So, fundamentally, the GOP was upset that Democrats wanted to hold Administration officials responsible for breaking the law, when it was really so much more important to make sure telecomm companies weren't held responsible if they broke the law.
How exactly are these people the party of law and order again?
(IA still NAL) Actually - I have wondered about this retroactive immunity from the perspective of the 1st amendment "Redress of Grievances" clause.
Typically, although Congress has retroactively immunized companies from lawsuits in the past, it has done so while creating an alternative route - i.e., creating a fund to compensate the families of those killed from the WTC while protecting the airlines, and I believe they did something similar to asbestos victims (or maybe that's been considered - not sure).
Historically (according to Jonathan Turley IIRC), they have *not* immunized a company against lawsuit while not allowing some other means of redress. Changing the law does not actually make it constitutional, and if you have a valid constitutional argument on the claim that it wasn't legal, this would be a valid argument that Congress can't keep you from suing.
As near as I can tell, the biggest problem is still establishing standing to sue, since SCOTUS has established that just because we know the Government did something illegal doesn't mean you can sue unless you can establish that you were actually a victim of the behavior.
I really think there should be some sort of special standing for generalized, constitutional lawsuits - If you know the Government is doing something unconstitutional, only citizenship should be required to establish standing or something.
Which, as much as I consider Capital Hill Blue an untrustworthy resource (Call it a left-wing Drudge Report. At one time they were known to single source things, though they told you when they did.), they've had way too much of a tendency to be ahead of the curve on stuff for me to assume they're wrong on anything.
Gee, fifty years just isn't long enough to provide lifetime income from the creative process.
Why exactly is it that we need to be concerned that someone receive *Lifetime* income from work? I'm all for people benefiting from their creative process, but there's no interest in making sure a ditchdigger gets lifetime income from contributing to society. My father no longer gets income from the jobs he did ten years ago, and the Air Force quit paying me for fixing jets pretty much the day I quit doing it.
Just - *stop it*. You don't need income for my legally copying a cd under fair use, and we won't charge you an extra fee *every* time you utilize a ditch, road, internet connection, or any of the thousands of other things that you used and FUCKING ONLY PAID ONCE FOR!
God I'm sick of these people. I'm happy to make some special concessions for creative work, but get over yourselves - you're writing a book, not lowering the total entropy of the universe.
Serious question for anyone that has the math to answer it-
As I understand it, as the black hole loses mass, the tidal 'well' grows steeper, and in turn the hawking radiation grows more pronounced and powerful.
Doesn't this make, in some sense, an ultimate matter --> energy converter?
If a black hole of size X has a 'temperature' equivalent to the conversion of 1 gram of matter per second, and you force into the event horizon 1 gram of energy per second, you have effectively done a complete conversion of 1 gram of matter to 89,875,517,873,681.764 joules of energy - feed (counter intuitively) more matter into the black hole to lower the output, choke it to raise the output.
Disregarding the fact that creating and maintaining a blackhole itself would require superscience, it seems to me that this violates entropy in some fashion, yet I don't see any particular theoretical reason it should be all that difficult, given the specified level of superscience in the first place. One can easily imagine a star around a black hole where the stellar byproducts of the stars fusion are fed into the black hole, the energy from the Black hole is converted into simple hydrogen, the fusion process creates helium, rinse, repeat. Surround the whole thing with a Dyson Sphere to capture the solar wind and feed it back, and you have a cozy, quiet winter cottage away from those annoying lesser races.
Surely there's a way of proving this is or isn't theoretically feasible?
No - we've only seen unimaginably dense and massive objects that throw large stars around like toys, ripping them apart with tidal stresses, which have no other detectable attributes when they aren't actively feeding on matter.
I will grant that the question of *what* is the simplest explanation is often up for grabs. But *looking* for the simplest explanation is *not* the same as forcing data to fit 'currently fashionable theories'. By *that* logic, we should never have bothered even looking for any of the predictions of Relativity - because if there's any more pure example of a mathematical theory being created from whole cloth than Relativity, I can't imagine what it would be.
How sad that we need to shoehorn observations about the curvature of light and time dilation into this fairy tale, when *obviously* Newtonian mechanics is far more born out by the observational data - {G}
It's a silly way to even phrase it. If a theory predicts something new, and by golly when you look for it, you find that to be the case, then it's fair to take that as a point in favor of the theory. That's not 'interpreting data to fit a theory'.
