you have a good point. my wording may have been too polarized. i was simply trying to move the ethics issue up in awareness because it seems to be something that gets little or no attention.
and i unfortunately have to agree that ethics will likely not be the deciding factor.
as of September 26, 1997 the treaty remains in effect.
http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/factsheets/ mi ssdef/abm_mou.html
"The United States of America, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine, upon entry into force of this Memorandum, shall constitute the Parties to the Treaty."
it seems that you're advocating the breaking of this treaty. perhaps you could explain why you believe that is a wise course of action?
NASA is already concerned about orbiting space junk, most of it travelling at several thousand miles per hour. even a small screw becomes a satellite killer at those speeds. there are several programs already underway to create orbiting garbage collectors and nasa is currently tracking all orbiting junk above a certain size. sorry i can't site any references off the top of my head.
your calculations only consider the total volume but orbiting debris does not move syncronously, it moves in all directions and the criss crossing of orbital paths makes the problem significantly more complex than a simple volume calculation.
we still have orbital breathing room but that room is shrinking. the probability of a significant collision is great enough that NASA is taking preventative measures already. in short, the problem is a bit more pertinent than you make it out.
the usefulness, effectivness or feasability of a Missle Defense System isn't the issue. the first discussion that must occur is whether or not building a MD System is ethical. i believe the answer to that question is "No, it is not ethical."
first off, it is in violation of the Strategic Arms treaties that we not only signed but drafted. its a slap in the face to the rest of the world. "yeah, we signed the treaty and now that we have the upper hand, we're gonna break the treaty. whatcha gonna do about it?" that's a bullsh1t attitude and will only serve to further undermine our already waning national credibility. of course, the U.S. has a long history of violating treaties just ask the American Indians.
secondly, the Strategic Arms treaties were specifically designed to avoid an arms race and now we will be nullifying that effect by *initiating* a new arms race. don't we have better things to spend our money on?
"It's only intent was to defend against rogue states or terrorists."
terrorists won't use a missle. they'll bring their bomb in a briefcase or a truck, just like they did in the World Trade Center bombing.
secondly, the deterent to prevent countries from launching a small scale attack is our threat of a substantially larger retaliation. remember M.A.D.? now all of sudden, that's not good enough. we're in iminent danger of attack regardless of our retaliatory capabilities and we need a missle defense system in order to be safe? sorry, i don't buy that at all. the system is designed to protect against attacks which will never occur.
lastly, a Missle Defense system violates the Strategic Arms Treaties. this in itself is reason enough not to build one.
"It's as if the ability to conspicuously consume is the measure of individual status in America."
well said but it goes a little deeper. its not just a measure of status its a measure of a persons -intrinsic- worth.
on the issue of "personal environmental responsibilities". for the last 10 years whenever i leave work, i shutdown all of my workstations that aren't crunching data. for the ones that are crunching or serving, i turn off their monitors. i notice a few other people who also do this but there are many, many people who just leave their equipment on all night for no reason. to me this is like not only buying the giant SUV but leaving it running in the driveway all night, every night so you won't have to waste those precious 5 seconds starting it up in the morning.
i think its mostly an awareness issue. people are just so used to having cheap energy that they don't even realize when they are using it. they are also detached from the fact that electricty is mostly not clean energy. most people don't realize that when they turn on a light, somewhere there's a lump of coal burning and giving off noxious gases to provide that energy.
yes, you would think it was obvious right? but they had some rationalization that claimed that that particular blackout was caused by other factors and not by a power shortage. i may have saved some of those fliers maybe i'll dig around for them tonight if i have time.
yes, we should have started new plants a long time ago. even the proposed plant in South San Jose would not have arrived in time to help us now nevertheless the current situation clearly shows that some of the key arguments for opposing that plant were completely invalid.
i remember that quite well. more amazing than that is that Bart wasn't extended to the airports and around the whole bay 15 years ago. it just makes you wonder if the people making these arguments have ever even been on a freeway in this area.
its my understanding that some of the more upper class communities didn't want Bart coming through because it would bring in the "riff raff." yet another example of the upper class leverging their power in their own self interest and fscking shit up for the other 99% of the population. it seems the trickle down theory failed to take the self interest effect into account.
i'm not aware of any Ca. power utility that is declaring bankruptcy. So. Cal Edison has suggested that it's a possibility if an alternative isn't found but as far as i know its not happening yet. which utility co. were your referring to?
i do agree with you, that this abysmal situation affects more than just Ca.
