Offer $1k for the heads of anybody who runs one of these organizations.;-)
While this is humorous, it's not a horrible idea.
Let people sue the businesses that use robodialers for $1000 for each call they received. After this "inexpensive marketing technique" starts costing them money, they'll think twice about doing it. The people who are annoyed get money, which makes them happy. Problem solved.
Anyone purchasing or filling any kind of tank (including, but not limited to oxygen, water, CO2, propane, argon, nitrogen, etc.) will need to be registered, fingerprinted, and relinquish their constitutional rights and future social security payments.
Actually, last I knew, at least here in the US, if you want to have your tanks filled, you needed to be registered with PADI.
It's also sort of entertaining that when the temperature is different from the average temperature (I prefer that term to "normal"), it's because of global warming or climate change.
No, I'm not a denier. But just because it's been a cold March doesn't mean "climate change." Give me two or three cold Marches in a row, I'll start thinking about it. Otherwise, it's as stupid as the people who, after a big snow storm in DC, said, "Hey, where's that global warming we hear about?"
[...] the corporate world needs a multi-tasking UI.
Actually, my somewhat old experience in the corporate world pretty much says the opposite.
Consider most people in the corporate world with PCs. The ones I saw, way back when, would tend to hit the maximize button so that the application window took up the whole screen. They weren't taking advantage of multiple overlapping windows and tended to get confused by them. In fact, those people who came over from Windows to Mac were always confused that the maximize button wouldn't expand everything to fit the whole screen and would also get confused when they inadvertently clicked on the desktop and suddenly their typing was going somewhere else.
Now maybe your typical corporate Windows user has gotten smarter since I last paid attention back in the XP days, but I tend to doubt it.
I agree though that the notion that every year needs to deliver NEW! NEW! NEW! is ridiculous.
If you think about it, that's not really true. At least here in the US.
Most people don't think about switching phones before their contract is up. The people who do are either (a) raving fanbois, (b) exceedingly disgruntled with their phone, (c) have lost their existing phone due to some mishap, or (d) getting some kind of deal. But I would bet that a large majority of customers don't change their phones until their contract is up.
Now when you figure that it's a two year contract, figure that in any given year, half the people are coming out of their contract. You certainly want to sell them a phone that is the latest and greatest. That means that every year, there are people coming off a contract who are interested in NEW! NEW! NEW! and you want to have a device to sell them.
Now we are in a situation that the S3 purchasers are still in contract and not open to free choice and might not want another Samsung device.
You also have the iPhone 4S customers coming off their contracts this year and they might not want another Apple device with a tiny screen.
I'm not certain of this, but I believe AT&T has let iPhone customers get the latest and greatest iPhone with no penalty as long as they re-up for another two year hitch. Perhaps they'll make a similar offer for Galaxy S3 users.
I dunno. I somewhat agree with you--I like the size iPhone 4S and it's 3.5" screen and I'm not sure about the iPhone 5's bigger screen.
That said, I understand the allure. One, video looks very nice on the S3 and I could see enjoying it on an airplane or for some other hunk of downtime. Two, having used an S3 and a Motorola Droid X for websurfing, the extra space is nice. For doing everything except using it as a phone, the larger size is probably much nicer.
Instead of an hour lunch break, take an hour gym break to a nearby gym [...] Walk/Run/Bike to or from work - only works if you have access to a shower facility or public transit for one-way commutes at work.
Y'know, nearby gyms also have showers. If you can find a smaller place--most large corporate places don't have this--check with them about getting a "shower membership." Explain the situation and see what you can work out.
Another option: Sponge bath. Get two sponges. Soap one up and put clean water in the other one. Go into the handicapped stall, clean yourself up with the soapy sponge, rinse yourself off with the wet sponge. Get dressed.
I'll also throw my sweaty bike-shirt in the sink, run warm water on it, rinse it off, and hang it up behind the server rack. 30 minutes later, it's nice and dry.
That said, the most important thing about getting exercise is "Do you enjoy it?" If you don't enjoy bicycling, it's not going to be worth getting up early and dealing with the hassles involved. In which case, you probably should look for something else that you enjoy and do that instead.
Ridiculous. Everyone knows that for well-reasoned and rational comment watching, a vegetable platter or cheese and crackers, served with a nice Merlot, are the best.
Corn Nuts?! Please. Perhaps you should also guzzle some pork rinds and budweiser.
Why people will happily hand over the intimate details of their lives, in the face of dozens of horrifying Facebook privacy stories, ill never know.
Here's an interesting question, though: What percentage of Facebook users have been adversely affected by Facebook's privacy ills?
