I am so happy! I can have Google Email, Google Android, and Google Voice, Google Docs, and Google Search! Maybe we can have Google Credit and Google Medical soon so Google can have ALL of my information at a touch of a button!
Why is it that so many people cheer the arrival of the next Google service and then in the same breath mutter about privacy and invasive government. So what happens when the federal government owns 60% of Google? I mean...the last administration bought some banks and this one bought a car maker so none of that "it can't happen" bullshit.
You are correct. I did not see that these coins were still legal to be circulated and not retired currency. However, this guy's problem is that he did not withhold taxes from the employees pay and then told them that they could claim them at face value rather than real value. This still seems like a fairly clear case of tax evasion even if circulating the coins themselves were legal. From what I gather he was doing this to deliberately dodge the tax implications so he could pay them $X in value and claim $Y in taxable income and keep the whole mess off his books by not withholding taxes himself. Coupled with his views about the Federal Reserve and so on... well... I disagree with how things are run too, but I pay the damned taxes as the law says...so as far as I am concerned this guy can...be punished by the law...
To me the whole thing seems pretty simple. He is paying employees with gold coins and trying to say they can only be taxed at face value. So if I write $5 on a brand new jet that I want to "donate" to a congress person should it only be declared as $5? That is f'ing stupid. These gold coins are not legal U.S. currency, so they should be treated at their value. Your quarter is worth that much because the government said so. In fact, this has been a problem in the past when certain metals in certain coins become more valuable than the face value because people would melt them down and sell it. So the government had to switch metals to make sure the face value is worth more than the materials used.
What this guy did was unbelievably stupid and uninformed and he deserves to...oh wait...not anonymous...uhm...well he deserves to be punished by the law.
The scenario you are describing is flawed in that noone tried to pay you based on that special value of the coin. However, if you sold that coin, you can bet any taxes due would be based on the value of the sale not the face value of the penny. However, if someone tried to pay you for a $100 job using a penny valued at $100 and said you only had to pay taxes on the $0.01 they would be stupid, and you would be stupid for believing them. If it became a regular thing you could easily wind up on the hook in a nasty tax evasion scenario...just like this guy did.
Seriously...please do. I was aware of the whole molten sodium ball thing because I remember that spinning 13 tons of molten sodium could be a REALLY bad idea. However, the last I saw of it they were still preparing and had not actually done anything yet.
Also...TFA isn't saying the field comes from water, it says variations in the field come from water passing through the main field. In typical/. fashion the summary is nonsensical crap.
I was right last time! You aren't human! Boy did you pick the wrong set of professions to try and blend in here on earth. *EVERYONE* knows that here on earth lawyers are pure evil and technical people are grumpy humorless bastards. Where are you from!? When does the invasion start?!...... Where do I sign up to be a minion to survive?
You act like they have some kind of problem with hypocrisy. Have you listened to them lately?
Gays are evil!... Gay sex scandals galore
Small government!... DHS/TSA anyone?
Spending Bad!... What is it? 3 trillion on the 'War on Terror'?
Corruption!... Stevens, Cunningham, hell even Cheney with those juicy no bid contracts
Individualism!... Oh wow...so uhm... all those laws designed to make everyone conform to predominately fundamentalist Christian ideals
Activist Judge!... This actually translates to judge that interprets the law in any way other than what we want. The most amusing part is watching judges rule on the letter of the law and be called activists because they didn't "interpret" around things the way the far right wanted.
Seriously? Do you think they have any problems with hypocrisy?
Those who would trade essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. --Benjamin Franklin
If FEMA wasn't such a f'ing disaster New Orleans might still be here. I wasn't saying that some of those agencies shouldn't exist, I am saying that we have collectively demanded everything for nothing from them. They are overtasked, underfunded, and in many cases almost criminally mismanaged. I absolutely believe FEMA should exist for example...you know...for dealing with REAL emergencies that fall outside the scope of what the National Guard can take care of.
The reality is most of our problems come from relying on "someone else" to fix all of our problems. In this case, it is an over reliance on government to solve every little thing for us. Crime and violence was less out of control before society as a whole decided to push off the entire problem of keeping its neighborhoods safe onto some mindless government agency that is slow to move and expensive to operate. Neighborhoods where the people themselves watch out for each other have far lower crime rates than areas where all of the people just close their eyes and let the cops sort it out.
