...to suppress exit polling that indicated that people who entered the booths intended in greater numbers than could ever be divulged to have voted for Al Gore.
I realize that you are a troll, but I'll say this anyway. The President of the United States is not elected by "exit polling", he is elected by the valid ballots actually cast. Exit polling means nothing. It is even more meaningless than the oft repeated nonsense about "the popular vote total". There is no popular vote total in the presidential election. There are totals by state, which then determine the electoral college electors that will eventually cast votes for the president.
The very existence of VNS threatened the legitimacy of the newly installed administration.
What a load of crap.
...the supposedly "close" outcome in Florida that stopped being counted...
The votes in Florida were counted many times. They were counted in accordance with Florida law, and the result was certified in accordance with Florida law.
Gore jumped the gun on his challenges, which by law were supposed to have occurred after the certification -- which he got pushed back so far that he no longer had time to challenge. It's his own fault for trying to twist the system.
Did he try to twist things? You betcha. With one face he was crying "count all the ballots" (which had been, more than once) while having his lawyers in court trying to have the entire absentee ballots from three counties thrown out -- but only from counties where Bush was leading in the absentee count. Many of those absentees were from US military servicemen and women on active duty.
Crawl back in your hole, troll. You don't even have the charm of Gollum to make you worth dealing with.
Why the hell would you decide not to vote because some opinion poll says your candidate might be narrowly defeated?
It's been a long day at work. You're tired. You want to go home and have dinner. The NEWS is telling you that the candidate you would vote for has already lost. Not an "opinion poll", but a projection of the result. Why would you bother going to vote if you thought the result was already known?
What's more idiotic, to misread a form and put your hole in the wrong place, or to not bother to vote?
To ignore the instructions completely and whine about your vote not being counted correctly.
...so particular Congressional races would probably not be affected by early projections.
The November elections were very close in many races, and the balance of power in the senate was at stake. It is very likely that east coast results which gave seats to one party would cause a reaction by the other party on the west coast. I can't say that happened, but it's very likely.
2) Link length. 100 m? That's more than anyone needs for, well, anything.
Bzzzz, and thanks for playing.
I do science using cameras. There are places I have cameras that are more than 10m from the place the computer is (or can be). Some are nearly 100m. We're switching to firewire cameras, but the main hitch so far is the 1394a cable length limit. We've been waiting for 1394b for a year or more.
If you reinstall TurboTax to the same hard disk that it was previously activated on, you do not need to activate it again.
Oh, very clear. So, I install it under Win98, format the disk, install WinXP and then TurboTax, I don't need to to activate it again? So, where is it storing the activation key?
If you install TurboTax on another computer,...
So, I buy a new computer and move the old disk to the new computer. I do or don't have to reactivate it? How about if I format the old disk before putting it in the new computer?
Here's why I don't buy TurboTax anymore. One year I put off doing my taxes until the Saturday before the Monday deadline. The box said I had a complete copy of TT. When I got all the way to the end and wanted to print the forms, I was finally told that the copy wasn't complete and I needed to go online to get an updated form. Unfortunately, that computer doesn't "go online", and you couldn't just download the patch using any old web browser, it had to be done using Intuit's proprietary embedded browser.
They lost all future return business with that little trick.
5. Then came Anonymous Call Block (for a fee) so that anonymous telemarketers could not call your number.
Almost correct. The call blocking only blocks calls from people who have opted to block their caller ID. Telescum buy phone lines from the telco that don't have caller id at all, so they aren't technically blocking their caller id, they just don't have any.
So, to continue your list:
6. Phone company sells telescum phone service with caller ID unavailable so it won't be blocked by the service they've just sold the user.
7. Phone company sells user a new service to block calls from lines where caller id is unavailable, which drops the caller into a voice message telling them how to get around the block. *
8. Phone company sells telescum updated software for their predictive dialers that dials the digit
"1" as soon as the call is answered. #
* -- Qwest offered this a few months ago. Were I not so trusting, I'd assume that the huge increase in telescum calls that were abandoned after I answered the phone, which happened just after the announcement of this new service, were from Qwest trying to convince me I needed the service.
# -- Yes, all you needed to do to get around the block is dial "1". I have no idea if Qwest is selling this or not.
But what if this hypothetical library can "buy" books for 1/10 of the current price in electronic form, but pay a small amount for each reading?
