The question is: do you believe that the Bush administration has gotten worse since the election? What made you change your opinion of him enough to want him out of office now?
1) Yes. 2) Selling our ports.
He did some things I didn't like during the first term, sure, but on balance I thought he did a reasonably good job - or, at least, a better job that I thought Kerry would do. Lately, though, it's been just one giant jackassery after another. Illegal wiretaps? Becoming energy independent without radically expanding research? Selling the doors to our house to an outside party? I have no idea who the guy in the White House is anymore, but he certainly doesn't represent me or anyone else I know who voted for him.
PS to the people who thing my "selling the ports" objection is racist: I'd be 100% as irate if we were talking about Canada, the UK, or Australia as the UAE. That's something that should be controlled by Americans, not a foreign entity - regardless of their race or political environment.
I am sorry, but have you done any scientific evidence on this topic?
Yes: he won. The only alternative I've heard is that every Republican voter is an inbred redneck who can't be trusted with picking out their own clothes, and as I've know as many smart (and stupid!) Republicans as smart (and stupid!) Democrats, I'm rejecting that out of hand.
A republican who voted for Bush thinks that inaccuracies in electronic voting are "immaterial" to fair elections.
Your reading comprehension seriously sucks, or you're so angry that you're unwilling to actually read what I wrote. I have no idea how you got that ludicrous summary out of my words.
The rest of your message only proves my point: even if you're right, your delivery was shrill and aggressive. I absolutely guarantee that no Bush voter will read your words and think, "oh, gee, maybe he's right!" It won't happen. Have you ever heard that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar? People have been saying that for over 350 years for a reason.
So, pointing out to people that their leaders -- whose irresponsibly bad policies should have flushed them from office -- retained those offices due to fraud will pointlessly agitate them?
Yes! Pick one misdeed, gather a lot of factual evidence about it ("everybody knows..." doesn't cut it), and preach it loudly and widely. One calm, well-reasoned explanation will help your cause far more than throwing thousands of accusations and hoping one will stick.
You seem to have entirely missed the point of my message. No one will ever listen to your version of the truth if you can't package it coherently, regardless of how correct you are or how important the topic is. Even if it's justified, foaming at the mouth is a huge turn-off to the vast body of the population.
When I think traditional republican, I think personal privacy, constitutional protection, fiscal conservatism, and social conservatism. But Bush, who got all those always-vote-republican votes, has completely departed from those first three key traditional republican values!
Exactly. That's the Republican party that I signed on with. I'm not a big John McCain fan - yeah, I'm one of those people who thinks campaign donations are speech and shouldn't be limited - but he's far closer to my ideal than Bush Jr.
I agree with your message wholeheartedly and think we need to get it out more: our current "leadership" is not representative of the core beliefs of the majority of Republican voters. They is Republican in name only. Please do not take their words and actions as having anything to do with the rest of us.
Let me give you a piece of advice. Regardless of whether you believe that's true, never never mention those reasons in a discussion with strangers. It will only have two effects: getting the people who agree with you more pointlessly agitated, and making the people who disagree with you think you're a nutjob. It will not win anyone over. Whether you are right or wrong is immaterial.
Something many people here and in other predominantly-left forums seem to be missing is that many Americans truly, honestly believed that Bush was the better candidate. I doubt that your average Republican voted for Bush any more automatically than the typical Democrat voted for Kerry, and yet everyone seems to think that only Republicans were partisan voters. Well, guess what: there are sheep on both sides of the fence. Singling out one group of them will only alienate the bloc of voters you should be trying to persuade.
I voted for Bush for various reasons, but I would probably stand alongside you if a recall vote were held today. The time for partisan sniping is over. We need to work together if we want to make a difference.
As a side note to fellow Republicans, his closing advice is just as valid for us. Contact the RNC and make your opinion known. Write to your representatives and senate and let them know that you disagree with executive branch policies. This is your party: step up and take charge of it.
Why do the Linux GUIs always have the menu bar as part of the windows
As others have pointed out, that's configurable. However, many of us prefer "focus follows mouse", which is essentially incompatible with a standalone menu bar. The menu options would rapidly cycle across every application you happen to mouse over on your way to the bar, making it very difficult (if not impossible) to actually get the menu of the application you want.
Good stuff; I think the gaming industry today should be locked in a room with these old games to remind them how to make the games FUN!
They already did that at Nintendo. I don't think you can honestly say you've tried "Advance Wars: Dual Strike", "Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega Microgame$", "Animal Crossing: Wild World", or even "Nintendogs" and didn't think they were any fun.
