No necessary contradiction. Easy != commonplace. It's not very hard for someone to dye thier hair green, but since the eighties it's not really been that common outside of a certain subculture, just like craking.
And that's what the warez culture is, a sub-culture.
Your argument is somthing like becuase anyone can replace most of thier software with linux easily then everyone must be doing it.
The fact that it's easy to find cracks is because a dedicated sub-group is constantly creating them. And with the internet once someone does it once and posts his methods in re-usable form, anyone can do it. doesn't mean that many do. Kinda like script kiddies.
Thank you.
When looking for an example (hyperbolic preferably) I just had this sudden image of a bunch people like bin laden and some evil ninja dudes with the expected prostitute types and some ceo type all in a hot-tub when a missle slams into just one and everyone else giving each other "holly $#IT, What the F~(K was that" looks followed by much running and screaming.
Good sig too. The proffesor was alot wiser than the image of that stereo type that is often pined on him.
I wan't talking about run of the mill dumb-ass mistakes that everyone makes. I was talking about the assumption that if someone is highly intelligent, they must be totaly lacking in social skills, common sense, or wisdom disproportionate to society at large. It tends to be the opposite. Everyone doese somthing stupid from time to time.
Sounds like a better system than what I'm used to here. Provided of course the defendand isn't denied the right (and informed of it) for a proper jury trial and all. I don't think they can convict without a proper trial if the defendand doesn't specifically waive rights.
I can tell you from experience here in Missouri if it's just your word against the officer's word, the judges in small towns tend to side with the officer as a default. This is inapropriate in my opinion as it's de-facto guilty untill innocent and the burden is on the defendand.
I wish you wrong on that first paragraph. But unforntunately it's all to true. Merit alone won't get that far unless.
If you can't play the social game well enough you'll get screwed. I don't like because I didn't start learning the social game till late and therefore am a bit behind the curve, so take my advice, study people and how they work. Especially learn social interaction and get at least passable at it.
I hate to burst your bubble, but #1 is only true with idiot savants and a few other cases. You've bought into a stereotype. And an easy one to buy into as most want to believe in some sort of cosmic fairness. The other reason is a lot of smart people simply don't place priorities the same way as others and get considered clueless for not playing keep up with the Joneses or choose a happy life instead of an ambitious one.
Good grief If I can't sympathise with part of that.
It drives me nuts when I can see what is to me the obvious truth and people who can't follow my reasoning (somtimes my fault admitedly) decide I'm wrong because they don't understand. Sometimes thier 'arguements' are so mind numbling stupid I just want to tell them how stupid they are. but I don't, especially when they are my boss.
It's possible to do what he says, BUT warning it's a) not easy, and B) not likely to much $$ in it most of the time.
Well that last sentance is a bit off. Yeah some are easy to spot(unfortunately thier usually the ones that are easy to smell, detect the gravitational pull of) but quite a few are just the opposite.
The distribution of highly intelligent people tends to mimic the distribution of normal people except that the ones that do well do REALLY well across the board. Don't remember his name, but some major football star for Notre Dame(IIRC) who was obviously built like brick, also made some significant contributions to genetic science while in college and probably graduated with honors.
You could also try and get into MENSA to be around other high i.q. people if you want. I can't really say how worth it it would be as when I joined the membership in my area was low and just not interested in the same kinds of things I was.
One thing I can advise against. Don't screw up colledge, if your gonna do it make shure you finish, or at least don't take on student loans unless your positive you'll be able to re-pay them without undue fiscal stress.
As a complete aside. I still find it wierd to hear people refer to C and C++ as LOW level languages. When I was in colledge they were HIGH level languages (actually C++ wasn't even taught till my second year, it was to new).
And if you've ever had to program in crude assembly just shy of plain machine language, NOT symbolic assymbler with nice lables and variables, just opcode memonics such as lda and so on , you wouldn't call C a low level language as easily.
I wonder if this shift in perception has anything to do with code bloat craptisms(personal word, means what it sound likes).
NOT claiming it's best, just prety good, and rather obscure. Well at least I like it.
Not even totaly shure it counts as a scripting language, interpreted yes, scripting I'll leave each person to judge for themselves.
It's called Euphoria. Runs under dos, windows, and Linux. And as you might guess from the url it runs pretty quick, and can be learned and written in fairly quick.
Data types are simple and flexible. It's also easy to create specific data types.
