Considering that besides being very addictive, it's also very deadly
Incorrect. The only thing that makes smoking deadly is the fact that it's addictive and smokers are therefore willing to work diligently at it until it does kill them. That it takes 30-plus years to kill you very clearly shows that its immediate effects are largely inconsequential. Smoking doesn't kill young people. It kills old people. After a long, hard struggle. Compare that to something which actually is deadly, like heroin.
Polarisation of the radio waves makes it harder for clients to connect to the AP that is sitting at a wierd angle.
The problem with polarization is that you can't say for sure which way the mobile antenna will be pointing, so you can't make any blanket pronouncements about what constitutes "ideal orientation" for all occasions. PCMCIA wireless adapters have the antenna horizontal. Many integrated laptop wireless cards mount the antenna vertical in the LCD housing. The worst polarization for vertical receiver is a horizontal transmitter, and vice-versa. Placing the base station antennas at 45 degree angles from horizontal, and 90 degrees relative to each other gives you the greatest possible coverage of potential polarities of mobile antennas. You're unlikely to exactly match the polarity of the mobile (best), but you're also unlikely to end up with them at 90 degrees to one another (worst).
The video card you chose on the Dell is not the same as video card you chose on the Mac. In spite of the names, the Mac version includes specialized hardware to run 3-D stereoscopic goggles with your video output. The Dell version does not include this. It is a specialty, niche add-on that seems to make the Dell similar in price to the Apple.
No, you're wrong. all FX 4500 cards have that 3D Goggle port. For all its dubious utility, it is part of the FX4500 spec.
Not to mention that you started out with a budget box to even get this close. Start with a real Dell pro machine and see how close you can get. It is not even a competition.
I don't understand your argument. Are you saying that the identically named internal parts you get are somehow different because the box they come in says "precision 490" on the outside? Or are you saying that because you can pay more from Dell for the same parts because of their byzantine array of product lines, that means that the lower priced box "doesn't count"?
What, are you kidding? You can use a joystick in place of a mouse, but why? Cameras are for capturing a 2D image of a 3D scene. Like you noted, the optics are designed specifically for it. Scanners are for capturing a digital version of a 2D paper image. Musing over whether today's new, heavier wrenches might be stout enough to drive nails is silly, as what you really need is a hammer.
A properly designed secure communications system would not operate at all if correct security procedures were not followed.
Yeah, and if one SINCGARS set gets mis-loaded with the wrong encryption keys, it should be rendered totally useless, with no means of transmitting in the clear, because following procedures by the book is more important than (say) a scout platoon being able to warn of a surprise attack from the flank. The entire battalion being destroyed is the only proper punishment when one jackass Spec-4 fucks up with a key transfer device.
the Brits confirmed McCarthy correct about 10 years ago. That's why the accusation of McCarthyism is used so raraly, no sting anymore.
But only to the informed, unfortunately. I'd say most of the screaming children here on slashdot still think Senator McCarthy was behind the silly Hollywood blacklisting nonsense stemming from the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. I can't tell you the number of people I run into with a strong opinion on McCarthy who don't even know that his concern was with potential communist spies within the US government.
Anyone know the key code? I'd lay money that it was a National "C415A". That is by far the number-one most common "off the shelf" key code when it comes to cheap wafer locks. If you come across a C415A key, hold on to it. You'll find it fits a LOT of locks. Everything from paper towel dispensers and alarm panels, to (well) voting machines, apparently.
Really though, this is nothing new. People always pull stupid shit like this with physical security. The local Union Bank branch I do work for (as a locksmith) has double locks on every teller drawer. One lock takes a key only the teller has and is different for each drawer, the other takes a key the manager has and fits all the drawers. Well, the "manager" key is another absurdly common key, the National "915". If they're expecting the manager lock to keep anyone out, they're sorely mistaken. I've told them, but they don't seem to care...
