Ask anyone who was around in 1976, they probably wouldn't count that year as the time of their life in which they were the most lucid and observant of their surroundings.
That must be one of the stupidest things I've heard on SlashDot for months, if not years.
1976 was the year that my father started his night-school degree in ecology (and incidentally brought the first calculator in the family for the statistics ; it was slightly faster than log tables) ; it was also the year after I'd had my short-sightedness diagnosed and spectacled, but the year before I discovered girls and drugs. That's two counter-examples where 1976 was probably literally the year in which we were making the most lucid observations of our environments.
Is SlashDot morphing from a discussion site to a "compete for the stupidest kewel thing to say" site ? Or has it happened already. Might be worth looking at one of the competitors.
It would be interesting if all email server admins suddenly opened the flood gates for a day or two. Maybe then the general population will gain a better appreciate of the scale of the matter.
I think most internet users still remember what it was like before spam filtering became common. Wait a few more years. Then users will take the filtering for granted.
It might come as a surprise, but many internet users can remember what the internet was like before spam became commmon.
The weight was the only downside. Those things are solid brass and weigh well over 100 pounds
A hundred pounds of solid brass. Just sitting around on the streets?
People are already making a habit of stealing hundred-pound slabs of solid steel (well, cast iron, most likely) from the middle of the streets in some towns (and who cares if cars crash, bicyclists die in the early morning, etc. Come on - they're theives!), and the market price of steel is a lot lower than the scrap price of brass. So there's obviously an entire Slashdot-reading criminal fraternity already eyeing up the financial possibilities. Or maybe, the fire hydrants are only partially brass. Like, a brass hose fitting, attached to a steel or cast iron water pipe, and the whole lot surrounded by a cast iron protective post. After all, that's exactly the structure the fire-water pipes on most industrial sites I've worked on (40 or 50) are fitted : cheap steel pipes with brass fittings. I'm sure there's a self-help group somewhere for people with too much interest in fire hydrants. Googling for [fire hydrant construction brass "cast iron"] looks to be telling one far more than a civilised person would want to know. Try scrolling down to the "Choice of materials" section of http://www.firehydrant.org/info/design_manufacture _elissa_wahlstrom.html
By which I mean software that treats HTML (or Java, or JS, or XML) codes as strings of letters (each one to be looked-up in the characret outline file, then displayed to screen), and that does not even start to display the mail until after the connection to the mail server has been terminated. In short, an off-line reader. It'll get the message, and only the message, then disconnect from the network (viz - it actually detaches from the TCP/IP stack, or which other protocol it's using). Later, when the viewer is reading their mail, all the content of the message is displayed from the hard drive. If a message's "content" isn't attached as MIME in the body of the mail, then obviously it's not content in any RFC-compliant form.
Just don't use "live" content in email. It's not as if it adds anything significant to messages.
Some years ago, in a fit of misplaced boredom, I asked myself "what do all these toolbars in Word do, which no-one ever uses." So I switched them all on... rearranged a little bit, and ended up with a very artistic "upgrade" of Word to function more-or-less like Edlin did in the Good Old Days. Come to think of it, the program was called LinEd on the Honeywell mainframe last time I used it. I've got a screenshot somewhere, which confused the children at work, who couldn't see the joke.
Tried doing the same in OO.org - can't get the window more than ~2/3 full of toolbars (without creating custom bars), on a full-screen 1400x1050 window. Be maybe 3/4 full on a wide-format screen.
The initial commentary about this deeply unimportant topic continually talks about the joys of giving teenagers credit cards. This might be a cultural lack in the United States, but here in the Real World (you know - those places that you need a passport to go to, and so most Americans are banned frrom getting to) there are things called DEBIT cards. Unlike a CREDIT card (where the card provider loans you the money that you spend, and hopes that you're going to pay it back later), a DEBIT card accesses money that you've already deposited into an account, and lets you transfer that money to another legal entity (say, a shop) for the exchange of a 16 (decimal) digit number and a 2, 3 or 4 (decimal) digit cross-check number. You see, it's rather similar to a CREDIT card, but has next-to-zero financial risk for the card management company (they already have your money before you spend it - they don't need to send the repo man round to get it).
Sheesh - my 14 year old step-daughter has a DEBIT card for her bank account, and I wouldn't have any qualms about giving her my (debit) card to get something off the net if she wanted it. Infact, I don't use anything else for shopping on the net, because there's no way that account can be raided for more money than is in it. Much safer than a credit card.
