Yeah, but would you say that someone eating a hamburger is more violent than someone butchering a cow? Or are you just out there to lecture about some psychology experiment you've read about?
You are correct, I misread your post. Spending money on defence is sane. Spending money on actually fighting potential enemies, is insane, not what you advocated, but still what the US actually does. Outright conquering other countries is in most cases pure insanity, and although it's hard not to admire both Khan and Hitler, few would argue against the fact that their actions mostly resulted in suffering. Attacking actual enemies, such as the allied attacking Germany in WW2 is certainly sane. So I guess we agree here. Sorry for misreading you.
There hasn't been a succesful civilization ever that managed to exist on the basis of "I don't know of anyone that would kill us, but I have some suspicions, so we'd better start killing everyone we suspect might want to kill us instead of using common sense, and either use our military for defence-purposes and try to create peace with our neighbours, or only use it against our enemies when we know we actually have some enemy to fight". Except the US of course....
If you are wondering why the US is loosing political clout worldwide, I might have some answers. Alienating all your friends is one way to do it.
I don't agree with the Iraq invasion. I have a problem with those folks who squander an opportunity to make their lives better and bring up old feuds that should have died centuries ago.
Ingrates? No. Stupid? Yes.
The only person who is stupid here, must be the one who passes judgements on others based only on his own inadequacy in understanding their problems (this is also known as racism).
My God, it must be easy to live in the same world you do. Where everything is simple, and black or white, and a few american soldiers can solve any problem. Meanwhile, the rest of the world knew from the start that this would never be "an opportunity" for the Iraqis. The only "opportunity" in starting this war, was for the US to remove any hope of success in Afghanistan.
The human in me: Why the fuck do we have to spend so much money on killing each other?
The cynic in me: Why not? It's not my money. And I don't know anyone of the victims anyway, so I can't say I really care. In Rwhanda, they used machetes to kill each other. If USA wants to use UAVs instead when they kill Iraqis, it's their choice. I don't really care.
There needs to be some method for civilians to control them -- or at least to override their commands if they are used for innappropriate purposes.
An excellent idea. I suggest that when these planes fire at targets below, they first release someone trained in the local language with a questionnaire. This person will then ask everyone in the target area the following questions: (1) Are you a civilian? (2) If yes, then do you find it appropriate that I drop the bomb on your head?
If any person in the target area answers the first question with yes, and the second with no, the bomb will not be fired. Otherwise, the man with the questionnaire will have to run pretty fast.
Given what the advances in this type of technology could be in 20-50 years, we need policies that can make sure they aren't used against Americans.
You mean that the unmanned aerial vehicles should first do a gene-test to compare the potential victims to a database of the genetic fingerprints of all Americans, or that all potential victims should carry an RFID-enabled passport that can be read at a distance? Anyway, why are you more worried about UAVs targeting Americans than e.g. people with guns (or for all I know: passenger planes) targeting Americans?
Violence can be defined as increasing the further away the assailant is from his/her target.
Sure, anything "can be defined" as just about anything. The key issue here, is that violence is not defined that way by anyone except you!
Remote controlled military aircraft, AFAIK, is the farthest reach yet (save perhaps ICBMs), and therefore (according to this definition) the most violent yet.
Yeah, and according to my definition, they taste even more like ice-cream than real ice-cream.
However, if you're just listening to the stream, you might as well back it up to your hard drive, and then if you hear something you like, you can pluck it out later with some audio program.
Or more easily, you could get download the playlist of the show, and search for the songs in your favourite file-sharing program. What the radio-stations really need to keep secret from us pirates, is the names of the songs they are playing.
Granted most web radio is pretty bad quality
Exactly.
I think it would be nice if you could download whatever songs they played, say in 64 kbps, and then that would convince more people to buy the hi-fi CD version when they felt their audio quality was suffering.
Maybe I'm a bit ahead of most people, but I no longer want a physical product. What I want, is to download the music from the Internet. Having to physically ship and get hold of a CD, and then rip it and throw it away, is a waste of time and money. And I don't want DRM either. I don't mind paying for my music, as these days I have a lot more money than time, but so far, only the pirates are able to give me what I want. If I pay, I have to go through hoops.
