I'm not sure who you are addressing; that was my first post on the subject. The idea is the fairness of the tax - it should apply to every vehicle based on the wear it causes. There are many more cars than trucks, so each should bear a proportionate share.
However, I don't think that increasing the fairness of the tax justifies invasive measures such as GPS tracking.
I didn't believe what you said, so I searched for some facts. From what I see (here), it's actually the fourth power of axle load. It also correlates with speed - slower speeds cause more damage. So this might be the germ of a good idea, though probably hard to enforce and collect fairly.
A gas or diesel tax is relatively simple to measure and collect, and it correlates directly to one quantity that we wish to control - carbon emissions. However, wear and tear on roads is also a measurable expense, and an electric vehicle will cause as much as a gasoline vehicle of the same weight. So I think that there is a role for this sort of tax, if done correctly based on axle loading.
The best way to get a fada is to use the acute character entities from html. So á comes out as á. Similar for é (é), í (í), ó (ó), and ú (ú).
You can also use numeric character references, but that's not very portable. What works for Windows is wrong on a Mac, for instance.
Modern Irish would be "Oileaacute;n Rua"; "rua" is "red". "Ruaidh" is an archaic spelling, and ("oileaacute;n" being a masculine noun) would most likely signify the genitive case. So a better translation might be "Red's Island", where "Red" might be a nickname. Google returns mostly proper name results for "ruaidh", including "Cuan na Maoil Ruaidh" (Mulroy Bay), suggesting that "Roy Island" might more apt. This appears in at least one local guide:
Island Roy Oileán Ruaidh or Island Roy is a small island situated in Mulroy Bay. Unusually, it is located in a fjord-like bay and is far from the open sea. The island is situated three and a half miles from the village of Carrigart and Downings and the landscape has breathtaking views of Rossapenna’s sand-dunes, the surrounding Mulroy coastline and Donegal’s rambling hills. Island Roy is renowned for its excellent bird watching spots.
The pronunciation is probably more like "ill-aawn roy".
If you want some dollar coins, they are commonly dispensed in vending machines in the post office. After spending some time in Canada, I think that they work well - despite my initial surprise. It would be helpful to have a two dollar coin as well, one that is clearly distinguishable from the one dollar.
I have a few of them laying around - Monroe, Washington, and a couple of Madisons, as well as a few of the Sacagaweas, Eisenhowers, and Anthonys. I think that I'm going to start using them.
The original title of the first book is a bit more descriptive, but probably had to be sanitized for the US market. If you can, see the Swedish movie made from that book. It is very well done. Be warned, though - it is as brutal as the book. I don't have much hope for the Hollywood movie. Probably turn Blomkvist into some kind of James Bond figure.
It's too bad that Larsson is not alive to see this. His success is well-deserved.
I also learned about Conway's game of Life from Gardner's column. I coded it in Fortran for a Burroughs B-1700 (IIRC) in 1975.
I had much enjoyment from the Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American, and I was quite disappointed when they ended - though I came to enjoy Hofstader's work quite a bit as well.
According to the article, sea level has been rising by 0.2 inches per year. This would imply a rise of about two inches since 2000. Over the previous twenty years (back to the origin of the dispute over the island), the rise would have been about 2.4 inches, using the figures in the article. So the island, at its highest point would have been less than five inches above sea level.
According to the Wikipedia entry, the "highest elevation of the island had never exceeded two meters above sea level." Which would indicate that it was at least one meter above sea level at some point, meaning that the cited increases in sea level could not have accounted for the disappearance of the island. For the quoted rise in sea level over time, it would take about 330 years for the sea to rise one meter.
Yet "oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta" said "What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming." One would think that a university professor would have a slightly better grasp of the numbers than that. It helps nothing to make clearly false claims about the effects of climate change.
Not really. Professors work for the university, which sells a product to (in likely order of financial contribution, in the United States) parents of students, the American taxpayer, and the students themselves. The professors' work product is evaluated by the university - primarily by their peers, but typically with some input from students. The other source of money is contributions from alumni, which depend on their perception of the university's prestige, which may or may not be related to how well students learn.
I'm with the GP on this — if it disrupts class, then deal with that. Otherwise let it go. If a student wants to waste parental funds, that is between the student and the parents.
There are other professional groups that have insurance programs.
For instance, the ACM has insurance programs, though I don't know much about the cost or coverage. The IEEE has a similar set of programs, though it does not look like they have a straight health insurance offering. If you are going on your own, it might help to start a formal business - you might be able to get a small employer program.
