If photonics take over, we will for once be in a safe-zone of knowing once and for all that no overly powerful overseeing entity will be able to eavesdrop on any kind of electromagnetic emissions, so long as you don't have any light leaks.
Doesn't matter. Most meaningful cracking has a social component anyway. Or based on easily deduced patterns of human behavior. Or the fact that 'p@55word' just isn't as tricksy as some people seem to think.
In the cases above, and even your newspaper example, the work is being used as part of a commercial work. Newspapers sell ads. Therefore, the paper is making a profit off of my image.
It's called "editorial use," and that's a specific case. An image that illustrates news or editorial information is different than an image that is sold as the image. So, selling a poster of you is different than publishing an article about you that happens to include your image. It's a little vague, because it has to be, but most people know editorial usage when they see it.
I say I'm an adult. If I want to buy a system that employs DRM, it's my god damn business.
Well, you pretty much nailed it. Obviously this EU official thinks you can't possibly expected to be accountable for your own actions and decisions. For cryin' out loud, she wants a "cooling off period" for the purchase of an inexpensive bit of three-minute entertainment? Doesn't anyone understand how absurd that sounds? It's bad enough when people want to "cool off" on their 60" plasma TV purchase the day after the Super Bowl... but to imply that the government needs to protect people from the harm they might do to themselves by paying a dollar for a song from iTunes... incredible. Perhaps she'd like to propose a cooling off period for the people that voted for her? Surely they're regretting it. Or should, anyway.
If attribution for works has ever been reasonable (which of course it is), how can the increase in the ease of copying the material make it less reasonable to give credit to the person or entity that did the work, or had the creative spark or skill to make the material desireable to use? That entire notion - that it's just so easy to lay hands on something now, that it feels by comparison like too much trouble to fret about violating someone's copyright... nonsense. The same technology may or may not make it easier to produce the material in the first place, but just because it's a couple of mouse clicks instead of tape swapping in order to rip it off doesn't change the fact that someone else did make the investment in time, equipment, personnel, etc., to make the material available. A 'courtesy of' credit is just that much easier to put up, with all that time that's saved by ease of acquistion online.
By the end, I was rooting for global warming, on the theory that it might kill Al Gore. So, does that mean I'm crazy?
No, I think you've hit on a fundamental issue, here. For some reason, much of the public discourse on this topic seems to be issuing forth from pedantic or shrill people that seem, for some reason, to often be polarizingly tied to other political issues/orientations that have nothing whatsoever to do with climate change. The perception, alas, is that many of the proposed "cures" for whatever component of climate change can meaningfully (!) be put at the feet of human activity (BTW, I think "caused by humans" is really disengenuous... perhaps "exacerbated by humans" is a better way to consider it) seem to - shockingly! - echo a host of other idealogical "cures" (for economic activity) that have been put forth by similar pompous asses for decades.
So, I guess the problem is that all the noise on this subject seems to be coming from people that also seem to have a lot of other axes to grind, and it's as much a power/finance/influence/spotlight grab as it is an honest position based in any way on real merit. So no, you're not crazy.
What would make it truly interesting (to non-seismologists) would be if that water were fresh (i.e. drinkable) and accessible (so it could be used as a drinking water supply).
No, no, no. You're missing the point. The only way to make this interesting is to get a grant to study how (not whether!) this find demonstrates the need for Al Gore to make a sequel to his movie. If there's no global warming tie-in, then it can't be science.
Way to scare your customers. How do they stay in business?
Generally, when you have something offered up for sale, and someone finds a way to rip it off instead of paying for it, you don't think of that person as a "customer."
Where this falls down is exactly where personal ownership of an SUV tends to work best. For example: when do most people want one? When there's lots of seasonal travel to be done. For the same reason that car rental places run out of minivans and SUVs during the holidays, shared vehicles would tend to face real contention just when everyone wants one the most.
Secondly: rental places have another issue that would tend to come up in shared-SUV scenario... people who don't regularly use one and know what they're doing will cause more damage/wear per mile than people do know. I picked up a rental SUV at an airport once, on a hot dry day. The guy who pulled the vehicle out and up to the service lane mentioned that it was running a little odd, and to be sure to let them know soon if there was trouble. The problem? The vehicle was in 4W-Low. Just going around corners on dry pavement like that will wreck the drive train in a matter miles. You get my point on that, I hope. When you don't own a vehicle, you don't treat it as well. When it's your first time driving an SUV in the snow, and you only drive the thing at ALL once every few months, you're a disaster waiting to happen - or at the very least, you're going to represent a huge cost to the maintenance of the fleet.
