I'm sorry, you must've typoed there. You gave a list of six talking points, but attributed those very Republican values to the Democrats. Could you explain?
Well, that, and not announcing the results of a single election prior to ALL booths closing. That would avoid the "winning team" mentality where people will vote for the guy the media is saying is pulling ahead just so they can say they voted for him, too.
And, if you keep being told to shut up, you're not participating in a discussion. You're arguing with morons who can't refute you on facts and so revert to being five years old. Stop wasting your time. Find some intelligent folks to talk to and perhaps together you can make some progress.
Ah, I see what you're saying. I see a couple of issues with it. Primarily, how do you decide who's on that panel to whittle down the final winners? Do they get chosen by lottery, too? You want to use a system similar to how juries are chosen, but even in those instances each side will vie to load the jury with folks sympathetic to their cause. What happens, as is often the case with jurors, when we run out of people because the panel has rejected them all?
Finally, as much as we may dislike it, we can't reject people on their ability to make a sound decision, otherwise 95% of the population would be excluded.
Besides, the concept of the electoral college was to have a group of people who represented the balance of the votes in a particular area cast those votes for a candidate. I believe the primary reason for it was because it was so difficult to count all of those votes 200 years ago. We don't have those issues anymore, get rid of it entirely and go just by what's voted by the people. If 51% of the population of an area voted for a candidate, that candidate wins. It shouldn't matter that more people voted in this area than the other, and this area has more electorals and therefore a candidate wins who didn't have the popular vote.
Your system just increases the complexity needlessly without providing any additional benefit than simply counting the votes. The current system does the same thing. Although, I do like the idea of the lotteries paying for the campaigns of the candidates.
we'd abolish the "party system" and institute electoral lotteries
Can't, the 'pubs made it illegal in all but 7 states. It was called electoral fusion, and we still have it in NY where I live. I originally came from PA, and it was a bit confusing at first to see a person on 6 different party lines, but once I found out what it was I see it can work a lot better. It still needs some tweaking, though. For example, your idea of abolishing parties probably violates the First Amendments's "freedom to petition and assembly". What can be done instead is eliminate the politician's ability to be the member of any one party. Sure, they can continue to court exclusively just the one party if they desire, but if you take the title away from them it makes it easier for the voters to actually look at their positions. In a recent small-town election, we actually had a Republican running on the Democratic ticket. Those politicians that continue to pay attention to just one set of values will eventually lose those voters who have moved on to other parties. It gives third parties a greater say in elections and allows people to vote for people who agree with more of their values than having to decide on just two diametrically opposed options.
As an American, I would like to present this opportunity to invite you to come live here. We could use more folks like you and fewer of the kind we do have. I understand the government of Australia would never go for the swap of one of our ignorant citizens for one of yours, therefore we will just shoot one random US citizen to eliminate any balance they might have provided.
Agreed. I'm in the process of a job search right now with the primary purpose being for relocation. Because I have a job, not the best job, not the best job, but a job...I've been very picky about the job I'm going to take. Even the slightest thing that smells bad to me...I walk away. Sometimes I've even told them why. I'm in no rush, I can be picky. Unfortunately, most of us don't have this luxury. The industry's in a shambles, and there's not only a lot of people looking, but thanks to sites like Monster, you no longer have to compete against local candidates, but people all over the world.
That being said, if you've got a job, the best time to start looking is now. You don't have to put much effort into it if you don't want, but look. In the past, yes, I was "begging" for a job. Now, I'm dictating my own terms and not putting up with their shit. Not surprisingly, I started looking in mid-August and I've got three offers on the table right now, only one I'm going to take a closer look at. Smelling desperate in an interview's probably the best way to lose the job..
There IS evidence for creationism? Really? That IS news. You'd think if there were some actual, real, credible, verifiable, reproduceable and refutable evidence for it, it wouldn't just be a small percentage of crackpots who believe it to be true. Even the Jews, who wrote the book you believe to be inerrant, know it to be a fairy tale.
