Social security won't hit red (where it has to cut into the trust fund) until at least 2018, from everything I've seen. The "trust fund" money will be provided exactly as expected - the government will sell bonds to raise that funding. People seem to think that Social Security using the trust fund money to buy government bonds means social security won't get that cash back. If the US government defaults on bonds, we are FUCKED and social security won't mean dick.
I agree; we should be working on tweaking SS to fix some of these issues, but the tweaks don't need to be full-scale privatization or elimination. Raise the wage caps. Increase the payroll tax, if need be. There are minor changes that can cover even the most pessimistic projections; there's no reason to look at this as a crisis.
Do the ghetto thing (like I did recently, actually) - set it to continuous shot, and just accept your 3 FPS movie. Speed it up to 6-10 FPS when you stitch the frames together, and it actually works pretty well.
Admittedly, it helps if you use a camera (like my D70) that writes continuously, rather than filling the buffer and then writing it out. I don't know if the 20D does the former or latter; hopefully the latter.
Scilab. Free MATLAB clone; I don't like it as much as MATLAB, and I (fortunately) have MATLAB through my job, so I rarely touch Scilab, but it seems usable enough.
FAIR doesn't DEMAND anything. They point out that, if things were actually *fair*, the ratios would be pretty roughly equal to the ratios in the community of origin. They don't suggest a particular solution, but I'd be willing to bet that they don't advocate firing people for being white; instead, I'd think they advocate (because, having interviewed members of FAIR, I know this is in fact what they do say) trying to treat the causes of the problem - a network culture that looks to its own before the outside and a pool of potential media members that is, in and of itself and for various reasons, lacking in members of color. In other words, they want to fix the fact that the media is, to a large extent, a "good ol' boy's" club, and they want to encourage more people of color to pursue media jobs. No hiring and firing based on race. None.
I personally think that all Americans should be tolerant, intelligent people. Do you think that's me advocating for killing Americans who aren't? No, it's pointing out that many of them aren't, and that we should maybe see what we can do to fix the causes of the problem.
FAIR is a left-of-center (and yet, fairly centrist) group that looks for accuracy in the media. They bash ABC, NBC, CNN, and CBS *all the time* - are those right wing sources? After all, all I ever hear from the right is "the liberal media" - are you finally admitting that the media must be right-biased, if FAIR bashes CNN, CBS, etc. and they only bash the right?
Michael Moore isn't media; he has no regular TV, radio, or print outlet carrying him. As such, he's not an appropriate target for a media watchdog group.
Condoms: condom *failure* rates are consistently reported to be ~3%. Limbaugh's numbers, from everything I've seen, are transmission rates... which, ironically enough, include when people simply don't use condoms, and people who use them improperly. Much like the NRA's "guns don't kill people", this is a case where people are nearly completely at fault. FAIR's response, stating that long-term transmission rates tend to be around the 2% breakage rate, is correct - experienced users of condoms generally experience a transmission rate equal to the breakage rate.
FAIR's response to European poverty is accurate, by the way. Averaging the PPP of European countries, *including* the Eastern European countries you claim Limbaugh was considering, yields a comparative price index of 106.3, meaning that a European needs to earn approximately 6% more than an American, average, to purchase the same level of goods. Average cash income of the bottom 20% of Americans is $5226; the average cash income of the countries included in my stats (20 countries, including Hungary, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, etc.) is approximately 25% lower than the cash income FAIR gave, yielding a median income of roughly $15,000 for the average European family. FAIR's point is still correct when you include those other countries; I'm not even accounting for the fact that populations are generally higher in the more heavily industrialized, and richer, nations than in the poorer ones. Limbaugh was WRONG. FAIR was correct, even using statistics more favorable to Limbaugh.
I didn't see the HUD item on FAIR's website; care to point it out to me?
The last 30 years have actually been a dip in the general trend, due mainly to the *ridiculous* inflation of the 70s. You have to look at it like you're "supposed" to look at the stock market - very, very long term.
While this is not an incredibly satisfying example, it does show back to 1950. And it shows that the past 55-60 years have seen an increase in real wages (wages adjusted for inflation).
It may take another 75 years, and technological and economic changes equal in magnitude to the changes in labor law and the advances in technology that we've seen over the 20th century, but I don't believe a 65% increase in real wages to be entirely out of the question.
