sees_all1

Back in my day, we had high-tech lynchings.

Just finished My Grandfather's Son by Clarence Thomas, and Being George Washington by Glenn Beck. Started Ameritopia by Mark Levin.

In the US, servers at restaurants make under minimum wage, with the understanding that they make tips. As a standard, their income is taxed at an expected rate of 12-15% of the food they serve. If a server serves $100 in food, Uncle Sam expects them to have made $12-15 on it, and taxes them accordingly. The other thing too is that when a customer is unhappy and sends back their food or the restaurant "eats" the bill, it really is being taken out of the server's wages. I'm not sure how many of you (in the US) have been in the service industry. It sucks. I worked as a caddy from ages 13-16. My base pay was $17, Iirc minimum wage was $7.35 at the time. That's four hours of hard, manual labor for about $4.25 an hour. Yes, I know it was my job to carry a 40-50 lb bag around 18 holes of golf in 80-90 degree weather. Yes, I know it was my job to clean balls and clubs, replace divets, spot balls, walk off distances, tend the pin while not stepping in peoples putting paths and being absolutely silent. Tips are expected. If I knew I was going to caddy for tight wads, I probably wouldn't have showed up. If I have no complaints about my service at a restaurant or at a hair salon, my base tip is 20%. Usually I'll round my bill up to a quarter or dollar amount. I never forget to tip, and make a point of it. I've only had one time when I tipped $.02... We ordered our drinks, waited 15 minutes before getting them. Waited another 20 minutes before we pulled the manager to order our food, and after being served didn't see our waiter until the check. Had to wait an extra 15 minutes for him to pick it up, considered just walking out. I haven't been back to that restaurant since.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203750404577173243494465660.html Tried to remove all the embedded crap, WSJ might read easier.

It's not censorship if you don't have the right to put it up. edit:right as in IP... content you own. That's understandable (in reference to you being a developer/inventor), except these bills are already problematic. Enter the curious case of Dajaz1, which is the exact problem I'm worried about. Seizing a website without due process is a problem I don't want to become commonplace. Despite the fact Megaupload's takedown was the result of law enforcement agencies working together for months, there has still been no due process that I'm aware of requiring it's takedown. As for your concerns regarding SOPA, I'll bite. Be a bit more specific on this. I'm curious as to what you think is causing SOPA to become a potential piece of legislation. I'll just say this much though: There's a ton of lobbying regarding SOPA, and they're sending tons of cash to these legislators to try to fast-track a bill like this. I've read the entire bill. It won't even solve the problem it's setting out to solve, and it sets a horrible precedent in addition to being too broad. I could go on for HOURS ON END explaining why this bill is wrong in almost every way imaginable, it's that horribly written. I do think IP protection and copyright protection is fine, it's just that there needs to be some changes, because the current way isn't working as well as it could. For one, make the expiration on a trademark/copyright before it becomes public domain shorter. Seventy+ years after the death of an author/designer/developer of a work is a tad extreme. This is also random rambling, so disregard it unless you have something to say regarding it. I'm all in favor of "comprehensive" legislation, so long as it is "comprehensive" and not just another boondoggle add on. Comprehensive would mean, "hey look-it, we've got more than 70,000 pages of laws on the books. If we can write something solid to cover everything in under 1,000, and throw the other 69,000 out," I'm all ears. I prefer to keep intellectual property as a civil matter. If the feds decide to prosecute you for copyright infringement and you end up being fined $250,000, a large portion of that money better be going to the copyright owner and not Uncle Sam. The biggest problem here is that for international cases like this, I can't sue a guy in New Zealand, so the Federal Government does have a right to step in and enforce my rights as determined in trade agreements, etc.

It's not censorship if you don't have the right to put it up. edit:right as in IP... content you own.

Back in my day, we bought albums instead of singles.

I wish everyone would grow up, on all sides. Was talking to a friend irl about this, he was ticked off that megaupload was taken down. He said that they were equivalent to youtube in terms of what they did, and they were blameless because they had a policy against uploading other people's copy-written materials, same as youtube. He also said that they "regularly took things down that violated their policy," and that he's "found dead links all the time" to those things. He got mad at me when I pointed out that he was using it to pirate media, and said it wasn't about him, it was about how they could be taken down when "other's uploaded it and violated their policy," and "they're blameless." Orly. This all boils down to copy-write and intellectual property. As a software developer, I like getting paid for my work. As an inventor, I like getting a 20 year monopoly on my ideas for teaching the world how to do something completely new. However, I don't think any government should actively seek to find small time copy-write violators (it oversteps the whole "need a warrant" and right to privacy). I don't think people or corporations should be allowed to sue for disproportionate amounts of "lost revenue." A $1 song illegally downloaded isn't worth $10,000. Having said that, as consumers it is our moral responsibility to not break the law or illegally upload stuff that isn't ours. We're not off the hook for taking things that aren't ours. The argument against SOPA and other similar legislation is completely illegitimate if the ones [bleep]ing the loudest are the reason the law is going into place. Don't like SOPA? Quit giving them a reason to enact it.

