But go ahead and liquor up every night if you want. No liver testing. Woohoo!
Go ahead and come into work with alcohol in your system and see what happens to you. If your supervisor is a dick or the wrong people find out then you can be in some *serious* shit. The Air Force is turning into a real uptight bunch of prudes.
One of the old timers in my unit was telling me about how "back in the day" they used to have a fully-stocked BAR in our unit where folks would hang out and drink, especially after work. He said when they were convoy'ing somewhere for an exercise, the fellows would pull their Jeeps and deuce-and-a-halfs up next to each other and pass a beer back and forth while driving down the highway. lol
The old motor pool chief was also telling me how "back in the day" they used to save up used motor oil and pour it along the fence line to kill weeds and keep grass off the fence. Imagine trying to do that today. (By the way, the EPA took soil samples and did some testing a few years back and they all came back clean. So no harm done.)
While I can understand them (or any employer for that matter) requesting you dont come in drunk/high on the job (thus their time), but short of people on call 24 hrs, I cant see any difference between smoking up for a weekend and getting drunk (thus YOUR time), as neither effects your job!
The difference is marijuana usage is illegal. I don't agree with that, but it's the GOVERNMENT we're talking about.
And no, I dont smoke (only cigerettes), but hell that could be next if we dont keep them in check now!
Yeah right. I'd venture a guess that 80% of the Air Force smokes, based only on my observations as a member. Not sure about the other branches but I'd imagine the Navy and Army are close to the same.
If I ever catch my neighbor hitting or otherwise terrorizing his kids because his boy wants to look like a hippie or his girl wants to bare her midriff, I'm calling social services on the bastard.
Why am I not surprised to see pussies like you on Slashdot?
OK, so I'll come to your country, kill your mother and give you, say, $10,000. That ought to be a "fucking SHITLOAD" of compensation: four times what you'd get if you were an Iraqi.
Yet another armchair commentary by somebody who's never been there, never done that, just sat on his ass at home criticizing. I don't know much about what's going on in Iraq (and neither do you, BTW) but frankly you don't know what the fuck you are talking about when it comes to Afghanistan:
a) New bridges, schools, libraries, roads, and other infrastructure are going up on a daily and widespread basis, all across the country. Many Afghans also now have jobs thanks to coalition forces. The Afghans are very happy about these developments. They may be poor but they desperately want to educate their children, improve their country, and better themselves. The US and coalition forces are generally WELCOME in their country.
b) In certain parts of the country, the Taliban--which MOST Afghans despise--stage attacks on US and coalition forces, and sometimes civilians get caught up in the crossfire and are killed. We often compensate the victims' families even if the death wasn't our fault or anything we really could have prevented, as a gesture of goodwill.
c) No, Afghans are not happy when their loved ones get killed, but they ARE happy when they receive that fat $2,500 compensation. Let me put this in perspective for you. You live in a mud hut out in the middle of nowhere, Afghanistan, amongst hundreds of other mud huts in your village. You have no running water, electricity, not much food, and maybe enough firewood to keep somewhat warm in the harsh, cold winter. You have a job (if you're lucky) which pays about [b]$400/year[/b].
Now let's say missile lands on a truck, which was carrying 10 Taliban who have been using your village as a staging area for attacks on a nearby US base, and blows it to bits. In the ensuing explosion one of your 8 sons or 5 daughters is struck by debris and killed. Well, that sucks, but it doesn't suck THAT bad. Kids die all the time from lack of medical care, injuries (can't just drive to a hospital you know), etc., so it's not really anything you're not used to. But you just got paid enough cash to equal [b]6 years'[/b] of salary. Holy shit, you just hit the jackpot. With this money you can really improve the standard of living for the rest of your family.
That may not be how YOU see it, from your warm, comfortable home in suburban America (or wherever else you may be in the FIRST WORLD), but that's how THEY see it, and frankly it's their opinion that matters, not yours.
His main complaint in #6 is that he doesn't like cars that beep at him to buckle his seatbelt and he doesn't like cars that auto-lock the doors. Personally, I don't mind these features, but I can understand why someone might find them annoying.
