And 'we' do not call our sun, 'the sun,' except in English.
By the way, the naming convention of "first in class" is also used in shipbuilding. There is a USS Nimitz, and, then, there is a Nimitz class carrier. The British came up with the first in class naval tradition and we copied it. For example, during World War II, they had the King George V, and the King George V class battleship.
So, to call the Sun a sun and the Moon the moon is entirely accurate and consistent with the human tradition. Certainly, if a bunch of drunken sailors can handle these names, and have for hundreds of years, would it be so difficult for astronomers to pick it up!
And we'll just call you 'person' rather than calling you by your name. A sun is a type of thing, Sol is the name of the sun that happens to be closes to us. In any language used by creatures living on planets, there will be a word for 'sun.' But 'Sol' will still be unique. When we have colonies on Mars, what will the people living there be referring to when they say, "The moon has just risen?"
The name of the Sun is, in fact, "The Sun". The name of the Moon, is, "The Moon". The name of somebody else's sun is the name the star, like "Rigel", or "Sirius".
No, on Mars, they would say, "Deimos and Phobos" have risen, and on Earth, they will say, the "Moon" has risen.
Sorry, but, I see no reason to budge on an obvious name that has worked pretty darned well, just to make a few astronomers happy about a consistent naming convention. Besides, Luna is practically Latin for Moon anyway, so what's the difference?
You'd better check that behavior. If you ever kicked a dent in my door while I was driving, I'd smear your silly bike into a big red slip without even a second thought, buddy, and I'd like it. "Some crazy guy was kicking my car, so I just bumped him off the road...."
People riding bikes are the most annoying things on the road. Gas taxes pay for roads, not bikers, so you have absolutely no right to be there!
Or maybe less parochial? If there are any inhabitants of planets circling nearby suns, I imagine they'd object to our referring to our sun as the sun.
It's silly that they do that. We call our Sun, the Sun, and our moon, the Moon. It's simple and its accurate. If the inhabitants of other planets on other stars call their suns something, they could call it whatever they want, and I highly doubt they speak English... We might have to call Rigel "blahtak", or something.
Seriously, does any one in the United Kingdom want to have a law on the books which would have a European Country admit that its citizens do not have the same basic freedoms as George Bush's United States of America.
In the United States, you could never be compelled to turn over an encryption key as that is a violation of the 5th amendment, and probably the 4th, for that matter.
What kind of bar or street contains only data, which is only scarce if someone actually does lock it up?
People will go to these sites, put in as little as possible to hang out, play roles and then move on to the next place after a few months. Ergo, any social networking facility there is ought to be client side, and built into the browser...
People that are into this social networking web site thing miss the point. Trying to say that Facebook or any other social site has some sort of a lock in is like saying the bar down the street has a lock in. People go to these places to hang out, and when it starts to suck, they outgrow, or just get bored, they go somewhere else.
The EU is growing....we just absorb more countries
There's not much left to absorb, unless you plan on making Russia and Turkey members of the EU.. those are your border states, are they not? After Turkey, what's next, Iraq? Somehow, I'm not seeing Iraqis making a big jump into bed with a people whose armies fled the field as soon as they could. Love us or hate us, America at least sends a message that it will commit to a partnership.
And of course, you are overlooking the obvious, that, the United States and the EU could merge into a single trading block... sorta make NATO into a trading and foreign policy alliance along with the military alliance.
But, really, the only reason we don't have space based solar power already is because it would devalue fuel and energy and destroy every power structure on earth that relies on it, and that's a tough sell politically. Capitalism relies on scarcity to keep everyone obedient.
Well, no. Somebody has to come up with the trillions of dollars to build the thing. I'm sure if you could get a little array up in space for a few billion dollars, and could get a return on the investment, somebody would invest in it. Capitalism doesn't care about obedience, it only cares about money.
it. The very idea that the success of a country is dictated solely by it's culture (language, traditions, etc) is so bigotted I'm at a loss for words. You are, frankly, a blind, ignorant, xenophobic, close-minded ass, and are an excellent example of the types of Americans many abroad, myself included, have come to despise.
Well, obviously you must be an American abroad because you were too lazy to cut it at home, so, we'll take your supposedly enlightened attitude and serve that up with a plate of insecure self righteousness, while the rest of real Americans go smoke a bowl and watch John Wayne kick some ass.
