In the words of Batman: "A gun is a coward's weapon. A liar's weapon. We kill because we've made it too easy. Sparing ourselves the work... and the mess..."
I don't have stats about kids accidently killing themselves with guns they find in their parent's closet, but I'm sure it happens. A lot.
Sorry, kiddo, but unless you back this up with some facts, it's pointless supposition, and as such, has absolutely no value.
I guess the other argument would be to not throw anything, don't piss him off, and let him take what he wants. [...] But you live. And hopefully he'll get caught by the authorities later.
Cool! Be a dear and tell this to every woman on my campus. I'm going to go serial-rapin' tonight! (Humor-impaired: I'm making a point. I'd prefer not to see cops at my door when I get back home tonight.)
The guns-as-historical-right is a crock. Why aren't you arguing for the right of everyone to keep a catapault, or longbow or sharp pointy stick?
Because no one is trying to take away those rights. Pretty obvious, eh?
Until your neighbour gets a bigger gun.
No, see, you're missing the point. Death comes one per customer. A.38 Special will kill someone just as dead as a.44 Magnum, a gatling gun or a howitzer. The primary point of a firearm is to act as a deterrent---to cause the assailant to think that there might be grave personal risk in the assault, and so call it off. I don't care how big your gun is, it's still a risk for you to assault me if I also have one.
Unless you have an orbital laser platform. But in that case, I think it's a slightly different issue.
Sure, there are tons of armed robberies done with bare hands;-)
Okay, how about twenty big, angry men with pipes? Remember, no one has guns. Hey, I bet the twenty big, angry men with pipes could take over the whole country! Cool!
(And one day, they'll create a board with a nail through it so big... it will destroy them all!!!)
Hey, all the TV I watch is downloaded from IRC or ShareReactor. (Hence, the incredible assness of the commercials is especially shocking when I actually see one.) I'd argue that there's a difference between crap you tune in for and crap that you get no matter what. If I (assuming I had a TV) decide to watch some TNG episode, I'm making the choice to do so, even if it's a crapulent season one ep. The commercials, on the other hand, are (a) universally crapulent, and (b) everywhere.
(But, yeah, most of it is crap. I still watch Buffy (this season can't suck as bad as the last one did!), Star Trek (original), Star Trek: TNG and The X-Files (still on season one); I get a high opinion of TV, and then when I actually see something on TV, it sucks! Seriously, who approves that crap but cancels Farscape?)
See, that's tweny minutes, or thirty-three percent crap. Now, if you look at old episodes of, say, Star Trek (the original series), they average fifty-two to fifty-six minutes per episode. Let's say fifty-four, to make a nice average. That means that television was about ten percent crap.
Conclusion: the amount of commercial-minute per actual TV-minute is now three times what it was in the sixties.
One more time: we are watching three times as many commercials. And they dare to call it an "hour"? Pfah!
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad. Homer: Thank you, dear. Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away. Homer: Oh, how does it work? Lisa: It doesn't work. Homer: Uh-huh. Lisa: It's just a stupid rock. Homer: Uh-huh. Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you? [Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money] Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock. [Lisa refuses at first, then takes the exchange]
Bullshit. The Laffer Curve takes effect at tax rates of eighty or ninety percent, not twenty or thirty as we have here. There are good reasons to drop taxes (for actual people, not just keiretsus and Enron flunkies), but the Laffer Curve ain't one of 'em.
(The Laffer Curve says that when taxation reaches a certain level, increasing taxes will actually decrease tax revenue, because people will not be motivated to work if they can't keep any of their money.)
You're assuming that each of those 450 parts, if it individually fails, will cause a disaster. I really don't think there are that many "mission-critical" pieces. That's why we have backups, folks.
Are you referring to Spielberg's mangling of "Minority Report"? Where you could almost see the staples where he saw Philip K Dick's dark vision (you know the story originally ended with Anderton in deep-freeze---I haven't been able to find a copy, but it's gotta be) and said "that's great, but do you know what would make it even better? A happy ending!"
On the other hand, Alex Proyas is responsible for some the best sci-fi visuals of the last ten years in "Dark City". (Should be required watching for George Lucas.) Even if the story gets mangled, it will still look cool.
All this audiophile nonsense, what with the insanely expensive power cables and such, smacks of simple elitism. "Look, I can spend twice as much as you! Hence, my audio is better, and I can appreciate it more than you can!"
I consider my low standards for audio a blessing. (Especially since I can't afford 'good' equipment.) If I don't hear a problem, then I define my solution as "good enough". It's cheaper, easier and I bet I get just as much out of my music as anyone else does.
And besides, if audiophiles were so nuts about quality, why don't they do more double-blind tests? Scared they'll discover that their A$240 power cable doesn't present an improvement over the freebie they picked out of the trash bin?