It fucking pisses me off. The first thing I did when I bought my Mustang was disable that seat belt reminder garbage. (To Ford's credit, they provided an easy way to do this which was outlined in the instruction manual.) I will never own a vehicle with auto-locked doors, especially the bastards that won't open from the inside when locked. That REALLY pisses me off. When I pull on the handle that means I want the god damn door to open, NOW.
And finally, complaint #7 is all about poor design choices (in cars). Here's his example of a bad design: "One late-model sedan I worked on required the removal of a front wheel, plus a bunch of other stuff, just to replace the battery". I'm not a mechanic, and I have little to no experience under the hood, but are a lot of cars really designed this poorly?
Yes. (I am a mechanic.)
I can't think of any car where I actually had to remove a tire just to change the battery (Does anyone know what car Jamie was talking about?).
I am not sure which car it was but I distinctly remember hearing about this car before, so it exists. Now on a later model Monte Carlo, I know for a fact that you have to remove the windshield washer reservoir to even GET to the battery (i.e. to jump it off.)
It all comes down to the engineers being forced to cram more and more crap into smaller and smaller vehicles to meet customer and government demands. This is one reason why I exclusively own and work on older vehicles, and only American ones at that.
I agree, I've seen the same thing in Afghanistan. And about the $2,500, let's not also forget that $2,500 is a fucking SHITLOAD of money when you're an Iraqi or Afghan.
There are many things I wish were modernized, standardized, and more open. First, vehicle information is very proprietary. Why is it that cars can't report status information via a simple USB connection? All the information is either there, or could be generated VERY cheaply. I ran out of wiper fluid two days ago (lots of snow in Chicago lately), and I sat there thinking how lame it is that the wiper fluid reservoir doesn't have a simple sensor to detect low fluid (it's a 2001 vehicle, not THAT old). Even that could be transported across a USB chain with regular updates. Heck, a $2 sensor could even sense fluid at 3 levels. Simple enough.
The answer to your question is that it would cost money to add those features, and the company does not want to spend $2 x 1,000,000 cars in order to implement it. It is only through massive corner cutting and penny pinching that your average car is made affordable to the average person. For the maximum benefit, it would also require coupling powertrain control systems and other non-essential systems together on the same network, which is a bad idea for a number of safety-related reasons. Even if this feature was offered, the average person would not use it. (This may change in the future as "tech-savvy" youngsters grow up and become a larger and larger percentage of the car-buying market.)
Basically, if you want lots of fancy features like washer-fluid level monitoring, etc, I recommend buying a Cadillac. If you can't afford it or don't want to spend that kind of money, then you'll have to stick with cheaper cars that have fewer bells and whistles. You could also implement those features on your current vehicles as an interesting project.
There is an easier way to send SMS messages from your computer. On AIM, you can add a contact to you list of the form +; i.e. +12565551212. AIM will automatically route messages to this contact to the appropriate SMS gateway.
Before replying to someone in a smart ass manner you might want to actually know WTF you're talking about. I spent six years in the Air Guard in the SATCOM field, and I set up plenty of grounding systems. There are plenty of areas where you simply cannot get a good ground, due to the soil conditions. A typical example is areas where the soil is really sandy. There are all kinds of other soil properties that make grounding difficult, that's just one example.
Uh, the OP didn't claim that the U.S. was #1. He said "easier than... many other parts of the world", which I'd say is certainly accurate given the facts.
Kids today, growing up, can learn pretty much anything about everything without ever having to expend a resource other than their time and their minds attention.
Amen to that. I've always been smart, but I would not be anywhere near as knowledgeable as I am today if it weren't for the Internet. I leave my (dialup) connection up 24/7 and I'm in front of the computer for much of the day reading, reading, and reading, all about subjects that interest me. Finding information and sorting the good from the bad is a skill in itself and I've got it down pat. It is amazing how much you can quickly learn about any subject with a few good Google searches and a good eye to sort the jewels from the junk. And it's not just being able to find information more quickly; it's being able to find information *at all*.
