Thank you for the reply. I was actually looking for data contradicting though, if there's some basis for this guy who I replied to having some facts for it. Doesn't really look that way at all, unfortunately. I am all for allowing people to get gun permits etc, not the other way around.
By your post, we'd be pulling numbers out our asses that have no studies or basis. So nice for the extreme attempt. How about a real, solid example of banning guns in a urban environment lowering violent crime in the United States? Any day now, but I can't even google such a thing. Oh, and I mean factual. Not "opinionated".
In the meantime, you're comparing welfare to violence. Those two things are not necessarily in the same group, nor in the same group as guns.
To you, you have your own opinion, and you are entitled to it. However, that doesn't counter factual evidence. This is along the same lines of "I don't want XYZ regardless of studies/logic".Non-factual opinion has no basis in the court of law, nor in politics.
Ha, very funny:P I do not follow any specific political party, I tend to lean between sides while staying towards moderate....although I'd say Kucinich is about the closest one that was running for presidency that follows the most of my views (but not all).
I really understand what you're saying and pretty much agree with it, so I really don't have a reply to that lol (mod parent up). I would like to see less fear mongering as a method to take away people's rights, though.
There is one part though, why essentially regulate something in a fashion that makes it tough for people of that actual profession? I can understand regulation to keep things maintained and adhering to standards, but why incriminate possession? Are people going to make a bomb with a geiger or something?
Or on a bigger picture, why do people use regulation as a method of funding via fines?
Umm, the article was pretty accurate. They're preventing them preemptively to stop "False alarms". What part of this do you think could possibly go right? Okay, here's one. How about we disable sprinklers to prevent false alarms, because too many people have false alarms?
How about you have to apply for a permit that you're not necessarily granted for science research? Oh wait, the article has that as a concern. From the article: "Dave Newman, an industrial hygienist for the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, claimed that under this law, the West Virginia air-quality experts who tested the air after 9/11 would have been a bunch of criminals."
Yeah, good idea, if you want to make the world a thoughtcrime maybe. I mean this is so far as to call possession of a geiger counter something you can be be fined for. That in itself is a bit of crazy.
You know plenty of games (crysis,hellgate, etc use their full DX10 capability on DX9 and DX10 capable hardware and also in windows XP, right? It's not like vista uses up a drastically larger amount of memory or actually adds features you couldn't find in say linux, is it?
All DX10 has done is added small graphic effects for transparency with water and smoke, that although they look beautiful, aren't the real reason DX10 was created. DX10 was created with virtualization in mind so microsoft could twist their patent deals with virtualization.
Sheesh, and you people wonder why Vista is an absolutely failed attempt at an OS from more perspectives than just people who hate microsoft.
Ha, thanks. I know some. Any knowledge so I can learn more is of infinite value to me, so the responses to my OP is beyond invaluable to me now (and bookmarked). I just never took things to their capability with programming because in all honestly, I meant what I said as literally as possible: oftimes I just never knew where to start. I've heard all manner of programming languages mentioned before (python, c, OpenGL, etc), and I grew up on the computers like any good slashie (I broke some air pilot/bomber polygon game by fiddling with its code at about 5 years old....we're talking like loading programs on floppies era), even spent childhood playing pole position and LP/Lima Muds, which I programmed on briefly...hell, one of my family friends was a very active part of Ground Zero and some other black hat group with a nuclear-style name back in the day.
I don't even know how to create sandboxes/virtual machines but I have read up some...I was actually trying to figure out how to run a VM of windows XP under linux using an existing windows XP partition but I couldn't figure out how to do it. It seems that there are issues with swap and memory even with 3 gigs of ram on an E6700....my idea there was to run native XP under linux to test for gaming (which I have no idea if its viable or not vs Cedega and other programs I couldn't figure out when I Tried last).
What is STL? Also I looked into the PHP/Apache/IIS thing and it seems like I need to understand more than just PHP to use PHP and/or even test it, right? Aka I have to at least figure out some basics of Apache as well?
I think my next step is to start exploring and/or finding some good forums to plod through, but thank you for all the information.
