Largely off topic, but I've had my Windows Phone for about a year, and love it. Originally, Mrs Serzen wanted the WP for the camera, and when we upgrade I always get the same make as her, since I have to support it; they've turned out to be great devices overall. Her phone survived 3 days in a snow drift in subzero temps with only a charge and hard reset needed because the touchscreen was unresponsive. I also love that OS updates are pushed by MS, not by my carrier.
37.5 hours here, full-time, full benefits (medical, dental, life, vision, hearing, retirement match of 9%), extraordinary paid time away (medical, personal, vacation). I have the option to flex my hours to meet my own schedule instead of work's. But I work in higher education, so I know it's not the norm.
I know, 37.5 might as well be 40, but a lot of places in the area consider 37.5 to be full-time. Just pointing out that the 40-hour week is starting to be scaled back.
You don't give up your 4th Amendment rights just by getting behind the wheel. If you're driving erratically, the officer has probable cause to stop you and verify your sobriety. The officer is also able to shine his flashlight through your window and see if you have anything illegal *in plain sight*. He is not, however, allowed to search your trunk, make you pick your sweater up off the seat next to you, or otherwise SEARCH your car.
And, if you are found to be driving while impaired, you still HAVE A TRIAL. You have the right to call into question the methods the officer in question used. If he violated your rights, and you are able to articulate and demonstrate it, your offense is null and void. If HE screwed up, you get a walk. And even if it's a small town, and the cop is the judge's brother (oh, hey, look, another reason the case should be tossed), you have the right to appeal.
I know, I know, reasoned discourse is no match for vitriol, but it's early in the day and my hopes haven't been utterly eroded yet.
The water in these tanks is not only filtered, but runs through protein skimmers and usually UV sterilization, too. The amount of feces (and urine) the animals are drinking or otherwise absorbing is small. Nitrates are A Bad Thing to most marine life.
Quite the opposite happened to me: We were crossing at the Thousand Islands Bridge to do some sight-seeing on the Canadian side and were detained for 2 hours while the Canadians tore the back seat out of the car, pulled the spare tire, grilled us about our criminal records (none), demanded to know about any sealed juvenile records (we told them to ask the Attorney General if they wanted to know about that). When we finally got our car back, we were escorted to it by armed guards wearing bullet-proof vests, to find that nothing had been put back the way it belonged.
When we returned to the US side, the agent asked us to pop the trunk, didn't even look in it, but shut it for us and said to have a nice day.
All of our paperwork was in order--the only reason we can come up with is that I'm brown-skinned and have a beard. Except that my ancestry is English, Irish and Native American.
Yes, they do in fact grow in saltwater. Ask anyone who keeps a marine aquarium about how hard the shit is to get rid of, too. If you're not careful, it can overtake your tank pretty quickly.
The last DLC for L4D was sponsored by, if I recall correctly, Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell or whatever it was called. The funding for the DLC was provided that way.
In your example, Mr. Y is offering testimony regarding his own actions, but is not, presumably, offering testimony to incriminate Mr. X. Also, I think you've slightly misunderstood the GPs intent. In your example, Mr. Y has directly heard Mr. X say "your mother is a whore," making his testimony admissible. If, however, Mr. Y were to offer that "Mr. Z told me he was calling my mother a whore," the testimony becomes hearsay. IANAL, etc
Aging in the bottle, in relation to wine, and, presumably, the rest, has to do with micro-oxidation that takes place in the bottle. It has nothing to do with what was used to produce the wine or spirit in the first place. For an alcohol to be safe from oxidation and able to age more or less without harm, it needs to have an alcohol content of 18% or more (by volume); see Port, Sherry, Marsala or Madeira for examples of non-distilled wines capable of extended aging. Less than 18% and there IS a finite limit as to how long the offering in question can age, dependent on other factors, of course, such as tannin and acidity levels in the wine, as well as the amount of oxygen that the wine comes into contact with. Thus, the reason most wine spends not more than 2 or 3 years in barrel before being transferred to bottles. In bottles, there is less room for oxygen to intrude into the wine. (see above post regarding storing bottles sealed with a cork on their sides) In fact, if you truly want to buy wine that you intend to age yourself, you're better off buying magnums or larger, as the wine/oxygen ratio is smaller, meaning that the wine will age more gracefully than it does in a standard fifth/750.
