George Bush and Oil Industry CEOs - 'Can we have immunity from laws protecting the environment and virgin wilderness in order to increase our profits and control of the energy industry by drilling in Alaskan wilderness and completely ignoring global warming and any other environmental concerns that are too expensive for us to worry about?' - Pending.
IIRC - the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve has nothing at all to do with global warming. Whether they drill there or not doesn't make one bit of difference in the overall global warming picture. All drilling up there is going to do is kill a bunch of endangered (or soon to be endangered) species, which are pretty crucial to the ecosphere up there, which is already on the verge of collapse due to effects of global warming which has already happened. So basically, it doesn't really matter whether they drill up there anyway. Those animals are already living on borrowed time. Pity.
. . . Almost immediately I got tons of letters practically demanding that I be more generous.
This seems to be the MO for all charitable organizations these days. I've given money to many in the past, including Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Doctors w/o Borders, (Men Without Hats?), hell, even the fucking Planetary Society! (to be fair, the L5 society was kind and low-key when I was a member back in the 1980's.) National Wildlife Federation, They ALL started sending me a crapload of unwanted junk mail. I'm almost afraid to start giving to the EFF.
With regard to pictures of kids: I never put pictures of my kids, or my car, or house, or other things - up on the web, where they might be found by a potential pedophile, car thief, arsonist, etc. Sure, I'd like to be able to do this to share these things with my parents, my brother and sister, maybe a close friend, or others who share my car hobby, but there are avenues for sharing information like this which are private.
A web page simply is not, never has been, and never shall be, one of those avenues. While it's certainly pretty convenient to just put stuff on the web and send your friends the link, you HAVE to know that the search engines are out there.
A person I know via another discussion board entered the word "necrofelching" into Google one day, and found three hits, all of which were attributable to him. Lucky he didn't use his real name. Of course the word was used in an insultive capacity, it's not like his hobby or anything. But just hearing that is enough to send shivers to anyone thinking of applying for a job where someone might do a background check.
So what's the solution? Make everyone pay a flat rate? Grrrrreat. That's all I need. I'll have to subsidize people with awful driving records, people who have expensive cars and/or cars that are thieves favorites, people with multiple DUIs, etc.
Hell, lets make all insurance that way. I'll have no problem having my rates jacked up so that a fat, smoking pile of blubber and I pay the same month to month.
In fact, isn't that what insurance is basically all about? spreading risk? If I never ever ever get into an accident, I'm paying too much insurance, right? No, I don't think that flat-rate insurance is the answer, but I do think that the issue of MANDATORY insurance needs to be revisited. (many US states require you to have insurance). Gee, I wish *I* owned a business that provided a "product" that people were *required* by law to purchase. (Don't give me your argument that people can CHOOSE not to drive, that's bullshit and you know it). If I owned such a business, I could charge whatever I wanted, and use fudged statistics to charge certain groups more money than others. Good work, if you can get it.
Idiot. It has nothing to do with communication. And everything to do with Social Dominance. The Human Animal excercises his or her Social Dominance on the highway, because, in a car, they are empowered as they would not be if they were more equalized, standing on a sidewalk, in a crowd. In a crowd, anyone can punch you in the nose if you step on their toes or cut in line. On the road, if you have a faster more nimble car, you can get in front of people, which is the symbolic act of dominance.
It's human nature. Attempts to control these people through heavy-handed legislation and spying devices is going to simply make them desire MORE rebellious behavior - people who lack control in one area of their lives, and crave control, typically will find another area to control to satisfy that craving.
I propose we dismantle all corporations until such time as we develop an AI suitable for administering their functions.
Judging by the behavior of my Win2k machine lately, I don't think AI's could be trusted either. Why not use some hot latin shemales? I get email from those folks all the time. They're VERY hard working. And willing to do what it takes to get the job done.
What if Jenny, in accounting, has a bad back, and purchased, with her own funds, a special ergonomic chair, because you're a cheap bitch and won't provide decent health coverage to pay for such necessities - but anyway, she's on vacation (recovering from back surgery, no medical leave you cheap bitch), and her purchase records are filed in her locked cabinet when your audit is done.
