Because there are other people in the world who possess these weapons (or seek them desperately), and they have the intention to use them against people, either in their home countries (see: Northern Kurds in Iraq) or in Western countries (e.g. US/Canada/Britian/France/etc.) Labs such as the one at Plum Island investigate the effects of disease-causing agents and bioweapons in the hopes that remedies/cures/vaccines/treatments might be discovered.
*That's* why weapons like this are needed. Because others have them, too.
PS. Your distance from the lab isn't significant. As SARS has demonstrated, a swift moving easily communicated disease doesn't recognize national borders. Yes, it's scary, but so is the alternative -- having NO research at all.
I can't remember, so help me out here, people: is "artist" (with quote marks) what you get to call yourself when you waste four years at college on an Art History degree and end up thoroughly unemployed (see also "artsy-fartsy") or is "artist" just an all-purpose label for unattractive whiners who spoil every opportunity to do something meaningful by calling lame political commentary "art" (with quotes) thereby ensuring that the product of one's life is measured in the number of coffee refills served while working at the doughnut shop rather than creating something of beauty or meaning?
I can never remember which is which, but then again it's a fine distinction.
Who cares? How about the 50-or-so people losing their jobs who are now wondering how they will pay the rent, bills, support their families, etc. Maybe once you move out of your mom's basement you'll understand life's pressures and sympathize, rather than casually dismissing other's problems unless they've released an "A" title game.
Look at the bright side...
on
Cyberchondria
·
· Score: 3, Funny
...if you have a cheap-ass HMO, you're going to have some Bitchin' pile of frequent-flier points from all the flights to India!
>>Typical. You're more worried about who you'd be able to sue than the fact that you'd be left without a healthy kidney.
It's called "thinking ahead," numbskull! Choosing medical care is a cost/benefit/risk assessment. A botched kidney transplant isn't like a bad haircut which corrects itself after a time. Dialysis isn't free (in terms of money and time -- taking approximately half a day, twice a week) and there are substantial medical complications one can expect (including stoke, liver damage, infection, hemmorhage, toxemia, death) from long-term dialysis. If medical negligence causes harm (as per this example), the patient should not have to suffer the financial burden of these injuries as well. Therefore, it's appropriate to look beyond the surgery itself and weigh the risks of a poor outcome -- in the event of negligence, will the patient be able to seek legal recourse?
But I suppose, in your eyes, it would be more noble for the person to just say "well, that's that... I'll go die now" and quietly go away?
Whew! For a moment there, I thought DJ-DM mixed Spinal Tap's black album against the Beatles. Now *that* would be ugly!
"How," you ask? Well, imagine the lyrics of Big Bottom ("my baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo, I'd like to sink her with my pink torpedo" synch'ed to the tune of Rocky Raccoon. Scary stuff, I tell you!
Just the idea's enough to make me say: (Insert Dean_Scream_Remix.mp3 here)
Clearly, my understanding of what constitutes flamebait is much different from whoever happened to moderate this one! For my benefit, and the benefit of/.'s future posters everywhere, somebody please explain to me why my comments were considered "flamebait -1". I thought, if anything, it'd be regarded as insightful.
It's a simple fact that Germans are, by way of their taxes, subsidizing the cost of these chips -- Germany's government is giving huge amounts of money to AMD to establish their plant and that portion of the construction costs won't be charged to the non-German consumer.
What about that is flamebait? Or is anything even slightly anti-AMD (or anti-communism, for that matter) considered to be one of those "holy" topics that one is not allowed to discuss here?
Unless someone can explain this one, I'm going to have to assume the latter which simply makes the moderators intellectual cowards.
>>It will benefit AMD, Germany, and us as consumers.
Yes, let me be the first American to say "Thanks, all you hard-working Germans for paying high taxes to subsidize the cost of my computer chips. Rock on!"
Hey, all my college professors were right -- Socialism DOES work. (Just not for the people who must pay for it.)
>>Just point at the picture you'd like to go to, and Microsoft will tell you exactly where it is.
I think somebody on the implementation team needs to go back to the drawing board. Or out to the woodshed...
From the web page: "our small server is unable to keep up with requests, and access to the WWMX itself maybe even slower than it usually is." [emphasis mine] Hmmm. Not exactly what I'd call a ringing endorsement of their server technology.
A little examination of the header info tells us what we need to know...
Yep, I think that just about sums up the problem. It's a Win box, running IIS and.Net framework.
"What can you do with a gazillion photos on a single database indexed by their location?"
