Voar Tok

That was hilarious.

Originally posted by: saltandsauce none of you really know what freedom is. freedom means being able to talk about anything and not be ostricised/incarcerated.quote> Before you go making such bold claims about the knowledge of the rest of us, maybe you should do a little research. Freedom: the condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraintsquote> This therefore means that freedom is also the choice to do things like seek specific medical treatment, support causes you do care about or withhold support from causes you don't like, and the ability to do with your time, talents, and resources what you want, when you want.

I know it's been a while since this thread went dead, but I figured someone would like to see this.

Originally posted by: Nerd_Guy Originally posted by: sendarrow"The US was taken by surprise in Pearl Harbor..." Right. And then, since we were taken by surprise, let us use the BOMB that we have been building just in case WE are taken by surprise... yada yada yada...quote> Are you suggesting that the US knew about Pearl Harbor and let it happen--so we could nuke Japan?quote> So we could nuke Japan? Not likely, but it is has been indicated before that the US cracked the (supposedly uncrackable) Purple Code that the attack orders were encoded in so quickly that they had some idea that something was up before Pearl Harbor got bombed. Although unknown, there is speculation that the knowledge that they had of something being up is why the carriers weren't there.

Please use the official request thread pinned to the top of this forum. Thank you. THREAD CLOSED

Originally posted by: Something_started if you really don't want it then get a torch and melt it into a liquid form. All a basic fire would do is heat it up it wouldn't get hot enough to destroy what ever it is you want destroyed.quote> Or you could have the computer erase the data for you with either a BIOS level format or professional software. (The software isn't that expensive). Originally posted by: Hahayoudied Also, you can destroy a hard drive evenually by just play SC4 with loads of plugins, and without any ventalation space or external cooling system. It could take weeks to do that.quote> You couldn't do that anymore. Computers are designed to protect themselves from users trying to do stuff like that. You can also purposely download a destructive computer virus to delete the files for you, although it might cause the computer crash or get the BSOD.quote> Most of them don't do anything other than delete the fie and empty the recycle bin. Most of the time, the files are still there.

Originally posted by: jammoe I'll dig in. The historical background of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is to support the right of the American population to keep weapons to use to overthrow the government. That's the conception. This was a period where the country was being run by armed revolutionaries, most of them idealists and/or wealthy property and slave owners who didn't like, for various reasons, British colonial rule. So they fought a violent armed revolution. And they thought it was good that they did that, so they said hey, let's constitutionally protect this. It was fun. It had almost nothing to do with personal defence.quote> The historical background of the Second Amendment was that not everyone wanted a standing army, but rather have citizen militia (yes, in response to the earlier statement by someone that citizens should never be the militia) that would leave the farm fields to defend the country against something or someone and then return to their horse-drawn plows when the threat was over. I forget the stats exactly, but if you have a gun you're something like 3 or 4 times as likely to kill your spouse then you are to kill someone doing something illegal, in a situation that sensible people would consider at least similar to valid self/other-defence. It's not about personal defence. In abstract thought experiments, and isolated real cases, a person can use a gun to prevent a bad situation from getting worse. But if you look at the overall sociological effects, gun culture encourages gun crime, like killing a family member, and gun control reduces it.quote> There is no solid evidence to suggest this, while the Swiss are living proof that a mass gun permeation into the society does not arbitrarily encourage gun crime. There's better evidence that a mass gun permeation discourages gun crime, since everyone is armed and (theoretically, like in the case of the Swiss) knows how to use the thing. Just one edit. As regards arguments that have to do with rare "public" mass-murderers (eg. school shootings), these folks are extremely marginal. Not to minimize the meaning of the thousands of lives they've taken and the thousands more they've destroyed, the fact is they're a tiny proportion of murders, or gun murders. Most murders are things like spouse murder (usually husband->wife, but certainly not always) and other murders directly related to sexual relationships, murders of family members (like parents) not involved in sexual relationships, strangers or acquaintances in bar fights, murders in the commission of a crime like robbery, those sorts of things. If you're interested in the most practical things you can do to prevent murder, it's that that you have to look at. That's where the real problems are. The other things are a tiny issue. Moreover, there's not much you can do about rare psychopaths who want to kill a lot of people and have the will. We live in too "free" and technologically advanced a society, with too little sense of a community and too much alienation. I don't think gun control would help with this sort of problem any more than arming random people could solve it. But it could reduce a lot of angry husbands who kill their wives, not all of them at all but a lot.quote> It's not going to cut down on that either. Any modernly equipped house has more than enough ways to kill someone, most all of which would be completely accessible to anyone who wanted them. A woman who had a dental practice not far from where I live was thrown in jail a few years ago for running her husband over three times after she caught him in a love triangle. Another woman in a city not far from where I live had some grudge against her husband, so she convinced him to let her tie him up to the bed posts (I think you can see where that one was going) and then proceeded to stab him forty-two times with a plain kitchen knife. You can ban the guns, but if one spouse wants to kill the other one, they're still going to be able to do it - and still be able to do it almost effortlessly. Take, for example, the guy who is accused of drowning his wife while they were on their honeymoon in Australia (I think it was Australia). You can't outlaw something and expect people to quit killing each other because they aren't allowed to have it. It doesn't work that way.

