Hmm. Capitalism kind of operates on the idea of profitability, so if you can make an argument that a Thorium reactor will be profitable (even a 10% return on investment), people will listen. If you can argue that it's more profitable that a Uranium-based reactor, even more people will listen.
No one, in their right mind, slights someone who will arguably make them a little richer at the end of the day. None of us are wealthy enough that that isn't a problem.
Indeed. The political establishment was having trouble getting re-elected, so they merged with whoever they could find to keep themselves in power. Nevermind that it's slowly crippling them.
Haha, no. It's the only technology immediately available that can deal with a doubling of energy usage. Green technology has, unfortunately, been mostly a wash -> we blew a huge amount of the economy on its fairy-tale promises of reducing our environmental impact and creating tons of new jobs; it was meant to replace current technology with something equally as capable or better; it's nowhere near that mark. What we have, instead, is a giant bill and a bunch of green technology that might be able to put a worthwhile fight against something from the 1800s, but definitely not against something from the 1940s, let alone current technology.
Face it -> battery technology isn't there yet. Most of the green power-plants work only in certain places, under certain conditions, and many of them have an even greater environmental impact that the technology they're trying to replace. Nuclear fusion would be nice, but we still haven't cracked it. Which leaves coal, natural gas, oil, and so forth, where coal is the most popular option on the table right now; this is coal, mind you, where entire mountain mining communities are ready to vote for anyone who backs it (thus giving themselves a job), while being the biggest polluter.
With nuclear technology, the waste is contained. Yes, it's dangerous, but it's a bloody known dangerous, and as long as you do not hire someone from the bottom of the barrel to take care of it, you're pretty safe. What more, there are reactor designs, breeder reactors, which burn this waste, but are somewhat outlawed as they can be used to create weapons-grade material. Only an irrational fear of radiation keeps us from re-adopting it as a technology.
And Fukushima was an ancient reactor, build to yesterday's standards, which still held its own against a larger earthquake than it was designed to withstand. The inability to keep up with industry standards for running a nuclear reactor was a political / accounting problem, not a technology problem. You might as well argue that a B-2 bomber wasn't built to withstand a passing meteor storm; it wasn't built with that in mind, but if you'd be willing to untie our hands / remove some red-tape and give us the damn resources to fix the problem...
Which is great if your life is to well-planned that a need to do something out of town never arises while you're driving an EV in town.
"Hey dude, me and some of my friends are heading to this restaurant / bar / club [40 miles away], you want to meet up?" "Ah, no, sorry man, I only gave my EV a half-charge after I got some from work, and ran into town to pick up some groceries; I need what I have left to get home." By the time you get back to grab the petrol vehicle, the boys are already on their second round. By the time you get there, they're leaving.
Here's another scenario: "Hey dad, mom can't pick me up today from school. I know it's a little out of your way, but can you come pick me up?" "Sorry princess, your school is 20 miles north of the house, and I am about 10 miles south (went to pickup a book). It's going to take me an extra half hour to drive home, and switch the cars...can you ask a friend for a ride?"
Yeah, but you seem to be forgetting that its lower cost is due to massive subsidies. The debate then shifts to whether the oil companies with their various tax-breaks / subsidies are less expensive than other possibilities with their tax-breaks / subsidies.
The final cost of an electric car, then, cannot be simply measured with its sticker price, but also the cost to the taxpayer.
Yes, because I'm fairly certain that the plant kingdom, given the choice of continuing to 'put up with' the human species, who has a chance of getting off this rock and possibly finding new planets / terraforming a new earth, or having them suddenly culled, giving them a slight increase in land (but ultimately destroying a lot of fertility) would happily choose the latter.
Because we've finally, I don't know, gotten around to commercial space rocket launches, and step two of colonizing a new planet is planting things we can eat / help us. Since humans run on oxygen, and plants are pretty nifty at producing a excess of breathable air (albeit from CO2, and a handful of right conditions), this would probably factor into our plans.
Indeed. MS has tried this before with their software assurance scheme, and the customers got burned.
The customer thinks "Oh, this way if there's an upgrade that year, I automatically get upgraded for free!" MS thinks "Once I have you paying for software as a service, I don't need to push out upgrades as often to maintain my revenues."
