The problem of the AIDS epidemic is societal, not medical. AIDS is spread because people cannot think beyond the immediate consequences of their actions, and choose to ignore caution in favor of getting "that feeling". If you can't get society to do something as simple as using a condom, what good is it to tell them they've been infected afterward? Do we really expect them to refrain from sex now, when they couldn't/wouldn't before, even when they knew there was a risk of death, and chose to ignore it?
The people who would likely benefit from knowing a partner's HIV status are the kind of people who do long term thinking - IOW, are thinking of marriage or a long term relationship, and are the least likely to be spreading HIV. While I applaud anything that makes medicine less expensive, this device alone is not going to dent the AIDS epidemic. As Uganda has shown (with a 40% drop in infection rate), changing societal behavior is far more effective at curbing the spread of HIV.
This, really, is the kind of ignorant drivel to which I hate to respond. But since a lot of others have mentioned it, I feel compelled to respond.
Let's examine the flaws in detail, shall we:
The Bel Air did not have a collapsible steering column, which is why the driver died. The collapsible steering column has been standard on cars since the early sixties.
The air bag deployed in the Malibu with such force that it could have killed the driver, if the driver had been elderly - but that's a separate thread entirely.
This is a glancing blow accident, which was specifically chosen because this is the kind of accident for which crumple zones were designed. Would you like to see a V8 in a malibu? Crash them head on at high speed.
The frame of the Bel Air is actually to the side of the point of impact. So its rigidity has little bearing on the outcome. Even so, the Bel Air would have been survivable were it not for the steering column deficiency mentioned above.
The accident in question - Corolla vs full frame truck, actually happened, and the driver of the full frame vehicle - the truck, survived. *None* of the passengers in the unit body car survived.
I know that under well controlled, lab circumstances, crumple zones have value - for example, in a glancing blow accident. That's not the point. When hit by a vehicle with a large mass at high speed, full frame vehicles far better than those without. That is, the reduction in weight - necessitated by fuel economy standards - has come at the cost of passive vehicle safety. How much safer would the malibu be with both crumple zones and a full frame? We don't know, because Chevy decided to drop the extra 800 pounds or so to create a unit-body car.
I'd like to see the numbers, personally. I think crumple zones probably are safer in minor to moderate accidents, but in severe accidents, a full frame offers better protection than crumple zones with a unit-body construction. Ideally, you'd have both.
The real problem is not the crumple zones, but rather that cars don't have the structural rigidity that a full frame provides. Sometimes - like when sandwiched between two trucks - you just need something that will dissipate or deflect far more energy than a sheet metal crumple zone provides. Granted, the sudden acceleration is not going to be pleasant, but studies have shown that people can actually survive 80 Gs - that's nearly 800 m/s. Even 200 mph is not even 100 m/s. Thanks to improvements in things like seatbelts and headrests, getting rear-ended by a truck going 85 mph is actually survivable - if your car has the structural integrity to keep you from being crushed between your engine block and the one behind you.
They do. They crumpled. Now what? That truck is still moving into the passenger compartment at 75 miles per hour. If you had a steel box frame made from 3/16" thick cold rolled steel, you'd be pushed out of the way, rather than sandwiched between two engine blocks (yours and his).
IIRC, the Corolla in question was rear-ended, where the crumple zones (if they were present) did little to mitigate the damage.
With the recent invention of a laundry folding robot, many are asking if robots are safe for family use.
A local area woman is questioning the safety of robots in the home after her husband built one to mow the lawn. She says the only thing it did was scare off the neighbor's dogs, and she can't imagine bringing a robot into the house.
Still, others think the technology is promising. Scientists say that robots are getting better all the time, and recent improvements have made chainsaw and butcher-knife fueled rampages a thing of the past. "We're learning more about robot psychology every day," says a prominent climatologist, " And things are getting better. Do we completely understand erratic behavior? Well, not completely. But we're working on it, and erratic episodes are much fewer and farther between. I've had a robot living with me for almost 6 months without incident."
Local men are enthusiastic about laundry robots, as most of them want to spend less time doing household chores. A few of them are already using the robots. One even taught it to mow - though he warned our correspondent to stay off his lawn.
Still, many people are uncomfortable with having a machine become a part of the family. Some say it just isn't natural to talk to a bucket of bolts, and feel awkward addressing as master something they regard as an overgrown tin can. Whether they're bound for the trash heap, or ruling the roost, one thing is certain: robots are changing lives in unimaginable ways.
A motorcycle, for example, can easily get 45 to 55 mpg. With rider, even a large bike won't top 500 kg.
About 20 years ago, MADD put up a billboard with a crushed Toyota Corolla - a man and his 4 children were killed when the distance between the dashboard and the trunk was reduced to a mere 6 inches by a drunk driver. They were trying to demonstrate the evils of drunk driving, but the impression it left on me was that we've been trading mpg for safety for quite some time in this country. It shouldn't come as any surprise that teens who grew up seeing the smashed cars caused by drunk driving are now buying behemoth SUVs with full frames.
Long story short - unit body construction saved hundreds of pounds of structural steel from car designs. It raised gas mileage. But the whole car - crumple zones and all - simply folds up like a tin can in an accident. Accidents which used to be survivable are now deadly, thanks to the weakening of car frames designed primarily to boost fuel economy.
Which is also available via the web; as a matter of fact, I have it, including the pdf justifying the adjustment.
Even more interesting is that even the *adjusted* data shows a global cooling trend in the last 10 years. They (the researchers) admitted in an email they couldn't explain it.
I've posted about this before, but the crux of the matter is that the latest temperature data shows us at the levels we were at the turn of the century. For all the CO2 we've dumped into the atmosphere, we haven't been able to overcome a century-long heating and cooling cycle. And yes, this is adjusted for the 11 year solar cycle.
