> When you get your computer, get a second boot drive and mirror the installation you have. > > One random day a week load this second boot drive into your computer and actually USE it for that entire day. > > if you receive a subpoena, replace your normal boot drive with your semi-sanitary mirror, bury the original hard disk in a tupperware container someplace really hard to find until they inevitably dismiss your case for lack of evidence.
Damn.... I've had redundant, mirrored hard drives for years (got over a baker's dozen of them right now!) and I never thought of using them in that manner. I do have a couple of HDs specifically reserved as "testbench / crash-and-burn" units, one primary and one backup: if a tricky install or suspicious download fucks up the drive, I simply shut down, erase drive, clone from the backup, and reboot. Malware and crudware, kiss my ass!
Very cool, plasmacutter. Everyone, mod this dude up.
> I can't help but wonder if anyone ever tried to put the files into the wastebasket and DIDN'T empty it.
Hmmm... The closest thing I can think of would be Oliver North. During the Iran-Contra operation in the Reagan years he oversaw the shredding of paper documents and the deletion of computer records to cover the operation's tracks. Little did Ollie realize (but any computer geek could have told him) that when he gave the computer a "delete file" command it didn't actually destroy the file; it merely tagged the file's directory entry as "Vacant -- space now available for overwrite". Thus, when the Iran-Contra scandal broke, federal investigators found a virtual treasure trove of incriminating computer data; all they had to do was "undelete" the files, as it were.
Bet the expression on Ollie's face must have been priceless when he found out....;)
> I can see they finally put some marketing behind the project, "Children's Machine 1" doesn't sound old-fashion and too technical at all...
Actually, I suspect that the new designation is a nod to project member Seymour Papert, who wrote the book "The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in The Age of The Computer" -- in which he argued (back in 1992) that access to computers and online information networks would be crucial in improving our education systems and preparing our younger generations for dealing with a new and rapidly evolving world.
>> [Golias] There will finally be a new game release which Gabe and Tycho won't bitch about. > > I wouldn't bet on that.
Me neither.:) You could say that Penny Arcade wouldn't be Penny Arcade if Gabe and Tycho weren't bitching about *something* regarding their games. I can imagine them testplaying the first release of Penny Arcade: The Game -- "Dude, I do *not* look like that! And what's with giving me that silly walk??" "What the fuck?! No Cardboard Tube Samurai?? How can they NOT fucking give me the option of turning into Cardboard Tube Samurai?!? FUCK!! Fuck, fucking fucked-up fuck fucker... FUUUCK!!!!!!!"
Even the incredibly unique PS2 title "Ico" didn't escape criticism: the first time Gabe tried the game, he apparently tripped so heavily on the beautiful graphics that he froze into a smiling statue on the couch; later on we see Gabe driven up the wall by Yorda's inability to understand that WANDERING OFF GETS HER IN TROUBLE -- that and her attempts to communicate in a language unknown to anyone. ("Yeah, yeah, whatever. I don't speak 'crazy bitch'!")
> All and all, I'm appalled and frightened by my food supply, and things like this aren't encouraging.
I hear you, buddy, and you aren't the only one. Years ago I discovered to my surprise that several of my fellow college students were vegetarians when they invited me to "do lunch" with them one day at their favorite restaurant -- a Vietnamese vegan establishment that specialized in imitation meat dishes that looked, smelled, and tasted incredibly like the real thing. The experience got me interested in adopting a vegetarian diet as well, so I decided to research the whole vegetarian thing.
Several books and a shitload of websites later I was in shock. They put WHAT in our meats? There's WHAT in our fish and seafood?? There's HOW MANY deaths attributed to bad meat every year??? WTF?!?!? The question in my mind was no longer whether I should go vegetarian, it was why the fuck isn't *everyone* going vegetarian?
Two books in particular had an enormous effect on me -- "The Vegetarian Handbook" by Gary Null, and "Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat!" by Howard Lyman:
> You [elucido] might have a point in some hand-wavey, disconnected from objective reality idealistic way.
Hey there, justins, I think you're more right than you realize. Have you checked out elucido's posting history on Slashdot (click on his user nick and take a quick look at his article titles)? The dude is either a massively pro-corporate libertarian of the worst sort ("Eliminate regulation! Privatize everything!") or he's Yet Another Astroturfer for Big Business -- maybe he's getting money from Monsanto....
> I think CNN and all major media outlets are sick in this regard. There should be more journalistic integrity in the field.
I hear you on that one, buddy. It's tragically ridiculous how our collective news system has degenerated into a ratings-chasing mouthpiece for the corporate/government machine.
> However *that* being said, they are just catering to a hungry maw of the public. Who's fault really is it? Apparently more people want this kind of drivel than to read about what our leaders are doing with us.
I remember working in a Radio Shack store back in the nineties when the OJ Simpson trial happened. Sales of portable, compact, and pocket TV sets jumped through the roof -- customers wanted to be able to tune in to minute-by-minute coverage of the trial, no matter where they were or what they were doing. (Admittedly, this was in a well-to-do area of Orange County, California.)
My suspicion is that the widespread preference for sensational news trivia isn't entirely the public's fault, however. The media always claim that they only offer what the public wants, yet what the public gets handed to them is often times all they know because they aren't shown much else.
It's like two dogs chasing each other's tails so that they're caught in an endless loop: if only one of them broke off in a new direction, the cycle would end. Now, if you wanted to keep those dogs occupied and out of the way, you wouldn't *want* to see that cycle interrupted.
Hmmm....
> Apparently, the leaders encourage these kinds of distractions so they'll be more interested in this kind of drivel than what our leaders are doing with us.
Yep, that fits. Keep the unruly masses entertained with frivolity and, when that doesn't work, throw wedge issues at them so they'll be too busy fighting each other to notice that their corporations and politicians are screwing them over a barrel. Yikes.
And people wonder why I don't own a TV set anymore.
> Of all people, students should be the first to learn how to cope with new OSes (or distros) as they arise, to build *fundamental computer skills* instead of learning through the 'click here to do this' approach.
Excellent point. Reminds me of what Seymour A Papert (inventor of Logo and a principal figure in the One Laptop Per Child project) wrote in his book _The_Children's_Machine_: [paraphrasing] "the only computer skill that truly matters is the ability to learn new skills and apply them to new scenarios." In other words, it isn't any one specific computer skill that really counts, it's the learning strategy for acquiring whatever skill is needed for the situation at hand.
One of the things Papert covered was the method of "generalizing the idea" -- taking a good concept from a specific situation and making it more universal. Therefore, if we generalize your point...;)
"Of all people, students should be the first to learn how to cope with [the need for] new skills (or scenarios) as they arise, to build *fundamental learning strategies* instead of learning through the 'do X to get Y' approach."
