"This is because people will buy the same amount of gas no matter how much it costs, because they need the gas to live their lives. People are also not going to buy new fuel-efficient cars just to save money, becase the cost of a new car far exceeds any savings in fuel."
Broad statements like this are NOT necessarily true just because they sound logical!
Our 1990 SUV which needs to be an SUV/4X due to it's use for work in the winter. (state law enforcement in a rural area from a urban location.)was the family 'work' vehicle . The SUV gets about max 20 mpg and was replaced with a Dodge Neon which gets 32 mph. The gas milage alone makes the payment and reduces the repair and maintainace(on the 1990 SUV.)by a minimum $2500/$3000.@ year.
True, we may have to use the SUV for moderate/major Snow days in winter but even tho they may be the exception rather then the rule, it is required to work those days even more then others. 10/12 days use of the SUV aside, the Neon is efficient, comfortable and under warrenty. We actually come out ahead in $'s and cents's with the Neon gas savings paying it's own payment PLUS.
No doubt some would find our solution unaccepable due to the macho factor or unworkable due to present personal financial reasons but personnaly it was the best and brightest solution to Nevadas $3.00 a gal. summer gas and appears to have no down side for us.
Your reply was at least concise and clever and deserved the funny mod unlike dozens of cruel, immature and tasteless '5' funnies.
What the hell is happening to the I.Q. of posters on/.?
In 8 years of reading and posting on this forum, this particular submission represents the worst of the worst comments I have ever seen. Moderators: shame on you!
Yes, I know I just made myself a target for the immature but don't waste your moderating points today or onward because I just don't care. I read slashdot for intelligent news and information not for karma.
And yes! I do have a sense of humor. These comments simply do NOT qualify as any thing more then Tasteless.
and also used by karma counting active posters when they don't want to antagonise 'another' score seeker who uses moderation to keep from inviting mini wars.
After over 8 years on slashdot, vocabulary, technique, style, additude etc. make some more visable then they think.
I admit to emotioanality on this issue and this poster made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I admitted it, explained my prejudicial post and my feeling that the law..admittidly ill thought out, and unlikely to withstand higher court rulings WAS UNDERSTANABLE from the standpoint of those whose lives have been affected by having endured the consequences of these predators being invisably amoung us.
Articulate as he/she may or may not be..NOT having the strength of their conviction by posting AC just made more clear to me that "the emptiest tin cans make the loudest noise."
I do,however, appreciate your 'polite' explanation just in case " I" was a new poster that didn't understand the defination.
I admit I am not the brightest old broad in the world up front.
I also admit that I will never forget the horror these children went thru or the comment of the last monster who killed the little girl next door and stated in court on t.v. that "NO! she was NOT dead when he stuffed her in a garbage bag and buried her alive like a 'pup'!"
I also admit publicaly that I have an agenda....kill 'em all but six and save them for pall barrers!
BUT I have enough guts to sign my name (nick)....You go ahead and puke so we can identify you in person..an arrogant ass who has a negitive or 'corrective ' opinion on any comment, in every formum, you disagree with.
Most/. readers of any length of time are quite familiar with your style so suprise, suprise! You are not quite as invisable as you think.
AND! I do not participate in witch hunts of any kind...Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation and I do NOT approve of this law which I believe is un-enforable and a waste of resources.
If I had to chose an issue to 'hunt' it would definately be against ignorance and 'you would be close to qualifing as 'game' with your closed mind and unbelievable arrogance.
I've got to believe you are trolling since I have followed your posts in the past and in spite of your need to have an opinion on everything...I never considered you 'stupid'.
I'm not smart enough to know how the troll game works, BUT I am damn sure smart enough to distinguish the difference between your examples...
Totally irrelevent..including the amount of deaths
Raped and killed a very young female child after giving positive proof by his confirmed previous behavior that he was not just inclined but capable.
'think about this visually, reach for your empathy.' These animals should not have any rights. I resent their right to breathe.
a small female child terrorized, tortured and KILLED!
As a great grand mother of two preschool female toddlers who were indeed, subjected to all of the above except, thankfully, the killing, I firmly believe the punishment should, indeed, fit the crime. Lock them up, terrorize and torture them... right after you have thrown away the key.
I am not trying to pull on your heart strings but I am the one that held these tiny little girls in my arms at night thru night terrors. My heart breaks every time I remember the 4 year old sitting on my lap reading a story when she stopped me by reaching up and patting my cheek with her tiny hand. Looking streight in my eyes, she softly said "I was a big girl nanna, I didn't cry but (insert her YOUNGER sisters name) is just a baby.
Their abuser was known by the state and at least two counties but nobody ever got a warning that there was a known predator amoung us.
Make room in the prisons by putting the people in them that belong in them and stop putting *non-violent minor offenders in there. There are dozens of other ways to make *their lives miserable that could not be any less affective, but would undoubtedly be a hell of a lot cheaper.
The Ohio law will never it make the past upper courts. Ohio must have forgotten we have a constitution and a bill of rights.
Never the less I understand the incentive more then sending an employed, husband and father tax payer to prison for stupid things like parapanalia.
After an emergency room Dr. informs you that the vicious headache and stroke level blood pressure that brought you into his ER is good news " It's a brain tumor called a Meningioma and they are usually benign...here is a pain RX...see your primary for follow up"! GOOGLE definitely IS your friend. After following that line for a day or two, let me tell you, the existence of Forums from Brigham Women's, American Brain Tumor Association and various other major brain tumor treatment centers are not only useful but border on LIFESAVING!
