Now why didn't Galileo just read the documentation Aristotle had written on gravitation? He could have avoided some nasty arguments with the pope! Or why didn't Einstein read what Lorenz had written on relativity? Or why did Schockley, Bardeen, and Brattain invent the transistor? Vacuum tubes were extremely well documented in 1947. I could go on all night.
Sigh. I guess 640 kbytes will always be enough for somebody...
if traffic is so bad that drivers are going the same direction in both lanes of a 2 lane road, preventing an emergency vehicle from using that lane (whether with the direction of that lane or against it), there are already laws against that
If traffic is so bad it slows down the scientific vehicles it will also slow down emergency vehicles.
It's not as if a siren will magically move the cars aside, an ambulance in an open road is faster than one that has to wait for drivers to get off its way, even assuming those drivers will move aside to let an ambulance pass. The kind of driver that thinks "fuck the scientists" may also think "fuck the ambulance, that must be just a scientist that got hurt".
The structure of tornado is already well documented. The winds near the ground are already well documented.
Oh, thank God for that!
Can you please provide links for that documentation? The cost savings will be staggering when those stupid scientists realize they can stop this useless weather research!
Scientists engaging in (largely redundant) research are not an emergency service.
That reminds me of that old joke: -"next week is my dad's birthday, what should I give him?" -"give him a book" -"no, he already has one"
But that's not what the scientists were complaining about. There's plenty of room in the road for scientific research vehicles plus all the ambulances and other emergency vehicles that rescue the tornado victims. There's not room enough for the ambulances plus 3000 amateur storm chasers.
Silly rednecks, you would think they'd know that staying in their trailer park would grant them the best view.
The tornado might miss the trailer park. By chasing it actively, with their children sitting in the back of the pickup truck, rednecks try to maximize their chances of earning a Darwin Award.
I suspect 100 years from now reading the data off a thumb drive, CD or DVD will be a bigger challenge that actually decoding the file...
100 years from now we will probably have desktop universal disassemblers that can record the position of every atom in an object. That will take care of thumb drives. CDs and DVDs will be even easier, use that high-resolution ultraviolet scanner to read the surface.
Well, as TFA mentions, "I am from Portugal, and I was disappointed in how we played Tuesday," he says. (His team tied 0-0 with Ivory Coast.) "I'm very curious to see what score the program gives us -- maybe we played better than I thought."
Sorry, dude, no matter what the program says, the result is still 0-0.
Is the "economy collapsing" a good thing or a bad thing? A good thing because everyone has all they want for free? Or a bad thing because now that there's no incentive to pay for products (information, entertainment, ideas) that there's no incentive to create new products (information, entertainment, ideas)?
If not being paid removes the incentive to create new products, then how do you explain Linux, or any other Free Software?
Not getting paid to do it means that products, entertainment, information, ideas will be created not for the necessity of earning a living, but for love of the product.
Imagine a world where anyone is free to create exactly what he or she wants, the way it should be done, not being constrained by a boss. Imagine you having access to all those creations, being able to choose freely which one you like best, not having to worry about the price.
Might seem counter intuitive but a 2007 article in Wired said:
Hurricanes could be a problem, so they decided to outfit their windmills with hydraulic lifts scavenged from oil-industry machinery; the system would lower the turbines in the event of a squall.
Let's see: cost of a generator, turbine blades, erecting tower, control systems.
Now add to this: make the generator water-proofed to a depth below the waves created by the strongest hurricanes, make the tower telescopic, hydraulic lifts to raise and lower the whole structure.
I easily see at least an order of magnitude increase in cost.
I don't know too many Australians, so this is anecdotal, but they don't seem to be very active politically. As the old Kiwi joke goes, it takes 21 Australians to change a lightbulb, one to hold the bulb and twenty to drink beer until the room starts spinning.
occasionally a contract over-runs cost, and they approach the government and say, "We ran over cost by $X, and behind schedule by Y days."
I've been there, done that, and that's not the way it goes.
When a government contract is over cost and behind schedule it's because somenone found a regulation no one had realized it existed.
Something like "this should be painted in Munsell 55 grey". The part had been painted in exactly that color, but the paint supplier didn't have the paperwork proving that his paint was exactly that color, so we had to scrape the paint off and repaint it with paint from another supplier that had the same color, plus the required paperwork.