Sorry - but your 'insightful' post seems to me to be just one step from claiming the energy crisis is easily solvable by zero-point energy, if it weren't for those brilliant researchers being suppressed by 'The Man'.
Pug (A Faithful Minion of 'The Man', suppressing people everywhere!)
I can't get how you got that design from those metaphors.
Okay - I get it, it's actually April 1st and you used a virus that changed every date everywhere while dragging the planet out of orbit by two months. Hah Hah, very funny, now put the earth back where it's supposed to be be before the orbital decay starts. It's all fun and games until the planetary crust melts.
Seriously - it's more like the logic you see in global warming denial than anything else I've seen. To start with he compares something that I've never heard of (Knocking an arrow through the sunroof of a car) which could only be done deliberately by someone with consummate skill to something that happens on a regular basis (Exploiting a security hole in software) which can be done by any scriptkiddy.
The password length thing is just silly too. If guessing passwords was an arithmetical progression (i.e, it was twice as hard to guess a 16 letter password as an 8 letter password) it would make sense, but it's not - a minor change in length makes a major change in password security. Even assuming that, of all the passwords used, the one the hacker cracks *has* network access - better security increases the chance that this isn't the case.
This sounds like someone trying to sound like he's thinking ahead of the curve and brilliant, but the info presented here just doesn't follow. Or maybe I'm just not smart enough.
Because he embodies the true ideals of conservativism that the neo-cons have robbed from modern Republicans.
2. Why is he STILL running?
Because he still has a good shot, the only thing holding him back is when news outlets don't mention him at all. News outlets such as Slashdot. The true ideals of conservatism that Republicans have espoused my entire lifetime - but never yet actually backed up - {G}.
Oh, there could be. I'm an Ubuntu fanboy, and I'll be the first to admit that.
Try figuring out how to fix Ubuntu after pulling a USB Drive/MP3 player out without dismounting it. Easy fix - took an hour of winnowing terminology keywords down to find it though.
I've had several experiences like that - literally annoyances type stuff that you put up with for a few weeks because you're busy with other stuff and don't feel like messing with it. Another one - I have an ATI 9800 card, which needs a proprietary driver for a lot of openGL stuff. Without it, they run for awhile, then randomly lock up and crash.
With it - things look *much* nicer, nothing crashes, works great . . . except . . .
Mplayer won't run, and random video files that ran fine on Mplayer, VLC, and Totem without the proprietary driver won't play. Spent hours working through forums, and haven't found a good solution yet! (Although, as a workaround if anyone else has this issue - the *same* files will sometimes run fine on the windows version of Mplayer, running under wine!)
So, yeah. I like Ubuntu, but it has it's share of annoyances - {G}.
I got a lot of use out of the Windows 98 and XP versions of this guide over the years - if I was going to buy Vista, I would probably buy this first.
As it is - I'd rather buy a copy of Ubuntu Annoyances. Well, except they're usually gone within six months - {G}.
Unfortunately, it sounds like anyone advanced enough to make Vista palatable, is probably more than advanced enough to say "The heck with it" and install Ubuntu. Or, if they're seriously MS stuck, use nLite, rip out the portions they dislike and retrograde to XP.
Slashdot Mirror
So, fundamentally, the GOP was upset that Democrats wanted to hold Administration officials responsible for breaking the law, when it was really so much more important to make sure telecomm companies weren't held responsible if they broke the law.
How exactly are these people the party of law and order again?
Pug
It's the Son of Sam defense. The voices in their heads keep telling them to kill, kill, kill . . .
Pug
(IA still NAL) Actually - I have wondered about this retroactive immunity from the perspective of the 1st amendment "Redress of Grievances" clause.
Typically, although Congress has retroactively immunized companies from lawsuits in the past, it has done so while creating an alternative route - i.e., creating a fund to compensate the families of those killed from the WTC while protecting the airlines, and I believe they did something similar to asbestos victims (or maybe that's been considered - not sure).
