I think what the poster had in mind was a corporate death penalty not for the corporation itself, but for individual members of the board of directors.
Think about it. If the penalty for a crime with lethal consequences, is financial and (relative to the annual turnover) insignificant, who on the board is going to vote against it?
On the other hand, if individual board members who vote in favour of a criminal action are going to be punished with the death penalty, who among them would vote against it now? Significantly more, I would suggest.
Personally, I think the death penalty is a bit harsh... for any crime. After all the death penalty *IS* kind of final (in case of error, monetary compensation for lost years is an acceptable trade-off, IMHO) A mere 10-15 years incarceration for all board members who voted in favour of the action found to be criminal, would be sufficient disincentive to prevent corporations from this sort of gross breach of law.
On top of all the above, government seizure and control of all corporate assets and operations would make for a pretty strong deterrent.
OK don't get me wrong here, I think it is totally repugnant that they pump this shit into waterways wherever they can get away with it. In a local sense this is a tragedy of major proportions.
BUT... We have a major multi-national manufacturing corporation polluting the environment and being worried only about public image. This is hardly newsworthy. In a global sense, so what?
In and of itself, that has nothing to do with their genetic engineering division, does it? Sure, it may say something about the overall corporate morality (yeah, I know. oxymoron and all that) of Monsanto, but is it really news?
Unless of course, Monsanto are genetically engineering a whole range of crops that are either resistant to or actively break down PCB's. Their polluting activities take on a whole new, somewhat darker perspective under those circumstances, don't they now?
To release a $1 coin successfully, all you have to do is... drumrolll please... make coins, and stop making $1 bills. Period. Instant success.
That's exactly how it happened here in.au with the 1 and 2 dollar coins, and surprise, surprise... It works!
That's also what we did with the plastic notes (that's right, our "paper" money is actually printed on plastic film). No biggie. Numismatists took care of keeping some of the better condition paper notes out of circulation, and the reserve bank took care of the rest. It's all still legal tender, but I haven't seen a paper note for about 3 years now.
Changing the physical implementation of currency is easy. Changing the currency itself would be a major PITA. I've never experienced it myself, being far too young to even know about money when.au went from pounds to dollars in 1966.
I had never seen anything like this creature, Sager told Science. It just hung there, looking at us, as if suddenly seeing ALVIN float up like a whale with lights was no big deal.
The fact that it was "looking at us" suggests that this animal has reasonably well developed eyes, which is definitely a characteristic absent in jellyfish. Certainly some jellies may have light sensing organs, particularly those that live at great depths. But not such that you'd call them eyes.
Of course the "looking" could have been a misinterpretation of the animal's behaviour.
Re:WARNING: THIS IS ADVICE TO TERRORISTS
on
al Qaeda Hacks XP?
·
· Score: 2
Cheating?
When all you need is 5 gallons, it makes really good busines sense to trade in the 3 and the 7 for a single 5.
That's a better answer than the correct one. And that's BOUND to make a good impression as M$.
$ emacs
ksh: emacs: not found
$ pico
ksh: pico: not found
$ joe
ksh: joe: not found
$ jed
ksh: jed: not found
$ nvi
ksh: nvi: not found
(I think we all get the picture)
As a sysadmin working on many different (unix-ish) systems, I find it's worth not only knowing, but being *really* comfortable using vi. If you work on only one or even just a few systems, by all means, learn one of the "enhanced" editors and install it if you like. But I'm not about to do the same on upwards of 60 machines.
Sometimes you can change your environment to suit you, other times it's better to change to suit your environment. Knowing which is the better option, that's the trick.
A friend of mine is Jewish, but does not keep kosher, and does not attend Sabbath services. Would he be lying if he put down Jewish on his census form?
What about those Christians of various denominations who do not go to church?
You can bet that there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of people who will claim to be one religion or another, yet do not practise their professed religion.
I haven't browsed at -1 for a couple of months, but there used to be someone who would regularly post quite informative and genuinely relevant URLs, except that they were the body of a goatse.cx target link. Brilliant!
Sometimes I was tempted to moderate him up. (OK maybe her, but somehow, I doubt it)
I just couldnt decide between +1 -informative or +1 -funny.
I think the specialist Lego kits are actually a great idea! Kids can get great satisfaction and confidence out of building the model 'just like it looks on the box'. In building the model, she/he finds out what pieces other than standard blocks are available, and what sort of connections they can make. Later, when standard blocks won't quite do what is needed, she/he might use the engine mounts from the phantom flyer, the axle from the mediaevel siege engine and the cannon rails from the pirate ship on a single construction.
And as for the encyclopedia, teach the kid how to use them! Initially, she/he thinks they're just the same as any other books and will try to read them cover to cover. That's ok, but there's a better way.
