Everything you say is correct, and the part about killing both the good and bad bacteria is something most people miss. After an antibiotic treatment you're wise to eat yogurt or cottage cheese to replace the good (and necessary for your health) bacteria. Of course, the same applies if you get the runs; that's the body's way of evacuating harmful bacteria that have grown too big a colony, but it also evacuates the good bacteria as well. As does fever or the body's other natural immune respones that kill bacteria and viruses.
IMO there isn't an OS on the planet that's "user friendly enough". But I've owned computers since 1982, the first two were tape driven, BASICcentric, then DOS, then Windows, then when I got sick of Microsoft, Linux.
Windows has a lot of catching up to do in most respects. Having to reboot every Patch Tuesday isn't user-friendly at all, and it's even less user friendly because you have a boot every time a third party piece of software updates. In Linux, a boot is only required if you update the kernel.
Having all of the programs and documents that were open when you do boot Linux (say, you just want to save electricity and shut it down at night) reopen when you boot is user friendly; having to manually reopen every one as required by Windows is not. Having a choice to whether or not this is your machine's default, as linux, is far more user friendly than having no choice at all.
An example of Windows finallly catching up with Linux is now, you can set your machine up to not require a password on boot. Linux has had this for over ten years!
My newest machine, an Acer Notebook, has a "feature" where if you tap the pad that substitutes for a mouse, it sees that as a click. It took me a month to figure out how to disable that in Windows; it's nowhere in Control Panel where you would expect it to be (and Control Panel itself in Win 7 is less user-friendly than XP; it's a jumbled mess). It took less than five minutes in Linux.
As to installation, installing Windows is a huge pain in the ass that takes forever (see another's comment on this). And that's another user-hostile move on Microsoft's part -- due to the fact that the Windows Registry grows every time you use the PC, in a year it gets dragged down so it's too slow to use and you have to reinstall Windows and every single application. Not needed in Linux, no stupid registry to drag your system down.
When (if, most people don't) you update Windows (or any MS program) to a later version, you have to relearn the app all over again. They have a bad habit of playing Musical Menus, every release changes everything. That's not the least user-friendly. Not so with Linux. I just updated kubuntu from 9 to 11 last weekend, and the only differences are marked improvements. Snappier, faster (every new release of Windows is slower, and usually your old machine won;t even run a newer version) more features, but they didn't remove the old ones.
Of course, I don't need my computer to be friendly, I want it to be obedient. Windows isn't. You have to do it the Windows way or not at all. That isn't the least bit friendly. Windows is in charge of the user, the user is in charge of Linux.
The "Windows is user friendly and Linux isn't" is so mythical it's a flat out lie, but one of those lies that's believed because it's been repeated often enough. Fifteen years ago it was true that Linux wasn't user friendly, but that's not been true for a long, long time. Friendly? Windows is user-hostile!
I'm not American, but those occupy protests aren't middle anything. They're just protesters and hipsters, each with their own agendas, who sit and masturbate about how they'd change the world.
The trouble is you're seeing it through the media's distorted lens. Occupy has engaged almost every American city, including mine. They're at the Old State Capitol building downtown. Yes, they're protesters, by definition; they are in fact protesting the excesses of Wall Street and the banking industry. Protesting the legalized corruption that allows corporations to control governments at almost all levels.
They're not a bunch of "hipsters each with their own agendas", they look to me like a bunch of middle class, mostly middle aged people fed up with the way things are run.
You know why people are afraid to fly? Because every time an airplane crashes it's a huge news event. Ironically, they're newsworthy because airplane crashes are so rare. Likewise, the media has concentrated on the very few dimwits causing trouble. And face it, any time you have literally thousands of people in any activity, you're going to have some assholes. And unfortunately the assholes get airtime. It's news because it's rare.
From the recent news about the Penn State pedophile scandal, you'd think every sportts coach in the US is a pedophile.
My dad taught me a bit of wisdom at a young age: "Don't believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see." That goes triple for corporate media news organizations.
What's bullshit isn't that Russia was like that, because from everything I've read it was. What's bullshit is that anyone is suggesting that. To eqate the Democrats with Soviet Communism is incredibly... I don't know how to say it without being insulting... brain-dead stupid.
