In this case, these are bank checks. They happen to be fake, but it takes a while to determine that, and most sellers don't realize that.
Vendor Emptor.
Bank cheques are easy to verify and, at least in Australia, hard to forge. If you're suspect of a bank cheque you can ring the issuing bank to verify them (again, at least in Australia).
If I couldn't do this, they'd be as trustworthy as personal cheques.
This season, in Australia, we're getting the latest Dr Who episode within 24 hours broadcast on ABC. Plus it's also available on iView. So there's no reason to pirate it.
However, the ABC doesn't run any advertising. So if you do pirate it, does anyone lose money?
The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) is primarily funded by tax dollars.
So... as a single, childless (so I pay more in tax than receive in benefits) taxpayer, how am I not paying for Doctor Who by watching it on a torrent rather than on the TV.
BTW, ABC's Iview is good but I'm 2-3 seasons behind.
That and credit card companies are too fucking cheap to switch to chip and pin. The only reason the rest of world switched was because the companies were forced to. Not in the good old USA.
Well, you're going to start getting your (and my) wish starting around October 2015. That's the date the liability shifts. Then the liability shifts to the party implementing the least technology. So if the card issuer issues a chip and pin card, and the retailer has only swipe, the retailer is responsible for any fraud from customers with chip and pin cards. If the retailer has a chip and pin machine, but the card issuer has only swipe, then the card issuer is liable.
So essentially you're going to start seeing big retailers upgrade to chip and pin machines sometime around Oct 2015. I'm sure it'll be a slow process, with small retailers taking many years to finally upgrade. But it'll happen.
This hinges on the cost of liability being greater than the cost of upgrading.
You can bet that Home Depot or Walmart will find a way to push this cost onto the customer (and offer optional insurance for a nominal fee to avoid it).
In Europe the governments had to force retailers _AND_ banks to upgrade. Not that EMV (Chip and Pin is the UK/Ireland brand name) has improved security any, it's pretty much as vulnerable as the mag stripe (successful attacks on EMV started in 2006 in the UK). The problem will remain as long as a POS system is allowed uncensored access to the card information.
But that's the least of your worries, along with EMV you'll get NFC. That will give your card details (everything on the front of the card) to anything that asks for it in a 1 metre radius.
Remember when cash registers used to be glorified calculators? Now they are cheap PCs running poorly configured operating systems. You have tons of attack vectors open from USB ports to unneeded services.
This is pretty much why they wont hire anyone who knows dick about security.
The first thing they'll tell them is the unpatched Windows XP box running ShitPOS(TM) is inviting an attack. The problem with this is that the POS terminals they got were cheap and the director in charge of that procurement got a good bonus for getting the POS system in under budget. Getting a secure system costs money, time (which costs money) and effort (which isn't cheap either). This means the director and project manager cant spend as much time on the golf course enjoying their bonuses.
Because then you're promoting the idea or notion that they will name it "SuperSpeed Broadband3", "Ultra Broadband", and lastly "Super Ultra Mega-Broadband 2 Championship Turbo Edition +Alpha"
Beyond this, the term will just be co-opted by your Telco's marketing drones.
Wasn't it an American telco that "redefined" 4G to include HSPA+ (a 3.5G tech)... yes it was, in fact it was AT&T.
The checking system is so screwed up that most sellers need to treat all checks with suspicion. But credit cards are expensive to process, and Paypal... is Paypal.
You seem to be forgetting the obvious option here... Cash.
The only cheques that shouldn't be rejected out of hand are bank cheques (because the bank who issued the cheque is holding the money in escrow). The bank cheque has a serial number you can ring the issuing bank and verify. Personal cheques are to be rejected absolutely, business cheques are to be rejected from all but the most trustworthy of clients.
You know, I can't speak to the rest of this, but the airline industry has been steadily making seats smaller and smaller for a long time now.
The average seat width in the age of the Boeing 707 was 17", today it's 17.5".
Care to compare the average flight prices from the 70's (in adjusted dollars) to now?
Eventually, you reach a point where your seat is smaller than at least half of the population
We actually have the opposite problem, the population's arse size is growing.
A lot of airlines still have larger seats in economy, Singapore have 19" seats on their A330 and A380. The trade off is that flying Singapore costs a fair bit more than say, Air Asia which has 17" seats.