Come to think of it - that's the card that I used to set up my PayPal account with. So again, I really don't need to do anything but laugh at the incessant PayPal Phishing spam I get - the only thing that's at risk is the contents of that account - today thats £372.62, but I should get another couple of hundred quid of expenses in there next week.
We're talking about internet gambling, not a physical building in a country. AFAIK there is no law to stop me from visiting the UK and gambling in a casino in your country.
- First, find a casino. - Then sign up for a year's membership (refundable, maybe, but you still need to be a member to get in. TTBOMK, the laws may be relaxing slightly). Oh, you'll probably need to find a proposer and seconder who know you and are willing to put their names to your behaviour. That's probably down to individual casino's rules. - Then gamble your money away.
Casinos are far fewer and further between in Britain than I believe is the case in America. And also far less used. My home town (Aberdeen, Scotland) has, I believe a casino, with rules much as described above. But it's been 15 years since I met anyone who'd been to it.
The GP-poster's point was : UK laws are being changed (largely it would seem at the behest of foreign [read: American] gambling companies to make it much simpler for foreign [read: American]-styles of losing money to operate over here, and in a reciprocal move, the US government is acting to block a legitimate UK (largely) business from operating in America. This would be some use of the concept "reciprocity" that hasn't yet made it to the dictionaries. Pretty much what's to be expected though.
I heard that fossils of a poor bookie had recently been found, but I don't believe the reports. The Earth isn't old enough for such an improbable event to have occurred, let alone been fossilised. (UK English "bookie" ~= "gambling financier", whatever that is in American English)
Actually I was under the impression that Bush government cares neither for facts, nor for the public or world opinion. So what will separation of opinions from facts achieve?
It'll throw a very clear and unflattering light upon the doublethink and doublespeak of PoTUS (or at least, his speech-writers). For this reason, expect to see the subject dropped quietly as soon as the contradictions become undeniable. Awkward facts are meant to be dismissed as opinions, not taken seriously. Haven't you been reading your Dilbert while the PHB talks?
Contrary to popular belief, the Microsoft Way isn't necessarily the only way to do things, and often not really the correct way, either,...
... in particular because MS have always been so America-centred that their templates are absolutely riddled with parochial assumptions. Since I don't use a foreign language version of their stuff, I can't comment on how they handle doing a complete translation of a program, but I've heard enough rumours that it's atrocious. Certainly their developer tools suck so badly at internationalisation that my employers have lost 10s of thousands of dollars in sales abroad. "$TOOL will allow $APP to handle foreign-language characters" ; $TOOL is applied to the existing code base ; $APP still cannot handle Cyrillic. CLIENT $$$ goes away. At least we've got some Indonesian testers for our next step towards conquering the world.
In the case where votes are randomly added or removed randomly, the slightly losing candidate has a chance to gain a certain number of votes. If the race is tight enought, a fluctation could push the candidate over the edge.
I think you're still missing my point : a random variation is as likely to make a slightly-winning candidate lose as to make a slightly-losing candidate win. In your "2-horse race", for every slightly-losing candidate, there is a corresponding slightly-winning candidate ; should the slightly-losing candidate win unjustly because of a random variation in the vote counting, then automatically a slightly-winning candidate will lose unjustly because of that same random variation ; and the two candidates are indistinguishable to the random variation.
To get an effect significantly in favour of one candidate (or national party, or state organisation across many polls in many constituencies) you would need to have some sort of concerted, non-random electoral fraud ; you can't rely on a random variation in a measurement system to give you a biased outcome.
By "any randomness", I mean a random number of votes introduced to the system.
By "slightly losing candidate", I mean a candidate that would actually lose, but barely, if the correct number of votes were to be tallied properly.
Does that help you understand?
Not really. Are the votes being randomly introduced randomly allocated to candidates (in which case they're as likely to make a slightly winning candidate lose as they are to make a slightly losing candidate win), or are they deliberately allocated non-randomly to a particular candidate?
One case (random mis-allocation of votes) will not significantly help a particular candidate, and while it's unfortunate it's not a threat to democracy. The other case (deliberate, non-random misallocation of votes to one particular candidate) is potentially a threat to democracy (or whatever political system the votes are being used in)and is called electoral fraud in most legislations. It's quite a serious crime too.
