356 KM is not really that far. I know people who commute that far every day to work
Yes, it is that far. Those people are insane. If you're commuting more than 20 miles a day, the problem isn't with your car, the problem is that your house is located too far away from your job. You need to move, or take a different job.
I cannot imagine Joe Average plugging TWO wires, each of which is thicker than his wrist, into his car for a 3 minute recharge.
Why is that so hard to imagine? Joe Average already plugs in a gas "cable" thicker than his wrist every time he fill up. Teaching him to plug in a slightly different, slightly larger cable seems like it would be the least of your worries. I'd be more worried about reliably and safely generating that kind of power on demand.
This would seem to be yet another argument for ports, apt, etc. I've never feared any of the software installed through those routes.
What if somebody compromised the software repository you are downloading from? Or subverted DNS so that you aren't actually downloading from the server you think you're downloading from? Or simply included a subtle back door in their app, and waited a few months/years for it to spread before using it to launch an attack?
I'm not saying these things are likely, but I don't see how apt-get, etc, are necessarily more secure than a plain old download...
How could anybody trust a cleaner for a platform that doesn't, as yet, need cleaning?
It's the people who aren't sophisticated enough to tell the difference between suggestions given by an untrusted third party app from the Ukraine, and suggestions given by the operating system itself.
Computers in general, perhaps not. Apple computers (and particularly their laptops), OTOH, most certainly are. They are functional also, but one of their selling points is definitely that they look sexy.
Apple products are not in the same category as gold teeth and spinning rims.
Nope, they're more in the category of BMWs, designer purses, and high-end basketball shoes.
I think its a legitimate question since watching movies on a long flight is a nice reason to have a laptop with you.
Isn't running the optical drive a significant battery drain? I think it could be much more efficient to rip a few DVDs in advance and play them off the static RAM drive instead. Plus that you don't have to worry about the DVDs getting lost/damaged/stolen during your trip. (I would worry about the laptop itself getting lost/damaged/stolen though!)
A market in a resource that has no clear owner is not a "well-functioning market".
Indeed, it's another example of that vexing special case known as "real life". If only we could all move to the land of idealized economic theory, where free-market capitalism always does the right thing.
The answer is to actually provide a well-functioning market by having clear ownership of the resource while it is still unextracted.
And how shall we accomplish that? Initiate a government intervention, perhaps?
I wonder when we might see a hybrid flash-ram drive? A big bunch of ram for high speed and flash for permanent storage.
But isn't this pretty much what we have now for every drive we use? The only difference is that the "high-speed RAM cache" is located in the unused portion of your computer's RAM, instead of being part of the drive itself. I'm not sure what the advantage of putting another cache inside the drive itself would be; why not spend the money adding more RAM to your computer instead... that way the cache can be used by any disk you attach, and isn't restricted to just one drive.
That is so funny that I almost fell out of my seat. Corn prices have stayed fairly constant for the past three decades. I am not talking about being adjusted for inflation. If the corn farmers have a powerful lobby then that must mean that lobbiest truly have no power at all. (not the case)
Congratulations, you are a master of the non sequiter. The price of corn is not a good measurement of the power of the agribusiness lobby -- what you want to measure is how much influence they have over legislators. It's difficult to measure influence directly, of course, but what can be objectively measured is how much money agribusiness donates to politicians. And there we find that in the last 20 years or so, agribusiness has donated a total of 415 million dollars. To put that in perspective, that is over three times the amount donated by defense lobbyists in the same time period, and I don't think anyone would scoff at the influence of defense lobbyists on our government. So yes, I'd say the agribusiness sector (note I deliberately don't say "farmers" because what we are talking about here are massive farming corporations like Archer Daniels Midland, not mom and pop and their 40 acres) has plenty of influence in Washington. Which is of course why so many government handouts are going to corn-based ethanol, even though corn is clearly one of the least efficient sources for that product.
With vouchers, at least, they could take those education dollars and go elsewhere.
I don't want my tax dollars going to fund some fundamentalists' brain-washing clinic / madrassa. Instead of splitting the nation into private enclaves, we ought to improve the public education system to the point where there isn't any need for an alternative.