...it strikes me as almost surreal that they are floating the idea that consumers should 'trust them' in their ability to produce this technology safely and bug-free.
Please feel free to name any tech company that can produce bug-free systems. I'll wait.
There's a very big difference between:
"The seat track spring may break causing the seat to move" as Toyota recently recalled on their Yaris and;
"Turning the key may cause the car to go up in flames" as GM recently recalled on almost every car they made.
The Yaris may have a few bugs, but the Holden (GM) is a deathtrap. I mean they recalled the 1.4L Turbo Cruze last year because the electrical supply didn't work when the engine was too cold. FFS, I know it doesn't get that cold in Oz that often but you think someone would have noticed this in testing.
You can always lookup your flight on one of the seat rating sites ahead of time (try SeatGuru for example). You'll get a map of which seats to avoid, and data on the seat width and pitch for each airliner. You shouldn't have to "not know" what you're getting for your money if you just do 5 minutes of research.
SeatGuru cant tell me whether a gaggle of 6 yr olds will be placed around me.
You can only pick up so much from seat plans and online reviews. Years of flying experience has taught me a few things (I.E. avoid bulkhead seats, that's where kids go) but even that isn't perfect and I still get horror flights.
The biggest tip I can offer for non-frequent fliers is not to be a cunt. Everyone is in the same situation, so if the person behind asks nicely for you not to recline maybe it would be a good thing if you didn't. If you feel civil enough, you might even be able to negotiate with the person behind you and meet half way. I'm continually surprised by people who go into full retard mode the minute they get near an aeroplane and start "enforcing their rights" whatever they think they are, on everyone else.
The last thing you want to do on an aircraft is piss off the person behind you because it brings out the worst passive aggressive behaviour (and a lot of ordinarily rational people will go into "I lose, you lose" mode when pushed) and they've got the entire flight to make your life miserable.
That few degrees makes a big difference to me. I have back problems and am tall, and unfortunately the part of the seat that most people rest their head against pushes out on my shoulders, making even a 1 hour flight a pain session. A slight recline makes a huge difference. I am amazed that the poor ergonomic range of airline seats.
If you have back problems, reclining only makes them worse.
I actually have a lingering lower back issue. Reclining makes your weight go through your lower or mid back. Sitting upright makes your weight thorough your arse and into the chair. By reclining, you're actually making your back problem worse by making it support weight it doesn't need to.
6'4" buddy here.
I always take an aisle seat which gives me the chance to stretch my legs whenever I want too.
If you travel for work, flights are often booked late so you may not have the chance of choosing your seat.
However, I don't mind for short flights (2 hrs). Transantlantic flights (+8hrs) are hell.
Try doing a transpacific flight, 13 hours SYD-LAX plus another 4 hours PER-SYD and another 2-3 hours depending on where I need to go in the US (Perth to Montreal was fun).
The better part about flying from Perth is you have the options of some very good airlines like Cathay and Singapore.
The standard sales tax (VAT) in Greece is currently 23% for most things. (It varies, but that's the most common.) That's on top of the punishing property taxes, income taxes, taxes because you left your money sitting in a bank, taxes because it's Monday, etc. I jest, but only a little.
The thing with Greece is not the high tax rates, it's the high rate of tax evasion. They'd probably need half the tax rates they currently have if every person and corporation paid taxes... but you'd need to get rid of the government graft too... erm... good luck with that.
So I'm not sure if Greece is a good comparison to Argentina, I know they have the govt corruption but what's the tax evasion like?
Sure. That's why you always see lions and hyenas taking down elephants and hippos.
Lions and hyenas are almost carrion eaters. They will perfer food that is dead (or dying) over having to hunt live prey.
A better example of pack hunters taking down a larger animal would be wolves taking down a moose or ox. Also you have ants that will work together to take down a much larger insect.
However most large predators tend to become selfish (solitary hunters) for evolutionary reasons (competition for food and mates). However to say it had no fear from predators solely due to its size is a bit of a misnomer.
I ride my bike a lot. Unless I'm doing 65 on the freeway, how do they know I'm driving to the grocery store instead of riding my bike? The route is flat and through a residential area, I average 20 MPH there and back in a 25 MPH zone.
