I would avoid Wrox on general principles. This was hammered home to me when I was offered a contract to write a single chapter for a Wrox book. Apparently they go out and find people who will work *extremely* cheap. I mean, the pay was in the three digits -- I turned them down, needless to say. And as near as I could tell, they didn't do much vetting of my expertise. They just take all these chapters and throw them together into a book. You're just not going to get a cohesive publication that way.
They put a positive spin on this by saying it's written "by programmers for programmers", but I was pretty soured on the quality of their stuff after this experience. Maybe some of their stuff is better organized or better paid these days. This was probably 5-10 years ago.
The institution of marriage is the civil codification of the family, which is a mother, father and zero or more children. It is more than the business of consenting adults because of the children.
Why you strip away all the extraneous fluff, a marriage is a legal contract, no more and no less.
As you say, it provides legal rights to families, both with children, and without. There are plenty of important legal rights that have nothing to do with children, such as hospital care rights, inheritance, etc.
And even when you factor in children, there are plenty of homosexual couples that do have children. That may or may not be the ideal situation, but it's the reality. Unless you're advocating tearing the children away from their "untraditional" family and giving them to someone else, then that family should be codified in law, just like any other family.
The non-religious justification of the definition of marriage remaining between men and women is because of the children involved to defend and protect families, which have always been the basis of society. More specifically, there is absolutely no justification for a completely novel interpretation of 'marriage' that serves no purpose in society.
And as I argue above, gay marriage *is* protecting non-traditional families. Or to put it another way, is society improved by two gay parents being in a legally committed relationship? They're parents either way. The children deserve the same stability as a standard family.
No one's rights are being violated because any available man is free to marry any available woman.
That's like arguing against interracial marriage by saying that no one's rights are being violated because any available *white* man is free to marry any available *white* woman. It's *exactly* the same.
Is it a violation of civil rights that a man cannot marry his sister? Is it a violation of civil rights that a man cannot marry two women at the same time? By your logic, it is.
Of course it is. I literally *don't care* what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes. And no one else should, either. It doesn't harm you in the slightest if someone wants to have multiple wives. The *only* reason you have to be against it is your religion, which is *never* a good reason. All laws should come from reason.
Of course, the issue with brothers and sisters marrying is the high potential birth defects, but that's going to happen whether they're married or not. In practice, of course, brothers and sisters rarely want to be married, because we're psychologically built to not be attracted to our siblings, so this isn't a realistic concern anyway. But really, if they want to be married, who are you to tell *consenting adults* what they can and can't do?
The bottom line is that an important part of freedom is minding your own business and allowing others to live their own lives.
[Slavery] But in today's political climate weren't they simply religious types trying to impose their morals on the rest of the country?
There's a difference between imposing morality that can be argued from reason, and imposing morality that is entirely arbitrary and whose *only* reason is because the Bible "says so". For example, an atheist can just as easily argue that slavery, murder, etc is wrong based on human equality of rights. Abolition of slavery had nothing to do with Christianity or religion (in fact, the bible could be argued as advocating it, but that's another subject).
On the other hand, prohibition of gay marriage has absolutely no reasonable, non-religious basis. It is the business of the consenting adults -- also based on equality of human rights. Then I recall this horrifying story about atheist persecution by Christians.
Sure, you can argue that those aren't "real Christians", but let's face it, in public life you *better* not be an atheist, or the Christians will never vote for you. That's bigotry. And that's because, respectfully, of your attitude and others like you: that morality can only come from religion, which is ridiculous. If I had my druthers, religion would be an absolutely private matter between a human and his/her god, and would never be discussed in public.
Anyway, to bring this back to Obama, my point is that his church is hardly the only bastion of hatred. It's just another side of the religious coin. In fact, I'd argue that Wright, at least, has a historical basis for his anger -- blacks *were* screwed by the United States for a long time. The hatred of gays and atheists has zero historical basis. Protestant hatred of Catholics at least has some basis, on the other hand.
So as I can imagine a more enlightened Christian listening to fire and brimstone on gay rights, wishing his pastor wasn't quite so strident, I can also imagine Obama sitting in church, wishing Wright wasn't quite so strident as well. We don't have to agree with everything our friends believe to be their friends.
I hate to pull a Godwin but Hindenburg thought the same thing and look how that turned out. Not that I assume Obama will do anything like that but thinking that democracy is a panacea against tyranny can be a fatal mistake.
