Rocks may have a greater chance of falling towards the Sun.
But don't discount the Solar Wind. I believe I've read similar discussions that suggest the overall probability is greater for life pushing outward from the Sun due to Solar Wind. We have found microbes very high up in our biosphere. And there tends to be a larger dust trail around Earth.
So dust particles carrying life may get a free ride outwards.
For all intents and purposes when you think of the AT&T monopoly of yore, actually Verizon is more of that than the current incarnation of AT&T that is entertaining us today with this legal battle.
First, AT&T was divested. The monopoly part became mini-monopolies - the Baby Bells. They were still almost exclusively the only show in town for what they did (local telephony). AT&T actually had to compete at that point, on several fronts. Long Distance became a highly competitive arena over time. And the part that made telephony infrastructure equipment could no longer simply dictate to the local phone companies what they were gonna buy.
The first wave of Wireless in the US was a mandated duopoly. Each area got two licenses for wireless service providers. The "B" band went to the established phone company while the "A" band was up for grabs. The "B" side was often termed the "wireline" side because they were established companies already. Gradually, a large chunk of the upstart "A" side companies coalesced into McCaw. Before the "B" side companies started merging, McCaw was actually bigger than most.
Eventually AT&T bought McCaw and became or created AT&T Wireless.
The game changed with lots more licenses and more players.
SBC bought up Ameritech, then AT&T and then changed it's name to AT&T.
In all of that, if you restrict your view to the Wireless stuff Verizon is much more directly a descendant of the Baby Bells.
Try not to think just in two dimensions. Imagine the orbit as a very large ring. Instead of thinking of it shrinking, imagine the ring pivoting out of the usual orbital plane. Imagine this ring slowly rotating. Eventually, it'll settle back to the plane yet the planet will be orbiting backwards relative the the original and the star's rotation.
I know the Drake Equation more or less deals with the chance there is an intelligent species somewhere else simultaneously in the galaxy that might be able to communicate with us. But has anyone attempted to theorize the chance a species as a society develops a valid infrastructure to support inter-stellar travel?
It seems to me the remark that we're not in a true Space Race anymore raises an interesting point. In a general sense, space travel is incredibly expensive. So much so, there is all but no economic value to it at all if one is thinking of the usual things: mining; resource gathering; colonization; etc. But the FEAR from a war (albeit cold-war) can drive a space race to great ends. Granted this fear was likely very well grounded. Who controlled space could conceivably rain down death at will.
If we toss into this mix the idea that one reason for Europe's technological ascendancy of the last millennium was more or less constant warfare, it makes one wonder if technology is often more driven by survival and belligerence. In such a state, with advanced weaponry, those societies that are driven to true space travel may be much more inclined to wipe themselves out.
Your points are well taken, but I think you're very likely misunderstanding your audience (racists) or the impact of your statement.
You see to be assuming evolution has a direction (more or most evolved) or at the very least to be equating genetic diversity within a population as a metric of how evolved it might be. As if all are evolved, but some are more evolved than others.
You're stating the evidence shows Africans as the most evolved. What a racist is likely hearing is that the evidence shows Africans are the most primitive. Indeed, I imagine a racist isn't the least bit interested in diversity, genetic or otherwise.
This reasoning would be silly, of course, since the Aborigines of Australia would be on par with Western Europeans in this classification of the three groups.
I actually had this conversation with a friend a year ago or so. Of course, they didn't express a desire to relish in raw pork. And it was related to the Bird Flu. But pretty much dead on the same.
Their reasoning was that Bird Flu wasn't going to be an issue because it couldn't "evolve" the ability of human-to-human transmission because... evolution was a bunch of nonsense. And the media had lost interest by that time so my friend thought it had all just been overblown.
But H5N1 (Bird Flu) hasn't gone away at all. This H1N1 (Swine Flu) may be bad; it may not. But even if it has low mortality rate, if it spreads quickly far and wide, it may increase the chance H5N1 picks up human-to-human. That would be very bad indeed.
Unfortunately, it's not really as simple as leaders who "need" things dumbed down.
Honestly, I imagine there are tons of rather astute, intelligent and wise judges fully capable of JUDGING situations, mitigating circumstances, motives and all sorts of other relevant details who simply CANNOT apply any judgments at all once certain criteria are met which force the judge to hand out a certain judgment or sentence.