The cost of printing a copy of an "electronic book" so a patron can take it home to read it will vastly outweigh the savings of only paying 1/10th the price of a book. And if you think that library patrons are going to all sit in the library reading books off a computer screen, you are amazingly out of touch with reality.
The cost of printing the book in a sturdy enough form that it can be reused will be even higher, and unless they do reuse the printed copies, you've suddenly created a distribution system for free copies of any book. You've shifted the cost of Xeroxing a book from someone who wants to get a free illegal copy onto the library, where the cost applies to every checkout. Not a good idea.
Lumpy is basically right. otherwise you'd see 1.5megabit Rf datalinks in the 150Mhz range... you dont.
I guess if you define "half" as "basically", then yes, Lumpy is basically right. He said that the amount of data is directly tied to the frequency and width of the channel you use. It isn't. It's a function of the width of the channel.
The reason you don't see 1.5Mbit links at 150MHz is because that part of the spectrum filled up a long time ago with primary users. It is technically possible to create such a link.
then please tell me how to send 11megabits per second at a frequency LESS than 11 megaherts.
Well, the person you replied to was explicit in saying "if you can find a 25MHz chunk of bandwidth" at any frequency, and your question doesn't meet the criterion of having the bandwidth available at that frequency. Oh, alright, technically, your center frequency (which is what most people think of when you say "frequency") could be as low as 5.5MHz and you could still have a bandwidth of 11MHz. There would be serious phase and propogation issues working at the lower band edge, but we are talking theory here.
Even so, I'll point you to any book on modem technology, where it is now possible to get upstream 56kbps and downstream 53kbps over a phone line which has a lower frequency band limit of 300 Hz and an upper limit of 3kHz. That's 2700Hz bandwidth.
Since part of the answer to that requires compression, I'll then point you to any of the old 9600 bps modems, which were able to manage 9600 bits of data through the same 2700Hz bandwidth uncompressed. Sounds like magic.
If you could find a 25MHz chunk of bandwidth at any frequency you could run 802.11 stuff. Your power requirements would vary, of course, and your antenna would change size (and perhaps shape).
Yes, actually, high bandwidth things do better at higher frequencies for technical reasons. It includes antenna and circuitry issues. If you put a 25MHz wide signal at 50MHz, you will need to have circuits that deal with everything from 37 to 63 MHz (and an antenna to do the same). That's almost an octave.
It is MUCH easier to deal with relatively smaller chunks of spectrum than with large ones, and at 2.4GHz, 25MHz is a relatively small chunk of spectrum. It would be hard to make a high gain antenna at 2.4GHz that didn't cover at least 25MHz, while the same thing at 50MHz isn't so easy. The same is true for filters, which would be required to exclude interference from nearby (in space and frequency) signal emitters like radio broadcasters.
That being said, I think this is an extremely bad idea. The A and B contours of typical TV broadcasters are very much smaller than the actual reception range. The places where this low-power unlicensed networking is most likely to work well (the rural, non-RF polluted areas) are also the places most likely for people to have already invested money in towers and antennas to pick up the distant stations. These people are well outside the FCC-defined B contour, and unless the networking device has a high-gain antenna on a high tower, it isn't going to see that the frequency is already in use.
The cities are already RF-polluted to the extent that this won't work very well there, and those are also the places where the FCC has already started opening unused TV frequencies for public safety use.
Another poster commented that this sudden splurge of spectrum would push innovation. Not true. It is only the shortage of spectrum in the lower frequencies that has pushed development of the gigahertz bands now appearing in consumer equipment. Had there been unlimited space at 49MHz, you'd never have seen your 2.4GHz or even 900MHz cordless phones.
Ok, I'll grant that you can consider the numbers under the bars as part of the barcode. There are two responses. First, are the numbers the right ones? Does it matter what the printed numbers are if the computer that is looking up the price only reads the bars?
Second: quick, what is a 781565921870*? If the computer can tell us faster than you can, does that mean the computer is more intelligent? Did it do anything useful with the information, or did it just convert it from the numerical form into a price/description?
[* It's the code on the Perl 5 Desktop Reference book.]
This demonstration is not one of computer versus human intelligence. It is one of computer versus human cognition.
In other words, can the computer detect the information in the same form that the human can? Can a human read a grocery store bar-code as easily as a computer? No. Can a human read one of those bit-boxes on the FedEx shipping label as easily as a computer? No. Can a human read the Tivo-data sent on the Discovery channel as easily as the computer? No. But none of those failures means the computer is more intelligent, just more capable of recognizing the information that is there.
