Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos (and against Prop-69).
Outside of California (Why is it that the bluest states are the ones most willing to give up civil liberties for safety?) we don't do those things. I have a drivers license, and I've never been fingerprinted.
So how do mandatory cheek (DNA) swabs on arrests (not convictions) make us safer exactly (California-2009)? And for what it's worth, we do fingerprint virtually everybody that walks down the street, at least those of us that also have a driver's license.
Unfortunately, with the post 9/11 politics of fear and control and the ongoing gentrification of our society this is going to get much worse before it gets any better.
Right, but as it isn't a preventative measure, we don't fingerprint everybody that walks down the street. And nobody is under the delusion that fingerprinting makes them safer. They understand it's a post-crime tool.
Off-topic, but try buying a used car with a stick (in the USA) sometime, it ain't easy, even on trucks or sports cars. Getting back on-topic, for most people car prices are more relevant, and diesel cars just aren't offered over here. I mean, I have a cow-orker who drives a super duty f350 to work every morning, but considering he's a fucking software engineer, I don't think he's saving a lot on gas, diesel or no diesel.
On some random EU website I found (http://www.dccook.co.uk/) a VW Golf (Diesel) goes for UK12299, whereas a petrol model goes for 11499. Considering EU gas costs twice what you pay, I'm really not shocked that Diesel is really popular over there, whereas it's not popular here at all (since it's not even offered).
It really depends, low optioned pickups can certainly sell for 15k less than a top of the line 'super-duty' pickup.
I know that, but it's the easiest way to be able to compare the price difference between a gasoline and diesel engine, at least for MSRP. It doesn't help that the 'super duty' pickups are the only ones where diesel is a standard option, at least here in the USA(*grumble*).
It really depends, low optioned pickups can certainly sell for 15k less than a top of the line 'super-duty' pickup. Also, diesel costs more than regular unleaded (as it should, since it has more potential energy per gallon). Repair costs are also going to be lower with the gas driven pickup.
If either cost or environmental concerns are your reasons for buying a new car, consider not buying one. Regardless of how many mpg it gets or how few hydrocarbons leak out the tailpipe, there is a very real environmental cost to producing it, and economically it makes no sense to buy a new car (at a premium of $30k or more) for those few times when you need to haul a lot of gear.
I find it unlikely that the car cost either $15k or $15k more than an equivalent gasoline car.
Assuming that the GP was in the market for a new vehicle anyways, the price difference for going to a diesel engine in a brand new super-heavy duty pickup instead of a gasoline one is $5-6k.
So you drive a car built in Mexico and watch a TV of which no component part came from the USA. I'm not quite sure where you're going with this. It sickens me, but the USA has been a service economy for some time now.
You can support American corporations all you want, but don't delude yourself into thinking they will return the favor. Even Microsoft's on-shore component isn't employing Americans to any great extent, so I could really care less where they move their offices to.
If you're white and you write code for a living, you are what is called an anachronism. You are the rotary telephone of the 21st century. Just like that phone, they aren't making any more of you
...are already buying Japanese cars and Chinese TVs with your "pay enough" attitude.
I wouldn't know- I watch a Zenith and drive a Ford.
Don't forget the last valuable exclusive Microsoft bought from Rockstar Games, 'table tennis'. Once upon a time Rare was probably worth $350mil (such as when the Goldeneye development team still worked there), but that was what, 1998?
$50 million for some downloadable content is just as stupid as paying $350 million for Rare (lauded as the deathblow for Nintendo at the time). But if Microsoft wants to blow more of their cash, I'm all for it.
Um, you know that L.A. had a fairly good mass transit system until GM killed it, right?
That said, it's patently unfair to compare America's mass transit system with those of Europe or Asia. Those are typically high density cities in smaller countries. Los Angeles is large by population and size but it's overall density is fairly low. That means significantly higher infrastructure costs to create subways, rail lines, etc, since they have much longer runs. Further, since those runs don't connect it to the rest of the country, people will still need their cars regardless.
I have lived in three of America's biggest cities for several years each and NYC was the only one with decent mass transit. True, the traffic there sucked, but a system like this will not have an impact on NYC streets. Further improvements to mass transit will.
The L.A. mass transit system was beyond inept. No where I else that I lived is even worth mentioning.
The UK has been demoted to second world country? We should really send those guys a get well card or something.
"Americans take their privacy too seriously to ignore this if this becomes public. "
Sorry but WHAT????
Americans probably have the lowest privacy concerns of any modern first world country
Makes sense to me, nuclear winter and global warming will cancel each other out. As an added bonus, most of us won't need a night-light to take a piss in the middle of the night anymore.
Let them have it. Then convince the idiotic masses that, since Russia is melting it's polar cap, we need to launch a preemptive strike against Russia before they flood our coastal cities.
Well, there was a documentary on this a while back. You should really check it out. For the record, Einstein is by no means the only 'odd duck' who's drastically changed our lives. Imagine a world with a cured Nicola Tesla.