Who creates these laws that bind these judges? Our representative legislators... us, in essence. We fall prey to those who campaign on fear and on being "tough on crime", etc. Unfortunately, I do believe we have fallen so far that many of us are rather inept at sophisticated moral and ethical reasoning. Far too many cherish intolerance and intransigence dressing such up as "strong convictions".
I believe the easiest way for you to maintain the analogy of the rubber sheet (although nobody says that's strictly necessary), is to accept that there is no 3rd dimension in the analogy.
The analogy makes sense to us because we are 3D creatures (ignoring time) and the idea of something falling into a funnel or depression is rather easy and intuitive to understand.
But to complete the analogy, once you've got the idea of a ball rolling around, you have to take the next step and realize nothing (NOTHING) is "on top" of the sheet. The entire 2D universe IS the sheet. Things aren't "falling in". They're simply following "straight" paths through a curved medium. It just helps us to visualize the curvature to imagine a rubber sheet deformed in the same fashion as a 2D rubber sheet deformed in 3D by dense objects lying on it. But the curvature involved here isn't like that.
Would it be easier for you to imagine one positively charged metal ball rolling on (ahem... IN) a flat rubber sheet with a few negatively charged poles poking through it? Or indeed a few negatively charged balls. The issue here is that with gravity, not only would all the balls attract each other, but things with no inherent mass (eg. light) are affected as well.
Ultimately the real problem is that it's rather hard for most of us to understand Curvature unless it is in reference to (i.e. embedded within) a higher dimensional space. But Curvature can be defined without this requirement.
While some sort of verification would seem necessary, there is a rather significant problem created if anyone can "leave [with] it".
If you can walk away with proof of "what" you voted, you can prove it to anyone willing to buy your vote. Or to Guido who is threatening to beat up your little ones if you don't vote a specific way.
This is a rather serious problem all the world over. So whatever we do to verify or to authenticate, it cannot involve the voter walking out with the means to show anyone how they voted.
I imagine one thing that makes the judge qualified to judge what evidence is permissible is a better understanding of the issues (and case law and history) related to things like the 4th amendment.
It may be a "fact" that drugs were found in the defendant's car. This "fact" may be deemed inadmissible if 4th amendment rights were violated. It is possible that despite this the defendant was indeed guilty. But it is also possible corrupt cops planted the "evidence".
I imagine there are a slew of things like this. So although I would chafe under restrictions preventing me from doing basic research to better understand things related to a particular case, there's no need to disrespect a judge's role here.
I imagine there are all sorts of resources where this view may hold true. But I'm not certain every resource problem can be solved this way - especially not within a desirable timeframe.
Furthermore, since we are in the realm of discussing science fiction, what about waste heat? There are authors (such as Peter Hamilton) who have envisioned that the widespread adoption of fusion and "free energy" sends global warming skyrocketing, not due to greenhouse gases but simply due to enormous amounts of waste heat.
One primary difference here is the surprise factor. Iran announced their intention to do this five years ago. Of course, many may view this goal with as much suspicion as Iran's purported peaceful reasons for pursuing nuclear power.
Iran now joins a small club (about a dozen) of nations which have demonstrated this capability.
But if we are worried about this particular country combining their nuclear ambitions and their launch capability ambitions into something rather onerous (given their proclivity towards anti-US rallies, etc.), it would seem to underscore the importance of engagement and dialogue.
Oh... and related to your sig... yes. For all practical purposes:
Sadly with regards to Comcast, it's because they don't consider themselves primarily an ISP.
It's not that they are an ISP and they want to be something else. It's that they are "SOMETHING ELSE" and DOCSIS came around and they looked and said "Hey. While we're at it we could charge folk a few extra bucks a month and give them Internet too." So it's very easy to understand how they wish to ensure you use THEM for your VoIP and video-on-demand needs.
Seriously. Call their help line. Listen to their canned message while you're on hold. Does it say anything remotely close to "we want to be your ISP"? Nope. It says something like "we're happy to be your ENTERTAINMENT company".
Nothing really surprises me anymore about their horribly pathetic reliability once you realize their idea of what they are.
The "scare tactics" of the RIAA are about more than just fear. It's about FUD: Fear; Uncertainty; Doubt.
By televised court proceedings, you may increase the Fear aspect (assuming they actually have a strong case), but you may significantly reduce your portion of Uncertainty and Doubt.
