stand-still if the results aren't known three minutes after closing the voting stations.
Maybe e-voting is actually hard to accomplish.
I don't know about that. Seems to me, if you put the right people in charge, and keep the system as open as possible, you're far less likely to have the sorts of problems that a private firm will run into. Just like any other kind of software. More proof needed? Well, electronic voting seems to be working just fine in Brazil.
Ironically, "Anonymous Coward" who posted this story left as his e-mail address "hddassaultcannon@hotmail.com"
I suggest we all email him about sending us some sample pictures of whatever the hell he was talking about.
Ideally, three or four times a day.
Asshat.
Sorry, man. The whole idea of a middle class was just a brief dream conjured up 60 years ago by people who knew that working together they could accomplish more than working alone. They probably got a lot of this ideology from being thrown into two world wars. But those days are *gone* -- you can see it here in the responses people give whenever someone says "union". "Whaa!? I'll do it myself, dammit, and make more than you." Silly, silly fools, doing battle with the windmills of industry. It's a losing game, as those in charge will simply pit us against each other for the honor of having a job.
It's amusing to watch how many mental hoops people will jump through just to hang on to their selfish and self-destructive principles.
I have to admit, that's pretty sweet.
How does it do with audio recording? That is, can you adjust recording levels from the input source on the fly? I've been looking for something to use for recording concerts, and I don't always have access to a mixer.
I wish product designers were forced to take classes in old 20's and 30's design thought. It kills me that people think that hunk of plastic shit is good looking.
You want your electronic device to look "cool"? Manufacture it in ONE DAMNED MATERIAL. No tacky bumper pads attached to the ends as an afterthought. If iRiver is so concerned about the abuse the player might take and insist on "shock-proofing" it, they could wrap the entire thing in the black rubber-plastic that made Glock firearms famous.
Just wrap everything in shiny aluminum or stainless steel. And keep the buttons to a minumum.
I was half-kidding about the oil filter. While it's a bitch to remove, everything else on the car is fantasticly designed, right down to the battery (the glass mat Panasonics that came stock with Miatas were originally based on batteries designed for jet fighters, and with proper care can last more than 5 years!! ).
Oh, and they should have stuck with the real oil guages found in pre-'95 models -- though it's a fairly easy mod.
Slightly more on-topic, here are the diagnostic codes for the Miata. As you may have guessed, I'm a fan of the little roadster. But they really should have offered supercharging as an option from the get-go. At least now they're making up for it.
One of the reasons (excuses?) John Z. DeLorean gave for the stainless steel skin on the automobile that bore his name was that it would never rust
As I'm sure you already know, rust isn't the biggest problem with cars, unless you live in New England and have shoddy undercarriage spraying. You're far (far, far) more likely to get into an accident than live out your car body's life-expectancy. Even if stainless steel were easier to work with (and it's not), you've still got to take into account the "I've never seen one'a them before" factor when you take your wrecked Delorean into the shop. That can be quite a hit on the pocketbook.
And working on my 1969 Baracuda is MUCH more fun lately. Maybe I should change jobs...
You do realize that it's only fun because it's not a job, right?
Or you could buy a Miata (MX-5 outside the USA) which is the sort of car the owner can maintain.
Ever try replacing the oil filter?
Goddamned engineers need to talk to goddamn mechanics more often.
The smartest, though, go to school so they can saturate themselves in an environment of their choice, to study with the brightest people in their field.
People learn differently. Some like reading, lectures, tests and a more formal type of learning. Others, like myself, are more hands-on. I spent four years at college basically teaching myself -- the classes were for the most part a waste of time. It was nice to have the formal, structured routine to make me do the work, but I would much rather have four years of working at a company with people who are involved with problem-solving on a day-to-day basis. That's how I learn best.
The "best and brightest" at university are, more often than not, relegated to graduate level classes.
Slant Six's are some of the best engines ever manufactured. They are also some of the most fuel efficient motors ever mass-produced in this country. In 1975 the Feather Duster and Dart Light were equipped with /6's and got 36 mpg. This at the height of the oil crisis.
Please put the "American Gas-Guzzler" myth to rest.
In the old days, with a sliderule handling 2 or 3 significant figures, you'd round up forces and round down material strengths.
:)
EXACTLY.
Not to mention, though it seems you already have, that the way in which businesses manage to pull off planned obsolesence nowadays isn't like it was in the 50s and 60s. Back then, they'd just throw ads at you saying you weren't a real man unless you had the new (whatever).
Nowadays, they still throw the ads at you insulting your masculinity, but they also have Ph.D's working overtime to manufacture cars that break down the hour after your warranty has expired. CV joints are one thing -- body rust is another. Take an old Chevy or Ford and you've got enough steel to work with for the next couple hundred years, providing you've got enough Bondo.
And as this article points out, it's far, far more difficult to work on your car these days than it has been. You can buy yourself a 60's American car and fix it up for peanuts (if you know what you're doing). Hell, the experience can be an educational, to boot.
And at the end of it, you've get a boss Mustang with a 429 that I can fix with real tools anytime I have to, while they've only got a crappy Civic with an "aero-wing" glued on the back that requires a diagnostic computer to tell you what you already know is wrong with it. Easy choice.