Upgrades become a rebranding of the previous year's, with minor usability tweaks / new logos / icons. MS needs to go on a diet, and get its mojo back...sticking it in front of the all you can eat buffet is not going to make things better.
Actually, given the US's history, the proper recourse should be: Attempt to prevent illegal aliens from entering the country in the first place (Canadian border style), then Deport any illegal alien caught living the US, but before deporting them, Offer them citizenship first. You want to be an American? Fine, that'll be $200, here's your SS card, and be sure to vote in November. Paying taxes, of course, are optional as an American, as it is considered patriotic not to pay them, or 'in your best interests' to pay them; the choice is yours.
Extraordinary that we've progressed so far (technologically speaking), but our methods of funding things are still stuck in the 1800s.
Canonical should offer a page, with various possible enhancements, and funding targets. Accept BitCoin, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and so forth, and begin work on the project when the funding target is met. This way end users can steer development into areas that they actually would like developed.
I imagine/.'s demographic has changed. One need only remember/. radio, and how the founders of/. where making fun of another distro for attempting to put ads into the bootloader...something like "This boot brought to you by Amazon!"
Easy, he's still young. His world is defined by a singular axis, and where you fall on it defines everything about you.
From his comments, he believes that everything on the left is filled with doubleplus goodness, righteousness, happiness, and the Obvious Thing To Do [TM}, and everything on the right is filled with pure evil, lies, filth, and harming orphans or something. That some people (let alone the majority) of them do not readily fit on this invisible line is blasphemy to him, and he will, no doubt, offer up a series of tests / examples that both confirm his own worldview while denouncing yours.
"Knowing where someone falls on the almighty invisible axis of politics - Better than a truthful debate!"
Nice shutdown, but I still think we need to move to more powerful passive safety devices. Using water as a coolant is awesome, but still prone to failure. Solid conduction, on the other hand...
Typically, being stuck with the bill from an earlier generation is reason to complain. But, if we have enough good left in us, we can pay off the bill so our children / successors do not.
Hmm. The article seems to imply that she is being punished primarily for her posting of a stupid comment (Freedom of Speech), rather than the DUI / accident that she was involved in.
Taken out of context:
A Kentucky woman’s cavalier ‘LOL” comment on Facebook about an alleged drunk driving accident that police believe she caused led a judge to send her to jail for two days and force her off the social networking site.
Let them write code, but for the love of my future cat, choose something like Java or C++ or C# that actually forces them to adopt a decent coding style.
JavaScript is, like Visual Basic or PHP, an undead language that requires a decent burial and a priest of the highest order to dispatch. I mean, these languages are really, really, not good starting places for learning proper programming, they're just languages that let you learn some basics very quickly. It's like the bike you got when you were 6, that had clickety-clacks and was composed primarily of plastic; no one is saying that you can't ride them at age 12 or 25 or 40, but once having mastered the general idea of human-powered mechanics, it's best to move onto faster and more capable things. The way some of these people use these languages, you'd think someone had attached a lawn-mower engine to a preschooler's tricycle; yes, that's awesome (and no, I did not know you could do that, let alone would want to), but try out some of these bigger toys, which I think you will find much more fun.
Indeed. I can remember the first time I tried oxycodone (wisdom teeth removed). Up until around that time, I was somewhat anti-drug -> purity of mind, all that jazz.
I never realized that a drug like this existed, one which could treat my more powerful migraines. It was a bit like Neo realizing that he was in the Matrix -> everything I had been told were lies. Looking around in my heavenly mental state of mind, the first time in my life I felt some clarity, I realized that our society was built to not only cause suffering, but to reinforce it from all angles. Every exit blocked, the easily accessible medicines were placebos, the effective ones made illegal and restricted, salt in the wounds everywhere the light touched; and the truly hideous part was realizing that the enemy had been standing in our midst the entire time. So complete was the control, that escaping it is nearly impossible. The sheer number of people who go to work everyday, complaining of aches and pains, could easily be alleviated. Peace itself possible. And yet, fear tells people to avoid the very thing that could save them from a life of agony. Cigarettes and alcohol available everywhere, doing far worse things to the soul and mind, but the less dangerous stuff is hidden away. Speaking with my friends, I realized that they were not aware that their suffering could be alleviated, old wounds healed, a breathe of life for every man, woman, and child.