When your young child asks why the trees drop their leaves in autumn, sit down with her/him and look up 'trees'. Explain what the cross referencing at the end of the article is for, and follow it. After a few times doing this, you will notice your child no longer asking you the question, but telling you the answer! You will find this extremely satisfying.
How about collaborative wpoisoning?
on
Spambot Poisoner
·
· Score: 2
So the spambot can be programmed not to be trapped forever. BUT, if you have Wpoison generate links to Wpoison'ed pages on other domains, that could make life harder for the spammers. Given a large enough network of participating websites, said spambot might never figure out it has been fooled once it first took the bait.
Sure, here in Australia we use metric units almost all the time. But much of it is done in a half-arsed fashion. Things are mostly measured in imperial units and then converted into what often becomes a pretty awkward metric equivalent.
But don't kid yourself that just because we express things in metric units, we have converted to a metric system. A few examples of the top of my head.
Radio reporter: "Witnesses report that the offender was approximately 183 centimetres tall..." (approximately?)
Milk comes in 600 and 300 ml cartons, not 500 and 250 ml.
A standard student's ruler is 30 cm.
Speed limits in parking lots are often marked as 8 or even 17 km/h.
And of course, beer, oysters and eggs are sold by the dozen and half-dozen. When these items are sold in 10's and 5's, maybe then our conversion will be complete.
This is the stage we are at 25-30 years after adopting metric units? It seems like the whole process is gonna take maybe 4 or 5 generations.
Yes, SAM is nice, and yes, most things on solaris do take days of manual deciphering to accomplish. However, I have heard (totally unsubstantiated, mind you) that, with its reliance on database configs rather than text files, AIX is quite difficult to admin w/o the aid of smitty or Xsmit(smitX?). That's my main beef. Working in a highly heterogeneous environment, I cannot afford to get too comfortable with "flavour specific" tools, lest I forget how to do it all at the command line.
That's why I like to install the GNU utils on every machine I admin.
Firstly, and on-topic, I'll agree with you about the site experience with one particular variant of Unix. Particularly if most of his users are coders or otherwise serious "Power Users". (Now, in the case of fluid dynamics simulations on this sort of hardware, that's probably NOT an abuse of that horrendous term)
Secondly, and straying off-topic, I have absolutely NO experience in Irix, but I currently admin about 40 *nix machines (mostly HP and Sun), and I have found HP-UX to be quite reasonable in the admin department. I would be very interested to know what it is that makes Irix nicer to admin. Seriously. I have heard the same said about most of the major Unix variants at one time or another, but never with any justification. Is it just that some people are more familiar with one (as I am with HP-UX) or is there really a big difference?
Well, in an extended space voyage, you could reasonably expect it to be a one-way journey anyway. As long as your mould growth substrate is not part of a vital system, you'd probably be ok.
As for the food value of this stuff... I'll stay here on Earth, thanks.
Could this pose a threat to other orbital bodies? At least Mir has residents who could do a bit of cleaning once in a while. Not so, your typical comms satelite. Space could end up looking like my kitchen; full of fuzzy dishes.
Could we use these fungi to biodegrade all the space junk that has been left daggin' about up there? Let them eat the Iridium network into safe little itty-bitty pieces. I know it's a really long term exercise, but the price is right!
Could we make fungi the first Lunar or Martian colonists, possibly even paving the way to a long-term, low-cost preliminary terraforming experiment?
While the fungus itself may not be able to exist in total vacuum, I have NO doubt that its spores could float about for many years until they land on another metal, plastic or even rock substrate. So I suspect it could spread. The onliest thing is, do we let it happen by accident, or do we make some effort to harness it?
Packing tape that warns when it is approaching crush or impact thresholds and sets an externally visible and audible alarm when those thresholds are exceeded.
Link the tape to a sort of "packaging passport", a device that registers (maybe by a barcode reader or similar tech) who handled it and where.
You could then print a report of the handling history when you get your package.
"No, I will not sign for this, because storeman #41 dropped it at your Minnesota warehouse at 10:43 AM on Wednesday."
Sure, it's not for small ticket items, but I think it'd be worthwhile for scientific/medical instruments, big-arse servers, etc. You could also employ similar techniques for the seals on those big steel shipping containers.
Slashdot Mirror
I think what the poster had in mind was a corporate death penalty not for the corporation itself, but for individual members of the board of directors.
Think about it. If the penalty for a crime with lethal consequences, is financial and (relative to the annual turnover) insignificant, who on the board is going to vote against it?
On the other hand, if individual board members who vote in favour of a criminal action are going to be punished with the death penalty, who among them would vote against it now? Significantly more, I would suggest.
