Yet each time I see a new WOW killer come along it is aimed at WOW from three to four years ago claiming great new features which just btw, happen to be in the current WOW or are very similar.
You have it backwards. A new game comes along, and says "Hey, we'll beat WoW because of these features." Then the WoW team looks at what they are promising, and figures out what's good about it. Then the WoW development cycle is tight enough that they will have those features in WoW by the time the contender hits the market, making the contender look dated.
Then guys like you say "Oh, look, that new MMO has the same features that are in the current WoW, so why would I change games?"
So it's like the other guy said. The entire system is rigged to make sure the jury is completely ignorant.
Ensuring that the jury can't call bullshit on some bit of rhetoric or evidence is not justice.
No, the only ignorance here is what you are displaying. The jury has the right to request clarification on a term (in this case, they used the term 'rape trauma syndrome' in the court case and a juror didn't know what it meant) and then the judge, in consultation with the prosecution and defense, will provide the jury with the definition.
As others have mentioned, Wikipedia can often be very incorrect. But in addition when dealing with terms tied to technology or medicine, there may be many interpretations of meaning depending on who you ask. (As a programmer, I have a different definition of 'hanging process' than a lawyer does) It is important that the jury is understanding the terms used in the trial as the prosecution and defense are using them, and you can't do that with a quick hop to Wikipedia.
That's why the jury is not supposed to be relying on outside information. If the prosecution says 'rape trauma syndrome' means butterflies and rainbows, and the defense agrees with that definition, it's utterly irrelevant to the case what the real definition is, because that's not what the prosecution and defense are talking about.
No, seriously. Most major news sites have been covering Wikileaks, Assange and anonymous. But Gawker abandoned all pretense of any kind of impartial reporting. They insulted anonymous, mocked them and basically accused them of being malicious children.
Now, the individuals at Gawker are free to have any opinion they want. But when they are storing my personal information (Yes, I have a Gawker account) they are indirectly putting my material at risk for their own ends. That's like my bank putting out press releases saying "All you bank robber suck. We think so little of you that we're just going to pile our money outside the vault door. We're not even protecting it, we have such contempt for you." It didn't take a genius to figure out that eventually some of the 4channers were going to investigate, and then we quickly found out that Gawker is so behind on their security software, they use the same simple hash that my first year computer science teacher gave as an example of what not to do to secure anything.
Given the circumstances, I have no sympathy for Gawker.
I knew as soon as you started typing that you had an engineering degree. I believe the OP was referring to the number of 'soft' degrees like sociology, philosophy, literature, etc. which are nothing more than dreary paper pushing. Whereas engineering was like a world of wonder everyday. For people like us, spending the day doing nothing more than figuring out why things are what they are, how they work and looking for new ways to make them work is fun! Like you, I too found college to be the most amazing, enriching time of my life.
(I picked up degrees in engineering and computer science, but at a time when computer science was part of the college of arts & sciences. So I speak having had a foot in both worlds.)
You've hit on the main issue I have when people call these machines 'safe'. I accept that, under normal operation, they are safe. In the hands of a trained radiologist, I would not hesitate. But these machines are being operated by security people who are barely competent to work at McDonalds. I have already seen with my own eyes evidence of the machines not being used in the way they were intended and more importantly tested. And that's why I reject all claims that they are 'harmless' and will opt for a pat-down. Embarrassment I can recover from.
Imagine wi-fi as a man at the far end of a crowded room yelling out information to you as loudly as he can. Me: "I'm Joe! When is the next train?" Yelling Guy (The wireless contact point): "Joe! Next train is at 5:05!"
Yes, your wireless device listens to everything being yelled back and forth, and when it 'hears' something yelled at you, it passes it on. But it still hears everything. Normally, if it hears something for 'Joe', it knows that's not you, so it just ignores it. But the firesheep plugin doesn't ignore that information. It listens in and knows if it hears certain things, grab it anyway.
If I'm on encrypted wireless, my stuff will be in a language foreign to everyone in the room but me. If I'm on an encrypted website (https://) then people might hear stuff being said, but again it will make no sense to them.
BUT, if I log into Facebook on wireless with no encryption and with Facebook logging in via http: instead of https: it's like this...