My point is that these organizations are bloated, mismanaged, ineffective, and largely a waste of taxpayer funds. When the citizens can tap their local community for resources and expertise to complete a project so much more efficiently than the local government, something is very very wrong.
Thank you! It is about time someone volunteered to hit them in the head with law books. I hear they can be quite heavy. That *IS* what you are saying right?
Personally I am waiting for the day where a date rape victim gets on the stand and testifies "It was like Microsoft installing unwanted addons just because I agreed to installing the patch!"
Most of the things they do are what we elected them to do, they just don't do it the way we would like. For example "Oh my god, protect us!" after 9/11 turned into police state style crap. Well...the populace was rather nonspecific, and most of the populace is actually content with these police state measures. "Help us keep our jobs!" turns into massive bailouts. They are doing what we asked, they just aren't doing it the way we would like them to.
"most of them almost all of the time perform there task just fine."
There is not 'the government'
I am neither stupid nor lacking in understanding of government, I cannot say the same for you. Those various agencies didn't magically appear, they were created by government actions. Shall we look at how mismanaged and full of fraud, waste, and abuse FEMA, CIA, FBI, IRS, ATF, or pretty much any other government agency is? How about how fundamentally broken our welfare and social security systems are. Further, NONE of those agencies are the ones that set tax rates and so on. Now if you really must you can split hairs about Executive, Judicial, and Legislative and can even break those into their components, but they are still all part of 'the government'.
It isn't the government's fault. It is the people. Collectively we make unreasonable demands and expect government to magically meet those demands. We want the best roads, best fire departments, best police, etc, etc etc, but we aren't willing to do anything ourselves about the problems.
In Hawaii there was a bridge out that lead to an important tourist area, no bridge meant no business. The government said $4 million and 2 years. The locals people got together and did it in 8 days for "free" with donations from the community.
Our government is only "out of control" because we have demanded that it fill every whim and desire we have.
While I generally agree with the ideas you present in the post I submit that there is a different reason behind it all. To simply discount something new because the old way worked is a little goofy. I mean...mankind survived a long time before we figured out washing our hands and cooking our food prevented disease. Back then we just made silly rules about how the mighty powers that be didn't want you eating XYZ because he would punish you with sickness and death for it. The same goes for the march of technology. The reality of it is tagging and tracking kids IS more effective and probably will wind up saving some kids. This very thing has actually been going on in Mexico for a while now. Rich people have been tagging themselves with GPS trackers because they are such big targets for the kidnappings.
Now...all that said...my alternate reason. I had to do the same kind of thing as a kid, but the reality is, you could screw up anywhere in the nearby neighborhoods and odds are someone's parents would recognize you and your parents would find out what you were up to. This was all about community. When you have real community then your kids are also protected by that many eyes thing. It comes down to an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The GPS thing is worth it's weight in gold for retrieval, even more if that is your child being retrieved. However, what we have lost in most places is that community piece that would go worlds in preventing scenarios where you would need that GPS tracking.
If I didn't live in an area where I was comfortable with my kids roaming around safely you can bet your ass I would tag them. It kills me that this site so often has people blathering about "well you should parent and watch your kids" and in some cases it has gone far enough to blame the parents when their child dies in an accident. Then when a parent goes a bit far after a real event they are mocked for it. Lose your child and then see how you feel about having that safe recovery option at your disposal. I could maybe understand if it was just paranoia, but this guy actually lost his kid for a while. As a parent I can't even imagine the feeling. Just the momentary feeling of turning around in a busy place and not seeing your kid because they moved to your other side or followed the other parent around a corner can be bad enough.
I also think it is a bit goofy to ask for parenting advice from a crowd that consists of those voted least likely to ever have a chance to breed. Having been a child does not make you qualified in raising children at all in the same way that having been in a plane doesn't make you qualified to be an instructor pilot.
Aside from the obvious of trusted removal of things like stained rugs and strangely heavy "empty" barrels... There is also an incredible intelligence gathering piece. You know...the same reason that the authorities like digging through your trash for evidence and criminals like digging through your trash for useful information.
