If Microsoft is lowering their price in one place, they'll be raising some place else to compensate. Proably a country where their monopolistic practices only merits a slap on the wrist.
Isn't it nice to know that, in our wonderous capitalistic economy in the US, that our money is subsidizing Brazillian copies of Windows?
Actually, France's policy on an independent Quebec can be described as "confused," IIRC. They may feel sympathetic to their fellow white Francophones, but France has its slavish devotion to a monolithic form of government, vesting all power into a single government. In order to support Quebec secessionism they'd have to back-pedal their political theory quite a bit (i. e. the idea that parts of Canada can secede but not parts of France).
From what I've read, it's typically the extreme right in France that's been most supportive of an independent Quebec. Liberal De Gaulle seems to have been the lone exception.
It seems to me that a free Quebec would be more likely to join the United States than France (if they would be willing to sacrifice their independence at all).
"We can start with expanding, just in case: first, near earth asteroids, and then, Mars and the moon at the same time."
Uh... no. Moving around within the same star system won't do anything to protect you from avents like this. The idea is that huge swaths of the galaxy get bathed in dangerous amounts of gamma rays. Whith distances like that, virtually every point in the solar system will be exposed to exactly the same amount of gamma radiaton. Going to Alpha Centauri (something currently well beyond our techology) won't even do much: a dozen or so light-years is just a drop in the bucket compared to a galaxy 100,000 light-years in diameter. The only viable solution would be the ability to move to the other side of the galaxy, if not go to a different galaxy entirely.
"we need to use 'living elsewhere' as a fall-back plan."
We're talking about events that could theoretically wipe out life hundreds or even thousands of light-years away from the event, while we've barely sent anything much beyond a light-hour away, and actual human transportation hasn't even approached a light-second. At those kinds of scales, there is no "living elsewhere" option. We'd not only need superluminal vehicles, but superluminal speeds rarely dreamed of in science fiction.
Yes, there are other reasons to spread within the solar system, but these bursts aren't one of them. Moving from Earth to Mars will protect you about as much as moving 1 meter in any direction will make you appreciably safer from a 20 megaton hydrogen bomb.
No, but it's flawed to pin it solely on the author and not on the times. Heck, from that one line it's impossible to tell whether he truly believed that or if he was just toeing the line to get his test published.
"Carl Brigham, a bona-fide racist designed the SAT in 1925. "
Who wasn't racist in 1925? That was one of those wonderful interbellum years where the Klan hit its high water mark and Congress worked hard to decide who could immigrate and who could not (note that "Nordic" was specified; couldn't let those filthy Slavs, Italians or Iberians in, no matter what their skin color was).
It'd be pretty damned strange for someone doing anything in 1925 to not share those views. Why do you think Hitler was so popular in the US in the 1930's?
" tore the seat of your pants to reveal your underwear to your childhood crush, and then likely started crying like a little girl."
Serves you right for trying to show off your mad bicycling skillz to her to begin with. You should have suffered your crush in silence like the rest of us! That way, you'd be starting down the road to becoming a bona fide stalker!
Really, would you rather have this embarassing memory, or leave recordings on her answering machine of you breathing deeply?
"If our lives depended on saving the ozone in a hurry, I'm sure it could be done."
You'd still have to get it up to high altitudes. Ozone is pretty toxic stuff; many exterminators use it to fumigate houses and more or less sterilize the place. It's not something you want lingering in the lower atmosphere.
"Keep in mind the volume of a sphere is 4/3 pi r^3, so the volume of space that this would take up is increased by a factor of 8,000,000."
Exept that our galaxy is a disc, not a sphere. Also, don't forget that we're towards the edge of that disc.
Personally, I see 6000 lt-yr still being pretty "close" (and probably "unlikely") when you consider our galaxy is roughly 100,000 lt-yr in diameter. If it happened often enough for us to be worried about, we'd see more such collisions within our galaxy beyond the 6000 lt-yr theoretical safe distance.
Besides, what are the odds of two stars colliding such a manner, anyway? It seems the odds of a binary star becoming a pair of neutron (or denser) stars seem to be slim to none: you'd think the creation of one neutron star out of one would consume/destroy the other before it had the chance to follow suit. So we're really dealing with an intersection of two previously unassociated stars. And it's called "space" for a reason.
I'd worry more about comets and asteroids at this point and put this one in the category of "When we have to start worrying about it, we'll probably be advanced enough to do something about it," kinda like the sun going nova.
Come on! When was the last time a nerd actually asked a girl out? If anything, it will be a disaster for those girls because they'd have to start doing their own math homework!
I keep hearing the idea tossed about as some sort of alternative to the usual "quiet, burning obsession" option, but I'm personally not sure how the whole "asking out" thing works. All I know is that it sounds very, very dangerous.
