Yeah yeah, blame it all on the White House.... I am Bush, the great and powerful! Ignore the 535 members of Congress behind the curtain!
Let us not forget that 530+ members of congress voted in favor of the USA PATRIOT Act. And some of these very same members of Congress are now also all over our televisions with the Democratic primary debates and what-not. Heck, IIRC the only Democrat candidates that didn't vote in favor of USA PATRIOT were the ones like Dean and Sharpton who just happened not to be members of Congress at the time.
I find it darkly humorous that some of the very same members of Congress that are decrying the current situation in Iraq are the ones that voted "Uh... I dunno, what do you wanna do?" instead of, say, voting to declare/not declare war. They could have spelled out exactly what the president could and could not do in Iraq and exactly what the goals were, but that would have required Congress to have, y'know, a spine. Taking responsibility and all that.
If they're so unwilling to exercise their rights and duties as members of Congress, why are we supposed to believe that they'll be any different in the White House?
November of next year, do yourselves, your country, and your species a favor and don't vote for either major party. They've both shown themselves to be derelict in their duties as public servants.
"Uh-oh... Just occured to me. I wonder it they're going to fix the slowdown that occured on some of the games, when there were too many bosses on screen..."
Give it the "All-Stars" treatment, like they did with 1-3 for the Genesis.
Between the eReader NES series, all the games hidden in Animal Crossing (including Zelda, though nobody's heard of how to unlock it short of a cheat device yet) and certain games/microgames in Wario Ware, I'm surprised that Nintendo hasn't struck on the killer app for their GCN modem: downloading ROMs. I'd pay per-download and/or per-ROM fees in a heartbeat if I could legitimally download NES, SNES and old GB ROMs if they offered this, and I doubt I'm the only one. It would be fairly easy to keep relatively secure on the server end, I doubt there'd be a big market to pirate these older games (how many of us have seen pirated eReader cards or Animal Crossing GBA images?), and it's something none of their comptetitors can really pull off (short of one of them buying Sega).
Rig it so the smaller ROMs can be downloaded to GBA as in Animal Crossing, and I'd be in hog heavan.
Re:Should we be calling it "Silly Putty"?
on
Homemade Silly Putty
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· Score: 4, Funny
And it didn't even involve the phrase "Hey y'all, watch this!"
"I can not quote sources, *but i seem to remember* that the Amish and Menonites (sp), were quite into cell phones."
I wouldn't lump these two together as far as technology is concerned. For example, IIRC Mennonites are allowed to own and drive cars, while Amish can't.
"The problem with Australians is they are too tough."
Then I'd like to see this guy move to, say, Texas and try to continue his carjacking spree in a place where many drivers are more heavily armed than this guy.
Between releasing Megaman & Bass for the GBA and the pending ability to play all eight of the originals (plus the arcade games I've only been able to play through MAME until now) on my GCN, I'm a happy camper. All we need now is an X compilation and maybe a rehash of the GB games an I can die happy.:)
"I don't recall the Clinton administration outsourcing support for troops to a Halliburton subsidiary with a cost+profit no competion contract "
Vice President Al Gore's National Performance Review mentioned Halliburton's performance in its Report on Reinventing the Department of Defense, issued in September 1996. In a section titled "Outsourcing of Logistics Allows Combat Troops to Stick to Basics," Gore's reinventing-government team favorably mentioned LOGCAP, the cost-plus-award system, and (Halliburton), which the report said provided "basic life support services -- food, water, sanitation, shelter, and laundry; and the full realm of logistics services -- transportation, electrical, hazardous materials collection and disposal, fuel delivery, airfield and seaport operations, and road maintenance."
"I also don't recall the Clinton administration giving Halliburton subsidiaries no competion contracts to repair the oil production mechanism in Iraq,"
That's because Clinton's big military campaign was in Bosnia, not Iraq.
In 1997, when LOGCAP was again put up for bid, (Halliburton) lost the competition to another contractor, Dyncorp. But the Clinton Defense Department, rather than switch from Halliburton to Dyncorp, elected to award a separate, sole-source contract to (Halliburton) to continue its work in the Balkans. According to a later GAO study, the Army made the choice because 1) Brown & Root had already acquired extensive knowledge of how to work in the area; 2) the company "had demonstrated the ability to support the operation"; and 3) changing contractors would have been costly. The Army's sole-source Bosnia contract with (Halliburton) lasted until 1999. At that time, the Clinton Defense Department conducted full-scale competitive bidding for a new contract. The winner was . . . (Halliburton). The company continued its work in Bosnia uninterrupted.
Oh, wait. He made sure to properly fund that last one."