You will spend a fair amount on medical care for kids, even if you just do the normal preventive care. The cost of a whole-family plan will reflect that. If I had a young family now, I would seriously consider a high-deductible plan. You pay for most of your own care, but the insurance is there in the event that you have major expenses.
Stanza (linked in the prior comment) is a good app. And free.
I also use the iDisk app with MobileMe, but that requires a $100/year subscription. I think that it's worth the cost, for this and other features, but others may not.
"Power corrupts...". The sentiment is not new; its consequences have been the subject of stories for literally thousands of years. The notion of someone struggling with the consequences of having gained power is certainly not new.
It is only in the last hundred years or so that science has been perceived as a source of such power. As far as such stories are concerned, it has no meaningful distinction from political power, religious power, an aristocratic title, or a gun. All are effectively neutral in and of themselves; the good or evil of their use is determined by the wielder. But we have a cultural perception of such things as tending towards evil. As science is perceived increasingly as a source of power, it will inevitably be seen as having an increased potential for evil.
Given that power is the ability to impose one's will on others, I think that this tendency is a good thing. It is somewhat ironic, though, that Hollywood is telling such a story.
One news source (here) has him continuing to tweet that the event was still on after the police and/or mall tried to shut it down. If that is the case (I can't speak for the reliability of that source, though it does seem a more plausible scenario), then the police were not acting improperly when they arrested him. They might have offered him the opportunity to tweet a cancellation to avoid arrest in that scenario.
The problem is that everyone seems to have seized on the "arrested for not tweeting" story, so no one appears to have actually checked the Twitter feeds and the timeline of what happened. It would be nice to have some actual facts about what happened, rather that "OMG! Arrested for not tweeting!"
Yes, quite true. Those numbers are pretty much divorced from reality. I'd guess an inverse relation between price and installed base, most likely, but that doesn't really give much to reason with. Too many uncertainties.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure who you are addressing; that was my first post on the subject. The idea is the fairness of the tax - it should apply to every vehicle based on the wear it causes. There are many more cars than trucks, so each should bear a proportionate share.
However, I don't think that increasing the fairness of the tax justifies invasive measures such as GPS tracking.
I didn't believe what you said, so I searched for some facts. From what I see (here), it's actually the fourth power of axle load. It also correlates with speed - slower speeds cause more damage. So this might be the germ of a good idea, though probably hard to enforce and collect fairly.
A gas or diesel tax is relatively simple to measure and collect, and it correlates directly to one quantity that we wish to control - carbon emissions. However, wear and tear on roads is also a measurable expense, and an electric vehicle will cause as much as a gasoline vehicle of the same weight. So I think that there is a role for this sort of tax, if done correctly based on axle loading.
Hmmmm, cuneiform...
Nope, didn't work.
Cyrillic...
That either. Bummer.
jvonk is right; this should be done in Unicode:
From the Latin-1 Supplement Character Code Chart.
Also, my take on the translation. "Rua" on Wiktionary.
The best way to get a fada is to use the acute character entities from html. So á comes out as á. Similar for é (é), í (í), ó (ó), and ú (ú).
You can also use numeric character references, but that's not very portable. What works for Windows is wrong on a Mac, for instance.
Oops. That should be "Oileán" - forgot the ampersand. And didn't look carefully enough at the preview.
Modern Irish would be "Oileaacute;n Rua"; "rua" is "red". "Ruaidh" is an archaic spelling, and ("oileaacute;n" being a masculine noun) would most likely signify the genitive case. So a better translation might be "Red's Island", where "Red" might be a nickname. Google returns mostly proper name results for "ruaidh", including "Cuan na Maoil Ruaidh" (Mulroy Bay), suggesting that "Roy Island" might more apt. This appears in at least one local guide:
The pronunciation is probably more like "ill-aawn roy".
(Interesting but unrelated: how Red Square got its name)
Then we run through all of the permutations and combinations, leading to the ultimate Internet meme: zombie pirate ninja robot ponies!
If you want some dollar coins, they are commonly dispensed in vending machines in the post office. After spending some time in Canada, I think that they work well - despite my initial surprise. It would be helpful to have a two dollar coin as well, one that is clearly distinguishable from the one dollar.
I have a few of them laying around - Monroe, Washington, and a couple of Madisons, as well as a few of the Sacagaweas, Eisenhowers, and Anthonys. I think that I'm going to start using them.
