Re:Macintosh needs to go back to the future.
on
Apple Delays New iMac
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· Score: 3, Insightful
And guess what? It isn't right. There, I said it (and I work IT support practically all day). This willful ignorance of all things computer by people who use them has got to stop.
I'd have to disagree with you here. I think knowing enough about computers to be comfy opening the case is optional. Or should be.
People don't purchase cars they can't open the hood. They know when the clothes drier is making funny noises they need to take a look inside and see what's causing the blockage.
Beyond adding gas and -- maybe -- changing the oil, I'm betting that most people take their car to a mechanic for maintenance.
I did build a PC once, and kept upgrading the hardware for years. But it was a hobby, very much like my Dad used to tinker with cars. Eventually I got tired of that hobby... and I bought an iMac.
Yet when someone's Outlook toolbar "magically" disappears, they don't bother to look at all for the right-click menu they just used. They call support, we come over, show them for the 80th time how to turn menus on and off, then they immediately choose to forget it.
I think it's less "choosing to forget" than having different priorities about what's worth remembering. It may be hard to believe, but remembering details about using computers is not high on everyone's attention priority list.
Reminds me of "average" people voting regarding nuclear power...
Theoretically, I'd have no problem letting people who understand a subject best make the decisions about the subject. Unfortunately, we'd be more likely to end up with people making decisions who only think they understand a subject best.
I mean, imagine important technical-based public decisions being made by a vote of Slashdotters. I'd much rather "average" people voted on things.
Seriously, though, the real solution to problem of "average" people voting on things they don't understand is not to take away their vote but increase their understanding. Yes, that's often really hard to do. Tough shit. Nobody ever promised that the right thing to do would be easy.
Part of the whole fireworks experience for me, and I'm sure for others, is the bombarding of the senses: sight, sound, and even smell.
Fireworks with no gunpowder smell? With no black snow falling?
From reading the article, my impression is that this only reduces the ground level smoke and such. There will still be plenty of effects from the payloads. It'll just be less unpleasant (and less dangerous) for the ground crew.
The problem is that the products only "claim" to work. I've seen the "articles" and read all about them, I work in a GNC. It's all bullshit for now, you can't genetically modify yourself with a pill.
You're probably right that the claims are bullshit, but it likely wouldn't be necessary to "genetically modify yourself with a pill" to block myostatin. It'd just be necessary to find a way of interrupting the production mechanism governed by the normal gene.
And if you want an abundance of those slowdowns to monitor, just also use the device's ubiquitous radar/camera feature to rigorously enforce posted highway speed-limits during peak travel.
It's rarely that simple. Do some reading on queue theory as applied to traffic patterns. Some real-world cause and effect is pretty counter-intuitive.
Anyway, even if it did slow things down a little bit, I'd personally prefer that to going a little faster most days and dead stopped the rest of the time because some speeder with imaginary driving skills runs out of luck and smears his brains across multiple lanes.
a) The article covers this issue. The markers would be mounted flush with the road surface.
b) Simple embedded reflectors are already installed like this in areas like the northeast US, and they survive our snowplows just fine.
Moderation needs a mod for "Score: -1, Didn't RTFA".
Sadly, the government in Arizona is more concerned with trying to make the perfect standardized test for high schoolers.
The only way to have a perfect standardized test for high schoolers would be to have standardized students. (Which would be funny if that didn't seem to be exactly the goal of some schools, one way or another...)
... did you know that your local energy untility has to BUY BACK power that you could place onto the grid if you overproduced?
This is highly location-dependant, and not guaranteed to stay true even where it currently is true.
Cloud cover and night are of no consequence.
It's not of no consequence. Average available sunlight varies by regional and local conditions. That makes a difference about when solar cells become economically feasible for someone considering them. And even living in sunny southern California won't do me much direct good if I live in a rented first-floor north-facing apartment.
Perhaps, but I sure as hell would not be targeting unarmed civilians... People like that don't deserve freedom.
I've never understood why it's generally considered more honorable to kill civilians if one doesn't care if they die, rather than killing them intentionally. I'm pretty sure it doesn't make much difference to them or to the people who loved them.
The problem with your "obvious reasons" is that you miss an obvious fact: the people who are paying most for the war are not the same people who will profit from it. If Halliburton et al have offered stock options to the families of dead soldiers, I haven't heard about it. Hell, many corporations profiting off of the war play accounting games to avoid even paying taxes on the money they make. So, why isn't it worth it to them...?
A large part of the "success" of many corporations comes from "externalizing costs", aka getting someone else to pick up as much of the tab as possible. This is just a particularly vicious example of that.
For all the griping we do about the duplicitous nature of certain 'fair and balanced' news outlets (and their ilk), it would seem we'd hold Slashdot to some sort of standard.
