Except - based on what I've seen on existing flights - the real number was already non-0% anyhow.

I dunno, I've always equated "sport" with some physical activity. Certainly gaming can be a competition, but is it really a sport? Similar I've heard of chess tournaments referred to as competitions rather than as sports.

Actually, if people knew the *true* amount of data many of those companies have they'd likely be appalled, but it's really not that visible. Personally I'm happy for google to know what I'm searching for using their engine, and similarly willing to made a trade-off on facebook status updates etc.
What's not cool - and less obvious - is all the "like" buttons and analytics scripts, apps, etc that are feeding them with people's every little action that brushes upon the online.

[Some of your emails have been removed at the request of the sender. For details on the email removed, please check the following link]

Only well muscled young men with washboard abs and manboob pecs get super powers

I thought the radiation made skinny dorks into super-strong he-men? Or does that only work if it's a bite by an irradiated spider?

If you disparage someone for their religious beliefs, you are a bigot

A lot of people's beliefs are tied to their actions (no matter how contradictory to the actual theology it is). There's nothing wrong with having faith, just when it overrides common sense, facts, etc.
People who believe that the earth is a few thousand years old, that homosexuality is a choice (and a sin), and those that revel in their own ignorance... I'll happily disparage them.

The little old lady - or even the middle-age man - who goes to church to pray for a better world and helps his/her neighbours... nothing to look down upon there.

Well, to be honest, it has gotten (quite a lot) better. Other than the minecraft/Java issue, problems with Pulse are somewhat more rare these days. I think this is mostly due to Pulse being rammed through by Ubuntu etc and thus pulse-compatible applications becoming more the norm.

it's a ticket if

A lot of things have potential tickets, actually having a significant number of them doled out is a different thing. We've laws against driving while using mobile devices. I do see the odd person pulled aside for (what I assume was) this. More often, I see people driving right past cops with phone-to-ear and no consequence. No ticket

Crossing against a signal? About a month ago some guy ran across the road when the cross-traffic had a green. The copy who was proceeding through actually slowed down and nearly stopped so that the guy could (illegally) cross, then proceeded on. No ticket

Cyclists are supposed to either move with traffic, or use designated bike lanes. Plenty of cyclists around here either pass vehicles on the shoulder to bull through intersections, or more commonly just drive on the sidewalk and blow through a crosswalk. I just about smoked one the other day. I can slow down and do a check for pedestrians just fine, but I'm not going to see some cyclist rolling downhill on the opposite sidewalk at high speed before I enter my turn. Bonus points for going sans helmet. Cyclists breaking the law: no ticket

Laws are *useless* unless enforced with some consistency. Even then you'll still have idiots who ignore them and cause accidents (but at least we should throw the book at those). Seriously, you shouldn't need to drive like an inconsiderate prick to get nailed, and even those often get less than they deserve. Plenty of repeat drunk drivers without licenses that should be in *jail* but that usually doesn't happen until somebody dies.

Yeah I'd like to know what this is about too. I don't see anything less functional about the Win8 sound interface compared to previous versions.

It's funny though, I used to *hate* pulseaudio on 'nix. It still gives me grey hairs sometimes with certain software (e.g. Minecraft which won't remap output to an alternate device) but the ability to send particular applications to a specific output/input is awesome. Newer windows at least add the stream/app specific volume control, but I *really* wish that windows had the ability to send output from specific streams to specific devices.

They could use a grammar check though:

If you're not worried about this new law, you haven't been adequately information

Unions don't prevent people from being fired, they just make it very time-consuming and difficult to do so

Not. If. There. Is. Cause.

Again. 3 unions. With cause, people did get fired but it. still. took. a. long. f*cking. time.

But for those uppity proles who don't know their place, it just makes sense
Don't see where I said that. I'm not management myself, more of a prole than such. I just prefer to see people actually do their damn job.

I used to work at shop that made Wal-Mart look pro-union

I didn't say non-union shops didn't have issues, I've seen plenty of them in private as well (lazy or poorly trained management, nepotism, etc). As per the codger, a harassment suit would probably have been useful if one had a witness to such behavior.

What I *would* like to see is for unions to get back to the days of "Proudly made in a union shop" where unions and management both don't fight like spoiled children over stupid shit, and deal more with important issues *LIKE* harassment, discrimination, unsafe conditions, and fair wages (including fair wage increases) etc.
I'm not anti-union, but I do believe that unions have lost "the power of the people" because of the crap like what I've described. We all still need to put in a real work effect (not to the bone, just good, decent, hard work), but we also need to deal with when some people - management and employees - aren't contributing to a positive workplace.
Unfortunately, in many places unions have become just another layer of middle-management. They do work for good things in a broad sense, but they've become large, unwieldy, and have their own layers of fat/pork just like businesses do.

Just randomly picking a few of the larger US cities:

There's a written test at age 17 for NYPD, and they require a rather unspecific "60 credits" (apparently in anything?) at a low-bar 2.0 GPA. Yeah, they went to college, but they're not exactly high-end students. No college needed for ex-military.
Also, - an odd nugget - you can't take the exam if you're over 35 (unless: ex-military), which seems somewhat in the realm of age-discrimination to me.

