1. No steel builing has ever collapsed due to a fire.
First of all, I'm not sure this is a fact. Then again, I don't know many steel buildings that have been hit by a Boeing 767. This isn't your regular building fire. I would guess that most structural engineers would tell you this isn't implausible.
2. The WTC 7 was not hit by a plane and collapsed, according to NIST 'due to a fire'.
I don't know enough about it to comment, however it seems that there have been plausible explanations. Again, if the fire burned hot enough, it could have damaged the structural integrity of the building. I wouldn't be surprised if there are past examples of steel buildings collapsing as a result of a fire.
1. The government explicitly forbit independent investigation of ground zero basically shipping most of the evidence on the site to be smelted - possibly to make the burden of proof on conspiracy theorists to be especially burdensome.
Possibly. Or not. It isn't conclusive in any way.
2. Several witnesses report hearing loud explosions on the WTC before any planes hit.
Again, I'm not excluding the possibility of a conspiracy, but I wouldn't say a couple witnesses making claims are conclusive evidence. They might be making claims up because they believe in a conspiracy and want to give it more substance or simply to get attention. I remember a witness of the 1996 TWA Flight 800 crash say there was a "great ball of fire" that hit the plane. I also know there are "witnesses" of alien abductions, among which some genuinely believe they were abducted.
3. The opinions ( not fact, cause I can distinguish between those two ) of many engineers and scientists - none paid by the government, in stark contrast to 'not all paid by' - that it looked the textbook case of controlled demolition.
Again, just because it looks like a textbook case of controlled demolition doesn't mean it doesn't also look like a textbook case of a building collapsing because it got hit by a jet airliner.
4. The 9/11 Comission report didn't even acknowledge WTC 7's existence. In a healthy democracy, that would be as admission of guilt, in my opinion. Since it's obvious that that part of the disaster DID NOT go according to plan.
I don't know enough about the report or about WTC 7, but I'm surprised it would go unmentioned in a report if it is relevant.
Either way, people are always eager to believe in conspiracy theories (especially the French!). In many cases they give unfounded (or very inconclusive) pseudo-scientific evidence that they claim as proof. I don't rule out a conspiracy, but it doesn't seem like the most plausible explanation.
The first question I have in this case is who would be behind the conspiracy? The government? If so, why? Could it be another government? Who would chance such a conspiracy, given the enormity of the risk of something going wrong?
And why take the risk of leaving evidence (e.g. bombs if they hadn't detonated)? The government could have just paid/blackmailed the Al Qaeda suicide bombers to crash their planes in the WTC, that would be a much simpler conspiracy theory but even harder to prove/debunk.
Unless I see more conclusive evidence, I have no reason to believe in a conspiracy theory here - it just doesn't add up.
If you look at it objectively as I do, it does definitely have the appearance of being staged.
I think it's good to consider all possibilities, and without further investigation, the "appearance of being staged" is understandable.
The point is that yes, it could probably have looked the same way if it had been staged and explosives had been used. But if you have some understanding of physics and engineering of these tall buildings, you can see it doesn't have to be staged at all.
For instance, steel may melt at higher temperatures than those at which jet fuel burns, but:
a. You don't have to actually have liquid steel for the steel to lose its physical characteristics and for the structural integrity of the building to be compromised. (trust me on this, I spent more time heat-treating steel than I would ever wish for anyone)
b. In confined spaces, the floors turned into ovens, and not only jet fuel was burning.
The fact is that many engineers and scientists (not all paid by the government) have stated that there didn't need to be any explosives for it to look the way it did.
If you look at it objectively as I do, it does definitely have just as much the appearance of being staged as the appearance of not being staged.
There, fixed that for you. The question is then, which is more likely?
Personally I would say: if things can be explained without a conspiracy theory, odds are good that there is no conspiracy. It doesn't prove there is no conspiracy, but I think the burden of proof is on the conspiracy theorists, since they are the ones making accusations. And to prove the existence of a conspiracy you would have to bring arguments that can't be explained without one.
Re:More than scientific learning
on
LHC Success!
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· Score: 1
*By definition* the doomsayers have historically always been wrong.
There, FTFY.
Re:you can't stop the doomsayers
on
LHC Success!
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· Score: 1
Just because you don't know "exactly" what's going to happen doesn't mean you can't rule out a number of unrealistic scenarios.
