> Seriously when did people get this idea that you > should be able to say whatever you want and never > have any consequences?
Ever see those "Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten." posters? I find myself, when I see articles like this, recalling an old rhyme I learned when I was in kindergarten. It went like this:
"Sticks and stones may break my bones. But names will never hurt me."
> including one whose manual seemed to be made for > a completely different game. It described stuff > that didn't even exist in the game, or didn't > work even vaguely like in the manual.
Ah.... so you bought Outpost as well. I still curse Sierra for that one myself.
No. Every man knows about Playboy... and Penthouse... and maybe Hustler.
Perfect 10, and the rest of the interchangeable, here today, gone tomorrow, jizz-rags are only relevant in the small niches of whatever particular little fetish they're catering to.
> Then all the record companies need to do is buy out Apple. > Truth is, Apple just isn't big enough to hold out against them > if they want it.
"The record companies" can't collectively act together to buy out Apple. If they did, there's a little law called Sherman Anti-Trust that would come into play the moment the republicans are out of the white house. And even if the right-wing corporate stooges do manage to hang on to the white house in 2008, it still pays to maintain the illusion of competition, just for propriety's sake, After all, occasionally... not nearly often enough, but occasionally... the public *DOES* wake up and take notice of corporate malfeasance, and call for heads on a platter.
Given that a collective buy-out of Apple is out; Apple vs. any given *single* RIAA member is another story entirely. And Apple *IS* large enough that no such deal could go through without Steve Jobs getting a significant amount of stock/power, in the new company, out of the deal.
And Steve Jobs; or anyone with his kind of vision, talent, charisma, resourcefulness, and drive; is absolutely the LAST person some stuffed-shirt corporate MBA type wants to give a foothold in his company. Remember the fall, humiliation, and disgrace of gil amelio? Remember how quickly Jobs went from "strictly an advisory role" to giving gilly-boy and most of his crew the boot, and the taking over and running the whole show himself?
I wonder if these racists have ever gotten out of their comfy little white-bread suburban holes, and gotten to know any Japanese people?
I have. And I have a damn sight more sympathy for my Japanese and Japanese-American friends, than I could ever be able to muster for the trash who would celebrate their murder.
... is that by the end of then DVD set; it was fairly obvious that the alliance was modding River into some sort of super assassin/warrior chick. This being something so overdone that it's cliche. That made Shepherd Book, to me, a much more enigmatic, and therefore more interesting, character.
But he's, again, conspicuously absent from a trailer. Yeah, I remember a few trailers ago when someone claimed that you can frame-by-frame it, and see a shot or two of him. I didn't actually bother, because even if he's THERE, it's still obvious that his role is very much reduced. And that's a shame. I think it'd have been more interesting to see what Books past was, and have it catch up to him; than it will be to see River turn into a standard-issue warrior-babe.
... is why in the name of Cuthulu would Google ever so much as CONSIDER hiring one of gates' minions in the first place?
After all, you could never trust him to do anything more sensitive than taking out the trash. And even in that job, he could still pull off various nefarious deeds; either sabotaging Google itself, or simple feeding intelligence back to his true master. And the thought of Google entrusting one of those SOBs to their code or operations or corporate strategy is just spine-chilling.
To hell with Kai-Fu Lee. Google just dodged a bullet here.
For all their despotism and malfeasance, microsoft are not stupid. And it pays to be a realist.
After all, they can't count on having a bought-and-paid-for republican administration in the white house, FOREVER putting the DOJ and SEC on hold. And even if they could, some other outfit will EVENTUALLY slip under the radar and totally blindside them. Remember, for example, when IBM was the evil king of the mountain that nobody thought would ever be toppled? Little outfits like Apple and microsoft slipped in and ate them for lunch.
Either way, they have to allow for the fact that their OS monopoly won't last forever. And when it collapses, it'll pay off to have other sources of income.
Who knows... in a few decades, when gates, allen, ballmer, myhrvold, and the rest of that malignant lot are happily dead and buried, microsoft might just become what IBM is now... the ex-evil-emipre that we all root for now that they've turned to the side of good.
cya, john
> On one hand, you can argue that for Microsoft, it's just > another copy of Windows sold, so why should they care? But > on the other hand, if they make a first-class VM product for > Mac OS X that runs Windows (and other x86 OSes) seamlessly > at near-full speed of the native hardware, it definitely assists > in the sales of more machines designed primarily to run Mac > OS X, which could be a poor strategic choice...
