Try to get a feel for the management style of this person. My biggest beef with my boss at the moment is he is a complete micro-manager. I can't have a conversation with anyone in the office without him showing up at the door and needing to provide his input. I was talking to the project manager the other day, asking his opinion on a GUI I had designed, and my boss appeared and tried taking over the discussion on my behalf. Despite the fact that he had absolutely nothing to do with the design and had only seen it himself for the first time 15 minutes before, he felt the need to explain to the PM some of the design decisions I had made, and some of the other ideas I had tried. Useless.
My direct superior literally wouldn't talk to me for 2 months at a time.
I wish that would happen to me. Conversing with my boss is invariably counter-productive and a big waste of time.
For example, last week I had to spend half an hour explaining to him the concept of a firewall. I told him that our network is behind a firewall, and that if he tried to connect to my machine from outside our network, he wouldn't be able to. He told me that no, our network must be behind a NAT device, because if it was behind a firewall, he'd be able to connect. He also told me that things like ZoneAlarm are not firewalls, because "all they do is block ports." And this guy is supposed to be the technical lead of the contract I'm working on.
i would like to add that if you gave the canidates a list of questions before the interview then they will have time to formulate a better answer, something i dont get when im on an interview, but would like if being asked anything particular and difficult.
You also run the risk of giving them time to come up with an answer that you want to hear.
I would fire those who feel the need to sleep on the job. I pay 'em to work, not sleep. Normal above the age of 5 people do that on their own time.
And what if they are doing it on their own time? Say someone takes a half hour nap, and then stays an extra half hour to make up for that time? That way you're not paying them to sleep, and they're doing it on their own time. On the other hand, if an employee is charging time that they spend sleeping, then yes, they should be disciplined, just like any person who shows up late, leaves early, and still charges a full day.
Personally, I don't ever feel so tired as to need to take naps at work. But, as other posters have mentioned, if it's a choice between (a) sleeping for an hour (and working later to make up for that time), or (b) writing shitty code while struggling to stay awake, I'll choose the nap every time. Any boss who says otherwise is too short-sighted to deserve to be anyone's boss.
Besides, how many times have you stayed up late writing code, and gotten stuck on a problem that you just can't solve? You get more and more frustrated, wasting a couple of hours until finally you give up and go to bed. And then, first thing the next morning, you look at the problem again and come up with a solution in 15 seconds.
However, if your code is actually trying to do something else, it really is just a "hint" as the other poster stated.
Would it make you feel better if I spawned a thread to do nothing but increment an integer, then in the main thread call System.gc() at 500 ms intervals? This pegs my CPU usage at 100%. (I'd set the counting thread to Thread.MAX_PRIORITY, but since I'm in Windows at the moment and don't feel like rebooting to Linux, this effectively locks up my machine). At any rate, the [Full GC] still gets printed out, twice every second. Would you like me to spawn off an additional thread as well, this one to perform endless disk I/O? How about socket I/O? Or do a whole lot of graphics processing? Do whatever you want; every time you call System.gc(), [Full GC] is printed on the console.
I've read many times that it actually does ONLY result in a hint to collect. Unless you can prove otherwise, I'm apt to lean in that direction. Which, actually means that the 1:1 implementation is a more realisitic apples to apples comparison. Can I prove that? No. I'm still hoping a java guru will come in with some insightful tidbits.;)
Write a java app that does nothing but repeatedly call System.gc(). Run it with the -verbose:gc option, and watch the garbage collector go. Mind you, this is not 100% proof, but the fact that it prints out [Full GC] over and over again makes me lean pretty strongly in the direction of "the garbage collector actually runs in response to a System.gc(), it's not just a hint".
One thing I would like Java to do is to allow me to delete objects manually. There are times when the garbage collector really sucks, but 95% of the time it's sufficient, in my experience. And yes, this experience comes from real-world apps.
Regarding the original topic, I would bet that there are cases where Java really could give C++ a run for its money. However, one liability that Java has compared to C at least is that making everything an object adds a whole lot of object overhead. I had to write a file search routine as part of a Java app, and originally wrote it strictly in Java. The sheer number of File objects that get created by such a routine is ridiculous, and there's really no way to reduce the overhead by reusing the objects -- File objects are immutable. Calling out to JNI resulted in a 3 to 5x performance boost. Does this one example prove anything? No, but it's a heck of a lot more real-world than simply appending a string to itself a few dozen times...
