I like Niven's take - you can fly over a city, but only on automatic. Flying manually over a populated area is a capital crime, and you wind up in the organ banks.
You are making a false equivalency between people's right to do official business with the state and with a buffoon who handed in a resignation in a fake language.
The "Preview" button is not a command, but it is a very strong suggestion.
Yeah, those "explosions" are dust-laden air being blown out of windows because a huge building is collapsing down on top of the floors where the clouds are blown out of the building.
Seriously, you are crazy, deranged, a nutcase, wasting your time.
Oh, and insulting the memory of the people murdered in the towers. That part I find despicable.
I'm not responding on this topic again, because you have nothing sane to say. You are a loon.
It does, but it also makes sense to notice when it's dried up and full of regularly spaced holes, like maybe someone's turned dead wood into something else.
The problem is that since customs officials can't be expert on everything, they assume the worst as a default.
I agree, I think this is EXACTLY the problem in this event. You have summed it up perfectly.
I'm a little creeped out when people see something like this and immediately toss in their favorite objects of fascination, whether it's the NSA or 9/11 Truthers.
While Taco Cowboy's post does sound mildly far-fetched, the idea of "feeling" a quake before it happens (or in this case, feeling that a quake happened but not actually feeling the tremors) isn't so far-fetched. Aren't other animals supposed to be able to sense such things?
As for why Taco Cowboy would not have felt any tremors, maybe they were far enough away to not feel the tremors, but still within range of whatever produced the "off" feeling? I don't know.
I would be remiss if I did not admit that, yes, it could have been complete coincidence. But it also seems within the realm of possibility that it is not.
But the problem is that Taco Cowboy's explanation is that some individuals (he doesn't specify non-human, but that seems to be the gist) sent a warning to others of their kind BACK IN TIME. That's absurd.
He didn't say, "well, I might have physically felt something of the geologic event that I didn't consciously register", he said he suspects it was messages sent through time. While technically ANYTHING is possible, this is more in the range of "well, blue fairies might have done it".
This was a story about outrage over ham-handed border security and perhaps overzealous agents destroying flutes under agricultural regulations designed to keep invasive species out of the country.
Then the thread was hijacked and the NSA roundly thrashed.
I agree the NSA is out of control, but to put it plainly, they're not involved in THIS post.
Seriously? After your flamebait about being thankful you're not a U.S. citizen, you're criticizing someone for saying, "good, we're glad you're not here either"?
Hey pot, let me introduce you to a friend of mine...
As for murder? Well, just wait until someone resists. You will find that, just as in the case of the Bostom bombing, not only will direct suspects be killed under strange circumstances where witnesses and evidence contradicts official stories, but people who knew the suspects are also killed. Kind of sounds like what you're saying of the Gestapo.
You're either being intentionally deceitful or you're wilfully ignorant of what has been going on.
You are distracting yourself with fringe conspiracy theories instead of what "they" are actually doing. Good for you, that's exactly what "they" want. You're playing your part perfectly.
How did this become about the NSA? It's about border control confiscating plant matter to prevent ingress of parasites that might be present in it that would harm agriculture in the U.S.
This case seems like they applied the regulations stupidly, but those are the same laws that prevent you from getting through customs with a bunch of small plants bundled into your luggage. It does make sense to regulate the import of non-native species.
I don't know if it's just me getting old, but in the pre-cable days, television had a charm about it that it completely lacks today. I wrote recently here about the huge film libraries that local stations had and played after the late news show.
I don't mean it unkindly, but yes, it's just you getting old. I grew up in the 60's, and I know what you mean, but I think you're remembering the intimacy and familiarity created by a very limited number of viewing choices. I also enjoyed lots of second run and older movies on late night tv, along with commercials every 10 minutes.
But today I can probably watch any of those movies I can think of, and all the newer stuff, without commercials and on demand. It's like conflating the content of a book with the experience of holding it in your hand and turning pages. For me, at least, the medium is irrelevant, and it's the content that matters.
You're assuming absolute positions here. In general relativity, it is equally valid to consider the Earth to be at rest, with the rest of the universe moving and rotating in a complicated fashion.