The reason abstinence is taught in schools is because it *reduces* the sexual activity of teenagers. Even the authors of such programs realize there will be those at the ends of the bell curve for which no amount of education will keep them out of trouble. Even if you teach kids to use condoms, there will inevitably be some who just don't get the message, or are too stupid (or incautious) to use one. The difference between teaching condom use and abstinence lies in what happens to the majority: with condoms, most end up having more sex; with abstinence, much less sex. Studies have shown (and I really wish I had a link now) that teaching condom use results in *more* unprotected sex than teaching abstinence, simply because of the proliferation of sexual activity and the frequency with which teenagers find themselves without a condom.
By your logic, the fee paid by the broadcaster compensated the creator for their work. If they've already been compensated, what right do they have to be paid twice? Shouldn't everyone be free to copy and share the work after that point?
The argument doesn't change for movies in theaters, either. What is the difference between someone buying the DVD and watching a movie an unlimited number of times, and one who goes back to the theater again and again? (assuming the movie is still playing).
The difference is that in the latter case, the studio gets paid more for the same work than in the former. Yet the enjoyment of the movie, the utility of another's work, remains unchanged.
Like my previous post, I think it boils down to the studios thinking that if you watch movies, listen to music, or read, you owe them whatever they want you to pay them. There's no objective standard of value, and they'll bleed as much out of the public as they believe they can get away with. They see nothing wrong with one person paying $17 to see it once, and another paying $17 to view it an unlimited number of times. But should that person who paid $17 in the theater later download it from the internet, suddenly they're liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In both cases, two people paid the same price for the same content, and yet one is illegal, and the other is not. In both cases, the studio gets paid.
My overall point is that the Internet didn't change the copy prevention game.
It shouldn't be about copy prevention. It should be about compensating the artist according to the merit of their works. This notion of copyright, patents, and IP is holding back the progress of technology and support for the arts.
More to the point, think about it this way: Suppose you are totally legal with respect to copyright. You buy your favorite artist's CD. You listen to it everyday for the rest of your life, you like it so much.
The artist will never see another dime from you for the rest of his life. Is that fair?
OTOH, why should he get paid when you pay for the equipment and electricity to play his music? Why should an artist get paid *per copy* when he only sang the song once, and is now free to pursue other labors? Should he get paid an essentially unlimited number of times for a finite amount of work?
Copyright is a kludge. Enforcement is arbitrary and capricious. And it doesn't prevent corporate greed from oppressing the artists, doesn't adequately compensate those who make indelible marks on our culture, and indeed, deprives us of a common culture by making our culture a pay-to-experience kind of thing.
This notion that a copy of something is illegal because *someone else* doesn't want you to have it has to go. While it may be immoral for pirates to enjoy the fruit of someone else's labor without compensating them, it is just as immoral for the content cartels to compel monetary restitution for a loss that never *actually* happened.
Or think of it this way: by not buying media, I've had the same economic impact that a pirate would have. The difference, though, is that I simply choose to do without. But neither I nor the pirate have actually committed theft against the content cartels, a distinction I think the cartels would like to blur. The only thing we both have done is refrain from contributing to the bottom line of a corporation, and this, I believe, is what the likes of the MPAA and RIAA find so appalling. In their eyes, there is no sin greater than freedom from corporate bondage.
It's not about the artists. It's not about the music, or the movies. It's about this odd notion that people don't like - in the words of Tom Petty - "paying for what you used to get for free".*
A while back, a colleague and I had a discussion about unauthorized downloading, and I quipped something to the effect that I would avoid infringement penalties by buying the content and then ripping it. He, OTOH, asked why. Why would I pay for something I could legally record from broadcast for free.
There's an interesting double standard here:
Recording a song or a movie from the radio or tv is not only legal, but explicitly so (IANAL, but I'm pretty sure the audio home recording act makes this legal).
OTOH, downloading it from a non-broadcast source (i.e. the internet), is supposedly copyright infringement, with steep statutory fines.
In both cases you've acquired the same content, in the same form, for the same price. But now we're supposed to believe that because it happens via the internet, a crime has been committed? That their business is now suddenly failing because people are doing the same thing they've done for years with tape players and vcrs?
The VCR didn't kill tv and movies. Nor did the tape player kill rock and roll. If you can't make a living as an artist in the era of mp3's and youtube, well, you couldn't have made a living back then, either. Stop blaming the Internet for your own failure.
There are a lot of job listings in the classifieds who are either recruiters looking to build a resume database, or companies with no intention of hiring.
The first, recruiters, often advertise jobs in very general terms, and often short on specifics. Seldom do they specify the company. Sure, you can send your resume to them, but don't expect a reply anytime soon.
The second are a little harder to determine. Companies will often advertise that they are hiring not because they intend to fill positions, but ecause it gives the vendors the impression that they are growing so fast they can't hire enough people to keep up. Sometimes, they'll use these tactics to justify hiring H1B's instead of native talent. Don't feel about not getting a jobs that doesn't really exist.
Finally, an anecdote. A year after graduating, a friend of mine gets a call from a company. Excellent benefits, salary, etc... So she skips some *really important* family commitments to go to the interview, and what happens? She's huddled into a room with a bunch of other "candidates" and given a sales presentation. The job had nothing to do with either IS or IS management.
Officially, one of every 8 workers is unemployed in my state. That's not counting the ones who retired, no longer qualify for benefits, or just took a job flipping burgers. The economy is _really_ bad, and its no exaggeration to say it's the worst recession since the Great Depression. If you can swing it, now is the time to stay in school. You aren't going to gain any long term advantage by getting an entry level job now.
