To play devil's advocate, the technique the GP proposed is used along the border between North Korea and South Korea and has been found to be quite effective (and expensive). There are many countries in the world that would not hesitate to blow you away if you were caught illegally crossing the border... murder or not. They would call it an act of national defense.
The GP also makes a good point: Do we want illegal immigration from Mexico or not? If we really don't want it, let's move forward with a hard-line solution. If we do want it, let's stop the lip service that we don't and let's stop wasting money on expensive "solutions."
...delete your account! Well, at least do your best to delete as much of it as you can. As soon as I learnt years ago that you could never delete your Facebook account I knew never to sign up to that rubbish. And Facebook have vindicated my decision every step of the way ever since.
Actually, the best solution is to probably replace all your personal information in your account with fake information. Maybe then, at least, Facebook will think you moved. Maybe you will get even luckier and they will lose your old data in a backup failure. If you just delete your account, I am sure they know you are on to them and try to sell your info to the highest bidder!
The message? Graphic violence is OK and normal and natural. Sex is obscene, uncommon, not a part of normal adult life, and must not be shown for any reason.
Anybody else think maybe we have this backwards?
It's not backwards. We are just all becoming radical Muslims.
Driving is scary. It's a leading cause of death in the US.
Driving is a lot scarier than it needs to be because of morons like you who don't know how to operate their vehicle properly. The fact that you don't know how to turn your highbeams on probably means that you have actually been driving around with your highbeams on for several years... probably in the left lane just under the speed limit.
I hope for your sake that you are just trolling.
If you don't know how to operate your headlights properly, you should not have a license. Your logic is asinine... even if you grew up in a city, people in all cities will flicker their high beams to warn oncoming traffic to watch out for an accident up ahead... or a speedtrap.
Also, high beams will actually give you plenty of time to stop at 65 mph if you see a tree in the middle of the road, where as regular headlights will just give you enough time to say "Oh shit."
My advice to you: sign up for driving school. That's the class you should have taken when you were 16 after you got your driver's permit. They will teach you where your highbeams are and hopefully give you an attitude correction.
Specification... My car's tires are specified to 147mph. *Can* they go that fast?
Yes, they actually *can*. The manufacturer designs and proof tests them up to that speed to insure their integrity. You may need to remove your electronic governor to get your car to accelerate them to that speed, but that is a failing of your car, not the tires.
Ah, I just love it when the self aggrandized call others idiot on the Internet, especially when they can do it from behind relative anonymity.
As.... I.... said... I thought that is what sugarless gum nee Xylitol has been used for years. Xylitol for the laymen out there inhibits bacteria, specifically mutans streptococci, one of the predominant bacteria involved in tooth decay.
I know a little something about proteins and chemistry as I had to take years of coursework in chemistry and biochemistry to get the Ph.D., so please... tone down the arrogance a bit, O.K.? It makes Slashdot a much more pleasant place.
Easy there Dr... You were not precise with your first posting and deserved to be corrected. Specifically, your first post did not mention Xylitol at all. You only said that you thought that "sugarless gum" has been used to clean teeth for years. Not all sugarless gums contain bacteria-inhibiting Xylitol and thus not all can be interpreted to clean teeth. Additionally, Xylitol is added to most gums in low quantities that make it ineffective as a bacteria inhibitor, so it's primary function in gum is as a sweetener.
The article is about a gum that uses a different bacterial inhibitor, that is possibly effective in lower doses and possibly inhibits a broader range of oral bacteria. Since you have a PhD, I am sure you know how to search the relevant literature to read about it.
It would have been nice if Samzenpus mentioned in the blurb that in order for the trees to glow red you need to illuminate them with high-wavelength UV light. This makes the discovery much less cool and practical.
Cue in the usual "I don't need 3D", "Why don't they make better movies instead of playing with technology?" and "In the old times they at least made good movies" that fills every slashdot story that has something to do with 3-D movies.