Um, for one thing, Slashdot isn't a "news outlet". It doesn't even pretend to be a news outlet, unlike the red-white-and-yellow propagandists at Faux News, et al.
For another thing, you (and several other posters who've said pretty much the same thing) are holding Slashdot to some sort of standard, or at least you're trying to. As little effect as you may have on the Slashdot slant, it'll be more of an effect than you could ever hope to have on Rupert Murdock and his unindicted co-conspirators. (Remember when false advertising used to be a crime? Ah, the good ol' days.)
Well, if the point of a fine is to prevent behavior, then you would be stupid not to.
Clearly some people feel the point of a fine is to discourage certain behaviors... but only in people who aren't rich. As Anatole France famously put it (translated):
"For the poor, citizenship consists of supporting and sustaining the power and idleness of the rich. They must work for those goals before the majestic equality of the laws, which forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread."
(Of course, in current Neo-con Correctness fashion, I should now be accused of "inciting class warfare" for daring to point out that the class war continues. Or perhaps I'll just be accused of sounding French.)
Re:Terraforming
on
A New Ice Age?
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
Why is it that people here* are so dismissive of climate change on Earth, but if it's terraforming on Mars, nary a criticism (of the scientific theory) is heard...
This is Slashdot, one of the great cultural centers of technophilia.
1) All Technology And Its Results Are Good. (Except Microsoft.)
2) Any Possible Bad Side Effects Are Luddite Hysteria.
3) If It's Bad But Hasn't Happened Yet, It Never Will Happen.
4) If It's Good But Hasn't Happened Yet, It Inevitably Will Happen.
It's not universal here, obviously, but it's certainly annoyingly common.
I might be wrong, but arnt people saying were in the middle of an ice age right now and the only thing keeping it check is the amount of CO2 being produced. anyone?
Yes, I've heard that "theory" too... but not from anyone who wasn't an energy industry spokesdroid/lobbyist or somebody unwittingly quoting them.
Re:It occurs to me...
on
A New Ice Age?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I don't think the parent was referring to the magazine "Popular Science" but rather the current theories that permeate society, eg: "Global warming" and "We only have 20 years worth of oil reserves left". (That second one was popular around the 1970's, and 30 years later they still say we have 20 years worth left...)
Your gross (though common) oversimplification of the claims doesn't counter the fact that the amount of oil is limited... unless you are hypothesizing either an infinite amount of oil or some currently unknown process that is replacing it as fast as we can use it? When the reserves will run out, whether in 5 years or 50, is a relatively unimportant detail compared to the fact that they will. Yes, there is uncertainty about the timing -- should we gamble that it will be later rather than earlier?
The attitude that "it hasn't happened yet therefore it won't happen" is even sloppier thinking than what you are criticizing.
The only way to avoid be caught unprepared for changes in the availabilty in resources is to prepare for those changes. Why is this so hard to understand?
The message you got must've been garbled. Probably what Marx wants is someone to actually try his ideas, rather than use them to whitewash a power grab.
Who's that on the other line? Oh, it's Adam Smith, hoping that someone would really try his ideas, rather than use them to whitewash a power grab.
(It's interesting that "Wealth of Nations" is actually quite critical of even the weaker form of corporation that existed at the time. I'm guessing that's not in the Cliffnotes(tm).)
So actually it would be immoral (towards shareholders etc) to *not* do things the most profitable way. Demanding companies to be patriotic is just another form of communism, and inevitably leads to same kind of inefficiency.
So instead we go with a different and much more efficient way of producing inefficiencies.
It's quite ok to vote with your money and buy from companies that are patriotic even if their products are more expensive, but it's entirely different (and quite uncapitalistic and anti-free market) thing to criticize companies that do offshore outsourcing to get competitive advantage.
If you think corporatism has anything to do with free market economics, you've been reading too many corporate PR statements. Behind the rhetoric, corporatism is even more hostile to free market economics than the Soviet Union was to real communism.
I can't decide what's funnier - the people who don't realize it's an april fools thing, or the people who just barely realize it, to the point where they feel the need to point it out to others.
The funniest thing is the people who criticize it for being a not very good April Fool's joke... after someone else has pointed out that it probably is one. Sounds an awful lot like saying, "Oh, um, yeah, that's so obviously an April Fool's joke. Didn't fool me at all."
this fuel cell devie is cool, but still nowhere near as clean and renewable as human power/solar...
Human power is renewable, but it's hardly clean. Or haven't you noticed the waste products? Not to mention the damaging effects of the clumsy infrastructure that's currently in place to support those ineffecient generation units. Ugh.
It's sad, but no matter how horrific a dictator is, everyone will continue to look the other way because it's easier than taking risk to get rid of him. Dictators all know this and exploit it as best they can.