> or write assembly or other code that accesses the registers
> on the CPU directly.
... and that factors heavily into why I, for one, am so aghast and disgusted at this change.
My own first exposure to x86 assembly was CS311; I forget the actual title, it was "Microprocessor Architectures" or something like that. Now, start off with the the general cruddiness of the x86... the general lower reliability and quality, little-endian, segmented memory addressing, the 1MB limit and the hoops you have to jump through to access any more, and the very existence of real mode. Remember, this is the architecture that was purposely designed, from the outset, to be a worthless POS that wouldn't be able to seriously compete with the higher-end offerings of the company Apple is abandoning.
But the real clincher was when it cam time to do the actual assembly programming exercises. The way the professor had us progress was through a series of increasingly difficult (For a 300-level class, that is) exercises, all in M68K (I forget which actual model in the series.) assembler. Then he had us solve, from beginning to end, the exact same set of problems, but for x86 (Again, I don't recall the actual model.)
Until then, I too was kind of ambivalent about the whole PPC vs. x86 thing. X86's were in PCs, and PPC's were in Macs and workstations. But that class, and seeing, first hand, what a colossal POS x86, assembly and all, is; is what firmly cemented me in the PPC/Macintosh camp, and instilled a deep and abiding loathing for x86 and everything that goes with it.
So yeah, some of us actually HAVE been exposed to, and DO care, about these sorts of things.
Now, I'm not quite sure I'm willing to join the lunatic fringe and buy a Sun or SGI off of eBay to use on my desktop, once Apple switches to wintel. But I certainly don't see myself paying the Apple price premium, once they downgrade. If all I have realisticly available to me is crappy-ass broken-by-design, unreliable, wintel trash; I may as well have CHEAP, crappy-ass, broken-by-design, unreliable, wintel trash.
The point immediately above is abrogated though, if Apple slashes their prices down to the levels of their x86-peddleing compatriots when they make the downgrade.
Buy out a smaller game developer. Pick their top-selling title. Kill off development of all other titles from said developer. Milk the franchise with endless sequels and expansion packs until it sucks. Repeat.
EA has been crushing the innovation and fun out of PC gaming since WELL before billy-boy got his x-box.
Remember when Maxis has fun, silly, and even educational titles like Sim Ant, Sim Life and Sim Earth, instead of endless remakes and add-ons to The Sims? (Amazingly, Maxis did wind up with their top TWO titles surviving... though I still maintain that no sequel has lived up to the fun of SimCity 2000.) Remember when WestWood did cool things like that Blade Runner game, instead of endless crappy rehashes of C&C? Remember when Origin was more than just Ultima Online? (Hell... remember standalone Ultima titles?)
You've got the pre-pubescent children that the books are actually written for. And you've got the burned out stoners who've dribbled so many of their brain cells into their bong water that all that's left for them to comprehend are childrens' books.
Yup. Cone to think of it, that really *does* sound like exactly the calibre of female the average slashdotter is actually capable of bedding down.
When internet ads were just a banner across the top of the page I never blocked them. Animated GIFs? I never had a problem with them. Google's ads? As you say, fine by me. The little OSDN/OSTG as at the top of slashdot is fine. And so are K5's ads on the side of the content. It was *AGES* before I started blocking any ads at all. Bandwidth is stupidly cheap, after all. And I never used to mind letting even banner ads load, so as to help pay for the content I was reading.
But stick a big old obnoxious ad in the MIDDLE of the actual content? Spy on me with cookies? Pop up/under new windows or move or resize the ones I already have? Uselessly chew up system resources with flash or java in your ads? Worst of all, try to circumvent my having ads blocked in the first place? Any of these, and you've crossed the line.
And since the latter group seem to be the norm rather than the exception thesedays, I have PithHelmet cranked up so high I hardly see any ads at all. Certainly I haven't had some stinking pile of java or flash load without my permission in quite a while. And it's been so long since I've seen a popup, I'm shocked and confused when I have to use some public computer that they even still exist.
I think it was actually X10, and their "pop-under" bullshit, that pushed me over the edge into full-out ad-blocking mode.
I guess racist and xenophobic warmongering trash who celebrate the murder of civilians by the most horrific weapon invented by man come in all nationalities.
