They also limit the alcohol content of beer below a certain percentage. It's a rather strange state.
This is the reason that many beers (such as Guinness) made for US export is capped at 4% abv. It's the maximum potency for the most restrictive of state laws (I believe Fl. to be the same).
I'll see your 4% Florida, and raise you 3.2% Kansas!
The Economist was attempting to draw conclusions without a sufficient understanding of the people (Thai culture is far more complex then western culture).
I think "inscrutable" is the word you're circling around.
I'm not one to gamble. But I know a good bet when I see one.
We took a different course and donated the cord blood to a tissue bank for research and/or allogeneic transplant. This is the default choice where the baby was delivered. I think it is far more likely that a closely matching person (including our baby) somewhere would need it than we would for our baby alone.
The kids can actually OBEY the rules (gasp, horror) and not use cell phones in violation of campus rules!
. ..
You know, sometimes the kids actually deserve to get caught. I know that all these "rules" are a pain, but if you teach contempt for rules (even if you don't like them) you'll end up with people who CAN NOT fathom why there are any rules in the first place, and who don't know which rules to follow, so they end up SHOCKED when the rules are enforced.
I see what you're going for here. Rules are rules, and it they're not obeyed there will be chaos, dogs and cats sleeping together, etc. Now I'm not an authoritarian personality type like you, but I do agree that if kids break the "using cell phone in school" rule they should be disciplined. However, I think they should be disciplined for the infraction of breaking the "cell phone in school" rule, and not the "distributing kiddy porn" rule. Cause when we start charging murderers with speeding and kidnappers with building code violations and parking violators with treason, the law and those enforcing it start to appear, for lack of a better word, stupid. And the more people believe that the law and its enforcers are stupid, then the fewer people are gonna go along with your "order at all costs" campaign. So it's in your interest too to make sure that we follow the old maxim and make "the punishment fit the crime".
Like it or not, agree with it or not, minors do not legally have civil rights so they can not be infringed upon.
Gonna need a source on that one. I can't find anywhere in the constitution that civil rights only apply to non-minors. In fact, the US Supreme Court has famously found that: "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." (Tinker v. Des Moines). If the first amendment applies to students, that would suggest that minors do have Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights, and therefore that the rest of the constitution applies to minors as well.
Dvorak is an idiot. To use the old adage: "Guns don't kill people. People kill people."
If a bank trusts a spreadsheet based on a bad formula that is provided by the bank itself, is it the spreadsheet's fault? If the CEO chooses that saving 1 cent a year by outsourcing the call center to India, is that the spreadsheet's fault? Please.
There's a lot worser things than people using spreadsheet formulas. For instance, people not using them. Have you ever watched someone with no accounting or technical knowledge enter a bunch of figures in a spreadsheet then turn to the desk calculator to sum them up, turn back to the computer and key in the result? That's almost as bad as how somehow "worser" got into my spell-check dictionary and now I can type it without complaint!
Yes, it was Best Buy who shipped the update DVD, not Samsung. But still... an update service who ships updates to you based on your mag stripe. Scary.
Your name's in plain text on the mag stripe, so if you gave up your zip code, they could find you unless you're a Smith or Jones (or Lee or Gonzales depending on geography). I'm guessing that there are only about 3000-4000 persons per 5-digit zip. Probably easy to get a unique result for most people, but you could try the public search sites on your own name and zip for fun to find out.
Why should I expect them to make any service available to me after discontinuing my relationship with them? If they really wanted to stick it to an ex customer, they could very well (and legally) insist that you drive to a physical office and pay in actual green US currency. Accepting CC payment via phone, or even a check via mail, counts as a courtesy they have no obligation to extend to you.
Using the same legal theory as you used (PIDOOMA), I could charge them a service charge for delivering the payment in cash. But seriously, while there's still a balance on the account, the relationship isn't over. Why the devil would any entity owed money by another seek to make it more difficult to get paid. How would "stick[ing] it to an ex-customer" serve a company's shareholders in any way? Do you pay dividends in perverse joy? Where can I buy that?
Also important is that companies presumably save money by using electronic statements. Otherwise, why entice their customers to go paperless? If paperless bills start to get a reputation for being signifigantly less convenient -- in the customers' perception -- than paper bills, many will accept their personal responsibility to demand paper. Others may accept their personal responsbility to act collectively with other bill-payers. You might argue with them that teaming up with others violates the spirit of your personal responsility ethic, but they just might tell you that it's your responsibility to suck it up, they're gonna do it their way, and that includes bitching to their reps.
