Notice that all the problems happened at around the same time. It's not a constant failure rate.
It's entirely possible that a couple of drivers did have a stuck throttle due to a floor mat or other issue. This made the news. Then a bunch of other people thought that this would be a great way to make money on a class action lawsuit by faking the same problem. It doesn't have to be a defect or bad drivers, just a bandwagon effect of people trying to scam money in tough times.
It doesn't even have to be people who are trying to scam the system. If, for example, a young, relatively inexperienced driver (read: child) borrows a car from another driver (read: parent) and crashes it because they hit the gas instead of the brake, well, the perfect excuse is just sitting there in the news. Why wouldn't they jump on a chance to shift the blame?
Re:Still waiting on the BioWare / Illusion merger.
on
Dragon Age 2 Announced
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· Score: 1
I side with more temporal consequences in my gaming like coming back to find everyone dead because I took to much time.
Same here. In fact, this is the reason that I tend to stick to the main storyline. I mean, here you are, racing the clock to get somewhere before the bad guys destroy the world, but instead of heading there directly you decide to take some time off and help an old lady get rid of rats in her basement. This really just kills the feeling that your character is part of the world with real world constraints.
As an example, I'd love if after Lothering you only had time to go to 3 of the 5 next locations before the other ones were overrun.
You'd better stop buying almost every single product in every single store then since nearly all of it is made in China or some other country with similarly low wages. I don't know how anyone can be shocked about Chinese workers getting paid a low wage, it's very common knowledge & the reason everything is made there in the first place.
Are you swearing off all Chinese made products? If not you are a hypocrite. Foxconn also makes non-Apple devices & products. Are you going to swear off buying these too?
Extending this a bit, if you don't swear off all Chinese made products you're a hypocrite, but if you do swear off all Chinese made products you are effectively doing your part to weaken the Chinese economy which of course keeps those wages low and people poor. 113 euros a month is pitifully small to us, but in China it's (probably) a living wage. No they can't afford much in the way of luxuries, but they're doing much better WITH that job than without a job at all. In fact, all of the Chinese made products and companies like Foxconn are actually helping to create the largest middle class in China in modern history.
Well, the whole point was that if you tell someone to draw a "something"-man, they will be more likely to draw a male than female. Perhaps "fireman" was a bad example. Mailman is maybe a better choice since it is a job performed much more often by women. In this case it makes sense to choose a name that is more politically correct. You know, like Personman.
Well, that isn't really a fair comparison. The tape player only has 5 static buttons that the blind person has to learn which are easy to remember and switching tapes can be done using touch only. I could run a tape player as a child with my eyes closed. There was no on-screen menu and the navigational controls were simply fast forward and rewind. In fact, a walkman was so simple that someone could swap tapes with one hand without taking it out of their jacket pocket.
The Kindle requires more than that. Context specific buttons and a menu screen mean that a blind person would need a lot of practice before they would be able to navigate around on one, if they could even manage at all.
"he Kindle DX has the capability to convert text to synthesized speech, but the device does not include text-to-speech functionality for its menu and navigational controls, the DOJ said in a press release. "
Well, actually it's YOUR faked comparison. You said "Go to Monster.com or Dice.com and do a search on Java/J2EE/JEE versus.NET/C#.". So he did. He's being a bit tongue-in-cheek and obviously you missed it.
Well, all users that don't care or don't understand are going to pick one of the first 5 browsers. The other 7 are going to be initially hidden and no one who doesn't care is going to bother scrolling down. (Ok, "no one" is a little strong. I'm sure there are some people who will do it).
Actually, I have a feeling most of the users who don't know what they're doing will look for "Internet" and find "Microsoft INTERNET Explorer".