Holy shit, you'd better watch out! The New Digital Media Entirely Outrageous Paradigm Police will be hot on your trail, now that you've uncovered their simple yet dastardly plan to cram more and more expensive, breakable, fault-intolerant electronic crap into previously reliable objects that really, really don't need it.
Where do we send thank-you cards or fruitbaskets? Emails, too, of course, but it's important to let the folks at ATI know that we appreciate their support of the Linux community, and somehow fruitbaskets seem to speak louder than electrons.
There's a lovely biography of him here. Note the highlights: dead twin sister inspiring themes of duality, depression leading to meth addiction leading to incredible productivity but also debilitating paranoia. Also, the incredibly weird beliefs. "This system took the form of a ship in outer space, delivering highly concentrated doses of information to him through beams of pink light."
Also note the suggestion that Mulder's search for his sister on The X-Files is one big PKD homage.
The story of Anakin is not so much a fall from grace as a slight trip - you can believe that he becomes Darth Vader...
What?! That whiny little bitch, become the badder-than-Marsellus-Wallace "if this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador?" or "I find your lack of faith disturbing" Vader we all remember? Never!
You had me all through the crackhead interpretation of his work---that Heinlein wrote his characters as cautionary examples---but I think the gratuitous reference to "M$" was a bit much.
Nothing so elaborate is needed. Americans already tune out reality with just a simple two-dimensional display device, with zero interactivity to boot.
Anyone remember Fahrenheit 451?
"I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it's not bad at all. You heave them into the 'parlour' and turn the switch. It's like washing clothes; stuff laundry in and slam the lid." Mrs. Bowles tittered. "They'd just as soon kick as kiss me. Thank God, I can kick back!"
Ainulindale, the music of the Ainur. It began with Eru, the One, whom the Elves call Iluvatar. His thoughts became the Ainur, the most mighty of whom were called the Valar (the others were Maiar). As Iluvatar created and shaped Arda, the world, Melkor, mightiest of the Valar, tried to shape the world in his image, to achieve dominance. He rebelled against Iluvatar and was from then on known as Morgoth.
Valaquenta. Mostly an enumeration of the fourteen Valar (after his fall, Melkor was not counted among them), and the most important of the Maiar, such as Sauron and the Balrogs.
Quenta Silmarillion. Something about two lamps being destroyed by Morgoth and the Sun and Moon being created to replace them. The First Age starts with the creation of the Sun and ends with Morgoth's final defeat by the Valar. There's some stuff about Silmarils in there, too.
Akallabeth. As a reward for their service to the Valar, the men who fought with them (the Dunedain, "men of the west") were given a great island which they called Numenor. They built a great empire, but were deceived by Sauron, who told them that if they defeated the Valar and took possession of their forbidden land, Valinor, that they too would become immortal. The last king of Numenor, Ar-Pharazon, tried this, and the Valar called upon Iluvatar to reshape the world. Numenor sunk into the sea (though a few escaped), and Valinor was removed from the plane of the world.
Of The Rings of Power and the Third Age. Sauron forges the twenty rings of power. The Last Alliance of men and elves defeats him, ending the Second Age. Isildur refuses to destroy the ring; he is killed by the orcs and it is lost. It passes to Gollum, and that's where LOTR begins.
This is from a quick skimming of The Encyclopedia of Arda. See, when "Gil-galad" or "Morgoth" are mentioned, I can look them up and find out what the heck he's talking about.
If someone has actually read the Silmarillion, feel free to correct me. I'm leaving out quite a bit and possible screwing other stuff up. (For instance, the dwarves were first-created after the Ainur, but the elves awoke first.)
*shrug* All I did was google for it. But it seems plausible that that distance was measured and the platinum-iridium bar was created to match it---it would be much, much easier to go by a canonical bar than a measurement of the planet, I suppose.
The meter (m) is the Si unit of length and is defined as the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during the time interval of 1/299792458 of a second.[3] This replaces the two previous definitions of the meter: the original adopted by CGPM in 1889 based on a platinum-iridium prototype bar, and a definition adopted in 1960 based on a krypton86 radiation from an electrical discharge lamp. In each case, the change in definition achieved not only an increase in accuracy, but also progress toward the goal of using fundamental physical quantities as standards, in particular, the quantum mechanical characteristics of atomic systems.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed. Ever read "The Dark Knight Returns"?
In the words of Batman: "A gun is a coward's weapon. A liar's weapon. We kill because we've made it too easy. Sparing ourselves the work... and the mess..."
--grendel drago
I don't have stats about kids accidently killing themselves with guns they find in their parent's closet, but I'm sure it happens. A lot.
.38 Special will kill someone just as dead as a .44 Magnum, a gatling gun or a howitzer. The primary point of a firearm is to act as a deterrent---to cause the assailant to think that there might be grave personal risk in the assault, and so call it off. I don't care how big your gun is, it's still a risk for you to assault me if I also have one.
