I appreciate the sentiment, but unfortunately I can only post as an AC due to being unable to log in while at work. Username Kabuthunk for what it's worth.
Thanks for explaining this. I'm obviously a little slow as I've often wondered at the number of well-written and insightful +5 posts made by ACs.
Humanity is complete animal garbage. Every day is Opposite Day, and nothing with *ever* be done correctly.
But, you know, yay Red, yay Blue!
Well said sir.
I imagine we'll look back on this period of time in much the same way as the dark ages.
Except, back then, I can imagine the populace being at least dimly aware of their lack of education. Today the average boob thinks he knows more than science itself.
The problem is that I have little choice in the matter when it comes to whether someone is tailgating me. Even if their insurance does pay for the damage, it still causes me an inconvenience (and possibly injures me) if I stop to avoid getting caught by a red light camera and the guy behind me doesn't.
Sorry, you are of course quite right. What I was getting at (and failed to elucidate) was that the problem of tailgating is significant, can easily cause injuries and likely a lot of inconvenience as you point out. My point is that the problems are quite easy to avoid and that there is no excuse for either behaviour.
Despite this, tailgating and failing to indicate are not punished by law enforcement officers for whatever reason. I suggest that these two offences are the low-hanging fruit that with proper enforcement and the backing of a suitable awareness campaign may make the road a great deal more pleasant to drive on.
No, what is needed are not cameras. What is needed are some combination of:
Love your suggestions, all common-sense approaches that would cost next to nothing to implement. Do you know of somewhere any of these measures are in use? I'm guessing you're probably talking about somewhere Nordic as they tend to be a fairly practical lot.
Technically, yes, but the fact of the matter is that increasing the probability of a driver slamming on his or her brakes increases the probability of a rear-end collision, which is a simply inexcusable thing for law enforcement to be doing
Now here I disagree, because to my mind observing a safe following distance is similar to indicating; Contrary to common belief, it's actually very easy. What's more, it's considerate. It's also significantly safer than tailgating and if people tended to follow at a safe distance we'd all feel a great deal more comfortable on the road. I suspect we might even be statistically safer by some degree.
Why don't people indicate? I've never understood it. It takes so little effort!
Hell, I enjoy indicating in the same way I used to enjoy changing gears when I drove a car with a manual gearbox. It's part of the game, it's fun and it satisfies my deep geek-seated feeling that the world should be fair.. and I want to play fair!
Maori don't care about anything but Treaty of Waitangi land/water/foreshore/radio spectrum/air space claims.
Not true! They're also quite concerned about promoting their culture and - confusingly - savagely attacking anyone who dares reference or acknowledge said culture (the vile thieves, they have no respect for Maoriora!)
Oh, and blaming 'The White Motherfuckers' for 'keeping the Maori down'.
OT: For those that aren't aware, Maori Party MP Hone Harawira graced us with this phrase from an e-mail sent in 2009:
“White motherfuckers have been raping our lands and ripping us off for centuries, and all of a sudden you want me to play along with their puritanical bullshit.”.
Grotesque as this may be, the real problem is that he got away with it. Apparently in New Zealand the only people who can be racists are the ones with white skin; everyone else is, of course, oppressed by The Man.
For the first time in my life, I actually walked out of an interview. I'm quite good at my job and get shit done well with everyone happy. I might (or might not) be world class but I don't know because I've not had the opportunities to work at the large trendy tech companies; but this condescension is only allowed if they're paying a truly awesome salary.
Thank you. By standing up for yourself you show that kind of arrogant PHB behaviour up for exactly what it is and do us, your fellow professionals in the workforce, a big favour.
Quality results cost money but in the long run usually cost less. Companies that understand this are the ones that stick around.
20% management cost ? are you stupid? 1% of social security is management.
1 fucking percent. No corporation could ever match that.
The government does a really, really good job at it. Sorry to pop your hate bubble, but please use actual numbers. Oh wait, they would prove you wrong and your ego can't handle that, you poor simpleton.
Love the way you punctuate your responses with ad hominem attacks, they certainly do prove a point.
Not the point you were intending to make, of course..
huh. I mostly remember him for once being married to Talulah Riley. How he managed to catch but not hold on to such a hottie will forever taint the guy as a loser in my eyes regardless of how successful he is in other areas of life.
"...and yet no matter how good she looks to you at that moment, somewhere out there is a bloke who's sick of putting up with her shit"
Of course there are many NZ people who feel that way, who do you think voted in this government that bent over for American interests?