And, by avoiding that Citgo station, you're also avoiding sending the profits on that purchase right to good old "America Is Teh Evil, Iran Is Our Brother" Hugo Chavez.
You know, it really doesn't matter much which gas station you go to. They all buy their gasoline from each other's refineries. You think Shell trucks its gas down 400 miles from the San Francisco Bay area to its stations in Long Beach? No, they fill up their Shell tanker trucks at the Arco refinery down the street, just like everyone else. This is why boycotting gas stations based on the name on the sign is idiotic. Even disregarding the fact that you can't effectively boycott a product with inelastic demand, the owner of the station is just a franchisee of the name, which gives them access to the delivery service.
Sorry, you misspelled "oil prices".
Those two are entirely different matters at times.
Entirely different? Nonsense. Gasoline prices fluctuate somewhat with refinery issues, but for the most part they reflect the price of light sweet crude in the market.
I'm more shocked by the people who bitch about gas prices while chugging away on their third $4.00 cup of Starbucks that morning.
Elastic vs. inelastic demand. Starbuck's coffee is an expendable luxury item. One can always resort to a jar of Folgers*. When gas prices rise, one cannot simply choose to drive 5 miles to work each way instead of 10, and carpooling/mass transit are relevant only to commuters. In my case, for example, there is no suitable mass transit alternative to my work truck, as they will not let me haul a 200 pound transformer on the bus.
* Though why people think Starbuck's is good coffee is beyond me. Anyone who doesn't roast their own beans is drinking crap-water as far as I'm concerned.
The US economy went in the dumper in mid-2000, before the presidential election, after many years of high times. Now, there were a lot of factors in play, of course, but I have always felt that the markets were preparing for a Republican presidency. As soon as it became feasible for Bush to win that election, the markets started turning down.
Your "feelings" on the matter are ridiculous. The market doesn't particularly care who's in office. And even if it did, the seeds for the 2000 downturn were sown long before we even knew who would be running for president, much less who would win. the 2K market "adjustment" was the result of it becoming clear that the consuming public was not interested in buying 40 pounds of dogfood at a 5% discount over the internet if they had to pay $30 shipping; that people were not interested in browsing the web with an ad-riddled browszer for 50 cents an hour; that a business providing sports coverage over the internet for free with no ads is distinctly lacking a revenue stream. Personally, I saw it coming as far back as 1997, when my company started getting a lot of new clients with bushels of money, but no discernible business plan. What happened in 2000 is that it became clear the internet wasn't a Magic Money Machine, and the venture capital dried up leaving us with a shitload of out-of-work people and a surplus of Aeron chairs. And it's not just the dot-bomb loser companies that took it in the shorts. When they crapped out they left a lot of vendors high and dry. Even the company I work for, which was very wary and extremely careful about not extending too much credit to those guys, we still ended up with 20-odd thousand in uncollectable receivables. There were a lot of peripheral industries that took a big hit too.
Car companies do not yet know how to produce diesel cars that pass emission standards in all 50 states.
No, that's wrong. Building a clean burning diesel is actually fairly easy. The problem is that diesel fuel in the US is high in sulfur (though that will change in the next couple years). High sulfur fuel buggers the catalytic coverter in clean diesels. Europe mandated low-sulfur diesel years ago; that's why you only really see "clean" diesel vehicles from Euro manufacturers right now.
Never attribute to incompetence that which can be explained by self-interest.
Why? Stupidity is by far the strongest force in the universe. Self-interest doesn't even run a close second. You're asking us to believe that people are clever and capable of pulling off a conspiracy, and that flies in the face of most everyone's daily experience with the population at large.
That doesn't make any sense. The terms "far left" and "Democrat" are mutually exlusive. Democrats are typically centrist, many of them increasingly right-leaning.
