Hopefully you're not just posting this on Slashdot, which is about three degrees away from the people being sued. I'd suggest using the Contact Us link on the company's home page to tell them. That's information their lawyer might find very useful and help in their defense.
And here I am yet again without mod points when I really need them. I've said for a long, long time that the best societies are a healthy mix of both capitalism and socialism. Socialism for things that private industry cannot or is ill-equipped to handle (for example, major infrastructure projects, things such as health insurance in which free enterprise has a perverse incentive to screw its customers over, and things that are deemed essential for life or meaningful societal progress), capitalism for everything else.
This doesn't mean that the petty bickering that goes on now wouldn't happen; people would still argue over what private industry cannot handle and what is considered, for example, "meaningful societal progress." Still, the sooner people stop thinking of socialism as a bad word, the sooner we'll actually be able to regain and retain our position as the global superpower. Unfettered capitalism is just as bad for society as unfettered socialism. Look at a place like, say, Somalia, where there is virtually no government to speak of and individual liberty is taken to an extreme--if you want your neighbor's stuff there's absolutely nothing stopping you from simply taking it, provided you have a band of mercenaries that are skillful enough to go get it. Is this really any better than a place like, say, Cuba or China?
That's what's being lost in today's political discourse. The notion of a happy medium, the idea that both systems have things to offer and lessons to learn.
Actually, I hope that this results in an all-out patent war between the big players. Right now, they have little incentive to pour money into lobbying Congress to change the patent system because they're all benefiting from it. As long as they all don't sue each other and only pick on little guys, why would they want to upset the status quo?
However, if the mutual assured destruction scenario actually plays out and they all start suing the crap out of each other, only then would they finally realize that buying tens of thousands of patents as a defensive measure against getting sued is not an acceptable solution to the patent problem. Ultimately, the answer is that software/business process patents need to permanently go away. That can only happen when they stop spending so much on lawyers building, defending, and in some cases, using as weapons their patent portfolios and start actually making meaningful changes in the system.
Yes, they'd have more competition. Yes, that means that sometimes, competitors might mercilessly steal some of your clever ideas. But it also means that instead of spending billions of dollars on lawyers, you can now redirect that money towards research and development to blow competitors away with awesome products (thus gaining brand and product loyalty) instead of trying to blow them away in a courtroom (which is nothing but a colossal waste of time and money).
Yes, he's wrong, and so are you. Here in the U.S., we have devout "Christians" killing doctors who perform abortions. We also have Muslims who are awesome progressive people. Stereotyping an entire religion based on the actions of extremists, especially extremist governments, is just plain stupid. Atrocities have been committed in the name of pretty much all gods. Yes, in the name of atheism.
We don't call lying under oath "perjury." We call lying under oath about something material to the case at hand "perjury." Clinton did lie under oath in a deposition about Whitewater to questions that had not a damn thing to do with the case, therefore not perjury. If you go back and check, he was completely acquitted of that charge--even by several Republicans.
Also, even if he were eventually found guilty, felonies are not named as a basis upon which a President can be impeached. "High crimes and misdemeanors" is the basis. Clinton had an affair. Stop trying to conflate that with giving away our nuclear codes to China.
By the way, you might want to know that as a matter of law, we do not prosecute people because of consensual sex.
And by the way, he WAS impeached because of sex. You can try to dress it up any way you want, but that's it, period. They tried to get him on Whitewater, and they couldn't. He was completely acquitted of all of those charges, too. Maybe you don't remember so well what happened during those days, but I sure as hell do. The Republicans made some shit up and hauled him in to give a sworn deposition under oath about Whitewater. Once he got in the room, they started asking him all sorts of sordid, slimy questions that didn't have a damn thing to do with the case at hand. Everyone in that room--especially Bill Clinton--knew that the testimony would be leaked and that it had zero to do with any actual crime. It was character assassination, pure and simple. Hell, they knew they didn't have the votes to actually find him guilty, so the end goal wasn't really to remove him from office, either. The point was to get Ken Starr's report out to the public and put all of the salacious details on people's televisions; to distract the public from REAL issues.
Clinton was by far one of the best presidents we've ever had. Eight straight years of relative peace, no messy expensive international entanglements, budget surpluses, record low unemployment, booming economy with little inflation, etc. Had the Republicans not conducted their little smear campaign, there's no way come hell or high water Al Gore could lose in 2000, it would have been a Reaganesque landslide. They were desperate, and as a result, Clinton for a couple of years had a very hard time carrying out his duties as President. I kinda wish he had been able to focus on things like, I dunno, say, Osama bin Laden, instead of having to testify about where someone consented for him to put a cigar.
So stop being such a tool and persisting with this bogus "but he lied under oath, waaaah!" bullshit. He was impeached due to sex, and it was nothing but a Republican ploy to take the White House in 2000, end of story.
