Unwavering And Absolute Dedication
I refused to allow anything to interfere with my success. Some days I didn't feel like working out, some days my work would interfere with my morning workouts, there were family emergencies to tend to and on and on... but no matter what happened, I adapted to the circumstance and I got the job done. I didn't make excuses--I did what I had to do to achieve my goals.
I knew right away that this was not the program for me.
In the original UK edition of Life, the Universe and Everything the Silver Bail of Peace was
"The Rory Award For The Most Gratuitous Use Of The Word 'Fuck' In A Serious Screenplay"
but that was considered unacceptable for the American version.
Douglas Adams rewrote it be
"The Rory Award For The Most Gratuitous Use Of The Word 'Belgium' In A Serious Screenplay"
and added some business expressing Arthur Dent's confusion about why people were getting all worked up about the name of a small inoffensive country, which by a staggering coincidence was a word unmentionable in polite Galactic society (much like "cricket").
I read the fordt as a teen but lost my copy somewhere before I moved to America. When I bought a replacement US version, I just about bust a gut at the change - the edited version is much funnier.
No, you misunderstood. When it was paper the payroll took all day to process. After I put it on the computer I could finish up in a couple of hours or less. The transfer project took maybe three weeks; a real professional probably could have done it in three days, but I wasn't a real professional, just a PFY.
I wouldn't even have withheld the password if they didn't have the ability (i.e. the paper records) to do the payroll manually. Inconveniencing them after they treated me shabbily is one thing, but I wouldn't have wanted to actually hose up people's livelihoods, even so.
In the end all I deprived them of was the convenient system I'd set up for them. At worst they'd have just had to hire another temp to catch the paper system back up to date.
I didn't actually intend to. This was about 15 years ago. I got hired to take care of payroll at a warehouse, which was a completely paper-based process. I suggested that I could transfer the whole operation onto a computer and be more efficient. They said go ahead, but for security be sure to password protect it.
It ended up taking me only a couple of hours to do what had been an all-day job, and naively I told them this and suggested that there were other areas of operation in the plant I could similarly improve. Instead, the next day they canned me - they wouldn't say why, only "It just isn't working out."
The day after that I was glumly poking through the classifieds when I got the call
"Hi, how are you doing?"
"Well, I'm unemployed. That doesn't help."
"Ah, yes... well. Say, you know your payroll system? It's password protected."
"Yes, I know. You asked me to do that." A little bubble of joy started in my chest.
"Well, could you tell me what the password is?"
"I could... but I don't work for you any more, do I?" Then I hung up.
Oh, all the raw data was still available on paper, but I'll bet it took them weeks to straighten it all out completely.
Wow. I guess John Kerry would be your dream politician. He's a master at changing his position. He'll 'work towards the right direction' multiple times... on single issue!
John "Whiplash" McCain is the true master. All politicians change their positions from time to time, but seldom does one end up opposing so many of the laws he himself introduced.
Actually Kucinich made it clear that he was saying the same thing you did - it was an Object, Flying, Unidentified. He was then asked "What do you think it was?" and replied "I have no idea."
However, he has an in-law who's a fairly successful (in the sense of 'profit-making') astrologer, and she whomped it up horribly, going on about how he felt a great sense of peace and all the usual woo-woo.
This POS legislation would be better off vetoed.
"If we make the law protect the people it won't pass, so let's make it a license to screw them over instead." Oh, that's beautiful logic.
He hasn't had the opportunity to vote on it at all yet. We're just pissed that he's not stumping against it wholeheartedly.
He still has ample opportunity to make it right. A drop in donations to his campaign (with explanations from the droppers as to why) might yet convince him that doing the right thing is worth any political cost that might be involved. Or a jump in donations to this page, set up specifically to reward valor and punish cowardice on this very issue.
It might even redound to his benefit. I honestly believe it would.
I am directing my money toward those candidates who genuinely fight this absurd bill. I'm still hoping Obama will rejoin those ranks, but until then there is no shortage of campaigns I can contribute to. The 128 House Democrats who voted against it, for example.
(Oh, and I am noting who voted which way on this one. In two years I will be picking amongst about 105 primary challengers. Pelosi, Hoyer, I'm looking at you.)
All that said, voting third party is more effective than not voting at all, and whoever modded you flamebait is an idiot for doing so.
Saying he wants the immunity provision stripped out, but he'll vote for the bill even if it isn't, is not exactly what I call whole-hearted opposition.
I believe SCOTUS determined that while it was unConstitutional to make past actions illegal (so as to prosecute actions which at the time were not against the law), it is okay to pass legislation which makes prior illegal acts retroaxctively legal.
I can't recall the case off the top of my head, but it was a civil rights case; I want to say Loving vs Virginia, overturning the illegality of interracial marriages.
