Urban legend. The downward trend in military rifle cartidge power (.30-06 to 7.62NATO to 5.56NATO ) has nothing (or very little) to do with the propensity to kill or wound.
During WWII we found that the standard-issue rifle round (.30-06 at the time) was a lot more powerful than it needed to be. Going into the war, they expected infantrymen to be able to conduct aimed fire out to 600 - 1000 yards, so they adopted a rifle (M-1) and cartidge which was effective at these ranges. However, once they actually looked at real-world performance they found that soldiers were doing very little aimed fire and that most targets more than 250 yards away were engaged with heavy weapons.
In keeping with these findings, they redesigned the primary infantry weapon to have a less powerful cartridge that had full-auto capability to provide suppressive fire vs aimed fire. A smaller cartridge means that an infantryman can carry more rounds for the same weight. This gave us the M-14. The problem with the M-14 was that it was still too powerful for an average soldier to fire it on full auto. So, they went to an even lighter rifle & cartidge and got the M-16.
There are two main problems with all the existing third parties. The first is that they have no credibility, and the second is that there are too many small parties working at cross-purposes.
The small parties need to get together and come up with a MODERATE and REALISTIC platform which they can all tolerate. Three small parties which each get 5% of the vote can be dismissed as the lunatic fringe and accomplish nothing. One medium-sized party which gets 15% of the vote is going to be taken seriously.
Once they unite, the coalition of small parties need to work on building credibility with the establishment. This means starting small -- they need to get people in to the system at the county and state level first, before going for federal offices. They need to have established candidates in the state legislatures before they can try for a seat in the House or a governership; and they need a few seats in the House (if not the Senate) before they try for the Presidency. Doing it this way gives their candidates experience with the system and establishes their credibility. You've got to walk before you can run.
If you run for President without ever having held any elected office, most people are going to regard you as a kook, and rightfully so. Look at Hilary Clinton. She's going to finish at least one term in the Senate before she even thinks about running for president, even though she's probably more electable than Kerry.
Sure it CAN be improved. That is not the issue. The issue is whether or not the entrenched parties will ALLOW the system from which they benefit to be altered.
Having career party hacks vote on election reform is like having 4 wolves and one sheep vote on what's for dinner.
Or possibly Vader knew where Luke was all along... and deliberately let him alone so that the Emperor wouldn't get wind of him and have him killed. Vader saw Luke as an
Vader probably intended to leave Luke on Tatooene until he was old enough to be able to help depose the Emperor. Remember that Vader's obedience to the Emperor was based more on fear than respect & friendship. Offering Luke the opportunity to "rule the galaxy together as father and son" was probably on his agenda all along.
My wife and I did a black tie wedding for under $2500 for over 50 guests. The majority of this was for the caterer -- and the food was excellent. Decorations were all home made, wedding dress was hand-made by my mother-in-law, and the venue was free .
Python might be a nice language and all, but as it's making inroads everywhere it's also wrecking havoc on ones ability to convert older hardware into a competent server.
Tell me about it. While not applicable to SA (which is perl based), you're dead on. My home server is a K6-2/500 with 256M of RAM, and I had to stop running Mailman because it was just sucking up over a third of my RAM for a few low-volume lists. I just created aliases to remail the list traffic and that works almost as well and doesn't use any extra resources.
Dick Chaney, primary proponent of the war, has recieved a minimum of $7 MILLION in personal profit as a direct result of the war.
Where's your proof of this?
Are SEC filings good enough for you? Cheney still holds options which were worth $7.5M when the stock was trading at $15/share in 2000. Halliburtion closed at $32.27 yesterday. You do the math.
Of course that doesn't count the direct CASH payments from Halliburton in excess of a quarter mil he's gotten since taking office, or the $30 Million "retirement bonus" they gave him when he took office.
Do try to remember that the government is our servant, and not our master.
The USA was founded on the theory that government was to to be the servant of the people. Reality, however, diverges from the theory. Nowadays, the Constitution is routinely ignored by the government except when it serves the interest of those in power to invoke it. Sad, but true.
The only way those in power will start to respect the Constitution is if we, the people, demand it. Unfortunately, most people are far to apathetic and self-centered to make a stand. Things will only continue to get worse until the entire system collapses.
You mean W invaded Iraq for no reason, resulting in the needless deaths of over 1000 American soldiers. Let's review the facts:
No weapons of mass destruction have been found. This was the primary justification for going to war and has been proven to be nothing but lies.
No credible link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks has been found. Another lie.
They constantly deny that the situation in Iraq is degenerating into civil war. More lies.
Dick Chaney, primary proponent of the war, has recieved a minimum of $7 MILLION in personal profit as a direct result of the war. The Bush family is one of the primary investors in the Carlisle group, which has also reaped windfall profits as a result of the war. Conflict of interest, anyone?
All of the senior administration officials (with the sole exception of Colin Powell) are chickenhawks -- they go looking for fights but they have proven themselves, to a man, unwilling to put their money where their mouths are and actually serve in combat, despite having had the opportunity to do so.
If GWB believes that the war is so important that Americans need to send their sons & daughters halfway around the world to fight & die, then he should lead by example and encourage those two little drunken sluts of his to enlist and go off to the front lines.
I wear a watch all the time, to the point I feel naked without it. It's not particuarly fancy, but it was a gift and holds sentimental value for me; the only other piece of jewelry I wear is my wedding ring.
Generally, the only time I look at my watch is when I'm worried about missing my train. Commuter rail is a great way to get to work, especially when you have an 80 mile commute each way, but you HAVE to be at the station on time.
An old laptop has nice geek appeal as a mini server, and having a built-in keyboard and monitor saves you from having to run headless or getting a KVM. However, I would worry about the reliability... if it's a file server, you want redundancy, reliability, and an easy way of making backups. Also, even a used laptop is going to have a pretty crummy price/performance ratio.