Look, it's an extra technology that improves movie for those that like the 3-D effect. It doesn't affect the quality of the movie. Good and bad movies will still be made. It's weird that here on slashdot, a news for nerd site, people are so much against emerging technologies.
I personally like the 3-D effect in movies. In fact I even like it in games - Left4Dead is a lot scarier when the infected run towards you in 3-D.
Also, the technology gets better in intervals. Recently there have popped up Nintendo's new handheld console and 3-D tv's that work without glasses. The effect will only improve over time, but you need to take the intermediate steps to get there. Just like with every other technology, starting from human history and the discovery of fire and a wheel.
As the first poster, you are rebutting anti-3D posts that don't exist yet!
See, I use LaTeX and BibTex for this. that way I don't need to worry about anything, I put all the information into the Bib file, make the appropriate citations, and it takes care of the rest... as an added bonus, with BibTeX on my mac, I can import the whole document into the DB, and never worry about "where did I file that" again.
I am 100% with you... but in many offices you need to use MS-Word-compatible software for creating and editing group documents. Most casual MS Office users don't like editing your TeX source files.
Let's be brutally honest here at the expense of karma. The ribbon was created to accommodate the growing population of MS office users who do not have the mental capacity, focus, or experience to utilize the existing menu structure that has been used on all substantial GUI based computer programs for 15+ years. It was preceded by a toolbox panel in the OS X versions of Office which was actually useful since it allowed quick access to basic formatting options but also kept the pull-down menu interface intact for the more advanced commands. But MS actually decreased their program's functionality and efficiency with the ribbon.
Very few who were actually competent in the advanced Office features prior to the ribbon liked the change, because it meant that they had to go hunt for options that they knew used to exist. People who were never very familiar with Office loved it, because there were no large menus to get lost in. MS is happy because now your grandmother can probably work out how to use Office and you still will (unhappily) pay for it as well.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that MS is willing to whore themselves out to the lowest common denominator. Office is no longer specialized software... it's for the masses. However, if you want to write a 5 page memo without images or plot a few points on a graph, it allows you to do that with little initial setup. But if you want to write a 300 page Ph.D. thesis or work with an array of more than 65K points, you'll need to explore other options... unless you like the M in S&M.
They already did put a mockup capsule in orbit. NASA can't do that if both are given the same reasonable sum of money.
Comparing SpaceX to NASA is like comparing Blackwater to the US military.
SpaceX is a for profit organization. Profit will be the primary goal, space access secondary, everything else is tertiary. NASA is a government organization. They are subject to the full myriad of government-mandated programs/procedures for oversight, safety, and compliance. They also put US astronauts in space for missions critical for national security.
You'll see SpaceX's costs skyrocket when they start carrying US astronauts and US military satellites. And you'll see those costs quadruple after they have their first launch failure resulting in fatalities because Congress will climb straight up their ass the way they climbed up NASA's.
Did you like the way BP handled the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and subsequent spill? Because that it how SpaceX or any other for-profit organization will handle space access... They will sacrifice safety and compliance to ensure profit. If the penalties are low enough, they will be able to justify the loss of human life, the dumping of hazardous chemicals, and the loss of US government technology as long as shareholders profit.
You still can't talk shit about that womanizing, whore mongering, cheating entitled piece of shit.
... who also got his head blown apart while serving his country. Maybe you should give him a break.
Life's easier when you stop judging people by how they live their private lives. Judging by your comment and signature, I am sure you have a few personal issues, as well.
Yes, but blackmail for what? The latest images from Mars? The shoestring budget numbers for a project? The motor control code for actuators? I think people have the perception that what goes on at JPL is top secret stuff when in fact just about all of it gets released to the public sooner than later. We're talking research-y stuff here. Not DOD. And where people might be working on DOD stuff then the security clearances come into play.
How about blackmail for:
-RTGs to poison people
-the transfer of US satellite and probe technology to foreign countries
-the sabotage US space interests
-the sabotage JPL payloads as they are entering orbit to cause breakup of the rocket, RTGs, and other components over populated areas.