I wouldn't count on that. With technologies like HP's Integrated Lights Out and Dell's Remote Access Console boards the only thing I can't do today from anywhere in the world is actually put a server in a rack. With things like Virtual Desktop Initiatives, there's no need for on-site techs, either. Give every user a smart terminal and a phone number to call for issues. If something happens to the terminal itself, the user can swap it themselves with one of the dozen spares you keep in the closet. The only folks who have nothing to fear from outsourcing for the immediate future are the rack and cable monkeys, but even they can be gotten rid of by simply moving your whole data center to India. Of course, in order to provide 24/7 support, they'd then have to have support folks in the US to do stuff during the Indian "night".:)
If you really think about this statement, I think you'll find it to be demonstrably false.
Okay, I've thought about it, and find it to be true. It's okay that I provided no backing to my argument, just as you, right?:)
I suspect your argument comes from your perception of what the "flow of traffic" and "reasonable speed" is, which apparently can do with some recalibration.
Well, here's the thing. In the past, I typically rode the highways between 62-70 in 55MPH zones. In 24 years of driving, I've never been in an accident and have never gotten a ticket for a moving violation (I did get one once for an expired inspection). I did, like most people, vary my driving to go with traffic. Now, since gas prices have gone up, I've taken to setting my cruise control to 55 and staying in the right lane out of the way of other traffic. Only problem is, that's not possible since every other car is now going faster than I. At least once per day I see one close call as another driver will zoom out to get out from behind "that slow ass mofo" that's driving my car. My driving slower, while it has picked me up another 6MPG is potentially a dangerous thing. That jives with my experience of the only trouble I encountered as a speeder were those fuckers doing 45 in the left lane.
Regardless of all of this, Ford promises truly autonomous cars by 2018, and seeing the progress that's been made during the DARPA race alone, I find that to be a fairly reasonable estimate. At that point, I'm hoping we're only another 10 years or so away from human-controlled vehicles and thus won't have to worry about such things.
Yes, when I was a teenager, I believed that when autonomous vehicles happened I would fight it, too. But, as I grow older I realize I'd be much happier with the extra hour and a half I'd get to read each day.:)
were suddenly required to keep track of all IP allocations for 6 months or more it'd cost a bucket load to implement.
Not necessarily. The easiest way is to just increase your IP pool and lease time. I have Roadrunner, and I've had the same IP for about 10 months now. Now, mine is on 24/7, but even after being offline for a day or so (because of power outages), I'll get the same IP when I reconnect. It doesn't take a large amount of horsepower to store a database of 75,000 IP addresses that only change once every few months.
AOL and the like, not as easy, but not very difficult to implement, either. But, does anyone have any info on how many dial-up users they've gone after? I can't imagine it's that many.
God lord, you're just another in a string of idiots...okay, fine, pick some other major crime in which I cause significant physical harm to someone...there are very few in which I'd get 70 years. This depends on which state I was in, and particulars of the case and all manner of other things, of course. The important thing being that this is a case in which some doofus walked through an open door, and is potentially getting 70 years. The justice system is skewed and ridiculous. Do you understand now? Do you need a diagram?
That's interesting news about Florida and their rape sentence. Of course, since you're not very smart I'll explain the simple flaw in your argument: Florida isn't everywhere. I know, I've been there, when driving it, it feels like it goes on and on forever. Or, is that the residents? In any case, I've watched news items in other states in which rapists (and even CHILD rapists) are given 5-10 years. Some, even less.
Regardless of anything else, this putz walked through an open door. He did nothing deserving a moment in prison, let alone 70 years. Please, your argument is as tired and stupid as you are.
How does it feel to have been proven a dumbfuck by a dumbass?
He faces up to 70 years if convicted on all counts and serves the maximum time consecutively.
What's funny is how you just blurt that out as if it's a reasonable amount. Why is it I'd get significantly less for raping someone? Considering he didn't actually do any "hacking", it seems to me the admins should be facing that sentence for leaving our national secrets so easily accessed by foreign nationals.
which will work out to 5-10 years in a minimum security prison with time off for good behavior
Read it again, the US government wants to make an example out of him. We're fighting terra, after all. Do you really think they'd put this much effort into extraditing him if they were going to give him the minimum sentence? Pah-leease..
And, really, if he couldn't do the time, he should not have done the crime
Ah, the siren call of the terminally clueless. I'm so glad justice can so easily be summed up for you. The rest of us with brains find it a fairly complex task.
