But smokers dying earlier helps reduce the "aging population" problem. It reduces the costs on average - since everyone is going to die anyway, and many nonsmokers still eventually get expensive to treat diseases (live long enough and you'll get something:) ).
Plus if the tobacco taxes are high enough, you can get smokers to pay for other stuff as well[1]
As a nonsmoker, I think smoking is good economics. Drug money and all that:). All these smoking bans (in restaurants, pubs etc) seem rather stupid to me. Just tax places that allow smoking higher compared to those that don't, then you won't lose another revenue opportunity;).
[1] I saw some stats in the UK where the smokers cost the UK healthcare system 3 to 5 billion every year. But the tobacco tax revenue is 10 billion a year!
Might not be HP but I've seen keyboards with a split spacebar where left was backspace and right was space. That's a pretty crappy design IMO.
I normally use my left thumb to press space. Makes sense for me since my right hand tends to move more than my left hand - the number pad, cursor keys etc all on the right.
Also if I'm playing games, space is often a key for something, and WASD for direction. If you keep those keys whether you're left handed or right handed, it's annoying to have that fat backspace where the spacebar is.
Yeah, the general public are that gullible - just look at the sort of hoax emails they forward.
There are people who go around to people's homes and conning gullible people. But it is actually riskier and harder to go door to door (you can't con thousands at the same time).
And the popular perception is the cops don't bother catching you if you con people in the virtual world.
It's not all international or out of jurisdiction: follow the trail and there are plenty of US fraudsters conning US people (just look at the top spammers).
Yeah he shouldn't compost if he wants to lock up CO2 for longer.
He should store it somewhere (archives), landfill it, or recycle.
Mature plants normally stop taking in as much carbon. Growing plants take in more carbon.
As it is, it might be a good idea to use other plants for making paper especially those that grow faster, and those that might reduce the overall environmental impact (use less energy and resources, and produce less toxic/persistent waste).
I normally avoid profanity since I think profanity should be reserved for extreme circumstances. But I think this is one of those extreme circumstances where profanity is understandable or even called for:).
To create large numbers of those bullets requires a factory or two, a fair bit of infrastructure - and the gunpowder and metal become consumables.
In contrast, the humble machete was involved in killing millions in Africa. Reloading is pretty simple with the machete;). They're also using bow and arrows in some of their wars too (judging from some recent pics).
Don't get me wrong, a gun would still be useful to have, but better be pretty selective on your targets.
Even if you can read it, you cannot rebuild it so easily.
There are so many dependencies and inter-dependencies.
Say, we get nuked to stone age, even if you knew how to build everything, to rebuild something like an Intel chip fab would be extremely difficult. If the pure silicon crystals have been destroyed, you will need to grow from the small seed crystal to big wafer size. That takes time. Next who can supply you the pure water, the filters, the other consumables?
Just rebuilding the Apollo "rocket to the moon" stuff would not be easy. Lots of the _unwritten_ knowledge has been lost - not everything is written down or can be. I won't be surprised if the records of what have been lost have been lost too:).
"Rebooting" a high tech civilisation will take many years.
We also have a very fragile civilization. With all the "Just-in-time" operations you can be ruined by one uncooperative volcano in Iceland. Just "interrupt the blood flow" for a while, and everything goes poof. Hopefully the leaders of the various nations know that so they don't get any stupid ideas and send us to stone age.
> Landing a plane, on the other hand -- that I could potentially agree on. > Some studies show pilots staring at the far end of the runway say from 200ft down to ground contact,
Nah, it's still a stupid idea. If the pilot just looks at something else the plane changes direction, during a _landing_? That'll kill lots of people.
No thanks, I'd rather have the autopilot land the plane - that stuff can aim the plane at a fixed point.
> Say, if you're paralyzed and all that's left is eye motion.
Except for this case, but no you still shouldn't be allowed to drive a car or fly a plane (except in a simulator or game). You could use it to drive a motorized wheelchair I guess.
Hey I regularly tell people that eating roast pork can reduce your odds of getting cancer. As long as it causes you to die from a massive heart attack first;).
It's surprising so many people don't get it. They seem to think they'll never die. e.g. eat healthily and you'll never get cancer.
It's more about adjusting the size of the slices on the "Ways to Die" pie chart, and not dying too early...;).
Given what I know from history (the Muslims did kill very many in India[1], and they did attack Europe first) I would like to see some citations- what makes you so certain of your claim?
After all, it's not as easy to justify killing others when you follow Jesus than when you follow Muhammad (which the Sunnis try to do). This is not a "True Scotsman" argument, just look at the reported actions of both.