I'm not an expert on all the machinations of how Hitler came to power, but I think their constitution gave the president a lot more power over the legislature. I think the biggest obstacle to a Mad Leader coming to power in the U.S. would be the lack of military support. I don't see how, no matter how crazy a leader gets, that they could get the military to enforce a coup against the Constitution and congress. Note that military officer oaths swear allegiance to the *constitution* -- not the president, not the military leaders, not even the country itself. And the constitution has no provisions for suspending itself.
Also keep in mind that Germany became a republic only in 1918, and Hitler came to power in 1933. 15 years isn't exactly a lot of time for a tradition of democracy and freedom to get set in stone. Whereas, the U.S. has had 230+ years. For the U.S. to have a coup, you have to have enough people in the very top of the goverment AND the military that all can *conceive* of a coup, much less carry it out. And I just can't see how that could happen.
He has more criminal, racist and/or terrorist friends and associates than the average Supervillian. His mentors were Communists and America-haters. His so-called Christian pastor of 20 years has more in common with radical Islam than any Christianity I'm familiar with. Why would anyone believe anything he says when it contradicts everything he's been and done for his entire life?
Eh, I dunno. What politician with any lifelong connections at all wouldn't have shady friends? Ronald Reagan notoriously had a lot of associates that went to jail for corruption. Mary Matalin is married to Satan, I mean, James Carville [:)]. Many Republicans have strong ties to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, both shady, corrupt characters.
Heck, I had a childhood friend whose story is a lifelong history of drug abuse and being in and out of jail (who happened to be a phenomenally talented musician).
Was I concerned by Obama's ties to Wright? Yes. Do I think a politician's circle of friends is relevant? Yes, I do. If someone belonged to the KKK, that would be very relevant. But I think one has to be fair about it. Just because Ronald Reagan had a lot of corrupt friends, that doesn't mean I think he was on the take as well. Obama's circle is mostly about being a Democrat. What Democratic politician doesn't have a circle of America haters and communists? It comes with the territory... just like, frankly, being a Republican comes with the territory of having a lot of very rich, very corrupt friends who would try and buy them in a microsecond if they could.
As for Obama's church, I suspect that says a lot more about inner city black churches than about Obama. I think that's part of him embracing his black cultural side, which, sadly, holds a lot of hatred of America in its heart. I'm also *very* concerned by Republicans who go to radical Christian churches that preach discrimination, if not outright hatred, of homosexuals and bible fundamentalism where every word is to be taken literally, which gives them an anti-science agenda. Which is worse? Both are pretty damn bad.
So is Obama a risk? Of course! As every President is. It's just a question of how the scales balance in terms of risk versus reward. And fortunately, we are not electing a king. The damage Obama can do is fairly limited. He isn't going to be able to put through a truly radical agenda, even if it's all a ruse to be come President.
To my eyes, McCain is promising to be another disaster in the GWB mold. Obama is promising a lot of things that I'm enthusiastically in favor of. Seriously -- did you listen to his speech? I was struck by this part:
"I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that's to be expected. Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from."
Maybe it's all a Grand Master Plan (cue lightning and thunder) to take over the country, and he doesn't mean a word of it. But, in my gut he feels sincere. And a lot of people would be pretty angry if he suddenly reversed course.
Note that article was limited to a discussion of Peroxide and acid, which is not what Carmack was talking about. I tend to trust the guy who has actually done the experiments, rather than a pseudo-journalist from The Register.
Nobody watches you, but somebody is going to get suspicious when you're in there for half an hour straight trying to use the place as a chemistry lab.
Chemistry lab? What chemistry lab? Did you read Carmack's post? It's literally pour fuel into peroxide, gently stir, and Presto! You have an impact grenade. I personally would carry it out and throw it where the wing connects to the plane, but if you blow a big enough hole in the bathroom, that could do a lot of damage.
Anyway, we could keep debating logistical issues, but the point is that you *can* mix two easily obtainable substances together and create a significant high explosive.
Don't do it... just remember, the Democrats have fallen just as far... they are beating the same old dead horse of all the stupid, failed politics of the mid 20th century and calling it "change".
Did you listen to Obama's speech? With certain (admittedly important) exceptions, he sounded more Republican than the Republicans. He called for lower taxes, more personal responsibility, cutting spending, taking care of veterans, on and on.
Another thing I liked is that he's calling for the elimination of oil imports from the Middle East within 10 years! I *love* that idea. It's bold! He even mentioned *Nuclear Power*!! In his big speech! (believe that from a Democrat?)
And I really dislike that the Republicans are so beholden to the religious wing, which is getting more and more shrill and insane every year. Why can't they just live their life the way they want and leave everyone else alone?