Yes it is. It doesn't matter if it's a good or bad song. The point is that you have to listen to it every second hour for the whole week you're at work (if you listen to radio at work, that is!)
There is no such word as "doncha," and if there is, there shouldn't be. It's "don't you." Two words, not one.
It's interesting you should note that. I would like to point out that it's actually three words: "do not you". The word "don't" is a contraction of "do" and "not", which has somehow found its way into spelling as well as in verbal usage.
The word "doncha" is common enough that I, a man who does not live in an english-speaking country, and does not have english as my first language, has been exposed to it numerous times through popular culture. It is therefore a word, just one that hasn't been allowed into any spelling reforms yet. Unlike programming languages such as C, which are defined by a specification; a grammar and dictionary of a real language like English can only document current usage, and is therefore not authoritative in the same way.
In other words, it's up to you to document that "doncha" is not current usage, if you are to claim it's not a word.
I disagree. The reason we "look for things in the heavens", is the same reason we look for things just about anywhere else. It doesn't matter if it's significant or not, or if anything useful will come out of it. What's important is that by looking, we satisfy our own curiosity.
No. Unless you also have other data, such as cost of enzymes, estimated cost of the plant, estimated lifetime of plant, estimated costs of running plant, estimated production of plant, estimated cost of raw materials, and estimated market prize of ethanol, and you put it into a formula, it's completely irrelevant.
You were arguing against the claim that enzymes weren't (as) cost-efficient (as the process used in this new plant), and to argue against cost-effectiveness in a complex process such as this, a single datapoint about enzyme turn-over is completely irrelevant. Sure, once you have decided that you are going to use enzymes, enzyme turn-over can be a very interesting number (if enzymes are expensive), but untill you have taken that decision, it's just one number among many, and for comparing the different options, a single number is useless (unless it's expressed in currency/amount ethanol)
The only thermo-chemical method of producing alcohol from cellulose that I know of uses concentrated sulfuric acid. If this is what they're doing...
Yes, if that is what they're doing, so what? Please complete the sentence, as it seems that you have some objections to it, and I seriously fail to understand what's so horrible about using sulphuric acid in a chemical plant. Actually, I would prefer sulphuric acid to be found inside chemical plants, to just about any other place.
And their explanation of expensive enzymatic reactions? Hogwash. Enzymes work for 1000's of turnovers (at a minimum) before they become poisoned and lose their efficiency.
Why is it relevant how many times the enzymes work? It the enzymes are expensive enough, even 1000000 times aren't enough. If using enzymes requires a more delicate setup, as opposed to an industrial process that just boils everything, it can also be expensive. I'm sure there are other possible reasons. If you are so sure this is hogwash, please explain it better, because at this point, I'm more inclined to believe the people behind the company, who have invested their money in it, as opposed to a random slashdot besserwisser.
To get you on the right way, I will ask you a few questions instead...
i've decided that I want a career in the IT industry
Why have you decided upon a career in the IT industry? Why do you want a career in the first place, and not just a job? What do you view as important in a future job? Regular hours? Lots of overtime? High responsibility? Log off, and go on go home to your family/friends/hobby/etc? High pay? Having a work that you find ethically responsible? Male-dominated? Both sexes? Corporate machinery? Do-it-yourself business? Sitting still solving problems? Actually using your body as well as your brain? Not using your brain, but only your muscles? The list goes on...
Choose wisely. Being fascinated with IT is not enough reason to have it as a profession, because whatever you choose, you will have to live with for the rest of your life. I'm not saying you shouldn't choose IT, lots of people are happily working in the IT sector. But you should choose wisely...
An analogy might be something like VX nerve gas and human evolution. We might some day evolve so that VX nerve gas won't affect our nervous systems, but it won't be through exposure to VX, since we basically die instantly if we're exposed. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that we would evolve that way.
Not true. VX gas in small enough doses doesn't kill. Let's assume a doomsday scenario where the evil robots in the future use VX gas to keep humans away. More or less the entire planet is routinely "cleansed" with VX gas, but unfortunately for the robots, a few relatively unexposed spots still exists where human tribes survive. During that time, there will be evolutionary pressure among humans for increased tolerance towards VX gas. Humans who tolerate more VX gas will be able to survive in more exposed areas, and can therefore live outside the safe-zones. Increasing the tolerance even further allow humans to come even closer to the robots. And this process continues untill the robots start using some other chemical agent to ward of humans.