Not all movies are illegal. Some don't contain "objectionable content". Some - mostly the kind I'm rediscovering - have elapsed the protection of copyright.
What sites like Newzbin do is provide a central repository for content owners to search for infringing content. If I had my book/movie/video game being pirated, believe me, I would find sites like this very helpful in shutting down the uploaders. At least, those within the relevant legal jurisdiction.
Even the police like an anonymous tip. It's almost as if the content cartels *WANT* you to pirate their content, so they can then sue you for ridiculous amounts of money. (Why get 99 cents a song, when you can get statutory damages of a few hundred thousand dollars?)
You forgot step 6) Get counseling for the teenage girls who develop self-esteem issues because their bodies don't look anything like the ones in the porn the HS boys are looking at.
Sure, the boys will get punished. But it's going to recur, every year, as a new class of students inevitably has a few who will look up objectionable content. And let's not forget the contingent of society who just doesn't care about breaking the rules. There's no reason kids should be subject to mandated, publicly funded sexual harassment in the name of free inquiry.
There's little point in making the internet wide open in schools when most kids already have unfiltered internet in their homes anyway. The only thing it does is publicly subsidize the bad apples who want to make trouble. Those genuinely curious, who have the ability and desire to learn and think critically, are going to get the information anyway. But most people are not like geeks - if they weren't taught it, they don't know it. As far as these folks are concerned, the only use for the internet IS porn, email, and filesharing. They could care less about "Dick" Cheney or breast cancer research. Turning off the internet filters isn't going to make them any smarter.
Anything of yours can be subpoenaed in a lawsuit. Northwest Airlines subpoenaed the *personal* computers of their employees when they suspected their employees were getting too uppity^H^H^H^H^H^H, I mean, striking by calling in sick.
It hardly matters if you use encryption, etc... the legal discovery process can violate whatever privacy you thought you had. It only takes a credible allegation of wrongdoing - not even "beyond a reasonable doubt" - to discover all of your personal files, etc... and, because only money is involved, the plaintiff needs only show guilt by a "preponderance of the evidence", or more succinctly, that it is likely that you did it. If you think you can get smart by encrypting your files, it's likely you'll be held in contempt of court, and have a summary judgment entered against you.
The only thing paying for the hardware means is that you'll eventually get it back, usually.
They're not trying to destroy woodworking so much as they're trying to bolster a dying industry. Look, my father spent a fifth of the cost of a new car on a lathe in 1982. Back then, a table saw was very expensive.
When I installed my pergo flooring, I spent $60 on a table saw with the mitre bench. Heck, I've spent more dining out than some of these things cost these days. The Chinese can make them for pennies on SawStop's dollar, and that *really* scares them. The solution? A patented technology costing more than the saw itself.
While I really hate the fact that we've succumbed to cowardice, this isn't really the death knell of woodworking. I had a power drill when I was five. Now I use a hand drill. Not merely because of the safety aspect, but also because of the control. I don't need a scrap backstop to keep from ripping out the exit hole, and I can use it with my son standing around watching.
While I'll admit there are advantages to power tools, any sufficiently advanced geek is going to build his own. The others, like me, get to enjoy a hobby without the danger of losing limbs. I honestly wouldn't use a power saw around my kids regardless of the safety features it might otherwise possess. SawStop still won't keep a saw from kicking out a piece of scrap.
What's wrong with just accepting responsibility for your own health? Do you honestly believe it would be any less costly with a government program in place? If so, why? Do you really believe your needed kidney dialysis would be less costly if the government paid for it?
Granted, there will always be some people at the edges of society. They are, generally speaking, the exceptions, rather than the rule. When you have an entire class of people, a sizable portion of the population, who cannot afford healthcare despite being actively employed, you have a much different situation. The donors at the church can handle housing and feeding the homeless. They can't, however, provide healthcare for the entire town.
During the past two decades, liberals have strived to create a country where morality was separated from government. They feared some conservatives would, "force their version of morality" on the rest of the country. Instead, they let greed run rampant in the health care industry, and, not surprisingly, the very people liberals claim to represent can no longer afford health care.
Which, of course, is mighty convenient for someone whose political platform includes "free" health care.
Do you really expect the people who created the crisis, and whose political livelihoods depend on said crisis, to solve it? That would be like the Republicans ending abortion!
As if it wasn't already strange enough. I'm thinking there's a chance He'd berate the Left for striving to give *someone else's* money to the poor, rather than their own (ever hear the story of the Widow's mite?), and doing a bad job at that (for every dollar spent on social programs, the recipient only receives a quarter's worth of aid).
Not to belabor the point, but the difference between Conservatives and Liberals is not so much in their attitude toward the poor, but rather, the manner in which it is done. The Conservative position - relying on individual responsibility - holds *every* citizen responsible for the plight of the less fortunate. It is centered around personal charity, which has the added benefit of uniting diverse racial, socioeconomic, and ethnic groups, and building stronger communities. The Liberal position - that the poor are the responsibility of the Government - removes personal responsibility and charity from the individual, and instead results in a class of people dependent upon their government, rather than each other. Furthermore, the increased taxation necessary to support such programs often leaves citizens without the means of supporting their fellow Americans, only further deepening the divide along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic boundaries.
The problem, though, is that most Republicans are no longer Conservative, and cannot articulate how lower taxes help America. Instead, they seem to be fascinated with stirring up hatred toward the Left, rather than building a vision for a better tomorrow.
Chances are your hearing loss is limited to a contiguous range of frequencies. Probably a bell-shaped curve. If such is the case, you could probably design (or get an EE acquaintance to design) a low-cost amplifier with a band-pass filter.
