Agreed. Though... the reason my friend didn't stick with it is... he hit up ebay. On Ebay, you can get a perfectly good kirby for $250. He was supposed to be trying to sell them for around $1700. Of course... with a financing plan...
Ahhh but did they say it was to be optimized for speed? Could it be that they are optimizing your machine for replacement? Optimized for reporting marketing data to best buy? Optimized for suck? Optimized to make other peoples PCs look better?
I have to wonder, if surveyed, what percentage of users would report that their PC was faster:)
Salesmen are kinda scumbags everywhere. NPR has been doing some great programs on it recently. This morning there was talk of car buying and all the tricks. They talk about "monthly payments" and other abstract notions, because it makes it much easier for them to hide fees into a fully broken up payment than if they were actually talking "out the door" price. Also they even make "math errors" to the point that the person telling the story claimed to have bought cars 4 times and EVERY TIME caught a "math error" that would have had him paying more.
"Error" indeed.
I like to keep the salesman's tricks in mind while talking to them. It takes away a lot of their power if your going over the tricks and intended effects in your head "Oh he is looking for a yes here so he can foster agreement" "oh, hes repeating his question again looking to see if I am faltering" "oh, there we go, mentioning value again, must mean its way overpriced"
then again, I question even this. As it seems some salesmen are extremely vulnerable to their own pitches. I have a friend who briefly sold Kirby vaccuumes. From what I hear their best customers end up being their own salesmen sometimes, and judging from him.... he seemed so sold you almost thought he would end up buying one if he stayed with it. (you may see one demo on how much dirt it picks up, he sees several demos a week...)
1. I could see a lot of overlap in those categories. Overall, it sounds like another book on how to live your life and be happy. Its a pretty big market. People have been trying their hand at books to do this since before the suggestions were based on following around the son of a carpenter. Of course, these days we have the Internet and so authors have to at least put in lots of confusing end notes if they want to make really outrageous claims.
They will let the terrorist blow it up. Insurance policies wouldn't pay off otherwise.
Given how much must be riding on their ability to fill this place out to bring in gobs of disposable income, well... I wouldn't be surprized that someone wouldn't be looking for an exit strategy with recent economic news.
Discouraging drug use is still getting into the idea that society needs to be our nanny. The best person to decide whats best in my body is me.
Reducing social stigma actually would go a long way towards mitigating the negative effects of most drugs, as would lowering cost. If heroin were cheap enough, or other quality opiates, there would be less need to shoot the drug to maximize value. Nobody buys pure THC and shoots it.
The company I work for has an assistance program for the employees that goes beyond what insurance provides and can help with drug addiction. Programs like that and anything that can get a person with real issues the treatment they need... its the same recipe as you would use for alcohol. It doesn't matter what drug it is... its the overuse and abuse that are the issues.
Even then, for someone who is actually letting their drug use interfere with other things in their life, they often have other issues that are more important. Depression, ADHD, or a combination.
In the end, its just something that I see done better by social support networks. If they want to use tax dollars to help start up non-profit clinics, or do more education in schools. I am all good with that... but its a medical issue and a family issue.
Medical and family issues seldom lend themselves to the blunt instrument of law enforcement.
Lets also not forget, for all the talk of drug epidemics, all of the "hard drug" users combined don't equal half the pot heads.
Also, legalization takes the single most lucrative funding source away from criminal gangs all over the world. All of their other activities are much riskier in terms of getting caught. Burglaries, extortion rackets, etc... all much harder to get away with for as long.
Add prostitution to that list, and realize that up and up businessmen tend to avoid any connection to illegal activities that can jeopardize their business (like underage girls, trafficed girls etc), and you are really putting the squeeze on several levels of organized crime networks.
Even El Padrino would have had a hard time in an open market with Glaxco-Smith-Kline.
How is believing the current situation is appropriate (it is illegal) different from believing that it shouldn't be changed (not legalized)? They seem like the same thing to me.
Though, the same could be said of inter-racial marriage. Most people were against legalizing it, but the courts did it anyway.
Now gee, what sort of invectives would we sling at a person who came out saying that we should make it illegal for black's and white's to marry today?
When the police go after a drug dealer, they are not working for ME.
I am disgusted that my tax dollars are used to track down people and treat them like animals for no other reason than to enact social policy.
I no more want them doing this than arresting people who choose to wear head-scarfs or sell bibles.
If people are violent, go after them. If they scam and fraud, hunt them down like the dogs they are. If all they do is consensually act with other adults in as a fair and decent a manner as they can, then I say leave them alone.
The really sad part is that the law being what it is is a boon for the real bad guys. The users and other dealers have pretty much no recorse and nobody to help them when there is a real bad guy. Dealers who get ripped off by scumbags can't call the police, they don't get protection under the law... because the law treats them like scumbags too, even though they only ever set out to start a small business and supply their friends.
Thats what most dealers do you know. They buy in quantity, and dole it out to people. Of course that means sitting on product, so to make it worth tieing up their money, they need to mark it up... just like any other middle man. The vast majority of the time, its an honest, straight up buisness.
Except when it isn't, and then all the honest people get screwed because they have nowhere to turn against the dishonest.
If you think I am happy to be paying my good tax dollars to help perpetuate that situation, you are sorely mistaken.
