In your case, you had a placebo control: you didn't know there was milk in the hot dogs and you still got sick. That's a good indication of a legitimate illness.
If, on the other hand, you claim to be allergic to a certain chemical but don't develop symptoms when you're exposed to it unless you are told that it's there, that's psychosomatic. And general EI has been shown to fit that category in numerous studies (there are some other allergies that sometimes get grouped in with EI that _are_ legitimate, but that's another story).
Bear in mind, exactly the same things were said about ADD, ADHD, Fibro-Myalgia, and a myriad of other things until they actually proved them. These are the same people who tell you Nutrasweet is "safe".
Can you really not understand the difference between caution and dismissal? The AMA said at one point "we don't know that ADD exists. We have no evidence for it." That's very different from saying "we don't believe Environmental Illness exists--we have evidence that it doesn't".
The former calls for more information to find out whether there is a problem. The latter calls for a shift to psychiatric treatments of something that is a psychological problem and not a physiological one.
And, BTW, there's still no credible evidence of any problems from aspartame (though it does taste rather nasty). Notice I didn't say that it's safe, but the studies cited widely in certain communities (e.g. the 1960s "FDA is keeping us in the dark!" studies) are certainly worthless.
This is scary stuff! I have to personally wonder how much of the "cancer rise rates" are directly related to things like this.. especially the huge jump in Lung Cancer in the last 20 years. It certainly is not only due to smoking, as smoking levels have been decreasing steadily.
Your assumption that there is a "huge jump in lung cancer in the last 20 years" is wrong, or at best misleading.
Age-adjusted lung cancer rates have declined significantly from 1990-1999--age-adjusted rates are the only ones that are really worth looking at, they're what for instance the CDC and other bodies use since they account for increases in lifespan. Preliminary data for 2000-2002 seems to indicate this trend is continuing. If there is an increase over the last 20 years it's because an earlier increase (1983-1989) hasn't been wiped out yet.
Remember that cancer rates lag smoking rates, too, so if smoking was halved today that would show up more and more over the next decade(s) rather than showing up immediately.
http://seer.cancer.gov is one good resource for this data.
Spoilers on the ring in the Hobbit: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bilbo meets Gollum underground when he's fleeing the goblins. Gollum has the ring. They have a riddle-battle which Bilbo wins, winning the ring--he wrests it from Gollum and puts it on, managing to escape.
The ring has few sinister undertones in the Hobbit, it just makes the wearer invisible.
With them it is simple to do the things I described above and much much more. Using seperate windows to perform these tasks quickly becomes awkward
Only if your window manager blows.
On my Linux box I easily manage this in seperate windows. It's trivial to group together windows so the iconify as a group, switch windows within groups, etc. It's not limited to just web browsing, it's a single UI everywhere, it doesn't take up valuable screen real estate as tabs do, etc.
On my MS-Windows machine I use tabbed Mozilla since the window management blows there. They have spurious app-internal wm features like MDI all over the place, and you basically have to maximize most apps for them to work decently already anyway.
But it's a hack. The proper thing to do is fix your wm.
[quote]I'd be surprised if most people could show you code. If they're working for another company its likely they don't have the/right/ to show you anything.[/quote]
I can't imagine going for a serious programming interview and getting a job offer before they'd seen what my code looks like.
I've always required a code sample from applicants, and every job I've applied for where I didn't personally know the tech staff required the same from me (not up front, but once you got past the stupid-filters and the first round interview).
Even big corporate top-secret employers (Lockheed-Martin comes to mind) have been willing to let former employees bring code with reasonable measures to safeguard it (not a whole program, no passwords, hard-copy only that is destroyed after the interview). When we went to lay people off at one of my former companies (who I've since left, though I still do occasional contract work for), I made sure that legal let people know we'd be willing to let them use coding samples (for interview purposes only) under similar guidelines.
