First they came for Napster and I did not speak out because I switched to Kazaa. Then they came for Kazaa and I did not speak out because I switched to bit torrents. Then they came for bit torrents and I did not speak out because I switched to ED2K. Then they came for ED2K and there was no one left for the entertainment industry to blame for their troubles. So they went out of business, and now there is only me.
Some dinosaurs did survive. They're called birds now.
Self-propulsion is good for you
on
E-bike E-xperiences?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I've been biking about an hour a day during my lunch break for the last few months. I've managed to lose over 20 pounds as a result - even on a steady diet of pizza, steak & cheese subs, and Mountain Dew. I feel better, look better (according to my wife), and have more energy than before I started biking. Get an e-bike if you must, but do yourself a favor and ride under your own power as much as possible.
As long as it can get the job done efficiently, and someone is willing to pay me to do it, I don't give a damn whether Java or any other language is considered "cool".
The nature of the project I'm working on and the IDE I use have far more of an impact on how much I enjoy programming than the language I'm coding in. I usually enjoy coding in Java much more than in VB not because Java is superior, but because Intellij Idea is much more pleasant to use than Visual Studio.
It's not just limited to flying. In San Diego I had to show my ID before boarding a boat for a 2-hour harbor cruise. The tour boat's personnel seemed genuinely embarrassed at having to do so, and explained that it was required of them by the Coast Guard.
I'm sure it will be just as ridiculously overpriced as it's predecessors.
A month ago I bought a 30GB Nomad Zen NX for $160. A 30GB iPod would have cost me well over twice that much. And what would I have gotten for that much extra money? A non-replaceable battery (unlike the Nomad), and a slimmer but (IMHO) effeminate case.
As for everyone running as root and viruses, how is that different from when they run Windows?
I think that's the point - it's not different. The idiots that open dangerous e-mail attachments in Windows will continue to do so if/when they all switch over to Linux. And if Linux has a big chunk of market share, virus coders will accordingly devote more of their effort to exploiting it rather than Windows. While Linux may technically be more secure than Windows, that technical advantage is easily defeated by user ignorance & stupidity.
There's a lot pf politically-motivated bullshit on both sides of the debate. On one hand you've got the enviro-Nazis who predict that global warming will kill us all. On the other you've got the greedy corporations and their apologists who insist that toxic sludge is good for you and and that a 30%+ rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last several centuries is harmless - don't worry, be happy, buy our gas-guzzling SUV's.
Is human-induced global warming a certainty? The evidence for it is compelling, though the severity that it will eventually attain is anyone's guess. Will it cause mass death, destruction, and extinction? From studying past episodes of climate change, it seems likely that global warming would cause a great deal of hardship in certain areas of the world, while benefiting others (Canadian farmers may well benefit at the expense of their neighbors to the south, for example). Species will go extinct, though any estimate of how many at this point is little more than guesswork.
Climate is never stable over long time intervals - it has fluctuated wildly before and it will do so again, with or without human intervention. But just because it will happen doesn't mean we should make it happen sooner than it would otherwise. Everyone is going to die someday, but that doesn't make it okay to commit murder. The same argument applies to species extinctions.
I believe there is a reasonable course of action the U.S. should take, in between the radical Greens' proposal to stop civilization in its tracks, and the industrial/corporate strategy of do-nothing, head-in-the-sand denial.
The US should first of all sign the Kyoto treaty. Contrary to right-wing scaremongering, its mandated reductions in greenhouse emissions are quite moderate and and attainable (before Bush rejected it, most enviros blasted the Kyoto treaty for being pathetically inadequate). It would provide an impetus for developing new fuel/energy technologies that could very well boost the economy. If the US doesn't develop this technology, Japan and Europe will, which certainly won't do much to cure our our trade deficit. Gas/electric hybrid vehicles are now a reality - in fact, the Toyota Prius won several awards for best car of the year.
Public transportation should also be encouraged - Europe has a very efficient and reliable rail system, and there's no reason why the US can't have one. The money for funding all this could be attained by stopping corporate welfare for the oil & auto industries, as well as diverting money from all the pork-barrel highway funding projects that Congress is so fond of.
Re:Over 61,000 people killed by a dictator...
on
Saddam Hussein Arrested
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
No, because it isn't the reason Bush started this war. Mass-murdering dictators are a dime-a-dozen, unfortunately - there are many others besides Hussein. And the US doesn't hesitate to support them if it suits some politically expedient purpose(Saddam Hussein was supported by the US back in the 80's). China has been committing genocide in Tibet for decades and executes more people than the rest of the world combined - many of them "guilty" of nothing more than criticism of the state. Yet China enjoys "most-favored nation" trading status with the US.