Sorry, kiddo, but unless you back this up with some facts, it's pointless supposition, and as such, has absolutely no value.
I guess the other argument would be to not throw anything, don't piss him off, and let him take what he wants. [...] But you live. And hopefully he'll get caught by the authorities later.
Cool! Be a dear and tell this to every woman on my campus. I'm going to go serial-rapin' tonight! (Humor-impaired: I'm making a point. I'd prefer not to see cops at my door when I get back home tonight.)
The guns-as-historical-right is a crock. Why aren't you arguing for the right of everyone to keep a catapault, or longbow or sharp pointy stick?
Because no one is trying to take away those rights. Pretty obvious, eh?
Until your neighbour gets a bigger gun.
No, see, you're missing the point. Death comes one per customer. A
Unless you have an orbital laser platform. But in that case, I think it's a slightly different issue.
--grendel drago
Uh, the Swiss are more religious about their guns than pretty much any other nation. The BBC has the story.
(Note the stunning lack of gun crime in Switzerland.)
--grendel drago
Sure, there are tons of armed robberies done with bare hands ;-)
Okay, how about twenty big, angry men with pipes? Remember, no one has guns. Hey, I bet the twenty big, angry men with pipes could take over the whole country! Cool!
(And one day, they'll create a board with a nail through it so big... it will destroy them all!!!)
--grendel drago
Hey, all the TV I watch is downloaded from IRC or ShareReactor. (Hence, the incredible assness of the commercials is especially shocking when I actually see one.) I'd argue that there's a difference between crap you tune in for and crap that you get no matter what. If I (assuming I had a TV) decide to watch some TNG episode, I'm making the choice to do so, even if it's a crapulent season one ep. The commercials, on the other hand, are (a) universally crapulent, and (b) everywhere.
(But, yeah, most of it is crap. I still watch Buffy (this season can't suck as bad as the last one did!), Star Trek (original), Star Trek: TNG and The X-Files (still on season one); I get a high opinion of TV, and then when I actually see something on TV, it sucks! Seriously, who approves that crap but cancels Farscape?)
--grendel drago
Americans are UnAmerican!!
If you help the Americans, then the terrorists have already won!
--grendel drago
See, that's tweny minutes, or thirty-three percent crap. Now, if you look at old episodes of, say, Star Trek (the original series), they average fifty-two to fifty-six minutes per episode. Let's say fifty-four, to make a nice average. That means that television was about ten percent crap.
Conclusion: the amount of commercial-minute per actual TV-minute is now three times what it was in the sixties.
One more time: we are watching three times as many commercials. And they dare to call it an "hour"? Pfah!
--grendel drago
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
[Lisa refuses at first, then takes the exchange]
--Simpsons [3F20], "Much Apu About Nothing"
Bullshit. The Laffer Curve takes effect at tax rates of eighty or ninety percent, not twenty or thirty as we have here. There are good reasons to drop taxes (for actual people, not just keiretsus and Enron flunkies), but the Laffer Curve ain't one of 'em.
(The Laffer Curve says that when taxation reaches a certain level, increasing taxes will actually decrease tax revenue, because people will not be motivated to work if they can't keep any of their money.)
--grendel drago
You're assuming that each of those 450 parts, if it individually fails, will cause a disaster. I really don't think there are that many "mission-critical" pieces. That's why we have backups, folks.
--grendel drago
Does that mean that this is an homage?
--grendel drago
Say, have you ever read Kings of the High Frontier?
--grendel drago
Are you referring to Spielberg's mangling of "Minority Report"? Where you could almost see the staples where he saw Philip K Dick's dark vision (you know the story originally ended with Anderton in deep-freeze---I haven't been able to find a copy, but it's gotta be) and said "that's great, but do you know what would make it even better? A happy ending!"
On the other hand, Alex Proyas is responsible for some the best sci-fi visuals of the last ten years in "Dark City". (Should be required watching for George Lucas.) Even if the story gets mangled, it will still look cool.
A-bloody-men!
All this audiophile nonsense, what with the insanely expensive power cables and such, smacks of simple elitism. "Look, I can spend twice as much as you! Hence, my audio is better, and I can appreciate it more than you can!"
I consider my low standards for audio a blessing. (Especially since I can't afford 'good' equipment.) If I don't hear a problem, then I define my solution as "good enough". It's cheaper, easier and I bet I get just as much out of my music as anyone else does.
And besides, if audiophiles were so nuts about quality, why don't they do more double-blind tests? Scared they'll discover that their A$240 power cable doesn't present an improvement over the freebie they picked out of the trash bin?
I swear, these people are crazy.