"Cisco moved heaven and earth to make sure there was no ugly power plant near their sparkly new headquarters..."
i don't know who was behind this fiasco. i suppose it may have been Cisco, but i do know this, one of the reasons this power plant was cancelled was because the groups that opposed it claimed that there was... (get this) "no need for additional power in this area." can you believe that crap. i live near that area and received many flyers in my mailbox opposing this project. the power plant itself was a natural gas burning plant, one of the cleanest fossil fuels available.
i'm all for environmentalism but misinformed environmentalists like the ones who got this project cancelled are actually causing more harm than good. they are damaging the environment and their own cause.
Additionally... was this an intentional MS hack?
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there was some speculation that this failure may have been caused intentionally. as far as i know this is pure speculation. i believe it was a comment from an MS rep. in the CNN article i read.
that aside if it was a hack/crack then i think it deserves some attention. if massive ddos attacks are news then why wouldn't this be? again i know of no data that backs up this speculation but as others have pointed out, if this was an innocent mistake then it just shows how vulnerable the net is to large outages and still deserves some discussion.
me: waits patiently for the rolling Ca. blackouts to really do a number on the internet.
"You want power? Then you have to get dirty *just* *like* *everyone* *else*. TANSTAAFL, you know?"
sorry but you seem to be misinformed. clean nuclear energy technology has been in our back pockets for over 10 years. it was of course buried by your friendly republicans (pawns of the oil industry) in congress who were unwittingly helped along by misinformed environmentalists. "Integral Fast Reactor", look it up.
also natural gas supplies are not drying up. again this is just plain incorrect as are several other points you've tried to make.
you've made some good points but trying to lay the blame all on the Democrats and trying to demonize things by applying the evil "liberal" label to them negates your objectivity.
which was a good idea in my opinion. hold the ctrl key and click an icon in the Finder and you get a handy little menu. the only difference between Mac and Windows is that you can do the same thing in Windows with one hand whereas the Mac requires you to use both hands to get to the same menu.
i've been using Macs for 15 years and PCs for about 2. i now consider the scroll wheel indespensible.
it is silly to argue against such a useful and timesaving enhancement to the UI. not everything that comes from MS is automatically flawed and evil.
if apple doesn't support scroll wheels and multi button mice natively in OS X, then they are making a huge mistake, IMO. they will not be able to maintain their UI advantage if they ignore such useful innovations.
"each person has only as much freedom as he or she can personally enforce. Guns... are an effective means of doing so, which is EXACTLY why ownership thereof is specifically allowed in the Second Amendment"
this is not true and is a very disturbing train of reasoning.
the right to bear arms is only afforded to "a well regulated militia". "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed." that's the 2nd ammendment, in case you're unfamiliar with it and it seems that you are.
the 2nd ammendment is designed so that the state can balance its power against the federal government. it has nothing whatsoever to do with personal gun ownership and many supreme court rulings have upheld this.
there are 2 possibilities. a world with guns and a world without. i vote that we move towards the latter.
"They are to protect you from the police, the DoD, the CIA, etc... in short the freedom to bear arms was created as insurance against bad goverment. Its basically to help enable revolution more easily, should it be needed."
this is completely incorrect. your misconception seems to be a common one, however.
the right to bear arms is only afforded to "a well regulated militia". "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed."
the 2nd ammendment is designed so that the state can balance its power against the federal government. it has nothing whatsoever to do with personal gun ownership and many supreme court rulings have upheld this.
hmmm... DC in the early 80's. i saw NIN open up for Meat Beat Manifesto at a place called the 9:30 club. probably the only time i've been to DC. if you were there around that time, you had to have been to that club. i heard it was a pretty popular place for the freaks to gather at. i was a freak too i just didn't dress like one. "the good ole days" as i like to remember them.:)
I basically agree with what you are saying but i think you have overlooked something. Maybe you had good teachers and this other guy had bad teachers. I was also the star comp sci student in HS and had a very supportive teacher but i also saw teachers who did not treat their students fairly and in several cases i witnessed students who were ostracized outright by their teachers simply because they didn't "fit in" with the other students.
