Three little words. "Cool. See ya." The final straw to end twenty years of daily Slashdot reading.
I had such hopes when Bizx or whatever you are called took over. Now I have nothing but regret for the mockery received from my peers over the last few years when I admitted I still read Slashdot. They were right.
Oh well, at least I will always have visions of a petrified Natalie Portman. Naked. Hold the grits
Quite possibly the explody thing came from the police.
But you have not shown in the slightest that a surgeon has recovered grenade fragments from the woman's arm. Please stop parroting that claim and Gish Galloping to other factoids and theories when called on it.
Pretty please would you provide a link(s) to article(s) stating a surgeon retrieved and saved concussion grenade fragments from that woman's arm.
I googled. My skills were inadequate.
1. Are they cheap or are they old? You point out the last airframes came off the production lines 30 years ago then say they were built cheaply. I do not think still being operational decades later, especially considering their operational tempo over most of this time, is indicative of cheap.
2. Pork wing program or falling apart? If they are 'falling apart' then I do not think a program to remediate that would be considered pork.
3. A bunch were lost in 2003? Please enumerate. I know of only one combat loss of an A-10 in Iraq since 2003.
4. The A-10 has a slightly lower rate of blue-on-blue incidents than other aircraft performing close air support. In any case, the numbers of friendly fire incidents by aircraft of any type are astonishingly low compared to the number of sorties flown. Statistically minimal.
5. What WWII CAS aircraft exceeded the A-10 in speed? The big CAS birds of that war, Junkers 87 and the II-2 were both a couple hundred miles per hour slower. The P-47 was at least in the same ball park as the A-10.
6. How often is a CAS mission called for and time from base is a factor? Fine, in that case send a Strike Eagle. For all the other times, that loitering plane is ready to go no matter if it is sub or supersonic.
7. A-10 was designed to not need full size airbases. Strong gear. High engines. Soft tires. They are made to work from short, damaged and improvised fields.
So what are the really capable CAS aircraft existing today?
Why do grunts and marines commonly differ with you?
For the love of all that is holy.
46.4% is a quick and dirty google hit but it is from the FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS. Instead of googling for answers to support your already held beliefs, slow up and think a minute. Federal. Not all prisoners. Federal. You know, the feds who have a disproportionate percentage of drug offenders in the system since the feds don't prosecute a whole ton of armed robbers, rapists and car thieves.
Inclusive? Those are federal only statistics. A subset of overall prisoners. Not inclusive. Federal crimes. You know, heavily weighted to drug offenses.
???? Stories about dystopian developments make the feed all of the time. Poorly-implemented tech services are being proffered at an enormous profit margin to a locked-in customer base. Do I have to add a car analogy and a get-off my lawn joke, and a alien overlords joke?
Poorly-implemented? Two anecdotes about poor video quality. An author with an agenda to push and we get two anecdotes?
Enormous profit margin? Two times numbers ever given. One was $10 for a 20 minute call and the other was $0 for twice weekly calls from the designated call center. Outrageous sums.
Article was light on data and heavily shaded what was presented.
The jails are too full of pot heads. There's no space for robbers, murders, and rapists...
Would this false meme go away?
At the height of the War on Drugs hysteria, combined state and federal prisoners in for drug offenses (all, not just pot) topped out a little over 25%.
My reading of this vaguely written sentence is that lignin is currently being burned. If instead used as a petroleum replacement in plastic-like materials it would not be burned -- at least not until it hits the post consumer trash incinerator.
Is lignin extracted from wood in any other industries besides paper production? Would the paper industry be able to supply enough lignin to replace even a fraction of the plastic currently being produced? Even if it did, sounds like that would simply shift the burning from lignin in the wood fiber to petroleum products.
At the paper mill where I recently worked, the lignin was not burned just for the pleasure of it. The quicky skipping a couple dozen steps process is as follows... The lignin is extracted from the wood pulp by a cocktaail of sodium family chemicals casually referred to as liquor. When loaded with nice potential energy filled lignin, the liquor is referred to as black liquor. The black liquor is piped to the recovery boilers where the lignin burns out leaving nice clean white liquor and a lot of high pressure steam. The white liquor is in closed loop system and goes back to pick up more lignin. The high pressure steam is used on the actual paper machines and drives turbines to provide nearly one hundred percent of the electrical power needed by the entire mill.
