The maximum number of credits that you could take in a semester at University of Illinois Chicago, where and when I went, was 24. I once took 21. It wasn't too bad having that many classes at once. The hardest part was trying to squeeze in work as I was working 30 hours a week as a programmer at a Futures Trading company.
I have to agree with you. My stepson begged me to let him get a trial subscription to Napster. My first thought was "Hey, aren't they the guys who got in trouble for sharing music illegally. No way I am going to pay money for pirated songs." But some of my friends told me that they are strictly legit now. So I told my stepson he could sign up. Next thing you know, they are wanting a credit card...for a FREE trial subscription. Reading the fine print, it appears that they are going to charge me a full month, and then refund it if I don't like the service. Well, that doesn't sound like a legitimate business to me, and I wouldn't do business with them. But my stepson said he would pay for it, so I went ahead and paid the $20 or whatever it is for a FREE account.
Then, he couldn't get the software to load. Turns out you have to be an administrator to load their software. What kind of crap is that? Is it an OS or something? So I had to install the software for him because there is no way I am making him an administrator.
Next, he couldn't get the software to work. I found it worked fine on accounts with administrator priveleges, but not on ones that are regular users. This was the final straw, as there was no way I was going to give my stepson administrator priveleges.
So I cancelled the account. I cited the fact that my stepson was unable to determine if their service was any good, because their software was not compatible with the Microsoft security environment.
Then, they pissed me off by charging me $1.94 because I used the service for 3 days. In fact, in those three days we downloaded exactly zero songs, and only even got connected once or twice, while testing with an administrator account. They claim to have a 15 day or so free trial, but they actually charge you a prorated amount during that period, even though you can't use their software if you set up your security properly.
I even got American Express after them to try to get the charges reversed, but Amex sided with them. If you get a free subscription, you should have to pay for it, even if you can't use it.
DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THESE SCAMMERS!!!
Wow, their half million users are spending $200 a quarter on songs? That is much more than I ever spent on CDs. I guess the electronic distribution method does work (except they're still losing money).
The entire practice of suing people over music needs to die a horrible death.
I am doing my part, by not making or distributing illegal copies of my CDs.
As I recall, in high school English, every book that we read was on the supposed "banned" list. I didn't know at the time where you could find this banned list, but I would imagine it was kept in the same place as my permanent record.
You are correct, it is not trespass at all. It is theft. Theft of time, resources, bandwidth etc. But then most crime eventually comes down to theft, whether the object thieved by either tangible or intangible
Slight problem with this. By law, you do not 'own' the mailbox, even the one in front of your house. The USPS 'owns' it. At least, it is considered their property for all intensive purposes.
Luckily there are no such thing as intensive purposes, so the USPS doesn't own MY mailbox. I had to pay for it, and I own it. They sure didn't go out of their way to fix it when punk kids knocked it over.
when I got the number, I paid an extra $1.50 or so a month to have the number unlisted.
I think it is unfair that you should have to pay extra to have your number unlisted, or to have to pay extra for caller ID. This should be a feature that you can choose or not choose for free and have the expense paid as part of a tax on telemarketers, politicians, surveyers, and charitable organizations. Actually, only the caller ID is an expense. Not printing your name in a phone book is actually a credit to the phone company's bottom line, or at least it would be if they were not selling your information without your permission. I wish I could pay for a PO box and eliminate the snail mail spam as well
I don't mind snail mail spam because 1) it is paid for by the sender, not the receiver, 2) it subsidizes my first class mail, 3) it cuts down on heating bills in the winter.
That being said, you could probably put in a forwarding order from your home address to a P.O. Box. I don't believe they will forward bulk rate stuff. Then you can just substitute a rubbish bin for your physical mailbox.
Actually, automated announcement are quite specifically illegal unless you have opted in to a calling list.
I have had, however, telemarketers call, and the line be silent for a few minutes while the autodialer machine makes a determination that I am a human, and then passes it off to an operator so they can talk to you and avoid getting in trouble for having an automated message.
Once again, the politicans seem to be immune from the automated announcement laws, because I get stuff from them about twice a week on my answering machine.
The do not call registry does not go nearly far enough. It only relieves you from calls from telemarketers. It does nothing to the groups that give me the most trouble: Charity groups, politicians, and surveyers.
Not to mention, many telamarketers are spinning their sale to fall into one of the other categories, for instance, asking you to do a brief survey about their product before trying to sell it to you.
