Do they get to put this "admitted repeat murderer" on the stand? Could end up being worse for Hans. It doesn't sound good that you associated with a known murderer. It might work against "character" before a jury gets the idea that maybe that guy did the killing...
>Well then, just don't identify the student. Does the RIAA really have the legal power to make the University give up this information?
They have the political clout to make an administrative type believe they are on the same team, fighting the good fight. People who work in University administration tend to do so because they aren't contributing to research or teaching. And this, despite the fact that they could make much more money working in the private sector or even for the city of Seattle.
They work for the State, or even (shudder) for the State University, because they can get a position of greater authority than they ever would in a more competitive environment. Plus, they get to count the days to retirement. You think the PHB types in the business world are bad? You haven't worked for a state university.
It should not come as a surprise that such people will take the side of the perceived authority figure to whom they can kiss up, instead of taking the side of the student body who they perceive as a nuisance.
>Even Beethoven was downplayed, ding-donged and frang-frangled by people who knew what music was supposed to sound like.
Beethoven was quite a celebrity in his own time, and a celebrated composer by his contemporaries. He had severe *social* difficulties, and found personal rejection in certain aristocratic circles. But by and large, "people who knew what music was supposed to sound like" were quite enamored of Beethoven's work, knew what they had, were hungry for more of it, and was basically the artist at the right time and place to make a lasting and revolutionary musical impact.
He had the odd badly received concert (as do all artists), and he certainly struggled with social issues - especially after his deafness took hold, but even before that, it's clear that he had the "geek syndrome" phenomenon working against his social life.
Beethoven's professional rejections appear to have been just a facet of his lack of social finesse -- he did awkward things like seeking jobs that were filled by others, like for the imperial theatre under Count Lobkowitz. (There are discreet ways to seek a job that would require someone else to be fired, and it appears Ludwig was entirely clueless here.) But once he found a niche where he could work, he had a rapid rise as a bona fide superstar, and it lasted until his deafness and dementia took over and cost his ability to function.
There are many, many composers and performers and writers who were utterly rejected by their contemporaries only to find a posthumous place of greatness, but Beethoven isn't really one of them. Rejected by *women* sure, but have you seen his hair?
I am serious, and now I've looked at the facts of the case.
The office of the Vice President, along with the President and the White House Staff, is not an Executive Department or Executive Agency as defined in 5 USC 105.
All the focus on this "Cheney not part of the Executive Branch" idea, has served to cost credibility of the legitimate opposition to the Bush Administration and directs attention to an argument that is easily shot down. It ends up helping the administration by taking attention away from the real scandals, and focusing on a non-issue.
Two fatal problems:
1. Vice President has *never* been considered an Executive Department (and Cheney is right to point this out!) 2. If the order becomes a genuine problem, President Bush can rescind it with no other process whatsoever, and it goes away with no discussion and no input from courts or Congress.
What then?
When you make a knee-jerk response to something like this you do damage to the legitimate opposition and to those who have well-reasoned, if less dramatic, arguments against the Bush policies. So many people jumped on this "Cheney/Executive Order" deal as though grounds for impeachment had been handed to them on a plate. It's not so.
>'failing to report overseas travel' Um. Is not that the ultimate part of the freedome of being a student. Overseas travel on a budget. >Who has not done the tour of europe or worked in the bars of Australia.
Bribing customs to not stamp your passport? Somehow having the influence that they comply?
Anyway, the school administrators that will comply with this kind of request and the ones that will tell the federal bureaucrats to stick it, are the same ones, before and after that memo anyway. Changes nothing.
>The fact is that his office does fall under the order and he's saying it >doesn't.
I'll agree to what the facts are after I have read the order itself and also read a transcript of exactly what Cheney said.
Don't insult me for wanting the full facts before passing judgment. I'm in total agreement that the current administration is corrupt as hell, but I also warn that rushing to judgment on some issues that may not even have merit, weakens the overall legitimate case against them -- crying wolf at everything tends to bury the few really strong issues under the noise.
>VP Dick Cheney believes his office isn't an executive branch office!
I keep hearing vague allusions to this, but I have yet to see the full analysis (in the legal sense, specific details as would be necessary for Congress or a court to evaluate the case).