The local TV news is on, and they just said that it was Curran, a tiny town five or ten miles from Springfield. They're concerned that the system might have been hacked because the company that designed the system discovered evidence of a breach of sensitive data... passwords, maybe? They did say it was gigabytes of data.
An update: I just discovered that it's my own city, Illinois' capital, Cartoon City. From the State Journal-Register:
CWLP denies reports it was victim of cyber attack
By DEANA STROISCH (deana.stroisch@sj-r.com) The State Journal-Register Posted Nov 18, 2011 @ 11:05 AM Last update Nov 18, 2011 @ 11:31 AM
City Water, Light and Power officials are denying reports that the utility was a victim of a cyber attack that may have been responsible for the failure of a water pump.
âoeCWLP has not had any breach of its Water or Electric Department Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems,â the utility said in a statement issued this morning.
SCADA is the computer control network that operates various systems at the utility.
In a story that has since been picked up by CNN, Joe Weiss, a cyber security expert, says he obtained a state government report dated Nov. 10, which allegedly gave details of a computer hacking that led to the âoeburn out of a water pump.â
The Department of Homeland Security identified the water system as being located in Springfield, Ill.
"DHS and the FBI are gathering facts surrounding the report of a water pump failure in Springfield Illinois, said Peter Boogaard, DHS spokesman. âoeAt this time there is no credible corroborated data that indicates a risk to critical infrastructure entities or a threat to public safety.
âoeIf DHS ICS-CERT identifies any information about possible impacts to additional entities, it will disseminate timely mitigation information as it becomes available."
Amber Sabin, CWLPâ(TM)s public information officer, said there have not been any water pump failures of any kind in the last month.
Was true with Linux despite it not being too user friendly
It's been a long time since you tried Linux, hasn't it? Today's distros are far easier to use than today's Windows. Linux has surpassed Windows in most ways, including useability.
He wasn't an Arab, he was a Jew -- and I'm pretty sure Arabs and Jews don't get along too well. And his message was far more than simply "don't be a prick".
And the story goes that the Romans didn't want to execute him, but did it anyway because they were afraid of the Jews revolting. Go rent "Passion of the Christ", it's pretty accurate (and a damned good, well made movie). Bloody as hell, R rated, makes people cry.
After surviving a head on car wreck diong 50 and hitting a 3/4 ton pickup truck doing 70 head on, without a seat belt, and walking away from the twisted metal that you couldn't tell what kind of car it had been (and as a result experiencing what an athiest would call a hallucination), I have no problem at all believing it. And my experience was far weirder than I've penned here. It was truly a "Daniel in the lion's den" type of miracle.
Once you've seen an elephant, you'll never disbelieve the existance of elephants again.
I know everyone likes to get stuff for free, but pirates don't have a sustainable economic model for the creation of digital media - except for the cheapest kinds, like TV shows (paid for by commercials) and YouTube videos. I hate to see what the world will become if piracy were the norm.
Personaly, I don't think digits should be considered "affixed in a tangible form" unless theyre sold in some medium. Im completely against the digital delivery of everything, because you no longer have resale rights. "Digital media" should be advertising for real, tangible CDs, books, and movies. I think counterfeit books and CDs should be illegal (I'm not against copyright itself), but giving away home made copies should not be. The "it's digital so the copy is perfect" is a fallacy; a cassette you recorded from an LP sounded every bit as good as an MP3 and was perfectly legal (Audio Home Recording Act of 1978 iinm).
Also, the present extremely long copyright periods harm creators and are a disincentive to creation of new works. Why should the record company hire talented people when they can still make a lot more money selling forty year old music?
If you want to sell me an e-book, sell it on a thumb drive or CD so I can resell the damned thing. Add value to the physical object. Don't criminalize an activity that millions upon millions of people are engaged in.
The stated harm of piracy has never been demonstrated.
Stoping piracy is not censorship
True, but SOPA is far more than simply "stopping piracy". It would indeed lead to censorship.
Murder will get you about 20 years.
In 1981 I had a friend who drove a cab for a living. He was shot in theheart by a robber who didn't believe him when he said he didn't have any money (he'd just started his shift). The shooter went to prison for TWO YEARS. On the other hand, another friend's brother spent five years in a Federal pen for loaning money to a drug dealer; "conspiracy to deliver drugs". Our laws and jail terms are indeed screwed; some non-violent crimes will get you incarcerated loger than if you kill someone.
