Elsewhere in the world, there are many different political positions. In America, you have to pick one side or the other - otherwise you are excluded from politics entirely. You can grumble that your side does not fully reflect your beliefs, but you are still obliged to fight for them - it's the only way to keep the other one out.
American political culture is broken. Two parties is not enough for a healthy political environment. I know there are many tiny tiny little parties too, but they don't count.
There's another problem with nitrogen. It's too humane.
If the objective was to simply kill painlessly, all it would need is a couple of bullets to the head. People, though, are bastards. They may talk about 'justice,' but what they really mean is 'vengeance.' The public want a show. The family of any victim want a show. Politicians want a show. Many people will feel physically sickened if they believe the condemned died peacefully, as if the scales remain somehow unbalanced. This is why nitrogen was not introduced as a mean of execution years ago. Not many people are bold enough to openly say they want to see just a little bit of torture first, but it's a very common sentiment.
Maybe we should just build a gigantic transmitter and start sending. Not because we want a reply, but for all the other civilisations who are desperately searching for a signature. Do it for them.
Yes, I want to find alien civilisations, but wouldn't it make more sense to invest in better instruments first? We've still barely begun with exoplanet studies. How about better ways to get data on those. Once we have a good map of where the potential earth-like planet are, we'll know where to point the radio telescopes. Maybe we'll even get a spectrum showing a planet with a high level of free oxygen - it may not be intelligence, but evidence of any alien life at all would be welcome. Even single-celled.
I meant to say LiFePO4, not 3. I've just been shopping for some to see if they could be good for powering my radio. They would be very good, if they were affordable. But the price will fall in time, as production increases.
They have all the good parts of Li-ion or Lipo, except with slightly lower capacity. But much longer shelf and functional life, and they are less prone to exploding.
That's the standard approach. There is one drawback, though. Most grid tie inverters can't function at all when the grid goes down - they aren't fitted with a transfer switch. Which means in a power outage, the panels sit idle. The house can't just disconnect entirely and go off-grid, no matter how convenient it might be for the residents to continue having power.
Putting in new panels would actually cost very little. Most of the cost of the solar installation isn't in the panels - it's in the installation costs, cabling, grid-tie inverter with proper certifications, fixings for the panels and compliance costs. If all that's in already, it costs only maybe $200 per panel to have those swapped over. Probably a lot less than that in thirty years.
I spent a long time researching this. There are many forms of bulk energy storage - and they all suck. Some of them are only practical on a very large scale, like pumped hydro. Some require the use of exotic and very expensive chemicals, like flow batteries. Some are intrinsically dangerous if not properly maintained, like hydrogen or compressed gas storage. Batteries come in a variety of types. Long life, high density, low cost. Pick any two. The best option right now might be to wait - there are some developments in battery tech in the pipeline right now that could help. LiFePO3 batteries look promising. They offer all the advantages of Li-Ion, but have a much longer service life. They also cost a lot more right now, but that is changing.
Mechanical power storage requires a lot of expensive components. It's fine for powering a clock. Not so practical for a house.
The value youtube provides isn't just hosting - it's promotion too. If you want your video to attract a lot of views, you put it on youtube. Where people browsing or searching may easily find it.
There's a big difference between fidelity and quality. Sometimes the distortion introduced by a medium or by processing can make the music sound better, even if it is also less like the original.
Plus the vinyl version often has a slightly different mix than the CD version - it's not even the same song.
Whois is a relic of the early days of the internet, when things were small and simple, and most conflicts were resolved engineer-to-engineer with a phone call or an email. The contact information was there to allow this sort of communication - often in the form of 'logging hack attempts from your server, someone probably compromised it' or 'Fix your bloody BGP announcements!' There was no point involving anyone else - the rest of the company barely understood what a computer did.
That was before there were millions of dollars at stake and lawsuits were commonplace. These days any large company is going to want all inter-company communications to go through customer services coming in and legal going out. They certainly won't want their engineers trying to directly contact the engineers of another company. Engineers tend to be distressingly honest at times, and what they see as a harmless explanation, a lawyer might see as an admission of error that can be used in a lawsuit.
The cost is the thing that got Canada on the watch list. The price disparity is so great that people are smuggling drugs across the border. Cheaper to pay a shady black market dealer to buy your life-saving medication as a generic in Canada and sneak it through the post than to buy exactly the same substance as a brand-name drug in the US.
Really? - Campaigned against illegal immigrants. - Blamed them for crimes, including going to some efforts to draw attention (via tweet) to high-profile crimes committed by illegal immigrants. - Pledged mass-deportations. - Promised to 'Make America Great Again,' claiming that the once-great country had been weakened from inside by unpatriotic traitors. Who he would get rid of.
