On 24/01/2012 12:50 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:10:36 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> On 23/01/2012 9:39 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> Fox News
>>
>> ??? :-P
>
> Some over here refer to them as "Faux News" - because a fair bit of the
> opinion side is "manufactured rage".
>

I saw a bit of it last year in NM. I did not go back to that hotel.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

>> Fame is a relative thing.
>
> Are you really willing to compare the fame of a pretty obscure band to
> the fame of a website that serves every kind of content to pretty much
> everyone in the net?

No, I'm pointing out that they do *not* serve "everyone in the net".

I'm on the net, I've never heard of it, and even now that I have, I have 
no particular desire to go visit.

Post a reply to this message

>>> You were aware that Hosni Mubarak is no longer in charge in Egypt and
>>> that they had a "small" revolution last year, weren't you?
>>
>> Nope. The politics of remote countries isn't something I generally keep
>> up with. (Heck, the politics of *this* country isn't something I avidly
>> follow...)
>
> So you didn't hear about any of the so-called "Arab Spring" events?

No.

> You do know that the US pulled out of Iraq, yes?

I've heard multiple rounds of "We're pulling out. Oh, wait, we're 
pulling out in 6 month's time. No, we're pulling out next month. Oh, 
actually, make that 2 years. Actually, wait, make it a month. No, hang 
on..." It's news to me that they *actually* did it at last.

> Or were you unaware that the US (and the UK) were at war in Iraq?

Hehehe, is *that* why every FPS made in the last 10 years happens in the 
Middle East with Iraqis as the enemy? :-P

> You know there's a war in Afghanistan too, yes?  And that's still going on?

Wait - Afghanistan and Iraq aren't the same place? o_O

> And that Osama Bin Laden is dead?

Actually, no. I heard Saddam was dead, but I didn't know they ever found 
Osama.

>> And Edgar Froese is arguably the most famous band member ever to be in
>> Tangerine Dream... Have *you* ever heard of him?
>
> Yes, as a matter of fact, I have - because I have a fair collection of
> Tangerine Dream albums here. :)

I knew there was a strictly positive probability that this might happen. 
*facepalm*

>> Fame is a relative thing.
>
> It is relative, but there's been a *lot* of news about illegal downloads
> and torrents in the past 5 years or so.  TPB has figured into a lot of
> that news, because the providers keep blocking access, and they keep
> getting unblocked.
>
> I've found it kinda hard to avoid news about that.  I'm wondering how you
> managed it without even trying.

I've heard a lot of talk about "illegal downloads". I haven't heard 
anybody mention TPB.

It did tickle me when ISPs were talking about various ways to "detect 
and prevent downloading". Uh, you realise that the entire /point/ of 
ISPs is to enable downloading, right? Perhaps you meant prevent 
*illegal* downloading? :-P

(That and the talk of ISPs charging YouTube money because they're "using 
up all the bandwidth". Translation: "our profit model depends on 
customers using only a fraction of the bandwidth that they pay us for, 
and now people are using /all/ of what they rightfully paid for, waaaaa!")

Post a reply to this message

On 23/01/2012 06:13 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> On 23/01/2012 10:29 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
>>> Wait, isn't Pipa some gal who's in the tabloids a lot?
>
>> I wouldn't know; I don't read comic books.
>
>    I don't know if that was just a jab at tabloids, or if you a honestly have
> a confusion of terminology... Either way it's slightly amusing.

Even I'm not quite /that/ dense. ;-)

Seriously though, from what I've seen, your typical tabloid is about as 
factually accurate as your typical comic book. Like comics, they 
sometimes reflect real things which are actually happening in the real 
world... aaaaand then most of the time they contain complete fiction. 
(E.g., MMR causes autism - a claim that to this day has not one shred of 
scientific evidence behind it.)

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-01-24 04:30, Invisible a écrit :
>>>> You were aware that Hosni Mubarak is no longer in charge in Egypt and
>>>> that they had a "small" revolution last year, weren't you?
>>>
>>> Nope. The politics of remote countries isn't something I generally keep
>>> up with. (Heck, the politics of *this* country isn't something I avidly
>>> follow...)
>>
>> So you didn't hear about any of the so-called "Arab Spring" events?
>
> No.
>

Do you watch tv?
Do you listen to the radio?
Read newspaper?
Walk by a newspaper stand on your way to work?
Talk to people?

I think I facepalmed hard enough to break my nose.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

>>> So you didn't hear about any of the so-called "Arab Spring" events?
>>
>> No.
>
> Do you watch tv?

No.

> Do you listen to the radio?

No.

> Read newspaper?

No.

> Walk by a newspaper stand on your way to work?

I can't actually remember the last time I *saw* a newspaper stand in 
this country... Usually you have to walk indoors to look at newspapers.

> Talk to people?

Sure, all the time. :-P

> I think I facepalmed hard enough to break my nose.

Good for you.

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-01-23 05:25, John VanSickle a écrit :
> On 1/19/2012 12:31 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:56:30 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>>
>>> If they were planning to make it legal to lock Americans up without
>>> trial, *that* would be seriously disturbing.
>>
>> They already have that. It was part of the most recent defense
>> appropriations bill that was signed into law.
>>
>> Obama issued a 'signing statement' saying that his administration
>> wouldn't use indefinite detention on American citizens, but there's
>> nothing to stop the next administration from doing that.
>
> So the next President could round up the Congressmen who wrote that
> provision, toss them in prison, and tell them that they can go free when
> they repeal it.
>
> I hereby announce my candidacy...
>
> Regards,
> John

Nope.

Article I, section 6.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-01-23 09:27, Warp a écrit :
> Francois Labreque<fla### [at] videotronca>  wrote:
>> Le 2012-01-22 02:09, Warp a écrit :
>>>     The day after SOPA was rejected in the US congress, the US government
>>> took down megaupload.com. Coincidence?
>>>
>>>     The prevailing theory is that they were planning on taking it down for
>>> some time (after all, the bureucracy and paperwork involved in this kind
>>> of operation is not something that's done in one day) and were only
>>> waiting for SOPA to pass in order to shut down the site, so that they
>>> would have a justification. It did not pass, so no justification. However,
>>> rather than let all the hard work go to waste, they took the website down
>>> anyways.
>>>
>> Using existing laws, proving that PIPA and SOPA were unnecessary after all.
>
>    And now the US government has the IP addresses if millions of people who
> have uploaded and downloaded illegal material to megaupload.com. What do
> you think they will do with those addresses?
>

Use existing laws to prosecute the offenders, if they decide to do so. 
Further proof that PIPA and SOPA were unnecessary.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >>> So you didn't hear about any of the so-called "Arab Spring" events?
> >>
> >> No.
> >
> > Do you watch tv?
>
> No.
>
> > Do you listen to the radio?
>
> No.
>
> > Read newspaper?
>
> No.

curiously, I too pretty much have ditched traditional media.  I still dig news
on the web though...