Both the computer and the human can recognize "moon/parma", but intelligence comes into play when the human starts thinking of Drew Carey and humming the theme music. Intelligence is not just collecting information, it is doing something useful with that information.
If you lose your job tomorrow, is it not a financial loss?
No. If I don't have the money, I cannot lose it.
You're saying you wouldn't add up the dollars you were expecting to get?
It's trivial to add up the dollars I expected to get. Also meaningless, since I didn't get them. Where would I spend those dollars I didn't get,
so why would it matter?*
* -- unless, of course, I had another reason to do so, like a wrongfull termination lawsuit, which converts those dollars from wishful thinking into something I actually have.
You can argue the accuracy of that $13 billion estimate, but there has to be some number of loss to the sales tax states.
There is no loss.
The concept is simple: it isn't the state's money, it belongs to the person. The state cannot lose what it never had in the first place.
They call it a "loss" so that morons will feel guilty about causing the state to lose money. It's the same reason they call it a "franchise fee" instead of a tax, or a "user fee", or whatever other creative nomenclature the state comes up with in its quest for more money.
The USSR won't expose it because they were in on it! Can't you people see how big this conspiracy is?
They weren't in on it, but they certainly had a lot to gain from going along with it. They had their own space race to fund, and even though they are a bit less worried about citizens complaining about how their incomes are spent, they did get a lot of support when they showed they were in a big race with the capitalist pigs.
Of course, they are in on it now, with the "space station".
Remember, just because you are paranoid it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you!
An interesting twist to this FTC proposal is that they will require telemarketers to provide a name and number via caller ID.
This will, of course, make Quest's "block unavailable caller ID calls" service even more useless.
This service was advertised in a recent bill, along with a coincidental massive increase in telemarketing calls. It is basically useless, because Quest made sure to include a way for people to get around the block. Dial "1", as I recall.
In other words, Quest sells telemarketers "out of area" lines, sells people a service to block "out of area" calls, and provides telemarketers a convenient means to avoid the block. (And, of course, the service Quest sells to block calls with blocked caller ID doesn't block the calls from lines that have no caller ID because they are "out of area".)
Am I a shareholder if they get financial aid from the US gov or MD?
What do you mean if? Do you think that the University is supported solely by tuition? No, every public University is supported in very large part by TAX DOLLARS.
I bet the taxpayers in Maryland are very happy to hear how the University is spending their tax dollars to provide college students the infrastructure to run businesses out of the dorms. I bet the small business owners who are being competed with by taxpayer funded dot-coms are just pleased as punch to be forced to pay for this.
How does the blind person see what's on the screen?
I've always wondered how they read the signs posted on the hall walls. Do blind people walk
down the hall rubbing their hands on the wall just to see if there is a braille sign there to read?
There are braille signs near the stairways here. The sighted version says something about "this is an emergency gathering point." I assume the braille version says the same thing, although it might say "congratulations, you've found the sign. Now find a sighted person to read the other one to you."
Are blind people expected to run down the halls during a building fire to find those signs? And what happens when they find some rough plaster or stucco and they suffocate while trying to read it? Can they sue someone for having pornographic or obscene bumps on the wall?
...they didn't want Bin Laden's statements printed or broadcast. Only the New York Times refused. The powers-that-be in the US want only one side and one side only of the story to be put out - theirs.
That is not why the feds quite rightly asked that Bin Laden's statements not be broadcast. It has nothing to do with his opinions. It has everything to do with his access to a means of communicating messages to his agents anonymously.
In case you've forgotten World War II, it was quite common for specific instructions to agents to be sent over broadcast media disguised as innocuous personal messages. It is still common.
Why should the US media want to be used as a communications medium for someone who has already killed several thousand US citizens? Why, it's NEWS, that's why, and it's their RIGHT to be that conduit.
Please do. We are too stupid to understand without you.
If they don't check people crossing the border, then that check point can be used to traffic unwanted items into the country.
Nobody "traffics" unwanted items. Every item "trafficed" into the US from Canada is wanted by somebody. Did you mean to say they can use that checkpoint to traffic ILLEGAL items? Well, yes, if they don't check people, people can traffic illegal items through that checkpoint. Even if they do check people, people can traffic illegal items through that checkpoint. Is there some point to your statement?