Actually, you don't need 200 years, as bacteria reproduce rapidly. Assuming the infection is non-lethal, and you can afford to stay off medication for a few months, the bacteria population will almost certainly no longer be antibiotica-resistant after this time. But then again, if you can live with the infection for that long, why bother treating it at all?
If you can't make a line fit within 80 columns, it should be two lines. If you can't make a function fit within 24 lines, it should be two functions.
Look at a book, or newspaper article, and you will find that it is usually far fewer characters per line than 80. Now, computer code is usually indented, and rarely have every line having the maximum length, so it's not exactly the same, but still, 80 columns should be enough.
The continuing popularity of 80 columns is not because of hardware limitations. Text-editors with longer lines has existed for at least as long as I've known computers, and I'm over 30. The continuing popularity of 80 columns is because it's a standard, and because it's practical. If it wasn't a standard or it wasn't practical, nobody would use it.
write new computer software in order to impress women so that they will agree to have sex with them.
Sure. I don't have a problem with that theory. Evolution has made women demand man who are powerful and wealthy. To become powerful and wealthy, men have to do great things. Usually they will do great things as soon as possible, so they will be powerful and wealthy for the longest period possible. Of course, evolution can't decide which great things you should do, it can only make you try something. So the fact that some of us become criminals (might get laid), some of us become free software developers (don't get laid), and some of us become successful business men (get laid), is just a natural consequence.
Again, unless the existing voicemail system was a poorly-designed relic of the 80s
Your attempts at making this sound unlikely failed. For all I know, it was designed in the 60's, with industrial robots controlled by a valve-computer exchanging audio tapes, and pressing "record", "play", "rewind", and "stop" on commercial tape recorders. Since then the system has been extended in various ways, and now relies entirely upon rebuilt toy robots, "my first sony" tape recorders, and lots of duct-tape and steel-wire, as well as a customized and overclocked TI graphical calculator that controls everything that isn't controlled by the valve-computer or the web-management interface which runs on an original PC XT with special drivers.
So what if he lies. The investigators are out there to find out if he harassed Paula Jones. They should be able to do that whether or not he lies about other parts of his private life. Sure, it's bad lying about stuff, but most people will understand why the president lied here, and in any case, it's not like lying about WMD.
There are ways of asking, and making sure the answer to such a question, remains confident. In that case, the president wouldn't have to lie.
Whether it was relevant to ask that question in the first place, is also a good question. If asking the question puts the president at risk of perjury, you'd better be damned sure that you really need to ask that question. If it's a question about a personal matter unrelated to Paula Jones, I'd say it's best not to ask that question (especially in a situation where the president is under oath, in front of representatives from the press, and a gazillion tv-viewers).
and as for 'were descreete' After the whole Charles and Camilla thing you have to be kidding..
I can't seem to remember anyone asking Charles difficult questions, under oath, during the aftermath of the Camillagate scandal. This was, as far as I can see, a phenomenon entirely created by the press. Besides, Charles and Camilla were probably lovers even before he married Diana. Which is a tad more difficult to keep secret, than a short affair with an intern.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but would you say that someone eating a hamburger is more violent than someone butchering a cow? Or are you just out there to lecture about some psychology experiment you've read about?
You are correct, I misread your post. Spending money on defence is sane. Spending money on actually fighting potential enemies, is insane, not what you advocated, but still what the US actually does. Outright conquering other countries is in most cases pure insanity, and although it's hard not to admire both Khan and Hitler, few would argue against the fact that their actions mostly resulted in suffering. Attacking actual enemies, such as the allied attacking Germany in WW2 is certainly sane. So I guess we agree here. Sorry for misreading you.
There hasn't been a succesful civilization ever that managed to exist on the basis of "I don't know of anyone that would kill us, but I have some suspicions, so we'd better start killing everyone we suspect might want to kill us instead of using common sense, and either use our military for defence-purposes and try to create peace with our neighbours, or only use it against our enemies when we know we actually have some enemy to fight". Except the US of course....
