Domain: about.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to about.com.
Comments · 4,151
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Re:Your papers, please.First, what do bin Laden his cohorts ultimately want? What is the ultimate intent? A pan-Arab Caliphate. To unite the entire Arab world under one Islamic theocracy. That is bin Laden's utopia, that is his perfect answer that will supposed solve all the problems he sees of the world. bin Laden fundamentally doesn't give a shit about the Western World, he's perfectly happy for the rest of us to (figuratively and literally) go to hell.
Not quite. If you read Bin Laden's first demand in his Letter to America, you will see that his first demand that we must meet for Al Qaeda to stop trying to kill us is:(Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.
i.e., that we convert to Islam
He follows up with demands that we implement Islamic law and morality (Sharia), scrap our Constitution, and end the separation of church and state.
He doesn't "hate our freedoms", he hates us for stabilizing the Mideast and for working to keep Arab governments from collapsing in chaos, because he has the notion that such collapses and chaos would lead to an Islamic Utopia.
No, he really does hate our freedoms, most of which he views as either immoral, or enabling immorality.
bin Laden miscalculated in that 9/11 was so insanely obscene that the entire world - and even the overall Arab/Muslim public opinion - supported the invasion of Afghanistan. It didn't create the Arab outrage, uprising, and general population army that bin Laden hoped to create. We had effectively WON the War On Terror at that point. bin Laden's organization was destroyed, the Taliban was struck down, and the general Arab public opinion was to reject such terrorist tactics and was to oppose and turn in terrorist groups.
Hardly. Large percentages of the Arab and Muslim street backed Bin Laden's attacks (remember this?), neither the Taliban nor Al Qaeda was destroyed, but were badly damaged, and the War on Terror was just beginning at that point. There were far too many trained terrorists from the camps in Afghanistan running around the world, and there was far too much support for them.
The rest of your history is off as well. It is only seeing the results of Al Qaeda attacks in Iraq that has really eaten into support for Al Qaeda, and yes, Saddam's Iraq was harboring Al Qaeda members.
Bush and mostly the Republican party did organize into an abusive iron fisted domestic rule, cracking down on political dissent and cracking down on civil liberties and provoking substantial unrest and even hatred against that government.
Well, maybe some day soon we will be able to free the millions of Democrats and "Progressives" that were rounded up and jailed for their political views, get them back the jobs they lost due to "dissent", reopen the newspapers that were closed for anti-Bush editorials, and the book companies closed for even trying to print anti-Bush books (which are "impossible to find"), and .... oh, thats right... none of that never happened. Never mind.
Bush (and his entire administration) has a simplistic cartoon image of the enemy.
Thank goodness most people are more "sophisticated". -
Re:thirded...
The article states that Mormon sponsored troops make up only 11% of Boy Scouts.
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Re:Everybody hates a truck until...
My '04 Dodge Durango does just fine at all of that stuff, and carries my family of six. With a 5.7L hemi V8, it has a 10,000 lb towing capacity, and I regularly tow a 4000-lb. boat or a 7000-lb. camp trailer. It also does just fine off-road, especially with a little lift and larger-than-stock tires. Of course, it's a little more top-heavy than a pickup truck, so I can't take it across inclines that are quite as steep as I could a truck, but a pickup couldn't seat six people comfortably -- or seven people at all -- while doing all of this stuff.
You're full of shit. According to this link, your precious 5.7L hemi V8 only gets 13 mpg city, 18 mpg highway.
It also gets 24 mpg on the highway when I'm not towing. I considered buying a minivan a few years ago, but most of them only got 27.
Thanks for contributing to global warming by towing your huge boat, water skiing, and generally being a fucking tool that doesn't appreciate the impact your energy (ab)use has on the rest of the world. -
That's not what's being doneOrdinary hashes are how this sort of thing is being done at present:
http://foia.fbi.gov/cvip.htm 1. Hash values are of files in the CVIP are compared to any evidence obtained by the field offices. Hash values are non-pictorial, alphanumeric values that are unique to each computer file that can serve as a "fingerprint" of a file for matching purposes and also provide security, because the original image cannot be recreated from the hash value itself. http://pcworld.about.com/news/Jan252005id119434.htm Using hash sets to hasten image comparisons is nothing new. Both the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation already maintain databases of images and hash sets. But the DOD is using newer, highly secure mathematical algorithms, such as the MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm and Secure Hash Algorithm, or "SHA-1," to create hash values that are more accurate and that will provide more reliable evidence in court cases, Zatyko said. You may be able to imagine different ways to catalog and identify these images but that's not what's being done. They're using normal file hashes and there aren't any 'fuzzy' matches to be found with the techniques being used. I don't think that the feds will change the way they're doing things any time soon, either. -
don't buy the hybrid camry
The new Camry is a TANK. It's as big as a Crown Victoria! One online review says "I stuck to local streets during my Camry Hybrid test drive and averaged 30 MPG," which is only slightly better than my non-hybrid Corolla. I suppose the hybrid Camry would be a great investment for a taxi company or somebody else who needs the trunk space, but anybody else should steer clear.