Yuh-huh, tell that to ENI. My company just started using them to manage a healthy lifestyles-type thing. When I called them because I couldn't log in (turns out their site is completely fucked and doesn't support Firefox), the CSR AND someone identified to me as an IT Support rep was able to read my password back to me. But, that's ok, they're only housing my personal medical information there. It's not like there's laws protecting that kind of thing...
Oh, wait, there are...and when I brought it up to my HR, I was told they were satisfied with ENI's privacy procedures ("our employees are told not to discuss personal, private information") and to fuck off. so, I filed a complaint with the DHHS under HIPPA. Doubt I'll ever hear anything, but fuck 'em, I'm already looking to relocate.
While I don't in any way disagree with your call to vote third party, there's more to it than simple disillusion with the system. For example, there are numerous roadblocks to a third party candidate becoming a VIABLE alternative to one of the "big two".
1) Did you know the big two candidates get funding from the federal government for their campaigns? The only way a third party candidate can have access to these tens of millions of dollars is if their party had a significant showing in the previous election. In the last couple of decades only one part got to even take part in these funds, and it was a pittance in comparison to what the big two got. A huge warchest isn't a guarantee to a win, but not having one is a guarantee of a loss.
2) Debates are not private events. They're hosted by private companies, but they get tax breaks for doing so if the only the debates contain an equal number of Dems & 'pubs. No one else is required by law to be invited, and unless there's sufficient outcry, that won't happen.
3) There are only seven states remaining in which electoral fusion is still legal. I won't go into detail, the article describes it well enough and what's happened to it. Without electoral fusion, small parties find it very hard to get on ballots, and if they're not on the ballot, they can't get elected as easily.
4) Third-parties have to pay for all of their advertising. In a presidential election, the big two candidates are already in some other office and therefore already part of the news cycle generating free publicity for their campaigns. Third-parties have to jump up and down and scream "look at me!!" before the media even considers noticing them.
There are plenty of other barriers to a third-party having a viable candidate for the presidency, but those are the largest. So, given those odds, and the fact that we can't survive another four years of Bush (he's registered under the name McCain), you're forced to continue to choose the lesser of two evils. IMO, Obama's still a waste of your vote, but at least I might live long enough to see the next election. And, voting third party seems to me to guarantee a win for McCain. So, in the interim, we work to eliminating the road blocks and look towards the future.
By explicitly no longer allowing us to license WFW311 (or releasing it into the wild for free), Microsoft has done no less than exploited our beneficence - They've gotten their cash, now they want to take our shared cultural resource away from the very society that allowed them to gain by it.
No one's taking away your copy of Windows 3.11 that you paid for, you're free to continue to use it. Microsoft won't sell you a new one, you won't get updates to it, and you can't put that single copy on every machine you come across. MS used the profits for that copy of Windows to fund research and development into future versions which could provide you new benefits...should you wish to pay to take advantage of those benefits (which is why upgrade versions are significantly lower than full). Under your philosophy, MS would gain a limited benefit from providing their products (a one time fee), but you would continue to get additional benefits in perpetuity. These additional benefits include installing it on other machines for free (the only reason to put it into the public domain) or duplicate some of their efforts (open sourcing it).
If you think those are extraordinary measures, I certainly hope you don't work in the IT industry. Those are some of the most basic security practices everyone uses, regardless of OS. As a member of a team of 12 people who administer over 1200 Windows servers, I can tell you it ain't a lot of work to do day-to-day...as long as you aren't a clueless fucknut. But, then, we automate everything, so...If someone could then explain to me why we have 137 Unix admins to take care of their 400 boxes...
Picture yourself on the way home from grandma's house after visiting the family for Christmas. It's 1:30 AM. It's snowing and the wind is whipping. Everyone's tired and your wife is bitching up a storm because your mom put her in a bad mood. Your batteries are running low and you're still 200 miles from home. And it's going to take 4 hours to charge them.
Others have pointed out technical methods of circumventing this issue, and almost as many have "debunked" it without providing any real answers. So, I will give you one...you don't get yourself in this situation. Until charging technology is advanced enough to provide rapid recharge, you have to manage your travel properly. If you have a 300 mile trip and your batteries are only going to provide you with 100 miles of life, you do not set out on your journey until your car is ready. Yes, it requires you to THINK, and we all know how hard it is for the average person to do that, but the problems aren't going to be solved by bitching about trivial and anecdotal incidents.
