Canada is the third worst CO2 emitter per capita in the world behind the US and Australia. (Surprise! China is actually quite low per capita, lower than than any EU country.) At 40M tons of CO2 per year the tar sands oil production is the single largest emitter of CO2 in the world, but even if the oil sands shut down completely, Canada would still be #3 ahead of Saudi Arabia. The sad part is that only 10% of the tar sands can be made into marketable oil by current means, the other 90% requires more energy to process, which means emitting even more CO2 per barrel. Already the process requires half the energy the oil can release to process it. Even if it reaches 100% they'll still do it if it makes money. They're going to need several nuclear power plants to keep up with production targets.
Granted, any country with long cold winters has a serious disadvantage. Air conditioning usually has to make a 15-30F difference to beat the heat, but in Canadian winters the furnace is called upon to make a 50-70F difference compared to outside temperatures. Up here, air conditioning is optional, heating is not. Many European countries employ district heating systems to provide more fuel-efficient heat, but the lack of population density makes it less feasible in Canada to the extent seen in Scandinavia for example.
Is anyone looking into harnessing lightning's electrical power? There are many tall structures that are hit by lightning regularly, and they're virtually all located among electricity-hungry populations. I'm no EE, and obviously you can't just wire a lightning rod to a battery array, but could you not cascade the power through first an array of a shitload of small capacitors (can charge/discharge fast and handle high current) wired in parallel, which then charges one or more arrays of larger capacitors (can retain high charge capacity), which then charge batteries? Even if you only get a percentage and let most of the electricity go to the ground, it's gotta be worth the investment I figure. It would be possible to make a mobile rig and go where the storms are too.
A corporation is not like a person, it is like a church, the difference being that in church people exercise their faith, while in a corporation people exercise a complete absence of faith. It's what gives corporations their god-like power.
I don't think they're taking them into combat. They already have advanced communications equipment, the last thing they'd do is rely upon foreign commercial networks or set up their own network with towers that can be sniped from a considerable distance away. I assume they're for non-combat communications, for example recalling off-duty soldiers from leave. If all US soldiers carried the same model of phone around, their enemies would presumably develop means of detecting their signal output, with at least a proximity detector or more likely a directional indicator, displayed on a screen with an arrow saying "shoot here".
Wow, a whole 2% annual growth, that's just mind-blowing. Definitive proof that stealing music doesn't hurt anyone.
Say, what do you sell for a living? Cars? I'm one of the people that's been stealing cars off your lot. You're losing money? Bullshit! You're insured! And your cars suck anyway! And you're an asshole!
Sorry folks, here in Canada, my band is postponing our annual nationwide tour because larger venues are doing less and less live music in favour of DJ bullshit (which many of them play pirated music) so we're now competing with Juno award winners for 200-500 seat venues. We now have to book a year in advance to get the key venues to make the tour profitable.
So you'll have to forgive me as I break ranks with other musicians who have placated piracy advocates. We're just being polite because our reputations require it. I've done over 100,000 miles of touring, I've seen members of hit bands looking for odds jobs because their back catalog doesn't sell, I've seen the empty floors at Sony's NYC offices, I know excellent producers that are hopelessly in debt, and I know musicians that kick the shit out of current pop stars but can't get 1/10th the record deal they could have in the 80's.
You do not know what the fuck you're talking about. No matter how you interpret the infinitesimal amount of information you have on the matter, your advocacy of piracy directly prevents me from doing what I love and providing for other talented musicians. I'm not going to pretend I can stop you from pirating music, but please shut the fuck up.
The simple answer to the problems of America is that the government must fulfill its duty to protect the liberty of its population, and it has clearly failed to do so in its reaction to the banking fiasco. The state of the economy is in direct conflict with the liberty of Americans. There is no authority with the power to allow that on the face of the earth. The government's responsibility to prevent such degradation is undeniable. The government does not provide liberty, it is duty-bound to protect the liberty that is inherent in its population.