This is a critically important point that often gets ignored. Perjury isn't just lying, it's lying about something materially relevant to the case. The whole Clinton impeachment scandal was a Republican machination with two goals only: To embarrass Clinton and increase the chances of winning in 2000. He was acquitted, as he should have been, of the charge. The only reason why 45 Republican senators voted guilty on the perjury charge was because they were so desperate to win in 2000.
Clinton was brought in to testify under the pretense that the questions were going to be about the so-called Whitewater scandal. Once he got there, he was ambushed, plain and simple, with questions that had absolutely NOTHING to do with Whitewater. Clinton KNEW--and he was 100% right--that although the testimony was supposed to be closed, the Republicans would leak it. The Republicans looked at this testimony as a carte blanche opportunity to get the President of the United States under oath and ask him any damn sordid question they wanted for the express purpose of embarrassing him and undermining his authority.
Now, keeping all of this in mind, that this inquiry was supposed to be about Whitewater and ONLY Whitewater, watch a snippet of the questioning and you tell me what the hell is going on there. Did he lie? Hell yeah, he did. And you know what? I don't blame him. I would have, too. Did Clinton screw up? Yes. But what he did was beans compared to the absolutely disgusting actions the Republicans took here.
So let's just say for fun that Newt Gingrich gets elected in November. As a Democrat who desperately doesn't want him to have a second term, I trump up some bogus charge against him. Doesn't matter what it is, just make shit up because the end goal isn't conviction. Get him into a room with a camera recording the "closed" proceedings when everyone in the room damn well knows that tomorrow afternoon, it will be posted on the Internet for everyone to see. Then start asking him extremely personal questions about leaving his first wife after she was diagnosed with cancer and his second wife after she was diagnosed with MS. The more sensationalistic, the more slimy, the better. Trust me on this, Newt Gingrich has WAY more skeletons in his closet than a tawdry little fling with an intern. The questions that are asked have NOTHING to do with the trumped up charges against him; they are specifically designed to politically smear him.
Would you still go with your "connivance of his foes" argument? Because I think that the shit people are giving him already about his personal life is disgusting. Do you still think he should be removed from office when he was so obviously set up? I don't, and I'm a Democrat. Everyone that was involved in that slimy plan should have been tried and convicted of prosecutorial misconduct. In a normal courtroom, a judge could squelch such questions because they're completely irrelevant to the case at hand. In this case, the power of the Independent Council was grossly misused.
As for removing him from office, that's a no-brainer. You tell me what the fuck lying about an affair that had NOTHING to do with the case at hand and in which NO ONE was hurt or injured in any way (barring emotional distress, undoubtedly) ranks as a high crime or misdemeanor. Anyone who claims that it is a high crime or misdemeanor isn't being rational or objective; they have an ax to grind, period, end of story. It's only idiotic Republicans like you who try to conflate what he did with "eating human babies," and it reflect more badly on you than on Clinton--as evidenced by his re-election in 1996 AFTER this scandal ran its course.
Way to go! Seriously, this is exactly what the blackouts are about: getting people to talk about the issue. Not just tech geeks, but laypeople as well. The fact that you're talking to them and informing them is more meaningful than just reading some web site put up by anonymous people and companies that might have an agenda. So keep right on informing; THAT is how these bills will be defeated.
Re:Part of a money conflict within the King family
on
A Copyright Nightmare
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I'm worried. I want to get copies of the Gettysburg Address and,
Dear MightyMartian, due to your unapproved use of Mr. Shakespeare's title without financial remuneration, we have helpfully removed the title per Mr. Shakespeare's estate's request for you. As the Lincoln estate is not paying us an appropriate pound of flesh, we will allow the phrase "Gettysburg Address" to remain in your post without alteration.
Or you could, you know, just not play the game. You got burned once, and thank goodness, you were able to get past it. Why in the world would you volunteer to get burned again? I'm of the weird opinion that I shouldn't have to crack my games. If I know or strongly suspect that I'd have to, I simply don't buy it. That way, not only is the company out potential income, they're also out my word-of-mouth advertising since I don't talk to anyone about games I don't own.
It was an advertised feature. As such, yes, there probably were people for whom being able to run Linux on the console WAS a reason they bought it. Was it THE reason they bought it? Probably not, but have you ever heard of XBMC? It was originally written for the Xbox console to provide an HTPC interface to users' media that isn't necessarily delivered compliments of Redmond.
Given a choice beween, say, and Xbox on which you have to install third-party software to get this functionality, and a PS3 which allowed it right out of the box, the allowing it right out of the box was undoubtedly a big factor in several users purchasing a PS3 instead of an Xbox. And now, those users are not only screwed, but they would have been better off if they had just gotten an Xbox instead.
