Previously, if a company went belly up in a really bad way, the creditors could go after everybody who owned some of the company, even if they had nothing to do with the affairs of the company.
Well, boo-goddamn-hoo. Maybe if shareholders paid more attention to what the companies they invest in are doing, we wouldn't have so much corporate malfeasance.
Weaving isn't a good idea in heavy traffic, or on a road with narrow lanes, or in bad weather, or... Point is, you shouldn't have to do something inherently dangerous (weave around) in order to do something that contributes to safety (see what's up ahead.)
Semis are worse than SUV's, of course, but in day-to-day city driving, you're a lot more likely to get stuck behind the latter than the former. I agree that out on the interstate, semis are a plague, but you know, at least they have a purpose.
Sure -- they're issued only to meet a very specific need, to specialists who have undergone extensive training and who understand their limitations and capabilities, and whose tasks are not the same as those of most troops. Which, now that I think about it, would be a pretty good policy for Windows machines as well.;)
How many times do I have to keep telling people that security is more about the skill of the IT staff than it is about the operating system it runs on?
"More about" is not the same as "entirely about." Sure, a good IT staff with a bad system will be more secure than a bad IT staff with a good system. But a good IT staff with a good system will be more secure than either. And Unix-based systems, including OS X, are demonstrably better in terms of security than Windows-based systems are.
Do you think the Army should go back to using bolt-action rifles? It's true that a good marksman with an M1903 is more useful on the battlefield than a bad marksman with an M16, but...
They also taught us not to get fixated on the car immediately ahead of you, try to watch ahead of that car, so that you can anticipate what is going to happen.
Which is a good idea, and eminently practical if everyone is driving approximately the same size vehicle. On the other hand, if you're driving a car and the guy in front of you is driving an SUV, forget about it: you're not going to see anything except his rear bumper. I honestly think the rise of these death-tanks in recent years has as much to do with our traffic problems as the number of vehicles on the road does.
It should have been written as "...Exploded in space outside any galaxy or identified solar system".
"Galaxy" and "solar system" are on such vastly different scales that what you wrote is pretty meaningless too. It's like asking if something happened "in Denver, or in Asia?"
Your dog's name is relevant only to you, and your family and friends. (Unless the dog does something noteworthy, I suppose.) Proofs are relevant to anyone with an interest in mathematics, for all time.
Your oh-so-repetitive-on-Slashdot joke is based on a calculation of Adam's geneaology, with the necessary presumption that the "days" preceding that cannot be read allegorically.
It's not just a "repetitive Slashdot joke." It is an accurate description of the beliefs of a great many people, including at least one serious candidate for President of the United States (and quite possibly the current President as well.) If you want to tell people that the "days" of Genesis can (and should) be taken allegorically, please do so -- but I suggest you start with the fundamentalist fanatics who are doing their level best to destroy science education in this country, rather than with people on Slashdot who make fun of how absurd the fanatics are.
Researchers work every day with viruses that are known to be incredibly dangerous, not just those that might be such as these putative retroviral fossils. So if you're worrying about something escaping the lab and causing a global pandemic, there are more serious threats. Really, this is pretty safe compared to ongoing work on, say, Ebola.
What you're describing is probably possible, but for any given stretch of DNA encoding the right polymerases, it's a lot more likely that it's a retrovirus that lost the ability to leave the cell than that it's a transposon that gained that ability and then lost it again.
hat you're describing is probably possible, but for any given stretch of DNA encoding the right polymerases, it's a lot more likely that it's a retrovirus that lost the ability to leave the cell than that it's a transposon that gained that ability.
Teachers don't care (or at least good ones don't) if you spent a lot of time looking up references. They just care that you can find them - not how long it took.
That's the way it should be; I'm not sure it generally is. Hven't there been a couple of stories on/. recently about schools actually blocking access to Wikipedia from school computers because they don't want students using it at all, even to find citeable sources? I think there's an innate conservatism on the part of some teachers that says, in essence, "When I was a student I had to go to the library and dig through the stacks to find this information, so you should too." And while it's certainly true that good teachers don't think this way, it's in the nature of organizational politics that it's often the bad ones who put the time and effort into getting themselves into positions where they have the authority to make policy.
