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User: Belial6

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  1. Re:Noooooooooo!!!!!!1111!11! on Autism-Vax Doc Scandal Was Pharma Business Scam · · Score: 1

    Honestly, that is simply stupid. There are certainly a lot of witch doctor chiropractors out there, but claiming that moving a bone that is out of place, back into place has not medical value is just...well...stupid. If you pull your arm out of it's socket, and you go to the emergency room, the doctor will put it back in it's socket. That IS chiropractics. It is chiropractics in it's most crude sense, but it is chiropractics all the same. To claim that chiropractics is a fairy tale is to claim that putting a persons arm bone back in it's socket when it has been pulled out isn't really helping and any precieved improvement is just the patients imagination.

    Are you REALLY going to claim that? Really?

  2. Re:Noooooooooo!!!!!!1111!11! on Autism-Vax Doc Scandal Was Pharma Business Scam · · Score: 1

    The argument for mandatory vaccines could just as easily be used as an argument for mandatory kidney harvesting.

  3. Re:In "competition", consumers always lose. on Verizon To Offer iPhone Users Unlimited Data · · Score: 1

    You are looking for problems that don't exist. We already have downed power lines. Yes, those are a hazard. Any weather that is bad enough to bring down a data line is going to be so much worse of a hazard than the data line itself, that it is irrelevent.

    By your logic, we should already be requiring the cable and/or phone companies to be removing their lines. I have not heard of a single incident of that happening. Television is completely deliverable via wireless. There are two nationwide companies that offer TV service to virtually every home in the country, yet no one is calling for the removal of the cable lines. Why? Because it just isn't a hazard or inconvenience. Certainly not enough of one to even be on peoples radar.

    Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about when you start making claims about local governments needing have recognize the need for conduit 100 years ago. Most places with buried phone lines had it buried less than 100 years ago, and 100% of the places with buried TV cable has had it buried less than 100 years ago.

    Given that you are just making things up (as I don't believe for a second that cable television has been available in your area for 100 years), you clearly understand that I am right, and just don't want to admit it.

  4. Re:The good and bad... on Verizon Finally Unveils Apple iPhone · · Score: 1

    Or, maybe it is because when blackberry was pretty much the only option (or the best available), most people just got used to it, so the idea that it is no longer acceptable is foreign to them. It is quite common that people don't update their expectations as new technology comes out.

  5. Re:Ok on Verizon Finally Unveils Apple iPhone · · Score: 1

    Funny, when my wife and son's MyTouch updated to 2.2, everything worked great from day one. I will give you that the default browser on Android is really slow.

  6. Re:In "competition", consumers always lose. on Verizon To Offer iPhone Users Unlimited Data · · Score: 1

    That would only apply to underground cabling, as running wires on poles does not obstruct streets or dig up sidewalks. For underground data lines, the only reason to dig is because local governments don't plan ahead. A sewer pipe like system would allow new data lines to be pulled and remove the need to dig up streets and sidewalks. Of course, the claim that people are actually concerned about having the sidewalks dug up is BS. People only care when it is non-stop. Even with 20 providers, it wouldn't happen enough for people to notice an increase.

  7. Re:In "competition", consumers always lose. on Verizon To Offer iPhone Users Unlimited Data · · Score: 1

    Having the government run the wires would be a disaster, as there would be no incentive for them to upgrade, or repair low quality lines. The obvious solution is for the government to own the poles and rent the ability to run cables on those poles. In increasingly common case of the wire being run underground, the government should have a pipe system, and rent space there. Government agencies have a good deal of experience running pipe system, and tend to do it well. A system similar to the sewer system would give them enough physical space to rent out to dozens of providers.

    It isn't the running of wires, or the wire itself that makes running new data wares to homes expensive. It is the digging up of streets, and the cost buying the right aways in places where the governments have mandated monopolies.

    Last mile data to the home is not a natural monopoly. It is an artificial monopoly mandated by local governments.

  8. Re:In "competition", consumers always lose. on Verizon To Offer iPhone Users Unlimited Data · · Score: 1

    Not true. People don't care how many wires are running for the most part. If you ask people how many wires are on the poles that run down their street, they will either say none, because they are underground, or they won't know. At some point, you could get too many wires, be we are so far away from more wires being a problem that it is silly to even talk about it.

  9. Re:In "competition", consumers always lose. on Verizon To Offer iPhone Users Unlimited Data · · Score: 1

    While there technically is a limit on how much wire you can run into my home, we are not even at 0.001 percent of that, so limited resources is not even in the discussion concerning that.

