There's a long list of reasons why veganism is stupid, but chief among them is that throughout time, nobody ever lived that way.
For most of the history of the human species, people didn't live with climate controlled HVAC systems. But I'm not going to give up central heat anytime soon.;)
As for inefficient, it tends to take about 10 plant calories to make 1 calorie of meat. That's not bad when your meat is consuming plants you can't consume directly (such as grass, especially in areas too arid to support farming). But when meat is consuming grains that humans can eat, it's pretty inefficient. It also may not be sustainable - we're drawing more water from some aquifers than is naturally replaced, and a lot of that water goes to grow feedstock for animals.
So the diet is appropriate so long as you take supplements to make up for its inappropriateness. Ok, got it.
You may want to check the original source of B12. It's not animals (although animal products tends to contain B12) nor plants (although plants can contain trace amounts). It's from bacteria. Which tends to be veg-friendly.
Really though, a veg*n diet can be bad or good.. An omni diet can be bad or good. It just depends on what you're eating. It's not hard to find omnis in America with horrible diets. And its not hard to find junk-food veg*ns either.
Everyone, regardless of whatever dietary philosophy they choose, should take the time to examine their diet and make sure it's healthy. Oh, and go get some exercise as well. It's good for you.;)
The people who make things happen already have enough wealth to secure a high standard of living for the next 20 generations of their descendants. They have wealth in effectively limitless quantities.
Assume 2 children per generation (rather conservative). The number of descendants in the 20th generation is over a million (2^20). The total number of people over those 20 generations is over 2 million. If we give $1 million per person (a hair over $27k/year from 18 to 55), that's $2 trillion dollars needed now to keep everyone at a mediocre standard of living (this both ignores inflation and investment).
Investment would probably change that figure, but for 20 generations, you're looking at about six centuries of investing, and I'm not aware that we have good data for the return rate, inflation, or investment risk over six centuries.
If you consider the US only, and only the past 100 years of the stock market, there's an average of about 6% inflation-adjusted returns. Which means, if I'm doing the math right, only a few million dollars invested should provide enough average returns that one could draw off an income of $50k (pre-tax) and still have a quick enough doubling time to provide each of their two children enough to live off the interest as well. Admittedly, using 100 years worth of data to plan for 500 years is pretty bad. Especially considering the US's avoidance of any major war fought on its own soil and its continuous government. Looking at European nations such as France or Germany may give a slightly more realistic level of risk.
... which is why "too cheap to meter" nuclear power is so bloody expensive. By the time you've built your defenses, detection, prevention, and redundancy (and gone through the 10-year planning process, paid off or muscled out the NIMBYs, settled the lawsuits, weathered the protests, and hired the highly trained nuclear technicians and emergency response personnel you'll need on hand at all times) you've spent so much money that it would have been cheaper to just build a different type of power plant and avoid the whole mess.
Yep. Especially since if you're building a coal plant, the harmful (and slightly radioactive) byproducts goes up the flu, or is collected into fly ash that can be buried in landfills.
Economically speaking, its a lot cheaper for electricity generators when someone else has to pay for the cost of pollution.
Maybe a 2 child/couple policy would meet less resistance.
Er, have you looked at the numbers? US fertility rate among native-born US citizens tends to be at below the replacement rate of 2.1. Immigration tends to drive US population growth rates.
Europe is already below replacement rates in their fertility levels. 1.59.
If you want to downsize the US or EU's population, you could do it through preventing immigration, and the population would drop naturally. But there are some pretty severe downsides to closing off immigration, and it only pushes the problem to somewhere else.
Their accuracy isn't much to brag about, though. I discovered through a search engine that someone in the LDS church had done a baptism "for" my departed father. And got most of his details wrong, including his birth year and family relations. But now it's "official" as far as they're concerned.
I've done a fair bit of genealogy. It's a decent geek hobby, it doesn't cost too much, takes a large amount of time, and requires good problem solving skills and the ability to judge and verify information. Plus it tends to tie in with a lot of history and geography, which I'm interested in. I'd recommend it.
