most of us are screaming "give us a verifiable paper trail along with the source code and procedures you used to develop this otherwise 'black box' technology." or something like that. no one wants paper ballots -- we know technology CAN work. state lotteries have had secure, anonymous, electronic systems have been used for years. ATMs, on the other hand, are just heavily insured (diebold is a manufacturer of windows CE based ATMs and voting machines).
i really don't think the opinions on this are that much different. we all want systems that work. what we have doesn't work. it's not because my candidate didn't win, it's because there are serious ERRORS (please, glitches are when your nintendo crashes).
this is flamebait? i proposed an alternative to spending an absurd amount of money on a concept (build "cutting edge technology" over 20 years) which has twice failed and it gets modded down as flamebait? eh, ok.
print("ka boomb! (i send my condolences)\n"); int_Suitcase_Bomb_Count--;
}
}
because the filters are funny i have to put this text at the bottom. maybe it should be a moment for me to reflect on what i have just done... pretty dorky. uh huh. and it probably wouldn't even run. oops, i didn't seed the rand function so maybe we'll be safe. anyway, it's an absurd waste of money. <sarcasm>even the car manufactureres know most people aren't more than a million in insurance costs.<.sarcasm>
are these things for real? magazines are always talking about them a lot of our military isn't even properly equipped. seems like the improvements we should be making are less technological.
seems like they need better software and remote equipment. not $24 billion for fiber links. the article mentions that $24 billion is more than the manhattan project, ajusted for inflation.
the military is claiming that it lost its world-wide technological superiority when the Internet caught on internationally, 1996-ish. to make up for this loss they want to buy a faster private network with more bandwidth "enough to give front-line soldiers bandwidth equal to downloading three feature-length movies a second." to start this, they will spend $24 billion dollars to build "new net connections" which seem to be fiber connects (this doesn't include the satellite connects).
sounds like an enormous government handout to me.
[The Pentagon's] Worldwide Military Command and Control System, built in the 1960's, often failed in crises. A $25 billion successor, Milstar, was completed in 2003 after two decades of work. Pentagon officials say it is already outdated: more switchboard than server, more dial-up than broadband, it cannot support 21st-century technology.
so why not just lease fiber and build the system gradually? then you don't have to worry that in 20 years you will be stuck with an obselete network.
they talk about military intelligence a lot, like this thing is going to deliver to our troops tons of intelligence in amazing ways. first, i'm doubtful that we have enough intelligence to utilize all this fiber bandwidth. second, most of the intelligence should probably be cached close to the satellite connection. the real weak link in millitary IT infrastructure is in links with the troops and software/hardware/human interfaces.
legitimate questions about the accuracy of the machines used to administer our democracy are being raised and people feel the need make snide remarks.
BUSH WILL BE OUR PRESIDENT FOR FOUR MORE YEARS, KERRY CONCEDED. this is about fixing problems for the future. we need to be able to trust democracy. we have to know for certain that our system is working. e-voting doesn't have to be complicated or etheral. we can have elections which we can trust. but we have to drop the partisan bullshit and find a solution.
i believe in democracy, not machines built by the lowest bidder. let's make sure everything works.
oops, that first link should have been to Jim March. he goes into how COTS (commercial, off the shelf) hardware and software is used in these machines because it doesn't have to pass such stringent certification process. the idea being that you can just compare the software from a factory install with the software from a store and confirm that the company didn't make any changes. but winCE is not COTS -- diebold has the source code and windows specifically considers it non-COTS.
relying on double checking to catch errors is not an acceptable procedure. double checking should be an excersize which absolutely proves that the primary results were correct (there should NEVER be errors with properly designed evoting machines -- their function is outrageously simple). the second check must be more reliable than simply comparing the results stored on removable and non-removable memory (something is SERIOUSLY fucked up if the results are different and the manufacturer should face a major lawsuit). these machines must have a paper reciept, kept at the machine, printed in a human and machine readable format, which provides the voter immediate, direct confirmation of their vote. when the election is over the paper reciept is tallied by machine and compared to the results stored in machine's memory.
you're right, the article doesn't say anything about the voting machines, not even who made them (do you even have to go to journalism school anymore).