As usual, the best response is to ask for their home phone number and what time they eat dinner and tell them you will call them back then.
How long will it be until these systems start to look at the ethnicity/gender/age of people and use that to gauge threat level?
If there is no statistical correlation between shoplifting and ethnicity/gender/age, then you have nothing to worry about. I mean, assuming that white person an $MINORITY steal at the same rate, it would be the height of stupidity to track $MINORITY, who represents less than %10 of the population, while allowing white people to walk off with whatever they want.
On the other hand, if there is a correlation, there may still be no real advantage to watch $MINORITY, unless $MINORITY steals at a hefty multiple of the times that a non-minority does. And if that is the case, then do you get mad at the store for racial profiling, or do you get mad at the people in that race who are causing the statistical anomaly.
I feel that singling out a group for strictly emotional reasons is wrong. But paying attention to a group that DOES statistically have a reason to be watched (for example, teenagers steal more than the elderly), is not wrong at all, but wise. That said, everyone should always be treated as an individual, and you should never be allowed to presume someone guilty just because statistics say that they are more likely to commit a crime than another person.
then too there are disadvantages when you look at basic things like startup time, shutdown time - all of which is time away from an already compressed class time (around 40 minutes per class here
Yeah, computers aren't as fast anymore as they once were. Back in the day, I could hit the power button on my TRS-80 and literally one second later I could be typing commands. It also never got a virus, or a blue screen (not without some POKEing anyway). It didn't browse the internet, but that wasn't a big deal because at least we still had the internet, only it was called "books".
these parents have no idea what "critical professional skills" are... sure, maybe if your career goal is to be some kind of personal assistant for powerpoint, then yeah, ok... but powerpoint? critical? really?
Okay, so using powerpoint isn't that impressive, but compiling a powerpoint presentation, well, I think that is pretty darned impressive.
How many of your fixtures are actually rated for the 150 Watt bulb you have in them? Most of my fixtures have a 60 Watt max warning label on them.
I have one CFL in my house. It is in my stepsons's room. If it saves energy that is great, because he is incapable of turning off a light. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit under the fixture cover so he has to stare at a bare bulb.
Don't give people the REASON to WANT to down the plane, is the ONLY answer!
Are you aware that certain people on this planet will not be satisfied until the entire population of certain other people on this planet are all dead?
Ebay is a very sick marketplace today, prices too low to sustain any sort of valid business.
Well, you aren't really SUPPOSED to make money on ebay. You are supposed to sell stuff you don't want anymore, and that somebody else may be interested in.
If you MAKE something or ADD VALUE to something, then you may be able to make money on ebay, but if you are just trying to insert yourself as another middleman, people are going to find it is cheaper to buy direct.
The problem isn't with ebay management, the problem is that people have tried to make this AUCTION website into a retail storefront, a bulletin board, and everything else.
Have you ever known someone who, regardless of the issue or the solution, can always find something wrong with anything?
Sounds like an utlra-environmentalist to me. Switch to wind power, and they're worried about killing birds. Switch to biodiesel, and they worry about irrigation. Whatever you do to help the environment, an ultra-environmentalist can find a reason why it is bad for the environment.
Luckily, they haven't figured out yet that harnessing solar power on a large scale would prevent heat energy from being absorbed by the earth and probably cause all kinds of weather problems. But they'll put two and two together before long.
The only solution acceptable to an ultra-environmentalist is for all humans to lay down and die.
Animals can, and do in fact "hate" and "kill another member of [their] own species through hatred"
Not with nuclear arms they don't. You can't hug your children with nuclear arms!
Compare evolution to the rotation of the planets: both are theories that no ordinary citizen is going to be able to directly verify, and have to take on faith (or at least trust in scientists to know what they're doing). Both are also directly contradicted in the Bible.
The Bible does not contradict the rotation of the planets. At least not any more than the scientist (meteorologist) who shows up every day on the news and proudly proclaims that the sun ROSE at such and such a time and will set at such and such a time. I mean, doesn't this guy know that the Earth revolves around the sun?
Darwin's final resting place is within the confines of Westminster Abbey.
I've read Darwin's works. He claimed several times to be a Christian, he was at times astonished by the grandeur of God's creation. I find nothing incompatible with his observations of speciation and the fact that there is a Creator. Evolution has expanded well beyond the observations of the origin of species that Darwin made, so far as to encompass things that have not and can not be observed. I bet Darwin would be disgusted by the people today who call themselves Darwinists.
