HG pollution is a major concern, and there have been comments posted about proper disposal of CFL bulbs (due to the HG content) and such. I was concerned about this too. Here's an interesting "Fact Sheet" from NEMA (the National Electrical Manufacturers Association) and apparently from the EPA as well. Take this with whatever amount of salt you like.
The amount of mercury in a CFL's glass tubing is small, about 4mg.
Ironically, CFLs present an opportunity to prevent mercury from entering our air, where it most affects our health. The highest source of mercury in our air comes from burning fossil fuels such as coal, the most common fuel used in the U.S. to produce electricity. A CFL uses 75% less energy than an incandescent light bulb and lasts at least 6 times longer. A power plant will emit 10mg of mercury to produce the electricity to run an incandescent bulb compared to only 2.4mg of mercury to run a CFL for the same time.
Note: The NEMA website clearly states, "NEMA is the leading trade association in the U.S. representing the interests of electroindustry manufacturers of products used in the generation, transmission and distribution, control, and end-use of electricity."
I had a somewhat macabre discussion with my father a few thanksgivings ago about surgically implanting bombs and such in pets. When the fur grows back no scars are visible. They won't act nervous. You could do it months in advance. You could feasibly kidnap someone's pet, implant a bomb with an altimeter in it and then sew them back up (so the pet is "missing" for a few days - some pet owners won't think twice about that). It's easier than finding a willing suicide bomber...
The problem with this (and I agree, he's an idiot and deserved it) is that he took out credit cards and borrowed money. Now, what do you think happens when he is unable to pay that money?
Well, his debt holders sell off the debt and raise their interest rates for everyone else in order to cover their loss. And this happens every time anyone negs on a debt. It hurts everyone else.
And, I can tell you that because he lives in Florida, they cannot seize his home (as a primary residence) under *any* debtor circumstances. So he's not worse off. We are. You and I are covering his fucking stupidity with our paychecks.
So, this guy should be thrown in jail, because he (and of course, it's really that there are many people like him) is causing my interest rates to rise. And because he is an idiot.
And if I knew his address, I'd go torch his 1967 Cadillac.
"It's so convenient that the average Netflix customer watches five movies a month. Some subscribers rent twenty or more. (Which is a problem: Netflix loses money on postage for households that rent more than five a month.)"
So, if this is true (and hopefully Wired has become more trustworth as a "news source" in recent years...), then obviously they want to discourage people from renting more than 5 per month.
The method above seems like a pretty good way to do it!
I agree. I have a degree from CMU in "Software Engineering". That gives me the right to call myself an engineer if I wish (if I believe a degree from CMU is worth anything). Any yokel with a Bachelors in CS or less is likely a programmer (and there is is nothing wrong with that).
Obviously what it all really boils down to is the following: As more and more people become programmers without a formal education (which is a wonderful thing) do we need to distinguish between a nautrally capable (and self-taught) coder, and an engineer that has suffered through the hard knocks of a college/university?
In my limited experience (no flames please, I just admitted my experience with this is limited), the answer is yes, and here's why:
I've worked with a number of very skilled coders - self taught since the beginning of time - who code well, but are limited by the fact they've never been through the formal code analysis courses. Sure they can write a great bubble sort without even knowing that's what they're writing, but they don't always know when to use specific algorithms, they sometimes do unnecessary work trying to figure out the best approcah to a problem (when the solutions are well known and documented in various CS textbooks), etc.
And most importantly: when taking CS classes (at least at CMU), one learns to verbally communicate (problems, opinions, asking for help) with other programmers and even laymen. This is essential.
And this is what makes a formally educated programmer an Engineer. The coding and communication skills. Code accountability is another situation entirely. Any thoughts?
IDOAT (I don't own a TiVo), but I need a further explanation - someone please help.
Here's my quandry. If I buy a TiVo, I believe I should own the hardware and the software if that's what TiVo says I own at the time of purchase. If they say I own the hardware, but they own the software - so be it (don't buy it if you don't like the terms). In the latter case, I do NOT have the right to access parts of my TiVo software that TiVo does not want me to access - I don't own it.
Now, did TiVo change their terms of ownership?
For example, if (and this is an if - I don't know too much about the situation) I bought a TiVo when the terms of service were "I own the hardware and software", and now TiVo says "I own the hardware, they own the software", then I should be able to choose to upgrade or not. If I choose to upgrade, I can surrender my rights to tinker with the software. I should be able to choose not to upgrade, and still run the TiVo as it was. Can I?