Of course they built it to see what they would find (hopefully the Higgs Boson?). I'm sure they took into account all the worst things that could happen, and from what I understand, a black hole wasn't one of them.
I haven't seen any respectable leading physicist even describe the doomsday idea as anything but ridiculous.
Re:you can't stop the doomsayers
on
LHC Success!
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· Score: 1
Of course, the guys who built the LHC knew what they were doing, but that doesn't mean that others shouldn't double-check. It's very common engineering practice to have someone check over your design drawings for problems - for really important projects sometimes external companies will be called in to recheck everything as well.
I'd be very surprised if they didn't check and recheck multiple times, with external contractors as well.
From what I understand, radioactive decay is actually slower during solar flares, so I would guess it's also slower when distance to the sun is reduced.
Perhaps shielding radioactive waste from solar neutrino flux could accelerate decay?
On another note, I think you were looking for the word "effects".
You've missed the point a bit, but for your edification change it to "Facebook's Top 10 Interesting Users" or some other non-defamatory subject. As long as no laws are violated, Slashdot's TOS allows them to package up your content in any way they see fit and sell it should they so choose. This would be an interesting project for Slashdot to undertake. They could sell your data [actually, because of the rights you've granted them, it's their data too] to third party sites and call it a "Beacon" program. I'm sure users would be happy about that. [slashdot.org]
If you don't agree with the TOS, don't post. It's that simple.
The TOS are there to cover Slashdot's ass.
I've not looked at Facebook's TOS or Privacy Policy, but I wouldn't be surprised if they store all data indefinitely and delete it only on explicit request.
My bad, didn't read the subject line. I don't know if such an app exists on the store and I haven't bothered to look for one. A simple Google search indicates that if you jailbreak your iPhone you can get a usenet newsreader: iNewsGroup.
I'm not sure what you mean by a "newsreader" client, but there are many apps for reading news, including one by the NYTimes, one by the AP, and there are also several RSS aggregators (Newsgator, etc.). You can also access a very pretty iPhone version of the Google Reader website.
Again, I might have misunderstood your meaning of "newsreader".
What likely happened here is that the API was written but was totally screwed up. Thats where the running out of time comes in. They didn't run out of time to make one, they had the wrong people working on it and they messed it up. But admitting a mistake like that would mean Google is human.
First of all, you're making a random conjecture based on absolutely no knowledge of the situation.
Secondly, even if they did screw up - as you suggest they did - they still ran out of time in the sense that they won't have time to fix it and therefore won't have a functional API ready for release. Even if your unlikely theory were true, I think anyone with even a glimmer of business intuition would agree that it would just be stupid to admit that they screwed up, given it's not even released.
something you can just hire more people for to work on
Because you think it doesn't cost more to go and hire more people? Like any project, they're on a budget, my friend. But I'm sure you're right - they hired a whole new team for the Bluetooth API and those guys screwed up. Ya right.
"If they'd just hired a thousand engineers to code this, we would have had Android phones in January!"
We paid to put the roads there and everyone should be able to use them however the hell they want so long as they don't harm anyone.
I would personally change that to "so long as they don't put anyone's life in danger".
Reckless driving itself doesn't necessarily kill, but it greatly increases the risks of killing (that's not to say that nobody ever dies by driving responsibly, but you're more likely to get hurt or hurt someone else by driving recklessly).
I'd be fine with reckless driving if the only person it would affect was the driver. That simply isn't the case. I know people who got seriously injured and even one who died, not because they were driving drunk or recklessly, but because some other idiot was. It doesn't help these people much that that driver is now in jail. I hate having to drive really slow sometimes, but prevention is necessary. And so are drunk driving laws. What you do with your life is your business, but that ends when you start affecting my life.
Just because you think it isn't going to happen to you doesn't mean you shouldn't care. Maybe you don't value life that much?*
* I hate how cheesy that sounds, but I neither believe in god nor am I excessively sentimental. I just want to live, and I think that if you respect other people's right to live, that right is yours too.
I now instinctively plug into the car charger while driving, plug in at work, and then plug in at home. I even leave a cable attached to my XBOX360 to charge (even though the 360 won't recognize the iPhone like it would my iPod Video).
After doing some research, from what I understand this is not at all a bad practice with new Li-Ion batteries.
