"You would not expect a boxer with equal command of both hands to limit himself to using only the right one, would you?"
No, but I would expect him not to fight with paraplegics. I'd also expect him not to pipe bomb the gym in order to make sure no one else can lift weights or train and get as good at fighting as him.
"Or do you want us to begin outfitting our youth with suicide belts to fight our enemies's "fairly" (preferably -- in their houses of worship and during the funeral processions)? Or would you rather we have leveled Iraqi cities the way we did German and Japanese ones 60 years ago?"
Actually, I'd prefer we find better solutions than simply killing everyone involved, because I actually value human life even after the fetal stage. Besides that, there's nothing fair about killing unarmed civilians, and even less fair about doing so without warning.
"I don't see the relation... We did not have enemies, who could destroy a city of ours within minutes, so we did not have anything to fear"
Nor could we destroy one of their cities in just a few minutes... well, not unless we were able to fly some heavy bombers over and level it with conventional weapons. In any case, we had many enemies, and most of them were just as big and powerful as we were. Iran may not be weak, but they've got nothing on the full military might of the U.S. Ditto that for Korea, Syria, Pakistan, and the others. Besides, we still don't have enemies capable of leveling a city in a few minutes, because they're all just starting to maybe think about looking into developing their own ICBMs and even if they rip off old satellite plans it will take them years to synthesize the things all by themselves. We've got at least 5 years plus minutes with most of those guys, and that's assuming we don't spot their test prototypes and beat the shit out of them for even trying.
Realistically, the only ones who we have any right to be afraid of are the Chinese. They've not only got working nukes (which only one of the above are actually all that close to having, namely Pakistan), but are just about done putting the finishing touches on a delivery system. Definitely too late to hide anything so trivial as Saturn V blueprints from them. Plus they're big, really big, and they have plenty of industrial capital to stay armed and keep ammo in the boxes for a very long time. A handful of beards in caves just aren't that big a deal.
"Where do you see "cowardice" here?"
What else do you call attempting to hide behind a giant wall of technology from enemies who lack the ability to really harm you even without it? I'd say that fear of a fair fight is the very definition of cowardice.
With the exception of running on the hardware that I choose even if it is not the hardware that Steve Jobs feels I should choose and without paying a dime to a company I have no interest in supporting (Apple).
I wonder if the DOJ could stretch that into a sabotage/terrorism case against "Bil Gaten" and the "Mi Crosoft" terrorist organization? Shit, if we've got to have that awful (un)PATRIOT Act, then we might as well do something constructive with it.
Just to clarify... Hendrix became famous for playing cover songs, and only deigned to start writing his own stuff when his production team sat him down and explained just why it was that he couldn't record an entire album of (non parody) covers, specifically copyright.
If Hendrix were alive and trying to make it today, he'd currently be defending himself from any number of major label lawsuits for copyright infringement over playing other peoples' songs, he'd probably be near total bankruptcy, and no label would ever risk so much as allowing an intern to be seen in the same club as him for fear of becoming a target themselves. In other words, he'd be fucked. Proper fucked.
Maybe Hendrix wasn't the example you were looking for.
"So, now please, explain in clear text how you can make a profit by collecting rent?"
I imagine that the guy who owns my apartment complex could do so, and that he'd be curious why you seem to think it's impossible.
Anyway, for many years my dad was in the business of collecting rent, and he at one point described the technique he used to me. I'll use standard/. list formatting...
1. Buy a large house that either needs work (and is therefore cheap), or is foreclosed (and therefore really cheap and hopefully in decent shape, though you'll need to bother with one of those pesky auctions). He mentioned that at one point he actually knew a mortgage officer at a bank, who would clue him in about homes that were slated for foreclosure, he would then talk to the owners, offer them a few thousand dollars cash, remind them that when the house foreclosed they wouldn't get a penny, and after they transferred the deed to him he'd pay it off with a mortgage from the same friend; IANAL, but I'm pretty sure this part is illegal (statute of limitations is up, don't even bother), and certainly unethical. New properties need something really shiny, like hundreds of units or waterfront, to be immediately profitable for renting, such properties obviously skip step 2 since that was presumably done during construction.
2. Fix it up and add partition walls or other barriers to make the house into as many apartments as reasonably possible.
3. Start renting out all available ASAP, and don't go crazy with the money, most of it will have to go into mortgage payments and maintenance. Another strategy my dad, mentioned was to get in touch with the local welfare agency, there are often programs which will pay rent on a place and use it to house extremely low income individuals and families; the one he mentioned paid rent even during months of non-occupation (say, if no one needed the apartment or during the standard fix up time after an occupant leaves) and allowed him to interview tenants beforehand and only accept the ones he felt were mostly reasonable, not exactly a cash cow, but it was steady money and earned some political and community capital to boot.
4. ???