Here's an old story. Every day, a young boy rode his bicycle across the US-Mexican border into the US. Every day, the border patrol agent checked the boy for drugs or other illegal contraband. Every day, the boy had none of these things on him. The border agent was SURE that something was amiss, but he just couldn't find any smuggled goods on the boy. So, one day, he asks the boy, "What are you smuggling?" The boy tells him. "Bicycles."
If they do check people crossing the border,
then noone will attempt to traffic unwanted items into the country.
Isn't it interesting how much contraband the customs people still manage to confiscate even though the mere fact they are looking for it, according to you, proves that nobody will try to bring it in?
Now, which is more difficult to bare? The inconvenience of the search, or another 9/11 style attack?
Both are difficult to bare [sic]. Since the 9/11 attack had absofuckinglutely nothing with people trafficing contraband into the US, checking people crossing the border for contraband will do absofuckinglutely nothing to prevent another 9/11 style attack. The excuse for searches in violation of the 4th Amendment is specious and an insult to anyone who values the freedom that our parents and sons and brothers and sisters and etc fought and died for.
In fact, the "searches" now being conducted at airline checkpoints are doing nothing to prevent another 9/11 style attack. People brandishing fingernail clippers are not a threat. Gramma and her knitting needles are not a threat. Achmed getting one of his buddies that works at the airport to smuggle in a big knife IS a threat, but guess who isn't going to be passing through the long lines at the security checkpoint? Right, Achmed's friend. And Beanbrain wearing C4 shoes is a threat, if he was smart enough to know that you don't use a lighter to trigger electric detonators, but guess who was told to "come back tomorrow please" by foreign "security" agents, instead of being arrested?
No, the solution to another 9/11 style attack has already been put in place, and it doesn't involve searching anyone. It is simply that anyone who tries it is going to get the shit beat out of him by other passengers and his death will NOT get him into Heaven and his family will NOT be honored for his sacrifice. He will be a laughing stock and his family will be disgraced.
The assumption that hijackers value their own lives is what cost the four airplanes on 9/11. The assumption that above all else, the hijacker will not kill everyone on board because he would die, too, is gone. Isn't it a shame that our mad dash for the feeling of safety will have actually hampered any passenger response to the next hijacker. Completely disarming the only people who will be able to act to save lives is stupid and counterproductive.
It was HP injet ink that was being sold locally as a "two pack", when the truth was it was simply one of the large cartridges. It's not quite honest to call a one-pack a two-pack, is it?
In reading through the survey results, the following struck me as interesting.
What I found most interesting was the irony. In an article discussing the First Amendment, the first reported result was about monitoring religious groups. At the end was the statement that many people thought the educational system does a "fair" or "poor" job educating people about the First Amendment.
Monitoring religious groups is not a First Amendment issue. It is a Fourth. Anything they say or do in public is open for monitoring. It is only when they go private and the government would need to go undercover that the Fourth Amendment kicks in.
Likewise, the "right to privacy" that is used to justify abortion rights is not a First Amendment issue, either. It comes from an interesting interpretation of the Fourth.
But 1st or 4th, same problem -- too many people are all too happy to throw them away so they get a fake feeling of security.
... but suddenly, no, while that pretense is acceptable for him, it's not for me.
Who said it was acceptable for anyone? I certainly didn't. And what makes you think this is a sudden thing?
Do you want me to reply to EVERY person who exhibits a misunderstanding of the term "American" in this thread, or do you think maybe they can all get the point if they see it just once?
And no, for those Americans who are being slandered by the references to "American arrogance", it is not nitpicking. It is simple courtesy to not include them in your insults.
... the purely North American, American sense,
Wow, even after having your mistake pointed out to you, you continue. There is no "purely North American, American" sense. There are Canadians (who are also Americans), Mexicans (who are also Americans), and US
citizens (who are also Americans) in North America. There are French-Canadians (who are still Americans, even if they don't want to be Canadians) and Upper-Peninsula-Michiganders (who are still Americans, even though many of them don't want to be US residents, and many lower-peninsula Michiganders who would just as happily hand the whole UP over to Canada.) There are Texans (who are still Americans, even if some of them claim that the Republic of Texas never legally gave up their soveriegnty so they are not a state in the USA, they are their own country.) So, closer, but still no cigar.
Now, I know some Canadians who are just as rabid about their country being the best as anyone in the US, so maybe you did mean to include them. But then again, there are many fanatic Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Slavs, etc...