I've read that its true for the entire 20th century, but was unable to find any graphics to support my point over the entire century; sorry. I can only support it for the last 60 years.
Re:Mac-Mini Not Revolutionary At All
on
Mac mini Dissection
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· Score: 4, Informative
That's why I added the "sort of" comment to the Lance Bass naming.
Let's also note that those two or three had to pay significantly more than "a couple of thousand".
Hell, look at skydiving. Lots of people pay a few hundred dollars in fees and equipment in order to ride a plane and then jump out of it. You think people wouldn't pay a few thousand to ride up to space?
First off, these engines are only part of a two-stage process, making your whole point wrong. Using them for two stages gives a total burn time of 320 seconds, yielding an average acceleration to LEO of more on the order of 3g, which is quite reasonable.
Second, even on a single stage rocket, an average acceleration of 5g is almost acceptable; witness certain NASA studies (about halfway down the page) which concluded that 5g for two minutes is sustainable for most all humans.
no celebrity or politicial figure would ever want to spend a couple thousand dollars just go up high in a potentially unsafe civilian spacecrat for the sole purpose of floating around in their seat and coming back down
Dennis Tito. Mark Shuttleworth. Lance Bass (well, sort of.)
I named and described a rather famous report from a while ago. You are too lazy to look it up, but not too lazy to whine "gimme a link". I am beginning to wonder if you even know what FAIR's own web site is.
The only specific report I saw in any of your comments was to FAIR's Limbaugh Lies report. I read said report. I read Limbaugh's responses. I read FAIR's rebuttals.
I see no examples of FAIR being incorrect, to tell you the truth. Point out a specific one, and we can chat about it, otherwise I'm going to have to assume you're not interested in honest debate.
Do a Google search on fair.org and race and media. Take care to look only at the links inside fair.org. Yes, they want people hired and fired in media just for their skin color. What a bunch of bigots. Race matters....only to racists.
I did.
I see no examples of FAIR asking for anyone to be hired, or fired, based on skin color. Instead, they point out that most urban media outlets have staff makeups that do NOT reflect the communities they broadcast to. There's a difference between the idea that, in general, the rough breakdown of gender, race, and so forth, in a given employment situation should roughly match the same breakdown within the community from which that employment is drawn. FAIR is pointing out that for the media, it doesn't match, and to a certain extent, asking why it doesn't match.
If you can find a specific link of FAIR advocating someone be fired or hired based on their race, I'd like to see it.
In fact, the only suggestion I can see from FAIR for anyone being fired is for Michael Savage to be fired from MSNBC... which I think most people would agree was a pretty reasonable idea. Especially the people who later fired him.
I guess I am too much of a civil libertarian to want the government to decide what speech is "fair" and what isn't! Sorry, I oppose censorship even if (what does it matter!?!?!) there are few channels.
So, you're okay with nudity on broadcast TV? How about hardcore porno during Saturday morning cartoons? Eminem's more misogynistic lyrics during after-school special hours? (For the record, I do agree with you on this, but if you want to allow free speech on air, you better allow it all the way. My answer to all of the above questions is yes.)
I named and described a rather famous report from a while ago. You are too lazy to look it up, but not too lazy to whine "gimme a link". I am beginning to wonder if you even know what FAIR's own web site is.
The burden is on you to provide a link to whatever evidence you'd like to show, I'm afraid. FAIR is pretty centrist; their more recent work has been slightly left-biased because *most of the media right now* is either right-biased, or covers right-biased issues, due to the current political climate. It doesn't hurt that the abundant right-wing commentators out there like to distort the truth, a lot. (Don't even try to deny this... Hannity, Coulter, and Limbaugh say I'm right.)
Well, let me rephrase: it may be boring if you actually like sports like football, watch it on television, and can think of n teams more than the 49ers and the Patriots, and can name a single football celebrity. However, I can't, and have little interest in buying ESPN sporting games.
And this is exactly why they don't make fantasy games if they can avoid it - the market for the licensed product is higher than the market for the "brandless" game. They aren't trying to sell these football games to you; they're trying to sell them to Joe Sixpack who has 10 buddies over for the Super Bowl, and a few cases of beer to go with them. He wants Manning, Brady, and Vick. He wants the Patriots, the Chargers, or (god help him) the Lions. It does make a difference for the fan of the game.
