If they were being treated as prisoners of war a lot of people would be very much less pissed off.
I know you were highlighting that some of them were involved in a shooting war, rather than merely being guilty of being alive while muslim, but that doesn't excuse the way they're being treated.
Meanwhile (as you acknowledged) some of them _are_ in there for the insidious crime of daring to exist, and very little else.
Incidentally, historically most armies have taken people prisoner rather than killing them on the battlefield. Sometimes they killed them later, sometimes they just hurt them a lot before giving them back, sometimes they sold them back and sometimes they just let them go.
I don't see the US as being a shining beacon of goodness for taking the option of hurting them a bit and keeping them locked away indefinitely.
Carbon in air: causes global warming, will lead to the deaths of millions of species (let alone individuals within those species) Carbon in ground: harmless, until you extract it and burn it, releasing carbon into the air Carbon in garbage: harmless, until you extract it and burn it, etc
Given the continually decreasing numbers of plants in the world, and the continually increasing amount of carbon in the air, I think there's scope with reducing one without hurting the other.
Greasy bacon, sausages, plate-sized mushrooms, eggs, black pudding, bread and (for the strange fruit eaters) tomato, all fried in half-inch deep lard, served with (more) bread (buttered this time), breans, scrambled eggs, thick black coffee (or tea made from 3 tea-bags/cup) and toast to complete.
That's a fry-up.
My brother in-law enjoyed the breakfast I cooked him more than the wedding it preceded. (Having lived with my sister while growing up, I can understand why.)
Neither of these are impossible.
If people get hold of any nuclear material
If people have *any* access to cyberspace Spot the commonality here? Guess the solution.
Sure, some people might object to ending the entire species merely to remove security threats, but it's definitely achievable.
Can this air marshal be fully alert throughout the 15th long haul flight he has been on this week...? Without wishing to comment on whether air marshals are generically a good or bad thing, why would an air marshall fly any more than a pilot would, and which role would you anticipate being the hardest?
You think air marshalls are fully alert throughout all flights? No, they wait for someone to do something dodgy (one flight in ten? twenty? four hundred?) then react.
The pilot meantime has been pretty darn busy for every one of those flights.
erm. I have been an NTL (now Virgin) customer for 7-8 years and haven't been actually throttled in all of that time.
I've had a couple of problems, but the only sustained issue was a broken cable modem, which they replaced with a newer model.
Then again I don't do much p2p file sharing. Too selfish of my upstream bandwidth..
However, even hating their customer service as much as I do, I have to admit, Virgin's cable modem service is an excellent connection - far better than merely 'decent'.
Trust me, I'm using a Sky DSL link right now and it almost makes me cry in comparison.:(
Very different in the UK. Unless they were within melee range of you and swinging it, you'd probably be in a lot of trouble.
You can't even take a golf club to a burglar unless there was evidence he was wielding a similar weapon and you genuinely feared he might use it on you.
The thing is, all the fuss people have caused here on Slashdot (including one kind soul that donated all his mod points towards rating my posts 'overrated' instead of the more accurate 'offtopic') did make me go and check elsewhere for a second opinion on this film.
Everyone else says it isn't a good film. Including several film reviewers whose opinions I respect.
Worse, the things they do think are good about it are the sort of things that I haven't enjoyed in other American films. The style of comedy appears to work well for all of you, but frankly I'm not from the US, I haven't been through the US educational system, I wont get the in-jokes, I don't have the cultural reference base and I just don't go for that style of comedy.
I'm half inclined to check the film just to see why everyone on here loves it so much. I'm just too certain I'd be setting myself up for disappointment. If I do spot it on TV while I'm doing something else then I may well stick it on in the background, but I'm certainly not going to spend money trying to track it down. (and I don't download movies. sorry.)
I'm only even continuing this conversation because I'm intrigued by the responses I'm getting. And because I'm bored. And because it's 7.34am and I don't have to be at work until 8.30 and it's a ten minute walk.
Chasing Amy is better than Mallrats and Dogma - wittier, more based in reality (one thing that made Clerks so effective - it was very believable) and the characters are easily identified with. Well, sort of. Their confusion and emotional state is easily identified with.
The Princess Bride is however worth seeking out. The sheer number of quotes (and misquotes) on the internet from that one film make it worth watching alone (so you can understand what they're all on about) but it also happens to be fantastically well written, very witty, nicely acted, beautifully shot and features some great insults, classy one-liners, a hero you want to believe in and a sword fight that'll leave you breathless.