Bringing a drastic improvement in education to poor countries in a very economical fashion is indeed a world changing thing. Doing it without locking someone into a corporation's interest just makes it that much more important to the rest of us who hate Microsoft/IBM. There are better things to spend on, but long-term improving education is one of the best things to spend on for any nation including our own.
I agree about what you're saying with China. However, I I wouldn't say politicians listen to the poor vote since we know politicians barely listen to anyone. Just because of an improvement for (insert group of choice) doesn't mean they were listening to that same group.
I didn't intend for C-> PHP -> SQL, I was asking if there such a chain. I am asking what that chain would be:) So yes, I want to learn the oil change before becoming the aeronautic pilot and do the steps imbetween as well.
With that said, thank you very much for your explanation:) It does answer the kinds of questions I was looking to answer, as many others have done (thankfully).
I plan to go book-hunting and slashdot folk definitely know programming well so I'm glad I asked:) I don't expect this overnight, I just want a good idea of where to start. I was going to try C, but other than arrays and basic system calls I didn't really take much away from it...which I was dumbfounded by because I couldn't figure out how a language that is a large basis of many OS's (feel free to correct me if I am misinformed on that)...seemed to do not much more than basic manipulation of tables, arrays, etc.
Thank you for the security advice and all the rest too...would it be sufficient to run a virtual machine of the server without an exceptional knowledge of security or would my home/office system be too easily compromised even if its in a sandbox?
I understand your feeling but I think you conflict with yourself about what you said (although your statements do hold accurate/true).
You're saying you want up to date and new stuff, but don't want to accept the instability that results from things being so new/untested/undeveloped. Its one or the other:) I understand Mac "just works" but with no doubt testing slows down development. Quality vs Quantity, same ole debate.
I think KDE for windows is a nice way to break people away if the full shell can be used. I think if people did that, you might have a new breed of windows user: KDE shell under windows XP, never to upgrade their XP any further, and probably running linux under virtualization and windows for non-linux gaming.
How long do you think KDE 4 will take? From what I've read in many places people seem to be in a state of euphoria with how efficiently it runs for how it looks, etc.
As a complete programming noob looking to get into web-related design and things of that nature, what languages are good to start with and to branch to other languages? Would that be like C-> PHP -> SQL? What other languages apply and/or in what order are languages needed to learn to start to bring things together for well designed websites?
okay, here's the problem. The problem is what throughput they allow, not just if its 50 cents a gig. If 50 cents a gig is the cheapest plan/slowest connection, (monopolies, duh), its going to be a costly and prohibitive method to use your connection. Thats half the problem. (say 100 gigs in this scenario)
Now lets say the reverse, lets say its 10cents a gig for the fastest connection. You're going to use it even more because of the speed of the connection opens up new uses for your internet connection. So they're going to make the same 50 bucks on a faster connection. If you had a 5MB/s downstream and 5MB/s upstream for 10 cents/gig, you'd burn through gigs in hours easily, costing even more money. However, new business models, new uses for realtime connections, etc.
Also, guess what else becomes more useless with higher bandwith being billed like that? Anything rented/streamed versus outright purchases. You'd be creating a cyclical market failure in that when the bandwith prices get too expensive people will stop using the internet for anything other than piracy/outright purchases (thus creating the situation we have now).
Might I also add, that games, downloads, steaming stuff, and servers are the high traffic things usually. Those are also your ripest market of customers, as they often are willing to pay more for premium service. So if you charge them more, you're going to be cannibalizing your own business. The people who use little, the web browsing people only, aren't going to use jack of your service and by raising price they're going to find someone else, too.
I have to say, I agree completely. My workplace is the same way. I think the "mass quoting/replying to all" aspects are stupidly abused at my 9-5 job, though. I'll often see one line replies to every single person in a mass mailing instead of as a reply to the poster.
Additionally, I'll guess the other half of the reason is not a lack of netiquette equivalent, but more due to plain lack of computer familiarity...most of them don't know how to use them for anything beyond the job description, aka the exact opposite of the slashdot crowd. There are a total of maybe 3% of people out of the 8k employees here know of fark, or slashdot, or distributed boingboing. Probably 3/4 of that is techies, who are forced to acquiesce under the bullshit of websense.