No, but it provides excellent fodder for anti-military rhetoric. I find people on far ends of either political spectrum completely abandon any semblance of using logic or reason in favor of just being an inflamatory fountain of stupid.
It is shiney.
Honestly, I feel the same way about XCode as the GP. Personally I just think the layout and UI is better with XCode. I am not a frequent coder and I was able to get up and moving MUCH faster with XCode than I was able to with VS2k5. That isn't to say that VS is bad. The major appeal of most things Mac is that they tend to have much cleaner and standardized UIs. I have found in most things that you can have all the advanced features in the world, but if the tool is too complicated to use it won't be used well or at all. (HP OpenView or MS SMS comes to mind, very powerful, very complicated foul beasts)
I agree with most of what you said except your insitance that abandoning them to protect yourself is the correct path. As long as we are swapping anecdotal evidence, I have personally seen interventions get 2 people on the road to recovery from alchohol. (The professional type interventions, not just a bunch of friends confronting). I have known 3 to kick drugs through just friends confronting them.
I agree that people need to take responsibility for their own actions, but part of that is taking responsibility for your part in the state of society around you. This "fuck em all" mentality that has been so prevelant lately is tearing apart our society. It isn't leftists, or right wingers, or any specific ideology. It is the notion that we don't have to be good neighbors and friends anymore. That helping people is "wrong" or should be looked down on. Walking away and saying "take responsibility for your own actions" is just another variety of blaming someone else for breakdowns in society.
Especially with the recent holiday, I cannot even begin to express the rage I have towards people that advocate that abandonment crap with addictions. Go talk to some combat veterans. If they talk about the shit they have seen while they are sober, they are probably lying to impress you. Especially the vietnam era...they were shit on by their government, and then shit on by their countrymen. You don't know that persons past. You don't know the things they have been through. Escapism never works, but there are many things people cannot deal with alone and when they are abandoned the only thing they have left is that escape. Daddy spanked me is not the same thing as daddy raped me. My friend died in a car wreck is not the same as I carried my friend's arm back so we could bury what was left of him. The vast majority of the population cannot even begin to pretend to understand those types of problems so to sit and watch them pass judgement from their little soap boxes pisses me off. $0.99 could buy that guy on the corner a cheezeburger and more people are willing to just sit and ignore him or worse, harrass him.
If the US invades North Carolina then the international community has no business saying anything. However, I assume that you mean NK not NC.
I don't believe in this preemtive war crap, but you really should check the history books. NK and Iraq were both involved in wars of aggression BEFORE they got the "no nukes for you" sanctions slapped on them. This recent go around with King George and his merry men and the US engaging in first strike is pretty new. Invading their neighbors is what got them in trouble. Which is why I am so pissed off about the Iraq invasion because it undermines our credibility when we tell another country they are in trouble for hitting first. Now other countries can point and say "We had good enough reason, like you did".
North Korea invaded South Korea. Iraq invaded Iran, then some years later invaded Kuwait. They have proven track records of firing first. You are a fool if you believe that those countries are developing those weapons to help plant flowers. They lost their wars of aggression and now want bigger guns to keep trying. North Korea pulled out of the Non-proliferation treaty and then made a mad dash towards the finish line to deliver working nukes. Yeah...they are TOTALLY doing this for peaceful advance... I don't know about a reason to invade just yet, but it is definitely a reason to load your gun and take aim. These people are nuts and now they have the big bomb. 10 years ago one of his advisers defected and explained that ol Kimmy thinks he can win a war with the US. I seriously doubt those ambitions and beliefs have been diminished with the completion of this weapon.
Just FYI. You might want to read my responses further down in the thread. I absolutely and totally agree with you. I am disgusted by the extremes that "mind your own business" has been taken to these days.
Not even remotely the case. The issue that you are talking about is when people insist on trying to force reality to match their world view. Which, quite frankly, is the same arrogant, self centered, narcissistic bullshit that spawns the "fuck them" and "not my problem" mentality. If you pay close attention, those self righteous pieces of shit that pretend to judge everyone else are the same assholes that refuse to actually help anyone else because they are just too fucking perfect for the rest of us.
