You're wrong. The Eastern Orthodox Church, The Catholic Church, The Coptic Church, The Anglican Church, many Protestant churches, and many that I've probably forgotten about are in "communion", they accept the basic validity of each other and don't preach that the others are all going to hell. This general consensus makes up the "universal catholic church".
There's a difference between inter-church respect and inter-church acceptance. To my knowledge, the Catholic church isn't in FULL communion with any non-Catholic church for the simple reason that non-Catholic churches don't consider the Pope to be the only true apostolic teacher. No, they probably don't blatantly say "They're all going to hell!" anymore, but prior to the second council they certainly did (witness Pius XI fighting freedom of religion tooth and nail in the late 1800s.) I am not an expert on the second council, but from what I've read it seems to be more of a PR move than anything else--the church didn't turn around and say "All Christians are created equal!" so much as say "ok, we share this stuff in common, let's start talking to each other and try to be constructive and stuff." Their desire to be friendly in no way indicates an acceptance of other church's teachings beyond the basics, NOR HAVE THEY EVER SAID THAT THOSE BASICS ARE SUFFICIENT FOR SALVATION.
I direct your attention to the fact that the Catholic church (and Eastern Orthodox, and probably the others as well) still use excommunications. Guess what that word means? "Out of communion." Given that many protestant churches have beliefs and practices that would qualify one for automatic excommunication in a Catholic church, I think this is clear evidence that the Catholic church doesn't condone their beliefs.
And what about Protestant rejection of the Catholics? If you don't believe that large numbers of Protestants reject the Catholic church... well, you haven't met very many Southern Baptists, then. (Wikipedia: "The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Baptist group in the world and the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, claiming more than 16.3 million members, and is the second largest religious group in the United States.")
Regardless of the importance you (and many others, I admit) place on the Nicene Creed, whether Jesus is exactly the same as God or was merely created by God or somehow ascended to God is really a minor issue compared to whether or not you believe in (for example) glossolalia or laying-of-hands healing or polytheism (saints) or the morality of sex (and abortion.) As a non-Christian, I find that the trinity arguments are pretty asinine--like arguing whether God's powers are magical or psionic (e.g. using the Dungeons & Dragons definitions) in nature. Who cares? Who the hell even knows what it means to be both divine and human? Why does the Holy Spirit have to be some separate entity from God? Who's arrogant enough to claim to understand God's internal workings, powers, and relationships?
Who the hell got thrown out of office for saying that? Saying that Israel doesn't have the right to exist is much more likely to get you in trouble--I know because I said something similar a few times and my coworkers got all uptight about it (well, I didn't say they didn't have the RIGHT to exist so much as it was a stupid stupid STUPID place to start a new country, and we shouldn't have been involved in protecting them from their own stupidity, ESPECIALLY if that meant pissing off a bunch of Muslim radical nutjobs. I compare to someone founding a nation in Antartica, and then complaining when their balls freeze off. Well yeah, that sucks, it's not fair, but just how is that MY problem?)
Global warming is caused by nature
Politicians say that all the time. They're called "Republicans"--or, more properly, "oil industry shills." I've had plenty of friends and coworkers who believe it, too, despite the fact that the vast majority of evidence points to a human cause. But even though it's bullshit, no one gets in trouble for saying this.
Clinton was a dope smoking, womanizing, draft dodging President
You see, this statement it and of itself doesn't annoy people so much in itself as the implications that:
1. Adolescent dope experimentation (which, for the uneducated among us, is a NON-ADDICTIVE DRUG ("psychological addition" DOESN'T count--by that definition, TV is FAR more addictive) WITH *ZERO* POSSIBILITY FOR LETHAL OVERDOSE--the same CANNOT be said of tobacco or alcohol) has ANYTHING to do with being president several decades later. Oh yeah, and the implication that this is somehow worse than George W. Bush's drunk driving and cocaine habit.
2. That sexual activies (moral or otherwise) have anything to do with running a nation.
3. That dodging the Vietnam war was somehow immoral (hint: it was a fucked up war, and I sure as hell wouldn't have gone) and that our current president somehow WASN'T just as big of a coward when it came to real service.
I don't have a problem with people calling Clinton those things--I just have a problem with people saying that they made him a bad president, *especially* in light of our current commander-in-chief. When Clinton lied, no one died.
That said, I've yet to see anyone get fired or "run out of office" for badmouthing him.
Agreed wholeheartedly on the niggardly fiasco--what a horribly vivid portrait that episode painted of just how far out of hand political correctness has gone--now even IGNORANCE is protected. Similar situation with the expression "tar baby"--it has absolutely no racial connotations, but (apparently because tar is black) some people THINK it does, so it has become taboo.
I have no love for non-progressive Islamic culture, either, and I think it's bullshit that we give countries like Saudi Arabia (which is MUCH worse than Iraq and Iran ever were) a free ride. But hey, the longer uber-conservative asshats like yourself (btw, I'm a fiscal conversative myself... yes, it IS possible to believe in a smaller government--including less social spending--WITHOUT pushing anti-environmental/pro-Christianity/pro-war crap) continue to deny human-caused global warming, the more people are going to drag their feet on developing oil alternatives which means--you guessed it!--we're going to continue being Saudi bitches for many years (perhaps decades) to come.
But nevermind me--why don't you go back to your fantasy world where common conservative ideology is persecuted throughout America. Those of us here in the real world know that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Um, out of curiosity, where exactly did you get the term "Univeral Catholic Church" from? According to the Roman Catholics, all followers of the Eastern Orthodox and Protestants are going to hell (and more than a few Protestants believe that Catholics are going to hell) so I don't see the point of grouping them together in one overarching label. You claim that the Mormons don't believe in a trinity, but I don't think it matters much--a great many Protestants don't believe in a trinity, either. (Many I've met view the "Holy Spirit" concept as a Catholic invention.) The Arians (no, not the *Aryans*) rejected the Nicene creed even more strongly, but they are still widely referred to as "Christians."
Regardless of their stance on the trinity, I do know that Mormons accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior (and they do not venerate Joseph Smith above him) and they apparently use the King James bible because they are one of the only groups I could find that were actually giving them away for free (the rest of the "free Bible!" offers are for some other "modern" translation, often with sprawling notes to help 'clarify' what certain passages mean.)
I question your metric. You lump together groups that vehemently deny each others' validity and righteousness and use their common ground to exclude Mormonism. You might as well lump Catholicism together with Hinduism--hell, they're both Polytheistic (saints=thinly veiled lesser gods.) And if it's the Book of Mormon that gives you trouble, well, the Catholics have additional books not found anywhere in the KJV, too. I'm not the slightest bit biased--I'm an atheist myself, I think that Joseph Smith was a painfully obvious fraud, and the anti-drug crap is pretty stale--but your criteria, your line in the sand for Christianity is rather weak.
Actually, I just checked wikipedia and their number 1 belief is listed as "We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in his son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." So how exactly do you believe they violate the Nicene Creed? A cursory glance reveals nothing that damns the possibility of future prophets or testaments.
