Selfishness and greed are, in their eyes, the only "rational" attitudes. You need to put your own needs first if you want to win the evolution game.
They see concepts like 'integrity' and 'concern for others' as irrational. They believe that no rational person would put others ahead of themselves. They believe that those nasty selfless actions can only bring about the end of humanity as it unnaturally allows the weak to survive and prosper, when they should suffer and die to make way for those better fit. Though they sometimes believe that if the lesser are of any use, they could be allowed the minimum needed to survive, but should not be allowed to reproduce.
The only groups of which they're aware that dare to promote those detestable values are Millennials and SJW's. They think Millennials qualify because kids these days are nothing but a bunch of lazy and entitled leaches on society. (Not unlike how previous generations viewed Gen-X'ers and Boomers.) They've already forgotten what SJW means, but they're pretty sure it's a bad thing. All the same, the important thing is they think those groups want to promote equality as it's in their best interests as they're nothing but a bunch of lazy bottom-feeders.
Can you think of anything more disgusting to people like the parent poster than equality? Their worldview demands that there are strong and weak, fit and unfit, winners and losers. (You can talk about advantages and disadvantages outside an individuals control, but they deny those are significant factors in an individual person's success. Oh, in case you didn't know, success is defined entirely in terms of income and/or accumulated wealth.)
As only Millennials and SJW's would dare to suggest that disturbing things like 'equality' and 'integrity' are actually positive attributes, you must be among them.
Considering he was writing plays, I'm not surprised...
Communication is about more than just words -- and most people aren't very skilled writers. You can't expect the average person to express themselves, without ambiguity, using words alone. Emoji are very helpful there.
There's a lot of controversy around emoji right now, which has lead some people to deny that they have any useful role in modern communication. That's foolish, of course, as we've used them effectively for decades. The smile, wink, and frown emoticons have been a staple of online communication for over 30 years. I can't think of any way to deny their efficacy and utility. You can argue against them on other grounds, I'm sure, but you can't say that they haven't been useful or effective.
Extra typographic symbols seem to date back as far as the mid 19th century, though with a healthy bit of cynicism. They're not exactly a new idea. Puck magazine (in the mid-1800's) even published a set of typographic symbols we'd recognize as modern emoticons, reinvented by Ambrose Bierce, Vladimir Nabokov, and who knows how many others. There's even one instance I found (though couldn't verify) of a message exchanged entirely in symbols, between Victor Hugo and his publisher, though they used extant typographic symbols. Scott Fahlman seems to be the one who's re-re-re-invention caught-on, having found a need to disambiguate between jokes and serious messages on some CMU message board in the early 80's. If professional writers and well-educated academics find a need for extra typographic symbols to facilitate written communication, can you justify denying the average person such a useful tool?
The written word is more important to daily life than at any point in recorded history. Far too quickly, as it happens, for the world to adequately prepare for it. Hence, the emoticon rose to prominence .
A similar thing happened with the telephone. The word "hello" rose from obscurity as it filled a need created by a radical new technology: the telephone. There is some backlash we're seeing with the absurd abundance of emoticons, not dissimilar from the explosion we saw in the mid-90's in message boards and chat rooms. Interestingly enough, the word "hello" as countless variations in common use in the early 20th century, before settling down to a few of the more popular variants.
tl;dr We've seen this before. Technology changes language for a reason.
I judge people on their merits and not their gender, race or sexuality.
No, you don't. You've just never had to confront your bias directly before.
But, with the advent of SJWs, I feel a great resentment towards almost anything they say.
See, if you were actually this mythical perfect egalitarian, like you believed yourself to be, you wouldn't even notice those horrible SJW's save to say "huh, I didn't know that was still an issue" before moving on.
The truth is that you've carried countless conscious and unconscious biases with you for your entire life. You've just been protected from confronting those biases by a society willing to reinforce them.
Really, all this SJW stuff does is alienate the majority of society who are effectively neutral and maybe even mildly supportive to begin with.
So you believe that the status-quo should be preserved? Marginalized groups should stay on the outskirts of sciety, hidden away, to protect your precious social norms, and the privilege that grants you? You don't believe we should work towards a more egalitarian society?
I judge people on their merits and not their gender, race or sexuality.
That's because it's a hot news topic. It's a topic that angers up the blood of powerless nerds, thus generating page views.