It is clearly not as simple as is being repeated ("Cheney said the VP is not in the Executive Branch"). What is actually being claimed may have merit. Since it's an Executive Order of Bush in the first place, it may actually be true that the Pres and VP aren't bound by them. Congress and the States (through Constitutional Amendments) pass the laws that constrain the President, while the President is empowered by the Constitution and by Congress to make rules that form the basis of the administration, and the agencies are granted a certain amount of autonomy.
It seems that it's not as clear as some are claiming, that such orders become laws which the President or Vice President must follow -- as they are EO's, the President can by the same authority that makes the order, rescind it as well. If he did that today, the argument being raised against Cheney goes away.
I'm not trying to support Cheney, but I suspect that in this particular matter, he might be right, and critics of the administration are not being wise to choose this particular torch to carry. The status, roles and responsibilities of "agencies" are quite well defined, and I have not seen any evidence yet that shows the VP has ever been considered an "agency" (like the Department of Agriculture.)
One thing I notice is news reports are not giving the full text of the EO in question or even citing it by number. That bothers me. I want to read it and decide for myself what it covers.
>Fixing bugs is the best way to become part of an open source project.
Writing and translating documentation, testing, and doing sales (yes, I'm serious) will endear you to some project teams more than you probably imagine. My sister-in-law is doing sales and marketing for a GNU-licensed open source project and is getting paid rather respectably, and traveling the world. It's pretty cool, and it shocked the hell out of me that a person could make a living wage in *sales* in the open source world, but I've seen it. If I had time, I could plug into that same project as a developer and, apparently, could even be paid market wages if my contribution was sufficient. But I don't want to stop working in science, low pay and university "perks" nonetheless.
>I'm comparing its accuracy vs the same amount of tnt dropped from a conventional bomber of the period.
But England had sufficient air defenses against conventional bombers. And where did you get the idea that the V-2 was particularly inaccurate? They were certainly *reliable* -- 4% manufacturing failure rate and better than 80% launch and flight reliability.
As for target accuracy, much of that is attributed to the fact that so many rockets "missed London", but this needs to be understood along with the fact of a successful disinformation campaign that persuaded the Germans to *target* the Eastern outskirts of London, making it more of an intel failure than one of targeting. There is an impedance mismatch between the records of launches reconciled with the records of where they fell. The assumption is that 1225 V-2's were aimed at the center of London and only 518 landed there, but that assumption was held long before it was ever disclosed that the Germans were not *aiming* at the center of London. The actual effective target error may have been close to 6km. Marked as a complete failure as a weapon, but almost certainly a better choice than sending bomber after bomber on a futile suicide mission would have been. Better in every respect than any other missile at the time. Not that bad compared to other missiles before laser-guidance changed everything.
For the record, I'm not on the German's side in that fight or anything:-)
>I don't know about pure charcoal, but I'll go with you if you add a little sulfur and phosphorous.
I'm not thinking in terms of weaponry, rather logistics. If you did nothing else except give one side of a conflict, say, wagonloads of MRE's, you could totally change history. Keeping your armies from starving was always a limiting factor in campaigns.
>Inkjet printers are currently the biggest ripoff in the consumer IT industry.
There's also been a successful psyop that has people convinced their desktop printers are superior in quality to the Fuji Frontier at the drugstore.
The cost per print is far less at my local 1-hour lab than the ink and equivalent paper for my Canon i9900. The turnaround time is far better, even counting the time it takes to drive, to select the images on the touchscreen, and to checkout.
The only reasons to even use a desktop printer are when instant hardcopy proofs are required, or when the images are sensitive (e.g., for police or legal work, and I guess for photographers doing erotic material etc.) Even if you need to get into hardcore color correction, there are ways to direct the lab to do white balance and color correction by including certain kinds of images, and this is much better than the trial-and-error approach that you go through with a consumer printer. If your local lab is popular, chances are good it's been profiled by one or more people.
The printer manufacturers do not want you to be able to make a side-by-side comparison of cost per square inch of print between their products and the consumer-oriented commercial printers. And they definitely don't want you to compare a consumer inkjet photo against a professional lab print using a loupe:-) There's a value on the instant gratification of desktop printing, and there's a value on the privacy aspect as well. But does the consumer actually have the means to make a realistic estimate of the costs when he purchases the printer, or even during its first year of use? It's a long time and a large number of prints before lab prints (especially online prints) overtake TCO of a desktop printer, even if quality between these were equivalent. The argument would be different if the quality of desktop prints was superior to lab photos.