Any country will have a large number of sheep, NZ is rather famous for it. Just that most countries do not allow sheep to vote, NZ does and even lets them run the country.
Hope Kim DotCom sues the shit out of them.
Whilst I share your outrage (possibly even more as I helped vote this govt into power) I would ask you in all sincerity what you think a Labour-led government would have done differently?
People forget we're a very small fish in a very large pond with some serious hazards lurking under the water. We're not self-sufficient any more than any other country and did I mention we're fucking tiny? When we look at ourselves hard in the mirror we realise we've little choice but to cozy up to someone big and powerful and just do our best to to not think about their horrible hairy chest.
If you'd have dedicated half as much time to reading the 5 FUCKING LINES in the summary as you did to posting a stupid question you'd know the answer.
Irritating, isn't it? Welcome to the new new Slashdot troll (this week's model has red racing stripes.)
Humbug to your 'recession'! Your dwindling secondary industry may languish, but Trollish innovation strides on!
It's only a matter of time before we figure out Step 2 and then we're aaaaall about Step 3: Profit!
And predictably there's always some squealy little fucktard to whine that the story doesn't meet his stratified requirements of 'News for Nerds'.
Never mind that the number of comments on the story seem to indicate quite the inverse; we understand that you've gotta keep that gob of yours mindlessly flappin'.
But all it took was a few airplanes slamming into the side of some buildings to cause radical shifts in our way of life, our economy, etc.
That's a fair summary really. I find it deeply disheartening to consider how we Western nations have caved in to perceived terrorism over the eleven years since 9/11. Western nations faced a very real, terrifying enemy but somehow managed to find the backbone to stand together. To help drive the Axis powers into submission when forced to by the events of WWII. Can you imagine such a thing today?
How we have squandered these gains! Complacent and greedy, we are collectively a whimpering, mewling shadow of our former selves and we have nobody else to blame. We have allowed ourselves to backslide shamefully, our primitive animal fear taking the reins and enabling the dramatic re-shaping of our way of life - and all for the false promise of temporary safety.
Worse, WE are all that is left; the custodians of a Freedom earned through massive sacrifice made by others on our behalf. It is NOT OURS to give away but we just cannot help ourselves because we're taught to be so. damn. afraid. Meanwhile, the law concerns itself with idiocies such as Intelligent Design and its place in the classroom; fiddling as Rome burns.
Whilst I find these early postcards insightful and very interesting, I ponder on the artists naive innocence and wonder how anyone at that time could have imagined such a disgraceful future for ourselves.
One need only view a minute of Fox News to understand that George Orwell's dystopic vision has been fully realised; slowly and with much more subtlety than I would have ever thought possible. Maybe it's really myself that's the naive one here.
Oh hell, I don't know. Bad timing? Maybe I just happened to stumble across those comments when I wasn't quite in the best of moods.
I still don't think it was entirely inappropriate. The notion that government intervention and reduction of freedom is an appropriate response to anything and everything that's wrong with the world is FAR more offensive than a few 4 letter words tossed about on the Internet.
As for me being an asshole... Eh, not really, but I've been accused of it plenty. I don't let it bother me much.
Fair enough, I'm not perfect either.
My objection was not to your 4-letter words (I'm a fan myself) directed at BMO, but rather that the manner in which you did so seemed likely to drag things down into a screaming match when some interesting thoughts were coming out. Deliberately taking quotes out of context (straw man arguments) tends to piss people off and don't add much to the conversation.
For the record I 100% agree with your position on governmental intervention.
i'm sure an advanced civilization will master Star Trek type fusion tech before doing something ridiculous like building a starlight collector.
the earth compared to the sun is like a grain of sand to a beachball. where would you get enough matter to build something around a star if the same or similar size ratio will exist in other star systems?
I read a good book (The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter I think, as a sequel to The Time Machine by H.G. Wells) that had the Morlocks evolving into a highly technically-advanced society that eventually put Dyson spheres around most of the visible stars in the galaxy
Their method involved manipulating gravity (from memory) to force matter away from the star itself. Their clever tech manipulated this matter as it cooled to become an energy-collection device that we'd probably call a Dyson shell and internally a gigantic living space for the Morlocks themselves. The book described this as taking tens of thousands of years to build.
I don't know how feasible this is but it made for a great sci-fi read IMHO.
