Or at least they would be if there weren't so goddam many taxes on them. Cigarettes would be dirt cheap too and probably better if they weren't unpopular with white people this decade.
I yearn for some alternative universe where your cheap, delicious coffee is no longer a popular drug, and the government is making more tax money off of it than the coffee companies, and nobody is allowed to advertise coffee on TV, or put coffee-drinking scenes in movies or cartoons, and coffee cans come with warnings about heart disease plastered on the package, and all the good coffee is forced out of the market, and the only thing left is shit mass-market coffee for the extreme addicts willing to pay high prices for it.
But that won't happen any time soon because this decade, tobacco is out, and coffee is in big time.
I use my own common sense practices. The thing is most of the stuff I work on at home is downright harmless (low voltage DC, simple photochemicals) compared to what I use at work (hydroflouric acid, high-voltage ac and RF)
Even if science isn't illegal by itself, good luck not getting arrested for buying lab glassware, which is illegal in TX (you might make a meth lab), and good luck getting any chemical companies to sell you anything but table salt unless your a big company (sodium sulfite is so dangerous afterall), and good luck not having the BATF break down your door and shoot your children and dog because you violated some obscure bullshit 'manufacturing a weapon/bomb/scary looking thing that we don't know what it is/flyswatter' law.
I have tons of lab glassware, scary sounding chemicals like potassium ferricyanide and benzotriazole, lots of white powder and digital scales to measure them, high powered power supplies, RF and electronics equipment, lasers, casks of gunpowder and stockpiles of lead and bullets, and more stuff that would make for damn fine TV on the evening news--"Potential terrorist killed in struggle with police--an arsenal of weapons, dangerous chemicals that could be used for chemical weapons, bomb making materials, and communications equipment for communicating with terrorists across the globe were siezed....
My hobbies are photography, shooting/reloading, robotics, and radio.
It's a dangerous world for people that do anything interesting or innovative. In complete seriousness, be careful.
I have heard this issue raised regarding reports of the health of the economy. Retail sales are shown to be up, but only because stores that go out of business are dropped from the counting. If there were still there counting as big fat goose eggs the average would show that the economy is in fact contracting.
Read "markets and minorities", a great book that argues that slavery in the United States was not economically necessary or even desirable, but merely enriched one class of people (rich white plantation owners). The author argues that the economy of the South would have been much better off had all the slaves been freed to tackle the free market on their own.
It doesn't really matter. They will buy photoshop and diss Gimp as long as they THINK it's an important feature, regardless of whether it actually is at all.
It's one of the great differences between proprietary software and open source software. If Gimp is indeed still 8 bit, it may be because the developers have found that that 16 bit color is not a great advantage to image editing. Meanwhile Adobe has found that 16 bit color is a great advantage to selling copies of photoshop.
Most of the professionals and 'prosumer' types I've talked to about the Gimp dismiss it instantly because it can only do 8-bit color, or something of the sort.
I haven't really payed much attention to Japan's space program in the past...heck I didn't really know they had a space program. But they recently landed a probe on an asteroid, and returned it to earth with asteroid rocks. When I read that it was like, "Oh. Japan has a space program, and they actually did something scientifically interesting". It seems like space programs are all about bitching about government funding and endlessly redesigning ancient rocket designs and speculating about manned missions to other planets, and meanwhile Japan went to an asteroid and brought back rocks. So when they say they are going to make this solar sail thing, I believe that they are going to make this solar sail thing.
I never made any such claims. I suppose if you can afford 14,000 on a piece of gear that is going to last at most a few years before its obsolete, just so that you can avoid shooting film like people (including NASA and the Apollo astronauts) managed to do for 125 years or so, go for it. I'm sure there are working professionals that can afford to do so.
TFA implies that this miraculous invention 'allows' you to use these old cameras from "Last century". Like they stopped working when the CCD was invented. Nothing is stopping anyone from using them the way they have been used since 1955. You don't have to spend 14k to get a 40 megapixel hasselblad. Shoot film in them like they were made to do, scan the film, and then you can do everything else you can do with digital imaging. Photoshop away.
