I can understand that everyone is mad as hell from the Charle Hebdo thing, and that the boundaries between free speech, as opposed to incitement and hate speech, are shifting.
Those boundaries need to be well understood, and set in stone.
That said, the sneaky efforts of religious people, especially Muslims and Catholics, to ban rude words against their beliefs, and paint themselves as victims, must be opposed. I don't know if people appreciate how sneaky and sophisticated, pro-Muslim propaganda actually is; Muslim groups and Islamic countries have paid PR outfits in the United States a lot of money to find ways to turn criticism of radical Islam into a thought crime. The Muslim Brotherhood, for instance, commissioned a PR shop, to invent the term "Islamophobia", to attack feminists. Accusation of "Islamophobia" has proven to be a powerful weapon for Islamic triumpalists and cultural imperialists.
... as in "free of charge at the point of access". Like the NHS in England. It's "free" in the sense that you pay for it through National Insurance, but don't get raped to death financially if something bad happens to you.
Nothing is ever truly free, but its a start -- and not too bad, if you see social charges as payments for services rendered, as opposed to a "tax".
The space program costs fuck-all compared to the ridiculous amounts of money conservatives spend bribing old people with freebies, and handouts to the bloated military.
...at the breathtaking, towering arrogance of people who presume to have a say on how to raise SOMEBODY ELSE'S kids.
I don't smack or condone it (speaking as somebody who came from a deprived background and got smacked a lot -- results were lackluster at best). But some cultures make use of a lot of it, e.g. people from Africa, who in my observation, are very strict/religious, and run very tight ships at home. So the cultural Marxists are effectively criminalizing entire cultures, as well as the lower (white) economic strata, who must fall back to corporal punishment, because they don't have the social/cultural capital to do fancy stuff like timeouts or whatever.
Just because these clueless, sandal-wearing, muesli-munching wankers have the education and intelligence to put little Hugo and Tarquin into timeout, doesn't mean that everyone else is able to.
So now we have stuff like smacking bans -- in half of Europe, child rearing methods are literally enshrined in law. It's fucking insane.
Islam is merely a lens for losers to focus their rage through. The fact this is "terrorism" is only marginally relevant.
There will always be losers with a chip on their shoulder. There will always be people who are of below-average intelligence, or with poor judgement or impulse control, who will pull stuff like this. What makes Islam so incredibly dangerous, is that it allows this sub-human scum to wield their hate and anger like a weapon against other people.
With luck, this worthless drug-fucked piece of crap will be a piece of medial waste lying in a morgue somewhere. I shall not shed a single tear for him.
I struggle with exactly the same thing. OTOH, the real superstar developers I've seen, can instantly achieve cast-iron concentration and focus. So it matters.
I figure that it ultimately boils down to practising impulse control, and trying to avoid distractions. Surfing the web is like a string of thirty-second activity-reward cycles: open a Web page, read it, *boom* dopamine hit.
I have two strategies I use: firstly, I try and maintain my awareness of 'flow' at work, and the little things that break it. Secondly, I go out of my way to find things to do which require achieving and holding focus (but don't overdo it).
Firstly, I find that when I'm working (cutting code), things like slow compiles break my flow, because it's easy to hit Alt-Tab and start surfing shit (until I catch myself, and get back on task). So I find little ways to maintain flow; staying off email, staying off Facebook, staying off Reddit, etc etc. Ringing my terminal when compiles finish, so I can get back on track more easily.
Secondly, I go out of my way to spend my off-hours doing things that require focus, and don't involve a computer. I'm working on a maths degree, as well as teaching myself a musical instrument, and when I establish 'flow' on either activity, I know I'm benefiting. Just the mere act of practising 'establishing flow', has yielded improvements.
I know I've had a good day, when I get home, and I'm too tired to do anything else. Focus is like a muscle; initially it is weak, and needs training up, but with exercise, it gets stronger and stronger.
Deep-space power systems to run big space probes like Galileo and Cassini are nuclear powered, but use incredibly inefficient RTG... which are only 1-2% efficient.
Somebody (US Department of Energy) was looking to boost this by using a plutonium heat source to drive a Sterling engine coupled to a generator. The problem with this arrangement is that moving parts wear out.
It just so happens that deep space is very cold...
If we can't even manage to do the easy things, like limiting human population growth, re-wilding, going after polluters and corporate liability-dumpers, switching away from fossil fuels, etc etc etc, what chance are we gonna have to to do **HARD** stuff, like modifying the weather??