And then there are the US residents that you are excluding when you refer to them as "North American, Americans", since Hawaii isn't part of the North American continent yet they, too, are US residents.
Yes, much better to lump almost the entire hemisphere into your discussion than to write clearly and concisely. Much easier for you.
you're showing a total lack of wit...
I'm not trying to be witty. I'm trying to educate those who don't understand that "American" is a term that applies to a lot more people than they realize. And, in fact, you are being quite insulting to a lot of people when you lump them in with the USA.
You're generalizing. I doubt that you even KNOW enough people to constitute an effective cross section of the American people.
That's right. There's 170 million Brazillians who don't appreciate your gross generalizations about "Americans".
Or maybe you skipped class the day they covered the western hemisphere, which contains North, Central, and South America, all of which are part of the "Americas" and all of which contain Americans.
Slashdot Mirror
I realize that you are a troll, but I'll say this anyway. The President of the United States is not elected by "exit polling", he is elected by the valid ballots actually cast. Exit polling means nothing. It is even more meaningless than the oft repeated nonsense about "the popular vote total". There is no popular vote total in the presidential election. There are totals by state, which then determine the electoral college electors that will eventually cast votes for the president.
The very existence of VNS threatened the legitimacy of the newly installed administration.
What a load of crap.
The votes in Florida were counted many times. They were counted in accordance with Florida law, and the result was certified in accordance with Florida law.
Gore jumped the gun on his challenges, which by law were supposed to have occurred after the certification -- which he got pushed back so far that he no longer had time to challenge. It's his own fault for trying to twist the system.
Did he try to twist things? You betcha. With one face he was crying "count all the ballots" (which had been, more than once) while having his lawyers in court trying to have the entire absentee ballots from three counties thrown out -- but only from counties where Bush was leading in the absentee count. Many of those absentees were from US military servicemen and women on active duty.
Crawl back in your hole, troll. You don't even have the charm of Gollum to make you worth dealing with.
It's been a long day at work. You're tired. You want to go home and have dinner. The NEWS is telling you that the candidate you would vote for has already lost. Not an "opinion poll", but a projection of the result. Why would you bother going to vote if you thought the result was already known?
What's more idiotic, to misread a form and put your hole in the wrong place, or to not bother to vote?
To ignore the instructions completely and whine about your vote not being counted correctly.
The November elections were very close in many races, and the balance of power in the senate was at stake. It is very likely that east coast results which gave seats to one party would cause a reaction by the other party on the west coast. I can't say that happened, but it's very likely.
Bzzzz, and thanks for playing.
I do science using cameras. There are places I have cameras that are more than 10m from the place the computer is (or can be). Some are nearly 100m. We're switching to firewire cameras, but the main hitch so far is the 1394a cable length limit. We've been waiting for 1394b for a year or more.
Oh, very clear. So, I install it under Win98, format the disk, install WinXP and then TurboTax, I don't need to to activate it again? So, where is it storing the activation key?
If you install TurboTax on another computer, ...
So, I buy a new computer and move the old disk to the new computer. I do or don't have to reactivate it? How about if I format the old disk before putting it in the new computer?
Here's why I don't buy TurboTax anymore. One year I put off doing my taxes until the Saturday before the Monday deadline. The box said I had a complete copy of TT. When I got all the way to the end and wanted to print the forms, I was finally told that the copy wasn't complete and I needed to go online to get an updated form. Unfortunately, that computer doesn't "go online", and you couldn't just download the patch using any old web browser, it had to be done using Intuit's proprietary embedded browser.
They lost all future return business with that little trick.
Almost correct. The call blocking only blocks calls from people who have opted to block their caller ID. Telescum buy phone lines from the telco that don't have caller id at all, so they aren't technically blocking their caller id, they just don't have any.
So, to continue your list:
6. Phone company sells telescum phone service with caller ID unavailable so it won't be blocked by the service they've just sold the user.
7. Phone company sells user a new service to block calls from lines where caller id is unavailable, which drops the caller into a voice message telling them how to get around the block. *
8. Phone company sells telescum updated software for their predictive dialers that dials the digit "1" as soon as the call is answered. #
* -- Qwest offered this a few months ago. Were I not so trusting, I'd assume that the huge increase in telescum calls that were abandoned after I answered the phone, which happened just after the announcement of this new service, were from Qwest trying to convince me I needed the service.
