showing that abrupt climate change is a matter of serious concern
Anyone who wants to experience abrupt climate change only needs to move to Ohio. This past year we had a period where the temperature dropped 42 degrees (F) in just under 24 hours. Whoa boy.
The goal to reduce carbon emissions is obvious, and this sounds like a good start (especially as one commenter noted -- on small scales to start, residential sidewalks, etc) but has anyone thought about the potential for impact of removing such a large portion of C02 from the environment on our fauna that requires CO2 for survival? I know we're putting off more than nature would due to processes like the creation of concrete, but could that mean that the plants of today are now depending on it? One argument could be that the amount of fauna in the world has decreased over the last 50-100 years (which is probably true), but could taking away all this extra "food" for the plants in a relatively short time span (5 years, 10 years, etc) have a serious negative impact on the greener places in the world?
I'm all for green, but we need to make sure we look at it from all sides, not just the obvious one.
I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my laptop go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will upgrade your Windows XP to the original version of Vista that is completely unpatched and very vulnerable.
Man, that horde pally who ganked me last night while I was harmlessly farming for engineering schematics is going to pay now. I'm going to get Weinstein, Feinstein, and Bernstein on the case. They virtually killed me! Then he got his two friends to camp me while he "assaulted" my avatar (re: teabagging me).
I can see the High Court of Azeroth awarding me full custody of his Netherwing Mount, and 5,000 gold for my pain and suffering!
Well one of the bigger reasons why HD-DVD bowed out was because of all the big corporate backing of Blu-Ray, everyone wanting to jump on Sony's good side. If the "bake off" was actually fair and not biased, I don't think HD-DVD would have lost by a landslide like all the Sony executives were talking about. As usual, Sony gives kickbacks (or whatever you call it) to those who publicly support Sony and Blu-Ray, denouncing any competitors, then try to corner the market on their proprietary (and quite clunky IMO) format.
Get Microsoft (or insert big $$$$ corporation here) to back HD-DVD now, and it'll be back in the race yet again, but who dares to stand up to Sony?
It is a good thing I think that the government is adding this extra step of security. While I will never believe anything is crack-proof, the more layers the better, and anything is better than nothing. However, for several years it seems the U.S. Post Office has been going in the wrong direction, because (and I just checked this again) when you navigate to http://www.usps.gov you are automatically redirected to http://www.usps.com. Apparently they want people to think they're a commercial business instead of a government agency. Personally I feel better using sites like irs.gov and usps.gov, because I know they are the real deal, and not some phishing site. (In general of course.)
Instead of redirecting usps.gov to usps.com, they should do the reverse and redirect usps.com to usps.gov. Just my two cents.
The guy that had a spare PSU had one because it was his house, and because he had just replaced his original case PSU with a 'quiet' one. While it may have been a piece of shit (I don't know the brand, but I do know it was a very early quiet model) I know for a fact that the wiring in his house was shit, and I'm sure that contributed to the event. Nevertheless, power is definitely something to consider.
I have experienced exactly what the parent author was referring to. I was at a good friend's house a few years ago for a lan party, of maybe 14-16 people, each with a regular-sized tower PC, nothing out of the ordinary for gamers. It was the first time we'd had a lan party at this location (his house) so he didn't realize that all of the outlets in the living room, and half of the dining room were all on the same breaker. After the 7th person plugged in, flames and sparks started shooting out of the back of his power supply, marring the wall and destroying the PSU. Luckily he had a spare, so he replaced it, and tried to clean up the wall later, but eventually had to end up painting it. Also luckily, the highly flammable curtains were about 3-4 feet away, but had they been closer we might have had a major incident.
To resolve the situation, we moved most of the people into the other half of the dining room so they were on a separate circuit, then everything was fine. It would have been impossible for us to have even 5 more people, let alone 40-50 more. There just wasn't enough juice in the house.