Remove the lignin by another process so that it can be used to make 'liquid wood'. Now where will the mill get its high pressure steam? Burning petroleum products just like it does now when there is an upset condition in the supply of black liquor. Lots of natural gas. Lots.
It has tanks and a most Tron-like vibe to the entire game: Tank Universal. Available through Valve's growing Steam empire for the low low price of $9.99, it has virtual world civilizations, politics, factions, and hot tank-on-tank action. Don't be turned off by the dated animations depicting meatspace or the rather lame first few missions. It gets much better.
I have no problem with that. Now can we convince any of the fanboys?
For the record, I did take one for the team. I read today's strip. I read back several days to gather context for today's strip. No chuckles or smirks. The fans propose the theory that this webcomic, unlike all those others, is simply deep and requires more reading to appreciate. Context will bring great rewards they say. So I read back about two months. I use the limited navigation abilities on the site and a bit of deduction to read the first thirty or so strips. I read the recommended one-off strips. No chuckles or smirks.
Save yourselves some time nonfans. If the one strip does not grab you, my research suggests a plethera of strips will likely not grab you.
Re:Tiger I
on
The DIY Tank
·
· Score: 3, Informative
There is a video on the linked story.
Looks like five road wheels and a raised drive wheel on the front. No interleaving. It is not accurate but closer than some movies have come.
* You mean like using a power that every other president in Venezuela has used?
Five times. During specific crises.
* You mean where "decree" is in an incredibly limited scope, a fact rarely reported by the media?
Limited? This is the broadest use of the decree power ever granted. "This law applies to eleven key sectors including the economy, the central bank, telecommunications, food security and energy security." Previous uses of this power focused narrowly on single subjects.
* You mean where any act he legislates, no matter the method, can be rescinded by the popular vote?
* You mean where normal laws take 10% of the population to rescind, decree laws take only 5%?
Those 5 and 10 percent numbers are for percentages of registered voters to request a referendum on that particular decree. Once that hurdle is passed, fifty percent is the target number. The killer, though, is the provision that 40% of registered voters must vote or the referendum is invalid. Venezuela has had the most ambitious voter registration campaign in the Americas the past several years. When looking at historical voting percentages, this means that repeal of any decree is highly unlikely.
* You mean where the legislature can rescind or modify said decrees -- quite unlike the US "Fast Track" legislation?"
What? Congress gets a yes/no vote on a treaty with no ability to make changes. Very narrow scope. I would not expect the Venezuelan legislature to modify anything. Something about one hundred percent Chavez supporters in the legislature makes that quite unlikely. Makes it even stranger that he would need decree powers in such a situation.
* You mean TV stations that helped organize a bloody coup against him?
* You mean TV stations that even most of their backers admit broke the law?
Helped organize? The worst accusations I have heard were more in the range of lent support to. Even that has been denied by the station personel. *shrug* I have no firsthand information, but every single media watch group in the world that I have come across has opposed this shutdown. I am more likely to put my faith in them, than the claims of Chavez and his government.
Same with the world's democracy watchgroups. Downgrading Venezuela's status under Chavez. Same with economic organizations. Downgrading Venezuela's status under Chavez. Same with human rights organizations. Downgrading Venezuela's status under Chavez.
But nah, let's demonize Chavez!
But nah, let's canonize Chavez!
There are postitive and negative numbers in abundance for pro and anti Chavez folk to argue from here to eternity. What do you think of his long term future? Right now record oil prices are keeping his head above water. If those ever slack off, his happy ride with the people is going to get rough.
and once overthrew him in a coup,
I wouldn't play up coups as being justification for his actions. People might start to remember that Chavez was a coup leader himself back in the nineties -- one considerably more bloody than the one he survived. I believe the only dead in this coup were anti Chavez protesters shot down in the streets a couple days before the coup attempt.
Bah. These are not censored stories in even the most generous use of the term.
Take a look at the judges they bother to mention by name on their own 'about us' page. Every single one of them is a liberal activist with some political axe to grind. This list would be more accurately described as 'Top 25 Things Liberals Want to Whine About This Year'.
It has as much relevance to true censorship as a list of conservative talking points composed by Ann Coulter and her loony friends.
I say a pox on both their teams. Feels like both groups are standing on the short side of the finish line, politely requesting the other fellow to cross first and receive the adulation of the Fortress community. "No, no, after you. I insist." I am once again becoming resigned to playing a fading TF Classic and am mentally editing both next gen versions out of my hopes. Guess I am the type who would edit a sour relationship out of my long term memory were the technology available.