Distilled spirits, as has been covered by several other posters, age in the barrel because of the interactions between the barrel and the spirit. Climate, in particular, has an effect on the process, as does the barrel itself. As the spirit sits in the barrel, the wood (a porous material) absorbs some of the liquid; during changes of temperature, the barrel absorbs more or less. As the spirit is absorbed, it passes through outer layers of charcoal (as most barrels are charred on the inside), providing a certain amount of filtration, but once it gets a chance to seep into the wood, the alcohol also absorbs some of the compounds that exist in the wood. Vanillan is one, and the flavo(u)r of the various essential oils are change by how hot they got during the charring process. Moreover, if the barrel has been previously used, there may well be trace amounts of the previous "occupant" still stored in the wood that will co-mingle with the new addition, lending their own character to the spirit. Finally, alcohol does, in fact, tend to evaporate at a fairly low temperature, and so the longer that a spirit is in the barrel, the more of the raw alcohol that seeps out of the spirit, helping to gently mellow the character. Most, are, however, cut with water before bottling, since even after 6 or 8 years a spirit that was put into barrel at 180 proof (90% alcohol) will have only reduced to about 130 proof (65% alcohol).
Peat. Seriously. Scotch maltings are dried over peat fires, imparting a the scent and flavo(u)r of peat into the final product. The Laphoraig is an Islay single malt and the Glennlivett is from the Highlands. Islay is not only known for their more peaty characters, but also for what can sometimes be a strong note of saltiness in the whisky, due, to my understanding, to the fairly aggressive seas around the area, tossing salt spray into the barley as it grows and then being transferred to (what will become) the spirit during the process of malting and fermentation. In the Scottish Highlands, the ocean is a bit further off and doesn't affect the crop quite as readily. The peatiness of Highland malts is also less, which may be a "design decision" or might just be due to a less aromatic peat being harvested there. (Although it's the rare distillery that does its own floor maltings these days, but that's a story for a different day.)
Buffalo Trace distillery in Kentucky has, on occasion, used used wine casks in producing some of their experimental whiskeys. I've not yet had the fortune of getting my hands on any of their experimental bottlings, but keep my eyes open.
Some banks charge for all debit (as in enter your PIN to verify) transactions, some only if you make more than a handful (most commonly in my area, 6) per month. It's another of the filthy ways our financial institutions are able to soak us for fees that they haven't earned to try and make a quick buck off the customer. If your balance is getting low, and you make a couple of debit purchases, they can slap you with the transaction fee and try to bleed you into the red, in which case they get to slap you with overdraft fees, too.
No banks--that I'm aware of--charge for the transaction if you choose to have it processed "as credit"; i.e., swipe the card and sign the receipt. In the case of most small retailers, all debit transactions are processed "as credit" because the banks/processing companies charge a higher percentage for direct debit as well as charging a higher fee for the PIN pad needed to input a PIN.
The kotaku article links to a Wired article which states that the follow up to Fable 2--a game he "can't talk about right now"--is the achievement in question.
For those interested enough, the interview also has a couple of interesting lines about the bug-testing in Fable 2 (trying to get the AI tuned) and also the morality system (shades of grey, not just black and white--no pun intended).
Rochester?!!?? You'll get it long before us poor bastards in the Binghamton market! My only prayer is that, since I live in Tioga county, if they ever decide to wire up Ithaca (IC and Cornell), they'll think about letting us get in, too.
Fencing is actually probably NOT the way to go. For one, a properly executed thrust is a subtle motion that, depending on your orientation to the sensors could be difficult to pick up. Not to mention how much floor space you'd need for two people to lunge at each other (the lightsabre is for a duel-mode, multiplayer). As a long time fencer, and engaged to marry another long time fencer, if I can thrust, I expect to be able to disengage, to feint, etc. There's NO way the wiimote could handle the complexities involved in some of those actions.
And let's not forget the inability to properly parry. A parry of contre-de-sixte is fast and subtle, with the weapon ending where it began, only changing the orientation of the incoming blade...It more or less solves the problem of "what do you do about tactile sense?" because there wouldn't need to be any for the attacker, but the wiimote still wouldn't pick up what had actually happened.
Even considering the gross and overwrought actions common in the USFA, FIE, etc, wiimote fencing will never be able to simulate even something as simple as foil fencing. Simple being a very relative term, mind you, but the point remains.
The Halo 3 edition console was, last I heard, set to ship in September. Also, last I heard, Halo 3 doesn't ship until November. So, no, I don't think the Special Edition console will come bundled with the game.
Erm, IBM actually has a long history of telling employees what to do when not at work. Policy used to be--and not even all that long ago--that employees wore a suit that met certain standards; dark gray or blue, I think. Even the janitors couldn't be seen entering or leaving the building without a suit. They had to wear a coat and tie to come to work, change into their other uniform when they got there, and back to the coat and tie when they left.