It probably doesn't hurt that the licensed games tend to be better *football* games, whereas most of the more "fantastic" games I've played (NFL Blitz, anyone?) may be fun, but do a very poor job of being a football game. If I want an arcade game, I'll buy an arcade game; if I buy a football game, I damn well want to call my Cover 2s and off-tackle blasts.
"Fantasy" tends to refer to a pretty specific hobby, wherein you make up a team by drafting your favorite players and their real-life stats are combined to produce a team performance, which competes against your friends teams. I'd maybe use "fantastic" or "arcade" for the type of game you're talking about, as opposed to "simulation" which is more of what the ESPN/EA games aim for.
(Side note: I am a fan of football, and do like ESPN's NCAA football games.)
TOslink vs. analog, it makes a difference in my environment, which has a surprisingly large amount of emag noise from the fluorescent light banks downstairs.
It's different than what you were pointing out, but it's still a valid point - digital data tends toward better noise immunity.
Slashdot Mirror
Social security won't hit red (where it has to cut into the trust fund) until at least 2018, from everything I've seen. The "trust fund" money will be provided exactly as expected - the government will sell bonds to raise that funding. People seem to think that Social Security using the trust fund money to buy government bonds means social security won't get that cash back. If the US government defaults on bonds, we are FUCKED and social security won't mean dick.
I agree; we should be working on tweaking SS to fix some of these issues, but the tweaks don't need to be full-scale privatization or elimination. Raise the wage caps. Increase the payroll tax, if need be. There are minor changes that can cover even the most pessimistic projections; there's no reason to look at this as a crisis.
So he's a useful twit, is what you're saying?
Do the ghetto thing (like I did recently, actually) - set it to continuous shot, and just accept your 3 FPS movie. Speed it up to 6-10 FPS when you stitch the frames together, and it actually works pretty well.
Admittedly, it helps if you use a camera (like my D70) that writes continuously, rather than filling the buffer and then writing it out. I don't know if the 20D does the former or latter; hopefully the latter.
Scilab. Free MATLAB clone; I don't like it as much as MATLAB, and I (fortunately) have MATLAB through my job, so I rarely touch Scilab, but it seems usable enough.
FAIR doesn't DEMAND anything. They point out that, if things were actually *fair*, the ratios would be pretty roughly equal to the ratios in the community of origin. They don't suggest a particular solution, but I'd be willing to bet that they don't advocate firing people for being white; instead, I'd think they advocate (because, having interviewed members of FAIR, I know this is in fact what they do say) trying to treat the causes of the problem - a network culture that looks to its own before the outside and a pool of potential media members that is, in and of itself and for various reasons, lacking in members of color. In other words, they want to fix the fact that the media is, to a large extent, a "good ol' boy's" club, and they want to encourage more people of color to pursue media jobs. No hiring and firing based on race. None.
I personally think that all Americans should be tolerant, intelligent people. Do you think that's me advocating for killing Americans who aren't? No, it's pointing out that many of them aren't, and that we should maybe see what we can do to fix the causes of the problem.
FAIR is a left-of-center (and yet, fairly centrist) group that looks for accuracy in the media. They bash ABC, NBC, CNN, and CBS *all the time* - are those right wing sources? After all, all I ever hear from the right is "the liberal media" - are you finally admitting that the media must be right-biased, if FAIR bashes CNN, CBS, etc. and they only bash the right?
Michael Moore isn't media; he has no regular TV, radio, or print outlet carrying him. As such, he's not an appropriate target for a media watchdog group.
Condoms: condom *failure* rates are consistently reported to be ~3%. Limbaugh's numbers, from everything I've seen, are transmission rates... which, ironically enough, include when people simply don't use condoms, and people who use them improperly. Much like the NRA's "guns don't kill people", this is a case where people are nearly completely at fault. FAIR's response, stating that long-term transmission rates tend to be around the 2% breakage rate, is correct - experienced users of condoms generally experience a transmission rate equal to the breakage rate.