I imagine the industry wants very much to perpetuate the concept that Copyright Infringement equals theft. One doesn't even need to get into the debate of whether it is "as bad as" theft. All the RIAA/MPAA publicity efforts seem simply to hinge on the equivalence (I mean.. you wouldn't steal a car would you? huh WOULD YOU?)
The trouble is the Industry seems scared too. Although they seem to have been easily able to purchase legislation to their hearts content, they probably realize laws on the books won't matter a bit if the larger society as a whole shifts in their view of said laws. First, they won't get enforced. Second, eventually even if the laws don't get overturned, sooner or later Jury Nullification will take over. Or we might start seeing damages scaled way, WAY back to realistic levels.
Public perception of these folk may be souring greatly. These things can shift rather quickly. I believe this is what they fear.
Intelligence itself might not be the result of "survival boredom". I consider it an incredibly interesting proposition, however.
But society and hence technology is undeniably the result of "survival boredom". Once we got that agricultural thing down, there was no turning back.
Yes two politicians can often look at the same thing and walk away touting diametrically opposite viewpoints.
Indeed, in many areas where there is a fair degree of uncertainty scientists do the same.
Nonetheless, I applaud the approach towards meritocracy shown with this appointment.
One of the things I've so often been troubled by with our current administration was that in uncountable examples, they look like a small child playing chess who can see no more beyond a couple of moves. The incompetence at all levels has been staggering. The disdain for facts and science over "gut" and pet policies (and blatant corruption) has been deplorable.
An accomplished scientist need not champion the "CORRECT" solution. They would do far better than recent folk simply by doing a good job weeding out the bad solutions.
The credit crisis is a great example. Parent's understanding seems weak. The slew of people going into foreclosure was just the match struck in the shed full of explosives with tons of gas on the floor. How this catastrophe was set up can indeed be investigated and the proper folk (on both sides of the aisle politically, but primarily business) castigated. But was lacking (with few exceptions) was the foresight of how bad things could get and how quickly. Part of what blinded the "experts" was FAITH in deregulation (namely that we could simply trust the banks not to do stupid things with credit swaps) over FACTS.
If you need a pithy, simplistic summary cause of the credit crisis, I can give you a better one: the assumption that valuations would always go up. Difficulties making mortgage payments due to increased energy costs pale in comparison to what happens if your adjustable rate resets while your property value has plumetted. You gambled that you could just refinance later given increased property value (same thing with banks and credit swaps). You bet wrong.
As far as I can tell, the Dish receivers DO come with such a mechanism.
It would seem all one would have to do in order to "switch off" as you suggest in order to ensure that no information goes back to Dish...
is unplug the RJ-11 cable from the receiver so it cannot "phone home".
The receivers work just fine without the so called "required" phone connection. Dish even has ways for you to purchase movies without the phone connection.
Interestingly enough, the universe is almost certainly much bigger than you believe.
Honestly, we have no idea and probably no real way of determining how big the universe really is. Nonetheless, the observable universe seems to be at least90 billion light years in diameter. So, it'd be more like finding that random person in the same room.
To everyone (including myself) whose first thought was that the one spider ate the other, I'd suggest we consider how spiders eat.
Spiders don't swallow prey whole. If it'd been two or three octopuses, fish, snakes, frogs or any other sort of animal, this would make sense. But I'd be willing to bet one spider eating the other wouldn't have gone unnoticed for at least a couple of reasons. First, spiders don't eat quickly. One spider eating something the same size would be sucking the juices out of the other for quite a long time (hours). Second, the spiders are messy in the sense that they tend to leave dried out carcasses laying around after they're done.
Well... World of Warcraft isn't the greatest example here.
It runs JUST FINE on Linux!
I'm sure it's partially because I had a lot of services running in Windows which I've since moved off onto a separate Linux box. But WoW seems snappier for me in Linux. But then, I was running via OpenGL on Windows as well. Your mileage may vary.
Linux vs. Windows is still a difficult question of tradeoffs for many. I've finally switched from multi-booting primarily in Windows to staying on Linux most of the time. Still cannot get any number of things working. As much as possible, knocking them out one by one slowly. But this is offset by compiz, PulseAudio and any number of nice things. Finally the pros have outweighed the cons by enough margin to keep me here.
The real problem is how ignorant the masses are. Most people just cannot believe you can get applications such as OpenOffice for free. Most have NO IDEA of the wealth of applications available. There will always be many people who cannot, will not or do not want to shoulder the responsibility of managing your own system that really is a part of running Linux. But I really feel there are TONS of folk who'd switch if they knew what was there.
