I know this is feeding a troll (you are, after all, an AC), but I really can't help it...
you sound like a Goldman Sachs spokeperson
If the OP really did sound like Goldman Sachs, he wouldn't be criticizing the government! He'd be praising them for doing the right thing in a time of crisis. Remember that bailout? Didn't think so.
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And I did say you'd need to keep the keyboard, didn't I?
I acknowledged that, if you read the entire post:
The keyboard, however, will be here to stay, though I'm not sure why you suggested a shift away from mice and keyboards then turn around and implicate that the keyboard has to be required. Weird.
Why is it that liberal's answer to every problem is to throw more money at it? Certainly if we cut all other spending to the bone we could fund individual tutors for every student, free laptops, massages, anything. The question is this: who's responsibility is it to ensure students work hard and strive to achieve excellence? THE PARENTS. Not the government. End of story.
No amount of government spending can make up for bad parenting. Entitlement spending is a deep, dark, bottomless hole.
Not only that, but forcing another year of high school on smart students seems like punishment. I'm sure most of us can recall horror stories of our own public education (if we're from the US and went to public school) and, at the time, wanted nothing more than to get the hell outta dodge. After all, if the public education system has failed, why force another year of it onto the students to "train" them? That sounds to me to seem more like the real problem in our society: Punish those who succeed.
If nothing else, he should be advocating less time in high school. Place them in accelerated programs and graduate them early, give them scholarships to university--anything--but get them out of the public education system as quickly as possible. After all, if the students are "brainy," chances are they're more well motivated and organized than their peers and need to be challenge. Only university can provide them with the challenge they need.
You're right, though. It does smack of the entitlement mindset. I think it's really rather disgusting, because the system is so broken and rewards mediocrity so much more that forcing extra time for "more training" isn't going to accomplish anything. I really don't think that the solution to a broken system is to say "Hey, we know it's not working, but just give us another year of your lives and we'll promise to make it better."
Yeah, that's really going to work.
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(have you ever noticed how cumbersome it is to move windows and icons around on you desktop?)
I don't know what window manager you're using, but if it's that cumbersome, you should stop using it. Really.
Most *nix window managers allow you to move a window anywhere by holding alt, clicking, and dragging (I don't recall which mouse button, because it's an annoying feature that I always turn off) even if they're maximized. More importantly, the paradigm of "click-the-title-bar-and-drag" is fairly well-supported in just about everything except for a handful of domain specific WMs.
Now with multitouch navigation we are seeing people shift away from the mouse and keyboard....
The only thing you will have to keep from the old way of doing things is your keyboard.
Multitouch has its uses and it makes some tasks a lot easier. Unfortunately, the reason why keyboards will likely never disappear is because humans need tactile feedback (at least, if you're a touch typist). For casual sorts who always look at the keys when they type, I suppose it won't really matter. Remember, way back before 2000, there was a short but fairly significant airplay on some future tech shows (Beyond 2000, I think?) about drive-by-wire replacing the "antiquated" steering wheel and linkage. It's now 10+ years later, and I don't yet see that having taken over. Drivers will likely resist market forces that attempt to remove a certain degree of tactile feedback, because we don't rely exclusively on our eyes. Device interaction requires multiple senses, including touch. I do agree that multitouch does have its merits, and it would be absolutely ideal for teaching children technology, because touching things is far more natural to them and they're not apt to write lengthy dissertations at the age of 3 or 4. In fact, I think education and specifically young children would be the ideal target market for a device like this. (See aside below.)
The keyboard, however, will be here to stay, though I'm not sure why you suggested a shift away from mice and keyboards then turn around and implicate that the keyboard has to be required. Weird.
It's easy to see that a work environment with a number of "slate" computers could be much better than the monitor/keyboard/mouse layout.