More directly: Einstein had a wide variety of social problems that were likely linked inextricably with his unusual mental acuity. If we had the technology to "cure" him, what would the world look like now?
Um, you do know that 3 out of 4 people diagnosed with autism are male, right?
Also, gender chromosome related conditions are almost exclusive to men, whether the defect is on the X or the Y chromosome (the reason being that women have two X chromosomes, and a healthy one will usually mask the damaged one). So this might have some impact on treatment of certain types of male autism
I know the research you're referring to, and it is by no means conclusive evidence of what you suggest. Further, if the blocks really were made out of cement per Davidovits theory, it would have taken more labor, not less. If you want a 70 ton cement brick, you'll need to haul up a lot more than 70 tons of cement, build forms, etc. It's most likely the case that the tops of the pyramids were constructed with cement, and the rest was quarried stone, placed in courses using levers.
But anyway, recent research implies that the pyramids were made out of a primitive form of cement, so it might not have taken nearly as much labor as is assumed...
Actually, that's true of modern modchips (PS2,Xbox,etc.), but I've never heard of flashable chips for anything older than that. Even in the case of the PS2 there are still tons of non-flashable chips out there (any of the 10,000 chiwanese clones of the Matrix Infinity chip).
For myself, I think the most defensible arguments for these chips are that they
A) allow you to use backup media to play your games (kids+cds=scratches)
B) allow you to play games from other regions.
In some cases there are other benefits, for example, the PS2 laser/drive assemblies are freaking notorious for their high rates of failure. With a modified system, you can circumvent this by running all of your games from a hard disk. Way more convenient too.
The use of modchips is a very gray line and using a modchip in and of itself is not a crime even under DMCA... most are sold blank or with "legal" firmware that does nothing to aid in circumvention of protection mechanisms. Xbox 1 chips specifically come pre-loaded with "Cromwell" bioses that are based on Linux and don't actually allow the playback of backup discs
Don't you mean Brade Runner? Start a new life in the off-shore colonies, get your H1B visa today.
The mix of dirty and ultracool newness is very, very close to what things look like in Taiwan. And if you go across the straits to China, things look even more like Blade Runner.
Actually, I wouldn't say Mad Dog was that awful, The 3DO version was a perfect port of the ALG laserdisc based title, complete with a well built light gun. As a matter of trivia many of the later ALG arcade machines had modified 3DO consoles in them. That is not to say that they didn't put out some real stinkers, Space Pirates was almost comically bad.
Now if you truly want to see the one of the worst games ever, take a look at Revolution-X (SNES).
Mad Dog McCree, came out on PCCD and 3DO, it was the poster child for bad FMV titles, along with Night Trap. Pretty much anything from the mid-90's FMV boom belongs on a worst games of all time list.
This is small claims court, so I'm fairly certain Gateway won't be collecting attorneys fees. Assuming I were a shareholder, I'd be a lot more concerned about the negative press than a few returns.
If they cave and give this guy a computer, then it sets a precedent. Do you, as a shareholder, want them to start giving away computers to everyone who bitches enough? Also, many courts will grant attorneys fees to the winner, so if Gateway wins, it might not cost very much at all.
Since the magnetic field they demonstrated is only powerful enough to cross a decent sized room, it's unlikely to work effectively in your neighbors house unless you happen to live in a duplex.
I sure can't wait for those electric cars to start using this, if you want 40% efficiency, you can get that in a diesel (some are rated to 45% efficiency) right now.
Correct. Since this is California, Gateway cannot just hire a lawyer to argue the case, but if they have one listed as an employee of the corporation, I believe that's allowed.
In some states, one is not allowed to be represented by a lawyer in small claims court. In others, one needs special permission from a judge in order to use a lawyer. Who will Gateway send? Seems to me that whomever the plaintiff named in the complaint will have to represent their case. IANAL, of course.
"America is a unique society in which we have free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich"
-Gore Vidal
I'm fine with the free market, but the telcos have gobbled up way too much tax payers money and used too much legislation (aka banning competitors like municipal wifi) to get a free lunch on this free market thing.
Had they not received all that public money for development in the 90's and legislated mandate of monopolies I think it would be fine... But they have and don't have much to show for it compared to other nations services.
That sounds pretty similar to my player, earlier this year I grabbed a grey market Sandisk e130 ($30), and I've been really happy with it. It doesn't do playlists, but since it uses SD cards, new card = new playlist. Since the music files are read directly from SD there is no proprietary software to worry about and battery life is pretty decent too(~9 hours per AAA)
me? 1 GB is more than enough for me, the things plug on your PC's USB connector and work just like pendrives (therefore, 100% Linux-compatible, even with good ol' cp and mv), and being able to use generic AAA batteries instead of yet-another-propietary-POS is a big plus for me, so I give my money to the chinese without going through the US first.
Precisely. Choosing between Republicans and Democrats is just deciding which of your unalienable rights you'd like to lose between now and the next election. Gotta love that two party system.