Me: I'm Joe! I want to log into Facebook. Here is my username and password! Yelling Guy: You are successful! Here's your session information. Gary: I'm Joe! I want to put a picture up in Facebook! YG: Done! Ed: I'm Joe! I want to put nasty comments on my friends wall! YG: Done! Phil: I'm Joe! I want to find all of Joe's Facebook friends and send them private messages! YG: Done!
Actual example: I purchased NCAA 11 for the Xbox. Well, at the end of every game, there is an unskippable 'Highlight of the game' which features a large, prominent ad for Reese's candy bar. As a big fan of teh NCAA dynasty mode, I play nearly nightly. And when I finish a game, I want to save it and move on. But you can't save until the commercial is complete and it's unskippable. Every night, I get angry at Reese's candy.
As a result, when I actually see Reese's candy on a shelf, the association has been made. I just see it, and I'm angry and frustrated. I tell people not to buy it. I bought my Halloween candy making a point to deliberately avoid anything from Hershey. And all this could've been avoided by just letting me skip the 'Highlight of the game' when I'd already seen it far too many times.
And the funny thing is that NCAA 11 will be gone in a few months. But I fully expect my angry at Reese's to go on for much longer.
Actually the losses suffered by the copyright owner through people using illegal copies are quite real. This is because some of the people playing illegally copied games are doing so instead of buying a legitimate copy for themselves.
Could you give me a source as to your 'fact'? My informal studies have indicated that the amount of money and profits for copyright materials such as movies and games are higher than they've ever been in the past, which would indicate that piracy is not an issue. As I know people who pirate, I asked them how many are doing so instead of buying a legit copy. Almost universally the answer was either
1) I'm pirating to test that it will run on my machine, but I'll be buying a legit copy if it does 2) Nah, I'm just checking it out to see what it's like. I'll put a few hours into it and then delete it. Maybe I'll buy it if it's really good.
In other words, 1) is either buying it or not buying it, but if it doesn't run and they don't buy it, the company is avoiding customer service costs and 2) is pirating and if they are suitably impressed, they will turn into a buyer. If they were preventing from 'piracy', they would never purchase the item in question.
The reason for this is simple. Patches, extras, downloadable content are enough of a lure that most of the people I know would rather get a legit copy. *shrug* Obviously I can only speak of what I observe, but in my informal group, piracy does not equal a lost sale. And I think the power that be are looking at their record profits and realizing that too. But the threat of 'piracy' is very useful to get favorable copyright laws passed, so they keep claiming the sky is falling.
So is this a deliberate attempt for Facebook to allocate resources towards Diaspora? Are they deliberately fueling the two headed monster that will replace them?
bombing a mall seems so easy to do. i mean all you really need is a bomb, a regular outfit so you arent the crazy guy in a trench coat trying to blow up a mall and a shopping bag. i mean if terrorism were actually a legitimate threat, think about how many fucking malls would have blown up already.. you can put a bag in a million different places, there would be no way to foresee the next target, and really no way to prevent it unless CTU gets some intel at the last minute in which case every city but LA is fucked...so...yea...now i'm surely bugged :/
If that post gets you FBI monitoring... The FBI has WAYYYY too much time on their hands. But one has to laugh at the irony of the "I'm surely bugged"...
Okay... so he didn't pay the money right then and there. What's the problem?
I didn't buy car insurance, but yesterday I totaled my car. So I walked into the insurance company, offering to pay the money right there and then. And they turned me down. I tried to say "Hey, this makes perfect sense to mark-t!" but for some reason, they still thought I was an absolute idiot. They explained to me how insurance works, how the cost is distributed among many because the assumption is that most people won't need the service. If they let you buy it after you need the service, they would need to charge me an amount equal to what I would be receiving. Well, more actually, because the company has overhead. So they just shook their heads, said to tell mark-t that he lives in some fantasy world and that any business who did what mark-t suggests would soon be bankrupt.
This one time I didn't have contents insurance and got robbed and all the insurance companies stood around doing nothing because I didn't have a policy with any of them!
What? And when you said "I'll happily buy your policy now", I bet the evil insurance company didn't even allow you to do that.
I'm firmly in the camp that, the guy didn't pay the $75 fee, he's responsible for his own fire prevention. *shrug*.
That's a load of sh*t and you know it. Why not put out the fire and then bill him for the $75?