Vastly superior to TF2? So what caught your eye in FF? I lean the other way, and consider TF2 the superior product. And that's even with the pyro getting the short shrift.
Oh, and just to stay on topic, some of the news releases said that a Fall 2007 release date is still appropriate. Hope so. A year and a half is kinda nuts to wait for an episodic, expansion pack release. Especially when glorious, lengthy, and varied gameplay videos were out months ago.
The latest in cutting edge technology. I mean apache::asp has only been around since 1998.
Yea, I couldn't be bothered with 10 seconds becsause i spent all of 20 seconds reading the FTA.
And in the finest Slashdot tradition you not only felt you had enough information to write a response, but one that had a snarky dig at Microsoft and the hacked site's webmaster. Sadly, that does make you a mainstream member of the Slashdot community.
Skim through the comments here. Skim through the comments at the Wesley's linked blog. Note the overwhelming percentage of snippy, self-righteous, insulting, condescending, and throroughly unhelpful entries. Now, follow the trail to the blog of the employee in charge of the Google webspam team: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-google-handles-h acked-sites/
There is a blog discussion there on the same topic covered by Slashdot and Wesley's blog. Note the information level of comments in a nonSlashdotted forum. Note the civil discourse. Note an evolving conversation which makes actual progress toward beneficial understanding. I quote the last entry by Google employee Matt Cutts:
And for the record, I agree with Wesley. Our alerting process is better than other search engines, but it's still not where (I personally believe) it should be. It's from hearing complaints and feedback like in Wesley's post that Google can prioritize what things need to be done next.
I think the whole problem here is the way the guy is carrying out his campaign. He has a legitimate issue, but he is taking things out of turn.
Instead he explodes with a "OMGosh, Google is dishonest...
He has a legitimate axe to grind, he is just doing it in the wrong order. Get the site re-indexed FIRST, then start a debate about the methods used. Doing both at the same time colors the debate as a whine fest, which I am positive is not intended.
He attempted communication with Google. He audited the site. He fixed the problem. He went through the process to have the site reindexed. He sent Google feedback on the process.
Then he wrote a personal blog entry about the experience. What could he have done in a different order? What could he have done to avoid accusations of whining and crybaby (the current story tag) besides not have the great and mighty Slashdot notice his blog?
Maybe this is just a curse of using a microsoft server
Maybe this is just a curse of being a zealot who couldn't be bothered with the ten seconds needed to see the talkorigins site is an Apache/Linux combo?
Can anyone explain the purpose of a preplanned hold of a predetermined time not being added into the 'T minus' countdown?
Here I am, minutes before I have to head out to work listening to the webcast and being happy that the T minus time for launch is less than my T minus time for work. Then their talking head mentions being a couple minutes away from a planned twenty minute hold. If they are planning on pausing for twenty minutes, why not just add twenty minutes to the clock and keep it counting?
I have to call BS on you. It's only costing an extra couple dollars [as in literally $1-2.00] to add the v-chip to a TV, so I'm afraid that's not a valid argument.
So what is the price point where government mandated financial cost is considered a valid argument?
Anyone have any hard data for what a v-chip actually costs? The only references a couple minutes of digging could dig up where nineties estimates of $30 to $40. Since these were primarily from opponents of the v-chip, I would assume they are likely on the high side.
Another couple minutes poking around found an estimate of total television sales from 2001 -- 28 million. What has it been, nearly seven years of mandated v-chipping? That works out to 196 to 392 million total extra dollars using your own $1 to $2 guess. 7.8 billion dollars for the ludicrous high cost estimates.
In either case, toss in the costs from having to appropriately review every single television episode so the proper rating signals can be encoded. Probably a few bucks involved in having someone then do the actual encoding. Hmm, another few bucks for purchase, installation and maintenance of the needed broadcast equipment.
Seems like a lot of money considering the abysmally low v-chip usage rate. And considering that any child with the slightest motivation can reset the v-chip password. And considering the lack of quality research into how much harm Little Timmy will suffer if he is exposed to The Man Show. And considering the fact there are a large number of folks who still carry the antiquated notion that actually parenting is more than a appropriate substitute for a half-assed electronic nanny.