Actually the criminal justice system ruins lives far worst than drugs do. Dealers don't ruin lives. They sell to customers what the customer wants.
More so than that, they sell a product that they believe in, often to support their own habit. In the end its a persons own habit and own choices.
On the other hand, the police come in, arrest people (which is just a polite euphemism for kidnapping), jail them (treat them like animals), and put them in databases of bad guys that make it hard to find jobs. All done, without the persons consent. Against his will.
All to do what? Because people like yourself feel you have some sort of moral high ground to decide what type of life has value and what lifestyle is degenerate or acceptable and are willing to pay thugs to go out and enforce your beliefs?
Its ok to make the life of a person who uses drugs shittier than it is (afterall, you already decided it was shitty, right?, no chance that it wasn't right?) and hurt their entire family. Afterall, they decided to do something that you don't like.
People are going to drive, for the most part, how everyone else drives. I have no objection to general guidelines on how to do this. Certainly it helps that we pick a consistent side of the road to drive on, etc.
My problem is with laws and rules that are NOT what people do. The laws that people willfully and constantly violate don't deserve to be laws. If traffic flows at 45 MPH on road X, and the speed limit has been 30 for the past 40 years... then I suggest that the sign is worthless, and the simple fact that enough traffic is doing that speed for traffic to flow at it suggests that labeling the majority of people on the road as offenders for nothing different from what they do every day is ludicrous.
The law should strive to not punish people for acting in a reasonable manner. Even if these laws are hardly enforced, its still placing the vast majority of people in the easy cross hairs of law enforcement. Ask any cop and they will tell you straight out, you follow nearly anyone for just a little while, and you will find a legitimate reason to pull them over.
I think that any set of laws set up such that its THAT easy and predictable to pull anyone over for a violation is poorly setup to the point of negligence.
Only if you are wiling to accept unreasonable values for "fast" "good" or "cost".
Clearly 1 baby takes about 9 months to make (after figuring ovulation/insemination etc) at a minimum. So any value for "fast" thats less than 9 months is unreasonable, and not worth considering as valid input. You might say one woman in one month, if you are willing to say that who the father is isn't part of the requirements and are willing to expend the cost to find a woman who is already 8 months in and willing to contribute to the project.
There... fast and expensive. If you need 9 babies, it would take 1 woman 8 years to make 9 babies. 9 women could do it in a year.
Clearly real projects have real constraints which define what "speed", "quality, and "cost" mean in context. Overall I agree with the other response to my post that it makes sense to categorize as "Optimize, Constrain, Accept". Its probably a much better way to look at, but much harder to give as a quick platitude.
I tried eclim and found, pretty quickly, that I reverted to the eclipse built in editor.
The problem that I had was that well, it didn't add the capabilities to vim, as much as add vim to the IDE.
I love vim, but, the ability to highlight individual lines and give me specific errors, especially as I am new to java and tend to make silly errors still. More than that, just the ability to have it cleanly (mostly, I have issues with eclipse's built in editor too) pop up a list of what methods are available on an object as I go serves both to help me refer to docs less, but also to remind me of what I am doing.
Overall, I do prefer vim because I am so used to it. The ability to switch modes, and run a quick regex over a whole document, or do it from here to the end of file, or just do it on the next 10 lines... so handy! I really wish I could get the best of both worlds, but, for now... I need the other features more.
I read what your saying and can't help but thing its odd that you say I am wrong when we seem to be agreeing.
The rules, in and of themselves are mostly ok. They need some serious tweeks, but the concept of having rules works. What I said, or meant to convey is that...its inattentiveness that causes accidents, not purposeful rule breaking. "Breaking rules" on auto-pilot, is just as bad as following them on auto-pilot.
I can't speak for what other drivers do or don't, but much of my driving was refined from driving a motorcycle around. I make damned sure I can see all the way around the corner before I gas it across the intersection. I also choose my lane position (position within the lane) to increase visibility, and do my damnedest to recognize when I am in someone else's blind spot (or someone insists on sitting in mine) and try to rectify the situation.
Admittedly, I am kind of ADD, and driving is exactly the sort of activity that I can hyperfocus on. Especially with a manual so I have enough things to pay attention to and control that I am not too bored by it all. I can think of few better ways to spend a day than putting a few hundred miles on my motorcycle.
Like all motorcyclists, I think most drivers are idiots. The problem isn't the rules per se. Its not enforcement. The rules are like ALL rules in life. The importance of them is to learn WHY they exist, so you know when its ok to break them.
The problem is people's tendency to auto-pilot. Its people who come into situations not knowing what to do, and reacting poorly. Its really, and education and training issue.
I think it comes down to "what do you mean by admins"?
The more you restrict what admins have to support, the more homogenous the environment, the better the ratio. The more you expect from them, the more complex the environment, the more you need.
Another factor to add in is tools. Does every machine have actual remote console? (and I mean console as in, I can sit there and watch the POST console). Do you have build servers and good backups, and tested procedures to do restores if a system needs a total rebuild on the spot?
My group is constantly compared in terms of group size to number of machines. Its maddening since we support 5 different flavors of unix (and VMS), some with ok tools configured and ready, some nearly "hand crafted". Then at least 3 different versions of each of those flavors. We can't seem to get projects approved to fix any of this (and god forbid we did it without a project!)
