It's been posted again and again in news.admin.net-abuse.email that most abuse admins despise SpamCop. In fact, it's so unpopular that some admins have admitted to simply bit-bucketing all SpamCop correspondence.
Arrgh! Will you guys (Rob ESPECIALLY... you've said this same thing twice in two days) get a clue?
Word processors do fonts, layers, colors, pasteup, image layout, flow text around graphics and along curving lines, and other sorts of things you might like to have if you're doing something like wedding or graduation invitations, newsletters, flyers, advertising, etc., etc.
Would you really prefer a plain A9 typewritten notice over a beautiful invitation, or an eye-catching advertisement or resume? I notice Slashdot doesn't use plain ASCII text in its banner ads... I wonder why?
Plain ASCII text is perfect for certain things (programming, email, etc), but when you need a hard copy of something, you very rarely mean "type this up and print it out so it looks like it came from a dot-matrix printer."
This idea isn't new. The Scientologists forced the original Cult Awareness Network to fold, via specious litigation (Scientology doesn't care about winning lawsuits, they just want to bankrupt their opponents), and then set up camp themselves as the Cult Awareness Network. So now, if you try to get information about cults via the CAN, you're actually getting information from a cult.
The readers with accounts are the moderators on Slashdot; check the archives for some of CmdrTaco's (CT==Rob Malda) posts regarding "new Slashdot features". CT, Hemos, and company aren't usually the moderators.
And, once more for the record, I *still* think all these posts should be available via NNTP, so we can use our newsreaders and 1) do our own filtering and scoring, and 2) keep track of which articles we've seen already much more conveniently (I use nested or threaded mode, at -1 because I frequently disagree with the scores I see assigned, which means in order to see new posts, I have to reload the page all the time and wade through everything I've already read. I'd set a higher score level, but then, as you noted, I'd miss the less-popular viewpoints, and the opposing side is often the side I want to hear from, not everyone that I agree with. Strange that so many alleged "unpopular geeks" seem to have such a problem with the unpopular opinion!).
Whatever. Using a web browser to read hundreds or thousands of Slashdot posts is a horrible kludge.
I wonder when/if the drug and/or prostitution/sodomy laws, etc. will ever be declared unconstitutional, since they seem to infringe on certain liberties.
This isn't about liberties; it's about money. Not allowing crypto to be exported would have caused this country grievous economic harm, billions of dollars' worth. It was just a matter of finding the right loophole to wiggle through.
Drugs and prostitution would probably be at least decriminalized (as opposed to legalized), too, if doing so would make them more profitable enterprises. It won't, so they'll be remaining illegal and criminal.
Absolutely. I got *so* sick and tired of all the ads and yapping and dreck on the radio.
Eventually, it dawned on me that I was turning the volume _down_ to avoid the irritating stuff about ten times more often than I was turning the volume -up- to enjoy the music more. And since my budget was extremely tight, and I didn't want to blow $12 or more on a CD I'd listen to a few times and realize I only liked maybe one or two tracks on the whole thing, I pretty much just listened to less and less music, until I rarely listened to any. And then MP3s came along, and now I can try out and listen to whatever I want, from among (tens of?) thousands of selections, in the comfort of my own home, without having to announce my musical tastes to the whole world at the checkout line, and without having to put up with the pissy attitude of the flunkies running the cash registers.
For selection, comfort, style, and service, the current situation is darn near unbeatable. I could be grudgingly persuaded to become more flexible on the price, if I had to. *grin*
But it *is* all the kids' faults. I mean, if parents weren't so busy working their asses off to support the kids (who simply MUST have the $300 pair of shoes, or they'll go kill someone and take theirs), and to support their own parents, and the kids' drug-addicted babies, and all the while the government is taking 1/3 to 1/2 of the parents' paychecks, and the parents still have to pay for health care, car insurance, the mortgage, the endless counselors and medications for the entire family so they aren't accused of neglect, and so forth and so on...