Do I agree with everything Obama says? No. I cringed when he called for "equal pay for equal work", which is literally impossible to enforce. But -- I'm convinced that Obama is not your 1980s-style corrupt, tax-and-spend, bribe-the-poor-for-their-vote Democrat.
McCain? What a tool. I have *zero* confidence he will fix the country, which is literally going backrupt from the Republican's spending insanity the last eight years, and not just from the war. He's also a hot head, and I think at this point we need a cool hand in foreign policy, and not some idiot who can't even control himself in public with his own wife.
I also have no confidence that he will reign in the SS that GWB created, I mean, the Department of Homeland Security.
Lastly, and I know this is unusual for a small-l libertarian-leaning Republican, I am very much in favor of medical care reform and universal health care (see my journal entry if you want details -- basically, medical care is not subject to normal supply and demand). Obama's plan is actually pretty reasonable. And medical care is *insane* right now. I had an MRI recently that was $4000 (!!) but reduced to like $350 for the insurance. The real cost of the MRI is probably about $60-$70. McCain gives absolutely no details on how he's going to fix things. The whole "dropping you from the insurance plan because you got sick" thing also needs to be solved.
I encourage you to balance the normal Democrat foolishness against the current Republican corruption, and also read how centrist Obama really is. I have some amount of confidence that Obama can deliver *some* of what he promises. I have no confidence that McCain won't be another disaster.
The problem is whether such an explosive could be mixed in an airplane bathroom without anyone noticing and remain unexploded long enough for Our Villain to get it out of the bathroom and up next to the skin where it might do some serious damage.
Who is watching what someone does in the bathroom? And if the goal is to take the plain out, the bathroom next to the skin is a perfectly fine place to detonate a bomb.
and thought liquid binary explosives were possible to deploy on a plane because they'd seen in the movies that the baddies had these scary devices that mixed different colored liquids...
As John Carmack points out, it is not only possible to have explosives like this, it's not very difficult.
Actually, voting third party rather than not voting at all does more harm than good, at least at this point in history. All the third parties have extremist nuts in them. Voting for them just encourages them to continue to be nutty rather than try and move toward reasonable platforms and be a real choice.
For example, the Libertarians, who are probably the least nutty, favor selling off the national parks, right in their platform. What kind of choice is that? It's completely idiotic, yet the Libertarians are so devoted to their black and white principles that they can't come up with an actual, winnable platform.
Remember, we actually did have a viable third party candidate one time, until he self-destructed (Perot). He proved it could be done. But it required having a *reasonable* candidate with *reasonable* positions.
I can't understand people who would vote for both. I mean, they represent opposite sides of so many of their core issues.
Oh no, you understand it perfectly. People are just voting for "anyone but the mainstream" and don't have a clue what those parties actually stand for. The Truth is that there isn't a mainstream third party that's worth a damn. They're all run by extremist wackos who can't function in the main two parties.
Study how this stuff was originally conceived, and then get back to us on that bullshit design arrogance. Good design is elegant and adaptive, not forced.
Talk about arrogance. "There is only one right way to do things, and that's my way!!" Having a page that can adapt to all these various mediums is only one design goal. Unfortunately, a page that can adapt to everything ends up being mediocre everywhere, and excellent nowhere.
Sure, we can produce size 20 clown shoes that fit everybody. How efficient! How elegant! What's that you say? You want a custom fit? You say a shoe that fits your feet exactly works better than the size 20 clown shoe? But surely you don't want us to create a shoe for every foot size. That would be very inefficient.
Of course, your response will be that web pages are more adaptive than shoes, and that's true -- to a point. But the reality is that unless your page is incredibly simple, things just don't end up working well. A custom fit is always going to be better than a one-size-fits-all fit.
I see nothing in those articles about these batteries being "mega efficient", as the title of this Slashdot post screams. The novelty seems to be the fact that they're grown using viruses and can be applied in thin films.
They've discovered microbes that live deep *inside* rocks on Earth. There's enough water in rocks to sustain them.
Earth water is not necessarily Mars water. It's likely those microbes need some sort of catalyzing agent, such as oxygen dissolved in the water. Maybe Mars water has something in it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was pure water, and I don't think anything can reproduce in pure water (without any atmosphere). I could be wrong, though.
A well designed page has no care for the specific font that is used, only the style of font and size.
No, that's a particular *design option* that may or may not be important to the design specification. In certain other cases, it's important to exercise tight control of the maximum width of some text, and that requires specifying the font. For example, I might have a news site with a headline box, and I want each headline to fit on one line without line-breaking and making it look crappy (with a bunch of lines with a single word on each second line). Now, if someone chooses to change the fonts, then it degenerates the way it degenerates. But for most of the world, it will look like a clean, polished design.