I really hope your idea of a futuristic office doesn't ever come to fruition. I can't imagine trying to write code--or even WRITE in general--on a damn tablet. And let's not even talk about using a stylus--I type far faster than I can write by hand and no one wants to read my messy handwriting. I challenge you to provide an example work environment for which tablets would be be ideal. The only ones I can think of don't involve desk work--maybe managers at construction sites overlooking schematics or some such--but to suggest the outright replacement of traditional machines? You may want to lay off the Koolaid there.;)
Aside: When I was very young, perhaps in the first grade, I recall that we each had little chalkboards that were supplied by the school to learn how to write on. It was messy (but kids love messy), but it was exceedingly useful for learning how to write numbers, add, subtract, and even write words. It's been so long, I don't recall the specifics, but I can certainly see a circumstance where multitouch displays (so long as they were kid-proof) would be really useful for education. It's just a shame that no one really seems to think "Gee, while we're writing all these apps for adults and whatnot, maybe we should consider that the device would be more useful to other age groups, too!." Of course not--because we're too busy complaining about how the mail app doesn't work right or the on screen keyboard sucks so badly.
I read an article once--and I really wish I could find the link to it--about a guy who took his youngster to work and sat her in front of a
And what exactly do they think this will fix? As long as companies can hire illegals for pennies and get away with not having their business confiscated when they get caught it simply makes good business sense to hire them for chump change and fuck your fellow Americans. Go to any construction site in the south and yell "immigra" and see what happens...you've never seen a job site turn into a ghost town so fast in your life. As long as companies can get away with that and not lose their business this is gonna do exactly jack and shit about illegals.
That's what's so hilarious about this sort of proposal. If someone's here illegally, no sort of national ID card is going to do a damn bit of good. Chances are, no one's going to check it--especially (as you pointed out) at construction sites. They need labor, and if someone can lift a hammer, they're hired. It doesn't matter what their card says.
Of course, they could always make it a requirement to have a national ID card before you can purchase food. Or better yet: Let's limit fraud in health care by denying care to people who don't have a card (the politician who thought he'd get more votes by denying care to someone laying bleeding on the streets probably won't last long). That'll be the fastest way to make everyone on the right think "666."
Insofar as papers go, it's unfortunate but I think that's where we're heading. Once upon a time, I could travel between towns here in the southwest without having to stop (often) at checkpoints. Following 9/11, I can't go 80 miles without having to stop and answer 20 questions about where I'm going and why I'm going there. Sadly, extending powers to (and I suppose the creation of) the DHS has effectively turned us into a "show me your papers" country. That won't ever change.
I suppose it's due to the German airforce presence at a local airbase. Even though I do have some native American in me (and a bazillion other things, mostly European), being the pasty geek type must make me look more German than anything else to most of the border guards. Although, I've yet to really understand what threat the guards might see from someone they believe is European...
On a slightly related note (but most certainly not European): The one time I followed a Canadian couple driving an RV was fascinating. The guards grilled them for about 10 minutes.
I'm personally against capital punishment for a few reasons. We're all under the death penalty; nobody lives forever. But your death and mine is almost certain to be a horrible process; cancer, heart disease, accident, etc. Few people die peacefully in their sleep. OTOH, murderers are euthanized painlessly, like a beloved but aging pet. I say lock 'em up for the rest of their lives and make 'em suffer like you and I will. The dead have no problems; it's those of us who are left behind that suffer.
When you put it in that perspective, I can most certainly see the merit it holds. My disagreement is largely economical, but if your rationale were the sole reason the anti-death row crowd predominantly argued, I'd likely support it.
I may be a right wing nutjob, but at least I'm willing to listen (and possibly agree!) with opposing views. Thank you for enlightening me, mcgrew.
To paraphrase Goethe: those who know nothing of foreign systems, know nothing of their own.
I suspect I know the point you're attempting to make. It's wrong, and my statements were intentionally misleading. I have family overseas in Australia and England and know a fair amount about their medical systems as they have been kind enough to educate me. Hence, my last statement (in bold) was both an admission that I have no personal experience in their system (and therefore refuse to comment on it) as much as it was casting a hook into the waters to see if you'd bite. Thank you for humoring me. I was somewhat saddened since you didn't outright call me an ignorant American, but I'll take whatever I can get.
It's a personal preference of mine, but as I've gotten older, I've come to realize that personal experiences can be worth far more than simply devouring heresay or pre-processed media delivered to me by biased sources.
I follow American politics pretty closely. I have done that for years. Since I've spent about 1500 hours studying English in school, I might as well get some use out of it, right?
Yes, but I would strongly advise against following docu-dramas the likes of which Michael Moore produces. There are literally thousands and thousands of articles you can pick from the left or the right (this is in terms of American politics; I am aware that "left" and "right" have different implications in much of Europe) which are bound to be far more grounded in factual data than any of his films.