" The feds printed up a bunch of $2 bills within the last few years. I'm not sure why."
The 1995 batch was finally beginning to run out. They seem to be moving faster than they used to, though; the batch before that was 1976.
"But that means that you're surprisingly likely to get sequential bills since the bank probably has a new brick of them in the back."
The bank also has old bricks. Nobody but us crazies ask for $2 bills; nobody outside of Monticello actually uses them to stock cash drawers (this is why it took so long for the 1995 bunch to dry up). Since $2's don't go in and out of the bank no a regular basis like other denominations, you're very likely (perhaps "more likely") to get $2's in sequetial order, reguardless of year.
The last time I got deuces was a year ago or so. They were all 1976, and they were in sequence.
"Now that is with the pens that i've been using on a regular basis."
I seem to be having trouble finding the links now, but either the USSS or BEP reccomend against relying on so-called counterfeit detection pens. Really, with the only bills you'd want to worry about, it's probably faster and more accurate to hold them under a black light; among other things, those strips glow different colors for different denominations.
"All the cashier needed to do is hold the bill up to the light and see the mylar strip embedded in the bill."
Those are only in $5's and larger, and only with the redesigned $5's. Before the redesigns, they were only in $20's and larger.
Also, because we're talking about $2's, those bills may have been from 1976, well before any bills had those strips in them.
"'I knew nothing about it. They never asked me if I thought it was a good idea...I think it's a misuse of film'"
I don't believe it! An MPAA member ignoring the will of content creators? I would have expected a relationship at least as rosy as RIAA members maintain with their artists...
Yeah, you can see all sorts of free porn, but usually it's free because it got uploaded without the photographer's permission (really, there wouldn't be that much porn out there if somebody wasn't paying for it somewhere).
High-quality cameras cost money. Decent photographing takes practice. If you're going to molest a child, why go through the effort of digging out the camera and the lights and everything and taking all these pictures when you could, instead, actually spend your time molesting them? The folks who take the pictures don't distribute them free of charge because the bragging rights wouldn't be worth the cops who'd be coming after you. Instead, these pictures are distributed by the photographers for profit, because there are people out there who're willing to spend a good deal of money for stuff like this, enough money to make the risk of taking and distributing the photos worthwhile to the photographers.
People tend not to give away pedophilia pics they took for free the same way they tend not to give away crack for free, for the same reasons.
"If we were doing this without Steam we'd have to put it in a box, we'd have to start figuring out shelf space over a year beforehand. You'd see it six years from now..."
Yeah! Collecting your personal information and violating your privacy is just the icing on the cake!
"It's Congress and the Senate that wield the real power in the states if I'm not mistaken."
Perhaps, but not without a great deal of trepidation from the folks who wrote our constitution. Article II starts out by saying "the president gets the executive power," article III with "the supreme court gets the judicial power," while article I says "Congress only gets the powers specified within." It's a natural tendancy in a democracy to put all the power in the legislature, but that's not always a good thing, mostly because the majority isn't always right.
"our Senate isn't even elected, it's fucking appointed"
I envy you that to a degree.
On the other hand, our House is practically appointed (by the states or by the parties, depending on how you want to look at it) thanks to gerrymandereing. Your average Senate election is won by a smaller margin of victory than House elections, despite House elections being three times as common, and ultimately House members have more to worry about from the decennial census than a biennial election whose outcome nobody doubts.
At least with an appointed Senate you know who to blame and Senators can't pretend they have the mandate of the people.
"The president is essentially a figurehead."
He acts as party leader and tends to be the source of many bills. For example, our lower house must be the source of all bills that deal with spending money, but most of those bills (including/especially the yearly budget) are introduced at the behest of the president. Congress may have power, but often that power gets transferred to the president (consider Congress' war-making power).
Ultimately, the source of all power in the US Constitution is the state legislatures, the ones who ratified the constitution and have the power to abandon it outright. However, they have steadily transferred their power to Congress, who has, in turn, passed that power onto the president.
We have entered the fifth year of the presidency of George W. Bush and he has yet to veto anything. This is because Congress has never presented to him a bill he didn't like.
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If Microsoft is lowering their price in one place, they'll be raising some place else to compensate. Proably a country where their monopolistic practices only merits a slap on the wrist.
Isn't it nice to know that, in our wonderous capitalistic economy in the US, that our money is subsidizing Brazillian copies of Windows?
Actually, France's policy on an independent Quebec can be described as "confused," IIRC. They may feel sympathetic to their fellow white Francophones, but France has its slavish devotion to a monolithic form of government, vesting all power into a single government. In order to support Quebec secessionism they'd have to back-pedal their political theory quite a bit (i. e. the idea that parts of Canada can secede but not parts of France).
