Oh come on. This is easy: the call centers are making HUGE amounts of money, and the Indian government is simply tapping into the revenue stream by taxing infrastructure usage. Anything that threatens that is going to get slapped down.
Close. A conservative would declare that, according to the Bible, God create light and dark, and therefore the darkness was a sign from God that man had been arrogant to create light. He would then shake his fist and declare that the burning out of the light bulb proves that technology can't evolve, and that fire is an element God never intended for man to tame. Foaming at the mouth, he'd blame the fact that light bulbs came into existence on the gay agenda, screaming that the marriage of light bulb and the socket is a violation of nature, and he'd grab up his shotgun and run around the house shooting all the other light bulbs. Once they were gone, he'd see the street lights, blame them on the terrorists, and shoot them out as well. Running out of bullets, he'd take out a massive loan to pay for more artillery. Running from house to house, he'd shoot every light emitting device in the neighborhood, catching innocent men, women, and children in the crossfire. Soon, so in debt that he'd never be able to pay it off, he'd run out of bullets and stop.
Engulfed entirely in darkness, he'd finally wind down.
Then he'd start grumbling about the darkness, blaming it on the liberals.
US defense spending 2006: 470.2 Billion. So your telling me 470.2 billion dollars is spent on 660,000 troops with no fat to cut?
Ignoring for a moment that 9 billion alone was simply "lost" by Halliburton, keep in mind that the army 6 years ago wasn't shooting at anyone. Army hospitals weren't dealing with blown off limbs and IED head injuries. Unarmored vehicles weren't being hastily armored, and armored vehicles didn't need to be replaced as they got blown up. Waging war, even one based on lies, is expensive.
The tarrifs are of a dubious value, and int he long run simply hobble you in the world wide market.
The tariffs are of historically provable value, and used correctly, level the playing field. Personally, I'd LOVE to see tariffs on companies that outsource jobs. I don't give a crap about the world wide market -- I want to see our techological jobs stay here and our technological advantage will disappear if we don't accomplish that simple requirement.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Whew.... ! That was a good one.... Man, if you honestly think the extremely wealthy pay full taxes, you need to change accountants...
Well, I'm glad I came back and checked on this thread. I have heard of the Beifeld-Brown effect, but apparently the power to thrust ratio is exhorbitant. I've heard of other effects involving spinning superconductors, but the problem is the same. You could theoretically get a certain level of thrust from throwing heavy wrenches towards the ground, but I doubt you'd ever achieve lift-off, and that seems to be the way of research into Beifeld-Brown lifters.
Of course, the solution isn't to stop waging unnecessary wars, stop giving the rich tax breaks, and start funding our educational institutions properly. Obviously it would be foolish to make high tech a viable career path for U.S. citizens by cutting back on H1B visas so companies see the U.S. work force as a valid labor pool again. Offshoring jobs and importing cheap labor helps the economy! Well, not the U.S. economy, not from the point of view of the middle and lower class, but who cares, right?! All those H1B visas make the corporations richer by reducing their labor costs, and who doesn't want that? So what if trickle down theory trickles the money to another country entirely? Corporatism has replaced capitalism -- long live the Chief Officers!
Yeah, actually, they are. And should be. Someone has to be, and the kids can't be sued, so from a societal standpoint the parents must assume the responsibility for making restitution when the kids screw something up.
On the other hand, picture this: the kid turns 18 after being a major screw-up all his life, and his parents sue him for undo financial stress. They attach liens to everything he purchases and garnish his wages until he's paid them back. What's to stop them from doing that?
Wait -- he gets two choices?! We were given only one!
Seriously, the way we've always approached development is this: without good management of the process, you can get it good, you can get it quickly, or you can get it cheap. Pick one. And it really comes down to a balancing act.
Now with a good process in place of spec'ing out everything and planning dependencies, in terms of actual time, money, and quality, you'll get the finished product quicker, there won't be nearly as many (if any) cost overruns, and the quality will be much higher in the very first release. That from experience.
