Domain: msn.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to msn.com.
Comments · 6,558
-
Re:The thing about Austin
I'll give you a hint: I didn't see Georgia or even friggin Louisiana stepping up to help out!
Just because you didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen: Where Are They Now? -
Re:Popular Mechanics?
For the record, you would not know how many people are being tortured and killed in North Korea. In addition, why are these people being killed? For dissention? To be experimented on as the article mentions?
On forced labor camps, how is that equivalent to the ghetto at all? The ghetto is the ghetto because of a lack of jobs in that community. So its more like an anti-labor camp. So I think the comparison between the two is totally off base.
We are at war in Iraq so of course there are going to be casualties caused by that. There may be more or may be less than North Korea, but name one other country that spends millions of dollars on one bomb to blow up a mud shack with our enemies in it. We could easily carpet bomb, nuke, or use chemical warfare (as Hussein and Chemical Ali did) the city and it would be way cheaper, but we don't. Why do we do it? Because we're the United States of America and we have the technology, money, and humanity to try and limit collateral damage to civilian populations.
In the US you do have the right to free speech, and you have clearly exercised that right. You also have a right to a free press and I don't think you are exercising that right enough (do more research on your claims). If you truly feel President Bush and our government is equivalent to, or maybe even more evil than North Korea, I challenge you to move there and see how different they really are.
I was a little confused on the distinction between a Representative Democracy and a Republic. They seem kinda close in definition. Wikipedia and Encarta are confused too as Encarta calls the United States a Representative Democracy and Wikipedia calls the United States a Republic. So please feel free to enlighten me on the distinction.
JOhn -
What a lovely country.Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag
The hidden gulag: Reports leak out of atrocities at North Korean labor camps
Auschwitz Under Our Noses
A WELL-FOUNDED FEAR: PUNISHMENT AND LABOR CAMPS IN NORTH KOREA
Death and terror in North Korea's gulags
Comparative Analysis of Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany, the Former Soviet Union and North Korea
An Auschwitz in KoreaIt's baffling to me why a country that has consistently and fairly been compared with Nazi Germany, to the point of concentration camps and illegal medical experimentation, has been allowed to exist for this long. Drudge reported this morning that they're prepping another nuke test, and it's a well-known fact that they've been developing chem and bio weapons for years. A new Hitler has risen, and we are so busy looking elsewhere that we either haven't noticed or don't care.
-
Re:OH NOES!!!IANAL, but the point of having judges issue warrants is not solely to protect your privacy, but also to allow the state to prosecute effectively.
There is nothing to stop a law enforcement officer from opening your mail, searching your car, or busting in your door without a warrant in the name of "probable cause." Then, if something incriminating is found, you're arrested and brought to trial. The evidence that was discovered on a warrantless search can be thrown out (permanently) if their probable cause isn't sufficient.
My biggest concern is that with Habeus Corpus effectively gone, the validity of their "probable cause" may never get heard before a judge.
-
Re:A question about energy
While cost is an important factor, that isn't entirely the point. Consider, the more fuel you have to carry through to landing, the more mass you have. And the more mass you have, the more fuel you need to get into orbit in the first place. It's a waste. Wouldn't you rather send more people or cargo?
Ultimately for a venture like Blue Origin, what matters is the cost per person sent up. If you use, say, wings or parachutes regularly they might be able to squeeze on a few extra people, but how would that effect their overall costs and the rate at which they're able to launch each craft?
Hell, IMHO, a paraschute landing makes more sense than a powered vertical landing...
I think the problem with a parachute landing is that it's somewhat more likely to cause damage to the craft. Moreover, landing with a hard jolt could result in problems which could be hard to detect.
In any case, if I understand correctly, Blue Origin is actually using powered landing with parachute landing as a backup:
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/06/24/ 669.aspx
On the way down, there are two possible scenarios: Either the spacecraft would land with the crew capsule still attached to the engines - or the propulsion module would break away and land on its own, with the crew capsule floating back down to Earth beneath parachutes or a similar drag system.
If there were an emergency - either detected by the onboard computer or by controllers monitoring the flight from the ground - the crew capsule would separate and parachute to safety. -
Re:The UK
Your reply mostly takes issue with my assertion that Amercian Citizens are largely at odds with their government. I'll deal with that first:
Newsweek poll indicates that 51% of Americans support Bush's impeachment .
