Couldn't agree with you more, but as [parent]Brian Gordon quoted, Veterans Affairs are exempt from that statistic, so the college tuition is not included. Though maybe the Tuition Assistance program is, can't remember who pays for that, though it probably is the VA again
Ok.... um no. Your argument is that as an empire weakens it places additional demands on its out-lying states in order to support is overbearing military, and your examples of our "clients" are Venezuela and the vague "middle east".
Sure, we have a huge military, but that is only because we have pushed ourselves into the "police" role for much of the world. But the question is, how much are we spending? Looking at this chart http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120217127801742577.html?mod=hps_us_at_glance_opinion from the WSJ shows that, percentage wise, our expenditure has gone down over the years (with a recent upturn).
And where does this money come from? Trade mostly, then taxes, then foreign investment [Note: This is my conjecture, but I am sure it will bear scrutiny] Sure, we have a HUGE debit to the collected world. Most people will scream that we are being invaded through the markets, but do you know anyone who buys a house then sets it on fire? (Insurance fraud aside) And most of these sovereign wealth funds (the source of foreign investment) are silent partners in almost all respects.
We don't tax our partners directly, which is what was happening in almost all the examples you cite above (Rome, Spain and Britian). The Soviet Union collapsed from within, it wasn't much more than a facade by the time the Cold War really heated up, plus a little help from US proxy wars.
Taking a look at South America, almost all of the governments are pro-US and supported though some means of economic aid (Much of which comes from the US). Venezuela is a rouge state led by a crazy, and supported by few (Cuba? Iran? North Korea? no big surprise). Hugo's own people are under much of the same restrictions as Kim Jong'Il's. Did you know that one of the major restrictions is that citizens cannot leave the country with more than $500(US)? See how far you make it in the world with that.
And the middle east? Go ask Dubai how much they hate the US.
One last thing...The OH-SO-TERRIBLE weakening dollar? HUGE boost for American trade. We are at an multi-decade high, go listen to the news (REAL news, not CNN or FOX) Pick up a paper or listen to the radio once in a while. Here's some helpful links to get you started: www.nytimes.com & www.bloomberg.com
Ah! but we have the option to raise ourselves above this. While most people are perfectly happy to work at a "job" their entire life to obtain "retirement" (which means less and less everyday), some of us work hard to set a life up that is not tied to a "job". We, as Americans, are fully entitled to buy a small farm in the hinterlands and exclude ourselves from "society" and "pop-culture".
Mr. Marley said it right:
"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds."
Oh, and to maintain topic, die when we damn well please
Different Pizza? Oh yeah, go to Domino's one day then go to Tony's at the end of the block by me and see different pizza. Just because the rest of the world doesn't live in ny, doesn't mean all pizza tastes the same.
...or how about the destruction of innocent lives and property by insurgent forces? Who, btw, also happen to be "invaders", as most of them are not Iraqi civilians. I would think this to be quite a bit more widespread, as rebels are much more likely to detonate an explosive device than peace-keepers.
well, using current technology, cell towers have not been able to go above 2200ft. I have seen some rocket-powered ones that can get up to 35Mm (geosynchronous orbit) though.
I can tell you the TRUE reason cell phones are not allowed on airplanes.
I fly on Air Force flights, which are not subject to FAA regulations, and the main problem with cell phones on airplanes is the fact that they DO NOT WORK. The transmitter in your phone is not powerful enough to reach more than say, 1000m. Your phone will go dead at less than 10,000 ft of elevation. Add this to the fact that cell towers are not powerful enough to reach the average cruising altitude of ~30,000 ft.
Fear of instrument interference was due to older, analog units with less defined spectrum. With ALL equipment in aircraft being shielded these days there is almost NO possibility of a disturbance in flight.
Besides, your 50mW transmitter is no match for, oh, the sun. And all the other background noise that is present in our atmosphere these days. I would bet that the electric motors on the landing gear ( or hydraulic pumps that may power them) put out more EMF in just about every frequency known to man than all the cell phones that might be in call at once.
Honestly, why do we need such small denominations anymore? All prices should be rounded to the nearest $0.25 and be done with 90% of the spare change running around the place. The law of averages would balance out the cost until merchants fixed all their prices to include tax (which should be part of the marked price as it is) based on this rounding.
Your worst case scenario:
5000 transactions per year * $0.12 = $600
And this includes all purchases, even buying a car could include an extra $0.12 charge.
If you really need to save these ridiculously odd priced items (e.g $1.69 for a toothbrush) you could pay with a CC.
Please mod parent up, this is the calculator to use.
That's the TI-36x - Engineering Calculator. It does exactly what you want and nothing more. I have at least three of them, one for figuring out tax, gorcery bills, etc
and one to calculate values while I'm working with Protel. Plus one in my bag for school. I think they cost $25 and are nigh indestructible.