Maybe you don't think it was a big deal, but to a lot of users, it was a bait-and-switch. They sold them one thing, and then after the fact, deliberately gimped it so that it didn't suit their purposes.
You must be confused. I most certainly do order my passengers to wear their seat belts.
As for "personal responsibility," see my post above. The dingers are for people who are too stupid or too stubborn to accept personal responsibility. If everyone had a keen sense of personal responsibility, we wouldn't need a lot of laws, duh.
Anyway, I'm not disabling the censor either, and I just put up with the few beeps until I buckle up. I was not making up the circustance, I was just showing that the (parent to my post) view was limited in this following sentence:
"If you are driving long enough for the car to complain that you are not wearing your seat belt, then you are not making an intelligent decision."
Then my apologies, I thought you were saying that you had disabled your sensor due to always having to drive without your seat belt.
I'll admit that there are bizarre, contrived circumstances under which I've been beeped at for not wearing my seat belt. Still, I like the fact that it nags people to put it on. Those circumstances are so short and few and far between that the positive of having a nagging dinger (people putting on a seat belt to shut it up) easily outweighs the negative (having to tolerate it once in a blue moon).
For what it's worth, I simply do not believe you. First of all, I wear my seat belt all the time, and I have absolutely no trouble at all with visibility. If you have to get out of your seat to see, you're doing it wrong. Second of all, disabling a sensor so that you don't have to put up with a few seconds of beeping is stupid. My guess is that you are, in fact, driving without your seat belt, and just making up a contrived circumstance to try to convince us that out of all of the people who do so, you're the one exception--the one person who isn't being stupid while doing so.
Yeah, I think not.
The sad thing is that you probably think, "What difference does it make? I'm only hurting myself." Individual liberty and all that, right? Well, 1) if you have kids, you're making a horrible impression on them. Someday if they don't buckle their seat because "Mom and/or Dad never did, and they never had any trouble," there's a pretty good chance that they get messed up at some point due directly to your negligence. 2) If you find yourself in a situation where it is difficult to maintain control of your car, such as roads with black ice, a tire blowout, etc., seat belts help keep you where you're supposed to be--behind the wheel, and not flailing about the cabin of your car. If you're doing the latter, there's a much higher chance that you'll plow into the poor innocent schmuck next to you. And 3) when you do have a wreck and get messed up and you exceed the limitations of your insurance company, who do you think will be paying for your medical bills? Yeah, that would be me and other people who have the gumption to wear seat belts. You could have just walked away from the accident with a bruised rib, but instead, we're having to support keeping your carcass alive on life support for who knows how many years.
Your individual liberty ends when you start being a danger to the public and a drain on much-needed resources. So seriously, please stop making excuses and just wear the damn thing. If not for yourself, do it for your kids (if you have any) and for the public-at-large.
P.S. If you google it, you can find anecdotes like this ad nauseum, but it's personal to me. Two years ago, I had a blowout (left rear wheel) in moderate traffic on I-85 just north of Atlanta, a pretty busy stretch of interstate. I was going highway speed, and spun out. I did a 1080 in the middle of the interstate, was hit by two other vehicles (an SUV and a large sedan), and my car was totaled. I was wearing my seat belt. Even during the accident, until my air bags deployed, I was able to exert minimal control over the car and keep from causing even more damage. I walked away with a sore rib and a small scratch on my thumb. If I weren't wearing my seat belt, there's a pretty good chance I would have been killed or, at best, eating through a straw for a long time. I've also had friend and relatives killed due to not wearing a seat belt.
There are a lot of BS laws passed that are dumb attempts and nannying you. This isn't one of them.
This Sunday is exactly my 10-year anniversary of me having it done. I've had literally zero negative effects from it. Not even dry eyes or the mild irritation they warn you about for a day or two following the surgery. After surgery, my vision was 20/12, which is significantly better than "normal." The odds of complications are extremely small, but even in the domain of normal outcomes, I've been really lucky. There's a tiny fraction of people who have complications like getting an eye infection following the surgery; I'm the outlier on the opposite end of the bell curve--the guy who had an abnormally good outcome.
So your mileage may vary, but it was worth every cent I paid for the procedure, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I knew the risks going in, and it's not like the procedure was new in 2002 when I had it done. My doctor was a cornea specialist with decades of experience, and he actually performed some of the early test procedures and has written papers on the procedure that other doctors use today. I'm getting old enough now where presbyopia is starting to kick in, almost on schedule when they told me it would, right on schedule when it does for everyone. It's not so bad yet, but in a few years, I'll probably need reading glasses to see things up close. This is expected--LASIK is (currently) incapable of correcting presbyopia, barring doing something like a monovision procedure, which I don't think I'd care for.