Well, first of all the only events that you listed which could potentially make the human race extinct is the meteor(ite) and gamma ray burst. All of the other ones will have major consequences but aren't going to destroy human life on the planet.
the Yellowstone volcano is fascinating; it hasn't exploded for 640000 years and, perhaps coincidentally, it normally erupts every...640000 years. So we're due for another one at anytime. It's pretty scary to think about except that it could be off by 10-20 thousand years. So it could blow up tomorrow (it's already showing warning signs) or it could be another 10000 years. That's about twice as long as all recorded human history which means we'll have plenty of time to "become spacefaring people".
A large enough impact event could certainly destroy life as we know it. The last one was 65 million years ago (ok, it's up to debate if the K-T was because of a meteorite, but let's say it is for the sake of argument). There is a huge span of time between these events. In fact, it's such a large amount of time hardly anyone can really comprehend how long that really is.
As for a grb, well, the chances of one originating close enough to us and being pointed in our direction are also very very low. They estimate we should get one once every billion years or so. Again, that is a long time.
So really, what is the point of living in fear? It may happen tomorrow and we don't have time to do anything about it anyways. In this case hiding in your basement isn't really going to help and neither is any amount of money we spend on space travel. It's more likely that something as monumental as this is going to hit us anywhere between the next 10000 to tens of millions of years from now. Space travel IS advancing, albeit slowly when compared to a normal human lifespan. In 10000 years, though? I think we'll get off the planet in time.
I'm a CS university grad and even though I did a database course in school, the practical database knowledge I acquired in that course was almost non-existent. I only realized how little I actually knew when I looked back at how much I learned in my first 3 months of work.
Well, that was a good debate but these posts are just getting too long for me to keep up. I guess I'll just add a couple small things.
I grew up in areas where there are effectively no police presense, and everything WAS the same.
So did you grew up here? I can't really believe we're still arguing this point. If police were truly useless then the jails would be empty. They aren't. Maybe the police aren't as effective as you feel they should be. Maybe you truly think that everyone can actually defend themselves from everything ranging from murder to fraud. I'm pretty sure you will never change your mind no matter what anyone says. It doesn't really matter, though, since most of the rest of the world throughout human history disagrees with you. So the police will still be around to give us speeding tickets and take our police reports before promptly ignoring them.
Oh, and how does wealth centralization happen? Oh right, big goverment corrupted by big money.
There was wealth centralization in post-industrialized Britain where the government took a very hands off approach. It's not caused by big government corrupted by big money. It's big money being corrupted and wanting more big money. Ok, here's an example of what you're saying. Big money corrupts the government and forces them to get rid of the BBB. So you say wouldn't it have been better if we got rid of the BBB so that Big money isn't able to corrupt the government and remove it?
As for the rest of your posts, I'm fairly certain that nothing will change your mind on anything and so I'm just going to give up.
Yes, because the vast majority of people AREN'T going to be breaking in. Most people are honest. And I never said I never needed them, I said they were useless. Big difference. They didn't stop vandelism in the neighborhood. They didn't stop theft. They didn't stop an assult in a park nearby. And what do they say when they get a report? "Sorry, there's not much we cna do." But they can pull you over for speeding.
I'll go one further for you and mention that Police are not legally responsible for stopping crime. So they don't stop a theft. However, they do catch the person (ok, obviously not all the time) and put them in jail so that they don't steal something else, which limits the number of thefts. Sure, the vast majority of of people are not going to be breaking in. But if there was nothing stopping someone from breaking in then those select few could break into every house in the neighborhood in a relatively short period of time. Wait. So there is a big difference between "never needing them" and "useless"? Isn't needing something that is useless an oxymoron? Your problem is that you're thinking like everything would stay exactly the same without some sort of policing presence.
So let the parents pay for eduction. The problem now is that since almost everyone has a HS diploma, its worthless. The same is rapidly becoming true for college degrees. Of course, I really have to question, what right does anyone have to reproduce when they can't take care of their child properly? Seriously, if parents can't afford it, why are they allowed to have kids in the first place? I dont' think they are.