I'm not talking about unlikely to happen, either - I'm assuming 100% guarantee that they blow up airliners. The SIMPLE FACTS are that you stand a much better chance of getting killed in a car than in a plane, and that includes a plane flying on a day of a terrorist action.
Yup, I know that. In fact, I suspect that most people know that (intellectually, anyway). But the fact remains that car accidents are an accepted fact of life, whereas airliners getting shot out of the sky on a regular basis would paralyze the air travel industry and cause widespread apprehension if not panic. Hell, similar effects were seen when two idiots were shooting at cars at gas stations, and that's not nearly as sensational as whole jetliners going down in flames.
Call it irrational if you like, but people react very differently to accidents than they do to deliberate attacks. Perhaps it's because accidents are truly random and (to some extent) unavoidable, whereas an attack where the perpetrator isn't caught means the perpetrator is still out there somewhere, presumably ready to strike again. It isn't just a matter of minimizing deaths (although that is always a good idea), it's also a matter of weighing the psychological trauma (e.g. fear and loathing) experienced by the community whenever it feels victimized.
But you're essentially saying we should pander to people's irrationality.
Nah, I'm saying that people's irrationality is a fact of life, and we should include that consideration in our calculations. Certainly the bad guys do, that is why they commit acts of terror in the first place (e.g. the total costs of 9/11 were much greater than just the direct costs of the lives lost and the property destroyed by the act itself).
You might think it's OK to piss away tens of billions of dollars on a very small threat, but I don't. I'd prefer to spend the money on beer, thanks.
Certainly there is a limit to the added valuation, and "tens of billions" may well be above that limit. But I stand by my argument that one has to consider all the indirect costs of a terrorist act, and not just the immediate physical damage and lives lost.
Bad advice -- the moment of impact (when you hit the soup) is the exact instant your seat belt is useful. Of course you'll want to unbuckle it immediately afterward... hope you're still conscious and uninjured enough to do that:^(
Congratulations on your criteria for picking a candidate. With [all sorts of bad things happening], you're concerned about a candidate's personal view on evolution? You might as well vote for Huckabee since he plays guitar.
I think that is actually a valid reason not to vote for Ron Paul. Certainly, Dennis Kucinich's mentioning of his experiences with UFOs was enough for many people to write him off as a likely nutter, and the same principle applies here: some times little things like this are red flags that a particular person's mindset is outside of what you consider acceptable in a leader.
I, for one, am not going to support someone who doesn't accept evolution, because that is someone who cannot accept the scientific method. And I've seen plenty of that sort of "logic" failing to address the nation's problems over the last eight years; I don't care to see any more of it.
But people place a far higher value on avoiding spectacular deaths than mundane ones.
Agreed. But let's consider the possibility that they are right to do so. What is more politically destabilizing and economically counterproductive, a terrorist attack or another year of the status quo in traffic fatalities and heart attacks? The latter people already used to and expecting as a largely unavoidable fact of life... the former turns people into panicky animals whose political decisions are often very short-sighted and self-destructive (witness the Iraq war). So I think there is a case to be made that preventing terrorist attacks may well be more important than reducing heart attacks, even if the number of people directly saved is smaller.
Let's see, 50,000 people a year in the USA die in car accidents. NONE have died from stinger missiles
It's a common fallacy in humans to assume that just because a thing has never happened, it's unlikely to happen. At this point in history it's easy to see that such attacks can happen, the only thing we don't know is whether they will happen. Given that, I think it's wise to at least research and test appropriate countermeasures, so that if (at some point in the future) this sort of attack does become common, we'll at least have a response ready to deploy on short notice. Actually spending $40 billion attaching this system to every airliner would definitely be premature at this point.
In the meantime, they cut out all the funding for alternative energy funding in the last bill, so the USA can continue to be dependent on the oil tha sits under the homes and deserts of the people they want to defend their airliners against.
Agreed, that was really dumb. Hopefully that issue will be more productively addressed in the near future.
Very interesting article. Just to nitpick, though, this is from the Wikipedia page you linked to: The Airbus was repaired and offered for sale in 2005.