Then you, cheap bitch, will have to pay for her chair all over again. Lucky they don't throw you in jail for having "stolen property". Then you'd get what you deserve for being a cheap bitch.:)
Sure, businesses should pay for software, and I *do* feel that there is something ethically and morally wrong with a software company that does not have some product-level in place to allow economical education in the use of it's products - (ie. "educational discounts" bordering on "free" (beer)).
What about schools? Aren't some school districts (especially in conservative areas) engineered to show a profit on their books? What about private schools? Essentially a "business" who earns it's money by charging tuition. Surely THEY shouldn't be exempt from full-on licensing expenses.
What about non-profits? Should they have to pay for software the same as businesses? What if they're "feeding the poor"? Okay, what if they're a non-profit organization for lobbying government to create laws which aim to increase the profitability of the IP biz? (ie, the BSA).
It's not an easy cut-and-dried thing here. I do think that legislation needs to be tightened-up in the area of what software companies can state as the "value" of their product. It's bullshit to grab some arbitrarily high number out of one's ass and say, "My package here is worth $1 million dollars" - just because they found one schmuck willing to pay that much - or even if they never sold it for $1 million, they just list it at that, and pretty much discount to everyone. That's bullshit, and should be illegal, because when figures like that are used to create statistics in order to bolster arguments (like Piracy costs us $x per year) - or in order to get tax breaks (I donated $x to charity last year) - again, complete bullshit. There should be a formula specified by law to determine a software's (or any digital IP) actual cost, and that should be used for things like statistics and charitable contributions, and the bullshit obscene markups can stay in the marketplace where suckers will pay. I should not have to bear the tax burden of Microsoft just because they arbitrarily pick and choose what the value of the software was that they "donated" last year. Gee, can I arbitrarily say that I donated 50 million dollars worth of old clothes to the Salvation Army? Hey, that shirt was a one-of-a-kind, and I advertised it for sale in the newspaper for 50 million.
You're talking about a country who calls NASA's Canada Arm, "the Big Arm".
Then watch NASA's very expensively produced IMAX movie called "Destiny In Space" where Leonard Nimoy very clearly narrates about the Canadian-built robot arm.
I tell you what I'm sick of, hearing Canadians belly-ache about the fucking robot arm. We should just tear it the fuck off and put it to work welding ford SUV's, then buy a Japanese arm at Wal Mart - those Japanese can be VERY greatful. I bet we won't hear them bitch and complain every time some American news media fails to play the Japanese national anthem, gives credit to those crafty japs and their miraculous robot arm, and suggest viewers take a week-long vacation in Japan whenever it mentions a space shuttle mission.
Re:Why isnt the world testing deflection technolog
on
A Rock Moves In Space
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· Score: 2
On a scale of one to ten, in terms of difficulty:
Locating an habitable world outside our own solar system, designing and building a large enough transport to support enough human, animal, and plant life for a long enough time to survive the journey and/or a faster-than-light drive technology, etc. Difficulty: 9 (level of protection from asteroids: 100% level of protection from solar heat-death: 100% (repeat as necessary) level of protection from other threats such as plagues from alien pathogens, neutron stars, local supernovas, etc. : not all that good)
Designing and building a transport infrastructure robust enough to move engineers, vast quantities of equipment and materials, and vehicles either being large enough to support rotational gravity, or some magical artificial gravity technology invented, perfected, and implemented, to be taken to Mars, (presumably the best candidate) in order to establish self-sustaining colonies, in order to produce enough climate change, in order to be able to sustain life long enough to establish a permanent effect on the climate (which would require constant effort to maintain, due to the solar wind's constant erosion and lack of a protective planetary magnetic field). Difficulty: 10 (level of protection from asteroid impact: six of one, half dozen of the other, if Earth gets creamed, who's to say Mars wouldn't also?) (Level of protection from solar heat death: 0) (level of protection from other threats - compared to earth?: 0)
Designing and building an infrastructure to create a vessel large enough (or again, artificial gravity) constructed to orbit at one of earth's lagrange points, overcoming hazards from space debris, radiation, lack of water and other resources, to support a large enough contingent of human, animal and plant life to sustain life indefinitely. Difficulty: 8 (need I go over the pointlessness of the relative threats again?)
