Comment No Trick or Treaters Here. (Score 1) 437
I live in a Southern Californian suburban paradise. Neighbors don't speak to each other and their children don't trick or treat.
I live in a Southern Californian suburban paradise. Neighbors don't speak to each other and their children don't trick or treat.
I'm turning 30 this year and graduated high school in Southern California in 2000.
I remember two distinctive attempts at computer education in my public education. First was in 4th and 5th grades when, at a new elementary school, the dedicated computer teacher who taught only computer classes brought us into the lab to teach us about the internals of a computer tower just as a biology teacher would teach us about the squishy bits inside of a frog. I remember the hardest thing to understand is that these new 3.5" floppy disks were not "floppy" like the 5.25" floppy disks, but should never be referred to as "hard disks". Those were completely different. Eventually, he would teach us the internals with moderate success.
Next, he taught us "Logo" or, as many of us called it, "turtle drawing". I had very limited success here and invested only as much effort as required so I could be allowed to play the Oregon Trail or "Freedom!" which was a game that put the player in the persona of a runaway slave in the antebellum South.
In high school, I elected to take a "computer" class, that was actually just a typing class. My hands were already too big for the iMac keyboards, so I learned to type without using my pinkies for anything but shift, alt, and ctrl keys. This was "wrong", however, and I would have to repeat my exercises if I was caught not using home row properly. Instead, I made it a goal to complete as many exercises as possible and then, when the teacher came around, to switch to the painful home row standard. I completed the "course" with a couple weeks to spare, so I found locked games that were installed on the iMacs, switched to a computer behind the teacher, and played those for the rest of the term.
The only other school-related computer education I had was the use of the "Computer Science" lab (PCs) after hours with actual computer science students playing Starcraft and Counter-Strike. I learned more with those guys playing those games than at any other time before graduating high school
As a someone who was in high school in the late 90s, who played first-person shooters, and who had long black hair while wearing dark clothes, I'll always feel a particular attachment to the Slashdot posts and discussions that followed the Columbine shootings.
I was held to multiple "counseling sessions" (read: interrogations) and was looked at with fear by those who didn't know me. Luckily, I was rather social, so the many that did know me laughed off the possibility of me going nuts with a gun.
It was genuinely comforting knowing that I wasn't the only one being profiled.
I'm brown, so I'll be happy checking out the future. The Western world prior to the 1960s is interesting, but I don't think I'd fare as well as I wish.
I came here to suggest this very thing.
FTFA: "The electricity used by the Supercharger comes from a solar carport system provided by SolarCity, which results in almost zero marginal energy cost after installation."
Well of course it will cost almost nothing after installation. That's the point of capital costs. You buy the land, pour the concrete, throw in a couple amenities, plant a massive battery and transformer system, and hook them up to the solar cells. Note that such an investment is utterly massive and unsustainable. With SO FEW Tesla drivers on the road (in that area, no less), they're going to rarely have a "customer".
But that's not how a public Level 3 charger would work. No way. Public Level 3 chargers would also require trenching from a strong enough power source since they will actually have regular customers. Then they will have to include the cost of all capital expenses (station, hardware, etc.) in the cost of the electricity that will be used during peak electricity usage (10am - 4pm) in some of the hottest areas in the nation when everyone is running their air conditioners (massive increase in electricity cost). Throw in the amount of energy lost when charging quickly and you have a compounded cost of simply fueling your car. This is why we encourage people to charge their cars at home and in the middle of the night.
Pure Electric Vehicles are an evolutionary speed bump. They exist to force manufacturers to accept the newer sensibilities of consumers and to seek better ways to reclaim power (regenerative braking, etc.), decrease wind resistance, and make lighter (and still affordable and sustainable) machines altogether.
Expense. Taxis have live links because they're profit-generating. A trip in a taxi is charged per mile and at a major premium. Bus fare is deficit-minimizing and offers the opportunity to to travel very long distances for very little cost.
