Supposing a fellow starts in one of the blessed majors and ends up getting a philosophy degree at the end? Are they going to whack him for the difference in tuition, or will he have made an end run around it?
Read a bit of the SCOTUS decision on Oliver v. United States (1984) and tell me how this breaks new ground. I was getting my dander up, too, and then I realized this kind of thing was decided 28 years ago. If you want the cops to get a warrant, grow your MJ indoors or in the "curtilage" behind a tall fence (and hope they're not using aircraft).
One key is remembering that you can learn something from anyone you meet. I particularly learned this in working with developmentally-disabled people and in retail before I got into IT. And, while it's taken the better part of 50 years, I've learned that it's best for me to just shut up and listen to what other people are saying. I've learned that plenty of people are smarter than I've given them credit for, and I've learned all kinds of interesting things that would have otherwise eluded me.
It may also be worth spending a little bit of time with a counselor to learn some interpersonal skills. S/he can likely recommend some books on the subject. I especially liked Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand. It's more about male/female conversational styles, but it's a good introduction to the out-of-band messaging that occurs in conversation.
The fact that you're aware you have personality traits that you find obnoxious in others is a good thing and will help you become a very likeable person -- which you probably are already.
That's a shame. I got a Verizon Blackberry just about two years ago, and Google Maps has been flawless. Really, about the only things I hate about my Blackberry are that its web browsing takes me back to the days when I was using dial-up Internet service and there is no wifi tethering in the BB OS version I have (6.0). Shame on Verizon for losing a customer by locking down the device. (They're on thin ice with me.)
Good question. I logged into my Verizon account and went to the privacy page. It offered a link to the privacy policy and a link to a page for Location-Based Services (LBS) Privacy Settings. I visited the settings page first, and it said there was nothing to set. What I skimmed said something about Verizon Navigator, which I don't use because it is a paid service, and Google Maps is so good. (Does this mean they take your money and spy on you at the same time? I know Google spies on me, but it doesn't cost me a nickel for the privilege.) Then I visited the privacy policy page and found this:
Information Shared Outside the Verizon Family of Companies:
Except as explained in this Privacy Policy, in privacy policies for specific services, or in agreements with our customers, Verizon does not sell, license or share information that individually identifies our customers, people using our networks, or website visitors with others outside the Verizon family of companies for non-Verizon purposes without the consent of the person whose information will be shared.
It sounds a little like breach of contract to me if they sell my information. But, of course, there is an arbitration clause, so the chances of a class action are pretty minimal.
OTOH, Declan McCullagh often cries wolf, and sometimes he stretches things out of proportion.
And our ancestors, bless them, learned how to make whiskey without knowing a thing about protons and electrons.
I have mixed feelings on the subject of the article. I learned a lot about chemistry in high school and a little bit in the freshman chemistry class I took in college, but I couldn't remember a thing to help my kid when she took it last year. All I could remember was that my high school chemistry teacher was in her first year out of college and that she had been a Bengal Babe at Clemson University. This helped me pay attention in class and influenced my college choice. So it was a complete waste of time.
On the other hand, taking chemistry was useful in helping build my character, just like being in the Boy Scouts and the marching band. It kind of reminds me of Robert Benchley's quote on dog ownership:
A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down.
Remember the bad old days, when police inconvenienced you with long stops while they wrote you a ticket just when you most urgently needed to get somewhere?
Eliminating roadside stops would be a bad idea. I'm pretty sure that spending 15-20 minutes on the side of the road when one is in a hurry is yet another disincentive for speeding. Sure, a hundred bucks for the ticket and an increase in insurance are disincentives, too, but there are plenty of people out there who would blow these things off but be incensed by a delay.
In the U.S. you are required to go a minimum speed on most highways (baring traffic). Even if bikers and horse and buggies were allowed on, they wouldn't be able to get to and maintain the minimum speed limits.
Minimum speed limits that I have been aware of have principally been on interstates and other limited-access highways. Most streets and highways in the states I have experience with (SC, NC, VA, MD, DE, PA, & VT) have no minimum speed. Horses and buggies are regularly used on highways by Amish and Mennonites in parts of PA, MD, DE, and VA, and farm equipment is allowed on normal highways/roads/streets in all of these. You may as well accept that you're going to encounter people who are going slower than you. It would be a lot less stressful.