From what I've read, it's typically the extreme right in France that's been most supportive of an independent Quebec. Liberal De Gaulle seems to have been the lone exception.
It seems to me that a free Quebec would be more likely to join the United States than France (if they would be willing to sacrifice their independence at all).
"We can start with expanding, just in case: first, near earth asteroids, and then, Mars and the moon at the same time."
Uh... no. Moving around within the same star system won't do anything to protect you from avents like this. The idea is that huge swaths of the galaxy get bathed in dangerous amounts of gamma rays. Whith distances like that, virtually every point in the solar system will be exposed to exactly the same amount of gamma radiaton. Going to Alpha Centauri (something currently well beyond our techology) won't even do much: a dozen or so light-years is just a drop in the bucket compared to a galaxy 100,000 light-years in diameter. The only viable solution would be the ability to move to the other side of the galaxy, if not go to a different galaxy entirely.
"we need to use 'living elsewhere' as a fall-back plan."
We're talking about events that could theoretically wipe out life hundreds or even thousands of light-years away from the event, while we've barely sent anything much beyond a light-hour away, and actual human transportation hasn't even approached a light-second. At those kinds of scales, there is no "living elsewhere" option. We'd not only need superluminal vehicles, but superluminal speeds rarely dreamed of in science fiction.
Yes, there are other reasons to spread within the solar system, but these bursts aren't one of them. Moving from Earth to Mars will protect you about as much as moving 1 meter in any direction will make you appreciably safer from a 20 megaton hydrogen bomb.
No, but it's flawed to pin it solely on the author and not on the times. Heck, from that one line it's impossible to tell whether he truly believed that or if he was just toeing the line to get his test published.
"Carl Brigham, a bona-fide racist designed the SAT in 1925. "
Who wasn't racist in 1925? That was one of those wonderful interbellum years where the Klan hit its high water mark and Congress worked hard to decide who could immigrate and who could not (note that "Nordic" was specified; couldn't let those filthy Slavs, Italians or Iberians in, no matter what their skin color was).
It'd be pretty damned strange for someone doing anything in 1925 to not share those views. Why do you think Hitler was so popular in the US in the 1930's?
" tore the seat of your pants to reveal your underwear to your childhood crush, and then likely started crying like a little girl."
Serves you right for trying to show off your mad bicycling skillz to her to begin with. You should have suffered your crush in silence like the rest of us! That way, you'd be starting down the road to becoming a bona fide stalker!
Really, would you rather have this embarassing memory, or leave recordings on her answering machine of you breathing deeply?
"As two neutron stars orbit each other"
They have to get that close to each other first. What's the distance to Alpha Centauri again?
"If our lives depended on saving the ozone in a hurry, I'm sure it could be done."
You'd still have to get it up to high altitudes. Ozone is pretty toxic stuff; many exterminators use it to fumigate houses and more or less sterilize the place. It's not something you want lingering in the lower atmosphere.
"Keep in mind the volume of a sphere is 4/3 pi r^3, so the volume of space that this would take up is increased by a factor of 8,000,000."
Exept that our galaxy is a disc, not a sphere. Also, don't forget that we're towards the edge of that disc.
Personally, I see 6000 lt-yr still being pretty "close" (and probably "unlikely") when you consider our galaxy is roughly 100,000 lt-yr in diameter. If it happened often enough for us to be worried about, we'd see more such collisions within our galaxy beyond the 6000 lt-yr theoretical safe distance.
Besides, what are the odds of two stars colliding such a manner, anyway? It seems the odds of a binary star becoming a pair of neutron (or denser) stars seem to be slim to none: you'd think the creation of one neutron star out of one would consume/destroy the other before it had the chance to follow suit. So we're really dealing with an intersection of two previously unassociated stars. And it's called "space" for a reason.
I'd worry more about comets and asteroids at this point and put this one in the category of "When we have to start worrying about it, we'll probably be advanced enough to do something about it," kinda like the sun going nova.
"Wasn't the original xbox supposed to be aimed at a more mature market? Instead here microsoft is targeting the Britany Spears/reality tv fans."
No no, they don't want the mature market, they want the market that thinks of themselves as mature, i. e. the Britney fans.
"I genuinely think commercial watching was a more pleasant experience just ten years ago."
Don't forget: ten years ago you were ten years younger. Past youth and nostalgia have a way of playing tricks on you.
Alright, but what about when my evil twin brother tries to rob me blind?
"since we got paid more for Voom than for Dish... but we couldn't in our good conscience sell that piece of crap."
How unAmerican.
"What a waste of bandwidth."
It's my understanding that that statement can describe HDTV programming in general and not just Voom.