On a MSFT/IIS/.Net server? I dunno... pray that no more than a dozen people try to hit your web site at the same time?
I know they meant the site to be a showcase of MSFT technology. Funny thing is that it is a showcase, just not in the way they intended.
"Basically launching hundreds of smaller robots at a task rather than a single highly developed bot. They mentioned lots of benefits, like 80% failure rate would still generate something. Additionally they would be near eachother and possibly work together..."
Sounds to me like they've decided to outsource it.
Correct. The rocks are being cut with what can be thought of as a NASA-grade angle grinder.
>>you probably wouldn't want to use the grinder to dust off the solar panels I just got this mental image of a butler-robot named Reginald following behind Spirit with a whisk broom. "Allow me, sir. *shiff* *shiff* *shiff* [brushes off solar panels] Ah, yes, that's better. By the way, sir, I've taken the liberty to call NASA for your daily downlink; they're holding at your leisure on the UHF dish, line four. Will you be needing anything else this afternoon?"
Seriously, though, if dust-build up (and the eventual starvation of power) is the limiting factor for these rovers, why did NASA not add a feather-duster/windshield wiper/retractible plastic film/fan/something??? to clean the panels?
The only thing I can conclude is that the Earthside cost of running the mission beyond the expected duration was too great for the marginal returns/benefits given by a longer mission -- the existing duration was sufficient. After all, I wouldn't be surprised if the total cost for maintaning the mission (staff, press conferences, electricity, bandwidth, website, etc.) exceeds $50,000/day.
>>So you want to take the largest undefended border (it's that way for a reason) and patrol it with automated tanks. Uh, yeah. BTW, you misspelled unguarded. Do you think there might be some link between the thousands of miles of unguarded border and the huge number of illegals? I do.
Would you rather wait until a truck loaded with [insert weapon here] rolls across the border and into the country, unchecked, before deciding there might be a problem? It's a little too late, after the fact.
>>As if fingerprinting and face scanning just to get into the country isn't enough. No, obviously it ISN'T enough, when this country is flooded with illegal aliens streaming in at the rate of thousands per day and then our liberal-wannabe President tries to buy their votes by granting them amnesty. Coming to this country (or any other, last time I checked) was a privledge, not a right. And that privledge should be revoked until immigration can be controlled. Otherwise, we'll end up like France -- a country that's quickly losing it's identity.
>>I think both Canada and Mexico would have *HUGE* problems if you started military operations along the border. Boo f'n hoo. Perhaps if Mexico would stop encouraging their residents to migrate illegally to the US, and Canada would stop mouth-kissing terrorists and their supporters by granting political amnesty to nearly any thug who asks for it, it wouldn't be necessary, but given the current state of the borders, it is.
>>The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea......or on the borders. This device would be perfect for monitoring the enormous (and easily penetrated) US/Mexico and US/Canadian borders.
How long before a marine version is developed to patrol the coastal areas?
>>... is to endorse subsidies at the expense of local consumers. >> >>Think a bit about that one every time you ennact your little boycot.
So by creating an opportunity for *competition*, and doing so by free choice, that's a bad thing? I think you, sir, may be the one in need of an economics lesson. Nowhere did I say anything about compelling others to follow my lead.
Just as HomeDepot has it's place, so does the corner hardware store, and I as a consumer would like the freedom to choose one or the other.
Scarcity often results in innovation. Would you postulate that competition is a bad thing?
No. My disdain is split almost equally between the Dems and Repubs for their complete disregard for Constitutional limits on government power and both parties' big-spending ways. I vote Libertarian locally and Constitution Party nationally.
>>stop running and accept that you'll eventually pay extra to get an iPod
Nosir, let me assure you I won't.
When Apple chose to put politics above business decisions by naming Al Gore to their Board of Directors, I swore off purchasing Apple products forever. As if a man who has never held a non-government job is going to have much to offer a corporation in terms of leadership. And before you think I'm merely a partisan, let me say that I'd feel the same way if it was any other lifelong politican from ANY political party. I believe that Gore's position on the Board exists solely to gain Apple political influence, and that's wrong.
Problem is, it's not just Apple I'm boycotting. I'll not purchase another Hewlett-Packard printer (after being a loyal customer for years) based on their decision to export, excuse me -- "outsource", American and Australian jobs to India. Same goes for IBM, GE, Sears, Oracle, and Ford.
Now, before you think I'm just a trolling protectionist, let me explain. I have no alternative than to vote with my paycheck to try to affect change; It's not like our "duly elected" politicans listen to the wishes of the public anymore or act in the best interests of the nation. IMO, they craft legislation based what's been bought-and-paid for by lobbyists. Well, I think it's time to undercut those businesses that put short-term gain over national interests.
