Yeah, Nimoy is a really well rounded guy. I mean, he's a professional photographer and a poet and an actor (dramatic actor, theater actor), writer, singer. It's entirely understandable that he would be unhappy with the one character overshadowing everything else. Especially since it was a three year show that took years to really take off and even longer to truly be a renowned hit.
Also, he likes to take photos of . . . uh . . . rubenesque ladies.
Also, he signs his damn twitter posts with LLAP, now. How can that not give you kind of a fuzzy feeling?
I like Shatner, too. For different reasons. These two men made the most of their careers in very different ways, but in the end they both came to accept the roles they played and the main reason people came to love them so much. I think that says a lot.
Not really. As I recall, he despised the character for some time afterward, because that's all anyone cared about. Eventually, like with Patrick Steward, he came to embrace it.
I, for one, am going to be pretty broken up when he passes. I have a list of old dudes that are going to be hard for me to handle the passing of and he's near the top.
Few people get to create the lasting icon that he did.
Let me correct myself. This is apparently a GNU/LINUX distribution (cough) . . . important, to note, since it is apparently the official distro provided by the FSF on their "member cards".
Since we apparently couldn't be bothered with adding one more sentence to the blurb so we know what the hell 'Trisquel' actually is, it's apparently a linux distribution and Slaine seems to be the code name of the new release version (ie, Hammy, Sid, Hoary Hedgehog).
This is why I disagree with idiots who go around touting the whole "PROTECT THE CHILDREN!" bullshit with the intention of nerfing everything in the world at the expense of free expression and consumption by adults and in favor of someone's children. Nobody is forcing parents not to parent. Nobody is forcing parents not to censors their children's content. There's too much risk and corruption in allowing some organized body of people (think the MPAA creeps, here, which are composed mostly of people in their 50s or later with children in their 20s or later, plus a protestant and a baptist minister who don't vote, but offer their thoughts to the censors who vote in secret and offer no guidance on what is or isn't obscene, but they know it when they see it) to classify content for people.
If the consequence is that your precious little snot-producing dimwit may or may not come across a pair of tits or a couple of dicks at some point in his life and completely lose his shit over it, then so be it. I don't see any purpose for making exceptions or allowances here. The potential price of going down that road is too steep.
Yeah, and censorship is totally an acceptable price for sheltering poor defenseless brains of mush from things they aren't ready for! Now, on with more TLDs!
Seriously, your kid can find pretty deviant and repulsive stuff at their local library. Let's not go around making censorship easier to facilitate all in the name of nerfing the world for little tykes.
Oh, and by the way, who gets to be the devine arbiter of what is classified as what on the internet? Maybe we can follow the lead of the MPAA and assign the task to a dozen middle aged morons and two religious representatives?
Oh, I'm sure they'll adjust for that. I doubt it's going to be a flat per-mile taxation. If you drive 20,000 miles in a year in a little death-mobile made of fiber glass, you'll pay one fee. If you're one of those dicks picking up groceries in a Dodge Ram that has like 11 wheels and takes up two lanes, you'll probably pay a significantly higher per-mile rate.
Doesn't a hybrid get its fuel from power plants that most likely burn coal? It's hardly "pollution neutral".
And like I mentioned elsewhere, if the tax on gas should continue to really stick it to those evil fuel-burning gaia-killers, then let's at least call it an "environment tax" or something and make sure the money goes to environmental projects rather than the same fund that the other various "road" fees go to.
If they did that, I wouldn't mind so much. It's just the sense that it's all so disingenuous that sticks with me.
Where did you read that they are going to change the fuel tax from a tax to maintain roads to one for dealing with environmental issues as a result of burning the fuel? You may say "well, the intentions are irrelevant, but the end result is that those evil earth-murdering drivers will have to pay for their sins with the extra tax, so all is good!" but the way I see it is that they're just continuing to milk as much as possible from as many sources as possible. Otherwise, they'd identify the separate tax an its purpose. And if they did that, I would have less of an issue with it.
Also, since I don't give a shit about cars, I don't know this sort of thing off hand -- but is the damage done by fueling your hybrid half from gas and half from electricity generated by burning coal significantly less than the damage done by your car burning fuel directly?
Also, isn't the environmental part already addressed when they charge you $400 or whatever per year to renew your car registration? Or is that PURELY a "property tax"? (I honestly don't know and perhaps it's actually varied in every state, I suppose).
I'm not a fan of continuing to fuel cars with fossil fuels, but I'm not a fan of bullshit justifications or tax-gouging, either, so . . .