And if you follow Engel and Marx it is quite easy to justify killing - since the Communist Manifesto promotes violence with stuff like:
"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution."
Mao certainly killed very very many with his "forcible overthrows".
[1] Yes I'm aware that the bit in the Quran that goes "fight the polytheists/Pagans all together" also has the bit "as they fight you all together;", but someone should have told the Muslims that too;).
> My bet is that phone related distractions cause more accidents and deaths than phone radiation will ever cause.
If that is true heavy cellphone use could actually help reduce your chances of getting cancer;).
So even if cancer risks actually increase for heavy users who never drive while using them (who are probably a small minority), the results of the study might be "no increase in cancer" to average person:).
The problem is badly drawn arbitrary lines, not that arbitrary lines are drawn at all.
Whatever it is, you're going to need rules. Bad rules are bad. Good rules are good.
Perhaps all laws should have a lifetime. Constitutional laws might last for say 50 years (so that most people get to enjoy some symbolic "renewal" celebration).
The other "lesser laws" cannot last as long. If there are too many laws for legislators to keep renewing, there are too many laws for people to follow.
Slashdot Mirror
But smokers dying earlier helps reduce the "aging population" problem. It reduces the costs on average - since everyone is going to die anyway, and many nonsmokers still eventually get expensive to treat diseases (live long enough and you'll get something :) ).
Plus if the tobacco taxes are high enough, you can get smokers to pay for other stuff as well[1]
As a nonsmoker, I think smoking is good economics. Drug money and all that :). All these smoking bans (in restaurants, pubs etc) seem rather stupid to me. Just tax places that allow smoking higher compared to those that don't, then you won't lose another revenue opportunity ;).
[1] I saw some stats in the UK where the smokers cost the UK healthcare system 3 to 5 billion every year. But the tobacco tax revenue is 10 billion a year!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8086142.stm
http://www.the-tma.org.uk/tobacco-tax-revenue.aspx
http://www.ecancermedicalscience.com/news-insider-news.asp?itemId=311
What would be interesting is a comparison of those who didn't get any treatment at all with those who got the placebo or the drug.
I'm just wondering how effective the placebo is.
Of course, that's not going to happen, since there's lots of existing treatment for prostate cancer that works (and probably better than this drug).
But perhaps could be done for other sorts of cancer - e.g. end stage etc.
Sometimes I think they're AIs.
Just look at some of the posts on Slashdot...
Some years ago PGP was bought by Network Associates Inc (which was a merger of McAfee + Network General).
McAfee, Symantec? Meh...
Hey if invading individual citizens PCs was a crime, someone should have been jailed for the Sony rootkit thing.
Might not be HP but I've seen keyboards with a split spacebar where left was backspace and right was space. That's a pretty crappy design IMO.
I normally use my left thumb to press space. Makes sense for me since my right hand tends to move more than my left hand - the number pad, cursor keys etc all on the right.
Also if I'm playing games, space is often a key for something, and WASD for direction. If you keep those keys whether you're left handed or right handed, it's annoying to have that fat backspace where the spacebar is.
Lucky you aren't using McAfee ;).
Yeah, the general public are that gullible - just look at the sort of hoax emails they forward.
There are people who go around to people's homes and conning gullible people. But it is actually riskier and harder to go door to door (you can't con thousands at the same time).
And the popular perception is the cops don't bother catching you if you con people in the virtual world.
It's not all international or out of jurisdiction: follow the trail and there are plenty of US fraudsters conning US people (just look at the top spammers).
In the police station?
;) )...
I bet you're expected to go there to officially report that your stuff is missing and could they kindly see if they have it (or still have it
> you bomb whoever allowed the nuke to arrive in the hands of al Qaeda.
So if some muslim terrorist buys/steals a nuke that originally came from Russia and uses it on the US, the US will bomb the Russians?
Some terrorists would really like that. Two birds with one stone etc.
He's not called LostCluster for nothing.
:)
I'm just waiting to see what BadSector will say.
Yeah he shouldn't compost if he wants to lock up CO2 for longer.
He should store it somewhere (archives), landfill it, or recycle.
Mature plants normally stop taking in as much carbon. Growing plants take in more carbon.
As it is, it might be a good idea to use other plants for making paper especially those that grow faster, and those that might reduce the overall environmental impact (use less energy and resources, and produce less toxic/persistent waste).
Yeah, the fledgling little posts of various AIs are amusing to observe on Slashdot right? ;)
There's this one too:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6204903272262158881# :)
p.s. Some guy added profanity to that video.