We want freedom for the users to make their systems obey them, and allow them to study and modify it to suit their needs.
That's all very noble sounding but its not at all the truth.
No we don't. We want to impress our corporate masters with all of these shiny reports showing how much we know about everyone is on the system, trying to candy up our asses in the name of safety. We're no different from the people pushing camcorders in grocery stores. Security is a protection racket industry... "buy from us, before some hacker/muslim/bigfoot, gets you..." And really, it seems to me that the climate of fear that we are imposing on IT far and away outweighs the perceived benefit, just as it does, whenever security becomes an industry by itself.
I guarantee that there is not a single developer on this board that has not written a security / tracking system for some product, somewhere, and not marveled at the possibilities of all that information they collect.
Google's support of Firefox helps the company strategically hedge its bets against Microsoft. If Google had to write a browser from scratch, they could do it, but, it would raise up too many weird signals. However, if Google supports Firefox, and gradually gets its arms around it, they get a browser that is free, a strategic stake in controlling something that can help their business. All the way around its just a smart move for them.
Microsoft owns IE, and would love to screw Google up - imagine the patch to IE that breaks Google... and yet works for whatever MS does on line. FireFox is Google's ace-in-the-hole. If a Windows upgrade comes out and that breaks Google, they tell the users that like Google to just switch browsers, and it will all be ok, and suddenly, Microsoft would be facing a very problem of having its Windows franchise kicked off the internet.
Gates and Co were right about one thing when they set out to destroy Netscape - whoever owns the browser owns the desktop, and, if MS missteps and blows IE's lead over Firefox, then, whatever OS can run Firefox is suddenly a potential operating system rival, and from there, development tool chain, and, after that, everything else.
Sitting there, babbling about freedom and openness, whilst we earn a living conspire to devise ever more ways of ensuring that people are less free and information is less open.
Troll -5, Fraud, to all of us on./, for making possible the very enslavement we claim to despise.
The simplest answer is this: The party volunteers don't get to leave until they agree on the counts
And what if they never agree? Dispute resolution procedures open up the election to judges again, don't they?
I'd just sit there and never agree. Bottom line is, regardless of your procedure, there's going to be a decider, that implements it, which really, just brings you back to the idea of having a single counter, and your idea actually takes the election out of the people's hands altogether. To see this, just follow this process:
a) my political party has a semidominant role in state politics. b) my political party gets to be in charge of who the "electoral dispute" process is. c) my political party sends its guy to to be a counter. d) my political party's guy never agrees with the tally, bouncing the election to the dispute resolution process that my political party devised in part b.
Really, this happens everywhere in the country, and Dems are famously good at it for cities. Bottom line is, if you want the best democracy, you have to firmly trust the people, and that means, a single human counter, and that's that. no recounts, no challenges, no nothing.
Let the events in Russia be a lesson to those left wingers that would have the federal government impose socialism, and to those right wingers who would have the federal government impose religion.
Every federal law has to be viewed as a potential for enslavement, another excuse for a would be dictator to trounce freedom. Those who are afraid of the government while Bush is in office, or if Hillary or Obama were elected, need to really ask, why do we have to have a government that -anyone- is afraid of.
The best federal government is the one where it doesn't matter which political party runs it.
The US has around 5.8% of the world's population right now. You are SERIOUSLY considering that by 2100 it will have ballooned to 12.5% percent???
Sure. Think about it. You have a continent that is largely unpopulated, and a lot other places are more crowded, and thus people move to it. People like to spread out, and the USA has a lot of room. Why should Asia have 6 billion people while North America only has 1/10th of that?
Saddam admitted he was going to build nuclear weapons as soon as the sanction were lifted.
+ No realistic plan at all to rebuild Iraq
Iraqis have to rebuild their own country.
+ More Iraqi deaths since occupation than under Saddam + Kurdish terrorists now attacking Turkey
Iraqis killed each other, not a US problem.
+ The creation of huge Iraq sized terrorist training camp + American and UK forces too tied up in Iraq to effectively deal with problems in Afghanistan
There are no significant UK forces in Iraq.
+ American troops seen as evil due to their behaviour running various prisons
The only people that need to fear American troops are the enemies of the United States.