That's a big boy. Also, btw Micah, please merge your thread into the other thread on Bertha in OT.

Originally posted by: SkiGeek It can be complicated, which is why the law sees various degrees of murder. I can't cite the exact difference between "first degree murder", "second degree murder", "justifiable homicide", "involuntary manslaughter", and so forth but I do know that the circumstances play a large part in it.quote> While this is by no means how ever state does it, I thought I would post this as a point of reference. Below are explanations of how the Texas penal system describes the above-mentioned degrees of murder. First Degree Murder: Pre-meditated or passion killing Second Degree Murder: Otherwise known as "involuntary manslaughter" - killing someone not because you intended to, but because you were being stupid and your actions got them killed Justifiable Homicide: Not specifically mentioned, but it sounds very similar to the state's section on defense of a third person. Criminally Negligent Homicide: Someone gets killed because someone else isn't following the law.

If you don't know what the thread was called, how are we supposed to know what the thread is called? And if we don't know what the thread is called, how are we supposed to tell you want happened to it and why? EDIT: I did some looking, and either your thread was destroyed in a server glitch or fell to a later page, but it wasn't deleted. It might have been like one someone previously made, so it might have been merged. Then again, it could also be that the thread is there and you don't know it.

Originally posted by: screamingman12 Originally posted by: Voar Tok Which real evidence would seem to support otherwise. The man who did the VT shootings had to go and buy the guns. Obviously, he was determined. The guys at Columbine had videos of themselves practicing with the guns that they shot days before they went and pulled off their school massacre. Both of them had clear intent. People just snapping and going on a shooting rampage isn't usually how it works. If it was, gun-free zones wouldn't be the most popular targets because people who are pissed and want to point a gun in someone's face aren't going to be asking themselves "gee, where can I go where I can shoot everyone and no one can shoot me back?"quote> I avoided VT for a reason. He was mentally unstable, and keeping guns out of the hands of the insane goes unsaid. In fact, shortly after VT, Gov. Kane tried to close the loophole that allowed him to get the guns, but for some reason it was shot down (I suspect the NRA, and other pro gun people, but that's just me). For the sake of argument, let's assume we have stable, prudent people, who are capable of acting on rage just like anyone else Not true. On top of that, there's real evidence to support the contrary. There's the Luby's Massacre in Texas where everyone was unarmed and twenty-something people were killed or injured. There's the Shoney's in Alabama where someone was actually armed and the only two people killed were the people trying to rob the place. There's Washington DC which used to ban guns and, not to coincidentally, was also known as the murder capital of the world. There's west Chicago, where handguns are banned (if I remember correctly) and I don't know if you've been there recently, but it's the only place I know of in the US where cops pull you over for a routine traffic stop while wearing bullet proof vests and one of them having a primed shotgun in their hands.quote> Was the guy who committed the Luby's massacre sane? I have a feeling that he wasn'tquote> One could argue that desire to go kill people you don't even know constitutes insanity, but aside from that point, the people both in the VT massacre and the Luby's massacre were both sane enough to carry out deliberately planned shootings. They didn't just snap and go start killing people. One of the interesting things