>Mind you that you will need to be swiss to vote. It will take up to 5 years until, and that is the drawback,
the people of the town you live in can vote to accept you for swiss nationality.
Hey, unless you're getting married to an American, it's at least 5 years between Green Card and citizenship, and it's probably 3-5 years just to get the Green Card.
And that part about the people of your community "voting you in" actually sounds kinda neat. Citizenship should (IMHO) reflect a desire of the person being admitted to become part of their community and nation. This sounds like an interesting check/balance, and is arguably more "democratic" (well, at least on paper:) than the most other immigration systems, whereby one's fate is decided by bureaucrats.
Thanks for that description. I always wondered what it took to become a Swiss citizen. (It's always sounded like a nice place to settle down towards the end of my tech career and enjoy my investments. Bottom-up governance, low taxes, and a kickass banking system go a long way in my books. Pity I'd never qualify for Swiss citizenship 'cuz I'd be spending all my time online, even if I was following local politics;-)
>(would you rather
have your psx2 or would you rather sleep well at night knowing that your neighbors and their kids aren't
slowly starving themselves to death because of an imbalanced distribution of wealth?)
I'd rather have my PS2.
>human nature's a bitch; same goes for capitalism.
>I you're looking for something partisan, look no farther than Canada. The Prime Minister recently called
early elections to win a new term, and quell the rising popularity of a rival party.
You forgot to add "for the second time in three years".
> The context, or details of any court cases or anything like that?
Parliament passes a really stupid law, that lumps Romeo and Juliet (hey, the protagonists were 12 and 13) in with the Bad Stuff.
A court says "I can't invalidate only a portion of the law, I have to nuke the whole thing in the name the Charter's guarantee of freedom of expression."
Parliament says "We'll invoke the notwithstanding clause and override the court, because we believe the country's a better place for it, notwithstanding the fact that you found the law to be unconstitutional."
Court says "Go ahead. We dare you."
Parliament chickens out.
IMHO, chickening out was the right thing - the notwithstanding clause is an abomination, and is never used lightly (and IMHO shouldn't be there, and as long as it is there, still shouldn't be used).
Unfortunately, Parliament's subsequent (in)action of not getting off its duff and passing a constitutional law to replace the one the court overturned, was, and remains, inexcusable.
Doubly-unfortunately, that's what happens in a Parliamentary system with a majority government. No fear of the opposition humiliating you means you have no incentive to fix things when they break. And no incentive not to break things in the first place.
> That means that he has the full ability to take the armed forces, order them to march into the House and [do really nasty things]
First - No soldier is obliged to follow an illegal order.
Furthermore - Every soldier swears an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
That's the Constitution, not POTUS. This business of "L'etat, c'est moi" (literally: "The state, it is I") went out the window with Napoleon.
For a wonderful dramatization of the principle in action (and some awesome science fiction to boot), watch all five seasons of Babylon 5.
Want Paranoia? The Canadians have a loophole where the the Constitution can be suspended (the "notwithstanding clause"), and the decision to invoke said loophole rests entirely in the hands of Parliament, whose members are de facto (albeit not de jure) required to vote along party lines.
Unlike the situation you describe (a rogue POTUS trying to seize power through extraconstitutional means), the Canadian equivalent would be perfectly legal. The PM could direct Cabinet to pass legislation that extends the five-year limit on a sitting Parliament, and when it gets shot down by the Supreme Court the next day as unconstitutional, call for a vote in the House of Commons to invoke the notwithstanding clause. If the Senate were sufficiently well-stacked with partisan appointees in advance, the law might well pass. The only thing to save "democracy" in this case would be the Governor-General refusing to sign it into law, which would be the Queen - yes, the Queen of England - taking over control of her errant colony.
> If 90% of the population lives
in a handful of large cities, then doesn't it only make sense that the election should mostly reflect those
large cities? After all, land doesn't vote or determine political issues--people do!
Umm... how about because the United States of America is a republic, based on a union of states, and the whole point of it being the U.S. of A. is that each state gets some representation?
To ignore the aspirations of the citizens of 40 mostly-rural states in favor of the wishes of the citizens in the 10 heavily urbanized states would go against everything this country was founded for.
The Electoral College is actually a pretty good balancing of the two concepts of representation-by-population and representation-by-state.