+ Trillions of dollars wasted to no good effect + Thousands of American deaths and countless more severely injured
More American soldiers were killed in peacetime in 1980-1982 than were killed in combat in Iraq over the last few years.
+ Iraq poised for a civil war the second the US pulls out
Iraq will not have a civil war. They had the civil war, it is ending, thanks to American mediation, and Iraq will emerge a real country.
+ Iran and other enemies of freedom reaping the benefits of an overstretched US military
Then why wait to bomb Iran? You keep talking about Iran this and Iran that? We don't need to invade Iran to destroy it!
+ Constantly rising oil prices
Really, at the same time, Democrats actually proposed a tax -INCREASE- on gasoline to save the planet. You sound like a two year old bitching about everything, with no real vision or plan.
Despite all of the left wing hand wringing, whining, and treason,
THE USA IS WINNING AND IS GOING TO WIN THE WAR IN IRAQ.
Dunno how this got modded to insightful but the idea that there will ever be even 400,000 Americans is ludicrous. The population growth rate of the US is not growing, it is SHRINKING. Same with the rest of the world. The parent seems to be living back in the 70's with his "dire predictions" of overpopulation.
Ah, I merely cited figures by the Census Deparatment, you know, those guys that count people. They have the USA at 1.25 billion people in the year 2100, in their "fast population growth" scenario, which, as I've pointed out, we have already exceeded.
Dude, you aren't factoring in immigrants and their children. The first wave comes in, gets American rich, has a ton of kids.
I dont really think it's a win/lose situation though
That's a good point. It's the sort of a race that everyone wins. If the USA and China get locked into a race to see who builds the most stuff for the best price, humanity will benefit. I mean, seriously, the last time superpowers got into a pissing match, we wound up with men on the moon and the technological and managerial basis for the information revolution.
no I'm not an economist, but I like fine the fact that we can import clothes, games consoles and so on from other countries rather than have to do everything ourselves
I think, at some point, a nation needs to be self sufficient and rely on its people, and the world might be richer if it offered more regional solutions. Do you seriously think that there is not someone in the UK capable of developing a video game console? Do you believe that someone in the UK could not make clothes? I mean, the UK may not have a huge population, but with 60 million people and no automation, the UK could build planes, trains, cars, and clothes, and now, with more automation, suddenly the UK doesn't build any of it? It doesn't make any sense! Look at how much richer the airline and automotive sectors where when the British made planes and the Jaguar was genuinely a British thing.
I mean, free trade is all well and good, but every discerning American mother and father knows that Thomas the Tank Engine was damaged when it went global and watered down and became Thomas and Friends. The Britishness of the original Thomas the Tank Engine was part of its appeal, and now it is gone. For Christ sakes, they renamed the "Fat Controller" to "Sir Topham Hat", because, it offends some American familes, that are fat... so they watered it down, and even worse, they replaced Ringo Starr with George Carlin. Ringo == Beatles, hello, American Thomas distributors...
Also the UK has a tiny population compared to the US
The UK has one of the top 5 world economies, so, um, its not a bad spot for you to be in. But the UK (as does the USA), benefits enormously from NATO's control of the world's shipping lanes. Imagine, if you will, a darker age where every container ship that sailed had to pay some sort of a horrific tax to pirate nations, if at all.
So it's going to take you a century to catch up with China and India? What's going to happen to your economy in the meantime?
Really simply, an economy is a geometric area - of productivity * population. The USA has a huge lead in per capita productivity, but is behind in population. So, as our lead in the former decreases due to Chinese and Indian modernization, our population increases, keeping the overall area on top.
*shrug* Why do you have to try to convince yourself that America is always 'winning'?
Because, I've convinced myself that losing always 'sucks'.
China and India? You're setting the bar pretty low there, slim. Instead of measuring your dick against developing third-world nations, you should note that the EU has overtaken the USA as the largest economy in the world and is currently attracting all the big investments away from the USA
The EU economy has depopulation and a weak dollar working against it.
Slashdot Mirror
(a parody of his famous 197x letter to people copying MS Basic)...
Hey you people!
Stop ripping off my cells! It's our intellectual property, copyright law applies, and we will sue the hell out of you!
And 'we' do not call our sun, 'the sun,' except in English.
By the way, the naming convention of "first in class" is also used in shipbuilding. There is a USS Nimitz, and, then, there is a Nimitz class carrier. The British came up with the first in class naval tradition and we copied it. For example, during World War II, they had the King George V, and the King George V class battleship.