The reason we don't have much specialized bicycling lanes and the like is.....bicycling is recreational, you generally drive a car for business (serious transportation, hauling things, going to / from work, shopping, etc).
I ride my bicycle to work and for light shopping as well as for pleasure, and in the D.C. area, approximately 1% of commuters get to their jobs by bike. It's just a sliver, of course, but every little bit helps reduce congestion and improve air quality. There seems to be a fallacy in your reasoning, though, in that you seem to suggest that my purpose for being on a road matters.
With respect to building bicycle lanes -- I don't believe we need dedicated bike lanes on all roads. If the road carries enough traffic that bicycles represent an impediment, then build the curb lane wide enough to allow trucks to safely pass bicycles, or include a smooth paved shoulder in the design. In addition to facilitating traffic flow, it will also make the road safer, in case a driver should stray off the road. Either way, it's a small amount of pavement compared to the entire project. And if the amount of traffic doesn't justify such a width, then there's no need to build it; overtaking vehicles can slow down and wait a few seconds until they can safely pass.
It's reasonably safe to share the road when everyone exercises a little respect for others. I've only had one minor motor vehicle collision in 36 years of adult cycling -- one that would have happened even if I had been riding in a crosswalk from a bike path. When I've tallied up the experience of people I know in my bike club, bike-car accidents have been much rarer than bike-bike or single bike accidents; I think it's something like three fatalities among 2,000 people over the course of 30 years. I can live with odds like that.
The roads were made for cars and truck to ride on not bikes. How many cyclists do you see on an major interstate? How many roads have a 5-6 inch shoulder? Many by me where is the room that a cyclist can ride? It is not there.
Cyclists don't ride on the interstate because it's not allowed, but they would be plenty safe there. Interstates have wide lanes and decent shoulders, and there aren't distractions like driveways, side streets, and unnecessary signage. That other roads weren't designed to accomodate motor vehicles and cyclists is a failure of policy. Legally, cyclists have a right to be there, as does a guy with a horse and buggy or someone driving a backhoe or tractor. And if everyone involved exercises some responsibility and due care, the road can be shared just fine by everyone.
Share the road with a cyclist? Sharing goes both ways. I have seen too many cyclists make turns that cross traffic without using any kind of signal. They ride in the lane forcing cars to pile up behind them. I do mean the middle of the lane, not the side. They ignore traffic sign and lights. They ride up between cars stopped at a light then cross against the red light. This is the DC area. There are bike paths here.
I agree with you, there are jerks on bikes, and I won't attempt to excuse their behavior. It's interesting to see, though, that cyclists are just doing the same thing that motorists do. I keep in my Blackberry a copy of an AT&T Worldnet poll from 10 years ago that asked "What motor vehicle violation do you commit most often without being caught?" Five percent of the people admitted to "rolling stop at stop signs", and 57% admitted to "speeding 1-10 mph over the limit". I'd say that both motorists and cyclists make no bones about what they regard as insignificant violations of the law; they figure they're not likely to hurt anyone. And one more thing from that poll was that only 11% of respondents selected "None".
One more thing that may be useful for you to know is that in some cases, it is safest for a bicyclist to ride in the center of the lane. If the lane isn't wide enough for motor vehicles to safely pass the bicycle, the cyclist should "take the lane" for his own safety. This maneuver is expressly allowed under Code of Virginia section 46.2-905. So please don't begrudge the cyclist his place on the road -- direct your complaints to the legislators who don't build the road wide enough for the traffic it's intended to support.
Cycling will never become mainstream while helmet laws are enforced. In none of the countries where cycling is common it is required to where helmets and in every country where helmets are mandatory, cycling isn't very popular.
From what I've seen, bike helmet laws aren't ever enforced, anyway. Virginia has a law allowing localities to enact helmet laws for sub-16-year-olds, and my county has one, but I see more kids without helmets than with them. Unfortunately, the state law also says that failure to wear a helmet can't be treated as contributory negligence, so if I hit one of these kids, my liability may go up because of the parents' failure to police their kids. It basically boils down to statutory parental advice, which is a waste, in my opinion. They could devote an entire section of the Code of Virginia to parental advice and still be incomplete.
So lose the helmets and learn to drive. It's the only way.