We are compared against a Windows group, that supports a couple of flavors of Windows, and has had automation tools to schedule and do work remotely setup for years. Of course they can admin more systems with less headcount... they have the tools and environment setup to do it!
Hell it took us almost 2 years to get project approval to set the machines for centralized auth through LDAP... and they wonder why we seem to need so many people for so few machines.
So frankly, I don't think the question has enough information to be answered usefully. There are just too many variables to be able to put up a good estimation of appropriate head count per machine. I can tell you though that standardization, automation, and redundant designs will decrease that head count.
As will properly trained/experienced admins (if we could only get them to send a couple of people to basic sun training we would be way better off... but we can't even get that. We have guys that have been effectively working on the level of entry level admins for years, who have never been able to get management to send them to a class).
-Steve (who should post anonymously but, on some level hopes they will read this...)
Another thing is, we shouldn't expect it to be able to do anything.
If I give you a sugar pill and tell you it will cause tachycardia (and, if needed explain what that means), and give it to people, I would expect a significant number to report racing hearts. However, you can feel your heart, so there is a feedback loop, and its beat can be effected by mood, thought etc. (to some degree even consciously controlled)
However, if I say it "increases blood flow in your calf"... I might expect you to report strange sensations in your calf... but I wouldn't really expect to see actual increased blood flow there (as opposed to anywhere else from heart rate changes).
How needed are placebos on tests that look at physical things like, tumor size? I have yet to find any credible link between believing that your tumor will shrink and having it happen.
On the other hand, memory and cognitive skills can be effected by mood and psychological process. So I think the placebo makes sense to rule out cognitive differences based on differences in your actions based on the belief that the pill might be helping.
> Funny; every time I've been in danger on the road, it's been because some moron has decided to treat the traffick laws as mere > suggestions. I wish for more enforcement and stricker penalties, please.
> Here in Finland, we didn't get speed limits outside of cities until 1973, and the system wasn't complete until 1978. The year > 1973 1100 people died in accidents, in the year 1978 600. The evidence seems to disagree with you here.
In Finland? So you don't think my complaints about US driving laws are valid because you feel the laws in Finland are not strict enough? Just checking. I know its not a US only site but, its kind of useless to make such claims between countries without even bothering to compare the laws themselves.
The simple fact is, that what I advocate for is nothing strange or out of the mainstream. Its simply bringing the law in line with what people actually do. Right now, right here, people drive 10-15 mph over the speed limit. Not some people, the vast majority. The traffic FLOWS at those speeds.
I never argued for no limits, or no guidelines. Simply that the ones we have, which cast the overwhelming majority of drivers as rule breakers the overwhelming majority of the time, are ridiculous. I am ALL FOR stopping and punishing people who actually cause harm or actually take undue risks with the lives of those around them. The letter of the current laws doesn't even come close to that, here, in the US.
I am talking about intersections with great visibility and light traffic with "no turn on red signs". Speed limits that are lower than the speed that the traffic flows at for all of the day except rush hour congestion. Stop signs where yields are all thats needed.
As I learned in Motorcycle safety training, most accidents are avoidable if YOU are paying attention, even if its the other persons fault. If you leave outs, and scan agressively for problems ahead of time, the vast majority are avoidable. So maybe you need to spend less time worrying about other peoples near misses (which are still misses) and guessing whats on their mind, and spend more time paying attention to your own vehicle.
I really think enforcement is ridiculous, driver education and training is FAR FAR more effective.
They are. Give it time, people just need to adjust.
They work great here. Sure, even some large ones get congested, but, they even out the congestion on all sides, and keep the traffic constantly moving. I would bet dollars to donuts that you can move more cars per hour, safely, through a rotary than you can through a similarly sized intersection set, with the same input roads.... and accident statistics have shown that they are safer than normal intersections to boot.
My theory on why people hate them is, the anarchy of the traffic circle forces people to pay attention in ways that simple straight lanes don't. Its easy to auto-pilot down roads and through intersections. The rotary is a delicate dance that forces you pay attention to it.
The main problem I see are small, off center rotaries. There is one near me at the intersection of rt 16 and um 38? (mystic valley parkway anyway). Its only maybe 10 feet in diameter, and the main road (16) hits it off center, it looks to the person in the rotary like the people flying down 16 are comming in very fast and he needs to merge with them.
In practice, the people on 16 are flying in fast, but see the rotary from way back and know how to act, and if you trust them to yield, they do. However, it causes a lot of hesitation backups as the person in the rotary tries to yield, so both cars try to yield to each other and stops traffic for a second.
Similarly there is the yield as you come under 93 onto mystic ave (no not the same street) in somerville. If you turn your head left, you can CLEARLY see the whole road your merging with, no obstruction. Yet, I would say about 60% of the cars that I see approach it nearly come to a stop at the sign before they even look and see that the road is clear and they can go. Yet, they had complete visibility for the past 100 feet or so.