At least LAPD wants to you to have passed high school, but no college.

Almost every crime is "solved" by the suspect confessing.

What's the statistic on that? This isn't late-night TV where the suspect suddenly crumbles and confesses the whole thing after some elaborate ruse is staged.
It also tends to fall short of the "innocence until found guilty" and more towards the "assume guilt, try and trick them into admitting it in case they're dumb and guilty". I'd say rather that if criminals are so dumb, there is probably some *REAL* evidence to confront them with in order to get an admission of guilt. No reason to lie and screw up the lives of innocents.

Also, is your average criminal an idiot, or is that just the ones that get caught. If 50% of people are below average intelligence, what percentage of those are on your local PD?
In my case the cop was either an idiot, or lazy. There was NO CRIMINAL because he didn't even bother to call and CONFIRM THE DAMN CRIME. Actually, scratch that, but I doubt they went back and put in the effort catch the REAL CRIMINAL who called in a FALSE POLICE REPORT.

Well sorry if my experience with 3 DIFFERENT UNIONS and THE SAME SHIT isn't good enough for you.
Sorry if my experience being a SHOP STEWARD as well as a member of the UNION COUNCIL wasn't good enough for you.

1.
For the record, no, being in a union DOESN'T prevent one from being fired for cause. It does however, tend to prevent one from being fired in a reasonable time, as they have to give a bunch of warnings (because, hey, not coming to work is apparently not a known problem) and then log multiple concurrences before "Bob" can really be fired. Unions don't prevent people from being fired, they just make it very time-consuming and difficult to do so, even oft-times when there is cause. Hell, "Bob" even managed to accuse a few co-workers of various things before it was finally found to be him at fault.

2. Bob is management's problem. However the union filing motions to keep him from being fired is also a problem.

3. Yes, that one happened as well. The problem is that it's pretty hard to get somebody for being a lazy turd, and some people are particularly good at making it look like they're trying when doing absolutely minimum and little more than warming a chair.

Wells Fargo ripping off homeowners means that all for profit banks are bad and should be banned immediatel

No, banks aren't necessarily bad. Stripping regulation from industry, having it fail, then bailing them out is bad. If banks were like a Union, then if 90% of banks are doing good and the rest were going down the road of Wells Fargo, then you'd give them all a 3% pay increase regardless of how screwed up or piss poor that other 10% were.
Unions aren't bad, but they share a common issue: it's difficult to hold members accountable when they go bad. I certainly don't want to go back to the days when there weren't unions and *employers* had no accountability, I just suggest we move the pendulum more back towards the middle. Let people be judged on merit, but treated fairly overall.

It's not even that *most* cops are dishonest (there are some), it's that even good cops make honest mistakes. What you don't want to do is give them anything to make such a mistake with. An, IMHO, it's human nature - especially for those in authority - to not want to admit to mistakes. So if they screw up and arrest you for something that turns out to be nothing, they often *WILL* want to find *something* in order to make you look like the bad guy, and not them.

Seriously, cops make me nervous. I was once accused of shoplifting from a store in the next city. Apparently somebody called in my plates. The cop said they had me on video. I volunteered to come in so they could see if the dude on video was really me, or I can identify if it was somebody I was with (hey, if buddy is visibly shoplifting on my ride, sorry but I'm not covering for him). The answer: "oh, sorry but I don't have the video on me, it's with officer so-and-so. However this is a serious crime. If you come in and 'fess up you'll likely just get a fine, service, and no record".

I tried to talk to the cop in the next city who supposedly had the "evidence" but he was never available, however I kept getting told to return the item and confess.

Eventually, I talked to the store owner. Nothing was stolen on the day in question. In fact, the store didn't even carry the product that was supposedly taken. The owner managed both stores in the city and nothing was take from (or existed at) either. However, the cops were damn convinced I'd stolen something. So I explained to the owner/manager what was up, and asked if *she* could contact officer X with case file Y. She apologized for the inconvenience and said she'd get it dealt with, even gave me some store credit for the hassle.

After that, the cops just stopped calling me. No apology. No "hey we f**ked up and didn't vet that there was an actual theft and not a false-accusation/prank-call". Weeks of stress and hell, and then nothing because *THEY* screwed up and didn't do their job, then couldn't drop it fast enough when it became apparent.

So yeah. Honestly, for the stress I probably should have just said "am I being charged with a crime. Should I discuss this with a lawyer." and let them either charge me or drop it. Certainly it was a *huge* amount of stress in my life, and I'm sure it was on my "police record" (which records police interactions) though obviously since it was fake there was no "criminal record"

Cops screw up. The problem is they generally won't admit to it. The less opportunity to screw up you give them, the better.

So yeah, the papers-please guard? Sorry, but if he's insistent on getting your phone without cause, then HE IS THE CRIMINAL. This papers please crap is along the same vein. It's not being a dick to exercise your rights, and it may save you a lot of hassle.