Now, it's ten years later, and the procedure is even more safe and effective than it was when I had it. If you want a mathematically zero risk of anything bad happening, then fine, stick to your contacts or corrective lenses. Of course, if you want a mathematically zero risk of anything bad happening, don't ever get into a car, because every time you drive, there's a small risk that you'll be involved in a fatal car wreck. In fact, you really shouldn't wear contact lenses at all because of the risk of eye infection (which is, I'm guessing, probably much higher than the risk of complication from LASIK). There are probably similar risks associated with using corrective lenses. What if you get hit by something and the lens breaks? That wouldn't be good...
At some point, you have to balance the positives and high probability of a positive outcome versus the negatives and low probability of a negative outcome. I've enjoyed a lot of activities over the years that would have been complicated and/or much less enjoyable if I had to wear glasses while doing them, and I've avoided a LOT of day-to-day hassle. Like I said, your mileage may vary, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Some of us paid thousands of dollars on LASIK surgery specifically for the purpose of not having to wear glasses. I'm not about to pay thousands more so that I can again.
To use an analogy, there's nothing stopping me from paying millions of dollars to someone to develop software for me, then turn around and release it under an open source license.
All they need to do is pay normal market prices for competent people who can write textbooks to write textbooks, make sure that the contract specifies that the government--not the author--retains copyright, and then release the textbooks under some sort of freedoc license.
Let me know when you're able to train your technophobe mom on using Photoshop to lengthen people's noses and stretching their chins, and when you're able to convince your sexting teenage cousin that it's not kosher throwing pictures of everyone up everywhere.
While I don't necessarily disagree with you, practically speaking, it's not going to happen. That genie is already out of its bottle. We need to start from the fundamental assumption that the data is out there and will be collected, and figure out from that what we need to do.
Is anyone arguing that the guy shouldn't get a fair, open trial, legal rendition, and all that? I know I'm not. Learn the difference between, "We should identify people committing crimes," and, "We should string people up without due process."
Maybe it looks like a viral advertisement to you, but I think it's on the level for a couple of reasons. First, there are more testimonials below pitching Namecheap as a good registrar, and second (and more importantly), I've used Namecheap as a registrar myself for around six years for 18 domains related to free gaming sites I run. The OP is right, they have a great, simple interface and I've never had any trouble with them. They offer great service for a great price, and they Just Work.
If you like a different registrar better, then more power to you; I'm glad you've found someone you like and feel offers good service. But what exactly makes you think that the OP is an "obvious viral advertisement" but that your link isn't? Frankly, reading the content of your page, yours sounds more like an obvious viral advertisement (that is, the obvious attempt to grab attention using blatant profanity) than the OP simply listing a few reasons why he likes his registrar.
No, the Republicans were opposing Senate Democrats and Obama simply for the sake of being an obstacle, period, end of story. I assure you that had the Senate passed a year-long version, Republicans in the House would have been having conniptions that it wasn't only a shorter-term stopgap.
You have to understand that Obama pitched himself during the election as a moderate compromiser that would set aside ideology to get things done. And he's delivered on the compromiser part--he's made a lot of concessions over the years, which is why we don't have any significant legislation on things like the environment, tax reform, campaign finance reform, banking regulation etc. Even his crown jewel--health care reform--has been significantly watered down by compromises. (Public Option, anyone?)
The Republicans have been exploiting this by stonewalling everything--EVERYTHING--that they can. Not just hot-button things, but even piddly little things that have broad bipartisan support. From appointments to simple procedural votes to things that always passed without incident before (for example, raising the debt ceiling) because not passing it would have major negative ramifications on our economy. Hell, they've even refused to pass legislation that they proposed once Democrats said, "That sounds reasonable, we'll go along with it."
So don't be fooled. The only reason this thing passed had nothing to do with whether the thing was for two months or a year. It was because it was one of the rare times the White House was finally able to successfully frame the issue for what it really was: Republicans sacrificing the good of their constituents for the sake of trying to make Obama look like he can't get things done for the sake of the 2012 election. Fortunately, it backfired on them this time.
To paraphrase something particularly insightful I heard Jon Stewart sat once, it's not the entre they're objecting to; its the waiter.
Frankly, I would consider it an honor to have my minivan crushed by a Mythbusters experiment.
I thought this as well. I'd be tempted to turn down the insurance settlement and just keep the wreckage, especially if you can keep the cannonball, too. You could probably get a LOT of money for it at auction from a fan who wants the famous Mythbusters experiment that went horribly wrong!
Slashdot Mirror
Hopefully you're not just posting this on Slashdot, which is about three degrees away from the people being sued. I'd suggest using the Contact Us link on the company's home page to tell them. That's information their lawyer might find very useful and help in their defense.