What's the deal here? What exactly does TiVo say about ownership?
Their reply was that THEIR POLICY was to renew subscriptions automatically
The funny thing about this, is it's fine, legal, and dandy.
If they want to "renew your subscription", then they can ask for payment. You are certainly under no obligation whatsoever to pay it, but they can spend the 20 cents it costs to bulk mail you a request to pay for a new subscription.
As long as they carefully tread the fine line between intimating that you can pay them for services, and claiming that you contractually owe them money, it's legal (IANAL).
it's an old public relations adage: "there is no such thing as bad publicity." learn your simple lessons in life scientologists!
I think they know this all too well. Let us extrapolate a bit:
Option 1: The "Church" does not force the removal of said website content. Only people who already know how silly said "Church" is visit the old versions of websites that make fun of scientology, and only said people have a good laugh. Publicity: minimal.
Option 2: The "Church" does force the removal of said website content. The big media companies may publish stories about it. Publicity: large.
These scumbags are constantly working to get any publicity they can. If that means violating the rights of various persons (Americans) then so be it - more publicity for them.
Now, the question becomes, what can we do about it? What if 1% of slashdot readers got "free website" accounts with geocities and the like, and just copied/pasted the info from various anti-scientology sites? What if we did this every month? Can the church take on a large number of companies? Sure they can continually search, and continually send out lawsuit threats, but this costs them money...
Of course, how much money do they have? Travolta (revolta?) makes what, 20mil a flick?
If Micro$oft started offering their software and services for a price below the actual cost of producing them, with the sole purpose of driving their competitors out of business, they should be sued for unfair practices.
The funny thing is that's exactly what they are doing with the X-Box, yet they are not succeding with the tactic. Is it still illegal if nobody buy it?
This is not what MS is doing with the XBox. They are competing with Sony/Nintendo (notice the price for the PS2 and XBOX are the same).
Dumping, as a business practice, is a moral dilemma, thus difficult to quantify.
Q. What's the shortest path to build a bridge from Alaska to Australia.
A. Don't build a bridge. Build a boat (or plane)
That is not an answer. It is a suggestion of an alternative means to accomplish what you believe the problem behind the question is.
If the person wanted to build a bridge from Alaska to Australia to allow bicyclists to bicycle straight from Gnome to Sydney, your "answer" doesn't help.
That's why one can't "answer" a question with a simple remark akin to "don't do what you want to do, do this instead".
IF the question was "how do I make a Windows box secure?" their would be thousands of (right) answers saying "you don't, you make it Linux".
But that's simply not true. That is akin to saying Q: "What's 2+2?" A: "2+3=5".
You're not answering the question.
For the question "how do I make a Windows box secure", the answer is: "go through a long and convoluted process of turning off a large number of services, possibly disconnect it from the net, remove the floppy/CD or lock the BIOS with a password to stop booting from anything but the hard drive, etc... but the fact of the matter is it's a long and difficult process and might not be possible..."
Your "answer" of "you don't, you make it Linux" is in fact not an answer at all, but merely a suggestion.
The Only Best Policy is: Don't store private information, ever.
It's easy, meaningless, hackneyed non-answers like this that are eroding slashdot.
I ask "What the best way to do X", and the highest modded answer is "You silly boy, don't do X". Well, if "not doing X" were an option, the question would not have been asked.
People need to understand that virtually any question can be inappropriately (and quickly) answered with "do something else", but then that's not a real answer. It's an excuse to vent an opinion (just like this rant).
And really, it's the moderators who are to blame.
The parent (and this post) should be modded as -1 offtopic.
NEITHER ONE ANSWERS THE QUESTION OR OFFERS A REASONABLE ALTERNATIVE. They both preach. Blah.
My Dad used to build and sell computers under His own brand name but after a while He realized that He couldn't compete with BestBuy, CompUSA,...etc. so He just went into the mobile computer service business and is doing quite well. I can't tell you how many times He's come home and complained about some Nameplate's propietary hardware or the goofy way they installed some software.
Jesus? Are you Jesus?
Usually people capitalize He when they are referrign to god (or starting a sentence:).
By your reasoning, it is immoral to do this, since it circumvents the service provider's revenue source. As an extension, though, since no one advertises if the advertising does no good, it is immoral to view a site without purchasing products from any and all advertisers there.
Morality never entered my argument.
I was simply stating that hotmail's ad revenue is fairly steady whether one uses IE, Netscape or any other browser (of course a small but negligable percentage of people can disable ads, it's irrelevant). AOL's Instant Messenger ad revenue is dependent on people using AIM.
