The weird thing is, once they get into power, Republicans tend to increase the size of government, (and spending), while Democrats tend to decrease the size of government, (and spending). But people will never let facts get in the way of their narrative. Not that I support the Democrats, mind you, but facts are facts. The truth is, there is little difference between what the parties do, in spite of what they say. What we really need is to get rid of our de facto two-party system. There is nothing in the Constitution about a two-party system. Nevertheless, election laws have been designed to maintain the current political duopoly.
I was in high school, a senior, when the original Star Wars came out. I was definitely not a nerd, and didn't see it. Really, I don't remember it being big in the culture at the time. No one I knew talked about it, and all that came later, in the eighties. A couple of years ago I decided to finally watch them all, in order. By then, of course, it was such a large part of the culture that I knew much of what was supposed to happen in the films, and certainly I'd seen bits and pieces of the films over the years. What struck me was how cheesy the original Star Wars was. It really is a children's movie, not the kind of thing that would interest most adults. It seems to me that one has to have seen Star Wars as a child in order for it to really capture your imagination. I can imagine how going back to it might lead to disappointment. The rest of the series wasn't that much more impressive, either. IMHO, of course. But compare it to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which came out ten years earlier.
Wish I had mod points. This is really Republican chickens coming home to roost. They brought these lunatics in, and now the lunatics are demanding what they've been promised, via dog-whistle, for all these years. Trump is actually saying it out loud, which is why they love him. Meanwhile, the Freedom Caucus can hold the party hostage with, what, forty guys? To my mind, they're getting exactly what they deserve.
But what if you work nights and have to sleep during the day?
That's been my situation for many years. If sleeping is the problem, it's easily solved with earplugs. The OP is plagued during the day. He could use earplugs, but I suspect that's not what he wants. Ten to twenty decibels is a lot of sound-proofing, and that would cost some real money, (and you may never achieve that level of sound reduction).
OP: You could go with heavy curtains on the side of the house where the noise originates. You'd be amazed how much sound the right curtains will absorb. Blackout curtains are a double set of curtains - attractive ones in the front, and opaque ones behind. You might look for something similar, as the double layer seems pretty effective at absorbing sound as well as light. Windows seem to act as passive radiators, so that would be a place to start. If you want to deaden a room, you can try placing sound traps, (egg-crate foam, etc.), on various points of the wall, much as you would for recording, or for setting up a listening room. You can find sound analyzing software that'll work on a laptop, to try to figure out problem frequencies, (although it sounds like it's all high mids), and where the reflections are coming from. That'll help you set your traps. You can buy nice-looking traps from hifi dealers, but they add a couple zeros to the price of anything related to hifi. Better to make them, or have them made, if aesthetics are a consideration, (you did say you had a wife?). Ultimately, you're going to have to learn to tune it out to some degree. You'll never be able to silence the outside world without tearing out your walls and bricking up the windows. People can get used to all sorts of distractions, so it's partially a psychological problem. Instead of tensing up when the dog starts yapping, learn to relax and, eventually, ignore it. That's the most cost-effective solution.
It's not a joke, manufacturers are really pushing us towards this idea that you don't truly own the stuff you buy. That said, I doubt you will need a license to photograph stuff you own. You may a license to publish such a photograph, which is bad enough.
Most variables have been figured out? We have no idea how life began! It's possible that it might take more than a planet simply orbiting in a Goldilocks zone for life to arise. It may be that an axial wobble is needed to create seasons, and that a moon might be necessary to create tides. If that's the case, a lot of relatively unlikely events have to first take place. How many planets have all that going on? Even if we knew how many planets did have all that going on, it would still tell us nothing, because we simply don't know what exactly caused life to arise. As far as we can tell, it's only happened once, even on this planet. If we could figure that out, we might be able to make some predictions.
I agree. The Drake Equation makes predictions based on a sample of one, and with no knowledge of how life even begins. But this simulation really says nothing except that, these areas of the galaxy are safer for life, therefore we ought to look here when looking for life. They're simply attempting to map out those regions.
Right. Waterboarding? Besides, you know a move like raising employee salaries is going to threaten a lot of people, especially the ones with a direct financial interest. The wife's settlement income may be tied to profitability - who knows? Personally, I don't care why the employees got a raise, just that they did. But you know he's going to be attacked now from all sides for doing it.
You're absolutely right that this whole "human trafficking" thing is way overblown. It's another media panic.
