Why do I care? Am I supposed to be impressed that submitter is "considering stopping [his] Virgin Mobile service in protest"? On my way to work today, I considered pushing a fisherman off the bridge so that I could giggle whilst watching him splash about in the water -- it's a far cry from doing it.
My comment was just an observation; and GP's was simply another. Neither of us has had to start insulting you or cursing... so who's getting "this bent"?
They'd have to control the.torrent hosts to know those IP addresses, so that's rather unlikely. Too, nobody mentioned lawsuits -- just banning people from playing the game.
the equivalent of saying a rapist should be punished but don't abort his baby That was a really poor example - for to be any kind of parallel, it would have to be predicated on the assumption that the/purpose/ of rape is impregnation.
FWIW, Indian characteristics and black characteristics are as dissimilar as dogs and cats. I agree completely; but GP was basically saying 'black' should only be used for color of the skin; and my point was that doing so would be grossly misrepresenting the ethnic background of the majority of people being so represented.
As far as I'm concerned, it's just a physical description, like you might say someone is a blonde, brunette, redhead, pale, short, tall, skinny, overweight, whatever. Did you ever look at an Indian (from India...), or Egyptian? They have the same skin color that many blacks have, yet you would not call him or her black, you'd say Indian or Egyptian. This doesn't jibe with your opinion above...
The way I see it, the only reason there is still racism of any kind in the world, beyond a few deranged individuals, is that people are told that race is significant in some way. For example, every time you do a study of racial discrimination of any kind, you inadvertently perpetuate the notion that race does or might actually matter in some way. It doesn't. The challenge now is to get people to stop even *thinking* about what race a person is. This is probably very true. Unfortunately, considering that there are people of all races (I'd prefer 'ethnicity' since we're really all the same race...) who will never actually see things that way -- and will never teach their children to see things that way. Because of that, what you propose is a bit of a pipe-dream.
Microsoft has quietly been making Windows applications difficult to deploy within corporations, and have been luring corporate developers towards ASP DotNet. They have? Anything to substantiate this? On client desktops, we're a mostly microsoft shop, and have no problem deploying our desktop applications to internal customers (over 10k for some of the apps).
I don't think the above issue (in general) can be understated. There isn't a person alive who hasn't once done something that is embarrasing, in bad form, wrong, or even illegal, or otherwise said or wrote something that wasn't poorly worded, taken out of context, intended as an off-colour joke, or simply a case of temporary stupidity. Erm... yeah, haha, great joke, I stole this great car! Tee hee.
The key difference is that it is the/individual/ who must pay the excise tax. That's a far cry from requiring every single business who ships into New York from paying. If this is allowed to stand, could you imagine the precedent it will set? Picture life as an online retailer, where you must pay separate taxes to all 50 states based on how your sales break up.
For a lot of small retailers, the answer is simple. Stop selling to New York.
They did do this from the start, they just didn't force developers to follow good coding practises when writing apps for the NT platform.
*looks at DOS1-6, Win31, Win95, Win98, Win98SE, and WinME*
It seems to me that most consumer-targeted apps were primarily created for the platforms I just listed. This allowed developers a very long period in which to form bad habits .
Many lights are timed so that this judgement must be made in a fraction of a second, which is difficult for many drivers. This is not enough time to make much of a conscious analysis so many times what you get from the driver is a reaction, not a decision. This particular issue aside - I submit that generally speaking, if someone is incapable of making a driving-related judgement call in a fraction of a second based on the situation at hand, that person should never be permitted behind the wheel because they are a menace to themselves and other drivers.
Every driver has more than one occasion where they must make a critical decision now - not in a second or a half second, but NOW. Those who are incapable are usually going to be the ones getting in accidents when those occasions arise.
You may classify that as a reaction as opposed to a decision - but reactions such as that are based on your mind's understanding of things like relative positions, relative speed, road conditions, etc -- things that most people would not be able to actively calculate otherwise. To me, those are still decisions - just decisions made where your brain does not get in the way.
I think most people speed up to get under a yellow light because they don't feel as if they have sufficient stopping distance to stop safely (e.g. without being rear-ended). Bwah hah hah. Thanks for the laugh.