Actually, the president of the university I attend is really not all that popular among the student body, and regularly satired and criticized in campus publications along with other members of the administration.
That's cause Simone's a dipshit:-) I graduated from RIT with a CS degree last year.
That doesn't stop most people here from getting something out of their time spent, though.
I can't say I was the greatest fan of RIT, but I certainly would not extend that to saying college in general is a waste of time, like the grandparent poster did. And hey, I had a good job lined up before graduation (a place I had had a co-op at), so it couldn't have been all bad, right?
Otherwise, what's to stop them from arresting you walking down the street, collecting DNA, and then going "whoops, our bad, you're not the guy we thought," and then letting you go, going on to the next person.. bam, dna database of everyone.
Riiight... because the police department in question wouldn't get sued in 10 seconds if they tried this.
They should only be able to collect dna from a suspect if there's dna evidence involved in the case.
You seem to claim that this would prevent the police from arresting you, collecting DNA, then letting you go. Well, what's to stop the police from arresting you for rape (in which there's usually DNA evidence involved)?
Once again, gimma a friggin break. Take off your tinfoil hat for just a minute, would you?
They shouldn't store your dna profile until you have lost all your appeals
This is a ridiculous idea. Why not wait until they've exhausted all their appeals before putting them in prison? If you're concerned about their privacy, you certainly should be concerned about their liberty. Give me a friggin break.
Besides, do you have any idea how long it takes to exhaust all your appeals, especially if you're on death row? Having this DNA evidence on hand immediately after conviction can be VERY useful to connect a convict with other, as-of-yet unsolved crimes.
Personally, I have no problem with collecting DNA from anyone who has been arrested and charged with a felony, provided that DNA is destroyed if they are released/acquitted.
I work for a government contractor in upstate New York (upstate as in a couple hundred miles from NYC), and almost never work overtime. We're currently hiring. We work a lot with an Air Force Research Lab, also in upstate NY, which is full of government-employed software people who never work more than 40 hours a week. Sure, the pay isn't as much, but the benefits are great. They always show up at the RIT career fair (which I've been sent to a number of times to represent my company), so my guess is they're hiring. My dad used to run the data processing department of an insurance company, and they had a large in-house programming department that didn't have insane hours. His company has lost a lot of software people to (and gained a lot from) a large bank that's in the area, which also has a large in-house programming department. I have a friend that is a manager at a large consulting firm, and she works with a lot of software people that work normal hours most of the time. I personally know zero people in software development that work crazy hours on a regular basis. Moral of the story? There are plenty of 40-hour jobs out there. Stop waiting for one to land in your lap, and go find it.
So instead of getting your body vandalized in a sorry attempt to look tough, try eating correctly and exercising regularly, which includes running, lifting weights, and other methods of getting into really good shape. When you're buff and you look like you can kick someone's ass, people will think twice about trying to rob you.
If you really cared about the environment, you'd probably get something which imparts more useful knowledge than an arts degree.
Actually my degree is a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Rochester Institute of Technology. Nice try though.
Lemme tell you, if I want to get more energy density out of a battery, all I need to do is adjust the pH.
Or I could use different materials for the electrodes, which is the main difference between NiCad and NiMH -- the electrolyte is essentially identical.
At any rate, notably absent from your rant/flame was anything addressing the point that NiMH batteries are universally considered to be less environmentally toxic than lead-acid or NiCad batteries. You made nothing but general statements about battery design without offering any specifics regarding NiMH batteries themselves.
Two and a half tons per car per year adds up quickly.
A large factor for this is the cost factor.
I don't disagree with you there. I merely stated that that's not the only factor.
Sure, you get a $2000 deduction for buying a hybrid vehicle. This doesn't mean that you get $2000 extra back on your tax return.
I never said it did. I am well aware of the difference between a tax deduction and a tax credit.
As for additional state refunds, my state actually passed an EXTRA sales tax on hybrids, because they 'don't pay their share for road maintenance'.
With all due respect, I find that hard to believe. I couldn't find any reference to anything like that during a quick google search. What state? Any links to support your claim?
The hybrids were priced way out of my range.