I think that the first consideration, before theft (allbeit an important thing to consider) is whether or not the location you will be having this party can withstand the power requirements of all of your equipment.
To combat theft, you can never prevent it completely, you might consider providing people with some kind of peel-resistant stickers (the kind that shred when you peel them off) that have some kind of number or letter code on them, and give that person the matching number ticket. (Kind of like a coat-check.) When they go to leave, you can scan their inventory to make sure they match.
One other thing to consider is indemnification forms, where everyone who stays signs it, saying that you are not liable for injurys from power, red-bull overdosing, partying-in-general, etc, and definitely not responsible for theft.
You might also consider charging people a nominal fee (or they can provide their own) for the purchase of a security cable set, something they can lock their PC and monitor down. Hopefully nobody's going to risk exposure for the theft of a keyboard or mouse or whatever.
The other thing is that if you're going to have a ton of people that you don't know, I'd strongly recommend getting copies of drivers licenses or something, so that you know who all was there and have some type of legal proof of it, if the police or authorities should be involved.
There are tons of things to consider, but covering your arse (CYA) should be the first priority on your list, because there's nothing worse than trying to throw a great party for others, only to be sued by several of them because some asshole ripped off their equipment, and since nobody knew who it was, they want to get the money out of you instead.
My 21" is still going strong. Too bad they're not rewarding all those loyal customers by replacing their working (but "dead") CRTs with equivalent flat panels.
This is the kind of far-out technology that WE should be working on, not waiting for other countries to develop it then jump on the me-too bandwagon. Unfortunately we're too busy worrying about patent infringement and letting archaic beliefs get in the way of real scientific and technological progress.
Kudos to the Japanese for working on these things. I just wish we were frontrunners ourselves.
The role and responsibility of a university is to educate students, and provide research facilities. The government should stop bowing to the will of the RIAA lobbyists (it's plain and simple corruption, buying the laws you want) and forcing these universities to get involved in a business that they shouldn't have to deal with. If the universities want to enact policies that say if you are caught sharing music, then you are disciplined (dismissal, etc) then that would be acceptable in my opinion, but I don't think it should be the responsibilities of the owner (leaser?) of a network to police what goes on, especially when its widely known that university networks are probably the most wide open networks as any in the country. I'm sure many will argue that point, but where does it stop? The RIAA needs to address the root of the issue (extraordinarily expensive music) and find a solution to that, instead of all of the witch-hunts. (I saw a CD at a retail department store the other day that was 13 years old, still selling for the sale price of $18.99. Thirteen years old, and it's still $18.99.)
If they put half as much effort into coming up with (or supporting) an alternative music sharing system, they'd probably save millions of dollars in legal fees and attorney salaries alone.
Hell, they don't even pay their artists the money they are due. What a surprise.
Even in some of the tv commercials about various antidepressants, it sometimes says that the medication may increase the feelings of hopelessness and despair in teenagers. What I read from that is... "If you're a teenager, realize that you won't be one forever and do the best you can to get through it."
IMHO, a teenager that is comtemplating suicide doesn't need drugs, they need to talk to someone that isn't part of their problem (like a therapist or psych[ologist|iatrist]). As one who kept most things to myself when I was a kid, finally having the guys to open up to a friend of mine a while back made me feel unbelievably better. I wasn't anywhere close to suicide, but I do think I had a couple scuffles with depression.
And MPAA and RIAA officials... should acknowledge, respect and strongly support the continuing efforts of campus officials to address copyright issues,
So that's why they (or at least some of them) are trying to force universities that do not have anti-piracy infrastructures (filters, monitoring, etc) in place to lose their federal funding? Wow, that does show a lot of respect.
I think that the MPAA and RIAA should not be allowed to interfere with anything regarding universities, except maybe as cases to analyze in the law schools. They're proposing probably millions of dollars of additions/changes to universities' infrastructures, no doubt causing higher tuitions, and if some university fails to meet the expectations of the [MPAA|RIAA], all of the innocent college students face the possibility of having a government subsidized student loan or whatever.