And no, not every page needs to be auto-sizing to the width of the browser... that's also a design option that may or may not be appropriate for every design.
Unfortunately, too many people think that the whole concept of "the HTML dictates the content, and the browser dictates the look" from the far past is somehow carved in stone tablets given by God. It's not. The point of a browser is to communicate with a web site, and there are a lot of different ways to do that.
Use font-family, do NOT specify a font for me. I, or my browser, will choose the font.
My page, my design. But feel free to use a browser that does anything you want to the pages you want to display. But the vast majority of the rest of the world likes visiting well-designed pages.
Remember, it takes only one spore to seed another planet.
Eh, that's a bit of an oversimplification. I'm sure different spores have different requirements, but I don't know if there are any that just need heat and water. I think people tend to imagine Mars as this Earth-style desert, but it's not... it's an unbelievably harsh environment. It's a rock. Huge temperature extremes, (possibly) no liquid water, no oxygen, and even if they manage to find liquid water, it's probably deep enough for no sunlight. So even if Mr. Spore made it to Mars, it's only chance would be to get buried to a level that evens out the temperature, with liquid water. Assuming you have a Spore that can even reproduce under those conditions.
How can you know this without knowing the outcome ahead of time?
Because it's an *extremely* low resource environment. Sure, it's theoretically possible, but it's vanishingly unlikely.
Such as...? And how do you define 'payoff?'
Payoff = advancement of knowledge beyond a result of "Negative for life." And are you really that low on imagination that you can't think of any experiments to run on Mars?
Which is it? Is the search for life exciting or isn't it?
The *search* is utterly boring. It would be extremely exciting if it turned up something, but the probability of that is so low, that it's a ridiculous waste. Hence, all we have left is the boringness. I'm not saying to never do the experiments... but do them in a hundred years when the cost to visit isn't so high that we *need* to optimize what we send there.
Huh? 'Cool photographs' are better than performing actual science to answer one of the greatest questions that has been on the minds of man ever since we discovered that ours was not the only world in the universe?
Read what I wrote. 'Cool movies' (which is what I was really pushing for) are far more exciting in terms of capturing the public interest, which is what NASA's goal is with these useless life experiments. If NASA is going to blow money on P.R. stunts, I'd much rather have HDTV movies beamed back than this utter waste of precious space on the landers.
I wish NASA would get off the "looking for ET life" kick. The probability of finding any sort of life on Mars is vanishingly small. I suspect that NASA knows this, but thinks that it can capture the public's imagination (and thus pocketbook) by pushing the whole "Searching For Life" thing. There are so many other experiments we could do that have a much higher payoff.
I don't think the search for life is going to fire the public's imagination more than the cool photographs they get back. If they *really* want to get the public excited, send an HDTV recorder up there to zoom around... maybe even stereo HDTV so we could see 3D. Let me see a Martian sunset. Those are tactile things that everyone can be excited about. The search for life is an endless string of boring failures. Sure, if it *did* succeed, it would be immensely exciting, but that's like saying it would be exciting to win the lottery, instead of paying the rent. Except winning the lottery is a lot more probable.
I'm curious as to why people are still interviewing Mr. Hertzfeld, given that his most recent successful project was the Mac. Even more puzzling is that he continues to be able to raise funds, attract developers, etc., in view of his decades-long track record of failure.
I don't know why people give him money, but as for an interview subject, he was a witness to history.
It's the "smack down" that I have a problem with. IMHO, it shows a lack of compassion.
My post was probably a little harsh, but you have to admit he was pretty aggressive with his "it's everyone's fault but mine" attitude. One of my pet peeves is with "entitlement" attitudes, and I suppose his expectation that society owed him something for his "decades of experience" set me off. On a personal level, I sympathize with anyone caught off-guard by circumstances, but casting blame everywhere is not the way a mature adult ought to be behave.
I also have a problem with people who don't want to give up their SUV but I'm assuming your joking about that because it's in your sig.
Oh no, I'm dead serious about that. The solution to our various problems is new technology, not pain and suffering by rolling back our standard of living.
Don't you mean it's always the employee's responsibility? Yes, it is.
Yes, that's probably a better way to put it. The point (as you state as well) is that the world doesn't owe anybody anything. I think everyone knows on a surface level that "life isn't fair", but few really understand at a deep-down level that *LIFE* *ISN'T* *FAIR* and that you have to hope for the best, but plan for the worst. I think everyone has to get slapped in the face by life a few times before they really understand it.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha! I just read the Wikipedia entry on Wrox, and they went bankrupt five years ago. So who knows what they're publishing these days.