5. Profit!!! Remember, since every last penny is being sqeezed out of each property, and all of it that isn't needed for maintenance is going into paying off the commercial mortgages (which don't force the mortgage to take a minimum number of years to pay off, but don't feature exotic rate schedules or frighteningly low APRs) they can actually be paid off in just a couple of years. In the mean time, live cheaply and be sure to keep all of the properties in good shape so they keep making money. In 5-10 years when they start being paid off, and the $700/month/apartment that was going into mortgage payments can start going into your pocket, you'll be one happy landlord.
Well, at least the ones they televised. Most actually passed with flying colors, but didn't fit into the 3 minute spot on the show.
Never confuse TV pundits with journalists. The latter need to have scruples and a respect for truth (and not just some preconceived notion of "fairness") to fit the definition, and are a dying breed in mainstream corporate media because of it; the former will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes, right along with their corporate masters who would rather fight the inevitable than give up the game and find the ethics they threw away so long ago.
"Extremely fast and featuring 120X Ultra Speed, Transcend's new generation CF Cards feature high performance combined with huge memory capacity making our 120X Compact Flash Cards the perfect choice for your high-end digital equipment."
Emphasis mine. Please take your astroturfing elsewhere. I haven't had any problems with Transcend, but the fact that they apparently have paid shills on Slashdot has made me less likely to ever buy from them in the future.
"You will never know what love is, and I feel sorry for you."
Incorrectly quoted, I'm sure, but I wish more grown ups would learn how to realize the answer to powerful violent sociopaths in real life. Maybe then we could ditch some of our particularly stupid cultural memes with regards to war, capital punishment, and political (in)action. I thought that was one of the best instances of "character growth" I've seen in a movie in quite a while, not least because they didn't see fit to bludgeon you with the fact that is was... nobody had to say "oh Harry, I'm so proud you learned a valuable life lesson in how to love and pity those who would harm you" or some such bullshit, it just happened and we were expected to just catch the (still not terribly subtle) moral statement on our own.
A little presumptuous, aren't we? It's not that I don't like Ron Paul, he seems to have some good ideas (and he also has some not so good ideas... like completely eliminating most publicly funded programs beyond a skeleton military and a few law enforcement and regulatory agencies which would be re-purposed to enforcing only the core laws), and he certainly has a reputation for protecting civil liberties second to none... but he's a long shot, emphasis on "long". Assuming he can even win the Republican primary, which (realistically speaking) probably won't happen, he'd then ALSO have to beat whatever Democratic ticket comes up, and that one's shaping up to be a powerhouse no matter who gets it (I guarantee that either Hillary or Obama is going top be the nominee for VP, and I wouldn't be surprised if the other is up for president). Point is, calling the election for him now is just a tad premature.
*Whoosh* Guess that one just went over everyone's heads.
Let me give you guys a hint: GOOGLE HAS ALREADY MADE AND LAUNCHED A WEB-BASED OFFICE SUITE. I'd be surprised if Google had absolutely no part in developing, and if they aren't yet then I'd be surprised if they still don't get involved now that it's gotten some press coverage.
What is this, fact day? Since when do we care about not making asses of ourselves claiming that somebody said something that they didn't just because a savvy political consultant wanted to minimize an opponents positive contributions to society while simultaneously making them look foolish and egotistical?
"Troll" is a relative term. Since it is the site maintainers who determine which stories are posted and what bent the site will have, it isn't trolling for them to consistently post articles of their particular bent. The simple fact of the matter is that if you don't like how the site is run, don't approve of its perspective, or are otherwise displeased by the contents of Slashdot, that you are more than welcome to not read anything here.
What is trolling is coming out of the woodwork to bitch about how the editors pick stories and how everyone but you is wrong and stupid.
It's "temporary" relative to the age of the universe in YEC time, of course. Compared to the 6000 years that is counted for this purpose, a few decades really isn't anything.
Yeah, I noticed that right after I posted. Firefox's spell check caught that I misspelled "suite" the first time, but apparently thought "sweet" was a better match. That's what I get for just changing it to the first suggestion without paying attention.
Slashdot Mirror
Really? I've plugged a USB mouse into my Ubuntu laptop a few times and it worked great. No "power user" moves necessary.
So... how's it working out for you?
"You would not expect a boxer with equal command of both hands to limit himself to using only the right one, would you?"
No, but I would expect him not to fight with paraplegics. I'd also expect him not to pipe bomb the gym in order to make sure no one else can lift weights or train and get as good at fighting as him.
"Or do you want us to begin outfitting our youth with suicide belts to fight our enemies's "fairly" (preferably -- in their houses of worship and during the funeral processions)? Or would you rather we have leveled Iraqi cities the way we did German and Japanese ones 60 years ago?"