Indeed, the only time that former employers have been at all a sticking point is when the applicant is still working for them (and doesn't want to let them know they're applying elsewhere) or did work under contract for a third-party (who had full rights to the code). But those applicants have with one exception had some personal code to show--the one guy took us up on writing sample code just for us since he wasn't previously a programmer and wanted to enter the field (he was a hands-on engineer with a PhD in a related field to the work we were doing).
It doesn't have to be a huge project, but you really _need_ to see what someone's code looks like and how they are at explaining it to you and discussing alternative approaches, etc.
Dick Gordon: National Security Agency. Martin Bishop: Oh, you're the guys I hear breathing on the other end of my phone. Dick Gordon: No, that's the F.B.I. We're not chartered for domestic surveillance. Martin Bishop: Oh, I see. You just overthrow governments and set up friendly dictators. Dick Gordon: No, that's the C.I.A. We protect our government's communications, we try and break the other fellow's codes. We're the good guys, Marty. Martin Bishop: Gee, I can't tell you what a relief that is, Dick
A police agency may call upon experts in a field for assistance in a search, especially if the evidence being sought is of a technical nature
That's sort of what I was getting at--the warrants could name the BSA cronies as technical assistants and hence you _would_ have to let them in for the search.
While it is customary for warrants to be directed to an officer of the law, they can be granted to private individuals, no? Usually this is reserved for specialists in peculiar circumstances (e.g. an expert is required in a field so specialized that only the private sector can provide one), but e.g. landlords in many areas are given possession warrants to throw out tenants--there are several other common cases of warrants going to non-police officials.
Anyone know if these warrants name the BSA cronies or just the US marshals?
Outside of California and Texas it's pretty difficult to get a decent burrito for any price, let alone the $3 that one costs there.
I know; I used to live in the Burrito Zone and now I'm out of it.
Having lived in Maine, Pennsylvania, Ecuador, and Washington, DC I can say with confidence that a $3 burrito can be had easily in any of those places (except Ecuador where no food item costs that much except in upscale establishments).
In our shop, we are on call for 100's of webservers. We aren't responsible for all of them during the day, but 1 lucky guy a week gets to stay awake for the whole group of servers. I imagine that's the way it works in a lot of places.
Take a page out of google's book. By the time you have 100s of servers, with proper redundancy it doesn't really matter if one (or several) of them is down. Google's to the point where once a week they reboot the failed machines and replace the ones that don't come back up. You might need to do it daily.
Only if there's a good _business_ reason for you to be called in/working late should you do it. "The machine is down" is not a business problem; "the site is down and we're losing customers" is. Work things out so the first doesn't imply the second and you'll get a lot more sleep.
Don't put a TV or stereo in the bedroom. Don't read in the bedroom. Again, you're only distracting yourself from falling asleep. I know you're using them to try to fall asleep
Um, for a lot of people falling asleep isn't the problem. Waking up is. Having the lights slowly come up and the stereo come on quietly and get louder can be a lot easier on the body than having an alarm clock start blaring out a buzzer.
And on weekends, waking up and reading lazily in bed is one of life's great pleasures.
The #1 way to deal with insomnia is to get more excercise (not right before bed, but earlier that day/evening). #2 is to take a hot shower about a half hour before bedtime.
I develop software - so yeah, I get my share of calls
That doesn't follow. I develop software, but I don't get calls. Why should I? As a software developer, I'm not in a time-critical position--if things fail, I'll fix them when I come in in the morning.
If your work is time-critical--e.g. you're a web developer and the failure in question is affecting the site--that's one thing. But it's worth asking yourself if it really helps the business to be called in all the time or if it just feels important to be the guy that fights fires.
...don't leave a phone on in your bedroom. Easy. My work only has my cell number, and I turn that off at night and whenever else I don't want to be disturbed.
If you took a job where you have on-call hours, you can't really think of those as _your_ time, though--they're partially your company's time. Hopefully you factor that into your salary considerations when you took the job. My dad's a doctor and I saw first hand what on-call means when I was growing up; I decided it's not worth it to me to be on-call, and I've stuck by that in all of my past job hunts.