I also have a hard time believing that Thailands super-hardline laws against drugs are a result of US pressure.
Not me; I was there, in the USAF in 1974. The only drugs that were illegal were heroin, marijuana, cocaine and LSD. AFAICT there was no LSD or cocaine, but heroin and killer bud were everywhere. I only ever heard of one person being imprisoned for drugs, and that was a guy in my outfit. From what I heard, you could bribe your way out of prison, but every bribe his wife sent was topped by a bigger US government bribe.
I did see the Thai police shoot a man in the head; I was in his bhat bus, flashing blue lights came up, he slammed on the brakes and ran, and they put an M-16 round in his skull (there was a war on, he was likely a communist).
I also saw a wall of marijuana bricks thirty feet long, three feet thick, and eight feet tall, right out in the open in a residential neighborhood. Of course there was a guy with a.45 guarding it. But if the Thai government was so anti-drug, that wall would have been safely hidden.
Oh, and any other kind of drug you wanted, from pennicillin to qualludes to amphetamines, were for sale at pharmacies, no prescription needed.
I agree completely, and have come up with similar.
You can only contribute to candidates you're eligible to vote for (making your #3 and #4 unnecessary, and removing a felon's right to contribute in most states)
It would be a felony to contribute to more than one candidate in any given race, preventing the rich from giving ten grand to each candidate's campaign coffers, that's just bribery.
PACs should be illegal
I wouldnt allow any entity that couoldn't vote to campaign in any way. When did money become speech?
I grew up in the '50s. We couldn't afford hills. But we did play hardball, and walk a mile to school in waist deep snow. And I agree with you, these young people are pussies.
do you think a guy nailed to a cross would cry for Americans who pollute the world and consume its resources and are to stupid to vote for Bush or anyone not Bush?
Yes, if you understand why he let himself be nailed to that cross. You're criticising something you don't understand.
I'd hate to see what the world will be like when these kids are in charge.
Maybe it's because of how old I'm getting, but it looks to me like the kids ARE in charge. The people in charge sure seem a lot more childish than I was when I was ten. Not to mention more greedy, selfish, thoughtless, authoritarian, and cowardly.
Trust me, you will want the government funding physical education unless you want to choke on the health costs later
Considering how damned fat the younger generations are, I think you're going to have to come up with a little proof there, fellow, because I don't see how PE has done anything for anybody. The jocks on the football team? Obese before age 35. Damned lot of good PE did them. They would have been far better off learning that you don't use an apostrophe with plural's,* and their "they're" is there. The internet shows me that they're playing FAR too many sports and doing FAR too little reading (or any other kind of learning).
When I was a kid, we actually went outside and played -- getting exercise -- without any damned adults at all. Play and exercise come natural to children. Baseball, football (in the street, no less), riding our bikes... we got plenty of exercise. But back then we didn't have every goddamned newspaper and TV and radio station warning us that there was a pedohile behind every bush just waiting to rape and kill all the children. We were actually allowed outside, unsupervised!
Odd, the world has become far less risky now than then. We had no ABS, air bags, seat belts, bicycle helmets, child seats, hazard warnings on everything imaginable... and we didn't cower in fear every damned day like the kids do now.
Huh? No reward without risk? That sounds like a gambler's creed. I go to work every day, do what the boss asks (no risk there!), and I'm rewarded with a paycheck. No risk taken at all.
I pick up my guitar and play it alone for my enjoyment, instant reward, no risk whatever.
I read a book checked out from the library. Learning? Learning is rewarding, and completely risk free.
Where do you guys come up with such obviously false memes?
Do I think all risks should be prevented? No, that's not only stupid, it's impossible. Should we prevent as many risks as we can without harming the risky activity? Of course, that's just logical. Only an idiot would get on a professional football field without a helmet. Only an idiot races his car without safety belts.
Unless, of course, you're talking about the risks to society by gambling on the stock market or commodity futures, hell yea get rid of those risks. You want to risk your own money, fine, leave mine alone.