So there's who is required to act, what they should do is open to debate. I'm of the opinion that the people and corporations responsible for and/or complicit in the economic collapse should be arrested and all their assets seized, all military recalled to US shores, all pending military contracts suspended, and all corporations restricted from influencing politics in any way, for starters. Church was separated from state in America, the same reasons for doing so apply to the faithless churches known as corporations.
Honalulu is unique in that it's very isolated and its distinct native population rather underprivileged, I'm not surprised that free city-wide wifi is provided and done well. However I wouldn't say it's a testament to their skills or benevolence as the distinction may suggest.
An example where a city has gone to great lengths to provide for their residents is the city that hosts the team with the longest waiting list for season tickets in all of professional sports in North America - the reigning NFL champs, the Green Bay Packers. They are by far the smallest city with an NFL team, and it's kept alive because only residents of Green Bay can own shares in the team, and you must own a share to get a season ticket, plus the NFL has a profit-sharing program that supports smaller markets.
In many other cities with free wifi, it's often insufficient and only serves to dissuade businesses from providing wifi to customers. It's always a drag trying to keep in touch in Saskatoon when I'm touring with my band, since the free wifi is only useable at 4AM and the venue doesn't provide wifi.
It's a filter in the same way a policy of not hiring visible minorities is. It's discrimination. To require a degree when the job does not have reasonable academic requirements is to act on the unfounded basis that people without post-secondary education are ill-equipped to perform the job. College isn't for everyone, and it is not a fair measure of someone's employability except where sophisticated academic principles are applied.
You don't need an audiology experiment to figure this out. Harvey Fletcher and W. A. Munson established the lab work back in 1933, resulting in the Fletcher-Munson Curve which illustrates how the sensitivity of the human ear varies at different frequency ranges and volume levels, and is most sensitive in the 2-6kHz range. It's fair to assume this range is more sensitive since it is the hardest range for predators to keep silent while stalking prey, i.e. a twig snapping.
It is believed mankind has pre-historic rodents to thank for their advanced auditory system, which developed during the 65 million year period where mammals and dinosaurs co-existed. During this time there was low oxygen content in the air, so mammals had to maintain high respiratory rates, making them easy prey for the much larger dinosaurs, whose respiratory system involved hollow bones to transport air directly throughout their bodies rather than just lungs to deliver oxygen to the bloodstream. (Birds benefited from the hollow bones to fly, but only use lungs for respiration now that oxygen levels are up.) Mammals had to forage at night and depended almost entirely on their auditory systems for defense. 65 million years of that is likely the only reason we can discern music, much less appreciate it.
As a sound engineer I can attest that the 2-6kHz range is of special significance when putting a mix together. It's usually actually more important that the 2-6kHz range of each voice or instrument be balanced against each other than each voice or instrument be of even frequency response themselves. If something is dominant in that range, it dominates the listener's attention every time. If something has a sharp spike in that range, meaning a very narrow frequency band, it will not be pleasant to the ear. If you check out the frequency response graphs of the cheaper guitar speakers by clicking on the options here, you might notice they all have spikes around 2-2.5kHz. That is why they suck.
Unless you're a rockstar, compensation is usually a "take it or leave it" proposition. Especially so in an economy where people are desperate for jobs and will take anything to put food on the table.
Bad example, not even close. As a touring musician I can assure you that the compensation for rock stars is in fact very "take it or leave it", certainly more so than federal employees. You may not consider me a rock star but I know several you probably would. They're at the mercy of their management and the market way more than unionized salaried staff. They receive no benefits, no pension, and not only are they not guaranteed a dime, they can actually lose money if a label promotion flops. Those music videos and promo tours and lavish recordings that make them seem like they're high on the hog are paid for by the label *lending* the artist the money to do them. If they don't pay off, the artist is on the hook 100%, usually to the tune of $150,000-500,000.
So let me ask you, when they didn't find WMD's in Iraq, did any IT personnel or contractors go bankrupt? Of course not. Meanwhile thousands of musicians went bankrupt when MP3's got circulating. In this economy, anything could make music sales just not happen, and piracy is as rampant as it's ever been, so it is an incredible risk to invest in any musician, but there's no shortage of people hoping to make their break. Now THAT'S take it or leave it.