If people weren't so allergic to tech that still works after a few decades, maybe these old cameras wouldn't be sitting around in closets so much. It's as if actually loading a roll of film in a classic camera reduces your l33tness cred or something, and now, for only $14,000, you can use your Hasselblad without having to ask your lab to send orders in unmarked boxes so that you don't have to face the embarrasment of the mailman finding out that you are ordering Ektachrome through the mail.
Film. You know, that cellulose acetate image capture and storage medium that uses silver halides? You might remember it from "last century".
Why not just shoot a $4 roll of film, and scan it on a $200 flatbed scanner at a mere 2400DPI for a fat 30 megapixel image, plus you have an in-camera archival backup slide, which can later be drum-scanned at an even higher resolution if needed?
Cameras as well. Any decent wood shop could make a bellows-camera given some leather, wood and glass. A smart watchmaker could probably keep repairing mechanical pre-1950s small-format cameras like early Leicas forever. But the electro-mechanical cameras from the 70s-90s are in this awkward stage as well. Nobody makes them anymore or shows any sign of starting. When one breaks, the only solution is to cannibalize another one for the circuit boards and proprietary parts. So you have a situation where very old film cameras will last forever and be fixable, or you can use a new digital camera, but if you happen to be a fan of the very very nice film cameras that were made in the 70s and 80s, the supply is dwindling and when it's gone, there will literally be nothing that can be done. It's economically impossible to make the parts for them ever again.
I'm not sure how seriously to take your post, but the Bible does teach, to some extent, that not all knowledge is desirable and that attempting to gain and sequester knowledge should not be the ultimate goal of life. This is a value that sometimes clashes with modern science-worshiping societies in which it's unthinkable that ignorance (or if you prefer, religious words for the same thing like "purity") could ever be a virtue. The Bible teaches that there are some things of which it is better to purposely remain ignorant (we all know that what has been seen cannot be unseen) and it is folly to attempt to seek satisfaction in gaining ultimate knowledge or to attempt to gain true understanding of the world, which is impossible for mortal man. From this perspective, it is not outrageous that some people think they (and others) should remain ignorant of certain aspects of sexuality...we all have our limits as to what we do not desire to see, or wish we could unsee. The line is just drawn in different places and a tolerant, open minded person would not look down on someone whose line falls differently than his.
The Grief of Wisdom I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven; this burdensome task God has given to the sons of man, by which they may be exercised. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
What is crooked cannot be made straight,
And what is lacking cannot be numbered.
I communed with my heart, saying, "Look, I have attained greatness, and have gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge." And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind.
For in much wisdom is much grief,
And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
Ecclesiastes 1
As light excels darkness.
14 The wise man’s eyes are in his head,
But the fool walks in darkness.
Yet I myself perceived
That the same event happens to them all.
15 So I said in my heart,
"As it happens to the fool,
It also happens to me,
And why was I then more wise?"
Then I said in my heart,
" This also is vanity"
16 For there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever,
Since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come.
And how does a wise man die?
As the fool!
17 Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
World maps from games like FFVI are clearly 2D toruses.
The world map is represented by a rectangular field. If you head north long enough, at any 'longitude', you wrap back around to the same longitude on the south edge of the map, so it's like the world map was wrapped in a tube so that the north edge meets the south edge. However, if you travel west long enough you eventually re-appear at the east end of the map at the same 'latitude' so clearly the two open ends of the tube are wrapped around again to join each other. Thus, the FFVI world map is actually a 2D torus.
