There is a great difference between things that are part of the OS and things that are bundled with the OS. Notepad is just a program that edits text. Even if it exposes text editing libraries that are used by other programs, and can not be uninstalled using the add/remove programs control panel doesn't change that fact. It merely means that Notepad is a badly designed Microsoft program that doesn't conform to Microsoft's own suggestion that programs be uninstallable from the add/remove program button.
Most people do not buy windows seperately from a new PC anyway. For one thing, it's damn expensive unless it's part of a bundle, and for another thing, most people wouldn't feel comfortable buying it and then looking up the FCC number for their sound chip/scanner/video card/whatever MS forgot to provide a driver for on the install dist to find the vendor so they can download and install the driver.
Most people who use computers do know how to reinstall their system using the re-image disk bundled with their Dell ( or whatever ) because they've been gatored/infected/corrupted enough times to have been forced to pick up that skill.
99% of computer manuacturers do bundle an antivirus program already. Manufacturers know that preventing virus protection will prevent some customer tech support calls and save them money. The antivirus software, although bundled, is not part of the OS, though it is part of the package the customer bought.
There must be very few people who installed their own copy of windows from a CD purchased from microsoft not bundled with their computer who have not installed a virus checker. Those who would know enough to want to upgrade their systems would probably be savvy enough to install some kind of virus checker such as the one available for free at http://www.free-av.com
And corporate users have IT departments to keep viruses at bay. Corporations already install non-free virus checking software.
Why would microsoft add this? Not to cut down on viruses: very few nodes have no virus protection. Virus protection that has not been updated recently with the latest virus definitions is the fault of users. But those users do not want to be forced to update either, especially if they are late for an appointment, and do not have time to wait for them to download before they can check their email.
And though windows is a McDonalds $2.99 combo meal and you can not buy just a Diet Coke for 99 cents, I don't see people paying more for windows because of this.
Microsoft wants to say it's more secure than Linux because it has a 'built in' virus checker. Of course it will not be 'part of the OS' as that would be stupid. But they will call it that because it will not be uninstallable, and will be bundled on the OS install CD.
Of course there are Linux distributions that come with virus checkers. These checkers are not 'part of the OS' because one can exhibit a Linux without a virus checker installed. But including it in the distribution is just as retard proof as including it 'in the OS'. One would have to go out of their way to uncheck the 'install virus checker' option on an install of a distribution that included it by default, and if someone went out of their way to do that then presumably they have a good reason such as wanting to install a different/better one in it's place.
The article calls for the data to be kept private until they are more sure about the orbit of the object supposedly to prevent alarming people by giving a false alarm. This IMO is dumb. Data is data. Let people interpret it how they will. If someone interprets it to mean they need to hide underground then so be it. Personally I wouldn't lose any sleep over a 100% chance that a 20 megaton blast will occur randomly somewhere on Earth. The odds are it'll hit way out to sea.
However, putting that data out there in public so amateur asstronimers can narrow the orbit down ASAP is a GOOD IDEA. If they find out it will hit New York City, then every hour available to evacuate will save many lives.
Now if some official agency is aware that there will be a tungaska sized impact to a major metropolitain area and then decides to keep it secret, you can bet whatever moronic bureaucrat that decided that will be hung out to dry. We don't want official sky-is-falling press releases unless the sky really is falling, but raw data is not a warning, it's just astronomical data.
If anarchy is ever declared, I think the best bet would be to get about thirty or forty people together and steal a couple of school busses. Then you could take over WAL*MART ( one of the mega variety with the grocery store ) You would then park the school busses in front of the entrances and post sentry's on the ramparts of the well stocked ( with guns, ammo, food, supplies ) cement, fort like building. The parking lot would act as a killing field for any would be interlopers.
... And when they awoke ( except the mother as she was drunk and had taken way too many miltowns ) they used their geiger integrator ( dosimeter ) to check how much radiation they'd recieved so far. Then they left their bomb shelter, but the town was missing. They were in a wilderness paradise 8000 years in the future, only they didn't know it yet.