As a long-time cycling enthusiast, I'm mostly convinced that helmets are worthwhile, since in addition to reducing head injury in severe crashes, they can also prevent a minor fall from resulting in an expensive emergency room visit. On the other hand, I'll also say that you're right, driving a bicycle correctly is the bigger factor. I seem to end up on the pavement every couple of years or so, but it's been stuff that had nothing to do with other vehicles (apart from the time I overlapped my daughter's bike wheel). My first collision with a motor vehicle was last year, after more than 60,000 miles of riding. I attribute this to following the rules of the road -- on the road -- and people I know who use sidepaths have a much worse record. Whether one wears a helmet or not, acting like the rest of the vehicles on the road does the most to promote survival. It's called responsibility.
This is what they told us when we looked at the Leaf a year or two ago. Considering that most preventive maintenance consists of oil changes and replacing various filters, it seems credible. FWIW, my previous two motor vehicles got along fine over the course of 13 years and 120,000 miles each without replacing brake fluid, and one of them, a Ford minivan, got its first replacement set of brake pads at something like 80,000 miles. I believe also that my first new car, bought in 1982, lasted me 8 years and 100,000 miles without replacing the brake fluid. Replacement brake pads, by the way, have never shown up as a maintenance item in any owner's manual I've ever seen; they've been lumped in with other unscheduled repairs like mufflers, radiators, etc.
The thing I look forward to about an electric car, when we get around to it, is not having to deal with oil changes, mufflers, and radiators.
If you Google for "anti-semitic elmo new york", you'll find that his first "arrest" was being taken for a mental evaluation, and the recent one was for disorderly conduct. You may also find that he is probably not the kind of guy you want walking around hugging kids, which he seems to do when he isn't going off on Jews: Beneath a Ranting Elmo’s Mask, a Man With a Disturbing Past
In the U.S., we put up with a lot. Life of Brian evoked lots of protests from Christians when it opened in theaters 30+ years ago, but it was still available to be seen in theaters even in the Bible Belt. The court allowed Nazis to parade in Skokie, IL, a city with a high population of Jews. (I am Jewish, but I support that court decision.)
From time to time, you'll see incidents in which someone suffers some kind of oppression for expressing unpopular views related to religion, but nearly always, if the oppressor is an agent of the government and the matter goes to court, freedom of speech prevails. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Today's plug-in hybrids are crap. The plug-in Prius goes about 15 miles before it has to use the engine, and the Volt does about the same. I'm not sure I'd want to deal with the hassle of storing the power cable each morning just to save half-gallon of gas (assuming I had a conventional car that gets 30 mpg). I believe that both vehicles are designed to sell plug-in capability as a sort of environmental gloss, the way ethanol/gasoline vehicles were built a few years ago with tiny ethanol tanks so people could have "flex-fuel" vehicles back when ethanol was believed to be a good, environment-friendly fuel source.
Current all-electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf and the Mitsubishi MiEV make ideal second cars for a two-car household like mine. Plenty of people drive less than 60 miles in a typical day, and both vehicles fill the bill. They do this without the extra complexity introduced by having a gasoline engine and an electric motor. (Maintenance on the Leaf consists of rotating the tires periodically and changing the brake fluid at 100,000 miles.) One major problem is that their expense front-loads the cost, and one doesn't see any cost savings until the vehicle is near the end of its life. The last time I checked, neither manufacturer was providing a price for replacement batteries, which are needed to turn the cars into real money-savers.
But you're right in that the law probably should be changed.
I'm not so sure. In the U.S., we've just had a rash of cases in which some nut job goes off and starts killing people, and Virginia is one of those places where guns are easy to obtain. In fact, since the Virginia Tech shootings, gun laws have been loosened. This guy sounds like he'd be using edged weaponry instead of firearms, but I still believe evaluation is in order.
2. Whose lifetime? The service's, i.e. no shorter than its lifetime.
What they said was
As long as we exist.
The thing is, even though TextDrive, Inc. no longer exists, "three products in our family" and including two products other than TextDrive makes the offer explicitly from the parent company Joyent, Inc. The same company which still hosts the article author's site.
I am not a lawyer, but I've seen/signed more than one contract in which there was language about "successors and assigns", etc., mainly to make sure that if the company I'm dealing with is acquired, I still have to pay money to the purchaser.
The terms of service include an arbitration agreement. If I were this guy, I'd at least give heavy consideration to filing a case with the arbitration agency.
