You know, I used to think that and I still agree with you about the whining part. But I rode in my son-in-law's Suburban a few times. We have two grandkids. They *must* (by Law) be placed in these monster kid's car seats. That takes up th emiddle row of seats. My wife and daugther sit in the back seats so that's full: they're small. U sguys sit in the front. That's six people. There's a small cargo space, filled with strollers, diaper bags, and our luggage from the airport. There is quite literally no more room in that SUV/car. None.
My wife and I have 3 kids, and we picked up a used Chevy Lumina APV. For a little more money, we can make it a 7-seater (need the back seats. I said it was used, didn't I?). Granted that leaves me without cargo space, but we'll find it when the time comes. In the meantime, all 5 of us ride comfortably in a mini-van. The new Chevy minivans (I forget the model, but it replaces the Lumina APV line) will sit 8 and still have a little bit of cargo space. In addition, they're smaller physically (and fit more people!) than the old Luminas, and handle like a car. And, of course, have a bit more efficient motor (I'll bet ya my Lumina gets better gas mileage than your kid's suburban).
SUVs have a place in our society, and it really sucks that they do. They can be replaced with more cost-effective solutions. The problem is the same one I had for years and years. Men don't want to drive mini-vans. For years the only men you saw driving minivans had been pussywhipped into oblivion, and were well trained to always say "Yes, dear" and "of course, dear" and "You're always right, dear". But I'll tell you something, that Lumina takes up the same space in my driveway that my '71 Chevy pickup takes up (307, 3 in the tree), and it'll haul almost as much (take out the kids, of course).
So yeah, that guy who tows his boat, or his RV while he's got 4 kids in the back and his wife in shotgun. That guy needs the SUV. Most, do not. And it is most often the ones who don't need it that complain the most about the gas price.
I'd argue that if he's got 4 kids and a wife, he doesn't need the boat.;)
Geos are funny... even though they are now chevy's, they were never made by GM. Geo Prism = Toyota Corolla, Geo Storm = Isuzu Impulse, Geo Tracker = Suzuki Sidekick, Geo Metro = Suzuki (I forget).
I believe the Esteem is what you're looking for, but I could be wrong. Yeah, Geo has always been a collaborative line for Chevy. The line started as Chevy, actually, with the old Chevy Spectrum's (Isuzu I-mark) and whatever else was out then. Mid-80s. They changed the line to Geo to try to attract customers that were scared of Chevy. Heh.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Civics are very reliable. Do a quick search for Civic reliability and you'll see they're rated *VERY* well.
I give a shit how they're "rated", really I do. But I spent a lot of time in my mechanic days fixing Civics. They were among the more common cars to show up, and keep showing up (i.e. same owner with multiple repair jobs). I'll grant you that they're built better than any given Ford, but they're also ABUSED big time. Point of fact: the cars are reliable, but the drivers aren't. They suck in the used market for this fact.
as for Chrysler, I don't trust them on anything above the cloud cars (Stratus and Sebring).
Find out how many of their chassis are built on German designs:)
Probably a fair bit, these days, since they've been called DaimlerChrysler for 3-4 years now...
(for the auto impaired, Daimler is the name of the guy that invented the first 4-stroke engine, and he founded a company that put out the first automobiles: Mercedes. The company was called Daimler, iirc, and the Benz part of Mercedes-Benz may have been there from the beginning, I don't recall that correctly)
The Civic is a normal-size vehicle and very well made and reliable.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Civics are notoriously unreliable, for Honda. They're one of the most abused cars on the road (which is why they're unreliable. They do well if you take care of them, though). They're also one of the smallest cars on the market, have always been. That's kinda the point of civics. To get smaller, you get a Prelude or a Geo (they don't make Geos anymore, do they? Oh yeah, they make the same cars, they just call them "Chevy" now).
But hey, it's just 2 semesters of classes. Try to get a job at a dealership and shoot for something like BMW or Jaguar. Good luck if you try it. I did just because I wanted to be able to work on my own cars.