And here I am yet again without mod points when I really need them. I've said for a long, long time that the best societies are a healthy mix of both capitalism and socialism. Socialism for things that private industry cannot or is ill-equipped to handle (for example, major infrastructure projects, things such as health insurance in which free enterprise has a perverse incentive to screw its customers over, and things that are deemed essential for life or meaningful societal progress), capitalism for everything else.
This doesn't mean that the petty bickering that goes on now wouldn't happen; people would still argue over what private industry cannot handle and what is considered, for example, "meaningful societal progress." Still, the sooner people stop thinking of socialism as a bad word, the sooner we'll actually be able to regain and retain our position as the global superpower. Unfettered capitalism is just as bad for society as unfettered socialism. Look at a place like, say, Somalia, where there is virtually no government to speak of and individual liberty is taken to an extreme--if you want your neighbor's stuff there's absolutely nothing stopping you from simply taking it, provided you have a band of mercenaries that are skillful enough to go get it. Is this really any better than a place like, say, Cuba or China?
That's what's being lost in today's political discourse. The notion of a happy medium, the idea that both systems have things to offer and lessons to learn.
You are, of course, free to whatever you want to your iDevice after you've bought it.
I want to sync it to my Linux workstation. How do I do that?
Actually, I hope that this results in an all-out patent war between the big players. Right now, they have little incentive to pour money into lobbying Congress to change the patent system because they're all benefiting from it. As long as they all don't sue each other and only pick on little guys, why would they want to upset the status quo?
However, if the mutual assured destruction scenario actually plays out and they all start suing the crap out of each other, only then would they finally realize that buying tens of thousands of patents as a defensive measure against getting sued is not an acceptable solution to the patent problem. Ultimately, the answer is that software/business process patents need to permanently go away. That can only happen when they stop spending so much on lawyers building, defending, and in some cases, using as weapons their patent portfolios and start actually making meaningful changes in the system.
Yes, they'd have more competition. Yes, that means that sometimes, competitors might mercilessly steal some of your clever ideas. But it also means that instead of spending billions of dollars on lawyers, you can now redirect that money towards research and development to blow competitors away with awesome products (thus gaining brand and product loyalty) instead of trying to blow them away in a courtroom (which is nothing but a colossal waste of time and money).
Where did you get that information? I don't see any reference to payments other than the aforementioned up to $25 in Amazon.com gift cards anywhere.
Yes, he's wrong, and so are you. Here in the U.S., we have devout "Christians" killing doctors who perform abortions. We also have Muslims who are awesome progressive people. Stereotyping an entire religion based on the actions of extremists, especially extremist governments, is just plain stupid. Atrocities have been committed in the name of pretty much all gods. Yes, in the name of atheism.
BZZZT!!! Bullshit.
We don't call lying under oath "perjury." We call lying under oath about something material to the case at hand "perjury." Clinton did lie under oath in a deposition about Whitewater to questions that had not a damn thing to do with the case, therefore not perjury. If you go back and check, he was completely acquitted of that charge--even by several Republicans.
Also, even if he were eventually found guilty, felonies are not named as a basis upon which a President can be impeached. "High crimes and misdemeanors" is the basis. Clinton had an affair. Stop trying to conflate that with giving away our nuclear codes to China.
By the way, you might want to know that as a matter of law, we do not prosecute people because of consensual sex.
And by the way, he WAS impeached because of sex. You can try to dress it up any way you want, but that's it, period. They tried to get him on Whitewater, and they couldn't. He was completely acquitted of all of those charges, too. Maybe you don't remember so well what happened during those days, but I sure as hell do. The Republicans made some shit up and hauled him in to give a sworn deposition under oath about Whitewater. Once he got in the room, they started asking him all sorts of sordid, slimy questions that didn't have a damn thing to do with the case at hand. Everyone in that room--especially Bill Clinton--knew that the testimony would be leaked and that it had zero to do with any actual crime. It was character assassination, pure and simple. Hell, they knew they didn't have the votes to actually find him guilty, so the end goal wasn't really to remove him from office, either. The point was to get Ken Starr's report out to the public and put all of the salacious details on people's televisions; to distract the public from REAL issues.
Clinton was by far one of the best presidents we've ever had. Eight straight years of relative peace, no messy expensive international entanglements, budget surpluses, record low unemployment, booming economy with little inflation, etc. Had the Republicans not conducted their little smear campaign, there's no way come hell or high water Al Gore could lose in 2000, it would have been a Reaganesque landslide. They were desperate, and as a result, Clinton for a couple of years had a very hard time carrying out his duties as President. I kinda wish he had been able to focus on things like, I dunno, say, Osama bin Laden, instead of having to testify about where someone consented for him to put a cigar.