Well Microsoft owns the servers that run Hotmail (and Passport, and MSN, and so on) so should they force everyone to use IE to check their Hotmail accounts?
This is an erroneous analogy. Whether you use Netscape or IE or Konq or most other browsers to check your email at Hotmail, you will likely still see the advertisements, so there is not loss of ad revenue.
When you use a non AIM client, you will likely NOT see the advertisements, thus there IS a loss of ad revenue.
Now, I am shooting from the hip here (having not used Trillian's software), but one of the main issues here is that the AIM clones do not display the AIM advertisements. As the ZDNews article pointed out, Trillian has almost a million users - this is a substantial advertisement loss for AOL.
Perhaps if a clone also connected to AOL's ad server and showed the AOL advertisements, AOL might not be so quick to shut them down? Perhaps not - I have no information on how many non AOL users start using AOL as an ISP as a result of using AIM. That's a whole other can of worms.
Yes, its a gamble. You hope that by the time you have to kill the MS partition, that the Game Companies will have gotten the clue that the people who obsessivly buy games are likely to also be people who don't want to install Windows.
The fact that most Linux games have failed (and they have been ports of successful windows game) proves the opposite.
Most people who obsessively buy games DO use windows. And they DON'T care about mandatory Passport registrations, or the MS monopoly.
"Far from the £10,000 of lore, he got $250,000 (then worth about £102,500) and a percentage of the royalties, which could eventually be a massive fillip to his estate, already fat from the sale of 100m books around the globe."
I'm just worried that all this new life-prolonging technology will belong the wealthy alone.
All technologies start out this way. Then the wealthy people realize they will make more money selling it to the masses (as there are more people in the masses), and then economics of scale kick in.
As it is now, it is already difficult enough to transcend one's class.
I don't know what you are implying with this statement, but historically now is the easiest time in history to transcend class... in almost ANY culture in the past it was near impossible, and now it is not. Things are getting better!
What will happen when the wealthy really are smarter than average folk? I worry that children born without the technology won't be able to compete.
Shhh... don't tell anyone, but the wealthy are already smarter. Not necessarily more intelligent, but smarter. They are better educated. But again, the education system today is better balanced than ever before in history (for the most part). So the gap is slowly becoming a gap between the motivated learners and the lazy saps. But who cares... more soylent green for the/. readers, eh? (yeah, I know soylent green was old people, not dumb people... that was their mistake)
Assuming they maintain their stand, does this mean Christians and other moral types will one day live shorter lives and be less intelligent than people without such scruples?
Yes, if they don't adapt. Natural selection will then kick in (odd... natural selection through artificial enhancement), but you're looking at black and white in the distant future.
I believe the human race is doing well at the moment, so cheer up little camper. People are pretty damn adaptable!
Slashdot Mirror
EPAFactSheet - CFL [PDF]
For the lazy:
Note: The NEMA website clearly states, "NEMA is the leading trade association in the U.S. representing the interests of electroindustry manufacturers of products used in the generation, transmission and distribution, control, and end-use of electricity."
I had a somewhat macabre discussion with my father a few thanksgivings ago about surgically implanting bombs and such in pets. When the fur grows back no scars are visible. They won't act nervous. You could do it months in advance. You could feasibly kidnap someone's pet, implant a bomb with an altimeter in it and then sew them back up (so the pet is "missing" for a few days - some pet owners won't think twice about that). It's easier than finding a willing suicide bomber...
Or you could simply visit Whitemill...
The problem with this (and I agree, he's an idiot and deserved it) is that he took out credit cards and borrowed money. Now, what do you think happens when he is unable to pay that money?
Well, his debt holders sell off the debt and raise their interest rates for everyone else in order to cover their loss. And this happens every time anyone negs on a debt. It hurts everyone else.
And, I can tell you that because he lives in Florida, they cannot seize his home (as a primary residence) under *any* debtor circumstances. So he's not worse off. We are. You and I are covering his fucking stupidity with our paychecks.
So, this guy should be thrown in jail, because he (and of course, it's really that there are many people like him) is causing my interest rates to rise. And because he is an idiot.
And if I knew his address, I'd go torch his 1967 Cadillac.
"It's so convenient that the average Netflix customer watches five movies a month. Some subscribers rent twenty or more. (Which is a problem: Netflix loses money on postage for households that rent more than five a month.)"