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:30:17 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>> You do know that the US pulled out of Iraq, yes?
> 
> I've heard multiple rounds of "We're pulling out. Oh, wait, we're
> pulling out in 6 month's time. No, we're pulling out next month. Oh,
> actually, make that 2 years. Actually, wait, make it a month. No, hang
> on..." It's news to me that they *actually* did it at last.

There was an agreed-upon timeline with the Iraqi government for the 
pullout to be completed by December 31, 2011.  They met that timeline.

>> Or were you unaware that the US (and the UK) were at war in Iraq?
> 
> Hehehe, is *that* why every FPS made in the last 10 years happens in the
> Middle East with Iraqis as the enemy? :-P

It seems that that probably doesn't have a lot to do with reality.  There 
were a couple of Star Wars games that came out as well, yet the Empire is 
still a work of fiction.

>> You know there's a war in Afghanistan too, yes?  And that's still going
>> on?
> 
> Wait - Afghanistan and Iraq aren't the same place? o_O

Um, no, they're not.  Are you serious?

>> And that Osama Bin Laden is dead?
> 
> Actually, no. I heard Saddam was dead, but I didn't know they ever found
> Osama.

<facepalm>

>>> Fame is a relative thing.
>>
>> It is relative, but there's been a *lot* of news about illegal
>> downloads and torrents in the past 5 years or so.  TPB has figured into
>> a lot of that news, because the providers keep blocking access, and
>> they keep getting unblocked.
>>
>> I've found it kinda hard to avoid news about that.  I'm wondering how
>> you managed it without even trying.
> 
> I've heard a lot of talk about "illegal downloads". I haven't heard
> anybody mention TPB.

Do you read slashdot?  The Register?

> It did tickle me when ISPs were talking about various ways to "detect
> and prevent downloading". Uh, you realise that the entire /point/ of
> ISPs is to enable downloading, right? Perhaps you meant prevent
> *illegal* downloading? :-P
> 
> (That and the talk of ISPs charging YouTube money because they're "using
> up all the bandwidth". Translation: "our profit model depends on
> customers using only a fraction of the bandwidth that they pay us for,
> and now people are using /all/ of what they rightfully paid for,
> waaaaa!")

Actually, not YouTube, but Netflix; it's streaming has been claimed to 
take more bandwidth than illegal downloads.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:20:41 -0500, Francois Labreque wrote:

> I think I facepalmed hard enough to break my nose.

Actually, I nearly literally did that last week.  I was talking with a 
support engineer about an odd support question I answered myself earlier 
in the week, and I went to facepalm and missed.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:03:06 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 24/01/2012 12:50 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:10:36 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>> On 23/01/2012 9:39 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>>> Fox News
>>>
>>> ??? :-P
>>
>> Some over here refer to them as "Faux News" - because a fair bit of the
>> opinion side is "manufactured rage".
>>
>>
> I saw a bit of it last year in NM. I did not go back to that hotel.

I've news for you - the hotel wasn't hte problem. ;)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>>> You do know that the US pulled out of Iraq, yes?
>>
>> I've heard multiple rounds of "We're pulling out. Oh, wait, we're
>> pulling out in 6 month's time. No, we're pulling out next month. Oh,
>> actually, make that 2 years. Actually, wait, make it a month. No, hang
>> on..." It's news to me that they *actually* did it at last.
>
> There was an agreed-upon timeline with the Iraqi government for the
> pullout to be completed by December 31, 2011.  They met that timeline.

I heard so many conflicting reports about what they were or weren't 
going to do, I stopped paying attention.

>>> Or were you unaware that the US (and the UK) were at war in Iraq?
>>
>> Hehehe, is *that* why every FPS made in the last 10 years happens in the
>> Middle East with Iraqis as the enemy? :-P
>
> It seems that that probably doesn't have a lot to do with reality.  There
> were a couple of Star Wars games that came out as well, yet the Empire is
> still a work of fiction.

Well, sure. But I suspect before all this happened, most people had 
never even *heard* of Iraq.

>> Wait - Afghanistan and Iraq aren't the same place? o_O
>
> Um, no, they're not.  Are you serious?

Oh. Crap...

>>> I've found it kinda hard to avoid news about that.  I'm wondering how
>>> you managed it without even trying.
>>
>> I've heard a lot of talk about "illegal downloads". I haven't heard
>> anybody mention TPB.
>
> Do you read slashdot?  The Register?

Nope, never. Why would I?

>> (That and the talk of ISPs charging YouTube money because they're "using
>> up all the bandwidth". Translation: "our profit model depends on
>> customers using only a fraction of the bandwidth that they pay us for,
>> and now people are using /all/ of what they rightfully paid for,
>> waaaaa!")
>
> Actually, not YouTube, but Netflix; it's streaming has been claimed to
> take more bandwidth than illegal downloads.

Maybe in the US. In Britain, it seems to be YouTube and iPlayer that 
everyone was whining about.

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson escreveu:
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:20:41 -0500, Francois Labreque wrote:
> 
>> I think I facepalmed hard enough to break my nose.
> 
> Actually, I nearly literally did that last week.  I was talking with a 
> support engineer about an odd support question I answered myself earlier 
> in the week, and I went to facepalm and missed.

http://i617.photobucket.com/albums/tt255/813780/Extreme_Facepalm.png

Post a reply to this message

On 24/01/2012 4:39 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I saw a bit of it last year in NM. I did not go back to that hotel.
> I've news for you - the hotel wasn't hte problem.;)

No, most likely the clientele.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 24/01/2012 4:49 PM, Invisible wrote:
> Well, sure. But I suspect before all this happened, most people had
> never even *heard* of Iraq.

Come on! What about Mesopotamia or Babylonia, then?
T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia)?
Iran-Iraq War?

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Stephen escreveu:
> On 24/01/2012 4:49 PM, Invisible wrote:
>> Well, sure. But I suspect before all this happened, most people had
>> never even *heard* of Iraq.
> 
> Come on! What about Mesopotamia or Babylonia, then?
> T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia)?
> Iran-Iraq War?

ask him if he knows something about Celts...

Post a reply to this message

On 1/24/2012 8:27 AM, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Le 2012-01-23 05:25, John VanSickle a écrit :
>> On 1/19/2012 12:31 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:56:30 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>>>
>>>> If they were planning to make it legal to lock Americans up without
>>>> trial, *that* would be seriously disturbing.
>>>
>>> They already have that. It was part of the most recent defense
>>> appropriations bill that was signed into law.
>>>
>>> Obama issued a 'signing statement' saying that his administration
>>> wouldn't use indefinite detention on American citizens, but there's
>>> nothing to stop the next administration from doing that.
>>
>> So the next President could round up the Congressmen who wrote that
>> provision, toss them in prison, and tell them that they can go free when
>> they repeal it.
>>
>> I hereby announce my candidacy...
>>
>> Regards,
>> John
>
> Nope.
>
> Article I, section 6.

Wait until the go into recess.