Accidental, unbiased misallocation of votes is one thing ; electoral fraud is another thing. An ideal voting machine should make both impossible (or at least, too expensive to be worthwhile), but the electoral system only really needs to make vote counting reasonably accurate and to make voting fraud very difficult.
If you know the politicians and beaurocrats? Some know and care, some know and delight. Any randomness is going to increase the chance of a slightly losing candidate to actually win.
Check your secondary school timetable for next year - they might run a "Statistics for Beginners" course.
You specify "any randomness", so for every number of slightly losing candidate who wins (you're on FPTP voting not a PR?) there will be a comparable number of slightly winning candidates who lose. And also, some slightly [winn | los]-ing candidates will [win | lose] by a larger margin due to randomness in the vote and in the vote counting systems.
# spread-spectrum radio # unlicensed 902-928MHz (they say it is secure, why not give out the frequency?)
The band is licensed for "channel hopping" systems, so presumably there's a (range) of initiation frequencies on which devices establish a connection, then jump off to some agreed other frequencies in the band to continue their conversation. That leaves the initiation frequenc( -y | -ies) clear for the next unlicensed group of devices to start talking and go off to some other unoccupied channels. The particular frequencies that a pair (more?) of devices use are not predictable in advance.
Order is still wrong. If you sell the car (assuming that you're in the United States), then you've got next to no chance of getting from home to either job. And you can live in a car (well, you can sleep in one and fuck in one, so that's the main necessities of life sorted). So the home should go before the car. Likewise the kids can go before the home (or the car).
Good call on the kid's kidneys - I'd not thought of that myself. Begs the question of whether you get a premium for kidneys from virgins (considerably lower risk of infections for the recipient, we're talking back-street transplants here)? You could get shot of a lung and a cornea from each too without rendering them expensively dependent. And lots of skin! They'll re-grow that (to a degree)!
Georgia DA J. Tom Morgan wrote a very good piece about the Georgia law
But, But, the man isn't calling for compulsory lynching on first accusation. He must be a paedophile! What would a DA (something equivalent to a Procurator Fiscal?) know about sex crimes anyway?
Did America hear about the results of one of the more recent witch-hunts in Britain http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/901723.stm ? A couple of years ago, after yet another high-profile campaign by a newspaper desperate to raise it's circulation, a mob wrecked the house of one of these disgusting perverts. The stupid woman actually put her sexual predilictions on her business cards and on the door of her office, so everone knew that she was a paediatrician. Burn the witch!
Clearly, it is unresonable to search everybody so it's a trade-off between cost, time and hastle.
Sorry, where did that "Clearly" come from? It's not clear to me. But then again I've been baggage-searched and frisked on approximately 94% of the flights that I've taken over the last 20-something years, and I utterly deplore the last few years of declining security standards. (My sample is on the order of 400 flights, with around 25 without full searches.) I've always thought that people should be subjected to normal search procedures - empty all your baggage onto the counter for searching before it's checked in ; empty all your pockets (including emptying the contents out of your wallet) before going through the metal detector to be frisked ; re-fill your pockets then sit through the 20-minute-long flight safety video ("No talking or reading allowed. YOU THERE - you're not paying attention! Re-start the video and delay the flight!") before you don your 1-piece flight suit (shoes go over the suit's feet), and finally go out to your flight. That would rapidly solve the congestion problems of airports.
In Dekalb County, Georgia, the sheriff said that there are no locations in the county where someone on the registry can legally reside... so those people have to move to the more rural areas. Hope the country-folk like having child molesters next door.
Well, I suppose having the child abusers next door would be better than having them in the house. Let's not forget - around 80% of children who are molested or otherwise abused are abused in their homes by their family or friends of their family.
(Actually, that's a UK figure. But I doubt that the US is hugely different.)
Not in the slightest. Email is a useful communication tool, but it's just a tool. It's not the only way for communicating important information, and for the really important information (for example, telling a client that they've wasted 3 years and a couple of million pounds of work), a phone call is much better. Posting stuff to websites? Works, but it's slow.
Actually, the Vista startup sound will sound like this.
... which video very nicely demonstrates why start-up / shutdown sounds are a PITA. Ever worked in a office where machines are being started/ crashed/ restarted regularly?