Unless your demand is otherwise, smaller is still better. Don't get fooled by the "hybrid" marketing game - compare the hybrid's MPG to a smaller car. If I were shopping for a car right now, I'd be looking at the hybrid Civic, the Prius, or (more likely) a 15-year-old crapper that does 30+MPG highway as a holdout for an all-electric car or plug-in hybrid (without voided warranty), which should be coming out in the next few years, e.g. Chevy Volt, AXP winner(s), 2010 Prius (maybe).
Looking at minimizing your carbon footprint, hybrids aren't even an option; the environmental cost of creating the battery is never going to offset the efficiency of a nice light-weight sedan. Wired had a nice article about this called "Don't Buy that New Prius!" a short while ago.
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No way - I wouldn't help
The Boy Scouts still discriminate against atheists and homosexuals. They're also a huge organization with no shortage of cash, and they're infiltrated by ultra-conservative Mormons and other Jesus freaks. They're just looking for something for free. Fuck 'em.
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Re:Going to be hard in most european countries.
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Re:Environmental neurotoxicity increases crime rat
I agree with your comment, but it got me thinking.
Water has a toxicity level too and can cause death by brain swelling. I'm also assuming it would be very uncomfortable to get to the point where one's ingested too much water as with fluoride.
And I believe that if one died from fluoride toxicity before dying of water toxicity, there's something else wrong.
Your comment about hydrofluoric acid in the stomach was interesting, so I looked it up. Since the stomach naturally uses hydrochloric acid in digestion, I looked up what swallowing it would do. Apparently, the same thing as hydrofluoric acid.
Large doses of things tend to harm us. Smaller doses may actually help us, directly or indirectly. Yet the alarmists aren't trying to ban water or food or electricity. Could it be that they're even willing to admit that some things have nuanced applications? -
Re:True cost of a Princeton education in the OLPC
Why should he want to "trust" someone who has already condemned an entire diverse continent with
about a billion people living there?
http://www.tolerance.org/
http://www.tolerance.org/hidden_bias/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa
A continent which Europeans have been doing a quite a job of harming for centuries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism
http://africanhistory.about.com/od/eracolonialism/Colonialism.htm
Perhaps much of the benefit of OLPC will flow the other way -- by some
of the better African ideals spreading back to Europeans.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=africa+gift+economy -
Re:Ugh...
Remember, Bill didn't "steal" MS-DOS, he bought it fair and square. Well, he purchased QDOS (the Quick and Dirty Operating System) for $50,000 from Tim Patterson, who had simply reverse-engineered Digital Research's CP/M OS and called his version QDOS, because it was quick and dirty (he claims to have coded the kernel in only six weeks).
You don't "steal" a product from someone by paying them $50,000 for the rights to re-name it and re-license it to IBM. Had Patterson been more astute, he would have gone directly to IBM and asked for a lot more money.
See the whole story in Tracy Kidder's book "The Soul of a New Machine" or read the short version at http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa033099.htm. -
Re:Courts
There is no precedent saying that an e-mailed document in digital form is.
There's an actual law instead.
This is why I don't get how this could still be an issue. Digital signatures have been LEGALLY accepted for quite a long time, and yet people are still spouting this "well, it may not be legal, so..." crap. Few technologies have been so clearly given the green light as digital signatures have been.
It's more secure, more legible, and easier to store. Using them should be a no-brainer. It pretty much just comes down to fear of change, I think. -
Re:Black and White Ice
It's 2008, why don't people know that every freaking digital camera sensor in the solar system is black and white with special filters in front? I mean, digital cameras have been around since the 1970s, so it's not like the technology is so new that people are still mystified by it, is it?
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Re:zoroastrianism still existsSorry to ruin your self-inquisition, but I didn't see the parent attacking religion. Myths are stories shared by a group, and are a part of that group's cultural identity, but so are family traditions. -from about.com.
Really when it comes down to it, the stories and traditions of your religion of choice are no different that the stories and traditions of other religions from antiquity. The faith and whatnot you feel for yours is also no different that the faith that others felt for their own.
A myth is pretty much a term referring to the NARRATIVE of the religion, as opposed to the worth of the religion. As an atheist, I have read many of the worlds religious texts, not trying to find some "true faith" in them, but for the stories they tell. The Bible is mostly a narrative, and can be seen as such. As well as being the corner stone of meaning for a billion of so people, it also is a book, with all the properties of it.
Is that offensive? How? -
Re:Great.
That's a great summary of the situation. I'd like to spread the word, but I'd like to be extremely certain about the numbers before I do so. The $200k is easy (and in fact looks a little low). 6% was easy as well, but it sounds like it's closer to 5% today. The 7 years average stay in a home is harder to find details for. Where did you find it?
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Re:Triumph or tragedy?
To answer your question.. diet and health related products and services clearly have disclaimers that results are typical, or the item isn't used to cure any disease. In other words, read the box, and you have the truth (not to mention the bottom of the commercial).