Or declare that making this law violates their oath to uphold the 
Constitution, which is perjury, which is a felony, which is an exception 
to the item you cite.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

On 24/01/2012 5:27 PM, nemesis wrote:
> Stephen escreveu:
>> On 24/01/2012 4:49 PM, Invisible wrote:
>>> Well, sure. But I suspect before all this happened, most people had
>>> never even *heard* of Iraq.
>>
>> Come on! What about Mesopotamia or Babylonia, then?
>> T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia)?
>> Iran-Iraq War?
>
> ask him if he knows something about Celts...

A Glasgow football team who play against Rangers in the Scottish league? 
;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:03:01 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 24/01/2012 4:39 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> I saw a bit of it last year in NM. I did not go back to that hotel.
>> I've news for you - the hotel wasn't hte problem.;)
> 
> No, most likely the clientele.

Ah, point. :)  (Though it's not uncommon in hotels in more liberal parts 
of the country as well - I'm pretty sure it was in the Marriot on Times 
Square in NYC as well)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:01:47 -0200, nemesis wrote:

> Jim Henderson escreveu:
>> On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:20:41 -0500, Francois Labreque wrote:
>> 
>>> I think I facepalmed hard enough to break my nose.
>> 
>> Actually, I nearly literally did that last week.  I was talking with a
>> support engineer about an odd support question I answered myself
>> earlier in the week, and I went to facepalm and missed.
> 
> http://i617.photobucket.com/albums/tt255/813780/Extreme_Facepalm.png

LOL

Yeah, it was going in that direction, that's for sure.  I had to check 
afterwards to see that I hadn't caused a nosebleed.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:49:57 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>> You do know that the US pulled out of Iraq, yes?
>>>
>>> I've heard multiple rounds of "We're pulling out. Oh, wait, we're
>>> pulling out in 6 month's time. No, we're pulling out next month. Oh,
>>> actually, make that 2 years. Actually, wait, make it a month. No, hang
>>> on..." It's news to me that they *actually* did it at last.
>>
>> There was an agreed-upon timeline with the Iraqi government for the
>> pullout to be completed by December 31, 2011.  They met that timeline.
> 
> I heard so many conflicting reports about what they were or weren't
> going to do, I stopped paying attention.

That was actually (AFAIK) always the plan, agreed to while our last 
President was in office, in fact.

>> It seems that that probably doesn't have a lot to do with reality. 
>> There were a couple of Star Wars games that came out as well, yet the
>> Empire is still a work of fiction.
> 
> Well, sure. But I suspect before all this happened, most people had
> never even *heard* of Iraq.

Except for everyone who remembers the first Iraq war (back in the 90s), 
or everyone who heard of Saddam Hussein, or everyone who took the 
slightest interest in where oil in the US came from.

>>> Wait - Afghanistan and Iraq aren't the same place? o_O
>>
>> Um, no, they're not.  Are you serious?
> 
> Oh. Crap...

When's the last time you looked at a map, young'un?

>>>> I've found it kinda hard to avoid news about that.  I'm wondering how
>>>> you managed it without even trying.
>>>
>>> I've heard a lot of talk about "illegal downloads". I haven't heard
>>> anybody mention TPB.
>>
>> Do you read slashdot?  The Register?
> 
> Nope, never. Why would I?

Because you're in technology and keeping up on technology trends is 
important to furthering a career in technology - and those are two places 
where LOTS of news about technology are posted or linked from?

>>> (That and the talk of ISPs charging YouTube money because they're
>>> "using up all the bandwidth". Translation: "our profit model depends
>>> on customers using only a fraction of the bandwidth that they pay us
>>> for, and now people are using /all/ of what they rightfully paid for,
>>> waaaaa!")
>>
>> Actually, not YouTube, but Netflix; it's streaming has been claimed to
>> take more bandwidth than illegal downloads.
> 
> Maybe in the US. In Britain, it seems to be YouTube and iPlayer that
> everyone was whining about.

iPlayer I could see.  YouTube?  I haven't heard that, but I could see 
that it does take up a fair bit of bandwidth.  There was a report 
yesterday that they've exceeded an hour of video uploaded *per second* of 
actual video runtime.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 1/23/2012 5:50 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:10:36 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> On 23/01/2012 9:39 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> Fox News
>>
>> ??? :-P
>
> Some over here refer to them as "Faux News" - because a fair bit of the
> opinion side is "manufactured rage".
>
> Jim
And, the fact that their "main" news has a habit of citing their 
manufactured rage, from their own talk shows, to defend their version of 
events. And, well, the fact that you can sometimes find the different, 
or even the exact same, ragers contradicting their own less than 24 hour 
ago statements, without batting an eye, or being willing to admit, even 
when they are shown the film footage, that their "opinion" magically 
changed over night.

The basic view of lefties I know is:

Faux reports gibberish, repeats the gibberish as fact, while convenient, 
then cuts its own throat, when ever it stops being convenient to think 
its true.
MSNBC reports bias, but admits it, and admits making mistakes, when they 
do, and does try to back up their facts, even on their opinion shows 
(usually without quoting the other pundant, without any supporting facts).
CNN, et al, report what ever the other two say, and anyone else tells 
them, with little or no fact checking, since its way easier to let 
someone else do your news for you, than actually make sure any of it is 
real.

Sort of a case of listening to the people that admit they have a clear 
side, versus people that have no clue which side to take, or the ones 
insisting, as Faux does, that, "We don't take sides, we just report the 
facts, even when they change mid-week, mid-day, mid-show, or even 
mid-sentence!"

I sometimes wonder how people can live with the cognitive dissonance of 
religion vs. reality, then I am reminded of Fox News viewers, and have 
to conclude that this is a bit like asking how someone can stand on 
their head, while someone behind you is standing on one finger, while 
holding an elephant up, by their feet, while riding a roller coaster. By 
comparison, believing in science, and god, at the same time, has got to 
be pretty damn trivial to thinking that what Fox says is true, and so is 
the 50 billion pieces of bloody obvious information that contradicts 
them, at the same time.

As someone put it, if they said the sky was blue, they would have to 
consult a meteorologists *and* check for themselves, before they could 
be sure that "fact" was being reported accurately by them.

Post a reply to this message

On 1/24/2012 2:30 AM, Invisible wrote:
>> And that Osama Bin Laden is dead?
>
> Actually, no. I heard Saddam was dead, but I didn't know they ever found
> Osama.
>
Yeah, Obama had a tiny number of troops slip into Pakistan, to his **in 
bloody plain sight** compound, using some sort of stealth copters 
(special blades, which cancelled most of the usual noise, and other 
stuff), and took him out in very short order, before the Pakistanis even 
had a clue anything was going on. Its unclear which embarrassed them 
more, the fact that we found him, while they didn't have a clue who was 
in that compound (or at least no one higher up seemed to), or that we 
did it without them even having a clue it was happening.

Only minor hickup was that they tapped on blade of one chopper on the 
wall, on the way in, and had to leave it there after the mission. I 
assume they got it out since, but last I saw there where just pictures 
of it floating around, with confused Pakistani soldiers looking it over.

But yeah, lot of idiots claiming this is the worst president we ever 
had, and a lot legitimate complaints about him, but he managed in a few 
months what Bush and Co. couldn't do in a decade, along with a fair long 
list of other things, none of which would have happened with one of the 
idiots calling him "the worst" in office instead.