Um, no. Even if I had never see ATHF before in my entire life, it would be abundently clear to me that I was looking at a stylized anthropomorphic character of some sort. Feet, eyes, angry-looking eyebrows, hands and the middle finger are all immediately apparent.
A well-composed reply, but I still think that you gloss over porn a little too easily. There are still a LOT of people in this country that could have their lives ruined if it were ever revealed that they watched porn. Just because it's legal and (in our eyes, at least) tame, softcore and mainstream doesn't mean it can't destroy careers or marriages.
For a year I worked at a school for kids with special needs, alongside uber-Christian coworkers and under an uber-Christian boss (though this was actually a public school, and was therefore ostensibly religion-free), and my chances of advancement were absolutely DEVASTATED because I occasionally wore a plain, tame Metallica T-Shirt (this is back before they completely sold out, heh), I had long hair, I was observed reading Lovecraft on my breaks and I may have mentioned once or twice that I played D&D. It didn't even OCCUR to me that this would be a problem, but eventually one of my coworkers took me aside and told me that she had overheard 2 or 3 of our coworkers (people working in different classrooms, but whom we briefly interacted with) talking about how I was wearing that stupid Metallica shirt and how Metallica was a Satanic band. I had always noticed that they (the coworkers I did not interact with constantly) were always pretty standoffish around me, and now I knew why--they were ignorant dipshits. After that, I watched as FOUR people were promoted ahead of me, all of whom started working AFTER I did, despite the fact that my coworkers (the 2 or 3 people who directly worked with me every day, not the others who were spreading BS) and parents had nothing but praise for my work. I quit shortly thereafter, but I had to take a job at fucking McDonald's (I shit you not) for 5 months to make ends meet until I managed to land a better job.
Now, let's say that TiVo allowed people to retrieve their personal viewing history without any verification of identity. Well, given the sex-offender hysteria that runs rampant in this industry (care of children/the mentally disabled), I wouldn't be surprised at all if they flat out turned down any job applicant who was a confirmed porn-watcher. They'd cite some bullshit statistics to support their policy, or if the courts ruled against the practice they'd just do it anyway on their own time (because fundamentalist Christians LOVE to pry and gossip about the heretics in their midst.) I don't care if that sounds paranoid; it's the TRUTH. Even if there was a "join the KKK!" show, I doubt it would incur their wrath a tenth as much as porn-watching would.
Oh yeah, one time I actually complained to a coworker about my nonexistent promotion. Do you want to know what she said? The ONLY thing she said?
"Have you prayed about it?"
Subtle. Reeeeeeeal subtle.
Regardless of my views on the topic, if there are people out there that feel truly violated by this there is one, simple, PERFECT soloution : uninstall the TiVo box from your Television, and cancel service.
When it comes to the anonymous statistics, I agree. When it comes to the (hypothetical) release of personally-identifiable info, I disagree in the strongest possible terms. I don't think that society loses much at all if such privacy was legally enforced, and it stands much to gain. At one point in my life, the libertarian-inclined side of me would've wailed about pointless laws, but you just can't understand it unless you've had to work amongst vindictive prudes.
I respect your technical arguments, and to a point is it my responsibility to recognize and accept (or reject) the use of insecure content and communication. But I don't think that caveat emptor is the sane answer--not in this, the age of data, the age of the database, the age when you can type my (pretty uncommon) name into Google and get back stuff I naively wrote when I was 14 years old. I'm not arguing that we need legislation to protect us from stupidity or naivety--just to protect our privacy, our s
Personally I don't care if TiVo (or DirecTV) collect viewing habits, as long as they remain anonymous. I just don't think it's accurate at all.
Errr, what makes you say that? You don't think your TiVo can tell the difference between recording something and playing it back? You don't think that their collected data reflects this difference?
While I agree that there's no big threat from the statistical (as opposed to personally identifiable) data Tivo is collecting, I do think that it's important to protect privacy, both on the internet and in regards to our cable viewing habits. You lampoon the tin-foil-hat-wearers of the world with your Raven ravings, but that's pretty lame--instead of choosing a deliberately innocuous show for your example, why not say you like watching porn? My satellite provider offers many dozens of porn-only channels, and I've worked for VERY puritan bosses, and (given that I've worked with children, the mentally handicapped, and the elderly) they absolutely would have fired me if they had found out about my viewing habits. (Laugh if you will, but after a year I was pretty much pushed out of that job because my boss found out that I played D&D and listened to Metallica--both of which she considered Satanic.)
In all seriousness, though - I just assume that every bit of data that enters or exits my house is public knowledge. That's why I don't say things on the Internet I wouldn't take out an ad and say in a Newspaper for the world to see - I'm not paranoid and actually think anyone is actively looking, but I just find it good policy. It lets me live my life rather worry-free that something will ever "come back to haunt me".
Good for you. However, some of us do enjoy watching things more titillating than Raven. Some of us actually desire to exercise our freedom of speech. It's a risk we choose freely, of course, but that doesn't mean that we've sacrificed our right to privacy (and yes, I did say our RIGHT. The constitution does NOT grant our freedoms--it merely enumerates a few specific freedoms recognized to our founding fathers as universal to all mankind. Privacy was not specifically mentioned, yet it has been protected nonetheless by the courts as a fundamental right.)
I'm not arguing that TiVo's actions have (yet) in any way endangered this privacy, BUT... I do find it disturbing when people say "So what! Let them rummage through my viewing habits/my emails/my nightstand drawer! I have nothing to hide!" It is precisely because you have nothing to hide that you should be indignant about invasions of privacy--if no one has any reason to suspect you've done anything wrong (i.e. reason enough to get a search warrant), they have no business nosing around in your personal life. Even if you NEVER plan on using your own personal right to privacy, you might at least defend it on principle--for the rest of us.
I thought that the puritanical "long haired hippy freaks" nonsense was long gone--I thought that it was possible to listen to relatively tame metal bands like Metallica, play D&D, read Lovecraft, and keep your hair long without being treated like a pariah. But you know what? I was wrong. There are still PLENTY of ignorant, control-freak assholes out there who cannot tell the difference between "individuality" and "Satanism".
Mmm... the old 'nature v. nurture' argument. A fine example of futility at its best.
...except this isn't a nature vs. nurture debate. This is a debate about whether stupidity is heritable (in the sense that parents pass it on to their offspring, though not necessarily through genes alone.) Hasmael strongly implied that environmental factors ("nurture") aren't heritable--I'm saying that they are very much are. Whether stupidity comes more from nature or nurture is simply irrelevant if both are highly heritable.
I was simply saying that monetary and social standing was very inheritable, since the OP strongly implied that it was not. However, I do think that money does play a large part in genius. It's not necessarily that money makes you smarter; the thing is, money lets a smart person do smart, interesting things. Imagine that you have a nice, low-stress, white-collar job, and your family has enough money that you could survive just fine even if you quit tomorrow, and (due to your expensive education and social standing) businessmen and scholars will pay attention to you. Now imagine living in a piece of shit rented house, in the crackhead part of town, working (if you're lucky) for maybe a buck or two above minimum wage, with perhaps a couple thousand dollars' worth of property to your name. Some VERY rare people have the intelligence AND the incredible tenacity to push through and overcome such handicaps, but (unfortunately) not every genius is born with an unbreakable iron will.