Regarding food labeling: there are VERY strict guidelines concerning what is considered low fat, organic and natural. For example, low fat means 3g or less fat per serving.
http://lowfatcooking.about.com/od/lowfatbasics/a/fatlabels.htm
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateA&navID=NationalOrganicProgram&leftNav=NationalOrganicProgram&page=NOPNationalOrganicProgramHome&acct=nop
Whereas Dell says "if you have a problem, we'll get it fixed" and then puts you on hold for HOURS. -
Re:Extreme temperatures
It sort of depends. If you're using the battery in the cold, it will discharge more quickly. If you're storing the battery, it will last longer in the cold. That's why those of us in a cold climate sometimes use a battery blanket (electric warmer) to keep the battery warm on those cold mornings. http://chemistry.about.com/od/howthingsworkfaqs/f/coldbattery.htm
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Re:Great.
WOW, it's funny how well hated Realtors are. I happen to be one with a lot of dislike for my fellow Realtors.
A lot of Realtors are really not trained correctly and only have a transaction based mentality ( nothing wrong with that but they forgot the long term part of the deal )
but here is my problem with internet Realtors, let's say I have house for sale, and one of these internet companies that send the people out without a realtor wants to see the house, no problem, I show the house to the best of my ability ( I also prequalify them to make sure that they do have the money ), and I won't tell them that the house next door is for sale that's a private sale ( see I would tell them, if their realtor was their, since life is a 2 way street and Realtors remember who's a jerk and who is not. )
The other issue is liability. Do I really want to show a house to a possible thief that is casing the area. This happens more than you think, and when you show an internet couple, you have to do a tag-team ( you and an office worker ), I've had this happen to me and I just happen to get unlucky that the place got robbed 2 days later, they caught them, but I was the unlucky realtor that it happened to.
another issue of liability: what we can and cannot say, if a realtor ask me if the area is a black/Jewish/white/catholic... area I can bitch slap him via e-mail and notices and the board, if an internet person ask, I have to say "look around yourself" ( huge can of worms if anyone says anything other than a pat answer of " look around "
Another liability : Procuring cause, I have a 10 point check list, this check list is my procuring cause check list. Some basics about it http://homebuying.about.com/od/realestateagents/qt/Procuringcause.htm When I interview clients, I use my checklist ( since 99% of them never tell me that they are using an internet based agent and this only applies to them ), internet firms might try to demand the commission, but when I produce my checklist, and if it even goes to arbitration, I have yet to have to give up anything big ( unless they informed me that they were coming from an internet firm ). this issue happened already when a rebate firm sent me an offer, I just started laughing since I knew exactly whom the couple were, what I toured them on, and my entire log file of over 28 properties that I showed them, guess what, I gave up 1/2 point as a courtesy.
Now I do deal with a few internet firms and have great respect for 1 of them, they get there 33% to 50% of the split every time without issue and they have real intelligent clients. -
Re:Let me get my tin foil hat
maybe they haven't heard of the sun
Yes they have, but they call it the day-star and it burns them.
Actually... http://allergies.about.com/od/urticariahives/a/solarurticaria.htm
Apparently they are allergic to it as well. -
Re:Hmm...when did I hear about this before?
You figured me out. Only a cat hater would waste his time trying to point out the obvious biological facts about cats and dogs to a bunch of raving psychotics.
I guess it started when I was born. A cat clawed me while I was still in a hospital incubator. Ever since, I have been sacrificing them to Satan on an hourly basis, and chucking them off of cliffs just for my sheer amusement, a trick I picked up from U.S. Marines:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2008/03/04/the-marines-puppy-throwing-video.htm
Just remember that all of my posts stem from my deep hatred for cats. I am a liar and dogs are clearly dumber than cats:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/04/eveningnews/main647343.shtml -
Re:We'll never know
I can't claim to be anything other than the same - and I'm taking the day off tomorrow to make the most of the v1.2 patch for Europa Universalis: Rome.
:-)
Regarding Reynolds, there's a good summary of modern scholarship about feudalism. Her book is exhaustive in its arguments, but for a Joe Random with a good grounding in the field, it's certainly worth reading. -
Re:If you work from home
On the topic of the "toning" myth: http://exercise.about.com/cs/weightloss/a/toning.htm
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Re:The first problem is
Anyway - one person's view can be "Religion", another "Cult" and a third it can be "Lifestyle".
Though shalt not mis-quote Lazarus!
One man's religion is another man's belly laugh.
http://atheism.about.com/library/quotes/bl_q_RHeinlein.htm -
Re:OK, I'm going to weigh in here
"Vegans have way smaller carbon footprint because they don't eat meat, nor any animal based foods."
Where food comes from has a far greater effect on its carbon footprint than the type of food. A vegan who eats fruit, nuts, and vegetables that are have to be transported over long distances will for example have a much higher carbon footprint than somebody who eats meat, eggs, etc, that are produced locally by animals that eat locally grown animal fodder.
"Animals consume way way way more food during their lifespan than what you get to eat"
Much of that food is however things we cannot eat, e.g. grass, hay (a by-product of wheat production), and various other things that they're equipped to handle, but we aren't. Some (e.g. pigs, chickens) are primarily fed on stuff that's not fit for human consumption, and would therefore be thrown away, to become food for colonies of bacteria that produce heat, methane, and CO2 without benefiting us in any way.