> If criminals are bad enough, criminals operating under protection of law are worse.
Reminds me of something my Army vet / ex-LAPD cop buddy has said to me on more than one occasion, regarding the police mindset. During one class in the academy, the instructor asked all the students a simple question: "What makes a good cop?"
Responses to the instructor were many and varied. But no one had the answer he was looking for:
"A better crook."
The point he was trying to make was that effective law enforcement agents can't properly fight crime unless *they can think like the criminals -- and outsmart them*. Which means that the line that divides the cops from the crooks is a lot thinner than many people realize.
Arthur C. Clarke had a good line in his full-length rewrite of "The Songs of Distant Earth" -- in which a massive refugee ship from Earth encounters a friendly, far-flung human colony planet so pleasant that it seems a shame the ship's destination is elsewhere. When unknown crew members attempt to sabotage the ship in order to forcibly abort the mission (so that everyone will be conveniently stranded on the paradise planet) the captain authorizes the awakening of a criminology expert from the ship's cryogenic hybernation facilities. Having been asked why he decided to become a criminologist, the man answers quite simply:
> I wish $5 CDs would happen. If the price of an album of music was 5 dollars, I would buy music again... as it is, I probably have about $20 to spend on "fun" per week (I'm a poor college student)
Seriously, dude, I feel your pain -- been there, done that. Back in my college days I was scraping together what little disposable income I had (which wasn't much) to slowly build up my CD collection of New Age music.
Then one fateful day I spotted a flyer with the words "Have you ever listened to Rick Dees on the radio and said to yourself, 'I could do better than that!'?"
It was a recruitment poster for the on-campus radio station. Shortly afterward, I was one of many students who signed up to be DJ trainees. It was one of the most rewarding things I had ever done in my life (the fact that the station's official music program policy was, "if nobody else has your music format, YOU AUTOMATICALLY GET A SHOW!" certainly didn't hurt) and it allowed me to expand my personal music collection by leaps and bounds: nearly every time a music company sent the station a CD, *it came with one or more duplicates* !!! Plus, many of the music company reps were more than happy to fulfill my requests for particular albums that were out of circulation or too obscure for the music retail outlets.
I don't know if it's still common practice, but the music industry liked to "paper" each station with multiple copies of each CD submission, which was often accompanied by bonus materials such as (but not limited to) posters, artists' biographies and previous interview transcripts, concert tickets (if the musician(s) had a performance scheduled at a local venue), etc. The downside is that you can get flooded by massive quantities of purely shitty CDs (even some of the New Age stuff I received wasn't fit to put on the air) and the music company reps are constantly calling the station to pester the DJs and the program director for more airplay of their submissions (to drive up the playlist ratings).
> It certainly is not commanded anywhere in the christian bible to destroy libraries, in fact such things are sinning, since a christian is not supposed to break the laws of the land as commanded by christ in the new testament. Any true christian would be following those commandments.
*Ahem* May I direct your attention to the following passages from the Bible?
Deuteronomy, 5:7 -- Thou shalt have none other gods before me.
Deuteronomy, 5:8 -- Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth
2 Corinthians, 10:5 -- Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ
1 Timothy, 6:20 -- O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called
Deuteronomy, 7:5 -- But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire
Okay, we have our Biblical material -- now let's do a little analysis, shall we?
Deuteronomy, 5:7 - This is the widely recognized First Commandment, as handed down directly from God to Moses and then to the Isrealites (assuming that we disregard the second, revised edition of the Commandments that Moses later received!) and is pretty much self-explanatory: worship Me and ME ONLY!
Deuteronomy, 5:8 - This is the equally famous Second Commandment, which Robert A. Heinlein pointed out has really only one purpose -- to reinforce the first. More specifically, it is a direct attack on pagan religions (read: competitors) which depend heavily on physical, sacred icons of their respective gods and/or goddesses.
2 Corinthians, 10:5 - A loose translation of this passage might read, "Condemning creative thought processes, and every abstract concept that stands in opposition of what is known about God, putting under complete control all [people's] thinking for the sake of worshipping Jesus [and God]."
This is a very shocking instruction to deliver to the faithful: one must abandon all free thought, shun any philosophical inquiry that contradicts Christian doctrine, and assume total domination of everyone's minds for the goal of swelling the ranks of the One True Religion. The most zealous Islamic fundamentalists probably couldn't express their life's mission much better than that [if we substitute "Allah" for "Jesus"]!
1 Timothy, 6:20 - This passage essentially reinforces the above verse: if there is science which is "profane" or "in vain" (read: disrespectful or disobedient towards God) then those who trust in God have to maintain opposition to such science.
For further reflection, consider that the word "science" in this passage was originally "knowledge." If we suppose that what the original scribes meant was "scientific truth" -- i.e.: that which is known to be true based on physical evidence or logical argument -- then divine faith trumps scientific truth every time! Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church should *never* have issued an apology for their persecution and permanent house arrest of Galileo!
Deuteronomy, 7:5 - Here, the word "them" refers to all heathens, heretics, infidels, pagans -- i.e.: the unbelievers. The orders on how to deal with such people (not to mention their sacred icons and holy places of worship) are self-explanatory.
From the Wikipedia entry on the Library of Alexandria:
> The Royal Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt was once the largest library in the world. It is generally thought to have been founded at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, during the reign of Ptolemy II of Egypt, after his father had built what would become the first part of the library comp
"Yup, them crazy, dumb kids don't know up from down, spend way too much time playing games, dancing around, getting drunk, having loose sex, and are bringing down everything we worked so hard for to wrack and ruin...."
[wry grin]
I don't remember which philosopher it was (Seneca?) but he pretty much expressed the above sentiments about what he lamented as the unthinking, reckless youth of his time, complaining at length that they were obssessed with pleasure-seeking at the cost of thinking and contributing to the greater good. He concluded that all was lost, and that civilization would decline and collapse.
The civilization he was referring to was none other than the Roman Empire. Admittedly, his prediction proved to be correct...though it would take about 500 more years for the empire to actually fall!
Personally, I'd argue that he was right, but for the wrong reason -- it's all too common for older generations to look down upon and condemn the young, usually for no other crime than the fact that the newer generations are different and do things their own way. Then there's Arthur C. Clarke's take on the old-versus-young rivalry: "...the old are often insanely jealous of the young." (The Sentinel)
I suspect that more than a few of us here have similar feelings on the issue, which probably explains the use of phrases such as "the Bad Old Days" and "the Dark Ages".
> Take the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game. Now imagine Disney or McDonalds releasing a clone, where you do all the same things, but all the actions have been changed to 'kid-friendly' versions.... It would suck.