So, if this is true (and hopefully Wired has become more trustworth as a "news source" in recent years...), then obviously they want to discourage people from renting more than 5 per month.
The method above seems like a pretty good way to do it!
The fact of the matter is that your eyes are more important than your wallet.
I lost my 20/20 vision staring at a Sony trinitron for 12 hours a day. My glasses and doctor's appointment cost me $400.
That same $400 will buy an 18" LCD, 1280x1024 at WalMart.
But the WalMart LCD. It's crisp, clear, and good for your eyes.
Obviously what it all really boils down to is the following: As more and more people become programmers without a formal education (which is a wonderful thing) do we need to distinguish between a nautrally capable (and self-taught) coder, and an engineer that has suffered through the hard knocks of a college/university?
In my limited experience (no flames please, I just admitted my experience with this is limited), the answer is yes, and here's why:
I've worked with a number of very skilled coders - self taught since the beginning of time - who code well, but are limited by the fact they've never been through the formal code analysis courses.
Sure they can write a great bubble sort without even knowing that's what they're writing, but they don't always know when to use specific algorithms, they sometimes do unnecessary work trying to figure out the best approcah to a problem (when the solutions are well known and documented in various CS textbooks), etc.
And most importantly: when taking CS classes (at least at CMU), one learns to verbally communicate (problems, opinions, asking for help) with other programmers and even laymen. This is essential.
And this is what makes a formally educated programmer an Engineer. The coding and communication skills. Code accountability is another situation entirely. Any thoughts?
Oh wait...
IDOAT (I don't own a TiVo), but I need a further explanation - someone please help.
Here's my quandry. If I buy a TiVo, I believe I should own the hardware and the software if that's what TiVo says I own at the time of purchase. If they say I own the hardware, but they own the software - so be it (don't buy it if you don't like the terms). In the latter case, I do NOT have the right to access parts of my TiVo software that TiVo does not want me to access - I don't own it.
Now, did TiVo change their terms of ownership?
For example, if (and this is an if - I don't know too much about the situation) I bought a TiVo when the terms of service were "I own the hardware and software", and now TiVo says "I own the hardware, they own the software", then I should be able to choose to upgrade or not. If I choose to upgrade, I can surrender my rights to tinker with the software. I should be able to choose not to upgrade, and still run the TiVo as it was. Can I?
What's the deal here? What exactly does TiVo say about ownership?
Maybe the aliens have decided they don't want to communicate with us after all, and so they're sabotaging the data...
And maybe we shouldn't be so judgemental and quick to criticize SETI@Netherlands - they're just pawns in an intergalactic game of cat and mouse.
The funny thing about this, is it's fine, legal, and dandy.
If they want to "renew your subscription", then they can ask for payment. You are certainly under no obligation whatsoever to pay it, but they can spend the 20 cents it costs to bulk mail you a request to pay for a new subscription.
As long as they carefully tread the fine line between intimating that you can pay them for services, and claiming that you contractually owe them money, it's legal (IANAL).
(right?)
I think they know this all too well. Let us extrapolate a bit:
Option 1: The "Church" does not force the removal of said website content. Only people who already know how silly said "Church" is visit the old versions of websites that make fun of scientology, and only said people have a good laugh. Publicity: minimal.
Option 2: The "Church" does force the removal of said website content. The big media companies may publish stories about it. Publicity: large.
These scumbags are constantly working to get any publicity they can. If that means violating the rights of various persons (Americans) then so be it - more publicity for them.
Now, the question becomes, what can we do about it? What if 1% of slashdot readers got "free website" accounts with geocities and the like, and just copied/pasted the info from various anti-scientology sites? What if we did this every month? Can the church take on a large number of companies? Sure they can continually search, and continually send out lawsuit threats, but this costs them money...
Of course, how much money do they have? Travolta (revolta?) makes what, 20mil a flick?
The funny thing is that's exactly what they are doing with the X-Box, yet they are not succeding with the tactic. Is it still illegal if nobody buy it?
This is not what MS is doing with the XBox. They are competing with Sony/Nintendo (notice the price for the PS2 and XBOX are the same).
Dumping, as a business practice, is a moral dilemma, thus difficult to quantify.
Congratulations, you are begging the question!
Hrmm.. I thought begging the question was this:
http://skepdic.com/begging.html
Yeah, and it's not as good a conductor as copper. What's your point? Spider silk can't be made into rigid structures, right?
Q. What's the shortest path to build a bridge from Alaska to Australia.
A. Don't build a bridge. Build a boat (or plane)
That is not an answer. It is a suggestion of an alternative means to accomplish what you believe the problem behind the question is.