These drugs do not cloud one's reasoning, they free it! And they are kept from it because some poorly documented psychology study somewhere says that slightly-depressed or slightly-suffering workers are a few percentage points more efficient. A lifetime of suffering, because someone wants an extra couch made that week! The nerve of these people. And what makes it worse, is that they knew! They knew the entire time! It was their own self-servings needs that they had put before the well-being of their friends and family! And as an insult to everything sacred and holy, they have the impetus to continue to peddle their bullsh*t, suggesting even now that pain is merely an illusion of the mind, so it is the belief that one is in pain that must be treated, not the sensory nerves that are transmitting bioelectric impulses to the brain! How much better the world would be if we could free ourselves of these charlatans, these wolves in sheep's clothing. I imagine that the Hippocratic Oath was just words to these people; or that perhaps they see their patients as less than human, less than deserving of sympathy or compassion. Their actions speak loudest to me, and I am ashamed, ashamed! that I once believed as they did. How could I ever make up for my transgressions, manufactured out of blind error? Having been misled, and righted myself, how can I ever be sure that I am not being led down similar paths of injustice, simply as a pleasure or convenience to others? An implicit agreement has been broken, Do No Harm, and it shan't ever be mended. The perpetrators of this travesty will, of course, remain free and at large, while the victims will continue to suffer.
I can never look up to a doctor, ever again. When I gaze upon them now, I see a set of blind biases that have helped as many as have harmed. Whenever I see a psychologist or psychiatrist, I will see a man or woman with a notebook, quietly labeling and sorting every person their eyes touch, suffering from the bitter arrogance of believing they know more about a man's mind than they do, and calm in their recitation of committed lies. If every they lived in ancient Athens, they would not run the risk of admitting their lack of knowledge -> the words "I know only that I know nothing" would never part those dry lips.
The problem is not one of feeding the poor -> there is, from a strictly quantity perspective, more than enough food to feed everyone (in the US), for a little while, at least; the problem comes when the next planting season rolls around, and some farmers decide that it's easier to claim you are poor (and receive free food), than to work the fields; when enough farmers do this, a deficit of food appears, which is colloquially called a famine. Due to the way a famine operates, I imagine that once you have one, it persists indefinitely, as people begin raiding the storehouses for seeds that are normally used for planting next year or when too many cattle are slaughtered (reducing herd's ability to replace lost members) to sustain themselves in present times, thus ensuring that once a famine starts, only powerful discipline can stop it (you will have to eat less this year to eat more next year). And that's all assuming that the weather cooperates, or that you are on God Almighty's good side.
Thus our economy is built on people wanting things, and more importantly, a willingness to work and hope of achieving them. Where the Apollo program beat out strictly handing out money or food is that it, from a very subjective standpoint, increased investment in technology, which we all know when properly done, pays dividends. Better technology leads to better living. Previously untreatable diseases are now treatable, and the fields are more fertile.
Indeed. But it's not that they simply have lower salaries -> at the school I went to, they received free or heavily subsidized houses / apartments, as well as a ton of other benefits. If someone gives you a free house (we'll say it's at least a $200,000 value, on top of a few other benefits...suddenly the public school system looks a little weak in comparison). You don't own the house, but then, you aren't paying rent / mortgage or taxes on it...and if you live there long enough, I think it actually does become yours.
Oh, it certainly does -> it takes a mind capable of doing simple algebra.
I've heard unsubstantiated tales that there are some people out there who haven't learned algebra, and I believe there was an article out in the NYTimes a few months ago about replacing algebra with statistics.
Right, so why are you letting them on a plane before age 18? Their weak immune systems plus that recycled air (partial engine bleed) will surely shorten their life.
Your kids should have had part of my childhood -> hours spent in the 100 acre woods behind my house, with no one in immediate range. As a bonus, they'd have a healthy respect for gravity.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm. Capitalism kind of operates on the idea of profitability, so if you can make an argument that a Thorium reactor will be profitable (even a 10% return on investment), people will listen. If you can argue that it's more profitable that a Uranium-based reactor, even more people will listen.