# -- Yes, all you needed to do to get around the block is dial "1". I have no idea if Qwest is selling this or not.
The cost of printing a copy of an "electronic book" so a patron can take it home to read it will vastly outweigh the savings of only paying 1/10th the price of a book. And if you think that library patrons are going to all sit in the library reading books off a computer screen, you are amazingly out of touch with reality.
The cost of printing the book in a sturdy enough form that it can be reused will be even higher, and unless they do reuse the printed copies, you've suddenly created a distribution system for free copies of any book. You've shifted the cost of Xeroxing a book from someone who wants to get a free illegal copy onto the library, where the cost applies to every checkout. Not a good idea.
I guess if you define "half" as "basically", then yes, Lumpy is basically right. He said that the amount of data is directly tied to the frequency and width of the channel you use. It isn't. It's a function of the width of the channel.
The reason you don't see 1.5Mbit links at 150MHz is because that part of the spectrum filled up a long time ago with primary users. It is technically possible to create such a link.
then please tell me how to send 11megabits per second at a frequency LESS than 11 megaherts.
Well, the person you replied to was explicit in saying "if you can find a 25MHz chunk of bandwidth" at any frequency, and your question doesn't meet the criterion of having the bandwidth available at that frequency. Oh, alright, technically, your center frequency (which is what most people think of when you say "frequency") could be as low as 5.5MHz and you could still have a bandwidth of 11MHz. There would be serious phase and propogation issues working at the lower band edge, but we are talking theory here.
Even so, I'll point you to any book on modem technology, where it is now possible to get upstream 56kbps and downstream 53kbps over a phone line which has a lower frequency band limit of 300 Hz and an upper limit of 3kHz. That's 2700Hz bandwidth.
Since part of the answer to that requires compression, I'll then point you to any of the old 9600 bps modems, which were able to manage 9600 bits of data through the same 2700Hz bandwidth uncompressed. Sounds like magic.
Yes, actually, high bandwidth things do better at higher frequencies for technical reasons. It includes antenna and circuitry issues. If you put a 25MHz wide signal at 50MHz, you will need to have circuits that deal with everything from 37 to 63 MHz (and an antenna to do the same). That's almost an octave.
It is MUCH easier to deal with relatively smaller chunks of spectrum than with large ones, and at 2.4GHz, 25MHz is a relatively small chunk of spectrum. It would be hard to make a high gain antenna at 2.4GHz that didn't cover at least 25MHz, while the same thing at 50MHz isn't so easy. The same is true for filters, which would be required to exclude interference from nearby (in space and frequency) signal emitters like radio broadcasters.
That being said, I think this is an extremely bad idea. The A and B contours of typical TV broadcasters are very much smaller than the actual reception range. The places where this low-power unlicensed networking is most likely to work well (the rural, non-RF polluted areas) are also the places most likely for people to have already invested money in towers and antennas to pick up the distant stations. These people are well outside the FCC-defined B contour, and unless the networking device has a high-gain antenna on a high tower, it isn't going to see that the frequency is already in use.
The cities are already RF-polluted to the extent that this won't work very well there, and those are also the places where the FCC has already started opening unused TV frequencies for public safety use.
Another poster commented that this sudden splurge of spectrum would push innovation. Not true. It is only the shortage of spectrum in the lower frequencies that has pushed development of the gigahertz bands now appearing in consumer equipment. Had there been unlimited space at 49MHz, you'd never have seen your 2.4GHz or even 900MHz cordless phones.
Many things. The only one:
- whose feet are considered lucky.
- which is a host to tularemia.
- which is considered a serious infestation in Australia.
- which tastes good in hossenpfeffer.
- which many people think IS an ingredient in Welsh Rarebit.
- which is cute and cuddly when full-sized. (Ok, this is VERY subjective.)
- whose turds look like raisins.
- which hasn't been in my kitchen.
- with white fur with a black spot in the middle of its forhead.
You just gotta look hard enough, and everything is different!Second: quick, what is a 781565921870*? If the computer can tell us faster than you can, does that mean the computer is more intelligent? Did it do anything useful with the information, or did it just convert it from the numerical form into a price/description?
[* It's the code on the Perl 5 Desktop Reference book.]
In other words, can the computer detect the information in the same form that the human can? Can a human read a grocery store bar-code as easily as a computer? No. Can a human read one of those bit-boxes on the FedEx shipping label as easily as a computer? No. Can a human read the Tivo-data sent on the Discovery channel as easily as the computer? No. But none of those failures means the computer is more intelligent, just more capable of recognizing the information that is there.