Personally, I think the death penalty is a bit harsh... for any crime. After all the death penalty *IS* kind of final (in case of error, monetary compensation for lost years is an acceptable trade-off, IMHO) A mere 10-15 years incarceration for all board members who voted in favour of the action found to be criminal, would be sufficient disincentive to prevent corporations from this sort of gross breach of law.
On top of all the above, government seizure and control of all corporate assets and operations would make for a pretty strong deterrent.
OK don't get me wrong here, I think it is totally repugnant that they pump this shit into waterways wherever they can get away with it. In a local sense this is a tragedy of major proportions.
BUT... We have a major multi-national manufacturing corporation polluting the environment and being worried only about public image. This is hardly newsworthy. In a global sense, so what?
In and of itself, that has nothing to do with their genetic engineering division, does it? Sure, it may say something about the overall corporate morality (yeah, I know. oxymoron and all that) of Monsanto, but is it really news?
Unless of course, Monsanto are genetically engineering a whole range of crops that are either resistant to or actively break down PCB's. Their polluting activities take on a whole new, somewhat darker perspective under those circumstances, don't they now?
It's about perception of trust. Not litigation.
Senior execs feel that they can trust MS, a large corporate entity that has a proven track record of success.
It's those perceptions that we must change.
That's exactly how it happened here in
That's also what we did with the plastic notes (that's right, our "paper" money is actually printed on plastic film). No biggie. Numismatists took care of keeping some of the better condition paper notes out of circulation, and the reserve bank took care of the rest. It's all still legal tender, but I haven't seen a paper note for about 3 years now.
Changing the physical implementation of currency is easy. Changing the currency itself would be a major PITA. I've never experienced it myself, being far too young to even know about money when .au went from pounds to dollars in 1966.
All your nightmares are belong to us!
The fact that it was "looking at us" suggests that this animal has reasonably well developed eyes, which is definitely a characteristic absent in jellyfish. Certainly some jellies may have light sensing organs, particularly those that live at great depths. But not such that you'd call them eyes.
Of course the "looking" could have been a misinterpretation of the animal's behaviour.
Cheating?
When all you need is 5 gallons, it makes really good busines sense to trade in the 3 and the 7 for a single 5.
That's a better answer than the correct one. And that's BOUND to make a good impression as M$.
$ emacs
ksh: emacs: not found
$ pico
ksh: pico: not found
$ joe
ksh: joe: not found
$ jed
ksh: jed: not found
$ nvi
ksh: nvi: not found
(I think we all get the picture)
As a sysadmin working on many different (unix-ish) systems, I find it's worth not only knowing, but being *really* comfortable using vi. If you work on only one or even just a few systems, by all means, learn one of the "enhanced" editors and install it if you like. But I'm not about to do the same on upwards of 60 machines.
Sometimes you can change your environment to suit you, other times it's better to change to suit your environment. Knowing which is the better option, that's the trick.
Lying? Just because I am a non-practising Jedi?
A friend of mine is Jewish, but does not keep kosher, and does not attend Sabbath services. Would he be lying if he put down Jewish on his census form?
What about those Christians of various denominations who do not go to church?
You can bet that there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of people who will claim to be one religion or another, yet do not practise their professed religion.
Nope, Jedi it is!
(there's a phrase you thought you'd never hear)
I haven't browsed at -1 for a couple of months, but there used to be someone who would regularly post quite informative and genuinely relevant URLs, except that they were the body of a goatse.cx target link. Brilliant!
Sometimes I was tempted to moderate him up. (OK maybe her, but somehow, I doubt it)
I just couldnt decide between +1 -informative or +1 -funny.
I think the specialist Lego kits are actually a great idea! Kids can get great satisfaction and confidence out of building the model 'just like it looks on the box'. In building the model, she/he finds out what pieces other than standard blocks are available, and what sort of connections they can make. Later, when standard blocks won't quite do what is needed, she/he might use the engine mounts from the phantom flyer, the axle from the mediaevel siege engine and the cannon rails from the pirate ship on a single construction.
And as for the encyclopedia, teach the kid how to use them! Initially, she/he thinks they're just the same as any other books and will try to read them cover to cover. That's ok, but there's a better way.
When your young child asks why the trees drop their leaves in autumn, sit down with her/him and look up 'trees'. Explain what the cross referencing at the end of the article is for, and follow it. After a few times doing this, you will notice your child no longer asking you the question, but telling you the answer! You will find this extremely satisfying.
So the spambot can be programmed not to be trapped forever. BUT, if you have Wpoison generate links to Wpoison'ed pages on other domains, that could make life harder for the spammers. Given a large enough network of participating websites, said spambot might never figure out it has been fooled once it first took the bait.
It just might work.
Fascinating idea. Tell me though, what does invisible text sound like?