Fuck you, I ride harley's and I made them louder to prevent idiot drivers from cutting me off because they failed to look before changing lanes. The only time when my bikes are excessivly loud is under extreme acceleration. It is the driver of the bike that causes them to be loud, not the bike itself.
Well done, I congratulate you on a very successful troll. Of course, that's not really something to be proud of...
Do Not Want.
An edit button is bad and easily abused. Here is a clue, how about you slow down and carefully read before posting? Shocking, I know , not having technology that allows you to be lazy.
Nice piece of towering hypocrisy from someone who is frequently too lazy to proof-read his own damn posts. You sir, are an ass.
There's always some arsehole who's ready to shit all over a balanced and reasonable opinion with hostile bullshit because it doesn't match their opinion; regardless of another's experience, their own opinion is the only one worth considering.
Thank you for taking the time to overlook this crap and provide a mature and insightful response.
As the owner of a tiny two-person IT shop I'm very interested in your experiences on the topic. My first priority is to my staff's needs, because of my belief that staff are the most important part of my business. I've run and sold slightly larger companies in the past and am starting all over again but feel I've still much to learn on the topic. What I find particularly difficult is the balancing of short term needs versus long term harm, such as you describe with office romances.
It's not my place to act as 'parent' to my employees but where I must play parent is to my infant business, busy burping and purging itself of yellow....stuff....when I gently massage its back.
That means it's often only myself that is thinking of the future, planning for potential problems etc. Well, that's to be expected! I am the 'boss' after all. However, my point is that in matters of emotion people tend not to have the objectivity that a third party maintains. That said, I don't want try to dictate anything to anyone about their private life... so 'round we go again.
Slashdot Mirror
In New Zealand, things which are purely for tax avoidance are illegal. They get banks for that all the time.
...and as a Kiwi, I'd like to respond by saying [citation needed]
I appreciate the sentiment, but unfortunately I can only post as an AC due to being unable to log in while at work. Username Kabuthunk for what it's worth.
Thanks for explaining this. I'm obviously a little slow as I've often wondered at the number of well-written and insightful +5 posts made by ACs.
Humanity is complete animal garbage. Every day is Opposite Day, and nothing with *ever* be done correctly.
But, you know, yay Red, yay Blue!
Well said sir.
I imagine we'll look back on this period of time in much the same way as the dark ages.
Except, back then, I can imagine the populace being at least dimly aware of their lack of education. Today the average boob thinks he knows more than science itself.
If you get drunk and get laid, you won't be a nerd anymore.
Pissed or screwed, I will always be a nerd and I wouldn't have it any other way. :)
The problem is that I have little choice in the matter when it comes to whether someone is tailgating me. Even if their insurance does pay for the damage, it still causes me an inconvenience (and possibly injures me) if I stop to avoid getting caught by a red light camera and the guy behind me doesn't.
Sorry, you are of course quite right. What I was getting at (and failed to elucidate) was that the problem of tailgating is significant, can easily cause injuries and likely a lot of inconvenience as you point out. My point is that the problems are quite easy to avoid and that there is no excuse for either behaviour.
Despite this, tailgating and failing to indicate are not punished by law enforcement officers for whatever reason. I suggest that these two offences are the low-hanging fruit that with proper enforcement and the backing of a suitable awareness campaign may make the road a great deal more pleasant to drive on.
I've seen countdown timers on green traffic lights in China and some pedestrian crossings in Australia and NZ, they are quite effective.
I agree they work very well indeed, from the perspective of the driver and the pedestrian. Predictability is good!
No, what is needed are not cameras. What is needed are some combination of:
Love your suggestions, all common-sense approaches that would cost next to nothing to implement. Do you know of somewhere any of these measures are in use? I'm guessing you're probably talking about somewhere Nordic as they tend to be a fairly practical lot.
Technically, yes, but the fact of the matter is that increasing the probability of a driver slamming on his or her brakes increases the probability of a rear-end collision, which is a simply inexcusable thing for law enforcement to be doing
Now here I disagree, because to my mind observing a safe following distance is similar to indicating; Contrary to common belief, it's actually very easy. What's more, it's considerate. It's also significantly safer than tailgating and if people tended to follow at a safe distance we'd all feel a great deal more comfortable on the road. I suspect we might even be statistically safer by some degree.
Why don't people indicate? I've never understood it. It takes so little effort!