Better yet, buy your Mac notebook with extra RAM and install VMWare Fusion or Parallels on it. Then you can do your Linux stuff inside a Linux VM while still running MacOS/X. Now you have the best of both worlds...
So if not running Max OS leaves you at no disadvantage, why not spend hundreds less on hardware?
A computer that isn't a Mac cannot run MacOS/X-specific software. If there is some MacOS/X-specific software you'd like to run (including MacOS/X itself, which is an excellent piece of Mac-specific software), that's a good reason why not.
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Yes, it is that far. Those people are insane. If you're commuting more than 20 miles a day, the problem isn't with your car, the problem is that your house is located too far away from your job. You need to move, or take a different job.
Why is that so hard to imagine? Joe Average already plugs in a gas "cable" thicker than his wrist every time he fill up. Teaching him to plug in a slightly different, slightly larger cable seems like it would be the least of your worries. I'd be more worried about reliably and safely generating that kind of power on demand.
What if somebody compromised the software repository you are downloading from? Or subverted DNS so that you aren't actually downloading from the server you think you're downloading from? Or simply included a subtle back door in their app, and waited a few months/years for it to spread before using it to launch an attack?
I'm not saying these things are likely, but I don't see how apt-get, etc, are necessarily more secure than a plain old download...
It's the people who aren't sophisticated enough to tell the difference between suggestions given by an untrusted third party app from the Ukraine, and suggestions given by the operating system itself.
In other words, Mac users
Computers in general, perhaps not. Apple computers (and particularly their laptops), OTOH, most certainly are. They are functional also, but one of their selling points is definitely that they look sexy.
Apple products are not in the same category as gold teeth and spinning rims.
Nope, they're more in the category of BMWs, designer purses, and high-end basketball shoes.
Isn't running the optical drive a significant battery drain? I think it could be much more efficient to rip a few DVDs in advance and play them off the static RAM drive instead. Plus that you don't have to worry about the DVDs getting lost/damaged/stolen during your trip. (I would worry about the laptop itself getting lost/damaged/stolen though!)
It's a good point -- the law is almost a tautology there. If someone is able to rip the DVD, then clearly CSS is not an effective access control.
Indeed, it's another example of that vexing special case known as "real life". If only we could all move to the land of idealized economic theory, where free-market capitalism always does the right thing.
The answer is to actually provide a well-functioning market by having clear ownership of the resource while it is still unextracted.
And how shall we accomplish that? Initiate a government intervention, perhaps?
Nah, hydrogen. It's more fun anyway.
Winner, fastest self-contradiction ever!
But isn't this pretty much what we have now for every drive we use? The only difference is that the "high-speed RAM cache" is located in the unused portion of your computer's RAM, instead of being part of the drive itself. I'm not sure what the advantage of putting another cache inside the drive itself would be; why not spend the money adding more RAM to your computer instead... that way the cache can be used by any disk you attach, and isn't restricted to just one drive.
Congratulations, you are a master of the non sequiter. The price of corn is not a good measurement of the power of the agribusiness lobby -- what you want to measure is how much influence they have over legislators. It's difficult to measure influence directly, of course, but what can be objectively measured is how much money agribusiness donates to politicians. And there we find that in the last 20 years or so, agribusiness has donated a total of 415 million dollars. To put that in perspective, that is over three times the amount donated by defense lobbyists in the same time period, and I don't think anyone would scoff at the influence of defense lobbyists on our government. So yes, I'd say the agribusiness sector (note I deliberately don't say "farmers" because what we are talking about here are massive farming corporations like Archer Daniels Midland, not mom and pop and their 40 acres) has plenty of influence in Washington. Which is of course why so many government handouts are going to corn-based ethanol, even though corn is clearly one of the least efficient sources for that product.
I don't want my tax dollars going to fund some fundamentalists' brain-washing clinic / madrassa. Instead of splitting the nation into private enclaves, we ought to improve the public education system to the point where there isn't any need for an alternative.
If nothing else, being able to grin, talk, and brush your teeth all at the same time is indeed a rare talent
I don't know... are there any candidates running that would do that?