I'm thinking a single 2907 quad op amp could handle the mic input amplification, bandpass filter, and output gain. Connect it to an LM386 400mW audio amp chip, and you're in business. While I'm not affiliated with them, I have used futurlec in the past, and they have everything you'd need to build such a circuit yourself. If you want a custom PCB, you can even use the free eagle software to lay it out, and Futurlec can have it printed (in China) for you. Expect about a six-week turnaround.
What you fail to understand is that while *you* understand that you can't predict anything about you in the logically-provable sense, if you are accused of a crime, a jury of your (COUGH) peers decides your fate.
They're not going to ask, "Can we prove this in an epistemilogical sense?" No, they're going to ask, "Does it look like he would do that?" and, "What if we're wrong, and he really is a terrorist?" The fact that you are "linked to a known terrorist" via Facebook will be sufficient. Maybe you really are curious about why someone would commit suicide bombings, about their mindset, the desperation which could drive someone to do such things, or... Maybe you're planning to blow up a school. Wouldn't it be safer to just put you away "just in case?"
The aggregation of data from sites such as Facebook, etc... makes it all that much easier for a prosecutor to prosecute *someone* for a crime irrespective of their actual innocence. Someone who can be linked to a crime via this massive surveillance network is more likely to plead guilty than take their chances with a lengthy and costly court battle. Unlike God, our legal system is about the *appearance* of justice, rather than the actuality thereof. (If you need evidence, consider that the discovery of additional evidence, even exculpatory evidence, is insufficient grounds for a new trial even in capital cases; rather, to get a new trial, the appellant must show that a *procedural* error was committed.)
While I agree that good programming is a state of mind, the problem is that HR can't recognize good programmers. In fact, a large number of organizations can't recognize the difference between a good programmer and someone who merely has experience in a given language.
There seems to be this notion in Corporate America that if you haven't been formally trained in a language (i.e. college courses), or have some documentation of doing it professionally (i.e., on your resume), then you don't know it and you can't learn it. When I was in college, I really believed that getting a degree would afford me a job working among intellectuals. Instead, I'm working among people just as stupid and ignorant as the blue collar counterparts they hold in contempt. Unable to learn something of their own volition, without having been taught, the notion that someone can, or will, learn something new is completely foreign to them. They can't understand how a C programmer could also be proficient in Java.
On the other hand, I don't think I've ever come across an open source product that had barest minimum of documentation.
I have. The Linux kernel comes to mind - the code is sufficiently well designed and architected that reading the source code will tell you what it does. If you still need further clarification, there's a wealth of books on the subject.
Recently I've been using the FLTK libraries (www.fltk.org). They're very well documented, come with a graphical designer, and well designed. I chose them from over a dozen possible contenders, including wxWindows and Qt, largely because of the documentation provided. In two hours, I had my first fltk program built and running.
I think the trick is to choose your OS software wisely. You wouldn't buy a vendor's set of libraries without first investigating the documentation; why would OS be any different?
I suspect the author was misquoted. There is no *inexpensive* way of formal verification of the software, but it is possible. Just ask Knuth; maybe even NASA.
Right now, we don't know the process Toyota uses for producing their engine control code. Was it outsourced? Did it go through formal review? Was it tested with a test suite designed to simulate all *possible* driving conditions? Did they test error recovery and adaptation scenarios? (physical sensors can be fickle things, you know).
I am a software engineer, and have seen some real abominations pass a code review. One piece of code used an uninitialized pointer, and not only did it pass the review, there were explanatory comments indicating this wasn't a problem in practice! Another piece of code, also reviewed, had a rather obvious race condition.
Granted, the task of producing bug free code is difficult, but surely Toyota knows this; I have a hard time believing Toyota produced a car in which a failure of the software module would produce fatal results. Surely they did not design the car so that an ECU failure would prevent the driver from shifting into neutral and applying the brakes!? Or is the Congressional testimony wrong?
A gay person chooses their sexuality; a black person doesn't get to choose their skin color. Those who think this is about civil rights either do not understand gay sex, marriage, or both.
The fundamental blind side which the Left just doesn't see is that the objection to homosexuality is an objection to their *action* and *lifestyle*, not the fact that they exist. Gays have existed throughout history and managed to get along with heterosexuals just fine, largely because sex was considered a private matter. For most heterosexuals, sex still is a private matter, and even if they don't understand gay sexuality, have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to be judged by their sexuality, or even make it public.
The gay agenda, OTOH, has been pushing for an increasingly sexualized culture. A move, which ironically, has resulted in people thinking about, and judging them by, their sexual preferences. Before the sexual revolution, a person's identity and public image were largely a matter of what they said and did in public, and their bedroom habits were largely beyond the reach of public inquiry. Now, it seems that people are expected to draw lines in the sand and take sides based not on who they are, but rather, on whom with they prefer to sleep.
If we are to think of this in civil rights terms, we must ask ourselves, to what respect is a person entitled? Are they entitled to respect simply because they are human? Or do their bedroom habits determine the respect they deserve. Oddly, both the Left and Right consider the answer to the latter question the same. (The former, though, is the reason for the split on abortion, but that's another debate...) However, the answer to the former question bears on why the Left can endorse homosexuality, and the Right condemns it:
The Left does not consider humanity to possess any intrinsic value. Rather, it is one's contribution to society that determines their value. They see gays as bringing diversity and variety to life, and value them for this reason. Certainly, some of them realize that if the public at large disapproves of homosexuality, it is a relatively small step for them to disapprove of heterosexual moral evils as well, such as adultery, fornication, etc... By bolstering the homosexual argument that it is "normal" and badgering people into implicit approval of the practice, they hope to distract the public from the larger question of sexual morality. Naturally, they have a grudge against anyone with moral principles, and the gay issue is cast as a civil rights issue in an attempt to use the moral opprobrium of racism to silence those who disagree with their position. This relies largely on the public's ignorance of Martin Luther King Jr., who had a dream that our children would be judged, "Not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character". Indeed, this is the very thing the Left fears the most - being judged by their actions, and this is what drives their support of the gay agenda.