Come on! When was the last time a nerd actually asked a girl out? If anything, it will be a disaster for those girls because they'd have to start doing their own math homework!
I keep hearing the idea tossed about as some sort of alternative to the usual "quiet, burning obsession" option, but I'm personally not sure how the whole "asking out" thing works. All I know is that it sounds very, very dangerous.
"Does the US have a minumum wage?"
Yes, but that's for hourly wages, not salaries.
Well, at least it wasn't "It's a guy!"
" The feds printed up a bunch of $2 bills within the last few years. I'm not sure why."
The 1995 batch was finally beginning to run out. They seem to be moving faster than they used to, though; the batch before that was 1976.
"But that means that you're surprisingly likely to get sequential bills since the bank probably has a new brick of them in the back."
The bank also has old bricks. Nobody but us crazies ask for $2 bills; nobody outside of Monticello actually uses them to stock cash drawers (this is why it took so long for the 1995 bunch to dry up). Since $2's don't go in and out of the bank no a regular basis like other denominations, you're very likely (perhaps "more likely") to get $2's in sequetial order, reguardless of year.
The last time I got deuces was a year ago or so. They were all 1976, and they were in sequence.
"Now that is with the pens that i've been using on a regular basis."
I seem to be having trouble finding the links now, but either the USSS or BEP reccomend against relying on so-called counterfeit detection pens. Really, with the only bills you'd want to worry about, it's probably faster and more accurate to hold them under a black light; among other things, those strips glow different colors for different denominations.
"All the cashier needed to do is hold the bill up to the light and see the mylar strip embedded in the bill."
Those are only in $5's and larger, and only with the redesigned $5's. Before the redesigns, they were only in $20's and larger.
Also, because we're talking about $2's, those bills may have been from 1976, well before any bills had those strips in them.
"I really dig that blonde chick at the store"
God forbid you ask her out...
"Americans got too stupid to accept our own currency."
Of course not! $2 bills have neither "Visa" nor "MasterCard" writen on them!
"'I knew nothing about it. They never asked me if I thought it was a good idea...I think it's a misuse of film'"
I don't believe it! An MPAA member ignoring the will of content creators? I would have expected a relationship at least as rosy as RIAA members maintain with their artists...
Yeah, you can see all sorts of free porn, but usually it's free because it got uploaded without the photographer's permission (really, there wouldn't be that much porn out there if somebody wasn't paying for it somewhere).
High-quality cameras cost money. Decent photographing takes practice. If you're going to molest a child, why go through the effort of digging out the camera and the lights and everything and taking all these pictures when you could, instead, actually spend your time molesting them? The folks who take the pictures don't distribute them free of charge because the bragging rights wouldn't be worth the cops who'd be coming after you. Instead, these pictures are distributed by the photographers for profit, because there are people out there who're willing to spend a good deal of money for stuff like this, enough money to make the risk of taking and distributing the photos worthwhile to the photographers.
People tend not to give away pedophilia pics they took for free the same way they tend not to give away crack for free, for the same reasons.
"If we were doing this without Steam we'd have to put it in a box, we'd have to start figuring out shelf space over a year beforehand. You'd see it six years from now..."
Yeah! Collecting your personal information and violating your privacy is just the icing on the cake!
"It's Congress and the Senate that wield the real power in the states if I'm not mistaken."
Perhaps, but not without a great deal of trepidation from the folks who wrote our constitution. Article II starts out by saying "the president gets the executive power," article III with "the supreme court gets the judicial power," while article I says "Congress only gets the powers specified within." It's a natural tendancy in a democracy to put all the power in the legislature, but that's not always a good thing, mostly because the majority isn't always right.
"our Senate isn't even elected, it's fucking appointed"
I envy you that to a degree.
On the other hand, our House is practically appointed (by the states or by the parties, depending on how you want to look at it) thanks to gerrymandereing. Your average Senate election is won by a smaller margin of victory than House elections, despite House elections being three times as common, and ultimately House members have more to worry about from the decennial census than a biennial election whose outcome nobody doubts.
At least with an appointed Senate you know who to blame and Senators can't pretend they have the mandate of the people.
"The president is essentially a figurehead."
He acts as party leader and tends to be the source of many bills. For example, our lower house must be the source of all bills that deal with spending money, but most of those bills (including/especially the yearly budget) are introduced at the behest of the president. Congress may have power, but often that power gets transferred to the president (consider Congress' war-making power).
Ultimately, the source of all power in the US Constitution is the state legislatures, the ones who ratified the constitution and have the power to abandon it outright. However, they have steadily transferred their power to Congress, who has, in turn, passed that power onto the president.
We have entered the fifth year of the presidency of George W. Bush and he has yet to veto anything. This is because Congress has never presented to him a bill he didn't like.