Hell, I enjoy indicating in the same way I used to enjoy changing gears when I drove a car with a manual gearbox. It's part of the game, it's fun and it satisfies my deep geek-seated feeling that the world should be fair.. and I want to play fair!
Maori don't care about anything but Treaty of Waitangi land/water/foreshore/radio spectrum/air space claims.
Not true! They're also quite concerned about promoting their culture and - confusingly - savagely attacking anyone who dares reference or acknowledge said culture (the vile thieves, they have no respect for Maoriora!)
Oh, and blaming 'The White Motherfuckers' for 'keeping the Maori down'.
OT: For those that aren't aware, Maori Party MP Hone Harawira graced us with this phrase from an e-mail sent in 2009:
“White motherfuckers have been raping our lands and ripping us off for centuries, and all of a sudden you want me to play along with their puritanical bullshit.”.
Grotesque as this may be, the real problem is that he got away with it. Apparently in New Zealand the only people who can be racists are the ones with white skin; everyone else is, of course, oppressed by The Man.
/soapbox
For the first time in my life, I actually walked out of an interview. I'm quite good at my job and get shit done well with everyone happy. I might (or might not) be world class but I don't know because I've not had the opportunities to work at the large trendy tech companies; but this condescension is only allowed if they're paying a truly awesome salary.
Thank you. By standing up for yourself you show that kind of arrogant PHB behaviour up for exactly what it is and do us, your fellow professionals in the workforce, a big favour.
Quality results cost money but in the long run usually cost less. Companies that understand this are the ones that stick around.
20% management cost ? are you stupid? 1% of social security is management.
1 fucking percent. No corporation could ever match that. The government does a really, really good job at it. Sorry to pop your hate bubble, but please use actual numbers. Oh wait, they would prove you wrong and your ego can't handle that, you poor simpleton.
Love the way you punctuate your responses with ad hominem attacks, they certainly do prove a point.
Not the point you were intending to make, of course..
..and instead had Frank Oz himself beating the living crappe out of Count Dooku with the Yoda Puppet.
Funny kind of cafe culture you've got over your way. :-p
huh. I mostly remember him for once being married to Talulah Riley. How he managed to catch but not hold on to such a hottie will forever taint the guy as a loser in my eyes regardless of how successful he is in other areas of life.
"...and yet no matter how good she looks to you at that moment, somewhere out there is a bloke who's sick of putting up with her shit"
Of course there are many NZ people who feel that way, who do you think voted in this government that bent over for American interests?
Any country will have a large number of sheep, NZ is rather famous for it. Just that most countries do not allow sheep to vote, NZ does and even lets them run the country.
Hope Kim DotCom sues the shit out of them.
Whilst I share your outrage (possibly even more as I helped vote this govt into power) I would ask you in all sincerity what you think a Labour-led government would have done differently?
People forget we're a very small fish in a very large pond with some serious hazards lurking under the water. We're not self-sufficient any more than any other country and did I mention we're fucking tiny? When we look at ourselves hard in the mirror we realise we've little choice but to cozy up to someone big and powerful and just do our best to to not think about their horrible hairy chest.
Yeah, it's distasteful as Hell.
If you'd have dedicated half as much time to reading the 5 FUCKING LINES in the summary as you did to posting a stupid question you'd know the answer.
Irritating, isn't it? Welcome to the new new Slashdot troll (this week's model has red racing stripes.)
Humbug to your 'recession'! Your dwindling secondary industry may languish, but Trollish innovation strides on!
It's only a matter of time before we figure out Step 2 and then we're aaaaall about Step 3: Profit!
And predictably there's always some squealy little fucktard to whine that the story doesn't meet his stratified requirements of 'News for Nerds'.
Never mind that the number of comments on the story seem to indicate quite the inverse; we understand that you've gotta keep that gob of yours mindlessly flappin'.
But all it took was a few airplanes slamming into the side of some buildings to cause radical shifts in our way of life, our economy, etc.
That's a fair summary really. I find it deeply disheartening to consider how we Western nations have caved in to perceived terrorism over the eleven years since 9/11. Western nations faced a very real, terrifying enemy but somehow managed to find the backbone to stand together. To help drive the Axis powers into submission when forced to by the events of WWII. Can you imagine such a thing today?
How we have squandered these gains! Complacent and greedy, we are collectively a whimpering, mewling shadow of our former selves and we have nobody else to blame. We have allowed ourselves to backslide shamefully, our primitive animal fear taking the reins and enabling the dramatic re-shaping of our way of life - and all for the false promise of temporary safety.