Why does knowledge always come down to education? Yes education is VITAL, but we are losing any sense of knowledge that prepares young people to take an active part in our country's politics. We are losing any sense of real-world experience that exposes young people to ideas other than those they grew up with. This is not a recipe for progress.
FTFY. No I don't always do that, just worked to make my point twice in a row. I'm not saying that anything done in a four-year period is better than earning a degree, I'm saying that there are plenty of ways one can spend four years that make one better suited for jobs that don't require a college education. Requiring a degree for those jobs is akin to requiring them to be in unnecessary debt. The job requirement issue was introduced by the post above my previous one, perhaps you hit the wrong comment to reply to?
At the very least it makes sure that everyone has proven their ability to waste their time and money instead of demonstrating independence and gaining life experience and then write the necessary boring reports if needed.
FTFY. If you require a degree for a job that doesn't really need one, you're likely going to hire someone that only went to school to get the degree, barely paid attention as they jumped through the hoops, and doesn't have a clue how to apply their academic experience. Who the hell wants a staff full of debt-burdened carrot-chasers who couldn't get the job they really wanted? That's the most depressing scenario I've contemplated in recent memory. I wouldn't last a week in an environment like that. I would much rather depend upon people who are committed and grateful to gainfully apply their real-world experiences, degree or not.
Where would I plug in my other two monitors? I don't even do video and I use three for audio. Apparently I could install OS X on my i7 but it's about the last thing I would ever do. iTunes takes an 85% cut of music sales unless you're signed to an RIAA label, fucking indie vultures that they are, and they expect me to buy their software? I wouldn't be caught dead with an iPod, much less a Mac.
Yes they're driving pros away, their entry-level tower starts at $2500 and gets its ass handed to it by $700 i7 2600K based PC, which can run OS X too, and completely disgraces your MBP.
The Pentagon has budgeted $42M for the expressed purposes of monitoring and influencing social media for the following:
"1. Detect, classify, measure and track the (a) formation, development and spread of ideas and concepts (memes), and
(b) purposeful or deceptive messaging and misinformation.
2. Recognize persuasion campaign structures and influence operations across social mediasites and communities.
3. Identify participants and intent, and measure effects of persuasion campaigns.
4. Counter messaging of detected adversary influence operations."
(IANAL) The legal issue here is going to be tortuous interference, however GameStop could just as easily argue that adding the coupon for a competitive business to be distributed by GameStop without their knowledge could itself be considered tortuous interference, especially since the only purpose for giving away a free game to GameStop customers would be to interfere with the relationship between GameStop and its customers.
Granted, I'm sure the coupon is in every box, not just the ones sold through GameStop, but every other retailer would have a similar legal complaint. At the very least it reduces OnLive's legal reaction from a civil suit to a cease-and-desist letter.
Have you even been to Canada, much less another thousand miles north to Alaska? People in the far north aren't there because they can't find a better place to live. They thrive on challenge and co-dependence, a combination that is sorely lacking in society as a whole. If it's a bitch to build and it does society good, trust me they'll make it happen.
These cards with 'security chips' are a much greater risk. After entering your PIN, you must wait with the card sticking halfway out of the terminal pad while the transaction proceeds, during which time nobody guards their card. Who needs a heat camera when you can just peep over at someone entering their pin in the grocery line, snag their neatly exposed card, and drain their account at the nearest ATM? You can even yank it before the transaction completes to leave more money in the account! It's one thing that the pin pads are highly exposed, but to make the card itself vulnerable to easy theft is really ridiculous, especially in the name of security.
Slashdot Mirror
For all intents and purposes you're saying the same thing.
Genius.
Canada is the third worst CO2 emitter per capita in the world behind the US and Australia. (Surprise! China is actually quite low per capita, lower than than any EU country.) At 40M tons of CO2 per year the tar sands oil production is the single largest emitter of CO2 in the world, but even if the oil sands shut down completely, Canada would still be #3 ahead of Saudi Arabia. The sad part is that only 10% of the tar sands can be made into marketable oil by current means, the other 90% requires more energy to process, which means emitting even more CO2 per barrel. Already the process requires half the energy the oil can release to process it. Even if it reaches 100% they'll still do it if it makes money. They're going to need several nuclear power plants to keep up with production targets.