Should the EC votes per state be awarded on a winner-take-all basis? Perhaps not. But to do away with the EC altogether in favor of "popular vote wins" would give (IMHO) undue power to two or three cities at the great expense of the rest of the country.
>I'm not prepared to kill anybody, so I won't own one.
Good choice. I draw issue with you on one comment, however:
> I would suggest that society might
become more caring if people aren't so easily confronted with the idea of being able to use lethal force.
Of the people with whom I've discussed lethal force, I've found gun owners far more cognizant of the ramifications and their responsibilities than non-owners.
You're a rare exception - someone who's decided not to use lethal force to protect themselves or their property, and who's made a rational decision on that basis.
Good on ya.
All most gun owners are asking is "please don't try to enforce your moral choice on the rest of us".
(My position? Guns are just like drugs and pr0n. When did you ever hear someone ask for banning of drugs (or pr0n) because they might become addicted (or aroused)? It's always other people, always somehow less socially-developed than the ones who want the "ban", whose behavior is dangerous and has to be curbed by law...)
>Except that the Whiskey Rebellion (right rebellion?) proved that the right to bear arms doesn't really
guarantee anything.
All the Whiskey Rebellion proved is that no matter how many guns you have, the right time and place for a successful revolt is never the middle of a Toronto winter. (And if you think those are bad, try Ottawa and Montreal winters! Yer hands would freeze to the rounds as you tried to load up!)
>ALL ISP's need to block outgoing port 25 from cablemodems / DSL / dialups. Require users to use the ISP's
mail servers. Exceptions can be made for "powerusers" who sign a contract. (this can happen NOW and could
drastically reduce spam today.)
Amen. If uu.net forced their "resellers" (typically large ISPs who lease POPs from spew-u.net) to block port 25, spam would probably drop by 40-50%.
Uunet is the source of 90% of the spam on the 'net today. Has been ever since Dialsprint blocked port 25. Unlike Dialsprint, uu.net has consistently opposed port 25 blocking, and has refused to block it for more than three years.
Props to Dialsprint for doing the right thing, even if it was six months late. As for uu.net, they can felch these two jailbird spammers' asses after Bubba's done fucking 'em. One load for every spam their customers send.
Aaw, hell, who am I kidding? Even that's too good for uu.net. Just firewall every IP they own at the router, and use procmail to bounce any mail with a uu.net IP address in any header to abuse@uu.net as a spam report.
When was the last time anybody actually got legitimate mail from a user on a uu.net dialup anyways?
> [on my space station] spamming would be illegal, under the category of "abuse
of community resources," which on an isolated space station would be a pretty serious crime......punishable by deportation to Earth.
You're a merciful one. I'd deport 'em to the sun. (And I wouldn't waste a spacecraft or a spacesuit on 'em either;-)
>Drug smugglers and dealers and lords, murderers, rapists, and
kidnappers do much more damage to society than fraudulant idiots...
Please differentiate your crimes. While I agree the original poster was a bit over-the-top, he's got a point.
Spam is theft - spammers steal resources from ISPs and recipients and deliver a "product" nobody wants.
Fraud is, well, fraud - merely a more sophisticated form of theft, whereby the theft is accomplished by deceiving the "mark", rather than brute force, such as abusing an open relay.
Drug "crimes" - well, if the stuff were legal and regulated (umm, like alcohol and tobacco), the "smugglers" wouldn't have jobs, and the "dealers" would be regular guys behind the counter of your local grocery store. Drug "lords" would just be CEOs of, umm, tobacco companies?;-)
If your argument is that "drug folks" cause harm to users of drugs, might I remind you that most of those drug users choose to use their drug of choice? They're not victims, they're customers.
If your argument is that "drug folks" cause harm to the rest of us, might I ask you to differentiate between the harm caused by the individuals on drugs (drunk/stoned drivers), as opposed to the harm caused by crimes (usually theft) committed by users to either (a) obtain drugs at artificially-inflated prices, or (b) the crimes (usually murder/assaults) committed by those in the industry to protect marketshare/turf. Legalization would likely greatly cut down on both of these forms of harm.
Unlike drug users, however, murderers, rapists and kidnappers all cause harm without the consent of their victims.