But if the parents hadn't become parents in the first place, there'd be no kids to worry about, and the kids' kids wouldn't be there, the house could be smaller, the bills would be a heck of a lot less, there probably wouldn't be any counselor or medication bills, and things would probably be a whole lot better.
My suggestion: birth control. Use it early and often, folks!
Or, we could just go with your idea: that as long as someone somewhere is acting like an asshole, everyone everywhere is free to act like an asshole. Hey, it's not OUR fault, it's that guy over there! How do you expect all of US to behave when he's doing that??
The other guy was right... If your limit is set fairly low, you only get [limit] number of comments *per page*. Then there's a 1|2|3|4 etc in a grey dividing bar at the top and bottom of the comments area, which are the pages, each with [limit] number of additional comments.
The wording in the preferences area isn't exactly clear about that, though. I think someone ought to add the words "per page" to the description of what that setting does.
One, and probably the one that bugs me the most, is that they don't seem to test their.rpm packages very well. As far as I can see, *anyone* can offer up an.rpm, with no "oversight committee" of experienced users having input on the final product. You're never really sure if you're getting a well-tested, peer-reviewed package, or just something someone tossed together last night that has no hope of running on your machine.
This means that a lot of the rawest of newbies have difficulties installing Redhat and.RPMs, which frustrates them, so they give up, and proclaim far and wide that Linux sucks, it's too hard, etc.
Another reason is their package manager isn't as thorough at detecting conflicts, dependencies, requirements, and suggesting additional packages as Debian's is.
Another reason: I sometimes have the feeling that RedHat is trying to be the next Microsoft: never mind the bugs, if it compiles, SHIP IT NOW. We'll incorporate patches later when enough people complain loudly enough.
If I wanted a half-broken, barely-tested, buggy OS that was rushed out the door too soon, I can think of one that's easier to install and use, and more popular, than RedHat.
And finally: Linux takes time to learn; it's sometimes pretty difficult to deal with. I resent the idea that RedHat thinks all my hard work is valueless, and they can just shovel junk at me. If I'm going to put this much time and effort into Linux, I *darn* well want to be using the most stable version I can find. Things get messy enough, just dealing with my own screwups... without having the packages themselves crash and burn due to simple things usually found via peer review, like typos and stuff.
Cheesy portal: YA cool /. idea; need more /[]s!
on
Slashdot Updates
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· Score: 1
Hey, I like this idea. Then again, I like most of your ideas. Whoever thought of nested mode for the comment display is brilliant. One click, and I (usually) have all the comments on one page.
The Cheesy Portal *is* currently kinda ugly, though, ya gotta admit. *grin*
The teenager driver facing a "drunk driving" charge because the state's "zero tolerance" policy towards alcohol makes no exemption for NyQuil. Another 12,341,861 examples available in your local newspaper.)
Heh... remember the news stories about the kids (in different states, at different times, but all were apparently elementary-school age, around 9 years old) who gave a classmate an aspirin/cough drop/whatever and were *expelled* from school??
Wanna know what the latest cool gang thing apparently is to do here in California? The gang is called "Straight Edge", and they don't drink, do drugs, or smoke... and if they come across anyone who DOES drink, do drugs, or smoke, they'll beat you into a bloody pulp (or until you're dead). Doesn't matter whether you're talking to them, or if you even see them. If they see YOU doing any of those things, they'll pound your face into the pavement. After all, if you'll do something that horrible, god only knows what else you'll do. You deserve whatever happens to you, right?
Ants can carry around something like 15 times their own body weight. That doesn't mean ants are mentally strong. They're just physically strong.
Being able to ingest more toxins than most people is a pretty pathetic thing to brag about. Is that the best thing about you, the thing you want everyone to remember? But, hey, cheer up: if the world turns into a radioactive, ozoneless wasteland, we're going to need big, strong burnouts to fill the worker castes, living and mutating outside the domes, while the smart folks get things done in safety and comfort. Your descendants and clones should fit the bill nicely!