You say smart people have worked out what the optimum point between cost of tech support and losing clients is. I don't think so.
What actually happens is alot of random guesses at what that point might be, and an evolutionary process whereby wrong guesses are punished by going out of business.
Also, getting people to call back multiple times to rack up the number of calls at the expense of actually solving problems is an inneficient use of resources. Sure it lets the call company quote a price per call that is cheaper than the inhouse price per call, but think of the wasted time. Obviously, tech support should be focused on the goal of solving problems rather than getting the customer off the phone.
If I were running a company and wanted to outsource tech support, I would require that each call get a ticket number, and that no ticket could be closed without the customer's permission. That way the call center would at least have an incentive to try to help the customer. However, measures would have to be taken to ensure that techs ( who would presumably be graded according to number of tickets closed ) didn't just punt anyone with a difficult problem. You might give the customer the opportunity to key in their ticket number when they call and also the opportunity to stay on hold for the same tech they talked to before, or just be assigned a random tech. Punting would still happen ( such as near the end of a shift, or in hopes that the customer would choose to get a random support tech, but this would help somewhat with punting.
Customers are probably the best ones to police the quality of tech support actually provided by a call center outsourcer. If they were asked to rate the quality of service after each call from 1 to 9 where 1 is awful and 9 is adequate then quality could be assured. The calling center could be paid according to the following formula: NominalPricePerCall * NumberOfCallsTaken * ( AVG( Customer rating ) - 5 ). This would give irate customers the power to punish effectively costing the support company money.
But this is not perfect either. The common case would be that the person is politely punted ( or tricked into beginning the formatting process ) and calls back having rated the first person highly only to find out from the random person they were assigned that they have deleted all their files. Now the customer rates the innocent tech who is stuck with the call badly out of anger rather than calling back and waiting on hold for an hour to put the blame on the person who deserves it. You could have the customer rate the resolution of a ticket rather than rate per call, but then you'd have punters benefiting from the problem solving skills of people who actually solve problems.
The best solution might be to force a ticket to be handled all the way to completion by one tech so that the rating system is fair, but then you will have customers on hold for long periods.
And of course all this costs money. If customers get fed up enough with bad tech support then they will buy from somewhere else.
That's not likely though, because as bad as computer software/hardware can be, if it works for 80% of the people who buy it without them ever calling tech support, then by being slightly cheaper, that company will most likely garner 80% of market share over a competitor with better ( more expensive ) tech support. The minimal level of support that most companies give is the level that will not cause them to raise prices perceptably for the customer. So basically customers are left complaining about worthless almost-free support.
Every citizen should get the vote in whatever country. The only requirement should be the ability to indicate a choice. Parents should be barred from accompanying their over 5 year old children into the voting booth. Under 5's should be able to be assisted by their parents even though that means their parents get 2 votes. Their parents should be allowed to speak for their infants.
Some say children should not be trusted with the vote because they are not intelligent/worldly enough to make a good decision. I say the vote is not about intelligence or wisdom, it is about power - the power to demand not to be mistreated or oppressed.
Those that claim children are not qualified to make good decisions, and would hurt good government by their 'bad' voting should note that random votes tend to cancel each other out. Children, if stupid, will cancel each other's votes out. If they are not stupid, if their voice has a coherent message, then it will be heard.
I stand corrected. There does have to be a warrant before you can be forced to give up evidence ( at least from your home, or your person unless there is probable cause, your car gets less protection ). There should be some sort of warrant required to require a Blood Alcohol Test.
However, a Judge is going to take a cops word for it that a car was swerving and issue the warrant 100% of the time. Judges take cops word for it when it is their word against yours that you ran a red light for instance, this will be no different. So why pay a judges salary so they can rubber stamp BAL test warrant for the cops on Friday nights? Because it means that a cop can not test you unless they are pretty damn sure you are drunk. One that brings in every other dude they pull over to the station to wait till the judge rubber stamps their warrant for a BAL test will get tons of complaints from people and quickly lose their job.
Where I live, they aren't. My brother lost his license ( a few years ago ) at age 20 for 6 months ( would have been a year without the class ) for a first DUI offense. He was busted with a 0.04 BAL.