Easy, you're going too slow. Your 0-20 KPH time is around 20-30 seconds, you will go through red lights and there will be a large line of their other customers being held up behind you.
Why do you think there are a LOT of men that are misogynists?
I don't often encounter them in real life. Sure there are some out there, but it's a huge stretch to claim that there are a lot of men that dislike women.
This.
Misogynists (and misandrists) are out there but are very small in number these days, especially amongst the younger generations that grew up without wide spread misogyny or misandry.
That being said, mysogynists and misandrists tend to be extremely vocal in order to make it seem like their POV is more popular than it really is. Its the same with any extremist viewpoint, racism, xenophobia, fundamentalism. The louder they shout, the more afraid they are of being ignored into oblivion. The misogynists and misandrists feed off each other unfortunately, trying to drag more rational people into an "us vs them" conflict. Like most people, I dont really have the patience for that kind of bollocks.
Germany attacked the US on several occasions in the Atlantic (as well as killing US civilians on British ships) but the US remained resolute on "not getting involved in another European war". In the end, Germany declared war on the US with their allies, Japan.
There's a pertinent Churchill quote here, "You can always rely on the Americans to do the right thing, after they've tried everything else".
Evil should be destroyed when it is encountered. Averting the eyes in the face of evil is evil as well.
"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."
- Christopher Dawson.
To show I'm not simply pulling relevant sounding quotes out, I'll explain what they mean. Blanket statements like "all evil must be fought" are naive and immature in the real world. They also tend to ignore the fact that when people become moral crusaders they end up committing more heinous acts in the name of "good" than the evil they were attempting to destroy. Beyond this, the meaning of the term "good" becomes more ambiguous over time until it means "what every we say you have to do". Claiming that it's "evil" to avert your eyes from evil is disingenuous and well, pretty evil in itself which makes it wrong. You're trying to create an "if you're not with us, you're against us" scenario which is pretty much page one in starting a dictatorship.
Ironically, the Nazi's started out to save Germans from the Bolsheviks which cropped up in post WWI Germany and became increasingly popular due to the harsh conditions created by the Treaty of Versailles. The Nazi's also capitalised on this sentiment with ultra-nationalism but always maintained they were working for the good of Germany fighting the Bolsheviks. In the beginning, this may have even been true, but as we know over time the Nazi regime became more and more oppressive, however their propaganda never stopped telling the Germans they were the good guys and to be a good guy you had to conform to Nazi ideals (I.E. theatre advertisements went along the lines of "Good Germans dont listen to foreign radio", referring specifically to the BBC which the British beamed across the channel).
To fight evil, you must never run in gung-ho. You must take careful, measured steps to ensure that you dont become the evil you fight. This is what made WWII a defining moment for the west. The majority of the fighting was done by the Russians but because they were as bad as the Nazi's were (both to their own people and the enemy) they didn't benefit in the long term. The western allies on the other hand were careful and smart.
Ironically it's because the west was gung-ho in Iraq that organisations like ISIS gained power. Saddam was, like it or not, a stabilising force in the region. He was a dictator, but a secular one in a region of theocratic nutbar governments (including our "valued" allies, Saudi Arabia). Saddam would never have tolerated ISIS/ISIL and without the civil war the power vacuum created in Iraq ISIS wouldn't have found so many recruits.
Destroying the "great evil" that was Saddam landed us with ISIS, going off half cocked with ISIS will create what. There will be no "and the great Satan was destroyed. The end." because people will still be living after you declare victory and a power vaccum will exist. A long term solution is not to meet them with force, but to weaken their powerbase. However this is hard and requires forethought and planning where as dropping bombs makes it look like you're Doing Something(TM) now. Screw what might happen in the future.
And this is different from the shows that teach you to laugh at the dumb jocks,
And which shows are these? (from American TV).
Most, if not all shows glorify the dumb jock.
My problem with TBBT is that:
1. Its not funny.
2. Its not funny. Now I realise that technically speaking that's only one flaw but I thought that it was such a big one that it was worth mentioning twice.
