People should vote for who's policies they agree with REGARDLESS of who they think will win.
Ask Nader voters how that worked out for them in 2000. In an ideal world, your advice would be good advice. But we in the US are blessed with an incredibly flawed electoral system where strategic concerns routinely trump the voter's sincere preferences in determining the result. Asking the voters to willingly ignore that fact and shoot themselves in the foot is asking too much, and even if they did follow your advice it would only make things worse for all of us (again, see Florida 2000 for an example).
The proper way to resolve this ugly problem is to update our electoral system to something that works (Range Voting or Condorcet are both good options), but that is a difficult task and it's not going to happen in the near term. So we keep pushing for that, but in the meantime we have to make the best of the system we have, and that means taking its flaws into account when we vote.
Sure, Obama is popular, but doesn't his popularity come from a demographic that has a horrible voting track record?
If you're talking about previous elections, then yes. However, we aren't running in previous elections, we're running in the current election. And in this election -- the one that counts -- that demographic's track record is quite good. And personally I don't think that young people are coming out in droves primarily because they prefer Obama over Clinton (although they do), but because they are sick of the last 8 years of brain-damaged government and want to make sure the best candidate wins in November. Because of that, I don't think the youth vote will let Obama down in the general election.
So, how is all the new demands for electricity going to be satisfied.
We already know dozens of ways to generate electrical power, and any one of them would work fine. It's a solved problem. The NIMBY and load problems you mention are merely political and engineering challenges, and they will be resolved when it becomes economically necessary to resolve them.
Its easy to be an environmentalist, you don't have to think of the requirements to achieve whatever goals you might have. It just has to sound good.
No, it's hard to be an environmentalist, because you have deal with constant criticism from the "oh that will never work and you're stupid for even trying" crowd. It's much easier to sit sit on your fat ass and claim that nothing will ever work. Any idiot can do that, so why not give yourself a challenge and try figuring out how to solve some problems instead? If you think people are doing things the wrong way, come up with a better way, or at least keep your mouth shut and let them give it a shot.
your comment is typical of all global warming idiots, you don't even understand your own imaginary problem. water vapour is THE green house gas. the majority of the greenhouse effect comes from water vapour. hence why everyone is trying to tell you people CO2 doesn't drive climate change
And ironically enough, your comment is typical of all the global-warming-denial ostriches: You're so sure that global warming is a hoax and that anyone who takes it seriously is an uninformed fool that you don't see the glaring hole in your own argument. Since you don't see it, I'll point it out to you: the average amount of H20 in Earth's atmosphere is neither increasing or decreasing, so H20 content is not a factor in global warming. CO2 content, on the other hand, IS increasing, and that's why the planet is getting warmer. Change in output is based on change in input. It's not a difficult theory to understand.
As for why "everyone(sic) is trying to tell you CO2 doesn't drive climate change", that has more to do with people not wanting to give up the profitable/comfortable status quo than it does with atmospheric conditions.
Oil wells are still putting out a lot, when they're out there's a lot of shale laying around in Canada and the US, then there's the ability to extract it from coal. Oil's going to be around for a while.
That's true, but it's not enough for oil to exist. It has to also be cheaper than the alternatives. How cheap will a gallon of gas be when you have to extract it from shale? How cheap is it after we've factored in the cost of global warming damage? What's the price of a gallon of gasoline if you add in the cost of "securing" the Middle East? My guess is that alternative technologies are going to start looking mighty attractive, long before the oil supply dries up.
Still, how does one prevent the EFF folks from starting a sister corporation who creates a prototype of a potentially infringing device and claiming 'harm' since they can't sell it?
I think it's easier than that.... the EFF just needs to compile prior-art information and post it on a public web site, and if and when the patent troll tries to sue anybody, the people/companies being sued (and who are thus "being harmed") already have their case researched for them.
So, what do you propose instead? To refuse medical attention to those people when they show up in a hospital? To socialize the cost and pay it yourself? Something else?
If it were up to me, I'd pay for it the same way we pay for Social Security, Medicare, and everything else -- include it in peoples' taxes. Yes, that would mean raising taxes. Some things are worth raising taxes for... especially if it means people get that same money back (and more) via lowered health care costs.
aha, that's awesome, never would have thought of that. Most likely due to the fact that I do the exact opposite. I use VMware's unity (parallels fusion) to merge multiple desktops into one. Now that's a feature I find extremely useful.