After hurricane Hugo hit, my dad looked at the mess of fallen trees and then headed to the first working pay phone he could find, where he ordered a chainsaw from Sears, thereby bypassing depleted inventory and exploitive prices. These days, with internet ordering, communications is pretty important. It's how we got our generator after the derecho a month or so ago. (Although we used a store's free wifi and not an ad-hoc mesh network.) There sure as heck weren't any to be had locally.
This could be useful in Syria, which currently seems to be inhabited by zombies.
I'll tell you some other things Starbucks provides their customers that keeps them (well, me, at least) coming back. They manage to provide some of the feel of a European cafe, in which I have no qualms about ordering just a cup of coffee and sitting in an actual chair for a while to read or converse with a companion. The people who work there actually interact with the customer and care about getting the order right. After a few visits, they acknowledge that they know you are a repeat customer, and after a bit more, they may even prepare your "usual".
This isn't to say I believe Starbucks is the end-all or be-all. I still much prefer independent coffee shops, and I delight everytime I find one; however, the fact is that before Starbucks entered my market (D.C. suburbs) 20 years ago, there was nothing like it around here. I would even venture to say that the suburban independents who have gone into the same service model wouldn't have dared doing so if they hadn't seen Starbucks succeed at it.
To return to the original topic, though, I don't believe I'd like being identified by this new payment system. I hate faux familiarity, and I hate being tracked by my phone.
Birss said in his July 9 ruling that Samsung’s tablets were unlikely to be confused with the iPad because they are “not as cool.” He declined today to grant Samsung’s bid for an injunction blocking Apple from making public statements that the Galaxy infringed its design rights.
“They are entitled to their opinion,” he said.
It looks like they have to run the ads, but they can still say Samsung copied them.
However, once this incident becomes more widely known in french-language blogs and media, it'll quickly attract a lot of attention and will probably elicit an official (outraged) reaction of McDonald's France, and maybe cause a few interviews of politicians trying to look like they're concerned. That's how it works here.
Unfortunately, that is often how it works in the U.S. as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Supposing a fellow starts in one of the blessed majors and ends up getting a philosophy degree at the end? Are they going to whack him for the difference in tuition, or will he have made an end run around it?
Again, read the fine decision in Oliver v. United States. There were "no trespassing" signs there, too.
Read a bit of the SCOTUS decision on Oliver v. United States (1984) and tell me how this breaks new ground. I was getting my dander up, too, and then I realized this kind of thing was decided 28 years ago. If you want the cops to get a warrant, grow your MJ indoors or in the "curtilage" behind a tall fence (and hope they're not using aircraft).
One key is remembering that you can learn something from anyone you meet. I particularly learned this in working with developmentally-disabled people and in retail before I got into IT. And, while it's taken the better part of 50 years, I've learned that it's best for me to just shut up and listen to what other people are saying. I've learned that plenty of people are smarter than I've given them credit for, and I've learned all kinds of interesting things that would have otherwise eluded me.
It may also be worth spending a little bit of time with a counselor to learn some interpersonal skills. S/he can likely recommend some books on the subject. I especially liked Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand. It's more about male/female conversational styles, but it's a good introduction to the out-of-band messaging that occurs in conversation.
The fact that you're aware you have personality traits that you find obnoxious in others is a good thing and will help you become a very likeable person -- which you probably are already.
That's a shame. I got a Verizon Blackberry just about two years ago, and Google Maps has been flawless. Really, about the only things I hate about my Blackberry are that its web browsing takes me back to the days when I was using dial-up Internet service and there is no wifi tethering in the BB OS version I have (6.0). Shame on Verizon for losing a customer by locking down the device. (They're on thin ice with me.)
Good question. I logged into my Verizon account and went to the privacy page. It offered a link to the privacy policy and a link to a page for Location-Based Services (LBS) Privacy Settings. I visited the settings page first, and it said there was nothing to set. What I skimmed said something about Verizon Navigator, which I don't use because it is a paid service, and Google Maps is so good. (Does this mean they take your money and spy on you at the same time? I know Google spies on me, but it doesn't cost me a nickel for the privilege.) Then I visited the privacy policy page and found this:
Information Shared Outside the Verizon Family of Companies:
Except as explained in this Privacy Policy, in privacy policies for specific services, or in agreements with our customers, Verizon does not sell, license or share information that individually identifies our customers, people using our networks, or website visitors with others outside the Verizon family of companies for non-Verizon purposes without the consent of the person whose information will be shared.
