Personally I prefer "nigger rigged", it rolls off the tongue easier and has an element of humor to boot.. too bad the overly-sensitive fucktards who'll now rape my karma have no sense of humor, lol
Why can't any of you bastards bother to learn some basic math and science terminology?
Why can't you stop being such an obtuse, anti-social dweeb who uses retarded, obscure shit like logarithms--which the common man (or even the educated man) hasn't had a use for since the 1970s--to make simple concepts unnecessarily complicated, then gets his panties in a twist when people are confused? Is that simple enough for you or should I explain it further?
The engineers who created the Ford Pinto, for instance, didn't exactly create something wonderful, and considering how that car killed people, it probably had negative utility.
I don't disagree with your overall argument, but this is a poor example. Ford built and sold millions of Pintos. They did in fact create something wonderful; a small, cheap car that young people could afford to purchase and operate. Even today the Pinto is still providing good service for drag racing and other uses. Out of the many millions of Pintos built, and tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of wrecks involving Pintos, only 500 or so caught fire, which is a vanishingly small percentage. The Pinto is certainly an example of what bad publicity can do to a company, but NOT an example of bad engineering.
Tamoxifen has been used since at least 1990 to mask the use of anabolic steroids by athletes.
I think you've got that wrong, unless this is an additional use I'm not aware of. Tamoxifen citrate, more commonly referred to in these circles by its original trade name Nolvadex, is a potent SERM (Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulator) which steroid users commonly use when coming off-cycle during PCT (Post-Cycle Therapy.) While their natural testosterone production is recovering, SERMs help block a number of unwanted side effects that would or could otherwise occur due to high estrogen levels. It may also be used while on-cycle if estrogen-related side effects were to develop.
But this doesn't change anything about searches, which the government can't require to enter a public or semi-public area, or even a private government area.
Wrong. Any person or vehicle present on a military base is subject to search at any time. Most facilities don't require a search to enter, but the post commander could certainly require it if he felt it necessary and nobody (other than possibility his superiors) would or could have any choice but to accept it.
You can argue all day long about this but your argument doesn't change the FACTS of the situation. #1 the government requires that aircraft passengers be subjected to a security screening before boarding large commercial aircraft, and for good reason. #2 the vast majority of the public agrees this is the right thing to do, even if they don't agree with the exact methods employed. #3 the SCOTUS apparently doesn't have a problem with it either. Airport screening is here to stay.
What's happening here is that the bar has no problem with trombonists, but the police are standing in the road barring someone with a big box trying to enter to a bar, because the town has passed a law against playing music in bars, and he might have a musical instrument in there.
And how much death and destruction could a trombonist cause if he managed to sneak into the bar with his instrument?
How much death and destruction could a person cause if they snuck onto a plane with a bomb, or a weapon that could be used to take over the aircraft and crash it into whatever high value target they pleased?
It's funny how Slashdotters will argue all day long about how people who disobey speed limits should be shot on sight, that driving is a "PRIVILEGE NOT A RIGHT", and that drivers' licensing is a good idea to establish minimum standards for drivers since a shitty driver can kill people, yet people scream in outrage at the idea of not having the INALIENABLE RIGHT to get on any airplane they please without the airline or government having any say in it whatsoever.
The government cannot barricade all public property off and state that, to use it, you have to consent to being searched. That is an absurd theory and renders the 4th amendment meaningless, and, yes, the Supreme Court has specifically said that.
Strawman. We're not talking about barricading off all public property and requiring searches to enter it. We're talking about requiring a cursory search (of the person's PROPERTY only, in 95%+ of cases) before boarding a 600 MPH, 400 ton bullet capable of causing mass destruction were it to be hijacked or blown up. There is NOTHING unreasonable about that.
Are you suggesting that if I want to travel there without having my rights infringed, my only option is walking?
No, troll, that's not what he's saying at all, and only a retard would make such a retarded strawman argument. If you have your own car then feel free to drive wherever you please, but if you think you have the God given right to ride in MY car despite my protests and refusal to provide you transportation, you're going to get shot in the face. Likewise, if I own an airline and I refuse to provide you transportation, due to your refusal to comply with my security procedures, then stay the fuck away from my aircraft and find some other means to travel.
The airport, however, is public property. Including the terminals beyond the security area.
I have a perfect right to be in that area, without any of their 'security' crap.
Military bases are public property too. If there's one in your area, I encourage you to explain to the gate guard when he asks for ID that you have "a perfect right to be in that area, without any of their 'security' crap" then just drive on in. Also, please have someone videotape this and put it on YouTube.
Work is called that for a reason. Hopefully you are fortunate enough to enjoy the work that you do, making it seem less like work, but work it is and shall be and sucks to the whiners.
This is one of those "facts" that was drilled into your brain as a child, then as a teenager, and as an adult. You just blindly accepted it without question as "the way things are", and now these are the "facts" you tell everyone you meet. Most people will grudgingly accept it as true, unsure as to why deep down inside they feel that things really don't have to be this way.