Have I had a police officer show up at my door with a search warrant because Facebook believes I'm a drug user? Nope. Have I been hit on by men because Facebook believes I'm homosexual? Nope. Have a group of republicans descended on me because Facebook believes I'm republican? Nope.
Have I lost a job due to any of the above? Nope. Been denied a loan? Nope.
Don't get me wrong, I somewhat agree with you. But I'm not sure your "battered wife" analogy stands up in that there is no actual battery going on. If I were to use your analogy, the best I could say is "how can she be married to someone who could beat her, even though he never has?"
Yes, but it's always been within the power of the President as Commander In Chief to authorize killing of anybody who is engaged in Combat on US Soil.
Actually, I'm not entirely sure about that. I'm not a Constitutional Scholar, but I remember that there is a rule somewhere where the president cannot deploy Federal Military troops within the United States unless the governor of the state they are being deployed to explicitly requests it. So the President can't send an F-16 to take out an apartment complex where suspected terrorists are living.
This comes up sometimes regarding disaster relief and the use of military resources. I remember when Andrew hit Florida back in the early 90s. The Florida governor asked for military assistance and you had army troops with bayonets attached to their rifles standing watch over various supplies (I worked at a relief center at the time and almost got shish-kabobed by a soldier who was standing a bit close to me while I tried to maneuver a big box of canned goods).
The issue, of course, would be the definition of combat. In theory, if an enemy army shows up at Indiana Harbor, the President doesn't have to wait to deploy troops until he gets a call from the Governor of Indiana (though I could be wrong about that).
The immortal question is, "Are we alone in the universe?" Well, to begin answering that question, we have to determine whether or not there is life out there--any kind of life. If we send a probe out to Mars or Europa or a comet or some such place and we look for life and we find it, how do we tell whether or not it was there before us or if we brought it with us? So it makes it hard to tell whether or not the solar system is teeming with life because we brought it there or because it really is out there.
You're right in that the idea that Mars could support life is interesting. But that's not really the question we're asking. The question we're asking is whether Mars has/had life. So bringing it along kind of fucks up the test.
It's not so much Star Trek non-interference as it is good science. To use the example given in the summary, we land a probe on some icy world which melts the ice. We infect the place with bacteria on the landing gear. We then take samples and find--surprise surprise--bacteria!
Well, gosh, what did we learn? We can't really say if the bacteria--which looks remarkably like bacteria found on Earth--was native to the planet or that we just brought it along with us. So this $500 million probe doesn't answer a thing. We might as well have used the money to feed the hungry, house the homeless, or blow up a country full of brown people.
While I agree with Mr. Paul and I'm similarly alarmed, remember that these are the same people who felt torture was an okay thing in certain situations. It usually started with the whole, "Imagine a terrorist has a nuclear weapon..."
I had one bad eye due to an injury in my youth. My other eye was fine. I don't like contacts so I wear glasses when I need to see distances (I'm fine for close up work). In fact, at one point I passed my driver's test wearing just one lens over my bad eye because I had broken the "lens" over my good eye. Ended up wearing those glasses for another couple of years with only one lens.
But many years ago, I looked into getting a monocle. Thought it'd be a fun thing to wear. Pick up a Nazi uniform and a riding crop and I had a built-in Hallowe'en costume. Unfortunately monocles are very expensive because they tend to have to be custom made and fitted and, due to the vagaries of fashion, there's not much demand for them anymore.
Nowadays, unfortunately, my "good" eye isn't so good anymore, so I really need two lenses.
While I agree, I'd argue that the International Space Station is much like a space ship and was assembled in orbit. That said, it was designed and built on earth.
I remember the previous generation of Audi's TT had this annoying habit of flipping over above 130 MPH. The solution was (a) add a spoiler and (b) limit the speed to 130 MPH.
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Offer $1k for the heads of anybody who runs one of these organizations. ;-)
While this is humorous, it's not a horrible idea.
Let people sue the businesses that use robodialers for $1000 for each call they received. After this "inexpensive marketing technique" starts costing them money, they'll think twice about doing it. The people who are annoyed get money, which makes them happy. Problem solved.
Actually, yes.
About a week ago, I was riding an elevator with someone who was using a Windows Phone. I was tempted to ask him about it...
Anyone purchasing or filling any kind of tank (including, but not limited to oxygen, water, CO2, propane, argon, nitrogen, etc.) will need to be registered, fingerprinted, and relinquish their constitutional rights and future social security payments.
Actually, last I knew, at least here in the US, if you want to have your tanks filled, you needed to be registered with PADI.
It's also sort of entertaining that when the temperature is different from the average temperature (I prefer that term to "normal"), it's because of global warming or climate change.