2. It reinforces a negative stereotype that simply isn't true.
Ballmer always struck me as a Gump-like character who accumulated wealth and thus influence through no talent of his own. He stumbled into Microsoft with no more to offer the world than a guy off the street who pulls a slot machine arm and wins a billion dollar jackpot. At least Forrest was likable.
Yeah, thats exactly what he looks like... and it's more favourable than the truth.
Balmer is a salesman, its the same impression some used car salesmen like to give. Truth is, if he wasn't a capable salesman he wouldn't have lasted long at Microsoft (which he didn't when things went south).
A lot of car makers left F1 in the past, Mercedes has returned, but Honda, BMW and Toyota have left. Honda will be back but only because of the V6 synergy and Nissan does have a relationship with Renault but unfortunately that's not going to probably equate to something you and I would drive for a long time. Motor Racing does help drive innovation but in a sport where the FIA have virtually done away with any concept of innovation, it'll be difficult to see how this new formula will enhance the sport or spur innovation in day to day cars. Fans are leaving, sponsors are worried and that means no money and a dead series coming soon.
Pretty much. Most motorsports are so bogged down with rules about how much power an engine can have, minimum and maximum sizes, transmission specifications, length of the tie rods and so forth that no real innovation can be done, it's all about shaving 0.01 of a second off a pit stop (and most people will never be able to handle a high flow fuel pump so no advantages there).
The old Group A and B rally cars used to see a lot of innovation as people modified production cars but those days are long gone as well. Most innovation either comes from the labs of motoring giants or tiny workshops who sell new designs and modifications to motoring giants.
Slashdot Mirror
In this case, these are bank checks. They happen to be fake, but it takes a while to determine that, and most sellers don't realize that.
Vendor Emptor.
Bank cheques are easy to verify and, at least in Australia, hard to forge. If you're suspect of a bank cheque you can ring the issuing bank to verify them (again, at least in Australia).
If I couldn't do this, they'd be as trustworthy as personal cheques.
This season, in Australia, we're getting the latest Dr Who episode within 24 hours broadcast on ABC. Plus it's also available on iView. So there's no reason to pirate it.
However, the ABC doesn't run any advertising. So if you do pirate it, does anyone lose money?
The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) is primarily funded by tax dollars.
So... as a single, childless (so I pay more in tax than receive in benefits) taxpayer, how am I not paying for Doctor Who by watching it on a torrent rather than on the TV.
BTW, ABC's Iview is good but I'm 2-3 seasons behind.
That and credit card companies are too fucking cheap to switch to chip and pin. The only reason the rest of world switched was because the companies were forced to. Not in the good old USA.
Well, you're going to start getting your (and my) wish starting around October 2015. That's the date the liability shifts. Then the liability shifts to the party implementing the least technology. So if the card issuer issues a chip and pin card, and the retailer has only swipe, the retailer is responsible for any fraud from customers with chip and pin cards. If the retailer has a chip and pin machine, but the card issuer has only swipe, then the card issuer is liable.
So essentially you're going to start seeing big retailers upgrade to chip and pin machines sometime around Oct 2015. I'm sure it'll be a slow process, with small retailers taking many years to finally upgrade. But it'll happen.
This hinges on the cost of liability being greater than the cost of upgrading.
You can bet that Home Depot or Walmart will find a way to push this cost onto the customer (and offer optional insurance for a nominal fee to avoid it).
In Europe the governments had to force retailers _AND_ banks to upgrade. Not that EMV (Chip and Pin is the UK/Ireland brand name) has improved security any, it's pretty much as vulnerable as the mag stripe (successful attacks on EMV started in 2006 in the UK). The problem will remain as long as a POS system is allowed uncensored access to the card information.
But that's the least of your worries, along with EMV you'll get NFC. That will give your card details (everything on the front of the card) to anything that asks for it in a 1 metre radius.
Remember when cash registers used to be glorified calculators? Now they are cheap PCs running poorly configured operating systems. You have tons of attack vectors open from USB ports to unneeded services.
This is pretty much why they wont hire anyone who knows dick about security.
The first thing they'll tell them is the unpatched Windows XP box running ShitPOS(TM) is inviting an attack. The problem with this is that the POS terminals they got were cheap and the director in charge of that procurement got a good bonus for getting the POS system in under budget. Getting a secure system costs money, time (which costs money) and effort (which isn't cheap either). This means the director and project manager cant spend as much time on the golf course enjoying their bonuses.