about mass shootings is that the perpetrator rarely just brings a gun and whatever ammo he happens to have on hand. He usually brings a small arsenal. While the amount can be debated, that indicates some degree of planning there. The only people that a gun ban is going to keep unarmed are the law-abiding citizens. People with intent to shoot other people are still going to get their guns. As for the Shoney's, there is a very large difference in walking into a place with a gun and actually using it. There is a good chance that the robbers would not have actually used their weapons, but they ended up dead because someone was ready to use theirs. Who knows if the robbers would have actually killed someone, and I can only hope that the shooter was arrested for the murder of two others. quote> True, but there's something that's been left out here. Why do thieves tend to take guns with them? They take them because one of two things is going to happen. They're either going to run into a place where no one is armed and everyone will freak out and do what they ask, or they're going to run into a place, someone will be armed, and they're going to need them to keep themselves safe. When people try to rob a bank, who's the first person they try to find and why? I'll even give a hint - it's the only person in there that they know is going to have a gun and will use it. And FYI, I don't think that the guy who shot the two people trying to rob the Shoney's was arrested. I don't know what the law in Alabama says, but I have a strong feeling that it basically says that you can use deadly force against anyone trying to harm you or anyone else. And the intent to cause harm was there, because the two guys trying to rob the place were herding the workers into the walk-in freezer. The reason that the DC ban did not achieve desired results was that it was not followed up by similar legislation in suburban MD and VA, criminals would just buy guns there, legally, hide them in their trunks, and drive back to DC, clip a few people, and the crime rate would go up.quote> If that was reason why it didn't work, then the war on drugs should be a smashing success in places like Kansas and Missouri, where stuff like LSD is banned not only in their states, but in ever state that touches them and in every state that touches states touching Missouri and Kansas. The reason why it didn't work isn't because it didn't get adopted in the surrounding areas. The reason why it didn't work is because, as has been said before, it's very easy to ban activities, but nigh unto impossible to ban material goods. And the underground distribution system is everywhere. About seven or eight months ago, a man was arrested for distribution of LSD. This guy lived less than 500 feet from me. Now, it some cases, you can tell something us up (this guy had the personality of someone operating on the down-low for lots of reasons) but most of the time, the black market will be operating in someone's veritable back yard and no one will know it. I expect the murder rate in DC to double, if not triple, since the ban was lifted.quote> Personally, I expect it to go down, but I doubt we'll be talking about then when they start to get an idea in the next two to five years. On an additional note, someone once did a study of the number of deaths in Baghdad versus the number of deaths in DC. It was noted that if you took Baghdad and increased it's population to the size of DC (and increased murder rates proportionally) Baghdad's murder rate was still less than half of DC's. The significant difference between the two places - one you can't own a gun. The other, you can walk around with a loaded AK-47 in your hands and no one looks twice at you.

It couldn't be the first tropical storm of 2008 since it's named Bertha. They don't name anything weaker than tropical storms, so since we're on Bertha, that would mean it's the second one this year.