Well, it *could* suck, but it doesn't necessarily have to. The first thing that popped into my mind when reading the above post was "The Simpsons: Hit And Run" -- which essentially is a 'kid-friendly' version of Grand Theft Auto (if you don't count Homer yelling "Ow, my ass!" or "Dammit, I dropped my kebob!") yet is one of my all-time favorite games.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go beat the pants off of Hit And Run with my killer combo -- the Hell Hearse and the Open Wheel Race Car. WOO-HOO !!
Particularly the Olympians, the family of ancient Greek gods headed by the great Zeus, all of whom resided in their divine palace atop Mount Olympus.
I don't know if there is *any* documentation to back this up, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Greeks eventually abandoned their religion when something like this happened....;)
Sum Dudius Extremis, intrepid mountain climber: Yo, my fellow excellent Greek dudes, I have, like, scaled every high peak and sheer rock face in all of Greece! Every mountain and cliff wall from Athens to Macedonia, I have come, I have seen, and I have totally conquered! All, like, except one. [dramatic pause]....Mount Olympus.
fellow Greeks: NO FUCKING WAY, DUDIUS! ARE YOU SHITTING US?! YOU GOT TO BE TOTALLY FUCKING INSANE! YOU'RE GOING TO, LIKE, MAJORLY PISS OFF ZEUS AND THE OTHER TOTALLY EXCELLENT OLYMPIANS, DUDIUS!!
Dudius: Yes, my fellow excellent Greek dudes, I know that I'll almost certainly, like, totally incur the divine wrath of the Olympians if I even get close to their very excellent palace in the clouds. Which means, basically, that my life will be forfeit and won't be worth shit. BUT I MUST AT LEAST TRY!!
fellow Greeks: DUDIUS, YOU FUCK! YOU TOTAL MANIAC!!
[some time later, near the peak of Mount Olympus]
Dudius: [calling out nervously as he scales the mountain] Uh, yo? Olympians? Hello, Olympians, hello? I know you probably, like, totally know this already, but....I'm coming to visit your very excellent palace of the gods. Yo, Zeus? Hera? Extremely hot babe goddess Aphrodite? Apollo? --Oh, shit, of course the Sun god's not here, he's up in the sky riding his awesome sun chariot.... Uh, guys?
[Dudius has reached the peak by now and looks around at an extremely impressive yet lonely vista atop Mount Olympus. There is absolutely nobody and nothing around except clouds.]
Dudius: [gazing around in disbelief and increasing agitation] Guys? Guys?? What... the... [shouts next word at the top of his lungs] FUCK?!?!?!?!?! [His voice echoes faintly from nearby mountains. Some distance below, various avalanches start rumbling.]
> Likewise, it's thought that life itself somehow or other "popped out of" non-living chemicals, despite the fact that nobody has ever been able to replicate this "accident of nature".
. . . *yet*.
Bear in mind that, according to most evolution scientists, life on Earth had its origins in the "primordial soup" of the ancient oceans, which would constitute the Biggest Friggin' Petri Dish Ever. That's a hell of a sandbox to play around in, and as long as you aren't in a hurry (let's say a few million years, give or take a millennium) you could come up with any number of viable, self-replicating molecules.
Note my specific wording above: "life on Earth *had its origins in* the 'primordial soup'" in the form of "self-replicating molecules" -- which does NOT imply that complete single-cell organisms or even entire DNA strands just "popped out of" nothing by pure chance. No one in the evolutionary science field has stated otherwise, and evolution does not require the abrupt appearance of The First Amoeba/DNA as the definitive event that kicked off the whole process!
In all likelihood, life as we know it was preceeded by a much more primitive "proto-life" which had some *but not all* of the defining characteristics of life. By logical extension (reduction?) the very first proto-life form would have been nothing more than a simple replicator:
> Nor is abiogenesis (the origin of the first life) due purely to chance. Atoms and molecules arrange themselves not purely randomly, but according to their chemical properties. In the case of carbon atoms especially, this means complex molecules are sure to form spontaneously, and these complex molecules can influence each other to create even more complex molecules. Once a molecule forms that is approximately self-replicating, natural selection will guide the formation of ever more efficient replicators. The first self-replicating object didn't need to be as complex as a modern cell or even a strand of DNA. Some self-replicating molecules are not really all that complex (as organic molecules go). > > Some people still argue that it is wildly improbable for a given self-replicating molecule to form at a given point (although they usually don't state the "givens," but leave them implicit in their calculations). This is true, but there were oceans of molecules working on the problem, and no one knows how many possible self-replicating molecules could have served as the first one. A calculation of the odds of abiogenesis is worthless unless it recognizes the immense range of starting materials that the first replicator might have formed from, the probably innumerable different forms that the first replicator might have taken, and the fact that much of the construction of the replicating molecule would have been non-random to start with.
> The Cambrian "Explosion": Another Creationist Big Lie > > Creationism anti-science propaganda claims that all the major forms of life suddenly appeared during the Cambrian age. The fact is that only primitive life forms existed at that time. Fossils of life forms dating to pre-Cambrian times are rare simply because they did not have hard parts, which developed during the Cambrian period. > > Here are the facts, which are based on solid geological evidence, evidence which creationists have not, and can not, refute: > > During the Cambrian, no plants, with the exception of algae, existed. Land plants did not come into existence until 200 million years later. > > Swimming fishes did not appear until 100 million years after the close of the Cambrian. Reptiles and birds did not exist until 130 million years after the end of the Cambrian. Mammals did not appear until 440 million years after the close of the Cambrian.
Sorry, Anonymous Coward, this disqualifies you from continuing the round -- but thank you for playing!
> The thing is, the snake is by no means a uniformly malign figure in mythology. Quite the opposite; they are often beneficent. >... > Our way of looking at these stories, Genesis in particular, has been diminished by religious ideology. To the point that those of us raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition think nothing is more natural than to hate and revile snakes. >... >...it is certainly not the case the myth and religion can be used to show an atavistic revulsion to snakes that may have an evolutionary basis.
Those are all good points you brought up. It's been my understanding that the Judeo-Christian animosity towards the snake was a direct and deliberate response to its prominent role in competing religions as a positive symbol (for example, the belief systems of ancient Egypt), and historically the followers of the "I Am That I Am" deity were not known for their tolerance of other faiths:
Interestingly, the biblical commandment that states "Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth" (Deuteronomy 5:8) spells out this unyielding hostility, only it covers more than just snakes -- which can slither on "the earth beneath" or swim "in the waters" (or perhaps even exist "in heaven above" if we include flying dragons). This almost certainly was meant to target the central practice of so-called "heathen" and "pagan" religions, which focused their worship activities on literal "graven images" or other physical, sacred icons of their gods.