The Right, OTOH, does consider a human to possess a dignity intrinsic in the fact that they are human. Because of this, even consenting adults can commit crimes against themselves - observe, for example, the war on drugs. For a better example, consider someone sold as a sex slave; from a technical perspective, they consent to what is being done to them. However, the humane position recognizes their consent is not natural, but coerced by extreme poverty, fear of violence, etc... It does not take a large leap to consider homosexual sex a relationship of coercion; most people would not choose, of their own volition, a sex act which could not bring about children, and one which was 50 times (yes, 5000%) more likely to result in a deadly disease. Even were they willing, it still does not address the fact that homosexual acts degrade those who practice them, reducing a human from something of beauty and love to a mere means to a sexual end. Unlike heterosexual sex, which can ostensibly be used fo
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The problem of the AIDS epidemic is societal, not medical. AIDS is spread because people cannot think beyond the immediate consequences of their actions, and choose to ignore caution in favor of getting "that feeling". If you can't get society to do something as simple as using a condom, what good is it to tell them they've been infected afterward? Do we really expect them to refrain from sex now, when they couldn't/wouldn't before, even when they knew there was a risk of death, and chose to ignore it?
The people who would likely benefit from knowing a partner's HIV status are the kind of people who do long term thinking - IOW, are thinking of marriage or a long term relationship, and are the least likely to be spreading HIV. While I applaud anything that makes medicine less expensive, this device alone is not going to dent the AIDS epidemic. As Uganda has shown (with a 40% drop in infection rate), changing societal behavior is far more effective at curbing the spread of HIV.
This, really, is the kind of ignorant drivel to which I hate to respond. But since a lot of others have mentioned it, I feel compelled to respond.
Let's examine the flaws in detail, shall we:
I know that under well controlled, lab circumstances, crumple zones have value - for example, in a glancing blow accident. That's not the point. When hit by a vehicle with a large mass at high speed, full frame vehicles far better than those without. That is, the reduction in weight - necessitated by fuel economy standards - has come at the cost of passive vehicle safety. How much safer would the malibu be with both crumple zones and a full frame? We don't know, because Chevy decided to drop the extra 800 pounds or so to create a unit-body car.
I'd like to see the numbers, personally. I think crumple zones probably are safer in minor to moderate accidents, but in severe accidents, a full frame offers better protection than crumple zones with a unit-body construction. Ideally, you'd have both.
The real problem is not the crumple zones, but rather that cars don't have the structural rigidity that a full frame provides. Sometimes - like when sandwiched between two trucks - you just need something that will dissipate or deflect far more energy than a sheet metal crumple zone provides. Granted, the sudden acceleration is not going to be pleasant, but studies have shown that people can actually survive 80 Gs - that's nearly 800 m/s. Even 200 mph is not even 100 m/s. Thanks to improvements in things like seatbelts and headrests, getting rear-ended by a truck going 85 mph is actually survivable - if your car has the structural integrity to keep you from being crushed between your engine block and the one behind you.
They do. They crumpled. Now what? That truck is still moving into the passenger compartment at 75 miles per hour. If you had a steel box frame made from 3/16" thick cold rolled steel, you'd be pushed out of the way, rather than sandwiched between two engine blocks (yours and his).
IIRC, the Corolla in question was rear-ended, where the crumple zones (if they were present) did little to mitigate the damage.
With the recent invention of a laundry folding robot, many are asking if robots are safe for family use.
A local area woman is questioning the safety of robots in the home after her husband built one to mow the lawn. She says the only thing it did was scare off the neighbor's dogs, and she can't imagine bringing a robot into the house.
Still, others think the technology is promising. Scientists say that robots are getting better all the time, and recent improvements have made chainsaw and butcher-knife fueled rampages a thing of the past. "We're learning more about robot psychology every day," says a prominent climatologist, " And things are getting better. Do we completely understand erratic behavior? Well, not completely. But we're working on it, and erratic episodes are much fewer and farther between. I've had a robot living with me for almost 6 months without incident."
Local men are enthusiastic about laundry robots, as most of them want to spend less time doing household chores. A few of them are already using the robots. One even taught it to mow - though he warned our correspondent to stay off his lawn.
Still, many people are uncomfortable with having a machine become a part of the family. Some say it just isn't natural to talk to a bucket of bolts, and feel awkward addressing as master something they regard as an overgrown tin can. Whether they're bound for the trash heap, or ruling the roost, one thing is certain: robots are changing lives in unimaginable ways.
So long as you don't mind sacrificing safety.
A motorcycle, for example, can easily get 45 to 55 mpg. With rider, even a large bike won't top 500 kg.
About 20 years ago, MADD put up a billboard with a crushed Toyota Corolla - a man and his 4 children were killed when the distance between the dashboard and the trunk was reduced to a mere 6 inches by a drunk driver. They were trying to demonstrate the evils of drunk driving, but the impression it left on me was that we've been trading mpg for safety for quite some time in this country. It shouldn't come as any surprise that teens who grew up seeing the smashed cars caused by drunk driving are now buying behemoth SUVs with full frames.
Long story short - unit body construction saved hundreds of pounds of structural steel from car designs. It raised gas mileage. But the whole car - crumple zones and all - simply folds up like a tin can in an accident. Accidents which used to be survivable are now deadly, thanks to the weakening of car frames designed primarily to boost fuel economy.