Heh, I considered that a side benefit.:) But one thing is certain, mechanic work is a lot of fun. If there was enough money in it to give my family a good living, I'd still be doing it. I loved it, and it hurt me to stop doing it. But bills are bills, and the kids are hungry....
Tape is easily removable when you are already inside the car. The point was to thwart obtaining it from the outside. They have to get inside the car to remove the tape.
I realize that, but VINs aren't easily accessible with tape. Your better bet is probably going to be to slide a folder or something down there instead. Some cars literally have less than 1/4 " between the windshield and the VIN. However, I'd like to point out that as much as it seems like a foolproof plan to steal the car, it's not exactly a quick and easy operation to perform. It doesn't fit within the normal model of car-stealing, where the thief walks around looking for the easiest car to steal and stealing it within minutes. This method would require a lot of advance planning and observation, so it would require a better organized criminal.
Maybe someone on slashdot knows: why doesn't my bank teller ask me for photo ID?
As soon as you walk in the door they get a retina scan and several shots of your body from different angles, which they then cross-reference first to known terrorists, then to known criminals, then to everybody else. After determining your identity in this fashion, the tellers all receive a notice of who you are and your credit report automatically appears on the teller screens. When you get to the teller's counter, they get your fingerprints on your bank book (and usually some hair or something to run a DNA scan). At this point, they also have on their screen your website, resume, job history from the IRS, tax payment records, and driver's license. IN some states, they further extrapolate with the driver's license number.
BTW, as bad as identity theft is, the closely related ultra-hassle is being the victim of stalking.
I've been stalking my wife for the last 8 years. That's right, 8 years of stalking, and we've got 3 kids to show for it. OH wait, you didn't actually mean giving her my stalk, did you?
Along the same lines as ATM machine, PCB board, etc.
My personal pet peeve: CD disc. My high school had this librarian who would always call them CD discs, and that irritated the piss out of me (she probably spelled it "disk"). So I went up to her one day and told her that was redundant, since when you blowup CD, yadayadayada. She told me "Well, that's what I call it, and I'm an intellectual." Stupid bitch.
Only problem with that strategy is that some states require visually inspecting the VIN number before doing certain things, like affixing a state inspection sticker, applying for a title, and taking a driving test. Other things, I'm sure. Some states, upon ownership changing, require the person handling it to visually inspect the vin number on the dash and compare it to the one on the body.
The only real solution to this (besides using thumbprint locks or other hi-tech measures) is to abstract the lock code from the VIN number.
I know how to work on cars so I'm going to get a auto tech certificate at the local community college. It's only two semesters so it's not much time lost. I can then continue, albeit slowly, on my physics degree. Hopefully, the economy will change sometime in the near future.
Good luck, dude. But I should warn you. I was a mechanic for 3 years, and found it to be one of the more expensive shit jobs to get into. You have to buy all your tools (no big deal, except if you want them to last you have to pay big bucks for each one), but you don't make much more than a whopper-flopper in pay. It's a tough life, the life of a mechanic.
Perhaps you missed the story about Tommy Chong getting nine months in the Federal Pen, courtesy of John Ashcroft.
Yes, I did miss that sentence. That really really really sucks. That sucks so hard, I can't even describe how much it sucks.
What next? Ban the movies? Whatever happened to freedom of choice? I've been under the (apparently) mistaken impression that freedom means you make up your own mind about things. I've never known anybody who watched a Cheech & Chong flick and said "That looks like fun! I'm gonna go be a junkie!" Quite the contrary, I thought those movies did a great job showing how much fun it can be to be a junkie, but how downright shitty it can be, too.
I suppose they'll next try to throw Bob Hope ad Bing Crosby in jail for making all those road movies. Con artists aren't well liked.
Oh wait. They're both dead already. Lucky them, I guess. I wish Zappa was around to see this. We could really use his help right about now....
20% of the time people call in sick, it's on a Friday.
That's because there are 70% Fridays out there, while the other 6 days only comprise less than 30% of the week. Therefore it's perfectly natural that more people would call-in on a Friday.
Kazaa is in trouble. Just because a technology can be used for non-infringing purposes, does not absolve the vender if they market the product for the infringing purposes. It seems then that if a significant number of common people are mislead by the advertisements of p2p venders (buy our stuff = free music & movies) then Kazaa could be sued by their customers for fraud.