I've met your kind often enough before. You're a weakling, a below average specimen, and your purpose in life is to drag at and tear others down to your own perspective. When other people were reaching for the stars you were too timid to leave the house, preferring instead to stay with what's comfortable and safe--society's norms. You bought into the whole "real world" line of bullshit hook, line, and sinker. You've based your entire life and worldview around the popular myth that slaving away for 8+ hours a day is healthy and good and completely normal, and that people get jobs they like because they're "fortunate", not because they're smarter and more ambitious than you.
You will do anything to maintain this false reality you have constructed for yourself. The idea that someone might be spending a few minutes playing a card game or checking their Facebook email at work just burns you up, because that's a direct threat to your ideas. If those people are allowed to continue their activities and the world doesn't end as a result, then that might mean you were wrong about something. If you are wrong about this one thing, then what about everything else? That's a very dangerous line of thought and your ego won't tolerate it. Your worldview can't be wrong, so those who conflict with it must be the ones in the wrong and must be argued with and fought and punished. They must be dragged down to your level to protect your ego and you will drag anyone down you can.
The tragedy in all this is not that you will live from cradle to coffin blinded by your own weakness. The real tragedy is that others with more potential will most certainly be misled by you and other fools into thinking that your limited viewpoint is really "how the real world works", and cease their aspirations for greater things. We already have enough sheep like you. What we need in this world is more leaders, men and women who will raise society up to greater ideals instead of dragging it down into the dumps to make themselves feel better about their own shitty lives.
Please do the world a favor and keep your negativity to yourself from now on.
By the way, why is it that people are prohibited from surfing Facebook, or checking their personal email, or playing a quick game or Solitaire, or doing whatever else at work? It's not security or the other bullshit reasons that are often trotted out. What it boils down to is that prohibiting these activities gives someone a sense of control that they are sorely lacking in their lives. I'm talking about people who are above you on the ladder, i.e. middle managers and other low level cretins who make these types of decisions.
In a halfway healthy organization, as you rise higher and higher through the ranks idiotic restrictions are generally replaced by responsibility and accountability. In a healthy organization, the top dogs got there not by being controlling little assholes but by being real leaders. Real leaders have no need to place arbitrary restrictions on their followers in order to get some petty and shallow sense of control. I can guarantee that whoever works for the upper management of a Fortune 500 company (or most any company really) isn't restricted from surfing Facebook at work if they really want to do so. If this person is not doing his job then he would simply be replaced, end of story.
The game costs $1.99. That's less than buying a cup of coffee that will only last max 5 mins.
Except if I buy a cup of coffee, I know exactly what I'm getting. If the coffee sucks I can complain and get a refund. If I buy a game and it sucks, is the game publisher gonna give me a refund? This one game might be only $2, but $2 is worth something. For a college student that's two meals. I'm not going to waste my money buying a game I can't even try before I buy, which I'm now stuck with if I don't like it, when for the same money I could have had a better game instead.
Plus, are most cell phone games even worth $2? Maybe if it's a fantastic game, sure. I'd say most cell phone games are worth more like 25-50 cents. The prices for most games (and music, and movies) in general are ridiculously overinflated. Why do you think the piracy rate is so high?
In the military, *everyone* under ~25 years old has a 750+ GB external hard drive filled with DVD rips and MP3s, especially in deployed locations where one can easily fill up a fresh 1TB drive in less than a day. I would imagine the same phenomenon is occurring in college dorms as well as any other situation where a bunch of tech savvy kids are living in close proximity. Hard drive manufacturers are putting out larger and larger drives for a reason, and the reason is people are buying them and putting them to use. This trend will continue. 20-200 GB usage might be the norm today, but it won't stay this way.
I am a military communications contractor currently working in the field in Afghanistan, and I can tell you that the protocols in use are not the problem at all, not by a long shot. ALL of our problems can be traced back to incompetence and at the command level.
You have all these units out there who have control of their own little segments of the network and who all have their own ideas about how the network should be set up and routed. Most of these decisions are made by committee, and they change their minds every other week. Even worse, whenever a new group comes in to replace the old every so often, they will usually change everything. There is no central authority in charge of oversight and planning for this large and very important tactical network.
We have millions upon millions of dollars in the latest routers and communications equipment which we spend countless hours maintaining and reconfiguring just to keep this pile of shit network up and running. When we make phone calls from our office sometimes we have to use a specific phone because that particular number can't be dialed from other phones, for no other reason than the call routing is a totally fucked up mess.
Switching to a different IP scheme is the stupidest idea I've ever heard of, and could do nothing but make things worse. First off, most of our equipment is based on standard off-the-shelf equipment, i.e. Cisco routers, Linkway or iDirect satellite modems, etc. We quit using military-only communications equipment years ago because it's cheaper, easier, and way better just to use the same thing the civilian markets are using. Switching to some crazy new IP scheme will #1 be completely incompatible with our existing equipment and every other piece of civilian equipment on the market. #2 where will they get the expertise needed to configure this new stuff? They are barely getting by with finding enough experienced and intelligent router technicians to come over here and configure the stuff we've already got. Who the hell knows anything about this new military IP protocol?