Voting with dollars at the retail level is the only recourse I have and if that's what it takes to get the attention of business and get them to understand that not everyone wants cheap widgets at the cost of the American jobs, at least I'm doing my part.
>>...a window that would turn opaque when a current was brought through it.
And that would be different from 1970s-era LCD technology, in what way?
>>And to think, it only took 15 years for this to go from "MAGIC TV LAND" to reality!
The Marketing Weasels were a little preoccupied during the dot-bomb era convincing retailers that yes, indeed, people really do want to buy cat litter and doggie kibbles via a web site. Cut 'em some slack... they'll get back to real-world problems eventually.
>>"Day 16-17 The team is discouraged by all the work remaining and didn't work during the weekend."
Good grief! If, two weeks into a project, the developers are being admonished for not working over the weekend, I'd say the problem is with the manager's lack of planning skills, not the engineers' work ethic!! The old phrase "your lack of planning doesn't make it my emergency" comes to mind.
Except for true emergencies, planning for teams to regularly work weekends is simply asking for high employee burnout and high turnover rates. What ever happened to the notion of treating programmers like respected professionals instead of so-called "resources?"
>>What legitimate need does a single person have when downloading 40 gigs of data over a short period of time?
Windows Security Patches? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Seriously, downloading a few Linux distributions, running a website, database mirroring, or doing off-site backups & restores are just a few ways of chewing through gigs of pipe without much effort.
>as in Lotus Notes
>as in the worst email client ever
"Score:2, Funny"? For shame, moderators -- that was "+5 Informative", if I've ever seen it.
So how bad is Lotus Notes, you ask? So bad that The User Interface Hall Of Shame
dedicated an ENTIRE PAGE to detailing LN's faults.
"This single application could have formed the basis for the entire site."
Slashdot Mirror
Because there are other people in the world who possess these weapons (or seek them desperately), and they have the intention to use them against people, either in their home countries (see: Northern Kurds in Iraq) or in Western countries (e.g. US/Canada/Britian/France/etc.) Labs such as the one at Plum Island investigate the effects of disease-causing agents and bioweapons in the hopes that remedies/cures/vaccines/treatments might be discovered.
*That's* why weapons like this are needed. Because others have them, too.
PS. Your distance from the lab isn't significant. As SARS has demonstrated, a swift moving easily communicated disease doesn't recognize national borders. Yes, it's scary, but so is the alternative -- having NO research at all.
>>lick your desk and your work mates will just think you're a freak.
Please tell me you intended to insert a comma after "desk." After all, licking your workmates is just gross.
>>When I read this I wanted to skip the rest of class...
/. DURING CLASS you might as well not be there.
Son, I think you and I need to have a little talk about your grades tonight.
---
Your Dad
Seriously, though, if you're reading & posting to
-- Jenny Holzer, "Artist"
I can't remember, so help me out here, people: is "artist" (with quote marks) what you get to call yourself when you waste four years at college on an Art History degree and end up thoroughly unemployed (see also "artsy-fartsy") or is "artist" just an all-purpose label for unattractive whiners who spoil every opportunity to do something meaningful by calling lame political commentary "art" (with quotes) thereby ensuring that the product of one's life is measured in the number of coffee refills served while working at the doughnut shop rather than creating something of beauty or meaning?
I can never remember which is which, but then again it's a fine distinction.
Who cares? How about the 50-or-so people losing their jobs who are now wondering how they will pay the rent, bills, support their families, etc. Maybe once you move out of your mom's basement you'll understand life's pressures and sympathize, rather than casually dismissing other's problems unless they've released an "A" title game.
...if you have a cheap-ass HMO, you're going to have some Bitchin' pile of frequent-flier points from all the flights to India!
>>Typical. You're more worried about who you'd be able to sue than the fact that you'd be left without a healthy kidney.
It's called "thinking ahead," numbskull! Choosing medical care is a cost/benefit/risk assessment. A botched kidney transplant isn't like a bad haircut which corrects itself after a time. Dialysis isn't free (in terms of money and time -- taking approximately half a day, twice a week) and there are substantial medical complications one can expect (including stoke, liver damage, infection, hemmorhage, toxemia, death) from long-term dialysis. If medical negligence causes harm (as per this example), the patient should not have to suffer the financial burden of these injuries as well. Therefore, it's appropriate to look beyond the surgery itself and weigh the risks of a poor outcome -- in the event of negligence, will the patient be able to seek legal recourse?