I'm not a professional genealogist, but I have found situations which may explain the conflicting information for your father. It could be due to two people with similar names, or misinformation on public records, etc.
Someone I'm probably descended from lived about 50 miles away from someone else with the same name in colonial times. They were about the same age. They both married, and some of their children share the same name as well. Its common to see details from both individuals in other family trees.
A similar situation exists with myself - when I went to school, there was someone in the same school with my name. Different birthdate, but roughly the same age. Anyone who attempts a family tree with me in it will probably run into the same problem.
Public records are not immune to this either. Some of them show interesting errors. The state and the federal government disagree on the date my grandmother died - the state thinks she died a day earlier than the feds. Anyone who hasn't seen the records would consider any genealogical research with the wrong date to be "sloppy". Nowadays, with the Internet, its pretty easy to get both records. But even 15 years ago, having retrieved just one record wouldn't be unusual. Another case would be a great-grandmother of mine, who had the amazing ability to age only 8 or 9 years between each census - she kept lying about her age on every census in order to be younger than she actually was. (In addition, her children could never agree on her father's name either - marriage records and the death certificate give conflicting information.)
Of course, a large problem with genealogy today, especially Internet genealogy, is the severe amount of copying that goes on among amateur genealogists, especially with the lack of verification and citation for the source of information. Citations are very important when it comes to research - there are going to be mistakes in records, and you always want to know the sources when it comes to conflicting information in order to verify which one is correct. Someone may be listed as a son or daughter on the census, but instead turn out to be a stepson or stepdaughter or other relative. Or perhaps a person's name was recorded incorrectly. Blindly following this information results in flawed family trees. But some people are not patient enough to do this, and instead tend to add people without verification or hunting down the source. These are the same people who tend to copy from other individuals family trees, which compounds the problem.
This is one reason why I won't publish my family tree, in its current form, online - I have links and information in my family tree that are, quite frankly, a "best guess". As long as the notes and citations are included, it's clear that the information requires further verification, but if put on-line, the information would most likely be copied into countless other family trees and stripped of citations and notes. I'd rather not do that.;)
As for the LDS's obsession with genealogy, I tend to really appreciate it. The amount of preservation of old records the LDS has done is amazing, regardless of the reasoning behind that. And really, post-death baptism shouldn't be too upsetting. If you're religion or lack of religion is so weak that a religious ceremony once you're long dead will put you in jeopardy, I think you're belief is misplaced.
Sue the birds for using copyrighted content all the time.
Damn pirates.
Sure, that's easy for you to say, but I've been putting out bird food all this time. I've created a safe haven for copyright pirates!
And all this time I thought the squirrels getting into the bird feeders were just being pests. Little did I know that they are secret agents of the RIAA, doing a DOS attack on birdseed!
Regardless of the outcome, there is a good side effect of all this. All the equipment will be checked like crazy. Everything is going to be blueprinted to perfection. We might even advance the whole science of measurement. We might come up with better procedures for QA that could be transferred to other experiments.
In teaching engineering, I'm told, part of the experience is learning how engineering projects failed.
Perhaps science needs to include the same. Perhaps we should be teaching why experiments got the wrong result, or why an effect was not detected when it should have been. It could be anything from equipment malfunctions to sampling and interpretation bias.
Millennia of co-evolution is why all those soft-headed hippies are so keen on "whoa, man, natural". It's extremely thorough testing of interoperability. Not only that, it's continued refinement, of both plants and humans, so that the co-evolved plants approach ideal foods for the co-evolved humans. Ironically, rather a sophisticated scientific concept that these hippies grokked out intuitively.
That's why I smoke cigarettes. After all, humans have been using fire for a long time. And humans domesticated tobacco. So I don't see what the fuss is about.
Then again, if I wasn't a hippy, I might release that the agricultural revolution happened 10,000 years ago, and that due to the Columbian exchange, many of the foods I eat today, most of my ancestors won't even exposed to until about five centuries ago.