The point is not that money endows genius; it enables genius to shine. The genius who works at McDonalds and goes home every night, dreams big but ultimately fails to achieve anything and drowns his sorrows in booze will likely never be recognized as a genius.
That said, rich kids are probably more likely to get a better early childhood education, a better diet, better medical care, etc. Rich parents are also better able to take off work to spend more time with their kids (whether they actually are more likely to do so, I couldn't say.) There is solid evidence that early childhood environment can affect intelligence. You might question the validity of these tests (I'm not a huge fan of IQ myself), but I would argue that at the very least it can affect *expressed* intelligence and in the end, the world only cares about what you do with your intellect, not what you could do if you really tried.
Even if natural selection would step in hard at that point and we'd be left with only with 1 billion people, all well-educated, what would THEY do all day? I mean, can you imagine 1 billion well-educated people working on innovations or being "artists"? Soon enough there would be little left to invent, or at least not enough to keep 1 billion people occupied, and then what? Spread out across the universe and colonize other planets? Sure, but seeing as everybody would ofcourse take all the knowledge with them there'd be nothing "real" to do on those planets as well, apart from just living..... So, we'd have 1 billion people, of which 99.99% have nothing to do, except to just try and enjoy themselves. My guess is most of them would get really bored really fast...
Errr, what the hell are you arguing? Seriously, I can't figure it out. That there's a finite limit to our intellectual pursuits and/or technological achievements? That existence itself is pointless? That smart people don't know how to have fun?
Society as a whole will always figure out something to itself occupied. Individuals that don't see the point anymore will inevitably withdraw from society and/or commit suicide--either way, removing themselves from the gene pool--leaving only those individuals who are able and willing to find a purpose. I don't see how intelligence or lack thereof has anything to do with it.
Intelligence (or the develoment of) could be more related to social or monetary issues.
Ah, but rich parents typically bear rich kids (trust funds, inheritance, better opportunities, better educations leading to better paying jobs, etc.) and poor parents typically do not offspring that go on to make millions. Rags to riches (or riches to rags) *can* happen, but neither is commonplace. Similarly, kids do tend to reflect their parents' religion, social standing, morality, etc.
Don't assume that enviromental variables aren't inheritable. In most cases, I don't think that genetic predisposition can hold a candle to environmental predisposition. If Einstein was born to a family living in the slums (instead of an upper-middle class family), do you think he would have still come up Special Relativity? How nice it would be to pretend that he would; yet, it would be utterly naive to suppose that even an individual of Einstein's calibur could have completely overcome his environment, somehow educated himself, and then somehow pursued the academic community to listen to these crackpot "time dilation" theories coming from a man who could not afford a decent suit, let alone college.
The original post said it would cost the end-user $60 aation, it's not too far off the mark for some of them.
n hour for the support call. If you've ever called any of the big support lines, you'll know that while that might be a slight exager
Err... what? Could you please define "big support lines"? I've never used a support line that actually charged me. I'm sure that they exist and that many businesses have used them, but I don't think your average joe does (he's saving his money for the aforementioned 1-900 psychic!) and I think that boot camp is much more likely to see usage by individuals than businesses. The OP said this:
If they are going to release it as a full retail release with documentation and actual support, then by all means put a price tag on it. It will only take one half hour phone call to support to burn through the $30 retail price
I assumed that the "actual support" mentioned in the first sentence and the "one half hour phone call to support" was referring to the same thing--Apple's technical support, presumably free to all paid customers. "Burning through the $30 retail price" refers to Apple's cost, not the customer's.
No one said it would cost Apple $60 an hour.
Regardless as to whether the OP meant what you think he meant or what I think he meant, both an anonymous coward and "curious.corn" apparently DO think that it would cost Apple in the vicinity of $60/hour.
I didn't think I needed to spell it out so painstakingly. Ok, I'm not saying it's not expensive in absolute terms--I'm saying that, when operated on a LARGE SCALE, the actual cost per call is fairly trivial.
The costs of electricity, rent, insurance, your phone system, etc. do NOT grow proportionally with the number of calls received. (You can get a crappy building in a crappy part of town for cheap that has TONS of floorspace. And yes, the script-reading drones WILL be working in a crappy building, not a nice corporate building.) The number of truly knowledgable staff on hand doesn't increase linearly, either (because the number of calls that actually require someone knowledgable will always been the minority, and there's never a need to keep more than a handful of such experts on hand. In any case, it's a trivial expense.) The number of managers can stay roughly constant--I've known a couple people who've work at call centers and their bosses had literally HUNDREDS of people reporting to them.
Do you see what I'm getting at here?
The ONLY thing that increases roughly linearly, as your number of calls received increases, is the number of tech support drones, and if they're VERY lucky they might make in the vicinity of $15/hour (the people I know have made $6-$10/hour.) Everything else is more of an upfront cost than a proportional cost, and if you have a very large call center handling tens of thousands of calls every day, those costs become (for our purposes here) irrelevant.
Not to mention:
1. Almost no one spends a full half an hour actually TALKING to tech support(like the ggp said.) MUCH more likely, 25 minutes of those minutes are spent on hold and
2. MANY call centers are outsourced. In recent years, it seems to me that MOST are. Does anyone want to comment as to whether or not Apple's call centers are outsourced? If they are, you can bet your ass that their costs aren't even remotely near $60/hour.
Even if they don't outsource, they can still contract. If Apple doesn't have enough customers to make it worth their while building their own call center (due to the aforementioned upfront costs), they can contract out another company (which presumably DOES have the infrastructure already in place) to do it for them. I'm sure it happens all the time...
3. Many places don't give a shit if you get a busy signal or are randomly disconnected or are placed on hold for a half an hour before ever speaking to a human being. Granted, this (hopefully) isn't true of a company of Apple's calibur, but when talking about tech support call centers in general I think it's safe to say that many (most?) small-to-medium sized companies cut corners like crazy.
So, in conclusion:
a) Apple is a big enough company that their upfront call center costs shouldn't be hugely significant when talking about per-call costs.
b) VERY few Boot Camp customers will ever require a 30 minute (as in, 30 minutes of constant communication with a human being, omitting time spent on hold) tech support phone call. Weird, arcane errors can happen, but COME ON. It's_a_bootloader. The OP claimed that a single 30-minute support call would cost Apple the price of the software--it's worthwhile pointing out that there are very few Boot Camp customers who are actually going to consume 30 minutes' worth of tech support time.
c) The basic infrastructure costs of a large call center remains *relatively* constant--the main thing is adding new script drones. (This is ESPECIALLY true of a consumer product company like Apple, where they are routinely inundated with trivial questions from the ignorant masses. This isn't mean as an insult to Apple; just that consumers in general are less educated about their purchases than companies.)
d) If Apple's tech support call centers are even partially outsourced, then they're saving MASSIVE amounts of money by employing VERY cheap (e.g. Indian) script drones.