Seems to me that when a generation of children is raised with an overly strong sense of entitlement and no manners (which causes a basic lack of empathy and respect for others), you end up with "Tea Party" demonstrations. FUCK YOU I REFUSE TO PAY TAXES OR BENEFIT SOCIETY IN ANY WAY. I, ME, ME, MINE. GET TO WORK YOU FILTHY HIPPIES SO I CAN HAVE EVEN MORE STUFF.
Hell, everybody's responding to the FP joke, so I guess I'll stick my old ball story here, too.
Most of you guys know I'm a geezer, who went to school when spanking was allowed and you got swats for punishment in school. There was a game called "murder ball". One team would line up on one end of the gym and the other team at the other. A deflated soccor ball was the weapon, which was thrown at the other team. If you it them, they're out of the game. If they catch the ball, you're out of the game.
One day a kid was standing as close to the wall as he could, probably thinking the farther away he was from whoever was throwing the ball, the less it would hurt. Well, he got hit on the forehead, hard, making his head hit the wall -- hard. He was out cold for a full ten minutes.
The school stopped murder ball after that.
The next year they had the exact same game, only with a different name, and with the ball fully inflated.
I'm amazed at how many slashdotters get all their news from Limbaugh and Fox. Your ignorance is appalling (apologies if you're just injecting a sarcastic parody).
OWS is a bunch of radical leftists who have nothing but fear and loathing of Middle America.
OWS is middle America.
Is it any surprise Middle America doesn't support them?
Where do all these falsehoods come from? Heve you not seen the poll results? Oh, since you only get your news from Fox, you wouldn't have. The fact is, a majority of people are cheering OWS and damning the T-Party at the same time.
Wasted vote? I'll tell you what's a wasted vote -- a pot smoker voting for a Republican or a Democrat when both of them want him in jail.
If a vote for a loser is a wasted vote, then all the people who voted for McCain last election all wasted their votes!
Personally, rather than wasting my vote on a man who wants me incarcerated, I'll "waste" it on a candidate who doesn't want me going to prison, even if he will lose. It isn't a horse race.
So none of those in congress grew up with computers or really understand those who did.
You don't have to grow up with a thing to understand it. I didn't grow up with computers, computers grew up with me. Yes, since I'm a nerd I had a computer in 1982 when I could finally afford a cheap one, but computers and the internet have been pretty much a part of most people's lives for over a decade now. Most of today's geezers are every bit as comfortable with computers as you kids are.
It's just that politicians are in it for the campaign contribution bribery. They're not ignorant, they're dishonest.
Slashdot Mirror
Tetracycline is illegal in the US without a prescription.
Everything you say is correct, and the part about killing both the good and bad bacteria is something most people miss. After an antibiotic treatment you're wise to eat yogurt or cottage cheese to replace the good (and necessary for your health) bacteria. Of course, the same applies if you get the runs; that's the body's way of evacuating harmful bacteria that have grown too big a colony, but it also evacuates the good bacteria as well. As does fever or the body's other natural immune respones that kill bacteria and viruses.
IMO there isn't an OS on the planet that's "user friendly enough". But I've owned computers since 1982, the first two were tape driven, BASICcentric, then DOS, then Windows, then when I got sick of Microsoft, Linux.
Windows has a lot of catching up to do in most respects. Having to reboot every Patch Tuesday isn't user-friendly at all, and it's even less user friendly because you have a boot every time a third party piece of software updates. In Linux, a boot is only required if you update the kernel.
Having all of the programs and documents that were open when you do boot Linux (say, you just want to save electricity and shut it down at night) reopen when you boot is user friendly; having to manually reopen every one as required by Windows is not. Having a choice to whether or not this is your machine's default, as linux, is far more user friendly than having no choice at all.
An example of Windows finallly catching up with Linux is now, you can set your machine up to not require a password on boot. Linux has had this for over ten years!
My newest machine, an Acer Notebook, has a "feature" where if you tap the pad that substitutes for a mouse, it sees that as a click. It took me a month to figure out how to disable that in Windows; it's nowhere in Control Panel where you would expect it to be (and Control Panel itself in Win 7 is less user-friendly than XP; it's a jumbled mess). It took less than five minutes in Linux.