Clearly, putting a website up that can be accessed from the US that offers services that are illegal in the US forces Americans to use these illegal services. Therefore, you are contributing to the moral degradation of America, and that can't be allowed.
This reminds of the old canard about screeds from creationists being indistinguishable from parodies of creationists.
Tell me Slashdotters...is this an honest post from a moral conservative or a parody of a moral conservative? I really can not tell.
And the reason he wasn't arrested during the previous ten years of the gambling site's existence? He has passed through the United States multiple times in the past decade while participating in this orgy of criminal vice. He has even held press conferences in the United States during this time. Officials in the federal government were well aware Carruthers was in their jurisdiction yet have done nothing.
Could it have something to do with a vote dealing with a ban on Internet gambling coming up in the legislature in the next couple weeks? Could it have something to do with the fact Carruthers has been a vocal opponent of the upcoming bill. Strange that. The man is arrested based on his involvement in running an Internet gambling company. Yet referencing the vote on banning Internet gambling requires using the future tense.
Perhaps using a 1961 law that only questionably relates to the Internet and even more questionably relates to an individual operating out of a different country is not quite so sound...
Maphack was a third party addon that provided a bit more information than Blizzard wanted the player to have.
In this case, MSLE is shorthand for two monster attributes: multishot and lightning enchanted. Each time you whack a baddie with the lightning enchanted mod, a burst of player damaging electrical charges was unleashed. Multishot greatly increased the number of charges. For at least one patch version, a single attack on such a monster could be spectacularly fatal.
Oh, for crying out loud, my little research showed that there is still nothing remotely like
the "complete devastation of the Borneo ecosystem" or "14,000 cats to be parachuted in to stop the population from dying of bubonic plague and typhus" or "Borneo to stop a plague epidemic" or "DDT does destroy ecosystems. It has. That's fact." or "It destroys ecosystems and ends up causing far more harm than good." or "They ended up very likely causing more deaths than the malaria outbreak originally would have." or "It has destroyed ecosystems, and it has killed people."
And did I say that the plague actually happened? If I did, that was a whoops: the plague nearly happened.
Yep. Note the quote pile above. Four references to plague or human deaths. That was the primary hyperbole the motivated me to write my first response. Once some research was done, I was even more skeptical of the Borneo tales as evidence of the evils of DDT.
1. 14,000 cats? Where does that number come from?
2. A number of complaints of roof failure were reported. Not all. Not the majority. A number. A number also collapsed outside the sprayed area according to your own source. The DDT contributed to the failures in some areas, but the unifying and underlying factor inside and outside the sprayed area seems to have been poor quality thatching which was susceptible to larvae munching.
3. DDT lead to cat deaths? Possible. Yes. Probable. Yes again. Probable to the point of being conclusive? Not for me. Any PDFs out there you know of that discuss tissue samples being taken? Field autopsies and examinations of livers? This is the same 'common sense' claim about DDT that led to several decades of spreading the thin egg shell meme about the world. I fell for that one and parroted it myself. Not going to make that mistake again.
4. Human deaths? DDT worse than the malaria? Gordon writes, "Luckily, these rat outbreaks did not produce any outbreaks of disease." Gordon also writes, "As a whole the campaign has been regarded as a model one, and has been used in training for later campaigns in other countries." The first hand pilot report contains the following, "The effect within even a year was extraordinary. Now, by 1964, it is really remarkable; the whole energy, vitality, and happiness of the people--especially the remote tribes far from all previous medical aid--has changed l0O per cent for the better. It is a positive delight to see. I have yet to see the like, within a decade, anywhere else in my life of travel and observation
about the world."
To summarize after reading every source you have linked to in addition to a couple dozen websites I discovered on my own: DDT and Dieldrin were sprayed. Some roofs collapsed. Some cats died. Rat population increased. Rat population controlled. Zero human deaths. People happy and healthy.
Will I be drinking a DDT martini tonight? No. But when I skip over other mosquito carried diseases to research annual malaria deaths alone and find numbers in the seven digits...how many cats and roofs are worth a million human lives a year?
You mean the same Charlotte Pomerantz who wrote
Noah's and Namah's Ark? Well, now that her bonafides as an author of historically accurate treatises has been established...
Your two other quoted sources in a previous post are not much better. Neither even pretends to support their version of the Borneo story with a shred of documentation. Puttering about on the web for a few minutes shows many many slight variants of the same precautionary tale, but none surpass the level of unsubstantiated anecdote.