(To be fair, the original article did mention that the proposed mandatory sound would be "gentle". So they're thinking of the right things even if they're going to end up using some horrible trumpet charge.)
I remember being cruel to a collegue once and setting his machine to have some porn-star faked orgasm screams as a startup sound. Now where's my copy of "When Harry Met Sally"? This sort of thing just must be done.
Police where I live complain that their 800 MHz radios cut out in modern office buildings. Firefighters are in the same band.
There's a train wreck been building up in the UK for a decade or so over introducing a high-frequency, digital (and therefore much less scanner-friendly) radio system for all of the emergency services. Police were happy with the specs ; ambulance were happy with the specs ; firefighters said "we need something that won't detonate gas-air mixes". For some reason, the bureaucrats involved couldn't understand why on earth the firefighters would be wanting such an esoteric requirement, so over-ruled them. Me, I just cross the road when I see a fire engine pulling up to a smoldering building. Don't want to be near them if you can avoid it. Oddly, the bureaucrats sometimes make pained noises about why no-one in industry wants to buy their wonderful system either. After all, if it's good enough for 2 out of 3 of the emergency services, it must be marvellous. Mustn't it.
Show me an employer who places indiscriminate blocks on numbers that you can call during the day, in order to prevent you from making calls that *might* be personal.
Lets see... find an employer who has an internal telephone system where you need to dial the switchboard (or reception) to place a call outside the company. That would be about 2/3 to 3/4 of the clients that I work for. There, that wasn't difficult.
My clients generally give me direct outside-line access from the phone at my worksite, because they recognise that I do need the access and don't abuse it. But since my site is not secure (I'm often away checking other people's work all over the site - it's my job!), I often ask for them to put it a PIN code onto the phone too. A couple of months ago I got a roasting for making about $200 worth of calls to Malta on night shift ; the calls stopped after I got the PIN code put on, and the radio operator reported that a Maltese night shift labourer on the site suddenly started buying a lot more phone cards. Odd that.
Of course, all these client companies make a couple of phone booths available on site for free (or heavily subsidised) use by people WHEN THEY'RE OFF SHIFT. Could be worse - 10 years ago you had the choice of paying $7/minute to use the InMarSat phone with the radio operator listening in. Or you could quit and go back onshore to make your phone call.
Indeed they do. My cave-diving friends are reasonably evenly split between moving their demand valves through the caves using Pelican cases, or ex-army ammunition cases (covered in airport-friendly "Explosives - Danger!!" stickers), or just carrying them in their own hands as much as possible. [Hint - if your demand valves fail in a dive, you die. This encourages care in their transport.) The cave photographers have a similar opinion of the merits of Peli-cases and bomb boxes.
If you do have Pelican cases that are used for caving work, you don't need to worry about baggage handlers thinking that they're full of posh, expensive equipment. You're more likely to get complaints from the people in the queue with you about all the mud and scratches on your case damaging theirs.
Looking at the FAQ for www.random.org, I see that they acquire their entropy from a radio tuned to an un-used channel. That just begs a question - what frequency? (and of course, where are they?)
Because they discard the high-order bits of their stream and only retain the low-order bits, it would be difficult to to deliberately inject bias into it, but it would be an interesting project to try. But correspondingly, wouldn't failure indicate that their ultimate source of randomness isn't the radio signal, but is the thermal noise in the amplifiers/ bias circuits/ etc in the microphone input and digitiser for their Sun?
Freedom to move around the country is a pretty basic right which is being eroded by stealth.
The people eroding your right to travel have cut off your feet, and your horse's feet?
Think back to the conditions for which your constitution were written. They're not today's conditions, so why should you expect their terms and conditions to apply?
Slashdot Mirror
That must be one of the stupidest things I've heard on SlashDot for months, if not years.
1976 was the year that my father started his night-school degree in ecology (and incidentally brought the first calculator in the family for the statistics ; it was slightly faster than log tables) ; it was also the year after I'd had my short-sightedness diagnosed and spectacled, but the year before I discovered girls and drugs. That's two counter-examples where 1976 was probably literally the year in which we were making the most lucid observations of our environments.
Is SlashDot morphing from a discussion site to a "compete for the stupidest kewel thing to say" site ? Or has it happened already. Might be worth looking at one of the competitors.
It might come as a surprise, but many internet users can remember what the internet was like before spam became commmon.
A hundred pounds of solid brass. Just sitting around on the streets?