The issues are quite different between document printing and photo printing, of course. Give me back one of the really fast dot matrix printers I had back in the day.
"My Canon PIXMA ip5000 reports when ink is low, and when it is empty. (I'm not sure if all modern printers do) I buy a refill when it's low and swap the cartridge when it's empty. The ink cartridges I use are clear, and they're usually empty when I swap them."
Well, Canon, are among the least bad offenders. They recognize that their marketplace includes professional photographers (not for your Pixma, of course, but even that is a pretty good photo printer), who, among other things really care about price/performance, and technical considerations like color matching.
It says a lot, just that the ink containers are transparent.
There are less scrupulous manufacturers who have evidently created a system to force you to waste ink (you don't necessarily get to override the printer's (or the driver's) opinion and insist that the reservoir is not empty. Some of these decide for you, and hide that decision not only behind an opaque container, but also, via cryptographic methods.
Personally, I would stop printing before buying one of those, caveat emptor. I have already found it far more cost-effective to get my photo prints from the local lab -- they use a Fuji Frontier, the turnaround time *including the drive* is still faster than any printer I could ever afford, and the quality is excellent (consumer photo printers' gamut is not even in the same league).
"The V-2 was basically just a really really expensive way to take a bomb that could have been dropped from a plane, and put it on the ground less accurately."
Of course, supersonic planes were yet to come. To talk about accuracy of the V-2 is meaningless with nothing to compare it to, except later rocket designs maybe. The idea that they were laughably inaccurate seems to come from the fact that many V-2s landed in the rural Eastern side of London -- but it is now known that this wasn't the result of poor guidance, but rather, because of British countermeasures. The bombs were accurately hitting their targets, but the targets themselves were chosen as the result of a disinformation campaign. This required citizens to keep their mouths shut. In today's world, I wonder if that could be done (e.g., why do we KNOW that Humvees have poor armor, or that soldiers in Iraq lack bullet proof vests? That's "loose lips sink ships" territory, as far as I'm concerned.)
Anyway, the real impact of the V-2 was in the fact that you saw the fire before you heard the missile.
So basically, you'd see a flame and/or smoke, then hear a loud boom, and THEN hear the streaking-through-the-sky sound of the rocket.
As for the most deadly military technology? I'd ask you to consider *charcoal*. And if Hannibal had had MRE's, he could have held Rome.
"If you ask me, the feature that stops you from using a cartridge after the ink is too low, is pretty ignorant. I think it's obvious when the ink is completely out, so why not let the user decide?"
They didn't ask you:-)
There are suckers who buy the products, and who return to buy more of the products, so why not exploit them?
As a percentage of my income, my inkjet cartridges are considerably less expensive than the ribbons that my first dot-matrix printer required. In those days, I would take the once-used ribbons from the IBM printers at the office, crack the cartridges open, re-spool the ribbon into my printer cartridge, and use them until they were dry. Selectric typewriter ribbons were pretty expensive too.
These days, I find it much more cost-effective to have photo prints done by someone with a Fuji Frontier.
I don't choose to regard the cryptographic controls on the cartridges as a violation of my rights. It's not a fight I'll pick. I actually miss dot-matrix:-)
>Theft-proof, with a tracking device so if the shitpeople actually do manage tosteal it then I can get it back quickly.
Why just a tracking device? How about a remotely controllable system that disables ignition and fuel flow, locks the doors versus exit, and removes oxygen from the cabin (e.g., a valve that vents CO)?
I've been in Vancouver lately. People drive, people take public transportation, if it's in different proportions to a typical US city, I would not say it's especially perceptible. (Looking forward to riding that airport monorail though.)
"2) The people who leased the cars tried desperately to buy them, but were never allowed to. GM turned down $1.9 million for the 78 uncrushed EV-1's before they were finally crushed. 3) All of the electric cars were crushed, even the brand-new ones, after the companies who made them promised that wouldn't happen."
What I take from this is that not one of them was ever stolen...
"In ANY case the ability to draw district lines needs to be removed from the hands of the people that DIRECTLY BENEFIT, ie. Congress. They've shown they are too incompetent to handle it."
District lines are drawn with the participation (e.g., apathy) of the people in that district.