I tend to hang onto vehicles for years longer than most people. I equip them to suit my needs, from towing gear and power taps to tires and suspension suited to the payload I usually drive. That I would need transportation TO such a vehicle just when the weather is at its worst just because I'm sharing a dumbed-down one with someone that hopefully has (and CAN!) park it where it's supposed to be... yeesh. My ownership of one doesn't impact any community parking space. I buy mine used and run them efficiently. I don't buy them tricked out, I don't hot dog through mud just for fun, and I'm a center-or-right-lane, peaceful driver. Not that I have to justity myself. But the "take them off the road guy" is definitely pitching an absurd position, and you're describing a scenario that's completely useless for people who use the vehicles in a more rural setting. Guess I'm sticking to my approach, here.
You don't get it, do you. Most of the people that attend such events don't even hunt (not that it matters). They love the dogs, and that's what they do. It's no different than people who go skiing, or scuba diving, or hiking.
I'm not saying that what I do is more important than what someone else does. Read the whole thread. Someone ELSE is saying that I shouldn't be able to own the vehicle I use. Doesn't ANY part of your brain register the capriciousness of that position? Why is that same person not ranting about the fact that people fly entire jet aircraft thousands of miles just to take a bunch of people on vacation? Or the people who want to have fresh vegetables in February in New England, and talk about evil SUV owners while they enjoy the lettuce in the salad - which was flown in from Chile, driven around their city, and then kept in electically powered refridgeration cases so it looked nice and pretty when they drove their hybird car to go pick it up for a nice, organic, "Green" meal?
I'm not positioning what I do as more necessary or superior to the people who burn up a few KW/h having a Counterstrike party with half a dozen hopped up gaming machines heating a room that they then have to air condition while they wait for the guy driving the probably-not-a-hybrid to deliver their pizzas, which will go nicely with the beer they've just burned some more electricity to get and keep cold. You know, the nice St. Pauli girl that was put on a giant, diesel-burning ship in a port in Germany, motored against the wind across the Atlantic, and then trucked to a distributor who uses forklifts, and then more trucks, to get it to the retailer that sells it. Absolutely NONE of that is necessary. The difference, of course, is that my activities also generate large amounts of the cash that pays for much of what my state uses for wildlife and wilderness conservation, and involves lots of people getting up off of their asses and being outdoors doing something much more physically challenging and healthier than strafing your friends in a simulated battle.
So, should I NOT respond to someone who says that the vehicle we use do what we do should be "taken off the road," without pointing out the staggering hypocrisy of not first taking Chilean lettuce off the table, and non-bicycle vacation destinations off the itinerary? You can't have it both ways, unless you're just in the mood for a bit of intellectually dishonest, witlessly politically correct posturing. And yes, I have another much smaller vehicle for running local errands, which, just like my truck, I almost never have to use - we grocery shop once every couple of weeks with rare exceptions.
Do you actually deny that this is what you're doing on these trips?
That is only one activity. You can only actually hunt during a very limited part of the year. I also spend time hauling people, dogs, and gear to training and competition events. At those events, I'm frequently providing everything from pavilion/canopy type structures to photographic backdrops, lighting (stands, cabling, reflectors, strobes, etc), tables, power generation, and so on. Not to mention food, changes of clothes, and all sorts of other odds and ends, sometimes including exhibit materials and other display tech stuff.
please try think of another bogus analogy besides the "overpowered computer". That one's getting really old
Why, is it older than the "you don't need an SUV, you can put all of that stuff in a Subaru" line of reasoning? Or are you tired of being reminded of how right the analogy is? How about this: I suspect that no matter what car you own, it's over powered for most of what you do. Don't own a car? Then your bicycle is probably completely over top: a 1950's Schwinn should get you around fine. Do you have an electric-powered, thus greenhouse-gas-causing garbage disposal in your sink? Are you insane? That should all be composted in the area you've set up next to your Wiccan statuary garden.
Only to counteract one of the other "worst terrorist groups": Israel.
That little bit of rhetoric would almost work, except those same groups also speak routinely, and often, and loudly, about the need to (and the inevitability of) overthrowing "the west." The more extreme groups, which are NOT shouted down by the militants that Iran supports, talk openly and glowingly of restoring a pan-Islamic caliphate and of restoring their control over places they once conquered before (say, downtown Madrid, for example). The urge to impose Islam and all of its baggage on the west does not come just from the support that Israel gets, any more than it comes from the support that Jordan gets.
This may be an Americanism I'm not familiar with, but wtf is a 'wind-up' car? I mean do you literally generate power by turning a handle?
My point is that one of the small, toy-sized hybrids, or one of the very fuel efficient standard internal combustion vehicles simply won't have the carrying capacity to do the job. It makes perfect sense to have a vehicle that only comfortably sits two people and a little bit of payload when that's all you need. But if 7 people and a lot of equipment need to get someplace (especially under rough conditions), many of those small city-oriented vehicles not only can't do the job, but you'd need several of them to carry the same amount. "Wind-up" refers, in my slightly sarcastic tone, to cars with a very light-duty drive train not meant to pull much weight.
if you could just get over your urge to go out and snuff woodland creatures, you wouldn't have this burning "need" to haul half a ton of crap into the wilderness.