To get back on topic: M$ seems to have problems with all of the above. I have no first hand information on why, but I think it's safe to assume that their development process needs help, and playing catch up with Linux isn't helping. When your process is so bad your full-time and fully paid employees are playing catch-up with a volunteer-staffed open source project, you've got problems.
And attacking that open source project just shows you don't get it. In fact, as a developer, it makes me even more confident that my career should make greater use of Linux as part of my foundation technology. M$ thinks they can be a better SCO than SCO; well, let them.
One thing to keep in mind is that the Bush administration, whose DOJ gave M$ a get out of jail free card at the end of the last anti-trust case against M$, is going down in flames. The Dems are regaining power. I have no doubt that M$ will arrogantly believe themselves immune, and for all I know they may in actuality be able to dodge any bullet, but it's something to consider as they ramp up their legal WMDs.
Still trying to figure out how to avoid burning up in earth's atmosphere while not causing every electronic device within 10 miles from exploding from the magnetic pulse.
How is this getting the spotlight when there's perfectly good research in areas of anti-gravity propulsion, bifield-browning effect and yet-unknown physical forces?
I guess they're still unknown, including the bifield-browning effect.
Why is there no news of the vortex thruster?
Latest news: it's been turned into a vacuum cleaner. When it's not being used to burn down garages, that is.
Well, according to this article, we can easily reverse global warming by painting everything white.
The problem with that theory (pretending that it's a serious theory for a moment) is that the fumes from the paint would wipe out all life on earth, destroy the ozone layer, and cause the greenhouse gas content in the atmosphere to skyrocket. Temperatures would soar, the paint would peel, the dark surfaces underneath would be exposed, temperatures would explode, and the heat, along with the gases released by the paint, would ignite the earth's atmosphere. Within a year of painting everything, the earth would be a lifeless ball of ash and poisonous exhaust gases roasting at temperatures that would rival Venus'.
All for the bargain basement price of $600B. And to think George W. Bush has only managed to destroy two countries, the U.S. military, and our constitutional rights for nearly that much. I suspect he's just not seeing the bigger picture.
I was also hoping for technical detail, and I too was put off by her demonstration. Was it simply dumbed down for the average viewer? I would suspect it was, but if the tabulator actually uses MS Access, then I wonder if the database was set up the same way. In my view, she was showing that there was no audit trail of the changes, but could it be that the actual tabulators use a more enterprise-ready database with triggers used to log changes, logs that could be printed and audited? I would hope so.
But I didn't see anything there that was wrong. Take the poll tapes, for instance. The county can't legally throw out the tapes, and they did. Or negative vote totals. Those seem pretty black and white to me. I'm not saying the documentary isn't biased -- it starts with a conclusion, after all -- but the facts presented are pretty tough to argue.
Americans are losing those rights at such a fast rate that it will not be long before you will see the real stupidity of what you are saying. Yesterday you would have shouted about how the government can only spy on non Americans but today you see that they can spy on you too.
I watched "V for Vendetta" last night. Good movie, but I can definitely see why people linked that movie with what's going on in our country right now. It's astonishing how the American people can be cowed into allowing the foundation for the law of the land to be gutted, and their rights dissipated, by one simple attack on their own soil.
Today you say but it is only non Americans that can be locked up without a reason, what will you say tomorrow?
Anyone can be locked up if the President chooses to label them with the designation of "enemy combatant," a term for which there is no legal definition outside of the Geneva Conventions and which can be applied by the President without stated cause, authorization, review, or chance of reprieve. And "enemy combatants," citizen or not as we have seen, are regarded as having no rights whatsoever, no Geneva Convention protections, not even habeas corpus, forget what the courts say. They are subject to rape with chemical lights and broomsticks, genital shock, dog bites, sexual humiliation, and waterboarding, all of which, according to the GOP, does not constitute torture, oh no. They do not enjoy 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, or 14th (section I) Amendment protections.
Bin Laden won on a scale no one, not even that madman, could have predicted.
The change that happened after 9/11 was that the Bush administration felt that the NSA should pass intelligence data to the FBI legally.
