Up here in New England (USA) we even have stories of deer venturing onto roads to eat cigarette butts and causing accidents, all because they are addicted.
There is 160,000 lung cancer deaths alone in the US. The majority of this is due to cigarette smoking.
If we could reduce this number by only 1%, that would result in over a thousand lives saved each year. If we could reduce it by 10%, it would be ober ten thousand lives saved each year.
I thought we were talking about biological parents... That could be a sperm donor, an egg donor, or a natural conception + birth that is given up for adoption later...
The nuclear power plant stores its waste in a concrete bunker.
There is an extremely good reason why this happens.
There is a significant delay in implementing a workable solution due to the anti-nuclear crowd and politics.
The anti-nuclear crowd doesn't want a solution to be choosen, since the lack of an implemented solution is a valid complaint against nuclear power. In addition, by imposing unreasonable standards on the handling of nuclear waste, the anti-nuclear crowd wishes to increase the operating costs of nuclear reactors.
There is also political jockying on the state of Nevada's part. By objecting, not only do they please their anti-nuclear crowd, but they also increase the possibility that the federal government will throw more money at the state of Nevada to appease them.
A nuclear power plant has the disadvantage of being a target of fear. I'm not going to lie and say that nuclear power is utterly safe: No dependable, competitive power source that we have at this time is. But nuclear power is proven technology that kills less people per year than the alternatives we have.
Nuclear power also has the advantage of not contributing CO2 to the atmosphere. If the US switched all of its power plants over to nuclear, it would drasticly reduce the amount of CO2 emitted each year.
But hey, lets spend the next 10 years researching solar power some more. Perhaps the Solar Tower in NSW will be a workable design that can dependably deliver electricity at a competitive price. Perhaps we'll develop a cheap black box that can store massive amounts of electricity so that can create consistant electrical output from wind turbines. Perhaps flying fusion-powered pigs will land on powerlines and contribute electricity directly to the grid.
Yep, and I'm sure you'd feel really proud considering that you've had nothing to do with their upbringing and just supplied less than half of their genetic material which was mostly random anyway.
Less than half? Does 49% of your DNA come from your mother, 49% of your DNA come from your father, and the remaining 2% is from the aliens who abducted your parents?
I'm scratching my head over this one. You better not bring up some bullshit about mitochondrian DNA, since there was nothing in the grandparent's post that excluded the poster from being female.
Yeah, absolutely! And that DARPANet thing? Total bureaucratic government waste. Never went anywhere. Stupid long-haired hippie socialists, with their dumb ideas about standardized protocols and decentralized networks. Fortunately, that failed like all wasteful government programs, and we now operate on computer networks such as Compuserve, Prodigy, and GEnie developed and run by the free-market genius of efficient private enterprise.
Even a blind cat occasionally finds a mouse.
DARPANet was created to solve a problem. It was extremely successful.
Most government projects don't reach that level of success.
Lets assume that we want to remove 6 billion people from the face of the planet into space. We'll give a timespan of 20 years. That is 300,000,000 people a year. About 800,000 people a day, over 34,000 an hour, 570 people a minute, or 9 people a second.
9 people a second, day and night, for 20 years. That is a lot of bandwidth, even for a group of space elevators.
Other infrastructure scales up about as poorly.
If we look at the timeframe, we probably won't have a working space elevator in 20 years.:( Its probably more likely that a space elevator is 30 - 50 years down the road.
If a user has to go through HOWTOs to know how to edit obscure config files you know something is wrong. Golden rule: the user must not be forced to dive into config files. NEVER. Too often a simple question like "my printer (model XYZ) does not work!" ends up in "type find -name balau848$""U(" -rh [{\48 20} and then edit/etc/blah/abc/xx__jht/rtkjc, check lsusb, copy the XYZID, check in/proc for bus ID 409482....."
Haven't most of the newbie-friendly distros switched over to CUPS now?
That includes IRC. There are a lot of horrible, horrible IRC channels. There are also a few great IRC channels.
The other day, I needed to figure out how to draw the smallest possible polygon that would contain several points (not homework -- massaging GPS data). So I went to a very good channel I knew about and asked. Turned out to be a "convex hull" problem, and that gave me enough information to google for a lib, sample code, and even a binary.
I only drive one vehicle daily. Most people in the US probably drive one vehicle daily.
So why do we have all sorts of vehicles on the road? Everything from semis to motorcycles?
Quite simple: Even though we all prefer to drive one vehicle, we choose different vehicles to drive because of features/price/reliability/capacity/etc.