What makes you think that's even what I'm talking about? Because I certainly haven't said as much. You've got a pretty narrow set of possibilities in mind, it seems. Do you only use your nice fancy over-powered computer for one activity?
One must wonder how you ever managed to even SURVIVE ten years ago before SUV:s became en vogue
Chevrolet has been been making variations on my vehicle for over 70 years. For longer than that, there have been trucks of all sorts, and before that, horse-drawn wagons of every size. And more to the point: before people had one tool to do a job, they used some other tool, or didn't do the same thing (or do it as well). How did you survive before wasting all sorts of electricity typing away on slashdot using a computer that's hundreds of times more powerful than those that put men on the moon? Aren't you ashamed?
One must also wonder why you do not purchase a farm tractor which seem to be exactly the kind of vehicle your heavy duty tasks require.
No, one must wonder why you think I could take six adults and the payload a few hundred miles on the highway, in foul weather, on a tractor. That isn't even a rational suggestion. As usual, the comments on this topic are mostly by people who don't actually do anything physically similar to what they're talking about.
Wah. It's not fair to bash 99% of SUV usage, because 1% of SUV drivers are people like me who actually save fuel by using one. Wah.
I don't care if you want to bash. Have fun. What I do care about, and what I responded to, was the idiot who thought the best idea was to "take the off the road."
I think you've probably not even come close to using all of the available CPU cycles on your computer while you were busy being snide, so it's probably better for the environment if you use a much slower, lower-powered machine. Perhaps one of those wind-up, one-laptop-per-childish-user ones they've been talking about? Or... DO you use your computer entirely to its capacity? Doesn't matter. Even if you do, you're only in the minority, and since the majority of people with fancy computers don't really need them, we should probably not allow anyone to have them, right? Give it a rest.
I make full use of a 9-foot rooftop carrier (with even more long stuff strapped down on the rails next to it) and a large tow-hitch platform carrier. That's another ~85 cubic feet, which really helps. The truck construction/suspension is one of the reasons I can support all of that.
engineers for the Ford Expidition claimed all the advanced off-road features would never get used by a majority of the public
Just like the 80+ mph capability of a hybrid, or its airbags, or its seatbelts will never be used by a majority of its owners. I go places where everyone who shows up does so in a truck or 4x4-capable passenger car - because you can't get there without that ability. I really don't CARE if the majority of people don't go to places or events like that (in fact, I'm glad). But should that make it illegal for me to be able to get up a muddy driveway in a vehicle that can carry 7+ people and all their gear?
Very few people use all of their computer horsepower, need the quality of kitchen knives they get for wedding presents, or need as many pairs of shoes as they own, either. But I actually use my vehicle, in exactly the role for which it was intended.
You got an SUV because you didnt want to look like a dork driving a station wagon
If by "look like a dork" you mean, "make more trips to carry the same payload," then, right. I would indeed look like a dork making two round trips, or more, to haul the same number of people and volume/mass of payload. That's a different type of dork, though, than yourself... you can't seem to understand that a station wagon has less capacity than a full-sized SUV. It's a truck. It has a truck-sized body. I can carry 7 people and WAY more stuff than a Taurus wagon, and I can TOW that Taurus wagon, too, if I want to. If you're going to troll, you might as well at least try to work an angle that isn't just plain wrong on the face of it.
Then you ask the fallacious question, "Why should my vehicle be "taken off the road..."
No, I was responding to a post that stated that vehicles like mine should be taken off the road. In so many words. I didn't ask a fallacious question, I pointed out the fallacy in the previous post. Yeesh.
I'm posing no falso dichotomy at all. I'm merely pointing out the silliness of saying that my SUV (which I haven't driven ANYWHERE this week) is more wasteful than a more efficient car (which can, in my example, be used in completely useless ways), and thus my SUV should be banned, while the frivalous use of fuel in a slightly more efficient way is just fine.
There's an attitude I noticed with a lot of SUV drivers that they'd prefer to pay a tax and keep driving the beasts. The problem is we need to get them off the road period not just tax them.
I own an SUV. I telecommute roughly 90% of the time, and can go days without even starting that vehicle. There are also times when I start the vehicle, and drive it to go do something that involves other people and payload. If I didn't have that vehicle, we'd need four small wind-up passenger cars to haul the passengers and payloads. There are no small, more-efficient vehicles that can go where I can go, and get the people there, too. What's more efficient? Four cars burning fuel, wearing down tires, occupying road space, and possibly getting dangerously stuck enroute to the destination... or, one vehicle that can carry at least half a dozen people and hundreds of pounds of payload on rough roads, through the mud or snow, and safely do so?
Why should my vehicle be "taken off the road," but some college kid that drives 100 miles in his hybrid in one weekend bouncing between parties while I drive nowhere, gets to use his? You're holding the tool accountable for what people do (when you don't like the people that use the tool), and not even touching on the wasteful habits of people that use a marginally more efficient tool that you like better.