There is some truth that all politicians and to some degree all political parties share much in common that most would find distasteful.
But in India, there is much, MUCH more diversity of main political parties that there is in the US. They really are rather different in many ways.
As an outsider looking in and watching political debates, I can share my opinion. Congress isn't "wimpy". It's just by and large more mature. In any society that values free speech, you don't need or desire to "shut people up". You'd think a country born out of non-violent protest would really appreciate this. When asked about why Congress fared so poorly after the Godhra riots, Sonja had the merit to explain in a public roundtable that time and again we see people shift to hardline parties in times of fear only to come to their senses later. This would be akin to the top Democrat leaders just after Sept 11 holding incredibly steady and pointing out where, how and why Americans were falling sway to manipulation by fear from the Republicans instead of simply trying to outdo the Republicans.
The BJP (and others), is a great example that religious fanaticism intertwined in politics is not at all unique to the US. Their reasoning is so similar to the board in Animal Farm, it's not even funny.
But yes, in Kerala especially these folk (CPM) have a bad rap. Furthermore, Communists in Kerala over the decades have provided excellent case studies of the folly of Communistic policies or anything similar. There are STILL huge swaths of land that were "appropriated" by the government decades ago that lie fallow, undeveloped and unused. There were vast acres and acres of very productive farmland that immediately went into disuse after the land grab. A similar more recent example would be Zimbabwe's horrible decline. Popular sentiment in Kerala is finally swinging around to the idea that this was a very stupid mistake and the former landowners were stiffed. But you're almost certainly not going to see it rise to the level that the CPM (and others) would admit they were wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
Rocks may have a greater chance of falling towards the Sun.
But don't discount the Solar Wind. I believe I've read similar discussions that suggest the overall probability is greater for life pushing outward from the Sun due to Solar Wind. We have found microbes very high up in our biosphere. And there tends to be a larger dust trail around Earth.
So dust particles carrying life may get a free ride outwards.
Oh it's a lot more convoluted than that.
For all intents and purposes when you think of the AT&T monopoly of yore, actually Verizon is more of that than the current incarnation of AT&T that is entertaining us today with this legal battle.
First, AT&T was divested. The monopoly part became mini-monopolies - the Baby Bells. They were still almost exclusively the only show in town for what they did (local telephony). AT&T actually had to compete at that point, on several fronts. Long Distance became a highly competitive arena over time. And the part that made telephony infrastructure equipment could no longer simply dictate to the local phone companies what they were gonna buy.
The first wave of Wireless in the US was a mandated duopoly. Each area got two licenses for wireless service providers. The "B" band went to the established phone company while the "A" band was up for grabs. The "B" side was often termed the "wireline" side because they were established companies already. Gradually, a large chunk of the upstart "A" side companies coalesced into McCaw. Before the "B" side companies started merging, McCaw was actually bigger than most.
Eventually AT&T bought McCaw and became or created AT&T Wireless.
The game changed with lots more licenses and more players.
SBC bought up Ameritech, then AT&T and then changed it's name to AT&T.
In all of that, if you restrict your view to the Wireless stuff Verizon is much more directly a descendant of the Baby Bells.
Depends on what gets perturbed, I guess.
Try not to think just in two dimensions. Imagine the orbit as a very large ring. Instead of thinking of it shrinking, imagine the ring pivoting out of the usual orbital plane. Imagine this ring slowly rotating. Eventually, it'll settle back to the plane yet the planet will be orbiting backwards relative the the original and the star's rotation.
I know the Drake Equation more or less deals with the chance there is an intelligent species somewhere else simultaneously in the galaxy that might be able to communicate with us. But has anyone attempted to theorize the chance a species as a society develops a valid infrastructure to support inter-stellar travel?
It seems to me the remark that we're not in a true Space Race anymore raises an interesting point. In a general sense, space travel is incredibly expensive. So much so, there is all but no economic value to it at all if one is thinking of the usual things: mining; resource gathering; colonization; etc. But the FEAR from a war (albeit cold-war) can drive a space race to great ends. Granted this fear was likely very well grounded. Who controlled space could conceivably rain down death at will.