Actually, I'd prefer we find better solutions than simply killing everyone involved, because I actually value human life even after the fetal stage. Besides that, there's nothing fair about killing unarmed civilians, and even less fair about doing so without warning.
Nice straw man.
How do you "elude to" something? Surreptitiously travel there while avoiding pursuers? Did he not understand his own proposed legislation?
I am of course alluding to the fact that you used the entirely wrong word. Better luck next time.
"I don't see the relation... We did not have enemies, who could destroy a city of ours within minutes, so we did not have anything to fear"
Nor could we destroy one of their cities in just a few minutes... well, not unless we were able to fly some heavy bombers over and level it with conventional weapons. In any case, we had many enemies, and most of them were just as big and powerful as we were. Iran may not be weak, but they've got nothing on the full military might of the U.S. Ditto that for Korea, Syria, Pakistan, and the others. Besides, we still don't have enemies capable of leveling a city in a few minutes, because they're all just starting to maybe think about looking into developing their own ICBMs and even if they rip off old satellite plans it will take them years to synthesize the things all by themselves. We've got at least 5 years plus minutes with most of those guys, and that's assuming we don't spot their test prototypes and beat the shit out of them for even trying.
Realistically, the only ones who we have any right to be afraid of are the Chinese. They've not only got working nukes (which only one of the above are actually all that close to having, namely Pakistan), but are just about done putting the finishing touches on a delivery system. Definitely too late to hide anything so trivial as Saturn V blueprints from them. Plus they're big, really big, and they have plenty of industrial capital to stay armed and keep ammo in the boxes for a very long time. A handful of beards in caves just aren't that big a deal.
"Where do you see "cowardice" here?"
What else do you call attempting to hide behind a giant wall of technology from enemies who lack the ability to really harm you even without it? I'd say that fear of a fair fight is the very definition of cowardice.
With the exception of running on the hardware that I choose even if it is not the hardware that Steve Jobs feels I should choose and without paying a dime to a company I have no interest in supporting (Apple).
Couple of deal-breakers right there.
I wonder if the DOJ could stretch that into a sabotage/terrorism case against "Bil Gaten" and the "Mi Crosoft" terrorist organization? Shit, if we've got to have that awful (un)PATRIOT Act, then we might as well do something constructive with it.
Dude, Heather Graham has been in plenty of movies, several of which may not qualify as "crimes against humanity". That crapfest was not one of them.
Don't be silly, just attach one end of the wire and let him do the spinning, you'll have a copper burrito in no time.
Much like I have a patent on tags surrounded by "<>" instead of "[]". Thank you for respecting my IP.
Just to clarify... Hendrix became famous for playing cover songs, and only deigned to start writing his own stuff when his production team sat him down and explained just why it was that he couldn't record an entire album of (non parody) covers, specifically copyright.
If Hendrix were alive and trying to make it today, he'd currently be defending himself from any number of major label lawsuits for copyright infringement over playing other peoples' songs, he'd probably be near total bankruptcy, and no label would ever risk so much as allowing an intern to be seen in the same club as him for fear of becoming a target themselves. In other words, he'd be fucked. Proper fucked.
Maybe Hendrix wasn't the example you were looking for.
"So, now please, explain in clear text how you can make a profit by collecting rent?"
/. list formatting...
I imagine that the guy who owns my apartment complex could do so, and that he'd be curious why you seem to think it's impossible.
Anyway, for many years my dad was in the business of collecting rent, and he at one point described the technique he used to me. I'll use standard
1. Buy a large house that either needs work (and is therefore cheap), or is foreclosed (and therefore really cheap and hopefully in decent shape, though you'll need to bother with one of those pesky auctions). He mentioned that at one point he actually knew a mortgage officer at a bank, who would clue him in about homes that were slated for foreclosure, he would then talk to the owners, offer them a few thousand dollars cash, remind them that when the house foreclosed they wouldn't get a penny, and after they transferred the deed to him he'd pay it off with a mortgage from the same friend; IANAL, but I'm pretty sure this part is illegal (statute of limitations is up, don't even bother), and certainly unethical. New properties need something really shiny, like hundreds of units or waterfront, to be immediately profitable for renting, such properties obviously skip step 2 since that was presumably done during construction.
2. Fix it up and add partition walls or other barriers to make the house into as many apartments as reasonably possible.
3. Start renting out all available ASAP, and don't go crazy with the money, most of it will have to go into mortgage payments and maintenance. Another strategy my dad, mentioned was to get in touch with the local welfare agency, there are often programs which will pay rent on a place and use it to house extremely low income individuals and families; the one he mentioned paid rent even during months of non-occupation (say, if no one needed the apartment or during the standard fix up time after an occupant leaves) and allowed him to interview tenants beforehand and only accept the ones he felt were mostly reasonable, not exactly a cash cow, but it was steady money and earned some political and community capital to boot.