Originally posted by: patriots_1228 much smaller than I expected, although still large by Stadium terms. Lots of glass, very, very, nice stadium. Nothing quite like an NFL stadium out in the open. Pretty amazing feeling. btw, i started BATting the current texas stadium. When does this new one open? 2009? will it host a super bowl? [it better, although patriots only have a 2-3 year window left i'd say so please make it quick ]quote> I think I heard it was supposed to host the Super Bowl in 2010 or something. Or am I remembering wrong? Although, it doesn't really matter, as the time that they had the Super Bowl in Houston will outshine anything that'll happen in Dallas. And I wasn't even including Janet Jackson in the reasons why. EDIT: OK, so Easy Bakes has corrected me and it'll be 2011.

Originally posted by: SkiGeek Personally, I found it rather offensive that, in the article, a White House spokesman is quoted as calling Jesse Helms "a true patriot". If hatred is required to be "a true patriot", we are in a lot of trouble.quote> Well, this is just my opinion, but I wouldn't put too much stock in what the spokesman said. Someone from Congress died. What's he supposed to say - "today, we have lost one of the most worthless Congressman we've ever had"? Then again, he could have said something nice about the guy without using the words "true patriot" too.

Originally posted by: zelgadis I have an option called "zero all data" should I decide to reinitialize the hard drive. Basically, what it does is turns every single bit on the HDD into a "0." It takes many hours for the cycle to complete. I seriously doubt anyone could find personal information after one of those. ISF quote> Yeah, that's what a BIOS level format does to a hard drive. It isn't possible to recover data from any hard drive where every last bit has been turned into a zero.

No, it is not true that you can't get rid of everything on a hard drive. There are plenty of ways to destroy the data beyond ability to recover. One way, if you really, REALLY want to make sure, is to take the hard drive apart and break the data platters. The more practical method is to do a low-level reformat on the hard drive. Erase it from the computer's BIOS level, and everything on the hard drive will be erased because the BIOS will go through the hard drive and set every last bit back to zero. It'll even leave the drive without a format. If you have a really strong magnet, that's another way. Also, you don't ever send a hard drive to a hardware recycling center if you're concerned about keeping the files safe. They can recover the data just as easily as a hacker. What it ultimately boils down to is that the only way to guarantee that your files are gone before getting rid of a hard drive is to either destroy the drive platters or overwrite all the data on the drive (you can do that either through the BIOS-level reformat or using a really strong magnet. The reason why this is a concern to most people is because when you delete a file on a PC, Windows doesn't actually delete the file. What it does is mark the space as usable, and the data just sits there until the computer writes something in its place.

Originally posted by: Duke87 Originally posted by: Voar TokNot sure what you have in mind there, but it sounds like something more than the nutritional stats on the food. (It's a useful thing for people who care, but how many people really care? Not enough to make it effective on a mass-scale.)quote> Requiring that nutrition facts be listed on food packaging is a good thing. Because it makes the information readily available to anyone who is concerned, but it doesn't try to control the actions of people who aren't concerned. The choice is still in the hands of the consumer. So what if not a lot of people care and it doesn't reduce obesity rates that much. The point is to empower people to make informed decisions, not to make those decisions for them, you see.quote> Well, I wasn't advocating that we get rid of them. I was just mentioning that not enough people really care about what they say, hence why junk food still sells so well. People may or may not know what's in it, but they don't care enough about the 15 grams of fat (or whatever) to get them to stop eating it.