It will only take one half hour phone call to support to burn through the $30 retail price, and in the scope of things the price vs additional functionality you will get from a Mac is a mind bending proposition.
Even if their phone tech support isn't outsourced, what on EARTH makes you think that your average bottom-tier, script-reading support dude makes $60/hour?
Oh, and this is coming from someone who is a fiscal conservative, and is a social conservative on several issues (gun control, abortion, affirmative action.)
What Blizzard got right with Starcraft was BALANCE. Nearly all RTSes released before (and since, even) have had factions with generally the same units, a few faction-specific units, and a few faction-specific powers/traits. The Starcraft races were designed from the ground up to be DIFFERENT. For example:
Hit point regeneration? Terrans could repair using SCVs. (If using multiple SCVs, a unit could be brought to full health VERY quickly.) Their biological units were SOL until Brood War came out, which gave medics a healing power.
Zerg slowly regenerated HP over time until they reached full health.
Protoss had shields that regenerated quickly (and could be recharged via a special structure), but no way to repair mechanical units or heal biologicals (unless they managed to cast mind control on a Terran medic.)
Stealth? A few Terran units had the option to cloak for a limited time (it drained energy.)
Zerg (ground) units had the ability to burrow indefinitely, though only one had the ability to attack while burrowed and none had the ability to move while burrowed. A few Protoss units were cloaked, and the arbiter automatically cloaked any nearby Protoss unit. Protoss cloaking was always free, permanent (unless an arbiter is destroyed), and did not affect movement or attack abilities.
Peons? Terrans had SCVs. They were the quickest resource gatherers and the best fighters. It took time for them to build structures.
Protoss had probes. They could build structures like crazy (summoning took time, but the probe only required a fraction of a second to start the process.)
Zerg had drones. They were physically transformed into structures, destroying them in the process.
Uber-attack unit? Terran had battle cruisers (flying). Good overall performance; able to respond to threats quickly (including scourge), special Yamatto cannon to take out powerful units or structures from afar. Slow movement.
Zerg had the Ultralisk and (to a lesser extent) the guardian (flying.) The Ultralisk was the strongest, toughest ground unit in the game, but couldn't attack air units. The guardian had great range, but was similarly limited to ground targets.
Protoss had the carrier (flying). FANTASTIC damage potential, but they were very slow to build and (unlike battle cruisers) could not respond to threats (like the scourge) quickly.
You get the idea. The point is, there was not a SINGLE unit that the three factions shared in common--not even a single unit or power that was truly similar (reaver vs. a siege tank, for instance--superficially similar, but there are SO many differences that their strategies are fundamentally different.) Yet, the three sides are (more or less) balanced. THAT was Blizzard's gift to the RTS world, and what a wondrous gift it was (from what I saw, Warcraft 3 pulled off the same magical balancing act--I just never really got into it. FYI, the RPG hero system was NOT revolutionary--the Warlords: Battlecry series did it three years earlier--arguably, they did it better.)
BUT... balance is not everything. Sadly, VERY sadly, the *craft series have always lagged far behind when it came to unit control. I am SO damn sick of having a unit run off on its own to take on an entire army by itself. What's the alternative? Why, you tell the unit to "hold position", which means it will stand perfectly still and do nothing while its buddies are slaughtered. In most other RTSes, it's as simple as putting a unit in "defensive" mode and your units will never do either of these idiotic behaviors. Formations aren't quite as important, but they're still pretty handy. There's also a behavior in Warcraft 3 that I found completely unacceptable--computer-controlled units would automatically target the units that had the least hit points, but YOUR units would have to be manually told to attack a certain unit. This I regard as "cheating", because it was completely impossible to keep up t
How is saying "Dude, this war was based on a LIE and it's costing us thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, and it's fueling Sunni/Shiite violence and American hatred." liberal? There's not a single liberal thing about that argument. Liberals want to spend MORE government money, not LESS.
Please do not substitute "liberal" for "democrat". Not every single little thing the democrats care about automatically become part of the "liberal agenda" and--though this may sound downright RADICAL--there are actually MORE THAN TWO POSSIBLE POLITICAL POSITIONS in the world.
Outside of Fox News, the only time you see a 'conservative talking head' is if they are a guest. CNN, MSNBC news, CBS, etc all lean to the left of American Politics.
Just because those stations aren't DELUSIONALLY, RABIDLY conservative (like Fox News) doesn't make them liberal. Criticizing Bush's invasion of Iraq, for example, is not "liberal", it's "sane." There's a difference.
I know some people in Europe, and they're all of the opinion that ALL of our news channels are quite right-leaning. Then again, you did specify "American Politics"...
So replace the kids in the example with 13 or 14 or 15 year olds. Technically, they can still be charged and convicted of "raping" each other, even if they're the exact same age.
There's a difference between something showing up on your background check (which usually costs money and--unless you have a very unique name--requires that your social security number be known) and someone preemptively notifying your neighbors. More than once a "sex offender"'s house has been burned down...
The problem is, sexual assault is not the worst thing in the world. A serial child killer who tortured every single child (in non-sexual ways) before killing them would, upon release, not be stuck with such a label and preemptive notification. A college student who got drunk and had sex in the bushes at a local park (after hours, when there weren't any kids around) WOULD be stuck with the "sex offender" label and preemptive notification (at least in some jurisdictions. There is a difference between "sex offender" and "sexual predator", but regardless, both are still subject to additional restrictions not faced by "conventional" criminals.) T
This might seem like an especially radical thing to say, but being raped is NOT the end of the world. It is completely possible to recover from being raped or molested and go on to live a happy life. However being murdered IS, by defintion, the end of (your) world.
I believe that the catch is, while it's technically not illegal for a minor to read Playboy, it's not legal to GIVE a minor a playboy ("corrupting a minor" or some such nonsense.) Even though the kid was a minor himself, it's still technically illegal for him to give the Playboy to another minor. Similarly, if two 16 year olds have sex, they can both be charged with statutory rape, though typically either they are only threatened with arrest, or only the boy is arrested.
Note that I'm not DEFENDING this bullshit--just explaining it.
And you're right; all the stupid talk about how we supposedly need 8 glasses of water a day makes it worse. I've had people tell me I should be drinking that much water, regardless of how much food or drink I take in. That figure doesn't take into account all the water in your food, for one thing...
Actually, there's no scientific evidence period that non-active people need to drink a set amount of water. The "eight 8-ounce glasses a day" myth is simply one of the most successful urban legends of all time.
Slashdot Mirror
You're wrong. The Eastern Orthodox Church, The Catholic Church, The Coptic Church, The Anglican Church, many Protestant churches, and many that I've probably forgotten about are in "communion", they accept the basic validity of each other and don't preach that the others are all going to hell. This general consensus makes up the "universal catholic church".