"We had a good discussion, the foreign minister and I and the president and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction...And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
The Republicans are just as guilty, but they prefer a different approach - outlawing such games altogether (along with porn, rap music, and anything else which offends their Christian fundamentalist supporters), the First Amendment be damned.
I've got a degree in Conservation Biology. Until several years ago I worked as an ecologist, primarily in academia (with one short-term stint at the US Fish & Wildlife Service).
Academia definitely has its perks: lots of freedom to pursue your own interests, few if any insane work deadlines, a generally laid-back atmosphere, and pretty co-eds. However, my salaries were always terrible. It's hard to enjoy what you're doing when you're always struggling to pay the rent on your shitty rathole apartment.
Now I work as a java developer for a software company. I finally make a salary I can live comfortably on. I haven't been laid off (yet). There are more insane deadlines, but usually I don't have to work > 40 hours a week, and I still get to dress in a t-shirt & jeans. The ratio of jerks to nice people in the workplace didn't noticeably change. My job does nothing to make the world a better place, but neither did my academic jobs (much to my dismay). I get my biology/do-gooder fix by volunteering for the Nature Conservancy in my spare time. Overall, I'm glad I made the switch.
The funnest part of astronomy is spending a cold night outside with the telescope. Sure, playing with computers is fun, but not nearly as fun as playing outdoors. I may spend 50 hours a week coding, but I spend as much of the other 118 hours as possible outside - hiking, canoeing, stargazing, etc. Try it, you might like it.
Quite a few nasty diseases can be transferred from other species to humans. Rabies can be transmitted among a variety of mamalian species. The flu virus usually shows up in pigs and poultry before moving on to people. And most scientists believe AIDS was first transferred to humans from some other animal (ape? bat?).
I suspect that those who gave this book rave reviews never bothered trying to run the examples/source code which can be downloaded from the author's website. I haven't gotten any of them to run properly.
I used to work as a wildlife biologist for a few years, and I used a P[-D]A that worked fine under any temperatures and conditions, and never needed a battery change: a notebook with water-resistant paper stored in a plastic bag, and a lead pencil. It never let me down.
I'd love to send & receive all my e-mail encrypted, but sadly nost of my friends and family are too technologically challenged (hell, most of them are AOL users!) I've often tried convincing them to dump AOL, to no avail. Getting them to use encryption seems like an even more futile effort.
Slashdot Mirror
First they came for Napster
and I did not speak out
because I switched to Kazaa.
Then they came for Kazaa
and I did not speak out
because I switched to bit torrents.
Then they came for bit torrents
and I did not speak out
because I switched to ED2K.
Then they came for ED2K
and there was no one left
for the entertainment industry
to blame for their troubles.
So they went out of business,
and now there is only me.
Some dinosaurs did survive. They're called birds now.
I've been biking about an hour a day during my lunch break for the last few months. I've managed to lose over 20 pounds as a result - even on a steady diet of pizza, steak & cheese subs, and Mountain Dew. I feel better, look better (according to my wife), and have more energy than before I started biking. Get an e-bike if you must, but do yourself a favor and ride under your own power as much as possible.
As long as it can get the job done efficiently, and someone is willing to pay me to do it, I don't give a damn whether Java or any other language is considered "cool".
The nature of the project I'm working on and the IDE I use have far more of an impact on how much I enjoy programming than the language I'm coding in. I usually enjoy coding in Java much more than in VB not because Java is superior, but because Intellij Idea is much more pleasant to use than Visual Studio.
IE is okay - but Firefox is fantastic. In fact, Firefox kicks IE's ass and eats it for breakfast.
I use IE only when I absolutely, positively must read an IE-only website that was designed by some ignorant boob.
It's not just limited to flying. In San Diego I had to show my ID before boarding a boat for a 2-hour harbor cruise. The tour boat's personnel seemed genuinely embarrassed at having to do so, and explained that it was required of them by the Coast Guard.
I'm sure it will be just as ridiculously overpriced as it's predecessors.
A month ago I bought a 30GB Nomad Zen NX for $160. A 30GB iPod would have cost me well over twice that much. And what would I have gotten for that much extra money? A non-replaceable battery (unlike the Nomad), and a slimmer but (IMHO) effeminate case.
I think that's the point - it's not different. The idiots that open dangerous e-mail attachments in Windows will continue to do so if/when they all switch over to Linux. And if Linux has a big chunk of market share, virus coders will accordingly devote more of their effort to exploiting it rather than Windows. While Linux may technically be more secure than Windows, that technical advantage is easily defeated by user ignorance & stupidity.
There's a lot pf politically-motivated bullshit on both sides of the debate. On one hand you've got the enviro-Nazis who predict that global warming will kill us all. On the other you've got the greedy corporations and their apologists who insist that toxic sludge is good for you and and that a 30%+ rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last several centuries is harmless - don't worry, be happy, buy our gas-guzzling SUV's.