So, to call the Sun a sun and the Moon the moon is entirely accurate and consistent with the human tradition. Certainly, if a bunch of drunken sailors can handle these names, and have for hundreds of years, would it be so difficult for astronomers to pick it up!
And we'll just call you 'person' rather than calling you by your name. A sun is a type of thing, Sol is the name of the sun that happens to be closes to us. In any language used by creatures living on planets, there will be a word for 'sun.' But 'Sol' will still be unique. When we have colonies on Mars, what will the people living there be referring to when they say, "The moon has just risen?"
The name of the Sun is, in fact, "The Sun". The name of the Moon, is, "The Moon". The name of somebody else's sun is the name the star, like "Rigel", or "Sirius".
No, on Mars, they would say, "Deimos and Phobos" have risen, and on Earth, they will say, the "Moon" has risen.
Sorry, but, I see no reason to budge on an obvious name that has worked pretty darned well, just to make a few astronomers happy about a consistent naming convention. Besides, Luna is practically Latin for Moon anyway, so what's the difference?
Sol and Luna are absolutely stupid.
You'd better check that behavior. If you ever kicked a dent in my door while I was driving, I'd smear your silly bike into a big red slip without even a second thought, buddy, and I'd like it. "Some crazy guy was kicking my car, so I just bumped him off the road...."
People riding bikes are the most annoying things on the road. Gas taxes pay for roads, not bikers, so you have absolutely no right to be there!
Or maybe less parochial? If there are any inhabitants of planets circling nearby suns, I imagine they'd object to our referring to our sun as the sun.
It's silly that they do that. We call our Sun, the Sun, and our moon, the Moon. It's simple and its accurate. If the inhabitants of other planets on other stars call their suns something, they could call it whatever they want, and I highly doubt they speak English... We might have to call Rigel "blahtak", or something.
Seriously, does any one in the United Kingdom want to have a law on the books which would have a European Country admit that its citizens do not have the same basic freedoms as George Bush's United States of America.
In the United States, you could never be compelled to turn over an encryption key as that is a violation of the 5th amendment, and probably the 4th, for that matter.
I think she should apply for asylum in the USA?
What kind of bar or street contains only data, which is only scarce if someone actually does lock it up?
People will go to these sites, put in as little as possible to hang out, play roles and then move on to the next place after a few months. Ergo, any social networking facility there is ought to be client side, and built into the browser...
People that are into this social networking web site thing miss the point. Trying to say that Facebook or any other social site has some sort of a lock in is like saying the bar down the street has a lock in. People go to these places to hang out, and when it starts to suck, they outgrow, or just get bored, they go somewhere else.
The EU is growing....we just absorb more countries
There's not much left to absorb, unless you plan on making Russia and Turkey members of the EU.. those are your border states, are they not? After Turkey, what's next, Iraq? Somehow, I'm not seeing Iraqis making a big jump into bed with a people whose armies fled the field as soon as they could. Love us or hate us, America at least sends a message that it will commit to a partnership.
And of course, you are overlooking the obvious, that, the United States and the EU could merge into a single trading block... sorta make NATO into a trading and foreign policy alliance along with the military alliance.
plentiful cheaper alternatives existed.
But, really, the only reason we don't have space based solar power already is because it would devalue fuel and energy and destroy every power structure on earth that relies on it, and that's a tough sell politically. Capitalism relies on scarcity to keep everyone obedient.
Well, no. Somebody has to come up with the trillions of dollars to build the thing. I'm sure if you could get a little array up in space for a few billion dollars, and could get a return on the investment, somebody would invest in it. Capitalism doesn't care about obedience, it only cares about money.
it. The very idea that the success of a country is dictated solely by it's culture (language, traditions, etc) is so bigotted I'm at a loss for words. You are, frankly, a blind, ignorant, xenophobic, close-minded ass, and are an excellent example of the types of Americans many abroad, myself included, have come to despise.
Well, obviously you must be an American abroad because you were too lazy to cut it at home, so, we'll take your supposedly enlightened attitude and serve that up with a plate of insecure self righteousness, while the rest of real Americans go smoke a bowl and watch John Wayne kick some ass.