I can't really argue with people having the right to reproduce, but this isn't a realistic solution. You could never restrict peoples' right to reproduce without causing a riot. Then again, what right does a person have to live if they can't afford to eat? A HS diploma could be worthless in terms of competing for a job, sure. But allowing everyone to go to high school isn't. Plus, on a national scale an educated workforce is a large bonus. Remove education for anyone but the rich and see how many drooling retards you will suddenly have to deal with.
Its not my fault people are born poor; its their parents fault. Notice though I didn't say get rid of all of government, just the useless parts (which are quite a bit). People should know how to defend themselves, not be relying on a 3rd party THAT WON'T BE ABLE TO PREVENT IT ANYWAY. Just so you know, I'm not rich, I have ONE car, ONE small house, and because a third of may pay is taken to pay for drooling retards that would rather sit on their ass and collect welfare, MY LIFE IS MORE DIFFICULT. I know it may be hard for you to believe, but normal people that are making ends meet now are quickly being squeezed out by people like you, that think others are entitled to benifit from MY WORK.
Oh, and you're not a physcologist, so please go fuck yourself. At the end of the day, everyone acts in their own self-interest. People work to make themselves happy, and there's nothing wrong with that. Nobody would give to charity if it caused them some kind of physical pain. In other words, everyone's actions are inhertently selfish.
Yes, I know you didn't want to get rid of all government. Just the parts that don't concern you. No, it's not your fault that people are poor. It's their parents. And the parents before, and the parents before them. It's not your fault that someone is given a crappy lot in life with little chance to succeed. People should know how to defend themselves? How, exactly? Should everyone be packing guns? Because a self-defense class isn't going to help my wife stand up to a 230lb guy. Glad to hear that you only have ONE small house and ONE car. Same with me. In fact, I probably also pay a larger percent in taxes than you do since I don't live in the US; but lets just assume it's roughly equal.
You think the middle class is being squeezed out by the poor?
You can't really compare traffic source percents in to how many users actually use what search engines. Your site may and most likely does rank differently in each search engine, and like you said the democracy of your visitors also affects.
Except that it doesn't really work that way. Plus, if you DID want to think about it that way you can say the bacteria has already realized that if it glows in the presence of explosives then we will grow large batches of the stuff to spray on the ground. If it decides not to grow then we will just destroy it and make another batch.
If you never needed the police it means that they're doing their job. Do you really think that you could protect your house from being broken into when you're at work? The job of police has pretty much been a requirement for a stable society in all recorded history (such as Lords who are given a portion of the farmers yield in return for protection from bandits).
Like you say, you don't care if children are able to go to school or not. Even though the result of this is that a good number of children will not be able to obtain enough education to do any but the more basic of jobs. Of course, a lower education in the general population is going to result in less disposable income, which of course means less people buying whatever product your company is selling. But who cares about that because it will take years for that effect to be felt fully.
I really don't care to argue any of your other points (I would, but this post is too long already), except that your basic premise that you don't care about anyone else is saddening. It's sad that there seem to be so many people who are so greedy that they seriously don't care how many people they step on to get their own way.
You probably feel that you aren't greedy; that you earned your money fair and square and that you are fully entitled to all of it. After all, it's not your fault that people are born poor or sick. It doesn't matter to you if some girl is raped, beaten, and murdered because it's not you and obviously they deserved it. It's much more important for you to be able to buy that 3rd car and 5th big screen TV. It is, after all, all about you. That Reminds me of something.
I think the part that bothers me most about this is that people who want to remove government services really haven't thought about the long term effects. How hard is it to really see beyond the very first step? Is it really that hard to see that education helps to improve the economy? Is it that hard to see that the existence of a police force helps provide a stable society?
I guess I can see how being afraid of losing medical coverage would be an issue for people in the US...the concept of losing medical is foreign to me.
As for my wife's company, they do know and she left yesterday. I see your point; is this something that companies are doing? Are they actually buying information from grocery stores to analyze what kind of items you're buying and basing decisions on that as compared to your actual work performance? It seems like something that is perhaps technically feasible but not actually practical.