There are also converter programs that translate the code to equivalant C (forget wich flavor) for several compilesr including GCC.
It's only downside is that while you can get it free(beer), the source itself is currently closed.
However you can get the source if you pay for it, and the liscense that comes with the source seems halfway decent for it's type.
Anyway I thought I'd through that out in case someone else finds it useable. Give it a look, it's so easy to learn and code in while remaing fairly powerfull and flexible. There is also quite a sizeable base of free(both) user suplied code and programs it's worth checking out.
That's o.k. Judges have also held segregation, and before that slavery to be valid.
Of course those are egregious examples of Judges makeing rulings and such that violate much of what we hold to be moral or just. But the point remains, a judge is just a man. With special training and experience, and we hope some wisdom, but just a man none the less.
Jurries were intended as a final check on our laws, so that even if congress passes, the president signs, and judges uphold. We the people can still say NO that law is unjust. And not just for such extreem examples, it could be simply 'yes he broke the law, but in this case it was warrented and the right thing to do'.
The problem lies in past abuses of this responsibility. There have been cases where those who have lynched a non-white were permitted to go free by a mostly white jurry full of prejudice.
In response to this and simular injustices many were outraged, and judges began issuing the false instruction that jurrors may NOT judge the law as well the facts in controversy.
Think about it. Why would the jurry of ones peers have such high value as to be included in constitution when, even in the late 18th century, equal and somtimes superior methods of determining guilt existed. Some value can be ascribed to preventing a 'fix' by the system, but alone that seems a little weak to me.
Admitedly there is room for abuse in the system where a guilty man may be set free despite the evidence, even though the crime was trully foul. But take into this context how the founding fathers framed criminal issues, consistantly with a preference for freedom. Here we are presumed innocent untill proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It's fairly clear the founding fathers would much prefer many guilty go free than one innocent be jailed.
Our founding father had just thrown off a bad government that was injurious to it's people and firmly believed that the people should hold all the final trumps. Thus the first and second amendments, thus the concept of a jurry of ones peers needed to convict, thus the checks and balances of the government that make it so difficult for one branch to grab total power without the other two shutting it down cold.
All that said one should not choose to use that final check lightly, because we ARE a nation of laws. But the law MUST serve the people or it is not a law that the people should permit.
Frankly Judges today are to ready to rely on modern precedant and interpretation of the constitution without examining the context of its creation and the explanations the authors of the constitution themselves give.
Isn't that EXACTLY like saying because I can't hear the voices in your head, I don't count?
BTW I said some, then showed how I differentiate between the two. Try reading a whole post before commenting on it, elswise you give people a impression that's not the best about your comprehension skills.
I might add to that distinction that religeon/mythology is also often concerned with why and origins, whereas superstition often focuses on cause and effect.
Hmm, that's odd. In my state, if the PA can't call the cop to the stand (by said officer not being present usually) it's flat out dismissed, failure to prosecute. Frankly If it looked bad for you in your state and the officer wasn't present, I'd ask the judge to toss it. The reasoning being your accuser is not present for you to 'confront' as required by the constitution.
They're insurgents/geurrillas if thier primarily natives or allies of the natives. If thier outsiders with the primary goal of creating strife I think agent provacatures would apply.
To me a terrorist is one who uses 'terror' as a political tool. By terror in this context I mean primarily violent acts targeting primarily civilians. I'm up in the air whether political leadership counts or not for this definition.
Anyway, just my two cents.
I started on the 6510 myself. Nearly identical to the 6502, in fact the difference were NOT intentional, but could be fun.
Of course many who did asm for the 6510 may have though they were doing 6502. The 6510 was The cpu in a commodore 64, and was intended to be clone of it.
I fight my own tickets as well.
Just remember one thing. In small towns the judge IS going to rule against you unless you have major evidence (like videotape of the officer beating you with a wisky bottle after emptying it in one swallow or some such). His sallary is largly from your tickets. Personally I think that's a conflict of intrest.
I advise saving somthing for the trial de novo or apeal or whatever it is in your area.
I've had to do that once. I noticed up front the prossecuting attorney's attitutde like she couldn't loose and figured she new the fix was in.
Even when I pointed out the car I was driving at the time wasn't capable of such speeds ( VERY tiny engine 1.3 liter) and wasn't even firing on all cylinders properly (even had the bad sparkplug as evidence) she just kept repeatedly asking the same idiot questions of the officer. did he have occasion to observe a blue ford aspire. and so on.