I'd say that's a pretty good indicator. And for what it's worth the big bad media is far from my only source of information about the United States.
So I think it's fair to say that the American people are largely at odds with the government. If you don't like the Newsweek poll go take a look at Bush's approval ratings.
You wrapped up your reply with: "So please, dispense with the secondhand platitudes and start hating us as individual people as well."
I'm sure "secondhand platitudes" sounded great in your mind at the time of writing but the problem is I really didn't dispense any. And if you want me to hate Americans that support the current US administration - no problem at all! I'm more than happy to oblige on that score - and I daresay you'll find a couple of billion people that will even join in. But just because a vocal minority are still supporting America's current government and its actions I'm not going to start distributing hate around quite so readily or liberally as you seem to think appropriate. I know it's a difficult concept to grasp but we overseas are still quite capable of distinguishing between those Americans that are normal, decent human beings (whatever part of the political landscape they occupy - if any) and the vociferous, quasi-militant nationalists that inexplicably seem to support Bush et al whatever the price. And frankly, for the sake of all Americans, it really is just as well that we can.
I have a great many American friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Not a one of them is broadly in favour of Bush or America's foreign policy and overseas actions during the last few years. So I refuse to suddenly start hating any of them "as individual people" despite the fact that, at present, I bitterly resent their parent nation.
In summary; your US government really sucks and our UK government royally sucks. In my humble opinion anyone, on either side of the pond, that still supports either administration deserves even more derision and disdain than they already get. -
I think the PS3 wonForget units sold, its hard to top a console people are willing to shoot people (and by extension, shot at) for.
-
Re:CTRL-F1 cuts the ribbon
Can you please send the link to an article that indicates that decisions on office UI are made solely by Bill Gates and the head of Office development?
The program manager had to convince Gates that doing so was a good idea. Yes, surveys and tests were done, but ultimately Gates had to approve. There was an article in Newsweek about it in November. -
Re:grievance committees
Sure, we've all had the roommate who can't pay rent or bills on time, but always manages to find money for a sack of weed. But the people I'm talking about who are in debt or bankrupt are people who were doing everything right, living within their means, who had a sudden emergency, such as a firing, lay-off, or health situation, who have nothing to rely on.
Check out this article on how a job loss. Read this one on how sudden illnesses are bankrupting Americans. I understand that half of the bankruptcies occurring in the US are due to medical bills. There are some 40-50 million working Americans who have no health insurance.
These scapegoats such as welfare queens and people buying PSPs over paying rent do exist, but they are in the small minority. I'm not swallowing the bullshit anymore. Corporate greed is destroying the middle class. Corporations are reporting record profits, the economy is growing, and the stock market is doing well. Why isn't this rising tide lifting all boats? It's becoming clearer and clearer to me that it's because the people who decide where the money goes aren't sharing it with the rest of us.
I know the libertarian ideal is to keep downsizing your life until you don't have any debt. Move from a house to a condo, to an apartment, to a trailer home, to a cabin in the woods, to a mud hut. Hey, if everybody keeps downsizing in response to being paid less and getting laid off from their jobs, we will all be living in tent cities. How about we instead demand our fair share from corporations.
Some people can't just downsize their life at the snap of a finger. If you have three kids, you can't just get rid of one. If you have a house, you can't immediately sell it for what it's worth. If you have a car you owe a lot of money on, you still need it to find a new job while you might be trying to sell it and line up a new car at the same time. If you have a sick child who runs up a bunch of medical bills that you can't afford, I'll bet the libertarian answer is that he was too sick for his parents to take care of, and he should have died. Well, after you've already treated him and run up the bills, you can't just kill him and ask for a refund for all of the treatments that were performed.
It's a question of what kind of country do we want to have. Do we want to pay some taxes to support single mothers and children, or hopeless alcoholics, like they do in Europe? Or do we want to have homeless families living in the streets, with ghettos, shanty towns, and poor villages like they do in South America? I think most libertarians are comfortable with ghettos and shanty towns. I'm not.