Right now, electric cars are about day-to-day driving. If you have a 30 mile/each way/each day trip to work, why spend $8/day on a 30mpg car to do it (or the $100/day you claim to be willing to pay)? You can achieve the same results for a dollar's worth of electricity pulled from your wall. Yes, that electricity is generated in over half the country by coal, but other sources are building rapidly. I always find it amusing to drive through the Scranton, PA area which was built on coal and look at the line of over a dozen wind generators they have on one of their ridges. Even "coalies" see the benefit of renewable energy.
I've said it before, I'll say it again...in the last 5 years or so, we've gone from the "impossible to exceed" 20% efficiency limit of solar panels to almost 42% efficiency. If we can get them to 80%, your car could charge itself while sitting in the parking lot while you work, thus eliminating the coal issue. Hell, there are very few uses an 80% efficient panel can't be applied to, and even fewer areas that don't receive enough light to make them feasible. If only we weren't wasting hundreds of billions of dollars fighting a war to get more oil, we might just be able to afford to fund more research into these things...
Now, to address your particular issue given that you only have an electric car that'll get you back and forth to Grandma's...well, let's see, how could we possibly circumvent that? Oh, I know, how about renting a gas-powered vehicle for the two or three days you actually need one? It makes a lot more economic sense than paying $50/gallon for gas to get back and forth to work. Even if it costs you $1000 to rent the car for those few days, well, you've saved enough in 10 days of not driving your $50/gallon gas-guzzler to pay for it.
Not necessarily. If he's never used it in an actual fight, he'll be overconfident and at a disadvantage. Having studied the arts myself, I've met a lot of people over the years with black belts and other high "degrees" who've had their asses kicked in street fights. The stuff you learn in a dojo is well-controlled and don't necessarily apply in a real fight. That's why I chose a kung fu sufi who insisted on his students competing in local matches with other dojos before advancing them.
I sure hope that was sardonic fiction. If not, lemme guess...you believe in intelligent design, too. Anyone who can come up with such giant leaps surely believes the Earth is hotter now because the sphere of water surrounding it was depleted during "the flood".
That being said, you do spin an interesting tale. Too bad Hans didn't think of it and try to use it as a defense. Of course, it's not much of a defense since you specify he bought the gun out of anger of his wife having an affair. In your tale, he never got to use it for premeditated murder, but that IS why he bought it. And, since he knew enough about the murder to know the whereabouts of the body, and never told anyone, he's an accomplice and that carries the same sentence.
And, you would like us to do what? Don't tell me you still think your vote or voice count? Are you really that naive? Even assuming the population of the US could do something using the tools given to us by the founders, do you think you could unite enough of them to do "the right thing"? There's still a fairly large population of this country that believes god told GW to invade Iraq because Saddam was behind 9/11. I'm sorry, but aside from open, armed rebellion, nothing's going to change. Even then, it will be played by the administration as "extremely small group of terrorist sympathizers attempt to destroy our great nation".
If you've got a viable plan (one that doesn't assume the average intelligence of the majority of Americans is greater than their waistline), I'll be happy to hear it.
And the worst case for the Scion? Nice way to make sure the math works out in the direction you're shooting for. Of course multiplying the current average price by 2.5 helps a lot, too.
this is heavily (if not ridiculously
Oh, yeah, it's ridiculous. You also failed to address my actual argument: best case price for a Prius is $21,500. The difference in price between $21,500 and $0 is $21,500. With that difference, a Prius pays for itself at 124,700 miles. That's 8.3 years with an average of 15k miles/year. That's really not a good return on my investment.
At $5/gallon gas, that means it would pay itself off after 1000*100 miles. How many cars do you know of that are at 100,000 miles?
Both of the cars I currently own are hovering at the 100k mark and all of the cars I've owned in the past were all well over 150k miles. Your completing your argument with this doesn't make any sense, BTW. Your suggestion is it would take over 100k miles to break even on the Prius, but that the Prius won't last that long. Or, in other words, you'll never make your money back. So, the question is: were you disputing my claim or backing it up?:)
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I'm sorry, you must've typoed there. You gave a list of six talking points, but attributed those very Republican values to the Democrats. Could you explain?