Originally posted by: screamingman12 Originally posted by: hym First, I was talking about the scenario you mentioned, namely a neighborhood full of guns. I can only think of one time in all of America's 200+ year history that such a scenario has ever happened. However, since that wasn't what you were driving at, I'll move on from that. As for the school shootings, a "neighborhood full of guns" is not what contributed to them. Statistically, only 28% of American homes have any kind of gun in them. That's far from "full of guns." Second, notice where those shootings took place--a place where all the victims were unarmed. Think about it: If you want to murder dozens of people, do you go to a place where it's reasonable to believe they're all unarmed, or do you walk right into a shooting club full of ex-military commandos? quote> Not the exact scenario, but the same basic concept. if someone/someplace has ready access to loaded guns, the death/crime rate will be higher because people will act on impluse, rather than thought.quote> Not true. On top of that, there's real evidence to support the contrary. There's the Luby's Massacre in Texas where everyone was unarmed and twenty-something people were killed or injured. There's the Shoney's in Alabama where someone was actually armed and the only two people killed were the people trying to rob the place. There's Washington DC which used to ban guns and, not to coincidentally, was also known as the murder capital of the world. There's west Chicago, where handguns are banned (if I remember correctly) and I don't know if you've been there recently, but it's the only place I know of in the US where cops pull you over for a routine traffic stop while wearing bullet proof vests and one of them having a primed shotgun in their hands. Had they not had ready access to guns...they could have made explosives instead that could have killed hundreds instead of just dozens. quote> Not exactly, as explosives require a great deal of time, thought, and skill to make. You would have to be pretty determined to use them, not the people that do school shootings, who are really ticked and decide to point a gun in someone's facequote> Which real evidence would seem to support otherwise. The man who did the VT shootings had to go and buy the guns. Obviously, he was determined. The guys at Columbine had videos of themselves practicing with the guns that they shot days before they went and pulled off their school massacre. Both of them had clear intent. People just snapping and going on a shooting rampage isn't usually how it works. If it was, gun-free zones wouldn't be the most popular targets because people who are pissed and want to point a gun in someone's face aren't going to be asking themselves "gee, where can I go where I can shoot everyone and no one can shoot me back?"

Originally posted by: belfastuniguy While it may not being solely his problem, it still is solely his rightquote> I didn't mention rights anywhere in my reply. I was referring to responsibility. quote> The problem there is that responsibility is subjective. One person's idea of being responsible is another person's idea of slacking off. Who gets to decide the standards? And like it or not, the government dictating what you are and aren't responsible for is interfering with a person's rights. Some of it is unavoidable, but most things that could be considered social responsibilities are highly subjective. Case in point - my dad's mom broke her hip, and instead of sending her to the local "under-staffed and decaying social hospitals", they sent her to one of the best hospitals in the entire country. Could she pay for it? Heck no. The government paid for whatever her insurance wouldn't cover (which was a lot).quote> Not every American is sent to the best health facilities in the country, as has been previously mentioned the hospital 'the bum' goes to is likely not to be a shiny hospital. Your father's mother also had some level of insurance, its incredibly doubtful the bum would have any protection whatsoever. Service is patchy and some places will provide good care and others will not. The bum is unlikely to be in an area which a fantastic and world class hospital, its much more likely he will stumble into a social hospital. quote> Which is a matter of fact on where the person lives. It is inevitable, whether in the UK, or the US, or any other modern nation, that various areas are going to have access to better or worse standards of services. And FYI, most any hospital worth its salt (which will basically be all of them) will most likely go through some sort of accrediting process, and while I don't know where this idea of a decaying social hospital comes from, I can say for a fact that no such place would ever pass an accrediting process. Said bum can go to probably any hospital in the nation and get a level of care comparable to anything he could get in the UK or any other modern nation, and if he couldn't get it there, the hospital would most likely send him some place where he could. As for my dad's mom having some level of insurance, I can also guarantee that EMS workers life-flighting someone to a hospital don't care if you have insurance or not. The only thing they cared about was the fact that they had a 95 year old woman who appeared to have broken her hip. And out of curiosity, would you mind giving an example of a "social hospital" because I'm not aware of any such institution in the US that fits the image in my mind, except for charitable health clinics. Americans may not want to pay more to help the uninsured...but you do already and will continue to. The costs of treating the uninsured are passed onto insurance holders or through higher taxation, so you are already paying to treat the poor and uninsured. quote> Tis true. The private insurance scheme itself is under pressure as less employers are providing the service given the vast costs and something which is unsustainable given the outlook for the American economy. Reform will have to happen at some point, Americans just need to decide when.quote> Unsustainable - I highly doubt it. The American economy has been in far worse places than this, and the insurance industry survived. There's too much of a need for it. his has nothing to do with government health policy and everything to do with an invention called fast-foodquote> Which our government is starting to deal with, limits on fats,quote> Which I seem to remember New York City doing something similar to this with banning trans fats. Nice idea, but it's not going to get NYC any slimmer. salts and sugars in children's food, stricter guidelines on food served to children at schools, quote> While the degree of strictness in the guidelines is probably different, we've been doing this for a while too. Problem is, you can't control what the people eat in their own homes. much improved food labellingquote> Not sure what you have in mind there, but it sounds like something more than the nutritional stats on the food. (It's a useful thing for people who care, but how many people really care? Not enough to make it effective on a mass-scale.) as well as a new policy looking at the food served to children at tourist attractions and requiring it to meet the same guidelines as school meals in addition to other measures. quote> OK, this I know we don't do. Point still being, you can't control everything a person eats, and realistically, as long as the modern world continues to thrive on junk food like McDonald's, there's always going to be an obesity problem. And on top of that, the vast majority of obesity cases ultimately are the result of the person's eating habits and are completely immune to regulation because there's no way to regulate them.