There are so many social programs that have built America, such as rural electrification, the GI bill, the national highway system. We are a nation of entrepreneurial self-starters, but to pretend that this alone built the nation and that social programs only make people lazy is in direct contradiction of the facts. Take the example of Finland, Switzerland, and Sweden. They have socialized health care, education, and retirement, yet the World Economic Forum says those countries have the most competitive economies in the world.
I thought technology, industry, and education were supposed to make our lives better. We might be the first generation of Americans to have a lesser standard of living than our parents. Why should this be? Our parents and granparents were the first generation to have 40-hour work weeks with overtime, a retirement, and health insurance, all provided by unions. Before then, people worked 60 to 80 hour weeks in factories and on farms. When they were injured or became unhealthy, they were simply fired. No retirement. Some were even slaves! Are our parents and grandparents lazier than their predecessors? No, they -
a photo does exist
According to MSNBC, someone (i.e. a pilot) did take a picture of the object (or cloud) with a cell phone camera but is afraid to release the photo to the public out of fear that he will lose his job. http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/01/02
/ 25212.aspx -
Re:MSNBC
yes.... http://soapbox.msn.com/
-
MSN Soapbox (Private Beta)
-
Re:Fabricated news
Which is why this past quarter Dell's PC sales only rose 4%, HP's rose 15%, the market at under 7%, while Apple hit 30% right? For years the market was growing at 11.8%, with Microsoft's growth tapping directly into that. If sales slow down to 6% growth, so too will Microsoft's income.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15322073/ -
Re:Why shouldn't they?
Wasn't going for hilarious so much as just saying M$ doesn't do such a good job of advertising for linux on thier site. Web search: http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=Linux&FORM=M
S NH so even then the second add goes into the windows domain and is a "compare linux to windows". I guess it is kinda funny after all. -
Re:Why shouldn't they?
The problem is that Google has a monopoly on web search
There happens to be more than one search engine out there (as stated in other posts). See the Wikipedia article for a decent list of other search engines which exist on the web.As it is, Google is using its web search monopoly as leverage to promote its non-search products...
Lets do a quick web search for the term "web mail" and see what top 5 results we get (as of 12/29/2006):
Yahoo : #1 Yahoo! Mail, #2 Hotmail, #3 AOL Mail, #4 Mail2Web, #5 Gmail
MSN:#1 Yahoo! Mail, #2 web.mail.umich.edu, #3 Netfirms, #4 email.ixwebhosting.com, #5 NetTally WebMail
AOL:
#1 Mail2Web, #2 webmail.earthlink.net/, #3 webmail.mail.gatech.edu/, #4 Yahoo! Mail, #5 www.webmail.co.za/
Earthlink:
#1 Mail2Web, #2 webmail.earthlink.net/, #3 webmail.mail.gatech.edu/, #4 Yahoo! Mail, #5 www.webmail.co.za/
Google:
#1 Mail2Web, #2 webmail.earthlink.net/, #3 webmail.mail.gatech.edu/, #4 Yahoo! Mail, #5 www.webmail.co.za/
Now, lets play with Yahoo! by searching for various services and see what we get...
blog: Right above the first result: "Start a blog on Yahoo! 360 (Beta)[Yahoo! Shortcut]"
photo sharing: Right above the first result: "Share photos on Yahoo! Photos [Yahoo! Shortcut]"
calendar:
Right above the first result: "Calendar [Yahoo! Shortcut]" -
Maybe go to MSN?
Should we go to http://www.msn.com/ and search for "replace windows with linux" or similar. Can we slashdot MS?
-
Re:Beware of what?Uh, have you ever driven a Hybrid? Other than some of the new performance hybrids like the Lexus, they are pretty damn slow. I am generally afraid to pass in a Prius. They lose most of their acceleration at around 40 mph, and after that its pretty slow going.
Until recently it would have been hard to find a comparison between a hybrid and non-hybrid that are sufficiently similar in other respects (similar size, same body style, and similar equpment from the same manufacturer). Now we can compare the standard Honda Accord with its hybrid version. Oops, that doesn't support your statement. Maybe the hybrid Camry, whose designers put more emphasis on fuel economy than the Accord's, will. Nope.
