So what's the constitutional justification for levying a $10 sales tax on computers? Or will it be a $10 tax on all computers shipped across state line?
Congress doesn't have unlimited authority, despite what it believes.
Can you drive any old wreck of a car in the US then?
Depends on the state (remember, our states are actually states--they have great lattitude in setting their own laws). Va. and Tx. have or had laws requiring annual inspections; Colo. doesn't, but does require an emissions test. Other states require both or none or more.
Those sobriety tests you have look awfully backward compared to the technological tests we have had since the 1970s.
I believe that the idea is that the police must have probable cause to arrest you and take you to the station where the actual breath test is given. Remember that we have a whole system of Constitutional protections which apply to the gathering of evidence for a crime.
He was converted to Firefox for a time by an in-house OSS zealot.. but I'm proud to say that I've converted him back.
That's like saying, 'my friend believed that 2+2=4 for a time, but I converted him back.' The pages which display incorrectly are themselves incorrect. Firefox is a better browser, period, end of discussion (I do not argue that it is perfect, merely that it is better). To deny that is much like denying that the sun is above the sea.
To be proud of perverting a user's mindest is a pitiful thing.
Or it could be that police officers and truck drivers talk less frequently than cell phone users, or that they are more highly trained. Although I imagine their reflexes are as badly affected. In other part of thsi thread, someone does note that radio usage is different from phones: it's a back-and-forth thing with lots of pauses, not a continuous conversation. So it could be that radio comms are not as dangerous as cell comms.
There are plenty of things worse than cell phones, though: having a passenger in the car or listening to the radio are just two.
Well, then they should live with their kids. The kids relied on them for 18 years; they can rely on their kids for 18 years. If they don't have kids, they can live in community with other folks, or pay with some of the money they saved by not having children to live in an assisted living community. Yeah, it suck getting old and losing one's abilities, but that's a fact of life. If you're unsafe to drive, you're unsafe to drive; it doesn't matter why.
I write shareware for the Mac in my spare time, and I'm asked occasionally why I don't GPL the thing and give it away. The reason why I refuse to do this is because I've invested a lot of my time and energy into this software and I want just compensation for my time.
Well, then you love programming less than you love money. Which is not necessarily a bad thing; it's just comparable to loving love less than money. Which is to say, you're a whore. Don't feel too bad--most of us are (I know I am: I admin Unix boxes for cash). The whole point about the GPL is that it gives one the hope and the chance to be something more: to contribute to all mankind; to do good for once in a miserable life. I GPL my code, because it's pretty much the only good thing I've ever done.
I know that I have not heard anyone accuse those who oppose the war against radical Mohammedanism of being unpatriotic. Stupid, yes. Short-sighted, yes. Foolish, yes. Idiotic, yes. But not unpatriotic.
It's no longer legal for barbershops to do this in California, because of the risk from blood transmitted diseases. At least that is what I was told when I asked around.
You should move or write your legislator. In Virginia and Colorado--at least the last time I was at a barber's (I now have long hair)--it was quite common for the barber to have the heated shaving cream, the hot towel and the straight razor. There's nothing in life quite so decadent as that. And if busybody legislatures interfere--there's always revolution!
I can't think that the risk of infection is very high at all. Lower than that from hand-to-hand contact, I should imagine (given the razors are always stropped before use).
'Safety' razors pre-date plastic. We have my great-grandfather's original Gillette safety razor: it's an attractive stainless steel, nicely decorated. Much better than the modern ones.
Of course, straight razors are even better. I put 'safety' in quotes above because I nick myself less with a straight razor than I did with my old Mach whatever-it-was-then. And I'll never need to buy a razor blade again. Granted, I had to buy a $75 razor, a $50 strop and a $40 whetstone to get to this point:-)
Plus, there's just something cool about using one.
But that's the thing: it's not an historical fact: the WMDs were not a figment of Bush's imagination, but a figment of the global intelligence community's imagination (they were also not the sole reason we went to war, but that's another issue entirely). No-one believed that Hussein lacked WMDs: the disagreement was on what to do about them.
Dear God in Heaven, that has to be the worst article (not the summary, which I enjoyed) I have ever read. I read the intro blurb, and then look aroudn for a button reading 'more' or 'next' or 'this way to the egress.' Only after mistakenly following another link do I discover that it's the ad-banner-shaped JPEG. Yeah, guys: hide a navigation device the one place any web reader ignores by default.