All he's done is maintain the status quo of the relationshiop the federal government has had since Halliburton since the Clinton administration. Or is Clinton now also a part of the Evil Republican Conspiracy?
Ah, but here's an interesting experiment that comes to mind.
First, take note of the size of the "doc" file you made in emacs. Then open said file in any version of Word, and immediately resave the file (while making no changes). What happens to the size of the file?
"or even from edlin (remember that miserable monster from mickey-soft?)."
"But that's hardly the work of an open market, of which Japan most definitely is not."
That point is arguable (and I'm not altogether sure as far as the console market is concerned), but nowhere (and I mean nowhere) in your post do you back that up. Neither the words "tax" nor "tariff" appear anywhere in your post.
The phrase "free market" refers to artificial barriers to entry into a given market. Such barriers for foreign companies include (but are not limited to) tariffs and excise taxes layed on the import process. However, there is nothing in your post that can be labelled that. In fact, what all of your arguments end up supporting the position that the Xbox is failing in a free market. Neither Sony nor Nintendo can be said to weild monopoly powers in the Japanese console market (ie. none of them are telling stores "You can't carry my console if you carry Microsoft's"), and everything you said points to Japanese consumers freely choosing not to buy the Xbox. There are all sorts of reasons why they aren't, but none of them are "There aren't any Xboxes to be found to buy."
I'm about ready to accuse you of using Microsoft-esque FUD for that post.
"Lots of people still think that there is nothing you can do on 2d Desktops that you cannot do on the command line. The 2D desktop is still settling in, 20 years or so after it ws first invented. I think a 3D desktop could well have a lot to offer."
That's OK. If we ever develop time-travel technology, we can just tell the people of the past that it has something to do with the technology only allowing living tissue through.
But they had an army. And very large portions of it was still stationed outside of Japan.
"Japan has zero natural resources (iron, coal, oil),"
Which is why they invaded the Asian mainland to begin with. And they still occupied most of it until the formal surrender process was over 09/1945.
"and had no stockpiles left."
On Honshu perhaps, but they were still in posession of many natural resources in China, et al.
"They could not have harmed any American serviceman unless he set foot on their island and got stabbed."
And there's the rub. So what if they were still content raping and pillaging the places they still owned (the places we "island-hopped" over, for example, becuase they were still heavily defended)? Nevermind that the Japanese still effectively and brutally controlled an empire that rivled the British in size. They're just a bunch of silly slant-eyes, anyway. Why should we get care? Just so long as they don't attack us again is all that matters, right? Peace in our time (for us, anyway)!
"The only thing separating them from utter defeat was a thousand heirloom swords and a million sharp pieces of bamboo."
Not only are you forgetting about the munitions stockpiles their forces still had elsewhere, you're forgetting about their willingness to use them against nuclear bombs. Don't forget that, after two nuclear attacks and the Soviets finally getting around to declaring war on them, major portions of their army staged a coup to try to prevent Hirohito from surrendering.
"I concur that humans quickly lose the ability to cry after being butchered."
Only if you do it quickly. If you take your time and let them suffer miserably for days and weeks before dying after infecting them with the anthrax you're weaponizing, they're quite capable of crying. But hey, they weren't Americans, so they don't count.
"It didn't help that I was also in Tokyo when they had their nuclear "accident"."
IIRC, it was less than a cubic foot of radioactive steam that was released.
Your knee-jerk, poorly-reasoned reaction to seeing that (immediately thinking of a multi-kiloton nuclear blast) is why neither Japan, the US, and most other countries that know how to build nuclear power plants will never be able to take advantage of the clean and efficient source of power that such reactors are.
Just to put things into perspective, compare that cubic foot of steam to the pounds (in some casses tons) of greenhouse gasses continued reliance on fossil fuels for power production fossil such plants put out in the course of normal operation. But I guess panic-mongering over inhaled carcinogens isn't as sexy as fearing something with the word "radioactive" in it, no matter how utterly insignifigant it really is.
"Any non-suicidal African dictator who wishes to nuke America will transport the bomb by SUV, not ICBM."
What, you think it will take forever to figure out who did what in such a situation? First off, even if they are capable of building the bombs, they certainly don't have the resources to build (or even buy) more than a few dozen, which means they'll be far easier for intelligence communities to track.
Secondly, not having a fuselage with your national logo emblazoned on it doesn't mean you won't get caught. Ask Qadaffi or (of you can find him) Mullah Omar.
Third, there will always have to be a response. Like it or not, ICBMs launched on a sub-orbital ballistic arc are the only option we currently have for attacking a landlocked coutry without having to borrow somebody else's airspace (since they go over said airspace). We didn't ask Pakistan to let us through to Afghanistan because we had to, but because we thought we'd be (relatively) nice about things.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah yeah, blame it all on the White House.... I am Bush, the great and powerful! Ignore the 535 members of Congress behind the curtain!