Jim March has a bunch of info on diebold machines, including that they run WinCE and ms access. anyone with some experience as a secretary could fire up access and change the numbers. yes, that's an over simplification but the results aren't digitally encrypted or signed. they are not tamper-proof.
this was the first popular mechanics article i read in years (they are usually short on the substance). it has a comparison of the diebold acuvote and the sequoia avc dge machines. the sequoia machine has a paper ballot option which only nevada is using (their voting systems had to clear the scrutiny of the nevada gaming control board's electronic services division). the pop sci article also brings up the fact that we have trusted, tamperproof, anonymous electronic systems with bar code reciepts -- the state lottery systems. but none of the e-voting manufacturers have a lottery pedigree.
regardless of who you voted for, this is fucking serious and your downplaying it really bothers me.
most of these voting machines were built by the lowest bidder using off the shelf hardware running WinCE and access. that's fine for a kiosk display or even an ATM with insured transactions but when we are talking about democracy, the fundamental decision making process of our government, we deserve something more secure and advanced. we deserve nothing less than an open-source solution, peer-reviewed and tested.
it makes me want to bring my stun gun to the polls and see how the machine registers a vote for 500,000 volts...
dude, you're talking about a monkey... in a cage... with an unlimited supply of drugs and food. it's not like the monkey REALLY had a choice. it's not like they could offer the monkey a job or something to read. so they added a female and he didn't screw her... maybe it means drugs make you smart enough to realize that you live in a fucking cage and reproducing isn't worth the effort.
i like drugs. i use them sometimes. it's limited to marijuana and alcohol these days but i've tried most of them. if i had an unlimited supply and someone to feed me and clean up after me... maybe i'd do drugs all the time. but i live in the Real World where i have to feed myself and work for my drugs. i bet if you made it harder for the monkey to get the drugs the monkey would still do them BECAUSE THEY ARE FUN. seriously, these drug "studies" prove one thing -- drugs are better than nothing.
i'd suggest that if you put a slashdot reader in a cage and supplied 'it' with an unlimited supply of video games it would push those buttons until it's fingers were raw. because it's fun, because we are alive, because humans are big fans of fun.
i grew up in the suburbs. there wasn't a whole lot to do outside of play video games (but my parents wouldn't allow me to buy a game system) or play sports (i was always the last picked). then along come the police with their "DARE" program, telling me i have to say no to drugs. what the fuck am i supposed to do then? all the 'adventures' my parents experienced as children have been bulldozed, made flat and covered in asphalt.
if you want to keep kids off of drugs give them something fun to do and recognize that you've got to have different fun things for different people -- silver bullets are for warewolves. when i was 14 i would have loved to learn machine shop skills or electronics but there were no extra-curricular groups for that in my school. they were too busy building a new football stadium and gutting the arts classes.
as for the question: are drugs harmful? yes. but so are cars, computers, porn, sunlight, alcohol, couches and laser pointers... in the wrong hands. but all of those things are very helpful to many many people.
i think stewart was saying "we call the daily show 'fake news' but you are the real fake news. please, either get funny and move to comedy central OR start doing your job which is to report news NOT the republican/democrat talking points"
talking points is what these news networks are all about these days. i don't know how it happens but all of a sudden every one is calling kerry "a flip floppper" and backing it up with stats and numbers. meanwhile bush could just as easily be called a "flip flopper" though over things arguably more substantiative like his 2000 campaign comment that "we should not be involved in nation building excercizes." sooooo, what's the plan for iraq?
the "reports" and "journalists" today are just part of the political machine, they don't think for themselvs or ask questions which would mean anything. it's sad.
i saw a transvestite wonder-woman piloting one of these in times square during the august critical mass ride. she seemed to be doing most of the pedaling with bunch of tourists half heartedly participating. there wasn't any conferencing going on, i think they were more into the spectacal. and maybe looking for a way to join critical mass. it looked like it was hard to steer. the pedi-cabs fared much better -- those are also trikes but with two passengers up front and one cyclist pedaling in the rear.
a side note, not long after times square i was arrested with about 240 other cyclists (out of 5000). the pedi-cab people were allowed out of the police lines, something about pedi-cab drivers "just doing their job"
where do people get the idea that scientists are all working with the benefit of mankind as their primary motivator? i'm not saying GM scientists are being evil, they are just doing their job -- they get paid to do GM research. if they come out and say "uh, GM is kinda dangerous" they loose their job. if they don't develop new GM products they loose their job. this isn't about a person's "life's work" it's about getting paid.