They're on the "restricted parties list" for any Western firm to do business with, so all that's left to them is selling bad things to bad people.
But they could stop that today. You do remember how they got that way, right? The communists in the north invaded and tried to take over the south. They were stopped. They never agreed to a formal treaty ceasing those hostilities. They were aggessors, and have ever since positioned their relationship with the entire world as adversaries. The regime is a totalitarian thugocracy with millions of people in abject slavery (which they tried to do to the south), and their take on it is that the rest of Asia should be run the same way. You can't, as a matter of principle, just decide to treat North Korea the same way you do Japan, when that's how they frame their world view and their actions.
They were granted enormous concessions just a few years ago, and they purposefully, completely, and predictably lied about their intentions to honor the agreement, and obviously had no intention to. All they have to do is step back from the posture they assumed decades ago (when they attacked the south), and it all goes away. Except, it's no longer about "the people" of NK wanting to be part of some glorious Marxist wonderfulness... they are now completely under the thumb of totalitarian dictator loon, and you can't possibly think that his brutality and deprivation of his own people is the fault of the west.
Well, sure. But I suspect that if you checked in with those nice mullahs running Iran, and asked if they think you should be able to live in Israel, in a country by that name, you'd get a lot more than a quick interview about how orthodox you are or aren't.
Last time I checked (bout 2 minutes ago), North Korea was still a Socialist state
Yup, and as such, it's an economic failure. And they only way they come up with cold hard cash to get the things their socialism doesn't provide is: selling bad things to bad people. Where do you think much of the middle east's missle parts supply has come from? They're also big on lovely things like counterfeiting foreign currency, and using their nationally flagged freighters for moving things like heroin around the Pacific rim. I'm not talking about their religious heritage as a people, I'm talking about their current choice of friends and business partners.
allegations of Iraqi insurgents getting weapons from Iran
So, the hardware with the Iranian manufacturer's markings all over it is just an elaborate ruse? Fine. The actual Iranian operatives romping around in the country? Ah... they're part of the clever plan we have that includes actually running the Iranian government in secret, right? These aren't allegations, it's long history. Obviously, when Saddam attacked Iran, he certainly didn't do anything to make Iran less inclined to establish regular covert (and not so covert) forrays into that country to erode the Sunni-ness of the place.
Bush included Iran in his (in)famous "axis of evil" speech
Exactly. Because Iran was then, and still is busy funding and arming some of the worst terrorist groups in the world. They openly and proudly finance and support organizations that do seek to destabilize the middle east and throw it back into a medieval environment. They did and do still speak in terms of wiping Israel off the map. So, that makes them more like Canada, maybe? If you had to name a couple of countries most on the "evil" list, in terms of trafficking in weapons and daily support for Really Bad People, Iran and North Korea definitely are at the top, especially in the context of extremist Islamic militancy.
The US is cornering the Iranian regime and putting it in an impossible situation. Iranian reformists and moderates are extremely unhappy with the American attitude as it only radicalizes the regime in place.
Do you not even WATCH press coverage of Europe? The US has been bending over backwards to allow Europe, the UN, and the IAEA to do what the EU has been insisting they be allowed to do: talk this to death, and use sanctions to make Iran somehow magically not want to have nuclear weapons while at the same time talking up the pending demise of its most hated regional enemy. The people establishing the "impossible situation" are the whole of the UN security council. European big-wigs are the ones standing up and saying the same things: this can't be allowed, sanctions will be needed, etc. Just because the US says the same thing, that makes it all a US-based issue? Why?
Iranian reformists and moderates are extremely unhappy with the American attitude as it only radicalizes the regime in place.
So, accommodating that same radical, crazy regime, and sending them the message that indeed, arming up with nukes, stoking a religious civil war in Iraq, wiping Israel off the map - these are all good, reasonable things... that serves the reformers how?
The US wants them to give up the very thing they want them to give up before considering negociating with them about that thing.
How does ceasing to expand an existing weapons program as a precurser to negotiations equal "giving up" on it? The point is that they (Iran) are unwilling, as expected, to demonstrate any interest whatsoever actually not producing nukes. Why even bother sitting through pointless and empty negotiations if the very first step - which includes them doing something to show they even have an interest - is something they're already saying they won't do? It just saves everyone a lot of time. There doesn't need to be any negotiation because they don't intend to carry them out or abide by them anyway. It's hardly a mystery. Do you really wonder if the same guy that says he's just cured AIDS is going to negotiate in good faith to give up something he's already said he'll never give up... and says those things in the context of his promises to see the US and her allies destroyed?
Slashdot Mirror
If photonics take over, we will for once be in a safe-zone of knowing once and for all that no overly powerful overseeing entity will be able to eavesdrop on any kind of electromagnetic emissions, so long as you don't have any light leaks.
Doesn't matter. Most meaningful cracking has a social component anyway. Or based on easily deduced patterns of human behavior. Or the fact that 'p@55word' just isn't as tricksy as some people seem to think.