As an example, I'm big into cars and building hot rods. At 16 I didn't know much about cars other than how to change the oil, etc, and now at 24 I could write novels explaining the internal workings and physics of internal combustion engines, transmissions, etc in intricate detail. I've rebuilt countless hot rod engines, transmissions, etc. ALL thanks to the Internet and the world of knowledge which it opened up to me. I learn something new every day. Now knowledge by itself is useless in my opinion; there's nothing like practical application. Here's an example: I built a 2.3L turbo engine that ran off propane, including a lot of parts that I fabricated myself. People around here were amazed because a lot of folks never even knew that an engine *could* be set up to run on propane, let alone had any idea how to do it. I knew all about it thanks to many Google searches, lots of reading, and plenty of conversations with and questioning of folks in Australia who deal with propane-fueled vehicles every day. If it weren't for the Internet this project simply never would have happened.
In the "old days", before the Internet, let's say I want to learn how to tune my Quadrajet carburetor for performance. First I'd have spent weeks talking to idiots who all told me to ditch that "Quadra-Junk" and install a good ole Holley double-pumper instead. Then after lots of searching I might have been lucky enough to find one knowledgeable fellow who could give me a few good tips and tricks--half of which are bad ideas that will hurt more than help. Books? What book would the local small-town library possibly carry on this subject? I'd end up having to figure the thing out for myself through trial and error.
Nowadays I just load up Google, type in "tuning Quadrajet carburetor", and BOOM, I got an entire page full of information at my fingertips in the blink of an eye, including links to books I can order which are dedicated to nothing but the Quadrajet. I have a direct hotline to the most knowledgeable carburetor tuners in the country and instant access to all their knowledge, tips, and tricks. I can download documents which describe in detail everything from the basic theory of this carburetor's operation, to proper tuning procedures with an eye towards attaining maximum power and performance, and troubleshooting procedures in the event of problems.
And it's not just young folks like me who are discovering this fantastic resource. Older fellows who have been wrenching for years are getting plugged in to the net and are overjoyed at the ease with which they can share their information and experience with one another.
That's just one hobby. Now think about about the billions of other special interest groups who are able to collaborate and share with each other ONLY because the Internet and Google made it possible.
The Internet is a damn God-send, that's for sure, and Google is an extremely powerful and useful weapon in the Internet arsenal. Anyone who would disagree with this is just a luddite, or idiot.
OK great, but the Bible was written by men whose idea of a year was pretty much the then-layman's equivalent of "the time it takes for the Earth to complete one orbit about the Sun." Same thing for the day.
...and as an American living in Alabama I'd like to go on record and say that a large percentage of the population down here doesn't believe any of this bullshit either, even though most folks (out of politeness) wouldn't go around saying as much in public. This is especially true of the younger generation. The "fundies" are almost always old people who are set in their ways. Lots of young folks are non-religious, and half the ones who go to church only do so just because Grandma wants them to or to pick up chicks. Give it time, and the "fundies" will sooner than later be a distinct minority, then eventually disappear into the fringes.
Thanks for stereotyping the Southern states though. I'm surprised you didn't also mention for the benefit of our European friends that everyone down here is also inbred, stupid, and uncultured.
Indeed. This story is only the latest example of Ford's recent ongoing trademark campaign. They've also been attacking various aftermarket businesses with "Ford" or "Mustang" in the name; i.e. "Mustangs Unlimited", "Dallas Mustang", etc. Imagine you have been in business for 20 years selling Mustang parts, have built up a name for yourself and a large customer base, and now you're being told by Ford that you have to change your name and remove all references to Mustangs and Ford or they'll sue. Unfortunately for Ford, a good deal of the "goodwill" they're talking about was in fact generated by the same aftermarket they are attacking. Where would the Mustang be today if it weren't for the HUGE aftermarket which has supported it for decades?
Ford fans (myself included) feel betrayed and are really pissed off. I know quite a few Ford fans who have removed all Ford logos from their hot rods and have stated they will never buy a new Ford because of Ford's idiotic trademark campaign, and I agree. Fuck Ford.