Minding other people's business and dictating how others should live their lives are two completely different things. Minding other people's business was when our elderly neighbor saw me on crutches after having my ankle reconstructed and brought over chicken soup and a chocolate pie. Minding other peoples business is when folks in the neighborhood would go across the street and mow the widow's lawn. Dictating how other people should live their lives is not even remotely the same thing.
If you haven't lived in multiple areas you are missing out. I grew up in the midwest US and have lived in the deep south and east coast. The *ONLY* neighbor that actually behaved like a neighbor while I was living outside of the midwest was a guy from the midwest. Most people just mind their own business to the point of ignoring everyone around them. It is fucking pathetic. Community only exists when people interact. The great divides that have occurred as of late over stupid ideological bullshit have been allowed to happen because people lock themselves up away from everyone else and judge everyone else outside of their little ideologies. "Neighborhood Watch" used to mean something more than a bullshit sign. I remember growing up the vast parent network that seemed to exist. You fuck up on one end of town and by god your parents would know by the end of a day or two at the latest.
No...our society is fucked up because people put themselves in stupid little ideological ivory towers and judge each other at arms distance rather than mind each others business. I moved back to the midwest because I am confident that now my neighbors WILL mind my business. If they see something out of the norm happening at my house they will either call the cops or let me know. If they see my kids getting in to trouble you can bet your ass I will hear about it at some point. When we moved in the local cops pulled me and a buddy over in the drive way just to talk to us because the house had been vacant for 2 months. Yeah...it was a minor irritant, but at the end of the day it meant the local cops noticed that kind of shit and weren't afraid to act on things that looked "strange".
Minding other people's business is not even remotely the same thing as being a judgmental prick. Minding other people's business is finding a way to intervene and help. Being a judgmental prick is standing up and shouting at them or to other like minded individuals how stupid that person is without offering anything constructive.
I am sorry for you. I really am. This kind of callous and shallow behavior shown by so many people saying "fuck him" "not your problem" and so on is EXACTLY why our society is so totally fucked right now. People have problems, serious ones. In fact, most people have serious problems at some point or another, the fact that everyone around them is so shallow and callous that they abandon them in their time of need is what makes our entire society fall the fuck apart.
Will you ever need people that are that dedicated to your well being in your life? Maybe not, if you don't you are pretty lucky. However, just knowing that you have people standing next to you that WILL march into hell to save you is invaluable. I have been that person before, and the one I tried to help hated me for it...for a while. However, now I have someone that I *KNOW* will always be there if I need them, and who has no problem calling me out on the carpet if I start going down a bad path. The pinnacle of arrogance is not so much believing that you can never make a mistake in your own life or go down those roads, but that you will know when you are doing it. Sometimes it takes someone close to you to give you that swift kick in the jimmy to let you know you are doing something stupid.
Additionally, I think being one of your "friends" would be depressing. Knowing that if my life goes foul for some reason and I start making bad choices, that I will be abandoned rather than helped. That kind of thing is typically what feeds directly into suicidal thoughts during the aftermath of some kind of traumatic event. Maybe this guy isn't just making stupid choices and addicted to a game. Maybe he just lost a family member, maybe he found out someone close to him has cancer, etc, etc, etc, and he is looking for an escape. The people that will make an impact in his life are the ones that will press the issue and help him. The reality is, half the time, you don't have to march into hell, you just have to let them know that you are ready to do that.
Your definition of friend seems to be pretty watered down. I call those people acquaintances, not friends. Friends are the people that WILL go to hell and back for you, and that you will go to hell and back for.
Exactly my thought. Give them a bigger target? WTF? I just know oodles of politicians that are willing to go against a company that is so entrenched in nearly every city to earn the favor of MUCH smaller video game industry. You know...that industry that those politicians just love to kick around with their violent video game stuff... I think the *ONLY* argument that could work is "See! Walmart is making it easier for kids to get our Blood n Guts School Shooter Deluxe XVI!".
A ~$7-10 billion/yr industry is going to have a tough time competing with a ~$200 billion/yr *COMPANY* in this regards. Then you figure that part of that $7-10 billion is already used game sales... Yeah... Totally worried about those anti-used games folks using this one in their favor...
Slashdot Mirror
I am so happy! I can have Google Email, Google Android, and Google Voice, Google Docs, and Google Search! Maybe we can have Google Credit and Google Medical soon so Google can have ALL of my information at a touch of a button!