They need to do what all the bong makers do, and they know it damn well. They need to market their products as being totally legal, and market the legal uses only. Then, they need to get some indy movie-maker to go and make a movie glorifying downloading music and movies and software and crap, ala CheechNChong.
What if you're stuck on a deserted island with your kids and a good friend. Would you kill your friend and roast him as a food source for your children?
Just for the record, if you can be assured that the good friend would take good care of your kids, then the "right" thing to do here is to kill yourself and become the food for your family. I realize it's not that cut and dried. After you're gone, if rescuers don't come quickly enough, then your friend will have to decide whether to kill himself to become food for the kids, or kill one of the kids. In any case, the decision to resort to cannibalism as a group isn't something the should precede murder. It should precede suicide and sacrifice.
I hate to wax idealistic, but i think that people should reflect on what they are really saying. I mean my parents managed to raise three kids and usually were able to stick to their ideals. We did not have much, but we did generally know we were loved and cared for, and we never had to hear how mommy or daddy steals money from people retirement funds in order to pay for the big screen TV.
Say the word, brother! My dad took a lot of shit for being a "baby-killer" and what-have-you. He enlisted in the Air Force before the Vietnam war started, iirc. No draft-dodger trying to run from military service. Nowadays people think he's a hero. He used to think he was doing the right thing. Nowadays, he's not so certain. My mom, of course, took a lot of shit just for marrying him. Nowadays, she's what women want to be. (Hint: that's why women are all psycho, heh)
And we didn't have a lot, growing up. 1 out of 4 kids made it through college. Of the remaining 3, 1 is in IT now, 1 (me) is an entrepreneur, and the other one has moved out of home, again, to live on his own. But we're all happy our parents stuck with their ideals and fought hard for the lives they had, even if they live in trailers now, because we draw strength from our roots for our own struggles.
The nature of the problem is how you define success. My family has never defined success in terms of income and shit you own. We've always defined it in terms of happiness, and morality. And idealism (we're an idealistic lot, that's for sure) And these are things I am enjoying passing on to my kids.
Question: Where would we be if people like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin said "My family's too important for me to stnad up to the evil empire"????
And in 20 years while my kid is in college maybe once in a while he'll find himself driving through your kid's neighborhood...time to roll up the windows and lock the doors.
That's right, because aristocrats have no business in my world.
Go home and look your kid in the eyes, tell him that the reason daddy has to work two jobs/is never home/there's no food/sorry no toys/clothes that don't fit/etc is because daddy has a moral problem with XYZ Co's policy on IP rights.
How much pain and suffering has this world seen because the people who could have done something about it didn't stand up and do it? There ain't gonna be no INdiana Jones or Luke Skywalker to come and save us from ourselves. We have to do it ourselves. Sorry bud, Jesus ain't coming. Nobody's going to hell for their actions. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Wolverine ain't gonna come along and chop up Darl McBride, and Cyclops isn't looking his way.
Yeah, you sit down, asshole, while the rest of us make the world better, for our kids.
So yes, I'd work for SCO, Enron or EvilCorp#3 that makes nuclear weapons, cheats stock holders and kills babies if I felt that this was needed to provide for the welbeing of my family.
Shit, my wife would divorce me if I had that attitude. Goddammit I love her....
Jumping from one professional field to another is almost impossible. If you left IT for say accounting, not only would that be a very difficult move (expensive as hell also if you count in the education) but you'd find going back to IT very tough.
Um, not it's not. I've done it. There's quite a few people around here who have done it too. I'd say that working in one profession for 40 years is unreasonable. Some of us need some variety.
Lives are short, 5 years lost to some turbulance in the job market while working in a different field is 5 years of increased salary that you will never recover.
Lives aren't that short, dude. You can go to school, work for 20 years, go to school again, work for 20 more years, and then STILL get a job flipping burgers for awhile waiting for the mandatory retirement age to kick.
Can you go aheand and tell your kids that the kids network, their barney, the legos and in fact most of their toys are "non-needed shit"?