-
Re:Messiness in front, though
Really, and what "Lawlessness" is that
Well, the "domestic" surveillance thing could be one example, given that it was apparently specifically the kind of surveillance for which FISA was passed and the secret court and after-the-fact warrants were created. Of course, if you're arguing that breaking the law is OK when you like the end result or the people doing it, then you're already knee-deep in lawlessness, you just refuse to acknowledge it as such.
I think I'll go instead with the unrestrained and unchecked spending in Iraq with no oversight which has led to such things as US companies stealing Iraqi equipment and charging the US government for them as Custer Battles allegedly did. Or the US replacement for the Oil for Food program which has already become an order of magnitude more corrupt (remember when Iraqi Oil was going to pay for all of this?), with such wonderful boondoggles such as paying Halliburton for an oil pipeline that it was incapable of building (and knew it, according to its own consultants).
Lawlessness could also be found in the signing statements used by President Bush to ignore and/or revise laws that Congress passed for his review. The Constitution specifically lays out the process by which laws come into force, and specifically demands that the President either veto them so that they do not become law, or "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed". -
Re:Violence yes, sex no.You mean the same way Arnold's been speaking out against steroid abuse and promising to help lead the way in green energy with his personal fleet of 8 humvees?
In California, we have our governor, the Terminator, coming out against violent video games. Arnold does have his amusing moments.
-
Re:Santa DID show up my house last year - see vide
Live egh ?
http://www.komar.org/christmas/hoax/media.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6761704/
perhaps it would be best if WE DIDN'T BELIEVE A SINGLE WORD YOU SAY
and get our Santa Tracker from someone a bit more reputable
http://www.noradsanta.org/ -
Re:That's how it works
The law only allows classification of information related to national security, and that's not something the President is legally above reproach on.
This is factually wrong, and you would have to have been in a coma for 30 years to not know better. This administration recently redefined the term "civil war" and then classified the definition. Governments have long hid behind secrecy to conceal their failures, peccadillos, corruption, and so on. It didn't start with Bush, but neither did it magically stop when Bush became President. Don't act like politicians don't try to hide behind secrecy just because you think there is some liberal conspiracy to make this President look bad. -
Re:You don't understandI do believe that Slashdot does have a 'liberal bias' Shoot -- then I must be one-of-a-kind. I'm a software engineer but also a Conservative / Libertarian (because I find the logic of free will and free markets compelling.
Yes, you're special, just like everyone else
I also find the lucid arguments of Rousseau's The Social Contract and Bastiat's The Law appealing.) :). Aside from that, bias doesn't mean everyone, it means enough hold 'liberal' ideas that this site tends to lead that way. Not that most here would call themselves 'liberal' (as in "tax and spend liberal', or 'liberal weenie'), just that if you really looked at their values you'd be surprised. And I don't mean things like "Family Values", I mean where differences really present themselves, like pollution, hate crimes, gun control, patent reform, copyright issues and others. You can't even do a Ben Franklin Close, and attempt to weigh them equally, you need to understand what really matters to you, and what you would post on.Sure, it's 'nice' that you fondly remember your high school readings of whining 18th and 19th century liberals, dreaming of a world in which they could not live, while trying to be sure not end up on the same streets they feared. However, one cannot balance that out with the daily 'Master serving' rants of Rush Limbaugh or Bill Oreilly, or for that matter Fox News in general. Personally, I watch Keith Olbermann for the bulk of my 'hard news' and John Stewart for the fun stuff. Stephen Colbert does a great lampoon on conservative talk show host in general (and Bill'O specifically), but sometimes I wonder 'how is going to keep it fresh?', of course then another 'WORD' segment and I know that it is still there.
I just wanted you to know that some members of the Slashdot audience are right-wing conservatives who don't have a knee-jerk need to mod down liberals and Democrats. I actually look forward to reading articulate arguments from the "other" side as they help me to clarify my own opinions.Liberal, Conservative, my side, their side, those labels don't really matter. What we really need to look at is what is best for our families, our communities, our countries, and our world. Most people hold too dear 'their side', they clutch tightly to the shreds of former beliefs long before they let go. Not me, a while back I used to call myself a 'Conservative Republican', until I realized that many of the 'Conservative' leaders were snake-oil salesmen (some of them who made the strategic move from 'Democrat' to 'Republican', as they saw the tide changing). At that point I realized that the environment mattered to me, human rights mattered to me, living wages mattered to me, access to healthcare mattered to me, freedom mattered to me and I became a Democrat, rather than rely the deaf ears of the Republican Party to listen to even the most common sense reforms, as ideology has set in firmly with them.