Umm, I don't know about that. I just got back from being in Israel for 2 weeks and although its not Europe, DVD prices were about the same as the US (price fixing is suspect though). I saw new movies for about 20$ US (80 NIS) if bought from legitimate stores and not bootlegged.
Also, isn't MythTV and stuff like that, using your personal PC as a HTPC supposed to work too?
wait what? I actually had not heard of that term, but I had never said that atheists are intolerant. If anything they simply want to do their own thing and not be discriminated. People can claim no religion (be it atheism or agnostic, secular humanism) and not be an anarchist.
Religion is only one form of social control, not the only form. I mean religious doctrines have guided human behavior for all of collective memory, but government laws and regulations are essentially the same thing, but secular. They are both codes of conduct, they just cite different authorities. Are you implying that there can be no government without church?
I enjoy a good debate but I don't get where or why you come up with the rationale that without religion there would be no civilization? What makes you believe that?
Even though my prior post was a stupid, I'd like to reply to this with a question for you....I do understand you are being theoretical, but as a point of debate... How do you suppose people can believe things like that in the face of fact though? I know some of our nation does, but for what reason would you perceive that someone would consider your statement the end of the logic chain, as opposed to how examples like cheetahs and their problems come into play.
I really hope you were joking, but in the event that you weren't.... Bible infallible? Really? How much flamebait did you want to push? Also, I'd love to find out about your answer to how we came from Adam and Eve and yet our entire human race didn't die off from inbreeding resulting thereof?
Please, I'm tolerant of religion. Do what you want. Don't bother me. But don't dare shove it in my face, or I'm going to give to you in the form of a UFIA. Cept replace the F with fist, or flying spaghetti monster.
If we didn't have religion, people would have one less chance to believe that things "simply can't be explained" and might actually have to realize that you have to figure out how to live your life, and that religion can, at best, only be a guideline for life thousands of years ago. Here, today, 2008, it just doesn't work. The only positives from religion are to be of tolerance and compassion for others. If you ask me though, I believe!
Why should anyone have sympathy when a large amount of America shares your viewpoint, which allows things like this to continue? I'm not trying to make a personal attack, but if you don't stand up for your rights, they're just going to go away. Even Thomas Jefferson and John Adams knew that. This is far from a new issue. I never said people in all situations can stand the repercussions, but if you want to continue the stereotype of sheeple in the US, then continue. If people don't make it known that something has a problem, then why should the government assume there is a problem with it? Let alone how are they even to be expected to be doing more than simply ensuring that the law is being maintained?
Also, lets not take this to an extreme. If there's an emergency is a different situation than a common flight. logic says: if something is more important than something else, you're going to put that priority first, duh. If someone had two hours to live it would be a bad decision to not be flying on a private plane to get there ASAP regardless of cost. Because you sure as hell aren't going to make it purchasing a 200$ ticket from jetblue or American Airlines in those two hours. That or spend it on the phone if you can talk to them. There are alternatives. If your job is so fickle that you can neither reschedule a meeting nor plan ahead with sufficient time to spare to prepare for a meeting involving a serious contract (a day or two ahead, minimum), then someone would be underqualified for their job and just plain stupid.
A bullshit choice is not a bullshit choice until you give up on yourself and your ability to make rational decisions because you are not stuck with one decision in the US. One of those rational decisions is to stand up for who you are, and another is to try to find other/better decisions in a given situation.
Do you have any idea how easy it is to lose weight if you control overeating either by surgery or by willpower, and additionally cut out the extreme amounts of sugar in foods? Forget exercise, you can do it just by smart eating and definitely without starving yourself nor starving yourself of the foods you like to cheat with. If you did so, you could cheat every single day on whatever is your cheat-food.
Instead, go ahead, blame it on some magic inevitability, biological or otherwise, as if you neglected to realize that almost every product has 2 or 3 types of added sugar and salt, in addition to extra salt. So yeah, pour on that extra salt too, and don't forget that these small quantities that are in EVERY SINGLE THING YOU EAT tend to add up quickly. Now, if you start looking at labels, you might realize there is more to it than "oh! this serving is only 2-3 grams of sugar" because, it might be 2-3 grams. But so is every other thing you eat in a day. So if you eat 20-40 grams of sugar a day that way (which is easily passed in natural sugar, let alone the additives in foods), you can imagine where that will end up. You'll be a diabetic in 20 years. Oh wait, we already have that situation don't we, with the 6 fold increase in diabetes. That's because these additives started in the 60s right around when the diabetes increase started going crazy.