If you want to know about something other than emoji, you'll need to head over to unicode.org yourself. For example, there was a meeting in Cambridge a few days ago focused on improving support for Egyptian hieroglyphs. Last month, a group met at Berkeley to begin work on including Mayan hieroglyphs.
Last month, support was added for over 7500 characters, less than 1% of which were emoji, from a mix of modern and historic languages.
Just because you haven't heard about all the other work that's being done, doesn't mean that all they've been doing is fighting over emoji. The Unicode Consortium is large and varied, and most of the work, no matter how important, is dull and uninteresting to most people.
I think my point is made. You are incapable of answering the only question I've asked you: how you determine who is and is not a recipient of your compassion and empathy.
The answer, obviously, is that you can not. Not without making a deeply uncomfortable ethical compromise. That is, you can not stand by your claim that you have "no regret, no compassion, no empathy for people too stupid to survive. Ever."
I don't care if you just want to "win" a silly argument on the internet and won't admit it here, as long as you can admit it to yourself. You are very likely a much better person than your crass comment suggests. Your stubborn refusal to make the ethical compromise necessary to stand by that terrible comment suggests that.
The point? Don't discount Flappy Bird. Just because it didn't take three years and a research team to develop, does not mean it wasn't talented.
No talent involved, I'm afraid. Flappy Bird is, first, just another one-button helicopter game. Worse, it's a near identical clone of Piou Piou vs. Cactus, down to the look of the unfortunate protagonist! Some people have even claimed the code and some of the assets were purchased from one of those pre-built game kit sellers.
There was virtually no creativity or talent involved in the creation of Flappy Bird.
Keep moving that goal post. You stated, quite clearly:
But no regret, no compassion, no empathy for people too stupid to survive. Ever.
Can you choose to be "too stupid to survive"? That's incoherent. Obviously, being "too stupid to survive" is beyond the control of those "too stupid to survive".
Or do you mean "I have no compassion or empathy for people of otherwise normal intelligence who take unnecessary risks"? Well, that makes it easy for you to feel superior to anyone for any reason. (Let's face it, this is all about you feeling superior to an entire class of people.) I don't know that anyone has ever lived their entire life without taking an unnecessary risk. Most people take unnecessary risks every single day. I suspect you also take a fair number of unnecessary risks.
See, you can't actually sort-out what sort of person you think is unworthy of the same basic considerations you'd offer any person. Callous statements like the one you made are completely empty. The sort of nonsense you'd hear from self-righteous teens looking to bolster their own egos.
You're very likely a much better person than your comment suggests. If you give it a little thought, you'll find that you can't stand by your comment without making a deeply uncomfortable ethical compromise.
But no regret, no compassion, no empathy for people too stupid to survive. Ever.
People like children and those with intellectual disabilities...
Oh, not those people, right? You surely have compassion and empathy for them. Where do you draw the line? What sort of person do you actually have in mind? Who isn't worthy of the same consideration you so generously offer to others?
I know this might sound crazy, but it is possible to walk past a coffee shop, bakery, and even a fast-food restaurant without stopping to stuff your face with a 1000 calorie snack.
You seem very intent on trying to convince me to maintain my own car. It's not going to happen.
You see what you want to see, and ignore what doesn't conform to your preconceptions. I can't do anything about that.
The point here, obviously, was that the parent was being grossly overcharged by his mechanic. Had he a bit more knowledge about the cost of parts and the time it takes to complete the labor, he wouldn't have been taken by his criminal mechanic's lies.
I couldn't care less if you maintain your own car, overpay for parts and labor, or slash your tires just for the opportunity to pay your local repair shop more.
That's cute, but there are innumerable reasons why MacOS maintains a tiny fraction of the desktop market (Various sources place this between 5 and 10 percent currently). Equally so for Linux (though they hold a smaller fraction of the desktop). Use whatever you like, but neither of those alternatives are, apparently, suitable for options for many users. At this point in time, alternatives like those are some people can, at best, "get away with running".
Even Apple's tiny share, in OS terms, might be in question. Back in early 2006, when the Intel Mac was still a hot topic, some 39% of Mac users planned to install boot camp, one survey reported. I can't find any current numbers (I suspect Apple wouldn't want us to know) but it seems that the ability to run Windows on a Mac is pretty important to Mac owners, given how much time and effort Apple has invested in that feature.