Arguments about young people getting out to vote or not aside, let me offer a hypothesis as to why this is now the case.
While nobody wants themselves to be resticted from any activity ( such as drinking ) nobody would argue that alcohol doesn't cause problems with some people that the rest of the world has to deal with such as drunk driving.
In fact, if, for instance, a thirty year old knew they had a disease and would die before they turned 50, they might favor banning over-50s from drinking so as to spare the costs to society of dealing with elderly drunks and remove the fraction of drunk drivers who are also elderly from the roads.
But that case is rare. Most people expect to be elderly one day, and would not vote for that kind of thing.
If you look at every age bracket eligable to vote ( greater than or equal to 18 ), each age is surrounded above and below by some other age that can vote except the youngest age bracket ( 18-20 year olds ). For instance, 30 year olds have 29 year olds that are about to turn 30 and 31 year olds who were recently 30 to help defend them in the polls against those who would 'gang up on' 30 year olds. The same is true for 21 year olds. They have the 18-20 crowd to assist them in defending their rights. That crowd would hate to see the drinking age raised to 22 before they turn 21.
But the 15-17 year olds have no say. They can not assist the 18-20 year olds to defend their rights. So whatever the age of sufferage, there will tend to be less rights for a time afterwards. It would be fairer to make the age of sufferage lower than the age of responsibility for this reason, say make the age of voting = 15, but the age of selective service registration/etc 18. Then the rights and responsibilities would accrue at the same time ( with the exception of the vote which would be granted before majority )
You can be forced to give evidence against yourself in the US, just not testimony. Destroying such evidence is considered obstruction of justice. Of course giving evidence against one's self is really ( as opposed to legally ) tantamount to giving testimony, but that's only one level of BS that allows this to go on.
The other BS argument that allows this is that 'driving is a privalege, not a right'. If freedom of travel is a right ( which it is ), then in this society of roads and sprawl, so is having license ( freedom ) to travel by piloting an automobile. The whole 'driving is a privilege' nonsence idea strikes me of being formulated way back when the majority of people got around their tiny towns on horse and buggy. The precidents that baleywick has set over the years allows driving to continue to be considered a privilege by the courts nowadays rather than the right it is even though the world is much different.
I see your point about ripping the thing out with dykes being difficult to hide, but I wouldn't bother trying to hide it except from cursory inspection by the guy that gives you a sticker - once a year with a solder gun before getting a sticker and it's back where it's 'supposed to' be. And while people who have been ordered to install one of these things by a court may be required to submit reports to some parole-officer-figure, the general public won't be submitting anything to anyone.
As for mechanical blowers requiring one to hum, you could get around that with a charcoal breath filter that would still transmit the hum but not the alcohol on one's breath. Blowing isn't hard. Neither is humming. Someone will come up with a low tech jerry-rigged breathalyzer-defeating bong. And I agree with you that those with nothing to hide except their privacy will largely find defeating this device impractical, but determined drunk drivers know who they are and will find a way around it.
I can imagine all the pork attached to the Anti-Murder re-up bill... Governor: "Yeah, I know the bill is full of crap, but if I don't sign it, then I've just declared anarchy!"
Actually.9 doesn't mean 90% of your blood is now alcohol. It means 0.9% of your blood is now alcohol. That is less than one percent. And you do die if half of one percent of your blood is alcohol. ( Blood alcohol level = 0.05 )
And at a blood alcohol level of 0.09 ( above the legal limit for motorists of 0.08 ) nine one hundredths of one percent of one's blood is alcohol.
I agree, there are so many things wrong with this assinine proposal that I hardly know where to begin.
Nobody wants to pay $1000 extra for a device to be installed in their car to do the cop's job. For $1000 per car on the road, you could hire alot of cops...
Easily circumvented. Anyone with a pair of wire cutters and access to a Radio Shack can bypass this.
Ppl would buy their cars out of state to get around this
Flashing lights! At night??!!!?? Honking horn! At night?????!?