There's a difference between inter-church respect and inter-church acceptance. To my knowledge, the Catholic church isn't in FULL communion with any non-Catholic church for the simple reason that non-Catholic churches don't consider the Pope to be the only true apostolic teacher. No, they probably don't blatantly say "They're all going to hell!" anymore, but prior to the second council they certainly did (witness Pius XI fighting freedom of religion tooth and nail in the late 1800s.) I am not an expert on the second council, but from what I've read it seems to be more of a PR move than anything else--the church didn't turn around and say "All Christians are created equal!" so much as say "ok, we share this stuff in common, let's start talking to each other and try to be constructive and stuff." Their desire to be friendly in no way indicates an acceptance of other church's teachings beyond the basics, NOR HAVE THEY EVER SAID THAT THOSE BASICS ARE SUFFICIENT FOR SALVATION.
I direct your attention to the fact that the Catholic church (and Eastern Orthodox, and probably the others as well) still use excommunications. Guess what that word means? "Out of communion." Given that many protestant churches have beliefs and practices that would qualify one for automatic excommunication in a Catholic church, I think this is clear evidence that the Catholic church doesn't condone their beliefs.
And what about Protestant rejection of the Catholics? If you don't believe that large numbers of Protestants reject the Catholic church... well, you haven't met very many Southern Baptists, then. (Wikipedia: "The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Baptist group in the world and the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, claiming more than 16.3 million members, and is the second largest religious group in the United States.")
Regardless of the importance you (and many others, I admit) place on the Nicene Creed, whether Jesus is exactly the same as God or was merely created by God or somehow ascended to God is really a minor issue compared to whether or not you believe in (for example) glossolalia or laying-of-hands healing or polytheism (saints) or the morality of sex (and abortion.) As a non-Christian, I find that the trinity arguments are pretty asinine--like arguing whether God's powers are magical or psionic (e.g. using the Dungeons & Dragons definitions) in nature. Who cares? Who the hell even knows what it means to be both divine and human? Why does the Holy Spirit have to be some separate entity from God? Who's arrogant enough to claim to understand God's internal workings, powers, and relationships?
Oh...right. Christians. Nevermind...
Israel has a right to exist
Who the hell got thrown out of office for saying that? Saying that Israel doesn't have the right to exist is much more likely to get you in trouble--I know because I said something similar a few times and my coworkers got all uptight about it (well, I didn't say they didn't have the RIGHT to exist so much as it was a stupid stupid STUPID place to start a new country, and we shouldn't have been involved in protecting them from their own stupidity, ESPECIALLY if that meant pissing off a bunch of Muslim radical nutjobs. I compare to someone founding a nation in Antartica, and then complaining when their balls freeze off. Well yeah, that sucks, it's not fair, but just how is that MY problem?)
Global warming is caused by nature
Politicians say that all the time. They're called "Republicans"--or, more properly, "oil industry shills." I've had plenty of friends and coworkers who believe it, too, despite the fact that the vast majority of evidence points to a human cause. But even though it's bullshit, no one gets in trouble for saying this.
Clinton was a dope smoking, womanizing, draft dodging President
You see, this statement it and of itself doesn't annoy people so much in itself as the implications that:
1. Adolescent dope experimentation (which, for the uneducated among us, is a NON-ADDICTIVE DRUG ("psychological addition" DOESN'T count--by that definition, TV is FAR more addictive) WITH *ZERO* POSSIBILITY FOR LETHAL OVERDOSE--the same CANNOT be said of tobacco or alcohol) has ANYTHING to do with being president several decades later. Oh yeah, and the implication that this is somehow worse than George W. Bush's drunk driving and cocaine habit.
2. That sexual activies (moral or otherwise) have anything to do with running a nation.
3. That dodging the Vietnam war was somehow immoral (hint: it was a fucked up war, and I sure as hell wouldn't have gone) and that our current president somehow WASN'T just as big of a coward when it came to real service.
I don't have a problem with people calling Clinton those things--I just have a problem with people saying that they made him a bad president, *especially* in light of our current commander-in-chief. When Clinton lied, no one died.
That said, I've yet to see anyone get fired or "run out of office" for badmouthing him.
Agreed wholeheartedly on the niggardly fiasco--what a horribly vivid portrait that episode painted of just how far out of hand political correctness has gone--now even IGNORANCE is protected. Similar situation with the expression "tar baby"--it has absolutely no racial connotations, but (apparently because tar is black) some people THINK it does, so it has become taboo.
I have no love for non-progressive Islamic culture, either, and I think it's bullshit that we give countries like Saudi Arabia (which is MUCH worse than Iraq and Iran ever were) a free ride. But hey, the longer uber-conservative asshats like yourself (btw, I'm a fiscal conversative myself... yes, it IS possible to believe in a smaller government--including less social spending--WITHOUT pushing anti-environmental/pro-Christianity/pro-war crap) continue to deny human-caused global warming, the more people are going to drag their feet on developing oil alternatives which means--you guessed it!--we're going to continue being Saudi bitches for many years (perhaps decades) to come.
But nevermind me--why don't you go back to your fantasy world where common conservative ideology is persecuted throughout America. Those of us here in the real world know that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Um, out of curiosity, where exactly did you get the term "Univeral Catholic Church" from? According to the Roman Catholics, all followers of the Eastern Orthodox and Protestants are going to hell (and more than a few Protestants believe that Catholics are going to hell) so I don't see the point of grouping them together in one overarching label. You claim that the Mormons don't believe in a trinity, but I don't think it matters much--a great many Protestants don't believe in a trinity, either. (Many I've met view the "Holy Spirit" concept as a Catholic invention.) The Arians (no, not the *Aryans*) rejected the Nicene creed even more strongly, but they are still widely referred to as "Christians."
Regardless of their stance on the trinity, I do know that Mormons accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior (and they do not venerate Joseph Smith above him) and they apparently use the King James bible because they are one of the only groups I could find that were actually giving them away for free (the rest of the "free Bible!" offers are for some other "modern" translation, often with sprawling notes to help 'clarify' what certain passages mean.)
I question your metric. You lump together groups that vehemently deny each others' validity and righteousness and use their common ground to exclude Mormonism. You might as well lump Catholicism together with Hinduism--hell, they're both Polytheistic (saints=thinly veiled lesser gods.) And if it's the Book of Mormon that gives you trouble, well, the Catholics have additional books not found anywhere in the KJV, too. I'm not the slightest bit biased--I'm an atheist myself, I think that Joseph Smith was a painfully obvious fraud, and the anti-drug crap is pretty stale--but your criteria, your line in the sand for Christianity is rather weak.
Actually, I just checked wikipedia and their number 1 belief is listed as "We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in his son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." So how exactly do you believe they violate the Nicene Creed? A cursory glance reveals nothing that damns the possibility of future prophets or testaments.
Um, no. Even if I had never see ATHF before in my entire life, it would be abundently clear to me that I was looking at a stylized anthropomorphic character of some sort. Feet, eyes, angry-looking eyebrows, hands and the middle finger are all immediately apparent.