Historically (according to Jonathan Turley IIRC), they have *not* immunized a company against lawsuit while not allowing some other means of redress. Changing the law does not actually make it constitutional, and if you have a valid constitutional argument on the claim that it wasn't legal, this would be a valid argument that Congress can't keep you from suing.
As near as I can tell, the biggest problem is still establishing standing to sue, since SCOTUS has established that just because we know the Government did something illegal doesn't mean you can sue unless you can establish that you were actually a victim of the behavior.
I really think there should be some sort of special standing for generalized, constitutional lawsuits - If you know the Government is doing something unconstitutional, only citizenship should be required to establish standing or something.
Pug
Yet this is a President that reportedly exploded at people yelling 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'.
Which, as much as I consider Capital Hill Blue an untrustworthy resource (Call it a left-wing Drudge Report. At one time they were known to single source things, though they told you when they did.), they've had way too much of a tendency to be ahead of the curve on stuff for me to assume they're wrong on anything.
Pug
Jackass with a measuring tape?
No - Myth busters is about a smart gorgeous redhead, and some supporting cast.
That's just obvious.
Pug
Hell at this point in the Administration I'm just happy if they're interested in both Uranus and Lubricant.
Most of their interest has not been that kind. Or for that matter that well planned.
Pug
Gee, fifty years just isn't long enough to provide lifetime income from the creative process.
Why exactly is it that we need to be concerned that someone receive *Lifetime* income from work? I'm all for people benefiting from their creative process, but there's no interest in making sure a ditchdigger gets lifetime income from contributing to society. My father no longer gets income from the jobs he did ten years ago, and the Air Force quit paying me for fixing jets pretty much the day I quit doing it.
Just - *stop it*. You don't need income for my legally copying a cd under fair use, and we won't charge you an extra fee *every* time you utilize a ditch, road, internet connection, or any of the thousands of other things that you used and FUCKING ONLY PAID ONCE FOR!
God I'm sick of these people. I'm happy to make some special concessions for creative work, but get over yourselves - you're writing a book, not lowering the total entropy of the universe.
Pug
Serious question for anyone that has the math to answer it-
As I understand it, as the black hole loses mass, the tidal 'well' grows steeper, and in turn the hawking radiation grows more pronounced and powerful.
Doesn't this make, in some sense, an ultimate matter --> energy converter?
If a black hole of size X has a 'temperature' equivalent to the conversion of 1 gram of matter per second, and you force into the event horizon 1 gram of energy per second, you have effectively done a complete conversion of 1 gram of matter to 89,875,517,873,681.764 joules of energy - feed (counter intuitively) more matter into the black hole to lower the output, choke it to raise the output.
Disregarding the fact that creating and maintaining a blackhole itself would require superscience, it seems to me that this violates entropy in some fashion, yet I don't see any particular theoretical reason it should be all that difficult, given the specified level of superscience in the first place. One can easily imagine a star around a black hole where the stellar byproducts of the stars fusion are fed into the black hole, the energy from the Black hole is converted into simple hydrogen, the fusion process creates helium, rinse, repeat. Surround the whole thing with a Dyson Sphere to capture the solar wind and feed it back, and you have a cozy, quiet winter cottage away from those annoying lesser races.
Surely there's a way of proving this is or isn't theoretically feasible?
Pug
Down with Censorship! I wanna see a Naked Singularity!! Borg Babes for everyone!
Pug
No - we've only seen unimaginably dense and massive objects that throw large stars around like toys, ripping them apart with tidal stresses, which have no other detectable attributes when they aren't actively feeding on matter.
But, no, we haven't actually 'seen' one.
Pug
I should think it would be *easy* to compress a Planck mass to a Planck length.
Indeed, have you ever tried to stretch a Planck mass over two or more Planck lengths? Now *that's* hard.
Especially attaching the 'lil Planck handgrips at the ends.
Pug
I will grant that the question of *what* is the simplest explanation is often up for grabs. But *looking* for the simplest explanation is *not* the same as forcing data to fit 'currently fashionable theories'. By *that* logic, we should never have bothered even looking for any of the predictions of Relativity - because if there's any more pure example of a mathematical theory being created from whole cloth than Relativity, I can't imagine what it would be.