Linux is king of the server, but no one seems to want it on the desktop. It's free, and handles common tasks well, but that simply isn't enough to drive users to adopt it. Too many "can I..." and "I want..." questions are still answered by even the most committed Linux advocate with a "you can't, but..." response.
Whatever your personal feelings, Windows is, without question, the more useful desktop OS for the majority of users. That may change in the future, but I can't see it happening any time soon.
You're ignoring the 'equivalent time and facilities' bit.
No, I'm not. For the mechanic, that's already factored in to the average hourly rate for auto-mechanics in the US. On your side, your mistake is in thinking that by doing the job yourself, or finding a mechanic who charges a rate consistent with the rest of the country, that you'll spend (or not earn) more than what you'd paying the grossly overpriced mechanic. Not only are you are not continuously productive, but you'd lose a comparable amount of time completing the repair yourself as you would in arranging for it to be done, transporting the vehicle to the garage, and waiting for the work to be completed.
You're also forgetting that the $700 charge the above user paid is dramatically above what the average mechanic would charge for the same job -- even if that price includes parts.
For my car, changing out the rotors might easily cost $700.
Certainly not for the car in question. I have nothing but skepticism about this mysterious and highly unusual car that would require a mechanic with such specialized knowledge and skill that he could charge a rate 7 to 10 times higher than average.
I have no clue what the average of an exponential distribution is
First, it is trivial to compute the mean of an exponential distribution. Second, that statement is completely meaningless in the context of the average hourly rate changed by US auto-mechanics!
Basic statistics.
You might want to retake that course. It didn't stick.
There's more to basic maintenance than "brakes and oil".
Hence the "etc." at the end of my short list of examples. It was there to provide context to the reader, not to be a definitive guide to basic auto maintenance.
Thinking like this is why you can't trust a used car. The previous owner was probably some cheapskate that never properly maintained the thing.
Apparently not. In this particular case, the car appears to have been meticulously maintained by the previous owner.
If you ignore the "shiny shiny" you can get a safe, reliable car for less than 34K.
I got a safe and reliable care for less than 3k. I've managed this more than once, in fact. Buying used is only a gamble if you don't check out the car before you buy it.
I don't understand it either. Buying new seems like a waste. I got my wife's car at an auction for about $2200 six years ago. (A seemingly spotless 1992 model with 80k miles on it.) Outside basic maintenance (brakes, oil, etc.), I have invested well-under $500 in repairs for it. She puts a lot of miles on her car (over 10k miles/year) yet with regular maintenance, I expect she'll easily get another 6 years out of it.
If it explodes tomorrow, it wouldn't matter. It's costs us less, maintenance included, over the past 6 years than a down-payment on a new car. The Slashdot crowd seems to get no more than 5-7 years out of their cars new, so I'd say I've got my money's worth out of it. It's like I had low down-payment, partially spread-out over the entire period of ownership, and a $0 monthly payment.
My current car, and the last two I've owned, have similar stories. I can't imagine getting only 5-7 years out of a car, let alone a new car. What are these guys doing to their vehicles?
This. Basic maintenance like that isn't difficult. It's well-worth the time and effort to learn to do those things yourself.
If that dude really paid $700 to replace a set of rotors, he needs to learn how to do basic maintenance himself. Even if he's not interested in doing the work, it'll help him spot dishonest scumbags posing as mechanics.
To the parent: Your mechanic sounds like a dishonest scumbag. Find someone else. You're getting hosed.
No, no it does not. Certainly not in the crawl or the early scenes. The crawl, for reference:
It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.
During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.
Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy...
Tarkin does say:
The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.
Which is pretty close, but certainly not a part you'd consider the opening.
Slashdot Mirror
I think I can explain that.
Selfishness and greed are, in their eyes, the only "rational" attitudes. You need to put your own needs first if you want to win the evolution game.
They see concepts like 'integrity' and 'concern for others' as irrational. They believe that no rational person would put others ahead of themselves. They believe that those nasty selfless actions can only bring about the end of humanity as it unnaturally allows the weak to survive and prosper, when they should suffer and die to make way for those better fit. Though they sometimes believe that if the lesser are of any use, they could be allowed the minimum needed to survive, but should not be allowed to reproduce.
The only groups of which they're aware that dare to promote those detestable values are Millennials and SJW's. They think Millennials qualify because kids these days are nothing but a bunch of lazy and entitled leaches on society. (Not unlike how previous generations viewed Gen-X'ers and Boomers.) They've already forgotten what SJW means, but they're pretty sure it's a bad thing. All the same, the important thing is they think those groups want to promote equality as it's in their best interests as they're nothing but a bunch of lazy bottom-feeders.