Now this was at night on a dark road, and the officer was parked facing the other way and had to backtrack (median in way) and turn around and catch up to the car he clocked, that was out of his sight for some distance. several cross streets later.
Judge basically said 'he's got no reason to lie, you do, you pay'. stupid and clearly not right.
Needless to say the next judge didn't find someone who claimed to be able tell color in the dark, be absolutely certain it was same car despite plenty of oportunity to turn off out of the cops view, and the failing condition of my car, very good reasons to believe the officer over me.
And still no points on my record.
As long as this isn't the straw that breaks sco into oblivion. (sorry about the scrambled metaphor)
If this is enough SCO goes belly up for good before IBM's suit goes to court, well you kinda need someone to sue to have a suit. so to speak.
The cowardice is not always on the part of the poor fool dying. Bush was right to call OBL a coward, he sent men to die while he hid in caves.
Speaking of dying bravely, there is also the story of Roger Young durring, IIRC, WWI. Try googling for it some time if your interested.
It's also given in Heinlien's Book "Starship Troopers" (not to be confused with the movie).
In a sense Mann was irrational, but in this case it was the good kind. While bad for him it was good for others. It's called loyalty or esprit de core (I hope I spelled that right). In other words it wasn't rational on a personal basis, but on a group basis it was very rational.
I'm sorry, I was unclear. I wasn't trying to imply walking into certain death wasn't brave. I meant to say suicide is cowardice. Killing yourself when things are desperate is just another way of running away from problems. The braver option is to live and fight.
The problem with suicide bombers is they don't solve anything but thier own little problems by creating problems for innocents. IF they were just blowing themselves up to take out military and political targetts, I would meerly think them desperate and possibly foolish.
To be honest the thing that ticks me off the most about suicide bombers is the cowards that brainwash and send them out. These are evil men.
Anyone who can send a twelve year kid unknowing to his death. or even knowingly by playing on his trust or just simply straping a bomb on him and telling him 'go that way' is evil.
I totally agree with most of your last paragraph. With one tiny exception. You say she may have destroyed her future then follow with "Her house is full of joy and exhausted laughter..." If that is a 'ruined future' may we all be so lucky.
I was an 'unplanned' child myself (slight confusion on moms part about birth controll, long story, and frankly my dad is not so sure it wasn't a 'convienient' confusion) if that give you any clue where my thinking comes from.
Some don't see the difference between religeon/mythology and superstition.
Religeons/mythologies is/are usually adopted by larger groups with specific person designated to be experts and are trained in the specif details.
Mythological structers also usually involve anthropomorphic or animistic intelligence(s) of supernatural origin as key figures. Also superstition is often much less formal and more subject to briefer and less vigorous observance.
Just curious, who are you replying to. It's obviously not me despite your quoting my post as nothing you said is connected to anything I actually said. It seems to be about nutcases and picking on people. I called no-one a lunatic, and wasn't picking on any person.
My post (the part you quoted that is) was about how scientific reasoning works to clear up the common missunderstanding(often deliberate) of what theory means. And about how religeon does not meet the requirements of even a hypothesis.
If you did mean to reply to me, try reading what I said and not what you think I meant.
While I do agree what happened to that driver is bad. I feel in fairness I should explain what I know of how such things work.
Pizza hut has a no weapons policy, so while it may have been leagle for him carry that weapon, and quite possibly (I don't know the area in question) the sane thing to do. Simply having on him is a firing offence.
The reason for this is primarily liability. Suppose a driver is carrying, leagly of course, a gun, and an accident occures killing or wounding someone. Guess who gets sued. Or considering some suits that have succeded, the driver gets jumped by three guys with shawed offs, shoots one, the others run, the dead guys wife sues and wins.
Now most people who have a leagle carry permit also have training to get that permit. And statisticly are VERY unlikely to do somthing BAD with thier weapon. But Pizza Hut is unwilling to take the chance, or even deal with the complication of allowing SOME drivers to carry because they have permits and so on.