I had totally forgotten that I liked video games until I got a DS for my birthday. About the worst I can say about Nintendo lately is that they really like using colons in their game titles.
So basically, you shitcan the ones who like to leave their work at work and have outside interests.
That seems like a perfectly reasonable IT decision. Every good geek I've ever known does it because that's what they love to do - the fact that someone will pay them for it is just icing on the cake. Someone who's not interested enough to play with geek stuff at home won't be good at IT.
Yes, that was a generalization. Yes, I stand by it.
Now the problem here is that software seems to be getting less efficient.
Really? Many major software releases (OS X, KDE, etc.) seem to be getting more efficient with each release. Now, if you want to argue that software is doing a lot more than it used to, then I'd have to agree.
The applications I used in the '90s were "dumb" enough to only read/write to the local hard drive. I didn't possess a program that had strong cryptography. No one used array bounds checking because it was too expensive. Video games wrote directly to display memory. Using 44.1kHz audio samples for system notifications was a fantasy. I had to defrag my hard drive. And so on, and so forth.
Compare to today:
My text editor knows WebDAV and sftp (via shared system components). My email program uses TLS. Programs are increasingly written in "safe" languages. Hardware is abstracted. High-quality media is pervasive. My filesystem is based on B* trees.
Each of those things incurs a small overhead, but I would never go back to the "good old days" (hah!). Rather, my position is that hardware is finally catching up with the future we'd always planned but couldn't afford to implement.
Besides, the only people who still think yesterday's systems were more responsive or efficient are the ones who haven't revisited them. I use to be an Amiga junkie - until I made the mistake of firing up an emulator that outspecs and outbenches my last real Amiga in every metric imaginable. Good grief, how that sucked (although it was still better than any PC:-P ).
If this so-called law were to continue unabated for a couple of centuries, the number of transistors in a chip would exceed the number of atoms on planet earth.
Quite a few very intelligent people think that's exactly what will happen, possibly within our (extended) lifetimes.
Penmanship. Can I read their writing or their field notes, or is it all garbage?
Please don't do this. I can quickly jot short, easily legible notes. However, I have the common geek affliction of being wholly unable to lightly grip a pencil or pen. Halfway through the first page of the essay, I'd be holding my aching wrist and cursing you and your family.
On the other hand (boo!), I think I could type an entire dictionary without problems. Never once in two decades in the workforce have I needed to write a lengthy message where typing wasn't accepted - and expected. This isn't exactly a professional handicap (boo again!).
Ask me to write something short and you'll be pleased with the results. Ask me to pen something longer and neither of us will be happy. If you want examples of my writing abilities, I'll be glad to provide copies of my published magazine articles. Please don't make me jump through painful, irrelevant hoops.
we are already grown-up, and we don't need any more excuses for library restrictions on web access. Like prohibiting 17-year-olds from getting information on effective birth control, just cause 'Jesus or Allah says no'.
Believe it or not, some of us want those kinds of controls. I have no desire to limit what a 17-year-old looks at; if I haven't taught them right from wrong by that point, it's too late. I do, however, have a very strong desire to keep my 6-year-old from seeing unexpected results if she types "horse pictures" into Google.
I do my best to parent my children, and I'm in the room with them whenever they're using their computer. There are some things I don't want to have to explain, though, that they can see in the three seconds before I manage to close the window. Parental controls might not be handy for you, but that doesn't mean the rest of us don't have any legitimate uses for them.
Since when is forcing adoption the right thing to do? Is this forced switch really in the best interest of the students? What applications might they have to give up that don't have the equivelent in the open source world.
I know exactly what you mean! When I went to school, I was forced to adopt Windows and Office. I had to give up a lot of applications that don't have the equivalent in the Windows world.
That is no better than MS forcing their software upon anyone they can.
Perhaps, but it's definitely no worse, and us non-Windows users have been putting up with it for decades. Welcome to our life.
...except the ones that they don't have to get around to, who either die or contribute to the US medical expenditures.
US spends 13% [...] and the life span is 76 years and dropping.
Do a socioeconomic survey of immigrant population in both countries. The US typically receives immigrants from poor countries with bad healthcare and shorter life expectancies (particularly among the people driven to emigrate in the first place). Canada gets immigrants from developed areas like the US and EU. Try absorbing the population groups we have been for a while and see what happens to your mean life expectancies.
approximately 90% of the population is concentrated within 160 km of the US border
So, Canada averages 28.8 people/km^2 in a very narrow ribbon. US similarly averages 30.2 people/km^2, but across a huge landmass. I can imagine why it would be much easier to outfit a small, concentrated population than a large, unevenly distributed one.
