I hope they don't judge interest using thier web server logs. 10 million people saying "If those were free I would play with one" doesn't make a customer base.
Allawi jokes that he's been on the payroll of six different intelligence agencies.
-B
Re:incorporate zahn's books
on
Star Wars TV Show
·
· Score: 4, Funny
The fact that the Zahn books exist make me so much madder about the new SW movies. There would have made excellent sequels. In episodes 4/5/6 the rebels fight the Empire and win. The books take place soon after that and involve the former rebels setting up a new government and defending against remnants of the Empire. Lando blew up the Death Star, but there are still a whole fleet of star destroyers out there. There's a very cool parallel involving Luke's growth from a kid with a disco haircut to Jedi master and the rebellion's growth from ragtag fighters to a galactic government.
I have a bad feeeling that Lucas is going to leave instructions in his will that nobody can make any more SW movies.
About the TV show: I imagine Kevin Smith sitting in a meeting going "I'll pay you a million dollars if you let me direct the show...no two million!"
I liked the explanation. These predators used the force to hunt prey. As an adapatation, the prey were able to become invisible to the force. Once you accept the whole "force" thing, it's a good plot device.
In high school, a friend of mine drove her grandma's old '80 Lincoln Town Car complete with 8-track player. I would buy 8-tracks at used bookstores for a quarter and give them to her.
CRTs do use more juice than LCD screens. But your home electricity usage is dominated by your air conditioning. Turning your thermostat down two degrees will save more eletricity than than any LCD could in 100 years.
Do an experiment. Turn everything in your house off and go find the electricity meter. Turn on each thing in your house individually and check the speed of the dial in the meter for each one. An electric dryer sucks down juice, but it's only in use a fraction of the ammount of time your A/C is.
They only brought up small samples from the Titanic because it's a historic wreck and a gravesite. If you attach a balloon and compressed air cylinder to an old nuke at the bottom of the ocean, it will come right up. There are several nukes in the Carribean, but the places we should be worried about are ex-Soviet naval scrapyards. Tons of Uranium could be stolen and nobody would even notice.
I switched to Firefox about two weeks ago and have been very happy with it. Every site I have visited looks identical to how it did in IE, except for Slashdot. On the home page, the menu on the left creeps about a quarter inch into the middle main section and overlaps. The same menus are fine on every other page. Firefox users, do you notice the same problem on the/. main page?
In many ways, my beliefs overlap the Libertarian Party platform. I am a big supporter of civil liberties and I feel those rights are being threatened.
Having just said that, I have never considered joining the Libertarian Party. My perception of Libertarians are that they are on odd mix of: 1) Urban people whose primary initiative is repealing drug laws. 2) Urban people whose primary initiative is fighting gun control laws. 3) Rural people whose primary intiative is changing property laws and taxes.
How do you respond to this perception? Do you feel there are seperate factions inside the party with different goals? How do you plan to get people like me into your party?
The good news for you guys is that if Kerry loses this election, I think a lot of self-identified Democrats (which I am not) are going to give up on the party. Come on. If a huge party like that can't find one guy who can beat an idiot like Bush, they don't deserve to be a major party.
The reason they are filing a lawsuit is because Diebold was apparently intentionally misleading in thier "aggressive" marketing of the product. Yes, the state should have done some independant verification of some things. The fact is that we have laws saying that you can't blatantly lie about your product.
That's a good point. Censorship, I believe by definition, is something that has to be done by a government or a large organization (like a church). If nobody buys your crappy book about aliens killing Kennedy, it's not being censored, just unappreciated.
So one of the Dixie Chicks made some short, and not very venemous comments, about Bush. The story would have died except for the fact that country radio stations repeatedly publicised the comments and aired tons of recorded phone calls trashing the Dixie Chicks as unpatriotic commies. Many of those stations are owned by Clear Channel, which is a huge supporter of the Bush administration.
IIRC, France is scaling back their nuclear power generation. The only countries I can think of with a serious commitment to nuclear power are France and Japan.
This is an incredibly smart move by China. They can clearly see the problems our dependence on foreign oil has caused. When oil hits $75/barrel in several years, Americans are going to look at China's cheap nuclear power facilities and say "Why didn't we think of that?".
My grandparents are elderly New York Jews and are thus required by law to own a condo in Florida. Their neighbors in Florida are mostly the same neighbors they have in New Rochelle. Having your FL absentee ballot sent to your NY address isn't the strangest thing in the world. The FL officials just need to send a list of all the NY address and names to the NY officials and say "are any of these people also registered in NY". If yes, then instead of an absentee ballot, they should be sent a nasty letter about how if they try that again, they will be brought up on charges.
I want Bush gone as much as anyone. But breaking the rules isn't the right way to acomplish that. After Kerry wins (which I think will happen by a suprising margin), I don't want the Republicans to have anything to bitch about.
Besides displaying search engine queries, this belt buckle also emits powerful female repellent rays. I doubt a girl would even get close enough to say "jesus christ that's the ugliest, geekiest thing I've ever seen."