And remember (while you still can), Linux is for smart people; just imagine how you're going to feel when you have just enough smarts left to figure out the basics of MS Bob, and maybe AOL, but anything beyond that just slips your mind every time. You can remember doing all those cool things in Linux, but now you can barely remember how to get rid of that damn Paperclip thing. And then you smell something funny, and realize you had to take a dump 30 minutes ago, but it's no longer a problem...
Taking drugs is "hacking" like throwing iron filings into your monitor is hacking... they're both using tools to make things behave in unintended ways. Of course, the resulting lump isn't worth a crap, but hey, weren't you cool the night you did THREE eight-balls and a quart of tequila... *and* got the worm at the bottom?
Prices on things dropping isn't exactly a new phenomenon.
Some of the things I can think of right off the top of my head which started out as incredibly expensive but eventually became household items:
cars cotton products (thanks to the cotton gin) guns books gelatin desserts (it used to take hours to make these, now you can do it in 5 minutes out of a box) cell phones, faxes, and pagers instantaneous news (first daily via the paper, now via everything)
The list goes on and on; I keep thinking of more things the longer I think about it.
We live better, longer, smarter, and healthier now than royalty used to just a few centuries ago. Hot and cold running water, gas and electricity at the touch of a button, public education for the masses, amazingly soft and colorful clothes, soft mattresses, decent plumbing, warm (or cool!) dry housing, more leisure time (in general), food that the royalty would have been jealous of...
We've really got it made, when you start thinking about it.
Brian, I think I do get the point..
on
ShutUp Software
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· Score: 2
[jonkatz] writes: Flamers don't carry any weight with me. I do listen to criticism. But that doesn't mean that flamers have no value, or shouldn't be seen or heard.
Who do you think should be watching and listening to the flamers, then? Why do you seem to suggest that others should wade through what you yourself deem as weightless fluff?
Either you read the flamers, or you don't read the flamers. What others choose to read or filter is, well, none of your business.
You need to hit Usenet more often, IMHO. When you're familiar with the likes of Dave Hayes (and the rest of the "Freedom Knights"), John Grubor, the Hell Flame Wars group, the Meowers, the alt.fan.karl-malden.nose bunch, Bill Palmer, Steve Boursy, Rahul Dhesi, and *dozens* of other posters with varying degrees of kookiness, you'll begin to have a much better idea of what kill files and score files are meant to address. Some of these people are fine until you get them going on their pet Crusade; others are just so far out-there that our most sophisticated devices have yet to be able to pick up on their signals.
Interestingly enough, I don't have anything or anyone filtered here on Slashdot; and I rarely filter anyone in Usenet, unless they've been posting the same viewpoints so frequently for so long that I've grown weary of them.
I find it rather interesting that, after 474 comments, no one has noticed that the poll doesn't say, "More lines is better." Nor does it say "Fewer lines is better."
All the poll asks is how many lines of code you wrote last year.
"So Netscape dies trying to run a little [unauthorized program from an unauthorized, but highly suspicious, source] and you blame Microsoft's web server? [...] Run [one that allows any Joe Blow and his Herd of Minions access to your every registry setting]."
You're *way* too late for that one. There have been warnings on matchbooks and boxes of matches for decades, here in the U.S.A. Something to the effect of "Close cover before striking match."
Let's see... what do I see when I look around me?
1) Plastic bag that I brought vegetables home from the market in, as well as the twist-ties for the sandwich bags, has the warning "To avoid suffocation, keep plastic bags away from children."
2) The clothes-washing-machine won't work with the lid up, because some kid might crawl in somehow.
3) Speaking of matches, cigarette lighters must be childproof to be legal... in other words, it takes a large/strong hand to use one. This one's on my mind because it was noted on 20/20 last night that childproofing and removing cigarette lighters and matches from childrens' access had not reduced the number of fires accidentally set by kids each year; rather, it had produced kids more determined than ever to get their "fire fix".