Is it also invisible in lynx?
Are you really asking if a denial of service would be appropriate?
There is no.... SHRUBBERY!
Bloody stupid lameness filter!
Sure, here in Australia we use metric units almost all the time. But much of it is done in a half-arsed fashion. Things are mostly measured in imperial units and then converted into what often becomes a pretty awkward metric equivalent.
But don't kid yourself that just because we express things in metric units, we have converted to a metric system. A few examples of the top of my head.
Radio reporter: "Witnesses report that the offender was approximately 183 centimetres tall..." (approximately?)
Milk comes in 600 and 300 ml cartons, not 500 and 250 ml.
A standard student's ruler is 30 cm.
Speed limits in parking lots are often marked as 8 or even 17 km/h.
And of course, beer, oysters and eggs are sold by the dozen and half-dozen. When these items are sold in 10's and 5's, maybe then our conversion will be complete.
This is the stage we are at 25-30 years after adopting metric units? It seems like the whole process is gonna take maybe 4 or 5 generations.
Oh yeah. Imagine, if you will...
She lets out one almighty blood-curdling wail, all the time hearing nothing.
But a few moments after popping her chute, she suddenly hears her own scream. That could be a little disconcerting.
Can I have your sense of humour please?
You obviously aren't using it!
NewTechUser: Yeah
---Pause---
NewTechUser: Yeh!
---Pause---
NewTechUser: Yeh Yeh!
---Pause---
NewTechUser: Yeh, yeh, yeh!
Dude! Shut the f^%$# up! Do you have *ANY* idea what I look like? Call me back in twenty minutes...
AT HOME!
For f*&^$%'s sake don't call me on this number again!
Oops, my bad!
I meant to say "It WILL be posted again".
Thanks for the info.
.sig :)
Yes, SAM is nice, and yes, most things on solaris do take days of manual deciphering to accomplish. However, I have heard (totally unsubstantiated, mind you) that, with its reliance on database configs rather than text files, AIX is quite difficult to admin w/o the aid of smitty or Xsmit(smitX?). That's my main beef. Working in a highly heterogeneous environment, I cannot afford to get too comfortable with "flavour specific" tools, lest I forget how to do it all at the command line.
That's why I like to install the GNU utils on every machine I admin.
Unix ain't Unix, but GNU *IS* Unix... sorry, RMS!
(Hey, I like that. Meet my new
Firstly, and on-topic, I'll agree with you about the site experience with one particular variant of Unix. Particularly if most of his users are coders or otherwise serious "Power Users". (Now, in the case of fluid dynamics simulations on this sort of hardware, that's probably NOT an abuse of that horrendous term)
Secondly, and straying off-topic, I have absolutely NO experience in Irix, but I currently admin about 40 *nix machines (mostly HP and Sun), and I have found HP-UX to be quite reasonable in the admin department. I would be very interested to know what it is that makes Irix nicer to admin. Seriously. I have heard the same said about most of the major Unix variants at one time or another, but never with any justification. Is it just that some people are more familiar with one (as I am with HP-UX) or is there really a big difference?
Well, in an extended space voyage, you could reasonably expect it to be a one-way journey anyway. As long as your mould growth substrate is not part of a vital system, you'd probably be ok.
As for the food value of this stuff... I'll stay here on Earth, thanks.
I have no answers, but I do have questions.
Could this pose a threat to other orbital bodies? At least Mir has residents who could do a bit of cleaning once in a while. Not so, your typical comms satelite. Space could end up looking like my kitchen; full of fuzzy dishes.
Could we use these fungi to biodegrade all the space junk that has been left daggin' about up there? Let them eat the Iridium network into safe little itty-bitty pieces. I know it's a really long term exercise, but the price is right!
Could we make fungi the first Lunar or Martian colonists, possibly even paving the way to a long-term, low-cost preliminary terraforming experiment?
While the fungus itself may not be able to exist in total vacuum, I have NO doubt that its spores could float about for many years until they land on another metal, plastic or even rock substrate. So I suspect it could spread. The onliest thing is, do we let it happen by accident, or do we make some effort to harness it?
Packing tape that warns when it is approaching crush or impact thresholds and sets an externally visible and audible alarm when those thresholds are exceeded.
Link the tape to a sort of "packaging passport", a device that registers (maybe by a barcode reader or similar tech) who handled it and where.
You could then print a report of the handling history when you get your package.
"No, I will not sign for this, because storeman #41 dropped it at your Minnesota warehouse at 10:43 AM on Wednesday."
Sure, it's not for small ticket items, but I think it'd be worthwhile for scientific/medical instruments, big-arse servers, etc. You could also employ similar techniques for the seals on those big steel shipping containers.