The Prius now costs about the same as a Camry.
I'll go with a hybrid/alternate fuel vehicle when it makes economic and practical sense for me.
I never said you should go out and buy one at any cost. Hell, I don't own one. I strongly considered the Prius when I bought a new car last year. I ended up getting a Corolla instead because the rear seats in the Prius didn't fold down. Given that I bike and ski a lot, and don't much like roof racks when I can avoid them, that's a deal-breaker for me.
You fail to understand even basic high school chemistry.
The greater the energy density of any battery, the greater the reactivity of the chemicals inside it.
Likewise. What makes NiCad batteries so environmentally toxic? That's right, cadmium. How about lead-acid batteries? Lead, and, well, acid. Now, what are NiMH batteries made of? Nickel (obviously) and various alloys of Vanadium, Titanium, Zirconium, more Nickel, Chromium (toxicity depends on type; source does not specify), Cobalt, and Iron (from here). In short, there is nothing in NiMH batteries that is as nasty as lead or cadmium. Which is why, if you google a bit, you'll discover a multitude of sites that state that NiMH batteries are much less harmful to the environment that NiCad or lead-acid.
Let's check some some figures: assume 50 miles a day, at ~25 miles to the gallon. That's 730 gallons a year. At $2 a gallon, that's $1,460 dollars a year. Your yearly savings, before maintenance, is $730 a year for going with a hybrid that gets ~50 miles to the gallon. If the hybrid costs $5k more, that's 7 years until you break even. Oh, and you're going to have to replace the batteries by then? Tack on a few more years. I bet maint. costs will more than eat up any differences. It gets even more difficult if the MPG difference is only 6.
First off, if you live in the U.S., there is a $2000 federal income tax deduction for purchasing a hybrid vehicle. As far as I know, you are not required to itemize deductions to take this one. Many states offer their own deductions as well. So, you need to take this into account when comparing total cost.
Second, there are more things to consider here than just the economic factors. The average auto puts out about 20 pounds of CO2 per gallon of gas burned (before you tell me a gallon of gas weighs 6 or 6.5 pounds, you're right. Now multiply that by 3 to add the O2 that comes from the atmosphere, and you're starting to understand). I'm going to revise your calculations a bit, and assume 12,000 miles per year. That's 480 gallons at 25mpg, and 240 gallons at 50mpg. The hybrid just saved almost TWO AND A HALF TONS of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. And that's just a single vehicle. Per year. Then there's the reduction in carbon monoxide, the various nitrogen oxides, SO2, etc.
You need to be careful in your use of the word "citizens". The Americans who were tortured and killed were civilian contractors
Likewise, you need to be careful in your use of the word "civilian". According to this Washington Post article, the four "civilian contractors" killed in Fallujah were "among the most elite commandos working in Iraq to guard employees of U.S. corporations". The article goes on to say that the security firm that hired these men "puts them through rigorous training requiring the same skill levels as those possessed by U.S. Special Operations troops", and that the "vast majority of [the firm's employees] are former military personnel". Note also that these men were armed.
While what happened to them was most certainly disgusting, innocent civilian bystanders they were not.
you shouldn't frame things as if the Americans are torturing the general Iraqi civilian population the same way that the Islamic Militants have tortured and killed the American civilians
My above point notwithstanding, just because atrocities have been committed on Americans does not justify returning the favor. Have you ever heard of taking the moral high road?
If you are ashamed to be an american because of those pictures you are in the minority.
100,000 lemmings can't be wrong... (yes I know the whole lemmings suicide phenomenon is probably not true.
If I held a "torture a suspected iraqi terrorist" contest a full 30% of the country would sign up over night. If I offered 10 grand to do it 70% of the country would volunteer.
And that's exactly why I'm ashamed to be an American right now.
Ok, so you were ok with it when those fuckers BURNED AMERICANS ALIVE AND HUNG THEM FROM BRIDGES?? You fucking piece of shit loser.
Where on earth did you get that from my post? Let alone from the part that you quoted?
And to answer your question, no I was not ok with it. However, (a) that incident occurred after the currently-released photos were taken so it cannot even be argued that the mistreatment of Iraqis was retribution for Fallujah (I don't know that I want to know what atrocities might have been committed as retribution for Fallujah, however), and (b) does the fact that Iraqis mistreated Americans justify American mistreatment of Iraqis? Especially when, as I mentioned in my original post, our now-stated justification for the war was to rid Iraq of tyranny, abuse, and torture?
Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it: "Oh shit, the Iraqis did horrible things to our citizens, that's so terrible... let's go do the same to them!" Isn't it hard to be appalled with someone else's behavior when you do the same thing?
I do, actually. If I made the rules, the kind of treatment these animals received would be entirely legal. Hell, let's make it mandatory.
This sentence right there proves that I cannot have an intelligent discussion with you on this subject. As such, I will not waste my time replying to your post, despite my severe wish to rebut a number of your (clearly misinformed) points.
What those soldiers did was certainly wrong, but on the all-time list of crimes possible in times of war, this is a minor traffic violation, not a felony or even a misdemeanor. But the "anybody-but-Bush" crowd is going berserk.
Bush's justification for the war was Iraq's WMD. You'll note that WMD have yet to be found. So, the new justification? Getting rid of Saddam, and closing down the torture chambers and stopping the abuse. Oops, that didn't pan out either.
Are you starting to see why this means something yet?
Full disclosure: I would vote for a slime mold before I would vote for George Bush. I believe he and his henchmen have pulled the wool over the eyes of the American public a few too many times. Also, the fact that he still supports Rumsfeld in this, despite Rumsfeld freely admitting that he withheld knowledge of the prisoner abuse from Bush for months, speaks volumes.
What report? According to the Red Cross, any communication on the treatment of prisoners is considered sensitive material, and is not made available to the public.
According to the USA Today, the Red Cross "repeatedly demanded that U.S. officials correct problems in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison before recent revelations about the abuse of Iraqi inmates by American soldiers." (See article here)
What complaints?
I'm sure at least some of the prisoners complained.
What eye-witness accounts?
Oh, gee, I don't know, all the other prison guards that were standing by, knowing damn well this was going on, without doing a thing to stop it? And how far up the chain of command did this go, with no one doing anything to stop it?
What change? Remember, the soldiers pictured had already been held over for an Article 32 hearing (an official investigation, kinda-sorta similar to a grand jury in civilian criminal law, only not really) before 60 Minutes made with the shock and awe.
The public now knows about it, which will certainly encourage the military to clean up its act. That's what changed. Further, just because the military started acting on some of the violators does not mean that there weren't more violators out there. Now, with the public knowing and demanding that it stop, more strides will probably be taken to make sure that it does stop (a complete investigation, etc etc).
The pictures changed nothing but public opinion.
You make it sound as if public opinion is irrelevant. Remember, the United States has civilian control over the military. And guess who elects the civilians that have that control? Oh yeah, the public. And guess what 2004 is? An election year. So don't tell me that it was "just" public opinion that changed.
The public opinion shifted from the false position that every Iraqi prisoner was being treated equally and well to the equally false position that every Iraqi prisoner is being hideously tortured.
Bullshit. I don't think anybody thinks that. But do you disagree that even a single prisoner being mistreated is too many?
You've got front-page news of what is, in perspective, a very small event.
Do you understand what's at stake here? We invaded Iraq under the pretense of removing WMD. That has yet to pan out (maybe it will, maybe it won't), and after a while, the justification for the war switched to "at least Saddam is gone, at least the torture chambers have closed, and at least Iraqis will never have to live in fear anymore." Well guess what, the torture chambers are back open again. Do I think what the US has done is as bad as what Saddam did? Probably not, but I'm waiting to find out what these other images are that Rumsfeld talked about yesterday before I make my final decision.
The United States is supposed to be the leader of the free world, the country the rest of the world looks to for morality. And right now we're not being a very good role model. There is already plenty of anti-American sentiment around the world, and we certainly don't need any more fuel on the fire. I, for one, am currently ashamed to be an American, which is something I have NEVER felt before. So don't tell me this is not front page news.
You actually took a sentence from my post out of context so you could correct me by making a point that was implicit in the full text of what you (mis)quoted. Congratulations.