You're kidding, right? Maybe you don't get how this whole thing works, but it's like insurance. It's $75 per person because you assume that for many, their house will not burn down. But if you change it so "When you get a fire, call us and we'll charge you there", well, then the actual price would be up in the thousands.
But that doesn't work either! Because a fire department has to budget, pay salaries, get equipment, have storage facilities, etc. This takes money UP FRONT. You can't just spend it out of your own pocket, then HOPE someone has a fire.
Sorry Karunamon, you claim the way it works as a "load of sh*t", yet it works. None of your suggestions work at all.
It sounds like all the app is doing is aggregating data that's already available. A resourceful terrorist could write his own software to do that.
A resourceful terrorist already owns an ADS-B receiver... Five seconds of googling, I found a web site with simple instructions for building your own. The idea that a terrorist will be able to obtain munitions and technology required to take down an airplane but will decide not to use it because they can't get an app for that is just too funny for words.
Most snakes won't eat carrion. The prey has to be moving to trigger hunting, and then feeding behavior.
I'm seeing disagreement with this, but as a snake owner, I can attest Hatta is essentially correct. Snakes who are raised on dead prey will feed on them, but once a snake is exposed to live prey, they will essentially scorn dead prey unless they are extremely hungry. And the Guam snakes will still have their regular prey available, so I would assume that only a very small percentage of the snakes will consume the frozen mice.
You would be hard pressed to not even find a PERSON who hasn't put in an attempt to change the law in his/her favour - as that's what elections are about.
So by your own definition, anyone who doesn't vote doesn't attempt to change the law in his/her favour. And I'm reading that there are record numbers of people not voting in elections. And yet you say "it's hard to even find a person who... hasn't voted".
Before you climb up shouting on that soapbox, maybe you want to see if your 'facts' actually make any sense?
And if you believe that, you've already bought into the Pentagon propaganda.
I ask you one simple question... If he was such a 'douchebag' all along, why did we not hear ANY of this until he dared to challenge the US military? Why are all these little details suddenly 'leaking' now? The obvious answer is that it's all BS. But no one even questions it. It's scary how blindly people follow media.
Ample evidence exists that deep-water exploration and filming are his current loves. Pretty much given that it was his primary focus from 2002-2009. So if he says he made Avatar to fund the work he was doing from 2002-2009 and is lying, he wasted 7 years of his life just to fool you. Seven years of his life just so he can trip over his shoelaces and exclaiming he meant to do it? Somehow I don't think so.
Coal industry? Substantial. Oil industry? Arguably the most powerful conglomerate in the world. Helium industry? Wow, look, we can have reasonable discussions without anyone who is paid to subvert the collected data...
Stats: I couldn't find a 2010 "Matrix XR". There's a "Matrix XRS". Heck, let's just assume that they mean the most efficient 2010 Matrix, which is a manual base model that gets 26/32mpg. The 2010 Prius gets 51/48mpg.
I drive a Matrix XR, so I was surprised to hear you say it didn't exist. And I get much better than 26/32 mpg. But the difference between an XR and an XRS is a huge engine upgrade, from a more conventional cruising engine to a high power sports car engine. As such, if you used the XRS numbers in your comparison, that would guarantee it's completely wrong.
You PAID for the movies, so of course you're entitled to a "less than the best" quality version.
The pirates? They have perfect crystal clear copies and when they press 'play', the movie plays without having to sit through any ads.
People aren't stupid MPAA. They want the best quality recording. Heck, you've got a business model where you charge more for the same thing and lots of people pay it. But you've insured that the absolute *best* quality is the version that gives you no money. You've created this situation, so my sympathy is limited.
McCain's choice of such a woefully inadequate running mate showed that his judgement was indeed poor, and as such the so-called "Independent voters" broke for Obama.
I disagree. She certainly wasn't any worse a choice than Quayle, and the first Bush got elected with him.
I'm not sure if you're young or trying to revise history, but Quayle fumbled and came across as a newcomer to politics... But he at least knew the basics.. A far cry from Palin who came across as completely clueless.
Or to simplify, when asked relevant political questions Quayle would stumble. "The holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. No, not our nation's, but in World War II. I mean, we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century, but in this century's history." I mean, that's awkward, but you at least understand what he was trying to say.
Palin would be clueless or completely wrong. "They're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom." --Sarah Palin, getting the vice president's constitutional role wrong after being asked by a third grader what the vice president does.