As far as keeping technology out of the bedroom, that's trivial; you just have to not want it there, it doesn't show up on its own. There are a couple of tech things that I quite like, though:
a) soft-on alarm systems--my lights and music slowly come on in the morning, lights dimming up over a half hour with the music starting soft for the second half and gradually coming up louder. It's a lot easier to wake up that way. b) a decent stereo system both for mood music and for waking up to
As far as non-tech essentials:
a) good shades, I live in the city and keeping out light is a big deal b) good pillows, including a good choice for sitting and reading in bed c) varied lighting choices (bright indirect full-spectrum bulbs, a good bedside lamp for reading, and candles or oil lamps) d) reading material of a non-work nature
Most shareware apps are not advanced enough to compete with open source equivalents
This is an excellent point: correct or not, the perception in the Linux community is that shareware tends to be of much lower quality than free software. I know that there is a lot of high-quality shareware out there, but you have to sort through a lot of crap to get it. If you're going to take the time to sort through crap, may as well hunt for a good free piece of software.
I'm not saying it can't be done, but when xv is the biggest piece of shareware out there for Unix/Linux and most users don't even know it's not free software, you have a massive uphill battle.
And small programs aren't going to sell like they can for windows--a relatively high proportion of Linux users can hack up small utilities themselves, which means most people can either do so or know someone who can. That means you're looking at at least medium-size projects with uncertain prospects for getting paid for your time, and you don't have the luxury of releasing early and often. The demo is your advertising, if it's not solid you get no sales.
I'd be far more inclined to go after contract work and works for hire than to try the shareware route.
There was a "move" I was fond of, the squeezer. You just kinda pinch the ball between the player and the table, and then you just cranked hard. The ball just shot out, and the forward spin on it was incredible. Many a time you would score a goal after the ball hit the goalie/defender, and just spun right around him to the side, and into the goal.
The point being: I'd consider that an "advanced" shot, but it bends the hell out of the bars. Would you allow that?
The backpin and frontpin squib are both legal, but they're not that effective at high levels of play. Also, you don't need to bend the rod much to shoot them--you can get the ball to shoot out just as fast with firm pressure rather than torquing the hell out of it, as long as you brush the rod off of the ball at the right speed/direction.
The kind of topspin you describe can be achieved on every shot with the right follow-through.
Basically the only time you'll see the backpin squeeze is from the goalie area--with enough practice, you can effectively pass to either side of the forward's 3-rod or shoot on goal with it. Even then it's usually limited to pick-up/funsy games as opposed to major tourney play.
Primary shots you'll see up front are the pull shot (with the middle man--including all straight, middle, long, and cutback/spray options), the snake (front-pin the ball, flip the man over and hit the ball--you can move it either direction), and the regular front-pin (which you can move either way). Less common but still seen are the push shot (with the middle man--harder to square off and effectively hit all the options than the pull), the push-kick (near man to middle man, plus dink options), the pull-kick, and tic-tac shots.
For the last 10 years I think every major tournament in the US (Worlds, Nationals, US Open, and Vegas Hall of Fame Classic) has been won by someone shooting a snake, pull, or front-pin. If there is an exception it's very uncommon. In the 70s and early 80s the push-kick and pull-kick were pretty successful as well, but nowadays literally everyone ranked in the top 200 who shoots a kick shot is over the age of 40--those shots have weaknesses that the snake, pull, and front-pin shots don't have. On european tables (grippier and slower) the front-pin is far more popular than in the US, but it's been gaining popularity here recently (since the top player in the world, Frederico Collignon, shoots it exclusively and has destroyed the US players in the last few years).
Popular funsy shots include the scorpion (bump off the near wall and brush at a steep angle into the goal, HARD), Texas T (chip the ball from a frontpin on the near man to the middle man and straight in, without moving the bar sideways at all), alien (two-handed push-kick that you slam with the left hand--hard to describe unless you see it), and the 3-to-5 smash.