Can you think of anything more disgusting to people like the parent poster than equality? Their worldview demands that there are strong and weak, fit and unfit, winners and losers. (You can talk about advantages and disadvantages outside an individuals control, but they deny those are significant factors in an individual person's success. Oh, in case you didn't know, success is defined entirely in terms of income and/or accumulated wealth.)
As only Millennials and SJW's would dare to suggest that disturbing things like 'equality' and 'integrity' are actually positive attributes, you must be among them.
You had either basica or gw-basic and debug. What more did you want?
Turbo Pascal was like $400 bucks. I know a few people that had it, but no one that actually paid for it.
We're talking about "Big Pharma" not "A Big Farm".
Considering he was writing plays, I'm not surprised...
Communication is about more than just words -- and most people aren't very skilled writers. You can't expect the average person to express themselves, without ambiguity, using words alone. Emoji are very helpful there.
There's a lot of controversy around emoji right now, which has lead some people to deny that they have any useful role in modern communication. That's foolish, of course, as we've used them effectively for decades. The smile, wink, and frown emoticons have been a staple of online communication for over 30 years. I can't think of any way to deny their efficacy and utility. You can argue against them on other grounds, I'm sure, but you can't say that they haven't been useful or effective.
Extra typographic symbols seem to date back as far as the mid 19th century, though with a healthy bit of cynicism. They're not exactly a new idea. Puck magazine (in the mid-1800's) even published a set of typographic symbols we'd recognize as modern emoticons, reinvented by Ambrose Bierce, Vladimir Nabokov, and who knows how many others. There's even one instance I found (though couldn't verify) of a message exchanged entirely in symbols, between Victor Hugo and his publisher, though they used extant typographic symbols. Scott Fahlman seems to be the one who's re-re-re-invention caught-on, having found a need to disambiguate between jokes and serious messages on some CMU message board in the early 80's. If professional writers and well-educated academics find a need for extra typographic symbols to facilitate written communication, can you justify denying the average person such a useful tool?
The written word is more important to daily life than at any point in recorded history. Far too quickly, as it happens, for the world to adequately prepare for it. Hence, the emoticon rose to prominence .
A similar thing happened with the telephone. The word "hello" rose from obscurity as it filled a need created by a radical new technology: the telephone. There is some backlash we're seeing with the absurd abundance of emoticons, not dissimilar from the explosion we saw in the mid-90's in message boards and chat rooms. Interestingly enough, the word "hello" as countless variations in common use in the early 20th century, before settling down to a few of the more popular variants.
tl;dr We've seen this before. Technology changes language for a reason.
I judge people on their merits and not their gender, race or sexuality.
No, you don't. You've just never had to confront your bias directly before.
But, with the advent of SJWs, I feel a great resentment towards almost anything they say.
See, if you were actually this mythical perfect egalitarian, like you believed yourself to be, you wouldn't even notice those horrible SJW's save to say "huh, I didn't know that was still an issue" before moving on.
The truth is that you've carried countless conscious and unconscious biases with you for your entire life. You've just been protected from confronting those biases by a society willing to reinforce them.
Really, all this SJW stuff does is alienate the majority of society who are effectively neutral and maybe even mildly supportive to begin with.
So you believe that the status-quo should be preserved? Marginalized groups should stay on the outskirts of sciety, hidden away, to protect your precious social norms, and the privilege that grants you? You don't believe we should work towards a more egalitarian society?
I judge people on their merits and not their gender, race or sexuality.
Liar.
It seems they only care about ridiculous emojis
That's because it's a hot news topic. It's a topic that angers up the blood of powerless nerds, thus generating page views.
If you want to know about something other than emoji, you'll need to head over to unicode.org yourself. For example, there was a meeting in Cambridge a few days ago focused on improving support for Egyptian hieroglyphs. Last month, a group met at Berkeley to begin work on including Mayan hieroglyphs.
Last month, support was added for over 7500 characters, less than 1% of which were emoji, from a mix of modern and historic languages.
Just because you haven't heard about all the other work that's being done, doesn't mean that all they've been doing is fighting over emoji. The Unicode Consortium is large and varied, and most of the work, no matter how important, is dull and uninteresting to most people.
No the fact that they are emojis makes them useless.