And in that respect (my own turn for hyperbole), the murderer, rapist, and kidnapper really do have more in common with the spammer (a variant of "thief") than individuals involved in the (illicit) drug industry.
(Of course, if you wanna nail the Board of Directors of $BIG_TOBACCO_INC for fraud for saying that smoking tobacco doesn't cause cancer, I'm with ya. At least your local drug dealer has the integrity to say "y'know, this shit'll kill ya!" as you fork over the dough:-)
"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or to view any
unwanted communication, whatever its merit. . . We therefore categorically
reject the argument that a vendor has the right under the Constitution or
otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. . . We
repeat, the right of a mailer stops at the outer boundary of every person's
domain."
- United States Supreme Court, Rowan vs. U.S. Post Office, 1970
Whether or not you agree with me that spam is theft by trespass to chattel, the US Supreme Court has long since ruled that unsolicited commercial mailings -- even when paid for by the vendor (as opposed to spam, where the cost is borne by the recipient) is emphatically not afforded protection under the First Amendment.
Spam is not free speech. Hasn't been for 30 years. Now go away, troll, or I shall feed you a second time;-)
>I think too often we confuse political freedom with personal freedom. In N. America, we enjoy IMMENSE amounts
of personal freedoms ( ie 'free as in beer' ) but as far as political freedom goes, it's really quite debatable.
Serious question to you: "What would constitute political freedom?"
I think you're onto something here. Because I don't know how I'd answer that question myself.
(Have I been speaking Newspeak so long that I've forgotten what "political" freedom means as opposed to "personal" freedom? Or is each type of freedom like pr0n, where "I may not know how to define it, but I know it when I see it?")
>The United States (although somewhat corrupt at times) is the only place that I can actually say is stable, inexpensive,
and mostly free.
Yup. Say what you will about what happened during our election fiasco - most nations would have had people shooting at each other in the streets, or hacking each other up with machetes.
And while I, too, diss our government for its use of the Constitution as toilet paper, the bottom line is that the loss of my civil rights hasn't affected me. At least I had the rights in the first place, and it was recently enough that it's still considered bad politics to violate them egregiously. Contrast with, say, China?
>What this means is that every media state ends up a bit like Brave New World, [... ] So, where's the freedom? There is none. Saftey? In the US, sure, you can get physical saftey. It's irrelevant without
freedom. [If safety and freedom] aren't enough to you, then quality of life is what you make of it.
Well-put.
The US became great because it created a mindset where your "quality of life" was proportional to your "freedom". It wasn't safe by a long shot, but the rewards were spectacular. Sure, we genocided the Indians, but we colonized a continent and created an industrialized economy half a world away from the nearest likely invader.
In recent decades, arguably starting with the New Deal in the 30s, people switched mindsets: "quality of life" became widely regarded a function of "safety" - and "safety" of which most people speak is emphatically not the first amendment protections you describe.
And today we have CDA and DMCA and Carnivore. For the chillldrun.
I'm not sure what the point of all this is, other than that you should be damn sure what you mean by "safety, freedom, and quality of life" before you take the plunge.
On the other hand, if you can watch The Matrix and feel at least some empathy for the guy who said "Y'know, Agent, I don't care if I'm really just a brain in a vat somewhere and all this is an illusion, I just want to taste a goddamn steak"... or you figure that your rights in your nation are gonna be stripped anyways, why not come to the States, where at least you can get a Lexus and a six-figure-income in exchange.
Although those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither, if you're gonna lose your liberty anyways - better to get something in exchange for it. It's a damn sight better than the deal offered in most of the rest of the world.
>Could this be the same modification I predicted at the time details of "Code Morphing" 1st leaked out?
Basically my hunch was that Transmeta could tie a bunch of crusos together with it's code morphing so
that they appear to the OS as a single CPU of immense power.
I can't guess one way or the other... but your prediction does fit nicely with the multiprocessor capabilities of the Hammer line. Could be damn interesting if you're right. (And a great way to sell lots of CPUs per box... if you're a chipmaker, you stop caring if PC makers are selling less boxen when you're regularly selling more than one chip per box.)
>I wonder if it isn't a move by AMD to get the processor into a mobile platform ASAP.
Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing. Your Subject: line is prophetic - "Cool for AMD".