-
Re:Lesson #1 -- Don't Expect Privacy Online
Especially with the advent of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, and with user-supplied content, a-la YouTube. It's tough to keep a firm grasp on your privacy these days if you're at all part of any aspect of modern culture.
Agreed. I submitted a story to /. on 11 December (still pending??) about an article in TIME magazine.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15994151/site/newsweek /
From that story, a good example:But two Bank of America employees at a private function celebrating the company's merger with MBNA couldn't have anticipated what happened to them. Their over-the-top rendition of U2's "One" (with custom lyrics like "Integration has never had us feeling so good") wound up being mocked by thousands of Internet critics. (Adding injury to insult, lawyers for U2's record label threatened a lawsuit for copyright infringement.)
Cheap video technology (esp. video-capable cellphones) and social sites make it all possible.
Simply being in public can get you on these social sites, whether you actually use them (or have even HEARD of them) or not. In the end, the only way to ensure your privacy is to not become a part of society. If you venture into public, you too could end up on some social web site.
And remember--this is the PUBLIC engaging in a type of surveillance on the PUBLIC. For the tinfoil hats out there, it's not just the government's watchful eye you have to be careful around; it's that video-capable cellphone in the hands of the seemingly innocent rider sitting across from you on the train, too. -
Re:Have you been paying any attention?
What most people think of as the Abu Ghraib scandal was a small group of bored, stupid soldiers engaging in some sick thrills which mostly occurred over a period of a few days. They have been punished for it. What they did was for "fun" not policy.
Japan, Italy, and Germany are presently peaceful democracies after suffering severe violence and occupation for up to seven years. Germany did have a short lived but violent insurgency (the Werewolves) that was put down. Germany seems to have come through it OK, the Nazi pagans didn't take over. The coup attempt by the Japanese Army didn't have legs either.
Iraq has just reached its one-year election anniversary, the Iraqi economy is strong and growing, the Iraqi security forces are leading increasing numbers of operations, and Iraqi tribes are turning on Al Qaeda in Iraq which has lost at least 7,000 terrorists killed or captured. If the Iraqi people, government, and the Coalition Forces can start getting a handle on the surging sectarian violence, much of which seems to be emanating from Al Sadr's militia which may be spinning out of his control, Iraq could do well. -
Re:Have you been paying any attention?
What most people think of as the Abu Ghraib scandal was a small group of bored, stupid soldiers engaging in some sick thrills which mostly occurred over a period of a few days. They have been punished for it. What they did was for "fun" not policy.
Japan, Italy, and Germany are presently peaceful democracies after suffering severe violence and occupation for up to seven years. Germany did have a short lived but violent insurgency (the Werewolves) that was put down. Germany seems to have come through it OK, the Nazi pagans didn't take over. The coup attempt by the Japanese Army didn't have legs either.
Iraq has just reached its one-year election anniversary, the Iraqi economy is strong and growing, the Iraqi security forces are leading increasing numbers of operations, and Iraqi tribes are turning on Al Qaeda in Iraq which has lost at least 7,000 terrorists killed or captured. If the Iraqi people, government, and the Coalition Forces can start getting a handle on the surging sectarian violence, much of which seems to be emanating from Al Sadr's militia which may be spinning out of his control, Iraq could do well. -
Re:Putin Has History and Current Form
Remember that Putin is ex KGB.
"There is no such thing as a former KGB man." (Putin in Newsweek)
Friskr - Multi Search -
Re:All I have to say is...
The anti-christian community utilizes the same methods in trying to enforce where/when people can pray or trying to change decorations on a holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus.
You are absolutely free to pray anywhere and anyway you like - on your own time. (In theory. If you're Muslim, well, sorry.)
You are free to put up decorations commemorating any deities, heroes, mythological beats, prophets, or demigods you choose - on your own property.
Requiring that people do their jobs in a professional manner (e.g., teachers and military officers should not be spending their work time trying to convert others to their beliefs), and requiring that governments neither promote nor restrict religion, is not "anti-Christian", it's pro-professionalism and pro-liberty.