The Rental agreements in the US are very weighted toward the landlord. Aparantly is because the law is weighted in favour of the tenant.
Right on both counts. Of course, just like the EULA, your electric service, your phone service, your lease, etc, whoever writes the contract gets to make the rules.
I've almost in every case wanted to strike sentences from the agreements with the utility companies, but they just won't give you service if you do. And there is no alternative utility supplier to go to.
I am a landlord, and am fortunate to live in a state which is biased toward the landlord. It is my property. I keep it up to spec, as the state requires me to, and because I want to sell it someday for a decent price. If my tenants don't pay they have to get out. The state agrees with me. Other states are not so great. In Illinois, if the tenant stops paying the gas bill in the middle of winter, you as the landlord have to pay it for them. They are living in your house, probably paying no rent at this point, and you have to pay to keep them comfortable. It can take 6 weeks to evict someone.
Our lease does not allow for rent increases at any time. In fact, the rent is fixed for the period of the lease, generally a year. However, we do not enter into lease agreements with anyone until they have been with us for 6 months. We do month-to-month in order that we and the tenants can find out if we like each other. Technically, during the month-to-month, we could increase the rent at any time, with 30 days notice. They could also object and vacate with 30 days notice.
We target rent increases for once a year. We do not increase rent on someone until they have been there a full year. This is our policy, and we still make money, and have happy tenants.
I think you will find that the Bible speaks against letting the Priest or anyone else tell you how you are supposed to think or act. The apostle Paul commended the practise of looking through the scriptures everyday to make sure that what he said was true.
I agree. Going to Church has nothing to do with crime. This is because going to Church has nothing to do with morals. Many people go to Church in order to fulfill a social obligation or to maintain appearances that they have strong moral fiber. You cannot make the assumption that someone who goes to Church has strong moral fiber. I would guess that it is slightly more likely that someone who goes to Church would have stronger morals than someone who doesn't, but the correlation is far from 1:1.
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The maximum number of credits that you could take in a semester at University of Illinois Chicago, where and when I went, was 24. I once took 21. It wasn't too bad having that many classes at once. The hardest part was trying to squeeze in work as I was working 30 hours a week as a programmer at a Futures Trading company.
I have to agree with you. My stepson begged me to let him get a trial subscription to Napster. My first thought was "Hey, aren't they the guys who got in trouble for sharing music illegally. No way I am going to pay money for pirated songs." But some of my friends told me that they are strictly legit now. So I told my stepson he could sign up. Next thing you know, they are wanting a credit card...for a FREE trial subscription. Reading the fine print, it appears that they are going to charge me a full month, and then refund it if I don't like the service. Well, that doesn't sound like a legitimate business to me, and I wouldn't do business with them. But my stepson said he would pay for it, so I went ahead and paid the $20 or whatever it is for a FREE account.
Then, he couldn't get the software to load. Turns out you have to be an administrator to load their software. What kind of crap is that? Is it an OS or something? So I had to install the software for him because there is no way I am making him an administrator.
Next, he couldn't get the software to work. I found it worked fine on accounts with administrator priveleges, but not on ones that are regular users. This was the final straw, as there was no way I was going to give my stepson administrator priveleges.
So I cancelled the account. I cited the fact that my stepson was unable to determine if their service was any good, because their software was not compatible with the Microsoft security environment.
Then, they pissed me off by charging me $1.94 because I used the service for 3 days. In fact, in those three days we downloaded exactly zero songs, and only even got connected once or twice, while testing with an administrator account. They claim to have a 15 day or so free trial, but they actually charge you a prorated amount during that period, even though you can't use their software if you set up your security properly.
I even got American Express after them to try to get the charges reversed, but Amex sided with them. If you get a free subscription, you should have to pay for it, even if you can't use it.
DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THESE SCAMMERS!!!
Wow, their half million users are spending $200 a quarter on songs? That is much more than I ever spent on CDs. I guess the electronic distribution method does work (except they're still losing money).
The entire practice of suing people over music needs to die a horrible death.
I am doing my part, by not making or distributing illegal copies of my CDs.
As I recall, in high school English, every book that we read was on the supposed "banned" list. I didn't know at the time where you could find this banned list, but I would imagine it was kept in the same place as my permanent record.