But I suppose, in your eyes, it would be more noble for the person to just say "well, that's that... I'll go die now" and quietly go away?
Whew! For a moment there, I thought DJ-DM mixed Spinal Tap's black album against the Beatles. Now *that* would be ugly!
"How," you ask? Well, imagine the lyrics of Big Bottom ("my baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo, I'd like to sink her with my pink torpedo" synch'ed to the tune of Rocky Raccoon. Scary stuff, I tell you!
Just the idea's enough to make me say: (Insert Dean_Scream_Remix.mp3 here)
Clearly, my understanding of what constitutes flamebait is much different from whoever happened to moderate this one! For my benefit, and the benefit of /.'s future posters everywhere, somebody please explain to me why my comments were considered "flamebait -1". I thought, if anything, it'd be regarded as insightful.
It's a simple fact that Germans are, by way of their taxes, subsidizing the cost of these chips -- Germany's government is giving huge amounts of money to AMD to establish their plant and that portion of the construction costs won't be charged to the non-German consumer.
What about that is flamebait? Or is anything even slightly anti-AMD (or anti-communism, for that matter) considered to be one of those "holy" topics that one is not allowed to discuss here?
Unless someone can explain this one, I'm going to have to assume the latter which simply makes the moderators intellectual cowards.
>>It will benefit AMD, Germany, and us as consumers.
Yes, let me be the first American to say "Thanks, all you hard-working Germans for paying high taxes to subsidize the cost of my computer chips. Rock on!"
Hey, all my college professors were right -- Socialism DOES work. (Just not for the people who must pay for it.)
I think somebody on the implementation team needs to go back to the drawing board. Or out to the woodshed...
From the web page: "our small server is unable to keep up with requests, and access to the WWMX itself maybe even slower than it usually is." [emphasis mine] Hmmm. Not exactly what I'd call a ringing endorsement of their server technology.
A little examination of the header info tells us what we need to know...
Yep, I think that just about sums up the problem. It's a Win box, running IIS and
"What can you do with a gazillion photos on a single database indexed by their location?"
On a MSFT/IIS/.Net server? I dunno... pray that no more than a dozen people try to hit your web site at the same time?
I know they meant the site to be a showcase of MSFT technology. Funny thing is that it is a showcase, just not in the way they intended.
"Basically launching hundreds of smaller robots at a task rather than a single highly developed bot. They mentioned lots of benefits, like 80% failure rate would still generate something. Additionally they would be near eachother and possibly work together..."
Sounds to me like they've decided to outsource it.
Correct. The rocks are being cut with what can be thought of as a NASA-grade angle grinder.
>>you probably wouldn't want to use the grinder to dust off the solar panels
I just got this mental image of a butler-robot named Reginald following behind Spirit with a whisk broom. "Allow me, sir. *shiff* *shiff* *shiff* [brushes off solar panels] Ah, yes, that's better. By the way, sir, I've taken the liberty to call NASA for your daily downlink; they're holding at your leisure on the UHF dish, line four. Will you be needing anything else this afternoon?"
Seriously, though, if dust-build up (and the eventual starvation of power) is the limiting factor for these rovers, why did NASA not add a feather-duster/windshield wiper/retractible plastic film/fan/something??? to clean the panels?
The only thing I can conclude is that the Earthside cost of running the mission beyond the expected duration was too great for the marginal returns/benefits given by a longer mission -- the existing duration was sufficient. After all, I wouldn't be surprised if the total cost for maintaning the mission (staff, press conferences, electricity, bandwidth, website, etc.) exceeds $50,000/day.
>>So you want to take the largest undefended border (it's that way for a reason) and patrol it with automated tanks.
Uh, yeah. BTW, you misspelled unguarded.
Do you think there might be some link between the thousands of miles of unguarded border and the huge number of illegals? I do.
Would you rather wait until a truck loaded with [insert weapon here] rolls across the border and into the country, unchecked, before deciding there might be a problem? It's a little too late, after the fact.
>>As if fingerprinting and face scanning just to get into the country isn't enough.
No, obviously it ISN'T enough, when this country is flooded with illegal aliens streaming in at the rate of thousands per day and then our liberal-wannabe President tries to buy their votes by granting them amnesty.
Coming to this country (or any other, last time I checked) was a privledge, not a right. And that privledge should be revoked until immigration can be controlled. Otherwise, we'll end up like France -- a country that's quickly losing it's identity.
>>I think both Canada and Mexico would have *HUGE* problems if you started military operations along the border.
