On our new freeway in Houston (something like 16 lanes wide plus another 10 lanes of feeder, the natural speed appears to be 75mph (huge visibility- low density- well designed entry and exit ramps).
The police started pulling people over every few humps about a month after it opened and now after a few months, most folks drive 69mph.
The speed limit is 60mph and the police do not even bother people who are going under 70.
I would prefer they post a speed limit that was realistic and enforce that limit but the game appears to be post a limit and let everyone speed by 5mph.
I think anyone who thinks plastic surgery doesn't work is in serious denial.
But I think it works like this...
From 20-45, it makes you look better (as long as you don't get a botched operation) if you get the appropriate procedure (face lift, tummy tuck, lipo, straighten the crooked nose or put nose into normal proportions if it is frikkin huge, etc.)
From 45+, it gets increasingly dicey and may make you look freakish, startled, even disturbing.
Demi Moore has had about $500k done- and she looks awesome for a lady approaching 50. She also spends a lot of time in the gym. A lot of actresses and actors have had work done and where appropriate, it holds the clock off by 10 years or it makes them look "generically" pretty.
a) Jolie kinda frightens me. b) Jolie threatens me. c) Jolie could easily get most men she was interested in. d) Jolie is a bit freakish.
I find Jennifer a lot more attractive and a lot less scary (still "out of my league" but I don't have nightmares about her cutting out my liver and eating raw while I watch and bleed to death).
In general, I don't find strong pretty females attractive because of the reasons you see on "The Big Bang Theory".
Unless I feel safe that I'm needed by my spouse, I'm not interested. Of course, I'm co-dependent-- if someone clearly needs me, I'm immediately drawn to and interested in them. If they clearly do not need me, I'm repulsed. If they are in the middle, then it's more about whether I'm interested or not.
It took me about 2 months to get used to the UI differences between Windows 2003 and OpenOffice. At 9 months and counting- I still havn't regained my productivity in Office. There are some things which I just haven't figured out a quick way to do again.
AND- ever since it was installed my laptop went from being a speedster to being a dog.
1) Fewer writers serve more readers and make more money (Rowling) 2) Fewer writers serve more readers and make the same money-- news is cheaper for the rest of us. 3) Fewer writers serve more readers and make the less money-- (the offshoring/outsourcing/underemployment model forming in large parts of the economy).
For decades the papers had the news created once by AP or Reuters and then they sold that same news over and over in different cities. With the excess money they paid a few columnists whose ultimate goal was to get syndicated across a lot of papers.
Now with the web, if AP/Reuters news is available anywhere for free- then why would you pay for it?
The columnists can still make money- they needed to go the blog route and take over their own destinies. But there is a ton more competition for columnists and hard news won't support 2500 papers any more- in the end it supports 1 news source on the web.
And then there is cable TV that repeats the news every 30 minutes so you do not need a paper for a large swath of news.
I subscribe to my local paper but it is not doing well.
They keep a copy forever. I can watch it on demand as part of my regular subscription for no extra charge or some really wimpy charge like 25 cents.
I stopped buying DVD's when I got to about 1,000 of them (that's about $10k worth of DVD's btw). They just take up space. I probably rewatch under 25 of them (Moulin Rouge, Silverado, Circle of Iron, Wrath of Khan, Last Action Hero, Dark City, other's don't jump to mind but I'm sure there are others).
A lot of movies (Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Most other star trek movies, Most action films) - I watch once and that's enough for a decade-- probably for a lifetime.
It depends a bit on the trial. For my criminal trial, they chose a several college grads (which I admit surprised us).
We asked why afterwords and the defense attorney said he thought the evidence supported innocence and he wanted people less affected by emotion and more affected by reason.
It was a sad case, the guy was innocent- couldn't make bail- and was in jail for about 9 months based on fairly clear lies of another convicted felon who had argument with him. The original prosecutor bailed and dumped it on a secondary prosecutor. It was like everyone knew he was innocent (except our "not proven innocent" person) but the system just ate a year of his life.
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/arnet82.html...Judges who are hostile to jury nullification have even used their power of "contempt of court" to jail jurors, without a trial, if they believe in or discuss jury nullification with other jurors. An informed jury scares the court like nothing else....