Public comment periods are often shockingly devoid of any input.
People do not object to these plans until they are done, and only then, after they are told to be angry by the TV news.
"Given that redistricting is something that happens at the state level, and that there are generally no objective rules to districting, the extent of automation likely is no greater than exhibited by this game. Most districts are probably still drawn by hand."
It's also hardly the "strictly top-down, ham-handed authoritarian process dictated by some supreme power" that seems to be a persistent caricature in discussions such as this one. The people in the districts, in smaller representative groups, and sometimes even individuals, have a role in the process, which is one reason why it's so complicated, and one reason why it's not quite the tyranny it's purported to be.
Most people choose not to participate in any political process on any smaller scale than maybe a Presidential election. By the time they become aware that their Congressional district is being changed, it's because they have their opinion given to them by some sensationalized news coverage, after having ignored every opportunity for public participation and official comment, for months or years.
Some representatives and people who are prospective candidates are better than others at being involved in their communities, and some communities are more conducive to public involvement in local politics than others. Some of us have genuine relationships with the local politicians that represent us; others would be hard pressed to name one of their neighbors.
Participation is key. If you plug in to politics at your local level, you will probably be shocked at how easy it is to do -- because hardly anyone can actually be bothered.
If your voting district gets moved by your state legislature or city council and the first time you hear about it is election day, that's YOUR fault.
I miss the perfect phone, the base Bell System model. Something fundamental has been lost: The experience of hanging up. You could hang up a Bell System phone as violently or as delicately as you liked. It was indestructible. There were few things more satisfying that slamming the phone down on the hook, pounding the receiver against your desk or hurling it at the wall.
Re:It's stunning how readily the US feds up taxes
on
Internet Tax Imminent?
·
· Score: 1
>anyone who works and pays municipal taxes in a city, but lives outside of that city...made a poor choice and needs to live with the consequences.
Slashdot Mirror
Do they get to put this "admitted repeat murderer" on the stand? Could end up being worse for Hans. It doesn't sound good that you associated with a known murderer. It might work against "character" before a jury gets the idea that maybe that guy did the killing...
>So why won't he tell police? Why won't he come up with where the seat is?
Maybe he knows but is just not telling you, not telling reporters, etc.
Maybe the defense is playing certain cards close to their vests.
>And why won't Reiser talk about the car seat?
For the same reason he shouldn't talk about ANYTHING AT ALL. He's on trial for murder. I'm surprised his lawyer let him do an interview with Wired.
>Well then, just don't identify the student. Does the RIAA really have the legal power to make the University give up this information?
They have the political clout to make an administrative type believe they are on the same team, fighting the good fight.
People who work in University administration tend to do so because they aren't contributing to research or teaching. And this, despite the fact that they could make much more money working in the private sector or even for the city of Seattle.
They work for the State, or even (shudder) for the State University, because they can get a position of greater authority than they ever would in a more competitive environment. Plus, they get to count the days to retirement. You think the PHB types in the business world are bad? You haven't worked for a state university.
It should not come as a surprise that such people will take the side of the perceived authority figure to whom they can kiss up, instead of taking the side of the student body who they perceive as a nuisance.
>all homes in Karen and Langata (the rich suburbs of Nairobi) are small fortresses, with alarms, barbed wire, fences
>and dogs.
Like Cincinnati!
"i bet you they are the same people that go and by the 39.99 Netgear wifi router for there office solution."
With a custom antenna, that worked really well for one of my office solutions!
>Even Beethoven was downplayed, ding-donged and frang-frangled by people who knew what music was supposed to sound like.
Beethoven was quite a celebrity in his own time, and a celebrated composer by his contemporaries. He had severe *social* difficulties, and found personal rejection in certain aristocratic circles. But by and large, "people who knew what music was supposed to sound like" were quite enamored of Beethoven's work, knew what they had, were hungry for more of it, and was basically the artist at the right time and place to make a lasting and revolutionary musical impact.
He had the odd badly received concert (as do all artists), and he certainly struggled with social issues - especially after his deafness took hold, but even before that, it's clear that he had the "geek syndrome" phenomenon working against his social life.
