I had my motor home broken into in Sunnyvale and my possessions stolen. I called the police. They told me "Here is your report number. You have insurance right?" I said "No, not for theft." "Well then, why are you calling us?" they replied. "I thought you might want to come out and investigate. They broke the lock, left their tool, probably left fingerprints everywhere..." "No, we don't do that", said the cop, and hung up.
I guess the cops understand exactly who pays their salaries.
Not "more than two legs", animals with 6 legs don't need to adjust their movements because if they only move 3 legs at a time, they are always inherently stable. Animals with 2 legs, and to a lesser extent animals with 3, 4, or 5 legs (depending on gait), do need to adjust their movement for different terrains to avoid falling over. Yes, if you are going to build a "walking" robot for harsh terrain, 6 legs appears to me to be the way to go. One legged robots -- not so much.
The space program is not stopping the country from getting into the black. The money required to pay off all the debt and solve the counties problems is orders of magnitude greater than the money required to properly fund the space program to do great things. That's exactly the logic my wife uses, "Oh, the money I'm spending on new shoes won't make any difference to the thousands of dollars we owe!" And that's exactly the reason why she has $30,000 is credit card debt!
Oregon uses "social promotion" for grades K-8 (they are quite honest about this). Then in high school, they switch to a system where you actually have to earn credits by passing tests to advance. Meaning that children that have fallen behind are looking at 5 or 6 years of high school; most of them simply drop out at that point. Learning is structured as layers that build on top of other layers; unless you are really bright being pushed into higher layers without the necessary prerequisites is simply wasting your time. (There are some exceptions; I took Dynamics before I took the prerequisite Statics class, which forced me derive most of Statics on my own. But Statics consists of a single principle: The sum of the forces adds up to zero, and Dynamics is simply F = ma. The rest is really high school trigonometry; both subjects are hardly worth spending a whole college term on.)
Slavery was not an efficient method of running an economy, especially after industrialization made most tasks much more efficient. Even if the South had been allowed to secede from the union, slavery as an institution would have collapsed by now, either through economic trouble, or through a slave revolt. When you've got a system wherein a disenfranchised class is in the majority, and they are allowed to own weapons, you've got an inherently unstable system. If you tried to sell my children out from under me, I would certainly be willing to die trying to attain their freedom.
If you've got students taking remedial math in college, that says a lot about the failure of public schools to prepare kids for college. How about if we abandon the idea of "social promotion", and go back to the old system of not promoting a child to the next grade until they have mastered the prerequisites of the grade they are in! The problem with promoting them anyway is that once they fall behind, they don't catch up, they only fall farther and farther behind. Shouldn't a high school diploma certify that you already have a basic understand of math and algebra? Some countries even teach calculus in high school!
No, if they are going to run an unsecured wireless network with access to customer credit card data, they deserved to be made financially responsible for all transactions made using the leaked data. I suspect being responsible for a multi-million dollar write-off might be somewhat limiting to one's career in IT.
Don't shoot them. Just release all their personal details to everyone whose information they stole. Probably at least one of the victims is unstable enough to track the bastard down and exact revenge for the whole group of victims... especially true if we're talking about millions of victims.
I had an incident where somebody ordered an item with my wife's credit card and had it shipped to another address. When we complained that this transaction was not authorized, they took it off my wife's account, but refused to disclose the address the item had been shipped to, citing "privacy" concerns. Hold on -- people are allowed to commit fraud but still retain their "right" to privacy?!? If it's my account, I have a right to disclosure of full details on every transaction! Again, provide full disclosure, and eventually the criminals will attempt to screw over the wrong person -- which is win-win for the rest of us.
I believe we were using CiviCRM. I did a search for similar names before adding each new name. I don't recall ever getting that prompt, but I might just have avoided it by doing a manual search first (we were using the web browser interface.) I have no complaints about CiviCRM; the duplicates were due to poorly trained and poorly organized volunteers doing the work.
When you fill out information, please make it legible. Especially your creatively spelled name. Data entry is a bitch, and sometimes we just make our best guess, knowing we most likely got it wrong.
Your complaint (e) is right on the mark. There were some supporters who had no less than 5 separate entries in the database. Every time they sent a check or came to event, apparently they were re-entered. Being a Senate campaign, apparently they didn't think it was worth the trouble of eliminating duplicates, and besides, it made it look like there were more supporters than there really were.
As far as (b), we tended to add everyone who gave an email address to the email list unless they specifically opted out. If we've got your email address, it is much cheaper for us to email you rather than pay postage.