GM is potentially dangerous and needs a well informed public debate. i'm not saying GM is equivilent to a nuclear bomb, but a lot of scientists who made the bomb realized later that they are not ethicists. GM scientists are specialists who are paid to develop a product. considering the financial investment, their employer can't be trusted to do the research necessary to proove that the product is safe.
certainly not mainstream, i'm a geek and i live out of my backpack. i write internet applications, usually on friend's computers after booting them with a live cd. my last laptop (a too-large, dell inspiron 5000) finished its life with the case cracked in 17 places and most accessories including pcmcia, cdrom, and floppy, failing (fortunately usb still worked). the main reason was that this laptop was too big for me to provide it with the extra care a piece of electronics requires.
so a tiny little computer which i can protect in a metal case lined with foam is exactly what i need. i'll carry a cheap usb keyboard and mouse and hook it up to a display whenever one is around.
that said, the price is kinda high for me and i'd like to try out the competetion too.
And pollution to build the turbines. Think mining, smelting, carbon fibre production, transportation, maintenance...
yeah, that's always a funny argument against new tech which will produce clean energy. that same argument could be used on a new nuclear power plant or the maintainance of an old coal plant.
yes, it does cost resources to produce but it produces more than it takes (or it would be quite a bit more expensive). how about the over 15 million new cars are sold in the US each year. i'd rather reduce THAT number (and accompaning waste) rather than complain about enabling non-polluting energy.
and yes, they do create noise pollution. but we're not talking about putting one in your backyard (unless you want one because you like being in the middle of nowhere). we (serious folk) are talking about putting them out on the ocean, on farmland and in otherwise un-(human)-populated areas.
add myself and at least 8 of my cyclist friends to the list of vegetarians or (gasp!) vegans who are quite active. somehow, despite plenty of living evidence to the contrary, people still buy the misconception that being vegetarian means a low-protein, low iron, low energy diet. silly silly omnivores, vegetables are full of all the minerals you need and beans provide us with plenty of protein.
you will make a much bigger statement by registering to vote as an independent then voting for yourself (or me) for president. if every person who felt like you would vote for themself we would show our representatives that we are not a lazy apathethic electorate -- we are an electorate who is sick of bad candidates.
when the election results show bush with 30%, kerry with 30% and "myself" with 40% the media will start asking questions. until then they will assume the people who didn't vote are apathetic, content, or stupid.
ok, so your vote doesn't make a difference in the presidential elections. not a whole lot at least. but it does matter at the state and local level. i live in california where we have voter initiatives -- the electorate directly votes on what laws will be created, then the state legislature must listen to the voters. but in every state (a few exceptions like, maybe, nevada where i hear anything gos) local officials decide (thru zoning and taxing) if wal-mart will be allowed in your town. so far, they have been successfully fought off here in los angeles. local and state officials dictate tax rates, tax breaks, green space, and zoining -- a well planned, sustainable community will have a higher property value in the long run than a community which allows an oil refinery to go next to a school.
staying silent says something but no one will understand unless you speak up.
the poster didn't do a good job pointing out that ogg theora is VIDEO. ogg vorbis streams have been around on a large scale for quite a while and do rock. ogg theora is still in alpha and rocks until it crashes.
public radio should go with ogg vorbis or (at least) mp3. they were given some sort of sweet deal which got them to use real (instead of MS).
is there really a need for military submarines now that we're friends with russia? it seems that submarines main purpose was to be a stealth attack platform. with long range missiles on ships and bases on every continent submarines are an expensive to maintain cold war era toy.
how much of my name go i have to give? first, middle, last? if it's my whole name (as i suspect it is) then this is almost as good as a national identity card -- there are people with the same first and last name as me but i know my full name is unique. sure, you can lie and make up a name but giving false information to a police officer is illegal.