Trump is not Hitler. But they both used the same political technique to build popular support by appealing to patriotism and finding a convenient 'other' to pin all blame upon.
Expiring tax cuts is a great idea politically. There's a good chance the other party will hold the office of president then, so they take the blame when taxes shoot up.
The president doesn't actually have much control over taxes, most he can do is threaten a veto, but as he is also de facto leader of his party he does get a lot of influence on their policy priorities.
It's quite plausible that certain socially-acceptable delusions could benefit mental health. A church can provide an effective tight-knit support community and increase social contact. Or perhaps belief in a loving God and promised afterlife acts to shield people from the depressing apathy of the universe and their own inevitable cessation. The beliefs need not be actually true to be beneficial. They just need to be common enough that society won't reject them as crazy.
Trump did look like the easiest candidate to beat. He ran rallies uncomfortably similar to those of Hitler, blamed every problem the country faced on immigrants, pledged to imprison his political opponents, dismissed one female critic by implying she was only upset because of her period. The reasonable conclusion was that the American public would have to be stark raving mad to vote for a candidate like that.
Unfortunately, it turns out the American public actually *are* stark raving mad.
The Democratic leadership had a valid concern: Bernie's policies were very European in nature - the type of thing that in the US are decried as socialist. The attack ads practically write themselves. Their fear was that Bernie was someone who would play great in the Democratic primaries, but be unelectable to the American public. That's why the party leadership aided Hillary, who seemed a much safer candidate. To their credit, she did manage to get more votes than Trump - he won only because the electoral collage system ensures that while all Americans get to vote, some votes matter more than others.
Data hoarders, like me, collect it for the fun of collecting. It's no different from people who collect stamps, or tacky plaster statues. The fun is in acquiring the data and finding the best way to store, sort and manage it.
No, it's only attempted murder if you can show that murder was the intent. In the case of swatting, the offender is merely an idiot. Not attempted murder. You could probably convince a court that it constitutes reckless endangerment though.
Slashdot Mirror
Elsewhere in the world, there are many different political positions. In America, you have to pick one side or the other - otherwise you are excluded from politics entirely. You can grumble that your side does not fully reflect your beliefs, but you are still obliged to fight for them - it's the only way to keep the other one out.
American political culture is broken. Two parties is not enough for a healthy political environment. I know there are many tiny tiny little parties too, but they don't count.
Would that actually look intelligent though, or just like a star was emitting particularly strange radio signals?
Something simple would do. -- --- ----- -------, repeat.
There's another problem with nitrogen. It's too humane.
If the objective was to simply kill painlessly, all it would need is a couple of bullets to the head. People, though, are bastards. They may talk about 'justice,' but what they really mean is 'vengeance.' The public want a show. The family of any victim want a show. Politicians want a show. Many people will feel physically sickened if they believe the condemned died peacefully, as if the scales remain somehow unbalanced. This is why nitrogen was not introduced as a mean of execution years ago. Not many people are bold enough to openly say they want to see just a little bit of torture first, but it's a very common sentiment.
Maybe we should just build a gigantic transmitter and start sending. Not because we want a reply, but for all the other civilisations who are desperately searching for a signature. Do it for them.
Yes, I want to find alien civilisations, but wouldn't it make more sense to invest in better instruments first? We've still barely begun with exoplanet studies. How about better ways to get data on those. Once we have a good map of where the potential earth-like planet are, we'll know where to point the radio telescopes. Maybe we'll even get a spectrum showing a planet with a high level of free oxygen - it may not be intelligence, but evidence of any alien life at all would be welcome. Even single-celled.
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space...
I meant to say LiFePO4, not 3. I've just been shopping for some to see if they could be good for powering my radio. They would be very good, if they were affordable. But the price will fall in time, as production increases.
They have all the good parts of Li-ion or Lipo, except with slightly lower capacity. But much longer shelf and functional life, and they are less prone to exploding.
That's the standard approach. There is one drawback, though. Most grid tie inverters can't function at all when the grid goes down - they aren't fitted with a transfer switch. Which means in a power outage, the panels sit idle. The house can't just disconnect entirely and go off-grid, no matter how convenient it might be for the residents to continue having power.
Putting in new panels would actually cost very little. Most of the cost of the solar installation isn't in the panels - it's in the installation costs, cabling, grid-tie inverter with proper certifications, fixings for the panels and compliance costs. If all that's in already, it costs only maybe $200 per panel to have those swapped over. Probably a lot less than that in thirty years.
