Spit is more likely to go *click* at those temperatures. The sound of frozen muscles in your throat fighting against other frozen throat muscles (assuming any of the muscles can move at all) and fracturing into two or more pieces.
Haven't you ever played Lunar Lander?! The barest pixel to the wrong side, and a tiny bit too fast in any direction and BOOM! Anyone good at Lunar Lander could do this!!!
Before I start, I'd like to say that I respect the right of all people to believe what they want to believe, but I feel no obligation (and nor should anyone else) to respect the actual beliefs of others. If I think something is ridiculous, I can't be forced to respect it, and this goes for everyone. If a creationist finds evolution to be ridiculous, he can't be forced to respect it, and I won't try to force anyone to respect my beliefs either. All we can do is put our beliefs out on the table, like a party where everyone has to bring a snack. Not everyone will like what you bring.
Now, about the "weaknesses" in the theory of evolution. I don't doubt evolution at all. To see it in action today, rather than trusting fossil records and carbon dating, one need look no further than the constantly evolving bacteria in hospitals, developing resistances to newer or more powerful medications. I do, however, believe there are weaknesses in our current understanding of evolution. It's a lot more complex than the phrase "survival of the fittest", and one must wonder where the design for future changes to a species' physiology comes from. Actually, to wonder that, one must first wonder if there is a design, or if it's the fortunate result of random variation (maybe cancer or various neurological diseases are the flip-side of the coin: the unfortunate result of random variation). Science isn't textbook knowledge, it's the ability to question textbook knowledge. Weaknesses in the theory of evolution should be presented as weaknesses in our understanding of evolution, but I'm quite open to the idea that maybe we'll one day find proof that all things are designed. At the moment, however, I prefer to believe in an equilibrium of chaos. All things seeking the path of least resistance, fitting into a seemingly elaborate mesh. The things that didn't fit, are now extinct. The things that fit now, may be pushed out later by a better fit, or something could change the game entirely, and push existing things into new places in the mesh.
You'd think, if Microsoft were a sensible company, they'd realise that not only might the engineers that made something (like a protocol or a library) not be there in the future, but they also might not remember every single detail of everything they've ever done for MS. Knowing this, it would follow they'd have some good internal documentation policies, and when courts say "give us the documentation", they could just hand over a great big pdf (or docx:P), and that would be the end of it. If this is the state of their real internal documentation, I'd hate to think what problems it would cause when trying to make new technologies backwards compatible. As much as I'd like to think that Linux is winning on it's own merit, and proprietary software is collapsing, that's really only a tiny bit of the story. Microsoft are suffering not because of Linux, but because of broad-sweeping incompetence like this. Let's hope those 5000 layoffs make the remaining employees a little more wary about their job security, and make them work to prove their value to Microsoft.
ID thief: Hi, I've moved recently, and I just wanted to check you guys have my new address.
Every time I've done that with my bank, they've asked for my full name, date of birth, and account number (or if I go through the automated channel, the only ID I need is my phone or online banking pin). After those are provided, they tell me what address they have on file.
With English as it is, I love the multitude of subtly different words. Sick and ill mean slightly different things to me, but since they both refer to some health ailment, they'd be merged if someone trimmed the fat from English. I've always been one for trying to fit exactly the right word for a situation - problem is, people often don't get the meaning I intend, since they don't see the same distinctions I do.
Ah, I see. I knew the basic concept of 1984, and now you mention it, my English teacher did explain this to me years ago. I'd just forgotten the whole "language as control" thing... Kind of the whole point of Newspeak... It's times like these my sig turns back against it's creator:P
I've always thought the governments of the world should legalise same-sex civil unions, and leave the idea of "marriage" up to the various religions and their denominations. I honestly can't see the current Pope flip-flopping any time soon, so he could just disallow gay marriage in the Catholic church, and excommunicate the gay parishioners (they're going to Hell according to him, anyway, right?) and his conscience would stay nice and clean and holier-than-thou.
My opinion of religion, in general, isn't a high one, so I'm hoping my opinion is a nice middle ground between what I'd like to see (vacant lots where all the churches/mosques/synagogues/whatever are) and what most religious groups want (no gay marriages, and in some cases making homosexuality a punishable crime).
Since I get my stories from the RSS feed, and I only see the headline until I load the story, my first thought was that the Flat Earth Society had come up with another wacky "justification" for their beliefs. Seriously... They believe the moon is fake, to scare people... In the years I've known about them, I still honestly can't tell if they're serious or if they're having a lend of the scientific community. I'm sure there are a few people among them who actually believe what they claim, but I certainly hope the vast majority are members because they think it's a big joke.