I don't want to turn this into a Jon Katzian discussion but this sort of thing unfortunately does go on. Many of these "unusual" kids are just not treated fairly. There are good teachers and bad teachers; good students and bad students. Sometimes a good student is treated poorly by a bad teacher.
I don't know if this is the case with the article but something smells fishy.
Thank you for your clear and diplomaticly worded response. I agree with your point of view.
Blaming the victim only adds insult to injury. Everyone makes mistakes but a mistake made out of ignorance is entirely different from an action born of malice. Both may result in injury to oneself or another but it is the intention of the party that differentiates the two.
the door was unlocked because the lock is broken and now its going to cost me $100 bucks to get a locksmith out here and i'll have to wait an hour for him to get here.
just leave it alone. if my battery goes dead enough times then i'll learn my lesson.
you are not entitled to screw around with with other peoples property just because you think you know whats best for them. feel free to voice your opinion but keep your hands off. thank you very much. i don't think that's an unreasonable request.
I agree the original statement was too extreme. Gaming is certainly not "the single most pervasive form of culture, in America". on this we agree. it is easlily eclipsed by tv culture, radio culture etc.
but deer hunting?! no. i believe your perspective is equally skewed. yes, its a popular sport mostly in rural areas, city folk usually don't do much hunting and women are rarely inclined to take an interest in this type of sport.
but thats a bit beside the point and i don't want to stray from the topic. i agree that Jon Katz seems to be lacking a bit of perspective in regards to gaming but i find his thoughts on the subject interesting none the less.
the technology was fully developed. the EBR-II reactor was built and operated. it met or exceeded all performance expectations.
the project was then cancelled.
this all happened about 10 years ago. the oil and other energy industries used propoganda and nuclear paranoia to get the project canned. at least that's the picture i got after doing a little research.
yes nuclear plants are more expensive to build however their power output is enormous. we could easily power the entire U.S. with nuclear energy for centuries using only Uranium mined in the U.S.
i think both Nader and the Green party are against nuclear power. i don't agree with their position on that and i disagree with some of their other positions as well.
i simply believed then as i do now that Nader was the best candidate and had far more integrity then any of the other candidates.
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problems with the masks were insurmountable. the project is currently dead. very, very dead.
you have a good point. my wording may have been too polarized. i was simply trying to move the ethics issue up in awareness because it seems to be something that gets little or no attention.
and i unfortunately have to agree that ethics will likely not be the deciding factor.
as of September 26, 1997 the treaty remains in effect.
/ mi ssdef/abm_mou.html
http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/factsheets
"The United States of America, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine, upon entry into force of this Memorandum, shall constitute the Parties to the Treaty."
it seems that you're advocating the breaking of this treaty. perhaps you could explain why you believe that is a wise course of action?
NASA is already concerned about orbiting space junk, most of it travelling at several thousand miles per hour. even a small screw becomes a satellite killer at those speeds. there are several programs already underway to create orbiting garbage collectors and nasa is currently tracking all orbiting junk above a certain size. sorry i can't site any references off the top of my head.
your calculations only consider the total volume but orbiting debris does not move syncronously, it moves in all directions and the criss crossing of orbital paths makes the problem significantly more complex than a simple volume calculation.
we still have orbital breathing room but that room is shrinking. the probability of a significant collision is great enough that NASA is taking preventative measures already. in short, the problem is a bit more pertinent than you make it out.
the usefulness, effectivness or feasability of a Missle Defense System isn't the issue. the first discussion that must occur is whether or not building a MD System is ethical. i believe the answer to that question is "No, it is not ethical."
first off, it is in violation of the Strategic Arms treaties that we not only signed but drafted. its a slap in the face to the rest of the world. "yeah, we signed the treaty and now that we have the upper hand, we're gonna break the treaty. whatcha gonna do about it?" that's a bullsh1t attitude and will only serve to further undermine our already waning national credibility. of course, the U.S. has a long history of violating treaties just ask the American Indians.
secondly, the Strategic Arms treaties were specifically designed to avoid an arms race and now we will be nullifying that effect by *initiating* a new arms race. don't we have better things to spend our money on?
