How much do you pay for your daily sunlight, air and gravity?
I'm somewhat large, and so I actually get a rebate from my gravity bill.
No, dear fellow mom's basement dweller. All those sunlight units you never use, as well as the portion of air credits unused due to the stuffy atmosphere down there, are actually carried over to your gravity balance (after "administrative" debits, of course).
I bet Google is kicking itself that it sent out those camera-laden streetview cars, instead of publishing an augmented reality game that also could send location and direction-marked camera captures back to the server.
That's not to say that they don't have a finger in the pie with the company that published the game, or perhaps more indirectly via the Android platform.
Since I have already established that shotguns seem to work against drones, I'll next try if they can make pokemons go away - or at least pokemon go players...
And don't forget that the above sentences may be full of irony and satire.
After years of using Linux servers at work, even installing Cygwin at a stage, but otherwise being too lazy to "fix anything that ain't broken", I went for the gateway drug Linux Mint (because I think Win10 finally stepped over the "broken" threshold for me). It wasn't as painful as I feared, it gives a nice performance boost to many apps that run on both platforms (e.g. Eclipse and a JEE app server), and PlayOnLinux made running a couple of Win apps via Wine quite effortless.
Everybody goes on about the firstborn thing, but the arstechnica article subtitle says "Study says participants also agreed to allow data sharing with NSA and employers." and nobody bats an eye about that.
It's those HFCS, pesticide-laden, high-calorie french fries made from artificial chemical GMO potatoes from China that's killing off all the cancer and other diseased cells.
This must be a new low for/. submissions, when not even the submitter Reads The Fine Article...
The CNN articlenowhere mentions airplane deaths or parachute drops of pods.
What it does mention (in so many words) is that they want to do for air passengers and freight, what Intermodal shipping containers have done for surface freight (sea, rail, trucking) - and yes, with the possibility to extend air networks to other modes of transport e.g. road or rail, like what has happened for shipping containers. Read like that, it makes a lot more sense than the wild hand-waving of the summary and the other comments. Albeit probably not enough sense to make this a reality... I for one am not so sure that passengers would allow for the same sort of dynamics that freight does, once bundled into a bulking container of whatever name.
It also differs from the Airbus design in that the pods are not inside the aircraft, but attached to the aircraft. Less duplication of structural material than the Airbus design? Probably. But perhaps not as much as contemporary aircraft though.
As far as I can tell, these apps all require a user to have a telephone number (Subscriber Identity Module). This is then used to ensure a securely authenticated connection.
Good in theory.
However in practice, I get a new number every few years (by choice even if I could keep my old number when signing a new contract). After 5 years on my current number, I still get accounts, calls, and other material (via SMS or MMS) intended for the previous owner of the number.
Also, in my country, some banks use the same channel for online banking security, and as a consequence "SIM cloning" is a well-known scam employed to empty out accounts.
While it may be harder or less worthwhile to crack the SIM part of the authentication protocol, I am by no means convinced that it is foolproof.
(Conceding that YMMV, I have a fairly cheap (+-20 USD equivalent per month) cellphone contract that includes X minutes and Y SMSes a month, which carry over, and which I have never used up in a month. So I'm quite happy to SMS people or even call them back. Friends often complain that I'm not on $CHAT_APP, but I do have an e-mail address, and you can get a free e-mail clients for every conceivable platform without requiring your telephone number (or address book!) - which is better than these chat apps do. You also use the exact same data channel to send and receive. I don't always have my data connection activated, but when I do, I get your message the same, whether it is a chat or and e-mail. Plus, if you require encryption, that can also be added on to e-mail in various ways without the need for a central server to handle it, it could be done peer to peer. So I really don't get this chat app craze. Is it because it gives the power to grab someone's attention regardless of what he was doing, to now first answer your inane chatter? That's exactly why I disable the data except for certain times. If you want to save money on calls and SMSes, use good old ubiquitous, standardized and familiar e-mail, if you want to get hold of me quickly, just call or SMS as you did 5 years ago - the slight charge should serve as a (low) threshold just to ensure this is really that urgent, and that's exactly the point for me).
How many people do you know that use Facebook, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Asley Madison,... How many that buy lotto tickets or "may already be winners in the publisher's sweepstakes"? Nuff said.