Although I haven't read 1984 yet, isn't Newspeak about eliminating terms with no distinction between them? Sick and ill would be merged, along with unwell and any other synonyms, but in this case, theft and copyright infringement are two very different things. I think Newspeak is about eliminating ambiguity in language, and it just so happens that English is so full of cruft that even when you expand slightly different meanings for the same word into two or more words, you still take out more than you add.
I just had an absolutely shocking thought... What if Reeves gets the role of Solid Snake? I think I must kill him now, before casting for a Metal Gear: Solid movie gets underway. I'd rather Brad Pitt play Snake, and I think he's the second worst possible choice (after Keanu Reeves). Seriously, ANYONE else would be better than Keanu Reeves for any role.
You know, I don't think it's Gates we should be disliking. With a different name and a different face, he could be just another IT guy wherever you work, and you'd probably get along fine. It's Ballmer who's the 'evil' one. That guy makes me think of a used car salesman, with a hint of something even slimier. Possibly with a dangerously high dose of red cordial and/or coke (not the drink).
I don't know how different the feature sets are, but Brasero is just find for me when it comes to burning CDs. It's a light weight GTK CD burning application. It seems to have all of the functions of Nero on Windows (at least, the last version I used, a few years back), and I just can't see what more a CD burning application would need. As for Amarok, I'd definitely love to see a GTK version of it, but that's not going to happen. Exaile is similar, but not quite there. Until the final release of KDE 4.2, I'm sticking to Gnome and using Rhythmbox for my music. I'd like to see more office suites out there, and maybe KOffice will improve some day.
My chiropractor doesn't claim to stave off cancer, or treat arthritis. He must be in that 20-25%, I guess. I used to suffer terrible headaches, and I was much physically weaker than I should have been. After a few treatments from him, the headaches were gone (haven't seen him for about four years, now), and I seemed to be much stronger. I didn't put on any extra muscle or anything, I just had a much easier time lifting and carrying stuff than I did before. Even my doctor, who was a little annoyed when I first told him I was seeing a chiropractor, saw how much good it was doing me. He even recommends some of his patients to the chiropractor I went to, now.
Sure, there's an unfair portion of unscrupulous chiropractors out there, and their reputation probably isn't entirely undeserved. I'm just saying, my chiropractor was good at what he did, he didn't overcharge (though the back x-rays were expensive, since the AMA in Australia doesn't like Chiropractors and let you put anything they order on Medicare), and he seemed to really enjoy his job. There was one miraculous thing that surprised me at the time. This is a 'your mileage may vary' thing, of course, but don't count all chiropractors out.
Well, I don't mean to be a stickler for the laws of causality here, but your own death kind of puts a crimp in your plans for future questing. Plus, depending on the ending you get, the wasteland can be totally different. I'd like there to have been one continuable ending, but I can certainly see why all the existing endings weren't.
I've always wanted to ask someone in charge of a company's "cloud services" what happens when it rains. The look of mortification, and seeing him run from the room screaming about umbrellas would be worth it.
I have a carefully constructed hill of SD cards, flash drives and DS games. I never lose any since removing one from the hill could make the whole thing collapse. However, when things are successfully removed, they are placed at the base after they're used, a little to the right of the pile, so as things are used and replaced the hill creeps right. I used to do the same with CDs and DVDs, but they're much less... robust... Didn't damage any discs or their data like that, but to look at them you'd be surprised they held any data at all.
Don't make any promises about where you'll put them on the ballot right now. Human stupidity, greed and ignorance know no bounds. No matter how stupid you think a public official is, chances are you'll come across one stupider right when it's least convenient for you. Judith Tizard might become the most educated of a reject bin full of dunces by the time this is over.
Just once, I want to ask someone in charge of a large company's "cloud services" or something what happens when it rains, just so I can see the mortified look on his face and watch the colour drain away before he runs out of the room screaming something about umbrellas and airship water tanks.
Even if Sun goes out of business, there are two other potential maintainers who could fill the OpenOffice shoes. Novell are trying their best to hijack OpenOffice now, in a subtle open source way, not a hostile corporate way. They could probably do a much better job than Sun ever did. Alternatively, IBM's revival of Lotus uses OpenOffice at it's core. At present, it's using an old version, but I think I remember reading on the Lotus site that the old version was just a stepping stone to overcome Sun's licensing restrictions. Soon enough, it will probably incorporate OpenOffice 3 code into it.
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Spit is more likely to go *click* at those temperatures. The sound of frozen muscles in your throat fighting against other frozen throat muscles (assuming any of the muscles can move at all) and fracturing into two or more pieces.