I guess I shouldn't rely on co-evolution after all.
I'm so glad the problems in safely disposing of nuclear waste have been solved!
Yes, because that's what is holding up nuclear power. After all, the problem with heavy metals and other pollutants used to manufacture "green" energy such as solar cells and wind turbines have already been solved, as well as the problems with mercury, other contaminants, and even radioactive materials that comes from burning coal has also been solved. Oh, and that whole CO2 thing that fossil fuels tend to emit? Also solved.
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
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I think the Founders would be really pissed if they saw how things had gotten after only 230 years.
Before we use the Founders as some sort of yardstick, you might want to keep in mind that most of them would be shocked at the current president's ethnic and racial background on his father's side.
The Founders aren't perfect. They had some good thoughts, but they were men (and a few women) of their time.
Considering it took hundreds of years between the first European visit to the "New World", and successful, permanent colonization, I wouldn't write off the moon and Mars just yet.
An interesting theory, yes... but not actually true. Thats been very thoroughly debunked for decades. (Heck, Snopes has a whole page on it.)
Snopes page is horrible. They seem to think that a cat and a piglet are not comparable in size.
A quick google shows a study on newborn weight in piglets that shows a birthweight of just a few pounds. Seems like a recently born piglet would be about in the same weight range as a cat. I'll admit I don't know when young pigs would be sold at market for raising, but I suspect my google search is more research than snopes did. (Another question - are modern pigs heavier and quicker to gain weight than pigs of centuries ago? I suspect so as well... Which would make this scam workable with slightly older piglets as well.)
Now the oinking and squealing objection, Snopes might have a point. But I've never put a piglet in a bag. Perhaps the darkness makes them more quiet. Or perhaps it depends on the breed.
I'm being serious. Make a super-PAC and use it in the next election season against people who introduce or push bills like SOPA and PIPA. Attack politicians where it hurts: Election year.
There's a world of difference between selective breeding and playing mix-n-match genomes hands-on via gene-splicing.
Well, to be fair, a lot of cultivated plants have some very bizarre genetics. Domestication of plants tends to favor some very weird mutations.
Take wheat. It originated as a natural hybrid between two species. Then it further hybridized with another species, gaining three times the amount of chromosomes that it should have.
Can you imagine if the same events happened in a lab tomorrow? If scientists announced that by combining three different species, they now have a food with three times the amount of chromosomes that it should have? Would you eat it?
But since it occurred through chance mutations and selective breeding, it's considered unremarkable as a food source.
I will agree that autoruns and a rootkit revealer are great tools.
I'm also fond of searching for other files created at the same time as any viruses found. I prefer to do this from a known-good computer, after manually pulling the drive. This will often find other suspicious files that virus scanners miss. Admittedly, a virus could come along that would change its creation/modfication time, but IME, virus writers don't bother doing this.
I would also add pstools to the list, especially for removal. There are too many viruses that operating with several executables. Make a batch script to: 1. copy notepad.exe to the same directory as the executables. 2. kill the offending virus processes via pskill. 3. rename the virus binary. 4. copy notepad.exe to the virus binary names. Then clean up where the virus is launched from and reboot. If notepad comes up, there's a problem. Again, a virus writer could trivially code around this problem with a hash check of the binary, but it's more trouble than it seems to be worth for virus writers.
Heck, for a "this computer is infected" problem, just search for files created around the time the problem started. The result will often find some of the viruses. Then clear out temp folders under windows, temp flash folders, and the print spool, just for good measure. Also run a rootkit revealer on the drive.
The bigger problem is often the mess that remains. File associations can be messed up. Sometimes, the machine, once infected, isn't bootable, and removing the virus often does not solve the problem (virus writers don't seem to be very good at compatibility checking their viruses).
