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Comment Re:Did He Really Just Pull That Up To His Face? (Score 1) 289

And hey, it's a plastic gun.

No, it's not. It's not even close to that. It's a plastic lower receiver with the rest of the gun being not plastic.

Actually, that's exactly what it is.
The lower reciever is the "firearm" as far as BATF are concerned. The rest is just unregulated parts.
So, if you want a gun, you have 3 (legal) choices
          Run down to Dick's Sporting Goods, hand over your Visa, and (after satisfying all the regulatory burdens), walk out with your gun.
          Wait for a gun show, find a random guy, swap cash and gun on the spot. More privacy, less convenience, no warranty.
          Build your own. As long you're not transferring it to someone else this is (for the moment) perfectly legal.

The last option, as parent points out, is only safely available to a relatively small group of very skilled experts.

A "plastic gun"--more specifically a safe lower receiver which can reliably be manufactured with little special skills is significant.
We are watching the development of a process and set of instructions that will make this available.

I think we're about to see some very interesting (and fun) developments in firearms design.
Some folks hear "Holy cow--people could do anything " as a joyful expression of individual freedom.
Some folks hear it as a threat that must be curtailed at all costs

Comment It's called "Heresy", and it's not just an insult (Score 4, Insightful) 1152

If Dawkins truly believes that religion will quietly tolerate being told it is wrong, he is an idiot.
Well, he's not an idiot. He's trying to point out the absurdity of holding a point of view that takes offense at any question, challenge, or outright dispute. And that this type "offense" is fabricated to manipulate polite society and should be ignored.

There are such things as boundaries in human society, and while they're never absolute, there comes a point when one group extends the boundaries of its own propriety so far that there is no room for anyone else to exist--let alone coexist with a similarly absurdly broad set of boundaries. We can't all be pope.

Affected outrage is worn like a mask and used like a weapon to cow the rest of society to the will of an aggressive and dangerous few.
It's not the responsibility of the rest of the world to tiptoe around a group of people who have subverted the natural human desire for social harmony. Nobody offended you; you chose to "take offense". Well, now you've taken it; you have it; enjoy it. This is your offense, not ours.

To cite examples from the religion into which I have been indoctrinated:
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea

You don't get to "opt out" and believe something else on your own time. You're either with or you're against. The domain of God and His representatives on earth is absolute. "Heresy" is ANY teaching inconsistent with dogma. It doesn't matter who teaches it or to whom. Church member or not, challenging dogma is not only an insult, it's a crime.

In modern times, the power of the Church to prosecute heresy has decreased significantly. They grudgingly acknowledge the existence of other views, but VCII, Ecumenism, etc. are still controversial with a lot of people. "OK, sure, we don't have to convert all the ignorant savages. We tend get a lot of really dirty looks from folks when we do that, and besides, we can't enforce it anyway. So, in the spirit of God's love for all His children, we accept that all..." But make no mistake if the Church had the power to enforce canon law everywhere, they would. Manipulation of the secular law where canon law has lost dominion is an effective and efficient tool.

One can only imagine that another's religion, especially offshoots of the one into which one has been indoctrinated has similarly totalitarian views of dissention--by members of the church or by people in general. I invite their own apostates to speak for their religion's tolerance to heresy.

Comment I did this for 5 years and it was great. (Score 2) 365

I worked as a contract controls engineer (still do), and did a lot of startups & commissioning gigs.
I lived in a 40' 5th wheel, and enjoyed the flexibility. I could go from fully set up to fully set up within 24 hours. The flexibility made it a LOT easier for my employer to stick me into a gig, so the job security improved a lot.

The moves were not that often (every few months or so), so my employer hired an over-the-road truck to move the RV and I met them at the new site. It's cheaper than a week in a hotel, and WAY cheaper than paying to move an employee.
As an out-of-town resource, I still received the same housing and M&IE per diems as any other contractor (see your federal regulations on that one; there's charts for every major metro & surrounding area). This pays for the site as well as repaying the cost of the investment in the RV. (Investment--a thing where you spend money and expect to make money with the thing you bought. Like a carpenter who buys a good set of tools.)

I worked a lot of automotive gigs and found that there was NEVER a gig more than about 1/2 hour from a full-time park with Winter sites. Generally if you stay for a few months, they will give you a big discount on the slot, esp. Winter. Only one site didn't have sewer hookup (it did have electric & water), and the honey wagon came by every week.

I met some really great people full-timing in an RV; there's a real community out there. I've never had a bad neighbor, and the good thing is if you do, you can always move! Also, I met my wife while full-timing. We lived together in that 5th wheel for 3 years, and if we had an argument, there was no avoiding an issue by stomping off to the other end of the house. We pretty much had to deal with it then and there!

Some suggestions
You will need a "tax home" when you file your taxes and to maintain your driver license. If you qualify for residency in a state without income taxes, this is a good choice. If you move around a lot, get a forwarding mail service. This can also help with the item above. Personally, I used the post office of Mom & Dad. Every month or so they'd throw all my mail into a box & UPS it to me. If I needed something in a hurry, there was fax (ok, I guess it was a while ago...) and email.