Up to a point sure. However, you don't have to obey all of the rules 100%, or even CLOSE to it, to drive safely with other drivers who are obeying the rules, or attentitively breaking them like you are (which is what the vast majority of drivers do, NOBODY obeys ALL of the rules 100%)
I don't think we need more rules, most of them could be relaxed, and relaxed a lot. The only evidence that I need is that, as I said, the majority of drivers relax the rules and drive as such already. I do not believe that it makes sense to set the bar for proper driving above what the average person is actually going to do on the road.
The real problem is NOT the people breaking the rules on purpose. They generally are paying attention, know the rules, and are ready to make adjustments. The problem is the people who either don't know the rules in the first place, or aren't paying attention. There is a HUGE difference between rolling through a stop sign at an empty intersection with unobstructed visibility, and rolling through without even looking because you were playing with your radio.
Who cares if I only bring my car down to second gear at stop signs? I am ready to stop. If theres another car who has right of way, I stop. If theres no other cars, I am slow enough to stop if I need to because someone else is blowing through, so no safety hazard is caused. If i have enough visibility to roll through at the speed that I am rolling through, and the situation isn't a dangerous one, then... how exactly does the rule make sense?
I think I favor less enforcement, and less laws overall. Most of the driving rules, in terms of real safety, are overly cautious "Best Practice" guidelines at best. Speed limits are just ridiculous, in general. People are going to drive the speed they feel safe, regardless of what the stupid sign says. That speed is usually 10-15 MPH higher than the sign. Yearly safety inspections? I can see emissions checks every few years, or a safety check after 5 or so. However, regular safety inspection really is beyond the pale of what the state really needs to do. Stop signs? Please. Much of the time simply slowing down and treating it like a yeild is appropriate. Much of the time when that isn't true, it works just the same if you plan to do that, and end up having to stop anyway. The only REAL danger at those intersections are people who... weren't paying attention anyway.
We have rotaries here in MA. They are safer than normal intersections, but... so many people just don't get them. They arn't hard. If your inside, you have right of way. Its simple. Yet, nearly every morning I am honking my horn at people who are yielding in the middle.
I blame drivers ED. We need much stronger drivers ed, and incentives to take refresher courses. Instead, if you get 5 tickets in 3 years, even if they are paperwork violations (like not having your registration on you, or driving on an expired license) they ASSUME your main problem is your attitude and agression, and send you to a "defensive driving" course.
The NSC (national safety council) course MIGHT be useful IF and ONLY IF your problem is really rage. Its utterly useless for everyone else. They don't barely even talk about driving rules. Just how you need to adjust you rattitude if you think its ok to break them.
Its not even close to whats really needed on the road.
I always heard "You can have it fast, good, or cheap, pick two"
Also there is compromise "Yes we can use X material instead of Y, its not as good, but, its within tolerances" and "The project is to build a bridge, the drawing you gave me is for a boat ramp, this isn't going to meet our requirments"
I believe you are correct. Though, there are two issues here, the technical arguments about what the law is now, and about what it should be.
Under current law, its hard to say for sure. I think you could make a pretty reasonable case either way on various grounds, and I think any such argument is going to quickly get pretty muddy.
Overall, I think contracts deserve a certain level of exemption, for a number of reasons.
A contract is, in the best of circumstances, a definition of requirements and responsibilities so that two parties know how to do buisness with eachother. You will do X under Y condition. I will do Z every time that you do X.
However, if thats all it was, then why bother signing it? Why bother making it so verbose with such carefully couched language? Simple, because its designed to also be a formal statement of intent that the signer is claiming to stand by. It may be a violation of confidentiality to release such a thing to the public, but that is a statement about the moral compass and trustworthiness of the person who posted it.... if the form of the agreement is something that they should be ashamed of, then thats what it is, regardless of what it says of the person who posted it.
In the end, its the contract that they wrote and wanted. If you send someone a private letter, they might go show it to the world and shame you. So, don't go writing shameful things and handing them to people that you can't trust to post it to the world. That has been true as long as people have had written language, its just even more true now than before.
Overall, I think these concerns make one thing is clear to me. Copyright is given to foster the creation of art and litterature of many kinds. Its given because we have an interest in promoting such things as a society. I think that interest doesn't exist for contracts. They exist for their own purposes and will exist entirely in the absence of the ability to copyright them. In fact, the interest in not stopping well intentioned whistle blowers FAR outweighs any protections copyright would provide.
I have long felt the world would be a better place if people didn't pay so much heed to people who fly off the handle at the littlest off color joke. Well adjusted people can make fun of themselves and their own situations, and take a good natured ribbing. Those who can't, are right to feel like they should consider what it means to take responsibility for their own shortcomings and seek help if needed; rather than be allowed to dictate policy.
Then again, I might feel the same way if I didn't have jewish friends who have occasionally cracked jokes about showers, ovens, AND Kosher Lampshades. The last one took me a minute... especially since I don't think long pork is kosher either. Ooh now a cannibalism reference.... where the catholics at? Has the church mannaged to perfect that transubstantiation miracle since I left? Nearly 2000 years of trying and Jesus still tastes more like Styrofoam than BBQ.
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Agreed. Though... the reason my friend didn't stick with it is... he hit up ebay. On Ebay, you can get a perfectly good kirby for $250. He was supposed to be trying to sell them for around $1700. Of course... with a financing plan...