The advantage to a wipe & reload of a computer is that it fixes all of these problems. And it's a solution I usually recommend. Plus, most people with viruses have enough crapware installed that their systems are far from an ideal state. But manual virus removals have their place, especially in the real world. I'd prefer a wipe & reload, but sometimes there's that one program people have and the install disks were lost ages ago and it's vital to their continued existence (or something along those lines).
I have 2 cars, a ford focus and a nissan xterra. the xterra is much better to drive in the snow. That doesn't mean i put it in 4wd and drive like a bat outta hell. It means i can just sort of plod along and never once has anything in the rockies, the midwest, or the northeast ever come close to stopping me. Compare that to the focus. It's front wheel drive. With all season tires, it's not a bad car for light snow, but it just doesn't have the ground clearance or wheel diameter to handle a significant amount of the stuff.
I think you'd be surprised with what a great pair of winter tires will do on a little four-cylinder FWD car.
The actual problem (here in the US) is that our government has vastly exceeded its constitutionally assigned authority. Either we fix that, or the problem remains. The constitution sets the absolute limits of legitimate authority, and the 4th amendment is very clear that the government is not authorized to obtain the warrant required to poke into our papers, our domiciles, our person, or our effects unless they (1) have probable cause, (2) supported by oath or affirmation, (3) describing the place to be searched, and (4) describing the person(s) or thing(s) to be seized.
One could argue that only the Federal government has exceed its authority. A strict interpretation of the constitution puts very little restrictions on the states.
To apply the fourth amendment to the states, you have to argue that the 14th amendment's "due process" clause results in the 4th amendment applying to the states as well as the federal government.
It's a possible and commonly accepted interpretation of the US Constitution. But it is not the only interpretation of the US Constitution.
We have a chance to throw a monkey wrench in this and at least promote a national dialog on the subject by voting for Ron Paul this time around.
The same Ron Paul that has written about there being no constitutional right to privacy?
And what was Ron Paul referring to when he was talking about how the Constitution doesn't give us a right to privacy? He was referring to Lawrence vs Texas, where two men were fined for having consensual sex in the privacy of their dwelling. Yes. Ron Paul believes that the state should have a right to regulate what happens in your bedroom with another consenting adult. Ron Paul personally believes that such laws regulating private consensual sexual behavior are 'ridiculous', but legally, he thinks the Constitution does not prohibit states from regulating private consensual sexual behavior.
The reason a lot of Kindle owners wouldn't buy a Fire is because the e-ink kindle is the greatest thing ever, doesn't really matter if it's rootable or not because if all you want to do is read it's more or less perfect, just load up with gutenberg downloads, no drm leave wifi off and you're set for months. So it probably makes sense people buying a Fire will be interested in games if it's a different market.
I just saw my first Kindle Fire today. Nifty. It looks good, it plays videos off youtube with decent quality, and for $200, it's nicely priced. But the display is not optimized for reading books. I'd hate to read books on it for hours on end.
It's a tablet. Even though the price is nice, I don't really need a tablet. I love my Kindle with e-ink. If it broke tomorrow, I'd rush out to buy a new one. But because I love the Kindle with e-ink, I'm not interested in buying a Kindle Fire for reading. The e-ink Kindle is far superior for books. As for everything else, I tend to do too much typing online to want a tablet.
YMMV, but I agree with the parent poster. This is more for the non-reader market.
Say, why don't you try looking at a map or a globe and comparing the size of Germany to the size of the US. Now factor in moving goods across each country. What country would suffer more if the cost of gas goes up?
Does it matter? I think you are overestimating the fuel costs of shipping long distances. Factcheck.org looked at CSX's claim about moving one ton of freight 468 miles on one gallon and ruled it accurate. That's almost a million miles per pound per gallon of fuel. Fuel costs don't really factor in long-distance shipping, at least by train. Cargo-container ships are even more efficient. Semi-trucks are less efficient, but still do pretty well.
Really, it's the last mile that tends to be the least efficient. It's the car driving to the store for a product or a load of groceries where fuel costs start to add up.