Let us not forget that 530+ members of congress voted in favor of the USA PATRIOT Act. And some of these very same members of Congress are now also all over our televisions with the Democratic primary debates and what-not. Heck, IIRC the only Democrat candidates that didn't vote in favor of USA PATRIOT were the ones like Dean and Sharpton who just happened not to be members of Congress at the time.
I find it darkly humorous that some of the very same members of Congress that are decrying the current situation in Iraq are the ones that voted "Uh... I dunno, what do you wanna do?" instead of, say, voting to declare/not declare war. They could have spelled out exactly what the president could and could not do in Iraq and exactly what the goals were, but that would have required Congress to have, y'know, a spine. Taking responsibility and all that.
If they're so unwilling to exercise their rights and duties as members of Congress, why are we supposed to believe that they'll be any different in the White House?
November of next year, do yourselves, your country, and your species a favor and don't vote for either major party. They've both shown themselves to be derelict in their duties as public servants.
Wouldn't it be easier to just remember not to vote for anybody with a "D" or an "R" next to their name?
"Uh-oh... Just occured to me. I wonder it they're going to fix the slowdown that occured on some of the games, when there were too many bosses on screen..."
Give it the "All-Stars" treatment, like they did with 1-3 for the Genesis.
Between the eReader NES series, all the games hidden in Animal Crossing (including Zelda, though nobody's heard of how to unlock it short of a cheat device yet) and certain games/microgames in Wario Ware, I'm surprised that Nintendo hasn't struck on the killer app for their GCN modem: downloading ROMs. I'd pay per-download and/or per-ROM fees in a heartbeat if I could legitimally download NES, SNES and old GB ROMs if they offered this, and I doubt I'm the only one. It would be fairly easy to keep relatively secure on the server end, I doubt there'd be a big market to pirate these older games (how many of us have seen pirated eReader cards or Animal Crossing GBA images?), and it's something none of their comptetitors can really pull off (short of one of them buying Sega).
Rig it so the smaller ROMs can be downloaded to GBA as in Animal Crossing, and I'd be in hog heavan.
And it didn't even involve the phrase "Hey y'all, watch this!"
Except that won't work. People calling them to complain are obviously non-profs.
This is obviously Skinny technology.
"I can not quote sources, *but i seem to remember* that the Amish and Menonites (sp), were quite into cell phones."
I wouldn't lump these two together as far as technology is concerned. For example, IIRC Mennonites are allowed to own and drive cars, while Amish can't.
"The problem with Australians is they are too tough."
Then I'd like to see this guy move to, say, Texas and try to continue his carjacking spree in a place where many drivers are more heavily armed than this guy.
Between releasing Megaman & Bass for the GBA and the pending ability to play all eight of the originals (plus the arcade games I've only been able to play through MAME until now) on my GCN, I'm a happy camper. All we need now is an X compilation and maybe a rehash of the GB games an I can die happy. :)
"I don't recall the Clinton administration outsourcing support for troops to a Halliburton subsidiary with a cost+profit no competion contract " "I also don't recall the Clinton administration giving Halliburton subsidiaries no competion contracts to repair the oil production mechanism in Iraq,"
That's because Clinton's big military campaign was in Bosnia, not Iraq.Or am I making all this up?
What better way to drive home the point that Microsoft has abused its market dominance than by using the products they're pushing on us?
"Halliburton
Oh, wait. He made sure to properly fund that last one."
All he's done is maintain the status quo of the relationshiop the federal government has had since Halliburton since the Clinton administration. Or is Clinton now also a part of the Evil Republican Conspiracy?
Ah, but here's an interesting experiment that comes to mind.
First, take note of the size of the "doc" file you made in emacs. Then open said file in any version of Word, and immediately resave the file (while making no changes). What happens to the size of the file?
"or even from edlin (remember that miserable monster from mickey-soft?)."
Mock not edlin, for it is an extremely accurate DOS port of the Almighty Ed, the One True Text Editor! It is not wise to draw ed's ire with your mockery of its bretheren.
"But that's hardly the work of an open market, of which Japan most definitely is not."
That point is arguable (and I'm not altogether sure as far as the console market is concerned), but nowhere (and I mean nowhere) in your post do you back that up. Neither the words "tax" nor "tariff" appear anywhere in your post.