If you are wondering why the US is loosing political clout worldwide, I might have some answers. Alienating all your friends is one way to do it.
The only person who is stupid here, must be the one who passes judgements on others based only on his own inadequacy in understanding their problems (this is also known as racism).
My God, it must be easy to live in the same world you do. Where everything is simple, and black or white, and a few american soldiers can solve any problem. Meanwhile, the rest of the world knew from the start that this would never be "an opportunity" for the Iraqis. The only "opportunity" in starting this war, was for the US to remove any hope of success in Afghanistan.
Actually, you argument doesn't make sense at all. But that's ok, because it describes US foreign policy perfectly.
The cynic in me: Why not? It's not my money. And I don't know anyone of the victims anyway, so I can't say I really care. In Rwhanda, they used machetes to kill each other. If USA wants to use UAVs instead when they kill Iraqis, it's their choice. I don't really care.
An excellent idea. I suggest that when these planes fire at targets below, they first release someone trained in the local language with a questionnaire. This person will then ask everyone in the target area the following questions: (1) Are you a civilian? (2) If yes, then do you find it appropriate that I drop the bomb on your head?
If any person in the target area answers the first question with yes, and the second with no, the bomb will not be fired. Otherwise, the man with the questionnaire will have to run pretty fast.
You mean that the unmanned aerial vehicles should first do a gene-test to compare the potential victims to a database of the genetic fingerprints of all Americans, or that all potential victims should carry an RFID-enabled passport that can be read at a distance? Anyway, why are you more worried about UAVs targeting Americans than e.g. people with guns (or for all I know: passenger planes) targeting Americans?
Sure, anything "can be defined" as just about anything. The key issue here, is that violence is not defined that way by anyone except you!
Yeah, and according to my definition, they taste even more like ice-cream than real ice-cream.
Or more easily, you could get download the playlist of the show, and search for the songs in your favourite file-sharing program. What the radio-stations really need to keep secret from us pirates, is the names of the songs they are playing.
Exactly.
Maybe I'm a bit ahead of most people, but I no longer want a physical product. What I want, is to download the music from the Internet. Having to physically ship and get hold of a CD, and then rip it and throw it away, is a waste of time and money. And I don't want DRM either. I don't mind paying for my music, as these days I have a lot more money than time, but so far, only the pirates are able to give me what I want. If I pay, I have to go through hoops.
Yes it is. It doesn't matter if it's a good or bad song. The point is that you have to listen to it every second hour for the whole week you're at work (if you listen to radio at work, that is!)
My eyes... They failed to see what you were commenting on. The horror...
It's interesting you should note that. I would like to point out that it's actually three words: "do not you". The word "don't" is a contraction of "do" and "not", which has somehow found its way into spelling as well as in verbal usage.
The word "doncha" is common enough that I, a man who does not live in an english-speaking country, and does not have english as my first language, has been exposed to it numerous times through popular culture. It is therefore a word, just one that hasn't been allowed into any spelling reforms yet. Unlike programming languages such as C, which are defined by a specification; a grammar and dictionary of a real language like English can only document current usage, and is therefore not authoritative in the same way.
In other words, it's up to you to document that "doncha" is not current usage, if you are to claim it's not a word.
I disagree. The reason we "look for things in the heavens", is the same reason we look for things just about anywhere else. It doesn't matter if it's significant or not, or if anything useful will come out of it. What's important is that by looking, we satisfy our own curiosity.
No. Unless you also have other data, such as cost of enzymes, estimated cost of the plant, estimated lifetime of plant, estimated costs of running plant, estimated production of plant, estimated cost of raw materials, and estimated market prize of ethanol, and you put it into a formula, it's completely irrelevant.
You were arguing against the claim that enzymes weren't (as) cost-efficient (as the process used in this new plant), and to argue against cost-effectiveness in a complex process such as this, a single datapoint about enzyme turn-over is completely irrelevant. Sure, once you have decided that you are going to use enzymes, enzyme turn-over can be a very interesting number (if enzymes are expensive), but untill you have taken that decision, it's just one number among many, and for comparing the different options, a single number is useless (unless it's expressed in currency/amount ethanol)
Yes, if that is what they're doing, so what? Please complete the sentence, as it seems that you have some objections to it, and I seriously fail to understand what's so horrible about using sulphuric acid in a chemical plant. Actually, I would prefer sulphuric acid to be found inside chemical plants, to just about any other place.