How sad that we need to shoehorn observations about the curvature of light and time dilation into this fairy tale, when *obviously* Newtonian mechanics is far more born out by the observational data - {G}
It's a silly way to even phrase it. If a theory predicts something new, and by golly when you look for it, you find that to be the case, then it's fair to take that as a point in favor of the theory. That's not 'interpreting data to fit a theory'.
Sorry - but your 'insightful' post seems to me to be just one step from claiming the energy crisis is easily solvable by zero-point energy, if it weren't for those brilliant researchers being suppressed by 'The Man'.
Pug (A Faithful Minion of 'The Man', suppressing people everywhere!)
I can watch A . . ., er I mean The Daily show again without feeling guilty!
Why would you want a middle ground. Impeach the SOB.
Pug
From lovely Cuba No doubt.
Pug
It's worth noting that the F's, like many related species, are much larger and more dangerous than the M's.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/69/AVP_Xenomorph.jpg
twice
I can get design metaphors.
I can't get how you got that design from those metaphors.
Okay - I get it, it's actually April 1st and you used a virus that changed every date everywhere while dragging the planet out of orbit by two months. Hah Hah, very funny, now put the earth back where it's supposed to be be before the orbital decay starts. It's all fun and games until the planetary crust melts.
Pug
Seriously - it's more like the logic you see in global warming denial than anything else I've seen. To start with he compares something that I've never heard of (Knocking an arrow through the sunroof of a car) which could only be done deliberately by someone with consummate skill to something that happens on a regular basis (Exploiting a security hole in software) which can be done by any scriptkiddy.
The password length thing is just silly too. If guessing passwords was an arithmetical progression (i.e, it was twice as hard to guess a 16 letter password as an 8 letter password) it would make sense, but it's not - a minor change in length makes a major change in password security. Even assuming that, of all the passwords used, the one the hacker cracks *has* network access - better security increases the chance that this isn't the case.
This sounds like someone trying to sound like he's thinking ahead of the curve and brilliant, but the info presented here just doesn't follow. Or maybe I'm just not smart enough.
Pug
Umm - Not that I'm a fan, but Huckabee is Southern Baptist. Romney is Mormon.
Pug
Because he embodies the true ideals of conservativism that the neo-cons have robbed from modern Republicans.
2. Why is he STILL running?
Because he still has a good shot, the only thing holding him back is when news outlets don't mention him at all. News outlets such as Slashdot. The true ideals of conservatism that Republicans have espoused my entire lifetime - but never yet actually backed up - {G}.
Pug
Hah - I've Played Starfleet Battles!!! Realtime to Gametime ratio, hours to seconds - {G}.
Pug
I love how any criticism of the U.S. is always translated as "The US _is_ the source of all evil".
Because y'know, any criticism of temporary policies always indicates a vast, hidden belief structure.
Sigh - Pug
Oh, there could be. I'm an Ubuntu fanboy, and I'll be the first to admit that.
Try figuring out how to fix Ubuntu after pulling a USB Drive/MP3 player out without dismounting it. Easy fix - took an hour of winnowing terminology keywords down to find it though.
I've had several experiences like that - literally annoyances type stuff that you put up with for a few weeks because you're busy with other stuff and don't feel like messing with it. Another one - I have an ATI 9800 card, which needs a proprietary driver for a lot of openGL stuff. Without it, they run for awhile, then randomly lock up and crash.
With it - things look *much* nicer, nothing crashes, works great . . . except . . .
Mplayer won't run, and random video files that ran fine on Mplayer, VLC, and Totem without the proprietary driver won't play. Spent hours working through forums, and haven't found a good solution yet! (Although, as a workaround if anyone else has this issue - the *same* files will sometimes run fine on the windows version of Mplayer, running under wine!)
So, yeah. I like Ubuntu, but it has it's share of annoyances - {G}.
Pug
I got a lot of use out of the Windows 98 and XP versions of this guide over the years - if I was going to buy Vista, I would probably buy this first.
As it is - I'd rather buy a copy of Ubuntu Annoyances. Well, except they're usually gone within six months - {G}.
Unfortunately, it sounds like anyone advanced enough to make Vista palatable, is probably more than advanced enough to say "The heck with it" and install Ubuntu. Or, if they're seriously MS stuck, use nLite, rip out the portions they dislike and retrograde to XP.
Pug