People are already making a habit of stealing hundred-pound slabs of solid steel (well, cast iron, most likely) from the middle of the streets in some towns (and who cares if cars crash, bicyclists die in the early morning, etc. Come on - they're theives!), and the market price of steel is a lot lower than the scrap price of brass.
So there's obviously an entire Slashdot-reading criminal fraternity already eyeing up the financial possibilities.
Or maybe, the fire hydrants are only partially brass. Like, a brass hose fitting, attached to a steel or cast iron water pipe, and the whole lot surrounded by a cast iron protective post. After all, that's exactly the structure the fire-water pipes on most industrial sites I've worked on (40 or 50) are fitted : cheap steel pipes with brass fittings.
I'm sure there's a self-help group somewhere for people with too much interest in fire hydrants.
Googling for [fire hydrant construction brass "cast iron"] looks to be telling one far more than a civilised person would want to know. Try scrolling down to the "Choice of materials" section of http://www.firehydrant.org/info/design_manufactur
By which I mean software that treats HTML (or Java, or JS, or XML) codes as strings of letters (each one to be looked-up in the characret outline file, then displayed to screen), and that does not even start to display the mail until after the connection to the mail server has been terminated.
In short, an off-line reader. It'll get the message, and only the message, then disconnect from the network (viz - it actually detaches from the TCP/IP stack, or which other protocol it's using). Later, when the viewer is reading their mail, all the content of the message is displayed from the hard drive. If a message's "content" isn't attached as MIME in the body of the mail, then obviously it's not content in any RFC-compliant form.
Just don't use "live" content in email. It's not as if it adds anything significant to messages.
Some years ago, in a fit of misplaced boredom, I asked myself "what do all these toolbars in Word do, which no-one ever uses." So I switched them all on ... rearranged a little bit, and ended up with a very artistic "upgrade" of Word to function more-or-less like Edlin did in the Good Old Days. Come to think of it, the program was called LinEd on the Honeywell mainframe last time I used it.
I've got a screenshot somewhere, which confused the children at work, who couldn't see the joke.
Tried doing the same in OO.org - can't get the window more than ~2/3 full of toolbars (without creating custom bars), on a full-screen 1400x1050 window. Be maybe 3/4 full on a wide-format screen.
Pointless. But fun.
The initial commentary about this deeply unimportant topic continually talks about the joys of giving teenagers credit cards. This might be a cultural lack in the United States, but here in the Real World (you know - those places that you need a passport to go to, and so most Americans are banned frrom getting to) there are things called DEBIT cards. Unlike a CREDIT card (where the card provider loans you the money that you spend, and hopes that you're going to pay it back later), a DEBIT card accesses money that you've already deposited into an account, and lets you transfer that money to another legal entity (say, a shop) for the exchange of a 16 (decimal) digit number and a 2, 3 or 4 (decimal) digit cross-check number. You see, it's rather similar to a CREDIT card, but has next-to-zero financial risk for the card management company (they already have your money before you spend it - they don't need to send the repo man round to get it).
Sheesh - my 14 year old step-daughter has a DEBIT card for her bank account, and I wouldn't have any qualms about giving her my (debit) card to get something off the net if she wanted it. Infact, I don't use anything else for shopping on the net, because there's no way that account can be raided for more money than is in it. Much safer than a credit card.
Come to think of it - that's the card that I used to set up my PayPal account with. So again, I really don't need to do anything but laugh at the incessant PayPal Phishing spam I get - the only thing that's at risk is the contents of that account - today thats £372.62, but I should get another couple of hundred quid of expenses in there next week.
- First, find a casino.
- Then sign up for a year's membership (refundable, maybe, but you still need to be a member to get in. TTBOMK, the laws may be relaxing slightly). Oh, you'll probably need to find a proposer and seconder who know you and are willing to put their names to your behaviour. That's probably down to individual casino's rules.
- Then gamble your money away.
Casinos are far fewer and further between in Britain than I believe is the case in America. And also far less used. My home town (Aberdeen, Scotland) has, I believe a casino, with rules much as described above. But it's been 15 years since I met anyone who'd been to it.
The GP-poster's point was : UK laws are being changed (largely it would seem at the behest of foreign [read: American] gambling companies to make it much simpler for foreign [read: American]-styles of losing money to operate over here, and in a reciprocal move, the US government is acting to block a legitimate UK (largely) business from operating in America.