One after another, "Maybe it's Blackwater", "Maybe the prisoners are guards", "Maybe it's aliens". It makes present and former military personnel sick.
You know what makes me sick? People who swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and then wink at violations of the basic concepts of freedom which that document embodies. I swore the same oath you did, jarhead, and I take it seriously. Clearly you don't.
From the summary, I was hoping it would be actual dinosaur jerky. But it's actually fossilized tissue -- neat, and a rare find, but not enough for any actual biochemistry.
Try to grow up a bit and realize that human history has been full of "we just killed them, so they must be the baddies, else we wouldn't have killed them".
I used to think that way... when I was a teenaged infantryman. A couple of years later, I went to war as a medic and saw the consequences of that kind of thinking up close and personal.
No one's talking about testing faith with science. The problem is that certain people -- including, apparently, the Texas Education Agency -- keep trying to test science by the standards of their faith.
Though it would produce 27 megawatts worth of thermal energy, Hyperion doesn't like to think of its product as a "reactor."
"In fact, we prefer to call it a 'drive' or a 'battery' or a 'module' in that it's so safe," Hyperion spokeswoman Deborah Blackwell says.
Uh, yeah, except it is a reactor. If they want to emphasize how safe it is, that's great, but renaming products to get rid of words people don't like is just dumb. "Digital Consumer Enablement," anyone?
"This whole idea is loony and not worthy of too much attention," Los Alamos Study Group Executive Director Greg Mello says. "Of course, factoring in enough cronyism, corruption and official ignorance and boosterism, it's possible the principals could make some money during the initial stages, before the crows come home to roost."
Great. Don't even consider the actual design of the thing. Not a word about what, if any problems, it might create -- just dismiss it as "loony" and chalk up anything good anyone says about it to cronyism and corruption.
Does anyone have any information about the Hyperion reactor that isn't either corporate PR or wacko fearmongering? Because it sounds interesting, and I'd like to learn more about it, but not from either of these folks, thanks.
However, religion bashing has come to a point where even admitting of being religious is a cause of ridicule or arrogance.
[shrug] I haven't seen that; I have seen a lot of religious believers being hypersensitive and interpreting fanatic-bashing as religion-bashing generally. E.g., when someone attempts to jump in on a discussion of the origins of DNA in the early terrestrial environment with, "That can't be true because Genesis says..." then mockery is the only reasonable response. That's not religion-bashing, that's fanatic-bashing. If you are willing to accomodate your religious beliefs to scientific observations, as many religious scientists have done, then hardly anyone is going to attack you for it. (And those who do can be ignored; there are cranks and professional malcontents on both sides of every argument.)
I do science and I am religious. Is there something wrong in that?
Of course not. Motivation is irrelevant when science is done right. You can study a problem because you have a personal interest in solving it, because you want to unravel the mysteries of God's creation, because someone is paying you a whole lot of money to do so, or just out of simple curiosity -- all of these motivations can produce good science, and will no doubt continue to do so. But it's important to acknowledge that some motivations are more likely to lead to bias than others; and it is absurd to deny that religion has introduced considerable bias into the study of the origins of life.
In any sane historical perspective, President Bush has conducted two almost perfect wars. If a Democrat had (ever!) done as well, he would be lauded as a military genius.
Clinton did conduct two almost perfect wars: Bosnia and Kosovo. Not a single American soldier was lost in either, and we won. The Republican response was not to laud him as a military genius, but to make "Wag The Dog" jokes and go back to bitching about a blowjob.
Slashdot Mirror
Previously, if a company went belly up in a really bad way, the creditors could go after everybody who owned some of the company, even if they had nothing to do with the affairs of the company.
Well, boo-goddamn-hoo. Maybe if shareholders paid more attention to what the companies they invest in are doing, we wouldn't have so much corporate malfeasance.
What's stopping you from being a CEO then?