Originally posted by: belfastuniguyLets look at America, yes SOME hospitals are superior, but lets not paint an image that all American healthcare is fabulous and Americans exist in a world of gleaming hospitals and glorious healthcare. Those that can afford it can avail of some of the best care in the world. Same goes for wealthy people in the UK using private care. Lets take that bum from the street you mentioned. He's suffered terrible pain, in the great USA he cannot avail of your superior healthcare, so your society confine him to under-funded, under-staffed and decaying social hospitals. In the UK we would not tolerate such a thing, everyone uses the same hospital whether rich or poor and they get the best care possible no matter the time involved or expense. That is what makes this country different to the United States and what makes many many more different to the United States. quote> In the United States, said bum walks in off the street into a hospital complaining of terrible pain and gets treated anyway, regardless of ability to pay. Emergency rooms treat people first and worry about if the person can pay later. Case in point - my dad's mom broke her hip, and instead of sending her to the local "under-staffed and decaying social hospitals", they sent her to one of the best hospitals in the entire country. Could she pay for it? Heck no. The government paid for whatever her insurance wouldn't cover (which was a lot). Well, according to the above news story, it would seem that's sorta the case in the UK.At least from a staunchly libertarian perspective, anyway.quote> That article is specific to healthcare. Lets not debate freedoms between the United States and United Kingdom the American government is hardly a shining example of freedom. Speak to people in the UK and they will give you their opinions regarding 'nanny state' ideas such as healthcare, education, security and various other things. I can assure you we do not tolerate our government interfering in our daily lives. We are happy for them to direct health policy as it does benefit the country. Maybe if the American government were more proactive about health you wouldn't have the worst obesity rates on earth. quote> This has nothing to do with government health policy and everything to do with an invention called fast-food. Based on this article here, it doesn't sound like obesity rates are anything particularly shining in the UK either. How healthy I am is my problem and my problem only. quote> Not really...say you neglect your health, your employer is not going to be best pleased, nor your family if you had one and lost ur job as a result of your inability to take care of yourself. A sick population has a negative effect on the overall economy and job productivity. quote> While it may not being solely his problem, it still is solely his right. For example, let's say Duke's boss is a vegetarian. Duke's boss may be of the opinion that everyone in the office should be a vegetarian because it's a healthier lifestyle and will promote increased health and productivity around the office, and also lower the amount of insurance claims. What gives Duke's boss the right to tell Duke and everyone else that they have to become a vegetarian? Simple answer - nothing gives them that right. Hence, ultimately, it still remains Duke's right to take care of or neglect his health however he sees fit. Americans appear to be somewhat paranoid and selfish when it comes to their responsibility in society.quote> Well, I said it before and I'll say it again - the average American is not paranoid, but adamant, and there is a difference. As for selfish, I suppose you could make that point, but it's a weak point at best. Pick most any American off any street in any city and ask them if people should help out those less who are truly less fortunate than themselves, and you'll get a very definitive "yes, we should - it's the right thing to do" sort of answer. However, you'll be very hard-pressed to find an American who believes that it should be the government's responsibility to provide for everyone. People will, of their own accord, donate money just to help the greater good without ever thinking about trying to get something out of it, and on top of that, as Ski pointed out, the government takes it one step further by encouraging charitable donations through tax credits and the like. On top of that, if I donate the money as opposed to having the government take it and redistribute it, I know my money is actually going toward something productive. I could give money to the government, but one day it may go to helping some family without a home, and another day it may go to restoring a historical building. Personally, I'd say screw the building - the people are more important - but I don't have that ability when all that's happening is the government siphoning off some percentage of my paycheck and using it however they see fit.