Aha! So the Catholic Church was right!
They really ought to take back that apology to Galileo.
I posted what I posted in this "time traveling" story because I suspect (I do not have any proof, only suspicions) that something did travel back in time (about 7 minutes) and I just so happened to "encounter" one of the "side effects" of that "travel".
The most likely explanation is that you had low blood sugar, maybe had a tiny event in your brain from a tear in an artery, or some other physiological symptom that made you hallucinate mildly. There must be literally hundreds, if not thousands of people who have similar events any time something major happens, because you know, coincidence. A large enough population guarantees it.
Since you suspect you have witnessed a warning sent back in time, I recommend getting a CAT scan, you may have an undiagnosed aneurysm, or brain tumor.:-)
But seriously, if something had sent a warning back in time ONLY A FEW MINUTES before the earthquake, if I were one of those being warned, I would go kick the ass of "my kind" that gave such a shitty warning.
A buddy of mine wrote an essay in his international relations class about how airplanes could be used to take down the towers, a couple of weeks before it happened.
Oh, that's nothing. I heard that this guy, President of the United States, I believe, got this report 36 days before 9/11, and the title of it was (get this), "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."
With, let's see, about 7 billion people on the planet, there are probably hundreds who experience a coincidental hallucination like yours just before any major event of natural disaster, terrorist attack, etc.
Without any object proof (really, without any proof whatsoever), your anecdote doesn't mean anything. It continually amazes me to see how easily people are led to believe in the occult, or in god, or that they had an extrasensory experience.
In addition, I fought the rest of upper management to make my staff's working environment enjoyable. No overtime when I was there. I knew enough to know that overtime is, generally speaking, non-productive when forced, and forced often.
I also instituted incentive plans for those of my staff that tried hard. They didn't have to be superstars, they just had to try to improve themselves. And my staff loved me. All our software was developed in house and we did a major conversion on one of the pieces, probably the most important piece in the chain. We did it on time, minimal roll out issues and no overtime. And everyone had fun along the way.
This is pretty close to the ideal I aspire to as a manager. And it's not that hard, if you keep your priorities straight.
On the other hand, sometimes you end up fighting with management for these things, and a certain percentage of the time, you lose (your job).
This sounds like a pretty decent environment, but I have a quibble - the project manager should not be "above you". I've held most technical, and now, most non-technical management positions in IT, and if your project manager is not working with, or often *for* you, then you're not getting your money's worth.
However, I also believe that management at every level is at least as obligated to the people lower on the reporting hierarchy as they are to him/her, so I might be in the minority in saying that your internal customers include people who report to you.
Despite all the overheated rhetoric and horror stories, civil liberties in the U.S. are still largely intact, including the right to petition for redress through the courts.
The Bill of Rights has taken a beating over the last dozen years, but we're not a police state yet.
Once again, if this were a police state, the ACLU wouldn't be taking the government to court... or exist, for that matter.
That's actually what I said. Note I said the Constitution applies to every "person", with some exceptions, such as the right to vote, which is only a right of citizens, and as the AC below pointed out, not all of them retain that right.
You literally don't know what you're talking about. Your response was a non-sequitur rant about nefarious blah blah blah, when my post was about a point of grammar. You didn't defend anything, in the sense that your argument missed the entire point of the post.
You really are an idiot. Please, keep missing the point in your rants, but I'm done, because you genuinely don't seem intelligent enough to understand. Keep posting your blather. I'm not going to reply or even read your next deposit of guano on this subject.
Slashdot Mirror
I like Niven's take - you can fly over a city, but only on automatic. Flying manually over a populated area is a capital crime, and you wind up in the organ banks.
While I agree with your sentiment, I have to point out that he was a city councilman. In Indian Trails. Which had a population of 33,518 in 2010.
Okay, technically he had power, but it was just a *little* power, equivalent to the magical ability to pull a rabbit... out of a rabbit hutch.
You are making a false equivalency between people's right to do official business with the state and with a buffoon who handed in a resignation in a fake language.