Here is what General Mills says about doing that, Verbose of their rationale of why they add sugar and salt to their foods: "Sodium is an essential ingredient and occurs naturally in many foods. It enhances flavor, improves texture and helps keep food fresh. We regularly test different sodium levels among several thousand families across the United States. Our products reflect consumer testing and contain the necessary ingredients to produce a tasty and convenient product."
So they know that you will make yourself fatter by eating multiple types of sugar, and it sells more because your body eventually gets addicted to it. Sound common? Okay maybe not fatty. How about I add some more information. Lets take a GM cereal. How about Wheaties? ingredients: wheat, salt, sugar (corn syrup), soybean oil (oil = fat), brown sugar syrup (sugar), natural flavor (can be anything from animal byproduct to more sugar), trisodium phosphate (artificial salt). Does that sound healthy to you? See the real reason why people who spend more on food at higher quality places are healthier, is the foods don't all have extra sugar added to them.
Try shopping at a Trader Joes, or a Whole Foods, and almost nothing will have added sugar, or salt. You'll notice a distinctly lower amount of sodium and salt in everything they eat, because the only salt and sugar in their products is natural. Or you can keep eating the cheap stuff, like ramen noodles, which have like double the RDA of salt.
Sound too expensive? Think again. How about buy less of the healthier stuff, since you won't be as hungry. Your body will crave less sugar, and you will eat less.
That or keep telling yourself that fat is a lifestyle decision, and I'll be the one putting the flower on your grave.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for the reply. I was actually looking for data contradicting though, if there's some basis for this guy who I replied to having some facts for it. Doesn't really look that way at all, unfortunately. I am all for allowing people to get gun permits etc, not the other way around.
By your post, we'd be pulling numbers out our asses that have no studies or basis. So nice for the extreme attempt. How about a real, solid example of banning guns in a urban environment lowering violent crime in the United States? Any day now, but I can't even google such a thing. Oh, and I mean factual. Not "opinionated".
In the meantime, you're comparing welfare to violence. Those two things are not necessarily in the same group, nor in the same group as guns.
You do realize that banning guns raises the crime rate in a city, right? How about DC for a nice example of that. Or is that not big city enough for you?
To you, you have your own opinion, and you are entitled to it. However, that doesn't counter factual evidence. This is along the same lines of "I don't want XYZ regardless of studies/logic".Non-factual opinion has no basis in the court of law, nor in politics.
Ha, very funny :P I do not follow any specific political party, I tend to lean between sides while staying towards moderate....although I'd say Kucinich is about the closest one that was running for presidency that follows the most of my views (but not all).
I really understand what you're saying and pretty much agree with it, so I really don't have a reply to that lol (mod parent up). I would like to see less fear mongering as a method to take away people's rights, though.
There is one part though, why essentially regulate something in a fashion that makes it tough for people of that actual profession? I can understand regulation to keep things maintained and adhering to standards, but why incriminate possession? Are people going to make a bomb with a geiger or something?
Or on a bigger picture, why do people use regulation as a method of funding via fines?
Umm, the article was pretty accurate. They're preventing them preemptively to stop "False alarms". What part of this do you think could possibly go right? Okay, here's one. How about we disable sprinklers to prevent false alarms, because too many people have false alarms?
How about you have to apply for a permit that you're not necessarily granted for science research? Oh wait, the article has that as a concern. From the article: "Dave Newman, an industrial hygienist for the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, claimed that under this law, the West Virginia air-quality experts who tested the air after 9/11 would have been a bunch of criminals."
Yeah, good idea, if you want to make the world a thoughtcrime maybe. I mean this is so far as to call possession of a geiger counter something you can be be fined for. That in itself is a bit of crazy.
Faster than XP how?
You know plenty of games (crysis,hellgate, etc use their full DX10 capability on DX9 and DX10 capable hardware and also in windows XP, right? It's not like vista uses up a drastically larger amount of memory or actually adds features you couldn't find in say linux, is it?