That's exactly what happened to healthcare in the USA in the last 30 years.
When any doctor can be sued for not detecting a disease you can bet there will be plenty of unneeded medical tests prescribed for everyone and costs will skyrocket.
Don't have a GSA Schedule Contract, then. Trust me, those vendors who have them are happy to have one, but not all vendors/products work well with them.
But if they were as honest as my former employer they would refrain from getting those contracts instead of doing whatever they do to sell stuff to the government. The fact is that this "Truth In Negotiations Act" is anything but. The way to circumvent it is to create new products, that are nearly identical to civilian products, but are sold only to the government. That way you can price it anyway you want.
Your taxpayer dollars would stretch much longer if the government simply deregulated everything and trust the market. Instead of forcing companies to hire a bunch of lawyers to read all those regulations and devise novel ways to falsify the truth, the government should try to get as many bidders as possible.
when bidding on a government contract, if you can do the job for less than you bid it for you have broken the law
WTF? The guiding principle in government contracts should be to get the lowest practical price, not the lowest theoretical price. Otherwise the result would be that many companies will not care to bid for the government.
My first job was in detailing cost estimates for a company that custom built heavy mechanical equipment. One rule there was that for any government job the cost would be higher. There's so much paperwork involved in government jobs that it's impossible to do it at the same price you charge private companies.
Considering that the author, María Carina Roldán, is Argentinian, it's obvious that "pentaho" is a misspelling for "pendejo". This book is about a latino asshole who drives an old truck very slowly in the express lane, ignoring all the honking cars behind him. The truck is slow because the radiator is boiling, its nickname is the "Kettle".
The interesting thing about this theory (aside from the fact that it assumes only a single independent variable) is that it is only ever trotted out to suggest that taxes are too high and that lowering them will increase revenue
The idea that raising taxes will increase revenue is more or less intuitive and you don't need Laffer's curve for that.
All this economic model actually predicts if that lowering taxes might grow the economy, might shrink it, or might leave it the same
Lowering taxes grows the economy, that's solid economic theory, and it always works. The tax base might not grow, and consequently the public sector could shrink compared to other sectors, but the economy as a whole will always grow with lower taxes, since there will be more capital available for investing in productive activities.
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Considering the beliefs of people who are near tornados, you can bet they won't.
Thanks! I never thought of googling it!
Now why didn't Galileo just read the documentation Aristotle had written on gravitation? He could have avoided some nasty arguments with the pope! Or why didn't Einstein read what Lorenz had written on relativity? Or why did Schockley, Bardeen, and Brattain invent the transistor? Vacuum tubes were extremely well documented in 1947. I could go on all night.
Sigh. I guess 640 kbytes will always be enough for somebody...
If traffic is so bad it slows down the scientific vehicles it will also slow down emergency vehicles.
It's not as if a siren will magically move the cars aside, an ambulance in an open road is faster than one that has to wait for drivers to get off its way, even assuming those drivers will move aside to let an ambulance pass. The kind of driver that thinks "fuck the scientists" may also think "fuck the ambulance, that must be just a scientist that got hurt".
Oh, thank God for that!
Can you please provide links for that documentation? The cost savings will be staggering when those stupid scientists realize they can stop this useless weather research!
That reminds me of that old joke:
-"next week is my dad's birthday, what should I give him?"
-"give him a book"
-"no, he already has one"
But that's not what the scientists were complaining about. There's plenty of room in the road for scientific research vehicles plus all the ambulances and other emergency vehicles that rescue the tornado victims. There's not room enough for the ambulances plus 3000 amateur storm chasers.
The tornado might miss the trailer park. By chasing it actively, with their children sitting in the back of the pickup truck, rednecks try to maximize their chances of earning a Darwin Award.
If those people who are blocking went there without necessity and someone gets killed as a consequence then they are guilty of manslaughter.
Everyone has the right to use public roads, but no one has the right to be criminally reckless.
Except for the part where the traffic jam blocks escape routes and gets in the way of emergency vehicles.
Oh, OK, this is Slashdot, you didn't RTFA, right?
And for pedophiles fucking children is a big part of what makes living interesting.