I spent a long time researching this. There are many forms of bulk energy storage - and they all suck. Some of them are only practical on a very large scale, like pumped hydro. Some require the use of exotic and very expensive chemicals, like flow batteries. Some are intrinsically dangerous if not properly maintained, like hydrogen or compressed gas storage. Batteries come in a variety of types. Long life, high density, low cost. Pick any two. The best option right now might be to wait - there are some developments in battery tech in the pipeline right now that could help. LiFePO3 batteries look promising. They offer all the advantages of Li-Ion, but have a much longer service life. They also cost a lot more right now, but that is changing.
Mechanical power storage requires a lot of expensive components. It's fine for powering a clock. Not so practical for a house.
The value youtube provides isn't just hosting - it's promotion too. If you want your video to attract a lot of views, you put it on youtube. Where people browsing or searching may easily find it.
There's a big difference between fidelity and quality. Sometimes the distortion introduced by a medium or by processing can make the music sound better, even if it is also less like the original.
Plus the vinyl version often has a slightly different mix than the CD version - it's not even the same song.
Whois is a relic of the early days of the internet, when things were small and simple, and most conflicts were resolved engineer-to-engineer with a phone call or an email. The contact information was there to allow this sort of communication - often in the form of 'logging hack attempts from your server, someone probably compromised it' or 'Fix your bloody BGP announcements!' There was no point involving anyone else - the rest of the company barely understood what a computer did.
That was before there were millions of dollars at stake and lawsuits were commonplace. These days any large company is going to want all inter-company communications to go through customer services coming in and legal going out. They certainly won't want their engineers trying to directly contact the engineers of another company. Engineers tend to be distressingly honest at times, and what they see as a harmless explanation, a lawyer might see as an admission of error that can be used in a lawsuit.
The cost is the thing that got Canada on the watch list. The price disparity is so great that people are smuggling drugs across the border. Cheaper to pay a shady black market dealer to buy your life-saving medication as a generic in Canada and sneak it through the post than to buy exactly the same substance as a brand-name drug in the US.
Really?
- Campaigned against illegal immigrants.
- Blamed them for crimes, including going to some efforts to draw attention (via tweet) to high-profile crimes committed by illegal immigrants.
- Pledged mass-deportations.
- Promised to 'Make America Great Again,' claiming that the once-great country had been weakened from inside by unpatriotic traitors. Who he would get rid of.
Trump is not Hitler. But they both used the same political technique to build popular support by appealing to patriotism and finding a convenient 'other' to pin all blame upon.
Expiring tax cuts is a great idea politically. There's a good chance the other party will hold the office of president then, so they take the blame when taxes shoot up.
The president doesn't actually have much control over taxes, most he can do is threaten a veto, but as he is also de facto leader of his party he does get a lot of influence on their policy priorities.
It's quite plausible that certain socially-acceptable delusions could benefit mental health. A church can provide an effective tight-knit support community and increase social contact. Or perhaps belief in a loving God and promised afterlife acts to shield people from the depressing apathy of the universe and their own inevitable cessation. The beliefs need not be actually true to be beneficial. They just need to be common enough that society won't reject them as crazy.
Trump did look like the easiest candidate to beat. He ran rallies uncomfortably similar to those of Hitler, blamed every problem the country faced on immigrants, pledged to imprison his political opponents, dismissed one female critic by implying she was only upset because of her period. The reasonable conclusion was that the American public would have to be stark raving mad to vote for a candidate like that.
Unfortunately, it turns out the American public actually *are* stark raving mad.
The Democratic leadership had a valid concern: Bernie's policies were very European in nature - the type of thing that in the US are decried as socialist. The attack ads practically write themselves. Their fear was that Bernie was someone who would play great in the Democratic primaries, but be unelectable to the American public. That's why the party leadership aided Hillary, who seemed a much safer candidate. To their credit, she did manage to get more votes than Trump - he won only because the electoral collage system ensures that while all Americans get to vote, some votes matter more than others.
It's replicated on Voyager too. Unfortunately the accompanying audio can be read as 'no intelligent life.'
Beats me. I'm only up to 20TB.
Data hoarders, like me, collect it for the fun of collecting. It's no different from people who collect stamps, or tacky plaster statues. The fun is in acquiring the data and finding the best way to store, sort and manage it.
There can be multiple reasons for the government to be dysfunctional. All compounding on top of one another.
He never actually intended to kill. He's not a murderer: He's an idiot. Reckless. Impulsive. Egotistical. But not a murderer.
Ideally he might receive years of therapy. More realistically, he's going to spend years in prison. If he gets out, I don't imagine him staying out.
No, it's only attempted murder if you can show that murder was the intent. In the case of swatting, the offender is merely an idiot. Not attempted murder. You could probably convince a court that it constitutes reckless endangerment though.