In the cases above, and even your newspaper example, the work is being used as part of a commercial work. Newspapers sell ads. Therefore, the paper is making a profit off of my image.
It's called "editorial use," and that's a specific case. An image that illustrates news or editorial information is different than an image that is sold as the image. So, selling a poster of you is different than publishing an article about you that happens to include your image. It's a little vague, because it has to be, but most people know editorial usage when they see it.
I say I'm an adult. If I want to buy a system that employs DRM, it's my god damn business.
Well, you pretty much nailed it. Obviously this EU official thinks you can't possibly expected to be accountable for your own actions and decisions. For cryin' out loud, she wants a "cooling off period" for the purchase of an inexpensive bit of three-minute entertainment? Doesn't anyone understand how absurd that sounds? It's bad enough when people want to "cool off" on their 60" plasma TV purchase the day after the Super Bowl... but to imply that the government needs to protect people from the harm they might do to themselves by paying a dollar for a song from iTunes... incredible. Perhaps she'd like to propose a cooling off period for the people that voted for her? Surely they're regretting it. Or should, anyway.
Maybe it is. But I think that the time I had to pull several thousand feet of CAT5 through an old retail building that was constructed entirely of:
... well, that sure seemed like the longest building in the world. We actually had places where we used a crossbow and fishing line.
1) Rat feces
2) Razor-wire-lined plaster/lathe ceilings
3) Meter-thick sedimentary deposits of cigarette smoke
4) Did I mention rat feces?
If attribution for works has ever been reasonable (which of course it is), how can the increase in the ease of copying the material make it less reasonable to give credit to the person or entity that did the work, or had the creative spark or skill to make the material desireable to use? That entire notion - that it's just so easy to lay hands on something now, that it feels by comparison like too much trouble to fret about violating someone's copyright... nonsense. The same technology may or may not make it easier to produce the material in the first place, but just because it's a couple of mouse clicks instead of tape swapping in order to rip it off doesn't change the fact that someone else did make the investment in time, equipment, personnel, etc., to make the material available. A 'courtesy of' credit is just that much easier to put up, with all that time that's saved by ease of acquistion online.
By the end, I was rooting for global warming, on the theory that it might kill Al Gore. So, does that mean I'm crazy?
... perhaps "exacerbated by humans" is a better way to consider it) seem to - shockingly! - echo a host of other idealogical "cures" (for economic activity) that have been put forth by similar pompous asses for decades.
No, I think you've hit on a fundamental issue, here. For some reason, much of the public discourse on this topic seems to be issuing forth from pedantic or shrill people that seem, for some reason, to often be polarizingly tied to other political issues/orientations that have nothing whatsoever to do with climate change. The perception, alas, is that many of the proposed "cures" for whatever component of climate change can meaningfully (!) be put at the feet of human activity (BTW, I think "caused by humans" is really disengenuous
So, I guess the problem is that all the noise on this subject seems to be coming from people that also seem to have a lot of other axes to grind, and it's as much a power/finance/influence/spotlight grab as it is an honest position based in any way on real merit. So no, you're not crazy.
What would make it truly interesting (to non-seismologists) would be if that water were fresh (i.e. drinkable) and accessible (so it could be used as a drinking water supply).
No, no, no. You're missing the point. The only way to make this interesting is to get a grant to study how (not whether!) this find demonstrates the need for Al Gore to make a sequel to his movie. If there's no global warming tie-in, then it can't be science.
Way to scare your customers. How do they stay in business?
Generally, when you have something offered up for sale, and someone finds a way to rip it off instead of paying for it, you don't think of that person as a "customer."
Where this falls down is exactly where personal ownership of an SUV tends to work best. For example: when do most people want one? When there's lots of seasonal travel to be done. For the same reason that car rental places run out of minivans and SUVs during the holidays, shared vehicles would tend to face real contention just when everyone wants one the most.
Secondly: rental places have another issue that would tend to come up in shared-SUV scenario... people who don't regularly use one and know what they're doing will cause more damage/wear per mile than people do know. I picked up a rental SUV at an airport once, on a hot dry day. The guy who pulled the vehicle out and up to the service lane mentioned that it was running a little odd, and to be sure to let them know soon if there was trouble. The problem? The vehicle was in 4W-Low. Just going around corners on dry pavement like that will wreck the drive train in a matter miles. You get my point on that, I hope. When you don't own a vehicle, you don't treat it as well. When it's your first time driving an SUV in the snow, and you only drive the thing at ALL once every few months, you're a disaster waiting to happen - or at the very least, you're going to represent a huge cost to the maintenance of the fleet.