You mention that Targeted advertising is the worst because it means they've found you. But what exactly are the implications of that? Who is the "they" and what does "found you" mean to me? Is it the mafia and they know where I live so they can extort money from me? Or is it a sporting goods store that found out I like hockey? Does "found you" mean that I will suddenly get ads for buying hockey gear instead of ads for buying V!@gr@?
Well, the example was meant to explain a bit of the physics behind black holes. It's not something that will actually happen to our sun. Yes, the reg giant phase will happen first but it's not really going to break the earth up as much as swallow it. The sun is going to expand until it has a radius of 1AU, which is the size of the orbit of the Earth. Basically the Earth is just going to melt.
After that the sun will actually shrink and become a white dwarf. It's not big enough to go supernova, and it's not going to become a black hole.
I know I must be more innocent than the average/.er, but I've always had a hard time understanding why people get so upset about things like targeted marketing and demographic information. I actually love targeted marketing because, well, it's relevant to me. As for demograhic information, well, if it tells the grocery store that there are a larger number of people who are buying stuff for their new baby then they can adjust their inventory to accommodate. That means more products available to me. What am I missing? What are these companies doing that I should be so afraid of? AFAIK, they're all out to make money and they're using these things as tools to give me what I want to buy.
I hope this post doesn't get marked "flamebait", but I would like a better answer than "but you are losing privacy!"
I'd like to add to this by mentioning that the value of having a power source that isn't affected by cloudy weather and can run almost 24 hours a day is greater than just "more power". Consistent power is also very important and it's a major stumbling block for most renewable energy sources. The amount of wind power, for example, is restricted (where I live) because if too much of the grid was dependent on wind power we would have brownouts on the days of calm weather. Even if that's only 10 days in the year, that would be 10 days too many for most people.
Slashdot Mirror
Notice that all the problems happened at around the same time. It's not a constant failure rate.
It's entirely possible that a couple of drivers did have a stuck throttle due to a floor mat or other issue. This made the news. Then a bunch of other people thought that this would be a great way to make money on a class action lawsuit by faking the same problem. It doesn't have to be a defect or bad drivers, just a bandwagon effect of people trying to scam money in tough times.
It doesn't even have to be people who are trying to scam the system. If, for example, a young, relatively inexperienced driver (read: child) borrows a car from another driver (read: parent) and crashes it because they hit the gas instead of the brake, well, the perfect excuse is just sitting there in the news. Why wouldn't they jump on a chance to shift the blame?
I side with more temporal consequences in my gaming like coming back to find everyone dead because I took to much time.
Same here. In fact, this is the reason that I tend to stick to the main storyline. I mean, here you are, racing the clock to get somewhere before the bad guys destroy the world, but instead of heading there directly you decide to take some time off and help an old lady get rid of rats in her basement. This really just kills the feeling that your character is part of the world with real world constraints. As an example, I'd love if after Lothering you only had time to go to 3 of the 5 next locations before the other ones were overrun.
Well, not sure about everyone else, but the moderators and CMs are going to be going by their real names.
You'd better stop buying almost every single product in every single store then since nearly all of it is made in China or some other country with similarly low wages. I don't know how anyone can be shocked about Chinese workers getting paid a low wage, it's very common knowledge & the reason everything is made there in the first place. Are you swearing off all Chinese made products? If not you are a hypocrite. Foxconn also makes non-Apple devices & products. Are you going to swear off buying these too?
Extending this a bit, if you don't swear off all Chinese made products you're a hypocrite, but if you do swear off all Chinese made products you are effectively doing your part to weaken the Chinese economy which of course keeps those wages low and people poor. 113 euros a month is pitifully small to us, but in China it's (probably) a living wage. No they can't afford much in the way of luxuries, but they're doing much better WITH that job than without a job at all. In fact, all of the Chinese made products and companies like Foxconn are actually helping to create the largest middle class in China in modern history.
