Canada dumped the dollar bill in favor of coins of the same denomination. We talk about it in the US - just like we said back in the 60s that we would switch to the metric system - and never actually do it.
My understanding is that the US does indeed have $1 coins, but no one ever uses them. I guess it will take the government ditching the bill altogether to get people to switch.
Paying for sex in any shape or form has to be one of the silliest things, given how easy it is to find women who are more than willing if you just looked around.
(Looking in from the outside, i.e. never have paid for sex myself) I can see valid reasons to pay for sex. One is the amount of effort required. Sure there are willing girls at a bar, but it's still going to take you a minimum of 3 to 4 hours to go to the bar, seduce girl, get her home, etc. etc. A hooker you can get the whole thing done in 30 minutes. The second is commitment. Even with a random from a bar there is somewhat of an obligation to that person. With a prostitute the exchange begins when the money is paid and ends at the agreed time. That's it. Done. The third is professionalism (if you're paying enough). The girl at the bar might suck (at sucking) or she might have crazy expectations or something. The prostitute is there for a business transaction, and a good one will say and do what's required to make your experience satisfactory.
On the other, I can't help but think that the time spent creating such works is finite, and once complete no further time or resources are spent
I've always figured that we weren't necessarily paying authors for their time, but rather the risk they took. Deciding to write a book for serious can mean taking months or even years without any sort of real income, with a huge risk that at the end your book won't even get published. Sure, there are some lucky people who have the types of jobs where they can write a book in their spare time, but if we want to have as diverse a selection of authors and books as we do there needs to be sufficient payoff to encourage people from all walks of like to take the risk.
I really like the idea that you can charge the light over USB and program it too.
I'm not really sure I like that idea. My uses for flashlights tend to be a) camping, and b) when the power goes out. Unfortunately with USB charging I would get one charge's worth of use in those situations. With regular old batteries I can replace them to infinity, and if I forgot some I can pick them up at a gas station on my way to the woods.
Since the Sony debacle I've switched to deciding my passwords algorithmically. I use a base password of six lower case digits that is the same for all websites. Then I use two capital letters that are related to the website in question (e.g. "SD" for slashdot) which I offset by a certain number of keys in a certain direction (e.g. SD might become "XC" if my offset is one key down, but it's not). Then I append a single number to the end (same in all cases). This gets me a nine digit password with mixed case alphanumerics that's easy to remember and is unique across the websites I use. Of course, if you know my algorithm and base it's easy to figure out my password for all sites. But my concern isn't really being singled out for my password specifically (if they want to do that I'm sure they can get it other ways), but rather being part of a large password theft like Sony's. I highly doubt a hacker who stole 75 million passwords is going to take the time to figure out that hipp5's passwords are algorithmically generated across websites.
There's no legitimate reason for Sony to be storing that information for most users.
The reason is friction. Storing the credit card numbers reduces purchasing friction and greatly increases the chances that someone will impulse buy. Having to dig out your credit card and type the numbers in is just enough hassle to make you rethink purchasing that $5 DLC or $3 TV show rental. Amazon stores my CC for my Kindle and Google stores my CC for the Android Marketplace. The number of times I've purchased stuff on these two systems that I wouldn't have if I'd had to dig out my CC is large. Providers like it because I buy stuff. I like it because it's easy. Are there risks? Absolutely. Are they worth it to the providers? You bet! Are they worth it to me? Mostly.
Does anyone else have a hard time believing the majority of the comments on the blog post are real? They're all along the lines of, "Hallelujah, Sony is wonderful for getting the service back up!!!!!!!" Or are people so desperate to go back to playing CoD multiplayer that they're willing to take any sandpaper-wrapped anal raping that Sony will give them?
That percentage doesnt mean much. How much energy does it take to recycle aluminum? How much energy does it take to recycle glass? If the former is more than the latter, the fact that its "only 5%" is irrelevant.
Very good point. I just did some quick Googling (apparently recycled glass requires only 66% of the energy as virgin glass - I was wrong on that one) and haven't been able to find a straight answer. That being said, I found a few recycling facts websites (who knows if they are reliable sources) such as this one that give numerical values for the energy saved by recycling (although you have to convert from light bulb usage for actual numbers). If these sources can be trusted it suggests that an aluminum can takes 2.1 kWh of energy to make from virgin materials, and 100 Wh to make from recycled materials. Glass requires 600 Wh from virgin materials, and 200 Wh from recycled materials. So I guess it would take about 15 recyclings before the aluminum was better. I'm not sure how transportation weights affect this though. It'd also be interesting to figure out how many times the average unit of aluminum is recycled compared to glass.
