Yeah, it's good to be skeptical. Google basically has a monopoly status in searching, so it's time to question their search results, as well as how they use the information they find.
BTW, I'm not certain it's related to google, but I just received the first spam SMS message I've ever received in the 3 years I've had my mobile phone. It came the day after I tried out the google SMS system. Coincidence...perhaps. But perhaps not.
Thankfully, I haven't received any more random SMS spam.
How much energy did/will it take to invade Iraq and keep fighting there? How much oil are we going to get out of it relative to the oil we put in? Was it a smart investment? Only if oil is renewable.
How much oil can Bush's $87 billion buy? The answer is about 2 billion barrels of oil at ~$50/barrel. How many barrels of oil did the US use in 2001? About 7 billion (according to http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/oil.html).
So let's just round down and say that JUST ONE APPROPRIATION for the war in Iraq cost 1/4 of the oil we burn in the US in one year.
(In reality, it will be a bit less than 1/4 because our oil consumption has risen BECAUSE of the war, but that rise wouldn't have happened if we didn't have the war.)
Conservation means not spending oil to fight wars, not fighting wars that use money that could have been spent on conservation technology, which improves national security far better than terrorizing the world like we are.
There's no way to know what would have happened if we had spent $87 B to subsidize convervation technology, but I'm willing to bet we could have reduced nonrenewable energy consumption in the US significantly with that money (and we wouldn't have tanks driving around Iraq at 20 gallons/mile).
Why are people so narrow-minded? Nothing is going to cure all our energy problems, but "reduce-reuse-recycle" (meaning conservation is priority #1) is a far better mantra than "run out-invade-repeat".
This war is about us running out of oil and it's going to keep happening as long as our resource base is built on nonrenewables. This has been happening since humankind first walked the Earth.
People will stop fighting wars when their wants are wholesome and genuine and their needs are in sufficient supply. I don't know if that's ever going to happen, but to suggest that we're basically "consuming too much to conserve" is illogical and defeatist.
That post gets to the heart of an important point.
Political parties don't really represent any of their members. They are a miserable weighted (by money) averages of everyone connected with them. Most Republicans don't want Social Security to evaporate, but the Republican party is all for doing that. Most Democrats don't want to ship their jobs overseas or make their nation subservient to rules of global trade agreements, but the Democratic party is all for that. Well, so is the Republican Party. I'm hard-pressed to find things they really differ on except in cases where they oppose each other on issues simply to differentiate themselves (abortion, social security, healthcare). The Democratic Party seem to adore giving away our nation's assets to private interests and yet they somehow expect us to believe that we will have the resources left to provide things like healthcare?
Your comment about exporting defense contracts to hostile powers is right on, except that I would include Lockheed and Raytheon and Boeing in that list of hostiles. We have to ask what our federal government is doing outsourcing so much of its defense to multinational companies that have only profit as a motivator.
That being said, the Republican Party isn't losing at every turn. Quite the contrary, the environment of fear is allowing them to win because people have stopped thinking. They are the party of fear that represents not a single real human being. Political parties are like corporations operating outside of morality.
Excellent response. This transition to a global economy is not guarranteed, however. It may prove to be impossible to sustain without a global government.
It's easier in some places and within some circles certainly. But I think the reason has more to do with alcohol being a liquid, difficult to transport and conceal, and that it is tremendously hard to distill (except maybe beer).
I bought a space pen back in 1993 when I worked in a grocery store. I used it to write upside down inside the walk-in freezer (where i would sometimes be for hours). It never failed me until I failed it first (I accidentally put it through the washing machine). Best pen I ever had.
Too bad this study is tainted by the fact that monitor manufacturers did it.
Monitors are so cheap now and you can find them abandoned all over the place (Goodwill, my basement). Since all you need to set up multiple monitors on a PC is an AGP card and a PCI card (for two monitors), it's very easy. PCI video cards are old and cheap. Two PCI cards won't work I think because they both try to be the primary video card.