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Try to get a feel for the management style of this person. My biggest beef with my boss at the moment is he is a complete micro-manager. I can't have a conversation with anyone in the office without him showing up at the door and needing to provide his input. I was talking to the project manager the other day, asking his opinion on a GUI I had designed, and my boss appeared and tried taking over the discussion on my behalf. Despite the fact that he had absolutely nothing to do with the design and had only seen it himself for the first time 15 minutes before, he felt the need to explain to the PM some of the design decisions I had made, and some of the other ideas I had tried. Useless.
knwo
/. Did you look up at the screen even once while you were typing?
managent
perferable
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inexoensively
aroder
That was the most typo-filled post I've ever seen on
My direct superior literally wouldn't talk to me for 2 months at a time.
I wish that would happen to me. Conversing with my boss is invariably counter-productive and a big waste of time.
For example, last week I had to spend half an hour explaining to him the concept of a firewall. I told him that our network is behind a firewall, and that if he tried to connect to my machine from outside our network, he wouldn't be able to. He told me that no, our network must be behind a NAT device, because if it was behind a firewall, he'd be able to connect. He also told me that things like ZoneAlarm are not firewalls, because "all they do is block ports." And this guy is supposed to be the technical lead of the contract I'm working on.
i would like to add that if you gave the canidates a list of questions before the interview then they will have time to formulate a better answer, something i dont get when im on an interview, but would like if being asked anything particular and difficult.
You also run the risk of giving them time to come up with an answer that you want to hear.
I would fire those who feel the need to sleep on the job. I pay 'em to work, not sleep. Normal above the age of 5 people do that on their own time.
And what if they are doing it on their own time? Say someone takes a half hour nap, and then stays an extra half hour to make up for that time? That way you're not paying them to sleep, and they're doing it on their own time. On the other hand, if an employee is charging time that they spend sleeping, then yes, they should be disciplined, just like any person who shows up late, leaves early, and still charges a full day.
Personally, I don't ever feel so tired as to need to take naps at work. But, as other posters have mentioned, if it's a choice between (a) sleeping for an hour (and working later to make up for that time), or (b) writing shitty code while struggling to stay awake, I'll choose the nap every time. Any boss who says otherwise is too short-sighted to deserve to be anyone's boss.
Besides, how many times have you stayed up late writing code, and gotten stuck on a problem that you just can't solve? You get more and more frustrated, wasting a couple of hours until finally you give up and go to bed. And then, first thing the next morning, you look at the problem again and come up with a solution in 15 seconds.
However, if your code is actually trying to do something else, it really is just a "hint" as the other poster stated.
Would it make you feel better if I spawned a thread to do nothing but increment an integer, then in the main thread call System.gc() at 500 ms intervals? This pegs my CPU usage at 100%. (I'd set the counting thread to Thread.MAX_PRIORITY, but since I'm in Windows at the moment and don't feel like rebooting to Linux, this effectively locks up my machine). At any rate, the [Full GC] still gets printed out, twice every second. Would you like me to spawn off an additional thread as well, this one to perform endless disk I/O? How about socket I/O? Or do a whole lot of graphics processing? Do whatever you want; every time you call System.gc(), [Full GC] is printed on the console.
I've read many times that it actually does ONLY result in a hint to collect. Unless you can prove otherwise, I'm apt to lean in that direction. Which, actually means that the 1:1 implementation is a more realisitic apples to apples comparison. Can I prove that? No. I'm still hoping a java guru will come in with some insightful tidbits. ;)
Write a java app that does nothing but repeatedly call System.gc(). Run it with the -verbose:gc option, and watch the garbage collector go. Mind you, this is not 100% proof, but the fact that it prints out [Full GC] over and over again makes me lean pretty strongly in the direction of "the garbage collector actually runs in response to a System.gc(), it's not just a hint".
One thing I would like Java to do is to allow me to delete objects manually. There are times when the garbage collector really sucks, but 95% of the time it's sufficient, in my experience. And yes, this experience comes from real-world apps.
Regarding the original topic, I would bet that there are cases where Java really could give C++ a run for its money. However, one liability that Java has compared to C at least is that making everything an object adds a whole lot of object overhead. I had to write a file search routine as part of a Java app, and originally wrote it strictly in Java. The sheer number of File objects that get created by such a routine is ridiculous, and there's really no way to reduce the overhead by reusing the objects -- File objects are immutable. Calling out to JNI resulted in a 3 to 5x performance boost. Does this one example prove anything? No, but it's a heck of a lot more real-world than simply appending a string to itself a few dozen times...
