My little sister always managed to keep score in our house without the use of technology. ("I took out the trash for you one day three weeks ago.") The rest of us (even Mom and Dad) found it really annoying... bordering on petty and selfish, and we're all glad she grew out of this (mostly). Doing favors for people shouldn't involve keeping score.
For Wal-Mart to take this game off the shelves would not be unconstitutional, for the very reason you cited later: they are not the government.* So they have every legal right to take this turd off their shelves. I just think they should refrain from doing so, in support of the principle of free speech.
*At least not until they open a store on the Mall and start offering special-interest tax breaks and pork-barrel funding at lower prices than Congress.
Meanwhile, the webmaster for Salieri250thBirthday.org is still waiting for his hit-counter to go into triple digits, and plotting a DOS attack on Mozarteum.at.
Besides, I always thought muslims DID believe in jesus christ, just not in the same way christians do.
That last bit is the issue: they don't believe that Jesus is God the Son and the Messiah, which is one of the basic tenets of Christianity. Under Protestant theology (Catholic is a little different), believing that statement is the one thing that gets you into Heaven.
Back to the original topic, I think that Wal-Mart should ignore the censors and leave this game on the shelves.
No one cares whether someone who cannot see owns a gun or a car or an x-ray machine. The problem is someone who is incapable of operating them (a verb you seem to include or exclude from each sentence based on whether it makes you sound completely foolish or not) without posing a clear and present danger.
Meanwhile, bills are being introduced that will allow middle-school drop-outs to teach high school as long as they are paired with someone with a teaching degree telling them what to say, allow 5-year-olds to drive cars as long as they have an adult to work the pedals for them, and formally entitle idiots to run for governor (and then president) as long as they "surround themselves with the right people".
On what basis am I disqualified from calling what he said "profoundly stupid"? Sorry if you idolize him or something, but I'm entitled to form my own opinions based on my own observations and analysis.
Did anyone tell you that you're not allowed to have complex all-in-one devices that try to do everything? I'm just pointing out that the large market for simple devices that simply do what they're supposed to do is not going away just because some fool imagines that it's going to.
They have a point, in that there is a population that doesn't mind complexity (aka "clutter"). Just look at a typical 16-year-old's bedroom, or a college student's MySpace page. But nearly everyone I know over 40 tends to prefer "simple". "Just give me a cell phone that makes phone calls," they say. My parents would pay double for a TV remote with half as many buttons.
But if these "experts" think clutter is the Next Big Thing, I have some demographics to share: the adolescent/young adult cohort that routinely thrives on oodles and knobs and buttons is entering a shrinking phase, and that overpopulated cohort known as the Boomers are all on the high side of 40.
You get "reamed" with pre-paid only if you're stupid enough to go with that kind of plan when you really need one of those fixed-rate hundreds-of-minutes-per-month plans. In fact, I spend less than $10/month on mobile phone service using pre-paid plans, which is far cheaper than the least expensive monthly-rate plan available. If I used the silly little thing more than I do, I might be better off buying on-air minutes in bulk... but I don't. I know it's old-fashioned, but I call most of my friends when I'm at home (easier to hear and be heard), and I keep in touch with others by e-mail. I simply don't spend a lot of time on the air, which makes a pre-paid plan a great money-saver.
I was a Tracfone user and had no complaints about their plans or pricing. Buying a one-year-expiration card (nominally 150 minutes, plus routine bonuses) gave me plenty of minutes for my needs. I dropped them only because the carrier they use in my area couldn't get a signal through to my new workplace: it was in a dead zone.
I've since switched to Alltel's pre-paid plan, and it's been working out fine for me. I miss Tracfone's on-phone read-out of how much credit is left before I have to buy more, but other than that, I'm quite happy with Alltel: they give me 2-5 bars in all of the places I usually spend my time, and they don't cost me much money.
Of course, technology existed when us boomers were young. It just didn't change that fast.
Although it's certainly sped up since then, the rate of technological change in the early-to-mid 20th century was already pretty brisk. The Boomers' parents lived through the rise of air flight, automobiles, and telephony from novelty to near-ubiquity.
For the first time, though, this group will be composed of people who have grown up with technology.
Yeah, because electric lighting, radio, automatic firearms, automobiles, phonographs, steam and electric trains, gas stoves, and x-rays are really no different from rubbing sticks together.
I no longer do that. Of course I figured out how the principle of "pay for what you take" applies to music on my own, without a stern talking to by a parental figure.