Could you point inquisitive Slashdot readers to original sources for the story? Perhaps some hard data that can link a mass feline extinction to DDT spraying? Something detailing this rat carried plague that swept the region? Is there more to this story than hearsay and urban legend?
Even an accurate geographical description of the area involved would be nice. I have seen the story written as affecting all of Borneo, the northern half of Borneo, and one part in the north of Borneo.
Some variants say the cats ate DDT contaminated cockroaches. Some say the cats ingested lizards which had ingested DDT contaminated insects. Some versions add the anecdote of the collapsing roofs from a lack of caterpillar controlling wasps. Some claim the caterpillars were ingested by the cats. Some claim the caterpillars were ingested by the lizards which were ingested by the cats.
Some mention only a rat population problem being fixed by cat drops. Some mention plague problems being spread by the rats (the DDT didn't hit the plague carrying insects on the rats?). Some have cats being parachuted. Some have cats being trucked.
Call me skeptical of DDT causing the "complete devastation of the Borneo ecosystem."
Slashdot Mirror
Three little words. "Cool. See ya." The final straw to end twenty years of daily Slashdot reading.
I had such hopes when Bizx or whatever you are called took over. Now I have nothing but regret for the mockery received from my peers over the last few years when I admitted I still read Slashdot. They were right.
Oh well, at least I will always have visions of a petrified Natalie Portman. Naked. Hold the grits
.
But you have not shown in the slightest that a surgeon has recovered grenade fragments from the woman's arm. Please stop parroting that claim and Gish Galloping to other factoids and theories when called on it.
Pretty please would you provide a link(s) to article(s) stating a surgeon retrieved and saved concussion grenade fragments from that woman's arm. I googled. My skills were inadequate.
2. Pork wing program or falling apart? If they are 'falling apart' then I do not think a program to remediate that would be considered pork.
3. A bunch were lost in 2003? Please enumerate. I know of only one combat loss of an A-10 in Iraq since 2003.
4. The A-10 has a slightly lower rate of blue-on-blue incidents than other aircraft performing close air support. In any case, the numbers of friendly fire incidents by aircraft of any type are astonishingly low compared to the number of sorties flown. Statistically minimal.
5. What WWII CAS aircraft exceeded the A-10 in speed? The big CAS birds of that war, Junkers 87 and the II-2 were both a couple hundred miles per hour slower. The P-47 was at least in the same ball park as the A-10.
6. How often is a CAS mission called for and time from base is a factor? Fine, in that case send a Strike Eagle. For all the other times, that loitering plane is ready to go no matter if it is sub or supersonic.
7. A-10 was designed to not need full size airbases. Strong gear. High engines. Soft tires. They are made to work from short, damaged and improvised fields.
So what are the really capable CAS aircraft existing today?
Why do grunts and marines commonly differ with you?
For the love of all that is holy. 46.4% is a quick and dirty google hit but it is from the FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS. Instead of googling for answers to support your already held beliefs, slow up and think a minute. Federal. Not all prisoners. Federal. You know, the feds who have a disproportionate percentage of drug offenders in the system since the feds don't prosecute a whole ton of armed robbers, rapists and car thieves.
Yes, well, Let's take a slightly more inclusive view, no?
Inclusive? Those are federal only statistics. A subset of overall prisoners. Not inclusive. Federal crimes. You know, heavily weighted to drug offenses.
???? Stories about dystopian developments make the feed all of the time. Poorly-implemented tech services are being proffered at an enormous profit margin to a locked-in customer base. Do I have to add a car analogy and a get-off my lawn joke, and a alien overlords joke?
Poorly-implemented? Two anecdotes about poor video quality. An author with an agenda to push and we get two anecdotes?
Enormous profit margin? Two times numbers ever given. One was $10 for a 20 minute call and the other was $0 for twice weekly calls from the designated call center. Outrageous sums.
Article was light on data and heavily shaded what was presented.
The jails are too full of pot heads. There's no space for robbers, murders, and rapists...
Would this false meme go away?
At the height of the War on Drugs hysteria, combined state and federal prisoners in for drug offenses (all, not just pot) topped out a little over 25%.
http://felonvoting.procon.org/...
My reading of this vaguely written sentence is that lignin is currently being burned. If instead used as a petroleum replacement in plastic-like materials it would not be burned -- at least not until it hits the post consumer trash incinerator.