The idea of buying a good turntable and purchasing some viynl records intrigued me, as I like to explore different interesting things like that--until I saw the price tag. $10,000+ for a high quality turntable setup, with the best setups costing $50,000+? Uh.. no thanks. If I had $50k or even $10k I damn sure wouldn't be blowing it on a freakin stereo. I'm pretty sure I'll just stick with my 192Kbps OGGs and be happy with what I've got.
Or, you could start your own business, as I have done recently. After working a number of jobs, both blue collar and white collar, skilled and unskilled, in a variety of positions and industries, I came to realize that this type of life was just not for me. I am just too independent to spend my entire life working for someone else, following their rules, going by their schedule, etc.
So now I have started up a small (just me) electronics company selling mail-order parts for the automotive aftermarket. Right now I am flat broke. All my credit cards are maxxed out again, after I just finished getting almost completely out of debt during my previous (overseas) job. I am doing the small business equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck. Doing what I can here and there to scrape up money to pay the bills. My propane tank ran out and I haven't had the cash to refill it, so I now have a small electric heater to heat just the room I'm in.
And I'm having the time of my life.
I don't have the words to explain just how free I feel right now. No alarm clocks. I left my alarm clock in Afghanistan and don't plan to get a new one. I go to bed when I want, wake up whenever I wake up. I don't have a boss breathing down my neck; it is up to ME to get work done. I find that I am more motivated now than ever before. If I don't work, then customers get mad and complain, people stop buying my products, and I fail. I'm working for myself and not for a boss, and that is a HUGE motivation. My work is fun; I love tinkering with technology and now I get to play with electronics and cars as much as I want. I can stop and start work at any time. I can work for a few hours, then just stop if I want and go do something else. Watch TV, check out my favorite web sites. I can listen to music as loud as I want while working. I can drink beer. Hell, I can sit around in my underwear if I want.
As I was saying, I am working for myself now. Everything is up to me--marketing, sales, customer relations, web design, product development, engineering, testing, QA, warranty repair, assembly, and finance. I have a lot of responsibility and my pay and livelihood now depends on how good I am. If I fuck up, then I don't eat. If I'm smart, and make good decisions, then I reap *all* the benefits. I have never felt this in control and responsible in any job I've ever had. Here is the chance I've been waiting for my entire life to prove to everyone just how smart and capable I really am. I happen to be damn good at all the aspects listed above, so my business is really taking off. Times are hard now, but opportunities are opening up every day, and I know in a year or two I will be really kicking ass.
Just thought I would share my story to illustrate that there are more options than the false dichotomy that most high school teachers preach about. "Get a college education, or end up poor and broke for the rest of your life!" I knew all along that was bullshit but I never really understood why until later. I think it was when I heard the song "No Such Thing" by John Mayer, that things really started clicking and making sense, and set me on the path to where I am today and where I'll be tomorrow.
Wow, I never would have thought that a person could copy someone else's comment, re-post it as a reply to said comment, and get a higher karma rating than the original. Slashdot continues to amaze me.
I'd love to use YouTube, but I'm not using it as long as it uses that Flash bullshit. You see, I'm on 56K dialup, and their stupid Flash player is a joke unless you have broadband. The whole idea of putting video on a webpage in Flash format pisses me off anyways. I want MPEG video, or some other video format that I can use in a standard friggin video player, and that I can easily download off the web page and save to hard disk without pulling my hair out. If I want to watch the clip again later, I'll be damned if I sit there for another 10 minutes downloading it.
Slashdot Mirror
But go ahead and liquor up every night if you want. No liver testing. Woohoo!
Go ahead and come into work with alcohol in your system and see what happens to you. If your supervisor is a dick or the wrong people find out then you can be in some *serious* shit. The Air Force is turning into a real uptight bunch of prudes.