Yes. I have before, in fact. I've also thrown some of their toys away when they refused to clean their room. "If you can't take care of your shit, why bother having it?"
Can you tell them that from now on they'll eat the generic brand of everything to avoid the "non-needed shit"
NO, what I tell them instead is that "Generic shit is better, because it doesn't have all that MSG and other bullshit that's in the more espensive stuff. A man that can cook with generics and serve up a gourmet meal is far better than a mean that depends on name brand stuff to get mediocre taste and nutrition." Generics are my way of life, dude. Take you consumerism and shove it up your ass.
and that they'll quite going to their nice private school cause that also is "non-needed shit".
I went to public schools, had a great time.
Dude, where the fuck did you come from? You've just given the most materialistic rant I've ever seen. Not even my wife, in her worst of days, would ever even approach the level of materialism and consumerism in your post. Maybe you *need* to suffer some, so that you can learn the value of a dollar. And the value of a life.
Let's put it in a different light. Suppose you find you and your family homeless for some arbitrary reason--why isn't important here.
I disagree. "Why" is the all-important question, here.
Now, you have two choices. Choice #1 is to steal food from the market square and clothing from the bazaar to keep your family fed and warm in the ensuing winter. Choice #2 says you do not steal, and you and your family dies of starvation and exposure.
Having been in this situation already, I can safely say that those are NOT the only choices you have.
But who says stealing is immoral? Generally speaking, as a rule, stealing is not a good idea. There are consequences of it, and for me it's just not worth it. But I have stolen food to survive, and I'd do it again. I don't see how stealing has anything to do with morality, since one of the basic building blocks of my morality is that "Material possessions do not matter." Theft is only "wrong" in a society that values materials above people. Fucking Madonna was right.
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You know, I used to think that and I still agree with you about the whining part. But I rode in my son-in-law's Suburban a few times. We have two grandkids. They *must* (by Law) be placed in these monster kid's car seats. That takes up th emiddle row of seats. My wife and daugther sit in the back seats so that's full: they're small. U sguys sit in the front. That's six people. There's a small cargo space, filled with strollers, diaper bags, and our luggage from the airport. There is quite literally no more room in that SUV/car. None.
My wife and I have 3 kids, and we picked up a used Chevy Lumina APV. For a little more money, we can make it a 7-seater (need the back seats. I said it was used, didn't I?). Granted that leaves me without cargo space, but we'll find it when the time comes. In the meantime, all 5 of us ride comfortably in a mini-van. The new Chevy minivans (I forget the model, but it replaces the Lumina APV line) will sit 8 and still have a little bit of cargo space. In addition, they're smaller physically (and fit more people!) than the old Luminas, and handle like a car. And, of course, have a bit more efficient motor (I'll bet ya my Lumina gets better gas mileage than your kid's suburban).
SUVs have a place in our society, and it really sucks that they do. They can be replaced with more cost-effective solutions. The problem is the same one I had for years and years. Men don't want to drive mini-vans. For years the only men you saw driving minivans had been pussywhipped into oblivion, and were well trained to always say "Yes, dear" and "of course, dear" and "You're always right, dear". But I'll tell you something, that Lumina takes up the same space in my driveway that my '71 Chevy pickup takes up (307, 3 in the tree), and it'll haul almost as much (take out the kids, of course).
So yeah, that guy who tows his boat, or his RV while he's got 4 kids in the back and his wife in shotgun. That guy needs the SUV. Most, do not. And it is most often the ones who don't need it that complain the most about the gas price.
I'd argue that if he's got 4 kids and a wife, he doesn't need the boat. ;)
Geos are funny... even though they are now chevy's, they were never made by GM. Geo Prism = Toyota Corolla, Geo Storm = Isuzu Impulse, Geo Tracker = Suzuki Sidekick, Geo Metro = Suzuki (I forget).
I believe the Esteem is what you're looking for, but I could be wrong. Yeah, Geo has always been a collaborative line for Chevy. The line started as Chevy, actually, with the old Chevy Spectrum's (Isuzu I-mark) and whatever else was out then. Mid-80s. They changed the line to Geo to try to attract customers that were scared of Chevy. Heh.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Civics are very reliable. Do a quick search for Civic reliability and you'll see they're rated *VERY* well.