A well-composed reply, but I still think that you gloss over porn a little too easily. There are still a LOT of people in this country that could have their lives ruined if it were ever revealed that they watched porn. Just because it's legal and (in our eyes, at least) tame, softcore and mainstream doesn't mean it can't destroy careers or marriages.
For a year I worked at a school for kids with special needs, alongside uber-Christian coworkers and under an uber-Christian boss (though this was actually a public school, and was therefore ostensibly religion-free), and my chances of advancement were absolutely DEVASTATED because I occasionally wore a plain, tame Metallica T-Shirt (this is back before they completely sold out, heh), I had long hair, I was observed reading Lovecraft on my breaks and I may have mentioned once or twice that I played D&D. It didn't even OCCUR to me that this would be a problem, but eventually one of my coworkers took me aside and told me that she had overheard 2 or 3 of our coworkers (people working in different classrooms, but whom we briefly interacted with) talking about how I was wearing that stupid Metallica shirt and how Metallica was a Satanic band. I had always noticed that they (the coworkers I did not interact with constantly) were always pretty standoffish around me, and now I knew why--they were ignorant dipshits. After that, I watched as FOUR people were promoted ahead of me, all of whom started working AFTER I did, despite the fact that my coworkers (the 2 or 3 people who directly worked with me every day, not the others who were spreading BS) and parents had nothing but praise for my work. I quit shortly thereafter, but I had to take a job at fucking McDonald's (I shit you not) for 5 months to make ends meet until I managed to land a better job.
Now, let's say that TiVo allowed people to retrieve their personal viewing history without any verification of identity. Well, given the sex-offender hysteria that runs rampant in this industry (care of children/the mentally disabled), I wouldn't be surprised at all if they flat out turned down any job applicant who was a confirmed porn-watcher. They'd cite some bullshit statistics to support their policy, or if the courts ruled against the practice they'd just do it anyway on their own time (because fundamentalist Christians LOVE to pry and gossip about the heretics in their midst.) I don't care if that sounds paranoid; it's the TRUTH. Even if there was a "join the KKK!" show, I doubt it would incur their wrath a tenth as much as porn-watching would.
Oh yeah, one time I actually complained to a coworker about my nonexistent promotion. Do you want to know what she said? The ONLY thing she said?
"Have you prayed about it?"
Subtle. Reeeeeeeal subtle. Regardless of my views on the topic, if there are people out there that feel truly violated by this there is one, simple, PERFECT soloution : uninstall the TiVo box from your Television, and cancel service.
When it comes to the anonymous statistics, I agree. When it comes to the (hypothetical) release of personally-identifiable info, I disagree in the strongest possible terms. I don't think that society loses much at all if such privacy was legally enforced, and it stands much to gain. At one point in my life, the libertarian-inclined side of me would've wailed about pointless laws, but you just can't understand it unless you've had to work amongst vindictive prudes.
I respect your technical arguments, and to a point is it my responsibility to recognize and accept (or reject) the use of insecure content and communication. But I don't think that caveat emptor is the sane answer--not in this, the age of data, the age of the database, the age when you can type my (pretty uncommon) name into Google and get back stuff I naively wrote when I was 14 years old. I'm not arguing that we need legislation to protect us from stupidity or naivety--just to protect our privacy, our s
Personally I don't care if TiVo (or DirecTV) collect viewing habits, as long as they remain anonymous. I just don't think it's accurate at all.
Errr, what makes you say that? You don't think your TiVo can tell the difference between recording something and playing it back? You don't think that their collected data reflects this difference?
While I agree that there's no big threat from the statistical (as opposed to personally identifiable) data Tivo is collecting, I do think that it's important to protect privacy, both on the internet and in regards to our cable viewing habits. You lampoon the tin-foil-hat-wearers of the world with your Raven ravings, but that's pretty lame--instead of choosing a deliberately innocuous show for your example, why not say you like watching porn? My satellite provider offers many dozens of porn-only channels, and I've worked for VERY puritan bosses, and (given that I've worked with children, the mentally handicapped, and the elderly) they absolutely would have fired me if they had found out about my viewing habits. (Laugh if you will, but after a year I was pretty much pushed out of that job because my boss found out that I played D&D and listened to Metallica--both of which she considered Satanic.)
In all seriousness, though - I just assume that every bit of data that enters or exits my house is public knowledge. That's why I don't say things on the Internet I wouldn't take out an ad and say in a Newspaper for the world to see - I'm not paranoid and actually think anyone is actively looking, but I just find it good policy. It lets me live my life rather worry-free that something will ever "come back to haunt me".
Good for you. However, some of us do enjoy watching things more titillating than Raven. Some of us actually desire to exercise our freedom of speech. It's a risk we choose freely, of course, but that doesn't mean that we've sacrificed our right to privacy (and yes, I did say our RIGHT. The constitution does NOT grant our freedoms--it merely enumerates a few specific freedoms recognized to our founding fathers as universal to all mankind. Privacy was not specifically mentioned, yet it has been protected nonetheless by the courts as a fundamental right.)
I'm not arguing that TiVo's actions have (yet) in any way endangered this privacy, BUT... I do find it disturbing when people say "So what! Let them rummage through my viewing habits/my emails/my nightstand drawer! I have nothing to hide!" It is precisely because you have nothing to hide that you should be indignant about invasions of privacy--if no one has any reason to suspect you've done anything wrong (i.e. reason enough to get a search warrant), they have no business nosing around in your personal life. Even if you NEVER plan on using your own personal right to privacy, you might at least defend it on principle--for the rest of us.
I thought that the puritanical "long haired hippy freaks" nonsense was long gone--I thought that it was possible to listen to relatively tame metal bands like Metallica, play D&D, read Lovecraft, and keep your hair long without being treated like a pariah. But you know what? I was wrong. There are still PLENTY of ignorant, control-freak assholes out there who cannot tell the difference between "individuality" and "Satanism".
Mmm... the old 'nature v. nurture' argument. A fine example of futility at its best.
...except this isn't a nature vs. nurture debate. This is a debate about whether stupidity is heritable (in the sense that parents pass it on to their offspring, though not necessarily through genes alone.) Hasmael strongly implied that environmental factors ("nurture") aren't heritable--I'm saying that they are very much are. Whether stupidity comes more from nature or nurture is simply irrelevant if both are highly heritable.
I was simply saying that monetary and social standing was very inheritable, since the OP strongly implied that it was not. However, I do think that money does play a large part in genius. It's not necessarily that money makes you smarter; the thing is, money lets a smart person do smart, interesting things. Imagine that you have a nice, low-stress, white-collar job, and your family has enough money that you could survive just fine even if you quit tomorrow, and (due to your expensive education and social standing) businessmen and scholars will pay attention to you. Now imagine living in a piece of shit rented house, in the crackhead part of town, working (if you're lucky) for maybe a buck or two above minimum wage, with perhaps a couple thousand dollars' worth of property to your name. Some VERY rare people have the intelligence AND the incredible tenacity to push through and overcome such handicaps, but (unfortunately) not every genius is born with an unbreakable iron will.