Yeah, so sticking to cash.
Because then you're promoting the idea or notion that they will name it "SuperSpeed Broadband3", "Ultra Broadband", and lastly "Super Ultra Mega-Broadband 2 Championship Turbo Edition +Alpha"
Beyond this, the term will just be co-opted by your Telco's marketing drones.
Wasn't it an American telco that "redefined" 4G to include HSPA+ (a 3.5G tech)... yes it was, in fact it was AT&T.
The checking system is so screwed up that most sellers need to treat all checks with suspicion. But credit cards are expensive to process, and Paypal... is Paypal.
You seem to be forgetting the obvious option here... Cash. The only cheques that shouldn't be rejected out of hand are bank cheques (because the bank who issued the cheque is holding the money in escrow). The bank cheque has a serial number you can ring the issuing bank and verify. Personal cheques are to be rejected absolutely, business cheques are to be rejected from all but the most trustworthy of clients.
The average seat width in the age of the Boeing 707 was 17", today it's 17.5".
Care to compare the average flight prices from the 70's (in adjusted dollars) to now?
We actually have the opposite problem, the population's arse size is growing.
A lot of airlines still have larger seats in economy, Singapore have 19" seats on their A330 and A380. The trade off is that flying Singapore costs a fair bit more than say, Air Asia which has 17" seats.
...it strikes me as almost surreal that they are floating the idea that consumers should 'trust them' in their ability to produce this technology safely and bug-free.
Please feel free to name any tech company that can produce bug-free systems. I'll wait.
There's a very big difference between:
"The seat track spring may break causing the seat to move" as Toyota recently recalled on their Yaris and;
"Turning the key may cause the car to go up in flames" as GM recently recalled on almost every car they made.
The Yaris may have a few bugs, but the Holden (GM) is a deathtrap. I mean they recalled the 1.4L Turbo Cruze last year because the electrical supply didn't work when the engine was too cold. FFS, I know it doesn't get that cold in Oz that often but you think someone would have noticed this in testing.
You can rationalize it all you want, but tax "avoidance" really is the same concept as tax evasion.
One is illegal, one is not.
The difference between "avoidance" and "evasion" is a pretty small and fuzzy one.
Tax avoidance should not be confused with tax minimisation which is the reduction of your taxable income via legal means.
flying is as much a luxury as is having an auto
Right, exactly. Another thing that most people in the world don't have.
Damn straight.
I drive a manual and they can take my clutch from under my cold, dead foot.
You can always lookup your flight on one of the seat rating sites ahead of time (try SeatGuru for example). You'll get a map of which seats to avoid, and data on the seat width and pitch for each airliner. You shouldn't have to "not know" what you're getting for your money if you just do 5 minutes of research.
SeatGuru cant tell me whether a gaggle of 6 yr olds will be placed around me.
You can only pick up so much from seat plans and online reviews. Years of flying experience has taught me a few things (I.E. avoid bulkhead seats, that's where kids go) but even that isn't perfect and I still get horror flights.
The biggest tip I can offer for non-frequent fliers is not to be a cunt. Everyone is in the same situation, so if the person behind asks nicely for you not to recline maybe it would be a good thing if you didn't. If you feel civil enough, you might even be able to negotiate with the person behind you and meet half way. I'm continually surprised by people who go into full retard mode the minute they get near an aeroplane and start "enforcing their rights" whatever they think they are, on everyone else.
The last thing you want to do on an aircraft is piss off the person behind you because it brings out the worst passive aggressive behaviour (and a lot of ordinarily rational people will go into "I lose, you lose" mode when pushed) and they've got the entire flight to make your life miserable.
That few degrees makes a big difference to me. I have back problems and am tall, and unfortunately the part of the seat that most people rest their head against pushes out on my shoulders, making even a 1 hour flight a pain session. A slight recline makes a huge difference. I am amazed that the poor ergonomic range of airline seats.
If you have back problems, reclining only makes them worse.
I actually have a lingering lower back issue. Reclining makes your weight go through your lower or mid back. Sitting upright makes your weight thorough your arse and into the chair. By reclining, you're actually making your back problem worse by making it support weight it doesn't need to.