This is one of the things to look out for when selling in my locale at least:
Seller wants to sell some not-too-cheap, but easily tradable item. E.g. mobile phone, TV, or even car. Buyer contacts him, sets up the payment (e.g. check deposit or EFT) and sends "proof of payment" to Seller (often, the Seller's bank will do this automatically, e.g. text message to mobile, or e-mail that a deposit was made). This often happens on a Friday afternoon. Then Buyer begs to take delivery of the goods "for emergency use on the weekend" or some other soppy story. Ignorant Seller agrees, because he has proof of payment. In the mean time, the check bounces while being processed (insufficient funds), the credit card gets cancelled by it's original owners somewhere in America or Japan, the EFT gets reversed (not sure how this is done, but it has been done), etc. etc. The Buyer now has some "free" goods to be sold by his fence for a net profit.
Basically theft, just they do not come into your house to see what you've got, since you advertise it for everyone to see. More or less with the same difficulties of fencing the loot, which may be difficult but not insurmountable.
I believe I once heard that people like Zuck, Gates, Jobs etc. don't let their kids have smartphones, tablets, social media accounts etc. or severely limit the usage of such (and television) to a very limited time each day. No citation, obviously, but it would be nice for someone with the inclination and time to try and find out how much of this statement is true.
Which would probably say much more than some jewish dude taping over his cam.
I'm one of those people that doesn't own a TV set. Never have since I left my parents' home. I do like reading, and watch the occasional movie (on my computer on disk, due to bandwidth limitations in my specific circumstances).
That said, when I visited a friend in the US last year with regular TV viewing, I found that the commercials were much more entertaining than the shows. The photography was beautiful, the sound clear, the acting actually sort-of believable, and best of all, that patronizing brain-numbing annoyance ran for a much shorter time. (And no, I didn't buy any of those advertised medications while over there.)
Why one would want less of that and more of the other is beyond me.
I've had some interest in an indigenous Southern African breed of chicken called Boschvelders. They have been from 3 indigenous varieties, which through natural selection have become adapted to a very rural environment. As a result, the resulting breed is reported to do exceptionally well in the local Souther African climate, is very hardy and resistant to illness, and can survive and even produce on no additional feed, only what is foraged in the sometimes less-than-ideal environment. The birds' temperament is reported to be quite human-friendly (tame), the eggs produced are highly prized, and the birds seem to be naturally resistant to predators (good evasion instincts).
The point that I want to get to is that even though these birds look excellent on paper, they are adapted to a certain environment. I have my doubts that they would necessarily do well in a cooler northern-hemisphere country with different climate, ground, food sources and where they probably will be confined to laying batteries... And vice versa: if some well-to-do charity goes and dumps thousands of birds that are the preferred commercial variety in the charity's country of origin (meaning probably an easy supply), they just might not do as well in a different climate and environment. Many of the traits that are desirable in a variety are inbred, from mothering instincts to laying capacity to size to growth and the pros and cons of various breeds are endlessly discussed. Now imagine a locally adapted breed being flooded with unadapted genetics... In the long run, selection may of course again run its course - but in the short run, this might just lead to some drastic and hopefully unintended disasters (or conceded, all might just run without problems and only with benefits).
Still: why presumably import chickens? Why not set up breeding facilities to increase the numbers of local varieties - on location?
Don't know about others, but I do not think amending textbooks (science, at least) is a bad thing. Being in school in 2017-2027 and reading something along the lines of "these planets where only discovered in 2016" would go a long way to get me interested in a STEM career.
Also, space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
Slashdot Mirror
How much do you pay for your daily sunlight, air and gravity?
I'm somewhat large, and so I actually get a rebate from my gravity bill.
No, dear fellow mom's basement dweller. All those sunlight units you never use, as well as the portion of air credits unused due to the stuffy atmosphere down there, are actually carried over to your gravity balance (after "administrative" debits, of course).
I bet Google is kicking itself that it sent out those camera-laden streetview cars, instead of publishing an augmented reality game that also could send location and direction-marked camera captures back to the server.
That's not to say that they don't have a finger in the pie with the company that published the game, or perhaps more indirectly via the Android platform.