Maybe it's silly of me. Probably there are better hobbies. But I'm going to keep having an opinion about you whether you like it or not.
I'm not about to squelch your opinions, regardless of whether I agree with them or not. I do think it's disingenuous to offer criticisms of another nation's medical system based on what I can only surmise to be limited information (e.g. "Sicko" doesn't count). Hopefully I'm wrong, but you would most certainly do yourself a favor (if interested) in expanding your horizons into understanding the wide swaths of issues we have here in the United States due not necessarily to our vast real estate spread from sea to shining sea but from the borders we share with our neighbors. Here in the southwest, health care costs are startlingly tied to dozens of issues, including immigration, and this combined ordeal is something that most politicians are too afraid to touch.
No one is denied treatment in our system. Is it always the optimal treatment? Maybe not, but to exploit the extreme circumstance of an individual purportedly being denied the reattachment of specific digits is hardly symptomatic of the system at large.
I wouldn't call it irony, I'd call it hypocracy. Ever notice that most "right to life" people are also for the death penalty, and most "pro-choice" people are fine with drugs being illegal?
Eh, it happens on both sides of the fence. "Pro-choice" supporters (in terms of abortions) tend not to like the idea of criminals being put to death for rather gruesome crimes yet don't even flinch at the thought of aborting a fetus*. Personally? I don't see a problem with murderers and rapists being executed. They generally can't be rehabilitated and usually wind up committing further offenses. Putting them out of our misery would save jailing costs in the end. But that's a whole 'nother argument, and I can even see cases where it might be appropriate to sentence them to life without parole.
* And yes, I'm aware of the argument of whether the fetus is considered a child or not. I don't intend to raise that bit of the debate. I simply want to make a point that the hypocrisy exists on both sides, and I happen to be biased (and admit it). (I also find your journal fascinating; while I don't agree with your politics, it's enlightening to read an opposing view. Thank you.)
Just blanket sliming Moore won't convince me. I'm from Norway, I know very well that his portrayal of the system here (although comically rosy) was in all particulars honest.
I wouldn't rely on him for much factual information. This is, after all, the same gentleman who claimed the Columbine shooters had gone bowling the morning before committing their atrocious acts.
I live in a border state (near Mexico), and there are a significant number of county hospitals that are going bankrupt (or have already done so) precisely because they cannot turn anyone away. Our system is also a treat-first-ask-for-payment-later, the difference is that those who have insurance are paying for those who do not. So, I suppose it could be argued that it's a pseudo-social medicine system; except instead of the government, we're paying private companies.
(Admittedly this is a gross oversimplification as there are many reasons why health care costs in the US are so high, among them the insurance plans practitioners must purchase to protect them from litigation.)
It does annoy me that you're not a US citizen and are commenting on our circumstances based on little more than a false documentary and a handful of Google searches. Believe me, you're not liable to get the full picture--especially not for States like California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas that are faced with a non-trivial number of medical treatments for which payment is rendered by the insured through their premiums and not always the consumers of such care. I certainly wouldn't comment on systems in use by European countries because I don't damn well live there and have no experience to formulate an opinion.
In other words, our freedoms just got fucked because the Party In Power was paid off. This time around, it was the Democrats. Anyone who goes "but waah evil republicans paid off by the insurance industry to fight health care" is just a kool-aid drinking partisan dickweed.
Exactly. I think it's humorous that some media outlets are touting it as "universal health care." Forcing citizens to buy health care != universal health care. Sure, the bill has language in it that people who can't afford insurance are subsidized by the government but I suspect that bit is going to cause a lot of grief.
And that's to say nothing about the fact that the IRS has been placed in charge of ensuring people purchase insurance.
That's no ordinary electron. That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered subatomic particle you ever set eyes on.
I like how the summary reads almost exactly like that.
I confess that my first thoughts when reading about these evil electrons were to contemplate the likes of lightning. And maybe high voltage sources. After all, those can certainly damage electronics and harm human tissue. Oh, how dreadful!
Ah, but that's right. Lightning is a natural earth-based phenomenon. Pity it's so ordinary.
I mean, if an intruder came into my home, I would even for a second think about trying to hold a gun on them and say "STOP" or whatever. No, I assume the worst, that my life is in danger, and I'll only stop shooting the intruder while changing clips in the gun until they do not seem to be moving any more.