I give a shit how they're "rated", really I do. But I spent a lot of time in my mechanic days fixing Civics. They were among the more common cars to show up, and keep showing up (i.e. same owner with multiple repair jobs). I'll grant you that they're built better than any given Ford, but they're also ABUSED big time. Point of fact: the cars are reliable, but the drivers aren't. They suck in the used market for this fact.
Too bad this is illegal in Oregon :)
Everything's illegal in Oregon, that's why nobody wants to live there.
as for Chrysler, I don't trust them on anything above the cloud cars (Stratus and Sebring).
Find out how many of their chassis are built on German designs :)
Probably a fair bit, these days, since they've been called DaimlerChrysler for 3-4 years now...
(for the auto impaired, Daimler is the name of the guy that invented the first 4-stroke engine, and he founded a company that put out the first automobiles: Mercedes. The company was called Daimler, iirc, and the Benz part of Mercedes-Benz may have been there from the beginning, I don't recall that correctly)
The Civic is a normal-size vehicle and very well made and reliable.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Civics are notoriously unreliable, for Honda. They're one of the most abused cars on the road (which is why they're unreliable. They do well if you take care of them, though). They're also one of the smallest cars on the market, have always been. That's kinda the point of civics. To get smaller, you get a Prelude or a Geo (they don't make Geos anymore, do they? Oh yeah, they make the same cars, they just call them "Chevy" now).
But hey, it's just 2 semesters of classes. Try to get a job at a dealership and shoot for something like BMW or Jaguar. Good luck if you try it. I did just because I wanted to be able to work on my own cars.
Heh, I considered that a side benefit. :) But one thing is certain, mechanic work is a lot of fun. If there was enough money in it to give my family a good living, I'd still be doing it. I loved it, and it hurt me to stop doing it. But bills are bills, and the kids are hungry....
Tape is easily removable when you are already inside the car. The point was to thwart obtaining it from the outside. They have to get inside the car to remove the tape.
I realize that, but VINs aren't easily accessible with tape. Your better bet is probably going to be to slide a folder or something down there instead. Some cars literally have less than 1/4 " between the windshield and the VIN. However, I'd like to point out that as much as it seems like a foolproof plan to steal the car, it's not exactly a quick and easy operation to perform. It doesn't fit within the normal model of car-stealing, where the thief walks around looking for the easiest car to steal and stealing it within minutes. This method would require a lot of advance planning and observation, so it would require a better organized criminal.
Maybe someone on slashdot knows: why doesn't my bank teller ask me for photo ID?
As soon as you walk in the door they get a retina scan and several shots of your body from different angles, which they then cross-reference first to known terrorists, then to known criminals, then to everybody else. After determining your identity in this fashion, the tellers all receive a notice of who you are and your credit report automatically appears on the teller screens. When you get to the teller's counter, they get your fingerprints on your bank book (and usually some hair or something to run a DNA scan). At this point, they also have on their screen your website, resume, job history from the IRS, tax payment records, and driver's license. IN some states, they further extrapolate with the driver's license number.
Believe me, dude, they know who you are.
Were did I put that hat, now?
Registration costs 12 quid for 12 months.
I've been wondering ever since I found out that whores in the UK only run 15 quid. How much is a quid?
BTW, as bad as identity theft is, the closely related ultra-hassle is being the victim of stalking.
I've been stalking my wife for the last 8 years. That's right, 8 years of stalking, and we've got 3 kids to show for it. OH wait, you didn't actually mean giving her my stalk, did you?
You would not suffer identity theft if someone stole your package from realdolls.com.
No, you're right. That's called "stealing your girlfriend." Like the Freedom man in Cheers used to tell Woody, "I'm going to steal your girlfriend!"
Along the same lines as ATM machine, PCB board, etc.
My personal pet peeve: CD disc. My high school had this librarian who would always call them CD discs, and that irritated the piss out of me (she probably spelled it "disk"). So I went up to her one day and told her that was redundant, since when you blowup CD, yadayadayada. She told me "Well, that's what I call it, and I'm an intellectual." Stupid bitch.