"It's only intent was to defend against rogue states or terrorists."
terrorists won't use a missle. they'll bring their bomb in a briefcase or a truck, just like they did in the World Trade Center bombing.
secondly, the deterent to prevent countries from launching a small scale attack is our threat of a substantially larger retaliation. remember M.A.D.? now all of sudden, that's not good enough. we're in iminent danger of attack regardless of our retaliatory capabilities and we need a missle defense system in order to be safe? sorry, i don't buy that at all. the system is designed to protect against attacks which will never occur.
lastly, a Missle Defense system violates the Strategic Arms Treaties. this in itself is reason enough not to build one.
"It's as if the ability to conspicuously consume is the measure of individual status in America."
well said but it goes a little deeper. its not just a measure of status its a measure of a persons -intrinsic- worth.
on the issue of "personal environmental responsibilities". for the last 10 years whenever i leave work, i shutdown all of my workstations that aren't crunching data. for the ones that are crunching or serving, i turn off their monitors. i notice a few other people who also do this but there are many, many people who just leave their equipment on all night for no reason. to me this is like not only buying the giant SUV but leaving it running in the driveway all night, every night so you won't have to waste those precious 5 seconds starting it up in the morning.
i think its mostly an awareness issue. people are just so used to having cheap energy that they don't even realize when they are using it. they are also detached from the fact that electricty is mostly not clean energy. most people don't realize that when they turn on a light, somewhere there's a lump of coal burning and giving off noxious gases to provide that energy.
yes, you would think it was obvious right? but they had some rationalization that claimed that that particular blackout was caused by other factors and not by a power shortage. i may have saved some of those fliers maybe i'll dig around for them tonight if i have time.
yes, we should have started new plants a long time ago. even the proposed plant in South San Jose would not have arrived in time to help us now nevertheless the current situation clearly shows that some of the key arguments for opposing that plant were completely invalid.
i remember that quite well. more amazing than that is that Bart wasn't extended to the airports and around the whole bay 15 years ago. it just makes you wonder if the people making these arguments have ever even been on a freeway in this area.
its my understanding that some of the more upper class communities didn't want Bart coming through because it would bring in the "riff raff." yet another example of the upper class leverging their power in their own self interest and fscking shit up for the other 99% of the population. it seems the trickle down theory failed to take the self interest effect into account.
i'm not aware of any Ca. power utility that is declaring bankruptcy. So. Cal Edison has suggested that it's a possibility if an alternative isn't found but as far as i know its not happening yet. which utility co. were your referring to?
i do agree with you, that this abysmal situation affects more than just Ca.
"Cisco moved heaven and earth to make sure there was no ugly power plant near their sparkly new headquarters..."
i don't know who was behind this fiasco. i suppose it may have been Cisco, but i do know this, one of the reasons this power plant was cancelled was because the groups that opposed it claimed that there was... (get this) "no need for additional power in this area." can you believe that crap. i live near that area and received many flyers in my mailbox opposing this project. the power plant itself was a natural gas burning plant, one of the cleanest fossil fuels available.
i'm all for environmentalism but misinformed environmentalists like the ones who got this project cancelled are actually causing more harm than good. they are damaging the environment and their own cause.
there was some speculation that this failure may have been caused intentionally. as far as i know this is pure speculation. i believe it was a comment from an MS rep. in the CNN article i read.
that aside if it was a hack/crack then i think it deserves some attention. if massive ddos attacks are news then why wouldn't this be? again i know of no data that backs up this speculation but as others have pointed out, if this was an innocent mistake then it just shows how vulnerable the net is to large outages and still deserves some discussion.
me: waits patiently for the rolling Ca. blackouts to really do a number on the internet.
"You want power? Then you have to get dirty *just* *like* *everyone* *else*. TANSTAAFL, you know?"
sorry but you seem to be misinformed. clean nuclear energy technology has been in our back pockets for over 10 years. it was of course buried by your friendly republicans (pawns of the oil industry) in congress who were unwittingly helped along by misinformed environmentalists. "Integral Fast Reactor", look it up.
also natural gas supplies are not drying up. again this is just plain incorrect as are several other points you've tried to make.
you've made some good points but trying to lay the blame all on the Democrats and trying to demonize things by applying the evil "liberal" label to them negates your objectivity.
which was a good idea in my opinion. hold the ctrl key and click an icon in the Finder and you get a handy little menu. the only difference between Mac and Windows is that you can do the same thing in Windows with one hand whereas the Mac requires you to use both hands to get to the same menu.
i've been using Macs for 15 years and PCs for about 2. i now consider the scroll wheel indespensible.
it is silly to argue against such a useful and timesaving enhancement to the UI. not everything that comes from MS is automatically flawed and evil.
if apple doesn't support scroll wheels and multi button mice natively in OS X, then they are making a huge mistake, IMO. they will not be able to maintain their UI advantage if they ignore such useful innovations.