7+ years and the memory of just what the stakes are has all but evaporated.
Actually, I think in that time most people realized that the "stakes" are actually rather low. At least compared to dangers like skin cancer. Responding to and preparing for threats in proportion to the actual danger seems to be difficult for most of us, and I'm glad that we've made some progress.
I have a better idea. Let's give up our "empire", withdraw from the World and adopt the Swiss stance of armed neutrality. Back it up with our nuclear deterrent.
Right after we figure out how not to depend on any imports, sure.
I was thinking the same thing for the longest time. But I visited Switzerland recently, and I was surprised to find that despite their neutrality and non-belligerent foreign policy, they were still able buy and sell goods and services from and to other nations. So despite conventional wisdom, it may be possible for the US, too.
Sounds pretty hokey to me . . . As a frequent air traveler, give me the old fashioned pat down search with full baggage inspection . . . I can easily factor in a longer wait at the airport, the peace of mind is worth it to me...
Well, I cannot. Therefore, let me propose an alternative: you sedate yourself heavily for "peace of mind", while I just walk on the plane? OK?
Or does that sound like I'm putting my own personal peace and comfort ahead of that of others?
It seems to me that the people that bitch the loudest about illegal search and seizure are people who desire to break the law if they wish and don't want to get caught
So all we need to do to catch the bad guys is round up all the complainers? It sounds almost too easy . . .
You kids and your fancy computer characters! Back in my day, we could only use numbers and calculators. It was 51358008 and we liked it. Now get off my lawn!
In my day we'd say "what's 44125687 + 11252321 ? It's what your girlfriend is! 55378008 Get it? Turn your calculator upside down!" Of course it was 4th grade, so they pretty much all were, except Fat Jason. Just don't call him that, 'cause he'll sit on you.
No, I'm getting the impression that they don't (and I've known way too many software guys who treat their jobs as a big joke to just ignore my feelings on the subject.) That bothers me. Regardless, the casual acceptance of this bothers me more. Slippery slope and all that (today an easter egg, tomorrow a back door or time bomb.) Just do your jobs, people. If you want to express yourself, learn to paint or play an instrument, or learn how to design good software. Don't treat it like a toy. It isn't.
The engineers are falling out of ranks and getting creative and expressing themselves! They're gonna give the launch codes to the evildoers and put a back door in my heart-lung bypass machine and they think it's all a big fat joke! Well, that's not what humor is, that's what Karl Marx is! In sixty days we're gonna deploy, and you all think it's a joke! For two stinking cents, I'd jump through these tubes and rip your cowardly, stinking body limb from limb! Easter eggs one day, and the next it's mopery, listening to classical music and being a smart guy. What do you mean we can't punish you? You want justice? Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning! Garroting! That's what justice is, when we've all got to be tough enough and rough enough to ship this build! From the hip. Get it?
You don't expect a "jack in the box" pop-up doll on a spring to jump out at you when you open the hood on your new car, do you? And if such a thing were to happen, would you say to yourself, "wow, those guys at Aston Martin, don't they have a great sense of humour!"? Frankly, I suspect you'd see it as being a bit weird.
A lot of people would call their lawyers, especially if that little bastard accidentally poked out an eye.
That's why you first add an "easter egg" to the phone system. Duh.
I am a robot. I do only as instructed. Beep beep. Bloop Bloop.
Be insulting if you wish. If you're a programmer or a software engineer, one day you may get involved with a project that has a serious penalty for failure (and no, I don't mean a bank or e-commerce Web site or something equally safe.) Believe me, when that happens you'll change your tune and get pretty damn serious. "Easter Eggs" and other irrelevancies suddenly become significant liabilities, and you don't even think about them anymore.
Have a drink, man. Everyone knows if they're doing something life-critical. So just chill out. People like you harsh my mellow.
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They also limit the alcohol content of beer below a certain percentage. It's a rather strange state.
This is the reason that many beers (such as Guinness) made for US export is capped at 4% abv. It's the maximum potency for the most restrictive of state laws (I believe Fl. to be the same).
I'll see your 4% Florida, and raise you 3.2% Kansas!
The Economist was attempting to draw conclusions without a sufficient understanding of the people (Thai culture is far more complex then western culture).