Farve would be playing football till he ends up a wheelchair if he could have it however he wants it. I don't doubt that he's thinking about coming back. He does this every year.

Well, I don't have much to say on the subject since I don't deal with the NHS, but Happy Birthday I suppose. I would like to clarify one thing though that was mentioned here. Originally posted by: Boggy1 Again, this is the whole cultural difference of the US being absolutely terrified to the point of hysteria of the Government, whereas most of the world trusts their Government, because, you know, the people elected them....it'll be a sad day when the ordinary person cannot trust their own Government.quote> The average American is not in a state of hysterical distrust of the government. Not even close. What we are is adamant in our distrust of the government, and yes, there is a difference between the two. Is the government elected by the people? Yes, but each individual only votes for three people that are going to be in it, and not the other 432. On top of that, the average American remains cautiously aware that once elected, a politician can easily go look after their own interests and their constituents get whatever time is left over. The idea of a corrupt politician is something we're well acquainted with, especially since this country was founded because of the fallout we had with one (King George III). And then on top of that, we have two entirely different views on what government exists for. The average European (based on the structure of the average European government) could be assumed to believe that the government is there to provide for the well-being of the people. The average American believes that the government is there to provide basic needs like safety and infrastructure, and after that, you're to take care of yourself. Anyway, I wanted to clarify that. I now return you to your regular discussion.

Well, while I applaud your choice of profession, I want to point out something that most people don't know. Game programmers are a group of people that move around from company to company fairly frequently. It's rare for someone to work for a company for more than two or three years (usually they are hired for a particular project and then laid off when the project is done). Now, if that sounds like something you're willing to work with, then I'd say to go for it. But I think you should know that before you jump head first into this job. Now, being someone who is half-way walking down this road already, there are some things that I can tell you for sure would be good places to spend your time. First off, I would recommend having a degree from a university rather than a specialty college. (As in, it'd be better to get a degree from some university, even if they were basically founded for one purpose, than to get your degree from ITT Tech or some place like it). Now, most of what you're going to be doing in the process of getting that degree will be programming, but before you really fire off into that, I'd suggest you bone up on your math. You're going to have to take at least through Calculus II, and I'd suggest that you have enough understanding of math to be able to go straight into Calculus I when you get into college. If you don't have that much math skills, you can probably put off the Cal I for a year, but after that, delaying any further would most likely limit what classes you are allowed to take. Most of the programming classes are going to assume that you don't really have much experience in it, but if you want to pick up some core experience, I suggest that you read the book Game Programming For Teens. The book assumes you have no experience in programming, so it can help you no matter what your skill level is. In addition to that, you'll want to make sure you are studying the C language (currently, they're up to C#) and the XML language. A knowledge of Python and PERL scripting wouldn't hurt either. The only remaining advice is that you shouldn't try to do all of that at once.