"it's just so they can call you by name" uh, i doubt it. here in LA all officers have access to massive databases from their cars.
going to another country can expand your world view but going to the middle east or afghanistan right now will be a work trip and little more. unless you are willing to be captured and loose yer head. go somewhere "safe" if you want to expand your world view while working -- china, japan, europe, some countries in africa, even pakistan are better choices at this point.
here's a summary of the process filtered thru my leaky sive of a brain...
1. vegetable oil is filtered (filter waste can be composted)
2. mix methanol with sodium hydroxide (lye) or potassium hydroxide to form sodium methoxide or potassium methoxide.
3. mix #2 with filtered vegetable oil, agitate.
4. wash mixture with water by misting water from above (mist washing) or adding water (which settles below) and pumping air thru an air stone (pushing water into the mix), called bubble washing.
5. settle out the water and sediment
6. drain
now you have bio-diesel in the tank.
what you drained off the bottom is a watery soap. if you used potasium hydroxide, this can be composted. if you used lye, contact your local municipal sewage disposal people. they will test your stuff. the municipal people said the mix was not very toxic (most of the lye had reacted) and was safe to pour into the toilet.
one person i know added fragrance and pumice to the soap she drained off the bottom to make a gojo type hand cleaner (great for getting tough grease off).
interesting, in america corporations get the same rights (sometimes more) as an individual. freedom of speech has let advertisers off the hook for many misleading ads.
i think he was refering to the filter used when producing bio-diesel.
biodiesel is routienely stored in plastic containers made of (i think) PETE and all diesel engines in production today are designed to accept bio-diesel by using teflon (instead of rubber) hoses. the main engine concern about using biodiesel is the sodium hydroxide (lye) content of the fuel which can destroy rubber parts.
when you make biodiesel you wash the fuel with water by misting water into a vat of fuel. the water collects lye as it decends to the bottom of the tank where it is drained out.
Slashdot Mirror
most of us are screaming "give us a verifiable paper trail along with the source code and procedures you used to develop this otherwise 'black box' technology." or something like that. no one wants paper ballots -- we know technology CAN work. state lotteries have had secure, anonymous, electronic systems have been used for years. ATMs, on the other hand, are just heavily insured (diebold is a manufacturer of windows CE based ATMs and voting machines).
i really don't think the opinions on this are that much different. we all want systems that work. what we have doesn't work. it's not because my candidate didn't win, it's because there are serious ERRORS (please, glitches are when your nintendo crashes).
this is flamebait? i proposed an alternative to spending an absurd amount of money on a concept (build "cutting edge technology" over 20 years) which has twice failed and it gets modded down as flamebait? eh, ok.
because the filters are funny i have to put this text at the bottom. maybe it should be a moment for me to reflect on what i have just done... pretty dorky. uh huh. and it probably wouldn't even run. oops, i didn't seed the rand function so maybe we'll be safe. anyway, it's an absurd waste of money. <sarcasm>even the car manufactureres know most people aren't more than a million in insurance costs.<.sarcasm>
are these things for real? magazines are always talking about them a lot of our military isn't even properly equipped. seems like the improvements we should be making are less technological.
seems like they need better software and remote equipment. not $24 billion for fiber links. the article mentions that $24 billion is more than the manhattan project, ajusted for inflation.
the military is claiming that it lost its world-wide technological superiority when the Internet caught on internationally, 1996-ish. to make up for this loss they want to buy a faster private network with more bandwidth "enough to give front-line soldiers bandwidth equal to downloading three feature-length movies a second." to start this, they will spend $24 billion dollars to build "new net connections" which seem to be fiber connects (this doesn't include the satellite connects).
sounds like an enormous government handout to me.