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-17-n72.html
Why is it that so many people cheer the arrival of the next Google service and then in the same breath mutter about privacy and invasive government. So what happens when the federal government owns 60% of Google? I mean...the last administration bought some banks and this one bought a car maker so none of that "it can't happen" bullshit.
You are correct. I did not see that these coins were still legal to be circulated and not retired currency. However, this guy's problem is that he did not withhold taxes from the employees pay and then told them that they could claim them at face value rather than real value. This still seems like a fairly clear case of tax evasion even if circulating the coins themselves were legal. From what I gather he was doing this to deliberately dodge the tax implications so he could pay them $X in value and claim $Y in taxable income and keep the whole mess off his books by not withholding taxes himself. Coupled with his views about the Federal Reserve and so on... well... I disagree with how things are run too, but I pay the damned taxes as the law says...so as far as I am concerned this guy can...be punished by the law...
To me the whole thing seems pretty simple. He is paying employees with gold coins and trying to say they can only be taxed at face value. So if I write $5 on a brand new jet that I want to "donate" to a congress person should it only be declared as $5? That is f'ing stupid. These gold coins are not legal U.S. currency, so they should be treated at their value. Your quarter is worth that much because the government said so. In fact, this has been a problem in the past when certain metals in certain coins become more valuable than the face value because people would melt them down and sell it. So the government had to switch metals to make sure the face value is worth more than the materials used.
What this guy did was unbelievably stupid and uninformed and he deserves to...oh wait...not anonymous...uhm...well he deserves to be punished by the law.
The scenario you are describing is flawed in that noone tried to pay you based on that special value of the coin. However, if you sold that coin, you can bet any taxes due would be based on the value of the sale not the face value of the penny. However, if someone tried to pay you for a $100 job using a penny valued at $100 and said you only had to pay taxes on the $0.01 they would be stupid, and you would be stupid for believing them. If it became a regular thing you could easily wind up on the hook in a nasty tax evasion scenario...just like this guy did.
[Citation Needed]
/. fashion the summary is nonsensical crap.
Seriously...please do. I was aware of the whole molten sodium ball thing because I remember that spinning 13 tons of molten sodium could be a REALLY bad idea. However, the last I saw of it they were still preparing and had not actually done anything yet.
Also...TFA isn't saying the field comes from water, it says variations in the field come from water passing through the main field. In typical
What a shitty place to live...
...and for the first time in 8 years I am left wishing we still had "oops...shot him in the face" Cheney around... What a terrifying thought.
Legal expertise....Technical understanding....Humor...Not Evil...
I was right last time! You aren't human! Boy did you pick the wrong set of professions to try and blend in here on earth. *EVERYONE* knows that here on earth lawyers are pure evil and technical people are grumpy humorless bastards. Where are you from!? When does the invasion start?!...... Where do I sign up to be a minion to survive?
You act like they have some kind of problem with hypocrisy. Have you listened to them lately?
... Gay sex scandals galore ... DHS/TSA anyone? ... What is it? 3 trillion on the 'War on Terror'? ... Stevens, Cunningham, hell even Cheney with those juicy no bid contracts ... Oh wow...so uhm... all those laws designed to make everyone conform to predominately fundamentalist Christian ideals ... This actually translates to judge that interprets the law in any way other than what we want. The most amusing part is watching judges rule on the letter of the law and be called activists because they didn't "interpret" around things the way the far right wanted.
Gays are evil!
Small government!
Spending Bad!
Corruption!
Individualism!
Activist Judge!
Seriously? Do you think they have any problems with hypocrisy?
Those who would trade essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. --Benjamin Franklin
If FEMA wasn't such a f'ing disaster New Orleans might still be here. I wasn't saying that some of those agencies shouldn't exist, I am saying that we have collectively demanded everything for nothing from them. They are overtasked, underfunded, and in many cases almost criminally mismanaged. I absolutely believe FEMA should exist for example...you know...for dealing with REAL emergencies that fall outside the scope of what the National Guard can take care of.