I was in Israel a few years ago. I was in a market two days after it had been bombed and the place was full. They don't live in fear the way we do. Tons of random people carrying uzis isn't what makes them secure. By law, every public building has a security gaurd in front. That's a huge step from where we are now.
The post office is the best deal in the world. What else can you get for 40 cents? Neither Amtrak or the USPS is a government agency.
Or course we don't have enough data. That's why I made a joke about lead undies and didn't declare the world was ending. The little data we have indicates that the decrease in field strength is accelerating. 10% is a significant drop. This is something we need to keep an eye on and take seriously.
"Does the magnetic field being reversed actually affect anything important?"
It doesn't matter what direction the field points, what matters is that there is a magnetic field around the Earth. During the time it takes for the field to flip, the field becomes very weak. That causes two problems. Some animals use the magnetic field for navigation. More importantly, the field is a shield protecting us from cosmic high energy particles. According to a story in the NY Times (covered on/.), Earth's magnetic field has weakened 10-15% since we started measuring 150 years ago. Maybe our grandkids will have to wear lead undies.
My favorite sentance is: "NASA began developing scramjet engines in the late 1950s"
It's been 50 years with virtually no usefull results, but somehow they're sure that this will be in production within the next 6 years.
The only thing NASA has had any luck with recently is unmanned probes. Thier manned projects seem to all be of the "inspire schoolchildren" variety. The space station costs 10+ billion dollars and is being staffed by a basic maintenence crew that has no time for any scientific work (when's the last time you saw the ISS in the news).
As soon as NASA gets to work in the space elevator, I'll get excited.
I've worked with large volumes of demographic data. The names we use are almost useless on thier own. Name and DOB together are pretty good, but not great with very common surnames. Our SSN is our de facto unique ID number (which isn't actually unique, which is a problem). People get bent out of shape and yell "I am a human being, not a number". If you want any of your data to be right, you need to get used to being a number.
Two forces are going to collide. In the next 20 years, a population that's 30% obese is going to need massive ammounts of medical care. Having Diabetes costs a fortune. At the same time, health care costs are skyrocketing. Either something's going to give or the US will be spending basically all of its money on health care.
Slashdot Mirror
I hope they don't judge interest using thier web server logs. 10 million people saying "If those were free I would play with one" doesn't make a customer base.
-B
I propose a new corporate slogan.
Segway: Solving problems that don't exist since 2001.
Think they'll go for it?
-B
Allawi jokes that he's been on the payroll of six different intelligence agencies.
-B
The fact that the Zahn books exist make me so much madder about the new SW movies. There would have made excellent sequels. In episodes 4/5/6 the rebels fight the Empire and win. The books take place soon after that and involve the former rebels setting up a new government and defending against remnants of the Empire. Lando blew up the Death Star, but there are still a whole fleet of star destroyers out there. There's a very cool parallel involving Luke's growth from a kid with a disco haircut to Jedi master and the rebellion's growth from ragtag fighters to a galactic government.
I have a bad feeeling that Lucas is going to leave instructions in his will that nobody can make any more SW movies.
About the TV show: I imagine Kevin Smith sitting in a meeting going "I'll pay you a million dollars if you let me direct the show...no two million!"
-B
I liked the explanation. These predators used the force to hunt prey. As an adapatation, the prey were able to become invisible to the force. Once you accept the whole "force" thing, it's a good plot device.
-B
In high school, a friend of mine drove her grandma's old '80 Lincoln Town Car complete with 8-track player. I would buy 8-tracks at used bookstores for a quarter and give them to her.
-B
CRTs do use more juice than LCD screens. But your home electricity usage is dominated by your air conditioning. Turning your thermostat down two degrees will save more eletricity than than any LCD could in 100 years.
Do an experiment. Turn everything in your house off and go find the electricity meter. Turn on each thing in your house individually and check the speed of the dial in the meter for each one. An electric dryer sucks down juice, but it's only in use a fraction of the ammount of time your A/C is.
-B
They only brought up small samples from the Titanic because it's a historic wreck and a gravesite. If you attach a balloon and compressed air cylinder to an old nuke at the bottom of the ocean, it will come right up. There are several nukes in the Carribean, but the places we should be worried about are ex-Soviet naval scrapyards. Tons of Uranium could be stolen and nobody would even notice.
-B
You rock.
I switched to Firefox about two weeks ago and have been very happy with it. Every site I have visited looks identical to how it did in IE, except for Slashdot. On the home page, the menu on the left creeps about a quarter inch into the middle main section and overlaps. The same menus are fine on every other page. Firefox users, do you notice the same problem on the /. main page?
-B
In many ways, my beliefs overlap the Libertarian Party platform. I am a big supporter of civil liberties and I feel those rights are being threatened.
Having just said that, I have never considered joining the Libertarian Party. My perception of Libertarians are that they are on odd mix of:
1) Urban people whose primary initiative is repealing drug laws.