Well, the whole point was that if you tell someone to draw a "something"-man, they will be more likely to draw a male than female. Perhaps "fireman" was a bad example. Mailman is maybe a better choice since it is a job performed much more often by women. In this case it makes sense to choose a name that is more politically correct. You know, like Personman.
Nah, I think it should be moved to about 6 minutes to Noon.
Well, that isn't really a fair comparison. The tape player only has 5 static buttons that the blind person has to learn which are easy to remember and switching tapes can be done using touch only. I could run a tape player as a child with my eyes closed. There was no on-screen menu and the navigational controls were simply fast forward and rewind. In fact, a walkman was so simple that someone could swap tapes with one hand without taking it out of their jacket pocket.
The Kindle requires more than that. Context specific buttons and a menu screen mean that a blind person would need a lot of practice before they would be able to navigate around on one, if they could even manage at all.
And from TFA...
"he Kindle DX has the capability to convert text to synthesized speech, but the device does not include text-to-speech functionality for its menu and navigational controls, the DOJ said in a press release. "
Well, actually it's YOUR faked comparison. You said "Go to Monster.com or Dice.com and do a search on Java/J2EE/JEE versus .NET/C#.". So he did. He's being a bit tongue-in-cheek and obviously you missed it.
Well, all users that don't care or don't understand are going to pick one of the first 5 browsers. The other 7 are going to be initially hidden and no one who doesn't care is going to bother scrolling down. (Ok, "no one" is a little strong. I'm sure there are some people who will do it).
Actually, I have a feeling most of the users who don't know what they're doing will look for "Internet" and find "Microsoft INTERNET Explorer".
...and a mullet.
What does your hair style choice have to do with anything?
Well, first of all the only events that you listed which could potentially make the human race extinct is the meteor(ite) and gamma ray burst. All of the other ones will have major consequences but aren't going to destroy human life on the planet.
the Yellowstone volcano is fascinating; it hasn't exploded for 640000 years and, perhaps coincidentally, it normally erupts every...640000 years. So we're due for another one at anytime. It's pretty scary to think about except that it could be off by 10-20 thousand years. So it could blow up tomorrow (it's already showing warning signs) or it could be another 10000 years. That's about twice as long as all recorded human history which means we'll have plenty of time to "become spacefaring people".
A large enough impact event could certainly destroy life as we know it. The last one was 65 million years ago (ok, it's up to debate if the K-T was because of a meteorite, but let's say it is for the sake of argument). There is a huge span of time between these events. In fact, it's such a large amount of time hardly anyone can really comprehend how long that really is.
As for a grb, well, the chances of one originating close enough to us and being pointed in our direction are also very very low. They estimate we should get one once every billion years or so. Again, that is a long time.
So really, what is the point of living in fear? It may happen tomorrow and we don't have time to do anything about it anyways. In this case hiding in your basement isn't really going to help and neither is any amount of money we spend on space travel. It's more likely that something as monumental as this is going to hit us anywhere between the next 10000 to tens of millions of years from now. Space travel IS advancing, albeit slowly when compared to a normal human lifespan. In 10000 years, though? I think we'll get off the planet in time.
I'm a CS university grad and even though I did a database course in school, the practical database knowledge I acquired in that course was almost non-existent. I only realized how little I actually knew when I looked back at how much I learned in my first 3 months of work.
I was thinking we could give them our nukes so that they can fix them up for us.
I grew up in areas where there are effectively no police presense, and everything WAS the same.
So did you grew up here? I can't really believe we're still arguing this point. If police were truly useless then the jails would be empty. They aren't. Maybe the police aren't as effective as you feel they should be. Maybe you truly think that everyone can actually defend themselves from everything ranging from murder to fraud. I'm pretty sure you will never change your mind no matter what anyone says. It doesn't really matter, though, since most of the rest of the world throughout human history disagrees with you. So the police will still be around to give us speeding tickets and take our police reports before promptly ignoring them.