Contrary to popular belief that you have to let it drain all the way before recharging (which was true with NiMH or NiCd batteries), any time you're using a Li-Ion battery, it's draining its lifetime. Most Li-Ion batteries only have from 400-600 full charge cycles. Might as well keep it off the battery and charge it when you can. (as long as it's not using the battery while charging)
My understanding of this is that the odds of "winning" on the principle (proving the illegal activity) and recovering damages (in the order of $3 or even a multiple of damages, say x10) were in the RIAA's favor, but those of getting orders of magnitude more in damages were not.
On the one hand, it seems to me that would have set a precedent in favor of the RIAA only insofar as they would have shown that Ms. Barker had illegally downloaded/shared copyrighted material.
On the other hand, this would have set a precedent limiting the penalty to $3,500 (judging by Ms. Barker's answer) for every 1,000 songs illegally downloaded or shared.
Had these precedents been set, it seems like they would have been overall positive for file sharers (right or wrong). My first question is: for this to happen now, will someone have to go through again all the steps Ms. Barker went through?
Finally, if Ms. Barker's 3rd argument is valid, it seems to me that evidence was unlawfully procured and that it would be a much easier defense? Is this not the case?
Sorry about asking all these questions, I could probably Google it, but I'm curious and don't have time to do my own research right now.
Also, for the record, I am not criticizing Ms. Barker for her decision to settle as I understand that drawn-out litigation can take its toll on anyone.
with their new awareness campaigns funded by the legal fun of now.
I'd be surprised if their legal campaigns are bringing in that much capital. Just because you've managed to sue a few people and scare a few others into paying you $10,000 to avoid a lawsuit doesn't mean you're making more money than you're spending on legal fees.
I don't know how profitable their lawsuits are, but to me it seems their main goal with the lawsuit frenzy is to scare people away from downloading illegally, not to make tons of $$ from the lawsuits.
The Streisand effect would only be an issue if their primary concern had really been privacy.
If privacy was really what they were concerned about, you're right, they shouldn't have said anything and nobody would have noticed. I'm pretty sure they just see an easy opportunity to make a buck.
Slashdot Mirror
It would be much cooler on a shark.
... except when said crime is pedophilia.
1. No steel builing has ever collapsed due to a fire.
First of all, I'm not sure this is a fact. Then again, I don't know many steel buildings that have been hit by a Boeing 767. This isn't your regular building fire. I would guess that most structural engineers would tell you this isn't implausible.
2. The WTC 7 was not hit by a plane and collapsed, according to NIST 'due to a fire'.
I don't know enough about it to comment, however it seems that there have been plausible explanations. Again, if the fire burned hot enough, it could have damaged the structural integrity of the building. I wouldn't be surprised if there are past examples of steel buildings collapsing as a result of a fire.
1. The government explicitly forbit independent investigation of ground zero basically shipping most of the evidence on the site to be smelted - possibly to make the burden of proof on conspiracy theorists to be especially burdensome.
Possibly. Or not. It isn't conclusive in any way.
2. Several witnesses report hearing loud explosions on the WTC before any planes hit.
Again, I'm not excluding the possibility of a conspiracy, but I wouldn't say a couple witnesses making claims are conclusive evidence. They might be making claims up because they believe in a conspiracy and want to give it more substance or simply to get attention. I remember a witness of the 1996 TWA Flight 800 crash say there was a "great ball of fire" that hit the plane. I also know there are "witnesses" of alien abductions, among which some genuinely believe they were abducted.
3. The opinions ( not fact, cause I can distinguish between those two ) of many engineers and scientists - none paid by the government, in stark contrast to 'not all paid by' - that it looked the textbook case of controlled demolition.
Again, just because it looks like a textbook case of controlled demolition doesn't mean it doesn't also look like a textbook case of a building collapsing because it got hit by a jet airliner.
4. The 9/11 Comission report didn't even acknowledge WTC 7's existence. In a healthy democracy, that would be as admission of guilt, in my opinion. Since it's obvious that that part of the disaster DID NOT go according to plan.
I don't know enough about the report or about WTC 7, but I'm surprised it would go unmentioned in a report if it is relevant.
Either way, people are always eager to believe in conspiracy theories (especially the French!). In many cases they give unfounded (or very inconclusive) pseudo-scientific evidence that they claim as proof. I don't rule out a conspiracy, but it doesn't seem like the most plausible explanation.