Actually, the president of the university I attend is really not all that popular among the student body, and regularly satired and criticized in campus publications along with other members of the administration.
:-) I graduated from RIT with a CS degree last year.
That's cause Simone's a dipshit
That doesn't stop most people here from getting something out of their time spent, though.
I can't say I was the greatest fan of RIT, but I certainly would not extend that to saying college in general is a waste of time, like the grandparent poster did. And hey, I had a good job lined up before graduation (a place I had had a co-op at), so it couldn't have been all bad, right?
Otherwise, what's to stop them from arresting you walking down the street, collecting DNA, and then going "whoops, our bad, you're not the guy we thought," and then letting you go, going on to the next person.. bam, dna database of everyone.
Riiight... because the police department in question wouldn't get sued in 10 seconds if they tried this.
They should only be able to collect dna from a suspect if there's dna evidence involved in the case.
You seem to claim that this would prevent the police from arresting you, collecting DNA, then letting you go. Well, what's to stop the police from arresting you for rape (in which there's usually DNA evidence involved)?
Once again, gimma a friggin break. Take off your tinfoil hat for just a minute, would you?
They shouldn't store your dna profile until you have lost all your appeals
This is a ridiculous idea. Why not wait until they've exhausted all their appeals before putting them in prison? If you're concerned about their privacy, you certainly should be concerned about their liberty. Give me a friggin break.
Besides, do you have any idea how long it takes to exhaust all your appeals, especially if you're on death row? Having this DNA evidence on hand immediately after conviction can be VERY useful to connect a convict with other, as-of-yet unsolved crimes.
Personally, I have no problem with collecting DNA from anyone who has been arrested and charged with a felony, provided that DNA is destroyed if they are released/acquitted.
I work for a government contractor in upstate New York (upstate as in a couple hundred miles from NYC), and almost never work overtime. We're currently hiring. We work a lot with an Air Force Research Lab, also in upstate NY, which is full of government-employed software people who never work more than 40 hours a week. Sure, the pay isn't as much, but the benefits are great. They always show up at the RIT career fair (which I've been sent to a number of times to represent my company), so my guess is they're hiring. My dad used to run the data processing department of an insurance company, and they had a large in-house programming department that didn't have insane hours. His company has lost a lot of software people to (and gained a lot from) a large bank that's in the area, which also has a large in-house programming department. I have a friend that is a manager at a large consulting firm, and she works with a lot of software people that work normal hours most of the time. I personally know zero people in software development that work crazy hours on a regular basis. Moral of the story? There are plenty of 40-hour jobs out there. Stop waiting for one to land in your lap, and go find it.
So instead of getting your body vandalized in a sorry attempt to look tough, try eating correctly and exercising regularly, which includes running, lifting weights, and other methods of getting into really good shape. When you're buff and you look like you can kick someone's ass, people will think twice about trying to rob you.
Dude... this is Slashdot.
If you really cared about the environment, you'd probably get something which imparts more useful knowledge than an arts degree.
Actually my degree is a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Rochester Institute of Technology. Nice try though.
Lemme tell you, if I want to get more energy density out of a battery, all I need to do is adjust the pH.
Or I could use different materials for the electrodes, which is the main difference between NiCad and NiMH -- the electrolyte is essentially identical.
At any rate, notably absent from your rant/flame was anything addressing the point that NiMH batteries are universally considered to be less environmentally toxic than lead-acid or NiCad batteries. You made nothing but general statements about battery design without offering any specifics regarding NiMH batteries themselves.
Two and a half tons of CO2. Big deal. So what.
Two and a half tons per car per year adds up quickly.
A large factor for this is the cost factor.
I don't disagree with you there. I merely stated that that's not the only factor.
Sure, you get a $2000 deduction for buying a hybrid vehicle. This doesn't mean that you get $2000 extra back on your tax return.
I never said it did. I am well aware of the difference between a tax deduction and a tax credit.
As for additional state refunds, my state actually passed an EXTRA sales tax on hybrids, because they 'don't pay their share for road maintenance'.
With all due respect, I find that hard to believe. I couldn't find any reference to anything like that during a quick google search. What state? Any links to support your claim?