I play tournament foosball pretty frequently. One of the very first things you learn is that everyone good has a decent shot; the thing that seperates the tournament-level players from the casual players is their ability to pass the ball and block their opponent's passes. Passing from the 5-bar to the 3-bar is key--you have to be able to execute at least 2 different passes from the same setup without telegraphing which one you're doing, and then you need to be able to read the opponents' pass defense to decide which to execute.
Just like in football, time in the redzone is going to get you the win.
If you're in the Washington, DC area, come out to the Crystal City Sports Pub in Arlington (23rd street and S. Eads) on Tuesday night at 8:00 PM. They have a handicapped tournament that is great for new players who want to learn to play tournament level foosball. Other cities have similar events, foosball.com should have a listing.
Now I'm no Snoop expert, but I've never heard that song. I certainly haven't heard them all, so I assume the song(s) that contain these lyrics are some that I haven't heard.
Deep Cover was his first big hit with Dre, here are some excerpts:
Tonight's the night I get in some shit (yeahhh) +Deep Cover+ on the incognito tip Killin motherfuckers if I have to, peelin caps too... And, the motherfuckin punk police You already know I gives a fuck about a cop So why in the fuck would you think that it would stop?... I'm chillin, killin, feelin, no remorse... I got the gauge, a uzi, and my motherfuckin twenty-two So if you wanna blast, nigga we can buck 'em If we stick 'em then we struck 'em, so fuck 'em!.. I'm lettin my gat pop - cause it's 1-8-7 on a undercover cop!--Deep Cover
Doggystyle is his best-selling album, here are some excerpts: In the back of the limo no demo, this is the real Breakin niggaz down like Evander Holyfield... So lay back in the cut, motherfucker 'fore you get shot It's 1-8-7 on a motherfuckin cop... Gotta take a trip to the MIA And serve your ass with a motherfuckin AK--Tha Shizznit
Decked Sally in the face and punched her in the eye Punched her in the belly and stepped on her feet Slammed the child on the hard concrete--Lodi Dodi
Now break yourself motherfucker, 'fore you make me take this 211 to another level--Serial Killa
It's like that and as a matter of fact [rat-tat-tat-tat] Cuz I never hesitate to put a nigga on his back... Mr. One Eight Seven on a motherfuckin cop Tic toc never the glock just some nuts and a cock Robbin motherfuckers then I kill dem blood claats--What's my name
And it don't take much, for the Dogg Pound to bust a cap in your ass... The kinpin of the clique, top notch 17 shot Glock cocked, so all nigga drop...For all my Niggaz and Bitches
Ya fuck with us, we gots to fuck you up... But watch the gun by my side Because it represents me and the motherfuckin East Side--Gz and Hustlaz
don't make me have to grab my strap and go rat-tat-tat-tat, nigga slap to a motherfucker face he fall--Pump pump
Last year on the Chronic 2001 he had this: Takin chances while we dancin in the party fo' sho' Slip my hoe a forty-fo' and she got in the back do'...crip walk if you down with the set Take a bullet with some dick and take this dope from this jet--Tha Next Episode
I'm a Snoop fan, but to say he doesn't talk about inflicting violence on others is, um, ludacris.
There aren't any industrialized countries with the death penalty except for the US
Japan isn't industrialized? South Korea?
There are several industrialized countries with the death penalty. You need several qualifiers; e.g. "there aren't any Western industrialized democracies with the death penalty". Even then there are some arguable exceptions, but at least it's closer.
Slashdot Mirror
Cool, I also like Altarwise by Owl-light a lot.
Sumner
As I said, the Hobbit was published before LotR.
Sumner
All allergies are *not* "in one's head."
Of course not. But Environmental Illness is.
In your case, you had a placebo control: you didn't know there was milk in the hot dogs and you still got sick. That's a good indication of a legitimate illness.
If, on the other hand, you claim to be allergic to a certain chemical but don't develop symptoms when you're exposed to it unless you are told that it's there, that's psychosomatic. And general EI has been shown to fit that category in numerous studies (there are some other allergies that sometimes get grouped in with EI that _are_ legitimate, but that's another story).