One of the old timers in my unit was telling me about how "back in the day" they used to have a fully-stocked BAR in our unit where folks would hang out and drink, especially after work. He said when they were convoy'ing somewhere for an exercise, the fellows would pull their Jeeps and deuce-and-a-halfs up next to each other and pass a beer back and forth while driving down the highway. lol
The old motor pool chief was also telling me how "back in the day" they used to save up used motor oil and pour it along the fence line to kill weeds and keep grass off the fence. Imagine trying to do that today. (By the way, the EPA took soil samples and did some testing a few years back and they all came back clean. So no harm done.)
While I can understand them (or any employer for that matter) requesting you dont come in drunk/high on the job (thus their time), but short of people on call 24 hrs, I cant see any difference between smoking up for a weekend and getting drunk (thus YOUR time), as neither effects your job!
The difference is marijuana usage is illegal. I don't agree with that, but it's the GOVERNMENT we're talking about.
And no, I dont smoke (only cigerettes), but hell that could be next if we dont keep them in check now!
Yeah right. I'd venture a guess that 80% of the Air Force smokes, based only on my observations as a member. Not sure about the other branches but I'd imagine the Navy and Army are close to the same.
How did this retard get modded insightful? GP made a great point, and parent cried because he didn't like the implications.
If I ever catch my neighbor hitting or otherwise terrorizing his kids because his boy wants to look like a hippie or his girl wants to bare her midriff, I'm calling social services on the bastard.
Why am I not surprised to see pussies like you on Slashdot?
OK, so I'll come to your country, kill your mother and give you, say, $10,000. That ought to be a "fucking SHITLOAD" of compensation: four times what you'd get if you were an Iraqi.
Yet another armchair commentary by somebody who's never been there, never done that, just sat on his ass at home criticizing. I don't know much about what's going on in Iraq (and neither do you, BTW) but frankly you don't know what the fuck you are talking about when it comes to Afghanistan:
a) New bridges, schools, libraries, roads, and other infrastructure are going up on a daily and widespread basis, all across the country. Many Afghans also now have jobs thanks to coalition forces. The Afghans are very happy about these developments. They may be poor but they desperately want to educate their children, improve their country, and better themselves. The US and coalition forces are generally WELCOME in their country.
b) In certain parts of the country, the Taliban--which MOST Afghans despise--stage attacks on US and coalition forces, and sometimes civilians get caught up in the crossfire and are killed. We often compensate the victims' families even if the death wasn't our fault or anything we really could have prevented, as a gesture of goodwill.
c) No, Afghans are not happy when their loved ones get killed, but they ARE happy when they receive that fat $2,500 compensation. Let me put this in perspective for you. You live in a mud hut out in the middle of nowhere, Afghanistan, amongst hundreds of other mud huts in your village. You have no running water, electricity, not much food, and maybe enough firewood to keep somewhat warm in the harsh, cold winter. You have a job (if you're lucky) which pays about [b]$400/year[/b].
Now let's say missile lands on a truck, which was carrying 10 Taliban who have been using your village as a staging area for attacks on a nearby US base, and blows it to bits. In the ensuing explosion one of your 8 sons or 5 daughters is struck by debris and killed. Well, that sucks, but it doesn't suck THAT bad. Kids die all the time from lack of medical care, injuries (can't just drive to a hospital you know), etc., so it's not really anything you're not used to. But you just got paid enough cash to equal [b]6 years'[/b] of salary. Holy shit, you just hit the jackpot. With this money you can really improve the standard of living for the rest of your family.
That may not be how YOU see it, from your warm, comfortable home in suburban America (or wherever else you may be in the FIRST WORLD), but that's how THEY see it, and frankly it's their opinion that matters, not yours.
His main complaint in #6 is that he doesn't like cars that beep at him to buckle his seatbelt and he doesn't like cars that auto-lock the doors. Personally, I don't mind these features, but I can understand why someone might find them annoying.
It fucking pisses me off. The first thing I did when I bought my Mustang was disable that seat belt reminder garbage. (To Ford's credit, they provided an easy way to do this which was outlined in the instruction manual.) I will never own a vehicle with auto-locked doors, especially the bastards that won't open from the inside when locked. That REALLY pisses me off. When I pull on the handle that means I want the god damn door to open, NOW.