The reality is most of our problems come from relying on "someone else" to fix all of our problems. In this case, it is an over reliance on government to solve every little thing for us. Crime and violence was less out of control before society as a whole decided to push off the entire problem of keeping its neighborhoods safe onto some mindless government agency that is slow to move and expensive to operate. Neighborhoods where the people themselves watch out for each other have far lower crime rates than areas where all of the people just close their eyes and let the cops sort it out.
My point is that these organizations are bloated, mismanaged, ineffective, and largely a waste of taxpayer funds. When the citizens can tap their local community for resources and expertise to complete a project so much more efficiently than the local government, something is very very wrong.
Thank you! It is about time someone volunteered to hit them in the head with law books. I hear they can be quite heavy. That *IS* what you are saying right?
Personally I am waiting for the day where a date rape victim gets on the stand and testifies "It was like Microsoft installing unwanted addons just because I agreed to installing the patch!"
Most of the things they do are what we elected them to do, they just don't do it the way we would like. For example "Oh my god, protect us!" after 9/11 turned into police state style crap. Well...the populace was rather nonspecific, and most of the populace is actually content with these police state measures. "Help us keep our jobs!" turns into massive bailouts. They are doing what we asked, they just aren't doing it the way we would like them to.
"most of them almost all of the time perform there task just fine."
There is not 'the government'
I am neither stupid nor lacking in understanding of government, I cannot say the same for you. Those various agencies didn't magically appear, they were created by government actions. Shall we look at how mismanaged and full of fraud, waste, and abuse FEMA, CIA, FBI, IRS, ATF, or pretty much any other government agency is? How about how fundamentally broken our welfare and social security systems are. Further, NONE of those agencies are the ones that set tax rates and so on. Now if you really must you can split hairs about Executive, Judicial, and Legislative and can even break those into their components, but they are still all part of 'the government'.
It isn't the government's fault. It is the people. Collectively we make unreasonable demands and expect government to magically meet those demands. We want the best roads, best fire departments, best police, etc, etc etc, but we aren't willing to do anything ourselves about the problems.
In Hawaii there was a bridge out that lead to an important tourist area, no bridge meant no business. The government said $4 million and 2 years. The locals people got together and did it in 8 days for "free" with donations from the community.
Our government is only "out of control" because we have demanded that it fill every whim and desire we have.
While I generally agree with the ideas you present in the post I submit that there is a different reason behind it all. To simply discount something new because the old way worked is a little goofy. I mean...mankind survived a long time before we figured out washing our hands and cooking our food prevented disease. Back then we just made silly rules about how the mighty powers that be didn't want you eating XYZ because he would punish you with sickness and death for it. The same goes for the march of technology. The reality of it is tagging and tracking kids IS more effective and probably will wind up saving some kids. This very thing has actually been going on in Mexico for a while now. Rich people have been tagging themselves with GPS trackers because they are such big targets for the kidnappings.
Now...all that said...my alternate reason. I had to do the same kind of thing as a kid, but the reality is, you could screw up anywhere in the nearby neighborhoods and odds are someone's parents would recognize you and your parents would find out what you were up to. This was all about community. When you have real community then your kids are also protected by that many eyes thing. It comes down to an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The GPS thing is worth it's weight in gold for retrieval, even more if that is your child being retrieved. However, what we have lost in most places is that community piece that would go worlds in preventing scenarios where you would need that GPS tracking.
If I didn't live in an area where I was comfortable with my kids roaming around safely you can bet your ass I would tag them. It kills me that this site so often has people blathering about "well you should parent and watch your kids" and in some cases it has gone far enough to blame the parents when their child dies in an accident. Then when a parent goes a bit far after a real event they are mocked for it. Lose your child and then see how you feel about having that safe recovery option at your disposal. I could maybe understand if it was just paranoia, but this guy actually lost his kid for a while. As a parent I can't even imagine the feeling. Just the momentary feeling of turning around in a busy place and not seeing your kid because they moved to your other side or followed the other parent around a corner can be bad enough.
I also think it is a bit goofy to ask for parenting advice from a crowd that consists of those voted least likely to ever have a chance to breed. Having been a child does not make you qualified in raising children at all in the same way that having been in a plane doesn't make you qualified to be an instructor pilot.
Aside from the obvious of trusted removal of things like stained rugs and strangely heavy "empty" barrels... There is also an incredible intelligence gathering piece. You know...the same reason that the authorities like digging through your trash for evidence and criminals like digging through your trash for useful information.