If you plan to do this for a while, get a nice RV. If you live in rathole you will feel like a rat.
If you buy the RV new, have it prewired for generator, satellite on the roof and cable in the side. I used sat & cable both when I was on the road; cable is better, but SAT is not so bad. After you've done it a couple of times you can point the dish in about 10 minutes. I never needed a generator, so I never bought one. RV generators are not cheap, they're noisy, and the take up a lot of space.

If you need AC, get more than the vendor says you need. The folks that sell them lie. On the days you need it you will be very glad you got it. Either a roof-mounted RV unit (or two) or a window unit. You have to reinstall the window unit every time you move, but it's a lot cheaper and works just as good.

Water in Winter
Get some Raychem Frostex and heavy pipe insulation for your water hookup if you plan to Winter in a cold area. Dig out the water tap to below the frost line and run the heat trace and insulate. Buy a tankless water heater! I installed a precision temp RV-500, and believe me--a long hot shower in the middle of Winter is wonderful.

Heating in Winter
Don't get the tile floor. They crack up and are cold as hell. Do buy some good thick house slippers. I think we had "Uggs" or a knockoff like them. Thick wool sheepskin slippers. RVs floors get cold in Winter; your feet will thank you. Keep a spare furnace motor on hand. The DC motor has carbon brushes which are a wear item. Once they're go, you need a new motor. And they die when it's cold. Get the double-insulated windows, or just cut some Plexi to size and cover the windows on the inside. It makes a significant difference in the temperature and your propane bill.

Comment Re:0xB16B00B5 (Score 4, Funny) 897

Of course "boobs" is specific to women. The homologous structures in men are known as "moobs".

There is no hex number that looks similar to "Moobs".
From now on, all numbers must be represented as Unicode (it would not be politically correct to favor the character set used by any specific culture) where each 16-bit element specifies the text representation of the numerical value desired.

Who do you blame when it costs $75.00 to fill your gas tank? 71077345

Comment Striesand effect less important than UK Libel law (Score 4, Insightful) 105

Libel laws in the UK are very biased towards the prosecution.
While RLP's tactics may offend your sense of fair play (they certainly do mine), what they're doing works much better in the UK than other commonwealth countries. Suing somebody for libel in the UK is a common tactic for people who know they have no case another jurisdiction--even when there is little or no justification for their preferred venue.

In UK libel law, RLP has a big stick with which to beat its critics. The Streisand effect may direct a few more folks to the consumer websites--I certainly checked them out.
But I'll bet the degree to which RLP is going to get them to permanently back is worth a little transient negative publicity.

The Internet

Using Apps To 'Soft Control' People's Movements 71

pinguin-geek writes "Computer science researchers at Northwestern University have developed a way to exert limited control on how people move, pushing them out of their regular travel patterns. The key: tapping into some of their cell phone applications. The findings could elicit a broader range of user-collected data by driving foot traffic to under-utilized areas."

Comment Yes, it belongs to Roger Waters (Score 1) 730

OK, there were mammals, too.

His birdsong sounded just like some of the birds in the copyrighted work, so it infringes. Doesn't matter he didn't actually "copy" it.
Oh. They sound NOTHING alike. Well, he got the idea from Waters. Both had birds in them.
(how much is this lawyer costing you? we can do this aaaalll day.)

Crap. You're not going away? He's on contingency, isn't he. No, don't bother the judge; you win. You created the work; It's all yours.
Now, let me get out my producer/director/publisher calculator...You owe us $165,387.23 in promotional expenses.
You have 30 days to pay, then we start with liens & collections.

With warmest regards,
FYPM & Co.

Comment The Janitor has the keys to every office (Score 1) 410

The mason and the carpenter know which walls hold up the building because they built them.
And the IT guy has all the passwords and keys to every router closet.

And management doesn't give a shit what the workerbees think.

This might help him understand what's going on, but he'd never read it either.

Comment Re:So it's like a restraining order for friends? (Score 5, Insightful) 387

Sounds more like a bill of attainder.

This kind of thing is a serious hazard to liberty (remember when that word didn't mark the speaker as a crackpot? wasn't so long ago). The law only applies to a few of us. So there is no outcry. Nibble, nibble, nible, oops--all your freedoms are gone! We didn't wait for amendments to prohibit this one. It's in Article I, sec IX. It took almost 90 years and a civil war for us to figure out that freedom applies to everyone or no-one. Even those members of society we don't like.

Good to know thing that sort of thing can never happen here.
Again.

Comment This went exactly as Hindi planned it (Score 1) 1127

Hindi is righteous, he is important, he is saving the world, and everyone is against him. You can be righteous and save the world, too--or if you're busy today, you can send your tax-deductible donation.

Read what the man has to say about himself and his "organization". Take note of both content and tone and judge for yourself. http://www.sharkonline.org/

The shooter(s) played directly into Hindi's game. Of course he is "making plans for a considerably upscaled action in 2013". He found a live one.

Thanks for playing their game.

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