Could have been better, but hell.. what can you do when you couldn't 
probably even pass a law saying, "The sky is blue", without having the 
less insane Republicans first agree with it, then tack on 50 idiot 
things that undermine civil liberties, or mandate insane shit, at the 
behest of the Tea Party, then claim, due to pressure from the same Tea 
Party crazies that they disagree with it, then finally come out 
insisting they never thought it was blue in the first place (because 
they might lose their job, if they went against the crazies now running 
the Republicans), and all, at least in part, because they want to, "make 
Obama a one term president".

We are dealing with some true nuts right now, like the one Senator that 
has just proposed a bill banning the use of fetuses in human food, on 
the theory that this is the **only** possible thing that someone might 
use "recombinant methods" to do, in food manufacturing... WTF?

Post a reply to this message

On 1/24/2012 2:34 AM, Invisible wrote:
> On 23/01/2012 06:13 PM, Warp wrote:
>> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>> On 23/01/2012 10:29 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
>>>> Wait, isn't Pipa some gal who's in the tabloids a lot?
>>
>>> I wouldn't know; I don't read comic books.
>>
>> I don't know if that was just a jab at tabloids, or if you a honestly
>> have
>> a confusion of terminology... Either way it's slightly amusing.
>
> Even I'm not quite /that/ dense. ;-)
>
> Seriously though, from what I've seen, your typical tabloid is about as
> factually accurate as your typical comic book. Like comics, they
> sometimes reflect real things which are actually happening in the real
> world... aaaaand then most of the time they contain complete fiction.
> (E.g., MMR causes autism - a claim that to this day has not one shred of
> scientific evidence behind it.)
Yeah. Here in the US, the, "Bat boy born to blah blah family" rag went 
bankrupt, and got bought up by the National Enquirer, thereby proving, 
beyond all doubt, that there wasn't any real news in the latter either. lol

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:27:44 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Faux reports gibberish, repeats the gibberish as fact, while convenient,
> then cuts its own throat, when ever it stops being convenient to think
> its true.
> MSNBC reports bias, but admits it, and admits making mistakes, when they
> do, and does try to back up their facts, even on their opinion shows
> (usually without quoting the other pundant, without any supporting
> facts).
> CNN, et al, report what ever the other two say, and anyone else tells
> them, with little or no fact checking, since its way easier to let
> someone else do your news for you, than actually make sure any of it is
> real.

I've been really disappointed in CNN the past few years.  They *used* to 
be pretty decent.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 24/01/2012 10:44 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> But yeah, lot of idiots claiming this is the worst president we ever
> had, and a lot legitimate complaints about him, but he managed in a few
> months what Bush and Co. couldn't do in a decade, along with a fair long
> list of other things, none of which would have happened with one of the
> idiots calling him "the worst" in office instead.

I've noticed that some people regard Obama was the Messiah, the most 
wonderful thing ever to happen in American history. And others regard 
him as pure, liquid evil. Clearly these two viewpoints cannot both be 
correct. Having no clue what Obama has actually done, I have no idea 
which one to believe.

> Could have been better, but hell.. what can you do when you couldn't
> probably even pass a law saying, "The sky is blue", without having the
> less insane Republicans first agree with it, then tack on 50 idiot
> things that undermine civil liberties, or mandate insane shit, at the
> behest of the Tea Party, then claim, due to pressure from the same Tea
> Party crazies that they disagree with it, then finally come out
> insisting they never thought it was blue in the first place (because
> they might lose their job, if they went against the crazies now running
> the Republicans), and all, at least in part, because they want to, "make
> Obama a one term president".

...OK, you *do* sound like you're constantly angry.

Also: WTF is this "tea party" I keep hearing about?

> We are dealing with some true nuts right now, like the one Senator that
> has just proposed a bill banning the use of fetuses in human food, on
> the theory that this is the **only** possible thing that someone might
> use "recombinant methods" to do, in food manufacturing... WTF?

...the HELL?! o_O

Post a reply to this message

>>> It seems that that probably doesn't have a lot to do with reality.
>>> There were a couple of Star Wars games that came out as well, yet the
>>> Empire is still a work of fiction.
>>
>> Well, sure. But I suspect before all this happened, most people had
>> never even *heard* of Iraq.
>
> Except for everyone who remembers the first Iraq war (back in the 90s),
> or everyone who heard of Saddam Hussein, or everyone who took the
> slightest interest in where oil in the US came from.

Seriously? You get oil from Iraq? The entire country appears to be a 
barren desert wilderness; where is the complex infrastructure necessary 
for oil extraction?

>>>> Wait - Afghanistan and Iraq aren't the same place? o_O
>>>
>>> Um, no, they're not.  Are you serious?
>>
>> Oh. Crap...
>
> When's the last time you looked at a map, young'un?

Of the Middle East? Never.

I'm the guy who thought that Brazil was in Europe, remember? Geography 
was never my strong point. (Or history, actually.)

>>> Do you read slashdot?  The Register?
>>
>> Nope, never. Why would I?
>
> Because you're in technology and keeping up on technology trends is
> important to furthering a career in technology

Really? In what sense?

> and those are two places
> where LOTS of news about technology are posted or linked from?

Well, that's news to me.

>>> Actually, not YouTube, but Netflix; it's streaming has been claimed to
>>> take more bandwidth than illegal downloads.
>>
>> Maybe in the US. In Britain, it seems to be YouTube and iPlayer that
>> everyone was whining about.
>
> iPlayer I could see.  YouTube?  I haven't heard that, but I could see
> that it does take up a fair bit of bandwidth.  There was a report
> yesterday that they've exceeded an hour of video uploaded *per second* of
> actual video runtime.

An hour of *uploaded* video per second of video runtime? Wow.

PS. What is Netflix? And does it only operate in America?

Post a reply to this message

On 24/01/2012 7:32 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:03:01 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> On 24/01/2012 4:39 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> I saw a bit of it last year in NM. I did not go back to that hotel.
>>> I've news for you - the hotel wasn't hte problem.;)
>>
>> No, most likely the clientele.
>
> Ah, point. :)  (Though it's not uncommon in hotels in more liberal parts
> of the country as well - I'm pretty sure it was in the Marriot on Times
> Square in NYC as well)
>

No sense of class. Aim for the LCD (no pun intended).

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-01-25 05:03, Invisible a écrit :
>
> Seriously? You get oil from Iraq? The entire country appears to be a
> barren desert wilderness; where is the complex infrastructure necessary
> for oil extraction?
>

http://images.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&q=iraqi+oil+fields

>>>> Do you read slashdot? The Register?
>>>
>>> Nope, never. Why would I?
>>
>> Because you're in technology and keeping up on technology trends is
>> important to furthering a career in technology
>
> Really? In what sense?
>

Ow!  Damn it.  Broke my nose again.

> PS. What is Netflix? And does it only operate in America?