The juries that I have served on (criminal and civil) were good. We had an idiot on one who kept insisting "But they haven't PROVED the person is innocent". After much eye rolling we finally got it through to them that guilt had to be proved in america.
The civil was very hard. To this day, I can't be sure.
Of course, I'm from Texas so maybe the juries are a bit different here than some other areas.
Jury nullification *always* exists as long a they have a jury system that requires a unanimous verdict.
If you think the law is invalid, immoral or evil, you simply insist on innocence. You can give a wide variety of reasons except jury nullification for why you think that way.
The best is simply, "I'm sorry, that doesn't convince me beyond a reasonable doubt" or "I don't know why but I strongly believe they are innocent."
Just as you are not morally bound to answer that you are hiding and protecting people from murderers who are seeking them, you are not morally bound to give honest questions around the area of jury nullification.
And yes- occasionally a few guilty people will get free because of it. However, I hear it is better that 99 guilty men go free than 1 innocent go to jail.
Remember- jury nullification is a right our founding fathers supported.
The appropriate answer to questions about jury nullification belief is "No" (because they really shouldn't be asking you that question in the first place and answering "Yes" would remove your right of nullifcation.
And yet, if you look at classic star trek, many of the villains were presented as noble beings who could have been friends under other circumstances.
I think over time- as the 60's and 70's retreated, we've lost the lessons of WWI, WWII, Viet Nam, and the Korean War that often the enemy is just the same as you in a different costume.
Maybe because those wars were fought between people who were more similar than those who fight today. Today, the argument that a person who blows up 3000 people including a day care, old people, people of the same religion and nationality as you is a decent person in a bad situation falls flat.
It wasn't just Star Trek that had that value. Even Patton and other movies outside of science fiction shared it. Today, the villains on TV are often extremely evil-- because then you can do whatever you want to them and still be a "good" guy.
---
Oh-- and on Jar Jar Binks. he was the best damn thing in the series. Probably the best actor in the series. And those were good actors- so I blame the director for reducing them to emotionless line readers. Jar Jar created character conflict- he irritated the unflappable Jedi. Jar Jar was most similar to things in the first movie in some ways.
The reason I hated Star Wars was a) mitochlorians (my reaction was visceral disgust the second they said it. The mighty "Force" became akin to a viral infection. b) Darth... anikan... came across as a whiny brat. c) They continued the Return of the Jedi "child movie" theme. d) They had too many "just so" momeents e) And mainly.. NO CHARACTER CONFLICT (except Jar Jar). The first movies consisted of heroes bickering with each other, with the villains, villains picking on each other, friends becoming enemies, being berated, feeling bad, turning good, yada yada yada. Meanwhile the last set of movies, everyone either agreed-- or they didn't even say a damn thing. Darth Maul and the Jedi are separated by an impenatrable force field-- do they talk-- do they say how good their side is and how much the other side sucks-- nope- they sit silently. doing nothing until the forcefield goes away.
The animated series has been better at presenting well rounded characters and having character conflict than the last three movies ever were. Someone needed to slap George and say "stop jerking off and make a decent movie".
Scotty should have been at the transporter controls. No way it was Chekov.
I've watched TOS and Checkov was smart but not genius brilliant.
In general, I think the movie compressed things way too much to be believable.
It's probably fine for teenagers- I liked that kind of thing when I was that age. For me it was Heinlein books with teenage prodigies and genius's traveling to the moon, mars, and ganymede.
It took me years to shake off Heinlein's libertarian views. I recently saw a tag here that describes it best as "Anarchists asking the government for protection from their slaves". I'm in favor of personal freedom- but now I think you must have a tremendously strong government to stop businesses from turning you into slaves. I think the current health care system is one of the most elegantly designed slavery systems we've yet created. Work or die. But it's your choice-- except all health care is marked up 1000% and then discounted back for people with jobs.
The new galactica, with it's explorations of social and philosophical ideas (what is torture, what is "human"?, is democracy important? is Six incredibly hot in a red dress? er.. well... picture her with green skin) was closer to Trek than this movie was.
It had a lot in common with 1950's "Juvenile" science fiction. Incredibly young protagonists doing things better than people with years more experience, promoted ridiculously fast, and plot holes you should fly a star destroyer through.