My PC is set up now with three monitors because I have a dual output AGP card and a PCI card w/TV out. The PCI card I use only for output to my TV (for movies, simpsons, etc.). Now that I have a faster machine, I can work on two monitors with the third (TV) showing a full screen movie. Or, I could have the left one show the Milkdrop plugin for winamp, the middle one for "work", and the right (TV) for a movie. What was this article about...oh yeah...productivity.
Bottom line is, I haven't done any work in my bedroom for months. I'm not sure I could with any number of monitors. Usually I have to use my laptop with a tiny screen in a secluded space with no distractions to accomplish anything. Even though I agree that multiple monitors COULD increase my productivity (if I didn't use them for distractions), they actually generate distractions mostly. If I'm doing something simple, I'm annoyed at how much desktop space i have to manage. If I'm doing something that needs space (like taking notes in one monitor from a web page in the other), all that monitor is very overwhelming. It's a lot of electromagnetism...I just want to shut them off (I recommend using black wallpaper on your desktops). Sometimes I feel inclined to put stuff on the second monitor just because I can. Then I feel inclined to look at it.
Bottom line: Multimonitors is a cool thing to have. It's very useful if you're doing research, comparing documents, or if you need to know exactly when something finishes and you don't like switching tasks just to find out. Be warned, however. It is easy to block out everything outside the computer (real world) when you're at a computer. It's a lot harder to ignore what's going on on one monitor on the computer when you're staring at the other one.
My short list of computer productivity improvements I'd be annoyed to work without: multimonitor dvorak left hand mouse low keyboard head-height monitors low brightness, high contrast background lighting well-placed speakers foot rest good adjustable chair pad for kneeling when you're tired of sitting house plants window outside with far-away objects hand exerciser/stress ball a door (doesn't in a cubicle)
Slashdot Mirror
Do you trust the engineers and their managers to create a shuttle that won't blow up on lift off or reentry?
Why so quick to trust them on the nuclear issue?
I got news for you...Orkut has already collapsed. Have you used it in the last 3 months?
You forgot to mention that it has battery too.
Yeah, it's good to be skeptical. Google basically has a monopoly status in searching, so it's time to question their search results, as well as how they use the information they find.
BTW, I'm not certain it's related to google, but I just received the first spam SMS message I've ever received in the 3 years I've had my mobile phone. It came the day after I tried out the google SMS system. Coincidence...perhaps. But perhaps not.
Thankfully, I haven't received any more random SMS spam.
How much energy did/will it take to invade Iraq and keep fighting there? How much oil are we going to get out of it relative to the oil we put in? Was it a smart investment? Only if oil is renewable.
How much oil can Bush's $87 billion buy? The answer is about 2 billion barrels of oil at ~$50/barrel. How many barrels of oil did the US use in 2001? About 7 billion (according to http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/oil.html).
So let's just round down and say that JUST ONE APPROPRIATION for the war in Iraq cost 1/4 of the oil we burn in the US in one year.
(In reality, it will be a bit less than 1/4 because our oil consumption has risen BECAUSE of the war, but that rise wouldn't have happened if we didn't have the war.)
Conservation means not spending oil to fight wars, not fighting wars that use money that could have been spent on conservation technology, which improves national security far better than terrorizing the world like we are.
There's no way to know what would have happened if we had spent $87 B to subsidize convervation technology, but I'm willing to bet we could have reduced nonrenewable energy consumption in the US significantly with that money (and we wouldn't have tanks driving around Iraq at 20 gallons/mile).
Why are people so narrow-minded? Nothing is going to cure all our energy problems, but "reduce-reuse-recycle" (meaning conservation is priority #1) is a far better mantra than "run out-invade-repeat".
This war is about us running out of oil and it's going to keep happening as long as our resource base is built on nonrenewables. This has been happening since humankind first walked the Earth.
People will stop fighting wars when their wants are wholesome and genuine and their needs are in sufficient supply. I don't know if that's ever going to happen, but to suggest that we're basically "consuming too much to conserve" is illogical and defeatist.
