Every episode seems to be the same - men catching lobsters.
Crabs, not lobsters. Crabs.
And yeah, I live in Alaska and never liked Deadliest Catch. It's like any other reality show, just on a boat. Same with Ice Road Truckers - it's just another reality show, in trucks.
I'd much rather watch an actual documentary on crab fishing, or on ice road truckers, than these stupid reality shows. They are all so trumped up it's ridiculous.
Dude, we already know how to grow plants in a lab, and having sex in a lab is damned easy.
All you need is to get there - you can take care of the rest with time. It doesn't even matter if the place is habitable or not, that's nothing more than a slight engineering problem. If you have the ability to utilize natural resources when you land you can slowly build the colony, bit by bit. You don't terraform the planet all at once, in truth that would probably be a several thousand year project, if not more.
We already have everything you need. Create a ship large enough to support a small colony indefinitely, and that same ship can support a colony on another planet.
In truth we'll be practicing on the Moon, Mars, and the larger satellites of Jupiter and Saturn long before we actually send anybody out, and by then we'll have figured out a solution for the long-term fuel problem - likely nuclear for energy, and still chemical for propulsion - just burn for as long as you can and save enough for the landing/course corrections - coast for generations, if you've built your ship right you can cruise for thousands of years if necessary.
We have most of what we need already, the pie in the sky stuff is not necessary.
No time for you, 4.2 years for the rest of the universe (give or take, depending on how fast each point in the universe is moving, but pretty close to it).
That's very true, in fact, a whopping 98% of people die at some point in their lives. You should start looking in to funeral homes now, plan for the future!
You realize we have yet to find a single rocky planet outside our solar system, let alone one in the magic orbit around a given star that allows for liquid water, and therefore life, right?
Not to say that they aren't out there, of course they must be (it happened here, it should happen elsewhere as well), but if we can't find them, how exactly are we supposed to target them?
The pentagon's budget is the #2 slice of the pie. 3/4 of a trillion dollars of that budget is spent overseas.
You're right about social programs, they make up about 65% of the budget* (which is absolutely fucking insane), and with defense spending added in you get about 85% of the budget, but transportation and the department of the interior only make up about 3% of the budget.
We are not spending much federally on infrastructure at all.
* It kinda depends on how you slice it. The department of veteran's affairs is welfare tied to defense that accounts for 16% of the budget - nearly as much as the defense budget itself (18+%). I included it in the welfare programs, though it wouldn't be entirely improper to include it in defense spending (it is taking care of the soldiers, after all). That would make the defense/welfare split about 50/50, with social programs being slightly higher. In either case, we spend very little on infrastructure, relative to the rest of the budget.
Who knows where we'll be in another 70 million years.
Maybe dead? Asteroids are rare, but they aren't timed occurrences. We don't have them every 180 million years. We have them when we have them - could be 100 million years from now, could be next week. We may never be hit with a species-killing asteroid again. So far our technology is such that we can only find and track the largest asteroids, but there are billions of them of species-killing size that we cannot track.
You're committing a classic logical fallacy*, but it's ok, you're probably right. We'll probably be just fine.
* This one is practically built in to the human consciousness - it's the same reason gamblers go broke and people don't wear seatbelts.
Obviously the "computer" is one of Google's datacenter machines, which you could equate to a modern enterprise level server. Being too specific doesn't help nearly as much as you think it does. Furthermore:
1 computer running for 35 years = 35 computer years.
35 computers running for 1 year = 35 computer years.
70 computers running for 6 months = 35 computer years.
140 computers running for 3 months = 35 computer years.
420 computers running for 1 month = 35 computer years.
12,600 computers running for 1 day = 35 computer years.
Google gave them 35 computer years worth of time on one of their clusters, for all we know it could have been an hour of total time on the cluster (though that would be 300,000+ machines, so probably not). It probably wasn't more than a few months of actual time calculating.
It even tries to make Infosys out to be not so bad (because the real bad guys are somehow Intel and Microsoft, for not highering as high a percentage of H1-B's?) even though Infosys has something like 70-80% H1-B employees.
The target is obviously those companies who are using the H1-B program to hire cheep labor at rates Americans can't compete with (because of school loans and the like), of which Intel and Microsoft are not.
Trust me, hiring foreign workers is no panacea, and most companies realize it. While you can get skilled labor for less, it's still skilled labor and it's still expensive. You're still going to have to hire the guy for $50k, instead of $65k-70k. Hiring a janitor at $15k (to keep your ratio below 50%) barely makes up the difference, and the foreign worker will be more expensive in lost productivity for the first year or so because of the culture gap (if not a language barrier, as well).