"What are they really good producing, constantly?"
The same stuff that the rotting plant matter would be producing if it wasn't consumed by animals whose stomachs contain bacteria which are similar to those that produce methane when breaking down dead plants outside the stomachs of animals. This is why swamps (which by their nature have few if any large grazing animals living in them) produce extremely large amounts of methane, and also the reason that pockets of it have always been a hazard in coal mines, as well as becoming a source of natural gas in the 20th century (clue: natural gas reserves were produced at a time when there were no animals more complex than insects on land).
"The point is, that it's eating meat whats the true biggest cause of global warming"
But shipping bananas over long distances in high-speed refrigerated ships is environmentally friendly because vegans eat them.You should be rated Troll
:)
Sure, some things comes over very long distances, but you completely bypass that the stuff those animals eat could be used in other things as well than feeding animals :)
Furthermore, it has been studied which is more environmentally friendly. Here's an article in Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/11/food.climatechange
Nevermind the vast amount of fossil fuels used by animal agriculture, sure totally vegetarian uses some too, but not as much. See: http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/f/fossilfuels.htm
New scientist article says:
"A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home." http://environment.newscientist.com/article/mg19526134.500
You also bypass completely the fact that vegans do not eat exotic foods only, yes they are part as some things are simply not grown locally even if the climate would suit. You also completely bypass that vegans are not the only ones who eat stuff which comes over long distances, like bananas, rice, quite often soy. Furthermore, freighters quite often, or rarely are high-speed, more like tuned for fuel economy :) Have you ever seen a freighter go actually fast?
Furthermore, there's ongoing research to turn into alcohol all kinds of compostable stuff, a lot of the stuff which could have been fed to animals. And alcohol is good for what else than drinking and disinfectant? Yes, that's right, as a fuel. Atleast where i live was it 5% of all gas sold has to be alcohol, mixed into your normal DIN 95 octane or DIN 98 octane.
Which of these are more environmentally friendly:
- Meat produced locally
- Vegetary foods produced locally
- Regular vegan diet wh -
Re:How unfair...
An unfair advantage at dire cost. Where do you think Flo-jo's http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=womenshistory&cdn=education&tm=4&f=00&tt=14&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/features/joyner/gallery/ muscles came from? And why she died of a heart attack at age 38?
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Re:It's as simple as thisActually, if I can show enough evidence that the day being Friday hurts me, and it's your fault, it's not frivolous. It would have standing. I think someone missed the point entirely:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761573003
http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/friday_the_13th.htm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/02/0212_040212_friday13.html
Good luck with that line of reasoning, by the way. -
Re:WTF is a "0-day" ?
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Re:Order of the ArrowThe LDS uses its secret documents to harm people. In the LDS, youth who discover that they are gay are subjected to horrific treatment at the hands of the LDS clergy and lay leaders. Not true. I have friends who are LDS and gay and these alleged "secret documents" mentioned are simply administrative manuals. No more than that. No tortures or brain-washing or anything that could be rationally characterized as such. The LDS church is pretty open on their stance regarding same-sex attraction. If anyone actually wants to read it, and come to their own conclusions, it's under the 'Public Issues' section of the press-centric portion of the LDS church's website: http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/
Agree with it or not, it isn't secret and it doesn't speak of horrific treatment, though there is a fundamental disagreement described therein with same-sex relationships and marriage. Many gay LDS youth commit suicide as a result, and the church officially approves and condones that result. There have been suicides among gay LDS youth, but to characterize this as the fault of or unique to the LDS church is to ignore the fact that youth suicide rates among gay youth is described as much as four times higher than for other youth: http://gaylife.about.com/od/gayteens/a/gaysuicide.htm
Further than that though, to say that the LDS church approves and condones such is a false and horrible thing to say. Neither I nor my gay friends have ever heard anyone in a leadership position in the LDS church advocate, encourage, or condone suicide under any conditions. Quite the opposite really. The manuals themselves speak of counseling and compassion in these issues, as opposed to the hate and agression which the parent's post seems to be implying is the case.
(As a matter of disclosure: I am not gay. I am LDS. And I have friends who are/were LDS and who are gay. They may not agree with, appreciate, or even be less than hostile regarding the LDS church's position on same-sex relationships and marriage, but never have any of them made such claims as those in the parent's post.) -
Re:the Candidates are facing Bigger Problems.Hi!
they are *extremely* similar, but from my pespective, insolvency can be a simple cashflow problem. Intestingly, that's the exact tack the Fed has chosen - rather than see it as a bankruptcy, it's just a cash problem. So, what the Fed is doing is basically buying all the bad debt. They don't want to SAY that, but essentially, that's what is happening. They're dumping $200 billion in Treasury securities to keep the banks liquid and able to meet their payments. The deficit is caused by the bad debts the banks had the stupidity to loan. So, that's why even though the non-borrowed assets of the country's entire banking system has collapsed to around -$90 billion, the banks are still afloat.
