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User: mcgrew

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Comments · 21,844

  1. Re:Holy Crap!!! on Art Makes Students Smart · · Score: 1

    I'm guessing you're either young and childless or, like me, got lucky. Both of my kids turned out fine, but I know guys with sons, where one son is hard working, literate, successful and another who is a lazy, uninterested, aliterate alcoholic drug abuser.

    I also know some people my kids' ages who had terrible parents but turned into good, productive members of society.

  2. Re:Smart and Unemployed on Art Makes Students Smart · · Score: 2

    How to be rich is in the public domain, the link is to free ebook versions. If you're going to buy a book, buy mine -- I'm still alive and can use the money a lot more than the dead Mr. Ghetty! If you're poor or "thrifty" you can read mine for free, too.

    Guys, before you post links to Amazon or B&N see if you can link the text itself. If the author's been dead for a hundred years, his work will be on the net. Surprisingly, some newer work is, as well. I've even found Asimov short stories online.

    For instance, he advocated cooperating with labor unions (when have you ever heard a billionaire do that?).

    Not since the 1980s when the head of a major, then non-union airline said "any company that gets a union deserves it," meaning that if you treat and pay your workers fairly, they won't form a union. Unions are for asshole bosses. If your workforce unionizes, you're probably a heartless sociopath.

  3. Re:England on EU Plastic Bag Debate Highlights a Wider Global Problem · · Score: 1

    I've always hated plastic bags, without worrying about environmental concerns. First, they're too damned small. With paper bags, a full grocery cart took four bags. Now it's fifteen or twenty little bags. Paper bags would stand up by themselves, plastic won't.

    Bigger plastic bags, if you can actually get them, are good for lining the bathroom trash can but nothing else.

    Bring back paper! It biodegrades quickly, suffres none of the disadvantages of plastic, doesn't harm wildlife... there is just too much plastic these days. How about we go back to cardboard boxes instead of the damned plastic packaging they have that you need a chainsaw and a jaws of life to get open, that won't biodegrade and takes up a lot more room in your trash can?

    Honestly, is plastic that much cheaper than paper? I can see no other advantage to plastic.

  4. Re:The Free Market on Science Museum Declines To Show Climate Change Film · · Score: 1

    Thanks for your concern but I have a BSc. (Hons) 1st Class in Computer Science.

    Sorry, but I simply don't believe you. You can't get through college not knowing the difference between whose and who's.

  5. Re:Close but not quite on US Working To Kill UN Privacy Resolutions · · Score: 1

    Taxes intended to fund things that are not included in the Constitution, and for purposes of social engineering like income redistribution, not so much.

    What (besides the NSA and Gitmo and the TSA) are unconstitutionally funded? Do you consider food stamps to be income distribution? I see food stamps as a gift to McDonalds and WalMart, whose employees should have government protection against those who are unfairly exploiting them.

    Minimum wage laws simply limit entry-level employment opportunities and disenfranchise new workers.

    That's been a Republican canard for a long time, but the numbers show it's bullshit.

    Same with the stupid meme that libertarians don't want to pay for police or firemen and want something resembling Somalia. Bullshit propaganda from authoritarians.

    I have seen libertarians saying exactly that, that we don't need cops or firemen. I could have been a victim of Poe's Law, though.

    Libertarians want the government to be restricted to what the Constitution allows it to do, and that's all. If you want a change, simply amend the Constitution.

    Rational, reasonable, and I agree. Why did they need an amendment to outlaw alcohol but not other drugs?

    Better ask the administration, because the ACA is forcing employers to drop full-time employees who were working up to 40 hours a week to now work less than 30 hours or face steep cost increases.

    They were on food stamps before the ACA. As to cutting hours, that's a flaw in the ACA that should be remedied (and they should pass the law the house passed saying you can keep insurance you have).

    Besides, "Walmart stock clerk" is not a career position that can support a family or even an individual alone at anything like a comfortable lifestyle, it's an entry-level position for new workers.

    An entry level position certainly shouldn't afford a "comfortable lifestyle" but it should afford you enough that you don't need the government to help feed you.

    An employer can only afford to pay an employee what the employee generates for the employer.

    There are a lot of jobs that will garner no revenue at all, like janitors and repair personnel. There are also other costs of overhead that generate negative revenue. If you can't afford to hire someone, you simply don't hire him. If you can't afford to be in business you shouldn't be in business.