Ahhh but did they say it was to be optimized for speed? Could it be that they are optimizing your machine for replacement? Optimized for reporting marketing data to best buy? Optimized for suck? Optimized to make other peoples PCs look better?
I have to wonder, if surveyed, what percentage of users would report that their PC was faster :)
Salesmen are kinda scumbags everywhere. NPR has been doing some great programs on it recently. This morning there was talk of car buying and all the tricks. They talk about "monthly payments" and other abstract notions, because it makes it much easier for them to hide fees into a fully broken up payment than if they were actually talking "out the door" price. Also they even make "math errors" to the point that the person telling the story claimed to have bought cars 4 times and EVERY TIME caught a "math error" that would have had him paying more.
"Error" indeed.
I like to keep the salesman's tricks in mind while talking to them. It takes away a lot of their power if your going over the tricks and intended effects in your head "Oh he is looking for a yes here so he can foster agreement" "oh, hes repeating his question again looking to see if I am faltering" "oh, there we go, mentioning value again, must mean its way overpriced"
then again, I question even this. As it seems some salesmen are extremely vulnerable to their own pitches. I have a friend who briefly sold Kirby vaccuumes. From what I hear their best customers end up being their own salesmen sometimes, and judging from him.... he seemed so sold you almost thought he would end up buying one if he stayed with it. (you may see one demo on how much dirt it picks up, he sees several demos a week...)
-Steve
1. I could see a lot of overlap in those categories. Overall, it sounds like another book on how to live your life and be happy. Its a pretty big market. People have been trying their hand at books to do this since before the suggestions were based on following around the son of a carpenter. Of course, these days we have the Internet and so authors have to at least put in lots of confusing end notes if they want to make really outrageous claims.
2. or Natalie Portman.
Excuse me....colorful analogies please....
Its like he put his wife in charge of the assetts and finances so he could focus on other things, and she turned around, and sold their house.
-Steve
Duh! No.
They will let the terrorist blow it up. Insurance policies wouldn't pay off otherwise.
Given how much must be riding on their ability to fill this place out to bring in gobs of disposable income, well... I wouldn't be surprized that someone wouldn't be looking for an exit strategy with recent economic news.
heh usefulness?
maybe six months ago? Admittedly I was a bit overwhelmed with trying to learn java and use eclipse for the first time with eclim
I will have to give it another try.
I don't claim to have all the answers.
Discouraging drug use is still getting into the idea that society needs to be our nanny. The best person to decide whats best in my body is me.
Reducing social stigma actually would go a long way towards mitigating the negative effects of most drugs, as would lowering cost. If heroin were cheap enough, or other quality opiates, there would be less need to shoot the drug to maximize value. Nobody buys pure THC and shoots it.
The company I work for has an assistance program for the employees that goes beyond what insurance provides and can help with drug addiction. Programs like that and anything that can get a person with real issues the treatment they need... its the same recipe as you would use for alcohol. It doesn't matter what drug it is... its the overuse and abuse that are the issues.
Even then, for someone who is actually letting their drug use interfere with other things in their life, they often have other issues that are more important. Depression, ADHD, or a combination.
In the end, its just something that I see done better by social support networks. If they want to use tax dollars to help start up non-profit clinics, or do more education in schools. I am all good with that... but its a medical issue and a family issue.
Medical and family issues seldom lend themselves to the blunt instrument of law enforcement.
Lets also not forget, for all the talk of drug epidemics, all of the "hard drug" users combined don't equal half the pot heads.
Also, legalization takes the single most lucrative funding source away from criminal gangs all over the world. All of their other activities are much riskier in terms of getting caught. Burglaries, extortion rackets, etc... all much harder to get away with for as long.
Add prostitution to that list, and realize that up and up businessmen tend to avoid any connection to illegal activities that can jeopardize their business (like underage girls, trafficed girls etc), and you are really putting the squeeze on several levels of organized crime networks.
Even El Padrino would have had a hard time in an open market with Glaxco-Smith-Kline.
How is believing the current situation is appropriate (it is illegal) different from believing that it shouldn't be changed (not legalized)? They seem like the same thing to me.
Though, the same could be said of inter-racial marriage. Most people were against legalizing it, but the courts did it anyway.
Now gee, what sort of invectives would we sling at a person who came out saying that we should make it illegal for black's and white's to marry today?
When the police go after a drug dealer, they are not working for ME.
I am disgusted that my tax dollars are used to track down people and treat them like animals for no other reason than to enact social policy.
I no more want them doing this than arresting people who choose to wear head-scarfs or sell bibles.
If people are violent, go after them. If they scam and fraud, hunt them down like the dogs they are. If all they do is consensually act with other adults in as a fair and decent a manner as they can, then I say leave them alone.
The really sad part is that the law being what it is is a boon for the real bad guys. The users and other dealers have pretty much no recorse and nobody to help them when there is a real bad guy. Dealers who get ripped off by scumbags can't call the police, they don't get protection under the law... because the law treats them like scumbags too, even though they only ever set out to start a small business and supply their friends.
Thats what most dealers do you know. They buy in quantity, and dole it out to people. Of course that means sitting on product, so to make it worth tieing up their money, they need to mark it up... just like any other middle man. The vast majority of the time, its an honest, straight up buisness.