Classified 'Orphan diseases' the RX companies have no interest in maintaining sites re: symptoms, treatments, etc. and most people do not live in areas with multiple Neurologists or Neurosurgeons with brain tumor centers within hundreds of miles.
Forums allow people from Podunkt to India to communicate one on one regarding treatments, trials, Specialists that medical personal in their own state or region have yet to hear of. Their very existence help users like myself to access information, Institutions and Trials that not only increase their potential for a more favorable outcome but seriously affect their quality of life during treatment.
A wiki would be handy as a repository for finding certain info categories fed by the few forums that do exist on this subject but the Personal input of the forums is invaluable since no two brain tumors affect patients the same since each is acting on 'location, location, location' even tho they may be the same type, and size. Brain Tumor 'Fatigue Pain' is Fatigue Pain and it is common for BT patients. However, Dr.'s have a hard time understanding the pain I have in place X, Y and Z is the same thing that another patient has in place A, B or C thus they have NO CLUE. Patients on a BT forum DO! and they have experience in getting this info into a format you can use to educate your Dr.
Sorry to babble...but, well you know..I have a B. T. and if it isn't worth a hoot for anything else, It has proven to be a good excuse for all my bad habits...babbling being one.
Oh Hell Yes! Be sure and include the largest demographic in the US! The Elderly! We deserve it! and by the way, until till you hit 65 you are considered middle aged. Further more we have already endured 'pharmaceutical testing/military' via the us gov. in the 1960's when the S.F troops were administered LSD and the civilians of Nevada, Utah, Idaho etc. were invited to get up early and 'enjoy' the atomic testing, assured that as long as you did not look directly at the flash which could blind you...IT WAS PROVEN SAFE. ASK the guys who thought they could fly that chose high rise buildings in downtown San Francisco/L.A. for their solo flights or seeing Viet Nam replaying, right before their eyes,in full audio and living color as they mowed down perfect strangers, in their hometowns months later. Labeled 'Nut Cases' (Physic Breaks) Then there are the Civilian workers out at JackAss Flats that typed away while the Military preformed their safe Underground tests of the Nukes. Those that are still alive call them self "DownWinders" Ask four generations of NV, Utah, Idaho, Mt. WY if they put any faith in a 50 person trial lasting 6 months is a reassuring warranty to them of proof of safety.
How about those mass murderers, thrill killers and especially the pedophiles that are useing up all those jail cells and tax dollars that could be used for all the vicious potheads, hookers and Ya! hackers.
Test that dangerous stuff on the old, tired, sick and worn out elderly population...there's plenty of them to go around. Besides it would be cruel and unusual punishment to make really, really not fit to live on this planet human beings say "Ouch"!
Sat. 8p.m. pac. USA On Discovery Times T.V. Amazing timeing! Not ten minutes ago I just saw a Dear MicroSoft video of a scribe(user) with feather pen writing a parchment complaint letter re: uninstalls and ? dlls ? that may or may not be needed elsewhere for something I may or may not even have or use. Perfect! wish I remembered if it was for some product or...? Hope someone else saw it. Way too cool! A smart Company could make good use of an agency that pursued something like this.
Homeland Security issues warnings, statements, etc. Fails every challenge they have publicly faced. Hails ignorant prosecution of minor terrorist. Can't find the Worst of the Worst BL.
After the disclosure they busted two disgusting defiles in Two TOP administration positions of Homeland Security in charge of US Security, using H.L.S. Computers and one of the cretins actually giving out his office phone numbers, business card and or pictures of HIS badge (credentials..I don't recall which)...I have a hard time lending any credibility to anything wrapped in their letterhead.
Have any slashdotters ever heard another thing about what the outcome of that event is/was/ or is in the process of being dealt with?
Like many/.'rs, I don't like being labeled a nut, unpatriotic or paranoid but if you aren't paying attention, I fear you earn the 'there is no cure for stupid'.
What does the govt. have to do besides lie to you, play both sides against the middle and take your constitutional rights and flush them down the toilet to make you wake up.
Yes, it will get you labeled! We wore many labels in the 60's and 70's but we stood up, shouted from every venue we could.
We stopped a war. oh! hell! I've posted this a dozen times on/. Women no longer die from back alley abortions, We ended segregation. We marched, we even laid down our lives. We were called traitors, but we recognized wrong and fought for right.
We did not have the tools you have now. We did not have access to the Freedom of Information Act. We did not have access to instant communications world wide.
You 'write' the programs (code),the software these governments use. They don't create it..you do! Most of them have no clue until you give them the tools to subvert the principles they take away from 'the people',via the stealth methods that the general public is totally unaware of.
Remember T. Square and the ingenuity the common people and students used (old fashioned fax machines) to get the TRUTH out to the world.
The power to replace the checks and balances lays in your hands. Open Source isn't under govt. control. Look how the US govt. fought PGP but they didn't kill it.
I've confesssed in this forum before, to being a 'real' old hippy, (and again, I reiterate: we DID support OUR troops..just not an ilegal war) and I can't do what you all can do. I can only keep believing that you all hold the future of this planet and it's survival (politically and ecologically)in your hands now. I shudder with fear that apathy and greed have over powered 'rightous indignation, and outrage'!
O.K., I'll go back to lurking and keep on hopeing Right is Might and some of you are, indeed, out-thinking and taking back the rights of the people with the same slealth they have used to strip us of our ability to utilize those check and balances we have already lost.
"Sorry, but offering more for less is not a crime. It's called competition,"
It's NOT 'more for less' It may be $wise for he who outsources but it is vastly LESS (the reasons go on and on) for the end users and vastly MORE costly in it's overall time wasting, inefficiency and customer dissatisfaction!