No one, in their right mind, slights someone who will arguably make them a little richer at the end of the day. None of us are wealthy enough that that isn't a problem.
Indeed. The political establishment was having trouble getting re-elected, so they merged with whoever they could find to keep themselves in power. Nevermind that it's slowly crippling them.
Haha, no. It's the only technology immediately available that can deal with a doubling of energy usage. Green technology has, unfortunately, been mostly a wash -> we blew a huge amount of the economy on its fairy-tale promises of reducing our environmental impact and creating tons of new jobs; it was meant to replace current technology with something equally as capable or better; it's nowhere near that mark. What we have, instead, is a giant bill and a bunch of green technology that might be able to put a worthwhile fight against something from the 1800s, but definitely not against something from the 1940s, let alone current technology.
Face it -> battery technology isn't there yet. Most of the green power-plants work only in certain places, under certain conditions, and many of them have an even greater environmental impact that the technology they're trying to replace. Nuclear fusion would be nice, but we still haven't cracked it. Which leaves coal, natural gas, oil, and so forth, where coal is the most popular option on the table right now; this is coal, mind you, where entire mountain mining communities are ready to vote for anyone who backs it (thus giving themselves a job), while being the biggest polluter.
With nuclear technology, the waste is contained. Yes, it's dangerous, but it's a bloody known dangerous, and as long as you do not hire someone from the bottom of the barrel to take care of it, you're pretty safe. What more, there are reactor designs, breeder reactors, which burn this waste, but are somewhat outlawed as they can be used to create weapons-grade material. Only an irrational fear of radiation keeps us from re-adopting it as a technology.
And Fukushima was an ancient reactor, build to yesterday's standards, which still held its own against a larger earthquake than it was designed to withstand. The inability to keep up with industry standards for running a nuclear reactor was a political / accounting problem, not a technology problem. You might as well argue that a B-2 bomber wasn't built to withstand a passing meteor storm; it wasn't built with that in mind, but if you'd be willing to untie our hands / remove some red-tape and give us the damn resources to fix the problem...
Are these the same users who, up until a few years ago, might have confused a CD-drive tray with a cupholder?
Which is great if your life is to well-planned that a need to do something out of town never arises while you're driving an EV in town.
"Hey dude, me and some of my friends are heading to this restaurant / bar / club [40 miles away], you want to meet up?" "Ah, no, sorry man, I only gave my EV a half-charge after I got some from work, and ran into town to pick up some groceries; I need what I have left to get home." By the time you get back to grab the petrol vehicle, the boys are already on their second round. By the time you get there, they're leaving.
Here's another scenario: "Hey dad, mom can't pick me up today from school. I know it's a little out of your way, but can you come pick me up?" "Sorry princess, your school is 20 miles north of the house, and I am about 10 miles south (went to pickup a book). It's going to take me an extra half hour to drive home, and switch the cars...can you ask a friend for a ride?"
Yeah, but you seem to be forgetting that its lower cost is due to massive subsidies. The debate then shifts to whether the oil companies with their various tax-breaks / subsidies are less expensive than other possibilities with their tax-breaks / subsidies.
The final cost of an electric car, then, cannot be simply measured with its sticker price, but also the cost to the taxpayer.
Well, some of us do work for EA, so...
Yes, because I'm fairly certain that the plant kingdom, given the choice of continuing to 'put up with' the human species, who has a chance of getting off this rock and possibly finding new planets / terraforming a new earth, or having them suddenly culled, giving them a slight increase in land (but ultimately destroying a lot of fertility) would happily choose the latter.
Because we've finally, I don't know, gotten around to commercial space rocket launches, and step two of colonizing a new planet is planting things we can eat / help us. Since humans run on oxygen, and plants are pretty nifty at producing a excess of breathable air (albeit from CO2, and a handful of right conditions), this would probably factor into our plans.
Indeed. MS has tried this before with their software assurance scheme, and the customers got burned.
The customer thinks "Oh, this way if there's an upgrade that year, I automatically get upgraded for free!"
MS thinks "Once I have you paying for software as a service, I don't need to push out upgrades as often to maintain my revenues."