(Oh, and let's be honest and admit that Xmas is a pagan celebration wrapped in a thin Xian veneer, ok?)
-
Re:"Safe"When our guys die in uniform, they are heroes and patriots.
When their guys die they are crazy and irrational.
I would say that is pretty much correct, but you left out some things....
When our guys win, we cheer.
When their guys win, they cheer.
When our guys abuse prisoners, we boo and they go to jail.
When their guys cut off heads, or use electric drills to torture prisoners before execution, they cheer, brag, and put a video on the internet.
If our guys keep winning, we get to live in liberal democracies.
If their guys win, you, or someone who will be related to you, will end up living in a Muslim super state, the Caliphate, that unifies church and state, living under a harsh form of Sharia. The Taliban's interpretation might be a taste of it, given that Al Qaeda hung out with them:Life under Taliban cuts two ways Consider the following list of edicts issued by Taliban religious scholars in Kabul in December 1996:
"To prevent music.... In shops, hotels, vehicles, and rickshaws, cassettes and music are prohibited."
"To prevent beard shaving and its cutting. After one and a half months, if anyone [is] observed who has shaved and or cut his beard, they should be arrested and imprisoned until their beard is bushy."
"To prevent kite-flying."
"To prevent idolatry. In vehicles, shops, hotels, rooms, and any other place, pictures [and] portraits should be abolished."
"To prevent washing cloth by young ladies along the water streams in the city. Violator ladies should be picked up with respectful Islamic manner, taken to their houses, and their husbands severely punished."The struggle over sharia Is sharia harsh?
Followed literally, it can be medieval. Sharia divides all human actions into five categories: obligatory, meritorious, permissible, reprehensible, and forbidden. Among the reprehensible and forbidden acts are drinking alcohol, eating pork, theft, slander, highway robbery, murder, adultery, and losing one's faith. Traditional punishments include whipping and the amputation of limbs. For the most severe crimes, the penalty can be decapitation, crucifixion, or death by stoning. In Saudi Arabia, where sharia governs civil society, these harsh penalties are still meted out. Women are shrouded and segregated from men; suggestive Western photographs censored; and criminals punished harshly. In the capital city of Riyadh, beheadings are carried out on a brick-and-marble plaza that some have dubbed "Chop-Chop Square."And more about Sharia here and here.
Some of us are slaves to fashion.
They want to make us slaves to them, or at the very least, dhimmis.
Our guys and their guys have very different ideas about what to love.
Dealing in DeathAnother chapter from early Islamic history -- serving as a lesson for today's Muslims at war against the West -- is the concept of the love of death. This originated at the Battle of Qadisiyya in the year 636, when the commander of the Muslim forces, Khalid ibn Al-Walid, sent an emissary with a message from Caliph Abu Bakr to the Persian commander, Khosru. The message stated: "You [Khosru and his people] should convert to Islam, and then you will be safe, for if you don't, you should know that I have come to you with an army of men that love death, as you love life." This account is recited in today's Muslim sermon
-
Re:Spectacle vs Results
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14278216/ "...British authorities had asked that no information be released."--from NBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320452/ Disagreement over timing of arrests also from NBC
If you want more sources, I'll try to hunt them down. There was a Guardian article about Tony Blair notifying GW Bush that began, "Downing Street admitted Tony Blair would not have left the country on Monday for his Caribbean holiday if he had known the police would need to swoop so quickly to disrupt a terrorist plot." -
Re:Spectacle vs Results
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14278216/ "...British authorities had asked that no information be released."--from NBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320452/ Disagreement over timing of arrests also from NBC
If you want more sources, I'll try to hunt them down. There was a Guardian article about Tony Blair notifying GW Bush that began, "Downing Street admitted Tony Blair would not have left the country on Monday for his Caribbean holiday if he had known the police would need to swoop so quickly to disrupt a terrorist plot." -
Re:Coming to America soon
Okay, the first group strikes me as folks who can't distinguish fiction from reality... something the vast majority of people can do just fine, thank you very much.
O RLY? -
Interestingly enough...
I just saw on MSNBC that flying mammals may have been around 130 million years ago.