The "Preview" button is not a command, but it is a very strong suggestion.
Yeah, those "explosions" are dust-laden air being blown out of windows because a huge building is collapsing down on top of the floors where the clouds are blown out of the building.
Seriously, you are crazy, deranged, a nutcase, wasting your time.
Oh, and insulting the memory of the people murdered in the towers. That part I find despicable.
I'm not responding on this topic again, because you have nothing sane to say. You are a loon.
Oh, sorry for the confusion, he started citing time travel in a follow up post to that one.
It does, but it also makes sense to notice when it's dried up and full of regularly spaced holes, like maybe someone's turned dead wood into something else.
The problem is that since customs officials can't be expert on everything, they assume the worst as a default.
I agree, I think this is EXACTLY the problem in this event. You have summed it up perfectly.
I'm a little creeped out when people see something like this and immediately toss in their favorite objects of fascination, whether it's the NSA or 9/11 Truthers.
While Taco Cowboy's post does sound mildly far-fetched, the idea of "feeling" a quake before it happens (or in this case, feeling that a quake happened but not actually feeling the tremors) isn't so far-fetched. Aren't other animals supposed to be able to sense such things? As for why Taco Cowboy would not have felt any tremors, maybe they were far enough away to not feel the tremors, but still within range of whatever produced the "off" feeling? I don't know. I would be remiss if I did not admit that, yes, it could have been complete coincidence. But it also seems within the realm of possibility that it is not.
But the problem is that Taco Cowboy's explanation is that some individuals (he doesn't specify non-human, but that seems to be the gist) sent a warning to others of their kind BACK IN TIME. That's absurd.
He didn't say, "well, I might have physically felt something of the geologic event that I didn't consciously register", he said he suspects it was messages sent through time. While technically ANYTHING is possible, this is more in the range of "well, blue fairies might have done it".
Um, no.
This was a story about outrage over ham-handed border security and perhaps overzealous agents destroying flutes under agricultural regulations designed to keep invasive species out of the country.
Then the thread was hijacked and the NSA roundly thrashed.
I agree the NSA is out of control, but to put it plainly, they're not involved in THIS post.
This is plain; you are a nut.
Seriously? After your flamebait about being thankful you're not a U.S. citizen, you're criticizing someone for saying, "good, we're glad you're not here either"?
Hey pot, let me introduce you to a friend of mine...
9-11, had it not been the demolition job it was, should have resulted in our ruling the middle east.>/p>
Thank you for calling yourself out. Now I can safely skip over your posts, since you clearly are bringing the crazy.
Hint: being old does not make you wise.
ICE is not TSA though they are both under DHS.
As for murder? Well, just wait until someone resists. You will find that, just as in the case of the Bostom bombing, not only will direct suspects be killed under strange circumstances where witnesses and evidence contradicts official stories, but people who knew the suspects are also killed. Kind of sounds like what you're saying of the Gestapo.
You're either being intentionally deceitful or you're wilfully ignorant of what has been going on.
You are distracting yourself with fringe conspiracy theories instead of what "they" are actually doing. Good for you, that's exactly what "they" want. You're playing your part perfectly.
How did this become about the NSA? It's about border control confiscating plant matter to prevent ingress of parasites that might be present in it that would harm agriculture in the U.S.
This case seems like they applied the regulations stupidly, but those are the same laws that prevent you from getting through customs with a bunch of small plants bundled into your luggage. It does make sense to regulate the import of non-native species.
I don't know if it's just me getting old, but in the pre-cable days, television had a charm about it that it completely lacks today. I wrote recently here about the huge film libraries that local stations had and played after the late news show.
I don't mean it unkindly, but yes, it's just you getting old. I grew up in the 60's, and I know what you mean, but I think you're remembering the intimacy and familiarity created by a very limited number of viewing choices. I also enjoyed lots of second run and older movies on late night tv, along with commercials every 10 minutes.
But today I can probably watch any of those movies I can think of, and all the newer stuff, without commercials and on demand. It's like conflating the content of a book with the experience of holding it in your hand and turning pages. For me, at least, the medium is irrelevant, and it's the content that matters.