Netflix is a company that sells movies by mail and online.  They 
currently only operate in the USA and Canada.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-01-25 04:57, Invisible a écrit :

>
> Also: WTF is this "tea party" I keep hearing about?
>

In the late 1700s, the British colonies in America were getting fed up 
of the King of England raising taxes without letting them have a voice 
in Parliament, so they decided to rebel against the King and declare 
their independence.

One of the first incident of the American revolution was the "Boston Tea 
Party" where tea growers decided to punish the king by dumping all the 
tea bound for England into the harbor.  There! Neener! Neener!  No you 
can't have tea. Not yours!

Flash forward 240 years.

Groups of people angry about the rising taxes on the working class and 
the runaway government deficit decided to form a protest movement called 
"Taxed Enough Already" or T.E.A. for short.  Thus were formed the modern 
day Tea Parties.

Nevermind the fact that taxes on the working class had been going down 
for a few years, that these people were mysteriously very silent while 
the previous president was spending money he didn't have playing war 
games all over the world and that these people - who were for the most 
part very angry at having an uppity negro in the White House - were 
being lied to by millionaires and talk show hosts who were trying to get 
the government to ease restrictions on their investments.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:50:20 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 24/01/2012 7:32 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:03:01 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>> On 24/01/2012 4:39 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>>> I saw a bit of it last year in NM. I did not go back to that hotel.
>>>> I've news for you - the hotel wasn't hte problem.;)
>>>
>>> No, most likely the clientele.
>>
>> Ah, point. :)  (Though it's not uncommon in hotels in more liberal
>> parts of the country as well - I'm pretty sure it was in the Marriot on
>> Times Square in NYC as well)
>>
>>
> No sense of class. Aim for the LCD (no pun intended).

LOL

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:03:26 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>> It seems that that probably doesn't have a lot to do with reality.
>>>> There were a couple of Star Wars games that came out as well, yet the
>>>> Empire is still a work of fiction.
>>>
>>> Well, sure. But I suspect before all this happened, most people had
>>> never even *heard* of Iraq.
>>
>> Except for everyone who remembers the first Iraq war (back in the 90s),
>> or everyone who heard of Saddam Hussein, or everyone who took the
>> slightest interest in where oil in the US came from.
> 
> Seriously? You get oil from Iraq? The entire country appears to be a
> barren desert wilderness; where is the complex infrastructure necessary
> for oil extraction?

I really wonder sometimes if you're just trying to wind people up with 
statements like this, or trying to see if you can invoke an 'extreme 
facepalm' incident.
 
>> When's the last time you looked at a map, young'un?
> 
> Of the Middle East? Never.

Maybe that's part of the reason why you have little sense of how the 
world actually is.  Just a thought.
 
> I'm the guy who thought that Brazil was in Europe, remember? Geography
> was never my strong point. (Or history, actually.)

That's correctable, but you have to correct it.  Both of these things are 
quite important.

>>>> Do you read slashdot?  The Register?
>>>
>>> Nope, never. Why would I?
>>
>> Because you're in technology and keeping up on technology trends is
>> important to furthering a career in technology
> 
> Really? In what sense?

If you don't know what technology is out there, how do you expect to know 
when a proposed solution is good or not?

Seriously, that would help your job prospects a lot.  Not knowing what 
trends are taking place in IT is kinda like not being aware of the 
development of the automobile when you are a driver for hire of a hansom 
cab.  (Yes, I'm going to make you look that up)

>> and those are two places
>> where LOTS of news about technology are posted or linked from?
> 
> Well, that's news to me.

<boggle>

>>>> Actually, not YouTube, but Netflix; it's streaming has been claimed
>>>> to take more bandwidth than illegal downloads.
>>>
>>> Maybe in the US. In Britain, it seems to be YouTube and iPlayer that
>>> everyone was whining about.
>>
>> iPlayer I could see.  YouTube?  I haven't heard that, but I could see
>> that it does take up a fair bit of bandwidth.  There was a report
>> yesterday that they've exceeded an hour of video uploaded *per second*
>> of actual video runtime.
> 
> An hour of *uploaded* video per second of video runtime? Wow.

Yes.

> PS. What is Netflix? And does it only operate in America?

It's a streaming movie service, and if you'd been reading Slashdot or The 
Register, you'd know they've just started operating in Europe as well. :)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:25:33 -0500, Francois Labreque wrote:

> They currently
> only operate in the USA and Canada.

Not any more:

http://www.itworld.com/software/215983/netflix-streaming-europe

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:57:25 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>> But yeah, lot of idiots claiming this is the worst president we ever
>> had, and a lot legitimate complaints about him, but he managed in a few
>> months what Bush and Co. couldn't do in a decade, along with a fair
>> long list of other things, none of which would have happened with one
>> of the idiots calling him "the worst" in office instead.
> 
> I've noticed that some people regard Obama was the Messiah, the most
> wonderful thing ever to happen in American history. And others regard
> him as pure, liquid evil. Clearly these two viewpoints cannot both be
> correct. Having no clue what Obama has actually done, I have no idea
> which one to believe.

It's subjective.

You could probably learn a lot by reading his Wikipedia entry.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I've noticed that some people regard Obama was the Messiah, the most 
> wonderful thing ever to happen in American history. And others regard 
> him as pure, liquid evil. Clearly these two viewpoints cannot both be 
> correct. Having no clue what Obama has actually done, I have no idea 
> which one to believe.

  I think that the major problem is that he promised to do a lot of things
to make Americans' lives better, but in the end he didn't. Instead of
standing firm and pushing his original agenda no matter what, seemingly
he started making compromises and caving in. (Sure, the president cannot
pass laws, but in the US the president, AFAIK, has quite a lot of influence
which he can use to influence law making.)

  Most prominently, he promised to bring the health care system to the
same level as the western European ones, but in the end he failed.
I haven't really followed that lately, but I get the impression that he
simply gave up or something. Also, he promised to close Guantanamo, but
he didn't. On the contrary, during his term even more egregious laws were
passed than during Bush's.

  But that's not all. Apparently big companies have had a big influence
on his policies. For example, he has appointed several members of the
RIAA to high governmental positions, and he is a proponent of ridiculously
harsh and disproportionate penalties for minor copyright infractions (such
as fining people 110000 dollars for each illegally downloaded song).

  There's a hypothesis that he was a big corporation puppet all along
(just like Reagan was), and that his initial "let's make America better"
policies were all just an act to get elected. Now that his term is coming
to an end, he isn't even pretending anymore. We'll probably never know if
that was the case.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:53:36 -0500, Warp wrote:

>   I think that the major problem is that he promised to do a lot of
>   things
> to make Americans' lives better, but in the end he didn't.