The only real barrier I see AMD having in the mobile market is heat. PowerNow (that thing where they underclock/undervolt the CPU during times of low load) should help considerably, but what I'd really like to see is how much of TMTA's "we run super-low-power and super-cool" technology AMD can l33ch.
As I see it, the world doesn't need a laptop emulating Sledgehammer anywhere near as much as it needs a laptop with a cool-running 1.2 GHz Athlon at a fraction of the cost of a PIII.
(Of course, if Sledge lives up to its billing, it'll be faster emulated on a Transmeta chip than Intel's solution anyway, so I could be missing the forest for the trees here. I gotta admit, a cool-running Sledge laptop would also kick mucho blue man ass.)
> > when these girls grow a few years older and magically discover that their drunken pot-bellied
Mcdonalds-employee frat boy can't support them, they move on to the real guys.
>
> These women are called gold diggers.
And can be the source of the sweetest revenge. My all-time-high-score on this front came when I accidentally bumped into someone I once met in my orientation week at university.
~wavylines~
Orientation Party, many years ago:
She: "So, whatcha' majorin' in?"
Me: "I dunno, probably a CompSci or CompEng major, you?"
She left so quickly I swear her ass was redshifted.
~endwavylines~
Fast-forward to a recent accidental meeting:
She: "Hey, didn't you go to Foobar U?"
Me: "Yup, what's up?" (the usual exchange of "who the fuck are you?" conversation before we figure it out)
Me: "Izzat so? I thought you looked familiar..."
She: "Yeah, well, who'd have known computers were gonna turn out so big... so whatcha doin' now? I'm in marketing these days, the big UN and IR thing never worked out."
Me: "Oh, just workin' at a software firm in the Bay Area, but we actually had a real product and are still profitable. Never made billions, but we skipped the whole dot-com mess."
At which point her attitude changed and she became totally enthralled with computers and tech.
I mean, I'm normally a nice guy, but the bullshit was being laid on so thick, and so obviously, that I honestly had trouble keeping a straight face.
We continued this way for a bit and finally, I couldn't stand it any longer, so I just up and told her I saw through it, that I'd seen her type before, and that I wouldn't piss in her mouth if her stomach was on fire. And walked out.
I guess that's serves me right for being a loser, and wanting to fool around with those stupid geeky computers and not get into something fun like partying or with a future like International Relations.
Redshift that, bitch.
Before I get modded down for flamebait on charges of misogyny: A woman who likes you as a friend and respects you is well deserving of your trust and respect. But one who's interested only because you're a "good catch" or because you "turned out OK after all" is barely worthy of the term "bitch". There's a difference.
And if you really think you need the sex, figure out how many $100/night hookers you can buy with half your net worth and half your future income. The next time a gold digger shows up, you can tell her to get the fuck out of your face - not because she's a merely offering sex for money; hey, nothing wrong with that - but because compared to the competition, she's just poor value for the money.
Not only have they been documented spammers for quite some time (reference Dejanews over the past 6 months), they're now resetting members "no, I don't like spam!" settings.
If their crackdown on spam is indicative of their crackdown on offline deals, offline buyers and sellers have nothing to worry about.
(Hey, eBay, you readin' this? I DON'T LIKE SPAM. And calling it "valuable email communications with news, offers and special events" doesn't change the fact that you can't polish a turd. Now go away or I shall taunt your marketroids a second time.)
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, unless you're getting married to an American, it's at least 5 years between Green Card and citizenship, and it's probably 3-5 years just to get the Green Card.
And that part about the people of your community "voting you in" actually sounds kinda neat. Citizenship should (IMHO) reflect a desire of the person being admitted to become part of their community and nation. This sounds like an interesting check/balance, and is arguably more "democratic" (well, at least on paper :) than the most other immigration systems, whereby one's fate is decided by bureaucrats.
Thanks for that description. I always wondered what it took to become a Swiss citizen. (It's always sounded like a nice place to settle down towards the end of my tech career and enjoy my investments. Bottom-up governance, low taxes, and a kickass banking system go a long way in my books. Pity I'd never qualify for Swiss citizenship 'cuz I'd be spending all my time online, even if I was following local politics ;-)
I'd rather have my PS2.
>human nature's a bitch; same goes for capitalism.
