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Comment Re:you mean you HEAR fireworks (Score 1) 379

Sounds more like willful obtuseness. If the poor bastards in Gaza can afford some gunpowder and tubes, methinks one of the world's top five military powers could manage it.

Er... are you implying that what Israel should do is fire its own Qassam-style rockets back at Gaza, using the same targeting principle (i.e. aim where the concentration of people is highest)?

Comment Re:you mean you HEAR fireworks (Score 1) 379

Disproportionate response is a war crime.

The problem with this is that no-one seems to be able to coherently explain what a proportional response should look like. Every time I ask people, they immediately go into rant mode about "Israeli fascist" and "they've had that coming" etc. But no-one is willing to actually lay out the proper response to the rockets step-by-step.

No guidance systems.

They're still aimed, it's just that the target area is very wide. But in most cases, those target areas are city centers.

So maximized they hadn't killed a single person in almost three years. Try again.

Not for the lack of trying. It's one of the reasons why I consider Hamas leadership basically insane - it's clear that what they're doing is just plainly not working, and is only making things worse for them, but they're doing it anyway.

Comment Re:Lumping everyone together.... (Score 1) 377

This is an obvious troll, but to clarify, there's an agreement in place to ensure that a set amount of water will flow into Mexico. You can read more about it HERE. I was implying that if Arizona didn't use or sell its share that it would flow across the border in addition to what is guaranteed by law.

Comment Re:Lumping everyone together.... (Score 2) 377

We shouldn't have 6 million people living in a desert that can barely naturally support 1/10 that many. And pumping several hundred thousand acre feet of water over a mountain range for Phoenix is a terrible waste of water, not to mention the water lost to evaporation in the process and the power used.

I get it, you don't like the Central Arizona Project, but without it what would Arizona do with it's share of the Colorado? I think it's better to deliver it to where it's needed (i.e. Phoenix) than sell it to southern California or let it flow into Mexico unused. The areas nearest the river are poor areas for development anyway.

Comment Most surfaces non-plastic? (Score 1) 82

Plastic, plastic everywhere! Except on most surfaces of the Keyboardio ergonomic keyboard

The key caps are still plastic, so depending how you count the surfaces that's 94-99% plastic. Maybe if you calculate it by area but exclude the sides of the keys and ignore that you'll almost never need to touch the aluminum portions, it might drop below 50%.

Comment Re:You're still getting what you were promised (Score 1) 354

I put up with the worst of it for about six weeks and then I cancelled. I have no way of knowing for sure, but I guessed that their algorithm was based upon how quickly they received things back, not overall time or throughput. If I returned too quickly, they would just slow down the whole process. I would get aggravated and try to return my DVD quicker hoping to speed things up and it had the opposite effect.

The final straw was when I received a DVD that was broken. It had a crack completely through it so that it looked like a big split washer. I noted it as broken from my account and returned it. I re-requested the same title and they sent me the same damn broken DVD. I threw my hands up and said enough. Two weeks wasted on the same title and I still haven't seen it.

I will note that this was around 2004 or 2005. I have no idea if they still throttle. The Post Office recently closed our local distribution center and moved it all to the other side of the state. Mail takes an additional day now, each direction. I would guess that DVDs by mail would be 7 day turnarounds minimum these days.

From a business standpoint, I understand Netflix's reasons. Give the best service to new customers and least cost customers. Screw the expensive customers because they aren't profitable.

Comment Re:You're still getting what you were promised (Score 1) 354

And you would be very wrong.

When I started noticing my turnaround times getting longer, I would purposely drive to a main distribution center post office to test if the post office was the culprit. I would watch my Netflix account report my return as received the next day and I would wait 2 days before the next DVD (any DVD) was shipped out. I would have tickled to get ANYTHING on my queue shipped out same day. If I would return two DVDs at the exact same time, Netflix reported them both received the following day. Sometimes they would then ship a disc one a day after receipt and then another the following day. Early on, all my next movies were shipped same day. My turn around times stretched out to a week, then 8 days. I tried reordering my queue and put low demand DVDs first to get faster turnarounds, but nothing helped.

As a result, I discovered "throttling" long before I knew there was a word for it or I ever heard about it online. It was no doubt a way to save on postage and to discourage "bad" customers. It worked; I cancelled. I was impressed with their service when I joined, but it turned out too good to be true in the long run.

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