Oh, and how does wealth centralization happen? Oh right, big goverment corrupted by big money.
There was wealth centralization in post-industrialized Britain where the government took a very hands off approach. It's not caused by big government corrupted by big money. It's big money being corrupted and wanting more big money. Ok, here's an example of what you're saying. Big money corrupts the government and forces them to get rid of the BBB. So you say wouldn't it have been better if we got rid of the BBB so that Big money isn't able to corrupt the government and remove it?
As for the rest of your posts, I'm fairly certain that nothing will change your mind on anything and so I'm just going to give up.
Yes, because the vast majority of people AREN'T going to be breaking in. Most people are honest. And I never said I never needed them, I said they were useless. Big difference. They didn't stop vandelism in the neighborhood. They didn't stop theft. They didn't stop an assult in a park nearby. And what do they say when they get a report? "Sorry, there's not much we cna do." But they can pull you over for speeding.
I'll go one further for you and mention that Police are not legally responsible for stopping crime. So they don't stop a theft. However, they do catch the person (ok, obviously not all the time) and put them in jail so that they don't steal something else, which limits the number of thefts. Sure, the vast majority of of people are not going to be breaking in. But if there was nothing stopping someone from breaking in then those select few could break into every house in the neighborhood in a relatively short period of time. Wait. So there is a big difference between "never needing them" and "useless"? Isn't needing something that is useless an oxymoron? Your problem is that you're thinking like everything would stay exactly the same without some sort of policing presence.
So let the parents pay for eduction. The problem now is that since almost everyone has a HS diploma, its worthless. The same is rapidly becoming true for college degrees. Of course, I really have to question, what right does anyone have to reproduce when they can't take care of their child properly? Seriously, if parents can't afford it, why are they allowed to have kids in the first place? I dont' think they are.
I can't really argue with people having the right to reproduce, but this isn't a realistic solution. You could never restrict peoples' right to reproduce without causing a riot. Then again, what right does a person have to live if they can't afford to eat? A HS diploma could be worthless in terms of competing for a job, sure. But allowing everyone to go to high school isn't. Plus, on a national scale an educated workforce is a large bonus. Remove education for anyone but the rich and see how many drooling retards you will suddenly have to deal with.
Its not my fault people are born poor; its their parents fault. Notice though I didn't say get rid of all of government, just the useless parts (which are quite a bit). People should know how to defend themselves, not be relying on a 3rd party THAT WON'T BE ABLE TO PREVENT IT ANYWAY. Just so you know, I'm not rich, I have ONE car, ONE small house, and because a third of may pay is taken to pay for drooling retards that would rather sit on their ass and collect welfare, MY LIFE IS MORE DIFFICULT. I know it may be hard for you to believe, but normal people that are making ends meet now are quickly being squeezed out by people like you, that think others are entitled to benifit from MY WORK. Oh, and you're not a physcologist, so please go fuck yourself. At the end of the day, everyone acts in their own self-interest. People work to make themselves happy, and there's nothing wrong with that. Nobody would give to charity if it caused them some kind of physical pain. In other words, everyone's actions are inhertently selfish.
Yes, I know you didn't want to get rid of all government. Just the parts that don't concern you. No, it's not your fault that people are poor. It's their parents. And the parents before, and the parents before them. It's not your fault that someone is given a crappy lot in life with little chance to succeed. People should know how to defend themselves? How, exactly? Should everyone be packing guns? Because a self-defense class isn't going to help my wife stand up to a 230lb guy. Glad to hear that you only have ONE small house and ONE car. Same with me. In fact, I probably also pay a larger percent in taxes than you do since I don't live in the US; but lets just assume it's roughly equal.
You think the middle class is being squeezed out by the poor?
You can't really compare traffic source percents in to how many users actually use what search engines. Your site may and most likely does rank differently in each search engine, and like you said the democracy of your visitors also affects.
You mean demography, right?