I would avoid Wrox on general principles. This was hammered home to me when I was offered a contract to write a single chapter for a Wrox book. Apparently they go out and find people who will work *extremely* cheap. I mean, the pay was in the three digits -- I turned them down, needless to say. And as near as I could tell, they didn't do much vetting of my expertise. They just take all these chapters and throw them together into a book. You're just not going to get a cohesive publication that way.
They put a positive spin on this by saying it's written "by programmers for programmers", but I was pretty soured on the quality of their stuff after this experience. Maybe some of their stuff is better organized or better paid these days. This was probably 5-10 years ago.
The institution of marriage is the civil codification of the family, which is a mother, father and zero or more children. It is more than the business of consenting adults because of the children.
Why you strip away all the extraneous fluff, a marriage is a legal contract, no more and no less.
As you say, it provides legal rights to families, both with children, and without. There are plenty of important legal rights that have nothing to do with children, such as hospital care rights, inheritance, etc.
And even when you factor in children, there are plenty of homosexual couples that do have children. That may or may not be the ideal situation, but it's the reality. Unless you're advocating tearing the children away from their "untraditional" family and giving them to someone else, then that family should be codified in law, just like any other family.
The non-religious justification of the definition of marriage remaining between men and women is because of the children involved to defend and protect families, which have always been the basis of society. More specifically, there is absolutely no justification for a completely novel interpretation of 'marriage' that serves no purpose in society.
And as I argue above, gay marriage *is* protecting non-traditional families. Or to put it another way, is society improved by two gay parents being in a legally committed relationship? They're parents either way. The children deserve the same stability as a standard family.
No one's rights are being violated because any available man is free to marry any available woman.
That's like arguing against interracial marriage by saying that no one's rights are being violated because any available *white* man is free to marry any available *white* woman. It's *exactly* the same.
Is it a violation of civil rights that a man cannot marry his sister? Is it a violation of civil rights that a man cannot marry two women at the same time? By your logic, it is.
Of course it is. I literally *don't care* what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes. And no one else should, either. It doesn't harm you in the slightest if someone wants to have multiple wives. The *only* reason you have to be against it is your religion, which is *never* a good reason. All laws should come from reason.
Of course, the issue with brothers and sisters marrying is the high potential birth defects, but that's going to happen whether they're married or not. In practice, of course, brothers and sisters rarely want to be married, because we're psychologically built to not be attracted to our siblings, so this isn't a realistic concern anyway. But really, if they want to be married, who are you to tell *consenting adults* what they can and can't do?
The bottom line is that an important part of freedom is minding your own business and allowing others to live their own lives.
[Slavery] But in today's political climate weren't they simply religious types trying to impose their morals on the rest of the country?
There's a difference between imposing morality that can be argued from reason, and imposing morality that is entirely arbitrary and whose *only* reason is because the Bible "says so". For example, an atheist can just as easily argue that slavery, murder, etc is wrong based on human equality of rights. Abolition of slavery had nothing to do with Christianity or religion (in fact, the bible could be argued as advocating it, but that's another subject).
On the other hand, prohibition of gay marriage has absolutely no reasonable, non-religious basis. It is the business of the consenting adults -- also based on equality of human rights. Then I recall this horrifying story about atheist persecution by Christians.
Sure, you can argue that those aren't "real Christians", but let's face it, in public life you *better* not be an atheist, or the Christians will never vote for you. That's bigotry. And that's because, respectfully, of your attitude and others like you: that morality can only come from religion, which is ridiculous. If I had my druthers, religion would be an absolutely private matter between a human and his/her god, and would never be discussed in public.
Anyway, to bring this back to Obama, my point is that his church is hardly the only bastion of hatred. It's just another side of the religious coin. In fact, I'd argue that Wright, at least, has a historical basis for his anger -- blacks *were* screwed by the United States for a long time. The hatred of gays and atheists has zero historical basis. Protestant hatred of Catholics at least has some basis, on the other hand.
So as I can imagine a more enlightened Christian listening to fire and brimstone on gay rights, wishing his pastor wasn't quite so strident, I can also imagine Obama sitting in church, wishing Wright wasn't quite so strident as well. We don't have to agree with everything our friends believe to be their friends.
I hate to pull a Godwin but Hindenburg thought the same thing and look how that turned out. Not that I assume Obama will do anything like that but thinking that democracy is a panacea against tyranny can be a fatal mistake.