As to installation, installing Windows is a huge pain in the ass that takes forever (see another's comment on this). And that's another user-hostile move on Microsoft's part -- due to the fact that the Windows Registry grows every time you use the PC, in a year it gets dragged down so it's too slow to use and you have to reinstall Windows and every single application. Not needed in Linux, no stupid registry to drag your system down.
When (if, most people don't) you update Windows (or any MS program) to a later version, you have to relearn the app all over again. They have a bad habit of playing Musical Menus, every release changes everything. That's not the least user-friendly. Not so with Linux. I just updated kubuntu from 9 to 11 last weekend, and the only differences are marked improvements. Snappier, faster (every new release of Windows is slower, and usually your old machine won;t even run a newer version) more features, but they didn't remove the old ones.
Of course, I don't need my computer to be friendly, I want it to be obedient. Windows isn't. You have to do it the Windows way or not at all. That isn't the least bit friendly. Windows is in charge of the user, the user is in charge of Linux.
The "Windows is user friendly and Linux isn't" is so mythical it's a flat out lie, but one of those lies that's believed because it's been repeated often enough. Fifteen years ago it was true that Linux wasn't user friendly, but that's not been true for a long, long time. Friendly? Windows is user-hostile!
I'm not American, but those occupy protests aren't middle anything. They're just protesters and hipsters, each with their own agendas, who sit and masturbate about how they'd change the world.
The trouble is you're seeing it through the media's distorted lens. Occupy has engaged almost every American city, including mine. They're at the Old State Capitol building downtown. Yes, they're protesters, by definition; they are in fact protesting the excesses of Wall Street and the banking industry. Protesting the legalized corruption that allows corporations to control governments at almost all levels.
They're not a bunch of "hipsters each with their own agendas", they look to me like a bunch of middle class, mostly middle aged people fed up with the way things are run.
You know why people are afraid to fly? Because every time an airplane crashes it's a huge news event. Ironically, they're newsworthy because airplane crashes are so rare. Likewise, the media has concentrated on the very few dimwits causing trouble. And face it, any time you have literally thousands of people in any activity, you're going to have some assholes. And unfortunately the assholes get airtime. It's news because it's rare.
From the recent news about the Penn State pedophile scandal, you'd think every sportts coach in the US is a pedophile.
My dad taught me a bit of wisdom at a young age: "Don't believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see." That goes triple for corporate media news organizations.
What's bullshit isn't that Russia was like that, because from everything I've read it was. What's bullshit is that anyone is suggesting that. To eqate the Democrats with Soviet Communism is incredibly... I don't know how to say it without being insulting... brain-dead stupid.
The local TV news is on, and they just said that it was Curran, a tiny town five or ten miles from Springfield. They're concerned that the system might have been hacked because the company that designed the system discovered evidence of a breach of sensitive data... passwords, maybe? They did say it was gigabytes of data.
An update: I just discovered that it's my own city, Illinois' capital, Cartoon City. From the State Journal-Register:
Was true with Linux despite it not being too user friendly
It's been a long time since you tried Linux, hasn't it? Today's distros are far easier to use than today's Windows. Linux has surpassed Windows in most ways, including useability.
He wasn't an Arab, he was a Jew -- and I'm pretty sure Arabs and Jews don't get along too well. And his message was far more than simply "don't be a prick".
And the story goes that the Romans didn't want to execute him, but did it anyway because they were afraid of the Jews revolting. Go rent "Passion of the Christ", it's pretty accurate (and a damned good, well made movie). Bloody as hell, R rated, makes people cry.
After surviving a head on car wreck diong 50 and hitting a 3/4 ton pickup truck doing 70 head on, without a seat belt, and walking away from the twisted metal that you couldn't tell what kind of car it had been (and as a result experiencing what an athiest would call a hallucination), I have no problem at all believing it. And my experience was far weirder than I've penned here. It was truly a "Daniel in the lion's den" type of miracle.
Once you've seen an elephant, you'll never disbelieve the existance of elephants again.
I know everyone likes to get stuff for free, but pirates don't have a sustainable economic model for the creation of digital media - except for the cheapest kinds, like TV shows (paid for by commercials) and YouTube videos. I hate to see what the world will become if piracy were the norm.