Then the slideshow starts, and I glance away at my other box to do some more work--only to discover that it's done. It automatically changes slides, unlike every other gallery and in fact site on the Internet, which lets one choose when to change pages. Peeved, I click 'previous' a dozen times (they don't give one a 'first' button), then quickly hit 'stop' (yeah, thanks for making me work at this, forbes.com). I read the first slide, chuckle and hit 'next.' The next slide appears, and as I'm reading it, it changes: they don't remember that one wants the show to be stopped!
What sort of microcephalic twit would think this is a good browsing experience?
I have a Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite 2, and I love it. The best $70 I have ever spent. The keyboard is physically compact but with full-size keys. The control key is in the right place (where other boards have caps lock); the USB hub works like a charm; my hands are finally happy.
I can't speak highly enough of it. If you use a keyboard regularly, and esp. if you're a Unix/Linux/emacs kind of person, buy one. I've not assocation with the company--I'm just an exceedingly happy user of their product.
IIRC I did have to twiddle some DIP switches on the back to get my preferred Super keys, but that took all of 30 seconds to figure out and do. Not a problem at all.
So emacs has different shortcuts than other programs, and that's fine.
Not really--emacs had keyboard shortcuts before there was either the Mac or Windows. In Unix apps it's quite common for the emacs keys to be supported. And they're a lot more useful: C-a beginning of line; C-e end of line; C-w kill (cut) region; C-k kill (cut) to end of line; C-y yank from kill buffer (i.e. paste); C-b back a character; C-f forward a character; C-n next line; C-p previous line; M-b back a word; M-f forward a word; C-s search forward; C-r search in reverse and so on. Compare this to the Mac/Windows keys, which are nowhere near as handy for text editing.
emacs has text editing down cold, which is Really Very Nice.
How on earth can this possibly be construed as a User Friendly environment, what has V got to do with pasting? --- I'd been trying Ctrl-P and I'm still sure that'd be better.
Because Apple did a good bit of HUI studying back in the early days. All the common actions are performable with the left hand (since the right will be using the mouse): Cmd-W to close a window; Cmd-Q to quit an app; Cmd-A to select all; Cmd-Z to undo; Cmd-X to cut; Cmd-C to copy; Cmd-V to paste. A user drawing a picture or editing a document will be copy/pasting constantly, and the slight pain in learning that Cmd-X means to cut is far outweighed by the massive savings in never have to take a hand off of the mouse.
Printing's done much less often, and that's why Cmd-P was assigned to printing.
Complaining that Windows (or QWERTY) won the market instead of your favorite is petty: free markets are pretty efficient, and if the benefits were as significant as you seem to think, somebody would have switched and saved a bundle in the long run.
True enough: for what it did at the price it cost, Windows was the better choice for most people for a long time (the Macintosh was a far better machine with a far better OS, but it cost far too much at the time). And now the free market is choosing another OS: GNU/X/perl/python/BSD/Linux. This one is even better than before, at an even better price.
This would be greatly mitigated my mandating the stock market investment not be in individual securities, but rather in index funds and other such highly-diversified instruments. This is the practise which has been followed by many state and private pension funds, and has paid off very well for them.
Individual securities are risky; the market itself, over time, is not.
Real real men use emacs + AUCTeX along with LaTeX:-)
I'm not actually joking--I've written a very nice cookbook attractively typeset with LaTeX. It's a wonderful tool. While far from perfect, it is still better than anything else out there, and has an excellent community built up around itself.
But as long as Congress keeps shafting NSF, it simply isn't going to happen.
Untrue. I just finished reading Tuxedo Park and it was amazing how much fundamental research in physics was funded by private citizens. Of course, that was back when private citizens had more money to throw around, too.
i also am socialy accepted, people try to invite me to parties or ask me out, i just say no an ignore them.
As i have advanced grades, i have found it harder and harder to find people that are inteligent and ingaged enough for me to call friends.
You sound a lot like I was back in high school (only I was a lot less sociable). Looking back now, the one thing I wish I could change is to have been more sociable. Believe it or not, social skills and maturity are at least as important to success as intellectual skills and maturity. I'm not saying that you should go out and party hardy--that's hardly a good idea either--but it's important to hang out with other folks, get a handle on popular culture &c. Don't do things which you don't wish to do, of course (I'd strongly advise not doing drugs: the number of bright kids I saw in college end up nowhere because of them was quite shocking), but do try to 'fit in' as much as possible without compromising your principles.
Success in the business world (and yes, even IT is business) is predicated on being able to work well with others, to play the social game; success in one's personal life is based on the same factors. The habits one learns early set the course of one's life: try not to limit yourself too much too early.
The infrastructure of the US is paid for by income taxes. Moreover, Social Security started at 2% and the left now wants it increased to 14.5%. When will it end?