I'm not an expert on all the machinations of how Hitler came to power, but I think their constitution gave the president a lot more power over the legislature. I think the biggest obstacle to a Mad Leader coming to power in the U.S. would be the lack of military support. I don't see how, no matter how crazy a leader gets, that they could get the military to enforce a coup against the Constitution and congress. Note that military officer oaths swear allegiance to the *constitution* -- not the president, not the military leaders, not even the country itself. And the constitution has no provisions for suspending itself.
Also keep in mind that Germany became a republic only in 1918, and Hitler came to power in 1933. 15 years isn't exactly a lot of time for a tradition of democracy and freedom to get set in stone. Whereas, the U.S. has had 230+ years. For the U.S. to have a coup, you have to have enough people in the very top of the goverment AND the military that all can *conceive* of a coup, much less carry it out. And I just can't see how that could happen.
He has more criminal, racist and/or terrorist friends and associates than the average Supervillian. His mentors were Communists and America-haters. His so-called Christian pastor of 20 years has more in common with radical Islam than any Christianity I'm familiar with. Why would anyone believe anything he says when it contradicts everything he's been and done for his entire life?
Eh, I dunno. What politician with any lifelong connections at all wouldn't have shady friends? Ronald Reagan notoriously had a lot of associates that went to jail for corruption. Mary Matalin is married to Satan, I mean, James Carville [:)]. Many Republicans have strong ties to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, both shady, corrupt characters.
Heck, I had a childhood friend whose story is a lifelong history of drug abuse and being in and out of jail (who happened to be a phenomenally talented musician).
Was I concerned by Obama's ties to Wright? Yes. Do I think a politician's circle of friends is relevant? Yes, I do. If someone belonged to the KKK, that would be very relevant. But I think one has to be fair about it. Just because Ronald Reagan had a lot of corrupt friends, that doesn't mean I think he was on the take as well. Obama's circle is mostly about being a Democrat. What Democratic politician doesn't have a circle of America haters and communists? It comes with the territory... just like, frankly, being a Republican comes with the territory of having a lot of very rich, very corrupt friends who would try and buy them in a microsecond if they could.
As for Obama's church, I suspect that says a lot more about inner city black churches than about Obama. I think that's part of him embracing his black cultural side, which, sadly, holds a lot of hatred of America in its heart. I'm also *very* concerned by Republicans who go to radical Christian churches that preach discrimination, if not outright hatred, of homosexuals and bible fundamentalism where every word is to be taken literally, which gives them an anti-science agenda. Which is worse? Both are pretty damn bad.
So is Obama a risk? Of course! As every President is. It's just a question of how the scales balance in terms of risk versus reward. And fortunately, we are not electing a king. The damage Obama can do is fairly limited. He isn't going to be able to put through a truly radical agenda, even if it's all a ruse to be come President.
To my eyes, McCain is promising to be another disaster in the GWB mold. Obama is promising a lot of things that I'm enthusiastically in favor of. Seriously -- did you listen to his speech? I was struck by this part:
"I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that's to be expected. Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from."
Maybe it's all a Grand Master Plan (cue lightning and thunder) to take over the country, and he doesn't mean a word of it. But, in my gut he feels sincere. And a lot of people would be pretty angry if he suddenly reversed course.
Some people disagree
Note that article was limited to a discussion of Peroxide and acid, which is not what Carmack was talking about. I tend to trust the guy who has actually done the experiments, rather than a pseudo-journalist from The Register.
Nobody watches you, but somebody is going to get suspicious when you're in there for half an hour straight trying to use the place as a chemistry lab.
Chemistry lab? What chemistry lab? Did you read Carmack's post? It's literally pour fuel into peroxide, gently stir, and Presto! You have an impact grenade. I personally would carry it out and throw it where the wing connects to the plane, but if you blow a big enough hole in the bathroom, that could do a lot of damage.
Anyway, we could keep debating logistical issues, but the point is that you *can* mix two easily obtainable substances together and create a significant high explosive.
Don't do it... just remember, the Democrats have fallen just as far... they are beating the same old dead horse of all the stupid, failed politics of the mid 20th century and calling it "change".
Did you listen to Obama's speech? With certain (admittedly important) exceptions, he sounded more Republican than the Republicans. He called for lower taxes, more personal responsibility, cutting spending, taking care of veterans, on and on.
Another thing I liked is that he's calling for the elimination of oil imports from the Middle East within 10 years! I *love* that idea. It's bold! He even mentioned *Nuclear Power*!! In his big speech! (believe that from a Democrat?)
And I really dislike that the Republicans are so beholden to the religious wing, which is getting more and more shrill and insane every year. Why can't they just live their life the way they want and leave everyone else alone?