Glass isn't that great for recycling. IIRC from my National Geographic issue a few years ago, recycled glass only uses 5% less energy to make than new glass. Compare that to aluminum where the recycled product uses 95% less energy to produce than from virgin materials. If you're looking to have a highly-recyclable product then aluminum is the way to go. Where glass is good is when you're reusing, but that brings up a whole question of logistics. Glass also has the issue of shipping weight and broken bottles all over the place.
but the content on Facebook is all user generated. Pretty much any web developer could make a social networking site.
Many developers have. But what Facebook has is users. As someone on here has already mentioned, the value in Facebook is the fact that your friends use it. Sure it's easy enough to whip up a Facebook clone, but good luck getting the critical mass that makes it useful to anyone.
... that there should be more of these stories taken from the point-of-view of different characters. Wicked was incredibly clever, as was Ender's Shadow. I'd also like to see it done with movies. Perhaps an action film from the 'villain's' POV, or maybe it could follow a civilian who gets screwed over by every car chase and explosion.
Slashdot Mirror
...at the teachings on Australian culture.
I'm a big fan of "Plan your sex events". I do admit, a calendar would be very useful for my plethora of sex events.
Canada dumped the dollar bill in favor of coins of the same denomination. We talk about it in the US - just like we said back in the 60s that we would switch to the metric system - and never actually do it.
My understanding is that the US does indeed have $1 coins, but no one ever uses them. I guess it will take the government ditching the bill altogether to get people to switch.
Enough with this Bitcoin spam already. Bitcoin is stupid, unneccessary and irrelevant, we don't care for your fucking scam.
To be fair, it's nice to hear news that predictions about bitcoins being crappy are indeed true. This story is somewhat of an anti-spam.
"not opposed to alternative energy development in general"
Ah yes, the classic bullshit qualifier. Sort of like when people start their sentences with, "I'm not a racist, but..."
Paying for sex in any shape or form has to be one of the silliest things, given how easy it is to find women who are more than willing if you just looked around.
(Looking in from the outside, i.e. never have paid for sex myself) I can see valid reasons to pay for sex. One is the amount of effort required. Sure there are willing girls at a bar, but it's still going to take you a minimum of 3 to 4 hours to go to the bar, seduce girl, get her home, etc. etc. A hooker you can get the whole thing done in 30 minutes. The second is commitment. Even with a random from a bar there is somewhat of an obligation to that person. With a prostitute the exchange begins when the money is paid and ends at the agreed time. That's it. Done. The third is professionalism (if you're paying enough). The girl at the bar might suck (at sucking) or she might have crazy expectations or something. The prostitute is there for a business transaction, and a good one will say and do what's required to make your experience satisfactory.
IIRC they tried. Or at least there was a point where they were suing anyone who used iObjectname. (Again, IIRC) Apple lost.
A better question is "have we reached the maximum sustainable resource consumption/conversion rate per person times population".
A US citizen is responsible for 10 to 20 times more resource and energy consumption than a Chinese or Indian citizen, for example.
RTFS. "Right now, global growth is using about 1.5 Earths." We are on average consuming at a rate that is 1.5x the sustainable level.
On the other, I can't help but think that the time spent creating such works is finite, and once complete no further time or resources are spent
I've always figured that we weren't necessarily paying authors for their time, but rather the risk they took. Deciding to write a book for serious can mean taking months or even years without any sort of real income, with a huge risk that at the end your book won't even get published. Sure, there are some lucky people who have the types of jobs where they can write a book in their spare time, but if we want to have as diverse a selection of authors and books as we do there needs to be sufficient payoff to encourage people from all walks of like to take the risk.
I really like the idea that you can charge the light over USB and program it too.
I'm not really sure I like that idea. My uses for flashlights tend to be a) camping, and b) when the power goes out. Unfortunately with USB charging I would get one charge's worth of use in those situations. With regular old batteries I can replace them to infinity, and if I forgot some I can pick them up at a gas station on my way to the woods.
Dealers sell drugs to users using local currency, Senators pass a law to outlaw the $100 bill.
In Canada they ditched the $1000 bill because it was pretty much used purely for criminal activities.