2) Urban people whose primary initiative is fighting gun control laws.
3) Rural people whose primary intiative is changing property laws and taxes.
How do you respond to this perception? Do you feel there are seperate factions inside the party with different goals? How do you plan to get people like me into your party?
The good news for you guys is that if Kerry loses this election, I think a lot of self-identified Democrats (which I am not) are going to give up on the party. Come on. If a huge party like that can't find one guy who can beat an idiot like Bush, they don't deserve to be a major party.
-B
That's no problem. I have a tachyon pulse generator on my Leatherman.
-B
The reason they are filing a lawsuit is because Diebold was apparently intentionally misleading in thier "aggressive" marketing of the product. Yes, the state should have done some independant verification of some things. The fact is that we have laws saying that you can't blatantly lie about your product.
To reply:
I've always used "guv'mint".
That's a good point. Censorship, I believe by definition, is something that has to be done by a government or a large organization (like a church). If nobody buys your crappy book about aliens killing Kennedy, it's not being censored, just unappreciated.
So one of the Dixie Chicks made some short, and not very venemous comments, about Bush. The story would have died except for the fact that country radio stations repeatedly publicised the comments and aired tons of recorded phone calls trashing the Dixie Chicks as unpatriotic commies. Many of those stations are owned by Clear Channel, which is a huge supporter of the Bush administration.
-B
IIRC, France is scaling back their nuclear power generation. The only countries I can think of with a serious commitment to nuclear power are France and Japan.
This is an incredibly smart move by China. They can clearly see the problems our dependence on foreign oil has caused. When oil hits $75/barrel in several years, Americans are going to look at China's cheap nuclear power facilities and say "Why didn't we think of that?".
-B
My grandparents are elderly New York Jews and are thus required by law to own a condo in Florida. Their neighbors in Florida are mostly the same neighbors they have in New Rochelle. Having your FL absentee ballot sent to your NY address isn't the strangest thing in the world. The FL officials just need to send a list of all the NY address and names to the NY officials and say "are any of these people also registered in NY". If yes, then instead of an absentee ballot, they should be sent a nasty letter about how if they try that again, they will be brought up on charges.
I want Bush gone as much as anyone. But breaking the rules isn't the right way to acomplish that. After Kerry wins (which I think will happen by a suprising margin), I don't want the Republicans to have anything to bitch about.
-B
Besides displaying search engine queries, this belt buckle also emits powerful female repellent rays. I doubt a girl would even get close enough to say "jesus christ that's the ugliest, geekiest thing I've ever seen."
-B
That bulb is a 4 Watt carbon filament bulb. It only generates anough light to be a nightlight. That's why GE doesn't produce them.
-B
In the south, tea is supposed to be cold and sweetened. I don't drink tea, but everyone else here drinks the hell out of it.
-B
I was in Israel a few years ago. I was in a market two days after it had been bombed and the place was full. They don't live in fear the way we do. Tons of random people carrying uzis isn't what makes them secure. By law, every public building has a security gaurd in front. That's a huge step from where we are now.
The post office is the best deal in the world. What else can you get for 40 cents? Neither Amtrak or the USPS is a government agency.
-B
Or course we don't have enough data. That's why I made a joke about lead undies and didn't declare the world was ending. The little data we have indicates that the decrease in field strength is accelerating. 10% is a significant drop. This is something we need to keep an eye on and take seriously.
-B
"Does the magnetic field being reversed actually affect anything important?"
/.), Earth's magnetic field has weakened 10-15% since we started measuring 150 years ago. Maybe our grandkids will have to wear lead undies.
It doesn't matter what direction the field points, what matters is that there is a magnetic field around the Earth. During the time it takes for the field to flip, the field becomes very weak. That causes two problems. Some animals use the magnetic field for navigation. More importantly, the field is a shield protecting us from cosmic high energy particles. According to a story in the NY Times (covered on
-B
My favorite sentance is: "NASA began developing scramjet engines in the late 1950s"
It's been 50 years with virtually no usefull results, but somehow they're sure that this will be in production within the next 6 years.
The only thing NASA has had any luck with recently is unmanned probes. Thier manned projects seem to all be of the "inspire schoolchildren" variety. The space station costs 10+ billion dollars and is being staffed by a basic maintenence crew that has no time for any scientific work (when's the last time you saw the ISS in the news).
As soon as NASA gets to work in the space elevator, I'll get excited.
-B
I've worked with large volumes of demographic data. The names we use are almost useless on thier own. Name and DOB together are pretty good, but not great with very common surnames. Our SSN is our de facto unique ID number (which isn't actually unique, which is a problem). People get bent out of shape and yell "I am a human being, not a number". If you want any of your data to be right, you need to get used to being a number.
-B
Two forces are going to collide. In the next 20 years, a population that's 30% obese is going to need massive ammounts of medical care. Having Diabetes costs a fortune. At the same time, health care costs are skyrocketing. Either something's going to give or the US will be spending basically all of its money on health care.
-B