Climate control engineering is far far beyond human capacity in time to solve this. The things that are well within our power are utility-scale solar thermal power and electric automobiles. These simple, existing technologies are completely sufficient. They just need to be built. To do so will have far less risk and lower cost than fanciful planet-sized umbrellas and other science fiction dreamery.
Is it any less dreamery to believe that large parts of the world will willingly give up their existing infrastructure and fossil fuel reserves and switch to a more expensive solution?
Realistically, geoengineering schemes seem far more realistic than telling the Middle East that they can't burn any more oil, or that China needs to give up coal power.
Perhaps their declining market share is because they are beginning to annoy their users. Things like their auto completion auto deleting things as you type and dropping the Boolean "+" operator. Those definitely piss me off and send me to Bing when it gets too frustrating.
I really wish I could use the google from a year ago, instead of the "new" version.
That's a bad sign for google.
With the old google, I could search for more obscure stuff, and get results. What I searched for, I found. With the new google, unless I "quote" "every" "bloody" "term" "I" "enter", I get what google thinks I should be searching for.
It would be liking trying to buy mangos at the grocery store, and getting apples instead, because apples are also a roughly spherical fruit, and since more people buy apples, I must have meant apples.
If you are a cryptozoologists, you are a crackpot.
Seriously, you are. We have a branch of science about animals and discovering species. They do actual scientist.
Since there is no proof of Yeti, or bigfoot, or lochness monster.
With Nessie, the lake in question could not support a breeding population, as far as I could tell. With Bigfoot, due to the area it is supposed to live in, I find it amazing that none have been captured by a cell phone or hit by a car. But yetis, from what I know, are different in their supposed range and isolation.
While I doubt the existence of yetis, has anyone done any work on the reported range of the creature and checked to see if the existence is even possible? Are reports of the creature widespread across cultures, yet include common attributes? Is the population that could bear witness commonly equipped with equipment that could record an image of the creature? Or is it not unusual that there is a lack of photographic and video evidence?
It seems to me that science is about being able to explain why we believe or disbelieve in something. If we can't, then we're not engaging in science, and our thinking is about as sloppy as those "crackpots" that are chasing the Loch Ness Monster.
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For most of the history of the human species, people didn't live with climate controlled HVAC systems. But I'm not going to give up central heat anytime soon. ;)
As for inefficient, it tends to take about 10 plant calories to make 1 calorie of meat. That's not bad when your meat is consuming plants you can't consume directly (such as grass, especially in areas too arid to support farming). But when meat is consuming grains that humans can eat, it's pretty inefficient. It also may not be sustainable - we're drawing more water from some aquifers than is naturally replaced, and a lot of that water goes to grow feedstock for animals.
You may want to check the original source of B12. It's not animals (although animal products tends to contain B12) nor plants (although plants can contain trace amounts). It's from bacteria. Which tends to be veg-friendly.
Really though, a veg*n diet can be bad or good.. An omni diet can be bad or good. It just depends on what you're eating. It's not hard to find omnis in America with horrible diets. And its not hard to find junk-food veg*ns either.
Everyone, regardless of whatever dietary philosophy they choose, should take the time to examine their diet and make sure it's healthy. Oh, and go get some exercise as well. It's good for you. ;)
Assume 2 children per generation (rather conservative). The number of descendants in the 20th generation is over a million (2^20). The total number of people over those 20 generations is over 2 million. If we give $1 million per person (a hair over $27k/year from 18 to 55), that's $2 trillion dollars needed now to keep everyone at a mediocre standard of living (this both ignores inflation and investment).
Investment would probably change that figure, but for 20 generations, you're looking at about six centuries of investing, and I'm not aware that we have good data for the return rate, inflation, or investment risk over six centuries.
If you consider the US only, and only the past 100 years of the stock market, there's an average of about 6% inflation-adjusted returns. Which means, if I'm doing the math right, only a few million dollars invested should provide enough average returns that one could draw off an income of $50k (pre-tax) and still have a quick enough doubling time to provide each of their two children enough to live off the interest as well. Admittedly, using 100 years worth of data to plan for 500 years is pretty bad. Especially considering the US's avoidance of any major war fought on its own soil and its continuous government. Looking at European nations such as France or Germany may give a slightly more realistic level of risk.
Yep. Especially since if you're building a coal plant, the harmful (and slightly radioactive) byproducts goes up the flu, or is collected into fly ash that can be buried in landfills.
Economically speaking, its a lot cheaper for electricity generators when someone else has to pay for the cost of pollution.
Er, have you looked at the numbers? US fertility rate among native-born US citizens tends to be at below the replacement rate of 2.1. Immigration tends to drive US population growth rates.
Europe is already below replacement rates in their fertility levels. 1.59.
Numbers and sources can be found at Wikipedia.
If you want to downsize the US or EU's population, you could do it through preventing immigration, and the population would drop naturally. But there are some pretty severe downsides to closing off immigration, and it only pushes the problem to somewhere else.
p
I've done a fair bit of genealogy. It's a decent geek hobby, it doesn't cost too much, takes a large amount of time, and requires good problem solving skills and the ability to judge and verify information. Plus it tends to tie in with a lot of history and geography, which I'm interested in. I'd recommend it.
I'm not a professional genealogist, but I have found situations which may explain the conflicting information for your father. It could be due to two people with similar names, or misinformation on public records, etc.
Someone I'm probably descended from lived about 50 miles away from someone else with the same name in colonial times. They were about the same age. They both married, and some of their children share the same name as well. Its common to see details from both individuals in other family trees.
A similar situation exists with myself - when I went to school, there was someone in the same school with my name. Different birthdate, but roughly the same age. Anyone who attempts a family tree with me in it will probably run into the same problem.
Public records are not immune to this either. Some of them show interesting errors. The state and the federal government disagree on the date my grandmother died - the state thinks she died a day earlier than the feds. Anyone who hasn't seen the records would consider any genealogical research with the wrong date to be "sloppy". Nowadays, with the Internet, its pretty easy to get both records. But even 15 years ago, having retrieved just one record wouldn't be unusual. Another case would be a great-grandmother of mine, who had the amazing ability to age only 8 or 9 years between each census - she kept lying about her age on every census in order to be younger than she actually was. (In addition, her children could never agree on her father's name either - marriage records and the death certificate give conflicting information.)
Of course, a large problem with genealogy today, especially Internet genealogy, is the severe amount of copying that goes on among amateur genealogists, especially with the lack of verification and citation for the source of information. Citations are very important when it comes to research - there are going to be mistakes in records, and you always want to know the sources when it comes to conflicting information in order to verify which one is correct. Someone may be listed as a son or daughter on the census, but instead turn out to be a stepson or stepdaughter or other relative. Or perhaps a person's name was recorded incorrectly. Blindly following this information results in flawed family trees. But some people are not patient enough to do this, and instead tend to add people without verification or hunting down the source. These are the same people who tend to copy from other individuals family trees, which compounds the problem.
This is one reason why I won't publish my family tree, in its current form, online - I have links and information in my family tree that are, quite frankly, a "best guess". As long as the notes and citations are included, it's clear that the information requires further verification, but if put on-line, the information would most likely be copied into countless other family trees and stripped of citations and notes. I'd rather not do that. ;)
As for the LDS's obsession with genealogy, I tend to really appreciate it. The amount of preservation of old records the LDS has done is amazing, regardless of the reasoning behind that. And really, post-death baptism shouldn't be too upsetting. If you're religion or lack of religion is so weak that a religious ceremony once you're long dead will put you in jeopardy, I think you're belief is misplaced.
Sure, that's easy for you to say, but I've been putting out bird food all this time. I've created a safe haven for copyright pirates!
And all this time I thought the squirrels getting into the bird feeders were just being pests. Little did I know that they are secret agents of the RIAA, doing a DOS attack on birdseed!
In teaching engineering, I'm told, part of the experience is learning how engineering projects failed.