No, I'm not a denier. But just because it's been a cold March doesn't mean "climate change." Give me two or three cold Marches in a row, I'll start thinking about it. Otherwise, it's as stupid as the people who, after a big snow storm in DC, said, "Hey, where's that global warming we hear about?"
That's why a typical boss has Outlook running in a corner of the screen, so that he can see what new disasters developed while he wasn't looking [...]
Which is why Windows 8 has a Notification Center for that sort of thing. Same with IMs and VoIP.
[...] he has a few Word, Excel and PowerPoints running at the same time, in different completion stages.
Which don't need to be sitting on the screen at the same time.
[...] the corporate world needs a multi-tasking UI.
Actually, my somewhat old experience in the corporate world pretty much says the opposite.
Consider most people in the corporate world with PCs. The ones I saw, way back when, would tend to hit the maximize button so that the application window took up the whole screen. They weren't taking advantage of multiple overlapping windows and tended to get confused by them. In fact, those people who came over from Windows to Mac were always confused that the maximize button wouldn't expand everything to fit the whole screen and would also get confused when they inadvertently clicked on the desktop and suddenly their typing was going somewhere else.
Now maybe your typical corporate Windows user has gotten smarter since I last paid attention back in the XP days, but I tend to doubt it.
The problem is if you elect the other guy, your two nephews will be getting married to each other.
(I was trying to figure out how to get a family joke and a conservative joke in the same post.)
I agree though that the notion that every year needs to deliver NEW! NEW! NEW! is ridiculous.
If you think about it, that's not really true. At least here in the US.
Most people don't think about switching phones before their contract is up. The people who do are either (a) raving fanbois, (b) exceedingly disgruntled with their phone, (c) have lost their existing phone due to some mishap, or (d) getting some kind of deal. But I would bet that a large majority of customers don't change their phones until their contract is up.
Now when you figure that it's a two year contract, figure that in any given year, half the people are coming out of their contract. You certainly want to sell them a phone that is the latest and greatest. That means that every year, there are people coming off a contract who are interested in NEW! NEW! NEW! and you want to have a device to sell them.
Now we are in a situation that the S3 purchasers are still in contract and not open to free choice and might not want another Samsung device.
You also have the iPhone 4S customers coming off their contracts this year and they might not want another Apple device with a tiny screen.
I'm not certain of this, but I believe AT&T has let iPhone customers get the latest and greatest iPhone with no penalty as long as they re-up for another two year hitch. Perhaps they'll make a similar offer for Galaxy S3 users.
I dunno. I somewhat agree with you--I like the size iPhone 4S and it's 3.5" screen and I'm not sure about the iPhone 5's bigger screen.
That said, I understand the allure. One, video looks very nice on the S3 and I could see enjoying it on an airplane or for some other hunk of downtime. Two, having used an S3 and a Motorola Droid X for websurfing, the extra space is nice. For doing everything except using it as a phone, the larger size is probably much nicer.
What I don't understand is the IR port.
Don't like what's on TV in the bar? Change it!
Instead of an hour lunch break, take an hour gym break to a nearby gym [...]
Walk/Run/Bike to or from work - only works if you have access to a shower facility or public transit for one-way commutes at work.
Y'know, nearby gyms also have showers. If you can find a smaller place--most large corporate places don't have this--check with them about getting a "shower membership." Explain the situation and see what you can work out.
Another option: Sponge bath. Get two sponges. Soap one up and put clean water in the other one. Go into the handicapped stall, clean yourself up with the soapy sponge, rinse yourself off with the wet sponge. Get dressed.
I'll also throw my sweaty bike-shirt in the sink, run warm water on it, rinse it off, and hang it up behind the server rack. 30 minutes later, it's nice and dry.
That said, the most important thing about getting exercise is "Do you enjoy it?" If you don't enjoy bicycling, it's not going to be worth getting up early and dealing with the hassles involved. In which case, you probably should look for something else that you enjoy and do that instead.
Ridiculous. Everyone knows that for well-reasoned and rational comment watching, a vegetable platter or cheese and crackers, served with a nice Merlot, are the best.
Corn Nuts?! Please. Perhaps you should also guzzle some pork rinds and budweiser.
You say that like it's a bad thing...
Why people will happily hand over the intimate details of their lives, in the face of dozens of horrifying Facebook privacy stories, ill never know.
Here's an interesting question, though: What percentage of Facebook users have been adversely affected by Facebook's privacy ills?
Have I had a police officer show up at my door with a search warrant because Facebook believes I'm a drug user? Nope.
Have I been hit on by men because Facebook believes I'm homosexual? Nope.