Except that it doesn't really work that way. Plus, if you DID want to think about it that way you can say the bacteria has already realized that if it glows in the presence of explosives then we will grow large batches of the stuff to spray on the ground. If it decides not to grow then we will just destroy it and make another batch.
If you never needed the police it means that they're doing their job. Do you really think that you could protect your house from being broken into when you're at work? The job of police has pretty much been a requirement for a stable society in all recorded history (such as Lords who are given a portion of the farmers yield in return for protection from bandits).
Like you say, you don't care if children are able to go to school or not. Even though the result of this is that a good number of children will not be able to obtain enough education to do any but the more basic of jobs. Of course, a lower education in the general population is going to result in less disposable income, which of course means less people buying whatever product your company is selling. But who cares about that because it will take years for that effect to be felt fully.
I really don't care to argue any of your other points (I would, but this post is too long already), except that your basic premise that you don't care about anyone else is saddening. It's sad that there seem to be so many people who are so greedy that they seriously don't care how many people they step on to get their own way.
You probably feel that you aren't greedy; that you earned your money fair and square and that you are fully entitled to all of it. After all, it's not your fault that people are born poor or sick. It doesn't matter to you if some girl is raped, beaten, and murdered because it's not you and obviously they deserved it. It's much more important for you to be able to buy that 3rd car and 5th big screen TV. It is, after all, all about you. That Reminds me of something.
I think the part that bothers me most about this is that people who want to remove government services really haven't thought about the long term effects. How hard is it to really see beyond the very first step? Is it really that hard to see that education helps to improve the economy? Is it that hard to see that the existence of a police force helps provide a stable society?
Where are those mod up points when I really need them?
I guess I can see how being afraid of losing medical coverage would be an issue for people in the US...the concept of losing medical is foreign to me.
As for my wife's company, they do know and she left yesterday. I see your point; is this something that companies are doing? Are they actually buying information from grocery stores to analyze what kind of items you're buying and basing decisions on that as compared to your actual work performance? It seems like something that is perhaps technically feasible but not actually practical.
You mention that Targeted advertising is the worst because it means they've found you. But what exactly are the implications of that? Who is the "they" and what does "found you" mean to me? Is it the mafia and they know where I live so they can extort money from me? Or is it a sporting goods store that found out I like hockey? Does "found you" mean that I will suddenly get ads for buying hockey gear instead of ads for buying V!@gr@?
Well, the example was meant to explain a bit of the physics behind black holes. It's not something that will actually happen to our sun. Yes, the reg giant phase will happen first but it's not really going to break the earth up as much as swallow it. The sun is going to expand until it has a radius of 1AU, which is the size of the orbit of the Earth. Basically the Earth is just going to melt.
After that the sun will actually shrink and become a white dwarf. It's not big enough to go supernova, and it's not going to become a black hole.
I know I must be more innocent than the average /.er, but I've always had a hard time understanding why people get so upset about things like targeted marketing and demographic information. I actually love targeted marketing because, well, it's relevant to me. As for demograhic information, well, if it tells the grocery store that there are a larger number of people who are buying stuff for their new baby then they can adjust their inventory to accommodate. That means more products available to me. What am I missing? What are these companies doing that I should be so afraid of? AFAIK, they're all out to make money and they're using these things as tools to give me what I want to buy.
I hope this post doesn't get marked "flamebait", but I would like a better answer than "but you are losing privacy!"
I'd like to add to this by mentioning that the value of having a power source that isn't affected by cloudy weather and can run almost 24 hours a day is greater than just "more power". Consistent power is also very important and it's a major stumbling block for most renewable energy sources. The amount of wind power, for example, is restricted (where I live) because if too much of the grid was dependent on wind power we would have brownouts on the days of calm weather. Even if that's only 10 days in the year, that would be 10 days too many for most people.
Now my curiosity is piqued. WHY can't I own a Canadian? Or at least lease one for a year?
Because you can't afford me.