Both the computer and the human can recognize "moon/parma", but intelligence comes into play when the human starts thinking of Drew Carey and humming the theme music. Intelligence is not just collecting information, it is doing something useful with that information.
No. If I don't have the money, I cannot lose it.
You're saying you wouldn't add up the dollars you were expecting to get?
It's trivial to add up the dollars I expected to get. Also meaningless, since I didn't get them. Where would I spend those dollars I didn't get, so why would it matter?*
* -- unless, of course, I had another reason to do so, like a wrongfull termination lawsuit, which converts those dollars from wishful thinking into something I actually have.
There is no loss.
The concept is simple: it isn't the state's money, it belongs to the person. The state cannot lose what it never had in the first place.
They call it a "loss" so that morons will feel guilty about causing the state to lose money. It's the same reason they call it a "franchise fee" instead of a tax, or a "user fee", or whatever other creative nomenclature the state comes up with in its quest for more money.
They weren't in on it, but they certainly had a lot to gain from going along with it. They had their own space race to fund, and even though they are a bit less worried about citizens complaining about how their incomes are spent, they did get a lot of support when they showed they were in a big race with the capitalist pigs.
Of course, they are in on it now, with the "space station".
Remember, just because you are paranoid it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you!
This will, of course, make Quest's "block unavailable caller ID calls" service even more useless.
This service was advertised in a recent bill, along with a coincidental massive increase in telemarketing calls. It is basically useless, because Quest made sure to include a way for people to get around the block. Dial "1", as I recall.
In other words, Quest sells telemarketers "out of area" lines, sells people a service to block "out of area" calls, and provides telemarketers a convenient means to avoid the block. (And, of course, the service Quest sells to block calls with blocked caller ID doesn't block the calls from lines that have no caller ID because they are "out of area".)
What do you mean if? Do you think that the University is supported solely by tuition? No, every public University is supported in very large part by TAX DOLLARS.
I bet the taxpayers in Maryland are very happy to hear how the University is spending their tax dollars to provide college students the infrastructure to run businesses out of the dorms. I bet the small business owners who are being competed with by taxpayer funded dot-coms are just pleased as punch to be forced to pay for this.
"You've got mail AND lunch!"
Who's got a recipe for modem flambee'?
I've always wondered how they read the signs posted on the hall walls. Do blind people walk down the hall rubbing their hands on the wall just to see if there is a braille sign there to read?
There are braille signs near the stairways here. The sighted version says something about "this is an emergency gathering point." I assume the braille version says the same thing, although it might say "congratulations, you've found the sign. Now find a sighted person to read the other one to you."
Are blind people expected to run down the halls during a building fire to find those signs? And what happens when they find some rough plaster or stucco and they suffocate while trying to read it? Can they sue someone for having pornographic or obscene bumps on the wall?
That is not why the feds quite rightly asked that Bin Laden's statements not be broadcast. It has nothing to do with his opinions. It has everything to do with his access to a means of communicating messages to his agents anonymously.
In case you've forgotten World War II, it was quite common for specific instructions to agents to be sent over broadcast media disguised as innocuous personal messages. It is still common.
Why should the US media want to be used as a communications medium for someone who has already killed several thousand US citizens? Why, it's NEWS, that's why, and it's their RIGHT to be that conduit.
Please do. We are too stupid to understand without you.
If they don't check people crossing the border, then that check point can be used to traffic unwanted items into the country.
Nobody "traffics" unwanted items. Every item "trafficed" into the US from Canada is wanted by somebody. Did you mean to say they can use that checkpoint to traffic ILLEGAL items? Well, yes, if they don't check people, people can traffic illegal items through that checkpoint. Even if they do check people, people can traffic illegal items through that checkpoint. Is there some point to your statement?
Here's an old story. Every day, a young boy rode his bicycle across the US-Mexican border into the US. Every day, the border patrol agent checked the boy for drugs or other illegal contraband. Every day, the boy had none of these things on him. The border agent was SURE that something was amiss, but he just couldn't find any smuggled goods on the boy. So, one day, he asks the boy, "What are you smuggling?" The boy tells him. "Bicycles."
If they do check people crossing the border, then noone will attempt to traffic unwanted items into the country.
Isn't it interesting how much contraband the customs people still manage to confiscate even though the mere fact they are looking for it, according to you, proves that nobody will try to bring it in?