How isn't it double dipping? Paying for usage fees in a fuel tax and then paying for usage fees in a mileage tax is paying twice for the same thing. If you're going to replace one with the other, that is reasonable and is a bit forward thinking to compensate with road work as we (VERY SLOWLY) move toward alternative vehicles. I saw nowhere in the article where they stated one was REPLACING the other, however.
No, I'm sorry. That is shitty. When you state "cars are too fuel efficient and some don't use petrol at all, so we need to find ways to milk everyone for every last dollar to compensate" then the right solution is to bill everyone on mileage (through whatever the least obtrusive method is). The disingenuous solution is to say "well, then we're going to charge based on mileage, except for people who use petrol in which case we're going to charge them based on mileage AND fuel".
Since you apparently read the article, you'll notice that this is actually just an attempt to double dip as many people as possible (most people don't drive hybrids, much less no-gas cars) so that they can raise the better part of a billion dollars for various road construction programs to inflate the employment rate by creating a bunch more government created jobs (you know, a lot more of those "THIS ROAD WORK BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE STIMULUS PLAN" in the summer along your commute). Along with the nice little nod to the industry that will make, install, maintain, and monitor the tracking devices to your car. Hey, maybe they'll charge you a monthly subscription fee to monitor your tracker, too! Kind of like the idea that we can arrest all these people for non-violent crimes and then release them back to "house arrest" of some sort. Hey, if your alternative is spending time in jail, then having a bracelet on your ankle that you have to pay to have installed and pay to have monitored (monthly subscription) sounds like a real deal, doesn't it? And a GREAT deal for the company that makes and monitors them.
I don't see how this is any different.
Oh, by the way, the best roads I ever get to ride on are still the private tollways. Rather than $400/yr for vehicle registration tax and however much I spend in gas tax and however much I spend toward the roads with my ever growing income and property tax and however much I will have to spend for this new double-dipping . . . I would rather just dump all that money (or even less of it, probably) to some private group that maintains a much better tollway and ride that from end to end on my commutes.
Hey, if you're itching to pay additional taxes and fees, you're free to do so. Don't speak for the rest of us. Then again, you're from Portland, too -- so I'm sure you'd agree that we need to apply a bicycling tax. Per mile. Then an additional tax on all things that make bikes actually go (chains, tires, gears, shifters). Hell, people walking on the sidewalk should pay a usage tax, too. And a shoe tax. Yes, we already pay ridiculous property and income taxes in Portland, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't eek every last dollar out of everyone from every end we possibly can, right?
But gas taxes go toward things like road maintenance. So if you're going to introduce a supposedly more logical form of usage taxation, then do so. But don't pile it on to the existing method *also* which is already meant to address the same thing.
Right, so while more tax is an inherently bad thing, why create a whole new tax to add on to the old tax rather than just increasing the original tax? Of course, one reason is that people might get a bit bitchy when you tell them you're charging 20% gas tax, but not as much if you say you're taxing them 10% gas tax and then the equivalent amount (or more) in mileage tax. Also, gas tax has an inherent usage fee built into it without any additional monitoring, auditing, or surveillance.
Well, the most obvious example would be the Apple Store. Have you ever tried to pay cash for items, there? I bought my mom an iMac for mother's day last year when I was visiting home and they required a credit card. The time before that, I bought two 30" ACDs, an iPod, and two laptops. Was going to pay in cash. They would only take a credit card. As far as I know, that is a company-wide policy (based on my experiences and experiences I've read over the internet -- it is possible that I am completely incorrect on that issue, though). I do recall that they wouldn't sell anyone an iPad on cash, too.
In places that do accept cash, you'll often find that they give you more of a benefit to pay with a credit card than if you pay in cash. That seems backwards, of course. If I pay in cash, you should maybe even give me a discount (that's what places used to do). Especially since using a credit card incurs an extra cost on them for the transaction fee.
When it comes down to it, you can be refused service for any reason. If I already have an ongoing business relationship with them, I'm pretty sure they have to accept payment on my invoice in cash (unless I've signed something indicating I'd pay only in another form). However, if I walk into your place and say "Here's $5,000 and I want to buy that thing over there", I'm pretty sure they can just tell me to go away.
Hell, I'm pretty sure that credit card company policies (for VISA, at least) state that you can not be required to show your identification when making a purchase. That as long as your card is signed on the back, you can not be refused service with it for not showing other forms of ID. They even tell you to call their 800 number and report a vendor if they won't accept it under those condition. However, try and actually do that in real life. You won't get anywhere.
Good luck with that. Governments and corporations are working toward enforcing a cashless society with every passing year. There are places in meat-space where you can't even buy things with cash. There are places where buying big items in cash will get you investigated. Having large amount of cash (a few thousand) on your person can get you "reasonable suspicion" as a criminal.