That post gets to the heart of an important point.
Political parties don't really represent any of their members. They are a miserable weighted (by money) averages of everyone connected with them. Most Republicans don't want Social Security to evaporate, but the Republican party is all for doing that. Most Democrats don't want to ship their jobs overseas or make their nation subservient to rules of global trade agreements, but the Democratic party is all for that. Well, so is the Republican Party. I'm hard-pressed to find things they really differ on except in cases where they oppose each other on issues simply to differentiate themselves (abortion, social security, healthcare). The Democratic Party seem to adore giving away our nation's assets to private interests and yet they somehow expect us to believe that we will have the resources left to provide things like healthcare?
Your comment about exporting defense contracts to hostile powers is right on, except that I would include Lockheed and Raytheon and Boeing in that list of hostiles. We have to ask what our federal government is doing outsourcing so much of its defense to multinational companies that have only profit as a motivator.
That being said, the Republican Party isn't losing at every turn. Quite the contrary, the environment of fear is allowing them to win because people have stopped thinking. They are the party of fear that represents not a single real human being. Political parties are like corporations operating outside of morality.
Eating out is a lot easier when you're vegan. Just scan the menu for the one or two things you can eat and you're done! Works for me.
Excellent response. This transition to a global economy is not guarranteed, however. It may prove to be impossible to sustain without a global government.
Oh come on...
It's easier in some places and within some circles certainly. But I think the reason has more to do with alcohol being a liquid, difficult to transport and conceal, and that it is tremendously hard to distill (except maybe beer).
I bought a space pen back in 1993 when I worked in a grocery store. I used it to write upside down inside the walk-in freezer (where i would sometimes be for hours). It never failed me until I failed it first (I accidentally put it through the washing machine). Best pen I ever had.
Too bad this study is tainted by the fact that monitor manufacturers did it.
Monitors are so cheap now and you can find them abandoned all over the place (Goodwill, my basement). Since all you need to set up multiple monitors on a PC is an AGP card and a PCI card (for two monitors), it's very easy. PCI video cards are old and cheap. Two PCI cards won't work I think because they both try to be the primary video card.
My PC is set up now with three monitors because I have a dual output AGP card and a PCI card w/TV out. The PCI card I use only for output to my TV (for movies, simpsons, etc.). Now that I have a faster machine, I can work on two monitors with the third (TV) showing a full screen movie. Or, I could have the left one show the Milkdrop plugin for winamp, the middle one for "work", and the right (TV) for a movie. What was this article about...oh yeah...productivity.
Bottom line is, I haven't done any work in my bedroom for months. I'm not sure I could with any number of monitors. Usually I have to use my laptop with a tiny screen in a secluded space with no distractions to accomplish anything. Even though I agree that multiple monitors COULD increase my productivity (if I didn't use them for distractions), they actually generate distractions mostly. If I'm doing something simple, I'm annoyed at how much desktop space i have to manage. If I'm doing something that needs space (like taking notes in one monitor from a web page in the other), all that monitor is very overwhelming. It's a lot of electromagnetism...I just want to shut them off (I recommend using black wallpaper on your desktops). Sometimes I feel inclined to put stuff on the second monitor just because I can. Then I feel inclined to look at it.
Bottom line:
Multimonitors is a cool thing to have. It's very useful if you're doing research, comparing documents, or if you need to know exactly when something finishes and you don't like switching tasks just to find out. Be warned, however. It is easy to block out everything outside the computer (real world) when you're at a computer. It's a lot harder to ignore what's going on on one monitor on the computer when you're staring at the other one.
My short list of computer productivity improvements I'd be annoyed to work without:
multimonitor
dvorak
left hand mouse
low keyboard
head-height monitors
low brightness, high contrast
background lighting
well-placed speakers
foot rest
good adjustable chair
pad for kneeling when you're tired of sitting
house plants
window outside with far-away objects
hand exerciser/stress ball
a door (doesn't in a cubicle)