So stop being such a tool and persisting with this bogus "but he lied under oath, waaaah!" bullshit. He was impeached due to sex, and it was nothing but a Republican ploy to take the White House in 2000, end of story.
Save for the same old social wedge issues like abortion, gay rights, prayer in school, etc. there is no difference between the parties now.
So in other words, other than issues like individual rights, the parties are the same...
This is a critically important point that often gets ignored. Perjury isn't just lying, it's lying about something materially relevant to the case. The whole Clinton impeachment scandal was a Republican machination with two goals only: To embarrass Clinton and increase the chances of winning in 2000. He was acquitted, as he should have been, of the charge. The only reason why 45 Republican senators voted guilty on the perjury charge was because they were so desperate to win in 2000.
. .
That's bullshit all around and you know it.
Clinton was brought in to testify under the pretense that the questions were going to be about the so-called Whitewater scandal. Once he got there, he was ambushed, plain and simple, with questions that had absolutely NOTHING to do with Whitewater. Clinton KNEW--and he was 100% right--that although the testimony was supposed to be closed, the Republicans would leak it. The Republicans looked at this testimony as a carte blanche opportunity to get the President of the United States under oath and ask him any damn sordid question they wanted for the express purpose of embarrassing him and undermining his authority.
Now, keeping all of this in mind, that this inquiry was supposed to be about Whitewater and ONLY Whitewater, watch a snippet of the questioning and you tell me what the hell is going on there. Did he lie? Hell yeah, he did. And you know what? I don't blame him. I would have, too. Did Clinton screw up? Yes. But what he did was beans compared to the absolutely disgusting actions the Republicans took here.
So let's just say for fun that Newt Gingrich gets elected in November. As a Democrat who desperately doesn't want him to have a second term, I trump up some bogus charge against him. Doesn't matter what it is, just make shit up because the end goal isn't conviction. Get him into a room with a camera recording the "closed" proceedings when everyone in the room damn well knows that tomorrow afternoon, it will be posted on the Internet for everyone to see. Then start asking him extremely personal questions about leaving his first wife after she was diagnosed with cancer and his second wife after she was diagnosed with MS. The more sensationalistic, the more slimy, the better. Trust me on this, Newt Gingrich has WAY more skeletons in his closet than a tawdry little fling with an intern. The questions that are asked have NOTHING to do with the trumped up charges against him; they are specifically designed to politically smear him.
Would you still go with your "connivance of his foes" argument? Because I think that the shit people are giving him already about his personal life is disgusting. Do you still think he should be removed from office when he was so obviously set up? I don't, and I'm a Democrat. Everyone that was involved in that slimy plan should have been tried and convicted of prosecutorial misconduct. In a normal courtroom, a judge could squelch such questions because they're completely irrelevant to the case at hand. In this case, the power of the Independent Council was grossly misused.
As for removing him from office, that's a no-brainer. You tell me what the fuck lying about an affair that had NOTHING to do with the case at hand and in which NO ONE was hurt or injured in any way (barring emotional distress, undoubtedly) ranks as a high crime or misdemeanor. Anyone who claims that it is a high crime or misdemeanor isn't being rational or objective; they have an ax to grind, period, end of story. It's only idiotic Republicans like you who try to conflate what he did with "eating human babies," and it reflect more badly on you than on Clinton--as evidenced by his re-election in 1996 AFTER this scandal ran its course.
Way to go! Seriously, this is exactly what the blackouts are about: getting people to talk about the issue. Not just tech geeks, but laypeople as well. The fact that you're talking to them and informing them is more meaningful than just reading some web site put up by anonymous people and companies that might have an agenda. So keep right on informing; THAT is how these bills will be defeated.
I'm worried. I want to get copies of the Gettysburg Address and ,
Dear MightyMartian, due to your unapproved use of Mr. Shakespeare's title without financial remuneration, we have helpfully removed the title per Mr. Shakespeare's estate's request for you. As the Lincoln estate is not paying us an appropriate pound of flesh, we will allow the phrase "Gettysburg Address" to remain in your post without alteration.
Sincerely,
IP Overlords
Or you could, you know, just not play the game. You got burned once, and thank goodness, you were able to get past it. Why in the world would you volunteer to get burned again? I'm of the weird opinion that I shouldn't have to crack my games. If I know or strongly suspect that I'd have to, I simply don't buy it. That way, not only is the company out potential income, they're also out my word-of-mouth advertising since I don't talk to anyone about games I don't own.
It was an advertised feature. As such, yes, there probably were people for whom being able to run Linux on the console WAS a reason they bought it. Was it THE reason they bought it? Probably not, but have you ever heard of XBMC? It was originally written for the Xbox console to provide an HTPC interface to users' media that isn't necessarily delivered compliments of Redmond.