Why is it relevant how many times the enzymes work? It the enzymes are expensive enough, even 1000000 times aren't enough. If using enzymes requires a more delicate setup, as opposed to an industrial process that just boils everything, it can also be expensive. I'm sure there are other possible reasons. If you are so sure this is hogwash, please explain it better, because at this point, I'm more inclined to believe the people behind the company, who have invested their money in it, as opposed to a random slashdot besserwisser.
To get you on the right way, I will ask you a few questions instead...
Why have you decided upon a career in the IT industry? Why do you want a career in the first place, and not just a job? What do you view as important in a future job? Regular hours? Lots of overtime? High responsibility? Log off, and go on go home to your family/friends/hobby/etc? High pay? Having a work that you find ethically responsible? Male-dominated? Both sexes? Corporate machinery? Do-it-yourself business? Sitting still solving problems? Actually using your body as well as your brain? Not using your brain, but only your muscles? The list goes on...
Choose wisely. Being fascinated with IT is not enough reason to have it as a profession, because whatever you choose, you will have to live with for the rest of your life. I'm not saying you shouldn't choose IT, lots of people are happily working in the IT sector. But you should choose wisely...
Please point to at least one good piece of software that is written by software engineers ;-)
Not true. VX gas in small enough doses doesn't kill. Let's assume a doomsday scenario where the evil robots in the future use VX gas to keep humans away. More or less the entire planet is routinely "cleansed" with VX gas, but unfortunately for the robots, a few relatively unexposed spots still exists where human tribes survive. During that time, there will be evolutionary pressure among humans for increased tolerance towards VX gas. Humans who tolerate more VX gas will be able to survive in more exposed areas, and can therefore live outside the safe-zones. Increasing the tolerance even further allow humans to come even closer to the robots. And this process continues untill the robots start using some other chemical agent to ward of humans.
Actually, you don't need 200 years, as bacteria reproduce rapidly. Assuming the infection is non-lethal, and you can afford to stay off medication for a few months, the bacteria population will almost certainly no longer be antibiotica-resistant after this time. But then again, if you can live with the infection for that long, why bother treating it at all?
If you can't make a line fit within 80 columns, it should be two lines. If you can't make a function fit within 24 lines, it should be two functions.
Look at a book, or newspaper article, and you will find that it is usually far fewer characters per line than 80. Now, computer code is usually indented, and rarely have every line having the maximum length, so it's not exactly the same, but still, 80 columns should be enough.
The continuing popularity of 80 columns is not because of hardware limitations. Text-editors with longer lines has existed for at least as long as I've known computers, and I'm over 30. The continuing popularity of 80 columns is because it's a standard, and because it's practical. If it wasn't a standard or it wasn't practical, nobody would use it.
Sure. I don't have a problem with that theory. Evolution has made women demand man who are powerful and wealthy. To become powerful and wealthy, men have to do great things. Usually they will do great things as soon as possible, so they will be powerful and wealthy for the longest period possible. Of course, evolution can't decide which great things you should do, it can only make you try something. So the fact that some of us become criminals (might get laid), some of us become free software developers (don't get laid), and some of us become successful business men (get laid), is just a natural consequence.
Idiot!
Your attempts at making this sound unlikely failed. For all I know, it was designed in the 60's, with industrial robots controlled by a valve-computer exchanging audio tapes, and pressing "record", "play", "rewind", and "stop" on commercial tape recorders. Since then the system has been extended in various ways, and now relies entirely upon rebuilt toy robots, "my first sony" tape recorders, and lots of duct-tape and steel-wire, as well as a customized and overclocked TI graphical calculator that controls everything that isn't controlled by the valve-computer or the web-management interface which runs on an original PC XT with special drivers.
Would you like a drug?
That depends.
I can't seem to remember anyone asking Charles difficult questions, under oath, during the aftermath of the Camillagate scandal. This was, as far as I can see, a phenomenon entirely created by the press. Besides, Charles and Camilla were probably lovers even before he married Diana. Which is a tad more difficult to keep secret, than a short affair with an intern.