Anyone who runs for president of the US makes promises they're not going 
to even come close to being able to keep - because they promise things 
the president doesn't have control over.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 1/25/2012 3:03 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>>> It seems that that probably doesn't have a lot to do with reality.
>>>> There were a couple of Star Wars games that came out as well, yet the
>>>> Empire is still a work of fiction.
>>>
>>> Well, sure. But I suspect before all this happened, most people had
>>> never even *heard* of Iraq.
>>
>> Except for everyone who remembers the first Iraq war (back in the 90s),
>> or everyone who heard of Saddam Hussein, or everyone who took the
>> slightest interest in where oil in the US came from.
>
> Seriously? You get oil from Iraq? The entire country appears to be a
> barren desert wilderness; where is the complex infrastructure necessary
> for oil extraction?
>
Umm. Actually, we probably don't. Two reasons -

1. We wouldn't know anyway, since our own trade agreements *require* 
that any oil we get has to be bought from the global market (including 
what is pumped in the US, then sold to that market, before being bought 
back from it, which is one reason, beyond the strange idea that 
imaginary jobs, for a new pipeline, which will just ship the stuff to 
the coast, to be loaded on a ship, to be sent to Opec, with no other 
projects *at all*, will, "benefit the US", and solve a problem of 32 
million jobs not existing).

2. I certainly haven't heard anything to indicate, at all, that any sort 
of real agreements where ever made to acquire any of their oil. And, you 
would think, if such an agreement existed, Bush would have been 
trumpeting it, during the period in which he was still in charge, and 
supposedly working with Iraq on such things.

Yeah, love to see some numbers on how much "oil" we get from Iraq... lol

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:00:03 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Umm. Actually, we probably don't.

Actually, we do:

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_m.htm

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 25/01/2012 11:18 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:00:03 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Umm. Actually, we probably don't.
>
> Actually, we do:
>
> http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_m.htm
>

Interesting, thanks.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 1/25/2012 2:57 AM, Invisible wrote:
> On 24/01/2012 10:44 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> But yeah, lot of idiots claiming this is the worst president we ever
>> had, and a lot legitimate complaints about him, but he managed in a few
>> months what Bush and Co. couldn't do in a decade, along with a fair long
>> list of other things, none of which would have happened with one of the
>> idiots calling him "the worst" in office instead.
>
> I've noticed that some people regard Obama was the Messiah, the most
> wonderful thing ever to happen in American history. And others regard
> him as pure, liquid evil. Clearly these two viewpoints cannot both be
> correct. Having no clue what Obama has actually done, I have no idea
> which one to believe.
>
The right claims that there are people on the left that think he is like 
a messiah. The left, exaggerates, but only slightly, the behavior of the 
right, which has literally called him everything from a socialist, to 
the anti-christ, to merely, "The worst president ever".

>> Could have been better, but hell.. what can you do when you couldn't
>> probably even pass a law saying, "The sky is blue", without having the
>> less insane Republicans first agree with it, then tack on 50 idiot
>> things that undermine civil liberties, or mandate insane shit, at the
>> behest of the Tea Party, then claim, due to pressure from the same Tea
>> Party crazies that they disagree with it, then finally come out
>> insisting they never thought it was blue in the first place (because
>> they might lose their job, if they went against the crazies now running
>> the Republicans), and all, at least in part, because they want to, "make
>> Obama a one term president".
>
> ...OK, you *do* sound like you're constantly angry.
>
> Also: WTF is this "tea party" I keep hearing about?
>
Complicated... But, in simple terms, early on in the economic problems 
there was a semi-grass roots group that started, calling themselves the 
"Tea Party", named after the old "Boston Tea Party" in American history. 
Certain groups in the right wing noted it, and decided to create a 
special bus tour, called the Tea Party Express, which went around and 
hijacked the original intent of the movie, spreading a mixed message of, 
"Yeah, we believe in the stuff you do, but also.. {big government 
rhetoric, anti-liberal rhetoric, pro-evangelical rhetoric, etc., etc.}"

They basically took what might have been an early version of Occupy Wall 
Street, and used a lot of rhetoric to distort the facts, including flat 
out making them up, so that, by the time election time came along, it 
was 100% republicans that got elected from this "movement". Those that 
did then went on to do things like:

1. Pass anti-union laws.
2. Pass laws to mangle local voting systems, often, in some cases, 
passing one in state A, which made all votes count, so that the 
*majority* conservative electorate would be a majority, and passing on 
in B, where the existing "everyone's vote counts", was replaced with one 
based on "region", because the majority of regions where conservative, 
but the actual electorate was *slightly* more liberal. Uh, basically, 
lets say you have three districts in both A and B state. In A, 80% of 
the voters are conservative, but most of them live in one place, so the 
votes would end up being 1 Conservative region:2 Liberal regions., 
while, in B, the "regional" was 2 Conservative:1 Liberal, but 70% of the 
"voters" where all liberal. One law changed to prevent the liberal 
"regions" winning, against the majority, the other changed, to make sure 
the majority vote didn't count, only the regional distribution of them.
3. Pass laws to make more states "right to work", which basically 
defangs unions, without eliminating them entirely.
4. Created special rules, by which, in at least one state, every 
*elected* official can be arbitrarily fired, as an *emergency measure*, 
effectively side stepping the right of the public to determine who runs 
the government, and a *appointed* dictator put in place, instead, who 
can also fire anyone he likes, move money around any way they like, and 
undermine any part of the city government they feel they need to, 
including schools, if they *think* its somehow going to fix the cities 
finances. The one city this started in, now has massive new problems, 
and is *still* not operating on a balanced budget.

And, finally, 5. Pretty much every single one of them, in Washington DC, 
has stated that a) they will not do one thing that helps Obama, b) don't 
want him to have a second term, c) have even gone so far as to say it 
should be their #1 priority to stop that, and d) have the moderate 
Republicans conned into thinking these evangelical, anti-gay, anti-roe 
vs. wade, anti-poor, pro-rich people, anti-health care, anti-social 
safety net, pro-war, pro-oil, anti-AGW, "Tea Party" people, who got 
themselves elected in one of the biggest small government, pro-people, 
con jobs in American history, are powerful enough they can't apposed 
them, and scared shitless about it.

>> We are dealing with some true nuts right now, like the one Senator that
>> has just proposed a bill banning the use of fetuses in human food, on
>> the theory that this is the **only** possible thing that someone might
>> use "recombinant methods" to do, in food manufacturing... WTF?
>
> ...the HELL?! o_O

Yeah, and, that is only the top of the list of stupid. Most are also 
pro-Abstinence. They literally deny the very fact that it is an abject 
failure, and that *no* evidence exists to suggest it works, for anyone, 
including in the places the themselves implemented it. Many of them have 
attempted to put in legislation to either distort, sideline, or replace 
Evolution, with Intelligent Design, or Creationism. They managed to, 
recently, have one of their cronies get arrested for *real* voter fraud, 
while trying to prove non-existent fraud. The same morons that where 
responsible for destroying a company called Acorn, which a) was 
eventually found to have a few irregularities, of the same time found in 
many other companies, including some still existing banks, but which 
where, after the company was bankrupted, and gone for good, acquitted of 
any of the crimes the two, now voter fraud suspects, had originally 
accused them of. It should be noted that, despite the fact that Acorn is 
4 year old news, some of the "Tea Party" nuts that conned the public 
into electing them are *claiming* that Obama somehow "protected" the 
company, and its secretly working under another name, to fund is 
reelection campaign...