He has a soul, maybe?
Weaving isn't a good idea in heavy traffic, or on a road with narrow lanes, or in bad weather, or ... Point is, you shouldn't have to do something inherently dangerous (weave around) in order to do something that contributes to safety (see what's up ahead.)
Semis are worse than SUV's, of course, but in day-to-day city driving, you're a lot more likely to get stuck behind the latter than the former. I agree that out on the interstate, semis are a plague, but you know, at least they have a purpose.
Sure -- they're issued only to meet a very specific need, to specialists who have undergone extensive training and who understand their limitations and capabilities, and whose tasks are not the same as those of most troops. Which, now that I think about it, would be a pretty good policy for Windows machines as well. ;)
How many times do I have to keep telling people that security is more about the skill of the IT staff than it is about the operating system it runs on?
...
"More about" is not the same as "entirely about." Sure, a good IT staff with a bad system will be more secure than a bad IT staff with a good system. But a good IT staff with a good system will be more secure than either. And Unix-based systems, including OS X, are demonstrably better in terms of security than Windows-based systems are.
Do you think the Army should go back to using bolt-action rifles? It's true that a good marksman with an M1903 is more useful on the battlefield than a bad marksman with an M16, but
They also taught us not to get fixated on the car immediately ahead of you, try to watch ahead of that car, so that you can anticipate what is going to happen.
Which is a good idea, and eminently practical if everyone is driving approximately the same size vehicle. On the other hand, if you're driving a car and the guy in front of you is driving an SUV, forget about it: you're not going to see anything except his rear bumper. I honestly think the rise of these death-tanks in recent years has as much to do with our traffic problems as the number of vehicles on the road does.
It should have been written as "...Exploded in space outside any galaxy or identified solar system".
"Galaxy" and "solar system" are on such vastly different scales that what you wrote is pretty meaningless too. It's like asking if something happened "in Denver, or in Asia?"
The telecom industry is to telecommunications as the recording industry is to music. Let the bastards hang.
Your dog's name is relevant only to you, and your family and friends. (Unless the dog does something noteworthy, I suppose.) Proofs are relevant to anyone with an interest in mathematics, for all time.
You know, Nietzsche died in an insane asylum.
;)
Just sayin'.
Your oh-so-repetitive-on-Slashdot joke is based on a calculation of Adam's geneaology, with the necessary presumption that the "days" preceding that cannot be read allegorically.
It's not just a "repetitive Slashdot joke." It is an accurate description of the beliefs of a great many people, including at least one serious candidate for President of the United States (and quite possibly the current President as well.) If you want to tell people that the "days" of Genesis can (and should) be taken allegorically, please do so -- but I suggest you start with the fundamentalist fanatics who are doing their level best to destroy science education in this country, rather than with people on Slashdot who make fun of how absurd the fanatics are.
Researchers work every day with viruses that are known to be incredibly dangerous, not just those that might be such as these putative retroviral fossils. So if you're worrying about something escaping the lab and causing a global pandemic, there are more serious threats. Really, this is pretty safe compared to ongoing work on, say, Ebola.
What you're describing is probably possible, but for any given stretch of DNA encoding the right polymerases, it's a lot more likely that it's a retrovirus that lost the ability to leave the cell than that it's a transposon that gained that ability and then lost it again.
Is what I meant to say.
hat you're describing is probably possible, but for any given stretch of DNA encoding the right polymerases, it's a lot more likely that it's a retrovirus that lost the ability to leave the cell than that it's a transposon that gained that ability.
The logical error was in Weaselmancer's post ("books are copyrightable so software should be patentable") not in NoOneInParticular's reply.
Teachers don't care (or at least good ones don't) if you spent a lot of time looking up references. They just care that you can find them - not how long it took.
/. recently about schools actually blocking access to Wikipedia from school computers because they don't want students using it at all, even to find citeable sources? I think there's an innate conservatism on the part of some teachers that says, in essence, "When I was a student I had to go to the library and dig through the stacks to find this information, so you should too." And while it's certainly true that good teachers don't think this way, it's in the nature of organizational politics that it's often the bad ones who put the time and effort into getting themselves into positions where they have the authority to make policy.