Sumner
Bear in mind, exactly the same things were said about ADD, ADHD, Fibro-Myalgia, and a myriad of other things until they actually proved them. These are the same people who tell you Nutrasweet is "safe".
Can you really not understand the difference between caution and dismissal? The AMA said at one point "we don't know that ADD exists. We have no evidence for it." That's very different from saying "we don't believe Environmental Illness exists--we have evidence that it doesn't".
The former calls for more information to find out whether there is a problem. The latter calls for a shift to psychiatric treatments of something that is a psychological problem and not a physiological one.
And, BTW, there's still no credible evidence of any problems from aspartame (though it does taste rather nasty). Notice I didn't say that it's safe, but the studies cited widely in certain communities (e.g. the 1960s "FDA is keeping us in the dark!" studies) are certainly worthless.
Sumner
This is scary stuff! I have to personally wonder how much of the "cancer rise rates" are directly related to things like this.. especially the huge jump in Lung Cancer in the last 20 years. It certainly is not only due to smoking, as smoking levels have been decreasing steadily.
Your assumption that there is a "huge jump in lung cancer in the last 20 years" is wrong, or at best misleading.
Age-adjusted lung cancer rates have declined significantly from 1990-1999--age-adjusted rates are the only ones that are really worth looking at, they're what for instance the CDC and other bodies use since they account for increases in lifespan. Preliminary data for 2000-2002 seems to indicate this trend is continuing. If there is an increase over the last 20 years it's because an earlier increase (1983-1989) hasn't been wiped out yet.
Remember that cancer rates lag smoking rates, too, so if smoking was halved today that would show up more and more over the next decade(s) rather than showing up immediately.
http://seer.cancer.gov is one good resource for this data.
Sumner
The Hobbit was published before the LotR.
Spoilers on the ring in the Hobbit:
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.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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.
.
Bilbo meets Gollum underground when he's fleeing the goblins. Gollum has the ring. They have a riddle-battle which Bilbo wins, winning the ring--he wrests it from Gollum and puts it on, managing to escape.
The ring has few sinister undertones in the Hobbit, it just makes the wearer invisible.
Sumner
With them it is simple to do the things I described above and much much more. Using seperate windows to perform these tasks quickly becomes awkward
Only if your window manager blows.
On my Linux box I easily manage this in seperate windows. It's trivial to group together windows so the iconify as a group, switch windows within groups, etc. It's not limited to just web browsing, it's a single UI everywhere, it doesn't take up valuable screen real estate as tabs do, etc.
On my MS-Windows machine I use tabbed Mozilla since the window management blows there. They have spurious app-internal wm features like MDI all over the place, and you basically have to maximize most apps for them to work decently already anyway.
But it's a hack. The proper thing to do is fix your wm.
Sumner
[quote]I'd be surprised if most people could show you code. If they're working for another company its likely they don't have the /right/ to show you anything.[/quote]
I can't imagine going for a serious programming interview and getting a job offer before they'd seen what my code looks like.
I've always required a code sample from applicants, and every job I've applied for where I didn't personally know the tech staff required the same from me (not up front, but once you got past the stupid-filters and the first round interview).
Even big corporate top-secret employers (Lockheed-Martin comes to mind) have been willing to let former employees bring code with reasonable measures to safeguard it (not a whole program, no passwords, hard-copy only that is destroyed after the interview). When we went to lay people off at one of my former companies (who I've since left, though I still do occasional contract work for), I made sure that legal let people know we'd be willing to let them use coding samples (for interview purposes only) under similar guidelines.
Indeed, the only time that former employers have been at all a sticking point is when the applicant is still working for them (and doesn't want to let them know they're applying elsewhere) or did work under contract for a third-party (who had full rights to the code). But those applicants have with one exception had some personal code to show--the one guy took us up on writing sample code just for us since he wasn't previously a programmer and wanted to enter the field (he was a hands-on engineer with a PhD in a related field to the work we were doing).