6'4" buddy here.
I always take an aisle seat which gives me the chance to stretch my legs whenever I want too.
If you travel for work, flights are often booked late so you may not have the chance of choosing your seat.
However, I don't mind for short flights (2 hrs). Transantlantic flights (+8hrs) are hell.
Try doing a transpacific flight, 13 hours SYD-LAX plus another 4 hours PER-SYD and another 2-3 hours depending on where I need to go in the US (Perth to Montreal was fun).
The better part about flying from Perth is you have the options of some very good airlines like Cathay and Singapore.
Utter bullshit analogy. As is all games-based reasoning.
Actually it's a good analogy.
Having something does not grant explicit permission to do anything.
My car can easily go over 200 KPH, that ability does not grant me permission to do so when and where I like.
The whole excuse of "because I can" is utter bullshit used by inconsiderate people to justify their crappy behaviour.
The standard sales tax (VAT) in Greece is currently 23% for most things. (It varies, but that's the most common.) That's on top of the punishing property taxes, income taxes, taxes because you left your money sitting in a bank, taxes because it's Monday, etc. I jest, but only a little.
The thing with Greece is not the high tax rates, it's the high rate of tax evasion. They'd probably need half the tax rates they currently have if every person and corporation paid taxes... but you'd need to get rid of the government graft too... erm... good luck with that.
So I'm not sure if Greece is a good comparison to Argentina, I know they have the govt corruption but what's the tax evasion like?
Why do you think we would have assumed that Argentina is different from the rest of the world?
In Argentina, there are better hookers and coke.
Sure. That's why you always see lions and hyenas taking down elephants and hippos.
Lions and hyenas are almost carrion eaters. They will perfer food that is dead (or dying) over having to hunt live prey.
A better example of pack hunters taking down a larger animal would be wolves taking down a moose or ox. Also you have ants that will work together to take down a much larger insect.
However most large predators tend to become selfish (solitary hunters) for evolutionary reasons (competition for food and mates). However to say it had no fear from predators solely due to its size is a bit of a misnomer.
I ride my bike a lot. Unless I'm doing 65 on the freeway, how do they know I'm driving to the grocery store instead of riding my bike? The route is flat and through a residential area, I average 20 MPH there and back in a 25 MPH zone.
Easy, you're going too slow. Your 0-20 KPH time is around 20-30 seconds, you will go through red lights and there will be a large line of their other customers being held up behind you.
Why do you think there are a LOT of men that are misogynists?
I don't often encounter them in real life. Sure there are some out there, but it's a huge stretch to claim that there are a lot of men that dislike women.
This.
Misogynists (and misandrists) are out there but are very small in number these days, especially amongst the younger generations that grew up without wide spread misogyny or misandry.
That being said, mysogynists and misandrists tend to be extremely vocal in order to make it seem like their POV is more popular than it really is. Its the same with any extremist viewpoint, racism, xenophobia, fundamentalism. The louder they shout, the more afraid they are of being ignored into oblivion. The misogynists and misandrists feed off each other unfortunately, trying to drag more rational people into an "us vs them" conflict. Like most people, I dont really have the patience for that kind of bollocks.
There are loads of sources of evidence of the Iranian F-14s being very effective in the Iran-Iraq war, and they still fly to this day.
This. Most of the parts have been fabricated locally, those few parts that couldn't like avionics are imported through the black market.
You can buy BMW's, Mercedes and Lamborghini Gallardo's in Tehran, all come through organised criminals in eastern Europe.
Germany never attacked us either.
Germany attacked the US on several occasions in the Atlantic (as well as killing US civilians on British ships) but the US remained resolute on "not getting involved in another European war". In the end, Germany declared war on the US with their allies, Japan.
There's a pertinent Churchill quote here, "You can always rely on the Americans to do the right thing, after they've tried everything else".
Evil should be destroyed when it is encountered. Averting the eyes in the face of evil is evil as well.
"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."
- Christopher Dawson.