No argument there. Now what do we do? ;-)
You forgot to add "for the second time in three years".
Parliament passes a really stupid law, that lumps Romeo and Juliet (hey, the protagonists were 12 and 13) in with the Bad Stuff.
A court says "I can't invalidate only a portion of the law, I have to nuke the whole thing in the name the Charter's guarantee of freedom of expression."
Parliament says "We'll invoke the notwithstanding clause and override the court, because we believe the country's a better place for it, notwithstanding the fact that you found the law to be unconstitutional."
Court says "Go ahead. We dare you."
Parliament chickens out.
IMHO, chickening out was the right thing - the notwithstanding clause is an abomination, and is never used lightly (and IMHO shouldn't be there, and as long as it is there, still shouldn't be used).
Unfortunately, Parliament's subsequent (in)action of not getting off its duff and passing a constitutional law to replace the one the court overturned, was, and remains, inexcusable.
Doubly-unfortunately, that's what happens in a Parliamentary system with a majority government. No fear of the opposition humiliating you means you have no incentive to fix things when they break. And no incentive not to break things in the first place.
First - No soldier is obliged to follow an illegal order.
Furthermore - Every soldier swears an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
That's the Constitution, not POTUS. This business of "L'etat, c'est moi" (literally: "The state, it is I") went out the window with Napoleon.
For a wonderful dramatization of the principle in action (and some awesome science fiction to boot), watch all five seasons of Babylon 5.
Want Paranoia? The Canadians have a loophole where the the Constitution can be suspended (the "notwithstanding clause"), and the decision to invoke said loophole rests entirely in the hands of Parliament, whose members are de facto (albeit not de jure) required to vote along party lines.
Unlike the situation you describe (a rogue POTUS trying to seize power through extraconstitutional means), the Canadian equivalent would be perfectly legal. The PM could direct Cabinet to pass legislation that extends the five-year limit on a sitting Parliament, and when it gets shot down by the Supreme Court the next day as unconstitutional, call for a vote in the House of Commons to invoke the notwithstanding clause. If the Senate were sufficiently well-stacked with partisan appointees in advance, the law might well pass. The only thing to save "democracy" in this case would be the Governor-General refusing to sign it into law, which would be the Queen - yes, the Queen of England - taking over control of her errant colony.
Umm... how about because the United States of America is a republic, based on a union of states, and the whole point of it being the U.S. of A. is that each state gets some representation?
To ignore the aspirations of the citizens of 40 mostly-rural states in favor of the wishes of the citizens in the 10 heavily urbanized states would go against everything this country was founded for.
The Electoral College is actually a pretty good balancing of the two concepts of representation-by-population and representation-by-state.
Should the EC votes per state be awarded on a winner-take-all basis? Perhaps not. But to do away with the EC altogether in favor of "popular vote wins" would give (IMHO) undue power to two or three cities at the great expense of the rest of the country.
Good choice. I draw issue with you on one comment, however:
> I would suggest that society might become more caring if people aren't so easily confronted with the idea of being able to use lethal force.
Of the people with whom I've discussed lethal force, I've found gun owners far more cognizant of the ramifications and their responsibilities than non-owners.
You're a rare exception - someone who's decided not to use lethal force to protect themselves or their property, and who's made a rational decision on that basis.
Good on ya.
All most gun owners are asking is "please don't try to enforce your moral choice on the rest of us".
(My position? Guns are just like drugs and pr0n. When did you ever hear someone ask for banning of drugs (or pr0n) because they might become addicted (or aroused)? It's always other people, always somehow less socially-developed than the ones who want the "ban", whose behavior is dangerous and has to be curbed by law...)
All the Whiskey Rebellion proved is that no matter how many guns you have, the right time and place for a successful revolt is never the middle of a Toronto winter. (And if you think those are bad, try Ottawa and Montreal winters! Yer hands would freeze to the rounds as you tried to load up!)
"And that bitch Anne Murray too?" ;-)
Amen. If uu.net forced their "resellers" (typically large ISPs who lease POPs from spew-u.net) to block port 25, spam would probably drop by 40-50%.
Uunet is the source of 90% of the spam on the 'net today. Has been ever since Dialsprint blocked port 25. Unlike Dialsprint, uu.net has consistently opposed port 25 blocking, and has refused to block it for more than three years.
