Here's a better idea--just as we tax gross polluters for the privilege to dump their industrial/agricultural byproduct, how about we tax Microsoft for their product's pollution of the internet? They bought market share by pushing insecure OSes to the masses, and so far have gotten others to absorb the displaced cost of computer ownage and botnets. Seriously--there are billions spent every year on cleaning and reinstalling infected windows PCs, and the botnets cause major economic damage to the attacked parties. Microsoft should pick up the cost of cleaning up their mess--we could even do a cap and trade where non-polluting OS installs can sell their "pollution" quota back to Microsoft.
Yep. The Codex 2264 was the shit. Until the 3260 came along. Still, if my life depended on a modem working and dealing with crappy lines and marginally compliant other parties I'd go with the 2264.
'If the power grid was taken off line in the middle of winter and it caused people to suffer and die, that would galvanize the nation
So the enron-organized power embargo hitting california in the summer of 2001 is now being recognized as terrorism? The central valley and inland empire areas hit 100+ degrees most summer days. Wonder how many elderly died, or had their lifespans shortened due to heat stress during the rolling power outages.
You're bascially making the point that the Canadian system is better--it was the Canadian system that paid for everything except his out of pocket costs, and that they were low (as opposed to what they would have been with US employer-provided insurance) is due to Canadian copayer standards.
BTW, I somewhat agree with you--the best of both worlds is to be covered by Canada but be touristing in a wealthy part of the US when the emergency strikes--my dad had a similar experience.
Sorry dude, but I've lived significant portions of my life in Canada, Britain, and Italy, both as an adult and child: *it* *just* *works* *better*
You feel sick, you go to a doctor without worrying about "prior condition" exclusions resulting in termination of insurance or non-coverage. You get hurt, you go to a hospital, without worrying about your care being delayed while they shunt you over to someplace else because you don't have the right kind of (or maybe any) insurance, or discovering that your insurance has gotchas such as only paying for 2nd+days in hospital (all the expensive stuff happens on the first day).
Not happy with the universal health insurance? You can still go to a private practitioner and pay for it yourself. But, because you are negotiating up front, the costs are much lower than the US, and come without some kind of arcane billing system designed to confuse the end user. And the care providers don't want an insane billing system and are much more likely to give you a rollup all-in-one bill amount before you start.
Prepare for some extremely Democratic legislation. (In the party sense, not the democracy sense).
YEAH! Like universal health care, and an end to the 35% of health care expenditure that goes to parasite insurance companies! WOOT!
(Just for reference, the US is the only western country to tie health care to one's employer. It is a strange combination, that has many perverse effects such as separating the consumer from the one paying the health care bills, and turning the bill-payers into care-denial organizations. The macro effect is that we spend more of our GDP on health care than any other country in the world, yet our population dies sooner (about 3 years' shorter life span).)
This is almost as ironic as when Bobby Jindal (governor of Louisiana and one-time preznitial hopeful) mocked funds for volcano monitoring in the federal budget, and a week later an Alaskan (monitored) volcano blew up, with an orderly response since the eruption had been predicted for some time. Attention politicians: science is not negotiable. It's part of that reality thing not on your side.
Well, there is the engineering challenge of making the elevator "cable" material sufficiently flexible that it can run through a pulley. A better approach would be to form the "cable" into a giant circle, and rotate the circle like a giant ferris wheel. Sounds silly, but if we're going to postulate a 100km load-bearing cable elevator, a 314km cable circle is equally feasible.
Consulting firms have relatively low acquisition prices, typically about 1.5 times annual revenue. Unless the shares have a cash stream associated with them such as dividends, or excess earnings distributions, they're just wall paper. Even then, unvested shares don't pay dividends.
If your boss wants to offer you 10% of company earnings (paid quarterly) on top of your existing compensation, then that is something--but you don't need to fool around with stock to do that, unless the company is structured as some kind of partnership. But 10% ownership of a consulting operation, where its human capital would likely scatter post-acquisition, doesn't thrill me.
Just a thought, from a guy who used to work on gambling ("gaming") systems back in the 90s--your average 20-year-old slot machine is light years ahead of a current voting terminal, in terms of the independent multiple party audit capability, internal logging requirements, tamper detection, and ruggedness.
Me, I'll be demanding a paper ballot at my polling place.
Your open source software blocker is being paid off by the vendors. Maybe not in cash, might be just in dinners, trips to "conferences", or perhaps just in building his ego.
This is one of the barriers to OS software adoption that is not yet recognized.
The posting headline is misleading: the article author has written a book attempting to debunk global warming. This is not a scientific consensus, but one man pushing a contrary position. Check it out, and make your own evaluation:
Lawrence Solomon is author of a new book from the new Richard Vigilante Books. The book is The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud *And those who are too fearful to do so. And that about tells you everything you need to know. In The Deniers, Solomon focuses on profiling the scientists Al Gore conveniently doesn't engage. In the run-up to the hottest holiday of the year, Earth Day, he took questions from National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez.