Except when it isn't, and then all the honest people get screwed because they have nowhere to turn against the dishonest.
If you think I am happy to be paying my good tax dollars to help perpetuate that situation, you are sorely mistaken.
Actually the criminal justice system ruins lives far worst than drugs do. Dealers don't ruin lives. They sell to customers what the customer wants.
More so than that, they sell a product that they believe in, often to support their own habit. In the end its a persons own habit and own choices.
On the other hand, the police come in, arrest people (which is just a polite euphemism for kidnapping), jail them (treat them like animals), and put them in databases of bad guys that make it hard to find jobs. All done, without the persons consent. Against his will.
All to do what? Because people like yourself feel you have some sort of moral high ground to decide what type of life has value and what lifestyle is degenerate or acceptable and are willing to pay thugs to go out and enforce your beliefs?
Its ok to make the life of a person who uses drugs shittier than it is (afterall, you already decided it was shitty, right?, no chance that it wasn't right?) and hurt their entire family. Afterall, they decided to do something that you don't like.
They all breed enough as it is, you don't need to encourage them.
Ok.... nice theory.
People are going to drive, for the most part, how everyone else drives. I have no objection to general guidelines on how to do this. Certainly it helps that we pick a consistent side of the road to drive on, etc.
My problem is with laws and rules that are NOT what people do. The laws that people willfully and constantly violate don't deserve to be laws. If traffic flows at 45 MPH on road X, and the speed limit has been 30 for the past 40 years... then I suggest that the sign is worthless, and the simple fact that enough traffic is doing that speed for traffic to flow at it suggests that labeling the majority of people on the road as offenders for nothing different from what they do every day is ludicrous.
The law should strive to not punish people for acting in a reasonable manner. Even if these laws are hardly enforced, its still placing the vast majority of people in the easy cross hairs of law enforcement. Ask any cop and they will tell you straight out, you follow nearly anyone for just a little while, and you will find a legitimate reason to pull them over.
I think that any set of laws set up such that its THAT easy and predictable to pull anyone over for a violation is poorly setup to the point of negligence.
Only if you are wiling to accept unreasonable values for "fast" "good" or "cost".
Clearly 1 baby takes about 9 months to make (after figuring ovulation/insemination etc) at a minimum. So any value for "fast" thats less than 9 months is unreasonable, and not worth considering as valid input. You might say one woman in one month, if you are willing to say that who the father is isn't part of the requirements and are willing to expend the cost to find a woman who is already 8 months in and willing to contribute to the project.
There... fast and expensive. If you need 9 babies, it would take 1 woman 8 years to make 9 babies. 9 women could do it in a year.
Clearly real projects have real constraints which define what "speed", "quality, and "cost" mean in context. Overall I agree with the other response to my post that it makes sense to categorize as "Optimize, Constrain, Accept". Its probably a much better way to look at, but much harder to give as a quick platitude.
I tried eclim and found, pretty quickly, that I reverted to the eclipse built in editor.
The problem that I had was that well, it didn't add the capabilities to vim, as much as add vim to the IDE.
I love vim, but, the ability to highlight individual lines and give me specific errors, especially as I am new to java and tend to make silly errors still. More than that, just the ability to have it cleanly (mostly, I have issues with eclipse's built in editor too) pop up a list of what methods are available on an object as I go serves both to help me refer to docs less, but also to remind me of what I am doing.
Overall, I do prefer vim because I am so used to it. The ability to switch modes, and run a quick regex over a whole document, or do it from here to the end of file, or just do it on the next 10 lines... so handy! I really wish I could get the best of both worlds, but, for now... I need the other features more.
I read what your saying and can't help but thing its odd that you say I am wrong when we seem to be agreeing.
The rules, in and of themselves are mostly ok. They need some serious tweeks, but the concept of having rules works. What I said, or meant to convey is that...its inattentiveness that causes accidents, not purposeful rule breaking. "Breaking rules" on auto-pilot, is just as bad as following them on auto-pilot.
I can't speak for what other drivers do or don't, but much of my driving was refined from driving a motorcycle around. I make damned sure I can see all the way around the corner before I gas it across the intersection. I also choose my lane position (position within the lane) to increase visibility, and do my damnedest to recognize when I am in someone else's blind spot (or someone insists on sitting in mine) and try to rectify the situation.
Admittedly, I am kind of ADD, and driving is exactly the sort of activity that I can hyperfocus on. Especially with a manual so I have enough things to pay attention to and control that I am not too bored by it all. I can think of few better ways to spend a day than putting a few hundred miles on my motorcycle.
Like all motorcyclists, I think most drivers are idiots. The problem isn't the rules per se. Its not enforcement. The rules are like ALL rules in life. The importance of them is to learn WHY they exist, so you know when its ok to break them.
The problem is people's tendency to auto-pilot. Its people who come into situations not knowing what to do, and reacting poorly. Its really, and education and training issue.
I think it comes down to "what do you mean by admins"?
The more you restrict what admins have to support, the more homogenous the environment, the better the ratio. The more you expect from them, the more complex the environment, the more you need.
Another factor to add in is tools. Does every machine have actual remote console? (and I mean console as in, I can sit there and watch the POST console). Do you have build servers and good backups, and tested procedures to do restores if a system needs a total rebuild on the spot?