That's largely a subjective thing. To your typical person who (for example) calls themselves a "progressive", the above seems plainly obvious: Democrats don't push for guaranteeing employment and housing for all, so they're not "far left", they're "centrist". Conversely, devoted proponents of the 2nd Amendment will tend to see the opposite: Democrats consistently push for more gun control, so they're clearly "far left". Substitute a pro-minimum wage, pro-gun control Republican, and the progressive will still call him a right-wing nutjob for his stance on taxes and the military, while the NRA guy will call him a wishy-washy Democrat-pandering centrist.
Really, it's all a load of crap anyway. In the end, the only guarantee is that the government will get bigger and more intrusive, while at the same time doing less useful work. Government that big isn't about us, it's about itself.
Pfff. Get over it. We assholes on slashdot hardly even merit penning the response itself, much less a proofreading for errors. This is a free-for-all open conversation that will effectively disappear in 24 hours, not a doctoral thesis.
Because manufacturers make less money if we have to buy fewer batteries.
In a related rant, that's paritally why we don't have more fuel efficient (or alternative to gasoline) cars now.
I've heard this argument in various forms for 30+ years, and it's as big a load of nonsense as it's ever been. Let's start with cars. How, exactly, does General Motors (or any other car maker) benefit by selling you a car that gets worse gas mileage? They are not in the oil business, and even the slightest hint of collusion with the oil industry in that regard would have the NHTSA crawling up their ass with a microscope. Hell, they're already up their ass with a microscope with CAFE regulations. On top of that, they have no vested interest in the fuel production industry to begin with. They make cars! If Chevron sells 20% more gasoline, they don't sell any more cars because of it. Think about it rationally: if Ford had found a way to make a regular car get 80mpg using some Magic Carburetor Technology (to reference the urban legend in its 70's form), they could make a killing in the marketplace. Why haven't they done that? Because the Magic Carburetor doesn't exist.
By the same token, the battery company that comes up with a product that delivers 3 times the amp-hours of similar competing battery will make a bloody fortune while all their competitors sit around undercutting each other on price trying to sell their crappy stuff to the lowest market segment.
Honestly, do you conspiracy nuts even think about what you're saying?
I agree that a mirror is a bad idea. Start over and appeal to experts from the start. While the amount of content would be dramatically less, the quality should be much higher.
The problem is, you can't attract an audience with a blank slate, and you'll never grow out of the "blank slate" depending upon volunteer experts alone. They tried that with Nupedia. Better to start with a huge database that's 90% correct and fix its errors than start with nothing.
What did they do when all those baseball players lied to them?
Seriously, there's one reason congress has become marginalized. What the fuck business do they have grilling baseball players about steroids, or gambling, or panty raids, or whatever else baseball players do? Next up, congressional hearings on whether the Guess Your Weight guy at the carnival is using a rigged scale. Fuck, man, I can't decide who's the bigger bunch of idiots: them, for stuff like that; or us, for electing those bozos.
Don't even get me started on Barbara Boxer. If you've ever heard her try to speak extemporaneously, you realize how much of her position speeches are scripted by policy wonks. When she was first elected she occasionally made off the cuff remarks about various governmental things and really illustrated what a dunce she is. Fortunately for her, her staff got her trained pretty quickly to not say anything they didn't coach her to say. I could almost swear the only reason she [got elected|gets re-elected] is because people think she was that smart, articulate lady who was mayor of San Francisco (Diane Feinstein, who is our other senator).
Social Security is just one basic, important system that Democrats can be trusted with, while Republicans will steal it, are stealing it.
Bullcrap. The Social Security "trust fund" has contained nothing but a big fat IOU from congress from the very beginning. Democrats have had a hand in "stealing" it just as much as Republicans. Claiming that Democrats can be "trusted with" it shows how little you understand the way the federal government handles deficit spending, and how long deficit spending has been going on. Face facts, man. They're all a bunch of bastards up there.
I guess it could be considered libel since by listing your address they are effectively making a claim that you are a spammer (assuming the claim is untrue of course).
Even then it'd be a tough row to hoe. A reasonable belief that the information is true is generally enough to escape libel. If Spamhaus can show that its belief that a certain subnet was home to spammers was reasonable and based on believable reports, it's not libel.