The first question I have in this case is who would be behind the conspiracy? The government? If so, why? Could it be another government? Who would chance such a conspiracy, given the enormity of the risk of something going wrong?
And why take the risk of leaving evidence (e.g. bombs if they hadn't detonated)? The government could have just paid/blackmailed the Al Qaeda suicide bombers to crash their planes in the WTC, that would be a much simpler conspiracy theory but even harder to prove/debunk.
Unless I see more conclusive evidence, I have no reason to believe in a conspiracy theory here - it just doesn't add up.
If you look at it objectively as I do, it does definitely have the appearance of being staged.
I think it's good to consider all possibilities, and without further investigation, the "appearance of being staged" is understandable.
The point is that yes, it could probably have looked the same way if it had been staged and explosives had been used. But if you have some understanding of physics and engineering of these tall buildings, you can see it doesn't have to be staged at all.
For instance, steel may melt at higher temperatures than those at which jet fuel burns, but:
a. You don't have to actually have liquid steel for the steel to lose its physical characteristics and for the structural integrity of the building to be compromised. (trust me on this, I spent more time heat-treating steel than I would ever wish for anyone)
b. In confined spaces, the floors turned into ovens, and not only jet fuel was burning.
The fact is that many engineers and scientists (not all paid by the government) have stated that there didn't need to be any explosives for it to look the way it did.
If you look at it objectively as I do, it does definitely have just as much the appearance of being staged as the appearance of not being staged.
There, fixed that for you. The question is then, which is more likely?
Personally I would say: if things can be explained without a conspiracy theory, odds are good that there is no conspiracy. It doesn't prove there is no conspiracy, but I think the burden of proof is on the conspiracy theorists, since they are the ones making accusations. And to prove the existence of a conspiracy you would have to bring arguments that can't be explained without one.
*By definition* the doomsayers have historically always been wrong.
There, FTFY.
Just because you don't know "exactly" what's going to happen doesn't mean you can't rule out a number of unrealistic scenarios.
Of course they built it to see what they would find (hopefully the Higgs Boson?). I'm sure they took into account all the worst things that could happen, and from what I understand, a black hole wasn't one of them.
I haven't seen any respectable leading physicist even describe the doomsday idea as anything but ridiculous.
Of course, the guys who built the LHC knew what they were doing, but that doesn't mean that others shouldn't double-check. It's very common engineering practice to have someone check over your design drawings for problems - for really important projects sometimes external companies will be called in to recheck everything as well.
I'd be very surprised if they didn't check and recheck multiple times, with external contractors as well.
broadband at 5% of their current price
There, FTFY
From what I understand, radioactive decay is actually slower during solar flares, so I would guess it's also slower when distance to the sun is reduced.
Perhaps shielding radioactive waste from solar neutrino flux could accelerate decay?
On another note, I think you were looking for the word "effects".
If you don't agree with the TOS, don't post. It's that simple.
The TOS are there to cover Slashdot's ass.
I've not looked at Facebook's TOS or Privacy Policy, but I wouldn't be surprised if they store all data indefinitely and delete it only on explicit request.
the ultimate "vaporware". At least when used on water.
My bad, didn't read the subject line. I don't know if such an app exists on the store and I haven't bothered to look for one. A simple Google search indicates that if you jailbreak your iPhone you can get a usenet newsreader: iNewsGroup.
I'm not sure what you mean by a "newsreader" client, but there are many apps for reading news, including one by the NYTimes, one by the AP, and there are also several RSS aggregators (Newsgator, etc.). You can also access a very pretty iPhone version of the Google Reader website.
Again, I might have misunderstood your meaning of "newsreader".
What likely happened here is that the API was written but was totally screwed up. Thats where the running out of time comes in. They didn't run out of time to make one, they had the wrong people working on it and they messed it up. But admitting a mistake like that would mean Google is human.
First of all, you're making a random conjecture based on absolutely no knowledge of the situation.
Secondly, even if they did screw up - as you suggest they did - they still ran out of time in the sense that they won't have time to fix it and therefore won't have a functional API ready for release. Even if your unlikely theory were true, I think anyone with even a glimmer of business intuition would agree that it would just be stupid to admit that they screwed up, given it's not even released.
something you can just hire more people for to work on
Because you think it doesn't cost more to go and hire more people? Like any project, they're on a budget, my friend. But I'm sure you're right - they hired a whole new team for the Bluetooth API and those guys screwed up. Ya right.