The other reason they do background checks is to make sure that the employee has a stable lifestyle. Millions of dollars are spent on JPL development and research. If an employee is having problems, the employer wants to know so that they can deal with them and prevent those problems from propagating into whatever technology/research the problem employee is working on.
Is this Big-Brother-esque? Yes, it is. But JPL is spending Big Brother's money too. Do you want your taxdollars funding a crack addict who is selling JPL property to support their habit? Just because you can't think of harmful ways that NASA employees could be compromised doesn't mean that there aren't any.
You did some damn fine engineering while keeping secret the things that needed to remain secret.
You know, a funny thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of people in the US who think that *everyone* should have a gun. But when you pressure them a little, it turns out that they don't think that *really* everyone should have a gun. Those damn illegal Mexicans, for example, they shouldn't be allowed guns. Or those Muslims, no guns for them. So really what they want is for only the people they think are the right sort of people to be able to have guns.
I believe the argument is that every US citizen who can qualify on a shooting range with a gun should be able to carry one. So non-US citizens would not meet that criteria.
Now, consider that a nuclear weapon is really just another kind of gun...
You fail completely with this statement. The method of operation is different. The energy release is orders of magnitude different. Ignoring the difference in energy magnitudes, a nuclear weapon is really just another kind of BOMB. Note that this is different than a gun. Is it legal for you to own a bomb in the US?
I'm actually kind of curious what Subaru motor they were using. Wikipedia says the PW207D puts out a max of 572shp, so I imagine the Subaru motor must have been fairly extensively modified because their consumer offerings top out around 320hp in the EJ25. An extra 100 ponies out of an EJ isn't hard, but much more than that gets expensive real fast.
They are custom modifications... just like 500-hp STIs. Try searching google for "500 HP Subaru engine." Or search for "Subaru aircraft/hovercraft engine."
I bet professional astronomers would pay a lot of money to put this on their big telescopes. Spreading the same field of view over more pixels gives better resolution. Increased sensitivity would decrease exposure times and give better signal to noise.
Sure, you or I as individuals won't be buying on anytime soon. But most new technological developments are made for highly-specialized scientific equipment and then trickle down to the consumer a few years later, after the device can be made more cheaply.
Could she not do all of these things on a smart phone?
Surely the smart phone, the charger, and an extra battery weigh less (and cost less) than the iPad. I understand that you say she has no need for the expense of a smart phone, but I doubt that she has a real "need" for the iPad either.
There is nothing wrong with owning an iPad, just don't pretend that it is more useful or economical than other existing products.
From my perspective, the difference between point a gun at his face and keeping it pointed at the ground is only about 90 degrees of wrist movement and 0.25 seconds of action. It may seem like a big difference until someone that you don't know jumps out of a car in front of you and pulls a gun on you. Remember that once the gun is pointed at you, you're fucked, so if you want to defend yourself, you have less than a second to make that decision. In the video, it took 4 seconds of firearm brandishing before the cop identified himself and even then it was only verbal.
As a citizen, I am not allowed to draw a concealed carry firearm unless I am in fear for my life or someone elses. Otherwise, it is illegal and considered brandishing a firearm in a threatening manner. The police also are trained to act in a similar manner.
That undercover cop let his emotions get the better of him and acted in an incredibly irresponsible manner. He should have let the cop in the lighted police car behind him pull the motorcyclist over using flashing lights and the megaphone. There never should have been a gun drawn in that situation.
It sounds like you have a very small flight sample size.
I travel a fair bit. In the past 4 years I have had at least one instance where I have experienced atrocious customer service by EVERY single airline in the US. I have rotated through them all. I would call getting in 6 hours late a mild delay.
