little_old_man

So right you are. It's called Planned Obsolescence, it's the norm in our world today. Some examples are: Printer Ink cartridges Video Games (Call of Duty 1-2-3-4-5) Text Books Clothing Software (MS and Apple Operating Systems are great examples) Cars Every cell phone on the market today Even light bulbs. The old light bulbs were cheap, but they could have been made to run forever. But where's the money in that? There is a fire station in San Francisco with a single light bulb that has been turned on for over 100 years. Henry Ford had the right idea with his first cars. They quite literally ran forever and there are still thousands of them running today with the original engines nearly 100 years after they were made. Of course if all cars were like that nobody would buy new ones, which is why we have Planned Obsolescence in the first place.

It is amazing Johnny. I think the age of the new car is slowly coming to an end. A new car is about the only large investment a person can make that quickly loses value and is practicaly worthless after a few years. When I was a kid growing up in the 60's a middle class home in the US could easily be bought for under $20,000, and it greatly increased in value. Now a decent car or pick-up truck costs around $50,000 and in 10 years it will be worth about %20 of what you originally paid for it. Until about 2005 I bought a brand new truck or car every 3 years. My last new truck (2005 Ford Expedition) is still in my driveway and I've hated it practically since the day I bought it for almost $60,000. The quality of the materials is so poor and the cost of maintenance so high, I simply refuse to pay it any longer. As soon as I can afford it I'm going to buy a completely rebuilt Chevy K5 blazer from between 1970 and 1975. I love the style, i can buy one totally refurbished for under $20,000, and I can do all of the maintenance myself. There are no computers on it to go bad and they run forever.

I actually knew more of these than I'd care to admit. I dated a British gal when I was in my 20's.

I love the idea, but after the last tournament fell apart from lack of interest I don't know that we could get enough players to commit to time slots and actually play the games. I play the IAF server when there isn't anybody on our servers, and I can tell you from first hand experience that some of those guys are really good, I mean scary good. I can usually rank in the top 5 on most maps but a few of their players make Viprz look like an amateur, and he wins about every map he plays on our servers. They also don't play any straight DM maps. It's all teams (with TDM, HQ, CTF) and the weapons mod they use is slightly different than ours. Less ammo and you usually have to sight in an opponent to kill them regardless of the weapon. Some maps also don't allow camping, and you will self destruct if you sit in one spot too long. I still like playing there though. It's nice playing on a full server which their server is a lot of the time. Something we should consider looking into in an effort to increase traffic on our servers. They're doing something right. The biggest drawback to IAF is they don't talk on mic at all, and they don't allow any foul language (typed or spoken), which just fucking pisses me off to no mother fucking end. :-) I've tried to play Christian Snipers, but there is no running at all and the slow pace of the game (with horrible weapons) just drives me crazy. I've never played Outlaw servers before but since I see a lot of them playing on IAF and our servers, they probably don't have anything special.

Saw this on the news last night. What an amazing cat. You don't normally think of cats as being protective of their family or home but they are. Last year on a hot day we opened an upstairs window that didn't have a screen. A neighbors cat came in through the window and our cat went into action. As the neighbors cat was trying to escape out of the window, my cat leaped up and sunk her claws into the back leg of the other cat, and dragged it back into our house and then just beat the shit out of it. Last week our cat protected her territory again and chased a 40 pound racoon out of our yard. This racoon could have easily killed our cat but she never backed down and went on the attack and won. She also doesn't take any shit from my two labs.

Before he passed away last year at age 16, my yellow lab Ozzy had what you're describing. I thought he was having a stroke when I first saw him. Our vet called it idiopathic vestibular disease, and we were told that most dogs fully recover from it, although our dog did have a slight head tilt for the rest of his life. I suspect your dog will be much better in a couple days and hopefully won't have any long lasting problems.

Actually eidolon, LiDAR detectors aren't just less effective they're completely useless regardless of what Wiki says about them. When a cop with LiDAR is sighting you in through the scope, the unit isn't emitting anything a detector can pick up on. He is basically looking through a gun scope and chooses the vehicle he wants to clock which takes less than a second. Once he pulls the trigger (the point at which your detector warns you) he has your speed and distance on his screen in a fraction of a second. By the time your detector warns you, there really isn't anything you can do because he already has your speed. It's kind of like hearing a gun shot and then trying to get out of the way before the bullet hits you. It's a natural reaction but there's no possible way to avoid it. When a LiDAR detector goes off in an attempt to warn you, rather than an alarm it should just have a voice say "pull over, you're fucked".

They're pretty useless here in California. The cops here use the new laser guns. I pass cops all the time sitting outside of their cars pointing them at vehicles a mile or more up the road. They can bouce a laser beam off a specific car in a large group of cars and point it at any part of your vehicle to know how fast you're going long before you realize they are there. Unless their tiny laser beam happens to hit your detector there just isn't any way it could work to warn you.

Here is a group of us gaming a few weeks ago. That reminds me of a girlfriend I had many years ago. She had a tattoo of a seashell on her inner thigh. When you put your ear up to it, you could smell the ocean.

Sure I'll try it. So how do I play on my phone?

Well done Baldie. I'm sure that you did a much better job than the maintenance crew would have done, and it looks great.

Nice fish! Did you keep it or hook and release?

Painsponge has always told me he orders his favorite food from the UK. He just can't get enough Spotted Dick.

Happy belated birthday Mule. Just curious, how many happy birthday posts have you started for other XI members in all the years you've been here? I couldn't find a single one started by you. Just sayin.

Thanks Greg. Happy day to you too you mutha.

You Rock...........man.

Congratulations!

Make it a great one SOB.

Congratulations Rockape. Well deserved and way overdue.

If it seems to good to be true it probably always is.

What a waste. I really like a nice set of meat curtains.

Happy birthday Nick!

Congratulations eidolonFIRE! Now the great experiment begins, to see if that expensive education helps you land a great job. I envy you and the part of life you're about to embark upon. Enjoy it while you can because before you know it, you'll be middle-aged and calling young kids hackers while they kick your ass online.

Happy birthday Idoz. Hope you have a great one.

Bob Munden was great at what he did, but he was a real arrogant douche bag.