Launching a large ion-propulsion unit into interplanetary space, equipped with solar panels for energy, rendevouz-ing at 28km/sec with a 2km asteroid, becoming secured to the surface through some claw-like mechanism, and operation low impulse thrust over long periods of time, perhaps getting periodic propellant resupply missions - in order to slow the asteroid's orbit enough that it drops away from the vicintity of earth's orbit, or perhaps, eventually into the sun. Difficulty: 2
Taking any of the first three solutions, (or even the fourth) and applying the social complexities to the human element, including maintaining a stable political situation given the various social and religious backgrounds, and propensity for populations of people to not easily be controlled over long time periods - and obtaining a population that could survive for any length of time that would make it meaningful towards the goal of survival of the species. Difficulty: 11 (ie. given how crazy and fucked up we humans are, I'm quite certain we're going to extinguish ourselves long before any silly asteroid has a chance).
I have a "good question" - if it seems to come around on Feb 1 every 8-12 years or so, how often has it come close in the past?
I'd also like to coin a nickname for this rock - "groundhog" - because it's close to Feb 2, and if it hits earth (sees it's shadow) - it's going to burrow back into the ground, and we'll have six more YEARS of winter. . . .
I do have a question though. My family doesn't have one, but what are the implications for TiVO users? Are they just going to be told, "Well. You're screwed." or what? Any returns or refunds? I mean, this would be like buying a CD-RW drive and then being told it can't be used to burn CDs, only to read them.
It's like buying a gun and being told it can't be used to shoot people. Only to look "cool" in a display case.
It's like buying a car, and being told, since you might run someone over with it, you can't drive it anywhere.
I don't think the entertainment industry gives a rat's ass what old hardware becomes obsolete and what new hardware you voluntarily to buy to consume their product their way.
Re:Is it time for the Geek community to target...
on
MPAA vs. Television
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· Score: 2
We have the same problem in California.
Thing is, I live in a VERY conservative region in California, and nobody here feels like voting is worth a damn, because national elections are usually decided before we get up in the morning on election day, and in California issues, Dems always win.
Of course, if a republican were to ever win anything out here, we'd be up to our armpits in oil wells, so you can see why there's be a few lefties out here. Hell, with Bush "in da house", we're probably already doomed on the oil well front. He's using federal muscle to overturn a ban on central coast drilling. Oh well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. When oil is $60-$100 a barrel, you can bet they'll do anything to squeeze any drop out of the ground wherever it is. NIMBY-ism be damned.
All of these cars could be tuned to run on 87. Yes, you'd give up a little power - but on a 95 Camaro, or a Porsche 911/996, you wouldn't miss it much. (The Porsche may be an exception, you'd have a hard time getting the turbo model to run nice on 87)
I've got a Volkswagen that old, and it's still running, and it was designed in the 1940's, and retailed for about $4000 in 1972.
Re:No... a 64bit chip doesn't have to be 'slower'
on
AMD's 64-Bit Chip
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· Score: 2
Better still, the Porsche 904, originally shipped with a 2 liter 4 cylinder engine, then modified for the 6 cylinder, and again for the 8.
Come to think of it, the 914 also originally ran with a 1.7 liter four, 2.1 liter 6 (for the 914/6), and some examples were made with the flat-8 (minus the rear luggage compartment, of course!) - but both of these cars had no modification to the exterior bodywork to accomidate these different engines.
Re:Henry Ford set to release Model "A"
on
AMD's 64-Bit Chip
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· Score: 2
he probably could very easily have tuned out the backfiring.
Yes, the lead acts as a lubricant for the valve/seat interface. Beefing up the valve seats fixes that problem. Lead is only required as an ugly, toxic hack to allow the use of cheap valve seats.
Slashdot Mirror
George Bush and Oil Industry CEOs - 'Can we have immunity from laws protecting the environment and virgin wilderness in order to increase our profits and control of the energy industry by drilling in Alaskan wilderness and completely ignoring global warming and any other environmental concerns that are too expensive for us to worry about?' - Pending.