[The Pentagon's] Worldwide Military Command and Control System, built in the 1960's, often failed in crises. A $25 billion successor, Milstar, was completed in 2003 after two decades of work. Pentagon officials say it is already outdated: more switchboard than server, more dial-up than broadband, it cannot support 21st-century technology.
so why not just lease fiber and build the system gradually? then you don't have to worry that in 20 years you will be stuck with an obselete network.
they talk about military intelligence a lot, like this thing is going to deliver to our troops tons of intelligence in amazing ways. first, i'm doubtful that we have enough intelligence to utilize all this fiber bandwidth. second, most of the intelligence should probably be cached close to the satellite connection. the real weak link in millitary IT infrastructure is in links with the troops and software/hardware/human interfaces.
legitimate questions about the accuracy of the machines used to administer our democracy are being raised and people feel the need make snide remarks.
BUSH WILL BE OUR PRESIDENT FOR FOUR MORE YEARS, KERRY CONCEDED. this is about fixing problems for the future. we need to be able to trust democracy. we have to know for certain that our system is working. e-voting doesn't have to be complicated or etheral. we can have elections which we can trust. but we have to drop the partisan bullshit and find a solution.
i believe in democracy, not machines built by the lowest bidder. let's make sure everything works.
the only evoting machines with a paper trail are in nevada.
quit posting to slashdot and start googling. we are not your mothers, you are old enough to hold your own spoon.
oops, that first link should have been to Jim March. he goes into how COTS (commercial, off the shelf) hardware and software is used in these machines because it doesn't have to pass such stringent certification process. the idea being that you can just compare the software from a factory install with the software from a store and confirm that the company didn't make any changes. but winCE is not COTS -- diebold has the source code and windows specifically considers it non-COTS.
relying on double checking to catch errors is not an acceptable procedure. double checking should be an excersize which absolutely proves that the primary results were correct (there should NEVER be errors with properly designed evoting machines -- their function is outrageously simple). the second check must be more reliable than simply comparing the results stored on removable and non-removable memory (something is SERIOUSLY fucked up if the results are different and the manufacturer should face a major lawsuit). these machines must have a paper reciept, kept at the machine, printed in a human and machine readable format, which provides the voter immediate, direct confirmation of their vote. when the election is over the paper reciept is tallied by machine and compared to the results stored in machine's memory.
you're right, the article doesn't say anything about the voting machines, not even who made them (do you even have to go to journalism school anymore).
Jim March has a bunch of info on diebold machines, including that they run WinCE and ms access. anyone with some experience as a secretary could fire up access and change the numbers. yes, that's an over simplification but the results aren't digitally encrypted or signed. they are not tamper-proof.
this was the first popular mechanics article i read in years (they are usually short on the substance). it has a comparison of the diebold acuvote and the sequoia avc dge machines. the sequoia machine has a paper ballot option which only nevada is using (their voting systems had to clear the scrutiny of the nevada gaming control board's electronic services division). the pop sci article also brings up the fact that we have trusted, tamperproof, anonymous electronic systems with bar code reciepts -- the state lottery systems. but none of the e-voting manufacturers have a lottery pedigree.
glitch, inconsistency, what fuckin' ever...
regardless of who you voted for, this is fucking serious and your downplaying it really bothers me.
most of these voting machines were built by the lowest bidder using off the shelf hardware running WinCE and access. that's fine for a kiosk display or even an ATM with insured transactions but when we are talking about democracy, the fundamental decision making process of our government, we deserve something more secure and advanced. we deserve nothing less than an open-source solution, peer-reviewed and tested.
it makes me want to bring my stun gun to the polls and see how the machine registers a vote for 500,000 volts...
dude, you're talking about a monkey... in a cage... with an unlimited supply of drugs and food. it's not like the monkey REALLY had a choice. it's not like they could offer the monkey a job or something to read. so they added a female and he didn't screw her... maybe it means drugs make you smart enough to realize that you live in a fucking cage and reproducing isn't worth the effort.
i like drugs. i use them sometimes. it's limited to marijuana and alcohol these days but i've tried most of them. if i had an unlimited supply and someone to feed me and clean up after me... maybe i'd do drugs all the time. but i live in the Real World where i have to feed myself and work for my drugs. i bet if you made it harder for the monkey to get the drugs the monkey would still do them BECAUSE THEY ARE FUN. seriously, these drug "studies" prove one thing -- drugs are better than nothing.