Upgrades become a rebranding of the previous year's, with minor usability tweaks / new logos / icons. MS needs to go on a diet, and get its mojo back...sticking it in front of the all you can eat buffet is not going to make things better.
Actually, given the US's history, the proper recourse should be: Attempt to prevent illegal aliens from entering the country in the first place (Canadian border style), then Deport any illegal alien caught living the US, but before deporting them, Offer them citizenship first. You want to be an American? Fine, that'll be $200, here's your SS card, and be sure to vote in November. Paying taxes, of course, are optional as an American, as it is considered patriotic not to pay them, or 'in your best interests' to pay them; the choice is yours.
Extraordinary that we've progressed so far (technologically speaking), but our methods of funding things are still stuck in the 1800s.
Canonical should offer a page, with various possible enhancements, and funding targets. Accept BitCoin, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and so forth, and begin work on the project when the funding target is met. This way end users can steer development into areas that they actually would like developed.
No secondary storage HD for your torrents / games? Not a real geek!
I imagine /.'s demographic has changed. One need only remember /. radio, and how the founders of /. where making fun of another distro for attempting to put ads into the bootloader...something like "This boot brought to you by Amazon!"
Easy, he's still young. His world is defined by a singular axis, and where you fall on it defines everything about you.
From his comments, he believes that everything on the left is filled with doubleplus goodness, righteousness, happiness, and the Obvious Thing To Do [TM}, and everything on the right is filled with pure evil, lies, filth, and harming orphans or something. That some people (let alone the majority) of them do not readily fit on this invisible line is blasphemy to him, and he will, no doubt, offer up a series of tests / examples that both confirm his own worldview while denouncing yours.
"Knowing where someone falls on the almighty invisible axis of politics - Better than a truthful debate!"
Nice shutdown, but I still think we need to move to more powerful passive safety devices. Using water as a coolant is awesome, but still prone to failure. Solid conduction, on the other hand...
Typically, being stuck with the bill from an earlier generation is reason to complain. But, if we have enough good left in us, we can pay off the bill so our children / successors do not.
Hmm. The article seems to imply that she is being punished primarily for her posting of a stupid comment (Freedom of Speech), rather than the DUI / accident that she was involved in.
Taken out of context:
A Kentucky woman’s cavalier ‘LOL” comment on Facebook about an alleged drunk driving accident that police believe she caused led a judge to send her to jail for two days and force her off the social networking site.
Let them write code, but for the love of my future cat, choose something like Java or C++ or C# that actually forces them to adopt a decent coding style.
JavaScript is, like Visual Basic or PHP, an undead language that requires a decent burial and a priest of the highest order to dispatch. I mean, these languages are really, really, not good starting places for learning proper programming, they're just languages that let you learn some basics very quickly. It's like the bike you got when you were 6, that had clickety-clacks and was composed primarily of plastic; no one is saying that you can't ride them at age 12 or 25 or 40, but once having mastered the general idea of human-powered mechanics, it's best to move onto faster and more capable things. The way some of these people use these languages, you'd think someone had attached a lawn-mower engine to a preschooler's tricycle; yes, that's awesome (and no, I did not know you could do that, let alone would want to), but try out some of these bigger toys, which I think you will find much more fun.
Indeed. I can remember the first time I tried oxycodone (wisdom teeth removed). Up until around that time, I was somewhat anti-drug -> purity of mind, all that jazz.
I never realized that a drug like this existed, one which could treat my more powerful migraines. It was a bit like Neo realizing that he was in the Matrix -> everything I had been told were lies. Looking around in my heavenly mental state of mind, the first time in my life I felt some clarity, I realized that our society was built to not only cause suffering, but to reinforce it from all angles. Every exit blocked, the easily accessible medicines were placebos, the effective ones made illegal and restricted, salt in the wounds everywhere the light touched; and the truly hideous part was realizing that the enemy had been standing in our midst the entire time. So complete was the control, that escaping it is nearly impossible. The sheer number of people who go to work everyday, complaining of aches and pains, could easily be alleviated. Peace itself possible. And yet, fear tells people to avoid the very thing that could save them from a life of agony. Cigarettes and alcohol available everywhere, doing far worse things to the soul and mind, but the less dangerous stuff is hidden away. Speaking with my friends, I realized that they were not aware that their suffering could be alleviated, old wounds healed, a breathe of life for every man, woman, and child.