And finally, complaint #7 is all about poor design choices (in cars). Here's his example of a bad design: "One late-model sedan I worked on required the removal of a front wheel, plus a bunch of other stuff, just to replace the battery". I'm not a mechanic, and I have little to no experience under the hood, but are a lot of cars really designed this poorly?
Yes. (I am a mechanic.)
I can't think of any car where I actually had to remove a tire just to change the battery (Does anyone know what car Jamie was talking about?).
I am not sure which car it was but I distinctly remember hearing about this car before, so it exists. Now on a later model Monte Carlo, I know for a fact that you have to remove the windshield washer reservoir to even GET to the battery (i.e. to jump it off.)
It all comes down to the engineers being forced to cram more and more crap into smaller and smaller vehicles to meet customer and government demands. This is one reason why I exclusively own and work on older vehicles, and only American ones at that.
I agree, I've seen the same thing in Afghanistan. And about the $2,500, let's not also forget that $2,500 is a fucking SHITLOAD of money when you're an Iraqi or Afghan.
There are many things I wish were modernized, standardized, and more open. First, vehicle information is very proprietary. Why is it that cars can't report status information via a simple USB connection? All the information is either there, or could be generated VERY cheaply. I ran out of wiper fluid two days ago (lots of snow in Chicago lately), and I sat there thinking how lame it is that the wiper fluid reservoir doesn't have a simple sensor to detect low fluid (it's a 2001 vehicle, not THAT old). Even that could be transported across a USB chain with regular updates. Heck, a $2 sensor could even sense fluid at 3 levels. Simple enough.
The answer to your question is that it would cost money to add those features, and the company does not want to spend $2 x 1,000,000 cars in order to implement it. It is only through massive corner cutting and penny pinching that your average car is made affordable to the average person. For the maximum benefit, it would also require coupling powertrain control systems and other non-essential systems together on the same network, which is a bad idea for a number of safety-related reasons. Even if this feature was offered, the average person would not use it. (This may change in the future as "tech-savvy" youngsters grow up and become a larger and larger percentage of the car-buying market.)
Basically, if you want lots of fancy features like washer-fluid level monitoring, etc, I recommend buying a Cadillac. If you can't afford it or don't want to spend that kind of money, then you'll have to stick with cheaper cars that have fewer bells and whistles. You could also implement those features on your current vehicles as an interesting project.
...will they take a check?
There is an easier way to send SMS messages from your computer. On AIM, you can add a contact to you list of the form +; i.e. +12565551212. AIM will automatically route messages to this contact to the appropriate SMS gateway.
About a month or two after Sept. 11th, I remember gas around here dropping down to $.89/gallon. Unfortunately it's done nothing but climb since then.
Once two strangers climbed ole Rocky Top,
Lookin' for a moon-shine still.
Strangers ain't come down from Rocky Top,
Reckon they never will.
Corn won't grow at all on Rocky Top,
Dirt's too rocky by far.
That's why all the folks on Rocky Top
Get their corn from a jar.
Uh, maybe to put them all into one file instead of 550,000 individual files?
If anyone ever manages to hack into the Windows Update servers, I hope they do this. That would be priceless!
Before replying to someone in a smart ass manner you might want to actually know WTF you're talking about. I spent six years in the Air Guard in the SATCOM field, and I set up plenty of grounding systems. There are plenty of areas where you simply cannot get a good ground, due to the soil conditions. A typical example is areas where the soil is really sandy. There are all kinds of other soil properties that make grounding difficult, that's just one example.
Uh, the OP didn't claim that the U.S. was #1. He said "easier than ... many other parts of the world", which I'd say is certainly accurate given the facts.
Kids today, growing up, can learn pretty much anything about everything without ever having to expend a resource other than their time and their minds attention.