So don't compare Quayle to Palin. Very different situation. Quayle at least knew what the job/responsibilities of a Vice President were. Quayle at least knew about American foreign policies.
Everything today is "tamper proof", so it's not possible to open the devices, and if you are able to do it - there is nothing to learn.
Oh, that's a good one. My parents constantly tell stories about going out of the room and coming back to find me disassembling something. At one point I disassembled the family phone and they had no idea what to do. The next day, I had completely reassembled it, and everyone agreed it worked better! (Was probably just a loose connection that I'd properly tightened after re-assembly.) I grew up to be an engineer.
But what would've happened growing up in today's world where all the toys are sealed? I wonder...
Was actually an English class. (Yes, I'm an engineer, but I love to read, and I wanted to be a better communicator, so it seemed like a good elective.)
We have a major essay on "The Scarlet Letter". After we hand it in, the prof announces that she did her masters degree on the book. She says she has read everything ever written on the book. And she mentions that she has detected plagiarism. She says "If the cheaters drop this class immediately, I will not pursue charges. Otherwise, expect this to be brought up with the University." Now, I hadn't even looked at other texts. Everything I had written was straight out of my head. I don't cheat normally, but in this case, I knew I couldn't even accidentally cheat.
Next class I show up... 66% had dropped the class. We literally had one third of the students still in the class. It really opened my eyes with regards to how common cheating is.
Oh, and for the record, for those who know the book, my essay had argued that colour vs. black/white was what defined what was acceptable in Hester's world. And thus the 'Black man' was not an outsider, but instead a necessary part. (Kinda along the lines of "There would be no God without Satan, so Satan is actually a positive Christian force, a good guy.") I still remember the response which was "This is entirely original... And wrong. But you did a wonderful job trying to make it work." and I received an A on the paper. So the incident also gave me insight into profs that have seen it all... If you can bring them something original, even if it's wrong, they're just happy to see someone breaking new ground, so they'll give you marks for trying.
Slashdot Mirror
Yet each time I see a new WOW killer come along it is aimed at WOW from three to four years ago claiming great new features which just btw, happen to be in the current WOW or are very similar.
You have it backwards. A new game comes along, and says "Hey, we'll beat WoW because of these features." Then the WoW team looks at what they are promising, and figures out what's good about it. Then the WoW development cycle is tight enough that they will have those features in WoW by the time the contender hits the market, making the contender look dated.
Then guys like you say "Oh, look, that new MMO has the same features that are in the current WoW, so why would I change games?"
So it's like the other guy said. The entire system is rigged to make sure the jury is completely ignorant.
Ensuring that the jury can't call bullshit on some bit of rhetoric or evidence is not justice.
No, the only ignorance here is what you are displaying. The jury has the right to request clarification on a term (in this case, they used the term 'rape trauma syndrome' in the court case and a juror didn't know what it meant) and then the judge, in consultation with the prosecution and defense, will provide the jury with the definition.
As others have mentioned, Wikipedia can often be very incorrect. But in addition when dealing with terms tied to technology or medicine, there may be many interpretations of meaning depending on who you ask. (As a programmer, I have a different definition of 'hanging process' than a lawyer does) It is important that the jury is understanding the terms used in the trial as the prosecution and defense are using them, and you can't do that with a quick hop to Wikipedia.
That's why the jury is not supposed to be relying on outside information. If the prosecution says 'rape trauma syndrome' means butterflies and rainbows, and the defense agrees with that definition, it's utterly irrelevant to the case what the real definition is, because that's not what the prosecution and defense are talking about.
No, seriously. Most major news sites have been covering Wikileaks, Assange and anonymous. But Gawker abandoned all pretense of any kind of impartial reporting. They insulted anonymous, mocked them and basically accused them of being malicious children.
Now, the individuals at Gawker are free to have any opinion they want. But when they are storing my personal information (Yes, I have a Gawker account) they are indirectly putting my material at risk for their own ends. That's like my bank putting out press releases saying "All you bank robber suck. We think so little of you that we're just going to pile our money outside the vault door. We're not even protecting it, we have such contempt for you." It didn't take a genius to figure out that eventually some of the 4channers were going to investigate, and then we quickly found out that Gawker is so behind on their security software, they use the same simple hash that my first year computer science teacher gave as an example of what not to do to secure anything.