While the early specimen found is thought to have only been capable of gliding flight (think flying squirrels of today), that's about 80 million years before there's a fossil record of actual flapping bats, apparently. So maybe in New Zealand there's a partial fossil of a proto-bat that is an ancestor to the true bats. Maybe not.
Unqualified assertions that a single curious fossil find prove anything are pretty silly. The idea of the find is fun, exciting, and certainly worth a deeper look. To claim it alone validates or invalidates anything is a bit of stretch. -
Re:Sadly, they weren't joking.
Indeed, but if you read the comments above everyone compares msn and yahoo's home page to google's when they perform very very different functions. It would be fairer to compare google to Live Search and Yahoo Search.
-
Re:Bullshit
Moto already makes a barebones phone that is not available in North America.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11876379/
The reviewer really likes the 5 days with no recharge. -
Public perceptions
Gee, I wonder if this will make mainstream news? Maybe it will be noted right beside that new study that says we're all murderous bastards.
-
Re:when you want to change the world ...Oh, but the One Laptop Per Child campaign does emphasize that these laptops are ultimately intended even for those areas whose conditions we stereotypically associate with the "3rd world." Regarding lighting at least:
Even on the One Laptop Per Child site there is a creepy anecdote -- related as if it exemplified a positive benefit -- about how some poor family in Cambodia used the hand-cranked laptop's screen as a source of light for their abode.
From here. And again, from OLPC itself:
Note that in many locations in the world, the backlight will be the first artificial illumination many families will have (besides a fire). How people will use these systems will fascinate us all.
So yes, some of the individuals being targeted by this campaign are living in conditions where the offer of a laptop is superfluous at best, patronizing at worst. OLPC seems to be implying that, yes, these people do have nothing. So even given access to all the information in the world, what exactly does OLPC think anyone is going to do with this knowledge? They can't make something out of nothing. They couldn't start an e-business if they wanted to--that implies they have banks, rule of law, transportation infrastructure, etc. Are the laptops designed to precipitate revolution so these things become more feasible? Who knows. If they're not giving every child a generator that can produce electricity for all sorts of cheap appliances, perhaps a printed copy of the entire Wikipedia for every child would be more useful than a laptop: then they'd have information and fuel. -
They're afraid of the real job in front them
Quite simply, they are afraid to confront the real job facing them: Iraq.
To quote a recent news article:
Every day we move closer to the edge of a humanitarian abyss. Think the Balkans, Rwanda or Darfur, but with this grim difference: the United States won't be able to stand back from the slaughter and wring its hands in Iraq. It is implicated up to its elbows already, and there's more to come. Attempts to hold Iraq together by political compromise have failed. If the Americans stay there in any way, shape or form, they're going to have to choose sides, backing Iraqi "friends" who will do whatever they think is necessary to impose order.
But on the bright side:
The United States, grabbing here and there for a politically correct model to control the chaos, has only engendered more bloodshed. Most Iraqis want us gone, according to the polls, and the U.S. trainers giving instruction in combat techniques eventually will see that knowledge turned against us by their students. "All they really teach is how to fight Americans," says Van Creveld. "How stupid can they be?"
Thus, our brave leaders wisely decide to address the more urgent matters and leave the problems of foreigners for another day.
--MarkusQ
-
Re:Reason?
The U.S. beat them to the banning of tag
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15316912/ -
Re:New in the war on terror
As it turned out there WERE WMD's.
A few desparate neocons have tried to make something out of hazardous trash left over from pre-1991 weapons programs.
But now that we're there I am against just pulling out. Because a failure in Iraq would be (will be) devistating to the US.
We've already failed in Iraq. The question is whether or not we go on failing, magnifying our losses, or cut them short.
In the game of Go, there is a situation known as a "ladder", or "shi cho", where in trying to protect one stone, a player lays down stone after stone trying to outflank the opponent, only to lose them all when he runs out of room. A wise player knows to let the doomed stone go.
US beaten by little old Iraq. Think of it.
Great Britian beaten by it's little old colonies, and then again by the new United States. Rome beaten by a bunch of barbarians. U.S. beaten by little old Vietnam. U.S.S.R. beaten by little of Afghanistan. There's nothing unique in a world power being beaten by a "weaker" but more motivated force.