It was a fun, dumb, summer action film. It would have been worth about $7, I paid $15 to see it in "Imax" with friends. I thought the first half was about a "10" and the second half was about a "7". My rating of the second half drops the more I think about the film and see more stupid things.
But I loved seeing the kirk, spock, mccoy, pike, & chekov. Sulu was okay-- and I was disappointed with scotty and uhura. he was funny and she was hot but they weren't entertaining as chekov to make up for the fact that they felt like completely different people. Chekov was also considerably changed but was entertaining. They need to drop the "brilliant" bit off of him before they wesleyfy him. And I think he should not have had blond hair.
The resulting pay is about the same without the additional debt. The type of work is probably less interesting (working for a business as a manager instead of a consulting firm).
My computer science B.S. opened some doors-- I was able to easily learn java and get assigned to the new things which lead to project management which lead to low level management.
What you do *not* want to do is graduate without any experience. You must intern or get a 3.75 or higher or you will have an extremely tough time finding employment thru late spring 2010.
Slashdot Mirror
On our new freeway in Houston (something like 16 lanes wide plus another 10 lanes of feeder, the natural speed appears to be 75mph (huge visibility- low density- well designed entry and exit ramps).
The police started pulling people over every few humps about a month after it opened and now after a few months, most folks drive 69mph.
The speed limit is 60mph and the police do not even bother people who are going under 70.
I would prefer they post a speed limit that was realistic and enforce that limit but the game appears to be post a limit and let everyone speed by 5mph.
Override the posted speed limits transmission to 150 mph.
Destroy the posted speed limits transmitters.
Jam the posted speed limits transmitters.
The cheapest rate for 5GB a month is $62 (+ tax).
Yes- movie stars have a generic perfectness.
I think anyone who thinks plastic surgery doesn't work is in serious denial.
But I think it works like this...
From 20-45, it makes you look better (as long as you don't get a botched operation) if you get the appropriate procedure (face lift, tummy tuck, lipo, straighten the crooked nose or put nose into normal proportions if it is frikkin huge, etc.)
From 45+, it gets increasingly dicey and may make you look freakish, startled, even disturbing.
Demi Moore has had about $500k done- and she looks awesome for a lady approaching 50. She also spends a lot of time in the gym.
A lot of actresses and actors have had work done and where appropriate, it holds the clock off by 10 years or it makes them look "generically" pretty.
Some people overdo it and look freakish early.
His wife is pretty- see the article. With 25,000 of work, she could probably look like a movie star.
(some actresses are approaching the $500,000 mark.)
a) Jolie kinda frightens me.
b) Jolie threatens me.
c) Jolie could easily get most men she was interested in.
d) Jolie is a bit freakish.
I find Jennifer a lot more attractive and a lot less scary (still "out of my league" but I don't have nightmares about her cutting out my liver and eating raw while I watch and bleed to death).
In general, I don't find strong pretty females attractive because of the reasons you see on "The Big Bang Theory".
Unless I feel safe that I'm needed by my spouse, I'm not interested. Of course, I'm co-dependent-- if someone clearly needs me, I'm immediately drawn to and interested in them. If they clearly do not need me, I'm repulsed. If they are in the middle, then it's more about whether I'm interested or not.
Why do I hate the Ribbon.
It took me about 2 months to get used to the UI differences between Windows 2003 and OpenOffice.
At 9 months and counting- I still havn't regained my productivity in Office. There are some things which I just haven't figured out a quick way to do again.
AND- ever since it was installed my laptop went from being a speedster to being a dog.
1) Fewer writers serve more readers and make more money (Rowling)
2) Fewer writers serve more readers and make the same money-- news is cheaper for the rest of us.
3) Fewer writers serve more readers and make the less money-- (the offshoring/outsourcing/underemployment model forming in large parts of the economy).
For decades the papers had the news created once by AP or Reuters and then they sold that same news over and over in different cities. With the excess money they paid a few columnists whose ultimate goal was to get syndicated across a lot of papers.
Now with the web, if AP/Reuters news is available anywhere for free- then why would you pay for it?
The columnists can still make money- they needed to go the blog route and take over their own destinies.
But there is a ton more competition for columnists and hard news won't support 2500 papers any more- in the end it supports 1 news source on the web.