Georgia, Delaware, and Tennessee have small claims limits of $15k, according to the above website. (2 counties in TN have a limit of $25k!)
Perhaps the above poster is just an idiot and didn't try to collect on his claims. Depending on the state, you can get somewhat aggressive at collecting small claims, and you may even get interest on an unpaid claim!
Disclaimer: IANAL, I just looked this information up when I had to take someone to small claims court a few years back.
speaking as a female sci-fi fan, I feel the need to point out that women can be aliens *and* wear short skirts *and* be positive role models, all at the same time.
Or they can wear no clothing, be aliens, and still be positive role models.
The Betazoid race on TNG was nifty in that way. They provided an interesting contrast to the nudity taboo in modern western culture.
Unfortunately, by the time of Enterprise, naked female aliens just ran around smearing oil on each other.:( Ah, progress.
Frankly, I can think of very few honest SF efforts on either video or film. It seems that as soon as Hollywood gets involved, the whole concept of SF flies right out the window. On fairy wings, no less.
Sneakers. Look closely, the McGruffin is explained by science fiction. More closely, its rather hard SF: the movie postulates that someone has found a way to quickly factor large numbers. Other than a few small plot holes (where did the security guards go on the roof scene?), its not a bad movie, it has SF elements, and it doesn't include laser guns or rocket ships.
Of course, they probably didn't know they were writing SF elements in the plot when the script was done, but oh well.:p
In addition, it is slowly mutating. It is only a matter of time before a gene comes along that makes it easier to catch. Most likely it will not be airborne, but would more likely become arthopod-bourne (mosquitos).
What makes AIDS different from other sexually transmitted and blood bourne diseases that have been around for a long time yet never made the jump to arthopod-bourne transmission?
First off, the usual disclaimer: I am not a financial adviser.
That being said, one of the more productive strategies in stocks seems to be holding stocks for long periods of time. This is looking at the long term, not the short term. Can MMO players, used to instant gratification, understand that sometimes their investment fluctuates in value?
The stock market would be equivalent to a game where all NPCs give a range of XP: Sometimes its negative, sometimes its positive. Some NPCs give a negative net XP. Some NPCs give a positive net XP. The XP (negative or positive) is highly dependant on the amount of XP you have. Have more XP, and you get more XP (or lose more XP). Of course, whenever you leave the zone, you get hit with a capital gains tax.:p
Now that I think about it, that would be an interesting experiment to run on a MMO.
Let's be realistic, they won't come down...ever. If they can get another 20% (example) out of you this year, do you think they're going to drop it 20% next year after the "crisis"? 10% even? No way. Just like any other energy business that is at a near-monopoly level (gasoline), they can raise it whenever they feel like it and blame it on whatever they want.
Price of gasoline during the Katrina aftermath: $2.99
Price of gasoline now: $2.29
Price change: -23%
Methinks you shouldn't make an analogy to gasoline.
Some countries rely heavily on non-coal power sources. 80% of electricity comes from nuclear power in France.
Its a shame that the US doesn't increase its nuclear program. Nuclear power has been able to compete with conventional fossil fuel plants. It also provides dependable power, unlike wind and solar where power supplied does fluctuate.
Outside of the Chernobyl accident, nuclear has an extremely safe track record. When you consider the number of deaths caused by coal powered plants in the US[1], even using obsolete designs for nuclear reactors like Chernobyl[2] may reduce deaths in the US. Modern designs in 1st world nations have an excellent track record of safety.
PS: Energy trading isn't a "sham". Well, at least it isn't a sham for the reasons you give.:p Cost is the result of supply and demand. While the supply of coal may not change so much in the short term, demand can. If oil prices go up, demand for non-oil energy sources may increase.
[1]10,000/year was one estimate that I found.
[2]40,000 deaths seems to be the most recent estimate. In addition to obsolete reactor designs, a lack of safety regulations would be needed to increase the possibility of a Chernobyl-style accident.
You obviously don't get it. All jobs should be easily done by a novice. Software should allow novices to do what they want, even if its ubercomplex professional software.
What Dvorak wants is software that reads his mind and does what he want.
What he doesn't realize is that simple software is simple because it is not complex. A decent part of photoshop's complexity is due to the fact that it is a professional tool used for many different tasks of image editing and manipulation. If he took his images to a good photographer's shop, they could have quickly touched up his images. Less stress all around, and a higher level of quality, but Dvorak wanted to save a few bucks since he's a computer geek and thought that his geekiness was all that is needed to edit images.