Empires fall. The sooner the American Empire falls, the sooner the U.S. can get back to being a great nation, rather than a lousy empire.
-
Re:Look, it's very simple.
-
Lots More Pictures
This has also been picked up by the major media.
On a side note, the HiRISE team is now posting new large images on the HiRISE Website every week on Wednesday. (A file size and format warning is needed. The full super high resolution photo of the Opportunity landing site is 677 MBytes in JP2 format)
Of course, there are some pics that I wouldn't mind a little more investigation on. I happen to be interested in something I call Gulliver's Golf Ball, something that looks like a perfect sphere, roughly 200 meters across. -
Re:difference between google and microsoft
on msn search for: google google
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=google+google &FORM=MSNH
then do the same on google.com
then try with: google google google
I wonder what a googol of googles would do? -
Re:Words are Meaningless - Public Utility
-
Urban Myth? Not sure.
I've seen this one before, and before. I'm pretty sure the story was confirmed each time, though, but that the affected range is quite small (within a few miles of the base, depending on geography).
I'm still not sure whether I believe it, of course, as I'm not being affected (nor do I know anyone that is). If you've got some articles pointing out to the urban legendness of the stories, I'm all ears. Er, eyes. -
Re:It's bad enough that the police can do this...
...We've got a huge percentage of our population in the prison system...
One in every 32 U.S. adults it would seem.
"Land of the Free... offer void where prohibited by law." -
Re:Too bad
Hmmmm, your response is to show two acuras that are SUVs? Be a bit more fair to the bloke. Perhaps you meant to link the TL and RL? Both of which get ok MPG, but get considerably (10% or more) less fuel economy then the most popular car, third most popular vehicle, in the US (the toyota camry)?
Or maybe you could make fun of the price difference between "an acura" and something that's actually affordable to most of the people in the US, and how much that extra money (not to mention the extra money from cost of ownership) would help the rest of the world if it were donated to various research funds... -
Re:Too bad
Hmmmm, your response is to show two acuras that are SUVs? Be a bit more fair to the bloke. Perhaps you meant to link the TL and RL? Both of which get ok MPG, but get considerably (10% or more) less fuel economy then the most popular car, third most popular vehicle, in the US (the toyota camry)?
Or maybe you could make fun of the price difference between "an acura" and something that's actually affordable to most of the people in the US, and how much that extra money (not to mention the extra money from cost of ownership) would help the rest of the world if it were donated to various research funds... -
Re:Too bad
Hmmmm, your response is to show two acuras that are SUVs? Be a bit more fair to the bloke. Perhaps you meant to link the TL and RL? Both of which get ok MPG, but get considerably (10% or more) less fuel economy then the most popular car, third most popular vehicle, in the US (the toyota camry)?
Or maybe you could make fun of the price difference between "an acura" and something that's actually affordable to most of the people in the US, and how much that extra money (not to mention the extra money from cost of ownership) would help the rest of the world if it were donated to various research funds... -
Follow the institutional ownership
One approach to finding out which funds might meet your needs is to look at which institutional investors have large blocks in the open-source companies you consider worthwhile. For example, we can look at the data for Redhat (and, yes, I'm laughing too at who is providing that data) and see that there are large positions in the company held by Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, etc. From that, you can check out the various funds that company offers and see if you can find one that matches your requirements. Taking a glance at our host's ownership information shows a large Fidelity block as well, but no other overlap I noticed. From this limited look, I conclude you should be looking at Fidelity's funds. That approach should get you on the right path. You can do the rest of the legwork--you're the student here, after all; I already know how to invest.
-
Follow the institutional ownership
One approach to finding out which funds might meet your needs is to look at which institutional investors have large blocks in the open-source companies you consider worthwhile. For example, we can look at the data for Redhat (and, yes, I'm laughing too at who is providing that data) and see that there are large positions in the company held by Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, etc. From that, you can check out the various funds that company offers and see if you can find one that matches your requirements. Taking a glance at our host's ownership information shows a large Fidelity block as well, but no other overlap I noticed. From this limited look, I conclude you should be looking at Fidelity's funds. That approach should get you on the right path. You can do the rest of the legwork--you're the student here, after all; I already know how to invest.