This would be some use of the concept "reciprocity" that hasn't yet made it to the dictionaries. Pretty much what's to be expected though.
I heard that fossils of a poor bookie had recently been found, but I don't believe the reports. The Earth isn't old enough for such an improbable event to have occurred, let alone been fossilised. (UK English "bookie" ~= "gambling financier", whatever that is in American English)
It'll throw a very clear and unflattering light upon the doublethink and doublespeak of PoTUS (or at least, his speech-writers). For this reason, expect to see the subject dropped quietly as soon as the contradictions become undeniable. Awkward facts are meant to be dismissed as opinions, not taken seriously. Haven't you been reading your Dilbert while the PHB talks?
In British English she's a "proper little madam", and probably has been since some time before birth. No, it's not a compliment.
At least we've got some Indonesian testers for our next step towards conquering the world.
I think you're still missing my point : a random variation is as likely to make a slightly-winning candidate lose as to make a slightly-losing candidate win. In your "2-horse race", for every slightly-losing candidate, there is a corresponding slightly-winning candidate ; should the slightly-losing candidate win unjustly because of a random variation in the vote counting, then automatically a slightly-winning candidate will lose unjustly because of that same random variation ; and the two candidates are indistinguishable to the random variation.
To get an effect significantly in favour of one candidate (or national party, or state organisation across many polls in many constituencies) you would need to have some sort of concerted, non-random electoral fraud ; you can't rely on a random variation in a measurement system to give you a biased outcome.
Not really.
Are the votes being randomly introduced randomly allocated to candidates (in which case they're as likely to make a slightly winning candidate lose as they are to make a slightly losing candidate win), or are they deliberately allocated non-randomly to a particular candidate?
One case (random mis-allocation of votes) will not significantly help a particular candidate, and while it's unfortunate it's not a threat to democracy. The other case (deliberate, non-random misallocation of votes to one particular candidate) is potentially a threat to democracy (or whatever political system the votes are being used in)and is called electoral fraud in most legislations. It's quite a serious crime too.
Accidental, unbiased misallocation of votes is one thing ; electoral fraud is another thing. An ideal voting machine should make both impossible (or at least, too expensive to be worthwhile), but the electoral system only really needs to make vote counting reasonably accurate and to make voting fraud very difficult.
Check your secondary school timetable for next year - they might run a "Statistics for Beginners" course.
You specify "any randomness", so for every number of slightly losing candidate who wins (you're on FPTP voting not a PR?) there will be a comparable number of slightly winning candidates who lose. And also, some slightly [winn | los]-ing candidates will [win | lose] by a larger margin due to randomness in the vote and in the vote counting systems.
The band is licensed for "channel hopping" systems, so presumably there's a (range) of initiation frequencies on which devices establish a connection, then jump off to some agreed other frequencies in the band to continue their conversation. That leaves the initiation frequenc( -y | -ies) clear for the next unlicensed group of devices to start talking and go off to some other unoccupied channels.
The particular frequencies that a pair (more?) of devices use are not predictable in advance.
Order is still wrong. If you sell the car (assuming that you're in the United States), then you've got next to no chance of getting from home to either job. And you can live in a car (well, you can sleep in one and fuck in one, so that's the main necessities of life sorted). So the home should go before the car. Likewise the kids can go before the home (or the car).
Good call on the kid's kidneys - I'd not thought of that myself. Begs the question of whether you get a premium for kidneys from virgins (considerably lower risk of infections for the recipient, we're talking back-street transplants here)? You could get shot of a lung and a cornea from each too without rendering them expensively dependent. And lots of skin! They'll re-grow that (to a degree)!
But, But, the man isn't calling for compulsory lynching on first accusation. He must be a paedophile!
What would a DA (something equivalent to a Procurator Fiscal?) know about sex crimes anyway?
Did America hear about the results of one of the more recent witch-hunts in Britain http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/901723.stm ? A couple of years ago, after yet another high-profile campaign by a newspaper desperate to raise it's circulation, a mob wrecked the house of one of these disgusting perverts. The stupid woman actually put her sexual predilictions on her business cards and on the door of her office, so everone knew that she was a paediatrician. Burn the witch!
Sorry, where did that "Clearly" come from? It's not clear to me. But then again I've been baggage-searched and frisked on approximately 94% of the flights that I've taken over the last 20-something years, and I utterly deplore the last few years of declining security standards. (My sample is on the order of 400 flights, with around 25 without full searches.)