It doesn't have to be a huge project, but you really _need_ to see what someone's code looks like and how they are at explaining it to you and discussing alternative approaches, etc.
Sumner
Dick Gordon: National Security Agency.
Martin Bishop: Oh, you're the guys I hear breathing on the other end of my phone.
Dick Gordon: No, that's the F.B.I. We're not chartered for domestic surveillance.
Martin Bishop: Oh, I see. You just overthrow governments and set up friendly dictators.
Dick Gordon: No, that's the C.I.A. We protect our government's communications, we try and break the other fellow's codes. We're the good guys, Marty.
Martin Bishop: Gee, I can't tell you what a relief that is, Dick
(from Sneakers)
Sumner
A police agency may call upon experts in a field for assistance in a search, especially if the evidence being sought is of a technical nature
That's sort of what I was getting at--the warrants could name the BSA cronies as technical assistants and hence you _would_ have to let them in for the search.
Sumner
While it is customary for warrants to be directed to an officer of the law, they can be granted to private individuals, no? Usually this is reserved for specialists in peculiar circumstances (e.g. an expert is required in a field so specialized that only the private sector can provide one), but e.g. landlords in many areas are given possession warrants to throw out tenants--there are several other common cases of warrants going to non-police officials.
Anyone know if these warrants name the BSA cronies or just the US marshals?
Sumner
Burrito Brothers is big, that's about all you can say for it.
The $3 burrito in DC tends to be similar--big but not zippy. The best burrito I've had in the area is at Rio Grande cafe in Bethesda.
Sumner
Outside of California and Texas it's pretty difficult to get a decent burrito for any price, let alone the $3 that one costs there.
I know; I used to live in the Burrito Zone and now I'm out of it.
Having lived in Maine, Pennsylvania, Ecuador, and Washington, DC I can say with confidence that a $3 burrito can be had easily in any of those places (except Ecuador where no food item costs that much except in upscale establishments).
Sumner
In our shop, we are on call for 100's of webservers. We aren't responsible for all of them during the day, but 1 lucky guy a week gets to stay awake for the whole group of servers. I imagine that's the way it works in a lot of places.
Take a page out of google's book. By the time you have 100s of servers, with proper redundancy it doesn't really matter if one (or several) of them is down. Google's to the point where once a week they reboot the failed machines and replace the ones that don't come back up. You might need to do it daily.
Only if there's a good _business_ reason for you to be called in/working late should you do it. "The machine is down" is not a business problem; "the site is down and we're losing customers" is. Work things out so the first doesn't imply the second and you'll get a lot more sleep.
Sumner
Don't put a TV or stereo in the bedroom. Don't read in the bedroom. Again, you're only distracting yourself from falling asleep. I know you're using them to try to fall asleep
Um, for a lot of people falling asleep isn't the problem. Waking up is. Having the lights slowly come up and the stereo come on quietly and get louder can be a lot easier on the body than having an alarm clock start blaring out a buzzer.
And on weekends, waking up and reading lazily in bed is one of life's great pleasures.
The #1 way to deal with insomnia is to get more excercise (not right before bed, but earlier that day/evening). #2 is to take a hot shower about a half hour before bedtime.
Sumner
I develop software - so yeah, I get my share of calls
That doesn't follow. I develop software, but I don't get calls. Why should I? As a software developer, I'm not in a time-critical position--if things fail, I'll fix them when I come in in the morning.
If your work is time-critical--e.g. you're a web developer and the failure in question is affecting the site--that's one thing. But it's worth asking yourself if it really helps the business to be called in all the time or if it just feels important to be the guy that fights fires.
Sumner
...don't leave a phone on in your bedroom. Easy. My work only has my cell number, and I turn that off at night and whenever else I don't want to be disturbed.
If you took a job where you have on-call hours, you can't really think of those as _your_ time, though--they're partially your company's time. Hopefully you factor that into your salary considerations when you took the job. My dad's a doctor and I saw first hand what on-call means when I was growing up; I decided it's not worth it to me to be on-call, and I've stuck by that in all of my past job hunts.