Where does it stop? An RIAA officer on guard outside every dorm to search and "digitally frisk" each student for downloaded music as they enter their dorm? (I think if that happened, I might want to invest in some rope ladder stock.)
1) You are ill-informed and don't understand what a democracy is. I'd try to explain my point to you but you can't have a civil discussion. You're full of piss and vinegar. 2) You're so blind with rage and anger, you missed how I addressed your incorrectness. 3) You sound like you are miserable. I am sorry you have such a terrible life. 4) Move to Canada.
I'm rubber and you're glue and whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you, so neener neener neener!
My first experience was on a TI-99/4A, the chrome/black model (later we replaced it with the brown/beige model, I liked the feel of that one much better) and the game was 'Adventure'. I remember sitting at my kitchen table for hours and hours, trying to open that big sapphire door.
It was quickly followed by a game called 'Bigfoot', which was really a Donkey-Kong type game, where the bigfoot was at the summit of this mountain throwing rocks down, which you had to dodge as you climbed to the top. (My brother and I quickly made our own version by gathering all the shoes in the house and rolling them down the steps as the other one tried to slowly climb up.)
Good thing we live in a Democracy rather than a republic, because... oh wait... we elect people who then make the laws... what's the difference between republic and democracy again?
Like I need your help, like I want your help, like I give a shit about your help.
By the way, Laurel and Hardy tried to start their own country a long time ago on the Silver Screen, called Utopia, and it didn't work. I don't think I'd be able to get Chipotle to start a franchise there, so I guess I'm stuck here in the good 'ole U. S. of A.
Emotional? Childish? Have you even read 95% of the comments on this site? Man you have your work cut out for you if you go around calling people childish.
Obviously you missed the whole point to my comment, there IS no for-sure way, and there isn't any decent way, and there really isn't even any 'maybe' way to make a difference in things like that. Oh, right, I can exercise my civic right to vote for the other guy. Oh yeah, I've done that like in, oh I don't know, every election since I've been 18. More often than not my guy has lost. Even some of the one's I've voted for turned out to be against my opinions anyway. But hey, this post shouldn't be about my views of the problems with the election system in this country, it was more about how one person really can't make a difference unless you want to go John-Wilkes-Booth on someone (which I do not condone by any means), and basically making fun of your comment, well, because obviously I'm childish and have never taken a civics class, let alone several in college. But oh wait, I almost forgot, I don't give a shit what you think. Now flame away, I'm moving on to some fun stuff. (Wow, that was fun, maybe I should embrace my inner child some more. Lawn darts anyone? I'll go first.)
Show me a for-sure way of changing things and I'll be first in line. I couldn't even count the number of letters and emails I have sent to all of my U.S. Representatives and Senators. Guess how many have been answered? Big fat goose egg.
Petitions? *Ha* Campaign contributions *HAHAHAHA* Rallies? *Ha* Letters to the editor of the local paper? *Whatever* Run for office? *Nope*
And there are several others I don't bother adding to the list. Give me some suggestions, something that can actually convince the government that what they're doing is wrong. Joe Ordinary, yeah... One commentor said 'That's because you're fighting as Joe Ordinary' or something like that. How else can one take on a fight like that? Sorry but I'm all out of super-hero suits under my business khakis and button-down shirt.
For the record, I'd never move to Canada because I have a family, and my family has family, and they're all in the U.S. It's a saying I like to use, but even so, who are you to tell me to 'leave or do something about it' without knowing what I've already tried to do? If you think you know the answer, put up or shut up and tell me how you think it's supposed to happen.
Under 50 is not a permanent exemption. After 2017, those over 50 will have to have a Real ID license as well. The additional 3 years for them was added so the states would have more time to issue everyone new licenses.