Damnit, now I'm going to have to go and watch it again myself - yet another reason I can't watch Real Genius. I am however impressed at the size of this very offtopic thread of conversation in a discussion on high powered lasers.
Strange that all the people telling me to watch it are using the justification "you are a geek and it's a geeky film".
Maybe if someone actually tried giving me an indication of why it's meant to be a good film I might show some interest.
It's like dismissing The Princess Diaries because that's a film aimed at pre-teen girls and I'm clearly not one. Doesn't stop it being a great film. (Other things stopped it being a great film, in case you haven't seen it.)
As I mentioned elsewhere, people on Slashdot rate 'Office Space' as a movie. I've watched it twice, because I figured I'd better find out just what people like so much about it. Sorry, I've been bitten once, not going there again.
Just what the fuck is a geek movie anyway? Pi? Batman? Chasing Amy? No, scratch the last one - he actually gets the girl, even if he then fucks it up afterwards.
Jesus, next you'll be telling me Weird Science and Electric Dreams are also must-see movies for geeks.
Given how many people on Slashdot think Office Space is a great comedy, forgive me if I ignore recommendations from this particular website.
One movie every three days may not sound like limited time to you. Given I have a full time job, social commitments and a couple of hobbies, it's about as much as I can spare. It averages at under an hour a night, rather less than most people spend watching TV, rather more than I do. It's also only a count of 'new movies', not the ones I've seen before but want to watch again. Adding another movie thus means using up time I could be spending watching another film I'm far more interested in.
Right now my Love Film rental list includes Before Sunrise Betty Blue Collapse Doctor Zhivago Fanny And Alexander Following Irreversible Rancid Aluminium Romeo Is Bleeding Rope Russian Ark Scarface Simone Theirs Is The Glory - Men Of Arnhem..and 90 other titles. Are any of those any good? Not sure, haven't seen most of them yet. I have Lagaan and Chinatown on DVD downstairs waiting to be watched, Amazon just posted Secretary to me and I'm still trying to find time to see down and watch Casablanca again with my gf, because she's seen it, I've seen it, but we haven't seen it together yet.
So as I said, an 80s teen flick starring Val Kilmer would have to be rather better than Real Genius is reputed to be for me to make the time to watch it, no matter how allegedly geeky it is.
Incidentally, I just watched Badlands for the first time. Call me 'kid' if it makes you feel superior, but at least I'm trying to catch up on the films made during my formative years and not insulting people that choose not to.
I have limited movie watching time. To put that in context, I have watched just 582 films in the last five years.
Given how many films were released before I was born, how many are released each year, and how many of those are likely to be of interest to me, I'm actually pretty comfortable about ignoring a mediocre 80s teen flick starring Val Kilmer.
I certainly don't consider it a pre-requisite to posting on Slashdot, whatever the state of my diapers.
My child will also not kill you or your family for sport. You just killed your own child? It's about the only way you're going to be able to guarantee that one. Unless you're planning personally to hunt him and his family for sport?
You think Fred West's father taught him to rape and kill over a dozen young women?
It's in common use to describe bowlers, at least on Radio 4's Test Match Special.
I fail to see how I'm hiding behind language. I admit to a childish delight in using unusual words at time, and I get similar delight when someone uses one I haven't seen for a while. Last week I used the word 'countenance' in one of its more obscure forms, I was happy for days.
Other people have encyclopedic knowledge of rock music, and I let them answer those questions on pub quiz machines, but it's not for me. Are they hiding behind musical knowledge?
Just create a handheld tone detector. Microphone hooked up to some simple frequency analysis, with some sort of output device to indication successful detection.
I'd suggest an aerosol powered air horn as an output device. It might annoy the shop owner, but I'm sure they'd just be grateful for the positive feedback that their expensive device is working as intended.
This is exactly the sort of situation which concealed-carry permits for handguns have been demonstrated to discourage. I realize that you don't have as many handgun deaths (accidental or otherwise;)) in the UK, but here in the States we don't really seem to have a problem (that I'm aware of?) of roving bands of youths beating people to death all over suburbia. Fuck me. You're asking us to trade half a dozen instances of youths beating people to death each year for several hundred deaths from accidental misuse of handguns? Plus several thousand more deaths from intentional misuse of handguns?
I'll take my chances with the gang of feral youths thanks.