So how much of this increased biomass is due to higher yielding farming techniques over the past 20 years? And how much of the higher farm yield is due to fertilizers from crude oil? (hint, in 1st world countries, you cannot profitably farm bulk crops without oil originated fertilzer)
"...is the fact that Windows Vista's newly-implemented security limitations are artificial at best, easy to code around, and only there to give the impression of security"
So that would make Vista's UAC the TSA of software security? (for the non-USians, TSA are the friendly folks who have us remove our shoes at airport security checkpoints, and require us to package all carryon liquids in 3 ounce containers in clear plastic baggies, among other acts of security theater)
Between the rambles, the cliches, the sudden topic changes, somewhat fractured grammar, the dubious attempts to apply American political stereotypes to Switzerland, this has got to be the worst summary I've ever seen on slashdot. Even Michael or Zonk on (hypothetically) quaaludes could have done better.
Microsoft is unlikely to be so interested in Yahoo for the search capability, though that's a nice side benefit. The real prizes are yahoo webmail and yahoo messenger. Combine those two with hotmail and MSN messenger and you have about 75% of all webmail traffic and about 2/3s of all IM traffic.
Fussing about the combined entity's search percentage is just noise--the real new killer market shares would be in webmail and IM.
Palo Alto & San Francisco. Purchases over past 18 months have been (4 occasions):
Ipod Nano
Macbookpro
2nd power supply
International power adapters
Don't get me wrong--I like the products, but each time in store I found myself wondering how a company with such focus on UI and user experience could tolerate such disfunctional point-of-sales systems.
If the Apple stores (real ones, like on the street) are any reference point, this point of sale system will be a piece of shit (thus finally unifying the POS acronym). I have never gotten through the register line in less than 10 minutes, even when there's only one person ahead of me. Then just try paying cash in an Apple store, and watch what happens--only one worker among them can do a cash transaction, and she's tied up on someone else's transactino.
My solution to accident-caused traffic backups features two components: A bulldozer, to get the wrecks off the road ASAP*, and a long portable canvas screen between the wreck and the travel lanes, so dumbass rubberneckers don't have anything to look at.
*willing to make exceptions for wrecks with people still in the cars
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a better idea--just as we tax gross polluters for the privilege to dump their industrial/agricultural byproduct, how about we tax Microsoft for their product's pollution of the internet? They bought market share by pushing insecure OSes to the masses, and so far have gotten others to absorb the displaced cost of computer ownage and botnets. Seriously--there are billions spent every year on cleaning and reinstalling infected windows PCs, and the botnets cause major economic damage to the attacked parties. Microsoft should pick up the cost of cleaning up their mess--we could even do a cap and trade where non-polluting OS installs can sell their "pollution" quota back to Microsoft.
Yeah, this'll happen.
Brilliant! You need to get yourself an agent.
Yep. The Codex 2264 was the shit. Until the 3260 came along. Still, if my life depended on a modem working and dealing with crappy lines and marginally compliant other parties I'd go with the 2264.
So the enron-organized power embargo hitting california in the summer of 2001 is now being recognized as terrorism? The central valley and inland empire areas hit 100+ degrees most summer days. Wonder how many elderly died, or had their lifespans shortened due to heat stress during the rolling power outages.
You're bascially making the point that the Canadian system is better--it was the Canadian system that paid for everything except his out of pocket costs, and that they were low (as opposed to what they would have been with US employer-provided insurance) is due to Canadian copayer standards.
BTW, I somewhat agree with you--the best of both worlds is to be covered by Canada but be touristing in a wealthy part of the US when the emergency strikes--my dad had a similar experience.
Sorry dude, but I've lived significant portions of my life in Canada, Britain, and Italy, both as an adult and child: *it* *just* *works* *better*
You feel sick, you go to a doctor without worrying about "prior condition" exclusions resulting in termination of insurance or non-coverage. You get hurt, you go to a hospital, without worrying about your care being delayed while they shunt you over to someplace else because you don't have the right kind of (or maybe any) insurance, or discovering that your insurance has gotchas such as only paying for 2nd+days in hospital (all the expensive stuff happens on the first day).
Not happy with the universal health insurance? You can still go to a private practitioner and pay for it yourself. But, because you are negotiating up front, the costs are much lower than the US, and come without some kind of arcane billing system designed to confuse the end user. And the care providers don't want an insane billing system and are much more likely to give you a rollup all-in-one bill amount before you start.
Prepare for some extremely Democratic legislation. (In the party sense, not the democracy sense).
YEAH! Like universal health care, and an end to the 35% of health care expenditure that goes to parasite insurance companies! WOOT!
(Just for reference, the US is the only western country to tie health care to one's employer. It is a strange combination, that has many perverse effects such as separating the consumer from the one paying the health care bills, and turning the bill-payers into care-denial organizations. The macro effect is that we spend more of our GDP on health care than any other country in the world, yet our population dies sooner (about 3 years' shorter life span).)