The interesting thing about all this is that, almost no one questions the government's right to regulate the behavior of consenting adults. Where it once took a constitutional amendment to prohibit the sale and manufacture of booze, (you still had the right to consume it!), and marijuana could only be prohibitively taxed rather than prohibited outright; now Congress merely has to invoke the Commerce Clause to infringe upon any right they care to. This is, of course, because there is nothing in this World which doesn't involve commerce. It continues to amaze me how little outrage this provokes.
2. Prostitution is *heavily* associated with human trafficking, along with other behaviors that boil down to a girl being forced to sell her body, rather than wanting to. This is the reason that really matters.
That's like saying, "drugs are bad because criminals sell them". These situations exist precisely because the activities in question have been prohibited. Once you make a harmless activity illegal, then those engaged in it have no recourse to the legal system, and it becomes harmful. That's why "human trafficking" exists at all. That's why drug dealers resort to violence to settle territorial disputes, and beer distributors don't, (at least, not since the eighteenth amendment was repealed).
Wouldn't a million monkeys on a million typewriters eventually write something "really deep"? It's nice to use randomly generated strings of words but first of all you'd have to run them through a filter to make sure you didn't accidentally create one that really did have meaning, right?
It's still cheaper to use computers. Think of the mess alone! But seriously, I'm skeptical of some of the ways they illustrate mathematical concepts, such as the million monkeys eventually producing Shakespeare, or the exact copy of you in an infinite universe. Potentialities may be infinite, but I don't think you can make hard predictions like this. Indeed, I think they're unlikely.
I'm with you. Once CS6 stops working, if Adobe still hasn't come to its senses, I'll have to find an alternative. Once you turn over your data to someone else, there's no telling what they'll do with it. Then there's this whole notion that people don't own what they payed for. Uh, uh.
They didn't "begin fleeing" en masse in 1979. One guy moved there. That said, global warming wasn't unheard of in '79. It was predicted in the 19th century, and scientists were well aware of it in the seventies, even if the media wasn't.
Also, "Raygun decided to really crank-up the temperature of the Earth in order to hurt the poor and minorities."? That's a childish view. Environmental regulations were gutted to make donors wealthier. The poor are not part of the equation.
No, and I never will. Only an idiot would sacrifice their mental health for a few hours of tripping.
Perfect example of how thoroughly permeated the culture is with disinformation, even in the internet age. Of course, the fact that legitimate research has been stymied for four decades doesn't help. Even for those of us lacking any negative attitudes about drug use, solid information is hard to come by, and a good deal of prejudice and misinformation has been absorbed.
FYI, that old chestnut from the sixties, that LSD will cause you to lose your sanity - it simply isn't true. If anything can be said in this regard, it's that those already suffering from severe mental illnesses probably ought to not use it.
I'm tired at the lack of acceptance, entirely based on ignorance and received disinformation.
The important question to ask is, how does the government have the right to tell people what they can and cannot consume? After all, it took a constitutional amendment to prohibit the sale and manufacture of alcohol, yet, they could not prohibit the consumption! Our forefathers still understood they did not possess this right over citizens. How was this lost? In what way are other drugs any different? Indeed, most recreational drugs are, if not entirely harmless, certainly less harmful than alcohol. The majority of harms associated with drug use are a direct result of prohibition, not the drugs themselves. The truth is, the government does not have this right. Drug prohibition is simply unconstitutional. The federal government has usurped the Constitution via the Commerce Clause, which has been interpreted to allow the government to do practically anything.
Why does drug-taking help criminals? Because taking drugs has been criminalized. Let us not forget that all drug prohibition has its roots in racism. "Health" is a much later justification, a justification made necessary by the slow erosion of the acceptability of overt racism, and made possible only by prohibition itself.
Right. Here's what I worry about - the next time I need a new TV, (or any other appliance), am I gonna be able to buy a "normal" one? Really, I fear manufacturers and app developers more than I fear actual malware. As it is, my TV is basically a monitor, and that's how I like it. The less shit connected to the internet, the better, as far as I'm concerned, and I don't use wireless for any device except my phone.
JBL makes some very good speakers, just not at that price point! I disagree with you about "tight bass", though. To me it means that a speaker is actually reproducing low frequencies, rather than using tuned cabinet resonance, (boomy bass), although I suppose that phrase might be used as a euphemism.
Slashdot Mirror
The weird thing is, once they get into power, Republicans tend to increase the size of government, (and spending), while Democrats tend to decrease the size of government, (and spending). But people will never let facts get in the way of their narrative. Not that I support the Democrats, mind you, but facts are facts. The truth is, there is little difference between what the parties do, in spite of what they say. What we really need is to get rid of our de facto two-party system. There is nothing in the Constitution about a two-party system. Nevertheless, election laws have been designed to maintain the current political duopoly.