Basically, by seeing insolvency as a cashflow problem, rather than a bankruptcy problem, they're keeping the Titanic afloat. It's kind of like there's a huge leak, so make the boat bigger to counter-balance the loss of bouyancy, so it sinks more evenly...
And that's EXACTLY what you see happening. Rather than a crash, a la 1893, it is drifting into an inflationary heat death, a la the 1970s.
The problem is, this is to b expected, basically, forever, until we replace our economic engine with one based on extraction of resources to one of sustainability. Sustainability has some use for space exploration, specifically in terms of data satellites. But has Zero Use for putting people up there.
RS
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One right here! Here's why...
I may be the odd man out here by supporting space & NASA (I work Orion CEV, though not a civil servant) while also being a slashdot user, but I still stand by my beliefs.
I will first start by providing a handful of links to other advocate groups, spin-off pages, etc., then go into why I personally support it, and finally go into where I see room for improvements.
The Links
The Planetary Society
The Coalition for Space Exploration
Space.com
NASA Spin-off Library
NASA @ Home and City
Now on to why I personally support manned space: I will try to keep it short and high-level. (No particular order to the numbering)
1. Study of survival in harsh environments.
I both fear & assume that one day our planet will eventually become an extremely harsh environment to survive in. I feel that the more we know about biology and microbiology issues such as water & food purification (ISS, Shuttle Purification, Water and Food Analytical Laboratory (WAFAL)) within limited and harsh environments, the better off we could be when we reach that time in our existence. (There are also many other areas of study that go along with survival than life sciences, such as human physiology.)
2. Colonization of other moons and planets.
Essentially this goes along with #1. It would be nice to have some options and prior knowledge when Earth is nearing its end.
3. Origin of our Planets.
I believe the more we know and understand about the origin of our planets the better. If we can somehow "prove" our origin and debunk the majority of Religious views I feel we will be better off. I believe Religion to be the root cause of the majority of wars and violence on this planet. I also believe that people who are barley surviving often resort to violence to help themselves survive.
4. Costs vs Return.
Here I'm just going to sum-up this page. NASA's budget is 0.7 of 1% of the nations total. We spend about $9 Billion per month killing other humans. "In 2002, the commercial space industry contributed more than $95 billion in U.S. economic activity".
4.Spin-Offs.
While it may be a sub-set of the other advantages, I still believe the majority of Spin-offs benefit humans "down here".
Where can we improve?
(Again, no particular order)
1. Public Relations.
I believe the public needs more knowledge coming from the space community about both the benefits and obstacles of space exploration. I believe many of the reasons people have a negative attitude about it is because they are ill-informed. Stop playing with space food on TV and making everything look like a cake-walk, and show the real low-level experiments being ran up there. THIS is what will inspire people!
2. Inspire our Youth.
Again, this goes along with #1. With politicians trying to get more math and science students just by cutting funds here, adding funds there (Obama, I'm looking at YOU), you still won't be motivating people to work hard and study these subjects. The one thing that actually got me (mentally) through college was my goal of working on the space program. With no motivation and inspiration, you will loose students in these subjects, not gain them!
3. Expand Robotic\Un-manned Space.
I believe that expanding our robotic side of space exploration will have an overall benefit, but needs to co-exist with the manned -
Re:Why take a snapshot?
The key combination is a mixture of 3 buttons to take a screenshot. The number is just large enough and the frequency of usage is just low enought that many people just don't remember it. (Command-Shift-3)
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Re:Hmm
I believe Linux has a shred command, that would probably help.
http://linux.about.com/library/cmd/blcmdl1_shred.htm -
Re:They can't do that
IANAL, but my understanding is that fonts cannot be copyrighted, I had previously believed that it was for free speech reasons (what if someone copyrighted every font? also, what's the real difference between a letter in a font and a letter spoken in a certain way?), but googling found that to not be the reason they aren't copyrightable here.
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Bills Would Reduce Federal Control of Marijuana
Bills Would Reduce Federal Control of Marijuana
http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/2008/05/08/bills-would-reduce-federal-control-of-marijuana.htm
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.5843:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.5842:
Contact everyone you know, this is the chance to get Marijuana DROPPED from being Schedule I
Please mod this up, this is historic! -
Re:Bigger Worry: A backdoor is worse than a CD.That's a lot like finding some of these things now. Find a Divx disc with a movie on it? You're out of luck even if you have a player. There's also MovieCD, good luck getting those to work. Certain MMORPG's were shut down - imagine if they'd let their server source loose? Might be room for some interesting single-player implementations or even local-player setups. Then there's Blizzard, who actively fucked over people making local-type servers for games like Warcraft and Starcraft. DRM alone doesn't cause this either - a lot of earlier (Directx 4-5-6ish) games have a TON of problems getting set up on modern systems, or glitch horribly when you try to run them. There are also a few titles you can't even install because they try to access the hard drive directly and don't understand the FAT32 and NTFS formats. And consider the following ironic thought: what are the chances that, 10 years from now on your (10th? 15th? 25th?) anniversary, you'll be able to find a working VHS player to watch your wedding video? there will always be emulation of older games, and ways to convert old formats to new ones.. DRM will prevent even that from happening. If I own something, I should at least have it in unaltered form forever. Whether or not I can play it on newer things is irrelevant, I should still own it if I legally payed for it. DRM prevents that from happening. It's basically a long term lease.