  10. Re:Modern world has its priorities wrong on Tevatron To Shut Down At End of 2011 · · Score: 2

    The theoretical science was understood in 1927. It took 80 years to produce results. Do you think that in 1927 they thought that the science they were doing on paper would end in toys that kids play with in their living rooms? Of course not. THAT is why we need to continue to do cutting edge science. Not because we will get results tomorrow, but because some of it may very well end up in home appliances in 80 years.

  11. Re:How about on Disempowering the Singular Sysadmin? · · Score: 1

    Only an idiot would second guess everything the admin does. Just as an idiot would second guess everything a casher does. That doesn't mean that you trust them to do the right thing even when there is absolutely no oversight. Why would you have an Admin to don't trust completely without question? For the same reason you would have a cashier that you don't trust completely without question. Because the number of people that can be trusted completely without question in this world is far too small a number to go around, and it is all but impossible to figure out which ones you really can trust, and which ones just haven't been caught yet.

    If trust were binary, and businesses only hired people they could trust for positions of trust, commerce would grind to a halt. There would be no grocery stores. No garbage pickup. No restaurants. No car dealerships. pretty much nothing. Civilization would collapse.

    If you can't imagine a person that you would trust to deliver a $20 pizza that they COULD steal, but not trust them to have access to millions of dollars of uncounted money, you are an idiot. If you can, they you admit that trust is not binary.

  12. Re:What really concerns me on Mars Journal Issue Inspires Hundreds of One-Way Trip Volunteers · · Score: 1

    And what about the hundreds of your other children that you refused life too. Your selfishness in denying them life is amazing. How can you live with yourself knowing that you denyed them life?

  13. Re:Um, What? on Browser Exploit Kits Using Built-In Java Feature · · Score: 1

    So, they will end up watching soap operas and wrestling? I think that might be a little pessimistic.

  14. Re:Um, What? on Browser Exploit Kits Using Built-In Java Feature · · Score: 1

    You mean a TV? Oh, wait, that has a keyboard. Does your system count if the keyboard only has numbers and an enter key on it?

  15. Re:How about on Disempowering the Singular Sysadmin? · · Score: 1

    Honestly, if you don't trust your admins, why are they your admins?

    Because trust isn't binary. It is shades of gray, and in the real world, we frequently have to do business with other people that we don't trust 100%. Of course, every con man out there will tell you that you should trust him 100%, and that if you don't, YOU have done something wrong. As a developer, I could easily slip code into the system that completely compromised the entire thing. I could lock out the administrators, and bring the entire system under my control. Will I do it? No. Would I be offended if the company wanted to put audits and controls on my work? I would recommend it, and have recommended it. While I am ethical, I am not delusional enough to think that every developer is. Any Admin that tries to claim that they are above question, by the very claim, is proving that they cannot be trusted.

  16. Re:Yes on Disempowering the Singular Sysadmin? · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, this fails as often as it works. It is a reoccurring story that bad SysAdmins are not replaced because the risk of replacing them is greater than the cost there bad behavior has on the company. In many companies, the SysAdmin have actually hijacked the entire company, and have gotten to the point of dictating to C level executives what company policy will be. All companies should have a system to verify if the SysAdmin is behaving badly, and contingency plan for how safely get rid of them if they do.

  17. Re:Abandonware? on Hosting Company Appears To Be Violating the GPL [Resolved] · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your response is just as typical. Ignoring the fact that it is really common for people to differentiate between 'abandonware' and other forms of copyright infringement. 'abandonware' specifically refers to software that cannot be obtained new at any price. There simply is no way to pay for it. Thus, while 'abandonware' is certainly a euphemism for a particular class of copyright violation, claiming that it has anything to do with "everything-should-be-FREEEEEE" is a gross mischaracterization of what is being discussed. By the way, your first sentence was also an ad-hominem attack, so you are guilty of exactly what you accuse the parent poster of.

  18. Re:More allergenic? on Scientists Advocate Replacing Cattle With Insects · · Score: 1

    Yes, it is much like opening the front door of a business after the guy who doesn't wash his hands after going to the bathroom vs. finding an unflushed toilet bowl, and pulling out finger paint supplies.