They probably want to wait the extra time so more of the baby boomers will die off, thus saving them the extra expense of equipping them all with a Real ID. I can seriously see someone in the upper echelon of government suggesting that as a way of saving money.
I won't even bother quoting Ben Franklin's line here, you all have seen it too many times already. We're in trouble. That apartment in Canada is starting to look much better now.
Several years ago a friend of mine and myself were halfway joking about starting our own software company. The name of my system at that point was 'cyanide'... so I just curiously checked 'cyanidesoftware.com', and it was available. The next day, however, NSI had registered it (I checked the whois) and was selling it for about $5,000. I was disgusted with them at that point, and have been ever since.
A 2% increase over playing the 360 is better than nothing? Yeah the way having 2 pennies in your pocket is better than being flat broke. A far cry from it? Please.
Using the Wii to get exercise is one thing. It requires playing particular games in a particular fashion; not something I wager the test subjects did in this study. But playing it in such a fashion that you burn 2% more calories than playing the 360 is *not* exercise. You can probably do better if you play any game while tapping your feet to the in-game music. To defend the Wii in this case and say that 2% is better than 0% is just silly.
I don't think anyone ever said that the Wii is suppose to replace any type of exercise regimen. The whole point though, is that if it gets kids off the couch and moving around, that's better than sitting on the couch. I don't think any of the Nintendo people ever advertised 'Hey you don't have to do your normal exercise routine, just buy a Wii'. Getting up and moving around burns more calories than sitting, it's a fact. Is it enough to burn all your necessary "workout" calories? No of course not.
There is another factor involved that most people don't think about, and that is the stretching part of it. I can't count the number of times I've had sore muscles in the morning, basically from lack of use for the last 6-8 hours. If I have a particularly busy day at work, I can spend close to 12 hours sitting down (with hopefully a few breaks in between) and my muscles hurt then too. Getting kids to get up and move around helps stretch their muscles, not to mention just the simple part of playing a game that requires more movement of your body than just your hands stimulates more of the mind. Does it replace thinking? No of course not, but it's "better than nothing".
People (probably) don't buy a Wii for exercise, they buy it because it's fun for them. If they get 2% more exercise in a day (which IS better than nothing... only Sith deal in absolutes!) then that's 2% less they have to get the rest of the day to meet whatever quota you've made up for them.
Just because some study says that playing a Wii doesn't replace exercise doesn't mean that Nintendo was actually saying that it did. Sounds like someone wanted something original to write a thesis about.
A question is, though, do those laws apply at all times and places, or are we just "discovering" them here, and now? As far as I know, there's nothing prohibiting a gradual gauge change over time and space. Perhaps those innocuous gauge shifts really DO have an effect somewhere/when. What we generally call "laws" should be universally applicable (or their restricted domains should be stated), but what if they're only applicable here/now? Are they just shadows of higher-dimensional laws which may undergo sudden changes as some higher-dimensional phase change goes on?
Perhaps the arbitrary laws you can write down really do apply.
This all strikes me as a form of hidden variables theory. Or perhaps just cosmic navel-gazing.
I think a perfect example of that is when my gasoline gauge stays at 1/4 tank for several days, then immediately (within a 1 mile trip) drops down to 'E' then enables my gas-low light. This has to be attributed to some evolutionary mangling of the laws of nature.
On the other hand, I'm sure nothing was organized before some brainiac started writing them down. The planets only revolve the way they do because someone wrote a law that "governs" how they revolve. Come on people, use the research dollars for something useful.
The American Government is the best government that money can buy.
Corruption starts in the streets... the beggars bribe the councilmen. The councilmen bribe the senators.... it goes all the way up to the Department of Justice!
Slashdot Mirror
showing that abrupt climate change is a matter of serious concern
Anyone who wants to experience abrupt climate change only needs to move to Ohio. This past year we had a period where the temperature dropped 42 degrees (F) in just under 24 hours. Whoa boy.