Come to think of it, when you combine the above with the Christian gimmick of scheduling their holidays to coincide with -- and eventually preempt -- pagan celebrations (e.g. Easter and the spring/fertility rites), it bears an uncanny resemblance to the general business practice of Microsoft: embrace, extend, exterminate!
> if you have nothing to hide, why should you worry about the NSA wiretapping you?
I would worry because of the same reasons that social progress / political reform activists would worry about the police or the FBI following their movements, tapping their phones, or using undercover agents who pose as friendly volunteers: it means the powers-that-be view such activists as threatening, and therefore they are an enemy to be neutralized.
Historically this has happened throughout the course of America's lifetime. The organized labor movement... Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the struggle for civil rights... John Lennon and the anti-war protests during Vietnam... even environmentalism... all have been targeted by government intelligence and law enforcement surveillance programs. It's not about fighting crime, it's about consolidating power. You might want to reflect on the following words regarding unchecked government power over the people:
"All those who gain power are afraid to lose it."
"Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely."
OT, a couple of techies I knew from college got such a big laugh from that movie that they decided to call their place "The Butterzone" -- as in, "You're in the Butterzone now, baby!" Likewise, every time they host a party it's officially a Butterzone:
> somebody get crackin.. we need a replacment of directX stat.
Well, technically no one *needs* it...but a functioning FOSS replacement for DirectX would be nothing less than TOTALLY FRIGGIN' AWESOME, DUDE!!:D Goodness knows it would give the ReactOS project one hell of a boost.
> I will die or gnaw off my hand before i touch a MAC
Couldn't agree with you more one that one. I'm a disgruntled Apple II user with a *very* long memory. Damn you to hell, Steve Jobs! Fuck you *and* your [PowerPC/i]Mac! Wozniak was the true creator of Apple! Long live The Woz!!
> After extensive discussion, my friends and I have 3 good ways to get rid of door-to-door types permanently. >... > 2)Preach Satanism in return. Tell them to abandon their false Christ and embrace their dark lord. Offer to bring a vial of chicken blood to baptise them. Extremely effective if they bring their kids again, and less likely to have the cops called on you.
ROFLMFAO!!
Back in my college days it was a regular annoyance/occurrence to get approached by Christian recruiters, no matter where you were on the campus. Their most irritating tactic was to come up and sit down next to students who were eating a meal, especially in the food court at the student union building. "Hi can I sit here thank you ARE YOU BORN AGAIN?"
It became so irksome that the humor columnist for the college newspaper wrote a devastatingly funny article about the phenomenon: [paraphrasing] "Here I am, wrestling with my stacked-high hamburger so that I can eat it without having the thing squirt on my shirt or collapse all over the place, and some Christian nitwit plops down in the set next to me and starts telling me that my soul needs to be saved!"
The columnist proceeded to offer suggestions on how to handle the Souls for Jesus crowd. My personal favorite? "You want me to come to a prayer meeting on which day? Oh, sorry -- that's my date for gay sex with Satan."
> In whose hands will the tool be? The "Protect & Serve" type of police or the "Shoot first and ask questions later" kind?
Considering that we're discussing the Los Angeles fucking Police Department I'd say the question answers itself.... (Rodney King, anyone? How about Rampart?)
Seriously, my "Army vet buddy" also worked as an LAPD cop. Now he's a private investigator who specializes in cases where the defense has suspicions regarding police corruption.
One such case involved a Latino who was stopped by police while he was walking down the street. The man had no priors, but vaguely fit the description (Latino) of a suspect. When the police proceeded to arrest the man, he protested that he had done nothing wrong. The cops then beat him up, forced him to kneel on the ground and shot him, point blank, several times in the legs.
Here's the funny/sick part. The police reported that the man broke and ran from the police (resisting arrest) and that they only shot him in the legs to stop him from fleeing. Furthermore, they claimed he was physically violent when they tried to cuff him at that point, so they had to "subdue" him. The guy was screwed, yes?
No. My PI and ex-cop friend was working for the defense attorney, and he noticed that the angle of the gunshot wounds had an extremely steep downward angle. It didn't fit the police report of the incident....but it made perfect sense in light of the man's side of the story -- that he was on his knees when the cops, standing around him, shot the man repeatedly.
From his hospital bed, the man practically cried, "Why, oh why did they have to shoot me so many times?"
To which my friend explained to him, "Simple, mister: YOU DIDN'T DIE. When cops shoot you at point blank range like that, you're supposed to die. So when they kept shooting you and you kept *not dying* you pissed them off. Don't you know better than to piss off an LAPD cop?" My friend was, of course, joking.
To this day, my PI / Army vet buddy never runs out of work.
...a cross between Blue Thunder (the movie, where Roy Scheider and Daniel Stern use their police chopper to peep on a nude female practicing yoga) and The Simpsons: Hit And Run (all those flying robotic wasp cameras spying on Springfield).
Homer: "Mr. Burns, I know you're guilty. Je'accuse!!...Sir."
Burns: "Fine, I admit it: I had Amelia Earhardt's plane shot down. That hussy was getting too big for her jumpers."
Homer: "No! You've been spying on Springfield with your black vans and surveillance cameras."
Burns: "Black vans? Hmph, aren't they involved in some...pizziola concern?"
Homer: "WHA--?! They were only pizza vans?? Oh, I'm a class five idiot!"
My sentiments exactly. Seeing Bill Gates pushing himself in the media as the ultimate humanitarian benefactor (cover of Time with Melinda Gates and Bono Vox, anyone?) makes me want to laugh or puke. Or laugh and puke. Or laugh until I puke....
Reminds me of the old "Bill Cosby Himself" film, showing The Cos at the top of his standup comedy form, where in one sketch he explains to his kids why their grandparents (Cosby's mother and father) are so affectionate and generous towards them: [paraphrasing] "You are not looking at two selfless and loving people, kids. You are looking at two selfish and aging people *who are desperately trying to get into heaven!!*" [cue uproarious laughter]
Gates has been trying for quite some time to repaint himself as a serious, concerned philanthropist. My problem with him isn't that he's doing good things; it's that he's doing those good things for bad reasons.
"And he's buying himself a stairway to heaven...."
Slashdot Mirror
> When you get your computer, get a second boot drive and mirror the installation you have.
>
> One random day a week load this second boot drive into your computer and actually USE it for that entire day.
>
> if you receive a subpoena, replace your normal boot drive with your semi-sanitary mirror, bury the original hard disk in a tupperware container someplace really hard to find until they inevitably dismiss your case for lack of evidence.