" would like more companies start setting up online chat because it could be more effective, a better experience for the customer, and it probably would be cheaper since no phone would be needed and a customer service representative could handle more than one person at a time pretty easily. Of course the companies cannot get rid of phone support completely since some people do not have internet and some people prefer the phone but they should still at least consider setting up online chat support."
Once again reminding those who care, In the U.S., the largest demographic...presently, is over age 55 Senior Citizens. Many of us use computors to do things we find difficult to acomplish physically. Shop, communicate with our distant families, even our medical suppliers, DR.'s offices for RX refills. too many to mention.
CHAT would be so much more beneficial for us. Not only would it deal with the accent problem, but some of the accent issue has to do with tone and the preence or lack of familiar language inflections. Inflection can be the WORST for me. I often have to ask repeatidly for one simple 'non-instructive' phrase to be repeated because I simply can't figure out what is being requested or related.
Also: Info/instruction writen on screen is all there in front of you and you are less inclined to miss that one little now "type xxxxx" that would send you back to the whole beginning of the process, which surely drives both the tech and the user crazy.
Lastly, many of the connections are so poor that volumn along with soft spoken speakers which is very common in one of the most common countries doing customer service and tech support makes it incredably frustrating for elderly.
(if misspelling is present, please excuse..for some reason spellcheck seems to be annoyed with me this morning and refuses to work...impossible that everything is spelled correctly so spellcheck must be on strike)
"Anyone else here old enough to remember when the PC was about decentralizing computing, taking control of your own data, and empowering yourself? This was Micro$oft's big selling point against IBM."
Oh Yes! I remember! and the concept held such promise I actually thought it would be a turning point in 'saving the world'! So.....
NO! NO! NO!
The users have got to TAKE BACK more control! Wake up people!
If we don't start 'getting it' pretty soon, we might as well just give up all expectation of privacy, personal rights and let all of our fearless leaders and big money label us all. disposible fodder.
"Business skills being more important doesn't make tech skills non-essential."
however, the truth or fiction of the above, does NOT negate what I, personally consider the most poorly addressed and lowest item on the direction future business models are going. Customer Service is an impenetrable wall between the end user (Buyers)as well as sales and technology because they are both isolated from user-land reality, as frankly, is management.
It seems to me, since this site, to which I am an avid and long time reader, is so technically, automatically focused that you tend to forget you are the creators and NOT the end users.
I'm a fairly knowledgeable end user. But I am the average employee. I do "A" job, with a computer, in "A" industry or maybe several over the years. I play games, e-mail, do music or DVDs. I have a family and we have three computers with 3 different level of users. 'two' of us use different computers with different providers and operating systems at work. Comprehending the beneath the surface capabilities of multiple systems is 'unrealistic' expectation of users.
Most end users are Internet users NOT necessarily COMPUTER users. They are also End user buyers.
Technology is that box and stuff. Great Merchandising with COOL ads implant BRANDS!
Brands sell, Users buy, tons of great stuff.
NO ONE who is capable of dealing with the product in real life is ever available to resolve 'that/this' problem again. No Script? No Answer OR, MY VERY FAVORITE, repeat the exact same script at least three times until my head explodes!
I will continue to buy computers, laptops, Gotta have it software, but I find myself losing out more and more. I made a vow when Amazon patented double click to Boycott those companies who failed to provide their promise, acted immorally, and Failed to provide the customer service they promise. A damn computer that tells me what buttons to push to preform a process that has nothing to do with my issue and requires me to get a cauliflower ear while waiting to do so IS NOT CUSTOMER SERVICE.
A company, large or small, who will address my problem with 1. interest ( hear the complaint/issue) 2. actually make an attempt at ratifying/politely explaining potential operator error/or offering to research and inform me of an answer 3.EVEN if the answer is not what I wanted to hear, will get my repeat business every time.
Future Business needs to address the human component of IT. People are sick and tired of feeling ripped off by these giants and eventually if you look hard enough you find a way to cease doing business with them.
"Wikipedia articles are usually very link rich. Explore these links for more information and hints for "proper" references"
Link rich...great phrase! And that is exactly what/. has been for me for years.
Some of the most intense differences of opinion on/. are often armed with links from multiple disciplines, multiple countries, radically different perspectives based on everything from technique to culture.
Follow the links, RTFA's and cull, cull, cull! That is research and has taught me more then any prepared textbook or ridged institutional policy.
Sometimes being OLD, fading rapidly into 'no one will remember what ever the hell I say or do" Merl days after I'm no longer earthbound, is so freeing'!
Like you, after hearing Everett Dirkson speak when I was 18 years old, I was a rabid *republican (*no cap's on purpose). Many years I've done my best to be responsible, investigated the the positions of my candidates and voted my conscience.
NO LONGER! Not having to resort to AC to state my position is also 'freeing'. No one should be able to restrict my right to do so by financial control. BIG BUSINESS=REPUBLICANS= More and more control...more and more restrictions and less freedom for those of us who grew up believing in standards that simply do not exist in the Republican party anymore.
I've been a netizen since 1980/81 and my first reaction to it's growth was this was a possible answer to equalizing information all over the world, over time and maybe lead to techniques, technology, information and human ingenuity which would lead to my stupid ideological 'better world'.
I have the advantage of 'Non-Partisan' registration which allows me to vote our candidates RECORDS, not their rhetoric, promises, propaganda or prolong their hidden agendas hidden in out and lies.