Haven't you ever played Lunar Lander?! The barest pixel to the wrong side, and a tiny bit too fast in any direction and BOOM! Anyone good at Lunar Lander could do this!!!
Before I start, I'd like to say that I respect the right of all people to believe what they want to believe, but I feel no obligation (and nor should anyone else) to respect the actual beliefs of others. If I think something is ridiculous, I can't be forced to respect it, and this goes for everyone. If a creationist finds evolution to be ridiculous, he can't be forced to respect it, and I won't try to force anyone to respect my beliefs either. All we can do is put our beliefs out on the table, like a party where everyone has to bring a snack. Not everyone will like what you bring.
Now, about the "weaknesses" in the theory of evolution. I don't doubt evolution at all. To see it in action today, rather than trusting fossil records and carbon dating, one need look no further than the constantly evolving bacteria in hospitals, developing resistances to newer or more powerful medications. I do, however, believe there are weaknesses in our current understanding of evolution. It's a lot more complex than the phrase "survival of the fittest", and one must wonder where the design for future changes to a species' physiology comes from. Actually, to wonder that, one must first wonder if there is a design, or if it's the fortunate result of random variation (maybe cancer or various neurological diseases are the flip-side of the coin: the unfortunate result of random variation). Science isn't textbook knowledge, it's the ability to question textbook knowledge. Weaknesses in the theory of evolution should be presented as weaknesses in our understanding of evolution, but I'm quite open to the idea that maybe we'll one day find proof that all things are designed. At the moment, however, I prefer to believe in an equilibrium of chaos. All things seeking the path of least resistance, fitting into a seemingly elaborate mesh. The things that didn't fit, are now extinct. The things that fit now, may be pushed out later by a better fit, or something could change the game entirely, and push existing things into new places in the mesh.
You'd think, if Microsoft were a sensible company, they'd realise that not only might the engineers that made something (like a protocol or a library) not be there in the future, but they also might not remember every single detail of everything they've ever done for MS. Knowing this, it would follow they'd have some good internal documentation policies, and when courts say "give us the documentation", they could just hand over a great big pdf (or docx :P), and that would be the end of it. If this is the state of their real internal documentation, I'd hate to think what problems it would cause when trying to make new technologies backwards compatible. As much as I'd like to think that Linux is winning on it's own merit, and proprietary software is collapsing, that's really only a tiny bit of the story. Microsoft are suffering not because of Linux, but because of broad-sweeping incompetence like this. Let's hope those 5000 layoffs make the remaining employees a little more wary about their job security, and make them work to prove their value to Microsoft.
Am I the only one who can't help but think of the parasites Fry got from the sandwich?
ID thief: Hi, I've moved recently, and I just wanted to check you guys have my new address.
Every time I've done that with my bank, they've asked for my full name, date of birth, and account number (or if I go through the automated channel, the only ID I need is my phone or online banking pin). After those are provided, they tell me what address they have on file.
With English as it is, I love the multitude of subtly different words. Sick and ill mean slightly different things to me, but since they both refer to some health ailment, they'd be merged if someone trimmed the fat from English. I've always been one for trying to fit exactly the right word for a situation - problem is, people often don't get the meaning I intend, since they don't see the same distinctions I do.
Ah, I see. I knew the basic concept of 1984, and now you mention it, my English teacher did explain this to me years ago. I'd just forgotten the whole "language as control" thing... Kind of the whole point of Newspeak... It's times like these my sig turns back against it's creator :P
I've always thought the governments of the world should legalise same-sex civil unions, and leave the idea of "marriage" up to the various religions and their denominations. I honestly can't see the current Pope flip-flopping any time soon, so he could just disallow gay marriage in the Catholic church, and excommunicate the gay parishioners (they're going to Hell according to him, anyway, right?) and his conscience would stay nice and clean and holier-than-thou.
My opinion of religion, in general, isn't a high one, so I'm hoping my opinion is a nice middle ground between what I'd like to see (vacant lots where all the churches/mosques/synagogues/whatever are) and what most religious groups want (no gay marriages, and in some cases making homosexuality a punishable crime).
Since I get my stories from the RSS feed, and I only see the headline until I load the story, my first thought was that the Flat Earth Society had come up with another wacky "justification" for their beliefs. Seriously... They believe the moon is fake, to scare people... In the years I've known about them, I still honestly can't tell if they're serious or if they're having a lend of the scientific community. I'm sure there are a few people among them who actually believe what they claim, but I certainly hope the vast majority are members because they think it's a big joke.
