Last time I checked software did not age.

In a static world, on a static computing platform, I would agree with you entirely. We do not live in that world.

I remember back in the DOS days I had a wonderful programming-oriented text editor, named "Brief". It supported programmable macros, column editing, triggering external programs (ie, compile and run without leaving the editor). Completely blew away everything else available at the time.

I don't still use Brief, despite it still working just as well as it ever did, and despite still having a need for a solid programming-oriented text editor.

Sure a bunch of geeks with no legal training could use Wikipedia and slashdot. To pass a law exam. Maybe yahoo news posts for the constitutional parts.

...Or maybe just use any of an hundred searchable online testbanks of past Bar exam questions?

TFS mentions Wiki, but you'll notice that TFA did not, nor did I. No doubt, if someone seriously tried to do this, Wikipedia would fall pretty far down the list of places to look for answers.

That said, what the GGP and I jokingly pointed out counts as a much more serious issue for those borderline folks actually studying law. Sure, I would probably have trouble even figuring out the intent of some of the questions, and even if I didn't get stuck on the impenetrable jargon, I probably couldn't realistically look up the answers fast enough to finish it in the time given. Someone who (barely) made it through law school, however, would no doubt have at least picked up enough of the core skills to successfully (and quickly) make use of online resources, given the chance.

If you didn't already take the UN's word for it, then I have nothing that you would accept as any better, of course.

Kinda like this week's "defensive" move - Those 3000 people in a UN school, packed 80 to a classroom and having fled as directed by the Israeli government before bulldozing their neighborhoods - We both know they must have magically had a cache of rockets hidden up their asses - Right? Wink wink nudge nudge?

Yeah, that'll work, because nobody has internet capable cellphones, secondary machines or even Virtual Machines.

I had wondered about that myself... Do they seriously not require taking the Bar on controlled hardware? Hell, a bunch of geeks should take and "ace" the Bar just for the sake of making fun of it.

"Oh, JD huh? Yeah, I have one of those too, figured I'd just drop by in my spare time and take a go at it, and whaddya know, perfect score. Oh, sorry about all those 100 hour weeks of study you put in, but hey, I'll bet you can look back now and have a good laugh, right?"

Subject says it all:

Don't allow a once-five-star app to rest on its laurels forever. After six months if you haven't inspired anyone new to rate you, your rating should decay to zero. Not only would this tend to favor new apps over old ones, but it would also effectively punish those developers who "fire and forget" app after app after app with zero support or updates for old apps.

Money transfers are also a lot easier to manage [...] Why use this horribly complicated system

Horribly complicated?
Credit: Swipe card, sign the receipt, done.
Debit : Swipe card, enter your PIN, done.

I don't see how you can call the latter process "a lot easier", unless you have some sort of crippling hand disease that makes signing things difficult.


Why use this horribly complicated system if you can transfer money from your savings to the shop anywhere?

This likely varies by country, but in the US, you have a $50 maximum liability, period, for fraudulent credit card swipes (as in, someone physically has your card), and $0 for non-swiped transactions.

For debit cards, you have that $50 liability only if you notify the bank within two days of the fraudulent charges. That shoots up to $500 if you take more than two days but less than 60 days, and you have full liability if you take over 60 days to report it.

Thanks, but I'll go through all the trouble of signing a receipt in exchange for not paying out-of-pocket to redecorate some thief's apartment just because I had two busy days in two consecutive months and didn't have the time to go over my statement with a fine-toothed comb.

Per-orders, fair enough, but donations should go to good causes, not ã%^ã"$ã%^ing fancy PC heat-sinks.

You realize, of course, that Kickstarter exists to do nothing more than manage donations, a great many of which go to some variety of bleeping fancy PC toys?

The information for 99.9% of wiki pedia articles is useful.

Only politically charged articles and obscure articles are suspect.

I can see how something that might be true but which is very hard to verify as true or false on a non critical subject (like this book character hoax) would last a while. But I'd never encounter it in my use of the Wiki.

While keeping those two groups separate, I suggest your reread (or review) "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".

Sorry. I missed it the first time.

> We can impeach our way through the whole federal government,

<drool>

<devil's advocate>
We don't like it when the Left tries to get technical with certain language, where we suggest that original intent should win out. Could it really have been the bill authors' intent to only sport subsidies in certain states?
</devil's advocate>

In any case, a part of me says the American idiot people voted for this guy, twice, and he gave us Obamacare, so that's what we should have. Attempted scratching away at by a few cuts seems to fly in the face of respect for democracy and representative self-governance. Get a majority by a healthy margin wanting it stricken from the law books (and indicated indirectly by their voting, and not what they may say only in telephone surveys), and that's when action against it would seem legitimate to me.

> ... 12 gauge shotgun ... .45 ACP ...

Ouch, I'm not 6' 200 lbs; meassumes the kick on those kinds of things would be a skosh jarring in my as-yet-un-powder-burned hands. Besides, even with practice I don't assume I could really hit anything whilst in freak-mode. But I've got a decent flight of stairs between two walls barely 3 feet wide, that I ought to be able to spray some pain down if need be across most of its width, I'm hoping.

So yeah, I figured I'd need to practice, so the tip on cheap ammo to do so with is appreciated. As long as that stuff has roughly the same "feel" when firing as the home defense load you mention.

For myself, I would probably never own a handgun, just because of that form factor's association with crime. Like (part of) the reason I gave up alcohol in my late twenties, with all the negative stuff associated with its use/abuse. Just a personal quirk of mine.

My sis and her hubby just bought a place out in the country, and I want to go build a berm on that land and do my practicing there. It's a bitch getting there I'm told, but I don't know if gun ranges in town let you bring in a shotgun, and outdoors seems more fun anyways.

Ouch, but this was back in the "eye for an eye" days. I would interpret that and it's immediately following "on the other hand" verse as, if you strike out at an intruder in the dark, you can't see well enough what you're swinging at to consciously avoid trying to kill the intruder. Nowadays we have implements of instant light. (Altho I suppose one could intentionally leave it dark so as to be able to exercise said loophole! ;)

But then there's the whole thing about the OT times being pre-JC, and all they had was the Law, until its ultimate fulfiller came. I kinda see the OT as trying to teach us (among other things) that God is resolutely about justice, and then the NT that God is also firmly about love. I see the lesson of the OT being over, and as followers of Christ we should be looking to forgive others as much as we can, and strive to turn the other cheek to the extent feasible.

But I don't doubt your perspective is highly motivated by your having a family, and can't rule out that mine might be different too if I wasn't only responsible for myself.

> I ask you to make fewer assumptions in the future based on the author's name alone.

No, it's still overall a sound policy, it's just that you're so bonkers in politics, it's easy to forget that, as far as I can recall, you seem like a pretty normal guy when it comes to everything else.

> Now granted some would say that if you wait you are foolish, and gambling with your life or whatnot.

Luckily for me it's my life to gamble with. I'm perfectly satisfied with cowering upstairs with a shotgun while I'm being burgled out of my entire downstairs' possessions, if it means not risking killing someone.

I was also thinking about getting a baseball bat for behind the front door. But I think you have to be above average in size, really, to look enough like you mean it with one. And I'm not. (I would need something more like this!)