I guess you have to be really geeky to remember the philosophical discussion between Spock and McCoy over this very question in the novel somewhat stupidly named "Spock must die!"

I think I've heard this story before.

I'll have to go with "not perfect but better than the alternatives", then. I've worked hard all my life and there have been ups and downs. (I was financially wiped out by dot.com.bust, for instance, and had to really scramble to avoid losing the house.) I still think your character is measured by how you react to the misfortunes.

My sister (two years younger than I) quit her bank job in the 1990's because she saw a way to "work the system", went the disability route, is currently considered mentally (or emotionally? I forget) disabled ("agoraphobia") and physically disabled (She uses a walker during the times the case worker visits). She recently got additional income from a high profile lawsuit against the county.

In her copious free time she rides one of her 4-wheelers in the Nevada desert or travels the west coast in her 24 foot RV. (I note that although I've been in IT since the eighties in one capacity or another, I've never managed to justify the cost of a recreational vehicle or an offroad vehicle.) She's pretty open to her relatives about how she's gaming the system, and is forever telling me that I should chuck it all, get disability status like her and go on permanent vacation. Your tax dollars at work.

So yeah, obviously there's more to success or failure than hard work. I've thought long and hard about this, and even though how hard I work doesn't necessarily have a 1:1 correspondence to my success, I've decided it's the way to go to keep one's self-respect. Your mileage, as always, may vary.

I admire your intellectual honesty. I'm conservative-leaning libertarian, currently registered Republican, but I don't let this prevent me from really liking Ron Wyden.

To the outside world, my manager says there is a shortage of qualified labor. In managerial meetings, he states openly that his intention is to replace all new openings with H-1B workers for budgetary reasons. Entirely coincidentally, during that time it has become less and less pleasant to work here, and also coincidentally, all of the attrition last year was amongst regular (non-H-1B) employees.

What I take away from this is that "qualified" in this context means "willing to work for third world wages and no benefits".

Not only that, but how could "severing the internet cables" keep him offline for any longer than, oh, say, a round trip to the local Radio Shack?

Funny you should mention that. I noticed that also. They do kind-of sound like that in real life.

The Livewire has more in common with Buell than the conventional Harley models. All aluminium frame, monoshock rear, inverted front forks, light, fast, nimble. Of course, this is the prototype model. By release date, maybe Harley will find a way to make them slow and heavy.

That said, I ride a 2014 Ultra Classic Limited, and at 900+ pounds it feels like a much lighter bike. Harley, *even* Harley, has come a long ways this century. Even the sound system has been dragged kicking and screaming into the nineties -- they now have bluetooth support for phones, although unfortunately not for headsets -- there they use the same DIN connector from the 1950's.

> it's not surprising when you are selling an image rather than just a product.

Well, I'd say that you're selling an image and a product. Or a product and an image. Or something.

I was at the local dealer during the Livewire tour, (the Livewire being Harley's all electric bike) and like you I wondered how they were going to make the "classic Harley sound". They didn't try, at least in the current version of the product. But it hasn't been released yet, so there's still time.

Something I've never really understood is the customer compulsion to make it "sound like a Harley". (It *is* a Harley -- it sounds like a Harley *by definition*.) My first two Harleys were used, and the previous owners in each case had replaced the mufflers for something significantly louder. Setting off car alarms as you ride by gets old fast, as does the constant exhaust drone over long distances. On the second bike (a touring model) I talked to the parts guy about it, saying I was looking for a quieter set of mufflers, and he said -- this is a direct quote -- "Oh, you mean the old man mufflers."

Parenthetically, it's more than just the volume, the pitch makes a lot of difference also. The "aftermarket not legal in California" mufflers that came on my used Ultra Classic had a very high pitched blat that was especially obnoxious. The replacements besides being quieter had a bigger resonating chamber and the noise was pitched significantly lower in frequency. If you must have noise, it helps to rumble, not blat.

My current bike is my first new Harley (2014 touring model) and from the first time I rode it, I was shocked at how quiet it was. You just don't think of "harley" and "quiet" in the same sentence. It still had a low pitched rumble when you opened the throttle, but not enough to make you want to wear earplugs on long trips. (I guess I'm getting old...)

So back to the Livewire. I'd be disappointed if Harley saw the necessity to fake the sound of an internal combustion engine digitally. I've seen the Livewire in action (didn't get to ride one only because there was a LONG waiting line) and it makes a low pitched electric-engine growl that still sounds like the bike means business. I suspect that this sound will in time become the new standard.

> Obama will veto the bill anyway, so its all a wash anyway... except for the grandstanding.

Except (and this may be a minor point) we'd have a clear record of who voted for it and who voted against it, which might have an effect on the next election cycle.

There are no longterm jobs. And barring government positions, there's no such thing as a permanent employee.

The name?

Doesn't matter. Just take the hit and get the pipeline passed.

> Microsoft specified it would only be free for the first year,

Continuing the practice of using early adopters as unpaid beta testers, I see. Whatever revenue they lose with this practice will more than be made up in all the free bug reports.

Initially you could get Windows 8 for $49. I couldn't pass that up, but in retrospect it was a lot of hassle for nothing (as I ended up regening windows 7 on the machine). The only saving grace is that I fixed a registry glitch regarding screen resolution, and later when trying to find a solution to a different problem in the microsoft forum, ran across many people requesting assistance on the problem I had just fixed. The Microsoft offshore admins were as usual handing out useless scripted responses ("please to be sure that you are having the latest video drivers installed") and I was able to actually help some people. Unpaid, of course. But hey, it's for the children.

I think you're right. But what they could do is create a subset of the IE code that's scrubbed of all info gathering and other proprietary code, and anything that might give insight into properties of the operating system, and release *that*. (I have some hazy memory that M$ has done this before with some product, but I can't remember the details.) It probably wouldn't even be functional, but may allow some smart programmers to fork IE and create something that works.

I've written that, and I'm staring at it, and I can't think for the life of me why anyone would want to do it. Never mind.