Since the Sony debacle I've switched to deciding my passwords algorithmically. I use a base password of six lower case digits that is the same for all websites. Then I use two capital letters that are related to the website in question (e.g. "SD" for slashdot) which I offset by a certain number of keys in a certain direction (e.g. SD might become "XC" if my offset is one key down, but it's not). Then I append a single number to the end (same in all cases). This gets me a nine digit password with mixed case alphanumerics that's easy to remember and is unique across the websites I use. Of course, if you know my algorithm and base it's easy to figure out my password for all sites. But my concern isn't really being singled out for my password specifically (if they want to do that I'm sure they can get it other ways), but rather being part of a large password theft like Sony's. I highly doubt a hacker who stole 75 million passwords is going to take the time to figure out that hipp5's passwords are algorithmically generated across websites.
Come to think of it, I don't think there is a Canadian recording artist that doesn't suck.
Arcade Fire?
There's no legitimate reason for Sony to be storing that information for most users.
The reason is friction. Storing the credit card numbers reduces purchasing friction and greatly increases the chances that someone will impulse buy. Having to dig out your credit card and type the numbers in is just enough hassle to make you rethink purchasing that $5 DLC or $3 TV show rental. Amazon stores my CC for my Kindle and Google stores my CC for the Android Marketplace. The number of times I've purchased stuff on these two systems that I wouldn't have if I'd had to dig out my CC is large. Providers like it because I buy stuff. I like it because it's easy. Are there risks? Absolutely. Are they worth it to the providers? You bet! Are they worth it to me? Mostly.
Does anyone else have a hard time believing the majority of the comments on the blog post are real? They're all along the lines of, "Hallelujah, Sony is wonderful for getting the service back up!!!!!!!" Or are people so desperate to go back to playing CoD multiplayer that they're willing to take any sandpaper-wrapped anal raping that Sony will give them?
...told me what exactly Algebra II is. Whatever it is, we don't call it that where I live.
Am I moving at 0.90c or does that seem like it just happened yesterday?
That was the first thing I thought too. To be fair, it was 22 months ago, and not a full two years, but still... where does the time go?
Someone really just wants an excuse to get paid to have a Simpsons marathon.
That percentage doesnt mean much. How much energy does it take to recycle aluminum? How much energy does it take to recycle glass? If the former is more than the latter, the fact that its "only 5%" is irrelevant.
Very good point. I just did some quick Googling (apparently recycled glass requires only 66% of the energy as virgin glass - I was wrong on that one) and haven't been able to find a straight answer. That being said, I found a few recycling facts websites (who knows if they are reliable sources) such as this one that give numerical values for the energy saved by recycling (although you have to convert from light bulb usage for actual numbers). If these sources can be trusted it suggests that an aluminum can takes 2.1 kWh of energy to make from virgin materials, and 100 Wh to make from recycled materials. Glass requires 600 Wh from virgin materials, and 200 Wh from recycled materials. So I guess it would take about 15 recyclings before the aluminum was better. I'm not sure how transportation weights affect this though. It'd also be interesting to figure out how many times the average unit of aluminum is recycled compared to glass.
A quite renewable resource; recycles well;
Glass isn't that great for recycling. IIRC from my National Geographic issue a few years ago, recycled glass only uses 5% less energy to make than new glass. Compare that to aluminum where the recycled product uses 95% less energy to produce than from virgin materials. If you're looking to have a highly-recyclable product then aluminum is the way to go. Where glass is good is when you're reusing, but that brings up a whole question of logistics. Glass also has the issue of shipping weight and broken bottles all over the place.
Before commenting, try and understand the design and facts
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/
Mod parent up. That was a really interesting read.
but the content on Facebook is all user generated. Pretty much any web developer could make a social networking site.
Many developers have. But what Facebook has is users. As someone on here has already mentioned, the value in Facebook is the fact that your friends use it. Sure it's easy enough to whip up a Facebook clone, but good luck getting the critical mass that makes it useful to anyone.
... that there should be more of these stories taken from the point-of-view of different characters. Wicked was incredibly clever, as was Ender's Shadow. I'd also like to see it done with movies. Perhaps an action film from the 'villain's' POV, or maybe it could follow a civilian who gets screwed over by every car chase and explosion.
for my high consumption of 'shrooms.
there work.
Ouch, I've become everything that I hate.