Oh man, that's exactly what my father used to tell me: "The only time you should stop shooting if someone breaks into your house is when you're reloading."
Likewise, he taught me something that those who live in states with strict gun laws will never fully appreciate until they move out into the back-country: An armed population is a polite population. I can't help but think that's a paraphrased quote from a work of Heinlein's, but I'm not so sure and I'm too lazy to Google it! Still, for those of us who do live in states where the second amendment hasn't been completely butchered, I find the adage most appropriate. (Coincidentally, I live in an open/concealed carry state.)
As an avowed foodie, there is absolutely no reason one needs to use trans fats. Ever. The only advantage they have over regular fats is shelf life, therefore cost. By banning them the playing field is leveled for everyone, and we can finally put that pox on humanity behind us forever.
Trans fats have been removed from your favorite foods for a few years now. Can you honestly say you can tell?
You mustn't be familiar with how politicians operate. Once something is successfully banned and the politician who introduced the legislation is praised, then everyone else comes up with ludicrous bills to ban various "bad" substances.
But contracts aren't subject to copyright protections, as they function as extensions of the Law, which cannot be copyrighted.
Never mind that the exact opposite is the theory under which Apple appears to be working. The points you bring up are indeed interesting and brings to mind the question: Would copyrighting a contract as in this case be upheld in court? I'd hope not.
I had something similar happen when I was using an old Logitech keyboard. It took me forever to discover that if you were to hit the right alt and right shift at approximately the same time on this particular keyboard (then release them), it would behave as if the right control key were depressed. The only way to reverse the situation was to press the right control a few times in the hopes it would return to "normal." It puzzled me the first few times, because I wound up killing open windows (unintentionally) and doing a variety of other unpleasant things. I was perplexed when it happened under both Gentoo and Windows (including without a window manager running in the former) and rebooting failed to resolve it. Furthermore, plugging in a second keyboard never fixed the problem because--surprise, surprise--the control key was behaving as if it were depressed from the original keyboard that started the whole mess.
It's humorous in retrospect, because once I discovered this magic key combination, I made a conscious decision to avoid pressing both right alt/right shift at the same time and if it did happen, I was aware that I could quickly fix it with a press of the control key. Further, since it would only happen whenever I'd play a particular game inside which I used those keys for action modifiers, I was convinced it was an issue with the game itself!
If you use an older keyboard, you may wish to experiment with various key combinations on the off-hand chance it's your keyboard and not your window manager. In my experience, the only way to get Firefox to behave as you've described it is to activate kiosk/full screen mode with the F11 key.
Doesn't hatin' on your own customers kind of put you in a similar moral position as those business owners who catered to the gay community in California but then turned around and voted against their equality? 'We'll take your money, but secretly we think you're pathetic...' No wonder you're posting as AC...;-p
But our language and terminology exists to facilitate exchange of ideas. Any term which encompasses so many so different bodies looses [sic] most of any usable meaning.
Pointing to the sky and saying that "most of those points of light are stars" seems to convey plenty of meaning to me. What's your point? By this sense of reasoning, "stars" and--by definition--"galaxies" are two terms that have no usable meaning.
And for that matter, so would other terms that exist to define specific populations: Americans, Canadians, Chinese, insects, cats, dogs, and so forth.
The early history of powered flight is littered with the corpses of the brave. Perhaps some of them were uninterested in comments too...
I would instead argue that culture then was somewhat different than it is now. We're far more disaster-adverse, and with the literal army of lawyers at the ready, any engineering oversight or mistake can be potentially career-ending without fatalities. I'm sure that many of the firsts in flight were accomplished with the knowledge that those involved might not make it back. It wasn't so much that airplane designers were opposed to criticism or commentary (there weren't likely to share their data in the face of competitors, though), it's that the current preoccupation we have with personal injury was virtually non-existent. Don't get me wrong--I'm not criticizing our advancements and caution--but it is important to understand that in the early 1900s up through the 1960-70s, our culture gradually grew more and more safety conscious. In the early days, for better or worse, the danger was part of the allure.
I don't think so. MS had about $40 billion (with a "b") in the bank prior to the recession. Doesn't seem like they're operating on razor thin margins to me.