One wonders if people like you have ever gotten out of your wretched little white-bread suburbs, and actually gotten to know, or have even MET, any Japanese people. Not the racist caricatures of hollywood movies; but real, living, honest-to-god Japanese PEOPLE.
I have. And I have a damn sight more sympathy for my Japanese and Japanese-American friends than I have for trash like you.
That, and they actually appear to want to sell to their most logical market.
A friend of mine is just getting into throwing his own parties. And what amps up ravers (legally) more than energy drinks? It just doesn't make sense to throw one without the stuff. Red Bull used to be the one and only choice... ravers, club kids, you name it... the late nite scene used to be totally fueled on Red Bull.
But they seem to have developed a "hipper than thou" "we're better than out customers" attitude. They do this F1 bullshit, and trendy publicity stunts like the fleugtag, sure. But after he finally tracked down the local distributor, Red Bull actually *refused* to sell to him. Rockstar, on the other hand, *GAVE* him a stack of cases taller than me; in exchange for just a small logo on the party's flyers.
That, and a Rockstar does juice me more than a Red Bull. Though, I must admit, I do prefer the taste of the latter.
> Clarke and Kubrick failed to break the story by making up > some obviously bullshit and fallsifiable explanation for > reincarnation of how the Monolith worked.
Yeah. That could wait until 3001; when Frank Poole, with the help of HAL, "kills" the monolith with a computer virus.
> giving a protagonist some unopposable force, but then have > them not use it until the final scene (The Karate Kid), often > not until watching everyone they know die first (The Last > Starfighter).
Actually, I think this fault is corrected as part of the *EVIL* overlord list. There's a rule in there that goes along the lines of: "If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible; not keep it in reserve for after the hero has slain my minions and penetrated my sanctum (Which probably wouldn't happen if you use the superweapon to slay the hero early on.).".
I should have thought of google first, before even thinking of trying to pull information out of a salesman! (I went with him to the Subaru dealer. I REALLY wanted to ride along for the test drive of the WRX STi)
OTOH, my very first dedicated CD player ever, a Sony DiscMan is still going strong; as is my MiniDisc player, which served for many years as my primary portable music player (Until eing replaced by an iPod I got for last xmas.). Both of these, however, were legitimately made in Japan, not the third-world shitholes you mention.
Probably, the best bet for quality thesedays is Samsaung. "Made in South Korea" isn't quite so good as "Made in Japan". But it's a damn sight better than anything made most anywhere else except Germany.
My roommate is actually going through similar difficulties in shopping for a new car right now. He's considering mostly Hondas and Subarus,. But dealers are fairly loathe to tell you wether a car was actually built in Japan and shipped over; or if it's just some POS built by the monkeys in detroit and rebadged with a Japanese logo.
Michael dell was threatening a hostile takeover of Apple, so he could shut everything down, liquidate the assets, and refund the value to the shareholders.
But... whoopsie... now Steve Jobs is back at Apple's helm, and now mikey wants to be his bitch the say way he's been billy's bitch.
> you had to be doing something wrong to get pulled over for > DUI, make the officer feel that you certainly are drunk, and > then be taken into jail for a breathalyzer. That doesn't deserve > a big cash reward. Of course, most people say I'm an idiot.
I can't disagree more. I think it's more important BY FAR to keep the cops honest; and ESPECIALLY to slap the SOBs down when they decide to get their jollies by unjustly imprisoning the innocent; than it is to make sure that every little "failure to yield" or "improper lane change" is properly cited.
You said yourself that this was a tourist area. You should remember that driving laws and customs vary throughout the US. Sure, ignorance of the law isn't a defense. But, for example, what are normal everyday safe driving practices in Boston or New York would almost certainly pass as severely reckless in some sleepy town in the south. Not only that, but in many places in the south, corrupt pigs like to prey on tourists or anyone "just passing through", over the locals, because they are much less likely to come back to the local courthouse to fight the ticket. Having encountered southern cops in my own past, I wouldn't be surprised if 99% of the things people were "doing wrong" were total bullshit in the first place.
> McDonald's consistently keeps its coffee at 185 degrees
Which, if you had ever bothered to educate yourself about coffee, *IS*, in fact, the proper temperature at which to serve it. Almost any book or other material written about gourmet coffee or for coffee aficionados will agree. Not that that swill they serve at McDonalds if gourmet.... or coffee.... or even drinkable; but that's entirely beside the point.