I tend to hang onto vehicles for years longer than most people. I equip them to suit my needs, from towing gear and power taps to tires and suspension suited to the payload I usually drive. That I would need transportation TO such a vehicle just when the weather is at its worst just because I'm sharing a dumbed-down one with someone that hopefully has (and CAN!) park it where it's supposed to be... yeesh. My ownership of one doesn't impact any community parking space. I buy mine used and run them efficiently. I don't buy them tricked out, I don't hot dog through mud just for fun, and I'm a center-or-right-lane, peaceful driver. Not that I have to justity myself. But the "take them off the road guy" is definitely pitching an absurd position, and you're describing a scenario that's completely useless for people who use the vehicles in a more rural setting. Guess I'm sticking to my approach, here.
You don't get it, do you. Most of the people that attend such events don't even hunt (not that it matters). They love the dogs, and that's what they do. It's no different than people who go skiing, or scuba diving, or hiking.
I'm not saying that what I do is more important than what someone else does. Read the whole thread. Someone ELSE is saying that I shouldn't be able to own the vehicle I use. Doesn't ANY part of your brain register the capriciousness of that position? Why is that same person not ranting about the fact that people fly entire jet aircraft thousands of miles just to take a bunch of people on vacation? Or the people who want to have fresh vegetables in February in New England, and talk about evil SUV owners while they enjoy the lettuce in the salad - which was flown in from Chile, driven around their city, and then kept in electically powered refridgeration cases so it looked nice and pretty when they drove their hybird car to go pick it up for a nice, organic, "Green" meal?
I'm not positioning what I do as more necessary or superior to the people who burn up a few KW/h having a Counterstrike party with half a dozen hopped up gaming machines heating a room that they then have to air condition while they wait for the guy driving the probably-not-a-hybrid to deliver their pizzas, which will go nicely with the beer they've just burned some more electricity to get and keep cold. You know, the nice St. Pauli girl that was put on a giant, diesel-burning ship in a port in Germany, motored against the wind across the Atlantic, and then trucked to a distributor who uses forklifts, and then more trucks, to get it to the retailer that sells it. Absolutely NONE of that is necessary. The difference, of course, is that my activities also generate large amounts of the cash that pays for much of what my state uses for wildlife and wilderness conservation, and involves lots of people getting up off of their asses and being outdoors doing something much more physically challenging and healthier than strafing your friends in a simulated battle.
So, should I NOT respond to someone who says that the vehicle we use do what we do should be "taken off the road," without pointing out the staggering hypocrisy of not first taking Chilean lettuce off the table, and non-bicycle vacation destinations off the itinerary? You can't have it both ways, unless you're just in the mood for a bit of intellectually dishonest, witlessly politically correct posturing. And yes, I have another much smaller vehicle for running local errands, which, just like my truck, I almost never have to use - we grocery shop once every couple of weeks with rare exceptions.
Do you actually deny that this is what you're doing on these trips?
That is only one activity. You can only actually hunt during a very limited part of the year. I also spend time hauling people, dogs, and gear to training and competition events. At those events, I'm frequently providing everything from pavilion/canopy type structures to photographic backdrops, lighting (stands, cabling, reflectors, strobes, etc), tables, power generation, and so on. Not to mention food, changes of clothes, and all sorts of other odds and ends, sometimes including exhibit materials and other display tech stuff.
please try think of another bogus analogy besides the "overpowered computer". That one's getting really old
Why, is it older than the "you don't need an SUV, you can put all of that stuff in a Subaru" line of reasoning? Or are you tired of being reminded of how right the analogy is? How about this: I suspect that no matter what car you own, it's over powered for most of what you do. Don't own a car? Then your bicycle is probably completely over top: a 1950's Schwinn should get you around fine. Do you have an electric-powered, thus greenhouse-gas-causing garbage disposal in your sink? Are you insane? That should all be composted in the area you've set up next to your Wiccan statuary garden.
Only to counteract one of the other "worst terrorist groups": Israel.
That little bit of rhetoric would almost work, except those same groups also speak routinely, and often, and loudly, about the need to (and the inevitability of) overthrowing "the west." The more extreme groups, which are NOT shouted down by the militants that Iran supports, talk openly and glowingly of restoring a pan-Islamic caliphate and of restoring their control over places they once conquered before (say, downtown Madrid, for example). The urge to impose Islam and all of its baggage on the west does not come just from the support that Israel gets, any more than it comes from the support that Jordan gets.
This may be an Americanism I'm not familiar with, but wtf is a 'wind-up' car? I mean do you literally generate power by turning a handle?
My point is that one of the small, toy-sized hybrids, or one of the very fuel efficient standard internal combustion vehicles simply won't have the carrying capacity to do the job. It makes perfect sense to have a vehicle that only comfortably sits two people and a little bit of payload when that's all you need. But if 7 people and a lot of equipment need to get someplace (especially under rough conditions), many of those small city-oriented vehicles not only can't do the job, but you'd need several of them to carry the same amount. "Wind-up" refers, in my slightly sarcastic tone, to cars with a very light-duty drive train not meant to pull much weight.
if you could just get over your urge to go out and snuff woodland creatures, you wouldn't have this burning "need" to haul half a ton of crap into the wilderness.