If we toss into this mix the idea that one reason for Europe's technological ascendancy of the last millennium was more or less constant warfare, it makes one wonder if technology is often more driven by survival and belligerence. In such a state, with advanced weaponry, those societies that are driven to true space travel may be much more inclined to wipe themselves out.
Your points are well taken, but I think you're very likely misunderstanding your audience (racists) or the impact of your statement.
You see to be assuming evolution has a direction (more or most evolved) or at the very least to be equating genetic diversity within a population as a metric of how evolved it might be. As if all are evolved, but some are more evolved than others.
You're stating the evidence shows Africans as the most evolved. What a racist is likely hearing is that the evidence shows Africans are the most primitive. Indeed, I imagine a racist isn't the least bit interested in diversity, genetic or otherwise.
This reasoning would be silly, of course, since the Aborigines of Australia would be on par with Western Europeans in this classification of the three groups.
Sigh...
If only this were just funny.
I actually had this conversation with a friend a year ago or so. Of course, they didn't express a desire to relish in raw pork. And it was related to the Bird Flu. But pretty much dead on the same.
Their reasoning was that Bird Flu wasn't going to be an issue because it couldn't "evolve" the ability of human-to-human transmission because... evolution was a bunch of nonsense. And the media had lost interest by that time so my friend thought it had all just been overblown.
But H5N1 (Bird Flu) hasn't gone away at all. This H1N1 (Swine Flu) may be bad; it may not. But even if it has low mortality rate, if it spreads quickly far and wide, it may increase the chance H5N1 picks up human-to-human. That would be very bad indeed.
Unfortunately, it's not really as simple as leaders who "need" things dumbed down.
Honestly, I imagine there are tons of rather astute, intelligent and wise judges fully capable of JUDGING situations, mitigating circumstances, motives and all sorts of other relevant details who simply CANNOT apply any judgments at all once certain criteria are met which force the judge to hand out a certain judgment or sentence.
Who creates these laws that bind these judges? Our representative legislators... us, in essence. We fall prey to those who campaign on fear and on being "tough on crime", etc. Unfortunately, I do believe we have fallen so far that many of us are rather inept at sophisticated moral and ethical reasoning. Far too many cherish intolerance and intransigence dressing such up as "strong convictions".
I believe the easiest way for you to maintain the analogy of the rubber sheet (although nobody says that's strictly necessary), is to accept that there is no 3rd dimension in the analogy.
The analogy makes sense to us because we are 3D creatures (ignoring time) and the idea of something falling into a funnel or depression is rather easy and intuitive to understand.
But to complete the analogy, once you've got the idea of a ball rolling around, you have to take the next step and realize nothing (NOTHING) is "on top" of the sheet. The entire 2D universe IS the sheet. Things aren't "falling in". They're simply following "straight" paths through a curved medium. It just helps us to visualize the curvature to imagine a rubber sheet deformed in the same fashion as a 2D rubber sheet deformed in 3D by dense objects lying on it. But the curvature involved here isn't like that.
Would it be easier for you to imagine one positively charged metal ball rolling on (ahem... IN) a flat rubber sheet with a few negatively charged poles poking through it? Or indeed a few negatively charged balls. The issue here is that with gravity, not only would all the balls attract each other, but things with no inherent mass (eg. light) are affected as well.
Ultimately the real problem is that it's rather hard for most of us to understand Curvature unless it is in reference to (i.e. embedded within) a higher dimensional space. But Curvature can be defined without this requirement.
While some sort of verification would seem necessary, there is a rather significant problem created if anyone can "leave [with] it".
If you can walk away with proof of "what" you voted, you can prove it to anyone willing to buy your vote. Or to Guido who is threatening to beat up your little ones if you don't vote a specific way.
This is a rather serious problem all the world over. So whatever we do to verify or to authenticate, it cannot involve the voter walking out with the means to show anyone how they voted.
I imagine one thing that makes the judge qualified to judge what evidence is permissible is a better understanding of the issues (and case law and history) related to things like the 4th amendment.
It may be a "fact" that drugs were found in the defendant's car. This "fact" may be deemed inadmissible if 4th amendment rights were violated. It is possible that despite this the defendant was indeed guilty. But it is also possible corrupt cops planted the "evidence".
I imagine there are a slew of things like this. So although I would chafe under restrictions preventing me from doing basic research to better understand things related to a particular case, there's no need to disrespect a judge's role here.
If this does prove to be useful for batteries, would it eliminate issues related to battery memory?