Given a choice beween, say, and Xbox on which you have to install third-party software to get this functionality, and a PS3 which allowed it right out of the box, the allowing it right out of the box was undoubtedly a big factor in several users purchasing a PS3 instead of an Xbox. And now, those users are not only screwed, but they would have been better off if they had just gotten an Xbox instead.
Maybe you don't think it was a big deal, but to a lot of users, it was a bait-and-switch. They sold them one thing, and then after the fact, deliberately gimped it so that it didn't suit their purposes.
You must be confused. I most certainly do order my passengers to wear their seat belts.
As for "personal responsibility," see my post above. The dingers are for people who are too stupid or too stubborn to accept personal responsibility. If everyone had a keen sense of personal responsibility, we wouldn't need a lot of laws, duh.
Anyway, I'm not disabling the censor either, and I just put up with the few beeps until I buckle up. I was not making up the circustance, I was just showing that the (parent to my post) view was limited in this following sentence:
"If you are driving long enough for the car to complain that you are not wearing your seat belt, then you are not making an intelligent decision."
Then my apologies, I thought you were saying that you had disabled your sensor due to always having to drive without your seat belt.
I'll admit that there are bizarre, contrived circumstances under which I've been beeped at for not wearing my seat belt. Still, I like the fact that it nags people to put it on. Those circumstances are so short and few and far between that the positive of having a nagging dinger (people putting on a seat belt to shut it up) easily outweighs the negative (having to tolerate it once in a blue moon).
For what it's worth, I simply do not believe you. First of all, I wear my seat belt all the time, and I have absolutely no trouble at all with visibility. If you have to get out of your seat to see, you're doing it wrong. Second of all, disabling a sensor so that you don't have to put up with a few seconds of beeping is stupid. My guess is that you are, in fact, driving without your seat belt, and just making up a contrived circumstance to try to convince us that out of all of the people who do so, you're the one exception--the one person who isn't being stupid while doing so.
Yeah, I think not.
The sad thing is that you probably think, "What difference does it make? I'm only hurting myself." Individual liberty and all that, right? Well, 1) if you have kids, you're making a horrible impression on them. Someday if they don't buckle their seat because "Mom and/or Dad never did, and they never had any trouble," there's a pretty good chance that they get messed up at some point due directly to your negligence. 2) If you find yourself in a situation where it is difficult to maintain control of your car, such as roads with black ice, a tire blowout, etc., seat belts help keep you where you're supposed to be--behind the wheel, and not flailing about the cabin of your car. If you're doing the latter, there's a much higher chance that you'll plow into the poor innocent schmuck next to you. And 3) when you do have a wreck and get messed up and you exceed the limitations of your insurance company, who do you think will be paying for your medical bills? Yeah, that would be me and other people who have the gumption to wear seat belts. You could have just walked away from the accident with a bruised rib, but instead, we're having to support keeping your carcass alive on life support for who knows how many years.
Your individual liberty ends when you start being a danger to the public and a drain on much-needed resources. So seriously, please stop making excuses and just wear the damn thing. If not for yourself, do it for your kids (if you have any) and for the public-at-large.
P.S. If you google it, you can find anecdotes like this ad nauseum, but it's personal to me. Two years ago, I had a blowout (left rear wheel) in moderate traffic on I-85 just north of Atlanta, a pretty busy stretch of interstate. I was going highway speed, and spun out. I did a 1080 in the middle of the interstate, was hit by two other vehicles (an SUV and a large sedan), and my car was totaled. I was wearing my seat belt. Even during the accident, until my air bags deployed, I was able to exert minimal control over the car and keep from causing even more damage. I walked away with a sore rib and a small scratch on my thumb. If I weren't wearing my seat belt, there's a pretty good chance I would have been killed or, at best, eating through a straw for a long time. I've also had friend and relatives killed due to not wearing a seat belt.
There are a lot of BS laws passed that are dumb attempts and nannying you. This isn't one of them.
This Sunday is exactly my 10-year anniversary of me having it done. I've had literally zero negative effects from it. Not even dry eyes or the mild irritation they warn you about for a day or two following the surgery. After surgery, my vision was 20/12, which is significantly better than "normal." The odds of complications are extremely small, but even in the domain of normal outcomes, I've been really lucky. There's a tiny fraction of people who have complications like getting an eye infection following the surgery; I'm the outlier on the opposite end of the bell curve--the guy who had an abnormally good outcome.
So your mileage may vary, but it was worth every cent I paid for the procedure, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I knew the risks going in, and it's not like the procedure was new in 2002 when I had it done. My doctor was a cornea specialist with decades of experience, and he actually performed some of the early test procedures and has written papers on the procedure that other doctors use today. I'm getting old enough now where presbyopia is starting to kick in, almost on schedule when they told me it would, right on schedule when it does for everyone. It's not so bad yet, but in a few years, I'll probably need reading glasses to see things up close. This is expected--LASIK is (currently) incapable of correcting presbyopia, barring doing something like a monovision procedure, which I don't think I'd care for.