As far as keeping technology out of the bedroom, that's trivial; you just have to not want it there, it doesn't show up on its own. There are a couple of tech things that I quite like, though:
a) soft-on alarm systems--my lights and music slowly come on in the morning, lights dimming up over a half hour with the music starting soft for the second half and gradually coming up louder. It's a lot easier to wake up that way.
b) a decent stereo system both for mood music and for waking up to
As far as non-tech essentials:
a) good shades, I live in the city and keeping out light is a big deal
b) good pillows, including a good choice for sitting and reading in bed
c) varied lighting choices (bright indirect full-spectrum bulbs, a good bedside lamp for reading, and candles or oil lamps)
d) reading material of a non-work nature
Sumner
No, just when I'm getting ready to go to bed.
Most shareware apps are not advanced enough to compete with open source equivalents
This is an excellent point: correct or not, the perception in the Linux community is that shareware tends to be of much lower quality than free software. I know that there is a lot of high-quality shareware out there, but you have to sort through a lot of crap to get it. If you're going to take the time to sort through crap, may as well hunt for a good free piece of software.
I'm not saying it can't be done, but when xv is the biggest piece of shareware out there for Unix/Linux and most users don't even know it's not free software, you have a massive uphill battle.
And small programs aren't going to sell like they can for windows--a relatively high proportion of Linux users can hack up small utilities themselves, which means most people can either do so or know someone who can. That means you're looking at at least medium-size projects with uncertain prospects for getting paid for your time, and you don't have the luxury of releasing early and often. The demo is your advertising, if it's not solid you get no sales.
I'd be far more inclined to go after contract work and works for hire than to try the shareware route.
Sumner
There was a "move" I was fond of, the squeezer. You just kinda pinch the ball between the player and the table, and then you just cranked hard. The ball just shot out, and the forward spin on it was incredible. Many a time you would score a goal after the ball hit the goalie/defender, and just spun right around him to the side, and into the goal.
The point being: I'd consider that an "advanced" shot, but it bends the hell out of the bars. Would you allow that?
The backpin and frontpin squib are both legal, but they're not that effective at high levels of play. Also, you don't need to bend the rod much to shoot them--you can get the ball to shoot out just as fast with firm pressure rather than torquing the hell out of it, as long as you brush the rod off of the ball at the right speed/direction.
The kind of topspin you describe can be achieved on every shot with the right follow-through.
Basically the only time you'll see the backpin squeeze is from the goalie area--with enough practice, you can effectively pass to either side of the forward's 3-rod or shoot on goal with it. Even then it's usually limited to pick-up/funsy games as opposed to major tourney play.
Primary shots you'll see up front are the pull shot (with the middle man--including all straight, middle, long, and cutback/spray options), the snake (front-pin the ball, flip the man over and hit the ball--you can move it either direction), and the regular front-pin (which you can move either way). Less common but still seen are the push shot (with the middle man--harder to square off and effectively hit all the options than the pull), the push-kick (near man to middle man, plus dink options), the pull-kick, and tic-tac shots.
For the last 10 years I think every major tournament in the US (Worlds, Nationals, US Open, and Vegas Hall of Fame Classic) has been won by someone shooting a snake, pull, or front-pin. If there is an exception it's very uncommon. In the 70s and early 80s the push-kick and pull-kick were pretty successful as well, but nowadays literally everyone ranked in the top 200 who shoots a kick shot is over the age of 40--those shots have weaknesses that the snake, pull, and front-pin shots don't have. On european tables (grippier and slower) the front-pin is far more popular than in the US, but it's been gaining popularity here recently (since the top player in the world, Frederico Collignon, shoots it exclusively and has destroyed the US players in the last few years).
Popular funsy shots include the scorpion (bump off the near wall and brush at a steep angle into the goal, HARD), Texas T (chip the ball from a frontpin on the near man to the middle man and straight in, without moving the bar sideways at all), alien (two-handed push-kick that you slam with the left hand--hard to describe unless you see it), and the 3-to-5 smash.