Unless banks can find a way to print money over the Internet, ATMs and physical banks will need to continue to exist.
I have direct deposit and a debit card. There is exactly one place where I regularly do business that doesn't accept plastic, but they take checks.
I have physically visited my bank one time this year, and that was to buy a Silver Eagle coin. My other dealings with them are via the Internet and mail.
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1) Yes. 2) Selling our ports.
He did some things I didn't like during the first term, sure, but on balance I thought he did a reasonably good job - or, at least, a better job that I thought Kerry would do. Lately, though, it's been just one giant jackassery after another. Illegal wiretaps? Becoming energy independent without radically expanding research? Selling the doors to our house to an outside party? I have no idea who the guy in the White House is anymore, but he certainly doesn't represent me or anyone else I know who voted for him.
PS to the people who thing my "selling the ports" objection is racist: I'd be 100% as irate if we were talking about Canada, the UK, or Australia as the UAE. That's something that should be controlled by Americans, not a foreign entity - regardless of their race or political environment.
Yes: he won. The only alternative I've heard is that every Republican voter is an inbred redneck who can't be trusted with picking out their own clothes, and as I've know as many smart (and stupid!) Republicans as smart (and stupid!) Democrats, I'm rejecting that out of hand.
A republican who voted for Bush thinks that inaccuracies in electronic voting are "immaterial" to fair elections.
Your reading comprehension seriously sucks, or you're so angry that you're unwilling to actually read what I wrote. I have no idea how you got that ludicrous summary out of my words.
The rest of your message only proves my point: even if you're right, your delivery was shrill and aggressive. I absolutely guarantee that no Bush voter will read your words and think, "oh, gee, maybe he's right!" It won't happen. Have you ever heard that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar? People have been saying that for over 350 years for a reason.
Yes! Pick one misdeed, gather a lot of factual evidence about it ("everybody knows..." doesn't cut it), and preach it loudly and widely. One calm, well-reasoned explanation will help your cause far more than throwing thousands of accusations and hoping one will stick.
You seem to have entirely missed the point of my message. No one will ever listen to your version of the truth if you can't package it coherently, regardless of how correct you are or how important the topic is. Even if it's justified, foaming at the mouth is a huge turn-off to the vast body of the population.
Exactly. That's the Republican party that I signed on with. I'm not a big John McCain fan - yeah, I'm one of those people who thinks campaign donations are speech and shouldn't be limited - but he's far closer to my ideal than Bush Jr.
I agree with your message wholeheartedly and think we need to get it out more: our current "leadership" is not representative of the core beliefs of the majority of Republican voters. They is Republican in name only. Please do not take their words and actions as having anything to do with the rest of us.
Something many people here and in other predominantly-left forums seem to be missing is that many Americans truly, honestly believed that Bush was the better candidate. I doubt that your average Republican voted for Bush any more automatically than the typical Democrat voted for Kerry, and yet everyone seems to think that only Republicans were partisan voters. Well, guess what: there are sheep on both sides of the fence. Singling out one group of them will only alienate the bloc of voters you should be trying to persuade.
I voted for Bush for various reasons, but I would probably stand alongside you if a recall vote were held today. The time for partisan sniping is over. We need to work together if we want to make a difference.
As a side note to fellow Republicans, his closing advice is just as valid for us. Contact the RNC and make your opinion known. Write to your representatives and senate and let them know that you disagree with executive branch policies. This is your party: step up and take charge of it.
His username is awfully familiar, and his journal entry pretty much clenches the deal.
As others have pointed out, that's configurable. However, many of us prefer "focus follows mouse", which is essentially incompatible with a standalone menu bar. The menu options would rapidly cycle across every application you happen to mouse over on your way to the bar, making it very difficult (if not impossible) to actually get the menu of the application you want.
"Except Dad. I don't mind working for my dad. But anyone else? No, I wouldn't work for them."
They already did that at Nintendo. I don't think you can honestly say you've tried "Advance Wars: Dual Strike", "Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega Microgame$", "Animal Crossing: Wild World", or even "Nintendogs" and didn't think they were any fun.
I had totally forgotten that I liked video games until I got a DS for my birthday. About the worst I can say about Nintendo lately is that they really like using colons in their game titles.
That seems like a perfectly reasonable IT decision. Every good geek I've ever known does it because that's what they love to do - the fact that someone will pay them for it is just icing on the cake. Someone who's not interested enough to play with geek stuff at home won't be good at IT.
