So once a work of fiction becomes popular, it becomes true? I guess this is the point you were trying to make? Just to be clear....

I fail to see how con jobs and churches are at all mutually exclusive. There are countless examples of people getting ripped off in the name of Jesus. It has no bearing on how much of a church it is or not.

Sure it's off the wall and only for gullible people... but do you think early Christianity, or any religion, wasn't?

Give it a few thousand years and people might be saying this new XYZ religion is obviously crazy, and not like the respectable air and tradition about Christianity or Scientology. Look at how mainstream LDS is already... we have a presidential candidate.

It's not like the church you think doesn't need quotes is any more valid than this 'church' which you think needs quotes.

I had a classmate who did a semester in Germany, and he explained their system was that they had no coursework and didn't keep tabs on attendance or even enrolment. Tuition was free, so basically you would show up for final exams, and if you passed you got a certificate (your entire grade for the entire semester being from that one exam). It was your job to hold on to the certificates for the classes because it was the only record that you did it. Then once you did enough for a degree you would present all the proof of your exams and get your degree.

I don't know which college this was, if some of this was exaggerated, or if its normal in Germany. But at the very least, it might be that they don't have the same concept of coursework thats normal at American institutions.

What do you think they make that has no software on it?

Well I guess we can be thankful that mistakes never happen with drone strikes.

That's a pretty sickening attitude. Really, society only survives because thankfully not everyone thinks the way you do.

"And for those that say stitching up a dead animal around the guts of a helicopter and flying it around is 'sick'" -- yes, it is.
"...what of the massive drone industry, which, more than just producing a symbol, actually is creating flying death?" --- that's sick as well.

Same thing.

What does China (People's Republic of China) call the island of Taiwan if not Taiwan? Formosa?

If they want to avoid pissing off China (PRC) they would avoid labeling Taiwan as the "Republic of China", which they have.

If you go to a lot of clinics, this is the exact same test they will give you there (OraQuick).

I've had this test done a few times and it always seems pretty brainless to do it. I don't think there's much risk of someone getting a false positive or false negative from something they did wrong. It's similar to a home pregnancy test I think... there's a thing that shows up whether its negative or positive, and if its positive then another thing would show up in addition to that.

In terms of accuracy and all that, they say it's like 99% as effective as the old way where they drew blood and shipped it off to a lab for 2 weeks.

Of course if someone did get a false positive, then they would probably go to a doctor for a more careful test.

And of course if someone is really obsessive compulsive about it and worried they have a false negative, they can buy a bunch and test themselves daily if they really wanted to.

The only effect I can see from this being made available is a LOT more people will know their status now. Or at least have a 99% clear indication.

The only downside really is that they won't get to talk to a doctor. A doctor would inform them about the time "window" between time of infection and the time it would show up on a test. If there are false negatives, that's where it would be from: People mistakenly thinking they can test for HIV the day after they might have been infected.

It's funny, my first computer was a 64K CoCo2 also. I don't think I still have it, but I do still have a 512K CoCo3 I bought in the mid 90's when I got into retro video games. Not many people have them, but I remember being on a CoCo listserv for a long time and wishing I could go to these CoCoFests that I'd hear about. Some people had crazy projects they were working on that were very impressive. I always had a cassette drive, but never had the disk drives. Though I did acquire a disk interface pak in the 90s.

I didn't see a Commodore 64 until the 90's. Back then I just remember IBM, Macs, and Apple II. IBMs were at my dad's office, and the Macs and Apple II's were at school. (I miss the Apple II lab... nothing better than the sound of everyone printing their art out on those ImageWriters at the same time.)

As a 2010 Honda Insight driver, I'd buy another hybrid again... I don't see why not?

I wonder if a lot of these people bought crappy "hybrid" models of 20 mpg sedans and SUVs that only bump them up to 30 mpg. For those of us who got a "real" hybrid like a Prius or and Insight... I imagine we're happier.

As for cost difference, if you compare a $25,000 hybrid to a $25,000 non-hybrid, the features are pretty much the same.

What an ignorant d-bag you are.

I've worked in companies (in the USA and Canada) where my team was primarily Indian/Chinese/Brazilian/Russian/etc. Some are here on visa, some are now citizens. You can't assume, especially in software engineering, that foreign names equals outsourcing. Some of these people are even second or third generation citizens.

The hiring process is a key determining factor in the quality of the employee you have at the company. And presumably, if they are bad at their job, with good management, they won't be working there for long, regardless of where they came from.

I've certainly seen variance among co-workers in the quality of their work, but that has never correlated with their race or ethnicity. If you see that, then you're probably blinded by your own prejudices. Take some time to sort out these issues you have.