Well, that, and not announcing the results of a single election prior to ALL booths closing. That would avoid the "winning team" mentality where people will vote for the guy the media is saying is pulling ahead just so they can say they voted for him, too.
And, if you keep being told to shut up, you're not participating in a discussion. You're arguing with morons who can't refute you on facts and so revert to being five years old. Stop wasting your time. Find some intelligent folks to talk to and perhaps together you can make some progress.
Ah, I see what you're saying. I see a couple of issues with it. Primarily, how do you decide who's on that panel to whittle down the final winners? Do they get chosen by lottery, too? You want to use a system similar to how juries are chosen, but even in those instances each side will vie to load the jury with folks sympathetic to their cause. What happens, as is often the case with jurors, when we run out of people because the panel has rejected them all?
Finally, as much as we may dislike it, we can't reject people on their ability to make a sound decision, otherwise 95% of the population would be excluded.
Besides, the concept of the electoral college was to have a group of people who represented the balance of the votes in a particular area cast those votes for a candidate. I believe the primary reason for it was because it was so difficult to count all of those votes 200 years ago. We don't have those issues anymore, get rid of it entirely and go just by what's voted by the people. If 51% of the population of an area voted for a candidate, that candidate wins. It shouldn't matter that more people voted in this area than the other, and this area has more electorals and therefore a candidate wins who didn't have the popular vote.
Your system just increases the complexity needlessly without providing any additional benefit than simply counting the votes. The current system does the same thing. Although, I do like the idea of the lotteries paying for the campaigns of the candidates.
we'd abolish the "party system" and institute electoral lotteries
Can't, the 'pubs made it illegal in all but 7 states. It was called electoral fusion, and we still have it in NY where I live. I originally came from PA, and it was a bit confusing at first to see a person on 6 different party lines, but once I found out what it was I see it can work a lot better. It still needs some tweaking, though. For example, your idea of abolishing parties probably violates the First Amendments's "freedom to petition and assembly". What can be done instead is eliminate the politician's ability to be the member of any one party. Sure, they can continue to court exclusively just the one party if they desire, but if you take the title away from them it makes it easier for the voters to actually look at their positions. In a recent small-town election, we actually had a Republican running on the Democratic ticket. Those politicians that continue to pay attention to just one set of values will eventually lose those voters who have moved on to other parties. It gives third parties a greater say in elections and allows people to vote for people who agree with more of their values than having to decide on just two diametrically opposed options.
As an American, I would like to present this opportunity to invite you to come live here. We could use more folks like you and fewer of the kind we do have. I understand the government of Australia would never go for the swap of one of our ignorant citizens for one of yours, therefore we will just shoot one random US citizen to eliminate any balance they might have provided.
Agreed. I'm in the process of a job search right now with the primary purpose being for relocation. Because I have a job, not the best job, not the best job, but a job...I've been very picky about the job I'm going to take. Even the slightest thing that smells bad to me...I walk away. Sometimes I've even told them why. I'm in no rush, I can be picky. Unfortunately, most of us don't have this luxury. The industry's in a shambles, and there's not only a lot of people looking, but thanks to sites like Monster, you no longer have to compete against local candidates, but people all over the world.
That being said, if you've got a job, the best time to start looking is now. You don't have to put much effort into it if you don't want, but look. In the past, yes, I was "begging" for a job. Now, I'm dictating my own terms and not putting up with their shit. Not surprisingly, I started looking in mid-August and I've got three offers on the table right now, only one I'm going to take a closer look at. Smelling desperate in an interview's probably the best way to lose the job..
There is evidence for and against this theory.
There IS evidence for creationism? Really? That IS news. You'd think if there were some actual, real, credible, verifiable, reproduceable and refutable evidence for it, it wouldn't just be a small percentage of crackpots who believe it to be true. Even the Jews, who wrote the book you believe to be inerrant, know it to be a fairy tale.