YOU! All of YOU who can, MUST, use this tool (the whole Internet) to fight the Greedy FAT CATS! It is your right, it is your job and you are capable.
This radical old hippy, (my 48 year old sons nick for his geeky Mom in his basement), is counting on you. Perhaps you can accomplish what my generation thought we started.
O.K. I will top you all except "MY" Tech Support were guys on IRC back in 97 ( I think.) Someone else had delivered, set up, done the install and taught me enough to use Usenet, mIRC, play musical C.D.'s while we chatted and DCC'd back and forth to one another. I had in a dot matrix printer, speakers and even could fax. I could send jpegs and gifs and thought I was HOT STUFF! I was also slipping up on 60 and perhaps a smidgen of senility as quietly as possible.
The setup was on a special desk I had built out of the dinette ( which I had found useless except for eating and vastly more useful for a tiny home office in my 35' fifth wheel which I used for a mobile snowbird business.
After a prolonged stay in Washington State, it was time to hit the road and after notifying the phone Co to disconnect my wiring to the rig and unplugging the phone jack inside the trailer, I took one look at the snake pit wires running out of cpu, apc, printer, speakers etc, I went directly into a panic attack! Besides all those CONNECTORS.. x pins xxx pins, long skinny one short fat ones OMG!!!!!!
Soooooo...I hooked up my 35' fifth wheel to my F350 Ford pickup, got out my girlie pink tool kit and a brand new roll of Duct Tape! Miles of duct tape, over the top of the monitor in all four directions and under the table top. Same with the CPU, the APC, the keyboard, the track ball and the fax/ speakers/modem and etc. ALL DUCK TAPED in their exact position.
Several hours later upon arrival after unhooking the rig, hooking up the power, finding the exterior phone connection I had ordered in advance and peeling off foot after foot of Duct tape, I plugged in my phone, dialed in to warped.net via my favorite MIT server and with great expectation of being praised for my ingenuity described in my usual graphic fashion my brilliant solution.
They had a wonderful time telling one another for days and days earning me the Duct Tape Queen title for many a many dull evening on IRC.
I DID NOT however ruin a weary techs day. But I am sure the story still gives one or more a chuckle.
As one who is sporadically losing her sight, I would find this very helpful, but do not, as of yet know braille, nor in the middle of medical procedures which may or may not improve the issue in the possible near future, have the time, energy or immediate need to add one more semi-difficult skill to the list of "Help! I'm overwhelmed".
BUT BOY! It would be a handy addition for the research I need right now.
"Do I want power over other people? Hell no. I got involved after Sept. 11th. There was a need, and I stepped forward. What have YOU done?"
All of my life:
I have reported illegal behavior in my neighborhood, turned in illegal drugs, stolen property hidden on or near same, advised the local police when violence is occurring in my vicinity and guess what? Been ignored, talked down to, like I was taking up their valuable time with issues beneath their interest and on at least 2 occasions treated like what I was reporting somehow insinuated MY participation in said reported incident.
Finding a hit and run victim in the road late at night and placing my car in a position capable of protecting the victim until the police and paramedics arrived bought me 4 hours of interrogation until a bartender wandered out of the bar at the end of his shift and attested to the fact that the victim had been utterly boiled upon leaving his establishment and it was hardly likely that I was 'a perp' but just the unlucky fool who did the right thing and reported the find.
AND: I did not suddenly decide to be a good citizen on 9-11. I was raised to be one from childhood.
Protect and and Serve may be the 'motto' on their car doors but it is NOT their 'Mission Statement' at this point in time in space..nor has it been for too long now...
I garden on a large corner lot in a medium size 24 hour tourist town in the southwest. They kiss the tourist butts and bark like a fox during 'high seasons'. Locals however receive blustery, obnoxious and arrogant attitude in lieu of protection or service.
We are two blocks from the border of a 'redevelopment area' which they have run the hookers and drug dealers into in order to avoid any interaction with the "Tourist". These are 100 year old homes with some families having 3rd generations living here.
Daily, the Trash, tag garbage cans, walls, vehicles whatever strikes their ignorant fancy. They slash holiday decorations, rip up whole plants and throw them on the street, in the gutters or the sidewalks.
I got sick and tired of finding drug paraphernalia in my bushes, under rocks or stashed in my yard.
I called the police when I found the 5th drug kit consisting of some weird little container covered with foil, white powder residue in a wad of plastic wrap and a syringe sans protective cap stuffed in the tall grass up under the lip of a decorative boulder in my parkway.
The officer was annoyed to begin with and found my report of same as 'un-interesting' at the least and when I insisted he walk to the boulder, pulled back the grass and and "SEE"!
His reply was: "Careful when you pick it up to throw away"!!
End of interest! So much for protect and serve.
I said as much and asked do I have to buy a camera to tie into my computer, mount it in the yard and hang a sign that says:
Smile, you are under video surveillance, his response was to smirk and reply....suit yourself..hopped back in his air conditioned car and didn't even dispose of the drugs or paraphernalia.
Slashdot Mirror
"This is because people will buy the same amount of gas no matter how much it costs, because they need the gas to live their lives. People are also not going to buy new fuel-efficient cars just to save money, becase the cost of a new car far exceeds any savings in fuel."
Broad statements like this are NOT necessarily true just because they sound logical!
Our 1990 SUV which needs to be an SUV/4X due to it's use for work in the winter. (state law enforcement in a rural area from a urban location.)was the family 'work' vehicle . The SUV gets about max 20 mpg and was replaced with a Dodge Neon which gets 32 mph. The gas milage alone makes the payment and reduces the repair and maintainace(on the 1990 SUV.)by a minimum $2500/$3000.@ year.