If the person wanted to build a bridge from Alaska to Australia to allow bicyclists to bicycle straight from Gnome to Sydney, your "answer" doesn't help.
That's why one can't "answer" a question with a simple remark akin to "don't do what you want to do, do this instead".
But that's simply not true. That is akin to saying Q: "What's 2+2?" A: "2+3=5".
You're not answering the question.
For the question "how do I make a Windows box secure", the answer is: "go through a long and convoluted process of turning off a large number of services, possibly disconnect it from the net, remove the floppy/CD or lock the BIOS with a password to stop booting from anything but the hard drive, etc... but the fact of the matter is it's a long and difficult process and might not be possible..."
Your "answer" of "you don't, you make it Linux" is in fact not an answer at all, but merely a suggestion.
It's easy, meaningless, hackneyed non-answers like this that are eroding slashdot.
I ask "What the best way to do X", and the highest modded answer is "You silly boy, don't do X". Well, if "not doing X" were an option, the question would not have been asked.
People need to understand that virtually any question can be inappropriately (and quickly) answered with "do something else", but then that's not a real answer. It's an excuse to vent an opinion (just like this rant).
And really, it's the moderators who are to blame.
The parent (and this post) should be modded as -1 offtopic.
NEITHER ONE ANSWERS THE QUESTION OR OFFERS A REASONABLE ALTERNATIVE. They both preach. Blah.
I've had enough.
Jesus? Are you Jesus?
Usually people capitalize He when they are referrign to god (or starting a sentence
Morality never entered my argument.
I was simply stating that hotmail's ad revenue is fairly steady whether one uses IE, Netscape or any other browser (of course a small but negligable percentage of people can disable ads, it's irrelevant). AOL's Instant Messenger ad revenue is dependent on people using AIM.
It's a fact. That's all.
This is an erroneous analogy. Whether you use Netscape or IE or Konq or most other browsers to check your email at Hotmail, you will likely still see the advertisements, so there is not loss of ad revenue.
When you use a non AIM client, you will likely NOT see the advertisements, thus there IS a loss of ad revenue.
Now, I am shooting from the hip here (having not used Trillian's software), but one of the main issues here is that the AIM clones do not display the AIM advertisements. As the ZDNews article pointed out, Trillian has almost a million users - this is a substantial advertisement loss for AOL.
Perhaps if a clone also connected to AOL's ad server and showed the AOL advertisements, AOL might not be so quick to shut them down? Perhaps not - I have no information on how many non AOL users start using AOL as an ISP as a result of using AIM. That's a whole other can of worms.
Yes, its a gamble. You hope that by the time you have to kill the MS partition, that the Game Companies will have gotten the clue that the people who obsessivly buy games are likely to also be people who don't want to install Windows.
The fact that most Linux games have failed (and they have been ports of successful windows game) proves the opposite.
Most people who obsessively buy games DO use windows. And they DON'T care about mandatory Passport registrations, or the MS monopoly.
Welcome to the sheep generation(TM)
"I'll be over there in my space ship..."
I think you'll find the family aren't getting a penny: Tolkien sold the film rights to pay off a mortgage.
I think you'll find you didn't read the articles...
The Guardian did research on this and:
"Far from the £10,000 of lore, he got $250,000 (then worth about £102,500) and a percentage of the royalties, which could eventually be a massive fillip to his estate, already fat from the sale of 100m books around the globe."
All technologies start out this way. Then the wealthy people realize they will make more money selling it to the masses (as there are more people in the masses), and then economics of scale kick in.
As it is now, it is already difficult enough to transcend one's class.
I don't know what you are implying with this statement, but historically now is the easiest time in history to transcend class
What will happen when the wealthy really are smarter than average folk? I worry that children born without the technology won't be able to compete.
Shhh... don't tell anyone, but the wealthy are already smarter. Not necessarily more intelligent, but smarter. They are better educated. But again, the education system today is better balanced than ever before in history (for the most part). So the gap is slowly becoming a gap between the motivated learners and the lazy saps. But who cares... more soylent green for the
Assuming they maintain their stand, does this mean Christians and other moral types will one day live shorter lives and be less intelligent than people without such scruples?
Yes, if they don't adapt. Natural selection will then kick in (odd... natural selection through artificial enhancement), but you're looking at black and white in the distant future.
I believe the human race is doing well at the moment, so cheer up little camper. People are pretty damn adaptable!