That's sweet. And completely wrong.
What changed was that the Bush administration felt that the NSA should be able to tap your phones without oversight. Period, end of story. FISA already provided an after-the-fact warrant process that protected national security. The FBI+NSA link, if that's another excuse floated by Bush, is a non-sequitor.
So the question becomes, what was gained? Certainly not speed. The FISA court has to be notified within 72 hours *after* the tap occurred. Certainly not security. The FISA court especially constructed to ensure that secret investigations stay secret. No, the only advantage is the avoidance of oversight. Nothing else makes sense.
The Constitution protects our privacy against search and seizure without a warrant, and Bush violated that. For that reason if no other -- and there are quite a few others -- he should have been impeached already.
But then, let's see how things progress after November 7th, shall we?
Society doesn't have to foot the bill for Paris Hilton's lifestyle just because her ancestors were productive. It is neither beneficial to society nor fair.
Pardon? How does society "foot the bill"? Seems Ms. Hilton is footing the bill for whatever she purchases. If her money is invested in instruments that put that cash back into play for others to borrow and use to kick start their own dreams, and she profits from that, that's usury, not cheating. So her Dad built an empire, and then chose to leave his hard-earned money to her. He is within his rights to do so, and I would argue that we should defend his right to do so.
If you want to talk about being fair, then let's go with a flat tax, no exceptions, no deductions except for families that fall below the poverty line, no loopholes, and remove the tax cap on programs like Social Security. The overall tax rate could be reduced considerably, and the rich would pay in a proportionate, and therefore fair, amount.
1. Uranium is difficult to obtain/produce/store, and uranium and the technology to refine it are both extremely expensive. 2. Kim Jong Il is a psychopath, but he's not stupid, and he's used to fooling agencies that attempt to monitor him using satellites or remote detection systems. 3. As it turns out, the radiation signature is nearly non-existent if it's an underground test. 4. You set off enough explosives, and it will look like the seismic thump of a nuke.
If you ask me, there is no way Illin' Kim is going to waste a perfectly good nuke when all he really has to do to make people sweat is make a huge bang.
Amen. That's got to be the stupidest damn thing I've read in a long time. "We have seen your crop circles. Stop by and say hello." I'd be more impressed if it continued, "And then we'd like to chat about how you're going to reimburse the farmers for the damage."
Intergalactic gang signs, that's what they are....
Here's a no-duh sort of idea: Why not attach an inflatable ring to the payload when climbing the ribbon and fill it with helium? I mean really, is there some limitation on the contest for climber robot designs that says you can't send your robot zooming up the first quarter of the distance into space using helium to lift the payload? Your climber, for that distance, is really just tasked with keeping a firm grip on the ribbon so it doesn't float away. When the climber gets to the point where it's carrying the balloon instead of the other way around, it would deflate and stow the balloon, or send it back down, and continue on its merry way. A whole lot of lift on the cheap.
I didn't see anything that mentioned the (theoretical) affect this would have on the upper atmosphere and the normal processes that occur there outside of the absorption of radio waves. Ozone layer? Electric charge and storms?
Judging from the voting "irregularities" in Iowa during the 2004 elections, I think it's a foregone conclusion that the Republicans have already mastered electronic election theft.
You can format, delete, or leave anoutched any partitions you want.
I believe "anoutch" (pronounced ah-NOOSH) is the alternate sound a rock makes when thrown into a pond. The primary word used to describe that same sound is "douch" (pronounced "DOOSH").
Slashdot Mirror
21 mm == 2,1 cm (which is more than half an inch)
Actually, an inch is roughly 2.5 cm.
You're welcome.
"that's what SHE said!"
Don't you dare...
DARE!! DARE!! Come on!!!!
Oh come on. This is easy: the call centers are making HUGE amounts of money, and the Indian government is simply tapping into the revenue stream by taxing infrastructure usage. Anything that threatens that is going to get slapped down.