4) Soda bottle has a health warning (contains phenylalanine), an expiration date, an admonition to recycle, and a warning to point bottle away from face while opening
5) Hardware and software have unique identifying markers... for my protection, of course.
6) Electric hair dryer has a warning not to use it in the shower.
7) Aspirin bottle is childproofed.
8) Bedding and mattress carry warnings about flammability and not leaving infants unattended.
Basically, I'm *besieged* by this stuff. Around-the-clock, I'm cautioned, warned, instructed down to the smallest detail, admonished, protected, cossetted, and coddled.
End result? Appears to be a stupider society, in need of increasingly more protection, warnings, and so on. Darwin has been thwarted, and gosh, aren't we ever so much better off now?
Yep. Paper clothing is also widely available, used in such places as hospitals, critical/urgent care facilities, loony bins, maternity wards and nurseries,and so on.
Air-powered boats (using much larger fans) are about the only way to get around in the Florida swamps.
And, of course, almost everyone has a portable hair dryer these days.
The US obviously convinced its self that democracy doesn't work; as shown by extreamly low voter turn out.
Apparently, it doesn't. Californians keep voting for things, and then some judge is dug up, paid off, and told to veto the will of the people.
Californians wanted to teach schoolchildren in English. bzzt, not going to happen. Californians wanted to OK medical marijuana. Pffft, not likely. Californians wanted a cap on how much politicians could beg and scam off of people to finance their campaigns. Ermmm, no, sorry, nice try. Insurance reform, pretty please? Hah! It is to laugh.
What's the freakin' point of getting tens of thousands of signatures, stuffing a bill through the Halls of Democracy, and _finally_ getting the thing on the ballot, if once the damn thing is voted on and passed, it's immediately chucked out, contrary to what the People have drug their asses to the polls and voted for??
Slashdot Mirror
It's been posted again and again in news.admin.net-abuse.email that most abuse admins despise SpamCop. In fact, it's so unpopular that some admins have admitted to simply bit-bucketing all SpamCop correspondence.
Arrgh! Will you guys (Rob ESPECIALLY ... you've said this same thing twice in two days) get a clue?
Word processors do fonts, layers, colors, pasteup, image layout, flow text around graphics and along curving lines, and other sorts of things you might like to have if you're doing something like wedding or graduation invitations, newsletters, flyers, advertising, etc., etc.
Would you really prefer a plain A9 typewritten notice over a beautiful invitation, or an eye-catching advertisement or resume? I notice Slashdot doesn't use plain ASCII text in its banner ads... I wonder why?
Plain ASCII text is perfect for certain things (programming, email, etc), but when you need a hard copy of something, you very rarely mean "type this up and print it out so it looks like it came from a dot-matrix printer."
This idea isn't new. The Scientologists forced the original Cult Awareness Network to fold, via specious litigation (Scientology doesn't care about winning lawsuits, they just want to bankrupt their opponents), and then set up camp themselves as the Cult Awareness Network. So now, if you try to get information about cults via the CAN, you're actually getting information from a cult.
That was about three years ago.
The readers with accounts are the moderators on Slashdot; check the archives for some of CmdrTaco's (CT==Rob Malda) posts regarding "new Slashdot features". CT, Hemos, and company aren't usually the moderators.
And, once more for the record, I *still* think all these posts should be available via NNTP, so we can use our newsreaders and 1) do our own filtering and scoring, and 2) keep track of which articles we've seen already much more conveniently (I use nested or threaded mode, at -1 because I frequently disagree with the scores I see assigned, which means in order to see new posts, I have to reload the page all the time and wade through everything I've already read. I'd set a higher score level, but then, as you noted, I'd miss the less-popular viewpoints, and the opposing side is often the side I want to hear from, not everyone that I agree with. Strange that so many alleged "unpopular geeks" seem to have such a problem with the unpopular opinion!).
Whatever. Using a web browser to read hundreds or thousands of Slashdot posts is a horrible kludge.