That works too... my problem is that I find "Unity mode" to be really conceptually confusing. With a full-screen Windows "space", the concept is easy: My computer acts as if there were actually a Windows PC and a Mac on my desk, with a KVM for toggling between the two. With Unity, OTOH, things get weird.... now it's as if I have a Mac that also runs Windows programs, except that when I want to save or load a file, the Windows programs "see" a completely different file system than the Mac programs do. Since the point of Unity mode is to make the Windows programs seem like they are native Mac programs, this is a problem... I'm back to constantly having to think about whether a particular window is "really" a Mac program or just a Windows program depending to be a Mac program. Or at least that's my take on it... I haven't actually used Unity mode, so maybe it's not so bad in actual use.
That said, [multiple desktops are as] useless in windows as it is in linux, and every bit as useless in osx.
Spaces in OSX are incredibly useful if you're running Windows full screen in a VM. It makes toggling back and forth between the Mac and Windows desktops near-instantaneous.
The chances of two independent N-version-programmed programs failing at the same instant seems particularly low.
True, although if they were both programmed from the spec, and the bug was present in the spec, and they both correctly conformed to the spec.... boom.
One might as well ask, why are you posting smarmy retorts when you clearly didn't understand the question? The question was about understanding the program, not the underlying language.
The film is actually pretty good. The problem is that no true Hitchhiker fan likes the film the first time they see it, because they had an expectation that it would match their mental imagery from the books/radio show, and are disappointed. If you go see it a second time, however, you won't have that expectation anymore, and you'll find it's rather clever and enjoyable.
Linux penalizes "CPU-hungry" programs that want to use all of the CPU time, by pushing their priority down. That way "nice" programs can still get CPU when they want it, the "greedy" programs get whatever is left over, and no processor cycles are wasted. It would be cool if ISPs could do something similar with bandwidth resources. Easier said than, done, of course... but it seems silly to me to bandwidth-cap a "greedy" user at 3AM when nobody else is using the network anyway...
Fistly, I've never seen a gas "cable" thicker than my wrist at a gas station. (At least not one that wasn't attached to a tanker servicing said station.)
Hmm, maybe you're right. I haven't been to a gas station in a while, so I'm probably remembering the size wrong.:^)
Secondly, a gas "cable" thicked than my wrist is significantly lighter than a SOLID COPPER CABLE thicker than my wrist. I could probably do it. But mom would have to switch back to full-server.
Okay, so you have the cables mounted straight, on an adjustable slide-out tray that connects them to the car. I still don't see how this is a showstopper; compared to the other problems involved, it seems like a minor implementation detail.
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Ask Nader voters how that worked out for them in 2000. In an ideal world, your advice would be good advice. But we in the US are blessed with an incredibly flawed electoral system where strategic concerns routinely trump the voter's sincere preferences in determining the result. Asking the voters to willingly ignore that fact and shoot themselves in the foot is asking too much, and even if they did follow your advice it would only make things worse for all of us (again, see Florida 2000 for an example).
The proper way to resolve this ugly problem is to update our electoral system to something that works (Range Voting or Condorcet are both good options), but that is a difficult task and it's not going to happen in the near term. So we keep pushing for that, but in the meantime we have to make the best of the system we have, and that means taking its flaws into account when we vote.
If you're talking about previous elections, then yes. However, we aren't running in previous elections, we're running in the current election. And in this election -- the one that counts -- that demographic's track record is quite good. And personally I don't think that young people are coming out in droves primarily because they prefer Obama over Clinton (although they do), but because they are sick of the last 8 years of brain-damaged government and want to make sure the best candidate wins in November. Because of that, I don't think the youth vote will let Obama down in the general election.
We already know dozens of ways to generate electrical power, and any one of them would work fine. It's a solved problem. The NIMBY and load problems you mention are merely political and engineering challenges, and they will be resolved when it becomes economically necessary to resolve them.
Its easy to be an environmentalist, you don't have to think of the requirements to achieve whatever goals you might have. It just has to sound good.
No, it's hard to be an environmentalist, because you have deal with constant criticism from the "oh that will never work and you're stupid for even trying" crowd. It's much easier to sit sit on your fat ass and claim that nothing will ever work. Any idiot can do that, so why not give yourself a challenge and try figuring out how to solve some problems instead? If you think people are doing things the wrong way, come up with a better way, or at least keep your mouth shut and let them give it a shot.
Make sure their only other option is starvation.