Geoengineering, like CCS, is bullshit trotted out by pro-business 'conservatives' to claim that even if climate change *IS* humanity's fault, then we have an excuse to do nothing, because our grandkids will take care of the problem.
I wouldn't expect anything less from greedy, clueless, Me-generation conservatives, to be honest.
If the Russians want to ditch their share of the Station, why not invite the Chinese to come and take over the Russian segment, hand them all the technology, give them manned spaceflight experience, and then build an ISS2, partnering with the Chinese. Putin+cronies will be cured of their delusions soon enough...
The future belongs to rising countries like China, not with decaying has-beens like Putin's Russia.
So much for the idea of "making hay while the sun shines"/s
Perhaps all the morons buying hummers and F-150s need reminding that the people selling us all this cheap oil are NOT our friends, and are sure as hell not doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. The Saudis are bottoming-out the price of oil to punish marginal north American oil producers, and the Russians, not because they want to give Joe Sixpack a break.
I'd like to see us putting in punishingly-high tariffs in place against Muslim and Russian oil. More tax revenue to tackle deficits, pressure people to switch to alternatives, help shale oil producers, AND punish our enemies. Win-win-win-win situation.
As an anti-libertarian, I'll have a bob each way by saying that while we must accept that after September 11, "business as usual" isn't going to fly (if you'll pardon the pun), this is a pretty poor start from a man who ought to know better.
Absolute privacy ain't gonna happen in this day and age, but Mr Hannigan needs to make it clear they will be held thoroughly accountable by the people they're meant to be serving. To do otherwise would shred any remaining legitimacy they have.
Redistribution makes sense, up to a point. Most countries in the OECD do better than the US on most important measures on quality of life, and do it far more efficiently. Probably because there is a pragmatic understanding around the world that there are times where open markets make most sense, and there are times when markets don't make sense -- and some kind of redistribution is required. For instance, the British healthcare system shits all over the American system in every conceivable way (except for really, really high-end, experimental stuff -- and I'm sure I could get it in Harley Street anyway).
I blame the American tendency towards a blinkered belief that markets can never, ever fail, and that government, as a manifestation of the collective will of the people, can never do anything right -- an extremist POV everywhere else.
The R7 was a straightforward extrapolation of the V-2. They had to change the fuel to synthetic kero, because the drunkard operators kept getting blind drunk on the rocket fuel.
Concur. The notion that the US always loses wars is bullshit. Typically they achieve their military objectives in days, if not hours. And the casulties they take while doing so, are unbelievably low by historical standards. There is simply no comparison. If the Americans want to smash you, you're toast, no matter who you are.
Where these things are lost, is where politics gets involved: the utter catastrophe of the occupation in Iraq was brought to us by the utterly useless, moron American Right (mostly followers of Leo Strauss, who are criminally stupid, yet fancy themselves as philosopher-kings) and its lackeys, namely, Paul Bremer (who should be stabbed in the head because of his sheer stupidity -- EVERYTHING that right-wingers touched in Iraq turned to shit.)
Given the terrible leadership we see in the West these days, it's nothing compared to the joke the Russians must endure now. Everyone thinks that Putin is some kind of insane strategic genius and that he's playing chess while us stupid imperialists are playing checkers. See the state of their economy to decide for yourself whether or not this is actually true. At least when our moron leaders screw up, we can blame ourselves for electing them. The Russians, with their laughable Potemkin democracy, don't even get that.
It's just that Russia are eating Western dust, and have been doing so for ages. They've probably cobbled together a total POS and launched it, just to show the world they can 'compete' in high-tech with the likes of the (extraordinarily capable) X-37b.
Putin is just being a dickhead, and in this case, wasting money showboating. Just a high-tech analog of the usual publicity stunt of getting topless and blasting small furry animals. Nothing new there.
Slashdot Mirror
And as we saw with Enron, and as we're seeing with Uber -- the fish rots from the head.
The guys running Uber must be the biggest douches walking the face of the Earth...
I can understand that everyone is mad as hell from the Charle Hebdo thing, and that the boundaries between free speech, as opposed to incitement and hate speech, are shifting.
Those boundaries need to be well understood, and set in stone.