Then get a student copy of Matlab (or borrow it from your school lab).
Um, it doesn't use Firefox, it uses the less-than-clean UI of Mozilla. It looks similar to Netscape ver.5 Which is soooo 1995
I'm sure that it is a great browser, but Mozilla needs to give us the option of which browser to use with the Seamonkey pack. Then I might consider getting rid of my Firefox/Gmail.com/mIRC/Notepad combo, which I can tell you is a lot more compact than Seamonkey.
I imagine they are calling it a "nanobot" because if the whole of it is roughly 2 human hairs (~200 micrometers) you would have to imagine its surgical bits to be a little smaller, perhaps passing into the nanometer range. That would, of course, be a stretch, as these tools would have to be 1/1000th the size of the entirety of the device. Maybe its covered in nanotubes and could plug holes.
Nano is also marktspck for "Really Small, Buy Me!" passing the other test for nanotechnology.
On another point, my finger is also a nano-device. Being roughly 1.5cm or 1,500,000,000nm in width. It is also for sale, if you would like it installed in your eye.
P.S. Why can't I get the micro sign to come up? Tried plain-text and HTML Entities, both numerical and coded
This might surprise you, but the worst case of weak-willed management I have every encountered was in the military, the Marine Corps no less. While the low-ranking types (which I was for the most part) get their asses handed to them for any inconceivable transgression (IS THAT A WRINKLE I SEE IN YOUR BED SHEET?!?!?!?) the higher the rank, the less likely anyone is going to point out your obvious faults.
One specific instance involved a Staff NCO (E-6, fairly well along in the ranks) crashing his car into the gate guard hut. His reason? He got distracted from throwing up all over himself while driving home (along with 3 younger individuals [myself included]). Not sick, just so boozed out of his mind that he offered to buy us all prostitutes (he's married) from the local, less than sanitary, streetwalker gang. We, of course, turned him down. He seemed to have fun.
Being scared out of our minds and owing that fidelity to him (aka, the boss) we were in no place to say anything or report him. Being junior in rank, we were not questioned and the guards didn't want to get in bad with someone who might be their Gunny one day.
This is but one example that sticks out in my mind, as I'm sure you can imagine, but it was a somewhat repetitive theme that I noticed. I am since out of the service and if I saw this fellow I would probably knock his brain about for trying to kill me, but it makes me wonder who's in charge of our brothers and sisters directly in danger. These pension-gatherers are a disgrace to our services and the result of our society's fear of responsibility. BTW, thanks for the college money tax-payers.
640x480 is not crappy? What's the last time you looked at a 640x480 screen? I think my cell-phone has higher resolution.
Now as far as movie quality goes, I think ntsc is 480p, right? so we are a little bit above free, broadcast TV.
BTW, the reason iTunes is going down is because everyone is buying up AllofMP3.com before the WTO starts a nuclear war with russia. That will endear RIAA & MPAA in everyone's hearts and minds, right? oh, and bittorrent still kicks iTunes' & other pay stores collective asses for quality and selection.
If the Salvation Army had just about every album and movie ever made, with superior quality, and gave it away for free, who would go to Best Buy?
Come on Apple! You sold me a 60Gb Video iPod, now help me fill it up! No more 100mb, ultra-compressed movies! (Actually I have no idea how big one of their movies are)
Rich is someone who has made a lot of money, mostly in their lifetime. They are effected by the winds of the economy.
Wealthy is someone who is born into money, from a line of people also born with it. Paris Hilton is a fine example. Most of the people who live around me (Upper-Manhattan, parts of the Tri-State Area [Nyack & Piermont NY]) are these type of people. They are wealthy to an Nth degree and don't EVER have to be concerned about where their next meal is going to come from.
Wealthy people do taste good though, they have been aged in a life of sedentary.
Please explain, what is this gold class? Never seen that here in NY.
But in reality? You pay MORE for your movies? Save that money and buy yourself a decent home theater setup. I know its a little more outlay, but I can get smashed off cheap (but so much better) drinks and not have to drive anywhere except into the pillow.
Slashdot Mirror
Update:
Found a better link:
http://www.desc.dla.mil/DCM/DCMPage.asp?LinkID=DESCCutomerService
FY '08 price seems to be $3.45/gal
Most of the Air Force runs on JP8, here's an article that says 1 gal costs $2.53, back in '06
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123026679
Couldn't agree with you more, but as [parent]Brian Gordon quoted, Veterans Affairs are exempt from that statistic, so the college tuition is not included. Though maybe the Tuition Assistance program is, can't remember who pays for that, though it probably is the VA again
Ok.... um no. Your argument is that as an empire weakens it places additional demands on its out-lying states in order to support is overbearing military, and your examples of our "clients" are Venezuela and the vague "middle east".