They aren't going to save a ton of money, because if those foreign workers are as skilled as their American counterparts they are actually worth nearly as much, and economics will continue to force their pay up until it matches American workers' pay. The only time hiring a lot of H1-B workers makes sense is when you're running a scheme like Infosys, or when there actually is a shortage of qualified workers that you can find and hire.
There is no such thing as an IDIOT! Oh wait, just found one, never mind.
The Canola plant is a derivative of the Rapeseed plant. Rapeseed plants (the original source of canola oil) have high levels erucic acid, which is toxic in large amounts. Canola plants do not.
Oh the horrors of modern agriculture! Look how they are destroying the world and making things unsafe for human consumption! Oh wait, that's the opposite of reality.
I'm sorry, but the Mayo Clinic seems like a much more credible source to me than a random Chicken Little on the internet.
Canola oil is fine, good for you in fact. If you can't afford olive oil, canola is the next best thing (it's got the same mono-unsaturated fats that are good for your heart).
If I kick my ball in my yard, and it happens to bounce into your yard, and you know exactly who and where it came from, should you get to keep it?
If I drop my camera in front of your house, and you know it is mine because it is very distinctive and you've seen it before, should you get to keep it?
If you and I work next to each other at the office, and I accidentally drop my wallet while passing by your cubical, and it flops into your space, is my wallet suddenly yours now?
The answer to all of these is: of course not. Losing my property on your property does not suddenly mean it is no longer my property. You may try to steal my property if you think you can get away with it, but it is still theft no matter how you slice it.
It is a different thing if you don't know where it came from, and therefore who to return it to, but to intentionally keep it because you like it better than what you have is theft, pure and simple.
Now, if you're constantly dropping your wallet everywhere, people will probably get sick of that real fast, and they may make you change where/how you keep your wallet, but that does not mean they get to steal your wallet from you.
We produce more than enough food to feed the world. The third world is starving because of political/governmental corruption, not because of a lack of production.
In fact, there are several. Aside from an RC plane of some sort, all you need is about $100 in parts and some electronics know-how to build your own (basic) UAV.
Of course, it won't be as sophisticated as a multi-million dollar micro-UAV or one of the Air Force's Predator drones, but medium range (several miles) surveillance, automated take-offs and landings, GPS waypoint tracking, infrared cameras, etc. are not outside the realm of the hobbyist.
It won't be any different than before, and in fact if you are close to a Verizon network you will almost certainly see a speed bump. All Google is doing is putting their equipment closer to the customer, which eases the stress on the network. This good for Google, because their service becomes faster, and good for Verizon, because they have to send less data over the backbone. The closer you are physically to a Google pod, the faster your Google experience will be.
It's smart infrastructure and physics voodoo they are exploiting here, not dirty rotten scoundrel voodoo.
It's really no different than what companies have been doing since the inception of the internet. It's just that it seems strange to people that a website has a large enough network infrastructure to make such a move worthwhile.
Expect Google to be expanding this to other ISP's as well, and expect other large web services to do the exact same thing Google is doing.
If google is getting premium internet service because they're paying more money, that's not neutral, period.
How is it not neutral for Google to move their equipment closer to the customer, thereby reducing bandwidth costs? Google isn't paying Verizon a dime to do this, they are simply leveraging their size to reduce their overall bandwidth consumption. This helps Verizon and Google both without restricting any of Google or Verizon's competitors in any way.
Exactly how is this not neutral? It's the very fucking definition of neutral! I know the education system in this country is complete and utter shit, but there really is such a thing as "mutually beneficial". In order for things to be easier on one guy, things do not have to be made harder on someone else. In fact, I'd wager Google will be wanting to set up these pods near all ISPs, and Verizon will welcome any similar setups from any other major source of internet bandwidth. The idea that they wouldn't is simply idiotic (though if that happens, you'll then have a weak but valid point).
Slashdot Mirror
Every episode seems to be the same - men catching lobsters.
Crabs, not lobsters. Crabs.
And yeah, I live in Alaska and never liked Deadliest Catch. It's like any other reality show, just on a boat. Same with Ice Road Truckers - it's just another reality show, in trucks.
I'd much rather watch an actual documentary on crab fishing, or on ice road truckers, than these stupid reality shows. They are all so trumped up it's ridiculous.
Dude, we already know how to grow plants in a lab, and having sex in a lab is damned easy.
All you need is to get there - you can take care of the rest with time. It doesn't even matter if the place is habitable or not, that's nothing more than a slight engineering problem. If you have the ability to utilize natural resources when you land you can slowly build the colony, bit by bit. You don't terraform the planet all at once, in truth that would probably be a several thousand year project, if not more.