Is lignin extracted from wood in any other industries besides paper production? Would the paper industry be able to supply enough lignin to replace even a fraction of the plastic currently being produced? Even if it did, sounds like that would simply shift the burning from lignin in the wood fiber to petroleum products.
At the paper mill where I recently worked, the lignin was not burned just for the pleasure of it. The quicky skipping a couple dozen steps process is as follows... The lignin is extracted from the wood pulp by a cocktaail of sodium family chemicals casually referred to as liquor. When loaded with nice potential energy filled lignin, the liquor is referred to as black liquor. The black liquor is piped to the recovery boilers where the lignin burns out leaving nice clean white liquor and a lot of high pressure steam. The white liquor is in closed loop system and goes back to pick up more lignin. The high pressure steam is used on the actual paper machines and drives turbines to provide nearly one hundred percent of the electrical power needed by the entire mill.
Remove the lignin by another process so that it can be used to make 'liquid wood'. Now where will the mill get its high pressure steam? Burning petroleum products just like it does now when there is an upset condition in the supply of black liquor. Lots of natural gas. Lots.
It has tanks and a most Tron-like vibe to the entire game: Tank Universal. Available through Valve's growing Steam empire for the low low price of $9.99, it has virtual world civilizations, politics, factions, and hot tank-on-tank action. Don't be turned off by the dated animations depicting meatspace or the rather lame first few missions. It gets much better.
I have no problem with that. Now can we convince any of the fanboys?
For the record, I did take one for the team. I read today's strip. I read back several days to gather context for today's strip. No chuckles or smirks. The fans propose the theory that this webcomic, unlike all those others, is simply deep and requires more reading to appreciate. Context will bring great rewards they say. So I read back about two months. I use the limited navigation abilities on the site and a bit of deduction to read the first thirty or so strips. I read the recommended one-off strips. No chuckles or smirks.
Save yourselves some time nonfans. If the one strip does not grab you, my research suggests a plethera of strips will likely not grab you.
Looks like five road wheels and a raised drive wheel on the front. No interleaving. It is not accurate but closer than some movies have come.
Five times. During specific crises.
* You mean where "decree" is in an incredibly limited scope, a fact rarely reported by the media?
Limited? This is the broadest use of the decree power ever granted. "This law applies to eleven key sectors including the economy, the central bank, telecommunications, food security and energy security." Previous uses of this power focused narrowly on single subjects.
* You mean where any act he legislates, no matter the method, can be rescinded by the popular vote? * You mean where normal laws take 10% of the population to rescind, decree laws take only 5%?
Those 5 and 10 percent numbers are for percentages of registered voters to request a referendum on that particular decree. Once that hurdle is passed, fifty percent is the target number. The killer, though, is the provision that 40% of registered voters must vote or the referendum is invalid. Venezuela has had the most ambitious voter registration campaign in the Americas the past several years. When looking at historical voting percentages, this means that repeal of any decree is highly unlikely.
* You mean where the legislature can rescind or modify said decrees -- quite unlike the US "Fast Track" legislation?"
What? Congress gets a yes/no vote on a treaty with no ability to make changes. Very narrow scope. I would not expect the Venezuelan legislature to modify anything. Something about one hundred percent Chavez supporters in the legislature makes that quite unlikely. Makes it even stranger that he would need decree powers in such a situation.
* You mean TV stations that helped organize a bloody coup against him? * You mean TV stations that even most of their backers admit broke the law?
Helped organize? The worst accusations I have heard were more in the range of lent support to. Even that has been denied by the station personel. *shrug* I have no firsthand information, but every single media watch group in the world that I have come across has opposed this shutdown. I am more likely to put my faith in them, than the claims of Chavez and his government.
Same with the world's democracy watchgroups. Downgrading Venezuela's status under Chavez. Same with economic organizations. Downgrading Venezuela's status under Chavez. Same with human rights organizations. Downgrading Venezuela's status under Chavez.
But nah, let's demonize Chavez!
But nah, let's canonize Chavez! There are postitive and negative numbers in abundance for pro and anti Chavez folk to argue from here to eternity. What do you think of his long term future? Right now record oil prices are keeping his head above water. If those ever slack off, his happy ride with the people is going to get rough.
and once overthrew him in a coup,
I wouldn't play up coups as being justification for his actions. People might start to remember that Chavez was a coup leader himself back in the nineties -- one considerably more bloody than the one he survived. I believe the only dead in this coup were anti Chavez protesters shot down in the streets a couple days before the coup attempt.