That said, the sneaky efforts of religious people, especially Muslims and Catholics, to ban rude words against their beliefs, and paint themselves as victims, must be opposed. I don't know if people appreciate how sneaky and sophisticated, pro-Muslim propaganda actually is; Muslim groups and Islamic countries have paid PR outfits in the United States a lot of money to find ways to turn criticism of radical Islam into a thought crime. The Muslim Brotherhood, for instance, commissioned a PR shop, to invent the term "Islamophobia", to attack feminists. Accusation of "Islamophobia" has proven to be a powerful weapon for Islamic triumpalists and cultural imperialists.
... as in "free of charge at the point of access". Like the NHS in England. It's "free" in the sense that you pay for it through National Insurance, but don't get raped to death financially if something bad happens to you.
Nothing is ever truly free, but its a start -- and not too bad, if you see social charges as payments for services rendered, as opposed to a "tax".
The space program costs fuck-all compared to the ridiculous amounts of money conservatives spend bribing old people with freebies, and handouts to the bloated military.
There's a sucker born every minute.
The cold fusion scam rolls on.
...at the breathtaking, towering arrogance of people who presume to have a say on how to raise SOMEBODY ELSE'S kids.
I don't smack or condone it (speaking as somebody who came from a deprived background and got smacked a lot -- results were lackluster at best). But some cultures make use of a lot of it, e.g. people from Africa, who in my observation, are very strict/religious, and run very tight ships at home. So the cultural Marxists are effectively criminalizing entire cultures, as well as the lower (white) economic strata, who must fall back to corporal punishment, because they don't have the social/cultural capital to do fancy stuff like timeouts or whatever.
Just because these clueless, sandal-wearing, muesli-munching wankers have the education and intelligence to put little Hugo and Tarquin into timeout, doesn't mean that everyone else is able to.
So now we have stuff like smacking bans -- in half of Europe, child rearing methods are literally enshrined in law. It's fucking insane.
Islam is merely a lens for losers to focus their rage through. The fact this is "terrorism" is only marginally relevant.
There will always be losers with a chip on their shoulder. There will always be people who are of below-average intelligence, or with poor judgement or impulse control, who will pull stuff like this. What makes Islam so incredibly dangerous, is that it allows this sub-human scum to wield their hate and anger like a weapon against other people.
With luck, this worthless drug-fucked piece of crap will be a piece of medial waste lying in a morgue somewhere. I shall not shed a single tear for him.
You must be from the Russian equivalent of the 50 Cent Party.
It can be tough when your family is giving you shit for being 'out of the loop'.
But then, not knowing about some random bird "breaking the Internet" with her enormous butt, is the sort of things I can do with not knowing about...
I struggle with exactly the same thing. OTOH, the real superstar developers I've seen, can instantly achieve cast-iron concentration and focus. So it matters.
I figure that it ultimately boils down to practising impulse control, and trying to avoid distractions. Surfing the web is like a string of thirty-second activity-reward cycles: open a Web page, read it, *boom* dopamine hit.
I have two strategies I use: firstly, I try and maintain my awareness of 'flow' at work, and the little things that break it. Secondly, I go out of my way to find things to do which require achieving and holding focus (but don't overdo it).
Firstly, I find that when I'm working (cutting code), things like slow compiles break my flow, because it's easy to hit Alt-Tab and start surfing shit (until I catch myself, and get back on task). So I find little ways to maintain flow; staying off email, staying off Facebook, staying off Reddit, etc etc. Ringing my terminal when compiles finish, so I can get back on track more easily.
Secondly, I go out of my way to spend my off-hours doing things that require focus, and don't involve a computer. I'm working on a maths degree, as well as teaching myself a musical instrument, and when I establish 'flow' on either activity, I know I'm benefiting. Just the mere act of practising 'establishing flow', has yielded improvements.
I know I've had a good day, when I get home, and I'm too tired to do anything else. Focus is like a muscle; initially it is weak, and needs training up, but with exercise, it gets stronger and stronger.
YMMV.
Deep-space power systems to run big space probes like Galileo and Cassini are nuclear powered, but use incredibly inefficient RTG... which are only 1-2% efficient.
Somebody (US Department of Energy) was looking to boost this by using a plutonium heat source to drive a Sterling engine coupled to a generator. The problem with this arrangement is that moving parts wear out.
It just so happens that deep space is very cold...
If we can't even manage to do the easy things, like limiting human population growth, re-wilding, going after polluters and corporate liability-dumpers, switching away from fossil fuels, etc etc etc, what chance are we gonna have to to do **HARD** stuff, like modifying the weather??
Geoengineering, like CCS, is bullshit trotted out by pro-business 'conservatives' to claim that even if climate change *IS* humanity's fault, then we have an excuse to do nothing, because our grandkids will take care of the problem.