What makes you think that's even what I'm talking about? Because I certainly haven't said as much. You've got a pretty narrow set of possibilities in mind, it seems. Do you only use your nice fancy over-powered computer for one activity?
One must wonder how you ever managed to even SURVIVE ten years ago before SUV:s became en vogue
Chevrolet has been been making variations on my vehicle for over 70 years. For longer than that, there have been trucks of all sorts, and before that, horse-drawn wagons of every size. And more to the point: before people had one tool to do a job, they used some other tool, or didn't do the same thing (or do it as well). How did you survive before wasting all sorts of electricity typing away on slashdot using a computer that's hundreds of times more powerful than those that put men on the moon? Aren't you ashamed?
One must also wonder why you do not purchase a farm tractor which seem to be exactly the kind of vehicle your heavy duty tasks require.
No, one must wonder why you think I could take six adults and the payload a few hundred miles on the highway, in foul weather, on a tractor. That isn't even a rational suggestion. As usual, the comments on this topic are mostly by people who don't actually do anything physically similar to what they're talking about.
Wah. It's not fair to bash 99% of SUV usage, because 1% of SUV drivers are people like me who actually save fuel by using one. Wah.
I don't care if you want to bash. Have fun. What I do care about, and what I responded to, was the idiot who thought the best idea was to "take the off the road."
I think you've probably not even come close to using all of the available CPU cycles on your computer while you were busy being snide, so it's probably better for the environment if you use a much slower, lower-powered machine. Perhaps one of those wind-up, one-laptop-per-childish-user ones they've been talking about? Or... DO you use your computer entirely to its capacity? Doesn't matter. Even if you do, you're only in the minority, and since the majority of people with fancy computers don't really need them, we should probably not allow anyone to have them, right? Give it a rest.
I make full use of a 9-foot rooftop carrier (with even more long stuff strapped down on the rails next to it) and a large tow-hitch platform carrier. That's another ~85 cubic feet, which really helps. The truck construction/suspension is one of the reasons I can support all of that.
engineers for the Ford Expidition claimed all the advanced off-road features would never get used by a majority of the public
Just like the 80+ mph capability of a hybrid, or its airbags, or its seatbelts will never be used by a majority of its owners. I go places where everyone who shows up does so in a truck or 4x4-capable passenger car - because you can't get there without that ability. I really don't CARE if the majority of people don't go to places or events like that (in fact, I'm glad). But should that make it illegal for me to be able to get up a muddy driveway in a vehicle that can carry 7+ people and all their gear?
Very few people use all of their computer horsepower, need the quality of kitchen knives they get for wedding presents, or need as many pairs of shoes as they own, either. But I actually use my vehicle, in exactly the role for which it was intended.
You got an SUV because you didnt want to look like a dork driving a station wagon
If by "look like a dork" you mean, "make more trips to carry the same payload," then, right. I would indeed look like a dork making two round trips, or more, to haul the same number of people and volume/mass of payload. That's a different type of dork, though, than yourself... you can't seem to understand that a station wagon has less capacity than a full-sized SUV. It's a truck. It has a truck-sized body. I can carry 7 people and WAY more stuff than a Taurus wagon, and I can TOW that Taurus wagon, too, if I want to. If you're going to troll, you might as well at least try to work an angle that isn't just plain wrong on the face of it.
Then you ask the fallacious question, "Why should my vehicle be "taken off the road..."
No, I was responding to a post that stated that vehicles like mine should be taken off the road. In so many words. I didn't ask a fallacious question, I pointed out the fallacy in the previous post. Yeesh.
I'm posing no falso dichotomy at all. I'm merely pointing out the silliness of saying that my SUV (which I haven't driven ANYWHERE this week) is more wasteful than a more efficient car (which can, in my example, be used in completely useless ways), and thus my SUV should be banned, while the frivalous use of fuel in a slightly more efficient way is just fine.
There's an attitude I noticed with a lot of SUV drivers that they'd prefer to pay a tax and keep driving the beasts. The problem is we need to get them off the road period not just tax them.
I own an SUV. I telecommute roughly 90% of the time, and can go days without even starting that vehicle. There are also times when I start the vehicle, and drive it to go do something that involves other people and payload. If I didn't have that vehicle, we'd need four small wind-up passenger cars to haul the passengers and payloads. There are no small, more-efficient vehicles that can go where I can go, and get the people there, too. What's more efficient? Four cars burning fuel, wearing down tires, occupying road space, and possibly getting dangerously stuck enroute to the destination... or, one vehicle that can carry at least half a dozen people and hundreds of pounds of payload on rough roads, through the mud or snow, and safely do so?
Why should my vehicle be "taken off the road," but some college kid that drives 100 miles in his hybrid in one weekend bouncing between parties while I drive nowhere, gets to use his? You're holding the tool accountable for what people do (when you don't like the people that use the tool), and not even touching on the wasteful habits of people that use a marginally more efficient tool that you like better.