Southwest has never given me a food voucher for a delayed flight. (Probably since they don't give out meals.) They did give me a hotel voucher once when they diverted me to a different airport at 9PM on New Years Eve due to fog. The voucher paid for $50 of the $120 hotel room that THEY directed me too. They have also lost my bags, are incredibly reluctant to put me on an earlier flight (with space) unless I pay their $100 flight change fee, and I can never find a Southwest attendant staffing any of their counters to help me with any problems unless it is 10 minutes before a flight departure time. And I won't even mention my last flight, where I had place a mentally disabled gentleman's bag in the overhead bin for him because the flight attendant was too busy screaming at him that it wouldn't fit, instead of doing her job and helping him.
Of course, all of these grips are not specific to Southwest, but can be applied to any airline nowdays.
And who cares how many damn bags of peanuts and cookies they give out? These are $0.50 snacks. This isn't Halloween and I am not 10 years old. Remember when the airlines used to give you full meals before Southwest undercut their prices with their food-free flights? Remember when you didn't have to be pumping the "Check me in" button 24 hours before your flight to get a window seat?
If it sounds like I hate Southwest, I do. I hold them responsible for the loss of many of the creature comforts that we used to have as airline passengers. Sure, they brought air travel to the masses by lowering fares by 20%, but they decreased flight comfort by 70% in my opinion. And they also increased the chances that I will have to sit next to an obnoxious moron dressed like a slob, who is watching a movie on their computer without headphones while yelling at their friend in the next aisle. And since all of the other airlines have now matched them, the only option for increased comfort is to pay 400% more for first class.
It's a lose-lose situation, no matter how many cookies you get on the flight.
Why do you care what contract postal workers have? You don't pay for it.
Actually, I pay for it every time I mail a letter.
And then I usually pay again when I discover that the stamps that I bought 2 months ago are now insufficient to mail that letter.
By the say USPS, I started to pay my bills electronically, even though I was leery of it, because keeping the fucking stamps current was so much of a hassle that I didn't want to deal with it anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
at 532 and 650 nm installed on sunglasses for one of the pilots. Problem solved.
To play devil's advocate, the technique the GP proposed is used along the border between North Korea and South Korea and has been found to be quite effective (and expensive). There are many countries in the world that would not hesitate to blow you away if you were caught illegally crossing the border... murder or not. They would call it an act of national defense.
The GP also makes a good point: Do we want illegal immigration from Mexico or not? If we really don't want it, let's move forward with a hard-line solution. If we do want it, let's stop the lip service that we don't and let's stop wasting money on expensive "solutions."
...delete your account! Well, at least do your best to delete as much of it as you can. As soon as I learnt years ago that you could never delete your Facebook account I knew never to sign up to that rubbish. And Facebook have vindicated my decision every step of the way ever since.
Actually, the best solution is to probably replace all your personal information in your account with fake information. Maybe then, at least, Facebook will think you moved. Maybe you will get even luckier and they will lose your old data in a backup failure. If you just delete your account, I am sure they know you are on to them and try to sell your info to the highest bidder!
fire (and its natural descendent electricity).
I look forward to you describing how electricity descended from fire. Please use physics principles to help me understand.
Sounds like you want a Mac Pro.
The message? Graphic violence is OK and normal and natural. Sex is obscene, uncommon, not a part of normal adult life, and must not be shown for any reason. Anybody else think maybe we have this backwards?
It's not backwards. We are just all becoming radical Muslims.
Driving is scary. It's a leading cause of death in the US.
Driving is a lot scarier than it needs to be because of morons like you who don't know how to operate their vehicle properly. The fact that you don't know how to turn your highbeams on probably means that you have actually been driving around with your highbeams on for several years... probably in the left lane just under the speed limit.
I hope for your sake that you are just trolling.
If you don't know how to operate your headlights properly, you should not have a license. Your logic is asinine... even if you grew up in a city, people in all cities will flicker their high beams to warn oncoming traffic to watch out for an accident up ahead... or a speedtrap.
Also, high beams will actually give you plenty of time to stop at 65 mph if you see a tree in the middle of the road, where as regular headlights will just give you enough time to say "Oh shit."