In the '50s, you could be fired for cashing your paycheck anywhere that wasn't a bank. Feel like a drink after work? Stop at the bank first, because if you cash it at the bar, you won't have a job next week. Even though at least some IBMers were huge partyers (even a proper word there?) who could drink like there was no tomorrow (I say this from family experience), the company would not permit the public perception that IMBers did something as low-brow as go to a bar.
Chances are, if you work for IBM, you're used to this sort of treatment and having some management guy come along and tell you what games you can and can't play, and how to "dress" in those games is just the regular old SNAFU that is IBM life.
WHEN will people stop trying to make such outrageous claims? Quite honestly, the PS3 doesn't cost that much more of the average Briton's income than it does the average American's income.
The average American household brings home something like USD 40-43 thousand/year.
The average British household brings home something like GBP 25-27 thousand/year.
The 60G model of the PS3 in the US costs USD 500; according to amazon.co.uk you can pick one up for GBP 420 in the UK. For an American, that's roughly 1.20 percent of his annual household income. For a Briton, that's roughly 1.68 percent of his annual household income. Which isn't really all that close to the 2.21 percent that USD 930 is.
You can't simply take raw currency conversions like that and have anything resembling an accurate number. At least not without taking into account inflation and other factors. I wish more people would wrap their heads around such a simple fact.
I read about this yesterday on another site (since, of course, local NY news doesn't carry anything about what goes on in Albany), and one of the provisions that the Assembly version of the bill provides is that all game consoles come with built in parental controls that are guarded by a password or PIN and can be set to exclude content based on ratings. No parental controls? Can't sell it in NY. Companies will have 120 days from the passage of the bill into law to comply.
Are there any current consoles on the market that don't have parental controls? And since PCs aren't dedicated gaming machines, I don't think they are included in the parental control mandate, although you still have the whole sale to a minor issue.
Of course, NY is, as others have pointed out, screwed up to begin with. Rockefeller, voting known criminals into office, the various Authorities (basically corporations funded by the public, but not subject to public scrutiny). Now if you sell a game to a minor, you go to state prison, lose a huge number of rights, and are more or less fucked at ever trying to get another job (if you make it OUT of prison, that is). $40 billion dollars a day buys us this?
To the contrary! This is New York, where it's perfectly legal for a woman to be topless anywhere a man can be. So open your shop on private property and have at it.
Funny how people will respond with comments like this when it's Natives involved, but $DEITY forbid someone say anything about some other ethnic or racial minority. Fact of the matter is, no, it wasn't our generation that committed these crimes, but it was, depending on your age, either your grandparents or great-grandparents. My great-great-grandparents WERE Natives, so I do know about the wars the government raged against them as well as I know about the wars raged against the whites. However, the whites wanted the Natives dead, and waged a war of total extermination, whilst the Natives wanted the whites to leave them the fsck alone, and waged, admittedly, a war of terror to try and chase the buggers off.
It irritates me to no end that we (read: our governments) "give" land and privileges to Natives, but then deny them anything that actually represents freedom. If they want to do anything with the land that is "theirs" they first have to ask permission, like a bunch of 6 year olds. And don't even ask about being able to speak your own Native language, which is acceptable for all immigrants, and we'll have 15,000 forms at the DMV to make it possible, but if a child in school spoke Navajo in the '50s, he ran the risk of being beaten with a board.
Are the wounds just too fresh for the governments to own up to what they've done? Or are the Natives just not as vocal as the Africans and so don't get the same attention? After all, we only enslaved the blacks, while trying to wipe out all the reds.
Blizzard does, in fact, appear to declare that the game is "in" a couple of different states. In New York, as well as a few other states they charge you sales tax on your subscription fee. They're the only company that does charge the tax on any game subscription I've held, and I know that in NYS you can be charged sales tax for online purchases made from a company that has "a presence" in NYS.
Blizzard also charges 8.25% sales tax to NYS residents, even those of us who live in a county where the tax less than that. When I noticed the oddity on my statement, I wrote Blizzard's billing department and was told that "Blizzard and its employees cannot be expected to understand tax laws, if you would like additional information, please contact your state Department of Commerce." I canceled my subscription instead--if they aren't prepared to explain their actions, I'm not prepared to pay for their services.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean the exact same shape that the Enter/Return key used to have on my keyboards in the 80s and 90s? The narrow bar is kind of a new thing.