I believe the purple unicorns would prevent the time line from forking, so time travel would not push the traveler into a different continuum.
:-)
Hey, there's just as much scientific support for my theory as for yours!
You're assuming absolute positions here. In general relativity, it is equally valid to consider the Earth to be at rest, with the rest of the universe moving and rotating in a complicated fashion.
Aha! So the Catholic Church was right!
They really ought to take back that apology to Galileo.
Who knows what damage some temporally displaced dumbass with a sports almanac could do.
Stop talking about that!
Why don't you make like a tree, and get out of here!
I posted what I posted in this "time traveling" story because I suspect (I do not have any proof, only suspicions) that something did travel back in time (about 7 minutes) and I just so happened to "encounter" one of the "side effects" of that "travel".
The most likely explanation is that you had low blood sugar, maybe had a tiny event in your brain from a tear in an artery, or some other physiological symptom that made you hallucinate mildly. There must be literally hundreds, if not thousands of people who have similar events any time something major happens, because you know, coincidence. A large enough population guarantees it.
:-)
Since you suspect you have witnessed a warning sent back in time, I recommend getting a CAT scan, you may have an undiagnosed aneurysm, or brain tumor.
But seriously, if something had sent a warning back in time ONLY A FEW MINUTES before the earthquake, if I were one of those being warned, I would go kick the ass of "my kind" that gave such a shitty warning.
A buddy of mine wrote an essay in his international relations class about how airplanes could be used to take down the towers, a couple of weeks before it happened.
Oh, that's nothing. I heard that this guy, President of the United States, I believe, got this report 36 days before 9/11, and the title of it was (get this), "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."
Creepy, huh?
With, let's see, about 7 billion people on the planet, there are probably hundreds who experience a coincidental hallucination like yours just before any major event of natural disaster, terrorist attack, etc.
Without any object proof (really, without any proof whatsoever), your anecdote doesn't mean anything. It continually amazes me to see how easily people are led to believe in the occult, or in god, or that they had an extrasensory experience.
In addition, I fought the rest of upper management to make my staff's working environment enjoyable. No overtime when I was there. I knew enough to know that overtime is, generally speaking, non-productive when forced, and forced often.
I also instituted incentive plans for those of my staff that tried hard. They didn't have to be superstars, they just had to try to improve themselves. And my staff loved me. All our software was developed in house and we did a major conversion on one of the pieces, probably the most important piece in the chain. We did it on time, minimal roll out issues and no overtime. And everyone had fun along the way.
This is pretty close to the ideal I aspire to as a manager. And it's not that hard, if you keep your priorities straight.
On the other hand, sometimes you end up fighting with management for these things, and a certain percentage of the time, you lose (your job).
This sounds like a pretty decent environment, but I have a quibble - the project manager should not be "above you". I've held most technical, and now, most non-technical management positions in IT, and if your project manager is not working with, or often *for* you, then you're not getting your money's worth.
However, I also believe that management at every level is at least as obligated to the people lower on the reporting hierarchy as they are to him/her, so I might be in the minority in saying that your internal customers include people who report to you.
Despite all the overheated rhetoric and horror stories, civil liberties in the U.S. are still largely intact, including the right to petition for redress through the courts.
The Bill of Rights has taken a beating over the last dozen years, but we're not a police state yet.
Once again, if this were a police state, the ACLU wouldn't be taking the government to court... or exist, for that matter.
That's actually what I said. Note I said the Constitution applies to every "person", with some exceptions, such as the right to vote, which is only a right of citizens, and as the AC below pointed out, not all of them retain that right.
You literally don't know what you're talking about. Your response was a non-sequitur rant about nefarious blah blah blah, when my post was about a point of grammar. You didn't defend anything, in the sense that your argument missed the entire point of the post.
You really are an idiot. Please, keep missing the point in your rants, but I'm done, because you genuinely don't seem intelligent enough to understand. Keep posting your blather. I'm not going to reply or even read your next deposit of guano on this subject.