Personaly, I don't think digits should be considered "affixed in a tangible form" unless theyre sold in some medium. Im completely against the digital delivery of everything, because you no longer have resale rights. "Digital media" should be advertising for real, tangible CDs, books, and movies. I think counterfeit books and CDs should be illegal (I'm not against copyright itself), but giving away home made copies should not be. The "it's digital so the copy is perfect" is a fallacy; a cassette you recorded from an LP sounded every bit as good as an MP3 and was perfectly legal (Audio Home Recording Act of 1978 iinm).
Also, the present extremely long copyright periods harm creators and are a disincentive to creation of new works. Why should the record company hire talented people when they can still make a lot more money selling forty year old music?
If you want to sell me an e-book, sell it on a thumb drive or CD so I can resell the damned thing. Add value to the physical object. Don't criminalize an activity that millions upon millions of people are engaged in.
The stated harm of piracy has never been demonstrated.
Stoping piracy is not censorship
True, but SOPA is far more than simply "stopping piracy". It would indeed lead to censorship.
Murder will get you about 20 years.
In 1981 I had a friend who drove a cab for a living. He was shot in theheart by a robber who didn't believe him when he said he didn't have any money (he'd just started his shift). The shooter went to prison for TWO YEARS. On the other hand, another friend's brother spent five years in a Federal pen for loaning money to a drug dealer; "conspiracy to deliver drugs". Our laws and jail terms are indeed screwed; some non-violent crimes will get you incarcerated loger than if you kill someone.
I also have a hard time believing that Thailands super-hardline laws against drugs are a result of US pressure.
Not me; I was there, in the USAF in 1974. The only drugs that were illegal were heroin, marijuana, cocaine and LSD. AFAICT there was no LSD or cocaine, but heroin and killer bud were everywhere. I only ever heard of one person being imprisoned for drugs, and that was a guy in my outfit. From what I heard, you could bribe your way out of prison, but every bribe his wife sent was topped by a bigger US government bribe.
I did see the Thai police shoot a man in the head; I was in his bhat bus, flashing blue lights came up, he slammed on the brakes and ran, and they put an M-16 round in his skull (there was a war on, he was likely a communist).
I also saw a wall of marijuana bricks thirty feet long, three feet thick, and eight feet tall, right out in the open in a residential neighborhood. Of course there was a guy with a .45 guarding it. But if the Thai government was so anti-drug, that wall would have been safely hidden.
Oh, and any other kind of drug you wanted, from pennicillin to qualludes to amphetamines, were for sale at pharmacies, no prescription needed.
I completely agree with the rest of your points.
Hey, our two party system is twice as good as the Soviets' one party system! Look how well that served them.
Source: Black Sabbath, War Pigs
Better: Pink Floyd
Forward! He cried from thr rear, and the front rank died. The general sat, and the lines on the map moved from side to side.
"Out of the way! It's a busy day, I've got things on my mind." For want of the price of tea and a slice the old man died.
"Havent you heard, it's a battle of words!" the poster berer cried. "Listen, son," said the man with the gun, "there's room for you inside."
I think an even larger question is, if you're uninterested in the subject, why did you click the link? Plenty of other stories posted.
I agree completely, and have come up with similar.
I wouldnt allow any entity that couoldn't vote to campaign in any way. When did money become speech?
Even better would be publicly funded elections.
I grew up in the '50s. We couldn't afford hills. But we did play hardball, and walk a mile to school in waist deep snow. And I agree with you, these young people are pussies.
do you think a guy nailed to a cross would cry for Americans who pollute the world and consume its resources and are to stupid to vote for Bush or anyone not Bush?
Yes, if you understand why he let himself be nailed to that cross. You're criticising something you don't understand.
I'd hate to see what the world will be like when these kids are in charge.
Maybe it's because of how old I'm getting, but it looks to me like the kids ARE in charge. The people in charge sure seem a lot more childish than I was when I was ten. Not to mention more greedy, selfish, thoughtless, authoritarian, and cowardly.
Trust me, you will want the government funding physical education unless you want to choke on the health costs later
Considering how damned fat the younger generations are, I think you're going to have to come up with a little proof there, fellow, because I don't see how PE has done anything for anybody. The jocks on the football team? Obese before age 35. Damned lot of good PE did them. They would have been far better off learning that you don't use an apostrophe with plural's,* and their "they're" is there. The internet shows me that they're playing FAR too many sports and doing FAR too little reading (or any other kind of learning).