Largely off topic, but I've had my Windows Phone for about a year, and love it. Originally, Mrs Serzen wanted the WP for the camera, and when we upgrade I always get the same make as her, since I have to support it; they've turned out to be great devices overall. Her phone survived 3 days in a snow drift in subzero temps with only a charge and hard reset needed because the touchscreen was unresponsive. I also love that OS updates are pushed by MS, not by my carrier.
Central New York. Mind, most of my friends work in either academia or health care, so results can be skewed. Also, anecdotes aren't data, I know.
I know, 37.5 might as well be 40, but a lot of places in the area consider 37.5 to be full-time. Just pointing out that the 40-hour week is starting to be scaled back.
You don't give up your 4th Amendment rights just by getting behind the wheel. If you're driving erratically, the officer has probable cause to stop you and verify your sobriety. The officer is also able to shine his flashlight through your window and see if you have anything illegal *in plain sight*. He is not, however, allowed to search your trunk, make you pick your sweater up off the seat next to you, or otherwise SEARCH your car. And, if you are found to be driving while impaired, you still HAVE A TRIAL. You have the right to call into question the methods the officer in question used. If he violated your rights, and you are able to articulate and demonstrate it, your offense is null and void. If HE screwed up, you get a walk. And even if it's a small town, and the cop is the judge's brother (oh, hey, look, another reason the case should be tossed), you have the right to appeal. I know, I know, reasoned discourse is no match for vitriol, but it's early in the day and my hopes haven't been utterly eroded yet.
The water in these tanks is not only filtered, but runs through protein skimmers and usually UV sterilization, too. The amount of feces (and urine) the animals are drinking or otherwise absorbing is small. Nitrates are A Bad Thing to most marine life.
When we returned to the US side, the agent asked us to pop the trunk, didn't even look in it, but shut it for us and said to have a nice day.
All of our paperwork was in order--the only reason we can come up with is that I'm brown-skinned and have a beard. Except that my ancestry is English, Irish and Native American.
Yes, they do in fact grow in saltwater. Ask anyone who keeps a marine aquarium about how hard the shit is to get rid of, too. If you're not careful, it can overtake your tank pretty quickly.
The last DLC for L4D was sponsored by, if I recall correctly, Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell or whatever it was called. The funding for the DLC was provided that way.
I could actually hear it in a perfect valley girl voice.
Well, isn't that what the Valley Girl tags were for?
In your example, Mr. Y is offering testimony regarding his own actions, but is not, presumably, offering testimony to incriminate Mr. X. Also, I think you've slightly misunderstood the GPs intent. In your example, Mr. Y has directly heard Mr. X say "your mother is a whore," making his testimony admissible. If, however, Mr. Y were to offer that "Mr. Z told me he was calling my mother a whore," the testimony becomes hearsay. IANAL, etc
Distilled spirits, as has been covered by several other posters, age in the barrel because of the interactions between the barrel and the spirit. Climate, in particular, has an effect on the process, as does the barrel itself. As the spirit sits in the barrel, the wood (a porous material) absorbs some of the liquid; during changes of temperature, the barrel absorbs more or less. As the spirit is absorbed, it passes through outer layers of charcoal (as most barrels are charred on the inside), providing a certain amount of filtration, but once it gets a chance to seep into the wood, the alcohol also absorbs some of the compounds that exist in the wood. Vanillan is one, and the flavo(u)r of the various essential oils are change by how hot they got during the charring process. Moreover, if the barrel has been previously used, there may well be trace amounts of the previous "occupant" still stored in the wood that will co-mingle with the new addition, lending their own character to the spirit. Finally, alcohol does, in fact, tend to evaporate at a fairly low temperature, and so the longer that a spirit is in the barrel, the more of the raw alcohol that seeps out of the spirit, helping to gently mellow the character. Most, are, however, cut with water before bottling, since even after 6 or 8 years a spirit that was put into barrel at 180 proof (90% alcohol) will have only reduced to about 130 proof (65% alcohol).
Peat. Seriously. Scotch maltings are dried over peat fires, imparting a the scent and flavo(u)r of peat into the final product. The Laphoraig is an Islay single malt and the Glennlivett is from the Highlands. Islay is not only known for their more peaty characters, but also for what can sometimes be a strong note of saltiness in the whisky, due, to my understanding, to the fairly aggressive seas around the area, tossing salt spray into the barley as it grows and then being transferred to (what will become) the spirit during the process of malting and fermentation. In the Scottish Highlands, the ocean is a bit further off and doesn't affect the crop quite as readily. The peatiness of Highland malts is also less, which may be a "design decision" or might just be due to a less aromatic peat being harvested there. (Although it's the rare distillery that does its own floor maltings these days, but that's a story for a different day.)