Since I have already established that shotguns seem to work against drones, I'll next try if they can make pokemons go away - or at least pokemon go players...
And don't forget that the above sentences may be full of irony and satire.
After years of using Linux servers at work, even installing Cygwin at a stage, but otherwise being too lazy to "fix anything that ain't broken", I went for the gateway drug Linux Mint (because I think Win10 finally stepped over the "broken" threshold for me). It wasn't as painful as I feared, it gives a nice performance boost to many apps that run on both platforms (e.g. Eclipse and a JEE app server), and PlayOnLinux made running a couple of Win apps via Wine quite effortless.
Everybody goes on about the firstborn thing, but the arstechnica article subtitle says "Study says participants also agreed to allow data sharing with NSA and employers." and nobody bats an eye about that.
Google just trained 2 millions Indians.
I'd say they also need to train a few chiefs then...
You do need to have a heart before it can be broken. (A conscience will also help.) Just sayin'
It's those HFCS, pesticide-laden, high-calorie french fries made from artificial chemical GMO potatoes from China that's killing off all the cancer and other diseased cells.
Next up: the healthy cells.
OK, let's try to be serious again.
This must be a new low for /. submissions, when not even the submitter Reads The Fine Article...
The CNN article nowhere mentions airplane deaths or parachute drops of pods.
What it does mention (in so many words) is that they want to do for air passengers and freight, what Intermodal shipping containers have done for surface freight (sea, rail, trucking) - and yes, with the possibility to extend air networks to other modes of transport e.g. road or rail, like what has happened for shipping containers. Read like that, it makes a lot more sense than the wild hand-waving of the summary and the other comments. Albeit probably not enough sense to make this a reality... I for one am not so sure that passengers would allow for the same sort of dynamics that freight does, once bundled into a bulking container of whatever name.
It also differs from the Airbus design in that the pods are not inside the aircraft, but attached to the aircraft. Less duplication of structural material than the Airbus design? Probably. But perhaps not as much as contemporary aircraft though.
AC is OK when you need it (in car f.e.) but I do prefer other cooling methods if it can be achieved.
In the not-too-distant past, we used to wind down the car window in hot weather. Need more cooling? Depress accelerator further.
Yay!!!! Even more moronic "Your posts could become public tomorrow" reposts and Brexit whining. I can hardly contain my excitement.
As far as I can tell, these apps all require a user to have a telephone number (Subscriber Identity Module). This is then used to ensure a securely authenticated connection.
Good in theory.
However in practice, I get a new number every few years (by choice even if I could keep my old number when signing a new contract). After 5 years on my current number, I still get accounts, calls, and other material (via SMS or MMS) intended for the previous owner of the number.
Also, in my country, some banks use the same channel for online banking security, and as a consequence "SIM cloning" is a well-known scam employed to empty out accounts.
While it may be harder or less worthwhile to crack the SIM part of the authentication protocol, I am by no means convinced that it is foolproof.
(Conceding that YMMV, I have a fairly cheap (+-20 USD equivalent per month) cellphone contract that includes X minutes and Y SMSes a month, which carry over, and which I have never used up in a month. So I'm quite happy to SMS people or even call them back. Friends often complain that I'm not on $CHAT_APP, but I do have an e-mail address, and you can get a free e-mail clients for every conceivable platform without requiring your telephone number (or address book!) - which is better than these chat apps do. You also use the exact same data channel to send and receive. I don't always have my data connection activated, but when I do, I get your message the same, whether it is a chat or and e-mail. Plus, if you require encryption, that can also be added on to e-mail in various ways without the need for a central server to handle it, it could be done peer to peer.
So I really don't get this chat app craze. Is it because it gives the power to grab someone's attention regardless of what he was doing, to now first answer your inane chatter? That's exactly why I disable the data except for certain times. If you want to save money on calls and SMSes, use good old ubiquitous, standardized and familiar e-mail, if you want to get hold of me quickly, just call or SMS as you did 5 years ago - the slight charge should serve as a (low) threshold just to ensure this is really that urgent, and that's exactly the point for me).
... kiss your apple branded EVERYTHING goodbye.
Fixed that for you :-)
How many people do you know that use Facebook, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Asley Madison, ... How many that buy lotto tickets or "may already be winners in the publisher's sweepstakes"? Nuff said.