It appears current rechargeable batteries "age" due to chemical reactions even if not used. Even more so due to repeated charge cycles.
With no chemical reactions in play, does this mean people won't be forced to upgrade their phones simply because their battery is all but dead?
Magnetic shielding?
A Faraday cage?
I imagine there are all sorts of resources where this view may hold true. But I'm not certain every resource problem can be solved this way - especially not within a desirable timeframe.
Furthermore, since we are in the realm of discussing science fiction, what about waste heat? There are authors (such as Peter Hamilton) who have envisioned that the widespread adoption of fusion and "free energy" sends global warming skyrocketing, not due to greenhouse gases but simply due to enormous amounts of waste heat.
One primary difference here is the surprise factor. Iran announced their intention to do this five years ago. Of course, many may view this goal with as much suspicion as Iran's purported peaceful reasons for pursuing nuclear power.
Iran now joins a small club (about a dozen) of nations which have demonstrated this capability.
But if we are worried about this particular country combining their nuclear ambitions and their launch capability ambitions into something rather onerous (given their proclivity towards anti-US rallies, etc.), it would seem to underscore the importance of engagement and dialogue.
Oh... and related to your sig... yes. For all practical purposes:
ls -sdh1 `find -maxdepth 1 -size +2000c `
I'll grant you we may not know the final amount of money involved if the $6 billion is just to get things started...
But what part of PER MONTH in GP's post did you not understand?
Sadly with regards to Comcast, it's because they don't consider themselves primarily an ISP.
It's not that they are an ISP and they want to be something else. It's that they are "SOMETHING ELSE" and DOCSIS came around and they looked and said "Hey. While we're at it we could charge folk a few extra bucks a month and give them Internet too." So it's very easy to understand how they wish to ensure you use THEM for your VoIP and video-on-demand needs.
Seriously. Call their help line. Listen to their canned message while you're on hold. Does it say anything remotely close to "we want to be your ISP"? Nope. It says something like "we're happy to be your ENTERTAINMENT company".
Nothing really surprises me anymore about their horribly pathetic reliability once you realize their idea of what they are.
I dunno... I'll hazard a guess.
The "scare tactics" of the RIAA are about more than just fear. It's about FUD: Fear; Uncertainty; Doubt.
By televised court proceedings, you may increase the Fear aspect (assuming they actually have a strong case), but you may significantly reduce your portion of Uncertainty and Doubt.
I imagine the industry wants very much to perpetuate the concept that Copyright Infringement equals theft. One doesn't even need to get into the debate of whether it is "as bad as" theft. All the RIAA/MPAA publicity efforts seem simply to hinge on the equivalence (I mean.. you wouldn't steal a car would you? huh WOULD YOU?)
The trouble is the Industry seems scared too. Although they seem to have been easily able to purchase legislation to their hearts content, they probably realize laws on the books won't matter a bit if the larger society as a whole shifts in their view of said laws. First, they won't get enforced. Second, eventually even if the laws don't get overturned, sooner or later Jury Nullification will take over. Or we might start seeing damages scaled way, WAY back to realistic levels.
Public perception of these folk may be souring greatly. These things can shift rather quickly. I believe this is what they fear.
Intelligence itself might not be the result of "survival boredom". I consider it an incredibly interesting proposition, however.
But society and hence technology is undeniably the result of "survival boredom". Once we got that agricultural thing down, there was no turning back.
Yes two politicians can often look at the same thing and walk away touting diametrically opposite viewpoints.
Indeed, in many areas where there is a fair degree of uncertainty scientists do the same.
Nonetheless, I applaud the approach towards meritocracy shown with this appointment.
One of the things I've so often been troubled by with our current administration was that in uncountable examples, they look like a small child playing chess who can see no more beyond a couple of moves. The incompetence at all levels has been staggering. The disdain for facts and science over "gut" and pet policies (and blatant corruption) has been deplorable.
An accomplished scientist need not champion the "CORRECT" solution. They would do far better than recent folk simply by doing a good job weeding out the bad solutions.
The credit crisis is a great example. Parent's understanding seems weak. The slew of people going into foreclosure was just the match struck in the shed full of explosives with tons of gas on the floor. How this catastrophe was set up can indeed be investigated and the proper folk (on both sides of the aisle politically, but primarily business) castigated. But was lacking (with few exceptions) was the foresight of how bad things could get and how quickly. Part of what blinded the "experts" was FAITH in deregulation (namely that we could simply trust the banks not to do stupid things with credit swaps) over FACTS.