That means that as many as two or three dozen people may be in immediate peril!
Seriously, come on. I mean, it's terrifying and I'm concerned for all of our Japanese friends over there, but despite the media's attempt to blow Chernobyl out of proportion, the truth is that something like thirty people died of immediate effects of Chernobyl. Several thousand may possibly have died over the following years due to things attributable to Chernobyl, but that's far different from the idea they're trying to push with these headlines -- that tens or hundreds of thousands of people are going to drop dead of some miserable prolonged radiation death in the near future.
Of course, with Chernobyl, the land is still uninhabitable and probably will be for . . . well, fuck, I don't know. A long time. So the issues shouldn't be understated, either. But good grief.
They call it a reboot, of sorts. Even though it isn't really, except a bit in tone. Unfortunately, you're sort of stuck having to refer to it as the "new series" or the "rebooted series", because instead of calling it season 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31 they call it seasons 1 through 5 of the "new series" or the "2005 series". I don't know if that was all a marketing decision or what.:/
I actually dig the whole melancholy brooding doctor aspect. Mostly because it's balanced by his manic excitement and glee. And it would be hard to ignore the ramifications of life bouncing through and people. Hell, the guy saw the end of time. I just always feel that the new series is right on the edge of becoming insultingly obvious about the whole relationship stuff. Kind of like how every show on SyFy now has nothing to do with science fiction and are just veiled "relationship" shows to draw chicks (think Warehouse 13).
I know a lot of people hated the whole Rose arc, but I was suckered in by it. Partially, I suppose, because it wasn't something I expected for Doctor Who. It was a little original and a bit new. Unlike Martha (awesome) and others since then, which sort of feel obligatory at this point.
I'm just glad that they've continued to hold on to the slight kitch of the special effects and types of monsters (the adipose fat deposit creatures, the minister of defense or whoever she was that was an alien, etc). That was always the special treat of Doctor Who.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention, I'm pretty sure the cabin of a truck does not provide space for "9 employees".
Yeah, Nimoy is a really well rounded guy. I mean, he's a professional photographer and a poet and an actor (dramatic actor, theater actor), writer, singer. It's entirely understandable that he would be unhappy with the one character overshadowing everything else. Especially since it was a three year show that took years to really take off and even longer to truly be a renowned hit.
Also, he likes to take photos of . . . uh . . . rubenesque ladies.
http://www.rmichelson.com/artist_pages/nimoy/pages/MaxBeaut.htm
Also, he signs his damn twitter posts with LLAP, now. How can that not give you kind of a fuzzy feeling?
I like Shatner, too. For different reasons. These two men made the most of their careers in very different ways, but in the end they both came to accept the roles they played and the main reason people came to love them so much. I think that says a lot.
No, he's the guy who wrote books about how to raise children.
Not really. As I recall, he despised the character for some time afterward, because that's all anyone cared about. Eventually, like with Patrick Steward, he came to embrace it.
I, for one, am going to be pretty broken up when he passes. I have a list of old dudes that are going to be hard for me to handle the passing of and he's near the top.
Few people get to create the lasting icon that he did.
Let me correct myself. This is apparently a GNU/LINUX distribution (cough) . . . important, to note, since it is apparently the official distro provided by the FSF on their "member cards".
Since we apparently couldn't be bothered with adding one more sentence to the blurb so we know what the hell 'Trisquel' actually is, it's apparently a linux distribution and Slaine seems to be the code name of the new release version (ie, Hammy, Sid, Hoary Hedgehog).
https://trisquel.info/en
This is why I disagree with idiots who go around touting the whole "PROTECT THE CHILDREN!" bullshit with the intention of nerfing everything in the world at the expense of free expression and consumption by adults and in favor of someone's children. Nobody is forcing parents not to parent. Nobody is forcing parents not to censors their children's content. There's too much risk and corruption in allowing some organized body of people (think the MPAA creeps, here, which are composed mostly of people in their 50s or later with children in their 20s or later, plus a protestant and a baptist minister who don't vote, but offer their thoughts to the censors who vote in secret and offer no guidance on what is or isn't obscene, but they know it when they see it) to classify content for people.
If the consequence is that your precious little snot-producing dimwit may or may not come across a pair of tits or a couple of dicks at some point in his life and completely lose his shit over it, then so be it. I don't see any purpose for making exceptions or allowances here. The potential price of going down that road is too steep.
Irony.
Yeah, and censorship is totally an acceptable price for sheltering poor defenseless brains of mush from things they aren't ready for! Now, on with more TLDs!