All DX10 has done is added small graphic effects for transparency with water and smoke, that although they look beautiful, aren't the real reason DX10 was created. DX10 was created with virtualization in mind so microsoft could twist their patent deals with virtualization.
Sheesh, and you people wonder why Vista is an absolutely failed attempt at an OS from more perspectives than just people who hate microsoft.
Ha, thanks. I know some. Any knowledge so I can learn more is of infinite value to me, so the responses to my OP is beyond invaluable to me now (and bookmarked). I just never took things to their capability with programming because in all honestly, I meant what I said as literally as possible: oftimes I just never knew where to start. I've heard all manner of programming languages mentioned before (python, c, OpenGL, etc), and I grew up on the computers like any good slashie (I broke some air pilot/bomber polygon game by fiddling with its code at about 5 years old....we're talking like loading programs on floppies era), even spent childhood playing pole position and LP/Lima Muds, which I programmed on briefly...hell, one of my family friends was a very active part of Ground Zero and some other black hat group with a nuclear-style name back in the day.
I don't even know how to create sandboxes/virtual machines but I have read up some...I was actually trying to figure out how to run a VM of windows XP under linux using an existing windows XP partition but I couldn't figure out how to do it. It seems that there are issues with swap and memory even with 3 gigs of ram on an E6700....my idea there was to run native XP under linux to test for gaming (which I have no idea if its viable or not vs Cedega and other programs I couldn't figure out when I Tried last).
What is STL? Also I looked into the PHP/Apache/IIS thing and it seems like I need to understand more than just PHP to use PHP and/or even test it, right? Aka I have to at least figure out some basics of Apache as well?
I think my next step is to start exploring and/or finding some good forums to plod through, but thank you for all the information.
Bringing a drastic improvement in education to poor countries in a very economical fashion is indeed a world changing thing. Doing it without locking someone into a corporation's interest just makes it that much more important to the rest of us who hate Microsoft/IBM.
There are better things to spend on, but long-term improving education is one of the best things to spend on for any nation including our own.
I agree about what you're saying with China. However, I I wouldn't say politicians listen to the poor vote since we know politicians barely listen to anyone. Just because of an improvement for (insert group of choice) doesn't mean they were listening to that same group.
I didn't intend for C-> PHP -> SQL, I was asking if there such a chain. I am asking what that chain would be :) So yes, I want to learn the oil change before becoming the aeronautic pilot and do the steps imbetween as well.
:) It does answer the kinds of questions I was looking to answer, as many others have done (thankfully).
With that said, thank you very much for your explanation
I plan to go book-hunting and slashdot folk definitely know programming well so I'm glad I asked :) I don't expect this overnight, I just want a good idea of where to start. I was going to try C, but other than arrays and basic system calls I didn't really take much away from it...which I was dumbfounded by because I couldn't figure out how a language that is a large basis of many OS's (feel free to correct me if I am misinformed on that)...seemed to do not much more than basic manipulation of tables, arrays, etc.
Thank you for the security advice and all the rest too...would it be sufficient to run a virtual machine of the server without an exceptional knowledge of security or would my home/office system be too easily compromised even if its in a sandbox?
I understand your feeling but I think you conflict with yourself about what you said (although your statements do hold accurate/true).
:) I understand Mac "just works" but with no doubt testing slows down development. Quality vs Quantity, same ole debate.
You're saying you want up to date and new stuff, but don't want to accept the instability that results from things being so new/untested/undeveloped. Its one or the other
I think KDE for windows is a nice way to break people away if the full shell can be used. I think if people did that, you might have a new breed of windows user: KDE shell under windows XP, never to upgrade their XP any further, and probably running linux under virtualization and windows for non-linux gaming.
How long do you think KDE 4 will take? From what I've read in many places people seem to be in a state of euphoria with how efficiently it runs for how it looks, etc.