Made cookies. They're like so good. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-mint-cookies-i/detail.aspx

That isn't each day, that is each week. I would assume the banning of RWT-ers or other abusers. Or purging the hiscores of inactive users.

Looks like Magebank decided to train some skills? Need to replace him with P H A T or Mr 9

Back in my day, BSOD meant something.

Back in my day gasoline didn't contain ethanol.

Back in my day, people sold "massages" on craigslist.

Back in my day, the speed limit on interstates was 65 mph.

The Republican base is made up of two main wings - The Tea Party, whose main ideology is to be small government and fiscally conservative, and the Evangelical Christians, whose main ideology is to be socially conservative. A mainstream/establishment Republican usually has a hodgepodge of those two beliefs (usually the small government is the first to go). [hide=Romney]The group with the biggest problem with Romney are the Evangelical Christians. They don't like Romney because he was too moderate on issues like abortion and gun control. They're the ones "seeking" someone else. The Tea Party has a big problem with RomneyCare, tax increases in Massachusetts, along with supporting Gun Control. To Romney's defense, he was the governor of the super liberal Massachusetts. His legislature was 90% democrat. Even if he wanted to be conservative, the legislature would've overturned him on anything he veto'd. Mainstream Republicans tend not to have any problem with Romney.[/hide] [hide=Santorum]Right now, Santorum's biggest problem is that he doesn't have a very big establishment behind him. Until about two weeks ago, he polled about 1% nationally. Nobody knew who the heck he is, and many still don't. Of the three corners of the Republican party, the two groups that aren't behind him are the Tea Party and the establishment. The Tea Party's biggest problem with Santorum is that his history indicates that he doesn't support a strong border. The establishment doesn't think Santorum appears presidential, but otherwise wouldn't have much of a problem with his policies. [/hide] [hide=Gingrich]Gingrich's biggest problem is with the Tea Party. He appears to be a Washington insider, having "not-lobbied" Congress for ten years after he left Congress. The only thing more damning for him for appearing to be an insider is his global warming commercial he made with Nancy Pelosi. Gingrich's second biggest problem is with the establishment Republicans. When he was voted out of his position as Speaker of the House, he burned too many bridges. Also, for all groups, there were absolutely no Republicans that appreciated when Gingrich called Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare reform plan "right-wing social engineering". [/hide] I honestly don't think there are any more serious contenders for Republican Nominee. Ron Paul might appeal to the die-hard tea partier and libertarians everywhere, along with liberals, but his positions on foreign policy (what the Commander in Chief has most control over) alienate the establishment Republicans, while his positions on social issues (the ones that get so much support from college aged liberals everywhere) alienate the Evangelicals. My best guess is that very soon it'll be Santorum versus Romney. As the "not Romney" candidates begin pulling out of the race, they'll be able to rally behind just one. Regardless, as "weak" as the Republican field appears to be right now, once Republicans have their candidate they will rally behind them. The best thing that can happen is a very long, drawn out race, with focus pointed squarely on Obama. That way Obama will be put between a rock and a hard place - tons of focus on his failings as president, while not being able to attack any primary contender for fear of losing his Presidential look.

I agree. MLP sucks. :twss:

Back in my day, there were public phones that you put coins in to make a call.

Back in my day, a 40 gigabyte hard drive was huge.

There were nine planets. Post things here and bookmark this so you'll remember them when you get Alzheimer's disease.

I think most of them quit, to be honest. Don't ask me how I know, but traffic to certain parts of tip.it's website plummeted after the nuke.

Looking at Magebank's profile, and it looks like JaGEx purged the hiscores. He gained 52k ranks today.

To everyone that hates the tea party but loves the intellectual grandfather of the tea party Ron Paul... #-o Actually, no, I understand it. If you had to pick any GOP candidate, you choose the one that's for the decriminalization of drugs, an isolationist policy, and a hands off approach to everything not specifically mentioned in the Constitution (i.e. abortion). But when you're faced between Ron Paul, who aligns with your views only because his principles mandate complete social freedom and limited federal government, and another (generic Democrat) who completely aligns with your views (food, medicine and money for everyone, complete social freedom, super regulated "markets" because corporations are evil), well let's be honest. You'd pick the latter because you're a progressive liberal at heart and not a conservative libertarian. The people that Ron Paul appeal to in a primary are not the same ones that would vote for him in a general election.

Yeah, when the Junior Senator from Illinois beat out Heavyweight Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nominee for 2008 and then went on to win the Presidency, I was a bit disheartened too. How can someone who's only accomplishment is running for office become President of the United States? Don't worry, all will be right within a year.

Yep, basically. :mrgreen: