I don't think the strength of the towers was a problem. Engineers have stated that they believe the WTC handled the impacts very well. However, the fire supression system and the materials used to build the central core of the building could not handle a fire caused by the thousands of gallons of jet fuel. I think slashdot already had a link to the cryptome article about it.
I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.
Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or women on the moon?
This part certainly isn't true anymore with the AirBus consortium.
According to the BBC an Arab newspaper in London said that bin Laden warned about a big attack against the US three weeks ago. If he didn't coordinate the attack, he knows who did.
That depends. If one equates the percentage of Republicans with how conservative the state is, then according to this article, that title probably belongs to Idaho. Nevada is probably pretty conservative like Utah and some of the other neighboring states if the big gambling areas like Vegas and Reno are not taken into account.
I wondered why they went through all the trouble for the transmitter too. It seems the idea of not having the car start is a better one. Sure, there will be some debate about product liability if someone ever dies because the car wouldn't start (ie attempting to drive drunk person to hospital but can't due to embedded device). However, it won't let the drunks on the road until they sober up. With this proposed device, they can still drive and cause damage. It doesn't do any good unless there is a cop in the area and he's paying attention to his drunk detector.
Could this device be defeated by having all the windows open and/or the top down if the car is a convertible?
The i860 never really caught on as a general purpose CPU, but was used as a specialized processor in many instances because of its floating point performance. IIRC, SGI used several of these on their first Reality Engines.
The reason for having the Ethernet mp3 decoder is the same for having the USB device like Stereo-link: let your higher quality stereo system play the music and let the D-A conversion be done in an environment where it won't pick up as much noise as your sound card does inside your computer.
Given the environment inside your computer, you may get some interference included in your audio signal. Stereo-Link manufactures a USB device that will allow the computer generated audio to be piped into a stereo w/o any of the included noise picked up from a sound card.
It is available from this site too for $159. I would like to see how the ethernet device stacks up against this product.
How long did it take you to get up to 50wpm with the Fitaly stamp? I tried it a while back and with it, I wasn't much faster than what I could do with grafiti. Quikwriting looks promising too. I would prefer a stylus input method where the movement is more fluid and continuous and not a lot of tapping. Fitaly and this method are still prone to bad spots on the digitizer, so don't tap too hard.
What plane was that? Or are you just exaggerating and pulling numbers out of the air? If you are referring to the B-2 bomber, the costs are much less than that as is shown by this
document. Also, the per plane cost includes all costs associated with the program. R&D, base construction, training, spare parts, etc. It does not cost the Air Force $2 billion to build a new B-2. In fact, several years ago I ran across an article in the Federal Computer News that in actual raw materials, fabrication, labor, & other production costs, a B-2 is only about 10-20% more expensive to build than a B1-B. However, since we spent nearly $30 billion in R&D before a plane ever rolled off the assembly line and that they need special hangers/bunkers and can't just sit outside in like the B1-Bs or B-52s do, the per unit cost of the program is very high. In fact, the fewer we build, the price per plane goes up!
As far as why do politicians vote for things that some of the military branches don't want, it can all be boiled down to jobs. If a defense contractor is in a congressman's district, he will likely vote for it.
You are also wrong that we are spending to much on defense. It's one of the few items that the Constitution explicitly grants funding for and it amounts to only about 16% of the Federal Budget and 3% of the GDP. The only time we spent less on the military in the last century was during the Great Depression and the pre-WWI isolationism period. Just a few highlights from here
and here
Procurement is funded at $40 billion/year when it should be at $65-70 billion.
US forces and spending has been cut 40% since the end of the Cold War. The much smaller force is constantly being deployed overseas, making it harder for recruitment and retention.
Military pay as fallen 13% compared to civilian pay. Most of the military's budget is spent on people and it's not uncommon for military families to be on public assistance.
Special deployments like Bosnia, Iraq, Haiti, etc. aren't budgeted for and are taken out of the readiness and training budgets. Replacements for weapons expended during those deployements have not been budgeted either.
Readiness and maintenance is only funded at 60-70% of what it should be.
IMHO, we spend far too much money on useless activities such as high school, college, and professional sports. Municipalities seem to have no problem coming up with the tax dollars for a sports facility for the benefit of a private corporation, but balk at improving educational facilities. Intramural sports and/or physical education classes to insure that the entire student body gets some form of exercise is fine. Spending a ton of money on facilities, coaches, equipment, etc. so a few individuals can play a game while also letting their education slide is a hideous waste [even given minimum grade requirements, we all _know_ this still happens]. It seems are priorities are on entertainment and entitlements rather than strategic things like education, infrastructure, and defense.
I knew a guy that actually started out as a music major and eventually switched to become a hardcore scientific programming geek because of a Physics of sound class.
I still kick myself for not taking the Theory of Explosives class [it had a lab!] in college.
If we were teaching people the same as we did during the industrial revolution, we'd be doing better. After my grandfather died, my mom found some of his old 1900 timeframe 8th grade exams and report cards. Most of the questions were about as difficult as any that I took on the ACT or SAT. No letter grades were given, just percentages. It wasn't a magnet or accellerated learning program, just a plain rural Kansas school. I don't think my high school algebra/computer teacher/principal ever bought new text books for the math classes. "Nothing's changed in high school mathematics [for the better] in the last 30 years, so why should we waste money on new books when they aren't any better than the old ones?" It wasn't that uncommon for a student to have the same textbook that their parents used. Sure, the story problems would be a bit dated, but the concepts were the same and the teachers made damn sure we knew them. He did try to keep the computer lab up to date as much as the budget would allow, though.
Computers are great tools, but they aren't everything. Many schools just use them as babysitters/video game substitutes and try to squeeze some educational material in there while they are at it. While it is a good to have a desire to learn new ideas/techniques, many teachers who love it and who have been doing it for decades will also tell you that a lot of the new teaching techniques are just pure garbage. I don't know how many millions of dollars the local school system spent on the new superintendent's "new & improved" ivory tower techniques that actually produced worse results. The only real problem with the old methods are that they expect the student to work at it. It almost seems that some of the goals of the new techniques are to try to get the same results with a lazy, uninterested student.
Have you ever really been to Iowa? The cost of living isn't that low. Comparing any place to NYC or the Bay Area is going to skew the results because those places are so friggen expensive. Go to a Salary calculator and compare some of the cities in Iowa to any other city. Most of the time, the cost of living is lower, but not by that much. Sometimes it's more expensive (comparing Buffalo, NY to Des Moines or Phoenix to Iowa City for example).
That is certainly true that the framework needs to be taught, the other poster's idea is better than what's done now: nothing. Many people automatically dismiss math and science as dull, boring, and difficult. Sure, a 'Cool Science Fact of the Day' section of a newspaper might not teach framework, but it might make more people interested in the subject matter so they can begin to learn the framework. I see little harm in it, unless some school administrator decides he can save a little money by not purchasing textbooks and relying instead on the newspaper.
I know exactly what you mean. Municipalities seem to have no problems
forking over millions of tax dollars to pay for entertainment facilities
for private companies. They always claim that it will help bring in more
jobs, help the local economy, etc. It's too bad that a some guy at the
Federal Reserve did a study and determined that the resulting new jobs and
tourism dollars rarely cover what the local governments spend on the
stadium or arena.
It is common for citizens to complain that this money should be spent on
the schools. Unfortunately, most of it gets soaked up by the school
bureaucracy or is wasted on projects that don't work. All too often the
more that is spent, the resulting product becomes worse.
A wife of a friend of mine used to teach in a local elementary school. He said that a few times she had one of her third graders stand up in class and say "we don't have to listen to a fucking white bitch like you". The only teacher the kids wouldn't talk back to was an old black woman and that was because she'd smack the kids with heavy ruler if they gave her any trouble. I know that my teachers would have probably wouldn't have thought twice about smacking a trouble maker up side the head. That never was a problem because one knew if anything like that happened, it automatically meant worse punishment at home.
It was my understanding that in order to sign up for MP3.com's service, one had to have the CDs and that they would be scanned by a program that MP3.com to get a cddb-like key, and only then would the person have access to the mp3s. If that was the case, the same users could have just as easily rip the CDs and create the mp3s themselves. Depending on the speed of the connection and the computer, it could have been faster.
MP3.com must have been a lawyer's dream come true. Those bloodsuckers are the only ones making money from it. Maybe MP3.com should have a form on their site: Click here if you are a lawyer wanting to sue us.
If the RIAA, MPAA, "the artists", song writers, etc. care so much about their precious IP, then they shouldn't ever allow it to be recorded in medium that can be read by an electronic device. Only give live concerts or only allow the films to be shown in theaters and check for recording devices at the door. The movie industry made lots of money before the advent of TVs, VCRs, DVDs, etc. So they won't make as much money as they do now. Boo-f-ing-hoo. Maybe they would start producing good quality movies, music, etc to consistently put people in the seats instead of multi-million dollar piles of crap. Also, given the advances in wearable computer technology, the really paranoid IP control freaks would only allow their IP to be viewed/heard by a naked audience.
For the gpal front end to PayPal, sending a $1 to the author is a part of the testing instructions. However, if the developer doesn't have a bank account in the handfull of countries that PayPal will deal with, they can only keep the money in their PayPal account.
Why even bother with a paypal account? Just go to their site and buy something! Businesses need increased sales, not charity. The only message that the Windows-only game developers understand is the number of boxes shipped. Have all their games? Fine. Buy a game or their book and then give it away to new users at installfests or LUG meetings.
I hope a miracle happens and Loki is able to pull out of this one. I will make sure to purchase every Loki game I can see at Fry's later on this week.
Why not just go to http://www.lokigames.com and order from them directly? They will probably make more from an order from the website than they do going through a retailer. Demos or movies of the games are available if you want to try out a game first.
If you are a happy customer and want them to say in business, buy something from their website! I did.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think the strength of the towers was a problem. Engineers have stated that they believe the WTC handled the impacts very well. However, the fire supression system and the materials used to build the central core of the building could not handle a fire caused by the thousands of gallons of jet fuel. I think slashdot already had a link to the cryptome article about it.
I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes. Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or women on the moon?
This part certainly isn't true anymore with the AirBus consortium.
According to the BBC an Arab newspaper in London said that bin Laden warned about a big attack against the US three weeks ago. If he didn't coordinate the attack, he knows who did.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if the State Dept has now told Israel they can do whatever they wish with the PLO.
That depends. If one equates the percentage of Republicans with how conservative the state is, then according to this article, that title probably belongs to Idaho. Nevada is probably pretty conservative like Utah and some of the other neighboring states if the big gambling areas like Vegas and Reno are not taken into account.
I wondered why they went through all the trouble for the transmitter too. It seems the idea of not having the car start is a better one. Sure, there will be some debate about product liability if someone ever dies because the car wouldn't start (ie attempting to drive drunk person to hospital but can't due to embedded device). However, it won't let the drunks on the road until they sober up. With this proposed device, they can still drive and cause damage. It doesn't do any good unless there is a cop in the area and he's paying attention to his drunk detector.
Could this device be defeated by having all the windows open and/or the top down if the car is a convertible?
The i860 never really caught on as a general purpose CPU, but was used as a specialized processor in many instances because of its floating point performance. IIRC, SGI used several of these on their first Reality Engines.
The reason for having the Ethernet mp3 decoder is the same for having the USB device like Stereo-link: let your higher quality stereo system play the music and let the D-A conversion be done in an environment where it won't pick up as much noise as your sound card does inside your computer.
Given the environment inside your computer, you may get some interference included in your audio signal. Stereo-Link manufactures a USB device that will allow the computer generated audio to be piped into a stereo w/o any of the included noise picked up from a sound card. It is available from this site too for $159. I would like to see how the ethernet device stacks up against this product.
How long did it take you to get up to 50wpm with the Fitaly stamp? I tried it a while back and with it, I wasn't much faster than what I could do with grafiti. Quikwriting looks promising too. I would prefer a stylus input method where the movement is more fluid and continuous and not a lot of tapping. Fitaly and this method are still prone to bad spots on the digitizer, so don't tap too hard.
The scary thing is that VA is getting most of its revenue from Slashdot and Freshmeat.
What plane was that? Or are you just exaggerating and pulling numbers out of the air? If you are referring to the B-2 bomber, the costs are much less than that as is shown by this document. Also, the per plane cost includes all costs associated with the program. R&D, base construction, training, spare parts, etc. It does not cost the Air Force $2 billion to build a new B-2. In fact, several years ago I ran across an article in the Federal Computer News that in actual raw materials, fabrication, labor, & other production costs, a B-2 is only about 10-20% more expensive to build than a B1-B. However, since we spent nearly $30 billion in R&D before a plane ever rolled off the assembly line and that they need special hangers/bunkers and can't just sit outside in like the B1-Bs or B-52s do, the per unit cost of the program is very high. In fact, the fewer we build, the price per plane goes up!
As far as why do politicians vote for things that some of the military branches don't want, it can all be boiled down to jobs. If a defense contractor is in a congressman's district, he will likely vote for it.
You are also wrong that we are spending to much on defense. It's one of the few items that the Constitution explicitly grants funding for and it amounts to only about 16% of the Federal Budget and 3% of the GDP. The only time we spent less on the military in the last century was during the Great Depression and the pre-WWI isolationism period. Just a few highlights from here and here
IMHO, we spend far too much money on useless activities such as high school, college, and professional sports. Municipalities seem to have no problem coming up with the tax dollars for a sports facility for the benefit of a private corporation, but balk at improving educational facilities. Intramural sports and/or physical education classes to insure that the entire student body gets some form of exercise is fine. Spending a ton of money on facilities, coaches, equipment, etc. so a few individuals can play a game while also letting their education slide is a hideous waste [even given minimum grade requirements, we all _know_ this still happens]. It seems are priorities are on entertainment and entitlements rather than strategic things like education, infrastructure, and defense.
Fucked up priorities.
I knew a guy that actually started out as a music major and eventually switched to become a hardcore scientific programming geek because of a Physics of sound class.
I still kick myself for not taking the Theory of Explosives class [it had a lab!] in college.
If we were teaching people the same as we did during the industrial revolution, we'd be doing better. After my grandfather died, my mom found some of his old 1900 timeframe 8th grade exams and report cards. Most of the questions were about as difficult as any that I took on the ACT or SAT. No letter grades were given, just percentages. It wasn't a magnet or accellerated learning program, just a plain rural Kansas school. I don't think my high school algebra/computer teacher/principal ever bought new text books for the math classes. "Nothing's changed in high school mathematics [for the better] in the last 30 years, so why should we waste money on new books when they aren't any better than the old ones?" It wasn't that uncommon for a student to have the same textbook that their parents used. Sure, the story problems would be a bit dated, but the concepts were the same and the teachers made damn sure we knew them. He did try to keep the computer lab up to date as much as the budget would allow, though.
Computers are great tools, but they aren't everything. Many schools just use them as babysitters/video game substitutes and try to squeeze some educational material in there while they are at it. While it is a good to have a desire to learn new ideas/techniques, many teachers who love it and who have been doing it for decades will also tell you that a lot of the new teaching techniques are just pure garbage. I don't know how many millions of dollars the local school system spent on the new superintendent's "new & improved" ivory tower techniques that actually produced worse results. The only real problem with the old methods are that they expect the student to work at it. It almost seems that some of the goals of the new techniques are to try to get the same results with a lazy, uninterested student.
Have you ever really been to Iowa? The cost of living isn't that low. Comparing any place to NYC or the Bay Area is going to skew the results because those places are so friggen expensive. Go to a Salary calculator and compare some of the cities in Iowa to any other city. Most of the time, the cost of living is lower, but not by that much. Sometimes it's more expensive (comparing Buffalo, NY to Des Moines or Phoenix to Iowa City for example).
That is certainly true that the framework needs to be taught, the other poster's idea is better than what's done now: nothing. Many people automatically dismiss math and science as dull, boring, and difficult. Sure, a 'Cool Science Fact of the Day' section of a newspaper might not teach framework, but it might make more people interested in the subject matter so they can begin to learn the framework. I see little harm in it, unless some school administrator decides he can save a little money by not purchasing textbooks and relying instead on the newspaper.
I know exactly what you mean. Municipalities seem to have no problems forking over millions of tax dollars to pay for entertainment facilities for private companies. They always claim that it will help bring in more jobs, help the local economy, etc. It's too bad that a some guy at the Federal Reserve did a study and determined that the resulting new jobs and tourism dollars rarely cover what the local governments spend on the stadium or arena.
It is common for citizens to complain that this money should be spent on the schools. Unfortunately, most of it gets soaked up by the school bureaucracy or is wasted on projects that don't work. All too often the more that is spent, the resulting product becomes worse.
A wife of a friend of mine used to teach in a local elementary school. He said that a few times she had one of her third graders stand up in class and say "we don't have to listen to a fucking white bitch like you". The only teacher the kids wouldn't talk back to was an old black woman and that was because she'd smack the kids with heavy ruler if they gave her any trouble. I know that my teachers would have probably wouldn't have thought twice about smacking a trouble maker up side the head. That never was a problem because one knew if anything like that happened, it automatically meant worse punishment at home.
It was my understanding that in order to sign up for MP3.com's service, one had to have the CDs and that they would be scanned by a program that MP3.com to get a cddb-like key, and only then would the person have access to the mp3s. If that was the case, the same users could have just as easily rip the CDs and create the mp3s themselves. Depending on the speed of the connection and the computer, it could have been faster.
MP3.com must have been a lawyer's dream come true. Those bloodsuckers are the only ones making money from it. Maybe MP3.com should have a form on their site: Click here if you are a lawyer wanting to sue us.
If the RIAA, MPAA, "the artists", song writers, etc. care so much about their precious IP, then they shouldn't ever allow it to be recorded in medium that can be read by an electronic device. Only give live concerts or only allow the films to be shown in theaters and check for recording devices at the door. The movie industry made lots of money before the advent of TVs, VCRs, DVDs, etc. So they won't make as much money as they do now. Boo-f-ing-hoo. Maybe they would start producing good quality movies, music, etc to consistently put people in the seats instead of multi-million dollar piles of crap. Also, given the advances in wearable computer technology, the really paranoid IP control freaks would only allow their IP to be viewed/heard by a naked audience.
And for your donation, you will get your name put on their web site, a news letter or two, and a New Year's card.
For the gpal front end to PayPal, sending a $1 to the author is a part of the testing instructions. However, if the developer doesn't have a bank account in the handfull of countries that PayPal will deal with, they can only keep the money in their PayPal account.
I discovered that after I grew up.
Why even bother with a paypal account? Just go to their site and buy something! Businesses need increased sales, not charity. The only message that the Windows-only game developers understand is the number of boxes shipped. Have all their games? Fine. Buy a game or their book and then give it away to new users at installfests or LUG meetings.
Kohan is scheduled to be out 08/15/2001 and can be ordered from the website for about US$50. How much are the games that you normally buy?
I hope a miracle happens and Loki is able to pull out of this one. I will make sure to purchase every Loki game I can see at Fry's later on this week.
Why not just go to http://www.lokigames.com and order from them directly? They will probably make more from an order from the website than they do going through a retailer. Demos or movies of the games are available if you want to try out a game first.
If you are a happy customer and want them to say in business, buy something from their website! I did.