Violates innocent until proven guilty principle, therefore degrading.
Will cause accidents. If you think cell phones were bad imagine hyperventilating sober drivers passing out at the wheel.
Easily circumvented. Even if you don't like wire cutters, you can fill up a balloon with air to blow for you. ( or another low tech solution devized by the same people who can make a bong out of *anything* )
A 0.1 BAL limit is appropriate. Sorry, 0.08 is too strict. And age doesn't affect the drunkeness of someone with a given BAL. There is no justification for 'zero tolerance' laws that are used to convict minors of drunk driving who have BAL's of 0.02 or higher. Sure, age may play a role in how many drinks *will get a person to a certain BAL* but the BAL *is* the only easy objective measure of how intoxicated someone is. A minor caught with a BAL of 0.03 maybe should be penalized for drinking illegally, but not DUI, since they were not intoxicated while driving. There is MUCH difference morally between drinking a beer that the law says you can't have, and drinking a six pack that the law says you can't have and then going for a spin. Drinking 1 beer and driving home is no different morally than drinking 1 beer at home, or drinking a six pack at home and staying there. It's what one would call responsible drinking.
Of course, a minor found driving while truely intoxicated ( at the adult limit in their state ) should be convicted of DUI as should anyone else, but applying the much harsher penalties meant to deter irresponsible drunk drivers from killing people to responsible minors who drink illegally and happen to be driving home with a safe BAL that is above zero is stupid and cruel.
I would rather have the government trying to track down use taxes by mining databases, and then have to prove that I didn't re-mail the box of cookies I bought online as a gift to someone in another state than have online merchants be required to collect sales tax for each state that has one.
I doubt a state has the right to demand customer lists and such from companies that do not do business in that state anyway. And if the government decides to use intrusive unreasonable search techniques to enforce use taxes, let the citizens of that state vote to repeal those use taxes.
the state may eventually be able to track
down so much information about a resident's finances that the state,
rather than the individual, could complete the individual's tax
return.
What the hell do they need that they don't already get? It's all reported! They get a copy of your W-2 forms too, and they get a copy of any other similar forms. I wish the gubmint's computers would just send me a tax refund check Jan 1st instead of making me send them something and then get it back. Better yet, a federal sales tax coupled with a large capital gains tax so the rich don't get off scott-free. Actually, you don't even need the capital gains tax if you make sure the sales tax applies to stock trades etc.
He should have developed one for keeping adult mosquitos at bay.
The best way to kill larvae though is with oil, kerosene or diesel works well. It forms a thin layer on the water, so when the mosquitos emerge they are coated and can not breathe.
Also DEET dropped from above by helocopters is a good thing.
The article mentions that they think the acid is H2SO4. I know from putting aluminum flashing into H2SO4, that it doesn't dissolve. It just sits there even if you add water or heat the acid. That's why I was annoyed when the aluminum rowboat dissolved in the acid lake in the movie Dante's peak. It would have been fine on that lake for days and days if not longer. I don't know if it is because the aluminum coats itself with aluminum oxide and oxygen and sulfate both have a -2 charge, or what. I know HCl eats aluminum lickety split though as does HNO3.
I think they should just make the lander out of aluminimuminiminimuninimimum
What drug would you give to swimmers? Curlers? How about ski-sharpshooters, or archers? Bobsledders? ( ok, they need power at first, but not at the expense of hand tremors, I don't now why they don't just have sumo wrestler sized lougers, pine car derby cars are limited to 5 oz because the heaviest ones get down the track fastest, Yokozma would seem to be the ideal louge contestant. Divers? What drug for them? Marathon runners? Sprinters? ( you might say steroids, but do they really increase performance? Is muscle mass really all there is to a sprint, or is there more, like circulation, and ATP storage capacity per unit muscle weight.
Also, at least for stock cars, there are many many restrictions as to what engineers can do to a car which are designed to make the cars more or less equal in order to let the drivers compete with each other. I don't know about Indy Cars though, but I always thought Indy car matchboxes were cool because they can fly. Their spoilers are actually wings. Also any matchbox/hotwheels with doors that can open can also fly since car doors are known for their aerodynamic lifting powers.