I also sympathize with (a). My fraternity volunteered to help out with a telethon. Came to find out the job they gave us was to punish all the people who had donated the previous year by calling them up and asking them to donate again this year! I called a few people, but felt like too much of a dick, so I sandbagged it for the rest of the evening.
Make all restrooms single user unisex restrooms, just like the bathrooms in your house. Then their gender automatically adjusts to the customer base. Does it really make sense to have half your toilets still reserved for men when you're hosting a Mary Kay convention?
A religious fanatic might have a rational fear that someone else who prays to the wrong God might go to hell. An Atheist doesn't believe it matters at all what deity someone prays to, so why should they care how other people waste their time? What make you think I'm not an Atheist? Can't I be an Atheist and still believe in religious tolerance?
Ok, "allowed not to" is a poor choice of words. "Not pressured or coerced in any way to participate, or made to feel embarrassed by having a different belief system" is more accurate, but a lot more awkward to say. It's just like the controversy over prayer before school football games -- it in no way diminishes me to STFU and let other people pray, even if I find their belief system to be ridiculous. You must love and respect others regardless of their beliefs -- but then, that's just my belief system.
Blindly accepting everything that _anyone_ says is a mistake. The Dalai Lama says you shouldn't even believe what he says, unless it makes sense to you based on your own experience. Obama is a thoughtful and articulate man, but like every man he is still capable of making mistakes. Hopefully he has enough foresight to avoid epic fuckups on the scale of his predecessor!
Safe crossing isn't required for "some contact". Given thousands of ships lost at sea, it isn't too outrageous to expect a few might have gotten blown all the way to a new continent with enough survivors to exchange ideas -- and possibly even seeds. The ancients got around a lot more than we give them credit for. Trade goods traveled thousands of miles, passing through many hands. Although independent origination of ideas and technology is possible, it is also possible that some of these ideas were inspired by "tales from far-away lands."
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I had my motor home broken into in Sunnyvale and my possessions stolen. I called the police. They told me "Here is your report number. You have insurance right?" I said "No, not for theft." "Well then, why are you calling us?" they replied. "I thought you might want to come out and investigate. They broke the lock, left their tool, probably left fingerprints everywhere..." "No, we don't do that", said the cop, and hung up.
I guess the cops understand exactly who pays their salaries.
Remember: Friends help you move. True friends help you move bodies!
Not "more than two legs", animals with 6 legs don't need to adjust their movements because if they only move 3 legs at a time, they are always inherently stable. Animals with 2 legs, and to a lesser extent animals with 3, 4, or 5 legs (depending on gait), do need to adjust their movement for different terrains to avoid falling over. Yes, if you are going to build a "walking" robot for harsh terrain, 6 legs appears to me to be the way to go. One legged robots -- not so much.
Better yet, how many people are still driving a car with 115 million miles on the odometer?
The space program is not stopping the country from getting into the black. The money required to pay off all the debt and solve the counties problems is orders of magnitude greater than the money required to properly fund the space program to do great things. That's exactly the logic my wife uses, "Oh, the money I'm spending on new shoes won't make any difference to the thousands of dollars we owe!" And that's exactly the reason why she has $30,000 is credit card debt!
How many of us are still driving a 25 year old car?
Oregon uses "social promotion" for grades K-8 (they are quite honest about this). Then in high school, they switch to a system where you actually have to earn credits by passing tests to advance. Meaning that children that have fallen behind are looking at 5 or 6 years of high school; most of them simply drop out at that point. Learning is structured as layers that build on top of other layers; unless you are really bright being pushed into higher layers without the necessary prerequisites is simply wasting your time. (There are some exceptions; I took Dynamics before I took the prerequisite Statics class, which forced me derive most of Statics on my own. But Statics consists of a single principle: The sum of the forces adds up to zero, and Dynamics is simply F = ma. The rest is really high school trigonometry; both subjects are hardly worth spending a whole college term on.)
What's wrong with drinking chilly water and watching a fireworks display? What... you mean "chili" water? Uh... never mind!
I'm pretty sure the guy driving the septic tank pumping truck makes twice as much as I do. And you know what? He deserves it!
I thought the purpose of college was to spend 4 years drinking beer and getting laid... at least that's what my fraternity brothers led me to believe!
Slavery was not an efficient method of running an economy, especially after industrialization made most tasks much more efficient. Even if the South had been allowed to secede from the union, slavery as an institution would have collapsed by now, either through economic trouble, or through a slave revolt. When you've got a system wherein a disenfranchised class is in the majority, and they are allowed to own weapons, you've got an inherently unstable system. If you tried to sell my children out from under me, I would certainly be willing to die trying to attain their freedom.