Maybe they should wisely spend their security budget, and stop wasting money for things/policies that don't actually make anyone safer.
So what do you propose they do instead?
Here's what I imagine part of the problem is: If the airline industry didn't do anything to increase security measures as observed, they'd be damned by the public. They'd be doubly damned if another 9/11-like attack or hijacking occurred. So, they come up with ridiculous policies to make it appear as though they're doing something that's genuinely protecting the public at large.
Ultimately, there really isn't anything that can be done. 9/11 showed that a well-organized, well-planned attack can be performed regardless of the security measures in place. Anyone determined enough could doubtlessly circumvent the draconian policies we have for air travel now. The difference? It looks like they're actually doing something.
I might also remind you that no one was expecting an attack of the magnitude we saw on Sept. 11th.
Except on BSD systems, which only accept arguments before other arguments. This prevents someone from putting a file called -rf in a directory, so when you run rm * the -rf won't be expanded and treated as an argument.
Which BSD?
FreeBSD:
[vbox:example]$ ls -l total 0 [vbox:example]$ touch -- file1 file2 file3 file4 -rf [vbox:example]$ mkdir dir [vbox:example]$ ls -l total 2 -rw-r--r-- 1 test test 0 Oct 24 16:16 -rf drwxr-xr-x 2 test test 512 Oct 24 16:16 dir -rw-r--r-- 1 test test 0 Oct 24 16:16 file1 -rw-r--r-- 1 test test 0 Oct 24 16:16 file2 -rw-r--r-- 1 test test 0 Oct 24 16:16 file3 -rw-r--r-- 1 test test 0 Oct 24 16:16 file4 [vbox:example]$ rm * [vbox:example]$ ls -l total 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 test test 0 Oct 24 16:16 -rf
I assume you're talking about a specific shell or rm binary--AFAIK, they all exhibit the same behavior in recent releases.
Well, you can buy music all over the place. But for the vast, vast majority of online music buyers when they think 'I want to buy a song', they think 'iTunes'. Apple (and other independent research firms) put their online music market share at something like 80%. That's certainly not a monopoly in the legal sense, but it is in the practical sense.
Huh, that's funny. Most of the people I know who look for music online immediately think of Amazon. With Amazon's MP3 service now having been around for quite a while, I hear less about "I'll find it on iTunes" and more about "Lemme get it from Amazon."
I think the term you're looking for isn't monopoly. It's "mindshare," and even then, I think mindshare is something Apple has been losing to companies like Amazon. That's a good thing.
Slashdot Mirror
And if that URL just isn't long enough, try here.
I know this is feeding a troll (you are, after all, an AC), but I really can't help it...
If the OP really did sound like Goldman Sachs, he wouldn't be criticizing the government! He'd be praising them for doing the right thing in a time of crisis. Remember that bailout? Didn't think so.
I acknowledged that, if you read the entire post:
Not only that, but forcing another year of high school on smart students seems like punishment. I'm sure most of us can recall horror stories of our own public education (if we're from the US and went to public school) and, at the time, wanted nothing more than to get the hell outta dodge. After all, if the public education system has failed, why force another year of it onto the students to "train" them? That sounds to me to seem more like the real problem in our society: Punish those who succeed.
If nothing else, he should be advocating less time in high school. Place them in accelerated programs and graduate them early, give them scholarships to university--anything--but get them out of the public education system as quickly as possible. After all, if the students are "brainy," chances are they're more well motivated and organized than their peers and need to be challenge. Only university can provide them with the challenge they need.
You're right, though. It does smack of the entitlement mindset. I think it's really rather disgusting, because the system is so broken and rewards mediocrity so much more that forcing extra time for "more training" isn't going to accomplish anything. I really don't think that the solution to a broken system is to say "Hey, we know it's not working, but just give us another year of your lives and we'll promise to make it better."
Yeah, that's really going to work.
I don't know what window manager you're using, but if it's that cumbersome, you should stop using it. Really.
Most *nix window managers allow you to move a window anywhere by holding alt, clicking, and dragging (I don't recall which mouse button, because it's an annoying feature that I always turn off) even if they're maximized. More importantly, the paradigm of "click-the-title-bar-and-drag" is fairly well-supported in just about everything except for a handful of domain specific WMs.