I wouldn't count on that. With technologies like HP's Integrated Lights Out and Dell's Remote Access Console boards the only thing I can't do today from anywhere in the world is actually put a server in a rack. With things like Virtual Desktop Initiatives, there's no need for on-site techs, either. Give every user a smart terminal and a phone number to call for issues. If something happens to the terminal itself, the user can swap it themselves with one of the dozen spares you keep in the closet. The only folks who have nothing to fear from outsourcing for the immediate future are the rack and cable monkeys, but even they can be gotten rid of by simply moving your whole data center to India. Of course, in order to provide 24/7 support, they'd then have to have support folks in the US to do stuff during the Indian "night". :)
If you really think about this statement, I think you'll find it to be demonstrably false.
:)
:)
Okay, I've thought about it, and find it to be true. It's okay that I provided no backing to my argument, just as you, right?
I suspect your argument comes from your perception of what the "flow of traffic" and "reasonable speed" is, which apparently can do with some recalibration.
Well, here's the thing. In the past, I typically rode the highways between 62-70 in 55MPH zones. In 24 years of driving, I've never been in an accident and have never gotten a ticket for a moving violation (I did get one once for an expired inspection). I did, like most people, vary my driving to go with traffic. Now, since gas prices have gone up, I've taken to setting my cruise control to 55 and staying in the right lane out of the way of other traffic. Only problem is, that's not possible since every other car is now going faster than I. At least once per day I see one close call as another driver will zoom out to get out from behind "that slow ass mofo" that's driving my car. My driving slower, while it has picked me up another 6MPG is potentially a dangerous thing. That jives with my experience of the only trouble I encountered as a speeder were those fuckers doing 45 in the left lane.
Regardless of all of this, Ford promises truly autonomous cars by 2018, and seeing the progress that's been made during the DARPA race alone, I find that to be a fairly reasonable estimate. At that point, I'm hoping we're only another 10 years or so away from human-controlled vehicles and thus won't have to worry about such things.
Yes, when I was a teenager, I believed that when autonomous vehicles happened I would fight it, too. But, as I grow older I realize I'd be much happier with the extra hour and a half I'd get to read each day.
were suddenly required to keep track of all IP allocations for 6 months or more it'd cost a bucket load to implement.
Not necessarily. The easiest way is to just increase your IP pool and lease time. I have Roadrunner, and I've had the same IP for about 10 months now. Now, mine is on 24/7, but even after being offline for a day or so (because of power outages), I'll get the same IP when I reconnect. It doesn't take a large amount of horsepower to store a database of 75,000 IP addresses that only change once every few months.
AOL and the like, not as easy, but not very difficult to implement, either. But, does anyone have any info on how many dial-up users they've gone after? I can't imagine it's that many.
God lord, you're just another in a string of idiots...okay, fine, pick some other major crime in which I cause significant physical harm to someone...there are very few in which I'd get 70 years. This depends on which state I was in, and particulars of the case and all manner of other things, of course. The important thing being that this is a case in which some doofus walked through an open door, and is potentially getting 70 years. The justice system is skewed and ridiculous. Do you understand now? Do you need a diagram?
That's interesting news about Florida and their rape sentence. Of course, since you're not very smart I'll explain the simple flaw in your argument: Florida isn't everywhere. I know, I've been there, when driving it, it feels like it goes on and on forever. Or, is that the residents? In any case, I've watched news items in other states in which rapists (and even CHILD rapists) are given 5-10 years. Some, even less.
Regardless of anything else, this putz walked through an open door. He did nothing deserving a moment in prison, let alone 70 years. Please, your argument is as tired and stupid as you are.
How does it feel to have been proven a dumbfuck by a dumbass?
He faces up to 70 years if convicted on all counts and serves the maximum time consecutively.
What's funny is how you just blurt that out as if it's a reasonable amount. Why is it I'd get significantly less for raping someone? Considering he didn't actually do any "hacking", it seems to me the admins should be facing that sentence for leaving our national secrets so easily accessed by foreign nationals.
which will work out to 5-10 years in a minimum security prison with time off for good behavior
Read it again, the US government wants to make an example out of him. We're fighting terra, after all. Do you really think they'd put this much effort into extraditing him if they were going to give him the minimum sentence? Pah-leease..
And, really, if he couldn't do the time, he should not have done the crime
Ah, the siren call of the terminally clueless. I'm so glad justice can so easily be summed up for you. The rest of us with brains find it a fairly complex task.