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Re:Bigger Worry: A backdoor is worse than a CD.
That's a lot like finding some of these things now.
Find a Divx disc with a movie on it? You're out of luck even if you have a player.
There's also MovieCD, good luck getting those to work.
Certain MMORPG's were shut down - imagine if they'd let their server source loose? Might be room for some interesting single-player implementations or even local-player setups.
Then there's Blizzard, who actively fucked over people making local-type servers for games like Warcraft and Starcraft.
DRM alone doesn't cause this either - a lot of earlier (Directx 4-5-6ish) games have a TON of problems getting set up on modern systems, or glitch horribly when you try to run them. There are also a few titles you can't even install because they try to access the hard drive directly and don't understand the FAT32 and NTFS formats.
And consider the following ironic thought: what are the chances that, 10 years from now on your (10th? 15th? 25th?) anniversary, you'll be able to find a working VHS player to watch your wedding video? -
Re:GNUCash?
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Re:They won't even notice
Sir, your post is all over the place.
What various anti-intellectuals do not understand is that Theology is about one set of things and Science is about something else.You are quite wrong. Christian Theology, the belief in a single sovereign God, having been based on God's written word, is "about" all things pertaining to God's adequacy and right to rule humankind, and therefore includes the origin of everything (and we are an object property of said everything).
Science is "about"
the universe around us, and that includes us as well. This is why science is naturalistic: it is all about natural processes and natural events. Science involves both description, which tells us what has happened, and explanation, which tells us why it happened.
So then, you see, both the Bible (which term I will use rather than Theology, since when referencing theology you must be specific as to whose theology) and Science attempt to tell us What has happened: the physical space of the universe came into existence, followed by the stars and other heavenly bodies, geological formations occurred on earth while sitting in the midst of waters, vegetation began to live 'according to its kind,' creatures of the sea began life, then winged creatures of the sky ('heavens'), then living beasts on the surface of the ground; finally, mankind emerged on the scene, was superior to all of these previous lifeforms and was made out of dust (and Science certainly agrees that humans are composed of many of the same elements as dirt).
They also attempt to tell us Why it happened. The Bible says that God 'created the earth even for it to be inhabited,' or in other words, made the earth as a perfect home to host his creations. Science does not really have an explanation to 'why,' but empirical evidence over thousands of years has proven true the fact that the earth truly is a wonderful home to life on it. Science agrees with this too, in that the placement of the earth relative to the Sun is just right to keep us from freezing and from frying. The combination of gasses that make up our atmosphere are just right to keep everything from being either wholly flammable or toxic to breathe.
Relegating religionists and promoters of intelligent design to this class you deem 'anti-intellectual' really couldn't be more wrong. If one takes the time to discern what the Bible really says regarding creation, they will find it quite stimulating as well as accurate.
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Re:Time for us westerners to wring our hands...
Backwards place to live? You get that from experience?
I don't know about him, but I do get that same impression, and from experience. A lot of it. Brazil IS a backwards place to live. While people from the US do complain about taxes and how their money is used by the government, things in Brazil are not simply "worse" on that point. They're completely different, as the people who pay taxes in Brazil are not the ones using governmental services at all. EVERY SINGLE NEED of the brazillian middle class (the ones who pay for that big joke named Brazil) is provided by very expensive private services.
And the impoverished are not just "poor", as in "lacking money for basic elements of life". They're also extremely indolent and dishonest. They lack basic culture and effort to achieve any kind of progress.
They have access to an infrastructure that would be considered an impossible dream decades ago. The things is: a lot of jewish and italian people arrived at this very same land of crap, decades ago, without any money at all and none of the thousands of schools and no universal and free healthcare at all. Yet they managed to educate themselves and provide good education for their children (who are now 40-50 years old), without a single cent in their pocket. Their sons and daughters (who were impoverished children) are now members of the upper-middle class.I'd live in any brazilian coastal city over any US coastal city. Warm climate, nice girls, drinking caipirinhas all the time, hapy music, happy people.
You forgot to mention "random drug-motivated murders". And also forgot to mention that all those "happy people" are actually impoverished idiots who would rather spend their entire day partying around the city than working hard to improve their lives. Remember the Ant and the Grasshopper? If not, it's a classic that explains a lot about those bozos you call "happy people".
And if booze is something that motivates you to some kind of decision about where to live, you need treatment, not a better city. From a Brazilian guy....
you are totally rt about the tax and midlle class thing, but this:
"And the impoverished are not just "poor", as in "lacking money for basic elements of life". They're also extremely indolent and dishonest. They lack basic culture and effort to achieve any kind of progress. "
Sorry but this is nonsense Brazilians are NOT dishonest nor indolent IF we were this would be a Camboja not you guys holyday destination.
And what abt impoverished idiots??? WTF?
You wanna know why all Brazilians are HAPPY ?