True, we may have to use the SUV for moderate/major Snow days in winter but even tho they may be the exception rather then the rule, it is required to work those days even more then others. 10/12 days use of the SUV aside, the Neon is efficient, comfortable and under warrenty. We actually come out ahead in $'s and cents's with the Neon gas savings paying it's own payment PLUS.
No doubt some would find our solution unaccepable due to the macho factor or unworkable due to present personal financial reasons but personnaly it was the best and brightest solution to Nevadas $3.00 a gal. summer gas and appears to have no down side for us.
"they need to test it in foreign countries that have FAR fewer lawyers!!!"
How about just " they should test it on Lawyers PERIOD"
it's a joke....laff
Your reply was at least concise and clever and deserved the funny mod unlike dozens of cruel, immature and tasteless '5' funnies.
/.?
What the hell is happening to the I.Q. of posters on
In 8 years of reading and posting on this forum, this particular submission represents the worst of the worst comments I have ever seen. Moderators: shame on you!
Yes, I know I just made myself a target for the immature but don't waste your moderating points today or onward because I just don't care. I read slashdot for intelligent news and information not for karma.
And yes! I do have a sense of humor. These comments simply do NOT qualify as any thing more then Tasteless.
and also used by karma counting active posters when they don't want to antagonise 'another' score seeker who uses moderation to keep from inviting mini wars.
After over 8 years on slashdot, vocabulary, technique, style, additude etc. make some more visable then they think.
I admit to emotioanality on this issue and this poster made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I admitted it, explained my prejudicial post and my feeling that the law..admittidly ill thought out, and unlikely to withstand higher court rulings WAS UNDERSTANABLE from the standpoint of those whose lives have been affected by having endured the consequences of these predators being invisably amoung us.
Articulate as he/she may or may not be..NOT having the strength of their conviction by posting AC just made more clear to me that "the emptiest tin cans make the loudest noise."
I do,however, appreciate your 'polite' explanation just in case " I" was a new poster that didn't understand the defination.
Dear A.C.
/. readers of any length of time are quite familiar with your style so suprise, suprise! You are not quite as invisable as you think.
I admit I am not the brightest old broad in the world up front.
I also admit that I will never forget the horror these children went thru or the comment of the last monster who killed the little girl next door and stated in court on t.v. that "NO! she was NOT dead when he stuffed her in a garbage bag and buried her alive like a 'pup'!"
I also admit publicaly that I have an agenda....kill 'em all but six and save them for pall barrers!
BUT I have enough guts to sign my name (nick)....You go ahead and puke so we can identify you in person..an arrogant ass who has a negitive or 'corrective ' opinion on any comment, in every formum, you disagree with.
Most
AND! I do not participate in witch hunts of any kind...Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation and I do NOT approve of this law which I believe is un-enforable and a waste of resources.
If I had to chose an issue to 'hunt' it would definately be against ignorance and 'you would be close to qualifing as 'game' with your closed mind and unbelievable arrogance.
I've got to believe you are trolling since I have followed your posts in the past and in spite of your need to have an opinion on everything...I never considered you 'stupid'.
I'm not smart enough to know how the troll game works, BUT I am damn sure smart enough to distinguish the difference between your examples...
Totally irrelevent..including the amount of deaths
Raped and killed a very young female child after giving positive proof by his confirmed previous behavior that he was not just inclined but capable.
'think about this visually, reach for your empathy.' These animals should not have any rights. I resent their right to breathe.
a small female child terrorized, tortured and KILLED!
As a great grand mother of two preschool female toddlers who were indeed, subjected to all of the above except, thankfully, the killing, I firmly believe the punishment should, indeed, fit the crime. Lock them up, terrorize and torture them... right after you have thrown away the key.
I am not trying to pull on your heart strings but I am the one that held these tiny little girls in my arms at night thru night terrors. My heart breaks every time I remember the 4 year old sitting on my lap reading a story when she stopped me by reaching up and patting my cheek with her tiny hand. Looking streight in my eyes, she softly said "I was a big girl nanna, I didn't cry but (insert her YOUNGER sisters name) is just a baby.
Their abuser was known by the state and at least two counties but nobody ever got a warning that there was a known predator amoung us.
Make room in the prisons by putting the people in them that belong in them and stop putting *non-violent minor offenders in there. There are dozens of other ways to make *their lives miserable that could not be any less affective, but would undoubtedly be a hell of a lot cheaper.
The Ohio law will never it make the past upper courts. Ohio must have forgotten we have a constitution and a bill of rights.
Never the less I understand the incentive more then sending an employed, husband and father tax payer to prison for stupid things like parapanalia.
After an emergency room Dr. informs you that the vicious headache and stroke level blood pressure that brought you into his ER is good news " It's a brain tumor called a Meningioma and they are usually benign...here is a pain RX...see your primary for follow up"! GOOGLE definitely IS your friend. After following that line for a day or two, let me tell you, the existence of Forums from Brigham Women's, American Brain Tumor Association and various other major brain tumor treatment centers are not only useful but border on LIFESAVING!
Classified 'Orphan diseases' the RX companies have no interest in maintaining sites re: symptoms, treatments, etc. and most people do not live in areas with multiple Neurologists or Neurosurgeons with brain tumor centers within hundreds of miles.
Forums allow people from Podunkt to India to communicate one on one regarding treatments, trials, Specialists that medical personal in their own state or region have yet to hear of. Their very existence help users like myself to access information, Institutions and Trials that not only increase their potential for a more favorable outcome but seriously affect their quality of life during treatment.