As a complete programming noob looking to get into web-related design and things of that nature, what languages are good to start with and to branch to other languages? Would that be like C-> PHP -> SQL? What other languages apply and/or in what order are languages needed to learn to start to bring things together for well designed websites?
okay, here's the problem. The problem is what throughput they allow, not just if its 50 cents a gig. If 50 cents a gig is the cheapest plan/slowest connection, (monopolies, duh), its going to be a costly and prohibitive method to use your connection. Thats half the problem. (say 100 gigs in this scenario)
Now lets say the reverse, lets say its 10cents a gig for the fastest connection. You're going to use it even more because of the speed of the connection opens up new uses for your internet connection. So they're going to make the same 50 bucks on a faster connection. If you had a 5MB/s downstream and 5MB/s upstream for 10 cents/gig, you'd burn through gigs in hours easily, costing even more money. However, new business models, new uses for realtime connections, etc.
Also, guess what else becomes more useless with higher bandwith being billed like that? Anything rented/streamed versus outright purchases. You'd be creating a cyclical market failure in that when the bandwith prices get too expensive people will stop using the internet for anything other than piracy/outright purchases (thus creating the situation we have now).
Might I also add, that games, downloads, steaming stuff, and servers are the high traffic things usually. Those are also your ripest market of customers, as they often are willing to pay more for premium service. So if you charge them more, you're going to be cannibalizing your own business. The people who use little, the web browsing people only, aren't going to use jack of your service and by raising price they're going to find someone else, too.
See, the problem doesn't go away. Milking your customers for more cash, makes it worse. Also, in places like Japan where they (people/distance to servers) are closer together (note: US big cities would be a similar example - LA, chicago, manhattan), prices are like 20 bucks a month US for 50MB/s connections! Kinda tells you there may be something wrong with the way our business is going. Note: these people who are selling at cost are making an absolute killing in their market due to the people who are doing like time warner.
I have to say, I agree completely. My workplace is the same way. I think the "mass quoting/replying to all" aspects are stupidly abused at my 9-5 job, though. I'll often see one line replies to every single person in a mass mailing instead of as a reply to the poster.
Additionally, I'll guess the other half of the reason is not a lack of netiquette equivalent, but more due to plain lack of computer familiarity...most of them don't know how to use them for anything beyond the job description, aka the exact opposite of the slashdot crowd. There are a total of maybe 3% of people out of the 8k employees here know of fark, or slashdot, or distributed boingboing. Probably 3/4 of that is techies, who are forced to acquiesce under the bullshit of websense.
interesting and agreed. Although I thought that most of the asian technology culture especially japan would be more computer oriented
Umm, I don't know about that. I just got back from being in Israel for 2 weeks and although its not Europe, DVD prices were about the same as the US (price fixing is suspect though). I saw new movies for about 20$ US (80 NIS) if bought from legitimate stores and not bootlegged.
Also, isn't MythTV and stuff like that, using your personal PC as a HTPC supposed to work too?
wait what? I actually had not heard of that term, but I had never said that atheists are intolerant. If anything they simply want to do their own thing and not be discriminated. People can claim no religion (be it atheism or agnostic, secular humanism) and not be an anarchist.
Religion is only one form of social control, not the only form.
I mean religious doctrines have guided human behavior for all of collective memory, but government laws and regulations are essentially the same thing, but secular. They are both codes of conduct, they just cite different authorities. Are you implying that there can be no government without church?
I enjoy a good debate but I don't get where or why you come up with the rationale that without religion there would be no civilization? What makes you believe that?
Even though my prior post was a stupid, I'd like to reply to this with a question for you....I do understand you are being theoretical, but as a point of debate...
How do you suppose people can believe things like that in the face of fact though? I know some of our nation does, but for what reason would you perceive that someone would consider your statement the end of the logic chain, as opposed to how examples like cheetahs and their problems come into play.
okay, I apologize. I didn't expect the inquisition :P and indeed wasn't thinking before posting.
I really hope you were joking, but in the event that you weren't....
Bible infallible? Really? How much flamebait did you want to push? Also, I'd love to find out about your answer to how we came from Adam and Eve and yet our entire human race didn't die off from inbreeding resulting thereof?
Please, I'm tolerant of religion. Do what you want. Don't bother me. But don't dare shove it in my face, or I'm going to give to you in the form of a UFIA. Cept replace the F with fist, or flying spaghetti monster.
If we didn't have religion, people would have one less chance to believe that things "simply can't be explained" and might actually have to realize that you have to figure out how to live your life, and that religion can, at best, only be a guideline for life thousands of years ago. Here, today, 2008, it just doesn't work. The only positives from religion are to be of tolerance and compassion for others. If you ask me though, I believe!