Seriously, your kid can find pretty deviant and repulsive stuff at their local library. Let's not go around making censorship easier to facilitate all in the name of nerfing the world for little tykes.
Oh, and by the way, who gets to be the devine arbiter of what is classified as what on the internet? Maybe we can follow the lead of the MPAA and assign the task to a dozen middle aged morons and two religious representatives?
So, instead of the project being an over budget waste, they canned it so it could be a complete waste with no return. Brilliant.
Oh, I'm sure they'll adjust for that. I doubt it's going to be a flat per-mile taxation. If you drive 20,000 miles in a year in a little death-mobile made of fiber glass, you'll pay one fee. If you're one of those dicks picking up groceries in a Dodge Ram that has like 11 wheels and takes up two lanes, you'll probably pay a significantly higher per-mile rate.
Doesn't a hybrid get its fuel from power plants that most likely burn coal? It's hardly "pollution neutral".
And like I mentioned elsewhere, if the tax on gas should continue to really stick it to those evil fuel-burning gaia-killers, then let's at least call it an "environment tax" or something and make sure the money goes to environmental projects rather than the same fund that the other various "road" fees go to.
If they did that, I wouldn't mind so much. It's just the sense that it's all so disingenuous that sticks with me.
Where did you read that they are going to change the fuel tax from a tax to maintain roads to one for dealing with environmental issues as a result of burning the fuel? You may say "well, the intentions are irrelevant, but the end result is that those evil earth-murdering drivers will have to pay for their sins with the extra tax, so all is good!" but the way I see it is that they're just continuing to milk as much as possible from as many sources as possible. Otherwise, they'd identify the separate tax an its purpose. And if they did that, I would have less of an issue with it.
Also, since I don't give a shit about cars, I don't know this sort of thing off hand -- but is the damage done by fueling your hybrid half from gas and half from electricity generated by burning coal significantly less than the damage done by your car burning fuel directly?
Also, isn't the environmental part already addressed when they charge you $400 or whatever per year to renew your car registration? Or is that PURELY a "property tax"? (I honestly don't know and perhaps it's actually varied in every state, I suppose).
I'm not a fan of continuing to fuel cars with fossil fuels, but I'm not a fan of bullshit justifications or tax-gouging, either, so . . .
How isn't it double dipping? Paying for usage fees in a fuel tax and then paying for usage fees in a mileage tax is paying twice for the same thing. If you're going to replace one with the other, that is reasonable and is a bit forward thinking to compensate with road work as we (VERY SLOWLY) move toward alternative vehicles. I saw nowhere in the article where they stated one was REPLACING the other, however.
No, I'm sorry. That is shitty. When you state "cars are too fuel efficient and some don't use petrol at all, so we need to find ways to milk everyone for every last dollar to compensate" then the right solution is to bill everyone on mileage (through whatever the least obtrusive method is). The disingenuous solution is to say "well, then we're going to charge based on mileage, except for people who use petrol in which case we're going to charge them based on mileage AND fuel".
Since you apparently read the article, you'll notice that this is actually just an attempt to double dip as many people as possible (most people don't drive hybrids, much less no-gas cars) so that they can raise the better part of a billion dollars for various road construction programs to inflate the employment rate by creating a bunch more government created jobs (you know, a lot more of those "THIS ROAD WORK BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE STIMULUS PLAN" in the summer along your commute). Along with the nice little nod to the industry that will make, install, maintain, and monitor the tracking devices to your car. Hey, maybe they'll charge you a monthly subscription fee to monitor your tracker, too! Kind of like the idea that we can arrest all these people for non-violent crimes and then release them back to "house arrest" of some sort. Hey, if your alternative is spending time in jail, then having a bracelet on your ankle that you have to pay to have installed and pay to have monitored (monthly subscription) sounds like a real deal, doesn't it? And a GREAT deal for the company that makes and monitors them.
I don't see how this is any different.
Oh, by the way, the best roads I ever get to ride on are still the private tollways. Rather than $400/yr for vehicle registration tax and however much I spend in gas tax and however much I spend toward the roads with my ever growing income and property tax and however much I will have to spend for this new double-dipping . . . I would rather just dump all that money (or even less of it, probably) to some private group that maintains a much better tollway and ride that from end to end on my commutes.
Hey, if you're itching to pay additional taxes and fees, you're free to do so. Don't speak for the rest of us. Then again, you're from Portland, too -- so I'm sure you'd agree that we need to apply a bicycling tax. Per mile. Then an additional tax on all things that make bikes actually go (chains, tires, gears, shifters). Hell, people walking on the sidewalk should pay a usage tax, too. And a shoe tax. Yes, we already pay ridiculous property and income taxes in Portland, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't eek every last dollar out of everyone from every end we possibly can, right?