4. ???
5. Profit!!! Remember, since every last penny is being sqeezed out of each property, and all of it that isn't needed for maintenance is going into paying off the commercial mortgages (which don't force the mortgage to take a minimum number of years to pay off, but don't feature exotic rate schedules or frighteningly low APRs) they can actually be paid off in just a couple of years. In the mean time, live cheaply and be sure to keep all of the properties in good shape so they keep making money. In 5-10 years when they start being paid off, and the $700/month/apartment that was going into mortgage payments can start going into your pocket, you'll be one happy landlord.
Well, at least the ones they televised. Most actually passed with flying colors, but didn't fit into the 3 minute spot on the show.
Never confuse TV pundits with journalists. The latter need to have scruples and a respect for truth (and not just some preconceived notion of "fairness") to fit the definition, and are a dying breed in mainstream corporate media because of it; the former will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes, right along with their corporate masters who would rather fight the inevitable than give up the game and find the ethics they threw away so long ago.
I just happened to have a spare braille keyboard lying around...
"Extremely fast and featuring 120X Ultra Speed, Transcend's new generation CF Cards feature high performance combined with huge memory capacity making our 120X Compact Flash Cards the perfect choice for your high-end digital equipment."
Emphasis mine. Please take your astroturfing elsewhere. I haven't had any problems with Transcend, but the fact that they apparently have paid shills on Slashdot has made me less likely to ever buy from them in the future.
Parent's link is to a photo of an enlarged and strangely external male anus, and while not the classic goatse, is certainly a related image.
Just in case anyone was wondering what the -1 Troll actually meant.
"You will never know what love is, and I feel sorry for you."
Incorrectly quoted, I'm sure, but I wish more grown ups would learn how to realize the answer to powerful violent sociopaths in real life. Maybe then we could ditch some of our particularly stupid cultural memes with regards to war, capital punishment, and political (in)action. I thought that was one of the best instances of "character growth" I've seen in a movie in quite a while, not least because they didn't see fit to bludgeon you with the fact that is was... nobody had to say "oh Harry, I'm so proud you learned a valuable life lesson in how to love and pity those who would harm you" or some such bullshit, it just happened and we were expected to just catch the (still not terribly subtle) moral statement on our own.
"even after Ron Paul is elected president"
A little presumptuous, aren't we? It's not that I don't like Ron Paul, he seems to have some good ideas (and he also has some not so good ideas... like completely eliminating most publicly funded programs beyond a skeleton military and a few law enforcement and regulatory agencies which would be re-purposed to enforcing only the core laws), and he certainly has a reputation for protecting civil liberties second to none... but he's a long shot, emphasis on "long". Assuming he can even win the Republican primary, which (realistically speaking) probably won't happen, he'd then ALSO have to beat whatever Democratic ticket comes up, and that one's shaping up to be a powerhouse no matter who gets it (I guarantee that either Hillary or Obama is going top be the nominee for VP, and I wouldn't be surprised if the other is up for president). Point is, calling the election for him now is just a tad premature.
*Whoosh* Guess that one just went over everyone's heads.
Let me give you guys a hint: GOOGLE HAS ALREADY MADE AND LAUNCHED A WEB-BASED OFFICE SUITE. I'd be surprised if Google had absolutely no part in developing, and if they aren't yet then I'd be surprised if they still don't get involved now that it's gotten some press coverage.
What is this, fact day? Since when do we care about not making asses of ourselves claiming that somebody said something that they didn't just because a savvy political consultant wanted to minimize an opponents positive contributions to society while simultaneously making them look foolish and egotistical?
Oh, wait...
"Troll" is a relative term. Since it is the site maintainers who determine which stories are posted and what bent the site will have, it isn't trolling for them to consistently post articles of their particular bent. The simple fact of the matter is that if you don't like how the site is run, don't approve of its perspective, or are otherwise displeased by the contents of Slashdot, that you are more than welcome to not read anything here.
What is trolling is coming out of the woodwork to bitch about how the editors pick stories and how everyone but you is wrong and stupid.
In other words: pot, meet kettle.
Nope, iWin.
Dude, I know this is Slashdot, and that we can't expect anyone to RTFA, but at least read the comment you're replying to.
The relevant portion is: "keep track of people that use the internet to harm others".
Call me crazy, but I don't think pointing out that the internet can't hurt anyone is a valid response... cause, you know, he never said it could.
I don't even necessarily agree with the GP, but that was just lame.
It's "temporary" relative to the age of the universe in YEC time, of course. Compared to the 6000 years that is counted for this purpose, a few decades really isn't anything.
Yeah, I noticed that right after I posted. Firefox's spell check caught that I misspelled "suite" the first time, but apparently thought "sweet" was a better match. That's what I get for just changing it to the first suggestion without paying attention.