If you need a pithy, simplistic summary cause of the credit crisis, I can give you a better one: the assumption that valuations would always go up. Difficulties making mortgage payments due to increased energy costs pale in comparison to what happens if your adjustable rate resets while your property value has plumetted. You gambled that you could just refinance later given increased property value (same thing with banks and credit swaps). You bet wrong.
As far as I can tell, the Dish receivers DO come with such a mechanism.
It would seem all one would have to do in order to "switch off" as you suggest in order to ensure that no information goes back to Dish...
is unplug the RJ-11 cable from the receiver so it cannot "phone home".
The receivers work just fine without the so called "required" phone connection. Dish even has ways for you to purchase movies without the phone connection.
Interestingly enough, the universe is almost certainly much bigger than you believe.
Honestly, we have no idea and probably no real way of determining how big the universe really is. Nonetheless, the observable universe seems to be at least 90 billion light years in diameter. So, it'd be more like finding that random person in the same room.
To everyone (including myself) whose first thought was that the one spider ate the other, I'd suggest we consider how spiders eat.
Spiders don't swallow prey whole. If it'd been two or three octopuses, fish, snakes, frogs or any other sort of animal, this would make sense. But I'd be willing to bet one spider eating the other wouldn't have gone unnoticed for at least a couple of reasons. First, spiders don't eat quickly. One spider eating something the same size would be sucking the juices out of the other for quite a long time (hours). Second, the spiders are messy in the sense that they tend to leave dried out carcasses laying around after they're done.
So... that's probably not what happened.
Well... World of Warcraft isn't the greatest example here.
It runs JUST FINE on Linux!
I'm sure it's partially because I had a lot of services running in Windows which I've since moved off onto a separate Linux box. But WoW seems snappier for me in Linux. But then, I was running via OpenGL on Windows as well. Your mileage may vary.
Linux vs. Windows is still a difficult question of tradeoffs for many. I've finally switched from multi-booting primarily in Windows to staying on Linux most of the time. Still cannot get any number of things working. As much as possible, knocking them out one by one slowly. But this is offset by compiz, PulseAudio and any number of nice things. Finally the pros have outweighed the cons by enough margin to keep me here.
The real problem is how ignorant the masses are. Most people just cannot believe you can get applications such as OpenOffice for free. Most have NO IDEA of the wealth of applications available. There will always be many people who cannot, will not or do not want to shoulder the responsibility of managing your own system that really is a part of running Linux. But I really feel there are TONS of folk who'd switch if they knew what was there.
There is some truth that all politicians and to some degree all political parties share much in common that most would find distasteful.
But in India, there is much, MUCH more diversity of main political parties that there is in the US. They really are rather different in many ways.
As an outsider looking in and watching political debates, I can share my opinion. Congress isn't "wimpy". It's just by and large more mature. In any society that values free speech, you don't need or desire to "shut people up". You'd think a country born out of non-violent protest would really appreciate this. When asked about why Congress fared so poorly after the Godhra riots, Sonja had the merit to explain in a public roundtable that time and again we see people shift to hardline parties in times of fear only to come to their senses later. This would be akin to the top Democrat leaders just after Sept 11 holding incredibly steady and pointing out where, how and why Americans were falling sway to manipulation by fear from the Republicans instead of simply trying to outdo the Republicans.
The BJP (and others), is a great example that religious fanaticism intertwined in politics is not at all unique to the US. Their reasoning is so similar to the board in Animal Farm, it's not even funny.
But yes, in Kerala especially these folk (CPM) have a bad rap. Furthermore, Communists in Kerala over the decades have provided excellent case studies of the folly of Communistic policies or anything similar. There are STILL huge swaths of land that were "appropriated" by the government decades ago that lie fallow, undeveloped and unused. There were vast acres and acres of very productive farmland that immediately went into disuse after the land grab. A similar more recent example would be Zimbabwe's horrible decline. Popular sentiment in Kerala is finally swinging around to the idea that this was a very stupid mistake and the former landowners were stiffed. But you're almost certainly not going to see it rise to the level that the CPM (and others) would admit they were wrong.
Sigh...
Must we correct such silly ideas?!?
The extra hour is given to you in the Summer! Not the winter. In the US, the winter is during Standard Time.
It's that extra hour of A/C, not simple appliances.