This is one of the things to look out for when selling in my locale at least:
Seller wants to sell some not-too-cheap, but easily tradable item. E.g. mobile phone, TV, or even car. Buyer contacts him, sets up the payment (e.g. check deposit or EFT) and sends "proof of payment" to Seller (often, the Seller's bank will do this automatically, e.g. text message to mobile, or e-mail that a deposit was made). This often happens on a Friday afternoon. Then Buyer begs to take delivery of the goods "for emergency use on the weekend" or some other soppy story. Ignorant Seller agrees, because he has proof of payment. In the mean time, the check bounces while being processed (insufficient funds), the credit card gets cancelled by it's original owners somewhere in America or Japan, the EFT gets reversed (not sure how this is done, but it has been done), etc. etc. The Buyer now has some "free" goods to be sold by his fence for a net profit.
Basically theft, just they do not come into your house to see what you've got, since you advertise it for everyone to see. More or less with the same difficulties of fencing the loot, which may be difficult but not insurmountable.
I believe I once heard that people like Zuck, Gates, Jobs etc. don't let their kids have smartphones, tablets, social media accounts etc. or severely limit the usage of such (and television) to a very limited time each day. No citation, obviously, but it would be nice for someone with the inclination and time to try and find out how much of this statement is true.
Which would probably say much more than some jewish dude taping over his cam.
I'm one of those people that doesn't own a TV set. Never have since I left my parents' home. I do like reading, and watch the occasional movie (on my computer on disk, due to bandwidth limitations in my specific circumstances).
That said, when I visited a friend in the US last year with regular TV viewing, I found that the commercials were much more entertaining than the shows. The photography was beautiful, the sound clear, the acting actually sort-of believable, and best of all, that patronizing brain-numbing annoyance ran for a much shorter time. (And no, I didn't buy any of those advertised medications while over there.)
Why one would want less of that and more of the other is beyond me.
Do as the article writer did, and call them "non-smart".
I've had some interest in an indigenous Southern African breed of chicken called Boschvelders. They have been from 3 indigenous varieties, which through natural selection have become adapted to a very rural environment. As a result, the resulting breed is reported to do exceptionally well in the local Souther African climate, is very hardy and resistant to illness, and can survive and even produce on no additional feed, only what is foraged in the sometimes less-than-ideal environment. The birds' temperament is reported to be quite human-friendly (tame), the eggs produced are highly prized, and the birds seem to be naturally resistant to predators (good evasion instincts).
The point that I want to get to is that even though these birds look excellent on paper, they are adapted to a certain environment. I have my doubts that they would necessarily do well in a cooler northern-hemisphere country with different climate, ground, food sources and where they probably will be confined to laying batteries... And vice versa: if some well-to-do charity goes and dumps thousands of birds that are the preferred commercial variety in the charity's country of origin (meaning probably an easy supply), they just might not do as well in a different climate and environment. Many of the traits that are desirable in a variety are inbred, from mothering instincts to laying capacity to size to growth and the pros and cons of various breeds are endlessly discussed. Now imagine a locally adapted breed being flooded with unadapted genetics... In the long run, selection may of course again run its course - but in the short run, this might just lead to some drastic and hopefully unintended disasters (or conceded, all might just run without problems and only with benefits).
Still: why presumably import chickens? Why not set up breeding facilities to increase the numbers of local varieties - on location?
I believe it was Under Siege 2, though. And the correct reply would be "never speak again".
Also, the movie that quote came from was so forgettable even I do not remember its name.
Don't know about others, but I do not think amending textbooks (science, at least) is a bad thing. Being in school in 2017-2027 and reading something along the lines of "these planets where only discovered in 2016" would go a long way to get me interested in a STEM career.
Problem with landing probes on the sun is it's a little hot.
Well, why can't they schedule the landing for nighttime when it doesn't shine?
(OK, old joke, I'll quit now.)
Also, space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
Hint: that's why it's called "space".
That is so.... HI TECH!!!!
So far, the best that South Africa could come up with is to graffiti the name of your favorite politician on the lower half of the STOP sign.
Obama's officials covering up their failures
That's assuming that it was not their aim in the first place...