The goal to reduce carbon emissions is obvious, and this sounds like a good start (especially as one commenter noted -- on small scales to start, residential sidewalks, etc) but has anyone thought about the potential for impact of removing such a large portion of C02 from the environment on our fauna that requires CO2 for survival? I know we're putting off more than nature would due to processes like the creation of concrete, but could that mean that the plants of today are now depending on it? One argument could be that the amount of fauna in the world has decreased over the last 50-100 years (which is probably true), but could taking away all this extra "food" for the plants in a relatively short time span (5 years, 10 years, etc) have a serious negative impact on the greener places in the world?
I'm all for green, but we need to make sure we look at it from all sides, not just the obvious one.
I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my laptop go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will upgrade your Windows XP to the original version of Vista that is completely unpatched and very vulnerable.
They mostly come out at night.... mostly.
Man, that horde pally who ganked me last night while I was harmlessly farming for engineering schematics is going to pay now. I'm going to get Weinstein, Feinstein, and Bernstein on the case. They virtually killed me! Then he got his two friends to camp me while he "assaulted" my avatar (re: teabagging me).
I can see the High Court of Azeroth awarding me full custody of his Netherwing Mount, and 5,000 gold for my pain and suffering!
Well one of the bigger reasons why HD-DVD bowed out was because of all the big corporate backing of Blu-Ray, everyone wanting to jump on Sony's good side. If the "bake off" was actually fair and not biased, I don't think HD-DVD would have lost by a landslide like all the Sony executives were talking about. As usual, Sony gives kickbacks (or whatever you call it) to those who publicly support Sony and Blu-Ray, denouncing any competitors, then try to corner the market on their proprietary (and quite clunky IMO) format.
Get Microsoft (or insert big $$$$ corporation here) to back HD-DVD now, and it'll be back in the race yet again, but who dares to stand up to Sony?
It is a good thing I think that the government is adding this extra step of security. While I will never believe anything is crack-proof, the more layers the better, and anything is better than nothing. However, for several years it seems the U.S. Post Office has been going in the wrong direction, because (and I just checked this again) when you navigate to http://www.usps.gov you are automatically redirected to http://www.usps.com. Apparently they want people to think they're a commercial business instead of a government agency. Personally I feel better using sites like irs.gov and usps.gov, because I know they are the real deal, and not some phishing site. (In general of course.)
Instead of redirecting usps.gov to usps.com, they should do the reverse and redirect usps.com to usps.gov. Just my two cents.
The guy that had a spare PSU had one because it was his house, and because he had just replaced his original case PSU with a 'quiet' one. While it may have been a piece of shit (I don't know the brand, but I do know it was a very early quiet model) I know for a fact that the wiring in his house was shit, and I'm sure that contributed to the event. Nevertheless, power is definitely something to consider.
I have experienced exactly what the parent author was referring to. I was at a good friend's house a few years ago for a lan party, of maybe 14-16 people, each with a regular-sized tower PC, nothing out of the ordinary for gamers. It was the first time we'd had a lan party at this location (his house) so he didn't realize that all of the outlets in the living room, and half of the dining room were all on the same breaker. After the 7th person plugged in, flames and sparks started shooting out of the back of his power supply, marring the wall and destroying the PSU. Luckily he had a spare, so he replaced it, and tried to clean up the wall later, but eventually had to end up painting it. Also luckily, the highly flammable curtains were about 3-4 feet away, but had they been closer we might have had a major incident.
To resolve the situation, we moved most of the people into the other half of the dining room so they were on a separate circuit, then everything was fine. It would have been impossible for us to have even 5 more people, let alone 40-50 more. There just wasn't enough juice in the house.
I think that the first consideration, before theft (allbeit an important thing to consider) is whether or not the location you will be having this party can withstand the power requirements of all of your equipment.