FAIR's response to European poverty is accurate, by the way. Averaging the PPP of European countries, *including* the Eastern European countries you claim Limbaugh was considering, yields a comparative price index of 106.3, meaning that a European needs to earn approximately 6% more than an American, average, to purchase the same level of goods. Average cash income of the bottom 20% of Americans is $5226; the average cash income of the countries included in my stats (20 countries, including Hungary, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, etc.) is approximately 25% lower than the cash income FAIR gave, yielding a median income of roughly $15,000 for the average European family. FAIR's point is still correct when you include those other countries; I'm not even accounting for the fact that populations are generally higher in the more heavily industrialized, and richer, nations than in the poorer ones. Limbaugh was WRONG. FAIR was correct, even using statistics more favorable to Limbaugh.
I didn't see the HUD item on FAIR's website; care to point it out to me?
The last 30 years have actually been a dip in the general trend, due mainly to the *ridiculous* inflation of the 70s. You have to look at it like you're "supposed" to look at the stock market - very, very long term.
While this is not an incredibly satisfying example, it does show back to 1950. And it shows that the past 55-60 years have seen an increase in real wages (wages adjusted for inflation).
It may take another 75 years, and technological and economic changes equal in magnitude to the changes in labor law and the advances in technology that we've seen over the 20th century, but I don't believe a 65% increase in real wages to be entirely out of the question.
I've read that its true for the entire 20th century, but was unable to find any graphics to support my point over the entire century; sorry. I can only support it for the last 60 years.
2.5 x 8.5 x 10.25
2 x 6.5 x 6.5
Same size my ass.
160 mm square != 160 mm^2.
160 mm square means 160 mm to each side.
160 mm squared means 160 square millimeters in area. I think we're all pretty sure that isn't what they meant.
However, 160 cm^2 would be about 12.5 cm square, or roughly 4.9 inches square.
160mm square would be 16 cm square, or roughly 6.3 inches square.
Mini-ITX boards are roughly 17cm by 17cm, so the Mini Mac board most likely is 160mm square.
In other words, 160mm x 160mm, or 25600 mm^2.
Mine involves bras and suspenders... in the cockpit of a B2.
Obviously, mine is superior.
That's why I added the "sort of" comment to the Lance Bass naming.
Let's also note that those two or three had to pay significantly more than "a couple of thousand".
Hell, look at skydiving. Lots of people pay a few hundred dollars in fees and equipment in order to ride a plane and then jump out of it. You think people wouldn't pay a few thousand to ride up to space?
First off, these engines are only part of a two-stage process, making your whole point wrong. Using them for two stages gives a total burn time of 320 seconds, yielding an average acceleration to LEO of more on the order of 3g, which is quite reasonable.
Second, even on a single stage rocket, an average acceleration of 5g is almost acceptable; witness certain NASA studies (about halfway down the page) which concluded that 5g for two minutes is sustainable for most all humans.
no celebrity or politicial figure would ever want to spend a couple thousand dollars just go up high in a potentially unsafe civilian spacecrat for the sole purpose of floating around in their seat and coming back down
Dennis Tito. Mark Shuttleworth. Lance Bass (well, sort of.)
Evidence does not bear out your assertion.
Hey, it could land automatically in Russian weather. Give them some credit, Buran looked to be a decent craft that died solely due to economics.
Actually, they aren't.
Your initial benefit is tied to your wages. That's the amount you start receiving when you initially retire.
Your increases are tied to CPI-W. A measure of inflation.
The only fucking asshole I see is the one who is both WRONG and unwilling to admit who he is.
Hell no. The elderly would be tough and gamy.
Now, baby... that's tender and juicy.
I wholeheartedly support abolishing contraception with the intent of providing a large surplus of baby meat!
We have a name for that trend in costs, y'know?
It's called inflation, y'know?
And wages tend to increase faster than inflation.
Y'know what I'm saying?
I named and described a rather famous report from a while ago. You are too lazy to look it up, but not too lazy to whine "gimme a link". I am beginning to wonder if you even know what FAIR's own web site is.
The only specific report I saw in any of your comments was to FAIR's Limbaugh Lies report. I read said report. I read Limbaugh's responses. I read FAIR's rebuttals.
I see no examples of FAIR being incorrect, to tell you the truth. Point out a specific one, and we can chat about it, otherwise I'm going to have to assume you're not interested in honest debate.
