This drives me absolutely insane. I am well past my college years, but still attend/teach the occasional course/seminar. Use what ever you want, but if I hear the clicky click click click of your keyboard and trackpad. I WILL ask you to stop (both as lecturer, or student). With the tablets and handwriting recognition available now this issue will quickly disappear.

Because the plane is VERY crowded. Most Mr. Smiths have little or poor weapons training, heck even a number of police officers have trouble maintaining their permits. Because a stray bullet can do a lot of damage. IE puncture a window and watch. So even if Mr. Smith misses all of the people on the plane, he has the potential to do just as much damage as the original terrorist. At least the ground wont crash (in most cases) if Mr. Smith misses.

So how do you identify the terrorists from your own citizens? With a little bit of makeup we can look like anyone...

I agree, the "air marshal" works, but imagine the mayhem if there were no security, and everyone was allowed to board with "whatever" they could hide under a jacket. Mr. Smith with his .38 and 1 hour of training is not who I want on board if a situation starts to arise.

I travel a reasonable amount and for the last 20 years haven't been able to walk through a metal detector anywhere. I have enough metal parts to excite most scrapyards. I know security is a little bit of a placebo for the public. But what is the alternative? Let anyone walk on with anything? This light measure of security means that we at least stop some of the armatures and make the pros look for easier targets (and their are lots!). I continually see people getting upset over being searched. Why? Should we simply racially profile and only search those that "look" guilty? Look at the "Old" man that just boarded a plane with a great makeup job. My take is that when they search me, and they ALWAYS do because my cyborg joints and parts, I feel like they are actually catching the obvious. When someone is searched, I am not sure why they are getting upset. The reasons are: Look guilty, interesting items, a random number, or a targeted demographic. At least there is some measure of security. To these workers, they don't necessarily think YOU are guilty, you just have something (even the random number) that has triggered a search. The problem I see is the perception that the security people are not viewed as professionals. The media has us convinced that they are all unemployed street junkies that got the only job they could. So far everyone that has searched me, and I fly 3 - 4 times per year, has been more than professional and discrete. If we as a public helped them instead of fighting them, security would probably increase. The media could choose to help, but it easier to find fault than help. Think about how many people fly each day, how many "Terror" incidents there are. Are they successful? When there is a failure, how much is it publicized? When there is a success, where is the publicity? We also need to decide how much security is worth. Are you willing to spend and extra $20 per flight for enhanced security? What really scared me was last Christmas there was an orange alert, and for the first time I walked clean through the scanner without a sound in Cancun. Personally I'm up for the $20.

Seriously, when they started scrambling sat tv. The descramblers crawled out of the wood work. So how much do you think it will cost for a hidden kill switch for descrambler? It needs to be a hidden kill switch so that if you are pulled over, you can point to your inactive cell phone and shrug. Lastly, I am sure they wont pass the cost of the cell phone blocker on to the customer. That will simply be donated by the WeBocCells company and installed as a public service...

I don't know what it is, but I know its not a cell phone. The lady in question appears to be the same age as my mother. She lives in the era of cell phones and has trouble because there is no rotary thing, just buttons; ergo, this old lady can not be using a cell phone or a time travel device. (unless the buttons were really big)

The leafs have not lost in regular time (1 OTL) and are in first place. Satan is buying winter coats and the Apocalypse is nigh.

Today we live in an A' La Carte society. The gov't has deemed us smart enough to know what kind of insurance and service we need and want. And we pay for each and everyone of them. For the smart people, they will assess their situation and purchase appropriate coverage's and service. Many of us would deem fire protection a necessity . Along with things like health ins. (which seems like a waste until you are sick) or even auto insurance.
But the reality is that "stuff happens", and unfortunately this A' La Carte society allows people to make the choice between health coverage or a new mustang. Smart people, will look at the shiny mustang and start saving. Darwin's proof population will look at the insurance bill and post in the "pay later" spike only to bury the other 10 "optional" bills that were delayed for the large screen TV and Pay Per View WWE event.
Unfortunately, these people are hazardous not only to themselves but the rest of society. See the pets and neighbor in the article. Government serves to serve the general population, and I for one would like them to mandate payment through taxes for things like healthcare, fire, police, roads, all of the basic services that ensure society runs (albeit to my standards). The payment for these services should be in the form of Taxes. They are as optional as death, but it is also what keeps our society functioning.

young gun

Well, if 50 is young in your book, then I guess I am a young gun. And I disagree with your bargaining power statement.

There once was a company with a great machine that borked. Consultant after consultant was brought in to unbork the great machine. After a couple of years, management finally called in the high priced expert. The expert walked in, looked around for 5 min and pressed a button. The machine roared to life. Upon presenting his $150k bill management asked, isnt that a little excessive for 5 min of work? All of these other consultants didnt charge that much and they worked for months! The expert then commented that its not the time, its the knowledge and knowing which button to press.

In the above scenario, two people made serious money. The agent of all the consultants (head hunter or union) as 2 years worth of fees were collected. And the expert. You can either be the union boss or the expert if you want to make serious cash. The consultants are still looking for their next project as the union boss and expert sip single malts together looking for the next borked machine/process.

My greatest card when bargaining is my history of successful projects, knowledge, and presentation that raises me above the "large labor force". I try to represent myself as something worth more than the average worker. Thus I have had an extremely successful career so far.