Why is it elitism to protect what you have?
Why should anyone have sympathy when a large amount of America shares your viewpoint, which allows things like this to continue? I'm not trying to make a personal attack, but if you don't stand up for your rights, they're just going to go away. Even Thomas Jefferson and John Adams knew that. This is far from a new issue. I never said people in all situations can stand the repercussions, but if you want to continue the stereotype of sheeple in the US, then continue. If people don't make it known that something has a problem, then why should the government assume there is a problem with it? Let alone how are they even to be expected to be doing more than simply ensuring that the law is being maintained?
Also, lets not take this to an extreme. If there's an emergency is a different situation than a common flight. logic says: if something is more important than something else, you're going to put that priority first, duh.
If someone had two hours to live it would be a bad decision to not be flying on a private plane to get there ASAP regardless of cost. Because you sure as hell aren't going to make it purchasing a 200$ ticket from jetblue or American Airlines in those two hours. That or spend it on the phone if you can talk to them. There are alternatives.
If your job is so fickle that you can neither reschedule a meeting nor plan ahead with sufficient time to spare to prepare for a meeting involving a serious contract (a day or two ahead, minimum), then someone would be underqualified for their job and just plain stupid.
A bullshit choice is not a bullshit choice until you give up on yourself and your ability to make rational decisions because you are not stuck with one decision in the US. One of those rational decisions is to stand up for who you are, and another is to try to find other/better decisions in a given situation.
Do you have any idea how easy it is to lose weight if you control overeating either by surgery or by willpower, and additionally cut out the extreme amounts of sugar in foods? Forget exercise, you can do it just by smart eating and definitely without starving yourself nor starving yourself of the foods you like to cheat with. If you did so, you could cheat every single day on whatever is your cheat-food.
Instead, go ahead, blame it on some magic inevitability, biological or otherwise, as if you neglected to realize that almost every product has 2 or 3 types of added sugar and salt, in addition to extra salt. So yeah, pour on that extra salt too, and don't forget that these small quantities that are in EVERY SINGLE THING YOU EAT tend to add up quickly. Now, if you start looking at labels, you might realize there is more to it than "oh! this serving is only 2-3 grams of sugar" because, it might be 2-3 grams. But so is every other thing you eat in a day. So if you eat 20-40 grams of sugar a day that way (which is easily passed in natural sugar, let alone the additives in foods), you can imagine where that will end up. You'll be a diabetic in 20 years. Oh wait, we already have that situation don't we, with the 6 fold increase in diabetes. That's because these additives started in the 60s right around when the diabetes increase started going crazy.
Here is what General Mills says about doing that, Verbose of their rationale of why they add sugar and salt to their foods: "Sodium is an essential ingredient and occurs naturally in many foods. It enhances flavor, improves texture and helps keep food fresh. We regularly test different sodium levels among several thousand families across the United States. Our products reflect consumer testing and contain the necessary ingredients to produce a tasty and convenient product."
So they know that you will make yourself fatter by eating multiple types of sugar, and it sells more because your body eventually gets addicted to it. Sound common? Okay maybe not fatty. How about I add some more information. Lets take a GM cereal. How about Wheaties? ingredients: wheat, salt, sugar (corn syrup), soybean oil (oil = fat), brown sugar syrup (sugar), natural flavor (can be anything from animal byproduct to more sugar), trisodium phosphate (artificial salt). Does that sound healthy to you? See the real reason why people who spend more on food at higher quality places are healthier, is the foods don't all have extra sugar added to them.
Try shopping at a Trader Joes, or a Whole Foods, and almost nothing will have added sugar, or salt. You'll notice a distinctly lower amount of sodium and salt in everything they eat, because the only salt and sugar in their products is natural. Or you can keep eating the cheap stuff, like ramen noodles, which have like double the RDA of salt.
Sound too expensive? Think again. How about buy less of the healthier stuff, since you won't be as hungry. Your body will crave less sugar, and you will eat less.
That or keep telling yourself that fat is a lifestyle decision, and I'll be the one putting the flower on your grave.
If only there were some sort of activity that is possibly known to combat obesity? Obviously not a diet or anything...