But gas taxes go toward things like road maintenance. So if you're going to introduce a supposedly more logical form of usage taxation, then do so. But don't pile it on to the existing method *also* which is already meant to address the same thing.
Right, so while more tax is an inherently bad thing, why create a whole new tax to add on to the old tax rather than just increasing the original tax? Of course, one reason is that people might get a bit bitchy when you tell them you're charging 20% gas tax, but not as much if you say you're taxing them 10% gas tax and then the equivalent amount (or more) in mileage tax. Also, gas tax has an inherent usage fee built into it without any additional monitoring, auditing, or surveillance.
Isn't this already covered by the gas tax, which is inherently incurred on a "per mile" (gallon, really) basis?
Anything that can be taxed, will. Those things which can not be taxed will be fined.
Well, the most obvious example would be the Apple Store. Have you ever tried to pay cash for items, there? I bought my mom an iMac for mother's day last year when I was visiting home and they required a credit card. The time before that, I bought two 30" ACDs, an iPod, and two laptops. Was going to pay in cash. They would only take a credit card. As far as I know, that is a company-wide policy (based on my experiences and experiences I've read over the internet -- it is possible that I am completely incorrect on that issue, though). I do recall that they wouldn't sell anyone an iPad on cash, too.
In places that do accept cash, you'll often find that they give you more of a benefit to pay with a credit card than if you pay in cash. That seems backwards, of course. If I pay in cash, you should maybe even give me a discount (that's what places used to do). Especially since using a credit card incurs an extra cost on them for the transaction fee.
When it comes down to it, you can be refused service for any reason. If I already have an ongoing business relationship with them, I'm pretty sure they have to accept payment on my invoice in cash (unless I've signed something indicating I'd pay only in another form). However, if I walk into your place and say "Here's $5,000 and I want to buy that thing over there", I'm pretty sure they can just tell me to go away.
Hell, I'm pretty sure that credit card company policies (for VISA, at least) state that you can not be required to show your identification when making a purchase. That as long as your card is signed on the back, you can not be refused service with it for not showing other forms of ID. They even tell you to call their 800 number and report a vendor if they won't accept it under those condition. However, try and actually do that in real life. You won't get anywhere.
Good luck with that. Governments and corporations are working toward enforcing a cashless society with every passing year. There are places in meat-space where you can't even buy things with cash. There are places where buying big items in cash will get you investigated. Having large amount of cash (a few thousand) on your person can get you "reasonable suspicion" as a criminal.
OH MY GOD! CHERNOBYL LEVELS!
That means that as many as two or three dozen people may be in immediate peril!
Seriously, come on. I mean, it's terrifying and I'm concerned for all of our Japanese friends over there, but despite the media's attempt to blow Chernobyl out of proportion, the truth is that something like thirty people died of immediate effects of Chernobyl. Several thousand may possibly have died over the following years due to things attributable to Chernobyl, but that's far different from the idea they're trying to push with these headlines -- that tens or hundreds of thousands of people are going to drop dead of some miserable prolonged radiation death in the near future.
Of course, with Chernobyl, the land is still uninhabitable and probably will be for . . . well, fuck, I don't know. A long time. So the issues shouldn't be understated, either. But good grief.
They call it a reboot, of sorts. Even though it isn't really, except a bit in tone. Unfortunately, you're sort of stuck having to refer to it as the "new series" or the "rebooted series", because instead of calling it season 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31 they call it seasons 1 through 5 of the "new series" or the "2005 series". I don't know if that was all a marketing decision or what. :/
I haven't seen any Torchwood yet, but I plan to. The story of Captain Jack (you know what I mean) blew my mind.
I actually dig the whole melancholy brooding doctor aspect. Mostly because it's balanced by his manic excitement and glee. And it would be hard to ignore the ramifications of life bouncing through and people. Hell, the guy saw the end of time. I just always feel that the new series is right on the edge of becoming insultingly obvious about the whole relationship stuff. Kind of like how every show on SyFy now has nothing to do with science fiction and are just veiled "relationship" shows to draw chicks (think Warehouse 13).
I know a lot of people hated the whole Rose arc, but I was suckered in by it. Partially, I suppose, because it wasn't something I expected for Doctor Who. It was a little original and a bit new. Unlike Martha (awesome) and others since then, which sort of feel obligatory at this point.
I'm just glad that they've continued to hold on to the slight kitch of the special effects and types of monsters (the adipose fat deposit creatures, the minister of defense or whoever she was that was an alien, etc). That was always the special treat of Doctor Who.