As far as Dad goes. He ran his company as like this:

Workers were required to work hard. Sometimes overtime, which he paid OT rates for (dont forget tinbashers are trade) For this hard work, he bought every worker and their wife a trip to hawaii. Another year, they all went to vegas. Each year he would try and do something like this. Staff took the company trucks home instead of driving their own vehicles. In becoming a Union shop, the biggest factor was the "stability" a union shop provided. However, this gave some of the guys the "I will report it to the union" card. So in trade for the stability, the trips disappeared, the trucks stayed in the yard, breaks became regulation 15 min, ie work to rule. Dad was 62 years old and said, Mexico sounds real good, and I have a buyer... Why not retire a couple of years early? (I hope to retire in 5 years)

I can

I worked as a prof in a local college that had a "Professional Association" (read expensive union)

When I stated that I would prefer not to join, I was told it was a requirement. But they asked why. I told them, I would rather negotiate my employment conditions as I could do a more effective job representing my skills and their value than a simple grid that listed years of experience and years of education. As an example. I earned the same salary teaching Advanced C Programming (yes this was a while ago) and earned the same salary as the prof teaching a high school math upgrader. My marking alone took many more hours than the multiple choice exams my office mate had.

In 1996 the college went through a downsizing. Since I was the last man hired, I was the first man to be released. The students actually demonstrated to keep me. ( I was the only prof who had actually done real development work in C, the others that they kept actually sat in my lecture in the morning and attempted to reteach in their afternoon block )

At one point, I thought I would try and work with the system. I booked a meeting with my union rep and made a proposal for a 3rd dimension on the salary grid. Course difficulty. I actually had it mapped out quite well with research from the colleges own industry reports where salary would now be based on length of employment, education, and teaching load. Where the classes were ranked on load. This would then become the 3rd dimension to the grid. I even volunteered to present it at the next meeting.

The answer I got was, "This looks nice, but you elected me as a representative, it is my job to decide what should be put in collective agreements. You then vote on what your union officials decree". My proposal never got a second meeting, nor acknowledgment anywhere.

When the downsizing happened, students complained (in numbers) to the dean, I even suggested to some that they try the union. The information I got back from the union was that they agreed with the college about downsizing so that they could maintain the current salary grid for those remaining. Now if you look at this politically. If you want to maintain your rep seat, keep the people that are staying happy. To bad for those released, but they wont be paying dues next year.

Another example of a real union was the Transit Union. When I was going through school, I drove a bus at night to pay for my college. If a driver called in sick, dispatch could force you to drive a double shift, and once I drove a triple shift. However, because money was important, you were allowed to drive a shift for another driver and he would pay you. The only difference was, if you drove more than 48 hrs that week you were not allowed to pick up another shift. Here is the catch, Say you traded your Tuesday night shift to study and picked up someones shift on the weekend, and then on Wed, dispatch forced to drive an extra shift, you would not be allowed to drive the shift you traded for on the weekend because the time system said you had too many hours.

Off I went to the union meeting, asking that this be looked into. The membership in attendance voted almost unanimously, a couple of abstainers, in favor of discussing this with management and looking at it during the contract negotiations. This was the last I heard of the proposal. When I asked about it, I was told more important issues came up. Some of the items that did get negotiated were absurd at best. "Seat covers for the drivers seat" for example.

In the end any union or prof association I have ever belonged to has only managed to lower my salary to what I have been able to negotiate myself, collect fees from me, and not carry forward any of my concerns. Most were more interested in keeping their own rep posting.

Last example. My father owned a tin smith shop. He employed approximately 30ish tradesmen. One day a few of them got together and decided that it was time that the shop become a union shop. Sometimes you have to wonder about the intelligence of some people. The end result was, Dad lowered their wages to the union rates. took away the perks like taking the company trucks home. A couple of them lost vacation time. The guys then started to grumble, and this was then the final excuse dad needed to retire. He sold the shop to a new owner that new nothing about the business. In two years, he ran it to the ground. The shop closed, and everyone became unemployed. The union really helped out here :)

Any organization should always ask "Are we still required", There was a time unions had a place, but all I have seen most do is protect the lazy worker, collect dues (take away from my salary), ensure I can only obtain an "average" (at best) salary, and occasionally give up all of my income for a few months when people want to strike for issues that I could care less about.

 

cut out a slice of their potential audience right from the start. But this is better left alone...

This was the guy that Roland chased across the world, in the end, he didn't even know that he met his end. References were dragged in about him being flagg from the stand. The build up of the character was huge. In the end, he provided no insight or satisfaction to the hero. It made no difference really. I just showed how the whole story was a running creation with no overall story arc thought out. Walter simply became a loose end (like many others) that were simply dropped. I also couldn't figure out the dialog shift. I read these a while ago so can't remember which book it was, but, they went from speaking normal to that strange farm dialect for the rest of the series. He explains that Roland picks up dialects, I can understand that. But then he should also loose that dialect in the next book.

There are lots of positives, here is one that says "dont waste your time" /* Spoilers */

It is some of Kings best and worst work. Where as most great works start of shaky and gain strength. Kings hits hard and strong in the first half, then crashes and burns. There are plot disconnects. Deux et Machina are a plenty even as the books themselves discount it as a cheap writers trick.

I personally am disappointed with myself for paying money for the last couple of books, but I kept thinking, it has to get better, the start was so strong, this is just a build up to a fantastic finish. And then the cork fell out of the gun...

We never see a stand off between Flag the ultimate bad guy, and Roland. In fact Flag is killed "out of hand" a long with a myriad of other characters. As a reader I want to be rewarded for investing my emotion into hating the bad guy. He deserves to die at the hands of hero in an epic confrontation.

I probably just dont understand the ending, and maybe he even did it first, but the whole, "it was a dream" didnt work for me. The fact that there was nothing in the dark tower, except memories could have been quite powerful, but to cause a reset because he didnt pickup the bugle? just lame. In the end the 7 books to get to the dark tower didnt mean anything. I think because King didnt know what it was either.

I predict that this will turn into another Lost ending (if it survives)

I read about King enough in the books to ruin what started off as very promising. I don't need his self egotistical therapy on screen as well.