Despite all of these problems, the network does work amazingly well, only because we have leagues of NCOs and contractors who pull out their hair day and night solving stupid problems brought about by stupid people making stupid decisions. We have two separate networks, NIPRnet and SIPRnet. NIPRnet = Non-Secure IP Routed Network, SIPR = same thing but encrypted and secure. All of the mission critical stuff that the parent was talking about--video feeds, intelligence photos, IRC comms for tactical comms (yes, they use IRC, I think that's cool as hell), etc goes over SIPRnet and it's already given the highest priority. SIPR generally works pretty smoothly, as long as the idiots out in the field remember to keep their crypto keys up to date. All of the normal B.S. like facebook surfing, etc is on NIPR which is heavily firewalled out to the Internet. We also have VOIP services over both SIPR and NIPR, tied into the DSN (Defense Switched Network, a huge worldwide DoD telephone network--theoretically you can pick up any DSN phone and direct dial any other DSN phone anywhere in the world, toll free, and securely if using SIPR.)
Anyway, I hope this helps shed some light on what's going on here. Basically, the Army is a clusterfuck from top to bottom, and that is the prime reason for 95% of the problems we have over here with comms, not the actual equipment or protocols in use.
So you won't stand up for yourself because you're afraid some big bad middle school meany might take a shot at you? Not only is this the stupidest and most realistic chain of events I've ever seen in my life (99.99% of bully ass whoopings don't end in gunshots), but you're essentially saying that you're a coward. A wise man once said that from time to time the tree of liberty must be watered by the blood of tyrants and patriots. He who is too much of a pussy to spill some blood in the name of freedom (from being harassed and bullied, in this case) won't ever have liberty and doesn't deserve it anyhow.
If it's legal for you to text, it's legal for her to text no matter how skilled you are at texting.
No, dumbass, it's not. If the dumb bitch is swerving all over the road and shit, guess what? She's guilty of careless driving--which is already illegal! Why isn't she being pulled over and ticketed for it?
I've already told you the answer: most cops don't actually give a fuck about safety. They'll write tickets for bullshit speeding "offenses" all day long, but good luck getting them to look for and ticket people who are actually endangering others.
Ok, you may be the rare gifted talented exception that isn't impaired while texting and driving. However, for the other 99.9% of "dumbass" people, they are impared.
SO? They are impaired from fucking with the radio, too, aren't they? Holding cell phone conversations? Eating? Putting on make-up? Slapping the kids around?
How about we put things in perspective for a minute:
In Germany, home of ultra strict driving laws, tough licensing requirements, and safe drivers, 0.0000619% of their population died from auto accidents in 2006.
In USA, home of shitty drivers, easy access to driver's licenses for any retard who wants one, 0.0001424% of the population died from auto accidents in 2006.
Wow, not quite the "slaughter" you make it out to be, is it?
And, because we can't continue to allow those dumbasses...
You really don't have any say in the matter. It's illegal to smoke pot and to speed, too, but people still do it and get away with it all the time. It sure does infuriate people like you who see they can't control others with an iron fist.... you will just have to suffer with the rest of them as the laws change.
LOL, no, I won't be suffering, because I'm just going to continue doing the same thing I've been doing. So will everyone else. Maybe people will suffer in your state, but they won't in mine. Assuming that texting while driving were made illegal in my state, who cares? Distracted and careless driving are already illegal here. Yet who the hell ever gets ticketed for that? Only dumbasses who cause accidents, or are seen swerving all over the road (running red lights) like morons as a result of their distractedness. Which is exactly how it should be.
Think you could drive through some s-turns and a set of cones as quickly while texting?
No, of course not. Why the hell would I want to do that?
You can't. Really, you just can't do it. Your overinflated ego can twist and turn the facts in you head to make you believe you can do it, but you really can't. And by doing those things you are making all of us unsafe.
Stop. Just stop. You don't know me. You've never been me. You don't know what I am or am not capable of, and you really don't know what you're talking about.
Most drunk drivers believe they can drive just fine on three beers. They can't, it's a proven fact.
^ Did your precious studies tell you this "proven fact" too? LOL. I know people who couldn't be trusted behind the wheel after a single beer. I've also met people who can drink a few pitchers and drive better than most sober people. Here's something your studies aren't telling you--there are all kinds of different people in the world, with different abilities. Maybe if your overinflated ego would give it a rest for a minute, you might see that just because you can't do something, and just because a group of random, average people in a study couldn't do something, doesn't mean that nobody can.
Are you capable of forming an opinion on a subject without requiring a study to back it up? Are human beings in general able to master things that the average person in the average study wasn't capable of?
I don't doubt that many people are too stupid or unskilled to safely text while driving. There's also a lot of people who can't juggle, and most can't walk on a tight rope over a canyon without falling to their deaths. Yet somehow, some people are able to do these things. I can type out a text message on my phone while watching traffic and barely even thinking about the message I'm sending, the same way I can type at 100 WPM on a keyboard while simultaneously holding a conversation with someone on a different subject. It comes from practice. Maybe you aren't practiced or skilled enough; I'm sorry. That doesn't change the fact that I can do these things, and neither do your studies.
They're not. The insurance companies can't police it.
And neither will the police. People are still going to text, regardless, and your silly laws aren't going to stop them.
People are terrible at estimating risk. And even if told what the risk is, they tend to believe it won't happen to them regardless.