I've always thought that people should be subjected to normal search procedures - empty all your baggage onto the counter for searching before it's checked in ; empty all your pockets (including emptying the contents out of your wallet) before going through the metal detector to be frisked ; re-fill your pockets then sit through the 20-minute-long flight safety video ("No talking or reading allowed. YOU THERE - you're not paying attention! Re-start the video and delay the flight!") before you don your 1-piece flight suit (shoes go over the suit's feet), and finally go out to your flight.
That would rapidly solve the congestion problems of airports.
Well, I suppose having the child abusers next door would be better than having them in the house. Let's not forget - around 80% of children who are molested or otherwise abused are abused in their homes by their family or friends of their family.
(Actually, that's a UK figure. But I doubt that the US is hugely different.)
Not in the slightest.
Email is a useful communication tool, but it's just a tool. It's not the only way for communicating important information, and for the really important information (for example, telling a client that they've wasted 3 years and a couple of million pounds of work), a phone call is much better.
Posting stuff to websites? Works, but it's slow.
(To be fair, the original article did mention that the proposed mandatory sound would be "gentle". So they're thinking of the right things even if they're going to end up using some horrible trumpet charge.)
I remember being cruel to a collegue once and setting his machine to have some porn-star faked orgasm screams as a startup sound. Now where's my copy of "When Harry Met Sally"? This sort of thing just must be done.
There's a train wreck been building up in the UK for a decade or so over introducing a high-frequency, digital (and therefore much less scanner-friendly) radio system for all of the emergency services. Police were happy with the specs ; ambulance were happy with the specs ; firefighters said "we need something that won't detonate gas-air mixes". For some reason, the bureaucrats involved couldn't understand why on earth the firefighters would be wanting such an esoteric requirement, so over-ruled them.
Me, I just cross the road when I see a fire engine pulling up to a smoldering building. Don't want to be near them if you can avoid it.
Oddly, the bureaucrats sometimes make pained noises about why no-one in industry wants to buy their wonderful system either. After all, if it's good enough for 2 out of 3 of the emergency services, it must be marvellous. Mustn't it.
Lets see
My clients generally give me direct outside-line access from the phone at my worksite, because they recognise that I do need the access and don't abuse it. But since my site is not secure (I'm often away checking other people's work all over the site - it's my job!), I often ask for them to put it a PIN code onto the phone too. A couple of months ago I got a roasting for making about $200 worth of calls to Malta on night shift ; the calls stopped after I got the PIN code put on, and the radio operator reported that a Maltese night shift labourer on the site suddenly started buying a lot more phone cards. Odd that.
Of course, all these client companies make a couple of phone booths available on site for free (or heavily subsidised) use by people WHEN THEY'RE OFF SHIFT.
Could be worse - 10 years ago you had the choice of paying $7/minute to use the InMarSat phone with the radio operator listening in. Or you could quit and go back onshore to make your phone call.
Indeed they do. My cave-diving friends are reasonably evenly split between moving their demand valves through the caves using Pelican cases, or ex-army ammunition cases (covered in airport-friendly "Explosives - Danger!!" stickers), or just carrying them in their own hands as much as possible. [Hint - if your demand valves fail in a dive, you die. This encourages care in their transport.) The cave photographers have a similar opinion of the merits of Peli-cases and bomb boxes.
If you do have Pelican cases that are used for caving work, you don't need to worry about baggage handlers thinking that they're full of posh, expensive equipment. You're more likely to get complaints from the people in the queue with you about all the mud and scratches on your case damaging theirs.
Looking at the FAQ for www.random.org, I see that they acquire their entropy from a radio tuned to an un-used channel. That just begs a question - what frequency? (and of course, where are they?)
Because they discard the high-order bits of their stream and only retain the low-order bits, it would be difficult to to deliberately inject bias into it, but it would be an interesting project to try. But correspondingly, wouldn't failure indicate that their ultimate source of randomness isn't the radio signal, but is the thermal noise in the amplifiers/ bias circuits/ etc in the microphone input and digitiser for their Sun?
The people eroding your right to travel have cut off your feet, and your horse's feet?
Think back to the conditions for which your constitution were written. They're not today's conditions, so why should you expect their terms and conditions to apply?