--grendel drago
Holy shit, you'd better watch out! The New Digital Media Entirely Outrageous Paradigm Police will be hot on your trail, now that you've uncovered their simple yet dastardly plan to cram more and more expensive, breakable, fault-intolerant electronic crap into previously reliable objects that really, really don't need it.
--grendel drago
Where do we send thank-you cards or fruitbaskets? Emails, too, of course, but it's important to let the folks at ATI know that we appreciate their support of the Linux community, and somehow fruitbaskets seem to speak louder than electrons.
--grendel drago
His middle name was "Kindred". That's just weird.
There's a lovely biography of him here. Note the highlights: dead twin sister inspiring themes of duality, depression leading to meth addiction leading to incredible productivity but also debilitating paranoia. Also, the incredibly weird beliefs. "This system took the form of a ship in outer space, delivering highly concentrated doses of information to him through beams of pink light."
Also note the suggestion that Mulder's search for his sister on The X-Files is one big PKD homage.
--grendel drago
The story of Anakin is not so much a fall from grace as a slight trip - you can believe that he becomes Darth Vader...
What?! That whiny little bitch, become the badder-than-Marsellus-Wallace "if this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador?" or "I find your lack of faith disturbing" Vader we all remember? Never!
--grendel drago
Heinlein hated the idea of women-as-cattle that conventional culturalists consider "proper".
Err... I'm a little fuzzy on what you mean here. Could you explain?
--grendel drago
You had me all through the crackhead interpretation of his work---that Heinlein wrote his characters as cautionary examples---but I think the gratuitous reference to "M$" was a bit much.
--grendel drago
Nothing so elaborate is needed. Americans already tune out reality with just a simple two-dimensional display device, with zero interactivity to boot.
Anyone remember Fahrenheit 451?
"I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it's not bad at all. You heave them into the 'parlour' and turn the switch. It's like washing clothes; stuff laundry in and slam the lid." Mrs. Bowles tittered. "They'd just as soon kick as kiss me. Thank God, I can kick back!"
The women showed their tongues, laughing.
--grendel drago
Actually, there is a plot. There are five parts.
Ainulindale, the music of the Ainur. It began with Eru, the One, whom the Elves call Iluvatar. His thoughts became the Ainur, the most mighty of whom were called the Valar (the others were Maiar). As Iluvatar created and shaped Arda, the world, Melkor, mightiest of the Valar, tried to shape the world in his image, to achieve dominance. He rebelled against Iluvatar and was from then on known as Morgoth.
Valaquenta. Mostly an enumeration of the fourteen Valar (after his fall, Melkor was not counted among them), and the most important of the Maiar, such as Sauron and the Balrogs.
Quenta Silmarillion. Something about two lamps being destroyed by Morgoth and the Sun and Moon being created to replace them. The First Age starts with the creation of the Sun and ends with Morgoth's final defeat by the Valar. There's some stuff about Silmarils in there, too.
Akallabeth. As a reward for their service to the Valar, the men who fought with them (the Dunedain, "men of the west") were given a great island which they called Numenor. They built a great empire, but were deceived by Sauron, who told them that if they defeated the Valar and took possession of their forbidden land, Valinor, that they too would become immortal. The last king of Numenor, Ar-Pharazon, tried this, and the Valar called upon Iluvatar to reshape the world. Numenor sunk into the sea (though a few escaped), and Valinor was removed from the plane of the world.
Of The Rings of Power and the Third Age. Sauron forges the twenty rings of power. The Last Alliance of men and elves defeats him, ending the Second Age. Isildur refuses to destroy the ring; he is killed by the orcs and it is lost. It passes to Gollum, and that's where LOTR begins.
This is from a quick skimming of The Encyclopedia of Arda. See, when "Gil-galad" or "Morgoth" are mentioned, I can look them up and find out what the heck he's talking about.
If someone has actually read the Silmarillion, feel free to correct me. I'm leaving out quite a bit and possible screwing other stuff up. (For instance, the dwarves were first-created after the Ainur, but the elves awoke first.)
--grendel drago
*shrug* All I did was google for it. But it seems plausible that that distance was measured and the platinum-iridium bar was created to match it---it would be much, much easier to go by a canonical bar than a measurement of the planet, I suppose.
--grendel drago
Actually...
Here it says:
The meter (m) is the Si unit of length and is defined as the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during the time interval of 1/299792458 of a second.[3] This replaces the two previous definitions of the meter: the original adopted by CGPM in 1889 based on a platinum-iridium prototype bar, and a definition adopted in 1960 based on a krypton86 radiation from an electrical discharge lamp. In each case, the change in definition achieved not only an increase in accuracy, but also progress toward the goal of using fundamental physical quantities as standards, in particular, the quantum mechanical characteristics of atomic systems.
--grendel drago
Hey, did you watch "Connections" too? That's kind of an obscure factoid, and I'm wondering where else it shows up.
--grendel drago