IIRC - the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve has nothing at all to do with global warming. Whether they drill there or not doesn't make one bit of difference in the overall global warming picture. All drilling up there is going to do is kill a bunch of endangered (or soon to be endangered) species, which are pretty crucial to the ecosphere up there, which is already on the verge of collapse due to effects of global warming which has already happened. So basically, it doesn't really matter whether they drill up there anyway. Those animals are already living on borrowed time. Pity.
. . . Almost immediately I got tons of letters practically demanding that I be more generous.
This seems to be the MO for all charitable organizations these days. I've given money to many in the past, including Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Doctors w/o Borders, (Men Without Hats?), hell, even the fucking Planetary Society! (to be fair, the L5 society was kind and low-key when I was a member back in the 1980's.) National Wildlife Federation, They ALL started sending me a crapload of unwanted junk mail. I'm almost afraid to start giving to the EFF.
With regard to pictures of kids:
I never put pictures of my kids, or my car, or house, or other things - up on the web, where they might be found by a potential pedophile, car thief, arsonist, etc. Sure, I'd like to be able to do this to share these things with my parents, my brother and sister, maybe a close friend, or others who share my car hobby, but there are avenues for sharing information like this which are private.
A web page simply is not, never has been, and never shall be, one of those avenues. While it's certainly pretty convenient to just put stuff on the web and send your friends the link, you HAVE to know that the search engines are out there.
A person I know via another discussion board entered the word "necrofelching" into Google one day, and found three hits, all of which were attributable to him. Lucky he didn't use his real name. Of course the word was used in an insultive capacity, it's not like his hobby or anything. But just hearing that is enough to send shivers to anyone thinking of applying for a job where someone might do a background check.
That's right, I meant to call you a moron.
So what's the solution? Make everyone pay a flat rate? Grrrrreat. That's all I need. I'll have to subsidize people with awful driving records, people who have expensive cars and/or cars that are thieves favorites, people with multiple DUIs, etc.
Hell, lets make all insurance that way. I'll have no problem having my rates jacked up so that a fat, smoking pile of blubber and I pay the same month to month.
In fact, isn't that what insurance is basically all about? spreading risk? If I never ever ever get into an accident, I'm paying too much insurance, right? No, I don't think that flat-rate insurance is the answer, but I do think that the issue of MANDATORY insurance needs to be revisited. (many US states require you to have insurance). Gee, I wish *I* owned a business that provided a "product" that people were *required* by law to purchase. (Don't give me your argument that people can CHOOSE not to drive, that's bullshit and you know it). If I owned such a business, I could charge whatever I wanted, and use fudged statistics to charge certain groups more money than others. Good work, if you can get it.
Idiot.
It has nothing to do with communication. And everything to do with Social Dominance. The Human Animal excercises his or her Social Dominance on the highway, because, in a car, they are empowered as they would not be if they were more equalized, standing on a sidewalk, in a crowd. In a crowd, anyone can punch you in the nose if you step on their toes or cut in line. On the road, if you have a faster more nimble car, you can get in front of people, which is the symbolic act of dominance.
It's human nature. Attempts to control these people through heavy-handed legislation and spying devices is going to simply make them desire MORE rebellious behavior - people who lack control in one area of their lives, and crave control, typically will find another area to control to satisfy that craving.
That's why I say, VIDEO GAMES are the answer!
Oh, it will always be voluntary.
You VOLUNTEER to pay a much higher insurance rate, or you VOLUNTEER to have the black box. It's that simple.
As for the mandatory car insurance laws, they use the same logic. Either you VOLUNTEER to get car insurance, or you VOLUNTEER to not drive.
I think they used the same logic in the Soviet Union. Either you VOLUNTEER to become a party member, or you VOLUNTEER to relocate to Siberia. . .
*sigh* PFM is owned by Adobe anyway. Some silly Font thing.
. . .so basically, they were counting on increasing supply, and hoping that that didn't do anything to demand.
DUH.
Sounds like Opec in the 70's - who thought they could get away with cutting supply - but in response, demand dropped with the higher prices.
I love it when reality smacks these idiots with a clue-by-four.
I think it's grossly unfair that a lobbyist can buy a congressman, and get a law passed for less money than it costs to break it.
I propose we dismantle all corporations until such time as we develop an AI suitable for administering their functions.