Sure, we have a huge military, but that is only because we have pushed ourselves into the "police" role for much of the world. But the question is, how much are we spending? Looking at this chart http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120217127801742577.html?mod=hps_us_at_glance_opinion from the WSJ shows that, percentage wise, our expenditure has gone down over the years (with a recent upturn).
And where does this money come from? Trade mostly, then taxes, then foreign investment [Note: This is my conjecture, but I am sure it will bear scrutiny] Sure, we have a HUGE debit to the collected world. Most people will scream that we are being invaded through the markets, but do you know anyone who buys a house then sets it on fire? (Insurance fraud aside) And most of these sovereign wealth funds (the source of foreign investment) are silent partners in almost all respects.
We don't tax our partners directly, which is what was happening in almost all the examples you cite above (Rome, Spain and Britian). The Soviet Union collapsed from within, it wasn't much more than a facade by the time the Cold War really heated up, plus a little help from US proxy wars.
Taking a look at South America, almost all of the governments are pro-US and supported though some means of economic aid (Much of which comes from the US). Venezuela is a rouge state led by a crazy, and supported by few (Cuba? Iran? North Korea? no big surprise). Hugo's own people are under much of the same restrictions as Kim Jong'Il's. Did you know that one of the major restrictions is that citizens cannot leave the country with more than $500(US)? See how far you make it in the world with that. And the middle east? Go ask Dubai how much they hate the US.
One last thing...The OH-SO-TERRIBLE weakening dollar? HUGE boost for American trade. We are at an multi-decade high, go listen to the news (REAL news, not CNN or FOX) Pick up a paper or listen to the radio once in a while. Here's some helpful links to get you started: www.nytimes.com & www.bloomberg.com
Can he get some hacked firmware to make himself DDR world champ?
NYT (Print Version) FTW!
Ah! but we have the option to raise ourselves above this. While most people are perfectly happy to work at a "job" their entire life to obtain "retirement" (which means less and less everyday), some of us work hard to set a life up that is not tied to a "job". We, as Americans, are fully entitled to buy a small farm in the hinterlands and exclude ourselves from "society" and "pop-culture".
Mr. Marley said it right:
"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds."
Oh, and to maintain topic, die when we damn well please
Different Pizza? Oh yeah, go to Domino's one day then go to Tony's at the end of the block by me and see different pizza. Just because the rest of the world doesn't live in ny, doesn't mean all pizza tastes the same.
...or how about the destruction of innocent lives and property by insurgent forces? Who, btw, also happen to be "invaders", as most of them are not Iraqi civilians. I would think this to be quite a bit more widespread, as rebels are much more likely to detonate an explosive device than peace-keepers.
well, using current technology, cell towers have not been able to go above 2200ft. I have seen some rocket-powered ones that can get up to 35Mm (geosynchronous orbit) though.
I can tell you the TRUE reason cell phones are not allowed on airplanes.
I fly on Air Force flights, which are not subject to FAA regulations, and the main problem with cell phones on airplanes is the fact that they DO NOT WORK. The transmitter in your phone is not powerful enough to reach more than say, 1000m. Your phone will go dead at less than 10,000 ft of elevation. Add this to the fact that cell towers are not powerful enough to reach the average cruising altitude of ~30,000 ft.
Fear of instrument interference was due to older, analog units with less defined spectrum. With ALL equipment in aircraft being shielded these days there is almost NO possibility of a disturbance in flight.
Besides, your 50mW transmitter is no match for, oh, the sun. And all the other background noise that is present in our atmosphere these days. I would bet that the electric motors on the landing gear ( or hydraulic pumps that may power them) put out more EMF in just about every frequency known to man than all the cell phones that might be in call at once.
Uncle Sam's Misguided Children?
I swear! I went for the college money!
Yeah, like india and china?
"humm, lets see if we can launch this vishnu statue into space with a rubberband"
or
"Space ladder?! Hell's yeah!, built out of people!"
um, but if you mute the asshat, then they will turn to tk'n in order to vent their rage/sexual frustration
Honestly, why do we need such small denominations anymore? All prices should be rounded to the nearest $0.25 and be done with 90% of the spare change running around the place. The law of averages would balance out the cost until merchants fixed all their prices to include tax (which should be part of the marked price as it is) based on this rounding.
Your worst case scenario:
5000 transactions per year * $0.12 = $600
And this includes all purchases, even buying a car could include an extra $0.12 charge.
If you really need to save these ridiculously odd priced items (e.g $1.69 for a toothbrush) you could pay with a CC.
Please mod parent up, this is the calculator to use.