Do I agree with everything Obama says? No. I cringed when he called for "equal pay for equal work", which is literally impossible to enforce. But -- I'm convinced that Obama is not your 1980s-style corrupt, tax-and-spend, bribe-the-poor-for-their-vote Democrat.
McCain? What a tool. I have *zero* confidence he will fix the country, which is literally going backrupt from the Republican's spending insanity the last eight years, and not just from the war. He's also a hot head, and I think at this point we need a cool hand in foreign policy, and not some idiot who can't even control himself in public with his own wife.
I also have no confidence that he will reign in the SS that GWB created, I mean, the Department of Homeland Security.
Lastly, and I know this is unusual for a small-l libertarian-leaning Republican, I am very much in favor of medical care reform and universal health care (see my journal entry if you want details -- basically, medical care is not subject to normal supply and demand). Obama's plan is actually pretty reasonable. And medical care is *insane* right now. I had an MRI recently that was $4000 (!!) but reduced to like $350 for the insurance. The real cost of the MRI is probably about $60-$70. McCain gives absolutely no details on how he's going to fix things. The whole "dropping you from the insurance plan because you got sick" thing also needs to be solved.
I encourage you to balance the normal Democrat foolishness against the current Republican corruption, and also read how centrist Obama really is. I have some amount of confidence that Obama can deliver *some* of what he promises. I have no confidence that McCain won't be another disaster.
The problem is whether such an explosive could be mixed in an airplane bathroom without anyone noticing and remain unexploded long enough for Our Villain to get it out of the bathroom and up next to the skin where it might do some serious damage.
Who is watching what someone does in the bathroom? And if the goal is to take the plain out, the bathroom next to the skin is a perfectly fine place to detonate a bomb.
and thought liquid binary explosives were possible to deploy on a plane because they'd seen in the movies that the baddies had these scary devices that mixed different colored liquids...
As John Carmack points out, it is not only possible to have explosives like this, it's not very difficult.
Actually, voting third party rather than not voting at all does more harm than good, at least at this point in history. All the third parties have extremist nuts in them. Voting for them just encourages them to continue to be nutty rather than try and move toward reasonable platforms and be a real choice.
For example, the Libertarians, who are probably the least nutty, favor selling off the national parks, right in their platform. What kind of choice is that? It's completely idiotic, yet the Libertarians are so devoted to their black and white principles that they can't come up with an actual, winnable platform.
Remember, we actually did have a viable third party candidate one time, until he self-destructed (Perot). He proved it could be done. But it required having a *reasonable* candidate with *reasonable* positions.
I can't understand people who would vote for both. I mean, they represent opposite sides of so many of their core issues.
Oh no, you understand it perfectly. People are just voting for "anyone but the mainstream" and don't have a clue what those parties actually stand for. The Truth is that there isn't a mainstream third party that's worth a damn. They're all run by extremist wackos who can't function in the main two parties.
Study how this stuff was originally conceived, and then get back to us on that bullshit design arrogance. Good design is elegant and adaptive, not forced.
Talk about arrogance. "There is only one right way to do things, and that's my way!!" Having a page that can adapt to all these various mediums is only one design goal. Unfortunately, a page that can adapt to everything ends up being mediocre everywhere, and excellent nowhere.
Sure, we can produce size 20 clown shoes that fit everybody. How efficient! How elegant! What's that you say? You want a custom fit? You say a shoe that fits your feet exactly works better than the size 20 clown shoe? But surely you don't want us to create a shoe for every foot size. That would be very inefficient.
Of course, your response will be that web pages are more adaptive than shoes, and that's true -- to a point. But the reality is that unless your page is incredibly simple, things just don't end up working well. A custom fit is always going to be better than a one-size-fits-all fit.
Like this one?
No, a Martian sunset in HD video.
I see nothing in those articles about these batteries being "mega efficient", as the title of this Slashdot post screams. The novelty seems to be the fact that they're grown using viruses and can be applied in thin films.
They've discovered microbes that live deep *inside* rocks on Earth. There's enough water in rocks to sustain them.
Earth water is not necessarily Mars water. It's likely those microbes need some sort of catalyzing agent, such as oxygen dissolved in the water. Maybe Mars water has something in it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was pure water, and I don't think anything can reproduce in pure water (without any atmosphere). I could be wrong, though.
A well designed page has no care for the specific font that is used, only the style of font and size.
No, that's a particular *design option* that may or may not be important to the design specification. In certain other cases, it's important to exercise tight control of the maximum width of some text, and that requires specifying the font. For example, I might have a news site with a headline box, and I want each headline to fit on one line without line-breaking and making it look crappy (with a bunch of lines with a single word on each second line). Now, if someone chooses to change the fonts, then it degenerates the way it degenerates. But for most of the world, it will look like a clean, polished design.