My advice to you: sign up for driving school. That's the class you should have taken when you were 16 after you got your driver's permit. They will teach you where your highbeams are and hopefully give you an attitude correction.
Specification... My car's tires are specified to 147mph. *Can* they go that fast?
Yes, they actually *can*. The manufacturer designs and proof tests them up to that speed to insure their integrity. You may need to remove your electronic governor to get your car to accelerate them to that speed, but that is a failing of your car, not the tires.
Ah, I just love it when the self aggrandized call others idiot on the Internet, especially when they can do it from behind relative anonymity.
As .... I .... said ... I thought that is what sugarless gum nee Xylitol has been used for years. Xylitol for the laymen out there inhibits bacteria, specifically mutans streptococci, one of the predominant bacteria involved in tooth decay.
I know a little something about proteins and chemistry as I had to take years of coursework in chemistry and biochemistry to get the Ph.D., so please... tone down the arrogance a bit, O.K.? It makes Slashdot a much more pleasant place.
Easy there Dr... You were not precise with your first posting and deserved to be corrected. Specifically, your first post did not mention Xylitol at all. You only said that you thought that "sugarless gum" has been used to clean teeth for years. Not all sugarless gums contain bacteria-inhibiting Xylitol and thus not all can be interpreted to clean teeth. Additionally, Xylitol is added to most gums in low quantities that make it ineffective as a bacteria inhibitor, so it's primary function in gum is as a sweetener.
The article is about a gum that uses a different bacterial inhibitor, that is possibly effective in lower doses and possibly inhibits a broader range of oral bacteria. Since you have a PhD, I am sure you know how to search the relevant literature to read about it.
It would have been nice if Samzenpus mentioned in the blurb that in order for the trees to glow red you need to illuminate them with high-wavelength UV light. This makes the discovery much less cool and practical.
Cue in the usual "I don't need 3D", "Why don't they make better movies instead of playing with technology?" and "In the old times they at least made good movies" that fills every slashdot story that has something to do with 3-D movies.
Look, it's an extra technology that improves movie for those that like the 3-D effect. It doesn't affect the quality of the movie. Good and bad movies will still be made. It's weird that here on slashdot, a news for nerd site, people are so much against emerging technologies.
I personally like the 3-D effect in movies. In fact I even like it in games - Left4Dead is a lot scarier when the infected run towards you in 3-D.
Also, the technology gets better in intervals. Recently there have popped up Nintendo's new handheld console and 3-D tv's that work without glasses. The effect will only improve over time, but you need to take the intermediate steps to get there. Just like with every other technology, starting from human history and the discovery of fire and a wheel.
As the first poster, you are rebutting anti-3D posts that don't exist yet!
What gives? Are you a lawyer?
See, I use LaTeX and BibTex for this. that way I don't need to worry about anything, I put all the information into the Bib file, make the appropriate citations, and it takes care of the rest... as an added bonus, with BibTeX on my mac, I can import the whole document into the DB, and never worry about "where did I file that" again.
I am 100% with you... but in many offices you need to use MS-Word-compatible software for creating and editing group documents. Most casual MS Office users don't like editing your TeX source files.
Let's be brutally honest here at the expense of karma. The ribbon was created to accommodate the growing population of MS office users who do not have the mental capacity, focus, or experience to utilize the existing menu structure that has been used on all substantial GUI based computer programs for 15+ years. It was preceded by a toolbox panel in the OS X versions of Office which was actually useful since it allowed quick access to basic formatting options but also kept the pull-down menu interface intact for the more advanced commands. But MS actually decreased their program's functionality and efficiency with the ribbon.
Very few who were actually competent in the advanced Office features prior to the ribbon liked the change, because it meant that they had to go hunt for options that they knew used to exist. People who were never very familiar with Office loved it, because there were no large menus to get lost in. MS is happy because now your grandmother can probably work out how to use Office and you still will (unhappily) pay for it as well.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that MS is willing to whore themselves out to the lowest common denominator. Office is no longer specialized software... it's for the masses. However, if you want to write a 5 page memo without images or plot a few points on a graph, it allows you to do that with little initial setup. But if you want to write a 300 page Ph.D. thesis or work with an array of more than 65K points, you'll need to explore other options... unless you like the M in S&M.