Boo f'n hoo. Perhaps if Mexico would stop encouraging their residents to migrate illegally to the US, and Canada would stop mouth-kissing terrorists and their supporters by granting political amnesty to nearly any thug who asks for it, it wouldn't be necessary, but given the current state of the borders, it is.
>>The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea... ...or on the borders. This device would be perfect for monitoring the enormous (and easily penetrated) US/Mexico and US/Canadian borders.
How long before a marine version is developed to patrol the coastal areas?
>>... is to endorse subsidies at the expense of local consumers.
>>
>>Think a bit about that one every time you ennact your little boycot.
So by creating an opportunity for *competition*, and doing so by free choice, that's a bad thing?
I think you, sir, may be the one in need of an economics lesson. Nowhere did I say anything about compelling others to follow my lead.
Just as HomeDepot has it's place, so does the corner hardware store, and I as a consumer would like the freedom to choose one or the other.
Scarcity often results in innovation. Would you postulate that competition is a bad thing?
>Let me guess... you vote republican? :-P
No. My disdain is split almost equally between the Dems and Repubs for their complete disregard for Constitutional limits on government power and both parties' big-spending ways. I vote Libertarian locally and Constitution Party nationally.
>>I once had my office on a sales floor with about 20 women. You think a jet engine is annoying...
It's funnier when you hear them tell it.
"Twenty of us women once worked on a sales floor with this IT guy..."
>>stop running and accept that you'll eventually pay extra to get an iPod
Nosir, let me assure you I won't.
When Apple chose to put politics above business decisions by naming Al Gore to their Board of Directors, I swore off purchasing Apple products forever. As if a man who has never held a non-government job is going to have much to offer a corporation in terms of leadership. And before you think I'm merely a partisan, let me say that I'd feel the same way if it was any other lifelong politican from ANY political party. I believe that Gore's position on the Board exists solely to gain Apple political influence, and that's wrong.
Problem is, it's not just Apple I'm boycotting. I'll not purchase another Hewlett-Packard printer (after being a loyal customer for years) based on their decision to export, excuse me -- "outsource", American and Australian jobs to India. Same goes for IBM, GE, Sears, Oracle, and Ford.
Now, before you think I'm just a trolling protectionist, let me explain. I have no alternative than to vote with my paycheck to try to affect change; It's not like our "duly elected" politicans listen to the wishes of the public anymore or act in the best interests of the nation. IMO, they craft legislation based what's been bought-and-paid for by lobbyists. Well, I think it's time to undercut those businesses that put short-term gain over national interests.
Voting with dollars at the retail level is the only recourse I have and if that's what it takes to get the attention of business and get them to understand that not everyone wants cheap widgets at the cost of the American jobs, at least I'm doing my part.
>>and a toasty warm genital region.
"There's been some misunderstanding," said the man at the return counter. "I said I wanted a computer with a compact DISK burner."
ba-da ching! Thankyouverymuch.
>>...a window that would turn opaque when a current was brought through it.
And that would be different from 1970s-era LCD technology, in what way?
>>And to think, it only took 15 years for this to go from "MAGIC TV LAND" to reality!
The Marketing Weasels were a little preoccupied during the dot-bomb era convincing retailers that yes, indeed, people really do want to buy cat litter and doggie kibbles via a web site. Cut 'em some slack... they'll get back to real-world problems eventually.
>>"Day 16-17 The team is discouraged by all the work remaining and didn't work during the weekend."
Good grief! If, two weeks into a project, the developers are being admonished for not working over the weekend, I'd say the problem is with the manager's lack of planning skills, not the engineers' work ethic!! The old phrase "your lack of planning doesn't make it my emergency" comes to mind.
Except for true emergencies, planning for teams to regularly work weekends is simply asking for high employee burnout and high turnover rates. What ever happened to the notion of treating programmers like respected professionals instead of so-called "resources?"
>>What legitimate need does a single person have when downloading 40 gigs of data over a short period of time?
Windows Security Patches? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Seriously, downloading a few Linux distributions, running a website, database mirroring, or doing off-site backups & restores are just a few ways of chewing through gigs of pipe without much effort.
>as in the worst email client ever
"Score:2, Funny"? For shame, moderators -- that was "+5 Informative", if I've ever seen it.
So how bad is Lotus Notes, you ask? So bad that The User Interface Hall Of Shame dedicated an ENTIRE PAGE to detailing LN's faults. "This single application could have formed the basis for the entire site."
Yes, it's that bad.
For those Google challenged among us...
1632 by Eric Flint and 1633 by David Webber & Eric Flint