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Thread: Radar: Best Week to come to Vegas?

  1. #14
    Clown
    Guest

    Clown: political correctness gone mad

    What would happen if a Jewish or Moslem store was asked not to play religious tunes over their PA? There would be (fair) accusations of religious persecution. I say, celebrate everything, and don't worry about offending anyone.

    What this has to do with Blackjack I am not sure, but it's a welcome diversion.

    > I never understood why it would be
    > insensitive to the religious minorities to
    > play the Christmas songs about Jesus .. on
    > Christmas.

    > It's still Christmas .. the celebrated
    > birthday of .. Christ.

  2. #15
    Clown
    Guest

    Clown: Re: Traditional vs religious-themed

    "Happy Holidays"... sheesh... how about just go all the way and wish your friends, "platitudes of the season"?

  3. #16
    Sun Runner
    Guest

    Sun Runner: Re: Traditional vs religious-themed

    > .. It also why we are
    > all encouraged to wish each other
    > "Happy Holidays" instead of
    > "Merry Christmas".

    Who is encouraging that?

  4. #17
    bigplayer
    Guest

    bigplayer: Christmas is a combination of Holidays

    Christians piggybacked the celebration of Christs birth onto the pre-Christian weeklong celebration of the start of Winter (Winter Solstace on 12/21). The state celebration of Christmas as a holiday has NOTHING to do with Jesus. For most of the history of the U.S. and in many states the Christmas holiday was illegal. (Particularly in New England).

    I have no problem with the decision of a business or private entity (The Fremont Street Experience) to choose the secular celebration of Christmas (as a Winter Festival) and leave the religious meanings of Christmas to the church and people's private homes. In fact, I prefer not to hear "Silent Night" or "O Come all ye Faithful" while I'm plunking away at the Blackjack table or getting a lap dance.

  5. #18
    Sun Runner
    Guest

    Sun Runner: Re: Christmas is a combination of Holidays

    > Christians piggybacked the celebration of
    > Christs birth onto the pre-Christian
    > weeklong celebration of the start of Winter
    > (Winter Solstace on 12/21).

    True enough, but your statement seems to say this act of piracy began sometime last year! In fact the Christian church did begin using that holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ around 300 AD and by 450 AD it was pretty much observed worldwide.

    I can't speak for how things were done pre-450 AD; but in the last 1500 years, in the country I live in, in my lifetime, Christmas has been about celebrating the birth of Christ.

    > The state
    > celebration of Christmas as a holiday has
    > NOTHING to do with Jesus. For most of the
    > history of the U.S. and in many states the
    > Christmas holiday was illegal. (Particularly
    > in New England).

    Again true enough, but for reasons that aren't as they seem.

    As I said Christmas -as the birth of Christ -had been in full swing since about 450 AD. During the reformation (1600s), and primarily in England as you point out, the act of celebrating Christmas did become 'illegal' NOT because the people wanted to distance themselves from celebrating Christ's birth, far from it. They felt Christmas had become to secular, to pagan, to properly celebrate the birth of Christ.

    But, pagans that we are, we managed to revive the connection

    > I have no problem with the decision of a
    > business or private entity (The Fremont
    > Street Experience) to choose the secular
    > celebration of Christmas (as a Winter
    > Festival) and leave the religious meanings
    > of Christmas to the church and people's
    > private homes.

    And neither do I.

    While I agree that the celebrations of Christ's birth are more meaningful in church or at home, frankly, I find it very small minded of the few that gritch about hearing a song containing the name of Christ or a picture or symbol bearing His likeness either played or seen in public during this time of year.

    > In fact, I prefer not to hear
    > "Silent Night" or "O Come all
    > ye Faithful" while I'm ... getting a lap dance.

    Certainly understandable. And that is probably why you won't.

  6. #19
    ausgmblr
    Guest

    ausgmblr: Re: Best Week to come to Vegas?

    Vegas' busiest day of the y. is valentines day. Second For my many years of going I have always done my own scheduling. Use airline.com and get discount air-fare, special, $99 flights.
    Travel Mon-thur best fares. Pull-up the casino's look for specials, if not a club card member join on arrival get room comped 1 or 2 nights at least before you check out. If you use a Tour package you can't get rooms compend. Week in Dec I don't think will make any diference.

  7. #20
    The Phantom
    Guest

    The Phantom: Warning About Travelaxe.com

    After the prior post I installed travelaxe from travelaxe.com

    The next day the PC was running very slowly. While actually using travelaxe, the pc slowed down markedly -- about the decrease in speed you'd get if you were doing some heaving printing. But such slowdowns usually indicate something is wrong, Trojan Horse, virus, malware.

    Further, while actually using travelaxe online, it appeared that its program caused the PC to power its search rather than having the travel search powered by its own online server.