I normally avoid profanity since I think profanity should be reserved for extreme circumstances. But I think this is one of those extreme circumstances where profanity is understandable or even called for :).
To create large numbers of those bullets requires a factory or two, a fair bit of infrastructure - and the gunpowder and metal become consumables.
;). They're also using bow and arrows in some of their wars too (judging from some recent pics).
In contrast, the humble machete was involved in killing millions in Africa. Reloading is pretty simple with the machete
Don't get me wrong, a gun would still be useful to have, but better be pretty selective on your targets.
There is a difference between plagiarism and copying.
One involves deception or not telling the full truth.
Even if you can read it, you cannot rebuild it so easily.
:).
There are so many dependencies and inter-dependencies.
Say, we get nuked to stone age, even if you knew how to build everything, to rebuild something like an Intel chip fab would be extremely difficult. If the pure silicon crystals have been destroyed, you will need to grow from the small seed crystal to big wafer size. That takes time. Next who can supply you the pure water, the filters, the other consumables?
Just rebuilding the Apollo "rocket to the moon" stuff would not be easy. Lots of the _unwritten_ knowledge has been lost - not everything is written down or can be. I won't be surprised if the records of what have been lost have been lost too
"Rebooting" a high tech civilisation will take many years.
We also have a very fragile civilization. With all the "Just-in-time" operations you can be ruined by one uncooperative volcano in Iceland. Just "interrupt the blood flow" for a while, and everything goes poof. Hopefully the leaders of the various nations know that so they don't get any stupid ideas and send us to stone age.
> Landing a plane, on the other hand -- that I could potentially agree on.
> Some studies show pilots staring at the far end of the runway say from 200ft down to ground contact,
Nah, it's still a stupid idea. If the pilot just looks at something else the plane changes direction, during a _landing_? That'll kill lots of people.
No thanks, I'd rather have the autopilot land the plane - that stuff can aim the plane at a fixed point.
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe_pEK_kRVw
> Say, if you're paralyzed and all that's left is eye motion.
Except for this case, but no you still shouldn't be allowed to drive a car or fly a plane (except in a simulator or game). You could use it to drive a motorized wheelchair I guess.
Hey I regularly tell people that eating roast pork can reduce your odds of getting cancer. As long as it causes you to die from a massive heart attack first ;).
;).
It's surprising so many people don't get it. They seem to think they'll never die. e.g. eat healthily and you'll never get cancer.
It's more about adjusting the size of the slices on the "Ways to Die" pie chart, and not dying too early...
Yeah, but sometimes it just seems like something should be done about this problem.
:).
Perhaps there should be another branch of government whose job is specifically to find and repeal laws that are stupid
Given what I know from history (the Muslims did kill very many in India[1], and they did attack Europe first) I would like to see some citations- what makes you so certain of your claim?
;).
After all, it's not as easy to justify killing others when you follow Jesus than when you follow Muhammad (which the Sunnis try to do). This is not a "True Scotsman" argument, just look at the reported actions of both.
And if you follow Engel and Marx it is quite easy to justify killing - since the Communist Manifesto promotes violence with stuff like:
"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution."
Mao certainly killed very very many with his "forcible overthrows".
[1] Yes I'm aware that the bit in the Quran that goes "fight the polytheists/Pagans all together" also has the bit "as they fight you all together;", but someone should have told the Muslims that too
> My bet is that phone related distractions cause more accidents and deaths than phone radiation will ever cause.
;).
:).
If that is true heavy cellphone use could actually help reduce your chances of getting cancer
So even if cancer risks actually increase for heavy users who never drive while using them (who are probably a small minority), the results of the study might be "no increase in cancer" to average person
The problem is badly drawn arbitrary lines, not that arbitrary lines are drawn at all.
Whatever it is, you're going to need rules. Bad rules are bad. Good rules are good.
Perhaps all laws should have a lifetime. Constitutional laws might last for say 50 years (so that most people get to enjoy some symbolic "renewal" celebration).
The other "lesser laws" cannot last as long. If there are too many laws for legislators to keep renewing, there are too many laws for people to follow.
This kid is faster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5H04yGfklY
He can stack faster than many people can finish pronouncing his name ;).
That said, you can probably build a robot to beat that. Robots have been faster and more precise than humans for years.
The big thing about the robot in the article is it can "stack" on stuff that's moving _arbitrarily_.
> The statements by RevolutionMuslim are mostly for intimidation purposes and will most likely have no bearings in reality.
There were some dead people who would probably have liked to still be able to disagree with you.