Damn.... I've had redundant, mirrored hard drives for years (got over a baker's dozen of them right now!) and I never thought of using them in that manner. I do have a couple of HDs specifically reserved as "testbench / crash-and-burn" units, one primary and one backup: if a tricky install or suspicious download fucks up the drive, I simply shut down, erase drive, clone from the backup, and reboot. Malware and crudware, kiss my ass!
Very cool, plasmacutter. Everyone, mod this dude up.
> I can't help but wonder if anyone ever tried to put the files into the wastebasket and DIDN'T empty it.
;)
Hmmm... The closest thing I can think of would be Oliver North. During the Iran-Contra operation in the Reagan years he oversaw the shredding of paper documents and the deletion of computer records to cover the operation's tracks. Little did Ollie realize (but any computer geek could have told him) that when he gave the computer a "delete file" command it didn't actually destroy the file; it merely tagged the file's directory entry as "Vacant -- space now available for overwrite". Thus, when the Iran-Contra scandal broke, federal investigators found a virtual treasure trove of incriminating computer data; all they had to do was "undelete" the files, as it were.
Bet the expression on Ollie's face must have been priceless when he found out....
> I can see they finally put some marketing behind the project, "Children's Machine 1" doesn't sound old-fashion and too technical at all...
Actually, I suspect that the new designation is a nod to project member Seymour Papert, who wrote the book "The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in The Age of The Computer" -- in which he argued (back in 1992) that access to computers and online information networks would be crucial in improving our education systems and preparing our younger generations for dealing with a new and rapidly evolving world.
>> [Golias] There will finally be a new game release which Gabe and Tycho won't bitch about.
:) You could say that Penny Arcade wouldn't be Penny Arcade if Gabe and Tycho weren't bitching about *something* regarding their games. I can imagine them testplaying the first release of Penny Arcade: The Game -- "Dude, I do *not* look like that! And what's with giving me that silly walk??" "What the fuck?! No Cardboard Tube Samurai?? How can they NOT fucking give me the option of turning into Cardboard Tube Samurai?!? FUCK!! Fuck, fucking fucked-up fuck fucker... FUUUCK!!!!!!!"
>
> I wouldn't bet on that.
Me neither.
Even the incredibly unique PS2 title "Ico" didn't escape criticism: the first time Gabe tried the game, he apparently tripped so heavily on the beautiful graphics that he froze into a smiling statue on the couch; later on we see Gabe driven up the wall by Yorda's inability to understand that WANDERING OFF GETS HER IN TROUBLE -- that and her attempts to communicate in a language unknown to anyone. ("Yeah, yeah, whatever. I don't speak 'crazy bitch'!")
General Hammond: [off camera] "COLONEL! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?"
O'Neill: [interrupted in mid-swing, whips around in annoyance] "I'm working on my backswing!!!"
Priceless. Absolutely fucking priceless.
> All and all, I'm appalled and frightened by my food supply, and things like this aren't encouraging.
1 5.html
I hear you, buddy, and you aren't the only one. Years ago I discovered to my surprise that several of my fellow college students were vegetarians when they invited me to "do lunch" with them one day at their favorite restaurant -- a Vietnamese vegan establishment that specialized in imitation meat dishes that looked, smelled, and tasted incredibly like the real thing. The experience got me interested in adopting a vegetarian diet as well, so I decided to research the whole vegetarian thing.
Several books and a shitload of websites later I was in shock. They put WHAT in our meats? There's WHAT in our fish and seafood?? There's HOW MANY deaths attributed to bad meat every year??? WTF?!?!? The question in my mind was no longer whether I should go vegetarian, it was why the fuck isn't *everyone* going vegetarian?
Two books in particular had an enormous effect on me -- "The Vegetarian Handbook" by Gary Null, and "Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat!" by Howard Lyman:
http://www.powerbooksearch.com/booksearch03121444
http://www.madcowboy.com/01_BookOV.000.html
> You [elucido] might have a point in some hand-wavey, disconnected from objective reality idealistic way.
Hey there, justins, I think you're more right than you realize. Have you checked out elucido's posting history on Slashdot (click on his user nick and take a quick look at his article titles)? The dude is either a massively pro-corporate libertarian of the worst sort ("Eliminate regulation! Privatize everything!") or he's Yet Another Astroturfer for Big Business -- maybe he's getting money from Monsanto....
> I think CNN and all major media outlets are sick in this regard. There should be more journalistic integrity in the field.
I hear you on that one, buddy. It's tragically ridiculous how our collective news system has degenerated into a ratings-chasing mouthpiece for the corporate/government machine.
> However *that* being said, they are just catering to a hungry maw of the public. Who's fault really is it? Apparently more people want this kind of drivel than to read about what our leaders are doing with us.
I remember working in a Radio Shack store back in the nineties when the OJ Simpson trial happened. Sales of portable, compact, and pocket TV sets jumped through the roof -- customers wanted to be able to tune in to minute-by-minute coverage of the trial, no matter where they were or what they were doing. (Admittedly, this was in a well-to-do area of Orange County, California.)
My suspicion is that the widespread preference for sensational news trivia isn't entirely the public's fault, however. The media always claim that they only offer what the public wants, yet what the public gets handed to them is often times all they know because they aren't shown much else.
It's like two dogs chasing each other's tails so that they're caught in an endless loop: if only one of them broke off in a new direction, the cycle would end. Now, if you wanted to keep those dogs occupied and out of the way, you wouldn't *want* to see that cycle interrupted.
Hmmm....
> Apparently, the leaders encourage these kinds of distractions so they'll be more interested in this kind of drivel than what our leaders are doing with us.
Yep, that fits. Keep the unruly masses entertained with frivolity and, when that doesn't work, throw wedge issues at them so they'll be too busy fighting each other to notice that their corporations and politicians are screwing them over a barrel. Yikes.
And people wonder why I don't own a TV set anymore.
> Of all people, students should be the first to learn how to cope with new OSes (or distros) as they arise, to build *fundamental computer skills* instead of learning through the 'click here to do this' approach.
;)
Excellent point. Reminds me of what Seymour A Papert (inventor of Logo and a principal figure in the One Laptop Per Child project) wrote in his book _The_Children's_Machine_: [paraphrasing] "the only computer skill that truly matters is the ability to learn new skills and apply them to new scenarios." In other words, it isn't any one specific computer skill that really counts, it's the learning strategy for acquiring whatever skill is needed for the situation at hand.
One of the things Papert covered was the method of "generalizing the idea" -- taking a good concept from a specific situation and making it more universal. Therefore, if we generalize your point...
"Of all people, students should be the first to learn how to cope with [the need for] new skills (or scenarios) as they arise, to build *fundamental learning strategies* instead of learning through the 'do X to get Y' approach."
> If criminals are bad enough, criminals operating under protection of law are worse.