They already did put a mockup capsule in orbit. NASA can't do that if both are given the same reasonable sum of money.
Comparing SpaceX to NASA is like comparing Blackwater to the US military.
SpaceX is a for profit organization. Profit will be the primary goal, space access secondary, everything else is tertiary. NASA is a government organization. They are subject to the full myriad of government-mandated programs/procedures for oversight, safety, and compliance. They also put US astronauts in space for missions critical for national security.
You'll see SpaceX's costs skyrocket when they start carrying US astronauts and US military satellites. And you'll see those costs quadruple after they have their first launch failure resulting in fatalities because Congress will climb straight up their ass the way they climbed up NASA's.
Did you like the way BP handled the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and subsequent spill? Because that it how SpaceX or any other for-profit organization will handle space access... They will sacrifice safety and compliance to ensure profit. If the penalties are low enough, they will be able to justify the loss of human life, the dumping of hazardous chemicals, and the loss of US government technology as long as shareholders profit.
You still can't talk shit about that womanizing, whore mongering, cheating entitled piece of shit.
... who also got his head blown apart while serving his country. Maybe you should give him a break.
Life's easier when you stop judging people by how they live their private lives. Judging by your comment and signature, I am sure you have a few personal issues, as well.
Yes, but blackmail for what? The latest images from Mars? The shoestring budget numbers for a project? The motor control code for actuators? I think people have the perception that what goes on at JPL is top secret stuff when in fact just about all of it gets released to the public sooner than later. We're talking research-y stuff here. Not DOD. And where people might be working on DOD stuff then the security clearances come into play.
How about blackmail for:
-RTGs to poison people
-the transfer of US satellite and probe technology to foreign countries
-the sabotage US space interests
-the sabotage JPL payloads as they are entering orbit to cause breakup of the rocket, RTGs, and other components over populated areas.
The other reason they do background checks is to make sure that the employee has a stable lifestyle. Millions of dollars are spent on JPL development and research. If an employee is having problems, the employer wants to know so that they can deal with them and prevent those problems from propagating into whatever technology/research the problem employee is working on.
Is this Big-Brother-esque? Yes, it is. But JPL is spending Big Brother's money too. Do you want your taxdollars funding a crack addict who is selling JPL property to support their habit? Just because you can't think of harmful ways that NASA employees could be compromised doesn't mean that there aren't any.
I receive 10 a month.
I receive 10 a year. Seriously. And most of them are unsolicited ads for Viagra.
You did some damn fine engineering while keeping secret the things that needed to remain secret.
You know, a funny thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of people in the US who think that *everyone* should have a gun. But when you pressure them a little, it turns out that they don't think that *really* everyone should have a gun. Those damn illegal Mexicans, for example, they shouldn't be allowed guns. Or those Muslims, no guns for them. So really what they want is for only the people they think are the right sort of people to be able to have guns.
I believe the argument is that every US citizen who can qualify on a shooting range with a gun should be able to carry one. So non-US citizens would not meet that criteria.
Now, consider that a nuclear weapon is really just another kind of gun...
You fail completely with this statement. The method of operation is different. The energy release is orders of magnitude different. Ignoring the difference in energy magnitudes, a nuclear weapon is really just another kind of BOMB. Note that this is different than a gun. Is it legal for you to own a bomb in the US?
I'm actually kind of curious what Subaru motor they were using. Wikipedia says the PW207D puts out a max of 572shp, so I imagine the Subaru motor must have been fairly extensively modified because their consumer offerings top out around 320hp in the EJ25. An extra 100 ponies out of an EJ isn't hard, but much more than that gets expensive real fast.
They are custom modifications... just like 500-hp STIs. Try searching google for "500 HP Subaru engine." Or search for "Subaru aircraft/hovercraft engine."