Perhaps science needs to include the same. Perhaps we should be teaching why experiments got the wrong result, or why an effect was not detected when it should have been. It could be anything from equipment malfunctions to sampling and interpretation bias.
Well, it must have boiled leather then, right?
But does it have neeps?
That's why I smoke cigarettes. After all, humans have been using fire for a long time. And humans domesticated tobacco. So I don't see what the fuss is about.
Then again, if I wasn't a hippy, I might release that the agricultural revolution happened 10,000 years ago, and that due to the Columbian exchange, many of the foods I eat today, most of my ancestors won't even exposed to until about five centuries ago.
I guess I shouldn't rely on co-evolution after all.
Yes, because that's what is holding up nuclear power. After all, the problem with heavy metals and other pollutants used to manufacture "green" energy such as solar cells and wind turbines have already been solved, as well as the problems with mercury, other contaminants, and even radioactive materials that comes from burning coal has also been solved. Oh, and that whole CO2 thing that fossil fuels tend to emit? Also solved.
Before we use the Founders as some sort of yardstick, you might want to keep in mind that most of them would be shocked at the current president's ethnic and racial background on his father's side.
The Founders aren't perfect. They had some good thoughts, but they were men (and a few women) of their time.
Considering it took hundreds of years between the first European visit to the "New World", and successful, permanent colonization, I wouldn't write off the moon and Mars just yet.
Snopes page is horrible. They seem to think that a cat and a piglet are not comparable in size.
A quick google shows a study on newborn weight in piglets that shows a birthweight of just a few pounds. Seems like a recently born piglet would be about in the same weight range as a cat. I'll admit I don't know when young pigs would be sold at market for raising, but I suspect my google search is more research than snopes did. (Another question - are modern pigs heavier and quicker to gain weight than pigs of centuries ago? I suspect so as well... Which would make this scam workable with slightly older piglets as well.)
Now the oinking and squealing objection, Snopes might have a point. But I've never put a piglet in a bag. Perhaps the darkness makes them more quiet. Or perhaps it depends on the breed.
I'm being serious. Make a super-PAC and use it in the next election season against people who introduce or push bills like SOPA and PIPA. Attack politicians where it hurts: Election year.
Well, to be fair, a lot of cultivated plants have some very bizarre genetics. Domestication of plants tends to favor some very weird mutations.
Take wheat. It originated as a natural hybrid between two species. Then it further hybridized with another species, gaining three times the amount of chromosomes that it should have.
Can you imagine if the same events happened in a lab tomorrow? If scientists announced that by combining three different species, they now have a food with three times the amount of chromosomes that it should have? Would you eat it?
But since it occurred through chance mutations and selective breeding, it's considered unremarkable as a food source.
I will agree that autoruns and a rootkit revealer are great tools.
I'm also fond of searching for other files created at the same time as any viruses found. I prefer to do this from a known-good computer, after manually pulling the drive. This will often find other suspicious files that virus scanners miss. Admittedly, a virus could come along that would change its creation/modfication time, but IME, virus writers don't bother doing this.
I would also add pstools to the list, especially for removal. There are too many viruses that operating with several executables. Make a batch script to: 1. copy notepad.exe to the same directory as the executables. 2. kill the offending virus processes via pskill. 3. rename the virus binary. 4. copy notepad.exe to the virus binary names. Then clean up where the virus is launched from and reboot. If notepad comes up, there's a problem. Again, a virus writer could trivially code around this problem with a hash check of the binary, but it's more trouble than it seems to be worth for virus writers.
Heck, for a "this computer is infected" problem, just search for files created around the time the problem started. The result will often find some of the viruses. Then clear out temp folders under windows, temp flash folders, and the print spool, just for good measure. Also run a rootkit revealer on the drive.
The bigger problem is often the mess that remains. File associations can be messed up. Sometimes, the machine, once infected, isn't bootable, and removing the virus often does not solve the problem (virus writers don't seem to be very good at compatibility checking their viruses).