Sumner
I play tournament foosball pretty frequently. One of the very first things you learn is that everyone good has a decent shot; the thing that seperates the tournament-level players from the casual players is their ability to pass the ball and block their opponent's passes. Passing from the 5-bar to the 3-bar is key--you have to be able to execute at least 2 different passes from the same setup without telegraphing which one you're doing, and then you need to be able to read the opponents' pass defense to decide which to execute.
Just like in football, time in the redzone is going to get you the win.
If you're in the Washington, DC area, come out to the Crystal City Sports Pub in Arlington (23rd street and S. Eads) on Tuesday night at 8:00 PM. They have a handicapped tournament that is great for new players who want to learn to play tournament level foosball. Other cities have similar events, foosball.com should have a listing.
Sumner
I pay my contactors for end results, not time spent creating results.
No, you don't. You said you pay for hours.
Lots of contracts are written for deliverables rather than hours. That would be paying for end results. Maybe worth investigating for you...
Sumner
The Die Hard TV edit is the worst. "Yippeykayay, motherf*cker" turns into "Yippeykayay, yippeykayay", and "son of a b*tch" turns into "sourpuss".
Now I'm no Snoop expert, but I've never heard that song. I certainly haven't heard them all, so I assume the song(s) that contain these lyrics are some that I haven't heard.
Deep Cover was his first big hit with Dre, here are some excerpts:
Tonight's the night I get in some shit (yeahhh)
+Deep Cover+ on the incognito tip
Killin motherfuckers if I have to, peelin caps too...
And, the motherfuckin punk police
You already know I gives a fuck about a cop
So why in the fuck would you think that it would stop?...
I'm chillin, killin, feelin, no remorse...
I got the gauge, a uzi, and my motherfuckin twenty-two
So if you wanna blast, nigga we can buck 'em
If we stick 'em then we struck 'em, so fuck 'em!..
I'm lettin my gat pop - cause it's 1-8-7 on a undercover cop!--Deep Cover
Doggystyle is his best-selling album, here are some excerpts:
In the back of the limo no demo, this is the real
Breakin niggaz down like Evander Holyfield...
So lay back in the cut, motherfucker 'fore you get shot
It's 1-8-7 on a motherfuckin cop...
Gotta take a trip to the MIA
And serve your ass with a motherfuckin AK--Tha Shizznit
Decked Sally in the face and punched her in the eye
Punched her in the belly and stepped on her feet
Slammed the child on the hard concrete--Lodi Dodi
Now break yourself motherfucker, 'fore you make me
take this 211 to another level--Serial Killa
It's like that and as a matter of fact [rat-tat-tat-tat]
Cuz I never hesitate to put a nigga on his back...
Mr. One Eight Seven on a motherfuckin cop
Tic toc never the glock just some nuts and a cock
Robbin motherfuckers then I kill dem blood claats--What's my name
And it don't take much, for the Dogg Pound to bust a cap in your ass...
The kinpin of the clique, top notch 17 shot Glock cocked, so all nigga drop...For all my Niggaz and Bitches
Ya fuck with us, we gots to fuck you up...
But watch the gun by my side
Because it represents me and the motherfuckin East Side--Gz and Hustlaz
don't make me have to grab my strap and go
rat-tat-tat-tat, nigga slap to a motherfucker face he fall--Pump pump
Last year on the Chronic 2001 he had this:
Takin chances while we dancin in the party fo' sho'
Slip my hoe a forty-fo' and she got in the back do'...crip walk if you down with the set
Take a bullet with some dick and take this dope from this jet--Tha Next Episode
I'm a Snoop fan, but to say he doesn't talk about inflicting violence on others is, um, ludacris.
Sumner
There aren't any industrialized countries with the death penalty except for the US
Japan isn't industrialized? South Korea?
There are several industrialized countries with the death penalty. You need several qualifiers; e.g. "there aren't any Western industrialized democracies with the death penalty". Even then there are some arguable exceptions, but at least it's closer.
Sumner