Tape over that damned number.
Only problem with that strategy is that some states require visually inspecting the VIN number before doing certain things, like affixing a state inspection sticker, applying for a title, and taking a driving test. Other things, I'm sure. Some states, upon ownership changing, require the person handling it to visually inspect the vin number on the dash and compare it to the one on the body.
The only real solution to this (besides using thumbprint locks or other hi-tech measures) is to abstract the lock code from the VIN number.
I know how to work on cars so I'm going to get a auto tech certificate at the local community college. It's only two semesters so it's not much time lost. I can then continue, albeit slowly, on my physics degree. Hopefully, the economy will change sometime in the near future.
Good luck, dude. But I should warn you. I was a mechanic for 3 years, and found it to be one of the more expensive shit jobs to get into. You have to buy all your tools (no big deal, except if you want them to last you have to pay big bucks for each one), but you don't make much more than a whopper-flopper in pay. It's a tough life, the life of a mechanic.
Perhaps you missed the story about Tommy Chong getting nine months in the Federal Pen, courtesy of John Ashcroft.
Yes, I did miss that sentence. That really really really sucks. That sucks so hard, I can't even describe how much it sucks.
What next? Ban the movies? Whatever happened to freedom of choice? I've been under the (apparently) mistaken impression that freedom means you make up your own mind about things. I've never known anybody who watched a Cheech & Chong flick and said "That looks like fun! I'm gonna go be a junkie!" Quite the contrary, I thought those movies did a great job showing how much fun it can be to be a junkie, but how downright shitty it can be, too.
I suppose they'll next try to throw Bob Hope ad Bing Crosby in jail for making all those road movies. Con artists aren't well liked.
Oh wait. They're both dead already. Lucky them, I guess. I wish Zappa was around to see this. We could really use his help right about now....
20% of the time people call in sick, it's on a Friday.
That's because there are 70% Fridays out there, while the other 6 days only comprise less than 30% of the week. Therefore it's perfectly natural that more people would call-in on a Friday.
Wait a minute.
5-day work week? 20%? 5x20=100? I'll shut up now.
Kazaa is in trouble. Just because a technology can be used for non-infringing purposes, does not absolve the vender if they market the product for the infringing purposes. It seems then that if a significant number of common people are mislead by the advertisements of p2p venders (buy our stuff = free music & movies) then Kazaa could be sued by their customers for fraud.
They need to do what all the bong makers do, and they know it damn well. They need to market their products as being totally legal, and market the legal uses only. Then, they need to get some indy movie-maker to go and make a movie glorifying downloading music and movies and software and crap, ala CheechNChong.
What if you're stuck on a deserted island with your kids and a good friend. Would you kill your friend and roast him as a food source for your children?
Just for the record, if you can be assured that the good friend would take good care of your kids, then the "right" thing to do here is to kill yourself and become the food for your family. I realize it's not that cut and dried. After you're gone, if rescuers don't come quickly enough, then your friend will have to decide whether to kill himself to become food for the kids, or kill one of the kids. In any case, the decision to resort to cannibalism as a group isn't something the should precede murder. It should precede suicide and sacrifice.
I hate to wax idealistic, but i think that people should reflect on what they are really saying. I mean my parents managed to raise three kids and usually were able to stick to their ideals. We did not have much, but we did generally know we were loved and cared for, and we never had to hear how mommy or daddy steals money from people retirement funds in order to pay for the big screen TV.
Say the word, brother! My dad took a lot of shit for being a "baby-killer" and what-have-you. He enlisted in the Air Force before the Vietnam war started, iirc. No draft-dodger trying to run from military service. Nowadays people think he's a hero. He used to think he was doing the right thing. Nowadays, he's not so certain. My mom, of course, took a lot of shit just for marrying him. Nowadays, she's what women want to be. (Hint: that's why women are all psycho, heh)
And we didn't have a lot, growing up. 1 out of 4 kids made it through college. Of the remaining 3, 1 is in IT now, 1 (me) is an entrepreneur, and the other one has moved out of home, again, to live on his own. But we're all happy our parents stuck with their ideals and fought hard for the lives they had, even if they live in trailers now, because we draw strength from our roots for our own struggles.