When I was a kid, we actually went outside and played -- getting exercise -- without any damned adults at all. Play and exercise come natural to children. Baseball, football (in the street, no less), riding our bikes... we got plenty of exercise. But back then we didn't have every goddamned newspaper and TV and radio station warning us that there was a pedohile behind every bush just waiting to rape and kill all the children. We were actually allowed outside, unsupervised!
Odd, the world has become far less risky now than then. We had no ABS, air bags, seat belts, bicycle helmets, child seats, hazard warnings on everything imaginable... and we didn't cower in fear every damned day like the kids do now.
Balls? Grow a pair and let your kids outside!
* caught that, did you?
Huh? No reward without risk? That sounds like a gambler's creed. I go to work every day, do what the boss asks (no risk there!), and I'm rewarded with a paycheck. No risk taken at all.
I pick up my guitar and play it alone for my enjoyment, instant reward, no risk whatever.
I read a book checked out from the library. Learning? Learning is rewarding, and completely risk free.
Where do you guys come up with such obviously false memes?
Do I think all risks should be prevented? No, that's not only stupid, it's impossible. Should we prevent as many risks as we can without harming the risky activity? Of course, that's just logical. Only an idiot would get on a professional football field without a helmet. Only an idiot races his car without safety belts.
Unless, of course, you're talking about the risks to society by gambling on the stock market or commodity futures, hell yea get rid of those risks. You want to risk your own money, fine, leave mine alone.
Seems to me that when a generation of children is raised with an overly strong sense of entitlement and no manners (which causes a basic lack of empathy and respect for others), you end up with "Tea Party" demonstrations. FUCK YOU I REFUSE TO PAY TAXES OR BENEFIT SOCIETY IN ANY WAY. I, ME, ME, MINE. GET TO WORK YOU FILTHY HIPPIES SO I CAN HAVE EVEN MORE STUFF.
Hell, everybody's responding to the FP joke, so I guess I'll stick my old ball story here, too.
Most of you guys know I'm a geezer, who went to school when spanking was allowed and you got swats for punishment in school. There was a game called "murder ball". One team would line up on one end of the gym and the other team at the other. A deflated soccor ball was the weapon, which was thrown at the other team. If you it them, they're out of the game. If they catch the ball, you're out of the game.
One day a kid was standing as close to the wall as he could, probably thinking the farther away he was from whoever was throwing the ball, the less it would hurt. Well, he got hit on the forehead, hard, making his head hit the wall -- hard. He was out cold for a full ten minutes.
The school stopped murder ball after that.
The next year they had the exact same game, only with a different name, and with the ball fully inflated.
I like my razor better -- Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by greedy self-interest.
I'm amazed at how many slashdotters get all their news from Limbaugh and Fox. Your ignorance is appalling (apologies if you're just injecting a sarcastic parody).
OWS is a bunch of radical leftists who have nothing but fear and loathing of Middle America.
OWS is middle America.
Is it any surprise Middle America doesn't support them?
Where do all these falsehoods come from? Heve you not seen the poll results? Oh, since you only get your news from Fox, you wouldn't have. The fact is, a majority of people are cheering OWS and damning the T-Party at the same time.
Wasted vote? I'll tell you what's a wasted vote -- a pot smoker voting for a Republican or a Democrat when both of them want him in jail.
If a vote for a loser is a wasted vote, then all the people who voted for McCain last election all wasted their votes!
Personally, rather than wasting my vote on a man who wants me incarcerated, I'll "waste" it on a candidate who doesn't want me going to prison, even if he will lose. It isn't a horse race.
So none of those in congress grew up with computers or really understand those who did.
You don't have to grow up with a thing to understand it. I didn't grow up with computers, computers grew up with me. Yes, since I'm a nerd I had a computer in 1982 when I could finally afford a cheap one, but computers and the internet have been pretty much a part of most people's lives for over a decade now. Most of today's geezers are every bit as comfortable with computers as you kids are.
It's just that politicians are in it for the campaign contribution bribery. They're not ignorant, they're dishonest.