Is it just me or is anyone else disappointed by the fact that after the show, they go their own seperate ways?
Dear god, no. I find it comforting that Jamie gets to go home and get some peace and quiet, away from that nutcase Adam. I've known people like Adam. Entertaining, sure; but after a few hours, you really want them to go away and bug someone else for a while.
Also metal duct is sometimes lined with fiberglass on the inside. This increases thermal efficiency and reduces the transmission of noise. The "smoothness" is a property of metal and not a necessary property of an air duct. As a PhD engineer who knows fluid dynamics, I doubt the smoothness has a substantial positive affect compared to benefits gained from insulated duct. It certainly is not a required feature just as water still flows in rust-crudded pipe.
You're overthinking it. Metal ducting is always insulated on the outside, and the reason has nothing to do with airflow. Insulation inside ductwork would act like a combination sponge and lint brush, collecting water vapor and all manner of airborne particulate matter. Can you imagine what sort of crap would be growing in that insulation and what it would smell like? Not to mention the complaints you'd get of itchy, burning eyes and throats just from the breakaway fiberglass fragments from the insulation itself. No, the ducts are clean, galvanized metal inside, and if they need insulation, it's wrapped around the outside.
I don't know, maybe it's the fact that I've seen several home-school kids go to college a year or two before others the same age, who were intelligent and very bright socially... I think they do better as a whole. There are exceptions to the rule, but all the home schoolers I've ever met were exceptional people.
Indeed, the only creepazoid freaks I've seen come out of homeschooling were these two brothers down the street from me whose parents felt that school was "not christian enough", so they kept them at home and filled their heads with weird homebrew christian dogma. Even if these two had gone to public school, trust me, they would have still turned out double-extra creepy.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand your argument. Are you saying that the identically named internal parts you get are somehow different because the box they come in says "precision 490" on the outside? Or are you saying that because you can pay more from Dell for the same parts because of their byzantine array of product lines, that means that the lower priced box "doesn't count"?
Get a scanner
You've never been in the military, have you.
Anyone know the key code? I'd lay money that it was a National "C415A". That is by far the number-one most common "off the shelf" key code when it comes to cheap wafer locks. If you come across a C415A key, hold on to it. You'll find it fits a LOT of locks. Everything from paper towel dispensers and alarm panels, to (well) voting machines, apparently.
Really though, this is nothing new. People always pull stupid shit like this with physical security. The local Union Bank branch I do work for (as a locksmith) has double locks on every teller drawer. One lock takes a key only the teller has and is different for each drawer, the other takes a key the manager has and fits all the drawers. Well, the "manager" key is another absurdly common key, the National "915". If they're expecting the manager lock to keep anyone out, they're sorely mistaken. I've told them, but they don't seem to care...
* Though why people think Starbuck's is good coffee is beyond me. Anyone who doesn't roast their own beans is drinking crap-water as far as I'm concerned.
Really, it's all a load of crap anyway. In the end, the only guarantee is that the government will get bigger and more intrusive, while at the same time doing less useful work. Government that big isn't about us, it's about itself.
By the same token, the battery company that comes up with a product that delivers 3 times the amp-hours of similar competing battery will make a bloody fortune while all their competitors sit around undercutting each other on price trying to sell their crappy stuff to the lowest market segment.
Honestly, do you conspiracy nuts even think about what you're saying?
Don't even get me started on Barbara Boxer. If you've ever heard her try to speak extemporaneously, you realize how much of her position speeches are scripted by policy wonks. When she was first elected she occasionally made off the cuff remarks about various governmental things and really illustrated what a dunce she is. Fortunately for her, her staff got her trained pretty quickly to not say anything they didn't coach her to say. I could almost swear the only reason she [got elected|gets re-elected] is because people think she was that smart, articulate lady who was mayor of San Francisco (Diane Feinstein, who is our other senator).