The phrase "free market" refers to artificial barriers to entry into a given market. Such barriers for foreign companies include (but are not limited to) tariffs and excise taxes layed on the import process. However, there is nothing in your post that can be labelled that. In fact, what all of your arguments end up supporting the position that the Xbox is failing in a free market. Neither Sony nor Nintendo can be said to weild monopoly powers in the Japanese console market (ie. none of them are telling stores "You can't carry my console if you carry Microsoft's"), and everything you said points to Japanese consumers freely choosing not to buy the Xbox. There are all sorts of reasons why they aren't, but none of them are "There aren't any Xboxes to be found to buy."
I'm about ready to accuse you of using Microsoft-esque FUD for that post.
I was a little torn between VI and VII for a while (mostly VI), but now it's IX hands-down.
"Lots of people still think that there is nothing you can do on 2d Desktops that you cannot do on the command line. The 2D desktop is still settling in, 20 years or so after it ws first invented. I think a 3D desktop could well have a lot to offer."
Why not aim for the best of both worlds? 3D CLI!
Until they start forcing major TCP/IP stacks to put my hosts file lower in the heierarchy than their DNS servers, what do I care?
Hell, I could rig verisign.com to point to goatse.cx if I wanted to. What are they going to do, sue me?
(Don't answer that.)
"Why would you want to 'wear' a computer?"
Because you live north of the Arctic Circle and the computer you'd be wearing has an AMD processor.
That's OK. If we ever develop time-travel technology, we can just tell the people of the past that it has something to do with the technology only allowing living tissue through.
Write a letter to the RIAA's amnesty program. Put nothing but the following sentence on a clean sheet of paper:
"You can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant."
From everything we've heard so far, that would be the only way the device could possibly be $300 worth of entertainment.
"They had no Navy left at all."
But they had an army. And very large portions of it was still stationed outside of Japan.
"Japan has zero natural resources (iron, coal, oil),"
Which is why they invaded the Asian mainland to begin with. And they still occupied most of it until the formal surrender process was over 09/1945.
"and had no stockpiles left."
On Honshu perhaps, but they were still in posession of many natural resources in China, et al.
"They could not have harmed any American serviceman unless he set foot on their island and got stabbed."
And there's the rub. So what if they were still content raping and pillaging the places they still owned (the places we "island-hopped" over, for example, becuase they were still heavily defended)? Nevermind that the Japanese still effectively and brutally controlled an empire that rivled the British in size. They're just a bunch of silly slant-eyes, anyway. Why should we get care? Just so long as they don't attack us again is all that matters, right? Peace in our time (for us, anyway)!
"The only thing separating them from utter defeat was a thousand heirloom swords and a million sharp pieces of bamboo."
Not only are you forgetting about the munitions stockpiles their forces still had elsewhere, you're forgetting about their willingness to use them against nuclear bombs. Don't forget that, after two nuclear attacks and the Soviets finally getting around to declaring war on them, major portions of their army staged a coup to try to prevent Hirohito from surrendering.
"I concur that humans quickly lose the ability to cry after being butchered."
Only if you do it quickly. If you take your time and let them suffer miserably for days and weeks before dying after infecting them with the anthrax you're weaponizing, they're quite capable of crying. But hey, they weren't Americans, so they don't count.
"It didn't help that I was also in Tokyo when they had their nuclear "accident"."
IIRC, it was less than a cubic foot of radioactive steam that was released.
Your knee-jerk, poorly-reasoned reaction to seeing that (immediately thinking of a multi-kiloton nuclear blast) is why neither Japan, the US, and most other countries that know how to build nuclear power plants will never be able to take advantage of the clean and efficient source of power that such reactors are.
Just to put things into perspective, compare that cubic foot of steam to the pounds (in some casses tons) of greenhouse gasses continued reliance on fossil fuels for power production fossil such plants put out in the course of normal operation. But I guess panic-mongering over inhaled carcinogens isn't as sexy as fearing something with the word "radioactive" in it, no matter how utterly insignifigant it really is.
"Any non-suicidal African dictator who wishes to nuke America will transport the bomb by SUV, not ICBM."
What, you think it will take forever to figure out who did what in such a situation? First off, even if they are capable of building the bombs, they certainly don't have the resources to build (or even buy) more than a few dozen, which means they'll be far easier for intelligence communities to track.
Secondly, not having a fuselage with your national logo emblazoned on it doesn't mean you won't get caught. Ask Qadaffi or (of you can find him) Mullah Omar.
Third, there will always have to be a response. Like it or not, ICBMs launched on a sub-orbital ballistic arc are the only option we currently have for attacking a landlocked coutry without having to borrow somebody else's airspace (since they go over said airspace). We didn't ask Pakistan to let us through to Afghanistan because we had to, but because we thought we'd be (relatively) nice about things.