Take a look at the judges they bother to mention by name on their own 'about us' page. Every single one of them is a liberal activist with some political axe to grind. This list would be more accurately described as 'Top 25 Things Liberals Want to Whine About This Year'.
It has as much relevance to true censorship as a list of conservative talking points composed by Ann Coulter and her loony friends.
Vastly superior to TF2? So what caught your eye in FF? I lean the other way, and consider TF2 the superior product. And that's even with the pyro getting the short shrift.
Oh, and just to stay on topic, some of the news releases said that a Fall 2007 release date is still appropriate. Hope so. A year and a half is kinda nuts to wait for an episodic, expansion pack release. Especially when glorious, lengthy, and varied gameplay videos were out months ago.
HelpingHand*LoF*
The latest in cutting edge technology. I mean apache::asp has only been around since 1998.
Yea, I couldn't be bothered with 10 seconds becsause i spent all of 20 seconds reading the FTA.
And in the finest Slashdot tradition you not only felt you had enough information to write a response, but one that had a snarky dig at Microsoft and the hacked site's webmaster. Sadly, that does make you a mainstream member of the Slashdot community.
Skim through the comments here. Skim through the comments at the Wesley's linked blog. Note the overwhelming percentage of snippy, self-righteous, insulting, condescending, and throroughly unhelpful entries. Now, follow the trail to the blog of the employee in charge of the Google webspam team: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-google-handles-h acked-sites/
There is a blog discussion there on the same topic covered by Slashdot and Wesley's blog. Note the information level of comments in a nonSlashdotted forum. Note the civil discourse. Note an evolving conversation which makes actual progress toward beneficial understanding. I quote the last entry by Google employee Matt Cutts:
And for the record, I agree with Wesley. Our alerting process is better than other search engines, but it's still not where (I personally believe) it should be. It's from hearing complaints and feedback like in Wesley's post that Google can prioritize what things need to be done next.
Instead he explodes with a "OMGosh, Google is dishonest...
He has a legitimate axe to grind, he is just doing it in the wrong order. Get the site re-indexed FIRST, then start a debate about the methods used. Doing both at the same time colors the debate as a whine fest, which I am positive is not intended.
He attempted communication with Google. He audited the site. He fixed the problem. He went through the process to have the site reindexed. He sent Google feedback on the process.
Then he wrote a personal blog entry about the experience. What could he have done in a different order? What could he have done to avoid accusations of whining and crybaby (the current story tag) besides not have the great and mighty Slashdot notice his blog?
Maybe this is just a curse of being a zealot who couldn't be bothered with the ten seconds needed to see the talkorigins site is an Apache/Linux combo?
Netcraft is your friend.
Here I am, minutes before I have to head out to work listening to the webcast and being happy that the T minus time for launch is less than my T minus time for work. Then their talking head mentions being a couple minutes away from a planned twenty minute hold. If they are planning on pausing for twenty minutes, why not just add twenty minutes to the clock and keep it counting?
So what is the price point where government mandated financial cost is considered a valid argument?
Anyone have any hard data for what a v-chip actually costs? The only references a couple minutes of digging could dig up where nineties estimates of $30 to $40. Since these were primarily from opponents of the v-chip, I would assume they are likely on the high side.
Another couple minutes poking around found an estimate of total television sales from 2001 -- 28 million. What has it been, nearly seven years of mandated v-chipping? That works out to 196 to 392 million total extra dollars using your own $1 to $2 guess. 7.8 billion dollars for the ludicrous high cost estimates.
In either case, toss in the costs from having to appropriately review every single television episode so the proper rating signals can be encoded. Probably a few bucks involved in having someone then do the actual encoding. Hmm, another few bucks for purchase, installation and maintenance of the needed broadcast equipment.
Seems like a lot of money considering the abysmally low v-chip usage rate. And considering that any child with the slightest motivation can reset the v-chip password. And considering the lack of quality research into how much harm Little Timmy will suffer if he is exposed to The Man Show. And considering the fact there are a large number of folks who still carry the antiquated notion that actually parenting is more than a appropriate substitute for a half-assed electronic nanny.
This reminds of the old canard about screeds from creationists being indistinguishable from parodies of creationists.