This isn't about liberties; it's about money. Not allowing crypto to be exported would have caused this country grievous economic harm, billions of dollars' worth. It was just a matter of finding the right loophole to wiggle through.
Drugs and prostitution would probably be at least decriminalized (as opposed to legalized), too, if doing so would make them more profitable enterprises. It won't, so they'll be remaining illegal and criminal.
Absolutely. I got *so* sick and tired of all the ads and yapping and dreck on the radio.
Eventually, it dawned on me that I was turning the volume _down_ to avoid the irritating stuff about ten times more often than I was turning the volume -up- to enjoy the music more. And since my budget was extremely tight, and I didn't want to blow $12 or more on a CD I'd listen to a few times and realize I only liked maybe one or two tracks on the whole thing, I pretty much just listened to less and less music, until I rarely listened to any. And then MP3s came along, and now I can try out and listen to whatever I want, from among (tens of?) thousands of selections, in the comfort of my own home, without having to announce my musical tastes to the whole world at the checkout line, and without having to put up with the pissy attitude of the flunkies running the cash registers.
For selection, comfort, style, and service, the current situation is darn near unbeatable. I could be grudgingly persuaded to become more flexible on the price, if I had to. *grin*
But it *is* all the kids' faults. I mean, if parents weren't so busy working their asses off to support the kids (who simply MUST have the $300 pair of shoes, or they'll go kill someone and take theirs), and to support their own parents, and the kids' drug-addicted babies, and all the while the government is taking 1/3 to 1/2 of the parents' paychecks, and the parents still have to pay for health care, car insurance, the mortgage, the endless counselors and medications for the entire family so they aren't accused of neglect, and so forth and so on...
But if the parents hadn't become parents in the first place, there'd be no kids to worry about, and the kids' kids wouldn't be there, the house could be smaller, the bills would be a heck of a lot less, there probably wouldn't be any counselor or medication bills, and things would probably be a whole lot better.
My suggestion: birth control. Use it early and often, folks!
Or, we could just go with your idea: that as long as someone somewhere is acting like an asshole, everyone everywhere is free to act like an asshole. Hey, it's not OUR fault, it's that guy over there! How do you expect all of US to behave when he's doing that??
[x] yes
Err... waitaminnit, I think I said that already a few weeks back. *grin*
Ah hah! That's how it works!
The other guy was right... If your limit is set fairly low, you only get [limit] number of comments *per page*. Then there's a 1|2|3|4 etc in a grey dividing bar at the top and bottom of the comments area, which are the pages, each with [limit] number of additional comments.
The wording in the preferences area isn't exactly clear about that, though. I think someone ought to add the words "per page" to the description of what that setting does.
Oh. Never mind. We just hit overload mode, and it says there on the dividing bar.
Question: It says the comment limit is 30. Does this mean I'll miss all but the 30 most recent comments posted?
If so, that really sucks... I'll have to reload about every two minutes to avoid missing anything.
How will we be able to tell if the server's in overload mode?
RedHat bugs me, for a few reasons.
.rpm packages very well. As far as I can see, *anyone* can offer up an .rpm, with no "oversight committee" of experienced users having input on the final product. You're never really sure if you're getting a well-tested, peer-reviewed package, or just something someone tossed together last night that has no hope of running on your machine.
.RPMs, which frustrates them, so they give up, and proclaim far and wide that Linux sucks, it's too hard, etc.
One, and probably the one that bugs me the most, is that they don't seem to test their
This means that a lot of the rawest of newbies have difficulties installing Redhat and
Another reason is their package manager isn't as thorough at detecting conflicts, dependencies, requirements, and suggesting additional packages as Debian's is.
Another reason: I sometimes have the feeling that RedHat is trying to be the next Microsoft: never mind the bugs, if it compiles, SHIP IT NOW. We'll incorporate patches later when enough people complain loudly enough.
If I wanted a half-broken, barely-tested, buggy OS that was rushed out the door too soon, I can think of one that's easier to install and use, and more popular, than RedHat.