And then there is cable TV that repeats the news every 30 minutes so you do not need a paper for a large swath of news.
I subscribe to my local paper but it is not doing well.
What I would like to see is some more data before we start passing laws that are ruinous economically.
However, since we are doomed in 30 to 50 years anyway, it's a bit of jerking off anyway.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
I did... only it was a xerox machine in the library.
$90 (in 1985 so about $180 today- or maybe $250?). 5 cents a page-- 200 pages-- $10 and 15 minutes of my time.
We never used the text book. Some-- at least we used once-- but that one, sat in a three ring binder unopened all semester.
College students are like squirrels- lots and lots of time.
Just to be clear.
YES- that is exactly what I said you should do.
The situation that has developed in the courts and the branches of government creating the laws justifies such behavior.
I respect anyone that feels they must speak their peace and be stricken from the jury.
But you may be dooming someone to years of jail or death for an immoral law.
No ads.
They keep a copy forever. I can watch it on demand as part of my regular subscription for no extra charge or some really wimpy charge like 25 cents.
I stopped buying DVD's when I got to about 1,000 of them (that's about $10k worth of DVD's btw). They just take up space. I probably rewatch under 25 of them (Moulin Rouge, Silverado, Circle of Iron, Wrath of Khan, Last Action Hero, Dark City, other's don't jump to mind but I'm sure there are others).
A lot of movies (Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Most other star trek movies, Most action films) - I watch once and that's enough for a decade-- probably for a lifetime.
With a DVR and an external drive, I can keep a cable TV show as long as a video tape in theory.
If a cable company can keep a digital copy of "Wolverine" indefinately, then why would I buy a copy?
It seems reasonable to me that a cable company could save a copy of a show for a few days or a week but not indefinitely.
It depends a bit on the trial. For my criminal trial, they chose a several college grads (which I admit surprised us).
We asked why afterwords and the defense attorney said he thought the evidence supported innocence and he wanted people less affected by emotion and more affected by reason.
It was a sad case, the guy was innocent- couldn't make bail- and was in jail for about 9 months based on fairly clear lies of another convicted felon who had argument with him. The original prosecutor bailed and dumped it on a secondary prosecutor. It was like everyone knew he was innocent (except our "not proven innocent" person) but the system just ate a year of his life.
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/arnet82.html ...Judges who are hostile to jury nullification have even used their power of "contempt of court" to jail jurors, without a trial, if they believe in or discuss jury nullification with other jurors. An informed jury scares the court like nothing else. ...
No need to apologize!
I think it is essential that you do not educate the other jurors.
We always have the right to the privacy of our own thoughts.
If you mention jury nullification, you may be ensuring that the unjust law will be enforced by another jury.
As well as getting thrown into jail yourself!
The juries that I have served on (criminal and civil) were good. We had an idiot on one who kept insisting "But they haven't PROVED the person is innocent". After much eye rolling we finally got it through to them that guilt had to be proved in america.
The civil was very hard. To this day, I can't be sure.
Of course, I'm from Texas so maybe the juries are a bit different here than some other areas.
Jury nullification *always* exists as long a they have a jury system that requires a unanimous verdict.
If you think the law is invalid, immoral or evil, you simply insist on innocence. You can give a wide variety of reasons except jury nullification for why you think that way.
The best is simply, "I'm sorry, that doesn't convince me beyond a reasonable doubt" or "I don't know why but I strongly believe they are innocent."
Just as you are not morally bound to answer that you are hiding and protecting people from murderers who are seeking them, you are not morally bound to give honest questions around the area of jury nullification.
And yes- occasionally a few guilty people will get free because of it. However, I hear it is better that 99 guilty men go free than 1 innocent go to jail.
My memory sucks too!
The wiki bit does mention they considered Spock/Uhura.
I like Shatner more after reading all that he did to get that kiss on the air.
Remember- jury nullification is a right our founding fathers supported.
The appropriate answer to questions about jury nullification belief is "No" (because they really shouldn't be asking you that question in the first place and answering "Yes" would remove your right of nullifcation.
Um.
No...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato's_Stepchildren
Nice picture of Uhura and Kirk about to kiss (MAN she had BIG hair!)