i'd suggest that if you put a slashdot reader in a cage and supplied 'it' with an unlimited supply of video games it would push those buttons until it's fingers were raw. because it's fun, because we are alive, because humans are big fans of fun.
i grew up in the suburbs. there wasn't a whole lot to do outside of play video games (but my parents wouldn't allow me to buy a game system) or play sports (i was always the last picked). then along come the police with their "DARE" program, telling me i have to say no to drugs. what the fuck am i supposed to do then? all the 'adventures' my parents experienced as children have been bulldozed, made flat and covered in asphalt.
if you want to keep kids off of drugs give them something fun to do and recognize that you've got to have different fun things for different people -- silver bullets are for warewolves. when i was 14 i would have loved to learn machine shop skills or electronics but there were no extra-curricular groups for that in my school. they were too busy building a new football stadium and gutting the arts classes.
as for the question: are drugs harmful? yes. but so are cars, computers, porn, sunlight, alcohol, couches and laser pointers... in the wrong hands. but all of those things are very helpful to many many people.
i think stewart was saying "we call the daily show 'fake news' but you are the real fake news. please, either get funny and move to comedy central OR start doing your job which is to report news NOT the republican/democrat talking points"
talking points is what these news networks are all about these days. i don't know how it happens but all of a sudden every one is calling kerry "a flip floppper" and backing it up with stats and numbers. meanwhile bush could just as easily be called a "flip flopper" though over things arguably more substantiative like his 2000 campaign comment that "we should not be involved in nation building excercizes." sooooo, what's the plan for iraq?
the "reports" and "journalists" today are just part of the political machine, they don't think for themselvs or ask questions which would mean anything. it's sad.
i saw a transvestite wonder-woman piloting one of these in times square during the august critical mass ride. she seemed to be doing most of the pedaling with bunch of tourists half heartedly participating. there wasn't any conferencing going on, i think they were more into the spectacal. and maybe looking for a way to join critical mass. it looked like it was hard to steer. the pedi-cabs fared much better -- those are also trikes but with two passengers up front and one cyclist pedaling in the rear.
a side note, not long after times square i was arrested with about 240 other cyclists (out of 5000). the pedi-cab people were allowed out of the police lines, something about pedi-cab drivers "just doing their job"
where do people get the idea that scientists are all working with the benefit of mankind as their primary motivator? i'm not saying GM scientists are being evil, they are just doing their job -- they get paid to do GM research. if they come out and say "uh, GM is kinda dangerous" they loose their job. if they don't develop new GM products they loose their job. this isn't about a person's "life's work" it's about getting paid.
GM is potentially dangerous and needs a well informed public debate. i'm not saying GM is equivilent to a nuclear bomb, but a lot of scientists who made the bomb realized later that they are not ethicists. GM scientists are specialists who are paid to develop a product. considering the financial investment, their employer can't be trusted to do the research necessary to proove that the product is safe.
certainly not mainstream, i'm a geek and i live out of my backpack. i write internet applications, usually on friend's computers after booting them with a live cd. my last laptop (a too-large, dell inspiron 5000) finished its life with the case cracked in 17 places and most accessories including pcmcia, cdrom, and floppy, failing (fortunately usb still worked). the main reason was that this laptop was too big for me to provide it with the extra care a piece of electronics requires.
so a tiny little computer which i can protect in a metal case lined with foam is exactly what i need. i'll carry a cheap usb keyboard and mouse and hook it up to a display whenever one is around.
that said, the price is kinda high for me and i'd like to try out the competetion too.
And pollution to build the turbines. Think mining, smelting, carbon fibre production, transportation, maintenance...
yeah, that's always a funny argument against new tech which will produce clean energy. that same argument could be used on a new nuclear power plant or the maintainance of an old coal plant.
yes, it does cost resources to produce but it produces more than it takes (or it would be quite a bit more expensive). how about the over 15 million new cars are sold in the US each year. i'd rather reduce THAT number (and accompaning waste) rather than complain about enabling non-polluting energy.
and yes, they do create noise pollution. but we're not talking about putting one in your backyard (unless you want one because you like being in the middle of nowhere). we (serious folk) are talking about putting them out on the ocean, on farmland and in otherwise un-(human)-populated areas.