Slashdot Mirror
I wanna see an entire mountain done up this way.
Most people do not buy windows seperately from a new PC anyway. For one thing, it's damn expensive unless it's part of a bundle, and for another thing, most people wouldn't feel comfortable buying it and then looking up the FCC number for their sound chip/scanner/video card/whatever MS forgot to provide a driver for on the install dist to find the vendor so they can download and install the driver.
Most people who use computers do know how to reinstall their system using the re-image disk bundled with their Dell ( or whatever ) because they've been gatored/infected/corrupted enough times to have been forced to pick up that skill.
99% of computer manuacturers do bundle an antivirus program already. Manufacturers know that preventing virus protection will prevent some customer tech support calls and save them money. The antivirus software, although bundled, is not part of the OS, though it is part of the package the customer bought.
There must be very few people who installed their own copy of windows from a CD purchased from microsoft not bundled with their computer who have not installed a virus checker. Those who would know enough to want to upgrade their systems would probably be savvy enough to install some kind of virus checker such as the one available for free at http://www.free-av.com
And corporate users have IT departments to keep viruses at bay. Corporations already install non-free virus checking software.
Why would microsoft add this? Not to cut down on viruses: very few nodes have no virus protection. Virus protection that has not been updated recently with the latest virus definitions is the fault of users. But those users do not want to be forced to update either, especially if they are late for an appointment, and do not have time to wait for them to download before they can check their email.
And though windows is a McDonalds $2.99 combo meal and you can not buy just a Diet Coke for 99 cents, I don't see people paying more for windows because of this.
Microsoft wants to say it's more secure than Linux because it has a 'built in' virus checker. Of course it will not be 'part of the OS' as that would be stupid. But they will call it that because it will not be uninstallable, and will be bundled on the OS install CD.
Of course there are Linux distributions that come with virus checkers. These checkers are not 'part of the OS' because one can exhibit a Linux without a virus checker installed. But including it in the distribution is just as retard proof as including it 'in the OS'. One would have to go out of their way to uncheck the 'install virus checker' option on an install of a distribution that included it by default, and if someone went out of their way to do that then presumably they have a good reason such as wanting to install a different/better one in it's place.
However, putting that data out there in public so amateur asstronimers can narrow the orbit down ASAP is a GOOD IDEA. If they find out it will hit New York City, then every hour available to evacuate will save many lives.
Now if some official agency is aware that there will be a tungaska sized impact to a major metropolitain area and then decides to keep it secret, you can bet whatever moronic bureaucrat that decided that will be hung out to dry. We don't want official sky-is-falling press releases unless the sky really is falling, but raw data is not a warning, it's just astronomical data.
If anarchy is ever declared, I think the best bet would be to get about thirty or forty people together and steal a couple of school busses. Then you could take over WAL*MART ( one of the mega variety with the grocery store ) You would then park the school busses in front of the entrances and post sentry's on the ramparts of the well stocked ( with guns, ammo, food, supplies ) cement, fort like building. The parking lot would act as a killing field for any would be interlopers.
... And when they awoke ( except the mother as she was drunk and had taken way too many miltowns ) they used their geiger integrator ( dosimeter ) to check how much radiation they'd recieved so far. Then they left their bomb shelter, but the town was missing. They were in a wilderness paradise 8000 years in the future, only they didn't know it yet.
What actually happens is alot of random guesses at what that point might be, and an evolutionary process whereby wrong guesses are punished by going out of business.
Also, getting people to call back multiple times to rack up the number of calls at the expense of actually solving problems is an inneficient use of resources. Sure it lets the call company quote a price per call that is cheaper than the inhouse price per call, but think of the wasted time. Obviously, tech support should be focused on the goal of solving problems rather than getting the customer off the phone.