These drugs do not cloud one's reasoning, they free it! And they are kept from it because some poorly documented psychology study somewhere says that slightly-depressed or slightly-suffering workers are a few percentage points more efficient. A lifetime of suffering, because someone wants an extra couch made that week! The nerve of these people. And what makes it worse, is that they knew! They knew the entire time! It was their own self-servings needs that they had put before the well-being of their friends and family! And as an insult to everything sacred and holy, they have the impetus to continue to peddle their bullsh*t, suggesting even now that pain is merely an illusion of the mind, so it is the belief that one is in pain that must be treated, not the sensory nerves that are transmitting bioelectric impulses to the brain! How much better the world would be if we could free ourselves of these charlatans, these wolves in sheep's clothing. I imagine that the Hippocratic Oath was just words to these people; or that perhaps they see their patients as less than human, less than deserving of sympathy or compassion. Their actions speak loudest to me, and I am ashamed, ashamed! that I once believed as they did. How could I ever make up for my transgressions, manufactured out of blind error? Having been misled, and righted myself, how can I ever be sure that I am not being led down similar paths of injustice, simply as a pleasure or convenience to others? An implicit agreement has been broken, Do No Harm, and it shan't ever be mended. The perpetrators of this travesty will, of course, remain free and at large, while the victims will continue to suffer.
I can never look up to a doctor, ever again. When I gaze upon them now, I see a set of blind biases that have helped as many as have harmed. Whenever I see a psychologist or psychiatrist, I will see a man or woman with a notebook, quietly labeling and sorting every person their eyes touch, suffering from the bitter arrogance of believing they know more about a man's mind than they do, and calm in their recitation of committed lies. If every they lived in ancient Athens, they would not run the risk of admitting their lack of knowledge -> the words "I know only that I know nothing" would never part those dry lips.
The problem is not one of feeding the poor -> there is, from a strictly quantity perspective, more than enough food to feed everyone (in the US), for a little while, at least; the problem comes when the next planting season rolls around, and some farmers decide that it's easier to claim you are poor (and receive free food), than to work the fields; when enough farmers do this, a deficit of food appears, which is colloquially called a famine. Due to the way a famine operates, I imagine that once you have one, it persists indefinitely, as people begin raiding the storehouses for seeds that are normally used for planting next year or when too many cattle are slaughtered (reducing herd's ability to replace lost members) to sustain themselves in present times, thus ensuring that once a famine starts, only powerful discipline can stop it (you will have to eat less this year to eat more next year). And that's all assuming that the weather cooperates, or that you are on God Almighty's good side.
Thus our economy is built on people wanting things, and more importantly, a willingness to work and hope of achieving them. Where the Apollo program beat out strictly handing out money or food is that it, from a very subjective standpoint, increased investment in technology, which we all know when properly done, pays dividends. Better technology leads to better living. Previously untreatable diseases are now treatable, and the fields are more fertile.
Indeed. But it's not that they simply have lower salaries -> at the school I went to, they received free or heavily subsidized houses / apartments, as well as a ton of other benefits. If someone gives you a free house (we'll say it's at least a $200,000 value, on top of a few other benefits...suddenly the public school system looks a little weak in comparison). You don't own the house, but then, you aren't paying rent / mortgage or taxes on it...and if you live there long enough, I think it actually does become yours.
Same could be said for learning basic anatomy or a musical instrument: it can be breathe-takingly boring.
Oh, it certainly does -> it takes a mind capable of doing simple algebra.
I've heard unsubstantiated tales that there are some people out there who haven't learned algebra, and I believe there was an article out in the NYTimes a few months ago about replacing algebra with statistics.
Right, so why are you letting them on a plane before age 18? Their weak immune systems plus that recycled air (partial engine bleed) will surely shorten their life.
Your kids should have had part of my childhood -> hours spent in the 100 acre woods behind my house, with no one in immediate range. As a bonus, they'd have a healthy respect for gravity.
Tell us your secret.