I believe the article...food is very addictive. I try and try, but still I keep coming back for food. It's a very persistent addiction. When I try to quit, I get cravings that manifest themselves as dizzyness and gnawing pain in my abdomen. Seemingly the only way to stop the torment is to cave in and eat food. Water is difficult too; I try to tell myself that I don't need it and don't want it anymore but when I finally cave and have a drink of water it feels so refreshing going down that it's like ecstasy. It's that satiated, comfortable and full feeling that keeps me crawling back to the Brita pitcher. But an addiction even worse than food or drink is sleep. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to kick the habit. I always seem to doze off eventually, craving the sweet solitude of REM and the rested afterglow. I have a long way to go but one day hope to be addiction-free.
Most fire departments are local. You will find many that oppose the health care object to the fact that's being done federally and outside the constitutional authority of the federal government. Notice that some places (MA if I remember) already had their own health care policies in place. I would expect people to oppose an attempt to regulate and replace fire departments with a federal, one-size-fits-all solution as well.
If the reports I have heard are true, and 38 states have this kind of legal challenge in the works, then there is theoretically enough support to call a constitutional Convention over this thing.
Because there are practically no penalties in place to prevent it. Our "lawmakers" can introduce any bills they want and vote however they want and there is no risk. They could introduce a bill to kill all male firstborn children, and face no consequences whatsoever other than the bill possibly not getting passed. There needs to be more consequences for delinquent lawmakers (and that's about the whole bunch of them). I remember reading about somewhere in south america where they impeached someone for even suggesting a government pay raise. Even suggesting that was ILLEGAL in the country and the police removed him from office. I'd like to see a law like that enacted to apply to the proposal of any law that is unconstitutional (which would be about all of them).
Slashdot Mirror
As as smoker, I AM regularly stigmatized for something I love.
Or at least they would be if there weren't so goddam many taxes on them. Cigarettes would be dirt cheap too and probably better if they weren't unpopular with white people this decade.
I yearn for some alternative universe where your cheap, delicious coffee is no longer a popular drug, and the government is making more tax money off of it than the coffee companies, and nobody is allowed to advertise coffee on TV, or put coffee-drinking scenes in movies or cartoons, and coffee cans come with warnings about heart disease plastered on the package, and all the good coffee is forced out of the market, and the only thing left is shit mass-market coffee for the extreme addicts willing to pay high prices for it.
But that won't happen any time soon because this decade, tobacco is out, and coffee is in big time.
I use my own common sense practices. The thing is most of the stuff I work on at home is downright harmless (low voltage DC, simple photochemicals) compared to what I use at work (hydroflouric acid, high-voltage ac and RF)
Even if science isn't illegal by itself, good luck not getting arrested for buying lab glassware, which is illegal in TX (you might make a meth lab), and good luck getting any chemical companies to sell you anything but table salt unless your a big company (sodium sulfite is so dangerous afterall), and good luck not having the BATF break down your door and shoot your children and dog because you violated some obscure bullshit 'manufacturing a weapon/bomb/scary looking thing that we don't know what it is/flyswatter' law.
I have tons of lab glassware, scary sounding chemicals like potassium ferricyanide and benzotriazole, lots of white powder and digital scales to measure them, high powered power supplies, RF and electronics equipment, lasers, casks of gunpowder and stockpiles of lead and bullets, and more stuff that would make for damn fine TV on the evening news--"Potential terrorist killed in struggle with police--an arsenal of weapons, dangerous chemicals that could be used for chemical weapons, bomb making materials, and communications equipment for communicating with terrorists across the globe were siezed....
My hobbies are photography, shooting/reloading, robotics, and radio.
It's a dangerous world for people that do anything interesting or innovative. In complete seriousness, be careful.
I have heard this issue raised regarding reports of the health of the economy. Retail sales are shown to be up, but only because stores that go out of business are dropped from the counting. If there were still there counting as big fat goose eggs the average would show that the economy is in fact contracting.
http://xkcd.com/651/
Read "markets and minorities", a great book that argues that slavery in the United States was not economically necessary or even desirable, but merely enriched one class of people (rich white plantation owners). The author argues that the economy of the South would have been much better off had all the slaves been freed to tackle the free market on their own.