Although I haven't read 1984 yet, isn't Newspeak about eliminating terms with no distinction between them? Sick and ill would be merged, along with unwell and any other synonyms, but in this case, theft and copyright infringement are two very different things. I think Newspeak is about eliminating ambiguity in language, and it just so happens that English is so full of cruft that even when you expand slightly different meanings for the same word into two or more words, you still take out more than you add.
I just had an absolutely shocking thought... What if Reeves gets the role of Solid Snake? I think I must kill him now, before casting for a Metal Gear: Solid movie gets underway. I'd rather Brad Pitt play Snake, and I think he's the second worst possible choice (after Keanu Reeves). Seriously, ANYONE else would be better than Keanu Reeves for any role.
You know, I don't think it's Gates we should be disliking. With a different name and a different face, he could be just another IT guy wherever you work, and you'd probably get along fine. It's Ballmer who's the 'evil' one. That guy makes me think of a used car salesman, with a hint of something even slimier. Possibly with a dangerously high dose of red cordial and/or coke (not the drink).
At least Obama will keep the makers of Trivial Pursuit busy. His first week's going to add like fifty question cards!
Of course Patriot doesn't mean American. The Patriots control America. Haven't you played the Metal Gear series?
I don't know how different the feature sets are, but Brasero is just find for me when it comes to burning CDs. It's a light weight GTK CD burning application. It seems to have all of the functions of Nero on Windows (at least, the last version I used, a few years back), and I just can't see what more a CD burning application would need. As for Amarok, I'd definitely love to see a GTK version of it, but that's not going to happen. Exaile is similar, but not quite there. Until the final release of KDE 4.2, I'm sticking to Gnome and using Rhythmbox for my music. I'd like to see more office suites out there, and maybe KOffice will improve some day.
My chiropractor doesn't claim to stave off cancer, or treat arthritis. He must be in that 20-25%, I guess. I used to suffer terrible headaches, and I was much physically weaker than I should have been. After a few treatments from him, the headaches were gone (haven't seen him for about four years, now), and I seemed to be much stronger. I didn't put on any extra muscle or anything, I just had a much easier time lifting and carrying stuff than I did before. Even my doctor, who was a little annoyed when I first told him I was seeing a chiropractor, saw how much good it was doing me. He even recommends some of his patients to the chiropractor I went to, now.
Sure, there's an unfair portion of unscrupulous chiropractors out there, and their reputation probably isn't entirely undeserved. I'm just saying, my chiropractor was good at what he did, he didn't overcharge (though the back x-rays were expensive, since the AMA in Australia doesn't like Chiropractors and let you put anything they order on Medicare), and he seemed to really enjoy his job. There was one miraculous thing that surprised me at the time. This is a 'your mileage may vary' thing, of course, but don't count all chiropractors out.
Well, I don't mean to be a stickler for the laws of causality here, but your own death kind of puts a crimp in your plans for future questing. Plus, depending on the ending you get, the wasteland can be totally different. I'd like there to have been one continuable ending, but I can certainly see why all the existing endings weren't.
I've always wanted to ask someone in charge of a company's "cloud services" what happens when it rains. The look of mortification, and seeing him run from the room screaming about umbrellas would be worth it.
I have a carefully constructed hill of SD cards, flash drives and DS games. I never lose any since removing one from the hill could make the whole thing collapse. However, when things are successfully removed, they are placed at the base after they're used, a little to the right of the pile, so as things are used and replaced the hill creeps right. I used to do the same with CDs and DVDs, but they're much less... robust... Didn't damage any discs or their data like that, but to look at them you'd be surprised they held any data at all.
For the Hoard! I have to protect my shineys...
Don't make any promises about where you'll put them on the ballot right now. Human stupidity, greed and ignorance know no bounds. No matter how stupid you think a public official is, chances are you'll come across one stupider right when it's least convenient for you. Judith Tizard might become the most educated of a reject bin full of dunces by the time this is over.
Just once, I want to ask someone in charge of a large company's "cloud services" or something what happens when it rains, just so I can see the mortified look on his face and watch the colour drain away before he runs out of the room screaming something about umbrellas and airship water tanks.
Normal people don't sit at home and watch porn on the internet!
Even if Sun goes out of business, there are two other potential maintainers who could fill the OpenOffice shoes. Novell are trying their best to hijack OpenOffice now, in a subtle open source way, not a hostile corporate way. They could probably do a much better job than Sun ever did. Alternatively, IBM's revival of Lotus uses OpenOffice at it's core. At present, it's using an old version, but I think I remember reading on the Lotus site that the old version was just a stepping stone to overcome Sun's licensing restrictions. Soon enough, it will probably incorporate OpenOffice 3 code into it.