Buffalo Trace distillery in Kentucky has, on occasion, used used wine casks in producing some of their experimental whiskeys. I've not yet had the fortune of getting my hands on any of their experimental bottlings, but keep my eyes open.
No banks--that I'm aware of--charge for the transaction if you choose to have it processed "as credit"; i.e., swipe the card and sign the receipt. In the case of most small retailers, all debit transactions are processed "as credit" because the banks/processing companies charge a higher percentage for direct debit as well as charging a higher fee for the PIN pad needed to input a PIN.
The kotaku article links to a Wired article which states that the follow up to Fable 2--a game he "can't talk about right now"--is the achievement in question. For those interested enough, the interview also has a couple of interesting lines about the bug-testing in Fable 2 (trying to get the AI tuned) and also the morality system (shades of grey, not just black and white--no pun intended).
Rochester?!!?? You'll get it long before us poor bastards in the Binghamton market! My only prayer is that, since I live in Tioga county, if they ever decide to wire up Ithaca (IC and Cornell), they'll think about letting us get in, too.
And let's not forget the inability to properly parry. A parry of contre-de-sixte is fast and subtle, with the weapon ending where it began, only changing the orientation of the incoming blade...It more or less solves the problem of "what do you do about tactile sense?" because there wouldn't need to be any for the attacker, but the wiimote still wouldn't pick up what had actually happened.
Even considering the gross and overwrought actions common in the USFA, FIE, etc, wiimote fencing will never be able to simulate even something as simple as foil fencing. Simple being a very relative term, mind you, but the point remains.
The Halo 3 edition console was, last I heard, set to ship in September. Also, last I heard, Halo 3 doesn't ship until November. So, no, I don't think the Special Edition console will come bundled with the game.
In the '50s, you could be fired for cashing your paycheck anywhere that wasn't a bank. Feel like a drink after work? Stop at the bank first, because if you cash it at the bar, you won't have a job next week. Even though at least some IBMers were huge partyers (even a proper word there?) who could drink like there was no tomorrow (I say this from family experience), the company would not permit the public perception that IMBers did something as low-brow as go to a bar.
Chances are, if you work for IBM, you're used to this sort of treatment and having some management guy come along and tell you what games you can and can't play, and how to "dress" in those games is just the regular old SNAFU that is IBM life.
The average American household brings home something like USD 40-43 thousand/year.
The average British household brings home something like GBP 25-27 thousand/year.
The 60G model of the PS3 in the US costs USD 500; according to amazon.co.uk you can pick one up for GBP 420 in the UK. For an American, that's roughly 1.20 percent of his annual household income. For a Briton, that's roughly 1.68 percent of his annual household income. Which isn't really all that close to the 2.21 percent that USD 930 is.
You can't simply take raw currency conversions like that and have anything resembling an accurate number. At least not without taking into account inflation and other factors. I wish more people would wrap their heads around such a simple fact.
Are there any current consoles on the market that don't have parental controls? And since PCs aren't dedicated gaming machines, I don't think they are included in the parental control mandate, although you still have the whole sale to a minor issue.
Of course, NY is, as others have pointed out, screwed up to begin with. Rockefeller, voting known criminals into office, the various Authorities (basically corporations funded by the public, but not subject to public scrutiny). Now if you sell a game to a minor, you go to state prison, lose a huge number of rights, and are more or less fucked at ever trying to get another job (if you make it OUT of prison, that is). $40 billion dollars a day buys us this?
To the contrary! This is New York, where it's perfectly legal for a woman to be topless anywhere a man can be. So open your shop on private property and have at it.
It irritates me to no end that we (read: our governments) "give" land and privileges to Natives, but then deny them anything that actually represents freedom. If they want to do anything with the land that is "theirs" they first have to ask permission, like a bunch of 6 year olds. And don't even ask about being able to speak your own Native language, which is acceptable for all immigrants, and we'll have 15,000 forms at the DMV to make it possible, but if a child in school spoke Navajo in the '50s, he ran the risk of being beaten with a board.
Are the wounds just too fresh for the governments to own up to what they've done? Or are the Natives just not as vocal as the Africans and so don't get the same attention? After all, we only enslaved the blacks, while trying to wipe out all the reds.
Blizzard also charges 8.25% sales tax to NYS residents, even those of us who live in a county where the tax less than that. When I noticed the oddity on my statement, I wrote Blizzard's billing department and was told that "Blizzard and its employees cannot be expected to understand tax laws, if you would like additional information, please contact your state Department of Commerce." I canceled my subscription instead--if they aren't prepared to explain their actions, I'm not prepared to pay for their services.