You are correct, it is not trespass at all. It is theft. Theft of time, resources, bandwidth etc. But then most crime eventually comes down to theft, whether the object thieved by either tangible or intangible
Slight problem with this. By law, you do not 'own' the mailbox, even the one in front of your house. The USPS 'owns' it. At least, it is considered their property for all intensive purposes.
Luckily there are no such thing as intensive purposes, so the USPS doesn't own MY mailbox. I had to pay for it, and I own it. They sure didn't go out of their way to fix it when punk kids knocked it over.
My mailman delivered my mail even when he had to get out of his truck because some punk kids thought it would be fun to push my brick mailbox over.
when I got the number, I paid an extra $1.50 or so a month to have the number unlisted.
I think it is unfair that you should have to pay extra to have your number unlisted, or to have to pay extra for caller ID. This should be a feature that you can choose or not choose for free and have the expense paid as part of a tax on telemarketers, politicians, surveyers, and charitable organizations. Actually, only the caller ID is an expense. Not printing your name in a phone book is actually a credit to the phone company's bottom line, or at least it would be if they were not selling your information without your permission.
I wish I could pay for a PO box and eliminate the snail mail spam as well
I don't mind snail mail spam because 1) it is paid for by the sender, not the receiver, 2) it subsidizes my first class mail, 3) it cuts down on heating bills in the winter.
That being said, you could probably put in a forwarding order from your home address to a P.O. Box. I don't believe they will forward bulk rate stuff. Then you can just substitute a rubbish bin for your physical mailbox.
Actually, automated announcement are quite specifically illegal unless you have opted in to a calling list.
I have had, however, telemarketers call, and the line be silent for a few minutes while the autodialer machine makes a determination that I am a human, and then passes it off to an operator so they can talk to you and avoid getting in trouble for having an automated message.
Once again, the politicans seem to be immune from the automated announcement laws, because I get stuff from them about twice a week on my answering machine.
The do not call registry does not go nearly far enough. It only relieves you from calls from telemarketers. It does nothing to the groups that give me the most trouble: Charity groups, politicians, and surveyers.
Not to mention, many telamarketers are spinning their sale to fall into one of the other categories, for instance, asking you to do a brief survey about their product before trying to sell it to you.
As usual, the best response is to ask for their home phone number and what time they eat dinner and tell them you will call them back then.
How long will it be until these systems start to look at the ethnicity/gender/age of people and use that to gauge threat level?
If there is no statistical correlation between shoplifting and ethnicity/gender/age, then you have nothing to worry about. I mean, assuming that white person an $MINORITY steal at the same rate, it would be the height of stupidity to track $MINORITY, who represents less than %10 of the population, while allowing white people to walk off with whatever they want.
On the other hand, if there is a correlation, there may still be no real advantage to watch $MINORITY, unless $MINORITY steals at a hefty multiple of the times that a non-minority does. And if that is the case, then do you get mad at the store for racial profiling, or do you get mad at the people in that race who are causing the statistical anomaly.
I feel that singling out a group for strictly emotional reasons is wrong. But paying attention to a group that DOES statistically have a reason to be watched (for example, teenagers steal more than the elderly), is not wrong at all, but wise. That said, everyone should always be treated as an individual, and you should never be allowed to presume someone guilty just because statistics say that they are more likely to commit a crime than another person.
then too there are disadvantages when you look at basic things like startup time, shutdown time - all of which is time away from an already compressed class time (around 40 minutes per class here
Yeah, computers aren't as fast anymore as they once were. Back in the day, I could hit the power button on my TRS-80 and literally one second later I could be typing commands. It also never got a virus, or a blue screen (not without some POKEing anyway). It didn't browse the internet, but that wasn't a big deal because at least we still had the internet, only it was called "books".
these parents have no idea what "critical professional skills" are... sure, maybe if your career goal is to be some kind of personal assistant for powerpoint, then yeah, ok... but powerpoint? critical? really?
Okay, so using powerpoint isn't that impressive, but compiling a powerpoint presentation, well, I think that is pretty darned impressive.
How many of your fixtures are actually rated for the 150 Watt bulb you have in them? Most of my fixtures have a 60 Watt max warning label on them.
I have one CFL in my house. It is in my stepsons's room. If it saves energy that is great, because he is incapable of turning off a light. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit under the fixture cover so he has to stare at a bare bulb.