And finally: Linux takes time to learn; it's sometimes pretty difficult to deal with. I resent the idea that RedHat thinks all my hard work is valueless, and they can just shovel junk at me. If I'm going to put this much time and effort into Linux, I *darn* well want to be using the most stable version I can find. Things get messy enough, just dealing with my own screwups... without having the packages themselves crash and burn due to simple things usually found via peer review, like typos and stuff.
Hey, I like this idea. Then again, I like most of your ideas. Whoever thought of nested mode for the comment display is brilliant. One click, and I (usually) have all the comments on one page.
The Cheesy Portal *is* currently kinda ugly, though, ya gotta admit. *grin*
The teenager driver facing a "drunk driving" charge because the state's "zero tolerance" policy towards alcohol makes no exemption for NyQuil. Another 12,341,861 examples available in your local newspaper.)
Heh... remember the news stories about the kids (in different states, at different times, but all were apparently elementary-school age, around 9 years old) who gave a classmate an aspirin/cough drop/whatever and were *expelled* from school??
Wanna know what the latest cool gang thing apparently is to do here in California? The gang is called "Straight Edge", and they don't drink, do drugs, or smoke... and if they come across anyone who DOES drink, do drugs, or smoke, they'll beat you into a bloody pulp (or until you're dead). Doesn't matter whether you're talking to them, or if you even see them. If they see YOU doing any of those things, they'll pound your face into the pavement. After all, if you'll do something that horrible, god only knows what else you'll do. You deserve whatever happens to you, right?
Ants can carry around something like 15 times their own body weight. That doesn't mean ants are mentally strong. They're just physically strong.
Being able to ingest more toxins than most people is a pretty pathetic thing to brag about. Is that the best thing about you, the thing you want everyone to remember? But, hey, cheer up: if the world turns into a radioactive, ozoneless wasteland, we're going to need big, strong burnouts to fill the worker castes, living and mutating outside the domes, while the smart folks get things done in safety and comfort. Your descendants and clones should fit the bill nicely!
And remember (while you still can), Linux is for smart people; just imagine how you're going to feel when you have just enough smarts left to figure out the basics of MS Bob, and maybe AOL, but anything beyond that just slips your mind every time. You can remember doing all those cool things in Linux, but now you can barely remember how to get rid of that damn Paperclip thing. And then you smell something funny, and realize you had to take a dump 30 minutes ago, but it's no longer a problem...
Taking drugs is "hacking" like throwing iron filings into your monitor is hacking... they're both using tools to make things behave in unintended ways. Of course, the resulting lump isn't worth a crap, but hey, weren't you cool the night you did THREE eight-balls and a quart of tequila... *and* got the worm at the bottom?
Prices on things dropping isn't exactly a new phenomenon.
...
Some of the things I can think of right off the top of my head which started out as incredibly expensive but eventually became household items:
cars
cotton products (thanks to the cotton gin)
guns
books
gelatin desserts (it used to take hours to make these, now you can do it in 5 minutes out of a box)
cell phones, faxes, and pagers
instantaneous news (first daily via the paper, now via everything)
The list goes on and on; I keep thinking of more things the longer I think about it.
We live better, longer, smarter, and healthier now than royalty used to just a few centuries ago. Hot and cold running water, gas and electricity at the touch of a button, public education for the masses, amazingly soft and colorful clothes, soft mattresses, decent plumbing, warm (or cool!) dry housing, more leisure time (in general), food that the royalty would have been jealous of
We've really got it made, when you start thinking about it.
[jonkatz] writes: Flamers don't carry any weight with me. I do listen to criticism. But that doesn't mean that flamers have no value, or shouldn't be seen or heard.
Who do you think should be watching and listening to the flamers, then? Why do you seem to suggest that others should wade through what you yourself deem as weightless fluff?
Either you read the flamers, or you don't read the flamers. What others choose to read or filter is, well, none of your business.