A wiki would be handy as a repository for finding certain info categories fed by the few forums that do exist on this subject but the Personal input of the forums is invaluable since no two brain tumors affect patients the same since each is acting on 'location, location, location' even tho they may be the same type, and size. Brain Tumor 'Fatigue Pain' is Fatigue Pain and it is common for BT patients. However, Dr.'s have a hard time understanding the pain I have in place X, Y and Z is the same thing that another patient has in place A, B or C thus they have NO CLUE. Patients on a BT forum DO! and they have experience in getting this info into a format you can use to educate your Dr.
Sorry to babble...but, well you know..I have a B. T. and if it isn't worth a hoot for anything else, It has proven to be a good excuse for all my bad habits...babbling being one.
Oh Hell Yes! Be sure and include the largest demographic in the US! The Elderly! We deserve it! and by the way, until till you hit 65 you are considered middle aged. Further more we have already endured 'pharmaceutical testing/military' via the us gov. in the 1960's when the S.F troops were administered LSD and the civilians of Nevada, Utah, Idaho etc. were invited to get up early and 'enjoy' the atomic testing, assured that as long as you did not look directly at the flash which could blind you...IT WAS PROVEN SAFE. ASK the guys who thought they could fly that chose high rise buildings in downtown San Francisco/L.A. for their solo flights or seeing Viet Nam replaying, right before their eyes ,in full audio and living color as they mowed down perfect strangers, in their hometowns months later. Labeled 'Nut Cases' (Physic Breaks) Then there are the Civilian workers out at JackAss Flats that typed away while the Military preformed their safe Underground tests of the Nukes. Those that are still alive call them self "DownWinders" Ask four generations of NV, Utah, Idaho, Mt. WY if they put any faith in a 50 person trial lasting 6 months is a reassuring warranty to them of proof of safety.
How about those mass murderers, thrill killers and especially the pedophiles that are useing up all those jail cells and tax dollars that could be used for all the vicious potheads, hookers and Ya! hackers.
Test that dangerous stuff on the old, tired, sick and worn out elderly population...there's plenty of them to go around. Besides it would be cruel and unusual punishment to make really, really not fit to live on this planet human beings say "Ouch"!
O.K. end of August Rant!
Sat. 8p.m. pac. USA On Discovery Times T.V.
Amazing timeing! Not ten minutes ago I just saw a Dear MicroSoft video of a scribe(user) with feather pen writing a parchment complaint letter re: uninstalls and ? dlls ? that may or may not be needed elsewhere for something I may or may not even have or use. Perfect! wish I remembered if it was for some product or...? Hope someone else saw it. Way too cool!
A smart Company could make good use of an agency that pursued something like this.
Please people Wake Up!
Homeland Security issues warnings, statements, etc.
Fails every challenge they have publicly faced.
Hails ignorant prosecution of minor terrorist. Can't find the Worst of the Worst BL.
After the disclosure they busted two disgusting defiles in Two TOP administration positions of Homeland Security in charge of US Security, using H.L.S. Computers and one of the cretins actually giving out his office phone numbers, business card and or pictures of HIS badge (credentials..I don't recall which)...I have a hard time lending any credibility to anything wrapped in their letterhead.
Have any slashdotters ever heard another thing about what the outcome of that event is/was/ or is in the process of being dealt with?
Like many/.'rs, I don't like being labeled a nut, unpatriotic or paranoid but if you aren't paying attention, I fear you earn the 'there is no cure for stupid'.
What does the govt. have to do besides lie to you, play both sides against the middle and take your constitutional rights and flush them down the toilet to make you wake up.
Yes, it will get you labeled! We wore many labels in the 60's and 70's but we stood up, shouted from every venue we could.
/. Women no longer die from back alley abortions, We ended segregation. We marched, we even laid down our lives. We were called traitors, but we recognized wrong and fought for right.
We stopped a war. oh! hell! I've posted this a dozen times on
We did not have the tools you have now. We did not have access to the Freedom of Information Act. We did not have access to instant communications world wide.
You 'write' the programs (code),the software these governments use. They don't create it..you do! Most of them have no clue until you give them the tools to subvert the principles they take away from 'the people',via the stealth methods that the general public is totally unaware of.
Remember T. Square and the ingenuity the common people and students used (old fashioned fax machines) to get the TRUTH out to the world.
The power to replace the checks and balances lays in your hands. Open Source isn't under govt. control. Look how the US govt. fought PGP but they didn't kill it.
I've confesssed in this forum before, to being a 'real' old hippy, (and again, I reiterate: we DID support OUR troops..just not an ilegal war) and I can't do what you all can do. I can only keep believing that you all hold the future of this planet and it's survival (politically and ecologically)in your hands now. I shudder with fear that apathy and greed have over powered 'rightous indignation, and outrage'!
O.K., I'll go back to lurking and keep on hopeing Right is Might and some of you are, indeed, out-thinking and taking back the rights of the people with the same slealth they have used to strip us of our ability to utilize those check and balances we have already lost.
This is the part I have a problem with:
"Sorry, but offering more for less is not a crime. It's called competition,"
It's NOT 'more for less' It may be $wise for he who outsources but it is vastly LESS (the reasons go on and on) for the end users and vastly MORE costly in it's
overall time wasting, inefficiency and customer dissatisfaction!
NV/USA: requires name, address, picture id, DOB, and THUMB PRINT,
They also must keep pretty good tract because they only allow one box @ customer @ week.