Close. A conservative would declare that, according to the Bible, God create light and dark, and therefore the darkness was a sign from God that man had been arrogant to create light. He would then shake his fist and declare that the burning out of the light bulb proves that technology can't evolve, and that fire is an element God never intended for man to tame. Foaming at the mouth, he'd blame the fact that light bulbs came into existence on the gay agenda, screaming that the marriage of light bulb and the socket is a violation of nature, and he'd grab up his shotgun and run around the house shooting all the other light bulbs. Once they were gone, he'd see the street lights, blame them on the terrorists, and shoot them out as well. Running out of bullets, he'd take out a massive loan to pay for more artillery. Running from house to house, he'd shoot every light emitting device in the neighborhood, catching innocent men, women, and children in the crossfire. Soon, so in debt that he'd never be able to pay it off, he'd run out of bullets and stop.
Engulfed entirely in darkness, he'd finally wind down.
Then he'd start grumbling about the darkness, blaming it on the liberals.
US defense spending 2006: 470.2 Billion. So your telling me 470.2 billion dollars is spent on 660,000 troops with no fat to cut?
Ignoring for a moment that 9 billion alone was simply "lost" by Halliburton, keep in mind that the army 6 years ago wasn't shooting at anyone. Army hospitals weren't dealing with blown off limbs and IED head injuries. Unarmored vehicles weren't being hastily armored, and armored vehicles didn't need to be replaced as they got blown up. Waging war, even one based on lies, is expensive.
The tarrifs are of a dubious value, and int he long run simply hobble you in the world wide market.
The tariffs are of historically provable value, and used correctly, level the playing field. Personally, I'd LOVE to see tariffs on companies that outsource jobs. I don't give a crap about the world wide market -- I want to see our techological jobs stay here and our technological advantage will disappear if we don't accomplish that simple requirement.
But that's just my opinion.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Whew.... ! That was a good one.... Man, if you honestly think the extremely wealthy pay full taxes, you need to change accountants...
hehehe..... (wiping tear away...)
Well, I'm glad I came back and checked on this thread. I have heard of the Beifeld-Brown effect, but apparently the power to thrust ratio is exhorbitant. I've heard of other effects involving spinning superconductors, but the problem is the same. You could theoretically get a certain level of thrust from throwing heavy wrenches towards the ground, but I doubt you'd ever achieve lift-off, and that seems to be the way of research into Beifeld-Brown lifters.
Of course, the solution isn't to stop waging unnecessary wars, stop giving the rich tax breaks, and start funding our educational institutions properly. Obviously it would be foolish to make high tech a viable career path for U.S. citizens by cutting back on H1B visas so companies see the U.S. work force as a valid labor pool again. Offshoring jobs and importing cheap labor helps the economy! Well, not the U.S. economy, not from the point of view of the middle and lower class, but who cares, right?! All those H1B visas make the corporations richer by reducing their labor costs, and who doesn't want that? So what if trickle down theory trickles the money to another country entirely? Corporatism has replaced capitalism -- long live the Chief Officers!
Jerk.
Yeah, actually, they are. And should be. Someone has to be, and the kids can't be sued, so from a societal standpoint the parents must assume the responsibility for making restitution when the kids screw something up.
On the other hand, picture this: the kid turns 18 after being a major screw-up all his life, and his parents sue him for undo financial stress. They attach liens to everything he purchases and garnish his wages until he's paid them back. What's to stop them from doing that?
Just food for thought...
Mr. Cheney? Is that you?
Wait -- he gets two choices ?! We were given only one!
Seriously, the way we've always approached development is this: without good management of the process, you can get it good, you can get it quickly, or you can get it cheap. Pick one. And it really comes down to a balancing act.
Now with a good process in place of spec'ing out everything and planning dependencies, in terms of actual time, money, and quality, you'll get the finished product quicker, there won't be nearly as many (if any) cost overruns, and the quality will be much higher in the very first release. That from experience.
To get back on topic: M$ seems to have problems with all of the above. I have no first hand information on why, but I think it's safe to assume that their development process needs help, and playing catch up with Linux isn't helping. When your process is so bad your full-time and fully paid employees are playing catch-up with a volunteer-staffed open source project, you've got problems.