Worse, WE are all that is left; the custodians of a Freedom earned through massive sacrifice made by others on our behalf. It is NOT OURS to give away but we just cannot help ourselves because we're taught to be so. damn. afraid. Meanwhile, the law concerns itself with idiocies such as Intelligent Design and its place in the classroom; fiddling as Rome burns.
Whilst I find these early postcards insightful and very interesting, I ponder on the artists naive innocence and wonder how anyone at that time could have imagined such a disgraceful future for ourselves.
One need only view a minute of Fox News to understand that George Orwell's dystopic vision has been fully realised; slowly and with much more subtlety than I would have ever thought possible. Maybe it's really myself that's the naive one here.
Can I light a sig ?
Not if you're planning on going to work on Monday.
Oh hell, I don't know. Bad timing? Maybe I just happened to stumble across those comments when I wasn't quite in the best of moods.
I still don't think it was entirely inappropriate. The notion that government intervention and reduction of freedom is an appropriate response to anything and everything that's wrong with the world is FAR more offensive than a few 4 letter words tossed about on the Internet.
As for me being an asshole... Eh, not really, but I've been accused of it plenty. I don't let it bother me much.
Fair enough, I'm not perfect either.
My objection was not to your 4-letter words (I'm a fan myself) directed at BMO, but rather that the manner in which you did so seemed likely to drag things down into a screaming match when some interesting thoughts were coming out. Deliberately taking quotes out of context (straw man arguments) tends to piss people off and don't add much to the conversation.
For the record I 100% agree with your position on governmental intervention.
Why didn't you say that in the first place instead of your 'Fuck you both,' response?
Between this and your inflammatory quotes, the only conclusion I can draw is that BMO was quite right; you are an arsehole.
i'm sure an advanced civilization will master Star Trek type fusion tech before doing something ridiculous like building a starlight collector.
the earth compared to the sun is like a grain of sand to a beachball. where would you get enough matter to build something around a star if the same or similar size ratio will exist in other star systems?
I read a good book (The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter I think, as a sequel to The Time Machine by H.G. Wells) that had the Morlocks evolving into a highly technically-advanced society that eventually put Dyson spheres around most of the visible stars in the galaxy
Their method involved manipulating gravity (from memory) to force matter away from the star itself. Their clever tech manipulated this matter as it cooled to become an energy-collection device that we'd probably call a Dyson shell and internally a gigantic living space for the Morlocks themselves. The book described this as taking tens of thousands of years to build.
I don't know how feasible this is but it made for a great sci-fi read IMHO.
Two-thousand point advantage to Sexconker for the obscure Ralph Wiggum quote! :)
Fuck you, I ride harley's and I made them louder to prevent idiot drivers from cutting me off because they failed to look before changing lanes. The only time when my bikes are excessivly loud is under extreme acceleration. It is the driver of the bike that causes them to be loud, not the bike itself.
Well done, I congratulate you on a very successful troll. Of course, that's not really something to be proud of...
I'm SO glad people like you are there to protect the world from itself. Where would our society be without you do-gooders?
Censorship is obscene.
Do Not Want. An edit button is bad and easily abused. Here is a clue, how about you slow down and carefully read before posting? Shocking, I know , not having technology that allows you to be lazy.
Nice piece of towering hypocrisy from someone who is frequently too lazy to proof-read his own damn posts. You sir, are an ass.
There's always some arsehole who's ready to shit all over a balanced and reasonable opinion with hostile bullshit because it doesn't match their opinion; regardless of another's experience, their own opinion is the only one worth considering.
Thank you for taking the time to overlook this crap and provide a mature and insightful response.
As the owner of a tiny two-person IT shop I'm very interested in your experiences on the topic. My first priority is to my staff's needs, because of my belief that staff are the most important part of my business. I've run and sold slightly larger companies in the past and am starting all over again but feel I've still much to learn on the topic. What I find particularly difficult is the balancing of short term needs versus long term harm, such as you describe with office romances.
It's not my place to act as 'parent' to my employees but where I must play parent is to my infant business, busy burping and purging itself of yellow....stuff....when I gently massage its back.
That means it's often only myself that is thinking of the future, planning for potential problems etc. Well, that's to be expected! I am the 'boss' after all. However, my point is that in matters of emotion people tend not to have the objectivity that a third party maintains. That said, I don't want try to dictate anything to anyone about their private life... so 'round we go again.