The point is not that money endows genius; it enables genius to shine. The genius who works at McDonalds and goes home every night, dreams big but ultimately fails to achieve anything and drowns his sorrows in booze will likely never be recognized as a genius.
That said, rich kids are probably more likely to get a better early childhood education, a better diet, better medical care, etc. Rich parents are also better able to take off work to spend more time with their kids (whether they actually are more likely to do so, I couldn't say.) There is solid evidence that early childhood environment can affect intelligence. You might question the validity of these tests (I'm not a huge fan of IQ myself), but I would argue that at the very least it can affect *expressed* intelligence and in the end, the world only cares about what you do with your intellect, not what you could do if you really tried.
Society as a whole will always figure out something to itself occupied
Translation: It's 8 AM and I haven't slept yet.
Even if natural selection would step in hard at that point and we'd be left with only with 1 billion people, all well-educated, what would THEY do all day? I mean, can you imagine 1 billion well-educated people working on innovations or being "artists"? Soon enough there would be little left to invent, or at least not enough to keep 1 billion people occupied, and then what? Spread out across the universe and colonize other planets? Sure, but seeing as everybody would ofcourse take all the knowledge with them there'd be nothing "real" to do on those planets as well, apart from just living. .... So, we'd have 1 billion people, of which 99.99% have nothing to do, except to just try and enjoy themselves. My guess is most of them would get really bored really fast...
Errr, what the hell are you arguing? Seriously, I can't figure it out. That there's a finite limit to our intellectual pursuits and/or technological achievements? That existence itself is pointless? That smart people don't know how to have fun?
Society as a whole will always figure out something to itself occupied. Individuals that don't see the point anymore will inevitably withdraw from society and/or commit suicide--either way, removing themselves from the gene pool--leaving only those individuals who are able and willing to find a purpose. I don't see how intelligence or lack thereof has anything to do with it.
Intelligence (or the develoment of) could be more related to social or monetary issues.
Ah, but rich parents typically bear rich kids (trust funds, inheritance, better opportunities, better educations leading to better paying jobs, etc.) and poor parents typically do not offspring that go on to make millions. Rags to riches (or riches to rags) *can* happen, but neither is commonplace. Similarly, kids do tend to reflect their parents' religion, social standing, morality, etc.
Don't assume that enviromental variables aren't inheritable. In most cases, I don't think that genetic predisposition can hold a candle to environmental predisposition. If Einstein was born to a family living in the slums (instead of an upper-middle class family), do you think he would have still come up Special Relativity? How nice it would be to pretend that he would; yet, it would be utterly naive to suppose that even an individual of Einstein's calibur could have completely overcome his environment, somehow educated himself, and then somehow pursued the academic community to listen to these crackpot "time dilation" theories coming from a man who could not afford a decent suit, let alone college.
and on a completely unrelated note, WHY THE HELL DO MY POSTS KEEP GETTING BORKED?! Guess I'll start hitting preview...
The original post said it would cost the end-user $60 aation, it's not too far off the mark for some of them.
n hour for the support call. If you've ever called any of the big support lines, you'll know that while that might be a slight exager Err... what? Could you please define "big support lines"? I've never used a support line that actually charged me. I'm sure that they exist and that many businesses have used them, but I don't think your average joe does (he's saving his money for the aforementioned 1-900 psychic!) and I think that boot camp is much more likely to see usage by individuals than businesses. The OP said this:
If they are going to release it as a full retail release with documentation and actual support, then by all means put a price tag on it. It will only take one half hour phone call to support to burn through the $30 retail price
I assumed that the "actual support" mentioned in the first sentence and the "one half hour phone call to support" was referring to the same thing--Apple's technical support, presumably free to all paid customers. "Burning through the $30 retail price" refers to Apple's cost, not the customer's.
No one said it would cost Apple $60 an hour.
Regardless as to whether the OP meant what you think he meant or what I think he meant, both an anonymous coward and "curious.corn" apparently DO think that it would cost Apple in the vicinity of $60/hour.
I didn't think I needed to spell it out so painstakingly. Ok, I'm not saying it's not expensive in absolute terms--I'm saying that, when operated on a LARGE SCALE, the actual cost per call is fairly trivial.
The costs of electricity, rent, insurance, your phone system, etc. do NOT grow proportionally with the number of calls received. (You can get a crappy building in a crappy part of town for cheap that has TONS of floorspace. And yes, the script-reading drones WILL be working in a crappy building, not a nice corporate building.) The number of truly knowledgable staff on hand doesn't increase linearly, either (because the number of calls that actually require someone knowledgable will always been the minority, and there's never a need to keep more than a handful of such experts on hand. In any case, it's a trivial expense.) The number of managers can stay roughly constant--I've known a couple people who've work at call centers and their bosses had literally HUNDREDS of people reporting to them.
Do you see what I'm getting at here?
The ONLY thing that increases roughly linearly, as your number of calls received increases, is the number of tech support drones, and if they're VERY lucky they might make in the vicinity of $15/hour (the people I know have made $6-$10/hour.) Everything else is more of an upfront cost than a proportional cost, and if you have a very large call center handling tens of thousands of calls every day, those costs become (for our purposes here) irrelevant.
Not to mention:
1. Almost no one spends a full half an hour actually TALKING to tech support(like the ggp said.) MUCH more likely, 25 minutes of those minutes are spent on hold and
2. MANY call centers are outsourced. In recent years, it seems to me that MOST are. Does anyone want to comment as to whether or not Apple's call centers are outsourced? If they are, you can bet your ass that their costs aren't even remotely near $60/hour.
Even if they don't outsource, they can still contract. If Apple doesn't have enough customers to make it worth their while building their own call center (due to the aforementioned upfront costs), they can contract out another company (which presumably DOES have the infrastructure already in place) to do it for them. I'm sure it happens all the time...
3. Many places don't give a shit if you get a busy signal or are randomly disconnected or are placed on hold for a half an hour before ever speaking to a human being. Granted, this (hopefully) isn't true of a company of Apple's calibur, but when talking about tech support call centers in general I think it's safe to say that many (most?) small-to-medium sized companies cut corners like crazy.
So, in conclusion:
a) Apple is a big enough company that their upfront call center costs shouldn't be hugely significant when talking about per-call costs.
b) VERY few Boot Camp customers will ever require a 30 minute (as in, 30 minutes of constant communication with a human being, omitting time spent on hold) tech support phone call. Weird, arcane errors can happen, but COME ON. It's_a_bootloader. The OP claimed that a single 30-minute support call would cost Apple the price of the software--it's worthwhile pointing out that there are very few Boot Camp customers who are actually going to consume 30 minutes' worth of tech support time.
c) The basic infrastructure costs of a large call center remains *relatively* constant--the main thing is adding new script drones. (This is ESPECIALLY true of a consumer product company like Apple, where they are routinely inundated with trivial questions from the ignorant masses. This isn't mean as an insult to Apple; just that consumers in general are less educated about their purchases than companies.)
d) If Apple's tech support call centers are even partially outsourced, then they're saving MASSIVE amounts of money by employing VERY cheap (e.g. Indian) script drones.
e) Ain't no way in he
I don't care; there's still no way in HELL it adds up to $60/hour or anywhere remotely approaching that number.