No, but it provides excellent fodder for anti-military rhetoric. I find people on far ends of either political spectrum completely abandon any semblance of using logic or reason in favor of just being an inflamatory fountain of stupid.
It is shiney.
Honestly, I feel the same way about XCode as the GP. Personally I just think the layout and UI is better with XCode. I am not a frequent coder and I was able to get up and moving MUCH faster with XCode than I was able to with VS2k5. That isn't to say that VS is bad. The major appeal of most things Mac is that they tend to have much cleaner and standardized UIs. I have found in most things that you can have all the advanced features in the world, but if the tool is too complicated to use it won't be used well or at all. (HP OpenView or MS SMS comes to mind, very powerful, very complicated foul beasts)
I agree with most of what you said except your insitance that abandoning them to protect yourself is the correct path. As long as we are swapping anecdotal evidence, I have personally seen interventions get 2 people on the road to recovery from alchohol. (The professional type interventions, not just a bunch of friends confronting). I have known 3 to kick drugs through just friends confronting them.
I agree that people need to take responsibility for their own actions, but part of that is taking responsibility for your part in the state of society around you. This "fuck em all" mentality that has been so prevelant lately is tearing apart our society. It isn't leftists, or right wingers, or any specific ideology. It is the notion that we don't have to be good neighbors and friends anymore. That helping people is "wrong" or should be looked down on. Walking away and saying "take responsibility for your own actions" is just another variety of blaming someone else for breakdowns in society.
Especially with the recent holiday, I cannot even begin to express the rage I have towards people that advocate that abandonment crap with addictions. Go talk to some combat veterans. If they talk about the shit they have seen while they are sober, they are probably lying to impress you. Especially the vietnam era...they were shit on by their government, and then shit on by their countrymen. You don't know that persons past. You don't know the things they have been through. Escapism never works, but there are many things people cannot deal with alone and when they are abandoned the only thing they have left is that escape. Daddy spanked me is not the same thing as daddy raped me. My friend died in a car wreck is not the same as I carried my friend's arm back so we could bury what was left of him. The vast majority of the population cannot even begin to pretend to understand those types of problems so to sit and watch them pass judgement from their little soap boxes pisses me off. $0.99 could buy that guy on the corner a cheezeburger and more people are willing to just sit and ignore him or worse, harrass him.
If the US invades North Carolina then the international community has no business saying anything. However, I assume that you mean NK not NC.
I don't believe in this preemtive war crap, but you really should check the history books. NK and Iraq were both involved in wars of aggression BEFORE they got the "no nukes for you" sanctions slapped on them. This recent go around with King George and his merry men and the US engaging in first strike is pretty new. Invading their neighbors is what got them in trouble. Which is why I am so pissed off about the Iraq invasion because it undermines our credibility when we tell another country they are in trouble for hitting first. Now other countries can point and say "We had good enough reason, like you did".
North Korea invaded South Korea. Iraq invaded Iran, then some years later invaded Kuwait. They have proven track records of firing first. You are a fool if you believe that those countries are developing those weapons to help plant flowers. They lost their wars of aggression and now want bigger guns to keep trying. North Korea pulled out of the Non-proliferation treaty and then made a mad dash towards the finish line to deliver working nukes. Yeah...they are TOTALLY doing this for peaceful advance... I don't know about a reason to invade just yet, but it is definitely a reason to load your gun and take aim. These people are nuts and now they have the big bomb. 10 years ago one of his advisers defected and explained that ol Kimmy thinks he can win a war with the US. I seriously doubt those ambitions and beliefs have been diminished with the completion of this weapon.
Please don't. We don't want you to starve to death!
Just FYI. You might want to read my responses further down in the thread. I absolutely and totally agree with you. I am disgusted by the extremes that "mind your own business" has been taken to these days.
Not even remotely the case. The issue that you are talking about is when people insist on trying to force reality to match their world view. Which, quite frankly, is the same arrogant, self centered, narcissistic bullshit that spawns the "fuck them" and "not my problem" mentality. If you pay close attention, those self righteous pieces of shit that pretend to judge everyone else are the same assholes that refuse to actually help anyone else because they are just too fucking perfect for the rest of us.