Yuh-huh, tell that to ENI. My company just started using them to manage a healthy lifestyles-type thing. When I called them because I couldn't log in (turns out their site is completely fucked and doesn't support Firefox), the CSR AND someone identified to me as an IT Support rep was able to read my password back to me. But, that's ok, they're only housing my personal medical information there. It's not like there's laws protecting that kind of thing...
Oh, wait, there are...and when I brought it up to my HR, I was told they were satisfied with ENI's privacy procedures ("our employees are told not to discuss personal, private information") and to fuck off. so, I filed a complaint with the DHHS under HIPPA. Doubt I'll ever hear anything, but fuck 'em, I'm already looking to relocate.
While I don't in any way disagree with your call to vote third party, there's more to it than simple disillusion with the system. For example, there are numerous roadblocks to a third party candidate becoming a VIABLE alternative to one of the "big two".
1) Did you know the big two candidates get funding from the federal government for their campaigns? The only way a third party candidate can have access to these tens of millions of dollars is if their party had a significant showing in the previous election. In the last couple of decades only one part got to even take part in these funds, and it was a pittance in comparison to what the big two got. A huge warchest isn't a guarantee to a win, but not having one is a guarantee of a loss.
2) Debates are not private events. They're hosted by private companies, but they get tax breaks for doing so if the only the debates contain an equal number of Dems & 'pubs. No one else is required by law to be invited, and unless there's sufficient outcry, that won't happen.
3) There are only seven states remaining in which electoral fusion is still legal. I won't go into detail, the article describes it well enough and what's happened to it. Without electoral fusion, small parties find it very hard to get on ballots, and if they're not on the ballot, they can't get elected as easily.
4) Third-parties have to pay for all of their advertising. In a presidential election, the big two candidates are already in some other office and therefore already part of the news cycle generating free publicity for their campaigns. Third-parties have to jump up and down and scream "look at me!!" before the media even considers noticing them.
There are plenty of other barriers to a third-party having a viable candidate for the presidency, but those are the largest. So, given those odds, and the fact that we can't survive another four years of Bush (he's registered under the name McCain), you're forced to continue to choose the lesser of two evils. IMO, Obama's still a waste of your vote, but at least I might live long enough to see the next election. And, voting third party seems to me to guarantee a win for McCain. So, in the interim, we work to eliminating the road blocks and look towards the future.
By explicitly no longer allowing us to license WFW311 (or releasing it into the wild for free), Microsoft has done no less than exploited our beneficence - They've gotten their cash, now they want to take our shared cultural resource away from the very society that allowed them to gain by it.
No one's taking away your copy of Windows 3.11 that you paid for, you're free to continue to use it. Microsoft won't sell you a new one, you won't get updates to it, and you can't put that single copy on every machine you come across. MS used the profits for that copy of Windows to fund research and development into future versions which could provide you new benefits...should you wish to pay to take advantage of those benefits (which is why upgrade versions are significantly lower than full). Under your philosophy, MS would gain a limited benefit from providing their products (a one time fee), but you would continue to get additional benefits in perpetuity. These additional benefits include installing it on other machines for free (the only reason to put it into the public domain) or duplicate some of their efforts (open sourcing it).
If you think those are extraordinary measures, I certainly hope you don't work in the IT industry. Those are some of the most basic security practices everyone uses, regardless of OS. As a member of a team of 12 people who administer over 1200 Windows servers, I can tell you it ain't a lot of work to do day-to-day...as long as you aren't a clueless fucknut. But, then, we automate everything, so...If someone could then explain to me why we have 137 Unix admins to take care of their 400 boxes...
Picture yourself on the way home from grandma's house after visiting the family for Christmas. It's 1:30 AM. It's snowing and the wind is whipping. Everyone's tired and your wife is bitching up a storm because your mom put her in a bad mood. Your batteries are running low and you're still 200 miles from home. And it's going to take 4 hours to charge them.
Others have pointed out technical methods of circumventing this issue, and almost as many have "debunked" it without providing any real answers. So, I will give you one...you don't get yourself in this situation. Until charging technology is advanced enough to provide rapid recharge, you have to manage your travel properly. If you have a 300 mile trip and your batteries are only going to provide you with 100 miles of life, you do not set out on your journey until your car is ready. Yes, it requires you to THINK, and we all know how hard it is for the average person to do that, but the problems aren't going to be solved by bitching about trivial and anecdotal incidents.