And attacking that open source project just shows you don't get it. In fact, as a developer, it makes me even more confident that my career should make greater use of Linux as part of my foundation technology. M$ thinks they can be a better SCO than SCO; well, let them.
One thing to keep in mind is that the Bush administration, whose DOJ gave M$ a get out of jail free card at the end of the last anti-trust case against M$, is going down in flames. The Dems are regaining power. I have no doubt that M$ will arrogantly believe themselves immune, and for all I know they may in actuality be able to dodge any bullet, but it's something to consider as they ramp up their legal WMDs.
Where's the hybrid-engine space vehicles already?
Still in R&D, apparently.
Where's our gauss-cannon-style space catapult?
Still trying to figure out how to avoid burning up in earth's atmosphere while not causing every electronic device within 10 miles from exploding from the magnetic pulse.
How is this getting the spotlight when there's perfectly good research in areas of anti-gravity propulsion, bifield-browning effect and yet-unknown physical forces?
I guess they're still unknown, including the bifield-browning effect.
Why is there no news of the vortex thruster?
Latest news: it's been turned into a vacuum cleaner. When it's not being used to burn down garages, that is.
Well, according to this article, we can easily reverse global warming by painting everything white.
The problem with that theory (pretending that it's a serious theory for a moment) is that the fumes from the paint would wipe out all life on earth, destroy the ozone layer, and cause the greenhouse gas content in the atmosphere to skyrocket. Temperatures would soar, the paint would peel, the dark surfaces underneath would be exposed, temperatures would explode, and the heat, along with the gases released by the paint, would ignite the earth's atmosphere. Within a year of painting everything, the earth would be a lifeless ball of ash and poisonous exhaust gases roasting at temperatures that would rival Venus'.
All for the bargain basement price of $600B. And to think George W. Bush has only managed to destroy two countries, the U.S. military, and our constitutional rights for nearly that much. I suspect he's just not seeing the bigger picture.
I was also hoping for technical detail, and I too was put off by her demonstration. Was it simply dumbed down for the average viewer? I would suspect it was, but if the tabulator actually uses MS Access, then I wonder if the database was set up the same way. In my view, she was showing that there was no audit trail of the changes, but could it be that the actual tabulators use a more enterprise-ready database with triggers used to log changes, logs that could be printed and audited? I would hope so.
But I didn't see anything there that was wrong. Take the poll tapes, for instance. The county can't legally throw out the tapes, and they did. Or negative vote totals. Those seem pretty black and white to me. I'm not saying the documentary isn't biased -- it starts with a conclusion, after all -- but the facts presented are pretty tough to argue.
Americans are losing those rights at such a fast rate that it will not be long before you will see the real stupidity of what you are saying. Yesterday you would have shouted about how the government can only spy on non Americans but today you see that they can spy on you too.
I watched "V for Vendetta" last night. Good movie, but I can definitely see why people linked that movie with what's going on in our country right now. It's astonishing how the American people can be cowed into allowing the foundation for the law of the land to be gutted, and their rights dissipated, by one simple attack on their own soil.
Today you say but it is only non Americans that can be locked up without a reason, what will you say tomorrow?
Anyone can be locked up if the President chooses to label them with the designation of "enemy combatant," a term for which there is no legal definition outside of the Geneva Conventions and which can be applied by the President without stated cause, authorization, review, or chance of reprieve. And "enemy combatants," citizen or not as we have seen, are regarded as having no rights whatsoever, no Geneva Convention protections, not even habeas corpus, forget what the courts say. They are subject to rape with chemical lights and broomsticks, genital shock, dog bites, sexual humiliation, and waterboarding, all of which, according to the GOP, does not constitute torture, oh no. They do not enjoy 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, or 14th (section I) Amendment protections.
Bin Laden won on a scale no one, not even that madman, could have predicted.
Save America. Vote Democrat in November.