Given the circumstances, I have no sympathy for Gawker.
I knew as soon as you started typing that you had an engineering degree. I believe the OP was referring to the number of 'soft' degrees like sociology, philosophy, literature, etc. which are nothing more than dreary paper pushing. Whereas engineering was like a world of wonder everyday. For people like us, spending the day doing nothing more than figuring out why things are what they are, how they work and looking for new ways to make them work is fun! Like you, I too found college to be the most amazing, enriching time of my life.
(I picked up degrees in engineering and computer science, but at a time when computer science was part of the college of arts & sciences. So I speak having had a foot in both worlds.)
You've hit on the main issue I have when people call these machines 'safe'. I accept that, under normal operation, they are safe. In the hands of a trained radiologist, I would not hesitate. But these machines are being operated by security people who are barely competent to work at McDonalds. I have already seen with my own eyes evidence of the machines not being used in the way they were intended and more importantly tested. And that's why I reject all claims that they are 'harmless' and will opt for a pat-down. Embarrassment I can recover from.
Imagine wi-fi as a man at the far end of a crowded room yelling out information to you as loudly as he can.
Me: "I'm Joe! When is the next train?"
Yelling Guy (The wireless contact point): "Joe! Next train is at 5:05!"
Yes, your wireless device listens to everything being yelled back and forth, and when it 'hears' something yelled at you, it passes it on. But it still hears everything. Normally, if it hears something for 'Joe', it knows that's not you, so it just ignores it. But the firesheep plugin doesn't ignore that information. It listens in and knows if it hears certain things, grab it anyway.
If I'm on encrypted wireless, my stuff will be in a language foreign to everyone in the room but me. If I'm on an encrypted website (https://) then people might hear stuff being said, but again it will make no sense to them.
BUT, if I log into Facebook on wireless with no encryption and with Facebook logging in via http: instead of https: it's like this...
Me: I'm Joe! I want to log into Facebook. Here is my username and password!
Yelling Guy: You are successful! Here's your session information.
Gary: I'm Joe! I want to put a picture up in Facebook!
YG: Done!
Ed: I'm Joe! I want to put nasty comments on my friends wall!
YG: Done!
Phil: I'm Joe! I want to find all of Joe's Facebook friends and send them private messages!
YG: Done!
Does that help explain it?
Actual example: I purchased NCAA 11 for the Xbox. Well, at the end of every game, there is an unskippable 'Highlight of the game' which features a large, prominent ad for Reese's candy bar. As a big fan of teh NCAA dynasty mode, I play nearly nightly. And when I finish a game, I want to save it and move on. But you can't save until the commercial is complete and it's unskippable. Every night, I get angry at Reese's candy.
As a result, when I actually see Reese's candy on a shelf, the association has been made. I just see it, and I'm angry and frustrated. I tell people not to buy it. I bought my Halloween candy making a point to deliberately avoid anything from Hershey. And all this could've been avoided by just letting me skip the 'Highlight of the game' when I'd already seen it far too many times.
And the funny thing is that NCAA 11 will be gone in a few months. But I fully expect my angry at Reese's to go on for much longer.
Actually the losses suffered by the copyright owner through people using illegal copies are quite real. This is because some of the people playing illegally copied games are doing so instead of buying a legitimate copy for themselves.
Could you give me a source as to your 'fact'? My informal studies have indicated that the amount of money and profits for copyright materials such as movies and games are higher than they've ever been in the past, which would indicate that piracy is not an issue. As I know people who pirate, I asked them how many are doing so instead of buying a legit copy. Almost universally the answer was either
1) I'm pirating to test that it will run on my machine, but I'll be buying a legit copy if it does
2) Nah, I'm just checking it out to see what it's like. I'll put a few hours into it and then delete it. Maybe I'll buy it if it's really good.
In other words, 1) is either buying it or not buying it, but if it doesn't run and they don't buy it, the company is avoiding customer service costs and 2) is pirating and if they are suitably impressed, they will turn into a buyer. If they were preventing from 'piracy', they would never purchase the item in question.
The reason for this is simple. Patches, extras, downloadable content are enough of a lure that most of the people I know would rather get a legit copy. *shrug* Obviously I can only speak of what I observe, but in my informal group, piracy does not equal a lost sale. And I think the power that be are looking at their record profits and realizing that too. But the threat of 'piracy' is very useful to get favorable copyright laws passed, so they keep claiming the sky is falling.