It will only take one half hour phone call to support to burn through the $30 retail price, and in the scope of things the price vs additional functionality you will get from a Mac is a mind bending proposition.
Even if their phone tech support isn't outsourced, what on EARTH makes you think that your average bottom-tier, script-reading support dude makes $60/hour?
Oh, and this is coming from someone who is a fiscal conservative, and is a social conservative on several issues (gun control, abortion, affirmative action.)
Disclaimer: I am/was a RABID Starcraft/BW fan.
What Blizzard got right with Starcraft was BALANCE. Nearly all RTSes released before (and since, even) have had factions with generally the same units, a few faction-specific units, and a few faction-specific powers/traits. The Starcraft races were designed from the ground up to be DIFFERENT. For example:
Hit point regeneration? Terrans could repair using SCVs. (If using multiple SCVs, a unit could be brought to full health VERY quickly.) Their biological units were SOL until Brood War came out, which gave medics a healing power.
Zerg slowly regenerated HP over time until they reached full health.
Protoss had shields that regenerated quickly (and could be recharged via a special structure), but no way to repair mechanical units or heal biologicals (unless they managed to cast mind control on a Terran medic.)
Stealth? A few Terran units had the option to cloak for a limited time (it drained energy.)
Zerg (ground) units had the ability to burrow indefinitely, though only one had the ability to attack while burrowed and none had the ability to move while burrowed.
A few Protoss units were cloaked, and the arbiter automatically cloaked any nearby Protoss unit. Protoss cloaking was always free, permanent (unless an arbiter is destroyed), and did not affect movement or attack abilities.
Peons? Terrans had SCVs. They were the quickest resource gatherers and the best fighters. It took time for them to build structures.
Protoss had probes. They could build structures like crazy (summoning took time, but the probe only required a fraction of a second to start the process.)
Zerg had drones. They were physically transformed into structures, destroying them in the process.
Uber-attack unit? Terran had battle cruisers (flying). Good overall performance; able to respond to threats quickly (including scourge), special Yamatto cannon to take out powerful units or structures from afar. Slow movement.
Zerg had the Ultralisk and (to a lesser extent) the guardian (flying.) The Ultralisk was the strongest, toughest ground unit in the game, but couldn't attack air units. The guardian had great range, but was similarly limited to ground targets.
Protoss had the carrier (flying). FANTASTIC damage potential, but they were very slow to build and (unlike battle cruisers) could not respond to threats (like the scourge) quickly.
You get the idea. The point is, there was not a SINGLE unit that the three factions shared in common--not even a single unit or power that was truly similar (reaver vs. a siege tank, for instance--superficially similar, but there are SO many differences that their strategies are fundamentally different.) Yet, the three sides are (more or less) balanced. THAT was Blizzard's gift to the RTS world, and what a wondrous gift it was (from what I saw, Warcraft 3 pulled off the same magical balancing act--I just never really got into it. FYI, the RPG hero system was NOT revolutionary--the Warlords: Battlecry series did it three years earlier--arguably, they did it better.)
BUT... balance is not everything. Sadly, VERY sadly, the *craft series have always lagged far behind when it came to unit control. I am SO damn sick of having a unit run off on its own to take on an entire army by itself. What's the alternative? Why, you tell the unit to "hold position", which means it will stand perfectly still and do nothing while its buddies are slaughtered. In most other RTSes, it's as simple as putting a unit in "defensive" mode and your units will never do either of these idiotic behaviors. Formations aren't quite as important, but they're still pretty handy. There's also a behavior in Warcraft 3 that I found completely unacceptable--computer-controlled units would automatically target the units that had the least hit points, but YOUR units would have to be manually told to attack a certain unit. This I regard as "cheating", because it was completely impossible to keep up t
How is saying "Dude, this war was based on a LIE and it's costing us thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, and it's fueling Sunni/Shiite violence and American hatred." liberal? There's not a single liberal thing about that argument. Liberals want to spend MORE government money, not LESS.
Please do not substitute "liberal" for "democrat". Not every single little thing the democrats care about automatically become part of the "liberal agenda" and--though this may sound downright RADICAL--there are actually MORE THAN TWO POSSIBLE POLITICAL POSITIONS in the world.
Outside of Fox News, the only time you see a 'conservative talking head' is if they are a guest. CNN, MSNBC news, CBS, etc all lean to the left of American Politics.
Just because those stations aren't DELUSIONALLY, RABIDLY conservative (like Fox News) doesn't make them liberal. Criticizing Bush's invasion of Iraq, for example, is not "liberal", it's "sane." There's a difference.
I know some people in Europe, and they're all of the opinion that ALL of our news channels are quite right-leaning. Then again, you did specify "American Politics"...
So replace the kids in the example with 13 or 14 or 15 year olds. Technically, they can still be charged and convicted of "raping" each other, even if they're the exact same age.
There's a difference between something showing up on your background check (which usually costs money and--unless you have a very unique name--requires that your social security number be known) and someone preemptively notifying your neighbors. More than once a "sex offender"'s house has been burned down...
The problem is, sexual assault is not the worst thing in the world. A serial child killer who tortured every single child (in non-sexual ways) before killing them would, upon release, not be stuck with such a label and preemptive notification. A college student who got drunk and had sex in the bushes at a local park (after hours, when there weren't any kids around) WOULD be stuck with the "sex offender" label and preemptive notification (at least in some jurisdictions. There is a difference between "sex offender" and "sexual predator", but regardless, both are still subject to additional restrictions not faced by "conventional" criminals.) T
This might seem like an especially radical thing to say, but being raped is NOT the end of the world. It is completely possible to recover from being raped or molested and go on to live a happy life. However being murdered IS, by defintion, the end of (your) world.
I believe that the catch is, while it's technically not illegal for a minor to read Playboy, it's not legal to GIVE a minor a playboy ("corrupting a minor" or some such nonsense.) Even though the kid was a minor himself, it's still technically illegal for him to give the Playboy to another minor. Similarly, if two 16 year olds have sex, they can both be charged with statutory rape, though typically either they are only threatened with arrest, or only the boy is arrested.
Note that I'm not DEFENDING this bullshit--just explaining it.
And you're right; all the stupid talk about how we supposedly need 8 glasses of water a day makes it worse. I've had people tell me I should be drinking that much water, regardless of how much food or drink I take in. That figure doesn't take into account all the water in your food, for one thing...
Actually, there's no scientific evidence period that non-active people need to drink a set amount of water. The "eight 8-ounce glasses a day" myth is simply one of the most successful urban legends of all time.