We already have everything you need. Create a ship large enough to support a small colony indefinitely, and that same ship can support a colony on another planet.
In truth we'll be practicing on the Moon, Mars, and the larger satellites of Jupiter and Saturn long before we actually send anybody out, and by then we'll have figured out a solution for the long-term fuel problem - likely nuclear for energy, and still chemical for propulsion - just burn for as long as you can and save enough for the landing/course corrections - coast for generations, if you've built your ship right you can cruise for thousands of years if necessary.
We have most of what we need already, the pie in the sky stuff is not necessary.
No time for you, 4.2 years for the rest of the universe (give or take, depending on how fast each point in the universe is moving, but pretty close to it).
In other words, you're an idiot.
That's very true, in fact, a whopping 98% of people die at some point in their lives. You should start looking in to funeral homes now, plan for the future!
Unfortunately, we really need to get our shit together on this planet before we start thinking about colonizing others.
Why should that be the case?
You realize we have yet to find a single rocky planet outside our solar system, let alone one in the magic orbit around a given star that allows for liquid water, and therefore life, right?
Not to say that they aren't out there, of course they must be (it happened here, it should happen elsewhere as well), but if we can't find them, how exactly are we supposed to target them?
Tell that to the people of Ketchikan, Alaska: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge
The majority of our federal budget is tied up in providing social programs and infrastructure, not in "war"
The federal budget would like to disagree with that statement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2010_spending_by_category.jpg
The pentagon's budget is the #2 slice of the pie. 3/4 of a trillion dollars of that budget is spent overseas.
You're right about social programs, they make up about 65% of the budget* (which is absolutely fucking insane), and with defense spending added in you get about 85% of the budget, but transportation and the department of the interior only make up about 3% of the budget.
We are not spending much federally on infrastructure at all.
* It kinda depends on how you slice it. The department of veteran's affairs is welfare tied to defense that accounts for 16% of the budget - nearly as much as the defense budget itself (18+%). I included it in the welfare programs, though it wouldn't be entirely improper to include it in defense spending (it is taking care of the soldiers, after all). That would make the defense/welfare split about 50/50, with social programs being slightly higher. In either case, we spend very little on infrastructure, relative to the rest of the budget.
Who knows where we'll be in another 70 million years.
Maybe dead? Asteroids are rare, but they aren't timed occurrences. We don't have them every 180 million years. We have them when we have them - could be 100 million years from now, could be next week. We may never be hit with a species-killing asteroid again. So far our technology is such that we can only find and track the largest asteroids, but there are billions of them of species-killing size that we cannot track.
You're committing a classic logical fallacy*, but it's ok, you're probably right. We'll probably be just fine.
* This one is practically built in to the human consciousness - it's the same reason gamblers go broke and people don't wear seatbelts.
Is someone here writing a paper for a grade, or for a job?
Yes.
This is why modern democracy doesn't work well.
To (very loosely) paraphrase Winston Churchill: Democracy sucks monkey balls; it's almost as bad as any other form of government.
While establishing an Asimovian Foundation is utopian...
No kidding, have you seen the math involved? It's nuts!
Obviously the "computer" is one of Google's datacenter machines, which you could equate to a modern enterprise level server. Being too specific doesn't help nearly as much as you think it does. Furthermore:
1 computer running for 35 years = 35 computer years.
35 computers running for 1 year = 35 computer years.
70 computers running for 6 months = 35 computer years.
140 computers running for 3 months = 35 computer years.
420 computers running for 1 month = 35 computer years.
12,600 computers running for 1 day = 35 computer years.
Google gave them 35 computer years worth of time on one of their clusters, for all we know it could have been an hour of total time on the cluster (though that would be 300,000+ machines, so probably not). It probably wasn't more than a few months of actual time calculating.
Exactly, but if you use 9 women you get that baby in 1 month!
Because neither of them are abusing H-1B visas.
The OP is just trolling.
It even tries to make Infosys out to be not so bad (because the real bad guys are somehow Intel and Microsoft, for not highering as high a percentage of H1-B's?) even though Infosys has something like 70-80% H1-B employees.
The target is obviously those companies who are using the H1-B program to hire cheep labor at rates Americans can't compete with (because of school loans and the like), of which Intel and Microsoft are not.
Trust me, hiring foreign workers is no panacea, and most companies realize it. While you can get skilled labor for less, it's still skilled labor and it's still expensive. You're still going to have to hire the guy for $50k, instead of $65k-70k. Hiring a janitor at $15k (to keep your ratio below 50%) barely makes up the difference, and the foreign worker will be more expensive in lost productivity for the first year or so because of the culture gap (if not a language barrier, as well).