Judging by the behavior of my Win2k machine lately, I don't think AI's could be trusted either. Why not use some hot latin shemales? I get email from those folks all the time. They're VERY hard working. And willing to do what it takes to get the job done.
Granted, some people do make things a gender issue ("that stupid bitch", etc),
heh, usually when I use that term, I'm talking about Bill Gates.
What if Jenny, in accounting, has a bad back, and purchased, with her own funds, a special ergonomic chair, because you're a cheap bitch and won't provide decent health coverage to pay for such necessities - but anyway, she's on vacation (recovering from back surgery, no medical leave you cheap bitch), and her purchase records are filed in her locked cabinet when your audit is done.
:)
Then you, cheap bitch, will have to pay for her chair all over again. Lucky they don't throw you in jail for having "stolen property". Then you'd get what you deserve for being a cheap bitch.
Sure, businesses should pay for software, and I *do* feel that there is something ethically and morally wrong with a software company that does not have some product-level in place to allow economical education in the use of it's products - (ie. "educational discounts" bordering on "free" (beer)).
What about schools? Aren't some school districts (especially in conservative areas) engineered to show a profit on their books? What about private schools? Essentially a "business" who earns it's money by charging tuition. Surely THEY shouldn't be exempt from full-on licensing expenses.
What about non-profits? Should they have to pay for software the same as businesses? What if they're "feeding the poor"? Okay, what if they're a non-profit organization for lobbying government to create laws which aim to increase the profitability of the IP biz? (ie, the BSA).
It's not an easy cut-and-dried thing here.
I do think that legislation needs to be tightened-up in the area of what software companies can state as the "value" of their product. It's bullshit to grab some arbitrarily high number out of one's ass and say, "My package here is worth $1 million dollars" - just because they found one schmuck willing to pay that much - or even if they never sold it for $1 million, they just list it at that, and pretty much discount to everyone. That's bullshit, and should be illegal, because when figures like that are used to create statistics in order to bolster arguments (like Piracy costs us $x per year) - or in order to get tax breaks (I donated $x to charity last year) - again, complete bullshit. There should be a formula specified by law to determine a software's (or any digital IP) actual cost, and that should be used for things like statistics and charitable contributions, and the bullshit obscene markups can stay in the marketplace where suckers will pay.
I should not have to bear the tax burden of Microsoft just because they arbitrarily pick and choose what the value of the software was that they "donated" last year. Gee, can I arbitrarily say that I donated 50 million dollars worth of old clothes to the Salvation Army? Hey, that shirt was a one-of-a-kind, and I advertised it for sale in the newspaper for 50 million.
You're talking about a country who calls NASA's Canada Arm, "the Big Arm".
Then watch NASA's very expensively produced IMAX movie called "Destiny In Space" where Leonard Nimoy very clearly narrates about the Canadian-built robot arm.
I tell you what I'm sick of, hearing Canadians belly-ache about the fucking robot arm. We should just tear it the fuck off and put it to work welding ford SUV's, then buy a Japanese arm at Wal Mart - those Japanese can be VERY greatful. I bet we won't hear them bitch and complain every time some American news media fails to play the Japanese national anthem, gives credit to those crafty japs and their miraculous robot arm, and suggest viewers take a week-long vacation in Japan whenever it mentions a space shuttle mission.
On a scale of one to ten, in terms of difficulty:
Locating an habitable world outside our own solar system, designing and building a large enough transport to support enough human, animal, and plant life for a long enough time to survive the journey and/or a faster-than-light drive technology, etc.
Difficulty: 9
(level of protection from asteroids: 100%
level of protection from solar heat-death: 100% (repeat as necessary)
level of protection from other threats such as plagues from alien pathogens, neutron stars, local supernovas, etc. : not all that good)
Designing and building a transport infrastructure robust enough to move engineers, vast quantities of equipment and materials, and vehicles either being large enough to support rotational gravity, or some magical artificial gravity technology invented, perfected, and implemented, to be taken to Mars, (presumably the best candidate) in order to establish self-sustaining colonies, in order to produce enough climate change, in order to be able to sustain life long enough to establish a permanent effect on the climate (which would require constant effort to maintain, due to the solar wind's constant erosion and lack of a protective planetary magnetic field).