So is this a deliberate attempt for Facebook to allocate resources towards Diaspora? Are they deliberately fueling the two headed monster that will replace them?
let me ask you this? Who was the hero again?
The same as in real life... He who writes the history books is the 'hero'.
Just for interests sake, here's the "something stupid" that his buddy Khaled wrote on a 'blog'.
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ciiag/so_if_my_deodorant_could_be_a_bomb_why_are_you/c0sve5q
bombing a mall seems so easy to do. i mean all you really need is a bomb, a regular outfit so you arent the crazy guy in a trench coat trying to blow up a mall and a shopping bag. i mean if terrorism were actually a legitimate threat, think about how many fucking malls would have blown up already.. you can put a bag in a million different places, there would be no way to foresee the next target, and really no way to prevent it unless CTU gets some intel at the last minute in which case every city but LA is fucked...so...yea...now i'm surely bugged : /
If that post gets you FBI monitoring... The FBI has WAYYYY too much time on their hands. But one has to laugh at the irony of the "I'm surely bugged"...
Okay... so he didn't pay the money right then and there. What's the problem?
I didn't buy car insurance, but yesterday I totaled my car. So I walked into the insurance company, offering to pay the money right there and then. And they turned me down. I tried to say "Hey, this makes perfect sense to mark-t!" but for some reason, they still thought I was an absolute idiot. They explained to me how insurance works, how the cost is distributed among many because the assumption is that most people won't need the service. If they let you buy it after you need the service, they would need to charge me an amount equal to what I would be receiving. Well, more actually, because the company has overhead. So they just shook their heads, said to tell mark-t that he lives in some fantasy world and that any business who did what mark-t suggests would soon be bankrupt.
This one time I didn't have contents insurance and got robbed and all the insurance companies stood around doing nothing because I didn't have a policy with any of them!
What? And when you said "I'll happily buy your policy now", I bet the evil insurance company didn't even allow you to do that.
I'm firmly in the camp that, the guy didn't pay the $75 fee, he's responsible for his own fire prevention. *shrug*.
That's a load of sh*t and you know it. Why not put out the fire and then bill him for the $75?
You're kidding, right? Maybe you don't get how this whole thing works, but it's like insurance. It's $75 per person because you assume that for many, their house will not burn down. But if you change it so "When you get a fire, call us and we'll charge you there", well, then the actual price would be up in the thousands.
But that doesn't work either! Because a fire department has to budget, pay salaries, get equipment, have storage facilities, etc. This takes money UP FRONT. You can't just spend it out of your own pocket, then HOPE someone has a fire.
Sorry Karunamon, you claim the way it works as a "load of sh*t", yet it works. None of your suggestions work at all.
It sounds like all the app is doing is aggregating data that's already available. A resourceful terrorist could write his own software to do that.
A resourceful terrorist already owns an ADS-B receiver... Five seconds of googling, I found a web site with simple instructions for building your own. The idea that a terrorist will be able to obtain munitions and technology required to take down an airplane but will decide not to use it because they can't get an app for that is just too funny for words.
Most snakes won't eat carrion. The prey has to be moving to trigger hunting, and then feeding behavior.
I'm seeing disagreement with this, but as a snake owner, I can attest Hatta is essentially correct. Snakes who are raised on dead prey will feed on them, but once a snake is exposed to live prey, they will essentially scorn dead prey unless they are extremely hungry. And the Guam snakes will still have their regular prey available, so I would assume that only a very small percentage of the snakes will consume the frozen mice.
You would be hard pressed to not even find a PERSON who hasn't put in an attempt to change the law in his/her favour - as that's what elections are about.
So by your own definition, anyone who doesn't vote doesn't attempt to change the law in his/her favour. And I'm reading that there are record numbers of people not voting in elections. And yet you say "it's hard to even find a person who... hasn't voted".
Before you climb up shouting on that soapbox, maybe you want to see if your 'facts' actually make any sense?
And if you believe that, you've already bought into the Pentagon propaganda.
I ask you one simple question... If he was such a 'douchebag' all along, why did we not hear ANY of this until he dared to challenge the US military? Why are all these little details suddenly 'leaking' now? The obvious answer is that it's all BS. But no one even questions it. It's scary how blindly people follow media.