Now you're just being dense. The job of president of the U.S. is very different from that of president of the Gates Foundation. To make this as clear as possible: he'd suck at the first, and he's good at the latter.
Except many people have varying concepts of affordable.
I didn't say it was an affordable option for everyone; I just offered it as a relatively inexpensive option to look into.
how many people are going to even come spent more than 25% of the $260,000 they pay in premiums.
Anyone who expects to get their premiums back in the form of medical services misunderstands what insurance is. There's no way it can save everyone money, any more than all of the children in Lake Wobegone can be above average. It is (when done well, and I know: it often isn't) a system for sharing risk among a large population. A whole bunch of people pay into it: the vast lucky majority never get much of anything in return (check-ups, minor treatments, etc.), while the unlucky few who experience life-threatening injuries or chronic illnesses get the hugely expensive services.
Structurally, it's not that much different from gambling (which is why a few religious sects don't condone insurance). When you play the slots or lottery you know that there's a good chance your investment will be lost, and all you get for it is the mild entertainment of scratching little patches off a ticket and hoping that you'll beat the odds and get a lot of cash. With insurance, all you might get is the peace of mind of knowing that if you beat the odds and get cancer or AIDS or a limb amputation, you'll get the medical treatment you need but can't afford. Whether it's private health insurance, socialized medicine, or some alternative, you're always going to have loads of people who "lose" by paying more into the system (in premiums, taxes, whatever) than they get back. That's the whole point.
I use an HMO program offered by my state's BlueCross BlueShield company. It's the same plan they sell to employers, but with me paying the full premium. It's not cheap (and for someone with a family it'd be even less so), but it's... affordable, and in the few years I've been using it, it's been a lot easier to budget the monthly premiums than it would have been to pay the medical bills I've had, and definitely made my recent visit to the ER less stressful, knowing I wouldn't have to pay for it.
Thanks for missing the point. The question isn't "Who's more important: the president of the U.S. or the head of the Gates Foundation?" It's "Where would Bill do the most good (or least harm if you want to be cynical)?"
My main objection to a Gates presidency is that Bill can do far more good for the world as the head of a well-funded private foundation than he could possibly do as master of ceremonies and chief law enforcement officer of the United States. Now that he's stepping down as Borg Queen, he has an unprecedented opportunity to improve the quality of living for so much of the human population... why waste a man like that on a job where he'll have to negotiate with Congress, waste time overseeing dozens of secretaries, etc.
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My little sister always managed to keep score in our house without the use of technology. ("I took out the trash for you one day three weeks ago.") The rest of us (even Mom and Dad) found it really annoying... bordering on petty and selfish, and we're all glad she grew out of this (mostly). Doing favors for people shouldn't involve keeping score.
For Wal-Mart to take this game off the shelves would not be unconstitutional, for the very reason you cited later: they are not the government.* So they have every legal right to take this turd off their shelves. I just think they should refrain from doing so, in support of the principle of free speech.
*At least not until they open a store on the Mall and start offering special-interest tax breaks and pork-barrel funding at lower prices than Congress.
Meanwhile, the webmaster for Salieri250thBirthday.org is still waiting for his hit-counter to go into triple digits, and plotting a DOS attack on Mozarteum.at.
Back to the original topic, I think that Wal-Mart should ignore the censors and leave this game on the shelves.
And so should everyone else.
No one cares whether someone who cannot see owns a gun or a car or an x-ray machine. The problem is someone who is incapable of operating them (a verb you seem to include or exclude from each sentence based on whether it makes you sound completely foolish or not) without posing a clear and present danger.
Because they're all really bad ideas. Duh.
Make that "literal", please. :)
Urban legend. Juries are not generally pedantically liberal enough to fall for that argument.
Meanwhile, bills are being introduced that will allow middle-school drop-outs to teach high school as long as they are paired with someone with a teaching degree telling them what to say, allow 5-year-olds to drive cars as long as they have an adult to work the pedals for them, and formally entitle idiots to run for governor (and then president) as long as they "surround themselves with the right people".
On what basis am I disqualified from calling what he said "profoundly stupid"? Sorry if you idolize him or something, but I'm entitled to form my own opinions based on my own observations and analysis.
Saying profoundly stupid things gets one demoted from expert to "expert".
Did anyone tell you that you're not allowed to have complex all-in-one devices that try to do everything? I'm just pointing out that the large market for simple devices that simply do what they're supposed to do is not going away just because some fool imagines that it's going to.