  6. Re:Finally! on Have 100GB Free? Host Your Own Copy of Wikipedia, With Images · · Score: 1

    I've always suspected that it was one of Bausch&Lomb's competitors who removed my edits since thye new IOL was so superior (even if it was $1000 more expensive, being under patent). I can see where you would have been more successful with your attempt.

  7. Re:How much will it cost? on Affordable Blood Work In Four Hours Coming To Pharmacies · · Score: 1

    the US tends to spend more on health care than many European nations.

    No we don't. We spend more than anybody! Period. In the whole world.

    Stupid, aren't we?

  8. Re:Mail? on Only 25% of Yahoo Staff "Eat Their Own Dog Food" · · Score: 1

    I can't agree. I agree that Outlook is the worst mail client I've ever used, but Yahoo webmail sucks worse. I got it over a decade ago to have a stable email address. I read my mail on the phone because Yahoo's interface won't let me read a lot of mail without side scrolling with every line on the computer. FAR worse than anything MS's client does. But I will be glad when I don't have to use Outlook next February when I retire (but more glad I'll be through with Access).

    I should just install Thunderbird (but I should install kubuntu on the notebook, too).

  9. Re:Mind Readers? Thought Crime? on Driver Arrested In Ohio For Secret Car Compartment Full of Nothing · · Score: 1

    How do the LEOs know what someone's intention is?

    What does low Earth orbit have to do with it?

  10. Re:Microsoft Outlook is like capitalism on Only 25% of Yahoo Staff "Eat Their Own Dog Food" · · Score: 1

    The first five words were accurate. I've used a lot of different email clients and we're stuck with Outlook at work now. I fucking hate it. Of all the email clients I've used, IMO Outlook is the worst, PERIOD.

    I miss the Novell client.

    But it's still better than Yahoo webmail. Any dedicated email client is better than webmail.

  11. Re:just words on paper on US Working To Kill UN Privacy Resolutions · · Score: 1

    Moreover only conservatives worship the Constitution.

    Worship? How about simply respecting it? I wish the government would.

  12. Re:Well, isn't this nice on Why Scott Adams Wished Death On His Dad · · Score: 1

    You didn't answer the question. Embarrassed by your job? What do you do, janitor? Walmart greeter? Burger flipper? CEO of Sony? Cop? Migrant farm worker?

    At least a comic strip artist has to be creative, are you?

  13. Re:Close but not quite on US Working To Kill UN Privacy Resolutions · · Score: 1

    A state has a stupid regulation against self-service gas so all regulations are stupid? Logic fail.

    The pure libertarian philosophy is simply that citizens should have unlimited autonomy so long as it doesn't infringe upon the autonomy of others

    That is true and a philosophy that I subscribe to. However, the libertarians think that somehow paying taxes is against liberty, making regulations against fouling my air and water is against liberty, laws mandating that you don't pay starvation wages are against liberty, that regulations against unsafe workplaces is against liberty. Libertarians want the liberty to fuck me over.

    Near slavery via economic means doesn't pass that litmus test

    Hyperbole much? The government's not doing that, libertarian business owners are. You think those people working at WalMart should have to have a food drive to be fed? They're walMart's wage slaves. I, personally, will be delivered from slavery next February when I retire.

  14. Re:Finally! on Have 100GB Free? Host Your Own Copy of Wikipedia, With Images · · Score: 1

    I hear this from a lot of slashdotters. No one bothers to give examples.

    Here's one for you. In 2006 I needed eye surgery, an artificial lens for my left eye. My surgeon suggested a new design that had been out since 2003. Before the new design there were two types: monofocal and multifocal. Multifocal was like having bifocals in your eyeballs, with monofocals you needed reading glasses.

    The new design is called an accomodating lens and sits on struts inside the lens capsule, so it will focus using the eye's natural focusing muscles.

    It had been out for three years but no mention in wikipedia at all. So I edited (and if I don't write well I'm fooling a lot of people, some who have paid me for my book).

    The next day it was gone. I added it back. Gone again. I gave up.

    Two years later I mentioned it at slashdot when someone on Wikipedia's staff (not shilling, he was upfront about who he was) said something similar to what you just said so I told him what I just told you.

    The next day the article had CrystaLens added.

    Go on, try to edit something. It can't be done.