I think "inscrutable" is the word you're circling around.
I, like so many others posting on this thread, value my anonymity and exercise it at will.
We have also assigned a value to your anonymity.
Your honor, I should be found not guilty because the cops were eating donuts while I committed the murder.
I'm not one to gamble. But I know a good bet when I see one.
We took a different course and donated the cord blood to a tissue bank for research and/or allogeneic transplant. This is the default choice where the baby was delivered. I think it is far more likely that a closely matching person (including our baby) somewhere would need it than we would for our baby alone.
Close enough?
Call me when it rains Martinis.
OR
The kids can actually OBEY the rules (gasp, horror) and not use cell phones in violation of campus rules!
. . .
You know, sometimes the kids actually deserve to get caught. I know that all these "rules" are a pain, but if you teach contempt for rules (even if you don't like them) you'll end up with people who CAN NOT fathom why there are any rules in the first place, and who don't know which rules to follow, so they end up SHOCKED when the rules are enforced.
I see what you're going for here. Rules are rules, and it they're not obeyed there will be chaos, dogs and cats sleeping together, etc. Now I'm not an authoritarian personality type like you, but I do agree that if kids break the "using cell phone in school" rule they should be disciplined. However, I think they should be disciplined for the infraction of breaking the "cell phone in school" rule, and not the "distributing kiddy porn" rule. Cause when we start charging murderers with speeding and kidnappers with building code violations and parking violators with treason, the law and those enforcing it start to appear, for lack of a better word, stupid. And the more people believe that the law and its enforcers are stupid, then the fewer people are gonna go along with your "order at all costs" campaign. So it's in your interest too to make sure that we follow the old maxim and make "the punishment fit the crime".
Like it or not, agree with it or not, minors do not legally have civil rights so they can not be infringed upon.
Gonna need a source on that one. I can't find anywhere in the constitution that civil rights only apply to non-minors. In fact, the US Supreme Court has famously found that: "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." (Tinker v. Des Moines). If the first amendment applies to students, that would suggest that minors do have Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights, and therefore that the rest of the constitution applies to minors as well.
Dvorak is an idiot. To use the old adage: "Guns don't kill people. People kill people."
If a bank trusts a spreadsheet based on a bad formula that is provided by the bank itself, is it the spreadsheet's fault? If the CEO chooses that saving 1 cent a year by outsourcing the call center to India, is that the spreadsheet's fault? Please.
There's a lot worser things than people using spreadsheet formulas. For instance, people not using them. Have you ever watched someone with no accounting or technical knowledge enter a bunch of figures in a spreadsheet then turn to the desk calculator to sum them up, turn back to the computer and key in the result? That's almost as bad as how somehow "worser" got into my spell-check dictionary and now I can type it without complaint!
The spreadsheet was never invented????
Millions of secretaries -- I mean Admin Assistants -- would have to type department phone lists with word processors.
Yes, it was Best Buy who shipped the update DVD, not Samsung. But still... an update service who ships updates to you based on your mag stripe. Scary.
Your name's in plain text on the mag stripe, so if you gave up your zip code, they could find you unless you're a Smith or Jones (or Lee or Gonzales depending on geography). I'm guessing that there are only about 3000-4000 persons per 5-digit zip. Probably easy to get a unique result for most people, but you could try the public search sites on your own name and zip for fun to find out.
Why should I expect them to make any service available to me after discontinuing my relationship with them? If they really wanted to stick it to an ex customer, they could very well (and legally) insist that you drive to a physical office and pay in actual green US currency. Accepting CC payment via phone, or even a check via mail, counts as a courtesy they have no obligation to extend to you.
Using the same legal theory as you used (PIDOOMA), I could charge them a service charge for delivering the payment in cash. But seriously, while there's still a balance on the account, the relationship isn't over. Why the devil would any entity owed money by another seek to make it more difficult to get paid. How would "stick[ing] it to an ex-customer" serve a company's shareholders in any way? Do you pay dividends in perverse joy? Where can I buy that?
Also important is that companies presumably save money by using electronic statements. Otherwise, why entice their customers to go paperless? If paperless bills start to get a reputation for being signifigantly less convenient -- in the customers' perception -- than paper bills, many will accept their personal responsibility to demand paper. Others may accept their personal responsbility to act collectively with other bill-payers. You might argue with them that teaming up with others violates the spirit of your personal responsility ethic, but they just might tell you that it's your responsibility to suck it up, they're gonna do it their way, and that includes bitching to their reps.