Yes, people are terrible at estimating risk--especially the people who are afraid to EVER do anything that might possibly be considered the least bit hazardous or require any skill to pull off successfully. Believe it or not, there are plenty of people out there who are capable of texting and driving without causing accidents. I've done it for years. I drive 30-40k miles per year. You know what my secret is? I pay attention to the fucking road, and I don't text when I'm in situations (heavy traffic, big city driving, etc) where distractions are unacceptable. The people who are running red lights, typing with both hands while looking down at the phone, and doing other retarded shit like that are just fucking idiots, period; texting has nothing to do with it, it's only the tool used to display their idiocy.
That's why there need to be rules (laws) made, taking into account actual evidence of risk.
Passing yet another law is not going to magically solve this problem. There are laws against speeding and yet everyone speeds. The cops don't mind because speeding is not really that dangerous. It's easy to write speeding tickets to collect revenue and look like you're doing your job. When was the last time you saw a cop pull someone over for driving erratically? Maybe on Friday night at 11PM when he's hoping to score a DUI bust, but at other times, people get away with all kinds of crazy ass driving because the cops don't give a fuck and would rather sit on their asses and write speeding and other bullshit tickets instead of doing real police work. This is the real problem. Find a way to solve this problem and you'll find that a huge number of related problems (idiot drivers) suddenly become non-issues, or at least greatly reduced.
Obviously you don't know the first thing about why people play sports. Hint: not everybody who plays sports is trying to make a career out of it. Yeah, there's a lot of losers out there whose high point in life was playing sports in high school. There's just as many people who were losers in high school, losers in college, and are losers now with their shitty ass white collar job and boring lives. Which one is worse?
Western culture is fine, the problem is that Mid-Western culture is increasingly spreading to the rest of the US.
Actually it's not. What we're seeing right now is actually the exact opposite: the world's culture is spreading to the Mid-West. The younger generation (of which I am a member, and thus feel qualified to comment) is WAY more liberal when it comes to morality and religion bullshit than the older folks. I remember an old quote that says "day by day nothing seems to change, but pretty soon everything is different." That's exactly what's going on. Ultra-conservative religious ideas are dying, and quickly.
I mean, it's really obvious if you look back in the past. Think of some of the racy commercials, music videos, etc you see on TV these days. Even 30 years ago some of these would have caused outrage, but nowadays who gives a shit? Old people were outraged when they saw Janet Jackson's nipple on TV, but the younger generations just found it amusing. In 30 years from now, I predict that ultra-conservative religious freaks will be nothing but a fringe element, and certainly not a highly influential part of our society.
Just to drive home the point, I live in Alabama, heart of Dixie and center of the Bible Belt. There's a lot of old Bible thumpers running around, and there's plenty of younger ones out there too. But there's huge and growing numbers of young folks running around with tattoos, piercings, listening to "Devil" music, doing drugs, drinking, and having sex with whomever they please. Most aren't religious. Sure, some will claim to be, or appear to be since they still go to church, but they're just doing that to avoid upsetting the status quo more than they have to.
I remember when I was in school, I didn't care who knew that I was an atheist. I got a lot of flak for it. A lot of these people had grown up their whole lives in Alabama, and couldn't conceive of how someone could possibly not believe in God. The funny thing is, a good number of these people, some of whom had participated in giving me hell about it, later admitted that they didn't believe in God either. Either they didn't really to begin with but were afraid to say so, or the fact that I openly declared I was an atheist and defended my position legitimized the idea in their minds, and then nature and reason took its course.
You can see what's going on here. When the rest of the community believes the world is flat, it's tough to be the guy who thinks its round. Some (or even most!) people might be thinking it, but they're afraid to say so because they don't want to go against the societal norms. But if your community is suddenly expanded to a thousand times the size, to include people from all across the world with a wide variety of beliefs, many of whom believe the world is round, then suddenly it's not such a bold thing any more to hold different beliefs.
This is what communications in general, and the Internet in particular are doing to change the world. With every advance in telecommunications we have made -- telegraph, telephone, television, underwater cables, satellite comms relays -- the world has begun to advance and change at a faster rate. It started off slowly, at first, i.e. the mid 1800s. As time went on and more communications technologies were invented, things started to change at a faster and faster rate. There were upheavals and serious problems. The early 1900s and World War I. The Depression and World War II. The Cold War. The 1960's. The Vietnam War. The 1970's, and the 1980's. Then came the Internet and that's when things really took off. I'd say that things have changed more in the past 15 years than in the past 100 put together, and I believe future historians looking back would agree.
And you know what? The Internet is barely even getting started. In the grand scheme of things, the Internet is in its infancy. It hasn't even achieved 5% of what it will achieve in the next 50+ years.
It's very easy to get caught up in the day to day routine, the political scandals,
Slashdot Mirror
Personally I prefer "nigger rigged", it rolls off the tongue easier and has an element of humor to boot.. too bad the overly-sensitive fucktards who'll now rape my karma have no sense of humor, lol
Why can't any of you bastards bother to learn some basic math and science terminology?