Tune in next week while Dvorak bitches that audio editing software does not automatically calculate how to do a fugue.:p
That can of course easily be turned into an argument against all forms of birth control ("some of us learned that we ourselves nearly were prevented from being conceived altogether!"), indeed it is an argument against allowing anyone of reproductive age to spend a waking minute not having unprotected sex.
I once knew a guy who only existed because of lax prophylactic quality control.
The details of his conception greatly disturbed him, last I heard.
I've been told that Tiawanese copyright law is not in sync with most copyright laws, which is why you can find a lot of high-quality bootleg anime coming out of Taiwan.
Slashdot Mirror
That bastard also doesn't seem to know about the soul sphere and chaingun/ammo hidden nearby.
This sounds a lot like an urban legend...
There is 160,000 lung cancer deaths alone in the US. The majority of this is due to cigarette smoking.
If we could reduce this number by only 1%, that would result in over a thousand lives saved each year. If we could reduce it by 10%, it would be ober ten thousand lives saved each year.
If fertilizer causes tobacco to be dangerously radioactive, would this also apply to vegetable crops such as lettuce, spinach and celery?
I thought we were talking about biological parents... That could be a sperm donor, an egg donor, or a natural conception + birth that is given up for adoption later...
There is an extremely good reason why this happens. There is a significant delay in implementing a workable solution due to the anti-nuclear crowd and politics.
The anti-nuclear crowd doesn't want a solution to be choosen, since the lack of an implemented solution is a valid complaint against nuclear power. In addition, by imposing unreasonable standards on the handling of nuclear waste, the anti-nuclear crowd wishes to increase the operating costs of nuclear reactors.
There is also political jockying on the state of Nevada's part. By objecting, not only do they please their anti-nuclear crowd, but they also increase the possibility that the federal government will throw more money at the state of Nevada to appease them.
A nuclear power plant has the disadvantage of being a target of fear. I'm not going to lie and say that nuclear power is utterly safe: No dependable, competitive power source that we have at this time is. But nuclear power is proven technology that kills less people per year than the alternatives we have.
Nuclear power also has the advantage of not contributing CO2 to the atmosphere. If the US switched all of its power plants over to nuclear, it would drasticly reduce the amount of CO2 emitted each year.
But hey, lets spend the next 10 years researching solar power some more. Perhaps the Solar Tower in NSW will be a workable design that can dependably deliver electricity at a competitive price. Perhaps we'll develop a cheap black box that can store massive amounts of electricity so that can create consistant electrical output from wind turbines. Perhaps flying fusion-powered pigs will land on powerlines and contribute electricity directly to the grid.
Less than half? Does 49% of your DNA come from your mother, 49% of your DNA come from your father, and the remaining 2% is from the aliens who abducted your parents?
I'm scratching my head over this one. You better not bring up some bullshit about mitochondrian DNA, since there was nothing in the grandparent's post that excluded the poster from being female.
Even a blind cat occasionally finds a mouse.
DARPANet was created to solve a problem. It was extremely successful.
Most government projects don't reach that level of success.
Lets assume that we want to remove 6 billion people from the face of the planet into space. We'll give a timespan of 20 years. That is 300,000,000 people a year. About 800,000 people a day, over 34,000 an hour, 570 people a minute, or 9 people a second.
9 people a second, day and night, for 20 years. That is a lot of bandwidth, even for a group of space elevators.
Other infrastructure scales up about as poorly.
If we look at the timeframe, we probably won't have a working space elevator in 20 years. :( Its probably more likely that a space elevator is 30 - 50 years down the road.
Haven't most of the newbie-friendly distros switched over to CUPS now?
Apple may state that things are easier, but often, they aren't.
Just the other day, I wanted a Mac to connect to a windows share on the network, at login (without prompting for a name/password). How do I do this?
Well, the answers for Mac OS 10.3|4 is different than Mac OS 10.2.8, which I'm currently running.
Sadly, on windows, I discovered how to do this from within the OS. On MacOS X, I'm still searching for an answer.
And my OS came with a kernel, a libc, some drivers, and a UI by default.
A large portion of everything sucks. :p
That includes IRC. There are a lot of horrible, horrible IRC channels. There are also a few great IRC channels.
The other day, I needed to figure out how to draw the smallest possible polygon that would contain several points (not homework -- massaging GPS data). So I went to a very good channel I knew about and asked. Turned out to be a "convex hull" problem, and that gave me enough information to google for a lib, sample code, and even a binary.
World-changing? No. But damn useful? Yes.
I only drive one vehicle daily. Most people in the US probably drive one vehicle daily.
So why do we have all sorts of vehicles on the road? Everything from semis to motorcycles?