The other factor is that MOST of the time all the guy wants is the money (this is why PH drivers are NOT allowed to have more that $x on them at any time. this varies a bit by region but is usually between $10 and $30, plus the payment for any deliveries they have dropped off since they left the store). Drivers are told to simply give a mugger anything(as in objects, ie money or pizza or even your car) he asks for, but are advized against going anywhere with a mugger. They are also told to avoid suspisious circumstances (like houses with all lights off, no sign of habitation, so if you order, make shure your lights, esp. porch are on) and not to count money other than when recieved and to be brisk to and from car, etc.
For what it's worth that man would have been let go from ANY of the pizza delivery chains as ALL have a simular no weapons policy. If he'd been one of my drivers I would have had to fire him as his manager, privately I would told him he did the right thing and should not feel anything negative.
Personally I've always thought that if instead of the standard 'just do what the criminal says' routine that we're constantly taught we shouldn't instead always fight back. Think about it. then think it through from a criminal point of view.
After several years managing Pizza Huts, and as the son of a Pizza Hut manager, I think I DO understand how it works, all to well.
I very familiar with how the staffing grid works, what labor percentages are expected, and crew deployement. labour scheduling, sales forcasting, and so on.
I fully understand the need to ballance out overhead such as labor against the income, in fact I've seen the many of the raw numbers on a nightly basis for several years untill quite recently.
The simple fact is there is a MINUM number of people to have on staff during a dinner rush over $x per hour or you CANNOT make enough food fast enough to feed your customers.
I've often worked day shifts with just me and a driver and had NO problem because sales were low enough we could handle it. (typically a monday or tuesday). Now in a delco (this is a delivery/carryout only store) you have an absolute minimum of one manager and one driver in order to be fully open for bussiness (it's a firing offence for the manager on duty, when he's the only manager present,to leave the store in most cases, he most certainly can't take deliveries without very special cercumstances and area coach aproval).
The reason I left after years there is they cut the labor percentages below the minimum necessary to keep the store open for bussiness and still expected us to stay open WITOUT customer service falling or complaints. In a delco with 6 incomming lines One manager and two cooks cannot run a $600/35+ order hour, it's simply not possible, yet that is exactly what they were expecting. With the help of the drivers spending a few minutes inside between each run (I Had a GREAT crew, really good people by most measures) we managed on many occasions to survive, but with crappy customer service, 1.5 hour delivery times, up to 10 min on hold, and too many mistakes. I got sick of being yelled at by customer who were rightly angry at our service, many of whom I used to enjoy see-ing or hearing on the phone. Of my driver staff getting poorer and poorer tips because of all the time they had to waste inside they should have spent delivering, of inside staff stressing out and in the case of some quiting.
And there quite simply was no need to cut labor like that. They had already raised prices. Thier food costs had gone up less than the increased prices covered. The only reason was to fund thier parent corp (Yum brand foods, formerly Tri-Con) buying out two more chains.
And you say there are only so many people than can be cut during slow times?, Well here I do agree with you, however pizza feels differently.
Trust me I know Pizza Hut FAR better than I care to admit most days. You might as well tell an Alaskan nudist they don't understand cold.
I'm sorry, but you will pay the tip sooner or later, because if enough people stop tipping that the owner have to pay thier drivers more guess where that money comes from?
Also you might want to consider that the markup on a pizza is a less than a tip quite ofter. a $12 pizza usually costs $8.00-$10.00 dollars deliverd when everything is factored in. When you factor in that a typical driver will put from 60-120 miles on HIS car in a single shift all so you can sit at home rather than go pick up a pizza or cook yourself a meal, I think a tip is warrented.
And TRUST me you don't want to become known as a habitual stiff. If your very nice otherwise to the drivers you'll just be last in line for delivery and average an extra 10 min wait. And thats the best you can hope for, think about it.
Now some will think I'm feeding a troll, and perhaps I am, but I've seen that exact same attitude out of others before, and it's not a good one to have.
The common attitude towards stiffs I've seen amoung drivers is 'if you can't afford a tip, you shouldn't be ordering pizza' with the insinuation that a cronic stiffer is some idiot with no money skills and likely living off welfare.
Consider also that the state (my trick memory is refusing to come up with name, it loses names constantly sorry folks) next door that doesn't take away it's citizens 2nd amendment rights has a fairly low crime rate, but then if I was a violent criminal I'd much rather prey on the helpless than those who just might have gun myself.
Slashdot Mirror
No necessary contradiction. Easy != commonplace.
It's not very hard for someone to dye thier hair green, but since the eighties it's not really been that common outside of a certain subculture, just like craking.