Minding other people's business and dictating how others should live their lives are two completely different things. Minding other people's business was when our elderly neighbor saw me on crutches after having my ankle reconstructed and brought over chicken soup and a chocolate pie. Minding other peoples business is when folks in the neighborhood would go across the street and mow the widow's lawn. Dictating how other people should live their lives is not even remotely the same thing.
If you haven't lived in multiple areas you are missing out. I grew up in the midwest US and have lived in the deep south and east coast. The *ONLY* neighbor that actually behaved like a neighbor while I was living outside of the midwest was a guy from the midwest. Most people just mind their own business to the point of ignoring everyone around them. It is fucking pathetic. Community only exists when people interact. The great divides that have occurred as of late over stupid ideological bullshit have been allowed to happen because people lock themselves up away from everyone else and judge everyone else outside of their little ideologies. "Neighborhood Watch" used to mean something more than a bullshit sign. I remember growing up the vast parent network that seemed to exist. You fuck up on one end of town and by god your parents would know by the end of a day or two at the latest.
No...our society is fucked up because people put themselves in stupid little ideological ivory towers and judge each other at arms distance rather than mind each others business. I moved back to the midwest because I am confident that now my neighbors WILL mind my business. If they see something out of the norm happening at my house they will either call the cops or let me know. If they see my kids getting in to trouble you can bet your ass I will hear about it at some point. When we moved in the local cops pulled me and a buddy over in the drive way just to talk to us because the house had been vacant for 2 months. Yeah...it was a minor irritant, but at the end of the day it meant the local cops noticed that kind of shit and weren't afraid to act on things that looked "strange".
Minding other people's business is not even remotely the same thing as being a judgmental prick. Minding other people's business is finding a way to intervene and help. Being a judgmental prick is standing up and shouting at them or to other like minded individuals how stupid that person is without offering anything constructive.
I am sorry for you. I really am. This kind of callous and shallow behavior shown by so many people saying "fuck him" "not your problem" and so on is EXACTLY why our society is so totally fucked right now. People have problems, serious ones. In fact, most people have serious problems at some point or another, the fact that everyone around them is so shallow and callous that they abandon them in their time of need is what makes our entire society fall the fuck apart.
Will you ever need people that are that dedicated to your well being in your life? Maybe not, if you don't you are pretty lucky. However, just knowing that you have people standing next to you that WILL march into hell to save you is invaluable. I have been that person before, and the one I tried to help hated me for it...for a while. However, now I have someone that I *KNOW* will always be there if I need them, and who has no problem calling me out on the carpet if I start going down a bad path. The pinnacle of arrogance is not so much believing that you can never make a mistake in your own life or go down those roads, but that you will know when you are doing it. Sometimes it takes someone close to you to give you that swift kick in the jimmy to let you know you are doing something stupid.
Additionally, I think being one of your "friends" would be depressing. Knowing that if my life goes foul for some reason and I start making bad choices, that I will be abandoned rather than helped. That kind of thing is typically what feeds directly into suicidal thoughts during the aftermath of some kind of traumatic event. Maybe this guy isn't just making stupid choices and addicted to a game. Maybe he just lost a family member, maybe he found out someone close to him has cancer, etc, etc, etc, and he is looking for an escape. The people that will make an impact in his life are the ones that will press the issue and help him. The reality is, half the time, you don't have to march into hell, you just have to let them know that you are ready to do that.
Your definition of friend seems to be pretty watered down. I call those people acquaintances, not friends. Friends are the people that WILL go to hell and back for you, and that you will go to hell and back for.
Exactly my thought. Give them a bigger target? WTF? I just know oodles of politicians that are willing to go against a company that is so entrenched in nearly every city to earn the favor of MUCH smaller video game industry. You know...that industry that those politicians just love to kick around with their violent video game stuff... I think the *ONLY* argument that could work is "See! Walmart is making it easier for kids to get our Blood n Guts School Shooter Deluxe XVI!".
A ~$7-10 billion/yr industry is going to have a tough time competing with a ~$200 billion/yr *COMPANY* in this regards. Then you figure that part of that $7-10 billion is already used game sales... Yeah... Totally worried about those anti-used games folks using this one in their favor...