Props to Dialsprint for doing the right thing, even if it was six months late. As for uu.net, they can felch these two jailbird spammers' asses after Bubba's done fucking 'em. One load for every spam their customers send.
Aaw, hell, who am I kidding? Even that's too good for uu.net. Just firewall every IP they own at the router, and use procmail to bounce any mail with a uu.net IP address in any header to abuse@uu.net as a spam report. When was the last time anybody actually got legitimate mail from a user on a uu.net dialup anyways?
(You obviously haven't gotten much spam in the past three years. ;-)
You're a merciful one. I'd deport 'em to the sun. (And I wouldn't waste a spacecraft or a spacesuit on 'em either ;-)
Please differentiate your crimes. While I agree the original poster was a bit over-the-top, he's got a point.
Spam is theft - spammers steal resources from ISPs and recipients and deliver a "product" nobody wants.
Fraud is, well, fraud - merely a more sophisticated form of theft, whereby the theft is accomplished by deceiving the "mark", rather than brute force, such as abusing an open relay.
Drug "crimes" - well, if the stuff were legal and regulated (umm, like alcohol and tobacco), the "smugglers" wouldn't have jobs, and the "dealers" would be regular guys behind the counter of your local grocery store. Drug "lords" would just be CEOs of, umm, tobacco companies? ;-)
If your argument is that "drug folks" cause harm to users of drugs, might I remind you that most of those drug users choose to use their drug of choice? They're not victims, they're customers.
If your argument is that "drug folks" cause harm to the rest of us, might I ask you to differentiate between the harm caused by the individuals on drugs (drunk/stoned drivers), as opposed to the harm caused by crimes (usually theft) committed by users to either (a) obtain drugs at artificially-inflated prices, or (b) the crimes (usually murder/assaults) committed by those in the industry to protect marketshare/turf. Legalization would likely greatly cut down on both of these forms of harm.
Unlike drug users, however, murderers, rapists and kidnappers all cause harm without the consent of their victims.
And in that respect (my own turn for hyperbole), the murderer, rapist, and kidnapper really do have more in common with the spammer (a variant of "thief") than individuals involved in the (illicit) drug industry.
(Of course, if you wanna nail the Board of Directors of $BIG_TOBACCO_INC for fraud for saying that smoking tobacco doesn't cause cancer, I'm with ya. At least your local drug dealer has the integrity to say "y'know, this shit'll kill ya!" as you fork over the dough :-)
Spam is not free speech. Hasn't been for 30 years. Now go away, troll, or I shall feed you a second time ;-)
Two spammers in the slammer, gettin' to know real market penetration with Bubba.
All is right with the world.
> -Bakunin
But they seem to be plenty happy if they're told it's for the sake of the children ;-)
Serious question to you: "What would constitute political freedom?"
I think you're onto something here. Because I don't know how I'd answer that question myself.
(Have I been speaking Newspeak so long that I've forgotten what "political" freedom means as opposed to "personal" freedom? Or is each type of freedom like pr0n, where "I may not know how to define it, but I know it when I see it?")
Yup. Say what you will about what happened during our election fiasco - most nations would have had people shooting at each other in the streets, or hacking each other up with machetes.
And while I, too, diss our government for its use of the Constitution as toilet paper, the bottom line is that the loss of my civil rights hasn't affected me. At least I had the rights in the first place, and it was recently enough that it's still considered bad politics to violate them egregiously. Contrast with, say, China?
Well-put.
The US became great because it created a mindset where your "quality of life" was proportional to your "freedom". It wasn't safe by a long shot, but the rewards were spectacular. Sure, we genocided the Indians, but we colonized a continent and created an industrialized economy half a world away from the nearest likely invader.
In recent decades, arguably starting with the New Deal in the 30s, people switched mindsets: "quality of life" became widely regarded a function of "safety" - and "safety" of which most people speak is emphatically not the first amendment protections you describe. And today we have CDA and DMCA and Carnivore. For the chillldrun.
I'm not sure what the point of all this is, other than that you should be damn sure what you mean by "safety, freedom, and quality of life" before you take the plunge.