We let the drinks industry produce sweet, sticky vodka and cider drinks that appeal to kids erm. I'm kind of partial to sweet sticky vodka myself. It's not easy to beat Dooley's Toffee Vodka, neat, in pint glasses..
Slashdot Mirror
So we make cheap solar energy and/or fusion energy a pre-req on the carbon sequestration thing.
See, simple engineering at its best.
If they were being treated as prisoners of war a lot of people would be very much less pissed off.
I know you were highlighting that some of them were involved in a shooting war, rather than merely being guilty of being alive while muslim, but that doesn't excuse the way they're being treated.
Meanwhile (as you acknowledged) some of them _are_ in there for the insidious crime of daring to exist, and very little else.
Incidentally, historically most armies have taken people prisoner rather than killing them on the battlefield. Sometimes they killed them later, sometimes they just hurt them a lot before giving them back, sometimes they sold them back and sometimes they just let them go.
I don't see the US as being a shining beacon of goodness for taking the option of hurting them a bit and keeping them locked away indefinitely.
Carbon in air: causes global warming, will lead to the deaths of millions of species (let alone individuals within those species)
Carbon in ground: harmless, until you extract it and burn it, releasing carbon into the air
Carbon in garbage: harmless, until you extract it and burn it, etc
Given the continually decreasing numbers of plants in the world, and the continually increasing amount of carbon in the air, I think there's scope with reducing one without hurting the other.
that's not a fry-up!
Greasy bacon, sausages, plate-sized mushrooms, eggs, black pudding, bread and (for the strange fruit eaters) tomato, all fried in half-inch deep lard, served with (more) bread (buttered this time), breans, scrambled eggs, thick black coffee (or tea made from 3 tea-bags/cup) and toast to complete.
That's a fry-up.
My brother in-law enjoyed the breakfast I cooked him more than the wedding it preceded. (Having lived with my sister while growing up, I can understand why.)
Neither of these are impossible. If people get hold of any nuclear material If people have *any* access to cyberspace Spot the commonality here? Guess the solution.
Sure, some people might object to ending the entire species merely to remove security threats, but it's definitely achievable.
You think air marshalls are fully alert throughout all flights? No, they wait for someone to do something dodgy (one flight in ten? twenty? four hundred?) then react.
The pilot meantime has been pretty darn busy for every one of those flights.
Fuck me, no wonder you're pissed.
Maybe you should have stayed the fuck out of their country?
electronic funds transfer at point of sale
(i think. sod knows where i dragged that one up from)
erm. I have been an NTL (now Virgin) customer for 7-8 years and haven't been actually throttled in all of that time.
I've had a couple of problems, but the only sustained issue was a broken cable modem, which they replaced with a newer model.
Then again I don't do much p2p file sharing. Too selfish of my upstream bandwidth..
However, even hating their customer service as much as I do, I have to admit, Virgin's cable modem service is an excellent connection - far better than merely 'decent'.
Trust me, I'm using a Sky DSL link right now and it almost makes me cry in comparison.
Very different in the UK. Unless they were within melee range of you and swinging it, you'd probably be in a lot of trouble.
You can't even take a golf club to a burglar unless there was evidence he was wielding a similar weapon and you genuinely feared he might use it on you.
The thing is, all the fuss people have caused here on Slashdot (including one kind soul that donated all his mod points towards rating my posts 'overrated' instead of the more accurate 'offtopic') did make me go and check elsewhere for a second opinion on this film.
Everyone else says it isn't a good film. Including several film reviewers whose opinions I respect.
Worse, the things they do think are good about it are the sort of things that I haven't enjoyed in other American films. The style of comedy appears to work well for all of you, but frankly I'm not from the US, I haven't been through the US educational system, I wont get the in-jokes, I don't have the cultural reference base and I just don't go for that style of comedy.
I'm half inclined to check the film just to see why everyone on here loves it so much. I'm just too certain I'd be setting myself up for disappointment. If I do spot it on TV while I'm doing something else then I may well stick it on in the background, but I'm certainly not going to spend money trying to track it down. (and I don't download movies. sorry.)
I'm only even continuing this conversation because I'm intrigued by the responses I'm getting. And because I'm bored. And because it's 7.34am and I don't have to be at work until 8.30 and it's a ten minute walk.
Chasing Amy is better than Mallrats and Dogma - wittier, more based in reality (one thing that made Clerks so effective - it was very believable) and the characters are easily identified with. Well, sort of. Their confusion and emotional state is easily identified with.