Why can't you stop being such an obtuse, anti-social dweeb who uses retarded, obscure shit like logarithms--which the common man (or even the educated man) hasn't had a use for since the 1970s--to make simple concepts unnecessarily complicated, then gets his panties in a twist when people are confused? Is that simple enough for you or should I explain it further?
The engineers who created the Ford Pinto, for instance, didn't exactly create something wonderful, and considering how that car killed people, it probably had negative utility.
I don't disagree with your overall argument, but this is a poor example. Ford built and sold millions of Pintos. They did in fact create something wonderful; a small, cheap car that young people could afford to purchase and operate. Even today the Pinto is still providing good service for drag racing and other uses. Out of the many millions of Pintos built, and tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of wrecks involving Pintos, only 500 or so caught fire, which is a vanishingly small percentage. The Pinto is certainly an example of what bad publicity can do to a company, but NOT an example of bad engineering.
I'm in Afghanistan right now, and the U.S. isn't anything like this shithole. Get a grip and stop making mindless overblown comparisons please.
Tamoxifen has been used since at least 1990 to mask the use of anabolic steroids by athletes.
I think you've got that wrong, unless this is an additional use I'm not aware of. Tamoxifen citrate, more commonly referred to in these circles by its original trade name Nolvadex, is a potent SERM (Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulator) which steroid users commonly use when coming off-cycle during PCT (Post-Cycle Therapy.) While their natural testosterone production is recovering, SERMs help block a number of unwanted side effects that would or could otherwise occur due to high estrogen levels. It may also be used while on-cycle if estrogen-related side effects were to develop.
But this doesn't change anything about searches, which the government can't require to enter a public or semi-public area, or even a private government area.
Wrong. Any person or vehicle present on a military base is subject to search at any time. Most facilities don't require a search to enter, but the post commander could certainly require it if he felt it necessary and nobody (other than possibility his superiors) would or could have any choice but to accept it.
You can argue all day long about this but your argument doesn't change the FACTS of the situation. #1 the government requires that aircraft passengers be subjected to a security screening before boarding large commercial aircraft, and for good reason. #2 the vast majority of the public agrees this is the right thing to do, even if they don't agree with the exact methods employed. #3 the SCOTUS apparently doesn't have a problem with it either. Airport screening is here to stay.
Christ, some people here are total morons.
Yep, and you're one of them.
What's happening here is that the bar has no problem with trombonists, but the police are standing in the road barring someone with a big box trying to enter to a bar, because the town has passed a law against playing music in bars, and he might have a musical instrument in there.
And how much death and destruction could a trombonist cause if he managed to sneak into the bar with his instrument?
How much death and destruction could a person cause if they snuck onto a plane with a bomb, or a weapon that could be used to take over the aircraft and crash it into whatever high value target they pleased?
It's funny how Slashdotters will argue all day long about how people who disobey speed limits should be shot on sight, that driving is a "PRIVILEGE NOT A RIGHT", and that drivers' licensing is a good idea to establish minimum standards for drivers since a shitty driver can kill people, yet people scream in outrage at the idea of not having the INALIENABLE RIGHT to get on any airplane they please without the airline or government having any say in it whatsoever.
Christ, GET A FUCKING GRIP, people.
The government cannot barricade all public property off and state that, to use it, you have to consent to being searched. That is an absurd theory and renders the 4th amendment meaningless, and, yes, the Supreme Court has specifically said that.
Strawman. We're not talking about barricading off all public property and requiring searches to enter it. We're talking about requiring a cursory search (of the person's PROPERTY only, in 95%+ of cases) before boarding a 600 MPH, 400 ton bullet capable of causing mass destruction were it to be hijacked or blown up. There is NOTHING unreasonable about that.
Are you suggesting that if I want to travel there without having my rights infringed, my only option is walking?
No, troll, that's not what he's saying at all, and only a retard would make such a retarded strawman argument. If you have your own car then feel free to drive wherever you please, but if you think you have the God given right to ride in MY car despite my protests and refusal to provide you transportation, you're going to get shot in the face. Likewise, if I own an airline and I refuse to provide you transportation, due to your refusal to comply with my security procedures, then stay the fuck away from my aircraft and find some other means to travel.
The airport, however, is public property. Including the terminals beyond the security area.
I have a perfect right to be in that area, without any of their 'security' crap.
Military bases are public property too. If there's one in your area, I encourage you to explain to the gate guard when he asks for ID that you have "a perfect right to be in that area, without any of their 'security' crap" then just drive on in. Also, please have someone videotape this and put it on YouTube.
Work is called that for a reason. Hopefully you are fortunate enough to enjoy the work that you do, making it seem less like work, but work it is and shall be and sucks to the whiners.
This is one of those "facts" that was drilled into your brain as a child, then as a teenager, and as an adult. You just blindly accepted it without question as "the way things are", and now these are the "facts" you tell everyone you meet. Most people will grudgingly accept it as true, unsure as to why deep down inside they feel that things really don't have to be this way.
I've met your kind often enough before. You're a weakling, a below average specimen, and your purpose in life is to drag at and tear others down to your own perspective. When other people were reaching for the stars you were too timid to leave the house, preferring instead to stay with what's comfortable and safe--society's norms. You bought into the whole "real world" line of bullshit hook, line, and sinker. You've based your entire life and worldview around the popular myth that slaving away for 8+ hours a day is healthy and good and completely normal, and that people get jobs they like because they're "fortunate", not because they're smarter and more ambitious than you.