On the other hand, if you can watch The Matrix and feel at least some empathy for the guy who said "Y'know, Agent, I don't care if I'm really just a brain in a vat somewhere and all this is an illusion, I just want to taste a goddamn steak"... or you figure that your rights in your nation are gonna be stripped anyways, why not come to the States, where at least you can get a Lexus and a six-figure-income in exchange.
Although those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither, if you're gonna lose your liberty anyways - better to get something in exchange for it. It's a damn sight better than the deal offered in most of the rest of the world.
Safety, freedom, quality of life. Choose any two.
I can't guess one way or the other... but your prediction does fit nicely with the multiprocessor capabilities of the Hammer line. Could be damn interesting if you're right. (And a great way to sell lots of CPUs per box... if you're a chipmaker, you stop caring if PC makers are selling less boxen when you're regularly selling more than one chip per box.)
Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing. Your Subject: line is prophetic - "Cool for AMD".
The only real barrier I see AMD having in the mobile market is heat. PowerNow (that thing where they underclock/undervolt the CPU during times of low load) should help considerably, but what I'd really like to see is how much of TMTA's "we run super-low-power and super-cool" technology AMD can l33ch.
As I see it, the world doesn't need a laptop emulating Sledgehammer anywhere near as much as it needs a laptop with a cool-running 1.2 GHz Athlon at a fraction of the cost of a PIII.
(Of course, if Sledge lives up to its billing, it'll be faster emulated on a Transmeta chip than Intel's solution anyway, so I could be missing the forest for the trees here. I gotta admit, a cool-running Sledge laptop would also kick mucho blue man ass.)
>
> These women are called gold diggers.
And can be the source of the sweetest revenge. My all-time-high-score on this front came when I accidentally bumped into someone I once met in my orientation week at university.
~wavylines~
Orientation Party, many years ago:
She: "So, whatcha' majorin' in?"
Me: "I dunno, probably a CompSci or CompEng major, you?"
She left so quickly I swear her ass was redshifted.
~endwavylines~
Fast-forward to a recent accidental meeting:
She: "Hey, didn't you go to Foobar U?"
Me: "Yup, what's up?" (the usual exchange of "who the fuck are you?" conversation before we figure it out)
Me: "Izzat so? I thought you looked familiar..."
She: "Yeah, well, who'd have known computers were gonna turn out so big... so whatcha doin' now? I'm in marketing these days, the big UN and IR thing never worked out."
Me: "Oh, just workin' at a software firm in the Bay Area, but we actually had a real product and are still profitable. Never made billions, but we skipped the whole dot-com mess."
At which point her attitude changed and she became totally enthralled with computers and tech.
I mean, I'm normally a nice guy, but the bullshit was being laid on so thick, and so obviously, that I honestly had trouble keeping a straight face.
We continued this way for a bit and finally, I couldn't stand it any longer, so I just up and told her I saw through it, that I'd seen her type before, and that I wouldn't piss in her mouth if her stomach was on fire. And walked out.
I guess that's serves me right for being a loser, and wanting to fool around with those stupid geeky computers and not get into something fun like partying or with a future like International Relations.
Redshift that, bitch.
Before I get modded down for flamebait on charges of misogyny: A woman who likes you as a friend and respects you is well deserving of your trust and respect. But one who's interested only because you're a "good catch" or because you "turned out OK after all" is barely worthy of the term "bitch". There's a difference.
And if you really think you need the sex, figure out how many $100/night hookers you can buy with half your net worth and half your future income. The next time a gold digger shows up, you can tell her to get the fuck out of your face - not because she's a merely offering sex for money; hey, nothing wrong with that - but because compared to the competition, she's just poor value for the money.
"No thanks, I gave at the office."
(I'll freely give 10% post-tax when the government stops taking 40% pre-tax by force.)
> The company also announced that it would crack down on spam, or unsolicited email, sent to members
Obviously eBay's own spam is just fine.
Not only have they been documented spammers for quite some time (reference Dejanews over the past 6 months), they're now resetting members "no, I don't like spam!" settings.
If their crackdown on spam is indicative of their crackdown on offline deals, offline buyers and sellers have nothing to worry about.
(Hey, eBay, you readin' this? I DON'T LIKE SPAM. And calling it "valuable email communications with news, offers and special events" doesn't change the fact that you can't polish a turd. Now go away or I shall taunt your marketroids a second time.)