They're on the "restricted parties list" for any Western firm to do business with, so all that's left to them is selling bad things to bad people.
But they could stop that today. You do remember how they got that way, right? The communists in the north invaded and tried to take over the south. They were stopped. They never agreed to a formal treaty ceasing those hostilities. They were aggessors, and have ever since positioned their relationship with the entire world as adversaries. The regime is a totalitarian thugocracy with millions of people in abject slavery (which they tried to do to the south), and their take on it is that the rest of Asia should be run the same way. You can't, as a matter of principle, just decide to treat North Korea the same way you do Japan, when that's how they frame their world view and their actions.
They were granted enormous concessions just a few years ago, and they purposefully, completely, and predictably lied about their intentions to honor the agreement, and obviously had no intention to. All they have to do is step back from the posture they assumed decades ago (when they attacked the south), and it all goes away. Except, it's no longer about "the people" of NK wanting to be part of some glorious Marxist wonderfulness... they are now completely under the thumb of totalitarian dictator loon, and you can't possibly think that his brutality and deprivation of his own people is the fault of the west.
it's my secular-ass-tax-payer's right to do so
Well, sure. But I suspect that if you checked in with those nice mullahs running Iran, and asked if they think you should be able to live in Israel, in a country by that name, you'd get a lot more than a quick interview about how orthodox you are or aren't.
Last time I checked (bout 2 minutes ago), North Korea was still a Socialist state
Yup, and as such, it's an economic failure. And they only way they come up with cold hard cash to get the things their socialism doesn't provide is: selling bad things to bad people. Where do you think much of the middle east's missle parts supply has come from? They're also big on lovely things like counterfeiting foreign currency, and using their nationally flagged freighters for moving things like heroin around the Pacific rim. I'm not talking about their religious heritage as a people, I'm talking about their current choice of friends and business partners.
allegations of Iraqi insurgents getting weapons from Iran
So, the hardware with the Iranian manufacturer's markings all over it is just an elaborate ruse? Fine. The actual Iranian operatives romping around in the country? Ah... they're part of the clever plan we have that includes actually running the Iranian government in secret, right? These aren't allegations, it's long history. Obviously, when Saddam attacked Iran, he certainly didn't do anything to make Iran less inclined to establish regular covert (and not so covert) forrays into that country to erode the Sunni-ness of the place.
Bush included Iran in his (in)famous "axis of evil" speech
Exactly. Because Iran was then, and still is busy funding and arming some of the worst terrorist groups in the world. They openly and proudly finance and support organizations that do seek to destabilize the middle east and throw it back into a medieval environment. They did and do still speak in terms of wiping Israel off the map. So, that makes them more like Canada, maybe? If you had to name a couple of countries most on the "evil" list, in terms of trafficking in weapons and daily support for Really Bad People, Iran and North Korea definitely are at the top, especially in the context of extremist Islamic militancy.
The US is cornering the Iranian regime and putting it in an impossible situation. Iranian reformists and moderates are extremely unhappy with the American attitude as it only radicalizes the regime in place.
Do you not even WATCH press coverage of Europe? The US has been bending over backwards to allow Europe, the UN, and the IAEA to do what the EU has been insisting they be allowed to do: talk this to death, and use sanctions to make Iran somehow magically not want to have nuclear weapons while at the same time talking up the pending demise of its most hated regional enemy. The people establishing the "impossible situation" are the whole of the UN security council. European big-wigs are the ones standing up and saying the same things: this can't be allowed, sanctions will be needed, etc. Just because the US says the same thing, that makes it all a US-based issue? Why?
Iranian reformists and moderates are extremely unhappy with the American attitude as it only radicalizes the regime in place.
So, accommodating that same radical, crazy regime, and sending them the message that indeed, arming up with nukes, stoking a religious civil war in Iraq, wiping Israel off the map - these are all good, reasonable things... that serves the reformers how?
The US wants them to give up the very thing they want them to give up before considering negociating with them about that thing.
How does ceasing to expand an existing weapons program as a precurser to negotiations equal "giving up" on it? The point is that they (Iran) are unwilling, as expected, to demonstrate any interest whatsoever actually not producing nukes. Why even bother sitting through pointless and empty negotiations if the very first step - which includes them doing something to show they even have an interest - is something they're already saying they won't do? It just saves everyone a lot of time. There doesn't need to be any negotiation because they don't intend to carry them out or abide by them anyway. It's hardly a mystery. Do you really wonder if the same guy that says he's just cured AIDS is going to negotiate in good faith to give up something he's already said he'll never give up... and says those things in the context of his promises to see the US and her allies destroyed?
I hate every CPA and tax accountant I've met. I tell them this.
How's that working out for you?
Anyway, please don't sugarcoat it. Tell us what you really think.
Alas, a simple flat tax is as likely as that Libertarian watch.