I refuse to give up my finger print unless I have been arrested for committing some crime.
It is Insane to punish sick people for the possible crime someone else might commit.
I, too agree this would be of real benefit!
" would like more companies start setting up online chat because it could be more effective, a better experience for the customer, and it probably would be cheaper since no phone would be needed and a customer service representative could handle more than one person at a time pretty easily. Of course the companies cannot get rid of phone support completely since some people do not have internet and some people prefer the phone but they should still at least consider setting up online chat support."
Once again reminding those who care, In the U.S., the largest demographic...presently, is over age 55 Senior Citizens. Many of us use computors to do things we find difficult to acomplish physically. Shop, communicate with our distant families, even our medical suppliers, DR.'s offices for RX refills. too many to mention.
CHAT would be so much more beneficial for us. Not only would it deal with the accent problem, but some of the accent issue has to do with tone and the preence or lack of familiar language inflections. Inflection can be the WORST for me. I often have to ask repeatidly for one simple 'non-instructive' phrase to be repeated because I simply can't figure out what is being requested or related.
Also: Info/instruction writen on screen is all there in front of you and you are less inclined to miss that one little now "type xxxxx" that would send you back to the whole beginning of the process, which surely drives both the tech and the user crazy.
Lastly, many of the connections are so poor that volumn along with soft spoken speakers which is very common in one of the most common countries doing customer service and tech support makes it incredably frustrating for elderly.
(if misspelling is present, please excuse..for some reason spellcheck seems to be annoyed with me this morning and refuses to work...impossible that everything is spelled correctly so spellcheck must be on strike)
Their machine, their software, their targeted ads =
perfect Propaganda delivery system.
Sometimes FREE is too big a price to pay
"Anyone else here old enough to remember when the PC was about decentralizing computing, taking control of your own data, and empowering yourself? This was Micro$oft's big selling point against IBM."
Oh Yes! I remember! and the concept held such promise I actually thought it would be a turning point in 'saving the world'! So.....
NO! NO! NO!
The users have got to TAKE BACK more control! Wake up people!
If we don't start 'getting it' pretty soon, we might as well just give up all expectation of privacy, personal rights and let all of our fearless leaders and big money label us all. disposible fodder.
And we want to export OUR Democracy to the world!
Hell! I can't stand OUR HIPPOCRACY anymore!
Why would I even think any other nation would want it.
"Business skills being more important doesn't make tech skills non-essential."
however, the truth or fiction of the above, does NOT negate what I, personally consider the most poorly addressed and lowest item on the direction future business models are going. Customer Service is an impenetrable wall between the end user (Buyers)as well as sales and technology because they are both isolated from user-land reality, as frankly, is management.
It seems to me, since this site, to which I am an avid and long time reader, is so technically, automatically focused that you tend to forget you are the creators and NOT the end users.
I'm a fairly knowledgeable end user. But I am the average employee. I do "A" job, with a computer, in "A" industry or maybe several over the years. I play games, e-mail, do music or DVDs. I have a family and we have three computers with 3 different level of users. 'two' of us use different computers with different providers and operating systems at work. Comprehending the beneath the surface capabilities of multiple systems is 'unrealistic' expectation of users.
Most end users are Internet users NOT necessarily COMPUTER users. They are also End user buyers.
Technology is that box and stuff. Great Merchandising with COOL ads implant BRANDS!
Brands sell, Users buy, tons of great stuff.
NO ONE who is capable of dealing with the product in real life is ever available to resolve 'that/this' problem again. No Script? No Answer OR, MY VERY FAVORITE, repeat the exact same script at least three times until my head explodes!
I will continue to buy computers, laptops, Gotta have it software, but I find myself losing out more and more. I made a vow when Amazon patented double click to Boycott those companies who failed to provide their promise, acted immorally, and Failed to provide the customer service they promise. A damn computer that tells me what buttons to push to preform a process that has nothing to do with my issue and requires me to get a cauliflower ear while waiting to do so IS NOT CUSTOMER SERVICE.
A company, large or small, who will address my problem with 1. interest ( hear the complaint/issue)
2. actually make an attempt at ratifying/politely explaining potential operator error/or offering to research and inform me of an answer
3.EVEN if the answer is not what I wanted to hear, will get my repeat business every time.
Future Business needs to address the human component of IT. People are sick and tired of feeling ripped off by these giants and eventually if you look hard enough you find a way to cease doing business with them.
"Wikipedia articles are usually very link rich. Explore these links for more information and hints for "proper" references"
/. has been for me for years.
Link rich...great phrase! And that is exactly what
Some of the most intense differences of opinion on/. are often armed with links from multiple disciplines, multiple countries, radically different perspectives based on everything from technique to culture.
Follow the links, RTFA's and cull, cull, cull! That is research and has taught me more then any prepared textbook or ridged institutional policy.
Sometimes being OLD, fading rapidly into 'no one will remember what ever the hell I say or do" Merl days after I'm no longer earthbound, is so freeing'!
Like you, after hearing Everett Dirkson speak when I was 18 years old, I was a rabid *republican (*no cap's on purpose). Many years I've done my best to be responsible, investigated the the positions of my candidates and voted my conscience.
NO LONGER! Not having to resort to AC to state my position is also 'freeing'. No one should be able to restrict my right to do so by financial control. BIG BUSINESS=REPUBLICANS= More and more control...more and more restrictions and less freedom for those of us who grew up believing in standards that simply do not exist in the Republican party anymore.
