Fail Quotes

[Lord T Hawkeye]

The last one I had to slough off was the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Did Penn and Teller kill that house of cards for you?

They killed a lot of my pet beliefs and I can't love them enough for it.

[MrBogosity]

No, it was years before then, but it was the same kind of stuff.

They did pretty much kill recycling for me. Although I still do it.

[Ibrahim90]

Did Penn and Teller kill that house of cards for you?

They killed a lot of my pet beliefs and I can't love them enough for it.

those two certainly killed off, or at least finished off a few of my old notions: Gun control was the most memorable. recycling I figured out independently, as I did with environmentalism.

Frankly though, my current leanings are relatively recent-since c. 2008-09. It started, humorously enough (since normally it would put my peers off politics), by watching the 2008 republican debates-Ron Paul struck me as very counter intuitive, yet making sense. but I wasn't to really change my leanings till I watched Shane's videos. afterwards the pieces fell together.

[Goaticus]

I could do the same thing: I used to be a left-liberal, I used to be a Methodist Christian. But I don't. 'Cause first off, who cares? Second, it doesn't have anything to do with the arguments I present.

I guess when arguing with a creationist I could argue I used to be functionally illiterate and didn't know anything about science. They don't have to know it was when I was 2 years old.

[Goaticus]

Not so much a fail quote as a fail action. If I had something go viral on the internet I'd be happy, just not this happy.

http://reason.com/blog/2012/03/16/is-jason-russells-hysterical-naked-madne

[Travis Retriever]

This one's inspired by my 50 KB/s to 85 KB/s (that's not what it's rated.  It's what I've measured consistently to be) internet connection:

"When Bell Labs had a monopoly; they had tons more money to put into research!  That's how they invented the integrated circuit, among other innovations." -- My former Physics Professor at my previous college

[MrBogosity]

Actually, TI invented the IC. Double fail!

[Travis Retriever]

To be fair, I was paraphrasing; it's possible he said something else (maybe it was the transistor?).  But either way, it's still a huge fail.

While I may not know much about history, I *do* know how govco gives monopoly status:  by legally prohibiting competition.  So if they *did* make any strides in tech, it was because everyone else was legally prohibited from doing so; not because govco monopolies are exceptions to basic laws of economics.

Brought up because he would probably think internet monopolies given to local ISPs--that result in vastly slower connections, among other issues especially for those living in the damn boonies like me--are a good thing.

I've been trying to download Skyrim after legally buying it off of steam; along with a player's guide (they came as a package deal: $12 off) since last night.  It's a 5,737.4 MB (5.60 GB) file.  By the speed of my connection given above, it will take about 19-24+ hours to download.  I only have about 7 days off for Spring break.
Son of a bitch.

Never-mind that when I restarted my computer, I lost about 10% of my progress (2-3+ hours).

[AnCap Dave]

"If you don't know how God works, why deny his existence?"

A friend of mine that I went to high school with....

[MrBogosity]

While I may not know much about history, I *do* know how govco gives monopoly status:  by legally prohibiting competition.  So if they *did* make any strides in tech, it was because everyone else was legally prohibited from doing so; not because govco monopolies are exceptions to basic laws of economics.

Yes, and with competition we might have had the (whatever he's talking about) sooner PLUS who knows how many other innovations?

Here's the analogy I use: the Smithsonian was working on an airplane at the same time as the Wright Brothers (and had spent a LOT more money on it than they did). If GovCo had given the Smithsonian a monopoly on this, they would have invented it eventually, and people would be saying, "See? We need government because we wouldn't have airplanes without it!" Since they didn't give themselves a monopoly, we know that's bogus.

Never-mind that when I restarted my computer, I lost about 10% of my progress (2-3+ hours).

Wow, not even resumable? Unacceptable in this day and age. And they wonder why people resort to torrents.

[Travis Retriever]

Wow, not even resumable? Unacceptable in this day and age. And they wonder why people resort to torrents.

It's supposed to be.  But it was around 51% when I closed down Steam and restarted my computer.  It went down to 41% when I resumed...wtf?

And yes, BitTorrent is the fucking bomb.  For one, it doesn't pull that loss of progress shit; and for two it's faster.  My connection speed can normally handle around 88 KB/s when nobody else is using it (like right now).  Steam?  It's around 65 KB/s.  Again, I can see why you praised that protocol so much.  Because it's fucking win; no matter the stooges at the MPAA, etc, say.

[MrBogosity]

It's great when places like LibreOffice, Linux distributions, etc. use it, 'cause the downloads are lightning fast and it saves them bandwidth to boot. It's unfair that it's become associated with piracy, because it really is so much more. There's even a streaming version of the protocol!

[Ibrahim90]

It's supposed to be.  But it was around 51% when I closed down Steam and restarted my computer.  It went down to 41% when I resumed...wtf?

And yes, BitTorrent is the fucking bomb.  For one, it doesn't pull that loss of progress shit; and for two it's faster.  My connection speed can normally handle around 88 KB/s when nobody else is using it (like right now).  Steam?  It's around 65 KB/s.  Again, I can see why you praised that protocol so much.  Because it's fucking win; no matter the stooges at the MPAA, etc, say.

tell me about it: I use to use bit-torrent a lot. That is, until the government deemed it criminal to even download a patch of a game I already owned, and very nearly fined me a few thousand dollars for the trouble. the only reason I was acquitted was because they found the game's CD in the laptop's CD port: I had left it there by accident. even then, they so botched my computer up, that it died 3 weeks later*-4500$ worth of damages: I lost not only the laptop, but two very expensive modelling and graphics software (the license keys were in a file that got corrupted), as well as several games and other programs I cannot run on the new computers (the laptop was an XP). and unsurprisingly, I had/have no ability to sue them, or do anything else, save to get a shitty windows 7 computer.

in case you were wondering how they even knew I was using bit-torrent: The university--being the cunts that they are--force us to install "safeconnect" on our PC's.


*they not only knocked out my ability to access the internet, but also my antivirus security: by the time I was able to get my hands back on the computer, a replicating virus had created 2-300 copies of itself all over my hardrive: did I mention that, suspiciously, the virus somehow originated from where the folder the game they tried to fine me for was?

PS: and in an ironic postscript, I ended up pirating the above programs: without a license key, or the ability to retrieve it (new computer=less money), I had no other choice but to attempt to get the two programs back-whatever the means. got the modelling one back, but not the graphics one.

[Ibrahim90]

apparently, I have to question whether some people can tie their shoes in the morning:

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[evensgrey]

To be fair, I was paraphrasing; it's possible he said something else (maybe it was the transistor?).  But either way, it's still a huge fail.

Bell Labs did invent (one form of) the transistor, IIRC.  They then proceeded to do absolutely nothing with it.  They knew that it would allow them to build their telephone switching equipment to be smaller, cheaper, and more efficient.  They just didn't care, since as a government-imposed monopoly the size, cost, and efficiency of their equipment didn't matter to them.  (Interestingly, the first generation of transistors wasn't more reliable than tubes, and might have been less than the electromechanical Strowger switches the phone companies were using at the time.  It took private industry, in the form of Fairchild Semiconductor, to make reliable transistors.  Fairchild was notable for, among other things, refusing to take the easy money of government contracts that would have meant the loss of control of its' technology and research direction, something many other technology companies of the time were very happy to do.  They also made a number of key innovations that helped lead to the development of integrated circuits.  Who you'd actually say built the first one is an interesting and complex topic.  There's a panel discussion involving many people involved on the ComputerHistory channel on YouTube.)