As it happens I rewatched the Daniel Day movie In The Name Of The Father a short time back. It's odd to see, and recall from real life, the aghast reactions to the "Prevention of Terrorism Act" which gave UK police the unprecedented (and almost immediately abused) power to hold suspects without charge for an entire week - 7 days.
That was long enough to obtain at least 11 false convictions pretty much straight away. The modern UK police must be softies, if it takes them six times as long to extract a confession from whomever they decide to detain.
He did not say it was a spaceship, or ethereal intelligence, or whatever the current woo is.
He saw a light in the sky and he didn't know or speculate about what it was.
An astrologer in-law of his (name escapes me, but a fairly well-known mistress of woo) added a bunch of crap in some interview about how he felt a great sense of peace blah blah, which he subsequently denied, repeating that it was just an Unidentified Flying Object.
It's shocking how little it takes to get labeled a nutjob. Apparently accurately reporting facts is enough - as with the UFO and as with these articles of impeachment.
I wonder how many parents who have given their kids their own computers to play games on, but chose not to connect the kids computer to the Internet, will now not buy these games because they don't want to have to hook the damn thing up every ten days?
Spore, particularly, looks like a game most parents would be happy to let their kid play, for its back-door educational aspect, but some of those parents aren't going to consider it because it would involve giving the kid easier access to all teh pr0n & predators.
You forgot "Hang out on Slashdot writing snotty and supercilious comments."
Yes, we're all aware that those other forms of entertainment exist. They're not the subject of this story, and some of us like to do some or all of those things AND play computer games. Some of us prefer to do the latter without an Internet connection, some are concerned that they'll be left unable to play legitimately purchased copies, some are concerned about unnecessary system vulnerabilities, and some simply find the idea of having to continually prove we paid for those copies repulsive. All of those are legitimate concerns relevant to the topic.
Listing alternative ways to spend time which don't have anything to do with the topic at hand, i.e. computer games with DRM requiring Internet access, just marks you as the kind of person who logs onto HBO.com's forums in order to mention that you watch very little TV and normally only PBS.
Now if you'll excuse me (or even if you won't) I'm going to take my kid to the pool, then to the movies, and then to the video game store.
Richard Dawkins does not 'believe' that life was seeded on Earth from elsewhere, he simply isn't willing to dismiss it without evidence, and the reason he brought the notion up in the first place was precisely to point out that it would then be necessary to explain where the aliens came from.
In other words, at some point you have to have a theory which allows for complex life forms (be they Terran or alien) to arise from simple beginnings. So far, evolution is the only viable candidate.
Slashdot Mirror
I knew right away that this was not the program for me.
but that was considered unacceptable for the American version. Douglas Adams rewrote it be
and added some business expressing Arthur Dent's confusion about why people were getting all worked up about the name of a small inoffensive country, which by a staggering coincidence was a word unmentionable in polite Galactic society (much like "cricket"). I read the fordt as a teen but lost my copy somewhere before I moved to America. When I bought a replacement US version, I just about bust a gut at the change - the edited version is much funnier.
No, you misunderstood. When it was paper the payroll took all day to process. After I put it on the computer I could finish up in a couple of hours or less. The transfer project took maybe three weeks; a real professional probably could have done it in three days, but I wasn't a real professional, just a PFY.
Oh, I expect if jobs were on the line they'd have at least phoned me back a second time before proceeding to the limb breaking.
I wouldn't do it now, but I was young. It was the better part of two decades ago.
I wouldn't even have withheld the password if they didn't have the ability (i.e. the paper records) to do the payroll manually. Inconveniencing them after they treated me shabbily is one thing, but I wouldn't have wanted to actually hose up people's livelihoods, even so. In the end all I deprived them of was the convenient system I'd set up for them. At worst they'd have just had to hire another temp to catch the paper system back up to date.
I didn't actually intend to. This was about 15 years ago. I got hired to take care of payroll at a warehouse, which was a completely paper-based process. I suggested that I could transfer the whole operation onto a computer and be more efficient. They said go ahead, but for security be sure to password protect it.
It ended up taking me only a couple of hours to do what had been an all-day job, and naively I told them this and suggested that there were other areas of operation in the plant I could similarly improve. Instead, the next day they canned me - they wouldn't say why, only "It just isn't working out."
The day after that I was glumly poking through the classifieds when I got the call
"Hi, how are you doing?"
"Well, I'm unemployed. That doesn't help."
"Ah, yes... well. Say, you know your payroll system? It's password protected."
"Yes, I know. You asked me to do that." A little bubble of joy started in my chest.
"Well, could you tell me what the password is?"
"I could... but I don't work for you any more, do I?" Then I hung up.
Oh, all the raw data was still available on paper, but I'll bet it took them weeks to straighten it all out completely.
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/35636leg20080612.html
Wow. I guess John Kerry would be your dream politician. He's a master at changing his position. He'll 'work towards the right direction' multiple times ... on single issue!