Which is also available via the web; as a matter of fact, I have it, including the pdf justifying the adjustment.
Even more interesting is that even the *adjusted* data shows a global cooling trend in the last 10 years. They (the researchers) admitted in an email they couldn't explain it.
I've posted about this before, but the crux of the matter is that the latest temperature data shows us at the levels we were at the turn of the century. For all the CO2 we've dumped into the atmosphere, we haven't been able to overcome a century-long heating and cooling cycle. And yes, this is adjusted for the 11 year solar cycle.
The reason abstinence is taught in schools is because it *reduces* the sexual activity of teenagers. Even the authors of such programs realize there will be those at the ends of the bell curve for which no amount of education will keep them out of trouble. Even if you teach kids to use condoms, there will inevitably be some who just don't get the message, or are too stupid (or incautious) to use one. The difference between teaching condom use and abstinence lies in what happens to the majority: with condoms, most end up having more sex; with abstinence, much less sex. Studies have shown (and I really wish I had a link now) that teaching condom use results in *more* unprotected sex than teaching abstinence, simply because of the proliferation of sexual activity and the frequency with which teenagers find themselves without a condom.
By your logic, the fee paid by the broadcaster compensated the creator for their work. If they've already been compensated, what right do they have to be paid twice? Shouldn't everyone be free to copy and share the work after that point?
The argument doesn't change for movies in theaters, either. What is the difference between someone buying the DVD and watching a movie an unlimited number of times, and one who goes back to the theater again and again? (assuming the movie is still playing).
The difference is that in the latter case, the studio gets paid more for the same work than in the former. Yet the enjoyment of the movie, the utility of another's work, remains unchanged.
Like my previous post, I think it boils down to the studios thinking that if you watch movies, listen to music, or read, you owe them whatever they want you to pay them. There's no objective standard of value, and they'll bleed as much out of the public as they believe they can get away with. They see nothing wrong with one person paying $17 to see it once, and another paying $17 to view it an unlimited number of times. But should that person who paid $17 in the theater later download it from the internet, suddenly they're liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In both cases, two people paid the same price for the same content, and yet one is illegal, and the other is not. In both cases, the studio gets paid.
My overall point is that the Internet didn't change the copy prevention game.
It shouldn't be about copy prevention. It should be about compensating the artist according to the merit of their works. This notion of copyright, patents, and IP is holding back the progress of technology and support for the arts.
More to the point, think about it this way: Suppose you are totally legal with respect to copyright. You buy your favorite artist's CD. You listen to it everyday for the rest of your life, you like it so much.
The artist will never see another dime from you for the rest of his life. Is that fair?
OTOH, why should he get paid when you pay for the equipment and electricity to play his music? Why should an artist get paid *per copy* when he only sang the song once, and is now free to pursue other labors? Should he get paid an essentially unlimited number of times for a finite amount of work?
Copyright is a kludge. Enforcement is arbitrary and capricious. And it doesn't prevent corporate greed from oppressing the artists, doesn't adequately compensate those who make indelible marks on our culture, and indeed, deprives us of a common culture by making our culture a pay-to-experience kind of thing.
This notion that a copy of something is illegal because *someone else* doesn't want you to have it has to go. While it may be immoral for pirates to enjoy the fruit of someone else's labor without compensating them, it is just as immoral for the content cartels to compel monetary restitution for a loss that never *actually* happened.
Or think of it this way: by not buying media, I've had the same economic impact that a pirate would have. The difference, though, is that I simply choose to do without. But neither I nor the pirate have actually committed theft against the content cartels, a distinction I think the cartels would like to blur. The only thing we both have done is refrain from contributing to the bottom line of a corporation, and this, I believe, is what the likes of the MPAA and RIAA find so appalling. In their eyes, there is no sin greater than freedom from corporate bondage.
It's not about the artists. It's not about the music, or the movies. It's about this odd notion that people don't like - in the words of Tom Petty - "paying for what you used to get for free".*
* - The Last DJ.
No, seriously. Don't bother. Why reward Sony for doing this? Do you want other companies to treat you like a criminal as well?
Instead, use your hacking skills for building a Linux box which can play Sony games. Now that would get them (Sony) thinking.
A while back, a colleague and I had a discussion about unauthorized downloading, and I quipped something to the effect that I would avoid infringement penalties by buying the content and then ripping it. He, OTOH, asked why. Why would I pay for something I could legally record from broadcast for free.
There's an interesting double standard here:
In both cases you've acquired the same content, in the same form, for the same price. But now we're supposed to believe that because it happens via the internet, a crime has been committed? That their business is now suddenly failing because people are doing the same thing they've done for years with tape players and vcrs?
The VCR didn't kill tv and movies. Nor did the tape player kill rock and roll. If you can't make a living as an artist in the era of mp3's and youtube, well, you couldn't have made a living back then, either. Stop blaming the Internet for your own failure.
There are a lot of job listings in the classifieds who are either recruiters looking to build a resume database, or companies with no intention of hiring.
The first, recruiters, often advertise jobs in very general terms, and often short on specifics. Seldom do they specify the company. Sure, you can send your resume to them, but don't expect a reply anytime soon.
The second are a little harder to determine. Companies will often advertise that they are hiring not because they intend to fill positions, but ecause it gives the vendors the impression that they are growing so fast they can't hire enough people to keep up. Sometimes, they'll use these tactics to justify hiring H1B's instead of native talent. Don't feel about not getting a jobs that doesn't really exist.
Finally, an anecdote. A year after graduating, a friend of mine gets a call from a company. Excellent benefits, salary, etc... So she skips some *really important* family commitments to go to the interview, and what happens? She's huddled into a room with a bunch of other "candidates" and given a sales presentation. The job had nothing to do with either IS or IS management.