Beethoven's professional rejections appear to have been just a facet of his lack of social finesse -- he did awkward things like seeking jobs that were filled by others, like for the imperial theatre under Count Lobkowitz. (There are discreet ways to seek a job that would require someone else to be fired, and it appears Ludwig was entirely clueless here.) But once he found a niche where he could work, he had a rapid rise as a bona fide superstar, and it lasted until his deafness and dementia took over and cost his ability to function.
There are many, many composers and performers and writers who were utterly rejected by their contemporaries only to find a posthumous place of greatness, but Beethoven isn't really one of them. Rejected by *women* sure, but have you seen his hair?
>Oh come on, you can't be serious.
I am serious, and now I've looked at the facts of the case.
The office of the Vice President, along with the President and the White House Staff, is not an Executive Department or Executive Agency as defined in 5 USC 105.
All the focus on this "Cheney not part of the Executive Branch" idea, has served to cost credibility of the legitimate opposition to the Bush Administration and directs attention to an argument that is easily shot down. It ends up helping the administration by taking attention away from the real scandals, and focusing on a non-issue.
Two fatal problems:
1. Vice President has *never* been considered an Executive Department (and Cheney is right to point this out!)
2. If the order becomes a genuine problem, President Bush can rescind it with no other process whatsoever, and it goes away with no discussion and no input from courts or Congress.
What then?
When you make a knee-jerk response to something like this you do damage to the legitimate opposition and to those who have well-reasoned, if less dramatic, arguments against the Bush policies. So many people jumped on this "Cheney/Executive Order" deal as though grounds for impeachment had been handed to them on a plate. It's not so.
>'failing to report overseas travel' Um. Is not that the ultimate part of the freedome of being a student. Overseas travel on a budget. >Who has not done the tour of europe or worked in the bars of Australia.
Bribing customs to not stamp your passport? Somehow having the influence that they comply?
Anyway, the school administrators that will comply with this kind of request and the ones that will tell the federal bureaucrats to stick it, are the same ones, before and after that memo anyway. Changes nothing.
>The fact is that his office does fall under the order and he's saying it >doesn't.
I'll agree to what the facts are after I have read the order itself and also read a transcript of exactly what Cheney said.
Don't insult me for wanting the full facts before passing judgment. I'm in total agreement that the current administration is corrupt as hell, but I also warn that rushing to judgment on some issues that may not even have merit, weakens the overall legitimate case against them -- crying wolf at everything tends to bury the few really strong issues under the noise.
>VP Dick Cheney believes his office isn't an executive branch office!
I keep hearing vague allusions to this, but I have yet to see the full analysis (in the legal sense, specific details as would be necessary for Congress or a court to evaluate the case).
It is clearly not as simple as is being repeated ("Cheney said the VP is not in the Executive Branch"). What is actually being claimed may have merit. Since it's an Executive Order of Bush in the first place, it may actually be true that the Pres and VP aren't bound by them. Congress and the States (through Constitutional Amendments) pass the laws that constrain the President, while the President is empowered by the Constitution and by Congress to make rules that form the basis of the administration, and the agencies are granted a certain amount of autonomy.
It seems that it's not as clear as some are claiming, that such orders become laws which the President or Vice President must follow -- as they are EO's, the President can by the same authority that makes the order, rescind it as well. If he did that today, the argument being raised against Cheney goes away.
I'm not trying to support Cheney, but I suspect that in this particular matter, he might be right, and critics of the administration are not being wise to choose this particular torch to carry. The status, roles and responsibilities of "agencies" are quite well defined, and I have not seen any evidence yet that shows the VP has ever been considered an "agency" (like the Department of Agriculture.)
One thing I notice is news reports are not giving the full text of the EO in question or even citing it by number. That bothers me. I want to read it and decide for myself what it covers.
>Fixing bugs is the best way to become part of an open source project.
Writing and translating documentation, testing, and doing sales (yes, I'm serious) will endear you
to some project teams more than you probably imagine. My sister-in-law is doing sales and marketing
for a GNU-licensed open source project and is getting paid rather respectably, and traveling the world.
It's pretty cool, and it shocked the hell out of me that a person could make a living wage in *sales*
in the open source world, but I've seen it. If I had time, I could plug into that same project as a
developer and, apparently, could even be paid market wages if my contribution was sufficient.
But I don't want to stop working in science, low pay and university "perks" nonetheless.
>I'm comparing its accuracy vs the same amount of tnt dropped from a conventional bomber of the period.