Perhaps you are thinking of Kirk/Spock slashfic?
And yet, if you look at classic star trek, many of the villains were presented as noble beings who could have been friends under other circumstances.
I think over time- as the 60's and 70's retreated, we've lost the lessons of WWI, WWII, Viet Nam, and the Korean War that often the enemy is just the same as you in a different costume.
Maybe because those wars were fought between people who were more similar than those who fight today. Today, the argument that a person who blows up 3000 people including a day care, old people, people of the same religion and nationality as you is a decent person in a bad situation falls flat.
It wasn't just Star Trek that had that value. Even Patton and other movies outside of science fiction shared it. Today, the villains on TV are often extremely evil-- because then you can do whatever you want to them and still be a "good" guy.
---
Oh-- and on Jar Jar Binks. he was the best damn thing in the series. Probably the best actor in the series. And those were good actors- so I blame the director for reducing them to emotionless line readers. Jar Jar created character conflict- he irritated the unflappable Jedi. Jar Jar was most similar to things in the first movie in some ways.
The reason I hated Star Wars was ... anikan... came across as a whiny brat.
a) mitochlorians (my reaction was visceral disgust the second they said it. The mighty "Force" became akin to a viral infection.
b) Darth
c) They continued the Return of the Jedi "child movie" theme.
d) They had too many "just so" momeents
e) And mainly.. NO CHARACTER CONFLICT (except Jar Jar). The first movies consisted of heroes bickering with each other, with the villains, villains picking on each other, friends becoming enemies, being berated, feeling bad, turning good, yada yada yada.
Meanwhile the last set of movies, everyone either agreed-- or they didn't even say a damn thing. Darth Maul and the Jedi are separated by an impenatrable force field-- do they talk-- do they say how good their side is and how much the other side sucks-- nope- they sit silently. doing nothing until the forcefield goes away.
The animated series has been better at presenting well rounded characters and having character conflict than the last three movies ever were. Someone needed to slap George and say "stop jerking off and make a decent movie".
Putting on my Trek nerd hat.
Scotty should have been at the transporter controls. No way it was Chekov.
I've watched TOS and Checkov was smart but not genius brilliant.
In general, I think the movie compressed things way too much to be believable.
It's probably fine for teenagers- I liked that kind of thing when I was that age. For me it was Heinlein books with teenage prodigies and genius's traveling to the moon, mars, and ganymede.
It took me years to shake off Heinlein's libertarian views. I recently saw a tag here that describes it best as "Anarchists asking the government for protection from their slaves". I'm in favor of personal freedom- but now I think you must have a tremendously strong government to stop businesses from turning you into slaves. I think the current health care system is one of the most elegantly designed slavery systems we've yet created. Work or die. But it's your choice-- except all health care is marked up 1000% and then discounted back for people with jobs.
The new galactica, with it's explorations of social and philosophical ideas (what is torture, what is "human"?, is democracy important? is Six incredibly hot in a red dress? er.. well... picture her with green skin) was closer to Trek than this movie was.
It had a lot in common with 1950's "Juvenile" science fiction. Incredibly young protagonists doing things better than people with years more experience, promoted ridiculously fast, and plot holes you should fly a star destroyer through.
It was a fun, dumb, summer action film. It would have been worth about $7, I paid $15 to see it in "Imax" with friends.
I thought the first half was about a "10" and the second half was about a "7". My rating of the second half drops the more I think about the film and see more stupid things.
But I loved seeing the kirk, spock, mccoy, pike, & chekov. Sulu was okay-- and I was disappointed with scotty and uhura. he was funny and she was hot but they weren't entertaining as chekov to make up for the fact that they felt like completely different people. Chekov was also considerably changed but was entertaining. They need to drop the "brilliant" bit off of him before they wesleyfy him. And I think he should not have had blond hair.
I went with work experience.
The resulting pay is about the same without the additional debt.
The type of work is probably less interesting (working for a business as a manager instead of a consulting firm).
My computer science B.S. opened some doors-- I was able to easily learn java and get assigned to the new things which lead to project management which lead to low level management.
What you do *not* want to do is graduate without any experience. You must intern or get a 3.75 or higher or you will have an extremely tough time finding employment thru late spring 2010.