Should we allow anything at all on the pretext that it makes living interesting for someone?
100 years from now we will probably have desktop universal disassemblers that can record the position of every atom in an object. That will take care of thumb drives. CDs and DVDs will be even easier, use that high-resolution ultraviolet scanner to read the surface.
Yes, I've heard about it. Swedes are not allowed to publish torrent files.
Any football fan will tell you that when two teams play AMAZINGLY well the result will be more like 5-5 rather than 0-0.
Zero goals is much more often due to a shitty attack rather than an awesome defense.
Well, as TFA mentions, "I am from Portugal, and I was disappointed in how we played Tuesday," he says. (His team tied 0-0 with Ivory Coast.) "I'm very curious to see what score the program gives us -- maybe we played better than I thought."
Sorry, dude, no matter what the program says, the result is still 0-0.
If not being paid removes the incentive to create new products, then how do you explain Linux, or any other Free Software?
Not getting paid to do it means that products, entertainment, information, ideas will be created not for the necessity of earning a living, but for love of the product.
Imagine a world where anyone is free to create exactly what he or she wants, the way it should be done, not being constrained by a boss. Imagine you having access to all those creations, being able to choose freely which one you like best, not having to worry about the price.
Let's see: cost of a generator, turbine blades, erecting tower, control systems.
Now add to this: make the generator water-proofed to a depth below the waves created by the strongest hurricanes, make the tower telescopic, hydraulic lifts to raise and lower the whole structure.
I easily see at least an order of magnitude increase in cost.
I don't know too many Australians, so this is anecdotal, but they don't seem to be very active politically. As the old Kiwi joke goes, it takes 21 Australians to change a lightbulb, one to hold the bulb and twenty to drink beer until the room starts spinning.
I've been there, done that, and that's not the way it goes.
When a government contract is over cost and behind schedule it's because somenone found a regulation no one had realized it existed.
Something like "this should be painted in Munsell 55 grey". The part had been painted in exactly that color, but the paint supplier didn't have the paperwork proving that his paint was exactly that color, so we had to scrape the paint off and repaint it with paint from another supplier that had the same color, plus the required paperwork.
I'm not making this up, it actually happened.
You know that this would get you acquitted in any reasonably democratic country in the world, right?
The civilized norm is that you must be sure in order to convict anyone of a crime.
That's exactly what happened to healthcare in the USA in the last 30 years.
When any doctor can be sued for not detecting a disease you can bet there will be plenty of unneeded medical tests prescribed for everyone and costs will skyrocket.
Of course they are. Who wouldn't be happy to sell a toilet seat for $500?
But if they were as honest as my former employer they would refrain from getting those contracts instead of doing whatever they do to sell stuff to the government. The fact is that this "Truth In Negotiations Act" is anything but. The way to circumvent it is to create new products, that are nearly identical to civilian products, but are sold only to the government. That way you can price it anyway you want.
Your taxpayer dollars would stretch much longer if the government simply deregulated everything and trust the market. Instead of forcing companies to hire a bunch of lawyers to read all those regulations and devise novel ways to falsify the truth, the government should try to get as many bidders as possible.
WTF? The guiding principle in government contracts should be to get the lowest practical price, not the lowest theoretical price. Otherwise the result would be that many companies will not care to bid for the government.
My first job was in detailing cost estimates for a company that custom built heavy mechanical equipment. One rule there was that for any government job the cost would be higher. There's so much paperwork involved in government jobs that it's impossible to do it at the same price you charge private companies.
Considering that the author, María Carina Roldán, is Argentinian, it's obvious that "pentaho" is a misspelling for "pendejo". This book is about a latino asshole who drives an old truck very slowly in the express lane, ignoring all the honking cars behind him. The truck is slow because the radiator is boiling, its nickname is the "Kettle".
The idea that raising taxes will increase revenue is more or less intuitive and you don't need Laffer's curve for that.
Lowering taxes grows the economy, that's solid economic theory, and it always works. The tax base might not grow, and consequently the public sector could shrink compared to other sectors, but the economy as a whole will always grow with lower taxes, since there will be more capital available for investing in productive activities.
Let me guees your job: van driver?
At noon on sunny days during summer in tropical regions.
(BTW, 1 mile == 1609 meters, but close enough)