Multitouch has its uses and it makes some tasks a lot easier. Unfortunately, the reason why keyboards will likely never disappear is because humans need tactile feedback (at least, if you're a touch typist). For casual sorts who always look at the keys when they type, I suppose it won't really matter. Remember, way back before 2000, there was a short but fairly significant airplay on some future tech shows (Beyond 2000, I think?) about drive-by-wire replacing the "antiquated" steering wheel and linkage. It's now 10+ years later, and I don't yet see that having taken over. Drivers will likely resist market forces that attempt to remove a certain degree of tactile feedback, because we don't rely exclusively on our eyes. Device interaction requires multiple senses, including touch. I do agree that multitouch does have its merits, and it would be absolutely ideal for teaching children technology, because touching things is far more natural to them and they're not apt to write lengthy dissertations at the age of 3 or 4. In fact, I think education and specifically young children would be the ideal target market for a device like this. (See aside below.)
The keyboard, however, will be here to stay, though I'm not sure why you suggested a shift away from mice and keyboards then turn around and implicate that the keyboard has to be required. Weird.
I really hope your idea of a futuristic office doesn't ever come to fruition. I can't imagine trying to write code--or even WRITE in general--on a damn tablet. And let's not even talk about using a stylus--I type far faster than I can write by hand and no one wants to read my messy handwriting. I challenge you to provide an example work environment for which tablets would be be ideal. The only ones I can think of don't involve desk work--maybe managers at construction sites overlooking schematics or some such--but to suggest the outright replacement of traditional machines? You may want to lay off the Koolaid there. ;)
Aside: When I was very young, perhaps in the first grade, I recall that we each had little chalkboards that were supplied by the school to learn how to write on. It was messy (but kids love messy), but it was exceedingly useful for learning how to write numbers, add, subtract, and even write words. It's been so long, I don't recall the specifics, but I can certainly see a circumstance where multitouch displays (so long as they were kid-proof) would be really useful for education. It's just a shame that no one really seems to think "Gee, while we're writing all these apps for adults and whatnot, maybe we should consider that the device would be more useful to other age groups, too!." Of course not--because we're too busy complaining about how the mail app doesn't work right or the on screen keyboard sucks so badly.
I read an article once--and I really wish I could find the link to it--about a guy who took his youngster to work and sat her in front of a
That's what's so hilarious about this sort of proposal. If someone's here illegally, no sort of national ID card is going to do a damn bit of good. Chances are, no one's going to check it--especially (as you pointed out) at construction sites. They need labor, and if someone can lift a hammer, they're hired. It doesn't matter what their card says.
Of course, they could always make it a requirement to have a national ID card before you can purchase food. Or better yet: Let's limit fraud in health care by denying care to people who don't have a card (the politician who thought he'd get more votes by denying care to someone laying bleeding on the streets probably won't last long). That'll be the fastest way to make everyone on the right think "666."
Insofar as papers go, it's unfortunate but I think that's where we're heading. Once upon a time, I could travel between towns here in the southwest without having to stop (often) at checkpoints. Following 9/11, I can't go 80 miles without having to stop and answer 20 questions about where I'm going and why I'm going there. Sadly, extending powers to (and I suppose the creation of) the DHS has effectively turned us into a "show me your papers" country. That won't ever change.
I suppose it's due to the German airforce presence at a local airbase. Even though I do have some native American in me (and a bazillion other things, mostly European), being the pasty geek type must make me look more German than anything else to most of the border guards. Although, I've yet to really understand what threat the guards might see from someone they believe is European...
On a slightly related note (but most certainly not European): The one time I followed a Canadian couple driving an RV was fascinating. The guards grilled them for about 10 minutes.
Nope, but feel free to elaborate. If you can.
When you put it in that perspective, I can most certainly see the merit it holds. My disagreement is largely economical, but if your rationale were the sole reason the anti-death row crowd predominantly argued, I'd likely support it.
I may be a right wing nutjob, but at least I'm willing to listen (and possibly agree!) with opposing views. Thank you for enlightening me, mcgrew.
I suspect I know the point you're attempting to make. It's wrong, and my statements were intentionally misleading. I have family overseas in Australia and England and know a fair amount about their medical systems as they have been kind enough to educate me. Hence, my last statement (in bold) was both an admission that I have no personal experience in their system (and therefore refuse to comment on it) as much as it was casting a hook into the waters to see if you'd bite. Thank you for humoring me. I was somewhat saddened since you didn't outright call me an ignorant American, but I'll take whatever I can get.