If I were running a company and wanted to outsource tech support, I would require that each call get a ticket number, and that no ticket could be closed without the customer's permission. That way the call center would at least have an incentive to try to help the customer. However, measures would have to be taken to ensure that techs ( who would presumably be graded according to number of tickets closed ) didn't just punt anyone with a difficult problem. You might give the customer the opportunity to key in their ticket number when they call and also the opportunity to stay on hold for the same tech they talked to before, or just be assigned a random tech. Punting would still happen ( such as near the end of a shift, or in hopes that the customer would choose to get a random support tech, but this would help somewhat with punting.
Customers are probably the best ones to police the quality of tech support actually provided by a call center outsourcer. If they were asked to rate the quality of service after each call from 1 to 9 where 1 is awful and 9 is adequate then quality could be assured. The calling center could be paid according to the following formula: NominalPricePerCall * NumberOfCallsTaken * ( AVG( Customer rating ) - 5 ). This would give irate customers the power to punish effectively costing the support company money.
But this is not perfect either. The common case would be that the person is politely punted ( or tricked into beginning the formatting process ) and calls back having rated the first person highly only to find out from the random person they were assigned that they have deleted all their files. Now the customer rates the innocent tech who is stuck with the call badly out of anger rather than calling back and waiting on hold for an hour to put the blame on the person who deserves it. You could have the customer rate the resolution of a ticket rather than rate per call, but then you'd have punters benefiting from the problem solving skills of people who actually solve problems.
The best solution might be to force a ticket to be handled all the way to completion by one tech so that the rating system is fair, but then you will have customers on hold for long periods.
And of course all this costs money. If customers get fed up enough with bad tech support then they will buy from somewhere else.
That's not likely though, because as bad as computer software/hardware can be, if it works for 80% of the people who buy it without them ever calling tech support, then by being slightly cheaper, that company will most likely garner 80% of market share over a competitor with better ( more expensive ) tech support. The minimal level of support that most companies give is the level that will not cause them to raise prices perceptably for the customer. So basically customers are left complaining about worthless almost-free support.
Some say children should not be trusted with the vote because they are not intelligent/worldly enough to make a good decision. I say the vote is not about intelligence or wisdom, it is about power - the power to demand not to be mistreated or oppressed.
Those that claim children are not qualified to make good decisions, and would hurt good government by their 'bad' voting should note that random votes tend to cancel each other out. Children, if stupid, will cancel each other's votes out. If they are not stupid, if their voice has a coherent message, then it will be heard.
I stand corrected. There does have to be a warrant before you can be forced to give up evidence ( at least from your home, or your person unless there is probable cause, your car gets less protection ). There should be some sort of warrant required to require a Blood Alcohol Test. However, a Judge is going to take a cops word for it that a car was swerving and issue the warrant 100% of the time. Judges take cops word for it when it is their word against yours that you ran a red light for instance, this will be no different. So why pay a judges salary so they can rubber stamp BAL test warrant for the cops on Friday nights? Because it means that a cop can not test you unless they are pretty damn sure you are drunk. One that brings in every other dude they pull over to the station to wait till the judge rubber stamps their warrant for a BAL test will get tons of complaints from people and quickly lose their job.
Where I live, they aren't. My brother lost his license ( a few years ago ) at age 20 for 6 months ( would have been a year without the class ) for a first DUI offense. He was busted with a 0.04 BAL.
While nobody wants themselves to be resticted from any activity ( such as drinking ) nobody would argue that alcohol doesn't cause problems with some people that the rest of the world has to deal with such as drunk driving.
In fact, if, for instance, a thirty year old knew they had a disease and would die before they turned 50, they might favor banning over-50s from drinking so as to spare the costs to society of dealing with elderly drunks and remove the fraction of drunk drivers who are also elderly from the roads.
But that case is rare. Most people expect to be elderly one day, and would not vote for that kind of thing.
If you look at every age bracket eligable to vote ( greater than or equal to 18 ), each age is surrounded above and below by some other age that can vote except the youngest age bracket ( 18-20 year olds ). For instance, 30 year olds have 29 year olds that are about to turn 30 and 31 year olds who were recently 30 to help defend them in the polls against those who would 'gang up on' 30 year olds. The same is true for 21 year olds. They have the 18-20 crowd to assist them in defending their rights. That crowd would hate to see the drinking age raised to 22 before they turn 21.