If every single taxpayer invested in a market-tracking fund (i.e. an index fund), returns will be very close--over a period of decades--to 10% annually. Expense ratios are almost negligible with index funds, and they don't lose money in the long run.
Sure, have a safety net to provide food and shelter for the impoverished--but that's it.
Some of us would be quite willing to take the 2% pay cut for some increased security.
Then if you're under 35 you're a fool. That 2% would be far better invested in the stock market for thirty years--you'd earn a much better rate of return.
I'm not against some kind of safety net which guarantees a truly minimal standard of living for the poor elderly (enough to live, that's it: no luxuries); what I'm against is the theft of 12.5% of my income, esp. given that I'll never see it again, and that even if I did see it again I'd have done better investing. Over long periods of time (e.g. a working life), the market is safe. Yeah, if one times retirement right one can do significantly better than if one gets it right--but regardless one will have done very, very well.
They dropped because the stock market crashed and wages for the richest folks crashed with 'em. And fuelled by the Bush cuts, the economy is doing well enough that the deficit is shrinking.
None of which is related to the fact that steal 12.5% of my money just isn't fair. Let me invest it and earn 8-9% annually over the 45 years I work.
He ran a country with as strong a hand as Hitler ran Germany, killed millions - he was an authoritarian dictator - for that reason you could argue that EVERY major US publication is "to the left of Stalin."
How does that put them on the left of Stalin? Those are all left-wing things (yes, Hitler was a socialist!), and they are thus to his right.
And of course the OP was making a reference to the Duranty reporting for the New York Times which wilfully lied about the evil of Stalin's regime.
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You don't need to do that; you put ion in your .Xclients. gdm will start you in ion and your wife in GNOME. Saves resources, too.
Congress doesn't have unlimited authority, despite what it believes.
Depends on the state (remember, our states are actually states--they have great lattitude in setting their own laws). Va. and Tx. have or had laws requiring annual inspections; Colo. doesn't, but does require an emissions test. Other states require both or none or more.
Those sobriety tests you have look awfully backward compared to the technological tests we have had since the 1970s.
I believe that the idea is that the police must have probable cause to arrest you and take you to the station where the actual breath test is given. Remember that we have a whole system of Constitutional protections which apply to the gathering of evidence for a crime.
That's like saying, 'my friend believed that 2+2=4 for a time, but I converted him back.' The pages which display incorrectly are themselves incorrect. Firefox is a better browser, period, end of discussion (I do not argue that it is perfect, merely that it is better). To deny that is much like denying that the sun is above the sea.
To be proud of perverting a user's mindest is a pitiful thing.
There are plenty of things worse than cell phones, though: having a passenger in the car or listening to the radio are just two.
Well, then they should live with their kids. The kids relied on them for 18 years; they can rely on their kids for 18 years. If they don't have kids, they can live in community with other folks, or pay with some of the money they saved by not having children to live in an assisted living community. Yeah, it suck getting old and losing one's abilities, but that's a fact of life. If you're unsafe to drive, you're unsafe to drive; it doesn't matter why.
Well, then you love programming less than you love money. Which is not necessarily a bad thing; it's just comparable to loving love less than money. Which is to say, you're a whore. Don't feel too bad--most of us are (I know I am: I admin Unix boxes for cash). The whole point about the GPL is that it gives one the hope and the chance to be something more: to contribute to all mankind; to do good for once in a miserable life. I GPL my code, because it's pretty much the only good thing I've ever done.
I know that I have not heard anyone accuse those who oppose the war against radical Mohammedanism of being unpatriotic. Stupid, yes. Short-sighted, yes. Foolish, yes. Idiotic, yes. But not unpatriotic.
You should move or write your legislator. In Virginia and Colorado--at least the last time I was at a barber's (I now have long hair)--it was quite common for the barber to have the heated shaving cream, the hot towel and the straight razor. There's nothing in life quite so decadent as that. And if busybody legislatures interfere--there's always revolution!
I can't think that the risk of infection is very high at all. Lower than that from hand-to-hand contact, I should imagine (given the razors are always stropped before use).
Of course, straight razors are even better. I put 'safety' in quotes above because I nick myself less with a straight razor than I did with my old Mach whatever-it-was-then. And I'll never need to buy a razor blade again. Granted, I had to buy a $75 razor, a $50 strop and a $40 whetstone to get to this point:-)
Plus, there's just something cool about using one.
It was pointless and puerile.