This does not apply only to dictators. Nor is it always obvious to the people in the middle of things what the situation is. I doubt that the average Iraqi was any more aware of what the situation was there than the average US citizen is aware of what's going on in the US.
People have their own idividual busy lives, and leaders will always take advantage of the fact that it's easier to form a quick opinion than an informed opinion.
"Let the political class and those who like politics play their game. All I ask is that you don't screw up the economy for the rest of us so we can enjoy our family and community"
Is your own voice worth so little to you? You have sold yourself short.
The problem is that it's both expecting way too little and -- in the current context -- expecting way too much. Their games involve screwing up the economy for the rest of us, because that's part of how they win, given the rules we've let them define. Politics can't not involve all of us, whether we actively participate or allow others play the game on our behalf.
It's a standard rule of Public Relations. Never announce anything between Friday at 4pm till Monday at 8am.
Unless, of course, it's something you have to announce for some reason but don't want most people to hear. Then late Friday afternoon is the perfect time to announce it. Politicians do this a lot. It would probably be quite instructive to review Friday late-afternoon press releases from the White House, for the last two or three decades.
I take it you work in technology? Then there is an easy way to prove you need a pocket knife for you job. I am constantly using my pocket knife to open boxes with parts...
Um. I don't think pointing to its usefulness as a box-cutter would be a good idea, these days. Might as well say, "Hey, it's an absolute necessity for my temp job as a martyrdom-bound terrorist."
Slashdot Mirror
I'd have to disagree with you here. I think knowing enough about computers to be comfy opening the case is optional. Or should be.
People don't purchase cars they can't open the hood. They know when the clothes drier is making funny noises they need to take a look inside and see what's causing the blockage.
Beyond adding gas and -- maybe -- changing the oil, I'm betting that most people take their car to a mechanic for maintenance.
I did build a PC once, and kept upgrading the hardware for years. But it was a hobby, very much like my Dad used to tinker with cars. Eventually I got tired of that hobby ... and I bought an iMac.
Yet when someone's Outlook toolbar "magically" disappears, they don't bother to look at all for the right-click menu they just used. They call support, we come over, show them for the 80th time how to turn menus on and off, then they immediately choose to forget it.
I think it's less "choosing to forget" than having different priorities about what's worth remembering. It may be hard to believe, but remembering details about using computers is not high on everyone's attention priority list.
May such a driver be ever cursed with poor cellphone reception and the cold dregs of yesterday's Tarbucks beverage spilt on their lap.
Theoretically, I'd have no problem letting people who understand a subject best make the decisions about the subject. Unfortunately, we'd be more likely to end up with people making decisions who only think they understand a subject best.
I mean, imagine important technical-based public decisions being made by a vote of Slashdotters. I'd much rather "average" people voted on things.
Seriously, though, the real solution to problem of "average" people voting on things they don't understand is not to take away their vote but increase their understanding. Yes, that's often really hard to do. Tough shit. Nobody ever promised that the right thing to do would be easy.
From reading the article, my impression is that this only reduces the ground level smoke and such. There will still be plenty of effects from the payloads. It'll just be less unpleasant (and less dangerous) for the ground crew.
You're probably right that the claims are bullshit, but it likely wouldn't be necessary to "genetically modify yourself with a pill" to block myostatin. It'd just be necessary to find a way of interrupting the production mechanism governed by the normal gene.
It's rarely that simple. Do some reading on queue theory as applied to traffic patterns. Some real-world cause and effect is pretty counter-intuitive.
Anyway, even if it did slow things down a little bit, I'd personally prefer that to going a little faster most days and dead stopped the rest of the time because some speeder with imaginary driving skills runs out of luck and smears his brains across multiple lanes.
b) Simple embedded reflectors are already installed like this in areas like the northeast US, and they survive our snowplows just fine.
Moderation needs a mod for "Score: -1, Didn't RTFA".
The only way to have a perfect standardized test for high schoolers would be to have standardized students. (Which would be funny if that didn't seem to be exactly the goal of some schools, one way or another ...)
This is highly location-dependant, and not guaranteed to stay true even where it currently is true.
Cloud cover and night are of no consequence.
It's not of no consequence. Average available sunlight varies by regional and local conditions. That makes a difference about when solar cells become economically feasible for someone considering them. And even living in sunny southern California won't do me much direct good if I live in a rented first-floor north-facing apartment.
I've never understood why it's generally considered more honorable to kill civilians if one doesn't care if they die, rather than killing them intentionally. I'm pretty sure it doesn't make much difference to them or to the people who loved them.
Happy Mother's Day, by the way.
A large part of the "success" of many corporations comes from "externalizing costs", aka getting someone else to pick up as much of the tab as possible. This is just a particularly vicious example of that.