Tell me Slashdotters...is this an honest post from a moral conservative or a parody of a moral conservative? I really can not tell.
Could it have something to do with a vote dealing with a ban on Internet gambling coming up in the legislature in the next couple weeks? Could it have something to do with the fact Carruthers has been a vocal opponent of the upcoming bill. Strange that. The man is arrested based on his involvement in running an Internet gambling company. Yet referencing the vote on banning Internet gambling requires using the future tense.
Perhaps using a 1961 law that only questionably relates to the Internet and even more questionably relates to an individual operating out of a different country is not quite so sound...
http://www.reason.com/sullum/072606.shtml
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/09/sullum_ on_internet_gambling_ar.php
Maphack was a third party addon that provided a bit more information than Blizzard wanted the player to have.
In this case, MSLE is shorthand for two monster attributes: multishot and lightning enchanted. Each time you whack a baddie with the lightning enchanted mod, a burst of player damaging electrical charges was unleashed. Multishot greatly increased the number of charges. For at least one patch version, a single attack on such a monster could be spectacularly fatal.
And did I say that the plague actually happened? If I did, that was a whoops: the plague nearly happened.
Yep. Note the quote pile above. Four references to plague or human deaths. That was the primary hyperbole the motivated me to write my first response. Once some research was done, I was even more skeptical of the Borneo tales as evidence of the evils of DDT.
1. 14,000 cats? Where does that number come from?
2. A number of complaints of roof failure were reported. Not all. Not the majority. A number. A number also collapsed outside the sprayed area according to your own source. The DDT contributed to the failures in some areas, but the unifying and underlying factor inside and outside the sprayed area seems to have been poor quality thatching which was susceptible to larvae munching.
3. DDT lead to cat deaths? Possible. Yes. Probable. Yes again. Probable to the point of being conclusive? Not for me. Any PDFs out there you know of that discuss tissue samples being taken? Field autopsies and examinations of livers? This is the same 'common sense' claim about DDT that led to several decades of spreading the thin egg shell meme about the world. I fell for that one and parroted it myself. Not going to make that mistake again.
4. Human deaths? DDT worse than the malaria? Gordon writes, "Luckily, these rat outbreaks did not produce any outbreaks of disease." Gordon also writes, "As a whole the campaign has been regarded as a model one, and has been used in training for later campaigns in other countries." The first hand pilot report contains the following, "The effect within even a year was extraordinary. Now, by 1964, it is really remarkable; the whole energy, vitality, and happiness of the people--especially the remote tribes far from all previous medical aid--has changed l0O per cent for the better. It is a positive delight to see. I have yet to see the like, within a decade, anywhere else in my life of travel and observation about the world."
To summarize after reading every source you have linked to in addition to a couple dozen websites I discovered on my own: DDT and Dieldrin were sprayed. Some roofs collapsed. Some cats died. Rat population increased. Rat population controlled. Zero human deaths. People happy and healthy.
Will I be drinking a DDT martini tonight? No. But when I skip over other mosquito carried diseases to research annual malaria deaths alone and find numbers in the seven digits...how many cats and roofs are worth a million human lives a year?
Your two other quoted sources in a previous post are not much better. Neither even pretends to support their version of the Borneo story with a shred of documentation. Puttering about on the web for a few minutes shows many many slight variants of the same precautionary tale, but none surpass the level of unsubstantiated anecdote.
Could you point inquisitive Slashdot readers to original sources for the story? Perhaps some hard data that can link a mass feline extinction to DDT spraying? Something detailing this rat carried plague that swept the region? Is there more to this story than hearsay and urban legend?
Even an accurate geographical description of the area involved would be nice. I have seen the story written as affecting all of Borneo, the northern half of Borneo, and one part in the north of Borneo.
Some variants say the cats ate DDT contaminated cockroaches. Some say the cats ingested lizards which had ingested DDT contaminated insects. Some versions add the anecdote of the collapsing roofs from a lack of caterpillar controlling wasps. Some claim the caterpillars were ingested by the cats. Some claim the caterpillars were ingested by the lizards which were ingested by the cats. Some mention only a rat population problem being fixed by cat drops. Some mention plague problems being spread by the rats (the DDT didn't hit the plague carrying insects on the rats?). Some have cats being parachuted. Some have cats being trucked.
Call me skeptical of DDT causing the "complete devastation of the Borneo ecosystem."