Depends, did the have a cheddite projector?
This is almost as ironic as when Bobby Jindal (governor of Louisiana and one-time preznitial hopeful) mocked funds for volcano monitoring in the federal budget, and a week later an Alaskan (monitored) volcano blew up, with an orderly response since the eruption had been predicted for some time. Attention politicians: science is not negotiable. It's part of that reality thing not on your side.
WTF? Mod parent down for gross stupidity.
Well, there is the engineering challenge of making the elevator "cable" material sufficiently flexible that it can run through a pulley. A better approach would be to form the "cable" into a giant circle, and rotate the circle like a giant ferris wheel. Sounds silly, but if we're going to postulate a 100km load-bearing cable elevator, a 314km cable circle is equally feasible.
Consulting firms have relatively low acquisition prices, typically about 1.5 times annual revenue. Unless the shares have a cash stream associated with them such as dividends, or excess earnings distributions, they're just wall paper. Even then, unvested shares don't pay dividends.
If your boss wants to offer you 10% of company earnings (paid quarterly) on top of your existing compensation, then that is something--but you don't need to fool around with stock to do that, unless the company is structured as some kind of partnership. But 10% ownership of a consulting operation, where its human capital would likely scatter post-acquisition, doesn't thrill me.
Just a thought, from a guy who used to work on gambling ("gaming") systems back in the 90s--your average 20-year-old slot machine is light years ahead of a current voting terminal, in terms of the independent multiple party audit capability, internal logging requirements, tamper detection, and ruggedness.
Me, I'll be demanding a paper ballot at my polling place.
Your open source software blocker is being paid off by the vendors. Maybe not in cash, might be just in dinners, trips to "conferences", or perhaps just in building his ego.
This is one of the barriers to OS software adoption that is not yet recognized.
The posting headline is misleading: the article author has written a book attempting to debunk global warming. This is not a scientific consensus, but one man pushing a contrary position. Check it out, and make your own evaluation:
The Deniers
Lawrence Solomon is author of a new book from the new Richard Vigilante Books. The book is The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud *And those who are too fearful to do so. And that about tells you everything you need to know. In The Deniers, Solomon focuses on profiling the scientists Al Gore conveniently doesn't engage. In the run-up to the hottest holiday of the year, Earth Day, he took questions from National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez.
So how much of this increased biomass is due to higher yielding farming techniques over the past 20 years? And how much of the higher farm yield is due to fertilizers from crude oil? (hint, in 1st world countries, you cannot profitably farm bulk crops without oil originated fertilzer)
"...is the fact that Windows Vista's newly-implemented security limitations are artificial at best, easy to code around, and only there to give the impression of security"
So that would make Vista's UAC the TSA of software security? (for the non-USians, TSA are the friendly folks who have us remove our shoes at airport security checkpoints, and require us to package all carryon liquids in 3 ounce containers in clear plastic baggies, among other acts of security theater)
Isn't 2000 people about the capacity of Golgafrinchan Ark Ship B?
Just saying...
I'm sure Hollywood today can do for Dune what they did for Beowulf, a rather great epic with a much simpler storyline. Feh.
Between the rambles, the cliches, the sudden topic changes, somewhat fractured grammar, the dubious attempts to apply American political stereotypes to Switzerland, this has got to be the worst summary I've ever seen on slashdot. Even Michael or Zonk on (hypothetically) quaaludes could have done better.
Microsoft is unlikely to be so interested in Yahoo for the search capability, though that's a nice side benefit. The real prizes are yahoo webmail and yahoo messenger. Combine those two with hotmail and MSN messenger and you have about 75% of all webmail traffic and about 2/3s of all IM traffic.
Fussing about the combined entity's search percentage is just noise--the real new killer market shares would be in webmail and IM.
Yes, they also offer you the convenience of emailing your receipt to you when you're standing at a register. The goal is to collect an email address.
Palo Alto & San Francisco. Purchases over past 18 months have been (4 occasions): Ipod Nano Macbookpro 2nd power supply International power adapters Don't get me wrong--I like the products, but each time in store I found myself wondering how a company with such focus on UI and user experience could tolerate such disfunctional point-of-sales systems.
If the Apple stores (real ones, like on the street) are any reference point, this point of sale system will be a piece of shit (thus finally unifying the POS acronym). I have never gotten through the register line in less than 10 minutes, even when there's only one person ahead of me. Then just try paying cash in an Apple store, and watch what happens--only one worker among them can do a cash transaction, and she's tied up on someone else's transactino.
My solution to accident-caused traffic backups features two components: A bulldozer, to get the wrecks off the road ASAP*, and a long portable canvas screen between the wreck and the travel lanes, so dumbass rubberneckers don't have anything to look at.
*willing to make exceptions for wrecks with people still in the cars