Pesonally, be more likely to build a basic server out of new components and go for reliability over absolute minimum price or geek chic. I'd build it around a name-brand micro-atx motherboard with on-board RAID-1, video, and ethernet. I'd go for a Socket A because that gives us the best price/performance ratio. Add 256M of memory, the cheapest processor you can find, a pair of hard drives, and a case with a good powersupply and decent airflow, and you are set.
Looking on NewEgg:
Fans: (3) 60MM Vantec temperature-controlled case fans. $33 w/ Shipping
That's a $377 investment, but you've got all new components with manufacturer's warranty (3 years on all the key pieces). It's a little more than a used laptop on EBay, but it's going to be a LOT more reliable in the long run, especially with the hardware RAID.
[I left off a floppy and/or CD-ROM intentionally -- any self-respecting geek should be able to scrounge one up for free -- especially when you consider that you'll only be using it to install the OS anyway.]
Mos Eisley canteen also looks a bit like a bikers bar somewhere along Route-66
Actually, the Mos Eisley canteen scene is almost an exact line-for-line rehash of a similar scene from the Kurosawa film Yojimbo. Yojimbo is probably the most ripped-off movie in history. A Fistful of Dollars, Miller's Crossing, and Last Man Standing are all remakes of this classic.
Asnwer this then: 1/5th the gun deaths in Canada compared to the US
Because there are only 1/9 as many people? (32M vs 294M) If your figure is for total deaths, this means that Canada's PER CAPITA gun death rate is almost TWICE that of the US. What's your point?
Slashdot Mirror
During WWII we found that the standard-issue rifle round (.30-06 at the time) was a lot more powerful than it needed to be. Going into the war, they expected infantrymen to be able to conduct aimed fire out to 600 - 1000 yards, so they adopted a rifle (M-1) and cartidge which was effective at these ranges. However, once they actually looked at real-world performance they found that soldiers were doing very little aimed fire and that most targets more than 250 yards away were engaged with heavy weapons.
In keeping with these findings, they redesigned the primary infantry weapon to have a less powerful cartridge that had full-auto capability to provide suppressive fire vs aimed fire. A smaller cartridge means that an infantryman can carry more rounds for the same weight. This gave us the M-14. The problem with the M-14 was that it was still too powerful for an average soldier to fire it on full auto. So, they went to an even lighter rifle & cartidge and got the M-16.
The small parties need to get together and come up with a MODERATE and REALISTIC platform which they can all tolerate. Three small parties which each get 5% of the vote can be dismissed as the lunatic fringe and accomplish nothing. One medium-sized party which gets 15% of the vote is going to be taken seriously.
Once they unite, the coalition of small parties need to work on building credibility with the establishment. This means starting small -- they need to get people in to the system at the county and state level first, before going for federal offices. They need to have established candidates in the state legislatures before they can try for a seat in the House or a governership; and they need a few seats in the House (if not the Senate) before they try for the Presidency. Doing it this way gives their candidates experience with the system and establishes their credibility. You've got to walk before you can run.
If you run for President without ever having held any elected office, most people are going to regard you as a kook, and rightfully so. Look at Hilary Clinton. She's going to finish at least one term in the Senate before she even thinks about running for president, even though she's probably more electable than Kerry.
Having career party hacks vote on election reform is like having 4 wolves and one sheep vote on what's for dinner.
Vader probably intended to leave Luke on Tatooene until he was old enough to be able to help depose the Emperor. Remember that Vader's obedience to the Emperor was based more on fear than respect & friendship. Offering Luke the opportunity to "rule the galaxy together as father and son" was probably on his agenda all along.
Fatherhood is the ultimate affirmation of your masculinity.
SW, Matrix, and LSF (as well as a whole lot of other books + movies) all follow the classic Campbell formula.
My wife and I did a black tie wedding for under $2500 for over 50 guests. The majority of this was for the caterer -- and the food was excellent. Decorations were all home made, wedding dress was hand-made by my mother-in-law, and the venue was free .
Of course that doesn't count the direct CASH payments from Halliburton in excess of a quarter mil he's gotten since taking office, or the $30 Million "retirement bonus" they gave him when he took office.
The only way those in power will start to respect the Constitution is if we, the people, demand it. Unfortunately, most people are far to apathetic and self-centered to make a stand. Things will only continue to get worse until the entire system collapses.
Generally, the only time I look at my watch is when I'm worried about missing my train. Commuter rail is a great way to get to work, especially when you have an 80 mile commute each way, but you HAVE to be at the station on time.
- Motherboard: (1) MSI KM4M-V. $58 w/ shipping
- CPU: (1) Athlon XP 2000+ Retail Pack w/ Heat Sink. $64 w/ shipping.
- Memory: (1) 256MB Kingston PC-3200. $46 w/ shipping.
- Hard Drives: (2) Hitachi 80M 7200RPM SATA. $134 w/ shipping.
- Case: (1) Powmax Mini-ATX MATX3304-S. $42 w/ Shipping
- Fans: (3) 60MM Vantec temperature-controlled case fans. $33 w/ Shipping
That's a $377 investment, but you've got all new components with manufacturer's warranty (3 years on all the key pieces). It's a little more than a used laptop on EBay, but it's going to be a LOT more reliable in the long run, especially with the hardware RAID.[I left off a floppy and/or CD-ROM intentionally -- any self-respecting geek should be able to scrounge one up for free -- especially when you consider that you'll only be using it to install the OS anyway.]
Star Wars was a rip-off of the Kurosawa film The Hidden Fortress, set in a galaxy far far away instead of Midieval Japan.