Um, for one thing, Slashdot isn't a "news outlet". It doesn't even pretend to be a news outlet, unlike the red-white-and-yellow propagandists at Faux News, et al.
For another thing, you (and several other posters who've said pretty much the same thing) are holding Slashdot to some sort of standard, or at least you're trying to. As little effect as you may have on the Slashdot slant, it'll be more of an effect than you could ever hope to have on Rupert Murdock and his unindicted co-conspirators. (Remember when false advertising used to be a crime? Ah, the good ol' days.)
Clearly some people feel the point of a fine is to discourage certain behaviors ... but only in people who aren't rich. As Anatole France famously put it (translated):
"For the poor, citizenship consists of supporting and sustaining the power and idleness of the rich. They must work for those goals before the majestic equality of the laws, which forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread."
(Of course, in current Neo-con Correctness fashion, I should now be accused of "inciting class warfare" for daring to point out that the class war continues. Or perhaps I'll just be accused of sounding French.)
This is Slashdot, one of the great cultural centers of technophilia.
1) All Technology And Its Results Are Good. (Except Microsoft.)
2) Any Possible Bad Side Effects Are Luddite Hysteria.
3) If It's Bad But Hasn't Happened Yet, It Never Will Happen.
4) If It's Good But Hasn't Happened Yet, It Inevitably Will Happen.
It's not universal here, obviously, but it's certainly annoyingly common.
Yes, I've heard that "theory" too ... but not from anyone who wasn't an energy industry spokesdroid/lobbyist or somebody unwittingly quoting them.
Your gross (though common) oversimplification of the claims doesn't counter the fact that the amount of oil is limited ... unless you are hypothesizing either an infinite amount of oil or some currently unknown process that is replacing it as fast as we can use it? When the reserves will run out, whether in 5 years or 50, is a relatively unimportant detail compared to the fact that they will. Yes, there is uncertainty about the timing -- should we gamble that it will be later rather than earlier?
The attitude that "it hasn't happened yet therefore it won't happen" is even sloppier thinking than what you are criticizing.
The only way to avoid be caught unprepared for changes in the availabilty in resources is to prepare for those changes. Why is this so hard to understand?
The message you got must've been garbled. Probably what Marx wants is someone to actually try his ideas, rather than use them to whitewash a power grab.
Who's that on the other line? Oh, it's Adam Smith, hoping that someone would really try his ideas, rather than use them to whitewash a power grab.
(It's interesting that "Wealth of Nations" is actually quite critical of even the weaker form of corporation that existed at the time. I'm guessing that's not in the Cliffnotes(tm).)
So instead we go with a different and much more efficient way of producing inefficiencies.
It's quite ok to vote with your money and buy from companies that are patriotic even if their products are more expensive, but it's entirely different (and quite uncapitalistic and anti-free market) thing to criticize companies that do offshore outsourcing to get competitive advantage.
If you think corporatism has anything to do with free market economics, you've been reading too many corporate PR statements. Behind the rhetoric, corporatism is even more hostile to free market economics than the Soviet Union was to real communism.
Capitalism might or might not be worth saving.
Corporatism pretty obviously is not.
The funniest thing is the people who criticize it for being a not very good April Fool's joke ... after someone else has pointed out that it probably is one. Sounds an awful lot like saying, "Oh, um, yeah, that's so obviously an April Fool's joke. Didn't fool me at all."
Yeah, okay, whatever you say.
Human power is renewable, but it's hardly clean. Or haven't you noticed the waste products? Not to mention the damaging effects of the clumsy infrastructure that's currently in place to support those ineffecient generation units. Ugh.
This does not apply only to dictators. Nor is it always obvious to the people in the middle of things what the situation is. I doubt that the average Iraqi was any more aware of what the situation was there than the average US citizen is aware of what's going on in the US.
People have their own idividual busy lives, and leaders will always take advantage of the fact that it's easier to form a quick opinion than an informed opinion.
Is your own voice worth so little to you? You have sold yourself short.
The problem is that it's both expecting way too little and -- in the current context -- expecting way too much. Their games involve screwing up the economy for the rest of us, because that's part of how they win, given the rules we've let them define. Politics can't not involve all of us, whether we actively participate or allow others play the game on our behalf.
Unless, of course, it's something you have to announce for some reason but don't want most people to hear. Then late Friday afternoon is the perfect time to announce it. Politicians do this a lot. It would probably be quite instructive to review Friday late-afternoon press releases from the White House, for the last two or three decades.
Um. I don't think pointing to its usefulness as a box-cutter would be a good idea, these days. Might as well say, "Hey, it's an absolute necessity for my temp job as a martyrdom-bound terrorist."