Quite simple: Even though we all prefer to drive one vehicle, we choose different vehicles to drive because of features/price/reliability/capacity/etc.
Perhaps you should google first.
Georgia, Delaware, and Tennessee have small claims limits of $15k, according to the above website. (2 counties in TN have a limit of $25k!)
Perhaps the above poster is just an idiot and didn't try to collect on his claims. Depending on the state, you can get somewhat aggressive at collecting small claims, and you may even get interest on an unpaid claim!
Disclaimer: IANAL, I just looked this information up when I had to take someone to small claims court a few years back.
Or they can wear no clothing, be aliens, and still be positive role models.
The Betazoid race on TNG was nifty in that way. They provided an interesting contrast to the nudity taboo in modern western culture.
Unfortunately, by the time of Enterprise, naked female aliens just ran around smearing oil on each other. :( Ah, progress.
Sneakers. Look closely, the McGruffin is explained by science fiction. More closely, its rather hard SF: the movie postulates that someone has found a way to quickly factor large numbers. Other than a few small plot holes (where did the security guards go on the roof scene?), its not a bad movie, it has SF elements, and it doesn't include laser guns or rocket ships.
Of course, they probably didn't know they were writing SF elements in the plot when the script was done, but oh well. :p
What makes AIDS different from other sexually transmitted and blood bourne diseases that have been around for a long time yet never made the jump to arthopod-bourne transmission?
Random google source. You don't want to see how many deaths some environmental groups blame on coal power, 10k/year was one of the *lower* estimates.
Looking at the numbers, 10k/year would respond to .4% of all US deaths, or 2% of all cancer deaths.
First off, the usual disclaimer: I am not a financial adviser.
That being said, one of the more productive strategies in stocks seems to be holding stocks for long periods of time. This is looking at the long term, not the short term. Can MMO players, used to instant gratification, understand that sometimes their investment fluctuates in value?
The stock market would be equivalent to a game where all NPCs give a range of XP: Sometimes its negative, sometimes its positive. Some NPCs give a negative net XP. Some NPCs give a positive net XP. The XP (negative or positive) is highly dependant on the amount of XP you have. Have more XP, and you get more XP (or lose more XP). Of course, whenever you leave the zone, you get hit with a capital gains tax. :p
Now that I think about it, that would be an interesting experiment to run on a MMO.
Price of gasoline during the Katrina aftermath: $2.99
Price of gasoline now: $2.29
Price change: -23%
Methinks you shouldn't make an analogy to gasoline.
55% in the US, I'm assuming.
Some countries rely heavily on non-coal power sources. 80% of electricity comes from nuclear power in France.
Its a shame that the US doesn't increase its nuclear program. Nuclear power has been able to compete with conventional fossil fuel plants. It also provides dependable power, unlike wind and solar where power supplied does fluctuate.
Outside of the Chernobyl accident, nuclear has an extremely safe track record. When you consider the number of deaths caused by coal powered plants in the US[1], even using obsolete designs for nuclear reactors like Chernobyl[2] may reduce deaths in the US. Modern designs in 1st world nations have an excellent track record of safety.
PS: Energy trading isn't a "sham". Well, at least it isn't a sham for the reasons you give. :p Cost is the result of supply and demand. While the supply of coal may not change so much in the short term, demand can. If oil prices go up, demand for non-oil energy sources may increase.
[1]10,000/year was one estimate that I found.
[2]40,000 deaths seems to be the most recent estimate. In addition to obsolete reactor designs, a lack of safety regulations would be needed to increase the possibility of a Chernobyl-style accident.
You obviously don't get it. All jobs should be easily done by a novice. Software should allow novices to do what they want, even if its ubercomplex professional software.
What Dvorak wants is software that reads his mind and does what he want.
What he doesn't realize is that simple software is simple because it is not complex. A decent part of photoshop's complexity is due to the fact that it is a professional tool used for many different tasks of image editing and manipulation. If he took his images to a good photographer's shop, they could have quickly touched up his images. Less stress all around, and a higher level of quality, but Dvorak wanted to save a few bucks since he's a computer geek and thought that his geekiness was all that is needed to edit images.
Tune in next week while Dvorak bitches that audio editing software does not automatically calculate how to do a fugue. :p
I once knew a guy who only existed because of lax prophylactic quality control.
The details of his conception greatly disturbed him, last I heard.
I've been told that Tiawanese copyright law is not in sync with most copyright laws, which is why you can find a lot of high-quality bootleg anime coming out of Taiwan.
Perhaps their patent laws are similar.