We want freedom for the users to make their systems obey them, and allow them to study and modify it to suit their needs.
That's all very noble sounding but its not at all the truth.
No we don't. We want to impress our corporate masters with all of these shiny reports showing how much we know about everyone is on the system, trying to candy up our asses in the name of safety. We're no different from the people pushing camcorders in grocery stores. Security is a protection racket industry... "buy from us, before some hacker/muslim/bigfoot, gets you..." And really, it seems to me that the climate of fear that we are imposing on IT far and away outweighs the perceived benefit, just as it does, whenever security becomes an industry by itself.
I guarantee that there is not a single developer on this board that has not written a security / tracking system for some product, somewhere, and not marveled at the possibilities of all that information they collect.
Google's support of Firefox helps the company strategically hedge its bets against Microsoft. If Google had to write a browser from scratch, they could do it, but, it would raise up too many weird signals. However, if Google supports Firefox, and gradually gets its arms around it, they get a browser that is free, a strategic stake in controlling something that can help their business. All the way around its just a smart move for them.
Microsoft owns IE, and would love to screw Google up - imagine the patch to IE that breaks Google... and yet works for whatever MS does on line. FireFox is Google's ace-in-the-hole. If a Windows upgrade comes out and that breaks Google, they tell the users that like Google to just switch browsers, and it will all be ok, and suddenly, Microsoft would be facing a very problem of having its Windows franchise kicked off the internet.
Gates and Co were right about one thing when they set out to destroy Netscape - whoever owns the browser owns the desktop, and, if MS missteps and blows IE's lead over Firefox, then, whatever OS can run Firefox is suddenly a potential operating system rival, and from there, development tool chain, and, after that, everything else.
Sitting there, babbling about freedom and openness, whilst we earn a living conspire to devise ever more ways of ensuring that people are less free and information is less open.
./, for making possible the very enslavement we claim to despise.
Troll -5, Fraud, to all of us on
The simplest answer is this: The party volunteers don't get to leave until they agree on the counts
And what if they never agree? Dispute resolution procedures open up the election to judges again, don't they?
I'd just sit there and never agree. Bottom line is, regardless of your procedure, there's going to be a decider, that implements it, which really, just brings you back to the idea of having a single counter, and your idea actually takes the election out of the people's hands altogether. To see this, just follow this process:
a) my political party has a semidominant role in state politics.
b) my political party gets to be in charge of who the "electoral dispute" process is.
c) my political party sends its guy to to be a counter.
d) my political party's guy never agrees with the tally, bouncing the election to the dispute resolution process that my political party devised in part b.
Really, this happens everywhere in the country, and Dems are famously good at it for cities. Bottom line is, if you want the best democracy, you have to firmly trust the people, and that means, a single human counter, and that's that. no recounts, no challenges, no nothing.
Let the events in Russia be a lesson to those left wingers that would have the federal government impose socialism, and to those right wingers who would have the federal government impose religion.
Every federal law has to be viewed as a potential for enslavement, another excuse for a would be dictator to trounce freedom. Those who are afraid of the government while Bush is in office, or if Hillary or Obama were elected, need to really ask, why do we have to have a government that -anyone- is afraid of.
The best federal government is the one where it doesn't matter which political party runs it.
The US has around 5.8% of the world's population right now. You are SERIOUSLY considering that by 2100 it will have ballooned to 12.5% percent???
Sure. Think about it. You have a continent that is largely unpopulated, and a lot other places are more crowded, and thus people move to it. People like to spread out, and the USA has a lot of room. Why should Asia have 6 billion people while North America only has 1/10th of that?
You sound like those people trying to prove validity of Bible using some passages from Bible
In politics, everyone does.
I don't think we have the landmass to supply food for 500 million extra American's:
We might have to invade Canada, or, better still, foment Quebec separtism and break the country up, and grab the pieces.
No weapons of Mass Destruction ever found
Saddam admitted he was going to build nuclear weapons as soon as the sanction were lifted.
+ No realistic plan at all to rebuild Iraq
Iraqis have to rebuild their own country.
+ More Iraqi deaths since occupation than under Saddam
+ Kurdish terrorists now attacking Turkey
Iraqis killed each other, not a US problem.
+ The creation of huge Iraq sized terrorist training camp
+ American and UK forces too tied up in Iraq to effectively deal with problems in Afghanistan
There are no significant UK forces in Iraq.