  19. Re:*HOW* Much?! on Social Security Information Systems Near Collapse · · Score: 1

    Then don't write it as "4 years maintaining inventory system in COBOL". I'm sure if you tried, you could come up with a better way to put it, AND, my point was that you can get young people and train them in a very short period of time. Nobody thinks that a 27 year old is an 'old guy'.

  20. Re:*HOW* Much?! on Social Security Information Systems Near Collapse · · Score: 1

    While SOME of your points may be valid, claiming that property taxes pay for all of those things is childish, as you know very well that things like maintaining the electric grid, water and sewage systems are paid for as direct bills for their use. You are also fully aware that the local taxing authority does not handle protection against invading armies, nor do they handle maintaining a currency system. In fact, the only thing you mention that IS handled by the taxing authority that takes money from noidentities mother for the privilege of 'owning' her home is is street maintenance and zoning. Limit your snide remarks to that, and you might be seen as something other than a troll. It wouldn't necessarily make you right, but at least it wouldn't sound stupid.

  21. Re:*HOW* Much?! on Social Security Information Systems Near Collapse · · Score: 1

    Given the number of people that didn't have savings prior to SSI, I would say that for many, it's existence does not come into play, although it would be silly to say that it doesn't for many others. One of the big problems is that our system is actually built on making sure people don't understand money. There are big pushes from many sides to confuse, or to teach people things that are not true. Heck, I have yet to hear one person that is supposed to be an authority on finance who doesn't tell people they should always have a mortgage on their home.

    If you want to convince people that SSI needs to go, you first have to convince them that it is OK to let little old ladies be thrown out of the homes they have lived in for 60 years, to starve penniless on the streets. When those that oppose your ideas drag out examples, they will not be dragging out the 60 year old woman who lives in an 12 room mansion, and can afford enough plastic surgery that she still looks 35, and hasn't worked a single day in her life other than the BJs she gives to her husband who inherited the family business. They will find a little 80 year old woman who has worked since she was 16, saved money from every paycheck, paid into the SSI coffers her whole life, and is now starving on the streets.

  22. Re:Collapse? on Social Security Information Systems Near Collapse · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A decade ago, I did work on updating the system at the 'California Board of Pest Control'. They had a system that had "collapsed". What it looked like was an office that had stopped buying cubicle walls. They instead had built their walls from stacks of paper that had to be processed. They literally had walls made of stacked paper. I will say it a third time just because the image in my head was so startling. They had made the internal walls of the office out of 12' tall stacks of paper. When I displayed shock at what I saw, they explained that this was just the new stuff that they hadn't gotten moved to the big warehouse across the street. It looked a lot like one of those houses you see on the news where the owner went insane, and become a hard core pack rat.

  23. Re:*HOW* Much?! on Social Security Information Systems Near Collapse · · Score: 2

    I have my doubts about how SSI is handled as well. One of them being that it is not Social Security Insurance, but in fact, Social Security Retirement. Thus for honesty's sake, it should be renamed to SSR. That being said, most people CANT be trusted to save for their retirement. It is sad but true. We either need something like SSI, we need to be willing to let old people starve, or we need to figure out something else to do with all of the 70+ people who can't work and have no savings. I am open to debate on the subject, and won't even dismiss letting them stave out of hand.

    It doesn't even take a person having not saved for retirement for them to be destitute in their old age. All it takes is for them to be blinded by their love of a family member. How many people have had their life savings blown because their spouse went off the deep end and decided to blow the whole thing. How many people have ended up destitute because when realized that they couldn't handle their own finances anymore, they let their child 'help' them. Then their child siphoned it all off, leaving their parent with nothing.

    Yes, SSI could use some major restructuring, starting with what it's actual purpose is, but it isn't as simple as you make it out to be.

  24. Re:*HOW* Much?! on Social Security Information Systems Near Collapse · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would say that the 'pool of people' shrinking is not even a problem. Any of us that write code, know that once you know how it works, the language is just a matter of syntax. Cobol isn't the magic language that no one can learn after 1990. Hire developers and train them if they can't get to the point of being useful in a short amount of time, then maybe they just don't have what it takes to be a good developer anyway.

    The 'shrinking pool of developers' problem is only a problem when you have the mindset that everyone must be a star on their first day. It is how we see ads asking for 10 years of experience in technology that is only 5 years old.

  25. Re:Not a Surprise on Android Passes iPhone In US Market Share · · Score: 1

    There are a lot more complaints about iPhones than it being only on AT&T. Whether you prefer an iPhone or not, claiming that it's only flaw is the carrier is simply delusional.