:-)
But England had sufficient air defenses against conventional bombers. And where did you get the idea that the V-2 was particularly inaccurate? They were certainly *reliable* -- 4% manufacturing failure rate and better than 80% launch and flight reliability.
As for target accuracy, much of that is attributed to the fact that so many rockets "missed London", but this needs to be understood along with the fact of a successful disinformation campaign that persuaded the Germans to *target* the Eastern outskirts of London, making it more of an intel failure than one of targeting. There is an impedance mismatch between the records of launches reconciled with the records of where they fell. The assumption is that 1225 V-2's were aimed at the center of London and only 518 landed there, but that assumption was held long before it was ever disclosed that the Germans were not *aiming* at the center of London. The actual effective target error may have been close to 6km. Marked as a complete failure as a weapon, but almost certainly a better choice than sending bomber after bomber on a futile suicide mission would have been. Better in every respect than any other missile at the time. Not that bad compared to other missiles before laser-guidance changed everything.
For the record, I'm not on the German's side in that fight or anything
>I don't know about pure charcoal, but I'll go with you if you add a little sulfur and phosphorous.
I'm not thinking in terms of weaponry, rather logistics. If you did nothing else except give one side of a conflict, say, wagonloads of MRE's, you could totally change history. Keeping your armies from starving was always a limiting factor in campaigns.
>Inkjet printers are currently the biggest ripoff in the consumer IT industry.
There's also been a successful psyop that has people convinced their desktop printers are superior in quality to the Fuji Frontier at the drugstore.
The cost per print is far less at my local 1-hour lab than the ink and equivalent paper for my Canon i9900. The turnaround time is far better, even counting the time it takes to drive, to select the images on the touchscreen, and to checkout.
The only reasons to even use a desktop printer are when instant hardcopy proofs are required, or when the images are sensitive (e.g., for police or legal work, and I guess for photographers doing erotic material etc.) Even if you need to get into hardcore color correction, there are ways to direct the lab to do white balance and color correction by including certain kinds of images, and this is much better than the trial-and-error approach that you go through with a consumer printer. If your local lab is popular, chances are good it's been profiled by one or more people.
The printer manufacturers do not want you to be able to make a side-by-side comparison of cost per square inch of print between their products and the consumer-oriented commercial printers. And they definitely don't want you to compare a consumer inkjet photo against a professional lab print using a loupe
The issues are quite different between document printing and photo printing, of course. Give me back one of the really fast dot matrix printers I had back in the day.
"My Canon PIXMA ip5000 reports when ink is low, and when it is empty. (I'm not sure if all modern printers do) I buy a refill when it's low and swap the cartridge when it's empty. The ink cartridges I use are clear, and they're usually empty when I swap them."
Well, Canon, are among the least bad offenders. They recognize that their marketplace includes professional photographers (not for your Pixma, of course, but even that is a pretty good photo printer), who, among other things really care about price/performance, and technical considerations like color matching.
It says a lot, just that the ink containers are transparent.
There are less scrupulous manufacturers who have evidently created a system to force you to waste ink (you don't necessarily get to override the printer's (or the driver's) opinion and insist that the reservoir is not empty. Some of these decide for you, and hide that decision not only behind an opaque container, but also, via cryptographic methods.
Personally, I would stop printing before buying one of those, caveat emptor. I have already found it far more cost-effective to get my photo prints from the local lab -- they use a Fuji Frontier, the turnaround time *including the drive* is still faster than any printer I could ever afford, and the quality is excellent (consumer photo printers' gamut is not even in the same league).
>I usually run my cartridges until they start fading out. Then it's safe for a switch.
RTFA, some printers seem to make that decision FOR YOU, and won't let you do what you "usually do."
Be glad you made a better buying decision (or maybe you just got lucky.)
"The V-2 was basically just a really really expensive way to take a bomb that could have been dropped from a plane, and put it on the ground less accurately."
Of course, supersonic planes were yet to come. To talk about accuracy of the V-2 is meaningless with nothing to compare it to, except later rocket designs maybe. The idea that they were laughably inaccurate seems to come from the fact that many V-2s landed in the rural Eastern side of London -- but it is now known that this wasn't the result of poor guidance, but rather, because of British countermeasures. The bombs were accurately hitting their targets, but the targets themselves were chosen as the result of a disinformation campaign. This required citizens to keep their mouths shut. In today's world, I wonder if that could be done (e.g., why do we KNOW that Humvees have poor armor, or that soldiers in Iraq lack bullet proof vests? That's "loose lips sink ships" territory, as far as I'm concerned.)