My group is constantly compared in terms of group size to number of machines. Its maddening since we support 5 different flavors of unix (and VMS), some with ok tools configured and ready, some nearly "hand crafted". Then at least 3 different versions of each of those flavors. We can't seem to get projects approved to fix any of this (and god forbid we did it without a project!)
We are compared against a Windows group, that supports a couple of flavors of Windows, and has had automation tools to schedule and do work remotely setup for years. Of course they can admin more systems with less headcount... they have the tools and environment setup to do it!
Hell it took us almost 2 years to get project approval to set the machines for centralized auth through LDAP... and they wonder why we seem to need so many people for so few machines.
So frankly, I don't think the question has enough information to be answered usefully. There are just too many variables to be able to put up a good estimation of appropriate head count per machine. I can tell you though that standardization, automation, and redundant designs will decrease that head count.
As will properly trained/experienced admins (if we could only get them to send a couple of people to basic sun training we would be way better off... but we can't even get that. We have guys that have been effectively working on the level of entry level admins for years, who have never been able to get management to send them to a class).
-Steve
(who should post anonymously but, on some level hopes they will read this...)
Another thing is, we shouldn't expect it to be able to do anything.
If I give you a sugar pill and tell you it will cause tachycardia (and, if needed explain what that means), and give it to people, I would expect a significant number to report racing hearts. However, you can feel your heart, so there is a feedback loop, and its beat can be effected by mood, thought etc. (to some degree even consciously controlled)
However, if I say it "increases blood flow in your calf"... I might expect you to report strange sensations in your calf... but I wouldn't really expect to see actual increased blood flow there (as opposed to anywhere else from heart rate changes).
How needed are placebos on tests that look at physical things like, tumor size? I have yet to find any credible link between believing that your tumor will shrink and having it happen.
On the other hand, memory and cognitive skills can be effected by mood and psychological process. So I think the placebo makes sense to rule out cognitive differences based on differences in your actions based on the belief that the pill might be helping.
> Funny; every time I've been in danger on the road, it's been because some moron has decided to treat the traffick laws as mere
> suggestions. I wish for more enforcement and stricker penalties, please.
> Here in Finland, we didn't get speed limits outside of cities until 1973, and the system wasn't complete until 1978. The year
> 1973 1100 people died in accidents, in the year 1978 600. The evidence seems to disagree with you here.
In Finland? So you don't think my complaints about US driving laws are valid because you feel the laws in Finland are not strict enough? Just checking. I know its not a US only site but, its kind of useless to make such claims between countries without even bothering to compare the laws themselves.
The simple fact is, that what I advocate for is nothing strange or out of the mainstream. Its simply bringing the law in line with what people actually do. Right now, right here, people drive 10-15 mph over the speed limit. Not some people, the vast majority. The traffic FLOWS at those speeds.
I never argued for no limits, or no guidelines. Simply that the ones we have, which cast the overwhelming majority of drivers as rule breakers the overwhelming majority of the time, are ridiculous. I am ALL FOR stopping and punishing people who actually cause harm or actually take undue risks with the lives of those around them. The letter of the current laws doesn't even come close to that, here, in the US.
I am talking about intersections with great visibility and light traffic with "no turn on red signs". Speed limits that are lower than the speed that the traffic flows at for all of the day except rush hour congestion. Stop signs where yields are all thats needed.
As I learned in Motorcycle safety training, most accidents are avoidable if YOU are paying attention, even if its the other persons fault. If you leave outs, and scan agressively for problems ahead of time, the vast majority are avoidable. So maybe you need to spend less time worrying about other peoples near misses (which are still misses) and guessing whats on their mind, and spend more time paying attention to your own vehicle.
I really think enforcement is ridiculous, driver education and training is FAR FAR more effective.
They are. Give it time, people just need to adjust.
They work great here. Sure, even some large ones get congested, but, they even out the congestion on all sides, and keep the traffic constantly moving. I would bet dollars to donuts that you can move more cars per hour, safely, through a rotary than you can through a similarly sized intersection set, with the same input roads.... and accident statistics have shown that they are safer than normal intersections to boot.
My theory on why people hate them is, the anarchy of the traffic circle forces people to pay attention in ways that simple straight lanes don't. Its easy to auto-pilot down roads and through intersections. The rotary is a delicate dance that forces you pay attention to it.
The main problem I see are small, off center rotaries. There is one near me at the intersection of rt 16 and um 38? (mystic valley parkway anyway). Its only maybe 10 feet in diameter, and the main road (16) hits it off center, it looks to the person in the rotary like the people flying down 16 are comming in very fast and he needs to merge with them.
In practice, the people on 16 are flying in fast, but see the rotary from way back and know how to act, and if you trust them to yield, they do. However, it causes a lot of hesitation backups as the person in the rotary tries to yield, so both cars try to yield to each other and stops traffic for a second.
Similarly there is the yield as you come under 93 onto mystic ave (no not the same street) in somerville. If you turn your head left, you can CLEARLY see the whole road your merging with, no obstruction. Yet, I would say about 60% of the cars that I see approach it nearly come to a stop at the sign before they even look and see that the road is clear and they can go. Yet, they had complete visibility for the past 100 feet or so.