It sounds a little like breach of contract to me if they sell my information. But, of course, there is an arbitration clause, so the chances of a class action are pretty minimal.
OTOH, Declan McCullagh often cries wolf, and sometimes he stretches things out of proportion.
That's scotch he is drinking...
And our ancestors, bless them, learned how to make whiskey without knowing a thing about protons and electrons.
I have mixed feelings on the subject of the article. I learned a lot about chemistry in high school and a little bit in the freshman chemistry class I took in college, but I couldn't remember a thing to help my kid when she took it last year. All I could remember was that my high school chemistry teacher was in her first year out of college and that she had been a Bengal Babe at Clemson University. This helped me pay attention in class and influenced my college choice. So it was a complete waste of time.
On the other hand, taking chemistry was useful in helping build my character, just like being in the Boy Scouts and the marching band. It kind of reminds me of Robert Benchley's quote on dog ownership:
A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down.
Remember the bad old days, when police inconvenienced you with long stops while they wrote you a ticket just when you most urgently needed to get somewhere?
Eliminating roadside stops would be a bad idea. I'm pretty sure that spending 15-20 minutes on the side of the road when one is in a hurry is yet another disincentive for speeding. Sure, a hundred bucks for the ticket and an increase in insurance are disincentives, too, but there are plenty of people out there who would blow these things off but be incensed by a delay.
In the U.S. you are required to go a minimum speed on most highways (baring traffic). Even if bikers and horse and buggies were allowed on, they wouldn't be able to get to and maintain the minimum speed limits.
Minimum speed limits that I have been aware of have principally been on interstates and other limited-access highways. Most streets and highways in the states I have experience with (SC, NC, VA, MD, DE, PA, & VT) have no minimum speed. Horses and buggies are regularly used on highways by Amish and Mennonites in parts of PA, MD, DE, and VA, and farm equipment is allowed on normal highways/roads/streets in all of these. You may as well accept that you're going to encounter people who are going slower than you. It would be a lot less stressful.
I assume it must be possible. Or does traffic move at 5-6 miles per hour the entire weekend?
The reason we don't have much specialized bicycling lanes and the like is.....bicycling is recreational, you generally drive a car for business (serious transportation, hauling things, going to / from work, shopping, etc).
I ride my bicycle to work and for light shopping as well as for pleasure, and in the D.C. area, approximately 1% of commuters get to their jobs by bike. It's just a sliver, of course, but every little bit helps reduce congestion and improve air quality. There seems to be a fallacy in your reasoning, though, in that you seem to suggest that my purpose for being on a road matters.
With respect to building bicycle lanes -- I don't believe we need dedicated bike lanes on all roads. If the road carries enough traffic that bicycles represent an impediment, then build the curb lane wide enough to allow trucks to safely pass bicycles, or include a smooth paved shoulder in the design. In addition to facilitating traffic flow, it will also make the road safer, in case a driver should stray off the road. Either way, it's a small amount of pavement compared to the entire project. And if the amount of traffic doesn't justify such a width, then there's no need to build it; overtaking vehicles can slow down and wait a few seconds until they can safely pass.
It's reasonably safe to share the road when everyone exercises a little respect for others. I've only had one minor motor vehicle collision in 36 years of adult cycling -- one that would have happened even if I had been riding in a crosswalk from a bike path. When I've tallied up the experience of people I know in my bike club, bike-car accidents have been much rarer than bike-bike or single bike accidents; I think it's something like three fatalities among 2,000 people over the course of 30 years. I can live with odds like that.
The roads were made for cars and truck to ride on not bikes. How many cyclists do you see on an major interstate? How many roads have a 5-6 inch shoulder? Many by me where is the room that a cyclist can ride? It is not there.
Cyclists don't ride on the interstate because it's not allowed, but they would be plenty safe there. Interstates have wide lanes and decent shoulders, and there aren't distractions like driveways, side streets, and unnecessary signage. That other roads weren't designed to accomodate motor vehicles and cyclists is a failure of policy. Legally, cyclists have a right to be there, as does a guy with a horse and buggy or someone driving a backhoe or tractor. And if everyone involved exercises some responsibility and due care, the road can be shared just fine by everyone.
Share the road with a cyclist? Sharing goes both ways. I have seen too many cyclists make turns that cross traffic without using any kind of signal. They ride in the lane forcing cars to pile up behind them. I do mean the middle of the lane, not the side. They ignore traffic sign and lights. They ride up between cars stopped at a light then cross against the red light. This is the DC area. There are bike paths here.