Now, which is more difficult to bare? The inconvenience of the search, or another 9/11 style attack?
Both are difficult to bare [sic]. Since the 9/11 attack had absofuckinglutely nothing with people trafficing contraband into the US, checking people crossing the border for contraband will do absofuckinglutely nothing to prevent another 9/11 style attack. The excuse for searches in violation of the 4th Amendment is specious and an insult to anyone who values the freedom that our parents and sons and brothers and sisters and etc fought and died for.
In fact, the "searches" now being conducted at airline checkpoints are doing nothing to prevent another 9/11 style attack. People brandishing fingernail clippers are not a threat. Gramma and her knitting needles are not a threat. Achmed getting one of his buddies that works at the airport to smuggle in a big knife IS a threat, but guess who isn't going to be passing through the long lines at the security checkpoint? Right, Achmed's friend. And Beanbrain wearing C4 shoes is a threat, if he was smart enough to know that you don't use a lighter to trigger electric detonators, but guess who was told to "come back tomorrow please" by foreign "security" agents, instead of being arrested?
No, the solution to another 9/11 style attack has already been put in place, and it doesn't involve searching anyone. It is simply that anyone who tries it is going to get the shit beat out of him by other passengers and his death will NOT get him into Heaven and his family will NOT be honored for his sacrifice. He will be a laughing stock and his family will be disgraced.
The assumption that hijackers value their own lives is what cost the four airplanes on 9/11. The assumption that above all else, the hijacker will not kill everyone on board because he would die, too, is gone. Isn't it a shame that our mad dash for the feeling of safety will have actually hampered any passenger response to the next hijacker. Completely disarming the only people who will be able to act to save lives is stupid and counterproductive.
It was HP injet ink that was being sold locally as a "two pack", when the truth was it was simply one of the large cartridges. It's not quite honest to call a one-pack a two-pack, is it?
What I found most interesting was the irony. In an article discussing the First Amendment, the first reported result was about monitoring religious groups. At the end was the statement that many people thought the educational system does a "fair" or "poor" job educating people about the First Amendment.
Monitoring religious groups is not a First Amendment issue. It is a Fourth. Anything they say or do in public is open for monitoring. It is only when they go private and the government would need to go undercover that the Fourth Amendment kicks in.
Likewise, the "right to privacy" that is used to justify abortion rights is not a First Amendment issue, either. It comes from an interesting interpretation of the Fourth.
But 1st or 4th, same problem -- too many people are all too happy to throw them away so they get a fake feeling of security.
Who said it was acceptable for anyone? I certainly didn't. And what makes you think this is a sudden thing?
Do you want me to reply to EVERY person who exhibits a misunderstanding of the term "American" in this thread, or do you think maybe they can all get the point if they see it just once?
And no, for those Americans who are being slandered by the references to "American arrogance", it is not nitpicking. It is simple courtesy to not include them in your insults.
Wow, even after having your mistake pointed out to you, you continue. There is no "purely North American, American" sense. There are Canadians (who are also Americans), Mexicans (who are also Americans), and US citizens (who are also Americans) in North America. There are French-Canadians (who are still Americans, even if they don't want to be Canadians) and Upper-Peninsula-Michiganders (who are still Americans, even though many of them don't want to be US residents, and many lower-peninsula Michiganders who would just as happily hand the whole UP over to Canada.) There are Texans (who are still Americans, even if some of them claim that the Republic of Texas never legally gave up their soveriegnty so they are not a state in the USA, they are their own country.) So, closer, but still no cigar.
Now, I know some Canadians who are just as rabid about their country being the best as anyone in the US, so maybe you did mean to include them. But then again, there are many fanatic Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Slavs, etc...
And then there are the US residents that you are excluding when you refer to them as "North American, Americans", since Hawaii isn't part of the North American continent yet they, too, are US residents.
Yes, much better to lump almost the entire hemisphere into your discussion than to write clearly and concisely. Much easier for you.
you're showing a total lack of wit...
I'm not trying to be witty. I'm trying to educate those who don't understand that "American" is a term that applies to a lot more people than they realize. And, in fact, you are being quite insulting to a lot of people when you lump them in with the USA.
That's right. There's 170 million Brazillians who don't appreciate your gross generalizations about "Americans".
Or maybe you skipped class the day they covered the western hemisphere, which contains North, Central, and South America, all of which are part of the "Americas" and all of which contain Americans.