You will do anything to maintain this false reality you have constructed for yourself. The idea that someone might be spending a few minutes playing a card game or checking their Facebook email at work just burns you up, because that's a direct threat to your ideas. If those people are allowed to continue their activities and the world doesn't end as a result, then that might mean you were wrong about something. If you are wrong about this one thing, then what about everything else? That's a very dangerous line of thought and your ego won't tolerate it. Your worldview can't be wrong, so those who conflict with it must be the ones in the wrong and must be argued with and fought and punished. They must be dragged down to your level to protect your ego and you will drag anyone down you can.
The tragedy in all this is not that you will live from cradle to coffin blinded by your own weakness. The real tragedy is that others with more potential will most certainly be misled by you and other fools into thinking that your limited viewpoint is really "how the real world works", and cease their aspirations for greater things. We already have enough sheep like you. What we need in this world is more leaders, men and women who will raise society up to greater ideals instead of dragging it down into the dumps to make themselves feel better about their own shitty lives.
Please do the world a favor and keep your negativity to yourself from now on.
By the way, why is it that people are prohibited from surfing Facebook, or checking their personal email, or playing a quick game or Solitaire, or doing whatever else at work? It's not security or the other bullshit reasons that are often trotted out. What it boils down to is that prohibiting these activities gives someone a sense of control that they are sorely lacking in their lives. I'm talking about people who are above you on the ladder, i.e. middle managers and other low level cretins who make these types of decisions.
In a halfway healthy organization, as you rise higher and higher through the ranks idiotic restrictions are generally replaced by responsibility and accountability. In a healthy organization, the top dogs got there not by being controlling little assholes but by being real leaders. Real leaders have no need to place arbitrary restrictions on their followers in order to get some petty and shallow sense of control. I can guarantee that whoever works for the upper management of a Fortune 500 company (or most any company really) isn't restricted from surfing Facebook at work if they really want to do so. If this person is not doing his job then he would simply be replaced, end of story.
The game costs $1.99. That's less than buying a cup of coffee that will only last max 5 mins.
Except if I buy a cup of coffee, I know exactly what I'm getting. If the coffee sucks I can complain and get a refund. If I buy a game and it sucks, is the game publisher gonna give me a refund? This one game might be only $2, but $2 is worth something. For a college student that's two meals. I'm not going to waste my money buying a game I can't even try before I buy, which I'm now stuck with if I don't like it, when for the same money I could have had a better game instead.
Plus, are most cell phone games even worth $2? Maybe if it's a fantastic game, sure. I'd say most cell phone games are worth more like 25-50 cents. The prices for most games (and music, and movies) in general are ridiculously overinflated. Why do you think the piracy rate is so high?
In the military, *everyone* under ~25 years old has a 750+ GB external hard drive filled with DVD rips and MP3s, especially in deployed locations where one can easily fill up a fresh 1TB drive in less than a day. I would imagine the same phenomenon is occurring in college dorms as well as any other situation where a bunch of tech savvy kids are living in close proximity. Hard drive manufacturers are putting out larger and larger drives for a reason, and the reason is people are buying them and putting them to use. This trend will continue. 20-200 GB usage might be the norm today, but it won't stay this way.
Who said anything about stability? The Vista user interface is pure garbage.
I am a military communications contractor currently working in the field in Afghanistan, and I can tell you that the protocols in use are not the problem at all, not by a long shot. ALL of our problems can be traced back to incompetence and at the command level.
You have all these units out there who have control of their own little segments of the network and who all have their own ideas about how the network should be set up and routed. Most of these decisions are made by committee, and they change their minds every other week. Even worse, whenever a new group comes in to replace the old every so often, they will usually change everything. There is no central authority in charge of oversight and planning for this large and very important tactical network.
We have millions upon millions of dollars in the latest routers and communications equipment which we spend countless hours maintaining and reconfiguring just to keep this pile of shit network up and running. When we make phone calls from our office sometimes we have to use a specific phone because that particular number can't be dialed from other phones, for no other reason than the call routing is a totally fucked up mess.
Switching to a different IP scheme is the stupidest idea I've ever heard of, and could do nothing but make things worse. First off, most of our equipment is based on standard off-the-shelf equipment, i.e. Cisco routers, Linkway or iDirect satellite modems, etc. We quit using military-only communications equipment years ago because it's cheaper, easier, and way better just to use the same thing the civilian markets are using. Switching to some crazy new IP scheme will #1 be completely incompatible with our existing equipment and every other piece of civilian equipment on the market. #2 where will they get the expertise needed to configure this new stuff? They are barely getting by with finding enough experienced and intelligent router technicians to come over here and configure the stuff we've already got. Who the hell knows anything about this new military IP protocol?