And that's what the warez culture is, a sub-culture.
Your argument is somthing like becuase anyone can replace most of thier software with linux easily then everyone must be doing it.
The fact that it's easy to find cracks is because a dedicated sub-group is constantly creating them. And with the internet once someone does it once and posts his methods in re-usable form, anyone can do it. doesn't mean that many do. Kinda like script kiddies.
Mycroft
Thank you.
When looking for an example (hyperbolic preferably) I just had this sudden image of a bunch people like bin laden and some evil ninja dudes with the expected prostitute types and some ceo type all in a hot-tub when a missle slams into just one and everyone else giving each other "holly $#IT, What the F~(K was that" looks followed by much running and screaming.
Good sig too. The proffesor was alot wiser than the image of that stereo type that is often pined on him.
Mycroft
I wan't talking about run of the mill dumb-ass mistakes that everyone makes. I was talking about the assumption that if someone is highly intelligent, they must be totaly lacking in social skills, common sense, or wisdom disproportionate to society at large. It tends to be the opposite. Everyone doese somthing stupid from time to time.
Mycroft
Sounds like a better system than what I'm used to here. Provided of course the defendand isn't denied the right (and informed of it) for a proper jury trial and all. I don't think they can convict without a proper trial if the defendand doesn't specifically waive rights.
I can tell you from experience here in Missouri if it's just your word against the officer's word, the judges in small towns tend to side with the officer as a default. This is inapropriate in my opinion as it's de-facto guilty untill innocent and the burden is on the defendand.
Mycroft
I wish you wrong on that first paragraph. But unforntunately it's all to true. Merit alone won't get that far unless.
If you can't play the social game well enough you'll get screwed. I don't like because I didn't start learning the social game till late and therefore am a bit behind the curve, so take my advice, study people and how they work. Especially learn social interaction and get at least passable at it.
Mycroft
I hate to burst your bubble, but #1 is only true with idiot savants and a few other cases. You've bought into a stereotype. And an easy one to buy into as most want to believe in some sort of cosmic fairness. The other reason is a lot of smart people simply don't place priorities the same way as others and get considered clueless for not playing keep up with the Joneses or choose a happy life instead of an ambitious one.
Mycroft
Good grief If I can't sympathise with part of that.
It drives me nuts when I can see what is to me the obvious truth and people who can't follow my reasoning (somtimes my fault admitedly) decide I'm wrong because they don't understand. Sometimes thier 'arguements' are so mind numbling stupid I just want to tell them how stupid they are. but I don't, especially when they are my boss.
Mycroft
It's possible to do what he says, BUT warning it's a) not easy, and B) not likely to much $$ in it most of the time.
Well that last sentance is a bit off. Yeah some are easy to spot(unfortunately thier usually the ones that are easy to smell, detect the gravitational pull of) but quite a few are just the opposite.
The distribution of highly intelligent people tends to mimic the distribution of normal people except that the ones that do well do REALLY well across the board. Don't remember his name, but some major football star for Notre Dame(IIRC) who was obviously built like brick, also made some significant contributions to genetic science while in college and probably graduated with honors.
You could also try and get into MENSA to be around other high i.q. people if you want. I can't really say how worth it it would be as when I joined the membership in my area was low and just not interested in the same kinds of things I was.
One thing I can advise against. Don't screw up colledge, if your gonna do it make shure you finish, or at least don't take on student loans unless your positive you'll be able to re-pay them without undue fiscal stress.
Mycroft
As a complete aside. I still find it wierd to hear people refer to C and C++ as LOW level languages. When I was in colledge they were HIGH level languages (actually C++ wasn't even taught till my second year, it was to new).
And if you've ever had to program in crude assembly just shy of plain machine language, NOT symbolic assymbler with nice lables and variables, just opcode memonics such as lda and so on , you wouldn't call C a low level language as easily.
I wonder if this shift in perception has anything to do with code bloat craptisms(personal word, means what it sound likes).
Mycroft
NOT claiming it's best, just prety good, and rather obscure. Well at least I like it.
Not even totaly shure it counts as a scripting language, interpreted yes, scripting I'll leave each person to judge for themselves.
It's called Euphoria. Runs under dos, windows, and Linux. And as you might guess from the url it runs pretty quick, and can be learned and written in fairly quick.
Data types are simple and flexible. It's also easy to create specific data types.