Granted, any country with long cold winters has a serious disadvantage. Air conditioning usually has to make a 15-30F difference to beat the heat, but in Canadian winters the furnace is called upon to make a 50-70F difference compared to outside temperatures. Up here, air conditioning is optional, heating is not. Many European countries employ district heating systems to provide more fuel-efficient heat, but the lack of population density makes it less feasible in Canada to the extent seen in Scandinavia for example.
Here's a nifty gadget to check the CO2 emissions of any country. I found Sweden to be interesting, they have roughly the same climate as Southern Ontario, the most populated area of Canada.
Is anyone looking into harnessing lightning's electrical power? There are many tall structures that are hit by lightning regularly, and they're virtually all located among electricity-hungry populations. I'm no EE, and obviously you can't just wire a lightning rod to a battery array, but could you not cascade the power through first an array of a shitload of small capacitors (can charge/discharge fast and handle high current) wired in parallel, which then charges one or more arrays of larger capacitors (can retain high charge capacity), which then charge batteries? Even if you only get a percentage and let most of the electricity go to the ground, it's gotta be worth the investment I figure. It would be possible to make a mobile rig and go where the storms are too.
A corporation is not like a person, it is like a church, the difference being that in church people exercise their faith, while in a corporation people exercise a complete absence of faith. It's what gives corporations their god-like power.
I don't think they're taking them into combat. They already have advanced communications equipment, the last thing they'd do is rely upon foreign commercial networks or set up their own network with towers that can be sniped from a considerable distance away. I assume they're for non-combat communications, for example recalling off-duty soldiers from leave. If all US soldiers carried the same model of phone around, their enemies would presumably develop means of detecting their signal output, with at least a proximity detector or more likely a directional indicator, displayed on a screen with an arrow saying "shoot here".
Wow, a whole 2% annual growth, that's just mind-blowing. Definitive proof that stealing music doesn't hurt anyone.
Say, what do you sell for a living? Cars? I'm one of the people that's been stealing cars off your lot. You're losing money? Bullshit! You're insured! And your cars suck anyway! And you're an asshole!
Sorry folks, here in Canada, my band is postponing our annual nationwide tour because larger venues are doing less and less live music in favour of DJ bullshit (which many of them play pirated music) so we're now competing with Juno award winners for 200-500 seat venues. We now have to book a year in advance to get the key venues to make the tour profitable.
So you'll have to forgive me as I break ranks with other musicians who have placated piracy advocates. We're just being polite because our reputations require it. I've done over 100,000 miles of touring, I've seen members of hit bands looking for odds jobs because their back catalog doesn't sell, I've seen the empty floors at Sony's NYC offices, I know excellent producers that are hopelessly in debt, and I know musicians that kick the shit out of current pop stars but can't get 1/10th the record deal they could have in the 80's.
You do not know what the fuck you're talking about. No matter how you interpret the infinitesimal amount of information you have on the matter, your advocacy of piracy directly prevents me from doing what I love and providing for other talented musicians. I'm not going to pretend I can stop you from pirating music, but please shut the fuck up.
The simple answer to the problems of America is that the government must fulfill its duty to protect the liberty of its population, and it has clearly failed to do so in its reaction to the banking fiasco. The state of the economy is in direct conflict with the liberty of Americans. There is no authority with the power to allow that on the face of the earth. The government's responsibility to prevent such degradation is undeniable. The government does not provide liberty, it is duty-bound to protect the liberty that is inherent in its population.
So there's who is required to act, what they should do is open to debate. I'm of the opinion that the people and corporations responsible for and/or complicit in the economic collapse should be arrested and all their assets seized, all military recalled to US shores, all pending military contracts suspended, and all corporations restricted from influencing politics in any way, for starters. Church was separated from state in America, the same reasons for doing so apply to the faithless churches known as corporations.