Subways and light rail, though, can be different. Some charge per boarding while others charge per the distance between boarding and exiting.
Also, consider what would happen if cellular service was unavailable. You'd have to create a charge-caching system and then do bulk transactions when reception is found.
Live transactions are a bit more complex than "$1.50 from the amount on this card."
The children who receive access to these donations did not choose to live in America over other places. Do not condemn them for something they couldn't control. Also, when a kid has to spend the greater portion of his/her childhood in a bed due to leukemia, I have no problem throwin' down a couple bucks to make sure he/she isn't just staring at walls and monitoring machines that go beep.
If you find it better to give your money to a major multinational organization with tons of overhead that may or not actually be able to put your donation to use, do it. But don't go hating on kids just because they have a severe illness in one country instead of another.
I'm a Childs Play fan myself. I choose the gift. I choose the children's hospital. Penny Arcade runs it, but they take ZERO overhead.
It's easy, trustworthy, and reflective of me.
This is not insightful. It's ignorant of history, truth, and completely hyperbolic.
The truth is that the US judicial system has been *the* floodgate that opens to change from status quo rather consistently. Civil rights, women's rights, rights to contraception and inter-racial marriage. The three branches of our government all have their flaws, but the one that has consistently had less to do with bribes and pressure has always been the judicial.
Defeatism is surrender to the cause you hate. Apathy is just short of volunteering for that cause you hate.
1) I would not fault you for violent actions in the case of being requested to cook a steak "well-done".
2) If I genuinely knew that you would likely be violent if I asked for a well-done steak and then did so, you would not be held entirely liable for your violent actions on me and if you hurt others, I would be held at least partially liable.
Yes, while we all accept that the statement of words of any fashion should not immediately compel the rational person to violent action, we live in a world where they still do. Given the realities of the effects of words on people, we must still be judicious in their use.
Free speech is not a blank check to do as one wishes without consequence. It is as much as responsibility as it is a luxury.
But let's change the players a bit. If it wasn't a private citizen that made this video and was, instead, an arm of the American military forces and their goal was to goad Muslims into combat, would there be much protection of the video and its creators? What would be the difference?
My post had nothing to do with my feelings. It has to do with US judicial precedence.
And I don't care for what religion or reason one kills another, given the history of of humans killing humans, it's almost never been for a good enough reason.
Actually, you can be held liable for the content of your speech directed to inciting, and is likely to incite, imminent lawless action (Brandenburg v. Ohio) or if your speech includes "fighting words" (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire).
In the Chaplinsky case, there was a guy that was arrested and fined for verbally abusing members of organized religion on a street corner. The Supreme Court found that his speech was strong enough to incite violence and upheld his citation.
From the decision:
"There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."
It can be rather strongly argued that the producer of the video overstepped the bounds described in the case.
How far (time, distance) from work now?
How far (time, distance) from new place?
Are you willing to move closer to your current job?
Do you have other people to whom you are obligated that have commitments near where you are now? (schools, other jobs, family)
My bias: Happiness at work (job satisfaction, challenge, belief in the work, being around good people) is more important than wage. I don't say this as someone who has already made a bunch of money. I'm 29 and making under 50k in an area with high cost of living. I also live only 3 miles from my office and bike commute. I would need an offer of at least a 40% increase in pay WITH all the job satisfaction, challenge, and belief in my work to *consider* changing my place of employment. I have no kids and have had the same partner for a decade.
Indeed. If there were days of "shock enforcement" where 100% of available traffic officers specifically sought out to enforce cell phone driving laws instead of other non-immediately-deadly traffic infractions, people would respond QUICKLY.
Why do people continue to talk on their cell phones when it's against the law? Because they think they can get away with it. How do you change that? Ticket SO MANY PEOPLE that they talk and whine and bitch about it... that way the risk is genuine.
Do this once a month for three months without announcing the plan to anyone an watch things change QUICKLY.
PS -- Use unmarked cars and cameras, too.
Where there's a will, there's a relative.