There are also converter programs that translate the code to equivalant C (forget wich flavor) for several compilesr including GCC.
It's only downside is that while you can get it free(beer), the source itself is currently closed.
However you can get the source if you pay for it, and the liscense that comes with the source seems halfway decent for it's type.
Anyway I thought I'd through that out in case someone else finds it useable. Give it a look, it's so easy to learn and code in while remaing fairly powerfull and flexible. There is also quite a sizeable base of free(both) user suplied code and programs it's worth checking out.
Mycroft
That's o.k. Judges have also held segregation, and before that slavery to be valid.
Of course those are egregious examples of Judges makeing rulings and such that violate much of what we hold to be moral or just. But the point remains, a judge is just a man. With special training and experience, and we hope some wisdom, but just a man none the less.
Jurries were intended as a final check on our laws, so that even if congress passes, the president signs, and judges uphold. We the people can still say NO that law is unjust. And not just for such extreem examples, it could be simply 'yes he broke the law, but in this case it was warrented and the right thing to do'.
The problem lies in past abuses of this responsibility. There have been cases where those who have lynched a non-white were permitted to go free by a mostly white jurry full of prejudice.
In response to this and simular injustices many were outraged, and judges began issuing the false instruction that jurrors may NOT judge the law as well the facts in controversy.
Think about it. Why would the jurry of ones peers have such high value as to be included in constitution when, even in the late 18th century, equal and somtimes superior methods of determining guilt existed. Some value can be ascribed to preventing a 'fix' by the system, but alone that seems a little weak to me.
Admitedly there is room for abuse in the system where a guilty man may be set free despite the evidence, even though the crime was trully foul. But take into this context how the founding fathers framed criminal issues, consistantly with a preference for freedom. Here we are presumed innocent untill proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It's fairly clear the founding fathers would much prefer many guilty go free than one innocent be jailed.
Our founding father had just thrown off a bad government that was injurious to it's people and firmly believed that the people should hold all the final trumps. Thus the first and second amendments, thus the concept of a jurry of ones peers needed to convict, thus the checks and balances of the government that make it so difficult for one branch to grab total power without the other two shutting it down cold.
All that said one should not choose to use that final check lightly, because we ARE a nation of laws. But the law MUST serve the people or it is not a law that the people should permit.
Frankly Judges today are to ready to rely on modern precedant and interpretation of the constitution without examining the context of its creation and the explanations the authors of the constitution themselves give.
Mycroft
Isn't that EXACTLY like saying because I can't hear the voices in your head, I don't count?
BTW I said some, then showed how I differentiate between the two. Try reading a whole post before commenting on it, elswise you give people a impression that's not the best about your comprehension skills.
I might add to that distinction that religeon/mythology is also often concerned with why and origins, whereas superstition often focuses on cause and effect.
Mycroft
Hmm, that's odd. In my state, if the PA can't call the cop to the stand (by said officer not being present usually) it's flat out dismissed, failure to prosecute. Frankly If it looked bad for you in your state and the officer wasn't present, I'd ask the judge to toss it. The reasoning being your accuser is not present for you to 'confront' as required by the constitution.
Mycroft
They're insurgents/geurrillas if thier primarily natives or allies of the natives. If thier outsiders with the primary goal of creating strife I think agent provacatures would apply.
To me a terrorist is one who uses 'terror' as a political tool. By terror in this context I mean primarily violent acts targeting primarily civilians. I'm up in the air whether political leadership counts or not for this definition.
Anyway, just my two cents.
Mycroft
I started on the 6510 myself. Nearly identical to the 6502, in fact the difference were NOT intentional, but could be fun.
Of course many who did asm for the 6510 may have though they were doing 6502. The 6510 was The cpu in a commodore 64, and was intended to be clone of it.
Mycroft
I fight my own tickets as well.
Just remember one thing. In small towns the judge IS going to rule against you unless you have major evidence (like videotape of the officer beating you with a wisky bottle after emptying it in one swallow or some such). His sallary is largly from your tickets. Personally I think that's a conflict of intrest.
I advise saving somthing for the trial de novo or apeal or whatever it is in your area.
I've had to do that once. I noticed up front the prossecuting attorney's attitutde like she couldn't loose and figured she new the fix was in.