Reminds me of something my Army vet / ex-LAPD cop buddy has said to me on more than one occasion, regarding the police mindset. During one class in the academy, the instructor asked all the students a simple question: "What makes a good cop?"
Responses to the instructor were many and varied. But no one had the answer he was looking for:
"A better crook."
The point he was trying to make was that effective law enforcement agents can't properly fight crime unless *they can think like the criminals -- and outsmart them*. Which means that the line that divides the cops from the crooks is a lot thinner than many people realize.
Arthur C. Clarke had a good line in his full-length rewrite of "The Songs of Distant Earth" -- in which a massive refugee ship from Earth encounters a friendly, far-flung human colony planet so pleasant that it seems a shame the ship's destination is elsewhere. When unknown crew members attempt to sabotage the ship in order to forcibly abort the mission (so that everyone will be conveniently stranded on the paradise planet) the captain authorizes the awakening of a criminology expert from the ship's cryogenic hybernation facilities. Having been asked why he decided to become a criminologist, the man answers quite simply:
"It was either that, or become a criminal."
> I wish $5 CDs would happen. If the price of an album of music was 5 dollars, I would buy music again... as it is, I probably have about $20 to spend on "fun" per week (I'm a poor college student)
Seriously, dude, I feel your pain -- been there, done that. Back in my college days I was scraping together what little disposable income I had (which wasn't much) to slowly build up my CD collection of New Age music.
Then one fateful day I spotted a flyer with the words "Have you ever listened to Rick Dees on the radio and said to yourself, 'I could do better than that!'?"
It was a recruitment poster for the on-campus radio station. Shortly afterward, I was one of many students who signed up to be DJ trainees. It was one of the most rewarding things I had ever done in my life (the fact that the station's official music program policy was, "if nobody else has your music format, YOU AUTOMATICALLY GET A SHOW!" certainly didn't hurt) and it allowed me to expand my personal music collection by leaps and bounds: nearly every time a music company sent the station a CD, *it came with one or more duplicates* !!! Plus, many of the music company reps were more than happy to fulfill my requests for particular albums that were out of circulation or too obscure for the music retail outlets.
I don't know if it's still common practice, but the music industry liked to "paper" each station with multiple copies of each CD submission, which was often accompanied by bonus materials such as (but not limited to) posters, artists' biographies and previous interview transcripts, concert tickets (if the musician(s) had a performance scheduled at a local venue), etc. The downside is that you can get flooded by massive quantities of purely shitty CDs (even some of the New Age stuff I received wasn't fit to put on the air) and the music company reps are constantly calling the station to pester the DJs and the program director for more airplay of their submissions (to drive up the playlist ratings).
> It certainly is not commanded anywhere in the christian bible to destroy libraries, in fact such things are sinning, since a christian is not supposed to break the laws of the land as commanded by christ in the new testament. Any true christian would be following those commandments.
*Ahem* May I direct your attention to the following passages from the Bible?
Deuteronomy, 5:7 -- Thou shalt have none other gods before me.
Deuteronomy, 5:8 -- Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth
2 Corinthians, 10:5 -- Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ
1 Timothy, 6:20 -- O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called
Deuteronomy, 7:5 -- But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire
Okay, we have our Biblical material -- now let's do a little analysis, shall we?
Deuteronomy, 5:7
- This is the widely recognized First Commandment, as handed down directly from God to Moses and then to the Isrealites (assuming that we disregard the second, revised edition of the Commandments that Moses later received!) and is pretty much self-explanatory: worship Me and ME ONLY!
Deuteronomy, 5:8
- This is the equally famous Second Commandment, which Robert A. Heinlein pointed out has really only one purpose -- to reinforce the first. More specifically, it is a direct attack on pagan religions (read: competitors) which depend heavily on physical, sacred icons of their respective gods and/or goddesses.
2 Corinthians, 10:5
- A loose translation of this passage might read, "Condemning creative thought processes, and every abstract concept that stands in opposition of what is known about God, putting under complete control all [people's] thinking for the sake of worshipping Jesus [and God]."
This is a very shocking instruction to deliver to the faithful: one must abandon all free thought, shun any philosophical inquiry that contradicts Christian doctrine, and assume total domination of everyone's minds for the goal of swelling the ranks of the One True Religion. The most zealous Islamic fundamentalists probably couldn't express their life's mission much better than that [if we substitute "Allah" for "Jesus"]!
1 Timothy, 6:20
- This passage essentially reinforces the above verse: if there is science which is "profane" or "in vain" (read: disrespectful or disobedient towards God) then those who trust in God have to maintain opposition to such science.
For further reflection, consider that the word "science" in this passage was originally "knowledge." If we suppose that what the original scribes meant was "scientific truth" -- i.e.: that which is known to be true based on physical evidence or logical argument -- then divine faith trumps scientific truth every time! Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church should *never* have issued an apology for their persecution and permanent house arrest of Galileo!
Deuteronomy, 7:5
- Here, the word "them" refers to all heathens, heretics, infidels, pagans -- i.e.: the unbelievers. The orders on how to deal with such people (not to mention their sacred icons and holy places of worship) are self-explanatory.
From the Wikipedia entry on the Library of Alexandria:
> The Royal Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt was once the largest library in the world. It is generally thought to have been founded at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, during the reign of Ptolemy II of Egypt, after his father had built what would become the first part of the library comp
"Yup, them crazy, dumb kids don't know up from down, spend way too much time playing games, dancing around, getting drunk, having loose sex, and are bringing down everything we worked so hard for to wrack and ruin...."
...though it would take about 500 more years for the empire to actually fall!
[wry grin]
I don't remember which philosopher it was (Seneca?) but he pretty much expressed the above sentiments about what he lamented as the unthinking, reckless youth of his time, complaining at length that they were obssessed with pleasure-seeking at the cost of thinking and contributing to the greater good. He concluded that all was lost, and that civilization would decline and collapse.
The civilization he was referring to was none other than the Roman Empire. Admittedly, his prediction proved to be correct
Personally, I'd argue that he was right, but for the wrong reason -- it's all too common for older generations to look down upon and condemn the young, usually for no other crime than the fact that the newer generations are different and do things their own way. Then there's Arthur C. Clarke's take on the old-versus-young rivalry: "...the old are often insanely jealous of the young." (The Sentinel)
I suspect that more than a few of us here have similar feelings on the issue, which probably explains the use of phrases such as "the Bad Old Days" and "the Dark Ages".
> Take the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game. Now imagine Disney or McDonalds releasing a clone, where you do all the same things, but all the actions have been changed to 'kid-friendly' versions.... It would suck.