Honalulu is unique in that it's very isolated and its distinct native population rather underprivileged, I'm not surprised that free city-wide wifi is provided and done well. However I wouldn't say it's a testament to their skills or benevolence as the distinction may suggest.
An example where a city has gone to great lengths to provide for their residents is the city that hosts the team with the longest waiting list for season tickets in all of professional sports in North America - the reigning NFL champs, the Green Bay Packers. They are by far the smallest city with an NFL team, and it's kept alive because only residents of Green Bay can own shares in the team, and you must own a share to get a season ticket, plus the NFL has a profit-sharing program that supports smaller markets.
In many other cities with free wifi, it's often insufficient and only serves to dissuade businesses from providing wifi to customers. It's always a drag trying to keep in touch in Saskatoon when I'm touring with my band, since the free wifi is only useable at 4AM and the venue doesn't provide wifi.
It's a filter in the same way a policy of not hiring visible minorities is. It's discrimination. To require a degree when the job does not have reasonable academic requirements is to act on the unfounded basis that people without post-secondary education are ill-equipped to perform the job. College isn't for everyone, and it is not a fair measure of someone's employability except where sophisticated academic principles are applied.
You don't need an audiology experiment to figure this out. Harvey Fletcher and W. A. Munson established the lab work back in 1933, resulting in the Fletcher-Munson Curve which illustrates how the sensitivity of the human ear varies at different frequency ranges and volume levels, and is most sensitive in the 2-6kHz range. It's fair to assume this range is more sensitive since it is the hardest range for predators to keep silent while stalking prey, i.e. a twig snapping.
It is believed mankind has pre-historic rodents to thank for their advanced auditory system, which developed during the 65 million year period where mammals and dinosaurs co-existed. During this time there was low oxygen content in the air, so mammals had to maintain high respiratory rates, making them easy prey for the much larger dinosaurs, whose respiratory system involved hollow bones to transport air directly throughout their bodies rather than just lungs to deliver oxygen to the bloodstream. (Birds benefited from the hollow bones to fly, but only use lungs for respiration now that oxygen levels are up.) Mammals had to forage at night and depended almost entirely on their auditory systems for defense. 65 million years of that is likely the only reason we can discern music, much less appreciate it.
As a sound engineer I can attest that the 2-6kHz range is of special significance when putting a mix together. It's usually actually more important that the 2-6kHz range of each voice or instrument be balanced against each other than each voice or instrument be of even frequency response themselves. If something is dominant in that range, it dominates the listener's attention every time. If something has a sharp spike in that range, meaning a very narrow frequency band, it will not be pleasant to the ear. If you check out the frequency response graphs of the cheaper guitar speakers by clicking on the options here, you might notice they all have spikes around 2-2.5kHz. That is why they suck.
Unless you're a rockstar, compensation is usually a "take it or leave it" proposition. Especially so in an economy where people are desperate for jobs and will take anything to put food on the table.
Bad example, not even close. As a touring musician I can assure you that the compensation for rock stars is in fact very "take it or leave it", certainly more so than federal employees. You may not consider me a rock star but I know several you probably would. They're at the mercy of their management and the market way more than unionized salaried staff. They receive no benefits, no pension, and not only are they not guaranteed a dime, they can actually lose money if a label promotion flops. Those music videos and promo tours and lavish recordings that make them seem like they're high on the hog are paid for by the label *lending* the artist the money to do them. If they don't pay off, the artist is on the hook 100%, usually to the tune of $150,000-500,000.
So let me ask you, when they didn't find WMD's in Iraq, did any IT personnel or contractors go bankrupt? Of course not. Meanwhile thousands of musicians went bankrupt when MP3's got circulating. In this economy, anything could make music sales just not happen, and piracy is as rampant as it's ever been, so it is an incredible risk to invest in any musician, but there's no shortage of people hoping to make their break. Now THAT'S take it or leave it.
Oops, it was me that didn't see you were replying to the post above mine. My bad.