I've been a netizen since 1980/81 and my first reaction to it's growth was this was a possible answer to equalizing information all over the world, over time and maybe lead to techniques, technology, information and human ingenuity which would lead to my stupid ideological 'better world'.
I have the advantage of 'Non-Partisan' registration which allows me to vote our candidates RECORDS, not their rhetoric, promises, propaganda or prolong their hidden agendas hidden in
out and lies.
YOU! All of YOU who can, MUST, use this tool (the whole Internet) to fight the Greedy FAT CATS! It is your right, it is your job and you are capable.
This radical old hippy, (my 48 year old sons nick for his geeky Mom in his basement), is counting on you. Perhaps you can accomplish what my generation thought we started.
O.K. I will top you all except "MY" Tech Support were guys on IRC back in 97 ( I think.) Someone else had delivered, set up, done the install and taught me enough to use Usenet, mIRC, play musical C.D.'s while we chatted and DCC'd back and forth to one another. I had in a dot matrix printer, speakers and even could fax. I could send jpegs and gifs and thought I was HOT STUFF! I was also slipping up on 60 and perhaps a smidgen of senility as quietly as possible.
The setup was on a special desk I had built out of the dinette ( which I had found useless except for eating and vastly more useful for a tiny home office in my 35' fifth wheel which I used for a mobile snowbird business.
After a prolonged stay in Washington State, it was time to hit the road and after notifying the phone Co to disconnect my wiring to the rig and unplugging the phone jack inside the trailer, I took one look at the snake pit wires running out of cpu, apc, printer, speakers etc, I went directly into a panic attack! Besides all those CONNECTORS.. x pins xxx pins, long skinny one short fat ones OMG!!!!!!
Soooooo...I hooked up my 35' fifth wheel to my F350 Ford pickup, got out my girlie pink tool kit and a brand new roll of Duct Tape! Miles of duct tape, over the top of the monitor in all four directions and under the table top. Same with the CPU, the APC, the keyboard, the track ball and the fax/ speakers/modem and etc. ALL DUCK TAPED in their exact position.
Several hours later upon arrival after unhooking the rig, hooking up the power, finding the exterior phone connection I had ordered in advance and peeling off foot after foot of Duct tape, I plugged in my phone, dialed in to warped.net via my favorite MIT server and with great expectation of being praised for my ingenuity described in my usual graphic fashion my brilliant solution.
They had a wonderful time telling one another for days and days earning me the Duct Tape Queen title for many a many dull evening on IRC.
I DID NOT however ruin a weary techs day. But I am sure the story still gives one or more a chuckle.
As one who is sporadically losing her sight, I would find this very helpful, but do not, as of yet know braille, nor in the middle of medical procedures which may or may not improve the issue in the possible near future, have the time, energy or immediate need to add one more semi-difficult skill to the list of "Help! I'm overwhelmed".
BUT BOY! It would be a handy addition for the research I need right now.
I'm sure if I googled enough I could find this answer but haven't run into one so far so here is my question...
WHAT do they use to protect their vehicle from heat? Why aren't we working with them or sharing that info.
Have they had these same problems?
"Do I want power over other people? Hell no. I got involved after Sept. 11th. There was a need, and I stepped forward. What have YOU done?"
All of my life:
I have reported illegal behavior in my neighborhood, turned in illegal drugs, stolen property hidden on or near same, advised the local police when violence is occurring in my vicinity and guess what? Been ignored, talked down to, like I was taking up their valuable time with issues beneath their interest and on at least 2 occasions treated like what I was reporting somehow insinuated MY participation in said reported incident.
Finding a hit and run victim in the road late at night and placing my car in a position capable of protecting the victim until the police and paramedics arrived bought me 4 hours of interrogation until a bartender wandered out of the bar at the end of his shift and attested to the fact that the victim had been utterly boiled upon leaving his establishment and it was hardly likely that I was 'a perp' but just the unlucky fool who did the right thing and reported the find.
AND: I did not suddenly decide to be a good citizen on 9-11. I was raised to be one from childhood.
THAT'S what I have done!
Protect and and Serve may be the 'motto' on their car doors but it is NOT their 'Mission Statement' at this point in time in space..nor has it been for too long now...
I garden on a large corner lot in a medium size 24 hour tourist town in the southwest. They kiss the tourist butts and bark like a fox during 'high seasons'. Locals however receive blustery, obnoxious and arrogant attitude in lieu of protection or service.
We are two blocks from the border of a 'redevelopment area' which they have run the hookers and drug dealers into in order to avoid any interaction with the "Tourist". These are 100 year old homes with some families having 3rd generations living here.
Daily, the Trash, tag garbage cans, walls, vehicles whatever strikes their ignorant fancy. They slash holiday decorations, rip up whole plants and throw them on the street, in the gutters or the sidewalks.
I got sick and tired of finding drug paraphernalia in my bushes, under rocks or stashed in my yard.
I called the police when I found the 5th drug kit consisting of some weird little container covered with foil, white powder residue in a wad of plastic wrap and a syringe sans protective cap stuffed in the tall grass up under the lip of a decorative boulder in my parkway.
The officer was annoyed to begin with and found my report of same as 'un-interesting' at the least and when I insisted he walk to the boulder, pulled back the grass and and "SEE"!
His reply was: "Careful when you pick it up to throw away"!!
End of interest! So much for protect and serve.
I said as much and asked do I have to buy a camera to tie into my computer, mount it in the yard and hang a sign that says:
Smile, you are under video surveillance, his response was to smirk and reply....suit yourself..hopped back in his air conditioned car and didn't even dispose of the drugs or paraphernalia.