The hybrids were priced way out of my range.
The Prius now costs about the same as a Camry.
I'll go with a hybrid/alternate fuel vehicle when it makes economic and practical sense for me.
I never said you should go out and buy one at any cost. Hell, I don't own one. I strongly considered the Prius when I bought a new car last year. I ended up getting a Corolla instead because the rear seats in the Prius didn't fold down. Given that I bike and ski a lot, and don't much like roof racks when I can avoid them, that's a deal-breaker for me.
And in city driving 0-25 is an important number...
Why, so you can get to the next red light that much faster?
You fail to understand even basic high school chemistry.
The greater the energy density of any battery, the greater the reactivity of the chemicals inside it.
Likewise. What makes NiCad batteries so environmentally toxic? That's right, cadmium. How about lead-acid batteries? Lead, and, well, acid. Now, what are NiMH batteries made of? Nickel (obviously) and various alloys of Vanadium, Titanium, Zirconium, more Nickel, Chromium (toxicity depends on type; source does not specify), Cobalt, and Iron (from here). In short, there is nothing in NiMH batteries that is as nasty as lead or cadmium. Which is why, if you google a bit, you'll discover a multitude of sites that state that NiMH batteries are much less harmful to the environment that NiCad or lead-acid.
Let's check some some figures: assume 50 miles a day, at ~25 miles to the gallon. That's 730 gallons a year. At $2 a gallon, that's $1,460 dollars a year. Your yearly savings, before maintenance, is $730 a year for going with a hybrid that gets ~50 miles to the gallon. If the hybrid costs $5k more, that's 7 years until you break even. Oh, and you're going to have to replace the batteries by then? Tack on a few more years. I bet maint. costs will more than eat up any differences. It gets even more difficult if the MPG difference is only 6.
First off, if you live in the U.S., there is a $2000 federal income tax deduction for purchasing a hybrid vehicle. As far as I know, you are not required to itemize deductions to take this one. Many states offer their own deductions as well. So, you need to take this into account when comparing total cost.
Second, there are more things to consider here than just the economic factors. The average auto puts out about 20 pounds of CO2 per gallon of gas burned (before you tell me a gallon of gas weighs 6 or 6.5 pounds, you're right. Now multiply that by 3 to add the O2 that comes from the atmosphere, and you're starting to understand). I'm going to revise your calculations a bit, and assume 12,000 miles per year. That's 480 gallons at 25mpg, and 240 gallons at 50mpg. The hybrid just saved almost TWO AND A HALF TONS of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. And that's just a single vehicle. Per year. Then there's the reduction in carbon monoxide, the various nitrogen oxides, SO2, etc.
You need to be careful in your use of the word "citizens". The Americans who were tortured and killed were civilian contractors
Likewise, you need to be careful in your use of the word "civilian". According to this Washington Post article, the four "civilian contractors" killed in Fallujah were "among the most elite commandos working in Iraq to guard employees of U.S. corporations". The article goes on to say that the security firm that hired these men "puts them through rigorous training requiring the same skill levels as those possessed by U.S. Special Operations troops", and that the "vast majority of [the firm's employees] are former military personnel". Note also that these men were armed.
While what happened to them was most certainly disgusting, innocent civilian bystanders they were not.
you shouldn't frame things as if the Americans are torturing the general Iraqi civilian population the same way that the Islamic Militants have tortured and killed the American civilians
My above point notwithstanding, just because atrocities have been committed on Americans does not justify returning the favor. Have you ever heard of taking the moral high road?
If you are ashamed to be an american because of those pictures you are in the minority.
100,000 lemmings can't be wrong... (yes I know the whole lemmings suicide phenomenon is probably not true.
If I held a "torture a suspected iraqi terrorist" contest a full 30% of the country would sign up over night. If I offered 10 grand to do it 70% of the country would volunteer.
And that's exactly why I'm ashamed to be an American right now.
I would say to get out of there
:-)
Oh, Canada...
Ok, so you were ok with it when those fuckers BURNED AMERICANS ALIVE AND HUNG THEM FROM BRIDGES?? You fucking piece of shit loser.
Where on earth did you get that from my post? Let alone from the part that you quoted?