The advantage to a wipe & reload of a computer is that it fixes all of these problems. And it's a solution I usually recommend. Plus, most people with viruses have enough crapware installed that their systems are far from an ideal state. But manual virus removals have their place, especially in the real world. I'd prefer a wipe & reload, but sometimes there's that one program people have and the install disks were lost ages ago and it's vital to their continued existence (or something along those lines).
I think you'd be surprised with what a great pair of winter tires will do on a little four-cylinder FWD car.
One could argue that only the Federal government has exceed its authority. A strict interpretation of the constitution puts very little restrictions on the states.
To apply the fourth amendment to the states, you have to argue that the 14th amendment's "due process" clause results in the 4th amendment applying to the states as well as the federal government.
It's a possible and commonly accepted interpretation of the US Constitution. But it is not the only interpretation of the US Constitution.
The same Ron Paul that has written about there being no constitutional right to privacy?
And what was Ron Paul referring to when he was talking about how the Constitution doesn't give us a right to privacy? He was referring to Lawrence vs Texas, where two men were fined for having consensual sex in the privacy of their dwelling. Yes. Ron Paul believes that the state should have a right to regulate what happens in your bedroom with another consenting adult. Ron Paul personally believes that such laws regulating private consensual sexual behavior are 'ridiculous', but legally, he thinks the Constitution does not prohibit states from regulating private consensual sexual behavior.
I just saw my first Kindle Fire today. Nifty. It looks good, it plays videos off youtube with decent quality, and for $200, it's nicely priced. But the display is not optimized for reading books. I'd hate to read books on it for hours on end.
It's a tablet. Even though the price is nice, I don't really need a tablet. I love my Kindle with e-ink. If it broke tomorrow, I'd rush out to buy a new one. But because I love the Kindle with e-ink, I'm not interested in buying a Kindle Fire for reading. The e-ink Kindle is far superior for books. As for everything else, I tend to do too much typing online to want a tablet.
YMMV, but I agree with the parent poster. This is more for the non-reader market.
Does it matter? I think you are overestimating the fuel costs of shipping long distances. Factcheck.org looked at CSX's claim about moving one ton of freight 468 miles on one gallon and ruled it accurate. That's almost a million miles per pound per gallon of fuel. Fuel costs don't really factor in long-distance shipping, at least by train. Cargo-container ships are even more efficient. Semi-trucks are less efficient, but still do pretty well.
Really, it's the last mile that tends to be the least efficient. It's the car driving to the store for a product or a load of groceries where fuel costs start to add up.
Is it any less dreamery to believe that large parts of the world will willingly give up their existing infrastructure and fossil fuel reserves and switch to a more expensive solution?
Realistically, geoengineering schemes seem far more realistic than telling the Middle East that they can't burn any more oil, or that China needs to give up coal power.
I really wish I could use the google from a year ago, instead of the "new" version.
That's a bad sign for google.
With the old google, I could search for more obscure stuff, and get results. What I searched for, I found. With the new google, unless I "quote" "every" "bloody" "term" "I" "enter", I get what google thinks I should be searching for.
It would be liking trying to buy mangos at the grocery store, and getting apples instead, because apples are also a roughly spherical fruit, and since more people buy apples, I must have meant apples.
With Nessie, the lake in question could not support a breeding population, as far as I could tell. With Bigfoot, due to the area it is supposed to live in, I find it amazing that none have been captured by a cell phone or hit by a car. But yetis, from what I know, are different in their supposed range and isolation.
While I doubt the existence of yetis, has anyone done any work on the reported range of the creature and checked to see if the existence is even possible? Are reports of the creature widespread across cultures, yet include common attributes? Is the population that could bear witness commonly equipped with equipment that could record an image of the creature? Or is it not unusual that there is a lack of photographic and video evidence?
It seems to me that science is about being able to explain why we believe or disbelieve in something. If we can't, then we're not engaging in science, and our thinking is about as sloppy as those "crackpots" that are chasing the Loch Ness Monster.