Officially, one of every 8 workers is unemployed in my state. That's not counting the ones who retired, no longer qualify for benefits, or just took a job flipping burgers. The economy is _really_ bad, and its no exaggeration to say it's the worst recession since the Great Depression. If you can swing it, now is the time to stay in school. You aren't going to gain any long term advantage by getting an entry level job now.
Not all movies are illegal. Some don't contain "objectionable content". Some - mostly the kind I'm rediscovering - have elapsed the protection of copyright.
What sites like Newzbin do is provide a central repository for content owners to search for infringing content. If I had my book/movie/video game being pirated, believe me, I would find sites like this very helpful in shutting down the uploaders. At least, those within the relevant legal jurisdiction.
Even the police like an anonymous tip. It's almost as if the content cartels *WANT* you to pirate their content, so they can then sue you for ridiculous amounts of money. (Why get 99 cents a song, when you can get statutory damages of a few hundred thousand dollars?)
You forgot step 6) Get counseling for the teenage girls who develop self-esteem issues because their bodies don't look anything like the ones in the porn the HS boys are looking at.
Sure, the boys will get punished. But it's going to recur, every year, as a new class of students inevitably has a few who will look up objectionable content. And let's not forget the contingent of society who just doesn't care about breaking the rules. There's no reason kids should be subject to mandated, publicly funded sexual harassment in the name of free inquiry.
There's little point in making the internet wide open in schools when most kids already have unfiltered internet in their homes anyway. The only thing it does is publicly subsidize the bad apples who want to make trouble. Those genuinely curious, who have the ability and desire to learn and think critically, are going to get the information anyway. But most people are not like geeks - if they weren't taught it, they don't know it. As far as these folks are concerned, the only use for the internet IS porn, email, and filesharing. They could care less about "Dick" Cheney or breast cancer research. Turning off the internet filters isn't going to make them any smarter.
Anything of yours can be subpoenaed in a lawsuit. Northwest Airlines subpoenaed the *personal* computers of their employees when they suspected their employees were getting too uppity^H^H^H^H^H^H, I mean, striking by calling in sick.
It hardly matters if you use encryption, etc... the legal discovery process can violate whatever privacy you thought you had. It only takes a credible allegation of wrongdoing - not even "beyond a reasonable doubt" - to discover all of your personal files, etc... and, because only money is involved, the plaintiff needs only show guilt by a "preponderance of the evidence", or more succinctly, that it is likely that you did it. If you think you can get smart by encrypting your files, it's likely you'll be held in contempt of court, and have a summary judgment entered against you.
The only thing paying for the hardware means is that you'll eventually get it back, usually.
They're not trying to destroy woodworking so much as they're trying to bolster a dying industry. Look, my father spent a fifth of the cost of a new car on a lathe in 1982. Back then, a table saw was very expensive.
When I installed my pergo flooring, I spent $60 on a table saw with the mitre bench. Heck, I've spent more dining out than some of these things cost these days. The Chinese can make them for pennies on SawStop's dollar, and that *really* scares them. The solution? A patented technology costing more than the saw itself.
While I really hate the fact that we've succumbed to cowardice, this isn't really the death knell of woodworking. I had a power drill when I was five. Now I use a hand drill. Not merely because of the safety aspect, but also because of the control. I don't need a scrap backstop to keep from ripping out the exit hole, and I can use it with my son standing around watching.
While I'll admit there are advantages to power tools, any sufficiently advanced geek is going to build his own. The others, like me, get to enjoy a hobby without the danger of losing limbs. I honestly wouldn't use a power saw around my kids regardless of the safety features it might otherwise possess. SawStop still won't keep a saw from kicking out a piece of scrap.
What's wrong with just accepting responsibility for your own health? Do you honestly believe it would be any less costly with a government program in place? If so, why? Do you really believe your needed kidney dialysis would be less costly if the government paid for it?
Granted, there will always be some people at the edges of society. They are, generally speaking, the exceptions, rather than the rule. When you have an entire class of people, a sizable portion of the population, who cannot afford healthcare despite being actively employed, you have a much different situation. The donors at the church can handle housing and feeding the homeless. They can't, however, provide healthcare for the entire town.
During the past two decades, liberals have strived to create a country where morality was separated from government. They feared some conservatives would, "force their version of morality" on the rest of the country. Instead, they let greed run rampant in the health care industry, and, not surprisingly, the very people liberals claim to represent can no longer afford health care.
Which, of course, is mighty convenient for someone whose political platform includes "free" health care.
Do you really expect the people who created the crisis, and whose political livelihoods depend on said crisis, to solve it? That would be like the Republicans ending abortion!
Jesus Christ at a Tea Party?
As if it wasn't already strange enough. I'm thinking there's a chance He'd berate the Left for striving to give *someone else's* money to the poor, rather than their own (ever hear the story of the Widow's mite?), and doing a bad job at that (for every dollar spent on social programs, the recipient only receives a quarter's worth of aid).
Not to belabor the point, but the difference between Conservatives and Liberals is not so much in their attitude toward the poor, but rather, the manner in which it is done. The Conservative position - relying on individual responsibility - holds *every* citizen responsible for the plight of the less fortunate. It is centered around personal charity, which has the added benefit of uniting diverse racial, socioeconomic, and ethnic groups, and building stronger communities. The Liberal position - that the poor are the responsibility of the Government - removes personal responsibility and charity from the individual, and instead results in a class of people dependent upon their government, rather than each other. Furthermore, the increased taxation necessary to support such programs often leaves citizens without the means of supporting their fellow Americans, only further deepening the divide along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic boundaries.