Right now, electric cars are about day-to-day driving. If you have a 30 mile/each way/each day trip to work, why spend $8/day on a 30mpg car to do it (or the $100/day you claim to be willing to pay)? You can achieve the same results for a dollar's worth of electricity pulled from your wall. Yes, that electricity is generated in over half the country by coal, but other sources are building rapidly. I always find it amusing to drive through the Scranton, PA area which was built on coal and look at the line of over a dozen wind generators they have on one of their ridges. Even "coalies" see the benefit of renewable energy.
I've said it before, I'll say it again...in the last 5 years or so, we've gone from the "impossible to exceed" 20% efficiency limit of solar panels to almost 42% efficiency. If we can get them to 80%, your car could charge itself while sitting in the parking lot while you work, thus eliminating the coal issue. Hell, there are very few uses an 80% efficient panel can't be applied to, and even fewer areas that don't receive enough light to make them feasible. If only we weren't wasting hundreds of billions of dollars fighting a war to get more oil, we might just be able to afford to fund more research into these things...
Now, to address your particular issue given that you only have an electric car that'll get you back and forth to Grandma's...well, let's see, how could we possibly circumvent that? Oh, I know, how about renting a gas-powered vehicle for the two or three days you actually need one? It makes a lot more economic sense than paying $50/gallon for gas to get back and forth to work. Even if it costs you $1000 to rent the car for those few days, well, you've saved enough in 10 days of not driving your $50/gallon gas-guzzler to pay for it.
Not necessarily. If he's never used it in an actual fight, he'll be overconfident and at a disadvantage. Having studied the arts myself, I've met a lot of people over the years with black belts and other high "degrees" who've had their asses kicked in street fights. The stuff you learn in a dojo is well-controlled and don't necessarily apply in a real fight. That's why I chose a kung fu sufi who insisted on his students competing in local matches with other dojos before advancing them.
I sure hope that was sardonic fiction. If not, lemme guess...you believe in intelligent design, too. Anyone who can come up with such giant leaps surely believes the Earth is hotter now because the sphere of water surrounding it was depleted during "the flood".
That being said, you do spin an interesting tale. Too bad Hans didn't think of it and try to use it as a defense. Of course, it's not much of a defense since you specify he bought the gun out of anger of his wife having an affair. In your tale, he never got to use it for premeditated murder, but that IS why he bought it. And, since he knew enough about the murder to know the whereabouts of the body, and never told anyone, he's an accomplice and that carries the same sentence.
And, you would like us to do what? Don't tell me you still think your vote or voice count? Are you really that naive? Even assuming the population of the US could do something using the tools given to us by the founders, do you think you could unite enough of them to do "the right thing"? There's still a fairly large population of this country that believes god told GW to invade Iraq because Saddam was behind 9/11. I'm sorry, but aside from open, armed rebellion, nothing's going to change. Even then, it will be played by the administration as "extremely small group of terrorist sympathizers attempt to destroy our great nation".
If you've got a viable plan (one that doesn't assume the average intelligence of the majority of Americans is greater than their waistline), I'll be happy to hear it.
Yeah, but my wife trains me well for when I go out into public. :)
That sounds like one of my comments! :)
Yes, I did. I apologize for misunderstanding.
Let's give it best case for the hybrid.
:)
And the worst case for the Scion? Nice way to make sure the math works out in the direction you're shooting for. Of course multiplying the current average price by 2.5 helps a lot, too.
this is heavily (if not ridiculously
Oh, yeah, it's ridiculous. You also failed to address my actual argument: best case price for a Prius is $21,500. The difference in price between $21,500 and $0 is $21,500. With that difference, a Prius pays for itself at 124,700 miles. That's 8.3 years with an average of 15k miles/year. That's really not a good return on my investment.
At $5/gallon gas, that means it would pay itself off after 1000*100 miles. How many cars do you know of that are at 100,000 miles?
Both of the cars I currently own are hovering at the 100k mark and all of the cars I've owned in the past were all well over 150k miles. Your completing your argument with this doesn't make any sense, BTW. Your suggestion is it would take over 100k miles to break even on the Prius, but that the Prius won't last that long. Or, in other words, you'll never make your money back. So, the question is: were you disputing my claim or backing it up?