Is human-induced global warming a certainty? The evidence for it is compelling, though the severity that it will eventually attain is anyone's guess. Will it cause mass death, destruction, and extinction? From studying past episodes of climate change, it seems likely that global warming would cause a great deal of hardship in certain areas of the world, while benefiting others (Canadian farmers may well benefit at the expense of their neighbors to the south, for example). Species will go extinct, though any estimate of how many at this point is little more than guesswork.
Climate is never stable over long time intervals - it has fluctuated wildly before and it will do so again, with or without human intervention. But just because it will happen doesn't mean we should make it happen sooner than it would otherwise. Everyone is going to die someday, but that doesn't make it okay to commit murder. The same argument applies to species extinctions.
I believe there is a reasonable course of action the U.S. should take, in between the radical Greens' proposal to stop civilization in its tracks, and the industrial/corporate strategy of do-nothing, head-in-the-sand denial.
The US should first of all sign the Kyoto treaty. Contrary to right-wing scaremongering, its mandated reductions in greenhouse emissions are quite moderate and and attainable (before Bush rejected it, most enviros blasted the Kyoto treaty for being pathetically inadequate). It would provide an impetus for developing new fuel/energy technologies that could very well boost the economy. If the US doesn't develop this technology, Japan and Europe will, which certainly won't do much to cure our our trade deficit. Gas/electric hybrid vehicles are now a reality - in fact, the Toyota Prius won several awards for best car of the year.
Public transportation should also be encouraged - Europe has a very efficient and reliable rail system, and there's no reason why the US can't have one. The money for funding all this could be attained by stopping corporate welfare for the oil & auto industries, as well as diverting money from all the pork-barrel highway funding projects that Congress is so fond of.
No, because it isn't the reason Bush started this war. Mass-murdering dictators are a dime-a-dozen, unfortunately - there are many others besides Hussein. And the US doesn't hesitate to support them if it suits some politically expedient purpose(Saddam Hussein was supported by the US back in the 80's). China has been committing genocide in Tibet for decades and executes more people than the rest of the world combined - many of them "guilty" of nothing more than criticism of the state. Yet China enjoys "most-favored nation" trading status with the US.
--Colin Powell, February 24, 2001
The Green party doesn't use computers, they prefer the more eco-friendly abacus.
The Republicans are just as guilty, but they prefer a different approach - outlawing such games altogether (along with porn, rap music, and anything else which offends their Christian fundamentalist supporters), the First Amendment be damned.
I've got a degree in Conservation Biology. Until several years ago I worked as an ecologist, primarily in academia (with one short-term stint at the US Fish & Wildlife Service).
Academia definitely has its perks: lots of freedom to pursue your own interests, few if any insane work deadlines, a generally laid-back atmosphere, and pretty co-eds. However, my salaries were always terrible. It's hard to enjoy what you're doing when you're always struggling to pay the rent on your shitty rathole apartment.
Now I work as a java developer for a software company. I finally make a salary I can live comfortably on. I haven't been laid off (yet). There are more insane deadlines, but usually I don't have to work > 40 hours a week, and I still get to dress in a t-shirt & jeans. The ratio of jerks to nice people in the workplace didn't noticeably change. My job does nothing to make the world a better place, but neither did my academic jobs (much to my dismay). I get my biology/do-gooder fix by volunteering for the Nature Conservancy in my spare time. Overall, I'm glad I made the switch.
The funnest part of astronomy is spending a cold night outside with the telescope. Sure, playing with computers is fun, but not nearly as fun as playing outdoors. I may spend 50 hours a week coding, but I spend as much of the other 118 hours as possible outside - hiking, canoeing, stargazing, etc. Try it, you might like it.
Quite a few nasty diseases can be transferred from other species to humans. Rabies can be transmitted among a variety of mamalian species. The flu virus usually shows up in pigs and poultry before moving on to people. And most scientists believe AIDS was first transferred to humans from some other animal (ape? bat?).
I suspect that those who gave this book rave reviews never bothered trying to run the examples/source code which can be downloaded from the author's website. I haven't gotten any of them to run properly.
I used to work as a wildlife biologist for a few years, and I used a P[-D]A that worked fine under any temperatures and conditions, and never needed a battery change: a notebook with water-resistant paper stored in a plastic bag, and a lead pencil. It never let me down.
I'd love to send & receive all my e-mail encrypted, but sadly nost of my friends and family are too technologically challenged (hell, most of them are AOL users!) I've often tried convincing them to dump AOL, to no avail. Getting them to use encryption seems like an even more futile effort.
Before trying to make Mars habitable we should first make sure that we can keep Earth in decent shape.