Coffee is a beverage that is meant to be sipped, not gulped. And you're certainly not supposed to pout it on yourself for shits and giggles.
If keep the door sealed, that 8-year-old girl dies. Yes... very tragic and all.
But if you OPEN the door, she dies anyway. And so do you, everyone else aboard the plane, and hundreds or thousands of people when the hijackers reach their target.
Sure, it's a shitty decision to have to make. But at the end of the day, the good of the many outweighs the good of the few... or the one. And I WOULD want pilots with the kind of detachment necessary to make the right call, even when it's that difficult, flying the plane.
> It would be nice to see an Indian in a turbin on duty, in > uniform.
Not likely. Not likely at all.
Almost anytime you see someone wearing a turban, it's not necessarily just an "indian", but specifically a practitioner of the sikh faith. It's not an ethnic or regional thing. It's a religious thing. Not cutting their hair, and covering it with the turban in public "brings them closer to god" or somesuch.
And, if you'll remember, one part of Gene Roddenberry's vision of humanity's future was that, by the time of Star Trek, we'd have progressed beyond such superstitious nonsense. You'll note that various other religious headgear (Jewish skullcaps, muslim veils, and so on) was also notably absent from the Enterprise. And if you'll recall old-school internet discussion, one of the reasons that DS9 left a sour taste in the mouths of some fans of TOS and TNG is that DS9 regressed Star Trek in this regard, and that Berman and his goons filled DS9 with an absolutely tedious amount of pseudo-religious claptrap.
For that matter, even by present day, we were supposed to have gotten past SOME of said BS. In Space Seed, Lt. McGivers mentions that Khan was a sikh. And you'll note that Khan, a 1990's contemporary, was not particularly inclined to wear a turban himself.
So, no, if future incarnations of Star Trek make even a token effort at staying true to Gene's vision... no turbans on the Enterprise.
Slashdot Mirror
> Seriously when did people get this idea that you
> should be able to say whatever you want and never
> have any consequences?
Ever see those "Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten." posters? I find myself, when I see articles like this, recalling an old rhyme I learned when I was in kindergarten. It went like this:
"Sticks and stones may break my bones. But names will never hurt me."
cya,
john
> including one whose manual seemed to be made for
> a completely different game. It described stuff
> that didn't even exist in the game, or didn't
> work even vaguely like in the manual.
Ah.... so you bought Outpost as well. I still curse Sierra for that one myself.
cya,
john
> Every man knows what that is.. homo
No. Every man knows about Playboy... and Penthouse... and maybe Hustler.
Perfect 10, and the rest of the interchangeable, here today, gone tomorrow, jizz-rags are only relevant in the small niches of whatever particular little fetish they're catering to.
cya,
john
> Then all the record companies need to do is buy out Apple.
> Truth is, Apple just isn't big enough to hold out against them
> if they want it.
"The record companies" can't collectively act together to buy out Apple. If they did, there's a little law called Sherman Anti-Trust that would come into play the moment the republicans are out of the white house. And even if the right-wing corporate stooges do manage to hang on to the white house in 2008, it still pays to maintain the illusion of competition, just for propriety's sake, After all, occasionally... not nearly often enough, but occasionally... the public *DOES* wake up and take notice of corporate malfeasance, and call for heads on a platter.
Given that a collective buy-out of Apple is out; Apple vs. any given *single* RIAA member is another story entirely. And Apple *IS* large enough that no such deal could go through without Steve Jobs getting a significant amount of stock/power, in the new company, out of the deal.
And Steve Jobs; or anyone with his kind of vision, talent, charisma, resourcefulness, and drive; is absolutely the LAST person some stuffed-shirt corporate MBA type wants to give a foothold in his company. Remember the fall, humiliation, and disgrace of gil amelio? Remember how quickly Jobs went from "strictly an advisory role" to giving gilly-boy and most of his crew the boot, and the taking over and running the whole show himself?
cya,
john
I wonder if these racists have ever gotten out of their comfy little white-bread suburban holes, and gotten to know any Japanese people?
I have. And I have a damn sight more sympathy for my Japanese and Japanese-American friends, than I could ever be able to muster for the trash who would celebrate their murder.
cya,
john
... is that by the end of then DVD set; it was fairly obvious that the alliance was modding River into some sort of super assassin/warrior chick. This being something so overdone that it's cliche. That made Shepherd Book, to me, a much more enigmatic, and therefore more interesting, character.