"When I tried to sneak an empty pistol onto a plane to test airport security, they arrested me as a possible terrorist! Isn't that odd?"
They have a point, in that there is a population that doesn't mind complexity (aka "clutter"). Just look at a typical 16-year-old's bedroom, or a college student's MySpace page. But nearly everyone I know over 40 tends to prefer "simple". "Just give me a cell phone that makes phone calls," they say. My parents would pay double for a TV remote with half as many buttons.
But if these "experts" think clutter is the Next Big Thing, I have some demographics to share: the adolescent/young adult cohort that routinely thrives on oodles and knobs and buttons is entering a shrinking phase, and that overpopulated cohort known as the Boomers are all on the high side of 40.
This sort of thing is the reason I host my own e-mail. At least this way I usually know when it's broken, and I have the opportunity to fix it.
You get "reamed" with pre-paid only if you're stupid enough to go with that kind of plan when you really need one of those fixed-rate hundreds-of-minutes-per-month plans. In fact, I spend less than $10/month on mobile phone service using pre-paid plans, which is far cheaper than the least expensive monthly-rate plan available. If I used the silly little thing more than I do, I might be better off buying on-air minutes in bulk... but I don't. I know it's old-fashioned, but I call most of my friends when I'm at home (easier to hear and be heard), and I keep in touch with others by e-mail. I simply don't spend a lot of time on the air, which makes a pre-paid plan a great money-saver.
I was a Tracfone user and had no complaints about their plans or pricing. Buying a one-year-expiration card (nominally 150 minutes, plus routine bonuses) gave me plenty of minutes for my needs. I dropped them only because the carrier they use in my area couldn't get a signal through to my new workplace: it was in a dead zone.
I've since switched to Alltel's pre-paid plan, and it's been working out fine for me. I miss Tracfone's on-phone read-out of how much credit is left before I have to buy more, but other than that, I'm quite happy with Alltel: they give me 2-5 bars in all of the places I usually spend my time, and they don't cost me much money.
I no longer do that. Of course I figured out how the principle of "pay for what you take" applies to music on my own, without a stern talking to by a parental figure.
Now you're just being dense. The job of president of the U.S. is very different from that of president of the Gates Foundation. To make this as clear as possible: he'd suck at the first, and he's good at the latter.
Anyone who expects to get their premiums back in the form of medical services misunderstands what insurance is. There's no way it can save everyone money, any more than all of the children in Lake Wobegone can be above average. It is (when done well, and I know: it often isn't) a system for sharing risk among a large population. A whole bunch of people pay into it: the vast lucky majority never get much of anything in return (check-ups, minor treatments, etc.), while the unlucky few who experience life-threatening injuries or chronic illnesses get the hugely expensive services.
Structurally, it's not that much different from gambling (which is why a few religious sects don't condone insurance). When you play the slots or lottery you know that there's a good chance your investment will be lost, and all you get for it is the mild entertainment of scratching little patches off a ticket and hoping that you'll beat the odds and get a lot of cash. With insurance, all you might get is the peace of mind of knowing that if you beat the odds and get cancer or AIDS or a limb amputation, you'll get the medical treatment you need but can't afford. Whether it's private health insurance, socialized medicine, or some alternative, you're always going to have loads of people who "lose" by paying more into the system (in premiums, taxes, whatever) than they get back. That's the whole point.
I use an HMO program offered by my state's BlueCross BlueShield company. It's the same plan they sell to employers, but with me paying the full premium. It's not cheap (and for someone with a family it'd be even less so), but it's... affordable, and in the few years I've been using it, it's been a lot easier to budget the monthly premiums than it would have been to pay the medical bills I've had, and definitely made my recent visit to the ER less stressful, knowing I wouldn't have to pay for it.
Thanks for missing the point. The question isn't "Who's more important: the president of the U.S. or the head of the Gates Foundation?" It's "Where would Bill do the most good (or least harm if you want to be cynical)?"
My main objection to a Gates presidency is that Bill can do far more good for the world as the head of a well-funded private foundation than he could possibly do as master of ceremonies and chief law enforcement officer of the United States. Now that he's stepping down as Borg Queen, he has an unprecedented opportunity to improve the quality of living for so much of the human population... why waste a man like that on a job where he'll have to negotiate with Congress, waste time overseeing dozens of secretaries, etc.