I dunno, I took a red light ticket to court and won. I argued that I couldn't stop safely due to the truck close behind me; but that I thought I had crossed the line of the intersection before the light had changed.
The asshole cop said there was no vehicle behind me (he lied); but the judge asked if I could say 100% for sure thta I had crossed the line before the change. I indicated that I could not, since I had stopped looking at the light and was looking at the truck in my rear-view at that exact moment.
Charges were dropped. I suspect mostly because the judge figured if I was going to lie, I would have said, "Yeah, I watched that light all the way through!"
In the four states I've held licenses in, the law has been that if you can safely stop when the light turns yellow -- usually before the lane markers turn solid -- then you must stop. If you ever have to accelerate to make it through the light before you/think/ it will end, you are very likely breaking the law.
Look, I'm not saying this with an 'holier than thou' attitude -- I run the yellow lights as often as the next guy. But the answer to your question is "yes, really". If you see the light turn yellow, and you have room to stop safely, you should be stopping - not trying to calculate based on past experience how long you/really/ have before the light changes.
Interesting how you just ignored the aspects of the definitions that didn't suit;) "One who makes a sales pitch or serves as a promoter"; "to act as a spokesperson or promoter". Which, by the way, directly supports the encarta definition that you went on to say the quoted dictionaries don't support...
All modern desktop OSs support subpixel rendering; but I have to say, I've always been able to see the colors to some extent, making the fonts look like they're bleeding. After some initial experimenting with different settings, I just turn it off now (on any platform I'm using).
Every dictionary I have consulted so far has taken the opposite view. My advise to you: consult more dictionaries. The definition you use is also equally valid, but there are multiple accepted definitions...
dictionary.com: 2. a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty; 4. to advertise or promote (a product) as or in the manner of a huckster; hustle
m-w.com: 2v. to act as a spokesperson or promoter; 1n a: one who acts as a decoy (as for a pitchman or gambler) b: one who makes a sales pitch or serves as a promoter
wiktionary: 1n: A person paid to endorse a product favourably, while pretending to be impartial.
encarta:
2. self-interested promoter: somebody who promotes somebody else or makes a sales pitch for something for reasons of self-interest
And RIAA has also shown us how this method of targeting individuals does not have a great record of being accurate. I suppose that could fall into the category of "collateral damage" too...
Then Clippy pops up.
Hi! It looks like your finger is broken! Would you like help filling out your insurance claim?
|Yes| |No| I think you have it wrong. After a minute or two of such typing:
"Hi! It looks like this is becoming detrimental to your performance. Would you like me to order you some vasoline to help speed up the process next time?"
If I'm shopping for a laptop and Dell has a splash page at slashdot (for instance) making me click past the God damned thing to get to the site, I'm more inclined to buy a Gateway YOU HEAR ME, MIKE?). If Burger King has a blinkey flashey ad at the newspaper site I'm more inclined to go to McDonald's.
The problem is that for every person like you (and me, for that matter), there are dozens if not hundreds who don't feel that way. Sure, they may be annoyed by it - but they aren't offended by it.
Remember too that the purpose of advertising is often not to make you go out and buy something - it's to inundate you with product name and brand awareness so that when you are shopping for a computer, "Dell" is the first thing that pops into your mind. And as the advertisers know, they're frighteningly effective. Just look at how many people will buy the "brand name" goods at the local grocery store, in spite of equivalent goods for half the price sitting right next to them.
Rewarding obnoxious behavior is stupid and I refuse to do it. I also refuse to use those incentive cards at the grocery store. "Do you have a MAX card?" the cashier asks. "No" I reply, "I don't like being STALKED by a God damned corporation!" Here's a little trick for that. Tell them you forgot it, but can provide your phone number - then put in areacode-555-1212 (assuming you're in the US). For several major chains, it seems that somewhere along the line someone registered that fake number as their own; so now you can use it in most places.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do I care? Am I supposed to be impressed that submitter is "considering stopping [his] Virgin Mobile service in protest"? On my way to work today, I considered pushing a fisherman off the bridge so that I could giggle whilst watching him splash about in the water -- it's a far cry from doing it.
My comment was just an observation; and GP's was simply another. Neither of us has had to start insulting you or cursing... so who's getting "this bent"?