Then the slideshow starts, and I glance away at my other box to do some more work--only to discover that it's done. It automatically changes slides, unlike every other gallery and in fact site on the Internet, which lets one choose when to change pages. Peeved, I click 'previous' a dozen times (they don't give one a 'first' button), then quickly hit 'stop' (yeah, thanks for making me work at this, forbes.com). I read the first slide, chuckle and hit 'next.' The next slide appears, and as I'm reading it, it changes: they don't remember that one wants the show to be stopped!
What sort of microcephalic twit would think this is a good browsing experience?
I can't speak highly enough of it. If you use a keyboard regularly, and esp. if you're a Unix/Linux/emacs kind of person, buy one. I've not assocation with the company--I'm just an exceedingly happy user of their product.
IIRC I did have to twiddle some DIP switches on the back to get my preferred Super keys, but that took all of 30 seconds to figure out and do. Not a problem at all.
Not really--emacs had keyboard shortcuts before there was either the Mac or Windows. In Unix apps it's quite common for the emacs keys to be supported. And they're a lot more useful: C-a beginning of line; C-e end of line; C-w kill (cut) region; C-k kill (cut) to end of line; C-y yank from kill buffer (i.e. paste); C-b back a character; C-f forward a character; C-n next line; C-p previous line; M-b back a word; M-f forward a word; C-s search forward; C-r search in reverse and so on. Compare this to the Mac/Windows keys, which are nowhere near as handy for text editing.
emacs has text editing down cold, which is Really Very Nice.
Because Apple did a good bit of HUI studying back in the early days. All the common actions are performable with the left hand (since the right will be using the mouse): Cmd-W to close a window; Cmd-Q to quit an app; Cmd-A to select all; Cmd-Z to undo; Cmd-X to cut; Cmd-C to copy; Cmd-V to paste. A user drawing a picture or editing a document will be copy/pasting constantly, and the slight pain in learning that Cmd-X means to cut is far outweighed by the massive savings in never have to take a hand off of the mouse.
Printing's done much less often, and that's why Cmd-P was assigned to printing.
True enough: for what it did at the price it cost, Windows was the better choice for most people for a long time (the Macintosh was a far better machine with a far better OS, but it cost far too much at the time). And now the free market is choosing another OS: GNU/X/perl/python/BSD/Linux. This one is even better than before, at an even better price.
Individual securities are risky; the market itself, over time, is not.
I'm not actually joking--I've written a very nice cookbook attractively typeset with LaTeX. It's a wonderful tool. While far from perfect, it is still better than anything else out there, and has an excellent community built up around itself.
emacs: is there anything it can't do?
Untrue. I just finished reading Tuxedo Park and it was amazing how much fundamental research in physics was funded by private citizens. Of course, that was back when private citizens had more money to throw around, too.
As i have advanced grades, i have found it harder and harder to find people that are inteligent and ingaged enough for me to call friends.
You sound a lot like I was back in high school (only I was a lot less sociable). Looking back now, the one thing I wish I could change is to have been more sociable. Believe it or not, social skills and maturity are at least as important to success as intellectual skills and maturity. I'm not saying that you should go out and party hardy--that's hardly a good idea either--but it's important to hang out with other folks, get a handle on popular culture &c. Don't do things which you don't wish to do, of course (I'd strongly advise not doing drugs: the number of bright kids I saw in college end up nowhere because of them was quite shocking), but do try to 'fit in' as much as possible without compromising your principles.
Success in the business world (and yes, even IT is business) is predicated on being able to work well with others, to play the social game; success in one's personal life is based on the same factors. The habits one learns early set the course of one's life: try not to limit yourself too much too early.
Anyway, good luck in school.
If every single taxpayer invested in a market-tracking fund (i.e. an index fund), returns will be very close--over a period of decades--to 10% annually. Expense ratios are almost negligible with index funds, and they don't lose money in the long run.
Sure, have a safety net to provide food and shelter for the impoverished--but that's it.
Then if you're under 35 you're a fool. That 2% would be far better invested in the stock market for thirty years--you'd earn a much better rate of return.
I'm not against some kind of safety net which guarantees a truly minimal standard of living for the poor elderly (enough to live, that's it: no luxuries); what I'm against is the theft of 12.5% of my income, esp. given that I'll never see it again, and that even if I did see it again I'd have done better investing. Over long periods of time (e.g. a working life), the market is safe. Yeah, if one times retirement right one can do significantly better than if one gets it right--but regardless one will have done very, very well.
None of which is related to the fact that steal 12.5% of my money just isn't fair. Let me invest it and earn 8-9% annually over the 45 years I work.
How does that put them on the left of Stalin? Those are all left-wing things (yes, Hitler was a socialist!), and they are thus to his right.
And of course the OP was making a reference to the Duranty reporting for the New York Times which wilfully lied about the evil of Stalin's regime.