The problem, though, is that most Republicans are no longer Conservative, and cannot articulate how lower taxes help America. Instead, they seem to be fascinated with stirring up hatred toward the Left, rather than building a vision for a better tomorrow.
Chances are your hearing loss is limited to a contiguous range of frequencies. Probably a bell-shaped curve. If such is the case, you could probably design (or get an EE acquaintance to design) a low-cost amplifier with a band-pass filter.
I'm thinking a single 2907 quad op amp could handle the mic input amplification, bandpass filter, and output gain. Connect it to an LM386 400mW audio amp chip, and you're in business. While I'm not affiliated with them, I have used futurlec in the past, and they have everything you'd need to build such a circuit yourself. If you want a custom PCB, you can even use the free eagle software to lay it out, and Futurlec can have it printed (in China) for you. Expect about a six-week turnaround.
What you fail to understand is that while *you* understand that you can't predict anything about you in the logically-provable sense, if you are accused of a crime, a jury of your (COUGH) peers decides your fate.
They're not going to ask, "Can we prove this in an epistemilogical sense?" No, they're going to ask, "Does it look like he would do that?" and, "What if we're wrong, and he really is a terrorist?" The fact that you are "linked to a known terrorist" via Facebook will be sufficient. Maybe you really are curious about why someone would commit suicide bombings, about their mindset, the desperation which could drive someone to do such things, or... Maybe you're planning to blow up a school. Wouldn't it be safer to just put you away "just in case?"
The aggregation of data from sites such as Facebook, etc... makes it all that much easier for a prosecutor to prosecute *someone* for a crime irrespective of their actual innocence. Someone who can be linked to a crime via this massive surveillance network is more likely to plead guilty than take their chances with a lengthy and costly court battle. Unlike God, our legal system is about the *appearance* of justice, rather than the actuality thereof. (If you need evidence, consider that the discovery of additional evidence, even exculpatory evidence, is insufficient grounds for a new trial even in capital cases; rather, to get a new trial, the appellant must show that a *procedural* error was committed.)
While I agree that good programming is a state of mind, the problem is that HR can't recognize good programmers. In fact, a large number of organizations can't recognize the difference between a good programmer and someone who merely has experience in a given language.
There seems to be this notion in Corporate America that if you haven't been formally trained in a language (i.e. college courses), or have some documentation of doing it professionally (i.e., on your resume), then you don't know it and you can't learn it. When I was in college, I really believed that getting a degree would afford me a job working among intellectuals. Instead, I'm working among people just as stupid and ignorant as the blue collar counterparts they hold in contempt. Unable to learn something of their own volition, without having been taught, the notion that someone can, or will, learn something new is completely foreign to them. They can't understand how a C programmer could also be proficient in Java.
On the other hand, I don't think I've ever come across an open source product that had barest minimum of documentation.
I have. The Linux kernel comes to mind - the code is sufficiently well designed and architected that reading the source code will tell you what it does. If you still need further clarification, there's a wealth of books on the subject.
Recently I've been using the FLTK libraries (www.fltk.org). They're very well documented, come with a graphical designer, and well designed. I chose them from over a dozen possible contenders, including wxWindows and Qt, largely because of the documentation provided. In two hours, I had my first fltk program built and running.
I think the trick is to choose your OS software wisely. You wouldn't buy a vendor's set of libraries without first investigating the documentation; why would OS be any different?
I suspect the author was misquoted. There is no *inexpensive* way of formal verification of the software, but it is possible. Just ask Knuth; maybe even NASA.
Right now, we don't know the process Toyota uses for producing their engine control code. Was it outsourced? Did it go through formal review? Was it tested with a test suite designed to simulate all *possible* driving conditions? Did they test error recovery and adaptation scenarios? (physical sensors can be fickle things, you know).
I am a software engineer, and have seen some real abominations pass a code review. One piece of code used an uninitialized pointer, and not only did it pass the review, there were explanatory comments indicating this wasn't a problem in practice! Another piece of code, also reviewed, had a rather obvious race condition.
Granted, the task of producing bug free code is difficult, but surely Toyota knows this; I have a hard time believing Toyota produced a car in which a failure of the software module would produce fatal results. Surely they did not design the car so that an ECU failure would prevent the driver from shifting into neutral and applying the brakes!? Or is the Congressional testimony wrong?
A gay person chooses their sexuality; a black person doesn't get to choose their skin color. Those who think this is about civil rights either do not understand gay sex, marriage, or both.
The fundamental blind side which the Left just doesn't see is that the objection to homosexuality is an objection to their *action* and *lifestyle*, not the fact that they exist. Gays have existed throughout history and managed to get along with heterosexuals just fine, largely because sex was considered a private matter. For most heterosexuals, sex still is a private matter, and even if they don't understand gay sexuality, have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to be judged by their sexuality, or even make it public.
The gay agenda, OTOH, has been pushing for an increasingly sexualized culture. A move, which ironically, has resulted in people thinking about, and judging them by, their sexual preferences. Before the sexual revolution, a person's identity and public image were largely a matter of what they said and did in public, and their bedroom habits were largely beyond the reach of public inquiry. Now, it seems that people are expected to draw lines in the sand and take sides based not on who they are, but rather, on whom with they prefer to sleep.
If we are to think of this in civil rights terms, we must ask ourselves, to what respect is a person entitled? Are they entitled to respect simply because they are human? Or do their bedroom habits determine the respect they deserve. Oddly, both the Left and Right consider the answer to the latter question the same. (The former, though, is the reason for the split on abortion, but that's another debate...) However, the answer to the former question bears on why the Left can endorse homosexuality, and the Right condemns it: