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Comment Re:This is pretty much what I've been telling peop (Score 1) 973

>In Europe we continued trying to wipe each other out and it caused a lot of technological improvements. IIRC, During a World's Fair in 19th century London an attendee said to Hiram Maxim, "Want to make a fortune? Invent something to let these Europeans cut each other's throats with greater efficiency." and then started on a path to develop the first true machine gun. Gatlings were well known, but not a true automatic weapon, since each shot was actually tripped off by the manual operation of a crank. In fact, the ATF treats Gatling guns as semi-automatic.

Comment Two complete sets, on me at all times (Score 1) 763

Sounds silly, but once a parking valet couldn't find my car key... I would have been stuck 35 miles from home if I didn't have my spare car key. Also once shoved a set of keys into my pocket, but not deeply enough. They promptly fell out into the snow - silently, stealthily. It didn't occur to me that this happened, I thought that I had perhaps left them somewhere. Panicked for a moment, then used my backup set of car and housekeys. Found the "lost" set as soon as the snow melted away.

Comment I was bullied constantly until... (Score 5, Interesting) 938

Years of pent-up anger boiled over. My high school tormentor was sitting across a cafeteria table from me. I decided right then and there,that I was going to strike back, as brutally and spectacularly as possible. I used the attached round stool as a launching pad and dove into him, knocking both of us to the ground. I rose immediately, punching him in the hard part of the side of the head - hard enough to indent my middle knuckle to the point that it's now level with the rest of the other knuckles. He was humiliated, I was vindicated (and suffered very mild punishment), and the BULLYING STOPPED FOR GOOD because the 1200+ other students in that school learned through the usual grapevine that I FOUGHT BACK.

Comment A couple of points... (Score 1) 410

1. Perhaps "NSA" was supposed to be "NFA" - National Firearms Act? Which classifies certain types of weapons as "destructive" and regulates their use/possession. 2. I've been to the Knob Creek Machinegun Shoot twice, and on each occasion, a fellow there brought a Civil War cannon, a rather large muzzleloader he fired about once every 20 - 45 minutes or so.

Comment Interesting attitude on here... (Score 1) 587

Sometimes I wonder about some of the other folks that post replies on here. The attitude toward low-level retail and service industry people is almost staggeringly contemptuous. Here are some gems I pulled from other posts: "Salesdroid" in reference to a CC employee not knowing about IDE ---> SATA adapters "a crappy burger spanked together by surly wage slaves" in a parallel drawn by the reply-poster, who used a food analogy to compare a premium and a generic retail experience. Another one I recall reading (but can't find again) made a scornful reference to the folks that spend hours standing by a busy road, holding up liquidation signs announcing an ongoing store liquidation. OK, so... other than a frisson of "ha, I am smarter and make far more money than these people" what exactly is this accomplishing for you?

Comment Re:Don't forget where that money comes from, thoug (Score 1) 453

I come across some systems that are mildly infected - I can clean them up using manual removal methods, and several different legitimately free apps like ad-aware, spybot, etc. When they are simply just over-clogged, or unstable after malware removal, I do reach for the reinstall. Sorry, but I have up to eight client stops in a day... and if I spend that sort of time, potentially many hours, on one machine, I won't make anything. Why? Because I simply won't charge for every single hour I spend on such a situation. I hear all of the time of techs charging far more than I do, and having no compunction about charging far more than the cost of a new PC for the work! I'd rather recognize when a machine is simply overwhelmed, cut my time losses, back up all of the data, reinstall Windows, repopulate data. The client gets a clean machine, free of malware and "winrot" and I get to stay on schedule, as well as charging a middle ground price that is fair to both the client and myself.

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