Despite all of these problems, the network does work amazingly well, only because we have leagues of NCOs and contractors who pull out their hair day and night solving stupid problems brought about by stupid people making stupid decisions. We have two separate networks, NIPRnet and SIPRnet. NIPRnet = Non-Secure IP Routed Network, SIPR = same thing but encrypted and secure. All of the mission critical stuff that the parent was talking about--video feeds, intelligence photos, IRC comms for tactical comms (yes, they use IRC, I think that's cool as hell), etc goes over SIPRnet and it's already given the highest priority. SIPR generally works pretty smoothly, as long as the idiots out in the field remember to keep their crypto keys up to date. All of the normal B.S. like facebook surfing, etc is on NIPR which is heavily firewalled out to the Internet. We also have VOIP services over both SIPR and NIPR, tied into the DSN (Defense Switched Network, a huge worldwide DoD telephone network--theoretically you can pick up any DSN phone and direct dial any other DSN phone anywhere in the world, toll free, and securely if using SIPR.)
Anyway, I hope this helps shed some light on what's going on here. Basically, the Army is a clusterfuck from top to bottom, and that is the prime reason for 95% of the problems we have over here with comms, not the actual equipment or protocols in use.
So you won't stand up for yourself because you're afraid some big bad middle school meany might take a shot at you? Not only is this the stupidest and most realistic chain of events I've ever seen in my life (99.99% of bully ass whoopings don't end in gunshots), but you're essentially saying that you're a coward. A wise man once said that from time to time the tree of liberty must be watered by the blood of tyrants and patriots. He who is too much of a pussy to spill some blood in the name of freedom (from being harassed and bullied, in this case) won't ever have liberty and doesn't deserve it anyhow.
If it's legal for you to text, it's legal for her to text no matter how skilled you are at texting.
No, dumbass, it's not. If the dumb bitch is swerving all over the road and shit, guess what? She's guilty of careless driving--which is already illegal! Why isn't she being pulled over and ticketed for it?
I've already told you the answer: most cops don't actually give a fuck about safety. They'll write tickets for bullshit speeding "offenses" all day long, but good luck getting them to look for and ticket people who are actually endangering others.
Ok, you may be the rare gifted talented exception that isn't impaired while texting and driving. However, for the other 99.9% of "dumbass" people, they are impared.
SO? They are impaired from fucking with the radio, too, aren't they? Holding cell phone conversations? Eating? Putting on make-up? Slapping the kids around?
How about we put things in perspective for a minute:
In Germany, home of ultra strict driving laws, tough licensing requirements, and safe drivers, 0.0000619% of their population died from auto accidents in 2006.
In USA, home of shitty drivers, easy access to driver's licenses for any retard who wants one, 0.0001424% of the population died from auto accidents in 2006.
Wow, not quite the "slaughter" you make it out to be, is it?
And, because we can't continue to allow those dumbasses ...
You really don't have any say in the matter. It's illegal to smoke pot and to speed, too, but people still do it and get away with it all the time. It sure does infuriate people like you who see they can't control others with an iron fist. ... you will just have to suffer with the rest of them as the laws change.
LOL, no, I won't be suffering, because I'm just going to continue doing the same thing I've been doing. So will everyone else. Maybe people will suffer in your state, but they won't in mine. Assuming that texting while driving were made illegal in my state, who cares? Distracted and careless driving are already illegal here. Yet who the hell ever gets ticketed for that? Only dumbasses who cause accidents, or are seen swerving all over the road (running red lights) like morons as a result of their distractedness. Which is exactly how it should be.
Think you could drive through some s-turns and a set of cones as quickly while texting?
No, of course not. Why the hell would I want to do that?
You can't. Really, you just can't do it. Your overinflated ego can twist and turn the facts in you head to make you believe you can do it, but you really can't. And by doing those things you are making all of us unsafe.
Stop. Just stop. You don't know me. You've never been me. You don't know what I am or am not capable of, and you really don't know what you're talking about.
Most drunk drivers believe they can drive just fine on three beers. They can't, it's a proven fact.
^ Did your precious studies tell you this "proven fact" too? LOL. I know people who couldn't be trusted behind the wheel after a single beer. I've also met people who can drink a few pitchers and drive better than most sober people. Here's something your studies aren't telling you--there are all kinds of different people in the world, with different abilities. Maybe if your overinflated ego would give it a rest for a minute, you might see that just because you can't do something, and just because a group of random, average people in a study couldn't do something, doesn't mean that nobody can.
Are you capable of forming an opinion on a subject without requiring a study to back it up? Are human beings in general able to master things that the average person in the average study wasn't capable of?
I don't doubt that many people are too stupid or unskilled to safely text while driving. There's also a lot of people who can't juggle, and most can't walk on a tight rope over a canyon without falling to their deaths. Yet somehow, some people are able to do these things. I can type out a text message on my phone while watching traffic and barely even thinking about the message I'm sending, the same way I can type at 100 WPM on a keyboard while simultaneously holding a conversation with someone on a different subject. It comes from practice. Maybe you aren't practiced or skilled enough; I'm sorry. That doesn't change the fact that I can do these things, and neither do your studies.
Congratulations. You are the stupidest poster I've ever com across on Slashdot.
Great rebuttal!
BTW, it's spelled "come."
They're not. The insurance companies can't police it.
And neither will the police. People are still going to text, regardless, and your silly laws aren't going to stop them.