+ American troops seen as evil due to their behaviour running various prisons
The only people that need to fear American troops are the enemies of the United States.
+ Trillions of dollars wasted to no good effect
+ Thousands of American deaths and countless more severely injured
More American soldiers were killed in peacetime in 1980-1982 than were killed in combat in Iraq over the last few years.
+ Iraq poised for a civil war the second the US pulls out
Iraq will not have a civil war. They had the civil war, it is ending, thanks to American mediation, and Iraq will emerge a real country.
+ Iran and other enemies of freedom reaping the benefits of an overstretched US military
Then why wait to bomb Iran? You keep talking about Iran this and Iran that? We don't need to invade Iran to destroy it!
+ Constantly rising oil prices
Really, at the same time, Democrats actually proposed a tax -INCREASE- on gasoline to save the planet. You sound like a two year old bitching about everything, with no real vision or plan.
Despite all of the left wing hand wringing, whining, and treason,
THE USA IS WINNING AND IS GOING TO WIN THE WAR IN IRAQ.
Dunno how this got modded to insightful but the idea that there will ever be even 400,000 Americans is ludicrous. The population growth rate of the US is not growing, it is SHRINKING. Same with the rest of the world. The parent seems to be living back in the 70's with his "dire predictions" of overpopulation.
Ah, I merely cited figures by the Census Deparatment, you know, those guys that count people. They have the USA at 1.25 billion people in the year 2100, in their "fast population growth" scenario, which, as I've pointed out, we have already exceeded.
Dude, you aren't factoring in immigrants and their children. The first wave comes in, gets American rich, has a ton of kids.
you would've opposed the Sons of Liberty during the American Revolution
Um, I believe the Declaration of Independent had its signers
So, what's your real name, or should we just call you -pussy-.
I dont really think it's a win/lose situation though
That's a good point. It's the sort of a race that everyone wins. If the USA and China get locked into a race to see who builds the most stuff for the best price, humanity will benefit. I mean, seriously, the last time superpowers got into a pissing match, we wound up with men on the moon and the technological and managerial basis for the information revolution.
no I'm not an economist, but I like fine the fact that we can import clothes, games consoles and so on from other countries rather than have to do everything ourselves
I think, at some point, a nation needs to be self sufficient and rely on its people, and the world might be richer if it offered more regional solutions. Do you seriously think that there is not someone in the UK capable of developing a video game console? Do you believe that someone in the UK could not make clothes? I mean, the UK may not have a huge population, but with 60 million people and no automation, the UK could build planes, trains, cars, and clothes, and now, with more automation, suddenly the UK doesn't build any of it? It doesn't make any sense! Look at how much richer the airline and automotive sectors where when the British made planes and the Jaguar was genuinely a British thing.
I mean, free trade is all well and good, but every discerning American mother and father knows that Thomas the Tank Engine was damaged when it went global and watered down and became Thomas and Friends. The Britishness of the original Thomas the Tank Engine was part of its appeal, and now it is gone. For Christ sakes, they renamed the "Fat Controller" to "Sir Topham Hat", because, it offends some American familes, that are fat... so they watered it down, and even worse, they replaced Ringo Starr with George Carlin. Ringo == Beatles, hello, American Thomas distributors...
Also the UK has a tiny population compared to the US
The UK has one of the top 5 world economies, so, um, its not a bad spot for you to be in. But the UK (as does the USA), benefits enormously from NATO's control of the world's shipping lanes. Imagine, if you will, a darker age where every container ship that sailed had to pay some sort of a horrific tax to pirate nations, if at all.
So it's going to take you a century to catch up with China and India? What's going to happen to your economy in the meantime?
Really simply, an economy is a geometric area - of productivity * population. The USA has a huge lead in per capita productivity, but is behind in population. So, as our lead in the former decreases due to Chinese and Indian modernization, our population increases, keeping the overall area on top.
*shrug* Why do you have to try to convince yourself that America is always 'winning'?
Because, I've convinced myself that losing always 'sucks'.
China and India? You're setting the bar pretty low there, slim. Instead of measuring your dick against developing third-world nations, you should note that the EU has overtaken the USA as the largest economy in the world and is currently attracting all the big investments away from the USA
The EU economy has depopulation and a weak dollar working against it.