But he's, again, conspicuously absent from a trailer. Yeah, I remember a few trailers ago when someone claimed that you can frame-by-frame it, and see a shot or two of him. I didn't actually bother, because even if he's THERE, it's still obvious that his role is very much reduced. And that's a shame. I think it'd have been more interesting to see what Books past was, and have it catch up to him; than it will be to see River turn into a standard-issue warrior-babe.
cya,
john
... is why in the name of Cuthulu would Google ever so much as CONSIDER hiring one of gates' minions in the first place?
After all, you could never trust him to do anything more sensitive than taking out the trash. And even in that job, he could still pull off various nefarious deeds; either sabotaging Google itself, or simple feeding intelligence back to his true master. And the thought of Google entrusting one of those SOBs to their code or operations or corporate strategy is just spine-chilling.
To hell with Kai-Fu Lee. Google just dodged a bullet here.
cya,
john
For all their despotism and malfeasance, microsoft are not stupid. And it pays to be a realist.
After all, they can't count on having a bought-and-paid-for republican administration in the white house, FOREVER putting the DOJ and SEC on hold. And even if they could, some other outfit will EVENTUALLY slip under the radar and totally blindside them. Remember, for example, when IBM was the evil king of the mountain that nobody thought would ever be toppled? Little outfits like Apple and microsoft slipped in and ate them for lunch.
Either way, they have to allow for the fact that their OS monopoly won't last forever. And when it collapses, it'll pay off to have other sources of income.
Who knows... in a few decades, when gates, allen, ballmer, myhrvold, and the rest of that malignant lot are happily dead and buried, microsoft might just become what IBM is now... the ex-evil-emipre that we all root for now that they've turned to the side of good.
cya,
john
> On one hand, you can argue that for Microsoft, it's just
> another copy of Windows sold, so why should they care? But
> on the other hand, if they make a first-class VM product for
> Mac OS X that runs Windows (and other x86 OSes) seamlessly
> at near-full speed of the native hardware, it definitely assists
> in the sales of more machines designed primarily to run Mac
> OS X, which could be a poor strategic choice...
> on the CPU directly.
My own first exposure to x86 assembly was CS311; I forget the actual title, it was "Microprocessor Architectures" or something like that. Now, start off with the the general cruddiness of the x86... the general lower reliability and quality, little-endian, segmented memory addressing, the 1MB limit and the hoops you have to jump through to access any more, and the very existence of real mode. Remember, this is the architecture that was purposely designed, from the outset, to be a worthless POS that wouldn't be able to seriously compete with the higher-end offerings of the company Apple is abandoning.
But the real clincher was when it cam time to do the actual assembly programming exercises. The way the professor had us progress was through a series of increasingly difficult (For a 300-level class, that is) exercises, all in M68K (I forget which actual model in the series.) assembler. Then he had us solve, from beginning to end, the exact same set of problems, but for x86 (Again, I don't recall the actual model.)
Until then, I too was kind of ambivalent about the whole PPC vs. x86 thing. X86's were in PCs, and PPC's were in Macs and workstations. But that class, and seeing, first hand, what a colossal POS x86, assembly and all, is; is what firmly cemented me in the PPC/Macintosh camp, and instilled a deep and abiding loathing for x86 and everything that goes with it.
So yeah, some of us actually HAVE been exposed to, and DO care, about these sorts of things.
Now, I'm not quite sure I'm willing to join the lunatic fringe and buy a Sun or SGI off of eBay to use on my desktop, once Apple switches to wintel. But I certainly don't see myself paying the Apple price premium, once they downgrade. If all I have realisticly available to me is crappy-ass broken-by-design, unreliable, wintel trash; I may as well have CHEAP, crappy-ass, broken-by-design, unreliable, wintel trash.
The point immediately above is abrogated though, if Apple slashes their prices down to the levels of their x86-peddleing compatriots when they make the downgrade.
cya,
john
... and their strategy of:
Buy out a smaller game developer.
Pick their top-selling title.
Kill off development of all other titles from said developer.
Milk the franchise with endless sequels and expansion packs until it sucks.
Repeat.