And no, not every page needs to be auto-sizing to the width of the browser... that's also a design option that may or may not be appropriate for every design.
Unfortunately, too many people think that the whole concept of "the HTML dictates the content, and the browser dictates the look" from the far past is somehow carved in stone tablets given by God. It's not. The point of a browser is to communicate with a web site, and there are a lot of different ways to do that.
Use font-family, do NOT specify a font for me. I, or my browser, will choose the font.
My page, my design. But feel free to use a browser that does anything you want to the pages you want to display. But the vast majority of the rest of the world likes visiting well-designed pages.
Remember, it takes only one spore to seed another planet.
Eh, that's a bit of an oversimplification. I'm sure different spores have different requirements, but I don't know if there are any that just need heat and water. I think people tend to imagine Mars as this Earth-style desert, but it's not... it's an unbelievably harsh environment. It's a rock. Huge temperature extremes, (possibly) no liquid water, no oxygen, and even if they manage to find liquid water, it's probably deep enough for no sunlight. So even if Mr. Spore made it to Mars, it's only chance would be to get buried to a level that evens out the temperature, with liquid water. Assuming you have a Spore that can even reproduce under those conditions.
How can you know this without knowing the outcome ahead of time?
Because it's an *extremely* low resource environment. Sure, it's theoretically possible, but it's vanishingly unlikely.
Such as...? And how do you define 'payoff?'
Payoff = advancement of knowledge beyond a result of "Negative for life." And are you really that low on imagination that you can't think of any experiments to run on Mars?
Which is it? Is the search for life exciting or isn't it?
The *search* is utterly boring. It would be extremely exciting if it turned up something, but the probability of that is so low, that it's a ridiculous waste. Hence, all we have left is the boringness. I'm not saying to never do the experiments ... but do them in a hundred years when the cost to visit isn't so high that we *need* to optimize what we send there.
Huh? 'Cool photographs' are better than performing actual science to answer one of the greatest questions that has been on the minds of man ever since we discovered that ours was not the only world in the universe?
Read what I wrote. 'Cool movies' (which is what I was really pushing for) are far more exciting in terms of capturing the public interest, which is what NASA's goal is with these useless life experiments. If NASA is going to blow money on P.R. stunts, I'd much rather have HDTV movies beamed back than this utter waste of precious space on the landers.
I wish NASA would get off the "looking for ET life" kick. The probability of finding any sort of life on Mars is vanishingly small. I suspect that NASA knows this, but thinks that it can capture the public's imagination (and thus pocketbook) by pushing the whole "Searching For Life" thing. There are so many other experiments we could do that have a much higher payoff.
I don't think the search for life is going to fire the public's imagination more than the cool photographs they get back. If they *really* want to get the public excited, send an HDTV recorder up there to zoom around... maybe even stereo HDTV so we could see 3D. Let me see a Martian sunset. Those are tactile things that everyone can be excited about. The search for life is an endless string of boring failures. Sure, if it *did* succeed, it would be immensely exciting, but that's like saying it would be exciting to win the lottery, instead of paying the rent. Except winning the lottery is a lot more probable.
I'm curious as to why people are still interviewing Mr. Hertzfeld, given that his most recent successful project was the Mac. Even more puzzling is that he continues to be able to raise funds, attract developers, etc., in view of his decades-long track record of failure.
I don't know why people give him money, but as for an interview subject, he was a witness to history.
It's the "smack down" that I have a problem with. IMHO, it shows a lack of compassion.
My post was probably a little harsh, but you have to admit he was pretty aggressive with his "it's everyone's fault but mine" attitude. One of my pet peeves is with "entitlement" attitudes, and I suppose his expectation that society owed him something for his "decades of experience" set me off. On a personal level, I sympathize with anyone caught off-guard by circumstances, but casting blame everywhere is not the way a mature adult ought to be behave.
I also have a problem with people who don't want to give up their SUV but I'm assuming your joking about that because it's in your sig.
Oh no, I'm dead serious about that. The solution to our various problems is new technology, not pain and suffering by rolling back our standard of living.
Don't you mean it's always the employee's responsibility? Yes, it is.
Yes, that's probably a better way to put it. The point (as you state as well) is that the world doesn't owe anybody anything. I think everyone knows on a surface level that "life isn't fair", but few really understand at a deep-down level that *LIFE* *ISN'T* *FAIR* and that you have to hope for the best, but plan for the worst. I think everyone has to get slapped in the face by life a few times before they really understand it.