It's a personal preference of mine, but as I've gotten older, I've come to realize that personal experiences can be worth far more than simply devouring heresay or pre-processed media delivered to me by biased sources.
Yes, but I would strongly advise against following docu-dramas the likes of which Michael Moore produces. There are literally thousands and thousands of articles you can pick from the left or the right (this is in terms of American politics; I am aware that "left" and "right" have different implications in much of Europe) which are bound to be far more grounded in factual data than any of his films.
I'm not about to squelch your opinions, regardless of whether I agree with them or not. I do think it's disingenuous to offer criticisms of another nation's medical system based on what I can only surmise to be limited information (e.g. "Sicko" doesn't count). Hopefully I'm wrong, but you would most certainly do yourself a favor (if interested) in expanding your horizons into understanding the wide swaths of issues we have here in the United States due not necessarily to our vast real estate spread from sea to shining sea but from the borders we share with our neighbors. Here in the southwest, health care costs are startlingly tied to dozens of issues, including immigration, and this combined ordeal is something that most politicians are too afraid to touch.
No one is denied treatment in our system. Is it always the optimal treatment? Maybe not, but to exploit the extreme circumstance of an individual purportedly being denied the reattachment of specific digits is hardly symptomatic of the system at large.
Eh, it happens on both sides of the fence. "Pro-choice" supporters (in terms of abortions) tend not to like the idea of criminals being put to death for rather gruesome crimes yet don't even flinch at the thought of aborting a fetus*. Personally? I don't see a problem with murderers and rapists being executed. They generally can't be rehabilitated and usually wind up committing further offenses. Putting them out of our misery would save jailing costs in the end. But that's a whole 'nother argument, and I can even see cases where it might be appropriate to sentence them to life without parole.
* And yes, I'm aware of the argument of whether the fetus is considered a child or not. I don't intend to raise that bit of the debate. I simply want to make a point that the hypocrisy exists on both sides, and I happen to be biased (and admit it). (I also find your journal fascinating; while I don't agree with your politics, it's enlightening to read an opposing view. Thank you.)
I wouldn't rely on him for much factual information. This is, after all, the same gentleman who claimed the Columbine shooters had gone bowling the morning before committing their atrocious acts.
I live in a border state (near Mexico), and there are a significant number of county hospitals that are going bankrupt (or have already done so) precisely because they cannot turn anyone away. Our system is also a treat-first-ask-for-payment-later, the difference is that those who have insurance are paying for those who do not. So, I suppose it could be argued that it's a pseudo-social medicine system; except instead of the government, we're paying private companies.
(Admittedly this is a gross oversimplification as there are many reasons why health care costs in the US are so high, among them the insurance plans practitioners must purchase to protect them from litigation.)
It does annoy me that you're not a US citizen and are commenting on our circumstances based on little more than a false documentary and a handful of Google searches. Believe me, you're not liable to get the full picture--especially not for States like California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas that are faced with a non-trivial number of medical treatments for which payment is rendered by the insured through their premiums and not always the consumers of such care. I certainly wouldn't comment on systems in use by European countries because I don't damn well live there and have no experience to formulate an opinion.
Exactly. I think it's humorous that some media outlets are touting it as "universal health care." Forcing citizens to buy health care != universal health care. Sure, the bill has language in it that people who can't afford insurance are subsidized by the government but I suspect that bit is going to cause a lot of grief.
And that's to say nothing about the fact that the IRS has been placed in charge of ensuring people purchase insurance.
I like how the summary reads almost exactly like that.
I confess that my first thoughts when reading about these evil electrons were to contemplate the likes of lightning. And maybe high voltage sources. After all, those can certainly damage electronics and harm human tissue. Oh, how dreadful!
Ah, but that's right. Lightning is a natural earth-based phenomenon. Pity it's so ordinary.
Oh man, that's exactly what my father used to tell me: "The only time you should stop shooting if someone breaks into your house is when you're reloading."
Likewise, he taught me something that those who live in states with strict gun laws will never fully appreciate until they move out into the back-country: An armed population is a polite population. I can't help but think that's a paraphrased quote from a work of Heinlein's, but I'm not so sure and I'm too lazy to Google it! Still, for those of us who do live in states where the second amendment hasn't been completely butchered, I find the adage most appropriate. (Coincidentally, I live in an open/concealed carry state.)