Now, it's ten years later, and the procedure is even more safe and effective than it was when I had it. If you want a mathematically zero risk of anything bad happening, then fine, stick to your contacts or corrective lenses. Of course, if you want a mathematically zero risk of anything bad happening, don't ever get into a car, because every time you drive, there's a small risk that you'll be involved in a fatal car wreck. In fact, you really shouldn't wear contact lenses at all because of the risk of eye infection (which is, I'm guessing, probably much higher than the risk of complication from LASIK). There are probably similar risks associated with using corrective lenses. What if you get hit by something and the lens breaks? That wouldn't be good...
At some point, you have to balance the positives and high probability of a positive outcome versus the negatives and low probability of a negative outcome. I've enjoyed a lot of activities over the years that would have been complicated and/or much less enjoyable if I had to wear glasses while doing them, and I've avoided a LOT of day-to-day hassle. Like I said, your mileage may vary, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Some of us paid thousands of dollars on LASIK surgery specifically for the purpose of not having to wear glasses. I'm not about to pay thousands more so that I can again.
Who said that anyone will be working for free?
To use an analogy, there's nothing stopping me from paying millions of dollars to someone to develop software for me, then turn around and release it under an open source license.
All they need to do is pay normal market prices for competent people who can write textbooks to write textbooks, make sure that the contract specifies that the government--not the author--retains copyright, and then release the textbooks under some sort of freedoc license.
Let me know when you're able to train your technophobe mom on using Photoshop to lengthen people's noses and stretching their chins, and when you're able to convince your sexting teenage cousin that it's not kosher throwing pictures of everyone up everywhere.
While I don't necessarily disagree with you, practically speaking, it's not going to happen. That genie is already out of its bottle. We need to start from the fundamental assumption that the data is out there and will be collected, and figure out from that what we need to do.
Is anyone arguing that the guy shouldn't get a fair, open trial, legal rendition, and all that? I know I'm not. Learn the difference between, "We should identify people committing crimes," and, "We should string people up without due process."
Maybe it looks like a viral advertisement to you, but I think it's on the level for a couple of reasons. First, there are more testimonials below pitching Namecheap as a good registrar, and second (and more importantly), I've used Namecheap as a registrar myself for around six years for 18 domains related to free gaming sites I run. The OP is right, they have a great, simple interface and I've never had any trouble with them. They offer great service for a great price, and they Just Work.
If you like a different registrar better, then more power to you; I'm glad you've found someone you like and feel offers good service. But what exactly makes you think that the OP is an "obvious viral advertisement" but that your link isn't? Frankly, reading the content of your page, yours sounds more like an obvious viral advertisement (that is, the obvious attempt to grab attention using blatant profanity) than the OP simply listing a few reasons why he likes his registrar.
No, the Republicans were opposing Senate Democrats and Obama simply for the sake of being an obstacle, period, end of story. I assure you that had the Senate passed a year-long version, Republicans in the House would have been having conniptions that it wasn't only a shorter-term stopgap.
You have to understand that Obama pitched himself during the election as a moderate compromiser that would set aside ideology to get things done. And he's delivered on the compromiser part--he's made a lot of concessions over the years, which is why we don't have any significant legislation on things like the environment, tax reform, campaign finance reform, banking regulation etc. Even his crown jewel--health care reform--has been significantly watered down by compromises. (Public Option, anyone?)
The Republicans have been exploiting this by stonewalling everything--EVERYTHING--that they can. Not just hot-button things, but even piddly little things that have broad bipartisan support. From appointments to simple procedural votes to things that always passed without incident before (for example, raising the debt ceiling) because not passing it would have major negative ramifications on our economy. Hell, they've even refused to pass legislation that they proposed once Democrats said, "That sounds reasonable, we'll go along with it."
So don't be fooled. The only reason this thing passed had nothing to do with whether the thing was for two months or a year. It was because it was one of the rare times the White House was finally able to successfully frame the issue for what it really was: Republicans sacrificing the good of their constituents for the sake of trying to make Obama look like he can't get things done for the sake of the 2012 election. Fortunately, it backfired on them this time.
To paraphrase something particularly insightful I heard Jon Stewart sat once, it's not the entre they're objecting to; its the waiter.
Frankly, I would consider it an honor to have my minivan crushed by a Mythbusters experiment.
I thought this as well. I'd be tempted to turn down the insurance settlement and just keep the wreckage, especially if you can keep the cannonball, too. You could probably get a LOT of money for it at auction from a fan who wants the famous Mythbusters experiment that went horribly wrong!