To show I'm not simply pulling relevant sounding quotes out, I'll explain what they mean. Blanket statements like "all evil must be fought" are naive and immature in the real world. They also tend to ignore the fact that when people become moral crusaders they end up committing more heinous acts in the name of "good" than the evil they were attempting to destroy. Beyond this, the meaning of the term "good" becomes more ambiguous over time until it means "what every we say you have to do". Claiming that it's "evil" to avert your eyes from evil is disingenuous and well, pretty evil in itself which makes it wrong. You're trying to create an "if you're not with us, you're against us" scenario which is pretty much page one in starting a dictatorship.
Ironically, the Nazi's started out to save Germans from the Bolsheviks which cropped up in post WWI Germany and became increasingly popular due to the harsh conditions created by the Treaty of Versailles. The Nazi's also capitalised on this sentiment with ultra-nationalism but always maintained they were working for the good of Germany fighting the Bolsheviks. In the beginning, this may have even been true, but as we know over time the Nazi regime became more and more oppressive, however their propaganda never stopped telling the Germans they were the good guys and to be a good guy you had to conform to Nazi ideals (I.E. theatre advertisements went along the lines of "Good Germans dont listen to foreign radio", referring specifically to the BBC which the British beamed across the channel).
To fight evil, you must never run in gung-ho. You must take careful, measured steps to ensure that you dont become the evil you fight. This is what made WWII a defining moment for the west. The majority of the fighting was done by the Russians but because they were as bad as the Nazi's were (both to their own people and the enemy) they didn't benefit in the long term. The western allies on the other hand were careful and smart.
Ironically it's because the west was gung-ho in Iraq that organisations like ISIS gained power. Saddam was, like it or not, a stabilising force in the region. He was a dictator, but a secular one in a region of theocratic nutbar governments (including our "valued" allies, Saudi Arabia). Saddam would never have tolerated ISIS/ISIL and without the civil war the power vacuum created in Iraq ISIS wouldn't have found so many recruits.
Destroying the "great evil" that was Saddam landed us with ISIS, going off half cocked with ISIS will create what. There will be no "and the great Satan was destroyed. The end." because people will still be living after you declare victory and a power vaccum will exist. A long term solution is not to meet them with force, but to weaken their powerbase. However this is hard and requires forethought and planning where as dropping bombs makes it look like you're Doing Something(TM) now. Screw what might happen in the future.
And which shows are these? (from American TV).
Most, if not all shows glorify the dumb jock.
My problem with TBBT is that:
1. Its not funny.
2. Its not funny. Now I realise that technically speaking that's only one flaw but I thought that it was such a big one that it was worth mentioning twice.
2. It reinforces a negative stereotype that simply isn't true.
Ballmer always struck me as a Gump-like character who accumulated wealth and thus influence through no talent of his own. He stumbled into Microsoft with no more to offer the world than a guy off the street who pulls a slot machine arm and wins a billion dollar jackpot. At least Forrest was likable.
Yeah, thats exactly what he looks like... and it's more favourable than the truth.
Balmer is a salesman, its the same impression some used car salesmen like to give. Truth is, if he wasn't a capable salesman he wouldn't have lasted long at Microsoft (which he didn't when things went south).
"Keyboard Not Found"
"Please press F1 or all your work will be lost."
"Keyboard not found"
"Press F1 to continue"
Was my favourite error message. I had it constantly on booting my old 286 whether the keyboard was there or not and you would just press F1 to go on.
A lot of car makers left F1 in the past, Mercedes has returned, but Honda, BMW and Toyota have left. Honda will be back but only because of the V6 synergy and Nissan does have a relationship with Renault but unfortunately that's not going to probably equate to something you and I would drive for a long time. Motor Racing does help drive innovation but in a sport where the FIA have virtually done away with any concept of innovation, it'll be difficult to see how this new formula will enhance the sport or spur innovation in day to day cars. Fans are leaving, sponsors are worried and that means no money and a dead series coming soon.
Pretty much. Most motorsports are so bogged down with rules about how much power an engine can have, minimum and maximum sizes, transmission specifications, length of the tie rods and so forth that no real innovation can be done, it's all about shaving 0.01 of a second off a pit stop (and most people will never be able to handle a high flow fuel pump so no advantages there).
The old Group A and B rally cars used to see a lot of innovation as people modified production cars but those days are long gone as well. Most innovation either comes from the labs of motoring giants or tiny workshops who sell new designs and modifications to motoring giants.