Why does knowledge always come down to education? Yes education is VITAL, but we are losing any sense of knowledge that prepares young people to take an active part in our country's politics. We are losing any sense of real-world experience that exposes young people to ideas other than those they grew up with. This is not a recipe for progress.
FTFY. No I don't always do that, just worked to make my point twice in a row. I'm not saying that anything done in a four-year period is better than earning a degree, I'm saying that there are plenty of ways one can spend four years that make one better suited for jobs that don't require a college education. Requiring a degree for those jobs is akin to requiring them to be in unnecessary debt. The job requirement issue was introduced by the post above my previous one, perhaps you hit the wrong comment to reply to?
At the very least it makes sure that everyone has proven their ability to waste their time and money instead of demonstrating independence and gaining life experience and then write the necessary boring reports if needed.
FTFY. If you require a degree for a job that doesn't really need one, you're likely going to hire someone that only went to school to get the degree, barely paid attention as they jumped through the hoops, and doesn't have a clue how to apply their academic experience. Who the hell wants a staff full of debt-burdened carrot-chasers who couldn't get the job they really wanted? That's the most depressing scenario I've contemplated in recent memory. I wouldn't last a week in an environment like that. I would much rather depend upon people who are committed and grateful to gainfully apply their real-world experiences, degree or not.
This is gonna make it much harder to finally wipe them out.
He's right, I saw it too, this is definitely the same concept.
What was placed on the arctic ocean floor at the North Pole on Aug 2nd, 2007?
a Russian flag
That's the point, no further thinking required. If you're dwelling on it, it's only to find a reason to sue.
It's kinda like starving yourself until your doctor is ready to pull the plug to save on groceries.
Where would I plug in my other two monitors? I don't even do video and I use three for audio. Apparently I could install OS X on my i7 but it's about the last thing I would ever do. iTunes takes an 85% cut of music sales unless you're signed to an RIAA label, fucking indie vultures that they are, and they expect me to buy their software? I wouldn't be caught dead with an iPod, much less a Mac.
Yes they're driving pros away, their entry-level tower starts at $2500 and gets its ass handed to it by $700 i7 2600K based PC, which can run OS X too, and completely disgraces your MBP.
Actually, yes. Your brain needs electrolytes to function properly. Doesn't mean you should eat more, but you might not be getting enough.
The Pentagon has budgeted $42M for the expressed purposes of monitoring and influencing social media for the following:
"1. Detect, classify, measure and track the (a) formation, development and spread of ideas and concepts (memes), and
(b) purposeful or deceptive messaging and misinformation.
2. Recognize persuasion campaign structures and influence operations across social mediasites and communities.
3. Identify participants and intent, and measure effects of persuasion campaigns.
4. Counter messaging of detected adversary influence operations."
I posted this back in August.
(IANAL) The legal issue here is going to be tortuous interference, however GameStop could just as easily argue that adding the coupon for a competitive business to be distributed by GameStop without their knowledge could itself be considered tortuous interference, especially since the only purpose for giving away a free game to GameStop customers would be to interfere with the relationship between GameStop and its customers.
Granted, I'm sure the coupon is in every box, not just the ones sold through GameStop, but every other retailer would have a similar legal complaint. At the very least it reduces OnLive's legal reaction from a civil suit to a cease-and-desist letter.
Have you even been to Canada, much less another thousand miles north to Alaska? People in the far north aren't there because they can't find a better place to live. They thrive on challenge and co-dependence, a combination that is sorely lacking in society as a whole. If it's a bitch to build and it does society good, trust me they'll make it happen.
These cards with 'security chips' are a much greater risk. After entering your PIN, you must wait with the card sticking halfway out of the terminal pad while the transaction proceeds, during which time nobody guards their card. Who needs a heat camera when you can just peep over at someone entering their pin in the grocery line, snag their neatly exposed card, and drain their account at the nearest ATM? You can even yank it before the transaction completes to leave more money in the account! It's one thing that the pin pads are highly exposed, but to make the card itself vulnerable to easy theft is really ridiculous, especially in the name of security.