That's cuz the males have enourmous dongs and women are ALL beautifull, we are not a bunch of fat ppl like you guys that barely speak to each other, here we all have as much sex as one wishes, we don't need to ride a benz to get chicks like you guys there need, in here there's no "Loser" concept simply cuz we doon't need it...
Bozo us? yeah rt...how many years have been since you got laid for the last time? -
Re:Here the propaganda machine starts againhttp://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/23/america/23prison.php
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/28/ST2008022803016.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113000912.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/042000-01.htm
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/29/america/29prison.php
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/22/us/20080423_PRISON_GRAPHIC.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?_r=2
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.prisons29feb29,0,2057053.story
LOOK HOW SHORT IT TOOK! SIX YEARS!
http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aaprisonpop.htm
NO! ONE!
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Re:Time for us westerners to wring our hands...
Backwards place to live? You get that from experience?
I don't know about him, but I do get that same impression, and from experience. A lot of it. Brazil IS a backwards place to live. While people from the US do complain about taxes and how their money is used by the government, things in Brazil are not simply "worse" on that point. They're completely different, as the people who pay taxes in Brazil are not the ones using governmental services at all. EVERY SINGLE NEED of the brazillian middle class (the ones who pay for that big joke named Brazil) is provided by very expensive private services.
And the impoverished are not just "poor", as in "lacking money for basic elements of life". They're also extremely indolent and dishonest. They lack basic culture and effort to achieve any kind of progress.
They have access to an infrastructure that would be considered an impossible dream decades ago. The things is: a lot of jewish and italian people arrived at this very same land of crap, decades ago, without any money at all and none of the thousands of schools and no universal and free healthcare at all. Yet they managed to educate themselves and provide good education for their children (who are now 40-50 years old), without a single cent in their pocket. Their sons and daughters (who were impoverished children) are now members of the upper-middle class.I'd live in any brazilian coastal city over any US coastal city. Warm climate, nice girls, drinking caipirinhas all the time, hapy music, happy people.
You forgot to mention "random drug-motivated murders". And also forgot to mention that all those "happy people" are actually impoverished idiots who would rather spend their entire day partying around the city than working hard to improve their lives. Remember the Ant and the Grasshopper? If not, it's a classic that explains a lot about those bozos you call "happy people".
And if booze is something that motivates you to some kind of decision about where to live, you need treatment, not a better city. -
Orson Scott Card's credibility (or lack thereof)
In response to Card criticizing Rowling:
http://www.linearpublishing.com/RhinoStory.html
Card said in this article criticizing Rowling's originality:
"The difference between us is that I actually make enough money from Ender's Game to be content, without having to try to punish other people whose creativity might have been inspired by something I wrote."
Might I remind readers of Card's fundamental flaw in basic logic: the above cannot possibly be true, Card having written the essay with at least some form of castigation in mind for Rowling! This also reveals Card is not near the contentedness as he claims.
Is this not hypocrisy at it's most blatant and clear?
*****a great article on Card's breed of dogma is:"My favorite author, my worst interview" :
http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/card/index.html
Is being hate-filled a sure sign of low intelligence?
Does Card have a history of being hate-filled person? Here are some indicators. (How can his new jealousy of Rowling be any sort of surprise?):
http://atheism.about.com/b/2004/01/03/orson-scott-card-criminalize-homosexual-behavior.htm
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2005-05-15-1.html
http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html
Literary criticism of Card by respected and award-winning author John Kessel:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Demonizing.html
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm
Card as could-be Hitler-apologist in 'Ender's Game':
Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman (20 Years Later) - Elaine Radford's analysis of the Ender and Hitler connection:
http://peachfront.diaryland.com/enderhitlte.html
possibility that Card's Ender's Game itself was stolen from the 1984 film the Last Starfighter :
from digg.com, comment by Dysarthria on 06/16/2007:
http://digg.com/gaming_news/Orson_Scott_Card_Reveals_Plans_for_Video_Games_based_on_Ender_s_Game
"A few points:
1) The movie of Ender's Game (published in 1985) has already been done, it's called the Last Starfighter (1984). While not identical, both are about boys who save the planet by playing a video game. When I read this novel about 20 years ago, I felt like it was it was kind of a rip-off. Great story, just not that original.
2) I think the most boring game in the world would be an adaptation of a novel about a video game. Guys, come on. Enders game was a nice little unoriginal story published 20 years ago."
Also, remember this man criticizes Darwinismin.
The following link to another of Card's essays is from digg.com's insomniacal on 06/16/2007 :
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2006-01-08-1.html
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Re:Card should stick to writing stories
And he also tells people in his books when a character is gay!
If you read any OSC books you should assume there will be gay characters -- oh and man-boy love. Which is quite interesting that he includes so much gay sex in his novels when he personally thinks homosexuality is a sin and should be criminalized
Card is EXTREMELY homophobic and has very strong religious and personal views against gay people but when he writes novels, nearly all of his main characters have a very intimate (personal / not necessarily physical) homosexual experience. I'd say he's got some serious Freudian repression going on or something like that. -
Re:PR advice
Not to get too political but didn't MADD make excuses for presidential candidates getting DUIs in our reality? You know, the world we exist in that people can actually be perma-killed. It just seems like so many groups are focused not on the root of these issues but the easiest news grab. http://alcoholism.about.com/od/issues/l/aa001104a.htm
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Re:Who made you judge?