The Princess Bride is however worth seeking out. The sheer number of quotes (and misquotes) on the internet from that one film make it worth watching alone (so you can understand what they're all on about) but it also happens to be fantastically well written, very witty, nicely acted, beautifully shot and features some great insults, classy one-liners, a hero you want to believe in and a sword fight that'll leave you breathless.
Damnit, now I'm going to have to go and watch it again myself - yet another reason I can't watch Real Genius. I am however impressed at the size of this very offtopic thread of conversation in a discussion on high powered lasers.
Strange that all the people telling me to watch it are using the justification "you are a geek and it's a geeky film".
Maybe if someone actually tried giving me an indication of why it's meant to be a good film I might show some interest.
It's like dismissing The Princess Diaries because that's a film aimed at pre-teen girls and I'm clearly not one. Doesn't stop it being a great film. (Other things stopped it being a great film, in case you haven't seen it.)
As I mentioned elsewhere, people on Slashdot rate 'Office Space' as a movie. I've watched it twice, because I figured I'd better find out just what people like so much about it. Sorry, I've been bitten once, not going there again.
Just what the fuck is a geek movie anyway? Pi? Batman? Chasing Amy? No, scratch the last one - he actually gets the girl, even if he then fucks it up afterwards.
Jesus, next you'll be telling me Weird Science and Electric Dreams are also must-see movies for geeks.
Given how many people on Slashdot think Office Space is a great comedy, forgive me if I ignore recommendations from this particular website.
One movie every three days may not sound like limited time to you. Given I have a full time job, social commitments and a couple of hobbies, it's about as much as I can spare. It averages at under an hour a night, rather less than most people spend watching TV, rather more than I do. It's also only a count of 'new movies', not the ones I've seen before but want to watch again. Adding another movie thus means using up time I could be spending watching another film I'm far more interested in.
Right now my Love Film rental list includes
Before Sunrise
Betty Blue
Collapse
Doctor Zhivago
Fanny And Alexander
Following
Irreversible
Rancid Aluminium
Romeo Is Bleeding
Rope
Russian Ark
Scarface
Simone
Theirs Is The Glory - Men Of Arnhem
So as I said, an 80s teen flick starring Val Kilmer would have to be rather better than Real Genius is reputed to be for me to make the time to watch it, no matter how allegedly geeky it is.
Incidentally, I just watched Badlands for the first time. Call me 'kid' if it makes you feel superior, but at least I'm trying to catch up on the films made during my formative years and not insulting people that choose not to.
I have limited movie watching time. To put that in context, I have watched just 582 films in the last five years.
Given how many films were released before I was born, how many are released each year, and how many of those are likely to be of interest to me, I'm actually pretty comfortable about ignoring a mediocre 80s teen flick starring Val Kilmer.
I certainly don't consider it a pre-requisite to posting on Slashdot, whatever the state of my diapers.
You think Fred West's father taught him to rape and kill over a dozen young women?
Written uses? I guess I could trawl the main newspaper sites.. hang on, Google News to the rescue:
http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&ned=uk&q=niggardly&btnG=Search+News
It's in common use to describe bowlers, at least on Radio 4's Test Match Special.
I fail to see how I'm hiding behind language. I admit to a childish delight in using unusual words at time, and I get similar delight when someone uses one I haven't seen for a while. Last week I used the word 'countenance' in one of its more obscure forms, I was happy for days.
Other people have encyclopedic knowledge of rock music, and I let them answer those questions on pub quiz machines, but it's not for me. Are they hiding behind musical knowledge?
Afghanistan.
wtf? where/when/why would 'niggardly' ever be misconstrued?
Frankly if someone was so stupid they thought my use of 'niggardly' was racist then I'd use it just to piss them off.
Even if the word had shared etymological roots with the word 'nigger' (which it doesn't) it has very different meaning and is a very different word.
Stop destroying language.
I vote for using a machete. They can't take it from you when they're using their teeth to pick up their arms off the floor.
999 call for aural assault causing dizziness, nausea and headaches?
Dare them to arrest you for making a false call. And your friends. And the other 2000 people in your school.
Just create a handheld tone detector. Microphone hooked up to some simple frequency analysis, with some sort of output device to indication successful detection.
I'd suggest an aerosol powered air horn as an output device. It might annoy the shop owner, but I'm sure they'd just be grateful for the positive feedback that their expensive device is working as intended.
I'll take my chances with the gang of feral youths thanks.