"each person has only as much freedom as he or she can personally enforce. Guns ... are an effective means of doing so, which is EXACTLY why ownership thereof is specifically allowed in the Second Amendment"
this is not true and is a very disturbing train of reasoning.
the right to bear arms is only afforded to "a well regulated militia". "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed." that's the 2nd ammendment, in case you're unfamiliar with it and it seems that you are.
the 2nd ammendment is designed so that the state can balance its power against the federal government. it has nothing whatsoever to do with personal gun ownership and many supreme court rulings have upheld this.
there are 2 possibilities. a world with guns and a world without. i vote that we move towards the latter.
"They are to protect you from the police, the DoD, the CIA, etc... in short the freedom to bear arms was created as insurance against bad goverment. Its basically to help enable revolution more easily, should it be needed."
this is completely incorrect. your misconception seems to be a common one, however.
the right to bear arms is only afforded to "a well regulated militia". "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed."
the 2nd ammendment is designed so that the state can balance its power against the federal government. it has nothing whatsoever to do with personal gun ownership and many supreme court rulings have upheld this.
hmmm... DC in the early 80's. i saw NIN open up for Meat Beat Manifesto at a place called the 9:30 club. probably the only time i've been to DC. if you were there around that time, you had to have been to that club. i heard it was a pretty popular place for the freaks to gather at. i was a freak too i just didn't dress like one. "the good ole days" as i like to remember them. :)
I basically agree with what you are saying but i think you have overlooked something. Maybe you had good teachers and this other guy had bad teachers. I was also the star comp sci student in HS and had a very supportive teacher but i also saw teachers who did not treat their students fairly and in several cases i witnessed students who were ostracized outright by their teachers simply because they didn't "fit in" with the other students.
I don't want to turn this into a Jon Katzian discussion but this sort of thing unfortunately does go on. Many of these "unusual" kids are just not treated fairly. There are good teachers and bad teachers; good students and bad students. Sometimes a good student is treated poorly by a bad teacher.
I don't know if this is the case with the article but something smells fishy.
Thank you for your clear and diplomaticly worded response. I agree with your point of view.
Blaming the victim only adds insult to injury. Everyone makes mistakes but a mistake made out of ignorance is entirely different from an action born of malice. Both may result in injury to oneself or another but it is the intention of the party that differentiates the two.
the door was unlocked because the lock is broken and now its going to cost me $100 bucks to get a locksmith out here and i'll have to wait an hour for him to get here.
just leave it alone. if my battery goes dead enough times then i'll learn my lesson.
you are not entitled to screw around with with other peoples property just because you think you know whats best for them. feel free to voice your opinion but keep your hands off. thank you very much. i don't think that's an unreasonable request.
I agree the original statement was too extreme. Gaming is certainly not "the single most pervasive form of culture, in America". on this we agree. it is easlily eclipsed by tv culture, radio culture etc.
but deer hunting?! no. i believe your perspective is equally skewed. yes, its a popular sport mostly in rural areas, city folk usually don't do much hunting and women are rarely inclined to take an interest in this type of sport.
but thats a bit beside the point and i don't want to stray from the topic. i agree that Jon Katz seems to be lacking a bit of perspective in regards to gaming but i find his thoughts on the subject interesting none the less.
everything is an object in Java too. or am i missing something? secondly, Java is much more widely used than smalltalk.
IMO, Java is an excellent choice of language for academics.
the technology was fully developed. the EBR-II reactor was built and operated. it met or exceeded all performance expectations.
the project was then cancelled.
this all happened about 10 years ago. the oil and other energy industries used propoganda and nuclear paranoia to get the project canned. at least that's the picture i got after doing a little research.
yes nuclear plants are more expensive to build however their power output is enormous. we could easily power the entire U.S. with nuclear energy for centuries using only Uranium mined in the U.S.
i think both Nader and the Green party are against nuclear power. i don't agree with their position on that and i disagree with some of their other positions as well.
i simply believed then as i do now that Nader was the best candidate and had far more integrity then any of the other candidates.