7+ years and the memory of just what the stakes are has all but evaporated.
Actually, I think in that time most people realized that the "stakes" are actually rather low. At least compared to dangers like skin cancer. Responding to and preparing for threats in proportion to the actual danger seems to be difficult for most of us, and I'm glad that we've made some progress.
I have a better idea. Let's give up our "empire", withdraw from the World and adopt the Swiss stance of armed neutrality. Back it up with our nuclear deterrent.
Right after we figure out how not to depend on any imports, sure.
I was thinking the same thing for the longest time. But I visited Switzerland recently, and I was surprised to find that despite their neutrality and non-belligerent foreign policy, they were still able buy and sell goods and services from and to other nations. So despite conventional wisdom, it may be possible for the US, too.
Sounds pretty hokey to me . . . As a frequent air traveler, give me the old fashioned pat down search with full baggage inspection . . . I can easily factor in a longer wait at the airport, the peace of mind is worth it to me...
Well, I cannot. Therefore, let me propose an alternative: you sedate yourself heavily for "peace of mind", while I just walk on the plane? OK?
Or does that sound like I'm putting my own personal peace and comfort ahead of that of others?
It seems to me that the people that bitch the loudest about illegal search and seizure are people who desire to break the law if they wish and don't want to get caught
So all we need to do to catch the bad guys is round up all the complainers? It sounds almost too easy . . .
2020 will also be the year of linux on the desktop.
But still no "Duke Nukem Forever"
My more recent responses to "why are you wearing shorts" include:
. . .
Have any of your own that I might borrow?
I'm making vitamin D
I just do what the voices say
You kids and your fancy computer characters! Back in my day, we could only use numbers and calculators. It was 51358008 and we liked it. Now get off my lawn!
In my day we'd say "what's 44125687 + 11252321 ? It's what your girlfriend is! 55378008 Get it? Turn your calculator upside down!" Of course it was 4th grade, so they pretty much all were, except Fat Jason. Just don't call him that, 'cause he'll sit on you.
I'm sorry, but your a fucking moron.
Ok, I'll bite . . . my a fucking moron what?
I blame the bees deserting earth like rats from a sinking ship. BEESSS!!
So long and thanks for all the acorns?
No, I'm getting the impression that they don't (and I've known way too many software guys who treat their jobs as a big joke to just ignore my feelings on the subject.) That bothers me. Regardless, the casual acceptance of this bothers me more. Slippery slope and all that (today an easter egg, tomorrow a back door or time bomb.) Just do your jobs, people. If you want to express yourself, learn to paint or play an instrument, or learn how to design good software. Don't treat it like a toy. It isn't.
The engineers are falling out of ranks and getting creative and expressing themselves! They're gonna give the launch codes to the evildoers and put a back door in my heart-lung bypass machine and they think it's all a big fat joke! Well, that's not what humor is, that's what Karl Marx is! In sixty days we're gonna deploy, and you all think it's a joke! For two stinking cents, I'd jump through these tubes and rip your cowardly, stinking body limb from limb! Easter eggs one day, and the next it's mopery, listening to classical music and being a smart guy. What do you mean we can't punish you? You want justice? Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning! Garroting! That's what justice is, when we've all got to be tough enough and rough enough to ship this build! From the hip. Get it?
Not according to the western legal system.
The legal system, as expected, defines your legal obligations.
You don't expect a "jack in the box" pop-up doll on a spring to jump out at you when you open the hood on your new car, do you? And if such a thing were to happen, would you say to yourself, "wow, those guys at Aston Martin, don't they have a great sense of humour!"? Frankly, I suspect you'd see it as being a bit weird.
A lot of people would call their lawyers, especially if that little bastard accidentally poked out an eye.
That's why you first add an "easter egg" to the phone system. Duh.
I am a robot. I do only as instructed. Beep beep. Bloop Bloop.
Be insulting if you wish. If you're a programmer or a software engineer, one day you may get involved with a project that has a serious penalty for failure (and no, I don't mean a bank or e-commerce Web site or something equally safe.) Believe me, when that happens you'll change your tune and get pretty damn serious. "Easter Eggs" and other irrelevancies suddenly become significant liabilities, and you don't even think about them anymore.
Have a drink, man. Everyone knows if they're doing something life-critical. So just chill out. People like you harsh my mellow.