I wouldn't expect anything less from greedy, clueless, Me-generation conservatives, to be honest.
If the Russians want to ditch their share of the Station, why not invite the Chinese to come and take over the Russian segment, hand them all the technology, give them manned spaceflight experience, and then build an ISS2, partnering with the Chinese. Putin+cronies will be cured of their delusions soon enough...
The future belongs to rising countries like China, not with decaying has-beens like Putin's Russia.
The Tumblr SJWs **DEMAND** that any self-appointed victim group not be offended, and that all transgressors be shamed or thrown in jail.
Too bad for them, that there isn't actually a right to not be offended.
There is short game, and there is long game.
Relying on our rivals or enemies for a strategic resource they have huge pricing power over, is not a good long-term strategy.
Sounds like a nuclear-armed Iran would be good news for us then. The harder they hate and want to fight each other, the less they'll bother us.
So much for the idea of "making hay while the sun shines" /s
Perhaps all the morons buying hummers and F-150s need reminding that the people selling us all this cheap oil are NOT our friends, and are sure as hell not doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. The Saudis are bottoming-out the price of oil to punish marginal north American oil producers, and the Russians, not because they want to give Joe Sixpack a break.
I'd like to see us putting in punishingly-high tariffs in place against Muslim and Russian oil. More tax revenue to tackle deficits, pressure people to switch to alternatives, help shale oil producers, AND punish our enemies. Win-win-win-win situation.
As an anti-libertarian, I'll have a bob each way by saying that while we must accept that after September 11, "business as usual" isn't going to fly (if you'll pardon the pun), this is a pretty poor start from a man who ought to know better.
Absolute privacy ain't gonna happen in this day and age, but Mr Hannigan needs to make it clear they will be held thoroughly accountable by the people they're meant to be serving. To do otherwise would shred any remaining legitimacy they have.
Redistribution makes sense, up to a point. Most countries in the OECD do better than the US on most important measures on quality of life, and do it far more efficiently. Probably because there is a pragmatic understanding around the world that there are times where open markets make most sense, and there are times when markets don't make sense -- and some kind of redistribution is required. For instance, the British healthcare system shits all over the American system in every conceivable way (except for really, really high-end, experimental stuff -- and I'm sure I could get it in Harley Street anyway).
I blame the American tendency towards a blinkered belief that markets can never, ever fail, and that government, as a manifestation of the collective will of the people, can never do anything right -- an extremist POV everywhere else.
Sadly, they only get their shit together in times of crisis.
In the meantime, they end up with people like Brezhnev, Yeltsin or Putin -- and they're massively the worse for it.
The R7 was a straightforward extrapolation of the V-2. They had to change the fuel to synthetic kero, because the drunkard operators kept getting blind drunk on the rocket fuel.
Von Braun's team built mostly brand-new stuff.
Like the Soviet moon landings? Or the Soviet equivalent of the Viking or Pioneers probes?
Must've missed those. My bad.
Concur. The notion that the US always loses wars is bullshit. Typically they achieve their military objectives in days, if not hours. And the casulties they take while doing so, are unbelievably low by historical standards. There is simply no comparison. If the Americans want to smash you, you're toast, no matter who you are.
Where these things are lost, is where politics gets involved: the utter catastrophe of the occupation in Iraq was brought to us by the utterly useless, moron American Right (mostly followers of Leo Strauss, who are criminally stupid, yet fancy themselves as philosopher-kings) and its lackeys, namely, Paul Bremer (who should be stabbed in the head because of his sheer stupidity -- EVERYTHING that right-wingers touched in Iraq turned to shit.)
Given the terrible leadership we see in the West these days, it's nothing compared to the joke the Russians must endure now. Everyone thinks that Putin is some kind of insane strategic genius and that he's playing chess while us stupid imperialists are playing checkers. See the state of their economy to decide for yourself whether or not this is actually true. At least when our moron leaders screw up, we can blame ourselves for electing them. The Russians, with their laughable Potemkin democracy, don't even get that.
The entire point of the X-37b, is that it's incredible value for money for what it does.
It's just that Russia are eating Western dust, and have been doing so for ages. They've probably cobbled together a total POS and launched it, just to show the world they can 'compete' in high-tech with the likes of the (extraordinarily capable) X-37b.
Putin is just being a dickhead, and in this case, wasting money showboating. Just a high-tech analog of the usual publicity stunt of getting topless and blasting small furry animals. Nothing new there.