Difficulty: 10
(level of protection from asteroid impact: six of one, half dozen of the other, if Earth gets creamed, who's to say Mars wouldn't also?)
(Level of protection from solar heat death: 0)
(level of protection from other threats - compared to earth?: 0)
Designing and building an infrastructure to create a vessel large enough (or again, artificial gravity) constructed to orbit at one of earth's lagrange points, overcoming hazards from space debris, radiation, lack of water and other resources, to support a large enough contingent of human, animal and plant life to sustain life indefinitely.
Difficulty: 8
(need I go over the pointlessness of the relative threats again?)
Launching a large ion-propulsion unit into interplanetary space, equipped with solar panels for energy, rendevouz-ing at 28km/sec with a 2km asteroid, becoming secured to the surface through some claw-like mechanism, and operation low impulse thrust over long periods of time, perhaps getting periodic propellant resupply missions - in order to slow the asteroid's orbit enough that it drops away from the vicintity of earth's orbit, or perhaps, eventually into the sun.
Difficulty: 2
Taking any of the first three solutions, (or even the fourth) and applying the social complexities to the human element, including maintaining a stable political situation given the various social and religious backgrounds, and propensity for populations of people to not easily be controlled over long time periods - and obtaining a population that could survive for any length of time that would make it meaningful towards the goal of survival of the species.
Difficulty: 11
(ie. given how crazy and fucked up we humans are, I'm quite certain we're going to extinguish ourselves long before any silly asteroid has a chance).
I have a "good question" - if it seems to come around on Feb 1 every 8-12 years or so, how often has it come close in the past?
I'd also like to coin a nickname for this rock - "groundhog" - because it's close to Feb 2, and if it hits earth (sees it's shadow) - it's going to burrow back into the ground, and we'll have six more YEARS of winter. . . .
You laugh now, but just wait, books are next. They'll start with books on tape, and move to ebooks. . .
I do have a question though. My family doesn't have one, but what are the implications for TiVO users? Are they just going to be told, "Well. You're screwed." or what? Any returns or refunds? I mean, this would be like buying a CD-RW drive and then being told it can't be used to burn CDs, only to read them.
It's like buying a gun and being told it can't be used to shoot people. Only to look "cool" in a display case.
It's like buying a car, and being told, since you might run someone over with it, you can't drive it anywhere.
I don't think the entertainment industry gives a rat's ass what old hardware becomes obsolete and what new hardware you voluntarily to buy to consume their product their way.
We have the same problem in California.
Thing is, I live in a VERY conservative region in California, and nobody here feels like voting is worth a damn, because national elections are usually decided before we get up in the morning on election day, and in California issues, Dems always win.
Of course, if a republican were to ever win anything out here, we'd be up to our armpits in oil wells, so you can see why there's be a few lefties out here. Hell, with Bush "in da house", we're probably already doomed on the oil well front. He's using federal muscle to overturn a ban on central coast drilling. Oh well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. When oil is $60-$100 a barrel, you can bet they'll do anything to squeeze any drop out of the ground wherever it is. NIMBY-ism be damned.
All of these cars could be tuned to run on 87. Yes, you'd give up a little power - but on a 95 Camaro, or a Porsche 911/996, you wouldn't miss it much.
(The Porsche may be an exception, you'd have a hard time getting the turbo model to run nice on 87)
I've got a Volkswagen that old, and it's still running, and it was designed in the 1940's, and retailed for about $4000 in 1972.
Better still, the Porsche 904, originally shipped with a 2 liter 4 cylinder engine, then modified for the 6 cylinder, and again for the 8.
Come to think of it, the 914 also originally ran with a 1.7 liter four, 2.1 liter 6 (for the 914/6), and some examples were made with the flat-8 (minus the rear luggage compartment, of course!) - but both of these cars had no modification to the exterior bodywork to accomidate these different engines.
he probably could very easily have tuned out the backfiring.
Yes, the lead acts as a lubricant for the valve/seat interface. Beefing up the valve seats fixes that problem. Lead is only required as an ugly, toxic hack to allow the use of cheap valve seats.