None of the books were published until after his death, and he apparently died without a will.
The original title of the first book is a bit more descriptive, but probably had to be sanitized for the US market. If you can, see the Swedish movie made from that book. It is very well done. Be warned, though - it is as brutal as the book. I don't have much hope for the Hollywood movie. Probably turn Blomkvist into some kind of James Bond figure.
It's too bad that Larsson is not alive to see this. His success is well-deserved.
One per inhabitant of the UK - every six days. I'd love to get one only every six days.
I also learned about Conway's game of Life from Gardner's column. I coded it in Fortran for a Burroughs B-1700 (IIRC) in 1975.
I had much enjoyment from the Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American, and I was quite disappointed when they ended - though I came to enjoy Hofstader's work quite a bit as well.
According to the article, sea level has been rising by 0.2 inches per year. This would imply a rise of about two inches since 2000. Over the previous twenty years (back to the origin of the dispute over the island), the rise would have been about 2.4 inches, using the figures in the article. So the island, at its highest point would have been less than five inches above sea level.
According to the Wikipedia entry, the "highest elevation of the island had never exceeded two meters above sea level." Which would indicate that it was at least one meter above sea level at some point, meaning that the cited increases in sea level could not have accounted for the disappearance of the island. For the quoted rise in sea level over time, it would take about 330 years for the sea to rise one meter.
Yet "oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta" said "What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming." One would think that a university professor would have a slightly better grasp of the numbers than that. It helps nothing to make clearly false claims about the effects of climate change.
Oops. Period for the radix point in those countries, not as a digit separator.
Not 95%. Not even close, with both China and India using the period.
Not really. Professors work for the university, which sells a product to (in likely order of financial contribution, in the United States) parents of students, the American taxpayer, and the students themselves. The professors' work product is evaluated by the university - primarily by their peers, but typically with some input from students. The other source of money is contributions from alumni, which depend on their perception of the university's prestige, which may or may not be related to how well students learn.
I'm with the GP on this — if it disrupts class, then deal with that. Otherwise let it go. If a student wants to waste parental funds, that is between the student and the parents.
There are other professional groups that have insurance programs.
For instance, the ACM has insurance programs, though I don't know much about the cost or coverage. The IEEE has a similar set of programs, though it does not look like they have a straight health insurance offering. If you are going on your own, it might help to start a formal business - you might be able to get a small employer program.
You will spend a fair amount on medical care for kids, even if you just do the normal preventive care. The cost of a whole-family plan will reflect that. If I had a young family now, I would seriously consider a high-deductible plan. You pay for most of your own care, but the insurance is there in the event that you have major expenses.
Stanza (linked in the prior comment) is a good app. And free.
I also use the iDisk app with MobileMe, but that requires a $100/year subscription. I think that it's worth the cost, for this and other features, but others may not.
A. A. Milne saw this coming. :-)
Here's a link to the actual paper (rather than the press release), for those who have a subscription to Nature or are willing to pay $32 to read it.
"Power corrupts...". The sentiment is not new; its consequences have been the subject of stories for literally thousands of years. The notion of someone struggling with the consequences of having gained power is certainly not new.
It is only in the last hundred years or so that science has been perceived as a source of such power. As far as such stories are concerned, it has no meaningful distinction from political power, religious power, an aristocratic title, or a gun. All are effectively neutral in and of themselves; the good or evil of their use is determined by the wielder. But we have a cultural perception of such things as tending towards evil. As science is perceived increasingly as a source of power, it will inevitably be seen as having an increased potential for evil.
Given that power is the ability to impose one's will on others, I think that this tendency is a good thing. It is somewhat ironic, though, that Hollywood is telling such a story.
One news source (here) has him continuing to tweet that the event was still on after the police and/or mall tried to shut it down. If that is the case (I can't speak for the reliability of that source, though it does seem a more plausible scenario), then the police were not acting improperly when they arrested him. They might have offered him the opportunity to tweet a cancellation to avoid arrest in that scenario.
The problem is that everyone seems to have seized on the "arrested for not tweeting" story, so no one appears to have actually checked the Twitter feeds and the timeline of what happened. It would be nice to have some actual facts about what happened, rather that "OMG! Arrested for not tweeting!"
Yes, quite true. Those numbers are pretty much divorced from reality. I'd guess an inverse relation between price and installed base, most likely, but that doesn't really give much to reason with. Too many uncertainties.