    Finally, I used No-Adware to take a look. Travelaxe had installed TechTwain, dangerous malware, into the PC's registry. (Of course, I then fixed it, first by removing Travelaxe entirely, and then by running Spybot and several different anti-virus/anti-malware programs.)

    In short, better avoid travelaxe.com

    There is, however, a good alternative which is sidestep.com, certified spyware/malware free, and which I have used in the past year several times with happy results, quick results, and no spyware/malware. Downloading their small 102K file for connectivity is safe.

  8. #21
    Parker
    Guest

    Parker: Not true

    Travelaxe was developed by an advantage player who also happens to be a personal friend. It is true that the search originates from your computer. However, it is not particularly resource-intensive.

    I e-mailed the developer and, within minutes, received the following response:

    Hi Parker,

    Of course Travelaxe does not install any kind of spyware! We have over
    220,000 users now, and this is the 1st time anyone has accused us of this.
    Clearly he had this on his system already from something else, but feels he
    must blame it on us.

    He is correct in that the Travelaxe does the searching from his machine,
    otherwise we would need to create a massive multi-million dollar server
    infrastructure, something we couldn't do and keep Travelaxe a free service.

    Feel free to have this person contact me directly. I guarantee Travelaxe is
    completely free of spyware, adware or any other malicious thing. Have him
    look at my background of developing NCSA Mosaic in the early days of the
    Web.

    http://www.travelaxe.com/NewSite/Help_About.asp

    -Carl Samos
    President and CEO
    Travelaxe, Inc.

  9. #22
    Carl Samos
    Guest

    Carl Samos: Re: Warning About Travelaxe.com

    As a fellow advantage player and privacy/security fanatic, I guarantee that Travelaxe is absolutely free of spyware, adware or any other malicious software code. I should know, as I developed it from the ground up, as a program to use for myself to find rooms in Las Vegas. The system has grown over the past few years to where it is now through our 220,000+ users using it to find and book rooms.

    The spyware/adware on your computer came from some other source, not from Travelaxe. I would never put my business in jeopardy by including spyware or adware in Travelaxe.

    You are correct in that Travelaxe does use your computer to run the searches, otherwise we would need to build a massive, multi-million dollar server infrastructure to host the searches, and it wouldn't be nearly as efficient or powerful as it is today as a distributed system. You can actually lower the number of simultaneous searches being performed through the Options-Network Connections menu, if you have a limited amount of RAM or bandwidth.

    Regarding Sidestep, sure it's an alternative, but not nearly as good frankly. It doesn't show a side-by-side comparison of hotel results like Travelaxe, and Travelaxe provides far more pricing options than Sidestep does for hotels, as well as better features for filtering results, maps, etc.

    Feel free to contact me directly, as I rarely read this group these days.

    -Carl

    > After the prior post I installed travelaxe
    > from travelaxe.com

    > The next day the PC was running very slowly.
    > While actually using travelaxe, the pc
    > slowed down markedly -- about the decrease
    > in speed you'd get if you were doing some
    > heaving printing. But such slowdowns usually
    > indicate something is wrong, Trojan Horse,
    > virus, malware.

    > Further, while actually using travelaxe
    > online, it appeared that its program caused
    > the PC to power its search rather than
    > having the travel search powered by its own
    > online server.

    > Finally, I used No-Adware to take a look.
    > Travelaxe had installed TechTwain, dangerous
    > malware, into the PC's registry. (Of course,
    > I then fixed it, first by removing Travelaxe
    > entirely, and then by running Spybot and
    > several different anti-virus/anti-malware
    > programs.)

    > In short, better avoid travelaxe.com

    > There is, however, a good alternative which
    > is sidestep.com, certified spyware/malware
    > free, and which I have used in the past year
    > several times with happy results, quick
    > results, and no spyware/malware. Downloading
    > their small 102K file for connectivity is
    > safe.

  10. #23
    The Phantom
    Guest

    The Phantom: Maybe Not

    I can only relate what happened on my PC.

    The attribution of spyware as a result of use of travelaxe may have been an error of post hoc ergo proster hoc. [A fault of logic, assuming that one event in time followed by another event is necessarily caused by the first event.] That is, it could have been a coincidence caused by something else online, I certainly admit.

    I wish your friend and his company only the best.

  11. #24
    The Phantom
    Guest

    The Phantom: Re: Warning About Travelaxe.com

    >The spyware/adware on your computer came from some other source, not from Travelaxe<

    If you say so I believe it.

    It takes great effort to develop software as you did. I'm sorry it didn't work out for me; but obviously you do have 220,000+ other fans.
    I was just sharing my own one experience; sorry.

  12. #25
    Viktor Nacht
    Guest

    Viktor Nacht: It's also possible...

    that someone poison the installer. It's no uncommon for fake "shareware" sites to take existing downloads and alter the installer to include spyware.

    That may not be the case here, but it's a consideration.

    Good Bits,

    V

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