What the Mites On Your Face Say About Where You Came From
Ha, I knew those voices weren't just in my head!
I was in high school, a senior, when the original Star Wars came out. I was definitely not a nerd, and didn't see it. Really, I don't remember it being big in the culture at the time. No one I knew talked about it, and all that came later, in the eighties.
A couple of years ago I decided to finally watch them all, in order. By then, of course, it was such a large part of the culture that I knew much of what was supposed to happen in the films, and certainly I'd seen bits and pieces of the films over the years. What struck me was how cheesy the original Star Wars was. It really is a children's movie, not the kind of thing that would interest most adults. It seems to me that one has to have seen Star Wars as a child in order for it to really capture your imagination. I can imagine how going back to it might lead to disappointment. The rest of the series wasn't that much more impressive, either. IMHO, of course. But compare it to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which came out ten years earlier.
Anonymous brought down ISIS, now they will bring down Trump!
Wish I had mod points. This is really Republican chickens coming home to roost. They brought these lunatics in, and now the lunatics are demanding what they've been promised, via dog-whistle, for all these years. Trump is actually saying it out loud, which is why they love him. Meanwhile, the Freedom Caucus can hold the party hostage with, what, forty guys? To my mind, they're getting exactly what they deserve.
But what if you work nights and have to sleep during the day?
That's been my situation for many years. If sleeping is the problem, it's easily solved with earplugs. The OP is plagued during the day. He could use earplugs, but I suspect that's not what he wants. Ten to twenty decibels is a lot of sound-proofing, and that would cost some real money, (and you may never achieve that level of sound reduction).
OP:
You could go with heavy curtains on the side of the house where the noise originates. You'd be amazed how much sound the right curtains will absorb. Blackout curtains are a double set of curtains - attractive ones in the front, and opaque ones behind. You might look for something similar, as the double layer seems pretty effective at absorbing sound as well as light. Windows seem to act as passive radiators, so that would be a place to start.
If you want to deaden a room, you can try placing sound traps, (egg-crate foam, etc.), on various points of the wall, much as you would for recording, or for setting up a listening room. You can find sound analyzing software that'll work on a laptop, to try to figure out problem frequencies, (although it sounds like it's all high mids), and where the reflections are coming from. That'll help you set your traps. You can buy nice-looking traps from hifi dealers, but they add a couple zeros to the price of anything related to hifi. Better to make them, or have them made, if aesthetics are a consideration, (you did say you had a wife?).
Ultimately, you're going to have to learn to tune it out to some degree. You'll never be able to silence the outside world without tearing out your walls and bricking up the windows. People can get used to all sorts of distractions, so it's partially a psychological problem. Instead of tensing up when the dog starts yapping, learn to relax and, eventually, ignore it. That's the most cost-effective solution.
It was my first brush with the corrupt practices of [the] US justice system.
There, fixed that for you! Court is a great place to learn what your real status is in this society.
It's not a joke, manufacturers are really pushing us towards this idea that you don't truly own the stuff you buy. That said, I doubt you will need a license to photograph stuff you own. You may a license to publish such a photograph, which is bad enough.
Most variables have been figured out? We have no idea how life began! It's possible that it might take more than a planet simply orbiting in a Goldilocks zone for life to arise. It may be that an axial wobble is needed to create seasons, and that a moon might be necessary to create tides. If that's the case, a lot of relatively unlikely events have to first take place. How many planets have all that going on? Even if we knew how many planets did have all that going on, it would still tell us nothing, because we simply don't know what exactly caused life to arise. As far as we can tell, it's only happened once, even on this planet. If we could figure that out, we might be able to make some predictions.
I agree. The Drake Equation makes predictions based on a sample of one, and with no knowledge of how life even begins. But this simulation really says nothing except that, these areas of the galaxy are safer for life, therefore we ought to look here when looking for life. They're simply attempting to map out those regions.
Right. Waterboarding? Besides, you know a move like raising employee salaries is going to threaten a lot of people, especially the ones with a direct financial interest. The wife's settlement income may be tied to profitability - who knows? Personally, I don't care why the employees got a raise, just that they did. But you know he's going to be attacked now from all sides for doing it.
You're absolutely right that this whole "human trafficking" thing is way overblown. It's another media panic.
The interesting thing about all this is that, almost no one questions the government's right to regulate the behavior of consenting adults. Where it once took a constitutional amendment to prohibit the sale and manufacture of booze, (you still had the right to consume it!), and marijuana could only be prohibitively taxed rather than prohibited outright; now Congress merely has to invoke the Commerce Clause to infringe upon any right they care to. This is, of course, because there is nothing in this World which doesn't involve commerce. It continues to amaze me how little outrage this provokes.