To combat theft, you can never prevent it completely, you might consider providing people with some kind of peel-resistant stickers (the kind that shred when you peel them off) that have some kind of number or letter code on them, and give that person the matching number ticket. (Kind of like a coat-check.) When they go to leave, you can scan their inventory to make sure they match.
One other thing to consider is indemnification forms, where everyone who stays signs it, saying that you are not liable for injurys from power, red-bull overdosing, partying-in-general, etc, and definitely not responsible for theft.
You might also consider charging people a nominal fee (or they can provide their own) for the purchase of a security cable set, something they can lock their PC and monitor down. Hopefully nobody's going to risk exposure for the theft of a keyboard or mouse or whatever.
The other thing is that if you're going to have a ton of people that you don't know, I'd strongly recommend getting copies of drivers licenses or something, so that you know who all was there and have some type of legal proof of it, if the police or authorities should be involved.
There are tons of things to consider, but covering your arse (CYA) should be the first priority on your list, because there's nothing worse than trying to throw a great party for others, only to be sued by several of them because some asshole ripped off their equipment, and since nobody knew who it was, they want to get the money out of you instead.
Hope that helps.
My 21" is still going strong. Too bad they're not rewarding all those loyal customers by replacing their working (but "dead") CRTs with equivalent flat panels.
This is the kind of far-out technology that WE should be working on, not waiting for other countries to develop it then jump on the me-too bandwagon. Unfortunately we're too busy worrying about patent infringement and letting archaic beliefs get in the way of real scientific and technological progress.
Kudos to the Japanese for working on these things. I just wish we were frontrunners ourselves.
The role and responsibility of a university is to educate students, and provide research facilities. The government should stop bowing to the will of the RIAA lobbyists (it's plain and simple corruption, buying the laws you want) and forcing these universities to get involved in a business that they shouldn't have to deal with. If the universities want to enact policies that say if you are caught sharing music, then you are disciplined (dismissal, etc) then that would be acceptable in my opinion, but I don't think it should be the responsibilities of the owner (leaser?) of a network to police what goes on, especially when its widely known that university networks are probably the most wide open networks as any in the country. I'm sure many will argue that point, but where does it stop? The RIAA needs to address the root of the issue (extraordinarily expensive music) and find a solution to that, instead of all of the witch-hunts. (I saw a CD at a retail department store the other day that was 13 years old, still selling for the sale price of $18.99. Thirteen years old, and it's still $18.99.)
If they put half as much effort into coming up with (or supporting) an alternative music sharing system, they'd probably save millions of dollars in legal fees and attorney salaries alone.
Hell, they don't even pay their artists the money they are due. What a surprise.
Even in some of the tv commercials about various antidepressants, it sometimes says that the medication may increase the feelings of hopelessness and despair in teenagers. What I read from that is... "If you're a teenager, realize that you won't be one forever and do the best you can to get through it."
IMHO, a teenager that is comtemplating suicide doesn't need drugs, they need to talk to someone that isn't part of their problem (like a therapist or psych[ologist|iatrist]). As one who kept most things to myself when I was a kid, finally having the guys to open up to a friend of mine a while back made me feel unbelievably better. I wasn't anywhere close to suicide, but I do think I had a couple scuffles with depression.
And MPAA and RIAA officials ... should acknowledge, respect and strongly support the continuing efforts of campus officials to address copyright issues,
So that's why they (or at least some of them) are trying to force universities that do not have anti-piracy infrastructures (filters, monitoring, etc) in place to lose their federal funding? Wow, that does show a lot of respect.
I think that the MPAA and RIAA should not be allowed to interfere with anything regarding universities, except maybe as cases to analyze in the law schools. They're proposing probably millions of dollars of additions/changes to universities' infrastructures, no doubt causing higher tuitions, and if some university fails to meet the expectations of the [MPAA|RIAA], all of the innocent college students face the possibility of having a government subsidized student loan or whatever.