I bet professional astronomers would pay a lot of money to put this on their big telescopes. Spreading the same field of view over more pixels gives better resolution. Increased sensitivity would decrease exposure times and give better signal to noise.
Sure, you or I as individuals won't be buying on anytime soon. But most new technological developments are made for highly-specialized scientific equipment and then trickle down to the consumer a few years later, after the device can be made more cheaply.
We already heard about it last month and two years ago!
Could she not do all of these things on a smart phone?
Surely the smart phone, the charger, and an extra battery weigh less (and cost less) than the iPad. I understand that you say she has no need for the expense of a smart phone, but I doubt that she has a real "need" for the iPad either.
There is nothing wrong with owning an iPad, just don't pretend that it is more useful or economical than other existing products.
From my perspective, the difference between point a gun at his face and keeping it pointed at the ground is only about 90 degrees of wrist movement and 0.25 seconds of action. It may seem like a big difference until someone that you don't know jumps out of a car in front of you and pulls a gun on you. Remember that once the gun is pointed at you, you're fucked, so if you want to defend yourself, you have less than a second to make that decision. In the video, it took 4 seconds of firearm brandishing before the cop identified himself and even then it was only verbal.
As a citizen, I am not allowed to draw a concealed carry firearm unless I am in fear for my life or someone elses. Otherwise, it is illegal and considered brandishing a firearm in a threatening manner. The police also are trained to act in a similar manner.
That undercover cop let his emotions get the better of him and acted in an incredibly irresponsible manner. He should have let the cop in the lighted police car behind him pull the motorcyclist over using flashing lights and the megaphone. There never should have been a gun drawn in that situation.
It sounds like you have a very small flight sample size.
I travel a fair bit. In the past 4 years I have had at least one instance where I have experienced atrocious customer service by EVERY single airline in the US. I have rotated through them all. I would call getting in 6 hours late a mild delay.
Southwest has never given me a food voucher for a delayed flight. (Probably since they don't give out meals.) They did give me a hotel voucher once when they diverted me to a different airport at 9PM on New Years Eve due to fog. The voucher paid for $50 of the $120 hotel room that THEY directed me too. They have also lost my bags, are incredibly reluctant to put me on an earlier flight (with space) unless I pay their $100 flight change fee, and I can never find a Southwest attendant staffing any of their counters to help me with any problems unless it is 10 minutes before a flight departure time. And I won't even mention my last flight, where I had place a mentally disabled gentleman's bag in the overhead bin for him because the flight attendant was too busy screaming at him that it wouldn't fit, instead of doing her job and helping him.
Of course, all of these grips are not specific to Southwest, but can be applied to any airline nowdays.
And who cares how many damn bags of peanuts and cookies they give out? These are $0.50 snacks. This isn't Halloween and I am not 10 years old. Remember when the airlines used to give you full meals before Southwest undercut their prices with their food-free flights? Remember when you didn't have to be pumping the "Check me in" button 24 hours before your flight to get a window seat?
If it sounds like I hate Southwest, I do. I hold them responsible for the loss of many of the creature comforts that we used to have as airline passengers. Sure, they brought air travel to the masses by lowering fares by 20%, but they decreased flight comfort by 70% in my opinion. And they also increased the chances that I will have to sit next to an obnoxious moron dressed like a slob, who is watching a movie on their computer without headphones while yelling at their friend in the next aisle. And since all of the other airlines have now matched them, the only option for increased comfort is to pay 400% more for first class.
It's a lose-lose situation, no matter how many cookies you get on the flight.
Why do you care what contract postal workers have? You don't pay for it.
Actually, I pay for it every time I mail a letter.
And then I usually pay again when I discover that the stamps that I bought 2 months ago are now insufficient to mail that letter.
By the say USPS, I started to pay my bills electronically, even though I was leery of it, because keeping the fucking stamps current was so much of a hassle that I didn't want to deal with it anymore.