And to answer your question, no I was not ok with it. However, (a) that incident occurred after the currently-released photos were taken so it cannot even be argued that the mistreatment of Iraqis was retribution for Fallujah (I don't know that I want to know what atrocities might have been committed as retribution for Fallujah, however), and (b) does the fact that Iraqis mistreated Americans justify American mistreatment of Iraqis? Especially when, as I mentioned in my original post, our now-stated justification for the war was to rid Iraq of tyranny, abuse, and torture?
Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it: "Oh shit, the Iraqis did horrible things to our citizens, that's so terrible... let's go do the same to them!" Isn't it hard to be appalled with someone else's behavior when you do the same thing?
I do, actually. If I made the rules, the kind of treatment these animals received would be entirely legal. Hell, let's make it mandatory.
This sentence right there proves that I cannot have an intelligent discussion with you on this subject. As such, I will not waste my time replying to your post, despite my severe wish to rebut a number of your (clearly misinformed) points.
What those soldiers did was certainly wrong, but on the all-time list of crimes possible in times of war, this is a minor traffic violation, not a felony or even a misdemeanor. But the "anybody-but-Bush" crowd is going berserk.
Bush's justification for the war was Iraq's WMD. You'll note that WMD have yet to be found. So, the new justification? Getting rid of Saddam, and closing down the torture chambers and stopping the abuse. Oops, that didn't pan out either.
Are you starting to see why this means something yet?
Full disclosure: I would vote for a slime mold before I would vote for George Bush. I believe he and his henchmen have pulled the wool over the eyes of the American public a few too many times. Also, the fact that he still supports Rumsfeld in this, despite Rumsfeld freely admitting that he withheld knowledge of the prisoner abuse from Bush for months, speaks volumes.
What report? According to the Red Cross, any communication on the treatment of prisoners is considered sensitive material, and is not made available to the public.
According to the USA Today, the Red Cross "repeatedly demanded that U.S. officials correct problems in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison before recent revelations about the abuse of Iraqi inmates by American soldiers." (See article here)
What complaints?
I'm sure at least some of the prisoners complained.
What eye-witness accounts?
Oh, gee, I don't know, all the other prison guards that were standing by, knowing damn well this was going on, without doing a thing to stop it? And how far up the chain of command did this go, with no one doing anything to stop it?
What change? Remember, the soldiers pictured had already been held over for an Article 32 hearing (an official investigation, kinda-sorta similar to a grand jury in civilian criminal law, only not really) before 60 Minutes made with the shock and awe.
The public now knows about it, which will certainly encourage the military to clean up its act. That's what changed. Further, just because the military started acting on some of the violators does not mean that there weren't more violators out there. Now, with the public knowing and demanding that it stop, more strides will probably be taken to make sure that it does stop (a complete investigation, etc etc).
The pictures changed nothing but public opinion.
You make it sound as if public opinion is irrelevant. Remember, the United States has civilian control over the military. And guess who elects the civilians that have that control? Oh yeah, the public. And guess what 2004 is? An election year. So don't tell me that it was "just" public opinion that changed.
The public opinion shifted from the false position that every Iraqi prisoner was being treated equally and well to the equally false position that every Iraqi prisoner is being hideously tortured.
Bullshit. I don't think anybody thinks that. But do you disagree that even a single prisoner being mistreated is too many?
You've got front-page news of what is, in perspective, a very small event.
Do you understand what's at stake here? We invaded Iraq under the pretense of removing WMD. That has yet to pan out (maybe it will, maybe it won't), and after a while, the justification for the war switched to "at least Saddam is gone, at least the torture chambers have closed, and at least Iraqis will never have to live in fear anymore." Well guess what, the torture chambers are back open again. Do I think what the US has done is as bad as what Saddam did? Probably not, but I'm waiting to find out what these other images are that Rumsfeld talked about yesterday before I make my final decision.
The United States is supposed to be the leader of the free world, the country the rest of the world looks to for morality. And right now we're not being a very good role model. There is already plenty of anti-American sentiment around the world, and we certainly don't need any more fuel on the fire. I, for one, am currently ashamed to be an American, which is something I have NEVER felt before. So don't tell me this is not front page news.
You actually took a sentence from my post out of context so you could correct me by making a point that was implicit in the full text of what you (mis)quoted. Congratulations.