Where does it stop? An RIAA officer on guard outside every dorm to search and "digitally frisk" each student for downloaded music as they enter their dorm? (I think if that happened, I might want to invest in some rope ladder stock.)
I'm happy for you, here's your cookie. You have a spectacular day knowing you are better than me, whatever keeps you going.
The Warcraft brand was first introduced in 1994 and World of Warcraft was launched in 2001.
World of Warcraft was announced in 2001, but was launched on November 23, 2004.
see The wikipedia entry.
1) You are ill-informed and don't understand what a democracy is. I'd try to explain my point to you but you can't have a civil discussion. You're full of piss and vinegar.
2) You're so blind with rage and anger, you missed how I addressed your incorrectness.
3) You sound like you are miserable. I am sorry you have such a terrible life.
4) Move to Canada.
I'm rubber and you're glue and whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you,
so neener neener neener!
My first experience was on a TI-99/4A, the chrome/black model (later we replaced it with the brown/beige model, I liked the feel of that one much better) and the game was 'Adventure'. I remember sitting at my kitchen table for hours and hours, trying to open that big sapphire door.
It was quickly followed by a game called 'Bigfoot', which was really a Donkey-Kong type game, where the bigfoot was at the summit of this mountain throwing rocks down, which you had to dodge as you climbed to the top. (My brother and I quickly made our own version by gathering all the shoes in the house and rolling them down the steps as the other one tried to slowly climb up.)
Ahhhh, the memories.
Good thing we live in a Democracy rather than a republic, because... oh wait... we elect people who then make the laws... what's the difference between republic and democracy again?
Like I need your help, like I want your help, like I give a shit about your help.
By the way, Laurel and Hardy tried to start their own country a long time ago on the Silver Screen, called Utopia, and it didn't work. I don't think I'd be able to get Chipotle to start a franchise there, so I guess I'm stuck here in the good 'ole U. S. of A.
Emotional? Childish? Have you even read 95% of the comments on this site? Man you have your work cut out for you if you go around calling people childish.
Obviously you missed the whole point to my comment, there IS no for-sure way, and there isn't any decent way, and there really isn't even any 'maybe' way to make a difference in things like that. Oh, right, I can exercise my civic right to vote for the other guy. Oh yeah, I've done that like in, oh I don't know, every election since I've been 18. More often than not my guy has lost. Even some of the one's I've voted for turned out to be against my opinions anyway. But hey, this post shouldn't be about my views of the problems with the election system in this country, it was more about how one person really can't make a difference unless you want to go John-Wilkes-Booth on someone (which I do not condone by any means), and basically making fun of your comment, well, because obviously I'm childish and have never taken a civics class, let alone several in college. But oh wait, I almost forgot, I don't give a shit what you think. Now flame away, I'm moving on to some fun stuff. (Wow, that was fun, maybe I should embrace my inner child some more. Lawn darts anyone? I'll go first.)
Either leave or start to do something about it.
Show me a for-sure way of changing things and I'll be first in line. I couldn't even count the number of letters and emails I have sent to all of my U.S. Representatives and Senators. Guess how many have been answered? Big fat goose egg.
Petitions? *Ha*
Campaign contributions *HAHAHAHA*
Rallies? *Ha*
Letters to the editor of the local paper? *Whatever*
Run for office? *Nope*
And there are several others I don't bother adding to the list. Give me some suggestions, something that can actually convince the government that what they're doing is wrong. Joe Ordinary, yeah... One commentor said 'That's because you're fighting as Joe Ordinary' or something like that. How else can one take on a fight like that? Sorry but I'm all out of super-hero suits under my business khakis and button-down shirt.
For the record, I'd never move to Canada because I have a family, and my family has family, and they're all in the U.S. It's a saying I like to use, but even so, who are you to tell me to 'leave or do something about it' without knowing what I've already tried to do? If you think you know the answer, put up or shut up and tell me how you think it's supposed to happen.