Amen to that. I've always been smart, but I would not be anywhere near as knowledgeable as I am today if it weren't for the Internet. I leave my (dialup) connection up 24/7 and I'm in front of the computer for much of the day reading, reading, and reading, all about subjects that interest me. Finding information and sorting the good from the bad is a skill in itself and I've got it down pat. It is amazing how much you can quickly learn about any subject with a few good Google searches and a good eye to sort the jewels from the junk. And it's not just being able to find information more quickly; it's being able to find information *at all*.
As an example, I'm big into cars and building hot rods. At 16 I didn't know much about cars other than how to change the oil, etc, and now at 24 I could write novels explaining the internal workings and physics of internal combustion engines, transmissions, etc in intricate detail. I've rebuilt countless hot rod engines, transmissions, etc. ALL thanks to the Internet and the world of knowledge which it opened up to me. I learn something new every day. Now knowledge by itself is useless in my opinion; there's nothing like practical application. Here's an example: I built a 2.3L turbo engine that ran off propane, including a lot of parts that I fabricated myself. People around here were amazed because a lot of folks never even knew that an engine *could* be set up to run on propane, let alone had any idea how to do it. I knew all about it thanks to many Google searches, lots of reading, and plenty of conversations with and questioning of folks in Australia who deal with propane-fueled vehicles every day. If it weren't for the Internet this project simply never would have happened.
In the "old days", before the Internet, let's say I want to learn how to tune my Quadrajet carburetor for performance. First I'd have spent weeks talking to idiots who all told me to ditch that "Quadra-Junk" and install a good ole Holley double-pumper instead. Then after lots of searching I might have been lucky enough to find one knowledgeable fellow who could give me a few good tips and tricks--half of which are bad ideas that will hurt more than help. Books? What book would the local small-town library possibly carry on this subject? I'd end up having to figure the thing out for myself through trial and error.
Nowadays I just load up Google, type in "tuning Quadrajet carburetor", and BOOM, I got an entire page full of information at my fingertips in the blink of an eye, including links to books I can order which are dedicated to nothing but the Quadrajet. I have a direct hotline to the most knowledgeable carburetor tuners in the country and instant access to all their knowledge, tips, and tricks. I can download documents which describe in detail everything from the basic theory of this carburetor's operation, to proper tuning procedures with an eye towards attaining maximum power and performance, and troubleshooting procedures in the event of problems.
And it's not just young folks like me who are discovering this fantastic resource. Older fellows who have been wrenching for years are getting plugged in to the net and are overjoyed at the ease with which they can share their information and experience with one another.
That's just one hobby. Now think about about the billions of other special interest groups who are able to collaborate and share with each other ONLY because the Internet and Google made it possible.
The Internet is a damn God-send, that's for sure, and Google is an extremely powerful and useful weapon in the Internet arsenal. Anyone who would disagree with this is just a luddite, or idiot.
OK great, but the Bible was written by men whose idea of a year was pretty much the then-layman's equivalent of "the time it takes for the Earth to complete one orbit about the Sun." Same thing for the day.
...and as an American living in Alabama I'd like to go on record and say that a large percentage of the population down here doesn't believe any of this bullshit either, even though most folks (out of politeness) wouldn't go around saying as much in public. This is especially true of the younger generation. The "fundies" are almost always old people who are set in their ways. Lots of young folks are non-religious, and half the ones who go to church only do so just because Grandma wants them to or to pick up chicks. Give it time, and the "fundies" will sooner than later be a distinct minority, then eventually disappear into the fringes.
Thanks for stereotyping the Southern states though. I'm surprised you didn't also mention for the benefit of our European friends that everyone down here is also inbred, stupid, and uncultured.
Yeah, because if a student can't handle units involving numbers other than 10, 100, 1000, then the problem is the units and not the student.
[/sarcasm]
Indeed. This story is only the latest example of Ford's recent ongoing trademark campaign. They've also been attacking various aftermarket businesses with "Ford" or "Mustang" in the name; i.e. "Mustangs Unlimited", "Dallas Mustang", etc. Imagine you have been in business for 20 years selling Mustang parts, have built up a name for yourself and a large customer base, and now you're being told by Ford that you have to change your name and remove all references to Mustangs and Ford or they'll sue. Unfortunately for Ford, a good deal of the "goodwill" they're talking about was in fact generated by the same aftermarket they are attacking. Where would the Mustang be today if it weren't for the HUGE aftermarket which has supported it for decades?