  15. Re:bad stats on 23% of IT Workers Spend Thanksgiving With Coworkers · · Score: 1

    What religions don't let practitioners celebrate Thanksgiving? It isn't a holy day like Hannukah or Easter. What do the JWs have against it?

    And I was in Bhuddist Thailand for a year, I saw no indication that they would be against a holiday like Thanksgiving. After all, they have the "water festival" which gets really wild and crazy. It's a spring holiday marking the beginning of the rainy season and consists of throwing water at each other. Sometimes barrels full. Sometimes there are pretty bad injuries (like Thanksgiving, alcohol plays a part in much of the celebration).

  16. Re:Science isn't critical thinking... on Getting Evolution In Science Textbooks For Texas Schools · · Score: 1

    The truth of the matter is that evolution is one of the most verified theories we've ever conceived and the only reason it's still disputed to this day is because it contradicts a book of parables written thousands of years ago.

    That's the hilarious part, it DOESN'T contradict that book. Even the Pope accepts evolution, why can't the yahoos in Texas and Kansas?

  17. Re:Close but not quite on US Working To Kill UN Privacy Resolutions · · Score: 1

    More government = less freedom.

    Less freedom to steal, less freedom to pollute, less freedom to screw over your customers and business partners, less freedom to endanger others... you're right, more government = less freedom. That's a GOOD thing.

    Government is there to protect me from you. I can affect government; I have a vote and a voice. I have no club whatever to bash over the head of AT&T, the MAFIAA, Monsanto, Wal Mart, Shell, BP, Microsoft, Sony... Except government.

  18. Re:I don't get it. on LoJack To Release Tracking Devices For Consumers, Insurance, and Auto Makers · · Score: 1

    Someone mod him informative, please (and mod me offtopic).

  19. Re:Should be legal, with caveat on Why Scott Adams Wished Death On His Dad · · Score: 1

    Linda died of cancer, the end stage was a two week coma and she'd been on painkillers for months.

    Well, they said she was in a coma, but I saw responses to stimuli. I cartainly don't want to go out like that, give me a lethal dose of something. Linda's death was horrible and barbaric.

  20. Re:The Free Market on Science Museum Declines To Show Climate Change Film · · Score: 1

    you'll see that the truth is the absolute opposite of what your tiny little brain perceives... activist scientists and NGOs who's budgets

    Who is budgets? I notice that you deniers are the ones with tiny little brains and less education. The word you're looking for is whose.

    Read a few books and educate yourself, because it looks from here that you've never read one you weren't forced to or you'd know the difference between who's and whose.

    A GED might not be a bad idea, either.

  21. Re:Science isn't critical thinking... on Getting Evolution In Science Textbooks For Texas Schools · · Score: 1

    There are a set of assumptions that you must start with.

    Wrong. Science doesn't start with assumptions at all, you cannot simply assume anything in science. It has to be testable.

    There is nothing scientific about ID or creationism and it doesn't belong in science class (and I say that as a Christian). It belongs in philosophy class, not science.

  22. Re:I don't get it. on LoJack To Release Tracking Devices For Consumers, Insurance, and Auto Makers · · Score: 1

    Then again, I don't have kids.

    That's obvious from the first part of your comment.

    Mine are grown.

  23. Re:Sad on 23% of IT Workers Spend Thanksgiving With Coworkers · · Score: 2

    While you could say they should still get the day off too, some days like thanksgiving leave one precious little to do.

    I pity people like that. There's always something to do. Some people live to work, those are the folks you're talking about and they're pathetic. Me, I work to live, and next February I retire.

    More books to write, electronics to tinker with, probably buy a new soldering iron and multimeter, slashdot,... hell, I may even sweep my floor and wash the dishes for a change.

  24. Re:Creationism = religion, not science. At all. on Getting Evolution In Science Textbooks For Texas Schools · · Score: 1

    Holy shit, as I live and breathe; correct usage of a fucking adverb (never thought I'd see that again...).

    Nah, adverbs are used correctly all the time... just look in any book.

  25. Re:Wagging the dog. on Only 25% of Yahoo Staff "Eat Their Own Dog Food" · · Score: 1

    I use them too, and I couldn't agree with you more. Their web interface is so bad I don't check my mail with it, I use my phone. Half the emails I get I can't read in their web interface without a god damned horizontal scroll with every line.

    I should set up Thunderbird or something on the notebook.