Do a Google search on fair.org and race and media. Take care to look only at the links inside fair.org. Yes, they want people hired and fired in media just for their skin color. What a bunch of bigots. Race matters....only to racists.
I did.
I see no examples of FAIR asking for anyone to be hired, or fired, based on skin color. Instead, they point out that most urban media outlets have staff makeups that do NOT reflect the communities they broadcast to. There's a difference between the idea that, in general, the rough breakdown of gender, race, and so forth, in a given employment situation should roughly match the same breakdown within the community from which that employment is drawn. FAIR is pointing out that for the media, it doesn't match, and to a certain extent, asking why it doesn't match.
If you can find a specific link of FAIR advocating someone be fired or hired based on their race, I'd like to see it.
In fact, the only suggestion I can see from FAIR for anyone being fired is for Michael Savage to be fired from MSNBC... which I think most people would agree was a pretty reasonable idea. Especially the people who later fired him.
I guess I am too much of a civil libertarian to want the government to decide what speech is "fair" and what isn't! Sorry, I oppose censorship even if (what does it matter!?!?!) there are few channels.
So, you're okay with nudity on broadcast TV? How about hardcore porno during Saturday morning cartoons? Eminem's more misogynistic lyrics during after-school special hours? (For the record, I do agree with you on this, but if you want to allow free speech on air, you better allow it all the way. My answer to all of the above questions is yes.)
I named and described a rather famous report from a while ago. You are too lazy to look it up, but not too lazy to whine "gimme a link". I am beginning to wonder if you even know what FAIR's own web site is.
The burden is on you to provide a link to whatever evidence you'd like to show, I'm afraid. FAIR is pretty centrist; their more recent work has been slightly left-biased because *most of the media right now* is either right-biased, or covers right-biased issues, due to the current political climate. It doesn't hurt that the abundant right-wing commentators out there like to distort the truth, a lot. (Don't even try to deny this... Hannity, Coulter, and Limbaugh say I'm right.)
fair.org, by the way.
Well, let me rephrase: it may be boring if you actually like sports like football, watch it on television, and can think of n teams more than the 49ers and the Patriots, and can name a single football celebrity. However, I can't, and have little interest in buying ESPN sporting games.
And this is exactly why they don't make fantasy games if they can avoid it - the market for the licensed product is higher than the market for the "brandless" game. They aren't trying to sell these football games to you; they're trying to sell them to Joe Sixpack who has 10 buddies over for the Super Bowl, and a few cases of beer to go with them. He wants Manning, Brady, and Vick. He wants the Patriots, the Chargers, or (god help him) the Lions. It does make a difference for the fan of the game.
It probably doesn't hurt that the licensed games tend to be better *football* games, whereas most of the more "fantastic" games I've played (NFL Blitz, anyone?) may be fun, but do a very poor job of being a football game. If I want an arcade game, I'll buy an arcade game; if I buy a football game, I damn well want to call my Cover 2s and off-tackle blasts.
"Fantasy" tends to refer to a pretty specific hobby, wherein you make up a team by drafting your favorite players and their real-life stats are combined to produce a team performance, which competes against your friends teams. I'd maybe use "fantastic" or "arcade" for the type of game you're talking about, as opposed to "simulation" which is more of what the ESPN/EA games aim for.
(Side note: I am a fan of football, and do like ESPN's NCAA football games.)
Yeah, maybe. Still, with an attitude like that, who'd want the twit to stick with the project?
"I would seriously quit", in this context, seems to be more of a emphatic statement, rather than a promise.
I was going to get cable anyway.
I was not going to get a land line.
Which makes it $43 to $43 for me. And I only have one bill to deal with, instead of two.
(I'd still like to see lower prices, but when I upload a full roadtrip's worth of photos, that 384 will be nice.)
TOslink vs. analog, it makes a difference in my environment, which has a surprisingly large amount of emag noise from the fluorescent light banks downstairs.
It's different than what you were pointing out, but it's still a valid point - digital data tends toward better noise immunity.
The collective outcry from gamers clamoring for this deafens a small cricket.
Scratch that, a *very* small cricket. About the same size as the list of games worth playing on this live CD.