They aren't going to save a ton of money, because if those foreign workers are as skilled as their American counterparts they are actually worth nearly as much, and economics will continue to force their pay up until it matches American workers' pay. The only time hiring a lot of H1-B workers makes sense is when you're running a scheme like Infosys, or when there actually is a shortage of qualified workers that you can find and hire.
My God! Even McDonalds gets a free pass! Those bastards, with their McCafe's and McSmoothies and McShakes!
Seriously, this story is retarded.
That's very funny, but apparently Fight Club is too old of a movie to reference any more.
Sorry bro.
There is no such thing as CANOLA plant!
There is no such thing as an IDIOT! Oh wait, just found one, never mind.
The Canola plant is a derivative of the Rapeseed plant. Rapeseed plants (the original source of canola oil) have high levels erucic acid, which is toxic in large amounts. Canola plants do not.
Oh the horrors of modern agriculture! Look how they are destroying the world and making things unsafe for human consumption! Oh wait, that's the opposite of reality.
I'm sorry, but the Mayo Clinic seems like a much more credible source to me than a random Chicken Little on the internet.
Canola oil is fine, good for you in fact. If you can't afford olive oil, canola is the next best thing (it's got the same mono-unsaturated fats that are good for your heart).
Let me give you some analogies:
If I kick my ball in my yard, and it happens to bounce into your yard, and you know exactly who and where it came from, should you get to keep it?
If I drop my camera in front of your house, and you know it is mine because it is very distinctive and you've seen it before, should you get to keep it?
If you and I work next to each other at the office, and I accidentally drop my wallet while passing by your cubical, and it flops into your space, is my wallet suddenly yours now?
The answer to all of these is: of course not. Losing my property on your property does not suddenly mean it is no longer my property. You may try to steal my property if you think you can get away with it, but it is still theft no matter how you slice it.
It is a different thing if you don't know where it came from, and therefore who to return it to, but to intentionally keep it because you like it better than what you have is theft, pure and simple.
Now, if you're constantly dropping your wallet everywhere, people will probably get sick of that real fast, and they may make you change where/how you keep your wallet, but that does not mean they get to steal your wallet from you.
I read the freaking RTFA article, what's your point?
We produce more than enough food to feed the world. The third world is starving because of political/governmental corruption, not because of a lack of production.
Doubleplustrue! Doubleplusgood!
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc! We should send them all to joycamps until they unknow crimethink!
In fact, there are several. Aside from an RC plane of some sort, all you need is about $100 in parts and some electronics know-how to build your own (basic) UAV.
Of course, it won't be as sophisticated as a multi-million dollar micro-UAV or one of the Air Force's Predator drones, but medium range (several miles) surveillance, automated take-offs and landings, GPS waypoint tracking, infrared cameras, etc. are not outside the realm of the hobbyist.
Check out http://www.diydrones.com/ to see what I mean.
It won't be any different than before, and in fact if you are close to a Verizon network you will almost certainly see a speed bump. All Google is doing is putting their equipment closer to the customer, which eases the stress on the network. This good for Google, because their service becomes faster, and good for Verizon, because they have to send less data over the backbone. The closer you are physically to a Google pod, the faster your Google experience will be.
It's smart infrastructure and physics voodoo they are exploiting here, not dirty rotten scoundrel voodoo.
It's really no different than what companies have been doing since the inception of the internet. It's just that it seems strange to people that a website has a large enough network infrastructure to make such a move worthwhile.
Expect Google to be expanding this to other ISP's as well, and expect other large web services to do the exact same thing Google is doing.
If google is getting premium internet service because they're paying more money, that's not neutral, period.
How is it not neutral for Google to move their equipment closer to the customer, thereby reducing bandwidth costs? Google isn't paying Verizon a dime to do this, they are simply leveraging their size to reduce their overall bandwidth consumption. This helps Verizon and Google both without restricting any of Google or Verizon's competitors in any way.
Exactly how is this not neutral? It's the very fucking definition of neutral! I know the education system in this country is complete and utter shit, but there really is such a thing as "mutually beneficial". In order for things to be easier on one guy, things do not have to be made harder on someone else. In fact, I'd wager Google will be wanting to set up these pods near all ISPs, and Verizon will welcome any similar setups from any other major source of internet bandwidth. The idea that they wouldn't is simply idiotic (though if that happens, you'll then have a weak but valid point).
How are they liars?
I'm sure they'd be perfectly fine with Microsoft installing a pod at each of their ISPs to reduce traffic and increase customer's performance.
They'd be cool if AOL did it too, or the NY Times, or whoever the hell else wanted to.
Where's the discrimination? I see none.