Real conspiracy vs. complete bullshit, and some people are willing to 
back the real criminals, because they are *sure* Obama is secretly being 
funded by unknown entities, connected with a defunct company, who 
offered financial advice to poor people, when they where still 
operating. Huh?

Oh, right, and then there is, "Citizens United", a idiot ruling from the 
conservative appointed, conservative Supreme court, which is being used 
to field multimillion dollar attack ads, using secret, undisclosed, 
money, from who the hell knows, but likely multimillionaire business 
men, and then flunkies (since there is no way to get that much out of 
the public). And, in some cases, the means by which the money is 
shuffled around, makes it impossible to tell if the person being elected 
is being "supported" by attack ads, put out by groups, who are secretly 
funded, by companies, that those officials have connections to, or stock 
in. So, as long as, say Romney doesn't directly tell some group called 
"Romney PAC" what to put in the ads, they an get millions from some 
company Romney owns stock in, or who like him, because of what he will 
do for them, once elected, to run them, and say anything they like in it.

Steven Colbert and one of the other comedians from Comedy Central have 
been running a gag for a while now, generating ads "for" Colbert, 
through such a PAC, without "coordinating" their messages, with unknown 
funding sources, for weeks now, to highlight the idiocy of the whole 
thing. lol

Yeah, all you need to know about "Tea Party", is that its the extreme 
end of the conservative spectrum in the US, has the moderate 
conservatives backed into a corner, at the moment, and they lied their 
way into office, on the premise of supporting effective government, when 
in reality it was all about rich people getting perks, the poor shafted, 
and a shift from legislating things like environment, or health care, to 
"moral issues", like abortion, and gay marriage. (the two things they 
tried passing bills on, over and over, for the first nearly one year, 
after elected, after being elected on a platform or "job creation").

Its kind of hard not to seem a bit... pissed, at these obstructive 
assholes, or the way the rest of the Republicans have been bowing and 
scraping to them, not to mention how fast *ever* current Republican 
presidential candidate has made a run for the bottom, to support the 
same idiocy, knowing that its these nut cases that will be deciding, 
through bullshit and unbridled funding for campaign commercials, not the 
public (who already proved they can be conned), which one of them gets 
to try to take out Obama in the election.

They may find that the public isn't quite that stupid though, when it 
comes to actually voting, I hope...

Post a reply to this message

On 1/25/2012 6:44 AM, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Le 2012-01-25 04:57, Invisible a écrit :
>
>>
>> Also: WTF is this "tea party" I keep hearing about?
>>
>
> In the late 1700s, the British colonies in America were getting fed up
> of the King of England raising taxes without letting them have a voice
> in Parliament, so they decided to rebel against the King and declare
> their independence.
>
> One of the first incident of the American revolution was the "Boston Tea
> Party" where tea growers decided to punish the king by dumping all the
> tea bound for England into the harbor. There! Neener! Neener! No you
> can't have tea. Not yours!
>
> Flash forward 240 years.
>
> Groups of people angry about the rising taxes on the working class and
> the runaway government deficit decided to form a protest movement called
> "Taxed Enough Already" or T.E.A. for short. Thus were formed the modern
> day Tea Parties.
>
> Nevermind the fact that taxes on the working class had been going down
> for a few years, that these people were mysteriously very silent while
> the previous president was spending money he didn't have playing war
> games all over the world and that these people - who were for the most
> part very angry at having an uppity negro in the White House - were
> being lied to by millionaires and talk show hosts who were trying to get
> the government to ease restrictions on their investments.
>
Well, you got it partly right. The initial party was what the Occupy 
movement replaced. All the other stuff you mention was what it got 
hijacked into, by right wing conservatives, and clueless, people, like 
Palin, Macheal Backman, and others, who had no damn clue about anything, 
other than that: lots of angry people, with confused ideas = opportunity 
to derail the new movement, and distort the facts to support what became 
the exact opposites (i.e., high taxes for the people out protesting, and 
lower ones for rich people, as just one example).

Post a reply to this message

On 1/25/2012 12:53 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> I've noticed that some people regard Obama was the Messiah, the most
>> wonderful thing ever to happen in American history. And others regard
>> him as pure, liquid evil. Clearly these two viewpoints cannot both be
>> correct. Having no clue what Obama has actually done, I have no idea
>> which one to believe.
>
>    I think that the major problem is that he promised to do a lot of things
> to make Americans' lives better, but in the end he didn't. Instead of
> standing firm and pushing his original agenda no matter what, seemingly
> he started making compromises and caving in. (Sure, the president cannot
> pass laws, but in the US the president, AFAIK, has quite a lot of influence
> which he can use to influence law making.)
>
His greatest failure was, I believe, taking 3 years to figure out that 
the other was scared to death of their newest members, and would *never* 
cooperate to do jack shit, via "compromise".

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-01-25 14:53, Warp a écrit :
> Also, he promised to close Guantanamo, but he didn't.

Actually, he did sign the order to close the prison at Guantanamo.  The 
only problem he has is that Congress passed a law that prevents money 
from being used to relocate the prisoners anywhere else, and apart from 
a few Really Bad Guys(tm) that they want to keep in prison, there are 
prisoners at GTMO that no one wants, or who will more than likely be 
executed if they are sent home.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

>>> When's the last time you looked at a map, young'un?
>>
>> Of the Middle East? Never.
>
> Maybe that's part of the reason why you have little sense of how the
> world actually is.  Just a thought.

Forget Iraq - I don't even know where Cumbria is. And *that* is 
something I might plausibly need to actually know at some point. :-P

>> I'm the guy who thought that Brazil was in Europe, remember? Geography
>> was never my strong point. (Or history, actually.)
>
> That's correctable, but you have to correct it.  Both of these things are
> quite important.

Notice how this sentence is in the past tense? :-P

>>> Because you're in technology and keeping up on technology trends is
>>> important to furthering a career in technology
>>
>> Really? In what sense?
>
> If you don't know what technology is out there, how do you expect to know
> when a proposed solution is good or not?

By researching it, obviously.

I'm not saying it's unnecessary to know anything about technology. I'm 
saying it seems unnecessary to know about technology we're not actually 
using. (Whether it would help my job prospects is another matter... but 
you have to find jobs to apply for first.)

>>> and those are two places
>>> where LOTS of news about technology are posted or linked from?
>>
>> Well, that's news to me.
>
> <boggle>

I got the impression that Slashdot was more a forum for idle gossip and 
bored people starting flamewars. I wasn't aware any useful information 
existed there.

I also got the impression that The Register was a satire site. Hell, it 
even subtitles itself "biting the hand that feeds IT". I'm not making 
this up. The few times I've read it, it was amusing, but contained no 
real-world data.

>> PS. What is Netflix? And does it only operate in America?
>
> It's a streaming movie service, and if you'd been reading Slashdot or The
> Register, you'd know they've just started operating in Europe as well. :)

I still don't comprehend what "streaming" actually means in this context...