The nature of the problem is how you define success. My family has never defined success in terms of income and shit you own. We've always defined it in terms of happiness, and morality. And idealism (we're an idealistic lot, that's for sure) And these are things I am enjoying passing on to my kids.
Question: Where would we be if people like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin said "My family's too important for me to stnad up to the evil empire"????
And in 20 years while my kid is in college maybe once in a while he'll find himself driving through your kid's neighborhood...time to roll up the windows and lock the doors.
That's right, because aristocrats have no business in my world.
Go home and look your kid in the eyes, tell him that the reason daddy has to work two jobs/is never home/there's no food/sorry no toys/clothes that don't fit/etc is because daddy has a moral problem with XYZ Co's policy on IP rights.
How much pain and suffering has this world seen because the people who could have done something about it didn't stand up and do it? There ain't gonna be no INdiana Jones or Luke Skywalker to come and save us from ourselves. We have to do it ourselves. Sorry bud, Jesus ain't coming. Nobody's going to hell for their actions. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Wolverine ain't gonna come along and chop up Darl McBride, and Cyclops isn't looking his way.
Yeah, you sit down, asshole, while the rest of us make the world better, for our kids.
So yes, I'd work for SCO, Enron or EvilCorp#3 that makes nuclear weapons, cheats stock holders and kills babies if I felt that this was needed to provide for the welbeing of my family.
Shit, my wife would divorce me if I had that attitude. Goddammit I love her....
Jumping from one professional field to another is almost impossible. If you left IT for say accounting, not only would that be a very difficult move (expensive as hell also if you count in the education) but you'd find going back to IT very tough.
Um, not it's not. I've done it. There's quite a few people around here who have done it too. I'd say that working in one profession for 40 years is unreasonable. Some of us need some variety.
Lives are short, 5 years lost to some turbulance in the job market while working in a different field is 5 years of increased salary that you will never recover.
Lives aren't that short, dude. You can go to school, work for 20 years, go to school again, work for 20 more years, and then STILL get a job flipping burgers for awhile waiting for the mandatory retirement age to kick.
Can you go aheand and tell your kids that the kids network, their barney, the legos and in fact most of their toys are "non-needed shit"?
Yes. I have before, in fact. I've also thrown some of their toys away when they refused to clean their room. "If you can't take care of your shit, why bother having it?"
Can you tell them that from now on they'll eat the generic brand of everything to avoid the "non-needed shit"
NO, what I tell them instead is that "Generic shit is better, because it doesn't have all that MSG and other bullshit that's in the more espensive stuff. A man that can cook with generics and serve up a gourmet meal is far better than a mean that depends on name brand stuff to get mediocre taste and nutrition." Generics are my way of life, dude. Take you consumerism and shove it up your ass.
and that they'll quite going to their nice private school cause that also is "non-needed shit".
I went to public schools, had a great time.
Dude, where the fuck did you come from? You've just given the most materialistic rant I've ever seen. Not even my wife, in her worst of days, would ever even approach the level of materialism and consumerism in your post. Maybe you *need* to suffer some, so that you can learn the value of a dollar. And the value of a life.
Let's put it in a different light. Suppose you find you and your family homeless for some arbitrary reason--why isn't important here.
I disagree. "Why" is the all-important question, here.
Now, you have two choices. Choice #1 is to steal food from the market square and clothing from the bazaar to keep your family fed and warm in the ensuing winter. Choice #2 says you do not steal, and you and your family dies of starvation and exposure.
Having been in this situation already, I can safely say that those are NOT the only choices you have.
But who says stealing is immoral? Generally speaking, as a rule, stealing is not a good idea. There are consequences of it, and for me it's just not worth it. But I have stolen food to survive, and I'd do it again. I don't see how stealing has anything to do with morality, since one of the basic building blocks of my morality is that "Material possessions do not matter." Theft is only "wrong" in a society that values materials above people. Fucking Madonna was right.