That's the way it should be; I'm not sure it generally is. Hven't there been a couple of stories on
You can get the same pablum from MSNBC, Fox, and a million web sites that you get from CNN. Really good writers have a unique voice.
One after another, "Maybe it's Blackwater", "Maybe the prisoners are guards", "Maybe it's aliens". It makes present and former military personnel sick.
You know what makes me sick? People who swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and then wink at violations of the basic concepts of freedom which that document embodies. I swore the same oath you did, jarhead, and I take it seriously. Clearly you don't.
From the summary, I was hoping it would be actual dinosaur jerky. But it's actually fossilized tissue -- neat, and a rare find, but not enough for any actual biochemistry.
Try to grow up a bit and realize that human history has been full of "we just killed them, so they must be the baddies, else we wouldn't have killed them".
... when I was a teenaged infantryman. A couple of years later, I went to war as a medic and saw the consequences of that kind of thinking up close and personal.
I used to think that way
No one's talking about testing faith with science. The problem is that certain people -- including, apparently, the Texas Education Agency -- keep trying to test science by the standards of their faith.
Though it would produce 27 megawatts worth of thermal energy, Hyperion doesn't like to think of its product as a "reactor."
"In fact, we prefer to call it a 'drive' or a 'battery' or a 'module' in that it's so safe," Hyperion spokeswoman Deborah Blackwell says.
Uh, yeah, except it is a reactor. If they want to emphasize how safe it is, that's great, but renaming products to get rid of words people don't like is just dumb. "Digital Consumer Enablement," anyone?
"This whole idea is loony and not worthy of too much attention," Los Alamos Study Group Executive Director Greg Mello says. "Of course, factoring in enough cronyism, corruption and official ignorance and boosterism, it's possible the principals could make some money during the initial stages, before the crows come home to roost."
Great. Don't even consider the actual design of the thing. Not a word about what, if any problems, it might create -- just dismiss it as "loony" and chalk up anything good anyone says about it to cronyism and corruption.
Does anyone have any information about the Hyperion reactor that isn't either corporate PR or wacko fearmongering? Because it sounds interesting, and I'd like to learn more about it, but not from either of these folks, thanks.
Welcome to the internet. Population: every smug, religion-hating atheist on the planet.
/. posts, apparently.
And every hypersensitive religionist who will find every excuse to make personal attacks based on out-of-context snippets of
However, religion bashing has come to a point where even admitting of being religious is a cause of ridicule or arrogance.
..." then mockery is the only reasonable response. That's not religion-bashing, that's fanatic-bashing. If you are willing to accomodate your religious beliefs to scientific observations, as many religious scientists have done, then hardly anyone is going to attack you for it. (And those who do can be ignored; there are cranks and professional malcontents on both sides of every argument.)
[shrug] I haven't seen that; I have seen a lot of religious believers being hypersensitive and interpreting fanatic-bashing as religion-bashing generally. E.g., when someone attempts to jump in on a discussion of the origins of DNA in the early terrestrial environment with, "That can't be true because Genesis says
I do science and I am religious. Is there something wrong in that?
Of course not. Motivation is irrelevant when science is done right. You can study a problem because you have a personal interest in solving it, because you want to unravel the mysteries of God's creation, because someone is paying you a whole lot of money to do so, or just out of simple curiosity -- all of these motivations can produce good science, and will no doubt continue to do so. But it's important to acknowledge that some motivations are more likely to lead to bias than others; and it is absurd to deny that religion has introduced considerable bias into the study of the origins of life.
In any sane historical perspective, President Bush has conducted two almost perfect wars. If a Democrat had (ever!) done as well, he would be lauded as a military genius.
Clinton did conduct two almost perfect wars: Bosnia and Kosovo. Not a single American soldier was lost in either, and we won. The Republican response was not to laud him as a military genius, but to make "Wag The Dog" jokes and go back to bitching about a blowjob.