EA has been crushing the innovation and fun out of PC gaming since WELL before billy-boy got his x-box.
Remember when Maxis has fun, silly, and even educational titles like Sim Ant, Sim Life and Sim Earth, instead of endless remakes and add-ons to The Sims? (Amazingly, Maxis did wind up with their top TWO titles surviving... though I still maintain that no sequel has lived up to the fun of SimCity 2000.) Remember when WestWood did cool things like that Blade Runner game, instead of endless crappy rehashes of C&C? Remember when Origin was more than just Ultima Online? (Hell... remember standalone Ultima titles?)
cya,
john
Well lessee...
You've got the pre-pubescent children that the books are actually written for. And you've got the burned out stoners who've dribbled so many of their brain cells into their bong water that all that's left for them to comprehend are childrens' books.
Yup. Cone to think of it, that really *does* sound like exactly the calibre of female the average slashdotter is actually capable of bedding down.
cya,
john
When internet ads were just a banner across the top of the page I never blocked them. Animated GIFs? I never had a problem with them. Google's ads? As you say, fine by me. The little OSDN/OSTG as at the top of slashdot is fine. And so are K5's ads on the side of the content. It was *AGES* before I started blocking any ads at all. Bandwidth is stupidly cheap, after all. And I never used to mind letting even banner ads load, so as to help pay for the content I was reading.
But stick a big old obnoxious ad in the MIDDLE of the actual content? Spy on me with cookies? Pop up/under new windows or move or resize the ones I already have? Uselessly chew up system resources with flash or java in your ads? Worst of all, try to circumvent my having ads blocked in the first place? Any of these, and you've crossed the line.
And since the latter group seem to be the norm rather than the exception thesedays, I have PithHelmet cranked up so high I hardly see any ads at all. Certainly I haven't had some stinking pile of java or flash load without my permission in quite a while. And it's been so long since I've seen a popup, I'm shocked and confused when I have to use some public computer that they even still exist.
I think it was actually X10, and their "pop-under" bullshit, that pushed me over the edge into full-out ad-blocking mode.
cya,
john
> Let me guess. Yank?
He claims to be a New Zealander.
I guess racist and xenophobic warmongering trash who celebrate the murder of civilians by the most horrific weapon invented by man come in all nationalities.
cya,
john
One wonders if people like you have ever gotten out of your wretched little white-bread suburbs, and actually gotten to know, or have even MET, any Japanese people. Not the racist caricatures of hollywood movies; but real, living, honest-to-god Japanese PEOPLE.
I have. And I have a damn sight more sympathy for my Japanese and Japanese-American friends than I have for trash like you.
cya,
john
That, and they actually appear to NOT want to sell to their most logical market.
cya,
john
That, and they actually appear to want to sell to their most logical market.
A friend of mine is just getting into throwing his own parties. And what amps up ravers (legally) more than energy drinks? It just doesn't make sense to throw one without the stuff. Red Bull used to be the one and only choice... ravers, club kids, you name it... the late nite scene used to be totally fueled on Red Bull.
But they seem to have developed a "hipper than thou" "we're better than out customers" attitude. They do this F1 bullshit, and trendy publicity stunts like the fleugtag, sure. But after he finally tracked down the local distributor, Red Bull actually *refused* to sell to him. Rockstar, on the other hand, *GAVE* him a stack of cases taller than me; in exchange for just a small logo on the party's flyers.
That, and a Rockstar does juice me more than a Red Bull. Though, I must admit, I do prefer the taste of the latter.
cya,
john
> Clarke and Kubrick failed to break the story by making up
> some obviously bullshit and fallsifiable explanation for
> reincarnation of how the Monolith worked.
Yeah. That could wait until 3001; when Frank Poole, with the help of HAL, "kills" the monolith with a computer virus.
cya,
john
> giving a protagonist some unopposable force, but then have
> them not use it until the final scene (The Karate Kid), often
> not until watching everyone they know die first (The Last
> Starfighter).
Actually, I think this fault is corrected as part of the *EVIL* overlord list. There's a rule in there that goes along the lines of: "If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible; not keep it in reserve for after the hero has slain my minions and penetrated my sanctum (Which probably wouldn't happen if you use the superweapon to slay the hero early on.).".
cya,
john
Thanks. I'll pass the information along.
cya,
john
OTOH, my very first dedicated CD player ever, a Sony DiscMan is still going strong; as is my MiniDisc player, which served for many years as my primary portable music player (Until eing replaced by an iPod I got for last xmas.). Both of these, however, were legitimately made in Japan, not the third-world shitholes you mention.