That's the TI-36x - Engineering Calculator. It does exactly what you want and nothing more. I have at least three of them, one for figuring out tax, gorcery bills, etc
and one to calculate values while I'm working with Protel. Plus one in my bag for school. I think they cost $25 and are nigh indestructible.
Then get a student copy of Matlab (or borrow it from your school lab).
Come out of the past man! Netscape is passé like compuserve. Really what I miss is what Randle_Revar pointed out, the search box beside the URL field.
I am going to load it back up and try out this "Modern" Skin. Anyone know if there is a pluging for my beloved search box?
Um, it doesn't use Firefox, it uses the less-than-clean UI of Mozilla. It looks similar to Netscape ver.5 Which is soooo 1995
I'm sure that it is a great browser, but Mozilla needs to give us the option of which browser to use with the Seamonkey pack. Then I might consider getting rid of my Firefox/Gmail.com/mIRC/Notepad combo, which I can tell you is a lot more compact than Seamonkey.
I imagine they are calling it a "nanobot" because if the whole of it is roughly 2 human hairs (~200 micrometers) you would have to imagine its surgical bits to be a little smaller, perhaps passing into the nanometer range. That would, of course, be a stretch, as these tools would have to be 1/1000th the size of the entirety of the device. Maybe its covered in nanotubes and could plug holes.
Nano is also marktspck for "Really Small, Buy Me!" passing the other test for nanotechnology.
On another point, my finger is also a nano-device. Being roughly 1.5cm or 1,500,000,000nm in width. It is also for sale, if you would like it installed in your eye.
P.S. Why can't I get the micro sign to come up? Tried plain-text and HTML Entities, both numerical and coded
This might surprise you, but the worst case of weak-willed management I have every encountered was in the military, the Marine Corps no less. While the low-ranking types (which I was for the most part) get their asses handed to them for any inconceivable transgression (IS THAT A WRINKLE I SEE IN YOUR BED SHEET?!?!?!?) the higher the rank, the less likely anyone is going to point out your obvious faults.
One specific instance involved a Staff NCO (E-6, fairly well along in the ranks) crashing his car into the gate guard hut. His reason? He got distracted from throwing up all over himself while driving home (along with 3 younger individuals [myself included]). Not sick, just so boozed out of his mind that he offered to buy us all prostitutes (he's married) from the local, less than sanitary, streetwalker gang. We, of course, turned him down. He seemed to have fun.
Being scared out of our minds and owing that fidelity to him (aka, the boss) we were in no place to say anything or report him. Being junior in rank, we were not questioned and the guards didn't want to get in bad with someone who might be their Gunny one day.
This is but one example that sticks out in my mind, as I'm sure you can imagine, but it was a somewhat repetitive theme that I noticed. I am since out of the service and if I saw this fellow I would probably knock his brain about for trying to kill me, but it makes me wonder who's in charge of our brothers and sisters directly in danger. These pension-gatherers are a disgrace to our services and the result of our society's fear of responsibility. BTW, thanks for the college money tax-payers.
640x480 is not crappy? What's the last time you looked at a 640x480 screen? I think my cell-phone has higher resolution.
Now as far as movie quality goes, I think ntsc is 480p, right? so we are a little bit above free, broadcast TV.
BTW, the reason iTunes is going down is because everyone is buying up AllofMP3.com before the WTO starts a nuclear war with russia. That will endear RIAA & MPAA in everyone's hearts and minds, right? oh, and bittorrent still kicks iTunes' & other pay stores collective asses for quality and selection.
If the Salvation Army had just about every album and movie ever made, with superior quality, and gave it away for free, who would go to Best Buy?
Come on Apple! You sold me a 60Gb Video iPod, now help me fill it up! No more 100mb, ultra-compressed movies! (Actually I have no idea how big one of their movies are)
Rich is someone who has made a lot of money, mostly in their lifetime. They are effected by the winds of the economy.
Wealthy is someone who is born into money, from a line of people also born with it. Paris Hilton is a fine example. Most of the people who live around me (Upper-Manhattan, parts of the Tri-State Area [Nyack & Piermont NY]) are these type of people. They are wealthy to an Nth degree and don't EVER have to be concerned about where their next meal is going to come from.
Wealthy people do taste good though, they have been aged in a life of sedentary.
I guess it comes down to those with the disposable income to spend on fancy movie screenings. Thought about charity?
Please explain, what is this gold class? Never seen that here in NY.
But in reality? You pay MORE for your movies? Save that money and buy yourself a decent home theater setup. I know its a little more outlay, but I can get smashed off cheap (but so much better) drinks and not have to drive anywhere except into the pillow.
Well, personally, I'd rather watch free porn over a blackberry, unless it was vine-ripe and full of juice.