In any case, I'd prefer that to a president who starts unnecessary wars because diplomacy is just too darn difficult... but that's just me.
Yup, I know that. In fact, I suspect that most people know that (intellectually, anyway). But the fact remains that car accidents are an accepted fact of life, whereas airliners getting shot out of the sky on a regular basis would paralyze the air travel industry and cause widespread apprehension if not panic. Hell, similar effects were seen when two idiots were shooting at cars at gas stations, and that's not nearly as sensational as whole jetliners going down in flames.
Call it irrational if you like, but people react very differently to accidents than they do to deliberate attacks. Perhaps it's because accidents are truly random and (to some extent) unavoidable, whereas an attack where the perpetrator isn't caught means the perpetrator is still out there somewhere, presumably ready to strike again. It isn't just a matter of minimizing deaths (although that is always a good idea), it's also a matter of weighing the psychological trauma (e.g. fear and loathing) experienced by the community whenever it feels victimized.
Nah, I'm saying that people's irrationality is a fact of life, and we should include that consideration in our calculations. Certainly the bad guys do, that is why they commit acts of terror in the first place (e.g. the total costs of 9/11 were much greater than just the direct costs of the lives lost and the property destroyed by the act itself).
You might think it's OK to piss away tens of billions of dollars on a very small threat, but I don't. I'd prefer to spend the money on beer, thanks.
Certainly there is a limit to the added valuation, and "tens of billions" may well be above that limit. But I stand by my argument that one has to consider all the indirect costs of a terrorist act, and not just the immediate physical damage and lives lost.
Bad advice -- the moment of impact (when you hit the soup) is the exact instant your seat belt is useful. Of course you'll want to unbuckle it immediately afterward... hope you're still conscious and uninjured enough to do that
Sure, but have you ever tried to hide an AA gun in a suitcase? It's a real bitch to reassemble afterward....
I think that is actually a valid reason not to vote for Ron Paul. Certainly, Dennis Kucinich's mentioning of his experiences with UFOs was enough for many people to write him off as a likely nutter, and the same principle applies here: some times little things like this are red flags that a particular person's mindset is outside of what you consider acceptable in a leader.
I, for one, am not going to support someone who doesn't accept evolution, because that is someone who cannot accept the scientific method. And I've seen plenty of that sort of "logic" failing to address the nation's problems over the last eight years; I don't care to see any more of it.
Agreed. But let's consider the possibility that they are right to do so. What is more politically destabilizing and economically counterproductive, a terrorist attack or another year of the status quo in traffic fatalities and heart attacks? The latter people already used to and expecting as a largely unavoidable fact of life... the former turns people into panicky animals whose political decisions are often very short-sighted and self-destructive (witness the Iraq war). So I think there is a case to be made that preventing terrorist attacks may well be more important than reducing heart attacks, even if the number of people directly saved is smaller.
It's a common fallacy in humans to assume that just because a thing has never happened, it's unlikely to happen. At this point in history it's easy to see that such attacks can happen, the only thing we don't know is whether they will happen. Given that, I think it's wise to at least research and test appropriate countermeasures, so that if (at some point in the future) this sort of attack does become common, we'll at least have a response ready to deploy on short notice. Actually spending $40 billion attaching this system to every airliner would definitely be premature at this point.
In the meantime, they cut out all the funding for alternative energy funding in the last bill, so the USA can continue to be dependent on the oil tha sits under the homes and deserts of the people they want to defend their airliners against.
Agreed, that was really dumb. Hopefully that issue will be more productively addressed in the near future.
Very interesting article. Just to nitpick, though, this is from the Wikipedia page you linked to: The Airbus was repaired and offered for sale in 2005.
Better yet, buy your Mac notebook with extra RAM and install VMWare Fusion or Parallels on it. Then you can do your Linux stuff inside a Linux VM while still running MacOS/X. Now you have the best of both worlds...
A computer that isn't a Mac cannot run MacOS/X-specific software. If there is some MacOS/X-specific software you'd like to run (including MacOS/X itself, which is an excellent piece of Mac-specific software), that's a good reason why not.