Probably, the best bet for quality thesedays is Samsaung. "Made in South Korea" isn't quite so good as "Made in Japan". But it's a damn sight better than anything made most anywhere else except Germany.
My roommate is actually going through similar difficulties in shopping for a new car right now. He's considering mostly Hondas and Subarus,. But dealers are fairly loathe to tell you wether a car was actually built in Japan and shipped over; or if it's just some POS built by the monkeys in detroit and rebadged with a Japanese logo.
cya,
john
Michael dell was threatening a hostile takeover of Apple, so he could shut everything down, liquidate the assets, and refund the value to the shareholders.
But... whoopsie... now Steve Jobs is back at Apple's helm, and now mikey wants to be his bitch the say way he's been billy's bitch.
My, how times have changed.
cya,
john
> you had to be doing something wrong to get pulled over for
> DUI, make the officer feel that you certainly are drunk, and
> then be taken into jail for a breathalyzer. That doesn't deserve
> a big cash reward. Of course, most people say I'm an idiot.
I can't disagree more. I think it's more important BY FAR to keep the cops honest; and ESPECIALLY to slap the SOBs down when they decide to get their jollies by unjustly imprisoning the innocent; than it is to make sure that every little "failure to yield" or "improper lane change" is properly cited.
You said yourself that this was a tourist area. You should remember that driving laws and customs vary throughout the US. Sure, ignorance of the law isn't a defense. But, for example, what are normal everyday safe driving practices in Boston or New York would almost certainly pass as severely reckless in some sleepy town in the south. Not only that, but in many places in the south, corrupt pigs like to prey on tourists or anyone "just passing through", over the locals, because they are much less likely to come back to the local courthouse to fight the ticket. Having encountered southern cops in my own past, I wouldn't be surprised if 99% of the things people were "doing wrong" were total bullshit in the first place.
cya,
john
From the link you provided...
> McDonald's consistently keeps its coffee at 185 degrees
Which, if you had ever bothered to educate yourself about coffee, *IS*, in fact, the proper temperature at which to serve it. Almost any book or other material written about gourmet coffee or for coffee aficionados will agree. Not that that swill they serve at McDonalds if gourmet.... or coffee.... or even drinkable; but that's entirely beside the point.
Coffee is a beverage that is meant to be sipped, not gulped. And you're certainly not supposed to pout it on yourself for shits and giggles.
cya,
john
If keep the door sealed, that 8-year-old girl dies. Yes... very tragic and all.
But if you OPEN the door, she dies anyway. And so do you, everyone else aboard the plane, and hundreds or thousands of people when the hijackers reach their target.
Sure, it's a shitty decision to have to make. But at the end of the day, the good of the many outweighs the good of the few... or the one. And I WOULD want pilots with the kind of detachment necessary to make the right call, even when it's that difficult, flying the plane.
cya,
john
> It would be nice to see an Indian in a turbin on duty, in
> uniform.
Not likely. Not likely at all.
Almost anytime you see someone wearing a turban, it's not necessarily just an "indian", but specifically a practitioner of the sikh faith. It's not an ethnic or regional thing. It's a religious thing. Not cutting their hair, and covering it with the turban in public "brings them closer to god" or somesuch.
And, if you'll remember, one part of Gene Roddenberry's vision of humanity's future was that, by the time of Star Trek, we'd have progressed beyond such superstitious nonsense. You'll note that various other religious headgear (Jewish skullcaps, muslim veils, and so on) was also notably absent from the Enterprise. And if you'll recall old-school internet discussion, one of the reasons that DS9 left a sour taste in the mouths of some fans of TOS and TNG is that DS9 regressed Star Trek in this regard, and that Berman and his goons filled DS9 with an absolutely tedious amount of pseudo-religious claptrap.
For that matter, even by present day, we were supposed to have gotten past SOME of said BS. In Space Seed, Lt. McGivers mentions that Khan was a sikh. And you'll note that Khan, a 1990's contemporary, was not particularly inclined to wear a turban himself.
So, no, if future incarnations of Star Trek make even a token effort at staying true to Gene's vision... no turbans on the Enterprise.
cya,
john