People are terrible at estimating risk. And even if told what the risk is, they tend to believe it won't happen to them regardless.
Yes, people are terrible at estimating risk--especially the people who are afraid to EVER do anything that might possibly be considered the least bit hazardous or require any skill to pull off successfully. Believe it or not, there are plenty of people out there who are capable of texting and driving without causing accidents. I've done it for years. I drive 30-40k miles per year. You know what my secret is? I pay attention to the fucking road, and I don't text when I'm in situations (heavy traffic, big city driving, etc) where distractions are unacceptable. The people who are running red lights, typing with both hands while looking down at the phone, and doing other retarded shit like that are just fucking idiots, period; texting has nothing to do with it, it's only the tool used to display their idiocy.
That's why there need to be rules (laws) made, taking into account actual evidence of risk.
Passing yet another law is not going to magically solve this problem. There are laws against speeding and yet everyone speeds. The cops don't mind because speeding is not really that dangerous. It's easy to write speeding tickets to collect revenue and look like you're doing your job. When was the last time you saw a cop pull someone over for driving erratically? Maybe on Friday night at 11PM when he's hoping to score a DUI bust, but at other times, people get away with all kinds of crazy ass driving because the cops don't give a fuck and would rather sit on their asses and write speeding and other bullshit tickets instead of doing real police work. This is the real problem. Find a way to solve this problem and you'll find that a huge number of related problems (idiot drivers) suddenly become non-issues, or at least greatly reduced.
Texting isn't a distraction; it doesn't distract you, it takes YOUR ENTIRE ATTENTION off of what you're doing.
Only if you're a dumbass whose ENTIRE ATTENTION is needed to send a text message. It is entirely possible to watch the road while texting.
Obviously you don't know the first thing about why people play sports. Hint: not everybody who plays sports is trying to make a career out of it. Yeah, there's a lot of losers out there whose high point in life was playing sports in high school. There's just as many people who were losers in high school, losers in college, and are losers now with their shitty ass white collar job and boring lives. Which one is worse?
Western culture is fine, the problem is that Mid-Western culture is increasingly spreading to the rest of the US.
Actually it's not. What we're seeing right now is actually the exact opposite: the world's culture is spreading to the Mid-West. The younger generation (of which I am a member, and thus feel qualified to comment) is WAY more liberal when it comes to morality and religion bullshit than the older folks. I remember an old quote that says "day by day nothing seems to change, but pretty soon everything is different." That's exactly what's going on. Ultra-conservative religious ideas are dying, and quickly.
I mean, it's really obvious if you look back in the past. Think of some of the racy commercials, music videos, etc you see on TV these days. Even 30 years ago some of these would have caused outrage, but nowadays who gives a shit? Old people were outraged when they saw Janet Jackson's nipple on TV, but the younger generations just found it amusing. In 30 years from now, I predict that ultra-conservative religious freaks will be nothing but a fringe element, and certainly not a highly influential part of our society.
Just to drive home the point, I live in Alabama, heart of Dixie and center of the Bible Belt. There's a lot of old Bible thumpers running around, and there's plenty of younger ones out there too. But there's huge and growing numbers of young folks running around with tattoos, piercings, listening to "Devil" music, doing drugs, drinking, and having sex with whomever they please. Most aren't religious. Sure, some will claim to be, or appear to be since they still go to church, but they're just doing that to avoid upsetting the status quo more than they have to.
I remember when I was in school, I didn't care who knew that I was an atheist. I got a lot of flak for it. A lot of these people had grown up their whole lives in Alabama, and couldn't conceive of how someone could possibly not believe in God. The funny thing is, a good number of these people, some of whom had participated in giving me hell about it, later admitted that they didn't believe in God either. Either they didn't really to begin with but were afraid to say so, or the fact that I openly declared I was an atheist and defended my position legitimized the idea in their minds, and then nature and reason took its course.
You can see what's going on here. When the rest of the community believes the world is flat, it's tough to be the guy who thinks its round. Some (or even most!) people might be thinking it, but they're afraid to say so because they don't want to go against the societal norms. But if your community is suddenly expanded to a thousand times the size, to include people from all across the world with a wide variety of beliefs, many of whom believe the world is round, then suddenly it's not such a bold thing any more to hold different beliefs.
This is what communications in general, and the Internet in particular are doing to change the world. With every advance in telecommunications we have made -- telegraph, telephone, television, underwater cables, satellite comms relays -- the world has begun to advance and change at a faster rate. It started off slowly, at first, i.e. the mid 1800s. As time went on and more communications technologies were invented, things started to change at a faster and faster rate. There were upheavals and serious problems. The early 1900s and World War I. The Depression and World War II. The Cold War. The 1960's. The Vietnam War. The 1970's, and the 1980's. Then came the Internet and that's when things really took off. I'd say that things have changed more in the past 15 years than in the past 100 put together, and I believe future historians looking back would agree.
And you know what? The Internet is barely even getting started. In the grand scheme of things, the Internet is in its infancy. It hasn't even achieved 5% of what it will achieve in the next 50+ years.
It's very easy to get caught up in the day to day routine, the political scandals,