Yes, that was a generalization. Yes, I stand by it.
I was there for a long time, too, until I started asking more of it:
at which point the little MMX 233 turned into an Athlon 1.4.
Because the SNES booted like this:
while the PS2 boots like this:
In other news, solid-state cartridges have less latency than optical drives.
Really? Many major software releases (OS X, KDE, etc.) seem to be getting more efficient with each release. Now, if you want to argue that software is doing a lot more than it used to, then I'd have to agree.
The applications I used in the '90s were "dumb" enough to only read/write to the local hard drive. I didn't possess a program that had strong cryptography. No one used array bounds checking because it was too expensive. Video games wrote directly to display memory. Using 44.1kHz audio samples for system notifications was a fantasy. I had to defrag my hard drive. And so on, and so forth.
Compare to today:
My text editor knows WebDAV and sftp (via shared system components). My email program uses TLS. Programs are increasingly written in "safe" languages. Hardware is abstracted. High-quality media is pervasive. My filesystem is based on B* trees.
Each of those things incurs a small overhead, but I would never go back to the "good old days" (hah!). Rather, my position is that hardware is finally catching up with the future we'd always planned but couldn't afford to implement.
Besides, the only people who still think yesterday's systems were more responsive or efficient are the ones who haven't revisited them. I use to be an Amiga junkie - until I made the mistake of firing up an emulator that outspecs and outbenches my last real Amiga in every metric imaginable. Good grief, how that sucked (although it was still better than any PC :-P ).
You misspelled "silver", and ignored whole classes of relatively exotic materials like carbon nanotubes.
Quite a few very intelligent people think that's exactly what will happen, possibly within our (extended) lifetimes.
Please don't do this. I can quickly jot short, easily legible notes. However, I have the common geek affliction of being wholly unable to lightly grip a pencil or pen. Halfway through the first page of the essay, I'd be holding my aching wrist and cursing you and your family.
On the other hand (boo!), I think I could type an entire dictionary without problems. Never once in two decades in the workforce have I needed to write a lengthy message where typing wasn't accepted - and expected. This isn't exactly a professional handicap (boo again!).
Ask me to write something short and you'll be pleased with the results. Ask me to pen something longer and neither of us will be happy. If you want examples of my writing abilities, I'll be glad to provide copies of my published magazine articles. Please don't make me jump through painful, irrelevant hoops.
That's a reasonable hypothetical definition, but in practice there is no such thing.
What gave you the idea that a program running on AMD will make a different number of function calls than the same program running on Intel?
You misspelled "minute".
Believe it or not, some of us want those kinds of controls. I have no desire to limit what a 17-year-old looks at; if I haven't taught them right from wrong by that point, it's too late. I do, however, have a very strong desire to keep my 6-year-old from seeing unexpected results if she types "horse pictures" into Google.
I do my best to parent my children, and I'm in the room with them whenever they're using their computer. There are some things I don't want to have to explain, though, that they can see in the three seconds before I manage to close the window. Parental controls might not be handy for you, but that doesn't mean the rest of us don't have any legitimate uses for them.
I know exactly what you mean! When I went to school, I was forced to adopt Windows and Office. I had to give up a lot of applications that don't have the equivalent in the Windows world.
That is no better than MS forcing their software upon anyone they can.
Perhaps, but it's definitely no worse, and us non-Windows users have been putting up with it for decades. Welcome to our life.
...except the ones that they don't have to get around to, who either die or contribute to the US medical expenditures.
US spends 13% [...] and the life span is 76 years and dropping.
Do a socioeconomic survey of immigrant population in both countries. The US typically receives immigrants from poor countries with bad healthcare and shorter life expectancies (particularly among the people driven to emigrate in the first place). Canada gets immigrants from developed areas like the US and EU. Try absorbing the population groups we have been for a while and see what happens to your mean life expectancies.
...nearly all living within a narrow band:
So, Canada averages 28.8 people/km^2 in a very narrow ribbon. US similarly averages 30.2 people/km^2, but across a huge landmass. I can imagine why it would be much easier to outfit a small, concentrated population than a large, unevenly distributed one.
I have direct deposit and a debit card. There is exactly one place where I regularly do business that doesn't accept plastic, but they take checks.
I have physically visited my bank one time this year, and that was to buy a Silver Eagle coin. My other dealings with them are via the Internet and mail.
People who go through the hassle of setting up more than one monitor usually like to use them. What good is MDI if the window is stuck on one screen?