Ford fans (myself included) feel betrayed and are really pissed off. I know quite a few Ford fans who have removed all Ford logos from their hot rods and have stated they will never buy a new Ford because of Ford's idiotic trademark campaign, and I agree. Fuck Ford.
The idea of buying a good turntable and purchasing some viynl records intrigued me, as I like to explore different interesting things like that--until I saw the price tag. $10,000+ for a high quality turntable setup, with the best setups costing $50,000+? Uh.. no thanks. If I had $50k or even $10k I damn sure wouldn't be blowing it on a freakin stereo. I'm pretty sure I'll just stick with my 192Kbps OGGs and be happy with what I've got.
Or, you could start your own business, as I have done recently. After working a number of jobs, both blue collar and white collar, skilled and unskilled, in a variety of positions and industries, I came to realize that this type of life was just not for me. I am just too independent to spend my entire life working for someone else, following their rules, going by their schedule, etc.
So now I have started up a small (just me) electronics company selling mail-order parts for the automotive aftermarket. Right now I am flat broke. All my credit cards are maxxed out again, after I just finished getting almost completely out of debt during my previous (overseas) job. I am doing the small business equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck. Doing what I can here and there to scrape up money to pay the bills. My propane tank ran out and I haven't had the cash to refill it, so I now have a small electric heater to heat just the room I'm in.
And I'm having the time of my life.
I don't have the words to explain just how free I feel right now. No alarm clocks. I left my alarm clock in Afghanistan and don't plan to get a new one. I go to bed when I want, wake up whenever I wake up. I don't have a boss breathing down my neck; it is up to ME to get work done. I find that I am more motivated now than ever before. If I don't work, then customers get mad and complain, people stop buying my products, and I fail. I'm working for myself and not for a boss, and that is a HUGE motivation. My work is fun; I love tinkering with technology and now I get to play with electronics and cars as much as I want. I can stop and start work at any time. I can work for a few hours, then just stop if I want and go do something else. Watch TV, check out my favorite web sites. I can listen to music as loud as I want while working. I can drink beer. Hell, I can sit around in my underwear if I want.
As I was saying, I am working for myself now. Everything is up to me--marketing, sales, customer relations, web design, product development, engineering, testing, QA, warranty repair, assembly, and finance. I have a lot of responsibility and my pay and livelihood now depends on how good I am. If I fuck up, then I don't eat. If I'm smart, and make good decisions, then I reap *all* the benefits. I have never felt this in control and responsible in any job I've ever had. Here is the chance I've been waiting for my entire life to prove to everyone just how smart and capable I really am. I happen to be damn good at all the aspects listed above, so my business is really taking off. Times are hard now, but opportunities are opening up every day, and I know in a year or two I will be really kicking ass.
Just thought I would share my story to illustrate that there are more options than the false dichotomy that most high school teachers preach about. "Get a college education, or end up poor and broke for the rest of your life!" I knew all along that was bullshit but I never really understood why until later. I think it was when I heard the song "No Such Thing" by John Mayer, that things really started clicking and making sense, and set me on the path to where I am today and where I'll be tomorrow.
Wow, I never would have thought that a person could copy someone else's comment, re-post it as a reply to said comment, and get a higher karma rating than the original. Slashdot continues to amaze me.
I'd love to use YouTube, but I'm not using it as long as it uses that Flash bullshit. You see, I'm on 56K dialup, and their stupid Flash player is a joke unless you have broadband. The whole idea of putting video on a webpage in Flash format pisses me off anyways. I want MPEG video, or some other video format that I can use in a standard friggin video player, and that I can easily download off the web page and save to hard disk without pulling my hair out. If I want to watch the clip again later, I'll be damned if I sit there for another 10 minutes downloading it.