No one gets hurt if I roleplay rape or knifeplay with my consenting adult partner.
Right. So? WTF does that have to do with anything that we are talking about. Are you just making shit up? WhoTF mentioned anything about you and your "partner"?
And even if we do induldge in S&M, that's none of your business, and not what I consider "violent", but it will be caught by this law. The only "sick fucks" are people who have a perversion about locking people up for three years because they don't like what they get up to or fantasise about in private.
OK, you just showed that you have not been paying attention. We are talking about people watching videos of rapes. WTF does that have to do with what you do with whoever in your basement? No one is saying that you can't do S&M with your willing partner. We're saying you can't make a video of a rape (real or acted) and make it publicly available. If you want to do that in the privacy of your own home, have at it. So put the red ball back in your mouth and stick that strawman up your ass, leather boy.
So? Is murder wrong? Says who? What about stealing? How about fucking that 10-yr old girl down the street if she's willing? How about exposing yourself to children? Are these all not moral situations?
These are not issues of taste - these are issues of non-consensual harm towards others.
So if the 10-yr-old down the street consents, you're OK with it? How about if I take naked pictures of that 10-yr-old and post them on the MySpace page I made for her? Is that OK? No one is hurt, right? That is your determining factor if something should be illegal.
Evidence, please, not speculation. We're talking about locking people up here.
Sure. Unfortunately, I could find no studies done on people who watch rape videos. I guess even the most open minded research never thought that people would be so fucking sick as to want to watch rape videos, much less defend that behavior. Most of what I could find dealt with video games and movies but the premise is the same:
Here is one on video games.
Here is another.
Here is one that deals with violent videos. I believe even you will agree that rape is a violent act and we are talking about rape videos. I believe a rape video would qualify as a violent video by any definition.
Here is another.
However, since you are probably going to call foul because there are no actual RAPE stories here, I went ahead and found one. I had to wade thought a swamp of virus infecting sites to find it (literally! "You must download this .exe media player to watch this video...") Anyway, here is the link. Here is a quote:I went to a porno bookstore, put a quarter in a slot, and saw this porn movie. It was just a guy coming up from behind a girl and attacking her and raping her. That's when I started having rape fantasies. When I saw that movie, it was like somebody lit a fuse from my childhood on up... I just went for it, went out and raped." Rapist interviewed by Beneke, 1982, pp. 73-74.
HERE is another.
Unfortunately, many of these sites lump violent films with porn. Now, there is nothing wrong with porn. I love my porn. Now sick fuckers like these are going to end up taking it away because they want to watch rape flicks and act it out on real people. It's really sad when people like you want to let them. I hope it's out of ignorance. I really hope you genuinely thought that watching rape videos would somehow h -
do what you love
People always say "do what you love", but I have a different mantra. Most things that people love to do they love to do ON THEIR OWN SCHEDULE. When you HAVE to do it, eventually you come to hate it.
If so maybe you should have more than one hobby. Years ago, before I had an accident, while majoring in Computer Engineering in college I also took classes in dancing and theatre. People who knew me and my major couldn't understand why I'd take these extra classes. I took them because I love dancing and theatre. I also love hiking, gardening, and scuba diving.
In short, my opinion is that most people are going to come to loathe whatever they do for a living. Might not happen as fast if you pick something you like, but EVENTUALLY, you will hate it.
Then when you hate what you do at work change your career. The average American changes careers a number of tymes.
Falcon -
a man is REQUIRED to provide
The 21st century is calling, today a man is not required to provide. Stay at Home Dads are growing in numbers. While my sister runs her own business my brother-in-law stays home taking care of their daughter.
But when you talk about the below $100k range, well, I'd rather sacrifice my happiness to get into the $100k range so my kids can go to Yale.
Ever hear of financial aid? Even Yale offers financial aid. Me, I went into the military to save money to go to college as I came from a low income family. The military will even help you take college classes while in the military. While I was in one Sargent I knew in my unit was awarded his BA degree, that was the happiest day for him. You can also get leadership training while in. Neither of my parents got so much as a BA degree yet my mom taught us that we could become almost anything we wanted as long as we worked at it. There's me and two 2 sisters in my family, my older sister's a nurse and my younger sister, the one above, has her masters.
Falcon -
Changing careers
Is making a complete career change at this point a bad idea?"
In the US, I'm not sure about other countries, the average person changes their career a few tymes. About.com has a page on "Ten Myths About Choosing a Career". More about changing careers from About.com can be found at Career Choice or Change.
Falcon -
Changing careers
Is making a complete career change at this point a bad idea?"
In the US, I'm not sure about other countries, the average person changes their career a few tymes. About.com has a page on "Ten Myths About Choosing a Career". More about changing careers from About.com can be found at Career Choice or Change.
Falcon -
So who needs Microsoft's device?
Here are the top four password recovery tools for Windows according to about.com's article.
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Re:US jury system does it again
mmmmm baby back ribs