On Slashdot, perhaps. The rest of the world wants to convey more than just bitter cynicism in their messages...
I think my point is made. You are incapable of answering the only question I've asked you: how you determine who is and is not a recipient of your compassion and empathy.
The answer, obviously, is that you can not. Not without making a deeply uncomfortable ethical compromise. That is, you can not stand by your claim that you have "no regret, no compassion, no empathy for people too stupid to survive. Ever."
I don't care if you just want to "win" a silly argument on the internet and won't admit it here, as long as you can admit it to yourself. You are very likely a much better person than your crass comment suggests. Your stubborn refusal to make the ethical compromise necessary to stand by that terrible comment suggests that.
... How will know?
The point? Don't discount Flappy Bird. Just because it didn't take three years and a research team to develop, does not mean it wasn't talented.
No talent involved, I'm afraid. Flappy Bird is, first, just another one-button helicopter game. Worse, it's a near identical clone of Piou Piou vs. Cactus, down to the look of the unfortunate protagonist! Some people have even claimed the code and some of the assets were purchased from one of those pre-built game kit sellers.
There was virtually no creativity or talent involved in the creation of Flappy Bird.
Keep moving that goal post. You stated, quite clearly:
But no regret, no compassion, no empathy for people too stupid to survive. Ever.
Can you choose to be "too stupid to survive"? That's incoherent. Obviously, being "too stupid to survive" is beyond the control of those "too stupid to survive".
Or do you mean "I have no compassion or empathy for people of otherwise normal intelligence who take unnecessary risks"? Well, that makes it easy for you to feel superior to anyone for any reason. (Let's face it, this is all about you feeling superior to an entire class of people.) I don't know that anyone has ever lived their entire life without taking an unnecessary risk. Most people take unnecessary risks every single day. I suspect you also take a fair number of unnecessary risks.
See, you can't actually sort-out what sort of person you think is unworthy of the same basic considerations you'd offer any person. Callous statements like the one you made are completely empty. The sort of nonsense you'd hear from self-righteous teens looking to bolster their own egos.
You're very likely a much better person than your comment suggests. If you give it a little thought, you'll find that you can't stand by your comment without making a deeply uncomfortable ethical compromise.
But no regret, no compassion, no empathy for people too stupid to survive. Ever.
People like children and those with intellectual disabilities...
Oh, not those people, right? You surely have compassion and empathy for them. Where do you draw the line? What sort of person do you actually have in mind? Who isn't worthy of the same consideration you so generously offer to others?
I know this might sound crazy, but it is possible to walk past a coffee shop, bakery, and even a fast-food restaurant without stopping to stuff your face with a 1000 calorie snack.
I swear, it's true.
Believe it or not, most people have emotional responses like "compassion" and "empathy".
Before you respond with some pro-eugenics screed, consider that people who lack the above traits would be among those on the chopping block...
You seem very intent on trying to convince me to maintain my own car. It's not going to happen.
You see what you want to see, and ignore what doesn't conform to your preconceptions. I can't do anything about that.
The point here, obviously, was that the parent was being grossly overcharged by his mechanic. Had he a bit more knowledge about the cost of parts and the time it takes to complete the labor, he wouldn't have been taken by his criminal mechanic's lies.
I couldn't care less if you maintain your own car, overpay for parts and labor, or slash your tires just for the opportunity to pay your local repair shop more.
That's cute, but there are innumerable reasons why MacOS maintains a tiny fraction of the desktop market (Various sources place this between 5 and 10 percent currently). Equally so for Linux (though they hold a smaller fraction of the desktop). Use whatever you like, but neither of those alternatives are, apparently, suitable for options for many users. At this point in time, alternatives like those are some people can, at best, "get away with running".
Even Apple's tiny share, in OS terms, might be in question. Back in early 2006, when the Intel Mac was still a hot topic, some 39% of Mac users planned to install boot camp, one survey reported. I can't find any current numbers (I suspect Apple wouldn't want us to know) but it seems that the ability to run Windows on a Mac is pretty important to Mac owners, given how much time and effort Apple has invested in that feature.
Linux is king of the server, but no one seems to want it on the desktop. It's free, and handles common tasks well, but that simply isn't enough to drive users to adopt it. Too many "can I ..." and "I want ..." questions are still answered by even the most committed Linux advocate with a "you can't, but..." response.