Even when I pointed out the car I was driving at the time wasn't capable of such speeds ( VERY tiny engine 1.3 liter) and wasn't even firing on all cylinders properly (even had the bad sparkplug as evidence) she just kept repeatedly asking the same idiot questions of the officer. did he have occasion to observe a blue ford aspire. and so on.
Now this was at night on a dark road, and the officer was parked facing the other way and had to backtrack (median in way) and turn around and catch up to the car he clocked, that was out of his sight for some distance. several cross streets later.
Judge basically said 'he's got no reason to lie, you do, you pay'. stupid and clearly not right.
Needless to say the next judge didn't find someone who claimed to be able tell color in the dark, be absolutely certain it was same car despite plenty of oportunity to turn off out of the cops view, and the failing condition of my car, very good reasons to believe the officer over me.
And still no points on my record.
Mycroft
As long as this isn't the straw that breaks sco into oblivion. (sorry about the scrambled metaphor)
If this is enough SCO goes belly up for good before IBM's suit goes to court, well you kinda need someone to sue to have a suit. so to speak.
Mycroft
The cowardice is not always on the part of the poor fool dying. Bush was right to call OBL a coward, he sent men to die while he hid in caves.
Speaking of dying bravely, there is also the story of Roger Young durring, IIRC, WWI. Try googling for it some time if your interested.
It's also given in Heinlien's Book "Starship Troopers" (not to be confused with the movie).
In a sense Mann was irrational, but in this case it was the good kind. While bad for him it was good for others. It's called loyalty or esprit de core (I hope I spelled that right). In other words it wasn't rational on a personal basis, but on a group basis it was very rational.
Mycroft
I'm sorry, I was unclear. I wasn't trying to imply walking into certain death wasn't brave. I meant to say suicide is cowardice. Killing yourself when things are desperate is just another way of running away from problems. The braver option is to live and fight.
The problem with suicide bombers is they don't solve anything but thier own little problems by creating problems for innocents. IF they were just blowing themselves up to take out military and political targetts, I would meerly think them desperate and possibly foolish.
To be honest the thing that ticks me off the most about suicide bombers is the cowards that brainwash and send them out. These are evil men.
Anyone who can send a twelve year kid unknowing to his death. or even knowingly by playing on his trust or just simply straping a bomb on him and telling him 'go that way' is evil.
I totally agree with most of your last paragraph. With one tiny exception. You say she may have destroyed her future then follow with "Her house is full of joy and exhausted laughter..." If that is a 'ruined future' may we all be so lucky.
I was an 'unplanned' child myself (slight confusion on moms part about birth controll, long story, and frankly my dad is not so sure it wasn't a 'convienient' confusion) if that give you any clue where my thinking comes from.
Mycroft
Some don't see the difference between religeon/mythology and superstition.
Religeons/mythologies is/are usually adopted by larger groups with specific person designated to be experts and are trained in the specif details.
Mythological structers also usually involve anthropomorphic or animistic intelligence(s) of supernatural origin as key figures. Also superstition is often much less formal and more subject to briefer and less vigorous observance.
Mycroft
Just curious, who are you replying to. It's obviously not me despite your quoting my post as nothing you said is connected to anything I actually said. It seems to be about nutcases and picking on people. I called no-one a lunatic, and wasn't picking on any person.
My post (the part you quoted that is) was about how scientific reasoning works to clear up the common missunderstanding(often deliberate) of what theory means. And about how religeon does not meet the requirements of even a hypothesis.
If you did mean to reply to me, try reading what I said and not what you think I meant.
Mycroft
While I do agree what happened to that driver is bad. I feel in fairness I should explain what I know of how such things work.
Pizza hut has a no weapons policy, so while it may have been leagle for him carry that weapon, and quite possibly (I don't know the area in question) the sane thing to do. Simply having on him is a firing offence.
The reason for this is primarily liability. Suppose a driver is carrying, leagly of course, a gun, and an accident occures killing or wounding someone. Guess who gets sued. Or considering some suits that have succeded, the driver gets jumped by three guys with shawed offs, shoots one, the others run, the dead guys wife sues and wins.
Now most people who have a leagle carry permit also have training to get that permit. And statisticly are VERY unlikely to do somthing BAD with thier weapon. But Pizza Hut is unwilling to take the chance, or even deal with the complication of allowing SOME drivers to carry because they have permits and so on.