add myself and at least 8 of my cyclist friends to the list of vegetarians or (gasp!) vegans who are quite active. somehow, despite plenty of living evidence to the contrary, people still buy the misconception that being vegetarian means a low-protein, low iron, low energy diet. silly silly omnivores, vegetables are full of all the minerals you need and beans provide us with plenty of protein.
you will make a much bigger statement by registering to vote as an independent then voting for yourself (or me) for president. if every person who felt like you would vote for themself we would show our representatives that we are not a lazy apathethic electorate -- we are an electorate who is sick of bad candidates.
when the election results show bush with 30%, kerry with 30% and "myself" with 40% the media will start asking questions. until then they will assume the people who didn't vote are apathetic, content, or stupid.
ok, so your vote doesn't make a difference in the presidential elections. not a whole lot at least. but it does matter at the state and local level. i live in california where we have voter initiatives -- the electorate directly votes on what laws will be created, then the state legislature must listen to the voters. but in every state (a few exceptions like, maybe, nevada where i hear anything gos) local officials decide (thru zoning and taxing) if wal-mart will be allowed in your town. so far, they have been successfully fought off here in los angeles. local and state officials dictate tax rates, tax breaks, green space, and zoining -- a well planned, sustainable community will have a higher property value in the long run than a community which allows an oil refinery to go next to a school.
staying silent says something but no one will understand unless you speak up.
the poster didn't do a good job pointing out that ogg theora is VIDEO. ogg vorbis streams have been around on a large scale for quite a while and do rock. ogg theora is still in alpha and rocks until it crashes.
public radio should go with ogg vorbis or (at least) mp3. they were given some sort of sweet deal which got them to use real (instead of MS).
is there really a need for military submarines now that we're friends with russia? it seems that submarines main purpose was to be a stealth attack platform. with long range missiles on ships and bases on every continent submarines are an expensive to maintain cold war era toy.
how much of my name go i have to give? first, middle, last? if it's my whole name (as i suspect it is) then this is almost as good as a national identity card -- there are people with the same first and last name as me but i know my full name is unique. sure, you can lie and make up a name but giving false information to a police officer is illegal.
"it's just so they can call you by name" uh, i doubt it. here in LA all officers have access to massive databases from their cars.
this is fucking bullshit.
going to another country can expand your world view but going to the middle east or afghanistan right now will be a work trip and little more. unless you are willing to be captured and loose yer head. go somewhere "safe" if you want to expand your world view while working -- china, japan, europe, some countries in africa, even pakistan are better choices at this point.
here's a summary of the process filtered thru my leaky sive of a brain...
1. vegetable oil is filtered (filter waste can be composted)
2. mix methanol with sodium hydroxide (lye) or potassium hydroxide to form sodium methoxide or potassium methoxide.
3. mix #2 with filtered vegetable oil, agitate.
4. wash mixture with water by misting water from above (mist washing) or adding water (which settles below) and pumping air thru an air stone (pushing water into the mix), called bubble washing.
5. settle out the water and sediment
6. drain
now you have bio-diesel in the tank. what you drained off the bottom is a watery soap. if you used potasium hydroxide, this can be composted. if you used lye, contact your local municipal sewage disposal people. they will test your stuff. the municipal people said the mix was not very toxic (most of the lye had reacted) and was safe to pour into the toilet.
one person i know added fragrance and pumice to the soap she drained off the bottom to make a gojo type hand cleaner (great for getting tough grease off).
interesting, in america corporations get the same rights (sometimes more) as an individual. freedom of speech has let advertisers off the hook for many misleading ads.
i think he was refering to the filter used when producing bio-diesel.
biodiesel is routienely stored in plastic containers made of (i think) PETE and all diesel engines in production today are designed to accept bio-diesel by using teflon (instead of rubber) hoses. the main engine concern about using biodiesel is the sodium hydroxide (lye) content of the fuel which can destroy rubber parts.
when you make biodiesel you wash the fuel with water by misting water into a vat of fuel. the water collects lye as it decends to the bottom of the tank where it is drained out.