If you've got students taking remedial math in college, that says a lot about the failure of public schools to prepare kids for college. How about if we abandon the idea of "social promotion", and go back to the old system of not promoting a child to the next grade until they have mastered the prerequisites of the grade they are in! The problem with promoting them anyway is that once they fall behind, they don't catch up, they only fall farther and farther behind. Shouldn't a high school diploma certify that you already have a basic understand of math and algebra? Some countries even teach calculus in high school!
No, if they are going to run an unsecured wireless network with access to customer credit card data, they deserved to be made financially responsible for all transactions made using the leaked data. I suspect being responsible for a multi-million dollar write-off might be somewhat limiting to one's career in IT.
Don't shoot them. Just release all their personal details to everyone whose information they stole. Probably at least one of the victims is unstable enough to track the bastard down and exact revenge for the whole group of victims... especially true if we're talking about millions of victims.
I had an incident where somebody ordered an item with my wife's credit card and had it shipped to another address. When we complained that this transaction was not authorized, they took it off my wife's account, but refused to disclose the address the item had been shipped to, citing "privacy" concerns. Hold on -- people are allowed to commit fraud but still retain their "right" to privacy?!? If it's my account, I have a right to disclosure of full details on every transaction! Again, provide full disclosure, and eventually the criminals will attempt to screw over the wrong person -- which is win-win for the rest of us.
Politicians never use copyrighted material without permission!
I believe we were using CiviCRM. I did a search for similar names before adding each new name. I don't recall ever getting that prompt, but I might just have avoided it by doing a manual search first (we were using the web browser interface.) I have no complaints about CiviCRM; the duplicates were due to poorly trained and poorly organized volunteers doing the work.
When you fill out information, please make it legible. Especially your creatively spelled name. Data entry is a bitch, and sometimes we just make our best guess, knowing we most likely got it wrong.
Your complaint (e) is right on the mark. There were some supporters who had no less than 5 separate entries in the database. Every time they sent a check or came to event, apparently they were re-entered. Being a Senate campaign, apparently they didn't think it was worth the trouble of eliminating duplicates, and besides, it made it look like there were more supporters than there really were.
As far as (b), we tended to add everyone who gave an email address to the email list unless they specifically opted out. If we've got your email address, it is much cheaper for us to email you rather than pay postage.
I also sympathize with (a). My fraternity volunteered to help out with a telethon. Came to find out the job they gave us was to punish all the people who had donated the previous year by calling them up and asking them to donate again this year! I called a few people, but felt like too much of a dick, so I sandbagged it for the rest of the evening.
If women want true equality with men, they should learn to pee standing up!
Make all restrooms single user unisex restrooms, just like the bathrooms in your house. Then their gender automatically adjusts to the customer base. Does it really make sense to have half your toilets still reserved for men when you're hosting a Mary Kay convention?
There's absolutely no chance that convicted criminals would misuse data... I'd trust them completely with my credit card numbers!
thus giving a whole new meaning to the term "computer virus"!
A religious fanatic might have a rational fear that someone else who prays to the wrong God might go to hell. An Atheist doesn't believe it matters at all what deity someone prays to, so why should they care how other people waste their time? What make you think I'm not an Atheist? Can't I be an Atheist and still believe in religious tolerance?
Ok, "allowed not to" is a poor choice of words. "Not pressured or coerced in any way to participate, or made to feel embarrassed by having a different belief system" is more accurate, but a lot more awkward to say. It's just like the controversy over prayer before school football games -- it in no way diminishes me to STFU and let other people pray, even if I find their belief system to be ridiculous. You must love and respect others regardless of their beliefs -- but then, that's just my belief system.
Blindly accepting everything that _anyone_ says is a mistake. The Dalai Lama says you shouldn't even believe what he says, unless it makes sense to you based on your own experience. Obama is a thoughtful and articulate man, but like every man he is still capable of making mistakes. Hopefully he has enough foresight to avoid epic fuckups on the scale of his predecessor!
Safe crossing isn't required for "some contact". Given thousands of ships lost at sea, it isn't too outrageous to expect a few might have gotten blown all the way to a new continent with enough survivors to exchange ideas -- and possibly even seeds. The ancients got around a lot more than we give them credit for. Trade goods traveled thousands of miles, passing through many hands. Although independent origination of ideas and technology is possible, it is also possible that some of these ideas were inspired by "tales from far-away lands."