Originally posted by: belfastuniguy However, until Americans finally decide to do something about gun ownership on a constitutional level, then I see little change happening. quote> Well, we just did something about it on a Constitutional level. The biggest issue here was how the law was interpreted. Officially, the Supreme Court has given it's interpretation of it, and now, the questions at hand are these - who do we want to decide shouldn't have them and what do we want them to have? Well, that's already been decided to some degree. If you're a felon, you don't get a gun, etc. So, the only question that really remains is what we want them to have. Do we want anyone walking outside with an M16? No, but rifles and handguns have legitimate uses, and there is some evidence to show that guns in the hands of civilians does lower gun deaths. As Ski pointed out, the average gunman, if he has half a brain in his head (which they usually do) would be asking himself where he would rather go - to a place where the people are armed or to a place where he knows the people aren't armed. That's why school shootings are more popular than mall shootings. Also, having a gun in public doesn't equate into intent to kill someone. If it did, Eric Clapton would be dead already. (I know a guy who went to a Clapton concert with his wife and forgot he had his pistol in his jacket - they never noticed). On top of all that, one of the main concerns about public ownership of a gun is that the mass public isn't trained in how to use one properly. Well, there's a simple solution to this - make a mandatory requirement that in order to have a gun, a person must be able to show proof of having sufficient training to operate a gun, like a state-run training program. The Swiss have proven that it can be done, and it'd work a whole lot better in the US than banning them. (It could also be said that the Swiss have proven that having an armed populace will reduce gun crime, but that's going a bit off-topic).

Originally posted by: SkiGeek Originally posted by: Voar TokPart of that makes sense, because not everyone will really be able to meet their needs with the average hybrid (and hybrid pickup trucks are proving to be more of a fantasy than a reality right now). Most of the industrial world wouldn't be able to either.quote> True. I doubt we will see any hybrid tractor trailers any time soon. But for the average person driving a hybrid is not painful at all. The first time I drove my Prius home from the dealer I was shocked to realize I was driving at 80 mph. My previous car complained well before that speed. My Prius does not.quote> OK, out of curiosity, how does not noticing that you're driving at 80 MPH have anything to do with your Prius as opposed to a gas car? I'm curious because my mom had the exact same experience, literally - as in going 80 MPH and not realizing it, in a 2001 gas car. No, offense, but your old car sounds like it was a piece of crap by the time you replaced it. Originally posted by: Patricius Maximus Hybrids are only a temporary solution, and it does not help the broader consumption. In most places, the electricity from the plug charger is coming from oil. Also, when the battery runs out or when you go above a certain speed, you start burning gasoline in your engine. quote> That is not how they work. Hybrids are not plugged in. They do not use household electricity. The idea behind the hybrid is to capture the energy that is "lost" in conventional cars. Every time a driver steps on the gas pedal, he is burning gas to create momentum. Every time he steps on the brake, he is killing momentum that he used gas to create. Hybrids capture that lost energy and use it to charge the electric battery. This is why hybrids burn very little gas in bumper-to-bumper city traffic. There are times when the gas engine does kick in to charge the battery. Running the air conditioning can cause that to happen. But I have noticed that driving with the windows open is actually worse because the drag causes a significant reduction in gas mileage. (This is easy to see. Drive 5 minutes with the windows up and the AC on then drive 5 minutes with the AC off and the windows down. The interval bar graph clearly shows the difference.) It is not an issue of using the electric battery up to a certain speed, then having the gas engine take it from there. I have driven down a highway at 60 mph, for prolonged periods of time, using just the electric engine.quote> Correct me if I'm wrong (since you own a hybrid and I've never even ridden in one ) but the electric engine is used when you're doing city driving and steady highway driving, and the gas engine is just used to recharge the battery or when you are doing fast acceleration (like having to punch it when getting on the highway). Right? Saving 1,583 gallons of gas is nothing to sneeze at. quote> *Atchooh* Sorry, couldn't resist.