Have a group of republicans descended on me because Facebook believes I'm republican? Nope.
Have I lost a job due to any of the above? Nope. Been denied a loan? Nope.
Don't get me wrong, I somewhat agree with you. But I'm not sure your "battered wife" analogy stands up in that there is no actual battery going on. If I were to use your analogy, the best I could say is "how can she be married to someone who could beat her, even though he never has?"
Yes, but it's always been within the power of the President as Commander In Chief to authorize killing of anybody who is engaged in Combat on US Soil.
Actually, I'm not entirely sure about that. I'm not a Constitutional Scholar, but I remember that there is a rule somewhere where the president cannot deploy Federal Military troops within the United States unless the governor of the state they are being deployed to explicitly requests it. So the President can't send an F-16 to take out an apartment complex where suspected terrorists are living.
This comes up sometimes regarding disaster relief and the use of military resources. I remember when Andrew hit Florida back in the early 90s. The Florida governor asked for military assistance and you had army troops with bayonets attached to their rifles standing watch over various supplies (I worked at a relief center at the time and almost got shish-kabobed by a soldier who was standing a bit close to me while I tried to maneuver a big box of canned goods).
The issue, of course, would be the definition of combat. In theory, if an enemy army shows up at Indiana Harbor, the President doesn't have to wait to deploy troops until he gets a call from the Governor of Indiana (though I could be wrong about that).
Depends on what you're looking for.
The immortal question is, "Are we alone in the universe?" Well, to begin answering that question, we have to determine whether or not there is life out there--any kind of life. If we send a probe out to Mars or Europa or a comet or some such place and we look for life and we find it, how do we tell whether or not it was there before us or if we brought it with us? So it makes it hard to tell whether or not the solar system is teeming with life because we brought it there or because it really is out there.
You're right in that the idea that Mars could support life is interesting. But that's not really the question we're asking. The question we're asking is whether Mars has/had life. So bringing it along kind of fucks up the test.
It's not so much Star Trek non-interference as it is good science. To use the example given in the summary, we land a probe on some icy world which melts the ice. We infect the place with bacteria on the landing gear. We then take samples and find--surprise surprise--bacteria!
Well, gosh, what did we learn? We can't really say if the bacteria--which looks remarkably like bacteria found on Earth--was native to the planet or that we just brought it along with us. So this $500 million probe doesn't answer a thing. We might as well have used the money to feed the hungry, house the homeless, or blow up a country full of brown people.
While I agree with Mr. Paul and I'm similarly alarmed, remember that these are the same people who felt torture was an okay thing in certain situations. It usually started with the whole, "Imagine a terrorist has a nuclear weapon..."
Nope. Didn't remember it.
Fortunately, Wikipedia to the rescue.
Unfortunately, a shitload of bonehead do-gooder not-quite-thinkers want to get the Federal government involved.
The Federal Government has gotten involved with the Defense of Marriage Act. I assume you're also against that.
Historically, the Federal government has had NOTHING to do with marriage (except for influencing it via taxes, which is arguably unconstitutional).
...and providing spousal benefits, which has been around for quite some time. Hell, Civil War widows got veterans benefits.
There would be nothing stopping the Government, for example, from saying "From this day forward, nobody is legally married."
Actually, I don't have a problem with this.
Personally, if I were King, I'd give the term back to the church. Nobody is married. Everybody has a civil union, under the eyes of the Government.
Actually, I still wear a watch, so I'd consider one.
Tog's ideas for things like NFC definitely make it worthwhile. To me, the question would be the price.
$300? No way. $200? Probably not. $100? Probably yes. $50? Hell yeah.
I would totally go for an e-monocle.
I had one bad eye due to an injury in my youth. My other eye was fine. I don't like contacts so I wear glasses when I need to see distances (I'm fine for close up work). In fact, at one point I passed my driver's test wearing just one lens over my bad eye because I had broken the "lens" over my good eye. Ended up wearing those glasses for another couple of years with only one lens.
But many years ago, I looked into getting a monocle. Thought it'd be a fun thing to wear. Pick up a Nazi uniform and a riding crop and I had a built-in Hallowe'en costume. Unfortunately monocles are very expensive because they tend to have to be custom made and fitted and, due to the vagaries of fashion, there's not much demand for them anymore.
Nowadays, unfortunately, my "good" eye isn't so good anymore, so I really need two lenses.
While I agree, I'd argue that the International Space Station is much like a space ship and was assembled in orbit. That said, it was designed and built on earth.
I remember the previous generation of Audi's TT had this annoying habit of flipping over above 130 MPH. The solution was (a) add a spoiler and (b) limit the speed to 130 MPH.