The change that happened after 9/11 was that the Bush administration felt that the NSA should pass intelligence data to the FBI legally.
That's sweet. And completely wrong.
What changed was that the Bush administration felt that the NSA should be able to tap your phones without oversight. Period, end of story. FISA already provided an after-the-fact warrant process that protected national security. The FBI+NSA link, if that's another excuse floated by Bush, is a non-sequitor.
So the question becomes, what was gained? Certainly not speed. The FISA court has to be notified within 72 hours *after* the tap occurred. Certainly not security. The FISA court especially constructed to ensure that secret investigations stay secret. No, the only advantage is the avoidance of oversight. Nothing else makes sense.
The Constitution protects our privacy against search and seizure without a warrant, and Bush violated that. For that reason if no other -- and there are quite a few others -- he should have been impeached already.
But then, let's see how things progress after November 7th, shall we?
Society doesn't have to foot the bill for Paris Hilton's lifestyle just because her ancestors were productive. It is neither beneficial to society nor fair.
Pardon? How does society "foot the bill"? Seems Ms. Hilton is footing the bill for whatever she purchases. If her money is invested in instruments that put that cash back into play for others to borrow and use to kick start their own dreams, and she profits from that, that's usury, not cheating. So her Dad built an empire, and then chose to leave his hard-earned money to her. He is within his rights to do so, and I would argue that we should defend his right to do so.
If you want to talk about being fair, then let's go with a flat tax, no exceptions, no deductions except for families that fall below the poverty line, no loopholes, and remove the tax cap on programs like Social Security. The overall tax rate could be reduced considerably, and the rich would pay in a proportionate, and therefore fair, amount.
It's easy math.
Ok, so let's review:
1. Uranium is difficult to obtain/produce/store, and uranium and the technology to refine it are both extremely expensive.
2. Kim Jong Il is a psychopath, but he's not stupid, and he's used to fooling agencies that attempt to monitor him using satellites or remote detection systems.
3. As it turns out, the radiation signature is nearly non-existent if it's an underground test.
4. You set off enough explosives, and it will look like the seismic thump of a nuke.
If you ask me, there is no way Illin' Kim is going to waste a perfectly good nuke when all he really has to do to make people sweat is make a huge bang.
Amen. That's got to be the stupidest damn thing I've read in a long time. "We have seen your crop circles. Stop by and say hello." I'd be more impressed if it continued, "And then we'd like to chat about how you're going to reimburse the farmers for the damage."
Intergalactic gang signs, that's what they are....
Here's a no-duh sort of idea: Why not attach an inflatable ring to the payload when climbing the ribbon and fill it with helium? I mean really, is there some limitation on the contest for climber robot designs that says you can't send your robot zooming up the first quarter of the distance into space using helium to lift the payload? Your climber, for that distance, is really just tasked with keeping a firm grip on the ribbon so it doesn't float away. When the climber gets to the point where it's carrying the balloon instead of the other way around, it would deflate and stow the balloon, or send it back down, and continue on its merry way. A whole lot of lift on the cheap.
Just thinking out loud....
I take it you're from the South.
No, if he'd been from the South, he would have said, "I'll have a Co-Cola with my catfish, hushpuppies, collard greens, and cheese grits, please."
Man, I just got really hungry....
"...now I am become Death [Shiva], the destroyer of worlds..."
-- Physicist Robert Oppenheimer
-- Supervising Scientist Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project
"We were the ones to scorch the sky..."
I didn't see anything that mentioned the (theoretical) affect this would have on the upper atmosphere and the normal processes that occur there outside of the absorption of radio waves. Ozone layer? Electric charge and storms?
Judging from the voting "irregularities" in Iowa during the 2004 elections, I think it's a foregone conclusion that the Republicans have already mastered electronic election theft.
You can format, delete, or leave anoutched any partitions you want.
I believe "anoutch" (pronounced ah-NOOSH) is the alternate sound a rock makes when thrown into a pond. The primary word used to describe that same sound is "douch" (pronounced "DOOSH").
Yeah, ok, I was bored...