John "Whiplash" McCain is the true master. All politicians change their positions from time to time, but seldom does one end up opposing so many of the laws he himself introduced.
Actually Kucinich made it clear that he was saying the same thing you did - it was an Object, Flying, Unidentified. He was then asked "What do you think it was?" and replied "I have no idea."
However, he has an in-law who's a fairly successful (in the sense of 'profit-making') astrologer, and she whomped it up horribly, going on about how he felt a great sense of peace and all the usual woo-woo.
Guess which version the media keeps harping on?
This POS legislation would be better off vetoed. "If we make the law protect the people it won't pass, so let's make it a license to screw them over instead." Oh, that's beautiful logic.
Are you one of those Das Keyboard goths? Whenever you press the black key labeled in black a black letter lights up black on the black background?
He hasn't had the opportunity to vote on it at all yet. We're just pissed that he's not stumping against it wholeheartedly.
He still has ample opportunity to make it right. A drop in donations to his campaign (with explanations from the droppers as to why) might yet convince him that doing the right thing is worth any political cost that might be involved. Or a jump in donations to this page, set up specifically to reward valor and punish cowardice on this very issue.
It might even redound to his benefit. I honestly believe it would.
I am directing my money toward those candidates who genuinely fight this absurd bill. I'm still hoping Obama will rejoin those ranks, but until then there is no shortage of campaigns I can contribute to. The 128 House Democrats who voted against it, for example.
(Oh, and I am noting who voted which way on this one. In two years I will be picking amongst about 105 primary challengers. Pelosi, Hoyer, I'm looking at you.)
All that said, voting third party is more effective than not voting at all, and whoever modded you flamebait is an idiot for doing so.
Saying he wants the immunity provision stripped out, but he'll vote for the bill even if it isn't, is not exactly what I call whole-hearted opposition.
I believe SCOTUS determined that while it was unConstitutional to make past actions illegal (so as to prosecute actions which at the time were not against the law), it is okay to pass legislation which makes prior illegal acts retroaxctively legal.
I can't recall the case off the top of my head, but it was a civil rights case; I want to say Loving vs Virginia, overturning the illegality of interracial marriages.
As Teddy Roosevelt said, the only thing big enough to bust the trusts of Big Business is a Big Government.
he doesn't know much about the economy and doesn't really understand economics. He's said so himself!
http://politicalinquirer.com/2008/04/18/john-mccain-doesnt-know-much-about-the-economy-and-doesnt-really-understand-the-economy/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guildford_Four
As it happens I rewatched the Daniel Day movie In The Name Of The Father a short time back. It's odd to see, and recall from real life, the aghast reactions to the "Prevention of Terrorism Act" which gave UK police the unprecedented (and almost immediately abused) power to hold suspects without charge for an entire week - 7 days.
That was long enough to obtain at least 11 false convictions pretty much straight away. The modern UK police must be softies, if it takes them six times as long to extract a confession from whomever they decide to detain.
Dennis Kucinich replied succinctly, "I read it."
He did not say it was a spaceship, or ethereal intelligence, or whatever the current woo is.
He saw a light in the sky and he didn't know or speculate about what it was.
An astrologer in-law of his (name escapes me, but a fairly well-known mistress of woo) added a bunch of crap in some interview about how he felt a great sense of peace blah blah, which he subsequently denied, repeating that it was just an Unidentified Flying Object.
It's shocking how little it takes to get labeled a nutjob. Apparently accurately reporting facts is enough - as with the UFO and as with these articles of impeachment.
Spore, particularly, looks like a game most parents would be happy to let their kid play, for its back-door educational aspect, but some of those parents aren't going to consider it because it would involve giving the kid easier access to all teh pr0n & predators.
You forgot "Hang out on Slashdot writing snotty and supercilious comments."
Yes, we're all aware that those other forms of entertainment exist. They're not the subject of this story, and some of us like to do some or all of those things AND play computer games. Some of us prefer to do the latter without an Internet connection, some are concerned that they'll be left unable to play legitimately purchased copies, some are concerned about unnecessary system vulnerabilities, and some simply find the idea of having to continually prove we paid for those copies repulsive. All of those are legitimate concerns relevant to the topic.
Listing alternative ways to spend time which don't have anything to do with the topic at hand, i.e. computer games with DRM requiring Internet access, just marks you as the kind of person who logs onto HBO.com's forums in order to mention that you watch very little TV and normally only PBS.
Now if you'll excuse me (or even if you won't) I'm going to take my kid to the pool, then to the movies, and then to the video game store.
I'd have given a lot to have been present when my son's teacher asked "Who can tell me what we call the nearest star?" and he answered "The Sun!"
In other words, at some point you have to have a theory which allows for complex life forms (be they Terran or alien) to arise from simple beginnings. So far, evolution is the only viable candidate.