Anyway, the real impact of the V-2 was in the fact that you saw the fire before you heard the missile.
So basically, you'd see a flame and/or smoke, then hear a loud boom, and THEN hear the streaking-through-the-sky sound of the rocket.
As for the most deadly military technology? I'd ask you to consider *charcoal*. And if Hannibal had had MRE's, he could have held Rome.
"If you ask me, the feature that stops you from using a cartridge after the ink is too low, is pretty ignorant. I think it's obvious when the ink is completely out, so why not let the user decide?"
:-)
:-)
They didn't ask you
There are suckers who buy the products, and who return to buy more of the products, so why not exploit them?
As a percentage of my income, my inkjet cartridges are considerably less expensive than the ribbons that my first dot-matrix printer required. In those days, I would take the once-used ribbons from the IBM printers at the office, crack the cartridges open, re-spool the ribbon into my printer cartridge, and use them until they were dry. Selectric typewriter ribbons were pretty expensive too.
These days, I find it much more cost-effective to have photo prints done by someone with a Fuji Frontier.
I don't choose to regard the cryptographic controls on the cartridges as a violation of my rights. It's not a fight I'll pick. I actually miss dot-matrix
>Theft-proof, with a tracking device so if the shitpeople actually do manage tosteal it then I can get it back quickly.
Why just a tracking device? How about a remotely controllable system that disables ignition and fuel flow, locks the doors versus exit, and removes oxygen from the cabin (e.g., a valve that vents CO)?
>That is far from the truth in Vancouver.
I've been in Vancouver lately. People drive, people take public transportation, if it's in different proportions to a typical US city, I would not say it's especially perceptible. (Looking forward to riding that airport monorail though.)
"2) The people who leased the cars tried desperately to buy them, but were never allowed to. GM turned down $1.9 million for the 78 uncrushed EV-1's before they were finally crushed.
3) All of the electric cars were crushed, even the brand-new ones, after the companies who made them promised that wouldn't happen."
What I take from this is that not one of them was ever stolen...
"In ANY case the ability to draw district lines needs to be removed from the hands of the people that DIRECTLY BENEFIT, ie. Congress. They've shown they are too incompetent to handle it."
District lines are drawn with the participation (e.g., apathy) of the people in that district.
Public comment periods are often shockingly devoid of any input.
People do not object to these plans until they are done, and only then, after they are told to be angry by the TV news.
"Given that redistricting is something that happens at the state level, and that there are generally no objective rules to districting, the extent of automation likely is no greater than exhibited by this game. Most districts are probably still drawn by hand."
It's also hardly the "strictly top-down, ham-handed authoritarian process dictated by some supreme power" that seems to be a persistent caricature in discussions such as this one. The people in the districts, in smaller representative groups, and sometimes even individuals, have a role in the process, which is one reason why it's so complicated, and one reason why it's not quite the tyranny it's purported to be.
Most people choose not to participate in any political process on any smaller scale than maybe a Presidential election. By the time they become aware that their Congressional district is being changed, it's because they have their opinion given to them by some sensationalized news coverage, after having ignored every opportunity for public participation and official comment, for months or years.
Some representatives and people who are prospective candidates are better than others at being involved in their communities, and some communities are more conducive to public involvement in local politics than others. Some of us have genuine relationships with the local politicians that represent us; others would be hard pressed to name one of their neighbors.
Participation is key. If you plug in to politics at your local level, you will probably be shocked at how easy it is to do -- because hardly anyone can actually be bothered.
If your voting district gets moved by your state legislature or city council and the first time you hear about it is election day, that's YOUR fault.
I miss the perfect phone, the base Bell System model. Something fundamental has been lost: The experience of hanging up. You could hang up a Bell System phone as violently or as delicately as you liked. It was indestructible. There were few things more satisfying that slamming the phone down on the hook, pounding the receiver against your desk or hurling it at the wall.
>anyone who works and pays municipal taxes in a city, but lives outside of that city ...made a poor choice and needs to live with the consequences.