Ample evidence exists that deep-water exploration and filming are his current loves. Pretty much given that it was his primary focus from 2002-2009. So if he says he made Avatar to fund the work he was doing from 2002-2009 and is lying, he wasted 7 years of his life just to fool you. Seven years of his life just so he can trip over his shoelaces and exclaiming he meant to do it? Somehow I don't think so.
Coal industry? Substantial.
Oil industry? Arguably the most powerful conglomerate in the world.
Helium industry? Wow, look, we can have reasonable discussions without anyone who is paid to subvert the collected data...
Stats: I couldn't find a 2010 "Matrix XR". There's a "Matrix XRS". Heck, let's just assume that they mean the most efficient 2010 Matrix, which is a manual base model that gets 26/32mpg. The 2010 Prius gets 51/48mpg.
I drive a Matrix XR, so I was surprised to hear you say it didn't exist. And I get much better than 26/32 mpg. But the difference between an XR and an XRS is a huge engine upgrade, from a more conventional cruising engine to a high power sports car engine. As such, if you used the XRS numbers in your comparison, that would guarantee it's completely wrong.
You PAID for the movies, so of course you're entitled to a "less than the best" quality version.
The pirates? They have perfect crystal clear copies and when they press 'play', the movie plays without having to sit through any ads.
People aren't stupid MPAA. They want the best quality recording. Heck, you've got a business model where you charge more for the same thing and lots of people pay it. But you've insured that the absolute *best* quality is the version that gives you no money. You've created this situation, so my sympathy is limited.
McCain's choice of such a woefully inadequate running mate showed that his judgement was indeed poor, and as such the so-called "Independent voters" broke for Obama.
I disagree. She certainly wasn't any worse a choice than Quayle, and the first Bush got elected with him.
I'm not sure if you're young or trying to revise history, but Quayle fumbled and came across as a newcomer to politics... But he at least knew the basics.. A far cry from Palin who came across as completely clueless.
Or to simplify, when asked relevant political questions
Quayle would stumble. "The holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. No, not our nation's, but in World War II. I mean, we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century, but in this century's history." I mean, that's awkward, but you at least understand what he was trying to say.
Palin would be clueless or completely wrong. "They're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom." --Sarah Palin, getting the vice president's constitutional role wrong after being asked by a third grader what the vice president does.
So don't compare Quayle to Palin. Very different situation. Quayle at least knew what the job/responsibilities of a Vice President were. Quayle at least knew about American foreign policies.
Everything today is "tamper proof", so it's not possible to open the devices, and if you are able to do it - there is nothing to learn.
Oh, that's a good one. My parents constantly tell stories about going out of the room and coming back to find me disassembling something. At one point I disassembled the family phone and they had no idea what to do. The next day, I had completely reassembled it, and everyone agreed it worked better! (Was probably just a loose connection that I'd properly tightened after re-assembly.) I grew up to be an engineer.
But what would've happened growing up in today's world where all the toys are sealed? I wonder...
Was actually an English class. (Yes, I'm an engineer, but I love to read, and I wanted to be a better communicator, so it seemed like a good elective.)
We have a major essay on "The Scarlet Letter". After we hand it in, the prof announces that she did her masters degree on the book. She says she has read everything ever written on the book. And she mentions that she has detected plagiarism. She says "If the cheaters drop this class immediately, I will not pursue charges. Otherwise, expect this to be brought up with the University." Now, I hadn't even looked at other texts. Everything I had written was straight out of my head. I don't cheat normally, but in this case, I knew I couldn't even accidentally cheat.
Next class I show up... 66% had dropped the class. We literally had one third of the students still in the class. It really opened my eyes with regards to how common cheating is.
Oh, and for the record, for those who know the book, my essay had argued that colour vs. black/white was what defined what was acceptable in Hester's world. And thus the 'Black man' was not an outsider, but instead a necessary part. (Kinda along the lines of "There would be no God without Satan, so Satan is actually a positive Christian force, a good guy.") I still remember the response which was "This is entirely original... And wrong. But you did a wonderful job trying to make it work." and I received an A on the paper. So the incident also gave me insight into profs that have seen it all... If you can bring them something original, even if it's wrong, they're just happy to see someone breaking new ground, so they'll give you marks for trying.