"If they'd just hired a thousand engineers to code this, we would have had Android phones in January!"
We paid to put the roads there and everyone should be able to use them however the hell they want so long as they don't harm anyone.
I would personally change that to "so long as they don't put anyone's life in danger". Reckless driving itself doesn't necessarily kill, but it greatly increases the risks of killing (that's not to say that nobody ever dies by driving responsibly, but you're more likely to get hurt or hurt someone else by driving recklessly).
I'd be fine with reckless driving if the only person it would affect was the driver. That simply isn't the case. I know people who got seriously injured and even one who died, not because they were driving drunk or recklessly, but because some other idiot was. It doesn't help these people much that that driver is now in jail. I hate having to drive really slow sometimes, but prevention is necessary. And so are drunk driving laws. What you do with your life is your business, but that ends when you start affecting my life.
Just because you think it isn't going to happen to you doesn't mean you shouldn't care. Maybe you don't value life that much?*
* I hate how cheesy that sounds, but I neither believe in god nor am I excessively sentimental. I just want to live, and I think that if you respect other people's right to live, that right is yours too.
They will quit spending money on their company BMW's and office remodels
You are completely right, I also am positively certain that they won't just find somewhere else to cut costs.
I now instinctively plug into the car charger while driving, plug in at work, and then plug in at home. I even leave a cable attached to my XBOX360 to charge (even though the 360 won't recognize the iPhone like it would my iPod Video).
After doing some research, from what I understand this is not at all a bad practice with new Li-Ion batteries.
Contrary to popular belief that you have to let it drain all the way before recharging (which was true with NiMH or NiCd batteries), any time you're using a Li-Ion battery, it's draining its lifetime. Most Li-Ion batteries only have from 400-600 full charge cycles. Might as well keep it off the battery and charge it when you can. (as long as it's not using the battery while charging)
Any animal kept in captivity and inbred for generations
Yeah, just look at European royalty!
My understanding of this is that the odds of "winning" on the principle (proving the illegal activity) and recovering damages (in the order of $3 or even a multiple of damages, say x10) were in the RIAA's favor, but those of getting orders of magnitude more in damages were not.
On the one hand, it seems to me that would have set a precedent in favor of the RIAA only insofar as they would have shown that Ms. Barker had illegally downloaded/shared copyrighted material.
On the other hand, this would have set a precedent limiting the penalty to $3,500 (judging by Ms. Barker's answer) for every 1,000 songs illegally downloaded or shared.
Had these precedents been set, it seems like they would have been overall positive for file sharers (right or wrong).
My first question is: for this to happen now, will someone have to go through again all the steps Ms. Barker went through?
Finally, if Ms. Barker's 3rd argument is valid, it seems to me that evidence was unlawfully procured and that it would be a much easier defense? Is this not the case?
Sorry about asking all these questions, I could probably Google it, but I'm curious and don't have time to do my own research right now. Also, for the record, I am not criticizing Ms. Barker for her decision to settle as I understand that drawn-out litigation can take its toll on anyone.
@NewYorkCountryLawyer:
I read a quote from you saying
"The client makes the decision. I would have loved to litigate this, I think we had good defenses."
In your opinion, what were the chances of Ms. Barker winning the suit, had she not settled?
with their new awareness campaigns funded by the legal fun of now.
I'd be surprised if their legal campaigns are bringing in that much capital. Just because you've managed to sue a few people and scare a few others into paying you $10,000 to avoid a lawsuit doesn't mean you're making more money than you're spending on legal fees.
I don't know how profitable their lawsuits are, but to me it seems their main goal with the lawsuit frenzy is to scare people away from downloading illegally, not to make tons of $$ from the lawsuits.
I can pick winners and losers by giving one team pharma X and giving the other pharma Y.
Easy! Pharma Y = cyanide
FedEx ships to the address you gave Amazon.com.
I gave your address, I hope that's ok with you.
The Streisand effect would only be an issue if their primary concern had really been privacy.
If privacy was really what they were concerned about, you're right, they shouldn't have said anything and nobody would have noticed. I'm pretty sure they just see an easy opportunity to make a buck.
I'm sure Galilei would agree.