And ironically enough, your comment is typical of all the global-warming-denial ostriches: You're so sure that global warming is a hoax and that anyone who takes it seriously is an uninformed fool that you don't see the glaring hole in your own argument. Since you don't see it, I'll point it out to you: the average amount of H20 in Earth's atmosphere is neither increasing or decreasing, so H20 content is not a factor in global warming. CO2 content, on the other hand, IS increasing, and that's why the planet is getting warmer. Change in output is based on change in input. It's not a difficult theory to understand.
As for why "everyone(sic) is trying to tell you CO2 doesn't drive climate change", that has more to do with people not wanting to give up the profitable/comfortable status quo than it does with atmospheric conditions.
That's true, but it's not enough for oil to exist. It has to also be cheaper than the alternatives. How cheap will a gallon of gas be when you have to extract it from shale? How cheap is it after we've factored in the cost of global warming damage? What's the price of a gallon of gasoline if you add in the cost of "securing" the Middle East? My guess is that alternative technologies are going to start looking mighty attractive, long before the oil supply dries up.
I believe it's the old Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine... this time applied to satellites instead of the civilian population.
Just to be a smartass, I have to point out that the volume of a circle is zero, not pi*r^2.
I think it's easier than that.... the EFF just needs to compile prior-art information and post it on a public web site, and if and when the patent troll tries to sue anybody, the people/companies being sued (and who are thus "being harmed") already have their case researched for them.
All right then, smart guy... please post your argument for why Gravel is the best democratic presidential candidate. I'm dying to hear it.
If it were up to me, I'd pay for it the same way we pay for Social Security, Medicare, and everything else -- include it in peoples' taxes. Yes, that would mean raising taxes. Some things are worth raising taxes for... especially if it means people get that same money back (and more) via lowered health care costs.
It seems to me that the only things that could survive that sort of acceleration intact are rocks.... and there are already plenty of rocks in space.
"Are there any stairs in your house?"
Just send them your bank account details and they'll post the proceeds directly to your account. You'll make thousands a week!
That works too... my problem is that I find "Unity mode" to be really conceptually confusing. With a full-screen Windows "space", the concept is easy: My computer acts as if there were actually a Windows PC and a Mac on my desk, with a KVM for toggling between the two. With Unity, OTOH, things get weird.... now it's as if I have a Mac that also runs Windows programs, except that when I want to save or load a file, the Windows programs "see" a completely different file system than the Mac programs do. Since the point of Unity mode is to make the Windows programs seem like they are native Mac programs, this is a problem... I'm back to constantly having to think about whether a particular window is "really" a Mac program or just a Windows program depending to be a Mac program. Or at least that's my take on it... I haven't actually used Unity mode, so maybe it's not so bad in actual use.
Spaces in OSX are incredibly useful if you're running Windows full screen in a VM. It makes toggling back and forth between the Mac and Windows desktops near-instantaneous.
That's the optimistic view.... the cynical prediction is that they will give up and remove dTrace support from the release builds of the OS.
This will be a big help for me in my quest for a legion of Mac zombies
20 billion dollars worth of arms can't act as a deterrent? Really?
True, although if they were both programmed from the spec, and the bug was present in the spec, and they both correctly conformed to the spec.... boom.
Pope Benedict believes in evolution.
One might as well ask, why are you posting smarmy retorts when you clearly didn't understand the question? The question was about understanding the program, not the underlying language.
The film is actually pretty good. The problem is that no true Hitchhiker fan likes the film the first time they see it, because they had an expectation that it would match their mental imagery from the books/radio show, and are disappointed. If you go see it a second time, however, you won't have that expectation anymore, and you'll find it's rather clever and enjoyable.
Linux penalizes "CPU-hungry" programs that want to use all of the CPU time, by pushing their priority down. That way "nice" programs can still get CPU when they want it, the "greedy" programs get whatever is left over, and no processor cycles are wasted. It would be cool if ISPs could do something similar with bandwidth resources. Easier said than, done, of course... but it seems silly to me to bandwidth-cap a "greedy" user at 3AM when nobody else is using the network anyway...
Hmm, maybe you're right. I haven't been to a gas station in a while, so I'm probably remembering the size wrong.
Secondly, a gas "cable" thicked than my wrist is significantly lighter than a SOLID COPPER CABLE thicker than my wrist. I could probably do it. But mom would have to switch back to full-server.
Okay, so you have the cables mounted straight, on an adjustable slide-out tray that connects them to the car. I still don't see how this is a showstopper; compared to the other problems involved, it seems like a minor implementation detail.