Under 50 is not a permanent exemption. After 2017, those over 50 will have to have a Real ID license as well. The additional 3 years for them was added so the states would have more time to issue everyone new licenses.
They probably want to wait the extra time so more of the baby boomers will die off, thus saving them the extra expense of equipping them all with a Real ID. I can seriously see someone in the upper echelon of government suggesting that as a way of saving money.
I won't even bother quoting Ben Franklin's line here, you all have seen it too many times already. We're in trouble. That apartment in Canada is starting to look much better now.
Several years ago a friend of mine and myself were halfway joking about starting our own software company. The name of my system at that point was 'cyanide'... so I just curiously checked 'cyanidesoftware.com', and it was available. The next day, however, NSI had registered it (I checked the whois) and was selling it for about $5,000. I was disgusted with them at that point, and have been ever since.
A 2% increase over playing the 360 is better than nothing? Yeah the way having 2 pennies in your pocket is better than being flat broke. A far cry from it? Please.
Using the Wii to get exercise is one thing. It requires playing particular games in a particular fashion; not something I wager the test subjects did in this study. But playing it in such a fashion that you burn 2% more calories than playing the 360 is *not* exercise. You can probably do better if you play any game while tapping your feet to the in-game music. To defend the Wii in this case and say that 2% is better than 0% is just silly.
I don't think anyone ever said that the Wii is suppose to replace any type of exercise regimen. The whole point though, is that if it gets kids off the couch and moving around, that's better than sitting on the couch. I don't think any of the Nintendo people ever advertised 'Hey you don't have to do your normal exercise routine, just buy a Wii'. Getting up and moving around burns more calories than sitting, it's a fact. Is it enough to burn all your necessary "workout" calories? No of course not.
There is another factor involved that most people don't think about, and that is the stretching part of it. I can't count the number of times I've had sore muscles in the morning, basically from lack of use for the last 6-8 hours. If I have a particularly busy day at work, I can spend close to 12 hours sitting down (with hopefully a few breaks in between) and my muscles hurt then too. Getting kids to get up and move around helps stretch their muscles, not to mention just the simple part of playing a game that requires more movement of your body than just your hands stimulates more of the mind. Does it replace thinking? No of course not, but it's "better than nothing".
People (probably) don't buy a Wii for exercise, they buy it because it's fun for them. If they get 2% more exercise in a day (which IS better than nothing... only Sith deal in absolutes!) then that's 2% less they have to get the rest of the day to meet whatever quota you've made up for them.
Just because some study says that playing a Wii doesn't replace exercise doesn't mean that Nintendo was actually saying that it did. Sounds like someone wanted something original to write a thesis about.
A question is, though, do those laws apply at all times and places, or are we just "discovering" them here, and now? As far as I know, there's nothing prohibiting a gradual gauge change over time and space. Perhaps those innocuous gauge shifts really DO have an effect somewhere/when. What we generally call "laws" should be universally applicable (or their restricted domains should be stated), but what if they're only applicable here/now? Are they just shadows of higher-dimensional laws which may undergo sudden changes as some higher-dimensional phase change goes on?
Perhaps the arbitrary laws you can write down really do apply.
This all strikes me as a form of hidden variables theory. Or perhaps just cosmic navel-gazing.
I think a perfect example of that is when my gasoline gauge stays at 1/4 tank for several days, then immediately (within a 1 mile trip) drops down to 'E' then enables my gas-low light. This has to be attributed to some evolutionary mangling of the laws of nature.
On the other hand, I'm sure nothing was organized before some brainiac started writing them down. The planets only revolve the way they do because someone wrote a law that "governs" how they revolve. Come on people, use the research dollars for something useful.
The American Government is the best government that money can buy.
Corruption starts in the streets... the beggars bribe the councilmen.
The councilmen bribe the senators.... it goes all the way up to the Department of Justice!
Shit!!
Kill him!!!!!