Why blame Dems or Reps? They both want your money. They both are trying to take aware personal freedoms. I'm an independent, and have voted both ways
Sure, there is the odd inaccuracy in the exhibit, but it's still a must see for the hourly "Comfort Women of South Asia a live review" floorshow...or maybe that was Las Vegas, I forget.
When I visited Osaka castle in 2001 they had a small section dedicated to WW2 on one of the floors. Under one of the historical photographs it stated that Japan was responding to the US aggression and mobilized its armed forces in national defense. I can't remember if it was referring to Pearl Harbor or Japan's entry into WW2 in general.
Really? I hated that thing(DC controller),the first thing I did when I bought a DC was to grab some of the larger madcat controllers that I could actually hold comfortably. I agree with you on the PS2 though, it's not all that, especially for driving games. For PS1, the NegCon was a really nice driving pad, but it won't help you any for PS2 games.
My favorite controller would have to be the sega saturn pad, it had tons of buttons, it was comfortable to use, and it let me kick a lot of ass in Radiant Silvergun.
For better or worse, the rise of 3D gaming on the console has created the need for larger and more complicated control pads to make effective use of it. The DC control pad is very similar to the 3D 'nights' pad for the Saturn. Of the 3D oriented pads, I'm most partial to the N64 and GC pads, though the DC Twin Stick wins on style points alone.
loved the DC Controller...mainly since it had real analog control (great for driving games). PS2's dual shock were supposed to have analog, but it was so hard to use, that it really didn't matter.
Using our vast oil shale deposits (per wikipedia, the U.S. accounts 60% of the world's supply), we could easily do that today without ethanol or biodiesel. Tar sand deposits are already being actively harvested in Canada. Since oil shale is more costly to process it's still quietly sitting in the ground waiting for gas to hit $5/gallon.
This is the one major point that keeps being overlooked. The U.S. and Canada together can create a close to sustainable supply of fuel for their transportation needs without having to import any oil at all.
Don't worry, only people in the UK have to worry about that, the rest of us don't have that kind of state run surveillance...yet. My biggest concern about this is that this will effectively gut a lot of college radio playlists, not that my local station doesn't play mostly unsigned indie music anyway.
My only question is what is next? At this rate, we wont even be able to sing in the shower without having to pay the RIAA royalties (though for some of us, perhaps me included, that isnt necessarily a bad thing;-) )
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Unfortunately, with the post 9/11 politics of fear and control and the ongoing gentrification of our society this is going to get much worse before it gets any better.
On some random EU website I found (http://www.dccook.co.uk/) a VW Golf (Diesel) goes for UK12299, whereas a petrol model goes for 11499. Considering EU gas costs twice what you pay, I'm really not shocked that Diesel is really popular over there, whereas it's not popular here at all (since it's not even offered).
If either cost or environmental concerns are your reasons for buying a new car, consider not buying one. Regardless of how many mpg it gets or how few hydrocarbons leak out the tailpipe, there is a very real environmental cost to producing it, and economically it makes no sense to buy a new car (at a premium of $30k or more) for those few times when you need to haul a lot of gear.
You can support American corporations all you want, but don't delude yourself into thinking they will return the favor. Even Microsoft's on-shore component isn't employing Americans to any great extent, so I could really care less where they move their offices to.
If you're white and you write code for a living, you are what is called an anachronism. You are the rotary telephone of the 21st century. Just like that phone, they aren't making any more of you
That said, it's patently unfair to compare America's mass transit system with those of Europe or Asia. Those are typically high density cities in smaller countries. Los Angeles is large by population and size but it's overall density is fairly low. That means significantly higher infrastructure costs to create subways, rail lines, etc, since they have much longer runs. Further, since those runs don't connect it to the rest of the country, people will still need their cars regardless.
For myself, I think the most defensible arguments for these chips are that they
A) allow you to use backup media to play your games (kids+cds=scratches)
B) allow you to play games from other regions.
In some cases there are other benefits, for example, the PS2 laser/drive assemblies are freaking notorious for their high rates of failure. With a modified system, you can circumvent this by running all of your games from a hard disk. Way more convenient too.
Now if you truly want to see the one of the worst games ever, take a look at Revolution-X (SNES).
Since the magnetic field they demonstrated is only powerful enough to cross a decent sized room, it's unlikely to work effectively in your neighbors house unless you happen to live in a duplex.
I sure can't wait for those electric cars to start using this, if you want 40% efficiency, you can get that in a diesel (some are rated to 45% efficiency) right now.
( http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp/smallclaims/
"If the business is a corporation, an employee, officer, or director must go to court. That person can't be hired just to represent the corporation."
-Gore Vidal
My favorite controller would have to be the sega saturn pad, it had tons of buttons, it was comfortable to use, and it let me kick a lot of ass in Radiant Silvergun.
For better or worse, the rise of 3D gaming on the console has created the need for larger and more complicated control pads to make effective use of it. The DC control pad is very similar to the 3D 'nights' pad for the Saturn. Of the 3D oriented pads, I'm most partial to the N64 and GC pads, though the DC Twin Stick wins on style points alone.