Well, it *could* suck, but it doesn't necessarily have to. The first thing that popped into my mind when reading the above post was "The Simpsons: Hit And Run" -- which essentially is a 'kid-friendly' version of Grand Theft Auto (if you don't count Homer yelling "Ow, my ass!" or "Dammit, I dropped my kebob!") yet is one of my all-time favorite games.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go beat the pants off of Hit And Run with my killer combo -- the Hell Hearse and the Open Wheel Race Car. WOO-HOO !!
> The older Gods did have testability.
;)
....Mount Olympus.
....I'm coming to visit your very excellent palace of the gods. Yo, Zeus? Hera? Extremely hot babe goddess Aphrodite? Apollo? --Oh, shit, of course the Sun god's not here, he's up in the sky riding his awesome sun chariot.... Uh, guys?
... the ... [shouts next word at the top of his lungs] FUCK?!?!?!?!?! [His voice echoes faintly from nearby mountains. Some distance below, various avalanches start rumbling.]
Particularly the Olympians, the family of ancient Greek gods headed by the great Zeus, all of whom resided in their divine palace atop Mount Olympus.
I don't know if there is *any* documentation to back this up, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Greeks eventually abandoned their religion when something like this happened....
Sum Dudius Extremis, intrepid mountain climber: Yo, my fellow excellent Greek dudes, I have, like, scaled every high peak and sheer rock face in all of Greece! Every mountain and cliff wall from Athens to Macedonia, I have come, I have seen, and I have totally conquered! All, like, except one. [dramatic pause]
fellow Greeks: NO FUCKING WAY, DUDIUS! ARE YOU SHITTING US?! YOU GOT TO BE TOTALLY FUCKING INSANE! YOU'RE GOING TO, LIKE, MAJORLY PISS OFF ZEUS AND THE OTHER TOTALLY EXCELLENT OLYMPIANS, DUDIUS!!
Dudius: Yes, my fellow excellent Greek dudes, I know that I'll almost certainly, like, totally incur the divine wrath of the Olympians if I even get close to their very excellent palace in the clouds. Which means, basically, that my life will be forfeit and won't be worth shit. BUT I MUST AT LEAST TRY!!
fellow Greeks: DUDIUS, YOU FUCK! YOU TOTAL MANIAC!!
[some time later, near the peak of Mount Olympus]
Dudius: [calling out nervously as he scales the mountain] Uh, yo? Olympians? Hello, Olympians, hello? I know you probably, like, totally know this already, but
[Dudius has reached the peak by now and looks around at an extremely impressive yet lonely vista atop Mount Olympus. There is absolutely nobody and nothing around except clouds.]
Dudius: [gazing around in disbelief and increasing agitation] Guys? Guys?? What
> Likewise, it's thought that life itself somehow or other "popped out of" non-living chemicals, despite the fact that nobody has ever been able to replicate this "accident of nature".
s .html
. . . *yet*.
Bear in mind that, according to most evolution scientists, life on Earth had its origins in the "primordial soup" of the ancient oceans, which would constitute the Biggest Friggin' Petri Dish Ever. That's a hell of a sandbox to play around in, and as long as you aren't in a hurry (let's say a few million years, give or take a millennium) you could come up with any number of viable, self-replicating molecules.
Note my specific wording above: "life on Earth *had its origins in* the 'primordial soup'" in the form of "self-replicating molecules" -- which does NOT imply that complete single-cell organisms or even entire DNA strands just "popped out of" nothing by pure chance. No one in the evolutionary science field has stated otherwise, and evolution does not require the abrupt appearance of The First Amoeba/DNA as the definitive event that kicked off the whole process!
In all likelihood, life as we know it was preceeded by a much more primitive "proto-life" which had some *but not all* of the defining characteristics of life. By logical extension (reduction?) the very first proto-life form would have been nothing more than a simple replicator:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconception
> Nor is abiogenesis (the origin of the first life) due purely to chance. Atoms and molecules arrange themselves not purely randomly, but according to their chemical properties. In the case of carbon atoms especially, this means complex molecules are sure to form spontaneously, and these complex molecules can influence each other to create even more complex molecules. Once a molecule forms that is approximately self-replicating, natural selection will guide the formation of ever more efficient replicators. The first self-replicating object didn't need to be as complex as a modern cell or even a strand of DNA. Some self-replicating molecules are not really all that complex (as organic molecules go).
>
> Some people still argue that it is wildly improbable for a given self-replicating molecule to form at a given point (although they usually don't state the "givens," but leave them implicit in their calculations). This is true, but there were oceans of molecules working on the problem, and no one knows how many possible self-replicating molecules could have served as the first one. A calculation of the odds of abiogenesis is worthless unless it recognizes the immense range of starting materials that the first replicator might have formed from, the probably innumerable different forms that the first replicator might have taken, and the fact that much of the construction of the replicating molecule would have been non-random to start with.
> ... in the Cambrian explosion, millons of different species did just appear at about the same time
BZZZT! Wrong! As Carl Sagan pointed out, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." More to the point:
http://www.fsteiger.com/cambrian-explosion.html
> The Cambrian "Explosion": Another Creationist Big Lie
>
> Creationism anti-science propaganda claims that all the major forms of life suddenly appeared during the Cambrian age. The fact is that only primitive life forms existed at that time. Fossils of life forms dating to pre-Cambrian times are rare simply because they did not have hard parts, which developed during the Cambrian period.
>
> Here are the facts, which are based on solid geological evidence, evidence which creationists have not, and can not, refute:
>
> During the Cambrian, no plants, with the exception of algae, existed. Land plants did not come into existence until 200 million years later.
>
> Swimming fishes did not appear until 100 million years after the close of the Cambrian. Reptiles and birds did not exist until 130 million years after the end of the Cambrian. Mammals did not appear until 440 million years after the close of the Cambrian.
Sorry, Anonymous Coward, this disqualifies you from continuing the round -- but thank you for playing!
> The thing is, the snake is by no means a uniformly malign figure in mythology. Quite the opposite; they are often beneficent. ... ... ...it is certainly not the case the myth and religion can be used to show an atavistic revulsion to snakes that may have an evolutionary basis.
m l
>
> Our way of looking at these stories, Genesis in particular, has been diminished by religious ideology. To the point that those of us raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition think nothing is more natural than to hate and revile snakes.
>
>
Those are all good points you brought up. It's been my understanding that the Judeo-Christian animosity towards the snake was a direct and deliberate response to its prominent role in competing religions as a positive symbol (for example, the belief systems of ancient Egypt), and historically the followers of the "I Am That I Am" deity were not known for their tolerance of other faiths:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/int/long.ht
Interestingly, the biblical commandment that states "Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth" (Deuteronomy 5:8) spells out this unyielding hostility, only it covers more than just snakes -- which can slither on "the earth beneath" or swim "in the waters" (or perhaps even exist "in heaven above" if we include flying dragons). This almost certainly was meant to target the central practice of so-called "heathen" and "pagan" religions, which focused their worship activities on literal "graven images" or other physical, sacred icons of their gods.