They'd have to control the .torrent hosts to know those IP addresses, so that's rather unlikely. Too, nobody mentioned lawsuits -- just banning people from playing the game.
Good in theory, but it will cost the large etailers less to deal with the taxes than it will in lost profits if they stopped selling.
For a lot of small retailers, the answer is simple. Stop selling to New York.
*looks at DOS1-6, Win31, Win95, Win98, Win98SE, and WinME*
It seems to me that most consumer-targeted apps were primarily created for the platforms I just listed. This allowed developers a very long period in which to form bad habits .Every driver has more than one occasion where they must make a critical decision now - not in a second or a half second, but NOW. Those who are incapable are usually going to be the ones getting in accidents when those occasions arise.
You may classify that as a reaction as opposed to a decision - but reactions such as that are based on your mind's understanding of things like relative positions, relative speed, road conditions, etc -- things that most people would not be able to actively calculate otherwise. To me, those are still decisions - just decisions made where your brain does not get in the way.
The asshole cop said there was no vehicle behind me (he lied); but the judge asked if I could say 100% for sure thta I had crossed the line before the change. I indicated that I could not, since I had stopped looking at the light and was looking at the truck in my rear-view at that exact moment.
Charges were dropped. I suspect mostly because the judge figured if I was going to lie, I would have said, "Yeah, I watched that light all the way through!"
In the four states I've held licenses in, the law has been that if you can safely stop when the light turns yellow -- usually before the lane markers turn solid -- then you must stop. If you ever have to accelerate to make it through the light before you /think/ it will end, you are very likely breaking the law.
Look, I'm not saying this with an 'holier than thou' attitude -- I run the yellow lights as often as the next guy. But the answer to your question is "yes, really". If you see the light turn yellow, and you have room to stop safely, you should be stopping - not trying to calculate based on past experience how long you /really/ have before the light changes.
Interesting how you just ignored the aspects of the definitions that didn't suit ;) "One who makes a sales pitch or serves as a promoter"; "to act as a spokesperson or promoter". Which, by the way, directly supports the encarta definition that you went on to say the quoted dictionaries don't support...
All modern desktop OSs support subpixel rendering; but I have to say, I've always been able to see the colors to some extent, making the fonts look like they're bleeding. After some initial experimenting with different settings, I just turn it off now (on any platform I'm using).
dictionary.com: 2. a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty; 4. to advertise or promote (a product) as or in the manner of a huckster; hustle
m-w.com: 2v. to act as a spokesperson or promoter; 1n a: one who acts as a decoy (as for a pitchman or gambler) b: one who makes a sales pitch or serves as a promoter
wiktionary: 1n: A person paid to endorse a product favourably, while pretending to be impartial.
encarta: 2. self-interested promoter: somebody who promotes somebody else or makes a sales pitch for something for reasons of self-interest
And RIAA has also shown us how this method of targeting individuals does not have a great record of being accurate. I suppose that could fall into the category of "collateral damage" too...
"Hi! It looks like this is becoming detrimental to your performance. Would you like me to order you some vasoline to help speed up the process next time?"
Holy crap. That's even worse than IE's desire to put an abbreviated link in the status bar.
The problem is that for every person like you (and me, for that matter), there are dozens if not hundreds who don't feel that way. Sure, they may be annoyed by it - but they aren't offended by it.
Remember too that the purpose of advertising is often not to make you go out and buy something - it's to inundate you with product name and brand awareness so that when you are shopping for a computer, "Dell" is the first thing that pops into your mind. And as the advertisers know, they're frighteningly effective. Just look at how many people will buy the "brand name" goods at the local grocery store, in spite of equivalent goods for half the price sitting right next to them.
Rewarding obnoxious behavior is stupid and I refuse to do it. I also refuse to use those incentive cards at the grocery store. "Do you have a MAX card?" the cashier asks. "No" I reply, "I don't like being STALKED by a God damned corporation!" Here's a little trick for that. Tell them you forgot it, but can provide your phone number - then put in areacode-555-1212 (assuming you're in the US). For several major chains, it seems that somewhere along the line someone registered that fake number as their own; so now you can use it in most places.Just curious, why click the link in the first place? A mouseover shows that it redirects (ultimately) to nimp...
*Make lame slashdot joke above*