You need to hit Usenet more often, IMHO. When you're familiar with the likes of Dave Hayes (and the rest of the "Freedom Knights"), John Grubor, the Hell Flame Wars group, the Meowers, the alt.fan.karl-malden.nose bunch, Bill Palmer, Steve Boursy, Rahul Dhesi, and *dozens* of other posters with varying degrees of kookiness, you'll begin to have a much better idea of what kill files and score files are meant to address. Some of these people are fine until you get them going on their pet Crusade; others are just so far out-there that our most sophisticated devices have yet to be able to pick up on their signals.
Interestingly enough, I don't have anything or anyone filtered here on Slashdot; and I rarely filter anyone in Usenet, unless they've been posting the same viewpoints so frequently for so long that I've grown weary of them.
I find it rather interesting that, after 474 comments, no one has noticed that the poll doesn't say, "More lines is better." Nor does it say "Fewer lines is better."
All the poll asks is how many lines of code you wrote last year.
"So Netscape dies trying to run a little [unauthorized program from an unauthorized, but highly suspicious, source] and you blame Microsoft's web server? [...] Run [one that allows any Joe Blow and his Herd of Minions access to your every registry setting]."
Mmm hmm.
You're *way* too late for that one. There have been warnings on matchbooks and boxes of matches for decades, here in the U.S.A. Something to the effect of "Close cover before striking match."
... what do I see when I look around me?
... for my protection, of course.
Let's see
1) Plastic bag that I brought vegetables home from the market in, as well as the twist-ties for the sandwich bags, has the warning "To avoid suffocation, keep plastic bags away from children."
2) The clothes-washing-machine won't work with the lid up, because some kid might crawl in somehow.
3) Speaking of matches, cigarette lighters must be childproof to be legal... in other words, it takes a large/strong hand to use one. This one's on my mind because it was noted on 20/20 last night that childproofing and removing cigarette lighters and matches from childrens' access had not reduced the number of fires accidentally set by kids each year; rather, it had produced kids more determined than ever to get their "fire fix".
4) Soda bottle has a health warning (contains phenylalanine), an expiration date, an admonition to recycle, and a warning to point bottle away from face while opening
5) Hardware and software have unique identifying markers
6) Electric hair dryer has a warning not to use it in the shower.
7) Aspirin bottle is childproofed.
8) Bedding and mattress carry warnings about flammability and not leaving infants unattended.
Basically, I'm *besieged* by this stuff. Around-the-clock, I'm cautioned, warned, instructed down to the smallest detail, admonished, protected, cossetted, and coddled.
End result? Appears to be a stupider society, in need of increasingly more protection, warnings, and so on. Darwin has been thwarted, and gosh, aren't we ever so much better off now?
ZDnet are pro-spam. That pretty much says all I need to know about them.
Yep. Paper clothing is also widely available, used in such places as hospitals, critical/urgent care facilities, loony bins, maternity wards and nurseries,and so on.
Air-powered boats (using much larger fans) are about the only way to get around in the Florida swamps.
And, of course, almost everyone has a portable hair dryer these days.
Wow! That's something like $45 in today's dollars.
Pen Testing Machine
The US obviously convinced its self that democracy doesn't work; as shown by extreamly low voter turn out.
Apparently, it doesn't. Californians keep voting for things, and then some judge is dug up, paid off, and told to veto the will of the people.
Californians wanted to teach schoolchildren in English. bzzt, not going to happen. Californians wanted to OK medical marijuana. Pffft, not likely. Californians wanted a cap on how much politicians could beg and scam off of people to finance their campaigns. Ermmm, no, sorry, nice try. Insurance reform, pretty please? Hah! It is to laugh.
What's the freakin' point of getting tens of thousands of signatures, stuffing a bill through the Halls of Democracy, and _finally_ getting the thing on the ballot, if once the damn thing is voted on and passed, it's immediately chucked out, contrary to what the People have drug their asses to the polls and voted for??
Ho hum. Oh, look, another phony story up on Slashdot.