The other factor is that MOST of the time all the guy wants is the money (this is why PH drivers are NOT allowed to have more that $x on them at any time. this varies a bit by region but is usually between $10 and $30, plus the payment for any deliveries they have dropped off since they left the store). Drivers are told to simply give a mugger anything(as in objects, ie money or pizza or even your car) he asks for, but are advized against going anywhere with a mugger. They are also told to avoid suspisious circumstances (like houses with all lights off, no sign of habitation, so if you order, make shure your lights, esp. porch are on) and not to count money other than when recieved and to be brisk to and from car, etc.
For what it's worth that man would have been let go from ANY of the pizza delivery chains as ALL have a simular no weapons policy. If he'd been one of my drivers I would have had to fire him as his manager, privately I would told him he did the right thing and should not feel anything negative.
Personally I've always thought that if instead of the standard 'just do what the criminal says' routine that we're constantly taught we shouldn't instead always fight back. Think about it. then think it through from a criminal point of view.
Mycroft
After several years managing Pizza Huts, and as the son of a Pizza Hut manager, I think I DO understand how it works, all to well.
I very familiar with how the staffing grid works, what labor percentages are expected, and crew deployement. labour scheduling, sales forcasting, and so on.
I fully understand the need to ballance out overhead such as labor against the income, in fact I've seen the many of the raw numbers on a nightly basis for several years untill quite recently.
The simple fact is there is a MINUM number of people to have on staff during a dinner rush over $x per hour or you CANNOT make enough food fast enough to feed your customers.
I've often worked day shifts with just me and a driver and had NO problem because sales were low enough we could handle it. (typically a monday or tuesday). Now in a delco (this is a delivery/carryout only store) you have an absolute minimum of one manager and one driver in order to be fully open for bussiness (it's a firing offence for the manager on duty, when he's the only manager present,to leave the store in most cases, he most certainly can't take deliveries without very special cercumstances and area coach aproval).
The reason I left after years there is they cut the labor percentages below the minimum necessary to keep the store open for bussiness and still expected us to stay open WITOUT customer service falling or complaints. In a delco with 6 incomming lines One manager and two cooks cannot run a $600/35+ order hour, it's simply not possible, yet that is exactly what they were expecting. With the help of the drivers spending a few minutes inside between each run (I Had a GREAT crew, really good people by most measures) we managed on many occasions to survive, but with crappy customer service, 1.5 hour delivery times, up to 10 min on hold, and too many mistakes. I got sick of being yelled at by customer who were rightly angry at our service, many of whom I used to enjoy see-ing or hearing on the phone. Of my driver staff getting poorer and poorer tips because of all the time they had to waste inside they should have spent delivering, of inside staff stressing out and in the case of some quiting.
And there quite simply was no need to cut labor like that. They had already raised prices. Thier food costs had gone up less than the increased prices covered. The only reason was to fund thier parent corp (Yum brand foods, formerly Tri-Con) buying out two more chains.
And you say there are only so many people than can be cut during slow times?, Well here I do agree with you, however pizza feels differently.
Trust me I know Pizza Hut FAR better than I care to admit most days. You might as well tell an Alaskan nudist they don't understand cold.
Mycroft
I'm sorry, but you will pay the tip sooner or later, because if enough people stop tipping that the owner have to pay thier drivers more guess where that money comes from?
Also you might want to consider that the markup on a pizza is a less than a tip quite ofter. a $12 pizza usually costs $8.00-$10.00 dollars deliverd when everything is factored in. When you factor in that a typical driver will put from 60-120 miles on HIS car in a single shift all so you can sit at home rather than go pick up a pizza or cook yourself a meal, I think a tip is warrented.
And TRUST me you don't want to become known as a habitual stiff. If your very nice otherwise to the drivers you'll just be last in line for delivery and average an extra 10 min wait. And thats the best you can hope for, think about it.
Now some will think I'm feeding a troll, and perhaps I am, but I've seen that exact same attitude out of others before, and it's not a good one to have.
The common attitude towards stiffs I've seen amoung drivers is 'if you can't afford a tip, you shouldn't be ordering pizza' with the insinuation that a cronic stiffer is some idiot with no money skills and likely living off welfare.
Mycroft
Consider also that the state (my trick memory is refusing to come up with name, it loses names constantly sorry folks) next door that doesn't take away it's citizens 2nd amendment rights has a fairly low crime rate, but then if I was a violent criminal I'd much rather prey on the helpless than those who just might have gun myself.
Mycroft