Two reasons:
2. Prostitution is *heavily* associated with human trafficking, along with other behaviors that boil down to a girl being forced to sell her body, rather than wanting to. This is the reason that really matters.
That's like saying, "drugs are bad because criminals sell them". These situations exist precisely because the activities in question have been prohibited. Once you make a harmless activity illegal, then those engaged in it have no recourse to the legal system, and it becomes harmful. That's why "human trafficking" exists at all. That's why drug dealers resort to violence to settle territorial disputes, and beer distributors don't, (at least, not since the eighteenth amendment was repealed).
Wouldn't a million monkeys on a million typewriters eventually write something "really deep"? It's nice to use randomly generated strings of words but first of all you'd have to run them through a filter to make sure you didn't accidentally create one that really did have meaning, right?
It's still cheaper to use computers. Think of the mess alone! But seriously, I'm skeptical of some of the ways they illustrate mathematical concepts, such as the million monkeys eventually producing Shakespeare, or the exact copy of you in an infinite universe. Potentialities may be infinite, but I don't think you can make hard predictions like this. Indeed, I think they're unlikely.
TL;DR: Stupid, uneducated people are more gullible, especially when you use big words that they don't know.
Now that science has finally solved that mystery, perhaps they could solve the question of why children are easy to fool?
I'm with you. Once CS6 stops working, if Adobe still hasn't come to its senses, I'll have to find an alternative. Once you turn over your data to someone else, there's no telling what they'll do with it. Then there's this whole notion that people don't own what they payed for. Uh, uh.
"Cloud" is already a bad name in my book. I want nothing to do with it.
India has a seacoast, too.
Please, O Right Wing Troll, your views are every bit as ideological and simplistic as his.
They didn't "begin fleeing" en masse in 1979. One guy moved there. That said, global warming wasn't unheard of in '79. It was predicted in the 19th century, and scientists were well aware of it in the seventies, even if the media wasn't.
Also, "Raygun decided to really crank-up the temperature of the Earth in order to hurt the poor and minorities."? That's a childish view. Environmental regulations were gutted to make donors wealthier. The poor are not part of the equation.
I don't remember being drunk and unable to function for 16 hours after a pint of beer.
Obviously, you were in a blackout.
"Have you ever tried LSD? "
No, and I never will. Only an idiot would sacrifice their mental health for a few hours of tripping.
Perfect example of how thoroughly permeated the culture is with disinformation, even in the internet age. Of course, the fact that legitimate research has been stymied for four decades doesn't help. Even for those of us lacking any negative attitudes about drug use, solid information is hard to come by, and a good deal of prejudice and misinformation has been absorbed.
FYI, that old chestnut from the sixties, that LSD will cause you to lose your sanity - it simply isn't true. If anything can be said in this regard, it's that those already suffering from severe mental illnesses probably ought to not use it.
I'm tired at the lack of acceptance, entirely based on ignorance and received disinformation.
The important question to ask is, how does the government have the right to tell people what they can and cannot consume? After all, it took a constitutional amendment to prohibit the sale and manufacture of alcohol, yet, they could not prohibit the consumption! Our forefathers still understood they did not possess this right over citizens. How was this lost? In what way are other drugs any different? Indeed, most recreational drugs are, if not entirely harmless, certainly less harmful than alcohol. The majority of harms associated with drug use are a direct result of prohibition, not the drugs themselves. The truth is, the government does not have this right. Drug prohibition is simply unconstitutional. The federal government has usurped the Constitution via the Commerce Clause, which has been interpreted to allow the government to do practically anything.
Why does drug-taking help criminals? Because taking drugs has been criminalized. Let us not forget that all drug prohibition has its roots in racism. "Health" is a much later justification, a justification made necessary by the slow erosion of the acceptability of overt racism, and made possible only by prohibition itself.
Right. Here's what I worry about - the next time I need a new TV, (or any other appliance), am I gonna be able to buy a "normal" one? Really, I fear manufacturers and app developers more than I fear actual malware. As it is, my TV is basically a monitor, and that's how I like it.
The less shit connected to the internet, the better, as far as I'm concerned, and I don't use wireless for any device except my phone.
JBL makes some very good speakers, just not at that price point! I disagree with you about "tight bass", though. To me it means that a speaker is actually reproducing low frequencies, rather than using tuned cabinet resonance, (boomy bass), although I suppose that phrase might be used as a euphemism.