I agree with you, there are jerks on bikes, and I won't attempt to excuse their behavior. It's interesting to see, though, that cyclists are just doing the same thing that motorists do. I keep in my Blackberry a copy of an AT&T Worldnet poll from 10 years ago that asked "What motor vehicle violation do you commit most often without being caught?" Five percent of the people admitted to "rolling stop at stop signs", and 57% admitted to "speeding 1-10 mph over the limit". I'd say that both motorists and cyclists make no bones about what they regard as insignificant violations of the law; they figure they're not likely to hurt anyone. And one more thing from that poll was that only 11% of respondents selected "None".
One more thing that may be useful for you to know is that in some cases, it is safest for a bicyclist to ride in the center of the lane. If the lane isn't wide enough for motor vehicles to safely pass the bicycle, the cyclist should "take the lane" for his own safety. This maneuver is expressly allowed under Code of Virginia section 46.2-905. So please don't begrudge the cyclist his place on the road -- direct your complaints to the legislators who don't build the road wide enough for the traffic it's intended to support.
Cycling will never become mainstream while helmet laws are enforced. In none of the countries where cycling is common it is required to where helmets and in every country where helmets are mandatory, cycling isn't very popular.
From what I've seen, bike helmet laws aren't ever enforced, anyway. Virginia has a law allowing localities to enact helmet laws for sub-16-year-olds, and my county has one, but I see more kids without helmets than with them. Unfortunately, the state law also says that failure to wear a helmet can't be treated as contributory negligence, so if I hit one of these kids, my liability may go up because of the parents' failure to police their kids. It basically boils down to statutory parental advice, which is a waste, in my opinion. They could devote an entire section of the Code of Virginia to parental advice and still be incomplete.
So lose the helmets and learn to drive. It's the only way.
As a long-time cycling enthusiast, I'm mostly convinced that helmets are worthwhile, since in addition to reducing head injury in severe crashes, they can also prevent a minor fall from resulting in an expensive emergency room visit. On the other hand, I'll also say that you're right, driving a bicycle correctly is the bigger factor. I seem to end up on the pavement every couple of years or so, but it's been stuff that had nothing to do with other vehicles (apart from the time I overlapped my daughter's bike wheel). My first collision with a motor vehicle was last year, after more than 60,000 miles of riding. I attribute this to following the rules of the road -- on the road -- and people I know who use sidepaths have a much worse record. Whether one wears a helmet or not, acting like the rest of the vehicles on the road does the most to promote survival. It's called responsibility.
This is what they told us when we looked at the Leaf a year or two ago. Considering that most preventive maintenance consists of oil changes and replacing various filters, it seems credible. FWIW, my previous two motor vehicles got along fine over the course of 13 years and 120,000 miles each without replacing brake fluid, and one of them, a Ford minivan, got its first replacement set of brake pads at something like 80,000 miles. I believe also that my first new car, bought in 1982, lasted me 8 years and 100,000 miles without replacing the brake fluid. Replacement brake pads, by the way, have never shown up as a maintenance item in any owner's manual I've ever seen; they've been lumped in with other unscheduled repairs like mufflers, radiators, etc.
The thing I look forward to about an electric car, when we get around to it, is not having to deal with oil changes, mufflers, and radiators.
Thanks for the correction. Forty miles is still a bit short, but it beats heck out of 15.
If you Google for "anti-semitic elmo new york", you'll find that his first "arrest" was being taken for a mental evaluation, and the recent one was for disorderly conduct. You may also find that he is probably not the kind of guy you want walking around hugging kids, which he seems to do when he isn't going off on Jews: Beneath a Ranting Elmo’s Mask, a Man With a Disturbing Past
In the U.S., we put up with a lot. Life of Brian evoked lots of protests from Christians when it opened in theaters 30+ years ago, but it was still available to be seen in theaters even in the Bible Belt. The court allowed Nazis to parade in Skokie, IL, a city with a high population of Jews. (I am Jewish, but I support that court decision.)