Come to think of it, when you combine the above with the Christian gimmick of scheduling their holidays to coincide with -- and eventually preempt -- pagan celebrations (e.g. Easter and the spring/fertility rites), it bears an uncanny resemblance to the general business practice of Microsoft: embrace, extend, exterminate!
Whoa.... Scary.
> if you have nothing to hide, why should you worry about the NSA wiretapping you?
... Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the struggle for civil rights ... John Lennon and the anti-war protests during Vietnam ... even environmentalism ... all have been targeted by government intelligence and law enforcement surveillance programs. It's not about fighting crime, it's about consolidating power. You might want to reflect on the following words regarding unchecked government power over the people:
I would worry because of the same reasons that social progress / political reform activists would worry about the police or the FBI following their movements, tapping their phones, or using undercover agents who pose as friendly volunteers: it means the powers-that-be view such activists as threatening, and therefore they are an enemy to be neutralized.
Historically this has happened throughout the course of America's lifetime. The organized labor movement
"All those who gain power are afraid to lose it."
"Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely."
"Who will watch the watchers?"
OT, a couple of techies I knew from college got such a big laugh from that movie that they decided to call their place "The Butterzone" -- as in, "You're in the Butterzone now, baby!" Likewise, every time they host a party it's officially a Butterzone:
http://www.kuci.org/~jburley/gallery/B4/
BTW, we were all staff members of the campus radio station as well (hence the KUCI Radio domain name).
> somebody get crackin.. we need a replacment of directX stat.
...but a functioning FOSS replacement for DirectX would be nothing less than TOTALLY FRIGGIN' AWESOME, DUDE!! :D Goodness knows it would give the ReactOS project one hell of a boost.
Well, technically no one *needs* it
> I will die or gnaw off my hand before i touch a MAC
Couldn't agree with you more one that one. I'm a disgruntled Apple II user with a *very* long memory. Damn you to hell, Steve Jobs! Fuck you *and* your [PowerPC/i]Mac! Wozniak was the true creator of Apple! Long live The Woz!!
> After extensive discussion, my friends and I have 3 good ways to get rid of door-to-door types permanently. ...
>
> 2)Preach Satanism in return. Tell them to abandon their false Christ and embrace their dark lord. Offer to bring a vial of chicken blood to baptise them. Extremely effective if they bring their kids again, and less likely to have the cops called on you.
ROFLMFAO!!
Back in my college days it was a regular annoyance/occurrence to get approached by Christian recruiters, no matter where you were on the campus. Their most irritating tactic was to come up and sit down next to students who were eating a meal, especially in the food court at the student union building. "Hi can I sit here thank you ARE YOU BORN AGAIN?"
It became so irksome that the humor columnist for the college newspaper wrote a devastatingly funny article about the phenomenon: [paraphrasing] "Here I am, wrestling with my stacked-high hamburger so that I can eat it without having the thing squirt on my shirt or collapse all over the place, and some Christian nitwit plops down in the set next to me and starts telling me that my soul needs to be saved!"
The columnist proceeded to offer suggestions on how to handle the Souls for Jesus crowd. My personal favorite? "You want me to come to a prayer meeting on which day? Oh, sorry -- that's my date for gay sex with Satan."
> In whose hands will the tool be? The "Protect & Serve" type of police or the "Shoot first and ask questions later" kind?
....but it made perfect sense in light of the man's side of the story -- that he was on his knees when the cops, standing around him, shot the man repeatedly.
Considering that we're discussing the Los Angeles fucking Police Department I'd say the question answers itself.... (Rodney King, anyone? How about Rampart?)
Seriously, my "Army vet buddy" also worked as an LAPD cop. Now he's a private investigator who specializes in cases where the defense has suspicions regarding police corruption.
One such case involved a Latino who was stopped by police while he was walking down the street. The man had no priors, but vaguely fit the description (Latino) of a suspect. When the police proceeded to arrest the man, he protested that he had done nothing wrong. The cops then beat him up, forced him to kneel on the ground and shot him, point blank, several times in the legs.
Here's the funny/sick part. The police reported that the man broke and ran from the police (resisting arrest) and that they only shot him in the legs to stop him from fleeing. Furthermore, they claimed he was physically violent when they tried to cuff him at that point, so they had to "subdue" him. The guy was screwed, yes?
No. My PI and ex-cop friend was working for the defense attorney, and he noticed that the angle of the gunshot wounds had an extremely steep downward angle. It didn't fit the police report of the incident
From his hospital bed, the man practically cried, "Why, oh why did they have to shoot me so many times?"
To which my friend explained to him, "Simple, mister: YOU DIDN'T DIE. When cops shoot you at point blank range like that, you're supposed to die. So when they kept shooting you and you kept *not dying* you pissed them off. Don't you know better than to piss off an LAPD cop?" My friend was, of course, joking.
To this day, my PI / Army vet buddy never runs out of work.
...a cross between Blue Thunder (the movie, where Roy Scheider and Daniel Stern use their police chopper to peep on a nude female practicing yoga) and The Simpsons: Hit And Run (all those flying robotic wasp cameras spying on Springfield).
...Sir."
...pizziola concern?"
Homer: "Mr. Burns, I know you're guilty. Je'accuse!!
Burns: "Fine, I admit it: I had Amelia Earhardt's plane shot down. That hussy was getting too big for her jumpers."
Homer: "No! You've been spying on Springfield with your black vans and surveillance cameras."
Burns: "Black vans? Hmph, aren't they involved in some
Homer: "WHA--?! They were only pizza vans?? Oh, I'm a class five idiot!"
My sentiments exactly. Seeing Bill Gates pushing himself in the media as the ultimate humanitarian benefactor (cover of Time with Melinda Gates and Bono Vox, anyone?) makes me want to laugh or puke. Or laugh and puke. Or laugh until I puke....
Reminds me of the old "Bill Cosby Himself" film, showing The Cos at the top of his standup comedy form, where in one sketch he explains to his kids why their grandparents (Cosby's mother and father) are so affectionate and generous towards them: [paraphrasing] "You are not looking at two selfless and loving people, kids. You are looking at two selfish and aging people *who are desperately trying to get into heaven!!*" [cue uproarious laughter]
Gates has been trying for quite some time to repaint himself as a serious, concerned philanthropist. My problem with him isn't that he's doing good things; it's that he's doing those good things for bad reasons.
"And he's buying himself a stairway to heaven...."