Don't give people the REASON to WANT to down the plane, is the ONLY answer!
Are you aware that certain people on this planet will not be satisfied until the entire population of certain other people on this planet are all dead?
Ebay is a very sick marketplace today, prices too low to sustain any sort of valid business.
Well, you aren't really SUPPOSED to make money on ebay. You are supposed to sell stuff you don't want anymore, and that somebody else may be interested in.
If you MAKE something or ADD VALUE to something, then you may be able to make money on ebay, but if you are just trying to insert yourself as another middleman, people are going to find it is cheaper to buy direct.
The problem isn't with ebay management, the problem is that people have tried to make this AUCTION website into a retail storefront, a bulletin board, and everything else.
Have you ever known someone who, regardless of the issue or the solution, can always find something wrong with anything?
Sounds like an utlra-environmentalist to me. Switch to wind power, and they're worried about killing birds. Switch to biodiesel, and they worry about irrigation. Whatever you do to help the environment, an ultra-environmentalist can find a reason why it is bad for the environment.
Luckily, they haven't figured out yet that harnessing solar power on a large scale would prevent heat energy from being absorbed by the earth and probably cause all kinds of weather problems. But they'll put two and two together before long.
The only solution acceptable to an ultra-environmentalist is for all humans to lay down and die.
In a few billion years, the USA may even have changed from Imperial to Metric units! :)
God, I hope not. Base 10 is about 8 too many.
Animals can, and do in fact "hate" and "kill another member of [their] own species through hatred"
Not with nuclear arms they don't. You can't hug your children with nuclear arms!
Compare evolution to the rotation of the planets: both are theories that no ordinary citizen is going to be able to directly verify, and have to take on faith (or at least trust in scientists to know what they're doing). Both are also directly contradicted in the Bible.
The Bible does not contradict the rotation of the planets. At least not any more than the scientist (meteorologist) who shows up every day on the news and proudly proclaims that the sun ROSE at such and such a time and will set at such and such a time. I mean, doesn't this guy know that the Earth revolves around the sun?
Darwin's final resting place is within the confines of Westminster Abbey.
I've read Darwin's works. He claimed several times to be a Christian, he was at times astonished by the grandeur of God's creation. I find nothing incompatible with his observations of speciation and the fact that there is a Creator. Evolution has expanded well beyond the observations of the origin of species that Darwin made, so far as to encompass things that have not and can not be observed. I bet Darwin would be disgusted by the people today who call themselves Darwinists.
The Rental agreements in the US are very weighted toward the landlord. Aparantly is because the law is weighted in favour of the tenant. Right on both counts. Of course, just like the EULA, your electric service, your phone service, your lease, etc, whoever writes the contract gets to make the rules. I've almost in every case wanted to strike sentences from the agreements with the utility companies, but they just won't give you service if you do. And there is no alternative utility supplier to go to.
I am a landlord, and am fortunate to live in a state which is biased toward the landlord. It is my property. I keep it up to spec, as the state requires me to, and because I want to sell it someday for a decent price. If my tenants don't pay they have to get out. The state agrees with me. Other states are not so great. In Illinois, if the tenant stops paying the gas bill in the middle of winter, you as the landlord have to pay it for them. They are living in your house, probably paying no rent at this point, and you have to pay to keep them comfortable. It can take 6 weeks to evict someone.
Our lease does not allow for rent increases at any time. In fact, the rent is fixed for the period of the lease, generally a year. However, we do not enter into lease agreements with anyone until they have been with us for 6 months. We do month-to-month in order that we and the tenants can find out if we like each other. Technically, during the month-to-month, we could increase the rent at any time, with 30 days notice. They could also object and vacate with 30 days notice. We target rent increases for once a year. We do not increase rent on someone until they have been there a full year. This is our policy, and we still make money, and have happy tenants.
I think you will find that the Bible speaks against letting the Priest or anyone else tell you how you are supposed to think or act. The apostle Paul commended the practise of looking through the scriptures everyday to make sure that what he said was true.
I agree. Going to Church has nothing to do with crime. This is because going to Church has nothing to do with morals. Many people go to Church in order to fulfill a social obligation or to maintain appearances that they have strong moral fiber. You cannot make the assumption that someone who goes to Church has strong moral fiber. I would guess that it is slightly more likely that someone who goes to Church would have stronger morals than someone who doesn't, but the correlation is far from 1:1.