It doesn't really matter. They will buy photoshop and diss Gimp as long as they THINK it's an important feature, regardless of whether it actually is at all.
It's one of the great differences between proprietary software and open source software. If Gimp is indeed still 8 bit, it may be because the developers have found that that 16 bit color is not a great advantage to image editing. Meanwhile Adobe has found that 16 bit color is a great advantage to selling copies of photoshop.
Most of the professionals and 'prosumer' types I've talked to about the Gimp dismiss it instantly because it can only do 8-bit color, or something of the sort.
I haven't really payed much attention to Japan's space program in the past...heck I didn't really know they had a space program. But they recently landed a probe on an asteroid, and returned it to earth with asteroid rocks. When I read that it was like, "Oh. Japan has a space program, and they actually did something scientifically interesting". It seems like space programs are all about bitching about government funding and endlessly redesigning ancient rocket designs and speculating about manned missions to other planets, and meanwhile Japan went to an asteroid and brought back rocks. So when they say they are going to make this solar sail thing, I believe that they are going to make this solar sail thing.
For those that are still having a hard time understanding, look at the first picture on this page, with caption.
"... This is every shooting control, every custom function, every remote-control and every menu option there is on a LEICA M6 "
The photo says it all.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/simplicity.htm
I never made any such claims. I suppose if you can afford 14,000 on a piece of gear that is going to last at most a few years before its obsolete, just so that you can avoid shooting film like people (including NASA and the Apollo astronauts) managed to do for 125 years or so, go for it. I'm sure there are working professionals that can afford to do so.
TFA implies that this miraculous invention 'allows' you to use these old cameras from "Last century". Like they stopped working when the CCD was invented. Nothing is stopping anyone from using them the way they have been used since 1955. You don't have to spend 14k to get a 40 megapixel hasselblad. Shoot film in them like they were made to do, scan the film, and then you can do everything else you can do with digital imaging. Photoshop away.
If people weren't so allergic to tech that still works after a few decades, maybe these old cameras wouldn't be sitting around in closets so much. It's as if actually loading a roll of film in a classic camera reduces your l33tness cred or something, and now, for only $14,000, you can use your Hasselblad without having to ask your lab to send orders in unmarked boxes so that you don't have to face the embarrasment of the mailman finding out that you are ordering Ektachrome through the mail.
http://freestylephoto.biz/83140981-Kodak-Ektar-100-iso-120-size-Single-Roll-Unboxed
$4.09 for name-brand film that happens to be one of the highest resolution and finest-grain color negative films available.
Film. You know, that cellulose acetate image capture and storage medium that uses silver halides? You might remember it from "last century".
Why not just shoot a $4 roll of film, and scan it on a $200 flatbed scanner at a mere 2400DPI for a fat 30 megapixel image, plus you have an in-camera archival backup slide, which can later be drum-scanned at an even higher resolution if needed?
And you don't even need batteries.
Cameras as well. Any decent wood shop could make a bellows-camera given some leather, wood and glass. A smart watchmaker could probably keep repairing mechanical pre-1950s small-format cameras like early Leicas forever. But the electro-mechanical cameras from the 70s-90s are in this awkward stage as well. Nobody makes them anymore or shows any sign of starting. When one breaks, the only solution is to cannibalize another one for the circuit boards and proprietary parts. So you have a situation where very old film cameras will last forever and be fixable, or you can use a new digital camera, but if you happen to be a fan of the very very nice film cameras that were made in the 70s and 80s, the supply is dwindling and when it's gone, there will literally be nothing that can be done. It's economically impossible to make the parts for them ever again.
"If he had been caught, he would have just split a portion of the profits with their government."
Isn't that what we do in the US when the government fines companies for infractions?
私のホーバークラフトは、鰻でいっぱいです。
... like the body or the subject!)"
Does slashdot not like Japanese?
"Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment
I'm not sure how seriously to take your post, but the Bible does teach, to some extent, that not all knowledge is desirable and that attempting to gain and sequester knowledge should not be the ultimate goal of life. This is a value that sometimes clashes with modern science-worshiping societies in which it's unthinkable that ignorance (or if you prefer, religious words for the same thing like "purity") could ever be a virtue. The Bible teaches that there are some things of which it is better to purposely remain ignorant (we all know that what has been seen cannot be unseen) and it is folly to attempt to seek satisfaction in gaining ultimate knowledge or to attempt to gain true understanding of the world, which is impossible for mortal man. From this perspective, it is not outrageous that some people think they (and others) should remain ignorant of certain aspects of sexuality...we all have our limits as to what we do not desire to see, or wish we could unsee. The line is just drawn in different places and a tolerant, open minded person would not look down on someone whose line falls differently than his.
The Grief of Wisdom
I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven; this burdensome task God has given to the sons of man, by which they may be exercised. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
What is crooked cannot be made straight,
And what is lacking cannot be numbered.
I communed with my heart, saying, "Look, I have attained greatness, and have gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge." And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind.
For in much wisdom is much grief,
And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
Ecclesiastes 1
As light excels darkness.
14 The wise man’s eyes are in his head,
But the fool walks in darkness.
Yet I myself perceived
That the same event happens to them all.
15 So I said in my heart,
"As it happens to the fool,
It also happens to me,
And why was I then more wise?"
Then I said in my heart,
" This also is vanity"
16 For there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever,
Since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come.
And how does a wise man die?
As the fool!
17 Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
Ecclesiastes 2
They already invented this device millions of years ago. It's called a wife.
World maps from games like FFVI are clearly 2D toruses.
The world map is represented by a rectangular field. If you head north long enough, at any 'longitude', you wrap back around to the same longitude on the south edge of the map, so it's like the world map was wrapped in a tube so that the north edge meets the south edge. However, if you travel west long enough you eventually re-appear at the east end of the map at the same 'latitude' so clearly the two open ends of the tube are wrapped around again to join each other. Thus, the FFVI world map is actually a 2D torus.
I believe the article...food is very addictive. I try and try, but still I keep coming back for food. It's a very persistent addiction. When I try to quit, I get cravings that manifest themselves as dizzyness and gnawing pain in my abdomen. Seemingly the only way to stop the torment is to cave in and eat food. Water is difficult too; I try to tell myself that I don't need it and don't want it anymore but when I finally cave and have a drink of water it feels so refreshing going down that it's like ecstasy. It's that satiated, comfortable and full feeling that keeps me crawling back to the Brita pitcher. But an addiction even worse than food or drink is sleep. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to kick the habit. I always seem to doze off eventually, craving the sweet solitude of REM and the rested afterglow. I have a long way to go but one day hope to be addiction-free.
I'd like to be able to see magic. I hear it's sort of a purplish color.
Most fire departments are local. You will find many that oppose the health care object to the fact that's being done federally and outside the constitutional authority of the federal government. Notice that some places (MA if I remember) already had their own health care policies in place. I would expect people to oppose an attempt to regulate and replace fire departments with a federal, one-size-fits-all solution as well.
If the reports I have heard are true, and 38 states have this kind of legal challenge in the works, then there is theoretically enough support to call a constitutional Convention over this thing.
Because there are practically no penalties in place to prevent it. Our "lawmakers" can introduce any bills they want and vote however they want and there is no risk. They could introduce a bill to kill all male firstborn children, and face no consequences whatsoever other than the bill possibly not getting passed. There needs to be more consequences for delinquent lawmakers (and that's about the whole bunch of them). I remember reading about somewhere in south america where they impeached someone for even suggesting a government pay raise. Even suggesting that was ILLEGAL in the country and the police removed him from office. I'd like to see a law like that enacted to apply to the proposal of any law that is unconstitutional (which would be about all of them).