Post a reply to this message

>> I've noticed that some people regard Obama was the Messiah, the most
>> wonderful thing ever to happen in American history. And others regard
>> him as pure, liquid evil. Clearly these two viewpoints cannot both be
>> correct. Having no clue what Obama has actually done, I have no idea
>> which one to believe.
>
> It's subjective.
>
> You could probably learn a lot by reading his Wikipedia entry.

Yeah, but... it's subjective. ;-)

The other day, I read about something called "the church of 
scientology". From what Wikipedia said, this is /obviously/ a criminal 
organisation that should be shut down immediately. And yet, various 
national governments have investigated it and decided either to take no 
action, or to officially recognise it as legit. So clearly Wikipedia 
isn't presenting the full picture here.

I imagine the same can be said about any topic which people are likely 
to have strong opinions about.

Post a reply to this message

Francois Labreque <fla### [at] videotronca> wrote:
> there are 
> prisoners at GTMO that no one wants, or who will more than likely be 
> executed if they are sent home.

  Isn't it quite ironic for the US to be worried about that?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:33:17 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>> When's the last time you looked at a map, young'un?
>>>
>>> Of the Middle East? Never.
>>
>> Maybe that's part of the reason why you have little sense of how the
>> world actually is.  Just a thought.
> 
> Forget Iraq - I don't even know where Cumbria is. And *that* is
> something I might plausibly need to actually know at some point. :-P

Well, then look that up.

>>> I'm the guy who thought that Brazil was in Europe, remember? Geography
>>> was never my strong point. (Or history, actually.)
>>
>> That's correctable, but you have to correct it.  Both of these things
>> are quite important.
> 
> Notice how this sentence is in the past tense? :-P

Yes, but my point was to a larger point of not being aware of some fairly 
basic information about the world.

>>>> Because you're in technology and keeping up on technology trends is
>>>> important to furthering a career in technology
>>>
>>> Really? In what sense?
>>
>> If you don't know what technology is out there, how do you expect to
>> know when a proposed solution is good or not?
> 
> By researching it, obviously.
> 
> I'm not saying it's unnecessary to know anything about technology. I'm
> saying it seems unnecessary to know about technology we're not actually
> using. (Whether it would help my job prospects is another matter... but
> you have to find jobs to apply for first.)

It's easier to find jobs to apply to when you have a broader awareness of 
the world than just what's relevant to you right now.

Remember I got laid off last May?  I'm actually still looking for full 
time work, but I've been doing contract work.  My current contract is 
with the engineering department of the company I got laid off from (it 
ends tomorrow, unfortunately - it's been a really fun project).  The work 
I'm doing is with a cloud technology product.

Now, if I had stuck my head in the sand when cloud technology came along, 
I wouldn't have been able to qualify for this contract very well.  But I 
knew about the product (even though I hadn't used it) and knew what the 
capabilities are and what customers might actually want from it.

And the engineering department has been impressed with my ability to 
learn their specific technology very quickly.  I like to think they'd be 
willing to hire me if there was an open position (indeed, that's 
something I'm hoping to talk with them about before the end of the day 
tomorrow).

I'm not a software engineer.  But I have skills that they've seen benefit 
them greatly.  I can write, I can pick up a product very quickly, and I 
can run into a problem and try to fix it myself (indeed on Monday, I was 
working with a component that needs to be in the release coming up later 
this year, but the engineer assigned to it has taken it over from one who 
left and knows very little about the implementation details.  I logged 10 
bugs against it, and was only able to because I'd hit one, figure out how 
to work around it, and continue with the installation until I hit the 
next point).

Today and tomorrow, I'm hoping to actually patch the scripts involved to 
make the actual fixes quicker for them to implement.

>>>> and those are two places
>>>> where LOTS of news about technology are posted or linked from?
>>>
>>> Well, that's news to me.
>>
>> <boggle>
> 
> I got the impression that Slashdot was more a forum for idle gossip and
> bored people starting flamewars. I wasn't aware any useful information
> existed there.

It is, but the articles are good pointers to what's important.  I rarely 
read the comments (unless I'm bored).  But I have an RSS feed set up from 
the stories page so I can see what's 'hot', read the story, and follow 
the link to the source story so I can learn more.

> I also got the impression that The Register was a satire site. Hell, it
> even subtitles itself "biting the hand that feeds IT". I'm not making
> this up. The few times I've read it, it was amusing, but contained no
> real-world data.

It has elements of satire, but it actually reports on real stuff.  They 
do hardware reviews and talk about software and technology companies in a 
real and non-satirical way.

For example:

http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/25/
amazon_cloud_enterprise_storage/

(That's in today's feed)

>>> PS. What is Netflix? And does it only operate in America?
>>
>> It's a streaming movie service, and if you'd been reading Slashdot or
>> The Register, you'd know they've just started operating in Europe as
>> well. :)
> 
> I still don't comprehend what "streaming" actually means in this
> context...

2 seconds with Google yielded this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:55:39 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> The right claims that there are people on the left that think he is like
> a messiah. The left, exaggerates, but only slightly, the behavior of the
> right, which has literally called him everything from a socialist, to
> the anti-christ, to merely, "The worst president ever".

Oh, you missed the best one, Patrick....

The lady who asked Rick Santorum (Aside to Andy:  He's one of the 
Republican candidates trying to get the nomination.  While I often 
suggest that you google stuff, googling "Santorum" is something you 
should NOT do from work.  Seriously, wait until you're home.  Dan Savage 
- a columnist here in the US - Google-bombed his name to mean something 
that you're probably better off not knowing.) a question and stated that 
Obama isn't our legitimate president because he's an avowed Muslim, etc, 
etc, etc - and Santorum didn't correct one thing, later using the excuse 
"well, she's an old lady and she was leaning on a cane" as if that had 
any relevance to it.  Stephen Colbert did an awesome send-up of that 
response on Tuesday's Colbert Report.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:35:37 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>> I've noticed that some people regard Obama was the Messiah, the most
>>> wonderful thing ever to happen in American history. And others regard
>>> him as pure, liquid evil. Clearly these two viewpoints cannot both be
>>> correct. Having no clue what Obama has actually done, I have no idea
>>> which one to believe.
>>
>> It's subjective.
>>
>> You could probably learn a lot by reading his Wikipedia entry.
> 
> Yeah, but... it's subjective. ;-)

Wikipedia is often a starting point rather than an ending point.

> The other day, I read about something called "the church of
> scientology". From what Wikipedia said, this is /obviously/ a criminal
> organisation that should be shut down immediately. And yet, various
> national governments have investigated it and decided either to take no
> action, or to officially recognise it as legit. So clearly Wikipedia
> isn't presenting the full picture here.

CoS is an interesting organisation because of how closely they try to 
protect their identity and information, to the point of making it 
difficult for anyone to objectively write about them.

They're classified as a religion.  "Cult" is probably much more apt a 
description, and a cult with some very high-profile members.  But what 
I've read on the history of it, apparently L. Ron Hubbard (the author) 
had a bet with his son that he could create a religion and get people to 
donate lots of money to it.

> I imagine the same can be said about any topic which people are likely
> to have strong opinions about.

Certainly.

Post a reply to this message