Whatever your personal feelings, Windows is, without question, the more useful desktop OS for the majority of users. That may change in the future, but I can't see it happening any time soon.
Product placement, as opposed to just buying a normal TV commercial, reeks of being sneaky and underhanded.
Apple relies heavily on product placement as a key part of their marketing efforts. They have for ages. If I were you, I'd find another talking point.
That's fine from Apple's perspective. I'm not so sure it's a net positive for consumers, however...
You're ignoring the 'equivalent time and facilities' bit.
No, I'm not. For the mechanic, that's already factored in to the average hourly rate for auto-mechanics in the US. On your side, your mistake is in thinking that by doing the job yourself, or finding a mechanic who charges a rate consistent with the rest of the country, that you'll spend (or not earn) more than what you'd paying the grossly overpriced mechanic. Not only are you are not continuously productive, but you'd lose a comparable amount of time completing the repair yourself as you would in arranging for it to be done, transporting the vehicle to the garage, and waiting for the work to be completed.
You're also forgetting that the $700 charge the above user paid is dramatically above what the average mechanic would charge for the same job -- even if that price includes parts.
For my car, changing out the rotors might easily cost $700.
Certainly not for the car in question. I have nothing but skepticism about this mysterious and highly unusual car that would require a mechanic with such specialized knowledge and skill that he could charge a rate 7 to 10 times higher than average.
I have no clue what the average of an exponential distribution is
First, it is trivial to compute the mean of an exponential distribution. Second, that statement is completely meaningless in the context of the average hourly rate changed by US auto-mechanics!
Basic statistics.
You might want to retake that course. It didn't stick.
There's more to basic maintenance than "brakes and oil".
Hence the "etc." at the end of my short list of examples. It was there to provide context to the reader, not to be a definitive guide to basic auto maintenance.
Thinking like this is why you can't trust a used car. The previous owner was probably some cheapskate that never properly maintained the thing.
Apparently not. In this particular case, the car appears to have been meticulously maintained by the previous owner.
If you ignore the "shiny shiny" you can get a safe, reliable car for less than 34K.
I got a safe and reliable care for less than 3k. I've managed this more than once, in fact. Buying used is only a gamble if you don't check out the car before you buy it.
I would charge a heck of a lot more than $700
For a task that takes less than an hour?
I'd prefer to spend the $700 and not have to deal with it.
I'd rather find a guy who charges a rate that isn't an order of magnitude above the average.
I don't understand it either. Buying new seems like a waste. I got my wife's car at an auction for about $2200 six years ago. (A seemingly spotless 1992 model with 80k miles on it.) Outside basic maintenance (brakes, oil, etc.), I have invested well-under $500 in repairs for it. She puts a lot of miles on her car (over 10k miles/year) yet with regular maintenance, I expect she'll easily get another 6 years out of it.
If it explodes tomorrow, it wouldn't matter. It's costs us less, maintenance included, over the past 6 years than a down-payment on a new car. The Slashdot crowd seems to get no more than 5-7 years out of their cars new, so I'd say I've got my money's worth out of it. It's like I had low down-payment, partially spread-out over the entire period of ownership, and a $0 monthly payment.
My current car, and the last two I've owned, have similar stories. I can't imagine getting only 5-7 years out of a car, let alone a new car. What are these guys doing to their vehicles?
This. Basic maintenance like that isn't difficult. It's well-worth the time and effort to learn to do those things yourself.
If that dude really paid $700 to replace a set of rotors, he needs to learn how to do basic maintenance himself. Even if he's not interested in doing the work, it'll help him spot dishonest scumbags posing as mechanics.
To the parent: Your mechanic sounds like a dishonest scumbag. Find someone else. You're getting hosed.
No, no it does not. Certainly not in the crawl or the early scenes. The crawl, for reference:
It is a period of civil war.
Rebel spaceships, striking
from a hidden base, have won
their first victory against
the evil Galactic Empire.
During the battle, Rebel
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the Empire's
ultimate weapon, the DEATH
STAR, an armored space
station with enough power
to destroy an entire planet.
Pursued by the Empire's
sinister agents, Princess
Leia races home aboard her
starship, custodian of the
stolen plans that can save her
people and restore
freedom to the galaxy...
Tarkin does say:
The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.
Which is pretty close, but certainly not a part you'd consider the opening.
My wife has a Fire tablet with ads. They're completely unobtrusive. They don't interrupt or delay you in any way.