But the 15-17 year olds have no say. They can not assist the 18-20 year olds to defend their rights. So whatever the age of sufferage, there will tend to be less rights for a time afterwards. It would be fairer to make the age of sufferage lower than the age of responsibility for this reason, say make the age of voting = 15, but the age of selective service registration/etc 18. Then the rights and responsibilities would accrue at the same time ( with the exception of the vote which would be granted before majority )
The other BS argument that allows this is that 'driving is a privalege, not a right'. If freedom of travel is a right ( which it is ), then in this society of roads and sprawl, so is having license ( freedom ) to travel by piloting an automobile. The whole 'driving is a privilege' nonsence idea strikes me of being formulated way back when the majority of people got around their tiny towns on horse and buggy. The precidents that baleywick has set over the years allows driving to continue to be considered a privilege by the courts nowadays rather than the right it is even though the world is much different.
Then perhaps the stricter limits should apply to adults who have recently gotten their licenses as well.
As for mechanical blowers requiring one to hum, you could get around that with a charcoal breath filter that would still transmit the hum but not the alcohol on one's breath. Blowing isn't hard. Neither is humming. Someone will come up with a low tech jerry-rigged breathalyzer-defeating bong.
And I agree with you that those with nothing to hide except their privacy will largely find defeating this device impractical, but determined drunk drivers know who they are and will find a way around it.
It's really trinary consisting of dot, dash, and pause.
I can imagine all the pork attached to the Anti-Murder re-up bill... Governor: "Yeah, I know the bill is full of crap, but if I don't sign it, then I've just declared anarchy!"
And at a blood alcohol level of 0.09 ( above the legal limit for motorists of 0.08 ) nine one hundredths of one percent of one's blood is alcohol.
Of course, a minor found driving while truely intoxicated ( at the adult limit in their state ) should be convicted of DUI as should anyone else, but applying the much harsher penalties meant to deter irresponsible drunk drivers from killing people to responsible minors who drink illegally and happen to be driving home with a safe BAL that is above zero is stupid and cruel.
to Captain Kangaroo?
I doubt a state has the right to demand customer lists and such from companies that do not do business in that state anyway. And if the government decides to use intrusive unreasonable search techniques to enforce use taxes, let the citizens of that state vote to repeal those use taxes.
What the hell do they need that they don't already get? It's all reported! They get a copy of your W-2 forms too, and they get a copy of any other similar forms. I wish the gubmint's computers would just send me a tax refund check Jan 1st instead of making me send them something and then get it back. Better yet, a federal sales tax coupled with a large capital gains tax so the rich don't get off scott-free. Actually, you don't even need the capital gains tax if you make sure the sales tax applies to stock trades etc.
And, as in the movie Warlock, to undo creation, pronounce it back to front! The sound that will unravel the universe is: "Hee Haw!"
The best way to kill larvae though is with oil, kerosene or diesel works well. It forms a thin layer on the water, so when the mosquitos emerge they are coated and can not breathe.
Also DEET dropped from above by helocopters is a good thing.
The article mentions that they think the acid is H2SO4. I know from putting aluminum flashing into H2SO4, that it doesn't dissolve. It just sits there even if you add water or heat the acid. That's why I was annoyed when the aluminum rowboat dissolved in the acid lake in the movie Dante's peak. It would have been fine on that lake for days and days if not longer. I don't know if it is because the aluminum coats itself with aluminum oxide and oxygen and sulfate both have a -2 charge, or what. I know HCl eats aluminum lickety split though as does HNO3. I think they should just make the lander out of aluminimuminiminimuninimimum
Also, at least for stock cars, there are many many restrictions as to what engineers can do to a car which are designed to make the cars more or less equal in order to let the drivers compete with each other. I don't know about Indy Cars though, but I always thought Indy car matchboxes were cool because they can fly. Their spoilers are actually wings. Also any matchbox/hotwheels with doors that can open can also fly since car doors are known for their aerodynamic lifting powers.