Up to a point sure. However, you don't have to obey all of the rules 100%, or even CLOSE to it, to drive safely with other drivers who are obeying the rules, or attentitively breaking them like you are (which is what the vast majority of drivers do, NOBODY obeys ALL of the rules 100%)
I don't think we need more rules, most of them could be relaxed, and relaxed a lot. The only evidence that I need is that, as I said, the majority of drivers relax the rules and drive as such already. I do not believe that it makes sense to set the bar for proper driving above what the average person is actually going to do on the road.
The real problem is NOT the people breaking the rules on purpose. They generally are paying attention, know the rules, and are ready to make adjustments. The problem is the people who either don't know the rules in the first place, or aren't paying attention. There is a HUGE difference between rolling through a stop sign at an empty intersection with unobstructed visibility, and rolling through without even looking because you were playing with your radio.
Who cares if I only bring my car down to second gear at stop signs? I am ready to stop. If theres another car who has right of way, I stop. If theres no other cars, I am slow enough to stop if I need to because someone else is blowing through, so no safety hazard is caused. If i have enough visibility to roll through at the speed that I am rolling through, and the situation isn't a dangerous one, then... how exactly does the rule make sense?
I half agree.
I think I favor less enforcement, and less laws overall. Most of the driving rules, in terms of real safety, are overly cautious
"Best Practice" guidelines at best. Speed limits are just ridiculous, in general. People are going to drive the speed they feel safe, regardless of what the stupid sign says. That speed is usually 10-15 MPH higher than the sign. Yearly safety inspections? I can see emissions checks every few years, or a safety check after 5 or so. However, regular safety inspection really is beyond the pale of what the state really needs to do. Stop signs? Please. Much of the time simply slowing down and treating it like a yeild is appropriate. Much of the time when that isn't true, it works just the same if you plan to do that, and end up having to stop anyway. The only REAL danger at those intersections are people who... weren't paying attention anyway.
We have rotaries here in MA. They are safer than normal intersections, but... so many people just don't get them. They arn't hard. If your inside, you have right of way. Its simple. Yet, nearly every morning I am honking my horn at people who are yielding in the middle.
I blame drivers ED. We need much stronger drivers ed, and incentives to take refresher courses. Instead, if you get 5 tickets in 3 years, even if they are paperwork violations (like not having your registration on you, or driving on an expired license) they ASSUME your main problem is your attitude and agression, and send you to a "defensive driving" course.
The NSC (national safety council) course MIGHT be useful IF and ONLY IF your problem is really rage. Its utterly useless for everyone else. They don't barely even talk about driving rules. Just how you need to adjust you rattitude if you think its ok to break them.
Its not even close to whats really needed on the road.
-Steve
I always heard "You can have it fast, good, or cheap, pick two"
Also there is compromise "Yes we can use X material instead of Y, its not as good, but, its within tolerances" and "The project is to build a bridge, the drawing you gave me is for a boat ramp, this isn't going to meet our requirments"
-Steve
I believe you are correct. Though, there are two issues here, the technical arguments about what the law is now, and about what it should be.
Under current law, its hard to say for sure. I think you could make a pretty reasonable case either way on various grounds, and I think any such argument is going to quickly get pretty muddy.
Overall, I think contracts deserve a certain level of exemption, for a number of reasons.
A contract is, in the best of circumstances, a definition of requirements and responsibilities so that two parties know how to do buisness with eachother. You will do X under Y condition. I will do Z every time that you do X.
However, if thats all it was, then why bother signing it? Why bother making it so verbose with such carefully couched language? Simple, because its designed to also be a formal statement of intent that the signer is claiming to stand by. It may be a violation of confidentiality to release such a thing to the public, but that is a statement about the moral compass and trustworthiness of the person who posted it.... if the form of the agreement is something that they should be ashamed of, then thats what it is, regardless of what it says of the person who posted it.
In the end, its the contract that they wrote and wanted. If you send someone a private letter, they might go show it to the world and shame you. So, don't go writing shameful things and handing them to people that you can't trust to post it to the world. That has been true as long as people have had written language, its just even more true now than before.
Overall, I think these concerns make one thing is clear to me. Copyright is given to foster the creation of art and litterature of many kinds. Its given because we have an interest in promoting such things as a society. I think that interest doesn't exist for contracts. They exist for their own purposes and will exist entirely in the absence of the ability to copyright them. In fact, the interest in not stopping well intentioned whistle blowers FAR outweighs any protections copyright would provide.
I have long felt the world would be a better place if people didn't pay so much heed to people who fly off the handle at the littlest off color joke. Well adjusted people can make fun of themselves and their own situations, and take a good natured ribbing. Those who can't, are right to feel like they should consider what it means to take responsibility for their own shortcomings and seek help if needed; rather than be allowed to dictate policy.
Then again, I might feel the same way if I didn't have jewish friends who have occasionally cracked jokes about showers, ovens, AND Kosher Lampshades. The last one took me a minute... especially since I don't think long pork is kosher either. Ooh now a cannibalism reference.... where the catholics at? Has the church mannaged to perfect that transubstantiation miracle since I left? Nearly 2000 years of trying and Jesus still tastes more like Styrofoam than BBQ.