From time to time, you'll see incidents in which someone suffers some kind of oppression for expressing unpopular views related to religion, but nearly always, if the oppressor is an agent of the government and the matter goes to court, freedom of speech prevails. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Today's plug-in hybrids are crap. The plug-in Prius goes about 15 miles before it has to use the engine, and the Volt does about the same. I'm not sure I'd want to deal with the hassle of storing the power cable each morning just to save half-gallon of gas (assuming I had a conventional car that gets 30 mpg). I believe that both vehicles are designed to sell plug-in capability as a sort of environmental gloss, the way ethanol/gasoline vehicles were built a few years ago with tiny ethanol tanks so people could have "flex-fuel" vehicles back when ethanol was believed to be a good, environment-friendly fuel source.
Current all-electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf and the Mitsubishi MiEV make ideal second cars for a two-car household like mine. Plenty of people drive less than 60 miles in a typical day, and both vehicles fill the bill. They do this without the extra complexity introduced by having a gasoline engine and an electric motor. (Maintenance on the Leaf consists of rotating the tires periodically and changing the brake fluid at 100,000 miles.) One major problem is that their expense front-loads the cost, and one doesn't see any cost savings until the vehicle is near the end of its life. The last time I checked, neither manufacturer was providing a price for replacement batteries, which are needed to turn the cars into real money-savers.
Do you mean to tell me I killed Fluffy for nothing???
Sadly in Virginia detention for mental instability is legal. Here's another commenter who understands it better than me.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3061057&cid=41063339
But you're right in that the law probably should be changed.
I'm not so sure. In the U.S., we've just had a rash of cases in which some nut job goes off and starts killing people, and Virginia is one of those places where guns are easy to obtain. In fact, since the Virginia Tech shootings, gun laws have been loosened. This guy sounds like he'd be using edged weaponry instead of firearms, but I still believe evaluation is in order.
2. Whose lifetime? The service's, i.e. no shorter than its lifetime.
What they said was
As long as we exist.
The thing is, even though TextDrive, Inc. no longer exists, "three products in our family" and including two products other than TextDrive makes the offer explicitly from the parent company Joyent, Inc. The same company which still hosts the article author's site.
I am not a lawyer, but I've seen/signed more than one contract in which there was language about "successors and assigns", etc., mainly to make sure that if the company I'm dealing with is acquired, I still have to pay money to the purchaser.
The terms of service include an arbitration agreement. If I were this guy, I'd at least give heavy consideration to filing a case with the arbitration agency.
After hurricane Hugo hit, my dad looked at the mess of fallen trees and then headed to the first working pay phone he could find, where he ordered a chainsaw from Sears, thereby bypassing depleted inventory and exploitive prices. These days, with internet ordering, communications is pretty important. It's how we got our generator after the derecho a month or so ago. (Although we used a store's free wifi and not an ad-hoc mesh network.) There sure as heck weren't any to be had locally.
This could be useful in Syria, which currently seems to be inhabited by zombies.
Google Fiber
Not to mention their great education system:
Kansas State Board Votes to Teach Intelligent Design in Schools
I'll tell you some other things Starbucks provides their customers that keeps them (well, me, at least) coming back. They manage to provide some of the feel of a European cafe, in which I have no qualms about ordering just a cup of coffee and sitting in an actual chair for a while to read or converse with a companion. The people who work there actually interact with the customer and care about getting the order right. After a few visits, they acknowledge that they know you are a repeat customer, and after a bit more, they may even prepare your "usual".
This isn't to say I believe Starbucks is the end-all or be-all. I still much prefer independent coffee shops, and I delight everytime I find one; however, the fact is that before Starbucks entered my market (D.C. suburbs) 20 years ago, there was nothing like it around here. I would even venture to say that the suburban independents who have gone into the same service model wouldn't have dared doing so if they hadn't seen Starbucks succeed at it.
To return to the original topic, though, I don't believe I'd like being identified by this new payment system. I hate faux familiarity, and I hate being tracked by my phone.
The punch line is in TFA (emphasis added):
Birss said in his July 9 ruling that Samsung’s tablets were unlikely to be confused with the iPad because they are “not as cool.” He declined today to grant Samsung’s bid for an injunction blocking Apple from making public statements that the Galaxy infringed its design rights.
“They are entitled to their opinion,” he said.
It looks like they have to run the ads, but they can still say Samsung copied them.
However, once this incident becomes more widely known in french-language blogs and media, it'll quickly attract a lot of attention and will probably elicit an official (outraged) reaction of McDonald's France, and maybe cause a few interviews of politicians trying to look like they're concerned. That's how it works here.
Unfortunately, that is often how it works in the U.S. as well.