You mustn't be familiar with how politicians operate. Once something is successfully banned and the politician who introduced the legislation is praised, then everyone else comes up with ludicrous bills to ban various "bad" substances.
Jeez, isn't that just salt on the wound!
(Okay! I'll stop!)
Never mind that the exact opposite is the theory under which Apple appears to be working. The points you bring up are indeed interesting and brings to mind the question: Would copyrighting a contract as in this case be upheld in court? I'd hope not.
I had something similar happen when I was using an old Logitech keyboard. It took me forever to discover that if you were to hit the right alt and right shift at approximately the same time on this particular keyboard (then release them), it would behave as if the right control key were depressed. The only way to reverse the situation was to press the right control a few times in the hopes it would return to "normal." It puzzled me the first few times, because I wound up killing open windows (unintentionally) and doing a variety of other unpleasant things. I was perplexed when it happened under both Gentoo and Windows (including without a window manager running in the former) and rebooting failed to resolve it. Furthermore, plugging in a second keyboard never fixed the problem because--surprise, surprise--the control key was behaving as if it were depressed from the original keyboard that started the whole mess.
It's humorous in retrospect, because once I discovered this magic key combination, I made a conscious decision to avoid pressing both right alt/right shift at the same time and if it did happen, I was aware that I could quickly fix it with a press of the control key. Further, since it would only happen whenever I'd play a particular game inside which I used those keys for action modifiers, I was convinced it was an issue with the game itself!
If you use an older keyboard, you may wish to experiment with various key combinations on the off-hand chance it's your keyboard and not your window manager. In my experience, the only way to get Firefox to behave as you've described it is to activate kiosk/full screen mode with the F11 key.
That's just the thing... a printed key is just one washing machine away from complete and total disaster at the data center.
I take it you've never worked technical support?
Pointing to the sky and saying that "most of those points of light are stars" seems to convey plenty of meaning to me. What's your point? By this sense of reasoning, "stars" and--by definition--"galaxies" are two terms that have no usable meaning.
And for that matter, so would other terms that exist to define specific populations: Americans, Canadians, Chinese, insects, cats, dogs, and so forth.
I would instead argue that culture then was somewhat different than it is now. We're far more disaster-adverse, and with the literal army of lawyers at the ready, any engineering oversight or mistake can be potentially career-ending without fatalities. I'm sure that many of the firsts in flight were accomplished with the knowledge that those involved might not make it back. It wasn't so much that airplane designers were opposed to criticism or commentary (there weren't likely to share their data in the face of competitors, though), it's that the current preoccupation we have with personal injury was virtually non-existent. Don't get me wrong--I'm not criticizing our advancements and caution--but it is important to understand that in the early 1900s up through the 1960-70s, our culture gradually grew more and more safety conscious. In the early days, for better or worse, the danger was part of the allure.
I don't think so. MS had about $40 billion (with a "b") in the bank prior to the recession. Doesn't seem like they're operating on razor thin margins to me.
So what do you propose they do instead?
Here's what I imagine part of the problem is: If the airline industry didn't do anything to increase security measures as observed, they'd be damned by the public. They'd be doubly damned if another 9/11-like attack or hijacking occurred. So, they come up with ridiculous policies to make it appear as though they're doing something that's genuinely protecting the public at large.
Ultimately, there really isn't anything that can be done. 9/11 showed that a well-organized, well-planned attack can be performed regardless of the security measures in place. Anyone determined enough could doubtlessly circumvent the draconian policies we have for air travel now. The difference? It looks like they're actually doing something.
I might also remind you that no one was expecting an attack of the magnitude we saw on Sept. 11th.
Which BSD?
FreeBSD:
I assume you're talking about a specific shell or rm binary--AFAIK, they all exhibit the same behavior in recent releases.
Huh, that's funny. Most of the people I know who look for music online immediately think of Amazon. With Amazon's MP3 service now having been around for quite a while, I hear less about "I'll find it on iTunes" and more about "Lemme get it from Amazon."
I think the term you're looking for isn't monopoly. It's "mindshare," and even then, I think mindshare is something Apple has been losing to companies like Amazon. That's a good thing.